Carol Welsman Soars on Our City Tonight

Jazz Singer/Pianist Carol Welsman Discusses Her New Album, “Dance With Me,” with Jim Gordon.

“Our City Tonight” arrived in LA to chat with 6-time Juno Award Nominee, Carol Welsman. The gifted jazz singer/pianist talks about her new album, “Dance With Me”, which marks her foray into Latin Jazz.

Jamaica Is Now Open – Here’s What You Need to Know

Travel Pulse

Jamaica is reopening its borders to international visitors for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, June 15. Like many places that have recently welcomed back tourists, the Caribbean country will require all arriving visitors to undergo a temperature check and follow local safety protocols, which include face-coverings and social distancing. Travelers will also need to complete a travel authorization application so that officials can conduct a COVID-19 health risk assessment prior to arrival.

American Airlines Unveils Major Upgrade to App with ‘Chat With Us’ Feature

American Airlines announced the release of version 2020.07 of its smartphone app, adding several new features including a new “Chat with Us” feature connects users with a virtual assistant and, if necessary, a customer service representative via chat.

The airline began to use a new format for numbering versions of the app earlier this year. The new format begins with the four-digit year followed by a period separator, which is then followed by the two-digit number of the version.

The Chat with Us system places the user in a chat session with a virtual assistant. The bot will transfer the user to a customer service representative based on the nature of the chat.

Earlier this year, American upgraded the app with a new “Waitlist” feature that combines upgrade and standby lists for a particular flight.

Waitlist will display traveler status by cabin. Once an upgrade request clears, the app will display the individual traveler’s name and new seat number on the list.

American’s app is available on both Apple iOS and Android platforms.

What Country Taught Me About Race

By Jessica Nabongo — Afar

I’m often asked what I consider the safest countries for black people or the most welcoming for black travelers. But I can’t answer those questions. I’ve been traveling internationally since I was four years old. For my Ugandan immigrant parents, vacationing was important — a way to learn more about the world through experience — and they made it part of our lives every year. Whether domestic or international, we went somewhere every summer: Canada, Minnesota, Jamaica, Disney World, the Bahamas. By the time I graduated from high school, I had been to seven U.N. member countries, and in 2008, I moved to Japan to teach English. From there, I continued living abroad, and continued traveling. And in February 2017, with 60 countries under my belt, I started a two-and-a-half-year journey to visit every country in the world

What the Mississippi Delta Teaches Me About Home — And Hope

Courtesy National Geographic

Finding struggle and resilience on a road trip through the birthplace of the blues. I’ve thought a lot about home during the quarantine. The place and the idea. The way it calls to us, and the way the pulse of daily life can sometimes drown it out. My home is near the courthouse square in Oxford, Mississippi, a vibrant modern college community. That’s where we wake up and make scrambled eggs for our toddler. But I’m from a nearby place called Clarksdale, birthplace of the Delta blues, the town that gave the world the likes of Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, and Nate Dogg—a place where on a clear night I can hear plantation blues, the protest soul of Stax Records, and the heavy sound of G-Funk LA all mix in the open air.

How A Recent Trip To Montgomery Made Me Rethink The Deep South

Courtesy Essence

“History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again.”

I spotted the reflection-inducing words by the late Maya Angelou just moments before entering the lobby of Montgomery’s Springhill Suites Hotel. They adorned a nondescript wall at the corner of Coosa and Bibb, which was steps outside of my temporary retreat. Now I’ve always been more Manhattan than Montgomery, slightly more Malcolm than Martin, with more northeastern edge than southern charm. But there I was, just days before the Christmas holiday, excited, and yet nervous, to be in what I considered the epicenter of Black history.

Irish Send Money to Navajo Nation Hit By COVID-19, Returning Historic Favor

Courtesy Mélissa Godin

A Native American community severely impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak has received an outpour of donations from Irish people, who are returning a historic favor from 173 years ago.

In 1847, the Native American Choctaw nation sent $170 ($5,000 today) of relief aid to the Irish people impacted by the great potato famine. Now, the Irish are reciprocating the act of goodwill by donating funds to the Navajo nation, which has been severely impacted by COVID-19, with at least 2,373 cases and 73 deaths as of May 3.

7 Best & 5 Worst Frozen Foods

Courtesy Cheyenne Lentz, Insider

Frozen food can be great to stock up on because it can be stored for quite some time without going bad.

Since not everything maintains its quality when frozen, Insider spoke to chefs to help figure out which items are worth grabbing and which you should leave on the shelves.

10 Cheap Foods That Last a Long Time

These foods with long shelf lives can improve your diet while saving you money

Courtesy Erin Huffstetler

If you’re filling your pantry, especially if you are on a tight budget, focus on cheap and nutritious foods that have a long shelf life, like rice, apples and peanut butter. You’ll spend less at checkout, and you’ll waste considerably less food at the end of the week. All price estimates mentioned were good as of March 2020.

Unwind With These Free, Museum-Led Meditation and Mindfulness Sessions

After weeks — or months — of sheltering in place, many stuck inside are feeling decidedly devoid of inner peace. Luckily, thanks to an array of online offerings announced by shuttered cultural institutions, options for unwinding abound. Among the most relaxing experiences available: meditation and mindfulness sessions led by the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C.

English Pronunciation Isn’t Easy But This Quick Primer Can Help You Get it Right

Courtesy Olivia Valdes, ThoughtCo

We all know the embarrassing feeling of discovering we’ve been mispronouncing a word for years. On the other hand, some words are so commonly mispronounced that the “correct” pronunciation sounds downright strange. Don’t feel bad if you’ve been mispronouncing some of these tricky words. A living language like English evolves and thrives precisely because it’s spoken every day.

Take the Time to Read Profiles in Courage

Written by then-Senator John F. Kennedy

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators under enormous pressure from their parties and their constituents. Written by then-Senator John F. Kennedy, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the work. The staff at Traveling Boy suggests that Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney might fit the bill as a Profile in Courage due to his recent vote to convict fellow Republican Donald Trump in the Senate Impeachment trial. He was unable to stand in line with other Republic Senators as a result of his deeply-felt oath of office, the US Constitution and personal relationship with God.

The subjects of Profiles in Courage are John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, Edmund G. Ross, Lucius Lamar, George Norris, and Robert A. Taft.

Ten Trends That Will Shape Science in the 2020s

Medicine gets trippy, solar takes over, and humanity — finally, maybe — goes back to the moon

Courtesy  Katherine J. Wu , Rachael Lallensack

When the 2010s began, private spaceflight had barely gotten off the ground, Google was rolling out early personalized search results and CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology was still in its infancy. By decade’s end, artificial intelligence had trounced people at a bevy of board games, SpaceX had become a household name and genetically modified human embryos became a controversial reality.

Clearly, a lot can happen in a decade — but innovation has to start somewhere. Based on what’s breaking through now, here are some trends that have the potential to shape the 2020s.

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Walt Whitman — 1819-1892

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease…

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