Latest news with #Ulmer
CBC
18-03-2025
- General
- CBC
This teacher gives each of her students $20 to spend on an act of kindness
Kristina Ulmer says people have the wrong idea about teenagers. For seven years now, the Pennsylvania Grade 9 English teacher has been running a "$20 Kindness Challenge" with her class, giving each student $20 US from a pool of donations, and asking them to do something kind with it. And every year, she says, the teens in her class bring her to tears with their creativity, empathy and generosity. "A lot of people stereotype that age, and they say they're self-centred or, you know, they don't see outside of themselves. And I just don't see that," Ulmer, a teacher at Hatboro-Horsham High School in Horsham, Penn., told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "Part of the reason why I love doing this project is because it allows others to see what I see every day." Inspired by her late sister The project goes back to 2014, when Ulmer's sister, Katie, died in a car crash at the age of 29. She'd been working as a waitress at the time. In the wreckage of her vehicle, police found her purse with about $100 in cash, tips from that morning's breakfast shift. Ulmer says her sister had no savings, and this pile of loose bills was all the money she'd left behind. "I knew it had to do something worthwhile with it," Ulmer said. Katie, she says, was special. At her funeral, person after person stood up and described her as their best friend. "She really, really was everybody's best friend. She just took care of everybody," Ulmer said. "From the time we were little, [she] was always concerned with people who are struggling or people who seem to be less fortunate than we were." Ulmer says her sister wanted to do something with her life that would make a difference, but it took her some time to figure out what. Ultimately, she decided to become an emergency medical technician, or EMT. She'd completed her training shortly before she died. "She was going to work on an ambulance and, unfortunately, she passed away when she was looking for a job," Ulmer said. It also took Ulmer a few years to figure out what to do with her sister's money. Then, one day, it dawned on her. "I had this really amazing group of students in front of me, and we were reading a dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. And in the world of the novel, everyone's obsessed with their screens. They walk around with ear buds in all day long. They lack empathy toward each other. Everyone's anxious," she said. "Yeah, sounds very familiar." She realized there was a lesson to be learned about the importance of caring about other people. So she converted the tips into crisp $20 bills, topped it off with some of her own money, and gave her students one bill each. Their assignment? Do something kind with the money, and make a video about it. "I want them to make connections to the people around them…. I wanted them to notice that, you know, people around them could possibly be struggling," she said. "I like that they can see the true meaning in doing acts of kindness, and understand the impact that something like a small act of kindness could do." 'Anyone can make a difference' The project was a huge success, and she's kept it going each year using money donated to a fund set up by the school. The kids, she says, have chosen to do all kinds of things with the money. Some have made care packages for military members. Others baked cookies for first responders, or bought food for a local food bank. Her favourite projects, she says, are ones where students tap into their own specific skills. One student, she said, crocheted little hats for premature babies in neonatal care. Another sewed fun and colourful pillowcases for kids in the hospital. Sydney Cassel, 16, told the Washington Post that she's done the $20 Kindness Challenge five times, even though she's no longer in Ulmer's class. The first year, she bought holiday cards and wrote personalized messages in them for residents of a veterans' home. In the years since, she and a classmate have teamed up to make cookies for teachers. "The first time I participated in the challenge, I didn't think it would be possible to make a difference with $20, but I learned that's really not true," Sydney said. "You don't have to have millions — anyone can make a difference." WATCH | The 2024 Kindess Project: Each year, Ulmer stitches together the students' videos into one big presentation. And each year, she says, it makes her cry. It has also helped her grieve her sister. "I discovered that as I started to do this project … that a piece of me that was missing from my sister kind of started filling in a little bit," she said. "I kind of felt like she was still here because the things that the students are doing are things that she would have been doing."
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
They were working to ensure invasive pests didn't destroy U.S. crops — until they were abruptly fired
Jonah Ulmer was the federal government's foremost authority on tiny invasive pests that most Americans have never heard of — but which can decimate crops across the U.S. Known as thrips and psyllids, the gnat-sized insects often sneak into the country on imported flowers and produce — and it was the job of Ulmer and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify and quarantine highly destructive species that appear on perishable goods during the inspection process required at U.S. ports of entry. But Ulmer was abruptly fired last month — swept up in the Trump administration's frenzied and turbulent efforts to drastically shrink the federal workforce. He's one of at least 145 workers in plant protection alone who were terminated, including entomologists, soil conservationists and tree climbers who hunt for pests, according to a list of terminated job titles obtained by NBC News. Overall, nearly 6,000 probationary workers — new employees who'd been on the job less than a year or workers who'd been promoted — were eliminated from USDA, including other highly trained scientists and technical staff stationed across the country to help customs officers screen imported items, identifying and quarantining those infested with dangerous pests. As the national taxonomist for thrips and psyllids, Ulmer knew there wasn't a single person left at the agency with the expertise that he had — and he knows the consequences of making a mistake can be dire. 'You can't ever be wrong. You always have to be right,' Ulmer told NBC News. 'The one that you identify as a nonquarantine pest, and it comes in the country and wreaks havoc? The impacts of that could be millions or billions of dollars in economic damage.' A court this week ordered USDA to temporarily reinstate for at least 45 days probationary employees whom it fired, but it's not clear when they're going back to work — or for how long, especially since President Donald Trump has made his intention to gut the federal workforce very clear. The USDA did not respond to requests for comment. But the terminations have dealt a serious blow to the federal inspection process required for imported food, plants and other organic matter — a program that the agency calls 'essential' to preventing infestations and disease outbreaks from crippling America's trillion-dollar agricultural cutbacks could have severe, sweeping economic consequences for American farmers and consumers alike. Though USDA inspections — which are conducted jointly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection — are continuing at ports of entry, the loss of both staff and expertise raises the risk that harmful pests and diseases will slip into the U.S. unnoticed, industry representatives and agriculture experts said. 'Maybe a year from that we can't grow peppers or cucumbers in the U.S. because we have these pests,' said Christine Boldt, executive vice president of AFIA, a trade group that represents flower importers. 'People don't realize that those threats don't happen overnight — they happen over time.' So far, Boldt says that she's received assurances from USDA and CBP officials that inspection staffing in Miami — the country's biggest entry point for cut flower imports — hasn't been altered. 'But they say afterwards, 'Every day that could change,'' she said. The most significant pest that Ulmer handled was the Asian citrus psyllid. Only 3 to 4 millimeters long, the insect carries a plant disease that has devastated Florida's iconic citrus industry. Another type of invasive pest known as the chilli thrip loves to devour strawberries, cotton and pepper plants, and it is notoriously difficult to contain once it invades a crop. 'They develop pesticide resistance really rapidly,' Ulmer said. 'So the best option is prevention and quarantine.' Unfamiliar species also show up all the time, prompting Ulmer and his colleagues to comb through the vast Smithsonian insect collection or rush to their labs to perform dissections on tiny specimens. Last year in California, citrus growers were hit by new species of invasive fruit flies that reproduce inside the pulpy flesh, rendering the fruit inedible. 'Your fruit has to be stripped and destroyed — it's a significant financial impact,' said Casey Creamer, president and CEO of California Citrus Mutual, a trade group for citrus growers, who stressed the importance of maintaining USDA staffing and expertise to protect the industry. 'Nobody wants to open up a piece of citrus fruit and find larvae.' The USDA also fired one of the federal government's only experts in invasive land snails and slugs, which can be enormously detrimental to crops. 'They will indiscriminately eat most things — soybean, corn, or specialty crops like strawberries and blueberries,' said Morgan Bullis, the snail and slug expert who lost her job as a national taxonomist last month. Slugs can also transmit diseases like rat lungworm to humans when they crawl over produce like lettuce. Every single day, Ulmer and Bullis would flag dangerous pests that needed to be quarantined — and were specifically sent to their national lab because regional identifiers weren't sure if the strange bug that fell out of a flower or slithered over a wooden pallet posed a true threat. 'When we had these first rumors about the probationary terminations, they told us not to worry, because we are so critical to the American economy, they couldn't even believe that we would be hit,' a USDA official said, requesting anonymity out of fear of retribution. The loss of agency expertise and staff also threatens to increase costs for importers because of inspection delays — and could ultimately raise prices of ordinary goods for U.S. consumers. The USDA inspections are highly time sensitive, as the inspections must be completed before agricultural goods are allowed through. Fewer USDA pest experts and staff could mean inspection delays and thousands of dollars of additional storage, shipping and refrigeration fees for importers, according to Michael Lahar, manager of regulatory affairs for A.N. Deringer, a U.S. customs broker. 'They're going to do the best they can, but it's going to result in slowdowns. Slowdowns are going to result in extra costs. Extra costs are going to trickle down to the average American,' Lahar said. 'So when you go into the supermarket, and you want to buy a dozen roses for your sweetheart to bring home, they're going to be more expensive.' Ulmer started at the USDA in October, replacing a national expert who had been at the agency for more than 16 years before retiring. He was stationed at his laboratory on Valentine's Day — one of the busiest times of the year given the influx of cut flowers — when he was abruptly notified that he was being terminated. He was in the midst of categorizing a new type of destructive psyllid that had just started showing up at U.S. ports on exotic flowers shipped from southern Africa. While workers were told they were fired for 'performance' issues, Ulmer and many other workers said that they had received praise for their work and never had performance-related complaints. And since their division is largely funded through their user fees that importers pay, staff cuts don't mean big savings for taxpayers. Ulmer is still waiting to receive any word about if or when he will be reinstated at the USDA, and he has no expectation that he'll still have a job after the 45-day period is over. But right now, he is eager to get back to his lab and start working through the big pile of insect identifications that he knows will be waiting for him. 'The insects don't care what the current political environment is,' he said. 'They're just going to keep coming.'This article was originally published on
Los Angeles Times
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Dine amid flowing lava at downtown L.A.'s new immersive restaurant
To set foot inside the Gallery, a new restaurant and bar in downtown, is to be whisked into a world fit for a theme park. Walk in via its bar, and gone are views of Olympic Boulevard. In the place of windows, you'll find a fantastical, idealized take on a major city, a skyline vision that looks ripped from an animated film. Stroll into the dining room and at first you may see a blank canvas, only soon its walls and tables awaken to place you underwater, in nature or surrounded by a scalding hot warehouse where lava flows over clocklike gears. The goal is wonder — at times, you can place your hand on the table and wait as fish swim toward you. Or you can trace a circle around a plate and watch flowers spring to life around it. Each scene — each dish in the five course meal — is conjured via a performer, their dance-like moves choreographed to digital projections designed to evoke a sense of curiosity. It is, to use a time-honored phrase, dinner and a show. Yet the team behind the concept — veterans of the theme park industry — hope the Gallery feels wholly modern, ever-changing and somewhat alive. Linger, for instance, in the bar, and you'll notice dozens of scenes unfolding inside the windows of the skyscrapers, each one an improvised, abstracted story. The full dinner experience, called 'Elementa,' launches this Friday with a menu developed by Joshua Whigham, the former chef de cuisine at José Andrés' now shuttered L.A. outpost of Bazaar. A two-hour dinner that explores the five classical elements, it's the first of what creators hope is many a show to utilize the space. 'It's a tough world we live in,' says the Gallery co-founder Daren Ulmer. 'If I can give you some relief, I think it's therapeutic — to take you to some other world and allow you to imagine, to dream, to get away, to relax and in some cases, to inspire.' When Disneyland celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Co. throughout 2023, it did so with a new nighttime fireworks show, 'Wondrous Journeys.' That production, which features glances at every animated film the studio has produced, will return this year for the 70th anniversary of Disneyland. Ulmer, via his company Mousetrappe Media, collaborated with Disney on the experience, designing projection mapping that could be seen on Sleeping Beauty Castle and elsewhere. Over the years, you may have also caught Mousetrappe's work on a show at the Hollywood Bowl, as the studio crafted projections for performances of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.' Mousetrappe's extensive portfolio also includes experiences at the Kennedy Space Center and One World Trade Center, among many other cultural projects. For the Gallery, Ulmer created a new company dubbed Allureum, but it's closely connected to Mousetrappe, featuring many of its same staff, including co-founder Chuck Fawcett. And it pulls from Ulmer's love of theme parks. When it came to looking at the next phase of his career, Ulmer, 57, however, began looking at nightlife. 'I'm not going to go build a new theme park, but what ought there be?' Ulmer says. 'I started to focus on this gap between dinner and a movie and going to a bar and a rather expensive day at a theme park.' Ulmer went on research trips, visiting what he calls 'compelling' local locales like SkyBar, Castaway and Perch. He took in projection dinner shows on cruise ships, animated table shows, some more traditional dinner theater and, of course, elaborately themed restaurants. He was looking for a mix of food, entertainment and theming. 'I found a lot of people did two of those well, but very rarely did all three together,' Ulmer says. 'I wasn't seeing a lot of places that really designed something that put all three of those on equal footing from the ground up.' The Gallery is the latest themed restaurant in a city with a long history with the format. Only this one relies heavily on technology rather than memorabilia or elaborately designed sets that have placed us anywhere from a prison to a submarine. The Gallery is aiming for a stylish yet playful vibe; the purple-hued urban bar, known as Horizon, possesses an optimistic yet retro take on a city. And while a seat in the dining room isn't cheap — 'Elementa' will run about $200 per person — with communal interactive tables, the feel is anything but exclusive. 'We're not here today without Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, Rainforest Cafe and all of those things of the past,' says Ulmer, even though he stresses he's slightly concerned that diners may have preconceived notions about some of those locales. Many, after all, have not traditionally been known for the sort of elevated food the Gallery is aiming for. Ulmer realizes that those in the food space may view the Gallery as something of a gimmick. 'I expect the food world to be skeptical,' Ulmer says. 'There have been gimmicky things in the past. I ask them to trust us and look and see where we go from here.' He says that chef Whigham 'is literally a José Andrés protege designing this menu.' Ulmer cites Whigham's work at Bazaar as particularly impressive, and says he 'was an inspiration for this project due to this passion for making dining an emotional experience.' 'Elementa's' menu may shift but expect courses to align with projections on the table and on the walls — such as a seafood dish surrounded by images of the ocean. One of Whigham's creations for the 'water' element, for instance, is hamachi and seaweed with kabocha squash and tamari-shiitake dashi dressing. A 'fire' dish? Tenderloin and mushrooms with coriander and peppercorn crust. This contrasts with the more casual plates at the Horizon bar during its soft opening, which have leaned toward upscale yet familiar pub food: a calamari appetizer, a bountiful hummus plate, cheese and charcuterie, an 8 oz. ribeye, and an assortment of sandwiches and pizzas. 'Elementa' will be the special occasion meal, but for the concept to work, the Gallery's bar Horizon will have to also become a gathering spot. It's easy, for instance, to get lost in the scenes that play in the windows and doors of the city buildings, which were filmed utilizing improv actors from comedy troupe the Groundlings. 'It's that public house,' Ulmer says. 'We want to be a place people gather and hangout, and it's transformational. That's why the cityscape has media in it. You can expect that to change holiday to holiday, and we'll have triggered events in there. When we find out it's your birthday, the city will celebrate your birthday for a moment.' Few meals begin with an overture. Your night at 'Elementa' will, courtesy of a short musical composition from Ulmer. It begins with a dramatic flourish, but soon becomes something more fantastical, with shades, perhaps, of John Williams' uplifting themes from 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.' The rest of the evening is marked by the work of impressionistic composer Claude Debussy, lending the meal a cinematic flourish. The idea is that we are all actors in a performance. Throughout the dinner, guests will be encouraged to look for and create unexpected interactions. Place a candle, for instance, in the center of the table, and lava and ashes may erupt around it. Elsewhere, reach out toward the hands of the person across from you, and a cosmic bridge may appear below you. That's ultimately the underlying theme of the meal — to create and solidify connections. Ulmer says he was influenced heavily by Cirque du Soleil. 'Cirque du Soleil is an extremely emotional experience,' Ulmer says. 'There's a thread and a theme and a general setting, but it's not Act One, Act Two and Act Three. It's just about human emotion, drama, scale, color and the experience. If I were to liken us to anything, we have a Cirque du Soleil-type approach to the dining experience.' At about $200 per person, Ulmer recognizes that 'Elementa' will not be for everyone. 'Everyone can't make it here,' Ulmer says. 'We understand that. We'd like to make it as accessible as we can. We are aspiring to offer and exceed the level of experience that up until now has only been available in 12 to 20 seat $400-type experiences. Our goal is to be a Michelin-level dining experience with our Disney and Universal-level of experience combined with it.' And yet if the Gallery's two dining offerings are a success, Ulmer is looking at more affordable, family-friendly options outside of 'Elementa' or the bar presentation of Horizon. He envisions using the space to program one-off meals on days or evenings when 'Elementa' isn't running. This is also a way, he says, to cultivate repeat customers who may have already seen 'Elementa.' 'We will also have experiences that will offer more like a traditional restaurant,' Ulmer says. 'You'll have a reservation and you'll come in here and the environment will be alive and maybe something happens every 10 or 15 minutes, but it's not a linear five course meal like 'Elementa' is. For instance, maybe on a Sunday afternoon it's a Napa Valley wine tasting experience, and you're looking at the vineyards of Napa out of virtual windows. We have so many possibilities for how we can use this platform.' And while Ulmer says 'Elementa' is family friendly, as he believes children with adventurous food palates will enjoy the show, he's also looking forward to Saturday matinee programming geared specifically for families with young kids. If all goes according to plan, then, the restaurant itself may change as often — or even more than — the menu.
