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The company faces declining sales and thousands of lawsuits claiming it knowingly sold its trendy vaping products to minors. Soon the F.D.A. will decide whether it can keep selling them at all.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York TimesPublished July 5, 2021Updated Oct. 12, 2021Sales have plunged by $500 million. The work force has been cut by three-quarters. Operations in 14 countries have been abandoned. Many state and local lobbying campaigns have been shut down.Juul Labs, the once high-flying e-cigarette company that became a public health villain to many people over its role in the teenage vaping surge, has been operating as a shadow of its former self, spending the pandemic largely out of the public eye in what it calls reset mode. Now its very survival is at stake as it mounts an all-out campaign to persuade the Food and Drug Administration to allow it to continue to sell its products in the United States.The agency is trying to meet a Sept. 9 deadline to decide whether Juuls devices and nicotine pods have enough public health benefit as a safer alternative for smokers to stay on the market, despite their popularity with young people who never smoked but became addicted to nicotine after using Juul products.Major health organizations, including the American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Cancer Societys Cancer Action Network, have asked the agency to reject Juuls application.The stakes are high, said Eric Lindblom, a senior scholar at the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, and a former F.D.A. adviser on tobacco. If the F.D.A. blows it on this one, they will face public health lawsuits.Juul is sparing no expense to push back. Last week, the company agreed to pay $40 million to settle just one lawsuit (with North Carolina) out of thousands lodged against it, avoiding a looming jury trial. The company had urgently sought the deal to avoid courtroom testimony from parents and teenagers while the F.D.A. is reviewing its vaping products.Juul has not made its 125,000-page application to the agency public. But it paid $51,000 to have the entire May/June issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior devoted to publishing 11 studies funded by the company offering evidence that Juul products help smokers quit. (A spokesman for Juul said the editors had rejected one of the companys submissions.) That fee included an extra $6,500 to have the subscription journal open access to everyone. Three editorial board members of the journal resigned over the arrangement. And Juuls federal lobbying has remained robust. It spent $3.9 million on federal lobbying in 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political spending. Altria, the big tobacco company that owns a chunk of Juul, spent nearly $11 million.Juuls share of the vaping market has shrunk significantly, to 42 percent last year, according to analysts, from a high of 75 percent in 2018. But some public health experts say they are concerned that F.D.A. approval will lay the groundwork for the company to rise and expand its reach again.Juul has long denied that it knowingly sold its products to teenagers, and it has been pledging publicly for the last few years to do all it can to keep them away from minors. In its settlement with North Carolina, the company did not admit intentionally targeting youths.In an interview, Joe Murillo, Juuls chief regulatory officer, said, We have a bigger opportunity to convert smokers than ever before, but we will get that opportunity if and only if we continue to combat underage usage and continue to act like the highly regulated company that we are.The company is seeking approval for its iconic vaping device, once dubbed the iPhone of e-cigarettes, with tobacco- and menthol-flavored pods in two nicotine strengths: 5 percent, which is equivalent to the nicotine in an average pack of cigarettes, and 3 percent.The decision is one of a number of critical issues the F.D.A. has been wrestling with including the agencys recent approval of a controversial Alzheimers drug and decisions on thousands of vaping products made by companies other than Juul without a permanent commissioner in place. President Biden has yet to announce a nominee.Recently, a House panel questioned the acting commissioner, Dr. Janet Woodcock, about the agencys plans for Juul. She said that the agency would base its decision on sound science, and that she couldnt prejudge the application, which is still under review.The decision will be based in large part on the answer to two questions: Will more smokers use Juul products as an off-ramp from traditional cigarettes than nonsmokers will use it as an on-ramp to nicotine? And can Juul really keep the products away from kids?ImageCredit...Ting Shen for The New York TimesThe bulk of Juuls published research in the journal edition it bought tracks the 12-month experience of 55,000 adults who purchased a Juul starter kit. The researchers, all of whom were paid by Juul, concluded that 58 percent of the 17,000 smokers who stayed in the study had stopped smoking at 12 months. Twenty-two percent remained dual users of both traditional and e-cigarettes but cut their smoking by at least half. Elbert D. Glover, who was editor and publisher of the journal, but retired soon after the issue came out, said the journal followed its standard protocol for scientists who vet studies before publication.The steady decline in Americans who smoke has been a public health success story. The rate has dropped from 42 percent in 1965 to 14 percent in 2019. Yet smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death, with some 480,000 people dying from smoking-related diseases each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. E-cigarettes, which emerged in the early 2000s, were designed to give smokers the nicotine fix they craved without the carcinogens that come from burning cigarettes. But until Juul launched in 2015, no e-cigarette had caught on widely with the public.Juuls sleek design and its novel use of nicotine salts in its pods created a high-nicotine, low-irritant experience in mango, mint and other flavors that quickly became a fad, especially among high school and middle school students. Public health officials worried that rather than helping adults quit smoking, Juul was hooking a new generation on nicotine, with potentially harmful health effects on their developing brains and posing other health risks.Juuls rapid growth stayed under the F.D.A.s radar until 2018, when the agency declared a youth vaping epidemic.The F.D.A. left in place a wide open, Wild West marketplace around these vaping products and unfortunately Juul and others dove in and exploited it, said Clifford E. Douglas, director of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network. What took place then screwed up a genuine extraordinary public health opportunity for harm reduction. Its our obligation to come back to that to serve the public health.Mr. Douglas believes that Juul is marketing its vaping products more responsibly now, and that they could play a role in reducing harm to cigarette smokers.Mr. Lindblom, the former F.D.A. tobacco adviser, has been highly critical of Juul, but believes the F.D.A. cannot take past bad behavior into account.The F.D.A. has to evaluate this in a forward-looking way and cant really punish Juul, but it can certainly take into consideration how popular Juul is among youth, he said. Many of Juuls critics do not believe the company deserves another chance. They are wary of the companys reset, announced in September 2019 when K.C. Crosthwaite, a top executive of Altria, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, became Juuls chief executive.ImageCredit...Joshua Bright for The New York TimesMr. Crosthwaite pulled the plug on some of Juuls controversial state and city lobbying campaigns. He closed shop in Juuls foreign markets across the world, except for Britain and Canada, although Juul is still sold through distributors in Ukraine, Russia, Italy and the Philippines. Under public pressure, he took mint- flavored pods, which accounted for 70 percent of sales, off the market. And he suspended all U.S. advertising.We must put earning trust at the center of everything we do, he wrote in an email to company staff last summer.Critics contend that most of these changes were made at gunpoint undertaken after the F.D.A. threatened to shut down the business if teenagers continued to have access to Juul. To these public health advocates, Altrias purchase of a $12.8 billion stake in Juul in December 2018 makes them even more distrustful.The Marlboro man rode into Juul and now wants us to trust them, said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The Federal Trade Commission is now trying to unravel the Altria-Juul deal, alleging that the two companies entered into a series of agreements that eliminated competition in violation of antitrust laws.The commission contends that Altria and Juul started as competitors in the e-cigarette markets, but that as Juul became more popular, Altria dealt with its competitive threat by discontinuing its Mark Ten e-cigarette in exchange for a share of Juuls profits. Both companies have denied the charges. Even if the F.D.A. approved Juul products, perhaps with restrictions, the company would face considerable business hurdles.When Juul was forced to discontinue its fruity flavor pods, new competitors, sometimes nicknamed Juulalikes, flooded the vacuum with cheap, disposable e-cigarettes in flavors like Cherry Frost and Dinner Lady Lemon Tart. Altria now estimates Juuls value at under $5 billion, a fraction of its $38 billion valuation when Altria bought 35 percent of the business in the 2018 deal.ImageCredit...Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesIf Juul survives, the company will most likely spend the next few years trying to settle thousands of lawsuits. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have sued Juul, seeking money to pay for combating the youth vaping crisis. A criminal investigation of the company by the Justice Department is still underway.There is also multi-district litigation in a federal court in California, which has combined nearly 2,000 cases under the purview of one judge, similar to the treatment of opioid cases.Whether there would be any company left to collect from if plaintiffs prevail is up to the F.D.A. | Health |
N.F.L.|Browns Executives Leavehttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/sports/football/browns-executives-leave.htmlSports Briefing | FootballFeb. 11, 2014The Cleveland Browns chief executive, Joe Banner, will step down in the next two months and General Manager Michael Lombardi is leaving the team, the Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said Tuesday. Cleveland recently hired Mike Pettine as the coach after firing Rob Chudzinski, who went 4-12 in his only season.Haslam said that Ray Farmer, an assistant general manager, would immediately take the over the teams football operations and lead the Browns during free agency and the draft. Cleveland has two first-round picks in the May draft. The Canadian Football League fined two players for making what it said were inappropriate comments about Michael Sam, the college player who announced Sunday that he was gay. The players, Montreal Alouettes receiver Arland Bruce and Winnipeg Blue Bombers defensive tackle Bryant Turner Jr., were penalized undisclosed amounts for postings on social media. (AP) | Sports |
Steve-O I'm Engaged!!! And Have A Dream Wedding Idea! 1/22/2018 TMZ.com Steve-O just might've pulled of the craziest stunt of his life ... he got engaged to his girlfriend, Lux Wright!!! Steve-O popped the question Saturday night onstage at the end of a comedy special he was filming in Denver with his "Jackass" buddies and family in the audience, and when we got him Sunday at LAX he gave us a firsthand look at the ring he put on Lux. If he sounds like a new man rather than the guy known for putting a black widow spider in his mouth for shits and giggles, just wait till you hear his dream wedding plans ... TMZ.com Good luck, bro! We're rooting for you! | Entertainment |
On TechFacebook complaining about a bad policy that the company helped initiate is more than an eye-rolling joke.Credit...Daniel MaarleveldOct. 9, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.Instagrams boss had a message this week for the White House and the world: It was counterproductive for the United States to try to ban TikTok, the popular video app from China.Its bad for U.S. tech companies and people in the United States, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, told Axios, if other countries take similar steps against technology from beyond their borders including Facebook and its Instagram app. (He and Mark Zuckerberg have said this before, too.) Its really going to be problematic if we end up banning TikTok and we set a precedent for more countries to ban more apps, he said.Mosseri has a point. What he didnt say, though, was that Facebook has itself partly to blame. The company helped fan the fears about TikTok that Facebook is now worried will blow back on the company. This is bonkers.Facebook complaining about a bad policy that Facebook helped initiate might seem like an eye-rolling joke, but its more than that. Its the latest evidence that the companys executives are incapable of foresight. Facebook not predicting how its own actions might cause harm later on is partly why we have sprawling conspiracies and autocrats harassing their own citizens.I genuinely wonder what Facebook expected to happen with its TikTok fearmongering. Over and over again for at least a year, Zuckerberg and other top Facebook executives privately and publicly spoke out against censorship by TikTok and other Chinese technology companies and complained that Chinese government support for domestic technology companies gave them a leg up over American companies.They werent wrong. There are reasons to be worried about TikTok and other Chinese technology operating in the United States. But I dont believe Facebook was bringing up these concerns out of principled commitment to American values. What Facebook was doing was pure short-term self-interest.The companys executives implied that if U.S. lawmakers regulated or restrained Facebook, then somehow it was never clear how, exactly Chinese companies like TikTok and Chinese values would take over the world. Playing up often legitimate concerns about Chinese apps also sought to distract people from real problems about Facebook by yelling LOOK OVER THERE! about China.There was plenty of concern in Washington about TikTok and Chinese technology even without Facebook pressing its points. But the company encouraged the sentiment that led American officials to try to bar TikTok from the United States.TikTok probably wont be banned. A ban never really seemed to be the point of the bizarre political theater. Still, a precedent has been set. As Mosseri warned, countries that are mad will probably feel emboldened to take it out on foreign tech companies by barring them from their borders.A large proportion of people who use Facebook and its Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp apps are outside the United States, so those companies could well become the victims of government bans.Only now are Facebook officials realizing that their TikTok trash talk helped unleash a monster that might hurt them. Usually the consequences of Facebooks myopia falls on the most vulnerable people. This time to the companys utter shock Facebooks lack of foresight might hurt Facebook itself.If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here.Lets talk about internet ads!Did that headline make you excited?! Yeah, OK, no. But really, we should talk about internet ads.Ads we see on websites and other digital spots passed television commercials several years ago as the dominant way companies pitch their new cars, travel packages, and other products and services.But there is a question that has been whispered for years about online advertising, including the types of personalized ads we see on Facebook and Google. What if it doesnt really work?That question is getting renewed attention now because of a new book from a former Google employee who argues that the pervasive online ads based on digital dossiers of our habits are less accurate and less persuasive than its proponents believe.That idea is overstated, I think. Online advertising is sprawling, and there is a lot of waste, outright fraud, overpromises and wasted money. A lot. Thats less true of the ads sold by Facebook and Google and more of the very long tail of advertising on the rest of the internet. (This is a good read on this topic.)So yeah, some internet ads work really well. Some are garbage. But the problem is that all of it creates the conditions for a land grab to collect as much information on people as possible to craft ads targeted at each individual. Even if the ads are persuasive, the downsides of online advertising have gotten out of control.Whats the way out of this? Comprehensive government regulation to force companies to collect less information about us. Period. That may be too much to hope for. But I am excited about experiments in advertising that are based not on who we are but what were doing right now.If you are searching for Nike sneakers in Google, youre probably going to be tempted by an ad for Nike sneakers. If youre reading an article about Hawaii vacation spots at some point in the future, when we can travel freely again you might be interested in ads for holiday packages to Hawaii. Some news organizations are experimenting with this kind of advertising, as are companies like DuckDuckGo, a web search engine that competes with Google.So, yes, some online ads are exceedingly persuasive and even useful to us. But almost all online ads are too creepy and we should welcome alternatives, whether through regulation or different business approaches.Before we go This should be interesting: Twitter said it would force people to pause before they pass along others tweets and made several other temporary changes to its routine features. The changes are an attempt to control the spread of misinformation in the final weeks before the U.S. presidential election, my colleague Kate Conger reported. Some experts have said it would improve online conversations if Facebook, Twitter and other websites made it harder for people to rashly share information without thinking.Fix Facebook by breaking Facebook: Charlie Warzel, an Opinion writer for The New York Times, writes that the best step Facebook can take is to entirely redesign itself. The plot to kidnap Michigans governor, which prosecutors said was coordinated in part on Facebook, is more evidence that the company must distribute information around values other than what gets peoples attention, Charlie says.How to make your Alexa less creepy: This is not a project for everyone, but one writer built his own device like the Amazon Echo Show in about 45 minutes, without the snooping company.Hugs to thisThe human sprayed water at the octopus. The octopus turned it into a water fight game.We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com. | Tech |
Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York TimesNov. 6, 2018NEW DELHI Days after a man-eating tiger was shot dead in central India, a backlash is underway, with politicians and animal rights advocates denouncing the killing and a senior government minister threatening legal action against people involved in the hunt.The female tiger, called T-1 by forest rangers, was believed to have killed at least 13 villagers over the last two years, and to have partially eaten several. A military-style operation aimed at tranquilizing and capturing the animal, which had two cubs, ended instead with the tigers death on Friday night.Indias Supreme Court had ruled in September that the hunters could shoot the tigress if they were left with no other choice. According to forest officials, that is what happened when it was spotted near the village of Borati, in the state of Maharashtra.After a group of rangers identified the tigress as T-1, one of them shot her with a tranquilizer dart, officials said. But then she lunged at their open vehicle, and another hunter raised his gun and fired. T-1 died on the spot.Villagers in the area were relieved. Over the weekend, they threw parties, danced and lit firecrackers. But in other parts of India, the reaction was closer to fury.Protests broke out in Mumbai. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals India demanded an investigation, saying wildlife protection laws may have been breached. On Twitter, Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Indian National Congress, posted a quote often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.National shame! read a poster circulating on social media that depicted the tigress in a pool of blood, an Indian flag draped across her body.Among the politicians condemning the killing was Maneka Gandhi, Indias minister for women and child development, who is also an animal rights advocate. On Sunday, she called it patently illegal and a ghastly murder and made vague threats to pursue legal and criminal penalties against people involved.Ms. Gandhi accused Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, a celebrity tiger tracker who was involved in the hunt, of gunrunning and even murder, offering no evidence. Mr. Khan was not present on Friday when the tiger was killed, but officials said his son fired the fatal shot.Mr. Khan said on Tuesday that he was examining all legal avenues to bring a suit against Ms. Gandhi. He said his team had followed the Supreme Courts order and that no case against him was pending in any Indian court.ImageCredit...Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesAnimal rights activists take a lot of funds from abroad, he said. None of them are genuinely interested in wildlife conservation. Their agenda is making money.The chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, said he would order an investigation into the killing of the tiger.Forest rangers have defended the decision to shoot T-1. Ashok Kumar Mishra, a government conservator in Maharashtra, acknowledged that Fridays developments were not ideal, but he said the end of the hunt was always going to be a complicated thing. The criticism on social media, he said, was mostly coming from people far from the scene.Rural people who are living this life and understand, they appreciate our efforts, he said. Unfortunately, all those people are not on Twitter and social media.The operation to capture T-1 was one of the largest of its kind in Indias recent history. Hundreds of forest rangers spent months combing the jungles of Maharashtra looking for tiger tracks, scat and scratches on trees. The hunt involved a heat-seeking drone, more than 100 remote cameras and several specially trained elephants with sharpshooters perched on their backs.Like 30 percent of Indias tigers, T-1 never lived in a dedicated reserve. Even if she had been captured alive, the authorities said the tigress could never have been reintroduced into the wild.Indias critically endangered tiger population is soaring, from 1,411 in 2006 to an estimated 2,500 today. Tigers are spilling out of reserves and coming into closer contact with humans, sometimes leading to attacks.In recent months, another tigress that had been relocated to eastern India from a different tiger reserve killed two people. There are plans to move her to a zoo.Dr. Bilal Habib, an Indian tiger researcher, said such killings put wildlife conservators in a difficult position. He said their leadership was needed, partly to avoid scenarios in which terrified villagers take justice into their own hands and simply kill endangered animals.That is what happened on Sunday, he said, when villagers living near a forest reserve in northern India killed a tigress that had mauled a 50-year-old man, who later died from his injuries. The villagers beat up forest rangers, stole a tractor and crushed the tigress under its wheels, according to news reports.As tigers stray outside the reserves, we have to think of a mechanism of coexistence, Dr. Habib said. Conflicts are increasing day by day. | World |
Credit...Samuel Corum/Getty ImagesPublished Jan. 7, 2021Updated Jan. 9, 2021The actions of law enforcement officials before, during and after the violent breach of the Capitol on Wednesday by a pro-Trump mob were questioned as images emerged of officers gently escorting rioters to freedom and a video showed officers pushing aside barricades used to keep the mob from entering the complex.The law enforcement agencies responsible for protecting the complex, a patchwork of federal and local agencies led by the 2,000-member Capitol Police force, are already facing scrutiny over their inability to counter the violence despite weeks of none-too-secret planning by the attackers on social media sites like Gab and Parler.The Capitol Police, which is shielded from the transparency requirements of other federal agencies by law, did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, Steven Sund, the chief of police, issued a statement vowing a thorough review of this incident, security planning and policies and procedures.The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol was unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here in Washington, D.C., Mr. Sund said. The U.S.C.P. had a robust plan established to address anticipated First Amendment activities. But make no mistake these mass riots were not First Amendment activities; they were criminal riotous behavior.Mr. Sund said more than 50 Capitol Police and Washington Metro Police officers had been injured, and several Capitol Police officers were hospitalized with serious injuries. A Capitol Police officer who shot and killed a woman outside the House chamber has been placed on administrative leave while the department investigates.Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, said on Twitter late Wednesday: We must investigate the security breach at the Capitol today. I warned our Caucus and had an hour long conversation with the Chief of Police 4days ago. He assured me the terrorists would not be allowed on the plaza & Capitol secured. (An earlier version of this briefing item misstated the timing of the events at the Capitol and the statement by the Capitol Police. The Capitol was stormed on Wednesday, not Tuesday, and the Capitol Police issued their response on Thursday, not Wednesday.)When debate over certification of the presidential election resumed amid shattered glass, lawmakers from both parties praised the heroism of the officers who battled with violent protesters.But many in the mob, which numbered in the hundreds, appeared to act with the abandon of lawbreakers confident they would not be held accountable.Some gleefully snatched and smashed cameras from journalists, others smiled without masks for selfies, and one Richard Barnett, 60, from Gravette, Ark., amiably recounted his invasion of Speaker Nancy Pelosis office to a reporter after posing for a picture with his feet on a desk.Why on earth is this man not under arrest and in prison? Ben Rhodes, a former speechwriter for President Obama, asked on Twitter.The contrast between the treatment of the mostly white pro-Trump mob and the massive show of force to counter more peaceful and racially diverse protests against police violence last summer was striking to many.It was strange, because it was almost like there was this call to not use force, Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat from St. Louis, said in an interview with MSNBC shortly after the attack.Ms. Bush said that the rioters would have been shot if they were Black, adding the treatment reflected white privilege.Law enforcement officials told lawmakers on Wednesday that their main priority was to clear the complex quickly, rather than make arrests, so that legislative activity could resume as soon as possible.As of 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, the last accounting offered by law enforcement agencies, at least 52 people were arrested, including five on weapons charges and at least 26 on the grounds of the Capitol. Most of the arrests were for violating the 6 p.m. curfew, he said, adding that the police would circulate pictures of those sought for breaching the Capitol building.In addition, pipe bombs were found at the headquarters of both the Republican and the Democratic National Committees and a cooler containing a long gun and Molotov cocktails was discovered on the Capitol grounds, Washington D.C. police officials said.On Wednesday morning, the F.B.I. posted a web page for tips about individuals involved in the violence, and details of new attacks that might be in the works allowing citizens to upload digital images of people involved. | Politics |
Business BriefingDec. 4, 2015The United States trade deficit widened 3.4 percent in October, the Commerce Department said on Friday, as exports of American goods fell to the lowest level in more than four years, a reflection of the impact of a weak global economy and stronger dollar. The trade deficit, the difference between exports and imports, widened 3.4 percent in October to $43.9 billion, compared with a revised $42.5 billion deficit in September. Exports of goods and services fell 1.4 percent to $184.1 billion. Exports of just goods dropped an even bigger 2.4 percent to $123.8 billion, the lowest level since June 2011. | Business |
Credit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesMarch 10, 2017PARIS When the State Department released its annual human rights report last week, it contained many of the usual tough American judgments of other countries. Iran was criticized for restricting freedom of religion and the media; Russia for discriminating against minorities; Eritrea for using torture; Bulgaria for violence against migrants and asylum seekers. The list went on.What was notably missing this year, however, was the usual fanfare around the report and a news conference promoting it by the new secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, as Democratic and Republican administrations have almost always done.The State Department dismissed criticism of Mr. Tillersons absence, which came even from some Republicans. But for observers of American foreign policy, it was hard not to interpret the low-key rollout as another step by the Trump administration away from Americas traditional role as a moral authority on the world stage that tries to shape and promote democratic norms, both for their intrinsic value and to create a more secure world.Interviews with more than a dozen former diplomats, professors, human rights advocates and international politicians, both abroad and in the United States, suggested that the United States under President Trump was poised to cede not only this global role, but also its ability to lead by example.Many pointed out that Americas own actions over the years have already eroded its moral standing Guantnamo Bay, the use of torture on suspected terrorists and the civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, to name a few.But Mr. Trumps administration stands alone, many experts said, for the divisiveness of its tone toward minorities and the media at home and toward Muslims and migrants abroad, its disparagement of NATO and the European Union and its praise of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, which have blurred distinctions between allies and enemies.ImageCredit...Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesMr. Trump himself recently put the United States on the same moral plane as Russia, when the Fox News talk show host Bill OReilly protested during an interview that Mr. Putin was a killer.There are a lot of killers, Mr. Trump quickly responded. Weve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our countrys so innocent?The comment alarmed many because it underscored an approach by Mr. Trump, like the rejection of migrants from certain predominantly Muslim countries, that has stripped much of the moral component from American foreign relations and left him being lectured by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and others about his duties under international law.Her foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has gone one step further, reminding America of its moral duty as the most powerful Western country and one founded by Christian refugees.The United States is a country where Christian traditions have an important meaning. Loving your neighbor is a major Christian value, and that includes helping people, he said recently. This is what unites us in the West and this is what we want to make clear to the Americans.Behind the rhetoric is the idea that moral authority as amorphous and idealistic as that can sound has imbued America with a special kind of clout in the world, with a power that is different from that wielded by autocrats and dictators or by big countries like Russia and China.While the Soviet-era dominance across Eastern Europe undoubtedly was undermined by an expensive Cold War arms race with the United States, it was the Western Democratic system and America that many people looked to emulate, former diplomats said.The Berlin Wall didnt come down because people were responding to American howitzers, said Joseph Nye, a former senior State Department official and now a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It came down under hammers and bulldozers wielded by people whose minds had been affected by the ideas of the West.The acting State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, rejected any suggestion that the United States was walking away from its international obligations or that the administrations statements and policies to date had diminished Americas standing.Weve signaled at every level our continued commitment to NATO, he said. On Russia, Secretary of State Tillerson has been clear that we would cooperate with Russia wherever possible, but not at the expense of Ukraine or Syria.As for the new executive order, he added, this administration isnt ignoring the plight of refugees or discouraging people from visiting the U.S. It is simply making the security of the American people its No. 1 priority and instituting a temporary pause so that we can evaluate and ensure our vetting processes are as strong as they can possibly be. In short, American diplomacy plays an important role in American security, a security which promotes our prosperity.Not all are so convinced. Though in its early stages, Mr. Trumps presidency has for many called into question what kind of role America aims to play in the world, and even whether it wants to remain an example for other countries. Abandoning that role will have consequences, some are warning.If America no longer presents an image of religious tolerance a core component of its moral standing it undermines its ability to make needed alliances, several diplomats said.Even in the days of George W. Bush, there was no feeling that Bush was against Muslims, said Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister of Jordan and now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is vice president for studies and oversees research on the Middle East.ImageCredit...Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBy contrast, he said, Mr. Trumps administration has seemed almost to revel in its anti-Islamic sentiments. There is no effort on the administrations side to reverse that image. Theres no empathy toward the region in any way.For Hoshyar Zebari, a former foreign minister of Iraq, the initial decision to issue the migrant ban and include Iraq was utterly puzzling as well as deeply unfair, given how many Iraqis had fought on the same side as the Americans against the Islamic State and its precursors in Iraq.Mr. Trump does seem to have been convinced of the importance of Iraqs role in the fight against Islamic extremism, and the latest version of his immigration ban includes six predominantly Muslim countries, leaving Iraq off the list. Still, the anti-Muslim rhetoric has emboldened extremists that this is the true face of America, Mr. Zebari said.Some of the policies Mr. Trump seems eager to pursue may also compromise Americas ability to lecture China about more tolerance toward Tibetan Buddhists or Uighurs, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey about a free news media or tolerance of the Kurds, they noted.ImageCredit...Bryan Denton for The New York TimesNot everyone agrees that Mr. Trumps approach is a startling departure from Americas values, however.Hubert Vdrine, a former French foreign minister, noted that while Barack Obama may have been more elegant and refined in his words, he pursued many policies similar to Mr. Trumps, like urging NATO members to do more.One cannot describe the international system before Trump as working very well, Mr. Vdrine said. Its not as though it was a paradisiacal, idyllic world, and abruptly Trump appeared like some kind of Attila.Yet the idea of a moral component in American identity dates back to the pilgrims. The notion became a particularly strong principle in foreign policy after World War I, with the United States playing a leading role in the creation of global organizations.That moral strand was strengthened by World War II, not only because of Americas part in helping to vanquish the Nazis, but also its postwar efforts to help rebuild Europe and form the United Nations.Now, as America looks at minimizing its commitments to NATO and the European Union, there is the sense that it can no longer be counted on as a reliable partner.The most burning question overseas is, Can we rely on the United States to keep its commitments, can we rely on you to lead in the way we expect, are you going to consider the interests of your allies when new deals are made? said Michle Flournoy, the former under secretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration.Instead, Mr. Trump seems intent to pursue a whats in it for us? approach to foreign policy much closer to that of Russia, where threats and lethal power are its chief points of leverage and where international relations are often viewed as a zero-sum game. Where that leads is anyones guess.What is very different is that the Trump administration says very bluntly that America has no responsibility in the world and it will pull back, said Laurence Nardon, who runs the North America program at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris, a prominent think tank.Trump will still do things, but in a transactional way, she added. He will fight ISIS because its perceived as a true and real danger to the United States, and hell do deals that benefit the country, but not out of any sense of moral responsibility to help the rest of the world. | World |
Business BriefingDec. 16, 2015The United States and Cuba have reached an understanding on restoring regular commercial flights, Cuban and American officials said Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary of detente between the Cold War foes. The diplomatic advance helps open the way for American airlines to begin flying to Cuba in what would be the biggest business deal struck as the countries try to normalize relations. Officials on each side said they hoped to reach a formal deal soon. American and Cuban travelers must now fly on charter flights that can be complicated to book. They often must arrive at the airport four hours early and comply with strict baggage limits. American officials and aviation executives have speculated that Cuba could allow more than 12 flights from the United States daily. It is unclear if those flights would completely replace charters, but they appear certain to create a surge in travel that would further strain Cubas already overburdened tourist infrastructure. Authorized American travel to Cuba is up 50 percent this year, according to the United States Embassy in Havana. | Business |
Credit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesJune 28, 2018SAN FRANCISCO California has passed a digital privacy law granting consumers more control over and insight into the spread of their personal information online, creating one of the most significant regulations overseeing the data-collection practices of technology companies in the United States.The bill raced through the State Legislature without opposition on Thursday and was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, just hours before a deadline to pull from the November ballot an initiative seeking even tougher oversight over technology companies.The new law grants consumers the right to know what information companies are collecting about them, why they are collecting that data and with whom they are sharing it. It gives consumers the right to tell companies to delete their information as well as to not sell or share their data. Businesses must still give consumers who opt out the same quality of service.It also makes it more difficult to share or sell data on children younger than 16.The legislation, which goes into effect in January 2020, makes it easier for consumers to sue companies after a data breach. And it gives the states attorney general more authority to fine companies that dont adhere to the new regulations.The California law is not as expansive as Europes General Data Protection Regulation, or G.D.P.R., a new set of laws restricting how tech companies collect, store and use personal data.But Aleecia M. McDonald, an incoming assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in privacy policy, said Californias privacy measure was one of the most comprehensive in the United States, since most existing laws and there are not many do little to limit what companies can do with consumer information.Its a step forward, and it should be appreciated as a step forward when its been a long time since there were any steps, Ms. McDonald said.The legislation is modeled closely on the ballot initiative, which a real estate developer, Alastair Mactaggart, spent $3 million and secured more than 600,000 signatures to get certified. With the ballot proposal hanging over legislators heads, the push for an alternative gained grudging support.If the bill had failed to pass before the deadline, the proponents of the ballot initiative would have taken their case straight to voters in November, they said.The states technology and business lobbies were opposed to the measure that was passed on Thursday, but they didnt try to derail it because they thought the ballot initiative was worse.Even legislators who voted for the bill complained that they had little choice because a ballot measure would provide less flexibility to make changes in the future. And some privacy advocates said the bill did not go as far as the ballot initiative in allowing individuals to sue for not complying.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesMr. Mactaggart said he wanted a sensible privacy law, whether through a ballot measure or the legislative process. He said that the Legislature was the right place to debate such a policy, but that it had been hard to get legislators to address privacy.If we didnt have the initiative process in California, we wouldnt be here today, Mr. Mactaggart said in an interview.One of the authors of the new law, Assemblyman Ed Chau, a Democrat, tried last year to pass a bill that would have required internet service providers to seek permission from customers before accessing, selling or sharing their browser activity. The bill never made it out of committee an example of the influence of telecommunications and technology companies in California.But with the ballot measure looming and a growing awareness of how technology companies are gobbling up user information highlighted by revelations that the voter profiling firm Cambridge Analytica gained access to the personal data of millions of Facebook users the legislation went from draft to law in one week.This is a huge step forward to people all across the country dealing with this very challenging issue, State Senator Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat and a co-author of the bill, said at a news conference after it was signed.The ballot initiative, which would have made it easier for private individuals to sue companies for not adhering to its privacy requirements, had drawn vocal opposition from industry groups that worried about the potential liability risk.The measure included a provision that would have required a 70 percent majority in both houses of the Legislature to approve any changes after it became law.Google, Facebook, Verizon, Comcast and AT&T each contributed $200,000 to a committee opposing the proposed ballot measure, and lobbyists had estimated that businesses would spend $100 million to campaign against it before the November election.Robert Callahan, a vice president of state government affairs for the Internet Association, an industry group that includes Google, Facebook and Amazon, said in a statement that the new law contained many problematic provisions. But the group did not try to obstruct it, he added, because it prevents the even worse ballot initiative from becoming law in California.Mr. Callahan said the group would work to correct the inevitable, negative policy and compliance ramifications this last-minute deal will create.Legislators said they expected to pass cleanup bills to make any fixes to the law in the 18 months before it takes effect. Some privacy advocates are worried that lobbyists for business and technology groups will use that time to water it down.Mr. Mactaggart said those concerns are overblown.Having gotten this right, itll be very hard to take it away, he said, noting that the ballot measure had been polling at around 80 percent approval. They cant rewrite the law. | Tech |
Credit...Mark Hertzberg for The New York TimesMarch 14, 2017Cutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood a longstanding conservative goal that is included in the Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act would reduce access to birth control for many women and result in thousands of additional Medicaid births, according to the Congressional Budget Office.Because nearly half of all births nationwide are to Medicaid patients, and many of those babies are Medicaid patients themselves, the budget office estimated that defunding Planned Parenthood even for a year would increase Medicaid spending by $21 million in the first year, and $77 million by 2026.The budget office numbers, released this week as part of an overall analysis of the Republican health bill, are based on economic modeling, but real-life experience in at least one state shows a similar result.In Texas, where the state cut off money to Planned Parenthood clinics in 2013, thousands of women stopped getting long-acting birth control in the first 18 months, and Medicaid pregnancies increased by 27 percent, according to a research paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year.Planned Parenthood has long been a target of conservatives for being a leading provider of abortions in the United States, although abortions make up a small percentage of its services, which are more likely to include birth control and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, many of its clinics do not perform abortions; in Wisconsin, for example, only two of the organizations 21 clinics do. Federal funding is never used to pay for them; since 1977, a law known as the Hyde Amendment has prohibited using federal money for abortions.The Republican health bill would defund Planned Parenthood for one year. An earlier analysis by the C.B.O. estimated that permanently defunding the organization, as Republicans would like to do, would increase Medicaid spending by even more $130 million over the next 10 years.Republicans said they would make up the $500 million they are cutting from Planned Parenthood by giving an extra $422 million to federally qualified health clinics. Speaker Paul D. Ryan argues that those clinics have a vast larger network in virtually every community and provide health care to women with less controversy than Planned Parenthood, because they do not provide abortions.But across the country, one in five counties served by Planned Parenthood have no federally qualified health clinics, according to the earlier C.B.O. analysis including two counties in Mr. Ryans district in Wisconsin. The C.B.O. estimates that in those areas, cuts to Planned Parenthood would result in 15 percent of women losing access to health care.Anti-abortion activists have produced lists of other federally qualified health providers who they say could provide many of the same family planning services offered by Planned Parenthood. But a list of 2,010 providers in Louisiana included hundreds of ophthalmologists, nursing homes, dentists, cosmetic surgeons and audiologists. A list of 300 alternate providers in Ohio included addiction treatment centers and food banks.Republicans say their bill will increase health care choices and reduce federal spending. But opponents of the provisions on Planned Parenthood charge that they are more driven by the politics of abortion.Babies born to Medicaid mothers become some of the programs highest-cost beneficiaries, which increases the cost of the trade-off with family planning, said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health policy at George Washington University who has long studied community health centers.Youre trading a highly cost-effective benefit for a relatively high-cost population, and the cost of that population is even greater when the pregnancy is unplanned, she said. Its a double whammy.ImageCredit...Mark Hertzberg for The New York TimesJoseph E. Potter, director of the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, a research group that analyzed the results of Texas cuts to Planned Parenthood in The New England Journal of Medicine paper, said the measure reduced choice. They think, Youre asking people to change providers what can go wrong? Its a long list of things that can go wrong.The potential problems, he said, included finding a conveniently located provider with available appointments and affordable fees. In focus groups that followed up the study, women described being unable to pay $50 for birth control, or hundreds of dollars for follow-up screening for cervical cancer after an abnormal Pap smear services that they had received free or at reduced costs from Planned Parenthood.When the Planned Parenthood in Midland, Tex., closed in late 2013, it transferred about 5,000 patient medical records to Midland Community Healthcare Services, a federally qualified health center. About 2,000 of those were records of active patients who had been seen in the previous year.But since then, only about 200 of those patients have trickled through our door, said Michael Austin, the community centers chief executive.Its an alarmingly low percentage, when you figure Planned Parenthood was probably seeing that many in a month or so, he said. These women are still out there, most of them still have family planning or health needs, and where theyre going is a mystery. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to figure out whats coming.Dr. Austins clinic was unusual in that it had a dedicated womens clinic, with nurse practitioners and two obstetrician-gynecologists on staff. But normally, community health clinics are set up as general practice clinics to serve all patients, regardless of age or gender. They are ill-equipped to do family planning or screen for sexually transmitted diseases they refer those patients to Planned Parenthood.And in many places, federally qualified health clinics just do not exist.The one federally qualified health center in Racine County, Wis., closed in 2015, after financial troubles. The county has been struggling with an increase in chlamydia and gonorrhea infections over the last four years, said Dottie-Kay Bowersox, director of public health for the city of Racine, in Mr. Ryans district.The city clinic Ms. Bowersox oversees does screening for sexually transmitted infections, but it is open only a day and a half each week. For family planning and prenatal care, she refers patients to Planned Parenthood.To get to the nearest federally qualified health clinic, she said, patients have to drive 35 minutes on a good day to Kenosha where the clinic there has said it would have a hard time absorbing the new patients or to Milwaukee, a 60-minute drive.But many patients cannot afford cars, and there is little to no public transportation.The federally funded clinics will have to absorb a heavy load. An analysis done in 2015 for the Congressional Budget Office by the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for reproductive rights, including abortion, found that Planned Parenthood served 36 percent of patients who had obtained publicly subsidized contraception from safety-net health providers. Federally qualified health centers serve 16 percent of those patients. Planned Parenthood centers serve an average of 2,950 contraceptive clients per year, while federally qualified health centers serve 330.Community health centers say it is not as simple as adding a few nurse practitioners or doctors to specialize in womens health. When they absorb those new patients, they are expected to serve all of their health needs, which is more expensive than what Planned Parenthood did.You cant provide the check one day and expect that the house is going to be built the next, said Jos E. Camacho, the executive director general of the Texas Association of Community Health Centers. Youre now asking health centers that provide a wide array of services to provide a wide array of services for what it costs Planned Parenthood to provide a focused service.In the meantime, he said, people fall off the radar. | Health |
Credit...Aly Song/ReutersDec. 9, 2015HONG KONG Shares started trading in six newly listed companies in China on Wednesday after a five-month hiatus for initial public offerings and just weeks before rules governing investors in new listings are set to change.Shares in all the companies surged by their daily limit of 44 percent, a typical increase for listings in China. The Shenzhen and Shanghai stock indexes both rose about 0.1 percent.The companies had filed to go public between February and June, but the Chinese government had banned new share sales in July in an effort to stem a plunge in the markets. The move created a backlog of nearly 700 companies that have been waiting to make their debuts.Public offerings were a popular investment before the ban, with companies often reaching the limit of how much their shares could rise on the first day. That effect was partly because of speculation and partly because of government policies meant to ensure that businesses were not overvalued when they went public.Under current rules, buyers must back their order with cash up front, even though the entire share order is unlikely to be filled. That can temporarily tie up hundreds of billions of dollars that might be invested elsewhere.About 3.978 trillion renminbi, or about $606 billion, was locked up for initial public offerings in June, while 42 billion renminbi was actually raised, according to ANZ Research.But the China Securities Regulatory Commission said the deposit requirement for initial public offerings would be different in 2016. That may make more funds available for investing in new listings, and stocks in general, analysts said.Changing the rules could make new listings more inviting, said David Qu, a rates strategist at ANZ Research.The old requirements, however, apply to the companies that started trading on Wednesday and the other 22 expected to list before the end of the year. Nonetheless, Mr. Qu says there is little to worry about.The P.B.O.C. is definitely going to maintain accommodative liquidity in the market in spite of the I.P.O.s, he said, referring to the Peoples Bank of China. They will inject liquidity when necessary, so Im not worried about the I.P.O. tightening this year.Shanghais main share index plunged 5.5 percent at the end of November, after Beijing cracked down on fraud and insider trading in the financial sector. But the resumption of I.P.O.s may also have contributed to sagging shares, as investors cashed out of their holdings to prepare for the new offerings.Herald van der Linde, an equities strategist at HSBC, said the government was working hard to make the process of going public more efficient. He added that it would take a while to see how the market responded to the resumption of public offerings.Sometimes when equity markets are hot, you see them do phenomenally well, he said, referring to new listings. I dont really expect that at the moment; you get that when there is liquidity. It will be much more muted from what weve seen for some of the past.Anji Foodstuff, a condiment maker; BanBao, a toy manufacturer; and Bomin Electronics, which makes printed circuit boards, were listed on the Shanghai stock exchange on Wednesday.The Shenzhen listings were Hubei Kailong Chemical Group, which makes explosives; Zhejiang Zhongjian Technology, which makes gardening machinery; and Beijing Sanfo Outdoor Products, a manufacturer of camping items. | Business |
TrilobitesThey dont eat the bugs, and theyre definitely applying them to wounds, so some scientists think the primates may be treating one anothers injuries.VideoA chimp, Suzee, catches an insect and puts it on a wound on the foot of her son, Sia. Video by Alessandra Mascaro.CreditCredit...Tobias DeschnerFeb. 7, 2022Chimpanzees design and use tools. That is well known. But is it possible that they also use medicines to treat their own and others injuries? A new report suggests they do.Since 2005, researchers have been studying a community of 45 chimpanzees in the Loango National Park in Gabon, on the west coast of Africa. Over a period of 15 months, from November 2019 to February 2021, the researchers saw 76 open wounds on 22 different chimpanzees. In 19 instances they watched a chimp performing what looked like self-treatment of the wound using an insect as a salve. In a few instances, one chimp appeared to treat another. The scientists published their observations in the journal Current Biology on Monday.The procedure was similar each time. First, the chimps caught a flying insect; then they immobilized it by squeezing it between their lips. They placed the insect on the wound, moving it around with their fingertips. Finally, they took the insect out, using either their mouths or their fingers. Often, they put the insect in the wound and took it out several times.The researchers do not know what insect the chimps were using, or precisely how it may help heal a wound. They do know that the bugs are small flying insects, dark in color. Theres no evidence that the chimps are eating the insects they are definitely squeezing them with their lips and then applying them to the wounds.There have been other reports of self-medication in animals, including dogs and cats that eat grass or plants, probably to help them vomit, and bears and deer that consume medicinal plants, apparently to self-medicate. Orangutans have been seen applying plant material to soothe muscle injuries. But the researchers know of no previous report of nonhuman mammals using insects for a medicinal purpose.In three instances, the researchers saw chimps using the technique on another chimp. In one case, they saw an adult female named Carol grooming around a flesh wound on the leg of an adult male, Littlegrey. She grabbed an insect, and gave it to Littlegrey, who put it between his lips, and transferred it to his wound. Later, Carol and another adult male were seen moving the insect around on Littlegreys wound. Another adult male approached, took the insect out of the wound, put it between his own lips, then reapplied it to Littlegreys leg.One chimp, an adult male named Freddy, was a particularly enthusiastic user of insect medicine, treating himself numerous times for injuries of his head, both arms, his lower back, his left wrist and his penis. One day, the researchers watched him treat himself twice for the same arm wound. The researchers dont know how Freddy got these injuries, but some of them probably involved fighting with other males.There are some animals that cooperate with others in similar ways, said Simone Pika, who leads an animal cognition lab at the University of Osnabrck in Germany and is an author of the study. But we dont know of any other instances in mammals, she said. This may be a learned behavior that exists only in this group. We dont know if our chimps are special in this regard.Aaron Sandel, an anthropologist at the University of Texas, Austin, found the work valuable, but at the same time expressed some doubts. They dont offer an alternative explanation for the behavior, and they make no connection to what insect it might be, he said. The jump to a potential medical function? Thats a stretch at this point.Still, he said, attending to their own wounds or the wounds of others using a tool, another object thats very rare. Their documentation of chimps paying such attention to other chimps is, he added, an important contribution to the study of social behavior in apes. And its still interesting to ask whether there is empathy involved in this, as it is in humans.In some forms of ape social behavior, it is clear that there is an exchange of value. For example, grooming another chimp provides relief from parasites for the groomed animal, but also an insect snack for the groomer. But in the instances she observed, Dr. Pika said, the chimp gets nothing tangible in return. To her, this shows the apes are engaging in an act that increases the welfare of another being, and teaches us more about the primates social relationships.With every field site we learn more about chimps, she said. They really surprise us. | science |
Chris Hemsworth My 3-Year-Old's a Surfing Pro!!! 1/26/2018 Chris Hemsworth's mini-me caught a clean wave Down Under worthy of a standing O. Thor and his wife, Elsa Pataky, took their 3-year-old twin sons, Sasha and Tristan, to Byron Bay in Australia for surfing lessons. Sasha wasted no time proving he's destined for greatness in the water ... looking every bit like a pro with a low-center of gravity and perfect stance. Even Tristan, in the blue rash-guard behind Sasha, seemed to be cheering on his bro. These kiddos have X-Games in their future. They'll more than skate by. | Entertainment |
Credit...Geraldine Hope Ghelli for The New York TimesMany patients with cognitive impairment have anxiety or depression, but standard treatments are difficult for people with memory issues. Anne Firmender received treatment for depression through a program called Problem Adaptation Therapy, which is specially suited to people with memory issues.Credit...Geraldine Hope Ghelli for The New York TimesDec. 8, 2019Anne Firmender, 74, was working with her psychologist to come up with a list of her positive attributes.I cook for others, said Ms. Firmender.Its giving, encouraged the psychologist, Dimitris Kiosses. Good kids, continued Ms. Firmender, who has four grown children and four grandchildren.And great mother, added Dr. Kiosses. Ms. Firmender smiled. Dr. Kiosses typed up the list and handed a printout to Ms. Firmender to take home. When youre feeling down and hard on yourself, you can remind yourself of your strengths, he told her.Ms. Firmender, who has a history of mental health problems, was in therapy for depression. But she also has mild cognitive impairment and can have trouble remembering what day it is. So Dr. Kiosses was treating her with a novel approach called Problem Adaptation Therapy, or PATH. The therapy, developed at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and White Plains, N.Y., focuses on solving tangible problems that fuel feelings of sadness and hopelessness. It incorporates tools, like checklists, calendars, signs and videos, to make it accessible for people with memory issues. A caregiver is often involved.The approach is one of several new psychotherapies to treat anxiety and depression in people with cognitive impairments, including early to moderate dementia. Another, the Peaceful Mind program, developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and elsewhere for patients with anxiety and dementia, simplifies traditional cognitive behavioral therapy and focuses on scheduling pleasurable activities and skills, like deep breathing. Therapy sessions are short and take place in patients homes. A program designed by researchers at University College London gives cards to patients to take home to remind them of key strategies. One that says Stop and Think prompts them to pause when they have panicky and unhelpful thoughts to help keep those thoughts from spiraling and creating more anxiety.Early research on the new approaches is encouraging, but longer and larger studies will be needed to fully assess the effectiveness. In a study published in JAMA Psychiatry involving 74 people with major depression and mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia, patients who had 12 sessions of PATH had a 43 percent greater reduction in their scores on a measure of depression symptoms compared with those in the control group who received 12 sessions of supportive therapy. (In the control treatment, therapists focused on conveying empathy and helping patients express their emotions.) At the end of treatment, 38 percent of patients who had PATH were in remission from their depression, compared with about 14 percent in the control group. In this study, both treatments were given at home.A small pilot study of the Peaceful Mind program, published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, found that clinicians rated patients who had received three months of weekly sessions as less anxious, compared with a control group. Peaceful Mind participants also rated themselves as having a higher quality of life. But the differences were not evident at six months. Brent P. Forester, chief of the division of geriatric psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts who was not involved in the research on the programs, said the approaches were promising and could fulfill a crucial need since current treatments for depression generally dont work well in people with cognitive impairments. Finding new interventions could be extraordinarily helpful in terms of quality of life, he said. Depression and anxiety are very common among people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Research shows that about a third of people with dementia also have depression, and that anxiety symptoms afflict roughly a quarter to half of patients with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. At the same time, a history of major depression increases the risk of developing Alzheimers later in life. Scientists arent sure exactly why that is, but one theory is that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can occur with depression, is toxic to the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is critical for storing long-term memories.ImageCredit...Geraldine Hope Ghelli for The New York TimesEspecially in dementias early stages, people may feel a lack of motivation, apathy, social isolation and fear, Dr. Forester said. People are very often aware of losing their memory and they are very scared, he said. Depression and anxiety can make dementia symptoms worse. People with a diagnosis of dementia can become very anxious about getting things wrong. They might struggle to find what they want at the store and worry about how to pay for things, said Aimee Spector, a professor of old age clinical psychology at University College London, and a creator of their cognitive behavioral therapy program for people with anxiety and dementia. These fears can lead patients to curtail normal activities, causing more cognitive problems. We know the brain needs to stay active and people need to remain cognitively challenged. There can be a negative spiral in dementia symptoms, Professor Spector said.Indeed, people with dementia who also have depression are more functionally impaired and are more likely to be placed in a nursing home, according to a study published in 2005 in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Still, depression is woefully undiagnosed and undertreated in dementia patients. The same study found that only 35 percent of dementia patients with depression were accurately diagnosed and adequately treated for their depression.While the science is mixed, research has generally found that antidepressant drugs dont work well in older adults with cognitive impairments. Still, many people with anxiety and depression and dementia are prescribed psychiatric drugs. The medications are given out almost automatically, said Lon Schneider, professor of psychiatry, neurology and gerontology at the University of Southern California. Many psychiatric drugs come with serious risks and side effects for older people. SSRI antidepressants like Zoloft and Prozac are associated with fractures and falls in seniors. Antipsychotic medications like haloperidol and risperidone, which are often given for anxiety and agitation, can increase the risk of death in people with dementia. Benzodiazepines like Klonopin and Xanax, often used for anxiety, can cause falls and confusion.Effective psychotherapy could be a safer alternative. The goal of PATH is to reduce negative emotions the patient has and increase positive emotions, said Dr. Kiosses, who is also an associate professor of psychology in clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Patients are taught to identify the situations that trigger negative emotions like sadness, anxiety, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness. They are also taught to shift their attention away from those situations and emotions. That is part of the thinking behind the list of positive attributes that Dr. Kiosses worked up with Ms. Firmender.PATH is based on problem-solving therapy, a treatment that focuses on helping people solve everyday problems that are causing distress. At the end of each session, therapists give patients a written summary to help them remember skills. They may also send patients home with tools to jog their memory. For an 84-year-old patient who struggled with feelings of loneliness, the therapist and patient put signs in the patients living room that said, Going to church will make me feel better and Staying home makes me sad. A caregiver is often enlisted to help patients use the skills theyve learned.Micky, 75, had no history of depression before he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle in 2013, resulting in a head injury that left him with short-term memory problems. He forgets conversations and sometimes gets lost while driving. In the years after the accident, he became lethargic and deeply missed cycling, said his wife, Lorry. The couple asked to be identified by only their first names for privacy reasons.Micky did the PATH program at Weill Cornell, before moving recently to North Carolina. His wife accompanied him to every session. To address his difficulty falling asleep, his therapist suggested that he think good thoughts before you go to sleep, Lorry said. So, as the couple got ready for bed each night, she would remind her husband of that suggestion. He said, Im doing it. Im doing it, Lorry said. Thinking about our granddaughter, he said it was helpful.ImageCredit...Geraldine Hope Ghelli for The New York TimesIn her therapy session with Dr. Kiosses, Ms. Firmender, a black cane resting against her chair, answered a question the therapist asks her every week: What pleasurable activities had she done in the past week and what were her plans for the upcoming week? Scheduling pleasurable activities what is known as behavioral activation is a technique that has been found to boost mood. Ms. Firmender told him she volunteered at the thrift shop at church. I always enjoy that, she said. The upcoming week she was planning to make corned beef and cabbage for her fellow volunteers.Laura Gitlin, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University, said that adding meaningful activities to the day is particularly crucial for people with dementia, who often face blank calendars as their cognitive problems grow. Boredom and having nothing to do contributes to having an array of behavioral symptoms, agitation, aggressiveness, apathy, rejection of care, she said. Dr. Gitlin and colleagues have developed the Tailored Activity Program that identifies activities that are meaningful to people with dementia it could be woodworking or making a salad adapts them to their abilities and regularly schedules them into the patients days. Activity is part of what makes us human, Dr. Gitlin said.Patients being treated with PATH include those who are having their first episode of depression, and those, like Ms. Firmender, who have long struggled with mental health issues. She has seen a therapist for 20 years and has been on various psychiatric medications. Over the years, the depressive thoughts have waxed and waned. About three years ago, Ms. Firmender was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts and underwent a course of electroconvulsive therapy. After another brief hospitalization, she did PATH in early 2018 as a participant in a Weill Cornell study looking at the treatment for suicidal ideation. After her depression symptoms surged again recently, Dr. Kiosses started her on another course of PATH, this one focused on depression.When Ms. Firmender slides into depression, she turns to writing poetry. During one therapy session, she took out a yellow notebook and read a verse she wrote:I cant find my happy placeIt was never easy to find but now it seems forever goneIts in my mind in some deep dark places.Ms. Firmender said the program was helping her get a handle on such feelings. What she really likes is that it focuses on solving problems. It isnt, oh, poor Anne, because then you do nothing about it and you feel worse, you feel really sorry for yourself, she said. Its like, O.K., Anne, what are you going to do about it? | Health |
Business BriefingDec. 24, 2015Chipotle Mexican Grill said on Thursday it might never pinpoint what caused an E. coli outbreak last month linked to two restaurants in Kansas and Oklahoma, extending a mystery over dozens of illnesses tied to the burrito chain. Chipotle no longer has any of the potentially contaminated ingredients that could be examined to determine the source of the infections, said a company spokesman, Chris Arnold. Company and health officials investigating the outbreak have also cited the same hurdles to tracing the cause of a larger E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least 50 Chipotle customers in nine states since October. It is unclear whether the new cases are related to the larger outbreak that started in October, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Identifying a specific cause for the latest E. coli cases really can be a challenge with the limited information that may be available from the few cases that occurred, said Laurence Burnsed, an epidemiologist for the Oklahoma State Department of Health. | Business |
Asia Pacific|Bombing at Mosque Inside Afghan Army Base Kills Dozenshttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/world/asia/afghanistan-army-mosque-bombing.htmlNov. 23, 2018KHOST, Afghanistan A bombing deep inside an army base in Afghanistan during Friday prayers at a mosque killed at least 27 soldiers and wounded dozens, officials said, once again highlighting the vulnerability of the countrys security forces.The attack was inside the headquarters of the Afghan Armys 1st Brigade, 203rd Corps, in the southeastern province of Khost, said Capt. Abdullah Sargand, a brigade spokesman.A senior official said at least 27 soldiers had been killed and an officer inside the base said more than 20 died. But other officials gave varying accounts of the casualty toll, some lower.The explosion happened when army personnel were getting ready to pray, Captain Abdullah said.Gul Mohammad-din Mohammadi, the deputy head of Khosts public health department, said 79 wounded soldiers had been taken to hospitals. Jawed Ghafoor, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said helicopters had reached the base to evacuate the wounded.There was no immediate claim of responsibility.The blast came days after another bombing that targeted a religious ceremony in Kabul, the capital, killing at least 55 people. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a wedding hall where hundreds of religious scholars and students had gathered to celebrate the Prophet Muhammads birthday.Members of the security forces in Afghanistan have been dying at alarming rates in recent years, as a resurgent Taliban have mounted attacks across the country. This year, officials put the daily death toll at 30 to 40.[Read the weekly New York Times report on Afghan casualties.]President Ashraf Ghani said this month that more than 28,000 members of the countrys security forces had been killed since 2015. Other officials have suggested that the true number could be higher.Particularly alarming has been the insurgents reach and their ability to strike deep within some of the governments most heavily guarded institutions.In the spring of last year, a Taliban squad made its way past half a dozen checkpoints, deep into the largest army base in northern Afghanistan, just as soldiers were standing for Friday prayers. The insurgents left a scene of carnage, with at least 140 soldiers dead. | World |
The tech giants coming share sale will be among the largest ever. But the company has made most of its impact in just one country: China.Credit...Alex Plavevski/EPA, via ShutterstockPublished Oct. 26, 2020Updated Jan. 20, 2021One of Chinas most influential tech companies, the internet finance titan Ant Group, is poised to raise a boatload of cash by selling shares.The sale puts another stamp on Chinas importance as a digital powerhouse. But it also shows how the tech world is fracturing.The company could be worth more than many global banks after its share sale, yet its business is highly concentrated in just one country: China. Instead of listing in New York, as many other Chinese internet companies have done, Ant is going public in Hong Kong and Shanghai.Heres what to know about the company and its initial public offering.Ant is Jack Mas second tech giant.Around the turn of the millennium, the internet was a lawless frontier, not least in China. Online shopping was a gamble. Buying and selling took place largely between strangers. Nobody could be sure they werent being defrauded.Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce group, had an idea for cultivating trust. In 2003, it created a service called Alipay that held on to payments until buyers confirmed that they were satisfied with their purchases. If the items were fake or never arrived, the money was refunded.Alipay helped Alibabas bazaars take off. Jack Ma, Alibabas co-founder, spun the service out in 2011 as a separate company, setting off a tiff with Yahoo, which was then a major Alibaba investor.Today, Alibaba owns a one-third stake in Ant. Mr. Ma is Ants controlling shareholder, though he is not part of its management.Ants executive chairman, Eric Jing, and chief executive, Simon Hu, both worked for years in Alibabas orbit. Ant has 16,660 employees.Life is different with Alipay.When people across China want to pay for something, they dont reach for their wallets. They grab their phones.With Alipay and another smartphone app, the social platform WeChat, exchanging money is a matter of scanning a QR code at an in-person cashier, during checkout at an online store or face-to-face with a friend. Shops and restaurants still accept cash, though often begrudgingly.Over time, Alipay has come to host other services, too. People in China use it to shop on credit no plastic card required. They take out small loans, invest their savings and buy health and life insurance. Fees from those businesses accounted for more than half of Ants revenue last year.The app is a big deal in China.Alipay has more than 730 million monthly users, more than twice the population of the United States. By comparison, PayPal has 346 million active accounts.Ant handled more than $17 trillion in digital payments in mainland China during the 12 months that ended in June. PayPal says its total payment volume in 2019 was $712 billion. Ant also enabled around $300 billion in credit to consumers and small businesses.When the company goes public, it could be valued around $310 billion. That would make it worth about as much as JPMorgan Chase, and much more than Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.Alipay is no slouch technologically, either. Ant says its systems processed 459,000 payments a second at the peak of a Chinese shopping holiday last year. Visa, by contrast, says it can handle 65,000 transactions a second.Ant is huge not only because Chinas population is huge. Its growth was also helped by the fact that China had previously been so far behind in digital finance. Few people had credit cards. The big government-run banks were slow to modernize.But how much bigger can it get?Around 95 percent of Ants revenue last year came from mainland China. The company has invested in Paytm, an Indian payment app, and acquired EyeVerify, a start-up in Kansas City, Mo., that makes biometric authentication technology. But for now at least, Alipay seems unlikely to implant itself so deeply in another countrys financial system.Even in China, the government is wary about fast-growing financial products. The Communist Party has clamped down on lending fraud and questionable investment schemes. Regulators have also criticized Ant for not adequately protecting users personal data.The fact that Ant has survived for so long in China under regulatory pressure means it will probably continue working around whatever the authorities throw at it, said Kevin Kwek, an analyst with the research firm Bernstein.If youre going to sell anything to consumers thats financial services, the regulators have to scrutinize it, he said. I dont think theyre trying to find ways to kill Ant. | Tech |
Politics|As the D.C. police clear the Capitol grounds, the mayor extends a public emergency.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/national-guard-capitol-army.htmlAs the D.C. police clear the Capitol grounds, the mayor extends a public emergency.Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021The mayor of Washington extended a public emergency on Wednesday night as the local police worked to secure the area around the Capitol.Everyone needs to clear the Capitol ground and remove themselves back to their homes states, or wherever theyre staying, and let the police do their jobs, Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters late Wednesday evening.Ms. Bowser also issued an order extending the District of Columbias public emergency for 15 days. The order said that people who came to Washington for the purpose of engaging in violence and destruction had fired bricks, bricks, bottles, guns and chemical irritants. Their destructive and riotous behavior has the potential to spread beyond the Capitol, it said.A number of regional police departments, as well as the National Guard, helped the Metropolitan Police Department establish a perimeter around the Capitol to help enforce an overnight curfew that took effect at 6 p.m., said Robert J. Contee, the departments chief.Chief Contee added that some of the Capitol Police officers who were injured during demonstrations on Wednesday were still on duty.Although they are injured, they are still working theyre working very hard to regain control of the Capitol, he said.Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters that all 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard had been mobilized on Wednesday afternoon to support the local police. He said that several federal law enforcement entities would be working to determine how a clearing operation may be conducted.The decision to mobilize the D.C. National Guard by Secretary McCarthy and Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary came as a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol earlier in the day.Defense and administration officials said it was Vice President Mike Pence, not President Trump, who approved the order to deploy the D.C. National Guard. It was unclear why the president, who incited his supporters to storm the Capitol and who is still the commander in chief, did not give the order.President Trump initially rebuffed and resisted requests to mobilize the National Guard, according to a person with knowledge of the events. It required intervention from the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, among other officials, the person familiar with the events said.F.B.I. agents went to the Capitol grounds on Wednesday to help the police on the scene protect the building and the public. A handful of the F.B.I. agents arrived in camouflage and bearing shields and machine guns late in the afternoon outside the secure location where the senators were being held.And at the request of U.S. National Guard officials, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York will deploy 1,000 members of the New York National Guard to Washington for up to two weeks, he said in a statement Wednesday night. | Politics |
The agency cited an outbreak in Provincetown, Mass., in which most of the infected were immunized. An internal C.D.C. document paints an even more harrowing picture. Credit...Mario Tama/Getty ImagesPublished July 30, 2021Updated Aug. 4, 2021In yet another unexpected and unwelcome twist in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday a report strongly suggesting that fully immunized people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the virus to others just as readily as unvaccinated people. The vaccines remain powerfully effective against severe illness and death, and the agency said infections in vaccinated people were comparatively rare. But the revelation follows a series of other recent findings about the Delta variant that have upended scientists understanding of the coronavirus.In the new report, which was intended to explain the agencys sudden revision to its masking advice for vaccinated Americans, the C.D.C. described an outbreak in Provincetown, Mass., this month that quickly mushroomed to 470 cases in Massachusetts alone, as of Thursday. Three-quarters of the infected were fully immunized, and the Delta variant was found in most of the samples that were genetically analyzed. Vaccinated and unvaccinated people who were infected carried high levels of the virus, the agency reported. High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the C.D.C., said on Friday. The viral load data indicate that even fully immunized people can spread the virus as easily as unvaccinated people who become infected. We believe at individual level they might, which is why we updated our recommendation, Dr. Walensky said in an email to The New York Times earlier this week.An internal agency document, which was obtained on Thursday night by The Times, suggested even greater alarm among C.D.C. scientists and raised harrowing questions about the virus and its trajectory. The Delta variant is about as contagious as chickenpox, the document noted, and universal masking may become necessary. Still, breakthrough infections overall are infrequent, according to the agency. On Friday, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that the rate of breakthrough cases is less than 1 percent among fully vaccinated people in states that keep such data. The gathering research into the variant throws into disarray the countrys plans to return to offices and schools this fall, and revives difficult questions about masking, testing and other precautions that Americans had hoped were behind them.Government officials and scientists alike are gravely concerned that the findings may shake faith in the vaccines, hobbling the nations immunization campaign, should Americans infer incorrectly that the shots are not effective.Concerned by the lagging campaign, President Biden has ordered that all federal employees be vaccinated or face weekly virus testing. Support for vaccination mandates is growing among some corporations and in some parts of the country.The evolving research into the Delta variant has humbled scientists worldwide, who now confront fresh questions about the virus they had not considered.They do not fully understand the circumstances that may increase the odds of a breakthrough infection, for example, nor who may be most at risk. They do not know for certain that the Delta variant causes more severe disease in the unvaccinated who become infected, although early data suggest it does.We spent so much time and energy and treasure trying to figure out this damn virus last year, and how it works and all the things it does, said Dr. Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.Learning just how different the Delta variant is from the original virus is just jarring, he added. The brain doesnt like to keep being jerked around like this.Even if breakthrough infections are rare, the new data suggest the vaccinated may be contributing to increases in new infections although probably to a far lesser degree than the unvaccinated. Breakthrough infections were always anticipated, but until the Delta variant arrived, vaccinated Americans were not believed to be drivers of community spread.Delta is teaching us to expect the unexpected, said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine of New York. There are aspects of what we now know that we didnt see coming.The finding is dismaying, but vaccines remain the one reliable shield against the virus, in whatever form it takes. The vaccines largely prevent infection, even with the Delta variant, and greatly reduce the chances of severe illness or death should infection occur. Nationwide, about 97 percent of people hospitalized with Covid-19 are unvaccinated, according to data from the C.D.C. And the unvaccinated are far more likely to spread the virus to others in their communities.Full vaccination is very protective, including against Delta, said Angela Rasmussen, a research scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.Masks are a wise precaution, but the bulk of transmission is among the unvaccinated and thats still who is most at risk, she added.ImageCredit...Chris Delmas/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesThe research underscores the urgency to pick up the pace of vaccination in the United States and decrease the numbers of people susceptible to severe illness. This week, the rate of vaccination in the European Union exceeded that in the United States for the first time.About 58 percent of Americans ages 12 and older are fully vaccinated. The pace of vaccination has slowed to just over 500,000 people per day, although it has begun curving slightly upward in the past couple of weeks as infections rise again. In Britain, where the variant seems to be subsiding after a surge, vaccinations were rolled out by age, and a much higher proportion of people over 50 are vaccinated than in the United States. Vaccination rates are much more patchy in the United States, said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The upshot is that what Delta does in the U.K. is not necessarily what its going to do in places which have more very varied vaccination, he said.Things are going to be worse than they would have been without the variant, he added. But theyre going to be much better than they might have been without vaccination.In its report on Friday, the C.D.C. urged local and state officials in jurisdictions with even lower levels of the virus to consider putting into effect precautions, such as masking and limiting gatherings. The C.D.C.s internal document sounded more urgent, recommending that the agency acknowledge the war has changed.Indeed, the questions now facing Americans seem nearly inexhaustible, almost insoluble. Should companies have employees return to workplaces if vaccinated people might, on occasion, spread the variant? What does this mean for shops, restaurants and schools? Are unmasked family gatherings again off the table?With the number of daily cases up to nearly 72,000 on average as of Friday, the new data suggest that immunized people with young children, aging parents, or friends and family with weak immune systems may need to wear masks to protect vulnerable people in their orbit even in communities with lower infection rates.The outbreak in Provincetown, Mass., this month sprouted after more than 60,000 revelers celebrated the Fourth of July gathering in densely packed bars, restaurants, guesthouses and rental homes, often indoors.ImageCredit...Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesOn July 3, there were no cases in the town and surrounding county. By July 10, officials noted an uptick, and by July 17, there were 177 cases per 100,000 people. The outbreak has since spread to nearly 900 people across the country. Vaccines are like hip waders, Dr. Rasmussen said. They keep you dry if you wade through a river, but get too deep and water will start pouring in over the top. That seems to be what happened in the Massachusetts outbreak.Three-quarters of the state residents linked to the outbreak reported having a cough, headache, sore throat or fever symptoms of an infection in the upper airway and 74 percent were known to be fully immunized.Of the five people who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated one with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and three with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Two of the vaccinated patients had underlying medical conditions. Genetic analysis of 133 cases identified the Delta variant in 119 and a closely related virus in one additional case.Scientists warned even last year that the vaccines might not completely prevent infection or transmission. But experts did not expect that these infections would figure significantly in the fight against the virus, nor did they anticipate how quickly the Delta variant would tear through the country.I thought two months ago that we were over the hump, Dr. Wachter said. In San Francisco, the most highly vaccinated big city in the country, 77 percent of people over age 12 are vaccinated.And yet, the hospital where he works has seen a sharp rise, from one case of Covid-19 on June 1 to 40 now. Fifteen of the patients are in intensive care.If getting to 70 or 75 percent immunity doesnt protect the community, I think its very hard to extrapolate what happens to a place that is 30 percent vaccinated, Dr. Wachter said. Humility may be the most important thing here. | Health |
Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2014On the sixth anniversary of their first date, Ashton Eaton and Brianne Thiesen-Eaton skipped the fancy dinner and were in bed by 9 p.m., forgoing romance for much-needed rest. A big afternoon awaited.This is the cost of living as an elite athlete: Training and competing trump all. On Saturday, the Eatons both world-class, multisport athletes were rarely more than a long jump away from each other at the 107th Millrose Games at the Armory in Manhattan, where they competed in two events each.Ashton Eaton, the 2012 Olympic and world decathlon champion, finished fourth in the 60-meter hurdles (he has said he plans to add the 400-meter hurdles to his event list) and set a personal mark in the pole vault (5.35 meters). Brianne Thiesen-Eaton, a Canadian heptathlete, finished fifth in the womens 60-meter hurdles (8.17 seconds) and fourth in the long jump (6.18 meters). They began dating as classmates at the University of Oregon their first date, on Valentines Day in 2008, took place at an Olive Garden near campus and they married last July. The Eatons, who live and train in Eugene, Ore., are still waiting to find time for a honeymoon.At our level, you have to make a lot of sacrifices, Ashton Eaton said. A lot of that is not spending time with friends or family. So for us, we are so dedicated and, obviously, successful, and that comes with not doing a lot of husband and wife things yet.It comes, too, from pushing each other, sometimes subconsciously. The Eatons coach, Harry Marra, recalled a meet in Texas in which the Eatons were set to perform the long jump and high jump simultaneously. Ashton allowed Brianne to go first. She set a personal record.I said to the guy next to me, Watch this, Marra said. As if on cue, Ashton Eaton followed with his own personal record in the long jump. Theyre trying to one-up each other in a good way, Marra said. They feed off each other.Brianne Thiesen-Eaton, 25, said she and her husband understood what each needed to be successful.ImageCredit...Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAn athletes lifestyle is different than anybody elses, Brianne said. We get that. And its a lot easier to stay on track living with somebody who eats the same as me, goes to bed the same time as me, whose goals are the same as mine.Ashton, 26, said his focus at shared meets inevitably strayed to where Brianne might be performing. It is hard not to find himself coaching her along the way. I was yelling at her and telling her to do certain things on the runway, just to kind of help her, Ashton said. She saw me get a personal best in vault and said, Good job. Its cool.In other Millrose events on Saturday, the 39-year-old Bernard Lagat set an American record in the 2,000-meter event, winning in 4 minutes 54.74 seconds. Mary Cain, the 17-year-old distance-running sensation from Bronxville, N.Y., won the womens elite mile event in 4:27.73.The mens Wanamaker Mile was one of the most exciting events of the afternoon, as Will Leer, a middle-distance runner from Arizona, zoomed past Lawi Lalang and Nick Willis on the final stretch to win in 3:52.47. Leer entered the final lap clumped near fifth place and said he was growing fatigued.You pass somebody, you get more energy, Leer said. And down the stretch, only two guys in front of me, I felt good about my chances.Alan Webb, the American record-holder for the mile, finished 11th (4:06.11). Webb, who first broke four minutes in the mile in 2001 at the Armory, the first American high school miler to do so indoors, said this would be his final track competition.I saw my whole athletic career flashing before my eyes, Webb said. I just dont have that athletic gear anymore. Its just not there. As much I wanted it to, its just not what it was.The 31-year-old Webb said he was already making the transition to competing in triathlons. He recognized the symmetry of ending his running career where it essentially began and wanted to leave the Armory with one last memory, and he took a bow. It reminded me of going to the gym as a kid, and youre shooting, and you cant leave on a miss, you know? Webb said. Thats kind of what I wanted. But it is what it is. Im walking away because Im just not getting to the finish line like I used to. Its just the way it is. | Sports |
Mr. Perdue, who faces one of two runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate, built a business record that shifted manufacturing and jobs overseas.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesPublished Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 6, 2021The biographical video from Senator David Perdues first campaign, in 2014, celebrated a narrative arc that many fellow Georgians either related to or have aspired to: the story of a humble boy from rural America whose hard work catapulted him into a global business career, navigating free markets and faraway lands, all the while gathering stores of wisdom and wealth.The embrace of global commerce has been a hallmark of modern Georgia, showcased in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, dissected by the novelist Tom Wolfe and promoted by, among others, Mr. Perdues Nafta-loving cousin, Sonny Perdue, governor from 2003 to 2011. Three years later, in his maiden run for office, David Perdue would boast of his international experience as a consultant and chief executive while speaking to a gathering of Republicans in Bibb County, close to his middle Georgia hometown.Theres only one candidate in this race thats ever lived outside the United States, Mr. Perdue said. How can you bring value to a debate about the economy unless you have any understanding about the free-enterprise system and what it takes to compete in the global economy?Now, facing one of a pair of Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate, Mr. Perdue has continued to make his global business experience the essence of his brand. But that has highlighted the contradictions that emerge in his career and in his character, but also in his party and his region as he embraces the populist, America-first strains of Trumpism.The man who has lately voiced support for some of President Trumps signature tariffs built his career as an unapologetic, free-trading practitioner of the outsourcing arts. As a top executive at companies including Reebok, Sara Lee and Dollar General, he was often deeply involved in the shift of manufacturing, and jobs, to low-wage factories in China and other Asian countries.A review of that business record shows a man who achieved significant successes, making millions, managing complex periods of corporate growth and change and creating domestic jobs, particularly at Dollar General. But there were also disappointments, like the failed trucking business he ran with Sonny Perdue and his fruitless effort to rescue a company called Pillowtex that brought heartbreak to a North Carolina mill town. And while the senator often speaks of having led the Reebok turnaround as president of the companys flagship brand in the early 2000s, he moved on from the company after a rival, who today questions Mr. Perdues contribution to the turnaround, was installed above him.The man who spent much of his life broadening his horizons took to the stage at a Trump rally in Macon before Election Day and mocked Senator Kamala Harriss first name, mispronouncing it with an exaggerated stumble that to critics amounted to crude racism. His campaign has called it an innocent mispronunciation.The man who dons a faded denim jacket to reinforce his connection to everyday Georgians has a record of aloofness, with an aversion to holding town hall meetings and a thin skin for tough questions. Now he has chosen a further withdrawal, declining to participate in additional debates after one in which his Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, called him a crook for his prolific stock-trading while in the Senate.Mr. Perdue did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article. In response to written questions, his campaign issued a statement that said, in part, Throughout his four decades working in the real world before being elected to the Senate, David Perdue led American companies that saved and created tens of thousands of American jobs.ImageCredit...Frank O'Brien/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesAs when he first ran for office six years ago, Mr. Perdue, who is 71, regularly invokes those decades in business to style himself the ultimate Washington outsider, though it was his cousin the former governor who gave him his entree to politics and helped nurture his ascent.Taking aim at his 33-year-old opponent, who runs a London-based documentary film company and has never held public office, Mr. Perdues campaign has fixed on a $1,000 payment from a Hong Kong media company to charge that Mr. Ossoff had a two-year working relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.In its statement to The New York Times, most of which dwelled on Mr. Ossoff, the Perdue campaign called it ridiculous to compare the senators leadership in American companies with Jon Ossoffs foreign-owned company with shady ties to the Chinese government. (Mr. Ossoffs spokeswoman dismissed that claim as one of the most laughable smear campaigns in Georgia history.)Mr. Perdues campaigns biographical video, meanwhile, has been refreshed for 2020. Edited out is a section that showed the senator posing with his wife on Chinas Great Wall.From a Watermelon Patch to the WorldMr. Perdue grew up in Warner Robins, a small city about 100 miles south of Atlanta, home to Robins Air Force Base. Airmen coming and going from foreign deployments connected the city to the wider world.But life could still move to rural rhythms. Mr. Perdue traces his roots back to nearby Bonaire, a farming community where Perdues settled in the early 1800s. Mr. Perdue recalls picking watermelons on a family-owned farm alongside Sonny, who would become Mr. Trumps agriculture secretary in 2017.While farming was a family pursuit, Mr. Perdues parents followed a different path education. David Perdue Sr. eventually became county schools superintendent.Mr. Perdue would later go on to extol his fathers leadership in desegregating the countys schools, but the historical record provides a different picture, revealing the school system employed delay tactics until the N.A.A.C.P. sued and a court ordered it to comply.The future senator graduated from high school in 1968, two years before the schools were fully integrated. Standout student, varsity athlete and class president, he was awarded a coveted appointment to the Air Force Academy.ImageCredit...Chris Rank/BloombergDavid has those personal traits that cause him to be recognized as a person of worth, his high school principal, Milton Sutherlin, wrote in a recommendation letter. His character is that always of a gentleman, and he holds high those Christian ideals that speak well of his home training, his school and his community.But while the Air Force would prove a good fit for his cousin Sonny, who served three years and was promoted to the rank of captain, it was not so for David. He received Bs and Cs in a brief stint at the academy, and by early 1969 let it be known that he wanted out.I have realized that I have made a mistake and I do not want this type of career, he wrote in January 1969 to Jack Brinkley, the congressman who had sponsored him. His plan was to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology and try to play basketball.His basketball career never materialized, but Mr. Perdue would earn undergraduate and masters degrees at Georgia Tech. And over the next three decades, he would position himself on the winning side of a seismic economic shift sweeping the South.A Global Man of the New SouthIncreasingly and inexorably, the regions apparel and textile industry was turning to foreign contractors to manufacture its products. The disruption, which meant thousands of layoffs for low-skilled workers in Southern mill towns, was Mr. Perdues ticket to the world. He became an expert in outsourcing.I spent most of my career doing that, he would later say in a deposition.His apprenticeship in outsourcing began while he was still in school. In 1972, he joined Kurt Salmon Associates, a consulting company that had earned its reputation sending bright young engineers into Southern clothing factories to solve technical problems and boost efficiency. The company had a large Atlanta office, and by the 1970s was aspiring to a more-global footprint.The city was, too. Born as a regional railroad hub, Atlanta had begun adding international flights to its growing airport, creating yet more opportunities for a metropolis that had already rocketed past its Southern rivals, fueled by relentless civic boosterism and a reputation for racial moderation.William Sand, an engineer who worked in the Atlanta office with Mr. Perdue, recalled that in the 1970s, as Southern factories were beginning to close, new ones were opening in Mexico and Asia. Kurt Salmon, he said, became experts at helping companies source product from overseas.Mr. Perdue left in 1984 and worked at a few other places before ending up at Sara Lee, which was best known for its baked goods but was also an apparel manufacturer. He was hired in 1992 to open a headquarters in Hong Kong, where he lived for two years, establishing operations throughout Asia from the ground up, he would later say.The ripple effects reached home. In 1994, the company eliminated thousands of jobs, including 230 at its Spring City Knitting plant in Cartersville, Ga. Most of the workers were women who earned $4.25 an hour sewing garments.By that time, Mr. Perdue was globe-trotting with yet another company, Haggar Clothing, which had chosen him to lead its international operation with one aim increasing foreign sourcing. Within three years, he had done just that, boosting international production from 60 percent to 75 percent. As company plants were closed in the United States, workers in Mexico performed the job for $1.50 an hour.ImageCredit...David Tulis/Associated PressBy 1998, Mr. Perdue was headed to Reebok, which ultimately promoted him to lead its main division as it forged licensing deals with the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. Major league teams, with their star power and marquee players, burnished Reeboks cachet, leading to its acquisition by Adidas in 2005. The manufacturing of most of the companys products was outsourced, primarily to China and elsewhere in Asia.The 2014 video produced by Mr. Perdues Senate campaign in which he discusses licensing agreements portrays him as the architect of Reeboks turnaround. Even in the wake of improvements in the companys business, though, Reeboks chairman, Paul Fireman, passed over Mr. Perdue for promotion to the companys No. 2 job.In December 2001, the company announced that Mr. Perdue, who as head of the Reebok brand had reported directly to Mr. Fireman, would instead report to Jay Margolis, who had formerly headed other brands for the company but was suddenly named chief operating officer.Paul Fireman decided he wanted one guy to run it all from a C.O.O. point of view, said Kenneth Watchmaker, Reeboks chief financial officer until 2006. Thats where the two of them competed, and Jay got the nod and David left after a period of time.Mr. Margolis says that he and Mr. Fireman actually pushed out Mr. Perdue, who has characterized his departure from Reebok as voluntary. I look back on David. He couldnt make decisions. He was so indecisive, he couldnt move the product forward, Mr. Margolis said.As for the licensing deals, Mr. Margolis said those were the brainchild of Mr. Fireman.Mr. Fireman, reached by phone, said, I dont remember firing him. He added: Im not challenging Jays recollection; I just dont remember myself.Mr. Fireman did not address a question about the extent to which Mr. Perdue was involved in turning around the brands. A long time has passed since then, he said. David was a good, solid employee for the four or five years he was with me at a high level, Mr. Fireman said. And I knew him as a good person.Within months of Mr. Margoliss promotion, Mr. Perdue was in discussions with a headhunter seeking an executive with the know-how and experience to turn around Pillowtex, a troubled sheet and towel manufacturer with well-known brands in its portfolio, including Cannon, Fieldcrest and Royal Velvet.Leaving behind what he would later describe as $5 million worth of in-the-money unvested Reebok stock options, Mr. Perdue agreed in spring 2002 to take the job as chief executive of Pillowtex.The company was just emerging from bankruptcy, and thousands of workers at its home base in Kannapolis, N.C., viewed Mr. Perdue as a potential savior, according to Scott Shimizu, a former executive vice president. Looking back, though, Mr. Shimizu said he believed Mr. Perdues inaction led to the companys demise.The company needed to sell off assets quickly and outsource production to survive with the possibility of retaining part of its United States work force but Mr. Shimizu says Mr. Perdue took few steps to do either.He didnt really help us, said Mr. Shimizu. We were waiting for him to bring the Ten Commandments to us. They never came.Mr. Perdue would later say he had been misled about the depth of the companys financial problems, including a badly underfunded pension plan. He became embroiled in a dispute with Pillowtex over its failure to live up to the compensation agreement he had negotiated.The company imploded, and about 7,650 people lost their jobs, most of them in North Carolina. The Charlotte Observer called it the largest mass layoff in state history. The hard feelings toward Mr. Perdue were rife in Kannapolis, and in 2014, his Democratic Senate opponent, Michelle Nunn, would release an ad set there highlighting the bitterness.Mr. Perdue, who had been at Pillowtex less than a year, soon found a new opportunity that would also touch large numbers of working-class people: at Dollar General. The company boasts that 25 percent of its products retail for less than $1.ImageCredit...Al Drago for The New York TimesAs chief executive, Mr. Perdue oversaw the opening of a Hong Kong office in 2004, increasing the global sourcing that helps to provide the low everyday price our customers count on, according to a company announcement. Among the global sources were manufacturers in China, records show.Low wages were another way the company controlled costs. Store managers sued the company, complaining that they were not paid overtime, even though they took on nonmanagerial duties, unloading trucks and stocking shelves after hours. Some of their claims, as well as legal complaints from female workers who said they were inequitably compensated, resulted in payouts.Dollar General flourished under Mr. Perdues leadership, adding more than 2,000 stores and expanding the use of coolers to stock more grocery items. Former colleagues who visited Mr. Perdue at the companys Tennessee headquarters said it was apparent he was preparing Dollar General for acquisition. In 2007, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company announced it would purchase Dollar General for about $7 billion. It was later reported that Mr. Perdue walked away with a $42 million payout.The Perdue family had lived in Nashvilles tony Belle Meade section, but it was time to head back to Georgia, where Mr. Perdue would ultimately settle on Sea Island, a wealthy sanctuary on the southern coast.The OutsiderIn 2010, as Sonny Perdue was finishing his second term as governor, he named his cousin David to the board of the Georgia Ports Authority.About a year later, records show, the cousins formed a company called Perdue Partners, which in December 2012 acquired Benton Express, an Atlanta-based trucking company that had operated as a regional family business for nearly 80 years. They renamed it Benton Global and pledged to reinvigorate the business by drawing on overseas connections, and especially David Perdues ties to Asia, according to press reports and interviews with former employees.The Perdues installed two loyalists of the former governor in top management positions and oversaw the purchase of new tractor-trailers. But the promised new international business never materialized, and the company, already suffering from flagging revenues, struggled to pay its bills. It closed abruptly in 2015, leaving more than 500 truck drivers, clerks and terminal workers unemployed.As a member of the ports authority board, Mr. Perdue voted repeatedly on infrastructure improvements that might have benefited his trucking business, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. A spokesman for Mr. Perdue said at the time that none of the votes posed a conflict of interest or aided Mr. Perdue financially.ImageCredit...Zhai Jianlan/Xinhua, via AlamyIn 2013, Georgias senior senator, Saxby Chambliss, announced that he would not stand for re-election the next year. In David Perdues telling, he drove to see his cousin and tried to convince him to run. Well, he told me he didnt feel led to do so, but then he said I should consider running, Mr. Perdue later recalled in an interview.When Mr. Perdue decided to run, he recruited top aides from his cousins campaign staff. Davids team was Sonnys team, said Jack Kingston, a longtime Republican congressman who also sought the vacant seat. Sonny Perdue, he said, was very instrumental in his cousins campaign.For all that, David Perdue branded himself the outsider the man with the real-world business savvy needed to effect change. The Republican primary was crowded with well-known and seasoned politicians, and Mr. Perdue attacked them for their seasoning, portraying them in ads as ineffectual, mewling babies."We were hoping that we could find an Achilles heel hes lazy, hes going to say something stupid, Mr. Kingston said of the campaign. We found him to be pretty disciplined and hard-working. I have to give him good marks.After defeating Mr. Kingston in a primary runoff, Mr. Perdue went on to face Ms. Nunn, an executive at a nonprofit whose father, Sam Nunn, was a former Democratic senator from Georgia. Though both candidates benefited from famous family names, Ms. Nunn thought she might gain the upper hand by focusing on the negative effects of Mr. Perdues embrace of globalism.A month before the election, a transcript surfaced of a nine-year-old deposition in which Mr. Perdue said he had spent most of my career outsourcing. Questioned by reporters, Mr. Perdue replied that he was proud of that record. This is a part of American business, part of any business, he said, adding, People do that all day.Ms. Nunn pressed the point in her ads and on the debate stage. But she was the underdog, and 2014 proved to be a bad year for Democrats, burdened by a lack of enthusiasm for President Barack Obama and his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Perdue blasted Mr. Obamas handling of the Ebola virus crisis, and vowed to repeal Obamacare. He practically waltzed to victory.The outsider arrived on Capitol Hill pushing a term-limit plan and railing against career politicians, to the annoyance of his fellow Georgia Republican, Senator Johnny Isakson, according to two people familiar with the views of Mr. Isakson, who had spent many years in politics and was gearing up for a third Senate run.ImageCredit...Erik S. Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockThe record Mr. Perdue built was reliably conservative. He submitted a far-fetched and, critics said, regressive proposal to replace income taxes with sales taxes on goods and services. He proposed limits on the ability of immigrants to sponsor family members, instead giving priority to college-educated young people with high-paying jobs.In the beginning, he also spoke and voted as one would expect a free trader to do. In 2015, he voted to give Mr. Obama enhanced powers to negotiate big trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most substantial trade accord since the North American Free Trade Agreement of the 1990s.But Mr. Perdue was also early to see the potential in Mr. Trump, who offered a kind of mirror reflection of Mr. Perdues own political persona as chief executive change agent. The two men reportedly met at Trump Tower during Mr. Perdues 2014 run. And after Mr. Trumps inauguration, the senator could be unrestrained in his praise, at one point comparing the new president to Winston Churchill. This guy, I think, is a historic person of destiny at a time and place in America when weve got to make a right-hand turn here, Mr. Perdue said.Mr. Perdue and his fellow Republicans quickly had to grapple with the presidents determination to break the partys mold on global trade. Three days into his tenure, Mr. Trump tore up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling it a rape of our country.Although Mr. Perdues campaign has said that he consistently supported the presidents America-first trade policies, the senator spoke out in 2017 against a Trump-backed plan to impose a border adjustment tax that would have raised taxes on companies that import goods into the United States. A year later, he criticized the presidents plan to impose steep tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, calling for a more targeted strategy.But by late 2019, as Mr. Perdues re-election bid on a ticket with Mr. Trump loomed, he seemed more amenable to the presidents approach.The tariffs are creating the opportunity for people to come to the table, he said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For the first time in five decades, we are standing up to the Chinese and other trading partners around the world, and all we want is equal access and a level playing field.The crosscurrents on trade could be tricky, and suddenly Mr. Perdues globalist background made him susceptible to attacks from fellow conservatives. In September 2019, Lou Dobbs, the powerful pro-Trump TV personality, reported that Mr. Perdue and another senator were visiting Beijing, where, Mr. Dobbs warned, they may well be undercutting U.S. and China trade negotiations and progress made by the president. Mr. Dobbs noted Mr. Perdues outsourcing record.ImageCredit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesA day later, Mr. Dobbs issued a correction, noting that Mr. Trump had approved the trip.The China ProblemIn 2016, Mr. Perdue had preached Republican unity as the divisive Mr. Trump began gaining ground in the G.O.P. primary. But the senator helped spark a civil war among Georgia Republicans in 2020 when he and his Georgia runoff-mate, Senator Kelly Loeffler, demanded the resignation of the states top elections official, a Republican, calling the election he oversaw an embarrassment.More recently, the senators supported a failed Texas lawsuit that would have blocked the election result in Georgia, where President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. beat Mr. Trump by about 12,000 votes, and in three other states Mr. Trump lost.The battle over Mr. Perdues Senate seat has been no less fierce. Mr. Ossoffs crook attack, in a televised debate in October, was based on disclosures that Mr. Perdue, the Senates most prolific stock trader, made a number of well-timed trades, including in companies that could be affected by his committees votes. An investigation of some of Mr. Perdues stock dealings by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission ended without prosecution, and Mr. Perdue has used those facts to argue that he has done nothing wrong.Mr. Ossoff has revived criticism of Mr. Perdues outsourcing record. And the senator has also had to fend off charges of bigotry, for both his mockery of Ms. Harriss name and an online campaign ad that showed a photo of Mr. Ossoff, who is Jewish, with a lengthened nose. Mr. Perdues campaign has called the image in the ad an accident caused by a filter applied by an outside vendor handling the graphic design.For his part, Mr. Perdues closing attack is in keeping with Republicans emerging argument that Democrats like Mr. Ossoff are too weak, and in some cases too compromised, to stand up to the threat of Chinese global dominance.Mr. Ossoff, Mr. Perdue contends, is a radical left-winger with a grave China problem. He cites as proof a $1,000 agreement that allowed a large media company in Hong Kong, PCCW, to rebroadcast a documentary Mr. Ossoffs company produced about the Islamic State.Previous reports have characterized one of PCCWs investors, China Unicom, as a state-owned Chinese company, a point Mr. Perdue has used in an effort to tie Mr. Ossoff to the Chinese Communist Party.ImageCredit...Nicole Craine for The New York TimesFor two years, he worked with the C.C.P., the senator said in a Fox News interview.Mr. Perdue has said little about his own China ties.In 1991, the year before he headed to Hong Kong to build Sara Lees Asian outsourcing operation from the ground up, the company proudly announced a new foothold in Asia a deal in Fuzhou, China.The joint venture, Fujian Sara Lee Consumer Products, manufactured toothpaste, shampoo and other personal care products. It was partially owned by the Chinese government, according to a report in The Chicago Tribune announcing the venture.As the Fujian arrangement continued, Mr. Perdue busied himself with building Sara Lees first centralized sourcing operation in Asia, including in mainland China, he said in a deposition in 2005. That involved lining up suppliers and overseeing quality control and human rights practices for the company, which manufactured Hanes clothing, among other things.No American firm could have established such an operation in China at that time without dealing extensively with the government or the Communist Party, industry experts said.You dont just wander into China without central government and local party officials wanting to know what youre doing, said Michael Posner, a professor at New York Universitys Stern School of Business and a top human rights official during the Obama administration. Its a very controlled environment. And anybody there who is dealing with factories would have had to deal with that. (While some of its products remain on the market, Sara Lee has since disbanded.)This week, The Times asked Mr. Perdues campaign if he had any other business involving the Chinese government.The campaign declined to answer.Kate Kelly and Jannat Batra contributed reporting. Susan Beachy, Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. | Politics |
A financially troubled Seattle research institute cut back programs, leaving researchers to find new homes for work on infectious diseases like tuberculosis and leprosy.Credit...Grant Hindsley for The New York TimesDec. 13, 2019The future of a tuberculosis vaccine and research into other neglected diseases is in limbo after a Seattle institute abruptly laid off about one-third of its researchers, citing a financial crisis. The sudden staff cutbacks late last month at the Infectious Disease Research Institute have baffled many of the scientists who were also working on a vaccine for leprosy and research into tropical diseases.The layoffs on the day before Thanksgiving also put in jeopardy federal grants for the scientists work. This fall, the National Institutes of Health awarded a contract of up to $45 million to the nonprofit and other collaborating institutions to study the bodys immune response to tuberculosis over several years.Developing an effective vaccine against tuberculosis, the worlds deadliest infectious disease, has been elusive for decades. The only existing vaccine is decades old and is not effective in preventing the most common form of tuberculosis infection, in the lungs. A new vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline has proved promising in early clinical trials, but public health experts said there was a need for a healthy pipeline of additional vaccines to fight the disease, which kills about 1.5 million a year.The 26-year-old Seattle research institute has often struggled financially. It has scrambled to close a gap between research grants from federal and private sources and its overhead costs, and has operated at a loss for years. The founder, Steven G. Reed, stepped down earlier this year from his role as chief executive after years of turmoil in which executives and board members resigned over their dissatisfaction with his leadership.Dr. Reed has defended his work, and is now rushing to raise money to resuscitate the organization. In an interview, the institutes acting chief executive, Dr. Corey Casper, said he inherited the crisis when he took the job in February. He said he had tried for months to save the programs, and had kept senior scientists abreast of the nonprofits status. Thirty-three of the institutes 108 employees, who are mainly researchers, were let go.These were not easy decisions, but they were decisions that had to be made for the continued existence of the organization, Dr. Casper said.Research into drugs and vaccines is notoriously risky, and biotechs often shut down when a clinical trial fails or investors do not materialize. But scientists and other experts in public health said the sudden end to the programs was unusual. ImageCredit...Noah Seelam/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesI find it bizarre, said Dr. Mario C. Raviglione, a global health expert at the University of Milan who led the World Health Organizations global tuberculosis program from 2003 to 2017. Ive never heard about something like this.Dr. Mel Spigelman, president and chief executive of the nonprofit TB Alliance, described the landscape for tuberculosis research as precarious. He said that organizations face an annual shortfall of about $1.5 billion to finance new drugs, tests and vaccines for the disease, a bacterial infection that mainly attacks the lungs and can lie dormant for years. New investments are urgently needed to build on the progress weve seen to date.The potential success of the institutes TB vaccine is unknown. Early-stage clinical trials have begun, and others are planned in a number of countries. Dr. Emily Erbelding, the director of the division of the N.I.H. that oversees the Seattle institutes tuberculosis contract, said that her office had been in near daily communication to sort out how the research could continue, and that it would depend on what happens to the institute in the next few weeks. Several researchers are trying to relocate their work to new institutions. The scientists said they had not been told whether the institute, which owns the rights to the vaccines and other experimental products, would allow them to continue their work.Were a little bit in the dark right now as to how we are going to do this, said Tanya Parish, who oversaw the institutes research into new treatments for tuberculosis. Her research staff was laid off in November, and she said she has been told her own job will end later this month. It sets us back at least six months, she said. We have a lot of ongoing work thats been disrupted, and some work will have to be redone.Dr. Casper said that the institute was also speaking to research institutions to relocate the work, and was also looking to license technology like the vaccines to ensure the research could continue elsewhere. Weve made it very, very transparent to all of our investigators in our departmental programs that we want to do everything we can to enable their work, he said.Since its founding in 1993, the research institute has positioned itself as a nonprofit that operates like a biotech company, with a mission to bring new products to market for neglected diseases like tuberculosis, leprosy and leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease found mainly in the tropics. Early in the institutes history, Dr. Reed and Rhea Coler, the head of the tuberculosis vaccine program, played a role in the development of the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine. The institute also focuses on developing adjuvants, which are used in some vaccines to stimulate the bodys immune response.But like many nonprofits, it has struggled to stay afloat. With revenues of $23.6 million in 2017, it operated at a loss of about $4 million in 2017 and 2016, according to Internal Revenue Service filings. In 2018, its filings showed, it operated at a smaller loss about $47,000.Former executives and board members at the institute pinned much of the blame on Dr. Reed, whom they described as a passionate scientist but expressed concerns about his financial stewardship and potential conflicts of interest, including ties to for-profit companies to which the institute had licensed some of its technology. In the spring of 2018, the institutes chief financial officer, general counsel, board chairman and two of its other board members resigned.One of the concerns was that nobody really seemed to understand how the money was coming in and how it was being spent, said R. Douglas Bradley, the general counsel who stepped down. He said he did not see evidence that Dr. Reed misused funds. There was a moment where it was just clear that his behaviors were not going to change.Dr. Reed said he never did anything improper and acknowledged that keeping the organization going had been a challenge for many years, but weve always met the challenges.Staff members also pointed to the boards decision to award Dr. Casper a new contract, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times. It shows that the board offered Dr. Casper a four-year deal at an annual salary of $405,000. The contract also included a $20,000 bonus for this year. ImageCredit...Grant Hindsley for The New York TimesDr. Casper said he was deferring the raise from his current pay of $365,000 and would not get a bonus this year. In defending the increase, however, he said: Its very challenging to find someone whod be willing to take the risk. Dr. Reed received about $318,000 in 2018 for 32 hours a week, according to the institutes I.R.S. filings. Some researchers questioned the reasons for ending their programs since grants covered their expenses and some administrative costs. Malcolm Duthie, a senior scientist who was told his job would end later this month, was developing a leprosy vaccine financed through grants coordinated by the American Leprosy Missions. We have funded programs, he said. And weve been given very short notice, which basically handcuffs us in terms of being able to take these programs somewhere else.Dr. Casper said the grants did not cover all the overhead costs. If the institute survives, it will focus on three main areas its adjuvants, its manufacturing facility and a technology known as RNA vaccines that are also being pursued by for-profit companies, Dr. Casper said. The institutes board and leadership are vetting potential buyers or investors. Kari Stoever, who was on the board from 2016 to 2018, said she stepped down because the board did not act quickly enough to change the institutes leadership, including Dr. Reed. The institute had trouble staying competitive. Financing tuberculosis vaccines had shrunk in recent years to better coordinate different funding groups, said Ms. Stoever, who has worked for several public health nonprofits. Of the TB vaccines future, she said: Somebody will take it if the science is good. Theyre not going to let an innovation like a new TB vaccine disappear off the planet.Sheelagh McNeill contributed reporting. | Health |
TrilobitesNew research finds that the extinction of this flightless bird was completely our fault.Credit...The Natural History Museum, London/Science SourceDec. 4, 2019Not so long ago, the northern seas were full of great auks. Every summer, millions of the two-toned, goose-sized birds would gather at different breeding grounds across the North Atlantic. The flightless birds were easy to capture, and passing sailors loved how they tasted.In less than half an hour we filled two boats full of them, the French explorer Jacques Cartier wrote after encountering a throng near Newfoundland in 1534. Collecting them was as easy as if they had been stones.Just three centuries later, though, the species had become famous for its scarcity instead. Museums and merchants started paying top dollar for great auk eggs and skins. In 1844, members of a small expedition found two of the birds on an Icelandic island, strangled them and crushed their only egg. That was the last confirmed sighting. In this way, the great auk went extinct.What caused such a precipitous decline? In the past, researchers have speculated that environmental change topped off by human greed took down the great auk. After all, thats what people think happened to woolly mammoths.But new research points the finger more squarely at us. A paper published last month in eLife which uses genetic analysis from museum specimens to reconstruct great auk population trends, suggests there was no reason for them to go extinct if they hadnt been hunted, said Jessica Thomas, a scientific officer at Swansea University in Wales and the lead author of the study. This puts great auks in the same doomed-by-humans category as the passenger pigeon and the moa.While there are limits to how much you can learn about historic population changes from genetic data, the paper shows how this type of reconstruction might be applied to better understand other species conservation problems, said Tim Wootton, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the research.Humans have been hunting great auks for millenniums. But starting around the 15th century, they became a staple for sailors traveling near the American and European coasts. Crews ate their eggs, brought them onboard as mobile food sources and plucked out their feathers to sell to pillow-makers. They even burned their oil-rich bodies for fuel.The birds were gone before we could learn very much about them. Naturalists never got a chance to study them in the wild. Even basic information, like the extent of their breeding season or the sound of their calls wasnt well-documented, Dr. Thomas said.The researchers needed a different way to look into the species history. So they compared DNA from 41 different great auks, including the two endlings killed in Iceland. They were looking for evidence of species-level vulnerabilities: a shrinking gene pool, for example, or signs that the overall population was fragmenting into smaller groups.They didnt find any. Genetic diversity was really high, Dr. Thomas said. They were doing really well.But how did the great auks maintain such high diversity even though they couldnt fly? By studying data from an unrelated project that uses floating GPS tags to trace sea currents, Dr. Thomas team found oceanic flows that went straight past a number of former breeding sites, which may have enabled mingling.Next, the team modeled different extinction scenarios. For instance, assume there were once 2 million great auks in the world. Would the species have gone extinct if people had harvested 9 percent of the adult birds annually? What about 10 percent, along with 5 percent of the eggs?According to the groups calculations, only a 2 percent harvest rate is reliably sustainable. The sailors almost certainly outpaced that, said Dr. Thomas.Dr. Thomas sees the study as a warning for other species and for us, their destructive stewards. In a world with plenty of rare creatures, its tempting to let the numerous ones fend for themselves, she said.But even an abundant and widespread species that doesnt appear to be vulnerable deserves a watchful eye.You can cause them to go extinct, she said. | science |
Credit...Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center UtrechtNov. 12, 2016Researchers have designed a system that lets a patient with late-stage Lou Gehrigs disease type words using brain signals alone.The patient, Hanneke De Bruijne, a doctor of internal medicine from the Netherlands, received a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as A.L.S. or Lou Gehrigs disease, in 2008. The neurons controlling her voluntary muscles were dying, and eventually she developed a condition called locked-in syndrome. In this state, she is cognitively aware, but nearly all of her voluntary muscles, except for her eyes, are paralyzed, and she has lost the ability to speak.In 2015, a group of researchers offered an option to help her communicate. Their idea was to surgically implant a brain-computer interface, a system that picks up electrical signals in her brain and relays them to software she can use to type out words.Its like a remote control in the brain, said Nick Ramsey, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and one of the researchers leading the study. On Saturday, the research team reported in The New England Journal of Medicine that Ms. De Bruijne independently controlled the computer typing program seven months after surgery. Using the system, she is able to spell two or three words a minute.This is the worlds first totally implanted brain-computer interface system that someone has used in her daily life with some success, said Dr. Jonathan R. Wolpaw, the director of the National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies in Albany.The study was partly supported by funds from Medtronic, an international medical technology company, which also provided the components for Ms. De Bruijnes implant. One of the papers authors is also a Medtronic employee, though the team notes in its report that he was not involved in the interpretation of the results.The brain-computer interface is not Ms. De Bruijnes only communication tool. For a couple of years, she has used another device that lets her select items on a computer screen by tracking her eye movements. With this system, she can spell five to 10 letters a minute.The eye tracker has a major drawback, though. Whenever the light levels in her surroundings change, the device must be recalibrated. This makes use outdoors difficult. Worried that she would not be able to alert her caregiver to pressing needs without a communication tool, she avoided going outside, Dr. Ramsey said.ImageCredit...Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.Thats where we found our system really kicks in, he added. With it, she feels confident she can spell words for immediate needs, like an itch or saliva building up, or more urgent things, like her respirator giving her problems.Ms. De Bruijnes inability to move comes from a disconnect between her brain and muscles. Though she has lost the ability to move, her brain still generates an increase in electricity when she thinks about doing so. The brain-computer interface capitalizes on this.Electrodes on her motor cortex, the region of her brain that controls voluntary movement, detect small electrical spikes when Ms. De Bruijnes tries to move her right hand. Specifically, when she thinks about bringing her right thumb and ring finger together, wires transmit a signal to a typing software.The software displays four rows of letters on a tablet highlighting one row at a time. When it gets to the row Ms. De Bruijne wants, she makes a brain click by thinking about the hand gesture. Then the program goes along the selected row, left to right. When the correct letter is highlighted, she makes another click. Letter by letter, she spells out her thoughts.Some researchers have concerns about whether the systems benefits are worth the risk of surgery.Because she can use an eye tracker, the brain-computer interface is not necessary for Ms. De Bruijne to communicate, said Niels Birbaumer, a professor of medical psychology and neurobiology at the University of Tbingen in Germany. Dr. Birbaumer added that other noninvasive brain-computer interfaces had been shown to perform the same function as the communication system from Dr. Ramseys team.There are always dangers with surgery, acknowledged John Donoghue, a professor of neuroscience at Brown University and the founding director of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering. He added, however, that he thought the risks of this one were not significantly greater than those associated with more common procedures, such as deep-brain stimulation to treat Parkinsons disease, or placement of pacemakers for heart arrhythmias.Moreover, Dr. Donoghue said, Dr. Ramseys group used a safe, commercial device that the Food and Drug Administration has approved for treating Parkinsons disease and essential tremor, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary and rhythmic shaking.An invasive device holds two advantages over noninvasive methods, Dr. Ramsey said. First, an implant picks up a stronger, more reliable signal because it sits directly on the brain. Second, noninvasive systems require elaborate external electrode setups, while an implant can simply stay in place and work all the time, he said.In time, Dr. Ramsey said, he would like to see whether this system can aid people who are totally locked in, meaning they have also lost the ability to move their eyes and, unlike Ms. De Bruijne, do not have the option of using alternative eye-tracking technology.The results look promising, said Jeremy Hill, a researcher at Burke Medical Research Institute in White Plains and the director of neurotechnology at Blythedale Childrens Hospital. Ive been waiting for someone to make this breakthrough for a while, and Im very pleased this group has. I think it opens the door to greater things. | science |
Health|Masking and isolating reduced Omicrons spread in homes, the C.D.C. finds.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/health/cdc-omicron-masks-isolation.htmlCredit...Karsten Moran for The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2022The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been so contagious that it may have seemed a foregone conclusion that if one person in a household became ill, other people living there would catch the virus, too.But that turns out to be less certain: A small study of households by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday found that when the first person infected wore a mask and stayed in a separate room at least part of the time, the risk of other household members contracting the virus became markedly lower.Vaccinated people who became infected were also considerably less likely than unvaccinated people to spread the virus to other members of their households.Still, the study highlighted just how aggressively the Omicron variant had spread within a home, especially among people living with children under 5 who tested positive. Those children, who are not yet eligible for vaccines and often need to be in closer contact with their parents or relatives, spread the virus to 72 percent of household contacts identified in the study the highest rate of any age group, the C.D.C. said.These findings further highlight young childrens potential contribution to household transmission, C.D.C. scientists wrote in the report.Federal regulators are waiting for data on how well three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine work in children under 5 before deciding whether to authorize the vaccine for that age group.The C.D.C. study was based on 183 households across four states where someone became infected with the Omicron variant from November to early February. After interviewing members of the households about their vaccination and infection histories, any precautionary measures in the home and whether they had tested positive or become ill, C.D.C. scientists determined that the variant had spread in roughly two-thirds of the households they identified.But when the first infected person was fully vaccinated, only about 44 percent of household members developed Covid, compared with 64 percent when the infected person was unvaccinated, the study said.And when the original infected household member stayed in a room alone at least some of the time, only 41 percent of other members of the household became infected, compared with 68 percent in situations without isolation. Masking by the infected person helped, too, reducing the likelihood of transmission to 40 percent from 69 percent.Determining the precise risk of the virus spreading in a home was difficult, the studys authors noted. They excluded situations where it was unclear who had first developed Covid, and did not do the genetic sequencing necessary to know for certain that people had caught the virus from the infected person in their home rather than at other gatherings. | Health |
With Indias TikTok Ban, the Worlds Digital Walls Grow HigherCensorship and politics are fracturing the global internet, isolating users and industries accustomed to ignoring national borders.Credit...Noah Seelam/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesPublished June 30, 2020Updated July 11, 2020The global internet is fracturing. And people like Anusmita Dutta are paying the price.Ms. Dutta, 24, joined TikTok three years ago and now has more than 350,000 followers on the video app. From her home in Kolkata, in eastern India, she records funny skits, monologues, slice-of-life sketches all stuff, she says, that people can easily relate to. She also finds videos from every corner of the earth using the apps Discover feature.TikTok makes her feel connected to the wider world. Which is why Indias decision this week to ban TikTok and scores of other Chinese apps was such a disappointment.Real talent came from this app in India, Ms. Dutta said. Seeing it come to a sudden end was obviously disheartening.TikTok, the first Chinese internet service to have a truly global fan base, is rapidly falling victim to Chinas worsening diplomatic relations around the globe. It is yet another sign that the digital world, once thought of as a unifying space that transcended old divisions, is being carved up along the same national lines that split the physical one.Tensions between India and China have run hot ever since a border clash in the Himalayas two weeks ago left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The government in New Delhi announced a ban on 59 Chinese apps late Monday, saying they were secretly transmitting users data to servers outside India.Indias decision strikes at a number of Chinas leading technology companies, including Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu. But perhaps none will be more affected than TikTok and its Beijing-based parent, ByteDance, which has built a huge audience in India as part of an aggressive and well-funded expansion around the world. TikTok has been installed more than 610 million times in India, according to estimates by the data firm Sensor Tower. In the United States, the app has been installed 165 million times.VideotranscripttranscriptHow China Is Changing Your InternetWhat was once known as the land of cheap rip-offs may now offer a glimpse of the future and American companies are taking notice.Video Title: How China Is Changing Your Internet Video Description: In China, a sheltered internet has given rise to a new breed of app, and American companies are taking notice. What was once known as the land of cheap rip-offs may now offer a glimpse at the future. PART I: Intro 1. If you are sitting in the United States or Europe right now, youve probably never used a Chinese app, but the reality is, if you want to know how the internet will develop, China, the land once known for its cheap rip-offs, has actually become a guide to the future. PART II: The creation of the Chinese Swamp Monster 2.1 You know, the internet is the internet, but for China the internet is more like an intranet. Its largely walled off from the Western world by this incredible complex system of filters and blocks that we call the Great Firewall. And basically the Great Firewall blocks any foreign site the Communist Party doesnt think it can control. 2.2 So that means there is no Facebook, no Twitter, no Google. Instead, what filled the internet vacuum was a generation of Chinese copycats that have grown into huge companies. 2.3 So for Google, you had Baidu; for YouTube, you had Youku; for Twitter, you had Sina Weibo, and the list goes on and on. 2.4 Its almost as if the Chinese internet is a lagoon as an aside to the greater ocean of the internet, and in that lagoon there are these swamp monster apps that bear some resemblance to the creatures in the ocean but are mutated in some ways because they evolved in a different kind of environment. PART III: The Chinese Swamp Monster Leaves the Pond 3.1 But things have started to shift, in the sense that before, no one outside of the lagoon really cared about the swamp monsters. But now all of a sudden, some of the features theyve developed are so amazing that Western apps are trying to copy them. And the greatest example of this is WeChat. 3.2 WeChat is an example of, for lack of a better word, a super-app. Its a Swiss Army knife that basically does everything for you. 3.3 Its your WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype and Uber. Its your Amazon, Instagram, Venmo and Tinder. But its other things we dont even have apps for. There are hospitals that have built out whole appointment booking systems. There are investment services. There are even heat maps that show how crowded a place is, be it your favorite shopping mall or a popular tourist site. The list of services goes on basically forever. 3.4 But its not the variety of things you can do on WeChat that makes it so powerful, its the fact that theyre all in one app. So why does that matter? PART IV: The Power of the Super-App 4.0 These are real people. Using the app in real ways. (We just made up the story.) 4.1 Hypothetically, imagine youre sitting at home and one day you notice your corgi is dirty. You open WeChat, hit a few buttons and a few hours later a man shows up at your door with some shampoo and a big vacuum. Your dog gets cleaned, and he looks great. You take a photo. You share it with your friends and tag the dog cleaning business. You havent left the app. 4.2 Your friend who likes Hello Kitty and works a boring office job is slacking off at work and looking at WeChat. She sees the photo of your clean corgi. She decides she wants her poodle cleaned. She clicks the tag on your photo and orders the same service. Within seconds the man with the big vacuum is on his way to her house. She pays him, and hes happy because he got paid instantly on WeChat. She starts chatting with you to thank you. Neither of you have left the app. 4.3 While chatting, she tells you about a new, hip noodle joint. She says, You have to come. Its a shlep, but you accept. She orders food while still at her desk. You order a taxi. She pays for the food. On the way to her house, the man with the big vacuum invests the money he earned from both of you into a wealth management product thats probably a little too risky. Neither of you, nor the man with the big vacuum, have left the app. 4.4 Both of you arrive, and the app tells the kitchen youre there. Your WeChat profile photo pops up on the wall. Its an old photo from that year you had that weird part in your hair. Of course, she makes a comment. Your food is served. You notice your meat is a bit overcooked, so you snap a photo and post a disparaging restaurant review. Youre already on your phone, and you remember you still owe your friend money because she paid. You transfer her money. Neither of you, the man with the big vacuum, nor the restaurant, have left the app. 4.5 At the restaurant: There are no menus. There are no waiters. There is no cashier. There is only WeChat. 4.6 By rolling so many functions into one single app, its altered the concept of virality. Its no longer just videos or images or tweets that can go viral its a dog washer, noodles, all sorts of companies and products that get the push of a social network. 4.7 Here in China, that network is 700 million people. Part V: The Costs of the Super-App 5.1 Sounds great, right? Well it is, but using a single app to find a date, schedule an oil change or notarize a document also enables WeChat to collect a staggering volume of personal data. 5.2 They know what you talk about, who you talk about it with, what you read, where you go, why youre going there, whos there, how you spend money when youre online, how you spend money when youre offline. The list goes on indefinitely. 5.3 For advertisers, this is miracle: Its the combined data of Facebook, Amazon, Google and PayPal, all in one place. The problem is, all of the data is information Chinese companies are forced to share with the Chinese government, which has a long record of human rights violations and isnt exactly shy about stalking its citizens. Part VI: Outro 6.1 So if youre not in China, why does this matter? It matters because were starting to see a number of Western tech companies attempt to replicate super-apps like WeChat. 6.2 For the companies, its incredibly powerful, and for you and me its a convenient and even transformative technology. 6.3 But of course, it could also be problematic. Concentrating so much data in so few hands could lay the groundwork for an Orwellian world where companies and governments can track every single movement you make.What was once known as the land of cheap rip-offs may now offer a glimpse of the future and American companies are taking notice.CreditCredit...Damir Sagolj/ReutersChina itself began putting up walls within the global internet years ago. By blocking Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook, Beijing created a controlled environment in which homegrown upstarts could flourish, and where the Communist Party could keep a tight grip on online conversation.Now, though, Chinese tech businesses are trying to make it big overseas even as distrust of the Communist Party is growing in Washington and other Western capitals. The tensions have ensnared ByteDance as well as companies in computer chips, artificial intelligence and more. Huawei, the Chinese maker of smartphones and telecom equipment, has been largely cut off from American technology suppliers and is fighting to defend its business from accusations that it is a Trojan horse for Beijings cyberspies.ImageCredit...China Stringer Network/ReutersGovernments worldwide are also becoming more interested in reclaiming control over digital speech and commerce, adding to the internets increasingly balkanized landscape. The European Union has taken a tough line on overseeing American giants such as Apple and Google, forcing them to adapt to local rules.Dev Khare, a partner at the venture firm Lightspeed India, acknowledged that Indias app ban was a populist, feel-good step in some ways. He does not, however, see it as a bolt out of the blue.Its something that China did a long time ago, Mr. Khare said. If this is what China does to the rest of the world, then the rest of the world has the right to do it to China.As of Tuesday evening, some TikTok users in India were receiving error messages when they tried to call up the app.Nikhil Gandhi, the head of TikTok for India, said in a statement that the company had been invited to meet with Indian officials and respond to the decision. He added that TikTok had not shared information on its Indian users with the Chinese government or any other foreign government.VideotranscripttranscriptHow Facebook Is Changing Your InternetBehind the scenes, Facebook is involved in high-stakes diplomatic battles across the globe that have begun fragmenting the internet itself.The following video contains a Facebook newsfeed. While information contained in it is based on real posts and real events, the feed and characters depicted within it have been created for illustrative purposes. Section 1: INTRO On the surface Facebook seems pretty straight forward. You use it to spy on exes and make people jealous about that vacation you took that was actually a disaster. But in becoming such a central part of day-to-day communications Facebook has transformed into its own geopolitical force. One in five minutes spent online are spent on Facebook. Its a cyber kingdom with a population of over 2 billion. That power has made the leaders of many countries feel threatened. So governments have started to push back, attempting to regain some control over how their citizens communicate. Our story begins here where the fight between companies and countries has begun fragmenting the internet itself. TITLE: How Facebook is Changing Your Internet To understand Facebooks role in how the internet is breaking apart, you first have to leave the U.S. Zuck: Its great to be here in Barcelona with you Zuck: Its great to be here in Berlin Zuck: Its great to be here in India Zuck: I Wanted to come to Legos first Want to win an election in Ecuador? Are you trying to build a business in Brazil? Network in the Netherlands? Or are you trying to have your single go no. 1 in Senegal? It doesnt matter where you are or what youre doing Facebook has become a necessity for real world success. Section 2: Expansion Model In part, thats because the company has gone through extreme efforts to reach far flung corners of the globe. Theyre putting satellites into space and developing internet-beaming solar powered drones. Heres one taking off now. 1. Zuck: Connectivity cant be a privilege for just the rich and powerful. (It needs to be something that everyone shares, an opportunity for everyone.) The company is subsidizing connectivity in the developing world with the mission to make Facebook accessible to all. Here on the outskirts of Nairobi, Facebook made a deal with a telecom provider and now customers of that company can use Facebook free of charge. For those users, Facebook might be their entire experience of the internet. If you grew up and never had a computer and youve never used the internet and someone asked you if you wanted a data plan, you response would probably also be whats a data plan and why would I want one? They call it Free Basics a kind of mini version of the internet that gives users free access to Facebook and a few other sites. Theyre rolling it out in developing countries all around the world. So why does it matter if they gives away free Facebook access? KENYA - EX: 1 of Unintended Consequence Lets say you live in Nairobi and your name is Phyl. You find some cheap handbags made of the finest chinese pleather and decide to sell them online. With Facebook offering free internet and just about everyone you know using the site, you decide theres no need to pay for a shop, so you snap a photo of a blue bag, post it on your facebook page and soon customers from across East Africa are liking your photo. Some people even place orders, even a few who dont have a data plan because theyre using Facebooks free version of the internet. Theyre happy because they found a bag and didnt pay any sales tax or data fees. Your happy because you avoided renting a shop and got cash. So life is good. But then you realize, your entire economic existence is resting in the hands of a coder in a hoody who loves avocado toast sitting in Silicon Valley. The more you think about it, the more uncertainty there is. What would happen if Facebook decided to start taking a cut of your business? Or what would happen if the Kenyan government added fees to Facebook, would they pass it on to you? And what if you decided to cut them out and go straight to the customer yourself? How could you possibly have a chance against Facebook? Questions like these, have led some critics to compare Facebooks dominance in places like Kenya to a form of digital colonialism. For Kenyans, these issues are still theoretical, but for others the issues are much more real. JAKARTA - Ex: of Unintended Consequence #2 Lets say you live in Indonesia and youre a devout Muslim man. Youre not convinced about this whole internet thing and you dont want to spend a good chunk of your monthly income to get a connection. But your daughter keeps telling you, the internet thing really is a thing. So she sets you up with Facebooks free version of the internet. Online you discover cat videos are surprisingly fun to watch. Then you see a video of your mayor. In it, he appears to say the Quran is lying. You cant believe it. The video has millions of hits. NAT POP MAYOR AHOK: Thus ladies and gentlemen, if you feel that you cant vote for me because youre afraid you will go to hell, you are being lied to, but thats alright because this is your personal calling. In response, you and hundreds of thousands of other people come out to protest calling for the mayor to be removed from office. Six-months-later hes voted out of office. But the problem is the video that got you so angry was edited to make the statement seem more provocative than it actually was. But you dont know that. And you dont even have the ability to seek out other information because Facebooks free version of the internet only gives you access to a few sites. So youre left only with A Facebook reality. Section 3: Cause And Facebooks reality is one thats based on an algorithm. And that algorithm rewards engagement, which often means prioritizing inflammatory posts. Combine that with Facebooks ambitious mission to bring internet to the developing world and youve got a problem. On one hand, Facebooks efforts bring information to more of the world than ever before. On the other hand, you have the world as it looks today, where guys like your Uncle Joe bicker on behalf of candidates using rumors and propaganda. Trump Supporter: Fuck political correctness, Build the wall! This is a space where protests flare up around lies and measured voices are shouted down by radical ones. Duterte Nat Pop: President Obama is a son of a whore Trump nat pop: We will have so much winning if I get elected Wilders: There is lots of Moroccan scum in Holland Mr. Zuckerberg has said the company is working on squashing fake news, but the problem goes further into what gets promoted and why. But for Facebook, there isnt a lot of incentive to cut down on the half truths and misconceptions. Its main goal is to hold its audience captive and grow its community ever larger. Written Quote on Screen: Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. At stake is the future of the internet itself. Facebook and only a handful of other major internet companies control our online lives, and each is aggressively trying to expand. Does the Kenyan government care if Facebook has allowed Phyl to circumnavigate their tax system? Does the Indonesian government care that 200,000 people are in their streets protesting? The answer is yes. Section 4: Effect The end result pits countries against companies. And not all governments are willing to cede power to Facebook. So they create new laws to govern their countrys digital space that cater to their interests. This goes against the way the internet was original supposed to work, as a way for people to share information without borders or rules. Now, Instead of one internet there are many. Some are controlled by countries, others by companies. And everyone wants more control. Section 5: China Comparison Theres no better place to see the fragmentation of the internet than in China. Nat Pop Zuck: Xin Nian Kuai Le Chinas internet is cut off from the rest of the world by filters that keep websites like Facebook from working. Tank Man Clip Its sort of an anti-internet. Instead of facilitating free communication, it often works as a means to control that communication. Instead of connecting China to the world, it cuts it off. According to Chinas internet, this event never even happened. But if you compare Chinas internet to Facebook, some uncomfortable parallels emerge. While facebook lets you post plenty of articles and links from the greater internet, it also operates by its own rules. Just like Chinas internet, a central authority tracks what you do and decides what you see. Most of the time your feed is hiding a baby photo from that girl Jane who may have been in your 4th grade class, but you cant quite remember. But sometimes its hiding more. For example, these images were all banned from Facebook because they didnt meet its community standards and now theyre in this video. We think its important to show them, but because we did, Facebook could now block our video. [Cut to black] OUTRO The question is: Whose values are we following? Should we cater to the values of Facebooks algorithm and policies in order to be heard? Even understanding Facebooks values can be difficult. In many places they promote free speech, yet in others, they are willing to consider censoring. They push for encryption in some places, but turn around and in other places to fight privacy laws that would damage their ad business. That inconsistency is driving fragmentation. And while Facebook claims to be connecting people, theyre doing it their way, with their rules. And you dont really have a say in it. Thats because Facebook isnt a democracy, its a business. And their business interests are changing the future of your internet. ENDITBehind the scenes, Facebook is involved in high-stakes diplomatic battles across the globe that have begun fragmenting the internet itself.CreditCredit...Albert Gea/ReutersWhen it comes to using the consumer marketplace as a geopolitical cudgel, China is far more used to giving than receiving.After a National Basketball Association executive tweeted support for the Hong Kong protests last year, Chinese state-run television canceled broadcasts of basketball games. After the police in Canada arrested a Huawei executive in 2018, Beijing halted shipments of Canadian canola oil. After a committee in Norway awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident, China curbed imports of Norwegian salmon.India buys a wide variety of goods from China. But by targeting Chinese-made mobile apps, the nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone after a sector of special importance to Beijing. Chinas giant internet companies are running out of new internet users to win over at home. They see in India a chance to apply lessons from their growth in China to another huge market brimming with potential.Indians, in return, have taken to many Chinese apps with gusto TikTok in particular.Ankush Bahuguna, a TikTok user in New Delhi who is in his late 20s, said other platforms might be able to scoop up the apps fans in India if TikTok became unavailable. But it would take time for them to develop into something as special as TikTok.TikTok is one of the most accepting platforms when it comes to embracing different people, Mr. Bahuguna said. Ive never seen a platform celebrate so many male belly dancers or male makeup artists or gay couples. Literally anyone.ImageCredit...Manjunath Kiran/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesTikToks ease of use made it a uniquely democratic platform for users, he said. It empowered them in a way where you dont really need to speak English to be a content creator or have a fancy camera.One such creator is Saddam Khan, 22, who works as a porter at a New Delhi railway station and has more than 41,000 TikTok followers. He was carrying two briefcases on his head for a customer when he heard that India had banned the app.I just wanted to throw the bag away and cry, Mr. Khan said.Having such a large following on TikTok has not yet changed his life, he said. But he is sad that his shot at fame now seems dashed.There is a ripple effect in TikTok, Mr. Khan said. Boys from small villages become overnight heroes. It changed their lives. Their status in society grew.Indian officials have long had suspicions about the app. Last year, it was removed from Indian app stores after a court ruled that the app spread pornography, though it was later reinstated. Indian politicians have also criticized the platform for hosting hateful and inflammatory material.Executives at Indian internet companies largely cheered the governments move against their Chinese competitors this week. Naveen Tewari is the founder and chief executive of InMobi, a company in Bengaluru that operates two digital platforms, Glance and Roposo.As tensions between India and China worsened over the past few weeks, video creators in India had already begun to rethink their choice of platform and migrate to Roposo, Mr. Tewari said. Now that TikTok seems down for the count, he is eager to capitalize.The first thing were doing is just to assure the millions of users of TikTok that they have a platform that is homegrown, Mr. Tewari said. They can absolutely come there and continue their entertainment that they always had, probably in a slightly more responsible way.Watchdog groups, however, have noted with concern the Modi governments tendency to use sweeping policy instruments for political ends.In terms of being a singular act of web censorship, its impacted more Indians than any before, said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, which promotes digital liberties in India.The current political climate in India is one in which nationalist sentiment is likely to be accommodated above other considerations, Mr. Gupta said.Any kind of public policy response which is premised on grounds of national security needs to emerge from well-defined criteria, which seems to be absent here, he said.Sameer Yasir contributed reporting. | Tech |
Business BriefingDec. 30, 2015Sidecar, a delivery and ride-hailing pioneer that has struggled to compete with bigger rivals like Uber and Lyft, said it would stop offering services. In a message posted on Medium, Sidecars co-founders, Sunil Paul and Jahan Khanna, said its rides and deliveries would end at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. The companys investors included Google Ventures and Richard Branson. While Uber says it is operating in 68 countries and Lyft in 190 cities, Sidecar did business in just eight markets in the United States. Apps for hailing rides have become a huge business, but it is not clear how many companies will survive as the industry grows. Uber and Lyft have raised billions of dollars in funding, and they have taken the lead in the ride-hailing market. | Business |
Millions of people continue to suffer from exhaustion, cognitive problems and other long-lasting symptoms after a coronavirus infection. The exact causes of the illness, known as long Covid, are not known. But new research offers clues, describing the toll the illness takes on the body and why it can be so debilitating. Diagnosing Long Covid Patients with severe Covid may wind up in hospitals or on ventilators until their symptoms resolve. Damage to the body from severe Covid pneumonia, low oxygen, inflammation typically shows up on traditional diagnostic tests. Long Covid is different: A chronic illness with a wide variety of symptoms, many of which are not explainable using conventional lab tests. Difficulties in detecting the illness have led some doctors to dismiss patients, or to misdiagnose their symptoms as psychosomatic. But researchers looking more deeply at long Covid patients have found visible dysfunction throughout the body. Studies estimate that perhaps 10 to 30 percent of people infected with the coronavirus may develop long-term symptoms. Its unclear why some people develop long Covid and others dont, but four factors appear to increase the risk: high levels of viral RNA early during an infection, the presence of certain autoantibodies, the reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus and having Type 2 diabetes. The Immune System Dang, why am I always so sick? Messiah Rodriguez, 17 Long Covid patients appear to have disrupted immune systems compared to post-Covid patients who fully recover. Many researchers believe chronic immune dysfunction after a coronavirus infection may set off a chain of symptoms throughout the body. One possibility is that the body is still fighting remnants of the coronavirus. Researchers found that the virus spreads widely during an initial infection, and that viral genetic material can remain embedded in tissues in the intestines, lymph nodes and elsewhere for many months. Coronavirus RNA is visible in different body tissues at 500x magnification. Daniel Chertow et al., preprint via Research Square Ongoing studies are trying to determine if these viral reservoirs cause inflammation in surrounding tissues, which could lead to brain fog, gastrointestinal problems and other symptoms. Coronavirus components persist in one patients small intestine, 92 days after the start of their Covid symptoms. Christian Gaebler et al., Nature Researchers have also found evidence that Covid may trigger a lasting and damaging autoimmune response. Studies have found surprisingly high levels of autoantibodies, which mistakenly attack a patients own tissues, many months after an initial infection. A third possibility is that the initial viral infection triggers chronic inflammation, possibly by reactivating other viruses in the patients body that are normally dormant. The reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus, which infects most people when they are young, might help predict whether a person will develop long Covid, one study found. Inside the intricate world of the immune system, these explanations may coexist. And just as different long Covid patients may have different symptoms, they may also have different immune problems, too. Identifying the problems that are central to each patients illness will be critical for guiding treatment, said Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale. For instance, a patient with autoantibodies might benefit from immunosuppressive medication, while a patient with remnants of the Covid virus should receive antivirals, Dr. Iwasaki said. Depending on what each person has, the treatment would be quite different. The Circulatory System Something as simple as climbing on a ladder all of a sudden became a mountain. Eddie Palacios, 50 Many long Covid patients struggle with physical activity long after their initial infection, and experience a relapse of symptoms if they exercise. Initial studies suggest that dysfunction in the circulatory system might impair the flow of oxygen to muscles and other tissues, limiting aerobic capacity and causing severe fatigue. In one study, patients with long-lasting Covid symptoms had unexpected responses to riding a bike. Despite having apparently normal hearts and lungs, their muscles were only able to extract a portion of the normal amount of oxygen from small blood vessels as they pedaled, markedly reducing their exercise capacity. One possible culprit: Chronic inflammation may damage nerve fibers that help control circulation, a condition called small fiber neuropathy. The damaged fibers, seen in skin biopsies, are associated with dysautonomia, a malfunction of automatic functions like heart rate, breathing and digestion that is very common in long Covid patients. Chronic inflammation in long Covid patients may damage small nerve fibers. Peter Novak et al., Annals of Neurology These findings demonstrate that people with long Covid are suffering systemic physical problems, rather than just being anxious or out of shape, said Dr. David M. Systrom, an exercise physiologist at Brigham and Womens Hospital who helped conduct the bike study. You cant make up small fiber neuropathy by skin biopsy. That isnt in somebodys head, Dr. Systrom said. You cant make up poor oxygen extraction to this degree. All of these are objective measures of disease. South African researchers found another circulation problem: Microscopic blood clots. Tiny clots that form during an initial Covid infection will typically break down naturally, but might persist in long Covid patients. These clots could block the tiny capillaries that carry oxygen to tissues throughout the body. Platelets in the blood can become hyperactivated in Covid and long Covid patients, contributing to microclots. Etheresia Pretorius et al., Cardiovascular Diabetology Inflammatory substances called cytokines, which are often elevated in long Covid patients, may injure the mitochondria that power the bodys cells, making them less able to use oxygen. Walls of blood vessels may also become inflamed, limiting the uptake of oxygen. Whatever the cause, low oxygen levels may contribute to long Covids most common symptom, severe fatigue. Some long Covid patients meet the criteria for ME/CFS (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome), which often starts after a viral infection. Researchers have found that ME/CFS patients also suffer from a lack of oxygen triggered by circulatory problems. That puts enormous strain on the bodys metabolism and makes simple activities feel like strenuous exercise. The Brain I approach a red light, my brain knows that its red, but its not reacting to the rest of my body to put my foot on the brake. Do you understand how terrifying that is? Samantha Lewis, 34 Even people with mild cases of Covid can experience sustained cognitive impairments, including reduced attention, memory and word-finding. Possible long-term neurological problems from Covid constitute a major public health crisis, according to Dr. Avindra Nath, the clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Researchers found a wide range of dysfunction in the brains of long Covid patients. Although it is unclear how often the virus directly penetrates the brain, even mild infections appear to cause significant brain inflammation, according to the researchers, who included Dr. Nath, Dr. Iwasaki and Dr. Michelle Monje, a neurologist at Stanford. Infections may trigger the over-activation of immune cells called microglia in a way that appears similar to the process that can contribute to cognitive problems in aging and some neurodegenerative diseases. Microglia are activated in the brain of a Covid patient, contributing to brain inflammation. Anthony Fernndez-Castaeda et al., preprint via bioRxiv. Photos: Myoung-Hwa Lee Another research group found that long Covid may significantly reduce the amount of blood that reaches the brain, a finding that has was also seen in patients with a related chronic condition, ME/CFS, before the pandemic. The Lungs I couldnt breathe. It literally felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Angelica Baez, 23 Shortness of breath is a frequent symptom of long Covid. But common lung tests including chest X-rays, CT scans and functional tests often come back normal. Using specialized M.R.I. scans, a team of British researchers found preliminary evidence of lung damage in a small group of long Covid patients who had never been hospitalized. Detailed scans of their lung function indicated that most of the patients took up oxygen less efficiently than healthy people did, even if the structure of their lungs appeared to be normal. The researchers cautioned that a larger group of patients will be needed to confirm the findings. If the results hold up, possible explanations for the observed shortness of breath include microclots in lung tissues or a thickening of the blood-air barrier that regulates the uptake of oxygen in the lungs. Living With Long Covid Its really not something you can push through. Dr. Abigail Bosk Many hospitals now offer post-Covid clinics or recovery programs, which bring together doctors with experience treating long Covid patients. Given the number of patients, some doctors and programs have long waits for appointments. It can help to plan ahead and try multiple options. Survivor Corps keeps a directory of post-Covid clinics. Dysautonomia International offers a list of doctors with experience treating autonomic disorders commonly seen in long Covid. Body Politic hosts a Covid support group where thousands of long haulers share information and advice on Slack. The Long Covid Support Group hosts a community on Facebook. The Royal College of Occupational Therapists offers advice for managing post-Covid fatigue. An essay from Maria Farrell offers advice on how to get well, and the importance of making time to rest. ME Action, a group supporting people with ME/CFS, offers advice to long Covid patients on how to manage symptoms. Americans with long Covid may qualify for disability benefits, although without conclusive medical results, many people face roadblocks. Three leading researchers into long Covid often share information about the latest findings on Twitter: Dr. Amy Proal, a microbiologist at PolyBio Research Institute; Dr. David Putrino, the director of rehabilitation innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System; and Dr. Iwasaki, the Yale immunologist. Health Rising covers the latest research into long Covid, ME/CFS and other chronic illnesses in detail. Gez Medinger, a video producer, interviews some prominent researchers into long Covid on YouTube. A video interview with Dr. Svetlana Blitshteyn, a neurologist and the director of the Dysautonomia Clinic, offers advice for treatment and an overview of current research into autonomic disorders. A detailed guide to understanding, treating and living with orthostatic intolerance is available from the Johns Hopkins Childrens Center. The Times has written extensively about long Covid, including: | science |
Credit...Reinhard Krause/ReutersApril 1, 2016Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a widely respected German elder statesman who helped break down international resistance to the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany, died on Thursday at his home near Bonn. He was 89.His office confirmed the death, saying he had been stricken by heart failure. Bonn was West Germanys capital during the Cold War.Mr. Genscher was a pivotal political leader in the Federal Republic of Germany. He served as its foreign minister for 18 years as he helped negotiate its absorption of East Germany.With Chancellor Helmut Kohl, he laid the foundation for the modern German nation, becoming one of the most influential voices in postwar Germany and winning esteem for his work toward a united Europe.In Germany he came to be regarded as a living political legend, and his death elicited an outpouring of tributes from around the world.Germany has lost an internationally respected statesman, and I, personally, a highly valued adviser, Chancellor Angela Merkel said.Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who worked closely with Mr. Genscher, said the United States never had any better friend nor a more important partner in managing the peaceful end to the Cold War. And former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger hailed him as an intelligent, wise and humane architect of a peaceful international order.Others recalled Mr. Genschers historic speech in 1989 to thousands of East Germans who had fled to Prague that they were being granted free passage to the West. Mr. Genscher announced the news from the balcony of the German embassy in that city on the night of Sept. 30, words that were greeted with an eruption of cheers.Mr. Genscher was born on March 21, 1927, in Reideburg, near Halle, in what he called the other part of our Fatherland: the sector that was occupied by Soviet troops after World War II and that became Communist East Germany in 1949.He left Halle in 1952, as a young lawyer, to pursue a career in the West. He returned for visits in the early 1970s once that became possible for West Germans under retirement age.He never lost hope, he said, that the East-West division would be overcome, and he said that he envisioned it coming after the reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in Moscow in 1985.Mr. Genscher traveled extensively over the next few years to persuade allies and antagonists alike to take Mr. Gorbachev at his word about Soviet economic change, diplomacy and arms control. Later, as communism began to collapse across Eastern Europe in 1989, he offered assurances that German reunification would not pose a threat.Mr. Genscher was an opportunist by nature, a trait that was useful in his leading a small pro-business, libertarian West German political party, the Free Democrats.In his day, the partys support determined whether Social Democrats or Christian Democrats could form a majority government in Parliament.Chancellors of both those parties made him vice chancellor, and he served as foreign minister for an 18-year stretch that began in 1974, the longest term anyone has served in that office. That period included reunification, which was presided over by Mr. Kohl, a Christian Democrat, in 1990.It is not very often given to a politician to turn out to be right, Mr. Genscher said then. Even less often, it happens while hes still alive, and yet more rarely while hes still in office. I have the advantage of all three together.ImageCredit...Martin Meissner/Associated PressMr. Genscher was a doughy, easily lampooned figure from Saxony with a distinctly East German accent that sounded funny to many in the western part of Germany. He also had a deadpan sense of humor. He said in 1987 that, under oath, he had been obliged to describe himself as the greatest foreign minister of all time.His admirers called him Genschman, after Superman, though he had struggled with tuberculosis as a young man and in 1989 had a mild heart attack, which slowed him down, if only briefly.Not everyone was an admirer. Skeptics in London during the government of Margaret Thatcher and in Washington under Ronald Reagan were said to have distrusted Genscherism as slippery. (One exception was George P. Shultz, the secretary of state for much of the Reagan years, who wrote that Mr. Genscher had been remarkably dependable.)Later, Mr. Genschers critics said his eager recognition of independence for Croatia and Slovenia as Yugoslavia began to break up in 1991, and his pressure on European allies to do the same, had done nothing to deter the Balkan wars that left hundreds of thousands dead.Mr. Genscher grew up under the Nazi dictatorship. Drafted into the Army in 1945, he was held as a prisoner of war by American and later British forces. He returned to Halle for his high school diploma and law studies, which he completed in Leipzig.In 1952, he left East Germany for Bremen in the West, where he joined the Free Democrats. He soon moved to Bonn to work in the party leadership and married Luise Schweizer in 1958.They divorced in 1966, a year after he won a seat in the Bundestag for the first time. In 1969, he married Barbara Schmidt, his parliamentary office secretary, who survives him, as does his daughter, Martina, from his first marriage.The Free Democrats gave their support in Parliament to the Social Democrats of Willy Brandt in 1969, and Mr. Genscher became interior minister in a coalition that started a long process seeking to balance dtente with Moscow without weakening West German commitment to the NATO alliance.That laid the groundwork for treaties to open relations with East Germany and other East European countries and normalized the status of divided Berlin, until then a focal point for Cold War tensions.The security services under Mr. Genscher were blamed for letting an East German spy serve as a close personal aide to Mr. Brandt for so long that the spys unmasking, in the spring of 1974, caused the chancellors downfall. Still, Mr. Brandts successor, Helmut Schmidt, made Mr. Genscher foreign minister and vice chancellor.Their collaboration continued until 1982, when Mr. Genscher, then his partys national leader, threw his support to Mr. Kohls Christian Democrats. The decision came after Mr. Schmidt was unable to persuade his party, the Social Democrats, to support an American-led plan to install medium-range missiles in West Germany to counter a new threat from Soviet SS-20 rockets.Mr. Schmidt thought the political move two-faced, but Mr. Genscher kept both of his crucial government positions under Mr. Kohl.The Atlantic alliance weathered the storm, and Mr. Gorbachev swept away the Soviet old guard before East Germany and the Soviet Union finally crumbled.Mr. Genscher resigned from the German government in 1992, soon after his 65th birthday. Six years later, he decided to leave Parliament and returned to private legal practice and consulting, writing many commentaries on public affairs in European newspapers.But he never lost his close ties to Russia, and the ability to negotiate with its leaders. In December 2013, that skill resulted in the release of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, formerly Russias wealthiest man, who had spent a decade as President Vladimir V. Putins most prominent political prisoner.Mr. Genscher viewed as a high point of his career his success, in the fall of 1989, in persuading the East German leader Erich Honecker, who must have known it was the beginning of the end, to give free passage to the West to 5,500 East Germans who had fled to the West German Embassy in Prague.Mr. Genscher called his speech that night the most moving hour in my political career. | World |
Magic 129, Knicks 121 (2OT)Credit...David Manning/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFeb. 21, 2014ORLANDO, Fla. The entire sequence lasted less than two seconds, yet it provided the perfect summation of everything that had gone wrong for the Knicks this season. Tyson Chandler was trying to finish off an alley-oop dunk in overtime against the Orlando Magic on Friday night, and he hung on the rim for a beat too long. The ball caromed off his head and bounced back out of the basket.The officials waved it off as a result of offensive goaltending, but it was so much more than that. It was ridiculous. It was improbable. It was the Knicks once again getting in their own way, and it was a mistake that cost them dearly as they staggered to a 129-121 loss in double overtime to one of the N.B.A.s worst teams. The Knicks appear determined to join that sad fraternity.Chandler said it felt like five losses, all at once. Carmelo Anthony said it felt like 10. In either case, it sent the Knicks (21-34) plunging closer to the Atlantic Division basement, with no margin for error.Its just another game that I feel like we gave away, said Anthony, who finished with 44 points and 11 rebounds in a game bereft of defense. Ten times worse just because of the magnitude of our situation right now, where we are in the standings and knowing how important these games are.One day removed from the trade deadline, during which they were inactive, the same old Knicks trotted onto the court at Amway Center and watched another win evaporate, just like usual. Thanks to Anthony and a surprisingly proficient game from Raymond Felton, who collected 15 points and 8 assists, the Knicks actually went ahead by 14 points in the third quarter.Then, poof, the lead was gone. Arron Afflalo (32 points) tied the game for the Magic on a 15-foot jump shot in the final minute of regulation, and Victor Oladipo (30 points) helped send it to double overtime with a driving layup. The Magic (17-40) scored the games final 7 points as Afflalo and Oladipo proved way too much for the Knicks to handle in the backcourt. I go all the way back to the start of the game, and how we didnt have any kind of defensive presence at all, said Coach Mike Woodson, whose team allowed the Magic to shoot 49.5 percent from the field and 56.3 percent from 3-point range. We played probably six minutes of defense in this whole entire game and two overtimes.Making matters worse for them and yes, the Knicks are somehow capable of reaching new depths when it seems impossible the game was the first of a back-to-back, with the Knicks boarding a late-night flight for Atlanta, where they will face the Hawks on Saturday. The Hawks (25-29) are four and a half games up on the Knicks for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.I cant imagine what thats like, Anthony said when asked if he had considered the possibility of the Knicks missing out on the postseason. Im not even trying to think about that at this point. We still got a lot of basketball to play. Until that time comes, thats the furthest thing from my mind.The Knicks were without Iman Shumpert, although not for the reasons many suspected a week ago, when he was considered the teams most marketable asset. Instead of shipping him to another team at the trade deadline, the Knicks sent him back to New York after he sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee in the second half of Wednesdays win over the New Orleans Pelicans.His presence on defense was missed. Operating off high pick-and-rolls, Oladipo had no trouble eviscerating a series of defenders, including Tim Hardaway Jr., who acknowledged his inability to slow Oladipo off the dribble.Defensively, I have to get better, Hardaway said. I know that. My teammates know that.With Shumpert expected to miss two weeks, Woodson said he anticipated that some of the teams lesser lights would need to step forward. He even named Beno Udrih, although Udrih failed to leave the bench for the 13th time in the last 14 games (Ive stopped counting, Udrih said). Woodson also mentioned Metta World Peace, who posted a message on Twitter before Fridays game saying he felt like Django Unchained. It was his way of saying he was excited about receiving playing time. He wound up supplying seven minutes.As for Felton, he was back in the starting lineup, wearing the same uniform and running the same plays after any potential deals involving him fizzled at the trade deadline. At the morning shootaround, he used the word still seven times as in, Im still here. He summed up the business side of the N.B.A. by saying, It is what it is, four times.It dont really bother me, Felton said. There were a lot of things said, a lot of things speculated. Nothing happened. | Sports |
Credit...Caroline Duffie JudyJune 1, 2017The birds of the Galpagos Islands are still playing a role in helping us understand evolution.When Darwin visited the islands, it was the wide variety of finch beaks that helped him understand how one species could evolve into many.Now the Galpagos cormorants, the only species of cormorant to have lost the ability to fly, have enabled scientists to pin down the genes that led to this species split from all other cormorants about two million years ago.They are genes that are present in birds, mammals and most animals, including even the worm often studied in laboratories: C. elegans. In fact, they are even present in some algae. Their ultimate effect varies, however. In humans and in the cormorants, the genes affect bone growth. But mutations in humans can cause some dreadful diseases; in the birds, they caused smaller wings, which were not effective for flight, and a weaker breastbone.Alejandro Burga, who analyzed the DNA of these and other cormorants with his colleagues, is a researcher in the lab of Leonid Kruglyak, the chairman of human genetics at U.C.L.A.s medical school. He said he and Dr. Kruglyak were discussing how they might use the increasing power of modern genetics to investigate how new species develop. We have very little idea how these things happen in nature, he said.On a trip to the Galpagos, Dr. Kruglyak viewed cormorants as an ideal subject, partly because of their relatively recent evolution as a species and their obvious difference from all their kin.Other flightless birds like ostriches and kiwis do not have close relatives among flying birds, since their split from flying birds occurred 50 million years ago or more. But the Galpagos cormorants are closely related to neo-tropical cormorants and double-crested cormorants, both common birds.ImageCredit...Kike Calvo, via Associated PressPatricia Parker, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, who studies bird diseases in the Galpagos, provided tissue samples for DNA of the flightless cormorants.She had in her freezer over 200 samples of this bird, Dr. Burga said. He and the other researchers on the team gathered samples from the living cormorants and began an exhaustive comparison of the different genomes. They narrowed their focus down to genes that affect bone growth.They found that a gene called Cux1 and some others were involved in the growth of cilia. These whip-like structures on the surface of cells can function in movement in single-celled animals. But in birds and humans and other complex organisms they work like antennas, and one of their jobs is to pick up biochemical signals for bone growth.The end result of mutations in Cux1 in humans can be terrible diseases, called ciliopathies. In the cormorants, however, the result seems to have been to prematurely stop bone growth in the wings, resulting in the loss of flight, but leaving the birds to thrive in the water and on land.The researchers tried inserting some of the mutations they found in the worm, C. elegans, and in mouse tissue. In the worm it caused a change in behavior related to the cilia, and in the mouse tissue it interfered with bone growth.That doesnt prove they have the right genes, but it is further supporting evidence.Loss of flight was an evolutionary process that interested Darwin, but it seems he never saw the flightless cormorants. They are found around only two islands in the Galpagos, and he never mentions the birds in his account of his Galpagos visit in The Voyage of the Beagle.Without a knowledge of DNA and the tools of modern genomics, he could not have come up with the conclusions of the current study, published in Science on Thursday.But he certainly would have had something to say. | science |
Credit...Lynne Sladky/Associated PressFeb. 5, 2014MIAMI The soccer star David Beckham delivered a long-awaited but in many ways provisional commitment to Miami on Wednesday when he confirmed it as the future home of a Major League Soccer expansion team that he will own alongside partners not yet named and run.Beckham made the announcement during a somewhat giddy news conference overlooking a sunny Biscayne Bay, an event punctuated by vigorous chants from fans who have been without a top-flight team since 2001, when M.L.S. folded the Miami Fusion.This is an exciting time for myself, for my family and friends, Beckham told the crowd while perched on a stool between the M.L.S. commissioner, Don Garber, and the mayor of Miami-Dade County, Carlos A. Gimenez, who is on record as opposing the use of public money for privately owned sports facilities. As if to assure Gimenez of his access to deep pockets elsewhere, Beckham made a point of saying that a lot of great people want to invest in this team and this club, a remark greeted with cheers.We dont want public funding, he said. We will fund the stadium ourselves.But the news conference raised more questions than it answered. There is no deal in place for the financing to build a stadium, or to buy or lease the land on which to put it. The team has no name, and there seems to be only a vague notion of when the team might start playing in M.L.S. perhaps in 2016, more likely 2017. Nor was it clear where the team might play, temporarily, until its own stadium is completed.The Miami team would be the 22nd in M.L.S. The league currently has 19 clubs, but it will add two more in New York City and Orlando next year.Beckham had inserted the right to buy a team for $25 million into his original playing contract when he joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007, but he had to exercise that option before Dec. 31, 2013. Wednesdays announcement was merely confirmation that he had done so by the deadline.In an interview after the news briefing, Garber said that in the last month or so he had personally looked at three properties in downtown Miami that might be suitable stadium sites for Beckhams team. We want that stadium to be downtown, Garber said, mentioning in particular a site in Miamis seaport near the arena where the N.B.A.s Miami Heat play.Asked why he had chosen Miami for his new venture, Beckham replied, I mean, why not? More concretely, he said Miami had become a truly international city that was especially appealing to visitors and immigrants from Latin America and Europe. Those audiences, he said, flock to soccer games, as evidenced by huge turnouts to matches in recent years featuring teams like Real Madrid, A.C. Milan, Chelsea and national teams from Brazil and Honduras. Those games were played in the Sun Life football stadium in Miami Gardens, a suburb northwest of downtown.In this market, if you put a soccer team together, you have a lot of sophisticated soccer fans who will go, said Norb Ecksl, who was general manager of the Miami Freedom soccer team in the early 1990s and is now the editor of Sunshine Soccer News. If you put a good product on the field and promote it properly, its going to work. And you have to have a state-of-the-art stadium that people will be willing to come to. Its all about entertainment.Beckham, he said, has got to have the money, and cooperation from the government to make the venture succeed. Well see, Ecksl added, the failure of previous teams in South Florida fresh in his mind.During the news briefing, Beckham and Garber insisted that things had changed since the Fusion folded, and that it was time for Miami to take its place in the booming business of soccer. Miami is a vibrant city, a city with a lot of passion, Beckham said. Its ready for football, for soccer. And Im looking forward to spending a lot more time here.Asked whether he had any players in mind as potential hires, Beckham demurred, although he acknowledged that some prominent players had already contacted him.Beckham, 38, is a former captain of Englands national team. He began playing for Manchester United when he was 17 and went on to become one of soccers most prominent players. He said he was living the dream by starting his own team. For me, I wanted to create a team that we can start from scratch, he said. I wanted to create a team thats very personal.Beckham mentioned two potential partners in the venture: the Bolivian billionaire Marcelo Claure, founder of the Miami-based wireless distributor Brightstar Corporation, and the American Idol producer Simon Fuller, both of whom, he said, were very excited about the project.For the soccer fans who attended Wednesdays announcement, the possibility of a return to regular local play by a first division professional team was more than welcome. Jonathan Urbaez, a 20-year-old student at Miami-Dade College and one of about 150 members of the Southern Legion, a soccer supporters group formed expressly to push for a new M.L.S. team in Miami, said that when he heard that Beckham might start a team here, it sounded too good to be true.Once I heard that the wheels were rolling, Urbaez said, I knew it was something I had to be a part of. | Sports |
Credit...Valdrin Xhemaj/European Pressphoto AgencyFeb. 20, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Skiers do not have to jump through a ring of fire during the obstacle course that is known as the ski cross competition. But do not be too surprised if they add flames for the next Olympics.The ski cross is a mad dash over clifflike jumps, around hairpin turns, through gullies and down steep slopes. Four racers fly down the course together, jostling for position at highway speeds. At least one of them usually ends up with a face full of snow.If Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were winter athletes, this would surely be their race.The French swept Thursdays competition in what felt like a surprise even to them. All of the favorites botched their runs, some more dramatically than others, allowing France to complete its first-ever sweep at the Winter Games.ImageCredit...Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesJean-Frdric Chapuis, a relatively untested ski cross racer, won gold, followed by his teammates Arnaud Bovolenta and Jonathan Midol. Brady Leman of Canada finished fourth after falling in the final race.The three French skiers managed to finish upright, which itself seemed worthy of a medal.The course designers gave Russian names to the twists and turns, so that the days final tally read like a political massacre. Some fell at the Bolshoi, others at Gorky Park. Red Square defeated a few, but then there was the Kremlin, a steep, sharp turn that would make even President Vladimir V. Putin blanch.The designers saved the biggest jump for last it was called Yours, and came right after Hot and Cool. (Hot. Cool. Yours. is the slogan of the Sochi Games and is plastered everywhere, from coffee cups to, well, ski cross courses.)Yours looms right in front of the grandstands, so the crowd got its first glimpse of the racers when they were soaring at airplane height. Of course, that gave the fans a front-row seat to the sports biggest wipeouts a point of steady delight for Thursdays raucous audience.The giant jump at the end made for drama and comedy in equal measure Yours would be a smash hit on Broadway. (Though there were plenty of crashes on Thursday, no one was injured. Last week, a Russian skier, Maria Komissarova, crashed while training on the ski cross course and broke her spine.)The crowds favorite moment was the quarterfinal race that ended in a photo finish with an only-in-ski-cross twist: three of the racers slid together past the finish line on their bellies.ImageCredit...Alexander Klein/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJouni Pellinen of Finland was part of the scrum. He was flying off the final jump, the finish line thankfully in sight, when he saw bodies strewn at the bottom. It was mayhem in front of me, he said. I was distracted. It was all happening so fast.He joined a Russian and a Swedish skier on the ground in a jumble of skis, poles and goggles. Only Armin Niederer of Switzerland, who had been trailing for much of the race but placed first in the heat, finished upright.After the race, Pellinen cursed himself not for falling, but for how he fell. He wished he had stuck out his arms midtumble, as Egor Korotkov of Russia had, so that at least part of him could have crossed the finish line one somersault sooner. The Russian was the only guy who knew we would be sliding into the finish line, Pellinen said.ImageCredit...Omega/International Olympic CommitteeSome racers blamed all the crashes on the springlike temperatures, which they said made the course slushier than they were expecting. But most just said crashes are part of the sport.To stay up through the whole course is the hardest thing, said Florian Eigler, a German skier.More than anything, the race felt like a bucking bronco competition with a really surly bronco. Hold on to your hat, cowboy.You never have a break, said Christopher Del Bosco of Canada, who lost before the quarterfinals. You have to be on it the whole way down.Some athletes got bucked earlier than others. Filip Flisar of Slovenia was down practically as soon as the race began. John Teller of the United States was unable to finish the course, as was Anton Grimus of Australia.After the race, Grimus was asked about his fall, which played over and over on the outdoor big screen. I am all in one piece, he said. | Sports |
Credit...Wellcome CollectionThe Great ReadScientists are grasping for any example that could help anticipate the future of Covid, even a mysterious respiratory pandemic that spread in the late 19th century.An 1889 wood engraving in a French newspaper, during the time of the Russian flu pandemic, which swept all over the world.Credit...Wellcome CollectionPublished Feb. 14, 2022Updated Feb. 15, 2022In May 1889, people living in Bukhara, a city that was then part of the Russian Empire, began sickening and dying. The respiratory virus that killed them became known as the Russian flu. It swept the world, overwhelming hospitals and killing the old with special ferocity.Schools and factories were forced to close because so many students and workers were sick. Some of the infected described an odd symptom: a loss of smell and taste. And some of those who recovered reported a lingering exhaustion.The Russian flu finally ended a few years later, after at least three waves of infection.Its patterns of infection and symptoms have led some virologists and historians of medicine to now wonder: Might the Russian flu actually have been a pandemic driven by a coronavirus? And could its course give us clues about how our pandemic will play out and wind down?If a coronavirus caused the Russian flu, some believe that pathogen may still be around, its descendants circulating worldwide as one of the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold. If so, it would be different from flu pandemics whose viruses stick around for a while only to be replaced by new variants years later that cause a new pandemic.If that is what happened to the Russian flu, it might bode well for the future. But there is another scenario. If todays coronavirus behaves more like the flu, immunity against respiratory viruses is fleeting. That might mean a future of yearly Covid shots.But, some historians voice caution about the Russian flu hypothesis.There is very little, almost no hard data on the Russia flu pandemic, said Frank Snowden at Yale.There is, though, a way to solve the mystery of the Russian flu. Molecular biologists now have the tools to pull shards of old virus from preserved lung tissue from Russian flu victims and figure out what sort of virus it was.Some researchers are now on the hunt for such preserved tissue in museums and medical schools that might have old jars of specimens floating in preservative fluid that still contain fragments of lung.The Russian FluTom Ewing of Virginia Tech, one of the few historians who has studied the Russian flu, cant help noticing striking parallels with todays coronavirus pandemic: Institutions and workplaces shut down because too many people were ill; physicians overwhelmed with patients; and waves of infection.I would say, maybe, Dr. Ewing said when asked if the Russian flu was a coronavirus.Dr. Scott Podolsky, a professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, called the idea plausible.And Dr. Arnold Monto, professor of public health, epidemiology and global health at the University of Michigan, considered it a very interesting speculation.We have long wondered where coronaviruses came from, Dr. Monto said. Has there ever been a coronavirus pandemic in the past?Harald Bruessow, a retired Swiss microbiologist and editor of the journal Microbial Biotechnology, points to a paper published in 2005 concluding that another coronavirus circulating today, known as OC43, which causes severe colds, may have jumped from cows to humans in 1890.Three other less virulent coronaviruses circulate, too. Perhaps one of those viruses, or OC43, is a variant left over from the Russian flu pandemic.Dr. Bruessow, while acknowledging the uncertainties, would bet that the Russian flu was caused by a coronavirus. His work, which involved delving into old newspaper and journal articles, and public health reports on the Russian flu, uncovered that some patients had complained about conditions like a loss of taste and smell and long Covid-like symptoms.Some historians speculated that the 19th centurys fin de sicle lassitude might actually have been caused by sequelae of the Russian flu.Such symptoms are not typical of flu pandemics.Like Covid, Dr. Bruessow reports, the Russian flu seems to have preferentially killed older people but not children. Dr. Ewing, examining 1890 records from the State Board of Health in Connecticut, found a similar pattern. If true, that would make the 1890 virus unlike influenza viruses which kill the very young as well as the very old.But historical records cannot readily answer the question of whether a coronavirus caused the Russian flu.And Dr. Snowden of Yale cautioned that any lessons he could draw from that pandemic that could apply to a world in which the novel coronavirus has shaken societies would be fantasy.At this point, the idea that the Russian flu might have been caused by a coronavirus remains speculative, said Peter Palese, a flu researcher and professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. There is nothing, he said, that clearly ties the Russian flu pandemic to a coronavirus and excludes influenza.But for those seeking hints to how the current coronavirus pandemic might end, some think those past two pandemics could offer a clue.As the Russian flu pandemic waned, said J. Alexander Navarro, a historian at the University of Michigan, people rather quickly went on with their lives. It was the same with the 1918 flu pandemic. Newspaper stories about it dwindled. And, he said, grieving was almost entirely a private affair.I highly suspect that the same will occur today, Dr. Navarro said.In fact, in many ways, I think it already has.When Pandemics Burn OutImageCredit...Tom Brenner for The New York TimesQuite a few pandemics at least in the past 100 years when their causes can be known have been caused by respiratory viruses. Recent exceptions are Zika and chikungunya old mosquito-borne viruses and H.I.V., which is spread by sexual intercourse and sharing needles.Great plagues terrorized humanity in ancient and pre-modern times, most notably the bubonic plague. It was mostly spread by rat fleas, and it ushered in a horrendous period, killing multitudes among the European population from 1347 to 1352. So many died that they were buried in pits, in piles.The bubonic plague kept returning to Europe for centuries after it first emerged. But how that plague ended offers few relevant lessons for todays pandemic.Researchers have also been unable to find answers in animal studies. They have tried for decades to find general laws to predict how pandemics progress by infecting hundreds of thousands of mice with various viruses and bacteria, said Dr. George Davey Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology at the Bristol Medical School in England. The experiments went on year after year in England, Germany, the United States and Australia. All looked for ways to predict when and how an epidemic could end.None were found.They couldnt predict what was going to happen, Dr. Davey Smith said.So researchers trying to understand how respiratory pandemics conclude can only study the flu and the current coronavirus pandemic.Only the flu pandemics have ended. That, said Dr. David Morens, a flu researcher and senior adviser to the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a real limitation in trying to understand the natural history of respiratory disease pandemics.We have only 104 years and four different pandemics to make predictions from, he said.Flu pandemics are also baffling.The first of the four flu pandemics for which the virus is known began in 1918. The pandemic waned after three waves of infections and that virus, H1N1, remained in circulation, in a less virulent form until 1957, when it disappeared.As far as we could tell, in 1957, that virus was gone forever, Dr. Morens said.Then H2N2 emerged. It was substantially different from H1N1 and caused a pandemic. That pattern repeated itself with H3N2 emerging in 1968.But in 1977, something strange happened. H1N1 came back after being gone for two decades. It and another virus, H3N2, have been circulating ever since.Until 1977, we never had two subtypes circulating at the same time, Dr. Monto said. We dont understand why one subtype pushed out the other and why it didnt happen in 1977.And in 2009, the H1N1 that had re-entered the human population in 1977 was displaced by a genetically distinct version that came from pigs, causing another pandemic.But why would a new variant make the previous one go away?That, Dr. Morens said, is another mystery.At least there are vaccines which are useful against the flu. But they have to be administered every year because of waning immunity. In a study in England with common cold coronaviruses, researchers found that immunity from infections with these viruses also diminishes within a year.Would we need a Covid vaccine every year? asked Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the viral pathogenesis and evolution section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Thats the direction were heading.Then there is the question of why the Russian flu, and now the Covid pandemic produced waves of escalating and declining mortality.We are pretty clueless, and this extends to the waves we are seeing over the past two years with Covid, Dr. Morens said. The evolution of viruses is not the full answer, he added.There are no good explanations I know of.Hunting Russian Flu SamplesImageCredit...Science SourceThe mysteries about the evolution of flu viruses and flu pandemics lead back to the mystery of the Russian flu and the coronavirus hypothesis.Some, like Dr. Navarro, the historian at the University of Michigan, said that he finds the evidence for the interesting hypothesis about the Russian flu circumstantial at best.Dr. Taubenberger predicts better evidence will emerge. He and John Oxford, emeritus professor of virology at the University of London, have been looking for flu or coronavirus in old lung tissue from patients who were ill with a respiratory disease in the years before the 1918 flu. They had hoped to find them embedded in tiny blocks of paraffin no bigger than a pinky fingernail in the Royal London Hospital, a place that has tissue from patients dating back to around 1906.We sampled hundreds of tissues, Dr. Taubenberger said, without finding viruses. We continue to look, he said.But, he said, with renewed interest in the 1890 pandemic, he hopes some tissues containing the Russian flu virus whatever it is might be found, perhaps lying unnoticed in the basements of museums or medical schools in different corners of the world.Finding the tissue, though, has been challenging.The people running institutions in which they might be housed very likely would have no way to easily access records about them, Dr. Taubenberger said. Paradoxically, genetic analysis of these samples would be less difficult than locating them in the first place.Dr. Podolsky of Harvard and Dominic W. Hall, the curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard, are also looking for tissue archives that might have lung tissue from that era. Mr. Hall has been reaching out to those in charge of collections of tissue samples.On Thursday, he spoke with Anna Dhody, director of the research institute at the Mtter Museum, a collection of anatomical specimens and items from medical history in Philadelphia. She thinks items in the museums climate-controlled storage room may help.The archive contains jars of tissue from the late 19th century, including a few whole lungs, all floating in jars of pale yellow liquid, the alcohol that was used as a preservative.With funding and the right technology, she says outside researchers may be able to analyze the specimens.The work, Ms. Dhody said, is so imperative.Its life and death information. | Health |
Credit...Ted Aljibe/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 7, 2018MANILA One of the founding members of a Philippine lawyers group at the forefront of opposing President Rodrigo Dutertes lethal war on drugs was gunned down on Tuesday, killed by three bullets as he was leaving his office for the night.The attorney, Benjamin Ramos, 56, was the 34th lawyer killed since Mr. Duterte became president two years ago. His group, the National Union of Peoples Lawyers, specialized in doing no-cost work for poor clients whose families have been targeted by the police, soldiers and death squads associated with the presidents drug war.We are shocked, devastated and enraged at the premeditated, coldblooded murder of our colleague and fellow peoples lawyer, said Edre Olalia, a leader of the group. We are disturbed and unbowed. These are dangerous times.Initial police reports said that Mr. Ramos had just finished work when he was shot by motorcycle-riding men near the central town of Kabankalan on Tuesday night. He was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.Colleagues described Mr. Ramos as passionately dedicated to pro-bono work for the poor, environmentalists, activists and political prisoners.The National Union of Peoples Lawyers said his work had angered local policemen and the military. His picture was recently included by the local police in a list of people accused of having ties to the underground communist movement, a claim that the group has denied.Jose Manuel Diokno, a human rights lawyer for another organization, the Free Legal Assistance Group, said he was outraged by the killing.I join the calls for the police to conduct an impartial and thorough investigation, to find the motive, the gunmen and the mastermind, Mr. Diokno said in an interview, urging the Justice Department to take the lead in the inquiry.I ask my fellow lawyers who fight for what is right and just to continue and not be cowed, he said.In a speech in August 2017, Mr. Duterte told the national police not to be daunted by rights lawyers investigating the thousands of deaths of what he called drug addicts and dealers.If they are obstructing justice, you shoot them, Mr. Duterte instructed the police, referring to lawyers. (The president is himself a lawyer and began his political career as a prosecutor.)He often carries a list of the names of dozens of judges, members of the armed and police forces as well as of local politicians he claims are protecting drug suspects.He has never publicly divulged how he came up with the list, although at least three mayors whose names appeared on it have been killed. Eight other mayors were also gunned down in suspicious circumstances. One of them was killed last year in a raid that left his wife and 10 other people dead. A mayor was also fatally shot during a flag-raising ceremony in July.Mr. Olalia said that some of the National Union of Peoples Lawyers members had received threats, and had been labeled by the police and the military as sympathetic to the political left, in open contempt of basic principles of the role of lawyers in democracy.He said a colleague investigating abuses against women and children, Katherine Panguban, had recently been criticized by the police for leading a fact-finding mission into the killings of nine farmers in the central city of Sagay.The military has said the farmers were recruited by a front organization for communist rebels, and attributed their deaths to infighting among the cadres.Mr. Olalia said Mr. Ramoss death would not stop the groups work.We will be there in the trenches in defense of the defenseless, he said. There is no other choice.The group Human Rights Watch said Mr. Ramoss killing was proof that impunity existed under Mr. Dutertes drug war.It is a blow to the human rights movement in the Philippines, the group said in a statement. We demand an impartial investigation into Ramoss murder and the many other attacks against lawyers in the Philippines and that the authorities bring the perpetrators to justice. | World |
David Otunga Jennifer Hudson's Lying ... I Have a Job 1/26/2018 David Otunga says Jennifer Hudson is simply a liar when she grouses to the judge in their custody war that he needs to get a job, because he says she knows he already has one. Otunga just fired back in legal docs, responding to Hudson's claim he essentially sits on the sofa and needs gainful employment so she doesn't have to pay support. He says her claim is ironic because 5 years ago, she gave him an ultimatum ... telling him he had to either choose wrestling or his family. Translation ... she was the person who stopped him from wrestling full-time. Otunga says he IS employed ... with the WWE, in addition to working on other entertainment projects. He also says it's nervy for Hudson to grouse about money when she makes between $8 million and $13 million per season just for "The Voice." He takes a shot, saying she's focused on money while he's focusing on taking care of their 8-year-old son. | Entertainment |
Kanye and Kim Our Saturday Night ... From Chicago to Calabasas!!! 1/21/2018 Kim Kardashian and Kanye West hit the town Saturday night ... the first time they've been seen together since the birth of their third child, Chicago. K & K went to the movies in Calabasas, for a showing of "Honor Up." Damon Dash, Terrence J, and others joint Kim and Kanye for the screening. Kanye and Kim hosted the evening ... the movie screening was at his Calabasas office. He's had a hard time not smiling since Chi came into the world. Understandable, indeed. | Entertainment |
DealBook|Goldman Sachs Names 3 to Management Committeehttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/business/dealbook/goldman-sachs-names-3-to-management-committee.htmlDec. 21, 2015Goldman Sachs has named three partners of its investment banking division to its management committee, the latest round of promotions to this senior executive group after a few departures.The three join a group of executives who lead Goldmans various operations. They are Gregg Lemkau, the co-head of global mergers and acquisitions, and Marc Nachmann and Jim Esposito, the co-heads of Goldmans global financing group.They rotate in after the retirements of Gordon Dyal, Christopher Cole, John Weinberg. In addition, Gene Sykes, who was a co-chairman of Goldmans mergers and acquisitions group and a committee member, relinquished his management roles to become the unpaid chief executive of the Los Angeles 2024 Olympic bid committee. He continues to be a Goldman partner.A memorandum to employees on Monday, signed by Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive, and Gary Cohn, president and chief operating officer, said of the new management committee members, Gregg, Marc and Jim play critical roles in supporting and growing our global client franchise and will bring valuable perspectives to the management committee.Last week, Goldman named John Vaske as a third co-chairman of global mergers and acquisitions, alongside Tim Ingrassia and Paul G. Parker. | Business |
Credit...Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesJune 26, 2017It was the sort of bad news every patient fears. Merlin Erickson, a 69-year-old retired engineer in Abingdon, Md., was told last year that a biopsy of his prostate was positive for cancer.Mr. Erickson, worried, began investigating the options: whether to have his prostate removed, or perhaps to have radiation treatment. But a few days later, the doctor called again.As it turned out, Mr. Erickson did not have cancer. The lab had mixed up his biopsy with someone elses.Obviously, I felt great for me but sad for that other gentleman, Mr. Erickson said.The other gentleman was Timothy Karman, 65, a retired teacher in Grandy, N.C. At first, of course, he had been told he was cancer-free. The phone rang again a few days later with news of the mix-up and a diagnosis of cancer.Ultimately he had his prostate removed. I said, Mistakes happen, Mr. Karman said.They may be happening more often than doctors realize. There is no comprehensive data on how often pathology labs mix up cancer biopsy samples, but a few preliminary studies suggest that it may happen to thousands of patients each year.Fortunately, there is now a high-tech solution: a way to fingerprint and track each sample with the donors own DNA.But it costs the patient about $300 per sample, and labs have been slow to adopt it, saying that the errors are rare and the test too expensive, and that they have plenty of checks in place already to avoid mix-ups.Dr. John Pfeifer, vice chairman for clinical affairs in the pathology and immunology department at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who has studied the problem, is not quite so sanguine.All the process improvement in the world does not get rid of human errors, he said. Millions get biopsies every year. Is society going to say, Yeah, mistakes happen but were not going to look for them?The fingerprinting method, offered by Strand Diagnostics, is simple: A doctor gets a DNA sample by swabbing inside a patients mouth. It is sent directly to Strand with a bar code identifying the patient.That bar code is also used to label the patients biopsy. If it shows cancer, the pathologist sends the biopsy cells to Strand. The lab matches the DNA from the swab to that of the biopsy cells.If these DNA fingerprints did not match, that signaled a lab mix-up. That was how pathologists discovered that samples from Mr. Erickson and Mr. Karman had been switched.Despite the best efforts of pathologists to avoid these mix-ups, hints of trouble have been turning up for years.In 2011, researchers conducting a large clinical trial reported that two men who were found to have prostate cancer and who had their prostates removed did not have the disease at all.Instead, their biopsy samples had been mishandled. (A third mix-up was caught before any action was taken.)The researchers then performed a rigorous DNA analysis of more than 10,000 biopsies taken during the period. Twenty-seven were mislabeled. Among 6,733 blood samples, 31, or 0.5 percent, had been switched.The percentage of errors may not be high. But each one may lead a patient down a life-altering path, to a grueling treatment that was unnecessary, or to the neglect of a cancer that may or may not prove deadly.Pathologists see lab mix-ups routinely, but often the mistake is obvious a sample supposed to be from a brain actually is from a lung, for example.You say, O.K., yeah, theres been a mistake, Dr. Pfeifer said. I dont know many pathologists who havent had that occur.But what about mix-ups that are not so obvious two lung tissue samples that are switched, or two breast samples? Dr. Pfeifer turned to DNA fingerprinting to determine how often such samples are mixed up at Washington University.ImageCredit...Nate Pesce for The New York TimesHe found a few errors. One mans lung tissue was cancerous, but DNA analysis showed the lung cells were not his.Another patient had a liver biopsy that showed cancer, but the cells were from somebody else. Still another man was mistakenly thought to have advanced aggressive prostate cancer; again, DNA showed the tissue was somebody elses.To really get an idea of the frequency of these mix-ups nationwide, however, Dr. Pfeifer needed a large database.Ted Schenberg, the chief executive at Strand, offered to supply the data: more than 13,000 biopsy results from men evaluated for prostate cancer at a number of laboratories.Dr. Pfeifer agreed to review data, although he knew the company had a significant financial interest in the outcome. To minimize conflicts of interest, Mr. Schenberg would not pay him to do the work and would not be involved in the analysis.Dr. Pfeifer documented two types of errors in this large sample: an absolute switch, in which one patients tissue was mixed up with anothers. And a partial switch in which some of one patients cells ended up mixed in with cells from someone else.Every lab had both of these errors, Dr. Pfeifer said. In general, the rates were low .26 percent of samples were absolute switches, and 0.67 percent were partial switches.But the rates were slightly higher among independent labs, including large commercial companies that handle huge numbers of specimens: 0.37 percent were absolute switches, and 3.14 percent were contaminated.Remedying these infrequent errors is a costly endeavor. Most private insurers are willing to cover the testing; its far less expensive than paying for unnecessary treatment, or treatment late in the course of a disease that should have been identified sooner.Medicare, on the other hand, does not cover DNA fingerprinting of biopsies, and many of patients receiving cancer biopsies are older. (Legislation introduced in Congress in May would require the program to cover the service, but only for prostate biopsies.)Consumers may request DNA fingerprinting themselves, but there is no guarantee that the pathology lab to which their biopsies are sent will offer the service.Recently, a group of researchers led by Dr. Kirk Wojno, a pathologist at the Comprehensive Urology and Comprehensive Medical Center in Royal Oak, Mich., decided to address the financial obstacles to widespread DNA testing of biopsies, in this case specifically for prostate cancer.Unnecessary treatments and lawsuits come with a high price tag, the researchers concluded.There are about 806,000 prostate biopsies a year in the United States. Lab mix-ups of these biopsies alone cost the nation about $879.9 million per year. That figure includes cost of lawsuits that result from mix-ups.The cost of doing DNA fingerprinting, Dr. Pfeifer argues, is well within the range of costs we see with other clinical testing.You can make an argument that for prostate cancer you should probably do this for every patient at the time of initial diagnosis, he added. By extension, you probably have the same situation for other diseases.But other experts are not convinced the test is worth the cost.While mix-ups do happen, pathologists have put a series of steps in place to try to avoid them, including 26 requirements for labeling containers and identifying patients, and ordering tests, said Dr. Raouf Nakhleh, vice chair of the College of American Pathologists Council on Scientific Affairs and a professor of pathology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.We get paid $125 to process a specimen and produce a diagnosis, he said. He turns to DNA fingerprinting only when he suspects a mix-up for example, a clinical exam is at odds with a pathology report.Dr. Jennifer Hunt, who chairs the Department of Pathology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, also objects to the cost. Its related to finances, she said. And the risk of error is extraordinarily low.Dr. Sanford Siegel of Chesapeake Urology used to feel the same way. But in 2015, a new patient had a blood test that indicated he might have prostate cancer. He had a biopsy, which confirmed it.The man had his prostate removed only to learn he had been the victim of a lab mix-up. His reaction, as Dr. Siegel recalled? I am calling a lawyer.After that, Chesapeake Urology made the DNA test mandatory. | Health |
The past 12 months on Mars have been both exciting and exhausting for scientists and engineers minding the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter. And the mission is only really getting started.VideoA selfie taken by NASAs Perseverance rover over a rock nicknamed Rochette in September.CreditCredit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSFeb. 15, 2022A year ago, NASAs Perseverance rover was accelerating to a collision with Mars, nearing its destination after a 290-million-mile, seven-month journey from Earth.On Feb. 18 last year, the spacecraft carrying the rover pierced the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour. In just seven minutes what NASA engineers call seven minutes of terror it had to pull off a series of maneuvers to place Perseverance gently on the surface.Given the minutes of delay for radio communications to crisscross the solar system, the people in mission control at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California were merely spectators that day. If anything had gone wrong, they would not have had any time to attempt a fix, and the $2.7 billion mission, to search for evidence that something once lived on the red planet, would have ended in a newly excavated crater.But Perseverance performed perfectly, sending home exhilarating video footage as it landed. And NASA added to its collection of robots exploring Mars.The vehicle itself is just doing phenomenally well, Jennifer Trosper, the project manager for Perseverance, said.Twelve months later, Perseverance is nestled within a 28-mile-wide crater known as Jezero. From the topography, it is evident that more than three billion years ago, Jezero was a body of water roughly the size of Lake Tahoe, with rivers flowing in from the west and out to the east.One of the first things Perseverance did was deploy Ingenuity, a small robotic helicopter and the first such flying machine to take off on another planet. Perseverance also demonstrated a technology for generating oxygen that will be crucial whenever astronauts finally make it to Mars.The rover then set off on a diversion from the original exploration plans, to study the floor of the crater it landed in. The rocks there turned out not to be what scientists were expecting. It ran into trouble a couple of times when it tried to collect cores of rock cylinders about the size of sticks of chalk that are eventually to be brought back to Earth by a future mission. Engineers were able to solve the problems and most everything is going well.Its been a very exciting year, exhausting at times, said Joel Hurowitz, a professor of geosciences at Stony Brook University in New York who is a member of the missions science team. The pace of work has been pretty incredible.VideoVideo footage of the Jezero Crater on Mars captured by NASAs Perseverance rover shows a delta formed there billions of years ago.CreditCredit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSSAfter months of scrutinizing the crater floor, the mission team is now preparing to head for the main scientific event: investigating a dried-up river delta along the west rim of Jezero.That is where scientists expect to find sedimentary rocks that are most likely to contain blockbuster discoveries, maybe even signs of ancient Martian life if any ancient life ever existed on Mars.Deltas are, at least on Earth, habitable environments, said Amy Williams, a professor of geology at the University of Florida and a member of the Perseverance science team. Theres water. Theres active sediment being transported from a river into a lake.Such sediments can capture and preserve carbon-based molecules that are associated with life. Thats an excellent place to look for organic carbon, Dr. Williams said. So hopefully, organic carbon thats indigenous to Mars is concentrated in those layers.Perseverance landed not much more than a mile from the delta. Even at a distance, the rovers eagle-eyed camera could make out the expected sedimentary layers. There were also boulders, some as large as cars, sitting on the delta, rocks that were washed into the crater.This all tells a fascinating story, said Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University.The data confirm that what orbital images suggested was a river delta is indeed that and that the history of water here was complex. The boulders, which almost certainly came from the surrounding highlands, point to episodes of violent flooding at Jezero.ImageCredit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSIt wasnt just slow, gentle deposition of fine grained silt and sand and mud, said Dr. Bell, who serves as principal investigator for the sophisticated cameras mounted on Perseverances mast.Mission managers had originally planned to head directly to the delta from the landing site. But the rover set down in a spot where the direct route was blocked by sand dunes that it could not cross.The geological formations to the south intrigued them.We landed in a surprising location, and made the best of it, said Kenneth Farley, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology who serves as the project scientist leading the research.Because Jezero is a crater that was once a lake, the expectation was that its bottom would be rocks that formed out of the sediments that settled to the bottom.But at first glance, the lack of layers meant they did not look obviously sedimentary, said Kathryn Stack Morgan of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the deputy project scientist. At the same time, nothing clearly suggested they were volcanic in origin, either.Its really turned into a detective story sort of about why this region is one of the most geologically unusual in the planet, said Nicholas Tosca, a professor of mineralogy and petrology at the University of Cambridge in England and a member of the science team.As the scientists and engineers contemplated whether to circle around to the north or to the south, the team that built a robotic helicopter named Ingenuity got to try out their creation.The helicopter was a late addition to the mission, meant as a proof-of-concept for flying through the thin air of Mars.On April 18 last year, Ingenuity rose to a height of 10 feet, hovered for 30 seconds, and then descended back to the ground. The flight lasted 39.1 seconds.Over the following weeks, Ingenuity made four more flights of increasing time, speed and velocity.VideoNASAs Perseverance Mars rover Mastcam-Z instrument captured a closeup view of the takeoff and landing of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.CreditCredit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS That helped avoid wasting time driving to unexceptional rocks that had looked potentially interesting in images taken from orbit.We sent the helicopter and saw the images, and it looked very similar to where we were, Ms. Trosper said. And so we chose not to drive.The helicopter continues to fly. It just completed its 19th flight, and it remains in good condition. The batteries are still holding a charge. The helicopter has shown it can fly in the colder, thinner air of the winter months. It was able to shake off most of the dust that fell on it during a dust storm in January.Everythings looking green across the board, said Theodore Tzanetos, who leads the Ingenuity team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.In the exploration of the rocks to the south of the landing site, scientists solved some of their secrets when the rover used its drill to grind shallow holes in a couple of them.Oh wow, these look volcanic, Dr. Stack Morgan said, remembering her reaction. Exactly what youd expect for a basaltic lava flow.The tools that Perseverance carries to study the ingredients of Martian rocks can take measurements pinpointed on bits of rock as small as a grain of sand. And cameras on the robotic arm can take close-up pictures.Those observations revealed large grains of olivine, an igneous mineral that can accumulate at the bottom of a large lava flow. Later fractures emerged between the olivine grains that were filled with carbonates, a mineral that forms through interactions with water.The thinking now is that the Jezero crater floor is the same olivine-rich volcanic rock that orbiting spacecraft have observed in the region. It might have formed before the crater filled with water.Sediments from the lake probably did cover the rock, with water percolating through the sediments to fill the fractures with carbonate. Then, slowly, over a few billion years, winds blew the sediments away.That the wispy air on Mars could erode so much rock is hard for geologists on Earth to wrap their minds around.You dont find landscapes that are even close to that on Earth, Dr. Farley said.ImageCredit...NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSSThe most troublesome moments during the first year have occurred during the collection of rock samples. For decades, planetary scientists have dreamed that pieces of Mars could be brought to Earth, where they could study them with state-of-the-art instruments in laboratories.Perseverance is the first step in turning that dream into reality by drilling cores of rock and sealing them in tubes. The rover, however, has no means to get the rock samples off Mars and back to Earth; that awaits another mission known as Mars Sample Return, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency.During the development of Perseverances drill, engineers tested it with a wide variety of Earth rocks. But then the very first rock on Mars that Perseverance tried to drill turned out to be unlike all of the Earth rocks.The rock in essence turned to dust during the drilling and slid out of the tube. After several successes, another drilling attempt ran into problems. Pebbles fell out of the tube in an inconvenient part of the rover the carousel where the drilling bits are stored and that required weeks of troubleshooting to clean away the debris.That was exciting, not necessarily in the best way, Dr. Stack Morgan said. The rest of our exploration has gone really well.Perseverance will at some point drop off some of its rock samples for a rover on the Mars Sample Return mission to pick up. That is to prevent the nightmare scenario that Perseverance dies and there is no way to extricate the rocks it is carrying.ImageCredit...NASA/JPL-CaltechImageCredit...NASA/JPL-CaltechThe top speed of Perseverance is the same as that of Curiosity, the rover NASA landed in another crater in 2012. But improved self-driving software means it can cover longer distances in a single drive. To get to the delta, Perseverance needs to retrace its path to the landing site and then take a route around the sand dunes to the north.It could arrive at the delta by late May or early June. Ingenuity will try to stay ahead of Perseverance.The helicopter flies faster than the rover can drive, but after each flight, its solar panels have to soak up several days of sunshine to recharge the batteries. Perseverance, powered by the heat from a hunk of plutonium, can drive day after day after day.The helicopter, however, might be able to take a shortcut across the sand dunes.Were planning to get to the delta, Mr. Tzanetos said. And were discussing what happens beyond the river delta.But, he added that every day could be the last for Ingenuity, which was designed to last only a month. You hope that youre lucky enough to keep flying, he said, and were going to keep that streak going for as long as we can.Once Perseverance gets to the delta, the most electrifying discovery would be images of what looked to be microscopic fossils. In that case, we have to start asking whether some globs of organic matter are arranged in a shape that outlines a cell, said Tanja Bosak, a geobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.It is unlikely Perseverance will see anything that is unequivocally a remnant of a living organism. That is why it is crucial for the rocks to be brought to Earth for closer examination.Dr. Bosak does not have a strong opinion on whether there was ever life on Mars.We are really trying to peer into the time where we have very little knowledge, she said. We have no idea when chemical processes came together to form the first cell. And so we may be looking at something that was just learning to be life. | science |
Diplomatic NotebookCredit...Thomas Peter/ReutersMarch 19, 2017SEOUL, South Korea Rex W. Tillerson, the new secretary of state, offered the diplomatic understatement of the month on Saturday when he told the sole reporter he permitted on his airplane: Im not a big media press access person. I personally dont need it.Perhaps, by breaking with a half-century of past practice and flying off without the regular State Department correspondents on board, Mr. Tillerson was hoping to continue to operate in a style that worked well for him as chief executive of Exxon Mobil. In that job, he could negotiate complex oil and gas deals behind closed doors and then inform his board of directors and shareholders afterward.Certainly, his predecessors at the State Department have all wished for more time, space and secrecy to work through some of the worlds knottiest problems. The North Korea crisis that dominated this trip is a prime example of one that, if mishandled, could easily veer into war.Yet long experience teaches that foreign policy is rarely made in the kind of media-free bubble that Mr. Tillerson wants. Maybe John Hay had that luxury as secretary of state under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, when the United States was just emerging as a global power. But in the modern era, everyone from Dean Acheson to John Kerry has found that superpower diplomacy abhors a news vacuum.When Americas top diplomats create one, adversaries and allies usually fill it with their own narrative of events, their own proposals, their own accounts of encounters with Washington.Sure, there have occasionally been secret deals Henry Kissingers mission to China when he was President Richard M. Nixons national security adviser, for example but they are rare. And American diplomats generally have little luck presenting the world with faits accompli.Both at home and abroad, public diplomacy is about persuading the world that a particular solution is in the global interest, not just the American interest. And that often means building an argument while the diplomacy is in progress, or else risking a loss of influence and control of the narrative. That, and ego, are usually what make a secretary of state a media press access person.Mr. Tillerson got a brief taste of this reality even before beginning his somewhat rocky first outing in Asia. China tried to box him in by reviving an old proposal for a freeze of North Koreas nuclear and missile programs in return for an American-led freeze of all military exercises with South Korea.It is one of those ideas that sound eminently sensible at first hearing. Who would oppose a diplomatic timeout for North Koreas nuclear and missile tests, which are escalating toward demonstration of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could splash down off Seattle or Los Angeles?After all, thats how diplomacy with Iran began six years ago, ultimately leading to a nuclear deal that, love it or hate it, took an apparently imminent military conflict and defused it for a decade or so. Doing something similar with North Korea is an idea that some American proliferation experts embrace as the least-bad option on a menu of nothing but bad options.At a brief news conference in Seoul, Mr. Tillerson did use the words imminent threat to describe the North Korean program, and accurately noted that a freeze would leave North Korea with significant capabilities that would represent a true threat, not just to the region, but to American forces. But other than that, he never grappled head-on with the Chinese arguments in favor of their proposal which left the door open for his Chinese counterpart to restate his case in Beijing.As a senior South Korean official told me after Mr. Tillersons meeting, there are South Korean politicians including one or two who could become president after a snap election next month who may find the Chinese approach preferable to the risk of a conflict.The Chinese example here is a small one, but it is telling. In past administrations, the State Department would have used the long flight to Asia to give reporters a sense of its arguments and long-term strategy. The secretary of state would have wandered back to the press seats on the plane and offered, on background, the administrations thinking about the major issue of the day.Mr. Kissinger was a master of this spin; James A. Baker III, Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton were no novices, either. And often, it is more than spin: It is a way for the secretary to test whether an idea has a half-life longer than the plane ride.Its not about access. Its about context, John Kirby, who has served as spokesman for both the Pentagon and the State Department and is considered one of the best at navigating the process, wrote on Twitter in response to Mr. Tillersons declarations.Mr. Kirby is right: The most important paragraphs in most articles about diplomatic news are the explanatory ones that lay out the administrations strategy and assess whether it is tenable in light of history, or the facts on the ground, or other realities that the secretary of state may not want to discuss.As Mr. Kirby himself has noted, State Department correspondents work a bit differently from those at the White House. They do not often shout their questions, and television cameras are absent from many of the most important briefings. Many have covered the beat for decades, he noted over the weekend. They know the complexities, the history. (Not all of us took the decades part as a compliment.)The group that has covered the State Department is heavy with former foreign correspondents and war correspondents who have lived around the world, have sources in foreign capitals and write books about the global challenges the country faces. Their hotel-bar conversations have been known to run to wonkish topics like deterrence theory.So it might not be surprising that Mr. Tillerson doesnt want them in the back of his airplane, talking to his staff and probing how the new administrations approach to North Korea and China might differ from what predecessors tried. As he said in that interview with the one journalist he brought along a reporter from the Independent Journal Review, a conservative-leaning website that had never covered a State Department trip before Mr. Tillerson has something more one-way in mind.I view that relationship that I want to have with the media, is the media is very important to help me communicate not just to the American people, but to others in the world that are listening, Mr. Tillerson was quoted as saying. And when I have something important and useful to say, I know where everybody is, and I know how to go out there and say it.There is something to be said for his approach. Clearly, Mr. Tillerson wants to shake up the foreign policy elite, and that starts with a press corps that feeds in the very swamp this administration says it wants to drain. He also says he is saving money by using a smaller plane (though news organizations pay steeply for each employee who flies with the secretary).This early in Mr. Trumps tenure, many policy decisions have not yet been debated thoroughly within his administration, so as Mr. Tillerson noted on Saturday, there is not much for him to say. And there would be considerable risk in getting out ahead of his sometimes mercurial boss. (That boss, Mr. Tillerson conceded, went ahead and posted a Twitter message complaining that China has done little to help! without running it past him first.)Yet there is something else that Mr. Tillersons policy forgoes: the often useful symbolism of top American officials being seen to travel with a free and intrusive press asking questions that leaders do not want to hear.When Mr. Kerry was in Bahrain last year, the visit gave the State Department press corps a chance to publicly interrogate his very uncomfortable Bahraini counterpart about some specific human rights abuses in the country. (Im glad you asked that, Mr. Kerry told correspondents later on his plane, making it clear that he knew local reporters could not have done so.)When President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt barred the State Department press pool last year, the State Department itself lodged an objection.None of those considerations mattered much when Mr. Tillerson traveled on behalf of the worlds largest oil company. As he said, he personally did not need reporters then, and he doesnt now.But as secretary of state, he now has 320 million shareholders, and many of them have a stake in how he conducts Americas day-to-day business around the world. | World |
Credit...Tom AmicoDec. 9, 2015Arthur R. Taylor, a former corporate wunderkind who became president of CBS at 37, unloaded an underperforming network-owned property, the New York Yankees, and then, as a sometimes nettlesome overachiever, was fired by William S. Paley, the imperious CBS chairman and founder, died on Dec. 3 in Salisbury Township, Pa. He was 80.The cause was pulmonary failure, his wife, Kathryn, said.Mr. Taylor was also instrumental at CBS in instituting televisions family viewing hour, a short-lived effort, pushed by the Federal Communications Commission and adopted voluntarily by the networks, to reduce prime-time programming deemed unsuitable for children.His ouster in 1976, four years after he had been recruited from outside the company, startled the broadcasting industry, coming as it did as the Columbia Broadcasting System was reporting record earnings for the 24th consecutive quarter.While ratings were disappointing, sales and revenue hit new highs. But Mr. Paley was said to have been personally vexed by the independence and lack of deference of Mr. Taylor, his handpicked president and potential successor, and by an exodus of creative executives.After the ouster Mr. Taylor became the founding president of the New York City Partnership, a business and civic lobbying group formed by the banker David Rockefeller and affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce. (It is now called the Partnership for New York City.)Mr. Taylor was also the founding president of the Entertainment Channel, a joint venture by the RCA Corporation and what is now the Rockefeller Group. A premium cable channel that offered quality programming, it lasted less than a year, but it led to another joint cable venture, the Arts and Entertainment Network, better known as A&E.In addition, Mr. Taylor was dean of Fordham Universitys Graduate School of Business Administration in New York for eight years and president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., for a decade.Arthur Robert Taylor was born in Elizabeth, N.J., on July 6, 1935. His father, also named Arthur, was a telephone repairman and later a company manager. His mother was the former Marion Scott.Mr. Taylor was raised in Rahway, a blue-collar city known for a state prison and a Merck pharmaceutical plant. It was a place, he recalled, where if you could survive high school, you were a pretty tough nut. Two students in his graduating class went to college, he said; 10 wound up in Sing Sing, the New York State penitentiary.Mr. Taylor majored in Renaissance history at Brown University and earned a masters degree there in American economic history. He was two courses and a dissertation shy of earning a doctorate, intending to become a teacher, when he was hired as a trainee in investment banking by First Boston Corporation.ImageCredit...CBS Photo ArchiveHe rose meteorically in the corporate world, becoming vice president for finance and then executive vice president of International Paper before he was recruited by CBS to be its president in 1972.When he arrived at the networks headquarters in Manhattan, known as Black Rock, Mr. Taylor became the second consecutive successor to the legendary Frank Stanton to be hired from outside the broadcasting industry, a manifestation of Paleys effort to diversify the company. (Charles T. Ireland Jr. had died after just 18 months in the job.)Mr. Taylor went on to acquire Gulbransen Organs (he had been first clarinetist in the New Jersey All-State Orchestra and played the organ in his CBS office) and initiated the $50 million purchase of Fawcett Publications.In 1973 he oversaw the sale of CBSs share of the Yankees to a group of investors led by George M. Steinbrenner for $8.7 million. CBS had purchased 80 percent of the team for $11.2 million in 1964. Two years later, the team finished last in the American League for the first time since 1912, and it had never ranked higher than fourth by the time CBS sold its share.As president of CBS, Mr. Taylor also urged the House Judiciary Committee to let the networks present live coverage of its hearings on the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon, and he rejected Mobils proposal to broadcast message advertising (rather than product advertising) on energy issues. Message ads, he said, mean that those with the most money would get to talk loudest.But he did sign on to the family viewing hour (from 8 to 9 p.m. Eastern time). The courts overturned the viewing hour on First Amendment grounds after a year, though some networks remained guided by it voluntarily.After leaving CBS, Mr. Taylor formed the Sarabam Corporation with Nelson A. Rockefeller, the former vice president and New York governor, and George Woods, the retired chairman of the World Bank, to help Middle Eastern countries invest in the United States. He then established Arthur Taylor & Company, a private investment company.As president of Muhlenberg, beginning in 1992, Mr. Taylor was credited with reducing the colleges debt by half, tripling its endowment and doubling enrollment. But he was ousted in a clash with trustees over his management style after he had, among other things, taken firm disciplinary action against an offending but popular fraternity.Mr. Taylor is survived by his second wife, the former Kathryn Pelgrift; three daughters from his first marriage, Martha Josephson, Anne Madden and Sarah Rountree; and four grandchildren.After being fired at CBS, late in 1976, Mr. Taylor became more publicity shy. Before then, though, he acknowledged being opinionated, ambitious and blunt. People either like me or they dont, he told The New York Times in 1972.He maintained that a corporation could fulfill a socially responsible agenda only if was profitable, and he encapsulated that philosophy in an anecdote he told about coming to CBS.Someone called and said, Now you can have a good seat at Yankee Stadium, he recalled. I said, Lets have some paying customers instead. | Business |
SHAKTOOLIK, Alaska In the dream, a storm came and Betsy Bekoalok watched the river rise on one side of the village and the ocean on the other, the water swallowing up the brightly colored houses, the fishing boats and the four-wheelers, the school and the clinic. She dived into the floodwaters, frantically searching for her son. Bodies drifted past her in the half-darkness. When she finally found the boy, he, too, was lifeless. I picked him up and brought him back from the oceans bottom, Ms. Bekoalok remembered. The Inupiat people who for centuries have hunted and fished on Alaskas western coast believe that some dreams are portents of things to come. But here in Shaktoolik, one need not be a prophet to predict flooding, especially during the fall storms. Laid out on a narrow spit of sand between the Tagoomenik River and the Bering Sea, the village of 250 or so people is facing an imminent threat from increased flooding and erosion, signs of a changing climate. With its proximity to the Arctic, Alaska is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the United States and the state is heading for the warmest year on record. The government has identified at least 31 Alaskan towns and cities at imminent risk of destruction, with Shaktoolik ranking among the top four. Some villages, climate change experts predict, will be uninhabitable by 2050, their residents joining a flow of climate refugees around the globe, in Bolivia, China, Niger and other countries. These endangered Alaskan communities face a choice. They could move to higher ground, a wrenching prospect that for a small village could cost as much as $200 million. Or they could stand their ground and hope to find money to fortify their buildings and shore up their coastline. At least two villages farther up the western coast, Shishmaref and Kivalina, have voted to relocate when and if they can find a suitable site and the money to do so. A third, Newtok, in the soggy Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta farther south, has taken the first steps toward a move. But, after years of meetings that led nowhere and pleas for government financing that remained unmet, Shaktoolik has decided it will stay and defend, at least for the time being, the mayor, Eugene Asicksik, said. We are doing things on our own, he said. The tiny Cessna carrying two visitors touches down lightly on the thin gravel strip that in Shaktoolik serves as an airport. It is mid-September, and with the commercial fishing season over, the village is preparing for winter. Moose meat simmers on the stove in the house of Matilda Hardy, president of the Native Village of Shaktoolik Council. Jean Mute, the pastors wife, stoops to pick cranberries for preserves in a field just outside town. By the river, a fisherman works on his boat, preparing it to hunt beluga whales in the shallow waters of the Norton Sound. In the evening, a boy outside the snack shop where children drink fruit slushies and munch on Kit-Kat bars proudly holds up a fat goose he shot in the days hunting expedition. The ocean is calm, but bad weather is already on peoples minds. Im wondering what our fall storms will bring, Ms. Hardy says. As of late November, there had been one high tide, but no severe storm. In Shaktoolik, as in other villages around the state, residents say winter is arriving later than before and rushing prematurely into spring, a shift scientists tie to climate change. With rising ocean temperatures, the offshore ice and slush that normally buffer the village from storm surges and powerful ocean waves are decreasing. Last winter, for the first time elders here can remember, there was no offshore ice at all. The battering delivered by the storms has eaten away at the land around the village, which occupies 1.1 square miles on a three-mile strip of land. According to one estimate, that strip is losing an average of 38,000 square feet or almost an acre a year. Flooding from the ocean and the swollen river waters has become so severe that the last big storm came close to turning Shaktoolik into an island. That was pretty scary, said Agnes Takak, the administrative assistant for the villages school. It seemed like the waves would wash right over and cover us, but thankfully they didnt. As Shaktoolik and other threatened villages have discovered, both staying and moving have their perils. The process of relocation can take years or even decades. In the meantime, residents still need to send their children to school, go to the doctor when they are sick, have functioning water lines and fuel tanks and a safe place to go when a severe storm comes. But few government agencies are willing to invest in maintaining villages that are menaced by erosion and flooding, especially when the communities are planning to pull up stakes and go elsewhere. Its a real Catch-22 situation, said Sally Cox, the states coordinator for the native villages. Interested in keeping up with climate change? Sign up to receive our in-depth journalism about climate change around the world. Even announcing the intention to relocate can scuttle a communitys request for financing. Some years ago, when Shaktoolik indicated on a grant proposal that it was hoping to move, it lost funds for its clinic, said Isabel Jackson, the city clerk. Shaktooliks leaders have identified a potential relocation site 11 miles southeast, near the foothills. But some residents say they fear that their culture, dependent on fishing and hunting, will suffer if they move. And Edgar Jackson Sr., a former mayor, said that the government turned down applications for money to build a road that would serve both as a way to get building materials to their new home and as an evacuation route. Residents currently have no reliable way to escape quickly in an emergency. We called it an evacuation road, a relocation road, Mr. Jackson said. The state and federal government didnt like those two words. Shaktoolik the name means scattered things in a native language has been forced to move twice before in its history. The Eskimo tribes that traveled from the north into the region in the mid-1800s found an Eden of berry fields, tundra where moose and herds of caribou grazed and waters where salmon, seals and beluga flourished. By the early 1900s, they had settled into a site six miles up the Shaktoolik River. But in the 1930s, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, responsible for providing educational services to Native Americans, built a two-room schoolhouse on the coastal sand spit, and the residents were compelled to move there if their children were to go to school. The old site, as village residents call it, was where many elders in Shaktoolik grew up; the skeletal remains of the buildings are still standing, a ghost town that sits three miles from the village. But that location, chosen by the federal government, put Shaktoolik at the mercy of the fierce storms that barreled into the sound from the Aleutian Islands. After a series of close calls in the 1960s one severe storm destroyed boats and left the airport littered with driftwood, making it impossible for planes to land another move seemed inevitable. Two new sites were proposed, one on higher ground near the foothills, the other the spot the village now occupies. At a series of three public meetings, the residents debated the choices. Mr. Jackson, who was mayor at the time, recalled that he and his wife were in favor of moving to higher ground. That would have solved our problems, he said. But majority ruled. We were short three votes. When the fall storms come, they almost always come at night, the waves hurling giant driftwood logs onto the beach like toothpicks, the river rising, the wind shaking the windows of the houses that sit in two orderly rows along Shaktooliks single road. Children who in summer play outside long after dark hunker down with their parents, listening to the CB radio announcements that serve as the villages central form of communication. Big storms on Alaskas west coast are different from those that threaten Miami or New Orleans. They can carry the force of a Category 1 hurricane, but their diameter is five to 10 times greater, meaning that they affect a larger area and last longer, said Robert E. Jensen, research hydraulic engineer at the Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center. Theyre huge, he said. Some residents here say that the storms are becoming more frequent and more intense, although scientists do not have data to confirm this. But there is no question that higher ocean temperatures have resulted in less offshore ice, allowing storm surges and waves to hit with greater force and bringing more flooding and erosion. The loss of sea ice, said David Atkinson, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, is undeniably linked to a warming climate, as is the rising level of the sea as a result of melting glaciers, the increased volume of water lending even more strength to the oceans assault. Fifty years ago, when the beach was a quarter of a mile away, the increasing violence of the ocean might not have bothered Shaktooliks residents. But now the sea is almost at their doorsteps. At one time, Ms. Hardy, the council president, could see the beach from her window. Now she looks out instead on a berm, a mile-long, seven-foot-high mound of driftwood and gravel built by the village as a barrier against an angry ocean. Two state engineers came up with the idea, but they ran out of money before they produced a design. Mayor Asicksik decided to go ahead anyway. Local men hauled the gravel from the mouth of the river in old military trucks bought for $9,000 each and finished the project in less than four months. Residents here are proud of the berm: It is a symbol of their determination to fix their own problems without help from the government. But most also realize that the makeshift barricade is only a stopgap; some question whether it will last even through one big storm. It hasnt been tested yet, Ms. Hardy said. Shaktoolik faces other threats that will be difficult or impossible to ward off without assistance. Erosion is threatening the villages fuel tanks, its airport and its drinking water supply, which is pumped from the Tagoomenik River. The boundary between river and sea has been so thinned by erosion in some spots that salt water from the ocean, normally a benign source of sustenance, briefly overtopped the bank and poured into the river during a recent storm. The land continues to disintegrate. The Army Corps of Engineers assessment, while cautioning that its conclusions were based on limited data, estimated that the spit that Shaktoolik sits on could lose 45 acres by 2057, with rising water threatening fuel tanks, commercial buildings and the air strip. But the most urgent challenge is keeping village residents safe in the event of a disaster. Shaktooliks current emergency plan calls for people to gather inside the school. But the school building, which sits on the ocean side of the road, is itself likely to be flooded and is not large enough to comfortably accommodate everyone, even if it stays dry. Some families have said that in a severe storm they would flee up the Shaktoolik River. They keep their boats stocked with supplies. But the river, Mayor Asicksik and others said, would almost certainly be ice-filled and treacherous, and any attempt to escape would likely end in a search and rescue operation. Even the airport is risky. Carven Scott, Alaska regional director for the National Weather Service, who recently visited Shaktoolik, said that after Hurricane Irene hit the East Coast in 2011, the service conducted an assessment for future storms and concluded that the several million people who lived in vulnerable areas of the Northeast could be evacuated in about 12 hours. A similar evacuation in Shaktoolik, Mr. Scott said, might take five days. With bad weather conditions and low light, the chances are we could not get a sizable aircraft in there far enough in advance to evacuate, he said. Youd have to take people out in groups of 10 or less. Yet if it is to stay put, the village must find a way to prevent loss of life, if not the loss of property. They do not want to move and I have to accept that, said David Williams, a project engineer for the Alaska division of the Corps of Engineers and a member of an interagency group that is helping endangered villages plan for the future. But if they want to live here, Mr. Williams said, they have to have a way to get out of Dodge when getting out is required. Kirby Sookiayak, the villages community coordinator, sits in his office and ticks off the communitys wish list: an evacuation road; improvements to the water system and the fuel tank farm; increased fortification of the berm; floodlights and lighted buoys for the river; a new health clinic; a fortified shelter for residents in a storm. The estimated price tag for these improvements? Well over $100 million, according to Shaktooliks recently completed strategic management plan. And while state and federal agencies will finance some routine work, it will not even be close to what is needed. No one knows where the additional money will come from. Despite years of government reports calling for action, sporadic bursts of financing and a visit to the region by President Obama last year, the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take for Alaskas threatened villages to stay where they are or to move elsewhere have not materialized. In Kivalina and Shishmaref, the Corps of Engineers was able to build sturdy rock revetments to armor the villages, authorized by Congress in 2005 to do so at federal expense. But the law was rescinded four years later, and the corps can do nothing more without the villages coming up with matching funds of their own. The state of Alaska which in the past provided some funds to Newtok, allowing the Yupik community to begin its move across the river to safety is in a fiscal crisis, its economic health tied to oil revenues. And a federal lawsuit filed by one village against oil and coal companies, seeking relocation money as compensation for their air pollution, went nowhere. Shaktoolik is scheduled to receive $1 million from the Denali Commission, an independent federal agency created in 1998 to help provide services to rural Alaskan communities. But the money will not go far: some will help pay for a new design to fortify the berm, while the rest is intended to help protect the villages fuel tank storage. Perhaps the largest potential contribution is the $400 million allocated for relocating threatened villages in the Obama administrations proposed 2017 budget. But with a new administration, the fate of that allocation is at best uncertain. I wish theyd come and spend one day in one of our storms, Axel Jackson, who sits on the village council, said of politicians in Washington. The federal government spends billions on wars in foreign countries, he said. But they still treat us like were a third world country. | science |
A wave of diagnostics ushered in by Covid could help revive flagging efforts to eliminate the disease.Credit...Jovelle Tamayo for The New York TimesFeb. 4, 2022The Monday after Christmas, when Kellie Trent was scheduled to pick up medication to cure her hepatitis C, it seemed like a little miracle.She was expected at the Pioneer Family Practice in western Washington State, seven months after screening positive for the blood-borne infection at a clinic that dispenses medication to treat her heroin addiction. All that time, as she underwent more tests and waited for results while in and out of residential drug treatment, addressing her hepatitis C remained out of reach.On the eve of her December appointment, her physician, Dr. Lucinda Grande, grew concerned when a storm brought four inches of snow to the region, snarling the roads.But in the end, Ms. Trent did not show up because she landed in jail for a few days, arrested after missing court appearances for sentencing on a misdemeanor assault charge, according to court records.Dr. Grande stowed away the first half of the unused prescription a four-week course of pills priced at $13,000.She has had a bumpy road, Dr. Grande said.Ms. Trent is among an estimated 2.4 million Americans with hepatitis C, which killed more than 14,000 in 2019, the most recent data available, despite the availability of drugs offering a relatively straightforward cure. The U.S. government set a target of largely vanquishing the disease by 2030, but data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the number of treated patients has been falling and is less than half the rate necessary to meet that goal.Progress has been further eroded by an explosion of new infections, driven by injection drug use among 20- and 30-year-olds, according to data from the C.D.C.The pandemic has exacerbated the challenge. Three-quarters of surveyed state viral hepatitis programs reported losing staff and cutting preventive services. Laboratory and prescription drug data show a sharp decline in hepatitis C diagnosis and treatment in 2020.Experts say the country needs to make it easier for those diagnosed to begin treatment the same day. Automated molecular tests capable of use at the point of care, similar to ones that have become ubiquitous for diagnosing Covid, could be crucial for doing so.Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration who sits on the board of Pfizer and several other health technology companies, recently described the advent of these diagnostics as one of the most enduring technological innovations stemming from the pandemic. Such hepatitis C tests are already in use abroad, but no device makers have submitted one to the F.D.A. for approval.Ms. Trent has had a lot on her plate. Shes intermittently homeless, and despite several chronic illnesses, she has had sporadic contact with health care providers. She recalled being revived from near-fatal drug overdoses nine times during her decades-long struggle with addiction. Im 48 going on 88, she said in an interview in mid-December.This complex set of problems also makes her typical of a large part of the U.S. population with hepatitis C. Since 2014, when a new generation of drugs provided an effective cure with few side effects, more than 840,000 people have received treatment, overcoming high prices set by drugmakers and restrictions imposed by state governments and insurers. That has left chronic hepatitis C infections concentrated in a group of people more likely to be seen in prisons and at syringe exchanges than in traditional hospitals and clinics.Dr. Grande said hepatitis C is common among her patients who inject drugs. But curing those patients is not straightforward, even in Washington State, which has dropped all restrictions on access to medications and waived the need to get insurers prior authorization.ImageCredit...Jovelle Tamayo for The New York TimesLast spring, when Ms. Trent first screened positive for previous exposure to hepatitis C on a finger-stick test, there was no phlebotomist at the clinic to draw blood for confirmation that she had a chronic infection, so she was referred to an outside lab. She didnt make it there until August, and awaiting those results added another delay. Then, in October, Ms. Trent missed an appointment because she was in a drug treatment facility. And without a drivers license, she constantly struggled to arrange transportation.Once somebody manages to make it in the door at our place, thats a major accomplishment, Dr. Grande said. For many patients, navigating a complex pathway to treatment, entailing multiple return visits over a period of weeks or months, can prove insurmountable. Its just a big barrier.Automated molecular tests could compress this process. From a small sample of blood or saliva, the tests amplify any trace of viral genetic material in a process akin to the older laboratory-based method of polymerase chain reaction (or P.C.R.), but have been miniaturized to run on small machines. The technologies have been around for years but gained greater visibility during the pandemic, when the F.D.A. allowed many test developers to leapfrog what is traditionally a lengthy approval process.Companies that have developed coronavirus tests of this ilk have seen enormous growth. Cue Health, which is the official test provider of the N.B.A. and has sold more than 120,000 testing platforms, reported that annual revenue grew 25-fold to more than $600 million during the pandemic. Ayub Khattak, the companys co-founder, said the streamlined regulatory process was transformative: It just broke open the door.A similar molecular test for hepatitis C could allow clinicians to deliver a diagnosis immediately and perhaps start many patients on medications the same day, an approach known as test and treat. Patients may then be less likely to transmit the disease to others, and more likely to complete treatment and be cured.One of the most promising hepatitis C tests was created by Cepheid, a diagnostic company based in California. With a palm-size cartridge preloaded with chemical reagents, the test runs on the companys proprietary GeneXpert machine and can confirm the presence of a suspected pathogen in less than an hour. Because of its simplicity and size the whole unit is the size of a desktop printer it can be deployed at remote sites and can be operated by staff members with minimal medical training.Research on how a rapid diagnosis affects patients hepatitis C treatment is limited. In a pair of pilot studies where the technology was taken to a syringe exchange and a prison, more than two-thirds of diagnosed patients began treatment, perhaps double the share of those who started therapy under typical conditions. Both studies received funding from drugmakers and in-kind support from Cepheid.Jason Grebely, one of the investigators leading the study and a professor at the Kirby Institute, a medical research organization in Sydney, Australia, said the technology is probably the next game-changer in the field of treatment for hepatitis C. Dr. Grebely previously received research funding from Cepheid and various pharmaceutical companies.In the United States, where there were 5,000 GeneXpert machines as of March 2020, the companys recent focus has been on Covid it expected to sell 55 million coronavirus tests in 2021 but its hepatitis C tests are in use abroad. European regulators approved Cepheids hepatitis C test in 2018, and France and the United Kingdom have each deployed dozens of GeneXpert machines to support efforts to eliminate hepatitis C.ImageCredit...Joss O'LoanAustralia is the latest country to embrace the approach. In September, its government announced a $6.5 million program to equip 65 sites with GeneXpert machines by late 2022 with the goal of screening 50,000 to 60,000 people.One of the units is already aboard the mobile Kombi Clinic, which a group of clinicians in Queensland run out of a canary yellow, 1975 Volkswagen van. Dr. Joss OLoan, a general practitioner and one of the clinics founders, described how a nurse drove the van to places with a likely high prevalence of hepatitis C and then provided testing. At one homeless drop-in center, a nurse set up next to a person giving haircuts, and at a recent music festival, positioned the clinic between a crystal healer and a tattoo artist.The mobile clinic is also equipped with a device to assess liver function, and about half of the patients diagnosed with the disease begin taking medications the same day. Even if a patient would benefit from follow-up tests, the clinicians prefer to start treatment immediately and adjust the prescription once further results come in.This isnt the silver bullet that will transform the whole environment, Dr. OLoan said, but its going to go a long way for a lot of people.American clinicians have expressed interest in a similar approach, but F.D.A. approval of automated molecular tests for hepatitis C could still take years. Advocates, who noted that Cepheid developed the GeneXpert with more than $252 million in grants, tax credits and other government investments, said the company, now a subsidiary of the conglomerate Danaher, owed it to the public to submit its hepatitis C test for approval. This is a whole class of technologies that could have a lot of potential for hepatitis C that are just completely stalled on the regulatory side, said Annette Gaudino, director of policy strategy at the Treatment Action Group.In November, the F.D.A. lowered the hurdle by reclassifying hepatitis C diagnostics as medical devices that require less scrutiny. Asked whether Cepheid would consider submitting its test to the F.D.A. for review, Darwa Peterson, a company spokeswoman, said that it was assessing the path forward.Some U.S. clinics noted that even with the advent of automated molecular tests, other barriers would remain. Marguerite Beiser, who directs hepatitis C services for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, said mobile technologies would be needed to substitute for follow-up blood- and liver-tests required to begin patients on medications. Massachusetts would need to drop the requirement that patients get prior authorization from their health insurer before initiating treatment, too.But the status quo is dire. We are so far behind and were losing ground, Ms. Beiser said of the countrys efforts. We need to be flexible and use every single tool we have to get it done. | Health |
The agreement would allow funds to begin flowing from the companies to states and communities to pay for addiction and prevention services.Credit...Anastasiia Sapon for The New York TimesPublished July 21, 2021Updated Nov. 11, 2021After nearly two years of wrangling, the countrys three major drug distributors and a pharmaceutical giant have reached a $26 billion deal with states that would release some of the biggest companies in the industry from all civil liability in the opioid epidemic, a decades-long public health crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.The agreement, announced Wednesday afternoon by a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, lays the framework for billions of dollars to begin flowing into communities across the country for addiction treatment, prevention services and other steep expenses from the epidemic.If the agreement is finalized, thousands of local governments as well as states would drop lawsuits against the companies and also pledge not to bring any future action.The deal comes as the addiction crisis is worsening. Overdose deaths from opioids hit a record high in 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this month, a rise driven partly by the isolation and shutdown of services during the coronavirus pandemic. In all, more than 500,000 have died from overdoses to prescription and illegal street opioids since 1999, according to federal data.The urgency of the problem continues, said Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III of Tennessee at the news conference announcing the deal. Its just relentless. Tennessee, whose own spike in opioid deaths was particularly sharp in 2020, could receive more than $500 million if the agreement is finalized.The four companies that would be bound by the settlement Johnson & Johnson and the drug distributors Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson are widely seen as having some of the deepest pockets among the corporate opioid defendants and this agreement was eagerly anticipated as a major pillar in the national litigation.The distributors, which by law are supposed to monitor quantities of prescription drug shipments, have been accused of turning a blind eye for two decades while pharmacies across the country ordered millions of pills for their communities. Johnson & Johnson, which supplied opioid materials to other companies and made its own fentanyl patches for pain patients, is accused of downplaying the products addictive properties to doctors as well as patients.In an emailed statement, Michael Ullmann, executive vice president and general counsel of Johnson & Johnson, said: We recognize the opioid crisis is a tremendously complex public health issue, and we have deep sympathy for everyone affected. This settlement will directly support state and local efforts to make meaningful progress in addressing the opioid crisis in the United States.ImageCredit...Keith Srakocic/Associated PressIn a joint statement, the three distributors said: While the companies strongly dispute the allegations made in these lawsuits, they believe the proposed settlement agreement and settlement process it establishes are important steps toward achieving broad resolution of governmental opioid claims and delivering meaningful relief to communities across the United States.A separate deal between the companies and Native American tribes is still being negotiated.Wednesdays agreement leaves thousands of other lawsuits against many other pharmaceutical defendants still unresolved, including manufacturers, drugstore chains and smaller distributors. Most of those companies are working on negotiating their own deals, which could potentially bring even more money to states, cities, counties and tribes. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin and its owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family, are negotiating a settlement of at least $4.5 billion with plaintiffs as part of a bankruptcy restructuring.Attorney General Josh Stein of North Carolina, whose state could get up to $750 million from the agreement with the distributors and Johnson & Johnson, said that the total so far that could be gained from the opioid litigation, when combining Wednesdays deal with other potential settlements underway, was almost $33 billion.Under Wednesdays agreement, the countrys three distributors would make payments totaling $21 billion over 18 years. Johnson & Johnson would pay $5 billion over nine years. A key feature of the agreement is that the distributors would establish an independent clearinghouse to track and report one anothers shipments, a new and unusual mechanism intended to make data transparent and send up red flags immediately when outsize orders are made.But daunting obstacles remain before any checks are actually cut.The agreement will now go out to the states and all their municipalities for formal approval. The states and the District of Columbia will have 30 days to review the offers and structure, including how much money they each would ultimately receive.The attorneys general did not offer a firm list of states on board on Wednesday, saying that many states have not yet had the chance to scrutinize the deal.A huge majority of states must sign on for the deal to proceed, although the companies have not specified an exact number. If that threshold is not met, the companies could walk away and litigation would resume.Though the announcement of the agreement by attorneys general from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Louisiana, Tennessee and Connecticut suggests that a critical mass of states have agreed in principle to the deal, at least one was already refusing to sign on.The settlement is, to be blunt, not nearly good enough for Washington, said Bob Ferguson, Washingtons attorney general. It stretches woefully insufficient funds into small payments over nearly 20 years.He added: We are looking forward to walking into a Washington state courtroom to hold these companies accountable for their conduct. Washington families devastated by the opioid epidemic deserve their day in court.States must also persuade their localities both those who have filed lawsuits and those who have not to agree to the deal. The greater the number of local governments that sign on, the greater the amount of money each state will receive. Indeed for a state to receive 100 percent of the money apportioned to it under the deal, nearly 100 percent of its local agreements would have to sign on.The agreement, which runs hundreds of pages, lays out a complex tier system, marked by incentives and holdbacks, intended to urge the maximum number of states and subdivisions to sign up in a timely fashion.The lawyers will do a lot of the strong-arming of their clients, the localities, into agreeing to the settlements, because if the deal doesnt go through, the lawyers wont get paid, said Elizabeth Burch, a law professor at the University of Georgia who has followed the litigation closely.ImageCredit...Tony Dejak/Associated PressMore than $2 billion of the $26 billion agreement would not go to states and localities at all. It would be used to pay fees and costs for the private lawyers representing thousands of counties and municipalities, as well as some states, in the opioid litigation. Although many states are represented by their own salaried lawyers, others needed to rely on outside counsel to mount such a costly, all-consuming litigation, as did most cities and counties.While states are deciding whether to sign on, trials against the companies will continue, including one in California state court against Johnson & Johnson and a local West Virginia trial in federal court against the distributors. At least half a dozen other trials are scheduled to begin in the fall and early winter.The plaintiffs executive committee, who negotiated on behalf of local governments, said that while Wednesdays announcement was a milestone moment, Reaching agreement is just step one.Joe Rice, a lead negotiator on the committee, noted that some states would have to pass laws locking in how the opioid settlement money would be used and precluding future litigation.But he emphasized that from the outset of the negotiation, the payments had been intended to be used almost exclusively to address the opioid epidemic. Mr. Rice, who also helped negotiate the Big Tobacco settlements more than 20 years ago, acknowledged that much of that money had ultimately been diverted to balance state budgets rather than directed to the treatment of smoking-related problems.The new agreement, he said, had much tougher guard rails to ensure that funds went to prevention, treatment, medicines, education and other opioid-related problems.Most states are likely to work up their own disbursement plans with their local governments. Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Florida and others have already brokered internal formulas. Last month, the New York legislature passed bills to ensure that all funds from the opioid litigation settlement would go into a locked box, to be used only to address the crisis.Notably, the settlement funds are not intended to compensate families of the victims of the two-decade-long opioid crisis.These cases were brought largely by state, municipal and tribal governments under a theory known as public nuisance that the opioid-supply-chain companies were responsible for creating a disaster that interfered with public health. The remedy for a public nuisance claim is abatement money for programs to reduce the nuisance.While critics of the current settlement argue that the distributors have a leisurely 18 years to pony up their share, the deals defenders note that for programs like addiction prevention, education and treatment to take root, infusions of cash will be needed over a long period. | Health |
Canada LetterNov. 9, 2018Now that the midterm elections in the United States are history, Sarah Lyall has written the final installment of Abroad in America, a weekly look at American politics for non-Americans. You may remember Sarahs often witty and insightful work as a correspondent for The Times in Britain. These days shes a writer at large, based in New York.ImageCredit...Holly Pickett for The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times What surprised you about the election?Well it wasnt surprising so much as really, deeply dispiriting, how divided people are, and how heated the rhetoric is. People were awful, the rhetoric was awful at times. And it was hard to actually see it in person.I have always hoped that if youre sort of a vaguely nice person, you can have legitimate conversations with people who disagree with you. And in many cases in this country, that doesnt seem to be happening.ImageCredit...Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesMany people outside the United States have a sense that democracy is broken there. Are they right?You can look at it very roughly in the United States as, the people in power think things are going fine, and the people not in power are deeply alarmed at what appear to be threats to our basic values as Americans.I would say, though, that you know, none of the institutions that make up this country have fallen. No one has seized power in a military coup. Things seem to be happening that are very alarming but the system, so far, still stands.Republicans who are running the White House would say, and do say, that the issue people have isnt so much that democracy is failing, but that they are angry that democracy has worked out in a way that theyre not happy with.But a lot of peoples issues are questions of values: civility, discourse, rule of law. All those sorts of things that we care so much about seem to be severely tested by the rhetoric and behavior of the White House.ImageCredit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times[Want the Canada Letter in your inbox every week? Subscribe here.]Was there any pattern to the questions non-American readers sent you?The questions ranged from very basic philosophical questions to What the hell is going on over there? to wonderfully specific ones.People from abroad look at our system and they believe that were in a permanent state of campaigning, which was vaguely true.There are all sorts of mechanisms that people dont understand, and theres no reason they really should. Some readers didnt even know what the word gubernatorial means. [It describes governor races.]What experience from the midterms will you remember five years from now?I went to a Trump rally, and that was a pretty vivid experience. There were maybe eight or nine thousand people in this big arena in Erie, Pennsylvania. And the press was penned into this thing in the middle, which is normal at these rallies.But what was so odd to me was that we werent allowed to leave the pen on our own. So we werent allowed to interview any of the people in the auditorium, and it was sort of unclear why.The whole thing was weird. People werent in any way mean, except when they were jeering and shouting as if we were people in a cage. But afterward, everybody was super nice.Some of the nice ladies I talked to felt sorry for me because I work for a place that was so full of lies and fake news. And every time I tried to say, well, we actually work really hard, and we try really hard, they just looked sad.ImageCredit...Stephen Speranza for The New York TimesAnd some final news on the midterms: Earlier this week I looked into the trade implications for Canada of the Democrats again controlling the House of Representatives.[Read: Midterm Results Leave Canadians Wary Over Fate of Trade Agreement] In PersonA reminder that were holding our first Times subscriber event in Vancouver on Nov. 15. Dan Bilefsky, my colleague in Montreal, will be joined by Thomas Fuller, The Timess San Francisco bureau chief, along with guests from within the industry to discuss the effects of marijuana legalization on Canadas economy and culture. Canada Letter readers can use the promo code CANADALETTER to get a $5 ticket discount. Get your tickets and find out all the details here.Dan wrote this week about the great marijuana shortage that followed the great marijuana legalization rush.[Read: Dry Spell: Canada Runs Low on Legal Marijuana Just Weeks After It Goes on Sale]Earlier this week Susanne Craig, a proud daughter of Calgary, was in Toronto at a Canadian Journalism Foundation event to discuss her investigation that showed President Trump owes his wealth to his father, as well as his familys dubious tax avoidance measures. You can watch a video of the conversation here.FabricationsOur colleagues in the Opinion section have produced a film laying out the history of the creation of fake news or, as the K.G.B. used to call it, active measures. Aside from looking into the past actions of American and Soviet spy agencies, the documentary also examines current disinformation and how governments should respond to it in the future. If your television service includes B.B.C. World News, youll be able to watch Operation Infektion this weekend. This page offers showtimes by country and region.Trans CanadaDan Bilefsky met up with Ross Rebagliati for an engaging profile of the former gold medalist turned pot entrepreneur: His gold front tooth, adorned with half a cannabis leaf, glinted as he smiled, momentarily giving him the air of a comic book villain. But Mr. Rebagliati, a soft-spoken former Canadian Olympian, appears far too gentle and too stoned to do harm in the world.The 900 passengers of the steamship St. Louis were mostly Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. And more than 250 of them were ultimately killed after being turned away by Canada and other countries. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized for the dark moment in Canadas past.Shaun Pett reviewed Quetzal, a new fine-dining Mexican restaurant in Torontos Little Italy neighborhood, and found that its chefs are careful of the authenticity trap.Tony Clement, the former Conservative cabinet minister and current member of Parliament, used social media to build his political profile. Now its the cause of his political downfall. | World |
Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino It's Red Bull Time No Booze on 1st Night Out 1/24/2018 Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino went booze-less during the "Jersey Shore" cast's first official night out. Paps got Mike out Tuesday night with the rest of his GTL crew at a South Beach club, and he was clutching a Red Bull can the entire time. Meanwhile, Pauly D and co. definitely partied it up and had bottle service at their table -- but the Sitch went dry throughout the night. In case you're wondering, Mike's no-booze policy doesn't appear to be tied to his tax evasion case -- in which he just pled guilty last week, and is set to be sentenced later this spring. On the contrary, Mike's said he's been "100 percent" sober since 2015 after battling a Rx drug addiction. Looks like he's still on the wagon. | Entertainment |
Celebrity Scramble Guess Who! 1/21/2018 Hiding behind this luscious lip pic is an actress who wears the pants in Hollywood ... see if you can uncover the mystery as to which traveling star is hiding under this stretched-out snap. Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Celebrity Scramble Photo Galleries | Entertainment |
Tech FixFalse news is on the rise. We can fight the spread with a simple exercise: Slow down and be skeptical.Credit...Glenn HarveyOct. 14, 2020Theres a disease that has been spreading for years now. Like any resilient virus, it evolves to find new ways to attack us. Its not in our bodies, but on the web.It has different names: misinformation, disinformation or distortions. Whatever the label, it can be harmful, especially now that it is being produced through the lens of several emotionally charged events: the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential election and protests against law enforcement.The swarm of bad information circulating on the web has been intense enough to overwhelm Alan Duke, the editor of Lead Stories, a fact-checking website. For years, he said, false news mostly consisted of phony web articles that revolved around silly themes, like myths about putting onions in your socks to cure a cold. But misinformation has now crept into much darker, sinister corners and taken on forms like the internet meme, which is often a screenshot overlaid with sensational text or manipulated with doctored images.He named a harmful example of memes: Those attacking Breonna Taylor, the Black medical worker in Louisville, Ky., who was killed by the police when they entered her home in March. Misinformation spreaders generated memes suggesting that Ms. Taylor shot at police officers first, which was not true.The meme is probably the most dangerous, Mr. Duke said. In seven or 20 words, somebody can say something thats not true, and people will believe it and share it. It takes two minutes to create.Its impossible to quantify how much bad information is out there now because the spread of it online has been relentless. Katy Byron, who leads a media literacy program at the Poynter Institute, a journalism nonprofit, and who works with a group of teenagers who regularly track false information, said it was on the rise. Before the pandemic, the group would present a few examples of misinformation every few days. Now each student is reporting multiple examples a day.With the pandemic, people are increasingly online doomscrolling and looking for information, Ms. Byron said. Its getting harder and harder to find it and feel confident youre consuming facts.The misinformation, she said, is also creeping into videos. With modern editing tools, it has become too easy for people with little technical know-how and minimal equipment to produce videos that appear to have high production value. Often, real video clips are stripped of context and spliced together to tell a different story.The rise of false news is bad news for all of us. Misinformation can be a detriment to our well-being in a time when people are desperately seeking information such as health guidelines to share with their loved ones about the coronavirus. It can also stoke anger and cause us to commit violence. Also important: It could mislead us about voting in a pandemic that has turned our world upside down.How do we adapt to avoid being manipulated and spreading false information to the people we care about? Past methods of spotting untruthful news, like checking articles for typos and phony web addresses that resemble those of trusted publications, are now less relevant. We have to employ more sophisticated methods of consuming information, like doing our own fact-checking and choosing reliable news sources.Heres what we can do.Be a Fact CheckerGet used to this keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+T (or Command+T on a Mac). That creates a new browser tab in Chrome and Firefox. Youre going to be using it a lot. The reason: It enables you to ask questions and hopefully get some answers with a quick web search.Its all part of an exercise that Ms. Byron calls lateral reading. While reading an article, Step 1 is to open a browser tab. Step 2 is to ask yourself these questions:Who is behind the information?What is the evidence?What do other sources say?From there, with that new browser tab open, you could start answering those questions. You could do a web search on the author of the content when possible. You could do another search to see what other publications are saying about the same topic. If the claim isnt being repeated elsewhere, it may be false.You could also open another browser tab to look at the evidence. With a meme, for example, you could do a reverse image search on the photo that was used in the meme. On Google.com, click Images and upload the photo or paste the web address of the photo into the search bar. That will show where else the image has shown up on the web to verify whether the one you have seen has been manipulated.With videos, its trickier. A browser plug-in called InVID can be installed on Firefox and Chrome. When watching a video, you can click on the tool, click on the Keyframes button and paste in a video link (a YouTube clip, for example) and click Submit. From there, the tool will pull up important frames of the video, and you can reverse image search on those frames to see if they are legitimate or fake.Some of the tech steps above may not be for the faint of heart. But most important is the broader lesson: Take a moment to think.The No. 1 rule is to slow down, pause and ask yourself, Am I sure enough about this that I should share it? said Peter Adams, a senior vice president of the News Literacy Project, a media education nonprofit. If everybody did that, wed see a dramatic reduction of misinformation online.Choose Your News CarefullyWhile social media sites like Facebook and Twitter help us stay connected with the people we care about, theres a downside: Even the people we trust may be unknowingly spreading false information, so we can be caught off guard. And with everything mashed together into a single social media feed, it gets tougher to distinguish good information from bad information, and fact from opinion.What we can do is another exercise in mindfulness: Be deliberate about where you get your information, Mr. Adams said. Instead of relying solely on the information showing up in your social media feeds, choose a set of publications that you trust, like a newspaper, a magazine or a broadcast news program, and turn to those regularly.Mainstream media is far from perfect, but its subjected to a standards process that is usually not seen in user-generated content, including memes.A lot of people fall into the trap of thinking no source of information is perfect, Mr. Adams said. Thats when people really start to feel lost and overwhelmed and open themselves up to sources they really should stay away from.The most frightening part about misinformation is when it transcends digital media and finds its way into the real world.Mr. Duke of Lead Stories said he and his wife had recently witnessed protesters holding signs with the message #SavetheChildren. The signs alluded to a false rumor spread by supporters of the QAnon conspiracy about a child-trafficking network led by top Democrats and Hollywood elites. The pro-Trump conspiracy movement had effectively hijacked the child-trafficking issue, mixing facts with its own fictions to suit its narrative.Conspiracy theories have fueled some QAnon believers to be arrested in cases of serious crimes, including a murder in New York and a conspiracy to kidnap a child.QAnon has gone from misinformation online to being out on the street corner, he said. Thats why I think its dangerous." | Tech |
NFL's Dwayne Bowe 'I'd Definitely Do The XFL' ... Just One Problem 1/30/2018 TMZSports.com Vince McMahon's XFL just got its first big name athlete to commit, with former NFL Pro Bowler Dwayne Bowe telling TMZ Sports he's ready to make a comeback when the league relaunches in 2020. Bowe is 33 and hasn't played in the NFL since the 2015 season -- but when we got him out at Bootsy Bellows in Hollywood, he said he could be ready for a comeback and the XFL is a real possibility. "I'd definitely do the XFL ... if the money's right I'd definitely do it." There's just one small problem with Bowe's XFL dream -- Vince McMahon stated he won't hire anyone with any sort of "criminality associated with them whatsoever." Bowe was arrested for possession of marijuana back in 2013 when cops found 2 small containers of weed in his car during a traffic stop. He later struck a deal with prosecutors in which he plead guilty to lesser charges of littering and defective equipment and paid $610 in fines and court costs. In exchange, the weed charge was thrown out. So, would Vince REALLY pass up the opportunity to sign a big star like Bowe over some littering?! We got 2 years to find out. | Entertainment |
Cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain far below last winters peak, but the director urged people to get fully vaccinated.Credit...Pool photo by Greg NashPublished July 16, 2021Updated July 22, 2021As the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus fuels outbreaks in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Friday that this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.Cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain far below last winters peak, and vaccines are effective against Delta, but the C.D.C. director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, urged people to get fully vaccinated to receive robust protection, pleading: Do it for yourself, your family and for your community. And please do it to protect your young children who right now cant get vaccinated themselves.The number of new virus cases is likely to increase in the coming weeks, and those cases are likely to be concentrated in areas with low vaccine coverage, officials said at a White House briefing on the pandemic.Our biggest concern is that we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and, sadly, deaths among the unvaccinated, Dr. Walensky said. The nation surpassed 34 million cumulative cases on Friday, according to a New York Times database.Delta now accounts for more than half of new infections across the country, and case numbers have been rising in every state. Roughly 28,000 new cases are reported each day, up from just 11,000 a day less than a month ago.So far, data suggests that many of the vaccines including the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots provide good protection against Delta, especially against the worst outcomes, including hospitalization and death. (Receiving a single dose of a two-shot regimen provides only weak protection against the variant, however.) Nearly 60 percent of U.S. adults have been fully vaccinated, but fewer than 50 percent of all Americans have been; only those 12 and older are eligible.We have come a long way in our fight against this virus, Jeffrey D. Zients, the administrations Covid-19 response coordinator, said at the briefing.The pace of vaccination has slowed considerably since the spring, and vaccine coverage remains highly uneven. Delta is already driving case numbers up in undervaccinated areas, including in parts of Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.ImageCredit...Mario Tama/Getty ImagesIn mid-May, when cases were on a decline, the C.D.C. said fully vaccinated people could go maskless in most scenarios, and on July 4, President Biden hosted an event for essential workers and others at the White House to tout progress against the virus. As cases increase, Americans may have to navigate seemingly diverging messaging, with local health officials advising something potentially different than the C.D.C.s broad guidance.The World Health Organization recently repeated its recommendation that even vaccinated people should continue to wear masks, in part because of the global spread of Delta.The C.D.C. has stood by its mask guidance, however, with Dr. Walensky noting the W.H.O.s global purview and the fact that wealthy nations have snapped up so many of the available shots. She has added that local officials in the United States can opt for more stringent measures to protect the unvaccinated.On Thursday, Los Angeles County said it was reinstating an indoor mask mandate for everyone beginning this weekend, regardless of vaccination status. On Friday, Dr. Walensky pointed out the heterogenous nature of the country and said these decisions have to be made at the local level.If you have areas of low vaccination and high case rates, then I would say local policymakers might consider whether masking at that point would be something that would be helpful for their community, she added.In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday there were currently no plans to reintroduce an indoor mask mandate for everyone citywide, nor did he think the move was needed. The city has reported a recent streak of more than 400 cases per day, up from about 200 per day on average just a few weeks ago. We need to watch it like a hawk, he said on a radio show, referring to the Delta variant.Health officials are focused on hospitalizations, he said, which have remained low in recent weeks. About 53 percent of city residents are fully vaccinated, according to city data. Should hospitalization rates rise, he said, the city will adapt.We dont have a plan to change course at this point, he said. If we see something that we need to change, we will say it immediately and will call people to arms.After narrowly missing a self-imposed goal of having 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4, the Biden administration is making a renewed push to try to reach those who have still not gotten their shots. Officials have also recently announced the creation of surge response teams to help hard-hit states manage Delta-driven outbreaks. Missouri and Nevada have already requested assistance. | Health |
Health|While Pregnant, Women Should Get Health Care 8 Times, W.H.O. Sayshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/health/who-health-care-pregnancy.htmlGlobal HealthCredit...Katie Orlinsky for The New York TimesNov. 7, 2016Women should see a doctor, nurse or trained midwife at least eight times during each pregnancy, with five of those visits in the last trimester, the World Health Organization said Monday as it issued 49 recommendations to prevent deaths in childbirth.Previously, the agency had advised women to visit clinics four times per pregnancy. It also acknowledges the important role of local midwives in poor countries where mothers must travel long distances to see doctors or nurses.But each visit should be with someone with at least two years medical training, not a traditional birth attendant or a community health worker trained for a few weeks, said Dr. Metin Glmezoglu, W.H.Os coordinator of maternal and perinatal health.About 300,000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth each year, the agency said, and more than six million babies die in the womb, during birth or within their first month. Many of those deaths can by prevented through simple interventions.Another recommendation is that every pregnant woman have one ultrasound scan before the 24-week mark to detect fetal defects and twin or triplet pregnancies and determine accurate gestational ages. Many clinics lack ultrasound machines and even electricity, Dr. Glmezoglu said.The agency also recommended that all women get: Daily iron and folic acid pills to prevent anemia, sepsis and premature birth. A tetanus shot to prevent neonatal tetanus. Blood-sugar testing to detect diabetes. Antibiotics when bacteria are detected in the urine. Counseling about what affordable local foods contain vitamins and minerals, about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, and about the need for exercise.Other recommendations directed to women at higher risk for problems included calcium to prevent pre-eclampsia; vitamin A to prevent night blindness; deworming drugs; and prophylactic doses of drugs to prevent malaria or H.I.V.The W.H.O. also recommended a spate of home remedies, like bran for constipation, compression stockings for leg swelling, antacids for heartburn and exercise or acupuncture for back pain. | Health |
Credit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesFeb. 3, 2014EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. He came into the game as the other quarterback the undersize and underestimated foil to the record-setting, commercial-pitching Denver Broncos star Peyton Manning. It took only one half of Seattles 43-8 win in Super Bowl XLVIII, however, for Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson to upstage Manning on the games biggest stage, dialing up a cooler, better-orchestrated performance.He used his underdog status as fuel, as he has done in his football career, whether related to his size (5 feet 11 inches), his career choice (deemed better fit for baseball), his draft status (sixth quarterback selected in 2012) or his marketability (tucked away in the Pacific Northwest).My dad used to always tell me, Russ, why not you? Wilson said. And what that meant was believe in yourself, believe in the talent God has given you even though you are 5 foot 11, and you can go a long way.Wilson did not earn Super Bowl most valuable player recognition, but he outplayed the leagues M.V.P., Manning, finishing with a sparkling line: 206 yards, 2 touchdowns, 18 of 25 passing, including 11 completions in a row in the second half. Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll considered it a perfect football game.Wilson, 12 years Mannings junior, appeared in complete control, while Manning from the moment a high snap slipped past his fingertips on the opening play from scrimmage, leading to a safety appeared woefully out of sync. At the end of the day, I wasnt playing Peyton Manning, Wilson said. I was doing my job and doing all the things I needed to do to help the offense move the ball down the field.In the two weeks leading up to the game, much of the talk about Seattles offense focused on its punishing running back, Marshawn Lynch, and how Lynchs running ability could keep the pace in the Seahawks favor (and the ball out of Mannings hands).Wilson seemed easily forgotten or dismissed, his ability framed as a game manager: competent and savvy but hardly remarkable. Analysts debated Mannings legacy, or Richard Shermans talkativeness, or Lynchs Beast Mode impact. By Sunday, did anyone remember that Wilson delivered the go-ahead touchdown pass on fourth-and-7 in Seattles defeat of San Francisco in the N.F.C. title game?Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSlide 1 of 35 Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesCarroll did. On Sunday, he kept the ball in Wilsons hands, forgoing Lynch (who rushed for only 39 yards on 15 attempts) for his second-year quarterback, who passed 13 times in the first quarter alone. Hes the general, his teammate his teammate Percy Harvin said. I said it all week during the press conferences, I havent seen anybody prepare the way he prepares. There were three minutes on the clock, still ticking, and hes still in our face telling us, Stay ready. And were like, Man, the games pretty much over. He just wants to be great that much.Wilson is accustomed to playing the underdog role. He was a two-star recruit coming out of the Collegiate School in Richmond, Va. His size was deemed an impediment. He played two sports at North Carolina State, was drafted as an outfielder by the Colorado Rockies in 2010 and played two seasons of minor league baseball. Plenty of people pushed him to pursue baseball. Wilson, though, chose a different route. After he had an impressive postgraduate season at Wisconsin, Seattle selected him in the third round of the 2012 draft. It was not long after the Seahawks had already paid a considerable sum to sign the free agent Matt Flynn.By August 2012, though, Wilson was starting for the Seahawks, quietly building a following while two other rookie quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III received the bulk of the adulation early on. A third young quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, became an overnight sensation for San Francisco en route to starting Super Bowl XLVII. But this season, Wilson with 3,357 yards passing, 26 touchdown passes and a 101.2 quarterback rating probably had a better year than any of them.I had so many people telling me I couldnt do it, Wilson said. I wanted to go against the odds.In the first half against Denver, Wilson spread the ball around to his receivers, probing for weaknesses, rarely attempting anything more than 10 yards downfield. When he did go deep like a 37-yard pass dropped right into the arms of receiver Jermaine Kearse along the left sideline in the second quarter it was a thing of beauty.Wilsons arm continued to make plays, even with the Seahawks ahead by 29 points. He fired a touchdown pass on a short slant route by Kearse, who spun away from two defenders and scampered in from 23 yards.On the sideline, Wilson had his helmet off, his thick mass of curls looking like a tuft of black smoke. As a junior in high school, Wilson recalled last week, he grew his hair out en route to winning a state championship. In a show of solidarity, his father, Harry, grew his hair out, too.Harry Wilson died in 2010 of complications related to diabetes. He never saw his son choose football over baseball, get drafted, win the starting job, win a Super Bowl. But on Sunday, Russell Wilsons hat was off as he ran to midfield to shake Mannings hand, after winning another title.Wilson said later, I guess Im going to have to get a haircut now. | Sports |
Grant Hill On Top Duke Recruit: Zion Ain't LeBron ... Yet 1/28/2018 TMZSports.com Zion Williamson is gonna be great at Duke ... but we gotta pump the breaks on hailing him as the next LeBron -- so says Grant Hill. We got the Duke legend at LAX a couple days after Zion committed to the Blue Devils ... and Grant was pumped on Coach K locking down yet another elite prospect. "I hope the rims are ready in Cameron," Hill told TMZ Sports. But Grant says that even though Zion's got the tools to be a king -- athleticism, size, explosiveness -- expecting him to become THE King is too much, especially this early (remember O.J. Mayo??). Fair enough, but the kid definitely passes the eye test ... | Entertainment |
Credit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesFeb. 13, 2014NEW ORLEANS Three years ago, Carmelo Anthony was the dominant figure during the N.B.A.s All-Star weekend. The Denver Nuggets were in the process of completing a deal that would send Anthony to the Knicks (for no small price), and members of the news media formed concentric circles around Anthony, several cameras deep. A superstar was on the move, sending seismic tremors across the league.Anthony is back for another All-Star Game, the seventh of his career and his third as a Knick. While the circumstances have changed, Anthonys future is again uncertain, with the Knicks lurching through a dismal season and Anthony eyeing free agency in July.This time, Anthony is not instigating anything no trade demands or meetings with rival owners, at least not public ones. But his situation is still tenuous enough to spark intrigue, with Anthony soon to be surrounded by high-profile pals like Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Anthony was asked this week whether he would seek their advice.We dont have time to talk like that, man, said Anthony, who declared before the season that he intends to opt out of his deal with the Knicks this summer. I think All-Star weekend is just a time when you can relax, decompress and kind of reflect on the first half of the season and try to gear up for the second half of the season. But as far as recruiting and things like that, that never happens.With the Feb. 20 trade deadline looming, the Knicks have decisions to make. They have given absolutely no indication they would consider dealing Anthony before the deadline, even with the team stumbling to a 20-32 record and no relief in sight.The Knicks signaled as much before training camp when they removed Glen Grunwald as general manager and replaced him with Steve Mills, who has strong ties to Creative Artists Agency, the group that represents Anthony.And then there is Coach Mike Woodson, who has said he expects Anthony to retire with the Knicks. Then again, after the Knicks lost Wednesday to the Sacramento Kings a game Anthony said the Knicks sorely needed to win Woodson was more likely to be concerned about his own future.For now, the situation involving the Knicks and Anthony is a delicate one, with Anthony holding most of the power. Here are four hypotheticals for the future:Path No. 1The Knicks trade Anthony before the Feb. 20 deadline.PROS The Knicks shield themselves from the doomsday scenario of Anthony bolting the team as a free agent and leaving them with nothing besides cap space in return. The ideal trade partner offers the Knicks a package that includes a young, inexpensive player (or two) and a draft pick (or two). The move also unburdens the Knicks from having to provide Anthony a superstar, but one who will turn 30 in May with a five-year contract worth $129 million, the maximum they can offer according to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. (The most another team can offer is $96 million over four seasons.)CONS The Knicks receive some pieces in exchange for Anthony, but how much value do they get, exactly? Teams arent going to want to give up the house and then see him walk away as a free agent, said Steve Kerr, a former general manager of the Phoenix Suns who works as an analyst for Turner Sports.Path No. 2The Knicks keep Anthony, and he spurns them by taking a less lucrative deal with another team over the off-season.PROS Its hard to see the silver lining for the Knicks, though his departure does clear a lot of cap space. The onerous contracts of Amare Stoudemire, Andrea Bargnani and Tyson Chandler will also come off the books in 2015, giving the Knicks flexibility to lure top free agents to New York.CONS For all the Knicks problems, Anthony has been a consistent force for them, averaging 27.3 points and a career-best 8.6 rebounds. He has shown no signs of slowing, his play as robust as ever. His absence in 2014-15 would leave the team with a void it could not fill, at least not right away. Path No. 3After testing free agency, Anthony signs a maximum contract to stay with the Knicks.PROS The Knicks lock up one of the leagues top scorers for another five years, as well as a sure box-office draw, which means something to the ownership. Perhaps the Knicks provide additional incentive by giving him a vote on whom he wants coaching the team. Sure, it can be dangerous for a player to have that much authority, but the Knicks have long made it clear that this is essentially Anthonys team, and it would be even more apparent after handing him a cartoon-size check.CONS The dangers of signing him to a maximum contract are clear. The deal helps put the Knicks flush against the salary cap for years to come, hindering their ability to surround Anthony with better players. And if the Knicks woes have revealed anything, it is that Anthony needs more talent on his team. For all his extraterrestrial abilities as a scorer (and as a more-than-proficient rebounder), Anthony is not a facilitator who is capable of consistently lifting the play of those around him. In addition, he will be 35 by the end of his new deal, well past the age when most players begin to see their skills diminish. Path No. 4Anthony re-signs with the Knicks, but for less than the maximum.PROS This is probably the best-case scenario for the Knicks, and the least likely. It gives them room under the cap to recruit better players, especially during the summer of 2015, when several perennial All-Stars including Kevin Love and Rajon Rondo are due to be free agents. Anthony has said that winning is the most important thing to him at this stage of his career, and if that is true, perhaps he is willing to sacrifice some earnings to free up room for other top-level players. (Hey, the Knicks can dream.) Worth noting: James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh each took less money to form their super-friends collective with the Miami Heat.CONS The Knicks commit themselves to Anthony for five more seasons, banking on the belief that he can lead them to a championship. At this point, though, that belief is more like blind hope. | Sports |
tech FixThe first midrange Pixel is packed with innovations, without a shocking price.Credit...Damien Maloney for The New York TimesMay 7, 2019Dear readers, I hear you: Plenty of you are making it loud and clear that you are frustrated with todays smartphone prices, which are approaching the cost of a decent used car.Ive read your testy emails about skyrocketing prices for devices like Apples $1,100 iPhone XS Max and Samsungs $2,000 Galaxy Fold. Ive seen your anguish in the comments on our smartphone reviews. Sales of smartphones are slowing down worldwide, researchers say, partly because people are turned off by the escalating costs.So this will probably come as good news. As of Tuesday, Google is selling the Pixel 3A, a new version of its popular Pixel smartphone, for about $400 or roughly half the price of its high-end phones. It is the first time that Google is introducing its Pixel phones for the midrange and low-end market.Were seeing the fatigue with some of the flagship pricing of smartphones going up and up and up, and people thinking, You know, five years ago I could buy the best possible phone for half this price, said Brian Rakowski, a vice president of product management for Google.The Pixel 3A lacks some frills you may find in premium devices, like wireless charging and water resistance. But based on my tests, it is a great value. Its fast and capable with a very good camera and a nice-looking screen and, yes, especially for this price.I wouldnt hesitate to recommend this phone to those who dont mind going without some cutting-edge features. In fact, the Pixel 3A is so satisfying that at this point, I might hesitate to recommend its $800 counterpart, the Pixel 3, to people other than gear heads and tech enthusiasts. While I rated the Pixel 3 an excellent Android phone last fall, it is not two-times-the-cost better than the Pixel 3A.Here were my impressions after a week of testing the Pixel 3A.Smarts where it mattersImageCredit...Brian X. Chen for The New York TimesThe high-end Pixel 3 was widely lauded for its camera system, which has software features powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Fortunately, the Pixels most important camera features are also baked into the Pixel 3A.Among the clever camera features is a software mode called Night Sight, which makes photos taken in low light look as if they had been shot in normal conditions, without a flash. Google accomplishes this with some A.I. sorcery that involves taking a burst of photos with short exposures and reassembling them into an image.ImageCredit...Brian X. Chen for The New York TimesI was delighted to see that Night Sight worked well with the Pixel 3A. It was especially useful indoor, like in dimly lit restaurants or rooms. In one test, I dimmed my bedroom lamp to the lowest setting and took a photo of my dog as he slept. The image looked nicely lit up without seeming unnatural. With smartphones that lacked a similar low-light mode, including Samsung Galaxy phones or iPhones, the photos came out very dark.The Pixel 3A can also shoot images with portrait mode, also known as the bokeh effect, which puts the pictures main subject in sharp focus while gently blurring the background. Portrait mode was effective at producing artsy-looking pictures of red flowers in a garden and of my dogs in a field. However, in some photos of people, portrait mode made faces look grainy and unappealing. Google said that in my test shots, more light was coming from the background than from the persons face. To capture both the face and the background, the Pixel 3A added noise to their faces, the company said. Anecdotally, Ive had better results with portrait mode on the pricier Pixel 3 and iPhones. Otherwise, normal shots in good lighting consistently looked crisp and clear, with nice shadow detail. Like other Google phones I have tested, the Pixel 3A left colors looking colder and slightly less natural than photos taken with an iPhone. Still, on average, the Pixel 3A has a very good camera that plenty of people will enjoy. In cheaper phones in years past, a low-quality camera was always the biggest downside, but the Pixel 3As camera isnt much of a compromise.Insignificant trade-offsOther features missing from the Pixel 3A include support for wireless charging, a wide-angle lens on its front-facing camera and water resistance. Most of these omissions are negligible.Wireless charging is a neat innovation, but its a novelty. The technology relies on magnetic induction, which uses an electrical current to generate a magnetic field, creating voltage that powers the phone. My problem with wireless charging? Wires are still involved. While you dont have to plug a cable into the phone, the accessories themselves like charging pads or stands have to be hooked up to a power outlet. There are only a few times when charging with induction is more practical than charging with a wire.With no wide-angle lens for the front-facing camera, the framing wont be as broad when you take a selfie that includes lots of people. As an older millennial with no interest in taking selfies, I can live without that feature.ImageCredit...Damien Maloney for The New York TimesImageCredit...Damien Maloney for The New York TimesThe biggest downside is the lack of waterproofing. Many peoples gadgets have fallen victim to heavy rain or spilled beverages. Still, this isnt a deal breaker. Plenty of accessory makers sell inexpensive cases and pouches that protect phones from water damage. Or you can just be extra careful around liquids.The other trade-offs are even less significant. The Pixel 3A is slightly slower than the Pixel 3, but not noticeably. The cheaper phones screen also has marginally less accurate colors than the high-end Pixels display, but you would need to hold the devices side by side and look very closely to notice the difference.There is one upside to the omissions: The Pixel 3A includes a headphone jack, which many high-end smartphones eliminated to make room for other advanced components. So you can still quickly plug in a pair of headphones without shelling out for wireless earbuds.Bottom lineTheres little that casual technology users would want from a phone that the Pixel 3A doesnt provide. The device works well with Googles software and internet services, which many already rely on. It will be sold through a large number of retailers where customers can get technical support, including Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile in the United States; Google is also selling the device in Canada, Taiwan, Ireland, Spain, Japan and India, among other countries. People can buy a model with a 5.6-inch screen for $400 or a model with a six-inch screen for $480.In many ways, the Pixel 3A feels like the phone Google should have delivered in the first place. The internet company built a reputation on making its products free or cheap and thereby accessible to as broad an audience as possible. With the Pixels latest iteration, Google is making a statement that many will agree with: Communication devices should be a tool for everyone, not just the elite. | Tech |
StrategiesA remarkable snapback rally, after a deep coronavirus-induced plunge, took stocks into rare and, in some ways, troubling territory.Credit...Otto SteiningerPublished June 26, 2020Updated June 27, 2020Simply enumerating the crises afflicting the United States this year is an exhausting job.Consider that the country has already experienced a presidential impeachment trial, the onset of a tenacious coronavirus pandemic and a grave recession. Add to all of that the heartbreaking video recordings of police officers killing people of color, which vastly amplified the power of the Black Lives Matter movement and led to a presidential threat to unleash armed forces in the streets.Enough already, right? But theres more. Even if, by some serendipitous twist, the shocks of 2020 stopped right now, the United States would face predictable traumas already locked in the calendar most notably an election season of monumental vitriol and consequence that has barely begun.Whats just as extraordinary as all of this is the stock markets reaction to it. Stocks over all are down slightly for 2020, and if you havent been following closely, it may look as though little has happened in the world. But the numbers plainly show that the market has been traveling in rare and, in some ways, troubling territory.Recall that in the first three months of the year, as the pandemic and its economic consequences set in, stocks had a calamitous decline. Then, after the Federal Reserve announced an intervention in late March, the stock market soared even as the economy sank.Equities have seldom moved as sharply down and then up, from quarter to quarter, as they have this year. Calling the stock market a roller coaster is a clich, yet if the term were ever apt, it would be so now.This particular sequence of extreme movements a remarkably bad quarter, followed by a remarkably good one makes this market noteworthy from a historical standpoint.In the United States since 1928, there has been only one instance when the stock market declined at least 20 percent in one quarter and rose at least 20 percent in the next, according to data supplied by Bespoke Investment Group, an independent market research firm. That was in the heart of the Great Depression in 1932, an era of misery and staggering unemployment. Its not a year that anyone wants to see again.But in financial markets, this year has looked painfully similar. The S&P 500 was on track to echo the market of 1932. After falling 20 percent in the first three months of this year until June 21, it had risen more than 21 percent in the second quarter.Stocks have declined a bit since then, amid new flare-ups of the coronavirus and fresh warnings about the weakness of the economy, and the quarter doesnt end until June 30.Even so, the stock market is flirting with an unenviable distinction. Stocks have declined at least 15 percent in one quarter and risen at least 15 percent the next only eight times, and seven of them were during the Great Depression. (The singular post-Depression quarters were in 1970, during a Nixon-era recession.)It would be easy to simply rejoice at the markets outsize gains. But there were far better quarterly returns two quarters with gains of more than 80 percent in 1932 and again in 1933, back in the Great Depression.These echoes of the Great Depression are disturbing for many reasons.Its not just that unemployment stayed above 12 percent for nine years in that dismal period, or that, despite some periodic improvements, the economy was mired in a long-term slump that didnt end until World War II.As the economist Robert Shiller has written, the enormous gains that recurred several times in the stock market of the Great Depression were accompanied by periodic crashes and longer-term stagnation that could have swept any profits away. It was an inauspicious moment to be a buy-and-hold investor.In fact, despite those glorious streaks in the 1930s, it took 20 years for the stock market to rise above its 1929 peak and stay there, when you include dividends and inflation, Professor Shiller has found.Imagine if that happened today. Investors would be living in a world of pain. It wouldnt be until 2040 that the stock market crossed the peak reached in February (again, dividends and inflation included).Such parallels can be overdrawn, of course. For comfort, emphasize that the current era is very different.Whats unique about this period is that the stock market is hostage to the health data, said Paul Hickey, a co-founder of Bespoke. Coming into the fall, I think, the economy and the stock market are going to be dependent on how the health numbers come out, and unfortunately none of us know the answer to that.It is quite possible that once the coronavirus pandemic is behind us whenever that may be the stock market and, more important, the real economy will flourish. Those assumptions are certainly built into current stock market prices.But pockets of irrational exuberance clearly exist. Hertz, as I wrote recently, is in bankruptcy but wanted to sell new stock anyway, saying quite openly that there was a good chance the stock would be entirely worthless. The Securities and Exchange Commission raised questions about that stock offering, and Hertz canceled it.But Hertzs assessment of the stock market climate seemed on the mark. It wanted to take advantage of a unique opportunity the current day-trading frenzy.Thanks in large part to the Federal Reserves intervention in the markets since late March, risk-taking abounds, sometimes in willful disregard of unappealing stock valuations. As Ive pointed out, the market has often operated as though the current problems of the world, and of public companies, were irrelevant.Even when stocks make sense in the pandemic, exuberant traders have been pushing prices to stratospheric levels. Zoom Video has become a household name because of the coronavirus, but its earnings are small. Does it really merit a price-to-earnings ratio of 1,421.4 Apples is 28.3 and a gain this year of more than 270 percent?Depending on your point of view, traders have either ignored the economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus or had the wisdom to focus on the earnings that will flow once the pandemic ends.Critiques of current market prices are increasingly common. David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said on Wednesday, The equity market does seem to be a little bit ahead of my view of the future earnings performance of businesses. He added that he expected price declines over time.Stay strong. The year isnt even half over. | Business |
DealBook|Exit of Freeport Chairman Eases Credibility Problemhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/business/dealbook/exit-of-freeport-chairman-eases-credibility-problem.htmlBreakingviewsCredit...Olivia Rondonuwu/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesDec. 28, 2015James Moffett is riding into the sunset. Mr. Moffett, Freeport-McMoRans longtime leader, is resigning as executive chairman of the $9 billion copper, gold and petroleum company facing pressure from the activist investor Carl C. Icahn. Its a needed step to restore confidence after faux pas including an ill-timed, cozy-looking 2012 oil deal. Mr. Moffetts replacement, though, faces serious challenges.The departing chairman casts a long shadow. Mr. Moffett helped found McMoRan Oil & Gas in 1969 before merging it with Freeport Minerals in 1981 and eventually turning it into one of the worlds leading copper and gold producers. The sudden end to his long reign, coupled with another swing lower in commodity prices, may explain the more than 8 percent drop in Freeports share price on Monday.That, though, looks like an overreaction. Freeports shares have plunged around 80 percent since the company struck a pair of questionable oil deals in late 2012. The acquisitions of Plains Exploration & Production and McMoRan Exploration for a combined $20 billion including debt were not only poorly timed, given the subsequent collapse in crude prices. They also raised serious governance questions: Mr. Moffett ran and partly owned McMoRan, while Plainss boss, James Flores, sat on McMoRans board at the time. In January, Freeport agreed to pay $138 million to settle a lawsuit brought by investors asserting conflicts of interest.It took the arrival of Mr. Icahn to usher in more serious change. He has already had success in the sector: In 2012 he started agitating for management change at Chesapeake Energy, another troubled resources company. Its larger-than-life founder Aubrey McClendon was gone within a year.The activist investor revealed his Freeport stake in August this year. By October, the company announced it was dismantling its three-member office of the chairman comprising Mr. Moffett, Mr. Flores and the chief executive, Richard Adkerson and considering strategic alternatives for its oil and gas business.Mondays shake-up is another welcome sign of a newly assertive board. The new nonexecutive chairman, Gerald J. Ford, previously the lead independent director, has his work cut out to get the company in shape for lower commodity prices. And hes not completely free of Mr. Moffett, who will be chairman emeritus and stay on as a consultant to the board for a time, potentially complicating efforts at a truly clean break. Over all, though, the changes are positive for Freeport shareholders. | Business |
Kim Zolciak to NeNe I'll Sue You for Calling Me Racist And You Do Have Roaches!!! 10/11/2017 Kim Zolciak is threatening to sue NeNe Leakes for millions of dollars unless she immediately apologizes for calling her and her daughter, Brielle, racists and KKK members. Kim hired Allison Hart at the high-powered law firm Lavely & Singer, and it didn't take long for them to fire off a super threatening demand letter. The letter was triggered by a video Brielle shot which appears to show roaches crawling on NeNe's bathroom floor. The letter, obtained by TMZ, references some choice comments NeNe made on social media, including, "Kim & her child did something very wrong & disgusting! Black people and roaches in the same sentence don't work for me boo." She then went on to call Brielle "#racisttrash" and "#KKK," adding, "Kim & her daughter oops whole family are racists!" The letter calls the statements "outrageous and malicious lies." What's more, the lawyer says Brielle never posted the video showing the cockroaches crawling on the floor, but it was NeNe who got the video and posted it on Twitter and Instagram. The letter makes it clear ... NeNe has roaches, but it's not racist to say that. What's more ... the letter claims NeNe is going after Kim and Brielle out of jealousy. They have a successful show on Bravo, "Don't Be Tardy," and NeNe is trying to get people to boycott the program with hashtags like, #blackpeopleneedtostopsupportingtheprejudice." Attorney Hart wants a prominent retraction on Instagram and Twitter and other social media sites where NeNe posted her comments, along with an apology. If that doesn't happen ... "Your conduct exposes you to multi-million dollar liability." We reached out to NeNe ... so far, no word back. | Entertainment |
Credit...Tony Avelar/Associated PressMay 1, 2019WASHINGTON The Federal Trade Commission is negotiating a settlement with Facebook that would create new positions at the company focused on strengthening its privacy practices, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.Facebook has agreed to create a privacy committee to protect its users data, as well as an external assessor who would be appointed by the company and F.T.C., said the people, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The social network will also appoint a head compliance officer who could be its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg to oversee privacy efforts, one of the people said.The proposed commitments are part of negotiations between the agency and Facebook to settle privacy violations. Both have been talking for months over claims that Facebook violated a 2011 privacy consent decree. Last week, Facebook announced that it expected to be fined up to $5 billion by the agency, in what would be a record financial penalty by the United States against a technology company.[Get the Bits newsletter for the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry.]A Facebook spokeswoman and an F.T.C. spokesman declined to comment. The settlement details were earlier reported by Politico.The settlement talks are being watched as a potential blueprint for privacy in the United States at a time of fierce criticism over the competition, labor and privacy policies of big tech companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. The agency has been widely criticized in the past for limited oversight of the companies. Officials elsewhere, particularly in Europe, have been more aggressive.The case against Facebook is also being watched as a measure of the Trump administrations willingness to regulate American companies. The White House has rolled back rules for many industries, but President Trump has been critical of tech companies, arguing that they have too much power.No company has been more under the glare of regulators than Facebook, which the F.T.C. began investigating 13 months ago after revelations the company allowed user data to be turned into political profiles by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firmed used by Mr. Trump.Privacy advocates and Democratic lawmakers have pushed for more aggressive changes at Facebook, including higher fines and holding Mr. Zuckerberg personally liable for the companys privacy violations related to the investigation.Any settlement with Facebook must hold Mr. Zuckerberg individually accountable or his flagrant, repeated violations of Americans privacy will continue, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote in a letter to F.T.C. commissioners last week.The company has strongly resisted naming Mr. Zuckerberg in the F.T.C.s settlement as personally liable for privacy violations, according to the two people with knowledge of the talks.The company has offered what it has described to the F.T.C. as a new corporate governance structure built around privacy, the people said. The promises include the creation of an independent committee, which could include members of Facebooks board of directors, to oversee privacy policy. The committee would meet quarterly.Facebook also agreed to the creation of a position for an independent assessor, the people said. The assessor would be appointed by the F.T.C. and the privacy committee. That person would determine whether the company is complying with a new F.T.C. privacy order as well as the companys own privacy policy for users. The assessor would give biannual reports to the company and F.T.C.The company would also designate a compliance officer internally at the executive ranks. There was discussion at one time that Mr. Zuckerberg could be given that role, but it is unclear if he would ultimately do so, according to one of the people familiar with the talks.When the company announced putting aside the $5 billion to pay for potential penalties, it said that the matter remains unresolved, and there can be no assurance as to the timing or the terms of any final outcome.A $5 billion penalty would be far higher than the F.T.C.s current record against a tech company. The agency fined Google $22.5 million in 2012 for misleading users about how some of its tools were tracking users.But that amount would still be a small percentage of the companys $56 billion in annual revenue. Despite all of the public scrutiny the company has faced in the past year, Facebook said last week that its revenue increased 26 percent in the first quarter, to $15 billion, from a year earlier.Some privacy advocates have said that more meaningful action from the agency would require curbing Facebooks ability to share data with business partners, requiring it to take more measures to inform consumers when and how it collected data, or other demands to change its operations. Those sort of requirements are not expected to be in the settlement, according to the people familiar with the talks.Since the F.T.C.s investigation, Mr. Zuckerberg has announced a focus toward privacy. On Wednesday, the company announced redesigns of Facebooks apps to focus more on groups and private communications, a shift from its long push for more public posts.The features will end up creating a more trustworthy platform, Mr. Zuckerberg said. | Tech |
Credit...Michael Appleton for The New York TimesMarch 7, 2017Israels Parliament has struck back at the international boycott movement against the country and its settlements in the West Bank by passing a law barring entry to foreigners who have publicly supported the movement.The measure, passed on Monday night, received little notice in Israel, but by Tuesday it set off alarms in the United States, where Israels critics and some of its most loyal Jewish supporters alike warned that it would further isolate the country.Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in North America, said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem: Its going to be a giant sign up by the door of the Jewish state: Dont come unless you agree with everything were doing here. I dont know what kind of democracy makes that statement.The vote came as the Israeli governments right flank has been emboldened by the election of President Trump and his warm welcome in Washington last month of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The bill passed the Parliament, or Knesset, 46 to 28, with proponents calling it a common-sense measure to exclude haters, and opponents warning that it would backfire and encourage further boycotts.With hopes for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians vastly diminished, Palestinians and their supporters have been advocating a strategy called B.D.S.: boycott, divestment and sanctions. The movement has been most active in Europe and the United States, and supporters have compared it to the campaign against apartheid in South Africa an analogy fiercely disputed by defenders of Israel.Academic groups, artists, churches and companies from many countries are boycotting or divesting from Israel, or from the occupied territories in the West Bank. The Israeli government and other critics say the boycott movement is anti-Semitic and aims to undermine Israels right to exist.Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the Knesset who is a co-sponsor of the bill to bar entry to boycott supporters, said: We will now stop turning the other cheek. Preventing B.D.S. supporters who come here to hurt us from the inside is the very least we should be doing against haters of Israel.Dov Hanin, who voted against the legislation, said that at a time when boycotts against settlements are being promoted around the world, the law is really a law to boycott the world.A country that boycotts the world is basically isolating and boycotting itself, he continued.Israel has already turned away some travelers for political reasons. Last December, Isabel Phiri, a theologian and an assistant general secretary of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, was refused entry after landing in Tel Aviv with a tourist visa. Last July, five Americans on a fact-finding trip were detained, questioned and deported, with Israeli officials citing security reasons.And in February, an American executive with the New Israel Fund, a liberal group, was detained and interrogated at the Tel Aviv airport by an interviewer holding a document that said BDS. The fund does not support the movement.The new law says it applies to any foreigner who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel and is aware that this has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott.Eytan Fuld, a spokesman for Mr. Smotrich, said there was no blacklist of individuals. He said the law would apply to known organizations and their main activists.Some American Jewish leaders were alarmed that the new law makes no distinction between groups that support boycotts of Israel proper and those that support boycotting products made in the settlements in the occupied West Bank.Its redefining as an enemy of Israel anyone who does not agree that the settlements are now and forever will be part of Israel, said Lara Friedman, the director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now. Thats going to be problematic for a lot of American Jews who care about Israel. Its just heartbreaking.Rabbi Jacobs said the law would deter the kinds of people he often brings to Israel, those who have questions about its policies and should see the country for themselves.The Reform Jewish movement opposes the expansion of settlements, but is strongly opposed to the B.D.S. movement, and has tried to dissuade several American church groups from passing divestment resolutions.If its perceived that Israel doesnt want to engage in serious debates with diaspora Jews, he said, I think that really is a weakening of our relationship.But Naftali Bennett, the leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party and Israels education minister, said the new law was logical and expected and will allow Israel to defend itself against those who wish it harm. | World |
Special Report: Energy for TomorrowCredit...Neha Tara MehtaDec. 8, 2015MUSTAFABAD, India Khushboo Kushwaha has a few years before she will have to squat in front of a filthy, smoking open stove three times a day to cook meals for her family, as her older sister and cousins do now.Khushboo is 11, and the girls in her home usually take up cooking duties as teenagers. But the smoke that billows from the wood and dried dung they burn, stinging the older girls eyes and throats, already affects her.The air in the semi-open courtyard of the Kushwaha familys home is heavy and choking. The older girls patiently prepare food for as long as six hours a day, sifting flour, rolling dough and tending to the vegetable and lentil dishes that bubble atop rough-hewn clay stoves.I dont like the smoke, Khushboo said. I cough when food is being made, and her eyes get red.About three billion people, more than 40 percent of the worlds population, cook and heat their homes with dirty fuels like wood, dung and coal, burned on open fires or in traditional stoves, according to the World Health Organization. From China and Laos to Nigeria and Ethiopia, the resulting smoke prematurely kills about four million people a year, the organization says.The smoky fuels, known as chula in India and biomass among scientists, are also a driver of climate change, in part because the black carbon particles they create absorb heat from the sun. It is not clear, however, whether a mass switchover to the alternative most readily available in India, liquefied petroleum gas, or L.P.G., would benefit the climate or be a small detriment, said Kirk Smith, professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading voice on household air pollution.From a health perspective, though, the pressing need for L.P.G. or other alternatives is clear, and renewable options like solar-powered cooking, while growing fast, are not yet widely available. It would be unconscionable for rich nations to demand that the worlds poor should bear the burden of lowering carbon emissions, when essentially minuscule increases would have such huge benefits, Dr. Smith said in an email. It is not the cooking of the poor that threatens the climate, it is you and me.India, the worlds third-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, is a key player at the climate summit meeting in Paris, and its leaders have long argued that they must prioritize improving the lives of the poor over tackling global warming. The competing agendas of wealthy nations, which have put most of the accumulated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and poorer ones worried that curbing their own growing emissions will hamper economic growth have long been a sticking point in efforts to reach a global climate deal.About 700 million Indians, more than 55 percent of the countrys population, rely on biomass stoves. Household air pollution is the second-biggest risk factor for death in India, and the third-biggest risk to health, causing stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, pneumonia and more, according to 2013 data from the landmark Global Burden of Disease study.The suffering was apparent during a spring visit to Khushboos mud-walled home, in a village near the northern city of Lucknow, where her family scrapes out a living farming wheat and potatoes. Her mothers vision is worsening, and she often feels too ill to cook, so an older daughter, Renu, 17, has taken up that responsibility.Renu Kushwaha works beneath a bit of thatched roofing in a corner whose walls are black with soot. She suffers from dizziness and a constant headache.Even the youngest knows what would solve their problems. Theres no smoke in a gas stove, Khushboo said. Its much easier.L.P.G., made up of propane and butane, is the cooking fuel families like the Kushwahas aspire to, smoke-free and far more convenient than the time-consuming chula. For many, though, L.P.G. is too expensive or simply unavailable, in part because Indias poor infrastructure hampers distribution.Improving that infrastructure is key. Also critical, Dr. Smith said, is an overhaul of Indias L.P.G. subsidies, which largely go to the middle classes and the wealthy, not the rural poor who need them most.Priti Kushwaha, a neighbor of Khushboos family, has an L.P.G. stove, but says she uses it sparingly. Buying the fuel means a motorcycle trip of 10 kilometers, or 6.2 miles, and the process is so cumbersome she often has to go twice.A canister of gas costs 665 rupees, or about $10, she says, a third of which is covered by a government subsidy. Priti Kushwaha, who is not related to the other Kushwahas, would love to cook with L.P.G. more often. It is much easier to use the gas stove, she said. It is just the inconvenience of getting it, and the cost.She cooks most often with a wood- and dung-burning stove that is more modern, and much cleaner, than her neighbors primitive ones. Provided by the Energy and Resources Institute, or TERI, a New Delhi-based research group, it is made of steel, with an electric fan that improves efficiency by forcing air into the burning chamber.Increasingly, experts are seeing links between dirty fuels in the home and Indias wider air pollution problem. About 25 percent of the countrys outdoor pollution comes from households, said Kalpana Balakrishnan, a professor of environmental health engineering at Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai.In the last 25 years, Venezuela, Chile and Costa Rica moved almost all households to L.P.G., Dr. Smith said. Ecuador did so in the 1990s and is now pushing for conversion to electric induction stoves, he said. Brazil achieved nearly universal gas use, but 10 percent of households returned to biomass when subsidies were scaled back, he said.In India, more people are gaining access to L.P.G. But without a push from the government, it will take 20 to 30 years before gas and other clean-burning fuels are widely available, Dr. Balakrishnan said. Its the vaccine analogy, its the life-saving drug analogy, she said. You dont wait for people to become rich before you get life-saving drugs to them. You step in and get them what they need. The Society of Environmental Journalists funded travel for this article. | Business |
Knicks 98, Pelicans 91Credit...Jonathan Bachman/Associated PressFeb. 19, 2014NEW ORLEANS Iman Shumpert had a bad day. It started with seeing his name in trade reports, and about an hour before the Knicks faced the Pelicans on Wednesday night, Shumpert acknowledged what everyone else was thinking: that the game had the potential to be his final one with the Knicks. All he could do, he said, was play.But even that became an impossibility as the Knicks muscled their way to a 98-91 victory at Smoothie King Center. Shumpert sustained what the team described as a sprained left knee in the third quarter, and he needed assistance to reach the locker room. Shumpert, a defense-minded swingman, could be sidelined for several weeks, perhaps longer. As his teammates packed for a flight to Orlando, Fla., Shumpert was on his way back to New York to be re-evaluated. He tore the anterior cruciate ligament in the same knee in April 2012.Just frustrating, said Shumpert, who described the pain as being on the inner half of his knee. Injury after injury. Its been a frustrating year.For one game, at least, the Knicks (21-33) were able to overcome all the drama, although it required another superhuman effort from Carmelo Anthony, who scored a game-high 42 points. With the Pelicans leading by 91-90, Anthony connected on three straight shots a layup and two midrange jumpers to give the Knicks an insurmountable lead. Anthony scored 13 of the teams final 15 points and went 16 of 29 from the field. J. R. Smith scored 19 points in the win, and Tim Hardaway Jr. added 16.Coach Mike Woodson said Smith and Hardaway would get more playing time in Shumperts absence. Woodson also said Metta World Peace and Beno Udrih (remember him?) would move into the rotation.I got to get the rest of the guys ready to play, Woodson said.Eric Gordon led the Pelicans (23-30) with 28 points as scouts from five teams, including the Los Angeles Clippers and the Washington Wizards, watched from courtside. If the Knicks viewed Shumpert as their most marketable asset ahead of Thursdays3 p.m.trade deadline, the game was nothing short of a full-blown disaster for them.Shumperts presence in the starting lineup made the situation somewhat surreal. Also supplying heavy minutes was Raymond Felton, whose haphazard play and questionable fitness have forced the Knicks to seek relief at point guard, perhaps by packaging Felton and Shumpert in a deal. No trade involving either player appeared imminent at the start of the game. By the end, it was clear the Knicks were in an even tougher spot to broker any type of deal that could change the tenor of their season.We just got to keep building, said Woodson, who sounded as if the trade deadline were the furthest thing from his mind. Total team effort. We have to have that the rest of the way.Felton, who finished with 5 points and 8 assists, was the Knicks low-cost alternative to Jeremy Lin in 2012. In hindsight, that was a serious misstep. Felton entered Wednesdays game averaging 10.3 points a game while shooting 40.4 percent from the field. He has also missed time with ailments ranging from a pulled hamstring to a pinched nerve in his back.One of the problems with finding a trade partner for a deal involving Felton is his contract, which runs through 2016 thanks to a final-year player option. Given his struggles this season, few teams are likely to accept his long-term contract without shedding one of their own. The injury to Shumpert only makes a deal more improbable.I love everything about Iman, Woodson said. I know its been a rough season for him, but we need him because I still think he does things that we like. We just got to wait and see.Shumpert, who went 1 of 6 from the field in 17 minutes, said he sustained the injury making a regular cut. He said he was told that it did not involve his A.C.L., although he was expected to have additional testingThursday.Its uncomfortable, he said.With his knee encased in a brace, Shumpert slipped on his backpack and dragged his suitcase out of the locker room, his future unknown. He has become familiar with the feeling. | Sports |
Facebook did not immediately have a comment on the new letter.Facebooks leadership must reconsider their policies regarding political speech, beginning by fact-checking politicians and explicitly labeling harmful posts.As early employees on teams across the company, we authored the original Community Standards, contributed code to products that gave voice to people and public figures, and helped to create a company culture around connection and freedom of expression.We grew up at Facebook, but it is no longer ours.The Facebook we joined designed products to empower people and policies to protect them. The goal was to allow as much expression as possible unless it would explicitly do harm. We disagreed often, but we all understood that keeping people safe was the right thing to do. Now, it seems, that commitment has changed.We no longer work at Facebook, but we do not disclaim it. We also no longer recognize it. We remain proud of what we built, grateful for the opportunity, and hopeful for the positive force it can become. But none of that means we have to be quiet. In fact, we have a responsibility to speak up.Today, Facebooks leadership interprets freedom of expression to mean that they should do nothing or very nearly nothing to interfere in political discourse. They have decided that elected officials should be held to a lower standard than those they govern. One set of rules for you, and another for any politician, from your local mayor to the President of the United States. This exposes two fundamental problems:First, Facebooks behavior doesnt match the stated goal of avoiding any political censorship. Facebook already is acting, as Mark Zuckerberg put it on Friday, as the arbiter of truth. It monitors speech all the time when it adds warnings to links, downranks content to reduce its spread, and fact checks political speech from non-politicians.This is a betrayal of the ideals Facebook claims. The company we joined valued giving individuals a voice as loud as their governments protecting the powerless rather than the powerful.Facebook now turns that goal on its head. It claims that providing warnings about a politicians speech is inappropriate, but removing content from citizens is acceptable, even if both are saying the same thing. That is not a noble stand for freedom. It is incoherent, and worse, it is cowardly. Facebook should be holding politicians to a higher standard than their constituents.Second, since Facebooks inception, researchers have learned a lot more about group psychology and the dynamics of mass persuasion. Thanks to work done by the Dangerous Speech Project and many others, we understand the power words have to increase the likelihood of violence. We know the speech of the powerful matters most of all. It establishes norms, creates a permission structure, and implicitly authorizes violence, all of which is made worse by algorithmic amplification. Facebooks leadership has spoken with these experts, with advocates, and with organizers, yet they still seem committed to granting the powerful free rein.So what do we make of this? If all speech by politicians is newsworthy and all newsworthy speech is inviolable, then there is no line the most powerful people in the world cannot cross on the largest platform in the world or at least none that the platform is willing to enforce.President Trumps post on Friday not only threatens violence by the state against its citizens, it also sends a signal to millions who take cues from the President. Facebooks policy allows that post to stand alone. In an age of live-streamed shootings, Facebook should know the danger of this better than most. Trumps rhetoric, steeped in the history of American racism, targeted people whom Facebook would not allow to repeat his words back to him.It is our shared heartbreak that motivates this letter. We are devastated to see something we built and something we believed would make the world a better place lose its way so profoundly. We understand it is hard to answer these questions at scale, but it was also hard to build the platform that created these problems. There is a responsibility to solve them, and solving hard problems is what Facebook is good at.To current employees who are speaking up: we see you, we support you, and we want to help. We hope you will continue to ask yourselves the question that hangs on posters in each of Facebooks offices: What would you do if you werent afraid?To Mark: we know that you think deeply about these issues, but we also know that Facebook must work to regain the publics trust. Facebook isnt neutral, and it never has been. Making the world more open and connected, strengthening communities, giving everyone a voice these are not neutral ideas. Fact-checking is not censorship. Labeling a call to violence is not authoritarianism. Please reconsider your position.Proceed and be bold.Sincerely, some of your earliest employees:Meredith Chin, Adam Conner, Natalie Ponte, Jon Warman, Dave Willner, on behalf of Ezra Callahan, Chris Putnam, Bob Trahan, Natalie Trahan, Ben Blumenrose, Jocelyn Blumenrose, Bobby Goodlatte, Simon Axten, Brandee Barker, Doug Fraser, Krista Kobeski, Warren Hanes, Caitlin OFarrell Gallagher, Jake Brill, Carolyn Abram, Jamie Patterson, Abdus-Salam DeVaul, Scott Fortin, Bobby Kellogg, Tanja Balde, Alex Vichinsky, Matt Fernandez, Elizabeth Linder, Mike Ferrier, Jamie Patterson, Brian Sutorius, Amy Karasavas, Kathleen Estreich, Claudia Park | Tech |
Credit...Cliff Owen/Associated PressJune 14, 2018WASHINGTON As deputy attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, James B. Comey clashed repeatedly with the White House over its interrogation and warrantless wiretapping programs, earning a reputation of fighting for his view of what was right no matter whom he angered.That same impulse that he knew best, no matter the consequences underpinned Mr. Comeys decisions in 2016 to flout Justice Department norms and update the public on the investigation into Hillary Clintons handling of classified information. Democrats have said he cost her the presidential election.Mr. Comey was faulted for those decisions in a highly critical Justice Department report released on Thursday about the F.B.I.s handling of the Clinton inquiry. By trying to protect the bureau, the departments inspector general found, Mr. Comey instead damaged the F.B.I.s reputation.Comey chose to deviate from the F.B.I.s and the departments established procedures and norms and instead engaged in his own subjective, ad hoc decision making, the report said. It added, The decisions negatively impacted the perception of the F.B.I. and the department as fair administrators of justice.An official condemnation of Mr. Comeys go-it-alone approach, the report is bound to shape his legacy, providing grist for both Republicans and Democrats as well as F.B.I. agents who disagreed with how he ran the bureau at a politically perilous time.Mr. Comey defended his decisions and said the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, had the benefit of hindsight. While Mr. Comey supported the review, he disagreed with its conclusions. 568 pages, 26.98 MB If a future F.B.I. leadership team ever faces a similar situation something I pray never happens it will have the benefit of this important document, he wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times.Fired abruptly by President Trump last year as the Russia investigation engulfed the young Trump administration, Mr. Comey has returned to the public spotlight, chastening the president on Twitter and writing a best-seller. Whether he has a third act in another administration or as a publicly elected official is an open question.In his tour as F.B.I. director, Mr. Comey ultimately served as a major figure in the 2016 election, possibly shaping its outcome even as he sought to navigate the bureau away from the bitter political atmosphere of the campaign.Mr. Horowitz determined that Mr. Comey should not have announced unilaterally in July of that year that he would not recommend charges against Mrs. Clinton, and he should not have called her extremely careless during a highly unusual news conference.Mr. Comey was insubordinate, the inspector general said, and should have followed the chain of command and coordinated with his Justice Department bosses in holding a news conference. Mr. Comey told Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch that he intended to make an announcement regarding the investigation but provided no details.Mr. Comey also should not have sent a pair of letters to Congress just days before the election saying the F.B.I. had reopened the investigation to examine new evidence and then closed it days later, the inspector general said.The former directors supreme confidence has exposed the F.B.I. to accusations of political bias and corruption, according to former and current agents, who predicted the F.B.I. would need years to regain the publics trust. For Comey, this is a stain that will not come out, said Tim Weiner, author of Enemies: A History of the F.B.I.ImageCredit...Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesMr. Comey has refused to say he made a mistake but concedes he might have done some things differently. In his best-selling book published this spring, A Higher Loyalty, Mr. Comey wrote that perhaps he could have found a better way to describe Mrs. Clintons conduct but spent little time second-guessing himself.Mr. Trump had praised Mr. Comey before and immediately after taking office. On the campaign trail he said that Mr. Comey had a lot of guts for taking on the Clinton investigation, and in a memorable White House meeting the president embraced Mr. Comey, saying, Hes become more famous than me.But Mr. Trump quickly soured on him, and in firing Mr. Comey last year, the president initially cited Justice Department criticism over his handling of the Clinton investigation.Mr. Trump later acknowledged that the Russia inquiry was on his mind during that time and has more recently begun a public campaign to discredit Mr. Comey, who is a key witness in the obstruction investigation of the president.While the new report dented Mr. Comeys standing, Mr. Weiner said the totality of Mr. Comeys time in public service should not be overlooked.Mr. Comey had a formidable law enforcement career beginning as a mob prosecutor in New York. Later, as an assistant United States attorney in Richmond, Va., he cracked down on felons arrested with guns and brought charges in a major terrorism case. For his efforts, Mr. Comey landed on the front page of a weekly newspaper under the headline One of Good Guys. Mr. Comey had not told his boss about the article ahead of time.In 2002, Mr. Comey returned to New York as the United States attorney in Manhattan. He embraced tough cases, prosecuting Martha Stewart on charges connected to a personal stock trade she made.ImageCredit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressCharging Martha Stewart was my first experience with getting a lot of hate and heat for a decision that had been carefully and thoughtfully made, Mr. Comey recounted in his book. She was found guilty on all charges and served five months in federal prison.Soon, Mr. Comey was tapped to be the deputy attorney general, trying to protect the country after the Sept. 11 attacks as the Justice Departments No. 2 official.He famously confronted Mr. Bushs aides as they tried to get Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized with a pancreatic ailment, to reauthorize a National Security Agency surveillance program that Mr. Comey had found to be legally dubious. Mr. Comey, who threatened to resign along with Robert S. Mueller III, then the F.B.I. director, prevailed.He also fought with the White House over Justice Department memos that authorized the C.I.A.s use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. Mr. Comey and others at the Justice Department believed that the agency might be violating laws against torture because of how the techniques were being applied.Mr. Comey did not explicitly say he was thinking about his legacy and being on the right side of history, but, he wrote, a comment by his wife resonated with him. Dont be the torture guy, she said, advising him to stand up against the program.Mr. Comeys pleas were ultimately ignored, and no policy changes were made. He left for the private sector in 2005, then took over the F.B.I. in 2013.More than anyone since J. Edgar Hoover, Mr. Comey embraced the persona of national lawman. He saw himself as the principled leader of not only the F.B.I. but police officers everywhere. When Mr. Comey traveled, he mingled with agents in field offices and local police officers. He was something of a rock star, albeit a tall one at 6-foot-8.In 2015, the Clinton investigation, with its vast political implications, began to consume the F.B.I.s seventh-floor leadership. Mr. Comey knew the F.B.I. would be attacked no matter the outcome.The inquiry wrapping up as the 2016 presidential primaries did, Mr. Comey began to debate whether and how to disclose it. Mr. Comey, who prides himself on being a great communicator, settled on a public announcement, a departure from the F.B.I.s usual practice of silence on investigations.He thought he could deliver the right message to the American people, balancing openness while protecting the bureau from accusations of favoritism.Still, before briefing reporters, he later wrote, It felt like I was about to damage my career.Indeed, many former F.B.I. agents thought Mr. Comey should have remained silent and let the Justice Department announce that no charges would be brought in the case. His overconfidence was his undoing, agents have said in interviews.In the fall, when the F.B.I. discovered possible new evidence in the case, Mr. Comey confronted two terrible options: speak or conceal, as he titled a chapter in his book.He ultimately decided to tell lawmakers, which he had promised to do. The disclosure upended the election in its final days, and Mr. Comeys subsequent notification that the F.B.I. had closed the investigation again without finding new evidence earned him a new round of evisceration.The inspector general characterized Mr. Comeys dilemma as a false dichotomy. In reality, Mr. Horowitz wrote, Mr. Comey could either follow established practices or policies or not. Although we acknowledge that Comey faced a difficult situation with unattractive choices, in proceeding as he did, we concluded that Comey made a serious error of judgment, the report said.Mr. Comey disagreed. The inspector general weighs it differently, and thats O.K., even though I respectfully disagree, he wrote in his Op-Ed.Mr. Comey will probably forever be linked to Mrs. Clinton, said Douglas M. Charles, an F.B.I. historian. People in history are remembered for one or two things, he said. He will likely be remembered for interfering in the 2016 election. I think it is potentially catastrophic to his legacy. | Politics |
Johnny Damon Roger Clemens is a Hall of Famer ... Feds Tried to Screw Him! 1/21/2018 TMZSports.com Johnny Damon says there are 60 million reasons to let Roger Clemens into the Baseball Hall of Fame -- as in the dollars the feds spent trying (and failing) to prove he used steroids. "Our government tried to accuse him ... we had $60 million of our tax money go to trying to defame him," Damon told TMZ Sports. Johnny says all that money was wasted 'cause Clemens was ultimately "proven innocent." So, the former superstar outfielder is backing his ex-Yankees teammate for the Hall ... but at the same time, wants the voters to show him love, too, since he's always been clean. | Entertainment |
Science|NASA Finds Indias Vikram Moon Lander Crash Site, With Amateurs Helphttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/science/india-moon-mission-vikram-lander-found.htmlSince India lost contact with the spacecraft in September, the precise location of its crash has been a mystery. VideoBefore and after images show the Vikram impact point. NASA/Goddard/Arizona State UniversityCreditCredit...NASA/Goddard/Arizona State UniversityPublished Dec. 2, 2019Updated Dec. 6, 2019NASA has found pieces of Vikram, a small spacecraft that India attempted to land on the moon in September. They did it with the help of an engineer from India who scoured the lunar surface in his spare time.Vikram was part of Indias Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon, which launched in July. If the spacecraft had reached the surface in one piece on Sept. 7, India would have been only the fourth country to successfully put a lander on the moon. But less than two miles above the surface, Vikram veered from the planned descent trajectory and fell out of radio contact. Indias space agency said the next day that it had located the lander. But it never published any images of the hard landing site taken by the missions accompanying orbiter, which remains in operation and is carrying out a scientific mission that will last for years.A NASA spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, has passed over the missions intended landing site, on a high plain near the south pole, several times since September. But initial analyses of the images did not reveal an obvious impact scar comparable to the Beresheet lander launched by Israel this year, which crashed in April. NASA scientists noted that the spacecraft might have been hidden in the shadows.A lot of people were looking, including Shanmuga Subramanian, an Indian computer programmer and mechanical engineer. The crash landing of Vikram rekindled an interest in the moon not only for me and others also, he wrote in an email. I think even if Vikram had landed and sent some images, we would have never had such interest. For the first few days I was scanning the images randomly and there were lot of false positives.After reviewing the last known velocity and position of Vikram, Mr. Shanmuga shifted where he was looking. He noticed a white speck on the lunar surface that was about two-thirds of a mile from where Vikram was supposed to have set down. That speck was not visible in an earlier image. He wondered if the crash might have buried the lander in the lunar soil.Mr. Shanmuga reported what he had found to NASA and scientists working with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters camera, who confirmed his finding and scoured the surrounding area. Comparing images taken before Vikrams landing attempt and those taken on Nov. 11, they were able to identify the impact point about 2,500 feet to the southeast of the piece of debris Mr. Shanmuga had spotted, and a spray of wreckage emanating outward.ImageCredit...NASA/Goddard/Arizona State UniversityThe pieces of debris were not much bigger than the minimum of what the camera could make out. The resolution of the camera was about 1.3 meters per pixel; the three largest pieces of debris were about two pixels by two pixels in size and cast a one-pixel shadow, NASA said. | science |
TrilobitesScientists directly measured the metabolic rate of extinct animals, which revealed that some giant dinosaurs became coldblooded.Credit...Julius T. Csotonyi/Science SourceMay 28, 2022Paleontologists have long wrangled with the question of dinosaur metabolisms whether they ran hot, like modern birds and mammals do, or resembled the slower metabolisms of modern reptiles. In a surprise, the answer seems to be both.While we had assumed that most dinosaurs were warm-blooded, there was just no way to measure the underpinning metabolic capacities, said Jasmina Wiemann, a paleontologist at the California Institute of Technology. In the absence of available dinosaurs, she said, paleontologists grappling with questions about prehistoric metabolisms whether a given beast was warm-blooded or coldblooded, for example have had to rely on indirect evidence, like isotopic evidence or growth rates from slices of bone.Now, Dr. Wiemann and her colleagues have pioneered a new method for directly measuring the metabolic rate of extinct animals. Their conclusions, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, confirmed that many dinosaurs as well as their winged relatives, the pterosaurs, were ancestrally warm-blooded. But in a twist, the research also suggests that some herbivorous dinosaurs spent tens of millions of years evolving a coldblooded metabolism more like those of contemporary and ancient reptiles.The team analyzed over 50 extinct and modern vertebrates from the collections of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, including mammals, lizards, birds and 11 different non-avian dinosaurs. Using laser microspectroscopy, they identified a specific molecular marker of metabolic stress in both the fossils and modern bones one that directly correlates with how much oxygen the animal breathed. That, in turn, is a direct indicator of its metabolism.The team found that both mammals and plesiosaurs long-necked marine reptiles had independently evolved their high metabolisms. Pterosaurs and dinosaurs, which together form a group called Ornithodira, seem to have descended from warm-blooded ancestors a state that persisted in long-necked sauropods, predatory theropods like Tyrannosaurus rex, and their surviving feathered descendants, like chickens.Sauropods having high metabolisms is unexpected, says Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh who did not participate in the study. Researchers in the past had suggested that if any dinosaurs had lower metabolisms, it would have been the giant, lumbering herbivores.Just imagine the hundreds or thousands of pounds of plants they would have to eat each day to fuel such a fast metabolism, Dr. Brusatte said.The teams findings around another group of dinosaurs the diverse superfamily of herbivores called ornithischians were more surprising still. While ancestral ornithischians shared the hot-blooded metabolisms of other dinosaurs, Dr. Wiemann said, their larger descendants like Stegosaurus and Triceratops actually reduced their metabolisms over time, ending up at metabolic rates closer to those of modern reptiles. And like modern reptiles, they might have needed to maintain their core temperature via behavior basking in the sun or seasonally migrating to warmer climates.The evolution of decreased metabolic rates in some ornithischians is surprising, especially given that the same is not true of giant sauropods, said Jingmai OConnor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum in Chicago, who also did not participate in the study. This work will drastically change how we interpret the lifestyles and behaviors of these animals.Further research and many more fossil samples will be necessary to take the temperature of all the limbs on the ornithischian family tree. But they would not be the first members of the broader family dinosaurs were members of, the archosaurs, to potentially make the switch. Dr. Wiemann said growth rates of certain extinct crocodile groups suggested they also may have been warm-blooded, while their modern relatives evolved slower metabolisms.Now that they have demonstrated the potential of this technique, Dr. Wiemann said more detailed studies could help clarify why certain dinosaur families abandoned high metabolisms.That seems counterintuitive because we cherish warmbloodedness in ourselves as this great evolutionary innovation, which it was, Dr. Brusatte said. But high metabolisms are expensive in terms of diet and energy, he notes, adding that what they needed to sustain it may have been too much of a liability for some dinosaurs. | science |
Sports BriefingFeb. 15, 2014Cincinnati Reds starter Mat Latos had surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee on Friday and was expected to be sidelined for 10 days. Atlanta agreed with the right-hander Julio Teheran on a six-year, $32.4 million deal. The Yankees radio broadcasts have moved to WFAN-AM and FM, and the team, unsurprisingly, announced it would retain the longtime announcers John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. Sterling is entering his 25th season with the team, and Waldman is starting her 10th. RICHARD SANDOMIR Florida State closer Jameis Winston became the sixth Heisman Trophy winner in N.C.A.A. history to play college baseball after winning the award, with the Seminoles opening the season with a 13-3 home victory against Niagara. Winston entered the game in the eighth inning and drew a walk in his only at-bat. He played left field in the ninth. | Sports |
Deal ProfessorCredit...Harry CampbellDec. 1, 2015House Republicans are trying to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus attempt to regulate the $900 billion auto finance industry. Its a political battle that just might lead to the end of the fledgling agencys mission to regulate every nook and cranny of consumer finance.The C.F.P.B., which began in 2011, was created by the Dodd-Frank Act, fulfilling Elizabeth Warrens desire to have a federal agency devoted to protecting the consumer in financial decisions and dealings.Consumer financial protection had been viewed as the province of the states, something that had fallen through the cracks of the federal regulatory apparatus.Ms. Warrens idea was astoundingly simple but controversial. A number of Republicans spoke out against the new agency not just because of the additional regulation it imposed, but because the C.F.P.B. was created as an independent body under the Federal Reserve, removed from presidential oversight.Unlike other agencies, it had a guaranteed budget and no board of commissioners, only a head appointed by the president.Under the leadership of Richard Cordray, the C.F.P.B. has seized upon its mission to protect consumers. The agency has cracked down on for-profit college lending by arranging for $480 million in loan forgiveness in connection with the failure of Corinthian Colleges, ordered Citigroup to repay customers $700 million related to illegal credit card practices for add-ons and fined numerous mortgage lenders for discrimination violations. All told, the agencys actions in just a few years have provided for $11 billion in relief for over 25 million consumers.Since its formation, the agency has issued about a regulation a month for mortgage financing, students loans, debt repayment and fund transfers, among others.Now it is trying to enter the auto finance realm. This seems logical, given that auto finance is the third-largest category of finance in the country, after housing and student debt. And who hasnt had to wade through an auto loan, puzzling over the terms. For many reasons, this is a natural area for the C.F.P.B. to police.Yet the agency is forbidden from regulating auto finance. When the Dodd-Frank Act was negotiated, the auto dealers successfully lobbied to deprive the C.F.P.B. of jurisdiction over auto dealer financing. The move was blatantly political and then-Representative Barney Frank, who led the charge on the bill in the House, protested, but with auto dealers in virtually every congressional district, the dealers got their way.The C.F.P.B. did not go away quietly. The Dodd-Frank Act left the agency with the ability to regulate the actual banks providing auto loans but not the dealers themselves who negotiated with the customers.The agency has aggressively acted to impose extensive regulation on these banks to indirectly regulate the dealers. It has also fined entities that issue loans but look more like dealers. The C.F.P.B. recently imposed an $8 million fine against a buy here, pay here dealer for making harassing phone calls to collect delinquent debt.The move is in response to allegations that auto dealers pump up interest rates for customers, make excessive numbers of high risk subprime loans, engage in shady debt collection practices and sometimes discriminate in lending by adding different markups to these loans. (Auto dealers often charge a markup to loans they disburse to customers. The amount is at the discretion of the dealer.)But by sidestepping the restriction on overseeing auto dealers, the regulator may have tripped a political land mine.In 2013, the C.F.P.B. issued guidance intended to prevent banks from permitting auto dealers from having discretion to mark up loans. The agency argued that this prohibition was necessary because of discrimination in lending and markups by dealers, a move that appears to have had some internal opposition at the C.F.P.B. itself.The guidance has been met with a fierce pushback in the House of Representatives. The House Financial Services Committee recently issued a report attacking the guidance not just for being on questionable legal footing, but also for use of disparate impact techniques, a statistical sampling method. The report, entitled Unsafe at Any Bureaucracy: C.F.P.B. Junk Science and Indirect Auto Lending, criticized the regulators guidance for being misguided and deceptive, claiming that the agency did not find actual discrimination and instead implied that discrimination had occurred because some minorities had received worse lending terms.The House has also voted 332-96 to repeal this guidance, with 88 Democrats joining, showing that the auto dealers still have significant political power.It is uncertain whether the bill will go anywhere, particularly since President Obama would most likely veto such a law, but it shows that the C.F.P.B. is on an increasingly contentious path as it pushes to regulate in more areas.The agency has published a study on arbitration clauses, finding them to be ubiquitous and recommending that bans on class actions in these clauses be prohibited. The study is no doubt in anticipation of more regulation on the subject.If the C.F.P.B. acts on arbitration it will also ignite a more powerful reaction, this time by the federal courts. The Supreme Court has been vigorous in allowing for arbitration in almost all cases as provided by the Federal Arbitration Act. If the agency seeks to limit arbitration it will be setting itself up for a collision course with the top court.This will be the same court that could ultimately decide the fate of the C.F.P.B. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has allowed a lawsuit to proceed that challenges the structure of the agency as unconstitutional.And as the C.F.P.B. moves forward, it is also running into other battles with Congress. For example, 26 of the 27 members of Florida congressional delegation, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, has sent a letter to the agency protesting proposed payday regulations because they might interfere with Floridas own less restrictive rules.Such controversy is no surprise, given the aggressiveness of the C.F.P.B., but it is making the agency a punching bag for Republican presidential candidates. Ben Carson, for one, has criticized the C.F.P.B. as the ultimate example of regulatory overreach, and a nanny state mechanism asserting its control over everyday Americans that they did not want, did not ask for and do not need.It leaves the regulator in a tenuous position. The need for some regulation of the auto dealer space seems rather clear. Consumers often are captive customers and frequently fail to compare or shop around for rates. . This may be one area where clearer disclosure could actually help.Nonetheless, the C.F.P.B. is trying to do everything at once, and that typically ends badly. Nor does it work well when one regulator says it knows best over both parties. As it tries to regulate all areas of consumer finance, the agency is increasingly clashing with Congress both Republicans and Democrats.The question now is whether the agency can continue its mission when a new president arrives in the White House, or whether it will be curbed by Congress. | Business |
A study found that the Abbott ID Now machine was less accurate when it processed short, dry swabs.Credit...Al Drago for The New York TimesPublished May 13, 2020Updated May 17, 2020A rapid coronavirus test used by the White House to screen its staff could miss infections up to 48 percent of the time, according to a study by researchers at N.Y.U. Langone Health.The study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, evaluated the accuracy of the test, Abbott ID Now, a machine about the size of a toaster oven that can yield results in five to 13 minutes.The product, which was given emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in late March, has been enthusiastically promoted by President Trump it was even used as a prop during at least one news conference. Mr. Trump has said the tests are highly accurate.A White House spokesman did not immediately respond for comment.There are 18,000 ID Now testing units in the United States, and the company says it has shipped 1.8 million of the kits required for the machine to test for the virus. The so-called point-of-care test is designed to be in doctors offices and clinics, and it is being used in drive-through testing sites around the country.In a statement, the company defended its product, saying, ID Now is an important tool that delivers information where its needed most. Abbott said that its reported rate of false negatives or missed infections was 0.02 percent and that the N.Y.U. studys results were not consistent with other studies of the test.Its unclear if the samples were tested correctly in this study, the company said. In communications with the users of the test, it is performing as expected.The authors of the N.Y.U. study said they evaluated the Abbott test because they were considering using it to test emergency department patients who were suspected of having the virus.The test can use two kinds of swabs: a long, nasopharyngeal swab that is inserted deep into the nose, where it meets the throat; and a shorter nasal swab that can take samples from the nose or throat. A swab is then taken to the testing unit for processing, where it is swirled in liquid, which is then analyzed in the machine.In April, other hospitals and researchers found that if swabs were stored in a liquid solution before being inserted into the machine, the sample could become diluted, producing negative results for those who were infected. Abbott later revised its instructions to recommend placing a dry swab directly into the machine after the sample was collected.The N.Y.U. researchers tested how the machine fared when the dry swabs were used. They took two samples each from 101 emergency department patients at N.Y.U. Langone Tisch Hospital who were suspected of having Covid-19. One sample used the longer nasopharyngeal swab and was stored in liquid. The second sample used dry nasal swabs. Each specimen was tested on both the Abbott ID Now and another machine, the Cepheid GeneXpert, which takes 45 minutes to yield a result and which has been validated by N.Y.U. as acceptably accurate.The researchers found that the Cepheid machine identified 31 of the 101 patients as positive for the virus. But even when the dry nasal swabs were used, the Abbott ID Now identified only 16 people as positive. In other words, 15 patients had the virus, but the Abbott ID Now test said they were negative.Using the dry nasal swab yielded less accurate results than when the researchers used a nasopharyngeal swab that had been stored in liquid. When those types of nasopharyngeal swabs were used, the Abbott missed infections one-third of the time, the researchers said.The White House did not respond to questions about which types of swabs it uses.The N.Y.U. researchers said that because the Abbott ID Now machine missed so many infections including in patients who had to be admitted to the hospital the technology is unacceptable in our clinical setting.The researchers said their study was limited by the small sample size, as well as the one to two hours it took to transport the samples. Although that was within the manufacturers recommendation of two hours, the researchers noted that the test was intended to be used where the patients were, not in a laboratory.Reporting contributed by Jeremy White.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.] | Health |
This week, the country was consumed with the plight of migrant children being detained and separated from their parents. Heres what happened in Washington and at the southern border and some links to other political news if you want to read further. June 22, 2018In WashingtonPresident Trump caved to political pressure and signed an executive order meant to end the separation of families at the border. But enforcing the order proved chaotic. ImageCredit...Sandy Huffaker for The New York TimesAt the beginning of the week, President Trump and his administration doubled down on its policy of separating migrant children from their parents, with the president, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, mounting an aggressive defense. But facing outcry from both political parties, Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that would end the separation of children and families, opting instead to detain them together indefinitely. A federal judge will consider the order, and could potentially refuse to grant the administration the necessary authority to detain families for more than 20 days. Hours after signing the order, the president reiterated his hard-line stance on immigration: he vowed that the administration would be just as tough during a rally on Wednesday, and chose to lament deaths caused by people who shouldnt be here during an event on Friday. As of Friday, Mr. Trump faced confusion and tense arguments among senior government officials over how to enforce the executive order. The Pentagon, for its part, is preparing to shelter as many as 20,000 migrant children on four American military bases.ImageCredit...Sandy Huffaker for The New York TimesDespite the presidents executive order, it is unclear how the more than 2,300 children already separated from their parents will be reunited with their loved ones. Many migrant mothers have no idea how to get their children back. (Heres where theyre being held.)Government officials faced intense outcry over tender age shelters for children under 12. Many are toddlers and babies and require special care. Audio from a detention center released on Monday, in which children cry out for their parents in between sobs, also offered more insight into such shelters. ImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesThe Supreme Court issued a number of decisions this week, including ruling that the government generally needs a warrant to collect troves of location data about the customers of cellphone companies. The court also decided that internet retailers can be required to collect state sales taxes, even in states where they have no physical presence. (Read more about the courts biggest decisions in 2018.)The United States became the first country to voluntarily withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, rebuked human rights watchdogs and the councils criticism of Israels treatment of Palestinians.Mr. Trump unveiled on Thursday a plan to overhaul the federal government, intended to reorganize social welfare programs in a way that would make them easier to cut, scale back or restructure. It is likely to face significant opposition in Congress from Democrats and some Republicans.Behind the plan to enforce tariffs on China is concern that Beijing is using industrial policy to dominate industries of the future. The tariffs on Chinese, European and other international goods are starting to affect industries through the American economy, even as the administration doled out its first set of exclusions to the metal tariffs.Mr. Trump will meet Queen Elizabeth II in Britain next month and is hoping to meet with Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, in the next few weeks. | Politics |
Nelly GF Refutes New Sexual Assault Claims ... I Was With Him!!! 1/25/2018 Nelly's girlfriend is standing by her man amid new sexual assault allegations, calling them "false claims" ... and says she knows because she was there to witness what really went down. It's interesting -- Shantel Jackson admits Nelly "f*cked up" and says they're working on their relationship ... but suggests there's no way he could have sexually assaulted the anonymous women now accusing him because she was "at those venues, in the dressing rooms, and on that tour bus." Jackson adds ... there are women out there dealing with real issues of sexual assault, but the movement to bring about positive change is being discredited "when people lie." As we reported ... Monique Greene accused the rapper of raping her on a tour bus in Washington, and now claims the 2 new women went through a similar ordeal as her. Check out Shantel's full statement below. | Entertainment |
Credit...Chris Large/Walt DisneyFeb. 4, 2014As the Sochi Olympics will remind the world again, there is a huge amount of human drama in the skiing, skating and snowboarding that seize the worlds attention every four years.Yet the list of films set at the Winter Olympics is short, and the quality falls off pretty quickly. Still, at the top are a few excellent films worth checking out as the opening ceremony nears.Here is an informal ranking of 10 notable Winter Olympics films.1. Miracle (2004)Everyone going into the theater knew how the story was going to end, but the director Gavin OConnor and the screenwriter Eric Guggenheim somehow made the story of the American hockey gold medal in 1980 riveting all over again.A lot of the credit goes to Kurt Russell as Coach Herb Brooks. Russell gives a tense, believable performance and manages to avoid being upstaged by his own costumes: the garish checked slacks and blazers favored by Brooks.The film includes several indelible scenes, including Brookss driving his players up and down the ice to the brink of exhaustion while repeating, Again, again, and inspiring them with a Win One for the Gipper-quality pregame speech: If we played them 10 times, they might win nine of them. But not this game. Not tonight.ImageCredit...Paramount/Getty Images2. Downhill Racer (1969)This film is worth seeing just for the spectacular skiing footage, filmed at resorts across Europe. But the story resonates as well. Robert Redford plays a cocky, womanizing downhill skier. Like many 1960s protagonists, he is almost an antihero, with an aloof attitude and contempt for teammates and his coach (Gene Hackman, on form, as usual). The film follows him for several years on the World Cup circuit, culminating in the 1968 Games in Grenoble, France. Winning is the ultimate payoff in many sports films, but we find we care as much about whether he grows as a person.ImageCredit...Buena Vista Pictures3. Cool Runnings (1993)There were so many pitfalls awaiting a film about the fish-out-of-water tale of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Games. But this movie winningly juggles humor, emotion and triumph over adversity with just the right balance, helped immeasurably by the priceless John Candy as the coach.4. The Cutting Edge (1992)It is a fairly cornball premise: an injured hockey player has to switch to pairs skating and ends up in a love/hate relationship with his snooty partner. But the movie is redeemed by quality acting by D. B. Sweeney and Moira Kelly and a bright script that has you rooting for those cute kids on and off the ice. But steer clear of The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold (same plot, but featuring the daughter of the original protagonists), The Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream (same plot, but this time, the girl is the hockey player) and The Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice (same plot, but adding a buff speedskater).5. Sonja Henie Films(notably One in a Million, 1936)The Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie won the womens title at three straight Games 1928, 1932 and 1936 and then headed to Hollywood, where she became a huge star. Just as Elvis Presley nearly always played a character who sang, Henie seemed always to wind up on a pair of skates in her films. Try One in a Million, her first major film, which includes a little bit of everything: romance, a debate over amateurism at the Olympics, a plot to kill a European premier, Adolph Menjou, Don Ameche and a performance by the Ritz Brothers.ImageCredit...Suzanne Hanover/Paramount Pictures6. Blades of Glory (2007)It should have worked: Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as an all-male pairs skating team at the World Winter Sport Games (psst, thats the Olympics). Ferrell is funny in pretty much everything, and there are a few inspired ideas, like Will Arnett and Amy Poehlers skating tribute to the forbidden love of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. But some jokes come off as tasteless, or merely fall flat. The movie has its fans, but it cannot measure up to the best of the genre.7. Miracle on Ice (1981)Wait, didnt we already have this one? Nope, there was an earlier television movie treatment of the 1980 hockey miracle, this one starring Karl Malden. Much less inspired than its successor, it still delivers a chill or two at its climax. And isnt that Steve Guttenberg as goalie Jim Craig?8. Going for the Gold: The Bill Johnson Story (1985)The brash downhill gold medalist Bill Johnson is a promising subject for a film, and Anthony Edwards is a solid actor. But this TV movie was made cheaply and quickly to cash in on Johnsons fleeting fame.9. A Brothers Promise: The Dan Jansen Story (1996) Matt Keeslar stars as the star-crossed speedskater Dan Jansen, who finally won gold in 1994 after falling in 1988 and skating poorly in 1992. As the title of this TV movie implies, Jansens victory is portrayed through the prism of the death of his sister just before the 88 Games. That sort of sentimentality is not for everyone.10. Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story (1994)Oh, no, they didnt. Oh, yes, they did.Another quickie TV movie, this one examines the ugly attack on Nancy Kerrigan before the 1994 Olympic trials and lays much of the blames for it on Tonya Hardings having a verbally abusive mother. It sometimes throws in art house gimmicks such as having the screenwriter be a character who addresses the camera directly and including interviews with actors playing key figures in the story. Playing it straight might have been a better idea.From looking at this list, it seems that Hollywood has barely scratched the surface of Winter Games films. What about a Tiger Woods-Lindsey Vonn biopic? A gripping, coming-of-age tale about a luger? And when will we finally see the great American curling film? | Sports |
Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York TimesMarch 17, 2017The first rigorous test of an expensive new drug that radically lowers cholesterol levels found that it significantly reduced the chance that a high-risk patient would have a heart attack or stroke. These were men and women who had exhausted all other options.The results of the study, which cost about $1 billion and was paid for by Amgen, the maker of the drug, were published on Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.The drug, Repatha, is called a PCSK9 inhibitor and can make cholesterol tumble to levels almost never seen naturally in adults, or even in people taking cholesterol-lowering statins. The Amgen drug and a similar one, sold by Sanofi and Regeneron, were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2015 with the hope and expectation that they would lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and not just reduce levels of LDL cholesterol, the dangerous kind.That hope has now been realized for the Amgen drug.This is like the era of the statins coming in, said Dr. Eugene Braunwald, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School who was the founding chairman of the research group that conducted the study, but was not an investigator on it. Like statins, which were introduced in the 1980s, the new class of drugs has the potential to improve the health and longevity of millions of Americans with heart disease, the nations leading killer, accounting for one in four deaths.Its a new ballgame, he said.But cost will be an issue. Statins are available as cheap generics. The new drugs have a list price of $14,523 a year. The next big challenge is financial: how to pay for it, said Dr. David Maron, director of preventive cardiology at Stanford, who also was not involved in the study.Insurance companies have been reluctant to pay for the drug without evidence it protected high-risk patients from heart attacks and strokes. Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman for the insurers organization Americas Health Insurance Plans, said insurers would consider the new data.Investors greeted the trial results with initial disappointment Friday and appeared to assume that insurers would continue to restrict access to the drug, in part because it did not show a benefit in overall death rates from cardiovascular causes. Amgens stock was down more than 6 percent Friday morning, as was the stock of Regeneron, which sells a competing drug, Praluent.Ronny Gal, an analyst for Bernstein, estimated that insurers would have to pay nearly $1 million to prevent one event in a patient and said in a note to investors that while use of the drug would expand, it would do so gradually. The tension between patient benefit and the very high price charged for it will remain, in our view, the dominant issue, he wrote.Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a Yale cardiologist, agreed that given the expense of the drug, the results raise questions about what it is worth and who should get it. But he called the study a solid outcomes trial and said we should celebrate that it showed the drug is capable of reducing risk.The problem, he said, was that expectations were running so high. There was a lot of hubris about how pushing LDL down to 30 would eliminate heart disease, he said. Of course, it did not. About 10 percent of patients taking the drug had a heart attack or stroke, or died of heart disease during the trial.The study involved 27,564 men and women. About 80 percent had already had a heart attack, and the rest had had a stroke or had pain in their legs and feet from narrowed arteries. They were taking optimal doses of inexpensive, cholesterol-lowering statins, which gave them an average LDL of 92, well within the range an LDL of under 100 that has been advised for high-risk patients.All continued with their statins, but half were assigned to inject themselves with Repatha, also known as evolocumab, and the rest were assigned a placebo. Those taking the new drug reached an average LDL of 30. A quarter of participants got to an LDL of 19 or lower.Amgen estimates that about 11 million Americans are eligible to take the drug. They include people like those in the study and people who have a genetic condition, familial hypercholesterolemia, that results in intractably high LDL levels and a grave risk of a heart attack.Amgen maintains that its drug is worth the price and that by preventing heart attacks and strokes, it will also prevent the costs associated with treating patients with worsening conditions. But the drug would need to be taken for life, and the bill for its widespread use could potentially be huge.For cardiologists, the study was a crucial test of a long-held hypothesis: the lower the level of cholesterol in the blood, the better.The results support that hypothesis. There seemed to be no floor to the benefits of cholesterol lowering, at least down to the stunningly low levels achieved in the study. The lower the LDL, the lower the risk, with no leveling off of the linear relationship.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesDr. Maron said the results were incredibly important, adding, The future looks brighter for patients with established coronary disease.But Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, tempered her enthusiasm, saying she would like to see what happens to the death rates over a longer period of time.Dr. Redberg also worried about the potential for bias because Amgen paid for the study, helped design it, collected the data and helped write the paper. The data analysis was done independently by a team of academic researchers, led by Dr. Marc S. Sabatine, chairman of a cardiovascular research group called TIMI at Brigham and Womens Hospital, a teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School.Participants in the study who used Amgens drug for 2.2 years were 20 percent less likely to die from heart disease, have a heart attack or have a stroke (816 patients taking evolocumab had one of those outcomes, compared with 1,013 taking the placebo).There was a 15 percent reduction in the combined risk of having a heart attack or stroke or dying from cardiovascular disease, being hospitalized for worsening chest pain, or having a stent inserted to open a blocked artery (1,344 evolocumab patients versus 1,563 placebo patients).The absolute reduction in the risk of a heart attack or stroke was 1.3 percent at two years, Amgen said, and 2 percent at three years.That means that 74 high-risk patients would have to be treated for two years to prevent one heart attack or stroke or death from heart disease and that at three years 50 would have to be treated. Extrapolating, the authors predicted that after five years, just 17 high-risk patients would have to be treated.Reducing the risk of a heart attack or stroke by 20 percent is a pretty big reduction, Dr. Sabatine said. He and others predicted that the risk would be reduced further as time went on, as it does in patients taking statins. He noted that that effect was already emerging, with a 25 percent reduction in the second year.The only side effect seen during the study was a small incidence of redness or itching at the injection site, with 2.1 percent of those taking the Amgen drug reporting such effects, compared with 1.6 percent of those taking the placebo injections. But patients in general did not stop using the drug for that reason.There had been concerns that the drug might increase the risk of diabetes, or affect thinking and memory, but those effects were not seen.Many high-risk patients did not wait for the results and were already taking the Amgen drug outside the trial, betting it would help.Robert Johnson, 51, of Glen Mills, Pa., had a father who died of a heart attack at age 42. He has familial hypercholesterolemia, and his LDL in 2011 was 377. Hes taking the Amgen drug and a statin. Now his LDL is about 80.I feel much safer, much better, he said. I always felt there was a ticking time bomb in my heart.Kim Chaples, 55, of Lansdale, Pa., had an LDL of 200 even though she was taking maximum doses of a statin.I was scared, she said.Two years ago, her LDL soared to 450 for no apparent reason.Dr. Daniel Soffer of the University of Pennsylvania changed her statin prescription to the maximum dose of the most powerful one, and then said, Theres a drug out there I want you to try.She began taking evolocumab along with the statin. Two months later, her LDL was 50.When she saw the lab report, she assumed there had been a mix-up. I thought, This cannot be mine, she said.Hearing the results of the new study, she said, makes me feel very good. | Health |
Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesNov. 15, 2018KABUL, Afghanistan More than 28,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers have been killed since 2015, the Afghan president revealed this week, breaking with his governments longstanding suppression of casualty totals.The admission from President Ashraf Ghani came during a particularly bad week for Afghanistans beleaguered government forces, with at least 242 security force members killed from Nov. 9 to 15, according to casualty reports compiled by The New York Times. In the Jaghori district of Ghazni Province, once regarded as the safest rural district in the country, an entire company of 50 elite commandos was wiped out, all but a handful killed or wounded.Taliban insurgents also killed dozens of police officers and soldiers in a series of attacks in Farah Province, and an additional 14 police officers in an attack on a police station in the central city of Ghazni.[Read The New York Times weekly report on Afghan casualties.]Speaking by video link on Monday from Kabul, the Afghan capital, to an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Mr. Ghani noted that some 2,000 American soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan through 2014, at the end of which responsibility for security was handed to the Afghans.Since 2015, still much regrettable, but the entire loss of American forces in Afghanistan is 58 Americans. In the same period, 28,529 of our security forces have lost their lives, Mr. Ghani said.What is the significance of the toll?To put Mr. Ghanis figure in context, it means that the current death rate is on average about 25 police officers and soldiers a day, or 175 a week more than 9,000 a year. By comparison, in 2013 there were occasional weeks in which the death toll for the government exceeded 100, but the average was far less.Even at that point, American commanders were alarmed. I view it as serious, and so do all the commanders, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the American commander in Afghanistan at the time, told The Guardian. Im not assuming that those casualties are sustainable.If the average week now is nearly twice as bad as a bad week in 2013, the losses are even less sustainable although American military leaders are not talking publicly about that now.The last time Mr. Ghanis government gave official totals was in May 2017; after that, the information was treated as classified by the United States military at the request of the Afghans.Here is how the current rate is calculated. Mr. Ghani said that 28,529 security force members had been killed since the beginning of 2015. Previously released government data confirmed 5,000 deaths in 2015 and nearly 7,000 in 2016. That leaves 16,529 over the past 23 months (Mr. Ghani did not specify how up to date his figure was, but he spoke on Monday). Assuming, conservatively, that losses have held steady in 2017 and 2018, that is an average of about 175 a week.Is it getting worse?Losses have probably not held steady, however. In the week ending Thursday, at least 242 Afghan security forces were killed, according to a New York Times compilation, even though much of the country is already experiencing winter weather, when the fighting season traditionally ends or at least greatly slows down.When the weather was still warm and the fighting season in full swing, Afghan forces suffered what might have been their worst week of fighting recorded so far, the week ending Sept. 14, when more than 400 members of the security forces were killed.Why are Afghan casualties so high?On paper, the Afghan security forces are many times more numerous than the Taliban, but there is some indication that those numbers are inflated by ghost soldiers who have left or deserted without being removed from payrolls.Even with a larger force, however, the government has been fighting a largely static war, guarding facilities, roads, bases and outposts throughout the country, while the Taliban have been free to pick their targets and concentrate their forces.The American military has been pressing the Afghans to abandon that policy and not worry so much about guarding rural areas as protecting population centers. At the same time, the government and the Americans have encouraged the training of more commando forces, who would in theory have the same mobility backed up by air power as the insurgents.But most deaths among the Afghan security forces continue to be those of police officers and soldiers at relatively isolated outposts, as military leaders struggle with local politicians who want their areas protected.Does this mean the Taliban are winning?Some people think the Taliban are indeed winning, but Mr. Ghani denied it in his speech to Johns Hopkins, as he has in other recent public remarks.Is the state at risk of collapse? he said. No. Why? Because as long as we have our commando forces and our air force, we will be able to retake. Are the losses horrific? Yes.Afghan officials also insist that they are giving as good as they get, and killing large numbers of Taliban militants. In fact, last year the government claimed to have killed 13,600 insurgents and arrested 2,000 more, nearly half the insurgents total strength, according to some estimates.Verifying that claim is difficult; only in rare cases are the authorities able to produce bodies or photographs as evidence. That is partly because the insurgents generally try to take away their dead, and unlike government casualties, they rarely end up in hospitals or morgues.What about American losses?Mr. Ghanis figure that 58 Americans have been killed since 2015 is actually on the high side. According to the special inspectors reports, 30 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan from 2015 to 2017. Nine more Americans have died so far this year, according to icasualties.org, which tracks war fatalities. (Mr. Ghanis number may have included casualties from NATO and other members of the American-led coalition.)The low number of American casualties reflects the fact that most of the fighting is being done by the Afghans. Of the 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan now, only about half are Special Operations troops involved in combat missions. By comparison, in 2011 there were more than 100,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan.Are Afghan losses sustainable?The central government in Kabul says that its forces have been able to recruit enough replacements to make up for their losses, but many individual recruiters at the provincial level have expressed doubt about that. The governments own figures this summer showed that the Afghan National Army was at 85 percent of its authorized strength.In its latest report to Congress, the special inspector noted that since then, new attrition data for the Afghan army and the police has been classified by the American military. Attrition includes losses from non-reenlistments, desertions, illnesses and from battlefield casualties. | World |
Credit Photo Illustration by Getty Images El divorcio puede ser un momento liberador o devastador. En algunos pases, el aumento en la tasa de divorcios puede interpretarse como una seal de que las mujeres estn ganando el control sobre sus finanzas y su futuro. En otros, una mujer que decide terminar con un mal matrimonio se arriesga a la ruina econmica o incluso a perder a sus hijos. No todas las mujeres tienen esta opcin. En algunas partes del mundo, el divorcio es un acto pblico y tiene profundas implicaciones sociales y polticas. Nos gustara saber sobre mujeres de todo el mundo que se han enfrentado a la decisin de divorciarse o permanecer en un matrimonio infeliz, o cuyos cnyuges hayan decidido iniciar el divorcio. Qu factores influyeron en la decisin y cules han sido las consecuencias? Podramos publicar una seleccin de respuestas. Sorry, but this form is no longer accepting submissions. | World |
Credit...Carsten Koall/Getty ImagesDec. 1, 2015LONDON German regulators said on Tuesday that the software Volkswagen used in many of its diesel vehicles constituted illegal cheating on emissions tests, deepening the companys problems.Volkswagen admitted in September that it had installed software in 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide aimed at cheating emissions tests, after an investigation by American regulators. But the company had said it was unclear whether use of the software counted as cheating under European rules.It was a turbulent day for the company. About 50 Volkswagen employees have stepped forward in an amnesty program to offer information about who was responsible for the emissions scandal, the company also said on Tuesday. This figure suggested that knowledge of the cheating may have been more widespread than previously thought.Furthermore, Volkswagens auto sales in the United States fell 25 percent in November, the company said. And Standard & Poors downgraded VWs debt to BBB+ from A-, three notches above a so-called junk rating. The ratings agency said the move reflects our view that VWs manipulation of engine emissions exposes the group to material, wide-ranging adverse credit impacts.The determination by German regulators that VW had cheated could affect a flurry of European consumer litigation, though it is unclear what fines the company might face in Europe. While European Union member states were supposed to enact penalties for cheating on automotive tests several years ago, few have done so.Using so-called defeat devices to thwart emissions tests is banned in Europe and in the United States, but European regulations are particularly porous and permit a range of loopholes. Manufacturers and their contractors conduct the tests themselves, use preproduction cars that wont be sold and are allowed to use engine settings that may not reflect real driving.Volkswagens software was designed to detect when a car was being tested in a lab, activating a special eco-friendly mode with lower emissions of nitrogen oxides. Even so, in a recent letter to the British Parliament, a top Volkswagen official said, It is still being determined whether the software in question officially constituted a defeat device in the E.U.But on Tuesday, the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, known by the initials K.B.A., said in an email that the software used in the EA189, the original diesel engine implicated in the scandal, is an illegal defeat device according to the K.B.A.s legal interpretation.Volkswagen officials did not respond to calls for comment Tuesday evening about the K.B.A. action.In an effort to bring the scandal under control, the company had set Monday, Nov. 30, as the deadline for employees to voluntarily reveal, without fear of company punishment, what they know about who might be responsible for the cheating scandal. Eric Felber, a VW spokesman, said that interviews of the whistle-blowers had begun, but he declined to provide information about what they have said.The amnesty program, which was announced in mid-November and which was a relatively unusual step in corporate investigations, was seen as a sign that Volkswagen was having trouble persuading its own employees to talk.While Volkswagen promised that it would not fire employees who came forward with information, it does not have the legal authority to protect them from criminal prosecution. Only workers who are part of collective bargaining agreements were eligible for amnesty, meaning that top managers were excluded.Matthias Mller, the carmakers chief executive, has said it will take months to come to conclusions about the decision-making process that led to the scandal. But he is expected to present an interim report on the internal investigation around the middle of this month. | Business |
Scientists used a genetic investigation technique with the aim of helping turn the tide against illicit hauls of ivory and other animal parts.Credit...Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFeb. 14, 2022Cambodian law enforcement officials received a tip from investigators in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. At the freight terminal in Phnom Penh, a cargo container supposedly carrying legally harvested wood from an African country was unloaded for inspection. The officials pried open large logs and discovered more than a ton of illegal elephant ivory and other animal parts, hidden in paraffin in the hollowed-out wood.This haul, recovered about five years ago, was just a small fraction of the 500 tons of raw ivory shipped out of Africa each year, destined for illegal markets in China and Southeast Asia.Nothing can bring back the elephants that were killed for their tusks. But a genetic investigation technique, familial searching, could help turn the tide against illicit hauls of elephant parts and other wildlife like the batch in Phnom Penh. Researchers detailed in the journal Nature Human Behaviour on Monday how they used the tool to link hundreds of individual tusks recovered from dozens of large shipments of illegal ivory, providing detailed information about how and where global crime networks operate.While the technique has been used in many recent human criminal cases, Sam Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington and an author of the paper, said this was the first time it had been applied to animals and to global environmental crime.John Brown III, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations and also an author of the paper, said Dr. Wassers teams approach had helped wildlife-trafficking investigators around the world see the connections and identify the bigger network.Analyzing a pattern over time, he added, is far more valuable than investigating a single crime on its own. Its a huge challenge to connect the dots when investigated as a one-off, Mr. Brown said. Plus, linking one smuggler to multiple ivory hauls can help prosecutors build stronger cases and lead to stiffer penalties.Each year about 50,000 African elephants are killed, threatening the future of the continents elephant populations. Poachers in African countries typically sell ivory to middlemen who in turn sell it to large export groups, the experts in moving illegal goods.These groups rely on oceangoing container ships to move their smuggled cargo. Given the huge volume of maritime trade some 11 billion tons a year inspecting contents is difficult and expensive.Dr. Wassers team set out to address this problem by adapting tools that are used in human forensics. Investigators sometimes use familial searching to find a perpetrator by identifying likely relatives in a DNA database. One of the most famous cases that used this method led to the conviction of Joseph James DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer.In the study, researchers sampled 4,320 tusks from savannah and forest elephants from 49 large shipments of illegal ivory, seized by the authorities between 2002 and 2019.Dr. Wassers lab at the University of Washington had previously developed methods for linking ivory to the genetic signatures of specific animals by modifying a tool used to extract DNA from human teeth. Once researchers access a load of confiscated ivory, they must be strategic about which tusks to sample.There could be 2,000 tusks, and we only get to sample 200 per seizure because its expensive, Dr. Wasser said. Sampling each tusk runs about $200.The team considers several factors to ensure a geographically representative sample and to choose unique tusks. Then the scientists cut a small square from the base of each tusk about two inches long and half an inch thick targeting a layer rich in DNA to be analyzed in Dr. Wassers Seattle lab.In the current study, the team found nearly 600 genetically matched tusks, most from close elephant relatives (parent, offspring, or full- or half-siblings) across the seized loads. These genetic matches allow law enforcement officials to link physical evidence from separate investigations like cellphone records and bills of lading from originating ports in order to pinpoint criminals.We are able to understand far more about how connected transnational criminal organizations are, how they work, and how they have evolved over time, Dr. Wasser said.The paper shows a repeating pattern over the 17 years of tusks from the same elephant families moving through common African ports in separate containers. Combining the genetic and physical evidence, the team mapped the pattern of the ports used in trafficking, the countries where elephants were poached and the connections between the consignments. The results suggest that the same large trafficking cartels have operated for decades and are still getting ivory from the same places.But the study also found that the cartels have moved their export operations to less conspicuous countries to try to avoid capture. Over the 17-year period, trafficking activity moved from the poaching hot spot of Tanzania to nearby Kenya, then to Uganda, a landlocked country where ivory is packed in containers and taken by road or rail to the port in Mombasa, Kenya.After 2015, export activity picked up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. We saw that the D.R.C. was the next upcoming export hot spot, Dr. Wasser said.This research helped lead to the arrest in November in Edmonds, Wash., of two Congolese wildlife smugglers. They are facing more than 20 years in prison.We have the opportunity to take out the big guys once and for all, Dr. Wasser said, adding that stopping ivory from getting into transit is the single biggest impact you can have to dismantle and disrupt the trade.Dr. Wasser is building a large DNA database of seized ivory. And its growing. Ivory confiscated in the future will be analyzed and added so that connections to earlier illicit activity can be made.What weve learned from elephants has pioneered a whole new field of investigation, he said. This approach is now being applied to trade in illegal timber as well as pangolins, the most poached mammal in the world.Leaders of the crime groups who deal in ivory and pangolins are believed to also smuggle drugs, weapons and people. In the future, the investigators using this evidence hope other animals may be saved and organized crime may be reduced as a result of the genetic legacy of poached African elephants. | science |
Credit...Paco Freire/SOPA Images, via LightRocket and Getty ImagesMay 17, 2019SAN FRANCISCO Hewlett Packard Enterprise said Friday that it would buy the supercomputer pioneer Cray, a relatively tiny financial transaction that could loom large in a quickening race between the United States and China at the highest reaches of computing.The big Silicon Valley company will pay about $1.4 billion to absorb a much smaller rival that has designed some of the most powerful systems in use and on the drawing board at national laboratories in the United States.Supercomputers have long been a mainstay of military and intelligence agencies, used for chores ranging from cracking codes to designing nuclear weapons. They have many civilian uses as well, like predicting weather, creating new drugs and simulating the effect of crashes on auto designs.Cray, based in Seattle, traces its lineage to a company founded in 1972 in Minnesota by the computer designer Seymour Cray. That company was bought in 1996 by Silicon Graphics; it was sold in 2000 to Tera Computer, which adopted the Cray name. Mr. Cray died after a car crash in 1996, having left his original company several years earlier.[Get the Bits newsletter for the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry.]HPE, one of two companies created in the 2015 breakup of Hewlett-Packard, is a major supercomputer supplier in addition to selling general-purpose server systems. In the latest ranking of supercomputer installations, Cray was fourth with 49 systems and HPE fifth with 46.What worries some officials in the United States is the rapid rise of suppliers based in China. One of them, Lenovo, which bought former IBM hardware operations, led the rankings with 140 supercomputers installed. Two others, Inspur and Sugon, were second with 84 and third with 54, respectively.The United States managed to claim back bragging rights for having the worlds most powerful system last June, with an IBM machine at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that ended a five-year reign of Chinese machines. And Cray hardware has been selected for two massive machines expected to set a new performance standard in 2021 a $500 million system at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and a $600 million system chosen by Oak Ridge.Cray, partly because of its focus on landing government contracts with big price tags, has tended to experience sharp swings in sales and profits. In the quarter that ended in March, for example, the company reported a net loss and a 10 percent revenue decline.While these recent wins validate our belief in our next-generation products as well as the wide range of opportunities they will open for us, we continue to face the challenge of scale, Peter Ungaro, Crays chief executive, said in a blog post accompanying the deal announcement.Officials in the United States have long worried about the financial stability of key technology suppliers. That was a challenge for Cray, said Horst Simon, deputy director of research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, a major user of the companys technology. Aided by HPE, Cray should be better able to compete in international markets where Chinese manufacturers have been placing many systems, he said.Antonio Neri, HPEs chief executive, said his companys sales force was five times larger than Crays. By using it to push both Crays products and HPEs existing hardware, he added, the combined company should be able to reach many more customers.Now we can bring it all together and scale it to significant levels, Mr. Neri said in an interview.Cray has 1,300 employees and conducts most of its manufacturing in Chippewa Falls, Wis. Building sensitive hardware domestically is an important factor for federal government customers, who have expressed worries about possible security threats involving systems or components produced offshore.That has been underscored by United States actions against Chinas Huawei, which sells telecommunications gear and has already been effectively blacklisted from selling in the United States. The latest Trump administration actions include prohibiting American chip makers from selling their components to Huawei. | Tech |
Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Coaches for Norways mens biathlon team fanned out around the track for the 15-kilometer mass start race Tuesday afternoon with much of the equipment you would need for a really good bank heist. They had a truck, walkie-talkies, spotting scopes and 14 people, staked out along the course. Fortunately for the financial system, these guys are not interested in cash. They want gold, and they got it when Emil Hegle Svendsen eked out a photo-finish victory, beating Martin Fourcade of France by a margin so close it took a minute or two to declare the winner.It was more than another triumph for Norway. It was a detailed answer to a question that a regular viewer of the Winter Games might eventually ask: What exactly do coaches do?It seems a mystery, because many of the events involve athletes zipping by too quickly for meaningful communication. Others are hitting jumps and then flippity-flopping through the air, which is hardly an ideal moment for pointers. And the goal of a lot of the events is to finish before anyone else. Surely, no one needs to be reminded of anything as banal as go faster.Look to the left or right of those men and women wearing the numbered bibs and there they are coaches churning their arms, shouting themselves hoarse, speaking in a sort of sign language. Or in the case of Matt Whitcomb, the womens head coach for the United States cross-country team, feeding.Thats what we call it, feeding, he said. It looks more like handing over a baby bottle filled with liquid, during the race. And that is what it is. We use full-size baby bottles with the rubber top off, Whitcomb said. Theyre easy to grab, theyve got big mouths, so you can drink from them really quickly. We tried large juice containers, but athletes tend to bobble them.Like a lot of coaches, Whitcomb thinks that his most important work is over by the start of the race. But he will give real-time performance information, like Youre in 10th place and 20 seconds out of the lead, if an athlete wants it. Not all of them do. Some want nothing except the bottle, which is often a challenge to hand over.You have to be stationary, because coaches can get a little excited, Whitcomb said. You may have 20 girls coming through in nine seconds. There end up being collisions.A certain percentage of cross-country racers want reminders about technique, which is a theme that runs through coaching in many sports. The Belgian long-track speed skating coach Bart Veldkamp said that much of what he is doing on the sideline is shouting five-word performance reminders. I might be yelling, Stay on your right leg, he said, to emphasize the importance of the right leg during turns. Or a coach might just point to his shoulder, a reminder to keep the shoulders level.He and other coaches also will point a finger down one for each second connoting a skaters lead over the winning time. The fingers are up if the skater is trailing. Veldkamp knows it is helpful because he won a gold medal in Albertville, France, in 1992 with a coach using that same method. Information like a competitors place in a race seems crucial, but why would a long-track skater need to hear anything about a right leg, or a shoulder? For the same reason Egil Kristiansen, the coach of Norways cross-country team, yells phrases like Look up or Stay on balance.You never finish learning technique, he said. You have to repeat and repeat. You have to say the same thing a thousand times.His phrases are condensed versions of a longer catechism that he has been drilling into his athletes, often for years. The drilling does not stop when the Olympics begin.Real-time tips seem plausible in cross-country; they are much harder to imagine in a sport like aerial skiing. But Emily Cook, a 34-year-old American, swears that she makes midair adjustments based on what her coach shouts, during jumps such as a full-double full. My coach is actually talking to me when Im in the air, she said. He can tell my flip rotation by watching, and hell actually say, for example, if Im flipping too fast, hell say, Stretch it down. Which means if youre watching the imagery youll see my arms go above my head to try to slow down the flip.There are a lot of sports where coaches can do nothing but sit up and hope for the best. There is no communication in bobsled, luge or skeleton, and in a lot of the Alpine skiing and snowboard events. At the other end of that spectrum is the biathlon, which may be the sport where coaches can make the most difference. Or at least appear to make the most difference.Last Thursdays 15-kilometer race put all the manpower and tools on full display. The race took place at what is called Laura Center, but on Tuesday it looked more like Ice Station Zebra. You need to ride a bus, a gondola and then a van to reach the place, and it was snowing big, wet flakes by start time. A couple of thousand fans made the trek. Two announcers took turns on the public-address system one speaking English, another speaking Russian and they seemed to be watching different events. English Guy spoke with such a flat affect that you would think he was describing a menu change at a middle school. Russian Guy was reporting the most electrifying contest in the history of the world. By the end, and for a few minutes, that did not seem far from the truth. Fourcade was chasing Svendsen for the last couple of hundred yards of the race, and made up a startling amount of space in the last eight seconds enough so that when the men finished, they had posted identical times. For what must have been an agonizing wait, the competitors and the crowd waited for the verdict of the officials. Afterward, Norways coach, Roger Grubben, stood at the shooting range and explained the teams gear and tactics. In front of him were huge spotting scopes they look like monoculars which were trained on a target. ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesWe have two coaches here who are watching the targets through the scopes, he said. We use this and radio the truck, and we tell them where the athlete hit the target. So the truck can then relay the message to another coach on another part of the course and say, A little bit to the right, a little bit to the left.Even if an athlete hits the target and knocks it over, Grubben will record which part of the target was hit. When each round of shooting is over there were four in this race he will take a white magnetized clipboard and put black magnets over a drawing of a target, recording precisely which shots went where.There were 10 coaches stationed around the course to provide information, and two at the start-finish line. We want to get a sense of how the competitor looks, Grubben said, referring in this case to Fourcade. Does he look tired?The sense was that Fourcade, indeed, looked tired. It is unlikely that had any effect on Svendsen, who seemed to be skiing as fast as he could, although he may have started celebrating one or two hundredths of a second too soon.It did not matter. The question is whether any of this coaching effort and planning mattered to the skiers. After the race, there was a chance to find out when the gold and silver medalists took questions at a news conference. Inquiring about the contribution of coaches sounds like a lame question, an invitation to clichs about how impossible any of this would be without the expertise of that amazing crew out there. But these guys do not do clichs. They apparently do not do gratitude, either.During the race, youre alone on the range, youre alone on the hills, Fourcade said.Asked what his coaches told him during the race, Fourcade replied, They said. Dont wait for the sprint to fight Emil. But guess what? He did not listen to his coaches. I listened to my body, he said. Well then! Over to you Svendsen. What were your coaches telling you?They told me to make some adjustments on the weapon, he said, still moist with snow and sweat, but preening a bit. This I forgot. I didnt make any adjustments.What else did they say?That I looked good out there, he said, rolling his eyes a little. Then his tone got a tad sarcastic. Thanks for that. | Sports |
Credit...Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times Nov. 20, 2018 . . (40 ) (37 ) . . : . . . . . . . . . .ImageCredit...Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA, via Shutterstock . . . . . . 2015 . . . . 2009 . 2012 . . : . 1.36 . . . . .ImageCredit...Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images . 33 . . : ... ... ! 4.8 2017 . . . . 2017 . . . 2017 . 100 .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. . . 4.8 . . . . . . . : .... . : . . | World |
DealBook|Bank of England Singles Out R.B.S. and Standard Chartered in Testshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/dealbook/bank-of-england-rbs-standard-chartered-stress-tests.htmlDec. 1, 2015LONDON The Bank of England singled out two of Britains largest lenders on Tuesday for failing to meet certain capital thresholds in the latest round of tests examining the banking sectors ability to withstand future global financial shocks.Despite the shortfalls, the central bank said that the two lenders, Standard Chartered and the Royal Bank of Scotland, passed the exercise, and that neither would be required to raise additional capital.Both banks announced plans this year to strengthen their capital positions, with Standard Chartered saying in November that it would raise up to $5.1 billion.The central bank exercise examined the balance sheets of seven of Britains largest banks, with this years crisis situation focused on a potential deterioration in economic conditions in Asia and the eurozone.The stress-test results suggest that the banking system is capitalized to support the real economy in a severe global stress scenario, which adversely affects the United Kingdom, the Bank of England said in a report on Tuesday. The capitalization of the system has improved further over the course of 2015.ImageCredit...Suzanne Plunkett/ReutersThe other banks tested were Barclays, HSBC, the Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society and Santander.Under the test, the lenders were required to have a common equity Tier 1 ratio to risk weighted assets of 4.5 percent. All of the lenders were able to meet that requirement, which is a measure of their ability to weather financial turbulence.The Bank of England said that R.B.S. did not meet its individualized capital guidance, but it noted that the lender had taken several actions to improve its capital position, including planning to issue additional bonds.We are pleased with the progress we have made relative to the 2014 stress test, but recognize we still have much to do to restore R.B.S. to be a strong and resilient bank for our customers, Ewen Stevenson, the chief financial officer of R.B.S., said in a news release.The central bank also found that Standard Chartered was below an important capital threshold, but it said the lender had moved to improve its balance sheet and capital position.The test was conducted on our balance sheet as at the end of 2014, William T. Winters, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, said in a news release. Since then, we have made further significant progress in strengthening our capital position. We are operating at capital levels above current minimum regulatory requirements, and have a number of additional levers at our disposal to further manage capital. | Business |
The founder of the private space company rehashed his broad vision of colonizing Mars, but he provided few clear details about when Starship would get to orbit.Credit...Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFeb. 11, 2022On an outdoor stage in South Texas between screens with polished computer animations and a real gigantic shiny rocket behind him, Elon Musk provided his latest update on his dreams to send people to settle Mars on Thursday evening.But while Mr. Musks presentation was vivid in detailing his vision of humanitys interplanetary future, he was more circumspect about the operational details of the massive SpaceX rocket Starship that is central to those and other goals. The spacecraft must overcome numerous technical and regulatory hurdles before it can fly to orbit or fulfill a contract worth billions of dollars to land NASA astronauts on the moon, let alone colonize the red planet.But on the stage on Thursday night, Mr. Musk said he thought that Starship would be capable of establishing a self-sufficient city on Mars, which he said would require taking a million tons of material there from Earth.This is the first point in the 4.5-billion-year history of Earth that it has been possible, Mr. Musk said. We need to seize the opportunity and do it as quickly as possible. I want to be frank: Civilization is feeling a little fragile these days.After an animated video of an imaginary Mars colony serviced by SpaceX vehicles, Mr. Musk shouted, Lets make it real!For several years, SpaceX has been working on Starship, which would be the most powerful rocket ever. It would also, unlike any previous rocket, be entirely reusable. That has the potential for greatly cutting the cost of sending payloads to orbit less than $10 million to take 100 tons to space and it may be possible within a few years, Mr. Musk said.Over the past few years, SpaceX has made a series of test flights of the top part of the spacecraft that is to go to orbit and then return, showing how it might belly-flop in the atmosphere and then land. One of the flights, in May 2021, was a success while the others ended in explosions. To reach orbit requires the use of an even larger booster stage, known as Super Heavy, with dozens of engines. That has not yet been tested.Mr. Musk has, however, routinely made schedule predictions that were far too optimistic. When he first talked of his Mars rocket in 2016 then an even larger design he said that the first test trip to Mars, without people aboard, would launch in 2022, and that the first people going to Mars would be leaving two years later.When Mr. Musk gave an update in September 2019, he predicted that the first orbital flight would occur within six months.But with 2022 already here, SpaceX has yet to try an orbital launch of Starship.In Thursdays talk, he expressed confidence that would occur this year, but he remained vague about details.His talk, at the site that SpaceX calls Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, near Brownsville, mixed in a variety of bawdy remarks while largely rehashing the vision he had described in the past including his arguments for why humanity needed to expand beyond Earth, as a backup plan for the survival of humankind.He also responded to critics who say space is a waste of time and money, noting how little of the federal budget is actually directed to spaceflight and exploration.ImageCredit...Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesIm just suggesting wed like maybe half a percent or something, like that would probably be OK, Mr. Musk said, referring to budgeting for space.He mixed in technical details about improvements the company has made on the next version of the engines used for Starship. So the only remaining issue that were aware of is melting the chamber, Mr. Musk said, describing the intense heat generated by the engine. Just not melting the chamber is very difficult, Mr. Musk continued. Its kind of the last remaining challenge. But I think were very close to solving that.He was hopeful that an environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration would soon give SpaceX the go-ahead to try a launch to orbit from Boca Chica. We have gotten sort of a rough indication that there may be an approval in March, Mr. Musk said.If that occurred, an orbital launch attempt could occur in a couple of months or potentially May, he said.But he also conceded that if the F.A.A. decided a more comprehensive environmental review was needed, SpaceX would shift the launches to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and that would cause a delay of six to eight months in order to modify the launching pad there for the massive Starship.In addition to the eventual trips to Mars, Starship is to be used by NASA to ferry astronauts from orbit around the moon to the surface of the moon. The company won a $2.9 billion contract for the mission, outcompeting other bidders that included Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and the defense contractor Dynetics. The moon landing is scheduled, on paper, for 2025, but it is expected to be delayed. In addition to work on Starship, the return of astronauts to the moon requires the Space Launch System, another large rocket under development by NASA that is also behind schedule.For the moon mission, SpaceX would also have to be able to refill the propellant tanks of a Starship while in orbit around Earth. Mr. Musk said a series of Starship tankers would launch every few hours taking propellant for the moon-destined rocket.Mr. Musk said he did not see a conflict between the NASA work and his bigger dreams.Were going to make a lot of ships, a lot of boosters, he said. Adding legs to land on the moon, that can be done pretty quickly.And Mr. Musk remained confident that his giant rocket would work. Even though there would most likely be bumps in the road along the way, he said, well get it done. | science |
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports BriefingBy The Associated PressFeb. 6, 2014Marin Cilic of Croatia advanced to the Zagreb Indoors quarterfinals in Croatia by beating Dusan Lajovic of Serbia, 6-4, 7-5. Cilic, the defending champion, has a 16-1 record in his last five appearances at Zagreb, winning titles in 2009, 2010 and 2013. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story | Sports |
No patients were affected, but the incident was another reminder of the risks in the increasingly common assaults on computer networks.Credit...Kristoffer Tripplaar/Sipa, via Associated PressPublished Oct. 3, 2020Updated April 27, 2021A Philadelphia company that sells software used in hundreds of clinical trials, including the crash effort to develop tests, treatments and a vaccine for the coronavirus, was hit by a ransomware attack that has slowed some of those trials over the past two weeks.The attack on eResearchTechnology, which has not previously been reported, began two weeks ago when employees discovered that they were locked out of their data by ransomware, an attack that holds victims data hostage until they pay to unlock it. ERT said clinical trial patients were never at risk, but customers said the attack forced trial researchers to track their patients with pen and paper.Among those hit were IQVIA, the contract research organization helping manage AstraZenecas Covid vaccine trial, and Bristol Myers Squibb, the drugmaker leading a consortium of companies to develop a quick test for the virus.ERT has not said how many clinical trials were affected, but its software is used in drug trials across Europe, Asia and North America. It was used in three-quarters of trials that led to drug approvals by the Food and Drug Administration last year, according to its website.On Friday, Drew Bustos, ERTs vice president of marketing, confirmed that ransomware had seized its systems on Sept. 20. As a precaution, Mr. Bustos said, the company took its systems offline that day, called in outside cybersecurity experts and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Nobody feels great about these experiences, but this has been contained, Mr. Bustos said. He added that ERT was starting to bring its systems back online on Friday and planned to bring remaining systems online over the coming days.Mr. Bustos said it was still too early to say who was behind the attack. He declined to say whether the company paid its extortionists, as so many companies hit by ransomware now do.The attack on ERT follows another major ransomware attack last weekend on Universal Health Services, a major hospital chain with more than 400 locations, many in the United States.NBC News first reported the attack on UHS on Monday, and said it appeared to be one of the largest medical cyberattacks in United States history.The incidents followed more than a thousand ransomware attacks on American cities, counties and hospitals over the past 18 months. The attacks, once treated as a nuisance, have taken on greater urgency in recent weeks as American officials worry they may interfere, directly or indirectly, with the November election.A ransomware attack in Germany resulted in the first known death from a cyberattack in recent weeks, after Russian hackers seized 30 servers at University Hospital Dsseldorf, crashing systems and forcing the hospital to turn away emergency patients. As a result, the German authorities said, a woman in a life-threatening condition was sent to a hospital 20 miles away in Wuppertal and died from treatment delays.One of ERTs clients, IQVIA, said it had been able to limit problems because it had backed up its data. Bristol Myers Squibb also said the impact of the attack had been limited, but other ERT customers had to move their clinical trials to pen and paper.In a statement, IQVIA said the attack had had limited impact on our clinical trials operations, and added, We are not aware of any confidential data or patient information, related to our clinical trial activities, that have been removed, compromised or stolen.Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, two companies working on a coronavirus vaccine, said their coronavirus vaccine trials had not been affected.ERT is not a technology provider for or otherwise involved in Pfizers Phase 1/2/3 Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials, Amy Rose, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said.Companies and research labs on the front lines of the pandemic have been repeat targets for foreign hackers over the past seven months, as countries around the world try to gauge one anothers responses and progress in addressing the virus. In May, the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security warned that Chinese government spies were actively trying to steal American clinical research through cybertheft.Health care, pharmaceutical and research sectors working on Covid-19 response should all be aware they are the prime targets of this activity and take the necessary steps to protect their systems, the agencies said.More than a dozen countries have redeployed military and intelligence hackers to glean what they can about other nations responses, according to security researchers.Even countries that previously did not stand out for their cyber prowess, like South Korea and Vietnam, have been named in recent security reports as countries that are engaged in hacking global health organizations in the pandemic. | Tech |
Technology|Connecticut is investigating Amazons practices in the e-books market.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/technology/connecticut-investigation-amazon-ebooks-antitrust.htmlCredit...Michael Nelson/European Pressphoto AgencyJan. 13, 2021Connecticuts top law enforcement official said on Wednesday that he was conducting an antitrust investigation into how Amazon runs its e-books business.William Tong, Connecticuts attorney general, said in a statement that the state has an active and ongoing antitrust investigation into Amazon regarding potentially anticompetitive terms in the distribution agreements the company has for electronic books with some publishers.The investigation is the latest antitrust inquiry into Amazon to be publicly revealed. Officials in California and Washington have scrutinized how the company treats the independent merchants who use its marketplace. The Federal Trade Commission also has its own inquiry into the company, which critics say has grown into a dominant online retailer by crushing smaller competitors.A spokesman for Amazon declined to comment. The inquiry was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.Amazon got its start selling books in the 1990s. It introduced its Kindle e-books reader in 2007. The business quickly attracted regulatory attention. In 2012, the Department of Justice sued Apple, saying it had conspired with major publishers to raise the price of e-books beyond the $9.99 that Amazon charged.Connecticut was among the states that filed their own lawsuit against Apple. Mr. Tong, a Democrat, said in his statement that his office continues to aggressively monitor this market to protect fair competition for consumers, authors and other e-book retailers. | Tech |
Kim & Kanye Baby Girl's Name Revealed ... Say Hello to Chicago West!!! 1/19/2018 Kim Kardashian and Kanye West chose a very unique name for baby #3 -- Chicago ... Kanye's hometown ... but it's a good bet she'll be known by a certain nickname. Kim announced the name on her app by simply posting "Chicago West." As we reported ... Kim and Kanye had their third child via surrogate, who gave birth Monday to a healthy girl weighing 7 lbs. 6 oz. Kim was in the delivery room during the birth, and we're told she was the first person to have skin-to-skin contact with the baby. As you know, they already have 4-year-old North, and 2-year-old Saint. We're told the kids have been referring to her by the nickname Chi (pronounced Shy). Welcome to the family, Chicago!!! | Entertainment |
on techPowerful people must now anticipate how their words might be twisted into weapons in the online information war.VideoCreditCredit...By Brenna MurphyPublished Oct. 8, 2020Updated Oct. 13, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.We know that false information spreads online like the worlds worst game of telephone.But we dont talk enough about the role of people in charge who say too little or the wrong things at important moments, creating conditions for misinformation to flourish.Think about the recent rumors and outrage that flew around President Trumps health, the wildfires in Oregon and the message of a Netflix film. Ill-considered communication from those at the top including the president himself made cycles of bogus information and misplaced anger even worse.Every word that powerful people say matters. It may not be fair, but they must now anticipate how their words might be twisted intentionally or not into weapons in the online information war.For one example, look at Oregon, where a tweet and other poorly communicated information from the police contributed to bogus rumors that left-wing activists deliberately started wildfires.We ask you to demonstrate peacefully and without the use of fire, the police in Portland posted. There was no evidence that protesters were setting fires, but people seized on this and other odd or ambiguous official information as evidence that left-wing provocateurs at the Portland protests were responsible for wildfires.Local officials, including the Chamber of Commerce in Sioux Falls, S.D., also spread false rumors over the summer that left-wing protesters were headed to their town to start trouble.None of this was true, but truth doesnt matter in internet information soup. Wrong or ill-considered official statements can confirm what people already suspected.The same thing happened when Netflix unleashed a clueless marketing campaign to promote a film called Cuties. My colleague described the movie as a nuanced exploration of gender and race and how society dangerously blurs the lines between girl empowerment and sexual exploitation. But Netflixs promotional materials, including an image of tween girls posing in dance clothes, gave the false impression that the movie sexualized children.In short, Netflixs communication projected the idea that its own movie was the opposite of what it really was. Some politicians, parents and a Texas prosecutor called the film child pornography and pushed Netflix to ban it. Outcry about the movie has been amplified by supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the false idea that top Democrats and celebrities are behind a global child-trafficking ring.I want to be clear: There are always people who twist information to their own ends. People might have misplaced blame for the wildfires or dumbed down the complexities of Cuties even if official communications had been perfectly clear from the jump. But by not choosing their words and images carefully, the people in charge provided fuel for misinformation.We see over and over again that unclear, wrong or not enough information from the beginning can be hard to overcome. Conspiracy theories about President Trumps coronavirus diagnosis and health condition in the last week were fueled by people close to the president misspeaking or obfuscating what was happening. And the White Houses history of spreading false information contributed to a lack of trust in the official line. (My colleague Kevin Roose also wrote about this fueling wild speculation about the presidents health.)Nature abhors a vacuum, and the internet turns a vacuum into conspiracies. All of us have a role to play in not contributing to misinformation, but experts and people in positions of power shoulder even more responsibility for not creating the conditions for bogus information to go wild.If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here.Facebook is afraid. Thats good.Facebook is expanding a blackout period for political and issue-related ads in the United States for days or longer after Election Day a period in which officials might still be counting votes in the presidential election and other contests.I want to make two points. First, Facebooks ads blackout might be smart or it might be ineffectual, but it is definitely small fish.Look at your Facebook feed. A lot of the overheated and manipulative garbage you see did not pay to be there. Those posts are there because they make people angry or happy, and Facebooks computer systems circulate the stuff that generates an emotional reaction.Yes, its extra galling if Facebook makes money directly from lies and manipulations. Thats a big reason some civil rights groups and company employees have called on internet companies to take a hard line against political ads or to ban them. But I suspect that most of the stuff that might rile people up if votes are still being counted after Election Day will be unpaid posts, including from President Trump not ads.Second, I am going to say something nice about Facebook. With the companys ban on groups or pages that identify with the QAnon conspiracy announced this week and its gradually broadening crackdown on attempted voter intimidation and premature declarations of election victory, Facebook is showing courage in its convictions.This is different. Too often the company myopically fixates on technical rules, not principles, and caves to its self-interest.Facebook is taking a different tack in part because it doesnt want to be blamed as the company was four years ago if there is confusion or chaos around the election. I love that Facebook is a little bit afraid.Its healthy for the company to ask itself: What if things go wrong? Thats something Facebook has often failed to do with disastrous consequences.Before we go We are all conspiracists now: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, writes that conspiracy theories are a symptom of the broader erosion of authority in the internet age. How easily the conspiracists creed that the official narrative is always a lie, and that the truth is out there for those willing to dig for it themselves has penetrated our national psyche, Kevin writes.LinkedIn contains multitudes: During the pandemic and protests against racial injustice, the typically blah workplace social network has become a thriving outlet for Black professionals to express both fun stuff and grief about racial discrimination and alienation on the job, Ashanti M. Martin wrote for The Times. Some LinkedIn users said the company didnt know how to handle it.Raining cash on internet video stars: A small app called Triller is trying to steal stars from TikTok by paying them for just about anything, including a helicopter for a video shoot and a leased Rolls-Royce with a TRILLER vanity plate, my colleague Taylor Lorenz writes. My question: How long can Triller keep spending like this?Hugs to thisA sweet dog listening to a sweet tune. Its just bliss.We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com. If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here. | Tech |
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports Briefing | SoccerBy The Associated PressMarch 31, 2010Theo Walcott, a second-half substitute, scored in the 69th minute and Cesc Fabregas converted a penalty kick in the 85th as Arsenal rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie defending champion Barcelona, 2-2, in the first leg of the European Champions League quarterfinals. But Fabregas, a midfielder from Spain, may have broken a leg on the kick, which would sideline him for the World Cup. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story | Sports |
June 1, 2017Fred A. Kummerow, a German-born biochemist and lifelong contrarian whose nearly 50 years of advocacy led to a federal government ban on the use of trans-fatty acids in processed foods, a ruling that could prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths a year, died on Wednesday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 102.His family announced his death. He had been a longtime professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.Artificial trans fats derived from the hydrogen-treated oils used to give margarine its easy-to-spread texture and prolong the shelf life of crackers, cookies, icing and hundreds of other staples in the American diet were ruled unsafe by the Food and Drug Administration partly in response to a lawsuit that Professor Kummerow filed against the agency in 2013, two months shy of his 99th birthday. The ban, announced in 2015, goes into effect in 2018. He had been one of the first scientists to suggest a link between processed foods and heart disease. In the 1950s, while studying lipids at the university, he analyzed diseased arteries from about two dozen people who had died of heart attacks and discovered that the vessels were filled with trans fats.He followed up with a study involving pigs that were given a diet heavy in such artificial fats. He found high levels of artery-clogging plaque in them.Professor Kummerow published his findings about the role of trans fats in 1957, a time when the prevailing view held that saturated fats like those found in butter and cream were the big culprit in atherosclerosis. His report, which appeared in the journal Science, was not merely criticized. It was dismissed. Detractors pointed out that his research had been conducted on animals, which sometimes react very differently than humans do.For many years, he was a lonely voice in the wilderness, said Michael Jacobson, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy organization based in Washington that in the 1980s began working to require the use of safer oils in food products.Interviewed for this obituary in 2016, Professor Kummerow said that in the 1960s and 70s the processed food industry, enjoying a cozy relationship with scientists, played a large role in keeping trans fats in peoples diets.Other scientists were more interested in what the industry was thinking than what I was thinking, he said. He was often heckled by industry representatives when he presented his research at scientific conferences, he said.But he gradually won over key members of the scientific establishment. Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the T. H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, credited Professor Kummerow with inspiring him to include trans fats for analysis as part of Harvards highly influential Nurses Health Study, the results of which were published in 1993.One finding showed a direct link between the consumption of foods containing trans fats and heart disease in women. It was a turning point in scientific and medical thinking about trans fats.ImageCredit...Sally Ryan for The New York TimesYet it took another two decades for Professor Kummerows research to be translated into regulatory action. The American Heart Association began warning about trans fats around 2004. Finally, in 2015 58 years after Professor Kummerow published his findings the F.D.A. ruled that trans fats were not considered safe and could no longer be added to food after June 18, 2018, unless a manufacturer could present convincing scientific evidence that a particular use was safe.Dr. Willett estimated that the elimination of industrial trans fats will prevent 90,000 premature deaths a year.Fred August Kummerow was born on Oct. 4, 1914, in Berlin into a poor family. His father, a laborer, moved the family to the United States in 1923 to join relatives in Milwaukee, where he found a job at a cement block factory. Professor Kummerow said he would likely have been destined for similar work had he not received a chemistry set from his uncle on his 12th birthday. It opened the world of science to me, he said.He received a chemistry degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1939 and continued there for graduate studies. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1943.During and immediately after World War II, while conducting research into lipids at Kansas State University, Professor Kummerow was awarded contracts by the Army Quartermaster Corps to help eliminate rancidity in frozen turkeys and chickens sent to troops overseas. A simple change in the poultry feed solved the problem, making possible the sale of frozen poultry in grocery stores. Professor Kummerow moved his lipid research program to the University of Illinois in 1950 and remained there for the rest of his career.Funding for the study of heart disease increased significantly after President Dwight D. Eisenhower had a severe heart attack in 1955. Grants from the National Institutes of Health enabled Professor Kummerow to conduct the research that led to the discovery of trans fats in diseased arteries.He traveled frequently behind the Iron Curtain, speaking with scientists in the Soviet Union, as well as in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany. After the meetings, he sent reports to the State Department.Professor Kummerow began his campaign to halt the use of trans fats when he found that food manufacturers had continued to rely heavily on trans fats even after his findings were corroborated by other scientists. In 2009 he filed a petition with the F.D.A. to ban the use of trans fats but, he said, received no response. He then sued the agency in 2013.He is survived by a son, Max; two daughters, Jean and Kay; three grandchildren; and a great-grandson. His wife of 70 years, Amy, died of Parkinsons disease at 94.Dr. Willett, of Harvard, said trans fats had also been implicated in diabetes. In 2001, he co-wrote a paper showing a diet low in trans fats could help prevent Type 2 diabetes in women. Heart disease was the tip of the iceberg, he said.Professor Kummerow was one of the first scientists to suggest that the saturated fat in butter, cheese and meats did not contribute to the clogging of arteries and was in fact beneficial in moderate amounts. This hypothesis, controversial at the time, was proved correct.His own diet, he said, included red meat, whole milk and eggs scrambled in butter. | science |
In the Ocean, Its Snowing MicroplasticsTiny bits of plastic have infiltrated the deep seas main food source and could alter the oceans role in one of Earths ancient cooling processes, scientists say.Credit...April 3, 2022As long as there has been marine life, there has been marine snow a ceaseless drizzle of death and waste sinking from the surface into the depths of the sea.The snow begins as motes, which aggregate into dense, flocculent flakes that gradually sink and drift past the mouths (and mouth-like apparatuses) of scavengers farther down. But even marine snow that is devoured will most likely be snowfall once more; a squids guts are just a rest stop on this long passage to the deep.Although the term may suggest wintry whites, marine snow is mostly brownish or grayish, comprising mostly dead things. For eons, the debris has contained the same things flecks from plant and animal carcasses, feces, mucus, dust, microbes, viruses and transported the oceans carbon to be stored on the seafloor. Increasingly, however, marine snowfall is being infiltrated by microplastics: fibers and fragments of polyamide, polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate. And this fauxfall appears to be altering our planets ancient cooling process.Every year, tens of millions of tons of plastic enter Earths oceans. Scientists initially assumed that the material was destined to float in garbage patches and gyres, but surface surveys have accounted for only about one percent of the oceans estimated plastic. A recent model found that 99.8 percent of plastic that entered the ocean since 1950 had sunk below the first few hundred feet of the ocean. Scientists have found 10,000 times more microplastics on the seafloor than in contaminated surface waters.Marine snow, one of the primary pathways connecting the surface and the deep, appears to be helping the plastics sink. And scientists have only begun to untangle how these materials interfere with deep-sea food webs and the oceans natural carbon cycles.Its not just that marine snow transports plastics or aggregates with plastic, Luisa Galgani, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University, said. Its that they can help each other get to the deep ocean.Marine snow-makingImageCredit...Agung Parameswara/Getty ImagesThe sunlit surface of the sea blooms with phytoplankton, zooplankton, algae, bacteria and other minuscule life, all feeding on sunbeams or one another. As these microbes metabolize, some produce polysaccharides that can form a sticky gel that attracts the lifeless bodies of tiny organisms, small shreds of larger carcasses, shells from foraminifera and pteropods, sand and microplastics, which stick together to form larger flakes. They are the glue that keeps together all the components of marine snow, Dr. Galgani said.Marine snowflakes fall at different rates. Smaller ones have a more languid descent as slow as a meter a day, said Anela Choy, a biological oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Bigger particles, such as dense fecal pellets, can sink quicker. It just skyrockets to the bottom of the ocean, said Tracy Mincer, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University.Plastic in the ocean is constantly being degraded; even something as big and buoyant as a milk jug will eventually shed and splinter into microplastics. These plastics develop biofilms of distinct microbial communities the plastisphere, said Linda Amaral-Zettler, a scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, who coined the term. We sort of think about plastic as being inert, Dr. Amaral-Zettler said. Once it enters the environment, its rapidly colonized by microbes.ImageCredit...Morgan Trimble/AlamyMicroplastics can host so many microbial hitchhikers that they counteract the natural buoyancy of the plastic, causing their raft to sink. But if the biofilms then degrade on the way down, the plastic could float back up, potentially leading to a yo-yoing purgatory of microplastics in the water column. Marine snow is anything but stable; as flakes free-fall into the abyss, they are constantly congealing and falling apart, rent by waves or predators.Its not as simple as: Everythings falling all the time, said Adam Porter, a marine ecologist at the University of Exeter in England. Its a black box in the middle of the ocean, because we cant stay down there long enough to work out whats going on.To explore how marine snow and plastics are distributed in the water column, Dr. Mincer has begun to sample deeper waters with a dishwasher-size pump full of filters that dangles on a wire from a research boat. The filters are arranged from big mesh to small to filter out fish and plankton. Running these pumps for 10 hours at a stretch has revealed nylon fibers and other microplastics distributed throughout the water column below the South Atlantic subtropical gyre.But even with a research boat and its expensive and unwieldy equipment, an individual piece of marine snow is not easily retrieved from deep water in the actual ocean. The pumps often disturb the snow and scatter fecal pellets. And the flakes alone offer little insight into how fast some snows are sinking, which is vital to understanding how long the plastics linger, yo-yo or sink in the water column before settling on the seafloor.Is it decades? Dr. Mincer asked. Is it hundreds of years? Then we can understand what were in here for, and what kind of problem this really is.Instant marine snowImageCredit...Luisa Galgani, Chiara Esposito, Paraskevi PittaTo answer these questions, and work within a budget, some scientists have made and manipulated their own marine snow in the lab.In Exeter, Dr. Porter collected buckets of seawater from a nearby estuary and loaded the water into continuously rolling bottles. He then sprinkled in microplastics, including polyethylene beads and polypropylene fibers. The constant churning, and a squirt of sticky hyaluronic acid, encouraged particles to collide and stick together into snow.We obviously dont have 300 meters of a tube to make it sink, Dr. Porter said. By rolling it, what youre doing is youre creating a never-ending water column for the particles to fall through.After the bottles rolled for three days, he pipetted out the snow and analyzed the number of microplastics in each flake. His team found that every type of microplastic they tested aggregated into marine snow, and that microplastics such as polypropylene and polyethylene normally too buoyant to sink on their own readily sank once incorporated into marine snow. And all the marine snow contaminated with microplastics sank significantly faster than the natural marine snow.ImageCredit...Adam PorterDr. Porter suggested that this potential change of the speed of the snow could have vast implications for how the ocean captures and stores carbon: Faster snowfalls could store more microplastics in the deep ocean, whereas slower snowfalls could make the plastic-laden particles more available to predators, potentially starving food webs deeper down. The plastics are a diet pill for these animals, said Karin Kvale, a carbon cycle scientist at GNS Science in New Zealand.In experiments in Crete, with funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 research program, Dr. Galgani has tried mimicking marine snow on a larger scale. She dropped six mesocosms huge bags that each contained nearly 800 gallons of seawater and recreated natural water movement in a large pool. Under these conditions, marine snow formed. In the field, you mostly make observations, Dr. Galgani said. You have so little space and a limited system. In the mesocosm, you are manipulating a natural system.Dr. Galgani mixed microplastics into three mesocosms in an attempt to recreate a sea and maybe a future ocean where you can have a high concentration of plastic, she said. The mesocosms laden with microplastics produced not just more marine snow but also more organic carbon, as the plastics offered more surfaces for microbes to colonize. All this could seed the deep ocean with even more carbon and alter the oceans biological pump, which helps regulate the climate.Of course, its a very, very big picture, Dr. Galgani said. But we have some signals that it can have an effect. Of course, it depends on how much plastic there is.A plastic feastImageCredit...Steve Downer/Science SourceTo understand how microplastics might travel through deep-sea food webs, some scientists have turned to creatures for clues.Every 24 hours, many species of marine organism embark on a synchronized migration up and down in the water column. They do the equivalent of a marathon every day and night, Dr. Choy said. Guilherme V.B. Ferreira, a researcher at the Rural Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil, wondered: Is it possible they are transporting the plastics up and down?Dr. Ferreira and Anne Justino, a doctoral student at the same university, collected vampire squids and midwater squids from a patch of the tropical Atlantic. They found a plethora of plastics in both species: mostly fibers, but also fragments and beads.This made sense for midwater squids, which migrate toward the surface at night to feed on fish and copepods that eat microplastics directly. But vampire squids, which live in deeper waters with fewer microplastics, had even higher levels of plastic, as well as foam, in their stomachs. The researchers hypothesize that the vampire squids primary diet of marine snow, especially meatier fecal pellets, may be funneling plastics into their bellies.Its very concerning, Ms. Justino said. Dr. Ferreira said: They are one of the most vulnerable species for this anthropogenic influence.Ms. Justino has excavated fibers and beads from the digestive tracts of lanternfish, hatchetfish and other fish that migrate up and down in the mesopelagic, 650 to 3,300 feet down. Some microbial communities that settle on microplastics can bioluminesce, drawing in fish like a lure, said Dr. Mincer.In the Monterey Bay Canyon, Dr. Choy wanted to understand if certain species of filter feeders were ingesting microplastics and transporting them into food webs in deeper water. Marine snow is one of the major things that connects food webs across the ocean, she said.ImageCredit...NOAA Ocean ExplorationDr. Choy zeroed in on the giant larvacean Bathochordaeus stygius. The larvacean resembles a tiny tadpole and lives inside a palatial bubble of mucus that can reach up to a meter long. Its worse than the grossest booger youve ever seen, Dr. Choy said. When their snot-houses become clogged from feeding, the larvaceans move out and the heavy bubbles sink. Dr. Choy found that these palaces of mucus are crowded with microplastics, which are funneled to the deep along with all their carbon.Giant larvaceans are found across the worlds oceans, but Dr. Choy emphasized that her work was focused on the Monterey Bay Canyon, which belongs to a network of marine protected areas and is not representative of other, more polluted seas. Its one deep bay on one coast of one country, Dr. Choy said. Scale up and think about how vast the ocean is, especially the deep water.Individual flakes of marine snow are small, but they add up. A model created by Dr. Kvale estimated that in 2010, the worlds oceans produced 340 quadrillion aggregates of marine snow, which could transport as many as 463,000 tons of microplastics to the seafloor each year.Scientists are still exploring exactly how this plastic snow is sinking, but they do know for sure, Dr. Porter said, that everything eventually sinks in the ocean. Vampire squids will live and die and eventually become marine snow. But the microplastics that pass through them will remain, eventually settling on the seafloor in a stratigraphic layer that will mark our time on the planet long after humans are gone. | science |
Science|Are Diamonds Really Forever?https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/science/diamonds.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsJune 12, 2017Q. Will a diamond look the same in a billion years? What happens to these giant carbon molecules over very long periods of time?A. It depends on where the diamond spends those years, said George E. Harlow, a gem curator at the American Museum of Natural History, who is also an adjunct senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.Diamonds, which form eight-sided crystals called octahedrons, can be billions of years old, Dr. Harlow said. They are datable by minute inclusions of other minerals, retained inside them since they were formed deep in the Earth.Lots of ancient diamonds that have been down there for close to two billion years will still look like octahedrons, Dr. Harlow said.But the Earth is dynamic, moving all the time and most diamonds show the effects of being squooshed to some extent, he said. They are not inert, but may deform and crystallize again.As the crystals are squeezed and heated, the molecular bonds are weakened, with the edges and flat surfaces of the crystals being particularly vulnerable, Dr. Harlow explained. Many diamonds end up with rounded shapes rather than being sharply defined.As the internal planes of the crystal slide past one another, tiny cavities may be created because atoms are missing from the crystal structure. It is these cavities that are believed to create a brown or pink color, Dr. Harlow said. As for very rare red diamonds, the theory is that they are the result of cavities of a very uniform size.If a diamond gets raised to a shallower level or heated a lot, he said, it may wind up being in the stability field of graphite, the more common form of carbon. We know this because there are plenty of documented cases of graphite with the shape of a diamond.Diamonds that reach the surface are often blasted there very quickly, at speeds of 30 to 50 miles per hour by volcanic elevators called kimberlites, Dr. Harlow said. If these elevators are too slow, however, that leaves diamonds vulnerable to being dissolved in the fluid they are brought up in. The sharp edges go first.Once they are near Earths surface, it is very difficult to get rid of diamonds, Dr. Harlow said. They are very stable at low temperatures, and the amount of energy required to break their bonds and change them is not available, so they would essentially stick around in the same form forever. question@nytimes.com | science |
MatterCredit...Terry KreegerJune 26, 2017Mark D. Zabel wants to set some fires.Dr. Zabel and his colleagues are developing plans to burn plots of National Park Service land in Arkansas and Colorado. If the experiments turn out as the researchers hope, they will spare some elk and deer a gruesome death.Across a growing swath of North America, these animals are dying from a mysterious disorder called chronic wasting disease. Its caused not by a virus or bacterium, but a deformed protein called a prion.When ingested, prions force normal proteins in the animals body to become deformed as well. Over the course of months, prions can gradually wreck the animals nervous system, ultimately killing it.This year is the 50th anniversary of the discovery of chronic wasting disease. In the September issue of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, Dr. Zabel, an immunologist at Colorado State University, and his former graduate student Aimee Ortega survey what scientists have learned about the slow-spreading plague.It makes for ominous reading. Theres a lot that we still dont know and dont understand about the disease, Dr. Zabel said in an interview.Once chronic wasting disease gets a foothold, it can spread relentlessly. Its now documented in 24 states, and continues to expand into new ranges. In some herds, as many as half of the animals carry prions.Direct contact, it turns out, may not be the only way in which prions are transmitted. Sick animals and cadavers spread prions across the landscape. Plants and soil may remain coated with deformed proteins for years, perhaps even decades.Dr. Zabel now suspects that the only way to rid the land of them is to set controlled fires.It was at Colorado State University, in 1967, that wildlife biologists first observed some captive mule deer developing a strange new disease. The animals lost weight and awareness of their surroundings. The symptoms slowly worsened until the mule deer died.Theyre not hard to pick out at the end stage, Dr. Zabel said. They have a vacant stare, they have a stumbling gait, their heads are drooping, their ears are down, you can see thick saliva dripping from their mouths. Its like a true zombie disease.It wasnt until much later that researchers discovered that chronic wasting disease belongs to a small group of conditions caused by prions. But other prion diseases are known only to affect livestock or people, not wildlife.Scrapie, for example, is a deadly disease that afflicts sheep. A number of studies indicated that bone meal contaminated with scrapie prions passed the prions to cows. The cows developed a prion disease of their own, called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, nicknamed mad cow disease.In rare cases, people who ate beef from the sick cows developed prions in their own brains. As of 2016, 231 people had died from the condition worldwide.Scientists long suspected that deer and related species developed chronic wasting disease by picking up scrapie from sheep flocks kept at Colorado State University. The disease then turned up in other states and Canada as animals were shipped to private game farms.But Dr. Zabel now believes that the birth of chronic wasting disease may be more complicated.Prions are misfolded versions of a naturally occurring molecule called cellular prion protein. Experiments carried out in Dr. Zabels lab suggest that cellular prion protein in deer and related species may be unusually prone to misfolding.We were able to generate a new prion, Dr. Zabel said. Maybe this is a spontaneous disease.That result might explain a startling finding last year: researchers came across a prion-riddled reindeer in Norway, the first time chronic wasting disease had been found in Europe. Since then, two more have been found, and Norway in April approved the culling of over 2,000 reindeer to stop the spread.Dr. Zabel and other scientists are trying to figure out how chronic wasting disease has become so successful. One factor is how the prions spread through an animals body. They arent limited to the brain in deer, elk or moose. The prions also sweep through lymph nodes and the spleen.As a result, Dr. Zabel and his colleagues have found, infected animals can release huge numbers of prions. We found it in urine, in saliva and in feces, he said.Other members of a herd can get sick by making direct contact with a shedding animal. But the way the disease is spreading across North America suggests that the prions is are also using other routes to get to new hosts.If deer got sick only by direct contact, for example, you would expect the outbreak to be most severe in the Midwest, where populations are densest. But some of the worst outbreaks are in the Rocky Mountains, where there are fewer animals.Mathematical models suggest that animals are getting sick from prions in the environment. In additional to the prions shed while a sick animal is alive, its cadaver can release another bounty of deformed proteins onto the ground.Some studies suggest that these prions can end up on grass and other plants, which are then eaten by healthy animals. Some prions in the soil may bind to minerals. Its possible that animals may sometimes pick them up if they eat bits of dirt.Compared with viruses or bacteria, prions are impressively rugged. In a forest or on a prairie, a prion may be able to hang around for years, still able to infect a new animal. As herds migrate along the same route year after year, the supply of prions in the environment may keep increasing.Scientists have also found genes that give some animals resistance to prions. Its hoped that resistant animals will reproduce enough to maintain the populations of herds.Still, Dr. Zabel worries, the supply of prions in the environment someday might push many herds past a tipping point. That could result in herd decimation and population declines, he said.Dr. Zabel is also concerned about the potential threat chronic wasting disease might someday pose to humans.So far, there have not been any documented cases in which people got sick from eating meat from sick animals. That doesnt mean it wont happen, Dr. Zabel warned.His own experiments showing how easily cellular prion proteins can fold into a dangerous shape suggest that prions may have a potential to become more harmful. We may just be in the early stages, he said.In their review, Dr. Zabel and Ms. Ortega write that researchers have found a number of ways to fight prions. Researchers have found they can rid surgical instruments of prions in an ozone bath, for example.But such treatments are impractical in the wild.Instead, Dr. Zabel and his colleagues hope to test controlled burns. While the fires wont be hot enough to destroy the prions, they might kill off enough prion-laden plants to lower the odds of healthy animals getting sick.The researchers will test this hypothesis by seeing if the prevalence of chronic wasting disease drops after they set their fires.Dr. Zabel said he has encountered some stiff skepticism about his plan. But he still thinks it is the only plausible way to put a brake on the prions.If you eliminate the plants that have prions on the surface, that would be a huge step forward, he said. I really dont think its that crazy. | science |
Marlon Wayans To Blake Griffin: Step Your Kiss Game Up! 1/30/2018 TMZSports.com Blake Griffin shouldn't be mad at Lolo Jones for outing him as a bad kisser -- he should use it as a teachable moment and IMPROVE his lip game ... so says Marlon Wayans. First off, Marlon was SHOCKED Lolo would do Blake dirty in public when we told him what Lolo said about BG on social media. But after he processed the news, Marlon gives a pretty hilarious message to the ex-Clipper star. "Blake, brah ... gotta get your kiss game on!" In other words, "She woulda traded you to Detroit, basically." Too soon?! | Entertainment |
Credit...Neil Hall/ReutersDec. 21, 2015LONDON A British appeals court on Monday declined to overturn the conviction of Tom Hayes, a former trader at Citigroup and UBS, for conspiring to manipulate a global benchmark interest rate known as Libor, but it did reduce Mr. Hayess sentence.At a hearing on Monday, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal reduced Mr. Hayess sentence to 11 years in prison, down from 14 years, his original sentence following his conviction in August.Mr. Hayes was the first person to go to trial in Britain on criminal charges related to manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. His case was seen as a bellwether for British authorities, who have been criticized in the United States for not being as aggressive as the Justice Department when it comes to pursuing financial crime.The culpability was high and the harm serious. A deterrent element was plainly required, the court said in its ruling.However, we are of the view that taking into account all the circumstances (in particular his age, his non-managerial position in the two banks, and his mild Aspergers condition), that the overall sentence was longer than was necessary to punish the appellant and to deter others.A lawyer for Mr. Hayes did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.The conviction of Mr. Hayes came more than three years after a conspiracy among traders to manipulate Libor first came to light.The ensuing scandal has led to billions of dollars in fines and has rocked the reputations of some of the worlds biggest banks, including Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Deutsche Bank.This court must make clear to all in the financial and other markets in the City of London that conduct of this type, involving fraudulent manipulation of the markets, will result in severe sentences of considerable length which, depending on the circumstances, may be significantly greater than the present total sentence, the appeals court said in its ruling.The Serious Fraud Office, a British agency that investigates fraud, had accused Mr. Hayes of being a ringleader among more than a dozen traders in what authorities said was a brazen scheme to manipulate Libor, which helps determine the borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in loans. He was accused of misconduct engaged in from 2006 to 2010.Mr. Hayess lawyers had argued that he was open about his conduct and did not believe at the time that he was acting dishonestly.To set Libor and other rates, banks submit the rates at which they would be prepared to lend money to one another, on an unsecured basis, in various currencies and at varying maturities.The evidence against Mr. Hayes included 82 hours of voluntary testimony that prosecutors said he provided to the Serious Fraud Office over five months. The authorities said he admitted to rigging rates and provided testimony against many former friends and colleagues, including his half brother.Mr. Hayes testified during the trial that he decided to cooperate with British authorities because he feared being extradited to the United States, where he is also facing criminal charges, and wanted to remain close to his wife and child.After providing the voluntary testimony to British authorities, Mr. Hayes stopped cooperating with prosecutors in 2013 and chose to plead not guilty to the charges in Britain.Mr. Hayes worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank of Canada before joining UBS in 2006, where he worked in Tokyo trading yen derivatives. In 2009, Citigroup lured him away with a multimillion-dollar deal, but he was terminated by the bank the next year.His lawyers argued that Mr. Hayes did not believe his conduct was dishonest, saying that he made no effort to hide his actions. In his voluntary testimony, Mr. Hayes told the authorities that the practice was widespread and blatant in the industry. | Business |
Credit...Jared Soares for The New York TimesGoogle, Amazon and Qualcomm finance a George Mason University institute teaching a hands-off approach to antitrust regulators and judges.George Mason University in Arlington, Va.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York TimesJuly 24, 2020HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. A year ago, antitrust officials from Australia, Brazil, China, Japan and eight other countries enjoyed $110-a-plate steak dinners and unlimited pours from $70 bottles of wine at a beachfront hotel surrounded by panoramic views of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.The opulent meal was the culmination of a weeklong conference in scenic Huntington Beach, Calif., for 30 foreign government officials who enforce competition laws. The trip was organized and mostly paid for by the Global Antitrust Institute, a part of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.Regulators spent the days in classes with the institutes staff, which included a senior federal judge and a former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. The program was presented as continuing education for antitrust regulators a way to learn more about the economic underpinnings of competition law.But critics and past attendees of similar conferences run by the institute said the sessions were more about delivering a clear message to international officials that benefited the companies paying for the event: The best way to foster competition is to maintain a hands-off approach to antitrust law.The Global Antitrust Institute is bankrolled in large part by tech companies corporate donors like Google, Amazon and Qualcomm that are facing antitrust scrutiny from some of the regulators who attended its programs, according to hundreds of pages of emails and documents obtained through open records laws, interviews with four past conference participants, and observation of a conference last year in Huntington Beach.The documents included donation checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars from Google and Amazon, as well as a three-year, multimillion-dollar donation agreement from Qualcomm. Those checks were a key component of the institutes $2.1 million budget in the year that ended in June 2019.The emails illustrated how the institutes leaders, including Joshua Wright, who has longstanding ties to Google, have worked closely with tech companies to fend off antitrust criticism. And they showed how the institute cultivated and tapped relationships with top competition officials even, in an aggressive courtship, asking Brazils top antitrust regulator to recruit the countrys judges to attend its conferences with offers of business-class flights.This is not a significant expenditure for these companies. And the potential benefits, even making it moderately less likely to be on the losing end of an ambitious antitrust case is worth that price many times over, said Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Universitys law school.Its difficult to determine the impact of the institute. But in Brazil, a tribunal last year dismissed three separate investigations into Google, which controls 97 percent of the countrys search traffic, for a lack of evidence.Regulatory scrutiny is, unquestionably, a global issue for tech companies. Until recently, Europe was the main threat of antitrust action. Google has lost three competition cases there since 2017. Amazon is now the target of an inquiry in Europe for abusing its dominance in online commerce to squeeze smaller rivals. Qualcomm has paid more than $1 billion in fines to Europe for its anticompetitive behavior.Now other countries are also starting to take a more aggressive approach. Australia and Brazil are investigating Google, while Amazon is also facing an antitrust probe in India.The companies are also facing investigations at home. After years of a hands-off approach to monopoly enforcement, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are under investigation from federal watchdogs, state attorneys general and Congress. The Justice Department is expected to bring a case against Google in the coming months in what would be one of the biggest antitrust actions in the United States since the 1990s.The chief executives of Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple will appear before lawmakers soon as part of a congressional antitrust investigation into their market powers.Mr. Wright, the institutes executive director, said its mission, curriculum and lectures were available online for the public to assess and that open-minded observers will see the quality of its instruction from legal academics and economists with experience enforcing antitrust laws and prosecuting cases.That combination of academic and practical experience is one reason enforcement agencies officials from around the world consistently choose to send their staff to our programs, Mr. Wright said in a statement.Teaching Antitrust RestraintImageCredit...Jared Soares for The New York TimesThe long era of restraint in antitrust enforcement in the United States can be traced back, in part, to an ideology that tied economic analysis to legal cases. The view was that its not enough for a company to dominate a market and crush competitors, there must be evidence of so-called consumer harm usually in the form of higher prices. That notion permeated through the American judicial system with the aid of economics seminars for federal judges funded by corporate donors.The Manne Economics Institute for Federal Judges, which ran from 1976 to 1999, was organized by the Law and Economics Center now housed at George Mason Universitys law school. By 1990, about 40 percent of all sitting federal judges had attended one of these seminars, according to the programs director.Researchers found that judges who attended the seminars were more likely to approve mergers, rule against environmental protections and organized labor, and use economic language in rulings compared to judges who did not attend, according to an academic study looking at the effects of the program.The Global Antitrust Institute, which was established in 2014 as part of George Mason Universitys Law and Economics Center, has taken a page from the success of the federal judges program and adapted it for an international audience. It is also starting to offer an economics program for U.S. federal judges, with one scheduled for October in Napa, Calif.Mr. Wright said it had already trained more than 850 foreign judges and regulators. It has hosted a senior judge at Supreme Peoples Court, Chinas top judicial body, as well as the current and former superintendent of Brazils top competition regulator as visiting scholars.The institute does not disclose the source of its funding, but The New York Times obtained copies of the groups annual budgets and donation checks in document requests. It is funded almost entirely by companies and foundations affiliated with companies.Tech companies have been major backers of the institute for several years. In 2017, Google, for example, donated $200,000 to the group and it contributed an additional $300,000 in 2018.On its website, Google discloses a long list of organizations that receive money from its government affairs and public policy team. On that list is George Mason Universitys Law and Economics Center and the George Mason University Foundation, which is where donations to the Global Antitrust Institute are directed. Google does not mention the Global Antitrust Institute by name.Were committed to transparency about the academic organizations to whom we make grants. Such organizations arent acting on our behalf, and we expect and require our grantees to disclose their funding, said Julie Tarallo McAlister, a Google spokeswoman.Amazon, whose dominant shopping site and cloud computing unit are the target of antitrust inquiries, has donated at least $225,000 to the group, according to copies of donation checks. Amazon also listed the George Mason University Foundation among trade associations, coalitions, nonprofits and social welfare organizations that received more than $10,000 in payments from the company. It did not mention the Global Antitrust Institute.ImageCredit...Daniel Brenner/BloombergIn thanking Amazon last year, Mr. Wright told Pat Bajari, Amazons chief economist and vice president, that its donation would support the institutes mission to provide competition enforcers and foreign judges with the economic foundation for rigorous antitrust analysis.Like most large companies, we support a broad range of organizations doing research in areas connected to our business. That does not mean we always agree with their viewpoints or that we direct the work that they do, an Amazon spokesman, Jack Evans, said in a statement.Another company secretly committed to donating $2.9 million over three years until 2020. While the companys name was redacted in grant documents, one of the agreements directed questions about the donation to a manager who has worked at the chip maker Qualcomm for the last 14 years.Qualcomm has spent years fighting regulators around the world and incurred billions of dollars of fines over accusations of anti-competitive practices.In 2017, after the F.T.C. filed an antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm, Koren Wong-Ervin, a director at the institute at the time, emailed an executive at the company to express that a recent debate about the technology licensing terms at the heart of the case was one-sided and not favorable to Qualcomm.Im considering a GAI panel on the hill to counter this one, Ms. Wong-Ervin wrote. The Qualcomm executive responded that she would appreciate that.Ms. Wong-Ervin, a former legal adviser to Mr. Wright at the F.T.C., left her position at the Global Antitrust Institute in September 2017 to become the director of antitrust policy and litigation at Qualcomm. Ms. Wong-Ervin, who left her position at Qualcomm this year, declined to comment. Clare Conley, a Qualcomm spokeswoman, also declined to comment.Though its not clear how much, if any, impact the groups education programs have had on the decisions of international regulators or judges who attended, nobody would be paying for this stuff if they didnt think it had an effect, said Suresh Naidu, a professor of economics and public and international affairs at Columbia University and one of the authors of the academic study on the economics seminars for federal judges.Maintaining the Status QuoThe theme of the Global Antitrust Institutes teaching is clear, said Marshall Steinbaum, an assistant professor at the University of Utahs economics department. He reviewed a reading list and curriculum of last years conference in Huntington Beach and characterized the program as in line with the institutes long-term agenda of weakening antitrust laws.Among the reading material is a paper by Hal Varian, who is now Googles chief economist and who argues that the usual economic hallmarks of monopoly power do not apply to tech companies because of the nature of digital products theyre expensive to develop initially but can be resold again and again at little additional cost and therefore should not be used by antitrust enforcers to justify aggressive action.Tommaso Valletti, who served as the chief competition economist for the European Commission from 2016 to 2019, has attended one of the institutes events and knows the groups positions and teaching practices. He said the institute presented one-sided examples of competitive markets working correctly to reinforce the view that markets left on their own work well to the benefit of entrenched tech companies.They do not give a balanced perspective of economics and its application to antitrust, said Mr. Valletti, who now heads the economics and public policy department at Imperial College in London. They still portray a simplistic vision of markets, which I believe fits well their goals.The Global Antitrust Institutes head, Mr. Wright, is a divisive figure within the world of antitrust law. He became the institutes executive director when he returned to George Mason University after serving as one of the five Federal Trade Commission members from 2013 to 2015.ImageCredit...Andrew Harrer/BloombergWhen Mr. Wright stepped down from the F.T.C., he joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati the law firm that represented Google in antitrust matters. He was a counselor at the firm until 2019 when he also served as the head of the antitrust institute.Mr. Wright is an advocate of the status quo in antitrust enforcement. As a contingent of economists and lawyers push for a new approach for dealing with monopolies in the face of Big Tech, Mr. Wright, who also has a doctorate in economics, has derisively designated the movement hipster antitrust in a 2018 paper.He is also known for his close ties to Google. During the F.T.C. nomination process in 2012, Mr. Wright was criticized for his paid work for the search giant and agreed to recuse himself from Google matters. Google had helped to fund several of his academic works including a 2011 paper: Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Case Against Google.A week before he was sworn in, the agency announced that it had wrapped up an investigation into Google without taking any action. While he had not played a direct role in that decision, Mr. Wrights emails with Google reveal how closely they worked together.In a 2012 email, Adam Kovacevich, a former public policy director at Google, asked Mr. Wright whether he planned to attend an event in which Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah and vocal critic of Google, would be speaking. At the time, Mr. Lee seemed to be toning down his criticism of the company.ImageCredit...The New York TimesMr. Kovacevich, who left Google in 2019, suggested that it might be worth lobbing a question about his comments about Google. Mr. Wright replied Cool absolutely. Heh - maybe get one of my antitrust students to ask.Mr. Wright also worked closely with Google to deflect media criticism of the company. When a CNN reporter asked Mr. Wright in an email whether Google favoring its own content in search results violated antitrust laws, he defended the company in a lengthy reply. He forwarded his response to Google and added Just FYI. Mr. Kovacevich responded: Thanks, I encouraged him to get in touch.In a 2011 email, Mr. Wright asked a legal assistant at Google about an outstanding invoice. When she said it had already paid $125,000, Mr. Wright said there should be another one or two.A Brazilian Budget SqueezeThe gap between the deep pockets of the institute's corporate donors and the overseas regulatory agencies is especially stark in a country like Brazil, where the annual budget for Brazils antitrust regulator is about $15 million.Brazils competition authority, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense, better known as CADE, is clear about its financial constraints. So when the institute invited CADE officials to attend a conference in 2016, Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo, the agencys general superintendent, who oversees its antitrust investigations, said that they were eager to participate, but that it would be difficult to afford sending staff.I must let you know, however, that we are facing severe budgetary restraints and unless the expenses are covered, we cannot unfortunately assure we will be able to send a representative, said Mr. Cordeiro.The institute offered to pay for up to six CADE officials to attend the conference in Washington. Since then, other CADE staff have attended institute conferences in Oahu, Santa Monica and Tokyo. In each case, the institute has covered travel, hotel, transportation and most meals even allowing some officials to spend an extra night at a resort to recover from jet lag.Since 2015, 27 CADE officials have attended the groups conferences, according to the agency. Last year, the institute paid for 10 Brazilian judges to fly business class to attend a conference at a Four Seasons hotel in Lisbon, Portugal. Mr. Cordeiro was also a visiting scholar at the institute, spending two months there in 2017.Its created a close working relationship. When CADE received an invitation for the Huntington Beach conference, the agency could barely contain its excitement.ImageCredit...The New York TimesI just want to let you know that among all the other training opportunities that we offer along the year, the one from GAI is without a doubt the most appealing to our staff, wrote a CADE official in an April 2019 email.CADE has allowed the institute to handpick attendees. After 24 agency candidates applied for the six spots at the 2016 conference in Washington, the institute selected the six candidates it wanted. A year later, for a conference in Dubai, G.A.I. selected from a pool of eight CADE candidates for two attendees and two wait-list spots.When the institute was trying to recruit Brazilian judges for a conference in Lisbon last year, Douglas Ginsburg, who is a senior judge with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington and chairman of the institutes board of advisers, appealed to Mr. Cordeiro.It would be particularly good if you could recruit judges, Judge Ginsburg wrote in February. He added that a secretary for one judge had asked about whether the institute would pay for business class flights for others. A few days later, Mr. Cordeiro responded by saying he had recruited seven judges.ImageCredit...The New York TimesIn a written statement, Mr. Cordeiro said he was an academic as well as a public servant so it is natural to be consulted about possible parties interested to take part in debates of this nature and that there is nothing wrong with recommending other public authorities for a renowned international academic conference. He said the institute has paid for his flights and accommodations in the past, but he has never received any other form of financial support.Judge Ginsburg did not respond to emails seeking comment or a phone call.Separately, CADE said it was not aware of the institutes corporate donors and noted that its officials do not participate in training sponsored directly by private companies.CADE has strict rules regarding the performance of its employees and that participation in events of any nature does not influence the work carried out within the scope of the municipality, the agency wrote.In addition to the three separate investigations into Google dismissed by the tribunal last year, there are two open investigations into Googles handling of Android, its smartphone software, and Googles use of third-party content in Google News and Google Shopping.Elizabeth Farina, a former president of CADE from 2004 to 2008, said there needed to be transparency about the source of the money and accountability for the staff who take part. When asked whether she would have let her staff attend conferences like the ones offered by the Global Antitrust Institute, Ms. Farina, who is now the chief executive of a consultancy, said no.In general, I dont think its a good idea, she said.Leticia Casado contributed reporting in Braslia. | Tech |
TrilobitesPaleontologists in China found pellets of undigested food just like ones owls leave behind preserved with pterosaur fossils.Credit...Jiang et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2022Feb. 7, 2022Fur, bones, feathers and scales can be murder on the digestion. So predators that gulp their prey down whole face a conundrum: What do you do with the indigestible bits? Owls and other birds of prey cough up anything unusable. If youve been to a science museum, you may have dissected one of the products of these digestive outbursts, known as owl pellets.It appears that flying predators were coughing up big pellets in the dinosaur era, too. In a paper published on Monday in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Chinese paleontologists announced the discovery of a pair of pterosaurs, each preserved in fine detail along with the pellets leftover from parts of their meals. The find adds another animal to the history of life that spit out food it couldnt digest.According to Shunxing Jiang, a paleontologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an author on the study, some researchers had suspected that pterosaurs might be capable of producing pellets, considering their close evolutionary relationship with dinosaurs, which also left pellets in the fossil record. But none had ever been found.The team examined a pair of well-preserved specimens of Kunpengopterus, a toothy flier with a long beak that inhabited forests on lake shores late in the Late Jurassic era some 160 million years ago. The specimens an adult and a juvenile both died and sank into the deep waters, where their bodies were covered by soft sediment.The ooze at the bottom of the lake also covered large, compacted bundles of tough fish scales, in proximity to the pterosaurs. Dr. Jiangs team found that these bundles which closely resembled the pellets coughed up by modern seabirds were wider than the pterosaurs pelvises, suggesting that they couldnt have been passed through the animals bowels.Therefore, Dr. Jiang said, they must have been pellets, which were either coughed up immediately before the animals died, or forced from the body by the buildup of gasses as the animals decayed.We have two specimens of one species, with similar-size pellets relative to its body size. This does not often happen in the study of vertebrate paleontology, especially pterosaurs, Dr. Jiang said. That, he continued, made our study more convincing.ImageCredit...Oramstock/AlamyThe pellets offer important clues to how Kunpengopterus lived. Occasionally, fish scales and bones are found preserved inside a pterosaurs body. Outside of such occurrences, pterosaur diets are generally tricky to pin down, with paleontologists seeking clues to what they ate by comparing pterosaur beaks with the anatomies of living birds, or looking at the isotopic signatures in their bones.While the toothy Kunpengopterus might have been a small generalist predator, Dr. Jiang said, at least two individuals dined on fish before they died. These fish dinners also differed in size according to the animals size by comparing the scales found in the pellets with those from complete fish, the team concluded that the juvenile pterosaur had been eating average-sized fish, while the adult had swallowed something considerably larger.Dr. Jiang said the size difference in the pellets contents is similar to the habits of adult seabirds, which go after the largest fish they can catch. It seems likely that Kunpengopterus preyed on the same species as it grew, with adults tackling progressively larger fish.The find also gives an important hint about pterosaur digestive systems. Stomachs and guts almost never fossilize but in order to regularly produce stomach pellets, an animal generally needs to have both a two-part stomach and an efficient process for forcing material out of the digestive tract. While at least one Cretaceous pterosaur shows evidence of a two-part stomach, Dr. Jiang said, the presence of pellets in a much earlier member of the family pushes the possible evolution of that digestive anatomy millions of years earlier.And because some other members of the archosaur family like certain crocodiles, dinosaurs and modern birds also produce pellets, two-part stomachs and the ability to cough up indigestible bits in neat packages might have been a common trait in the larger archosaur family.Our knowledge about pterosaurs is quite limited because of the rarity of the fossils, Dr. Jiang said. This find shows us the possibilities. | science |
Vince McMahon XFL IS BACK!! 1/25/2018 Alpha Entertainment It's official ... Vince McMahon is bringing back the XFL -- and Tim Tebow already has an invite to play. The WWE honcho made the announcement Thursday afternoon ... saying the new XFL will launch in 2020 and will focus on more exciting football with zero political distractions. That means players will be required to stand for the National Anthem. Vince says the league will launch with 8 teams -- 40-man rosters -- and nobody with a criminal background will be eligible to play. Vince says the quality of the individual matters as much as the quality of the play. When asked specifically about 3 players -- Johnny Manziel, Tim Tebow, and Colin Kaepernick -- Vince danced around Johnny and Colin ... but extended a casual invitation to Tebow. JANUARY 2018 Alpha Entertainment McMahon insists there will be no crossover between the WWE and the XFL -- which means completely different announcers. Vince also says he will not be the face of the league and will hire an accomplished people to run the XFL. As far as the length of the game, Vince says he's gunning for 2-hour games. Vince says he's confident the league will succeed this time around, 'cause the team has a 2-year runway ... and will be listening closely to what the fans want. He even asked fans to submit ideas to the league office. As we previously reported, Vince says he's been thinking about this for years ... and vows to do whatever it takes to make it a success this time around. | Entertainment |