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Boxing transformed the lives of four autistic children in Quebec. Thanks to group training, these young people aged 9 to 11 have gained self-confidence. Now they can say they play a sport like everyone else and are part of the gear “.

• Also read: Her autistic son “tasé”: “I was really in all my states”

• Also read: The coalition opposes the Montreal police team project in schools

Every Saturday morning, Ryan Beaudoin, Alexis Bonneau, Antoine Fiset and Adam Dubé have ants in their legs. They prepare themselves and, above all, do not want to be late for their class at the Val-Bélair Boxing Academy premises.

For years they have watched their classmates play hockey, soccer and many other sports.

They are unable to join these teams due to lack of coordination and social adjustment difficulties, but now it’s their turn to surpass themselves and dream.

“He’s proud of himself, it’s said that his idol is Rocky,” Adam’s parents, Bryan Dubé and Marie-Christine Lavoie, start.

The nicest smile

At 10 years old, Adam is the one who paved the way. Last March, her mother “dared” to ask the academy’s owner, Bruno Essiambre, if her autistic child could join the group during spring break.

Louis Deschenes

Adam Dubé with his trainer Bruno Essiambre in the arena of the Val-Bélair Boxing Academy.

The coach consulted relatives who are health professionals before accepting and it was the start of a great experience.

“I took him under my wing […] And that’s where the parents saw a big difference. A lot less video games and he’ll be playing outside. He’s a lot more active,” says the nicknamed “Coach B.”

The young boxer quickly rose through the ranks. He even fought his first fight in October in the “fun boxing” category, which allows youngsters to learn in a safe environment without being hit to the head.

“When the referee raised his arm, I’ve never seen my child with such a beautiful smile,” explains Adam’s mother, eyes shining.

spend Halloween

The parents we met are full of praise for the academy and the coaches. Everyone agrees: Your children now have better self-esteem, which is reflected in their daily lives.

10-year-old Ryan, who also suffers from a degenerative disease that weakens his muscles, was able to spend Halloween without a wheelchair for the first time.

Louis Deschenes

Ryan Beaudoin practices his jab in the glove of his buddy Antoine Fiset in front of trainer Megan Gregory at the Val-Bélair Boxing Academy.

“It’s a great win […] He walked around the houses for an hour, fifteen minutes and was not tired, ”says mother Véronique Arsenault.

In addition, Ryan now walks to school without stopping along the way and participates in 80% of physical education activities. Previously, he had to forego half of the activities suggested by his teacher.

For her part, Laurence Diotte was keen to persuade her son Antoine to move. He wanted to play ball hockey like his sister, but that was not possible due to lack of coordination of movements.

Louis Deschenes

9-year-old Alexis learns to keep his hands up with his trainer Kathy Arsenault in training on Saturday.

“It’s best for him to have his place and not always be confronted with his otherness,” she says.

The same speech for Geneviève Bédard, since Alexis, 9 years old, now practices her sport like her brothers.

“It’s not always easy to have friends here and here [à l’Académie] they can make friends. »

After the cruise industry returned to sailing from North American ports in July 2021, all cruise lines have had to make major changes due to the Covid pandemic. Some were obvious, like vaccination requirements, masks, and additional cleaning protocols. Capacity has also been limited and social distancing has been enforced (to the extent possible on a cruise ship).

Many popular activities have been modified or canceled to comply with these rules mandated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Events like dance parties, parades and anything that led to people gathering in an enclosed space disappeared. That included things like laser tag on ships, which have it because you can’t play without bumping into people.

Even on huge ships like the Royal Caribbean Group (RCL) – Get a free report Oasis class ships, events were compromised due to CDC related rules. It was uncomfortable but necessary given the situation on board and ashore.

That began to change as the CDC began to loosen up and then dropped its pandemic-related rules. In July 2022, the CDC stopped regulating cruises, leaving cruise lines somewhat obligated to the ports they docked in but mostly leaving them completely unregulated.

After that, most of the lost activity came back, sometimes in a modified form at first and later just as it was before the pandemic. However, a very popular activity did not return, even as all pandemic-related rules and precautions began to disappear.

That led to fears it wouldn’t be coming back, but eventually some Royal Caribbean ships have offered “The Quest,” a popular scavenger hunt for over-21s.

royal caribbean

What is Royal Caribbean’s “The Quest” about?

The Quest depends on who’s leading, but it’s a slightly adult (to sometimes very adult) game/competition that’s riskier than traditional cruising activities. Different teams compete to be the first to get each desired item.

This is how a message board member on the Royal Caribbean Blog, unaffiliated with the cruise line, described it.

“It’s basically this giant scavenger hunt within your team. At Oasis it was in Studio B. There are about six couples who are team leaders and the cruise director is calling out tasks – things to find in the audience or things to get done B. 6 women’s bras or 3 shoelaces tied together The team leaders have a card with their number on it and once the task is done/found they run to the cruise director with the item and card, waving it in his face. The fastest teams get more points,” shared HMills96.

Another poster, Jerel, put it this way.

“In short, it’s an adult-oriented game show that people willingly make a fool of themselves on,” he wrote. “It doesn’t take long before they ask for girls who wear red thongs and to prove it on stage, or even ask a captain to produce 4 bras, many women will quickly rip them off by the way. Also, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see men dancing dirty with each other and/or hairy men in drag.”

Royal Caribbean is slowly bringing back The Quest

When pretty much every other activity had been brought back and The Quest hadn’t returned, some people worried that it might just quietly disappear. It’s definitely an activity that doesn’t really fit with the company’s family-friendly business model.

Now, however, some members of a Royal Caribbean Facebook group have posted about “The Quest” returning on their cruise (with some evidence of the event being announced on the Royal Caribbean app).

“Check out what’s back on Brilliance tonight, rumored to be on a ship for the first time since Covid,” shared Thomas Anglin, who provided a screenshot from the app.

A number of group members also shared that the game show was featured on multiple Wonder of the Seas sails.

“Wonderful Transatlantic had it,” Nick Miyar posted.

“We had it at Wonder a week ago. Any cruise director will claim the first,” added Scott Leonard.

And while The Quest appears to be coming back, it’s only appeared on select ships so far. However, it seems that once a ship brings it back, it makes it a regular part of every cruise (usually the last night) like it was before the pandemic.

A 70-year-old died after losing control of his vehicle and hitting a car and a pedestrian in the Verdun neighborhood of Montreal on Sunday.

It was around 10:30 a.m. when the accident happened at the intersection of Bannantyne and Brown streets, the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) said.

According to police witnesses, one vehicle struck a second vehicle that was at the intersection.

The first car would then have forked before hitting a 33-year-old pedestrian. The latter was transported to hospital for treatment of an injury that would not be life-threatening.

The driver of the first car, a 76-year-old man, was also taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“According to initial information, he was not well before the accident,” said SPVM spokesman Jean-Pierre Brabant. The second driver, a 44-year-old man, was unharmed.

Investigators went to the crime scene to understand the circumstances of this double collision.

Bitcoin BTC and cryptocurrencies have come under unprecedented scrutiny following the collapse of major crypto exchange FTX.

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Calls for tighter regulatory scrutiny have escalated into a cacophony over the past week as the amount of money believed to have been lost by FTX and its sister company Alameda Research reaches staggering levels and threatens to engulf the broader crypto market .

Now, after the recent Group of 20 (G20) developed countries meeting in Indonesia, the leaders of the participating countries called the need for international rules to regulate the fast-growing bitcoin and crypto space “critical” and said potential risks for it “financial stability” had to be mitigated.

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MORE FROM FORBESElon Musk has released a surprise Bitcoin and Dogecoin prediction for 2023 following Billy Bambrough’s huge FTX crypto price crash

US President Joe Biden has previously urged government agencies to cooperate on crypto development. [+] Regulation, although urgency has increased since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

AFP via Getty Images

“It is critical to raise public awareness of risk, strengthen regulatory outcomes and support a level playing field while reaping the benefits of innovation,” G20 leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, wrote in a statement sent to the White House website after the meeting this week in Bali, Indonesia.

Last month, the global financial standard-setter Financial Stability Board (FSB) proposed rules that would subject crypto companies and markets to the same strict rules that apply to traditional finance.

“We welcome the approach proposed by the FSB to create a comprehensive international framework for the regulation of crypto-asset activities based on the principle of ‘equal activity, equal risk, equal regulation,'” the G20 leaders said, adding adding that they wanted to “make sure”. the crypto assets ecosystem, including [traditional currency-pegged] Stablecoins, is closely monitored and subject to strict regulation, oversight and oversight to mitigate potential risks to financial stability.”

The Bahamas-based FTX exchange has reportedly lent customer deposits to Alameda Research, a trading firm also owned by former billionaire founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), potentially losing as much as $8 billion.

The gaping hole in FTX’s balance sheet has prompted a wave of warnings from other crypto companies with FTX exposure, prompting them to distance themselves from the bankrupt exchange.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said FTX’s fall “shows[s] the need for more effective surveillance of cryptocurrency markets,” in a statement this week, adding that the same protections offered in traditional markets should apply to crypto assets.

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MORE FROM FORBES ‘Hyperinflation’ and ‘Societal Collapse’ – Why the Fed and Inflation Could Make the Bitcoin Nightmare Come True By Billy Bambrough

Bitcoin price has plummeted more than 70% since this time last year, pushing the crypto… [+] Industry into chaos and collapse of crypto exchange FTX and other crypto companies.

Forbes Digital Assets

“This is more of a wake-up call than just a bump or even the end of the road,” said Cristiano Bellavitis, a professor at Syracuse University specializing in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, in emailed comments. “The sector is huge financially but has very limited regulation. The same problems would not have arisen in the mainstream financial system.”

However, Bellavitis expects the bitcoin and crypto industries to eventually recover from the FTX meltdown and predicts that regulation will help the technology thrive.

“[The collapse of FTX] will reduce trust in the crypto industry, but this industry and blockchain technology will remain,” said Bellavitis. “More regulation and clearer rules will only bolster what this industry can do.”

Twitter could cut more of its shrinking workforce as early as Monday. According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk is considering fresh layoffs that would target the company’s sales and partnerships teams. The extent of the potential cuts is unclear, but comes after a large number of employees rejected Musk’s Twitter 2.0 ultimatum. Musk reportedly on Friday asked Robin Wheeler, Twitter’s head of ad sales, and Maggie Suniewick, the company’s head of partnerships, to lay off more employees. Both were terminated after being pushed back.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. The company no longer has a communications team. If Twitter goes ahead with the cuts, they would come after Musk has already laid off 50 percent of the company’s previously 7,500-strong workforce. With most of the site’s contract employees gone and “at least 1,200” employees leaving in the wake of Musk’s ultimatum, there are concerns that the attrition will render parts of Twitter inoperable.

There are signs it is already happening. On Saturday, some users noticed that the platform’s automated copyright strike system wasn’t working. In a thread spotted by The Verge, someone posted the entirety of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in almost 50 tweets. The thread was active and widely shared for about a full day before Twitter banned the account responsible for the film’s release.

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A “taponneux” vehicle has been causing a stir in the Quebec City area for a few days with its modified car, worthy of the famous Christmas film Le Sapin a des boules.

• Also read: Santa Claus is making a comeback in Montreal

• Also read: No more classic photos on Santa’s lap

“I’m amazed at how people react when they see me coming. They have sparkling eyes and it brings a little joy to their hearts, perfect for the holidays! “Just start Francis Lemay, who will be received by the journal.

The 20-year-old man from Saint-Agapit, southwest of Lévis, has traveled social networks on both sides of the river. Many thought they were caught off guard when they were passed by a car straight out of a Christmas fairy tale.

Mr. Lemay is traveling aboard a vintage Mazda Miata outfitted with 600ft of garlands of lights and a real Christmas tree a few feet tall. Everything is held together with adhesive tape, tension belts and can be operated with a little imagination.

“I can go anywhere except drive-thru and underground parking! ” assures the young man who installed the tree in a steel tube to ensure its maintenance.

Not the first time

Mr. Lemay has been engaged in this extraordinary activity for three years now, each time pushing the “delirium” a little further. And that’s only for Christmas.

On Halloween, he “teeth” one of his cars, adding red lights and a skull on the antenna to blend in with the background

“I’m a taponneur, I like to make my cars a little more unique,” he explains.

“It has its small effect, people sometimes try to film me when I’m out and give me thumbs up. There is even a driver who has already turned around to congratulate me! ‘ he adds, laughing.

No arrests

Despite the unusual appearance of his “Christmas Car,” Francis Lemay claims he has never received a Highway Safety Code-related fine.

However, he was first intercepted this week on the Grande Allée, where police told him the tree could be obscuring his rear view.

“They told me I should be fine if I prune the lower branches a bit to clear the view. I will do that,” says the young man.

When asked about the legality of such a vehicle, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) was unable to answer our questions yesterday.

Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded FTX.FTX in 2019

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother, a Stanford law professor, once wrote an article entitled “Beyond Blame.”

• Barbara Fried asked what would happen if the focus was on solving problems and not assigning blame.

• Her son, Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founded FTX, which filed for bankruptcy last week.

A series of essays written by Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother have come to light following the collapse of FTX, the crypto exchange he co-founded.

FTX filed for bankruptcy last week and Bankman-Fried says it is seeking to raise $8 billion to repay customers and FTX’s many creditors.

His mother is Barbara Fried, a former attorney who has taught at Stanford Law School since 1987.

She has written articles for the Boston Review, a quarterly political and literary magazine, arguing that the attribution of “personal guilt” in times of crisis has “ruined criminal justice and economic policy” and suggested it was “time the… to overcome guilt”.

“That we got so little in return for our finger-pointing at least raises the possibility that people might be receptive to a new approach,” she wrote in 2013.

“The next time something goes horribly wrong, imagine if we didn’t immediately ask who is to blame, but instead ask: How can we fix this problem?”

Fried declined to comment when contacted by Insider about this article.

In a recent Twitter DM exchange with Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, Bankman-Fried implied that his calls for crypto market regulation were a publicity stunt and that he didn’t believe his own rhetoric about the need to behave ethically.

And if asked by Vox When his colleague Nishad Singh’s alleged guilt for losing depositors’ money explains Singh’s remorse, Bankman-Fried replied: “The world is never so black and white.

In another 2013 essay for The Boston Review, entitled “The Limits of Personal Responsibility,” Fried argued that a better world is achievable “if only we could stop arguing about who is to blame for the world in which we find ourselves”.

The story goes on

Defending the idea of ​​risk in a world where personal responsibility had its limits, the scientist said: “A world where everyone is maximally risk-averse is a world none of us want to live in.”

“Rather than trying to change the public understanding of personal responsibility, we can try to change the subject to the collective benefits (in this case, economic prosperity) that could come from actually solving the problems we face ‘ wrote Fried.

Regarding emotional empathy, she suggested: “Gut feelings can play a constructive role in the political realm, especially when we feel that the tools of rational decision-making are unreliable.

“But until people learn to think more systematically and globally about the consequences of different courses of action – even the consequences for them – we will continue to invest in the wrong policies.”

Fried’s writing ties into her family’s belief in “effective altruism,” a movement that uses computation to understand how people can use their time, money, and resources to best help others, with a focus on lies in the ends of an individual’s actions, which justify the means of getting there.

Its detractors argue that effective altruism can overlook the harmful consequences of such action.

Some wonder if Bankman-Fried has somehow prioritized the expansion of FTX since he believes in the benefits of cryptocurrencies over all other considerations.

In fact, in his exchanges with Piper, Bankman-Fried viewed his downfall through the lens of a calculation that added up his efforts to bring the company down: “Every single decision seemed like a good one, and I didn’t know how big theirs was Total was to the end.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice are understood to be investigating FTX for potential mishandling of client funds. The SEC should also investigate Bankman-Fried himself.

Prior to FTX’s collapse, the crypto exchange reportedly transferred billions of dollars worth of client funds to Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research.

FTX’s new CEO, John Ray, delivered a scathing assessment of the company under Bankman-Fried, describing “a complete failure of corporate controls” and underscoring a dissenting mindset by the former CEO that may have contributed to his downfall.

“A month ago I was one of the biggest fundraisers in the world. Now I’m a broken down wreck,” Bankman-Fried told Vox.

“But it’s one thing to be fallen — there are people who know what it’s like and want to do for someone else what no one has done for them.”

Read the original article on Business Insider

According to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, funds stolen from crypto exchange FTX are now being converted from ETH to Bitcoin. On Nov. 20, Chainalysis took to Twitter to encourage the exchange to freeze those coins should the thief attempt to convert them to fiat or otherwise further obfuscate the assets.

1/ Funds stolen from FTX are on the move and exchanges should be on high alert to freeze them if the hacker tries to withdraw them

— chain analysis (@chain analysis) November 20, 2022

Amid the controversial collapse and bankruptcy of FTX, it was revealed that an unknown actor had stolen 228,523 ETH from the exchange. Owning these coins, worth a whopping $268,057,479 at the time of publication, makes the thief one of the largest holders of ETH in the world right now.

Update: FTX hacker is now actively throwing ETH on the chain

He spent about $15 million ETH in the last 30 minutes and just prepared a new batch of $12 million

Still has $270 million ETH in main wallet

He sells ETH to wBTC to renBTC via aggregators like 1inch https://t.co/mEd8UHFCO0

— kamikaz ΞTH (@kamikaz_ETH) November 20, 2022

Although initial reports suggested that all of the funds in question could be in the custody of securities regulators in the Bahamas, Chainalysis threw cold water on this theory, stating:

“Reports that funds stolen from FTX were actually sent to the Securities Commission of the Bahamas are false. Some funds were stolen and other funds were sent to regulators.”

At the time of publication, around 31,000 ETH had been converted into wrapped BTC. The thief then sent the coins cross-chain to a Bitcoin mainnet wallet via the Ren protocol, with the final amount totaling 2444.55 BTC.

LIVE: FTX Drainer (Aka Bahamas Gov?) liquidates ETH

Addi #1 – 0x59
Addy #2 – 0x86

river so far
– Move $ETH from 1 to 2
– swap $ETH to the $renBTC
– Send it to NULL Addy

To update
– Sold 31k $ETH for 2.2k $renBTC
– Send all $renBTC to NULL address (ETH Genesis address)

1/n pic.twitter.com/WfkXGsUDRq

— Garlam (@GarlamWON) November 20, 2022

It’s been a tough few weeks for those affected by the collapse of FTX and its affiliates. A press release earlier this morning indicated that FTX debtors are in talks with Finserv firm Perella Weinberg Partners regarding various restructuring attempts. However, the engagement is subject to the approval of the bankruptcy court.

Meanwhile, company founder Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly staying “under surveillance” in the Bahamas, although some fear he may attempt to flee to Dubai if the opportunity presents itself. It is unclear how this situation would ultimately develop as the United Arab Emirates and the US have an agreement on sharing evidence, judicial cooperation and assistance in criminal investigations and prosecutions.