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Kyrie on All-Star Draft: What If LeBron Doesn't Pick Me?! ... Here's What I Think 1/23/2018 TMZSports.com With LeBron James and Steph Curry picking the teams for the NBA All-Star game, we asked Kyrie Irving if he'd be upset if his old teammate didn't pick him first. Ya gotta see what Kyrie says when we spotted him at Delilah in West Hollywood. For the record, Irving is having a killer season with the Boston Celtics -- averaging 24.5 points per game and carrying the team on his back. He's definitely an MVP candidate. So, Bron's GOTTA pick him first, right?! We'll see ... Kyrie also talks about the Super Bowl -- and despite the fact he plays in Boston, he explains why he's not going all in on the Patriots. And his answer makes sense. | Entertainment |
Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesMarch 13, 2017ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands Like many Muslims, Ahmed Aboutaleb has been disturbed by the angry tenor of the Dutch election campaign. Far-right candidates have disparaged Islam, often depicting Muslims as outsiders unwilling to integrate into Dutch culture.It is especially jarring for Mr. Aboutaleb, given that he is the mayor of Rotterdam, a fluent Dutch speaker and one of the countrys most popular politicians. Nor is he alone: The speaker of the Dutch Parliament is Muslim. The Netherlands also has Muslim social workers, journalists, comedians, entrepreneurs and bankers.Theres a feeling that if there are too many cultural influences from other parts of the world, then what does that mean for our Dutch traditions and culture? said Mr. Aboutaleb, whose city, the Netherlands second largest, is 15 percent to 20 percent Muslim and home to immigrants from 174 countries.Wednesdays elections will begin Europes year of political reckoning. The Dutch race, coming ahead of others in France, Germany and possibly Italy, will be the first test of Europes threshold for tolerance as populist parties rise by attacking the European Union and immigration, making nationalistic calls to preserve distinct local cultures.It is an especially striking gauge of the strength of anti-establishment forces that such calls are falling on receptive ears even in the Netherlands, a country that for generations has seen successive waves of Muslim immigration. If anything, the Netherlands is a picture of relatively successful assimilation, especially when compared with nearby France or Belgium.In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, one of the most stridently anti-Muslim politicians in Europe, recently described some Moroccans as scum. His Party for Freedom is expected to be one of three to receive the most votes, challenging the center-right government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.If barriers exist, many Muslims like Mr. Aboutaleb, 55, who arrived in this low-lying country from a mountain village in Morocco when he was a teenager, speaking hardly a word of Dutch say that hard work is nonetheless rewarded. But Mr. Aboutalebs extraordinary success story, and sense that he was given many opportunities by the Netherlands, is more characteristic of an earlier generation.ImageCredit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThere is no doubt that religious prejudice is on the rise in response to both the more recent influx of Muslim immigrants and growing fears of terrorism in Europe. Both are readily manipulated by politicians, who promote the idea that there are now so many nonwhite, non-Christians in the Netherlands that Dutch traditions will be lost or obliterated.Yet there is a seed of fact: There are more and more non-Western migrants or their children in the Netherlands, comprising about 10 percent of the population in a country of about 17 million. But not all of them are Muslim. There are, for example, a number of Indians who are Hindus or Buddhists.The latest figures released by the Netherlands central bureau of statistics show a net increase of 56,000 immigrants in 2015 and 88,000 in 2016, with the largest number last year, about 29,000, coming from Syria.The number of municipalities that have populations with 10 percent to 25 percent non-Western migrants doubled between 2002 and 2015, according to the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, a government agency that studies social policy.A disproportionate amount of crime is committed by young Muslims, especially Moroccan teenagers and young men, but that is also true of immigrants from the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean.And there are many first-, second- and now third-generation Muslims in the Netherlands who play significant roles in both public life and private work.Wilders speaks to a part of Dutch society that feels their Dutch identity is threatened, said Fouad El Kanfaoui, 28, a banker at ABN Amro in The Hague and a second-generation Moroccan Muslim. He also serves as the chairman of the Ambitious Networking Society, an organization for young businesspeople, entrepreneurs and those in the arts who are mostly of a Moroccan background.ImageCredit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesThe Dutch supermarkets and bakeries are leaving, he said, Instead of Hanss bakery, its Muhammads bakery. When traditions change its difficult; when its confronting them personally, its challenging.Those perceptions make for some stark juxtapositions. On a recent day, the Dutch-Moroccan comedian Anuar Aoulad Abdelkrim was having brunch on one of the main squares in Utrecht when his conversation was interrupted by noise from a rally of the far-right group Pegida. The group, which was founded in Germany, now has a Dutch chapter.Mr. Abdelkrim shook his head and explained that after 15-16 years in comedy, I refuse to go on a TV show explaining why a guy with a beard does something that everyone knows is wrong, he said, referring to Islamic terrorism.ImageCredit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesEveryone comes to my shows, every religion, every color, a lot of executives, he said. Sometimes people come up to me afterwards and they say, You know, Im a little bit racist, I dont like my neighbors, but I like you.To some extent, thats the Dutch way, Mr. Abdelkrim said. In his neighborhood, a mixture of immigrants and white Dutch people, there was great reluctance initially to welcome the Syrian refugee families whom the government had placed there.People said, No, no, no, what do we have to do with them, but now its a 180-degree turn because people got motivated to help the refugees because they know their story, he said.Achraf Bouali, 42, who was born in Morocco, left a diplomatic post to run for Parliament in the current election on the slate of D66, the leading left-leaning party. The party has a strong focus on education and the environment and is socially liberal.ImageCredit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesVideoThis is Geert Wilders, a far-right Dutch politician with aspirations to be the next prime minister of the Netherlands. He has compared the Quran to "Mein Kampf" and has called Moroccans "scum."CreditCredit...Bart Maat/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesHe sees the current anti-immigration politics as a product of external factors that have reverberated in the Netherlands: terrorism in Europe; the 2008 financial crisis, which left many Dutch feeling less well off and less secure; and the recent wave of immigrants coming to Europe from war-torn regions in the Middle East.But part of what gives Muslim politicians like him hope is that in the past many Muslim immigrants have blended quite seamlessly into Dutch society.We have been working together in this country for centuries to protect ourselves from the water, building the dikes, he said. At the end of the day, theres a pragmatism and a spirit of working together to solve our problems and there are problems.In the 1990s, tens of thousands of Muslims came from Bosnia during the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia. Afghans came during their countrys civil war and the Taliban period. Both groups have integrated well.Before them, large numbers of Indo-Dutch immigrants came in the 1940s from what was then Dutch parts of Indonesia. Moroccans and Turks came for jobs in the 1960s and 1970s.The politics are less hospitable now, said Marianne Vorthoren, the director of Spior, a group that trains teachers to give Islamic religious instruction in the Dutch schools.ImageCredit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesMs. Vorthoren, who converted to Islam and is married to a Turkish doctor, said that in 2015, her organization had gathered 174 reports of hate crimes against Muslims more than three times the number collected by the government.She said the current debate had become overly focused on whether Muslims were integrated enough or assimilated enough, crowding out actual dialogue.When you tell people their problem is their identity, its who they are, theres no room to talk about real issues like forced marriage, radicalization, domestic violence, she said, referring to the criticisms some Dutch make of Muslims.The modest Schilderswijk neighborhood of The Hague, which has been the scene of riots in the past, has become synonymous in the Dutch media with the troubled Muslim part of town.ImageCredit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesJan Kok, a career police inspector in The Hague, has become a sort of chief cultural officer for the police force and works with three station houses around the city to improve relations with Muslims.He created a mandatory course for new police recruits to teach them about working with minorities and a course for those already on the force.He said many of the young immigrant men grow up without a father, without respect for the police, for the rules in the Netherlands.But he is empathetic to their deeper struggle. They have a problem with their identity: Am I a Dutchman, am I a Moroccan, am I both? he said. Everyone needs to belong somewhere to a church, to a mosque and most of them dont have that.He added, And then you have Wilders and Rutte, the prime minister, saying, You dont like it here, then go away, but these boys were born here. Where are they going to go?ImageCredit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesOn the outskirts of Amsterdam, a group of young Muslim men gather most nights at a community center called the Hood, where they came as teenagers and now act as volunteer mentors to encourage younger children in the neighborhood to stay out of trouble.Most of the young men who volunteer found jobs out of high school but only after long searches. They say they feel trapped because even if they wanted to study to be lawyers or doctors or have an advanced degree, they could not afford it.A lot of people in this neighborhood have to work to help their families, they cant stay in school, said Zaid Belmahdi, 19, who got his first job interview only after sending out 131 applications.Yassir Aknin, 21, has training in information technology, but he said nine out of 10 prospective employers will not even see him because of his Muslim name.You have to learn to live with it, you have to be strong, he said, as his friends around the table nodded in agreement. But other guys dont have this and it happens twice and they get depressed and stop trying. | World |
Technology|5 Lessons on Voter Misinformation From Kentuckys Election in 2019https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/technology/5-lessons-on-voter-misinformation-from-kentuckys-election-in-2019.htmlOct. 26, 2020, 5:11 p.m. ETOct. 26, 2020, 5:11 p.m. ETCredit...Pool photo by Albert CesareLocal election officials, politicians and disinformation researchers continue to express concern about how misinformation about voting could disrupt Election Day next week. False and misleading information, research shows, has already been spreading widely.The 2019 race for governor of Kentucky illustrates what can go wrong, as we explored in the latest episode of Stressed Election. In that race, the standing governor, Matt Bevin, a Republican, disputed the results when the vote tally showed him narrowly losing to his Democratic challenger, Andy Beshear.Mr. Bevin and some of his allies argued, without showing any evidence, that there were voting irregularities and fraud, echoing some false and misleading statements made on social media. The governor initially refused to concede even though returns showed him trailing by about 5,000 votes. Mr. Bevin conceded about a week later.The race offers some lessons about the power of disinformation in American elections:1. Misinformation efforts dont need to be sophisticated to be successful. In Kentucky, an account with just 19 followers sent out a tweet on election night that claimed to have shredded a box of Republican ballots. The tweet, sent as a joke by a college student, would eventually reach thousands.2. Stopping the spread of misleading election information is not easy. Election officials noticed the false shredded tweet, which was retweeted by a few popular conservative accounts, and reported it to Twitter. The company removed the post within an hour, but screenshots of the post were retweeted by dozens of accounts, with retweets reaching well into the thousands. Tracking all of those screenshots proved difficult for both election officials and Twitter.3. One piece of misinformation can beget much more. The sudden spread of the false tweet about shredding ballots seemed to be a green light for other claims. Some tweets started to question the accuracy of voter rolls in Kentucky, others wondered about hackers attacking the cloud where election results were stored, except there is no cloud used in Kentucky elections. And baseless claims of voter fraud were rampant.4. There are networks ready to amplify and spread misinformation. Some groups on Twitter spread countless conspiracies, be it the QAnon cabal conspiracy or an anti-mask conspiracy. These networks can quickly seize on a piece of conspiratorial misinformation and amplify and accelerate its spread, which is part of why a single tweet from an obscure account reached so many in Kentucky.5. An extremely close election is particularly ripe for misinformation. Following election night in Kentucky, the brush fire of misinformation that was spreading online quickly took hold offline. Mr. Bevins supporters staged news conferences with baseless claims of fraud, and set up a robocall network telling people to please report suspected voter fraud to the state elections board. Online, the discussion had now moved far beyond a case of shredded ballots to accusations of a stolen or rigged election. | Tech |
Credit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesThe New Old AgeIt causes huge distress to tell a family, We cant serve you, said one state hospice organization director.Anne Cotton, a resident at Regency Park Place in Corvallis, Ore., with her palliative care doctor, Dr. Helen Kao. Ms. Cotton qualifies for hospice, but staffing shortages have meant she is on a waiting list.Credit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesOct. 16, 2021Anne Cotton had enjoyed her years at an assisted living facility in Corvallis, Ore. But at 89, her health problems began to mount: heart failure, weakness from post-polio syndrome, a 30-pound weight loss in a year.Im in a wheelchair, she said. Im getting weaker. Im having trouble breathing. On Sept. 30, Dr. Helen Kao, her palliative care doctor and a medical director at Lumina Hospice & Palliative Care, determined that she qualified for hospice services in which a team of nurses, aides, social workers, a doctor and a chaplain help patients through their final weeks and months, usually at home.Ms. Cotton, a retired accountant and real estate broker, embraced the idea. Ive lived a very full life, she said. Im hoping Im near the end. I need the help hospice gives. Her sister died in Luminas care; she wants the same support. For older patients, Medicare pays the cost.But Lumina and other hospices that serve Benton County, Ore., are grappling with pandemic-fueled staff shortages, which have forced them at times to turn away new patients or delay their enrollment as it did with Ms. Cotton. Its devastating, Dr. Kao said.Another of her palliative care patients, Ruth Ann McCracken, 91, has declined physically and cognitively since suffering two strokes last year. Last month, her family made an appointment for hospice enrollment.The day before the appointment, Dr. Kao made a difficult call to Ms. McCrackens daughter, explaining that Lumina had lost several nurses and could not safely admit new patients, perhaps for several weeks.Distressed and fearful of delay, the family followed her advice and made an appointment for enrollment with another local hospice, Samaritan Evergreen only to have that meeting postponed, too, because of a nursing shortage.ImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesHospice staff shortages have developed across the country, and while closing to new patients is not a common response, its getting worse, said Edo Banach, the president and chief executive of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. If this goes on much longer, its going to happen more.In a stressed health care system, some routine procedures or elective surgeries can be deferred without much harm. But more than half of the 2.3 million Medicare beneficiaries who die annually rely on hospice care, Medicare reported. To qualify for hospice, patients are deemed to be within six months of death, which cannot be postponed.Because many put off enrolling American patients spend only a median of 18 days in hospice even short waits can mean the loss of valuable care, from pain relief to help with household tasks.It causes huge distress to tell a family, We cant serve you, said Barbara Hansen, who directs Oregons and Washingtons state hospice and palliative care organizations.The Center for Hospice Care in northern Indiana, which serves about 2,000 patients annually, has not had to turn away patients. But the smaller of its two inpatient units, a seven-bed hospice in Elkhart, has remained closed since July because of inadequate staff.The Center had planned to reopen it on Oct. 1, but a newly hired nurse left, so the unit remains unavailable. I keep thinking its going to get better, said Mark Murray, the Centers president and chief executive.In New York State, its a day-to-day jigsaw puzzle that puts a strain on the organization, said Jeanne Chirico, the president and chief executive of the states Hospice and Palliative Care Association. Some hospices, which often pride themselves on enrolling new patients within a day, may take an additional day or two, since admissions are a labor-intensive process. They may send home aides for fewer hours.Many hospices are trying to recruit staff with signing bonuses; on the high end, EvergreenHealth Hospice Care in Seattle is offering $15,000 for registered nurses and $5,000 for licensed practical nurses. It has not lost much staff, said Brent Korte, the agencys chief home care officer, but we may go from our average care load of 12 patients per nurse to 15, temporarily.The shortage, hospice administrators say, stems partly from an exhausted staff who visited patients homes through the worst of the pandemic, wearing full protective gear (once they could acquire it).Now Willamette Valley Hospice and Palliative Care, which also serves Corvallis, has lost 25 percent of its registered nurses since the pandemic began and has closed to new patients several times. The fatigue, the disappointment is hitting us, said Iria Nishimura, its executive director.Staff shortages also reflect economic pressures. Hospice nurses typically earn less than those employed by hospitals or traveling nurse agencies, which have raised their wages and bonuses as they also face a pandemic-related lack of nurses.In Oregon and Washington, for instance, a registered nurse working for a hospice might make $40 to $60 an hour, Ms. Hansen said. Agencies in those states are advertising up to $130 an hour for traveling nurses, she said, and one in Seattle is said to be dangling $275. No hospice can match that, she said.ImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesAt Lumina, where staff turnover has run 80 percent higher than usual, weve had job postings for months without any applicants at all, Dr. Kao said. It has begun offering $2,000 bonuses for registered nurses.Hospice aides, who are usually certified nursing assistants, are being lured away, too, sometimes leaving health care entirely. When theyre getting paid in the low double digits and Amazon pays twice that, its hard to compete, Mr. Banach said.Vaccination resistance is also shrinking hospice staffs in states roughly 20, according to Leading Age, which represents nonprofit senior care providers that mandate shots for health care workers.Hospice organizations have supported such mandates, and report that most workers have complied. But losing even a few resistant hospice staff perhaps five percent in New York State so far, Ms. Chirico estimated could bring temporary closures, wait lists or higher caseloads for the remaining staff. (Rules for the Biden administrations federal mandate, governing all health care providers that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, including hospices, are expected soon.)Hospice organizations received aid through several rounds of federal pandemic relief, but they need more to rebuild their staffs, Mr. Banach said. They could also benefit from changes in immigration law to help bolster the work force.Those kinds of changes take time, however. Hospice workers require specialized training. Even if scrambling hospices could hire nurses tomorrow, it would take several months for most to be fully ready to work with dying patients.Its going to be a tough six months, Ms. Hansen predicted; other administrators interviewed found her statement optimistic.In Oregon, Samaritan Evergreen Hospice began receiving overflows from other local hospices and, for two weeks in September, was forced to practice triage. We were taking the most ill, actively dying patients first, said Karen Daley, the hospice director. Those who werent struggling with symptoms and had good support at home waited for several days.Evergreens staff has stabilized for now, and triage is no longer necessary, although it could resume at any time. Ms. McCracken, to her familys relief, was enrolled on Oct. 8.Ms. Cotton prefers to use Lumina, so she is still waiting. I dont know how many people are ahead of me, she said. Basically, I have to wait for people to die, and thats not a pleasant thought.ImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times | Health |
The elaborate journey of the robotic spacecraft will offer close encounters with some of the solar systems least understood objects.VideotranscripttranscriptNASA to Launch a Robotic Archaeologist Named LucyThe spacecraft is designed to study clusters of asteroids along Jupiters orbital path, known as the Trojan swarms, as it seeks to answer questions about the origins of the solar system and how life might have emerged on Earth.Hello, and welcome to NASAs Kennedy Space Center. Youre looking at a live view of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Lucy. Lucy will profoundly change your understanding of planetary evolution in our solar system. One spacecraft, seven Trojan asteroids, one main belt asteroids, in 12 years. Were going to study the geology, surface composition, bulk properties, and were going to search for satellites around these objects. Ill give you a flavor for some of our science investigations. One of them is to map the craters across our surfaces, the surface of the Trojan asteroids. Were going to look for craters smaller than a football field, about 70 yards across. Additionally, weve designed a science investigation to look and see the composition inside fresh craters. Now, for astronomers and scientists, fresh doesnt mean recently really in human timescales, its craters that are less than 100 million years old.The spacecraft is designed to study clusters of asteroids along Jupiters orbital path, known as the Trojan swarms, as it seeks to answer questions about the origins of the solar system and how life might have emerged on Earth.CreditCredit...Ben Smegelsky/NASAPublished Oct. 16, 2021Updated Oct. 20, 2021NASA embarked on a 12-year mission to study a group of asteroids on Saturday with the launch of Lucy, a robotic explorer that will meander through the unexplored caverns of deep space to find new clues about the creation of our solar system.The 5:34 a.m. Eastern time liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop an Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance was the first step of Lucys four-billion mile path into the orbital neighborhood of Jupiter. There, two swarms of asteroids known as the Trojans have hid for billions of years, leftover debris from the solar systems early formation.The spacecraft launched before dawn, setting off toward the orbit that will begin its elaborate trajectory. Lucy separated from the rockets second stage booster roughly an hour after liftoff and about a half an hour later unfurled two circular solar panels that will power the spacecraft throughout its journey.Orbiting the sun on each side of Jupiter, the two clouds of dark asteroids have only been scrutinized by scientists from afar. Some 10,000 have been identified of the roughly one million that are estimated to exist. Lucy will be the first spacecraft to dive directly into the clusters to get close-up views of seven unique Trojan asteroids, plus one tiny asteroid in the solar systems main asteroid belt.The last 24 hours has just been a roller coaster of excitement and buildup and everything was a success, Hal Levison, Lucys principal investigator, said on a NASA livestream after launch. We have one chance really to do this, the planets are literally aligning in order to make this trajectory happen.He and the missions other scientists hope that the sedan-size spacecraft will uncover pieces of evidence about the migration of planets to their current orbits.ImageCredit...John Raoux/Associated PressWhat is Lucy?The Lucy probe, named after the fossilized skeleton of an early hominid ancestor that transformed our understanding of human evolution, will use a suite of scientific instruments to analyze the Trojan asteroids celestial fossils that the missions scientists hope will transform human knowledge about the formation of the solar system.Managed by the Southwest Research Institute, with a spacecraft built for NASA by Lockheed Martin, the total cost of the mission is $981 million. The spacecraft is roughly the size of a small car and weighs about 3,300 pounds when filled with fuel.Its scientific instruments include LTES, or the Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer a telescope designed to scan asteroid surfaces for infrared radiation and measure how quickly or slowly the space rocks surfaces heat up and cool down with exposure to the suns heat. Built by scientists at Arizona State University, the gadget is essentially an advanced thermometer. Analyzing how quickly the asteroids build up heat gives scientists an idea of how much dust and rocky material is scatted across their surfaces.Another device is LLORRI, or the Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, built by engineers and scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. This telescope will capture black-and-white images of the asteroids surfaces, revealing craters and ridges that have long been shrouded in darkness.Lucys third tool, LRalph, has botha color camera and an infrared spectrometer. Each instrument is designed to detect bands of light emitted by ices and minerals scientists expect to be present on the asteroids surfaces.ImageCredit...Bill Ingalls/NASA, via Associated PressHow long is its mission?The spacecraft will spend 12 years hunting down eight asteroids, embarking on an intricate path that uses Earths gravity three times to slingshot itself around the sun and through the two swarms of Trojans under Jupiters gravitational influence. As it journeys from one side of Jupiters orbital path to the other, Lucy will travel roughly four billion miles during its primary mission.What are the Trojan asteroids?The Trojan asteroids are swarms of rocky material left over from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. No spacecraft has ever visited the asteroids, which orbit the sun on each side of Jupiter and in the same orbital path, but at a great distance from the giant planet.Before it gets to the Trojans, it will fly by an asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter that is named after Donald Johanson, the scientist who discovered the Lucy skeleton. The spacecraft will first visit 52246 Donaldjohanson in April 2025 and will then proceed to its primary destinations.Lucy will make six flybys of the Trojan asteroids, one of which has a small moon, resulting in seven Trojans visited. The observations should give scientists a diverse set of asteroid material to analyze back on Earth.What do scientists hope to learn from the Lucy mission?The Trojan asteroids have been hidden in darkness and nearly impossible to analyze. Scientists expect them to be an unexplored fount of data to test theoretical models about the solar systems formation and how the planets ended up in their current orbits around the sun.What other deep-space missions does NASA have coming up soon?Two more asteroid missions will eventually follow Lucy, along with:DART: Launching in November, NASAs Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission involves crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to nudge it off course. The mission tests out a method of planetary defense that could one day come in handy should an asteroid threaten Earth.James Webb Space Telescope: A roughly $10 billion follow-up to NASAs well-known Hubble telescope, the Webb is scheduled to, at last, launch in December. It will study planets orbiting distant stars and search for light from the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang.Artemis-1: NASA aims in the months ahead to launch an uncrewed Orion astronaut capsule atop its massive Space Launch System rocket around the moon and back. Its the first mission under the agencys Artemis program, which aims to one day send American astronauts back to the moon.Psyche: Next year, NASA is scheduled to send a probe to Psyche, a metallic asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter made of nickel and iron that resembles the core of an early planetary body. Like the asteroids of Lucys mission, it could provide clues to the formation of our solar system.Europa Clipper: In 2024, NASA intends to send a spacecraft toward Jupiter to scan the icy moon Europa and determine whether its subsurface ocean could harbor life. | science |
Too Short Sued for Multiple Sexual Batteries 1/19/2018 Too Short is being accused of sexual battery ... TMZ has learned. The rap legend is facing a lawsuit ... filed Friday in Los Angeles by a woman named Teana Louis. According to docs, obtained by TMZ, Teana says Too Short sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions ... between June and October of 2016. In the suit, she says the attacks included forced oral sex, vaginal sex and sodomy. Teana says she and Short met in December 2015, and eventually produced a song together in April 2016. She claims that's when he made the first unwanted advances. She claims the first assault went down in June when they went to a hotel room in Downtown L.A. According to the docs, Too Short threw her onto the bed, held her down, undressed her and began performing oral sex on her. She claims subsequent incidents happened in hotel rooms or the studio. She claims on one occasion he told her, "I'm just going to put the tip in" ... and, although she said, "No, please no" ... he continued. In the suit, she says he held her down during vaginal sex -- she was left bleeding -- and then "brutally sodomized" her. She's suing for sexual battery, sexual harassment, gender violence, gender discrimination and false imprisonment. | Entertainment |
Science|A Quick, Colorful Change for a Morning Gloryhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/science/a-quick-colorful-change-for-a-morning-glory.htmlTrilobitesCredit...National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki JapanMarch 2, 2016This weeks GIF science lesson highlights one of the more colorful ways that a drastic shift in pH, can affect a plant.In natures daily show, the morning glory is a master of the costume change. With normal fluctuations in pH levels, its petals can shift in color from blue to pink, and sometimes red in the course of a single day. But unless you camped out in front of the plant all day, you wouldnt see the transformation. Heres a video showing normal color fluctuations.Credit...CreditVideo by NIBB PRTo observe this phenomenon at high speed, researchers at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan placed dry ice in an enclosed space around a Japanese morning glory flower. As the ice evaporated and carbon dioxide built up in the surrounding air, the acidity increased, causing the pigments stored in tiny vacuoles, or bubbles in the petals outer cells, to shift from blue to pink. Watch as the color changes, as if by magic, right before your eyes. | science |
Credit...Lee Jin-man/Associated PressFeb. 10, 2014SOCHI, Russia Rollerblading is back. Well, at least among American Olympic speedskaters. To understand the marvel of the blade runners who will speed around Adler Arena and the Iceberg Skating Palace at the Winter Games, it may be worth looking back at the sports wheeled cousin, inline skating. Often called rollerblading by fans, after the brand that led to the sports boom in the late 1980s and early 90s, inline skating reigned when modems buzzed, pogs slammed and scrunchies gathered ponytails. Since then, the popularity of inline skates has plummeted in the United States, becoming the fanny packs of footwear. But the success of the United States speedskating team, which heading into Sochi had won more Olympic medals than its American counterparts in any other sport in the Winter Games, may have as much to do with training on wheels as it does on blades. Of the 25 long- and short-track American competitors, 14 started out as inline skaters. They are split between long and short track, according to U.S. Speedskating.I felt like I had done everything I could in the sport of inline skating, Jessica Smith, a short-track speedskater, said as dozens of competitors swirled around the training site here, the hum and slice of their blades audible. Inline will always be part of my roots. The relationship between inline skating and speedskating is a long and curious one. Inline skates were originally conceived as an off-ice training tool for ice skaters, but they gained their own mass appeal when Rollerblade, the brand closely associated with the sport, marketed them heavily in the late 1980s and 1990s. Still, the closest that inline skating came to Olympic inclusion was in 1992, when roller hockey was a demonstration sport at Barcelona. Sales of inline skates dropped to $42.5 million in 2012 from $142.4 million in 2003, according to the National Sporting Goods Association, and inline skating participation declined to 6.1 million people from 16 million during that period. Worse for elite skaters, downhill inline was eliminated from the X Games in 1998, and aggressive inline was cut in 2004. Unlike Rollerblades, the chunky and often-neon brand that once reigned on sidewalks, inline skates are leaner, meaner and built for speed. But the inline skating and Rollerblade crazes ran parallel and hit their zenith around the time the current generation of Olympic skaters were children learning to walk and glide. A handful of skaters like Jennifer Rodriguez, Derek Parra and Chad Hedrick enjoyed Olympic success after making the transition from inline to speedskating. Spotting a recruiting opportunity, the United States Olympic Committee ran a program, led by Parra, that helped skaters on wheels switch to ice. A number of us were at an elite level and trying to get into the Games, said Parra, who coached speedskaters at the 2010 Vancouver Games and still recruits out of Utah. And a lot of us got fed up. Smith was among those who went through the program. She started inline skating as a 2-year-old in Michigan, and a decade later, she made the United States inline junior team and scooped up 16 world titles. Smiths story is similar to that of many inline-to-ice converts. She excelled at inline skating, but her sport provided no Olympic opportunity. With the Olympics as a goal and inline events a challenge to find, Smith switched. An alternate for the 2010 Winter Games, she performed so well this season that she arrived in Sochi to compete in all three short-track events: the 500 meters, the 1,000 meters and the 1,500 meters. (In the 500 meters, Smith finished fourth in her heat Monday and did not advance.)Lauren Cholewinski, an American long-track competitor, started inline skating when she was 9. I was a rink rat, said Cholewinski, who switched to speedskating seven years later. Most of the girls Im racing with now, I met them all when I was 9 or 10 in inline, she said. Cholewinski still uses inline skates in her training, primarily in summer, when she has no access to ice.I feel at home, she said. Jonathan Garcia, an American who competes in long track, started as an inline hockey player. When he was 7, he said, he went to a birthday party at a roller rink, saw a practice and thought, I want to do that. With the next generation of Olympians less entranced by inline skates than the current crop, some athletes wonder about the effect on future speedskating teams. The pipeline may be limited, or at least altered. Its died out here in the U.S. and its gotten so much bigger everywhere else, Garcia said of inline skating. I have a near and dear place spot in my heart for inline, so hopefully we can get more skaters back in there and build the sport back up and have good people representing. Garcia said he had not worn inline skates since 2008. Its something I grew up with, Garcia said. I miss it. If it wasnt for inline, I wouldnt be here today. | Sports |
On Aug. 21, at midday, people who live in, or have ventured to, a band about 70 miles wide arcing from Oregon to South Carolina will get to see the moon pass directly in front of the sun. For a minute or two day will turn to night. If you are one of the lucky people who will get to see this total eclipse live and in-person, make sure you take advantage. But you will still see a partial eclipse if you are anywhere in North America. Here well review what you need to know about eclipses, how to be safe during an eclipse and some fun experiments you can try during this rare event.Who Will See It?More on Watching the EclipseBe a Citizen ScientistExplore Dramatic Temperature ChangesTotality is cool literally. The temperature drops during a total solar eclipse, in some cases by as much as 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a thermometer, you can measure the temperature in the hour before the moons shadow passes over and then again when it engulfs you. Some thermometers should be able to catch the quick change that happens during those two minutes. Give Back: By recording that data you can contribute to a citizen science database using the Globe Observer app, which is sponsored by NASA.Eclipse SoundscapesTotality is more than just what you see, its also what you hear. When everything goes dark, the sounds swirling around you change. Many noisy animals go silent like they do at night, while others begin to make a ruckus. The birds quit singing, the frogs start croaking, and the crickets chirp-chirp-chirp away. Take a moment during totality to stop looking at the sun and to listen. Give Back: You can sign up in advance to help record the symphony of totality as a part of a project called the Eclipse Soundscapes.Eclipse AnimalsWhile listening to the animals, you can also observe how they react to the phenomenon. There are a number of anecdotal reports of animals acting strange during totality like reef sharks swimming out from their daytime cover or spiders dismantling their webs. Give Back: Using an app like the iNaturalist app by the California Academy of Sciences you can help scientists track the activities of certain animals and plants during the eclipse. You can record what they are doing before totality and then during totality and contribute your responses to scientists Life Responds project.Eclipse MegamovieYoull probably be taking pictures during the eclipse, so why not contribute some of those images to science in addition to your Instagram feed? Give Back: The Eclipse Megamovie is a wide-scale citizen science project that aims to gather images of the coming eclipse from across the country and stitch them together to provide a continuous view of the event as it travels from the West Coast to the East Coast. Their goal is to get a long look at the suns mysterious corona, which is its white and wispy outermost layer. The corona is only visible from Earth during a total solar eclipse when it leaks out from behind the moon and creates a ring of faint streamers around it. Usually during eclipses scientists only get a few minutes to study the corona before it disappears. But because this eclipse is going across the United States, it presents an opportunity for people along the line of the eclipse to contribute their images during totality to the Eclipse Megamovie app. It will essentially extend totality from being about two and a half minutes to about 90 minutes.Eclipse MobYou can also use the eclipse to help scientists better understand Earths ionosphere by collecting radio signals. The ionosphere is a layer of Earths atmosphere that is about 50 to 600 miles above the planets surface. It is teeming with ions and free electrons. There, radio waves get refracted. Give Back: A country-wide project called EclipseMob aims to use radio receivers to study the eclipses effects on the ionosphere. Their plan is to send off radio signals before, during and after the eclipse from a location in Colorado and another in California. Their volunteers will use custom-built radio receivers connected to smartphones or laptops to pick up those signals from across America so they can understand how sunlight affects the ionosphere. This experiment is similar to one that was conducted by scientists during a solar eclipse in 1912.Lunar Shadow SpeedHow fast does the moons shadow race across America during a total solar eclipse? If youre watching totality from a location where you can see a lot of land features, you may be able to figure that out. Try This: Because the Earth is a sphere that rotates on its axis, the speed of the moons shadow during the total solar eclipse varies in different locations. According to NASA, the steps to take to roughly calculate how fast the moons shadow is moving by you are: Record the time when the totality began and everything was plunged into darkness. Record the time when totality ended and everything became light again. You can figure out how long in minutes it took the moons shadow to pass over you by taking the difference between these times. Then you can convert that time into decimal hours using an online calculator. Since the moons shadow has an average diameter of about 110 kilometers, or about 68 miles, you can then divide the time you got in hours into 110 kilometers and receive the speed in kilometers per hour from your location. You can then convert that to miles per hour. How to Watch SafelyGet Your GearSo what should you use to watch the beauty safely? Many amateur eclipse-watchers may drag out a telescope, but in reality, telescopes are not ideal for eclipse-watching because of their narrow field of view. Binoculars however, can enhance the experience, especially if they have proper filters to protect your eyes. The best part is that these glasses dont need to be expensive. Our colleagues at The Wirecutter, a New York Times company dedicated to testing and recommending the best products, suggest the Celestron Eclipsmart Power Viewers, which are made of paper and come in a two-pack along with a map.Do It YourselfA pinhole projector is another safe way of watching the eclipse, and you can make one yourself with two thin pieces of cardboard (or paper plates). Heres how: Put one piece of cardboard (or paper plate) on the ground. Poke a tiny, round hole into the other piece of cardboard. With your back facing the sun, raise the cardboard with the hole in above your head and aim the hole at the cardboard on the ground. The hole will project an image of the crescent shape of the eclipse. More on experiencing an eclipseDos and Don'tsDosDo wear eclipse glasses. The only safe way to view the eclipse during its partial phases is to wear eclipse filters. We already suggested a few you should consider, but even if you dont go with those, glasses that meet the proper international safety standards should have a certification of ISO 12312-2. Do bring binoculars to look at the eclipsed sun. But never look at the sun during its partial phases with plain-old binoculars. As we said earlier, you can get slide-on filters to keep your eyes safe.Don'tsDont look directly at the sun when any part of its bright face is still visible. Whether you are in the line of totality or outside of it, never look at the sun without proper solar filters during the partial phases of the eclipse. Dont use sunglasses instead of eclipse glasses. Sunglasses DO NOT cut it. Properly certified eclipse glasses are 100,000 times darker than sunglasses, according to Dr. Fienberg, and they filter out the harmful ultraviolet and infrared radiation. Dont look at the sun through a telescope or binoculars while wearing solar eclipse glasses. This is extremely dangerous, according to Dr. Fienberg, because the concentrated sunlight coming through the optics of the telescope or binoculars could burn through the filter and damage your eyes. Only look at the sun during the partial phases of the eclipse with binocular or telescopes that have specially designed solar filters. Dont use a welders mask. Most likely a typical welders mask that a person might have in his house is not strong enough to be used during an eclipse. Only masks that have filters of shade 14 or 15 are viable. Dr. Fienberg says that youre much better off using a pair of eclipse glasses. Sign Up for the Science Times NewsletterWell bring you stories that capture the wonders of the human body, nature and the cosmos.The Science of an EclipseWhy Is an Eclipse So Special?This perfect sun-moon-Earth alignment is an extraordinary cosmic coincidence. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but it also happens to be 400 times farther away, which to the observer on the ground means they are almost identical in size. The match is so uncanny that on some occasions, the moon is at the farthest point of its slightly elongated orbit and fails to cover the sun fully, leaving a ring of sunlight. Such an annular eclipse is an impressive phenomenon in its own way but lacks the high drama of totality. In all the hundreds of billions of star systems of our Milky Way galaxy, few are likely to produce total solar eclipses like ours. Its a coincidence not only of spatial relations but also of time and motion heavenly bodies are in a constant state of change.Have Eclipses Like This One Always Happened?The fact that we are able to accurately predict this total eclipse of the sun demonstrates the progress of human knowledge. For the planet as a whole, eclipses are regular occurrences, but figuring out exactly where and when they land is hard. They occur infrequently enough, and in so many far-flung places, that they might seem random. In prehistoric times, they did. Ancient Babylonians, Chinese and Mayan astronomers patiently logged their observations, however, and eventually saw patterns in their elaborate tables of eclipse data. We can only imagine how hard that must have been, before calculators or even a real sense of how the solar system was laid out. The Mayan Dresden Codex, for example, spans 11,960 days, an interval over which a certain number of eclipses will occur in a certain sequence, and then repeat. Other cycles of varying duration, overlapping one another, govern the complex timing of eclipses. This Augusts event is nearly a duplicate of the shadow that crossed Alaska, Canada and Maine on July 20, 1963, merely shifted southward. This time span of 54 years and 1 month is a cycle known as an exeligmos, or a triple saros. Ancient Greek philosophers realized that these patterns were the natural outcome of celestial motions, glimpses of the clockwork universe. Eclipses were not disruptions of the heavenly order, as previously feared, but were expressions of that order. The complexity of eclipse timing isnt the caprice of gods, but a clue to how many gears must mesh to produce one.Are Your Saying That the Moon is Changing?For such a modest body, our moon has an impressively intricate motion. In a way, it is not really our moon. Though nominally Earths satellite, the moons path is subject to the gravitational pull of the sun and even Jupiter, Saturn and the other planets. This makes the motion of the moon hard to determine. Isaac Newton, whose theories of physics underpin the modern understanding of lunar motion (and much besides), confessed to English mathematician John Machin that his head never ached but with his studies on the moon. In 709 B.C. the people of the Chinese city of Qufu saw one of the earliest solar eclipses in recorded history. For the shadow of the moon to have fallen on Qufu, Earths spin on its axis must have slowed over the millenniums since. According to the latest analysis of eclipse records last year by a team of British astronomers, the day has gotten longer over the past three millenniums by nearly 50 milliseconds. This slowing of the Earths spin happens because the same tides that the moon raises and lowers on Earth react back on the moon. Over time, the Earth loses spin energy (the days get longer), and the moon gains an equal amount of energy in its orbit, causing it to spiral away by about four centimeters per year. In a few hundreds of millions of years, the moon will have moved too far away ever again to cover the sun completely during an eclipse, and our distant descendants will know of the wonder of totality only in their history books.What Does a Total Eclipse Really Look Like?The most wondrous part of an eclipse occurs as the crescent of sun left uncovered by the moon wanes and the moon moves squarely in front of the stellar surface. The sky darkens abruptly, faster than any sunset, and the corona, or the aura of plasma that surrounds the sun visibly bursts forth. (It had been there all along, lost in the glare.) No one is quite sure what keeps this part of the sun hundreds of times hotter than the suns surface. The sudden darkness is itself weird, when you think about it. Long ago, a solar eclipse was an occasion for fear. No one knew when the sun would vanish or, more importantly, whether it would come back. Or, rather, those who did know may not have seen to share their knowledge. The ancient Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus recounted how the troops of Alexander the Great panicked at the sight of a lunar eclipse. The general called in experts for an explanation, but they counseled him to hide the truth from his men. Better to hail the event as a portent of victory than as a routine celestial occurrence. Today, we are liberated to enjoy solar eclipses. The more you know about whats really going on, the better it gets. It loses nothing from familiarity; to the contrary, when its over, your first impulse is to ask when the next one will be.Want more?Have Eclipses Like This One Always Happened?The fact that we are able to accurately predict this total eclipse of the sun demonstrates the progress of human knowledge. For the planet as a whole, eclipses are regular occurrences, but figuring out exactly where and when they land is hard. They occur infrequently enough, and in so many far-flung places, that they might seem random. In prehistoric times, they did. Ancient Babylonians, Chinese and Mayan astronomers patiently logged their observations, however, and eventually saw patterns in their elaborate tables of eclipse data. We can only imagine how hard that must have been, before calculators or even a real sense of how the solar system was laid out. The Mayan Dresden Codex, for example, spans 11,960 days, an interval over which a certain number of eclipses will occur in a certain sequence, and then repeat. Other cycles of varying duration, overlapping one another, govern the complex timing of eclipses. This Augusts event is nearly a duplicate of the shadow that crossed Alaska, Canada and Maine on July 20, 1963, merely shifted southward. This time span of 54 years and 1 month is a cycle known as an exeligmos, or a triple saros. Ancient Greek philosophers realized that these patterns were the natural outcome of celestial motions, glimpses of the clockwork universe. Eclipses were not disruptions of the heavenly order, as previously feared, but were expressions of that order. The complexity of eclipse timing isnt the caprice of gods, but a clue to how many gears must mesh to produce one. | science |
Technology|Google-Linked Balloon Project to Provide Cell Service Will Closehttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/technology/loon-google-balloons.htmlGoogle-Linked Balloon Project to Provide Cell Service Will CloseBegun nearly a decade ago, Loon was one of the companys high-profile, cutting-edge efforts. But it was difficult to turn into a business.Credit...Loon LLC, via Associated PressJan. 21, 2021OAKLAND, Calif. Googles parent company Alphabet is shutting down Loon, a high-profile subsidiary spun out from its research labs that used high-altitude helium balloons to deliver cellular connectivity from the stratosphere.Nearly a decade after it began the project, Alphabet said on Thursday that it pulled the plug on Loon because it did not see a way to reduce costs to create a sustainable business. Along with the self-driving car unit Waymo, Loon was one of the most hyped moonshot technology projects to emerge from Alphabets research lab, X.The road to commercial viability has proven much longer and riskier than hoped. So weve made the difficult decision to close down Loon, Astro Teller, who heads X, wrote in a blog post. Alphabet said it expected to wind down operations in the coming months with the hope of finding other positions for Loon employees at Alphabet.The idea behind Loon was to bring cellular connectivity to remote parts of the world where building a traditional mobile network would be too difficult and too costly. Alphabet promoted the technology as a potentially promising way to bring internet connectivity to not just the next billion consumers but the last billion.The giant helium balloons, made from sheets of polyethylene, are the size of tennis courts. They were powered by solar panels and navigated by flight control software that used artificial intelligence to drift efficiently in the stratosphere. While up in the air, they act as floating cell towers, transmitting internet signals to ground stations and personal devices.Google started working on Loon in 2011 and launched the project with a public test in 2013. Loon became a stand-alone subsidiary in 2018, a few years after Google became a holding company called Alphabet. In April 2019, it accepted a $125 million investment from a SoftBank unit called HAPSMobile to advance the use of high-altitude vehicles to deliver internet connectivity.Last year, it announced the first commercial deployment of the technology with Telkom Kenya to provide a 4G LTE network connection to a nearly 31,000-square-mile area across central and western Kenya, including the capital, Nairobi. Before then, the balloons had been used only in emergency situations, such as after Hurricane Maria knocked out Puerto Ricos cellular network.However, Loon was starting to run out of money and had turned to Alphabet to keep its business solvent while it sought another investor in the project, according to a November report in The Information.ImageCredit...John Raoux/Associated PressThe decision to shut down Loon is another signal of Alphabets recent austerity toward its ambitious and costly technology projects. Under Ruth Porat, Alphabets chief financial officer since 2015, the company has kept a close watch over the finances of its so-called Other Bets, fledgling business ventures aimed at diversifying from its core advertising business.Alphabet has aggressively pushed its Other Bets like Waymo and Verily, a life sciences unit, to accept outside investors and branch out on their own. Projects that failed to secure outside investment or show enough financial promise have been discarded, such as Makani, a project to produce wind energy kites that Alphabet shut down last year.That austerity has been a notable change from a time when units like X, which had been a favored vanity project of Googles co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had autonomy to spend freely to pursue ambitious technology projects even if the financial outlook remained unclear. | Tech |
TrilobitesCredit...M. Kornmesser/European Southern ObservatoryMarch 8, 2017To the list of cosmic superlatives must now be added a new item: the oldest dust.Its not behind your refrigerator or underneath the bed. Its in a galaxy with only a number for a name in a constellation called Sculptor, and so far away that its distance barely has any meaning. The light from A2744_YD4, as it is known, has been on its way to us for 13.2 billion years, since the universe was only 600 million years old.Where the galaxy is now is only a mathematical extrapolation about 30 billion light-years from here, according to the standard cosmological math. An international team led by Nicolas Laporte of University College London, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, a radio telescope in Chile, was able to see this galaxy only because its light had been amplified by the gravity of a massive cluster of galaxies lying right in front of it.Interspersed with radio emissions from stars, the astronomers were surprised to find the characteristic heat emanations from some six million solar masses of dust. The dust consisted of tiny grains of carbon, silicon and aluminum an austere and unevolved version of the same stuff under your fingernails, and in the dust bunnies under your bed. The big news is that it existed in such quantities only 600 million years after the Big Bang.The primordial universe, as it emerged from the Big Bang, consisted almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the simplest and lightest elements, according to astronomers, with only a slight trace of lithium. The heavier elements, needed for planets and us among other things, were manufactured in stars, which then blew up. As the story goes, the exploding stars scattered their ashes across space where they could be incorporated into new stars and repeat the cycle, gradually enriching the chemistry of the cosmos.The new observations show that this relentless progression from dust to better-and-better dust had already been jump-started by the time the universe was just 600 million years old. The first stars had already been born and died in less than 200 million years in a wave of supernova explosions, according to Richard Ellis, of the European Southern Observatory and the University College London, and one of the leaders of a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.At the time, in the baby boom years of the universe, the young galaxy was feeling its oats, pumping out 20 new stars a year. By comparison the Milky Way, our own galaxy, today births only one star a year.The new results augur a bright future for the ALMA telescope, a $1.5 billion array of antennas tuned to record the heat emanations of stars and dust, and NASAs coming James Webb Space Telescope, designed to investigate the early days of the universe. More observations should pinpoint the period when galaxies began to be first polluted by heavy elements, Dr. Ellis said in an email from London.Until now, studies of early galaxies have largely been based on measures of colors and masses, he said. Now, finally, we are using chemistry. | science |
Politics|As Congress convenes to formalize Bidens win, Republicans plan to force at least three votes to overturn the results.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/as-congress-convenes-to-formalize-bidens-win-republicans-plan-to-force-at-least-three-votes-to-overturn-the-results.htmlCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021A joint session of Congress convened on Wednesday for what was expected to be a marathon session on Wednesday to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s Electoral College victory, in which Republicans loyal to President Trump plan to object to the results of at least three battleground states the Democrat won.Both chambers are prepared to meet late into the night, with bipartisan majorities expected to beat back the challenges and confirm Mr. Biden as the winner. But by using the proceeding as a forum for trying to subvert a democratic election, Mr. Trump and his allies were going where no party has since the Reconstruction era of the 19th century, when Congress bargained over the presidency.Protesters called by Mr. Trump to make a final stand swarmed through the streets around that Capitol and throughout Washington, egged on by the president to try to overturn Mr. Bidens win.We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesnt happen, Mr. Trump told a gathering of die-hard fans at the Ellipse behind the White House.Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama planned to object to the certification of Arizonas electors; Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia intended to object to those from her state; and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri planned to object to Pennsylvanias slate, according to people familiar with their plans.Their challenges were all but certain to fail, but they will prompt many hours of debate and culminate in at least three votes that have already badly divided the Republican Party. The effort will force lawmakers to go on the record either siding with the president or upholding the results of a democratic election.Lawmakers anticipated possible objections for up to three additional states Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin although it was not clear whether they would draw the requisite backing from a member of both the House and the Senate to be considered.Despite a remarkable pressure campaign by Mr. Trump to unilaterally throw out states that supported Mr. Biden, Vice President Mike Pence, who is presiding over the session as the president of the Senate, said just before the session began that he did not believe doing so was constitutional and would exercise his duties as his predecessors had. The outcome, after for years of loyal support for the president, risked his political standing in a party Mr. Trump still dominates.It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not, he wrote in a letter.Even before it began, the session was already driving sharp wedges into the Republican Party that threatened to do lasting damage to its cohesion, as lawmakers decided to cast their lot with Mr. Trump or the Constitution. Top party leaders in the House and Senate appeared to be headed for a high-profile split. And while only a dozen or so senators were expected to vote to reject the outcome in key states, as many as 70 percent of House Republicans could join the effort, stoking the dangerous belief of tens of millions of voters that Mr. Biden was elected illegitimately.On Wednesday, Mr. Biden addressed the certification in a statement. After the past four years, after the election, and after todays election certification proceedings on the Hill, its time to turn the page, he said. The American people demand action and they want unity. I am more optimistic than I ever have been that we can deliver both. | Politics |
Politics|Explaining Trumps Claim About Canadians Smuggling Shoes Because of Massive Tariffshttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/politics/fact-check-trump-canadians-smuggling-shoes-tariffs.htmlFact Check of the DayPresident Trump said on Tuesday that Canadians were smuggling shoes across the border because the tariffs are so massive. But under Nafta, Canada does not charge a tariff on American shoe imports. June 19, 2018what was said There was a story two days ago, in a major newspaper, talking about people living in Canada, coming into the United States, and smuggling things back into Canada because the tariffs are so massive. The tariffs to get common items back into Canada are so high that they have to smuggle them in. They buy shoes, then they wear them. They scuff them up. They make them sound old or look old. President Trump, speaking on Tuesday to the National Federation of Independent Business.the factsThis requires context.Mr. Trump is almost certainly referring to and distorting an opinion piece by Isabel Vincent, a Canadian journalist, that was published last week in The New York Post about how she and her relatives skirted duties by sneaking jeans, shoes and other goods across the border from the United States. Ms. Vincent described how her nephew hid two pairs of expensive Italian shoes in his backpack to ferry them to a designer based in Toronto. She wrote that an acquaintance removed the price tags and made new outdoor equipment look dusty to smuggle in what he simply couldnt find in Canada. While Ms. Vincent is probably neither the first nor last person to have smuggled cheaper or rare goods into Canada (as a few Twitter users have admitted) the vignette does nothing to bolster Mr. Trumps current dispute with Canada over renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he has long denounced as unfair to the United States. Under Nafta, Canada does not impose tariffs on footwear made in the United States. Nor does the United States tax shoes imported from Canada. The United States charges an average rate of 11.9 percent on imported footwear from most other countries that do not have trade agreements with it. Tariffs can be much higher. And Canada imposes tariffs, usually from 11 to 20 percent, on shoes made in most other countries.A free trade deal that Canada signed with the European Union, however, would effectively erase duties on most European footwear imports like Italian shoes. The president seems misinformed about footwear trade, Matt Priest, the president and chief executive of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said in a statement. Canadians have no real reason to smuggle their shoes because their government is already helping lower their costs through proper trade deals. Source: Canadian Border Services Agency, Pew Public Trusts, The New York Post, Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. | Politics |
To what extent is giving a DNA test also a present for law enforcement?Credit...Chris GashPublished Dec. 22, 2019Updated Dec. 23, 2019The company GEDmatch, the DNA database that facilitated an arrest in the Golden State Killer case and in dozens of other cases since, emerged from a desire to connect people to their relatives. For the past decade, the sites co-founder Curtis Rogers has been running the company out of a small yellow house in Lake Worth, Fla. When Mr. Rogers first learned that the DNA of GEDmatch users had played a critical role in identifying a suspected serial killer, he was upset. I didnt think this was an appropriate use of our site, he said in an interview in May 2018, five weeks after the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo. This month, Mr. Rogers sold GEDmatch to Verogen, a commercial forensic company best known for providing police and F.BI. labs with tools for making predictions about suspected criminals ancestry, eye color and hair color. FamilyTreeDNA, a DNA database of 2 million people, similarly was built from its founders desire to help people connect with relatives. We feel the only person that should have your DNA is you, Bennett Greenspan, the companys president, said in a news release in 2017. But the company also offers law-enforcement officials, for a fee of $800, the ability to search its database for relatives of suspected killers and rapists. So what do these developments mean for that DNA kit sitting under your Christmas tree? Mens Journal calls them one of the hottest gifting ideas, and US Weekly promises that theyre going to love it, no matter how tough of a critic they are. But is using one of these kits also opening the door to letting the police use your DNA to arrest your cousin? The answer in this rapidly evolving realm depends largely on which sites you join and the boxes you check off when you do. And even if you never join any of these sites, their policies could affect you so long as one of your 800 closest relatives has. Ancestry and 23andMeHow big is the database? 15 million (Ancestry) and 10 million DNA profiles (23andMe)Whats the point of these sites? If there is a DNA test under your tree it probably came from one of these two companies. Both market themselves extensively during the holidays. 23andMe likens its myriad ancestry and health reports to 150 personalized gifts in one colorful box, while Ancestry takes a more sentimental tack, urging families to discover their unique story. If I join, could the police use my DNA? Short answer: No. But the fight over access is intensifying.Longer answer: Each of these databases is big enough to identify nearly all 300 million Americans DNA through their cousins, researchers have found. This makes them a tantalizing tool for law enforcement officials, who say the data could help them solve thousands of violent crimes and identify unknown victims if only they could put a name to associated DNA. To identify a suspects blood, for example, investigators do not need to find the person who cut his hand smashing through a window. They just need to match to a couple of his second or third cousins in a DNA database. From there, a genetic genealogist can puzzle out how these cousins are related to one another and the suspect by building out a series of family trees. Often this leads to an arrest. Part of the reason that these databases have grown so rapidly, however, is that they have promised to keep law enforcement out. Both companies require a court order for access and say that they have not yet permitted law enforcement to conduct a genetic search. But interest is high. Eric Heath, Ancestrys chief privacy officer, said in an interview last month that he received 24 emails in 2019 requesting access to the site from law enforcement. These emails included a request to upload DNA to try to identify a suspect in a cold case and a request to search for relatives of an unidentified body. Mr. Heath said he responded by sharing the sites policy and the requests ended there. But they may not in the future. In July, a judge in Florida granted a detective a search warrant to obtain access to nearly 1 million GEDmatch users (more on GEDmatch below) who had not elected to help law enforcement. Many privacy advocates and genealogists were horrified and warned that the development would encourage warrants for searching bigger sites like Ancestry. Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento County district attorney, has been involved in advising law enforcement agencies on how to solve crimes with genealogy sites since her agency helped crack the Golden State Killer case. She said she supported the judges ruling. I commend Florida for taking that first step, she said, calling it a natural progression in an evolving world. She said she believes that investigators will eventually gain access to Ancestry. Should such a search warrant be served to Ancestry, Mr. Heath said, the company is prepared to fight. Were willing to push back and narrow the scope and squash it however we need to, he said. 23andMe made a similar commitment on its blog.But what if I want to help catch killers?Ms. Schubert is among a group of people who are encouraging the big companies to allow users to opt in to help law enforcement. Mr. Heath said that wont happen. Other databases serve that purpose, he said, adding, I dont want to manage that.GEDmatchHow big is the database? 1.3 million DNA profiles What is the point of this site?It is unlikely that anyone will be getting you the gift of a GEDmatch subscription. Uploading to the site is free and the company does not offer DNA tests. But when uploads to other sites rise, uploads to GEDmatch typically follow. Thats because the site functions as a means to get more from your DNA; you can take a DNA file analyzed by another company, like 23andMe, and upload it to GEDmatch to find more relatives and ancestry data.If I join, could the police use my DNA? Short answer: Maybe. Longer answer: People who upload to GEDmatch can choose among four settings. These include help law enforcement, opt out of law enforcement searches, and research mode, which is supposed to hide your profile from everyone. It recently became clear, however, that no one on the site is fully protected from law enforcement searches. When the judge in Florida granted a detective a warrant to search the full database, that included nearly a million profiles of people who had chosen not to help police. This search warrant applies only to this case, but could encourage other detectives to request similar warrants.Just last week, a forensic company purchased GEDmatch. The move delivers dueling messages about the sites future. The new owner, Verogen, said that it would actively fight future search warrants and that users can still opt out of helping police. But Verogen is also a company that has built its business, so far, on catering to law enforcement. FamilyTreeDNA How big is the database? 2.5 million DNA profiles What is the point of this site? Like the others, FamilyTreeDNA wants to help connect you with your family history. But unlike most other such companies, it actively welcomes law enforcement uploads. The company offers a variety of packages for police departments, including one that comes with a genetic genealogist who works for the site to help authorities parse their results and potentially solve a crime.(Barbara Rae-Venter, who helped crack the Golden State Killer case is the director of this new unit. Read more about her here.)If I join, could the police use my DNA? Yes. If you join the site without modifying the settings, you are agreeing to help law enforcement officials identify DNA from crime scenes. If you opt out or are based in Europe, however, you will not appear in search results for police officers who follow the rules.What else is different about this site? FamilyTreeDNA has created a highly unusual vetting system for each formal law enforcement request. Connie Bormans, the companys lab director, reviews the details of each case. If it meets the criteria, then well say O.K., this is a good candidate; well send you all the paperwork we need. Recently, for example, she denied a missing person request from a law enforcement agency that wasnt technically an abduction, she said.MyHeritageHow big is the database? 2.5 million DNA profilesWhat is the point of this site? MyHeritage exists primarily to help people find relatives and build out family trees. Recently, the company also began offering health risk reports. If I join, could the police use my DNA? Short answer: They are not supposed to.Longer answer: Law enforcement is strictly prohibited from using the site without a court order, according to the terms of service. Logistically it would be possible, however. Like GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage accepts DNA files analyzed elsewhere. | science |
Inside EuropeDec. 21, 2015BRUSSELS By any measure, it has been a year from hell for the European Union. And if Britons vote to leave the bloc, next year could be worse.Not since 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell and communism crumbled across Eastern Europe, has the Continents geopolitical kaleidoscope been shaken up so vigorously.But unlike that year of joyous turmoil, which paved the way for a leap forward in European integration, the crises of 2015 threatened to tear the union apart and left it battered, bruised, despondent and littered with new barriers.The collapse of the Iron Curtain led within two years to the agreement to create a single European currency and, over the following 15 years, to the eastward enlargement of the European Union and NATO up to the borders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. That appeared to confirm a prediction of the European Unions founding father, Jean Monnet, that a united Europe would be built out of crises. In contrast, this years political and economic shocks over an influx of migrants, Greek debt, Islamist violence and Russian military action have led to the return of border controls in many places, the rise of populist anti-European Union political forces and recrimination among European Union governments.Jean-Claude Juncker, who describes his European Union executive agency as the last-chance commission, warned that the unions Schengen Area of passport-free travel was in danger and the euro itself would be unlikely to survive if internal borders were shut.Mr. Juncker resorted to gallows humor after the last of 12 summit meetings this year, most devoted to last-gasp crisis management: The crises that are with us will remain and others will come.His gloomy tone was a reality check on the we can do it spirit that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel Europes preeminent leader has sought to apply to the absorption of hundreds of thousands of refugees, most of them from Syria.Ms. Merkel has received little support from her European Union partners in sharing the migrant burden. Most have insisted that the priority is sealing Europes external borders rather than welcoming more than a token number of refugees in their own countries.This is partly due to latent resentment of German dominance of the bloc and payback for its reluctance to share more financial risks in the eurozone.Some partners also accuse Berlin of hypocrisy over its energy ties with Russia, while friends such as France, the Netherlands and Denmark are simply petrified by the rise of right-wing anti-immigration populists at home.One of the sharpest rebuffs to sharing more of the refugee burden came from France, a close ally. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said of Ms. Merkels open-door policy toward Syrian refugees: It was not France that said, Come!Ms. Merkels critics rounded on her at an end-of-year European Union summit meeting. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy, backed by Portugal and Greece, attacked her refusal to accept a eurozone bank deposit guarantee program. The Baltic states, Bulgaria and Italy denounced her support for a direct gas pipeline from Russia to Germany at a time when the bloc is sanctioning Moscow over its military action in Ukraine and has forced the cancellation of a pipeline to southern Europe.One problem likely to worsen in 2016 is that Europes main leaders are politically weak and so preoccupied by domestic challenges that they are unable to take the necessary collective action.Ms. Merkels survival in the chancellery hinges on her ability to bring down the number of refugees flooding into Germany next year and show she has migration under control. But without Mutti (Mommy), as she is affectionately known back home, the union would be in even direr straits.The year of President Franois Hollande of France has been bracketed by militant attacks on the streets of Paris in January and November that caused shock across the Continent over the Islamist threat from within and over failures in European police and intelligence cooperation.Frances influence in Europe is diminished by its economic weakness as Mr. Hollande struggles for re-election in 2017 against the rising far-right populist Marine Le Pen and Mr. Hollandes conservative predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.The British prime minister, David Cameron, cares only about finding a face-saving deal on changes in Britains European Union membership terms in February to win a knife-edge referendum that he has hinted he hopes to hold sometime next year.Mr. Cameron has effectively mortgaged Britains future to an attempt to deprive immigrants from eastern European Union countries of the same in-work benefits that low-paid British workers get something many Euorpean Union members say would be illegal.Given British public alarm over immigration, an anti-elite mood and age-old suspicion of Europe fanned by a skeptical news media, the referendum is an accident waiting to happen.If Britain Europes second-biggest economy and one of its two main military powers became the first member state ever to vote to leave the union, it would be a shattering blow to the blocs confidence and international standing.Die-hard European federalists like to believe a Brexit would unshackle the remaining members to move ahead in a much closer union built on the eurozone.But that is to ignore the myriad east versus west, north versus south, free-market versus protectionist, socialist versus conservative and independent versus integrationist divisions among the other 27 member states.More likely, a Brexit vote would prompt demands for referendums elsewhere, from Poland to Denmark, amid acrimonious negotiations between London and Brussels over the terms of Britains departure and future relationship with the bloc.Denmark has just shown the political risk when governments anywhere in Europe ask voters whether they want even a tiny bit closer cooperation. The answer was nej tak no thanks.If Mr. Cameron wins and Britain stays in the bloc on improved terms, some fear political contagion, with other national leaders tempted to emulate his tactic of taking Brussels hostage for domestic ends. Paul Taylor is a Reuters correspondent. | Business |
Credit...Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesNov. 14, 2016By the end of this week, all blood banks in the continental United States must begin testing donated blood for contamination with the Zika virus. Many banks are doing so already, and the early results indicate that the country has dodged a bullet for now.Screenings in a dozen states suggest that Zika infection remains exceedingly rare. Among the approximately 800,000 blood donations tested in the past six months or so, about 40 were initially positive for the virus.It is good news that we are avoiding the transmission of Zika, said Dr. Susan Rossmann, the chief medical officer at Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center in Houston.Still, she noted, it may not be surprising there are so few possibly positive cases, because blood banks have been dissuading people from donating if they recently traveled to an area in which the virus is circulating.Blood donation screening for Zika is performed with tests made by Roche Molecular Systems or by a collaboration between two medical companies, Hologic Inc. and Grifols.The screening effort is regulated as two gigantic clinical trials in which every blood donor is enrolled as a participant. All the results, therefore, are reported to the companies.ImageCredit...Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesBy Friday, Roches machines had screened 475,000 donations in the United States, excluding Puerto Rico. Just 25 have been initially reactive for Zika infection, said Tony Hardiman, who leads the companys blood screening program.Compared to Puerto Rico, its tiny, he said.Roughly 1 percent of the blood donors in Puerto Rico were infected by July, with 1.8 percent of them testing initially positive in the last week of surveillance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.By mid-October, roughly 348,000 donations had been screened using the test made by Hologic Inc. and Grifols. Fourteen were initially positive for the Zika virus.It may be that not all of these samples are truly contaminated. The technology is still in development, and the manufacturers are scrambling to confirm their results with further investigations of the donors.Of three donors examined by Hologic and Grifols, all seem to have been infected outside the United States. One donor gave blood at United Blood Services in Reno, Nev., after visiting Nicaragua. Another, a New Yorker, had been to Trinidad. The third lives in Arizona and had visited Mexico.All three donors had minute traces of the Zika virus in their blood, detected between 41 and 97 days after travel abroad, Jeffrey Linnen, an associate vice president at Hologic, told attendees at a recent conference for AABB, the standards-setting group for most blood banks nationwide.ImageCredit...Allison V. Smith for The New York TimesViral material detected after 40 days is unlikely to be live virus, said Dr. David O. Freedman, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.The farther along you are after infection, the more likely you are just detecting residual breakdown products from dead virus pieces that are still circulating, he said.In August, the Food and Drug Administration required all blood banks to screen each of the millions of blood donations collected annually for Zika. Eleven states in high-risk areas had to put in the new safeguards in a month. The rest must do so by Friday.At the time, experts feared that Zika-infected mosquitoes would begin turning up in states along the Gulf Coast, prompting outbreaks like those seen in South America and threatening the nations supply of donated blood.Universal screening was necessary to avoid transmission of the Zika virus in donated blood, particularly to pregnant women. If exposed to the virus in utero, fetuses can have brain damage, visual and joint problems, and muscle tone so rigid it restricts movement.Florida is the only state with documented local transmission of the virus. In July, the F.D.A. temporarily halted collection of blood donations in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties until screening for the Zika virus could be put in place.Blood banks perform the screenings themselves or, more often, pay a laboratory to insure donations are Zika-free. The additional costs are passed on to hospitals.The range is from $6 to $10 a unit, Dr. Rossmann said. Its not inconsiderable, thats for sure.One 2011 survey found that hospitals paid $210 on average for a unit of red blood cells, after screening for pathogens. The cost of blood is increasing, the researchers also concluded.The F.D.A. requirement made it pretty clear that we dont have much of a choice, and the hospitals dont have much of a choice, Dr. Rossmann said.Meeting the deadlines has been a monumental task for blood banks. Introducing a new test to screen donations usually takes six to 12 months.The F.D.A.s timeline was just one month for blood banks in Florida and 11 other states thought to be at high risk for Zika outbreaks, and three months for those in 38 other states.It was extremely painful, extremely expensive, said Phillip Williamson, the vice president for operations and scientific affairs at Creative Testing Solutions. This was an unfunded mandate from our government.Rhode Island Blood Center, for example, acquired two new machines to screen 153,000 annual donations and trained 17 employees to load blood samples and run the automated testing around the clock.Weve been scrambling to get ready, said Dr. Carolyn Young, the chief medical officer.In the coming months, the main threat to the blood supply will be the roughly 4,000 travelers infected with the Zika virus while abroad. Most do not have symptoms.Dr. Lyle Petersen, the director of the division of vector-borne diseases at the C.D.C., has called the number of travel cases in the continental states extraordinary.The fear is not that they will all seek to donate blood, but that they will serve as vectors by which the Zika virus will spread in the population, even when the mosquitoes that carry the infection are not present.Sexual transmission is the likeliest route. When people come back from trips, they generally have sex pretty soon, Dr. Petersen recently told a packed room at an annual conference for blood transfusion experts.In all cases the C.D.C. has studied, he said, transmission from infected travelers to their nontraveler partners has occurred within 20 days of the first sexual contact.Recently infected travelers have higher levels of Zika in their blood, semen and other bodily fluids, and are probably more infectious.Blood banks had been asking donors about their travel history and that of their sexual partners, and then asking them to postpone donating for at least a month.To prove that their new tests work reliably enough to be licensed, Hologic, Grifols and Roche may need to enroll millions of participants in their continuing trials.Roughly seven million people give blood annually; Creative Testing Solutions screens about a third of them. We have to sign up every one of those people for a clinical trial, Dr. Williamson said.While the nonprofit can handle the burden, he added, Im sure a lot of places out there are struggling as the result of the aggressive implementation guidelines mandated by F.D.A.Still, most experts agree that universal screening is costly but necessary if the country wishes to avoid even a single instance in which a child is brain-damaged because of a transfusion of contaminated blood.The Community Blood Bank of Northwest Pennsylvania and Western New York, based in Erie, Pa., has been drawing extra tubes of blood from donors to fly overnight to a Houston laboratory for Zika screening at $6 to $10 a sample.Compared to the overall cost of health care, said Scott Greenwell, the executive director of the blood bank, this is spit in the ocean. | Health |
News AnalysisA jarring juxtaposition is forcing a 244-year-old nation to contend with its original conundrum: Whose democracy is it?Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesPublished Jan. 8, 2021Updated Jan. 10, 2021ATLANTA The day after Georgia elected a Black descendant of sharecroppers and a young Jewish filmmaker to be U.S. senators, underscoring the rising political power of racial and religious minorities, the forces of white grievance politics struck back.At the Peoples House in Washington, a predominantly white mob in support of President Trumps attempts to overturn the election overtook the Capitol building by brute force. Confederate flags flew at the seat of American democracy. A gallows was erected, with a noose hanging in the air. It was as stark a contrast as any, one day that illustrated the nations original paradox: a commitment to democracy in a country with a legacy of racial exclusion.The seeds that led to the insurrection were hidden in plain sight. At Mr. Trumps rallies, where his supporters set up open-air markets of hate and conspiracy, selling Confederate flags and T-shirts that mock his opponents and the media. In conservative news outlets, where the language of revolution and civil war is commonplace. On Mr. Trumps Twitter feed, which has amplified white supremacists, anti-Semites and anti-Muslim extremists.On Thursday night, he took to that Twitter feed again to post a video message condemning the mob while taking no responsibility for inviting it to Washington or inspiring its actions. You do not represent our country, he said to the rioters, before moments later nodding to all of our wonderful supporters. On Friday night, Twitter permanently suspended Mr. Trumps account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.Whether the mob represents a fringe of the American political spectrum or a growing movement increasingly opposed to democratic norms is an essential question at the end of the Trump era, when it is clear that progress to some is seen as an affront to others.Its not surprising to see insurrectionists swarm the Capitol when the federal government is run by people who have made it the project of the Republican Party to dismantle the federal government, said Representative Mondaire Jones, a newly sworn-in Democrat from New York. He added that these leaders articulated this false narrative of a federal government that seeks to oppress the rights of the American people.Like other lawmakers on Thursday, Mr. Jones acknowledged that it was easier to diagnose the causes of the chaos than to craft solutions. The forces that helped Democrats send Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris to the White House are real. So is a widening gap between liberal and conservative movements, and the fact that as the United States has increasingly incorporated Black Americans, people of color, immigrants and Native Americans into the democratic fabric, it has come at a cost.Mr. Biden addressed the fallout as he introduced his designees for the Justice Department on Thursday afternoon.He framed it as a wake-up call to a country that has at times feigned ignorance of this reality: The most ardent portions of Mr. Trumps white base are engulfed by a toxic mix of conspiracy theories and racism.No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday that they wouldnt have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol, Mr. Biden said.His administration, he promised, would meet the moment as a policy challenge. More than anything, we need to restore the honor, the integrity and the independence of the Department of Justice in this nation, he said.But the mob tested more than policy or ideology. The intentions of the presidents supporters struck at an idea at the core of the American experiment that, in time, the countrys commitment to democracy will overtake its history of intolerance.Mr. Biden has made clear he believes that the Republican Party, from its base to its top elected officials, will break from the hard-line posture of Mr. Trump and work with Democrats and his cabinet. He has selected experienced cabinet leaders with that mission in mind, intended to restore faith in American institutions through familiar faces and ideological moderation.In emergency remarks from Delaware on Wednesday, the day of the unrest, Mr. Biden repeated his familiar refrain: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are.Some civil rights leaders said they took away the opposite message, that it was time to recognize the scope of the challenges facing the country, not dismiss them as fringe. It was a message intended for Mr. Biden, both political parties, and the most powerful corporations in the country.Representative Maxine Waters of California, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the images should be a jarring reminder of the countrys bloody struggle against injustice.That Confederate flag conjured up, for me, the many Black people who have died as a result of racism, she said in a phone interview.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn some ways, the week brings the political era defined by Mr. Trump back to where it began. Years before he announced his presidential run at Trump Tower in New York, he led the spread of birtherism, a potent mix of conspiracy theory and racism that sought to delegitimize President Barack Obama.His 2016 presidential run was full of similar misinformation and prejudice. He refused to denounce the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke; insinuated that a Mexican-American judge could not fairly adjudicate; and allowed a questioner in New Hampshire to say, unchallenged, that Mr. Obama was a Muslim who was not even an American.During his time in office, Mr. Trumps supporters have taken his actions as tacit approval and begun to organize online, outside the gaze of mainstream news outlets and with the encouragement of some Republican officials.Death of a Nation, a documentary made by the conservative provocateur Dinesh DSouza, compared the Democratic Party to Nazi Germany and urged the audience to resist by all means necessary. It had a star-studded red carpet reception in Washington with appearances from Donald Trump Jr., the presidents son, and Housing Secretary Ben Carson. Republican House members held watch parties as campaign fund-raisers, as did some local Republican Party groups.In Arizona, a battleground state where Republicans rely on turnout among white rural conservatives to overpower Democratic votes in urban centers, the state party chair, Kelli Ward, and Representative Paul Gosar have appeared at events like a Patriotism Over Socialism rally and a gathering called Trumpstock, which paired public figures associated with the president and speakers that included open white nationalists who threatened violence if Mr. Trump lost re-election. At Trumpstock, supporters of the president spoke casually and openly about violence and insisted that they were not white supremacists, despite their racist language. They were patriots.Mr. Trump and his allies have not condemned such sentiments, but praised them. When he spoke to the marchers this week in Washington, many of whom had traveled to the capital after attending similar local events, the president framed their actions in the same apocalyptic terms used in Mr. DSouzas movie the country was at a crossroads and in need of saving.Youll never take back our country with weakness, Mr. Trump said to the crowd. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.With Mr. Trump on his way out, however, the Republican Party has a choice. Its congressional ranks include some more moderate figures who have denounced the president and his message, but also firebrands who have become the favorites of the partys base.Senator Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 and a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, was harassed on a plane this week by people who were flying to attend Wednesdays rally. Figures like Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama have doubled down claiming without evidence that left-wing groups like antifa infiltrated the crowds in Washington to sow discord.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesRashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change, said Mr. Biden must be emboldened by the presidential results in November and, perhaps, by disgust at the events in Washington. He said the incoming Democratic administration should make racial justice a governing priority, not just an idea to pay lip service to on the trail.In 2020, for the first time ever, racial justice became a majoritarian issue at the polls, Mr. Robinson said. Now we have to do the work to make sure that what is a majority issue actually becomes a governing majority. Because that is how you make a democracy function when the will of the people are actually delivered on.He added: We dont get racial justice out of a true democracy. We get a true democracy out of racial justice.That admission strikes at the countrys long-held racial myths, and requires an acknowledgment that full American democracy is not centuries old and static, but fragile and relatively new.The road to the Civil Rights Act was paved with Black death, like the killings of the 13-year-old Virgil Lamar Ware and the 14-year-old Emmett Till. And for every Raphael Warnock, who will become the first Black Georgian to serve in the Senate, there are descendants of Black sharecroppers who are still mired in poverty, stuck in the generational cycle of inequality that stretches from the political to social and economic.Ms. Waters, the congresswoman, was a teacher in Watts, Calif., in the 1960s. She played a pivotal role in restoring order in Los Angeles after the rebellion in 1991, after city police officers beat Rodney King.Still, she said, seeing the symbols of hate on display on Wednesday made her fear for her life. And if some are surprised that so few of the people who forced their way into the Capitol were arrested or shot, they shouldnt be. The mob was white.When I looked out on that crowd, I didnt see any Black people all I saw was determined and angry white faces, Ms. Waters said. The white people of this country are going to have to take responsibility, and theyre the ones that are going to have to help change the thinking. | Politics |
Olympics|Ligety Takes Giant Slalomhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/sports/olympics/ligety-takes-giant-slalom.htmlSports Briefing | Winter SportsFeb. 3, 2014Ted Ligety of the United States put together two nearly flawless runs in difficult conditions to win a World Cup giant slalom Sunday in St. Moritz, Switzerland, the last mens race before the Sochi Olympics.Ligety, a two-time world champion in the event, overcame poor visibility to finish a decisive 1.51 seconds faster than Marcel Hirscher of Austria in combined time.As fog shrouded the middle section of the course, Ligety raced to his 21st career victory and his third in a giant slalom this season. Bode Miller hit a rut and crashed out about halfway into the first run. Marit Bjoergen of Norway picked up her second World Cup win of the weekend as she triumphed in the womens freestyle sprint in Toblach, Italy. Her compatriot Ola Vigen Hattestad was victorious in the mens event. Kamil Stoch of Poland, the world champion, won the last ski jump World Cup event before the Sochi Olympics, in Willingen, Germany, to reclaim his lead in the overall standings. The Japanese ski jumper Sara Takanashi won her second World Cup event in two days, in Hinzenbach, Austria, cementing her status as the favorite for Olympic gold in Sochi. | Sports |
Credit...Nick Cote for The New York TimesDec. 13, 2015AURORA, Colo. William Harris tapped his retirement savings to open A-Town Pizza, a Neapolitan pizzeria, in this Denver suburb three years ago. He borrowed $200,000 to open a second location this year and now employs 60 people. On a good Friday, his shops sell 1,200 pies.In such stories, the Federal Reserve finds evidence that its seven-year campaign to reboot the American economy is succeeding. So on Wednesday, the Fed, which has held short-term interest rates near zero since December 2008, will most likely announce that it will start nudging rates upward, slowly ending what has amounted to a once-in-a-lifetime sale on money.Mr. Harris, for one, is not ready. Its scary when you hear that the government is planning to slow things down, the wiry 39-year-old said as he folded menus. We live on peoples extra money. Thats the money they spend on pizza. And it still feels very fragile.Monetary policy is conducted in a language of bloodless abstraction, and most Americans pay little, if any, attention. But the Fed is about to make a big bet, and the decisions it makes in Washington have large consequences, here in Colorado and across the nation.Janet L. Yellen, the Feds chairwoman, and her colleagues have concluded that the economy is finally strong enough to grow with a little less help from the central bank. Indeed, they worry inflation will rise too quickly if they do not start raising interest rates. The first rate increase will be small, then the Fed expects to raise rates about one percentage point a year for the next few years.The Feds move is coming in the face of worries about the health of the stock market and falling commodities prices. Still, by itself, the increase probably will not matter much. The Fed is expected to set short-term rates in a range from 0.25 to 0.5 percent, a small jump from the current range of zero to 0.25 percent.It is what follows that will make the difference.Denver seems ready for higher rates. The areas economy has enjoyed one of the nations strongest rebounds from the recession. The local unemployment rate fell to 3.1 percent in October. There are new skyscrapers downtown and new subdivisions in every direction. The former oil town is now at the center of one of the nations largest booms of technology start-ups.Yet the local mood is fragile. Housing prices have climbed 24 percent above the precrisis peak, but whereas that once would have encouraged economic optimism, now people fret that home prices are due for a fall.Optimists say that the economic expansion is just gaining steam and that modestly higher rates will probably not slow the regions growth.Pessimists see evidence of fragility in the same facts. Josh Downey, president of the Denver Area Labor Federation, says the resurgence of development has created construction jobs for a new generation of workers. They need cars to reach their jobs, and jobs to pay for their cars. If those buildings stop going up in Denver, theyre going to be out of a job and a car, he said.ImageCredit...Nick Cote for The New York TimesMark McKissick, director of fixed-income research at Denver Investments, says he is waiting to see how quickly the Fed raises rates before he adjusts the firms investment holdings. The economy, he says, does not seem strong enough to handle higher rates, and he expects the Fed to reach the same conclusion. Otherwise, he worries it could push the economy back into recession.The Fed threw a bunch of money into the financial system, but it hasnt stimulated growth or inflation the way it might have in earlier periods, he said.Builders, for example, will start construction on about 9,000 single-family homes in the Denver metropolitan area this year, according to Metrostudy, a real estate research firm. That is up 14 percent from last year but less than half the 20,000 home starts in the Denver area at the peak of the bubble in 2005.Some workers will be getting raises. Bakery and deli clerks at King Soopers, a grocery chain, will earn a minimum wage of $10.50, an increase of as much as $2 an hour, under the terms of a new contract negotiated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The previous four-year deal held wages steady.Others, however, are still waiting for prosperity to affect them.Ethel Ayos landlord raised her rent this year by $400 a month, to $1,126. Ms. Ayo has a part-time job as a home-care worker and her son, a college student, works at Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Together they can barely afford the rent and then only because the landlord does not require full payment at the beginning of the month. And you didnt hear me talk about food, Ms. Ayo said. After I work two or three days, I buy $50 of food and make it last two or three weeks.Mr. Harris, the restaurateur, says Denvers growth feels nothing like the boom he lived through in Southern California a decade ago. He is struggling to repay his start-up costs, particularly during the holidays, when people eat less pizza. The Fed will most likely raise rates before his risks have paid off. If it has overestimated the recovery and moves too fast, people will have less money to spend, and Mr. Harris said he could lose his restaurants and his retirement savings.On South Broadway, a commercial strip south of downtown lined with dilapidated auto dealerships and freshly painted marijuana shops, those worries seem far away. Khalid Sarway, sales manager at Famous Motors, says he is selling about 25 used cars a month, and he does not think higher rates will bother his customers.The people, they dont care about the rate, said Mr. Sarway, who added that he was making more money now than in the best years before the recession. They just want a vehicle. They just want to be able to get back and forth between their jobs and school, or whatever their lifestyle is.North of downtown, Denvers tech entrepreneurs also see little immediate danger from higher rates.Steve Adams, the 62-year-old chief executive of Leo Technologies, runs a start-up, his sixth, in a former produce warehouse that has been renamed Industry, where the nearest thing to manual labor occurs when people play table tennis in the atrium.Uber has its Denver office in one corner of the sprawling building.Mr. Adams is trying to raise $500,000 to test a biometric device that uses blood pressure readings to measure hydration levels data that he says could help athletes as well as people with medical conditions, like those on dialysis.ImageCredit...Nick Cote for The New York TimesLike many of his peers, Mr. Adams thinks low rates have made it easier for young companies to raise money from investors seeking higher returns. Denver is also a technology frontier town, reliant on coastal capital, so it may be more vulnerable if the availability of funding begins to recede.But Mr. Adams said he expected the money to keep flowing even as rates on safer investments like corporate bonds start to rise. The people Im pitching want to get in early and make a big multiple, he said.Some in the real estate business similarly insist that the local market will probably remain hot. Greg Geller, the owner of Vision Real Estate, says builders are struggling to keep pace with population growth because it takes years to find land, obtain permits and train replacements for workers laid off during the recession.Others are less sanguine. Mitchell Goldman, the owner of Apex Homes, said customers rushed to buy houses in recent years because they worried prices would climb. Now people are holding back, wondering if prices will fall.Ive been getting asked the question a lot, Should we wait? he said.Mr. Goldman said he expected that higher rates would also push some buyers out of the market. The math, after all, is inexorable. If mortgage rates increase by one percentage point, the monthly cost of a $300,000 mortgage increases by $177.He added that he was looking for land to build a home for his own family. They have moved several times in recent years, but with higher interest rates on the horizon, he wants to build a more permanent forever home.Im a little more anxious, Mr. Goldman said. Interest rates are never going to be what they were when I was growing up, but every little bit makes a difference. | Business |
Storm Chasers' Star Joel Taylor Dead From Suspected OD 1/24/2018 -- Law enforcement sources tell TMZ, "It appears the death could be an overdose and Joel Taylor was consuming controlled substances." A passenger who interacted with Joel tells TMZ, Joel had consumed enough GHB on the dance floor Tuesday that he was rendered unconscious and taken off the dance floor by 2 people and back to his room. "Storm Chaser" star Joel Taylor died from a suspected overdose on a cruise ship ... this according to passengers on the boat. Passengers on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line Harmony of the Seas tell TMZ ... drugs on the party boat were plentiful, and they say 38-year-old Taylor was partaking. A rep for the boat tells us Taylor was found unresponsive in his cabin Tuesday and law enforcement was alerted when the boat arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We're told among the drugs ... Ecstasy and cocaine. Passengers even posted on social media when they were boarding that several people were arrested at the Ft. Lauderdale port -- where the boat departed -- for possession of drugs. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. Olivia Newton-John and famous DJ duo Galantis both performed on the boat Tuesday night. An autopsy is currently underway. | Entertainment |
Even as the Justice Department sued Google, some antitrust experts wondered whether a different government response would be more effective.Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesOct. 22, 2020For decades, Americas antitrust laws originally designed to curb the power of 19th-century corporate giants in railroads, oil and steel have been hailed as the Magna Carta of free enterprise and have proved remarkably durable and adaptable.But even as the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against Google on Tuesday for unlawfully maintaining a monopoly in search and search advertising, a growing number of legal experts and economists have started questioning whether traditional antitrust is up to the task of addressing the competitive concerns raised by todays digital behemoths. Further help, they said, is needed.Antitrust cases typically proceed at the stately pace of the courts, with trials and appeals that can drag on for years. Those delays, the legal experts and economists said, would give Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple a free hand to become even more entrenched in the markets they dominate.A more rapid-response approach is required, they said. One solution: a specialist regulator that would focus on the major tech companies. It would establish and enforce a set of basic rules of conduct, which would include not allowing the companies to favor their own services, exclude competitors or acquire emerging rivals and require them to permit competitors access to their platforms and data on reasonable terms.The British government has already said it would create a digital markets unit, with calls for a Big Tech regulator to also be introduced in the European Union and in Australia. In the United States, recommendations for a digital markets regulator have also been made in expert reports and in congressional testimony. It could be a separate agency or perhaps a digital division inside the Federal Trade Commission.Significantly, the leading proponents of this path in the United States are mainstream antitrust experts and economists rather than break-em-up firebrands. Jason Furman, a professor at Harvard University and chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, led an advisory group to the British government that recommended the creation of a digital markets unit in 2019.ImageCredit...Zach Gibson/Getty ImagesBreaking up the big tech companies, Mr. Furman said, is a bad idea because that would risk losing some of the consumer benefits these digital utilities undeniably deliver. A regulator is necessary to police digital markets and the behavior of the tech giants, he said.Im a small c conservative, and Im not a fan of regulation generally, Mr. Furman said. But its needed in this space.Regulators that focus on specific sectors of the economy are common in the United States. For financial markets, there is the Securities and Exchange Commission; for airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration; for pharmaceuticals, the Food and Drug Administration; for telecommunications, the Federal Communications Commission; and so on.There is also precedent for picking out a handful of big companies for special treatment. In banking, the biggest banks with the most customers and loans are classified as systemically important financial institutions and subject to more stringent scrutiny.Several supporters of a new tech regulator were officials in the Obama administration, which was known for being friendly to Silicon Valley. But the advocates said that experience as well as the conservative, pro-big business drift of court rulings in recent years left them frustrated with antitrust law as the only way to restrain the growing market power and conduct of the big tech companies.The mechanism of antitrust is not working to protect competition, said Fiona Scott Morton, an official in the Justice Departments antitrust division in the Obama administration, who is an economist at the Yale University School of Management. So lets do something else use a different tool.Ms. Scott Morton led an expert panel on antitrust in a report last year on digital platforms by the Stigler Center at the University of Chicagos Booth School of Business. The report recommended the creation of a regulatory authority. (Ms. Scott Morton has been a forceful critic of Google, but also a consultant to Apple and Amazon.)Such a regulatory approach carries the risk of governments meddling in a fast-moving industry that could hobble innovation, some antitrust experts warned. While antitrust law reacts to alleged anticompetitive behavior and can thus be slow, that shortcoming is preferable to prescriptive government rules and regulations, they said.Im very uncomfortable with the regulatory path, especially if it means things like getting government approval for product changes, said Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The history of regulation shows that it is an innovation killer.A. Douglas Melamed, a former general counsel of Intel and a former antitrust official in the Justice Department, shared that concern. But Mr. Melamed, a member of the expert panel for the Stigler Center report, said the tech giants did pose a competition problem.I think regulation might make sense if it is narrowly focused, not running the industry, said Mr. Melamed, who is a professor at Stanford Law School.The last major antitrust action against a big technology company was the landmark Microsoft case in the 1990s. The case began with a suit filed in 1994 by the Federal Trade Commission and a simultaneous consent decree.The Justice Department and several states later picked up the pursuit, investigated anew, filed suit and conducted an exhaustive trial. Microsoft was found to have repeatedly violated the nations antitrust laws, and the company then reached a settlement with the government, which a federal court approved in 2002.In the Microsoft case, the antitrust legal process worked, in its way. Yet its impact is still debated. Without the suit and years of scrutiny, some observers said, Microsoft could have throttled the rise of Google.ImageCredit...Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesBut others said the technological shift toward the internet and away from the personal computer meant that Microsoft had lost the gatekeeper power it once held. Technology, not antitrust, they insisted, opened the door to competition.Triumph or not, the Microsoft case was two decades ago. Proponents of a new regulator said antitrust law was ill suited by itself to restraining todays faster-moving digital giants. In the internet economy, they said, the forces that reinforce and expand the power of a market leader called network effects are stronger and more rapid than in the personal computer era.Antitrust is not a fully adequate tool to deal with the companies that dominate these markets, said Gene Kimmelman, who was on the Stigler Center panel and a co-author of a recent report by the Shorenstein Center at Harvard that called for the creation of a digital platform agency in America.Another argument for the regulatory option is that competition concerns now span four companies, not just one. Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are in different markets, including search, online advertising, e-commerce and social networks. Bringing separate antitrust cases against them would most likely be beyond the resources of the government.When the competition issues are larger than a single firm, regulation might be the better tool to use, said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. | Tech |
Senator Orrin Hatch Ronald Reagan Richly Deserves an Oscar 1/24/2018 TMZ.com Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is down with Ronald Reagan receiving a posthumous Oscar, but he concedes it would be an uphill battle. We got the Republican Senator Tuesday on Capitol Hill and he thinks Reagan's CV is Oscar-worthy -- movie star, SAG President and Prez of the U.S. There's a petition being circulated asking the Academy to honor Reagan -- as the only Academy member to become Prez. The Senator -- who's retiring this year -- admits it's a tough road to hoe for any conservative to get love from members of the Academy. BTW ... when Reagan first ran for Governor of California, his opponent campaigned against Reagan using his movie, "Bedtime for Bonzo" -- where Reagan chummed up to a chimp -- to argue he was unqualified. | Entertainment |
Credit...Thomas Peter/ReutersMarch 15, 2017BEIJING Chinas premier, Li Keqiang, defended his government on Wednesday as a bulwark of economic and regional stability, arguing that smoldering tensions with the Trump administration over trade imbalances, North Korea and other disputes in Asia could be solved through dialogue.The comments appeared intended to set an upbeat tone for a first meeting between President Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that is provisionally scheduled for next month at Mr. Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. In an annual news conference that lasted more than two hours, Mr. Li stressed his optimism about relations with the United States.This relationship is crucial for not just China and the United States, but also for regional and global peace, security and stability, and we have to protect its progress, Mr. Li told hundreds of reporters at the end of the annual meeting of Chinas legislature, the National Peoples Congress.Mr. Lis comments, under giant chandeliers in the lavish Golden Hall at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square, showed how quickly the outward mood in relations had shifted. Before and after his election victory in November, Mr. Trump threw down a series of challenges that rattled policy makers in Beijing.Mr. Trump threatened to punish China over its yawning trade surplus with the United States. Last year, the United States deficit in trade in goods with China reached $347 billion, and Mr. Trump has promised to close that gap, which he has also attributed to what he calls Chinas rigged currency exchange policies. Many economists say that claim is an oversimplification.Mr. Trump also suggested he might abandon longstanding American policy on Taiwan, the self-governed island that China treats as an illegitimate breakaway territory. His secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, promised to stop Chinas building of islands as military outposts in the disputed South China Sea, where the Philippines, Vietnam and other neighbors have competing territorial claims.But since Mr. Trump took office, Chinese diplomats have pressed his administration to retreat from positions that could ignite an early crisis in relations. In February, Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi spoke over the phone, and Mr. Trump reaffirmed established American policy that Taiwan was a part of one China.Administration officials have reined in warnings of possible military action in the South China Sea. And so far, at least, the White House has not introduced measures that could sharply cut the flow of Chinese goods into the United States.Those sources of tension could still flare, especially over trade and the South China Sea, where the Trump administration has promised to establish a more robust naval presence. The Trump administration is also likely to sell Taiwan a large order of weapons, which could renew tensions over that issue.But like other Chinese leaders recently, Mr. Li put a bright veneer over those concerns. He said a trade war of tit-for-tat protectionist measures would ultimately damage the American economy.Mr. Li said that if a trade war broke out between China and the United States, foreign companies operating in China, in particular American companies, would bear the brunt. He said he was citing findings published by a foreign think tank, apparently referring to the extra costs that American companies would face buying goods in China for the American market.He also stressed that China would pay close attention to whether Mr. Trumps administration stuck to the One China policy, which in effect denies Taiwan the possibility of recognition as a separate country, something to which pro-independence groups in Taiwan aspire.This policy constitutes the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and cannot and must not be shaken by vicissitudes, Mr. Li said of the One China policy.On North Korea, another issue over which the two powers have been at odds, Mr. Li repeated Beijings position that only renewed negotiations with Pyongyang stood a chance of curtailing its nuclear program. China, the Norths neighbor and sole major ally, hosted long-running multinational talks on the issue that fell apart after 2009.We hope that through the efforts of all parties the tense atmosphere can be eased and the parties can return to the track of dialogue, Mr. Li said. Nobody wants to have a constant ruckus all day at his doorstep.But Mr. Li stopped short of criticizing the antimissile system that the United States began deploying in South Korea last week as a shield against missiles from the North. China has vehemently opposed the system, which it says could also track its intercontinental ballistic missiles, undermining their potency as a nuclear deterrent.The secretary of state, Mr. Tillerson, is scheduled to visit Beijing over the weekend for talks about the meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi and also to discuss regional trouble spots, especially North Korea.For Mr. Li, his annual news conference at the end of the legislative session was a rare chance to dominate the political stage, which is usually filled by the near-omnipresent president, Mr. Xi. Unlike his recent predecessors, Mr. Li has not taken a lead in setting economic policy, and some observers have wondered whether he might be replaced as premier after his first term ends next year.But on Wednesday, Mr. Li held center stage, while crediting Mr. Xi with keeping the economy in good health since they were elected premier and president in 2013.Mr. Li presented an optimistic view of Chinas economy this year. At the opening of the meeting last week, Mr. Li said the government wanted the economy to grow 6.5 percent or more in 2017. The target represented a slight easing from last years goal, which was 6.5 to 7 percent. Chinas economy grew 6.7 percent last year, according to official statistics.At his news conference, Mr. Li said that the 6.5 percent target differed little from last years target. We believe that China will continue to be a strong driving force in the face of a sluggish global economy, he said.But the trade-offs between stoking growth and fixing underlying economic problems have become increasingly difficult and contentious.The government says the economy must keep expanding at a relatively fast pace to create enough urban jobs for roughly 11 million rural migrants and new university graduates this year. Mr. Xi will also oversee a big leadership shake-up at a Communist Party congress this autumn, when he starts his second term as party leader, magnifying the governments hunger for social confidence and stability.Yet ever since the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, China has come to depend on bigger and bigger injections of bank lending and other credit to fire up investment and demand. That worries economists, who say that increasingly heavy debt and misspending will eventually drag down growth.China has limited its budget deficit to about 3 percent of economic output, a modest fiscal stimulus. But it has been rapidly increasing total debt in the economy, with overall credit expanding last year by an amount equal to almost one-sixth of the countrys economic output.Much of the lending has ended up in housing and construction projects, including new expressways and airports. That investment has increasingly taken place in less prosperous inland regions where demand is tepid. As a result, the growth dividend from each dollar of new credit has been shrinking year by year, even as nationwide debt, particularly borrowing by state-owned enterprises, has expanded briskly.Mr. Li, however, sought to allay worries about rising Chinese debt. He said that there was no risk to the overall financial system and that the Chinese governments relatively low budget deficit and large capital bases in banks would protect the country.But he acknowledged that financial challenges remained, saying, We are fully aware of potential risks and will take prompt and targeted action. | World |
Parents are sneaking carbon dioxide monitors into their childrens schools to determine whether the buildings are safe.Credit...Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesOct. 10, 2021When Lizzie Rothwell, an architect in Philadelphia, sent her son to third grade this fall, she stocked his blue L.L. Bean backpack with pencils, wide-ruled paper and a portable carbon dioxide monitor.The device gave her a quick way to assess how much fresh air was flowing through the school. Low levels of CO2 would indicate that it was well-ventilated, reducing her sons odds of catching the coronavirus.But she quickly discovered that during lunch, CO2 levels in the cafeteria rose to nearly double those recommended by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She shared what shed learned with the principal and asked if students could eat outside instead.He expressed surprise that I had any data at all, she said.Ms. Rothwell is one of a growing number of parents who are sneaking CO2 monitors into schools in a clandestine effort to make sure their childrens classrooms are safe. Aranet, which makes a monitor popular with parents, says orders have doubled since the new school year began.Some school systems have made the monitors part of their official pandemic precautions. New York City has distributed the devices to every public school, and the British government has announced plans to do likewise.But elsewhere, parents are taking matters into their own hands, sneaking in the monitors which can cost a hundred dollars or more in their childrens backpacks or pants pockets.Although the devices, which can be set to take readings every few minutes, work best when exposed to the open air, they can generate informative data as long as they are not completely sealed away, said Dr. Alex Huffman, an aerosol scientist at the University of Denver who has sent the monitors to school with his children. (He recommended leaving backpacks or pants pockets unzipped, or tucking the monitor into the mesh water-bottle pouch that is now standard on many backpacks.)ImageCredit...Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesMany of these parents have forged a community on Twitter, where they are using the hashtag #CovidCO2 to trade tips about how to smuggle the monitors into the classroom, how to interpret the data they are collecting and how to approach the school with their findings.Some school officials have frowned upon these guerrilla air-monitoring efforts, but parents say the devices have armed them with data to advocate for their children.Its possible that the school district may not be all that happy with this because I think it gives us a window into the fact that they may not actually be treating ventilation as seriously as they should be, Dr. Huffman said.A window into indoor airThe coronavirus spreads through tiny, airborne droplets known as aerosols. Improving indoor ventilation reduces the concentration of these aerosols and the risk of infection in an indoor space, but there is no easy way for members of the public to measure the ventilation rate let alone the accumulation of viral aerosols in shared spaces.Ideally thered be some machine that cost $100 and it starts beeping if the virus is in the air, said Jose-Luis Jimenez, an aerosol scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, who is sending a carbon dioxide monitor to school with his son. But in the absence of such a device, he said, CO2 is something that provides an affordable and very meaningful shortcut.Every time we exhale, we expel not just aerosols but also carbon dioxide; the worse the ventilation, the more carbon dioxide builds up in an occupied room.If we see the CO2 rising, then that also implies that the concentration of aerosols are rising, Dr. Huffman said. Even just bringing sensor for a day or two can give you a really interesting and useful window into the world of the ventilation of that space.Jeanne Norris, who lives in the St. Louis area, said that she bought her monitor after losing confidence in officials in her sons school district.They just hadnt been very transparent about their ventilation, she said. They say that its fine and that they did their own testing but then they wouldnt share that data with me.Ms. Norris and her husband are both science teachers, and so far their data suggest that the ventilation is excellent in both of their classrooms. But CO2 levels in her sons classroom sometimes surpass 1300 parts per million. The C.D.C. recommends that indoor carbon dioxide levels remain below 800 p.p.m.After she collects more data, she plans to take her findings to school officials and ask them to improve the ventilation. Im willing to be creative and brainstorm with them, she said.ImageCredit...via Lizzie RothwellImageCredit...via Jeremy ChryslerSome parents have gotten results. When Jeremy Chrysler, of Conway, Ark., sent a monitor in with his 13-year-old daughter, this fall, the CO2 readings were a sky-high 4,000 p.p.m.He brought his findings to district officials, who discovered that two components of the schools HVAC system were not working properly. After the units were fixed, CO2 levels plummeted.What my measurements showed was, hey, measuring CO2 can identify problems and sometimes those problems are easy to fix, he said.Although Ms. Rothwell has not convinced her sons school to move lunch outdoors, the principal has said he is committed to improving the ventilation in the cafeteria, she said.Results may varyThere are some success stories, said Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, San Diego. Unfortunately Ive heard more parents rejected.After Shanon Kerr, of Waterloo, Canada, found high CO2 levels in some of her daughters school spaces, she asked district officials to monitor indoor air quality throughout the building, even offering up her own CO2 monitor. Theyve been very dismissive, she said.In an email to The Times, Loretta Notten, director of education of the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, said that follow-up testing in the classrooms Ms. Kerr identified revealed that carbon dioxide levels were within acceptable parameters.Air quality testing is done on an as-needed basis, she said: The Board does not intend on performing ongoing monitoring of carbon dioxide.(Ms. Kerr has also run into resistance closer to home. Her daughter no longer wants to take the monitor to school. Ive been bribing her with KitKat chocolate bars but its not working anymore, she said.)Graham Freeman, the father of two boys in Santa Cruz, Calif., said his request to send CO2 monitors to school with his sons was denied.Kris Munro, the superintendent of Santa Cruz City Schools, said she is confident in the ventilation upgrades the district performed last winter and that it would be inappropriate to put individual students in the position of monitoring school air quality.ImageCredit...Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesIts our responsibility to assure every space is safe, she said. Not just to have individuals coming on campus to find out: Is a specific space safe?Mr. Freeman has been sending the monitors into school anyway, tucked into the pockets of his sons cargo pants. Hes been pleasantly surprised by the readings, which have remained under 700 p.p.m. as long as the classroom doors and windows have been open.But the monitors did capture a small spike, when CO2 rose above 900 p.p.m., during a lockdown drill at his sons middle school, when the teacher closed the classroom door.So his sons will continue taking the devices to school for the indefinite future. Were going to be wearing a lot of REI cargo pants and CO2 monitors in the pockets, he said.A monitor in every classroomThere are limitations to the monitoring. Some devices are more reliable than others, and the readings can be skewed by a variety of factors, including where the monitor is placed.Children can still catch the virus in spaces with low CO2 levels and good ventilation. And high-quality air filters can trap viral aerosols, but have no effect on carbon dioxide levels. So in schools that have installed these filters, CO2 readings alone may overestimate the risk of viral transmission.But even in the absence of the virus, reducing indoor carbon dioxide levels can have benefits. Studies show that even moderately high levels of the gas may muddle thinking and that improving ventilation can boost performance on cognitive tasks.Of course, many families cannot afford a $100 air quality monitor and they should not have to, parents and scientists said.Mr. Chrysler, whose CO2 readings prompted his Arkansas district to repair its HVAC system, is now lobbying officials to buy air quality monitors for every classroom in the district.Pointing to Belgium, which has mandated CO2 monitors in restaurants, gyms and other buildings, Dr. Jimenez said he would like all public indoor spaces to provide permanent real-time displays of the carbon dioxide levels: This is something that we should do permanently in schools but also in all places where we share air. | Health |
The New New WorldCredit...Jialun DengJune 10, 2018HONG KONG Once derided as a technology backwater and copycat, China is justifiably proud of its technology boom. Its people zip around the country on high-speed trains. They can buy, and pay for, just about anything with their smartphones. For Chinese traveling abroad, the rest of the world can seem slow and antiquated.Now, that progress has been cast into doubt, and even some of the smartest people in the technology world are asking how they got it so wrong.The Trump administration gave ZTE, which employs 75,000 people and is the worlds No. 4 maker of telecom gear, a stay of execution on Thursday. ZTE, which had violated American sanctions, agreed to pay a $1 billion fine and to allow monitors to set up shop in its headquarters. In return, the company once a symbol of Chinas progress and engineering know-how will be allowed to buy the American-made microchips, software and other tools it needs to survive.Chinas technology boom, it turns out, has been largely built on top of Western technology.The ZTE incident, as it is called in China, may be the countrys Sputnik moment. Like the United States in 1957, watching helplessly as the Soviet Union launched the first human-made satellite, many people in China now see how far the country still has to go.We realized, said Dong Jielin, an adjunct professor at the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University in Beijing, that Chinas prosperity was built on sand.China now feels a new urgency to change that.This week, I begin a column for The New York Times that looks at the paradox of modern China through the lens of technology. For years, China has defied the axiom that a free political system and economic growth go hand in hand. The thriving tech industry is the epitome of the so-called China model, which says people can rise and prosper under tight government control.Most people outside China think of it as 1984, a dystopian society ruled by a repressive government with powerful brainwashing machines, which it is in many ways. But if you live in China, it feels more like that other dystopian novel, Brave New World. Its a colorful, vibrant and consumeristic society. In many ways, Chinese people have more choice than they ever had before except when it comes to individual liberty.China offers a competing vision to those who see technology as a global, liberating force. Its robust online culture coexists with stringent censorship. China forcefully espouses a view of sovereignty in the cyber realm that sees a greater degree of government control than the internets creators ever envisioned a view that doesnt seem as far-fetched as it once did, as politicians around the world grapple with the unintended consequences of technology.Before we get to that future, however, the ZTE incident offers a glimpse of where China stands now.ZTEs near-collapse has shaken tech entrepreneurs, investors and ordinary Chinese people alike. In social media chat groups, at dinner tables, at industry conferences, terms like semiconductors and fundamental scientific research have become buzzwords. My novelist, economist and philosophy professor friends all ask me: How far behind is Chinas microchip industry? How long will it take us to catch up with the United States? (Some ask even more basic questions, like: Whats a microchip?)The recent ZTE incident made us see clearly that no matter how advanced our mobile payment is, without mobile devices, without microchips and operating systems, we cant compete competently, Pony Ma, chief executive of the Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings said last month at a science forum.China feels new urgency to increase its technological abilities. Its current push called Made in China 2025 lies at the root of worsening trade relations between the United States and China. But the problems with ZTE, which had $17 billion in revenue in 2017, will only spur Chinese leaders to push ahead.Self-reliance is the foundation for the Chinese nation to stand firmly in the world, while independent innovation is the only way for us to climb the peak of the worlds science and technology, Xi Jinping, Chinas leader, told its top scientists late last month.As Chinese ask how they can keep up, many are also wondering why they didnt realize they were so far behind to begin with.The best students always think they performed poorly in exams, said Ding Jichang, founder and chief executive of Mobiuspace, a Chinese mobile app developer, while the bad students always think they aced it.For starters, the idea of China as technology powerhouse isnt wrong. As Mr. Ding pointed out, Chinese companies early on figured out the power of the smartphone in daily life. ZTE and others are competitive in many areas, like mobile data technology.But many in China and many cheerleaders of the Chinese tech scene also found themselves in a feedback loop of their own making. The powerful propaganda machine flooded out rational voices, said Ms. Dong of Tsinghua University. The tech boom fits perfectly into Beijings grand narrative of a national rejuvenation. Innovation and entrepreneurship are top national policies, with enormous financial backing from the government. Even now, some articles critical of Chinas lagging semiconductor industry have disappeared from the internet there.The boom kept many from asking hard questions. They promoted Chinas surge in patent filings without looking at whether the patents were any good. They didnt ask why China still imports 90 percent of its semiconductor components even though the industry became a national priority in 2000.The tone has changed. At an annual conference of top venture capitalists in Shanghai in late April, several major investors admitted that too much money went to start-ups that could go public quickly. Few want to fund the hard work that requires long-term research and development. Now, those investors face some of the blame.The public is saying that investors are bastards, said Ni Zewang, chairman of one of Chinas top venture firms, Shenzhen Capital Group, according to the conference transcript.Allen Zhu, who became famous for investing in star start-ups, including the ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing Technology and the bike-sharing app Ofo, said he invested in a few chip start-ups years ago but lost his money. For investors, the ratio of investment to returns isnt proportionate, he said.Thanks to the ZTE incident, that problem has gone away.Albert Liu, chief executive of the chip start-up Kneron, says that in the past, only one of four investors he met with would express any interest in his company. But when he had a round of meetings with 50 investors in May, nine of 10 were interested.He used to have to spend a lot of time explaining why chips are important in the age of artificial intelligence. Now, he says, investors will tell him: Lets skip this. I know why.Some Chinese companies are doubling their efforts to develop their own chips. Gree Electric Appliances of Zhuhai, the worlds biggest residential air-conditioner manufacturer, started building its own chips for air-conditioners three years ago in an attempt to lower costs and better control its supply chain.After the ZTE incident, we realize how important it is to be able to make chips on our own, says Tang Xiaohui, a senior executive in charge of Grees smartphone and chip development. The companys chairwoman announced on state television recently that Gree would spend $7.8 billion on chip research and development in the next three years.The chipsets Gree develops may not be as good as the American ones, Mr. Tang said. But weve got to have a Plan B. | Tech |
Rising immunity and modest changes in behavior may explain why cases are declining, but much remains unknown, scientists say.Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York TimesOct. 14, 2021After a brutal summer surge, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, the coronavirus is again in retreat.The United States is recording roughly 90,000 new infections a day, down more than 40 percent since August. Hospitalizations and deaths are falling, too.The crisis is not over everywhere the situation in Alaska is particularly dire but nationally, the trend is clear, and hopes are rising that the worst is finally behind us.Again.Over the past two years, the pandemic has crashed over the country in waves, inundating hospitals and then receding, only to return after Americans let their guard down.It is difficult to tease apart the reasons that the virus ebbs and flows in this way, and harder still to predict the future.But as winter looms, there are real reasons for optimism. Nearly 70 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, and many children under 12 are likely to be eligible for their shots in a matter of weeks. Federal regulators could soon authorize the first antiviral pill for Covid-19.We are definitely, without a doubt, hands-down in a better place this year than we were last year, said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University.But the pandemic is not over yet, scientists cautioned. Nearly 2,000 Americans are still dying every day, and another winter surge is plausible. Given how many Americans remain unvaccinated, and how much remains unknown, it is too soon to abandon basic precautions, they said.Weve done this again and again, where we let the foot off the pedal too early, Dr. Bhadelia said. It behooves us to be a bit more cautious as were trying to get to that finish line.Crushing the curveImageCredit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesWhen the first wave of cases hit the United States in early 2020, there was no Covid vaccine, and essentially no one was immune to the virus. The only way to flatten the proverbial curve was to change individual behavior.That is what the first round of stay-at-home orders, business closures, mask mandates and bans on large gatherings aimed to do. There is still debate over which of these measures were most effective, but numerous studies suggest that, collectively, they made a difference, keeping people at home and curbing the growth of case numbers.These policies, combined with voluntary social distancing, most likely helped bring the early surges to an end, researchers said.And then the measures would be lifted, maybe memories would fade, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.Eventually, cases would rise again, and similar patterns would play out. Businesses and local governments would reimplement restrictions, while people who had begun venturing out into the world again would hunker down and mask up.During last winters surge, for instance, the percentage of Americans who reported going to bars or restaurants or attending large events declined, according to the U.S. Covid-19 Trends and Impact Survey, which has surveyed an average of 44,000 Facebook users daily since April 2020.The curve is shaped by public awareness, Dr. Nuzzo said. Were sort of lurching between crisis and complacency.ImageCredit...Matt Cosby for The New York TimesDelta arrived during a period of deep pandemic fatigue, and at a moment when many vaccinated Americans felt as though they could finally relax. Data suggests that the new variant prompted less profound behavioral change than previous waves.In mid-July, just 23 percent of Americans said that they always wore a mask in public, the lowest percentage since March 2020, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which compiles data from several sources.By Aug. 31, the peak of the Delta wave, that figure had risen to 41 percent, although it remained far below the 77 percent of people who reported wearing masks during the winter surge. New reported cases by day 7day average 109,997 These are days with a reporting anomaly. Source: State and local health agencies. Daily cases are the number of new cases reported each day. The seven-day average is the average of the most recent seven days of data. If you just look around, people are much more living a normal life or a pre-Covid life, said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the institute.Still, even modest changes in behavior can help slow transmission, especially in combination, and Delta prompted changes at both the individual and organizational levels. Schools adopted new precautions, companies postponed reopenings, and organizations canceled events, giving the virus fewer opportunities to spread.Meanwhile, more temperate autumn weather arrived, making it possible for Americans in many regions of the country to socialize outside, where the virus is less likely to spread.Were in a shoulder season, where its cooler in the South than it is in the middle of the summer and its warmer in the North than it is in the middle of the winter, said David OConnor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Indeed, many of the current virus hot spots are in the northernmost parts of the country, from Alaska to Minnesota, where even cooler temperatures may be sending people back inside.Increasing immunityImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesBehavioral change is a temporary, short-term way to drive cases down. The true end to the pandemic will come through immunity.The Delta wave was the first major, national surge to occur after vaccines had become widely available, providing many adults with substantial protection against the virus. (Delta also probably led more Americans to get vaccinated.)At the same time, the variant was so infectious that it spread rapidly through vulnerable populations, conferring natural immunity on many unvaccinated Americans.Although neither vaccination nor prior infection provides perfect protection against the virus, they dramatically reduce the odds of catching it. So by September, the virus had a substantially harder time finding hospitable hosts.Delta is running out of people to infect, said Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University.The fact that case numbers are falling does not mean that the country has reached herd immunity, a goal that many scientists now believe is unattainable. But the rising levels of vaccination and infection, combined with more modest behavioral changes, may have been enough to bring the surge to an end.Its a combination of immunity, but also people being careful, said Joshua Salomon, an infectious disease expert and modeler at Stanford University.ImageCredit...Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesIndeed, scientists said that a combination of factors, which might be different in different parts of the country, would ultimately determine when and why the virus waxed and waned.The different surges and waves depend on how big were the waves before that one, how many people have been vaccinated, when the schools reopened, the different variants, said Alessandro Vespignani, director of the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in Boston.There is some randomness involved, too, especially because small numbers of superspreaders seem to play a disproportionate role in setting off outbreaks. About 10 to 20 percent of the people are responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the infections, said Christina Ramirez, a biostatistician at the University of California, Los Angeles.That means that two similar communities might find themselves on radically different trajectories simply because one highly infectious person happened to attend a crowded indoor event, fueling a major outbreak.Some patterns still defy explanation. In March and April, for instance, Michigan was hit hard by the Alpha variant, Deltas slightly less infectious predecessor.Other states were largely spared, for reasons that remain unclear, Dr. Murray said. Why was Michigan the only state with a large Alpha surge in spring? he said. We have no idea.The winter forecastImageCredit...James Estrin/The New York TimesWhat comes next is hard to predict, but cases may not necessarily continue their steady decline, scientists warned.Britain and Israel, which both have higher vaccination rates than the United States, are still struggling with outbreaks.That should be a wake-up call, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Do not go back into the pre-Fourth-of-July mind-set again, where everybody thought it was done and over with.Most experts said they would not be surprised to see at least a small increase in cases later this fall or this winter as people begin spending more time indoors and traveling for the holidays.But because the vaccines remain highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death, any coming winter spikes may be less catastrophic than last years.Its not likely that it will be as deadly as the surge we had last winter, unless we get really unlucky with respect to a new variant, Dr. Salomon said.The emergence of a new variant remains a wild card, as does the possibility that the protection afforded by vaccination could start to wane more substantially.Our own behavior is another source of uncertainty.Predicting an outbreak is not like predicting the weather, because youre dealing with human behavior, said Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. And thats a fundamentally really hard thing to predict: new policies that would come into force, peoples reactions to them, new trends on social media, you know the list goes on and on.But our behavior is, at least, under our control, and it remains a critical variable as we head into the winter, scientists said. By and large, they did not recommend canceling holiday plans; many said they themselves would be celebrating with friends and relatives. But they did suggest taking sensible precautions.There is still time to be vaccinated or encourage loved ones to be vaccinated before Thanksgiving. Wearing masks in certain high-risk settings, hosting events outdoors when the weather is nice and taking rapid Covid tests before holiday gatherings are all common-sense strategies for reducing risk, experts said.It doesnt mean Lockdown Christmas No. 2, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. But it does mean that we should all just be mindful that this is not completely over yet.ImageCredit...Rory Doyle for The New York Times | Health |
Credit...Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesNov. 20, 2018The warning came just as millions of Americans were preparing for the biggest food holiday of the year. People should not buy or eat romaine lettuce; restaurants should stop serving it; anyone who has it on hand should throw it out and clean the refrigerator immediately.The stern and sweeping advisory, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday afternoon, two days before Thanksgiving, caught many people off guard. But the agency said it was acting out of an abundance of caution after 32 people in 11 states fell sick with a virulent form of E. coli, a bacteria blamed for a number of food-borne outbreaks in recent years.If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or whether a salad mix contains romaine, do not eat it and throw it away, the C.D.C. statement said. Wash and sanitize drawers or shelves in refrigerators where romaine was stored.Officials said such measures were necessary while they track down the source of the contamination, and at the moment all they could say was that investigators believe the tainted lettuce was grown or processed in Canada or the United States.They said a nationwide warning covering an entire type of food was unusual though not unprecedented, noting there was a similar alert regarding tainted spinach in 2006. Peter Cassell, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration, said officials were in this case mindful of the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday.Its especially important given that these are large gatherings where dishes containing romaine lettuce are frequently served, he said.The E. coli outbreak was first identified on Oct. 8 and has led to the hospitalization of 13 people, including one person who developed kidney failure. So far no deaths have been reported. Roughly a third of the cases were reported in California; the others are concentrated in the northeast and in the Great Lakes region. Another 18 people have been sickened in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.These cases are genetically unrelated to an E. coli outbreak linked to romaine earlier this year that killed five people and sickened 200, the officials said. Investigators later traced that bacteria to a tainted drainage canal near a lettuce farm in Arizona.However the strain of E. coli associated with the current outbreak (identified as Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7) has been involved in other deadly outbreaks, including one in 1993 that killed four children and left nearly 200 other people seriously ill from eating contaminated hamburger meat at Jack in the Box restaurants.This strain is especially dangerous, health officials said, and the toxins it gives off can damage the kidneys. In the current outbreak, half of those infected have been hospitalized, a rate that is much higher than in other E. coli outbreaks, said Matthew Wise, the C.D.C.s deputy branch chief for outbreak response.Steve Feldberg was standing in his kitchen Tuesday in Montclair, N.J., preparing dinner and feeling stymied. He pored over the lettuce he bought over the weekend at the local farmers market. I think its romaine, he said hesitantly. But its not classic romaine. So were taking a picture and emailing it to the hydroponic farm to find out, before we eat it.Health officials had some other worrying news for Thanksgiving week. The C.D.C. and the United States Department of Agriculture have been tracking a yearlong outbreak of Salmonella, which has been linked to a variety of raw turkey products, including ground turkey and some live turkeys (also some pet food).A spokesman for the U.S.D.A. urged consumers to prepare turkey by following precautions such as careful hand washing to avoid cross contamination, and cooking poultry thoroughly.Determining the exact cause of food-borne outbreaks has long stymied investigators, especially those that affect leafy greens. Contamination often originates with livestock that are raised or fed near produce farms. But it is not always clear how the pathogens travel to fields of vegetables. Scott Horsfall, chief executive officer at the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, an industry group, said the E. coli outbreak of last spring prompted growers in Arizona and California to embrace ramped up cleaning of equipment and they agreed to triple the distance between cattle feed lots and lettuce farms. E. coli and other pathogens dont spontaneously appear in lettuce fields, he said. They have to come from someplace else.But some public health experts said the frequency of food-borne illness outbreaks points to the need for bolder action by both the industry and federal government, especially when it comes to tracing contaminated produce.Sarah Sorscher, deputy director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group, said the industry has resisted more robust measures like the mandatory electronic tracing of produce after it leaves the field.They have to find a solution to this problem because when you cant track down the source of an outbreak, the whole industry suffers, she said.Such tracing technology exists, she added, noting that Walmart has adopted a system that allows it to instantly identify the provenance of any given fruit or vegetable. Something has to be done, she said, because if these kinds of outbreaks keep happening, consumers are going to avoid eating what is otherwise a very healthy food. | Health |
Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York TimesJune 30, 2018WASHINGTON The pitched battle looming over the Supreme Court, along with a jolt to the Democratic leadership at the ballot box last Tuesday, is threatening to shatter the already fragile architecture of the Democratic Party, as an activist rebellion on the left and a lurch to the right in Washington propels the party toward a moment of extraordinary conflict and forced reinvention.For Democrats, the transformation could prove as consequential as President Trumps consolidation of power in his own party and the conservative movements tightening grip on the federal government.The Trump presidency has changed the dynamics in our party, said Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, acknowledging that he could not recall a similar grass-roots uprising since he was elected to Congress in 1982.The partys traditional leaders absorbed one blow after another last week. Representative Joseph Crowley, a 20-year incumbent and potential future House speaker, was unseated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina political newcomer; Congress made clear it cannot pass even a limited immigration measure for the children of undocumented immigrants; and the Supreme Court handed down rulings that undermined the labor unions that are a backbone of the Democratic Party, while also limiting abortion rights advocacy and upholding President Trumps travel ban.And then Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his retirement, effectively handing Mr. Trump the opportunity to cement a conservative majority on the bench.Mr. Trumps divisive and at times demagogic presidency has ignited much of the liberal upheaval, driving many left-of-center voters on to a kind of ideological war footing. That has translated into a surge in outsider candidates in the midterms who are pressuring Democratic leaders to support an ambitious liberal platform that includes single-payer health care, free college tuition and the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.But this insurgency, which is both encouraging and alarming Democratic officials, is not merely aimed at pushing the party farther left ideologically. There is a deeper divide over how far to go in confronting Mr. Trump and attempting to thwart his agenda.At a strategy session held over lunch last week, Senate Democrats settled on a careful strategy for the coming Supreme Court confirmation battle. They would drop their demands that Republicans not appoint a replacement for Mr. Kennedy until after the midterm elections, senators decided, and instead would highlight the threat to abortion rights and health care to try to mobilize opposition to Mr. Trumps appointment.Im sure many of them believe we have the power to stop this, Mr. Durbin said of the expectations his partys enraged base for Democrats blocking the court pick. But the grim reality is that we have some power but not the power to stop this.But a few hours later, on the ground floor of the Hart Senate Office Building, nearly 600 women clad in suffragist white were arrested in a demonstration against the separation of migrant children from their parents and they said they wanted their senators to do nothing less than lie down on the tracks to stop Mr. Trumps nomination.ImageCredit...Gabriella Demczuk for The New York TimesI want to see this Congress actually follow our lead and resist in a real way, said Winnie Wong, one of the organizers of the sit-in. This kind of resistance can create a blockade and stop what will be a fast-track appointment. Imagine a world where you had the chamber do a civil disobedience, what that would that look like.With former President Barack Obama evincing little appetite to reclaim a leadership role and no clear 2020 presidential front-runner, Democrats lack a commanding figure to oversee strategy and help bridge the internal fissures in the party.And while relentless confrontation with the White House and noisy protests might animate the rising Democratic coalition, they will not lead to success at the polls if the party cannot harness the fury.The key is translating these public demonstrations and marches into electoral activism and then government activism, said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat.The tumult also extends to how Democrats should set themselves apart from the right.On the activist left, there is a deep hunger to wean Democrats away from their ties to corporate America, one of Ms. Ocasio-Cortezs clarion calls. There are also rising demands that leaders encourage, and even participate in, the sort of extreme measures of confrontation that took place on the floor of the Hart building and have been on display restaurants where Trump aides have been shouted down while dining. Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who is facing a growing revolt in her own caucus, was sharply criticized on the left when she denounced such tactics.And as the Democratic National Committee moves to eliminate superdelegates the elected officials and party elites who help determine presidential nominees there is widespread expectation that traditional power brokers should cede more authority to the activists on social media, often millennials and people of color, who are increasingly steering the partys agenda.We have to pay attention to our base, said Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who was the only lawmaker arrested at the immigration protest last week. Pointing to a series of special elections and primaries, including Mr. Crowleys, that she said showed a rising liberal coalition flexing its power, Ms. Jayapal added, That energy, combined with the real threat of a second Supreme Court justice that could strip away womens reproductive rights and a lot of other rights that people have come to rely on I think it is an even bigger call to action.The turmoil on the left mirrors that of Republicans in the first two years of Mr. Obamas administration, when Democrats controlled all the levers of government and left the Tea Party-inflected Republican Party to thrash around in impotent protest, raging with an energy that eventually propelled it back to power.But some Democrats see the moment in even more sweeping terms, akin to the era following the Vietnam War and Watergate, when the reaction to a controversial Republican president triggered a moderate and liberal backlash. That movement delivered dozens of new seats, but it also unleashed a generational changing of the guard that jolted party leaders.Former Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, elected in the Democratic wave of 1974 and a leader in the effort to reinvent the Democratic Party in the 1980s, said Democrats were approaching an overdue moment of reckoning with their own limitations. The party, he said, had failed for years to define a forward-looking vision. The pressure of the midterm election heightened, he said, by the Supreme Court vacancy could create a new moment of definition.There almost has to be a generational renewal of belief systems, said Mr. Hart, a two-time presidential candidate, who is now 81. When we were in power, under Obama and Clinton, I dont believe party leaders did what should have been done, and that is come up with a manifesto for the 21st century.ImageCredit...Annie Tritt for The New York TimesMr. Hart said Democratic voters were plainly hunting for fresh inspiration. There are fountains of energy all over the place, he said. Theres a big searchlight going on right now for the next generation of leadership in this country.What worries some Democratic elders, though, is that activists will harbor unrealistic expectations of what sort of policies newly elected progressive lawmakers can push through in a still-divided capital.They say to new members, You won because of us, said John A. Lawrence, former chief of staff to Ms. Pelosi and the author of a new book on the so-called Watergate Babies. Actually no, typically you win because you were able to win moderate voters disgusted with incumbents.There is also a group of younger Democrats uneasy about the party drifting too far left.Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana said he understood that Democratic voters were furious and scared at the same time, but he also said he wished his party had a moderating influence to counter Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the democratic socialist who has been at the front end of the partys turn left.Bernie is fighting for his principles on what direction the party should go, he said, but we dont really have anybody doing it on behalf of moderates and other Democrats. It has become a one-sided conversation.There is no question that Democratic leaders have been tugged toward a brand of more unadulterated progressivism. But there are fewer levers of power at their disposal to impose discipline or tilt their proposals toward the political center. They lack legislative earmarks to hand out, or withhold, and their ability to raise large sums of money matters less in an era in which liberal fund-raising is moving online.And with the decline of unions, one of the last pillars of top-down authority in their coalition is on the wane. The public-sector unions stung by last weeks court decision had been one the movements remaining power centers.For Democrats in Washington, the process of renewal could be a painful one.Across much of the left, Mr. Crowleys defeat was welcomed as readily as if he had been a Republican, rather than a conventional machine Democrat. And Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has embraced the insurgents mantle, vowing to help other liberal upstarts and even endorsing other challengers to Democratic incumbents.One of those challengers, Ayanna Pressley, a member of the Boston City Council who is aiming to oust Representative Michael E. Capuano, a long-serving liberal, said the partys base had been in a fighting mood for months. But the combination of Mr. Trumps provocations, the Supreme Courts lurch and the insurrection in Queens has rocked liberals to the core, she said.The party and our democracy are at a crossroads, Ms. Pressley said, adding matter-of-factly, These times require disruption.At least one veteran Democrat has gotten the message: Mr. Capuano. Last week, in the aftermath of Mr. Crowleys loss, the Massachusetts lawmaker began circulating a memo highlighting his differences with his soon-to-be-former colleague. Capuano Is a Strong, Proud Progressive, the memo reads. Crowley Is a Moderate. | Politics |
Credit...Matt Chase The ShiftShows of support from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube dont address the way those platforms have been weaponized by racists and partisan provocateurs.Credit...Matt Chase Published June 19, 2020Updated June 22, 2020Several weeks ago, as protests erupted across the nation in response to the police killing of George Floyd, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a long and heartfelt post on his Facebook page, denouncing racial bias and proclaiming that black lives matter. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, also announced that the company would donate $10 million to racial justice organizations.A similar show of support unfolded at Twitter, where the company changed its official Twitter bio to a Black Lives Matter tribute, and Jack Dorsey, the chief executive, pledged $3 million to an anti-racism organization started by Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback.YouTube joined the protests, too. Susan Wojcicki, its chief executive, wrote in a blog post that we believe Black lives matter and we all need to do more to dismantle systemic racism. YouTube also announced it would start a $100 million fund for black creators.Pretty good for a bunch of supposedly heartless tech executives, right?Well, sort of. The problem is that, while these shows of support were well intentioned, they didnt address the way that these companies own products Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been successfully weaponized by racists and partisan provocateurs, and are being used to undermine Black Lives Matter and other social justice movements. Its as if the heads of McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell all got together to fight obesity by donating to a vegan food co-op, rather than by lowering their calorie counts.Its hard to remember sometimes, but social media once functioned as a tool for the oppressed and marginalized. In Tahrir Square in Cairo, Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, activists used Twitter and Facebook to organize demonstrations and get their messages out.But in recent years, a right-wing reactionary movement has turned the tide. Now, some of the loudest and most established voices on these platforms belong to conservative commentators and paid provocateurs whose aim is mocking and subverting social justice movements, rather than supporting them.The result is a distorted view of the world that is at odds with actual public sentiment. A majority of Americans support Black Lives Matter, but you wouldnt necessarily know it by scrolling through your social media feeds.ImageCredit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesListen to The Daily: How Facebook Is Undermining Black Lives MatterThe company publicly supports the racial justice movement. But content on the platform may be compromising the cause.transcripttranscriptListen to The Daily: How Facebook Is Undermining Black Lives MatterHosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Eric Krupke, Michael Simon Johnson, Austin Mitchell and Annie Brown; with help from Asthaa Chaturvedi; and edited by Wendy Dorr and Lisa TobinThe company publicly supports the racial justice movement. But content on the platform may be compromising the cause.kevin rooseIn the summer of 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. And for weeks archived recordingI said indict, convict! Send that killer cop to jail!kevin roose there were protests in Ferguson and across the country. And social media really became the primary organizing tool for the Black Lives Matter movement.archived recordingHands up! Dont shoot! Hands up! Dont shoot!kevin rooseAnd back in 2014, if you remember, like, you would go on Twitter or Facebook and almost every post in your feed, or most of the posts in your feed, would be some sort of call to action.archived recordingBlack Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter.kevin roosePeople posting the Black Lives Matter hashtag, people organizing support and supplies and financial donations for this emerging civil rights movement.archived recordingBlack Lives Matter.michael barbaroRight, and it feels like were in a very similar moment right now. So what do things look like on a Facebook, for instance, at this moment?kevin rooseWell, they look a little different.archived recordingAll lives matter.michael barbaroIts overwhelmingly posts that oppose Black Lives Matter.archived recordingYou got to explain this to people? All lives matter.kevin rooseCalling it a racist movement.archived recordingThe Black Lives Matter foundation is apparently preparing for a quote, war on police.kevin rooseBlack Lives Matter is the Khan of the century and a sham.archived recording 1We gonna find out how many liberals have contributed. Some could have possibly orchestrated and manufactured a lot of stuff archived recording 2A lot of stuff.archived recording 3 that we see today.kevin rooseAbout how Black Lives Matter is not a social justice movement. It is something far darker and more dangerous.michael barbaroI mean, Kevin, how do you explain that? Because how did #BlackLivesMatter go from being a very powerful organizing tool that helped give birth to a movement, to something thats now being used to undermine and even hijack it?kevin rooseWell, I think its important to remember that a majority of Americans support Black Lives Matter. You know, the data we have suggests that Black Lives Matter is actually much more popular among Americans than it was in 2014. I think the thing that has changed is social media.michael barbaroFrom The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.Today: Facebook and Twitter are publicly voicing support for Black Lives Matter and its mission in this moment. But my colleague, Kevin Roose, took a close look at whats actually happened on their platforms.Its Monday, June 22.Kevin, you just spent the past few months making a series about the rise of extremism on the internet Rabbit Hole.kevin rooseRight.michael barbaroBut the last time you and I talked here on The Daily it was back in the fall. And the two biggest names in social media, Facebook and Twitter, were under fire for the huge amount of misinformation on their platforms. And Congress brought the heads of those companies Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, Jack Dorsey from Twitter out to testify. And it felt like a pretty defining moment for them when it comes to this question of, what is the role of a social media company in our civic discourse? So what has happened since then?kevin rooseWell, I think these social networks have continued to grapple with these questions of responsibility and free speech and whats allowed and whats not allowed on their platforms.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)We face a number of important issues around privacy, safety and democracy.kevin rooseAnd I think every social media company has realized that they dropped the ball in 2016.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)But its clear now that we didnt do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well.kevin rooseThey allowed their platforms to be hijacked, not just by Russia, but by dishonest actors inside America, by partisan media outlets and clickbait factories.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)We didnt take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake.kevin rooseSo theyre basically in this grappling moment. Like, they realize that what happens in November is pretty existential for them.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)Overall, I would say that were going through a broader philosophical shift in how we kevin rooseThey will be either seen as helping the democratic process and free and fair elections in the U.S. Or they will be seen as they were in 2016, as having, in some ways, undermined it.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)I started Facebook. I run it. And Im responsible for what happens here.kevin rooseAnd they have committed to getting it right, or more right in 2020.michael barbaroAnd do we see these companies start to take action eventually after this period of grappling?kevin rooseYeah, so the first hint that these companies were going to be somewhat different from one another, when it came to enforcing these new rules, happened last year archived recordingTwitter is going to stop accepting political ads on the platform. Jack Dorsey has just tweeted it out.kevin roose when Twitter decided to ban all political advertisements.archived recordingAnd he says while internet advertising is an incredibly powerful and very effective tool for commercial advertisers, the power brings significant risk to politics, where it can be used to influence votes that affect the lives of millions.kevin rooseSo if youre a politician or a super PAC or a lobbying organization, you cannot take out a political ad on Twitter. They said these sort of targeted ads distort democracy. We dont feel like we can responsibly administer them. And so they just said, we dont want any part of it when it comes to political ads.michael barbaroAnd what about Facebook?kevin rooseFacebook took a much different tack. They basically said, we will continue to allow political advertisements, campaigns, outside groups will be able to spend millions of dollars on political ads. And even more so, we will not fact check politicians ads. But outside of this political advertising decision, the policies that Facebook and Twitter have with respect to what is and isnt allowed on their platforms theyre very similar, except when it comes to one particular user: President Trump.michael barbaroWhat do you mean?kevin rooseSo Twitter, in recent weeks, has become much more aggressive in confronting President Trump over some of his tweets that they say violate their rules.archived recordingTwitter, for the very first time is fact checking the president.kevin rooseThe first one was this tweet about mail-in ballots that President Trump had that had some misleading and false information about voting.archived recordingHe claimed, without evidence, that voting by mail leads to fraud. Twitter says that the tweets are potentially misleading.kevin rooseAnd that, Twitter said, was a clear violation of its policies around voting misinformation. So they put a sort of fact-checking label on those tweets, and Facebook did not.michael barbaroAnd, Kevin, this fact-checking label essentially says to anyone who looks at this, hey, theres some issues here, and you shouldnt take this at face value.kevin rooseRight, so Twitter applies this fact-checking label to President Trumps tweets. And then the very next day archived recordingWeve been sharing with you President Donald Trumps recent tweets about the unrest in Minnesota.kevin roosePresident Trump put out this statement, which he posted to Twitter and also to Facebook.archived recordingHeres a quote These thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I wont let that happen. Just spoke to governor Tim Walls and told him that the military is with him all the way. any difficulty, and we will assume control.kevin rooseBut when the looting starts, the shooting starts.archived recordingThe shooting starts, the words of the president.michael barbaroWhen the looting starts, the shooting starts. What does that mean?kevin rooseIts a phrase with a very long history. It was fused by a police chief in Miami in the late 1960s. And he was referring to violence against protesters. And so in this context, it was clear that the president was threatening violence against protesters.michael barbaroWhich would make this a real test of Facebook and Twitters social media policy?kevin rooseRight, both these networks have policies prohibiting violent incitement, posts that could create imminent harm to people. And this clearly fell under that category.michael barbaroAnd so what did the companies decide to do?kevin rooseSo Twitter decided to put basically a warning label on this tweet saying that it had violated their rules about glorifying violence, but that it would stay up because it was in the publics interest to know about it. And they also made it so that you couldnt retweet it.michael barbaroAnd how big of a deal is it that Twitter took those steps?kevin rooseWell, I think practically, it didnt do much. I mean, I think people still heard about this tweet. They still saw it. But I think, symbolically it was a very big deal. It was the first time that Twitter had ever applied this label to President Trump. And it was sort of a moment where they were saying like, this is a line that even President Trump cannot cross.michael barbaroAnd how does Facebook handle this very same post from President Trump?kevin rooseSo Facebook sort of waits awhile, and then they announce that theyre just going to leave it up. Theyre not going to label it. Theyre not going to take it down. This post will just stay up.michael barbaroAnd Kevin, why is the reaction by these two giant social media companies so completely different?kevin rooseWell, part of it, I think, has to do with whos running these companies.archived recordingThe founder of San Francisco-based Twitter is getting involved in the protest in Ferguson. Jack Dorsey is from St. Louis, just 12 miles from Ferguson.kevin rooseJack Dorsey, the C.E.O. of Twitter, hes been very vocal about his support for Black Lives Matter and for sort of Twitters role in helping these movements be heard.archived recordingThe billionaire was on the streets of Ferguson last week and has been marching, posting vines and tweets about all thats going there.kevin rooseBut he also knows his users pretty well. I mean, Twitter is a place where a lot of activists and journalists hang out. Its also got like a robust and vibrant black community on Twitter. And I think he just understands that many of his users are going to feel pretty good about this decision to take on the president.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)Now, Im not going to sit here and tell you that were going to catch all bad content in our system.kevin rooseBut Mark Zuckerberg on the other hand, he doesnt want to be the referee.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)We dont check what people say before they say it. And frankly, I dont think society should want us to.kevin rooseHe doesnt want to be an arbiter of civil conversation.archived recording (mark zuckerberg)Freedom means you dont have to ask for permission first. And that by default, you can say what you want.kevin rooseWhen it comes to politicians, he wants to do as little moderation as possible. And in some ways, that lines up better with what Facebook users want. They tend to be a little older, potentially more conservative.michael barbaroRight, so therefore, Mark Zuckerberg would be very reluctant to label the presidents tweet as factually inaccurate, or label it as potentially inciting violence, because that may very quickly alienate Facebook users.kevin rooseRight, but I think an even bigger risk is that it could alienate President Trump and Republican lawmakers in Washington.archived recording (elizabeth warren)The giant tech companies right now are eating up little tiny businesses, startups, and competing unfairly.kevin rooseIn this election cycle, Facebook has become sort of a target for Democrats.archived recording (elizabeth warren)So what Im saying is we got to break these guys apart. You want to run a platform? Thats fine. You dont get to run a whole bunch of the businesses as well.kevin rooseBut Facebook has been criticized by both Democrats and Republicans who have said that they should be broken up or more heavily regulated.archived recording (josh hawley)So quit harvesting peoples data, sell off these companies that youre using to create a monopoly, and do a third-party audit.kevin rooseI think Facebook knows that Democrats in some ways have turned against them. And if Republicans also turn against them, it will be that much harder for them to stop new regulation for them to avoid being broken up. And I think that its in their interest to keep President Trump and his allies happy.michael barbaroThats really interesting, because I feel like the dominant conservative view at least as I understand it and have read about it is that Facebook has not been hospitable to conservatives, that it has taken steps to censor them or limit what they say. And from what youre describing, Facebook very much needs conservatives and is showing a lot of restraint when it comes to conservatives.kevin rooseYeah, I mean, their outreach to Republicans is, in some ways, an attempt to sort of correct this impression that conservatives have, that they are biased against the right, which is not reflected in any of the data. And Ive actually been looking at this pretty regularly for the past few weeks. Theres this tool called CrowdTangle that you can basically use to pull up the most popular and talked about Facebook posts from across all of Facebook.So yeah, just looking at the most engaged posts from the last 24 hours on Facebook, the first one is from Trump. Its the video of his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Number two, also by Trump, another picture from his rally. And then youve got Franklin Graham, this right-wing evangelist and activist taking issue with Dr. Fauci.Youve got Hugh Jackman wishing his dad a happy fathers day. That ones not political. And youve got Terrence Williams, whos a pro-Trump activist. Breitbart has a video of Trumps rally. The vast majority of these top 10 stories are usually from right-wing media outlets and right-wing politicians.michael barbaroIs there anything that might be characterized as Democratic, liberal or progressive in that list of the top 10 or so?kevin rooseAlmost every day there are one or two posts in the top 10 from more liberal outlets or politicians. But it is predominated by Fox News, by Breitbart, by right-wing news outlets and by President Trump himself.michael barbaroSo it looks like what you just went through makes clear that Facebooks users, and maybe its most active users are conservatives, right? Its not a question of an algorithm that puts those things at the top. Its whats being most discussed, engaged, commented on.kevin rooseYeah, theres clearly a large audience for conservative media, conservative posts, conservative activism on Facebook.michael barbaroWell be right back.Kevin, what youre describing is a very fascinating dynamic. Facebook fears a backlash from conservatives. But in some ways, it doesnt need to fear a backlash from conservatives, because it has made itself a very hospitable place for conservatives. But that fear means it has no incentive to do anything to crack down on conservative viewpoints, no matter how extreme or factually inaccurate.kevin rooseIn some ways thats right. Except theres one complicating factor, which is that Facebook own employees are increasingly speaking out.archived recordingWe are following a developing story out of Facebook. Employees staging a virtual walkout today in protest of the companys policies toward some of President Trumps posts. Lets get to Julie kevin rooseThere was a virtual walkout recently where a bunch of employees sort of protested these decisions by sort of logging off for the day.archived recordingMeantime, youve got Facebook employees resigning today, publicly resigning because of this decision.kevin rooseThere have even been employees who have resigned over Mark Zuckerbergs decisions to essentially let Trump get away with things that other users wouldnt be able to. Facebooks employees, you know, many of them they live in Silicon Valley. They tend to be more liberal. They dont like the idea that the product that they spend their days and nights building is being used to put out propaganda and misinformation.archived recordingEmployees like Andrew Crow, head of design for Facebooks portal product, have taken to Twitter, writing comments such as, quote, Giving a platform to incite violence and spread disinformation is unacceptable.kevin rooseAnd they have started vocally objecting to Mark Zuckerbergs decisions.archived recordingWhile Jason Toff, identified as director of product management wrote, quote, I work at Facebook, and I am not proud of how were showing up.kevin rooseAnd thats a real pressure, because Silicon Valley is a very interesting place in that the employees of these companies wield a ton of power. Its a very competitive labor market. And if youre Facebook, you cant afford to have your employees be walking out and resigning. Its not right for your business long-term.michael barbaroKevin, from everything youve just said, Twitter is being proactive here. Facebook, much less so. But I just want to make sure that were not oversimplifying this. Because yes, we know Twitter has chosen to label certain tweets, at least by the president, as violating their terms, fact-check them. We know that they have taken a pass on political ads, and that Facebook has not done any of those. But in reality, is what Twitter is doing meaningfully different and better than what Facebook is doing?kevin rooseI mean, Twitter still has a lot of work to do to ensure that people are not threatening and harassing and using hate speech against each other. But the thing that I think is really starting to differentiate these companies from one another is how theyre responding to this moment, you know, this historic movement for civil rights, this historic election where in some ways, you know, a lot of people feel like that the future of, not just the next four years, but of democracy is on the line. And I think these companies are understanding that they will be judged by history, in some ways, for the decisions that they make right now.michael barbaroAnd what could they be doing that neither of them are doing?kevin rooseWell, theres plenty of things that they could do to kind of take down the temperature of the overall conversation on their platforms. They could change the way that their systems rank information. So instead of showing you the stuff that is most engaging, they could more heavily curate the information that comes onto peoples feeds.They could put a cap on like how viral posts can go to sort of keep bad actors from hijacking these conversations and undermining these movements. Theres a lot that they could tweak about the basic structures of their platforms. But that could cut pretty deeply into their business models.And ultimately, like, I think the bigger thing that theyre realizing is that they have to pick a side. There is no such thing as a neutral platform. And all these decisions that they make about how their tools are designed, how theyre used, what policies they have, they are all pushing in one direction or the other. And in this moment, this national moment of reckoning, of activism, of people speaking out against injustice, they have to decide whether thats something that they want to support or whether they want to stand on the sidelines.michael barbaroRight, because if you dont pick a side as a social media platform, then a side will be picked by your users.kevin rooseExactly, I mean I think a pretty vivid illustration of this happened the other day, when Mark Zuckerberg came out with this long, heartfelt Facebook post about how he supported Black Lives Matter, how Facebook was going to donate millions of dollars to racial justice causes, how he stood with Facebooks black employees and with the movement for racial justice. And that same day archived recording (candace owens)Hello, Facebook family kevin roose on Facebook archived recording (candace owens) I have decided to do this video kevin roose the post that was going the most viral archived recording (candace owens) it has been weighing very heavily on my heart kevin roose was this video by this conservative activist Candace Owens archived recording (candace owens)So in my opinion, George Floyd was a criminal. He was a criminal. And just because he was a criminal doesnt mean he deserved to die at the knee of a police officer. But it does mean that I am not going to play a part of the broken black culture that always wants to martyr criminals.kevin roose who made an entire video essentially saying that Black Lives Matter was a liberal hoax.archived recording (candace owens)And theres certainly no excuse to accept the democrat narrative, OK, that black people are being disproportionately hunted down by police officers because of the color of their skin.kevin rooseThat George Floyd was a horrible person, that his death should not be mourned as a tragedy, and essentially saying that this whole movement is based on a false premise.archived recording (candace owens)Police brutality, racially-motivated police brutality is a myth.kevin rooseThat there is no bias in policing in America.archived recording (candace owens)I have you know, I have no apologies here to make. George Floyd is not my martyr. He can be yours. And thats all I have to say to black America.kevin rooseSo Mark Zuckerberg is out there saying I believe in Black Lives Matter. I want to support this movement. And on his platform, the thing that he built, the thing that he oversees and controls every day, a very different message was winning.michael barbaroKevin, thank you very much. We appreciate it.kevin rooseThank you for having me.michael barbaroWell be right back.Heres what else you need to know today.The Times reports that over the past week, the number of new daily infections of the coronavirus has hit a record high in 12 states, most in the Southwest and Midwest, but that the death rate is falling dramatically. Overall, fatalities from the virus have dropped 42 percent over the past two weeks, in part it is believed, because the virus is infecting younger and healthier Americans.And President Trump has fired the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, who has overseen multiple investigations into conduct by the president, the presidents lawyers, and the presidents allies. The U.S. attorney, Geoffrey Berman, initially rejected a recommendation from the attorney General, Bill Barr to resign, prompting Barr to announce his resignation and for Berman to publicly deny that he was resigning. Berman eventually agreed to step aside after learning that one of his deputies would fill his role for the foreseeable future.Thats it for The Daily. Im Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.[music]On Facebook, for example, the most popular post on the day of Mr. Zuckerbergs Black Lives Matter pronouncement was an 18-minute video posted by the right-wing activist Candace Owens. In the video, Ms. Owens, who is black, railed against the protests, calling the idea of racially biased policing a fake narrative and deriding Mr. Floyd as a horrible human being. Her monologue, which was shared by right-wing media outlets and which several people told me they had seen because Facebooks algorithm recommended it to them racked up nearly 100 million views.Ms. Owens is a serial offender, known for spreading misinformation and stirring up partisan rancor. (Her Twitter account was suspended this year after she encouraged her followers to violate stay-at-home orders, and Facebook has applied fact-checking labels to several of her posts.) But she can still insult the victims of police killings with impunity to her nearly four million followers on Facebook. So can other high-profile conservative commentators like Terrence K. Williams, Ben Shapiro and the Hodgetwins, all of whom have had anti-Black Lives Matter posts go viral over the past several weeks.In all, seven of the 10 most-shared Facebook posts containing the phrase Black Lives Matter over the past month were critical of the movement, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data platform. (The sentiment on Instagram, which Facebook owns, has been more favorable, perhaps because its users skew younger and more liberal.)Facebook declined to comment. On Thursday, it announced it would spend $200 million to support black-owned businesses and organizations, and add a Lift Black Voices section to its app to highlight stories from black people and share educational resources.Twitter has been a supporter of Black Lives Matter for years remember Mr. Dorseys trip to Ferguson? but it, too, has a problem with racists and bigots using its platform to stir up unrest. Last month, the company discovered that a Twitter account claiming to represent a national antifa group was run by a group of white nationalists posing as left-wing radicals. (The account was suspended, but not before its tweets calling for violence were widely shared.) Twitters trending topics sidebar, which is often gamed by trolls looking to hijack online conversations, has filled up with inflammatory hashtags like #whitelivesmatter and #whiteoutwednesday, often as a result of coordinated campaigns by far-right extremists.A Twitter spokesman, Brandon Borrman, said: Weve taken down hundreds of groups under our violent extremist group policy and continue to enforce our policies against hateful conduct every day across the world. From #BlackLivesMatter to #MeToo and #BringBackOurGirls, our company is motivated by the power of social movements to usher in meaningful societal change.YouTube, too, has struggled to square its corporate values with the way its products actually operate. The company has made strides in recent years to remove conspiracy theories and misinformation from its search results and recommendations, but it has yet to grapple fully with the way its boundary-pushing culture and laissez-faire policies contributed to racial division for years.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAs of this week, for example, the most-viewed YouTube video about Black Lives Matter wasnt footage of a protest or a police killing, but a four-year-old social experiment by the viral prankster and former Republican congressional candidate Joey Saladino, which has 14 million views. In the video, Mr. Saladino whose other YouTube stunts have included drinking his own urine and wearing a Nazi costume to a Trump rally holds up an All Lives Matter sign in a predominantly black neighborhood.A YouTube spokeswoman, Andrea Faville, said that Mr. Saladinos video had received fewer than 5 percent of its views this year, and that it was not being widely recommended by the companys algorithms. Mr. Saladino recently reposted the video to Facebook, where it has gotten several million more views.In some ways, social media has helped Black Lives Matter simply by making it possible for victims of police violence to be heard. Without Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we might never have seen the video of Mr. Floyds killing or known about Breonna Taylor or other victims of police brutality. Many of the protests being held around the country are being organized in Facebook groups and Twitter threads, and social media has been helpful in creating more accountability for the police.But these platforms arent just megaphones. Theyre also global, real-time contests for attention, and many of the experienced players have gotten good at provoking controversy by adopting exaggerated views. They understand that if the whole world is condemning Mr. Floyds killing, a post saying he deserved it will stand out. If the data suggests that black people are disproportionately targeted by police violence, they know that theres likely a market for a video saying that white people are the real victims.The point isnt that platforms should bar people like Mr. Saladino and Ms. Owens for criticizing Black Lives Matter. But in this moment of racial reckoning, these executives owe it to their employees, their users and society at large to examine the structural forces that are empowering racists on the internet, and which features of their platforms are undermining the social justice movements they claim to support.They dont seem eager to do so. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that an internal Facebook study in 2016 found that 64 percent of the people who joined extremist groups on the platform did so because Facebooks recommendations algorithms steered them there. Facebook could have responded to those findings by shutting off groups recommendations entirely, or pausing them until it could be certain the problem had been fixed. Instead, it buried the study and kept going.As a result, Facebook groups continue to be useful for violent extremists. This week, two members of the far-right boogaloo movement, which wants to destabilize society and provoke a civil war, were charged in connection with the killing of a federal officer at a protest in Oakland, Calif. According to investigators, the suspects met and discussed their plans in a Facebook group. And although Facebook has said it would exclude boogaloo groups from recommendations, theyre still appearing in plenty of peoples feeds.ImageCredit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesRashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, a civil rights group that advises tech companies on racial justice issues, told me in an interview this week that tech leaders needed to apply anti-racist principles to their own product designs, rather than simply expressing their support for Black Lives Matter.What I see, particularly from Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, its kind of like thoughts and prayers after something tragic happens with guns, Mr. Robinson said. Its a lot of sympathy without having to do anything structural about it.There is plenty more Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Dorsey and Ms. Wojcicki could do. They could build teams of civil rights experts and empower them to root out racism on their platforms, including more subtle forms of racism that dont involve using racial slurs or organized hate groups. They could dismantle the recommendations systems that give provocateurs and cranks free attention, or make changes to the way their platforms rank information. (Ranking it by how engaging it is, the way some platforms still do, tends to amplify misinformation and outrage-bait.) They could institute a viral ceiling on posts about sensitive topics, to make it harder for trolls to hijack the conversation.Im optimistic that some of these tech leaders will eventually be convinced either by their employees of color or their own conscience that truly supporting racial justice means that they need to build anti-racist products and services, and do the hard work of making sure their platforms are amplifying the right voices. But Im worried that they will stop short of making real, structural changes, out of fear of being accused of partisan bias.So is Mr. Robinson, the civil rights organizer. A few weeks ago, he chatted with Mr. Zuckerberg by phone about Facebooks policies on race, elections and other topics. Afterward, he said he thought that while Mr. Zuckerberg and other tech leaders generally meant well, he didnt think they truly understood how harmful their products could be.I dont think they can truly mean Black Lives Matter when they have systems that put black people at risk, he said. | Tech |
Credit...Al Drago for The New York TimesJune 29, 2018The president of the United States, one of the most protected people on the planet and among the least accessible to the public, would seem to be a long-shot target for a prank caller looking to have some fun.But President Trump, who likes to field his own telephone calls and prefers spontaneity to protocol, is a different breed. So on Wednesday, when a radio shock jock and comedian dialed the White House switchboard impersonating a United States senators aide, he found himself in between barely suppressed giggles and off-color jokes with his producer patched through to Mr. Trump on Air Force One.The result was an impromptu six-minute conversation on immigration and the Supreme Court between the president and the radio host and comedian John Melendez, known to his listeners as Stuttering John.Are you ready for the call? a White House mobile communications officer asked Mr. Melendez before connecting him with Mr. Trump. He was. The question came mere minutes after Mr. Melendez and his producer could be heard on his podcast discussing what they said were the presidents masturbation habits and whether to refill their beers while they waited to be connected to the leader of the free world.As far as Mr. Trump knew, he was taking a call from Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who seemed to have an urgent legislative matter he wanted to raise.Congratulations on everything were proud of you, Mr. Trump said by way of a greeting, apparently alluding to the real Mr. Menendezs recent acquittal on corruption charges and a subsequent decision by the Justice Department not to pursue additional ones. You went through a tough, tough situation, and I dont think a very fair situation.He was actually speaking with Mr. Melendez, who had called the White House switchboard, affected a British accent and identified himself as Sean Moore (S-E-A-N, as in Sean Connery, and Moore, as in Roger Moore), an aide to Mr. Menendez who, he claimed, badly needed to speak to Mr. Trump.White House officials did not respond on Friday to requests for comment on how the prankster had been allowed to get through to the president. But Mr. Melendezs profanity-laced podcast indicates that the process was surprisingly easy.The White House operator can be heard telling Mr. Melendez that the president was in Fargo, N.D., and unreachable. But when Mr. Melendez insisted that Mr. Trump had said he would speak to Mr. Menendez, the operator, somewhat reluctantly, said she would try to connect him.I dont know how Im going to do this, the operator said with a heavy sigh. She suggested she would contact Mr. Trumps assistant, but then decided to try to transmit the call through signal, a reference to the White House Communications Agency, originally known as the White House Signal Corps, which provides emergency mobile communications for the president wherever he goes.The next audible voice is the signal officer, who can be heard telling Mr. Melendez that the president was onstage at his rally in Fargo, and would have to call back.When he was a private citizen, Mr. Trump frequently called in to the shock jock Howard Sterns bawdy radio program the same one that made Stuttering John, Mr. Sterns sidekick on the show for more than 15 years, famous and engaged in salty banter. But Mr. Melendez was plainly shocked at the presidents willingness to take his call in this case.I dont even think theyre going to call me, Mr. Melendez told his producer at one point, as he as he waited for the call from Mr. Trump.The White House operator did call Mr. Melendez back at one point to verify that he was who he said he was, asking whether he was calling from a cellphone and why it appeared to be from a California area code. Posing as Mr. Moore, the senators aide, Mr. Melendez said he was on vacation.Later, Mr. Melendez said that he received a call from Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, arranging a callback time for him and the president and asking what topic he would like to raise with Mr. Trump.When a mobile communications officer did call back and put Mr. Trump on the line, Mr. Melendez played the part of the senator, although his voice sounded nothing like Mr. Menendezs. But he barreled forward as he engaged Mr. Trump in a discussion about what he should say to his constituents in New Jersey about the Trump administrations immigration policies that have led to migrant families being separated at the southwestern border.What could I tell them that youre going to do in moving forward? Mr. Melendez asked.Mr. Trump responded, as he has before, that he would like to pass a broad immigration bill, which he said would be good for both parties.Id like to do the larger solution, rather than the smaller solution, Mr. Trump said. We have to have security at the border we have to have that.Mr. Melendez then raised the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy from the Supreme Court, and asked whether Mr. Trump would consider naming a moderate rather than a conservative.I have a big list of people, Bob, and were going to take a look at it, Mr. Trump replied, adding that he hoped to make a selection in 12 to 14 days. On Friday, he confirmed that timetable publicly and told reporters to expect an announcement on July 9.The prank did not become public until Thursday afternoon, after Mr. Melendez posted the news on Twitter. Tune into my new Podcast where I prank call the President & he calls me from Air Force One! Mr. Melendez wrote. A short time later he tweeted out the audio. Neither tweet got much traction at first, which frustrated Mr. Melendez.I find it astounding that the news medias not picking up the fact that I totally duped the President & got in touch with him in less than 2 hours while he was on Air Force One, Mr. Melendez wrote Thursday night.The Daily Mail finally noticed on Friday, followed quickly by BuzzFeed News, and soon enough the story had generated a chyron on CNN: Whos Calling? | Politics |
VideotranscripttranscriptMigrants Diverted to Turkey From GreeceMigrants who were stopped and detained in Turkey reacted to the new European Union policy, saying they were "humiliated."SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PALESTINIAN MIGRANT LIVING IN LEBANON, KHODOR HOSARY, SAYING: I applied for a passport in Lebanon. I am Palestinian and I am not not allowed to live or work (there). You know, the Palestinian crisis in Lebanon, we dont have a country or a land. Why are they doing this to us? We have been humiliated. We almost died. We had children traveling with us.Migrants who were stopped and detained in Turkey reacted to the new European Union policy, saying they were "humiliated."CreditCredit...Murad Sezer/ReutersApril 6, 2016BRUSSELS Days after a wave of deportations of migrants arriving in Europe from Turkey, the European Unions executive arm proposed a new quota system for members accepting asylum seekers to ease the burden on the nations confronted with an overwhelming influx.The quotas were part of a plan introduced Wednesday by the European Commission, the blocs executive arm, to address the continents ineffective asylum system while avoiding a backlash from member states reluctant to accept a larger number of migrants.The proposals would create a quota mechanism to deal with exceptional situations when a country is confronted with an unmanageable crisis. An alternative would allow for the establishment of a permanent system to redistribute asylum seekers.The second option would amount to a permanent program to shift asylum seekers around Europe, and it is likely to antagonize countries like Hungary and Slovakia, which bluntly oppose any measures to force them to take in migrants and which argue that quotas encourage migration to the Continent.The current system, known as the Dublin Regulation, requires asylum seekers to register in the first European Union country in which they arrive, and those who do not register to be sent back there if they move to another nation in the bloc.It broke down last year because Greece, the entry point for most migrants, was unable to cope on its own, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, allowed hundreds of thousands of people to stay in Germany even though they had failed to register elsewhere.One of the proposals introduced Wednesday would keep the current system mostly intact but would establish a mechanism to provide emergency relocation of asylum seekers when certain countries are facing disproportionate pressure.Let there be no doubt: Those who need protection must continue to receive it, and they should not have to put their lives in the hands of people smugglers, Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the commission, said in a statement. But the current system is not sustainable.Mr. Timmermans said at a news conference early Wednesday afternoon that the idea was to select one of the proposals before the summer that could eventually win approval from European Union governments and the European Parliament.Under a deal worked out with Turkey in March that was put into practice on Monday, about 200 migrants who arrived in Greece were sent back to Turkey.Even as leaders like Ms. Merkel continue to press for a broader, unified European response to the migration crisis, the commission has grown increasingly reluctant to support that approach since its earlier plans to spread 160,000 migrants across the bloc were largely ignored.The attitude toward migrants in many parts of Europe has also soured further in recent months over concerns about how to integrate newcomers and the revelations that some terrorists were able to sneak into Europe with legitimate asylum seekers. Underlining those fears, Frontex, the blocs border agency, said on Wednesday that two of the terrorists who carried out the Paris attacks in November had used fake Syrian papers on the Greek island of Leros before traveling to other parts of Europe.The episode highlights the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters, and it is a dreadful reminder that border management also has an important security component, Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex, wrote in an introduction to an annual report.In a section of the report on Syria, Frontex wrote that a staggering number of citizens of European Union countries had joined the conflict there as jihadists. Islamist extremists will exploit irregular migration flows whenever such movements fit their plans, it said.Frontex reported more than 1.8 million illegal border crossings to the European Union last year. That figure included crossings by people who were counted for the first time when arriving on the Greek islands from Turkey and were counted again when crossing one of the blocs external borders in the Western Balkans, such as between Greece and Macedonia.More than half of the people detected at the blocs external borders in 2015 were Syrians, the agency said. Afghans made up 27 percent of the total and Iraqis about 8 percent, it said.Once Greece and Turkey take additional legal steps to allow the return of asylum seekers, another part of the agreement will go into full effect: a measure to allow one Syrian refugee in Turkey to be flown to Europe for every Syrian who is deported from Greece.The agreement with Turkey was meant to improve the asylum process and to reduce the incentives to use human traffickers. Officials have reported that the number of people trying to cross the Aegean Sea has slowed considerably since the deal was struck with Turkey on March 18.Asked about the prospects for the full carrying out of the deal with Turkey, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration, said talks were continuing with Ankara to ensure that all returned asylum seekers are adequately protected.We are still in the beginning; the numbers are very low, Mr. Avramopoulos said at the news conference, referring to the number of people who have been returned to Turkey so far. | World |
Politics|Trump has so far declined to ask his ambassadors to resign, a routine step in past administrations.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/trump-has-so-far-declined-to-ask-his-ambassadors-to-resign-a-routine-step-in-past-administrations.htmlCredit...Pete Marovich for The New York TimesJan. 7, 2021WASHINGTON The White House has so far declined to ask for the resignations of its ambassadors and other political appointees, potentially delaying a turnover of the governments most senior officials and risking more chaos across the federal work force in President Trumps final days in office.Mr. Trumps refusal to issue an order for those letters of resignation which has been a routine proceeding in past administrations is another snub of presidential decorum that broadcasts the depths of division inside the United States, even as Mr. Trump promised early Thursday to ensure an orderly transition to the administration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. after an assault by Trump supporters on the Capitol.The White House did not respond on Thursday morning to the latest of several requests for comment about when it would formally call for resignations.The delay has irritated some foreign allies who want to plan for Mr. Bidens policies but are awaiting the departure of Mr. Trumps ambassadors so that career diplomats at American embassies are not put in the position of being insubordinate to their bosses. More broadly, without a clear directive to leave, officials said, some political appointees may burrow into the federal bureaucracy until Mr. Biden forces them out.Theres been no memo sent to anybody, said Christopher R. Hill, who was an ambassador to four countries under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama and also served as an assistant secretary of state to Mr. Bush. And so a number of ambassadors are saying, Hey, Ill just stay until Im informed otherwise.Mr. Hill predicted, though, that the delay would not dramatically undercut national security or foreign policy.For more than 30 years, since at least the end of the Reagan administration, outgoing presidents have requested the resignations of political appointees, who account for about 4,000 of the federal governments 2.1 million employees. Their timely departure helps prevent a personnel bottleneck immediately after the inauguration that would occur if departing employees were still being processed just as new appointees were coming in. | Politics |
Credit...Alastair Grant/Associated PressMarch 6, 2017How much can an old, dried out piece of mold be worth? A lot, apparently, if it was once owned by the doctor who discovered penicillin.A patchy bit of mold from the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Fleming was auctioned in London last week for $14,617.The 90-year-old sample is preserved in a round glass case and features an inscription by Fleming on the back, describing it as the mould that first made penicillin.That may be a stretch.Historians say the Scottish-born doctor likely made dozens of such mementos for such luminaries as Winston Churchill and Marlene Dietrich. | Health |
Common SenseVideoThe New York Times columnist weighs in on news that Third Avenue is liquidating its junk bond fund and how JPMorgan Chase reacted to a whistle-blower.CreditCredit...CNBCDec. 10, 2015Whistle-blowers often face the difficult choice between telling the truth and the risk of committing career suicide, said a Senate report on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act, which bars retaliation against whistle-blowers.At JPMorgan Chase, as at nearly all major companies, the law is enshrined in the banks code of conduct: We strictly prohibit intimidation or retaliation against anyone who makes a good faith report about a known or suspected violation of the code or any JPMorgan Chase policy or procedure, or any law or regulation.Then theres the case of Johnny Burris.Mr. Burris, 44, worked as a broker at JPMorgans Sun City West, Ariz., branch office beginning in 2010, where he was a top producing broker and earned glowing performance reviews, at least in his first few years. Most of his clients were retirees who were unsophisticated about the financial markets.So Mr. Burris avoided what he considered unsuitable, expensive and underperforming investment products, including some offered by JPMorgan, which drew criticism from his bosses. Troubled that he was being pressured to push JPMorgans products rather than act in his clients best interests, he went so far as to secretly record his colleagues. He complained repeatedly to his supervisors.None of this exactly endeared Mr. Burris to his employer or co-workers. In late 2012, Mr. Burris was suspended and then fired. The firm gave him no explanation or chance to defend himself, he said. But his entry in the broker database for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, states that he was dismissed because he failed to follow firm procedures in a matter that cost a client $635 and erroneously described an order as unsolicited rather than solicited.Mr. Burris claims those charges were trumped up by his superiors as an excuse to get rid of him, and he was actually fired for refusing to push JPMorgan investment products and then calling attention to the issue.He took his accusations and evidence, including the recordings, to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Burris also publicly raised the issue in an article in The New York Times in March 2013.He became, in other words, a whistle-blower. Which makes his subsequent treatment by JPMorgan all the more puzzling. Soon after The Times article appeared, JPMorgan lodged three customer complaints against Mr. Burris with Finra. The complaints and their resolutions Mr. Burris was exonerated in two, and wasnt given a chance to respond to the third are publicly available. They are the only customer complaints during his 25-year career.That he was the subject of three complaints is significant, because that is a threshold at which a broker may be subjected to heightened scrutiny by regulators. Most brokerage firms wont consider hiring a broker with three or more such complaints, no matter what the disposition, according to Douglas J. Schulz of Invest Securities Consulting. Its a very serious black mark, he said.After he was fired, Mr. Burris filed an arbitration claim against JPMorgan on wrongful dismissal grounds. Among the issues were whether customers had complained about Mr. Burris, including a complaint filed April 10 on his Finra record and another dated April 1 in his file at the brokerage office. Mr. Burris was suspicious, because the letters had identical typefaces and seemed to have come from the same printer.At the arbitration hearing, a crucial witness was Umbreen N. Kazmi, a JPMorgan vice president and supervisory manager who oversaw Mr. Burris. Testifying under oath, she denied that any of the complaints had been fabricated. Then Mr. Burriss lawyer asked twice whether someone at JPMorgan had written them. Ms. Kazmi testified, absolutely not.Ms. Kazmi also denied that she had played any role in instigating a separate May 14 complaint.On Aug. 12, 2014, the arbitration panel ruled in JPMorgans favor. Mr. Burriss lawyer had told him not to talk to potential witnesses such as his former clients, so he hadnt. But figuring he had nothing to lose, Mr. Burris contacted William Wiley, who filed the April 1 letter, and Carolyn Scott, who filed the one on April 10.As my colleague Nathaniel Popper reported last week, Mr. Wiley and Ms. Scott both denied they had had any problem with Mr. Burris and said the letters had been drafted not by them, but by Laya Gavin, the office manager and broker who took over Mr. Burriss accounts after he was fired.Despite the risk of going up against JPMorgan, both gave Mr. Burris sworn affidavits. To be absolutely clear, I did not draft that letter dated April 1, 2103, Mr. Wiley declared. Said Ms. Scott: I did not draft that letter. Both identified Ms. Gavin as the author. Added Ms. Scott: There should never have been a complaint against Mr. Burris at any time.ImageCredit...Joshua Lott for The New York TimesMr. Burris said he also met with the source of the May 14 complaint, Greg Rodvelt, who told him he filed a complaint only after Ms. Kazmi called him.To Mr. Burris, both his firing and what he sees as an attempt to smear his reputation after he went to the S.E.C. and the media, are clear-cut examples of retaliation against a whistle-blower. He said it made it difficult for him to find employment (he briefly worked at Oppenheimer and is now self-employed), but more importantly, sent a powerful warning to any other JPMorgan broker contemplating cooperating with the S.E.C. or speaking out about unethical behavior. He has turned over his findings to Finra, which is investigating the matter, and to the S.E.C.s whistle-blower office.JPMorgan sees the matter entirely differently. Mr. Burris was a rogue broker who was fired for legitimate reasons having nothing to do with his reluctance to sell JPMorgan products, a view backed by the arbitration panel. His story is utterly wrong. He was terminated because he broke serious compliance rules in important ways and on numerous occasions, said Patricia Wexler, a JPMorgan spokeswoman.The firm acknowledges that Ms. Gavin actually drafted the Wiley and Scott letters after the customers came into the branch with complaints, but said she was doing so simply as a courtesy.Even though the bank determined that neither complaint had merit, it was nonetheless obligated by law to file Mr. Scotts letter with Finra. And, with respect to Ms. Kazmis testimony that no one at JPMorgan had drafted the letters, she answered truthfully based on what she knew she did not realize that anyone had provided the customer with the courtesy of typing up a verbal complaint or issue, Ms. Wexler said. She said no one at JPMorgan had interviewed any of Mr. Burriss clients to get their version of events.At the center of these differing views is Ms. Gavin. On her website moneywisdomandfaith.com she describes growing up in a mobile home outside Chicago and putting herself through college and business school. She says her mission is to work with purpose-driven Christian women and help them understand and apply the biblical financial principles of stewardship, wealth building and legacy thinking.She was interviewed by JPMorgan lawyers and originally listed as a witness in the arbitration, but after Ms. Kazmis testimony and the questions about the letters origins, was never called to testify.Some questions: Did Ms. Gavin routinely write up complaints for other customers who came into the branch? Or were the sole instances those involving Mr. Burris? Was it Ms. Gavins idea to draft and file the letters, or did others encourage her to be on the lookout for evidence that could be used against Mr. Burris?Ms. Wexler declined to answer these questions and denied my request to interview Ms. Gavin.Mr. Schulz, the securities industry expert, said he was shocked by Ms. Gavins actions.Written customer complaints can only be written by a client, he said. Its a very serious document that triggers all kinds of regulatory requirements. No broker should be writing them.Its not so surprising that JPMorgan has circled the wagons, which is how institutions often respond to whistle-blowers. Its a disconcerting story, said Joe Badaracco, a professor of business ethics at Harvard Business School. It just reinforces the word on the street, which is, if youre a whistle-blower, youre going to have a hard time finding a job, and if theres anything in your file, it will be used against you.Those anti-retaliation policies are laughable, said Amy Block Joy, an emeritus professor at the University of California, Davis, and the author of two books about her exposing fraud at the University of California. Companies and institutions do retaliate. And then they stigmatize the whistle-blower.When all the evidence is in, and regulators complete their investigations, JPMorgan may be vindicated. It appears to be using every weapon in its vast legal and public relations arsenal to challenge Mr. Burriss claims.But in raising questions about how the bank was pressuring him and other brokers to sell its own mutual funds, Mr. Burris appears to have been onto something. JPMorgan is on the brink of paying as much as $200 million to resolve S.E.C. claims that it failed to make adequate disclosures when its brokers promoted its own products.That may mean a big payday for Mr. Burris. If the S.E.C. deems he gave it original information the leads to a successful enforcement action, he and any other whistle-blowers cooperating in this case would be entitled to a bounty of 10 to 30 percent of the sanction collected. On $200 million, that would mean an award of $20 million to $60 million. | Business |
The senator was confronted in the airport and on a flight to Washington by supporters of President Trump, some of whom chanted traitor at him.Credit...Jonathan Ernst/ReutersJan. 6, 2021Supporters of President Trump heckled Senator Mitt Romney of Utah while he was traveling to Washington ahead of a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to certify the election victory of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to video shared online.Mr. Romney is part of the majority of Republican senators who have rejected efforts to overturn the election, a push that recently turned to the joint session of Congress to certify Electoral College results, a typically ceremonial affair.Supporters of Mr. Trump traveled to Washington to attend protests on his behalf on Wednesday, even though the presidents baseless claims of fraud have been rejected by judges across the ideological spectrum, Republican and Democratic state election authorities, and even by Mr. Trumps own attorney general.In one video that went viral on Tuesday, a person filming with a phone approached Mr. Romney, sitting in the Salt Lake City airport, and asked him why he had not supported Mr. Trump in the election or in his claims of election fraud.You were voted in as a conservative to represent the conservative constituents, the person said.Mr. Romney responded: We have a Constitution, the constitutional process is clear and Ill follow the Constitution. And Ill explain all that when we meet in Congress this week.As the senator left his seat, the person and a man, also filming with a phone, followed him.Trump was a juggernaut, your legacy is nothing, a man can be heard saying.I wouldnt be surprised if you werent even voted in legally, the first person said. Youre a joke, absolute joke, its a disgusting shame.In another video, passengers on a crowded plane can be heard chanting traitor, traitor, traitor. One person called for Mr. Romney to resign, adding, Mitt Romney, you dont listen to your constituents.Mr. Romney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Only about a dozen Republican senators indicated this week that they planned to object to certifying the election results.Mr. Romney has been outspoken in condemning those efforts, and has said that the president had exhausted his legal challenges in battleground states and had resorted to trying to defy the will of the voters.Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the president has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election, Mr. Romney tweeted in November. It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president.In a statement on Sunday, he called the efforts by the faction of Republicans in Congress an egregious ploy that dangerously threatens our democratic republic.He continued: Adding to this ill-conceived endeavor by some in Congress is the presidents call for his supporters to come to the Capitol on the day when this matter is to be debated and decided. This has the predictable potential to lead to disruption, and worse.Mr. Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, was one of several prominent Republicans who said they did not vote for Mr. Trump in the November election.In February Mr. Romney was the only Republican in the Senate who voted to convict the president of one article of impeachment in February in an otherwise party-line vote. The vote made him the first senator in American history to vote to remove a president of his own party from office. | Politics |
United States 5, Slovenia 1Credit...Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto AgencyFeb. 16, 2014SOCHI, Russia Both goaltenders making their Sochi Games debuts in Sundays round-robin game between the United States and Slovenia had a certain measure of international success in 2010.The American Ryan Miller won a silver medal at the Vancouver Olympics and was named the tournaments most valuable player. The Slovene Luka Gracnar was on the inline hockey team that placed fifth in Sweden at the world championships.Miller, 33, entered the N.H.L. with the Buffalo Sabres when he was 22 and won the Vezina Trophy in 2010. Gracnar, 20, whose dream is to one day play in the N.H.L., has already cradled the Stanley Cup. His countryman Anze Kopitar, a forward for the Los Angeles Kings, took the trophy to their hometown, Jesenice, after the Kings beat the Devils in the 2012 finals.The gap in experience between Miller and Gracnar was glaring on Sunday, but no more so than the divide between the seasoned American skaters and their counterparts from Slovenia, which is competing in mens hockey at the Olympics for the first time.Gracnar, who plays for E.C. Red Bull in Salzburg, Austria, was not prepared for the speed of the American forward Phil Kessel, who flew in from the neutral zone and fired the first shot of the game, with 64 seconds gone, into the back of the net. He scored again in the fifth minute and finished with a natural hat trick, and Miller made 17 saves as the Americans cruised to a 5-1 win at Shayba Arena. Kessels hat trick was the first by an American since John LeClair scored three goals against Finland at the 2002 Salt Lake Games.The victory propelled the United States into a Wednesday quarterfinal against the winner of a Czech Republic-Slovakia qualification-round match Tuesday.Miller, who sat without complaint as Jonathan Quick started the first two games of these Olympics, lost his shutout bid with 18 seconds remaining in the game. Marcel Rodman scored on a screened shot, a goal Miller described as unfortunate. In the big picture, the win was all that mattered. Though Miller was fresh, he said he could tell that his teammates, who defeated Russia in a shootout 24 hours earlier, were struggling. You can see some fatigue setting in, he said. Thats why it was important to win today.The difficulty of getting back up to play the day after an emotionally charged game was also borne out by the Russians, who were extended to a shootout by Slovakia at the same time as the United States-Slovenia game.Russias Alexander Radulov, whose play against the Americans was roundly criticized, and Ilya Kovalchuk, formerly of the Devils, got consecutive shots past Slovakia goaltender Jan Laco in the shootout to secure the 1-0 victory.Russia will face Norway in the qualification round, with the winner meeting Finland in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Canada, which beat Finland, 2-1, in overtime on Sunday, heads to the quarterfinal round to face the winner of Latvia-Switzerland. The other quarterfinal qualifier, Sweden, will play the winner of Slovenia-Austria.Slovenia was also coming off an emotional game, a 3-1 victory over Slovakia on Saturday. The win was the teams first in Olympic competition, a major achievement for a country that has seven hockey rinks and fewer than 200 registered senior-level players.Kopitar is the only Slovene player in the N.H.L., and he missed the third period Sunday because of a stomach virus that sapped his energy. He did not have a shot in the 11 minutes 31 seconds he spent on the ice. The Slovenes were also without Sabahudin Kovacevic, second to Kopitar in minutes in the first two games, who was serving a one-game suspension for a hard elbow to the neck of Slovakias Tomas Kopecky.Kopitars father, Matjaz, is the Slovene coach, and he made no apologies for starting Gracnar, who made 23 saves, over the 30-year-old Robert Kristan, who had a save percentage of .905 in the first two games.While the United States is playing for the gold medal here, Slovenia is playing for the future, one that it hopes includes many more Olympic appearances.His goals in hockey are high, also, Matjaz Kopitar said, referring to Gracnar. We just gave him a chance. He deserved it. I hope hes going to get something from this game. I hope he learns how to play against these superstars.Gracnar said it was kind of a dream come true to start against the Americans. Its a good experience for me to see where I am, to see if I can compete against these guys, he said.When Miller was Gracnars age, he was at Michigan State testing himself against the likes of Michigan and Notre Dame. He said he could not imagine facing at 20 the likes of Kessel and T. J. Oshie, the shootout star against Russia, who received the loudest cheer during the player introductions Sunday.In the 24 hours since his star turn in the Americans win over Russia, Oshie had gained more than 100,000 followers on Twitter and received a congratulatory tweet from President Obama.How can you top that one? Oshie said.Against Slovenia, Oshie picked up an assist on the Americans fourth goal, by Ryan McDonagh; killed penalties with his usual aplomb; and logged 14:40.Oshie seemed to be taking his celebrity in stride. People are probably going to be bored by my tweets, he said, and hit the unfollow button. | Sports |
TrilobitesCredit...Harvard Museum of Comparative ZoologyJune 22, 2017Owls are spherical, hummingbirds are elliptical and sandpipers are pointy.All bird eggs have the same function to protect and nourish a growing chick. But they come in a brilliant array of shapes. This variety has puzzled biologists for centuries. Now, in the most comprehensive study of egg shapes to date, published Thursday in Science, a team of scientists seems to have found an answer.The researchers cataloged the natural variation of egg shapes across 1,400 bird species, created a mathematical model to explain that variation, and then looked for connections between egg shape and many key traits of birds. On a global scale, the authors found, one of the best predictors of egg shape is flight ability, with strong fliers tending to lay long or pointy eggs.This paper is remarkable because it creates a wonderfully unified theory for the variety of egg shapes we see in nature, said Claire Spottiswoode, a bird ecologist at the University of Cambridge and the University of Cape Town who did not participate in the research.ImageCredit...M.C. StoddardIn the new study, the authors conducted a multistep investigation that brought together biology, computer science, mathematics and physics. They first wrote a computer program, named Eggxtractor who says scientists have no sense of humor? , that classified eggs based on their ellipticity and asymmetry. Elliptical eggs are elongated and round on both ends, like cucumbers, and asymmetric eggs are pointier on one end, like mangoes.With Eggxtractor, the researchers plotted nearly 50,000 eggs, representing all major bird orders, from a database of digital images by the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley, Calif.We could see then that egg shapes varied from spherical, to elliptical, to very pointy, to almost everything in between, said Mary Caswell Stoddard, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University and the lead author of the study.Next, the researchers attempted to answer how eggs might acquire varying shapes. Rather than looking at the shell, as one might expect, they focused on the eggs membrane (the film you see when peeling a hard-boiled egg), which is essential to the eggs shape.ImageCredit...Denise ApplewhiteThe scientists identified two parameters that could influence egg form: variations in the membranes composition and differences in pressure applied to the membrane before the egg hatches.By adjusting these two parameters, we were able to completely recover the entire range of observed avian egg shapes a good test of the model, said L. Mahadevan, a professor of applied math, biology and physics at Harvard University and an author of the study.Finally, the researchers looked into why egg shapes might be so spectacularly diverse. One popular hypothesis centered on nest location: Cliff-nesting birds, it was thought, lay pointy eggs so that if the eggs are bumped, they spin in a circle rather than rolling off the cliff. Another suggested that birds lay eggs in shapes that pack together best in different-size clutches.But when the authors related egg shape to these and other variables, they were surprised to find that none of them fit on a global scale (though they may still play important roles on smaller scales). Instead, egg shape was strongly correlated with a measure of wing shape, called the hand-wing index, that reflects flight ability.So what connects flight to egg shape? In general, birds want to pack as many nutrients as possible into their eggs. But, in order to fly, they must maintain sleek bodies meaning their eggs cant be too wide.Common murres, for instance, are fast, powerful fliers and have asymmetric eggs, as do least sandpipers, which migrate long distances.ImageCredit...Harvard Museum of Comparative ZoologyImageCredit...Harvard Museum of Comparative ZoologyWandering albatrosses are one of the most far-ranging fliers some have been known to circumnavigate the Antarctic Ocean three times in a year and have elliptical eggs.ImageCredit...Harvard Museum of Comparative ZoologyEastern screech owls rarely move beyond their small territory, where they tend to fly in short, low-powered glides, and have almost spherical eggs.ImageCredit...Harvard Museum of Comparative ZoologyPerhaps, evolutionarily, birds stumbled upon this very natural, geometric solution, which is to increase the ellipticity and asymmetry of their eggs, Dr. Mahadevan said, since doing so allows for greater volume without increasing girth. This explanation requires further research, he added.Ultimately, this study shows that we can challenge old assumptions, Dr. Stoddard said. In something as familiar and common as a bird egg, we are still discovering new truths. | science |
Credit...Nati Harnik/Associated PressNov. 1, 2018Health care has been a dominant issue on the campaign trail this fall, with voters particularly worried about continuing insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. But on Election Day, they will decide a number of other important health care questions for their states through ballot initiatives.Among the most significant are referendums that would expand Medicaid in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah. If voters in all three states approve, an estimated 340,000 additional low-income adults would be eligible for free health coverage through the government program, as the health law allows, starting next year.But the ballot questions also cover a wide range of other issues: whether to ease penalties for low-level drug offenders in Ohio; consider a ban on vaping in indoor work spaces in Florida; and whether to remove abortion protections from state constitutions in Alabama and West Virginia.Medicaid ExpansionIn addition to the ballot questions in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah, the outcome of tight governors races in seven states that have so far resisted expanding Medicaid could change the equation there.In Maine, a win for the Democrat, Janet Mills, would most likely result in at least 70,000 low-income adults quickly becoming eligible for Medicaid. Voters in the state had approved an expansion of the program last year, but the outgoing governor, Paul LePage, a Republican, has blocked it.Other states that could see Medicaid expand if Democrats win include Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In all, election results could extend Medicaid coverage to 2.7 million additional Americans, including more than a million in Florida alone.On the other hand, a ballot question in Montana could abruptly end expanded Medicaid there. Voters will decide whether to continue providing it to low-income childless adults beyond this year by considering a measure that would double the cigarette tax to pay for the states share of the cost. The tobacco industry has poured more than $17 million into fighting the measure.Depending on how many states join Virginia, where the legislature voted in May to expand Medicaid and an estimated 400,000 people will become eligible Jan. 1, the program could see its biggest enrollment growth since 2014, when the Affordable Care Act first allowed Medicaid expansion.AbortionTwo states, Alabama and West Virginia, will ask voters whether to amend their state constitutions to remove protections for the right to an abortion or require the funding of abortions. The questions come amid speculation that the newly reconfigured Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing each state to decide whether to allow abortion.In the more liberal state of Oregon, voters will decide whether to ban public spending on abortion except when medically necessary or required by federal law. If the initiative is approved, Medicaid would no longer cover abortions for low-income women; abortion might also no longer be a covered benefit for state employees.Soda TaxesIn Oregon and Washington State, big beverage companies are pushing ballot initiatives that would prevent localities from imposing taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks as well as a wide range of groceries. Backed in large part by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, the measures are a new front in the soda industrys war on the taxes that health advocates see as an effective way to decrease the consumption of sugary beverages products that have been linked to obesity and a range of diet-related illnesses.Opioids and Illegal DrugsOhio, a state hard hit by overdose deaths, is asking voters whether drug possession cases should be prosecuted only as misdemeanors. The savings from a reduced inmate population would be used for drug rehabilitation and victims aid programs.The Democratic candidate for governor, Richard Cordray, says the measure, which would amend the states constitution, is needed not least because the Legislature has failed to address the opioid crisis in a meaningful way. But opponents, among them the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, some Democrats and the Republican candidate for governor, Mike DeWine, are concerned about unintended consequences, including the effects on the states drug courts, which lean heavily on the threat of incarceration to compel treatment and drug-free behavior.ImageCredit...Matt Volz/Associated PressThe initiative has received considerable out-of-state support, including $1 million each from foundations run by George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor, and Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.Tobacco and E-CigarettesTobacco companies and their products continue to be a target. South Dakota voters are being asked to approve substantial tax increases on cigarettes and wholesale tobacco goods, with a portion of the revenue to fund technical training schools for high school graduates. The state, which last raised cigarette taxes in 2006, has among the lowest such taxes in the country.Florida voters will consider a bundled amendment that seems to be confounding many: Tucked into an initiative that would ban offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in state waters is a proposal that would extend a longstanding smoking ban in indoor work places to e-cigarettes and vapes.Passage is uncertain, not only because many voters do not understand why both issues should be linked proponents say they are both environmental topics but because, pragmatically speaking, Amendment 9 is near the bottom of a long list of races and questions on the state ballot.Dialysis CostsIt may not be single payer, but its a step toward regulating health care prices. California voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on a proposition limiting how much dialysis companies can charge private insurers to treat patients with serious kidney disease.State Democrats and labor unions, notably the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, are backing the proposition aimed at the two largest dialysis chains, DaVita and Fresenius. They claim the companies are overcharging for their care.Both the California Medical Association and the California Hospital Association, as well as business groups and others, are opposed, and more than $100 million has been spent trying to defeat the measure. They say the proposition could hurt patients ability to get a lifesaving treatment.Patient SafetyMassachusetts voters will decide whether hospital nurses should be limited to a set number of patients they can care for at once. The number would range from one to six, depending on the type of medical unit or care needed.Hospital groups have strenuously fought the proposal, saying that the cost of hiring enough nurses to meet the requirement would be close to $900 million, with the burden falling heavily on community hospitals. The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the union and professional group that drafted the question, argues that such limits protect patients and ultimately save money by reducing hospital stays.Medical MarijuanaTwo generally conservative states, Utah and Missouri, will consider proposals to legalize cannabis products for medicinal use.The Missouri ballot question focuses on potentially lucrative tax revenue, with voters being asked to chose among three tax-and-spend proposals, with recipients including biomedical research, veterans health care, early childhood education and drug treatment.The Utah question concentrates on the mechanics of prescribing and possession: If the referendum is approved, for example, then patients with medical cards would be allowed to grow up to six plants, by Jan. 1, 2021.Other states are looking beyond medical use. Voters in Michigan and North Dakota face measures that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older.Sales Tax ExemptionsNevada is poised to become the 10th state to provide sales tax exemptions specifically for feminine hygiene products, if voters approve a ballot initiative there. Opponents of eliminating the so-called pink tax say that it could cost the state from $72 million to $104 million annually.The states voters are also being asked to approve sales tax exemptions for medical equipment like oxygen tanks and ventilators. | Health |
Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesBefore Covid-19, health care workers were already vulnerable to depression and suicide. Mental health experts now fear even more will be prone to trauma-related disorders.Bridget Ryan, a peer supporter and assistant nurse manager at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., hugged Christina Burke, a nurse, after a recent counseling session.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMay 16, 2020The coronavirus patient, a 75-year-old man, was dying. No family member was allowed in the room with him, only a young nurse.In full protective gear, she dimmed the lights and put on quiet music. She freshened his pillows, dabbed his lips with moistened swabs, held his hand, spoke softly to him. He wasnt even her patient, but everyone else was slammed.Finally, she held an iPad close to him, so he could see the face and hear the voice of a grief-stricken relative Skyping from the hospital corridor.After the man died, the nurse found a secluded hallway, and wept.A few days later, she shared her anguish in a private Facebook message to Dr. Heather Farley, who directs a comprehensive staff-support program at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del. Im not the kind of nurse that can act like Im fine and that something sad didnt just happen, she wrote.Medical workers like the young nurse have been celebrated as heroes for their commitment to treating desperately ill coronavirus patients. But the heroes are hurting, badly. Even as applause to honor them swells nightly from city windows, and cookies and thank-you notes arrive at hospitals, the doctors, nurses and emergency responders on the front lines of a pandemic they cannot control are battling a crushing sense of inadequacy and anxiety.Every day they become more susceptible to post-traumatic stress, mental health experts say. And their psychological struggles could impede their ability to keep working with the intensity and focus their jobs require.Although the causes for the suicides last month of Dr. Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, and John Mondello, a rookie New York emergency medical technician, are unknown, the tragedies served as a devastating wake-up call about the mental health of medical workers. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, their professions were pockmarked with burnout and even suicide.On Wednesday, the World Health Organization issued a report about the pandemics impact on mental health, highlighting health care workers as vulnerable. Recent studies of medical workers in China, Canada and Italy who treated Covid-19 patients found soaring rates of anxiety, depression and insomnia.To address the ballooning problem, therapists who specialize in treating trauma are offering free sessions to medical workers and emergency responders nationwide. New York City has joined with the Defense Department to train 1,000 counselors to address the combat-like stress. Rutgers Health/RWJ Barnabas Health, a New Jersey system, just adopted a Check You, Check Two initiative, urging staff to attend to their own needs and touch base with two colleagues daily.Physicians are often very self-reliant and may not easily ask for help. In this time of crisis, with high workload and many uncertainties, this trait can add to the load that they carry internally, said Dr. Chantal Brazeau, a psychiatrist at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.Even when new Covid-19 cases and deaths begin to ebb, as they have in some places, mental health experts say the psychological pain of medical workers is likely to continue and even worsen.As the pandemic intensity seems to fade, so does the adrenaline. Whats left are the emotions of dealing with the trauma and stress of the many patients we cared for, said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, the chairman of the emergency department at St. Josephs Health in Paterson, N.J. There is a wave of depression, letdown, true PTSD and a feeling of not caring anymore that is coming.____Screw all of you now I see exactly why the only thing left to do is suicide. a Facebook post by a St. Louis paramedic in AprilAfter Kurt Becker, a paramedic firefighter in St. Louis County, saw that post, which included a profanity-laced screed of frustration and despair over the job, he sent a copy to the mans therapist with a note saying, You need to check this out.Im reading this, and Im ticking off each comment with, stress marker, stress marker, stress marker, said Mr. Becker, who manages a 300-person union district. (The writer is in treatment and gave permission for the post to be quoted.)ImageCredit...Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesThe paramedics are part of a warrior culture, Mr. Becker said, which sees itself as a tough, invulnerable caste. Asking for help, admitting fear, is not part of their self-image.Mr. Becker, 48, is himself the grandson of a bomber pilot and son of a Vietnam veteran. But his local has been hit by a dozen suicides since 2004, and he has become an advocate for the mental health of its members. To maintain his equilibrium, he works out and sees a therapist.Recently, he has been getting more requests than usual for the unions peer-support team and its roster of clinicians who understand the singular experiences of emergency medical workers.The virus scares the hell out of our guys, he said. And now, when they go home to decompress, instead, they and their spouses are home schooling. The spouse has lost a job, and is at wits end. The kids are screaming. Let me tell you: The tension level in the crews is through the roof.Many besieged health care workers are exhibiting what Alynn Schmitt McManus, a St. Louis-based clinical social worker, calls betrayal trauma.They feel overwhelmed and abandoned by fire chiefs who, she said, rarely acknowledge the newly relentless demands of the job.Many paramedics, she added, are aggressive and depressed. They are so committed to the work, they are such good human beings, but they feel so compromised now.Brendan, who asked for his last name to be withheld to protect his privacy, is a 24-year-old paramedic firefighter who works 48-hour shifts on the tough north side of St. Louis. His unit has been so busy running calls that he goes for long stretches without showering, eating or sleeping. He is terrified he might infect his fiance and their daughter.We got a letter from our chief saying that theres a national shortage of gloves, gowns, masks and goggles because the public is taking them, he said. Then we walk into Walmart and see that 90 percent of the people have better masks than we do.With no end in sight to the crisis, Brendan sought out a therapist.We are a lot quicker to be angry with each other, he said. Any little thing sends us over the edge. But among the older guys in their late 30s and 40s, its not OK to talk about things. So all anyone talks about is alcohol.____They were coming in very sick and deteriorating so fast. I was carrying a lot inside me, and I was very sad when I came home. I was feeling like I wasnt doing a good job. My mother-in-law is a nurse, and she saw I needed help so she connected me with a therapist. Kristina, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in QueensTherapists around the country, many affiliated with the Trauma Recovery Network, which includes a large New York team, have been lining up to offer free treatment to medical workers. But the number of requests for help has been modest.People are nervous that if they pause to get treatment, theyll crash, said Karen Alter-Reid, a psychologist and the founder of the Fairfield County Trauma Response Team in Connecticut, who has treated disaster-relief workers at school shootings and hurricanes.The reasons to offer front-line workers specialized trauma therapy now are both to forestall destructive symptoms from settling in long-term, and to patch up depleted people so they can keep doing their jobs with the intensity demanded of them.Since mid-March, Dr. Alter-Reids group has been treating dozens of emergency medical technicians, doctors and nurses. What distinguishes this pandemic as a traumatic experience, she said, is that no one knows when it will end, which protracts anxiety.Medical teams, she noted, keenly miss the familial, visceral contact. They are used to hugs, backslaps, and sharing beers after a rough shift. Now, safety strictures have shut all that down.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThrough Zoom group therapy, the crews have been regaining some semblance of solidarity as they unburden with each other, unmasked, through a computer screen, hearing everyone talk about similar struggles: Living away from families, to keep them safe. The smell of disinfectant in their clothes and hair. The clumsy haz-mat gear.In the sessions, Dr. Alter-Reid instructs them to tap on their desktops. The tapping is integral to her technique, a well-studied trauma treatment called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.As they tap, which can sound like group drumming, she asks them to recall a challenging case when they each prevailed, and to share it.Through these sessions, she tries to help them subdue memories of fear, failure and death so they can summon their innate resilience: Remember what you can do.____I have nightmares that I wont have my P.P.E. I worry about my patients, my co-workers, my family, myself. I cant turn my brain off. Christina Burke, an I.C.U. nurse at Christiana Hospital, Newark, Del.A nagging detail sticks in Christina Burkes mind like a burr. Not only is hers the last face that patients see before they die, but because of her mandatory mask, all they glimpse are her eyes.Her identity as a compassionate nurse feels diminished. She longs to lift up her mask and reveal her full self to patients.At 24, Ms. Burke has already worked in an intensive care unit for three years. She has loved the connections she made with patients and their families, but those experiences are now largely gone.I cant imagine one of my relatives on their last breath with a stranger, said Ms. Burke, who is close to her own family but hasnt been able to visit them for two months.One recent day, overcome with sleeplessness and despondency, she contacted Bridget Ryan, a member of the hospitals peer support program. In Ms. Ryans office, she tearfully unloaded.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesA March study in JAMA Psychiatry looked at the psychological impact of the epidemic on health care workers in 34 Chinese hospitals, reporting that nurses, especially women, carried the heaviest burdens. They had elevated rates of anxiety, depression and insomnia.The prevalence of burnout and suicide among medical professionals has been widely studied. As the pandemic invaded the West Coast earlier this year, Stanford psychologists gathered focus groups in their medical system to explore how to shore up mental health.Researchers flagged workers limited capacity to manage Covid-19; their fears of contaminating family members; the moral code-bending decisions about when to use limited, life-saving resources. But much distress could be headed off if hospital leadership created a proactive, supportive culture that included ways for workers to express concerns and feel heard, the researchers wrote in JAMA.ChristianaCare, a four-state health system, began assembling such a protocol five years ago. The program provides group support and daily inspirational texts. Twice a week, doctors and staff meet senior leaders. It set up designated oasis rooms, outfitted with low lights, massage chairs and meditation materials, where stressed workers take a breather.Were trying to provide them with psychological first aid, said Dr. Farley, an emergency medicine physician who directs ChristianaCares Center for WorkLife Wellbeing.Peer counselors are quickly available. No one else understands what were going through, Ms. Burke, the I.C.U. nurse, said. It doesnt sound like much, but that program has changed the world for us.At the end of her meeting with Ms. Ryan, the two women, both in surgical masks, shared a social-distance-defying hug. Ms. Burke said she emerged refreshed. For the first time in two months, she slept through the night.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo address safety fears, ChristianaCare offers disposable scrubs, which workers tear off at the end of a shift. It also has a gratitude program, in which former patients return to thank their healers. At a time when so many Covid-19 patients are dying, such exchanges, said Dr. Farley, reconnect demoralized staff to why we do what we do.Dr. Farley and her team check on hospital crews, pushing carts loaded with hand lotion, anti-fog lens cleaner, protein bars, chocolate and solace.Every time, Dr. Farley said, There is someone crying with me, and its 3 a.m. Theyre exhausted. They need this.____I see all these people coming in to the hospital now who are really sick, and Im wondering, could this be me one day? There are a lot of unknowns. And the anxiety is amplified, knowing what happened in my household. Dr. Andrew Cohen, an emergency medicine physician at St. Josephs University Medical Center, Paterson, N.J.When Dr. Andrew Cohen, 45, is working his shift at the hospitals emergency department, he is fine. He has the thick emotional skin characteristic of his high-octane profession. He dons his gear, turns his adrenaline up to a quiet, steady hum and focuses on saving lives.But hours before the shift starts, he becomes foggy, anxious, hesitant. And as soon as it ends, he performs a cleansing ritual that even he labels over the top. That is because he has discovered, in a brutal manner, that he cannot leave the job behind.For nearly a decade, Dr. Cohen and his wife shared their home with her parents, a practicing pulmonologist and a retired nurse, who often babysat for the Cohens children, now 8 and 11. But in March, both in-laws became ill with Covid-19 and were admitted to the hospital within a day of each other.Dr. Cohens mother-in-law, Sharon Sakowitz, 74, died first.ImageCredit...Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesImageCredit...via Cohen familyOn the day of her funeral, the hospital called the Cohens: now the father-in-laws organs were shutting down. The Cohens rushed to the hospital. Dr. Barry Sakowitz, 75, died that morning. A few hours later, they buried Mrs. Sakowitz.Still mourning, Dr. Cohen wonders, Did I bring this virus into my house? As he prepares to go to work, My son says, Daddy, be very, very careful, and I know what hes thinking.The guilt threatens to swamp him. What if he is the third person in this household to die?After the shift, Dr. Cohen photocopies his notes, so theres no risk he leaves with paper that might have coronavirus on it. He cleans his stethoscope, pens, goggles, face shield and the bottom of his sneakers with antimicrobial wipes. He does a surgical hand wash, up to his elbows.He changes into a clean set of scrubs, putting the dirty ones in a plastic bag, and walks through the hospital parking lot. Sitting in his car, he sprays the bottom of his shoes with Lysol.At home, he removes his sneakers and scrubs, leaving them in a box in the garage, and heads to the shower. Only after will he allow himself to embrace his family.How long will Dr. Cohen march through this meticulous ritual? When will fear loosen its grip?Weve always been told to suck it up and move on, he said. He wonders: When his own emotional crash comes, when colleagues start unraveling, Will there be people there to help us? | Health |
Proof that the online future has arrived: The biggest e-commerce company outside China has unseated the biggest brick-and-mortar seller.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York TimesAug. 17, 2021SEATTLE Amazon has eclipsed Walmart to become the worlds largest retail seller outside China, according to corporate and industry data, a milestone in the shift from brick-and-mortar to online shopping that has changed how people buy everything from Teddy Grahams to teddy bears.Propelled in part by surging demand during the pandemic, people spent more than $610 billion on Amazon over the 12 months ending in June, according to Wall Street estimates compiled by the financial research firm FactSet. Walmart on Tuesday posted sales of $566 billion for the 12 months ending in July.Alibaba, the giant online Chinese retailer, is the worlds top seller. Neither Amazon nor Walmart is a dominant player in China.In racing past Walmart, Amazon has dethroned one of the most successful and feared companies of recent decades. Walmart perfected a thriving big-box model of retailing that squeezed every possible penny out of its costs, which drove down prices and vanquished competitors.But even with all of that efficiency and power, the quest to dominate todays retail environment is being won on the internet. And no company has taken better advantage of that than Amazon. Indeed, the companys delivery (many items land on doorsteps in a day or two) and wide selection first drew customers to online shopping, and it has kept them buying more there ever since. It has also made Jeff Bezos, the companys founder, one of the richest people in the world.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIt is a historic moment, said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of the Marketplace Pulse, a research company. Walmart has been around for so long, and now Amazon comes around with a different model and replaces them as a No. 1.Wall Street firms had been expecting this retail baton to change hands in the coming years. But the pandemic accelerated the timeline, as people stuck at home relied on deliveries. Walmarts sales rose sharply during the pandemic, but it has not matched Amazon, which has added hundreds of new warehouses and hired about 500,000 workers since the start of last year.Walmarts sales grew $24 billion in the last year, the company said Tuesday. During roughly the same period, the total value of everything people bought on Amazon rose by nearly $200 billion, analysts estimate.While the figures are calculated differently, analysts regularly use them as a rough comparison. Knowing the full value of Walmarts sales is simple, because they nearly all come from its own inventory and are disclosed publicly each quarter. But analysts must calculate an estimate of the value of Amazons overall sales because most of what people buy on its site are products owned and listed by outside merchants. The company publicly reports only the fees it takes from those transactions.With Amazons success has come greater scrutiny. And the company has started to receive many of the same complaints over its treatment of workers and impact on local and national economies that Walmart faced during its biggest periods of expansion more than a decade ago.The Big Bad Wolf is Amazon now, said Barbara Kahn, a professor of marketing at University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business who has written several books on retailing.Amazon and Walmart declined to comment.Over the last century, very few companies could stake a claim to worlds biggest retailer. The grocery chain A.&P. was such a force that antitrust authorities pursued it in the 1940s. Sears overtook A.&P. as the largest retailer in the early 1960s by targeting middle-class shoppers in the suburbs and expanding the department store model.Then came Walmart.ImageCredit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressImageCredit...Terra Fondriest for The New York TimesIn 1962, Sam Walton founded the retailer in small-town Arkansas. Mr. Walton had a true passion some would say obsession to win, he wrote in his autobiography, and he sold a huge variety of products at low prices, including eventually fresh food. But his true innovation was building a vast logistics network that operated with such precision and efficiency that it crushed many competitors that couldnt compete.By the 1990s, Walmart had surpassed Sears. And then it kept growing, opening thousands of stores and acquiring other retailers across the world.Just as Mr. Walton founded Walmart as Sears was ascendant, Mr. Bezos started Amazon in the early 1990s as Walmart was king.Guru Hariharan, who worked on Amazons retail business, said Amazon had eclipsed Walmart by playing a different game. Walmart has hardened its lock on physical stores and the grocery business. But shopping online is growing far faster than in physical stores, even as it accounts for only about a seventh of U.S. retail sales. Amazon captures 41 cents of every dollar spent online in the United States, while Walmart takes just 7 cents, according to eMarketer.ImageCredit...Getty ImagesImageCredit...Getty ImagesThey have their own turfs that they are the kings of, said Mr. Hariharan, who left Amazon and eventually founded CommerceIQ, which advises brands like Colgate and Kimberly-Clark on e-commerce.Amazon has ascended in part because it opened its website to let third-party sellers list their products alongside items that Amazon buys and resells itself. This marketplace greatly increased the assortment of available items. Almost two million sellers offer products on Amazon, and they account for 56 percent of the items sold.The marketplace makes it harder to determine Amazons true influence in the retail industry. The company captures and reports only the fees it charges sellers to list, ship and market their goods, not the total money that flows through its business. The model is more profitable, but produces less revenue.It makes Amazon appear smaller, Mr. Kaziukenas said. They are obfuscating their reality.ImageCredit...Paul Conors/Associated PressThat has led analysts at investment banks like J.P. Morgan, BMO Capital Markets and Cowen to estimate what is known as the gross merchandise value, calculating how much customers buy on Amazon, regardless of whether it comes from Amazons inventory or from a sellers. The analysts make the estimates based on data the company releases, such as revenue it collects from sellers and the marketplaces share of total units sold, and their own research. FactSet compiles and averages the estimates. In the last 12 months, Amazon reported total retail revenue of $390 billion. But total product sales, including third-party transactions, was nearly 60 percent higher, according to the analysts estimates.Amazon has not regularly disclosed its gross merchandise value, but in 2019, facing antitrust pressure, Mr. Bezos shared the measure then $277 billion for the first time as a way to show that the third-party sellers were growing faster than Amazons direct retail business. Third-party sellers are kicking our first-party butt, he wrote.When Mr. Bezos testified in Congress last summer, he pointed to Walmarts size as evidence of a competitive retail industry. We compete against large, established players, like Target, Costco, Kroger and, of course, Walmart, he said, a company more than twice Amazons size presumably referring to Walmarts revenue.Walmart is still the largest private employer in the United States, with 1.6 million workers. And it sells more in the United States than Amazon, though J.P. Morgan estimates that Amazon will surpass Walmart in the United States next year.ImageCredit...Eze Amos for The New York TimesDuring the pandemic, Walmart honed its ability to use its stores as mini-distribution centers, where shoppers drive to retrieve their purchase curbside, a far less costly way to fulfill online orders than delivery. On Tuesday, Walmart said it expected to generate $75 billion in total online sales this year. The company has been expanding its effort to build its own marketplace, but the vast majority of its online sales still come from its own inventory, Mr. Kaziukenas said.Edward Yruma, a retail analyst and managing director at KeyBanc Capital Markets, said Amazon had only started to come to grips with the reality of its size.Walmart is big, and they know it, he said. Amazon has long played the role of the upstart, even as it became enormous. Just this summer, when it already employed about 1.3 million people, it added a new leadership principle that acknowledged the responsibility of its scale.We started in a garage, the new principle starts, but were not there anymore. | Tech |
Credit...Drew Angerer for The New York TimesDec. 7, 2015WASHINGTON The announcement on the Export-Import Banks website proclaimed in big blue letters Ex-Im Bank Reauthorized but the fight is not over yet for the governments embattled export credit agency.The 81-year-old agency that helps finance many American exports reopened for new business on Monday, ending a five-month hiatus forced by conservative Republicans who have condemned the bank as a prime example of corporate welfare and so-called crony capitalism. President Obama late Friday signed legislation tucked into a highway bill that extended the agencys life four years, through September 2019.Yet an obstacle remains: With three empty seats on its five-member board, the bank lacks a quorum. Until Mr. Obama nominates members, and the Republican-controlled Senate confirms them, Ex-Im Bank can only approve small export deals, not the big orders for aircraft, satellites and major manufacturing equipment the bank is best known for leaving the likes of Boeing, General Electric and Caterpillar in limbo.For opponents of the bank, this is again their chance to try to kill Ex-Im. Its not fully resurrected yet, said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a supporter of the agency and the most senior Democrat on the Senate banking committee, which oversees it. When the bank closed to new business after June 30, with its reauthorization blocked by House conservatives, about 200 transactions worth more than $9 billion were stopped in the pipeline, said Fred P. Hochberg, the chairman of the Ex-Im Bank since the start of the Obama administration.The White House will send nominees for the board to the Senate soon. With Mr. Hochberg and the agencys vice chairwoman, Wanda Felton, the only members on the board, there are vacancies for another Democrat and two Republican appointees. The two Republicans to be named did not want to be announced before the banks future was assured, said people with knowledge of the issue.The confirmation question means more work for the major corporations that bankrolled the lobbying effort to revive the bank. Senate Republicans have bottled up a number of Obama nominees, including picks for the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Departments office for terrorist financing, for reasons generally unrelated to the specific nominations.While people in both parties predicted Republicans would not block the nominations, others were not so sure.Mr. Brown said in an interview, Weve seen a dysfunctional Senate in recent months when it comes to nominations, and a banking committee that has not voted on any single appointee from the Obama administration since January.Most bank supporters nonetheless have been in a celebratory mood, having prevailed in a fight over the agencys renewal that was one of the more memorable legislative face-offs of recent years.In an interview, Mr. Hochberg chose to emphasize what his agency can do again for American businesses, even without a board quorum: accept and review any applications, no matter how large, for loans, loan guarantees and credit insurance for their foreign buyers; provide working capital needed for small businesses to buy material to fill export orders; and approve transactions that do not exceed $10 million.The monthslong impasse, he said, certainly hurt a lot of small businesses, and created opportunities for scores of countries with export credit agencies to promote their products. The Chinese said this was a good thing, and the Indians publicly said, This is more business for India, Mr. Hochberg added. During the hiatus, three satellite manufacturing deals went to Canada and France.From the banking agencys creation during the New Deal to 2012, Congress reauthorized its charter with bipartisan ease, typically for five years at a time. Then Tea Party supporters made the agency of just over 400 employees a target of their demands for smaller government and markets free of government intervention.The banks opponents were allied with deep-pocketed conservative groups, and by this year they had gained strength among onetime bank supporters including most congressional Republican leaders. Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, refused to have his committee consider legislation for the bank since a majority of Republicans on his panel opposed it. (A majority of all House Republicans were in favor.)It took a rare procedural gambit a so-called discharge petition from a bipartisan majority of the House to wrest a bill from Mr. Hensarlings committee and send it to the floor, where it ultimately was passed last week. House and Senate proponents were able to attach the measure to the more popular highway construction bill that they knew would clear Congress.American workers should be on a level playing field with competitors around the world. We brought the Export-Import Bank back to life so more American made products not jobs move overseas, said Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, a Republican on the Senate banking committee, who defied its chairman, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, to push for the banks renewal.Mr. Shelby and Mr. Kirk, both of whom face re-election next year, reflect the variable politics that split Republicans in the Ex-Im Bank debate.Mr. Shelby, who came out against the bank after years of supporting it, does not want to encourage conservative opposition ahead of Alabamas Republican primary. Mr. Kirk, considered perhaps the most endangered Senate incumbent, must worry more about the November election in Democrat-leaning Illinois; he needs support from moderate voters, business groups and the employees of companies in his state that rely on the banks financing.Despite the Ex-Im Banks lack of a quorum, opponents have conceded defeat. Ending this bank was a huge win for free-market conservatives, and resuscitating it now represents a major blow to the conservative movement and to conservatives credibility in ridding the federal government of favoritism for special interests, the conservative group Heritage Action for America said in a statement.Mr. Hensarling, however, suggested the fight will resume one day. Given that nearly all Democrats and about half the Republicans support Ex-Im, I didnt expect to win this round of the fight, but I certainly wasnt going to back away from it, Mr. Hensarling said in a statement. He added, I know if I was the C.E.O. of a Fortune 50 corporation, I would think twice before building my long-term business plan on Ex-Im. | Business |
Josh Duhamel Do I Look Like I'm On Steroids? 1/20/2018 TMZ.com Josh Duhamel may look like he's on steroids -- as he says, "Look at me!" -- but it's all an illusion. Josh was in a jokey mood Friday at LAX when our photog asked about allegations that he -- along with Mark Wahlberg and WWE star Roman Reigns -- scored steroids from now-imprisoned dealer, Richard Rodriguez. Josh did a little flexing under his jacket and made us believe he's juicin' ... but in the end, he called BS. As we reported, the 3 guys don't have to worry about a DEA investigation or anything ... but it seems like none of them were anyway. | Entertainment |
VideoSecretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, in a visit to South Korea, said if North Korea increased "the threat of their weapons program to an unacceptable level, the Trump administration would consider action. "The policy of strategic patience has ended," Mr. Tillerson said.CreditCredit...Pool photo by Lee Jin-manMarch 17, 2017SEOUL, South Korea Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson ruled out on Friday opening any negotiation with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and said for the first time that the Trump administration might be forced to take pre-emptive action if they elevate the threat of their weapons program to an unacceptable level.Mr. Tillersons comments in Seoul, a day before he travels to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders, explicitly rejected any return to the bargaining table in an effort to buy time by halting North Koreas accelerating testing program. The countrys leader, Kim Jong-un, said on New Years Day that North Korea was in the final stage of preparation for the first launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.The secretary of states comments were the Trump administrations first public hint at the options being considered, and they made clear that none involved a negotiated settlement or waiting for the North Korean government to collapse.The policy of strategic patience has ended, Mr. Tillerson said, a reference to the term used by the Obama administration to describe a policy of waiting out the North Koreans, while gradually ratcheting up sanctions and covert action.Negotiations can only be achieved by denuclearizing, giving up their weapons of mass destruction, he said a step to which the North committed in 1992, and again in subsequent accords, but has always violated. Only then will we be prepared to engage them in talks.His warning on Friday about new ways to pressure the North was far more specific and martial sounding than during the first stop of his three-country tour, in Tokyo on Thursday. His inconsistency of tone may have been intended to signal a tougher line to the Chinese before he lands in Beijing on Saturday. It could also reflect an effort by Mr. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to issue the right diplomatic signals in a region where American commitment is in doubt.Almost exactly a year ago, when Donald J. Trump was still a presidential candidate, he threatened in an interview with The New York Times to pull troops back from the Pacific region unless South Korea and Japan paid a greater share of the cost of keeping them there. During Mr. Tillersons stops in South Korea and Japan, there was no public talk of that demand.On Friday afternoon, after visiting the Demilitarized Zone and peering into North Korean territory in what has become a ritual for American officials making a first visit to the South, Mr. Tillerson explicitly rejected a Chinese proposal to get the North Koreans to freeze their testing in return for the United States and South Korea suspending all annual joint military exercises, which are now underway.Mr. Tillerson argued that a freeze would essentially enshrine a comprehensive set of capabilities North Korea possesses that already pose too great a threat to the United States and its allies, and he said there would be no negotiation until the North agreed to dismantle its programs.ImageCredit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressInstead, Mr. Tillerson referred vaguely to a number of steps the United States could take a phrase that seemed to embrace much more vigorous enforcement of sanctions, ramping up missile defenses, cutting off North Koreas oil, intensifying the cyberwar program and striking the Norths known missile sites.The rejection of negotiations on a freeze would be consistent with the approach taken by Mr. Obama, who declined Chinese offers to restart the so-called six-party talks that stalled several years ago unless the North agreed at the outset that the goal of the negotiations was the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling of its program.But classified assessments of the North that the Obama administration left for its successors included a grim assessment by the intelligence community: that North Koreas leader, Mr. Kim, believes his nuclear weapons program is the only way to guarantee the survival of his regime and will never trade it away for economic or other benefits.The assessment said that the example of what happened to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the longtime leader of Libya, had played a critical role in North Korean thinking. Colonel Qaddafi gave up the components of Libyas nuclear program in late 2003 most of them were still in crates from Pakistan in hopes of economic integration with the West. Eight years later, when the Arab Spring broke out, the United States and its European allies joined forces to depose Colonel Qaddafi, who was eventually found hiding in a ditch and executed by Libyan rebels.Among many experts, the idea of a freeze has been favored as the least terrible of a series of bad options. Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert who worked on Mr. Obamas National Security Council, and Toby Dalton wrote recently in Politico: A temporary freeze on missile and nuclear developments sounds better than an unconstrained and growing threat. It is also, possibly, the most logical and necessary first step toward an overall agreement between the U.S. and North Korea. But the risk that North Korea will cheat or hide facilities during a negotiated freeze is great.William J. Perry, who was secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton, argued on Friday that it was no longer realistic to expect North Korea to commit to dismantling or surrendering its nuclear arsenal. The Trump administration, he said, should instead focus on persuading the North to commit to a long-term freeze in which it suspends testing of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles and pledges not to sell or transfer any of its nuclear technology.I see very little prospect of a collapse, he added. For eight years in the Obama administration and eight years in the Bush administration, they were expecting that to happen. As a consequence, their policies were not very effective.In Asia, on his first major trip overseas as secretary of state, Mr. Tillerson has been heavily scripted in his few public comments, and he has gone out of his way to make sure he is not subject to questions beyond highly controlled news conferences, at which his staff chooses the questioners. In a breach of past practice, he traveled without the usual State Department press corps, which has flown on the secretarys plane for roughly half a century.That group of reporters, many of them veterans of foreign policy and national security coverage, use the plane rides to try to get the secretary and other top State Department officials to explain American policy. Mr. Tillersons aides first said their plane was too small to accommodate the press corps and later said they were experimenting with new forms of coverage; then they opened a seat for a reporter from the web-based Independent Journal Review, which is aimed at younger, conservative-leaning readers. The sites reporters have never traveled with the secretary before.That decision is a striking departure for the State Department. Last May, department officials protested when Egypts military leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, blocked pool reporters traveling with Secretary John Kerry from entering the presidential palace, and China frequently imposes similar restrictions to avoid unwanted questions to the Chinese leadership.Mr. Tillerson appears to be using similar tactics during his travels, though the two news conferences he held on the trip were his first since taking office at the beginning of February. | World |
Science|How Cassini Will Begin Its Date With Death on Saturnhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/science/cassini-saturn-rings.htmlTrilobitesNov. 25, 2016Its the beginning of a spectacular, almost circuslike end for NASAs Cassini mission. For 12 years Cassini has been buzzing about Saturn, its rings and its moons. As a result we know that there are methane lakes on Titan and jets of water shooting from Enceladus, and the rings themselves have warps, ripples, hills twists and braids.Now the Cassini spacecraft has gradually shifted into an orbit that takes it over the planets north and south poles and then down into a series of increasingly vertiginous-looking dives perpendicular to the plane of its buttery glowing rings.Starting on Wednesday, as shown here, with a gravitational nudge from the moon Titan, Cassini is set to commence a series of 20 dives just outside the outer edge of the main ring system. Along the way the spacecraft will try to sample ring particles and gases that live there in its vicinity, and pass only 56,000 miles above Saturns cloud tops.In April, Cassini will shift its orbit again to slice between the planet and the rings, sneaking as close as 1,012 miles from the clouds of Saturn in 22 more orbits. Finally, on Sept. 15, at 8:07 a.m., Earth time in New York, the spacecraft will crash into the clouds of Saturn and burn up.Science will never be the same. Nor will Saturn, now forever polluted by a few stray atoms from the blue planet. Thereafter, there will always be a little piece of Earth on Saturn. | science |
Credit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesDeadly Germs, Lost CuresAmerican pigs are raised on a liberal diet of antibiotics, fueling the rise of resistant germs. Danish pork producers are proving theres a better way.Soren Sondergaard, a pig farmer in Denmark, with his pigs.Credit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesDec. 6, 2019BILLUND, Denmark How many rounds of antibiotics does it take to raise a Danish pig?If it is one of the 35,000 piglets raised each year on Soren Sondergaards sprawling farm, odds are the animal will get just a single course before it goes to slaughter.At times, a quarter or more of his swine arrive at the abattoir without ever having received any antimicrobial drugs at all.When I was a boy, we used to pour kilos of antibiotics into their feeding troughs, said Mr. Sondergaard, 40, whose family has been farming the gently rolling terrain of the Jutland peninsula for generations. Thats a thing of the past.As use of antibiotics in livestock has soared globally, contributing to the rise of drug-resistant germs, Denmark, which ranks among the worlds top pork exporters, has proved that a country can build a thriving industry while sharply cutting back on antibiotic use in pigs. American pork farmers, too, have been curtailing their use of these medicines, albeit more slowly. Although F.D.A rules bar the use of medically important antibiotics for growth promotion, some farmers still use them to help fatten pigs and increase profits.American pork producers use antibiotics at a rate seven times higher than that of Danish farmers, according to a 2018 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The overuse in both humans and livestock is giving dangerous germs more opportunities to evolve and outsmart drugs designed to kill them. Drug-resistant infections now claim 700,000 lives a year around the world, including 35,000 in the United States. Without bold action, the United Nations has estimated drug-resistant pathogens could claim 10 million lives globally by 2050. Pork industry officials in the United States argue that antibiotics are essential for keeping animals healthy and food costs low. But Denmark has demonstrated it is possible to create a massive meat-based food supply while preserving the most precious antibiotics for people. By changing the way farmers raise their animals, Denmark has shown that you can substantially reduce antimicrobial use in pig production and that it can be done without any long-term impact on productivity, said Lucie Collineau, a French veterinarian who has studied antimicrobial use in European swine. The changes in Denmark were achieved through tougher regulations and by removing a financial incentive that had encouraged veterinarians to liberally prescribe antibiotics when farmers requested them. But much of the about-face occurred voluntarily, as farmers learned to raise animals in ways that kept them healthier. That has included providing pigs with more living space, improving ventilation and hygiene in confinement sheds, and reducing the stress that can make animals more susceptible to infection. ImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesAmerican pork industry officials remain unimpressed. Those who have toured Danish pig farms said in interviews that adopting their practices would markedly increase pork prices. Some claimed that Denmarks sparing use of antibiotics has meant that sick pigs go untreated or that farmers must use more antibiotics to cure them claims disputed by Danish farmers and government officials.Denmarks efforts to reduce antibiotic use in pigs hasnt had any measurable impact on public health, nor has it led to a reduction in disease prevalence among animals, said Dr. Heather Fowler, a veterinarian and the director of producer and public health at the National Pork Board, a trade group financed by pork producers and overseen by the United States government. Dr. Fowler said the board was instead focused on voluntary antimicrobial stewardship, which means using the right drug for the right bug for the right amount of time. Our pig farmers are committed to whats right for pigs, people and the planet, she said.Many experts in public health dont buy it. The American pork industrys arguments are spurious and downright embarrassing, said Dr. Lance Price, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University. He said the industrys critiques of Denmark, Holland and other countries that have slashed antibiotic use are often based on a selective, cynical analysis of the data. For the sake of humanity, they need to take some responsibility for their role in this crisis before its too late, he said of American pork producers. Federal guidelines already discourage the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock, but consumers, it turns out, have proven to be especially powerful change agents. In response to shifting public sentiment, fast-food chains like McDonalds, Taco Bell and Wendys no longer buy chicken from growers who use medically important antibiotics. McDonalds last year announced it would begin scaling back purchases of beef raised with antibiotics. More than half the chickens in the United States are now raised without the drugs, according to the National Chicken Council.Since 2015, the use of medically important antibiotics in chickens has fallen 47 percent, compared to 35 percent in pigs, according to the Food and Drug Administration. American pork producers say it is challenging to wean pigs off the drugs because they live far longer than the average chicken broiler six months vs. six weeks which increases an animals chances of getting sick. The Danish experience, however, suggests it is possible to have both healthy pigs and far lower use of antibiotics. Industry officials in Denmark say they hope to raise 1.5 million pigs completely free of antibiotics within the next five years, up from 200,000 in 2018. Most of us have kids, said Mr. Sondergaard, the pig farmer. We want to make sure we leave them a world where antibiotics still work.ImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesSelling knowledge, not drugsDenmark, roughly the size of Maryland, has an outsize pig population. The nation raises 32 million of them per year, but is home to just 6 million people. Pork is central to Danish cuisine the national dish, Stegt flsk, is crispy pork belly dressed in a parsley sauce.So there was plenty of pushback in 1995 when the government, worried about the rise of drug-resistant infections, barred veterinarians from selling antimicrobial drugs directly to farmers, removing any incentive for unnecessary prescriptions. Veterinarians could still prescribe antibiotics, but only pharmacies could sell them. Denmarks veterinarians were not happy, but there was a silver lining: The regulations required farmers to pay veterinarians for regular visits, a move that eased their opposition, said Ken Steen Pedersen, who oversees porcine health for the Danish Veterinary Association. Vets came to realize they could make their money from selling knowledge and advice to farmers rather than selling medicine, he said.The regulations were the first in a raft of measures that changed the livestock industrys relationship with antibiotics. In the years that followed, Danish authorities slowly phased out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion, introduced higher taxes on medically important antibiotics and largely banned the use in pigs of some of the most essential drugs for humans. Then there were the dreaded yellow cards. Since 2010, the government has set national targets for reducing antibiotic use in animals, starting with 10 percent the first four years and 15 percent the five subsequent years. Farms that exceed the targets earn a yellow card, a badge of dishonor that in 2018 was meted out to just 30 of Denmarks 3,100 pig farms.Over the past few years, only a handful of farmers have received a yellow card more than once, and none has been issued the far more serious red card for repeated noncompliance, said Elisabeth Okholm Nielsen, who oversees the program for the Ministry of Environment and Food. To the best of my knowledge, no farmer has gone out of business because of the yellow card system, she said.Cutting back on antibiotics has become something of a competitive sport among Danish farmers, who can check their usage against that of neighboring farmers with monthly government data.Mr. Sondergaard, the farmer in Jutland, has never been carded. One recent morning, standing in the midst of the overpowering stench of hog waste, he smiled as he showed off a chart that traced his antibiotic usage over the past three years. In most years his farm has been well below the threshold, which has been lowered nine times since 2010.Another farmer, Michael Nielsen, 55, said that the key to success was changing the way he has raised thousands of swine on his farm not far from Copenhagen. He has fed them homegrown wheat and barley, provided natural lighting in the sheds where sows give birth, and built safety zones in each stall that gave newborns a place to sleep beyond the potentially lethal crush of their gargantuan mothers.His animals also got to keep their tails, unlike American and most Danish piglets, whose tails are cut off without anesthesia to avoid the tail-biting injuries that can occur in closely packed barns.I want to show that we can do industrial production with better animal welfare, he said as he stroked the ears of a days-old piglet. We try to make their lives as stress-free as possible.Some of his tactics are inexpensive, like hanging rubber tubes inside pens so that piglets have something to gnaw other than the tails of their siblings. A daily sprinkling of fresh straw has provided a cushion atop cold concrete floors and given restless adolescents something nutritious to munch.ImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York TimesBut not all his innovations are so inexpensive. To reduce the stress on piglets that sometimes leads to infectious diarrhea, Mr. Nielsen and most Danish farmers have allowed them to wean for a month or so before separating them from their mothers, a week longer than the average American pig. And in an effort to give nursing sows the space to stand up and stretch, Mr. Nielsen recently expanded the size of their confinement cages by 50 percent, a significant sacrifice for farmers whose profit margins are often razor thin.Such changes have been critical in lowering drug-resistance rates in Denmark, and the progress has been painstakingly documented in an annual compendium, called Danmap, that has become the gold standard for researchers across the world seeking to understand the connection between antibiotic use and resistant germs.One of the reports earliest findings showed that a 1995 ban on the antibiotic avoparcin in livestock led to the virtual disappearance of avoparcin-resistant bacteria in Danish chickens.That was a real aha moment for us, said Johanne Ellis-Iversen, a veterinary epidemiologist at the Danish National Food Institute. For us, its all about data, data, data.The United States does not collect farm-by-farm data on antibiotic use and produces only a national estimate of the amount of drugs used in livestock. Scientists complain that they have generally been barred from doing research on farms. Not so in Denmark. Danish farmers are proud of their work and dont feel they have anything to hide, said Anders Rhod Larsen, a microbiologist at the government-funded Statens Serum Institute who frequently conducts field experiments on pig farms. There is also a shared sense of responsibility, that we have to solve this problem together. Many of the measures adopted by Denmark are now being embraced by pig farmers across Europe. Last year, the Danish government announced it was creating an international center for the study of antimicrobial resistance, based in Copenhagen, that will employ hundreds of researchers. Still, in the developing world, where rising incomes are fueling increased demands for animal protein, antibiotic use in livestock continues to surge. One recent study predicted that antibiotic consumption by farm animals could climb 67 percent worldwide in the next decade, far outpacing the rise in humans. Christian Fink Hansen, the director of pig research at Seges, a farmer-funded research cooperative in Denmark, said the impact of reducing antibiotics in livestock will be limited if other countries continue their liberal use of the drugs. In an increasingly globalized world, no amount of diligence by Denmarks pig farmers will protect the nation from drug-resistant pathogens that easily cross borders.Its not like we can ban people from flying to Thailand on holiday, he said. We are doing everything we can to combat this global problem, but at the end of the day, we cant do it alone.ImageCredit...Ciril Jazbec for The New York Times | Health |
Credit...Associated PressFeb. 1, 2014Before it was the No Fun League, the N.F.L. had loquacious characters with iconic nicknames. Dandy Don Meredith, Broadway Joe Namath and Deion Sanders, a.k.a. Prime Time, to name a few. They were as memorable off the field as they were on because they had style, a flair for drama and, more often than not, an attention-getting proclamation.Forty-five years ago, Namath predicted that the Jets would upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. He not only cemented his legend and Hall of Fame credentials but helped transform the game into a national celebration by leading the Jets to a 16-7 victory.Sanders, another Hall of Famer and a two-time Super Bowl champion, was playful and sometimes poetic.If you look good, you feel good, he said. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.He still is.When you look up the word cornerback, you see me, he said the other day. Theres a picture of me.What prompted the quip was yet another discussion of cornerback Richard Shermans postgame eruption at San Franciscos Michael Crabtree after Sherman knocked away a pass that led to an N.F.C.-title-clinching interception for the Seattle Seahawks. For better or worse, Shermans antics have dominated the days leading to the Super Bowl.ImageCredit...Charles Kelly/Associated PressWeve learned Sherman is a bright Stanford graduate with a chip on his shoulder and admiration for Muhammad Ali. Weve learned he is widely regarded as one of the best defensive backs in the game.Everyone from the editorial board of The Seattle Times to David Letterman and the rapper Lil Wayne has weighed in on the public reaction to Sherman. He has been called everything from a thug to a breath of fresh air.Fans are allowed to be passionate by definition, with obvious limits, The Seattle Times said. What the gifted All-Pro player did not deserve or invite are the racist taunts and profane abuse he received.Letterman blamed the news media.They want him to be crazy, and then if youre too crazy, they dont want him to be too crazy, but they really would rather he was crazy, Letterman said in a conversation with his guest Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints quarterback.As for Lil Wayne, well, he looked into Shermans soul and decided that the cornerback was faking his fondness for trash talking and was merely trying to get under opponents skin.It all of a sudden doesnt seem so natural, Lil Wayne told Sports Illustrated.They were all a little bit right. In truth, however, trading taunts and quips is a time-honored tradition in the N.F.L. Before Super Bowl XIII in January 1979, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Hollywood Henderson called Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert Dracula because he was missing his two front teeth. He derided quarterback Terry Bradshaw: He couldnt spell cat if you spotted him the C and the A.Its part of the game, Denver Broncos safety David Bruton said. Theres always going to be chirpiness, no matter what. But I think just a lot of us are just going to go out there and enjoy the process, and if theres jaw-jacking that goes on, itll be on the field.The Giants great Lawrence Taylor used to walk quarterbacks back to the huddle, telling him about the play he had just made or was about to make.Ive talked some trash, Broncos linebacker Wesley Woodyard said. Its fun and games, man. We dont really think of it as trash talking, because nine times out of 10, the guy youre talking smack to you either know or train with him, and you shake hands at the end of the game.Even the most stoic players had someone who got under their skin. For Troy Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl champion with the Dallas Cowboys and a Hall of Fame quarterback, it was San Francisco 49ers safety Merton Hanks, who had an exaggerated strut he unleashed after making a big play.It drove me crazy, said Aikman, who is a color analyst for Fox and will call the game. The gyrations after the play were enough to set me off.But Aikman also shared a huddle with one of the mouthiest wide receivers in league history: Michael Irvin. It was mostly a one-way conversation.ImageCredit...Susan Ragan/Associated PressThe great corners I went up against did not talk, said Irvin, an analyst for NFL Network.Still, Irvin says he likes Shermans confidence and combativeness and admires a competitor who can taunt the former Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis on Twitter, get in the face of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and earn a face-mask push from Washington Redskins lineman Trent Williams.It messes with your head, Irvin said. This is a man who has the ability to impose his will on you. I like that about him.Sometimes, however, enough is enough. On a Monday night game in November, Carolina Panthers receiver Steve Smith and New England cornerback Aqib Talib wrestled and shoved each other repeatedly. Early in the season, Aikman noticed that the 49ers Anquan Boldin was talking to his defender after nearly every play. He pointed it out on the air.Hes a great player and competitor, Aikman said. Hed get up and early start jawing. It was every single time we had a game. When did it end?On Sunday night, we will see how the Sherman saga plays out on the field at MetLife Stadium. It is clear that he has followed the lead of Hollywood Henderson and some of the other great talkers in N.F.L. history.Im doing everybody a favor, Henderson said before the 1979 Super Bowl. Im getting some people to hate me. Im getting some people to love me. Im getting some excitement going around here.Count Sanders among those who have been won over by Sherman and his gum bumping. He recognizes the point of all the noise.Everybody comes to see him, Sanders said. Unfortunately, most of you guys want to see him get beat, but that stimulates him. That motivates him. He knows that about you all. I knew that about you all. And do you know how wonderful it made you feel when I disappointed you? | Sports |
Credit...Toya Sarno Jordan for The New York TimesJune 24, 2018SILVER SPRING, Md. Their rock star had arrived.As the sun set on a sticky June evening, hundreds of supporters screamed. They chanted his name. They tried to get close enough to touch him.You all ready to make a political revolution? Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, asked them last week, fist pumping, voice booming. Then, for more than 15 minutes, he riffed on his familiar themes: Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, a $15 minimum wage. Someone held a sign urging a 2020 presidential run.Mr. Sanders, however, was not campaigning for himself. At least not explicitly.Ahead of the Maryland primary this Tuesday, Mr. Sanders had made the short trip from Capitol Hill to this Washington suburb to campaign with Ben Jealous, a former leader of the N.A.A.C.P. and one of the states top Democratic candidates for governor. The rally was part of what Mr. Sanders and his allies say is a cross-country endorsement strategy intended to help spread his ideological message.But the race in Maryland has also become a critical test of Mr. Sanderss ability to sway elections. If his policy agenda has caught on widely among Democratic candidates, and succeeded in moving the party to the left, Mr. Sanders himself has struggled so far to expand his political base and propel his personal allies to victory in Democratic primaries.He has endorsed only a handful of candidates in contested primaries, and three of them have recently lost difficult races in Iowa and Pennsylvania.In addition, an advocacy organization aligned with Mr. Sanders, Our Revolution, has had only marginal success. Though it has touted its electoral victories in recent primaries, fewer than 50 percent of the more than 80 candidates it has endorsed have won elections this year.Mr. Sanders and his advisers dismiss the importance of his win-loss record during primary season Its not a baseball game, he said and say he is treating the midterms chiefly as an exercise in movement-building. Yet for a figure of his prominence, who may run for president a second time in 2020, the midterm elections could represent a significant missed opportunity if Mr. Sanders fails to usher any allies into high office.At the moment, Mr. Jealouss campaign in Maryland appears to be the best remaining chance for him to do so.Mr. Sanders rejected the notion that the primary elections might reveal something about his political strength. We endorse based on where we can have the most impact, Mr. Sanders, 76, said in a brief phone interview after the Maryland rally. What I dont waste time on is endorsing people by and large who are clearly going to win.There are signs his progressive message is resonating. Democratic candidates are increasingly embracing his key proposal, Medicare for All. And like him, many now support tuition- or debt-free public college. There are widespread calls for a substantial increase in the minimum wage.But Mr. Sanders has done relatively little to fortify the infrastructure he built out in the 2016 campaign, and Our Revolution appears to be flailing. The group has repeatedly picked fights with the Democratic establishment in primary elections, losing nearly every time, and there have been questions about its leadership. Mr. Sanders has appeared to distance himself from some of its endorsements, including its support for Dennis Kucinich, a former congressman with some fringe views, in his unsuccessful bid for governor of Ohio this spring.Even supporters of Mr. Sanders who are sympathetic to his overall approach to politics say that he has not capitalized on opportunities to build support in more conventional ways.Early in the campaign season, for instance, several of Mr. Sanderss advisers discussed creating a super PAC to intervene in congressional primaries and help elect a bloc of activist Democrats, according to three people familiar with the tentative proposal, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. But Mr. Sanders was not interested in the idea and his allies ultimately feared it would alienate core supporters drawn to his perceived purity as a vocal opponent of super PACs.Mr. Sanders has also seemed to prefer charting a separate course from the party leadership, holding rallies around the country that focus on specific issues like health care or workers rights without a direct link to elections nearby.ImageCredit...Toya Sarno Jordan for The New York TimesIn one telling episode, Mr. Sanders rebuffed entreaties from multiple Democrats in California who asked him to consider holding a get-out-the-vote rally in the state ahead of its June 5 primary. Mr. Sanders had plans to be in Anaheim, Calif., the weekend before the election for events highlighting labor issues, including at Disney.But Mr. Sanders declined, citing his busy schedule on the trip, said two people familiar with the exchange, who were not authorized to discuss it on the record.Ari Rabin-Havt, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders involved in planning the California trip, said he was unaware of multiple requests for Mr. Sanders to help turn out the vote for candidates there.Perhaps nowhere is Mr. Sanderss party leadership role murkier, however, than in the way he has approached his endorsements alone.Its his choice, said Mr. Rabin-Havt, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders. Every decision is his.Although some of the roughly 20 candidates he has endorsed do overlap with contenders whom other Democratic and progressive organizations have supported including Stacey Abrams, an anointed party favorite who is now the partys nominee for governor in Georgia he has also confused allies at times by not getting behind winning candidates who support his message. In Nebraska, for example, he did not endorse Kara Eastman, a House candidate and ardent supporter of Medicare for All, who swept to victory last month in the Democratic primary over a former congressman.And where Mr. Sanders has plunged in most directly, voters have not necessarily followed his lead. In Iowa, where he nearly defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 caucuses, Mr. Sanders campaigned alongside Pete DAlessandro, a former aide in his presidential bid, and cut a television ad boosting him in a congressional primary. It had little impact on the race and Mr. DAlessandro finished a distant third.Still, even in defeat, Mr. Sanders may be building good will with candidates and, in many cases, former candidates who echoed his message, and who say his support brought them new attention from voters and the news media.Just a connection with him I think helped my campaign, said Greg Edwards, who was endorsed by Mr. Sanders but lost his House primary in Pennsylvania.Mr. Sanders noted that he was often endorsing underdog candidates who would be outspent in campaigns. He added that the real goal was to rally ordinary people into the political process.I think its fair to say that in that sense we are succeeding quite well, he said.But as the high-profile losses have piled up, Mr. Jealouss race for governor of Maryland has taken on outsize importance as a gauge of Mr. Sanderss influence and as one of his few remaining opportunities to help install a close personal ally in high office. Mr. Jealous was a top surrogate for Mr. Sanderss 2016 campaign and one of only a few prominent African-American advocates of his candidacy. Should he win the governorship of Maryland, Mr. Jealous could be an even more important supporter in 2020.Bernie knows that I have a lot of friends who could be running for president in 2020, Mr. Jealous who has also campaigned with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Kamala Harris of California, also possible 2020 contenders said in an interview before the rally last week.A recent primary poll showed Mr. Jealous tied with the county executive of Prince Georges County, Rushern Baker, as front-runners in a crowded field. But if Mr. Jealous is to win in the primary, and then in the fall no easy task given the popularity of Gov. Larry Hogan, the Republican incumbent he, like others, may need more than an endorsement from Mr. Sanders.As hundreds of supporters gathered in a plaza before the rally, many seemed to be there for the same reason: Mr. Sanders.Alejandra Diaz, 22, said she wanted to hear the senators remarks. Would his support make her more likely to vote for Mr. Jealous? she was asked.It does mean something that hes endorsing him, she said. At least I know his character its solid. | Politics |
March 1, 2017WASHINGTON A senior official of Al Qaeda was killed on Sunday in Syria by a United States drone strike, an American official said on Wednesday.The terrorist leader, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, 59, was the second-ranking official after Ayman al-Zawahri and was a son-in-law to Al Qaedas founder, Osama bin Laden.Jihadist social media carried reports of the attack on Sunday, including photographs of the vehicle purportedly hit by the drone. The strike was said to have taken place in Idlib Province in northwest Syria, where the Pentagon has stepped up airstrikes against top Qaeda operatives in the last two months, killing several important figures.Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an expert on the war in Syria, said in an email that the death of Mr. Masri was the most significant blow to Al Qaedas global network since the killing of Nasir al-Wuhayshi, Al Qaedas No. 2 official at the time, in a drone strike in Yemen in June 2015.Mr. Masri was jihadi royalty, meaning his death will almost certainly necessitate some form of response, whether from Syria or elsewhere in the world, he said.The killing of the Qaeda leader was previously reported by CNN and The Guardian. It was confirmed by an American official who declined to be identified because he was discussing classified intelligence reports.Photographs of the vehicle Mr. Masri was said to have been traveling in reveal unusual details for such a strike: The vehicle sustained no major explosive damage, but a projectile clearly struck it directly through its roof. This suggests the precision strike was either a dud or the United States deliberately used an inert warhead to kill its target by high-velocity impact, avoiding possible civilian casualties with an explosive warhead.Mr. Masri was an Egyptian, and his real name was Abdullah Muhammad Rajab Abd al-Rahman. A veteran of jihadist conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Egypt and Pakistan, he was a longtime member of Al Qaedas highly secretive Shura Council, and he was the terrorist groups key intermediary with its affiliates and other jihadist groups across the world, Mr. Lister said.His marriage to one of Bin Ladens daughters placed him at the center of Al Qaedas hierarchy, and American counterterrorism officials believe he was directly involved in the 1998 bombing of American embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people.After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Masri fled to Iran, where he was reportedly put under house arrest along with other senior Qaeda leaders, including Saif al-Adel, the groups strategic military chief. He was let go by the Iranians in March 2015 along with other Qaeda figures in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who had been kidnapped in Yemen by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.Since then, Mr. Masri had operated in Syria as Al Qaedas deputy leader, providing orders and advice to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Qaeda affiliate in Syria formerly known as the Nusra Front, and its leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, Mr. Lister said.Al Qaeda and the Islamic State both operate in Syria. While the Islamic State has its roots in Al Qaedas franchise in Iraq, the two groups split and are now rivals in Syria. The Islamic State has carved out its self-proclaimed caliphate in the eastern part of the country, based in Raqqa. Al Qaedas affiliate in Syria is in the northwest and north-central part of the country, around Idlib.The United States and its allies have mostly focused on conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, and on supporting a coalition of Arab and Kurdish fighters on the ground. American airstrikes against Qaeda targets in Syria increased only in the past two months.In 2005, the United States Treasury Department described Mr. Masri as a Qaeda associate and said that he was responsible for coordinating Al Qaedas work with other terrorist organizations.The drone strike against Mr. Masri came about a month after an Air Force B-52 bomber carried out a punishing airstrike against a training camp of Al Qaeda in Syria, which the Pentagon said killed about 100 militants.That attack, which also included armed drones, was directed at the Shaykh Sulayman Training Camp in Idlib. Pentagon officials said it had been in operation for several years but had only recently become a base for core Al Qaeda extremists, who have largely come from outside Syria to fight and plot attacks. All told, 14 bombs and missiles were used in that attack.The Pentagon disclosed in January that it also carried out an airstrike in Idlib Province that killed Mohammad Habib Boussadoun al-Tunisi, described as a Qaeda leader linked to plots against Western targets.Mr. Boussadoun went to Syria in 2014 after spending several years in Europe and other countries in the Middle East where he maintained ties with extremists, according to a Pentagon statement. Earlier in January, airstrikes killed two other Qaeda leaders, the Pentagon said. | World |
Olympics|Finnish Goalies Mask Runs Afoul of I.O.C. Ruleshttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/sports/olympics/finnish-goalie-mask-runs-afoul-of-ioc-rules.htmlCredit...Petr David Josek/Associated PressFeb. 6, 2014SOCHI, Russia On her Olympic mask, the Finnish goaltender Noora Raty included the words Hakkaa paalle, which loosely translates to Cut them down. It is a battle cry with roots that go back four centuries, to the Thirty Years War, and it has become the national team mantra, something the players recite before every game.After Finlands practice Wednesday in Sochi, an official from the International Olympic Committee told Raty that she would have to cover the phrase with tape because it was in violation of Rule 50, which prohibits any advertising, demonstration or propaganda on an athletes equipment at the Olympics.First they told me you cant have something that says my countrys better than your country, said Raty, 24, a three-time Olympian. But that really doesnt say it. Its just cut them down, but then they decided no slogans or quotes.Finland, which handed the gold-medal-contending American squad a rare loss last fall behind Ratys 58 saves, opens play Saturday against the United States. The American goaltender Jessie Vetter was told to remove text from the Constitution of the United States from her mask last month.Its just a mask, Raty said. It wont affect my game.She added: Theres a lot of pictures of it on social media and stuff, so its not like people dont know that its there. So its kind of a stupid rule, but it is the rules. | Sports |
Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesMarch 1, 2017RO BRAVO, Mexico It has bedeviled the United States for more than a century, becoming a bane of the American South, causing widespread job losses and setting off countless debates about stopping migration from Latin America.This is a wave that even the biggest, most expensive wall might never hold back.Were talking about the boll weevil.It is just one of the many issues that rely on bilateral cooperation between the United States and Mexico, and it embodies, in microcosm, many of the essential qualities of the broader relationship between the two countries: an alliance bordering on codependence despite economic, political and cultural differences.Thought to be native to Mexico and Central America, the boll weevil is a beetle that attacks cotton plants. It first crossed into the United States in the 1890s around Brownsville, Tex., and quickly spread to the Atlantic Seaboard, nearly wiping out the cotton industry.Since then, decades of intensive, costly eradication efforts have managed to annihilate the pest in nearly the entire country. The only place still battling infestation is at the southern tip of Texas.The reason?Mexico.While Mexico has cleared the boll weevil from nearly all of the cotton-growing regions in its northern border states, the problem lingers here in Tamaulipas, a state that for years has been damaged by warring drug gangs and corruption.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesHampered by violence, insecurity and a lack of money, the states inconsistent eradication efforts have ensured a steady supply of boll weevils making their way across the border into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.The problem continues to consume American cotton growers, as well as state and federal officials, as they try to hold the line against the weevil.In this longstanding struggle often marked by frustration and miscommunication between the two countries there is a telling lesson for the Trump administration as it reassesses the United States relationship with its southern neighbor: What happens in one country often bears heavily on the other, a connection that demands collaboration and constant maintenance.One way or the other, Tamaulipas and Texas, they arent going to do it without the other, said Edward Herrera, the Rio Grande Valley manager for the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation.The lingering boll weevil problem is all the more remarkable and, for American cotton growers, frustrating considering the relatively puny size of the cotton industry in Tamaulipas. In 2016, it had about 7,000 acres in cultivation. In contrast, Texas had harvested more than five million, according to the latest estimates by the United States Department of Agriculture.Ray Frisbie, the retired head of the department of entomology at Texas A&M University, described the outsize influence of Tamaulipas as this little tail thats wagging this great big dog.The stakes, he said, are high: If we dont finish it off, the boll weevil could reinvade the United States and we could be back to the bad old days of spraying a lot of insecticide.Tamaulipas knows all too well the heartache the boll weevil can wreak. Cotton was once king here, too; about half a million acres were in cultivation in the mid-20th century.But the tyranny of the beetle forced farmers to drop cotton and shift to other crops. Cotton farming returned only sporadically, most recently in 2004, the same year the state began a boll weevil eradication program.In explaining the challenges of ridding Tamaulipas of the insect, Mexican growers and officials invariably blame the subtropical climate. Temperatures rarely fall to freezing, allowing cotton plants, the weevil habitat, to survive through the winter.In addition, wind and rain can be heavy, helping to spread the plant and the insect, as well as interfering with pesticide spraying schedules. (The growers and officials may or may not mention that these conditions are exactly the same on the Texas side of the border, where results have been significantly better.)When pressed, Mexican officials acknowledged that their program was spotty for years.The campaign was inconsistent because of a lack of resources, said Relbo Ral Trevio Cisneros, a cotton grower and industry leader in Tamaulipas.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesCrime and the general state of insecurity in the border region have also interfered with the eradication program. Sometimes criminal gangs have told farmers and eradication personnel to stay away from the fields on certain days, presumably while they smuggled drugs and migrants.Carlos A. Campos Reulas, the coordinator of Tamaulipass eradication program, keeps a reminder of the dangers in his office: a plastic boll weevil trap riddled with bullet holes. Someone had used it for target practice.Sometimes we see them in groups, armed with their weapons, he said of the criminal gangs, and we say, How can they be there and not the authorities?Violence and extortion threats have also driven some farmers to move their families to South Texas. In 2010, a farmer who at the time was one of the largest cotton growers in Tamaulipas was kidnapped and killed.The bilateral eradication campaign also suffered for years from a lack of communication and coordination between the two sides. But the cooperation between the Americans and the Mexicans has significantly improved in recent years, officials on both sides of the border said.American officials realized that if they ever hoped to declare the United States boll weevil-free, they would have to take a more hands-on approach to helping their Mexican counterparts, Mr. Frisbie said. The Tamaulipas program had stalled, he said, because the Mexicans were not applying enough pesticide.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesWith American guidance, pesticide applications doubled in Tamaulipas last year from the year before. The Americans have also outfitted Mr. Camposs trapping crews with technology that allows each program to monitor the others trap locations, pesticide applications and weevil captures.The eradication effort now rests heavily on the shoulders of Mr. Campos and his American counterpart, Mr. Herrera. Mr. Campos works out of a complex of agricultural research offices on a potholed road in Ro Bravo. Mr. Herreras office is about two dozen miles northeast, in a small strip mall in Harlingen, Tex.The long, historic fight to successfully rid the continent of the boll weevil has, in a way, boiled down to them.They have known each other for years but say their rapport has never been better. In past years they might have talked by phone only a handful of times a year but they now talk nearly every day, comparing notes, treating their zones as linked and borderless.The relationship is a careful pas de deux.Our intention is to make sure its successful without talking down, Mr. Herrera said.Indeed, Mexicans are sensitive about the charge that Mexico is to blame for the lingering boll weevil problem in Texas. Some Mexicans here insist that their crops may, in fact, be infected by weevils that migrated south from the United States.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesBut the prevailing winds are not a matter of speculation: They blow from the southeast and can be extremely powerful, capable of carrying the beetles scores of miles in a day, American cotton officials say.A hop, skip and a jump and theyre a ways down the road, Mr. Herrera said.American and Mexican officials and growers say they are entering this years growing season with a great deal of optimism about continuing progress in the fight.Still, the American cotton industry is not taking any chances. Growers in other states have been paying into an emergency fund for the Texas eradication program, should government support dry up and Texas growers struggle on their own to hold the weevil at bay.Growers across the country recognize that South Texas is in a battle that is beyond their control, said Don Parker, manager of integrated pest management for the National Cotton Council. We would not want the weevil marching back across the country.Growers worry about political fatigue. How long will state and federal officials be willing to help cover the bill for a problem that for the time being is affecting only a tiny percentage of cotton producers?We Rio Grande Valley producers see it as a real possibility, said Brian Jones, a fourth-generation cotton grower in Edcouch, Tex.The Texans, meanwhile, are counting on their allies across the border. The Tamaulipans feel the pressure.If theyre saying that we are to blame, Im not in agreement, Mr. Trevio said, frustration apparent in his voice. We are doing the campaign the best we can. | World |
Two early recipients of CAR T immunotherapy were free of a blood cancer nearly a decade after receiving the therapy.Credit...Keith R. Porter/Science SourceFeb. 2, 2022Doug Olson was feeling kind of tired in 1996. When a doctor examined him she frowned. I dont like the feel of those lymph nodes, she said, poking his neck. She ordered a biopsy. The result was terrifying. He had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a blood cancer that mostly strikes older people and accounts for about a quarter of new cases of leukemia.Oh Lordy, Mr. Olson said. I thought I was done for. He was only 49 and, he said, had always been healthy.Six years went by without the cancer progressing. Then it started to grow. He had four rounds of chemotherapy but the cancer kept coming back. He had reached pretty much the end of the line when his oncologist, Dr. David Porter at the University of Pennsylvania, offered him a chance to be among the very first patients to try something unprecedented, known as CAR T cell therapy.In 2010, he became the second of three patients to get the new treatment.At the time, the idea for this sort of therapy was way out there, said Dr. Carl June, the principal investigator for the trial at Penn, and he had tempered his own expectations that the cells he was providing to Mr. Olson as therapy would survive.We thought they would be gone in a month or two, Dr. June said.Now, a decade later, he reports that his expectations were completely confounded. In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, Dr. June and his colleagues, Dr. J. Joseph Melenhorst and Dr. Porter, report that the CAR T treatment made the cancer vanish in two out of the three patients in that early trial. All had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The big surprise, though, was that even though the cancer seemed to be long gone, the CAR T cells remained in the patients bloodstreams, circulating as sentinels.Now we can finally say the word cure with CAR T cells, Dr. June said.Although most patients will not do as well, the results hold out hope that, for some, their cancer will be vanquished.But mysteries remain.The treatment involves removing T cells, white blood cells that fight viruses, from a patients blood and genetically engineering them to fight cancer. Then the modified cells are infused back into a patients circulation.ImageCredit...Olson family photoIn the case of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the type Mr. Olson had, the cancer involved B cells, the antibody-forming cells of the immune system. A patients T cells are taught to recognize B cells and destroy them. The result, if the treatment succeeded, would be to destroy every B cell in the body. Patients would be left with no B cells. But also no cancer. They would require regular infusions of antibodies in the form of immunoglobulin infusions.The therapy has helped many with blood cancers, and has proved particularly effective in patients with acute leukemias and other blood cancers. By contrast, those like Mr. Olson with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, also known as CLL, have seen less success. Among those with that cancer, about a third to a fifth go into remission with CAR T therapy, but many whose cancers disappear later relapse.The question is not only why some patients relapse or are resistant to therapy but why are some patients cured? said Dr. John F. DiPersio, chief of the division of oncology at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the study.The CAR T treatment has also caused serious side effects in some patients like high fevers, comas, dangerously low blood pressure and even death although in most patients the alarming symptoms resolve. It has not yet worked in people with the solid tumors found in conditions like breast and prostate cancer.Just as strange as the inability of CAR T to help most cancer patients is the fate of those modified T cells in the cured patients.The genetic modification involved a subset of T cells known as CD8 cells, which are assumed to be the ones that actually kill the cancer. They are the assassins of the immune system.But assassins need helpers and for the CD8 cells, the helpers are another group of T cells known as CD4 cells.At first, the CD8 cells seemed to be acting exactly as was hoped in Dr. Junes study. The modified CD8 T cells almost immediately killed between 3 and 7 pounds of cancer cells in the bodies of Mr. Olson and the first patient in the study, William Ludwig, who was also cured of his cancer but died last year from Covid-19.After the CD8 cells did their job, they remained in the blood but, unexpectedly, they turned into CD4 cells. And when the Penn investigators removed CD4 cells from the blood of Mr. Ludwig and Mr. Olson, they saw that those cells could kill B cells in the laboratory. The CD4 cells had turned into assassins or, Dr. DiPersio noted, at least guardians that can keep the tumor cells at bay and undetectable in the patient for years.Could the CD4 cells remain in the blood with no cancer cells to kill? Or were they there because the leukemia was not really gone but instead kept trying to return, only to be attacked by CD4 cells?We cant find any leukemia cells in Doug, Dr. June said. But, he added, perhaps they are still there in tiny quantities and emerging, only to be knocked back by CD4 cells, like whack-a-mole, he said.He suspects, though, that the CD4 cells are more like guards.The leukemia is gone, but they stay on the job, he said.Whatever the mechanism, Dr. Porter said, the result is beyond my wildest imagination.Oncologists dont use words like cure lightly or easily or, frankly, very often, he said. I guarantee that its not being used lightly. The patients we treated had far advanced disease, he noted, adding, the biggest disappointment is that it doesnt work all the time.Historically, if these cancers dont recur in two to five years the likelihood of relapse is low, said Dr. Hagop M. Kantarjian, chairman of the department of leukemia at the University of Texass M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.For Mr. Olson, now 75 and living in Pleasanton, Calif., life is good. He still shakes his head over the amazing coincidence that his oncologist just happened to be an investigator in that clinical trial a decade ago.Im a lucky man, he said. | Health |
The drug, aducanumab, made by Biogen, would be the first new Alzheimers treatment in nearly two decades. But the advisory panel said there was not enough evidence of its effectiveness in slowing cognitive decline.Credit...Zephyr/Science SourceNov. 6, 2020A federal panel of medical experts on Friday sharply rejected arguments in support of a closely watched new Alzheimers drug, saying the evidence wasnt persuasive enough for the drug to be approved as the first new Alzheimers therapy in nearly two decades.The nonbinding vote by an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration does not mean the agency wont approve the drug, aducanumab, made by Biogen. But it signals that many experts in the field are not convinced of its effectiveness, another major setback in the long journey to find a treatment for Alzheimers that works.In a seven-hour virtual meeting on Friday, the panel showed pointed skepticism, which contrasted markedly with a presentation by Dr. Billy Dunn, director of the Food and Drug Administrations office of neuroscience, who said that the evidence supporting its approval appears strong.Overwhelmingly, the panel members disagreed.There are literally a dozen different red threads that suggest concerns about the consistency of evidence, said one member, Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He said he could not understand how the F.D.A. could conclude that there is substantial evidence of effectiveness.Ten of 11 panel members voted that it was not reasonable to consider the research presented as primary evidence of effectiveness of aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimers disease. The 11th member said he was uncertain.It was a stunning turn of events, coming two days after the F.D.A. had posted documents that suggested most of the agencys reviewers considered the evidence convincing, a development that sent Biogens stock price soaring by more than 40 percent. Most of Fridays votes occurred after the financial markets had closed.Nearly six million people in the United States and roughly 30 million globally have Alzheimers disease, a number that is expected to more than double by 2050. Aducanumab which is given as a monthly intravenous infusion and would cost about $50,000 per year would be the first medication to address cognitive decline by attacking the core biology of Alzheimers disease. It has been considered a potential medication for the roughly two million Americans estimated to have mild Alzheimers-related cognitive decline.The drugs path through clinical trials has been rocky, with only one of two Phase 3 trials showing positive results and those results emerged only from an analysis of additional data after the trials were stopped in March 2019 by an independent data monitoring committee because the drug didnt appear to be working.The F.D.A. usually requires two convincing studies for a drug to be approved, although the agency has made exceptions, especially for severe or deadly diseases for which little or no treatment is available.Samantha Budd Haeberlein, a Biogen senior vice president and head of neurodegeneration development, told the panel that the benefit-risk profile for aducanumab is favorable and potentially prolonged patients independence by several months.Dr. Dunn of the F.D.A. said the single positive study was highly persuasive and provided substantial evidence of the effectiveness of aducanumab. The positive study found that patients on a high dose of the drug, 10 milligrams per kilogram, declined at a rate 23 percent slower than in people who had received a placebo. Dr. Dunn said the agencys analysis concluded that the results of the negative study, which did not show that patients on the high dose benefited, did not contradict the successful study or show that the drug was ineffective.Some members of the panel were uncomfortable with the idea that successful results of one trial should be considered over unsuccessful results of the other trial.Dr. Scott Emerson, a professor emeritus of biostatistics at the University of Washington, said that having to ignore the negative study was like saying, Im going to, you know, choose two numbers and only tell you what the highest number I chose was.He later added that he was very disturbed that the F.D.A. seemed to be starting out with the assumption that the treatment works and then trying to figure out why the other study failed. He said the agencys position seemed weighted toward the drug company, adding that all of this was just terrifically one-sided.Of the 11 voting committee members, eight said that they did not even think the single study provided strong evidence that the drug was effective. Two members said they were uncertain.The only member to vote that the single studys evidence was convincing was the committee chairman, Dr. Nathan Fountain, a professor of neurology at the University of Virginia.I think there are lots of small issues with it, but the trends, I think, are all in the right direction, he said.There are currently five medications that have been approved to treat cognitive and memory symptoms, but they typically delay decline for only several months. The last new drug was approved in 2003, and none of them address the specific disease process of Alzheimers.Aducanumab is a monoclonal antibody that targets the beta amyloid protein that clumps into plaques in Alzheimers disease. Many other drugs that reduce amyloid accumulation have not been shown to slow symptoms, so if aducanumab is determined to be effective, it would support a long-held theory that attacking amyloid can help if done early enough in the disease process, when memory and cognitive difficulties are still mild.ImageCredit...Cody O'Loughlin for The New York TimesSome experts said that if aducanumab were approved, it would make it less likely that patients would participate in studies for other Alzheimers drugs that might ultimately work better.I think if we approve something where the data is not strong that we have a risk of delaying, good treatment and effective treatment for more than a couple of years for many years, said another panel member, Dr. Joel Perlmutter, a professor of neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine. I think theres a huge danger in approving something that turns out not to be effective.Several experts, including a Mayo Clinic neurologist who was a site investigator for an aducanumab trial, have said that another rigorous clinical trial should be conducted before a decision is made on whether the drug should be made available.Perfection may be the enemy of the good, but for aducanumab, the evidence doesnt even rise to good, the neurologist, Dr. David Knopman, wrote in a comment submitted to the panel before Fridays hearing. Dr. Knopman, who sits on the advisory panel but was recused from the hearing because of his work with the aducanumab trials, added, Contrary to the hope that aducanumab will help Alzheimer patients, the evidence shows it will offer improvement to none, it will harm some of those exposed, and it will consume enormous resources.Documents posted by the F.D.A. in advance of the hearing gave the impression that most of the agencys reviewers were satisfied that data from the successful trial was strong and that safety issues, which mostly involved a type of brain swelling, were manageable.But another F.D.A. reviewer expressed concerns in the documents. Tristan Massie, an F.D.A. mathematical statistician, wrote that he believed there is no compelling, substantial evidence of treatment effect or disease slowing and that another study is needed.Other experts said that the degree of benefit the trial claims to show is slight, slowing cognitive decline over 18 months by half a point on a 3-point cognitive scale, the primary measurement in the study.My view is that it doesnt do anything, said Dr. Michael Greicius, medical director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders.At Fridays hearing, Dr. Budd Haeberlein said that based on another scale used as a secondary measure, the drug might prolong decline in a persons daily functional ability by seven months in an 18-month period.Patients groups argued forcefully for approval, citing the devastation caused by the disease.While the trial data has led to some uncertainty among the scientific community, this must be weighed against the certainty of what this disease will do to millions of Americans absent a treatment, the Alzheimers Association wrote in a letter to the panel. The potential to delay decline would be denied to millions, and that time lost for those spouses, partners, moms, dads, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, friends, and neighbors cannot be recovered. In the balance of these considerations, we urge approval.Fridays meeting also featured poignant comments from several people with Alzheimers or their family members.After years of great disappointment in drug trials for those in the throes of urgency as our minds decline, please offer us some hope, said Greg OBrien, a former journalist who wrote a book about his experience with Alzheimers. Please recommend approval of this drug therapy. Sorry I cant properly pronounce the name of the Biogen drug, its just too complicated for me. | Health |
Credit...Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty ImagesDec. 7, 2015Addressing concerns about the health of Sumner M. Redstone, Viacoms 92-year-old executive chairman, its chief executive said on Monday that Mr. Redstone had an incredible will to live and an enjoyment of life with some physical disabilities.Philippe P. Dauman, the chief, said that he talked with Mr. Redstone several times a week and met with him frequently. He said that Mr. Redstone had physical ailments that required him to be under medical supervision, but that he remained in control of decisions related to his health. Contrary to what some people suggested, no one other than Sumner Redstone is making health care decisions for him as it relates to his physical condition, Mr. Dauman said.Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, Mr. Dauman called recent talk on Mr. Redstones condition disturbing. Mr. Dauman added that he was seeking to get away from some of the hyperventilation that has occurred over the last week or so.He was alluding to the attention given to a lawsuit filed nearly two weeks ago by a former companion of Mr. Redstone that challenges the media moguls mental competence. The suit portrays Mr. Redstone as unable to make decisions on his own care and to reliably communicate with others, and it offers embarrassing claims about his physical condition and things like his sexual appetite.Lawyers for Mr. Redstone have asked a judge to dismiss the suit, calling the claims riddled with lies. A Viacom director, meanwhile, has said that Mr. Redstone was mentally capable.In his address Monday, Mr. Dauman also requested a sense of humanity and decency from people talking and writing about Mr. Redstone, calling him someone who has accomplished a whole lot and created a lot of value over his life.Mr. Redstone controls about 80 percent of the voting stock in Viacom and CBS through his private holding company, National Amusements, and is executive chairman of both Viacom and CBS. The lawsuit has prompted broader questions on whether Mr. Redstone should continue at the helm of the media empire, and on the future of the companies. Industry analysts have said that Viacom or CBS could be sold after Mr. Redstone dies.Mr. Dauman also addressed succession plans for the Viacom and CBS, which he said Mr. Redstone put in place more than two decades ago to ensure continuity. If Mr. Redstone dies or is deemed to lack capacity, his stake in National Amusements will be held by a trust, and voting control will go to seven trustees made up of two family members and five nonfamily members.The trustees include Mr. Dauman and Shari Redstone, Mr. Redstones daughter who owns 20 percent of National Amusements. Mr. Dauman has also been designated by Mr. Redstone to be put in charge of his health care decisions, if needed.The group of trustees would have to make fiduciary decisions for the benefit of the trust and the companies it controls, Mr. Dauman said. No one individual will control the trust. It will operate by a majority vote. There is no individual, and its by design.Last week, one of the largest shareholders in the companies raised questions about Mr. Redstones health and his ability to fulfill his duties. Mario Gabelli, whose investment firm, Gamco, is the second-largest voting shareholder in Viacom and CBS, said last week that if Mr. Redstone got paid anything in 2015, it would have a hard time passing any smell test based on the descriptions in the suit.On Monday, Mr. Gabelli said that Mr. Dauman did what he was supposed to do in addressing the structure of what will happen when Mr. Redstone leaves the company.Leslie R. Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, said that the drama surrounding Mr. Redstone was neither distracting the company nor impeding its business. He reiterated Mr. Daumans comments about Mr. Redstones ownership stake going to a trust and said that the company had a strong management team and board of directors.Nothing is going to change, Mr. Moonves said during a session at the UBS conference later in the afternoon. We are very secure.I hope Sumner lives to be 150, he added. | Business |
Facing a consequential test, Republicans staked out dueling positions over whether to join an insurgency in their ranks pushing to invalidate President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victoryCredit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesJan. 4, 2021WASHINGTON Republican divisions deepened on Monday over an effort to overturn President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory, as lawmakers weighed their fear of alienating President Trump and his supporters against the consequences of voting to reject a democratic election.With a Wednesday vote looming on whether to certify the election results, the last-ditch bid to deny Mr. Biden the presidency has unleashed open warfare among Republicans, leaving them scrambling to stake out a defensible stance on a test that carried heavy repercussions for their careers and their party. On Monday, as Mr. Trump ratcheted up his demands for Republicans to try to block Mr. Bidens election, elder statesmen of the party and some rank-and-file lawmakers rushed to provide political cover for those disinclined to go along.In the House, seven Republicans, some of whom are part of the conservative Freedom Caucus that normally aligns with Mr. Trump, released a statement arguing at length against the effort.The text of the Constitution is clear, the lawmakers, led by Representative Chip Roy of Texas, wrote. States select electors. Congress does not. Accordingly, our path forward is also clear. We must respect the states authority here.Chief executives and other leaders from many of Americas largest businesses also weighed in, urging Congress to certify the electoral vote.Attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy, they said in a statement signed by 170 people, including Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock, Logan Green and John Zimmer of Lyft, Brad Smith of Microsoft, Albert Bourla of Pfizer and James Zelter of Apollo Global Management.And John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator and paragon of the party establishment, denounced the electoral challenge, calling it part of a populist strategy to drive America even farther apart by promoting conspiracy theories and stoking grievances.Lending credence to Trumps false claim that the election was stolen is a highly destructive attack on our constitutional government, Mr. Danforth, a mentor to Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, the instigator of the effort in the Senate, said in a statement. It is the opposite of conservative; it is radical.Yet the effort won a high-profile convert on Monday, when Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia announced just hours before Mr. Trump appeared at a rally on her behalf that she, too, would vote against certifying the election results.Complicating the calculation for fretful Republicans were fresh revelations about Mr. Trumps own efforts to subvert the election results by pressuring Georgias Republican secretary of state to find him enough votes to overturn Mr. Bidens win. Proponents of the electoral challenge, who have sought to portray their position as principled and apolitical, conceded on Monday that leaked audio of the call has made their task more difficult.Mr. Trump used his Twitter bully pulpit on Monday to hammer at Republicans who declined to back the doomed effort, labeling them the Surrender Caucus and singling out Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG, Mr. Trump wrote, repeating a false claim. Republicans have pluses & minuses, but one thing is sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!The gambit is all but guaranteed to prolong what is typically a brief and routine recap of each states electoral votes, set to begin at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, prompting a bitter, hourslong debate that will culminate in a vote or perhaps several on whether to certify Mr. Bidens election. Democratic leaders, on a private caucus call Monday, counseled lawmakers to avoid focusing on Mr. Trump during the discussion and instead highlight the lack of evidence of fraud.I dont think we need to go all night, said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader. We have members from each state who are ready to discuss, you know, the status of their state, what happened and what the courts said.Still, more Republicans announced on Monday that they would back the objections to certifying the results. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a rising star in the party who led Republican efforts to recruit women to Congress over the past two years, said she owed it to voters who believe the election was rigged to support the challenge.To the tens of thousands of constituents and patriots across the country who have reached out to me in the past few weeks please know that I hear you, Ms. Stefanik said in a statement.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and his deputies have made clear to colleagues that they strongly oppose the effort to reverse the election results, but Mr. Hawley has said he will force a vote and at least 12 other Republican senators plan to back him. The party fissures have extended to the House, where the top Republican, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, has not revealed how he plans to vote on Jan. 6 but has said he is supportive of those who want to have a debate, while Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, has argued vociferously against the move.That has created something of a free-for-all in the House. Lawmakers have been left to weigh on their own whether to vote to protect the sanctity of the election and risk incurring the wrath of their constituents, or move to overturn the results in a doomed loyalty test that could badly damage their party.Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, said in an interview that he and the other conservatives who came out on Monday against the challenge were hoping to put forward a constitutionally grounded argument from a pro-Trump perspective that their colleagues could adopt.I think there are a lot of people of the same mind as us, but they were looking for some kind of grounding or maybe some kind of cover, Mr. Massie said. I feel like there are people getting sucked into the other vortex as the hours go by.Other Republicans, including some of the presidents most ardent defenders, were plainly uneasy about the coming vote, prompting a series of tortured statements seeking to justify the most basic of democratic positions: a vote to respect the outcome of an election.The easiest vote for me politically would be to object to everything and vote for every objection, Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, said on Sunday. On Monday, Mr. Cramer issued a statement saying he would not object, adding objecting to the Electoral College votes is not an appropriate or effective way to change the results.Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican who is up for re-election in 2022, said in a lengthy statement that he voted for Mr. Trump but could not object to certifying the election results, citing his opposition to a similar, Democratic-led effort in 2005.I stood in opposition to Democrats then, saying Congress should not obstruct the will of the American people, Mr. Portman said. I was concerned then that Democrats were establishing a dangerous precedent where Congress would inappropriately assert itself to try to reverse the will of the voters. I cannot now support Republicans doing the same thing.ImageCredit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesBy Monday afternoon, Mr. McConnell had dialed dozens of senators to try to map out the process on Wednesday, but remained in the dark about how many would lodge objections and to which states, according to people familiar with the discussions.Even the 11 senators who signed onto the effort, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, were debating how far to push their objections, according to a person familiar with their discussions. Some of them were unsure of how to defend their position in interviews, the person said, and were looking to Mr. Cruz to serve as the spokesman for the group.None of us want to vote against electors, but we all want to get the facts out there, said Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the 11 who signed onto a statement over the weekend pledging to oppose certifying Mr. Bidens win unless an independent commission was formed to audit the election results. There are lots of folks in my state that still want those answers to come out, and so at least one of the electors I would vote against at that point, once we get to that moment. And its a statement to be able to say, We got to get this done.He repeatedly declined to say which states electors he would object to on Wednesday, even as he conceded that the establishment of a commission was highly unlikely.As the vote approached, some Republicans said they were alarmed at a process that appeared to be spiraling out of control. Mr. Massie said he was frustrated with conservative groups that have promoted the effort to reject the election results including exhorting followers to travel to Washington for a Stop the Steal rally near the Capitol on Wednesday and called some of the messaging disingenuous.They are not telling the base, some of whom are getting on buses and coming to D.C. right now, that its mathematically impossible to overturn the election, he said. I have great respect for my colleagues on the other side of this debate and I see where theyre coming from, but the people who are agitating for constituents to come here are also concealing from them that there is no way to win.Opponents of the electoral challenge were hopeful that Mr. Trumps call with Brad Raffensperger, Georgias secretary of state, would turn away lawmakers who had been mulling joining the bid.Even senators who supported it conceded that the recording had hurt their cause.One of the things, I think, that everyone has said, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, said on Fox & Friends, is that this call was not a helpful call.Luke Broadwater and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting. | Politics |
Credit...Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesJune 18, 2018WASHINGTON The Senate voted on Monday to reinstate tough penalties on ZTE, a Chinese telecom company accused of violating American sanctions, in a sharp rebuke of the Trump administrations handling of the matter that almost ensures a rare showdown between Republican lawmakers and the White House.The measure, pushed by senators from both parties, was tucked into a voluminous annual defense policy bill that passed the Senate Monday evening by a vote of 85 to 10. The provision would undo an agreement the Commerce Department recently reached that would allow ZTE to remain in business in exchange for paying a $1 billion fine, replacing its senior leadership and installing American compliance officers. The ZTE deal came over vociferous objections from lawmakers, who accused President Trump of putting national security at risk by allowing a company that violated American sanctions to remain in business.Mr. Trump instructed the Commerce Department last month to look into easing penalties that barred ZTE from buying American products for seven years after President Xi Jinping of China personally asked him to save the company.The Senate vote was an unusual act of independence for a Republican-controlled Congress that has shown little interest in publicly crossing the Trump administration, even on issues where it disagrees with the president.But the vote is merely one step in what is expected to be a contentious process. The White House has already objected to the Senate provision and vowed to try to strike it before the bill becomes law.Republican lawmakers were scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump at the White House on Wednesday to discuss a path forward, according to Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican.Obviously theres conflict between what the amendment provides, which is an outright ban, and that deal, so something will have to work out in the conference committee, Mr. Cornyn said. He said he had no earthly idea how the two sides might reconcile.The House has already passed its own version of the defense bill, which does not include the ZTE penalty language, and the two chambers must now spend weeks hammering out that and other differences in the two bills before final passage a window the administration believes it can exploit to undo the Senates action.Reimposing penalties on ZTE could further strain relations between the United States and China, which are locked in a standoff over trade and have been trying in vain to reach an agreement to forestall a trade war between the worlds two largest economies.The provision was supported by large numbers of both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, who view ZTE as a national security threat. It also prohibits the federal government from purchasing or leasing equipment from ZTE or another Chinese company that they believe to be a national security threat, Huawei, or from subsidizing the companies in any way.The defense bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, would authorize just over $700 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year and is intended to provide a framework for the Trump administrations continued buildup of the armed forces. The legislation outlines a range of stipulations, including strategic priorities for the military, pay increases for service members and investments in emerging technologies that policymakers believe could reshape the way the United States and other nations conduct warfare.A far-reaching measure that is considered must-pass legislation, the annual defense bill is frequently a magnet for lawmakers trying to attach policy provisions only tangentially related to national security. In the Senate, this years bill provided a venue for Republican senators increasingly distraught with Mr. Trumps protectionist trade policies to try to force his hand. Mostly, they failed.Senate leaders blocked an amendment, advanced by Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, that would have given Congress the power to veto certain national security tariffs imposed by the administration before it was ever brought up for a vote. The decision enraged Mr. Corker, who called his partys deference to Mr. Trump cultish, but only after the machinations over the amendment all but eclipsed the defense policies in the bill.Another Republican-proposed amendment that would have given Congress greater oversight of the agency that reviews proposed acquisitions of American companies by foreign firms known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius failed in a floor vote Thursday. That amendment was opposed by the Trump administration, which said it could hamper the role of Cfius and put national security at risk.But lawmakers did include a separate, bipartisan amendment that would give Cfius more power by expanding its reviews from focusing strictly on mergers and acquisitions to include joint ventures. Lawmakers have said the provision is aimed at Chinese companies that had been bypassing the Cfius review by forming joint ventures with American companies or licensing their technology.The underlying defense legislation aims to build on the Pentagons national defense strategy unveiled in January. That document called for the United States to begin shifting its focus from the decades-long fight against terrorism to countering ascendant Russian and Chinese military might.The bill, for example, labels China and Russia revisionist powers and strategic competitors that seek to shape the world toward their authoritarian model through destabilizing activities that threaten the security of the United States and its allies.The bill bears the fingerprints of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, even though Mr. McCain has been absent from Washington for months as he battles brain cancer. Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, pushed the bill through the chamber and fought back several last-minute attempts to amend the legislation.The bill would make major investments in research and development to compete with Russian and Chinese weapons developments. Specifically, it would send more than $600 million above the administrations budget request for programs in hypersonics, quantum computing, directed energy and other technologies.It also sets policy for a dizzying array of programs and personnel matters, large and small, including a 2.6 percent pay raise for service members. It also outlines purchasing decisions on fighter jets, submarines, combat ships and other craft, and for the first time in decades, it outlines changes in the officer promotion program.And at a time of deepening humanitarian crisis in Yemen, it also takes steps to potentially curtail the United States involvement in aiding an Arab military coalition fighting in the long-running civil war there.A provision written by senators Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, and Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, threatens to cut off funds for American aerial refueling of Saudi and Emirati jets in the conflict if the secretary of state cannot certify that Saudi Arabia is taking certain steps to limit civilian casualties and bring the war to an end. Those steps include increasing access for Yemenis to food, fuel and medicine through the port of Hudaydah, which the Arab military coalition invaded last week.The House passed its version of the bill, known as the N.D.A.A., late last month, without any of the trade provisions considered by the Senate. Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters last week that he hopes to quickly reconcile differences in the two bills and finish the process before the House leaves for its August recess. He indicated that he would fight letting any provision, including the Senates ZTE language, derail that process. | Politics |
Credit...Rex Features, via Associated PressMarch 4, 2017YORK, England Having disclosed his sin of masturbation, Mark Stibbe, age 17, was ordered to strip naked and lean over a wooden chair in the garden shed of a lavish Hampshire mansion on the southern coast of England.Then came the first blow from a cane, its impact so ferocious that it sent the boy into a state of paralysis that lasted through at least 30 more strokes that left him collapsed on the floor, blood oozing down his legs.I remember being so appalled by how vicious the first lash was that I couldnt scream, Mr. Stibbe, now 56 and an acclaimed Christian author, recalled on a recent afternoon in his Yorkshire home. Youre in this tiny shed full of canes with this man. I felt utterly powerless.Until that day in the late 1970s, the man he says beat him, John Smyth, was known to Mr. Stibbe and his friends as a charismatic lawyer and influential evangelical Christian leader who regularly attended the Christian forum of their nearby boarding school, Winchester College, the oldest in Britain. Now, Mr. Smyth, 75 and keeping a low profile in South Africa, stands at the center of a widening scandal of sadistic abuse of dozens of boys over three decades that has ensnared the leader of the Anglican Church, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, though only peripherally.The accusations against Mr. Smyth, which were first reported in February as part of a Channel 4 news investigation, are the latest in a string of large-scale child abuse and sex scandals that have embroiled British institutions in recent months, exposing a long history of denial and cover-ups.The Hampshire police have begun an investigation into Mr. Smyths conduct, and more victims are speaking out in the hope that he will come forth in South Africa and face justice. The most recent account was from the bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson, who said in a statement that he, too, had received a beating in the infamous garden shed that was violent, excruciating and shocking.Mr. Stibbe said, The sin that seemed to preoccupy him more than anything was masturbation, and he managed to persuade me that I needed to purge my body of that sin.ImageCredit...Channel 4 NewsMr. Smyth would explain to the boys why they needed to be punished so severely. He quoted from the Bible and told me I had to bleed for Jesus, said another victim, who attempted suicide on his 21st birthday, after Mr. Smyth promised him a special kind of beating for the occasion.When he was done, he would lean in towards me and put his face on my neck telling me how proud he was of me, said the man, who asked that his name not be used because of the deeply personal nature of his remarks.The scale and severity of the abuses Mr. Smyth is accused of first surfaced in 1982, after the suicide attempt, which prompted an internal investigation by the Iwerne Trust, a Christian charity headed by Mr. Smyth that ran summer camps. He is said to have used his position at camps to win the trust of the boys he was to abuse.Five of the 13 victims who came forward in 1982 told investigators for the trust that they had received 12 beatings and about 650 strokes. The other eight said they had each been hit about 14,000 times over a period of years.Some of the victims received up to 100 strokes at a time for masturbating, having indecent thoughts or looking at pornography beatings that caused some to faint or bleed for up to three weeks, the trust found.The trusts report concluded that all the cases were technically criminal offenses, and yet none were reported to the police. Instead, Mr. Smyth was removed from the trust in 1984 and sent to Zimbabwe, where he set up similar Christian summer camps for privately educated boys, the South African news media have reported.In 1997, Zimbabwes prosecuting attorney arrested Mr. Smyth on a charge of culpable homicide in the death of Guide Nyachuru, a 16-year-old boy who was found dead at the bottom of the swimming pool of one of Mr. Smyths camps in Zimbabwe. Mr. Smyth denied any involvement in the drowning, calling it a tragic accident, and a year later all charges against him were dropped.ImageCredit...Jim Pascoe/Diocese of GuildfordIn court documents in the case, he was accused of brutally beating five other boys at the camps there.He would strip us naked and hit us with wooden bats to purge us of sin, said one of the victims in Zimbabwe, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal by Mr. Smyth.In 2002, Mr. Smyth moved to South Africa, where new accusations of abuse have surfaced in news outlets in recent weeks. Last month, he was removed from the Church-on-Main in Cape Town, where there were claims of inappropriate behavior but not proof of criminal acts, the church said in a statement.In Britain, the claims against Mr. Smyth have struck at the heart of the Church of England after Archbishop Welby acknowledged that he had worked at the elite Christian holiday camps run by the Iwerne Trust where Mr. Smyth groomed the boys.The archbishop promptly issued an unreserved and unequivocal apology on behalf of the church, saying it should have done more to investigate the accusations that he said he had not been aware of until 2013.But several of the victims who spoke to The New York Times have accused members of the church and boarding school of covering up the scandal. They said the institutions had wanted to protect their reputation and some of their senior members, who had supported some of Mr. Smyths theological interpretations that the victims say led to the practice of violent atonement.The victims, now mostly in their 50s, described a pattern in which Mr. Smyth drew them into what seemed at first to be a warm and welcoming inner circle.ImageCredit...Neil P. Mockford/Getty ImagesThey said he would select a small group of the brightest and handsomest teenage boys to join him at his nearby mansion for a traditional Sunday roast beef dinner, complete with roast potatoes, peas and gravy.When the meal was over, he allowed them to play games in his garden and swim in his private pool, creating a family environment that had been absent from the boys lives since they had been sent away to boarding school at the age of 7 or 8. He spent the summers befriending them in elite Christian camps, training them in his ultraliteralistic interpretation of the Bible and guiding them toward careers in the military and the church.But once he had won their trust and established a bond that many of them said had been akin to a father-and-son relationship, the nature of the meetings took a sinister turn. The victims said they had fallen so deeply under Mr. Smyths thrall that they hadnt even dared to talk to one another about the horrors they had been subjected to in the shed.Many of them felt deep shame and said they had been resigned to the culture of abuse, which in their minds was a fact of life in the British education system at the time.None of the victims said they had been sexually assaulted, but one of them said Mr. Smyth had occasionally stripped naked and groaned in spiritual ecstasy during the lashings.The Smyth case has led other victims of vicious boarding school thrashings to reveal the abuse they endured.The churchs reaction has been to paint Smyth like a one-off single incident, but its not, said Giles Fraser, a priest and journalist, who recently wrote a column about the beatings he endured at boarding school.Its about a mind-set that allows this to happen. This sort of muscular Christianity enforced by theology, education and the cane that dominated the public education system and produced your caricature Englishman strong, emotionally incapable in some ways, reserved and superior, he added.I think the idea that this is just about Smyth is in itself a cover-up, Mr. Fraser said, and its because the church is desperate for people not to say how all of this grows out of theology. | World |
Credit...Damon Winter/The New York TimesJune 5, 2018WASHINGTON The financial outlook for Medicares Hospital Insurance Trust Fund deteriorated in the last year, and Social Security still faces serious long-term financial problems, the Trump administration said on Tuesday.The projections are the first from the administration since President Trump signed a $1.5 trillion tax cut into law in December. They show no sign that a burst of economic growth will significantly improve the finances of the governments largest entitlement programs.The Medicare trust fund will be depleted in 2026, the administration said. By contrast, the government said last year that the trust fund would be exhausted in 2029.In a companion report, federal officials said the Social Security Trust Funds for old-age benefits and disability insurance, taken together, could be depleted in 2034, the same year projected in last years report. The fund that helps tens of millions of retirees is expected to be depleted a year earlier than projected last year, while the outlook for the disability trust fund is more favorable.Still, tax collections would be sufficient to pay about three-fourths of promised Social Security benefits for 75 years.The report, prepared mostly by nonpolitical actuaries and economists, predicts a 2.4 percent increase in Social Security benefits next year, to keep up with the cost of living. The increase this year was 2 percent.More than 60 million people are on Social Security, Medicare or both. The two programs account for about 40 percent of all federal spending.But Mr. Trump has paid relatively little attention to either program, declining to embrace a major restructuring of Social Security or Medicare, as some previous Republican presidents have. Nor has he endorsed higher taxes to finance the programs, as some Democrats have suggested.Trump administration officials instead are counting on a strong economy to improve the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.The administrations economic agenda tax cuts, regulatory reform and improved trade agreements will generate the long-term growth needed to help secure these programs, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.So far that does not appear to have happened, to judge from the annual report of the trustees of Social Security and Medicare, a group that includes three Trump cabinet officers.The report said the less favorable outlook for Medicares hospital trust fund resulted from adverse changes in program income and costs. Income to the Medicare fund is expected to be lower than estimated last year because of lower payroll taxes attributable to lowered wages in 2017 and lower levels of projected gross domestic product, the Treasury said in a fact sheet accompanying the report.At the same time, it said, outlays from Medicares hospital trust fund are expected to be higher than last years estimates due to higher-than-anticipated spending in 2017, legislation that increases hospital spending and higher payments to private Medicare Advantage plans.The current trajectories in health spending are both unsustainable and unmatched by increases in quality, Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services and a trustee of Medicare and Social Security, said on Tuesday.The Congressional Budget Office said in April that federal deficits and debt would soar in the coming decade, following passage of the tax overhaul and legislation to increase military and domestic spending.Democrats have for months asserted that Republicans would use the deficit swollen by tax cuts as an excuse to cut Social Security and Medicare, in the words of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. Republicans say the programs must be revamped to ensure they will be solvent for baby boomers and their children.The report said the 2017 tax law would have relatively modest effects on the finances of Medicare and Social Security.About half of Social Security beneficiaries owe some income tax on their benefits. This revenue will be lower than previously expected while the cuts in individual tax rates are in effect through 2025, the actuaries said. But after that, they said, revenue from the taxation of benefits will be somewhat higher than expected because the tax law alters the way in which income tax brackets will be adjusted for inflation.In addition, the tax law repealed the penalty for people who go without health insurance. As a result, the report said, Medicare payments to certain hospitals for uncompensated care are expected to increase.Another factor contributing to the increase in Medicare costs is Congresss decision last year to eliminate the Independent Payment Advisory Board, created by the Affordable Care Act to help slow the growth of Medicare.The trustees said the outlook for Social Securitys disability trust fund had improved because the number of applications had declined steadily since 2010 and the total number of beneficiaries had been falling since 2014. In addition, they said, average benefit levels for disabled workers were lower than expected in 2017 and are expected to be lower in the future.Medicare now spends an average of about $13,600 a year per beneficiary, and in five years the annual cost is expected to average more than $17,000, the report said.The standard Medicare premium paid by most beneficiaries is expected to rise next year by just $1.50 a month, to $135.50. But for the most affluent beneficiaries those with annual incomes exceeding about $160,000 the premium is expected to be about $460 a month.Federal officials predict that enrollment in private Medicare Advantage plans will continue growing at a rapid clip, to 29 million in 2027, from 20 million last year.A major reason for Social Securitys long-term financial problems is a decline in the number of workers for each beneficiary.In 1960, there were about five workers for every Social Security beneficiary. The ratio of workers to beneficiaries fell to 3.3 in 2005 and then to 2.8 in 2016. It will decline further to about 2.2 by 2035, when most baby boomers will have retired, officials said.The aging of the population is another factor in the growth of the two entitlement programs. The number of Medicare beneficiaries is expected to surge to 87 million in 2040, from 60 million this year, according to Medicare actuaries. And the number of people on Social Security is expected to climb to 90 million, from 62 million, in the same period.Speaker Paul D. Ryan has repeatedly tried to overhaul entitlement programs, converting Medicare into a voucherlike program that could shift more retirees to private insurance and turning Medicaid into a block grant to state governments. He has faced bipartisan opposition to that effort, but many Republicans say they hope to continue the push after he retires next year.For their part, Democrats hope to expand Social Security, to address what they see as a looming crisis in retirement income.We will fight every effort to cut, privatize or weaken Social Security, including attempts to raise the retirement age, diminish benefits by cutting cost-of-living adjustments or reducing earned benefits, the 2016 Democratic platform said. Democrats will expand Social Security.The trustees of the two programs the secretaries of the Treasury, labor and health and human services and the Social Security commissioner normally unveil the annual report at a news conference. But none of the four attended the press briefing this year. | Politics |
Dec. 8, 2015Credit...Gus Ruelas/ReutersMichael R. Milken, once known as the king of junk bonds, captivated Wall Street when he pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1990 and broke down crying in front of a packed Manhattan courtroom.More than 25 years later, he is still a draw to a New York crowd.Titans of Wall Street, including the billionaire hedge fund managers John Paulson, Daniel S. Och and David Einhorn, joined 1,900 people at the Hilton New York Grand Ballroom on Monday night for an annual Wall Street dinner held by the UJA-Federation of New York, a charitable organization focused on Jewish causes. Security was tight, as attendees in tailored suits and the occasional fur shawl were asked to hand over their bags and walk through metal detectors, with precautions taken because of one guest, the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat.The focus of the evening was on charity and contributions made to the UJA-Federation, which raised a record $27 million. Honored at the event were Andrew V. Rechtschaffen of Greenlight Capital, the multibillion-dollar hedge fund founded by Mr. Einhorn, and Steven A. Tananbaum, chief investment officer of GoldenTree Asset Management.But there was another unspoken theme: second chances.This was underscored by the keynote address, given by Mr. Milken, who made a name for himself as the head of junk bonds at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s and who later pleaded guilty to six felony charges of securities fraud and conspiracy. He was barred for life from the securities industry.Mr. Milken has done much to restore his image. These days, he is focused on philanthropy and spends his time on the West Coast holding the annual Milken Institute Global Conference.Daniel S. Och, the chief executive of the hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital, praised Mr. Milken for his philanthropy in a short speech. Mr. Och called Mr. Milken the man who changed medicine because of his fund-raising efforts and donations in the field.Mr. Milken told the audience that as a young man he set out to study math and physics in 1964 at Berkeley University with the dream of running the countrys space program. One year later, after meeting a man who told Mr. Milken he could never be part of the American dream because he did not have access to money, Mr. Milken said he changed his major.I chose to go to Wall Street to change the flow of capital with thousands of others so we could bring the opportunity of the American dream to those with talent, Mr. Milken said.Later, when Greenlights Mr. Rechtschaffen took the stage and addressed the breathtakingly awful markets like this year, it was the first and only mention of the tumultuous year for Wall Street.Greenlight, once a darling of investors, has had a gut-wrenching year, with performance down more than 16 percent as of the end of October. It is not the only hedge fund licking its wounds; across the industry managers have closed their doors, returned money to investors and sometimes written apology letters for steep losses.This did not stop many of Wall Streets biggest names from singing one anothers praises on Monday.In a glossy book several inches thick compiled by the UJA with pages of messages from family, friends and business, there were letters of congratulations from Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats of New York. One of the attendees, Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, was given a special shout-out.Even as most of the evening was solemn, there were moments of levity. While addressing the room, Mr. Milken poked fun at himself, recalling how shortly after he arrived at Berkeley in the 1960s, the free-speech movement started.There always seems to be a commotion wherever I go, he said, drawing laughs across the ballroom. | Business |
Credit...Ian Langsdon/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 6, 2017PARIS Monday was a day of reprieves for Franois Fillon, the embattled center-right candidate for president of France, who has been grappling with allegations of corruption and calls for him to drop out of the race.First came the end of a threat that Alain Jupp, a prominent rival, would challenge or even replace him as the standard-bearer of the center-right. Mr. Jupp announced in the morning that he had decided once and for all not to run.A second threat, that the Republicans party would publicly disavow Mr. Fillon, was averted later in the day. Top party officials emerged from a meeting in Paris to say that they had agreed unanimously to keep on supporting him.French news outlets reported that Mr. Fillon, who took part in the meeting, put his foot down, emphasizing that divisions within the party could not spread further.Even so, Mr. Fillons troubles are not over. With less than 50 days to go before the first round of voting on April 23, the rifts on the French right that have been exposed by the scandal surrounding Mr. Fillon are unlikely to heal before the presidential and legislative elections.Hundreds of Mr. Fillons former backers have distanced themselves from him, and some in his party continue to doubt that he can win now. But the developments on Monday seemed to bolster Mr. Fillons claims that there is no one suitable to replace him.No one can stop me from being a candidate, Mr. Fillon said on Sunday in an interview on the television channel France 2.Mr. Jupp, who is mayor of the southwestern city of Bordeaux, told reporters there on Monday that the presidential campaign had been dominated by unprecedented confusion.What a waste, he said, accusing Mr. Fillon of squandering the center-right partys chances of winning.Mr. Jupp, a moderate, ran in the Republicans presidential primary in November but lost to Mr. Fillon, who campaigned on a harder line.He criticized Mr. Fillon on Monday for his obstinacy, and he called Mr. Fillons dismissive response to the corruption allegations against him a dead end.But Mr. Jupp, 71, said he was not the man to replace Mr. Fillon now. He said that French voters were hungry for new political faces untainted by scandals, and that he did not quite fit the bill. It is too late for me, he said.ImageCredit...Mehdi Fedouach/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMr. Fillon, who like Mr. Jupp is a former prime minister, won primaries on the right and center-right in November, led in the polls and appeared to be on track to reach the second round of voting, where he would have a good chance to defeat his likely opponent, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front.But Mr. Fillons campaign was upended by reports in the satirical and investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchan that his wife and two of his children were paid with taxpayer money to be parliamentary aides, posts that might not have involved much genuine work.The reports prompted an investigation by financial prosecutors, and they deeply dented Mr. Fillons standing in the polls, dropping him to third place behind Ms. Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent candidate and a former economy minister.Mr. Fillon said last week that judges investigating the embezzlement allegations had summoned him for questioning on March 15. But he defiantly vowed to continue running, even if, as expected, he is formally charged.That defiance turned what, until then, had been mostly uneasy grumbling into a cascade of defections, with more than 300 backers dropping their support for Mr. Fillon and calling for the Republicans to find a new candidate. An allied party, the centrist Union of Democrats and Independents, also dropped its support for Mr. Fillon.Nicolas Sarkozy, a former president who also lost to Mr. Fillon in the primaries, said in a statement Monday morning that he wanted to organize a meeting with Mr. Fillon and Mr. Jupp to find a dignified and credible way out of a situation that can no longer last.So far, Mr. Fillon has dug in his heels. At a rally organized on Sunday in Paris, he lashed out at those calling for him to drop out.They think Im alone; they want me to be alone, a combative Mr. Fillon told the crowd as he stepped on stage at the Trocadro, across from the Eiffel Tower. Am I alone? he asked, and the crowd roared.If, by magic, the French had been able to witness what Ive seen these last weeks, a wave of disgust would submerge them, Mr. Fillon said, denouncing those who desert the sinking ship.Mr. Fillon has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the scandal. His wife, Penelope, spoke publicly on Sunday about the matter for the first time since it broke, telling the newspaper Journal du Dimanche that she had carried out very different tasks for her husband as a parliamentary assistant, including writing memos and press reviews.Ms. Fillon also said she had urged her husband to continue his campaign, as did the thousands of supporters who stood under pouring rain Sunday afternoon in Paris, waving French flags and chanting for Mr. Fillon to hold fast because France needs you.Its the union between the people and the future president, Franck Patti, 53, a project manager for the city of Paris, said about the rally.A core faction of Republican rank-and-file voters have stood by Mr. Fillon, dismissing the allegations against him and warning that they could stay home on Election Day if he were to drop out.The Republicans must see that Fillon is their natural candidate, Mr. Patti said. | World |
Dominique Moceanu Heard About Nassar Years Ago ... Confirmed Her Worst Fears 1/26/2018 TMZSports.com Dominique Moceanu is celebrating the bravery of her fellow Team USA gymnasts who helped bring Larry Nassar to justice ... years after she started sounding the alarm about abuse in the sport. The 1996 gold medalist told us she first heard about Nassar 2 years ago, when Jamie Dantzscher confided in her. Several years earlier, Dominique had accused multiple people -- including coach Bela Karolyi -- of emotional and physical abuse, but says the convo with Jamie was the first time she'd heard of sexual abuse. She adds ... she lost a lot after going public with her abuse claims, and she's glad the women who spoke out against Nassar were able to take down "the most prolific pedophile, arguably, in history." | Entertainment |
Technology|Misinformation in America Thrives in Two Languageshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/technology/misinformation-in-america-thrives-in-two-languages.htmlOct. 21, 2020, 5:58 p.m. ETOct. 21, 2020, 5:58 p.m. ETCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesQAnon conspiracy theory videos on YouTube. Homespun remedies for the coronavirus sent via text messages on WhatsApp. Socialist and communist memes on Twitter. Anti-Black Lives Matter posts on Facebook.The universe of misinformation is not just widespread and vast. It is also bilingual.For several months, researchers and Democrats have worried increasingly about misinformation in Spanish being spread through social media, talk radio and print publications that target Latino voters.The problem has been particularly acute in South Florida, where a worrying loop of misinformation has gone from social media to mainstream and back again.Some of the most insidious messages have tried to pit Latinos against supporters of Black Lives Matter, by using racist language and tropes. But the distortions hardly stop there.Other news outlets have reported on the phenomenon in recent weeks, and taken together, the reports paint a picture of just how deep and wide the misinformation has spread.Last month, Politico published an article examining efforts to paint the billionaire Democratic fund-raiser George Soros as the director of deep state operations and exploring anti-Black and anti-Semitic efforts that have spread across Spanish-language channels in the Miami area. A local Univision station soon followed with its own article.A Florida public radio station found that conservative elected officials in Colombia were also helping to push the false idea that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a clone of left-wing dictators in Latin America, such as Hugo Chvez.This week, an article in the Boston Globe looked at how the spread of misinformation has driven a wedge between many younger Latino voters and their parents.It is still too early to tell just what impact, if any, the misinformation is having on who shows up to the polls and who they vote for. But many experts worry that the efforts will only increase in the final days of the campaign, in an attempt to suppress the votes of some Latinos. Understanding how the misinformation spreads in any language could prove key in interpreting the elections results. | Tech |
App SmartVideoKit Eaton describes three apps that can help in the creative thinking process.Feb. 26, 2014Creative thinking is a huge part of a job like mine, but its also critical to many types of work including yours, Ill bet.Sometimes thinking creatively about an idea, a project or a problem comes easily. Other times it can be tricky, and we get stuck looking at the issues without seeing anything new. At times like these, turn to your smartphone: Many different apps can help in the creative thinking process.For me the most useful creative thinking apps are those that help me think of a new idea or a new angle on an old idea. I love 75 Tools for Creative Thinking from Booreiland, free on iOS. This app has 75 flash cards with inspirational ideas. The cards are broken into different types, like check around, break it down and break free topics that should marry up to your creative task. Each card has a cute image on the front to help you recognize it, and its text is revealed when you tap it.The cards bear a list of instructions intended to encourage you to use various methods to try to understand your issue differently or to think of alternative solutions. For example, the absurd questions card asks you to describe your problem in words, then to swap some of the keywords with synonyms. Instead of trying to silence the noise, for example, you may write down calm the hiss. The very act of thinking of the problem like this may help you come up with a solution.The app is simple, but its ideas are clever and it has a slick interface. Its free to try, so you can see if you like it before you pay $5 in-app to unlock all the cards. Perhaps the apps only downside is its boundless enthusiasm something that may not match your mood or work style.Creative Whack Pack, $2 on iOS, is similar to 75 Tools but is wordier, with a less polished interface. Oddly, neither of these apps is available for Android, the most popular mobile OS. Thats annoying.Idea Card is one Android app thats a bit similar. It prompts you with cards that ask you to change the rules of the game and so on. It has an intuitive gesture-based interface and its free, but its content feels slightly limited.An alternative technique is to turn your issue into a kind of word-based diagram called a mind map. There are lots of mind-mapping apps available, and Ive tried many but liked few.SimpleMind on Android, however, has a clean design that works well. The apps minimalist display doesnt get in the way of the creative process of drawing a mind map. But this simplicity doesnt mean the app is limited: You can build a map as big as you like, with potentially hundreds of elements, and you can easily move components around the map or up and down the hierarchy as you see fit.The free edition is pretty powerful, but the full app has extras, like letting you embed images or hyperlinks to other maps youve built in the app. The full version is $5. There are also iPhone editions of the free and full-featured app, though the price is $6 on iOS.Idea Sketch, which is available for Windows Phone and iOS, is a mind-mapping app that takes a slightly different approach to helping you explore your ideas and issues creatively. Its supersimple mind map generator has an easy-to-use tap-and-drag interface. You type the different elements of your ideas into text boxes. You can control the shape and color of the boxes, and then link boxes into a meaningful hierarchy just by tapping on them.The best part of the app is that when you tap on the small listlike icon, the app automatically expresses your mind map as a hierarchical list. Seeing your problem broken down this way may help you view it in a new light.Another creative thinking aid is Brainsparker, a free iOS app that claims to help tap your inner genius. This app is a random flash card app. It presents you with all kinds of content that may prompt you to think creatively. I imagine youd use it like this: Think about the issue you have, shake the app to select a random card and then see an image of a Roman ruin, a simple word question like Why? or an interesting quote. You could use it to tickle your brain early on a dreary Monday morning with a random, interesting idea, or to help you solve problems creatively. I like its quirkiness.Finally theres Inkflow, a free iOS app that behaves like a digital version of a paper-and-pen notepad. Its great for brainstorming ideas because you can easily write notes, sketch diagrams or embed photos. But its better than paper because its easy to move items around, resize them or delete them. It could be handy for brainstorming a problem with a small group of colleagues. Quick Call The TV show Wonders of Life, presented by Prof. Brian Cox, is now a $6 iPad app. Just like the show, Brian Coxs Wonders of Life has the professors skillful and engaging commentary alongside amazing video and graphics that explain the science and intricacy of life on Earth. | Tech |
News AnalysisCredit...Tomas Munita for The New York TimesNov. 10, 2018The Rev. Joseph Mussers family has always lived in the region of Alsace, but not always in the same country.His grandfather fought for the Germans in World War I, and his father for the French in World War II. Today, no one is fighting anymore. His great-niece lives in France but works in Germany, crossing the border her ancestors died fighting over without even noticing it.It is this era of peace and borderless prosperity that champions of the European Union consider the blocs singular achievement.The foundation of the European Union is the memory of war, said the Reverend Musser, 72. But that memory is fading.On Sunday, as dozens of world leaders gather in Paris to mark the centenary of the armistice that ended World War I, the chain of memory that binds Mr. Mussers family and all of Europe is growing brittle.ImageCredit...Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesThe anniversary comes amid a feeling of gloom and insecurity as the old demons of chauvinism and ethnic division are again spreading across the Continent. And as memory turns into history, one question looms large: Can we learn from history without having lived it ourselves?In the aftermath of their cataclysmic wars, Europeans banded together in shared determination to subdue the forces of nationalism and ethnic hatred with a vision of a European Union. It is no coincidence that the bloc placed part of its institutional headquarters in Alsaces capital, Strasbourg.But today, its younger generations have no memory of industrialized slaughter. Instead, their consciousness has been shaped by a decade-long financial crisis, an influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and a sense that the promise of a united Europe is not delivering. To some it feels that Europes bloody last century might as well be the Stone Age.Yet World War I killed more than 16 million soldiers and civilians, and its legacies continue to shape Europe.The war to end all wars set the scene for an even more devastating conflict and the barbarism of genocide. Winston Churchill, Britains legendary wartime leader, thought of 1914-1945 as one long war.ImageCredit...Tomas Munita for The New York TimesThose who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it, he said in 1948.Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose decision to welcome more than a million migrants to Germany in 2015 first became a symbol of a liberal European order, then a rallying cry for a resurgent far-right, said the jury is still out on whether Europe will heed the lessons of its past.We now live in a time in which the eyewitnesses of this terrible period of German history are dying, she said of World War II. In this phase, it will be decided whether we have really learned from history.Indeed, the last World War I veteran died in 2012. And the number of those who experienced World War II and the Holocaust is rapidly shrinking, too.Politicians are apt to use history selectively when it suits them. But the history in this case is ominous.Now as then, Europes political center is weak and the fringes are radicalizing. Nationalism, laced with ethnic hatred, has been gaining momentum. Populists sit in several European governments.In Italy, a founding member of the European Union, Matteo Salvini, the nationalist deputy prime minister, has turned away migrant boats and called for the expulsion of Roma. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary speaks of a Muslim takeover and unapologetically flaunts his version of illiberal democracy.In 1990, Europe was our future, he said earlier this year. Now, we are Europes future.The political discourse is deteriorating in familiar ways, too. In Germany, the far right has become the main voice of opposition in Parliament, mocking the mainstream media as Lgenpresse, or lying press a term that was first used by the Nazis in the 1920s before their ascent to power.Traute Lafrenz, the last surviving member of the White Rose, an anti-Hitler student resistance group in the 1940s, said she got goose bumps seeing images of Hitler salutes at far-right riots in the eastern German city of Chemnitz recently.Maybe its no coincidence, Ms. Lafrenz, now 99, told Der Spiegel. We are dying out and at the same time everything is coming back again.After World War II, the European Union sought to prevent anything like it from happening again by gradually creating a common market, a common currency, a passport-free travel zone and by pooling sovereignty in a number of areas.ImageCredit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesBut on Sunday, standing next to Ms. Merkel and her host, the fiercely pro-European French president, Emmanuel Macron, will be a number of nationalist leaders who would like nothing more than to pull the European Union apart among them President Trump, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.Historians guard against drawing direct parallels between the fragile aftermath of World War I and the present, pointing to a number of notable differences.Before World War I, a Europe of empires had just become a Europe of nation states; there was no tried and tested tradition of liberal democracy. Economic hardship was on another level altogether; children were dying of malnutrition in Berlin.Above all, there is not now the kind of militaristic culture that was utterly mainstream in Europe at the time. France and Germany, archenemies for centuries, are closely allied.What is being eroded today, is being eroded from a much higher level than anything we had ever achieved in Europe in the past, said Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European history at the University of Oxford.ImageCredit...Tomas Munita for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Garton Ash sees 1918 as a warning that democracy and peace can never be taken for granted.Its a really sobering reminder that what seems like some sort of eternal order can very rapidly collapse, he said.In that sense, if Europes motto after World War II was never again, the lesson of World War I is it could happen again.Daniel Schnpflug, a German historian who recently published A World on Edge, an evocative book tracking 22 characters in the interwar period, points out that for centuries, periods of prolonged war in Europes violent history have been followed by periods of prolonged peace.But once the generation with living memory of fighting had died, the next war came along, Mr. Schnpflug said. History teaches us that when the generation that experienced war dies out, caution diminishes and naivet toward war increases.ImageCredit...Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesThat means we have to be very careful today, he said.In 1918, the artist Paul Klee made The Comet of Paris, a tightrope walker hovering precariously in the air with a comet searing through the sky above and the Eiffel Tower below. What is unnerving about the image is that one cannot discern the rope even though one knows it is there.It sums up where people were then, and in a way where we are today, said Mr. Schnpflug.No one knows what might come next. Europe has entered the unknown.In 1929, as it happened, people entered a murderous decade without even knowing.Thats whats so eerie looking back, said James Hawes, a historian and author of The Shortest History of Germany. Right up to 1931-32, no one realized what was about to happen. They thought they were just entering another decade.What might future historians write about the Europe of 2018?Antony Beevor, author of a numerous best-selling history books, is pessimistic. The moral dilemmas of the future will undo European liberal democracy, he predicts. The migration crisis of 2015 was only a foretaste of what is to come.Future waves of migration are inevitable and Europe is their main destination, Mr. Beevor said, pointing to the disruptive forces of poverty and climate change in developing countries as the main reasons.ImageCredit...Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEuropean leaders will face the choice of turning back starving refugees or of handing ammunition to the far right and eroding the fabric in their own societies, he said.Others see it differently. Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, says the biggest problem facing Europe is not populism but the incomplete currency union of the euro.The major threat of Europe at the moment is not Orban or Salvini, the major threat is that the E.U.s institutional arrangement is unstable, Mr. Ferguson said. Mr. Macrons ambition has been to fix that; but there is no consensus backing him.Whatever the future of Europes institutions, one big difference from 100 years ago is that the Continent is no longer at the heart geopolitics."A century ago, Europe was the center of the world even if it was the dark tragic center of the world, said Dominique Mosi, a French author and thinker. Today we might be back to tragedy but not to centrality.History is moving elsewhere, he said.That, too, should be a motivation to shore up European integration, says the Reverend Musser in Alsace. One of his grandnieces is doing an internship in China, not Europe.Bones, bombs and bullets remain in the soil of Alsace, a region switched back and forth between various incarnations of France and Germany five times between the Thirty Years War that ended in 1648 and the devastation of World War II.Local residents joke that Alsatians still keep German street signs in their basements, just in case.The Reverend Musser puts it this way: Alsace is a reminder of how much has been won in Europe and how much can be lost. | World |
Politics|Thousands of Voters Were Left Off Primary Day Rolls in Los Angeleshttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/us/politics/los-angeles-voters.htmlCredit...Mario Tama/Getty ImagesJune 6, 2018COSTA MESA, Calif. A printing error improperly left about 119,000 names off voting rosters in Los Angeles County, forcing many to cast provisional ballots, prolonging the counting and election results in the states most populous county.The voting problems posed a particular challenge to Antonio R. Villaraigosa, a Democratic candidate for governor and former mayor of Los Angeles who was counting on a high turnout in the region in order to advance to the November election.Before conceding the governors race Tuesday night, Mr. Villaraigosa asked the county to keep polls open until Friday, calling the mistake infuriating and unprecedented.[Here are results from the California primary on Tuesday.]The county clerks office said 1,530 voting precincts were affected, though it did not specify which areas those precincts are in.Tonight is going to be a long night, Mr. Villaraigosa said, before again betraying frustration with the voter roster error.When youre a leader, you calm the waters, he said. When youre a leader, you also say, Youve got to have answers. So in the course of the next day or two, until we figure this out, we wont cast aspersions but we will demand answers.Before the polls closed, Mr. Villaraigosas campaign issued a statement urging supporters not to be discouraged and to be certain to obtain a provisional ballot if their names were not on the list.[Here are results from New Jersey and the other states that voted Tuesday.]It was unclear whether or how the countys error impacted the 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.No specific reason has been given for the error.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, because of longer lines at the polls or if they decline provisional ballots.Marc E. Elias, a prominent Democratic election lawyer, sounded the alarm on Twitter, warning voters they might not be properly listed due to a computer glitch.But dont worry, he wrote. Make sure you get a provisional ballot and VOTE. If you are not on the rolls due to a computer glitch, your vote will count. | Politics |
Fed up with the imbalance between online influencers and brands, Lindsey Lee Lugrin and Isha Mehra created a platform to change that.Credit...Amanda Hakan for The New York TimesAug. 2, 2021LOS ANGELES Six years ago, Lindsey Lee Lugrin, a budding social media creator and model, was given the chance to be featured in a Marc by Marc Jacobs ad campaign. She was paid $1,000.Ms. Lugrin was thrilled. But after seeing her face plastered on billboards and in ads across the internet, she realized she had undervalued herself.As she spoke with more influencers, who create social media posts for brands in exchange for payment or a cut of advertising fees, Ms. Lugrin became aware of other pay disparities. Male creators earned an average of $476 per post and women $348, according to an analysis last year by Klear, an influencer marketing platform.Ms. Lugrin, now 30, was determined to change that. So in June, she and Isha Mehra, 25, a former Facebook data scientist, introduced an app with an unprintable name: F*** You Pay Me. It functions as a kind of Glassdoor for influencers, where creators can leave reviews of brands they have worked with, share ad rates, and give and get other crucial information for negotiating sponsored content deals. The aim: to have creators be paid more equitably.The in-your-face name was deliberate, Ms. Lugrin said. I didnt want there to be any doubt from the creator side of things who this is for, she said. The name is an ode to the frustration I experienced myself many times over as a creator.FYPM, which is based in Santa Monica, Calif., is one of several companies now aiming to bring pay transparency to influencers, whose field is one of the fastest growing among small businesses in the United States. Its part of a shift where creators are increasingly trying to assert themselves in their business dealings with brands and gain a more level playing field.Among the tools that have proliferated is Collabstr, a marketing platform that lets creators post brief biographies about themselves and list their pay rates. Social media pages like Brands Behaving Badly, We Dont Work for Free and Influencer Pay Gap call attention to bad deals and potentially exploitative brands.Creators have also bonded in online communities like Creative Gal Gang, where female influencers in Britain and Ireland trade horror stories and offer peer support. Some creators have also begun selling courses to teach others how to negotiate better rates.Creators need to realize we have the power, River Johnson, 29, a creator in Half Moon Bay, Calif., said of the relationship between influencers and brands. They need us, not the other way around.Brands have long had an upper hand with influencers. Most creators operate without a manager or an agent. There are no standard pay rates for creating a post for a brand or running digital advertising alongside their videos and posts. Brand deals are negotiated through a messy mix of direct messages and emails.Creators are also typically single-person businesses that act as media and marketing mini-agencies all in one. They conceive, shoot, edit, promote and write all of their own content, sometimes with the support of a spouse or partner, across multiple social platforms every day. It can be time-consuming and grueling work that results in burnout.And while brands generally have a lot of information on creators influencer marketing platforms allow companies to sort and filter through millions of influencers by follower count, demographic and social media platform creators have little information on brands and what they pay.That ruffled Ms. Lugrin. A native of Houston, she earned a masters degree in finance from the University of Houston in 2018 and became an equity analyst. Outside her day job, she built up her online persona with the handle @msyoungprofessional, posting relatable humor and memes about being a woman in the business world.Ms. Lugrin eventually gained over 16,000 followers and started making brand deals with fashion companies and start-ups. But the lack of information for negotiating pay frustrated her.When she lost her job in the spring of last year during the pandemic, she decided to do something about it. She began conducting market research and harvesting information from creators about their brand deals.In October, Ms. Lugrin posted a blog post announcing FYPM, which, she wrote, was birthed out of rage. Taking aim at influencer marketing platforms, she said most were really just another platform designed to help more business owners exploit influencer talent, but in a new innovative way!After building a prototype of FYPM, she was accepted in March into a 10-week start-up incubator program in Taiwan led by Backend Capital, a venture capital firm. There she met her co-founder, Ms. Mehra, who was on the hunt for her next challenge.I wanted to use technology for good, Ms. Mehra said. I saw FYPM as a perfect way to tackle pay inequality.FYPM is already on the radar of brands. James Nord, chief executive and founder of Fohr, an influencer marketing company that has paid out over $65 million to creators in the past five years, said he supported Ms. Lugrins mission but hoped more nuance could be incorporated into the platform as it grew.It can lead to some creators having false expectations of what their pay could be because they hear about one person who booked one job at one specific price, he said.FYPM, which is still being tested, allows users to filter brand deals by platform such as Twitter, Clubhouse, Substack, Instagram and OnlyFans. Creators can also sort by location, niche and brand category, such as travel or food and drink.So far, about 1,500 creators have posted more than 2,000 reviews of 1,300 brands on FYPM. Ms. Lugrin and Ms. Mehra have raised a small amount of funding and plan to do more fund-raising.On the app, a review of Fishbowl, a networking platform, recently told creators to ask for more money. Theres room in the budget, so make sure to negotiate, it said.Another review, of the Coldest Water, a water-bottle company, warned creators about the pay: Offered $600 for 6 videos on my tiktok account with over 2 million followers. free water bottle included and then a 10 percent commissions sale. turned it down because they had low pay and it felt borderline scammy.Kyle McCarthy, head of growth at the Fishbowl, said the company was committed to fair pay. Daniel Herrold, 47, a creator in Tulsa, Okla., who is focused on divorce and lifestyle content, said FYPM had been a lifeline.I started to get approached six months ago by random brands, he said. The challenge for me and anyone else in the space is that I dont even know what a market deal is.Data collected by FYPM so far shows that meme pages, which post humorous or visually oriented content, and pet influencers are most likely to undersell themselves. YouTube creators earn the most.Food and beverage brands pay the most, beating out beauty, lifestyle and fashion companies. About 55 percent of creators on FYPM reported being paid in cash, while others were offered exposure or free products. Half received nothing for their work, Ms. Lugrin said.ImageCredit...Amanda Hakan for The New York TimesCreators who speak out about lack of payment can be attacked. When a brand tried to lowball Tori Dunlap, 27, a TikTok creator with over 1.6 million followers, in November, she created a TikTok about it.I went on TikTok and was like, Brands, you need to stop doing this, she said. But I got death threats. I got people messaging me, Sit down and shut up and You entitled insert-terrible-word here.Many creators are women and people of color, Ms. Dunlap added, so brands are taking advantage of these broader communities.We all have to talk to each other and say, This brand reached out to me what did they offer you? she said.Ms. Lugrin said she hoped FYPM would help make life as a creator more profitable for everyone, including those without millions of followers or money to fall back on.This is about the future of work, she said. | Tech |
On BaseballCredit...Lenny Ignelzi/Associated PressFeb. 20, 2014PHOENIX Ryan Brauns second chance began Thursday at Maryvale Baseball Park, the site of his greatest embarrassment. It was here, two years ago, that Braun said he would bet his life that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs. Braun lost the bet, of course, but has emerged with his life and career intact.After serving a 65-game suspension to finish last season, Braun reported to the Milwaukee Brewers spring training camp and spoke with reporters on a patio outside the clubhouse, a long foul ball from the spot where he declared his innocence. Different tone today than it was that day, he said.Brauns decision to cheat in 2011 will stain him forever. He said he could not control what people thought of him, which stands to reason. His attempt to shape his image by playing the victim backfired horribly, compounding a mistake he still refers to in the singular.Braun could have saved two years of anguish for himself, his teammates and the Brewers front office by coming clean immediately. But the thorny process, at last, is untangled. It really is time to move on, and Braun was not about to break into tears to please the cameras.Im very confident and secure in who I am as a person and my abilities as a baseball player, he said. All I can do is focus on this year, on moving forward, on continuing to be one of the best players in baseball, as Ive been throughout my career.Braun, 30, was indeed among baseballs best in his last two full seasons. Playing under heavy scrutiny in 2012, after winning his appeal of an initial suspension, Braun essentially repeated his most valuable player season of 2011. A thumb injury limited him last year, before he surrendered to the Biogenesis cops in July.In Brauns absence, with their season already a lost cause, the Brewers went 33-32 and gave playing time to rookies like Scooter Gennett, a second baseman who hit .324, and Khris Davis, a left fielder who slugged 11 homers in 136 at-bats. Davis was so impressive that the Brewers are moving Braun from left field to right to make room for him.The game just felt really simple at that time, Davis said. I surprised myself a few times.The Brewers could surprise people, too. St. Louis remains the class of the National League Central, but Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, the wild-card teams from the division, did little to improve. The Brewers added Matt Garza to their rotation and Francisco Rodriguez to their bullpen.But for the Brewers to contend, they need Braun to be the player he was before the suspension. Braun has never acknowledged using banned drugs outside the 2011 season, and the team must take him at his word.He had a lot of good years with not doing anything wrong, Manager Ron Roenicke said. So I expect him to be the same player. Hes in great shape. Hes in a good frame of mind. He knows this stuff is behind him, and I expect him to come out and be the kind of guy hes always been.Braun addressed the team after the suspension, and later spoke with teammates individually. Roenicke said he did not need to hear anything else from Braun about it.Whatever players, deep down, might think about Braun, they understand how much they need him. The idea of Brauns being a distraction is far overblown; the number of questions players actually field about teammates who have cheated is low. Handling the fallout, whatever it is, is almost entirely on Braun.Just be honest, be yourself thats what we all want from him, thats all we need, starter Kyle Lohse said. As far as building the trust within the clubhouse, were co-workers; weve got each others back. Thats how that works.He added: For the fans or maybe its the nonfans of baseball its a career-long process, and hes not going to do it no matter what he says on Day 1, Day 2, Day 365, it doesnt matter. Hes got a ways to go to prove what kind of person he is.In truth, we rarely know what kind of people the players are, anyway. They interact with members of the news media and the fans, and over time, we have some sort of idea. Braun was considered a good guy if perhaps a bit too polished before the drug scandal, and his misdeeds revealed an unseemly side to his character. He insists he should not be defined by his choices.I made a huge mistake, Braun said. I wish that I could change it. I cant change it. My whole life Ive tried to do nothing but good, and just because Ive made a mistake doesnt mean that I will stop doing good. Thats who I am, thats how Ive lived my life, and thats what I intend to do moving forward.Braun would not talk about why he turned to banned drugs. He offered no new details about what he used and when. He would not characterize his relationship with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who had vigorously defended him.But Braun has called Brewers season-ticket holders to apologize. He has had dinner with the urine-sample collector he blamed for the positive test. He took part in a food drive in Milwaukee in November and was greeted warmly at a fan event last month.Road crowds have booed Braun before, and they will probably do so again. He said he thrived on the challenge of playing in hostile environments and knew how to handle it. I think Im pretty strong mentally and emotionally, said Braun, whose physical strength will always be under suspicion. | Sports |
Europe|10 Years in Prison for Exaggerating Her Elementary School Record?https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/world/europe/greece-primary-school-fraud.htmlCredit...Yorgos Karahalis/ReutersNov. 23, 2018ATHENS, Greece A prosecutor on Greeces Supreme Court is set to intervene in a case of educational fraud that has roiled the country and united political parties, labor unions and rights groups: A 53-year-old cleaner is serving 10 years in prison for falsifying her primary school diploma to get a public sector job.An initial court ruling two years ago handed the woman a 15-year prison term for defrauding the public; the sentence was reduced this month, and she has been in Thiva prison in central Greece ever since.An online petition for her release had drawn more than 20,000 signatures by Friday afternoon.This decision is not simply inhumane, the Hellenic League for Human Rights said of the decision to sentence her to jail for 10 years. It is another very indicative sign of permanent ailments in the criminal justice system.The unidentified cleaner had worked at a state kindergarten in Volos, in central Greece, for 18 years, until a review in 2014 revealed that she had doctored a certificate to show she had completed six years of primary education (roughly elementary level) instead of only five. Six years is the required term for primary school students to complete their education.She didnt steal! She didnt embezzle state money! She worked for it! So that she could respond to the needs of her family, according to a statement by the union of cleaning workers in the region of Magnisia to which Volos belongs.The case triggered such a storm on Greek social media that a prosecutor, Xeni Dimitriou, decided to review the sentence. A court in central Greece is to rule on her request for release on Wednesday, pending the Supreme Courts review in the coming days.Meanwhile, the justice minister, Michalis Kalogirou, visited the 53-year-old in prison on Friday.The womans lawyer, Giorgos Sinelis, told Greek radio that his clients punishment was excessive.She went to get a job to support her two children, with a sick husband. She had to find work, he said, adding that the womans spouse is disabled.In comments published by the regional newspaper Tachidromos tis Thessalias on Friday, the woman said she had faked her diploma to help her family.Im ashamed, but I wanted my kids to have a better life than mine, she said from jail. I was terrified that they might grow up in an institution like me. She said she was one of 10 siblings and grew up in an orphanage.After Greek court heard her appeal against the conviction this month, her sentence was trimmed to 10 years, and she was jailed. The woman and her lawyer then appealed to the countrys top court. According to Greek television, the Supreme Court prosecutor will look into dozens of similar cases of forged certificates that had led to convictions.Prime Minister Alexis Tsiprass leftist Syriza party said the womans prison sentence offends the sense of common justice and shakes citizens trust in the judiciary.The Communist Party described it as inconceivable. | World |
Credit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesFeb. 27, 2014BERLIN For Linio, think Amazon for Mexicans. For Zalora, think Zappos for Malaysians. For Easy Taxi, think Uber for Nigerians.And for all of them, think Rocket Internet, a budding tech empire here in Germanys capital.From its low-key offices near the center of the city, Rocket Internet has turned the usual business model for technology companies on its head, compiling a team of high-flying finance and management specialists and arming them with the money they need to mimic already successful Internet companies applying these proven ideas in other countries, often in emerging markets.Since starting in 2007, Rocket has backed about 75 start-ups in more than 50 countries that now generate more than $3 billion in annual revenue and employ about 25,000 people.The business model stands in sharp contrast with the ethos that dominates Silicon Valley, where originality is perceived as the main currency for successful start-ups. It also has raised questions over whether Europes tech sector, where Rocket is a major player, can ever foster the same level of innovation that has led to a conveyor belt of successful American tech giants like Oracle, Google and Facebook.Still, Rocket Internet balks at criticism that it is purely a copycat machine. It says all successful business ideas are somewhat borrowed from others, and the ability to take proven tech ideas to emerging markets is a skill unto itself. The small tech start-ups that Rocket supports are often given as little as six months to succeed or face being shut down.If theres a clear business model that is proven to work, we will look at it, said Oliver Samwer, 41, one of three brothers who started Rocket Internet, and who travels almost constantly to visit the companys global portfolio of tech start-ups. Every new company is like a speedboat, and we want them to become aircraft carriers.Within the global tech community, Rocket Internet and the start-ups it incubates are known for aggressively expanding into new markets and squeezing out local rivals. Zalando, a German copy of the American e-commerce firm Zappos, has spread to 15 European countries since starting in 2008 and reported a 52 percent rise in its sales, to $2.4 billion, last year. Rocket Internet recently sold its remaining stake in Zalando, which is valued at around $5 billion, to the Swedish investment company Kinnevik, one of Rockets main investors, though the Samwer brothers retain a stake through their own investment firm.Other Rocket-backed e-commerce start-ups, including the Latin American e-commerce site Dafiti and its Russian counterpart Lamoda, also have secured large market shares in some of the worlds fastest-growing developing economies. To succeed, they have had to tweak their business models for emerging markets. That involves offering cash-on-delivery services where few consumers have credit cards and running large fleets of delivery trucks where local logistics and infrastructure remain basic.The rapid expansion has fueled speculation that some of the tech firms could either be bought by larger United States rivals that want to expand globally or potentially become public companies through multibillion-dollar initial public offerings.Rocket has disrupted the entire venture capital industry, said Christophe F. Maire, a leading Berlin-based investor who has backed several of the citys best-known start-ups, though none from Rocket Internet. It has groomed a lot of people in the art of going international.But the success has also raised questions about the value of a company that essentially depends on the ideas of others. Although the Rocket-supported companies are free to copy existing tech businesses as long as they do not infringe on copyrights and trademarks, there is nothing to stop competitors from rising up and pursuing the same strategy. And some companies have already popped up to parrot Rockets business model.While the company has created a growing stable of global e-commerce start-ups, it has had less success with other Internet businesses. The companys version of Pinterest, for example, which allows people to share photographs and other media, has so far failed to win over many consumers.And after Airbnb held talks in 2011 about acquiring Rockets Berlin-based copy, the American short-term housing website eventually decided to beef up its own international operations instead of buying the smaller rival.Others in the tech industry question whether Rocket Internet can maintain its success rate, as start-ups from Silicon Valley to Singapore look to expand globally as quickly as possible. That could cut the time Rocket Internet has to replicate successful tech ideas in emerging economies and other non-American markets.Just copying what the Americans have done is no longer a sustainable model, said Simon Cook, chief executive of the European venture firm DFJ Espirit.So far, though, no one has found the kind of success that Rocket has.We dont worry if someone else has launched a similar business model before, said Mr. Samwer, who receives monthly updates on the companys start-ups during a marathon 20-hour conference call where each business leader is allotted just 30 minutes of Mr. Samwers time. The Internet moves at Formula One speed; execution is the most important component of a successful business.The track record of the Samwer brothers behind the company Oliver, Marc and Alexander dates to the first dot-com boom when they sold Alando, a German version of eBay, to its larger American rival for $50 million. The entrepreneurs, who were in their mid-20s, built and sold the start-up in less than 100 days.After the eBay deal, they used some of the proceeds to start Jamba, a mobile phone services company that produced the Crazy Frog ringtone, which they sold to the American tech company Verisign for $270 million in 2004. The three German brothers also have bought and sold stakes over the years in a number of high-profile American start-ups, including Facebook, Groupon and Zynga, which have gone on to become global household names.Now, they focus their attention on building start-ups around the world. And the formula is relatively simple.Typically, Rockets core team finds the ideas (on a few occasions, outsides have brought them business plans), then brings in entrepreneurs to run the businesses. The Samwer brothers give M.B.A. graduates and former banking traders often from companies like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey as much as $20 million in early-stage investment. They are then dispatched to distant places like Moscow and Jakarta, Indonesia, where American rivals have yet to establish a strong foothold. Along with borrowing ideas from some of the worlds largest and most established e-commerce Internet companies, the companys entrepreneurs also have emulated younger businesses like Square, the mobile-payments company founded by Jack Dorsey, the chairman of Twitter.The pressure is intense on the start-up managers, who are usually paid a salary and do not receive a major stake in the company they operate.Several current and former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to harm their future career opportunities, remember high-pressured arguments when financial targets were not met and late-night calls from senior managers ordering them back to the office.But Ralf Wenzel and his company are evidence that the method works.As the co-founder of FoodPanda, an online takeout delivery service for restaurants that mirrors the popular American company GrubHub, Mr. Wenzel juggles a 650-person team spread across more than 40 countries.Large flat-screen televisions throughout the open-plan office keep the staff of FoodPanda, which was founded in 2012 and has raised almost $50 million in venture capital, on top of food deliveries ranging from sushi orders in Moscow to takeout burgers in Hanoi, Vietnam.Were a global, not European, company, said Mr. Wenzel, 35, who spends roughly 80 percent of his time traveling between the companys international offices. Getting to these new markets quickly gives us a huge competitive advantage. | Tech |
Von Miller Wrastlin' Gators!! 1/26/2018 Here's Denver Broncos MVP Von Miller scaring the hell outta John Elway ... sitting on top of a living, breathing ALLIGATOR! Miller is in Orlando, Florida for the Pro Bowl and decided to use some of his free time to visit Gatorland --the self-proclaimed, "Alligator Capital of the World." The 28-year-old got the VIP gator treatment -- with park officials allowing him to "wrestle" a gator ... which means he got to climb on top of the animal while its jaws were taped shut. Gator Fun Fact -- alligators can bite down with an insane amount of force (300 pounds per square inch) ... but barely have any muscle power to OPEN their mouths. Crazy, right?! Still, Von is in the middle of a $114 MILLION contract ... would you let him get this close to an alligator?! | Entertainment |
Credit...Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesJune 18, 2018WASHINGTON As President Trump tries to tilt global trade in the United States favor, he is increasingly putting his finger on the scale to help once-iconic industries that are declining as a share of the American economy, at the expense of some of the countrys fastest-growing sectors.The presidents attempts to boost domestic steel manufacturing and coal mining have come largely through policies that limit foreign competition, like tariffs, and proposals to prevent coal-fired power plants from closing. Those efforts have produced only modest job gains so far in two blue-collar sectors that Mr. Trump championed in his run to the White House. But they have injected uncertainty into a host of other growing industries such as advanced manufacturing, natural gas production and renewable energy generation that have helped drive American job creation since the Great Recession.On Friday, the Trump administration escalated its trade conflict with China, announcing $50 billion in tariffs on goods from Chinese industries that the Beijing government has targeted for its next wave of economic development. The administration has not articulated a strategy similar to Chinas, and experts have warned that the tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs China has threatened to impose will end up hurting Americas own growth industries.By crafting an industrial policy that largely looks to the past, Mr. Trump differs from his predecessors, who often attempted to hasten the emergence of new industries and position the United States to lead the way.On energy, both the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations enacted tax breaks and federal loan guarantees for emerging technologies like wind power or electric cars that were not initially competitive but, they believed, would eventually become widespread as the world shifted toward cleaner energy.Mr. Obama convened a task force on advanced manufacturing and steered federal money toward research hubs, which supported the development of robotics and biofabrication, among other technologies.Mr. Trumps approach, by contrast, has largely focused on saving legacy sectors whose workforces have been hurt by globalization, automation and innovation.The president has long been enamored with coal, steel and other blue-collar industries, promising to revitalize them on the campaign trail and, once in office, using them as a proxy for the working-class voters who powered his election. The people that like me best are those people, the workers, he told a rally in Missouri last year. Theyre the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.ImageCredit...Christopher Smith for The New York TimesBut while the approach has helped Mr. Trump remain popular with many working-class white voters, it has done little to help those populations prepare for changes that could further decimate their professions.Coal is not coming back, said Joshua D. Rhodes, a research fellow at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. Further subsidies right now will only prevent workers from being retrained or building careers elsewhere which will make things even more painful when the bottom finally does drop out.In the latest such move, Mr. Trump asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry on June 1 to prepare immediate steps to halt the closing of unprofitable coal and nuclear plants. While administration officials are still debating how they might do so, any plan to rescue these power plants would probably entail dramatic government intervention in Americas energy markets and come at the expense of newer, cheaper power sources like natural gas or wind.A decade ago, coal provided nearly half of Americas electricity. That share has since plummeted to less than one-third, as coal has been driven out of the market by stricter pollution regulations and a glut of cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing. Wind and solar power, while starting from a small base, have grown at double-digit rates each year as the technology improves and costs drop.The jobs have followed: The number of American coal miners has fallen from more than 80,000 in 2008 to about 53,000 today. The solar industry alone now employs twice as many people as the coal industry does. Solar installers, wind technicians and oil and gas drill operators are all expected to be among the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Ten years ago, the joke among industry players was that renewables were the energy source of the future and always would be, said Andy Karsner, a former assistant secretary of energy in the George W. Bush administration. Problem is, that future has arrived, and coal is now the energy source of the past and always will be.Manufacturing jobs have fared better under Mr. Trump but remain at a historic low as a share of the economy. Fewer than 9 percent of American jobs today are in factories. While primary metals manufacturers in the United States including steel and aluminum mills have added 11,000 jobs since Mr. Trump took office, according to the Labor Department, total employment in the industry remains under 400,000 jobs nationwide, down from nearly 700,000 jobs 15 years ago.Mr. Trumps approach to saving manufacturing has been to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from places like China, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Europe. The tariffs, he says, will stop cheap foreign metals from coming into the country and make American manufacturers more competitive. Those tariffs have helped domestic steel mills but hurt other manufacturers that depend on steel inputs, such as door frame manufactures and automakers. They also favor certain companies depending on where they get their foreign steel.Some of Mr. Trumps tariffs have also set off retaliation from trading partners, who are hitting American goods with tariffs of their own on food, steel and other products that domestic manufacturers export overseas. And Mr. Trumps threat to impose tariffs on $350 billion worth of foreign autos and auto parts could wind up hurting the domestic auto industry, which gets its parts from abroad. It could also result in higher car prices for American consumers.ImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesMr. Trumps economic advisers insist that Mr. Trumps bold trade stance is boosting growth in the United States, alongside a more broad-based economic agenda that includes cutting taxes and reducing federal regulation of business.Were pushing through 3 percent growth, Larry Kudlow, the chairman of the National Economic Council, said in a recent briefing with reporters. Some said it couldnt be done. It is being done, and were proud of it. And I think President Trumps policies of lower taxes and major regulatory rollback are a key part of this issue.But many economists who favor industrial policy efforts and have long argued for more aggressive trade policies to protect American workers say Mr. Trumps unpredictable approach has hurt the blue-collar workers he is trying to protect.The trade policies have been so erratic and inconsistently messaged that they are not a part of a broader strategic plan for the economy, said Thea Lee, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute and a trade specialist. Even to the extent that there is some playing favorites, singling out workers in different sectors, thats problematic, because its dividing. What workers need are policies that will be empowering, that will lift them up across sectors and not divide them.Free-market conservatives, who frequently criticized President Obamas efforts to pick winners and losers and favor emerging technologies like wind and solar, have found even less to like in Mr. Trumps efforts to rescue aging power plants in danger of going under.From an economic standpoint, this is one of the worst things you can do, Nicolas Loris, a research fellow in energy and environmental policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said, referring to Mr. Trumps proposal to help ailing coal plants. It would keep a whole bunch of uncompetitive resources in place and choke off alternative investment strategies because those resources arent allowed to die off.To date, Mr. Trump has struggled to fulfill his promise of reviving the coal industry. While he has relaxed pollution rules on power plants and has overseen a small uptick of about 3,000 new coal-mining jobs, the long-term trend for the industry remains bleak: At least 40 more coal plants have announced they will close or reduce capacity by 2025, and others may soon follow.Now, the administration is considering more drastic action: In one proposal discussed in a leaked internal memo, the Department of Energy would order grid operators to buy power from a designated list of coal and nuclear plants, using emergency powers normally reserved for short-term crises like hurricanes.To make its case, the administration has contended that these ailing plants are necessary for the stability of the nations electric grid, although both outside experts and grid operators themselves sharply disagree that there is a grid emergency.The oil and gas industry, which has normally cheered the administrations efforts to expand drilling, has joined forces with the wind and solar industries to oppose Mr. Trumps grid proposal, calling it unprecedented and misguided. | Politics |
Psychologists say anxiety and uncertainty prompt irrational decisions like turning down a transplant when an organ becomes available.Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York TimesPublished May 25, 2020Updated May 29, 2020It was the call Lance Hansen, gravely ill with liver disease, had been waiting weeks for, and it came just before midnight in late April. A liver was available for him. He got up to get dressed for the three-hour drive to San Francisco for the transplant surgery.And then he panicked.Within five minutes after hanging up, he started hyperventilating, his wife, Carmen, said. He kept saying: Im going to get Covid, and then Im going to die. And if I die, I want my family there. I couldnt believe what I was hearing.She promised she would wait outside the hospital, as patients families were barred from entering. She warned that he might not get another chance at a new liver before it was too late. She told him he could die if he didnt go. Still, Mr. Hansen, 59, refused.In a world seeded with anxiety, fear is gripping not just people who are ill with the coronavirus but those in urgent need of other medical care. Even as the number of Covid-19 cases declines in many places, patients with cancer, heart disease and strokes, among others, are delaying or forgoing critical procedures that could keep them alive. And as the virus reignites in pockets of the country, people are ignoring symptoms altogether, afraid to set foot in emergency rooms or even doctors offices.Under orders from their states, many hospitals canceled elective surgeries like hip replacements as Covid-19 cases soared. Now most are gradually allowing the resumption of elective surgeries. But for these, as well as for more time-sensitive procedures like cardiac catheterizations, cancer surgery and blood tests or CT scans to monitor serious chronic conditions, doctors now find themselves spending hours on the phone trying to coax terrified patients to come in.In a review of its claim and pre-authorization data for seven acute conditions, including heart attacks, appendicitis and aortic aneurysms, the insurance company Cigna Corporation found declines ranging from 11 percent for acute coronary syndromes to 35 percent for atrial fibrillation in the rate of hospitalizations over a recent two-month period. In a study published Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, Kaiser Permanente reported a drop of nearly 50 percent in heart attack admissions in its Northern California hospitals.At the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y., emergency room visits dropped by 50 percent, and many of the patients who do come have waited too long to seek treatment. They are presenting late with strokes and heart attacks, said Dr. Michael Apostolakos, the systems chief medical officer. Or theyre not showing up until they can barely breathe from heart failure.In Newark, emergency medical services teams made 239 on-scene death pronouncements in April, a fourfold increase from April 2019. Fewer than half of those additional deaths could be attributed directly to Covid-19, said Dr. Shereef Elnahal, president and chief executive of Newarks University Hospital.Declining crucial, potentially lifesaving treatment might seem irrational. Mental health experts explain that anxiety affects the part of the brain involved in thinking and planning for the future. It arises when that part, the prefrontal cortex, doesnt have enough information to accurately predict what lies ahead, causing the brain to spin scenarios of dread.Enter panic.If you have anxiety and then you exacerbate that by watching the news and reading social media, thats where you get panicked, said Dr. Jud Brewer, a psychiatrist and behavioral neuroscientist at Brown University. And the rational, thinking parts of the brain stop functioning well when were panicked.Panic, in turn, can lead to impulsive behavior and dangerous decisions, Dr. Brewer and others said.People are saying: So Im having a heart attack. Im going to stay home. Im not going to die in that hospital, said Dr. Marlene Millen, a primary care physician at the University of California, San Diego. Ive actually heard that a few times.Dr. Suzanne George, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, has patients on oral chemotherapy regimens who refuse to come in for lab work. Cancer patients on chemotherapy are at particularly high risk of becoming severely ill if they contract the coronavirus.They dont want to leave their house so we can take tests to ensure that theyre receiving their chemotherapy safely, Dr. George said, adding that blood tests are crucial for early detection of potentially severe side effects.Dr. George said the fear she was seeing a few weeks ago had abated slightly. Still, she said, we will all need to come together to help people feel safe.Most hospitals and outpatient clinics have made changes designed to keep patients and staff members safe. Many are testing patients and certain workers. In many hospitals, Covid-19 patients are kept in separate units. Masks are usually mandated for both patients and clinicians. Cleaning protocols have been turbocharged. As a result, experts say, the risk of acquiring Covid-19 when going into a hospital is very low.But one of the common safety measures banning visitors, even close family members is a huge reason for patients fear and apprehension.The hospital was an ominous, nerve-racking and scary place for patients even before Covid, said Dr. Lisa VanWagner, a transplant hepatologist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. Now you take a stressful situation like a pandemic and you tell people that they cannot have their normal support system while theyre in the hospital, and that really magnifies those fears.Transplant specialists around the country describe patients like Mr. Hansen, 59, who turn down organs because they are worried about being exposed to Covid-19 patients or because they cannot have a close relative or friend with them in the hospital.David Rivera, 54, who has liver cancer, declined a liver in late March at Northwestern. In an interview, he said he feared the deceased donor could be infected with the virus.ImageCredit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesDr. VanWagner, who is on the transplant team at Northwestern, said Mr. Rivera had turned down the liver despite being told the donor had tested negative for Covid-19. Still, the hospital could not guarantee that the liver was free of the coronavirus, though Dr. VanWagner and others said the chances that a liver donor who had tested negative would transmit the virus to a recipient were exceedingly low.Dr. VanWagner said Mr. Rivera needed a transplant before his cancer could progress. His window is closing, she said. You can only go so long before you run out of chances.Mr. Hansen said he now regretted the decision he made last month and would accept the next liver that became available.I just freaked out, Mr. Hansen said by phone recently, his voice weak and faint. I should have gone, but I just freaked out.Health system administrators are redoubling their efforts to convince patients that its safe to come into hospitals and outpatient clinics, even as testing for hospital personnel and patients remains spotty.Our goal is to spend almost all our marketing dollars over the next year around the safety of our institution, said Dr. Stephen Klasko, chief executive of Jefferson Health, a 14-hospital system based in Philadelphia.Some doctors are helping patients with chronic illnesses rethink aspects of their care.For the past 21 years, Rob Russo, 45, has been living with a rare type of gastrointestinal cancer that has spread to his liver. For years, he made regular trips from his home in Queens to Dana-Farber in Boston. When the pandemic hit, Mr. Russos oncologist helped him transfer much of his care to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York.At the end of April, Mr. Russo needed a procedure at Weill Cornell to unclog a stent that was keeping his biliary duct open. Before the procedure, Mr. Russos mind churned with scenarios: The place was teeming with the virus. What if someone with asymptomatic coronavirus infected him, and he needed to be hospitalized? And what if that meant never seeing his wife again?She could drop me off, and its the last time wed see each other, he said.Like others interviewed for this story, Mr. Russo found that once he had arrived at the hospital, he felt safe. Multiple safety precautions were taken. The procedure went well. But before the procedure, he was tested for the coronavirus. The test came back positive. Now hes quarantined on a separate floor in his house.Mary Anne Oldford, 72, who has an advanced form of sarcoma, a rare cancer, runs an online support group called the Sarcoma Sunflower Brigade. Members make a point of not bringing up Covid-19, but when Ms. Oldford asked them recently to weigh in on their anxiety related to the coronavirus, she got responses that illustrated various shades of sheer terror. One woman told the group that every time she has to go in for a scan, or blood work, I have a borderline meltdown.Ms. Oldford, who herself has been terrified to go for blood tests, came up with a solution for herself. She found a clinic that agreed to do her blood draws at home.She advises others in the support group to push for effective alternatives. If youre afraid and youre frozen, you have to somehow reach out and just say, Please help me figure out how to do this so that Im not so scared, she said.Bill Sieber, a psychologist at U.C.S.D., said the key for fearful patients was to develop a semblance of control over their predicament. Control is key, Dr. Sieber said. If you cant control the fact that your spouse cant come into the recovery room, ask what you can control.Dr. Sieber also recommended working through episodes of panic with breathing. We can control our breathing in a major way, he said. Breathing signals the brain to calm down. One step he suggested was taking one extra second to prolong an exhalation.Controlled breathing helped Megan Jennings. Ms. Jennings, 36, who lives near Seattle, was determined to save the life of her 7-year-old niece, who has a congenital liver disease, by donating a portion of her own liver.It was a fraught decision not just for Ms. Jennings but also for the University of Washington transplant team.ImageCredit...via Megan JenningsThis child was getting sicker, and we had to make a decision whether we would move forward with bringing a live donor into our hospital, which had a lot of Covid at what turned out to be the peak of our surge, said Dr. Scott Biggins, chief of hepatology at UW Medicine.Ms. Jennings used a variety of breathing techniques to overcome a standing fear of hospitals and surgery, now compounded by a dread of the coronavirus.Being able to slow my breathing, feeling my body, and ground myself, staying mindful of what was happening around me, helped me stop my brain from rattling off craziness, Ms. Jennings said. The surgery lasted seven hours.After a five-day hospital stay, with no visitors, she was finally discharged. But a few days after she returned home, her wound became infected, and she had no choice but to return to the hospital to have the incision reopened and cleaned. The doctors in the emergency room recommended that she spend the night in the hospital, but there was a limit to how much anxiety she could tolerate. She insisted that she be shown how to care for the wound at home.There was no way I was going to be admitted, she said, and she left the hospital at 3:30 a.m.Sleep-deprived and foggy from a painkiller, she slept for two hours in her car. Then she drove herself home. | Health |
Science|Dark Wall Stains May Signal Indoor Pollutionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/science/dark-wall-stains-may-signal-indoor-pollution.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 14, 2016Q. What could be causing black stains on the walls above each segment of our radiators? Could the heating fuel be leaking from the radiators into the air we breathe?A. The stains are coming from the air, not the radiators, and while the furnace and the chimney should be checked, there are other possible sources besides heating fuel for the black material.Such stains, called ghosting by building engineers, are caused by deposits of soot, dust or ordinary dirt carried by the air and then deposited on the walls or ceilings.The pattern of the deposits depends on factors like air currents, gravity, electrostatic attraction and temperature and humidity differences. For example, the reason the stains mirror the radiator segments is probably that the wall temperature varies with the shape of the radiator.One of the most common sources of soot is partly burned carbon fuel, but soot could come from cooking fumes, cigarettes and fireplaces as well as the furnace. A surprisingly big source of the carbon that causes ghosting stains is perfumed room candles, a 2001 review of previous studies found.As for health risks, they are related to the size of the particles; the smaller the particles, the higher the risk, the Environmental Protection Agency says.The visible soot can be a signal of the presence of the more dangerous microscopic particles, less than 10 micrometers in diameter, that can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause heart and respiratory illnesses. [email protected] | science |
Tech FixThe tiny tags are typically used to find valuables like house keys, but they are far more versatile than that.Credit...Glenn HarveyMay 1, 2019This week, Im asking readers to engage in an admittedly odd exercise: to use our imaginations with Bluetooth trackers.Sounds weird, right?Bluetooth trackers are those tiny tags that help you find lost items. They attach to your house keys or wallet so that if those things are misplaced, you open a smartphone app and tap a button to make the tracker play an alarm. That sound lets you find the item more easily.But thats not all these trackers can do. You can squeeze a lot more value out of the tags by thinking beyond the items that live in your pockets. I engaged in this exercise over the past two weeks. Bluetooth trackers, which are generally priced between $10 and $35, come in many shapes and sizes from dozens of brands, including Tile, Chipolo and Adero. I tested Tile, the Bluetooth tracker recommended by Wirecutter, a New York Times company that reviews products, in various focal points of my life: the car, my luggage, the living room and even my dog. It turned out the tags were useful in far more situations than lost items. Who would have guessed that trackers would make retrieving my checked luggage at the airport slightly less miserable, or help an absent-minded driver find his car? More on these below.Theres a bigger point to this exercise, of course. Many tech gizmos seem to be designed for one specific use. But with a little thought and inspiration, they can be helpful in more situations. Try it!Searching for my Apple TV remoteAnybody who owns an Apple TV is familiar with its frustratingly slim remote control. While thin and elegant, the remote control vanishes between couch cushions on a regular basis. I have misplaced two Apple TV remotes and still havent found them they are probably living somewhere deep in the crevices of my couch.So when I bought my third remote, I also purchased an Apple remote loop, which is basically a bracelet that you plug into the remote controls power port. Then I tied a Tile tracker to the loop.This was an absolute successWhenever I lose the remote, I now open the Tile app on my phone and press a button to make the tracker play a sound. Then I know exactly where to look. The only downside is that with a tracker tied to it, the Apple TV remote is bulkier and somewhat reminiscent of a bathroom key at a gas station.Finding my travel luggageThe most annoying part about checking your luggage is waiting for it to arrive at baggage claim. The second most annoying part is searching for your bag amid dozens of others that look just like it. So when I traveled recently, I slipped a Tile into my luggage tag to see if it would make my bag easier to find.This was usefulWhen my luggage finally showed up, the Tile app on my phone showed that the tracker was nearby. I pressed a button to play an alarm from the Tile; it was just loud enough for me to spot my luggage as it arrived.Finding my carIn a crowded parking lot, my silver Toyota Prius is unremarkable and can be difficult to find. So when I parked in a large lot recently, I stuck a tracker into the glove compartment.It worked (though there are better ways to find a car)When walking through the parking lot, I opened the Tile app, which showed the last known location of the tracker on a map. I followed the map, and as I got closer to the location that it indicated, the app signaled the tracker was nearby.This was helpful, but there are probably better methods for keeping track of where you parked. Some mapping apps, like Google Maps, can automatically detect where you parked and make a note of it on a map. But since I often drive without using a maps app, leaving a tracker in my glove compartment was a decent backup solution.Tracking my dogPlenty of pet owners are paranoid about their dogs or cats running away. I was curious to see how effective a Bluetooth tracker would be at tracking down a fast-moving animal. I recently attached a Tile to the collar of my Labrador retriever, Mochi, and asked my fiance to take the dog somewhere so I could try finding her.Ahem, this wasnt greatI opened the Tile app, selected the tracker attached to Mochi and tapped notify when found. Then I received an alert indicating that Mochi was last seen a few miles away in a dog park on the side of a mountain. Heres how that worked: My Tile is part of a network of Tile users. That means when other people with the Tile app get within range of the tracker on Mochi, their app automatically lets Tile know the location. That information is then forwarded to my Tile app. That may sound like a privacy disaster, but Tile said the network was anonymized, meaning others dont actually see my Tiles and I dont see theirs; this is all running in the background of peoples Tile apps. With Mochi, another Tile user was probably near her, so my Tile app informed me of where my tracker was last seen.The problem was that Mochis last known location remained static on the map, probably because she did not pass by more Tile users. I went to the indicated location in the dog park, but she was nowhere in sight. (It is a big dog park.) Luckily, I eventually ran into Mochi there. But if this were a loose animal with true intentions of running away, lacking a real-time update on the trackers location would make it very difficult to find the pet.Representatives of Tile noted that the device was not designed for tracking pets in real time. There are pet products made for this purpose, like trackers that rely on GPS to pull a signal from a satellite and provide a precise, up-to-date location. Those tend to be expensive.One final note: These situations were pertinent to my life, but there are plenty of other applications for these trackers for people with different lifestyles. Busy parents may benefit from adding trackers to the jackets of their young children, for example. People with medical conditions may want to attach trackers to devices they need to find quickly, like inhalers. In other words, with a little bit of inventiveness, the things that are truly important to you wont become lost. | Tech |
Jesse Williams' Ex He Introduced Kids to His New GF ... Started Cupcake War, Too!! 1/24/2018 Jesse Williams' estranged wife has several new beefs with him -- the biggest being introducing the kids to his new girlfriend, and showing a complete lack of cupcake etiquette ... according to new legal docs. First, the gf issues. Aryn Drake-Lee says the "Grey's Anatomy" star has been taking their 2 kids to his new chick's house since October -- and the kids even call her "Mama C." She also claims he took them on a mini-vacay to Big Bear Mtn. with the unnamed gf. Aryn says this is a clear violation of the custody agreement which requires both of them to wait 6 months into a new relationship before introducing the children. According to the docs, obtained by TMZ, Jesse also broke a golden rule at their daughter's school last month. Aryn says Jesse brought cupcakes to celebrate 4-year-old Sadie's birthday -- a big no-no because the school picks one day each month to celebrate all students' bdays together. She claims Jesse also screwed her with Sadie. In the docs, Aryn says Sadie tearfully said "she was mad at me for not attending her birthday party" at school. She says there are other issues ... mostly caused by Jesse's erratic schedule, and lack of notice before he picks up the kids. Aryn's asking the judge to set a more rigid and consistent schedule for his visits. A source close to the former couple claims Aryn is making up lies because she's obsessed with being seen as a victim, and she can't do that if people see Jesse as the fun, caring, good person he is. | Entertainment |
VideotranscripttranscriptKilling Khashoggi: How a Brutal Saudi Hit Job UnfoldedAn autopsy expert. A lookalike. A black van. Our video investigation follows the movements of the 15-man Saudi hit team that killed and dismembered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.There were 15 of them. Most arrived in the dead of night, laid their trap and waited for the target to arrive. That target was Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi critic of his countrys government and its young crown prince. Since his killing in Istanbul, Turkish media has released a steady drip feed of evidence implicating Saudi officials. Weeks of investigation by The Times builds on that evidence and reconstructs what unfolded, hour-by-hour. Our timeline shows the ruthless efficiency of a hit team of experts that seemed specially chosen from Saudi government ministries. Some had links to the crown prince himself. After a series of shifting explanations, Saudi Arabia now denies that this brazen hit job was premeditated. But this reconstruction of the killing, and the botched cover-up, calls their story into serious question. Its Friday morning, Sept. 28. Khashoggi and his fiance, Hatice Cengiz, are at the local marriage office in Istanbul. In order to marry, hes told that he needs Saudi paperwork and goes straight to the consulate to arrange it. They tell him to return in a week. It all seems routine, but its not. Inside theres a Saudi spy, Ahmed al-Muzaini, whos working under diplomatic cover. That very day, he flies off to Riyadh and helps concoct a plan to intercept Khashoggi when he returns to the consulate. Fast-forward to Monday night into Tuesday morning. Saudi agents converge in Istanbul aboard separate flights. Muzaini, the spy, flies back from Riyadh. A commercial flight carries a three-man team that we believe flew from Cairo. Two of the men are security officers and theyve previously traveled with the crown prince. A private jet flying from Riyadh lands around 3:30 a.m. That plane is often used by the Saudi government, and its carrying nine Saudi officials, some who played key roles in Khashoggis death. Well get to Team 3 later on, and for now focus on these men from Team 2. This is Salah al-Tubaigy, a high-ranking forensics and autopsy expert in the Saudi interior ministry. Turkish officials will later say his role was to dismember Khashoggis body. Another is Mustafa al-Madani, a 57-year-old engineer. As well see, its no accident that he looks like Khashoggi. And this is Maher Mutreb, the leader of the operation. Our investigation into his past reveals a direct link between Mutreb and the Saudi crown prince. When bin Salman toured a Houston neighborhood earlier this year, we discovered that Mutreb was with him, a glowering figure in the background. We found him again in Boston, at a U.N. meeting in New York, in Madrid and Paris, too. This global tour was all part of a charm offensive by the prince to paint himself as a moderate reformer. Back then, Mutreb was in the royal guard. Now, he would orchestrate Khashoggis killing. And his close ties to the crown prince beg the question, just how high up the Saudi chain of command did the plot to kill go? Early Tuesday morning, Khashoggi flies back from a weekend trip to London. He and the Saudis nearly cross paths at the airport. The Saudi teams check into two hotels, which give quick access to the consulate. Khashoggi heads home with his fiance. Hed just bought an apartment for their new life together. By mid-morning, the Saudis are on the move. Mutreb leaves his hotel three hours before Khashoggi is due at the consulate. The rest of the team isnt far behind. The building is only a few minutes away on foot, and soon, theyre spotted at this entrance. Mutreb arrives first. Next, we see al-Tubaigy, the autopsy expert. And now al-Madani, the lookalike. The stage is almost set. A diplomatic car pulls out of the consulate driveway and switches places with a van, which backs in. Turkish officials say this van would eventually carry away Khashoggis remains. From above, we can see the driveway is covered, hiding any activity around the van from public view. Meanwhile, Khashoggi and his fiance set out for the consulate, walking hand-in-hand. In their final hour together, they chat about dinner plans and new furniture for their home. At 1:13 p.m., they arrive at the consulate. Khashoggi gives her his cellphones before he enters. He walks into the consulate. Its the last time we see him. Inside, Khashoggi is brought to the consul generals office on the second floor. The hit team is waiting in a nearby room. Sources briefed on the evidence, told us Khashoggi quickly comes under attack. Hes dragged to another room and is killed within minutes. Then al-Tubaigy, the autopsy expert, dismembers his body while listening to music. Maher Mutreb makes a phone call to a superior. He says, Tell your boss, and The deed was done. Outside, the van reportedly carrying Khashoggis body pulls out of the side entrance and drives away. At the same time, the Saudis begin trying to cover their tracks. While Khashoggis fiance waits here where she left him, two figures leave from the opposite side. One of them is wearing his clothes. Later, the Saudis would claim that this was Khashoggi. But its al-Madani, the engineer, now a body double pretending that the missing journalist left the consulate alive. Yet theres one glaring flaw: The clothes are the same, but hes wearing his own sneakers, the ones he walked in with. Meanwhile, the van thats allegedly carrying Khashoggis body makes the two-minute drive from the consulate to the Saudi consuls residence. Theres several minutes of deliberations but the van eventually pulls into the buildings driveway. Again, its hidden from public view. Its now three hours since Khashoggi was last seen. The body double hails this taxi and continues weaving a false trail through the city. He heads to a popular tourist area and then changes back into his own clothes. Later, we see him joking around in surveillance footage. Over at the airport, more Saudi officials arrive on another flight from Riyadh. They spend just five hours in Istanbul, but were not sure where they go. Now we pick up Maher Mutreb again, exiting from the consuls house. Its time for them to go. Mutreb and others check out of their hotel and move through airport security. Al-Muzaini, the spy, heads to the airport too. But as theyre leaving Istanbul, Khashoggis fiance is still outside the consulate, pacing in circles. Shell soon raise the alarm that Khashoggi is missing and shell wait for him until midnight. The alarm spreads around the world. Nine days later, the Saudis send another team to Istanbul. They say its to investigate what happened. But among them are a toxicologist and a chemist, who also has ties to the hit team. He and Tubaigy attended a forensics graduation days before Khashoggi was killed. Turkish officials later say that this teams mission was not to investigate, but to cover up the killing. Now the Saudi story has changed, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for several suspects in Khashoggis killing. But that doesnt include Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who many Western government officials are convinced authorized the killing. Khashoggis remains still havent been found.An autopsy expert. A lookalike. A black van. Our video investigation follows the movements of the 15-man Saudi hit team that killed and dismembered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Nov. 15, 2018BEIRUT, Lebanon Saudi Arabia threatened five of its agents with the death penalty on Thursday for killing the dissident Jamal Khashoggi, as the kingdom changed its story, again, about how the crime was committed and continued to try to distance its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, from any responsibility.Announcing an update on the kingdoms own investigation, the public prosecutor portrayed the killing of Mr. Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as an improvised decision taken at the last minute by a team that had been dispatched there with orders to retrieve him.While the prosecutors report did not name any of the suspects, the leader of the team that confronted Mr. Khashoggi at the consulate was Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, a frequent companion of Prince Mohammed, who often traveled with him abroad, according to a Saudi official familiar with the investigation.Thursdays explanation closely echoed a previous Saudi account portraying the killing as a rendition gone wrong that President Trump had derided as one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.But the Saudis acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that the team sent to meet Mr. Khashoggi in Istanbul had not only ambushed and killed him in their consulate but had also dismembered his body as Turkish officials have maintained for weeks.Speaking to reporters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, a spokesman for the public prosecutor said the order to kill Mr. Khashoggi had been taken by only a single intelligence agent on the scene in Istanbul, without authorization from superiors in Riyadh, and that it was accomplished with a deadly dose of a tranquilizer not by strangulation, as the kingdom had previously said.The mutilation of the body, the prosecutor said, was a spur-of-the-moment decision to get the body out of the consulate.In addition to the five threatened with execution, by beheading, six others have been charged with crimes related to the killing. The prosecutors office said none of the accused could be identified while the investigation goes on.The announcement on Thursday filled in none of the many remaining gaps in the accounting of the killing and offered almost nothing to shake the conclusions of United States intelligence agencies and many Western officials that Prince Mohammed had to have authorized the assassination.These gaps, and the Saudis insistence that the killing was an improvisation, present a dilemma for the Trump administration, which has embraced the crown prince as the central figure in its plans for the region and has stood by him in the face of mounting outrage over Mr. Khashoggis killing.Just hours after the Saudi announcement on Thursday, the Trump administration said it was slapping sanctions for human rights violations on 17 Saudis who were involved in the killing, including a top adviser and several security agents with close ties to the crown prince himself.[Read more about the close ties some of those charged in the killing have with Crown Prince Mohammed.]Many questions remained on Thursday. Saudi prosecutors said the team included a criminal evidence specialist to clean up the scene if necessary. However, publicly available information about that agent portrays him as a medical doctor specializing in autopsies, and the Turks have said he arrived in Istanbul with a bone saw.ImageCredit...Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesNor did the Saudi investigation disclose the name or contact information of a supposed local collaborator who prosecutors said disposed of Mr. Khashoggis remains in a still unknown location. The prosecutors said they interviewed the accused agents to produce a sketch of the collaborator, which they said they would share with the Turks.Mr. Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist, disappeared inside the consulate on Oct. 2, and Saudi Arabia maintained afterward that he had left unharmed. When the kingdom later acknowledged that he had died inside, it first claimed he had been strangled by accident in a fight with its agents an account that convinced almost no one.The kingdom finally acknowledged three weeks ago that evidence provided by Turkey had indicated a planned assassination, and the Trump administration welcomed the admission as a sign of progress toward accountability. The Saudis have acknowledged that this was a premeditated attack, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News on Nov. 4.Now, the kingdom is hedging on that acknowledgment of premeditation, with the prosecutor indicating the killing of Mr. Khashoggi was planned, at most, within a few hours before it took place.Turkey has applied pressure on the kingdom to reveal who ordered the killing and has implied the plan must have been approved by Prince Mohammed. This week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey expressed frustration that the prince was failing to follow through on his promise to expose the truth about the disappearance and death of Mr. Khashoggi.On Thursday, Turkey quickly dismissed the Saudis new explanation, with the countrys foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, declaring it unsatisfying.The dismembering of the body is not an instant decision, Mr. Cavusoglu said, according to news reports. They brought the necessary people and tools to kill him and dismember the body in advance.The American sanctions targeted 17 people for their connections to the killing, including Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to the crown prince; Mr. Mutreb, the intelligence agent who has often traveled abroad as part of the crown princes security detail; and Salah Tubaigy, the autopsy specialist who Turkish officials say dismembered Mr. Khashoggi after he was killed.The public prosecutor said that Mr. Qahtani, a powerful aide to Prince Mohammed who has directed vast social media campaigns against the kingdoms enemies, met with some of the agents before they flew to Turkey. The purpose, the prosecutor added, was to give them some useful information related to his belief that the victim had been co-opted by organizations and countries hostile to the kingdom and that his presence abroad constituted a danger to the security of the homeland.Thursdays sanctions were the harshest responses yet by the United States to Mr. Khashoggis killing, but the death has also energized Congress. A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced legislation that would block weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and impose further sanctions on individuals involved in the killing and aspects of the Saudi-led war in Yemen.The United States did not sanction the most senior Saudi official implicated in its internal investigation, the deputy head of Saudi intelligence, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri. Prosecutors said that in the days before the killing he had ordered an operation to return Mr. Khashoggi to the kingdom, by convincing him or by force.A team of 15 operatives was assembled, with five of them charged with confronting Mr. Khashoggi, the prosecutors announcement said. Heading the group was Mr. Mutreb, who knew Mr. Khashoggi from their time working together at the Saudi Embassy in London.Mr. Khashoggi came to the consulate to get the paperwork he needed to marry his Turkish fiance. An argument broke out with the Saudi agents, the prosecutors said, so Mr. Mutreb gave the order to kill Mr. Khashoggi.The agents bound Mr. Khashoggi and gave him a large dose of a tranquilizer, which killed him, the prosecutors said. The team then dismembered him and gave his remains to a local collaborator to dispose of before filing a false report to Riyadh stating that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate safely.ImageCredit...Sabah, via Associated PressIt was this false report, the prosecutor said, that accounted for the denials and changes in the Saudi story in the weeks following Mr. Khashoggis killing.Turkish officials have laid out a parallel narrative of how Mr. Khashoggi died, based on what they say is an audio recording of the killing captured inside the consulate. Turkish officials familiar with the recording have said Dr. Tubaigy moved quickly and methodically to dismember Mr. Khashoggis body with a bone saw, further suggesting premeditation.The audio recording, shared by the Turks with the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel, during her visit last month to Ankara, also appears to cast doubt on the Saudi assertion that Mr. Khashoggis killing had not been planned in advance and was not expected by top officials back in the kingdom.According to three people familiar with the recordings, Mr. Mutreb can be heard instructing a superior in Arabic over the phone to tell your boss that the mission was accomplished.United States intelligence officials believe the boss referred to by Mr. Mutreb is almost certainly Prince Mohammed, the people familiar with the recording said.But those people said that Prince Mohammeds name is not heard, so the belief that he was the boss was a matter of deduction. It is also possible that Mr. Mutreb may have incorrectly believed that Prince Mohammed ordered the killing.Saudi officials disputed that account of the audio recording, saying Turkey had provided a transcript of a recording and allowed Saudi intelligence services to listen to it. The officials said that the recordings heard by Saudi intelligence agents did not contain the phrase tell your boss.It is possible that the Turks may have shared their evidence selectively with other intelligence services, including the Saudis and Americans.Saudi officials remain insistent that Prince Mohammed did not know about the killing in advance.Absolutely, his royal highness the crown prince has nothing to do with this issue, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said at a news conference in Riyadh on Thursday.Sometimes mistakes happen, he added. Sometimes people exceed their authority.Thursdays statement from the Saudi prosecutor put the blame for the killing squarely on Mr. Mutreb and four other agents the Saudis say were in the room with him when Mr. Khashoggi was killed.In a statement carried by the state news service, the public prosecutor said he would seek the death penalty for those five men and that criminal charges had been filed against them and six others, while the investigation continued.If the death sentences of agents who had worked so closely with the crown prince are carried out, it would surely shock a kingdom where powerful princes often protect those they trust.The Saudi courts could take years to render a verdict and might ultimately reduce the sentences. As an absolute monarchy, Saudi prosecutors and judges all report to the king and his royal court, headed by Prince Mohammed.Scholars of Saudi Arabia said the capital punishment of five government agents could carry a high cost for Prince Mohammed. It would send a really bad message to his close allies and the people he has trained to carry out these operations: They are not safe if things go wrong and they are the ones to be blamed, said Madawi al-Rasheed, a professor at the London School of Economics.But if he does not kill them, how does he protect himself from the international outrage? Professor Rasheed added. It is a double bind. | World |
Researchers found that small sea creatures exist in equal number with pieces of plastic in parts of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which could have implications for cleaning up ocean pollution.Credit...Ben LecomtePublished May 6, 2022Updated May 8, 2022In 2019, the French swimmer Benoit Lecomte swam over 300 nautical miles through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to raise awareness about marine plastic pollution.As he swam, he was often surprised to find that he wasnt alone.Every time I saw plastic debris floating, there was life all around it, Mr. Lecomte said.The patch was less a garbage island than a garbage soup of plastic bottles, fishing nets, tires and toothbrushes. And floating at its surface were blue dragon nudibranchs, Portuguese man-o-wars, and other small surface-dwelling animals, which are collectively known as neuston.Scientists aboard the ship supporting Mr. Lecomtes swim systematically sampled the patchs surface waters. The team found that there were much higher concentrations of neuston within the patch than outside it. In some parts of the patch, there were nearly as many neuston as pieces of plastic.I had this hypothesis that gyres concentrate life and plastic in similar ways, but it was still really surprising to see just how much we found out there, said Rebecca Helm, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina and co-author of the study. The density was really staggering. To see them in that concentration was like, wow.The findings were posted last month on bioRxiv and have not yet been subjected to peer review. But if they hold up, Dr. Helm and other scientists say, it may complicate efforts by conservationists to remove the immense and ever-growing amount of plastic in the patch.The worlds oceans contain five gyres, large systems of circular currents powered by global wind patterns and forces created by Earths rotation. They act like enormous whirlpools, so anything floating within one will eventually be pulled into its center. For nearly a century, floating plastic waste has been pouring into the gyres, creating an assortment of garbage patches. The largest, the Great Pacific Patch, is halfway between Hawaii and California and contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic, according to the Ocean Cleanup Foundation. But garbage isnt the only thing these gyres are gathering.ImageCredit...Denis RieckImageCredit...Denis RieckImageCredit...Denis RieckImageCredit...Denis RieckDr. Helm and her colleagues pulled many individual creatures out of the sea with their nets: by-the-wind sailors, free-floating hydrozoans that travel on ocean breezes; blue buttons, quarter-sized cousins of the jellyfish; and violet sea-snails, which build rafts to stay afloat by trapping air bubbles in a soap-like mucus they secrete from a gland in their foot. They also found potential evidence that these creatures may be reproducing within the patch.I wasnt surprised, said Andre Boustany, a researcher with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. We know this place is an aggregation area for drifting plastics, so why would it not be an aggregation area for these drifting animals as well?Little is known about neuston, especially those found far from land in the heart of ocean gyres.They are very difficult to study because they occur in the open ocean and you cannot collect them unless you go on marine expeditions, which cost a lot of money, said Lanna Cheng, a research scientist at the University of California, San Diego.Because so little is known about the life history and ecology of these creatures, this study, though severely limited in size and scope, offers valuable insights to scientists.ImageCredit...Denis RieckImageCredit...Denis RieckImageCredit...Denis RieckImageCredit...Denis RieckBut Dr. Helm said there is another implication of the study: Organizations working to remove plastic waste from the patch may also need to consider what the study means for their efforts.There are two nonprofit organizations working to remove floating plastic from the Great Pacific Patch. The largest, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation in the Netherlands, developed a net specifically to collect and concentrate marine debris as it is pulled across the seas surface by winds and currents. Once the net is full, a ship takes its contents to land for proper disposal.Dr. Helm and other scientists warn that such nets threaten sea life, including neuston. Although adjustments to the nets design have been made to reduce bycatch, Dr. Helm believes any large-scale removal of plastic from the patch could pose a threat to its neuston inhabitants.When it comes to figuring out what to do about the plastic thats already in the ocean, I think we need to be really careful, she said. The results of her study really emphasize the need to study the open ocean before we try to manipulate it, modify it, clean it up or extract minerals from it.Laurent Lebreton, an oceanographer with the Ocean Cleanup Foundation, disagreed with Dr. Helm.Its too early to reach any conclusions on how we should react to that study, he said. You have to take into account the effects of plastic pollution on other species. We are collecting several tons of plastic every week with our system plastic that is affecting the environment.Plastic in the ocean poses a threat to marine life, killing more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals, according to UNESCO. Everything from fish to whales can become entangled, and animals often mistake it for food and end up starving to death with stomachs full of plastic.Ocean plastics that dont end up asphyxiating an albatross or entangling an elephant seal eventually break down into microplastics, which penetrate every branch of the food web and are nearly impossible to remove from the environment.One thing everyone agrees on is that we need to stop the flow of plastic into the ocean.We need to turn off the tap, Mr. Lecomte said. | science |
Rapper Fredo Santana Dead from Fatal Seizure 1/20/2018 Rapper Fredo Santana died Friday night from a seizure ... family members tell TMZ. The Chicago rapper who is a cousin of Chief Keef was at his L.A. home Friday. We're told his girlfriend came over at around 11:30 PM and found him dead on the floor. Santana had been hospitalized recently for liver and kidney problems he'd been battling for months. The rapper had talked openly about his lean addiction ... as we've reported way too many times, lean can trigger seizures. A number of rappers including Drake have gone on social media the last few hours to pay their respects. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. He had an 8-month old son. Fredo was 27. RIP. | Entertainment |
Credit...Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 14, 2018JERUSALEM As a youngster in the Soviet Union, he once won a playwriting prize. And as a politician in Israel, Avigdor Lieberman has shown a flair for the dramatic, time and again bursting onto the stage to snatch some coveted governmental perch, saying something once thought unspeakable, or making a noisy exit.He has resigned on principle more than once, always seeming to land in a better position than the one he quit.Mr. Liebermans departure as defense minister on Wednesday, in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus agreement to a cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, is not likely to follow that pattern.If he is lucky, his quitting to campaign in the coming elections as an angry member of the opposition, rather than as the defense minister who allowed hundreds of rockets to rain down on Israeli civilians, will give his faltering Yisrael Beiteinu party enough electoral oomph to pick up a few more seats in Parliament.ImageCredit...Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesIf not, it might spell the end of one of the more colorful careers in Israeli politics.Mr. Lieberman, 60, was born in Kishinev, now the capital of Moldova, and emigrated to Israel at 20. A onetime nightclub bouncer, he rose through the ranks to be a top leader of the right-wing Likud party and aide to Mr. Netanyahu before quitting, for the first time, in 1997 over a round of concessions to the Palestinians.He formed Yisrael Beiteinu Israel is our home as a party for Russian immigrants who favored a hard line in peace talks. He went on to hold, and then noisily quit, jobs as minister of transportation, minister of strategic affairs, deputy prime minister and foreign minister.A proto-nationalist before it came back into vogue, Mr. Lieberman appealed to his fellow migrs with heavily accented tough talk: toward Egypt (threatening to bomb the Aswan Dam), the Palestinian Authority (threatening to bomb its offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah), and imprisoned terrorists (to drown them in the Dead Sea). He hinted that he might want to execute Arab lawmakers as terror collaborators.One threat haunted him: Before becoming defense minister, he boasted that if he were given the job, he would give Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader, 48 hours to return captive Israeli civilians and the remains of two Israel soldiers, or you are dead.ImageCredit...Uriel Sinai/Getty ImagesMr. Haniya is still in his job.Mr. Lieberman was not unremittingly hawkish. For many years, he advocated a land swap that would exchange parts of Israel with high concentrations of Arabs for heavily Jewish-populated areas of the West Bank. He also said that he could support a two-state solution, and that he would even be willing to evacuate his own settlement on the West Bank if it were necessary to make peace.He could even be nuanced: He warned against allowing Israel to be turned into a theocracy, and supported a requirement for ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the military. But he did not seek to end governments role in religious affairs only to put more moderate rabbis in charge.On the unsavory side, Mr. Lieberman gained a reputation as a bully after he pleaded guilty to beating up a 12-year-old who had beaten up his son. And he struggled to live down persistent allegations of corruption, at one point quitting as foreign minister to stand trial on fraud and breach of trust charges. He was acquitted.Short of prime minister, the defense ministry was said to be his dream job.He took the post in 2016 at a tumultuous moment. Amid a wave of Palestinian knife attacks, Israeli generals had refused to give in to right-wing demands that soldiers shoot first and ask questions later.ImageCredit...Ilia Yefimovich/Getty ImagesAfter a soldier shot a wounded Palestinian assailant in cold blood, the sitting defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, a former army chief of staff, quickly called for the soldiers court-martial. As populist anger at the generals grew, Mr. Netanyahu wavered.Then, in a surprise move, Mr. Netanyahu, who had been negotiating to form a unity government with the liberal Zionist Union, instead replaced Mr. Yaalon with Mr. Lieberman, taking his governing coalition further to the right.Some expected Mr. Netanyahu to use Mr. Lieberman to rein in the top generals, said Amos Harel, the military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. But Mr. Lieberman, who had never risen past corporal, was quickly outfoxed by the generals. They proved far more adept at the inside game, saying yes to his directives but rarely following through on them, Mr. Harel said.They hugged him, they chewed him up, and they spat him out, he said. Hes almost a man who wasnt there.ImageCredit...Uriel Sinai for The New York TimesNow, with the generation of Russians who powered his rise dying off and their assimilated offspring speaking unaccented Hebrew and voting for other parties, his party is on the decline. It holds just six seats in Parliament, down from a high of 15 in 2009. Opinion polls have indicated that Yisrael Beiteinu might fail to earn enough votes in the next election to retain any seats.He hasnt found any ability to move beyond his Russian base, and his Russian base is shrinking, said Gadi Wolfsfeld, a political-science professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya.With Mr. Netanyahu aligned with the generals on Gaza wanting a cease-fire, not an escalation and repeatedly overruling him, Mr. Lieberman effectively found that he had been reduced to defense minister in name only.He objected to the recent decision to allow fuel into Gaza, and to allowing Qatar to send $15 million in cash to help pay civil servants salaries there.Finally, he opposed the cease-fire with Hamas, arguing that it would undermine Israels deterrence and endanger its security in the long run.So he quit, with another loud flourish. | World |
Tech TipDigitized newspaper archives and hyperlocal historical sources can help you understand how your ancestors lived.Credit...The New York TimesJune 24, 2020Long before the internet made it easy to share the nuances of daily life, local newspapers and other regional publications reported the business, society and civic news of the people in the community. For budding genealogists, finding an ancestor in an old microfilmed newspaper and reading contemporaneous accounts of her turn in the school play or his all-city bowling championship provide a glimpse into the past thats more textured than a chart of names and dates.Taking a more narrative approach to the family story can be a time-consuming detective project with no guaranteed results. But once you have a name and know when and where the person lived, you can start your quest to find out how they lived. Heres how to get started.Digging Up Your RootsIf youre just beginning to climb your family tree and need names on the branches, a subscription service like Ancestry or MyHeritage can be an easy place to start gathering information. In addition to billions of digitized records (like census data, draft rolls and religious registries), these services include tutorials, articles, message boards and other tools to help learn you learn how to find your people.ImageCredit...The New York TimesWhen you get some names pinned to your tree, you may also start to receive hints of possible undiscovered relatives from the sites algorithms or the services other members to help you along. If youre not sure you want to commit to a regular subscription fee, look for a free trial period.ImageCredit...The New York TimesDiving Into the ArchivesOnce you have pinned your ancestors to specific places and years, look for local media from that time. Business dealings, town government activity, social gatherings and obituaries were often reported in 19th- and 20th-century papers. But be warned: In addition to sometimes florid writing, articles from certain eras and areas can be rife with the unchecked misogyny, racism and xenophobia of the day.The Newspaper Archives, Indexes and Morgues section of the Library of Congress site has links to many digitized publications, including African-American, Cherokee and Mexican-American newspapers.The Ancestor Hunt genealogy site has a section devoted to finding historical newspapers online, and the Elephind site lets you search a growing collection of digitized international newspapers. Some archives are free, some charge to view the microfilmed images, and search capabilities vary.ImageCredit...The New York TimesNewspapers.com is an archive with more than 17,000 digitized publications dating from the 1700s. After the free trial, subscriptions start at about $8 a month, but you can search, clip, save and print the articles you find.Finding Further ReadingLibraries and historical/genealogical societies may also have books and periodicals that recorded the development of the area and the people who lived there, although you may have to visit in person to look at the original material if it has not been scanned. (Some libraries also offer free access to the commercial genealogy services.)ImageCredit...The New York TimesAs settlements grew, local historians often wrote books that chronicled that development and its founding families. Many of these volumes are now digitized in the public domain; search Google Books or the Internet Archive for the town or county in question.Your relatives may also appear in the vital records bureaus of the states where they lived. The RootsWeb site offers tips on searching in its Red Book collection of American state, county and town resources.ImageCredit...The New York TimesAnd finally, if burial was the family tradition, try the Find a Grave site, a searchable database of cemeteries; like Newspapers.com, its owned by Ancestry. The site is still growing and often includes published obituaries and photos of grave sites so you can remotely visit and see where your ancestors ultimately landed. | Tech |
Europe|Dove Painted on Francos Tomb Reignites a Debatehttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/world/europe/franco-tomb-dove-paint.htmlVideotranscripttranscriptArtist Paints Dove Over Francos TombAn artist painted a dove and the words For Freedom on the tomb of the former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.Ill leave it at that. Not a good thing. I did notice this going to the other.An artist painted a dove and the words For Freedom on the tomb of the former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.CreditCredit...Pedro Armestre/Associated PressOct. 31, 2018MADRID A Spanish artist painted a dove on the tomb of Gen. Francisco Franco on Wednesday as a protest against the former dictator, the latest in a series of controversies over his tomb and plans to move his remains.The artist, Enrique Tenreiro, smuggled red paint through the security gate of the huge underground basilica that Franco had built, spray-painting the words For Freedom along with the dove on the tomb.Mr. Tenreiro, who was taken away by a guard and faces a police investigation, issued a statement saying that he had not meant to offend Francos family and supporters, but had wanted to alleviate the suffering of those who lost a Civil War that shouldnt have occurred.What does the government plan to do with Francos remains?The protest came amid a heated debate set off by Prime Minister Pedro Snchezs decision to exhume Francos remains from the basilica, built on a site known as the Valley of the Fallen, an hours drive from Madrid.Spains new Socialist government believes Franco should no longer be honored in a place that the dictator also turned into one of Europes largest mass graves, containing the remains of at least 33,000 people killed during and after the Spanish Civil War. Most had fought for Franco, but the remains of many of his opponents were also anonymously dumped there.What happens next?Shortly after taking office in June, Mr. Snchez announced that Francos exhumation would happen immediately.In September, the government won approval from Parliament for the exhumation. But it has yet to determine exactly when and where to relocate the remains. Francos family has opposed his exhumation but says he could be reburied inside the crypt of Madrids cathedral a proposal the government has vowed to block.The issue has gone beyond politics. Because Francos basilica is run by Benedictine monks, Spains deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, raised the matter during an official visit to the Vatican on Monday. The Vatican does not have a direct say in the relocation, though its backing could be helpful.Proposals for the current burial site are already being offered. Jos Guirao, Spains culture minister, has suggested the Valley of the Fallen be transformed in the way that Nazi concentration camps were opened to the public after World War II, so that people dont forget the horror.Albert Rivera, one of the main opposition leaders, has said he wants to create a Spanish national cemetery comparable to Arlington in the United States.Have artists targeted Franco before?Another artist, Eugenio Merino, exhibited a statue of the dictator inside a Coca-Cola refrigerator during Madrids art fair in 2012.In 2016, when Barcelona hosted an exhibition about Francos legacy, the centerpiece was an outdoor equestrian statue of the dictator headless from an earlier act of vandalism. Activists pelted the statue with eggs, splashed it with paint and eventually knocked it over, only a few days after the start of the show. | World |
DealBook|Britain to Extend Lloyds Share Sale for 6 Monthshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/business/dealbook/britain-to-extend-lloyds-share-sale-for-6-months.htmlDec. 4, 2015LONDON The British government said on Friday that it would extend a plan to sell its stake in the Lloyds Banking Group for six months as it prepares to exit ownership of the lender as early as next year.The sale plan, which is being managed by Morgan Stanley, would be extended until June 30 but could end earlier to ensure the government has enough Lloyds shares available for an offering to retail investors next year, the Treasury said on Friday.In 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, Lloyds received a bailout of 17 billion pounds, or about $25 billion, from the British government, and Royal Bank of Scotland received 45 billion.But the government is now eager to terminate its ownership of the two lenders.George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, has pledged to sell 25 billion in R.B.S. shares over the next five years, even if the government has to sell some at a loss. The government owns about 73 percent of R.B.S. after it began winding down its stake this year.The trading plan has been a huge success, with over 9 billion raised for the taxpayer so far, Mr. Osborne said in a news release, referring to the Lloyds holdings. This means we have now recovered over 16 billion in total, and we now own 9.2 percent of the bank.The government held as much as 40 percent of Lloyds after the bailout, but it has pared its holdings since September 2013 as the banks prospects have improved.Lloyds returned to an annual profit last year and paid its first dividend since the government bailout in May.The government has sold 11.2 billion shares at an average price of more than 81 pence a share since the trading plan began in December 2014, according to U.K. Financial Investments, which oversees the governments holdings in Lloyds and R.B.S. The government paid an average of 73.6 pence a share when it first took a stake in Lloyds.Proceeds from the sale are being used to reduce Britains debt.Shares of Lloyds rose less than 1 percent to 73.15 pence in early trading in London on Tuesday. | Business |
Sports BriefingFeb. 12, 2014Arsenal and Manchester United played to a dour 0-0 draw that frustrated both teams, while Liverpool snatched a last-minute 3-2 victory at Fulham to return to the Premier League title race. Arsenal missed the chance to go into first and remained a point behind in second place.Fourth-place Liverpool rallied twice to maintain its 3-point lead over Tottenham, which won at Newcastle, 4-0 Barcelona set up another Copa del Rey final against rival Real Madrid after a 1-1 draw at Real Sociedad to win their two-leg semifinal, 3-1. Lionel Messi scored for Barcelona. (AP) | Sports |
"I Am Woman" Singer Helen Reddy 'Memba Her?! 1/29/2018 Helen Reddy gained fame with hits like "I Am Woman" and "Angie Baby" ... but she made news at the 15th Annual Grammy Awards when she thanked God "because she makes everything possible" during her acceptance speech for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance back in 1973. Guess what she looks like now! Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Memba Them Photo Galleries | Entertainment |
The narrow 50-to-46 decision underscored the divisions on both sides of the aisle over agency policies on opioids and abortion medications and his ties to the drug industry.Credit...Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated PressFeb. 15, 2022The Senate on Tuesday narrowly confirmed Dr. Robert Califf as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a key federal agency that has been without a permanent chief for more than a yearlong stretch of the coronavirus pandemic.The vote was 50-to-46, with six Republicans crossing the aisle to support him while five senators who caucus with Democrats opposed him. One senator voted present.Dr. Califf, who is 70, is expected to be sworn in this week. He faces a looming flurry of decisions including intense scrutiny of a coronavirus vaccine for children under 5 and reviews of e-cigarette applications like Juuls bid to stay on the market.In recent weeks, Dr. Califfs odds of a second confirmation looked increasingly long as opposition mounted over concerns about how he would respond to the opioid epidemic and the agencys handling of abortion drug rules. The White House responded by trying to rally support in Congress and among other allies, with mainstream medical societies and a bipartisan group of six former F.D.A. commissioners coming to Dr. Califfs defense.Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, was one of a handful of G.O.P. senators who backed Dr. Califf and offset some Democrats opposition. On Tuesday, Mr. Burr called on other senators to confirm Dr. Califf, saying the F.D.A. had gone 391 days without a permanent leader.I urge my colleagues to support Dr. Califfs nomination because he will provide the leadership needed to promote todays biomedical advancements and help to pave the way for tomorrows innovation, Mr. Burr said.Despite some Republican support, senators in both parties, ranging from liberal Democrats leery of his ties to the pharmaceutical industry to conservative Republicans in lock step with the anti-abortion movement, posed formidable opposition.By contrast, Dr. Califf breezed into the commissioner role in 2016 in a vote of 89 to 4, with strong support from both sides of the aisle. Some of the headwinds he has faced since President Biden nominated him in November are from the same Democratic senators who opposed him six years ago. Back then, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, voiced concerns about Dr. Califfs ties to the pharmaceutical industry amid the opioid epidemic that by 2016 had already killed thousands.On Friday, Mr. Manchin called on Mr. Biden to withdraw the nomination in an opinion essay, noting that while Dr. Califf pledged to make changes the last time he was commissioner, the F.D.A. approved five new opioids in 2016 and 2017.I have never been more profoundly confident of a vote Im going to cast than I am right now, Mr. Manchin said in a fiery floor speech on Monday, directly placing partial blame for the worsening epidemic on Dr. Califf. Opposition to his nomination, Mr. Manchin added, would send a message to this administration, to our president, that we need a new direction at the F.D.A.We need people who want to protect us, he concluded, not people who allow drugs to destroy us.Just before the vote on Tuesday, Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, denounced the F.D.A.s role in becoming the countrys biggest pill pusher and said Dr. Califf did little to address the problem in his previous stint as commissioner.There was no real commitment to reforming the F.D.A. or to learning from the mistakes that enabled this public health crisis, Mr. Markey said.Dr. Califf also faced pressure from abortion foes over the F.D.A.s risk-management policies related to abortion medications. The influential Susan B. Anthony List organization, which opposes abortion, has canvassed lawmakers about changes made during Dr. Califfs prior tenure as commissioner that eased access to medication abortion pills.During a Senate hearing in December, Dr. Califf expressed confidence in the agencys ability to handle decisions about the medications again. Two days after that hearing, the F.D.A. announced that women could receive the pills by mail after a telehealth appointment, eliminating a requirement for an in-person evaluation.The Susan B. Anthony List announced that it would score the vote on Dr. Califfs nomination, meaning it will be considered in the organizations assessments for lawmakers pro-life scorecard. Republicans up for re-election often seek the groups endorsement.Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, spoke in opposition before the vote, criticizing Dr. Califfs role in the abortion medication changes.Dr. Califf has refused to distance himself from the F.D.A. decision to abandon vulnerable pregnant women to the reckless and predatory actions of the abortion industry, Mr. Daines said.Five senators who caucus with Democrats Mr. Manchin and Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Mr. Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut opposed the nomination.Six Republicans Senators Burr, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Roy Blunt of Missouri and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania tipped the balance for confirmation. Of those Republicans, just one, Ms. Murkowski, is up for re-election and three Mr. Blunt, Mr. Burr and Mr. Toomey are retiring.While Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, was opposed to the confirmation, he was marked as present as part of a pairing with Senator Ben Ray Lujn of New Mexico, who is recovering from a stroke and would have voted yes.Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement that Dr. Califf secured her vote after agreeing to refrain for four years from seeking employment with or compensation from any drug or device company for four years after his term as commissioner.The incoming commissioner will have plenty of work to do. The agency is facing an end-run around its tobacco control authority with companies marketing synthetic tobacco in flavors attractive to teenagers. Lawmakers are eager to see changes in how the agency fast-tracks drugs to the market after the controversial approval of the Alzheimers drug Aduhelm. And the agency has a lengthy backlog of foreign inspections to contend with, as roughly 80 percent of active drug ingredients come in from overseas.Dr. Janet Woodcock, the interim commissioner, issued a statement on Tuesday, saying she will stay on as a principal deputy at the agency. She has been a target of lawmakers who say the agency spurred the opioid epidemic, which could prove relevant as leaders turn to Congress for new authority to tackle a range of issues.After the confirmation votes, advocates and supporters issued statements urging action on a variety of issues. The Environmental Working Group called on Dr. Califf to remove PFAS, known as forever chemicals from food packaging and to require companies that sell talc to test their products for asbestos.Representative Rajna Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, called on Dr. Califf to address his House subcommittees findings of arsenic and lead in baby food. Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, asked Dr. Califf to address predatory tactics of vaping companies targeting young people.Dr. Califf spent most of his career at Duke University, where he served as a professor of medicine and founding director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. He led numerous clinical trials in cardiology, gained experience working with the pharmaceutical industry and drew widespread respect in the field of medicine.That standing is crucial, said Dr. David J. Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges.The decisions that are made by an F.D.A. commissioner or the F.D.A. in general are not always going to please everybody, Dr. Skorton said. They are very, very difficult decisions, he said. Noting that he had followed Dr. Califfs career for decades, Dr. Skorton described him as the person for the hour. | Health |
Psilocybin Spurs Brain Activity in Patients With Depression, Small Study ShowsThe chemical derived from psychedelic mushrooms helped alleviate symptoms of depression and generated detectable neural responses that lasted weeks.Credit...Alana Paterson for The New York TimesApril 11, 2022Psychedelic compounds like LSD, Ecstasy and psilocybin mushrooms have shown significant promise in treating a range of mental health disorders, with participants in clinical studies often describing tremendous progress taming the demons of post-traumatic stress disorder, or finding unexpected calm and clarity as they face a terminal illness.But exactly how psychedelics might therapeutically rewire the mind remains an enigma.A group of neuroscientists in London thought advanced neuroimaging technology that peered deep into the brain might provide some answers. They included 43 people with severe depression in a study sponsored by Imperial College London, and gave them either psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, or a conventional antidepressant; the participants were not told which one they would receive. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, which captures metabolic function, took two snapshots of their brain activity the day before receiving the first dose and then roughly three weeks after the final one.What they found, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, was illuminating, both figuratively and literally. Over the course of three weeks, participants who had been given the antidepressant escitalopram reported mild improvement in their symptoms, and the scans continued to suggest the stubborn, telltale signs of a mind hobbled by major depressive disorder. Neural activity was constrained within certain regions of the brain, a reflection of the rigid thought patterns that can trap those with depression in a negative feedback loop of pessimism and despair.By contrast, the participants given psilocybin therapy reported a rapid and sustained improvement in their depression, and the scans showed flourishes of neural activity across large swaths of the brain that persisted for the three weeks. That heightened connectivity, they said, resembled the cognitive agility of a healthy brain that, for example, can toggle between a morning bout of melancholia, a stressful day at work and an evening of unencumbered revelry with friends.Although the authors acknowledged the limitations of the study, including its small size and short time frame, they said psilocybin appeared to have a liberating effect on the brains of people with severe depression.Psilocybin, it would seem, allows you to see things in an entirely new light, particularly when you have a psychotherapist who can help guide you through that experience, said Richard Daws, a cognitive neuroscientist and a lead author of the study. You can unpack difficult experiences that might define how you see the world, which is interesting because thats exactly what traditional cognitive behavioral therapy is trying to do.Experts not involved with the study said that the results were not entirely surprising but that they provided a possible biologic explanation for the anecdotal accounts about therapeutic breakthroughs with psychedelic medicine.Patrick M. Fisher, a neuroscientist at the Neurobiology Research Unit in Copenhagen who studies psilocybins effects on the brain, said the findings could help explain why study subjects in psychedelic research often report long-term relief from psychological ailments. One or two doses of psychedelic drugs seem to impart lasting clinical benefits and changes in personality and mood, and thats an unusual characteristic of drugs, he said. Although these brain imaging data are important for resolving the brain mechanisms that support these lasting changes, this study leaves prominent questions unanswered.Other researchers agreed, saying the results highlighted the need for further study. Dr. Stephen Ross, associate director of the N.Y.U. Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine, who has been studying the antidepressant effects of psilocybin on cancer patients, cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions given the relatively brief monitoring period of participants brain activity. Its a little bit like looking out into the universe with a telescope and seeing interesting things and then starting to build theories based on that, he said. This is an important contribution though Im more interested in what happens in three months or six months.A separate, smaller experiment that was included in the Nature Medicine paper appeared to support the notion that psilocybin therapy could provide enduring benefits. In that trial, 16 patients were recruited with the knowledge that they would receive psilocybin for their treatment-resistant depression. Brain scans taken a day after the final doses were administered showed similar results to the other study. And when the researchers followed up six months later, many participants reported that the improvements to their depression had not subsided.These results are very promising, but obviously no one should go out and try and procure psychedelics without speaking to a doctor or a therapist, Dr. Daws said.The field of psychedelic medicine is still in its infancy following a decades-long gap in research, a direct result of antidrug policies that prevented most scientists in the United States from investigating mind-altering compounds. But as the stigma has faded and research funding has begun to flow more freely, a growing number of scientists have begun exploring whether such drugs can help patients suffering from a wide range of mental health conditions, including anorexia, substance abuse and obsessive-compulsive disorder.Along with psilocybin, MDMA, popularly known as Ecstasy, has been especially promising. A study last May in Nature Medicine found that the drug paired with talk therapy could significantly lessen or even eliminate symptoms of PTSD. Phase 3 clinical trials are now underway, and some experts believe the Food and Drug Administration could approve MDMA therapy for PTSD as soon as next year.Depression remains one of most common and intractable mental health challenges in the United States, with an estimated 21 million adults reporting a major depressive episode in 2020, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Although Prozac and other antidepressants known as S.S.R.I.s have been effective for many, they have significant side effects and the drugs do not work for everyone.For that reason, the handful of small studies on psilocybin and depression have electrified mental health experts and patients.Another author of the Nature Medicine article published on Monday, Robin Carhart-Harris, director of the Neuroscape Psychedelics Division at the University of California, San Francisco, said the functional magnetic resonance imaging scans offered intriguing clues about the way depression inhabits the brain. The resulting images, he suggested, might be best compared to an undulating pastoral landscape marked by hills and deep valleys. People with depression, he said, often get stuck in a valley. Although S.S.R.I.s can make them feel better, the drugs do not appear to change the overall landscape of their brain, as it were, suggesting that the drugs do little more than ease the symptoms of their depression.But the psilocybin treatments, he said, seemed to provide a way out of those metaphorical valleys by inducing what scientists call global increases in brain network integration essentially touching off activity across parts of the brain that were previously cut off from one another.Psilocybin therapy seems to flatten the landscape so you move out of the valley, Dr. Carhart-Harris said. It makes you freer to move on.Still, he acknowledged that the two trials raised a multitude of unanswered questions that he hoped researchers would explore. And he expressed caution against the headlong embrace of psychedelics without supervision, noting the acute vulnerability of patients experiencing a psychedelic journey.It might sound trite to say, but I think psilocybin therapy opens up the mind, and thats its strength, Dr. Carhart-Harris said. But thats also arguably where the risk comes in, which is why it needs to be managed and to happen alongside psychological support. | Health |
TrilobitesWhy were Bolivian river dolphins swimming around with a large predatory snake in their mouths? There are so many questions, one researcher said.Credit...Omar M. Entiauspe Neto, Steffen Reichle, Alejandro dos RiosMay 2, 2022In August 2021, a research team was documenting biodiversity near the Tijamuchi River in Bolivia when they saw some animals that are typically difficult to observe: Bolivian river dolphins.Just seeing them with their heads above the river was extraordinary, said Steffen Reichle, a biologist at the Noel Kempff Mercado Museum of Natural History in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, and a member of the team. They knew something was up and started snapping photos.Only after scrolling through the images the team captured did the researchers realize the dolphins were dangling an anaconda around as they swam.The researchers described what they saw in the journal Ecology last month. While dolphins in captivity and the wild are known for being playful, the surprising behavior of the Bolivian cetaceans seems like a new frontier in frolicking among the aquatic mammals, and some scientists still arent sure what to think about what the team observed.Dr. Reichle says Bolivian river dolphins usually swim below the surface, and sightings often catch only a fin or a tail. But some of the six animals they saw kept their heads above the turbid water for an unusually long time.At one point, two male dolphins seemingly swam in sync, a snake held by the animals mouths. Anacondas are semiaquatic and can hold their breaths for some time. But because the snake was handled for at least seven minutes, much of this submerged, it probably perished.I dont think that the snake had a very good time, Dr. Reichle said.Because of how long this interaction went on, the team suspects play not predation. Bolivias native Beni anacondas are apex predators. Other than a single case of cannibalism, researchers havent documented the serpents being eaten. In this case, the team did not see where the snake ended up.With how lively dolphins are, playing seems like a pretty good answer, said Omar Entiauspe-Neto, one of the papers authors and a taxonomist at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.Some of the dolphins gathered were juveniles, which could suggest another dimension of the interaction: The adults may have been teaching the youngsters about anacondas or showing them a hunting technique.But Sonja Wild, a behavioral ecologist at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, who was not part of the study, was skeptical that the interaction was purposely instructive. Its more plausible the juveniles were observing because they were curious, she says.And because anacondas are strong, Dr. Wild wonders if the snake was injured or dead before the dolphins got to it. Of all the things one could pick up, this seems a little extraordinary, she said.This is the first time Ive heard of dolphins playing with a large snake, added Dr. Wild, who has observed bottlenose dolphins using shells as tools.Something else from the photos was notable the male dolphins erect penises.It could have been sexually stimulating for them, said Diana Reiss, a marine mammal scientist and cognitive psychologist at Hunter College in New York who was not involved with the study. It could have been something to rub on.The aroused males could have been having a sexual romp with each other before the snake became entangled.Researchers who study dolphins are well aware of the animals sexual proclivities, such as rubbing their genitals on toys or inserting their penises into objects, animate and inanimate. They often use their penises for tactile interactions, Dr. Reiss says. She has even observed male bottlenose dolphins trying to penetrate the blowhole of a rescued pilot whale in an aquarium. Its possible, she added, that the males tried to insert their penises into the snake.There are so many questions, Mr. Entiauspe-Neto says.A lot more is known about ocean-dwelling dolphins than riverine ones, in part because its harder to see whats going on when river water is muddy. Even though theyre limited in nature, these observations are always valuable, Dr. Reiss says. Its giving us another glimpse of the lives of these animals, particularly in the wild.Whatever happened in this animal encounter, its not the stuff of childrens storybooks. | science |
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TrilobitesCredit...Thomas O'Neill/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesNov. 18, 2016Nobody knows precisely what the Pilgrims first Thanksgiving feast looked like. According to primary sources, there was fowl (likely including wild turkeys), venison and cornmeal for sure. Possible side dishes were cranberries, pumpkin and stuffing made with onions, nuts and herbs.Many of these flavors are still Thanksgiving staples. Theres one modern favorite, though, that would not have been found at the inaugural Plymouth celebration: mashed potatoes. Thats because potatoes are native to South America and had not yet made their way to North America.Where in South America potatoes first became domesticated, however, is still unknown. Recent genetic studies point to the Andean highlands in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia as the crops birthplace, but a lack of direct plant evidence has made it difficult to confirm.ImageCredit...Oliver Davis/Getty ImagesThis week, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, archaeologists at the University of California, Merced, report finding such direct evidence microremains of what seems to be cultivated potatoes on ancient grinding tools from southern Peru. The remains go back as far as 3400 B.C.This is the best archaeological evidence indicating that, yes, early on there were indeed potatoes being cultivated in the central Andes, said Tom Dillehay, a professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the research.The authors of the study looked for microscopic starch grains on stone tools recovered from an ancient, high-altitude site called Jiskairumoko, in the Titicaca Basin of southern Peru. These tools, they suspect, were used to break up the skins of potatoes.In the process, tiny starch grains would get embedded inside micropores and cracks of the stone tools, said Mark Aldenderfer, one of the authors of the study.He and his co-author, Claudia Rumold, bathed the tools in a sonicator, which dislodged the starch grains from the pores using sonic waves. Then they analyzed the grains under a microscope and compared them to reference samples of other crops and wild plants from the region.Out of 141 starch samples recovered from 14 tools, 50 were consistent with cultivated or domesticated potatoes, Dr. Rumold said.Starch grain analysis, which is a relatively novel method, was key to finding evidence of potatoes because the tubers do not preserve well, Dr. Aldenderfer said. When a seed burns, you often get something left of a seed husk. When corn cobs burn, you get something left of the cob. When potato burns, it burns up very seldom do you get actual bits.The early cultivation of potatoes seems to have been part of a larger shift at Jiskairumoko, from hunting and gathering toward farming and herding, he added. Around the same time, people started to build more complex houses, and the beginnings of a social hierarchy emerged. In 2008, a team led by Dr. Aldenderfer found a gold necklace from Jiskairumoko dating back to 2000 B.C., suggesting that an elite class had formed by then.As for how the potato spread and changed from thumbnail- to fist-sized over time, many questions remain. We dont have enough data to know how many times it was domesticated in this particular area, or if it was just once, Dr. Rumold said.Historians do know that millenniums later, after the Spaniards conquered the Incan Empire, they introduced the potato to Europe. British colonialists then brought the potato to North America, where it flourished and became a staple. Eventually, probably starting in the 1800s, the beloved spud made its way into Thanksgiving traditions. So when you eat your mashed potatoes this holiday, add ancient Andean civilization to your list of things to be thankful for. | science |
DealBook|F.T.C. Sues to Block Staples-Office Depot Dealhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/business/dealbook/ftc-sues-to-block-staples-office-depot-deal.htmlCredit...Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesDec. 7, 2015For Staples, a merger with Office Depot is anything but easy.The Federal Trade Commission filed suit on Monday to block the planned $6.3 billion combination of office supply companies, saying that it would significantly reduce competition in the market for consumable office supplies sold to large businesses.Staples, based in Framingham, Mass., and Office Depot, based in Boca Raton, Fla., are each others closest competition in the sale of items such as pens, sticky notes, copy paper and paper clips, and are often the top two bidders for the business of large companies, the regulator said in an administrative suit.In a joint statement, Staples and Office Depot pushed back, saying the regulators decision was based on flawed analysis and a misunderstanding of the competitive forces shaping the office supply industry, pointing to a 2013 transaction between Office Depot and Office Max.This merger creates an unparalleled opportunity to better serve customers of Staples and Office Depot, Ron Sargent, the chief executive of Staples, said in the statement.The companies said they would pursue legal options to complete the merger.Shares of Staples fell more than 8 percent after the F.T.C.s announcement; shares of Office Depot declined 15 percent.The two companies announced plans to combine in February in a deal that was expected to be closely scrutinized by regulators concerned with antitrust issues. The F.T.C. previously blocked plans by the two to merge in 1997.A merger would eliminate competition and lead to higher prices and reduced quality, the agency said on Monday.The suit seeks a temporary restraining order to hold up the deal pending an administrative trial scheduled to begin in May. The Canadian Competition Bureau also filed Monday to block the transaction. | Business |
Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York TimesJune 26, 2018WASHINGTON Not long after Ted Cruz arrived on Capitol Hill in 2013 as the Republican junior senator from Texas, he turned to one of the most senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, to deliver a stern lecture on what he saw as her limited knowledge of the Constitution.Im not a sixth grader, Ms. Feinstein, Democrat of California, snapped back, adding, Im not a lawyer, but after 20 years, Ive been up close and personal to the Constitution.It was an inauspicious beginning, but now their relationship has come to a turning point, as the unlikely duo of Mr. Cruz and Ms. Feinstein ideological and stylistic opposites who are running for re-election in very different border states lead the Senates effort to address family separation at the border.With the House set to vote Wednesday on a far-reaching immigration bill that is all but certain to fail, the Cruz-Feinstein partnership an unusual couple, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, called them on Tuesday is a reflection of how desperately both parties want to pass legislation.Amid stories of parents searching in vain for their children, audio of wailing toddlers and images of detained teenagers behind chain-link, cagelike fences, there is intense pressure for Washington to act.Senators of both parties say they are aiming for a narrow piece of legislation that would effectively codify the executive order that President Trump issued last week, which put a stop to the administrations practice of removing migrant children from parents who seek asylum.But while Mr. McConnell said Tuesday that he would like to see the Senate vote before the end of the week, that appears unlikely. After a preliminary negotiating session on Monday evening, both Mr. Cruz and Ms. Feinstein said Tuesday that they do not expect to wrap up their talks until after the July 4 congressional recess.I hope we can come to common ground, Mr. Cruz said. If we can come together around two core principles No. 1, keeping families together, keeping children with their parents, and No. 2, enforcing the law and not encouraging illegal immigration then I believe we will have legislation that can pass both houses of Congress and be enacted into law.That is a big if.Mr. Cruz and Ms. Feinstein are joined in their talks by two colleagues, Senators Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. Mr. Durbin, who described the Monday evening talks as the opening conversation, said there are clear differences on a few fundamentals.Those differences, he said, revolve in part around a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores settlement, which bars migrant children from being detained for more than 20 days. After Mr. Trump issued his executive order, the administration asked a federal judge to alter the Flores settlement to allow families to be detained together indefinitely, infuriating Democrats.Mr. Cruz has introduced legislation that aims to speed up the asylum process, rendering long detentions unnecessary. His bill would double, to about 750, the number of federal immigration judges, and provide for expedited processing of asylum cases so that they could be resolved within 14 days. (Mr. Trump, a one-time nemesis of Mr. Cruz on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, has mocked the proposal.)But Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said that Mr. Cruz speedy timetable creates a revolving door that would makes it impossible for any asylum seeker to gather the facts and witnesses necessary to prove his case. And he complained that Mr. Cruzs legislation includes no provisions for alternatives to detention, such as ankle bracelet monitors, which could be used to track migrants as they await court hearings.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff for The New York TimesI dont know how you bridge that view and Diannes view, which is much more narrow about making a policy that we dont detain children, No. 1, and we do seek alternatives to detention, Mr. Menendez said.Ms. Feinstein has her own bill, a straightforward measure that simply bars the administration from separating parents and children, except in cases where the child is in danger. It is backed by every Senate Democrat. Republicans deride the bill as a catch and release plan.This is not what we need to do to enforce our laws and treat people in a compassionate and dignified sort of way, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, told reporters Tuesday.Mr. Cruz and Ms. Feinstein could hardly be more different. Mr. Cruz, 47, a onetime Tea Party acolyte, has never shown any compunction about blowing up the courtly traditions of the Senate. Apart from his unsuccessful presidential bid, he is perhaps best remembered for virtually single-handedly shutting down the federal government over his partys refusal to defund the Affordable Care Act. He would not win a popularity contest in the Senate.If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you, Mr. Cruzs fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, once said.The genteel Ms. Feinstein, who turned 85 on Friday, is the oldest member of the Senate and is a guardian of the traditions Mr. Cruz has eschewed. She is the chambers fiercest advocate for gun control a cause Mr. Cruz abhors.But on national security and intelligence matters, she tends to work across the aisle, and she said Tuesday that she has no reservations about linking arms with Mr. Cruz.Oh, please, she said, with a smile and a wave of her hand. There was one scuffle, and I felt I gave as good as I got.Like everything else on Capitol Hill, their effort is unfolding against the backdrop of the fall midterm elections. Ms. Feinstein, who handily won her primary in overwhelmingly Democratic California, appears likely to coast to re-election. But Mr. Cruz is facing an unusually spirited challenge from Representative Beto ORourke, a Democrat who has outpaced Mr. Cruz in fund-raising and has drawn national attention.There is one reason why Ted Cruz is doing this: Beto ORourke, said Tom Jawetz, the vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group here.A Senate matchmaker of sorts Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine brought the Texas and California senators together. Last week, as the public outcry over family separations grew, Ms. Collins, known for trying to forge consensus between Democrats and Republicans, invited a bipartisan group of about a dozen senators, including Mr. Cruz and Ms. Feinstein, to her office to talk.My hope was that my meeting could be the catalyst for bringing them together in the same room, and also showing them that they had a supportive group of senators for the effort, she said, adding, The one outcome that I dont want to see happen is that there is a Democratic bill brought to the floor by Dianne and a Republican alternative brought to the floor by Ted Cruz, and we end up with nothing passing.As the talks continue, senators are watching the budding alliance with a mixture of hope and bemusement. Mr. Tillis said he does not believe Mr. Cruz and Ms. Feinstein are that far apart, an assessment echoed by Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who also attended the session in Ms. Collinss office.I would love to have an opportunity to vote for a Feinstein-Cruz amendment, Mr. King said. I think that would be remarkable in itself. | Politics |
The Supreme Court ended a bruising term on Wednesday, one marked by division, disruption and an extraordinary string of 5-to-4 conservative victories ending in blockbuster rulings upholding President Trumps travel ban and dealing a body blow to public unions. In retrospect, it also contained omens. There were signs that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy might retire, and he announced on Wednesday that he was leaving the court next month. It was a term in which Justice Kennedys influence waned, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.s power grew and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who completed his first full term, turned in the most consequential freshman performance by a member of the Supreme Court in living memory. In replacing Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, Justice Gorsuch returned the court to full strength and to a conservative majority after a bare-knuckled political brawl over Justice Scalias seat that lasted more than a year. Justice Gorsuch supplied a decisive vote in 15 of the 18 cases decided by a 5-to-4 margin. In 14 of those, he voted with the courts conservatives, with the courts four-member liberal wing in dissent. In recent terms, Justice Kennedy had voted with the majority in divided cases more than 92 percent of the time, a higher rate than any other member of the court. This term, his rate dropped to just over 84 percent and Chief Justice Roberts passed him, at 87 percent. Justice Gorsuch was third, at 74 percent. Collectively, those three justices occupied the ideological space at the courts center, which had for years been home to Justice Kennedy by himself. But it was Chief Justice Roberts, who assigns majority opinions when he is in the majority, who seemed to be consolidating power this term. If Mr. Trump is successful in appointing Justice Kennedys successor, Chief Justice Roberts would almost certainly find himself at the courts ideological center. The courts liberals had a terrible term, due in large part to their failure to attract the vote of Justice Kennedy, who had been their occasional ally. In recent years, he voted with the courts liberals in closely divided cases more than 25 percent of the time, including in blockbuster cases on gay rights and abortion. That coalition disappeared this term. The courts four-member liberal wing made up of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan failed to attract Justice Kennedys vote in a single 5-to-4 case. When the liberals were all on the winning side of a 5-to-4 divide, they were joined by either Chief Justice Roberts (twice) or Justice Gorsuch (once). There are other ways to measure the powerlessness of the courts liberal wing. Its members voted with the majority in closely divided cases 23 percent of the time. The five more conservative justices voted with the majority 83 percent of the time. Junior justices tend to be assigned boring and trivial cases. But Chief Justice Roberts gave Justice Gorsuch some significant ones, including Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis, which ruled that companies can use arbitration clauses in employment contracts to prohibit workers from banding together to take legal action over workplace issues. All of the available information indicates that it was Justice Gorsuchs second majority-opinion assignment. Its probably the most important business case the court decides this term, said Paul D. Clement, a lawyer with Kirkland & Ellis who served as United States solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration. It would be interesting to go back and look at whether any junior justice ever got as consequential a case for a second assignment. That 5-to-4 decision was one of many that would almost certainly have been decided the opposite way had President Barack Obamas Supreme Court pick, Judge Merrick B. Garland, joined the court instead of being blocked by Senate Republicans. At least 14 cases this term likely would have come out the other way had the Senate let Garland through, said Lee Epstein, a law professor and political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. These include some of the terms blockbusters Trumps travel ban, the American Express antitrust dispute, racial gerrymandering, arbitration, abortion information and on and on. (Professor Epstein, along with Andrew D. Martin and Kevin Quinn of the University of Michigan, collected and analyzed most of the data in this article, using the Supreme Court Database.) A Justice Garland might have also caused the court to change course in some cases decided by lopsided margins, said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Chicago who served as a law clerk to Judge Garland. In several momentous decisions, it seems quite plausible that a Justice Garland would have altered the courts outcome, Professor Driver said. It is crucial to appreciate that this dynamic extends well beyond the courts 5-to-4 decisions. In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, for instance, the court ruled by a 7-to-2 vote in favor of a baker who refused to create a cake for a same-sex wedding. But it did so on a narrow rationale, saying the baker had faced hostility from a biased civil rights commissioner. The court did not resolve the central question in the case of whether businesses open to the public may violate anti-discrimination laws based on claims of conscience. A Justice Garland, Professor Driver said, might have joined the courts liberals to decide that central question in favor of gay rights. Similarly, while the court unanimously turned away challenges to partisan gerrymandering on technical grounds, the four liberal justices indicated that they were ready to address the issue of whether the Constitution forbids voting districts warped by politics. A Justice Garland might have supplied a fifth vote to condemn a practice that critics say undermines democracy. In Justice Gorsuchs early months on the court last term, he seemed ready to ally himself with its most conservative members, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Now that he has completed a full term, though, a different picture has emerged. Justice Gorsuchs voting record was a bit more moderate. As Justice Kennedy drifted right, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch started to share his spot at the courts ideological center. But that did not produce a consensus. In the term that ended last June, the justices ruled unanimously more than 57 percent of the time. In the term that just ended, that number dropped by more than 20 percentage points, to about 34 percent. Not all of the courts cases were ideologically predictable, of course. Three decisions with enormous practical implications for law enforcement and the United States economy requiring online merchants to collect sales tax, clearing the way for legal sports betting and protecting digital data were decided by unusual coalitions or lopsided majorities. The world around them is changing quickly, and at least a few of the justices seem eager to make sure the law tries, panting, to keep up, said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University. But given the speed of galloping technology, and social change, the justices are necessarily cautious when proceeding. The Trump administration won some big cases. But its overall track record was weak, continuing a longstanding trend of declining win rates for presidents before the Supreme Court in cases decided while they were in office and in which the federal government, its officials or its agencies were a party. (Since the Trump administration is fairly new, a disproportionate number of its wins and losses came in cases litigated by the preceding administration.) The Reagan administration won 75 percent of the time. After that, each succeeding president did worse than the last. President George Bush won 70 percent of his cases, President Bill Clinton 64 percent and President George W. Bush 61 percent. The Obama administration won 52 percent of its cases. The Trump administration set a new record, winning just 39 percent of its cases. The administration switched positions in four major cases, on workplace arbitration, voting rights, labor unions and the appointments of federal officials. In all four, the new positions prevailed before the justices. The court issued signed opinions in only 59 argued cases, the smallest number since 1858. But the courts output was in keeping with recent trends. It decided 61 cases in the term that ended last June, and 62 the term before that. Businesses had a very good year. By its calculations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed supporting briefs in 12 argued cases that went on to be decided with signed opinions. It was on the winning side in 11 of them. Those results are part of a general trend, said Lisa S. Blatt, a lawyer with Arnold & Porter. Its been a pro-business court for quite some time, she said. Workers have been doing less well at the Supreme Court, said David A. Strauss, a law professor at the University of Chicago. Employees, organized and unorganized, have been among the biggest losers in the court for several years now, he said. That seems especially notable when there is a lot of concern in the country about the economic fate of the working and middle classes. | Politics |
Fletcher Cox Lawsuit I'm No Homewrecker Relationship Was Mutual 1/26/2018 Fletcher Cox says his relationship with a married woman ain't the result of some master seduction ... but just some good ol' fashioned mutual attraction between consenting adults. TMZ Sports broke the story ... Cox -- Eagles star DT -- was sued by Josh Jeffords, a North Carolina man who claimed Fletcher seduced and banged his wife Catherine ... destroying his marriage. In N.C., that can constitute "alienation of affection" ... what Cox is being sued for. But in docs filed by Cox's attorney, he's adamant he's no homewrecker ... saying the relationship "was not the result of seduction," but just "mutual attraction" with a woman who "knowingly and voluntarily consented to the relationship." In fact, Cox says she never told him she was married ... and says it wouldn't matter anyway, 'cause "no genuine love or affection existed" between Catherine and her husband. The 6'4," 310-pound Pro Bowler does admit to having explicit text conversations with the woman ... including telling her, "I want to get you pregnant." Cox's attorney is asking the court to dismiss the case ... and make Josh Jeffords pay for his lawyers. | Entertainment |
Credit...Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 4, 2017BEIJING For years, Chinas president, Xi Jinping, has talked the talk of economic reform. In January, he dazzled business executives in Davos, Switzerland, with a defense of international trade. Last month, he urged officials to seize hold of reform and make it an even bigger priority. And the annual meeting of Chinas legislature, starting Sunday, appears sure to echo that theme.But as Mr. Xi nears the end of his first five-year term as Communist Party leader, his record has not lived up to the bold statements, critics say.The question now is whether he was ever really serious about taking the painful steps needed to repair the economy, or merely paying lip service to reform to justify his tightening grip on power.Mr. Xis defenders argue that he had to consolidate his authority first, before he could make the potentially wrenching decisions needed to open markets and trim bloated state-owned industries. With weak growth in the rest of the world and demand for Chinas exports flagging, they contend, there was little margin for error and caution was warranted.The proof will be in the second term, they say, when Mr. Xi finally has the power to push through difficult economic adjustments.Mr. Xi is already Chinas most powerful leader in decades. He has repeatedly used his authority, though, to undercut reforms he says are necessary, ordering heavy-handed intervention in the stock market, for example, and restrictions on the movement of money abroad and property prices.ImageCredit...Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesThe problem, critics say, is that Mr. Xis demands for centralized control, stability and political conformity have often drowned out hesitant steps toward economic liberalization. And his second term is likely to bring more of the same, they say.Im highly skeptical, since I dont think its a lack of authority or the opposition of special interests that have kept him from moving in that direction so far, said Scott Kennedy, the director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Rather, hes operated according to his instincts in the face of economic challenges. And I dont expect his instincts or those challenges to change much.Many economists, executives and policy advisers in Beijing do not disguise their disappointment about what has happened to Mr. Xis promises of an audacious overhaul of the economy.In 2013, he and his premier, Li Keqiang, laid out big plans to give markets and entrepreneurs more room to grow. The market would play a decisive role in allocating resources, Mr. Xi declared.Wu Jinglian, one of Chinas most prominent economists, said at a recent meeting in Beijing that the direction of reform laid out in these documents is clear, and the measures are right, but the problem has been implementation.Putting it relatively tactfully, he continued, it hasnt been vigorous enough.Economists abroad have been less tactful.ImageCredit...Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesVirtually across the board, China is falling short of its own self-declared objectives for reform, said Daniel H. Rosen, a founding partner of the Rhodium Group, an economic research company. Even the G.D.P. growth that we have is ever more reliant on debt, and this is a consequence of falling short on reform.To be sure, the Xi years have not been static.China has loosened controls on its domestic bond market, allowing more foreign participation. The policy that limited most urban households to one child was abolished and replaced by a two child policy and even measures to encourage couples to have two children. Mr. Li, the premier, has made it his mission to cut down paperwork and regulations that weigh on small businesses.I feel that a lot of changes actually have happened, said Jianguang Shen, a China economist in the Hong Kong office of Mizuho Securities. People expect faster, radical reform after the party congress late this year, when Mr. Xi starts a second term as party leader.Some experts argue that Mr. Xi will then be politically secure and more willing to let his new team push through contentious changes, including cutting more excess industry, shedding jobs in ailing state companies and giving private businesses a bigger share of bank loans.With the economy still growing at an impressive 6.7 percent last year, officials say the government has kept the right balance between change and stability.The boat sails best when the winds and waves are steady, Liu Shiyu, the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a news conference last Sunday. Without stable market conditions, no reform can make progress, and there may even be reversal of the strides that weve made.ImageCredit...Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesBut even many who accept Chinas model of gradual, government-guided reform say that under Mr. Xi, promised changes have stalled or been reversed. Mr. Xi, who dominates economic policy and much else besides, has flinched from the harder changes needed for long-term prosperity and has yet to find a way to keep the economy growing without administering ever larger injections of debt.And while many economists, including some of Mr. Xis top advisers, continue to lobby openly for more market-oriented policies, the government has also become less tolerant of those who directly and publicly criticize it for not doing enough, including by censoring them on social media.The economy has been slowing steadily and has required larger and larger amounts of debt each year just to avoid a much steeper slowdown.It is Mr. Xis own policies, though, that raise the biggest questions about his commitment to change. As more and more capital has left China, the government has restored restrictions on moving money abroad.While taxes have been increased on service industries, promises to introduce a property tax and other fiscal changes have made little headway. That logjam has left the finances of local governments in many manufacturing-dependent cities dangerously dependent on land sales for revenue.Mr. Xi also promised to make state corporations leaner and more focused on achieving financial health in their core businesses. But he also demanded that party committees have a bigger say in company decisions, leaving plenty of room for party officials to undercut corporate reorganization.ImageCredit...Wu Hong/European Pressphoto AgencyOn the one hand, theres the talk of strengthening reform. On the other hand, all the agencies are stressing enhancing leadership by the party, Li Weisen, an economist at Fudan University in Shanghai who advocates market liberalization, said in a telephone interview.Weve maybe issued over a hundred of these reform documents, he added, but which ones have really been implemented, including fiscal reforms?Business leaders say more should be done to lighten their burdens. Liu Hanyuan, the chairman of Tongwei Group, a large manufacturer of solar panels based in Chengdu, in southwest China, used a Chinese aphorism to describe the burden of regulations, taxes and local fees on Chinese companies:We should abandon the idea that as many fees and taxes should be collected as possible. We should keep enough water to raise fish.Some of the initial hopes that Mr. Xi would turn out to be a market liberalizer were probably never realistic. The Chinese governments idea of reform has never been the free-market bonanza that some economists advocate.Even Deng Xiaoping, who first injected elements of capitalism into the Chinese economy in the 1980s, stressed that the government must retain control. His approach has delivered decades of growth that has lifted living standards for hundreds of millions of people while creating hundreds of billionaires.During the 1990s, President Jiang Zemin pressed ahead with changes that shut down thousands of struggling state-owned factories, encouraged private entrepreneurs to join the party and prepared for Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization in late 2001. Yet he, too, remained committed to state ownership, and his successor, Hu Jintao, proved even more committed to steering development through state planning.Most experts expect Mr. Xi will stay much the same leader he has been for five years, unless slowing growth and rising debt produce a shock. Yet the cost of inaction could be an increasingly debt-ridden, inefficient economy.If the government keeps meddling in the markets to ensure growth, then this road will become impassable, said Mr. Li, the professor in Shanghai. The problems wont be solved and will only get worse. | World |
Some U.S. governors defend their mask policy changes to get back to normal.Credit...Kena Betancur/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFeb. 13, 2022The governors of Maryland and New Jersey defended their moves to ease Covid restrictions, saying on Sunday that falling coronavirus cases in their states justified a change even as new cases and deaths remain fairly high in some regions of the United States.As best we can tell right now this thing is going from pandemic to endemic, and we feel it is the responsible step to take, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said on CBSs Face the Nation, referring to the stage when the virus will become a manageable part of daily life. He is one of several Democratic governors who announced plans to lift statewide mask mandates last week, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant loosens its grip on the United States.According to many health experts, the pandemics next phase may depend on the emergence of new variants, vaccination rates and risk tolerance. Herd immunity to Covid, public health specialists say, is unlikely to be achieved. And scientists have cautioned that protection may wane over time, and future variants may be better able to sidestep our defenses.Still, known coronavirus infections are falling across the United States, though case numbers nationwide have not dropped to pre-Omicron levels and remain high in states like Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia. Hospitalizations and deaths are also on the decline, but remain elevated.Governor Murphys optimistic tone echoed that of Larry Hogan, Marylands Republican governor, who has called on his states Board of Education to lift its school mask mandate. Governor Hogan removed Marylands state masking requirement last May, but the schools are governed independently. I think its safe enough for our kids to just try to get back to normal, he said on CNNs State of the Union. Cases Hospitalizations Deaths About this data Sources: State and local health agencies (cases, deaths); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hospitalizations). This week, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, reiterated her agencys position that masks should not be removed when gathering indoors. We are not there yet, she said at a White House briefing on Wednesday.As cases drop and restrictions lift, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said he thought the country seemed to be shifting away from a period of collective actions to protect vulnerable groups, and toward one where individuals must protect themselves based on their own risk assessments.I think theres portions of the population that are going to be in a very difficult spot right now because they remain vulnerable, Dr. Gottlieb said on Face the Nation.Young children, he said, are one of those groups, referring to the F.D.A.s announcement on Friday to postpone its decision about whether to authorize Pfizer-BioNTechs vaccine for children under 5 until more data becomes available. Studies so far have found that two doses are not sufficient to protect children ages 2 to 4, though in April the company expects to have data on the efficacy of a third dose.Dr. Gottlieb, who serves on Pfizers board, said the latest delay, which affects nearly 18 million children and their families, was frustrating. But he said the F.D.A.s decision was prudent. By waiting, theyll have a very firm picture of what level of effectiveness the vaccine is delivering, he said. That is important for patients and pediatricians to make fully informed decisions. | Health |
Africa|Falling Trees Kill at Least 19 at Kintampo Waterfall in Ghanahttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/world/africa/kintampo-ghana-waterfall-trees-kill-students.htmlCredit...Cristina Aldehuela/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 20, 2017ACCRA, Ghana A rainstorm toppled trees onto people at the Kintampo Waterfall in Ghana, killing at least 19, most of them students who were visiting and swimming at the popular tourist site, officials said on Monday.The bodies of 13 high school students, three university students and three local residents had been recovered at the waterfall in the Brong-Ahafo region, about 250 miles north of the capital, Accra, according to Siegfried Kwame Addo, a municipal official in Kintampo.Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of Ghana led a delegation of officials who visited relatives of those who died to express the governments condolences, the state-owned Ghana News Agency reported.Mr. Bawumia told the bereaved families the government would provide burials. He described the accident as a tragic shock to the nation and asked the relatives of the dead, as well as the chiefs and people of Kintampo, to remain calm and allow the security agencies to investigate, the news agency reported.Ghanas tourism minister, Catherine Afeku, who was in the vice presidents delegation, expressed sympathies to the victims relatives and said the government would put into place security measures at the waterfall and other tourist sites in Ghana to improve the safety of visitors. | World |
Field of Dreams' Vandalized By Soulless, Horrible Person 1/24/2018 Who the hell would wanna destroy the actual "Field of Dreams?" That's what the people who operate the ballpark in Iowa want to know after some scumbag tore up the field during an evil joyride Monday night. The field in Dyersville, Iowa touts itself as the "home of the iconic movie set" for the 1989 baseball flick -- thousands of fans visit the field every year. But, field officials say someone drove a truck through the field -- putting 4-inch gashes all over the field and turf and damaging the sprinkler system. "We cannot fathom why a soul on this planet would desecrate this holy ground," field operators said on social media. "We pray for whomever did this to our special place that they find peace in their hearts. Before Opening Day, April 1, we will work toward repairing this damage." Field officials set up a GoFundMe page hoping to raise money for repairs. So, if anyone knows how to get in touch with Kevin Costner ... | Entertainment |
Credit...Abir Sultan/European Pressphoto AgencyApril 4, 2016RAMAT GAN, Israel The bearded man placed three overstuffed shopping bags on a table at the entrance of a military base here, his expression turning to embarrassment as he emptied them, as if dropping off dirty laundry.Out came parts of old khaki uniforms, a helmet, a winter hat with earflaps, an army-issue snowsuit, a clear plastic bag bulging with machine gun clips, and a metal box packed with neat rows of ammunition. The man hurried off without identifying himself.He was one of many Israelis taking advantage of a four-week amnesty offered by the Israel Defense Forces, which is appealing to former soldiers harboring equipment at home to return it, with no questions asked and no risk of prosecution. Return centers have been set up at more than 100 police stations and military bases, like this one in a Tel Aviv suburb.Its not safe to keep this stuff at home, said Col. Yosi Ilu, the head of the militarys logistics department. Say Mrs. Cohen has a grenade in her house that her husband brought back by mistake from reserve duty. She can bring it back, no questions asked. It should be in the hands of the army or the police. Its a violation for civilians to hold onto it, and its dangerous.There were concerns, he said, that such weaponry could fall into the wrong hands of children, criminals or terrorists.The retrieval, the first since 2008, is scheduled to continue until mid-April, and it coincides with the spring cleaning ritual practiced by many Jews in the weeks before Passover.So far the retrieval has yielded several Kalashnikov assault rifles, a Carl Gustav submachine gun and an old Sten gun, Colonel Ilu said. A resident of the southern desert town of Arad returned an M-16 assault rifle, and in the northern town of Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, someone turned in an Uzi submachine gun.ImageCredit...Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images EuropeAmid the piles of uniforms, the haul has also included pistols, grenades and at least one parachute. A kibbutz turned over a weapons cache from the 1948 war surrounding Israels establishment.Publicity for the amnesty has included television advertisements that play on a collective nostalgia in a country where most 18-year-olds are conscripted for service, and many are then called up for reserve duty, sometimes into middle age. One ad features a man who finds it hard to separate from his army sleeping bag. In another, a man returns the door of a military jeep.That apparently inspired one veteran to return an entire military jeep he stole 15 years ago. The man, who has not been identified, had painted the jeep black and driven it around the countryside, unlicensed, avoiding the cities, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported.Veterans offered differing explanations for why soldiers had not returned equipment that was essentially on loan while they served. Some, the veterans said, feared losing equipment and liked to keep spares at home. Others, they said, had kept it in case equipment was lacking when they were summoned for reserve duty.Colonel Ilu said there was no shortage of equipment. The soldiers have all they need, as do the reservists, he said, explaining that the army had heavily restocked after equipment scarcities during the Lebanon war in 2006. The colonel said he believed that in most cases, reservists kept equipment as souvenirs.The 2008 amnesty yielded about 7 million shekels worth of equipment, or about $1.8 million. Since then, Colonel Ilu noted, Israel has warred three times with rocket-firing militant groups in Gaza. Maybe, he said, reservists took equipment home by mistake or not by mistake.Writing about the militarys ad campaign in the newspaper Haaretz over the weekend, Rogel Alpher, a commentator and a television critic, described the thefts as a strange kind of collective kleptomania fever and criticized the military for leniency. In the I.D.F. there are no criminals, there are naughty soldiers, he wrote. The forgiving attitude, he added, strengthens the feeling that what happens in the I.D.F. stays in the I.D.F.At the entrance of the military base in Ramat Gan, a soldier dutifully logged each item that came out of the bearded mans shopping bags. The clothing was put in large cardboard crates labeled General equipment, Weapon accessories and Uniforms, including thermals.An officer came to handle the ammunition. He placed it in a plastic crate that, by lunchtime, contained four metal boxes of bullets. Farthest away from the soldiers, but closest to the main road, it was lined with sandbags. | World |
Jeff Hostetler Nick Foles Reminds Me of Me ... Shock the World! 1/25/2018 TMZSports.com Jeff Hostetler knows what it's like for a backup QB to achieve Super Bowl glory ... and he's passing his wisdom to a guy who's in his exact same shoes -- Nick Foles. Just like Foles ... Hoss was #2 on the depth chart when the 1990 Giants started the season -- but got the starting gig when Phil Simms got injured in Week 15. Everyone counted the G-Men out ... saying a backup couldn't lead them to a win. Hoss proved 'em wrong, throwing for 222 yards and a TD. Now, the 56-year-old is giving a bit of advice to the Eagles backup ... revealing what it's like for a backup to take over under center in the Big Game. BTW -- the Giants were a 6.5-point underdog against the Bills, and the Patriots are 5-point favorites over the Eagles. Jeff's a big fan of Foles -- but says it still pains him for a Giants fan to root for the Eagles. | Entertainment |
Feb. 11, 2014The infection in Bob Costass left eye appeared Thursday and spread to his right eye Sunday. When he woke up Tuesday in Sochi, Russia, with his eyes swollen and crusted shut, he told NBC that he could not host that nights prime-time Olympics broadcast.Both eyes were red and angry on Sunday and Monday, Costas said by telephone Tuesday morning. Matt Lauer, who is in Sochi as a co-host of Today, will fill in.Costas has been wearing glasses, instead of contact lenses, since NBCs Winter Olympic coverage began Thursday night.It was increasingly uncomfortable with each passing night, but I could cope with it, he said. But last night until today, it got to where I couldnt look in the bathroom light without squinting and blinking and my eye watering.On Tuesday, after waking up, he gingerly washed the eyes to open them to a slit.He added: You hear it called pinkeye or conjunctivitis, but, as a practical matter, I havent had it before. You have swelling and stinging and burning and eventually tearing. And last night was the most difficult night of the five. But when I left, I fully expected to be back tonight.While in the NBC studio, he has treated the eyes with cold compresses in the breaks between taping his segments. Now, he will spend 24 hours in a darkened room, taking antibiotics and using eye drops, while still using the compresses.Jim Bell, the executive producer of NBC Olympics, said: Its day to day. We hope and expect that it will just be one day, but we are prepared in case he needs a little more time.Costas said he hoped the symptoms would abate enough for him to return to work Wednesday.If it were just a matter of discomfort, Id be there, he said. Everybodys been on the air at less than 100 percent or feeling lousy.The absence will end Costass streak of anchoring 157 consecutive Olympic prime-time broadcasts for NBC, dating to the Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, the network said.Costas said he could not recall sickness sidelining him since he was supposed to host the broadcast of the A.F.C. championship game between Cleveland and Denver in January 1990.I woke up that morning with food poisoning, which is as lousy as you can feel while knowing youre not going to die, he said. They took me to the hospital, and, as I remember, I took my suit thinking theyd stick me with an IV and Id still go to Mile High Stadium. But then the ceiling started to spin over my head. And I recall a nurse saying to me, with IVs in my arm: I know you from television. You look different.Costass eye condition has produced a bit of a kerfuffle on social media, which Costas said he ignored, although he has joked about his condition on the air.All I can sense, he said, is that people see this for what it is: that at the worst possible time, a guy comes down with something, and theyre sympathetic. | Sports |
11 Things Wed Really Like to KnowPhysicists are no longer unified in the search for a unified theory.Credit...Franziska BarczykNov. 19, 2018Is Albert Einstein finally dead?Yes. The old sage took his last breath and muttered his last indecipherable words, in German, on April 18, 1955. But lately he has been dying a second death, if one believes a new spate of articles and papers bemoaning the state of contemporary physics.Never mind the recent, staggering discovery of gravitational waves: ripples in space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago, and which indicate the universe is peppered with black holes that shred and swallow stars.No, something much deeper than gravity or quantum theory, Einsteins other misbegotten legacy, is at stake.More than anyone, it was Einstein who set the goal for modern science: the search for a final theory of everything, a unified theory, he said, that would explain why there was no other way to put together the universe than the one we seem to live in.Or, as he famously put it, What interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.Roll over, Albert.There are no laws of physics, read the headline on an article in Quanta, the online science magazine, last summer by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study, where Einstein spent his last 22 years.Instead, Dr. Dijkgraaf wrote, there is a frighteningly complex landscape of possibilities, a nearly infinite, subtly connected network of complementary versions of reality. There exists a universe for every good or bad dream youve ever had, each with its own set of so-called fundamental particles, forces, laws and dimensions.This landscape, also known as the multiverse, is the vision of string theorists who have vaulted past Einstein in the current scientific imagination.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]String theory unites gravity, which curves the cosmos, with quantum mechanics, which describes the randomness that lives inside it, by envisaging the fundamental constituents of nature as tiny strings of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions.The theory has been described as a piece of 21st-century physics that fell into the 20th century by accident and which might require 22nd-century mathematics to understand.The result is a mathematical labyrinth with 10 solutions, each one a different potential universe. In principle, one of those universes is ours but nobody knows, because the math and physics are so horrendously complex.Or so the story goes. If our world is but one of many, how do we deal with the alternatives? Dr. Dijkgraaf wrote. The current point of view can be seen as the polar opposite of Einsteins dream of a unique cosmos.Reached in Princeton, Dr. Dijkgraaf said that the articles headline, which he hadnt written, perhaps was an overstatement. Probably there is some fundamental principle, he said, perhaps whatever it is that lies behind string theory.But nobody, not even the founders of string theory, can say what that might be.Scientists were drawn to this vision by the discovery, two decades ago, that a mysterious force dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the universe, making the galaxies retreat from each other faster and faster as cosmic time goes by.This dark energy bears all the earmarks of a fudge factor, called the cosmological constant, that Einstein inserted into his equations a century ago, and later rejected as a blunder. But the amount of this dark energy is smaller than the predicted value of the cosmological constant by a factor of 10.Physicists can only explain the discrepancy by assuming that the value of Einsteins constant is random across all potential universes; we live in one with the right amount of dark energy to allow stars and galaxies to form.In short, we live where we can.For some physicists, the landscape is a logical extension of the Copernican revolution. Just as the Earth is not the center of the solar system, nor the only planet, so our universe is not the only universe.For other physicists, the idea of other universes is an epistemological absurdum, a dead end of unprovable speculation and a betrayal of the Einsteinian dream of a unique cosmos.Even in our one universe, Einsteins pilgrims are in trouble, their path to ultimate knowledge blocked or perhaps nonexistent.The discovery in 2012 of the long-sought Higgs boson confirmed the last outstanding piece of an ambitious mathematical edifice known as the Standard Model, which details all the forms of matter and energy that can be measured in a lab. The Standard Model explains why your computer boots up and why a gardenia smells so sweet.But the model works too well. Particle physicists have now sifted the debris from trillions upon trillions of subatomic collisions in the Large Hadron Collider, the immense machine in which the Higgs was discovered. So far they have confirmed that the Higgs behaves as the Standard Model predicted.That is a great intellectual achievement, but it fails to reveal any discrepancies that could lead to a deeper theory. In particular, researchers have found no trace of a much-hoped-for phenomenon called supersymmetry, which would tie together the individual physical forces and supply a whole new menu of elementary particles, including, perhaps, the stuff of dark matter.But supersymmetry might always have been an illusion, according to Sabine Hossenfelder, a theorist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study. She emerged last year as one of the most vocal critics of modern physics, with a provocative new book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray.Dr. Hossenfelder argues that physicists have gone off course by exalting mathematical elegance. They believed that Mother Nature was elegant, simple and kind about providing clues, she wrote. They thought they could hear her whispering when they were talking to themselves.Particle physicists contend that they merely have been following time-honored and successful principles. They chased the Higgs boson for half a century, and nearly gave up before nature finally coughed it up.Meanwhile, the cosmologists, a notably fractious group, have agreed on their own standard model of our particular universe.According to them, atoms the stuff of you, me and the stars account for only 5 percent of the cosmos by weight. Dark matter, of which we know nothing except that its collective gravity sculpts and holds the galaxies together, amounts to 25 percent.The remaining 70 percent is dark energy, pushing everything apart; we dont know anything about that, either. We only know that this dark sector exists because of the effect of its gravity on the luminous universe, the motions of stars and galaxies.A theory that leaves 95 percent of the universe unidentified is hardly a sign that science is over.Maybe we dont understand gravity after all, some astronomers say. I worry that we deify Einstein too much, Stacy McGaugh, an astronomer at Case Western Reserve University, told Gizmodo in June.If scientists want any gift for the holidays, its some new physics that would break the stalemate of these standard models and provide new clues to our existence.Maybe that breakthrough will come from finally figuring out what dark matter is, or from the Large Hadron Collider, which will continue banging together subatomic particles for the next 20 years in search of new forces and phenomena. Every collision recorded is another step into the unknown.For now, the universe might have 11 dimensions, or it might be somebodys dream. Life might have started on Mars or in a boiling ocean vent, or maybe were all bits in somebodys computer simulation. The search for who we are and how nature is put together is one of the flagship human endeavors, like art or music. It will continue.Dr. Hossenfelder, for all her skepticism, ends her book on a hopeful note.The next breakthrough in physics will occur in this century, she wrote. It will be beautiful. | science |