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  • Chef Catherine Lim’s Hakka pop up in Coimbatore brings dishes like typhoon shelter prawns, Xinjiang mutton, Hakka yam Abacus beads and more

    Chef Catherine Lim’s Hakka pop up in Coimbatore brings dishes like typhoon shelter prawns, Xinjiang mutton, Hakka yam Abacus beads and more

    “I am a third generation Hakka Chinese and my grandfather came from China,” says chef Catherin Lim as she joins in the conversation at The Residency’s Chin Chin where she is currently hosting a Hakka pop up. She introduces us to Tangra chilli chicken wings. The smoky, juicy wings come with a sizzling glaze. “It has lemon, honey, pepper, and soy sauce lending the chatpata edge. Chinatown in Kolkata is called Tangra and hence the name,” says Catherine, who is based at Chinatown in Kolkata.

    Originating from the nomadic Hakka people of China, Hakka cuisine is rooted in simple, home-style preparations. “Over a period of time, it has evolved as Indo-Chinese. Hakka literally means guest. We moved from one region in China to another because of civil strife. Most of us are now settled in Meizu in China and spread across India, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Taiwan, Hong Kong,” explains Catherine.

    The pop-up brings a curated menu that showcases global Hakka cuisine, largely influenced by the region they settled in, like Hong Kong and Taiwan. For example, typhoon shelter prawns, aromatic fried prawns with garlic and shallots. “The shrimp is from Hong Kong. The preparation is boatman style, similar to how fishermen cook fresh catch. It’s like beer food, where they sip the drink on the streets and bite into the shrimps. When you enjoy the dish, you also get a peek into the culture.”

    The Xinjiang mutton flavoured with chef’s cumin-Sichuan pepper spice mix and garlic and coriander, is a popular dish from the northern region of China, a part of the Silk Route that dealt with cumin trade.

    As we talk, we also try the tomato soup. It is hearty and light and has a crunch from zha cai or mustard tuber, a Sichuanese pickle. “We have used fermented and pickled mustard stem that lends a crunchy, spicy, sour, and umami undertone to the dish,” says Catherine adding that Hakka cuisine is considered the country cousin of Cantonese cuisine. “Whatever the Hakkas cook, the Cantonese refined it and made it prettier. When we make whole meat, they just chopped it up as meat mousse. Hakkas are rustic and the food is happy and soulful, made at home with lots of soy and fermented products. We make our own fermented mustard greens, cured meats, lapchong, and Chinese bacon.”

    Hakka yam Abacus beads

    Hakka yam Abacus beads
    | Photo Credit:
    Special Arrangement

    Over plates of Hakka yam abacus beads, made with yam and corn starch and shaped like beads in the Chinese abacus, she explains the significance of the dish. The dumplings are chewy, tender, and satisfying. “It is eaten during the Chinese New Year as abacus signifies advent of wealth. Also, Hakkas were always on the move and had to work doubly hard to earn a living. So, when the men went out to work in the fields, the women would send this for lunch. It’s starch, so it is filling. And they also wish the men to have a good harvest and bring lots of money,” she explains as we enjoy sticky rice with a side of tofu gravy cooked in fermented black beans sauce and leeks.

    Based on the feedback, some of the dishes maybe added to the regular menu. “Since it’s a legacy restaurant, expectations are high. We keep offering them something new like the Hakka culinary experience. Though we already have lamb made in black bean sauce, the tofu variant at the pop up with leeks, and ginger and scallion sauce lends a fresh taste,” says Vinod Kumar, executive chef.

    Chef Catherine Lim with the team at Chin Chin

    Chef Catherine Lim with the team at Chin Chin
    | Photo Credit:
    Special Arrangement

    As we bite into crunchy Ma’la french beans, tossed with zha cai-Sichuan mustard tuber pickles, Sichuan peppercorn and dried red chilies, we await fried milk custard moon cake served with ice cream and sesame brittle. It’s crispy, milky, and melt-in-the-mouth within. We also enjoy heady shots of rice wine. “It is actually confinement wine for new mothers as it is very nourishing. It’s a time consuming process with superstitions attached to it. I make it with glutinous rice from Shillong, yeast from Kalimpong: Chinese technique made with Indian ingredients,” she says, adding, “My pop ups are basically storytelling. We only have oral history, but with my notes, children will know more about the soulful dishes of Hakka culture.”

    Chin Chin is open daily from 12.30pm to 3pm and from 7.30pm to 11 pm. For reservation, call 9787745114. The Hakka pop up runs till August 24

    Published – August 22, 2025 04:43 pm IST

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  • Japan to Launch New ISS Resupply Vehicle in Oct.

    Japan to Launch New ISS Resupply Vehicle in Oct.

    Science

    Tokyo, Aug. 22 (Jiji Press)–The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said Friday that it will launch the first HTV-X new resupply vehicle to the International Space Station at around 10:58 a.m. on Oct. 21.

    The new vehicle is scheduled to be launched on the seventh H3 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Kagoshima.

    It is a successor to the HTV, or Kounotori, which carried out nine missions until 2020. The new vehicle is about 8 meters long and can carry approximately 5.8 tons of cargo, up from about 4 tons with Kounotori.

    Kounotori was launched on an H-2B rocket, an enhanced version of the H-2A rocket, due to its heavier weight compared with a regular satellite. For the seventh H3 rocket, the number of solid rocket boosters will increase to four from two used in the first to fifth H3 rockets.

    In addition, JAXA plans to launch the sixth H3 rocket without SRBs by March 2026.

    [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

    Jiji Press

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  • Sri Lanka arrests former president Wickremesinghe: local media

    Sri Lanka arrests former president Wickremesinghe: local media

    Sri Lanka’s former president Ranil Wickremesinghe gestures as he speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 24, 2022. — Reuters
    • Wickremesinghe arrested over alleged misuse of state funds.
    • Arrest linked to London trip for wife’s graduation.
    • Wickremesinghe was PM a record six times, made president in 2022.

    COLOMBO: Former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Friday in connection with allegations of misuse of state funds, local television channel Ada Derana reported.

    Wickremesinghe, 76, was taken into custody after arriving at the CID office in the capital Colombo to record a statement in an investigation into his visit to London to attend his wife’s graduation ceremony, the report said.

    A Sri Lankan police spokesperson did not immediately confirm the arrest. Wickremesinghe’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

    He was due to appear in court later on Friday, local media reported.

    A lawyer who served as Sri Lanka’s prime minister a record six times, Wickremesinghe was made president in 2022 during the Indian Ocean island nation’s debilitating financial crisis.

    Wickremesinghe, who is the leader of the United National Party (UNP), took over after widespread protests caused by an economic meltdown forced his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and later resign.

    He finished third in last year’s presidential election – the first since the economic crisis – behind Marxist-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who won the vote, and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.

    The election was a referendum on Wickremesinghe, who led a successful but fragile economic recovery that included austerity measures that angered voters.

    Born into a prominent family of politicians and businessmen with large media interests, in 1978 Wickremesinghe was, at 29, made the country’s youngest cabinet minister by his uncle, President Junius Jayewardene.

    In 1994, following assassinations that wiped out several of his senior colleagues, Wickremesinghe became leader of the UNP.


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  • Beyond Promises: Putting Communities at the Centre of Health and Universal Care | by Nigeria Health Watch | Aug, 2025

    Beyond Promises: Putting Communities at the Centre of Health and Universal Care | by Nigeria Health Watch | Aug, 2025

    Press enter or click to view image in full size

    Image credit: Nigeria Health Watch

    Imole Agunbiade (Lead writer)

    The state of Nigeria’s Primary Healthcare (PHC) system is concerning. Despite its vital role, only one-in-five facilities nationwide are fully functional. Most of these centres cannot provide essential services, struggling with poor staffing, faulty infrastructure, a lack of essential drugs, and poor-quality healthcare.

    In Nigeria today, few issues command as much consensus as the urgent need to strengthen the PHC system to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Nigeria’s PHCs hold the potential to address 70% of the nation’s disease burden, offering a powerful frontline defense for both treatment and disease prevention.

    Data from various health surveys consistently highlight gaps in service delivery, drug availability, infrastructure, and staff motivation at the PHC level. The core issue is not just a lack of resources but a critical deficit in social accountability such as community-based mechanisms for citizens to directly provide feedback and hold health providers accountable for the quality of care.

    Press enter or click to view image in full size

    Image credit: Nigeria Health Watch

    Social accountability has been emphasised as an important strategy to increase the quality, equity, and responsiveness of health services especially in communities. Social accountability is also a fundamental governance concept that empowers citizens to hold those in power answerable for their actions.

    It’s a proactive approach where the public moves beyond simply receiving services to actively shaping them. The 2008 World Health Report which had a focus on PHCs re-emphasises the values of community participation to achieve “people-centred” health systems. The report reframed health service users not as passive patients, but as active citizens with a right to be heard. This means empowering communities to voice their concerns, actively shape health policies in the public interest, and hold both providers and policymakers accountable for the quality of care they receive.

    Making social accountability a conversation

    Communities, the ultimate beneficiaries and often the most impacted by these health system shortfalls, frequently lack simple, open, and consistent channels to provide feedback, raise concerns, and hold service providers and policymakers accountable.

    For instance, a pregnant woman who arrives at a PHC expecting essential maternal and neonatal care may instead encounter inadequate treatment and rude healthcare givers. At this point what does she do? What if there is no social accountability system in place how will her voice be heard and her life and that of her unborn child be safe? This gap leaves communities feeling disempowered, perpetuates inefficiencies, and ultimately jeopardises the nation’s health security, as seen during disease outbreaks where community trust and engagement are paramount.

    Between April and May 2025, Nigeria Health Watch conducted a community listening surveyed six states, Lagos, Kano, Niger, Ebonyi, Cross River, and Borno, to understand the state of feedback mechanisms for quality of care.

    Out of 6,494 respondents, 59% affirmed the presence of community feedback mechanisms in their community, while 41% reported having none. Of those who had a mechanism in place, a subset of 3,875 people assessed its effectiveness in improving PHC services. 92%, this subset confirmed that the accountability mechanisms were effective, with only 8% stating they were not.

    Press enter or click to view image in full size

    Image credit: Nigeria Health Watch

    The fact that nearly half of the respondents have no channel to provide feedback on their healthcare experiences is a serious issue. This widespread gap in accountability means that millions of people in Nigeria are still unable to report poor quality of care, express dissatisfaction with services, or raise concerns about public facility conditions.

    Social accountability mechanisms for quality primary health care

    Effectively strengthening Nigeria’s PHC system demands robust social accountability. The most successful approaches are built on three core principles: simplicity, diverse channels, and data-driven action.

    Complex feedback mechanisms often deter participation. The most effective systems meet people where they are. As experts like Dr Shola Dele-Olowu, the Director of Regional Initiatives AMP Health; and Dr Stanley Ukpai, the Director of Projects Development Research and Project Centre stated during a panel discussion at the Africa Primary Healthcare Forum 2025, “the power lies in simple, open, and consistent,” community feedback systems.

    A case study of a country that has successfully implemented these three core principles is Ghana. Through initiatives like the District League Table, Ghana has built on the core principle of simplicity, where complex government data is transformed into a simple ranking tool on the quality of their services, including health.

    To ensure wide reach, Ghana employs diverse channels, disseminating this data through websites, text messages, radio clips, and posters. This ensures that a wide range of citizens, regardless of their location or literacy level, can access and understand the information.

    Empowering voices through diverse channels

    To truly empower communities, we must use diverse communication tools. Community scorecards, for example, directly involve community members in assessing PHC performance, leading to actionable insights.

    In countries like Ethiopia and Ghana, community scorecards have proven to be a powerful tool for social accountability. By putting citizens at the centre of the process, these countries empower them to actively assess the quality of their health services and collaboratively work with providers to rectify service failures.

    Similarly, phone-in radio programmes offer an immediate and widely accessible platform for citizens to voice concerns and receive direct responses. This demonstrates how media can be a crucial tool for bridging the accountability gap, empowering communities to engage directly with the health system.

    Nigeria Health Watch has also promoted accountability and feedback by training and supporting community reporters in Kano, Niger, Kaduna, and Lagos States to document the state of PHCs and the experiences of patients and healthcare workers in their local communities.

    The PHC Accountability Tracka by BudgiT is a prime example of how digital tools can be a springboard for accountability. The tracker allows citizens to directly report on the condition of a PHC in their community and provides a state dashboard for constant oversight on healthcare delivery. These tools demonstrate that accountability is not just about reports or audits — it’s about opening spaces for real voices to be heard and acted upon.

    Recommendations

    To truly strengthen social accountability requires a concerted effort from all stakeholders, with clear roles for government and healthcare providers. The government should integrate simple yet effective community feedback mechanisms — such as simplified scorecards. Policymakers should also leverage digital platforms, like the PHC Accountability Tracka, to enable citizens to report on PHC conditions and track the quality of care.

    Policymakers should partner with local radio stations to create regular, interactive “health accountability” phone-in programmes. This approach allows for direct citizen engagement, immediate feedback, and a platform for public dialogue that can drive real change.

    The journey to achieving UHC and robust health security in Nigeria is arduous, but it is not insurmountable. By truly listening to the voices of our communities — through simple, open, and consistent feedback channels, Nigeria can transform its PHC system.

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  • Samsung Awards Certificates to 56 Students of Samsung Innovation Campus in Nepal – Samsung Newsroom India

    Samsung Awards Certificates to 56 Students of Samsung Innovation Campus in Nepal – Samsung Newsroom India

     

    Samsung today awarded certificates to 56 students of the Pulchowk Campus, Tribhuvan University Institute of Engineering, for successfully completing the third batch of its Coding & Programming course under the company’s flagship CSR initiative, Samsung Innovation Campus.

     

    With this milestone, a new batch of students will now begin training in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, equipping them with in-demand skills for the future.

     

    The certificates were presented at a ceremony attended by Prof. Dr. Deepak Aryal, Vice Chancellor of Tribhuvan University; Dr. Sanjaya Uprety, Campus Chief of Pulchowk Campus; and Dr. Sushil B. Bajracharya, Dean, Institute of Engineering.

     

     

    “We are delighted to mark the successful completion of the third batch of Coding & Programming. This reflects the impact Samsung Innovation Campus is making by empowering Nepalese youth with future-ready skills. Together with Tribhuvan University, we aim to strengthen training in AI, Big Data, and IoT, and help make students job-ready for tomorrow’s opportunities,” said Jayanta Mani Kayasth, HR manager of Samsung Nepal Office.

     

    Launched at Tribhuvan University in December 2022, Samsung Innovation Campus trains youth in Nepal in AI, IoT, Big Data, and Coding & Programming, contributing to the development of a strong technology and innovation ecosystem. Students are selected based on their knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and programming.

     

    “Tribhuvan University Institute of Engineering is proud to collaborate with Samsung to offer this prestigious programme in Nepal. The Coding & Programming course has been highly appreciated, and we look forward to expanding the scope of future-tech learning for our students,” said Dr. Sushil B. Bajracharya, Professor & Dean, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University.

     

    Along with technical skills, the programme also provides soft skills training to improve employability, problem-solving, and creativity. Students also work on projects of social significance, applying AI, Big Data, Coding & Programming, and IoT to real-world challenges.

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  • Asteroid Bennu is a time capsule of materials bearing witness to its origin and transformation over billions of years

    Asteroid Bennu is a time capsule of materials bearing witness to its origin and transformation over billions of years

    Asteroid Bennu – the target of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample return mission, led by the University of Arizona – is a mixture of materials from throughout, and even beyond, our solar system. Over the past few billion years, its unique and varied contents have been transformed by interactions with water and the harsh space environment.

    These details come from a trio of newly published papers based on analysis of Bennu samples delivered to Earth by OSIRIS-REx in 2023. The OSIRIS-REx sample analysis campaign is coordinated by the U of A Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and involves scientists from around the world. LPL researchers contributed to all three studies and led two of them. 

    Jessica Barnes is an associate professor at the U of A Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

    Chris Richards/University of Arizona


    “This is work you just can’t do with telescopes,” said Jessica Barnes, associate professor at the U of A Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and co-lead author on one of the publications. “It’s super exciting that we’re finally able to say these things about an asteroid that we’ve been dreaming of going to for so long and eventually brought back samples from.”

    Bennu is made of fragments from a larger “parent” asteroid that broke up after it collided with another asteroid, likely in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The parent asteroid consisted of material with diverse origins – near the sun, far from the sun, and from other stars – that coalesced more than 4 billion years ago as our solar system was forming. These findings are the subject of the first paper, published in Nature Astronomy and jointly led by Barnes and Ann Nguyen with the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

    “Bennu’s parent asteroid may have formed in the outer parts of the solar system, possibly beyond the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn,” Barnes said. “We think this parent body was struck by an incoming asteroid and smashed apart. Then the fragments re-assembled and this might have repeated several times.”

    By looking at the samples returned by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, Barnes and her colleagues were able to get the most comprehensive snapshot of its history to date. Among the findings was an abundance of stardust, material that existed before our solar system formed, Barnes said. The discovery of these most ancient materials was made possible, in part, by the NanoSIMS instrument at the U of A Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory for Astromaterials Analysis, which can reveal a sample’s isotopes – variants of chemical elements – at nanometer scales. The tiny grains of stardust are identifiable by their unusual isotopic makeup compared to materials formed in the solar system. 

    Tom Zega leads the Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

    Arlene Islas/University of Arizona


    “Those are pieces of stardust from other stars that are long dead, and these pieces were incorporated into the cloud of gas and dust from which our solar system formed,” Barnes said. “In addition, we found organic material that’s highly anomalous in their isotopes and that was probably formed in interstellar space, and we have solids that formed closer to the sun, and for the first time, we show that all these materials are present in Bennu.” 

    The chemical and isotopic similarities between samples from Bennu and a similar asteroid, Ryugu, which was sampled by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission in 2019, and the most chemically primitive meteorites found on Earth suggest their parent asteroids may have formed in a shared region of the early solar system. Yet the differences researchers are observing in the Bennu samples may indicate that the starting materials in this region changed over time or were not as well-mixed as some scientists have thought. 

    The analyses show that some of the materials in the parent asteroid survived various chemical processes involving heat and water and even the energetic collision that resulted in the formation of Bennu. Nevertheless, most of the materials were transformed by hydrothermal processes, as reported in the second paper, published in Nature Geoscience. In fact, that study found, minerals in the parent asteroid likely formed, dissolved and reformed over time due to interactions with water.

    “We think that Bennu’s parent asteroid accreted a lot of icy material from the outer solar system, which melted over time,” said Tom Zega, director of the Kuiper-Arizona Laboratory who co-led the study with Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian.

    The team found evidence that silicate minerals would have reacted with the resultant liquid water at relatively low temperatures of about 25 degrees Celsius, or room temperature. That heat could have either lingered from the accretion process itself, when Bennu’s parent asteroid first formed, or was generated by impacts later in its history, possibly in combination with the decay of radioactive elements deep inside it. The trapped heat could have melted the ice inside the asteroid, according to Zega.

    “Now you have a liquid in contact with a solid and heat – everything you need to start doing chemistry,” he said. “The water reacted with the minerals and formed what we see today: samples in which 80% of minerals contain water in their interior, created billions of years ago when the solar system was still forming.”

    This scanning electron microscope image shows a micrometeorite impact crater in a particle of asteroid Bennu material.


    The transformation of Bennu’s materials did not end there. The third paper, also published in Nature Geoscience, reports microscopic craters and tiny splashes of once-molten rock on the surfaces of Bennu particles – signs that the asteroid has been peppered by micrometeorite impacts. These impacts, together with the effects of solar wind, are known as “space weathering” and occur because Bennu does not have an atmosphere to protect it. This weathering is happening a lot faster than conventional wisdom would have it, according to the study, which was led by Lindsay Keller at NASA Johnson and Michelle Thompson at Purdue University. 

    As the leftover materials from planetary formation 4.5 billion years ago, asteroids provide a record of the solar system’s history. But many of these remnants may be different from what meteorites recovered on Earth would suggest, Zega said, because different types of meteors (fragments of asteroids) may burn up in the atmosphere and never make it to the ground.

    “And those that do make it to the ground can react with Earth’s atmosphere, particularly if the meteorite is not recovered quickly after it falls,” he added, “which is why sample return missions such as OSIRIS-REx are critical.”

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  • Japan to ramp up bond interest rate assumption for next annual budget, Yomiuri reports – Reuters

    1. Japan to ramp up bond interest rate assumption for next annual budget, Yomiuri reports  Reuters
    2. Japan to Set FY26 Provisional Rate at 17-Year High, Yomiuri Says  Bloomberg.com
    3. Japan MOF preparing to raise long-term rate estimate in FY2026 budget request, Yomiuri reports  104.1 WIKY
    4. Japan to Raise Assumed Bond Interest Rate to 2.6% for FY 2026/27  TradingView
    5. Japan to Raise Assumed Bond Interest Rate for 2026/27 Budget, Yomiuri Reports  US News Money

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  • Timeliness of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic De-escalation and Mortality in Emergency Department Patients With Sepsis: A Retrospective Hierarchical Logistic Regression Study

    Timeliness of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic De-escalation and Mortality in Emergency Department Patients With Sepsis: A Retrospective Hierarchical Logistic Regression Study


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  • Leaders stall as chasers surge: Mediterranean throws race wide open – The Ocean Race

    1. Leaders stall as chasers surge: Mediterranean throws race wide open  The Ocean Race
    2. Crowds enjoy a sailing spectacular at The Ocean Race Europe Fan Day – in pictures  portsmouth.co.uk
    3. Alan Roberts reflects on ‘eventful’ start to Ocean Race after opening leg crash  Braintree & Witham Times
    4. Challenge met for Holcim-PRB, which arrived this afternoon in Portsmouth  Yachts and Yachting Online
    5. The Ocean Race Europe // Paprec Arkéa powers past Biotherm in drag race down the Portuguese coast  Live Sail Die

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  • Disney Channel’s ‘Good Luck Charlie’ baby Mia Talerico enters 11th grade in high school

    Disney Channel’s ‘Good Luck Charlie’ baby Mia Talerico enters 11th grade in high school

    Mia Talerico, best known for playing the baby in Disney Channel’s Good Luck Charlie, has shared a personal milestone with fans.

    On August 20, the 16-year-old posted on Instagram that she has started her junior year of high school. Holding a chalkboard sign reading “First day of 11th grade,” she added in the caption: “Wish me good luck.”

    Fans immediately flooded the comments with messages of support, many expressing disbelief at how quickly time has passed since the show aired. 

    Good Luck Charlie ran for four seasons between 2010 and 2014 and starred Bridgit Mendler, Jason Dolley, Bradley Steven Perry, Leigh-Allyn Baker and Eric Allan Kramer. The series followed the Duncan family as they made video diaries for baby Charlie to watch when she was older.

    The cast has remained close in the years since the show ended. They reunited in 2019 to celebrate Bridgit Mendler’s engagement, an event that left Jason Dolley reflecting on how much Mia had grown.

    Now in high school, Mia continues to connect with fans who first met her as a toddler on screen. 

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