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Credit...Fazry Ismail/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 17, 2018SYDNEY, Australia President Xi Jinping of China and Vice President Mike Pence pushed back against criticism of each of their countries trade practices in speeches on Saturday at an Asia-Pacific trade summit meeting in Papua New Guinea, while seeking to assure allies of their commitment to the region.Mr. Xi and Mr. Pence spoke ahead of what is likely to be a tense meeting between President Trump and the Chinese leader at the Group of 20 conference in Argentina later this month, where they will attempt to defuse a trade war.Mr. Xi may also be looking to shore up ties with an important trading partner, North Korea. He told President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on the sidelines of the trade forum that he was considering visiting the North after its leader, Kim Jong-un, extended an invitation, according to a spokesman for Mr. Moon.The Trump administration has accused China of unfair trade practices, including restricting market access, pushing American companies to hand over valuable technology and engaging in cyberespionage and intellectual property theft. It has put tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods; China has retaliated with tariffs of its own.Mr. Pence, echoing warnings from Mr. Trump, said the United States could more than double the tariffs it had placed on $250 billion in Chinese goods.The United States, though, will not change course until China changes its ways, Mr. Pence said.China has offered a list of concessions in recent days, which Mr. Trump has called not acceptable.Mr. Pence and Mr. Xi spoke at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. The 21 Pacific Rim countries and territories participating in the APEC forum account for 60 percent of the global economy.Mr. Pence, appearing in Mr. Trumps place, reiterated recent criticism of Chinas geopolitical strategies and attacked the countrys belt and road initiative, an enormous infrastructure plan financed by China that spans some 70 countries.He urged Asian nations to avoid investment offers from China and to choose instead a better option working with the United States which, he said, would not saddle them with debt, a quandary some countries are facing as a result of their partnerships with Beijing.Let me say to all the nations across this wider region, and the world: Do not accept foreign debt that could compromise your sovereignty, Mr. Pence said.ImageCredit...Fazry Ismail/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesWe dont drown our partners in a sea of debt, he added. We dont coerce or compromise your independence. We do not offer a constricting belt or a one-way road. When you partner with us, we partner with you, and we all prosper.Mr. Xi, perhaps anticipating the criticism, spoke before Mr. Pence and disputed the notion that accepting Chinese investment as part of the initiative called One Belt, One Road would compromise a nations sovereignty.The initiative is not for geopolitical purposes; it will exclude no one; it will not close a door and create a small circle, Mr. Xi said. It is not the so-called trap, as some people say. It is the sunshine avenue where China shares opportunities with the world to seek common development.Mr. Xi sought to paint China as continually opening its markets to the world.China will continue to significantly relax market access, strengthen intellectual property protection and actively expand imports, he said. Since the beginning of this year, Mr. Xi said, China has significantly reduced import tariffs on 1,449 consumer goods, 1,585 industrial products and vehicles and components.He described the trade dispute as a choice between win-win progress or a zero sum game.Mankind has once again reached a crossroads, Mr. Xi said. Which direction should we choose? Cooperation or confrontation? Openness or closing doors?Mr. Pence and Mr. Xi may have been sending mixed messages with their speeches, said Brendan Taylor, an associate professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.The extent to which Mr. Xi tried to reassure the region that he didnt have any geopolitical ambitions I dont think thats particularly convincing, Mr. Taylor said.He described Mr. Pences speech as having a very strong America First tone, adding, Theres quite a big gap between his rhetoric and whats actually happening in the region.Other nations in the region were hedging their bets, he said. The moves those countries are making relate to their uncertainties about the U.S. and the Trump strategy or lack thereof, Mr. Taylor said.On Friday, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, met with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia in the northern Australian port city of Darwin, the first time a Japanese leader has visited the city, which was pummeled by Japanese air raids in World War II.The two leaders discussed economic cooperation and the possibility of the Japanese military participating in training exercises in Darwin, where about 2,000 American Marines rotate through each year.ImageCredit...Pool photo by Rick RycroftIn his speech on Saturday, Mr. Pence lauded the economic and military cooperation between the United States and its Asia-Pacific allies, and he warned China that American ships and jets would sail and fly anywhere allowed by international law.Chinese military forces have confronted American and other foreign navies and aircraft that have entered waters in the South China Sea that China claims as its own.The United States of America will continue to uphold the freedom of the seas and the skies, which are so essential to our prosperity, Mr. Pence said.He said the United States would support efforts to adopt a meaningful and binding code of conduct that respects the rights of all nations, including the freedom of navigation, in the South China Sea.He also announced that the United States would participate in an Australian-Papua New Guinea initiative to develop a naval base on Manus Island in the Bismarck Sea, in northern Papua New Guinea.Australia and Papua New Guinea announced last month that they would upgrade a base in Lombrum, a port on Manus Island that has a strategically vital position overlooking key trade routes.The spokesman for Mr. Moon, Kim Eui-kyeom, said Mr. Xi was considering making his first state visit to Pyongyang next year.China is North Koreas largest trading partner, accounting for more than 90 percent of the Norths external trade. But Mr. Xi has never visited North Korea as Chinese leader, and a trip to Pyongyang would be an important nod to Kim Jong-uns leadership from North Koreas most important ally.Ties between the two countries had frayed recently as North Korea pressed ahead of with its nuclear weapons and missile tests, and Beijing joined American-led efforts to impose sanctions on the North. This year, however, Mr. Kim has sought to mend the relationship, meeting with Mr. Xi three times. For each of those meetings, Mr. Kim traveled to China.Washington has begun to worry that China may be less willing to enforce sanctions against the North, undermining the effort to economically isolate the country until it gives up its nuclear weapons. Mr. Pence said on Thursday that Mr. Trump had planned to bring up the issue of sanctions against North Korea when he talked with Mr. Xi at the G-20 conference in Argentina.Mr. Kim, the South Korean spokesman, said Mr. Xi and Mr. Moon had agreed at the APEC forum that if the Norths leader and Mr. Trump held a second summit meeting, as they have agreed to, it would be a watershed moment in international efforts to end Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula. | World |
Technology|Facebook Brings Back a Former Top Lieutenant to Zuckerberghttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/technology/facebook-chris-cox.htmlChris Cox, who quit Facebook last year after differences with the companys chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is returning as chief product officer.Credit...Stephen Lam/ReutersJune 11, 2020SAN FRANCISCO Facebook said on Thursday that Chris Cox, a former top executive, was returning to the company as chief product officer.Mr. Cox had left the social network in March 2019 over disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive. In coming back as chief product officer, Mr. Cox, 37, who was previously at the company for more than a decade, will again become one of the highest-ranking executives at Facebook.Facebook and our products have never been more relevant to our future, Mr. Cox said in a statement to his Facebook page announcing his return. Its the place I know best, its a place Ive helped to build, and its the best place for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in to help.Mr. Cox is returning at a turbulent time for Facebook, which has been rocked by internal dissent over its recent decisions not to take any action on incendiary posts from President Trump. Facebook has also been under strain as the coronavirus pandemic has thrown its work force into overdrive to keep the site online as people flock to its services.In his previous stint at Facebook, Mr. Cox also held the title of chief product officer. At the time, he was seen as a mitigating force to Mr. Zuckerberg internally, according to people who have worked with both executives, and was popular with many rank-and-file employees. Mr. Cox oversaw efforts around Facebooks main app and its other apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.Last spring, Mr. Cox and Mr. Zuckerberg disagreed on the future of the apps, including a unified messaging project intended to connect Facebooks multiple apps. Mr. Zuckerberg wanted to tie the apps together more, while Mr. Cox was concerned about the difficulties of that effort. Mr. Cox later announced his departure.The company continues to work on encrypting all of its messaging apps.On his Facebook page, Mr. Cox said he reached out to Mr. Zuckerberg about a month ago as world issues the pandemic, racial tensions and other issues mounted.In the past month the world has grown more chaotic and unstable, which has only given me more resolve to help out, Mr. Cox wrote. Our most important decisions and products are ahead of us. | Tech |
Gene Simmons Wake Up, Rock Stars ... Cut the Drugs Now 1/30/2018 TMZ.com Gene Simmons wants rockers to say no to drugs ... not just because it's killing the musicians, but mostly because of its impact on fans. We got the KISS frontman Monday at LAX and asked him to elaborate on his upcoming memoir, "27," in which he details stories about famous rock stars who died at that age. Gene, who says he's never boozed or done a drug, says his fellow rockers gotta remember there are kids out there following their every move ... and the drug use influences them. On the heels of artists like Tom Petty and Lil Peep dying from overdoses, Gene wants everyone to adopt his sober approach to rock 'n' roll. | Entertainment |
TrilobitesCredit...R. BourrillonMarch 7, 2017In 1884, Georges Seurat strategically placed dots atop a canvas, leading people to believe they were looking at an image of park-goers lounging along the Seine River in France. The technique was known as pointillism, and it seemed new at the time. But 38,000 years ago, people living inside caves in southwest France were doing something similar, according to findings published last month in Quaternary International.Their skills speak of a very high ability to observe in detail what surrounded them and reproduce it with great economy of means, said Vhils, a Portuguese street artist who is known for his own chiseling of dots and lines into walls, and was not involved in the study.These pointillist creations of early modern humans were recently discovered when scientists revisited Abri Cellier, a cave site in Frances Vzre Valley. There, they found 16 limestone tablets left behind by a previous excavation. Images of what appear to be animals, including a woolly mammoth, were formed by a series of punctured dots and, in some cases, carved connecting lines. Combined with previous images from nearby caves in France and Spain, the tablets suggest an early form of pointillism, and a very early point on art historys timeline.Imagine the first time a human convinced someone else that a line, or a group of lines is an animal, said Randall White, an anthropologist at New York University who led the excavation. Today we live in an extremely visual culture, and we digest and interpret, on the run, a million different kinds of illusions that we take to be reality, he said. It is impossible to say that this was a magical moment when humans invented art. But in these tablets, he thinks he and his team may have gotten close.Step back, 38,000 years to what are now the forests of southwestern France. There lived the Aurignacians, Europes earliest known modern humans, a hunter-gatherer society. In the steppe grasslands, they stalked reindeer, mostly. Horses, aurochs (ancient bison), woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses were also around.During winters much colder than the ones in France now, one group of Aurignacians lived beneath a rock shelter, about 20 feet deep and 67 feet long. Across its open mouth, suspended animal skins trapped the heat from a fire. Someone butchered a reindeer. Another person made ornamental beads of ivory and animal teeth. Their bodies, which were probably painted with ochre, were covered in animal skins, which were painted, too. Someone also decorated the ceiling, walls and tablets with images of vulvas and animals.In circumstances where wed probably have a tendency to sit in a corner by the fire and shiver, Dr. White said, the Aurignacians are engraving, and painting and making ornaments.About 10,000 years later, the ceiling of this cave collapsed in such a perfect way that it preserved all the stuff they left behind. Some archaeologists found it in 1927, and put some of what they excavated in museums. But they left behind 16 tablets that appeared to have been turned over just after they were made, for some unknown reason. Nearly a century later Dr. White returned with an international team of 21 scientists and even more student volunteers to find them. When the undersurface of the first tablet was revealed, Dr. White got chills.There was no paint, but someone had taken the dull tip of a flint stone just half the size of a persons palm and punctured the surface. Dots formed in the shape of an animal. In other tablets, the dots were connected.ImageCredit...Muse national de PrhistoireIn a paper published in January, Dr. White and his colleagues revealed a similar engraving of an auroch, in Abri Blanchard, another French cave. Combined with dotted images which were first painted on hands and then stamped onto walls in Chauvet Cave, they think the Aurignacians had their own artistic style. It was kind of like connect the dots.Their subject matter was something more abstract and meaningful than simply dinner, Dr. White said. Dinner was reindeer, primarily, but no reindeer art has been found. The animals used for their body art were also depicted in their wall art. Theyre painting whats good to think, not eat, Dr. White said.Dr. White does not think the art in these caves is the root of Western art, because modern Europeans are not genetic descendants of these cave dwellers. This cave art outlived its creators, who did not hand down their pointillist techniques to European artists tens of thousands of years later.All of this stuff got invented, but its not continuous, Dr. White said. It may well have just disappeared or transformed into something else. The Aurignacians techniques probably developed independently, and the pointillist style employed by Seurat later emerged.One of the most interesting things Ive learnt through my work is how history has a way of repeating itself, despite the change in social and material circumstances, Vhils wrote in an email. And these findings seem to reinforce this view. | science |
Credit...Seyllou/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 5, 2017MONROVIA, Liberia Bernice Freeman was chatting with some market women, trying to explain why it was so important that they leave their food stalls to vote for the first woman to be elected president of an African country, when she noticed some boys laughing nearby, waving something white.It was October 2005, the first presidential election after 15 years of a hideous civil war in Liberia. On the ballot was Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated global technocrat with so much government experience it practically oozed from her pores, and a group of men, most notably the professional soccer player George Weah.Like many of the 1.5 million women in Liberia who had survived the civil war, Ms. Freeman had personally witnessed acts of violence so brutal she still had nightmares. Soldiers had gutted her 8-months-pregnant cousin. Drugged-up rebels wearing Halloween masks had murdered her friends. Ms. Freeman herself had knelt in the dirt, praying, while henchmen loyal to the president had chambered rounds of their machine guns on orders to shoot her and the other women praying with her one afternoon.Ms. Freeman had seen it all. But even so, she was unprepared for the sight of the young men laughing nearby as she campaigned for a female president. The boys had taken womens panties, had smeared the crotches with tomato paste and were waving them at the women their unsubtle way of saying that a woman could not be president.But instead of making Ms. Freeman and the other women embarrassed, the heckling only angered them.You know what? one of the undecided women told Ms. Freeman, looking at the boys in disgust. We will vote. Dont worry, we will vote.And vote they did. Close to 80 percent of the Liberian women who flooded the polls during the countrys first postwar presidential election voted to usher a woman into power for the first time on a continent that for centuries had been the worlds most patriarchal.Eleven years before Pantsuit Nation became a secret Facebook group for women who supported Hillary Clinton in America and Im With Her buttons and bumper stickers sprouted on lapels and S.U.V.s, the women of Liberia held a master class in how to get a woman elected president. Now, as the American women who supported Mrs. Clinton grapple with the whys of last Novembers election, the story of how, 4,500 miles away, the women of Liberia upended centuries of male rule to accomplish what their American counterparts could not has acquired a sharp and keen relevance.Imagining an AlternativeThe Liberia story is one of extremes. It is almost as if for Liberians to contemplate installing a woman as president, the country needed to first go over a cliff so steep that there seemed nowhere left to drop. Mothers saw their children kidnapped, drugged and forced to take up arms in the countrys never-ending civil war. More than 70 percent of Liberian women were raped during the war years. Starving young girls gnawed on tree bark for sustenance, while horrified children were forced to watch their sisters, mothers and grandmothers gang-raped in front of them.What happened in the war years so devastated Liberian women, who blamed the men who waged the war for the ensuing horrors, that many of them came to view Mrs. Sirleaf not necessarily as the better of the presidential candidates but, rather, as the only alternative to putting a man back in power in a place that men had just run into the ground.Masawa Jabateh, who had seen her 3-year-old daughter die from malnourishment during the war, said her despair became infused with a blind fury when she saw men campaigning to be president in 2005, especially since the leading candidate was Mr. Weah. Those men want put some grona boy in the chair who dont know what we doing? So we can go back to war again? No, she said.Her thought process was straightforward: She was voting for woman, she said.Vote for Woman, in 2005, became the de facto campaign slogan of Ms. Sirleafs run for the presidency. It all started on the morning of May 2, 2005, a week into the voter registration period for the looming presidential elections, when Vabah Gayflor, the minister for gender, woke up to discover that women had not been registering to vote.A string of men were tossing their hats into the ring for the presidency, including Mr. Weah, a renowned athlete who had won the Ballon dOr and been named FIFA world player of the year and African player of the century.Unlike his rivals, Mr. Weah was not tainted by any association with those who had brought Liberia to ruin over the past 15 years, but he had no college education. (His listing of a bachelors degree in sports management from Parkwood University in London was a subject of a scandal after news accounts surfaced calling the school an unaccredited diploma mill requiring no actual study.)At the other end of the spectrum was Mrs. Sirleaf. A former finance minister and jailed dissident, she had a pedigree that included the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. She had transformed herself from an abused wife, cowering and hunched in the front seat of her husbands car while he slapped her, to an international bureaucrat attempting what no woman had ever done before: winning, by popular vote, the right to lead an African country.To the Weah supporters, there was no contest. Grandmother versus soccer star? But to women like Ms. Gayflor, Ms. Jabateh and Ms. Freeman, there was also no contest. You will take our country, our baby, and throw the baby away to football player? I beg you, no, Ms. Gayflor said.Ms. Gayflors job as gender minister was supposed to be about helping women and children get access to health care, school feeding programs (in a postwar country with hardly any schools) and rape support.But she decided to redefine her role: getting a woman elected president. And she was not happy with the news from the National Elections Commission: Of the 100,000 Liberians who had registered to vote in the first week of the monthlong registration drive, only 15 percent were women.Who was registering instead? Former combatants, from all the armed groups that had fought in the war. Ms. Gayflor was appalled.Getting Women to VoteHuddling with Etweda Cooper, the womens activist known throughout Liberia as Sugars, Ms. Gayflor knew they had to take action fast.The men were holding mass rallies. But market women didnt have time to go to mass rallies. They were busy making market. Ms. Gayflor and Mrs. Cooper realized they would have to try a different strategy.Quickly they organized a group to use the radio stations to plead: Women, oh women! Yall got to register to vote. They fanned out to the Monrovia markets.At first, some of the market women balked; they had their wares and their babies to tend. But Mrs. Cooper was ready for them with babysitters and stall tenders. We will mind it for you, she said. Go register.It was not enough to stay in Monrovia. The Liberian bush loomed, large, imposing and filled with village women. The women bought bullhorns and scattered their troops along the road. Women, oh women! they yelled into the bullhorns. Go register.By the end of the registration period, the final figures came out: Some 1.5 million Liberians out of the countrys population of three million had registered to vote.Fifty-one percent of those registered were women.Unlike American presidential campaigns, the Liberian campaign season begins two months before Election Day. Liberian election rules dictate that a winning candidate has to get 50 percent of the vote a quirk that guaranteed that in a crowded field of 22 candidates, there would be a runoff. So the key for Mrs. Sirleaf was to survive the first round by coming in second at least, so that she would then stand alone against Mr. Weah.As a government minister, Ms. Gayflor was not allowed to show favoritism for any candidate, let alone campaign on ones behalf. So she and Mrs. Cooper devised a strategy: They would present their efforts as simply an attempt to empower women. Ms. Gayflor would not sully her cabinet position by telling women whom to support. (She left that to Mrs. Cooper.) Instead, she would simply encourage women to exercise their right. She organized womens rallies where she gave speeches exhorting the crowd to vote.Im not telling you who to vote for, women! she said. Just make sure you vote.Right after Ms. Gayflor spoke, Mrs. Cooper not constrained by any neutrality vows shouted at the crowd, Vote for woman!ImageCredit...Issouf Sanogo/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesEverywhere, the womens rallies followed the same script:Ms. Gayflor: Women, oh women! If yall got to tie your baby on your back soon in the morning, I beg yall, go vote!Mrs. Cooper: Vote for woman!Ms. Gayflor: Even self your baby got poo-poo diapers, put it down, go vote!Mrs. Cooper: Vote for woman!At the rallies, the women passed out plastic bags of drinking water, a rare and precious commodity in a place where people regularly drank from unsanitary wells and dirty rivers.Making HistoryThe rainy season was ending, but the air was still stewy when Election Day dawned. Of the 1.5 million people registered to vote, some 900,000 showed up at the polls. They came in wheelbarrows and wheelchairs. They came with babies on their backs. They came the night before, some sleeping on the hard ground outside the polling booths so they could vote when morning came.The results began to trickle in that night. As expected, Mr. Weah was in first place. But he wasnt close to 50 percent. And Mrs. Sirleaf was right behind him, where she needed to be.Time for the real battle. The soccer player versus the 67-year-old grandmother.The men fell in line behind Mr. Weah and complained that the women supporting Mrs. Sirleaf were sexist. Given the choice between a soccer player with no credible college education and a Harvard-educated development expert, the top male presidential candidates who fell short of the runoff, with one exception, endorsed the soccer player.In the meantime, Mr. Weah, honing a message explaining why he, and not Mrs. Sirleaf, should run Liberia, settled on an educated people failed theme.But what the men who endorsed that strategy failed to realize was how much that very idea was angering the market women. Those women may not have been educated themselves, but they worked in the fields and the market stalls to send their children to school. Now the men were telling them that education wasnt important. Just as the men fell in behind Mr. Weah, the women fell in behind Mrs. Sirleaf.The market women went door to door, passing out T-shirts and fliers. They slept on the side of the road at night, curled up on their mats. They walked from village to village, calling out the now familiar mantra Vote for woman!Mr. Weahs supporters responded by promising that if he lost, the country would go back to war. No Weah, no peace! they chanted.Thus the runoff started resembling past elections, like the one in 1985, in which Samuel Does supporters had suggested the same thing: Vote for Mr. Doe or the country goes back to war.Except that in November 2005, this tactic appeared to have met its match. Because the women had their own tricks, tricks that would make Mr. Weahs threats look like boys play.You want beer? Just give me your voter ID card; I will buy you beer.I say, we buying voter ID cards, oh. Ten Liberty dollars for one.Who looking for money? Just bring your voter ID card.A group of women had stationed themselves at a bar near a major intersection, luring young men in a time-honored fashion. Except this time the women were the ones with the cash, and the young men were the ones with the commodity for sale.ImageCredit...Michael Kamber for The New York TimesSome of those boys were finish stupid, a market woman, Nancy Nagbe, recalled with a smirk. We were crafty, oh!Many of the young men thought they were done with voting after the first round and didnt understand that they would need their IDs again. Others knew and did not care; late in the evening of a muggy hot day, the lure of a crisp, cold and malty Club Beer far outshone whatever benefits they thought their voter card could bring them.As for the ones who were too smart to sell their voter card their mothers simply stole them, recalled one gender ministry official, Parleh Harris.One market woman said she sneaked into her sons room while he was sleeping, slipped his voter ID out of his wallet and buried it in the yard.Yeah, I took it. And so what? the woman said. That foolish boy, what he knew? I carried him for nine months. I took care of him. I fed him when he was hungry. Then he will take people country and give it away?Ms. Gayflor, by now, was sailing perilously close to getting fired for illegally campaigning as a government minister. A few days before the runoff, she called a meeting in a room at the gender ministry. She invited every female political candidate, no matter what party she belonged to, along with market women, female lawyers and anyone else she could think of who lacked a Y chromosome.That night, in the stuffy room, the women all stood, one by one, and pledged to support Mrs. Sirleaf, who was so overcome afterward she could barely stand upright. If I were a crying woman, she said, I would be crying right now. You have humbled me.The repercussions came the next day. Ms. Gayflor arrived at work to find reporters camped out on the ministrys steps. The questions came furiously.Ms. Gayflor was past the point of backing down. You take a former football player and give him our country? she shot back. Liberia is not a learning ground!She had one last shot to fire. Let me give you a goodbye statement, the soon-to-be-former minister said. Mrs. Sirleaf will be the next president of this country.On Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2005, the people of Liberia went to the polls for the second time in four weeks. There was a palpable sense in the air that something big was happening. International observers stationed themselves at polling places and voting booths; some 230 agencies, from the Carter Center to the European Union, showed up to chronicle the proceedings. Helicopters from the United Nations mission hovered overhead, a constant presence above the voting booth lines.But the helicopters could not see what was going on at a polling station in Sinkor. Helpful poll workers were allowing pregnant women and nursing mothers to cut to the front of the line. So Ms. Freeman who had been heckled weeks before by the young men waving white panties smeared with tomato paste and a handful of other women were passing around babies and toddlers.You want borrow the baby? Ms. Freeman grinned at one woman, sneaking a furtive look over her shoulder. Put the baby on your back. To another woman, she advised: Act pregnant. If they think you pregnant you can vote in front.It was unclear whether the poll workers noticed how many different women were carrying the same baby to vote on that Election Day in November 2005.And when the National Elections Commission, on Nov. 23, announced the election results Mrs. Sirleafs 59.4 percent to Mr. Weahs 40.6 percent Ms. Freeman wore a smile on her face. | World |
UFC's Tony Ferguson I'll Smash Khabib ... Then Conor McNuggets! 1/19/2018 UFC UFC interim lightweight champ Tony Ferguson says he's not worried about Conor McGregor's championship status ... promising he'll destroy "McNuggets" after beating Khabib Nurmagomedov. Tony and Khabib faced off at the UFC 222 & 223 news conference in Boston -- where Khabib promised to break Tony's arm when they face off in the Octagon on April 7. JANUARY 2018 UFC Dana White was asked several times if he will be stripping Conor of the lightweight title he won by defeating Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 ... but White isn't saying. Tony and Khabib don't seem to care too much -- winner gets Conor and a huuuuuuge payday. | Entertainment |
Credit...Matt Roth for The New York TimesMarch 1, 2016WASHINGTON The federal Medicare program and private health insurers waste nearly $3 billion every year buying cancer medicines that are thrown out because many drug makers distribute the drugs only in vials that hold too much for most patients, a group of cancer researchers has found.The expensive drugs are usually injected by nurses working in doctors offices and hospitals who carefully measure the amount needed for a particular patient and then, because of safety concerns, discard the rest.If drug makers distributed vials containing smaller quantities, nurses could pick the right volume for a patient and minimize waste. Instead, many drug makers exclusively sell one-size-fits-all vials, ensuring that many smaller patients pay thousands of dollars for medicine they are never given, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who published a study on Tuesday in BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.Some of these medicines are distributed in smaller vial sizes in Europe, where governments play a more active role than the United States does in drug pricing and distribution.Drug companies are quietly making billions forcing little old ladies to buy enough medicine to treat football players, and regulators have completely missed it, said Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering and a co-author of the study. If were ever going to start saving money in health care, this is an obvious place to cut.The researchers analyzed the waste generated by the top 20 selling cancer medicines and concluded that insurers paid drug makers $1.8 billion annually on discarded quantities and then spent about $1 billion on markups to doctors and hospitals.Some non-cancer drugs also generate considerable waste, including Remicade, an arthritis drug sold by Johnson & Johnson for which an estimated $500 million of the drugs $4.3 billion in annual sales comes from quantities that are thrown away, researchers found. But such non-cancer drugs were not included in the studys estimates of total waste.In one example, the study said that in the United States Takeda Pharmaceuticals sells Velcade, a drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma and lymphoma, only in 3.5-milligram vials that sell for $1,034 and hold enough medicine to treat a person who is 6 feet 6 inches tall and who weighs 250 pounds. If a patient is smaller, then a quantity of the precious powder is thrown away.Lena Haddad, 53, of Germantown, Md., who has been living with multiple myeloma for four years, now gets a weekly dose of 1.8 milligrams of Velcade. On a recent day at Ms. Haddads doctors office in Bethesda, Md., a nurse, Patricia Traylor, took a vial of Velcade from a large drug cabinet. She injected a syringeful of saline into the vial and shook it, pushed a needle into the vial and withdrew about half the contents. Then she threw out the vial with the remaining medicine.ImageCredit...Matt Roth for The New York TimesYou cant use the remainder for the patient the next time she comes in or use it on another patient, so it has to be discarded as waste, Ms. Traylor said.Safety standards permit nurses to use drug leftovers in other patients only if used within six hours and only in specialized pharmacies.Told that she was using only about half of the drug that was purchased, Ms. Haddad said she was shocked.No wonder my premiums keep going up, she said.Medicare and many private insurers charge patients drug co-payments of as much as 20 percent, which can add up to tens of thousands of dollars annually for the latest drugs; much is spent on cancer medicines that patients never receive, according to the study.Dr. Dixie-Lee Esseltine, vice president for oncology clinical research at Takeda, wrote in an email that the pharmaceutical firm worked closely with the F.D.A. to establish the Velcade vial size of 3.5 mg to ensure that one vial of Velcade would provide an adequate amount of the drug for a patient of almost any size.Velcade is sold in Britain in both 1-milligram and 3.5-milligram vials.Takeda is expected to earn $309 million this year on supplies of Velcade that are discarded, an amount that represents 30 percent of the drugs overall sales in the United States, the cancer researchers estimated. If Takeda provided an additional vial size of 0.25 milligram, waste would be slashed by 84 percent, also reducing Velcades sales in the United States by $261 million annually, the researchers calculated.You have these incredibly expensive drugs, and you can only buy them in bulk, said Dr. Leonard Saltz, who leads the pharmacy and therapeutics committee at Memorial Sloan Kettering and was a co-author of the study. Whats really interesting is theyre selling these drugs in smaller vials in Europe, where regulators are clearly paying attention to this issue.Christopher Kelly, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency objected to companies proposed vial sizes only if it believed that an excessively large volume of medicine could lead to medication errors or safety issues due to inappropriate multiple dosing.In other words, as long as nurses are not tempted to do anything but discard additional quantities, the drug agency is fine with extra-large, one-size-fits-all packaging. Congress has not given the drug agency the authority to consider cost in its decisions.Companies propose the vial sizes that they would like to market, Mr. Kelly said.Rising drug prices have been a concern for many years, and high initial prices and subsequent increases are an industrywide phenomenon. The last 10 cancer drugs approved before July 2015 have an average annual price of $190,217, and major drug makers routinely increase the prices of big sellers 10 percent or more each year, far above the rate of inflation.The industry explains that high prices are needed to fund research, but companies such as Pfizer and Merck spend just 17 percent of their revenues finding new drugs, according to their financial statements. Far more goes to marketing and profits.ImageCredit...Matt Roth for The New York TimesFor decades, cancer doctors largely ignored the issue of pricing, but as their patients became impoverished, some began to speak up. In 2012, Dr. Bach and Dr. Saltz wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times announcing that their hospital would not purchase a new cancer drug that was twice as expensive as but no more effective than an existing medicine. The maker of the drug slashed its price.Dr. Bach and Dr. Saltz say they have since become concerned that prices of new cancer medicines have almost no connection with their lifesaving potential. Dr. Bach recently unveiled a complex calculator of drug value.But there was nothing complex about measuring the value of a drug that was thrown away, Dr. Saltz said, since the value to the patient was zero.The two doctors have proposed that the government either mandate that drug makers provide medicines in enough vial sizes to minimize waste, or mandate that drug makers refund the government for wasted quantities.Dr. Saltz first noticed the problem of waste when he was considering adding Keytruda, a new drug for metastatic lung cancer and melanoma, to the hospitals list of drugs to be used on patients. Although a 150-pound patient would need 136 milligrams of the drug, Dr. Saltz noticed that Merck, its manufacturer, sold the medicine only in 50-milligram vials ensuring waste.I thought that was really cynical, Dr. Saltz said in an interview. And then it got worse.In February 2015, Merck introduced 100-milligram vials and stopped selling Keytruda in 50-milligram vials, ensuring far larger amounts of waste. The company still sells 50-milligram vials of the drug in Europe.Pamela L. Eisele, a Merck spokeswoman, said the company hoped to persuade the F.D.A. to approve a fixed dose of 200 milligrams of Keytruda for all patients, higher than the dose presently given to nearly all patients. In studies given to the drug agency, there was no evidence that the higher dose was more effective, Ms. Eisele said, but the fixed dose will eliminate wastage.Since the extra medicine does nothing to help patients, Dr. Bach said that the company was advocating that waste be injected into patients rather than thrown away.Under its present dosing, Merck would earn $2.4 billion over the next five years from discarded quantities of Keytruda, half of which would result from switching to 100-milligram vials, the researchers estimated.Some cancer drugs have little waste.Treanda, which is used to treat leukemia and non-Hodgkins lymphoma and is manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals, is packaged in four separate dosages so only 1 percent of the drug is wasted, on average.But 18 of the top 20 cancer medicines are sold in just one or two vial sizes, so on average 10 percent of the volume of cancer drugs purchased by doctors and hospitals is discarded, the researchers say. | Health |
DMX Here's What God Can Do for You And Here's a Shot, Too!!! 1/23/2018 TMZ.com DMX is in rehab for substance abuse, but apparently those substances don't include alcohol ... based on this video of the rapper preaching ... in a Chili's bar!! X was at the airport bar and grill Monday night in St. Louis when he started breaking down what the man upstairs has done for him in times of need. He'd been in town for a concert with E-40, but obviously still had some words of wisdom to share before leaving town. Eyewitnesses tell us the rapper was buying everyone shots, and had some booze himself. His lawyer, Murray Richman, tells TMZ he's surprised because X is supposed to be traveling with his sober coach. As we reported ... X has been given the green light to travel quite a bit as he completes his rehab. He's set to keep his shows going this week in NYC. | Entertainment |
Some girls are starting to develop breasts as early as age 6 or 7. Researchers are studying the role of obesity, chemicals and stress.Credit...Eleni KalorkotiPublished May 19, 2022Updated May 23, 2022Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.Marcia Herman-Giddens first realized something was changing in young girls in the late 1980s, while she was serving as the director for the child abuse team at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. During evaluations of girls who had been abused, Dr. Herman-Giddens noticed that many of them had started developing breasts at ages as young as 6 or 7.That did not seem right, said Dr. Herman-Giddens, who is now an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. She wondered whether girls with early breast development were more likely to be sexually abused, but she could not find any data keeping track of puberty onset in girls in the United States. So she decided to collect it herself.A decade later, she published a study of more than 17,000 girls who underwent physical examinations at pediatricians offices across the country. The numbers revealed that, on average, girls in the mid-1990s had started to develop breasts typically the first sign of puberty around age 10, more than a year earlier than previously recorded. The decline was even more striking in Black girls, who had begun developing breasts, on average, at age 9.The medical community was shocked by the findings, and many were doubtful about a dramatic new trend spotted by an unknown physician assistant, Dr. Herman-Giddens recalled. They were blindsided, she said.But the study turned out to be a watershed in the medical understanding of puberty. Studies in the decades since have confirmed, in dozens of countries, that the age of puberty in girls has dropped by about three months per decade since the 1970s. A similar pattern, though less extreme, has been observed in boys.Although it is difficult to tease apart cause and effect, earlier puberty may have harmful impacts, especially for girls. Girls who go through puberty early are at a higher risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and other psychological problems, compared with peers who hit puberty later. Girls who get their periods earlier may also be at a higher risk of developing breast or uterine cancer in adulthood.No one knows what risk factor or more likely, what combination of factors is driving the age decline or why there are stark race- and sex-based differences. Obesity seems to be playing a role, but it cannot fully explain the change. Researchers are also investigating other potential influences, including chemicals found in certain plastics and stress. And for unclear reasons, doctors across the world have reported a rise in early puberty cases during the pandemic.We are seeing these marked changes in all our children, and we dont know how to prevent it if we wanted to, said Dr. Anders Juul, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Copenhagen who has published two recent studies on the phenomenon. We dont know what is the cause.ObesityAround the time that Dr. Herman-Giddens published her landmark study, Dr. Juuls research group examined breast development in a cohort of 1,100 girls in Copenhagen. Unlike the American children, the Danish group matched the pattern long described in medical textbooks: Girls began developing breasts at an average age of 11 years old.I was interviewed quite a lot about the U.S. puberty boom, as we called it, said Dr. Juul. And I said, its not happening in Denmark.At the time, Dr. Juul suggested that the earlier onset of puberty in the United States was probably tied to a rise in childhood obesity, which had not occurred in Denmark.Obesity has been linked to earlier periods in girls since the 1970s. Numerous studies since have established that girls who are overweight or obese tend to start their periods earlier than girls of average weights do.In one decades-long study of nearly 1,200 girls in Louisiana published in 2003, childhood obesity was linked to earlier periods: Each standard deviation above the average childhood weight was associated with a doubled chance of having a period before age 12.And in 2021, researchers from Britain found that leptin, a hormone released by fat cells that limits hunger, acted on a part of the brain that also regulated sexual development. Mice and people with certain genetic mutations in this region experienced later sexual development.I dont think theres much controversy that obesity is a major contributor to early puberty these days, said Dr. Natalie Shaw, a pediatric endocrinologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences who has studied the effects of obesity on puberty.Still, she added, many girls who develop early are not overweight.Obesity cant explain all of this, Dr. Shaw said. Its just happened too quickly.ChemicalsIn the decade after the Herman-Giddens study, Dr. Juul began noticing an increase in the number of referrals for early puberty in Copenhagen, mostly of girls who were developing breasts at 7 or 8 years old.And then we thought, Is this a real phenomenon? Dr. Juul said. Or, he wondered, had parents and doctors become hysterical because of the news coverage of Dr. Herman-Giddenss study?In a 2009 study of nearly 1,000 school-aged girls in Copenhagen, his team found that the average age of breast development had dropped by a year since his earlier study, to a little under 10, with most girls ranging from 7 to 12 years old. Girls were also getting their periods earlier, around age 13, about four months earlier than what he had reported before.Thats a very marked change in a very short period of time, Dr. Juul said.But, unlike doctors in the United States, he did not think obesity was to blame: The body mass index of the Danish children in the 2009 cohort was no different than it had been in the 1990s.Dr. Juul has become one of the most vocal proponents of an alternate theory: that chemical exposures are to blame. The girls with the earliest breast development in his 2009 study, he said, had the highest urine levels of phthalates, substances used to make plastics more durable that are found in everything from vinyl flooring to food packaging.Phthalates belong to a broader class of chemicals called endocrine disrupters, which can affect the behavior of hormones and have become ubiquitous in the environment over the past several decades. But the evidence that they are driving earlier puberty is murky.In a review article published last month, Dr. Juul and a team of researchers analyzed hundreds of studies looking at endocrine disrupters and their effects on puberty. The methods of the studies varied widely; some were done in boys, others in girls, and they tested for many different chemicals at different ages of exposure. In the end, the analysis included 23 studies that were similar enough to compare, but it was unable to show a clear association between any individual chemical and the age of puberty.The big takeaway is that theres few publications and a paucity of data to explore this question, said Dr. Russ Hauser, an environmental epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a co-author of the analysis.That lack of data has led many scientists to be skeptical of the theory, said Dr. Hauser, who recently reported on how endocrine disrupters affect puberty in boys. We dont have enough data to build a strong case for a specific class of chemicals.ImageCredit...Eleni KalorkotiStress and lifestyleOther factors may also be involved in earlier puberty, at least in girls. Sexual abuse in early childhood has been linked to earlier puberty onset. Causal arrows are difficult to draw, however. Stress and trauma could prompt earlier development, or, as Dr. Herman-Giddens hypothesized decades ago, girls who physically develop earlier could be more vulnerable to abuse.Girls whose mothers have a history of mood disorders also seem more likely to reach puberty early, as are girls who do not live with their biological fathers. Lifestyle factors like a lack of physical activity have also been linked to changes in pubertal timing.And during the pandemic, pediatric endocrinologists from across the world noticed that referrals were increasing for earlier puberty in girls. A study published in Italy in February showed that 328 girls were referred to five clinics across the country during a seven month period in 2020, compared with 140 during the same period in 2019. (No difference was found in boys.) Anecdotally, the same thing might be happening in India, Turkey and the United States.Ive asked my colleagues around the country and a number of them are saying, yes, were seeing a similar trend, said Dr. Paul Kaplowitz, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at Childrens National Hospital in Washington. Its unclear whether the trend was caused by increased stress, a more sedentary lifestyle or parents being in close enough quarters with their children to notice early changes.Several factors are most likely contributing at once. And many of these issues disproportionately impact lower-income families, which may partly explain the racial differences in puberty onset in the United States, the researchers said.A new normal?For decades, medical textbooks have defined the stages of puberty using the so-called Tanner Scale, which was based on close observations between 1949 and 1971 of about 700 girls and boys who had lived in an orphanage in England.The scale defines normal puberty as starting at age 8 or above for girls and age 9 or above for boys. If puberty begins younger than those cutoffs, doctors are supposed to screen the child for a rare hormonal disorder called central precocious puberty, which can spur puberty as early as infancy. Children with this disorder often undergo brain scans and take prescribed puberty-blocking drugs to delay sexual development until an appropriate age.But some experts argue that the age threshold for alarm should be lowered. Otherwise, they said, healthy children could be referred to specialists and undergo unnecessary medical procedures, which can be physically taxing and expensive.Theres plenty more data that age 8 is not the optimal cutoff for separating normal from abnormal, Dr. Kaplowitz said. In 1999, he argued that the age cutoff for normal puberty should be lowered to age 7 in white girls and 6 in Black girls. That did not go over too well, he recalled.That stance, though, was bolstered by a recent study from Dr. Juuls group showing that, of 205 pubertal children younger than 8 who underwent brain scans, just 1.8 percent of girls and 12.5 percent of boys had brain abnormalities indicating central precocious puberty.But lowering the age cutoff remains controversial, with many pediatricians arguing that the risk of a disorder is still large enough to justify extra precautions. Others, like Dr. Herman-Giddens, say that the changes are a sign of a legitimate public health problem and should not be accepted as normal.It might be normal in the sense of what the data are showing, Dr. Herman-Giddens said, but I dont think its normal, for lack of a better word, for what nature intended. | science |
Patients Face Long Delays for Imaging of Cancers and Other DiseasesMany U.S. hospitals are postponing scans used to diagnose diseases after a Covid lockdown in China hobbled the main U.S. supplier of an imaging chemical.Credit...Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesMay 26, 2022Doctors cannot seem to pinpoint what is wrong with Michael Quintos.Mr. Quintos, 53, a Chicago resident, has constant stomach pain. He has been hospitalized, and his doctors have tried everything including antibiotics, antacids, even removing his appendix. I still dont feel good, Mr. Quintos said.His doctors recommend using a CT scan with contrast, imaging that relies on a special dye often injected into patients to better visualize their blood vessels, intestines and organs like the kidney and liver.But a nationwide shortage of the imaging agents needed for the procedure the result of the recent lockdown in Shanghai to quell a Covid outbreak has prompted hospitals to ration these tests except in emergencies.Like thousands of others in recent weeks, Mr. Quintos cannot get an exam using the contrast dye.And an alternative may not be enough to determine how to treat his illness. The fact you cant figure it out tells me you need more tools to figure it out, he said.An estimated 50 million exams with contrast agents are performed each year in the United States, and as many as half the nations hospitals are affected by the shortage. Some are reserving much of their supply on hand for use in emergency rooms where quick, accurate assessments are most dire.The shortage of a vital imaging agent is the latest example of the countrys vulnerability to disruptions in the global supply chain and its overreliance on a small number of manufacturers for such critical products. The Shanghai plant shuttered by the lockdown is operated by GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric and one of two major suppliers of the iodinated contrast materials. The company supplies its dyes, Omnipaque and Visipaque, for the United States.Lawmakers expressed concern about the scarcity of imaging agents. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, there should be no reason doctors are forced to ration lifesaving medical scans to compensate for a shortage of material, Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a statement. We are seeing supply chains break down because of consolidated industries experiencing manufacturing shortages and offshoring American jobs to China.Testifying before a Senate committee on Thursday, Dr. Robert Califf, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said the shortage of contrast media was just unbelievable. Noting that some members of Congress had recently suffered serious illnesses, he added: Someone with a stroke or heart attack wouldnt be able to get an angiogram.Shortages of the dye were reported to the F.D.A. earlier this month, and it said it was working closely with manufacturers to help minimize the impact on patients. Yet even though GE Healthcare said this week that the situation was improving now that the plant had reopened, the shortages and patient delays could persist well into the summer because of a lag in how quickly replenished supplies could be distributed.Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, is pressing the agency to see what steps it is taking to address the shortage, according to a statement from her office. She has also introduced legislation, with Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, to strengthen the supply chain.The hits just keep on coming in this pandemic in the supply chain, said Dr. Jamie McCarthy, the chief physician executive at Memorial Hermann Health System, a large hospital group in Houston.Health officials and doctors worry that the low supply and prolonged waits for tests will exacerbate earlier delays in care caused by the pandemic, when hospitals were overrun with Covid patients, they were facing sizable backlogs to get tests and elective procedures were canceled or postponed for months. Patients who overlooked troubling new symptoms or could not get follow-up appointments have suffered deteriorating health in many cases. Some doctors report more cancer patients with advanced-stage disease as a result.We continue to be concerned about the impact of the delayed, deferred or ignored screening over the last few years, said Dr. William Dahut, the chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.The lack of contrast dye in an exam can make it more difficult to diagnose cancer, he said, and can make it harder to see if a treatment is working. Patients could be in a situation where clinical decisions are going to be negatively impacted, Dr. Dahut said.In addition to using contrast with a CT angiogram to determine whether patients have a blood clot or internal bleeding, doctors often rely on CT scans with contrast to spot infections, bowel blockages or cancers. Doctors are also delaying some cardiac catheterizations.The shortage does not affect people undergoing mammograms and screenings for lung cancer because they do not require the imaging agents, and some patients may be able to have an M.R.I. in place of a CT scan or have the exam performed without contrast.But for many others, the shortage leaves them in limbo. Its definitely causing more stress for patients, said Dr. Shikha Jain, an oncologist in Chicago. There are patients who are getting frustrated because scans are delayed or canceled.How long and to what extent the shortage will affect patient care is difficult to predict. For health care workers, for whom supply shortages and the pandemic have been so relentlessly taxing, it feels like a never-ending marathon, she said.ImageCredit...Aly Song/ReutersAt Memorial Hermann, the system has throttled back its use of contrast for elective procedures, Dr. McCarthy said, to preserve its supplies. The daily volume of CT scans being performed with contrast is about half of what it normally is, he says.At ChristianaCare, a Delaware-based hospital group, the supply depletion problem emerged in mid-May, and became a serious issue very quickly, said Dr. Kirk Garratt, the medical director for the groups heart and vascular health center and a former president of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. When other area hospitals began running out of dye, they started sending patients to ChristianaCare. It impacted our burn rate, he said.Were really worried here, Dr. Garratt said. Explaining why elective procedures were being delayed, he added: We feel we have to make this change now to ensure we have a supply so we can keep doing the urgent care we need.A patient who fails an exercise stress test that may indicate a heart problem but is not in imminent danger is likely to wait for a scan and be treated with medications. But if a patient enters the emergency room and is sweating, with severe chest pain, an angiogram requiring contrast dye is immediately ordered to determine whether the person is suffering a heart attack.We either fix that now, or in a few hours it will be too late to save you, Dr. Garratt said.Hospitals generally rely on a single supplier for their contrast agents, and many facilities may have only a week or two of supply on hand, says Dr. Matthew Davenport, vice chair of the commission on quality and safety for the American College of Radiology and a professor at Michigan Medicine.He likens the situation to the current scarcity of baby formula, where only a handful of companies serve a critical market. There is not a lot of redundancy in the system, Dr. Davenport said.GE Healthcare said in a statement on Monday that its supply of iodinated contrast media products was increasing, although it did not provide an estimate for when the shortage would end. We are working around the clock to expand production and return to full capacity as soon as possible and in line with local authorities in China, the company said.After having to close our Shanghai manufacturing facility for several weeks due to local Covid policies, we have been able to reopen and are utilizing our other global plants wherever we can, the statement read.GE Healthcare said the plant was operating at 60 percent capacity and would be at 75 percent within the next two weeks. It also said it had taken other steps like increasing production of the products at its plant in Cork, Ireland, and flying some shipments to the United States.The company also said it was distributing the dye to hospitals based on their historical supply needs, which doctors said could prevent large hospital systems from stockpiling excessive amounts.Bracco Imaging, the other producer based in Milan, said in a statement that it was working to deliver supplies even to hospitals that were not customers to shore up use for critical emergency procedures, according to Fulvio Renoldi Bracco, the companys chief executive. In a statement, he said that Bracco had also submitted a request to the F.D.A. for the potential importation of an equivalent agent that had not been approved for use in the United States. The agency declined to comment on the request.Nancy Foster, the vice president of quality and patient safety policy for the American Hospital Association, a trade group in Washington, likened the situation to the short supply of oxygen, among other treatment machines and remedies, during the pandemic. The group has urged G.E. to share more information about the shortage.We need to figure out how to really create a much more robust, not as lean, supply system that has some give to it, she said. | Health |
The New Old AgeMost Medicare beneficiaries dont compare plans during open enrollment season, and may be paying more, or accepting more restrictions, than they should.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesPublished Oct. 30, 2021Updated Nov. 1, 2021One morning last month, Eunice Korsah, a retired nurse in Burke, Va., spent about half an hour on the phone being guided through the complexities of various plans for Medicare Part D, which covers prescription drugs.Her current drug plan was being discontinued and the insurer wanted to move her into one with sharply higher premiums. I decided, No way, she said. But what to replace it with? She looked at the Medicare website for Part D plans available in Fairfax County and found 23, with monthly premiums ranging from $7.10 to $97.30. There are so many choices, so I wanted someone to clarify them for me, she said.Jack Hoadley, a health policy researcher at Georgetown University, was on the other end of the call with Ms. Korsah. He has for two years volunteered with the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, or SHIP, the federally funded, free counseling service that helps Medicare beneficiaries find the coverage thats best for them.Some very smart people just dont know how Medicare works and get confused, Dr. Hoadley said. For example, it can make a $1,000-a-year difference if youre willing to try several different pharmacies.Ms. Korsah, 74, and her son had already compiled a list of her eight medications for blood pressure, cholesterol, acid reflux and glaucoma and their doses. Using the online Medicare Plan Finder, Dr. Hoadley narrowed the field to three suitable selections.With the cheapest plan, from Wellcare, Ms. Korsahs estimated total yearly drug and premium costs (the magic number, he said) would be $301 a year if she used a CVS or Giant pharmacy but $1,125 if she took the same prescriptions to a Walmart. Conversely, a Humana plan would cost $525 a year through a Walmart pharmacy, but more than twice that at CVS. With a Cigna plan, the best deal involved a mail-order pharmacy.In theory, all beneficiaries who have traditional Medicare with Part D coverage, or who are interested in or enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs (an all-in-one alternative offered through private insurers), should be making similar calculations during this annual open enrollment period, from Oct. 15 until Dec. 7. Its the reason that insurers pitches for plans are showing up in their mailboxes and inboxes, and on TV ads featuring Joe Namath and Jimmie Dyn-o-mite Walker.The idea is that consumers can re-evaluate what coverage is best for them, said Tricia Neuman, the executive director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Since each year brings changes to Part D and Medicare Advantage in premiums, benefits, co-payments and provider networks shopping around makes sense.But thats not what happens.For 2019, 71 percent of beneficiaries said they didnt compare plans during the open enrollment period, according to a Kaiser study published last month. The rate was even higher among Black and Hispanic beneficiaries, people over 85 and those with lower income and fewer years of education precisely the groups most likely to require more medical services and drugs, and least able to pay high costs.Roughly half of respondents had never visited the official Medicare website, used its 1-800-MEDICARE help line or read the Medicare & You handbook that annually arrives by mail.Accordingly, theres not a lot of switching, Dr. Neuman said. Kaiser found that in 2019, only eight to 10 percent of beneficiaries voluntarily changed their Medicare Advantage or stand-alone Part D plans.ImageCredit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesSome of that inertia may reflect peoples satisfaction with their coverage; it might also indicate an overwhelming amount of choice. For 2022, beneficiaries face an average of 33 Medicare Advantage plans to select from (but 56 in Philadelphia and 63 in Cincinnati) and 30 stand-alone Part D plans.It is hopelessly, needlessly complicated and it continues to get more complicated, said David Lipschutz, associate director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. The entire system relies on savvy actors maximizing their choices, and that just does not happen.Even those who are motivated to comparison shop can have trouble finding reliable information. Most overtures and ads come from brokers or agents with financial incentives, though the offers may mimic official Medicare communications.Moreover, brokers typically only market a portion of plans, sometimes excluding the most advantageous, a fact theyre not required to disclose, said Gretchen Jacobson, a vice president of Medicare at the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation which supports health research.The Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit group, has charged that Medicare itself has shown bias toward private Medicare Advantage plans in its promotional materials, starting in 2017. They started overplaying some of the benefits and downplaying some of the negatives, said Mr. Lipschutz. I think they wanted private health insurers to thrive.Medicare has since resumed a more neutral stance, but they still have a way to go, Mr. Lipschutz said.As for the star ratings that Medicare awards, critics have begun to invoke the Lake Wobegon effect (after the radio personality Garrison Keillors fictional town where the children are all above average). Medicare gave four stars or higher to 68 percent of 2022 Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage, making the rankings less than useful for comparisons.How much does all this matter? With Part D, choosing the most cost-effective plan goes beyond a financial issue, because skipping unaffordable medications can have health consequences. And choosing between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage involves substantial differences in the health care experience.Medicare Advantage plans, so increasingly popular that 42 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are now enrolled in one, offer one-stop shopping. They include a Part D benefit, and dont require a supplemental Medigap policy to cover co-payments and deductibles.They put a cap on out-of-pocket expenses ($7,550 for in-network coverage in 2021). They also promote extra benefits like dental, hearing and vision coverage, and transportation though they may not be very generous, Dr. Jacobson said. However, some services arent available to everyone in the plan, and beneficiaries cant learn if theyll qualify until after theyve enrolled.Medicare Advantage also restricts full coverage only to doctors, hospitals and pharmacies within their networks; if patients go outside the network, they face higher costs or may have to pay entirely out of pocket. In-network providers change frequently, and it can be challenging to ascertain which ones a plan includes.Except for emergency or urgent care, Medicare Advantage coverage may not extend outside beneficiaries county or state. If youre in Albany, you may not be able to get care in New York City, Dr. Jacobson said. Advantage plans also often require preauthorization from the insurer for services and drugs.With traditional Medicare, you can see any provider you want to at any time, without getting prior approval, Dr. Jacobson said. Its accepted nationally. But factoring in a private Medigap policy and a separate Part D plan sometimes pushes overall costs higher.Still, a recent Commonwealth Fund analysis found that traditional Medicare and Advantage plans (excluding special needs plans) now attract similar populations in terms of demographics and health, with high rates of satisfaction in both groups (though both reported waiting more than a month for a doctors appointment).Advantage beneficiaries are more likely to receive some care management services, such as a review of their medications, the study found. But when it comes to patients health, it doesnt seem to change the outcomes much, Dr. Jacobson said, because hospitalization and emergency room use were roughly the same for both groups.That raises the question of whether the federal government should continue paying Advantage plans 4 percent more per beneficiary than it pays for those in traditional Medicare. Everyone who pays a Part B premium, which is almost every beneficiary, winds up subsidizing that higher cost.But for now, its open enrollment season. SHIP programs in every state, with 12,500 trained team members, represent the best source of unbiased information and work with more than 2.5 million people each year.Ms. Korsah, who opted for traditional Medicare because she wants to be able to choose her doctors, signed up with the low-cost Wellcare Part D plan and will probably pay less for drugs than she did last year.So she appreciated Dr. Hoadleys counsel. He was a great help, she said. | Health |
Stranger Things' Kids Fat Joe, Cardi B Got Us Like ... 1/22/2018 TMZ.com The kids from "Stranger Things" got in each other's face ... for an awesome dance-off!!! The kiddos were getting down Sunday night at the Sunset Tower Hotel for the Netflix SAG Awards after-party ... and leading the way were Millie Bobby Brown and Gaten Matarazzo as Fat Joe's "Lean Back" blared from the speakers. Actors Lonnie Chavis ("This is Us") and Marsai Martin ("Black-ish") also joined in on the fun. The kids went wild when Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow" came on. Huge little fans for sure. See also Fat Joe Cardi B Millie Bobby Brown Netflix Party All The Time Awards / Awards Shows Stranger Things Exclusive | Entertainment |
Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesJune 4, 2018WASHINGTON It started, like so many things do in the age of Trump, with a morning tweet.The president of the United States took to Twitter on Monday to tout all that he had accomplished in his first 500 days in office, many believe more than any president in his first 500 days, he tweeted.Before long, many of those believers felt compelled to publicly agree, and, as it happened, many of them were from inside President Trumps own administration. Cabinet secretaries and federal agencies from across the government flooded social media with messages congratulating Mr. Trump on his milestone and his accomplishments, some thanking the president personally and noting, they said, that he had delivered on his promises.Today marks @POTUS 500th Day in office, and just as he promised, the border wall has begun construction, the official Department of Homeland Security Twitter account said in a posting that was soon recirculated by the White House. After 500 days in office, U.S. leadership is back on the world stage as the result of @POTUSs policies, the State Department proclaimed.From ensuring clean air and water to reducing burdensome regulations, EPA celebrates @POTUS President Trumps 500th day in office, the Environmental Protection Agency declared, adopting the White House phrase on the occasion: 500 Days of American Greatness. Scott Pruitt, the agencys administrator who has been mired in scandals but is a personal favorite of Mr. Trumps, posted a 500-day news release from his official account that concluded: THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP! underneath an aerial photograph of the president in the Rose Garden.Other administration officials got into the act, as well. Linda McMahon, the head of the Small Business Administration, praised Mr. Trump for cutting 22 regulations for every one created, while Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said that the president in his first 500 days has made America SAFER & STRONGER, through increased energy production.There is nothing uncommon about the White House starting a coordinated effort to call attention to a presidents accomplishments at a major milestone, such as the 100-day mark or the end of a year, when top officials there often assemble and circulate talking points to federal agencies and communicators on Capitol Hill. What was striking on Monday was the over-the-top nature of some of the praise, which recalled a cabinet meeting last year in which the top officials on Mr. Trumps team took turns offering worshipful statements about the president in front of news cameras.Whats unusual is the thanking of the president, which just kind of seems a little obsequious, but its entirely in keeping with the Dear Leader tone of that meeting last year, said Chris Lu, who managed the cabinet during President Barack Obamas first term and is a senior fellow at the University of Virginias Miller Center. You almost wonder whether this is orchestrated from the White House, or cabinet members themselves know by now that this is what the president wants to hear.It may have been a bit of both. White House officials circulated talking points to federal agencies and to Capitol Hill on Monday noting that they would be calling attention to Mr. Trumps 500th day, and that they would like their allies to do the same.As always, we appreciate you flagging any statements or social media posts your offices may issue regarding 500 Days of American Greatness, said one such note, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. Thank you for your help amplifying the message.In the past, Mr. Trump has ridiculed the traditional scorekeeping measures of presidential accomplishment, pooh-poohing the 100-day mark last year only to launch a full-fledged campaign complete with briefings, receptions and even a website to portray his own first 100 days as the most successful ever.On Monday, the White House staff rolled out an elaborate raft of social media-friendly content, including a special GIF and several watermarked images bearing facts and figures, to celebrate 500 days, a milestone that few presidents have highlighted.The 100-day obsession has its roots in the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in the Great Depression and quickly signed 15 major measures into law, a rare feat that his predecessors have struggled to replicate, but Mr. Trump has not come close on the legislative front.On Monday, he touted the $1.5 trillion tax cut he signed into law; the confirmation of federal judges, including Neil M. Gorsuch on the Supreme Court; the repeal of the individual health care mandate which required people to purchase health insurance or pay a fine and legislation to make it easier to fire people for misconduct at the Department of Veterans Affairs and expanding veterans access to private health care.On red, white and blue watermarked banners, the White House also listed the creation of three million new jobs, withdrawal from the horrible Iran deal, denuclearization talks with North Korea and fighting MS-13 animals as signature accomplishments.But 500 days has also passed with its share of frustrations for Mr. Trump.Despite what the Department of Homeland Securitys tweet said, Mr. Trump has not been able to secure substantial funding or congressional approval to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico to keep out unauthorized immigrants.His drive to repeal the Affordable Care Act stalled in Congress, a fact he alluded to in his tweet, writing that it would have passed except for one person, a reference to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who voted against the plan and is currently at home because he has brain cancer. The $1 trillion infrastructure plan the president promised will not, the White House recently acknowledged, go anywhere this year.Mr. Trump sounded frustrated at one point on Monday not to be receiving more credit upon the quincentennial of his first day as president, saying the Fake News Media was desperate to distract from good economic news and instead focus on the phony Russian Witch Hunt.But even as his cabinet secretaries rushed to tout his successes, the president himself could not focus on his 500 days of greatness for long. Less than 20 minutes after tweeting about his accomplishments, Mr. Trump was on to the next thing: declaring that he had the absolute right to pardon himself, setting off a day of questions about whether he believes that he is above the law.And as his 500th day drew to a close, Mr. Trump let it be known that he was not about to let his critics mar his celebration. In a terse statement, he announced on Monday that he had called off a planned reception for the Philadelphia Eagles on Tuesday at the White House, after some team members said they would stay away because of Mr. Trumps insistence that N.F.L. players stand for the national anthem. The president said he would be there at 3 p.m. anyway, to celebrate America. | Politics |
The state is imposing more restrictions on fishing this year as the combination of extreme conditions, including low river levels, fish die-offs and the crush of anglers, poses long-term problems.Credit...Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesJuly 23, 2021HELENA, Mont. Few places in the world rival Montanas fly fishing, and the states cold, clear mountain streams are renowned for their large populations of trout, especially the rainbow and brown.But this is a drought year, and a confluence of extreme conditions now threatens the states legendary waters. Higher temperatures early in the year, worryingly low river levels, fish die-offs and pressure from the crush of anglers yearning to recapture a year lost to the pandemic have swirled into a growing crisis.This week the state announced a slate of new restrictions, including outright closures, for some of the top trout streams.And a new coalition of businesses, fly fishing guides and environmentalists warned that the severe drought may not be a temporary problem and that the states fisheries could be nearing collapse.The coalition, which includes Orvis, the fly fishing company, and the clothing manufacturer Patagonia, sent Gov. Greg Gianforte a letter Wednesday seeking the creation of a task force to address the decline of the fisheries.Between early season fish kills, unnaturally warm water temperatures and low trout numbers, its an all hands on deck moment, said John Arnold, owner of Headhunters Fly Shop in Craig, along the Missouri River, one of the states premier fisheries.The coalition said that the conditions not only threatened the fisheries, but also would be devastating for businesses. If water quality in our rivers continues to decline, and our rivers themselves dry up, these negative changes will also tank our states robust outdoor economy that directly depends on upon vibrant cold water fisheries, the group stated in its letter.This is a really unique, ecologically speaking, part of the world, said Guy Alsentzer, the executive director of Upper Missouri Waterkeeper. These rivers are really hurting and they need cold, clean water.The crisis is occurring as the state was just beginning to recover from the pandemic, with tourists and fishing enthusiasts returning in large numbers. Anglers of all kinds spend nearly $500 million a year in Montana, according to the American Sportfishing Association.In addition to low river levels and even dry sections of some small streams, dead trout have been found floating in rivers around the state, a sight that in other seasons was rare. And there has been a mysterious, steep decline in one of the most sought-after fish, brown trout, over the last several years in southwest Montana.ImageCredit...Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesImageCredit...Wade FellinTrout thrive in water between 45 and 60 degrees. Temperatures in some rivers have hit the low-70s much earlier than usual. At those temperatures the fish are lethargic because there is less oxygen in the water and they quit feeding; the stress of being caught by fishers in that weakened state can kill them. Around 75 degrees can be lethal to trout.Montanas rivers and streams are wild trout fisheries, which means that unlike in most states, rivers there are not stocked with hatchery-reared trout. If populations crash, the states wild trout would have to rebound on their own, which could take years or might not happen at all.Low flows and warm temperatures are affecting sport fishing across the West, from California to Colorado. On the Klamath River in Northern California, the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery could not, for the first time in its 55-year history, stock the river with young hatchery-reared salmon and steelhead because extremely low flows and warmer water temperatures have increased infections from C. shasta, a parasite.Utah has doubled the allowable limit for fishers because low water levels are expected to kill many fish in the streams. In Colorado, state officials asked people not to fish a 120-mile-long stretch of the Colorado River in the north-central region because of low river levels and warmer water.The water temperatures have been above 70 degrees for multiple days in a row, said Travis Duncan, a spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. And there is a potential for more closures as we get further along in the season.On Tuesday, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks imposed hoot owl restrictions on the Missouri River, one of the most popular trout fishing sites in the state, between Helena and Great Falls because of warm water temperatures. The rule bans fishing after 2 p.m. (The term hoot owl restrictions stems from the early days of the timber industry. Loggers work early in the mornings of late summer, when its cooler, because the forests are dry and that increases the risk of chain saws or other equipment sparking a fire. Loggers often heard owls during their early morning shifts.)Yellowstone National Park announced that, beginning on Saturday, it would shut down fishing on its rivers and streams after 2 p.m. until sunrise the following day, citing water temperatures exceeding 68 degrees and extremely low river flows. These conditions are extremely stressful and can be fatal to fish, the park said in a news release.Although restrictions are often put in place at some point in the summer season, this year is unusual.From what we know historically, this is unprecedented in the extent of limits that have been imposed, said Eileen Ryce, the administrator for the states fisheries division.Compounding the situation here is the decline over several years in brown trout populations in the southwestern part of the state, including the Big Hole, Ruby, Yellowstone, Madison and Beaverhead Rivers, some of the top destinations for fly fishers.ImageCredit...Nathan Howard/Associated PressImageCredit...Tailyr Irvine for The New York TimesThis year on the Big Hole River, for example, on one of the most popular stretches, a May census found 400 brown trout per mile, down from 1,800 in 2014. The Beaverhead River has dropped to 1,000 from 2,000 brown trout per mile. And those counts were conducted early in the season, before the onset of this summers extreme conditions. The state is considering long-term restrictions on all of these rivers, which could include release of all brown trout or shutting down fishing in some places.What, precisely, is causing the decline over such a large regional area of the Upper Missouri River Watershed is stumping experts, especially since brown trout are traditionally a hardy, resilient species, able to handle warmer temperatures. Many attribute the decreases, at least in part, to shifting river conditions caused by climate change.Oddly enough, an unintended benefit of the raging wildfires in the West has been the smoky skies, which may be keeping the rivers from getting even warmer by reducing the amount of direct sunlight.Meanwhile, on the Beaverhead and Bitterroot Rivers, anglers have reported seeing fish with large lesions whose cause is still unknown.Beyond hoot owl limits, those who fish have been asked to rapidly land their catch and carefully and quickly release them, to minimize the stress of handling and reduce the potential for killing them.Other factors threatening Montanas trout include agricultural changes.Ranchers used to primarily flood irrigate their fields, which returned about half the water to the river system. Now many use pivot irrigation systems, which are far more efficient and use nearly all of the water.We may have altered groundwater so much that brown trout havent been able to adapt, said Patrick Byorth, the director of Trout Unlimiteds water project for Montana. The group is a nonprofit focused on fisheries.Water pollution also adds to the problem. Increasing construction near resort areas along the Gallatin River near Yellowstone National Park, for instance, has contributed, with storm water runoff and septic systems sending phosphorus and nitrogen into the Gallatin River, causing algae blooms. The bloom is exacerbated by warmer temperatures and lower flows.One big question that cant be answered is whether this is just a bad year, or a part of a more permanent change in the climate, a long-term aridification of the West.Mr. Arnold, the fly-fishing guide who has worked on the Missouri River for decades, said the decline in trout populations has been occurring over a longer span of time than just this year. My top guides could put 60 fish in the boat in a day, he said. Now half of that would be considered a good day.Its all climate-change related, Mr. Arnold said. Twenty years ago, nobody fished in November and March because it was so cold, he recalled. Now they do. Its starting to feel like a downward spiral.ImageCredit...Tailyr Irvine for The New York Times | science |
Health|F.D.A. Asks Drug Maker to Stop Selling a Dangerous Opioidhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/health/fda-opioid-opana-er.htmlJune 8, 2017On Thursday, for the first time in its history, the Food and Drug Administration asked a drug company to take an opioid medication off the market because of concerns about drug abuse.The drug, Opana ER a form of the painkiller oxymorphone hydrochloride has been heavily abused and linked to outbreaks of H.I.V., hepatitis C and a serious blood disorder among people who crush the pills into powder and inject it.The move by the F.D.A. may signal a more aggressive approach against prescription opioids that are found to be widely abused.We are facing an opioid epidemic a public health crisis, and we must take all necessary steps to reduce the scope of opioid misuse and abuse, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the F.D.A. commissioner, said in a statement released by the agency. He added that the F.D.A. would continue to take regulatory steps against products fueling the epidemic.The drugs maker, Endo Pharmaceuticals, responded with a statement saying that it was reviewing the request and evaluating the full range of potential options as we determine the appropriate path forward. Endo has global headquarters in Dublin and United States headquarters in Malvern, Pa.If Endo does not take the drug off the market, the F.D.A. intends to take steps to formally require its removal by withdrawing approval, the agency said in its news release.Opana ER is an extended-release painkiller that was first approved in 2006. Drug users began to crush it so they could snort it or inject it to get high.In 2012, Endo replaced the original version with a new formulation that was meant to thwart abuse by making the pills resistant to crushing and dissolving in liquid for injection.Users found ways to inject the drug anyway, and the problems worsened after the new formulation was introduced, an F.D.A. spokeswoman said.She said generic forms of the original version were still available, and the F.D.A. is looking at abuse patterns of those drugs to determine whether they, too, should be taken off the market.Dr. Gottlieb said in an interview that trying to end the opioid epidemic will continue to be one of my highest priorities, if not my highest priority. | Health |
Health|U.S. Malaria Donations Saved Almost 2 Million African Childrenhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/health/us-foreign-aid-malaria.htmlGlobal HealthCredit...John Wessels/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJune 26, 2017Over the last decade, American donations to fight malaria in Africa have saved the lives of nearly two million children, according to a new analysis of mortality rates in 32 countries there.The study, published by PLOS Medicine this month, looked at the long-term effects of the Presidents Malaria Initiative, a program started by President George W. Bush in 2005 that has spent over $500 million a year since 2010.The results debunk one of the persistent myths of foreign aid: that it has no effect because more children survive each year anyway as economies improve.The researchers economists from the University of North Carolina and Harvard looked at death rates for children under 5, contrasting the 19 countries that get American malaria aid (mostly in the form of mosquito nets, house spraying and malaria pills) with 13 countries that do not.They adjusted the data to filter out neonatal deaths and lives saved by other medical interventions, such as childhood vaccines supplied by donors or H.I.V. drugs paid for by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, or by the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was also initiated by Mr. Bush.They found that countries helped by the malaria initiative had 16 percent fewer deaths in that age group, which amounts to about 1.7 million lives of babies and toddlers saved since the program began, said Harsha Thirumurthy, a health economist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the lead author.The study was not commissioned or paid for by the malaria agency, Dr. Thirumurthy added.We thought it was essential to evaluate how P.M.I. was working, he said, referring to the Presidents Malaria Initiative. We gave them a heads-up that we were doing the analysis, but we didnt share the results with them till they were in print.I welcome this independent external analysis, said Rear Adm. R Timothy Ziemer, coordinator of the initiative from its inception until early this year. P.M.I.s effective approach demonstrates to all what can be accomplished in fighting malaria with U.S. leadership.In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Eran Bendavid, a health-policy specialist at Stanford University, called the studys conclusions striking.Health-related foreign aid, he noted, amounts to less than a penny of every taxpayer dollar spent but pays dividends in two ways: Relatively small contributions save many lives, and countries that receive such aid have overwhelmingly favorable views of the United States. In the Pew Research Centers Global Attitudes & Trends surveys over the last 15 years, Dr. Bendavid said in an email, 75 percent or more of residents of Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Senegal usually said they regard the United States favorably. | Health |
A Conversation WithNASAs Retiring Top Scientist Says We Can Terraform Mars and Maybe Venus, TooJim Green has shaped much of the space agencys scientific inquiry for decades.Credit...Emily Kask for The New York TimesJan. 2, 2022Since joining NASA in 1980, Jim Green has seen it all. He has helped the space agency understand Earths magnetic field, explore the outer solar system and search for life on Mars. As the new year arrived on Saturday, he bade farewell to the agency.Over the past four decades, which includes 12 years as the director of NASAs planetary science division and the last three years as its chief scientist, he has shaped much of NASAs scientific inquiry, overseeing missions across the solar system and contributing to more than 100 scientific papers across a range of topics. While specializing in Earths magnetic field and plasma waves early in his career, he went on to diversify his research portfolio.One of Dr. Greens most recent significant proposals has been a scale for verifying the detection of alien life, called the confidence of life detection, or CoLD, scale. He has published work suggesting we could terraform Mars, or making it habitable for humans, using a giant magnetic shield to stop the sun from stripping the red planets atmosphere, raising the temperature on the surface. He has also long been a proponent of the exploration of other worlds, including a mission to Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter, that is scheduled to launch in 2024.Ahead of a December meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, Dr. Green spoke about some of this wide-ranging work and the search for life in the solar system. Below are edited and condensed excerpts from our interview.Youve urged a methodical approach to looking for life with your CoLD scale, ranking possible detections from one to seven. Why do we need such a scale?A couple of years ago, scientists came out and said theyd seen phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus. At the level they saw it, which was enormous, that led them to believe life was one of the major possibilities. On the CoLD scale, where seven is we found life, it is one. It didnt even make it to two. They recognized later there was contamination in their signal and it may not even be phosphine and we cant reproduce it. So we have to do a better job in communicating.We see methane all over the place on Mars. Ninety-five percent of the methane we find here on Earth comes from life, but theres a few percent that doesnt. Were only at a CoLD Level 3, but if a scientist came to me and said, Heres an instrument that will make it a CoLD Level 4, Id fund that mission in a minute. Theyre not jumping to seven, theyre making that next big step, the right step, to make progress to actually finding life in the solar system. Thats what weve got to do, stop screwing around with just crying wolf.The search for life on Mars has been a focus for NASA for so long, starting in 1976 with the Viking 1 and 2 landers and later with missions from the 1990s onward. Are you surprised we havent found life in that time?Yes and no. What were doing now is much more methodical, much more intelligent in the way we recognize what signatures life can produce over time. Our solar system is 4.5 billion years old, and at this time, Earth is covered in life. But if we go back a billion years, we would find that Venus was a blue planet. It had a significant ocean. It might actually have had life, and a lot of it. If we go back another billion years, Mars was a blue planet. We know now Mars lost its magnetic field, the water started evaporating and Mars basically went stagnant about 3.5 billion years ago.We would like to have found life on the surface. We put the Viking landers in a horrible place because we didnt know where to put them we were just trying to put them down on the surface of Mars. It was like putting something down in the Gobi Desert. We should have put them down in Jezero Crater, in this river delta were at right now with the Perseverance rover, but we didnt even know it existed at the time!One of the Viking experiments indicated there was microbial life in the soils, but only one of the three instruments did, so we couldnt say we found life. Now well really, definitively know because were going to bring back samples. We didnt know it would need a sample return mission.Youve previously suggested it might be possible to terraform Mars by placing a giant magnetic shield between the planet and the sun, which would stop the sun from stripping its atmosphere, allowing the planet to trap more heat and warm its climate to make it habitable. Is that really doable?Yeah, its doable. Stop the stripping, and the pressure is going to increase. Mars is going to start terraforming itself. Thats what we want: the planet to participate in this any way it can. When the pressure goes up, the temperature goes up.The first level of terraforming is at 60 millibars, a factor of 10 from where we are now. Thats called the Armstrong limit, where your blood doesnt boil if you walked out on the surface. If you didnt need a spacesuit, you could have much more flexibility and mobility. The higher temperature and pressure enable you to begin the process of growing plants in the soils.There are several scenarios on how to do the magnetic shield. Im trying to get a paper out Ive been working on for about two years. Its not going to be well received. The planetary community does not like the idea of terraforming anything. But you know. I think we can change Venus, too, with a physical shield that reflects light. We create a shield, and the whole temperature starts going down.In 2015, NASA approved the Europa Clipper mission to search for signs of life on Jupiters moon Europa, set for launch in 2024, following the detection of plumes erupting from its subsurface ocean in 2013. Did you want to see that mission happen sooner?Oh, yeah, I would love to have seen it earlier, but it wasnt going to happen. There are certain series of missions that are so big theyre called strategic missions. For them to actually happen, the stars have to align. You have to propose it, have a solid case work, go to the NASA administration and then pitch it to Congress. Every year, I proposed a Europa mission. Every year. The administration was not interested in going to Europa.The plumes on Europa are what made the Europa mission happen. I was at an American Geophysical Union meeting in 2013. Several of the scientists were going to give a talk on finding a plume with Hubble on Europa, and I go, Oh, my God. I said this is fantastic, I want to do a press conference. I call back to NASA headquarters, and they pulled it off. I took that information back with me to headquarters and added that into the story of Europa. That really turned the corner. They said, Wow, maybe we should do this.Congress decided against putting a lander on the mission. Did you want one?I would love a lander, but its not in the cards. It makes the mission too complicated, but everything we do on Clipper feeds forward to a lander. I insisted that we had a high-resolution imager to the point whereas we fly over certain areas, were going to get the information we need to go, Lets land right there, and safely. Europa has got some really hazardous terrains, so if we dont get the high-resolution imaging, well never be able to land.You want to take a step, but not a huge step. You fail when you do that. Viking is that example, where we took too big a step. We didnt know where to go, we didnt know enough about the soils or the toxins in the soils. We hadnt really gotten a good idea where water was on the planet in the past. There were 10 things we should have known before we put the two Vikings on the surface.Are you still going to work on scientific papers in your retirement?Oh, absolutely. Ive got the Mars paper to do. I have a Europa paper Im writing right now. I have an astrobiology book Im doing. I have an insatiable appetite for science. | science |
UFC's Derrick Lewis Still Shooting His Shot for Rousey ... Wifey No Likey 1/30/2018 1/29/18 TMZSports.com It's been almost a year since Derrick Lewis hollered at Ronda Rousey after KO'ing her BF, Travis Browne ... and he ain't ready to let go of his #WomanCrushEveryday. Remember -- Derrick famously asked where Ronda's "fine ass" was at last February ... after sending poor Trav to the shadow realm. FS1 Since then, both Lewis and Rousey have both gotten hitched to their SOs ... but Lewis says that hasn't changed how he feels about her. "My wife doesn't like me still searching for Ronda ... but she'll get over it sooner or later," Black Beast told TMZ Sports. Derrick also told us why he's happy Rousey joined WWE ... and why the hell he's been TRAINING WITH A RATTLESNAKE just weeks away from his scrap at UFC Fight Night: Austin. | Entertainment |
MatterCredit...Jean-Jacques Hublin/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyJune 7, 2017Fossils discovered in Morocco are the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens, scientists reported on Wednesday, a finding that rewrites the story of mankinds origins and suggests that our species evolved in multiple locations across the African continent.We did not evolve from a single cradle of mankind somewhere in East Africa, said Philipp Gunz, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a co-author of two new studies on the fossils, published in the journal Nature. We evolved on the African continent.Until now, the oldest known fossils of our species dated back just 195,000 years. The Moroccan fossils, by contrast, are roughly 300,000 years old. Remarkably, they indicate that early Homo sapiens had faces much like our own, although their brains differed in fundamental ways.Today, the closest living relatives to Homo sapiens are chimpanzees and bonobos, with whom we share a common ancestor that lived over six million years ago. After the split from this ancestor, our ancient forebears evolved into many different species, known as hominins.For millions of years, hominins remained very apelike. They were short, had small brains and could fashion only crude stone tools.ImageCredit...Philipp Gunz/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyUntil now, the oldest fossils that clearly belonged to Homo sapiens were discovered in Ethiopia. In 2003, researchers working at a site called Herto discovered a skull estimated to be between 160,000 and 154,000 years old.A pair of partial skulls from another site, Omo-Kibish, dated to around 195,000 years of age, at the time making these the oldest fossils of our species.Findings such as these suggested that our species evolved in a small region perhaps in Ethiopia, or nearby in East Africa. After Homo sapiens arose, researchers believed, the species spread out across the continent.Only much later roughly 70,000 years ago did a small group of Africans make their way to other continents.Yet paleoanthropologists were aware of mysterious hominin fossils discovered in other parts of Africa that did not seem to fit the narrative.In 1961, miners in Morocco dug up a few pieces of a skull at a site called Jebel Irhoud. Later digs revealed a few more bones, along with flint blades.ImageCredit...Shannon McPherron/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyUsing crude techniques, researchers estimated the remains to be 40,000 years old. In the 1980s, however, a paleoanthropologist named Jean-Jacques Hublin took a closer look at one jawbone.The teeth bore some resemblance to those of living humans, but the shape seemed strangely primitive. It did not make sense, Dr. Hublin, now at the Max Planck Institute, recalled in an interview.Since 2004, Dr. Hublin and his colleagues have been working through layers of rocks on a desert hillside at Jebel Irhoud. They have found a wealth of fossils, including skull bones from five individuals who all died around the same time.Just as important, the scientists discovered flint blades in the same sedimentary layer as the skulls. The people of Jebel Irhoud most likely made them for many purposes, putting some on wooden handles to fashion spears.Many of the flint blades showed signs of having been burned. The people at Jebel Irhoud probably lit fires to cook food, heating discarded blades buried in the ground below. This accident of history made it possible to use the flints as historical clocks.Dr. Hublin and his colleagues used a method called thermoluminescence to calculate how much time had passed since the blades were burned. They estimated that the blades were roughly 300,000 years old. The skulls, discovered in the same rock layer, must have been the same age.Despite the age of the teeth and jaws, anatomical details showed they nevertheless belonged to Homo sapiens, not to another hominin group, such as the Neanderthals.Resetting the clock on mankinds debut would be achievement enough. But the new research is also notable for the discovery of several early humans rather than just one, as so often happens, said Marta Mirazon Lahr, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the new study.We have no other place like it, so its a fabulous finding, she said.The people at Jebel Irhoud shared a general resemblance to one another and to living humans. Their brows were heavy, their chins small, their faces flat and wide. But all in all, they were not so different from people today.The face is that of somebody you could come across in the Metro, Dr. Hublin said.The flattened faces of early Homo sapiens may have something to do with the advent of speech, speculated Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London.We really are at very early stages of trying to explain these things, Dr. Stringer said.The brains of the inhabitants of Jebel Irhoud, on the other hand, were less like our own.Although they were as big as modern human brains, they did not yet have its distinctively round shape. They were long and low, like those of earlier hominins.ImageCredit...Mohammed Kamal/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyDr. Gunz, of the Max Planck Institute, said that the human brain may have become rounder at a later phase of evolution. Two regions in the back of the brain appear to have become enlarged over thousands of years.I think what we see reflect adaptive changes in the way the brain functions, he said. Still, he added, no one knows how a rounder brain changed how we think.The people of Jebel Irhoud were certainly sophisticated. They could make fires and craft complex weapons, such as wooden handled spears, needed to kill gazelles and other animals that grazed the savanna that covered the Sahara 300,000 years ago.The flint is interesting for another reason: Researchers traced its origin to another site about 20 miles south of Jebel Irhoud. Early Homo sapiens, then, knew how to search out and to use resources spread over long distances.Similar flint blades of about the same age have been found at other sites across Africa, and scientists have long wondered who made them. The fossils at Jebel Irhoud raise the possibility that they were made by early Homo sapiens.And if that is true, Dr. Gunz and his colleagues argue, then our species may have been evolving as a network of groups spread across the continent.John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin who was not involved in the new study, said that it was a plausible idea, but that recent discoveries of fossils from the same era raise the possibility that they were used by other hominins. | science |
For the first time in many years, the government reported that spending on health care last year grew more slowly than the economy overall.Credit...Joshua Lott for The New York TimesDec. 5, 2019WASHINGTON The burdensome costs of medical care, prescription drugs and health insurance have become dominant issues in the 2020 presidential campaign. But a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services shows the nation remains in a period of relatively slow growth in health spending.Health spending in the United States rose by 4.6 percent to $3.6 trillion in 2018 accounting for 17.7 percent of the economy compared to a growth rate of 4.2 percent in 2017. Federal officials said the slight acceleration was largely the result of reinstating a tax on health insurers that the Affordable Care Act imposed but Congress had suspended for a year in 2017. Faster growth in medical prices and prescription drug spending were also factors, they said, but comparatively minor.For decades, national health spending galloped ahead of spending in the overall economy, lowering wages and stressing household budgets. But over the last decade, the pattern has shifted somewhat. Although the country consistently spends more on health care each year than it did the year before, the overall rate of growth has stayed below historical averages. In 2018, health spending grew more slowly than the economy overall, a rare occurrence.The factors leading to the slowdown are not fully understood. For years, economists thought they were the result of lagging effects of the recession. But as the pattern has continued far into the economic recovery, they increasingly point to changes in the delivery of health care itself.Spending has to slow down when it gets so big, said Paul Hughes-Cromwick, the co-director of sustainable health spending strategies at the research group Altarum. Theres no question that there are efforts all across the environment to try to control this beast. Theres no question about that, and some of them are working.The slower growth may feel at odds with the experience of many Americans, who increasingly report financial duress from health costs. A recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health research organization, found that from 2009 through 2018 individuals who got insurance through their employers have been asked to shoulder an ever-higher share of their health bills through premium payments and rising deductibles. A typical employer plan for an individual now comes with a $1,400 deductible, up $900 from 2009. The new report found that overall growth in household health care spending, including out-of-pocket expenses, premium payments and contributions to Medicare through payroll taxes, remained flat, at 4.4 percent.Public opinion surveys show that health care particularly the cost of it remains a top voter concern, reflected by the Democratic presidential candidates focus on Medicare for all and other proposals for expanding coverage to more people with a promise of lower direct costs. Congress is considering bills to help lower prescription drug costs and to eliminate the practice of surprise medical billing, though it is unclear whether either will pass this year.The Trump administration is pursuing regulatory actions aimed at lowering health costs, including an ambitious rule that would require insurers and health care providers to disclose the prices they negotiate for a wide range of medical procedures and services. That rule, finalized last month, is being challenged in court by hospitals.In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, some candidates have been pushing far broader plans to tackle the issue. Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have proposed establishing a single-payer health care system, where the government would provide generous taxpayer-funded insurance coverage for every American. Others, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, of South Bend, Ind., want to offer an optional government plan and more generous government subsidies for Americans who buy their own insurance. However modestly it is growing, health spending in the United States is far higher than most other countries. The 2018 estimate of $3.6 trillion comes to more than $11,000 for every person in the country, with 33 percent going to hospital care, 20 percent to doctors and clinical services and 9 percent to retail prescription drugs. Measured as a percentage of gross domestic product, it is nearly double the average of health spending in other developed countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most of those countries achieve lower health costs with universal coverage. In the United States, an estimated 28 million people are uninsured. Given the public outrage over prescription drug prices, many people may be surprised to find that prices of prescription drugs bought at a pharmacy actually fell by one percent in 2018 for the first time since 1973, economists with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a telephone briefing about the new report. President Trump has seized on the slight drop, mentioning it in his rallies and speeches, although some experts warn the method the federal government uses for tracking drug price trends is imperfect.Overall averages obscure a volatile mix of prices, with some drugs commanding escalating price tags, even as more common generic medications became less expensive.The report also found that the share of the American population with health insurance fell for a second consecutive year in 2018, with most of the enrollment decline 1.3 million people coming in private coverage purchased directly, instead of through a job or the Affordable Care Act marketplace. The Trump administration has repeatedly highlighted this population as victims of rising premium costs under the Affordable Care Act; they generally earn too much to qualify for its premium subsidies.There was also a slight drop in the number of people with employer-sponsored insurance and slower growth in Medicaid enrollment, although growth in Medicare enrollment remained steady.Spending for people with private health insurance was $6,199 a person, an increase of 6.7 percent over 2017, the highest per-person growth rate since 2004. That number does not include out of pocket costs. | Health |
Rangers 5, Avalanche 1Credit...Jim McIsaac/Getty ImagesFeb. 4, 2014The Rangers rolled to their fourth straight victory Tuesday with a smooth 5-1 demolition of the Colorado Avalanche at Madison Square Garden, making it all the more striking that they would consider trading Ryan Callahan. Callahan, their captain and longtime spark plug, scored the first two goals and very nearly a couple of others as the Rangers improved to 10-3 over their last 13 games. He added an assist, finished at plus-3, logged game highs with six shots and seven hits, and had the Garden fans chanting, Cally, Cally. I could hear it, Callahan said. Its part of playing in New York its why you love it here. The fans are great. Its part of the mystique of the Garden.Yet General Manager Glen Sather could soon deal Callahan, a pending free agent, rather than give him the long-term, high-paying contract he is seeking.About a half-dozen N.H.L. team captains have been traded over the last year, but all were captains of struggling, nonplayoff teams. The Rangers are hardly that. After a slow start and a long slog at .500, they seem to have turned a corner as they near the schedules final quarter. Their biggest problem this season has been against strong opponents; they went into Tuesdays game 6-14-1 against teams over .500. But they clobbered Colorado from the start, even though the Avalanche were 9-2 in their previous 11 games and had rejoined the Western Conference elite. The Rangers rattled off 14 shots in the first seven minutes and finally beat the besieged Colorado goalie Semyon Varlamov at 14 minutes 16 seconds of the first period when Callahan put away Carl Hagelins pass on a two-on-one break. Callahan scored again at 17:35, after Brad Richards stole the puck deep in the Colorado end and centered to the captain in the slot. It was Callahans 11th goal.Asked about the speculation on his future, Callahan said: I try not to bring that business to the rink. I try to concentrate on the Rangers and what were doing here, trying to get two points. Thats my main focus.He added: Thats where I want to be, on the ice playing for the Rangers. Its nights like this I enjoy.After outshooting Colorado by 20-4 in the first period, the Rangers hit a speed bump when Gabriel Landeskog scored at 6:37 of the second on Colorados first power play. But 53 seconds later, Rangers defenseman Anton Stralman restored the two-goal lead when his shot from the blue line went in through a screen for his first goal of the season. Derrick Brassard and Richards added goals in the third period. Defenseman Marc Staal had a busy day. In the morning, he missed practice to be with his wife, Lindsay, who gave birth at 5 a.m. to their first child, Anna Veralyn, after an 11-hour labor. At night, Staal went plus-3 in a performance that included a stretch late in the second period alongside Ryan McDonagh killing off a two-man disadvantage for 1:50.Im on such a high right now, Staal said, explaining that he was operating on 90 minutes sleep. I hardly feel the effects, but Im sure I will tomorrow.Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves, including four difficult ones during Colorados two-man advantage. The Rangers outshot Colorado by 43-28.The Callahan rumors heated up last week, when Sather gave several teams permission to talk with his agent, and word leaked out that Sather wanted Callahan signed or gone by the Olympic roster freeze on Friday. Callahans agent, Steve Bartlett, said he had received no such deadlines from the Rangers. The two sides remained apart in contract talks, with Callahan believed to be seeking a seven-year, $42 million contract and Sather believed to be offering a five-year, $30 million deal. But the N.H.L.s trade deadline is March 5, and Callahan cannot become a free agent before July 1. So there is plenty of time for Callahan to stay around, especially if Sather believes the Rangers have what it takes to make a legitimate playoff run. | Sports |
with interestAug. 1, 2021ImageCredit...Giacomo BagnaraWhats Up? (July 25-31)Robinhood Goes Public Without a BangRobinhoods highly anticipated public offering fizzled on Thursday. Shares in the stock-trading start-up opened at $38, but ended the day down 8.4 percent. The decline reflected investors skepticism of Robinhoods grand mission of upending Wall Street. As part of that mission to democratize investing, Robinhood offered as many as a third of its initial shares to its customers through its app. That could have reduced a first-day trading pop, which is typically driven by retail investors who were shut out of an initial public offering. Robinhood ended Thursday with a value of around $29 billion still not bad for an eight-year-old company.Silicon Valley SurgesThe pandemic has been terrible for the world, but its been great for Silicon Valley companies. Alphabet and Microsoft both announced record profits last week. Alphabet, Googles parent company, reported a profit of $18.5 billion in the latest quarter, which is more than it earned in all of 2015. Its chief executive, Sundar Pichai, credited a rising tide of online activity. Microsoft made $16.5 billion, and its top executive, Satya Nadella, said use of its collaboration products has never been higher. Apple, Facebook and Amazon also reported sizable jumps in profit. Tesla said it sold more than twice as many cars in the three months ended in June as it did during the same period last year.Economy Recovers, With an AsteriskThe U.S. economy revived in the second quarter, reaching its prepandemic level, adjusted for inflation. Exactly a year earlier, it had its worst quarterly contraction on record. The good news in the latest report is that the economy seems to be recovering more quickly than it did after the financial crisis. The bad news is that Americas output remains below its prepandemic growth path, and is still hampered by supply constraints and a shift in spending from services to goods, among other factors. The economys trajectory is also uncertain, as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus could threaten gains.ImageCredit...Giacomo BagnaraWhats Next? (Aug. 1-7)Global Chip Shortage Eats Into ProfitsGeneral Motors reports its earnings on Wednesday, and analysts will be watching for how the global chip shortage is affecting its business. Like other automakers, the company has been forced to halt or slow production for some of its vehicles, and that has hampered its ability to take advantage of booming demand for cars and trucks. Ford reported last week that its profits had dropped 50 percent in large part because of the chip shortage. And automakers arent the only companies running into problems: Apple said on Tuesday that the shortage would affect its smartphone business during the three-month period ending in September.New Wrinkle in Back-to-Office PlansThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its mask guidance for vaccinated individuals on Tuesday, saying that they should now wear masks inside if theyre in a Covid-19 hot spot. That news, along with rising concerns about the highly contagious Delta variant, has thrown a new wrench into companies office reopening plans. Google, Adobe, Uber and Facebook joined a growing list of companies requiring workers be vaccinated to return to the office, and several companies said they would delay their plans. Unions have reflected the sometimes conflicting anxieties of their members, with some pushing for more safety measures and others questioning vaccination requirements.New Job NumbersOn Friday, the Labor Department will release data that show whether a hiring burst in June continued in July. Economists will also learn whether the reopening of the economy is drawing back the millions of workers who left the labor force during the pandemic, and whether employers are increasing pay as they try to rehire.What Else?The Federal Reserve said it would not raise interest rates and would continue buying government bonds, but the economy was progressing. Peacock, Comcasts streaming service, got a much-needed boost from the Olympics. You might need a sad day. And on Monday, a U.S. ban on investing in 59 Chinese firms with ties to Chinas military takes effect. | Business |
Fact Check of the DayIn a wide-ranging campaign speech, the president spread inaccuracies on health care, the steel industry, military spending and Representative Maxine Waters. June 28, 2018President Trump mounted a case for electing more Republicans to Congress in November with misleading attacks on Democrats and exaggerated boasts of his achievements at a campaign rally in Fargo, N.D., on Wednesday night.He was in Fargo to stump for Representative Kevin Cramer, a Republican, who is trying to unseat the states Democratic senator, Heidi Heitkamp. During the speech, Mr. Trump warned that Ms. Heitkamp would vote against his nomination to replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who had announced his retirement from the Supreme Court on Wednesday. (Ms. Heitkamp voted for his previous Supreme Court nominee, Neil M. Gorsuch.)Mr. Trump also updated his familiar stump speech and its repeated inaccuracies with a few new claims. Heres a fact check. what was said We just came out with the association plan, which is phenomenal. Millions and millions of people are signing up. the facts False. This month, the Trump administration announced a new rule that would allow small businesses to join together and set up association health plans. But Mr. Trump is counting his enrollees before the plans hatch. Under the rule, association plans will not be offered until at least Sept. 1, so it is impossible that millions and millions have already enrolled under the rule. The association plans may not have to provide essential health benefits that the Affordable Care Act requires for individual and small group market plans. These benefits include coverage for maternity care, mental health care and prescription drugs. As a result, the new plans could be cheaper and lure younger, healthier people away from Affordable Care Act marketplaces, driving up costs for those plans. The Congressional Budget Office projected that about 4 million people would enroll in these association health plans by 2023. Avalere, a health consulting firm, estimated that 3.2 million would enroll by 2022, up from an initial enrollment of 130,000 by 2019. what was said Maxine. Shes a beauty. I mean, she practically was telling people the other day to assault. Can you imagine if I said the things she said? the facts This is misleading. Mr. Trump is embellishing remarks made by Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, and falsely suggesting he has not urged physical violence himself. At a rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, Ms. Waters urged those who are opposed policies that result in the separation of immigrant children from their families to confront top Trump administration officials.Lets make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, she said. And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them theyre not welcome anymore, anywhere. Mr. Trumps supporters have interpreted her use of the term push back as violence, but Ms. Waters has denied calling for harm and argues she only sought peaceful protest. (For what its worth, the White House itself has used push back numerous times in reference to, among other things, Californias immigration laws, criticism of the C.I.A. director, and reporting from The New York Times). Mr. Trump is wrong that he, himself, has never encouraged violence. During the 2016 campaign, he urged his supporters to rough up protesters, lamented the old days when protesters would be carried out on a stretcher and explicitly told supporters to knock the crap out of them. what was said United States Steel is opening up six plants through expansion, and new. the facts False. Mr. Trump announced that he would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in March. But since then, the United States Steel Corp. has not announced the opening of a single new plant, let alone six. The company has announced that it would restart two blast furnaces at a plant in Granite City, Ill., one in March and the second in June. Mr. Trump may have been referring to each individual component of the steel-making process at Granite City as its own plant, an analyst explained to the Washington Post Fact Checker, but those parts are not new either. what was said The Democrats are always fighting against funding for the military, and funding for law enforcement. the facts This is exaggerated. Mr. Trump signed into law a $700 billion military spending bill into law in December and most Democrats voted for it. Those who voted against the bill in the Senate included three Republicans, four Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. In the House, 63 Democrats voted against the bill, but 127 Democrats supported it. OTHER claimsMr. Trump also repeated numerous claims that The New York Times has previously debunked: He falsely said Democrats want open borders and crime (most Democrats have voted for border security measures). He wrongly asserted that Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, wants to protect the gang MS-13 (she has not said that).He exaggerated the number of MS-13 members who have been deported as in the thousands (this is not possible). He misleadingly claimed to have already started to build a border wall (construction has not begun).He exaggerated the United States trade deficit with the European Union as $151 billion (its $101 billion).He falsely claimed that the European Union does not import American cars (it does). He falsely boasted that wages are rising for the first time in 22 years (theyve been rising for several years). And he claimed to have saved our family farms and our small businesses by eliminating the estate tax (the tax affected only about 80 small businesses or farms last year). Source: Timothy Jost, Department of Labor, Federal Register, Congressional Budget Office, Avalere, The New York Times, YouTube, CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post Fact Checker, congress.gov, United States Steel Corporation website | Politics |
Credit...Frank Gunn/Canadian Press, via Associated PressFeb. 18, 2014The second-guessing began moments after word oozed from the wires and tubes of the Internets that Michael Bradley was about to leave European soccer to return to Major League Soccer.Some of the reaction followed a similar theme: mistake. Hes giving up on Europe. His decision will hurt the United States national team as it prepares for the World Cup in Brazil.Bradley will have none of it.For me, it was a thing I had gotten to a point at Roma, now with a new coach, he clearly had his ideas on who he wanted to play when everyone was healthy and to move the team forward and, look, I was really happy there, Bradley said. The club is fantastic, my family and I enjoyed living in Rome, but at a certain point it was just kind of like what am I going to do here?Am I going to stay here for another however many years and play 15-20 games a season, or go somewhere where Im going to be challenged every day to take big responsibility, to really force and help my team to win? Obviously everybody is wired differently. Everybody has different things that motivate them. For me, the chance to come here and be a part of whats going on in North America I said I want to be a part of it and to not let this opportunity pass me by.On Tuesday as part of the leagues preseason caravan, Bradley, the Red Bulls Tim Cahill, and Landon Donovan and Omar Gonzalez of the Los Angeles Galaxy paid a visit to the offices of The New York Times to discuss the coming season, the World Cup and other topics.Bradley began his professional career in 2004 playing for his father, Bob Bradley, with the MetroStars. He decamped for Europe after the 2005 season, playing first in the Netherlands, then in Germany, on loan in England and in Italy. Coming back to M.L.S. gives Bradley, 26, a big pay raise, but it also puts the spotlight on him and on Toronto, a club that has failed to make the playoffs in its first seven seasons in the league.ImageCredit...Dan Courtemanche/M.L.S.For me, the decision was two-fold, Bradley said. The opportunity to go to Toronto F.C., a club that has ridiculous potential as far as the city its in, the training ground and the stadium, the fans, everything is there for it to be one of the premier clubs in M.L.S. and North America. And obviously everyone there can admit that its not gone the way they hoped. And now, in the last year since Tim Leiweke arrived trying to understand how to rebuild things from the bottom up. Speaking with Tim Leiweke and everyone in Toronto I just got an incredible feeling, really a motivation in regards to what theyre trying to do.The challenge of now being a part of trying to build something, build something special, something that can stand up over a number of years, that part, that challenge is something that motivates me an incredible amount. So for me, there was the Toronto side of it. The day-to-day part of building a winning club, a club that can now stand with the Galaxys and Red Bulls as the top club in North America. Thats my motivation.Being a big part of that trying to take a lot of responsibility and put it on my shoulders on the field and off the field and all that entails. And the other side is whats going on with soccer in this country, in North America. People talk about M.L.S. like its a retirement league. For it not to be a retirement league at a certain point you need players who are willing to come when theyre in their primes. When they still have their best years ahead of them. And able to step on field every single game and leave everything out there, and this isnt just a place where guys can come at end of their careers to enjoy themselves.Not figuring in Romas plans set Bradley on a path back to M.L.S., though he did say there were other opportunities in Europe, and even among some other M.L.S. clubs. That said, a midseason transfer to another club in Europe would not assure Bradley of solid minutes and regular games, a situation he said was untenable with the World Cup only months away. He noted that two of his new foreign-born teammates in Toronto, striker Jermain Defoe (England) and goalkeeper Jlio Csar (Brazil), clearly came to the same conclusion: that joining M.L.S. was the best route to get them to the World Cup.A World Cup comes around every four years and you want to go into it certain that youre sharp and fit, you want to get on the plane headed for Brazil thinking that youve done everything possible to prepare and to help yourself play well and to help your team be successful, he said. Id be lying if I didnt say that didnt play a part. Having said that, again when you talk about different players, its not easy for me when Im not playing every week. I love to play. I love training all week. I love the buildup to the matches. For me at a certain point, just the chance to be competing and playing regardless of whats coming up, thats what Im about.Cahill, who spent the lions share of his professional career in England and is headed to another World Cup with Australia added a bit of perspective.We come here for international careers, for growth and because we see the bigger picture, Cahill said. A lot of people say they want to come here, but were doing it and were doing it properly. If you think its going to be easy, youll find out quick-smart that its not a glamour league. You get the hard end of the stick early. Players want to play against the best and want to prove themselves. Im happy with my decision. | Sports |
April 5, 2016NYARU MENTENG, Indonesia Katty, a docile, orange-haired preschooler, fell from a tree with a thump. Her teacher quickly picked her up, dusted off her bottom, refastened her white disposable diaper and placed her back on a branch more than seven feet off the ground.Katty is an orangutan, about 9 months old, whose family is believed to have been killed by the huge fires last fall in the Indonesian regions of Borneo and Sumatra. The blazes are an annual occurrence, when farmers clear land by burning it, often for palm oil plantations. But last years fires were the worst on record, and scientists blamed a prolonged drought and the effects of El Nio.The blazes destroyed more than 10,000 square miles of forests, blanketing large parts of Southeast Asia in a toxic haze for weeks, sickening hundreds of thousands of people and, according to the World Bank, causing $16 billion in economic losses.They also killed at least nine orangutans, the endangered apes native to the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra. More than 100, trapped by the loss of habitat or found wandering near villages, had to be relocated. Seven orphans, including five infants, were rescued and taken to rehabilitation centers here.This is the biggest in the world for primate rehabilitation, not just orangutans, but were not proud of it, said Denny Kurniawan, the program director of the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, who oversees the care of 480 orangutans at seven sites in Central Kalimantan Province on the island of Borneo. The number of orangutans here is an indicator of the mass forest destruction due to lack of law enforcement and the local government giving out palm oil concessions.The suffering of the wildlife is part of a larger story of corporate expansion in a developing economy crashing into environmental issues in an era of climate change.ImageCredit...Kemal Jufri for The New York TimesIndonesia has approved palm oil concessions on nearly 15 million acres of peatlands over the last decade; burning peat emits high levels of carbon dioxide and is devilishly hard to extinguish.Multinational palm oil companies, pulp and paper businesses, the plantations that sell to them, farmers and even day laborers all contribute to the problem. Groups like Greenpeace and the Indonesian Forum for the Environment put most of the blame for the blazes on the large plantations, which clear the most land.While it is against Indonesian law to clear plantations by burning, enforcement is lax. The authorities have opened criminal investigations against at least eight companies in connection with last years fires, but there has yet to be a single high-profile case to get to court.The government in Jakarta, the capital, has recently banned the draining and clearing of all peatland for agricultural use, and it has ordered provincial governments to adopt better fire suppression methods. But it has not publicly responded to calls for better prevention, such as cracking down on slash-and-burn operations by large palm oil companies.Investment is good, but so is the environment, said Eman Supriyadi, the director of a satellite rehabilitation center where two orphaned orangutans 6-month-old Oka and 3-year-old Otong are bottle-fed human infant formula and sleep in bamboo cribs. There has to be a balance.The government has admitted that it made a mistake in granting large strips of land to big corporate palm oil and pulp and paper companies over the past 10 years, said Luhut B. Pandjaitan, Indonesias coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs.The Indonesian government has taken serious measures to freeze any new land rights or concessions for those giant industries, he said. We are encouraging them to be more efficient, so productivity can grow without adding more land.ImageCredit...Kemal Jufri for The New York TimesHowever, he said the main cause of the 2015 fires was the previous environmental destruction combined with the El Nio climate cycle.Katty, the roughly 9-month-old orangutan, was found in a charred forest by villagers in Central Kalimantan last October and eventually brought to the Nyaru Menteng center, which was established by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in 1999.She now lives with 20 other infants in an old, one-story wooden house that was converted into an orangutan nursery, where they sleep side-by-side in colored plastic laundry baskets stuffed with leaves.They will spend the next seven or more years learning from their human minders how to climb trees, make a nest of leaves, spot edible forest fruits and avoid snakes and other predators, before being released back into the wild as young adults.At 7 a.m. each day, they are carted by wheelbarrow, three or four per load, to a fenced-off forest area more than 300 feet away for survival classes. They subsist on fruit, mainly bananas and rambutan, and on human infant formula.The minders take pains not to be overly affectionate with their adorable charges: The orangutans need to learn to avoid humans and not be accustomed to their presence, in preparation for their return to the jungle.Most of the centers older orangutans are also orphans, found alone and rescued by conservationists or local villagers, or confiscated from people illegally keeping them as pets.The center aims to release 68 young-adult animals per year. Each returned animal is tracked by a computer chip implanted near the base of the neck that sends signals to the center for about two years.The release program has also been jeopardized by the fires, which have drastically reduced the potential orangutan habitat.Over the years, thousands of square miles have been cleared for plantations, a majority in lowland areas that are the prime habitat for orangutans. The fires last year destroyed more than 1,650 square miles of forest in Central Kalimantan alone, or 16 percent of its total.Our challenge for now is, if we have information that orangutans should be rescued, we dont know where we will relocate them because in Central Kalimantan there is no forest left, Mr. Denny said. Every day its estimated that were losing forests the size of a football field, and thats orangutan habitat.Since 2012, his rehabilitation center has returned 158 orangutans into a 124-square-mile protected forest known as Batikap. But Batikap has reached its maximum recommended orangutan population, Mr. Denny said.He said the center was negotiating with the federal government to establish a 288-square-mile preserve in Bukit Baka-Bukit Raya National Park, in Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan Provinces, for future releases.Last years fires caused such an outcry that the provincial government and local district chiefs in Central Kalimantan have approved no new palm oil concessions this year.But with dry conditions again this year, new fires have broken out. Last month, the governor of Riau Province in Sumatra declared a state of emergency because of fires, and the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency issued a warning about the increased risk of fire in Sumatra and Borneo through the end of April. | World |
Credit...Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesJune 19, 2017A high school senior mowed down by a car with other pedestrians in last months Times Square attack was hemorrhaging internally and transfusions could not keep up with the blood loss.Doctors and nurses at NYC Health & Hospitals/Bellevue raced to save the student, Jessica Williams of Dunellen, N.J., who suffered severe injuries to her legs, abdomen and pelvis. But her pulse skyrocketed to 150. Her blood pressure dropped to 40/30.She was about to go into cardiac arrest, said Dr. Marko Bukur, a trauma surgeon.He grabbed a device that neither he nor anyone else at the hospital had ever used, except in training sessions on mannequins. It had arrived at Bellevue just days before.The device, called an ER-Reboa catheter, was born on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the brainchild of two military doctors who saw soldiers die from internal bleeding that medical teams in small field hospitals could not stop.Their invention, made by Prytime Medical and cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 2015, is gradually being adopted in civilian trauma centers around the country and has recently been used by the military. But medical teams need rigorous training to use it: Mishandled, it can be dangerous.Dr. Bukur punctured Ms. Williamss thigh, threaded a slim tube into her femoral artery and eased it up about 12 inches into her aorta, the major artery that carries blood from the heart to most of the body. Then he injected salt water to inflate a balloon near the tip of the tube, blocking the aorta and cutting off circulation to Ms. Williamss pelvis and legs. Above the balloon, blood still flowed normally to her brain, heart, lungs and other vital organs.Almost instantly, her blood pressure rose and her racing heart slowed down. The balloon stopped the hemorrhaging inside her pelvis, almost like turning off a faucet. Reboa stands for resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta, but some doctors describe it simply as an internal tourniquet.The clock was ticking. Circulation could be safely cut off for only so long ideally, no more than about 30 minutes. Beyond that, the lack of blood flow could severely damage Ms. Williamss legs and internal organs. The balloon had only bought the medical team a bit of time to find the source of the blood loss and fix it. If they failed, when they deflated the balloon they would be back where they started, with Ms. Williams on the verge of bleeding to death.In New York City, Dr. Sheldon H. Teperman, director of trauma and critical care services at NYC Health & Hospitals/Jacobi, and Dr. Aksim G. Rivera, a vascular surgeon there, have been teaching the procedure to trauma surgeons at city hospitals and other medical centers in the area. Bellevue surgeons trained with them.A Jacobi team led by the trauma surgeon Dr. Edward Chao was the first in the city to use the ER-Reboa, in February. Their patient, Nanetta Hall, 60, a manager in the citys Human Resources Administration, had been run over by a pickup truck. Like Ms. Williams, she nearly died from internal hemorrhaging caused by pelvic injuries.Its a lifesaving instrument, but it needs to be handled with respect because turning off the blood supply to half the body is dangerous, Dr. Teperman said, adding, I lie awake at night worrying that maybe someone will use it improperly.Several patients in Japan had to have legs amputated after being treated with a related device that was left inflated for too long.The idea for the ER-Reboa catheter came to Dr. Todd E. Rasmussen and Dr. Jonathan L. Eliason in 2006, while they were deployed as surgeons in Iraq. Improved tourniquets and transfusion techniques did prevent soldiers from bleeding to death from wounds in their arms and legs. But there was no similar solution for bleeding in the abdomen or pelvis, or what doctors call noncompressible hemorrhage.The two doctors, both vascular surgeons, started to develop a new device based on an older balloon catheter designed to prevent bleeding in people having surgery on the aorta.The older device can be used on trauma victims, but not easily. It is large and complex, and meant for use by vascular surgeons with X-rays to guide it. It was really designed to be used in nice surgery centers, with well-staffed, fancy operating rooms, said Dr. Rasmussen, an Air Force colonel, who is associate dean for research and an attending surgeon at the military medical school and medical center at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Md.None of that translates well into when all hell is breaking loose and your patient is going to die in seven minutes, said David Spencer, the president of Prytime Medical.ImageCredit...Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesDr. Rasmussen and Dr. Eliason set out to create a smaller, stripped-down version that could be placed quickly inside the aorta without X-rays by trauma surgeons and, eventually, by general surgeons, emergency room doctors and maybe medics.Those doctors and medics are usually the first to reach people who are bleeding, in what trauma experts call the golden hour after an injury, Dr. Rasmussen said, adding, Thats where the margin to save lives is greatest.By 2009, he and Dr. Eliason made a prototype, nicknamed their Home Depot version of the device.It was pretty clunky, Dr. Rasmussen said. But it was good enough to start testing in the lab. The results were promising, but large, traditional medical device companies showed no interest in developing it.After a talk Dr. Rasmussen gave in 2009 that mentioned the lack of commercial interest in military medical research, Mr. Spencer, a technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist from San Antonio, offered to start a company to make and market the device. A self-described Army brat, Mr. Spencer said he liked the idea that something inspired by a military need could also save civilian lives.The catheters, used once and then thrown away, cost about $2,000, which is relatively cheap compared with other devices used in vascular surgery. The ER in the product name stands for the last names of the two inventors, Eliason and Rasmussen.The Defense Department and the University of Michigan hold the patent, Dr. Rasmussen said, and he makes no money from it.People with pelvic injuries, like Ms. Williams and Ms. Hall, are ideal candidates for Reboa, surgeons say. Those injuries are a notorious cause of life-threatening hemorrhage. When the body is hit hard enough to break the pelvis, the impact almost always shears or severs hundreds of tiny veins and arteries that bleed profusely. Bleeding in the pelvis can be difficult or impossible to stop, because the area often cannot be compressed enough.Abdominal bleeding can also be stopped with the device, if it is pushed higher into the aorta.The balloon almost certainly saved Ms. Williamss life, Dr. Bukur said. With her circulation cut off, he was able to pack the damaged area with gauze to prevent more bleeding after the balloon was deflated. Another surgeon removed Ms. Williamss spleen, which had ruptured and was also bleeding copiously.ImageCredit...Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesNearly a month later, Ms. Williams and her mother, Elaine, were stunned to learn that a plastic tube with a balloon on it had played a crucial role in saving her. She is recovering in one of the citys rehabilitation hospitals. It will be months before she can walk again. She has no memory of being hit by the car that killed another person and injured 22 on May 18.Im kind of happy I dont remember, she said. I can focus on getting better and taking it one day at a time.She missed her high school prom, but was planning to watch her classmates graduate remotely.Mr. Spencer said that the device had been used more than 1,000 times, and that 126 of those patients were known to have survived.Were conservative on claiming it saved someone, he said.The device may prevent accident victims from bleeding to death, but they may have head injuries or organ damage that turn out to be fatal.Reboa is not the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mr. Spencer said. It is not going to miraculously save someone on a motorcycle who hit a car going 80 miles an hour. But it gives the surgeons a chance where maybe there wasnt a chance before.One case, at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, involved a pregnant woman at high risk of bleeding to death from a placental abnormality. A Jehovahs Witness, she could not accept blood transfusions. Using the balloon helped doctors perform a cesarean section that saved both her and the baby.At a Reboa training course last week for about 50 trauma surgeons from the New York region, Dr. Teperman introduced a surprise guest: Nanetta Hall. Injured in February, she was just about to be released from a rehabilitation hospital. With a walker, she made her way slowly to the front of the auditorium to address the doctors. Without the Reboa procedure, she said, she almost certainly would not have survived.Mr. Spencer, from Prytime, had just described a soldiers death that had driven the military surgeons to create ER-Reboa. Gesturing to Ms. Hall, he said, Because that man died, this lady is alive.Addressing the doctors, Ms. Hall said: Please, please, take this seriously. And let the word be spread to everybody that this is a vital procedure that should be taught. | Health |
Julie Chen No Doghouse for Hubby Les Moonves After He Demanded I Take Pay Cut!!! 1/30/2018 TMZ.com Julie Chen is the perfect employee AND the perfect wife ... nobody knows this better than Les Moonves. We got Julie leaving 'The Late Show' Monday in NYC and asked her about her CBS top dog hubby demanding she take a pay cut for the upcoming "Celebrity Big Brother" season. Les reportedly told Julie the salary trim wasn't up for negotiation ... since the upcoming season is significantly shorter than the usual 90-day plus of "Big Brother." Check it out ... Julie wasn't fazed by the demand. BTW, she seems excited about Omarosa joining the cast. CBS | Entertainment |
Redskins' D.J. Swearinger Blasts Alex Smith Trade: 'It's Bulls**t!!' 1/31/2018 So much for a warm welcome for Alex Smith in Washington ... Redskins stud defensive back D.J. Swearinger is PISSED about the blockbuster trade that sent a young defensive star to the Chiefs in exchange for the Pro Bowl QB ... calling the deal "bullsh*t." ICYMI -- Washington sent Kendall Fuller (arguably one of the best young corners on the team) and a draft pick to the Chiefs in exchange for the 33-year-old QB. D.J. bashed the deal in a series of tweets this morning ... calling out his team for taking a step back: "Never Saw Any Bulls**t Like This In My Life!! Idc who i rub wrong because you never sat in a meeting nor put in work with my dawg!!" "People say they wanna win right but you throw away your best defender!?!? Somebody you can set a standard with?!?! #Defense will win championships!!" "And We Took a Major Step down from the best slot corner In The Game!! No disrespect to nobody on my squad or coming to my squad but we basically took a step backwards by giving away (Fuller) who graded 90 overall which is Elite and hard too do!!! Smh." -- Swearinger has apparently cooled down enough to give a shoutout to his new QB ... saying "Alex Smith Welcome To The Squad We Got Championships To Win!" | Entertainment |
Malia Obama Fun Time in Big Apple with BF 1/21/2018 Malia Obama is full-on attached to her new boyfriend. Malia and Rory Farquharson took a field trip from their home base at Harvard in Cambridge to New York City, where they strolled through Soho. NOVEMBER 2017 TMZ.com Rory's a Brit who pretty quickly set his sights on the former First Daughter. They were tight during the Harvard-Yale game last November, and they've clearly kept it going. Malia's 19 -- a freshman -- and Rory's also 19 and a freshman at the Ivy League school in Cambridge. | Entertainment |
Matt Lauer & Wife Annette Hitch Their Horses Together ... Amid Rumor He Got Booted 1/22/2018 Matt Lauer sure doesn't look like a guy who just got kicked out of the house by his wife -- 'cause they're still showing up to the same places ... albeit separately. Matt and his wife of 20 years, Annette Roque, both arrived Monday to a horse farm in Sag Harbor, Long Island -- this after a rumor went out this week that she'd kicked him out of their Hamptons home. They did not arrive together, but did appear right around the same time at 11 AM ET. Annette has not filed for divorce or signaled any formal separation from her fired hubby, who was accused of sexual misconduct while at NBC's 'Today' morning show. Hard to tell if they're still on good terms after Matt's alleged misdeeds at work. Guess we'll have to wait 'til we hear it straight from the horse's mouth. | Entertainment |
To bring abalone back from the edge of extinction, scientists need to find improved ways of coaxing the snails into reproducing.Credit...Jackson GrossFeb. 28, 2022Kristin Aquilino, a scientist at the University of California, Davis, knows that expectations are just disappointments in disguise. Over the last decade, she has led the schools white abalone captive breeding program, which aims to bring the marine mollusk back from the brink of extinction.Last June, she and her colleagues drove snails kept in captivity at Davis down the California coast to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in Los Angeles. Others were dropped off at labs and aquariums around Southern California; all told, this was the largest spawning attempt of white abalone to date. But when she tried to get them in the mood with what she calls a love potion a mix of seawater with hydrogen peroxide the snails languished in their tanks occasionally emitting bubbles, but no eggs or sperm. After four hours, Dr. Aquilino called it off. (Simultaneous attempts at the other sites also failed.)It sucks, she said. Theres a lot of human effort involved, but theres no way theyll spawn today.After fishermen depleted 99 percent of white abalone from the wild in the 1970s, the sea snails are hanging on by a slimy thread. Despite the urgency of breeding these and other endangered aquatic snails to reintroduce to the wild, propagating more of them in a lab is still a guessing game, Dr. Aquilino says.Now, a study published Thursday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science offers an improved tool for determining which abalone will be reproductive. The technique, using noninvasive ultrasound, a decades-old medical technology, could raise the prospects of successful captive breeding efforts and ultimately help restore endangered abalone in the wild.If we can use this method, it could make a really big difference and we might be able to strategically target animals to induce to spawn, said David Witting, a fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration who specializes in abalone recovery and was not involved in the study. Well take any more edge we can get. Getting animals to spawn is really the pinch point for the whole process of recovering them.For Dr. Aquilino, the method offers a glimmer of hope.When I first saw the ultrasound images of my kids, I saw the future of my family, she said. When I see the ultrasound images of these abalone, I see the future of an entire species.Seven species of abalone sea snails with colorful, domed shells have historically called the west coast of North America home. The animals help the ecosystems they live in by maintaining kelp forests, feeding marine mammals and improving the health of reefs.But over much of the 20th century, divers and fishermen depleted several species of abalone. Aside from the white abalone, black abalone succumbed to a disease called withering syndrome, and pinto abalone in the northern Pacific suffered from overharvesting and habitat degradation. In the wild, abalone are terrible at long-distance relationships: In order to reproduce, they must be within proximity of each other because the snails send their gametes into the water column to get fertilized. By the 1990s, there were so few of the endangered species that scientists realized they needed to intervene.Reproducing them in captivity, however, is a big challenge. There are no clear cues for when theyre ready to reproduce. Researchers have traditionally inspected the snails visually by prying them off whatever surface theyre suctioned to, then looking for the crevice between their sticky feet and shell to find a bulge, where the animals gonad is below the milky skin. Depending on how large the gonad is, the scientists give the animal a score: plump protrusions outrank smaller ones.ImageCredit...Jackson GrossThat kind of gives you an idea of whether or not the animal may spawn, said Josh Bouma, the abalone program director of the Restoration Fund in Washington State, who heads the captive breeding program for the endangered pinto abalone.But visual exams can be vastly inaccurate. The gonad surrounds their stomachs, so if the snail just had a huge meal, the score can be misleading. Researchers could also take a more accurate tissue sample, but it would kill the snail. And handling abalone in any way including popping them from their aquarium tanks is enough to stress them out and may kill their mood.Ultrasound, on the other hand, is noninvasive.The idea of using ultrasound on these snails first came about in 2019. Jackson Gross, an aquaculture specialist at the University of California, Davis, had used ultrasound on fin fish, such as sturgeon, to study their reproductive habits. He stumbled across a YouTube video of a veterinarian sliding an ultrasound probe along the bottom of a land snail. If it worked for land snails, wouldnt it work for sea snails like abalone, too?Sara Boles, a postdoctoral researcher working with Dr. Gross, discovered a way to perform ultrasounds on the abalone without taking them out of their tanks by holding the device up to their sticky feet. This quickly produced clear images of their swollen or flaccid gonads on a laptop appended to the ultrasound probe.In the new study, Dr. Boles and her colleagues examined over 200 abalone and scored the thickness of their gonads on a scale of 1 to 5 to determine which are likely to spawn. With the ultrasound images, the gonad comes into focus: The stomach appears as a dark, cone-shaped item, and the slightly lighter gonad surrounds it.For now, these images can provide an easy way to score animals, but Dr. Gross and his colleagues want to verify if gonad thickness also correlates with reproductive success.Already, Dr. Boles has used the ultrasound to help Dr. Aquilino in her white abalone breeding efforts. Last spring, after Dr. Aquilino had already visually scored the animals, Dr. Boles brought the ultrasound to her lab.Of the eight white abalone that Dr. Boles rated highest after the ultrasound exam, five spawned; some snails with slightly lower ratings did, too. The method is already helping researchers revise their methods of assessing which abalone are most ready to reproduce.Its another way to help ensure that we have the best of the best, Dr. Boles said. | science |
The developer of astronomy software who said that Elon Musks company would cause a new crater on the moon says that he had really gotten it wrong.Credit...Chinatopix, via Associated PressFeb. 14, 2022On March 4, a human-made piece of rocket detritus will slam into the moon.But it turns out that it is not, as was previously stated in a number of reports, including by The New York Times, Elon Musks SpaceX that will be responsible for making a crater on the lunar surface.Instead, the cause is likely to be a piece of a rocket launched by Chinas space agency.Last month, Bill Gray, developer of Project Pluto, a suite of astronomical software used to calculate the orbits of asteroids and comets, announced that the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was on a trajectory that would intersect with the path of the moon. The rocket had launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, for the National Oceanic and the Atmospheric Administration on Feb. 11, 2015.Mr. Gray had been tracking this rocket part for years, and in early January, it passed within 6,000 miles of the surface of the moon, and the moons gravity swung it around on a path that looked like it might crash on a subsequent orbit.Observations by amateur astronomers when the object zipped past Earth again confirmed the impending impact inside Hertzsprung, an old, 315-mile-wide crater.But an email on Saturday from Jon Giorgini, an engineer at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, changed the story.Mr. Giorgini runs Horizons, an online database that can generate locations and orbits for the almost 1.2 million objects in the solar system, including about 200 spacecraft. A user of Horizons asked Mr. Giorgini how certain it was that the object was part of the DSCOVR rocket. That prompted me to look into the case, Mr. Giorgini said.He found that the orbit was incompatible with the trajectory that DSCOVR took, and contacted Mr. Gray.My initial thought was, Im pretty sure that I got it right, Mr. Gray said on Sunday.But he started digging through his old emails to remind himself about when this object was first spotted in March 2015, about a month after the launch of DSCOVR.Almost every new object spotted in the sky is an asteroid, and that was the assumption for this object too. It was given the designation WE0913A.However, it turned out that WE0913A was orbiting Earth, not the sun, which made it more likely to be something that came from Earth. Mr. Gray chimed in that he thought it might be part of the rocket that launched DSCOVR. Further data confirmed that WE0913A went past the moon two days after the launch of DSCOVR, which appeared to confirm the identification.Mr. Gray now realizes that his mistake was thinking that DSCOVR was launched on a trajectory toward the moon and using its gravity to swing the spacecraft to its final destination about a million miles from Earth where the spacecraft provides warning of incoming solar storms.But, as Mr. Giorgini pointed out, DSCOVR was actually launched on a direct path that did not go past the moon.I really wish that I had reviewed that before putting out his January announcement, Mr. Gray said. But yeah, once Jon Giorgini pointed it out, it became pretty clear that I had really gotten it wrong.SpaceX, which did not respond to a request for comment, never said WE0913A was not its rocket stage. But it probably has not been tracking it, either. Most of the time, the second stage of a Falcon 9 is pushed back into the atmosphere to burn up. In this case, the rocket needed all of its propellant to deliver DSCOVR to its distant destination.However, the second stage, unpowered and uncontrolled, was in an orbit unlikely to endanger any satellites, and people likely did not keep track of it.It would be very nice if the folks who are putting these boosters into high orbits would publicly disclose what they put up there and where they were going rather than my having to do all of this detective work, Mr. Gray said.But if this was not the DSCOVR rocket, what was it? Mr. Gray sifted through other launches in the preceding months, focusing on those headed toward the moon. Theres not much in that category, Mr. Gray said.The top candidate was a Long March 3C rocket that launched Chinas Change-5 T1 spacecraft on Oct. 23, 2014. That spacecraft swung around the moon and headed back to Earth, dropping off a small return capsule that landed in Mongolia. It was a test leading up to the Change-5 mission in 2020 that successfully scooped up moon rocks and dust and brought them back for study on Earth.Running a computer simulation of the orbit of WE0913A back in time showed that it would have made a close lunar flyby on Oct. 28, five days after the Chinese launch.In addition, orbital data from a cubesat that was attached to the third stage of the Long March rocket are pretty much a dead ringer to WE0913A, Mr. Gray said. Its the sort of case you could probably take to a jury and get a conviction.More observations this month shifted the prediction of when the object will strike the moon by a few seconds and a few miles to the east. It still looks like the same thing, said Christophe Demeautis, an amateur astronomer in northeast France.There is still no chance of it missing the moon.The crash will occur at about 7:26 a.m. Eastern time, but because the impact will be on the far side of the moon, it will be out of view of Earths telescopes and satellites.As for what happened to that Falcon 9 part, were still trying to figure out where the DSCOVR second stage might be, Mr. Gray said.The best guess is that it ended up in orbit around the sun instead of the Earth, and it could still be out there. That would put it out of view for now. There is precedent for pieces of old rockets coming back: In 2020, a newly discovered mystery object turned out to be part of a rocket launched in 1966 for NASAs robotic Surveyor missions to the moon. | science |
Sports BriefingFeb. 8, 2014Eden Hazard had three goals, and Chelsea moved atop the Premier League with a 3-0 win over visiting Newcastle. Liverpool scored four times in the first 20 minutes of a 5-1 rout of Arsenal at Anfield, and Manchester City was held to a 0-0 draw at Norwich. With a 4-2 win over Villarreal, Real Madrid took a share of the lead in Spains top league with Atltico Madrid, which stumbled to a 1-0 loss at Almeria. (AP) Carli Lloyd and Christen Press each scored twice to help the United States beat Russia, 7-0, in a womens friendly in Boca Raton, Fla. (AP) | Sports |
Dec. 16, 2015WASHINGTON Housing starts in November rebounded from a seven-month low, and permits surged to a five-month high, signs of strength in the housing market as the Federal Reserve starts to raise interest rates after years of easy monetary policy.Other data released on Wednesday showed the industrial sector continuing to struggle under the weight of a strong dollar, cuts in inventory investment and spending reductions by energy companies in response to persistently low oil prices.In its housing report, the Commerce Department said that groundbreaking jumped 10.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 1.17 million units last month. Building permits rose 11 percent to a 1.29 million-unit rate, the highest since June.With permits exceeding starts, home building is likely to remain supported in the months ahead.The Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by 25 basis points from near zero, the first rate increase in nearly a decade. It gave an upbeat assessment of the economy and noted that the housing sector has improved further.The Fed made clear that the tightening cycle was likely to be gradual, so the increase in borrowing costs was not expected to upset the housing recovery.The interest rate is still low compared to historical standards, said Kevin Young, an analyst at IBISWorld in Los Angeles.In a separate report, the Fed said industrial production fell 0.6 percent in November as unusually warm weather caused a sharp drop in demand for utilities.The third consecutive monthly decline in industrial output also reflected another sharp fall in mining production, driven by a plunge in drilling of oil and gas wells. Manufacturing output was unchanged. However, motor vehicle production fell for the first time since August, a worrying signal for manufacturing.We expect the auto sector to remain a drag on total production in coming months, said Laura Rosner, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York. On balance, manufacturing activity is likely to remain weak as the U.S. economy is still adjusting to the shocks of lower energy prices and weaker foreign demand.Stocks were trading higher, and the Standard & Poors home building index rallied. D.R. Horton, the largest American home builder, rose more than 2 percent in afternoon trading. Lennar, the nations second-largest home builder, advanced 1.6 percent.November was the eighth straight month that housing starts remained above an annual pace of one million units, the longest stretch since 2007. Economists predict starts will average 1.1 million units for 2015, which would be the highest since 2007 and up from one million in 2014.The housing market recovery remains constrained by a persistent shortage of houses for sale. This has resulted in home prices rising faster than salaries, pushing more people toward renting.Tight inventories and high prices will provide the incentives for builders to continue ramping up activity, said Gregory Daco, head of United States macroeconomics at Oxford Economics in New York.Single-family housing starts, the largest segment of the market, increased 7.6 percent to a 768,000-unit pace. That was the highest reading since January 2008. Warm weather also probably increased activity. Groundbreaking on single-family houses rose in the South, Northeast and West, but fell in the Midwest.Starts for the volatile multifamily segment surged 16.4 percent to a 405,000-unit pace. That segment has been the driver of residential construction but a shift toward single-family houses is expected in 2016.Home builders are making progress addressing the shortage of newer vintage single-family homes we see in many markets, especially affordable housing products with a price of under $200,000, said Tian Liu, chief economist at Genworth Mortgage Insurance in Raleigh, N.C.Permits to build single-family houses increased 1.1 percent last month to the highest level since December 2007. Multifamily building permits soared 26.9 percent. | Business |
Sarah Silverman PETA Pissed About Grammy Puppy Consolation Prize? Who Gives a F***!!! 1/31/2018 TMZ.com Sarah Silverman rolled her eyes at PETA for pissing on the puppy gag at the Grammys. We got the funny lady Tuesday at LAX and asked about PETA bitching that James Corden handed out pups as a consolation prize. PETA thinks it was wrong to put the dogs under bright lights and it sent a bad message that dogs are prizes rather than family members. Sarah scared us by suggesting a dead dog was tucked inside her backpack. Fact is, she walks the walk as a vegetarian and has a message for the animal rights org. | Entertainment |
Soccer|Barcelona Claims First Leghttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/sports/soccer/barcelona-claims-first-leg.htmlSports BriefingFeb. 18, 2014Barcelona took a commanding position in its second-round Champions League match with host Manchester City, winning the first leg, 2-0, on Tuesday night on goals by Lionel Messi and Dani Alves. Barcelona played with a man advantage after the 54th minute. Paris Saint-Germain won at Bayer Leverkusen, 4-0, as Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored twice. The second legs of the total-goals series are March 12. Curitiba, Brazil, will host World Cup matches despite serious problems in the renovation of a stadium that put it on the brink of becoming the first site ever to be kicked out because of delays, FIFAs secretary-general, Jrme Valcke, said. Four months before the June 12 opener, five of Brazils 12 stadiums, including Curitibas, remain under construction. | Sports |
BitsCredit...Asa Mathat for Vox MediaJune 1, 2018Each week, Kevin Roose, technology columnist at The New York Times, discusses developments in the tech industry, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here.Hello! Im writing to you from Los Angeles, where the weather is sunny and the electric scooters are venture backed.I spent most of the week at the Code Conference, where the tech worlds elite gathered to discuss the current state of the tech industry. It was a fascinating event, less in the sense of newsy product announcements (which there werent many of) and more in the general finger-in-the-wind sense of how the tech industry is thinking about itself.Notable at this years Code was that there seems to be a growing rift between the largest tech companies Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft and the rest of the industry.ImageCredit...Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York TimesThe shadow of the big tech companies loomed large over the conference, even if their presence was minimal. No executives from Apple, Amazon or Google spoke at Code, and when executives from Microsoft and Facebook did take the stage, they mostly talked about the past. (Brad Smith, Microsofts president, offered some historical perspective on the companys antitrust woes from the late 1990s; Sheryl Sandberg and Mike Schroepfer from Facebook did yet another rote recitation of the companys post-Cambridge Analytica well do better script.)Instead, much of the stage time went to leaders of companies just outside the tech A-list large, popular companies that in any other era would be considered enormous success stories, but that have spent years locked in a fight for survival against their bigger, more entrenched rivals.From the perspective of the tech B-list, there are two huge fights to be won. First, you need to establish a foothold in a market, either by out-innovating old-line incumbents taxis, hotels, music labels or by creating a new market altogether. Then, once youre established and growing, a bigger worry emerges: What if one of the Big Five squashes you?A good example of a tech B-lister is Spotify, which appears to be winning its battle with its biggest suppliers the three labels that provide the vast majority of Spotifys music but lives in perpetual danger of being steamrollered by a tech giant. Onstage at Code, Spotifys chief executive, Daniel Ek, fielded several questions about whether he worried about competitors like Apple, Amazon and Google, all of which have their own music streaming services and, more important, control the hardware platforms (iOS, Android, Alexa) on which people consume music.Mr. Ek mostly deflected, saying that there are very, very few opportunities that a billion-plus people around the world care about, and that the giants interest in music streaming showed the attractiveness of the category.But of course hes worried. The message of the past several years is clear: No matter how big and successful you are as a consumer-facing media, communications or advertising company, youll eventually end up in the same boat, butting up against the shore of the island where Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook have constructed their impregnable fortresses. (Side note: If you like reading about those five companies, youll probably be glad that my colleague Farhad Manjoo, who is writing an entire book on them, is returning from book leave next week.)Evan Spiegel, Snaps chief executive, sounded a similar note at the conference when asked about Facebooks habit of blatantly copying Snapchats most distinctive product features. (Mr. Spiegels sassy comeback We would really appreciate it if they copied our data protection practices also was the best line there.)But perhaps the clearest articulation of the tech B-list worldview came from Randall Stephenson, the chief executive of AT&T. Mr. Stephenson has been fighting to acquire Time Warner since November 2016 in an attempt to cobble together some combination of content libraries, mobile networks and advertising tech that is big enough to survive a battle with the Googles and Amazons of the world.ImageCredit...Asa Mathat for Vox MediaAsked by Recodes Peter Kafka how he thought about this battle, Mr. Stephenson (using an acronym for Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google) answered:Well, I believe if you dont create a pure, vertical, integrated capability, vertically integrated capability from distribution all the way through content creation and advertising models youre going to have a hard time competing with these guys. And the statistic we throw out, and since we announced this deal in November of 2016, the FANG market caps have gone up over $1 trillion. You better figure out how to vertically integrate here if you want to compete with those players.Its not unusual to see small firms complaining about the difficulty of breaking into established markets. Its more unusual to see those complaints coming from the leader of a $200 billion telecom giant. And it shows just how dominant the tech A-list has become, and how difficult overcoming its concentration of market power is proving to be.Here are a few other tech stories of note this past week: My colleagues Scott Shane, Cade Metz and Daisuke Wakabayashi had a great story about how Googles involvement in a Pentagon artificial intelligence project has sparked an existential crisis at the company, with leaders disagreeing about how and whether to allow Googles machine-learning technology to serve military interests. Watch this space the debate over Project Maven at Google is one of the first of what I suspect will be many employee-led revolts over ethics and corporate behavior at the largest tech firms. My colleague Nathaniel Popper wrote about the chaos unfolding at Envion, a Swiss cryptocurrency company that raised $100 million in an initial coin offering this year and is now, in Nathaniels words, melting down, with the people who created it accusing one another of fraud. I, for one, am shocked. The SoftBank Vision Fund, Silicon Valleys rich uncle, is taking its giant bags of money on the road. General Motors announced on Thursday that SoftBank was making a $2.25 billion investment in its Cruise self-driving car division, in exchange for an eventual 20 percent stake in the unit after its vehicles are commercially ready. Thats a pretty nice validation for G.M., which bought Cruise for nearly $1 billion just two years ago, and a further sign that SoftBank is willing to keep spending money like an Instagram scammer in pursuit of the next big thing. I enjoyed Taylor Lorenzs piece in The Atlantic about the struggling meme economy, where the shortening life cycle of memes has made it harder for merchandise hawkers on sites like DankMemeMerch.com and Dank Tank to sell their Tide Pod socks and Yanny vs. Laurel T-shirts. SoftBank Vision Fund, only you can invest in these struggling businesses and save the meme industry from ruin.Kevin Roose writes a column called The Shift and is a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter here: @kevinroose. | Tech |
Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesJune 15, 2018WASHINGTON Senior staff members at the Environmental Protection Agency frequently felt pressured by Scott Pruitt, the administrator, to help in personal matters and obtain special favors for his family, according to interviews with four current and former E.P.A. officials who served as top political aides to Mr. Pruitt.The officials said that Mr. Pruitt, who had a clear sense of entitlement, in the words of one of them, indicated that he expected staff members assistance with matters outside the purview of government, including calling on an executive with connections in the energy industry to help secure tickets to a sold-out football game in January at the Rose Bowl.The aides said the administrator who is the subject of multiple investigations over ethics and other issues, but has been defended by President Trump as a champion of environmental deregulation had also made it clear that he had no hesitation in leveraging his stature as a cabinet member to solicit favors himself.At least three E.P.A. staff members were dispatched to help Mr. Pruitts daughter, McKenna, obtain a summer internship at the White House, the current and former staff members said.Kevin Chmielewski, who was Mr. Pruitts deputy chief of staff for operations until February, recalled a conversation last year when Mr. Pruitt instructed him and other top aides to see what you can do about getting the internship, a highly competitive and prized post in Washington. Ms. Pruitt was selected as an intern last summer.We were constantly fielding requests like this, even though this had nothing to do with running the E.P.A., Mr. Chmielewski, one of the four political aides, said in an interview.Jahan Wilcox, Mr. Pruitts spokesman, disputed the suggestion that aides played an inappropriate role in securing the internship and that the administrator expected them to help boost his and his familys standing.Mr. Chmielewski left the E.P.A. after falling out with Mr. Pruitt, but the three other aides confirmed the internship request, as well as multiple other personal directives from their boss described by Mr. Chmielewski. They said Mr. Pruitt told them that he expected a certain standard of living akin to wealthier Trump cabinet members. The aides felt as if Mr. Pruitt who is paid about $180,000 a year saw them as foot soldiers in achieving that lifestyle.The problem is he is not Trump he is not a billionaire, said one of the other aides, who spoke on the condition that they not be named. But he sincerely thinks he is.Mr. Trump, taking questions from reporters on Friday, suggested Mr. Pruitts stewardship of the E.P.A. was paramount. Im not happy about certain things, but hes done a fantastic job running the E.P.A., which is very overriding, the president said.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesThe aides said E.P.A. staff members helped arrange meetings and phone calls for Mr. Pruitt with influential donors to his past campaigns and political causes in Oklahoma, where he served as a state lawmaker and attorney general before joining the Trump administration. The appointments including with Philip Anschutz, a Denver-based billionaire were kept off Mr. Pruitts public schedule, the aides said, because it was clear the sessions were not about E.P.A. business, even though agency staff was involved in setting them up.Aides have also been deployed on missions related to Mr. Pruitts personal entertainment.One aide, Millan Hupp, helped book his travel to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., where Mr. Pruitt had secured seats near the 50-yard line for the face value of $175 each, documents show. The tickets, for Mr. Pruitt and his wife and two children, were purchased five days before the sold-out New Years Day game this year.Mr. Pruitt bought the tickets, the records show, from a special allotment for the University of Oklahoma, which appeared in the game against the University of Georgia. Tickets for equivalent seats were on sale on the secondary market for as much as seven times the price Mr. Pruitt paid, data from two ticket companies show.He obtained the tickets with the help of Renzi Stone, an Oklahoma university regent who runs Saxum, a large marketing firm with energy industry clients that have included the American Petroleum Institute and G.E. Oil and Gas.Mr. Stone, in an email to The New York Times, confirmed that he had intervened on Mr. Pruitts behalf to help navigate the purchase of tickets.He asked. I was happy to assist, Mr. Stone wrote, adding that he had known Mr. Pruitt since 2001 and considered him a friend.He later wrote on Twitter that Mr. Pruitt had inquired about the tickets through an aide.In a letter on Thursday, Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked Mr. Stone to provide any communication with Mr. Pruitt, as well as any documentation pertaining to the purchase of the Rose Bowl tickets. He also wrote that at least one of Mr. Stones clients had regulatory matters pending before the E.P.A.Plains All American Pipeline, Mr. Cummings said in his letter, currently has a petition before the E.P.A. to discharge hydrostatic test water from a pipeline in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mr. Stone said on Twitter that we dont do any work for clients at E.P.A. and would be responding to Mr. Cummings. A spokesman for Plains All American Pipeline said its association with Saxum ended last November.Mr. Wilcox, the E.P.A. spokesman, said in an email that Mr. Cummings is misconstruing the facts. Mr. Stone simply connected Pruitt to the athletic department, he said. Pruitt purchased the tickets at face value from the OU athletic department. To report otherwise, is false.The political aides said that Mr. Pruitts desire to use his job for benefits unrelated to his E.P.A. work helped explain other actions that have been the subject of public scrutiny, including his first-class airline travel, an aides effort to help Mr. Pruitts wife get work with a conservative political group, and another aides intervening with the chief executive of the Chick-fil-A fast-food chain to help his wife set up a franchise, as The Washington Post first reported.Mr. Pruitts repeated requests of his staff have led some important backers, including Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, to suggest that Mr. Pruitt may have crossed the line and should perhaps step down.ImageCredit...Kevork S. Djansezian/Getty ImagesIm afraid my good friend Scott Pruitt has done some things that really surprised me, Mr. Inhofe told Laura Ingraham, a conservative television and radio host, this week. If that doesnt stop Im going to be forced to be in a position where I say, Scott, youre not doing your job.Questions about Mr. Pruitts behavior as administrator have led to at least a dozen investigations across the federal government. The newest inquiry, by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, is examining Mr. Pruitts personnel practices and allegations that he may have used his E.P.A. office for political purposes, people with knowledge of the investigation said. At least two former E.P.A. officials said investigators had contacted them.As Oklahomas attorney general, Mr. Pruitt earned an annual salary of about $133,000, and he had assets between $320,000 and $800,000, mostly in investment accounts, according to his disclosure documents. That included between $15,000 and $50,000 in a cash account. He reported a public employees retirement plan worth $100,000 to $250,000. His wife reported no income.He also said he owed between $500,000 and $1 million on his $1.18 million home in Tulsa.The requests to his staff for assistance began on his arrival in Washington, the four political aides said.Mr. Pruitt and his daughter lived at first in a Capitol Hill condominium that Mr. Pruitt rented for $50 a night, even as the husband of the units co-owner lobbied Mr. Pruitt on behalf of clients. Mr. Pruitt later pressed a political aide to help him find a new apartment, which he then complained was too noisy.Finding work for the administrators wife, Marlyn, also became a top focus for agency workers, the current and former aides said.Despite efforts by a scheduler for Mr. Pruitt, a deal for a Chick-fil-A franchise did not materialize for Mrs. Pruitt. But a spokesman for Judicial Crisis Network, a dark-money group that helps get conservative judges named to federal courts, hired Mrs. Pruitt last fall after her husbands aides and a longtime supporter intervened, agency staff members who worked on the effort said.Mr. Pruitts interest in meeting with former political donors, the current and former aides said, was based on expectations that he might want to run for the United States Senate or some other office.During a trip to Colorado last August, Mr. Pruitt reserved time for a meeting with Mr. Anschutz in what was listed only as a private meeting. Ryan Jackson, Mr. Pruitts chief of staff, helped set up the meeting, according to agency officials.Mr. Chmielewski, the former deputy chief of staff, said that when he arrived at the office of Mr. Anschutz, a major Republican fund-raiser and owner of the Oklahoman newspaper, he questioned why the meeting would be among the administrators visits that day. Mr. Chmielewski said an agency colleague told him it was about fund-raising.Mr. Wilcox said Mr. Pruitt was allowed to set up personal meetings during his trips. A spokesman for Mr. Anschutz declined to comment.ImageCredit...Carolyn Kaster/Associated PressMr. Pruitt also had his staff include various sporting events in his schedule, which involved bringing his considerable E.P.A. security detail with him, the current and former aides said.Among the sporting events aides helped arrange for Mr. Pruitt to attend were two Washington Nationals baseball games, including one on July 5, when they negotiated access for Mr. Pruitt to the teams batting practice before a scheduled matchup with the New York Mets, according to emails obtained by the Sierra Club.Thanks for taking my call this morning! If we could arrange for Administrator Pruitt to come to batting practice before July 5ths game, that would be wonderful! Madeline Morris, then an E.P.A. aide, wrote in an email to the Nationals vice president for community engagement, Gregory McCarthy.Emails show that Mr. Pruitts wife and two children also planned to attend the July game, and that E.P.A. officials coordinated security arrangements and a motorcade with the Nationals staff. The game was postponed because of inclement weather, and it is unclear whether Mr. Pruitt attended another game instead. Jennifer Giglio, a spokeswoman for the Nationals, declined to comment.Mr. Pruitt did score free tickets for himself, his wife and his chief of staff to a Sept. 28 Nationals game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, according to a spokesman for Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah, who provided the tickets and said he used the game as a chance to discuss a Superfund cleanup project at a shuttered gold mine in his state.The two sat side by side for a few innings and discussed the Gold King Mine issues, Paul Edwards, a spokesman for the governor, said in a statement.Last fall, Mr. Pruitt was on hand for at least three home games in Norman, Okla., as the University of Oklahomas football team steamrollered its way to a conference championship, university records show.Days before a game in mid-September against Tulane University, an E.P.A. staff member wrote the campus police requesting four passes for Mr. Pruitts security detail.The university provided documentation showing that Mr. Pruitt paid face value for two tickets for three home games. It also acknowledged that Mr. Pruitt was given special access to a group of 750 reserved tickets at the Rose Bowl. Mr. Pruitt purchased his tickets from a block of tickets that the university holds for discretionary use at all of its teams games, the university said in a statement.Mr. Pruitt on Thursday evening demonstrated how he had kept Mr. Trump, at least until now, focused on his business-friendly agenda at the E.P.A., not his personal behavior and various investigations. On Twitter, he posted a photograph of himself sitting at Mr. Trumps desk at the White House, announcing that the E.P.A. had just rolled back another Obama-era regulation, a clean water rule.Happy birthday, Mr. President! he added. | Politics |
TrilobitesCredit...Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated PressJune 16, 2017The Black Sea isnt black, and its not usually turquoise either. But a huge bloom of phytoplankton has illuminated it and the connected Bosporus and the Golden Horn of Istanbul with beautiful swirls of milky blue-green. This aquatic artwork appears every summer, but this years bloom is one of the brightest since 2012, according to Norman Kuring, a NASA scientist. Its so bright, it can be seen from space.NASA created this composite image of the bloom with data and satellite images on May 29. It has gotten brighter since and appears to be nearing its expected peak, around the summer solstice. After a particularly luminous weekend, thousands of people began talking about the opaque, jewel-toned water on social media.The marine artists responsible are most likely phytoplankton, teeny organisms that live off energy derived from a combination of dissolved nutrients and their ability, like plants, to break down sunlight. In the Black Sea, and the eastern European rivers Danube and Dnieper that feed it, live a common group of phytoplankton called coccolithophores.Coccolithophores do well in warm, stratified waters, where they often dominate, surviving even with few nutrients. They multiply asexually, and boom what a pretty picture.ImageCredit...Norman Kuring/NASAThese microscopic algae build their own armor by surrounding themselves with dozens of limestone, or calcium carbonate, scales. All bundled up, they look like tiny, crocheted marbles under a microscope. But gathered in the trillions, they cloud up the bath of blue-green water as they die, dropping their shells, which scatter sunlight. Its like a painters palette: Drop a dab of white paint into a greenish blue, and you get turquoise.The optical effect is striking, said William M. Balch, a researcher at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. If you are in a boat, the turquoise water goes from horizon to horizon.The algae live only a few days, but the turquoise water can last weeks longer as the reflective, chalky armor slowly sinks at a rate of nearly four inches a day.Theyre sort of the dandruff of the ocean, Dr. Balch said.These types of phytoplankton blooms are common in the Black Sea, but scientists cant say for certain why this years bloom burst so brilliantly. Perhaps warmer, more stratified water, increased light availability, the absence of the specific nutrients that their main competitors eat or a reduction in other species that can eat them allowed the coccolithophores to thrive, Dr. Balch said. Its possible that heavy rains brought in nutrients like iron, which is important for coccolithophores from the Sahara, according to The Associated Press. | science |
Feb. 20, 2014SAN FRANCISCO After failing to acquire a frontcourt player before the N.B.A.s trade deadline passed Thursday afternoon, the Nets shifted their focus to a list of free-agent big men they could sign and plug into their rotation down the stretch.On that list was one particularly intriguing name: Jason Collins.Collins, a 35-year-old center, drew attention last spring when he announced that he was gay, just weeks after finishing the regular season with the Washington Wizards. It was a landmark moment: There has not been an openly gay athlete in the four major North American sports leagues.Despite his desire to continue his career, Collins was unable to find a team willing to sign him for this season. If he joined the Nets, his first game would represent another pioneering event.The Nets have two open roster spots, and General Manager Billy King said on Thursday, hours after the trade deadline, that the team would look to sign a free agent to buttress its frontcourt rotation. King said Collins was an obvious candidate but emphasized that discussions about several possibilities, including players in the Development League and ones based abroad, would continue over the coming days.Were looking at any guys that are big, and hes one of the guys, King said of Collins. But weve got other guys were going to look at.King was not present when Collins worked out for the team last weekend in Los Angeles. Asked if he had received a report on Collins after the workout, King said, Hes in shape.Collins, who has played for six different teams over a 12-year professional career, spent his first six and a half seasons with the Nets, who were based at the time in New Jersey. He has played alongside Jason Kidd, now the Nets coach, as well as Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce during a stint last season with the Boston Celtics. In his career, Collins has averaged 6.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per 36 minutes.In an interview in October with The New York Times, Collins re-emphasized his belief that he could help a team. Although he declined to speculate then whether opening up about his sexual orientation had limited his opportunities, he said, I feel there are players in the league right now that, quite frankly, Im better than.Collins has continued to work out in Los Angeles, and in that interview, he seemed to foresee a situation like this one. This is not an unprecedented situation, as far as being a veteran and not joining a team until later in the season, he said. So there are a lot of ways that this can play out.The Nets, who acquired guard Marcus Thornton on Wednesday, are looking for help down the stretch, particularly with rebounding and on the defensive end. King said that he had discussions about a number of potential trades before the deadline but that he could not find a deal that he felt would benefit the team.Asked about the attention the Nets would gain if he signed Collins, King said the team considered all aspects and ramifications of signing a player during the decision-making process. But he insisted that it ultimately would come down to what a player could do on the court.Its not about marketing or anything like that, King said. If were bringing somebody in, its because we feel like they can help our basketball team.He added, Were beyond doing something for gimmicks. | Sports |
Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 8, 2018WASHINGTON A Democratic senator has urged President Trump to allow American humanitarian aid workers into North Korea, despite a recent ban on travel to what officials consider a hostile nuclear state but also one of the worlds poorest nations.The senator, Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a letter dated Nov. 7 that he was deeply troubled by reports that the Trump administration was barring aid workers from shipping supplies or traveling to North Korea as they seek to provide the most basic humanitarian assistance.Mr. Markey praised Mr. Trumps decision to engage in diplomacy with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, but said the aid workers needed to be allowed to do their jobs. Aid groups provide a range of services, including agricultural training and surgery, but are finding it impossible to enter North Korea because of new State Department restrictions.The humanitarian situation in North Korea is far too dire for these draconian policies, Mr. Markey wrote in the letter to Mr. Trump that was also sent to Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary.In a statement to The New York Times on Thursday, Mr. Markey said American interests are best served when our moral and global leadership are in lock step.Addressing the grave security challenge we face in North Korea while also trying to mitigate its longstanding humanitarian crisis will require exactly this, he said.North Korea suffered a devastating famine in the mid-1990s and has a chronic food shortage. Mr. Markey cited United Nations data that estimates 60,000 children are at risk of starvation in North Korea, and he said drug-resistant tuberculosis, if left untreated, could spread across the country and to neighboring nations.In September 2017, the Trump administration enacted a general travel ban to North Korea after the death of Otto F. Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who was arrested while on tour in the North in 2016. Mr. Warmbier suffered severe brain damage while being detained and was released in a vegetative state in June 2017. He died days later.During the first year of the ban, American humanitarian aid workers were given a special validation to travel to North Korea with a one-visit-only passport issued by the State Department. (Journalists traveling there get the same passport.)Some aid workers received the special passport multiple times during that first year, and the ban was renewed in 2018.But in September, aid workers found that State Department officials had begun rejecting their applications for the passport. The letters of rejection said the workers had no recourse for appeal. A dozen American nonprofits work regularly in North Korea.The potential life-threatening consequences of this policy are far reaching, said Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, which represents the groups.The State Department has said each application is determined case by case and must be in line with American interests.The travel ban on American aid workers was reported by The Times and The Wall Street Journal last month.Aid workers praised Mr. Markeys demand. Thank you Sen. Markey for holding the administration accountable, Kee Park, a Korean-American doctor who until this fall traveled regularly with medical delegations to North Korea, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.The Trump administration has been looking to exert maximum pressure on North Korea by tightening economic sanctions. That is the main thrust of a plan to force North Korea to end and dismantle its nuclear weapons program.American analysts estimate North Korea has 30 to 60 nuclear warheads and can produce enough fissile material to make six to seven bombs annually.Mr. Trump has been keen to engage diplomatically with Mr. Kim and persuade him to get rid of his nuclear weapons. The two held a historic summit meeting in Singapore in June. But the diplomacy has since stalled, and a critical meeting that was scheduled for Thursday between Mr. Pompeo and a North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong-chol, was canceled.Kang Kyung-wha, the South Korean foreign minister, said American officials relayed that North Korea had canceled the meeting, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.Separately, the State Department announced on Thursday that it was imposing sanctions on three individuals and nine entities that support Russias annexation of Crimea. The targets of the sanctions are individuals or companies that engage in business in Crimea that further the goals of annexation or carry out serious human rights abuses, the State Department said.The United States does not and will not recognize Russias purported annexation of Crimea, it said. | World |
Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesJune 11, 2017In recent years, millions of middle- and working-class Americans have moved from job to job, some staying with one company for shorter stints or shifting careers midstream.The Affordable Care Act has enabled many of those workers to get transitional coverage that provides a bridge to the next phase of their lives a stopgap to get health insurance if they leave a job, are laid off, start a business or retire early.If the Republican replacement plan approved by the House becomes law, changing jobs or careers could become much more difficult.Across the nation, Americans in their 50s and early 60s, still too young to qualify for Medicare, could be hit hard by soaring insurance costs, especially people now eligible for generous subsidies through the existing federal health care law.This news scares Fern Warnat, 59. She has gotten insurance on the federal marketplace a couple of times in the last few years. When she and her husband moved from New York to Boca Raton, Fla., she bought a policy for a few months to tide her over until she got coverage from a new job. A year later, she needed to buy insurance again when she found herself unemployed. The policy was expensive around $800 a month.It wasnt easy, but it was available, she said.Now she worries what would happen under the Republican plan if she left her job at a home health company that provides insurance.I need something to be there, she said. Im going to be 60 years old. All my conditions pre-exist.Since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, companies have become less worried about people who want to leave but feel locked into their jobs because of health insurance, said Julie Stone, who works with corporations at Willis Towers Watson, a benefits consultant. The law removed one of the barriers to leaving your job, she said.Fewer employers now offer health insurance for their retirees, she said. The other alternative is Cobra, the federal law that requires companies to allow workers to remain on their employers plan if they pay the full monthly premiums, which are often extremely expensive and out of reach for many people. The coverage generally lasts no more than a year and a half. Cobra was a Band-Aid on a broken market, Ms. Stone said.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in an analysis last month that states covering one-sixth of the population would take waivers that allowed insurers to charge people with pre-existing conditions more. It predicted that such consumers would be unable to purchase comprehensive coverage with premiums close to those under current law and might not be able to purchase coverage at all.ImageCredit...Amanda Lucier for The New York TimesThe budget office did note that the House bill would potentially lead to lower prices, especially for younger and healthier people. In most markets, the low premiums would attract a sufficient number of relatively healthy people to stabilize the market.But the budget office also warned that markets in states that allowed insurers to charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions whether high blood pressure, a one-time visit to a specialist or cancer could become unstable. Some places are already experiencing a dearth of insurers. More companies could exit as they struggled to make money in highly uncertain conditions.Millions of people could also wind up with little choice but to buy cheap plans that provided minimal coverage in states that opted out of requiring insurers to cover maternity care, mental health and addiction treatment or rehabilitation services, among other services required under the Affordable Care Act. Consumers who could not afford high premiums would wind up with enormous out-of-pocket medical expenses.The individual market has always been characterized by heavy churn, and insurers struggle to meet the needs of these short-timers, particularly the young and healthy, for whom coverage can be expensive. Its a huge challenge, even independent of the A.C.A., said John Graves, a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University.Insurers say they have had a hard time accurately estimating the medical costs of the changing pool of customers who need relatively short-term coverage and pricing their plans high enough to cover those costs. Aetna, one of the large national insurers that has decided to leave the market, said about half of its customers were new, and it blamed high churn as one reason the company lost money.Older people with potentially the most expensive conditions account for almost 30 percent of those who enrolled for insurance on the exchanges this year.David Clark wanted to retire from his job at Sams Club at age 62, three years before he would qualify for Medicare. He and his wife, Phyllis, who now live in Delray Beach, Fla., were not in good health. He has a heart ailment, and she has diabetes. Before passage of the Affordable Care Act, he said, he would have had to keep working.We wouldnt have been able to buy insurance at any price, he said.But he was able to retire and get coverage on one of the marketplaces. This has been three of the greatest years of our life, said Mr. Clark, who spends much of his time mentoring college students. When he needed triple bypass surgery at age 64, he was covered.Many people are keenly aware that the existing marketplaces provide a safety net, even if it is far from ideal.Dr. Marie Valleroy was able to stop working because she could afford to buy insurance on the federal exchange for four years until she was old enough to get Medicare. She has multiple sclerosis, and her symptoms were making it harder for her to see patients in Portland, Ore. It was time for me to retire, truthfully, she said. Her medications cost upward of $5,000 a month.And the law made it possible for Bobby Evans, now 35, to move to New Orleans two years ago to be with his girlfriend, now his wife. Because he was working part time until he could find a permanent position, he bought a policy through the state marketplace.He and his wife have talked about opening their own consulting firm, but the plan is being delayed, he said, depending on what happens with the federal law providing individual insurance. Health care is a big-time barrier for a lot of peoples professional growth, Mr. Evans said. | Health |
Credit...Fazry Ismail/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 1, 2017KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia For years, North Korea has enjoyed the freedom for its citizens to visit, work and live in Malaysia, a rare privilege for a nation considered an outlaw by most of the world.Now that freedom is in danger, with the North Korean Embassy in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, at the center of a murder investigation that is upending the cozy diplomatic relationship between the two countries.Two North Korean men accused of participating in the Feb. 13 assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un, have taken refuge in the embassy and are refusing to cooperate with the police. Their stance is presenting the Malaysian authorities with a daunting challenge as they try to crack a case with major international ramifications.One of the two men, Hyon Kwang-song, is a high-ranking embassy employee who claims diplomatic immunity and, as a result, is untouchable by the police. The other, Kim Uk-il, an employee of the state-owned airline, Air Koryo, is safe from arrest as long as he remains on the embassy grounds.South Korean intelligence officials said on Monday that Mr. Hyon worked for North Koreas Ministry of State Security, the countrys secret police.The embassy is considered the sovereign territory of the country concerned, so the authorities cannot enter without permission, said Sivananthan Nithyanantham, a Malaysian lawyer who has served as counsel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. To do so would be akin to entering foreign soil without consent and would be a serious breach of diplomatic protocol.ImageCredit...Royal Malaysian Police, via European Pressphoto AgencyThe Vienna Convention of 1961 gives diplomats and embassies a special protected status intended to safeguard the conduct of international affairs. But over the years, there have been several high-profile cases of diplomats and citizens who have sought to use these protections to avoid prosecution for serious, nondiplomatic crimes.During a tense standoff with the United States, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former Panamanian dictator, took refuge in the de facto Vatican embassy in Panama City in 1989 to avoid capture by United States troops who had come to seize him. He was forced to leave after 10 days when the Vatican declined to give him asylum.And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, unsuccessfully sought to invoke diplomatic immunity to avoid a lawsuit alleging that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in Manhattan in 2011. But his claim of immunity was rejected by a New York State judge because Mr. Strauss-Kahn had already left that post before the suit was filed.One of the best-known diplomatic asylum seekers is Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who has been holed up at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for five years to avoid extradition to Sweden on accusations of rape. Although he is not a diplomat, Ecuador has granted him asylum and allowed him to stay at the embassy.Like Mr. Assange, Kim Uk-il, the North Korean airline employee, is vulnerable to arrest should he ever leave the embassy grounds or, in his case, if relations sour to the point that Malaysia and North Korea cut diplomatic ties and the embassy closes.Intelligence services, including the C.I.A., routinely assign agents to work in foreign embassies in the guise of diplomats, largely because of the protections of diplomatic immunity. Governments sometimes expel these agents when espionage is uncovered. But it is rare for someone working under diplomatic cover to be linked to a murder and for a government to seek an arrest.The police say Kim Jong-nam was assassinated by two women who rubbed VX nerve agent on his face. Siti Aisyah, 25, of Indonesia, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, of Vietnam, were charged on Wednesday with his murder. They have said they thought they were participating in a harmless prank.ImageCredit...Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesSouth Korea has blamed the North Korean government for Mr. Kims assassination, and the Malaysian police have identified eight North Korean men, including Mr. Hyon, an embassy second secretary, and Kim Uk-il as participants in the plot.North Korea said on Wednesday that the conclusion that Mr. Kim had been killed by VX nerve agent was the height of absurdity because such a poison is so powerful that it would have killed more than just one person.The poisoning in the middle of Kuala Lumpurs busy international airport has prompted some Malaysians to call for an examination of their countrys role in helping North Korea connect with the outside world and to question whether the North should be allowed to have an embassy in Malaysia.Dennis Ignatius, a former Malaysian ambassador to several Western Hemisphere countries, called Malaysian officials nave and gullible in dealing with North Korea and questioned why the rogue state had ever been allowed to open its embassy in the first place.He urged the government sometimes known by the same name as its geographic location, Putrajaya to downgrade relations with North Korea. He suggested expelling North Koreas ambassador, revoking the visas of North Koreans working in Malaysia and closing Malaysias embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Malaysia has already recalled its ambassador there for consultations.The real question is why Putrajaya has allowed North Korea to turn Malaysia into one of its most important bases of operation in the region from which to carry out clandestine activities, circumvent U.N. sanctions and engage in all sorts of illicit enterprises to earn hard currency for the regime, he wrote in a blistering blog post this week.Under the Vienna Convention, countries can declare a foreign diplomat persona non grata. Malaysia is said to be considering that designation for Mr. Hyon and his superior, Ambassador Kang Chol, who issued a strongly worded statement last week accusing Malaysia of colluding with South Korea in the Kim case.ImageCredit...Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesBoth Malaysia and North Korea have signed the Vienna agreement, which allows a country to waive immunity for its own diplomats.This happens only rarely. Malaysia waived immunity in the case of its military attach, Muhammad Rizalman bin Ismail, who was arrested in New Zealand in 2014 on suspicion of sexually assaulting a young woman.He claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Zealand to avoid prosecution. But given the nature of the charges, Malaysia revoked his immunity and returned him to face trial in New Zealand, where he pleaded guilty.In another unusual case, in 1997, President Eduard A. Shevardnadze of Georgia revoked the immunity of Gueorgui Makharadze, a high-ranking diplomat at the embassy in Washington, who was then tried and convicted in the drunken-driving death of a 16-year-old girl in Maryland.In 2011, American officials argued that Raymond A. Davis, a C.I.A. contractor who killed two Pakistanis on a crowded street in Lahore, was entitled to diplomatic immunity, a claim rejected by the Pakistani government. He was eventually freed and left the country after the victims families were promised millions of dollars in blood money.In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian government, which declined to discuss the case, could face a protracted standoff with North Korea over the two suspects in the embassy.About 1,000 North Koreans live and work in Malaysia, where their companies have rare access to global markets and the international banking system. For their part, Malaysians can visit North Korea without a visa, but few have reason to go. With such an imbalanced relationship, Malaysia may have little to lose by severing ties with North Korea if it continues to deny the police access to the suspects.This is certainly one of the worlds most secretive and ostracized countries, and probably for good reasons, said Oh Ei Sun, a former secretary to Prime Minister Najib Razak and an adjunct senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. We should really think twice about letting them come in freely. | World |
on techAre big tech companies now too powerful to play fair?Credit...Erik CarterPublished June 11, 2020Updated March 3, 2021This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.Its one of the elemental questions about big technology companies: Do they have so much sway that what would be normal behavior for typical companies is no longer innocuous?ProPublica recently wrote the latest in a string of articles about Amazon and the products it makes to sell on its site. You probably know about AmazonBasics for batteries or cleaning rags, but there are several hundred thousand Amazon products under dozens of brand names. The company is finding ways to subtly nudge people to buy the in-house merchandise.This isnt so different from what stores like Walmart and Target do to get you to buy their own brands of cereal or T-shirts. The question is whether internet powerhouses are so different from retail stores that when they play by the old rules, its not OK anymore.The difference between Amazon and Walmart, which sells far more merchandise, is how much more Amazon knows about what happens on its digital shelves than its competitors do.Walmart doesnt usually know that youve been in the store three times this month to browse for mattresses, but Amazon knows when youre hunting around on its own site and often elsewhere online, too.Amazon might also watch what youre buying from other companies and then use that information to more effectively make a competing version. The Wall Street Journal reported that it did this with car-trunk organizers, for example, in apparent violation of the companys rules.Amazons site has become so popular that its now the starting point for the biggest chunk of Americans shopping online. This enables it to have the best information on what products sell or dont online and at what prices. Amazons search box is a window into our desires, and many product manufacturers believe they cant exist without selling on Amazon.That data and heft arm Amazon with the information it needs to more effectively steer people to its products.Amazon is not a normal store. Its the infinite Everything Store with infinite information. Thats why the companys marketing pitches for its own products are unlike any other form of advertising.Those concerns are one reason regulators in the European Union are preparing to charge Amazon with violating antitrust rules, and why the authorities in the United States are investigating whether Amazon is abusing its power by giving itself a leg up over other companies that sell their products on its site.To Amazon and its defenders, this feels unfair. Amazon is just doing what stores have always done just better.This question about whether technology superpowers can play fair by the tried and true rules is a central legal, economic and ethical confrontation of our age.Its not just about whether Google is too big to be dethroned or Facebook is bad at policing speech on its online hangout. The conundrum is whether these giants are so mighty that they cant operate fairly and effectively.Curtailing facial recognition doesnt require CongressWhen Amazon flexes its power, part two.Amazon said Wednesday that it was putting a one-year pause on letting the police use its facial recognition technology, called Rekognition, and said it hoped that would give Congress time to pass regulations on its use.Amazon didnt give a reason, but the move comes amid nationwide protests against biased policing. Civil liberties advocates have been concerned that facial recognition misidentifies people with darker skin, is prone to overuse, and reinforces bias against black people.Amazon had previously refused requests from privacy advocates to monitor whether law enforcement agencies were using Rekognition ethically.IBM, which is a smaller supplier of facial recognition technology, said this week that it would stop its work on the technology.This is another side of the power of these tech companies. A handful of big companies are so influential that their decisions alone can put the brakes on a divisive technology.At times, this may lead to decisions you support. If you worry that facial recognition software is dangerous, then youre probably relieved that Amazon, IBM and other companies have decided that their software is too flawed or prone to misuse to be used by the police without legal guidelines. (There will, of course, always be other companies that sell facial recognition.)Even when I write about the dangers of powerful technology gatekeepers, I know we sometimes want them to flex their power.I want Google and Facebook to push accurate information about the coronavirus to the people hanging out inside their digital walls. When Amazon cracks down on selling Nazi-themed books, it becomes much harder for people to buy them.We might agree with these companies decisions or not. Either way, choices by a few big companies can affect millions of people, and the companies can move faster than governments can write laws. Their rules effectively serve as public policy.We need to figure out how to thread the needle between demanding that companies use their power, and being worried when they do.Before we go Not a lot of love for Facebook: Joe Bidens presidential campaign plans to urge its supporters to demand that Facebook strengthen its rules against misinformation and hold politicians accountable for harmful comments, my colleague Cecilia Kang writes. Her article is a reminder that both major party candidates for the U.S. presidency have been critical of how Facebook polices its hangouts for different reasons. Generally, President Trump wants Facebook to have a lighter touch over screening posts, while Mr. Biden wants more intervention.In a (saucy) response, Facebook said that elected leaders should be the ones to make the rules on important policy issues like appropriate political campaign messages.I know Goldfish and Fruit Gushers are dating. Sit down and let my colleague Taylor Lorenz explain Elite TikTok, where kids and teenagers impersonate Vaseline, Burlington Coat Factory, and other corporations and products. The parody accounts sometimes pick fights with one another or couple up, and its all just intentionally bizarre chaos.When the gatekeepers mistakenly enforce their rules: OneZero has an interesting dive into why hundreds of people who oppose white supremacy had their Facebook accounts temporarily suspended. They believe the company confused their subculture with neo-Nazi groups. Facebook said it reinstated the accounts.Hugs to thisSloths are so adorable. BABY sloths are too too adorable. You can help name this little one. (Thanks to the On Tech editor Hanna Ingber for finding this one.)We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected] this newsletter in your inbox every weekday; please sign up here. | Tech |
Researchers used an X-ray technique to resurface the redacted text of letters exchanged between the queen and her dear friend Axel von Fersen.Credit...Library of CongressPublished Oct. 1, 2021Updated Oct. 5, 2021The year was 1791, and while Marie Antoinette may not have had the favor of the people of France, she did have a pen pal. Her confidant, Axel von Fersen, was a Swedish count, and one of the French queens close friends.Between the summers of 1791 and 1792, though the queen was kept under close surveillance after a botched escape attempt, she still managed to sneak letters to Count von Fersen. He copied the letters, which are now held in the French national archives. But between the time the letters were written and the time they arrived at the archives, some mysterious actor censored the letters, scrawling out words and lines with tightly looped circles of ink.The content of the censored lines and the identity of the fastidious scribbler eluded historians for nearly 150 years. In a paper published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, scientists have now revealed the redacted content of eight of the censored letters between Marie Antoinette and Count von Fersen. The researchers used a technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which can detect the chemical signatures of different inks without damaging documents.The uncensored contents of the letters show the depth of Marie Antoinettes affections for her close friend during a time of turmoil. But in a blow to gossips, the contents do not clarify whether they were having an affair.Emeline Pouyet, a researcher at Sorbonne University in France who was not involved with the project, called the lifted redaction a real technical breakthrough that contributes to the field of conservation science.I think its absolutely fantastic, said Catriona Seth, a professor of French literature at the University of Oxford who was not involved with the research. Science is teaching us things we couldnt have guessed.Marie Antoinette, who was executed in 1793, wrote many letters in her life.Though the content of the queens later correspondence with the count is frequently political, the letters capture some of the most extreme moments of her life. Shes under house arrest, she fears for her life, she may be killed, Dr. Seth said. She is writing with this awareness of her fate.But only a few of the letters had redacted content, Dr. Seth said. And many historians have wondered whether those censored lines could offer new insights into the French queens relationship with the Swedish count.The letters stayed in Count von Fersens family until 1877, when they were published by the counts great-nephew, Baron R.M. de Klinckowstrm. Many historians suspect the baron was the letters censor, perhaps to preserve his familys reputation among rumors that the Swedish count and the French queen had been secret lovers.In 2014, the National Archives contacted Anne Michelin, an assistant professor at the French National Museum of Natural History, to see whether she might be able to uncover the text.Researchers can use X-ray tomography, or CT scans, to recover certain hidden texts, such as the inky insides of rolled papyri. These X-rays can visualize the text without damaging the manuscripts.But the redactions in the Marie Antoinette letters are a different sort of beast. The censor scratched out lines using the same ink as the original writing, creating a black tangle of superimposed ink. The two inks did not have enough chemical contrast for CT scans to detect the underlying text. The researchers brainstormed potential techniques that could break through the censorship; all but one failed to illuminate the redactions.The method that prevailed was X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, or XRF, which differentiated the chemical signature of the ink used by the original author and the ink used by the censor. The initial XRF scans revealed that both texts had been etched with metal-gall ink, a common ink made with iron sulfate. But the iron sulfate is not pure most of the time, Dr. Michelin said. It contains other metallic elements, like copper and zinc. With that slight difference, we can differentiate the inks.In some letters, copper was present only in the original ink, so isolating the element on its own would remove the censor. So just with the map of the copper, I can read the text, Dr. Michelin said.Other letters proved trickier. With no single elemental smoking gun, the researchers mapped the ratios of certain elements, such as copper-to-iron, to distinguish between the inks and to reveal the text. And more letters still evaded deciphering entirely, as the original and redacting inks were too similar in composition to be separated.The ink scans may also have uncloaked the true identity of the redactor: not the grandnephew, Baron de Klinckowstrm, but Count von Fersen himself. The scans showed that the count started using the same ink to write and redact after 1791. In one letter, the count redacted a line and added text above it in the same ink to ensure the line would still be readable, changing the letter of the 28th made my happiness to the milder the letter of the 28th reached me. A handwriting expert confirmed the tweak came from the count himself.The team ultimately undid the censorship of eight of the 15 total letters, revealing sentimental displays of affection between the French queen and the Swedish count: words like beloved, tender friend, adore and madly.Very clearly, Marie Antoinette has a very deep affection for von Fersen, who at this stage of her existence is one of the pillars of her affection, Dr. Seth said.But Dr. Seth says these moonstruck effusions are not proof of a love affair. She compared them to the kissy-face emoji.You might use it to mean bye to a friend, and yet someone who doesnt know about our emoji culture will assume you must be deeply in love, she said.Besides, the count was a busy man.Hes still having an affair with another woman at the time, Dr. Seth added.Before starting the project, Dr. Michelin was not familiar with the rumored relationship between Count von Fersen and Marie Antoinette. Though she now has more compassion for the maligned queen, she is somewhat uninterested in the rumors.All the queens and all the kings in France had this love affair, she said dryly over a Zoom call. Its common. | science |
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021While Democrats celebrated the election of the Rev. Raphael Warnock to the Senate, Georgias second Senate runoff race which will determine which party will control the Senate remained too close to call on Wednesday. The Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, was leading his Republican challenger, David Perdue, by thousands of votes with thousands more that still need to be counted, many of them from Democratic-leaning areas.After trading leads earlier in the evening, Mr. Ossoff pulled ahead of Mr. Perdue overnight, but by just 0.4 percent within the range that could trigger a recount. By 4 a.m. Wednesday, an estimated 98 percent of votes had been counted. Georgia elections officials said they expected to complete the count by noon on Wednesday.Even so, Mr. Ossoff, a 33-year-old documentary film executive, declared himself the winner Wednesday morning in a video posted on Twitter. The Associated Press has not yet called the race. The news organization called Mr. Warnocks victory over the Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler, early Wednesday.Listen to The Daily: A Historic Night in GeorgiaAs the results from two highly anticipated runoff elections roll in, control of the Senate appears to be within reach for the Democrats.transcripttranscriptListen to The Daily: A Historic Night in GeorgiaHosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Luke Vander Ploeg and Daniel Guillemette; and edited by Lisa Chow and M.J. Davis Lin.As the results from two highly anticipated runoff elections roll in, control of the Senate appears to be within reach for the Democrats.michael barbaroFrom The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.[music]Today: In the closely watched Georgia runoffs, the Democrats win one race and are heavily favored in the second, putting Democratic control of the Senate within reach. My colleague, Nate Cohn, on a historic night in Georgia. Its Wednesday, January 6.Well, Nate, good morning.nate cohnGood morning.michael barbaroI have to say, this was not a telephone call or a election call that we were expecting to have tonight.nate cohnYou know, Im surprised to hear that. Does that mean there was worse planning on your end than I typically expect from you guys?michael barbaroI mean, we had it on really good journalistic authority that the Georgia Senate runoffs were going to take days to count. And here we are, I guess, seven hours after the polls closed. And we have real news from this race.nate cohnIts true. We have a projection.michael barbaroSo, Nate, tell us exactly where things stand at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning in these runoffs.nate cohnWell, there are two contests. In one of them, we have a projected winner. The Democrat Raphael Warnock has defeated Kelly Loeffler in the Senate special election. And in the regular Senate election between John Ossoff and David Perdue, the Democrat, John Ossoff, has a slight lead of a few thousand votes, with nearly all of the vote in and counted.michael barbaroSo help us understand how we can have one Senate race called, the other not called. Because Im having a little bit of trouble imagining in a race, where two Democrats are on the ballot and two Republicans are on the ballot, understanding how one Democratic Senate candidate gets ahead of the other. I had long imagined that any Democratic voter who cast a ballot was going to cast a ballot for both.nate cohnThats certainly a reasonable expectation. You know, I think that there are a lot of people who vote based on personality, based on how much they like somebody. And as far back as the November election, it was clear that the Democrats were better positioned in the special election than they were in the regularly scheduled election. And I think there are a couple of explanations. One is that the Republicans had a pretty brutal primary in the run-up to the November special election. And Kelly Loeffler ran pretty far to the right in that primary. You may recall that she ran a television advertisement claiming that she was further to the right than Attila the Hun. In contrast, there was not a fierce interparty battle on the right for the regularly scheduled election. David Perdue is a well-established incumbent, and who, despite being very conservative, still has a little bit of appeal to a traditionally Republican voter that maybe has swung over to the Democrats in recent cycles. And were talking about a very small number of voters. To be clear, at the moment, theres only about a percentage point that separates the two candidates. So it doesnt take much to create this sort of seemingly significant difference.michael barbaroWell, what is the fact that the race has been called for Raphael Warnock, but not for John Ossoff? Tell us about exactly who showed up for this election.nate cohnI dont think it tells us anything. I think that basically, under any plausible turnout scenario, we expected Warnock to be in the stronger position in this race. That wasnt inevitable, of course, but that was the expectation. We do know from the results that we see at the precinct level and by county that the Democrats enjoyed a really strong turnout in this election. A higher proportion of voters appeared to return to the polls for this runoff election in Democratic-leaning precincts and counties and in particular in majority Black precincts and counties than did in counties that voted for the president or were majority whites without a degree.michael barbaroThat feels significant. We do not understand special elections, runoff elections, to ever draw the same kind of turnout that presidential elections draw. So this feels very unique.nate cohnYeah, this is a huge turnout. I mean, there were a lot of truly terrible turnout predictions over the last few months. And at the moment, I think the turnout is close to 90 percent of the general election. More people voted in this election than voted in Georgia in the 2016 presidential election. Now, granted, theres been population growth in Georgia since then. And Georgia has become a more competitive state at the presidential level since then. And this was a race for control of the Senate. But I think that indicates that this was I mean, this was basically a presidential electorate that we had, when typically a runoff election might be expected to look like, at best, a midterm, but often even a lower turnout election than that something more like a primary election than a midterm election.michael barbaroNow, you started to mention the turnout of Black voters in Georgia. And I wonder how significant that was and how central you think that is to Warnocks projected victory and Ossoffs lead so far.nate cohnIts a huge part of it. Georgia has the second or third-largest Black population in the country. In the general election, it was probably something just short of 30 percent of the vote. And so thats a majority of the Democratic voters in the state. All indications that we have right now suggest that the Black share of the electorate was higher in these runoff elections than it was in the general election in November. Its still too early to pin that down with precision. And well get authoritative data on that in the weeks ahead. But all the data that we have at this point suggests that the increase in Black turnout or maybe put more precisely, the decrease in Black turnout compared to the general election was smaller than the decrease in white turnout or Latino turnout or particularly white working-class turnout.michael barbaroSo all the mobilization that we have been hearing about and talking about on The Daily of the Black Georgia electorate for this runoff and really, I guess, starting with the presidential election that has truly potentially made the difference here in at least one and possibly both of these Senate runoffs.nate cohnYeah. I think that that extra mobilization, that relative increase in the Black share of the electorate, could easily prove to be the decisive factor in Democrats taking back the Senate when we have all the data in to say for sure.michael barbaroSo based on the current vote-counting, should we assume that John Ossoff stands a reasonably good chance of pulling out a victory of his own, like Warnock? I mean, just how connected are these two races? Is it possible to imagine that the Democrats win one seat, the Warnock seat, and the Republicans win the other seat, the Purdue seat?nate cohnI dont think thats realistic at this point. Theres not going to be a call for a little bit. If you remember from the general election, the news organizations are reluctant to call these races until a candidate leads by more than the margin of a recount. But John Ossoff has essentially won this race. I mean, at the moment, hes up by 3/10 of a point 13,000 votes or so. Thats a larger lead than Joe Bidens lead was in the final account in Georgia, in terms of both percentage points and vote margins. And, I mean, all of the remaining vote left is Democratic voters 50,000 absentee ballots that are going to break for Ossoff by a 2-to-1 margin or more the provisional ballots that are going to break for Ossoff. Its just theres not a path for David Perdue, even if the networks may not call the race in the immediate future. Its not there for the Republicans.michael barbaroNate, I think a lot of people listening to you talk the way that you are is going to be among the first times its dawned on them that Democrats are very much on the cusp of retaking control of the Senate. And that has a lot of implications.nate cohnYeah, I mean, youre right. We cant make the call. But the Democrats, for all intents and purposes at this point, will control the Senate. And the consequences of that for the Biden presidency are enormous. It will allow them to confirm nominees with considerably greater ease. Itll let them pass budget reconciliation packages that let them do all sorts of things with a mere majority of the vote. Itll give them control of the committees. I mean, it will completely transform the first two years of Bidens presidency.[music]michael barbaroWell be right back.So, Nate, turning to the Republican side and to Loeffler and Perdue, there were a lot of questions ahead of these runoffs about the presidents message that the November election had been stolen. His really forceful criticism of election officials in Georgia whether that was going to depress the Republican vote does that seem to have happened?nate cohnYeah, I think thats tough to say. I mean, the Republican turnout was really healthy by any measure other than the final result. I mean, the turnout in overwhelmingly Trump precincts was 88 percent of the general election. You know, you dont have this sort of stupendous turnout only from one side. Clearly, the Democratic turnout was superior to the Republican turnout in this election. I think thats pretty obvious when you look at the precinct results, at least if youre comparing to the general election and taking that as your baseline. Whether you want to think about that as the president motivated Democratic Biden voters by thumbing his nose in the face of their victory, and basically not hearing the message they were trying to send, or you want to say that he deflated Republican voters by saying their votes wouldnt count, thats very hard for me to untangle. And maybe its some combination of both of them.michael barbaroI think a lot of people are wondering if what happened tonight in Georgia starts to tell us something about President Trump and about Trumpism, and whether or not the party can win elections when Donald Trump is not on the ballot. And so what are we learning from the results so far?nate cohnI mean, to me, this election was very much dominated by the president. Back in November, these two candidates ran ahead of President Trump in Georgia. Over the last two months, I would argue that theyre more tied to the president than ever before, and arguably in a way that makes it harder and harder for them to win over the sliver of Biden-Perdue voters that they won in November.michael barbaroAnd when you refer to a Biden-Perdue voter, I guess what you mean is someone whos a moderate Republican in Georgia who might favor Senator Perdue, who was up for election tonight, and Joe Biden, but might have reservations about Donald Trump.nate cohnYeah, a rich Republican. And there were a lot of these voters on the North side of Atlanta in the most affluent areas of North Fulton and DeKalb counties. And so the president has continuously makes it harder for Republicans to distinguish themselves from him. At the same time, the president does a lot to mobilize and motivate Democrats to come out against him. And I think that the last two months have done plenty to convince people that they ought to come out and vote if theyre a Democrat in Georgia after the way the presidents acted over the last two months.michael barbaroDo you suspect that the results here, and given what you just said, means that the Republican Party is going to want to start untethering itself from Trumpism and from Trump? Because regardless of the strength of his base, this legendary group of voters that will come out when he asks them to, what happened in Georgia suggests that he is starting to be seen as much as a problem for Republicans as a solution going forward.nate cohnYeah. The president has put the Republican Party in a tough spot. I mean, the fundamental dynamic that the Republicans face right now, which the president is just a little bit less popular than theyd like him to be nationwide and in the critical battleground states and in Georgia, a traditionally Republican state. And as a result, for them to win, they need to win over a few voters not that many, but a few voters who dont like the president and who maybe used to vote Republican before the president came to dominate American politics. But he just makes it too hard for them to be able to do that because hes such a dominant force in American life.michael barbaroSo in summary, the president looms so large over Republican politics, but hes not popular enough to win the crucial moderate votes required to win something like the presidency in Georgia or a Senate race. And so the party is stuck so long as he remains the most powerful emblem of the Republican brand.nate cohnYep, thats right.michael barbaroSo, Nate, as you know, in a few hours, Congress is going to convene. And its job will be to certify President-elect Joe Bidens victory in the Electoral College. Many Republicans intend to object. It is expected to be chaotic and polarized and ugly. And I wonder what Warnocks projected win and Ossoffs lead mean for that process potentially?nate cohnI think it has the potential to change the dynamic a bit. I mean, if you step back for a moment, the Republicans came out of the November election feeling pretty good. In the scheme of having lost a presidential election, they won a lot of the Senate races they wanted to win. The president did better than they expected. And they didnt have too many reasons to think after that they needed to go and distance themselves from him. And as a result, many Republicans have been inclined to follow him down an increasingly perilous path toward contesting this presidential election. And now, Republicans are going to look at a very different set of results. Theyre going to look at two Republicans who have lost. And they will have also, as a result of losing, cost the party control of the Senate.michael barbaroPotentially, yes.nate cohnIn all likelihood, will cost the party control of the Senate. And I would think that being on the verge of losing control of the Senate would make them at least reconsider the idea there are no political costs to following the president down this pretty reckless path of challenging legitimate Democratic election results in a half dozen states.michael barbaroIncluding, I believe, Georgia?nate cohnIncluding Georgia.michael barbaroWell, Nate, thank you. Get some rest. We appreciate your time.nate cohnNo problem. Thanks for having me.[music]archived recording (raphael warnock)We were told that we couldnt win this election. But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.michael barbaroOn Wednesday morning, Raphael Warnock spoke to his supporters, recalling his journey from a public housing project in Savannah to becoming the first Black Senator from Georgia.archived recording (raphael warnock)And my mother, who as a teenager growing up in Waycross, Georgia used to pick somebody elses cotton. But the other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody elses cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States Senator. So I come before you tonight as a man who knows that the improbable journey that led me to this place in this historic moment in America could only happen here.[music]michael barbaroWell be right back.Heres what else you need to know today.archived recording (michael graveley)Today were going to talk in great detail about the events that happened here in Kenosha on August 23, 2020.michael barbaroThe district attorney in Kenosha, Wisconsin has declined to bring charges against the white police officer who repeatedly shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back outside of his apartment in August a shooting that sparked protests and rioting.archived recording (michael graveley)And in this situation, an exhaustive investigation was done. Theres more than 40 hours of squad video. Theres hundreds of pages of electronic information. There are michael barbaroThe district attorney, Michael Gravely, said that there was insufficient evidence to bring a charge against the officer, who shot Blake after he had resisted arrest, avoided a taser and opened the door to a car, where police found a knife. The shooting severed Blakes spinal cord, leaving him partially paralyzed and unlikely to ever walk.Todays episode was produced by Luke Vander Ploeg and Daniel Guillemette. It was edited by Lisa Chow and M.J. Davis Lin, and engineered by Chris Wood.Thats it for The Daily. Im Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday congratulated Mr. Warnock and said he was hopeful that Mr. Ossoff would prevail when the vote count is complete. Georgias voters delivered a resounding message yesterday: They want action on the crises we face and they want it right now, Mr. Biden said in a statement release Wednesday morning. I congratulate the people of Georgia, who turned out in record numbers once again, just as they did in November.By Wednesday morning, the largest bloc of uncounted ballots in the state was the in-person vote in DeKalb County, a heavily Democratic area that includes part of Atlanta.Mr. Ossoffs campaign manager Ellen Foster said in a statement on Wednesday that she expected Mr. Ossoff to win. The outstanding vote is squarely in parts of the state where Jons performance has been dominant, she said.Mr. Perdues campaign officials said in an early Wednesday statement that the race was exceptionally close, but said they believed Mr. Perdue would win and would use every available resource and exhaust every recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted.It could be some time before there is a call in the race, with thousands of late absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted. Under Georgia law, a candidate can request a recount if the margin of victory is less than half a percentage point.Democrats benefited from a strong turnout among Black voters. According to data compiled by georgiavotes.com, Black voters made up a larger share of early voters for the runoff nearly 31 percent than they did in the general election, when it was closer to 28 percent.Mr. Warnock, who is the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the spiritual home of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South. He and Mr. Ossoff ran in tandem throughout the runoffs.Mr. Perdue, the former chief executive of Dollar General, and Ms. Loeffler, who was appointed to the Senate a year ago and was seeking a full term, had cast the race as a necessary check on Democratic power in Washington in 2021, though these efforts have been complicated by President Trumps continued insistence, without evidence, that he won re-election. | Politics |
Middle East|Fighting in Libyas Capital as One Government Seizes Anothers Compoundhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/world/middleeast/libya-tripoli-fighting.htmlCredit...Hani Amara/ReutersMarch 15, 2017TRIPOLI, Libya Armed groups aligned with a Libyan government in Tripoli that is backed by the United Nations took over a compound occupied by the leader of a rival government on Wednesday after heavy fighting that spread to several parts of the city.The offices of a television station sympathetic to the self-declared government opposed to the one backed by the United Nations were burned down in the clashes, and the channel went off air. A hospital was also hit.The fighting apparently was set off on Monday by a dispute over control of a bank in the Hay al-Andalus neighborhood. It then escalated into power struggles between militias loyal to the rival governments: the Government of National Accord, which is backed by the United Nations, and the self-declared National Salvation Government.Tripoli, Libyas capital, is controlled by a patchwork of armed groups that have built local fiefs and vied for power since Libyas 2011 uprising.Gunfights continued for much of Tuesday in western Tripoli before spreading to southern neighborhoods after sunset. Gunfire and explosions could be heard late into the night, with tanks and other heavy weapons deployed on the streets.By Wednesday, the Government of National Accord had posted guards outside the Rixos hotel complex, where the leader of the National Salvation Government, Khalifa al-Ghwell, had established a base.Mr. Ghwell suffered a minor injury as he tried to leave the Rixos at dawn on Wednesday, one of his aides told a local website, Afrigatenews.He was quoted by the website as saying, Our National Salvation Government withdrew from its offices in Tripoli to stop the bloodshed.No details about casualties were available, but a 14-year-old girl was killed when a residential building in central Tripoli was hit, according to her relatives.Offices and hotels near Tripolis western seafront were also hit by missiles or shelling, and a hospital in the Abu Salim district caught fire when it was hit during the fighting.Classes at schools in central Tripoli were canceled on Wednesday because of the violence. Sporadic gunfire could be heard across the city.The offices of the television station that was taken off air, Al Nabaa, were still smoldering on Wednesday morning. It was not clear who had carried out the attack.Al Nabaa was also taken off air for several weeks at the end of last March when its building was attacked as the unity governments leadership arrived in Tripoli.Subsequently, the National Salvation Government and its armed supporters resurfaced as the unity government struggled to impose its authority. Several rounds of heavier clashes have broken out between groups that support the unity government and those that oppose it. | World |
A clinical trial will be needed to verify the research, which offered a warning about taking steroids or nonprescription drugs to soothe aches that many experience.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesPublished May 11, 2022Updated May 14, 2022The very treatments often used to soothe pain in the lower back, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is the most common type of pain, might cause it to last longer, according to a new study.Managing pain with steroids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen, can actually turn a wrenched back into a chronic condition, the study found.Some medical experts urged caution in interpreting the results too broadly. The study did not use the gold standard for medical research, which would be a clinical trial in which people with back pain would be randomly assigned to take a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or a placebo and followed to see who developed chronic pain. Instead, it involved observations of patients, an animal study and an analysis of patients in a large database.Its intriguing but requires further study, said Dr. Steven J. Atlas, director of primary care practice-based research and quality improvement at Massachusetts General Hospital.Dr. Bruce M. Vrooman, a pain specialist at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, agreed, but also called the study impressive in its scope and said that if the results hold up in a clinical trial, it could force reconsideration of how we treat acute pain.Dr. Thomas Buchheit, director of the regenerative pain therapies program at Duke, had a different view.People overuse the term paradigm shift, but this is absolutely a paradigm shift, Dr. Buchheit said. There is this unspoken rule: If it hurts, take an anti-inflammatory, and if it still hurts, put a steroid on it, he added. But, he said, the study shows that we have to think of healing and not suppression of inflammation.Guidelines from professional medical societies already say that people with back pain should start with nondrug treatments like exercise, physical therapy, heat or massage. Those measures turn out to be as effective as pain-suppressing drugs, without the same side effects.If the pain persists, the guidelines say, people can try nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen. (Acetaminophen is not an anti-inflammatory because it does not block inflammation.)But the study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, included a warning that such drug treatment advice could contribute to chronic pain that would lower a persons quality of life.The study began when researchers at McGill University started searching for molecular markers in the blood that would predict which patients would have pain that quickly diminished and which would have pain that persisted.The group had blood samples from 98 people taken when they first reported developing back pain and again three months after their pain began.What we saw wasnt exactly what we expected, said Dr. Luda Diatchenko, the studys principal investigator and a professor at McGill who specializes in human pain genetics.Those who said their pain went away had rapid and intense inflammation when the pain was acute. The markers of inflammation then diminished over the next three months. Those whose pain persisted did not have such an inflammatory reaction.Absolutely nothing was happening in those with chronic pain, Dr. Diatchenko said.It was a huge difference, she added.The researchers continued to investigate. They studied people with a different type of pain, TMJ, or temporomandibular joint disorders, which result in jaw pain. Once again, those who recovered had rapid and intense inflammatory responses.The researchers also replicated the findings in mice, compressing the animals sciatic nerves to produce back and leg pain or injecting the sciatic nerves with an irritant. When they blocked the animals immune response with dexamethasone, a steroid commonly used to treat back pain, the pain became chronic.Then, the group questioned whether chronic pain resulted from pain suppression or from suppression of inflammation. So they gave some mice a prescription anti-inflammatory, diclofenac. Other mice got one of three other analgesic, or pain-relieving, drugs gabapentin, morphine and lidocaine.Only with diclofenac did the pain persist, becoming chronic.Those results led them to ask: Were patients who took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen or steroids like dexamethasone to relieve their back pain also more likely to develop chronic pain?The researchers turned to data from the UK Biobank, a repository with information about half a million patients medical conditions and drug use. They studied 2,163 people with acute back pain, 461 of whom went on to have chronic pain. Those taking a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory had nearly double the chance of developing chronic back pain as those taking other drugs or no drugs, the researchers found.Dr. Diatchenko said she does not think her findings bear on the issue of opioid addiction. In fact, she said, to avoid opioids, clinicians started to prescribe more nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.We need to think further about how to treat our patients, she said.The tendency to use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories persists despite their unimpressive performance. An analysis of randomized clinical trials found that these drugs had almost no benefit over placeboes in reducing low back pain.Dr. Atlas says that short term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories probably is not harmful, but the new study, he adds, while not proving long term use is harmful, at least gives a biological mechanism that says short term use is not the same as long term.Dr. James N. Weinstein, senior vice president for health at Microsoft, wishes people would rethink their instinct to reach for the ibuprofen pills and counterintuitive as it sounds exercise instead.Dr. Weinstein, who for 28 years was editor in chief of the medical journal Spine and not involved in the new study, says he goes out for a run when his back hurts. That actually makes it better.I love it, he said of the study, and I know it to be true. | Health |
Too Short Sexual Battery Suit ... It's Just Extortion 1/22/2018 1/22/18 TMZ.com Too Short says the woman suing him for sexual battery is making a vengeful, shameless money grab ... and he's vowing to take his own legal action against her. We got Short Monday in L.A. and asked for his reaction to Teana Louis claiming he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions in 2016. The allegation is simply an extortion attempt ... according to him, anyway. The rapper insists the furthest they ever went sexually was foreplay -- not intercourse, and certainly not sodomy as she claims. Short tells us he's got no choice but to countersue to squash this, and has a message for his accuser regarding the #metoo movement. | Entertainment |
Credit...Eric Gaillard/ReutersNov. 17, 2018RAGNY, France More than a quarter-million people across France joined protests on Saturday against planned hikes in gas taxes. Drivers blocked roundabouts, highway access roads and intersections.The demonstrations have harnessed a broader discontent with high taxes and, for some, with the policies of President Emmanuel Macron.Most of the 2,000 demonstrations were in the suburbs, exurbs and rural areas of France where people rely on their cars to go to work, visit the doctor and do their grocery shopping. Some protesters also blocked access to border crossings.Most of the protests were orderly, though one person was killed and more than 200 were injured in accidents or altercations around the country, according to the Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner.In Paris, some 1,200 demonstrators almost reached the Elyse, the presidential residence, where they shouted, Macron quit, and blocked the Champs-lyses.That hostile tone, though, was not evident in most small towns and suburban areas.We are not political people; we do not belong to a union, we are citizens, said Didier Lacombe, a retiree who lives on a fixed income near ragny, a small town about an hour west of Paris.The taxes are rising on everything. They put taxes on top of taxes, said Mr. Lacombe, as he and his wife prepared to join what has come to be known as the Yellow Vests protest after the vests that are required in French cars and that were worn by the demonstrators.ImageCredit...Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesIt is not the tax on gas, its everything. The injustice is greater and greater, he said.The protesters, whose movement coalesced rapidly over the last six to eight weeks through social media, have grown quickly in numbers. While the demonstrations were no larger than those organized by unions who object to labor reforms, they were strikingly consistent, given the distance between gatherings, which reached from the Mediterranean coast to the northern industrial areas of the country.The demonstrations are unlike some past protests that pressed for higher salaries. Now, people are seeking a reduction in the gas tax as well as expressing frustration with payroll taxes, which are used for social services like health care and social security, said Alexis Spire, a senior researcher in sociology at the National Center for Scientific Research, a government research agency.The French taxes, known as social charges, can top 40 percent of paychecks and are used to cover health care, unemployment insurance and other services.Its a big difference with movements such as the Tea Party in the United States, Mr. Spire said, because the French want government involvement. The French are very attached to their model of social protection and they are also very attached to government services.For those living outside of cities, it is often hard to feel they are getting their moneys worth. Unemployment has remained stubbornly high at nearly 10 percent. Rural hospitals have closed, making it more difficult for those in need to access health care despite the countrys universal health insurance. Mayor's budgets are shrinking in some localities, which means city hall might be open for fewer hours or the administrative jobs that used to be done there have moved to another town. That means more driving for those left without services.Over the past few days the government has become increasingly alarmed by the movement. Though it began last May with a online petition about gas prices, it gained traction in October when a call went out for a national demonstration to block key roads in an effort to get the governments attention.With no central organization or coordination, the movement came together almost entirely on social media.It is a very large front that brings together people who are angry about different things, and it is drawn from a number of different segments of French society that has coalesced around outrage about taxes and the increase in gas prices, said Jrme Fourquet, the head of opinion polling for IFOP, a leading public opinion research firm.ImageCredit...Charly Triballeau/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesIFOP surveys recently found that about a third of French people are very dependent on their car in their daily lives and another third somewhat dependent, so the price of gas has become a key element in the majority of French citizens budgets.The price of fuel is as politically and sociologically sensitive as the price of wheat in the ancient regime, said Mr. Fourquet, referring to the 18th century when it was in part revolts over the price of flour that led to the French Revolution.The government, recognizing in recent days that the movement was snowballing, has offered an array of benefits for low-income earners. They include subsidies for switching to more fuel- efficient cars, subsidies for gas purchases and rebates for changing to clean fuel for home heating.So far, those offers have done little to calm the anger.While some protesters said they would spend the night pulled off the road and return to their positions in the morning, there were relatively few planning to stay overnight. More likely is that the protests will be renewed in the coming days, as the government is unlikely to reduce fuel taxes.The caravan of about 100 cars that Mr. Lacombe joined blocked gas stations and lanes on main highways, and remained in place all day near the outskirts of ragny. By midafternoon another 150 to 200 cars had joined them in the small community, built in the 1960s and made up mostly of small one-family homes.The other members of that group said they were politically in the center; some had voted for Mr. Macron in the last election and were now disillusioned; others supported center-right candidates.Many were self-employed, like Muriel Gautherin, 52, a chiropodist who lives in a suburban town near ragny.We are simple citizens whose anger is simmering, simmering, Ms. Gautherin said, pulling her red beanie cap over her ears to ward off the morning chill. Among us are the retired people who feel they were fooled, the youth whose future is so uncertain and all those who feel like politicians are showing no respect for their struggles. | World |
Blue Origin pinned custom astronaut wings to his flight suit. The Federal Aviation Administration may disagree. Or it may not even matter.Credit...Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressPublished July 26, 2021Updated Sept. 30, 2021Say youre Jeff Bezos.Youre the richest person in the world. Youve spent billions of dollars starting up a rocket company that has just launched you and three others high enough that everyone agrees you reached outer space, even if just for a few minutes.Are you now an astronaut?The answer appears to be no, at least in the eyes of the Federal Aviation Administration, which last week revised its definitions on whom it considers to be an astronaut.But for Richard Branson, the billionaire who went to space a week earlier on a rocket plane operated by Virgin Galactic, a company he founded, the answer might be yes.The advent of the age of space tourism brings along a question of semantics: Is the word astronaut something that describes where someone has been outer space or is it a job description like pilot or sailor?After all, NASA employs astronauts who are still waiting for their first trip off Earth. And flying in economy class from New York to Los Angeles does not qualify you as a pilot.The F.A.A. established its commercial astronaut wings program in 2004, spurred by the X Prize. That competition offered $10 million for the first nongovernmental entity to launch a reusable spacecraft to space with people on board defined as reaching an altitude of 62 miles, the international definition of where space begins and then do it again within two weeks.ImageCredit...Federal Aviation AdministrationThe winning design was a space plane called SpaceShipOne, and the F.A.A. bestowed the first commercial astronaut wings on Michael Melvill and Brian Binnie, the pilots who flew the two winning SpaceShipOne flights.To qualify for the F.A.A.s distinction, a person had to reach an altitude of 50 miles reflecting the earlier United States Air Force practice and one had to be considered as part of the flight crew, which the federal agency defines as:any employee or independent contractor of a licensee, transferee, or permittee, or of a contractor or subcontractor of a licensee, transferee, or permittee, who performs activities in the course of that employment or contract directly relating to the launch, re-entry, or other operation of or in a launch vehicle or re-entry vehicle that carries human beings.Everyone else who goes to space is, in the F.A.A.s view, just a spaceflight participant, not an astronaut.After the wings were awarded to Mr. Melvill and Mr. Binnie, the F.A.A. did not award any other commercial astronaut wings until 2019, to Mark Stucky and Frederick W. Sturckow, the two pilots of Virgin Galactics larger successor of SpaceShipOne, aptly named SpaceShipTwo. Two other Virgin Galactic pilots received wings on the next SpaceShipTwo flight, as did Beth Moses, the companys chief astronaut instructor, who evaluated the crew cabin.ImageCredit...Laura Rauch/Associated PressBy contrast, the New Shepard spacecraft built by Mr. Bezos company, Blue Origin, is entirely automated, and all that the passengers had to do is enjoy the up-and-down ride last Tuesday, which lasted not much more than 10 minutes.Thus, Mr. Bezos and the other three passengers his brother Mark; Mary Wallace Funk, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer; and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old Dutch student appear to fall short of the criteria to be classified as flight crew and may not be eligible for the F.A.A. astronaut wings. (That didnt stop the foursome from having custom astronaut wings pinned to their flight suits last Tuesday.)The crew definition, however, was vague enough that one could wonder whether a passenger could qualify as a contractor, and whether some of what they did could fall under the other operation part of the definition of crew.On the same day that Mr. Bezos made his trip to space, the F.A.A. added a new requirement for the astronaut wings: Demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human spaceflight safety.A statement from the agency explains, The F.A.A. has now changed the focus to recognize flight crew who demonstrate activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human spaceflight safety, among other criteria. This change aligns more directly to the F.A.A.s role to protect public safety during commercial space operations.ImageCredit...Blue OriginImageCredit...Association of Space ExplorersThe New Shepard passengers do not appear to have performed such activities. A Blue Origin spokeswoman declined to say whether the company would nominate Mr. Bezos and the other passengers for the F.A.A. commercial astronaut wings.A Virgin Galactic spokesman said the company has started the paperwork to obtain F.A.A. commercial astronaut wings for Mr. Branson and the other two first-time space fliers on the July 11 Virgin Galactic flight. Virgin Galactic is making the case that they were crew members, performing tasks to evaluate how the spacecraft experience will feel for future customers, although the company is still assessing the implications of the revised criteria.The revised F.A.A. criteria also, for the first time, creates honorary commercial astronaut wings to individuals who demonstrated extraordinary contribution or beneficial service to the commercial human spaceflight industry.The honorary awardees would not have to meet all of the usual requirements.In the end, it may not matter what the government thinks.Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have each created their own astronaut pins to bestow on customers, who are likely to pay at least hundreds of thousands of dollars per flight.In addition, an international organization of past and present astronauts, the Association of Space Explorers, has created pins to recognize everyone who goes to space. One design an up-and-down chevron topped with a five-pointed star is for people who go on short suborbital flights. For those who reach orbit, theres a variation, adding a circle that indicates they have been around the planet.ImageCredit...Vrigin Galactic/EPA, via ShutterstockAbout six years ago, Michael Lpez-Alegra, then president of the associations United States chapter, and Andrew Turnage, the groups executive director, started discussing the idea of such pins.NASA has given pins to its astronauts since the earliest days of the space program.But none of the other agencies have anything like that, Mr. Lpez-Alegra said. So we thought about something, you know, as a universal pin, because that seems only fair that other countries ought to have something to wear as well.The association sidestepped the astronaut quandary by using the term space travelers instead. Theres some variety of opinions within the membership and we shied away from using the word astronaut on the certificates that accompany these pins, Mr. Lpez-Alegra said.He presented one of the suborbital pins to Beth Moses of Virgin Galactic after her first flight.Mr. Lpez-Alegra, a former NASA astronaut, already owns a surfeit of astronaut paraphernalia. He has one of the Association of Space Explorers pins. He has the NASA pin, as well as wings as a Navy officer turned astronaut that he wore on his military uniform. I have those, but I havent worn a Navy uniform since Ive retired, he said.And he could get one of the F.A.A. commercial astronaut wings next year. Mr. Lpez-Alegra, vice president of business development at Axiom Space, a Houston company arranging trips by private citizens to the International Space Station, will be the commander of the first of Axioms missions, scheduled to launch in January.Mr. Lpez-Alegra, for one, would like the more expansive definition of astronaut, that it encompasses everyone who has left Earths atmosphere, even if just for a few minutes.Theres lots of different kinds of astronauts, he said. Private astronauts, national astronauts, company astronauts, whatever. But theyre all astronauts. | science |
Olympics|First Gold in Womens Freestyle Skiing Goes to Bowmanhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/sports/olympics/first-gold-in-womens-freestyle-skiing-goes-to-bowman.htmlFeb. 20, 2014Maddie Bowman of the United States won the first womens freestyle skiing halfpipe gold medal at the Olympics and then dedicated it to the woman who pioneered the sport.Bowman, a 20-year-old Californian, scored 89.00 points to edge Frances Marie Martinod, but after the competition she said her thoughts were with the former halfpipe star Sarah Burke. Burke, of Canada, was a former halfpipe world champion and X Games winner who was known among her peers for pushing for the inclusion of her sport in the Olympic program. It made its debut at the Sochi Games.The International Olympic Committee added halfpipe and slopestyle skiing to the Winter Games program in 2011. But less than a year later, Burke died after sustaining injuries during a training run in the halfpipe. She was 29.Gosh, it means so much for us to be able to show the world what our sport is, what we do and what we are, Bowman said. I think were here to make our parents proud, our friends proud and especially Sarah Burke proud, because she is here with us.Japans Ayana Onozuka took the bronze. | Sports |
A document sent by the search giant to Australian regulators argues that the company doesnt control enough of the digital ad industry to overcharge customers or block competitors.Credit...Christie Hemm Klok for The New York TimesPublished July 13, 2020Updated Oct. 21, 2020WASHINGTON Google has largely stayed quiet about its conversations with federal investigators as the Justice Department has looked into whether the company abused its dominance of the online advertising market.But a little-noticed 67-page document sent to Australian regulators in May by Googles advisers may provide clues to how the Silicon Valley titan intends to beat back a legal challenge from the agency.The crux of the companys argument: Even though it accounts for almost 30 percent of spending in the global digital ad market, it does not control enough of the industry to overcharge its customers and box out its competitors.Google has little incentive to squeeze advertisers on ad rates or publishers on fees, write the papers authors, a lawyer and an economist hired by the company. It has not built its system to give its own services an advantage, they say, and it competes with a wide range of other companies.The document was filed to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as part of a study of the online ad market. The Australian study differs from the Justice Department investigation in multiple ways, in part because the intricacies of antitrust law vary by country. But the American investigators are said to be focused on Googles ad technology as well.Prosecutors at the agency are homing in on a case, with Attorney General William P. Barr expected to decide soon whether to sue Google. The prosecutors have been investigating the company for almost a year, talking to rivals in media, technology and advertising. A suit could also include accusations related to other parts of Googles business like its search engine. Mr. Barr, who worked on antitrust issues as a corporate lawyer, has taken a personal interest in the investigation.Officials in the Trump administration have persistently targeted Google and other large tech companies, claiming that platforms like YouTube, owned by Google, are slanted against conservative views. Politicians on the left have said the companies represent out-of-control corporate capitalism.In addition to the Justice Department inquiry, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general is investigating Google. Last year, Texas, which is leading the groups efforts, sent a demand for information to Google related to its ad tech business.The inquiries concern a lucrative and complicated system, largely invisible to consumers, that connects the sellers of ad space with advertisers that want to buy it. When a reader clicks on an article on a news website, for example, numerous interconnected products can sell an ad on that page to the highest bidder, like a clothing brand or a carmaker.Google controls products that aid in every step of that process, including the different pieces of software for advertisers and publishers that run auctions for ad space. Because publishers sometimes post their open ad space to multiple digital ad companies including Googles the companies can compete with one another to see who can obtain the most money from an advertiser to use the slot.Googles critics say it has achieved a level of dominance in the ad tech market that makes fair competition impossible. They argue that Google has, in the past, been able to position itself as the final bidder against other ad tech providers, essentially giving its services an unfair advantage. And they say the company can now use its immense trove of data to get a leg up on other platforms, potentially allowing it to charge prices that are not competitive.In the paper filed in Australia, Daniel Bitton, a partner at the law firm Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider, which has represented Google for years in antitrust cases, and Stephen Lewis, an economic consultant, take on many of those criticisms.The two argue that the company competes with a wide array of firms to run the market for ad space, including Amazon and lesser-known players like the Trade Desk. (Only one other company listed on a chart produced by the Google advisers also owns products servicing every part of the ad buying process: AT&T.)Mr. Bitton and Mr. Lewis note that Googles systems work with other companies products. And they argue that Googles products have made the process of buying ads more efficient or offered strong alternatives for buyers and sellers. They denied that the companys software gave it an inappropriate advantage over its competitors bids for ad space and say the company made changes in recent years that make it impossible for its products to have the guaranteed final bid in an auction.A Justice Department case could also focus on concerns about Googles ad tech business beyond what is tackled in the Australia paper, like whether it charges unfair fees to publishers for helping them sell ad space.The antitrust laws are about protecting competition, not individual competitors, Mr. Bitton and Mr. Lewis write. Trying to protect individual competitors or market participants, when a marketplace is as dynamic as ad tech, carries significant risk of stifling competition and innovation, rather than promoting or protecting it.The two authors also try to defuse the criticism with a broader argument: Google, they said, had no incentive to hurt publishers because content produced by third parties improved the quality of the results on its search engine.Julie Tarallo McAlister, a Google spokeswoman, said in a statement that aggressive competition among ad tech companies had resulted in lower prices, a central metric in American antitrust law.Digital advertising is an increasingly crowded field, she said, and we compete with hundreds of companies including household names like Adobe, Amazon, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Oracle and more. This competition has increased choice and helped reduce internet advertising prices, lowering costs for merchants and consumers.In recent months, including in two blog posts in June, Google has also responded to other critiques of its ad business that are being considered by regulators and law enforcement officials around the world.Mr. Bitton and Mr. Lewis wrote that they were responding to two lawyers in Brussels, Damien Geradin and Dimitrios Katsifis, who represent Rupert Murdochs News Corporation and other publishers. The two lawyers have written several papers in the past two years outlining accusations that Google has built an advertising technology monopoly.In June, Mr. Geradin and Mr. Katsifis said Googles filing in Australia included misleading arguments, factual inaccuracies and glaring omissions, thus making us even more confident on the strength of our arguments.Australia is just one of many places around the world where Googles ad apparatus is under scrutiny. This month, Britains Competition and Markets Authority released its own study of the digital ad markets. Aspects of the ad business have also been examined by regulators in Canada and the Netherlands in recent years. Europes competition regulator fined Google $1.69 billion in 2019 for illegally using its dominant position over search ads, which are different from the display ads that are the subject of the paper in Australia.Google is becoming increasingly public in its counterattack. Last month, Google published two blog posts defending against claims it had abused its position over the advertising industry. In one, an executive argues that publishers keep most of the money they make when they sell ads through Googles products. Another focuses on how its systems work and argues that most of the money it makes when publishers sell ads goes to maintaining and improving its operation.And in June, NetChoice, a trade association that counts Google as one of its members, published a paper titled, Is Google Search an Advertising Goliath? Think Again.It argued that Google was not acting like a monopoly because it allowed users of its ad tech products to use competitors services, too. It said that in numerical terms, that means Googles tools give publishers access to demand from over 700 advertising platforms and give advertisers access to supply on more than 80 publisher platforms.A footnote said the source of the claim was the paper written by Mr. Bitton and Mr. Lewis. | Tech |
Sept. 12, 2011Forecasting nobility in sports is tougher than predicting the weather, which mercifully held Monday at the sodden United States Open for the final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. After Nadal defeated Djokovic in four sets a year ago to complete a career Grand Slam, a debate raged about whether Nadal or Roger Federer, the 16-time major champion, deserved to lead the greatest-player-of-all-time conversation. This year the talk has turned like pages in a history book to a discussion of whether Djokovic is in the midst of the all-time greatest season. It is an argument the top-ranked Djokovic ended with the authority of an overhead smash winner by dethroning Nadal, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1. Maybe it is the best match I played this year, Djokovic said. I stepped on the court believing I could win. I didnt give him any comfort. I didnt give him any room. ImageCredit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesDjokovic extended his match record for the year to 64-2 and secured his fourth career major title and his third of 2011. It was his sixth victory all in finals this year against Nadal, the No. 2 seed, who told him during the awards ceremony: What you did this year is probably impossible to repeat. So well done. When they last met, in the Wimbledon final, Nadal was beaten, 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3, and sounded utterly defeated afterward, as if Djokovic had made off with his confidence along with his crown. I go back to Spain more happy today than after the Wimbledon final, Nadal said, because after here I think I am on the right way to try to beat him. After Wimbledon, I didnt feel that. The match at Arthur Ashe Stadium lasted 4 hours 10 minutes, which was not too tough a trial for the 24-year-old Djokovic. He spent four years honing his patience while stuck at No. 3 in the world behind Nadal and Federer not always in that order. Djokovics hard-won forbearance was an asset on a night that featured one 17-minute game, a few 30-stroke rallies and numerous displays of can-you-top-this shot-making.ImageCredit...Charles Krupa/Associated PressThere were 17 breaks of service, including 11 by Djokovic, an astonishing statistic given that Nadal was broken only five times during the 2010 tournament. Nadals serve was not the dagger it was last year, but Djokovic returns so well, the racket is like a shield in his hands. On Monday it kept him from getting hurt by Nadals serve. Thats not to say he wasnt hurting. Before the fourth set, Djokovic was facedown on the court receiving medical treatment for a strained muscle in his back. Forty-two minutes later, after striking the last of his 20 forehand winners on his first championship point, he ended up faceup on the court, howling at the full moon. In his postmatch news conference, Nadal was asked if fatigue was a factor in the outcome (he had one less day of rest in the final weekend than Djokovic). He was asked if the six-minute injury timeout that Djokovic took threw him off his rhythm. We are starting the press conference in a bad way, I think, he said with a smile. Lets talk about the match. Its not the right moment to find excuses if he stops the match or if I was tired. I fought until the last point. I tried my best in every moment. He added, But in general, I think he did great, no? ImageCredit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesMens tennis is top-heavy right now, which is what makes it so attractive. Federers brilliance in 2005-6, when he was 173-9, compelled Nadal to keep improving, and when Nadal elevated his game, it stimulated Djokovic to upgrade his.After his 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 loss to Nadal last year, Djokovic said: Hes getting better each time you play him. Hes so mentally strong and dedicated to this sport. He has all the capabilities, everything he needs, in order to be the biggest ever. Its not a coincidence his opponents are saying much the same thing about Djokovic in 2011. He has improved his fitness and conditioning, enabling him to chase down everything, it seems, but the setting sun. He has shored up his forehand, and seen his self-belief soar. The anything-you-can-do-I-will-aim-to-do-better mind-set of the top three players has elevated the games of those like Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Mardy Fish who are in hot pursuit. Djokovic didnt arrive this year, no? Nadal said, adding: For me is a little bit strange about the people here from tennis talks about Djokovic, about his big new improvement. Djokovic was here before, no? Djokovic played fantastic before. He had fantastic potential to be where he is today. Of all the improvements in Djokovics game, his unflappability stands out. In 2008, he played Andy Roddick in an Open quarterfinal and allowed the partisan crowd to burrow under his skin. On Monday, fans were calling balls out during points and Djokovic didnt come unglued. He kept his composure in the third set when he was down by 3-4 and 30-40 on his serve and faulted on his first attempt. Fans rooting for a longer match responded with lusty cheers, but Djokovic remained stone-faced. He left it to the chair umpire Carlos Ramos to gently admonish the crowd, then put his second serve into play and hit a backhand winner on the 30th stroke on his way to a hold.In the first two sets, Nadal looked like someone climbing a very steep mountain who kept losing his toehold. Nadal jumped out to 2-0 leads only to have Djokovic come storming back on the strength of his penetrating ground strokes. In the end, Djokovic had too much firepower, too much confidence. Hes enough confident in every moment to keep believing in one more ball, one more ball, Nadal said, adding: His level, for sure, is fantastic. Hes doing very well mentally everything. So just accept that. Accept the challenge and work. | Sports |
Fact Check of the DayPresident Trump has falsely claimed at least two dozen times since taking office that Democrats want to open American borders. But legislation shows that Democrats support border security measures, though not the border wall he wants to build. Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesJune 27, 2018The Democrats want open borders. They want anybody they wanted, including MS-13, pouring into the country. President Trump, speaking on Monday at a campaign rally in South Carolinathe factsFalse. Democrats have argued that building a wall on the southwestern border is ineffective and a waste of resources, and rejected hard-line proposals to limit legal immigration. But Mr. Trump is grossly exaggerating Democrats positions when he conflates their opposition to his signature campaign promise and immigration priorities as open borders. And there is no evidence that they want anybody, including MS-13, to enter the United States freely. While criticizing Mr. Trumps immigration policies, the Democratic National Committee has committed to improving border security.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leaders, have rebutted the presidents charges. Additionally, their aides cited several examples of legislation that are supported by Democrats and would have provided border security funding.Responding last week to Mr. Trumps earlier claims, Ms. Pelosi said, No, we do care about the border.We care about protecting our country, but we dont think we need to protect the border by putting children in cages, Ms. Pelosi said. We want to be smart and strong not reckless, rash and ruthless in this case. Thirty Democrats in the House have sponsored a bipartisan immigration bill this year that gives the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers a pathway to citizenship. It also enhances technology used to monitor the border, and provides $110 million in grants annually for collaboration between local law enforcement and Border Patrol agents. All 193 Democrats in the House and 23 moderate Republicans have signed a discharge petition to force a vote on that bill and other immigration proposals. In the Senate, all but one Democrat voted for similar immigration legislation sponsored by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. And all but three Democrats voted for yet another bipartisan proposal to provide a pathway to citizenship to Dreamers, authorize $25 billion to build barriers and hire personnel at the border over the next decade. It would also prohibit green-card holders from sponsoring adult children. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trumps press secretary, repeated the assertion on Monday and argued that Democrats have made it very clear that they dont want to work with the president, that they dont want to fix our immigration system referring to the political impasse over immigration reform. The vast majority of Senate Democrats, and 14 Republicans, voted down a White House-backed Senate proposal that would enable the Department of Homeland Security to make more arrests and deportations, limit family-based immigration, and eliminate the diversity visa lottery. House Democrats have also suggested opposition to a new measure that will also limit legal immigration. But rejecting these proposals does not amount to opposing any enforcement of immigration laws or allowing anyone, including criminals and gang members, to enter the country without restrictions. Democrats also consistently supported border security measures before Mr. Trump took office. In 2013, every single Democrat in the Senate voted for the so-called Gang of Eight immigration overhaul bill that would have provided about $40 billion for border enforcement, including deploying thousands more agents and building 700 miles of fencing. (The House never voted on the bill.) And in 2006, 26 Senate Democrats voted to build 700 miles of walls and fences on the southwestern border. Mr. Schumer was among the Democrats who supported that proposal a fact that even Mr. Trump has repeatedly acknowledged, as recently as last week.Source: Congress.gov, House.gov, Senate.gov, Congressional Research Service, The New York Times, Offices of Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi | Politics |
Prince William & Kate Middleton W.T.H-E-Double Bandy Sticks ... Are You Two Playing?? 1/30/2018 Prince William and Kate Middleton slapped around some balls on the ice this week -- but don't call what they're doing hockey ... 'cause it ain't quite that. The Prince and the Duchess of Cambridge were seen getting their bandy on Tuesday in Sweden, where they were on a Royal visit from the UK. While there, they were seen hanging with Stockholm team Hammarby IF and trying out the sport first-hand. It's basically a European version of American hockey -- except they use balls instead of pucks ... apparently with the same slapshot techniques, though. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. Kate and Will looked like pros out there ... and looked even better handing out hot chocolate to everyone, too. | Entertainment |
Adults at high risk for cardiovascular disease may face serious side effects if they start a daily regimen of low-dose aspirin.Credit...AlamyPublished Oct. 12, 2021Updated Oct. 13, 2021Doctors should no longer routinely start most people who are at high risk of heart disease on a daily regimen of low-dose aspirin, according to new draft guidelines by a U.S. panel of experts.The proposed recommendation is based on mounting evidence that the risk of serious side effects far outweighs the benefit of what was once considered a remarkably cheap weapon in the fight against heart disease.The U.S. panel also plans to retreat from its 2016 recommendation to take baby aspirin for the prevention of colorectal cancer, guidance that was groundbreaking at the time. The panel said more recent data had raised questions about the benefits for cancer, and that more research was needed.On the use of low-dose or baby aspirin, the recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force would apply to people younger than 60 who were at high risk of heart disease and for whom a new daily regimen of the mild analgesic might have been a tool to prevent a first heart attack or stroke. The proposed guidelines would not apply to those already taking aspirin or those who have already had a heart attack.The U.S. task force also wants to strongly discourage anyone 60 and older from starting a low-dose aspirin regimen, citing concerns about the age-related heightened risk for life-threatening bleeding. The panel had previously recommended that people in their 60s who were at high risk for cardiovascular disease consult their doctors to make a decision. A low dose is 81 milligrams to 100 milligrams.The task force proposals follow years of changes in advice by several leading medical organizations and federal agencies, some of which had already recommended limiting the use of low-dose aspirin as a preventive tool against heart disease and stroke. Aspirin inhibits the formation of blood clots that can block arteries, but studies have raised concerns that regular intake increases the risk of bleeding, especially in the digestive tract and the brain, dangers that increase with age.Theres no longer a blanket statement that everybody whos at increased risk for heart disease, even though they never had a heart attack, should be on aspirin, said Dr. Chien-Wen Tseng, a member of the national task force who is the research director of family medicine and community health at the University of Hawaii. We need to be smarter at matching primary prevention to the people who will benefit the most and have the least risk of harms.Research shows that the increased risk of bleeding occurs relatively quickly after someone begins regular use of aspirin.Those who are already taking baby aspirin should talk to their doctor.We dont recommend anyone stop without talking to a clinician, and definitely not if they have already had a heart attack or stroke, she added. New Advice on Aspirin and Heart HealthRoni Caryn RabinReporting on health issuesNew Advice on Aspirin and Heart HealthRoni Caryn RabinReporting on health issuesEmma H. Tobin/Associated PressThe U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is proposing that many people at risk of heart disease should not start a new regimen of low-dose aspirin. Heres what to know The task force includes 16 experts in disease prevention and evidence-based medicine who periodically evaluate screening tests and preventive treatments. Members are appointed by the director of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, but the group is independent and its recommendations often help shape U.S. medical practice.The guidelines, which are not yet final, have the potential to affect tens of millions of adults who are at high risk for cardiovascular disease, which continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, even in the age of Covid. The panel will accept public comments on its recommendations until Nov. 8, and its draft guidance is usually adopted sometime after the comment period ends.Two years ago, the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association had jointly narrowed their recommendations to say aspirin should be prescribed very selectively for people ages 40 to 70 who had never had a heart attack or stroke. On aspirin, the organizations say generally no, occasionally yes, for primary prevention. That advice differs from the task forces new draft guidance for a cutoff at age 60.When we looked at the literature, most of it suggested the net balance is not favorable for most people there was more bleeding than heart attacks prevented, said Dr. Amit Khera, one of the authors of the medical groups guidelines. And this isnt nose bleeds, this can be bleeding in the brain.And as long ago as 2014, a Food and Drug Administration review concluded that aspirin should not be used for primary prevention, such as to ward off a first heart attack or stroke, and noted the risks.The task force, which previously made a universal recommendation for high-risk adults in their 50s to take baby aspirin if their odds of a side effect were low, now proposes that high-risk adults in their 40s and 50s talk to their doctors and make an individual decision about whether to begin a daily regimen. (The panel defined high-risk as anyone who has a 10 percent or greater risk of a cardiovascular event over the next 10 years, according to American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association calculators used to estimate risk.)When the task force issued its last set of recommendations in 2016 endorsing the widespread use of aspirin for primary prevention for those at high risk, and saying that the benefits outweighed the risks, some critics said the panel had made a mistake. Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, said then that he was concerned more aspirin use would do more harm than good. Gastroenterologists said they feared patients taking aspirin would skip their colon cancer screenings.The first large national clinical trial to find that aspirin cut the risk of heart attack included only male doctors, and it was stopped early, after five years, because the benefits were dramatic and appeared to greatly exceed the risks. But that was in 1988, and medical practice has evolved since then, said Dr. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association.With people now better able to control risk factors like high blood pressure and using new drugs to keep cholesterol in check, there is less room for aspirin now to make a difference, Dr. Lloyd-Jones said. But, he said, There is still the risk of bleeding.Research studies have also indicated that even though aspirin use by people who have not had a heart attack or stroke reduces the risk of those events, it does not lower the number of deaths from heart disease or other causes.The national task force draft report also questions another use of aspirin, whether it reduces the risk of colorectal cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in the United States and which has been on the rise among younger adults for reasons that arent clear.In reversing its five-year-old endorsement of aspirin to help prevent colorectal cancer, the report pointed to new data from a randomized controlled study called Aspirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly. In that study, aspirin use was linked to an almost doubling of colorectal cancer deaths after nearly five years of follow-up.Some experts have not given up on the promise of aspirin, saying there is still compelling evidence for its role in cancer prevention.Dr. Andrew Chan, director of cancer epidemiology at Mass General Cancer Center, said randomized controlled trials show that aspirin inhibits the growth of polyps in the colon and reduces the odds that they will become cancerous.This again highlights that we need to think about personalizing who we give aspirin to, and move away from a one-size-fits-all solution, Dr. Chan said. | Health |
on TechBezos built Amazon into a central force in the world. This week hell have to answer for it.VideoCreditCredit...By Adam MaidaJuly 28, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.A quarter-century ago, Jeff Bezos was a finance nerd with a tiny bookselling website. You know what happened next.Bezoss career arc tracks the shift of technology from a relatively fringe industry into a central force in the world. And thats exactly why Bezos and the chief executives of three other American tech stars will be testifying this week at a congressional panel investigating possible abuses of their power. The congressional hot seat shows how far the industry has come.I talked to Karen Weise, my colleague who covers Amazon, about how Bezos thinks and the meaning behind the scrutiny of Amazon.Shira: How much of Amazon is Jeff Bezos?Karen: Hes far less hands-on than most people realize, at least he was until recently. But Amazon is a reflection of Bezos. Its built on his ideals and ideas, and Bezos has a clarity of thought about what the company should be.Amazon is also structured around a set of principles and mechanisms that Bezos created. These Jeff-isms can sound like meaningless corporate-speak to an outsider, but many employees completely buy into them, and the principles are infused into everything.Oh fun! What are some notable Jeff-isms?One is this idea of one way versus two way doors. The first are irreversible decisions that should be made with care, versus changeable choices that can be made fast. People who worked at Amazon said they used that framework to make life decisions, too.Another Bezos principle is orienting every decision around what the customer wants. Its an obsession that makes Amazon what it is. The downside is acting in the best interests of shoppers can sometimes justify actions that put pressure on Amazons workers or marketplace sellers.Whats the significance of Bezos and the other tech C.E.O.s testifying at the congressional hearing on potential abuses of power?For a long time these companies thought they didnt need to concern themselves with policy, politics and regulation. Bezos certainly didnt. Thats changing now because of the growing influence of technology everywhere.Several of the most valuable companies in the world are tech companies. Bezos is the worlds richest person. Amazon is the second largest corporate employer in the United States. My coverage of Amazon touches on retail, transportation, labor, economics, consumer electronics and the functioning of cities.Americans generally dont trust technology companies, but Amazon has a good reputation.Yes, and the company has had a sense that customers love and trust would carry it through everything. But people can love shopping on Amazon and not love its record on politics, labor or the environment.We saw that in Amazons hometown, Seattle, where the company put a lot of money into City Council races last year, and it completely backfired. People felt that the company was trying to buy the vote. In New York City, there were people who believed that Amazon was trying to bully its way into building a big corporate campus.Does Amazon understand that people may love the product but mistrust the company?It understands it intellectually. I dont think it does emotionally.If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here.Coronavirus misinformation goes wild againIn just a few hours yesterday, another video with false information about the coronavirus spread like wildfire on Facebook before the company started to stamp it out.The video which I wont link to here, but you can find on Breitbart News showed a group of purported doctors touting unproven treatments.One of the videos racked up 14 million views in six hours, my colleague Kevin Roose tweeted. A few months ago, another video filled with coronavirus conspiracies, called Plandemic, was watched more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook and other spots over multiple days.Some of you may be wondering why its so bad for people to watch a couple of videos that go against the consensus of health experts. After all, theres a lot about the virus we dont understand.The problem is that its not so easy to correct the record once someone sees bogus ideas. Weve seen that good information doesnt necessarily undo bad information. Doses of falsehoods can make people doubt the recommendations of proven health experts or even, the validity of elections.Thats why Facebook, YouTube and other internet companies, which have highlighted coronavirus information from authoritative sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have said they also would be aggressive about deleting false information related to the virus. (On Tuesday, Twitter temporarily limited some functions of the account of Donald Trump Jr., one of the presidents sons, as punishment for posting the video with misleading information.)And yet, this latest bogus video went wild, again making me wonder whether Facebook and other popular internet sites are so sprawling that the companies cant control even the most high-profile kinds of false information.Before we go What to expect, and whats the big deal: My colleagues explain why Congress is digging into how Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple use their influence, and the possible trouble areas for each company.A related article: One of the questions about Apple is whether it drives up what we pay for online services because it charges up to a 30 percent commission on many app transactions, and most app makers have little choice but to pay Apple. The company is now starting to apply those fees to apps that never had to pay the fee before.Is posting a glam selfie fun or activism? My colleague Taylor Lorenz has a thoughtful article about an Instagram trend of women challenging one another to post black-and-white self portraits as a celebration of female empowerment. To some participants this is lovely, but to others its a shallow form of activism or an excuse to post a fun photo that might otherwise seem tacky in tough times.Netflix made a hit (and some haters) on multiple continents: Netflix wants to be the first global television network, and one element of its strategy is to make series that appeal to people in many different countries. It seems to have done that with its reality show about Indian matchmakers set in India and the United States, Bloomberg News writes. Some South Asians love the series, Indian Matchmaking, while others believe it enforces outdated stereotypes. Either way, the attention is good for Netflix.Hugs to thisGet prepped for Wednesdays hearing by eyeballing a bag of sugar with a malicious glint in its eye and other delightfully weird drawings representing industrial monopolies that the U.S. government once broke apart. (Thanks to my colleague Cecilia Kang for sharing this document from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.)We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected]. If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here. | Tech |
Credit...Associated PressNov. 26, 2016A dull muffled roar gave but an instants warning before the top of the tank was blown into the air, The New York Times wrote in 1919. Two million gallons of molasses rushed over the streets and converted into a sticky mass the wreckage of several small buildings which had been smashed by the force of the explosion.Wagons, carts, and motor trucks were overturned. A number of horses were killed. The street was strewn with debris intermixed with molasses and all traffic was stopped.It was January. The place was Boston. And when 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst from a gigantic holding tank in the citys North End, 21 people were killed and about 150 more were left injured. The wave of syrup some reports said it was up to 40 feet tall rushed through the waterfront, destroying buildings, overturning vehicles and pushing a firehouse off its foundation.For nearly 100 years, no one really knew why the spill was so deadly.But at a meeting of the American Physical Society this month, a team of scientists and students presented what may be an important piece of the century-old puzzle. They concluded that when a shipment of molasses newly arrived from the Caribbean met the cold winter air of Massachusetts, the conditions were ripe for a calamity to descend upon the city.By studying the effects of cold weather on molasses, the researchers determined that the disaster was more fatal in the winter than it would have been during a warmer season. The syrup moved quickly enough to cover several blocks within seconds and thickened into a harder goo as it cooled, slowing down the wave but also hindering rescue efforts.Its a ridiculous thing to imagine, a tsunami of molasses drowning the North End of Boston, but then you look at the pictures, said Shmuel M. Rubinstein, a Harvard professor whose students investigated the disaster.When the molasses arrived in Bostons harbor, it was heated by just a few degrees. The warmer temperature made it less viscous and therefore easier to transport to a storage tank near the waterfront.When the tank burst two days later, the molasses was still probably about four or five degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding air, said Nicole Sharp, an aerospace engineer and science communications expert who advised the Harvard students. (She runs the website FYFD, through which she explains the principles of fluid dynamics to people outside academia.)VideotranscripttranscriptHarvard Molasses ExperimentHarvard students performed experiments about how molasses would behave in cold temperatures to understand the deadly 1919 molasses spill in Boston.N/AHarvard students performed experiments about how molasses would behave in cold temperatures to understand the deadly 1919 molasses spill in Boston.CreditCredit...Rosa Bonilla, Grace Kossia, and Emily WoolwayThe students performed experiments in a walk-in refrigerator to model how corn syrup, standing in for the molasses, would behave in cold temperatures. With that data in hand, they applied the results to a full-scale flood, projecting it over a map of the North End. Their results, Ms. Sharp said, generally matched the accounts from the time.The historical record says that the initial wave of molasses moved at 35 miles per hour, Ms. Sharp said, which sounds outrageously fast.At the time people thought there must have been an explosion in the tank, initially, to cause the molasses to move that fast, she added. But after the team ran the experiments, she said, it discovered that the molasses could, indeed, move at that speed.Its an interesting result, Ms. Sharp said, and its something that wasnt possible back then. Nobody had worked out those actual equations until decades after the accident.If the tank had burst in warmer weather, it would have flowed farther, but also thinner, Mr. Rubinstein said.In the winter, however, after the initial burst which lasted between 30 seconds and a few minutes, Ms. Sharp said the cooler temperature of the outside air raised the viscosity of the molasses, essentially trapping people who had not been able to escape the wave.About half the people who were killed died basically because they were stuck, Mr. Rubinstein said.A firefighter who survived the initial wave managed to stay alive for nearly two hours while he waited to be rescued, they said, but he drowned.Men and women, their feet trapped by the sticky mass, slipped and fell and were suffocated, The Boston Globe wrote in 1968. The stronger tried to save others, and many of them died for their heroism.The exact cause of the tanks failure has never been known. Last year, a team of engineers using modern methods to analyze the century-old disaster blamed poorly designed steel tanks.Ronald Mayville, a structural engineer who worked on that study, told The Boston Globe that the tanks walls were at least 50 percent too thin and were made of a type of steel that was too brittle.The project at Harvard grew out of Mr. Rubinsteins Introduction to Fluid Dynamics class, which asks students to create a final project. Choose an interesting project and make an appealing video, he said.Mr. Rubinstein and Ms. Sharp said they would like to eventually build an entire course around the disaster. Students could apply what they learn in other classes to understanding not just why the molasses behaved the way it did, but also what other forces shaped the events of that day in 1919.The Boston molasses disaster, Mr. Rubinstein said, is a beautiful story for teaching. | science |
Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York TimesJune 6, 2018WASHINGTON Democrats enhanced their prospects for winning control of the House with Tuesdays coast-to-coast primary results, skirting potential calamity in California and lining up likely gains in New Jersey and possible victories in Iowa and New Mexico.The Democratic Party had feared disaster in California, where a quirky jungle primary gives the November ballot to the top two finishers, regardless of party. But Democratic contenders there leveraged financial and strategic help from the national party to weather the winnowing primary, and ensure that they will field candidates in multiple districts that they will most likely need if they are to win control in November.Even though Democrats had to spend a few million dollars, crisis averted, said Nathan Gonzales, a veteran House race handicapper and the editor of the Inside Elections newsletter.Republicans avoided their own worst-case scenario as well, securing a spot in the California governors race, which should help bring G.O.P. voters to the polls this fall to vote for their partys House candidates. Republicans missed a slot on the ballot to challenge Senator Dianne Feinsteins re-election bid, but a shutout in both Californias Senate race and its contest for governor could have severely depressed conservative turnout.Republican voters also chose strong candidates in Southern California for the showdown in November.The Democrats had more on the line, and more to celebrate. They will be able to mount challenges in places where the party feared being shut out, including open seats near San Diego and Los Angeles and districts represented by Republican incumbents in Orange County, Los Angeles County and around Modesto. Between California and New Jersey, Democrats will contend for at least 10 Republican-held seats, nearly half of the 23 they need for control.While California was the focal point of Tuesdays voting, New Jersey was one of a handful of other states where the battle for the House was also joined, including Iowa and New Mexico.In New Jersey, Democrats settled on well-funded candidates who they believe are likely to prevail in elections for seats being vacated by Representatives Rodney Frelinghuysen and Frank A. LoBiondo. They also intend to mount serious challenges to two incumbents, Leonard Lance and Tom MacArthur, the latter a lawmaker who has closely aligned himself with President Trump.ImageCredit...Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe results last night not only in California but in New Jersey, Iowa and New Mexico ultimately come down to really strong Democratic candidates getting through with pretty overwhelming support in states where the voters werent split among multiple candidates, said Meredith Kelly, the communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.Republicans saw some positive developments Tuesday as well. In the California governors race, John Cox, a Republican, secured a spot on the ballot to face Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor.In an early-morning tweet Wednesday, Mr. Trump embraced Mr. Cox and tried to counter the widely prevailing view that Democrats had dodged an electoral bullet.Great night for Republicans! Congratulations to John Cox on a really big number in California. He can win, Mr. Trump tweeted. So much for the big Blue Wave, it may be a big Red Wave. Working hard!In addition, congressional Republicans were enthusiastic about their own contenders in California, including Young Kim, a Korean-American woman who was the top vote-getter in the primary to replace Representative Ed Royce, another retiring Republican in a district that is nearly 30 percent Asian.As a businesswoman and a longtime aide to Congressman Ed Royce, Young understands Southern California families needs, said Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.Another female candidate, Diane Harkey, was the top vote-getter in the San Diego County district being vacated by Representative Darrell Issa.ImageCredit...Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesWhile Democrats managed to push their candidates through the dicey process, their success in the California races is not guaranteed even though at least seven Republican-held districts in play were carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. Despite opposition to Mr. Trump, the districts remain dominated by Republican voters. And Democrats did not always get their preferred candidate, with more progressive challengers prevailing in some districts.For instance, Democratic voters in Orange County picked Katie Porter, a law professor and strong progressive candidate, over the more business-oriented Dave Min to face Representative Mimi Walters, a Republican in her second term, in November. Orange County, south of Los Angeles, is undergoing a demographic transformation as Asian and Latino migrants settle in what was once a pillar of the Ronald Reagan-era Republican Party. But while some suburban voters there may be uneasy with Mr. Trump, the county is hardly a bastion of liberalism.Im not convinced that voters are going to punish Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher because they dont like the president, said Mr. Gonzales, referring to two California Republican incumbents at risk.Democrats, though, vowed to use Ms. Walterss support for the tax overhaul against her, noting that the cutbacks on mortgage interest and state and local tax deductions had hit many in the affluent district.Were going to go right at Walters for voting to raise taxes on half of the homeowners in her district, said Sean Clegg, a California-based strategist for Ms. Porter.Democrats were threatened by an embarrassment of riches in California arising from a strong backlash against Mr. Trump. The environment created a golden opportunity to win a seat in Congress, and the prospect attracted so many contenders in some cases that the party feared the candidates would divide the vote and open the door to Republicans winning the top two slots.House Democrats were braced for a rough night in California that would steepen their climb to the majority, said former Representative Steve Israel, a Democrat who previously ran his partys House campaign arm. Instead, they had a good night that further clears their path.Democratic strategists in Washington deserve some credit for their efforts to knock down the biggest threats in California. In some instances, they picked Democratic candidates who were not supported by Emilys List, the political action committee that backs women who support abortion rights, and in others they split with the state party. National Democrats also pumped in money to knock down a second-tier Republican, clearing the field for Democrats to fight it out for second place.This confirmed that being proactive in these races could yield the results that we wanted, said Representative Judy Chu, Democrat of California.For example, the House Majority PAC, the main Democratic super PAC, unveiled an advertisement in the last weeks against Scott Baugh, a Republican running in the district represented by Mr. Rohrabacher. The super PAC understood that it could not take out Mr. Rohrabacher, but it needed to make sure the badly divided Democratic candidates would not leave the November ballot open for him.And in the seat held by Mr. Issa, who is retiring, the House campaign arm recognized that a moderate Republican assemblyman, Rocky Chvez, posed a threat and unleashed an ad campaign that attacked him from the right as part of an attempt to drive his fellow Republicans away from him. It worked: Mr. Chavez appeared likely to finish in sixth place, and Democrats were three of the top four vote-getters in the district.In the end, the D.C.C.C. and a pair of Democratic political action committees working jointly, the House Majority PAC and Priorities USA Action, spent over $7 million to knock down Republican candidates and lift their own contenders in three districts: Mr. Rohrabachers, Mr. Issas and Mr. Royces. In all three, a second Republican faded in the final results.At the same time, the D.C.C.C. backed Gil Cisneros over the chosen Emilys List candidate, Mai Khanh Tran, in Mr. Royces district, figuring a Navy veteran and Latino had a better shot than an immigrant pediatrician in a district that has been represented by a Republican for years. Ultimately, three women backed by Emilys List in targeted districts Ms. Tran, Virginia Madueo and Sara Jacobs appeared to have lost to men.Even if they had been shut out of some of the California contests, Democrats still would have had a national path to winning the two dozen seats needed to take over the House in January. But being frozen out of races in winnable Republican-held districts would have been a major disappointment for Democrats and could have sapped some of the enthusiasm they will need to generate over the coming months.Democrats have to be happy and relieved, said Dave Wasserman, House race analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. They have woken up from their nightmare of lockouts, and everything is O.K.The Democratic success could affect activity in Congress. Faced with the need to protect endangered Republican incumbents in California, House Republican leaders may determine that they have to move forward with a vote on immigration policy being demanded by Republican centrists who believe the issue is critical to their campaigns. | Politics |
Credit...Jawad Jalali/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 19, 2017KABUL, Afghanistan Heavy gunfire echoed down Darulaman Road, in the vicinity of Parliament and President Ashraf Ghanis private home, for more than an hour very early Friday morning.Police units mobilized and rushed to the area. Shekaba Hashimi, who was up late helping her children study for their university exams, was convinced it was the Taliban. I thought, Oh, God, there is another attack in this area, she said.Half of the city seemed to have the same fear, as sleepy Kabulis piled onto social media to share notes on the gunfire as it moved through town.Hours later, the Kabul police sheepishly admitted that it was only another government big shot on another drunken rampage. In this case, the culprit was said to be Lalai Hamidzai, a member of Parliament who once led its committee on the advancement of the rule of law.Kabuls police chief, Maj. Gen. Hassan Shah Frogh, said that Mr. Hamidzai had been drunk and had chased through town after someone he was angry at, and ended up firing into a hotel where his quarry had taken refuge. Then, in a cover-up effort, he fired into the air at his own house a few miles away to make it look as though he were the one who had been attacked, General Frogh said.Mr. Hamidzai parried that charge of drunkenness by saying in a Facebook post that a senior policeman at the scene had been drunk, and that the policeman was an armed robber to boot.Soon videos were broadcast of CCTV footage showing Mr. Hamidzai staggering around and shooting at the gate of the hotel as his entourage fired automatic weapons into the air and over the walls. Mr. Hamidzai insisted that the videos were faked, but the police said they were genuine.Kabulis are all too familiar with the spectacle of powerful political figures charging around town and running roughshod over those who get in their way, even police officers. In fact, attacks on the Kabul police are far more common from such politicians than from the Taliban, though the insurgents attacks are typically more deadly.Whether celebrating a cricket victory, expressing anger at being turned away from a wedding or protesting a roadblock, such politicians response has on numerous occasions been gunplay and violence often fueled by liquor, even though it is illegal to possess or consume alcohol in Afghanistan.Arrests in such cases are rare because those responsible usually have powerful allies in the government, and the authorities are loath to challenge their armed bodyguards, who act as mini-militias.No one has been arrested in the episode involving Mr. Hamidzai, although a police spokesman, Abdul Basir Mujahid, said an investigation was underway.On Saturday, the children of another member of Parliament, Zaheer Sadat, a doctor from the Panjshir Valley with a history of brawling, got into a fight with the neighbors children. The adults in both houses opened fire on one another with automatic weapons, said Gen. Salem Almas, the head of the Kabul Police criminal investigation division. Five people were wounded, he said.Dr. Sadat was not present at Saturdays shooting, the police said. But in November 2015, when his convoy was stopped by the police, his bodyguards badly beat three of the officers, the police said. Dr. Sadat said that the officers had tried to attack him; the police said he was just angry at being stopped.No one is above the law, said Mirdad Nejrabi, the head of Parliaments Internal Defense Committee. Being a member of Parliament does not mean one has immunity to do whatever he or she can to disrupt law and order.Just over a week ago, a brother-in-law and an associate of Mr. Hamidzais were stopped by the police while driving through the city drunk, according to a police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired for discussing the case.They beat up the officers and the police commander of the area who tried to intervene, the official said.Senior security officials have also been accused of disturbing Kabuls peace. In January, the head of the Kabul Garrison, Lt. Gen. Gul Nabi Ahmadzai, and his men were reported to have indulged in widespread celebratory firing after his son got engaged. The shooting was so intense that many in the city thought a terrorist attack was underway.Last year the government put the Kabul Garrison in charge of security in the city, with General Ahmadzai outranking the police chief. In doing so, it cited the units greater level of professionalism since the Australian military trained and advised its command last year.General Ahmadzai could not be reached for comment, but an aide who answered the phone in his office said, Who doesnt fire in the air in Afghanistan? Everyone does.There has long been a culture of impunity among Afghan politicians, but the weak coalition government has greatly worsened it.As the frequency of such episodes rises, fed-up police officers are pushing back by going public. In an interview, General Almas, the head of the criminal investigation unit, disputed Mr. Hamidzais claims that the video evidence of his shooting up the hotel had been faked.General Almas said he was at the scene on Friday night, trying to persuade a drunken Mr. Hamidzai to calm down and stop shooting. We have the proof, General Almas said. He cannot deny anything. | World |
Business|Treasury Auctions Set for the Week of Dec. 28https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/business/treasury-auctions-set-for-the-week-of-dec-28.htmlDec. 27, 2015The Treasurys schedule of financing this week includes Mondays regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills and an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday.At the close of the New York cash market on Thursday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.21 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.48 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.15 percent. | Business |
In our hearts, I think people dont quite agree with this notion of a booster dose, said one leading vaccine expert.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York TimesPublished Oct. 25, 2021Updated Nov. 12, 2021Following a series of endorsements over the last month by scientific panels advising federal agencies, tens of millions of Americans are now eligible for booster shots of coronavirus vaccines.But the recommendations even those approved unanimously mask significant dissent and disquiet among those advisers about the need for booster shots in the United States.In interviews last week, several advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to the Food and Drug Administration said data show that, with the exception of adults over age 65, the vast majority of Americans are already well protected against severe illness and do not need booster shots.All the advisers acknowledged that they were obligated to make difficult choices, based on sparse research, in the middle of a public health emergency. But some said they felt compelled to vote for the shots because of the way the federal agencies framed the questions that they were asked to consider.Other committee experts said that they wanted to avoid confusing the public further by dissenting, or that they voted according to their views of the evidence and were simply overruled.These are not evidence-based recommendations, said Dr. Sarah S. Long, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, and a member of the C.D.C.s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.Following a series of votes, the official position of the F.D.A. and C.D.C. now is that among those who received an mRNA vaccine, older adults, people with certain medical conditions, and those whose jobs or living situations regularly expose them to the virus can opt for a booster dose of any of the three vaccines.I dont think that we have evidence that everybody in those groups needs a booster today, said Dr. Matthew Daley, senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Colorado and a member of the C.D.C. advisory committee.Dr. Long and Dr. Daley both voted in favor of booster shots at their committees meeting on Thursday, but with reservations over how the decision would be viewed by anxious Americans who might conclude mistakenly that the vaccines are ineffective.When the C.D.C. committee reviewed evidence for the Pfizer-BioNTech booster in September, the advisers agreed unanimously only on extra shots for adults over age 65. Two of the 15 panelists voted against booster doses for adults over age 50 with certain medical conditions.Approval of boosters for people aged 18 to 49 with other medical risk factors squeaked by in a vote of nine to six. And the booster recommendation for people whose occupations put them at risk did not pass.That last category was included in the final C.D.C. recommendations only because Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the agencys director, overruled her advisers.You can see the hesitancy in all this, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the F.D.A.s vaccine advisory committee. Its because in our hearts, I think people dont quite agree with this notion of a booster dose.The door just got bigger and bigger and bigger, it got wider and wider with each step, Dr. Offit added. The companies got what they wanted, the administration got what they wanted.ImageCredit...Pool photo by Jim Lo ScalzoIn interviews, the experts bemoaned the limited data on the safety and efficacy of the booster shots. The data supporting extra doses of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines was of very low quality, Dr. Kathleen Dooling, a C.D.C. scientist, acknowledged at the committee meeting on Thursday.Still, some said they felt they had to vote in favor of booster shots of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines because they had already recommended boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and did not want to deny other Americans.The problem that troubled me is that we dont know if boosters are necessary, said Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and a member of the F.D.A. advisory committee.But if youre going do it for one group, I think fairness kind of dictates you have to do it for all the groups, he added.In interviews, panelists were hesitant to voice their discomfort, saying they did not want to undercut the final decisions from the committees.Its hard to show some of the misgivings, because we dont want to have mixed messaging, said Dr. Camille Kotton, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the C.D.C. committee.But several panelists who did not wish to speak on the record said privately that the final recommendations for booster shots were inevitable as soon as President Biden promised them to all adults.We are in a very difficult position to do much of anything other than what everybody has already announced that weve done, said Dr. Long, one of the few to publicly express her unhappiness.Some administration officials pay lip service to science and the evidence, she said.Experts outside these committees also said that President Bidens promise of boosters, in August, made it difficult for the agencies to weigh the data objectively in September and October.The perception is that the horse is out of the barn, and theres not really much you can do at this point, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center who has previously advised the Biden administration.The fact is, you cant have this confusing mess its going to create more problems, she added, referring to mixed signals from the White House and federal scientists.Much of the dissent in recent hearings sprang from one central contention: that the coronavirus vaccines, like nearly all other vaccines, should be used to prevent illness severe enough to require medical attention, not milder infection.The bulk of the evidence presented to the federal advisers demonstrated only that the original immunizations were waning in potency against infections. The vaccines seem to be holding steady against severe Covid-19 and death, except perhaps in older Americans.I dont think we ever see 100 percent protection from any vaccine, Dr. Kotton said. The goal of getting to zero is an evanescent one and, unfortunately, not really achievable.People are using it because theyre so anxious about Covid, and anxious about the state of affairs in the world, she added, referring to booster shots.ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesGenerally, scientists on the two committees are asked to vote yes or no on questions posed to them by the federal agencies they are advising. In some cases, committee members said they voted one way or another simply because of the way those questions were phrased.In December, when F.D.A. advisers evaluated the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people ages 16 and older, the evidence for its use in 16- and 17-year-olds was limited.Dr. Archana Chatterjee and three other committee members voted against the vaccine and were criticized for it. But Dr. Chatterjee said she would have voted differently if the F.D.A. had asked about authorizing the vaccine in adults 18 and older.We were basically told, Heres the question, and say yes or no, said Dr. Chatterjee, a pediatric infectious disease expert and dean of the Chicago Medical School. We were also not given the opportunity to explain the vote.In subsequent meetings, the F.D.A. allowed the science advisers to request changes to the question and to explain their votes. But they are still restricted to voting only on the data included in a companys application.At a recent meeting, for example, some F.D.A. advisers said they wanted to recommend that Johnson & Johnson recipients have the option to choose any vaccine for their booster. But the F.D.A. only asked the panel to vote on a booster of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.One of the panelists, Dr. Stanley Perlman, said he voted yes because it was clear that Johnson & Johnson recipients would benefit from a second shot. But the unanimous vote signaled far more confidence in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a booster than he felt, said Dr. Perlman, an immunologist and coronavirus expert at the University of Iowa.Dr. Perlman said he was opposed to boosters for younger people at first, but voted in favor for other reasons. In the case of health care workers, for example, I didnt want to have any nurses or doctors staying home because they had asymptomatic infections, he said.Several experts said they have tried to be clear about the limitations of the data and the rationale behind their decisions. But communicating in the midst of a pandemic has proved to be tricky.Through no intentional fault of anyone, the messaging has been challenging and then theres a lot of misinformation, which is tragic, Dr. Kotton said.In approving the boosters, however reluctantly, federal agencies and their advisers may have given Americans the impression that two doses were not protective enough, some experts said.They continue inadvertently to damn the vaccine, when what they should say is, It is remarkable, said Dr. Offit. Its a miracle vaccine. | Health |
The proposal is still a long way from being finalized, and many expensive drugs, like insulin, would be excluded from state plans.Credit...Chris Wattie/ReutersDec. 18, 2019The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would move forward with plans to allow states to safely import prescription drugs from Canada, for the first time. The decision is an unusual one for a Republican administration. Progressives have long supported such a policy, but the pharmaceutical industry vehemently opposed drug imports by claiming they were unsafe. Food and Drug Administration commissioners had also opposed importing drugs intended for overseas use, citing safety issues. In a telephone call with reporters Tuesday, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, described the announcement as momentous. For the first time in history, H.H.S. and the F.D.A. are open to importation as a means to lower drug prices, he said. He also said, We will not take steps that would put patients or our drug supply at risk.First announced in July, the proposal is still a long way from affecting consumers wallets. States will have to submit their own plans to the federal government for approval, to see if they are both safe and would significantly reduce costs. Importantly, many of the most expensive drugs are excluded from this proposal, including insulin and biologic drugs like Humira and other injectable drugs. A 2003 law limited the types of drugs that could be imported.A proposal by the state of Florida, made public in August, listed drugs that could yield savings if they were imported from Canada, including brand-name drugs to treat H.I.V., hepatitis C and multiple sclerosis.A separate plan that would allow manufacturers to import into the United States their own drugs that were intended for sale in other countries would apply to a wider range of products. But under that proposal, manufacturers would have to agree to participate. Federal officials have said that some drug makers have expressed interest in doing so, without providing specifics.The drug industrys main lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, expressed skepticism about the plans, and said it was still reviewing the details. At a time when there are pragmatic policy solutions being considered to lower costs for seniors at the pharmacy counter and increase competition in the market, it is disappointing the administration once again put politics over patients, the groups president and chief executive, Stephen J. Ubl, said in a statement.Mr. Azar said that the announcement this week was just the beginning and that if the programs were successful, they could be expanded. ImageCredit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesI would envision that as we demonstrate the safety as well as the cost savings from this pathway that there can be basically a pilot and a proof of concept that Congress could then look to, he said.The Trump administration said it did not have estimates for any consumer or taxpayer savings, because states had not yet submitted any plans. The proposal also noted that running the programs would cost money. As we lack information about the expected scale or scope of such programs, we are unable to estimate how they may affect U.S. markets for prescription drugs, the proposal said.As public outrage over high drug prices has mounted, state leaders from both parties have considered importing drugs from Canada as a way of addressing the issue. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, favors such a plan, and President Trump has repeatedly said he will help make it happen. Other states, including Colorado, Vermont and Maine, also favor importation.In a news conference Wednesday with Mr. Azar, Governor DeSantis said the plan was not a silver bullet, but was an important step. Id much rather be here, moving forward, he said, than just being on the sidelines chirping, saying, why doesnt someone do something about it?Candidates and lawmakers in both parties are competing to show voters they are serious about lowering drug prices. Last week, the House passed legislation that would allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers, an ambitious move that delivered on a key campaign promise but is unlikely to be taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate.Administration officials have struggled to show progress on this issue. In July, the administration abandoned a proposal that would have given Medicare beneficiaries drug discounts at the pharmacy counter, but which also would have raised their premiums. That same month, a federal judge threw out a rule that would have required pharmaceutical companies to list the price of their drugs in television advertisements.The policy supporting importation represents an about-face for Mr. Azar, who previously described such importation programs as gimmicks. | Health |
Credit...Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images EuropeMarch 13, 2017LONDON Wading into an escalating diplomatic feud, the European Union warned Turkey on Monday that a constitutional amendment to drastically strengthen the presidents powers might harm the countrys longstanding bid to eventually join the bloc.European Union officials also urged Turkey to avoid inflammatory rhetoric like the recent declarations by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said that Germany and the Netherlands had demonstrated Nazi-like behavior in blocking Turkish officials from campaigning in those countries.Membership talks with Turkey have been moribund, but the prospect of Turkeys eventually joining the European Union has also long been dangled as an enticement to closer ties.The warning, delivered in a statement by two officials of the European Commission, the European Unions executive arm, was the blocs strongest collective response yet to a sustained verbal assault from Turkey.The comments have infuriated officials in Germany and the Netherlands, where Turkish migrants and their families make up a sizable minority.It is essential to avoid further escalation and find ways to calm down the situation, said the statement by the officials Federica Mogherini of Italy, the blocs foreign policy chief, and Johannes Hahn of Austria, the European commissioner for negotiations on expanding membership in the 28-nation bloc. The European Union calls on Turkey to refrain from excessive statements and actions that risk further exacerbating the situation.Also on Monday, the Venice Commission, which advises European leaders and studies democracy under the rule of law, issued a report that said the referendum risked giving an excessive concentration of power to the presidency, harming checks and balances and judicial independence.The report also expressed concern that the change would take place during a state of emergency that was declared after a failed coup attempt against Mr. Erdogan in July.On March 5, Mr. Erdogan accused Germany of engaging in Nazi-like behavior after the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, citing security concerns, canceled rallies at which Turkish government ministers had planned to urge Turkish voters living in Germany to vote yes in the April 16 referendum.The remarks infuriated officials in Germany, where awareness of the crimes of the Nazi state is enshrined in school curriculums and public commemorations.On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan said that Nazi remnants were in the Dutch government, after it refused to allow two of his ministers to hold rallies in the Netherlands.His inflammatory comments came at an acute time: Voters go to the polls in the Netherlands on Wednesday to elect a new Parliament, and the Freedom Party led by the far-right, anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders is expected to make a strong showing, possibly coming in first place.ImageCredit...Dylan Martinez/ReutersMr. Erdogans fiery remarks continued to ripple through European politics on Monday. At an economic meeting in Munich, Ms. Merkel said she had told Parliament last week that she rejected all kinds of rhetorical comparisons with Nazism in Germany made by Turkish personalities.This rejection also fully applies, of course, to friendly countries such as the Netherlands, she said, adding that these comparisons are completely misleading and trivialize the sufferings of the victims of Nazism.Especially with respect to the Netherlands, which suffered under National Socialism, that is completely unacceptable, Ms. Merkel said. And that is why the Netherlands has my full support and solidarity.Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands from 1940 until the end of War II in 1945.At a news conference in Rotterdam, the Netherlands prime minister, Mark Rutte, said he did not think that Turkey was trying to interfere in his countrys elections, but he added that his government would not be intimidated by bluster.Turkey is a powerful country, but the Netherlands is also a powerful country, Mr. Rutte said. The government, he said, had been prepared to allow the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to meet with a limited group of Turkish people in one of the official Turkish residences, but that while it was being arranged, we saw on CNN Turk that he was threatening the Netherlands with sanctions.We tried to de-escalate the situation, Mr. Rutte said, but Mr. Cavusoglu complicated matters by citing the Dutch elections as the reason he was denied permission to fly to Rotterdam.Its very clear that that is not true, Mr. Rutte said. We will still try to de-escalate, but of course to de-escalate, it takes two to tango.Mr. Rutte said he was grateful for expressions of sympathy from Ms. Merkel, from European Union officials and from the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, among others.Ankara, nonetheless, escalated its rhetoric on Monday. Turkish officials said the Netherlands ambassador to Turkey, who is out of the country, should not return. They also threatened to revisit an accord with Europe that has eased the passage of migrants to the continent.Numan Kurtulmus, a deputy prime minister, predicted that the Netherlands would have to apologize to Turkey for blocking Mr. Cavusoglu from flying to the country, and for expelling the family affairs minister, Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, after she had entered by land from Germany.You will see that, in the end, they will come to the point where they will apologize, Mr. Kurtulmus said, without elaborating, according to the Turkish state-run Anadolu News Agency.He said the treatment of the ministers echoed footsteps of the far-right, of the neo-fascism and neo-Nazism that has been on the rise in Europe in the past five or six years.The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said it had summoned the Netherlands top diplomat in Ankara, the capital, as a formal protest against the treatment of the family affairs minister and what it called a disproportionate use of force against protesters at a rally in Rotterdam that ended on Saturday with several arrests after clashes with the police. | World |
One was a dairy farmer. Another aspired to be a pilot. One was an elder known for helping newcomers. Another was a teenager who called his mother when the shooting started. The 50 people slaughtered by a gunman at two Christchurch mosques last week spanned a range of backgrounds. Here is what we know about them.Atta ElayyanImageCredit...New Zealand FootballAtta Elayyan, 33, was a technology entrepreneur, a goalkeeper and a new father. He played for New Zealands national futsal team, according to the New Zealand Football association, which confirmed his death. Futsal is a version of five-a-side soccer played indoors.There are no words to sum up how we are all feeling, one of his teammates, Josh Margetts, said in a statement. There is a huge hole in our hearts as we come to terms with the loss of a great person and a good mate. He will be sorely missed. Mr. Elayyan was born in Kuwait and studied computer science at the University of Canterbury. He was the chief executive and a co-founder of LWA Solutions, a mobile app start-up. He was well known in the futsal world and in Christchurchs tech community. He and his wife, Farah, have a young daughter, Aya, whose photos appear in abundance on his Facebook page. In one, she is wearing a bib that says: My dad rocks.[We learned more about Mr. Elayyan from his family as they gathered to remember him and say goodbye.]Mucad IbrahimImageCredit...Abdi IbrahimThree-year-old Mucad Ibrahim is the youngest person confirmed to have been killed in the attacks. He was at Al Noor mosque and became separated from his brother and father when the shooting began.He was a Muslim-born Kiwi who was full of energy, love and happiness, his family said in a statement. He is remembered in our community as a young boy who emanated nothing but the representation of Gods love, peace and mercy.Will miss you dearly brother, Mucads brother Abdi Ibrahim wrote on Facebook. Mucad was wearing a white thobe and his favorite white hat on Friday, and so returned to His Lord in a state of pure innocence and spiritual beauty, the familys statement said.The family said they had taken solace from a global outpouring of support. Knowing that New Zealand and the whole world stands behind our boy reassures us that violence and racism are unwelcome in our world, they said. Sayyad MilneImageCredit...Cashmere High School FoundationIve lost my little boy, hes just turned 14, Sayyad Milnes father, John Milne, told The New Zealand Herald through tears.Sayyad was one of two Cashmere High School students killed in the attack, according to the schools principal, Mark Wilson. The boy was an avid soccer player. He proved himself to be not only a truly outstanding goalkeeper, but a great friend and colleague, a real team player with a fabulous attitude and a warm and friendly personality, St. Albans Shirley Football Club said in a statement on Facebook. Sayyad was one of our own and we will always remember him.Lilik Abdul HamidLilik Abdul Hamid, 57, originally from Indonesia, had been an aircraft maintenance engineer with Air New Zealand for 16 years, the companys chief executive, Christopher Luxon, said in a statement. He first got to know the team even earlier when he worked with our aircraft engineers in a previous role overseas, Mr. Luxon said. The friendships he made at that time led him to apply for a role in Air New Zealand and make the move to Christchurch. Mr. Hamid is survived by his wife and two children, Mr. Luxon said. On Facebook, one of Mr. Hamids friends called him a man with a gold heart who always opened his heart and home to everyone. Areeb AhmedImageCredit...PricewaterhouseCoopersAreeb Ahmed, 27, was an employee of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a statement released by the company said. Pakistans foreign ministry said he was originally from that countrys largest city, Karachi. Areeb was a loved and respected member of our PwC family, the company wrote on Facebook. His smile, warmth, dedication, respect and humor will be deeply missed.Tariq OmarImageCredit...Christchurch United Football ClubNew Zealand Football confirmed the death of Tariq Omar, 24, a soccer player who coached for several of Christchurch United Football Clubs junior teams. Colin Williamson, the clubs academy director, called him a beautiful human being with a tremendous heart and love for coaching.Our coaches and his players are struggling to understand what has happened and we are trying to support our club members as best as we can, Mr. Williamson said in a statement released by the club. But of course our main thoughts and concerns go out to Tariqs family who are in our hearts and prayers.Shahid SuhailShahid Suhail, 35, from Pakistan, was an engineer who worked for a resin manufacturer in Christchurch, according to Stuff, a news website. He had a wife and two young daughters. His daughters were his life, said his wife, Asma.Syed Jahandad AliSyed Jahandad Ali, 34, originally from Lahore, Pakistan, worked at Intergen, a software company and had a wife and three children, according to a fundraising page created by the company. In a statement, the company called him a kind and gentle man.Syed Jahandad Ali has deeply touched the lives of his friends, colleagues and wider technology community through his knowledge and skills. We are devastated to have lost a very loved Intergenite the statement read.Haroon MahmoodHaroon Mahmood, 40, had worked in banking in Pakistan before moving to New Zealand, Stuff reported. He taught at a private school for international students and had been a tutor at Lincoln University in Christchurch, according to Radio New Zealand. He had a wife and two children. Farhaj AhsanFarhaj Ahsan, 30, originally from Hyderabad, India, had lived for 10 years in New Zealand, where he worked as an electrical engineer. He left a wife and two children, according to his brother, Kashif Ahsan, who spoke to the BBC. Maheboob Khokhar Maheboob Khokhar, a 65-year-old Indian engineer, was on his first trip to New Zealand, visiting his son, who had moved there from India eight years ago. His wife, Akhtar Khokhar, said they had been in the country for two months. He was at Al Noor mosque the day before they had planned to leave. Muhammad Haziq Mohd-Tarmizi Muhammad Haziq Mohd-Tarmizi, a Malaysian 17-year-old, was among those killed at Al Noor Mosque, the police said. His father was wounded in the attack, according to the Malaysian government. Asif VoraAsif Vora was among five Indian nationals whose deaths were confirmed by the Indian High Commission in New Zealand. Radio New Zealand said he was 58, and that he and his son had been killed at Al Noor mosque.Ramiz Vora Asif Voras son, Ramiz Vora, 28, had become a father just days before his death, according to Radio New Zealand. Ansi Alibava Ansi Alibava, 25, another of the Indian nationals among the victims, had moved to New Zealand with her husband, Abdul Nazer, in 2018, a year after they had married, he told CNN. She had just completed a master's degree in agribusiness management.Mr. Nazer was near an emergency door at Al Noor mosque when the shooting began and managed to escape. Outside, he saw Ms. Alibava lying facedown and ran to her, but was stopped by a police officer. She had so many dreams, he told CNN. Ozair Kadir ImageCredit...International Aviation Academy of New ZealandOzair Kadir, 25, dreamed of being a commercial pilot like his older brother. Originally from Hyderabad, India, he had moved to New Zealand in recent years and was set to make that a reality.Messages of grief and support for Mr. Kadirs family poured in on the Facebook page of the International Aviation Academy of New Zealand, where he was in pilot training. Fellow students gathered on Monday to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial.Ozair's presence will be sadly missed by all staff and students at the Academy, the institute said in a statement. Our love, thoughts and prayers are with his family who are now in New Zealand preparing to take Ozair home.Haji Daoud al-NabiHaji Daoud al-Nabi, 71, arrived in New Zealand from Afghanistan about 30 years ago and was a central figure in Christchurchs small Afghan community. He was a leader who welcomed everyone, his son Yama al-Nabi said. His son was running 10 minutes late for Friday Prayers, along with his 8-year-old daughter, when they came upon a police cordon. The younger Mr. Nabis hands trembled as he held up his mobile phone to show a picture of his father with his daughter in the mosque on a different day. I thought Id make it to the prayers. When I got there, the police were there. I was running and a guy said there was shooting in the mosque, Yama al-Nabi said. He knew his father was inside, but news of his death only came hours later.Ali ElmadaniAli Elmadani, 65, immigrated to New Zealand from the United Arab Emirates with his family in 1998, his family confirmed to the Stuff news site. His daughter, Maha Elmadani, said her father had always told the family to be strong, so that was what she was trying to do.He considered New Zealand home and never thought something like this would happen here, she told Stuff.Husna Ahmad ImageCredit...Edgar Su/ReutersHusna Ahmad, 47, led a number of women and children to safety after the shooting at Al Noor mosque began, said Farid Ahmad, her husband. Mr. Ahmad, who is in a wheelchair, said she was killed when she returned to the mosque to check on him.She was busy with saving lives, forgetting about herself, said Mr. Ahmad, 59.Mr. Ahmad said he had forgiven the gunman and believed that good would eventually come from the killing. This is what Islam taught me, he said.What he did was a wrong thing, but I would tell him that inside him, he has great potential to be a generous person, to be a kind person, to be a person who would save people, save humanity rather than destroying them, Mr. Ahmad said. I hope and I pray for him that he would be a great savior one day. I dont have any grudge.Naeem RashidIn the gunmans self-made video of the killings he had posted to Facebook, a man can be seen trying to tackle him as he began firing in Al Noor mosque. That man was Naeem Rashid, according to witnesses.His family described him as an intelligent, ambitious and devout father of three. His eldest son, Talha Naeem, was also killed.Mr. Rashid was in his 40s, according to Stuff and Radio New Zealand. His brothers, interviewed in Pakistan, said he had left a senior position at Citibank in the city of Lahore in 2010 to pursue a doctorate in Christchurch and raise his children in a peaceful country. Starting over proved more difficult than he had expected.Like everybody who leaves this country, he left Pakistan because of lack of opportunities here, said Dr. Khurshid Alam, one of Mr. Rashids brothers. He went there to do his Ph.D. Because of the financial situation, he couldnt complete it, so he was teaching part-time.He became much more devout during his time in New Zealand, according to his brothers. They said he talked about wanting to die a martyr, which he felt was the most honorable way for a Muslim to die. Talha Naeem Talha Naeem, 21, had just graduated from college and entered the work force. He was the eldest of Naeem Rashids three children the second is 18, the youngest is 5 and his father was especially proud of him, according to his family.The family had planned to return to Pakistan in May to help Talha find a wife.Amjad HamidAmjad Hamid, 57, was a cardiologist who had spent the last few years working with rural communities in the mountainous area of Taranaki, on New Zealands North Island, though he continued to live in Christchurch with his wife and family. At Hawera Hospital in Taranaki, he often brought colleagues fresh baklava from a Christchurch bakery. He was well liked for his kindness, compassion and sense of humor, the Taranaki District Health Board said in a statement. He was a hard-working doctor, deeply committed to caring for his patients, and a thoughtful team member who was supportive of all staff.Hi wife, Hanan al-Adem, told Radio New Zealand she still could not believe he was gone. He was the perfect man, its a big loss, she said. Kamel Darwish Kamel Darwish, 38, arrived early at his brothers home in Christchurch on the eve of the attack. He had traveled from the countryside, where he worked at a dairy farm, because he didnt want to miss Friday prayers, said his brother, Zuhair Darwish. New Zealand had been his home for just six months. He had moved from Jordan because his brother had convinced him there was no safer, better place to raise a family. His wife and children were set to arrive in a month.He was caring, he was honest, he was a loving person, his brother said.Linda ArmstrongLinda Armstrong, 64, was a third-generation New Zealander who grew up in Auckland and converted to Islam in her 50s, her nephew Kyron Gosse said.Linda had a huge heart and what little she had, she was more than happy to share with her family and Muslim community, Mr. Gosse wrote in a tribute to his aunt on Facebook. She would tell me stories about Ramadan when all the families would come together at the mosque sharing homemade meals and having a feast, laughing and chatting.Lateef Alabi, a leader at the Linwood mosque, told The New York Times that Ms. Armstrong had been among the victims there. Her younger brother, Tony Gosse, remembered her as a peaceful woman with a a stubborn ideology of this world.We didn't always see eye to eye but she lived a very humble lifestyle and was always unselfishly helping others. She volunteered at refugee centers and was an advocate for women's rights, he said. She always had an open ear and a shoulder to lean on.Mohammed Imran KhanMohammed Imran Khan, 47, also known as Imran Bhai, was originally from India and was killed at the Linwood mosque, Stuff reported. He owned a restaurant, the Indian Grill, and two other Christchurch businesses. A post on the restaurants Facebook page the day after the attacks said it would be closed indefinitely.Mohamad Moosid MohamedhosenMohamad Moosid Mohamedhosen, 54, a citizen of Mauritius, was killed at the Linwood mosque, the police said. Hamza MustafaImageCredit...Cashmere High School FoundationHamza Mustafa, 16, called his mother when the shooting began at Al Noor mosque, she told Stuff.He said Mum, theres someone come into the mosque and hes shooting us, Salwa Mustafa said. I called Hamza, Hamza, and I can hear his little voice and after that it was quiet.Hamza Mustafa attended Cashmere High School, as did Sayyad Milne, another teenager killed in the attack. Khaled MustafaKhaled Mustafa, 44, Hamza Mustafas father, was also killed at Al Noor mosque. Radio New Zealand said the Mustafas were originally from war-ravaged Syria, and that they had moved to New Zealand from Jordan last year. Hamzas 13-year-old brother Zaed was wounded.Our lives have completely changed, Ms. Mustafa told Stuff.Junaid Ismail Junaid Ismail, 36, was a Christchurch native who worked at the family business, a dairy, according to Radio New Zealand. He had a wife and three children. His twin brother, Zahid, survived the shooting.Abdelfattah QasemAbdelfattah Qasem, a 60-year-old Palestinian, worked in Kuwait for much of his life, Stuff reported. He moved to New Zealand with his family in the early 1990s, after the first Gulf War. A relative told Stuff that Mr. Qasem was like an elder for the community, known for helping newcomers to Christchurch. He had three daughters and was about to become a grandfather.Ashraf AliOriginally from Fiji, Ashraf Ali, 61, had lived in Christchurch for 17 years, Stuff reported. Ashraf Ali RazatAshraf Ali Razat, 58, was visiting New Zealand from Fiji when he was killed, according to Radio New Zealand. Mathullah Safi Mathullah Safi, 55, killed at Al Noor mosque, came to New Zealand from Afghanistan through India about nine years ago, Stuff reported. He was married with seven children. Hussein Al-Umari ImageCredit...Aya Al-UmariHussein Al-Umari, 35, killed at Al Noor mosque, worked in the travel industry but had recently lost his job, his parents told Stuff. The family moved to New Zealand from the United Arab Emirates 22 years ago, according to the news site. Musa Vali Suleman Patel Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60, an imam in Fiji for about 25 years, had traveled to Australia and then New Zealand to spend time with children and friends, the Fiji Muslim League said in a statement. He served selflessly as an imam, teacher, mentor, and was much sought after as a powerful orator and speaker, the organization said in a statement. He is survived by his wife and five children.Ashraf al-Masri Ashraf al-Masri had two young children and worked in a shop, according to Stuff. Police said he was 54 years old and a dual citizen of Egypt and New Zealand. Hussein Moustafa Hussein Moustafa, 70, was originally from Egypt, according to Stuff. He loved the mosque, he loved tidying it, he loved nourishing it and he was always a welcoming face there, his daughter-in-law, Nada Tawfeek, told the news site. Mounir Soliman Mounir Soliman, 68, had been a design engineer and quality manager at Scotts Engineering in Christchurch since 1997, according to Stuff. He was a lovely man, said a spokeswoman for the company, Glenda Hillstead. He was married and had no children. Zeeshan Raza Zeeshan Raza, 38, a mechanical engineer, moved to New Zealand last year from Karachi, Pakistan, Stuff reported. He and his parents were killed at the Linwood mosque. Ghulam HussainMr. Razas father, Ghulam Hussain, was 66 years old. He and his wife, Karam Bibi, came to New Zealand last month to visit their son, Stuff reported. Karam BibiMs. Bibi was 63, the police said. She and Mr. Hussain are survived by a daughter, according to Stuff.Abdukadir Elmi Abdukadir Elmi, 78, came to New Zealand with his family about 10 years ago, Stuff reported. In a Facebook post, his son, Said Abdukadir, said he was a giant among his community, generally known as Sheikh Abdukadir. Kids would run to grab his chair when they hear the noise of his cane hitting against ground upon his entrance, he wrote. He is survived by five sons, four daughters and his wife of nearly 50 years, according to Stuff.Mohsin Al HarbiMohsin Al Harbi, 63, had lived for 25 years in New Zealand, where he worked in water desalination. After the shooting, his wife, Manal, was hospitalized with a heart attack while searching for him, Stuff reported.Osama Adnan Youssef KwaikImageCredit...Youssef Adnan KwaikOsama Adnan Youssef Kwaik, 37, was born in Gaza and raised in Egypt, according to Stuff. A civil engineer, he moved to Christchurch in 2017 and was in the process of applying for New Zealand citizenship. He had a wife and three children, one of whom was born in Christchurch.His older brother, Youssef Adnan Abu Kwaik, penned a tribute to Osama on Facebook, detailing how he thought Osama had found the safety and security he had desired in New Zealand.From the first week, you sounded happy. Those Kiwi guys took you by surprise, didnt they? I remember when youd call me to tell me how they smile at you and your family, he wrote. Its been a year and a half since youve moved my brother and your calls have started to include names of friends from work, neighbors and the community. You found the home you were looking for.Mojammel HoqMojammel Hoq, 30, moved to New Zealand from Bangladesh a few years ago and was studying in Christchurch, according to Radio New Zealand. Mohammed Omar Faruk Mohammed Omar Faruk, 36, was a welder who came to New Zealand from Bangladesh about two years ago, a friend told Stuff. His pregnant wife remained in Bangladesh, the friend said.Muhammed Abdusi Samad Muhammed Abdusi Samad, 66, from Bangladesh, was a lecturer at Lincoln University who often led prayers at Al Noor mosque, Stuff reported.Muse Nur Awale Muse Nur Awale, 77, had been living in Christchurch for about 30 years, Stuff reported. He was married and had no children.Ahmed Gamaluddin Abdel-Ghany Ahmed Gamaluddin Abdel-Ghany, 68, emigrated from Egypt with his wife and son in 1996, Stuff reported. His son, Omar, called him a great man with the purest of hearts in an Instagram post. Zakaria BhuiyaZakaria Bhuiya was a welder originally from Bangladesh. He had recently married a woman from his home country and was waiting for a visa so she could join him in New Zealand, according to Reuters. Mr. Bhuiya worked for AMT Mechanical Services, which said in a statement that he had taken the day off to celebrate his 33rd birthday at the mosque. Zakaria was a respected member of our team and a dear friend of ours, the company said in a statement posted on a fund-raising page for Mr. Bhuiyas wife. Jamie Tarabay, Damien Cave, Jon Hurdle and Charlotte Graham-McLay contributed reporting from Christchurch, New Zealand. Meher Ahmad contributed reporting from Lahore, Pakistan. | World |
Shareef O'Neal Hits Game-Winning Buzzer Beater ... w/ Shaq Courtside! 1/26/2018 Cool moment for Shaquille O'Neal -- he got to watch his kid, Shareef, hit the game-winning shot in a big high school hoops tournament ... and Papa Diesel couldn't have been prouder! Shaq and the entire "Inside the NBA" team were broadcasting live from the CBS Studio Center in L.A. -- where Shareef's Crossroads high school team was participating in the Future of Flight showcase tourney. The big matchup was Crossroads vs. Beverly Hills High School ... which was tied up at 61 to 61 with seconds left in the game. Shareef got the last shot -- and made it count ... locking up the victory while Shaq, Barkley and Ernie Johnson went wild! Of course, Shaq took full credit -- explaining he's been teaching Shareef how to shoot since he came out of the womb! By the way, after the game Shareef went to the Travis Scott concert, where stars like Terrell Owens were hanging out. Good night for that guy! | Entertainment |
Scientists are exploring a theory suggesting that exposure to one respiratory virus helps the body fend off competing pathogens.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesPublished April 8, 2022Updated April 10, 2022An intriguing theory may help explain why the flu and Covid-19 never gripped the nation simultaneously the so-called twindemic that many public health experts had feared.The idea is that it wasnt just masks, social distancing or other pandemic restrictions that caused flu and other respiratory viruses to fade while the coronavirus reigned, and to resurge as it receded.Rather, exposure to one respiratory virus may put the bodys immune defenses on high alert, barring other intruders from gaining entry into the airways. This biological phenomenon, called viral interference, may cap the amount of respiratory virus circulating in a region at any given time.My gut feeling, and my feeling based on our recent research, is that viral interference is real, said Dr. Ellen Foxman, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine. I dont think were going to see the flu and the coronavirus peak at the same time.At an individual level, she said, there may be some people who end up infected with two or even three viruses at the same time. But at a population level, according to this theory, one virus tends to edge out the others.Still, she cautioned, The health care system can become overburdened well before the upper limit of circulation is reached, as the Omicron wave has shown.Viral interference may help explain patterns of infection seen in large populations, including those that may arise as the coronavirus becomes endemic. But the research is in its early days, and scientists are still struggling to understand how it works.Before the coronavirus became a global threat, influenza was the among the most common severe respiratory infections each year. In the 2018-2019 season, for example, the flu was responsible for 13 million medical visits, 380,000 hospitalizations and 28,000 deaths.The 2019-2020 flu season was winding down before the coronavirus began to rage through the world, so it was unclear how the two viruses might be influencing each other. Many experts feared that the viruses would collide the next year in a twindemic, swamping hospitals.Those worries were not realized. Despite a weak effort to ramp up flu vaccinations, cases remained unusually low throughout the 2020-2021 flu season, as the coronavirus continued to circulate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Only 0.2 percent of samples tested positive for influenza from September to May, compared with about 30 percent in recent seasons, and hospitalizations for flu were the lowest on record since the agency began collecting this data in 2005.Many experts attributed the flu-free season to masks, social distancing and restricted movement, especially of young children and older adults, both of whom are at the highest risk for severe flu. Flu numbers did tick upward a year later, in the 2021-2022 season, when many states had dispensed with restrictions, but the figures were still lower than the prepandemic average.So far this year, the nation has recorded about five million cases, two million medical visits, and fewer than 65,000 hospitalizations and 5,800 deaths related to the flu.Instead, the coronavirus has continued to dominate the winters, much more common than the flu, respiratory syncytial virus, rhinovirus and common cold viruses.ImageCredit...A. Barry Dowsett/Science SourceThe respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., usually surfaces in September and peaks in late December to February, but the pandemic distorted its seasonal pattern. It lay low through all of 2020 and peaked in the summer of 2021 when the coronavirus had plummeted to its lowest levels since the pandemics beginning.The notion of that there is a sort of interplay between viruses first emerged in the 1960s, when vaccinations for polio, which contain weakened poliovirus, significantly cut the number of respiratory infections. The idea gained new ground in 2009: Europe seemed poised for a surge in swine flu cases late that summer, but when schools reopened, rhinovirus colds seemed somehow to interrupt the flu epidemic.That prompted a lot of people at that time to speculate about this idea of viral interference, Dr. Foxman said. Even in a typical year, the rhinovirus peaks in October or November and then again in March, on either end of the influenza season.Last year, one team of researchers set out to study the role of an existing immune response in fending off the flu virus. Because it would be unethical to deliberately infect children with the flu, they gave children in Gambia a vaccine with a weakened strain of the virus.Infection with viruses sets off a complex cascade of immune responses, but the very first defense comes from a set of nonspecific defenders called interferons. Children who already had high levels of interferon ended up with much less flu virus in their bodies than those with lower levels of interferon, the team found.The findings suggested that previous viral infections primed the childrens immune systems to fight the flu virus. Most of the viruses that we saw in these kids before giving the vaccine were rhinoviruses, said Dr. Thushan de Silva, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Sheffield in England, who led the study.This dynamic may partly explain why children, who tend to have more respiratory infections than adults, seem less likely to become infected with the coronavirus. The flu may also prevent coronavirus infections in adults, said Dr. Guy Boivin, a virologist and infectious disease specialist at Laval University in Canada.Recent studies have shown that co-infections of flu and the coronavirus are rare, and those with an active influenza infection were nearly 60 percent less likely to test positive for the coronavirus, he noted.Now we see a rise in flu activity in Europe and North America, and it will be interesting to see if it leads to a decrease in SARS-COV-2 circulation in the next few weeks, he said.Advances in technology over the past decade have made it feasible to show the biological basis of this interference. Dr. Foxmans team used a model of human airway tissue to show that rhinovirus infection stimulates interferons that can then fend off the coronavirus.The protection is transient for a certain period of time while you have that interferon response triggered by rhinovirus, said Pablo Murcia, a virologist at the MRC Center for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow, whose team found similar results. But Dr. Murcia also discovered a kink in the viral interference theory: A bout with the coronavirus did not seem to prevent infection with other viruses. That may have something to do with how adept the coronavirus is at evading the immune systems initial defenses, he said.Compared to influenza, it tends to activate these antiviral interferons less, Dr. de Silva said of the coronavirus. That finding suggests that in a given population, it may matter which virus appears first.Dr. de Silva and his colleagues have gathered additional data from Gambia which had no pandemic-related restrictions that might have affected the viral patterns they were observing indicating that rhinovirus, influenza and the coronavirus all peaked at different times between April 2020 and June 2021.That data has made me a bit more convinced that interference could play a role, he said.Still, the behavior of viruses can be greatly influenced by their rapid evolution, and by societal restrictions and vaccination patterns. So the potential impact of viral interference is unlikely to become apparent till the coronavirus settles into a predictable endemic pattern, experts said.R.S.V., rhinovirus and flu have coexisted for years, noted Dr. Nasia Safdar, an expert on health-care-associated infections at the University of WisconsinMadison.Eventually thats what will happen with this one, too it will become one of many that circulate, Dr. Safdar said of the coronavirus. Some viruses may attenuate the effects of others, she said, but the patterns may not be readily apparent.Looking at common-cold coronaviruses, some researchers have predicted that SARS-CoV-2 will become a seasonal winter infection that may well coincide the flu. But the pandemic coronavirus has already shown itself to be different from its cousins.For example, it is rarely seen in co-infections, while one of the four common-cold coronaviruses is frequently seen as a co-infection with the other three.Thats the kind of interesting example that makes one sort of hesitate to make generalizations across multiple viruses, said Jeffrey Townsend, a biostatistician at the Yale School of Public Health who has studied the coronavirus and its seasonality. It seems to be somewhat virus-specific how these things occur. | Health |
Credit...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 9, 2018JERUSALEM For months, Israel has tried to quell Gazas border protests through force. Now Israel is taking a different approach, easing a blockade and allowing millions of dollars in aid to flow into Gaza, the impoverished enclave controlled by Hamas, its bitter foe.The aim of the change, in a plan mediated by Egypt and with money supplied by Qatar, is to provide much-needed relief for Gaza, restore calm on the Israeli side of the border and avert another war.The clashes along Gazas border have caused misery on both sides: At least 170 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands of acres of Israeli farmland have been torched.But the change in Israels approach presents risks for leaders on both sides, pressures that could doom even this limited warming of relations.Watching unhappily is the Palestinian Authority, which regards any hint of cooperation between Israel and Hamas as virtually an existential crisis and, many in Israel believe, would welcome a new Gaza war.Since last month, tanker trucks have rolled in from Israel every day with diesel fuel to operate a second turbine at Gazas sole power plant. The added power generation has sharply increased the daily electricity supply from just a few hours to 12 hours or more helping families, hospitals, businesses and, not least, sewage treatment plants.On Thursday, Israel allowed a car to cross into Gaza with three suitcases holding $15 million in cash. By Friday morning, thousands of civil servants and police officers employed by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, were at the post office to collect sorely needed back pay.And on Friday afternoon, for the second consecutive week, Hamas officials sought to reduce the intensity of the protests along the border, curtailing the use of incendiary balloons and urging demonstrators to stay well back from the Israeli barrier fence. It was unclear how successful they were: About 10,000 people protested, three Palestinians were arrested trying to cross the border fence, and Israeli soldiers killed at least one and wounded 37.ImageCredit...Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/ReutersTaken together, the de-escalation moves look like a straightforward, simple transaction one meant to ease tensions that had risen to the boiling point and seemed to presage a full-fledged war between Israel and Hamas. But there was nothing simple about those steps, which required the efforts of Egypt, Qatar, the United Nations and others. And while the parties are clearly acting in their self-interest, they are doing so in the face of serious political risks.For Israeli leaders, the fuel and cash flowing into Gaza both donated by Qatar give the appearance that they are paying hush money to Hamas, their hated enemy, responsible for many deadly terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under enormous pressure from Israeli residents near Gaza to bring a halt to the airborne arson and sporadic rocket attacks they have endured since early this year. Mr. Netanyahu has made clear, despite pressure from some in his right-wing coalition, he sees little gain from another war in Gaza.For the leaders of Hamas, restraining the protests for what amounts to a financial aid package invites accusations by rival factions of selling out the Palestinian cause.But Hamas also has been increasingly accused of ineptitude by ordinary Gazans in street protests, on social media and even in a rare report by an Israeli television station from Gaza. With that dissatisfaction growing, there were rising fears that Hamas would be pressured by its more hawkish rivals into a renewed round of violence against Israel.Perhaps the clearest loser from a cooling off in Gaza is the Palestinian Authority. Its president, Mahmoud Abbas, has for two years imposed harsh economic sanctions on Gaza in an effort to severely weaken Hamas, which violently ejected the authority from Gaza in 2007.By cutting Gazas supply of electricity and slashing salaries of tens of thousands of authority employees who live in Gaza, Mr. Abbas helped precipitate the financial collapse and brewing humanitarian crisis that Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations hope to ameliorate.Mr. Abbas has demanded reconciliation between his ruling Fatah faction and Hamas before any cease-fire is reached between Israel and Gaza. He has portrayed any negotiation that excludes him as an effort to divide and conquer the Palestinian people.At the same time, he has erected stiff obstacles to such a reconciliation, chiefly by insisting that Hamas disarm as a precondition. Many in Israel believe Mr. Abbas privately hopes the Israeli military will destroy Hamas.ImageCredit...Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNot surprisingly, then, Mr. Abbas and his aides howled last month when the United Nations envoy to the region, Nickolay E. Mladenov, arranged for Qatar to purchase $10 million in fuel from Israeli suppliers each month and deliver it to the Gaza power station.A top Abbas lieutenant, Ahmad Majdalani, declared Mr. Mladenov was no longer acceptable to the Palestinian government. Others derided Mr. Mladenov as a tool of the Trump administration, which some Palestinians believe wants to cut the Gaza Strip loose from the West Bank permanently.On Friday, similarly, the Palestinian Authoritys official news agency, Wafa, denounced the infusion of Qatari cash into Gaza, suggesting that Hamas had debased the sacrifices of the fence protesters. A cheap price for the blood of our precious people in the Gaza Strip, it said.Clearly, Mr. Abbas stands to suffer the greatest loss of face from efforts to loosen his economic stranglehold on Gaza. He has championed the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while Hamas has rejected it. Yet, this year, Mr. Abbas has nothing to show for his longstanding strategy except punishing aid cuts and diplomatic slights by the Trump administration, said Nathan Thrall, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.Hamas is delivering 1,000 times more than that, Mr. Thrall said. Its actually delivering results.Mr. Thrall added that Mr. Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was 83 and ailing. Its very dangerous, he said. What if his health deteriorates rapidly? At a moment when everybody is saying Hamass path works and Abu Mazens doesnt, whos more likely to replace him?For the moment, officials involved say the Qatari-funded fuel shipments and cash infusions are making a dent in at least the most immediate problems afflicting Gazans.I was talking to a family the other day that said, I can actually charge my phone, said Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories. It means somebodys got a bit better life than they had two weeks ago.But the electrical system, which has benefited from minimal usage because of mild weather, is expected to be strained again in a few weeks when winter weather arrives and Gazans turn on the heat.ImageCredit...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesEven some of those collecting their checks on Friday were less than sanguine. This is only a painkiller, said Raed Abu Safia, 46, a science teacher from Gaza City, after receiving about 40 percent of a months salary. Im drowning in debt.Beyond those initial steps, much more must be done for a cease-fire to take hold, say people familiar with the Egyptian plan.In coming weeks, Hamas expects to keep a lid on the protests allowing peaceful demonstrations but preventing people from using explosives or wire cutters to damage the fence, for example, said Basem Naim, a former Gaza health minister.In return, Hamas expects Egypt to ease the movement of Gaza residents through the Rafah crossing into Sinai. Hamas wants Israel to extend the Gaza fishing zone to 12, 14, or even 20 nautical miles into the Mediterranean, and to increase the number of Gaza businessmen it allows across the Israeli border.Hamas also wants thousands of permits for Gaza laborers to cross into Israel, which Israel has rejected so far on security grounds. But Celine Touboul, a Gaza expert at Israels Economic Cooperation Foundation, said that could change.One year ago, Israeli officials wouldve told you, no way theyll authorize a transfer of cash for Hamas civil servants, she said. But the situation is so tense, theyve changed their minds.A more lasting dtente between Israel and Gaza, however, would require progress in areas where the differences seem irreconcilable. Israel wants Hamas to relinquish two Israeli captives and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers as a precondition for allowing major international reconstruction projects in Gaza. Hamas has so far refused the demand, unless it is part of a large-scale prisoner swap.And Egypts main goal remains to restore the Palestinian Authority to power in Gaza. But Mr. Abbas is unlikely to go along with that unless either Hamas unilaterally disarms or Israel provides assurances that it will not punish him should Hamas, on his watch, use weapons against Israel.Such assurances are unlikely, particularly with elections coming soon in Israel, said Nimrod Novik, a veteran Israeli peace negotiator with close ties to Egypt and the Palestinians.Mr. Novik said he feared that Israel would find itself back in much the same place, facing a possible Gaza war, in a matter of months. The short-term stuff is only good to calm things down, he said. But once things calm down, the Israeli attention span is very short. Our strategic response is a sigh of relief. | World |
Credit...John Minchillo/Associated PressDec. 7, 2015Procter & Gamble, the biggest advertiser in the world, announced on Monday that it was moving the bulk of its North American media buying and planning business to Omnicom from Publicis Groupe, in a sweeping change that underscores the broader upheaval in the ad industry.Over the last year, a wave of companies, including Unilever and Coca-Cola, have questioned their ad spending as they looked to cut costs and overhaul their marketing strategy in an increasingly digital age. Many advertisers now rely on sophisticated data and technology to show tailored ads to specific groups of people, a practice that has shifted the way they think about buying and placing ads.At the same time, advertisers have put increasing pressure on ad agencies to offer more services for less money, pitting them against one another in what many industry executives say amounts to a race to the bottom. Estimates by analysts and agencies put the amount of advertising spending under review this year at about $30 billion.Procter & Gamble, whose brands include Tide laundry detergent and Pampers diapers, said its decision was part of an effort to reach consumers as audiences have fragmented.The entire ecosystem of media and advertising is transforming, said Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gambles global brand officer. We still want to get mass reach, but we also want to be able to do it with a greater degree of precision.That, he added, requires robust data and analytics and better real-time planning and buying, with the overall goal of connecting with consumers with the right message at the right time.But Brian Wieser, a media analyst at Pivotal Research, said a desire to cut spending was almost certainly behind the shift in strategy. The cost-cutting element is one of the overwhelming factors around the review, he said. They probably wanted more for less, and theyre probably redefining what more is.During an earnings call with investors in April, Jon R. Moeller, chief financial officer of Procter & Gamble, said the company was planning to significantly simplify and reduce the number of agencies, relationships and the cost associated with the current complexity and inefficiency. He estimated at the time that the resulting cost savings could be up to $500 million.Procter & Gamble spent $2.7 billion on advertising in the United States last year and $3.1 billion in 2013, according to Kantar Media. The company has also been aggressively cutting costs, saying last year that it would sell about 100 brands to focus on about 10 core product lines.With the agency shift, Procter & Gamble will hand over most of its North American account to Omnicom Media Group. Omnicom said that it would create a separate media agency unit, with Procter & Gamble as its first client. A smaller piece of Procter & Gambles business will go to another agency, Carat, which is part of Dentsu Aegis.Starcom Mediavest Group, Publiciss media agency, will retain the brands that Procter & Gamble is divesting, including its battery brand Duracell, along with its fragrances, cosmetics and salon professional and hair color lines. With the move, Publicis could lose $50 million to $100 million in annual revenues, according to people with knowledge of the matter.In a statement, Starcom Mediavest Group said it was proud of our partnership with P.&G. over the years, adding, We wish P.&G. success as they embark on their next chapter in North America, and we look forward to continuing to serve as one of P.&G.s largest agency partners globally, spanning 41 markets around the world.Less than a week ago, Publicis announced a major restructuring and management overhaul as it looked to bolster its financial results. | Business |
VideoBritton Colquitt, the punter for the Denver Broncos, talks about what it's like being from a family of punters, three of which have played in the N.F.L.CreditCredit...Video by Justin Sablich/The New York Times; Photos by The New York TimesJan. 31, 2014Amid the general weirdness of Super Bowl media day, a guy named Jim the Poet offered a talk-radio haiku:Britton Colquitt wouldBe a cool name for a Downton Abbey butler.A man of cheer and Southern politeness, Colquitt had a good laugh Tuesday. But rather than a servant, he prefers to be known as a scion of the First Family of Fourth Down.On Sunday, Colquitt, 28, will punt for Denver in the Super Bowl. His brother, Dustin, 31, punts for Kansas City. Their father, Craig, 59, won two Super Bowl rings while punting for Pittsburgh in the late 1970s. And a cousin, Jimmy Colquitt, is the leading career punter at the University of Tennessee, the family alma mater, which also produced a certain quarterback named Peyton Manning.Asked whether the Colquitts were the Mannings of punting, Britton joked that first, second and third downs were of lesser relevance. Fourth down, thats the important down, he said.The Broncos have needed only one punt this postseason, and the winds at MetLife Stadium can be treacherous, but Colquitt does not seem the sort to become uptight in anticipation. Two weeks ago, after Denver defeated the New England Patriots to reach the Super Bowl, he lay on the ground at Sports Authority Field and made confetti angels with his pregnant wife, Nikki.ImageCredit...Michael Appleton for The New York TimesI told Britton there will be a moment when all this sinks in, Craig Colquitt said from Nashville, where he is a sales representative for a janitorial company that cleans schools. When that moment comes, that this is the Super Bowl, just remember that field is the same size as a high school field.The family punting dynasty arose more by accident than by master plan. Britton (39.42 yards) and Dustin (39.27 yards) own two of the N.F.L.s top career net punting averages over the past four-plus decades, but they focused on soccer until they reached high school, their parents convinced that it was a safer sport than football.Craig thought his own playing career had ended after high school graduation in 1972 in Knoxville, Tenn. He worked several jobs over the next two years, he said, and was an undistinguished employee at Millers department store when his manager read a newspaper article: Tennessee was holding tryouts for walk-on punters.He said, You have no future here; you need to try that, Colquitt said. My parents were tremendously grateful I was headed to school.When the 1975 season opened, Craig was the Volunteers starting punter. But he mishandled the snap on his first attempt and fell on the ball as he was being tackled in the end zone for a safety against Maryland.I got stage fright, terrible, he said.He feared returning to the sideline, but a remarkable thing happened. Great job, said Tennessees renowned kicking coach, George Cafego, who had been the first overall pick in the 1940 N.F.L. draft. Colquitt had minimized the damage, surrendering 2 points instead of 7. The Volunteers eventually won, 26-8.That was a dramatic turn for me as far as being dedicated, Craig said.He was one of the first punters to take two steps instead of three before kicking the ball, an adjustment that reduced the chances of a block. In 1978, Colquitt became a third-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He punted in Super Bowl victories that season over Dallas, 35-31, and the next over the Los Angeles Rams, 31-19. Not that his sons were overly impressed as boys.When Dustin was 7 and Britton was 4, Craig said, he told them that they would inherit his Super Bowl rings when he died.ImageCredit...Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesTheir reaction: Can we watch cartoons?A half-hour later, Craig said, he felt a tug on his shirt. It was Britton, who asked, Hey, Dad, when are you going to die?Brittons interest in football was sparked.In the yard, the brothers played games with their father using soccer balls and footballs, learning to pass by kicking spirals instead of throwing them. When Craig Colquitt held kicking camps, Britton went along as a teacher, while Dustin remained largely uninterested.Once Dustin started driving and discovered girls, I never saw him at camp, Craig said. I understood.Both brothers played soccer at Bearden High School in Knoxville, then a state and national power. Dustin did not play football until his senior year. He might never have taken up the sport if Beardens kicker had not broken his ankle two weeks before football season.ImageCredit...NFL Photos, via Associated PressThere was one problem. Dustin punted left-footed but did everything else right-handed, including dropping the ball to kick it, which made his technique awkward. So his father made him brush his teeth and juggle golf balls with his left hand in a crash-course effort to improve his punting style.My gums were bleeding, I was brushing so much with my left hand, Dustin said.He said he felt uncomfortable at first in tight football pants and even inserted his pads incorrectly, leading one teammate to say, Your dad won two Super Bowls, and you cant even put your pads on right.Dustins discomfort ended, according to Britton, who was then a freshman at Bearden, when a girl yelled from the stands, Nice butt, Colquitt.He was like, All right, I can do this, Britton said.Dustin said he had an offer to play soccer at Brown, which also agreed to let him kick during football games. But the Ivy League does not give athletic scholarships, and even with financial aid, the cost was prohibitive, Craig said. Dustin said his father wanted him to continue the family punting tradition at Tennessee.ImageCredit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesIf he had gone elsewhere, Dustin said with a laugh in a telephone interview, his father had admonished, Youre not welcome home for Christmas.After becoming an all-American at Tennessee, Dustin, like his father, was a third-round draft pick, selected by Kansas City in 2005. Britton followed his father and brother as a punter for the Volunteers, but he had a stretch of well-publicized incidents involving alcohol that threatened his career.In 2008, after being arrested on charges of driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident, Britton was suspended for five games of his senior season and stripped of his scholarship. No N.F.L. team drafted him in 2009.Denver signed Britton as a free agent and put him on the active roster in late December 2009. In 2012, he ranked third in the N.F.L. with a net average of 42.1 yards and second with a return average of 6.2 yards. Last August, he signed a contract extension that averaged $3.9 million a year and made him the leagues highest-paid punter, just ahead of Dustin at $3.75 million.ImageCredit...University of Tennessee AthleticsTheir father, by contrast, never made more than $85,000 a season with the Steelers.Its a lot better, and hes the first to tell you that, Britton said. Hes thrilled to know he doesnt have to support his son anymore. Maybe Ill be supporting him one day.When Britton was growing up in a house full of Steelers memorabilia, wearing his fathers old jerseys and dressing as him for Halloween, a chance to play in the N.F.L. was kind of normal to me, he said.At 6 feet 3 inches, the brothers are two inches taller than their father, and at 200-plus pounds, they are 20 pounds heavier, both of them adroit at lengthy hang times as well as placement.Britton is more polished in his technique, Dustin said, particularly at steadying the ball (called molding) and punting just after it leaves his hand, reducing the chance that it shifts in the wind.Britton said, Its not physically possible, but in your head, youre thinking, Im kicking it out of my hand, like its on a tee.While this is the third Super Bowl for a Colquitt, it may not be the last. Britton has a young son, and Dustin has three. Hes left-footed, Britton said of his son, Nash, who will be 2 in April. Im just going to have to send him to my brother. I wont even have to teach him. | Sports |
Credit...Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 19, 2018JERUSALEM One host, Moriyah, lists the location of her bed-and-breakfast on Airbnb, the home rental site, as Biblical Shiloh, Israel.It sleeps up to 12 guests for under $140 a night. It has a hot tub. And the area around it offers hikes and springs, workshops and holistic treatments.What the listing does not make clear is that this B&B, named Peace of the Valley, lies in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Most of the world considers the settlements, built on land Israel captured in the 1967 war, to be a violation of international law. Even the Israeli authorities have deemed illegal some of the unauthorized outposts where Airbnb accommodations can be found.On Monday, Airbnb, long under pressure from Palestinian officials, anti-settlement advocates and human rights groups to end its West Bank settlement listings, announced it would do just that.We are most certainly not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region, the company said in a news release. Our team has wrestled with this issue and we have struggled to come up with the right approach.In the end, the company said it would remove about 200 listings in West Bank settlements that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.The decision prompted an immediate uproar in Israel.Israels tourism minister, Yariv Levin, called on Airbnb to rescind its discriminatory decision, which he called a disgraceful surrender. He said he had ordered his office to come up with immediate measures to limit the companys activity throughout the country, without elaborating.Referring to the West Bank by its biblical names, Mr. Levin said he had also instructed his ministry to promote a program to encourage tourism and accommodation in vacation apartments throughout Judea and Samaria.Gilad Erdan, Israels minister of strategic affairs, also took issue with Airbnbs decision.National conflicts exist all over the world, said Mr. Erdan, whose duties include combating the so-called B.D.S. movement, for boycott, divestment and sanctions. The senior management of Airbnb will have to explain why they specifically, and uniquely, chose to implement this political and discriminatory decision in the case of citizens of the state of Israel.Mr. Erdan called on the Airbnb hosts affected to file lawsuits against the company under Israels anti-boycott law. He also said he would take up the matter with American officials to discuss whether the decision violated anti-boycott legislation that exists in 25 states.Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the conservative, Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum and a professor at George Mason University, suggested that Airbnb was on weak ground.This is not about disputed territories, as Airbnb has listings in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Turkish-occupied Cyprus, and more, he said in a statement. So it is only Jewish properties in the Jewish homeland that are banned. Airbnbs approach of singling out Jews from all the disputes in the world will put it at odds with U.S. state B.D.S. laws and principles of discrimination.Professor Kontorovich said Airbnb had been bullied by the United Nations Human Rights Council which, in 2016, mandated the compilation of a blacklist aimed at companies doing business in the West Bank, Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.Israels official position is that the territory in the West Bank is disputed, not occupied. The fate of the settlements, it says, should be resolved in negotiations with the Palestinians.Settler leaders called Airbnbs decision anti-Semitic.In a measure of the depth of the dispute over the territory, one Palestinian leader said Airbnb had not gone far enough.Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that while the decision was an initial, positive step, Airbnb had failed to state clearly that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute war crimes.Human Rights Watch, the advocacy organization, said it had been speaking with Airbnb about its West Bank listings for two years, and it urged other companies to follow its example. The group said it would issue a report titled Bed-and-Breakfast on Stolen Land: Tourist Rental Listings in West Bank Settlements on Tuesday.One settlement resident, Eliana Passentin, 45, said she had listed her home in Eli, overlooking ancient Shiloh, on Airbnb in the past and had been thinking of doing so again for the Hanukkah holiday in December.Ms. Passentin, who has been living with her family in Eli for 23 years, said people from as far away as Nigeria had contacted her, wanting to pray in her garden overlooking ancient Shiloh.Ms. Passentin listed the location of her accommodation as Eli, Israel because, she said, it was just like anywhere else in Israel.Theyve been misled, she said of Airbnb. I hope a lot of pressure will be put on the C.E.O. of Airbnb and theyll realize they made a huge mistake.Ms. Passentin said: Its really about bringing people together, not politics. Thats what governments are for. We dont need Airbnb for that. | World |
Dec. 9, 2015Argentinas incoming secretary of finance met this week with the arbiter of a bitter decade-long legal dispute between the country and a group of New York hedge funds, opening a new path toward a potential resolution.Luis Caputo, a former banker and soon to be the finance secretary, traveled to New York to meet with Daniel A. Pollack, a court-appointed special master who has been tasked with mediating negotiations, according to a statement from Mr. Pollacks office.The meeting was sought by Mr. Caputo, who will begin his new role on Thursday. It follows a meeting between the group of creditors, led by the billionaire Paul E. Singer, and Mr. Pollack last week.The creditors sued Argentina seeking repayment on bonds the government defaulted on in 2001. The departing administration of President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner has balked at the creditors demands.While no negotiations to resolve litigation occurred in either meeting, Mr. Caputo expressed the intention of the new administration under President-elect Mauricio Macri to begin negotiations promptly once the new government is sworn in, according to the statement.Mr. Macris presidential victory last month is expected to bring a sudden shift to the right in Argentine politics after decades of rule by Peronists. The son of an industrial tycoon and once mayor of Buenos Aires, Mr. Macri has sought to strike a different tone from Mrs. Kirchner, who succeeded her husband, Nstor Kirchner, in 2007. Mr. Kirchner, who died in 2010, and Mrs. Kirchner were in power for 12 years.Among Mr. Macris priorities will be to reignite a beleaguered economy, and he has pledged to loosen currency controls and lower export tariffs. Mr. Macri has also said he would negotiate with the countrys holdout creditors.The news will raise fresh hopes that both sides can resolve the protracted fight, which has left Argentina almost entirely locked out of international capital markets. Whether Mr. Macris administration can come to an agreement with the holdout creditors will be a test of that pledge.NML Capital, a unit of Elliott Management, has led a group of holdout investors in seeking full repayment of the bonds Argentina defaulted on. After the default, the Argentine government offered to exchange those defaulted bonds with new exchange bonds that were worth significantly less.Rejecting the offer, NML Capital sued Argentina after a breakthrough ruling in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Judge Thomas P. Griesa ruled that whenever Argentina paid holders of its exchange bonds it would also have to pay the holdouts. Unable to make a payment to its exchange bond holders, Argentina defaulted on its debt again last summer.The dispute has raised ire among Argentines and fueled tensions. In Buenos Aires, graffiti of vultures is strewn across the city, referring to NML Capital, other creditors and Judge Griesa.Mr. Singer has asserted that the creditors are willing to negotiate with Argentina. But under the last Kirchner administration, neither side sat down to negotiate, Mr. Singer recently said.By being a country that scoffs at the rule of law, they sacrifice so much, Mr. Singer said in an interview last month. It makes so much sense for Argentina to sit down with us.There are still questions about how far Mr. Macri will go to negotiate. Some of his own advisers have indicated that it is not at the top of the agenda. For now, the prospect of a new creditor-friendly administration in Argentina has been met with optimism in the market. The benchmark government bonds that expire in 2024 have rallied since Mr. Macris ratings first went up in the polls, said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin American fixed income strategy at Nomura.I think Argentina will prioritize a normalization of creditor relations, as market access could help smooth the transition, Ms. Morden said, adding, As a former Wall Streeter, Caputo has the perfect credentials to lead negotiations. | Business |
Middle East|Egypt Said to Arrest British Teenager for Military Helicopter Videohttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/world/middleeast/egypt-arrest-britain-military-video.htmlDec. 1, 2018CAIRO The Egyptian authorities have arrested a 19-year-old British tourist over a video he filmed on his cellphone that showed a military helicopter in the background, his family said.The teenager, Muhammed Fathi Abulkasem, who is Libyan and British, was arrested shortly after he arrived in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria on Nov. 21 from neighboring Libya, his cousin Shareen Nawaz said on Friday.Egypts Foreign Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment. Britains Foreign Office confirmed the arrest of a Briton in Alexandria to Reuters, but did not elaborate. His mother, Amaal Rafiq, confirmed his arrest in a Facebook post.We didnt hear from him until 12 hours later, Ms. Nawaz said. He basically told us he is held on suspicion of collecting information against the military.She added that he had filmed the video while his flight was landing, capturing a military helicopter flying by.Ms. Nawaz, speaking from Manchester, England, told The Associated Press that the authorities had checked her cousins phone at the airport. He had been cautioned by his hotels staff that his booking appeared suspicious, she said.According to Ms. Nawaz, Mr. Abulkasem had appeared in court three times over the past week and a lawyer had been assigned to his case but later quit.Taking unauthorized photographs or footage of or near military facilities, equipment or personnel is strictly prohibited in Egypt.We all have one of those landing videos on our phones, Ms. Nawaz said. They shouldnt have military helicopters in public spaces if this is what will happen.The arrest comes after a British academic, Matthew Hedges, was pardoned on Monday and freed from prison in the United Arab Emirates after he was sentenced to life on a charge of spying for Britains foreign intelligence service, MI6.The United Arab Emirates said on Thursday that he had been treated fairly, but suggested he had been released to protect the countrys relationship with Britain, a key ally. | World |
Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York TimesJune 5, 2018Update: Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Jon Cox, a Republican, emerged from a crowded field in the governors race in California to advance to the general election, according to The Associated Press, as did Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, in the Senate race. In key House races, Democrats seemed poised to avoid being shut out of the November balloting under the states so-called top-two primary system. Read more about the primary night in California, and about races from New Jersey to Montana.LOS ANGELES The votes in a big election day in California have been cast, and the country is eagerly awaiting the results. Key battles include seven Republican-held congressional seats Democrats hope to flip in the fall and a race to succeed Jerry Brown as governor.All of this has been complicated by Californias unconventional election system: The top two finishers in Tuesdays nonpartisan, open primary will face each other in November. And that is causing headaches for both parties.Heres how to get up to speed: Need a primer to understand the stakes of the California races? Start here. And heres an explanation of how the states unusual primary system works. Seven Republican-held congressional districts voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats have so many candidates competing for a finite number of voters in three of them that Republicans could end up capturing both top slots in each. Heres a collection of charts that explore the data behind those key districts. In a potentially unnerving sign for Democrats in one contested congressional district, the Los Angeles County clerk revealed on Tuesday that a printing error had improperly left about 119,000 names off voting rosters in the area. As a result, some voters might have to cast provisional ballots and prolong the process of verifying and counting election results.ImageCredit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times President Trump has endorsed one of the Republican candidates for governor, John Cox, which could give Mr. Cox enough votes to win the other slot. (He will make a BIG difference! the president tweeted on Tuesday.) Given how overwhelmingly Democratic the state is and Mr. Coxs ties to Mr. Trump that outcome would no doubt result in many people declaring Mr. Newsom the presumptive next governor. But if Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat and former mayor of Los Angeles, wins that second spot, look out for a competitive, classic North-South battle. How will Latino voting power count in the primary? Heres what we know. Will younger Asian-Americans help turn Orange County blue? Our reporter went home to find out.VideotranscripttranscriptCould Latinos in California Help Flip House Seats?Latinos make up 18 percent of Californias likely voting population, but they could play a key role in the midterm elections. Democrats running for office are hoping that reaching out to Latino voters will help them win.They keep coming. Two million illegal immigrants in California. It was 1994 when Californias Republican governor, Pete Wilson, ran these ads during his re-election bid. Theres a right way, and theres a wrong way. To reward the wrong way is not the American way. Wilson was plugging a ballot measure called Prop 187, which tried to block undocumented immigrants from accessing public services, like education. We need Pete Wilson as governor. In the short term, Wilsons messaging worked. He was re-elected governor. But long term, the fallout from Prop 187 helped turn a generation of Latinos in California into Democrats. Today, the Latino population in California is the largest of any state. And 63% are registered Democrats. And now, the president has given them more reasons to make their voices heard. These are animals. Theyre rapists. Like we have no border. Mexicos paying for the wall. Latinos could play a critical role in some of Californias congressional races, potentially flipping seats and helping Democrats regain control of the House. They could also help elect Californias first modern-day Latino governor. But will they go to the polls? Latinos make up 34% of Californias adult population. But theyre only 18% of the states voting population. One reason they dont have the electoral power youd expect could be that politicians havent reached out enough. Antonio Villaraigosa, who is running for governor, is the clearest example of a candidate trying to change that. Hes tapping into fear and anger over Trumps agenda in a number of ads in English and Spanish. In this one, which could be confused with a Hollywood movie, he and a group of activists leave drinking water for border crossers. Im the youngest child of a single immigrant mother. Another high profile Latino candidate, Kevin de Len, also talks about his own life story as a way to engage Latino voters. I owe it to this single mother. This woman and millions like her, throughout the state, throughout the country, who would do everything within their power to protect their children. Gil Cisneros is a leading candidate in a heavily Latino House district where the Republican congressman is retiring. This ad focuses on giving Latinos the opportunity to go to college. Its too early to tell if this messaging will work to awaken what some call the sleeping giant of the Latino vote. But in the lead up to the November midterms, well see more outreach and advertising directed at Latinos in this key state for Democrats.Latinos make up 18 percent of Californias likely voting population, but they could play a key role in the midterm elections. Democrats running for office are hoping that reaching out to Latino voters will help them win.CreditCredit...Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times Check out photographs from campaigns and primaries around the state, and of voters who told us about what message they hope the results will send. We have 30 journalists throughout the state. This week, many of them will be on the ground reporting from the most competitive congressional districts, including races in the Central Valley, Orange County and San Diego. Follow them on Twitter, and check out a collection of their tweets. Seven other states are holding primaries on Tuesday: Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Catch up with our rundown because we have live results, and check out the primary calendar for the rest of the year. Get the latest news on the state in your inbox by signing up for California Today here.The president weighed in on Twitter.Mr. Trump derided the state as High Tax, High Crime California and urged voters to back all of the great GOP candidates for Congress. Beyond Mr. Cox, he specifically endorsed two Republican incumbents who have been key allies, Representatives Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, and Devin Nunes, known for his defense of Mr. Trump in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.Liam StackWho will get the blame if Democrats get locked out?Tuesday is Election Day, which means Wednesday is depending on the results Blame Day. The big question is, who would be at fault if Democrats get locked out of some competitive Republican-held congressional races? (And read more about the districts here.)Here are some nominees:The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, for lurching from candidate to candidate in some of these districts (until the end), giving voters little help in navigating ballots swimming with mostly unknown names.The California Democratic Party, for failing to groom a bench of candidates for this moment and for its largely unsuccessful efforts to clear the field.Californias nonpartisan top-two election system. This election reform may end up producing the worst-case scenario Democratic and Republican leaders warned about when it was passed by voters in 2010. With so many candidates jumping into the open primary, Democrats are fighting over a set number of voters. From this point of view, there was little state or national Democrats could do. Adam NagourneyPrinting error leaves 119,000 names of voting roster in Los Angeles.Some voters in Los Angeles might have to cast provisional ballots and prolong the process of verifying and counting election results after a printing error improperly left 119,000 names off voting rosters.The county clerks office said 1,530 voting precincts were affected, though it did not specify which congressional districts those precincts are located in. The 39th Congressional District, one of the three seats where Democrats fear getting locked out of the general election, includes a piece of Los Angeles County. Strategists in both parties already expected a close result there with a slow process of tabulating votes.The voting problems posed a particular challenge to Antonio Villaraigosa, who is counting on a high turnout in Los Angeles and among Latino voters in order to win one of the two top spots in the governors race. After the polls closed, he called on Los Angeles officials to keep voting centers open through Friday.Anyone who is turned away should be allowed to return to a vote center and make sure their vote is counted, Pat Dennis, Mr. Villaraigosas campaign manager, said in a statement. This election is too important and every voice should be heard.It is unclear whether the countys error might actually affect election results: voters who are properly registered but left off the roster by mistake are still entitled to vote, and can record their preferences with provisional ballots. Dean C. Logan, the county clerk and recorder of deeds, apologized in a statement for the inconvenience and concern this has caused but stressed that no one would be excluded from voting as a result.Voters should be assured their vote will be counted, Mr. Logan said.Still, in theory, a significant procedural mistake could deter some people from voting if it leads to longer lines at the polls or some voters simply choose not to cast provisional ballots upon finding their names are not in the roster. And some of the races touching Los Angeles County were already likely to be decided by small margins.Alex Burns and Adam NagourneyImageCredit...Kayla Reefer for The New York TimesThe quirks that make the California primary risky for Democrats also make it a leading indicator of the general election.In the states nonpartisan top-two system, voters can cast a ballot for any candidate, regardless of party. Historically, that means these top-two primaries look a lot like the general election.Since 1990, the major party vote share in top-two congressional primaries in Washington State and California has differed from the general election result by an average of three percentage points, an Upshot analysis shows.That means the California results will be about as good as any data we are going to get before November. The average House poll over the final three weeks of an election is off by an average margin of 6.2 points, according to FiveThirtyEight. The primary results are a bit like getting a free round of 52 final House polls in early June.The results are good enough that you can put stock in a surprise. In 2016, Representative Darrell Issas seat was rated Safely Republican by the Cook Political Report heading into the primary. But he ended up with just 50.8 percent of the vote, the closest House election of the cycle.If this is a wave environment like in 2006 or 2010, which would probably make the Democrats slight to modest favorites to retake the House, it should not be too hard to tell. (Read more here.) Nate CohnImageCredit...Jim Wilson/The New York TimesThe tsunami of emboldened Democrats running has some voters overwhelmed by choice.Like many voters in Orange County, Tim Cain, 52, has been inundated with political messaging in recent weeks. He was bombarded with mail. His phone did not stop ringing.I literally could not go through my work day without getting flooded with calls, said Mr. Cain, a video game developer. I basically said, my phone is no longer available.But some combination of that barrage and his desire to support a Democrat drew him to a polling station at a Buick car dealership in Tustin on Tuesday morning in the 45th Congressional District.About 20 miles south, at Laguna Beach City Hall, Aggie Dougherty had to thumb through the sample ballot packet she carried with her to remember which Democrat she had chosen after more than a dozen candidates inundated the 48th Congressional District with campaign material.Ms. Dougherty, a 67-year-old bookkeeper, read the fliers that landed in her mailbox, talked to friends, and listened to the news and advertisements. Then, she selected Harley Rouda, the candidate endorsed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in an unusual move aimed at preventing Democrats from losing a spot on the November ballot by splitting the vote in the primary. This morning, she just needed to double-check.Oh, right, she said. Harley.Jennifer Medina and Ivan PennIn the Central Valley, oimmigration takes a lot of people out, a resident said.Three hours before the polls close here in the CA-21, Shally Gill, a tax auditor, pulled into his familys peach farm in Kingsburg to check how the mornings packing went before heading out to vote. He is hoping David Valadao, a Republican, will win in November.ImageCredit...Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York TimesBut there is a catch: Mr. Gill lives in Clovis, outside the district, where his familys farms are, so Mr. Valadao isnt even on his ballot. Its a common dynamic in this part of the Central Valley, where farm owners often do not live on the ranch but in more affluent areas nearby, and remain invested in the politics of the district where their businesses are. T.J. Cox, the Democrat challenging Mr. Valadao, also does not live in the district he is seeking to represent.Mr. Gill, a Republican whose father moved to California from Punjab, India 40 years ago, is especially concerned about immigration reform. You have families that arent working out in the fields anymore because they are afraid there may be possible raids, he said, clarifying that he supports legal immigration.Luis Martinez, his farm manager, said it has been hard to get people to work. Immigration takes a lot of people out, he said.Were doing a personality test: Some candidates express frustration with the top-two system.In the 48th District, Scott Baugh, a Republican candidate and former Orange County party chairman, talked with voters about attack ads targeting him, including mailers and television advertisements.Those came from Nancy Pelosi, you know, he said, referring to the ads. (The ads were paid for by the House Majority PAC, a heavily financed Democratic group.) She is so afraid of me making the next round that she is trying to shut me out.Hans Keirstead, a Democrat running in the 48th, said he had real fear that a party could be locked out this year.Rocky Chavez, a Republican candidate in the 49th District race who has had to face down the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in addition to his own party rival, also criticized the system. In a race that features 16 candidates, the campaign committee had attacked Mr. Chavez for fear that right-leaning Democrats might support him, further diluting the partys chances.Were doing a personality test, said Mr. Chavez, who wore a Rocky Balboa T-shirt on Tuesday.At least one Republican in the race enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude.These guys are going to split the race so wide, said Ted Howze, a Republican candidate competing against five Democrats and the Republican incumbent in the 10th District. The Democrats have shot themselves in the foot.But for Mark Kramer, 64, a retired maintenance worker in the hotly contested 39th District, none of the choices had appealed enough to induce him to cast a ballot. Not crazy about the political climate, he said at the post office on Birch Street in Brea, Calif. Or any of the candidates.Jennifer Medina, Jose A. Del Real, Thomas Fuller and Miriam JordanVoters in Rohrabachers district ask: Is he an institution or someone who has been there too long?Republican incumbent Dana Rohrabacher has represented coastal Orange County for so long, he is something of an institution in the 48th Congressional district, where many voters tend to refer to him by his first name. He has cultivated an image as a kind of iconoclast - a surfer and libertarian who supports legal marijuana. Even his less popular views havent hurt him and played well in this area along the coast for three decades.But there were many signs Tuesday that the support is wearing thin. Voters in both parties complained of him not spending enough time in the district, not answering questions from constituents he disagrees with and being too cozy with Russia. (A few signs declaring Nyet Rohrabacher were scattered through the district.)Dana has been in office way too long and done absolutely nothing for the district, said Derek Demun, a college student who voted for Republican challenger Scott Baugh. He didnt support tax cuts, which was the most obvious thing to do. This is not an inexpensive place to live and every dollar in back in my parents pocket makes a difference.Dereks mother, Gidget, said she had voted for Mr. Rohrabacher in every other election, but could not bring herself to do so Tuesday.Hes out of touch, and he needs to go, she said. But, she quickly added, if Mr. Baugh did not make the November ballot, she would support Mr. Rohrabacher in the fall. No question.Democrats say they no longer need to come quietly behind the Orange Curtain.Eric Bauman, chairman of the California Democratic Party, joined a small crowd gathered in support of Democratic Congressional candidate Dave Min at PeopleSpace in Irvine Tuesday afternoon.The Californias Democratic Party endorsed Mr. Min for for the 45th District Congressional seat held by Mimi Walters, a Republican. Democrats are optimistic about their chances because of Hillary Clintons victory in Orange County in the 2016 presidential election.How do we take districts in Orange County, which have traditionally been Republican? Mr. Bauman asked the crowd.About 20 years ago, they said, When you come behind the Orange Curtain, come quietly, he said. Not anymore. Today we can come out here and be proud and blue.ImageCredit...Eric Thayer for The New York TimesThe old boys school just doesnt work anymore, said one voter.This year has broken records for the number of women running for office. Like many of them, Katie Hill is a first-time candidate. She is one of three female Democratic candidates running in the 25th Congressional District.But with an endorsement from Emilys List, and a relatively substantial war chest, Ms. Hill, 30, a nonprofit executive, has emerged as a top contender in this traditionally Republican district where she grew up. (Take a look at how female candidates in notable races could fare on Tuesday.)Vice News is filming a documentary about her campaign a camera crew was present on Tuesday making it feel a bit like the subject of a reality television show.In a brief interview, she said she felt really good about today. Up next on her agenda was writing her primary night speech. Was she writing two drafts, one for either possible outcome?Im probably going to write one version, she said with a twist.ImageCredit...Rozette Rago for The New York TimesAt first, Anneliese Gelberg, 21, wanted to vote for Jess Phoenix, one of the other female Democratic candidates in the race. She was more inclined to vote for women, she said, and she liked Ms. Phoenixs policies.But she voted for Bryan Caforio, another Democrat, instead.I knew that she didnt have a lot of backing or support, Ms. Gelberg said, and she wanted a Democrat she thought had a better chance of beating the Republican incumbent, Steve Knight.Others took a different tack.If it was a tie between a man and a woman, I would vote for a woman, said Suzanne Breaw, 53, a self-described liberal Republican from Valencia.We need to try new things, said Diane Gregson, 62, of Lancaster. The old boys school just doesnt work anymore. Ms. Gregson said she planned to vote for Ms. Hill.A candidate would give the president a book on climate change.Mike Levin, a Democratic candidate in the 49th Congressional District, chose to run, he said, in part because he heard so few politicians talking about the environment in 2016.Last year, Mr. Levin, an environmental lawyer, drew attention over his appearance at a town hall event for the incumbent, Mr. Issa, in Oceanside, Calif., in which he described giving Mr. Issa a book on climate change.Why do you blindly support Donald Trumps agenda to gut the E.P.A., to gut basic science? he asked Mr. Issa at the time, as activists cheered him on. The dynamics of the race changed after Mr. Issa announced he would not seek re-election; now Mr. Levin, facing other Democrats, hopes to consolidate support to make it onto the general election ballot.When asked what he would say to Mr. Trump if they were in a room together, Mr. Levin said he would give the president the same climate change book. Mr. President, this issue is too important. Listen to Ivanka, he imagined saying, invoking Mr. Trumps oldest daughter, who urged her father to keep the United States in the Paris climate accord. | Politics |
BitsCredit...Kin Cheung/Associated PressJune 15, 2018Each week, Farhad Manjoo, technology columnist at The New York Times, reviews the weeks news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Good morning, readers!Well get to tech news in a bit, but lets start somewhere else. My wife is a doctor who studies cancer, and one of the few things Ive learned from her job is this unhappy little maxim: You can get cancer pretty much anywhere. Some cancers everyone has heard of. Breast, prostate, brain, lung these are the calamities were familiar with. But did you know you can get cancer under your fingernails? Or in your appendix? There is even a cancer of the heart. (Dont worry, its very rare.)I bring this up because Ive noticed an analogous ubiquity on the internet: Just about everything online could be a scam. This observation isnt revolutionary; youve known to be on the lookout for internet scams since the first time you made friends with a Nigerian prince. The internet is a global gathering of strangers and money, which means that a fraud, a trick, a swindle, a grift or a graft is obviously never far.And yet it is surprising how often, and how completely, many of us can be deluded into letting our guard down, thinking that what we see online really is on the up and up.Take Bitcoin. This week, John Griffin, a noted investigator of financial frauds, reported that the huge run-up in the price of Bitcoin last year was not just the product of authentic interest in Bitcoin. Instead, at least half of the price jump was most likely caused by a price-manipulation scheme organized by people associated with Bitfinex, a large Bitcoin-trading service, Mr. Griffin wrote in a lengthy paper. (Bitfinex has denied any wrongdoing.)Bitcoin, youll recall, is the decentralized cryptocurrency whose proponents argue that it represents the future of currency. Its key innovation, they say, is radical transparency that ensures trust among strangers. In other words, the point of Bitcoin and its underlying technology is to eliminate the kind of fraud alleged here. Every Bitcoin transaction is recorded in a ledger, called a blockchain, that is maintained by a network of computers rather than by a central institution, like a bank or an accounting firm. Proponents of Bitcoin and blockchains argue that centralized ledgers are inherently prone to trickery and fraud; look at Bernie Madoff or Enron.A decentralized ledger, they say, creates a much more efficient way to ensure trust on a network like the internet. Blockchains could drastically reduce the cost of trust by means of a radical, decentralized approach to accounting and, by extension, create a new way to structure economic organizations, wrote Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna, the authors of a book called The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything.The fraud alleged by Mr. Griffin does not suggest any flaw in the blockchain itself, but it does go far in undercutting the high-flying rhetoric about how blockchains might usher in a new era of far-flung trust. Even though all of Bitcoins transactions are recorded on a blockchain, the transparency didnt seem to inhibit trickery here.Mr. Griffin spotted patterns that suggested manipulators were using another virtual currency, Tether, which was issued by Bitfinex, to prop up the price of Bitcoin when it sagged. These apparent manipulations were recorded on the blockchain that record is how Mr. Griffins team came to its conclusions. But even though the possibility of manipulation was mentioned often last year, it took months to put together detailed evidence that it had happened.And in that time, the whole world the financial press, ordinary investors, anyone looking for the next windfall put more money into Bitcoin. Even though lots of people should have known better even though we all know the internet is lousy with scams Bitcoin, we were told, was different.Nope, it wasnt. Scams are everywhere online. Never let your guard down.Other stuff: Ben Thompson had a fine analysis this week on the economics of shared scooters. The sudden invasion of electric scooters has caused a lot of angst in San Francisco and elsewhere, but Thompson dives into the financials and finds a phenomenon that is rare in digital businesses: This market doesnt seem to be headed toward monopoly. The Washington Post had a fascinating look at how WhatsApp is changing politics in Brazil. Because the messaging app, which is owned by Facebook, lets citizens create instant and flexible organized groups, it is undermining traditional political players like unions and injecting a level of unpredictability and radicalization into a country beset by economic and political crises. In the hours after news of Anthony Bourdains suicide, Newsweek rushed out lots of stories optimized not for humanity but for search engines, Bijan Stephen wrote in The Verge, in a disturbing look at the soul-crushing incentives of online publishing.Farhad Manjoo writes a weekly technology column called State of the Art. You can follow him on Twitter here: @fmanjoo. | Tech |
Sports of The TimesJeff Z. Klein and Stu HackelFeb. 8, 2014The prevailing wisdom is that N.H.L. teams sending a large number of players to the Olympics will stumble when the regular season resumes because their Olympians have endured too much travel, too much pressure and too many games. But at least one person disagrees. Im not worried about post-Olympics like some people talk about, said Blues Coach Ken Hitchcock, who has nine players heading to the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. When youre there, you get a lot of rest. You dont travel at all to the games; its a five-minute walk to the rink. Youre in a very central, localized atmosphere.About 140 of the N.H.L.s best will participate in the mens Olympic hockey tournament starting Wednesday, with preliminary rosters including at least two players from every league club. Anaheim, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, the Rangers, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Vancouver are sending seven or more. Hitchcock, who is part of Canadas coaching staff for the fourth consecutive Olympics, said that travel to and from Sochi would be a grind and that each N.H.L. team must monitor its Olympians when they return to make sure they are sufficiently rested.But when you get a chance to play in anything thats a big game, I think thats going to do nothing but help you, he said.Yet Bill Daly, the leagues deputy commissioner, told The Associated Press last month that he worried because the 16-day break could affect the teams with the most players in Sochi. He was concerned that the break and the travel might combine with injuries sustained during the Games to interrupt the momentum of N.H.L. clubs.Dalys comments reflected concerns among team owners like the Philadelphia Flyers Ed Snider, who sounded off against the Olympics last week. They are worried not only about their star players, but also about losing games in their arenas in the valuable period after the Super Bowl, and before baseballs exhibition schedule and the N.C.A.A. mens basketball tournament.And the Ottawa Senators owner, Eugene Melnyk, has not forgotten 2006, when goalie Dominik Hasek was injured playing for the Czech Republic at the Olympics in Turin, Italy, and never returned to the lineup. He said he believed Haseks absence cost Ottawa the Stanley Cup. The Senators were eliminated by Buffalo in the second round. Melnyk said in January that he had commissioned a study to determine the effects of the Olympics on N.H.L. teams. He said the results showed a reverse correlation that the more players a team sent to the Olympics, the worse the team did in that seasons playoffs. He attributed that to the Olympians fatigue while the rest of the N.H.L. players had time to heal nagging injuries.The statistical model Melnyks study used was not disclosed, but the 2010 figures on participants at the Vancouver Olympics do not entirely support his conclusion. For example, Montreal and Philadelphia, which met for the Eastern Conference championship that year, each had four Olympians, an average number. In the Western Conference championship, San Jose had eight Olympians and Chicago had six.Nevertheless, Melnyks objections are consistent with some owners reluctance to pause the season every four years, as they have done since 1998. The N.H.L.s Sochi experience will add fuel to their argument or confirm Hitchcocks. The Hemispheric Games Canada is favored to successfully defend the Olympic mens hockey title. That is understandable, given a talent pool that could replace an injured player of Steven Stamkoss stature with a Martin St. Louis.Yet Canada rarely wins outside the Western Hemisphere.Since the N.H.L. began participating in the Olympics in 1998, Canada has won the gold medal twice, in Salt Lake City in 2002 and in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2010. But in Nagano, Japan, in 1998, the Canadians finished fourth (the Czech Republic won gold); in Turin in 2006, Canada finished seventh (Sweden took the gold).The Canadians have done a little better overseas in the annual world championship, winning three of the 15 tournaments in Europe since 1998. But they also have only two silvers and no bronzes from those events in Europe, illustrating their vulnerability outside North America.Rink size may not matter as much as some think. Canadas gold at Salt Lake City was won on a European-size rink, 100 feet wide rather than 85. The problem could be more a matter of playing far from home.Similarly, the United States has not fared well overseas compared with its showings in North America. The Americans played Canada for the gold medal in Salt Lake City and in Vancouver, but they finished sixth in Nagano and eighth in Turin. Absent for Sweden The Rangers Henrik Lundqvist will play for Sweden, and any team with him in goal has a chance to do well. But the announcement Thursday that Vancouvers Henrik Sedin would miss the Games is a further blow to that countrys hope of winning a gold medal, as it did in 2006. The Swedes had lost another top forward, Detroits Johan Franzen, who had 9 points in seven games the last time he represented his country, at the 2012 world championship. In addition, Daniel Sedin, Henriks twin, is mired in the worst slump of his career, with 2 points in the 15 games before the Canucks game on Saturday in Toronto. Henrik Sedin was not in the lineup for six of those games. | Sports |
Credit...Jack Dempsey/Associated PressFeb. 1, 2014JERSEY CITY Max Unger, Seattles starting center, hails from Hawaii, excelled as a rebounder for his high school basketball team and, about 100 pounds ago, loved to skateboard. None of that would be relevant to the outcome of the Super Bowl except that Ungers chief adversary, Denvers 335-pound defensive tackle Terrance Knighton, probably knew all those facts last week.As part of his preparation, Knighton vowed to research Ungers personal life, compiling a dossier from which he will goad and taunt him when they line up inches apart on Sunday.I want to know everything about him, Knighton said.Ungers success at neutralizing Knighton will influence the production of Marshawn Lynch, who with every punishing rush could fulfill Seattles twin goals of sustaining long drives while limiting the Broncos possessions. The matchup of Denvers premier run-stopping defender and a two-time Pro Bowler entrusted with clearing space at the fulcrum of the Seahawks offense is one of several that will help decide what should be one of the more compelling Super Bowls of recent vintage.For the first time in 23 years, and the fifth time over all, the game will feature the leagues top-ranked offense against its top-ranked defense. And the 23.5-point disparity between the Broncos average scoring output (37.9) and the Seahawks average points allowed (14.4) is the largest in Super Bowl history, according to FootballPerspective.com. No team was more efficient inside the red zone than Denver. No team was stingier inside the red zone than Seattle.I dont think theyve played a defense like us, Seattle linebacker Bobby Wagner said.Nor, though, have the Seahawks played an offense like that of the Broncos, whose quarterback, Peyton Manning, at 37, set the N.F.L. single-season record for passing yards and touchdowns. Manning has a unique capacity to decipher defenses and upload information before the snap, then adjust by calling a play that exploits a weakness.With diminished but adequate arm strength Ive thrown a lot of yards and touchdown ducks, so Im actually quite proud of it, he said last week Manning relies even more on timing and precision, on maximizing the short routes by receivers who excel at running after the catch.Denvers fast-developing plays, coupled with his quick release and a solid offensive line, create a comfortable pocket that has rarely been breached. Manning, hardly known for his mobility, has been hit only once during the postseason, and through 18 games including the playoffs, he has been sacked only 18 times.The balls just not in his hands long enough to get there, for the most part, Seattle Coach Pete Carroll said, adding: Were going to have to get him to hold the football some and at least make him go to his second or third decision. If we can do that, it gives us a chance.ImageCredit...Jonathan Ferrey/Getty ImagesThe word that Carroll and his defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn, use most when describing their mission is affect. As in, the Seahawks must affect Manning on Sunday by sacking him, hitting him, moving him off his spot. It varies with the coverage, but Quinn said that a quarterback can usually avoid being hit if he can get rid of the ball in 2.7 seconds or less. This season the ball has been in Mannings hands for an N.F.l.-low average of 2.36 seconds, according to ProFootballFocus.com.To harass Manning, the Seahawks will probably adhere to their principles. Unlike many teams, they generate pressure without blitzing and lean on their physical defensive backs to maintain coverage as a four-man rush pressures the quarterback. Their two primary defensive ends, Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, have combined for 19 sacks and 10 forced fumbles, and their aptitude for stripping the ball could be a factor against Manning, who had 10 fumbles during the regular season.Even so, the Seahawks recognize that the ball will usually be leaving Mannings hand through more traditional means, one being a type of crossing route that has emerged as perhaps Denvers signature play. It is called the pick, or a rub, and it succeeds when a receiver runs his defender into a third party, usually another teammate, to gain separation. It is legal as long as the receiver does not go out of his way to interfere with the defender, and it is a primary reason so many of the Broncos receivers Demaryius Thomas, especially are able to gain yardage after the catch.The play tends to succeed most against man-to-man coverage, although the Seahawks play a fair amount of zone. From reviewing film, several of their defenders could see that teams that were shredded by the pick play, like New England in the A.F.C. championship game, had failed to disrupt the receivers release off the line of scrimmage. Delaying him by even a fraction of a second could affect the entire play, giving the pass rush added time to reach Manning.VideoThere is a lot you can learn about the Super Bowl in just over two minutes. Here are the most important figures to know about the big game.CreditCredit...Rick Osentoski/Associated PressThey just take the pick play, Seattle linebacker Wagner said. Were very aware of the pick plays. When they show up, were going to hit them.That, too, is the approach of Lynch, who so embraces contact that when asked last week for his impression of the Seattle assistant Tom Cable, he said: All I knew about him was that he punched people. Thats my type of person.Lynch is powerful enough to lug tacklers an extra 10 yards, elusive enough to slip through the narrowest creases. His bruising style meshes with the Seahawks offensive philosophy, what the coordinator Darrell Bevell described as imparting our will on the other team and showing our toughness.Bevell said they were willing to throw 40 times to win, if necessary, but really, that is not what they want. They want to hand the ball to Lynch, early and often, creating favorable down-and-distance situations and extending series and wearing down the Broncos defense, which never buckled in stopping New Englands running game two weeks ago.That afternoon in Denver, the Patriots, trailing for much of the game, abandoned the run early. The Seahawks are unlikely to do the same on Sunday, meaning that by the end of the game, Knighton should be well acquainted with a certain skateboard-loving center even more, perhaps, than he was before the game.May the best man win, Knighton said. | Sports |
Josiah Wells BEDEL SAGET/THE NEW YORK TIMES Im that guy. Im the guy who got fourth. Josiah Wells On his fourth-place finish If Josiah Wells had reached the podium Tuesday, he would have been the first athlete from New Zealand to win a medal at the Winter Games in 22 years and only the second ever. At the foot of the halfpipe, drenched after skiing through big, wet snowflakes, he looked at a group of New Zealand fans waving the flag of his country. He smiled. Im that guy, he said to them. Im the guy who got fourth. Then he let out a King Kong-style yell. The gold, silver and bronze medals went to skiers from the United States, Canada and France. New Zealand has only had one medal in 100-year Winter Olympic history, Wells said. So it would have been really cool to get one of them. But tonight it didnt work out. Wells said he felt good about his skiing, but once he saw the work of his competitors on the halfpipe, he realized that the podium was no longer within reach. Wells, who is coached by his father, Bruce, hails from a skiing dynasty. His brothers, Byron, Beau-James and Jackson have competed as professional freeskiers. Wells will be 27 by the time of the Pyeongchang Games in 2018. He is not sure if he will compete there. Im going to ski until my body doesnt let me anymore, he said. So hopefully I can be here representing New Zealand again. Kerttu Niskanen NANCY DONALDSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES Fourth place is good. Kerttu Niskanen On her fourth-place finish Soon after the 57 skiers started the 30-kilometer mass-start cross-country race, the race for fourth was on. Three women from Norway quickly pushed to the front, and they were unlikely to give up a spot on the podium. So there was Kerttu Niskanen of Finland, coming to terms quite early with the notion that fourth place just might have to do. The 30K mass start is a punishing event, one that was not made easier by the unseasonably warm weather on the slopes of the Psekhako Ridge. Fourth place is good, Niskanen said later. The Norwegian girls were really good today. The three Norwegian leaders were comfortable in front, creating nearly a minute of separation between third and fourth place. A critical moment for Niskanen was when she decided to change skis during the race, something the Norwegian athletes did not do. Niskanen estimated that took 30 seconds and therefore had not kept her from finishing third. Perhaps it helped her hang on to fourth. I felt quite good, Niskanen said. Liu Rui JIM LUTTRELL/THE NEW YORK TIMES Were disappointed at this loss, but we have tried our best. Liu Rui On his fourth-place finish Chinas mens curling team won bronze at the last Winter Games, in Vancouver, the first time a team from Asia finished on the podium. This time, the Chinese curlers were left on the verge of tears as they slid off the ice for the last time. They had lost to Sweden. Even in the gentlemans sport of curling, where players call their own foul shots and buy the losers beers after competing, fourth place is not easy. Were disappointed at this loss, but we have tried our best, said Liu Rui, the skip of Chinas team. China, ranked seventh in the world, is relatively new to this sport, and its curlers have gained the respect of the old guard for their technical prowess, which was why the two hog-line violations, including one from Liu, made the outcome particularly hard. The reason that we lost is because of the last end, Liu, who lives in Harbin, said. We made a mistake. Liu finished the Olympics with an overall accuracy rate of 87 percent. He maintained a positive front. Our team has played very well in this Olympics, Liu said. And Im very satisfied with my team. Qi Guangpu ARCHIE TSE/THE NEW YORK TIMES I dont regret anything. Im feeling very proud. Fourth place is O.K. for me. Qi Guangpu On his fourth-place finish Translated by Olga Ramenskaya In the sport of aerials, which is kind of like ski jumping crossed with high diving, a landing that features a faceplant somersault is not recommended. So when Qi Guangpu of China saw his teammate, Jia Zongyang, flip head over heels, he might have thought he would get his chance at the podium after all. Qi fell during his landing, too, but he fell backward and popped right back up, which was not nearly as dramatic as Jias tumble. But the judges disagreed. Qi, who had been a favorite to win going into the competition, came in fourth. The format of the aerials competition made the loss especially cruel. The final round has only four aerialists, which turns the competition into a game of musical chairs with only one loser. On Monday night, that was Qi. He maintained a stoic pose afterward. I dont regret anything, he said. Im feeling very proud. Fourth place is O.K. for me. Was he resentful of his teammate for beating him with a snowy somersault? Im very proud of him and very happy that he got third place, Qi said. Faye Gulini BEDEL SAGET/THE NEW YORK TIMES Fourth place, I will take it. Faye Gulini On her fourth-place finish In any other event but the Olympics, the snowboard cross competitor Faye Gulini of the United States would have been thrilled with a fourth-place finish. Here, she was slightly less than that. A 12th, or something, its Eh, I blew it, Gulini said. But to be fourth is kind of tough. But Im happy over all. Its the Olympics. Ill take the fourth place. Gulini, in her second Olympic appearance (she was 12th in 2010), has long competed in the shadow of Lindsey Jacobellis, an eight-time Winter X Games champion. At the X Games in January, Jacobellis won and Gulini was sixth. Jacobellis, however, has a wicked streak of disappointment at the Olympics. In one semifinal Sunday, Jacobellis fell near the bottom of the course while holding a big lead. Her medal hopes were gone. Gulini, meanwhile, kept quietly advancing through the bracket. Where I kind of excel, Im consistent, Gulini said. As you saw, a lot of people fell. And Im really good at staying on my feet. She fell behind quickly in the final. But then two of her nearest competitors wiped out. Gulini survived but could not catch the three women in front of her, all of whom were ecstatic to win medals. It would have been nice to get on the podium, she said. But it was nice being where she was, too. Marrit Leenstra ARCHIE TSE/THE NEW YORK TIMES For my country its really nice, but for me its not as nice. Marrit Leenstra On her fourth-place finish It is kind of like being an A-minus student at an elite school. The speedskater Marrit Leenstra of the Netherlands finished in fourth place behind not one, not two but three of her Dutch teammates in the 1,500 meters. Jorien ter Mors won gold and set an Olympic record with a time of 1 minute 53.51 seconds. Ireen Wust was second in 1:54.09, and Lotte van Beek took bronze in 1:54.54. Leenstra was 1.86 seconds behind van Beek. This year, Ive found myself a lot of times in the fourth place, she said. But every time I think I can do better. But I didnt show it this time. The Netherlands has won 16 medals in speedskating, five of them gold, a startling tally. While her teammates would be celebrating their latest haul, Leenstras feelings were tangled. She said she did not watch the flower ceremony, but planned to watch the medal ceremony later, when theres a little less emotion with it. Two of the women on the podium were competitors of Leenstras on the national circuit, and one is a training partner. Its always nicer that youre beaten by the other Dutch girls than by other countries, she said. So Im happy for them. And this is the best result we could have. She added, For my country its really nice, but for me its not as nice. Li Nina JOE WARD/THE NEW YORK TIMES I feel very lucky to be able to compete at the Olympics. Li Nina On her fourth-place finish Translated by Lingjie Yang Placing fourth in the Olympics can be punishing on the psyche, and sometimes it is merciless on the body, too. During her final jump in the aerial competition, Li Nina of China lost the rhythm of her back flip with two double full twists and bounced off the snow, then spun, slid and bounced some more. It was not clear if she would be in any condition to talk afterward, but there she was just a few minutes after the results were posted, still wearing her green helmet and picking apart what had gone wrong. After the first twist, when I was doing the second twist, I felt that the speed was not enough, so I struggled, she said, through an interpreter. What if she had the jump to do over again? I might add more speed, she said. If the speed was better then I probably would have succeeded. The notion of adding more speed to a jump that looks as perilous as the one that Li attempted is a good example of daredevil logic. What would this 31-year-old, four-time Olympian do next? Something related to skiing, she said. Im retiring. No, what she would do next, as in the next half hour or so? Just call my mom and let her know that Im safe and sound because she watched my performance on TV and so she must be worried, she said. Sam Edney JOE WARD/THE NEW YORK TIMES Right now its just awful to feel like we didnt do the job that we set out to do. Sam Edney On his teams fourth-place finish The only thing worse than finishing fourth is doing it again. And again. The Canadian luge team came to Sochi looking for its first Olympic medal. It left with three fourth-place finishes, coming on successive nights. Combined, the three bronze medals were less than one second beyond the Canadians grasp. The final event was the team relay, new to the Winter Games, in which each countrys top man, top woman and top doubles team race in succession, smacking a target at the finish line that tells the next team member to start. The Canadians won a silver medal in team relay at last years world championships in Whistler, British Columbia. They had reasonable expectations to reach the podium in Sochi. First came Alex Gough. Two days earlier, she had finished fourth in singles. She had the fourth-fastest time again. Then came Sam Edney. He finished 11th in singles, but he recorded the fifth-best mark among the men this time, keeping the Canadians in contention. Finally came the doubles team of Tristan Walker and Justin Snith. They had finished fourth in doubles the day before by five hundredths of a second. When they crossed the finish line in the team event, the scoreboard unblinkingly displayed Canadas time and its rank. Fourth. Canadas combined time for the three runs was 2 minutes 27.395 seconds one-tenth of a second from a medal. I think Ive said all there is to say about being fourth, Gough said, tears filling her eyes. It sucks. Its terrible. To come in fourth by a tenth, and to know we had it in our runs, and that each of us didnt have the performance that we would have liked to, and we could have had it I mean, I think we all feel like we let each other down. On a video screen behind the Canadians, the teams from Germany, Russia and Latvia stood atop a podium and soaked in the adulation. The cheering nearly drowned out the softly spoken words of the Canadians. Gough walked away. Edney rubbed his face with a hand and looked over his shoulder, back toward the commotion reserved for medalists. Daniela Merighetti JOE WARD/THE NEW YORK TIMES I tried to do everything. I tried to push hard, and I did. I lost everything at the bottom. Daniela Merighetti On her fourth-place finish The athlete who finishes with the third-best time wins the bronze medal. Thats Olympics 101. Except it wasnt quite true after the womens downhill. The competition ended with the events first two-way tie for gold, a rare result that meant that no one received a silver medal. It went gold-gold-bronze, almost certainly leaving Daniela Merighetti of Italy as the only athlete at these Olympics to clock the third-best time in her event but walk away without a medal. She placed fourth, finishing 17-hundredths of a second behind the bronze medalist Lara Gut. Sometimes you lose for one second, sometimes you lose by 15-hundredths, Merighetti said. This is the sport, this is the life. Merighetti, 32, was not expected to win a medal, and she insisted that she saw the fourth-place finish as a victory and a capstone to her Olympic career, which she said would end after Sochi. I tried to do everything, she said. I tried to push hard, and I did. She knows exactly where the medal slipped out of her grasp: the end of the course, within sight of the crowd cheering in the grandstands. Hannah Teter BEDEL SAGET/THE NEW YORK TIMES We all come to get on top, 1-2-3. Its kinda the only thing that makes you happy. Hannah Teter On her fourth-place finish Hannah Teter, who won the Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe in 2006, was leading the field after the first round Wednesday, thanks to her mix of stylish high spins pulled off with panache. She was feeling good. But Kaitlyn Farrington outdid her. Then Torah Bright pushed Teter to third. She could live with third. Then, on the last run of the night, Kelly Clark, a fellow American, delivered an especially impressive run that pushed Teter off the podium by a quarter of a point. Teter, a Belmont, Vt., native who is known as one of the more candid winter sports athletes, was not pleased. Fourth is the worst position to finish, she said. You just missed the podium. Its definitely a bummer, she added. Teter said the right things about being happy for her friends two Americans won medals, after all. But she thought she deserved a higher score. (In snowboarder speak, that translates to: Im not super-stoked on the judging, obviously.) Now that the competition is over, Teter, 27, said she was going to go relax in Tahoe, Calif. Maybe work on her maple syrup company. But mostly, she said, she wanted to start getting ready for the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She doesnt plan to finish fourth. Shaun White NANCY DONALDSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES It just wasnt my night. Which is really tough to say, you know. Its a big night. Shaun White On his fourth-place finish Shaun White wins gold. He did it in Turin in 2006, he did it in Vancouver in 2010, he does it at the X Games every year. Shaun White doesnt finish second. He doesnt finish third. He definitely doesnt finish fourth. And yet, there he was Tuesday night when the giant scoreboard blinked the judges decision in the mens snowboard halfpipe competition. White had made a dramatic entrance, as he usually does, by going last. When he botched his first run, the crowd wondered what virtuoso tricks he would pull out on the next one, because surely he would deliver. It would have to be something special to win gold, but come on, its Shaun White. Then he botched his second run. Fourth place. White soldiered through a few television interviews, seemingly unrattled. He was smiling. But his handlers quickly ushered him out of sight, better to process the results away from the klieg lights. When he emerged later in the night, he credited the medal winners and vowed that he would be back right after he tours with his rock band. Thats a consolation most fourth-place winners go without. It just wasnt my night, which is really tough to say, he said. Its a big night. Anders Gloersen JIM LUTTRELL/THE NEW YORK TIMES When you fall in the Olympics, I guess theres not so much chance for a medal. Anders Gloersen On his fourth-place finish Anders Gloersen of Norway was coasting along with the tight lead pack in the mens cross-country free sprint, feeling good. A medal seemed to be in sight. I was No. 3, and I didnt feel very tired, he said. I was feeling like this is still anybodys race. But a split-second later, it wasnt anybodys race at all, or at least not his. I was fighting for a medal, and then suddenly, Im in the snow, Gloersen said. He had collided with two other skiers Sergey Ustiugov of Russia and Marcus Hellner of Sweden in a mishap that may have had something to do with the soft snow and that left all three of them sprawled on the ground. Gloersen found himself pushed up against the fence, watching the competition zip past. I got up, and I just started counting people in front of me, he said. His time, 4 minutes 2.05 seconds, was more than half a minute slower than his fastest run in the earlier qualifying heats, and it nudged him off the medals stand and into the unfortunate fourth spot. (The skier who came in third, Emil Jonsson, had a time of 3:58.13, and lay prone with exhaustion on the ground after the race was over). No, Im not particularly happy, Gloersen, 27, said after the race. This is going to be tough to digest for the next couple of days. The winner, his Norwegian teammate Ola Vigen Hattestad, won with a time of 3:38:39, nimbly avoiding the collision behind him. When you fall in the Olympics, theres not so much chance for a medal, Gloersen said. Andi Langenhan NANCY DONALDSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES Somebody has to be fourth, and thats me. Andi Langenhan On his fourth-place finish Four years ago, at the Vancouver Olympics, the German luger Andi Langenhan placed fifth. He was second in the world championships last year, propelling him to Sochi with hopes to win a medal. He arrived with the phrase Bitte folgen on his luge. Its German for Please follow. The luge field at the Sochi Games followed his instructions except for three riders. Langenhan missed a medal by 558-thousandths of a second. That half-second will haunt him for at least the next four years. The little man in my head always says go on, go on, go harder, for sure, Langenhan said after the fourth and final race in the mens singles competition Sunday night. But I know I can do it. All the other guys who are unknown who come to the top 10 can reach a medal for sure, and everybody is getting older and knows what to do. His countryman Felix Loch repeated as gold medalist. Albert Demchenko, competing in his seventh straight Winter Games for Russia, won silver. Armin Zggeler of Italy reached the podium for the sixth consecutive Games and claimed bronze. Last year I beat them all, so I know I can do it, Langenhan said. But Olympic Games are always special. Theyre competitive and hard to win and hard to achieve a medal. But at least somebody has to be fourth, and thats me, he added. Aksel Lund Svindal NANCY DONALDSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES It is pretty much the worst place to be. Ive been there before and probably will be again. Aksel Lund Svindal On his fourth-place finish Two-tenths of a second can mean different things to different athletes. An up-and-comer who lost by such a narrow margin might consider it a symbolic victory and motivation to work harder. For Aksel Lund Svindal, two-tenths of a second represented a bitter defeat. In the mens downhill, Svindal, the popular Norwegian who won three Alpine skiing medals at the last Winter Olympics and was the world champion in the downhill last year, was 19-hundredths of a second away from a podium finish. It is pretty much the worst place to be, Svindal said of finishing fourth. Ive been there before and probably will be again. Svindal, Norways flag-bearer at the opening ceremony, clearly had his sights on the gold medal, which went to Matthias Mayer of Austria. I made mistakes, and I could have won, said Svindal, who was 29-hundredths of a second behind Mayer. Svindal said he took some solace in the fact that Kjetil Jansrud, his teammate and roommate at the Olympics, finished third. It saves the day for the team, but for me, personally, it doesnt completely save the day, Svindal said. Of course, you want to get a medal. Sven Thorgren JOE WARD/THE NEW YORK TIMES Im pretty happy with my fourth place, even though its a bummer not to get that medal. Sven Thorgren On his fourth-place finish Sven Thorgren, a 19-year-old from Sweden, scored an 87.50 on his final run of the mens snowboard slopestyle final, a strong, if surprising, total that put him in third place with four riders to go. Thorgren, ranked 20th in the world, was ecstatic to be in the medal conversation so late in the final round. Following snowboard protocol, he stood by the medals podium after his run, waiting as the remaining riders tried to beat him. One was a friend, the Norwegian star Stale Sandbech. When Stale landed his run, I was pretty sure he was going to beat me, said Thorgren, who ended up finishing fourth in Saturdays event. Sage Kotsenburg of the United States won the gold medal, Sandbech took second, and Mark McMorris of Canada was third. Thorgren spoke afterward about taking something positive away from his runs here. He could have come off the first rail a bit better, he said, but that was the only mistake I did for my run, so it was a pretty hard run for me, and Im superhappy that I landed it. He hesitated and looked to his right. Sandbech was there, doing his own interviews, smiling broadly and sticking a tiny Norwegian flag behind his ear. J.R. Celski JOE WARD/THE NEW YORK TIMES I come out here to win gold. So any position behind that is tough. J.R. Celski On his fourth-place finish The short-track speedskater J.R. Celski, 23, made the transition from in-line skating to speedskating when he was 12, and came of age in the long shadow of Apolo Ohno, practicing at the same rink in the Seattle area and competing as his teammate on the international circuit. He later delayed his admission to the University of California, Berkeley, to train with the United States team for the 2010 Vancouver Games. When he lined up for the 1,500-meter final Monday at the Iceberg Skating Palace, Celski was the only American on the ice. Ohno retired, clearing the way for Celski to take over the mantle of best American short-track skater. Celski has two world championship gold medals, but none from the Olympics. On the final lap, Celski lost his pace. Charles Hamelin of Canada won gold, Han Tianyu of China won silver and Viktor Ahn of Russia won bronze. Celski was fourth in 2 minutes 15.624 seconds, 562-thousandths of a second behind the bronze medalist. I was in a good position and I didnt protect my track well enough, Celski said. He knows what it is like to be on the other side of the third-fourth divide. At the Vancouver Games, he won bronze medals in the 1,500 and 5,000 relay. I come out here to win gold, he said. So any position behind that is tough. | Sports |
New treatments aim for a gene variant causing the illness in people of sub-Saharan African descent. Some experts worry that focus will neglect other factors.Credit...Amir Hamja for The New York TimesMay 17, 2022In a Zoom call this spring with 19 leaders of A.M.E. Zion church congregations in North Carolina, Dr. Opeyemi Olabisi, a kidney specialist at Duke University, asked a personal question: How many of you know someone a friend, a relative, a family member who has had kidney disease?The anguished replies tumbled out from the assembled pastors:A childhood friend died, leaving a daughter behind.A father and sister felled by the disease.Uncles and sons lost.Three cousins and a brother-in-law on dialysis.None of this surprised Dr. Olabisi, who disclosed that he, too, had lost family members to the disease. His best friend, who had taught him to ride a bike in his native Nigeria, died of kidney failure in his early 30s.Kidney specialists have long known that Black Americans are disproportionately affected by kidney disease. While Black people make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise 35 percent of Americans with kidney failure. Black patients tend to contract kidney disease at younger ages, and damage to their organs often progresses faster.Social disparities and systemic racism contribute to this burden, but there is also a genetic factor. Many with sub-Saharan ancestry have a copy of a variant of the gene APOL1 inherited from each parent, which puts them at high risk. Researchers have known for a decade that APOL1 is one of the most powerful genes underlying a common human disease.But there is hope now that much of this suffering can be alleviated. As many as 10 companies are working on drugs to target the APOL1 variants. And Dr. Olabisi has a federal grant to test whether baricitinib, a drug that treats rheumatoid arthritis, can help kidney patients with the variants.Yet the promise of treatments comes with difficult questions.Should genetic testing be offered and, if so, to whom? Although the variants increase risk, they do not preordain kidney disease. If someone knows that they have the variants, will they live in fear of kidney failure?There are as yet no proven ways to reduce the risk of kidney disease in those with two copies of the variants. Rigorous control of blood pressure a major risk factor for progression of kidney disease can be difficult to achieve in those who have the variants.Now we know that the reason you cant get your blood pressure down is because you have APOL1 kidney disease that is ferociously raising your blood pressure, said Dr. Jeffrey Kopp, a kidney researcher at the National Institutes of Health. Its not your fault.Despite their elation at the progress being made, some experts like Dr. Olabisi say that a laser focus on variants may let policymakers ignore the social and economic disparities underlying the disease.But, he added, we dont want to pretend that the biology doesnt exist. That, he said, would not be doing the community any good.ImageCredit...Cornell Watson for The New York TimesA Farmer Provides a ClueWhile it has long been known that kidney failure occurs in African Americans five times as much in as it does in white Americans, We had never been able to understand all the reasons, said Dr. Neil Powe, a professor of medicine and an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.Researchers began looking for a genetic cause. Finally, a little more than a decade ago, a Havard team led by Giulio Genovese, Dr. David Friedman and Dr. Martin Pollak found it: variants of APOL1 that ramped up the genes activity.It was a complete surprise. APOL1 is part of the immune system and can destroy trypanosomes protozoa that can cause illnesses. But no one expected it to have anything to do with the kidneys.It turns out that the variants rose to a high frequency among people in sub-Saharan Africa because they offer powerful protection against deadly African sleeping sickness, a disease caused by trypanosomes. It is reminiscent of another gene variant that protects against malaria but causes sickle cell disease in those who inherit two copies. That variant became prominent in parts of Africa and other areas of the world where malaria is common, but sickle cell variants are much less common than APOL1 risk variants.About 39 percent of Black Americans have one copy of the genes risk variants; another 13 percent, or nearly 5.5 million, have two copies. Those with two copies are at increased risk for fast progressing kidney disease that often starts in young adulthood. Approximately 15 percent to 20 percent of those with two copies develop kidney disease in their lifetime.In contrast, 7.7 percent of Americans with African ancestry have one copy of the sickle cell variant, and 0.3 percent have two copies.What nature gave with one hand, it took away with the other, Dr. Olabisi said.One way to treat kidney disease might be using medicines that block the gene and its variants from acting in the body. But researchers had to find out if APOL1 was necessary for kidney function. If it was, drugs that blocked it might do more harm than good.Researchers found an answer: A farmer in India had no APOL1 gene. His kidneys were totally healthy.Often, in drug development, Dr. Friedman says, the drug dose has to be fine tuned too much is dangerous and too little is useless. The discovery of the farmer, he said, tells you you can probably drive the level of the APOL1 protein very low.But ethical issues have tempered some experts enthusiasm about the genetic discoveries.Harriet A. Washington, a lecturer in ethics at Columbia University and author of the book Medical Apartheid, worries that knowledge of the role of APOL1 variants can drive the medical establishment toward a blame-the-victim approach signaling an inherent flaw in African Americans.The implication, she said: This is something happening in nature, so what can we do about it? Such an attitude, she added, invites futility and absolves health care from treating sufferers.Joseph L. Graves, Jr., a professor of biological sciences at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, raised another issue. We dont want to fall into the myth of the genetically sick African, he said.All populations have genetic variants, but the action of those variants is determined by the environment in which those people live, Dr. Graves explained. People want to find simple explanations for complex phenomena. Find a genetic variant and make the story simple, but thats not how it works. Environmental effects are really important.He added that for Black Americans, profound environmental effects rise from structural racism inequitable effects of law and policies which can lead to a lack of access to health care, including preventive care to ward off chronic illness.Erika Blacksher, an ethicist at the nonprofit Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo., added that while finding a treatment that might counteract the effect of the genetic variant is good news, she worried that social inequities could not be disentangled from the high rate of kidney disease among those with sub-Saharan African ancestry, not all of whom have the APOL1 variant. Emphasizing the variants, she said, deflects from our social responsibility to actually change the conditions that contribute to the onset of chronic kidney disease.Making a PlanImageCredit...Amir Hamja for The New York TimesMartin and Malcolm Lewis, 26-year-old identical twins, have lupus, an autoimmune disease that can ravage the bodys organs. So when Martin developed kidney disease at age 10, his doctors said lupus was to blame.In July 2020, Martin, an actor who lives in Brooklyn, was visiting Malcolm, a data analyst who was hospitalized at Duke with a lupus flare-up. There, the brothers met Dr. Olabisi, who told them about APOL1.They discussed his research project, which involves testing Black Americans and enrolling those with the variant and with kidney disease in a study of the arthritis drug. He invited them to participate and asked if they wanted to know if they had APOL1 variants.I was all for it, Malcolm said. So was Martin.When they were tested, the brothers learned they had the variants and that the variants, not lupus, most likely were damaging their kidneys. They hardly knew how to react.I am still trying to grapple with it, Malcolm said.But Dr. Olabisi was not surprised. Researchers think the variants cause kidney disease only when there is a secondary factor. A leading candidate is the bodys own antiviral response, interferon, which is produced in abundance in people with lupus.High levels of interferon also occur in people with untreated H.I.V. As happens in people with Covid-19, they can suffer an unusual and catastrophic collapse of their kidneys if they have the variants. Other viral infections, including some that may go unnoticed, can elicit surges of interferon that could set off the APOL1 variants. Interferon is also used as a drug to treat some diseases including cancer and was tested as a treatment for Covid patients.For now, there is little Malcolm and Martin can do except take medications to control their lupus.Martin said he understands all that, but hes glad he learned he has the variants. Now, he knows what he might be facing.Im the kind of person who likes to plan, he said. It does make a difference.From a Gene to DrugsWhile Dr. Olabisi is waiting to start his study, a drug company, Vertex, has forged ahead with its own research. But there was no agreement on how APOL1 variants caused kidney disease, so it was not clear what a drug was supposed to block.If you dont understand the mechanism, that means you cant measure effects in a lab, said Dr. David Altshuler, chief scientific officer at Vertex. And if you cant measure effects in the lab, that means you cant correct them.It was known how the APOL1 protein protected against sleeping sickness it punched holes in the disease-causing trypanosomes, making them swell with fluid and burst.Vertex researchers hypothesized that the variants spurred APOL1 proteins to punch holes not just in trypanosomes but also in kidney cells.What followed was years of work in lab studies and in animals given genes for human APOL1 variants and then screening about a million compounds that might block APOL1.Finally, the researchers settled on a drug that worked in animal models.Vertex tested the experimental drug in a 13-week study in patients with advanced kidney disease. The drug reduced the amount of protein in their urine by 47.6 percent, a sign of improved kidney function.In late March, the company announced it would take the next step a clinical trial that would enroll approximately 66 patients in the first phase, to find the best dose, and 400 in the next phase, to see if the drug could improve kidney functions in patients with the risk variants and kidney damage and protect them from developing kidney failure or dying.Other companies began later and have revealed less about their plans and progress. AstraZeneca, for example, would only say that it was in the early stages of testing a drug that could bind to APOL1 mRNA, the messenger that carries instructions from the gene to cells protein making machinery.MAZE, a small biotech company, is pursuing a strategy similar to the Vertex one, said Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, a co-founder and board member.Im optimistic this can move quickly, Dr. Kathiresan said.Using Their PulpitsAt the meeting with the pastors in North Carolina, Dr. Olabisi said he hoped to test 5,000 Black members of the community for kidney disease with a simple urine test and to use a saliva test to detect APOL1 variants. Testing of the arthritis drug would follow.Im in, said the Rev. Dr. Daran Mitchell, the pastor of Trinity A.M.E. Zion Church in Greensboro, N.C.He and the other pastors were enthusiastic. It would be a community effort, led by people in the community and promoted on social media. Subjects could be tested in churches or in community centers or in their homes. And it was a way to advance the day when a treatment would be available.Dr. Olabisi smiled.This gives me energy and a lot of hope, he said. | Health |
Europe|In France, a Giant Spider and a Minotaur Roam, and Sleephttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/world/europe/france-la-machine-spider-minotaur.htmlCredit...Eric Cabanis/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 3, 2018PARIS Imagine looking out the window one morning and seeing a gigantic spider perched on the roof of a neighboring building its eight legs extending to the street below.Then you walk downtown and realize that a 50-foot-tall creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man was looming above you.Hallucinating? Not in Toulouse, France, where the city has given itself over to an immersive form of street theater, bringing to life creatures like the giant spider and the Minotaur, the mythical monster from Greek mythology that is half bull and half man and said to have lived in the center of a maze on the island of Crete.Both creatures are the conception of Franois Delarozire, the artistic director and leading creative force behind La Machine, a theater company that works with technicians and designers to fabricate mechanical creatures on a vast scale and creates public spectacles around them.The spider and Minotaur were part of a show, The Guardian of the Temple, which closed Sunday in Toulouse. The shows website says it aimed to reinterpret the myths of Ariane and the Minotaur.La Machine has displayed a dragon in Beijing, the spider had its debut in Liverpool, England, several years ago, and a dragon and spider visited Ottawa in 2017.ImageCredit...Eric Cabanis/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMr. Delarozire described his goal to local news outlets as making the city and its residents all part of a vast work of art by giving them a common topic to react to so that they would talk to each other and the whole city becomes a place of theater.The Toulouse Minotaur, who has been named Astrion, arrived on the evening of Nov. 1 and slowly made its way down the streets as people stood and gawked. It was transported to the vast square in front of the majestic building that houses the city administration.The Minotaur is made of unpainted lime tree wood and metal. It has been constructed to seem as real as possible and even makes the sound of breathing as it moves.Apparently asleep, he was pulled along by some of the 16 technicians who coordinate his movement, his peaceful but powerful breathing heard above the crowds chatter. His arrival, which constituted Act I of the drama, was accompanied by a cast of scores of actors, opera singers and musicians.On Friday morning came Act II.Toulouse residents and visitors found him the following morning still asleep in the middle of one of the main squares. But he soon roused and began to move through the streets.By evening, the spider, named Ariane, was awake as well, and was poised on the top of the Hotel Dieu.After the show, Ariane and Astrion will take their place in a newly opened exposition space in a neighborhood of the city that Toulouse is trying to revive.Some 350,000 to 400,000 people were expected to see some part of the production during its weekend. | World |
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJune 12, 2018The political committee formed by former President Barack Obama is preparing to mobilize for the 2018 midterm campaign, targeting more than two dozen congressional races and several key state elections with a program aimed at turning out Democratic-leaning voters.The group, Organizing for Action, which emerged from the vestiges of Mr. Obamas old campaign operation, intends to deploy organizers in 27 Republican-held congressional districts that could be key to a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives. Their mission, officials with the group said, will be to coordinate and train volunteers and deploy them to help Democrats in states from California to North Carolina.In addition, the organization will focus on several elections that may affect the redrawing of the congressional map after the 2020 census; these include races for governor in states such as Florida and Wisconsin and redistricting-themed ballot referendums in Colorado and Michigan. Organizing for Action previously announced it would partner in 2018 with a committee led by Eric H. Holder Jr., Mr. Obamas former attorney general, to attack legislative gerrymandering in the midterms.The new effort offers fresh insight into Mr. Obamas political agenda for 2018: The Organizing for Action campaign emerged in part from a February meeting between the former president and strategists including Katie Hogan, the groups executive director. In the meeting, Mr. Obama conveyed in no uncertain terms that recapturing the House and helping Democrats gain more influence in the redistricting process were two of his top goals, people familiar with the conversation said.Jesse Lehrich, a spokesman for Organizing for Action, said in a statement that the group intended to display its grass-roots muscle in the midterm campaign.This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for the progressive movement, he said. Were fired up that O.F.A. can play its part by doing what we do best community organizing.The focus is to be wholly on the general election, Mr. Lehrich said: Organizing for Action will not meddle in Democratic primaries.Mr. Obama does not have a formal role with Organizing for Action, but the group is directed in large part by his former advisers and is seen by Democrats as reflecting his political priorities. The former president returned briefly to the campaign trail last year, boosting Democratic candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, and he is expected to appear at fund-raisers for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this month.While Organizing for Action may play a role in bolstering Democratic turnout machinery in 2018, the elections are also an important test of the groups staying power. It frustrated traditional party committees during Mr. Obamas presidency, when some Democratic leaders saw the group as drawing money and attention away from the D.N.C. That committee fell into disarray when Mr. Obama was president, and prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have criticized the state of the partys infrastructure in 2016.Since Mr. Obama left office, Organizing for Action has been active mainly in debates over policy, rather than electoral politics. It has weighed in publicly on several issues at the federal level, including gun control and the Trump administrations drive to unravel Mr. Obamas policies on climate, health care and immigration. The group reported raising about $600,000 in the first three months of the year.Organizing for Actions list of targeted congressional races covers many of the more moderate and right-of-center suburban areas that have emerged as perhaps the most important battlefield of the midterms. It includes two congressional seats outside Minneapolis, three near Philadelphia and three in the suburbs of Dallas and Houston. The group is pursuing eight congressional districts in California, including seats held by the Republican Representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters, who are running for re-election, and Darrell Issa and Ed Royce, who are retiring.The focus on suburban areas may underscore both the high political stakes in those districts, and also the limitations of Mr. Obamas political brand. It is not clear whether Democrats in the conservative states where control of the Senate is to be decided, like West Virginia and Tennessee, would welcome even a secondhand association with Mr. Obama in the heat of a difficult campaign.Matt Gorman, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, predicted that activity by an Obama-linked group would stir backlash on the right, and he jabbed at the Democrats history of internal conflict.No one motivates Republican voters like Barack Obama, Mr. Gorman said. We thank his political organization for their in-kind contribution to keeping G.O.P. control of the House. Maybe they shouldve taken the advice of many in their own party and closed up shop after 2016. | Politics |
Dec. 30, 2015The latest downturn in crude oil prices put investors in a selling mood on Wednesday, pulling United States stocks lower for the second time this week.The market decline, which wiped out some of the gains from a rally the day before, came on lighter-than-usual trading ahead of the New Years Day holiday. The price of oil shed 3.4 percent on Wednesday, extending its losses for the year to nearly 40 percent. Energy companies fell 1.5 percent, the most among the 10 sectors in the Standard & Poors 500-stock index. The sector is down 23.8 percent for the year. You have oil prices affecting the market negatively today, said Quincy Krosby, market strategist for Prudential Financial. You throw in exceedingly low volume, and its a recipe for skewing the market in this case to the downside.The Dow Jones industrial average fell 117.11 points, or 0.7 percent, to 17,603.87. The S.&P. 500 index dropped 15 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,063.36. The Nasdaq composite lost 42.09 points, or 0.8 percent, to 5,065.85.The days market action cut into the S.&P. 500s slim gain for the year. The index remains essentially flat with an increase of 0.2 percent this year. The Nasdaq is up about 7 percent, and the Dow is on track to end 2015 with a loss of 1.2 percent.The major stock indexes headed lower from the start on Wednesday as investors tracked the latest swings in oil and natural gas prices.Benchmark United States crude fell $1.27 to settle at $36.60 a barrel in New York. Its down 39 percent this year. Brent crude, which is used to price international oils, slid $1.33, or 3.5 percent, to $36.46 a barrel in London.Several energy companies closed lower, including Noble Energy, whose shares dropped $1.18, or 3.5 percent, to $32.22, and Southwestern Energy, whose shares tumbled 46 cents, or 6.8 percent, to $6.30. The shares of Consol Energy also shed 46 cents, or 5.6 percent, to $7.78. The natural gas company Chesapeake Energy fell 18 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $4.40.In other energy trading in New York, wholesale gasoline fell 5 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $1.23 a gallon, while heating oil declined 5 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $1.079 a gallon. Natural gas slumped 15.6 cents to $2.214 per 1,000 cubic feet.Shares of the weight loss company Weight Watchers jumped 19 percent as a TV commercial starring Oprah Winfrey began to air. The ad shows past videos of Ms. Winfrey working out, and refers to her struggle with weight, a frequent topic of her former talk show. She posted the ad to her more than 30 million Twitter followers on Tuesday. Weight Watchers stock has more than tripled in value since October, when Ms. Winfrey bought a 10 percent stake in the company. In Europe, volumes were low on the last full trading day of the year ahead of the New Years holiday. Many European markets will be open for only a half day on Thursday. Germanys DAX fell 1.1 percent, while Frances CAC 40 lost 0.5 percent. Britains FTSE 100 slipped 0.6 percent.Precious and industrial metals prices ended mixed. Gold lost $8.20 to $1,060.10 an ounce, silver fell 9 cents to $13.84 an ounce, and copper gained 1 cent to $2.15 a pound.Bond prices edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.29 percent.The dollar rose to 120.50 yen from 120.42 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0931 from $1.0933. | Business |
Credit...Wiqan Ang for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2018SEATTLE Standing in a supermarket produce aisle, her face shadowed with dread, the middle-aged woman speaks directly to the camera and makes a plea for common decency.We should not be taxed on what we eat, she says in a commercial that is being broadcast across Washington State. We need to eat to survive, and if we have to cut back on what we eat, thats not going to be good especially for the elderly.Edith's StoryCredit...CreditVideo by Yes! To Affordable GroceriesIn the run-up to Election Day, residents of Washington and Oregon have been bombarded with similar messages from groups with names like Yes! To Affordable Groceries. The organizations have spent more than $25 million on commercials that feature plain-spoken farmers and penny-pinching moms urging support of ballot measures that would prohibit municipalities from taxing food sales.But what most voters dont know is that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and other American beverage companies are largely financing the initiatives not to block taxes on staples like milk and vegetables but to choke off a growing movement to tax sugary drinks.At a time of soaring childhood obesity, and with more than one in three adults overweight, health advocates say that soda taxes are an effective way to dampen consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Nearly 40 countries now have them, along with seven cities in the United States, including Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boulder, Colo.Towns and cities across the country have been mulling similar moves as a way to reduce sugary drink sales while raising revenue for programs that aim to blunt the public health impact of heart disease, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes, conditions that have been linked to diets heavy in sugar.ImageCredit...Wiqan Ang for The New York TimesNow the nations soda giants have turned to a new tactic to fight them: pushing sweeping ballot measures and statewide legislation that would permanently deny municipalities the ability to impose taxes on a broad range of goods and services. The initiatives are packaged and sold as citizen revolts against tax-happy politicians. None of them explicitly mention soda taxes.Opponents of the measures say they are fundamentally misleading because neither Washington nor Oregon has a plan to tax groceries. No one is even talking about taxing food, said Jim Krieger, a professor of medicine and health services at the University of Washington. This is simply the soda industry trying to protect its profits at the expense of public health and local democracy.The industry has momentum and money on its side. Here in Washington, the industry has spent over $20 million to promote Initiative 1634, according to state finance filings. Those fighting the ballot measure have raised $100,000.Starting last year, legislatures in Michigan, Arizona and California passed laws that pre-emptively bar local governments from imposing such taxes in the future. The outcome in Oregon and Washington, political analysts say, could determine the future of the countrys soda tax movement by encouraging soda companies to embrace ballot measures in states across the country.Its a pivotal moment, said Mark Pertschuk, director of the advocacy group Grassroots Change. Its hard to overstate the chilling effect of having soda taxes barred from the whole West Coast, where so many progressive policies are born.Opponents of the approach criticize it as overreach. The Oregon initiative, for example, takes the form of a constitutional amendment and critics say it is so vaguely worded that it could be used to block future taxes on restaurant meals, electronic cigarettes, catering halls and trucking companies that transport McDonalds Happy Meals.These pre-emptive measures undermine democracy and completely take away a local governments ability to do whats best for their communities, said Jennifer L. Pomeranz, a professor of public health at New York University. Its a true corporate takeover of America.ImageCredit...Wiqan Ang for The New York TimesWilliam Dermody, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association, the industry group backing the measures, countered that referendums are by their very nature democratic. Most voters, he said, dont want taxes on the items they put in their shopping carts soda included. We believe there is a better way to help people reduce the amount of sugar consumed from beverages and bring about lasting change, including working alongside the public health community and offering more low- and no-sugar options, he said.Public health studies that have assessed the impact of soda taxes have found a significant drop in soda consumption, including 21 percent in Berkeley, Calif., and 40 percent in Philadelphia.We know that even modest soda taxes work, said Laura MacCleery, policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Because they work, soda companies fight the taxes tooth and nail.But critics say such taxes hurt small businesses and have an outsize impact on the poor.Thousands of good wage jobs are tied to the food and beverage industry, and the taxes are regressive because they take money out of the pockets of folks least able to afford them, said Peter Lamb, a senior official for Teamsters Local 174 in Tukwila, Wash., which is championing the ballot measure.The strategy of pushing pre-emptive laws and ballot measures was pioneered four decades ago by the tobacco industry and the National Rifle Association as a way to stop localities from passing antismoking ordinances or limitations on gun ownership. The N.R.A. has been wildly successful, with 43 states now barring enactment of any restrictions on firearms.Although nearly all of Washingtons major newspapers have come out against the grocery tax ballot measure, neither side has a decisive lead, according to polling. But interviews with voters suggest the soda industrys efforts to conceal its involvement are working. At a Safeway supermarket in Burien, a Seattle suburb, most shoppers expressed enthusiasm for the initiative.For those of us who are struggling to get by, the last thing we need is a tax on food, Mallory Brumfield, 31, a preschool aide, said as she shopped for groceries at a Safeway supermarket with her two children in tow.ImageCredit...Wiqan Ang for The New York TimesLike many shoppers, Ms. Brumfield was surprised to learn that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group have provided the lion share of money to promote the measure. Knowing that kind of gives me pause about whether I should support it, she said.In Oregon, the grocery tax ballot, known as Measure 103, has been met with more public skepticism, largely because it involves a change to the state constitution. Opponents of the measure have raised more money than in Washington, around $2.6 million, including an infusion of $1.5 million last week from former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. The group backing the measure, Yes! Keep Our Groceries Tax Free!, has raised over twice that amount, with donations evenly split between soda companies and supermarket chains.Critics accuse the Yes on 103 campaign of spreading misinformation, citing a television ad that claimed the initiative would prevent levies on food pantries. There is no universe in which food banks are going to be taxed, said Matt Newell-Ching, public affairs director at Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, an advocacy group. Its like saying, Vote for this measure and the sky will continue to be blue.Last year, Seattle became the first city in the Pacific Northwest to enact a tax on sugary beverages, and it would be allowed to remain in place should the ballot measure pass. The tax is expected to generate $20.6 million this year, money that will go toward early education and a raft of programs that give the working poor better access to healthier foods.Sarah Wandler, a social worker at the Odessa Brown Childrens Clinic, said soda tax revenues have provided 300 families at the clinic with vouchers to buy fresh produce at farmers markets and corner stores. Our clients all report having healthier foods in the house, and they are trying fruits and vegetables they never had before, she said.State Senator Reuven Carlyle, a Democrat, is pessimistic about the prospects for defeating the proposal, but he takes the long view, citing the decades-long fight against Big Tobacco that eventually changed national attitudes.At the end of the day, he said, you cant bury the truth, because lets be honest: No one on the planet believes that soda is groceries. | Health |
Special Report: Energy for TomorrowCredit...David Ebener/DPA Picture-Alliance, via Agence France-PresseDec. 7, 2015The spinning blades of wind turbines produced 9 percent of Germanys electricity in 2014.Most of those turbines are in the north of the country, near Denmark and the Netherlands, or off the coast in the North Sea. The majority of Germanys electricity demand, however, comes from some 400 miles to the south, in the factories and corporate headquarters of Bavaria.Transporting electricity from the place where it is generated to the place it will be used means installing high-voltage power lines. But while renewable energy is extremely popular among the German public, power lines are not.Public protests against construction have been influential enough that, in July, the countrys governing coalition had to agree to bury high-voltage lines wherever possible a move that could raise the cost of those lines by billions of dollars.All over the world, people are looking at Germany as an example of a successful renewable energy transition. In 1990, almost none of the countrys electricity came from renewables. Last year, more than a quarter of the gross electricity generation was attributable to a combination of wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power. In contrast, renewables accounted for about 13 percent of United States electricity production in 2014.Besides inspiration, the German experience has also offered an important lesson. Switching to wind and solar isnt just about building wind farms and installing photovoltaic panels.Developing renewable energy anywhere requires an understanding that the wind and the sun work as part of a broad system, encompassing both technological challenges related to integrating electricity into the grid and political, cultural and economic factors. This mode of systems thinking is gradually becoming more important, said Dolf Gielen, director of innovation and technology for the International Renewable Energy Agency. For example, even the seemingly simple question of Why renewables? has different answers in different parts of the world.In Germany, the shift to wind and solar power is intimately tied to the phase-out of nuclear energy. Based on a plan announced in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in Japan, there will be no nuclear energy produced in Germany by 2022. In 1990, 25 percent of the countrys electricity came from nuclear. By 2014, that share had fallen to 16 percent.Meanwhile, Mr. Gielen said, Chinas interest in renewable energy is driven by public concern about air pollution. And, in India, renewables especially solar are proving to be a vital part of bringing reliable electricity to parts of the country left out of traditional infrastructure development.Compared with plotting and installing transmission lines, it is cheaper and faster to build a small stand of solar generation and a microgrid to handle local needs like water pumping, lighting and phone charging, said Matt Rogers, director of McKinsey & Company in San Francisco and a 20-year veteran of energy consulting.Reliability means a very different thing in rural India than it does in San Francisco, Mr. Rogers said. People are discovering that some power fast is worth more than being able to get the perfect solution 20 years from now.In developed countries, though, installing renewable sources of electricity generation means making sure those sources fit into the existing grid. This can be a tricky problem to solve. All electricity grids must be balanced with supply almost perfectly matching electric demand at any given moment.Historically, this has been done by adjusting production in real time, as it is very difficult to store electricity. Because wind and solar generation are dependent upon variable natural resources, they can upset that balance. Avoiding blackouts means upgrading grid technologies and adding storage. This is why those transmission lines are so important to Germanys future.Its also why Germany has changed the policies it uses to set prices for electricity and encourage renewable development, Mr. Gielen said. Previous policy had made renewable development so attractive that it was outpacing the countrys ability to keep up with infrastructure support. Its much more difficult to do the grid investments because thats long-term planning, he said.California is one of the world leaders in adding storage into the grid system, primarily by using lithium-ion battery packs, the same technology found in computers and home electronics. The cost of these packs at grid scale has plummeted 80 percent in the last six years, from about $1,000 a kilowatt-hour in 2009 to $250 per kWh today, Mr. Rogers said.Control is also an important part of upgrading electricity grids. Historically, matching generation of electricity to demand has been based on phone calls grid controllers calling electricity producers to request more or less generation. Changing both hardware and software technologies within the system will allow controllers to make those changes automatically, speeding up the process and increasing stability.The cost of these technologies affects the cost of electricity generated by renewable resources, as does the cost of solar panels and wind turbines themselves.Public policy also plays a role in determining how expensive renewables are. It is no surprise that China, which produces most of the worlds solar panels, is also one of the countries with the lowest cost for installing rooftop solar.In Germany, the household cost for electricity, in general, is about 30 euro cents per kilowatt/hour. With bank financing easy to get because of the countrys long history of stable regulation, the cost to generate rooftop solar is about 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. Theres a clear economic case to install such a system, Mr. Gielen said.California also has a strong economic outlook for solar, largely due to the fact that policy in that state means electricity prices fluctuate widely depending on demand. But in the United States over all, rooftop solar electricity is about twice as expensive as it is in Germany. Policy again plays a big role in that cost, Mr. Gielen said. In Germany you fill out one form. In the U.S., in some instances, you have to fill out 20 forms, he said. If theres a lot more paperwork to be then done, thats reflected in the prices. | Business |
Health|Vaccination offers more protection against Covid than prior infection, a C.D.C. study suggests.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/health/vaccination-covid.htmlCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesOct. 29, 2021A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that vaccination provides stronger and more reliable protection against the coronavirus than a past infection does, the agency said on Friday.Unvaccinated people who had previously recovered from a coronavirus infection were five times as likely to get Covid as people who had received both shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, the C.D.C. said.The studys authors cautioned, however, that certain gaps in patient data and biases in their study participants could have influenced the results.We now have additional evidence that reaffirms the importance of Covid-19 vaccines, even if you have had prior infection, said Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C. director, in a statement accompanying the release of the report.The question of whether people who have had Covid really need a shot has gained traction among some Americans as vaccine mandates take hold across the country. Scientists have urged Covid survivors not to skip the vaccine, noting that the strength and durability of so-called natural immunity depends heavily on peoples age and health, and the severity of an initial infection.The C.D.C. study used a roundabout experimental design. The researchers examined roughly 7,000 people hospitalized this year with Covid-like illness across nine states. They then looked at how many of those hospitalized patients were indeed infected with the coronavirus. The odds of testing positive for the virus were considerably higher among unvaccinated, previously infected patients than they were among vaccinated people.The study comes with several caveats, however. The researchers cautioned that the findings may not translate to non-hospitalized people with different levels of access to medical care, and that some patients in the vaccinated group may unknowingly have also had previous infections.The researchers also noted that separate research in Israel had failed to show that vaccinated people were better protected than those who had only been infected. In general, scientists said, studies on the topic had drawn contradictory conclusions.Still, some patterns have emerged. Two doses of an mRNA vaccine produce more antibodies, and more reliably so, than a coronavirus infection does. But the antibodies from prior infection are more diverse, potentially helping people fend off variants.Whatever the effect, doctors have warned that acquiring natural immunity is perilous and uncertain. Not everyone survives Covid in the first place, and those that do may not be able to count on a vigorous immune response. | Health |
Dec. 18, 2015In the latest sign that federal regulators are uneasy about the flurry of proposed health care mergers taking place, the Federal Trade Commission said on Friday that it planned to block the combination of two large Illinois hospital groups.Regulators said the proposed merger of Advocate Health Care, which is already the states largest health system, and NorthShore University HealthSystem, could create a 16-hospital powerhouse that would dominate the North Shore area of Chicago.This merger is likely to significantly increase the combined systems bargaining power with health plans, which in turn will harm consumers by bringing about higher prices and lower quality, said Deborah L. Feinstein, director of the agencys Bureau of Competition, in a statement announcing the decision.Competition between Advocate and NorthShore results in lower prices, higher quality and greater service offerings, the F.T.C. argues in the complaint filed in the Eastern Division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.The hospital groups say they plan to fight the governments move, partly citing the effects of the federal health care law for encouraging the coordination of services and technology.This is the third time in recent weeks that the agency has sought to scuttle a proposed hospital merger. The F.T.C. took similar action to halt the merger of two hospitals in West Virginia in November and, earlier this month, teamed up with Pennsylvania authorities to try to stop a deal between Penn State Hershey Medical Center and PinnacleHealth System.While the agency has traditionally been concerned about hospital mergers, the recent activity underscores just how much deal-making is going on, said Martin Gaynor, a health economist at Carnegie Mellon University and a former F.T.C. official.About 460 hospital mergers have taken place since 2010, he said, with little sign that the combinations are abating. Is there a Tinder app for hospital mergers? he asked.The regulatory scrutiny of hospital mergers is occurring while other agencies are scrutinizing the proposed mergers of some of the nations largest health insurers, including Anthem and Aetna.In interviews, the chief executives of the Chicago hospital groups defended the merger, saying the combination fit with the federal governments overall goal of promoting alliances to help deliver better care at lower prices.All of this is good for consumers and very pro-competitive, said James H. Skogsbergh, the chief executive of Advocate. He said that because the hospitals market was dominated by a major insurer, the systems were price takers, not price setters. He was referring to the states Blue Cross Blue Shield plan.The hospital groups say the merger would shift health care from the traditional fee-for-service model of providing high volumes of care for high payments to one focused on a streamlined system aimed at achieving lower costs.The F.T.C.s position is one of protecting the status quo, said Mark R. Neaman, the chief executive of NorthShore.Regulators main concern is former competitors joining forces, said Mr. Gaynor, who is one of the authors of a recent study on health care pricing. He says the paper provides additional evidence that regulators need to enforce existing laws to prevent markets from having too few competitors.But hospitals argue the merger activity is a direct result of the Affordable Care Act.These consolidations are absolutely mandated, said Rob Fuller, a former hospital executive and a lawyer who specializes in antitrust law at Nelson Hardiman in Los Angeles. He argues that the different government branches are sending conflicting signals to hospitals.Ms. Feinstein of the F.T.C. denies there is any conflict. We dont think the A.C.A. and the antitrust laws are in tension with each other at all, she said. Hospitals and doctors can collaborate without merging, and she noted that the agency had not challenged any of the so-called accountable care organizations, which were created to oversee the level of care required and its costs.The F.T.C. has been successful in blocking some hospital mergers, said Matthew L. Cantor, a partner in the law firm of Constantine Cannon in New York. Those wins demonstrate that a hospital merger that is anti-competitive cannot be defended by pointing out that the merger is consistent with the principal purposes of the Affordable Care Act, he said in an email.The agency is seeking an injunction to block the merger, which had been planned for more than a year.Hospital executives contend, however, that their proposals draw more regulatory attention than those planned by big insurance companies. Insurers seem to get a different look-see than the providers, Mr. Neaman said. | Business |
Credit...Gabby Jones for The New York TimesAn experiment under 4,600 feet of Italian rock wasnt immune from the pandemics interruption.Elena Aprile, a dark matter scientist and physics professor at Columbia University, was supposed to return to Italy but has been stranded in Brooklyn.Credit...Gabby Jones for The New York TimesApril 7, 2020Elena Aprile was in a race against time.Her Xenon experiment, one of the worlds largest and most expensive investigations into the nature of dark matter, was coming together beneath Gran Sasso, a mountain in Italy. But Dr. Aprile, a Columbia University physics professor, was stuck in her apartment in Brooklyn as New York entered an indeterminate period of lockdown to contain the spread of the new coronavirus, and she was living on Cheerios and milk, she said.In Italy, about a month into its own lockdown, a skeleton crew was trying to finish assembling her experiments expensive and delicate detector and safely seal it in place deep below the mountains rocks, before the virus brought down the hammer on even this much group activity.What followed was an illustration of how some science is managing to get done during a plague. At stake was perhaps nothing less than the secret of the universe.The dark sideImageCredit...Xenon Dark Matter ProjectAstronomers have reluctantly concluded over the last half-century that most of the matter in the universe is invisible. They suspect that this invisible stuff consists of giant cosmic clouds of subatomic particles called wimps, for weakly interacting massive particles, left over from the Big Bang.Mostly impervious to normal forces like electromagnetism, these particles drift through the world, and through us, like ghosts through a wall.In the quest to spot them, physicists have built a succession of bigger and bigger detectors. But as theyve gained greater and greater clarity, they have seen no wimps, which has created a crisis in physics.In the 1970s and 1980s, fashionable but speculative concepts in particle physics were devised to explain some of the deeper mysteries of fundamental physics. One, supersymmetry, suggested that the universe might be littered with undiscovered particles that could act like dark matter. But over the years, the most promising models of what these particles might have been were slowly crossed out. This leaves many of the mysteries of the universe like why stars are so big and atoms are so small with no plausible explanation.The wimp experiments keep improving. But eventually they could reach a limit called the neutrino floor, becoming so sensitive that they are overwhelmed by neutrinos, ghostly super-elusive particles that flood the universe from the sun, the stars and the Big Bang. Any wimps passing through will be impossible to discern in this sea, and there the wimp search will end.So we have a few more years where this guy can hide, but its not there yet, she said.Dr. Aprile and her team a globe-spanning confederation planned to record the pit-pat of dark matter particles raining into a tank of liquid xenon lined with 500 photomultipliers and other sensors, and placed far underground to shield it from cosmic rays. The hope was that her teams device would spot the rare collision of a wimp with a xenon nucleus, an event she estimated might happen about once a year per ton of xenon.ImageCredit...Stefano Montesi/Corbis, via Getty ImagesImageCredit...Stefano Montesi/Corbis, via Getty ImagesDr. Aprile was reluctant to put a price on the project. An earlier version of the experiment with 3.3 tons of xenon cost $30 million. But that didnt include the people, she said. A big part of the cost is xenon itself, which costs around $2 million per ton, she added. Her new detector will have 8.5 tons.A rival experiment called the LZ Dark Matter Experiment, also using eight tons of xenon, was being assembled in an old gold mine that is now the Sanford Underground Research Facility, in Lead, S.D. And there is a whole alphabet soup of other experiments stashed in old mines and tunnels around the world, with names like PandaX, DarkSide and SuperCDMS.But now coronavirus was infecting even the cosmos. Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, one of the principal scientists of the LZ experiment, said in an email that their project had temporarily been mothballed out of an abundance of caution and to allow personnel to respect shelter in place.Dr. Aprile said, All of us will have delays due to this damn thing. If one of my people gets sick, I will feel so bad.Research on the runDr. Aprile was born in Milan. To say that she lives a peripatetic life would be an understatement. She teaches at Columbia but commutes regularly to LAquila, a town in central Italy near the Gran Sasso National Laboratory, which lies off a tunnel through the mountain of the same name, beneath nearly 4,600 feet of rock.Until March she had been living the typical jet-setting life of particle physicist. In November she attended a physics conference in South Korea. In February, after a brief stop in New York, she was in Italy at Gran Sasso for three days. From there she went to a conference in South Africa, and on to the University of California, San Diego, where she was a visiting professor.Then the universities shut down. Worried about her two daughters, who live in New York, Dr. Aprile returned home. She had planned to return to Gran Sasso in early May after her professorship was done, when they would start testing and running their detector. But the virus had other plans.Stefano Ragazzi, director of the Gran Sasso lab, said that the experiments there are designed to be conducted remotely. As a result, there were only about half a dozen scientists on site in March when the coronavirus hit Italy.It is safer and easier to keep experiments running, rather than shut them off and later switch them back on, he explained, so the labs experiments have continued to operate as they would during the winter holidays.Dr. Ragazzi announced that, to ensure the safety of the people and the equipment, work in Gran Sasso would be limited only to what was necessary.Xenon was amid critical ongoing operations, Dr. Ragazzi said in an email. We asked them to come to a safe stopping point and to pause operations.ImageCredit...Andrea Sabbadini/AlamyImageCredit...Xenon Dark Matter ProjectImageCredit...Xenon Dark Matter ProjectThat stopping point would come once the detector had been sealed in its cryostat a big thermos bottle that could keep the xenon inside at minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit and all the air had been pumped out, Dr. Aprile said: The point is to enclose it in a cryostat, seal it, make it leak-tight. She spoke over the phone after a long day of teleconferencing with Italy.We close this detector for the first time inside this big water tank, she said. Then we spend a few months, if everything goes well, commissioning it to understand how the hell it works. Hopefully it works as you designed. You start to see if theres a signal. And thats when you declare OK, and then you start to work.All did not go well.An important step occurred on March 5, when a team led by Luca Grandi of the University of Chicago installed the detector underground. It had arrived in pieces at Gran Sasso from all over the world, like the pieces of a puzzle, Dr. Aprile said, and had to be assembled in a clean room in a part of the Gran Sasso lab that was aboveground.The finished detector, known as a time projection chamber, is about five feet long and five feet wide, and weighs half a ton without the xenon in it. The team had to rent a special truck and get a police escort to move it to the underground part of the lab, which is accessible through a highway tunnel under the mountain.We didnt realize it would be so hard to handle, Dr. Aprile said.There the detector was installed under the dome of the cryostat. But the cryostat was not ready to be closed. We were almost done, but now we needed special permissions, Dr. Aprile said.Whos in charge there?ImageCredit...Xenon Dark Matter ProjectImageCredit...Gabby Jones for The New York TimesFailure to finish installing the detector would leave the tank open to the air, which would increase the chance of contamination by radon, a radioactive gas found in underground spaces and the main source of contamination in experiments like this one.A minimum of three or four people were needed to handle these final steps. Dr. Aprile had a half-dozen scientists and technicians at the site, so the margin was getting thin. But Dr. Grandi had to leave to teach in Chicago.Dr. Aprile promoted Petr Chaguine, a scientist from Rice University who had been living in Gran Sasso, to direct the team. He reported back to his friends and family in Houston that his Italian colleagues were kindly translating news and new government regulations as they appeared, which was often.For a while, the team members approved by Dr. Ragazzi could car-pool from their homes to the lab. Then the rules changed and they had to drive separately.Another rule required a Glimos Group Leader in Matter of Safety to visit every day to make sure everything was in order. Roberto Corrieri was doing the job, then announced that he would follow governmental instructions and stay home in Assergi; then he changed his mind and stayed. The only other person who could have done the safety inspection had left to join his family in Naples.I did not want to push the boundary if he felt he wanted to stay home, Dr. Aprile said of her conversations with Mr. Corrieri. Luckily he is a good guy and realized that doing it was important for many people, so he agreed to do it.She added, I fear, what happens if the team gets infected or gets hurt. The lab gets the blame."ImageCredit...Masatoshi Kobayashi That left enough people in the lab to continue working. I had to do a lot of encouraging, Dr. Aprile said. It helped that they knew each other, and that there were no strangers on the team: So they were comfortable being close enough to work.On March 20, Dr. Aprile received a photo by email of a pair of her scientists, Masatoshi Kobayashi and Danilo Tatananni. They were garbed much like E.R. doctors, in bunny suits and masks, which are standard apparel for the clean rooms where sensitive scientific gadgets are assembled. The men were standing in front of her detector, which they had just closed up.We did it, the email said.The physicists will now spend two weeks pumping air from the vat, down to a vacuum, at which point it can be monitored remotely. The task of filling the vat with liquid xenon must wait.We cannot test drive our new car, Dr. Aprile said. She was happy and relieved to no longer have to reluctantly urge her colleagues to enter a field of danger.They feel like heroes, she said. Was it worth it? Im wondering myself.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.] | science |
FEB. 14, 2014 After a world record-setting short program performance, Yuzuru Hanyu, a teenager from Japan, fell twice in his free skate but still prevailed. Hanyu fell on the quadruple salchow. Composite image by The New York Times Yuzuru Hanyu Total score: 280.09 Hanyu became the first skater to break 100 points in a short program after receiving high marks for all his jumps, including a quadruple toe loop. But in the long program, he fell on two jumps, including his first one, a quadruple salchow. Adam Leib, a coach and national technical specialist for U.S. Figure Skating, breaks down the competitors performances, jump by jump: 1 Quadruple SalchowHis upper body was out of sync, and he lost his timing in the air, leading to a fall. Base value 10.50 Score 7.50 2 Quadruple Toe LoopHe was rewarded with high marks for athleticism, timing, flow, momentum and height. Composite image by The New York Times Base value 10.30 Score 12.44 Composite image by The New York Times 3 Triple FlipHe took a risk by making a difficult entry into the jump. His upper body turned too early, and he lost control of the landing. Base value 5.30 Score 3.40 4 Triple Axel-Triple Toe LoopHe went full speed and had a high-quality jump. Composite image by The New York Times Base value 13.86 Score 16.29 Composite image by The New York Times 5 Triple Axel-Double Toe LoopAn unusual entry into this combination cost him flow and power. He eked out the double toe loop, which had a weak landing. Base value 10.78 Score 11.07 6 Triple Loop Base value 5.61 Score 5.91 7 Triple Lutz-Single Loop SequenceHe put his foot down for balance after the second jump and did not get credit for a planned third jump, a triple salchow, which would have given him more points. Base value 5.72 Score 5.42 8 Triple Lutz Base value 6.60 Score 7.80 Chans timing was off on his triple axel. Composite image by The New York Times Patrick Chan Total score: 275.62 Trailing Hanyu by four points after the short program, Chan needed a flawless skate to win. But he put his hands to the ice twice, squandering his chance. 1 Quadruple Toe Loop-Triple Toe LoopHe accelerated into the air and continued his flow through his second jump, receiving the highest score possible for this jump combination. Base value 14.40 Score 17.40 2 Quadruple Toe LoopHe exited the jump too late, which forced him to touch the ice to save himself from falling. Composite image by The New York Times Base value 10.30 Score 8.73 Composite image by The New York Times 3 Triple AxelHis timing was off on the take off, and he had to step out of his landing and put his hand on the ice. Base value 8.50 Score 5.93 4 Triple Lutz-Single Loop-Double SalchowThe triple lutz was well executed, but he doubled a planned triple salchow. Composite image by The New York Times Base value 8.58 Score 9.08 Composite image by The New York Times 5 Triple LutzGood height, good flow and an interesting transition earned him extra points. Base value 6.60 Score 7.80 6 Triple Loop Base value 5.61 Score 5.61 7 Triple Flip-Double Toe Loop Base value 7.26 Score 7.86 8 Double AxelHe chose a difficult entry into the double axel, a simple jump, then stepped out of his landing. Base value 3.63 Score 2.63 More on NYTimes.com | Sports |
The company said production could resume in about 2 weeks and store shelves would be restocked several weeks later.Credit...Jeff Kowalsky/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMay 16, 2022The Food and Drug Administration on Monday reached an agreement with Abbott Laboratories on the steps needed to reopen the companys shuttered baby formula plant, which could begin to ease the shortage of infant formula that has frightened and exasperated parents nationwide.The F.D.A. said it expected Abbott to restart production in about two weeks, and was poised to review progress at the plant in Sturgis, Mich. It has been shut down since February after several babies who had consumed formula that had been produced there fell ill and two died.The agreement stems from a U.S. Department of Justice complaint and consent decree with the company and three of its executives. Those court records say the F.D.A. found a deadly bacteria, called cronobacter, in the plant in February and the company found more tranches of the bacteria later that month.According to the complaint, the same Sturgis factory had also produced two batches of formula in the summer of 2019 and 2020 on different production equipment that tested positive for the bacteria.Abbott staff have been unwilling or unable to implement sustainable corrective actions to ensure the safety and quality of food manufactured for infants, leading to the need for legal action, the documents state.In a release, Abbott said there is no conclusive evidence to link Abbotts formulas to these infant illnesses.The company said on Monday that production could begin within about two weeks and could translate to more formula on shelves in six to eight weeks. The company said it will continue flying formula in from a plant in Ireland.The agreement said Abbott must hire a qualified expert to oversee a variety of improvements at the Sturgis facility.As frustration at the crib side and in grocery aisles grew, the agency has been in a race to replenish depleted supplies that have become political fodder for Republicans against the Biden administration.The plant shutdown exacerbated an existing supply crisis, as parents rushed to stock up on formula. With store shelves bare in some communities, some have been so desperate they have fed their infants powdered oatmeal cereal and fruit juice, even though pediatricians say formula or breast milk is a crucial source of nutrition from birth to the first birthday.Susan Mayne, a top F.D.A. food regulator, said on Monday evening the agency issued guidance to spur international formula makers to ship their products to the United States. She said the relaxed import restrictions would be in place for 180 days and the effort could take weeks to bring more product to shelves.In addition to the F.D.A.s actions, Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in an interview on Monday that she planned to introduce a bill that would ease the process of importing infant formula from F.D.A.-regulated foreign plants. She also said she plans to hold hearings in the House to review what went wrong in the run-up to the discovery of the bacteria and shortages.Both the company and the F.D.A. have got to be held accountable in order to move forward, Ms. DeLauro said. She said she had called for investigation by the Health and Human Services inspector general, and invited Abbott to testify at a hearing set for May 25.Problems at the Abbott Sturgis plant surfaced in September during the F.D.A.s first routine inspection there since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Inspectors discovered standing water inside the plant and personnel working directly with formula without proper hand hygiene, according to agency documents.The following month, a whistleblower who worked at the plant filed a complaint under the Food Safety Modernization Act claiming that plant leaders celebrated concealing information from the F.D.A. and omitted key information from official documents.The F.D.A. returned to the plant on Jan. 31 and discovered persistent problems, including the presence of cronobacter bacteria near production lines, according to agency records.The F.D.A. and Abbott shut down manufacturing and issued a wide-ranging recall of Abbotts infant formula on Feb. 17. Since then, supplies have dwindled in stores, setting parents on frantic trips to find formula to feed their babies, some of whom reject a new or unfamiliar taste.The agencys agreement with Abbott requires the company to notify the F.D.A. if it finds contamination and to store any sample of cronobacter it finds for three years. Violations of the agreement could result in daily $30,000 fines capped at $5 million in a year, according to court records.We know millions of parents and caregivers depend on us and were deeply sorry that our voluntary recall worsened the nationwide formula shortage, Robert Ford, Abbotts chief executive, said in a statement. We will work hard to re-earn the trust that moms, dads and caregivers have placed in our formulas for more than 50 years.On Monday morning, the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Robert M. Califf, said on CNN that the agency was working on the supply chain to get the needed formula back on store shelves.We really do anticipate that within, you know, a few weeks we will have things back to normal, Dr. Califf said.Dr. Califf also pushed back on reports about the degree of the shortage. He described the events since the production shutdown as relatively unpredictable consequences. He also said the supply numbers quoted in some reports, which showed formula supplies at 56 percent of normal, were incorrect and said the White House had more accurate figures. White House officials pointed to data from the retail research firm IRI showing the in-stock rate at closer to 80 percent.None of those figures seemed relevant to Angela Coleman, 32, of Sacramento, who found the shelves at a local Target completely stripped of infant formula Monday. She said the only item in stock was toddler formula. She drove 16 miles to a store near her parents home to get the last two cans of the formula favored by her nine-month-old son.You kind of want to buy it whenever you see it because you dont want to be at that point where you run out, she said. Most retail outlets have put limits on formula purchases.Dr. Califf is expected to appear before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday to answer lawmakers questions. He said in the CNN interview that the agency has nine staff members focused on baby formula and was given funds for four more.Were going to need more than that, Dr. Califf said. This is a huge part of the well-being of Americans and our most vulnerable young children, so were very concerned about it. | Health |
VideotranscripttranscriptNewsom and Cox Win California PrimaryGavin Newsom is the Democratic lieutenant governor and former mayor of San Francisco. John Cox is a Republican businessman backed by President Trump. The two will face off in the race for governor in November.A state where we dont criminalize diversity, we celebrate diversity. Where we fuel the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. At the same time, were protecting our environment and protecting our workers. Thats California. Looks like voters will have a real choice this November between a governor whos going to stand up to Donald Trump, and a foot soldier in his war on California. Mark my words Ive never backed down from a fight and neither have you. Mr. Newsom made it clear that he wanted to run against me instead of another Democrat. Well, as I told him in San Jose at the debate: Be careful, Mr. Newsom. Be careful what you wish for. Mr. Newsom and his corrupt cronies they did a bunch of ads touting their opposition to the president. Well, lets send him the very first message. And that is, it wasnt Donald Trump who made California the highest-tax state in the country. It was Gavin Newsom and the Democrats.Gavin Newsom is the Democratic lieutenant governor and former mayor of San Francisco. John Cox is a Republican businessman backed by President Trump. The two will face off in the race for governor in November.CreditCredit...The New York TimesJune 6, 2018LOS ANGELES Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor and former mayor of San Francisco, took a major step Tuesday in his bid to become Californias next governor, capturing one of two spots on the November ballot as the state moved closer to the end of the era of Gov. Jerry Brown.John Cox, a Republican businessman backed by President Trump, captured the other spot, setting up what is at best a very long-shot bid for Mr. Cox in a decidedly Democratic state where Mr. Trump lost by nearly four million votes.Mr. Coxs showing represented a major tactical victory for national Republicans as they seek to protect seven Republican-held congressional seats in California that Democrats are targeting as they try to recapture the House. Republican leaders, including Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader who comes from central California, had feared that having no Republicans running for a high-profile statewide office would diminish turnout among party voters in the fall.Importantly, Democrats seemed poised to avoid the disaster they feared in House races: Being shut out of the November balloting under the states so-called top-two primary system, in which only the top two finishers advance to the general election. But many of the districts had crowded primaries and in some of them votes were still being counted early Wednesday morning.The most-watched races here were seven congressional districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016 and that are now held by Republicans. Democrats are aiming to capture those seats in November, a linchpin of their strategy to take back control of the House.[Here are results from New Jersey and the other states that voted Tuesday.]The November race between Mr. Newsom and Mr. Cox promises to be, in part, a fight over Mr. Trump, and one in which the liberal Democrats who embraced Mr. Newsom have a clear advantage. The election is taking place at a critical time as California is enmeshed in a protracted fight with the Trump administration on range of battlefields, including environmental protections, immigration and offshore oil drilling. And on Tuesday night, both candidates invoked Mr. Trump in dueling remarks to supporters.ImageCredit...Andrew Cullen for The New York TimesIt looks like voters will have a real choice this November between a governor who is going to stand up to Donald Trump and a foot soldier in his war on California, Mr. Newsom told hundreds of supporters at a San Francisco nightclub, as he pledged to push for guaranteed health care for all and a Marshall Plan for affordable housing.Mr. Cox, speaking to friends and donors in San Diego, continually painted Mr. Newsom as part of the status quo and knocked the Democrat's attacks on Mr. Trump.It wasnt Donald Trump that made California the highest-taxed state in the country, it was Gavin Newsom and the Democrats, Mr. Cox said.Running far behind in the governors primary race was Antonio R. Villaraigosa, a Democrat and former Los Angeles mayor.In the race for United States Senate, Dianne Feinstein easily won a spot on the November ballot in what by every indication looks like an easy race this fall no matter who ends up running against her.Among the seven highly competitive House races in California, Democrats battled for months to avoid getting shut out from the November ballot under the states top two election system: The two leading vote-getters, regardless of party, will go on to face each other in November.ImageCredit...Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times[Get live results from all the races in California.]California may be the single most important battleground for Democrats in their drive to claim a majority in Congress. Mr. Trump is intensely unpopular in the state, and broad backlash against his administration could help Democrats seize perhaps a third of the 23 seats they need to regain power.Yet Californias unusual open-primary system has become a difficult obstacle for Democrats, as a horde of candidates on the left have divided up Democratic votes and threatened to let Republicans monopolize the general election.The national Democratic Party has spent millions in California in recent weeks to attack Republican candidates in television ads, aiming to drive down their support and create more space for Democratic candidates to rise. And party leaders in Washington backed Gil Cisneros, a Navy veteran who won the California lottery, and Harley Rouda, a wealthy real estate executive, for a pair of Republican-held districts in Orange County that Mrs. Clinton carried in the presidential election.Both Mr. Cisneros and Mr. Rouda appeared to stand a good chance of making it into the general election, but both races were still too close overnight for the top two finishers to be determined.Voting took place across the state under a cloud of confusion as voters tried to navigate their way through the top two system. And in a potentially unnerving sign for some Democrats, the Los Angeles County clerk revealed Tuesday night that a printing error had improperly left about 119,000 names off voting rosters in the area a development that Mr. Villaraigosa called infuriating as he urged affected voters to cast provisional ballots.Earlier in the day, at Laguna Beach City Hall, Aggie Dougherty had to thumb through the sample ballot packet she carried with her to remember which Democrat she had chosen after more than a dozen candidates inundated the 48th Congressional District with campaign material in their bid to unseat Dana Rohrabacher, a particularly embattled Republican.ImageCredit...Jim Wilson/The New York TimesMs. Dougherty, 67, a bookkeeper, settled on Harley Rouda, the candidate endorsed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Still, as she went into the voting booth, she realized she had to check to remember whom she had picked off the long list of Democrats.Oh, right, she said. Harley.Turnout appeared light during much of the day. A June primary historically has not drawn voters to the polls in particularly high numbers even one that has drawn this kind of national attention. About 2.5 million votes had been received by mail as of Tuesday. (California voters are permitted to vote by mail through the end of Election Day.) Which is not to say the candidates were not trying to pique voters interest.I literally could not go through my work day without getting flooded with calls, said Tim Cain, 52, a video game developer in Orange County. I basically said, my phone is no longer available.With voting in progress, Mr. Trump prodded California conservatives to support Mr. Cox again on Tuesday morning, promising on Twitter that the long-shot Republican would make a BIG difference as governor. And the president encouraged Republicans to turn out in the congressional elections, offering a version of the argument his party is expected to deliver across the country this fall: Keep our country out of the hands of High Tax, High Crime Nancy Pelosi.Mr. Cox repeatedly aligned himself with Mr. Trump in his remarks to supporters Tuesday night. Even his closing message carried a slight echo of Mr. Trumps Make America Great Again campaign slogan: Lets together make California the Golden State once again.Robert DeRose, a close friend of Mr. Cox, said he believed the Republican could win in November if he made it to the general election. Mr. DeRose contended that dissatisfaction with taxes would lead many voters to support Mr. Cox.ImageCredit...Andrew Cullen for The New York TimesThis state chases businesspeople away, people like me, Mr. DeRose said.In the governors race, Mr. Newsom, 50, had long been viewed as a leading candidate to replace Mr. Brown, a Democrat retiring at the end of the year. He has spent much of the past 15 years preparing for this moment, and that was evident in the strength of his fund-raising and a broad base of support on Tuesday.But it was a somber night for Mr. Villaraigosa, who campaigned energetically and had a huge burst of financial support from fellow supporters of charter schools, including Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, and Eli Broad, the Los Angeles philanthropist.In an emotional concession speech that seemed aimed at unifying his party, Mr. Villaraigosa congratulated Mr. Newsom and Mr. Cox and encouraged his supporters to get behind the winner.Gavin, thank you for caring enough about this state to put your hat in the ring, to run for governor in this state, Mr. Villaraigosa, flanked by his family, told a crowd of supporters.The contest for governor marks the end of a long chapter in California history. Mr. Brown, 80, is stepping down because of term limits. He has served two terms now and two terms in the 1970s and leaves office popular and generally respected. But Mr. Brown has struck a decidedly moderate note during his years in Sacramento he was well known for pushing back at what he saw as excesses by the Legislature when it came to spending or lawmaking at a time when energy in the Democratic Party was moving to the left.For the general election, the map of important congressional races in California extends well beyond the Southern California seats where Democrats feared a top two fiasco. The party is also choosing candidates to oppose vulnerable Republicans in the Central Valley and elsewhere in the suburbs around Los Angeles, where Mr. Trumps policies on immigration, taxes and health care have put sitting lawmakers in deep peril.Anneliese Gelberg, 21, wanted to vote for Jess Phoenix, one of three female Democratic candidates running for the House seat in Californias 25th Congressional District north of Los Angeles. For one, Ms. Gelberg said, she was more inclined to vote for women. She also liked Ms. Phoenixs policies.But rather than casting her vote for Ms. Phoenix on Tuesday, she said she voted for one of Ms. Phoenixs competitors Bryan Caforio.I knew that she didnt have a lot of backing or support, Ms. Gelberg said, over a lunch of grilled cheese and fries. In the end, she added, she wanted a Democrat to beat the Republican incumbent, Steve Knight, and she thought Mr. Caforio had a better chance. | Politics |
Credit...Tobias Schwarz/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesDec. 10, 2015WOLFSBURG, Germany The chairman of Volkswagen said on Thursday that the decision by employees to cheat on emissions tests was made more than a decade ago, after they realized they could not meet United States clean air standards legally.Hans-Dieter Ptsch, the chairman of Volkswagens supervisory board, said the cheating took place in a climate of lax ethical standards.There was a tolerance for breaking the rules, Mr. Ptsch said here on Thursday during his first lengthy news conference since the company admitted in September that 11 million cars with diesel engines were rigged to fool emissions tests. The fallout from that decision has confronted Volkswagen with the biggest test in its history, Mr. Ptsch said.Mr. Ptsch and Matthias Mller, the chief executive of Volkswagen, presented the results so far of an internal inquiry that is still underway. Although the company is not ready to identify culprits, the preliminary findings confirmed widespread suspicion that the scandal occurred because the companys ambitions in the United States collided with air quality rules that were, and still are, more stringent than Europes.And the companys disclosures on Thursday, along with interviews with industry experts and some former executives, helped connect some pieces of a sequence of decisions and events that played out over the course of 10 years,It proves not to have been a one-time error, but rather a chain of errors that were allowed to happen, Mr. Ptsch said on Thursday.The wrongdoing began in 2005, Volkswagen said, when the company decided to make diesel cars the focus of its United States marketing. Volkswagen saw diesel, which it promoted as delivering superior fuel economy and acceleration, as a way to set itself apart from competitors.In the years that preceded a marketing push that began with the 2009 model year, there was an intense internal debate about what kind of emissions technology to use, according to a former executive who was involved and asked not to be identified because he did not want to offend Volkswagen.Some Volkswagen managers argued in favor of using a technology called selective catalytic reduction, or S.C.R. That method uses a urea chemical solution, sold commercially as AdBlue, which neutralizes nitrogen oxide emissions without a penalty in fuel economy or performance.Those managers argued that only S.C.R. technology would allow Volkswagen to keep pace with ever stricter limits on emissions of nitrogen oxide, which have been linked to lung ailments.Some other carmakers, including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, use S.C.R., which experts say is effective. But it costs more, adds weight to the car and takes up more space than other methods. It is particularly difficult to squeeze such systems into compact cars like the Golf or Jetta, which are among Volkswagens best-selling models in the United States.In addition, the tank that holds the chemical must be refilled periodically. That creates an inconvenience and expense for customers, especially in the United States. Until this year, regulations in the United States prohibited drivers from refilling the tanks themselves. They had to go to a dealer or service station.Its a small chemical factory, Thomas Schlick, a partner at the German management consultancy Roland Berger, who specializes in the automotive industry, said of S.C.R. systems. Its an additional system with no value for the customer.Some of the Volkswagen executives who advocated an S.C.R. system were sidelined or pushed out of the company. Instead, beginning with the 2009 model year, Volkswagen sold cars in the United States that had 2-liter diesel motors equipped with so-called lean NOX traps. (NOX is shorthand for nitrogen oxide.) The device sponges up nitrogen oxide particles and typically costs several hundred dollars less than an S.C.R. system.The NOX traps do not require a chemical that must be refilled. But they tend to be less reliable at controlling emissions, according to a study published in October by the International Council on Clean Transportation, an environmental group that played a pivotal role in uncovering Volkswagens cheating.In addition, the NOX traps cut fuel economy by as much as 4 percent. The penalty in fuel economy suggests another reason Volkswagen employees may have programmed cars to have the emissions controls fully engaged during emissions tests, but dialed back during normal driving. On the open road, some spot checks have found, the Volkswagen diesels could spew more than 40 times the allowable limit of nitrogen oxide.In 2007, Volkswagen executives declared their determination to overtake Toyota as the largest carmaker in the world and were eager for any competitive edge.Volkswagen eventually phased in S.C.R. systems in models sold in the United States. Larger vehicles like the Touareg S.U.V. and Audi Q7 had them from the beginning of Volkswagens diesel push in 2009. The Passat sedan got an S.C.R. system in 2012.But the Golf, Jetta, and Beetle did not get the chemical systems until 2015, according to certification documents filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.Vehicles with the chemical systems should have been able to pass emission tests without a penalty in fuel economy. Yet, Volkswagen continued to equip those cars with defeat devices designed to detect when the cars were being tested and to turn up emissions controls. Apparently, people inside the company were trying to avoid the need to refill the cars with the urea chemical solutions in between regular service checks. And so, the company programmed the cars to use less urea than needed to contain nitrogen oxide emissions, except when the car was undergoing testing.Volkswagen is in talks with regulators in the United States about how to make about 500,000 diesel cars it sold there comply with clean air rules. Mr. Mller said on Thursday that he was optimistic that a technical solution would be announced in the coming days.While Volkswagen has figured a way to resolve the emissions problem in Europe at relatively low cost, the United States stricter limits on nitrogen oxide emissions has made a solution harder to devise.One of the complications is that 320,000 of the cars in the United States are equipped with the first generation of the engine, known as the EA 189, that is at the heart of the scandal. Those early EA 189 motors have the less sophisticated NOX traps, and it would be difficult to fit them with the S.C.R. systems.The solution, Volkswagen executives suggested on Thursday, may be a more effective NOX trap, taking advantage of recent advances in technology.Volkswagen on Thursday continued to maintain the companys account that the cheating was the work of a relatively small number of people. It said that nine people had been suspended as a result of the scandal, one more than had previously been disclosed. But the company said it could not disclose any names until the evidence was watertight.Mr. Mller and Mr. Ptsch conceded that the deception reflected organizational shortcomings.For example, the people who developed the software were the same ones who approved it for use in vehicles. At other companies, it is standard practice for one team to develop components and another to check them for quality. Volkswagen said it would correct those procedures.Mr. Mller also said he wanted to change the companys culture so that there was better communication among employees and more willingness to discuss problems. His predecessor, Martin Winterkorn, who resigned after the scandal, was criticized for creating a climate of fear that made managers afraid to admit mistakes.We dont need yes men, Mr. Mller said, but managers and engineers who make good arguments. | Business |
Credit...J. Torres PhotographyJune 9, 2017Isabelle Rapin, a Swiss-born child neurologist who helped establish autisms biological underpinnings and advanced the idea that autism was part of a broad spectrum of disorders, died on May 24 in Rhinebeck, N.Y. She was 89.The cause was pneumonia, said her daughter Anne Louise Oaklander, who is also a neurologist.Calling her one of the founding mothers of autism is very appropriate, said Dr. Thomas Frazier II, a clinical psychologist and chief science officer of Autism Speaks, an advocacy group for people with autism and their families. With the gravity she carried, she moved us into a modern understanding of autism.Dr. Rapin (pronounced RAP-in) taught at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and over a half-century there built a reputation for rigorous scholarship. She retired in 2012 but continued working at her office and writing journal papers. The neurologist Oliver Sacks, a close friend and colleague, called her his scientific conscience.In his autobiography, On the Move: A Life (2015), Dr. Sacks wrote: Isabelle would never permit me, any more than she permitted herself, any loose, exaggerated, uncorroborated statements. Give me the evidence, she always says.Dr. Rapins focus on autism evolved from her studies of communications and metabolic disorders that cause mental disabilities and diminish childrens ability to navigate the world. For decades she treated deaf children, whose difficulties in communicating limited their path to excelling in school and forced some into institutions.Communications disorders were the overarching theme of my mothers career, Dr. Oaklander said in an interview.In a short biography written for the Journal of Child Neurology in 2001, Dr. Rapin recalled a critical moment in her work on autism. After evaluating hundreds of autistic children, she wrote, I became convinced that the report by one-third of parents of autistic preschoolers, of a very early language and behavioral regression, is real and deserving of biologic investigation.Along the way, she helped debunk the myth that emotionally cold mothers were to blame for their childrens autism, and advocated early educational intervention for autistic children, with a focus on their abilities, not their disabilities. She also popularized the use of the term autism spectrum disorder, which refers to a wide range of symptoms and their severity.She would never let us say that autism is a single disorder, Dr. Mark F. Mehler, chairman of the department of neurology at Einstein, said in an interview. She always said there were a thousand different causes.Isabelle Martha Juliette Rapin was born on Dec. 4, 1927, in Lausanne, Switzerland, to Ren Rapin, a professor of English and American literature at the University of Lausanne, and the former Mary Coe Reeves, a Connecticut-born homemaker who graduated from Vassar.Fascinated by science, Isabelle decided at age 10 that she would be a doctor. And when she entered medical school at the University of Lausanne in 1946, she was one of about a dozen women in a class of 100 students. After six weeks of study at the Hpital des Enfants Malades in Paris in 1951, she left determined to be a child neurologist.She immigrated to the United States in 1953 to work in pediatrics at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. A year later she started a residency at the Neurological Institute of New York at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. In 1958, she moved on to Albert Einstein in the Bronx.In addition to her daughter, Dr. Rapin is survived by her husband, Harold Oaklander; two sons, Stephen and Peter; a second daughter, Christine Oaklander; and four grandchildren.In a twist on social convention, Mr. Oaklander subordinated some of his career ambitions he is a former associate dean at Pace Universitys graduate school of business to let his wife advance hers.Rather than taking an industrial or teaching job outside of New York after he got his Ph.D. from Columbia University, she wrote, my husband accepted a faculty position in the graduate school of a less prestigious university than mine because he knew I could not bear the thought of leaving Albert Einstein College of Medicine.Over the years, Dr. Rapin became a mentor to other female neurologists.She was the person to turn to to get your grounding in how to start and what to do, said Dr. Martha Denckla, a professor of neurology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. Youd just go to a national meeting and listen to her.Dr. Nina F. Schor, the chairwoman of the pediatrics department at the University of Rochester Medical Center, recalled in an interview: She looked and comported herself as the very dignified professor. Old-school with a European persona. She stood ramrod straight, looked down her wire-rim glasses at you, and you thought, Oh, no, Im in trouble now. But in meeting Dr. Rapin over coffee, Dr. Schor said, she found her quite delightful; shed just had a new grandchild and was eager to show off the pictures.Dr. Mehler, a former student of Dr. Rapins, said he had often sat with her at the Einstein library, discussing science, until it shut down at midnight.She was surrounded by intellectual giants, who were all men, and she always paid them deference, he said. I dont know if she ever realized that she was very much their equal. | science |
Politics|Heres what Trumps cabinet members have said about the storming of the Capitol.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/heres-what-trumps-cabinet-members-have-said-about-the-storming-of-the-capitol.htmlCredit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesJan. 8, 2021All of President Trumps cabinet secretaries condemned the violent mob that stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday. Some pointed to the president for inciting the violence, and two cabinet members resigned. Heres what they said:Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement released hours after the melee, said, The storming of the U.S. Capitol today is unacceptable. Lawlessness and rioting here or around the world is always unacceptable.Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting attorney general, called the violence an intolerable attack on a fundamental institution of our democracy in a statement on Wednesday. On Thursday, Mr. Rosen added that law enforcement officials were working to find, arrest and charge those who breached the Capitol.The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that those responsible for this attack on our government and the rule of law face the full consequences of their actions.We will continue to methodically assess evidence, charge crimes and make arrests in the coming days and weeks to ensure that those responsible are held accountable under the law.Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary, wrote in a statement on Thursday that he supported a peaceful transition of power to President-elect Biden on Jan. 20.Yesterdays violence at the Capitol was reprehensible and contrary to the tenets of the United States Constitution.Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned on Thursday night. She condemned the violence in the immediate aftermath on Wednesday, writing that an angry mob cannot be allowed to attack our Capitol.The peaceful transfer of power is what separates American representative democracy from banana republics.The work of the people must go on.Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao resigned on Thursday. She was the first cabinet official to join a growing exodus of administration officials in the final days of the Trump presidency.Our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed, Ms. Chao wrote in a letter posted on Twitter. It has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.Chad F. Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary, denounced the presidents supporters who participated in the riot and called on Mr. Trump to more forcefully condemn them.What transpired yesterday was tragic and sickening, Mr. Wolf wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. We now see some supporters of the president using violence as a means to achieve political ends.Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will remain in his post and carry out his responsibilities until the inauguration, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Mr. Mnuchin, who was traveling in Israel on Thursday, condemned the violence but made no mention of the president. These actions are unacceptable and must stop, he said.Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross tweeted a six-word statement in the hours after the riot on Wednesday: Violence is never the proper solution.Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette condemned what he called a tragic event in our Nations Capitol.Politically-motivated violence, regardless of ideology or cause, must always be condemned in the strongest possible terms, he wrote on Twitter. No American should excuse wanton disregard for one of our Nations most sacred institutions.Health Secretary Alex M. Azar II wrote on Twitter that people must immediately and peacefully disperse.I am disgusted by the attack on the Capitol we witnessed today. Physical violence and the desecration of this hallowed symbol of our democracy must end.Housing Secretary Ben Carson also posted on Twitter calling for an end to the violence.Violence is never an appropriate response regardless of legitimate concerns. Please remember: if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.Interior Secretary David Bernhardt condemned the violence and praised the actions of the U.S. Park Police, an agency in his department, on Twitter on Wednesday.Todays violence and lawlessness at the U.S. Capitol cannot and will not be tolerated.Thank you U.S. Park Police for always fulfilling your selfless duties to safeguard lives and protect our symbols of democracy.Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia on Wednesday called the attack a low point in the history of our democracy. We must immediately rise above this.Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said to reporters in Georgia that he was disappointed in the president for inciting the mob, adding it was not the right thing to do.Im very discouraged by the people who were there that felt compelled to breach the Capitol and do the things they did.Were going to go forward as America. We have a new president.Robert L. Wilkie, the secretary of veterans affairs, wrote on Twitter Friday: Our #Veterans fought to defend the freedoms that were attacked this week. The assault on the Capitol is an affront to all who have worn the uniform. | Politics |
Dec. 9, 2015Senators from both parties on Wednesday denounced huge overnight price increases for decades-old drugs that have been made by some pharmaceutical companies lately, calling them unconscionable and detrimental to patients.These companies are to ethical pharmaceutical companies as a loan shark is to a bank, said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, quoting an unnamed industry specialist with whom she had spoken. She discussed the matter at a hearing of the Senates Special Committee on Aging, which she leads.The hearing focused on two companies in particular, Turing Pharmaceuticals, which acquired an old drug for a parasitic infection and raised the price to $750 a pill from $13.50, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, which has sharply increased the prices of various drugs it has acquired, including two used by hospitals to treat serious heart conditions.The chief executives of these companies were not at the hearing, but that did not stop them from being criticized. Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the committee, mocked Martin Shkreli, the chief executive of Turing, by calling him Mr. Wu-Tang. That was a reference to the news that Mr. Shkreli, 32, a former hedge fund manager, was revealed as the mystery buyer of the only known copy of a new album by Wu-Tang Clan. Most of the hearing, which was described as the first in a series, was devoted to looking at the impact of the sudden price increases on doctors, patients and hospitals.Erin R. Fox, director of the drug information service at University of Utah Health Care, said that the price of Isuprel, a heart drug acquired by Valeant early this year, was now $2,700 a vial compared with $440 before the acquisition and $50 two years ago. The hospital system would have had to spend $1.6 million extra a year just on that drug, she said, unless it curtailed it use.So Isuprel was removed from the crash carts that are used in emergencies, Ms. Fox said, though it is still available from the pharmacy if doctors really need it. Our physicians are incredibly frustrated that they have to think twice about using the drug, she said.Dr. David Kimberlin, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, recounted a case in which a baby needed Daraprim, the drug acquired by Turing, which increased its price to $750 a pill. Daraprim, acquired in August, treats toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can cause blindness and brain damage.Since Daraprim is a pill, it had to be turned into a liquid form that a baby could swallow. But the compounding pharmacy the hospital relied on to do that could not obtain the drug because of new restrictions Turing had placed on distribution. The huge price increase, which would bring the cost of a yearlong course of treatment for a baby to more than $69,000 from $1,200, was also a deterrent.Babies lives literally hang in the balance here, Dr. Kimberlin said. He said that infectious disease societies had surveyed members and found more than 30 cases in which people had trouble obtaining Daraprim promptly.In a statement, Turing said it was committed to developing innovative therapies and was making sure that no patient was denied access to Daraprim. Valeant said in a statement that broad conclusions about the companys pricing cannot be drawn from any one drug and that most hospitals use small amounts of Isuprel, limiting any impact of price increases. Ms. Fox and others who testified said that companies like Turing and Valeant were able to increase prices so rapidly because of a lack of competition in the market for generic drugs, which stemmed in part from consolidation in that industry. The lack of competition plus manufacturing problems have led to shortages and price increases for antibiotics, anesthetics and some other drugs that are more widely used than Daraprim and Isuprel.Various suggestions were made for dealing with the issue. Gerard Anderson, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the Food and Drug Administration should expedite approval of generic drugs for economic reasons.Daraprim and Isuprel have no patent protection but there are no generic competitors either, because the market was small until the big price hikes. If a generic company wanted to enter now, it could take two to three years to get F.D.A. approval. But if that time could be reduced to six months, it would provide a deterrent to huge price hikes, he said.Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefit manager, is encouraging use of an alternative to Daraprim that is made by a compounding pharmacy and sells for about $1 a pill. But witnesses at the hearing were reluctant to recommend more use of compounding to save money because such drugs are not approved by the F.D.A. and have had safety issues in the past.Compounding should not be a blanket, one-size-fits-all solution, said Ms. Fox of the University of Utah.Mark Merritt, chief of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents pharmacy benefit managers, called for a watch list of drugs with no generic competition that would be vulnerable to huge price increases. He said there were about 200 such drugs.The hedge funds have these lists, the government may as well too, he said. | Business |
Credit...Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJuly 1, 2021The Delta variant, which is now responsible for most coronavirus infections in England, is not driving a surge in the rate of hospitalizations there, according to data released by Public Health England on Thursday.Although the number of coronavirus infections has risen sharply in recent weeks, hospitalization rates remain low. Between June 21 and June 27, the weekly hospitalization rate was 1.9 per 100,000 people, the same as it was the previous week. The hospitalization rate has increased slightly over the past month, rising from 1.1 admissions per 100,000 people in early June, according to the agencys data. But it remains considerably lower than during Englands surge last winter, when the hospitalization rate peaked at more than 35 admissions per 100,000 people. The data suggest that countries with high vaccination rates are unlikely to see major surges in hospitalization rates from Delta. Nearly 75 percent of adults in England including 95 percent of those who are 80 or older have had at least one shot, according to the agencys numbers.Earlier this month, England had delayed its plans to reopen after Delta caused a spike in new cases.Case rates are highest among young adults, who are the least likely to be vaccinated, Public Health England reported. (Among those under 40, just 34 percent have been at least partially vaccinated.) Young people are less likely to develop severe Covid-19, which could explain why the spread of Delta has not resulted in a wave of hospitalizations.Breakthrough infections, or those that occur in people who are fully vaccinated, tend to cause mild or no symptoms.At a separate news conference on Thursday, the European Medicines Agency noted that vaccination should provide good protection against Delta.We are aware of the concerns that are caused by the rapid spread of the Delta variant and all the variants, Marco Cavaleri, the head of biological health threats and vaccine strategy at the agency, said at the briefing. Given the research that has been done so far, the four vaccines that are approved in the European Union Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Jonson all seem to protect against the Delta variant, he said.In one recent study, for instance, researchers found that the Pfizer vaccine was 88 percent effective at protecting against symptomatic disease caused by Delta, a performance that nearly matches its 95 percent effectiveness against the original version of the virus. A single dose of the vaccine, however, is much less effective.Expediting vaccination and maintaining public health measures remain very important tools to fight the pandemic, Dr. Cavaleri said. In particular, making sure that vulnerable and elderly people complete their vaccination course as soon as possible is paramount. | Health |
Bernard Warns Gisele Wear A Disguise In Minnesota ... Philly Fans Are Wild 1/31/2018 TMZSports.com Listen up Gisele -- legendary boxer Bernard Hopkins has some advice on how to deal with those unruly Philly fans when you get to Minnesota ... and it's basically not to be Gisele. We got Hopkins -- a Philly legend -- out at LAX and asked him how the notoriously outspoken Mrs. Bndchen should handle herself Super Bowl weekend around his Eagles people. NOTE: Eagles fans are freakin' crazy, having actually assaulted Santa Claus on one occasion. B-Hop had a very simple idea for Gisele, utilizing a skill she's used to ... playing dress-up. "You got to camouflage yourself so you won't be noticed. Cause Philly, no matter where we go we make that Philly." Take the help Gisele ... and keep your head on a swivel. | Entertainment |
Health|The C.D.C. releases new guidance that will allow localities to ease masking and social distancing.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/health/the-cdc-releases-new-guidance-that-will-allow-localities-to-ease-masking-and-social-distancing.htmlCredit...Amir Hamja for The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2022The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday offered a new strategy to help communities across the country live with the coronavirus and get back to some version of normal life.The new guidelines suggest that 70 percent of Americans can now stop wearing masks, and no longer need to social distance or avoid crowded indoor spaces.The recommendations no longer rely only on the number of cases in a community to determine the need for restrictions such as mask wearing. Instead, they direct counties to consider three measures to assess risk of the virus: new Covid-related hospital admissions over the previous week and the percentage of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients, as well as new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people over the previous week. New reported cases by day 7day average 26,804 Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government. Based on these three factors, counties can calculate whether the risk to their residents is low, medium or high, according to the agency, and only areas of high risk should require everyone to wear a mask. But unvaccinated people should wear masks even in low-risk areas, the agency said.Universal masking in schools had been endorsed by the agency since July, regardless of virus levels in the community, but the new guidelines recommend masking in schools only in counties at high risk.The new guidelines are being released as the coronavirus is in retreat across the country. Case numbers have dropped to levels not seen before the surge of the Omicron variant, and hospitalizations have been plummeting. About 58,000 people are hospitalized with Covid nationwide, but those numbers have fallen by about 44 percent in the past two weeks.Several experts said the new guidelines were appropriate for the countrys current situation. Although the number of cases nationwide is still high, were well past the surge, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech. We dont need to be operating in emergency mode anymore.But many places have already shed pandemic restrictions. Most states have eased rules for mask-wearing, and some, like New Jersey, have announced plans to lift mandates even in schools. Others are poised to end indoor mask mandates in the coming weeks. An official recommendation from the C.D.C. may hold some sway in districts that have been more cautious.Under the C.D.C.s previous criteria, 95 percent of the counties in the United States were considered high risk. Using the new criteria, fewer than 30 percent of Americans are living in areas with a high level of risk, the agency said.The new set of guidelines gives people a framework for adapting precautions as virus levels change, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C.s director, told reporters on Friday.We want to give people a break from things like masking when our levels are low, and then have the ability to reach for them again should things get worse in the future, she said. We need to be prepared and we need to be ready for whatever comes next. | Health |
Justin Bieber No-Show at Grammys Not 'Til My New Album's Done! 1/26/2018 Justin Bieber isn't gonna show his mug at the Grammy Awards again -- or any other award shows for that matter -- until he's got something new to show for it ... HIS NEXT ALBUM!!! Sources tell us Bieber is skipping the 2018 Grammys -- just like he did last year -- despite the fact a hugely popular song on which he was featured last year is up for a number of awards. Bieber will not perform alongside Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee Sunday for their performance of "Despacito" -- which has been nominated for 3 Grammys ... Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. We're told Bieber loves Luis and Daddy, but he's passing on the performance because he doesn't want to make appearances until he finishes his new album. That's big news. We didn't know Bieber had new music in the works, but he does. He'll presumably use award shows like the Grammys to promote the new tracks when they're ready, but not before. Justin previously was a no-show at the Grammys because he didn't think it was relevant or representative of the music fans really liked. But hey ... business is business. | Entertainment |
Credit...Joshua Roberts/ReutersJune 24, 2018WASHINGTON Congress and the Trump administration are revamping Medicare to provide extra benefits to people with multiple chronic illnesses, a significant departure from the programs traditional focus that aims to create a new model of care for millions of older Americans.The changes reflected in a new law and in official guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services tackle a vexing and costly problem in American health care: how to deal with long-term illnesses that can build on one another, and the social factors outside the reach of traditional medicine that can contribute to them, like nutrition, transportation and housing.To that end, the additional benefits can include social and medical services, home improvements like wheelchair ramps, transportation to doctors offices and home delivery of hot meals.The new law is a rare instance of bipartisan cooperation on a major policy initiative, embraced by members of Congress from both parties. The changes are also supported by Medicare officials and insurance companies that operate the fast-growing Medicare Advantage plans serving one-third of the 60 million Medicare beneficiaries.This is a way to update and strengthen Medicare, said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and an architect of the law, the Chronic Care Act, which was included in budget legislation signed recently by President Trump. It begins a transformational change in the way Medicare works for seniors who suffer from chronic conditions. More of them will be able to receive care at home, so they can stay independent and out of the hospital.Half of Medicare patients are treated for five or more chronic conditions each year, and they account for three-fourths of Medicare spending, according to Kenneth E. Thorpe, the chairman of the health policy department at Emory University.Under the new law and Trump administration policy, most of the new benefits will be reserved for Medicare Advantage plans, which will be able to offer additional benefits tailored to the needs of people with conditions like diabetes, Alzheimers, Parkinsons disease, heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis and some types of cancer.This is a big win for patients, said Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.Officials hope that combining social and medical services will produce better outcomes for patients and save money for Medicare.An inexpensive railing in the bath can avoid a fall that can cause a hip fracture and potential complications, said David Sayen, who worked at the Medicare agency for 37 years.Treatment for a broken hip, including hospital care and follow-up services, can easily cost Medicare more than $20,000, and the costs are much higher in some regions than in others.Medicare plans could also reduce co-payments and deductibles for people who receive treatment for a particular medical condition from certain recommended doctors, hospitals or other health care providers.Mr. Sayen said the new federal policy gave health plans a whole new toolbox to address social determinants of health.Although Medicare Advantage plans will wield most of the tools, their experience will be useful to policymakers who want to extend similar benefits to people in the rest of Medicare.Medicare Advantage plans must cover all the services that the original Medicare program covers except hospice care, and many offer extra benefits as well. Until now, the government has generally required each Medicare plan to offer the same benefits with the same cost-sharing to all beneficiaries.ImageCredit...Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergThe Trump administration has reinterpreted the uniformity requirement to allow different supplemental benefits for people with different medical needs. Congress went further and allowed Medicare officials to waive those requirements for patients with chronic illnesses.Moreover, Congress allowed Medicare plans to offer a wider array of supplemental benefits to the chronically ill, eliminating the current requirement that the extra benefits must be primarily health-related.John G. Lovelace, the president of government programs at UPMC Health Plan in Pittsburgh, said the extra benefits could include visits by a personal assistant to help with bathing and dressing; visits by a nurse or a pharmacist to make sure a Medicare beneficiary with a dozen prescriptions is taking the right medicines; and special supervised housing for a person with dementia who cannot be left alone.John K. Gorman, a former Medicare official who is a consultant to many insurers, predicted rapid growth in the use of high-tech pill dispensing machines, remote monitoring of homebound people and telehealth services to connect patients with doctors hundreds of miles away.The Chronic Care Act provides new financial incentives for the use of telehealth services, including coverage for stroke patients in traditional Medicare as well as Medicare Advantage.Sue Nelson, a vice president of the American Heart Association, said these provisions could help tens of thousands of stroke patients every year, increasing survival rates and reducing disability and the need for rehabilitation and nursing home care.Many hospitals do not have stroke experts readily available. But under the new law, Medicare will pay for consultation with a neurologist at a distant location, using special medical equipment for videoconferencing. The doctor can review CT scan images and recommend treatments, including the use of highly effective clot-busting drugs.Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, the chief of stroke services at Massachusetts General Hospital, said Medicare could also pay neurologists to evaluate patients with stroke symptoms while they were in an ambulance. The doctors could then direct paramedics to the most appropriate hospital.David M. Certner, the legislative policy director of AARP, the lobby for older Americans, said his group supports the idea of allowing greater coverage for supplemental benefits, including nonmedical services that can improve care. We believe such coverage should be available under both Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare, he said.Defining eligibility and limiting the scope of benefits in traditional Medicare could be a challenge. But Eva H. DuGoff, a health services researcher at the University of Maryland, said, We can learn from Medicare Advantage plans which services have the most benefits for which populations.Sarah L. Szanton, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, developed an experimental program that provided 1,000 low-income Medicare beneficiaries with extra services, including several visits from a nurse, an occupational therapist and a handyman who did minor home repairs and modifications. These services, she said, saved Medicare an average of $22,000 over two years for each beneficiary, keeping people safe at home and avoiding hospital and nursing home admissions.Hundreds of thousands of people miss doctors appointments each year because they do not have reliable transportation.Lauren Belive, the director of federal government relations for Lyft, the ride-sharing service, said her company was eager to meet that need for Medicare patients.Lyft formed a partnership last year with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association to provide rides to people who have health insurance but no convenient way to get to doctors and clinics.Nonprofit groups like Meals on Wheels are also prepared to play a larger role, not only delivering meals but also checking on the health and safety of frail older people and providing potentially useful clinical information to health plans.We can be the eyes and ears inside the home to observe if theres a change in the condition of the seniors we serve, said Ellie Hollander, the president and chief executive of Meals on Wheels America.The Chronic Care Act was a bipartisan project from the start, conceived by Mr. Wyden and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, working with Senators Johnny Isakson of Georgia, a Republican, and Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat. | Politics |