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Kim Kardashian Topless in Bed!!! What Baby Name? 1/19/2018 Kim Kardashian throws up the greatest smoke screens. Kim shared this shot of herself naked in bed, and suddenly nobody's clamoring for her and Kanye West to announce their new baby girl's name. Less than 72 hours after she was celebrating the arrival of their bundle of joy, Mama KK made sure to remind us she's still the fam's top sex symbol. Besides ... Kylie's on the shelf. Gotta hand it to Kim -- best snap back ever! Bonus reminder: Rolls-Royces are really nice too. | Entertainment |
Zac Efron Dead Ringer for Ted Bundy 1/30/2018 Zac Efron is getting his Ted Bundy on for his new movie, and is already staring into the eyes of a would-be victim. Zac was filming a scene Monday in Cincinnati for "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" -- which is told from the point of view of Bundy's gf, Elizabeth Kloepfer, played by Lily Collins. Zac was caressing her for a scene, and considering the subject matter ... it looks pretty damn creepy from afar. Check out the above gallery, if you don't believe us. | Entertainment |
The ShiftCredit...Haven Daley/Associated PressMay 9, 2019If you were to rank all the ways humans can inflict harm on one another, ranked by severity, it might be a few pages before you got to intentional inducement of FOMO.Purposefully giving someone else FOMO fear of missing out is not a crime, or even a misdemeanor. But it is a big problem on Instagram, where millions of teenagers go every day to check on their peers. And it is one of the subtle slights that Instagram is focused on classifying as part of its new anti-bullying initiative, which will use a combination of artificial intelligence and human reviewers to try to protect its youngest users from harassment and pain.The anti-bullying effort is part of a larger attempt by Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, to clean themselves up. Both platforms have struggled to contain a flood of toxic behavior, extreme content and misinformation on their services.Instagram is particularly vulnerable because of its young user base. About 70 percent of American teenagers use the service, according to the Pew Research Center. And 42 percent of cyberbullying victims ages 12 to 20 reported being bullied on Instagram, according to a 2017 survey by the British anti-bullying organization Ditch the Label.This week, I went to Instagrams New York office with several other reporters to hear its executives describe how theyre trying to fight bullying. Its not the companys first time talking about the topic the former chief executive, Kevin Systrom, discussed bullying all the way back in 2016 but it is a subject of renewed focus there. Last year, Instagram announced an effort to use A.I. to label instances of bullying within photos. This year, it said it would begin testing new features aimed at improving teenagers mental health, including the ability to hide like counts on posts.There are a lot of teens using Instagram, so we actually see new behaviors and words all the time, and we need to work quickly to understand if these new trends are harmful, said Bettina Fairman, Instagrams director of community operations.These efforts are still unproven, and, like any Facebook-related promises, theyre best taken with a heaping handful of salt. But Instagram seems to be more aggressive about this than competing platforms like Twitter and Snapchat.If you want to stamp out bullying, you first have to know what forms it takes. So late last year, Instagram began assembling focus groups of teenagers and parents and gathering feedback about what types of unwanted behavior they encountered on the platform.Some were the predictable types of threats and insults like rating users attractiveness on a one-to-10 scale, a practice that Instagram already prohibits while others were more unexpected.Some teenagers reported feeling bullied when their exes showed off new boyfriends or girlfriends in a menacing way for example, by tagging the jilted ex in the photo to trigger a notification and rub in the fact that they had moved on to someone new.Instagram came up with a name for this category of bullying betrayals and started training an algorithm to detect it.One of the things we learned early on is that how we were defining bullying in our Community Guidelines doesnt necessarily capture all the ways people feel like theyre being bullied, said Karina Newton, Instagrams global head of public policy.Not all of these behaviors necessarily violate Instagrams rules. The company has not yet decided where to draw every line; for now, it is just trying to understand bullyings many flavors and teach machines to flag them for human reviewers, who then decide whether or not they violate the platforms rules.ImageCredit...Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesFacebook and Instagram already use A.I. to detect various types of off-limits content, including nudity, child exploitation and terrorism-related material. But classifying bullying is a bigger challenge, because doing so often depends on the context of a social interaction.Take one of the examples used by the executives during Tuesdays briefing: a photo of two teenage girls that was posted to Instagram with the caption love you hoe.Normally, Instagrams systems would pick up on the derogatory word hoe and flag the post to a human reviewer. But in context, its clear that the user meant it as a term of endearment, so the correct action would be to leave the post up.Or consider a hypothetical photo of a teenage couple at the beach, posted to Instagram with the caption Wish you were here, Amanda!Normally, that post would be bland and inoffensive. But you can imagine contexts in which it would constitute bullying:Are the people in the photo mocking Amanda for being the only senior not invited to Beach Week? If so, it could constitute intentional inducement of FOMO.Is Amanda the ex-girlfriend of the boy in the photo, being taunted by the new girlfriend? If so, it could be classified as a form of betrayal.Is there a whale in the background that is tagged as Amanda, as a cruel joke about her weight? If so, it could be classified as an insult.Its odd to realize that what Instagram is describing a planetary-scale A.I. surveillance system for detecting and classifying various forms of teenage drama is both technically possible and, sadly, maybe necessary. It should make us all question whether a single company should have so much power over our social relationships, or whether any platform of Instagrams size can be effectively governed at all.But if you have to have an Instagram-size platform, there are arguments in favor of using A.I. to seek out bad behavior, rather than wait for users to report it. One reason, Instagrams executives said, is that teenagers often dont report bullying when it happens to them. Some fear social repercussions or retaliation from their bullies, while others fear that their parents will take away their phones.Eventually, the company hopes its A.I. will be good enough to identify and remove all types of bullying on its own, without the need for human review. But, executives cautioned, that day may be distant, especially outside the English-speaking world, where it has fewer moderators and less local-language data available to train algorithms.Our algorithms arent yet as good as people when it comes to understanding context, Ms. Fairman said.Instagrams critics probably wont be satisfied that, after making billions of dollars in profits and contributing to what researchers say is an epidemic of teenage depression and anxiety, the company is now trying to dismantle the culture of social media bullying it helped to create.Where were they five years ago? Its about time, honestly, said Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit watchdog group that advocates better protections on childrens technology. This has been a huge issue for years, and most of these companies buried their heads in the sand until they were under pressure to do something about it.Its true that Instagrams anti-bullying effort may be useful for generating good public relations, and that the company seems to be making up some of the details as it goes along. Its also true that Instagram has a multitude of serious problems on its hands including anti-vaccine misinformation and rampant hate speech and extremism and that building A.I. to detect bullying is probably a more convenient challenge than rethinking the ad-driven business model and platform design issues that encourage antisocial behavior in the first place.But better too little, too late than nothing, ever. Instagrams bully-detecting A.I. is a good idea, and a step toward giving young people an easier time navigating the vicissitudes of 21st-century adolescence. For their sake, lets hope it works. | Tech |
Ex-NBA Player Rasual Butler Killed in Car Crash 1/31/2018 Ex-NBA player Rasual Butler and his wife -- a singer who appeared on "American Idol" -- were both killed in a single car crash in Studio City, CA early Wednesday morning, TMZ Sports has learned. 38-year-old Butler -- who was drafted by the Miami Heat in 2002 -- lost control of his Range Rover around 2 AM, struck a parking meter and slammed into a wall. The car flipped. Officers believe the car was speeding before it lost control. Butler had a long NBA career after an impressive run at La Salle -- where he was a 2-time First Team All-Atlantic 10 Player. He's a member of the La Salle Hall of Athletics. He went on to play in the NBA until 2016 -- with stints on the Hornets, Clippers, Bulls, Raptors, Pacers, Wizards and Spurs. Rasual most recently played in Ice Cube's BIG3 league. Butler's wife Leah LaBelle, 31, was an R&B singer who was signed to Epic Records. She placed 12th on the 3rd Season of "American Idol" back in 2004. Rasual is survived by a daughter from a previous relationship, Raven Butler. R.I.P. AUGUST 2017 TMZSports.com | Entertainment |
The social network took the wraps off a special operations center in Dublin ahead of this months European Union voting. Credit...Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesMay 5, 2019DUBLIN Inside a large room in Facebooks European headquarters in Irelands capital, about 40 employees sit at rows of desks, many with two computer screens and a sign representing a country in the European Union.Large screens at the front display charts and other information about trends on the social networks services, including Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp. In the back, muted televisions broadcast BBC and other European news stations.The cramped space is home to Facebooks newly opened operations center to oversee the European Unions parliamentary election, which will be held May 23 to May 26 in 28 countries. Modeled after the war room that the Silicon Valley company created before last years midterm elections in the United States, the people inside are tasked with washing Facebook of misinformation, fake accounts and foreign meddling that could sway European voters. A similar command post was set up in Singapore for elections in India. Eager to show it is taking threats seriously as it faces pressure from governments across Europe to protect the integrity of the election, Facebook invited about two dozen journalists to visit its hub last week.We are fundamentally dealing with a security challenge, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebooks head of cybersecurity policy. There are a set of actors that want to manipulate public debate.The social network has good reason to be proactive after Russians used the platform to influence American voters in the 2016 presidential election. The company has since taken down several networks of accounts linked to foreign-influence campaigns, including some targeting users in Europe. ImageCredit...Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesThe European election will determine who controls the European Parliament and sets the agenda of the European Union for the next five years. It will influence how the region grapples with issues like Britains exit from the European Union, immigration, income inequality and the rise of extremist ideologies. European leaders have warned that foreign groups will use social media to manipulate public opinion. Facebook is becoming more aggressive in regulating content after initially trying to avoid entanglement in free speech issues. Last week, it barred the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and several other divisive figures from its platforms. The company is also under pressure from regulators. European leaders are considering new policies to force tech giants to rid their platforms of misinformation, hate speech and extremist content. Facebook faces several investigations related to its handling of user data. The election center in Dublin will be open through this months vote. Data analysts, content moderators, engineers and attorneys from across Facebook were flown in from around the world. All 24 of the European Unions official languages are represented. Inside the room, employees many in jeans, T-shirts and hoodies appeared to be mostly in their 20s or 30s. Many seemed to be browsing news articles from the country they were overseeing. Its hard to know what effect their work may have beyond public relations. Facebook allowed journalists to observe for only a few minutes. Citing security concerns, the company didnt allow employee interviews, and it limited what could be photographed. ImageCredit...Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesFacebook also wouldnt say what actions the European team had taken since the center opened last week, other than it had reviewed hundreds of pieces of material. The team is alerted to questionable content by an automated system that finds problematic content, or when theres a surge in the flagging of a piece of content by users, said Lexi Sturdy, a public policy manager brought to Dublin from Facebooks headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., to oversee the effort. Depending on the language or the country where the post, video or photo originated, a team member reviews the material and decides whether to recommend that it be taken down. The ultimate decision is made by an employee who decides if the content meets the companys user guidelines. In some instances, whats flagged will lead to a bulk takedown of posts and accounts. But even as Facebook outlined how ready it was, the platform remains vulnerable. Researchers recently highlighted the use of WhatsApp to spread misinformation ahead of elections in Spain last week. Another persistent problem is material about news events or politics that dont technically violate Facebooks policies but is used by far-right and other groups to exaggerate divisions in countries. And as Facebook clamps down on certain forms of bad behavior, like the use of fake accounts, new methods always emerge. The goal over time, Mr. Gleicher said, is to make the platform much more resistant to the kind of manipulation they are trying to use. | Tech |
DealBook|French Shipping Company, CMA CGM, Buying Neptune Orient for $2.4 Billionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/business/dealbook/shipping-cma-cgm-neptune-orient.htmlDec. 7, 2015HONG KONG The French shipping company CMA CGM agreed on Monday to buy Neptune Orient Lines of Singapore for $2.4 billion, excluding debt, the companies said.CMA CMG will pay 1.30 Singapore dollars, or $0.93, per share for Neptune Orient, which is Southeast Asias largest container shipping company.At a time when the shipping industry is facing strong headwinds, scale is more critical than ever to capitalize on synergies and capture growth opportunities wherever they arise, Rodolphe Saad, the vice chairman of CMA CGM, said in a news release.The combined companies would have revenue of $22 billion and operate 563 vessels, he said.Ng Yat Chung, the chief executive of Neptune Orient Lines, added that the deal would help his company grow with the resources of the worlds third-largest shipping line.The board of Neptune Orient Lines has unanimously approved and recommended the sale. One of the companys major shareholders, Temasek, the government-backed Singapore investment firm, supports the offer and will tender all of its shares.Their complementary strengths will yield mutually beneficial results, Tan Chong Lee, Temaseks head of portfolio management, said in a news release. We also note and welcome the commitment of CMA CGM to enhance Singapores position as a key maritime hub.CMA CGM, based in Marseille, France, said it generated $16.74 billion in revenue and had market share of 8.8 percent in 2014, while Neptune Orient Lines had revenue of $7.04 billion and 2.7 percent market share.The deal is subject to the approval of antitrust authorities, which the companies expect to receive by mid-2016. | Business |
Credit...Fred R. Conrad for The New York TimesDec. 17, 2015Years of ultralow interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve may have breathed life back into the economy and buoyed Wall Street. But they have not managed to solve problems like the aging Portal Bridge.The 105-year-old railway bridge in northern New Jersey has for decades caused delays for commuters in and out of New York. We have long desired the bridges replacement, said Stephen Gardner, an executive vice president for Amtrak, whose trains use the bridge. Its time for it to retire.A replacement bridge would cost an estimated $1 billion, the sort of sum that financial markets can raise for a private corporation in the blink of an eye. Yet even though the federal government and the state of New Jersey can borrow at rock-bottom rates, the overhaul remains unfunded.There are many such infrastructure projects needed around the country, providing a stark reminder of the deeper problems in the economy that the Feds easy-money policies have not been able to fix.We are not where we should be when it comes to investment, public or private, said William A. Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.Mr. Galston in particular lamented the failure to set up a government-backed infrastructure bank in recent years. This will go down as one of the great missed opportunities, he said.Public investment spending as a share of overall economic activity has fallen to lows not seen since the 1940s, according to an analysis by James W. Paulsen of Wells Capital Management.Political impasses have, of course, restricted the flow of money into government projects aimed at improving aging roads, bridges and mass transit. But even in the private sector, many of the hoped-for benefits of low-cost borrowing have not occurred.Corporations have tapped the markets for trillions of dollars in recent years, yet they plowed relatively little of the money into new operations. Such investments might have bolstered hiring and made American business more efficient and globally competitive.In some ways, these are the wasted opportunities of the cheap-money years and they may well remain squandered now that the cost of borrowing appears to be heading higher, even if the initial increases after the Feds decision Wednesday to move its benchmark up from close to zero will remain modest.The Feds stimulus policies worked in many ways. They prompted banks and investors to lend, lifted stock prices and bolstered the confidence of consumers and chief executives. The economy eventually regained strength, causing unemployment to fall, auto sales to take off and house prices to rise somewhat.But important indicators suggest that the money did not flow where some economists and analysts say it is needed to improve the long-term potential of the economy.Corporations may not have made the most of the Feds largess. In theory, low interest rates should spur companies to borrow money that they then invest in new machines and technology that will make their operations more efficient. These investments can improve profitability and make firms more competitive in global markets.But business investment as a percentage of gross domestic product has remained below historical levels since the Great Recession. A surprising lack of investment also shows up in the recent borrowing habits of companies that issue junk bonds, a market that ballooned after the Fed cut interest rates.From 2009 through September of this year, United States companies issuing such bonds spent a mere 2 percent of the proceeds of those bonds on capital expenditures, or capex, according to an analysis of data provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The capital expenditures figures may not capture all investment, the banks analysts noted. Even so, the data shows that the lions share of bond proceeds went to pay off other debt owed by the companies and to finance acquisitions and leveraged buyouts.Very little of it has been used for capex, said Michael Contopoulos, head of United States high-yield and leveraged loan strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. We think thats a big problem.The lack of corporate investment may hold back the United States growth rate in the future. Higher capital expenditures might have bolstered productivity, a crucial economic yardstick that measures how much an economy produces with resources like labor and capital. Growth in productivity has slowed in recent years, disturbing economists.Paradoxically, it is possible that the low interest rates have held back forces that would have made companies more efficient. In an influential speech in 2014, Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury Secretary and now a professor at Harvard, cited the experience of Japan, where interest rates have been low for a long time.In a period of zero interest rates or very low interest rates, it is very easy to roll over loans, he said. And therefore there is very little pressure to restructure inefficient or even zombie enterprises.The Feds higher interest rates may now usher in a period of upheaval in corporate America. Recent turmoil in the junk bond market suggests that investors expect bankruptcies, particularly in the energy sector. And the pain today may create the sort of longer-term changes that would make the economy stronger. Conversely, if banks and bond investors cut back too much on lending, the economy could suffer.But even as interest rates appear to be heading higher, some economists say there is an optimistic, alternative possibility.Under this theory, productivity was weak in the years after the crisis because high unemployment kept labor costs depressed, giving companies an easy way to maintain margins. Employers can be pretty sloppy in terms of efficiency, said Jared Bernstein, a former member of President Obamas economic team and now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its not hard to squeeze the heck out of labor costs.Now, as unemployment has fallen, companies may compete more for workers, potentially pushing up wages. Confronted with higher labor costs, companies will have no choice but to invest to become more efficient, the theory goes. You want an economy and labor market where firms cant afford to be inefficient, Mr. Bernstein said.Question marks, however, will most likely continue to hang over the countrys roads and railways as interest rates rise.If the economy continues to grow and fiscal pressures ease, the federal government, state and cities may find more to spend on infrastructure even if they face higher borrowing costs.But the substantial investment that some Democrats are hoping for seems improbable. Many Republicans assert that the infrastructure needs are overstated and that the private sector, rather than the taxpayer, needs to play a much greater role.Congress overcame ideological differences this month to pass a roughly $300 billion transportation bill that provides funding for roads and bridges.The bill happens to contain measures that could make it easier to secure funding for replacing the Portal Bridge, as well as building new tunnels under the Hudson. The existing tunnels, damaged by Hurricane Sandy, were the cause of long delays in July that caused an outcry among commuters.Any rebuilding will take longer and cost much more than earlier plans. But advocates for public works, while saying the transportation bill falls short of the overall needs, nonetheless see reason to be encouraged.Im optimistic; theres been big strides made, Mr. Gardner, the Amtrak official, said. Infrastructure is starting to creep back into peoples minds as an issue. | Business |
Izmir JournalCredit...Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesApril 7, 2016IZMIR, Turkey For more than a year, the Sinbad restaurant in Basmane Square was packed every day with hundreds of migrants from Syria anxiously conferring with brokers to negotiate fees to reach Europe through the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece.But this week it was mostly empty. Six of its employees had been laid off and those who remained said they had taken a 50 percent pay cut.All our clients were Syrian and we lived off their tips, said Mohammed Hajji, 22, a waiter at the cafe. This place used to be so packed you couldnt find a spot to put your feet. Now look His voice trailed off as he pointed to a row of empty tables and chairs.Until last month, the warren of narrow streets surrounding Basmane Square made up a vibrant transit hub, part of the multimillion-dollar raft economy that arose around the business of moving hundreds of thousands of migrants into Europe. But now, days after Greece began sending migrants back to Turkey under a contentious deal with the European Union to curb the flow of migrants to Europe, the boom has turned to bust.Every business in this square profited from the refugees, and now theyve suddenly gone, said Kadir Akinci, the manager of a taxi company in the Basmane neighborhood. Weve taken a 70 percent cut in profits. Those passengers were our livelihood.Smugglers, once inundated with requests from desperate migrants, meandered through cafes and teahouses looking for the stray refugee. Clothing stores still displayed mannequins donning life vests and inner tubes, but sales were sparse.Taxi drivers, who had transferred thousands of passengers to isolated departure points, hung around the square looking morose. Hotels that had been booked for months by smugglers now sat empty, and Arabic signs erected to appeal to Syrians had mostly been removed from shop windows.Under the terms of the deal, Turkey will take back migrants who arrive in Greece illegally, while the European Union will still admit thousands of Syrian refugees and has pledged $6.8 billion in aid to improve conditions for migrants living in Turkey. Also promised under the agreement is visa-free travel to Europe for Turkish citizens and the reopening of negotiations in Turkeys long-stalled application for European Union membership.Turkeys prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said on Tuesday that by dissuading people from undertaking the dangerous crossing, the arrangement would prevent the Aegean Sea from turning into a cemetery for migrants. But rights groups have questioned the legality of the pact.Since the deal went into effect on March 20, the influx of migrants into Greece has fallen drastically, from thousands of daily arrivals to a couple hundred. Even as smugglers continue to try to trick passengers into leaving, the recent crackdown against them by the Turkish authorities has pushed operations underground.The biggest problem is that when the Syrians came here, the Turks moved away, said Mr. Akinci, the manager at the cab company. And even if they now come back, it wont compare to the business of the boats. The well has dried up.ImageCredit...Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesStill, even as migrants abandon Izmir in search of alternative routes, the flow into Greece has not ended entirely. Smugglers have lowered their fares from $700 to $550 and continue to push Syrian refugees into undertaking the journey.Smugglers say it now takes them three days to load a boat with 35 to 40 passengers, whereas before they had trouble finding enough boats to accommodate the legions of migrants.The courtyard of a mosque across from the square here used to be packed with migrants waiting to depart for Greece. On this day only one Syrian woman stood there, with her three young brothers, trying to decide whether to chance the passage.We tried to leave twice, but we were stopped, detained and then released again, said Abir Mustafa, 26, the Syrian woman outside the mosque. We will try again today. My husband is in Greece, and Syrians are not being sent back.That is only partly true. But it has become a talking point for smugglers, who are trying to capitalize on the indisputable fact that most of the first to be deported from Greece have largely been Pakistanis and Afghans. But like the others, Syrians, too, face deportation, unless they can prove they are not economic migrants.After being informed that Syrians were also being processed for deportation, Ms. Mustafa broke down in tears and asked for advice. Just then, a smuggler approached her and called out in Arabic, Lets go.She hesitated, taking one step forward and then one step back, as the three children clenching bags of food looked up at her for direction.Are Syrians being sent back? she asked the smuggler.I dont know, its just Afghans at the moment, he said, urging her to hurry up.She grabbed her suitcase again as if to leave, her face riddled with anxiety. Frustrated by her indecisiveness, the smuggler walked away.I still want to go. Whats the worst that can happen? Theyll send me back to a refugee camp, she said. Thats O.K. Ive been waiting for a container in a Turkish camp for over two years. | World |
LaMelo and LiAngelo Ball Combine for 80 Points!! LaVar's Pro Coaching Debut 1/23/2018 The Balls were all over the place in Lithuania on Tuesday ... with LaMelo and LiAngelo combining for a whoppin' 80 POINTS in LaVar's pro coaching debut. BC Vytautas announced Papa Ball would join it's coaching staff for the 4th game of the Big Baller Brand Challenge against Alytaus Dzkija ... and the strategy worked, 'cause he helped coach the team to a 147-142 win. Ballislife Not only did Melo drop 43 points (including 5 straight 3 pointers in the 3rd quarter and a fast break dunk), but Gelo added 37 of his own to secure the dub. Just like dad drew it up, right? | Entertainment |
The first checks could be cut in April. The money from the nations three major pharmaceutical distributors and Johnson & Johnson will be used for addiction treatment and prevention.Credit...Patrick Semansky/Associated PressFeb. 25, 2022The nations three largest drug distributors and a major pharmaceutical manufacturer announced Friday that a supermajority of states and localities had accepted the terms of their $26 billion offer to settle thousands of civil claims related to the deadly opioid crisis. The first checks are expected to go out in early April.Through its pharmaceutical division, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson will pay $5 billion, broken into annual payments over nine years. McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, the distributors, will pay a combined $21 billion over 18 years. At least 85 percent of the payments will be dedicated to addiction treatment and prevention services. By signing onto the deal, thousands of local governments as well as states have agreed to drop their opioid lawsuits against the companies and also pledge not to bring any future action.In its sweep and bottom line, the deal is second only to the Big Tobacco settlement of the late 1990s as a multistate agreement.The total amount includes almost $2 billion that will cover fees and costs for the platoons of lawyers nationwide who represented local governments as well as some states and built much of the legal strategy in the cases. Those payments will go out over roughly seven years.There are no separate funds to compensate families and individual victims of the opioid crisis.The announcement is a milestone in the nationwide opioid litigation, which began in 2014 with a few cities and counties filing lawsuits against five drug manufacturers. But as thousands of governmental plaintiffs eventually filed claims, the cases reached across the pharmaceutical industry, to distributors and retailers as well. The actions gelled into a modern legal behemoth that is still far from fully resolved, featuring, most prominently, the cases against Purdue Pharma.The crisis continues to take a terrible toll: More than 500,000 Americans have died from overdoses to prescription and illegal street opioids since 1999, according to federal data.The distributors and Johnson & Johnson released statements Friday morning, noting that the deal is not an admission of wrongdoing and that they strongly dispute the allegations. The distributors said in a joint statement that they believed that the implementation of this settlement is a key milestone toward achieving broad resolution of governmental opioid claims and delivering meaningful relief to communities across the United States that have been impacted by the epidemic.Johnson & Johnson also added that it would continue to defend itself against any litigation that this final settlement agreement does not resolve, noting that it no longer sells prescription opioid medication in the United States.When Johnson & Johnson, the distributors and a smaller group of states announced their proposed settlement in July, the companies said they required an unspecified majority of plaintiffs to sign on, to guarantee an end to litigation. The announcement Friday morning signals that a sufficient threshold has been reached, or at least 90 percent of those governments eligible to participate, and 46 of 49 eligible states for the distributors and 45 for Johnson & Johnson. Courts in each state will now have to sign off on the agreements, a process that is expected to go relatively smoothly and swiftly.According to the agreements, a state will get its full allocation if all its local governments sign on to the deal. For example, all 100 North Carolina counties and 47 municipalities have agreed, and the state will get its allotment of $750 million.North Carolina communities will begin to receive money this year to help people struggling with substance abuse, said Josh Stein, the states attorney general and a leader of a bipartisan coalition of states that negotiated with the companies and local governments for nearly three years. The treatment, recovery, prevention and harm reduction services that will be available across the state will help people regain control over their lives and make North Carolina safer.A few holdout states and localities still remain against either the distributors or Johnson & Johnson, including Washington, Oklahoma and Alabama. But legal experts say that stance could be perilous: The outcomes from a few completed trials point to favorable resolutions for the companies, suggesting that continuing to do battle with those governments who declined the deal is a risk the companies are willing to take.This month, the same companies announced a tentative settlement with Native American tribes that have suffered disproportionately high addiction and death rates during the opioid epidemic. In combination with a $75 million deal that distributors struck with the Cherokee Nation last fall, the 574 federally recognized tribes could receive $665 million in payouts over nine years. An overwhelming majority of tribes are expected to sign on to the proposal.A major theme coursing throughout the opioid litigation has been the aggressive marketing of the drugs, which went all but unchecked for years. Distributors almost never sent up warning flares when pharmacy clients took deliveries of quantities of opioids that were wildly disproportionate to the local population. A central feature of the new deal is that the distributors must set up an independent clearinghouse to track and report one anothers shipments, a mechanism intended to raise red flags immediately when outsize orders are made.During the settlement negotiations, a secondary series of talks between the states and the local governments over the allocation of the funds was also unfolding. By now, about two dozen states have worked up their own distribution plans with local cities and counties that also sued the companies.The executive committee of lawyers, including Joe Rice, Elizabeth Cabraser and Jayne Conroy, who negotiated for local governments, released a statement saying, We arrived at this moment after years of work by community leaders across the country who committed themselves to seeking funds they need to combat the opioid epidemic.They continued, While this is a vital step, it is only one of the many that are necessary to put an end to this crisis. | Health |
Asia Pacific|Suicides Among Japanese Children Reach Highest Level in 3 Decadeshttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/world/asia/japan-suicide-children.htmlCredit...Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 6, 2018TOKYO Suicides by young people in Japan rose to their highest level in three decades in 2017, according to new figures released by the government.Japan has a persistent problem with suicides, although the number has been declining over all. But child suicides have risen recently, with experts pointing to school pressures and bullying as likely triggers.Last year 250 children in elementary, middle and high schools committed suicide, the highest number since 1986, according to data released last month by the Education Ministry.According to the Education Ministry survey of schools, most of the students did not leave any explanation for why they decided to take their own lives. Of those who did, the most frequently cited reason was worries over what path to take after graduation. Other reasons included family problems and bullying.A separate survey by Japans Cabinet Office in 2015 found that suicides among children tended to spike on Sept. 1, speculating that students felt school pressures more intensely after the summer break. According to the Welfare Ministry, suicide was the leading cause of death last year among 15- to 19-year-olds.Although child suicide is not a problem unique to Japan, mental illness is still not an open topic of discussion, and it is difficult for children and teenagers who are depressed or anxious to seek help.In Japan, your biggest problem is that there is a greater stigma about mental health problems than in other countries, said Vickie Skorji, director of the crisis hotline at TELL, a counseling and crisis intervention service in Tokyo. Youre most likely to get bullied, and less likely to get support services and understanding from your parents.Some experts say that children do not receive as much support from family as they might have in the past. While several generations of a family used to live together, such arrangements are less common now.I think support networks for children have been weakening, said Yoshitomo Takahashi, a professor and psychiatrist at Tsukuba University. Now, we cannot expect the same thing from families that we used to expect. We cant expect parents or grandparents to provide the support they used to. And in this situation, children remain alone.Experts say that schools are generally not well equipped to cope with mental illness among students and, in general, education about mental illness is lacking. Teachers are busy, and they cannot respond to each individual student in many cases, said Yuki Kubota, professor of clinical psychology at Kyushu Sangyo University.Over the summer, a junior high school in Aomori, in northern Japan, admitted that bullying provoked the 2016 suicide of a 13-year-old girl, Rima Kasai. In a report about the suicide, the school said that it had relied on individual teachers to respond to the bullying but that the situation reached its limit as no organized action was taken. | World |
Dec. 3, 2015WASHINGTON Activity in Americas services sector slowed in November, but remained at levels consistent with a steady pace of economic growth for the quarter, a business survey showed on Thursday.Other data reported a small increase in first-time applications for unemployment benefits last week, but planned job cuts announced by companies in November were the fewest in 14 months.The Institute for Supply Management on Thursday said its index of nonmanufacturing activity fell to 55.9 last month, from a reading of 59.1 in October. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the service sector.The new-orders index fell 4.5 points, to 57.5 last month. There were also declines in measures of services sector employment, backlogs and export orders. Deliveries were slowing and inventories were still considered high, which could constrain order growth in the months ahead.Twelve services industries, including real estate, retail, transportation and warehousing, public administration and finance and insurance, reported growth last month. The six industries reporting contraction included wholesale trade, utilities and agriculture.The report came after news this week from the institute that the manufacturing sector contracted in November for the first time in three years. Still, economists said the soft services sector survey did not signal a slowdown in gross domestic product growth from the 2.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter.Even after this drop-off, the latest figure was still consistent with real G.D.P. growth of around 2.25 percent, said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase in New York.In a second report, the Labor Department said that initial claims for state unemployment benefits in the week that ended Nov. 28 increased 9,000, to a seasonally adjusted 269,000.It was the 39th straight week in which claims were below 300,000, which is normally associated with a healthy labor market. Claims are near levels last seen in 1973, and there is little room for further declines as the labor market normalizes.The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it strips out week-to-week volatility, fell 1,750, to 269,250 last week.In another report, the global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas said firms based in the United States announced 30,953 job cuts in November, the smallest number since September 2014 and down 39 percent from October. There were 1,355 oil-related job cuts, the fewest since June.The jobless claims from last week have no bearing on the Labor Departments November employment report, which will be released on Friday, because they fall outside the survey period.The claims data suggest that the trend in employment growth remains more than strong enough to keep the unemployment rate trending down over time, said Jim OSullivan, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics. A fourth report, from the Commerce Department, said that new orders for manufactured goods increased 1.5 percent in October, after two consecutive months of declines, on rising demand for transportation equipment and a range of other goods. | Business |
One of the worlds most studied and preventable diseases is still a deadly and common threat in much of the world. Credit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesJuly 22, 2019Nearly 60,000 people a year die from rabies around the world. The cause is almost always a bite by a rabid dog. Most of the deaths are in Africa and Asia. In Western Europe, the United States and other countries, the rabies variant that lives in populations of dogs has been eradicated, but people can still catch rabies from skunks, raccoons, bats and other animals. Bats are now the most common cause of rabies in the United States, but less than one percent of bats have rabies, and their contact with humans is infrequent. Only one to three people die each year from rabies in the United States. As a major public health problem rabies doesnt measure up to other threats, like flu. Its also relatively slight compared with other dangers posed by animal: Many more people an estimated 40 in 2018 die from dog attacks that have nothing to do with rabies.The danger posed by rabies is greatest in poor regions of the world with large populations of free-roaming, unvaccinated dogs. Death by rabies is agonizing, and once symptoms appear, almost 100 percent certain. What causes rabies?The disease is caused by a virus, a bullet-shaped microscopic infectious agent that contains genetic material. In the case of rabies, that material is RNA, not DNA. Any rabies virus, and there are several variants, can cause the disease in any mammal. Common variants of the disease can establish themselves permanently in populations of dogs, bats, raccoons and other animals.How does it kill?The virus is usually transmitted by the saliva of an infected animal through a bite. It then travels only through nerve tissue to the brain, and to salivary glands. Once it arrives at the brain it can cause convulsions, avoidance of water, excessive salivation and other symptoms. Eventually the brain infection causes coma and death. Is Rabies Infection a Death Sentence?No. Rabies in humans is considered completely preventable if the vaccine is administered after a bite but before symptoms appear. The vaccine can be administered protectively, for people who are handling animals where rabies is common, for example. But a series of shots after a bite will also stop the virus in its tracks. Why Vaccinate Dogs Instead of People?Vaccination of humans after a bite is necessary if possible, but expensive and puts a drain on medical resources. Preventive vaccination of large populations of people is not feasible in terms of expense, discomfort, logistics and the small risk associated with vaccination. But experts have shown that annual vaccinations of dogs can eliminate canine rabies, thus stopping almost all human rabies cases. Dog vaccination has eliminated rabies as a major public health problem in numerous countries.Can rabies be eliminated?The World Health Organization has set a goal to reach zero human deaths from canine rabies by 2030. That is not the same as, for example, eliminating the smallpox virus, which involved complete eradication. It would mean eliminating most canine rabies by vaccinating dogs in combination with providing post-bite treatment. That in itself is a huge challenge.But the rabies virus and lyssaviruses, which are closely related, live in a number of wild animal populations. There is no plan to attempt eliminating all these viruses. | science |
Health|F.D.A. Proposes a Ban on Powdered Medical Gloveshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/health/fda-proposes-a-ban-on-powdered-medical-gloves.htmlMarch 21, 2016WASHINGTON The Food and Drug Administration proposed banning powdered medical gloves on Monday, saying the powder can inflame wounds and cause scars to form between organs and tissue after surgery.The powder is added to the gloves by manufacturers to make it easier to put them on and take them off. But experts have known for some time that the powder can cause harm. The agency did not specify the precise percentage of gloves that now have powder, but a spokesman for the agency, Eric Pahon, said it was very small. The proposal is open for public comment for 90 days.The agency started to warn about the gloves in 1997 but refrained from banning them then, largely because it determined that pulling them from the market at the time could have caused shortages and been disruptive to the practice of medicine. The ban would apply to powdered surgeons gloves, powdered patient-examination gloves and absorbable powder for lubricating a surgeons glove.Powdered latex gloves were common in medical practice for years, but evidence that they might be dangerous began to be collected in the 1990s. According to Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, a number of major hospitals began switching to non-powdered alternatives in the late 1990s.Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, a founder of the group, said it had petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban powdered latex surgical gloves in 1998. He said powder-free latex gloves were about a quarter of all surgical gloves on the market at that time.Theres absolutely no reason that they could not have initiated the ban back in 1998, Dr. Wolfe said. But Mr. Pahon said that banning them at the time would have created a shortage for a necessary medical device. He added that now, the agency was eliminating the risk from the market, as better alternatives have come out.Powdered synthetic gloves are associated with wound inflammation and a condition that can happen after surgery in which bands of fibrous scar tissue form between organs and tissue. | Health |
Media|Diane Rehm Announces Retirement From Long-Running Talk Showhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/media/diane-rehm-retire-npr-wamu.htmlDec. 8, 2015Credit...NPRDiane Rehm, who has interviewed prominent newsmakers as an NPR radio host since 1979, announced on Tuesday that she planned to retire next year from her two-hour current affairs show.Ms. Rehm, 79, will continue to host The Diane Rehm Show through the 2016 presidential election.A post on the shows website said that WAMU, the Washington public radio station that produces the show, and NPR, its distributor, are committed to finding a successor who will honor Dianes legacy and the qualities listeners treasure about her show civil discourse and deep conversations about the issues of the day with listeners as part of the conversation while also reflecting changing audience needs and habits.Ms. Rehm said she was considering several options once she leaves the show, including a speaker series, a new show and a podcast.Maybe Ill get to sleep until 7 or 7:30 a.m., like other people do, she told The Washington Post.The Diane Rehm Show is distributed to nearly 200 public radio stations and has more than 2.4 million on-air listeners per week, according to a biography on the shows website.Ms. Rehm began as a volunteer at WAMU, which broadcasts from American University, in 1973 and took over its morning talk show, Kaleidoscope, six years later. It was renamed The Diane Rehm Show in 1984.In 2000, she became the first radio talk show host to interview a president in the Oval Office, and in 2010 she won a Peabody Award.President Obama presented her with a National Humanities Medal in 2014. In probing interviews with everyone from pundits to poets to presidents, Ms. Rehms keen insights and boundless curiosity have deepened our understanding of our culture and ourselves, Mr. Obama said during the ceremony.In June, Ms. Rehm told NPR she experienced the most difficult two days of my professional life after an interview with Senator Bernie Sanders, in which she incorrectly said the Democratic presidential candidate had Israeli citizenship. She apologized, explaining that she had gotten the information from a comment on Facebook.Ms. Rehm learned in 1998 that she had spasmodic dysphonia, which strained her speech and forced her to take time off from the show.I dont love my voice. Thats the hard part. I dont love my voice anymore, she said in 2009.Her memoir, On My Own, is expected to be published early next year. | Business |
Kardashians They'll Get You Kicked Out of NYC Bar ... Literally 1/27/2018 The Kardashians can get you kicked out of a bar if you say the magic words. The Continental bar in NYC posted a sign inside the joint ... notifying patrons they have 5 minutes to finish their drinks and leave if they dare use the words, "I literally." The owner is on a crusade to save the English language, grousing, "This is the most overused, annoying word in the English language and we will not tolerate it. STOP KARDASHIANISM NOW!" Unclear how many folks got booted Friday night, but they were definitely forewarned -- LITERALLY. | Entertainment |
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/sports/ncaabasketball/kansas-st-defeats-kansas.htmlSports Briefing | College BasketballFeb. 10, 2014Marcus Foster scored 20 points, including two free throws in the closing seconds of overtime, and Kansas State held on to beat No. 7 Kansas, 85-82, in Manhattan, Kan.Will Spradling added 15 points for the Wildcats, who blew a nine-point lead with less than 2 minutes left in regulation. Remi Dibo scored a career-high 20 points to lead host West Virginia to a 102-77 victory over No. 11 Iowa State, the Cyclones most lopsided loss of the season.Juwan Staten added 19 points for the Mountaineers (15-10, 7-5 Big 12).Iowa State (18-5, 6-5) had five players in double figures, led by Georges Niangs 17 points. Diamond DeShields scored a season-high 30 points and No. 17 North Carolina defeated No. 3 Duke, 89-78, in Durham, N.C.Allisha Gray, also a freshman, added 24 points for the Tar Heels (18-6, 6-4 Atlantic Coast Conference).Elizabeth Williams had a career-high 28 points for Duke (22-3, 9-2). Meighan Simmons scored 22 points to help No. 8 Tennessee rout No. 16 Vanderbilt, 81-53, and win its sixth consecutive game, continuing the Commodores history of road futility in this series.Vanderbilt (17-6, 6-4 Southeastern Conference) has never beaten the Lady Vols (20-4, 9-2) at Knoxville in 29 attempts. (AP) | Sports |
TrilobitesIt is difficult to catch Asian elephants responding to deaths of herd members in the wild, but online videos helped researchers observe the behavior.VideoResearchers were surprised to find multiple videos of Asian elephants carrying dead calves. Video by Pokharel et al.May 17, 2022It was 2013 when Sanjeeta Pokharel first witnessed Asian elephants responding to death. An older female elephant in an Indian park had died of an infection. A younger female was walking in circles around the carcass. Fresh dung piles hinted that other elephants had recently visited.That is where we got curious, said Dr. Pokharel, a biologist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. She and Nachiketha Sharma, a wildlife biologist at Kyoto University in Japan, wanted to learn more. But it is rare to glimpse such a moment in person, as Asian elephants are elusive forest dwellers.For a paper published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the scientists used YouTube to crowdsource videos of Asian elephants responding to death. They found reactions that included touching and standing guard as well as nudging, kicking and shaking. In a few cases, females had even used their trunks to carry calves, or baby elephants, that had died.The work is part of a growing field called comparative thanatology the study of how different animals react to death. African elephants have been found to repeatedly visit and touch carcasses. But for Asian elephants, Dr. Pokharel said, There were stories about it, there was newspaper documentation, but there was no scientific documentation.ImageCredit...Nachiketha SharmaCombing through YouTube, the researchers found 24 cases for study. Raman Sukumar of the Indian Institute of Science, a co-author, provided videos of an additional case.The most common reactions included sniffing and touching. For example, many elephants touched the face or ears of a carcass with their trunks. Two young elephants used their legs to shake a deceased one. In three cases, mothers repeatedly kicked their dying or dead calves.Asian elephants communicate with touch while living, too, Dr. Pokharel said. They may sleep against one another or offer reassuring trunk touches. Younger elephants are often seen walking with their trunks wrapped together, she said.Another frequent response to death was making noise. Elephants in the videos trumpeted, roared or rumbled. Often, elephants kept a kind of vigil over a carcass: They stayed close, occasionally sleeping nearby and sometimes trying to chase away humans who tried to investigate. Several tried to lift or pull their fallen peers.VideoThe researchers said it was unusual for elephants to carry calves, a hint that they know something is wrong. Video by Pokharel et al.Then there was one behavior that was quite surprising for us, Dr. Pokharel said: In five cases, adult females presumably mothers carried the bodies of calves that had died.The observation was not totally new, though. Researchers have seen ape and monkey mothers holding deceased infants. Dolphins and whales may carry dead calves on their backs or push them up to the surface of the water, as if urging them to breathe. Phyllis Lee, an elephant researcher at the University of Stirling in Scotland, said that she has seen an African elephant mother carry her dead calf for a full day, the carcass draped across her tusks.To human eyes, these animals can resemble bereaved parents not ready to let go of their young. While she is cautious about interpreting the animals actions, Dr. Pokharel said that carrying is not a usual behavior in elephants, as calves usually follow the herd around on their own feet.That carrying itself can indicate they are aware that theres something wrong with the calf, she said.Understanding more about how elephants view death could give us insight about their highly complex cognitive abilities, Dr. Pokharel said. More urgently, she hopes that it will also help to better protect elephants that are still alive, especially Asian elephants that are in frequent conflict with humans.We always talk about habitat loss, we talk about all these things, she said. We are not talking about what animals are going through psychologically.Dr. Lee called the sightings referenced in the new paper wonderful and confirmatory.These rare and extremely important natural history observations suggest that an awareness of loss is present in elephants, Dr. Lee said.Scientists do not yet know to what degree elephants grasp the concept of death, rather than just the absence of a herd member whose trunk used to be within reach. But that does not make the animals so different from ourselves, Dr. Lee said. Even for us humans, our primary experience is probably also loss. | science |
Olympics|Randall of U.S. Falls Short in Cross-Country Sprinthttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/sports/olympics/randall-of-us-falls-short-in-cross-country-sprint.htmlFeb. 11, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Kikkan Randall, considered to have the best chance of any American at the Sochi Olympics to win a cross-country medal, surprisingly failed to advance from her quarterfinal heat in the womens sprint on Tuesday.In the six-woman heat, Randall moved to the lead just before the halfway mark of the 1,300-meter race and began to pull away, followed by another favorite, Marit Bjoergen of Norway. For a moment it seemed as if the two would easily take the two automatic qualifying spots for the next round.But as the finish neared, Denise Herrmann of Germany rushed past both skiers, and Randall began to fade. She finished fourth, passed by Gaia Vuerich of Italy in the last strides. Vuerichs time was good enough to qualify as one of the fastest runners-up; Randalls was not. She failed to advance by five-hundredths of a second.Sprints are really difficult; you have to make it through all four rounds to get to the medals, Randall said. Its a bummer. Ive been waiting for this race for a long time.Another American, Sophie Caldwell, did better, advancing to the finals, where she finished sixth.Randall, 31, from Anchorage, ranked as the top sprint skier in the World Cup the past two years and is ranked second this year. She is skiing in her fourth Olympics; she was eighth in this event in 2010 in Vancouver.Randall had begun the day with a relatively slow time trial in qualifying, placing 18th. It was pretty hard out there: tricky with the soft conditions today, she said on another warm day at these Olympics.The only American cross-country medal at the Olympics came in 1976, when Bill Koch won a silver in the mens 30-kilometer race.Randall is also the reigning world champion, along with Jessica Diggins, in the team sprint, a relay in which two athletes ski three legs each. She will have another chance for a medal when that event is contested next Wednesday. | Sports |
Credit...Duane Howell/The Denver Post, via Getty ImagesJune 22, 2017Frdrick Leboyer, a French physician whose natural birth methods were adopted in delivery rooms around the world, died on May 25 at his home in Vens, Switzerland. He was 98.His death was confirmed by his nephew, Antoine Leboyer.Mr. Leboyers pointed criticism of the modern medical establishment was not to be found in peer-reviewed articles, in large-scale studies and trials, or in mountains of data. Rather, in his seminal work, Birth Without Violence, it appeared, unusually, in a form of prose poetry.In the book, published in 1974, Mr. Leboyer argued that the modern delivery room bowed to the needs of doctors, women and procedures while often overlooking those of a primary player in the birth: the baby.Could childbirth be as distressing for the child as for the mother? he wrote in the first part of Birth Without Violence. And if so, does anyone care? It doesnt seem so, judging by the way we treat the new arrival.Mr. Leboyer (he thought people made too much of their education and preferred Mr. to Dr.) argued that babies feel pain, anxiety and suffering, and that the manner in which they come into the world shapes the adults they will become. While he was not the first to advocate natural methods in childbirth, like eschewing unnecessary drugs and medical procedures, Mr. Leboyer set himself apart by focusing primarily on minimizing the babys suffering.In the Leboyer method, the delivery room is kept quiet and dimly lit, to spare the baby from sensory overload. The newborn is not held upside down and spanked, and is not whisked away to be examined directly after birth.Instead, the baby is gently placed on the mothers stomach and lightly massaged. The umbilical cord is cut only when it stops pulsating. After a few moments with the mother, the baby is given a warm bath.Mr. Leboyer drew scorn from the medical establishment. His ideas, his critics said, could endanger the baby and leave doctors open to accusations of malpractice. Doctors needed plenty of light to see the newborns color, they said, and as one skeptical doctor told The New York Times in 1974, a good hearty scream was important in checking the infants breathing. Some accused him of shamanism or quackery.But he also drew converts. Shortly after Birth Without Violence was published, mothers in delivery rooms across the United States, Britain and France began requesting the Leboyer method.His book was not understood by doctors; it was understood by mothers, Michel Odent, another leading French obstetrician, told The New York Times in 1989.ImageCredit...Alfred Knopf, NewYorkDr. Odent expanded on Mr. Leboyers methods and became a primary proponent of water birth, something Mr. Leboyer had rejected.Mr. Leboyer was born Alfred Lazare Levy in Paris on Nov. 1, 1918, to Rene Levy, a businessman, and the former Judith Weiler, a painter. He graduated from the University of Paris School of Medicine.During World War II, his family moved to Megve, a French village near Switzerland, where he and his older brother, Maurice, changed their name to Leboyer to avoid detection as Jews by the occupying Nazis.After the war, Mr. Leboyer moved back to Paris, where he worked in a hospital and then opened a private practice. He claimed to have delivered more than 9,000 babies using standard techniques, and more than 1,000 using his natural methods.He began questioning modern obstetrics in the late 1950s, when, through a mix of psychotherapy in France and spiritual guidance from a swami in India, he was able, he said, to relive the trauma of his birth, in which he was pulled out of his mother with forceps as she was pinned down.His re-experiencing of the trauma, he said, left him viewing the entire medical establishment with fresh eyes those of an infant.He often wrote from the babys perspective in Birth Without Violence, as he did in these lines of prose poetry:Mother, oh my mother, where are you?Without you, where am I?If you are goneI no longer exist.Come back, come back to me,Hold me! Crush me!So that I may be!After Birth Without Violence was published, Mr. Leboyer stopped practicing medicine in part to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, he said, and in part out of protest.Our society has come to an absurd point, he told People magazine in 1976. We are living in an aberration. I had to separate myself from it to save myself to save my sanity.After giving up his practice, he dedicated himself to photography and film and wrote a number of books, including, Loving Hands, a how-to on baby massage, and Inner Beauty, Inner Light, a guide to yoga for pregnant women.Mr. Leboyer continued to criticize conventional childbirth into his 90s, telling The Guardian in 2011 that cesarean sections were a form of chickening out on the mothers part and that babies were still not receiving the proper attention in the delivery room.Mr. Leboyer is survived by his wife, Mieko Yoshimura, whom he met in London in the late 1990s while she was working at a bank. They married in 2005 in what was the first marriage for both of them. In addition to her and his nephew, he is survived by a niece, Marion Leboyer.Not having children was one of his greatest regrets, he told The Guardian in 2011.To have children, he said, it is one of the greatest privileges that life holds. | science |
Officials cited data showing the new Alzheimers drug has serious safety risks and may not help patients.Credit...Kayana Szymczak for The New York TimesApril 7, 2022Ever since Medicare proposed to sharply limit coverage of the controversial Alzheimers drug Aduhelm, the agency has been deluged with impassioned pleas.Groups representing patients insisted the federal insurance program pay for the drug. Many Alzheimers experts and doctors cautioned against broadly covering a treatment that has uncertain benefit and serious safety risks. On Thursday, Medicare officials announced their final decision. Though the Food and Drug Administration has approved Aduhelm for some 1.5 million people, Medicare will cover it only for people who receive it as participants in a clinical trial.Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or C.M.S., said the decision was intended to protect patients while gathering data to indicate whether Aduhelm, an expensive monoclonal antibody given as a monthly infusion, could actually help them by slowing the pace of their cognitive decline.Its our obligation at C.M.S. to really make sure its reasonable and necessary, Ms. Brooks-LaSure said in an interview Thursday. The vast majority of the approximately 10,000 comments the agency received on its website, she said, were in favor of really limiting coverage of Aduhelm to a really controlled space where we could continue to evaluate its appropriateness for the Medicare population.Aduhelms manufacturer, Biogen, said the decision effectively denies all Medicare beneficiaries access to Aduhelm, adding that Biogen is carefully considering its options and will provide updates as the company further evaluates the business impact of this decision.A major issue for Medicare had been how to deal with other similar drugs for Alzheimers, several of which are likely to be considered for F.D.A. approval soon. In a proposal in January, Medicare had said it would cover them in the same way as Aduhelm because it typically made coverage decisions for an entire class of drugs.ImageCredit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesBut after both experts and advocacy groups raised concerns, Medicare officials said Thursday that they would not automatically apply the same restrictions to each new drug. If, unlike with Aduhelm, the F.D.A. finds that there is clear evidence that a drug can help patients, Medicare would cover it for all eligible patients and would only impose a requirement that the patients experience be tracked.Dr. Lee Fleisher, the chief medical officer at the Medicare agency., said the two-track way of dealing with the fast-developing field of Alzheimers therapies, a program called Coverage with Evidence Development, is meant to be nimble and really respond to any new drugs in this class that are in the pipeline, and do demonstrate clinical benefit.The decision is extremely unusual for Medicare, which almost always automatically pays for drugs that the F.D.A. has approved, at least for the medical conditions designated on labels. But Aduhelms path has been very unusual, too. The F.D.A. itself acknowledged that it was unclear if the drug was beneficial when it approved Aduhelm last June, authorizing it for people with mild Alzheimers-related cognitive decline. The clinical trial evidence reviewed by the F.D.A. showed that patients in one trial of Aduhelm appeared to experience slight slowing of cognitive decline, while patients in a nearly identical trial didnt appear to benefit at all. About 40 percent of patients on the dosage later approved experienced brain swelling or brain bleeding, often mild, but sometimes serious. Both a council of senior F.D.A. officials and the agencys independent advisory committee had said there wasnt enough evidence for approval.Instead of giving the drug full approval, the F.D.A. greenlighted it under a program called accelerated approval, which allows authorization of drugs that have uncertain benefit if they are for serious diseases with few treatments and if the drug affects a biological mechanism in a way considered reasonably likely to help patients.ImageCredit...Pool photo by Jessica RinaldiThe agencys justification was that Aduhelm targets a protein, amyloid, that forms plaques in the brains of Alzheimers patients. But many Alzheimers experts say that years of data have not shown that reducing amyloid can slow cognitive decline.Questions about the approval, and whether the F.D.A. worked too closely with Biogen, have prompted investigations by congressional committees, the Health and Human Services departments inspector general, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Major medical centers, including the Cleveland Clinic, have declined to offer Aduhelm.As a result of concerns raised by Alzheimers experts and some groups, Medicare officials announced several other changes to their earlier proposal. Instead of requiring randomized controlled trials approved by C.M.S., Medicare will cover participants in any trial approved by the F.D.A. or the National Institutes of Health. It will allow those trials to be conducted in a broader array of locations, not just hospital settings, and to include people with other neurological conditions like Down syndrome, many of whom develop Alzheimers but had been excluded from the earlier proposed plan.The trials will still need to comply with a Medicare requirement to recruit a racially and ethnically diverse group of participants, contrasting with the previous trials of Aduhelm, in which most participants were white.In the trials, the manufacturers will have to come to us with how are they going to include all patients that represent the Medicare population, and how are they going to ensure that all of these patients are getting appropriate medical treatment and monitoring of their treatment while theyre in each of these studies, Tamara Syrek Jensen, the director of coverage and analysis for the Medicare agencys Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, said in an interview.The F.D.A. has also required Biogen to conduct another clinical trial to determine if the drug provided any evidence of benefit, but it said that in the years it will take for that trial to be completed, Aduhelm would be available to patients. Under Thursdays decision, Medicare would cover the costs for participants in Biogens trial.In a statement after the Medicare announcement, the F.D.A. said, At the end of the day, both agencies have a shared goal of ensuring that safe and effective medical products are available for Americans.Medicares coverage evaluation team makes decisions without considering the cost of a drug, but the Aduhelm decision could ease some concerns about how covering the drug might affect the pocketbooks of the countrys millions of Medicare beneficiaries.ImageCredit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesLast year, Medicares actuarial division, acting without knowing what the coverage decision would be, imposed one of the biggest-ever increases in Medicare Part B premiums for 2022, partly driven by the possibility of coverage for Aduhelm, which at the time was priced by its manufacturer at $56,000 a year.Since then, Biogen, facing weak sales of the drug after many hospitals and doctors would not prescribe it, lowered the price to $28,800 a year, still much higher than many analysts have said is warranted.Xavier Becerra, secretary of health and human services, had said that he would consider lowering premiums after the final coverage decision for Aduhelm was made, adding that Were going to make sure that seniors dont pay more than they have to.In the interview Thursday, Ms. Brooks-LaSure, the C.M.S. administrator, said, The secretary told us to look at it, and we are going to engage in the process of reviewing the Part B premium.Advocacy groups, several of which receive some funding from Biogen and other pharmaceutical companies, had campaigned vigorously for broad Medicare coverage. These groups said patients should be able to decide with their doctors whether to try an F.D.A.-approved drug and claimed it was discriminatory to only reimburse participation in clinical trials that may not be easily accessible to many patients.We just cant let it stand as it is, Harry Johns, the chief executive of the Alzheimers Association, told the organizations staff, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.After the Medicare decision was announced on Thursday, Mr. Johns said the association was still evaluating it, but he added, At initial review we are very disappointed with the immediate impact it will have on Americans living with Alzheimers and their families today. While we note some of the recommendations provided by people living with Alzheimers and the Alzheimers Association have been incorporated into the C.M.S. decision, denying access to FDA-approved Alzheimers treatments is wrong.Medicare officials said the decision was an attempt to provide what they consider important limits on Aduhelms coverage, while not necessarily consigning future anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody drugs to similar restrictions.If another drug in that class were to win full, or traditional, F.D.A. approval, which usually requires two convincing clinical trials, that would signal that there is persuasive evidence that the drug can help patients and that its benefits outweigh its risks, Medicare officials indicated. If a drug were approved under traditional approval tomorrow, we are ready, Ms. Jensen said, adding that such a medication would be available in a real-world setting and patients would be enrolled in a registry or another program that would allow Medicare to monitor whether they are benefiting from the medication. There is such a need to really understand what is happening that we want to make sure that we are providing all of that additional or appropriate clinical care, Ms. Brooks-LaSure, Medicares administrator, said. So, were going to make sure that we are continuing to track whats happening so that so that we continue to develop that evidence around a treatment. | Health |
Credit...Lucas Jackson/ReutersFeb. 9, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Jamie Anderson stood at the top of the slopestyle course Sunday, her boots strapped to her snowboard and opportunity at her feet. She had won more of slopestyles big competitions than any other woman, but now the event was in the Olympics, and she had one run to capture the gold medal she was expected to win.I was freaking out, Anderson said later. Around her neck, under her jacket, she wore mantra beads, from a yoga teacher in Breckenridge, Colo., that Anderson said gave sacred energy. There was power stone and moonstone of clear quartz. In her ears, she had the Nas song I Can playing.I know I can, the song begins, to a head-bobbing beat, be what I want to be. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She imagined her run, felt the landings, saw her family and her spirit grandma a neighbor from South Lake Tahoe, Calif. cheering at the bottom, half a mile and 45 seconds away. And then she went there. Anderson won the gold medal, a case of the biggest prize going to the events biggest star. She capped an American sweep of the titles in the inaugural Olympic slopestyle events, after Sage Kotsenburg had won the mens event a day earlier. I was really just trying to stay calm and kind of preserve my energy, Anderson said later, her shoulders wrapped in the American flag and a smile draping her face. There was a lot of stress up there. Even though its just another competition, the stage and the outreach that this event connects to across the whole world is out of control. All of us just wanted to do our best. I was so happy and thankful to put down a run.As in mens slopestyle, in which competitors navigated a course of obstacles and then launched themselves from several large jumps, judges rewarded style over size. Andersons winning run included a pair of 720s, or two rotations, done with grace. A couple of competitors performed more spins, including Sina Candrian of Switzerland, who landed the first 1080 by a woman in competition. Candrian finished fourth.It was an echo of the day before, when Kotsenburgs smooth, stylish performance beat more acrobatic routines. They were telling results, because snowboarders have long been leery of the Olympics, fearing they would pull the sport away from its mellow roots and toward an aerials-style spinoff. Over two days at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, Olympic judges quashed those concerns, rewarding nuance over spectacle. Andersons run had plenty of difficulty. And when she saw a few others try bigger but not necessarily more eye-pleasing tricks, she pondered her run.It crossed my mind, she said. But at the end of the day, I wanted to do something I could do perfect.Others could not duplicate it. Australias Torah Bright, the defending gold medalist in the halfpipe who earned her way into three Olympic snowboarding events this time, could not land a clean run and finished seventh. Silje Norendal of Norway, who won the slopestyle event at last months Winter X Games, and Spencer OBrien of Canada, who was third at the X Games, each succumbed to wipeouts. Norendal finished 11th, and OBrien 12th. Enni Rukajarvi of Finland won the silver medal, and Jenny Jones won bronze, becoming the first British Winter Olympian to earn a medal in a snow event. Matthias Mayer of Austria was the surprise winner in the mens downhill competition.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesSlide 1 of 14 Matthias Mayer of Austria was the surprise winner in the mens downhill competition.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut it was Anderson, popular for her radiant personality and earthy manner, who prevailed again. The fifth of eight children, home-schooled and familiar with the mountains around Lake Tahoe, she had never seemed the type to become anxious over a snowboarding competition. She had won so many. But she had been so nervous Saturday night that she did not eat. She turned on meditation music, burned sage, wrote in her journal and did yoga to calm herself. I love her, Jones said, laughing as Anderson described the routine. Jones relaxed by watching Downton Abbey.Andersons nerves spiked again after a near-perfect first run was ruined by a poor landing on the third and final jump. It was still good enough for second after the 12-woman fields first run, but by the time Anderson got her second and final chance, she was in fifth place. Coach Mike Jankowski reminded her to breathe, and smile. At the end of the day, its snowboarding, said Anderson, 23. We all started it because of the fun it brings and how much joy it is being out there on the mountain with your friends. Its like playing, you know? Were pretty much snowboarding on a playground up there.Still, she felt the gravity of the opportunity. The X Games, she said, are the top event in action sports, but the Olympics are the biggest event in sports. She closed her eyes. She took a couple of deep breaths. The beads did their work. Nas did his. And then Anderson did hers. It was all just as she had imagined. | Sports |
Credit...Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York TimesMarch 22, 2017ROME It has not been an easy nine months for Virginia Raggi since she was elected Romes first female mayor on the promise of cleaning up city hall and ushering in transparent governance.One of her once closest aides sits in jail on corruption charges. Another is under investigation over accusations of abuse of office. Photographs of her, retreating to the roof of City Hall to hold a private conversation, have been splashed all over newspapers. Prosecutors interrogated her for eight hours to clarify her relations to the two aides, provoking criticism that she is incapable of choosing honest collaborators.All that is besides the actual condition of the city, where the streets are still in disrepair, public transportation is phlegmatic and garbage collection seems to occur far less frequently than talk of Ms. Raggis latest troubles.Ms. Raggi was supposed to be the anti-establishment Five Star Movements prime example of how a nonprofessional politician could shake up Italys politics. Instead, the movements opponents now point to Ms. Raggis administration as proof that the party is far more suited to tearing down government than actually running it, and that Italys new breed of politician is no better than the old one no less tainted by corruption, no less ineffective and no less unpopular.In an interview in a frescoed room in the Capitoline palazzo, Ms. Raggi, 38, defended her first months in office by choosing a metaphor, perhaps infelicitously, with which even her critics would agree. Her administration had dug a hole, she said. But a good hole.Its like building a house, she explained. Before seeing the walls coming up, you need to dig a hole to make the foundations. Now her cabinet was in the building phase, she said.Opponents have long painted a fragile picture of Ms. Raggi as a hostage to her own inexperience she was a lawyer who began working at City Hall only in 2013 and to squabbling and division within the Five Star Movement. The partys co-founder, the comedian Beppe Grillo, has swooped in repeatedly to buck her up.This month, a survey published in the newspaper La Repubblica found that 70 percent of Romans disapproved of Ms. Raggis tenure, and so did 40 percent of those who had voted for her.Even with the rise of the Five Star Movement, the difference between certain attitudes and old-time political parties is little, Claudio Cerasa, editor of the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, said.That has not been the case in all the cities the Five Star Movement runs. In the northern, well-functioning city of Turin, where another Five Star candidate, Chiara Appendino, 32, was also elected last year, things are running much more smoothly.But this is Rome. It is a measure of the dire state the city has languished in for years that Ms. Raggi and her supporters argue that her administration is still better than any other partys before her. She has simply been dealt an impossible hand, they say.In Italy these days, rage comes before any hope for change, said Marco Damilano, a political commentator and deputy editor of LEspresso magazine. Its not the capital of trust to be dissipated, but that of distrust that remains intact, especially in Rome.No one, critic or supporter, would say running Rome is easy. The depths of the citys malfeasance were amply exposed in 2014 by what is known as the Mafia Capitale investigation, which showed corruption and tainted bidding for a wide variety of city services, including refugee shelters, sanitation and public housing.We are cooking with the ingredients that we have, Ms. Raggi said, referring to the citys managers many of whom were hard-working, she was quick to add.Romes administrative machine was stuck or worked under a flawed logic known to everyone, Ms. Raggi said, explaining that her staff is trying, almost from scratch, to restore a law-based system for public bids and other municipal services. Legality needs time.Ms. Raggi won 67 percent of votes last year, drawing support from across the political spectrum. Yet even now that she is in power, her erstwhile protest movement remains hard to categorize. Neither Ms. Raggi nor her party fits traditional left-right categories, a fact that has provoked both criticism and confusion.In particular, analysts say, Ms. Raggi has shown her partys lingering penchant for protest, for playing on popular anger and for pandering to key constituencies, whether on the left or the right.In a way, the Five Star Movement is a huge trade union for those who have been cut off, said Mr. Damilano, the political commentator. Its the rhetoric of those excluded, mixed with leftist and rightist ideologies.Maurizio Martelli, 72, who campaigned for Ms. Raggi in the Fifth Municipal District in northeastern Rome, says he is convinced that the mayor could not do much better with the situation she inherited.You see those files, right? Mr. Martelli asked, indicating a dozen colored folders in disarray, half on the floor and half on a desk, in a room on the second floor of a municipal building on a recent morning.These guys dont even know where to look for a file, the predecessors left such a mess, he said.Catello Conte, a 92-year-old retired police inspector who voted for Ms. Raggi, agreed, to a point. The problem is that this city is pure anarchy, he said.But even he conceded that there had been problems that neither the past nor the press could be blamed for, and that some of Ms. Raggis troubles had been self-inflicted.Recently, for example, Ms. Raggi joined a kind of rear-guard protest by taxi drivers in central Rome against Uber and car-hire services, even as the demonstrators clashed with the police and threw cherry bombs.After criticism that it was reckless for the citys highest-ranking official to appear to foment unrest, Ms. Raggi condemned the violence.That afternoon, Ms. Raggi visited a theater in central Rome that her administration has started to restore. It was once slated for privatization and then abandoned, and after being occupied by actors and artist groups had become a potent symbol of the left.Such actions have opened Ms. Raggi and the Five Star Movement to criticism that they are more suited to street protests than the halls of power.Was she out of her mind when she went to incite the taxi drivers the other day, who instead of peacefully protesting have set the center on fire? Mr. Conte asked. As a mayor, she represents the entire community, as she said after being elected. She is no longer trustworthy, and neither is the movement.Ms. Raggi dismisses such criticism and says she has distanced herself from the individuals she had once chosen, who have left her administration.Like other leaders in populist movements that feel misunderstood on both sides of the Atlantic, she accused the news media of undermining her with wild attacks. Some months, she said, the Italian news media talked more about her than about the prime minister.Rome will never be Amsterdam, full of bikes, or Paris, full of metro lines, she said. But it can improve, and we will improve it. People need to be patient. | World |
Credit...Kim Shiflett/NASAApril 4, 2016KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. The concrete block perches absurdly atop a piling, elevated about 10 feet above the beach sand. Is it art? A bulky milepost?Carlton Hall pointed to the puzzling object and explained that it was once a tie-down block for securing structures like antenna towers. Dr. Hall, the chief scientist for the space centers ecological program, said that when he started working here a few decades ago, the block had been buried. Now the sand that enveloped it is gone, swept away by the forces of coastal erosion and storms.He gestured toward the waves rolling in nearby and said, The beach used to be at least 50 yards out.On the other side of the dunes, a quarter mile away, sit two artificial hills some 50 feet high. Those are NASAs two biggest launchpads. And to the south sit several smaller ones.ImageCredit...Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesThis is Americas busiest spaceport, and the water is coming.Like so much of Florida, the Space Coast a 72-mile stretch along the Atlantic is feeling the threat of climate change. Some of the erosion is caused by the churning energy of ocean currents along the coastline. Hurricane Sandy, whose power was almost certainly strengthened by climate change, took a big bite in 2012, flattening an already damaged dune line that provided protection from the Atlantics battering.A rising sea level will bring even greater risk over time and perhaps sooner than most researchers expected. According to a study published last week, warming pressure on the Antarctic ice sheet could help push sea levels higher by as much as five or six feet by the end of this century.NASA isnt just a victim of climate change. It contributes to climate science in many ways, and not only in the data from the many satellites that orbit the planet after leaving Earth from here.Its astronauts also help build awareness of the growing urgency of climate change. Astronaut Scott Kelly, who recently returned from nearly a year in space, took hundreds of photographs that could seem like abstract art or a dire warning; in an email interview just before his descent, he said that he had seen changes in the planet even since his previous mission in 2010.ImageCredit...Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesIt seems to me there is more pollution in India and China than what I saw last time, he said. Definitely noticed the fires this summer in the U.S.A.; sometimes, could see the smoke all the way to Chicago.Weather systems where they are not supposed to be obvious, he added. The fragility of the atmosphere always apparent.Pondering the ProblemNASA, which has at least $32 billion worth of structures and facilities around the country, has been considering the possible effects of climate change for nearly a decade, said Kim W. Toufectis, a strategist who leads the master planning program for the space agency.NASA, after all, is in the business of risk management. By 2007, we had to acknowledge that we should recognize climate change and extreme weather as a formal risk that we should be actually managing, Mr. Toufectis said.ImageCredit...Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesWith all of its expertise and its ability to make forecasts based on data, Mr. Toufectis added, shame on us if we are not capitalizing on that.In fact, NASAs climate risk extends far beyond Florida. About two-thirds of the land that NASA manages is within 16 feet of mean sea level, and much of it is near the coasts. We are tremendously linked to the drink, Mr. Toufectis said.Johnson Space Center in Texas sits by Clear Lake, an inlet of Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The surge from Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused power failures and debris pileup that shut down the center for a week.The Michoud Assembly Plant, which built the enormous orange tanks used by the space shuttle, sits at the eastern end of New Orleans, and narrowly missed being inundated in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Ames Research Center is near San Francisco Bay.The agencys Climate Adaptation Science Investigators working group, which evaluates risks for all federal agencies, has predicted that sea level rise of five inches to more than two feet by 2050 could cause widespread problems for the five coastal NASA sites.Coastal floods that might now occur once every 10 years could happen twice as often at Johnson, twice to three times as often at Kennedy and 10 times more often at Ames.NASA coastal centers that are already at risk of flooding are virtually certain to become more vulnerable in the future, the working group wrote in a 2014 report.The agency brought together the managers for each center to learn directly from NASA scientists about climate change risks. They took field trips to the vulnerable areas in 2009.ImageCredit...Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesIt became very real, said Cynthia E. Rosenzweig, senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and an author of the 2014 report.At Kennedy Space Center, of course, the elements are always a challenge. The air off the sea attacks delicate equipment and rusts structures. Hurricanes occasionally come through, as well. In 2004, Hurricane Frances tore hundreds of siding panels off the gargantuan Vehicle Assembly Building, requiring extensive repairs. Storms in 2007 and 2008 battered the shore.Then in 2012, Hurricane Sandy sent a surge that hit the coast like a scouring pad, leveling about a mile of dune protection and leaving the landscape stretching toward the launchpads covered with sand.Already, NASA has spent much of a $3 million appropriation to rebuild a long dune to replace protective sands that have been washed away.NASA sits in the middle of a vast wildlife refuge, so replacing the dunes was a more delicate job than simply sending in bulldozers and piling up dirt.Those doing the work had to be considerate of the wildlife, like the endangered gopher tortoise, with its high-domed shell.The sand that NASA brought in had to resemble the sand that had been washed away, so the tortoises would be comfortable rebuilding burrows and sea turtles would be able to return to the site to nest. Workers took cuttings of plants from the old dunes, grew them and put in 180,000 individual plants to secure the new dunes. Now they are growing thick with grasses, sea oats, purple-flowered railroad vine and palmetto.The Storms to ComeNo one doubts, however, that more storms will come, and the warmer air and water brought by climate change are likely to lead to more destructive storms.As climate change threatens, NASA has options that include hardening facilities against the rising seas with barriers and structures adapted to storms and flooding, or if adaptation is not possible, to strategically retreat. Any such strategies will be expensive though how expensive at this early stage is anyones guess.Retreat, however, is hardly an option any time soon for an agency that would need billions of dollars for new buildings and equipment alone not to mention the need to relocate staff with extensive expertise.One thing is certain: Pads will still be needed. Kennedy Space Center will be the home to NASAs next-generation human spaceflight vehicles, and its pads are being used by private space companies like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.In fact, the Space Coast is enjoying a revival since the dire years after the space shuttle program was mothballed in 2011.Christopher J. Ferguson, a former astronaut who now heads Boeings efforts to develop a new crew capsule for future launches, said he was excited to see the renewed activity. Communities along the Space Coast, he said, went through very trying times. Housing values plummeted and commerce ebbed. Even Shuttles, the space-themed restaurant and bar nearby on Merritt Island, shut down. Now the cold beer and cheeseburgers are back.The question is, for how long?Why the Coast?Which leads to another obvious question: Why build billions of dollars worth of launch infrastructure on a risky coast in the first place?Safety and physics tell the tale. Launching over water is safer than over land and people. Also, rockets are best launched from sites closer to the Earths fat Equator, where the greater diameter of the planet provides a slingshot effect that gives each rocket more bang for the propulsion buck. The Air Force was already firing missiles from Cape Canaveral when NASA showed up.The idea of firing from Florida preceded space travel by nearly 100 years. In 1865, Jules Verne foresaw launches from Tampa in From the Earth to the Moon.Verne, in fact, even envisioned a competition for the launch site between Florida and the Gulf Coast of Texas, with a pitched political battle for the plum program. In real life, Florida got the launches, and coastal Texas got the Johnson Space Center, home to mission control and astronaut training. Special barges from Michoud carried the oversize shuttle fuel tanks too big for easy passage on rails or roads via the Intracoastal Waterway to Kennedy Space Center.And that is the conundrum for NASA. Water, once the solution to many of the space agencys problems, is becoming its biggest threat. | science |
Pamela Anderson Wanna Lease My Malibu Estate??? 1/23/2018 Pam Anderson is living in Europe, at least for now, so it makes sense that, rather than just letting her awesome Malibu home sit empty, she's leasing it for a cool $40k a month ... and more during summer. The 5,500 square foot house is pretty spectacular. It's super architectural, with floating staircases, massive closets, a Picasso-style tub, a detached guest house, a cool pool and, of course, the Pacific Ocean. The $40k a month price tag is for long-term leases, but during the summer months the price soars to $70k a month. Pam's listed the house with super realtor Chris Cortazzo. Chris Cortazzo The ocean -- and the super exclusive Malibu Colony where the house is located -- don't come cheap. | Entertainment |
TrilobitesUnder stress, certain coral species put on displays to try to re-attract symbiotic algae they need to survive.Credit...The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview SurveyMay 22, 2020Breaking up is hard to do, and the measures some take to get their partners back can be colorful at times. Coral reefs are that way, too, but for them, its a matter of life and death.When certain species of coral flash a shimmering palette of vibrant pinks, reds, blues, purples and yellows, they arent simply showing off. This coral is attempting to recover the algae they cannot live without, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.Coral depends on a remarkable symbiotic relationship with algae, which lives inside the organisms tissue. When the algae-coral partnership is thriving, many coral display a healthy brown hue.Sometimes, after environmental stress, such as a spike in seawater temperature, the algae dies, or the coral expels it. Without that brownish internal photosynthetic factory pumping out meals for the coral, the underlying skeleton shines through the translucent coral flesh as bleach white, and the coral is at risk of starving to death.But the scientists found that in order to get the algae back, some species envelop themselves in bright, sometimes fluorescent colors, which mitigate intense light reflections through the coral and create conditions for the light-sensitive algae to return.They produce their own sunscreen, these colorful pigments, said Jrg Wiedenmann, professor of biological oceanography at Southampton University in England, who led the study. They do it on a regular basis as a survival technique.As the centerpieces of vast marine ecosystems, coral reefs are a critical component of life on Earth. They are said to account for one third of all biodiversity in the sea, and are the source of food and income for an estimated half-billion people.But over the last few decades, and particularly the last several years, scientists say global warming has threatened the reefs existence through widespread bleaching.ImageCredit...Ryan Goehrung/University of WashingtonIf the stress is not too severe or prolonged, the technicolor display known as color bleaching can save some coral, Dr. Wiedenmanns team determined.Some healthy corals display vivid colors, and many experts wondered if the color bleaching process was just a matter of visibility. Perhaps the brownish algae masked other corals pigments. Or, perhaps the coral and the algae were competing over blue light rays and once the algae were gone, the coral flexed its fluorescent muscles under all the extra blue light.But Dr. Wiedenmann said their study determined that the process is actually an optical feedback loop that helps to restore the symbiotic relationship.In the first stage of this loop, the algae are lost and the coral turns bleach white. That causes more light to reach and bounce off the reflective coral skeleton.Within two or three weeks of the original stress incident a heat wave or some shock to the nutrients available to the coral the extra light triggers genes in the coral to manufacture the color pigments. The more sunlight they take in, the more pigment they produce. The pigments block certain wavelengths of light, making it possible for the algae to safely recolonize the coral.The optical feedback loop is a beautiful example of how nature regulates processes, Dr. Wiedenmann said. The corals are changing their physiological setup and are responding to an environmental cue.But pigment production can happen only under mild temperatures stress.Although there is great concern about the long-term health of the reefs globally, Dr. Wiedenmann and his colleagues are encouraged that, in some cases, certain coral species, at least those in shallow waters, have the capacity to recover by reuniting with their old partners.Its fascinating to see a symbiotic association with an animal and a plant, he said, and they are collaborating to produce a stress response that is beneficial for the partnership. | science |
Politics|Bidens expected trade nominee files financial disclosure forms.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/bidens-expected-trade-nominee-files-financial-disclosure-forms.htmlCredit...Hilary Swift for The New York TimesJan. 7, 2021The U.S. Office of Government Ethics published financial disclosure forms on Thursday morning for Katherine Tai, the Biden administrations expected nominee for the position of United States Trade Representative. Ms. Tai currently serves as chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee.The forms show Ms. Tais assets are far more limited than many of the outgoing members of the Trump administration, like Wilbur Ross, the wealthy financier who serves as commerce secretary, and Ms. Tais predecessor as trade representative, Robert E. Lighthizer.Ms. Tai has retirement accounts valued between $70,000 and $350,000, and other investment accounts valued between $425,000 and $1,050,000. She also owns residential real estate in San Francisco valued between $500,000 and $1 million, and has bank accounts with between $350,000 and $750,000 in cash.But Ms. Tai also has liabilities, namely three mortgages of between $1 million and $2 million, according to the filing. | Politics |
Credit...Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 7, 2017When the United States began deploying a missile defense system in South Korea this week, it was to protect an ally long threatened by North Korean provocations. But it was instantly met by angry Chinese warnings that the United States is setting off a new arms race in a region already on edge over the Norths drive to build a nuclear arsenal.China condemned the new antimissile system as a dangerous opening move in what it called Americas grand strategy to set up similar defenses across Asia, threatening to tilt the balance of power there against Beijing.The tensions are testing the new Trump administration and its uneasy allies South Korea and Japan, which have complained for years that China has simultaneously chastised and coddled the North, refusing to enact stiff enough measures to force it to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.But with the beginning of work to install the antimissile system, the delicate international cooperation against North Korea is splintering: Beijing is expressing more concern about American intentions in the region than about the dangers of the Norths latest surge in nuclear and missile testing.The dual approach seemed evident on Wednesday when Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, said, The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming toward each other, and neither side is willing to give way.Our priority now is to flash the red light and apply brakes, Mr. Wang said at a news conference in Beijing. He said that North Korea should suspend its nuclear and missile activities and that in exchange, South Korea and the United States should suspend large-scale joint military exercises, laying the way to new negotiations with North Korea.President Trump got personally engaged in the problem on Monday night, after North Korea launched four ballistic missiles, aimed toward Japan, that the North Koreans later described as practice for hitting American bases there.Japans prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he spoke with Mr. Trump for 25 minutes, adding, I appreciate that the United States is showing that all the options are on the table, usually code words for raising the possibility of a military response.To conservatives in South Koreas crisis-racked government, the antimissile system is exactly the kind of strong action needed to counter the Norths belligerence and demonstrate unity with Mr. Trump, who had suggested during the campaign that Asian nations needed to do far more to defend themselves.But South Korea remains deeply divided about the one response already underway: the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, or Thaad. It is designed to intercept short- and medium-range missiles, but not the kind of intercontinental missiles that the North says it is developing to reach the United States.Many South Koreans oppose it and worry about Chinas moves to block South Korean imports because of Beijings continued insistence that Thaad is aimed at containing Chinese power, not the missile capabilities of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.Japan is urging stronger American action, but remains uncertain about how much it wants to commit when a conflict with the North deliberate or accidental once again looks like a real possibility.The combination of military and diplomatic tensions suddenly unleashed in Asia comes before Mr. Trumps full national security team is in place, and before it has a well-thought-out strategy.Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who will travel to the region next week stopping in Tokyo; Seoul, South Korea; and Beijing has never dealt with a proliferation problem like this one. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has already been to Seoul on one visit, but was there mostly to reassure the country that, despite Mr. Trumps statements last year, the United States remains committed to its defense.The new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, has focused more on counterinsurgency than dealing with the peculiar problem of a nuclear-armed failing state.In three meetings at the White House more than on any other foreign policy problem the National Security Council deputies have considered a range of options, and have already come to the predictable conclusion that a dramatic show of force, like attacks on the Norths missile and nuclear sites, would probably start a war.The New York Times reported this weekend that the Obama administration had created a cyber- and electronic-warfare program to slow the Norths missile tests, but that it was unclear how effective it had been, particularly in recent months.The North Koreans have made the most of this period of uncertainty and transition. Their sped-up testing seems intended to send a message that they can overwhelm antimissile defenses, deploying missiles faster than the United States and its allies can put countermeasures in place.And they hold an ace card: an ability to destroy Seoul with artillery buried in the mountains just north of the Demilitarized Zone, a remnant of the Korean War.ImageCredit...U.S. Forces Korea, via Associated PressIn the Norths view, the American rush to put missile defenses around it only splits the global community, pushing China and Russia closer to Pyongyang, as American officials acknowledge when speaking on the condition of anonymity.Mr. Tillerson is focused on ways to pressure China, while trying to set up a first meeting between President Xi Jinping and Mr. Trump. But the two nations leaders are conducting a balancing act. Mr. Xis is the hardest, trying to weigh his opposition to North Koreas nuclear program against his conviction that a North Korean collapse would be far worse.The Trump administration is measuring how hard it can press Beijing. It is mulling negotiations to freeze the Norths nuclear arsenal, but that would also acknowledge it as a fact.You may not want to acknowledge that North Korea has 12 or 20 weapons, said Robert Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the author of the new study Preventing North Koreas Nuclear Breakout, but wouldnt a freeze be better than looking at 100 weapons a few years from now?That is exactly the debate taking place in the White House, as Mr. Trumps aides try to figure out their alternatives, including changing the security landscape with a major military buildup or, if needed, an open conflict with North Korea.The current, slow-burning crisis arose not from one episode, but from Mr. Kims broader strategy over the past year: to accelerate the pace of nuclear and missile tests so his arsenal becomes a fait accompli, something the United States cannot hope to reverse.When North Korea launched four Scud-ER ballistic missiles on Monday, it tried to demonstrate an ability to simultaneously launch multiple missiles at American bases in Japan and at American aircraft carriers around the Korean Peninsula, South Korean military officials said Tuesday.The ability to launch a barrage of missiles increases the chances of breaching an antimissile shield. But the types of midrange missiles North Korea has launched in recent months including the Scud-ERs, with a 620-mile range pose another problem for South Korea. Some of the missiles have been launched at a steep angle to achieve a higher altitude and return to earth at high speed, techniques that appear intended to complicate intercepting them.American military officials said the recent tests were a particular concern because they illustrated Pyongyangs ability to carry out a salvo of launches and on very short notice.What we saw this weekend was demonstration of a near-term simultaneous launch, said Vice Adm. James D. Syring, the director of the Pentagons Missile Defense Agency. That is something beyond what we have seen in the past.For Washington and Seoul, the rush to field Thaad is as much about politics as missile interception. American officials have repeatedly warned China that its failure to rein in North Koreas nuclear and missile programs would force the United States to deploy missile defenses in the region.Seouls interim government wants to deploy the antimissile system before a progressive leader, skeptical of the deployment, can take power in a coming presidential election.But progressives have held deep reservations about the Thaad deployment, seeing it as part of the United States effort to wrap the South into an anti-China coalition and arms race. They have already mounted a case against it.On Tuesday, Woo Sang-ho, the floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, warned, Our business are dying; our people residing in China are being threatened.Hong Ik-pyo, a senior policy maker in the opposition, said the Thaad deployment would do more harm than good for South Korea, whose economy depends on exports for growth and reaps a huge annual trade surplus with China.They say this is only to defend us from North Korea, but everyone knows this is part of the American missile defense plan, Mr. Hong said. China sees the Thaad deployment in South Korea the way the Americans saw the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s.The Chinese government said Tuesday that it continued to oppose the deployment of Thaad.Chinese leaders have struggled to grapple with the unpredictable styles of Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump. Now there are fears that the North might take advantage of the political discord to move ahead with its nuclear weapons program.They have seized this opportunity, knowing that U.S. and China are clashing, said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international studies at Renmin University in Beijing.In recent weeks, China has shown signs of toughening its stance on North Korea, including banning imports of coal from the North. Criticism of the North has also sharpened. On Tuesday, a state-run newspaper warned that North Korea should give up its weapons or face long-lasting isolation and pressure.Yet policy makers in Beijing failed to grasp how Washington and its allies regarded North Koreas nuclear program as getting closer to a dangerous threshold of being able to place a warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile, said Paul Haenle, the director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center at Tsinghua University in Beijing.Thats a game-changer, he added. | World |
Credit...Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesJune 7, 2018WASHINGTON The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency show.Under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. The chemicals include many in everyday use, such as dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers and substances used in health and beauty products like shampoos and cosmetics.But as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency.Instead, the agency will focus on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere. The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them.The approach is a big victory for the chemical industry, which has repeatedly pressed the E.P.A. to narrow the scope of its risk evaluations. Nancy B. Beck, the Trump administrations appointee to help oversee the E.P.A.s toxic chemical unit, previously worked as an executive at the American Chemistry Council, one of the industrys main lobbying groups.A spokesman for the E.P.A. said that the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other laws already provided the agency with the authority to regulate chemicals found in the air, rivers and drinking water, so there was no need to revisit them under the 2016 law, which updated the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.The agency can better protect human health and the environment by focusing on those pathways that are likely to represent the greatest areas of concern to E.P.A., said the spokesman, Jahan Wilcox.ImageCredit...U.S. Senate Committee ChannelBut three former agency officials, including a former supervisor of the toxic chemical program, said that the E.P.A.s approach would result in a flawed analysis of the threat presented by chemicals.It is ridiculous, said Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who retired last year after nearly four decades at the E.P.A., where she ran the toxic chemical unit during her last year. You cant determine if there is an unreasonable risk without doing a comprehensive risk evaluation.Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who played leading roles in passing the 2016 law, said the E.P.A. was ignoring its directive for a comprehensive analysis of risks.Congress worked hard in bipartisan fashion to reform our nations broken chemical safety laws, but Pruitts E.P.A. is failing to put the new law to use as intended, Mr. Udall said in a statement referring to Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator.A spokesman for Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, who is chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the agency, declined to comment.Cumulatively, the approach being taken for the 10 chemicals means the E.P.A.s risk analysis will not take into account an estimated 68 million pounds a year of emissions, according to an analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund, based on agency data.Dr. Beck declined requests for comment. She had pushed the E.P.A. during the Obama administration to narrow the scope of the risk evaluations, in a fashion similar to the approach under her watch.Also helping oversee the risk evaluation effort is Erik Baptist, a former senior lawyer at the American Petroleum Institute, another big player in the chemical industry.The American Chemistry Council said in a statement last week that the E.P.A.s approach met the requirements of the law, adding that it wanted the risk assessments to be protective and practical.ImageCredit...Environmental Protection AgencyUnder the approach, the E.P.A. will examine what harm can be caused, for example, to anyone directly exposed to perchloroethylene a dry-cleaning solvent and metal degreaser designated by the E.P.A. as a likely carcinogen during manufacturing or when using it in dry cleaning, carpet cleaning or handling certain ink-removal products.But the agency will not focus on exposures that occur from traces of the chemical found in drinking water in 44 states as a result of improper disposal over decades, the E.P.A. documents say. The decision conflicts with a risk assessment plan detailed by the agency a year ago, which included drinking water. And the change came after the American Chemistry Council argued in February last year that the E.P.A. has discretion to select the conditions of use that it will consider.The agency will also not consider the hazards of perchloroethylene discharged into streams or lakes, landfills or the air from dry-cleaning stores or manufacturing or processing plants, the documents say.The documents contain similar conclusions about nine of the 10 chemicals under review. One of these is 1,4-dioxane, which can be found in small amounts in antifreeze, deodorants, shampoos and cosmetics and is considered likely to be carcinogenic to humans. Another is trichloroethylene, which is used to make a refrigerant chemical and remove grease from metal parts and is associated with cancers of the liver, kidneys and blood.Other changes identified in the E.P.A. documents narrow the definitions of certain chemicals, including asbestos. Some asbestos-like fibers will not be included in the risk assessments, one agency staff member said, nor will the 8.8 million pounds a year of asbestos deposited in hazardous landfills or the 13.1 million pounds discarded in routine dump sites.The most likely outcome of the changes will be that the agency finds lower levels of risks associated with many chemicals, and as a result, imposes fewer new restrictions or prohibitions, several current and former agency officials said.They dont want to open Pandoras box by looking comprehensively at the risk, as they may prove to be significant and then they have to deal with it, said Robert M. Sussman, a former chemical industry lawyer and E.P.A. official who now works as a consultant to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, an advocacy group.Despite the changes, the E.P.A. is still expected to ban the use of methylene chloride as a paint stripper soon an action first proposed at the end of the Obama administration. The chemical, one of the 10 under review, is a popular ingredient used in dozens of products sold at home improvement stores nationwide, and has been blamed in dozens of deaths.A collection of more than a dozen groups representing environmental, public-health and labor organizations are suing the E.P.A. to challenge earlier changes in the toxic chemical evaluation program. The case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. | Politics |
Troy Brown Relax Pats Fans ... Brady 'Injury' Ain't Nothin' 1/19/2018 TMZSports.com Tom Brady's finger won't stop him from being his terrific self on Sunday ... so says his ex-teammate, Troy Brown, who's telling Pats fans to CHIIIIILLL, 'cause Brady is tough as nails. Brady suffered a mystery injury during practice this week -- and it's unclear how serious (or not serious) the injury really is. Some are speculating he badly dislocated a finger. We talked to Troy Brown, Brady's teammate for 7 years -- winning 3 Super Bowls -- who COMPLETELY brushed off the idea that TB would be affected by the setback. "The guy's tough as nails, I think the last time he missed a game it was an ACL tear. Regardless of what's going on with his hand, his finger, whatever it is, relax people Tom Brady's gonna be fine on Sunday." Now everyone in Boston can breathe easy, and everyone outside of Boston can be pissed. | Entertainment |
VideoAfter 45 years of coaching basketball at Campus Magnet High School (formerly Andrew Jackson High School), Charles Granby, 79, is retiring.CreditCredit...Richard Perry/The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2014In the final game of his coaching career, Charles Granby of Campus Magnet High School watched as his Bulldogs were thumped by Cardozo, 76-33.Rather than dwell on 32 minutes of forgettable basketball, Granby, the coach with the most victories in the history of New Yorks Public Schools Athletic League, chose to remember the glory days that stretched across six decades.I coached here for 45 years, and I cant think of one bad memory, said Granby, looking younger than his 79 years in his trademark green and white Bulldogs track suit. Its always a better idea to leave later rather than earlier. This way there are no regrets.Saturdays final buzzer capped Granbys 45th season at Campus Magnet (4-11), a high school in the Cambria Heights section of Queens that was long known as Andrew Jackson, alma mater of the Boston Celtics great Bob Cousy. Through the years, Granbys teams have won 24 division titles and 7 borough titles. From 1972 to 1985, then known as the Hickories, they did not lose a home game. He won his only P.S.A.L. championship in 1985 with a team led by Boo Harvey, who went on to star at St. Johns. At the height of his run in the 1980s, Granby scored what he called a dream coaching job in the Empire State Games in Syracuse. The Games showcased some of New Yorks most talented players, and Granbys teams featured the collegiate stars Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, Kenny Anderson and Pearl Washington, all of whom went on to the N.B.A.He was the king of Queens in those years, said the longtime Cardozo coach Ron Naclerio, whose team improved to 22-1 on Saturday.ImageCredit...Earl Wilson/The New York TimesDespite all the success, Granbys two greatest victories came off the court. Every day I wake up I consider myself blessed, said Granby, who survived kidney cancer in 1976 and prostate cancer in 1993. The good Lord kept me healthy enough to achieve some success, but I could not have accomplished anything without all of the great players I have coached. Granbys 722 career victories will cement his legacy on hallowed city ground. Jack Curran, who was the basketball coach at Archbishop Molloy in Queens for 55 years until his death last March, had the most victories (972, with 437 losses) in the Catholic High School Athletic Association.Coach Granby is my hero, said Bob Hurley Sr., the coach of St. Anthony in Jersey City, whose record stands at 1,099-115. Im 66 years old, and I hope that when Im in my late 70s, I still have that same passion and fire for coaching and teaching. Forget wins and losses for a minute and think about all the relationships that Coach Granby has been involved in over the years, all the kids whose lives he made better beyond basketball. Its a remarkable achievement, especially when you consider that it is so much more difficult to coach kids today as compared to when we started, and to have to deal with some parents who now ask less questions about academics than about their kids basketball careers.Harvey and his son Justin, who recently played for Granby, are among generations of players who have heard Granbys ugly life speech. Without a college degree, you will have an ugly life, he often told his players, including the once-troubled Lloyd Daniels, as well as Kyle OQuinn, now a member of the Orlando Magic, and Robert E. Cornegy Jr., a city councilman from Brooklyn. Your job will be ugly, Granby warned them. Your house will be ugly. Your car will be ugly. Your wife will be ugly. Hurley said that while Granbys fellow coaches will certainly miss him, we wont miss him half as much as the kids who will no longer have an opportunity to be coached by him. | Sports |
Florida State QB I Didn't Beat My Pregnant GF ... She Attacked Me! 1/24/2018 -- Tallahassee PD tells us Francois is no longer under investigation ... which means Francois and his girlfriend will not face criminal charges from the incident. Florida State University QB Deondre Francois told police he's the VICTIM in a domestic violence incident involving his pregnant girlfriend ... and only got physical with her in an effort to restrain her. It's all in the police report obtained by TMZ Sports ... which shows cops responded to the QB's Tallahassee apartment late Tuesday night, an apartment which he shares with his GF. Deondre claims ... he was hanging out in the apt. with fellow FSU football player Zaquandre White when his GF entered the pad and started going off on him over a previous argument. Deondre told police his GF began to smash items, including a vase -- and then tried to pull the TV off the wall. That's when Deondre says he tried to "stop her by picking her up like a hug" to carry her outside so she couldn't break anything else. Deondre says the GF began to "swing" on him, so he let her go. He claims the woman began to rip her own shirt while threatening to call the police and report domestic violence. Deondre says that's when he called police himself to respond to the scene. When cops arrived, Deondre's friend, Zaquandre, corroborated every detail of Deondre's story. But, the GF tells a completely different story ... She told cops Deondre was upset that evening because another guy tried to talk to her and he flew into a jealous rage, breaking down the bedroom door. She claims Deondre picked her up and threw her to the ground, cutting her forearm. He then tried to physically kick her out of the residence. The woman claims she found out at the hospital (after the incident) she was 9 weeks pregnant with a child she believes to be Deondre's. The responding officers ultimately couldn't determine who was telling the truth -- so no one was arrested. State Attorney Jack Campbell has confirmed to local media outlets that officials are still investigating the incident. | Entertainment |
Technology|Facebook Gives Lawmakers Follow-Up Answers, but Not Much Is Newhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/technology/facebook-lawmakers-follow-up-answers.htmlCredit...Gerard Julien/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJune 11, 2018SAN FRANCISCO During two days of grilling from Congress in April, Facebooks chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, repeatedly promised to get back to lawmakers on questions he could not answer. On Monday, Congress released the social networks follow-up responses to those queries.In 454 pages that were made public by the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees, Facebook provided information to more than 2,000 questions from lawmakers on topics including its policies on user data, privacy and security. Yet much of the information that Facebook included was not new and the social network sidestepped providing detailed answers, in a move that may embolden some of its critics.In dozens of responses about how Facebook operates and how it deals with its online content, the company referred members of Congress back to its terms of service and community standards. In 224 instances, Facebook simply asked lawmakers to look back at previously answered questions.See response to Question 2, Facebook wrote in seven answers to questions from Senator Ted Cruz, Republican from Texas, who asked whether the company blocked people from seeing content that came from conservative voices.Mr. Zuckerberg appeared in Washington two months ago after a swell of outrage over whether the company had mishandled its users data. The visit was spurred by revelations from The New York Times and others over how Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm with ties to the Trump campaign, had improperly harvested the information of millions of Facebook users.During Mr. Zuckerbergs two days on Capitol Hill, he sat through hours of questioning over everything from the companys business model to its data security and how foreign agents had misused the platform during the 2016 presidential election. He said he would get back to 24 lawmakers with follow-up answers, according to a tally by The New York Times. After the hearings wrapped up, lawmakers submitted a formal list of written questions that they wanted more information on.In a statement that Facebook included with its answers, the company thanked members of Congress for the questions and said it did our best to review and answer them in the available timeframe.A Facebook spokesman said the company was also preparing to send its responses to questions posed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.In many of the companys answers, it sought to assure lawmakers that it was actively looking for other companies that might have harvested peoples personal data. In response to a question by Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, for example, the company said it was in the process of investigating every app that had gathered a large amount of Facebook data and that 200 apps had already been suspended pending further investigation.Many senators also asked Facebook about its work to secure its platform for the November midterm elections. The company gave nearly identical answers to those questions, outlining how it was deploying new tools to root out fake accounts and disinformation campaigns.Some senators asked the company a large volume of questions. Mr. Cruz, for instance, posed 119 queries, many of which had subsections. His lines of inquiry ranged from whether Facebook employees had donated money to Republican and Democratic candidates over the years to how Facebook defined its hate speech policies.Members of Congress said they were reviewing Facebooks answers. | Tech |
N.B.A.|Knicks Return Seeking a Revival and, Maybe, Helphttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/sports/basketball/knicks-return-seeking-a-revival-and-maybe-help.htmlCredit...Ben Solomon for The New York TimesFeb. 17, 2014The All-Star break did not erase the fact that the Knicks have lost five of their last six games. But they reconvened for practice Monday in Memphis, hopeful that the time off had put them in a better frame of mind entering Tuesdays game against the Grizzlies.The Knicks (20-32) are two and a half games behind the Charlotte Bobcats for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. At the start of the season, the Knicks sounded determined to repeat as Atlantic Division champions. Now, they merely want to qualify for the postseason, their struggles only fueling speculation about Coach Mike Woodsons job security.While Woodson made the trip to Memphis, Kenyon Martin did not because of chronic ankle problems. In addition, Woodson told reporters that Iman Shumpert was questionable to play with an injured hip flexor. J. R. Smith, who fractured his cheekbone against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 9, said that he would play after sitting out last Wednesdays loss to the Sacramento Kings because of an ill-fitted face mask.The Knicks could also be searching for help particularly at the point guard position, given Raymond Feltons woes before Thursdays trade deadline.While most of the Knicks were able to decompress over the break, two players stayed busy. On Friday, Tim Hardaway Jr. scored a game-high 36 points in the Rising Stars challenge. On Sunday, Carmelo Anthony set an All-Star Game record with eight 3-pointers in the Easts 163-155 victory over the West.It was a great feeling, he said after the game. Youre up there in New York, and Ive been telling you that it was going to be hard for me to try and enjoy the weekend, but I did. I found a way. The guys who were part of the weekend did a great job of just getting me through it and keeping me positive.He added, And now its back to the grind. | Sports |
Sen. Ted Cruz Hollywood Hides from the Right ... It's Career Suicide 1/30/2018 TMZ.com Sen. Ted Cruz says Hollywood folks literally duck and cover when it comes to expressing conservative beliefs ... because it would be an instant death sentence for their careers. We got the Texas senator Monday at Reagan National Airport, and talked to him about the Grammys ... where singer Joy Villa showed up in a "pro-life" dress. Cruz says he's shocked anytime people in showbiz are open about their conservative views. In fact, he says he's witnessed Hollywood types running for the hills, firsthand. As we reported, Eric Trump's wife, Lara, was a total fan of Joy's dress -- but if you buy Cruz's account ... it could also crush the singer's job opportunities. For what it's worth ... Suzanne Somers fully agrees with Cruz. | Entertainment |
Politics|As the White House slips into deeper crisis, Trump says he will not go to Bidens inauguration.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/as-the-white-house-slips-into-deeper-crisis-trump-says-he-will-not-go-to-bidens-inauguration.htmlCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 8, 2021President Trump, who begrudgingly recognized his defeat less than two weeks before he was due to leave office, announced on Twitter that he would not be attending President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s inauguration on Jan. 20.His statement, while a surprise to no one, nonetheless is another break with tradition that undermines the ceremonial demonstration of a core democratic value Mr. Trump has virulently disregarded since the election the peaceful transfer of power between administrations.It remains unclear if Vice President Mike Pence will attend the ceremony, which is expected to take place under heightened security after the deadly siege of the Capitol this week and with heavy precautions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.On Friday, Mr. Biden addressed Mr. Trumps decision to skip the event saying, Its a good thing, him not showing up. But he said that Mr. Pence was welcome and that it would help the transition.Mr. Trumps plan also raises the issue of departure from Washington. Before the Christmas break, rumors swirled that Mr. Trump would not return from his gilded golf compound at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, but he flew back in time to briefly disrupt passage of the coronavirus relief package and to whip up his supporters ahead of Wednesdays attack on the Capitol.(Mr. Trump has faced opposition from local officials over his plans to expand the Florida resort.)The president quietly made plans to take a trip next week to the southwestern border to highlight his hard-line immigration policies, which have inflamed Washington over the years, according to a person briefed on the planning. He also told advisers he wanted to give a media exit interview, which they presumed might undercut any conciliatory notes. But the first family has discussed leaving the White House for good on Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration.Mr. Pence has signaled his willingness to attend, an administration source said, but said that he had yet to receive a formal invitation.President Barack Obama, who acknowledged Mr. Trumps victory immediately after his win and oversaw a detailed transition plan that was ignored by the incoming president, attended Mr. Trumps inaugural. Michelle Obama described listening to his American carnage inauguration speech as one of the most excruciating experiences of her life.Only three presidents have skipped their successors swearing-in: John Adams in 1801, his son John Quincy Adams in 1829 and Andrew Johnson, a Democrat who sat out the 1869 inauguration after he was replaced in favor of Republican Ulysses S. Grant. (An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated Mr. Johnsons political affiliation.) | Politics |
From the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, to the release of a report highly critical of the former director of the F.B.I., a lot happened this week. Here are five of the biggest stories in American politics and some additional links if you want to read further.June 15, 2018President Trump and Kim Jong-un met face-to-face for nuclear talks, but its unclear what concrete steps were taken to denuclearize the North. ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesImageCredit...Justin Tang/Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe Justice Departments inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, harshly criticized James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, as insubordinate in the investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server in handling classified information. But while Mr. Horowitz faulted the culture in the law enforcement agency during the 2016 presidential election including new texts in which the F.B.I. agent overseeing the inquiry into the Trump campaign pledged to stop the candidate from becoming president he did not challenge the outcome of the Clinton investigation. The report offered a condemnation bound to shape Mr. Comeys legacy, vindication for Democrats angry with Mr. Comeys decision and for Mr. Trump, apparent proof of the F.B.I.s bias. ImageCredit...Ross Mantle for The New York TimesImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York Times | Politics |
Ikea Founder Ingvar Kamprad Dead at 91 1/28/2018 Ingvar Kamprad, the founder if Ikea, has died. Kamprad died at his home in Sweden, where he founded the wildly successful, worldwide chain in 1943. Ikea issued a statement, saying, Kamprad was one of the greatest entrepeneurs of the 20th century. Ikea currently has 389 stores worldwide. We're told he passed away peacefully over the weekend. Kamprad founded Ikea when he was just 17 years old. He ran the company for many decades, stepping down in 2013 when he was 87 years old. Kamprad was 91. RIP. | Entertainment |
SAG Awards 2018 1st Ever Host, Lots O' Color & Franco ... Go Behind the Scenes 1/21/2018 The 24th annual SAG Awards was a mixed bag -- with the Time's Up movement as a backdrop ... there were some things (and people) we didn't expect to see. For starters ... Kristen Bell served as the award show's first-ever host -- and she kicked off an all-female ensemble of presenters for the night ... most of whom spoke out in support of Time's Up. James Franco was also in attendance, despite recently being accused of sexual misconduct. Aziz Ansari, on the other hand, skipped the show amid his own allegations. Morgan Freeman called out a would-be talker during his Lifetime Achievement award speech ... and women appeared to abandon the wardrobe blackout they adopted at the Globes. Like we said ... tons of surprises. Go behind the scenes to check out the rest. | Entertainment |
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/technology/personaltech/keeping-coffee-off-the-keys.htmlTECH TIPYou may not be able to prevent every potential beverage spill into your keyboard, but when it happens, know what to do.Credit...The New York TimesJune 7, 2018Q. For future reference, are there any measures that can be taken to resurrect a laptop after a serious coffee spill into the keyboard? A. Coffee is a common accessory to life with a laptop, but accidentally dumping the cup into the keyboard often proves fatal to the computer. The acidic properties of the coffee itself and milk proteins, sugar or artificial sweeteners, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup and any other flavorful additions to the brew can seep between the keys to short out circuits or corrode the components.If you do flood the laptop with a latte or another other beverage, turn off the computer immediately and unplug its power cord and any other hardware attached to it, like external drives. If your model has a removable battery, take it out. Tilt the computer to drain any excess liquid from is innards. Mop up as much of the spill as you can with a towel or other absorbent material, preferably by blotting instead of wiping (and potentially pushing liquid deeper into the machine).You may be able to revive the laptop by letting it drain and dry upside down overnight if water or small amounts of non-sugary liquids were spilled onto it. If significant amounts of a complex coffee creation, juice, soda, cocktails or other alcohol were the culprit, consider taking the machine to a computer repair shop as soon as possible for a professional cleaning and consultation. (The laptop may need to be taken apart and wiped down to remove sticky residue and then reassembled, possibly with replacement parts.)Shielding the computer from potential spills in the first place is a good habit, even though this can be hard to do in practice. Plastic overlays from an office-supply store that cover the laptops keyboard and upper surface provide inexpensive protection from liquids, dust and debris. If you do not like typing through a plastic barrier, at least keep the lid on the takeout beverage cup or use a leakproof, self-sealing travel mug, like containers made by Contigo and Zojirushi. And a when it comes time to upgrade to a new laptop and you are shopping around, consider a model with a spill-resistant keyboard, like an HP ProBook or Lenovo ThinkPad.And no matter what youre drinking, always keep your computer and important files backed up.Personal Tech invites questions about computer-based technology to techtip@nytimes.com. This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. | Tech |
Storm Chaser Joel Taylor Dead at 38 1/24/2018 Joel Taylor, who became famous chasing storms on Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers," has died ... this according to his friends. Joel was on the show from the beginning in 2008 and was there for the entire 5-season run. Chasing storms was not just a TV thing for him ... he was following storms long before the show aired, having studied meteorology in college. It's unclear how he died, but it appears it was not storm-related. His best friend and co-star Reed Timmer said, "I am shocked and absolutely devastated by the loss of my incredible, caring friend." Joel was 38. RIP. | Entertainment |
Credit...Brett Carlsen for The New York TimesFeb. 20, 2014PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. At an early age, Cory Vaughn was conditioned to act like a professional baseball player. His father, Greg Vaughn, who hit 50 homers for the San Diego Padres in 1998, would bring him to the ballpark, where he let him shag fly balls and take grounders. But there were rules. It was not a playground, his father said. He had to be respectful and carry himself seriously. He was about 5 years old.It did not take him long to become a very under-age, but aspiring, professional. One day, during batting practice, he caught a Tony Gwynn fly ball. Gwynn stopped hitting, called out to him and applauded. At the 1998 All-Star Game in Denver, Greg Maddux taught him how an outfielder keeps his hand on top of the ball as he transfers it from glove to hand. Now all grown up, Vaughn is an outfield prospect in the Mets organization, picked in the fourth round of the 2010 draft and trying to remain in the teams plans after a somewhat inconsistent climb through the minor league system.If he can make it, all those moments when he was a youngster among major leaguers will feel prophetic. There was the time at Dodger Stadium when Vaughn was taking grounders at shortstop, alternating with Cincinnatis Barry Larkin, when, on one throw from the catcher, his right hand went to his glove too soon. He ran to his father in the outfield, clearly in pain, and was told something along the lines of, Youre all right, rub some dirt on it.His hand was, in fact, broken. Still, that was how Vaughn was raised: If he was hurt or sick, get over it and get back on the field. But when he was about 11, he felt out of sort for months. His eating patterns were sporadic, his energy level not right. Eventually, he was found to have Type 1 diabetes. As a result, he has to watch what he eats and monitor his blood sugar level. During games, he pricks his finger and checks the level about five times. On the field, he stores an insulin pump in his back left pocket, because he slides on his right. Sometimes he keeps small candies or granola bars with him, too, just in case. But, he said, it almost never becomes an issue. At 24, Vaughn stands 6 feet 3 inches, weighs 230 pounds and, indeed, acts like the son of a major leaguer not pretentiously, but as if he belongs. Although he still has to prove that he does.Baseball America does not list Vaughn among the Mets top 10 prospects. The only outfielder listed is Brandon Nimmo, the Mets first-round pick in the 2011 draft. But if Nimmo makes it to the majors, it will not be as a slugger, whereas Vaughn has a shot to be that kind of increasingly rare player, at least until proven otherwise.It does not hurt Vaughns chances that he studied hitting at San Diego State under Gwynn, his fathers former teammate, who manages there. While there, Vaughn talked to Gwynn about everything, and his teammates came to call him Gwynns godson. Among other things, Gwynn taught Vaughn to hit to the opposite field, placing a tee across from Vaughns belly button and having him hit Wiffle balls to the right side.In his junior year at San Diego State, Vaughn hit .378 and led the team in doubles, home runs, runs batted in and stolen bases. Then came his selection by the Mets and his introduction to professional baseball. Ryan Ellis, who managed Vaughn at Class A Savannah in 2011 and at Class A St. Lucie in 2012, said Vaughns teammates gravitated toward him. He was confident and personable, a natural leader, quick to help anyone. Ellis trusted him. You root for guys like that, Ellis said.Paul DePodesta, the Mets vice president for player development and amateur scouting, called Vaughn a rare commodity, a power hitter who also plays good defense, and added that he has the skill and makeup to eventually bat in the middle of the order in the majors. Still, his best numbers to date have come in low A ball, which creates real uncertainty as to how far Vaughn can advance. His strikeout totals are high; his batting average could be higher.Last season, in 71 games at Class AA Binghamton, Vaughn hit .267, with 10 home runs, 50 R.B.I. and 9 stolen bases in 262 at-bats, missing time with a sprained ligament in his elbow. This year, he could possibly start at Class AAA Las Vegas.For now, he is in the Mets major league camp, trying to make an impression.His father talks to him a lot about the mental aspect of the game. He compares him to Matt Kemp, the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder who, when healthy, can do everything well. If you have five tools, show them every day, his father tells him. Show the Mets what theyre getting, he said. The Mets are hoping he can. INSIDE PITCHDan Warthen, the Mets pitching coach, said Matt Harvey had been cleared to begin tossing a baseball. Harvey had Tommy John surgery four months ago and is unlikely to pitch again until the 2015 season. | Sports |
TrilobitesResearchers wanted to improve the fruit yields for small farmers in Indonesia, and hope their findings will encourage protections for bats. Credit...Sheherazade/Wildlife Conservation SocietyDec. 4, 2019Known as the worlds smelliest fruit, durians are also essential to the farming economy of Indonesia. Although repulsive to many Western noses some compare the smell to rotting trash durians command the highest unit price of any fruit in Indonesia, with an export value of more than $250 million in 2013.Hoping to help improve the yield of small-scale farmers, three researchers decided to figure out what kind of creatures pollinate the durians in Sulawesi, a large island at the center of Indonesia. In a three-step process, the team first tested the plants to figure out what time of day pollination usually occurred. Evenings, they discovered, were prime time, as each flower opens for a single night and produces pollen only that one night.Then the researchers put bags on some of the flowers. Some bags had holes big enough for bugs but not larger creatures, and some had no holes at all. The bagged plants did not yield fruit, suggesting that something bigger than a bug was responsible for pollination.Finally, the researchers set up nighttime cameras to figure out which species of birds or bats was most responsible for the pollination. They reported Nov. 19 in the journal Biotropica that they caught three species of bats in the act, including a cave nectar bat and two types of flying foxes.The last two were a surprise, said Holly Ober, an associate professor and extension specialist at the University of Florida in Quincy. Flying foxes are known to eat fruit smaller than durians and are often killed by farmers trying to protect their mango crop.ImageCredit...Diego Azubel/EPA, via ShutterstockShowing that the flying foxes are crucial for durian pollination suggests farmers would be better off finding another way to protect their mangoes, Dr. Ober said. Some people also kill bats to sell as bush meat. Now that we know that these bats are important to helping farmers produce more durians, we can start getting the message out that folks should not be causing harm to these bats, she said.One of the co-authors, a local scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, who goes by the single name Sheherazade, conducted the actual experiments. Dr. Ober, who visited at the beginning of the study to help guide the research, said she hoped Sheherazade would use the findings to have a very strong voice to help persuade policymakers to add new protections for bats.Joseph Walston, senior vice president for global programs at the Wildlife Conservation Society and Sheherazades boss, said that bats were often overlooked as key contributors to an ecosystem.There is probably not a group of species in the world where the gap between how important they are and how much theyre cared for is so great, said Mr. Walston, who describes himself as a bat guy.Bats come out at night and inspire horror stories, but they are so utterly fundamental to our ecosystems, to our economies and to our health, Mr. Walston said. And yet, they are rarely offered support and protection, he said. This study really is trying to provide empirical evidence for why we as a community should do more for bats, he said. | science |
Credit...Jack Dempsey/Associated PressFeb. 1, 2014Between plays on the field, Peyton Manning appears just a bit unhinged. The body language is manic, an eruption of gesticulating arms, twiddling fingers and fidgeting, stamping feet.It is as if he hears voices in his head.And for several seconds between each play, through tiny speakers in his helmet, Manning is listening to someone. It is a big responsibility to be the person talking in Mannings ear. That person calls the plays that could decide Sundays Super Bowl for the Denver Broncos. It is a job that would seem to take on-field experience.But Adam Gase, the 35-year-old offensive coordinator who instructs Manning between plays, never played professional or college football. On his high school team, he was an average player. And this season is the first time he has called plays at any level. Oh, yes, and in 2013 Gase designed and directed an offense that scored more points in a season than any other team in N.F.L. history.In a macho, hyperorchestrated league that lives by a gladiator code and also aspires to leave nothing to chance, how did someone like Gase get the keys to the castle?Gase, who is about 6 feet 1 inch and 185 pounds and looks like the insurance salesman he almost became, may be the hottest coach in the N.F.L., having recently spurned two head-coaching overtures. Manning has called Gase the smartest guy I know. Denver Coach John Fox said Gase was a master of innovation. The teams president, John Elway, went the furthest: He used the word genius.Who gave Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory a sideline headset?Gases ascent to the top echelon of his profession is far from routine, but it is not unprecedented. In rare cases, there have been expert coaches who hardly ever played the game, like Charlie Weis, who was a head coach or assistant for teams like Notre Dame, the New England Patriots, the Jets and the Giants.But it is not the easiest road, and it takes an ability to quickly prove yourself in an intimidating environment because N.F.L. players consider their workplace a world apart from any other level of the sport, including Division I college let alone high school.And lets face it, Gase is also not working hand-in-hand with any N.F.L. player. He is working with Peyton Manning, perhaps the most cerebral and productive player of his generation.But its not about Adams playing rsum, Manning said last week. It is about what he can do to make me and the offense better. Adam has a lot of experience and knowledge in that arena.Gases career path not only is an inspirational story for those who dream of working in football but lack bulging biceps or a 4.3 40-yard dash time, but it also yields some insight into how Manning thinks and operates. Because in Denver this season, Manning and the analytical Gase have developed a bond so close, they function as if of one mind.In Marshall, Mich., the small town where Gase played tight end in high school, no one seems surprised by his success.As a junior in high school, he prepared flow charts, spreadsheets and broke down all the tendencies of our opponents on his own, said Rich Hulkow, who was Marshall Highs football coach and athletic director at the time. He was always in my office looking at film. He saved me a ton of work.Hulkow described Gase as a typical high school athlete. But it was his tactical skills that everyone noticed.When he was the Marshall basketball coach, Dan Coddens once asked Gase to scout an opponent.He turned in an immaculate, exhaustive report with details on the opponent that were incredible, Coddens said. I was shocked that a teenager could do that.Gase said his interest in game preparation was natural and not planned.I enjoyed the numbers of a sport, Gase said Tuesday as the Broncos prepared for Sundays game with the Seattle Seahawks. And there was something special about football, probably because there was so much time between games. I loved analyzing and planning for a game 10 hours of work felt like one.VideoThe Denver Broncos quarterback spoke to the media about the team's offensive coordinator, Adam Gase.CreditCredit...Video by Justin Sablich/The New York Times; Photos by Associated PressWhen Gase graduated from high school in 1996 and headed to Michigan State, Hulkow, who had played there, recommended him to the coach, Nick Saban. Saban, renowned for wearing out his assistants, gave the 19-year-old Gase a heavy load of grunt work. Gase threw himself into the job, happy to be learning any part of coaching. Year to year, though he was still a student, his responsibilities increased.Saban said last week that Gase had a natural instinct for football.It was a conceptual thing with Adam, he just understood how things worked and he was willing to work and start from ground zero, Saban wrote in an email. It wasnt like this was a star player who had played a lot of football. He wanted to be a coach and he was willing to invest as much time as it took.In 2000, when Saban left for Louisiana State, the only assistant he took with him was Gase.That got everyones attention in Marshall, said Bill Dryer, a former high school football assistant who has remained friends with Gase. Adam had a mentor who had a protg.At L.S.U., Gase was studying for his masters degree, and Saban more than kept him busy, too. Many times in his travels, he continued to be asked: So where did you play your college ball?Some of Gases undergraduate student loans were coming due, and with a salary of about $8,000, he was struggling financially. Gase was growing unsure about his unconventional career path. He was going to accept a job selling insurance, but three of his college buddies talked him out of it.They said, Youre the only one of us who likes his job, Gase said.He walked away from the insurance gig, and with Sabans help returned to Michigan in 2003 to work in the Detroit Lions scouting department. Two years later, he talked Lions Coach Steve Mariucci into putting him in charge of offensive quality control, a low rung on the pro coaching ladder.I have a soft spot for the underdog because I got my start with the same job in 1985 with the Los Angeles Rams, Mariucci said last week. Sometimes, you just need a break.Before long, Gase was the quarterbacks coach under the Lions offensive coordinator Mike Martz, who had been the mastermind of the St. Louis Rams brilliant offensive schemes and who had helped the Rams win the Super Bowl in the 1999 season.VideoThere is a lot you can learn about the Super Bowl in just over two minutes. Here are the most important figures to know about the big game.CreditCredit...Rick Osentoski/Associated PressAdam just grinds, and good people are drawn to him, said Josh Heppner, a high school teammate who visits Gase regularly. And these people find out how proficient he is. I call him the silent assassin. He doesnt say much, he just figures out how to beat you.After a season as an assistant in San Francisco, Gase landed in Denver and by 2011 was the quarterbacks coach who helped Tim Tebow lead the Broncos into the playoffs. Manning arrived a year later, and Gase was named the offensive coordinator before this season.Adam is a lot like me in that hes always thinking of how we can do something better or different or both, Manning said. And he has an almost photographic memory. He can recall a defensive scheme we saw from eight games back and remember our exact formation and the play called.Manning and Gase text and email continually, revising and altering each game plan. Over time, Gase has become Mannings sideline alter ego.But there are limits to their synchronicity. Gase imposed a texting ban on Friday nights. That is when he spends time with his wife and three children.In the end, the greatest measure of Gases success may be that it has been years since someone asked where he played college ball.Being an ex-player can be an asset in the locker room initially, said Brian Billick, a former Baltimore Ravens coach and now a Fox and NFL Network analyst. But that lasts about as long as the second practice. Players want to know what you know that can help them. Thats what matters.Gase shrugged last week when asked about his limited playing career.It does matter to some people, and believe me, I wish I had been a better player, but I wasnt, he said, smiling. I worried about it a little in the beginning, but I never think of it now.When were in the red zone trying to score a touchdown, all Peyton wants to know is what Ive got to say. He wants a play called. He doesnt need me to go out there and do it. | Sports |
After birds died in several states, many blinded with crusted-over eyes, wildlife officials were able to rule out a number of pathogens as the cause.Credit...Animal Welfare League of ArlingtonPublished July 2, 2021Updated Sept. 28, 2021Jim Tinnell, a wildlife rehabilitator in Ohio, was suspicious when he received his first sick blue jay of the season on May 24.Blue jays just dont come into rehab that often, he said, citing his 40 years of experience rehabbing birds. Theyre great parents.Three days later, he had six sick songbirds in his care. All the birds appeared emaciated and functionally blind, their eyes crusted shut. Mr. Tinnell gave each bird a warm eye compress and applied antibiotic ointment, to no avail. All the birds died within 48 hours.In the weeks following, Mr. Tinnell took in bird after bird, each with the same eye condition. Before they died, many developed neurological symptoms: Their heads bobbed back, their bodies bounced, and their blind eyes fixated upward toward the sky. Many of the afflicted birds were blue jays, grackles and starlings.This bird disease has been reported in 10 states, including Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, where wildlife agencies were also inundated with reports.The cause of these symptoms remains mysterious. But on Friday, the United States Geological Survey, which has coordinated an investigation of the disease among the states, concluded in a statement circulated to wildlife agencies that it could rule out a number of pathogens that had not been detected in the afflicted birds.Those that have been ruled out include maladies like avian influenza and West Nile, which have spread among bird species and can sometimes jump to humans. Others on the list are salmonella, chlamydia and a host of flaviviruses, herpesviruses and Trichomonas parasites, according to Dr. Christine Casey, a state wildlife veterinarian for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.Several diagnostics laboratories are continuing to test samples for potential bacterial diseases, viruses, parasites and toxins, Dr. Casey said. In July, staff at wildlife agencies said, reports seem to be tapering although its unclear whether that means that the virus is receding or that people are no longer reporting cases. City Wildlife in Washington, D.C., received one case in April; 91 in May; and 62 in the first week of June. Now, the vets see only two to four cases a week, said Dr. Cheryl Chooljian, the clinics director.ImageCredit...Jim TinnellIn Dr. Chooljians experience, not all the birds display the same symptoms. Some have only the crusty eyes, with severe swelling and white mucus discharge. Others have just neurological issues, twitching their eyes, arching their neck, or circling or rolling their bodies in a seemingly endless cycle.A vast majority of diseased birds taken into clinics and rehabilitation centers have died. At City Wildlife, all the birds arrived with such severe symptoms that they died within days or their disease progressed to the point that they had to be euthanized. Not being able to do anything but relieve the suffering of these birds has been a very emotionally taxing experience, Dr. Chooljian wrote in an email.Nearby, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington in Virginia was also overrun with sick birds that did not respond to medication. Ive never lost so many birds before, said Jennifer Toussaint, the chief animal control officer at the league. Out of concern that the disease could be contagious to other birds, both City Wildlife and the Animal Welfare League of Arlington now recommend putting the birds down on intake.Although the cause of the disease officially remains a mystery, people have proffered a number of theories. On the internet, the favorite culprit is Brood X, the periodical cicadas that spent the last 17 years underground only to emerge this year in teeming, singing masses, around the time the bird disease emerged. Though many cicadas long-awaited bacchanalia has gone off without a hitch, others have fallen prey to a zombifying white fungus, which some have speculated could be the cause of the disease.To Dr. Chooljian, the eye symptoms initially resembled those associated with the disease mycoplasma conjunctivitis, also called house finch eye disease. But the sick birds did not respond to the clinics usual treatments for house finch eye disease which, she added, does not cause neurological symptoms.Who knows at this point, Dr. Casey said, adding that she does not want to rule out anything but doubts the cicada hypothesis. In general, more of us are leaning toward an emerging bacterial infection, she added, pointing to the eye lesions that seem similar to the bacterium-caused conjunctivitis.The full results from the diagnostics lab may not come for several more weeks, according to Dr. Casey. The dead birds, their eyeballs and their flesh have been put through a battery of molecular tests for fungi, parasites and bacteria. There is still a possibility, however, that all these tests will be inconclusive, she said, adding that the diagnostics lab is holding on to a handful of corpses for retrospective testing in future years.In Ohio, all the adult birds Mr. Tinnell received died within a few days. But he has nursed eight fledglings back to full health, he said. The young birds also arrived in poor condition, eyes crusted shut, but Mr. Tinnell said they responded well to his course of treatment: warm eye compresses, oral antibiotics and an antibiotic eye ointment twice a day. Some birds opened their eyes in as little as three days, he said.Theyre looking at me right now, and theyre absolutely beautiful, Mr. Tinnell said, an incessant medley of chirps audible on the other line. | science |
Leer en ingls (Read in English) Un perro espera por sobras de pescado cerca del Ro Brahmaputra en Gauhati, India. Credit Anupam Nath/Associated Press Muchos perros en todas partes del mundo no tienen dueo. Pero lo que s tienen es una infinidad de nombres: perros callejeros, perros urbanos, perros de basurero o perros de barrio. No son perros que se escaparon de un hogar. Viven y se reproducen al margen de la sociedad pero siempre hay alguien que termina por darle forma a su historia. Quizs alguien como t. Cuntanos la historia del perro, o los perros, que hacen parte de tu vida pero que no le pertenecen a nadie. Ya sea que te topes con ellos todos los das por tu barrio, o que hayas tenido una experiencia memorable con un perro callejero en un viaje, nos gustara escucharte. Recopilaremos algunas de nuestras ancdotas y fotos favoritas para sumarlas a una historia que pronto se publicar en The New York Times en Espaol. Los campos obligatorios estn marcados con un asterisco. Lo sentimos, pero este formato ya se encuentra cerrado. Mira aqu nuestras historias favoritos sobre perros sin dueo. More on NYTimes.com | science |
March 15, 2016About a quarter of all deaths globally are attributable to preventable environmental factors, such as air and water pollution, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.The report, based on data from 2012, found that environmental risk factors accounted for about 12.6 million deaths out of a total of 55.6 million. One of the biggest scourges was air pollution, which caused not only lung and respiratory infections but also heart disease and cancer. Water pollution and poor sanitation contributed significantly to diarrheal diseases and infant mortality.Africa and Asia had the most environmental deaths. The percentage of total deaths caused by environmental factors was unchanged from the previous W.H.O. report on the topic, which came out in 2006. | Health |
Logan Paul You Live, You Learn, You Teach 1/30/2018 TMZ.com Logan Paul has music on the brain after Sunday night's Grammys, but he's also not trying to hide from the heinous footage he posted of a suicide victim ... and the backlash that followed. We got the YouTube star at LAX, and it was clear he'd been inspired after watching the music awards show because he was spitting random rap rhymes by Cardi B and Lil Uzi Vert into the convo. Still, Logan seems focused on learning from his mistakes, and teaching other YouTubers to do better. | Entertainment |
Credit...Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesMarch 9, 2017CORINTO, Colombia For years, Blanca Riveros has had the same routine: After fixing breakfast and taking her son to school, she heads home to a large plastic trash bag filled with marijuana.She trims the plants and gets them ready for Colombian drug traffickers. After school, her son helps cut more.The business was long overseen by the countrys largest rebel group, which dominated this region, taxed its drugs and became internationally notorious for trafficking in billions of dollars in illicit substances. But when the government signed a peace deal with the fighters last year, the state swept in and reclaimed this remote mountain village, threatening to end the trade.How am I supposed to feed my family? Ms. Riveros asked.She now has an unlikely option: growing marijuana with the governments blessing instead.A Canadian company called PharmaCielo, with the governments approval, is working to produce the drug legally in Colombia and is looking to hire.It is an unorthodox experiment by Colombia, one that underscores the regions changing attitudes toward drugs after decades of fighting them.Colombia has received billions of dollars in American aid to eradicate the drug trade. But in the coming weeks, the government says, it will begin processing licenses for a small number of companies, including PharmaCielo, under a 2015 law that allows the cultivation of medical marijuana.ImageCredit...Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesIn places like Mexico and Afghanistan, crop substitution programs have typically involved coaxing farmers to switch from illicit crops to mainstream agriculture. Poppies are replaced with wheat; coca leaf with coffee.Rarely has a country taken an illegal drug overseen by a criminal organization and tried to replace it with the same crop produced legally, sold by corporations.Here we have an entirely new opportunity, said Alejandro Gaviria, Colombias health minister, whose agency is issuing the licenses.Mr. Gaviria said that decades of efforts by Colombia to move drug cultivators to other crops had hit a wall: The peasants made less money, rural development moved backward, and some farmers simply returned to drug cultivation.Its been a complete failure, he said.Now, Mr. Gaviria argued, legal drugs could become an important economic tool for postconflict Colombia.More than 220,000 people were killed as the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, waged 52 years of war against paramilitary groups and the government, displacing the state entirely in some places. In the final decades, guerrillas moved into narcotics, financing the conflict through taxes on marijuana and cocaine, government officials and experts say.The logic now: What if those profits were put into the hands of the government and peasants instead?There is also a third actor that will profit greatly from the newly legal business, Canadas PharmaCielo. Others, including a Colombian company, are seeking licenses, but PharmaCielo is the most prominent in pursuing cultivation in areas once controlled by the rebels.Formed in 2014 as the new law was taking shape, PharmaCielo is already testing strains of cannabis more potent than those the rebels ever controlled. Its directors include former executives of Philip Morris and Bayer. The company sees a future in which the legal drug industry is controlled by the same kind of multinational corporations that the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movement aimed to drive from the country.Here in Corinto, the company has already signed a deal with a workers cooperative to provide labor, with plans to eventually move in with its own greenhouses, plants and fertilizer.The peasants were forced to produce these plants, says Federico Cock-Correa, who heads the Colombian subsidiary of PharmaCielo and promises to pay his growers far more than what they earned during the war.The companys Colombian headquarters are on rolling farmlands outside Medelln, best known for the kingpin who ruled them for decades, Pablo Escobar.Mr. Cock-Correa, however, is new to the drug business, coming to cannabis after a long career exporting cut chrysanthemums, which he says grow in a similar way as marijuana, to the United States.Mr. Cock-Correa swung open a padlocked door to his facility and showed off a kind of industrial future for Colombian drugs. Vast greenhouses. Organic fertilizers. A test area of 19 marijuana plants, barely four months old, some of which had grown taller than him.ImageCredit...Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesFor PharmaCielo, the first challenge was lobbying to change the laws in Colombia, the recipient of $10 billion in American aid over the past two decades to fight the drug trade. The Colombian government will continue its eradication efforts for crops like coca leaf, which is used to make cocaine, and for marijuana grown in violation of the new law.But Mr. Cock-Correa, who counts the former president, lvaro Uribe, among his neighbors, said government officials were fascinated by the idea of using legal, medical cannabis as a tool for development once the rebels were out of the picture. The 2015 law allows medical marijuana cultivation for the domestic market and the export of medical marijuana products like oils and creams.In another part of the country, the Central Andes mark the rugged homeland of Colombias indigenous Nasa people. For years, the Nasa were terrorized by the rebels, who not only taxed the marijuana trade, but also extorted from legal businesses in towns like Toribo.Mauricio Caso, Toribos deputy mayor, recalled a Saturday morning in 2011 when the rebels planted a car bomb in a bus that passed a crowded market. Five people were killed and dozens of buildings were damaged. The engine of the bus landed in the church.ImageCredit...Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesWe will never forgive what they did in Toribo, Mr. Caso said.He was speaking to Mr. Cock-Correa, who had traveled to the town to make his medical marijuana pitch, promising jobs and development. But while Mr. Caso was pleased to have the rebels gone, he seemed skeptical of Mr. Cock-Correa, too.Whats important here is we dont go 500 years backward to the times where indigenous people were working for outsiders and marginalized, Mr. Caso said.We felt the conflict, too, with our own flesh, said Mr. Cock-Correa, changing the subject to more recent history.We Nasa walk slowly but safely, Mr. Caso replied. You men from Medelln tend to be crafty and fast.Not all local leaders were as cool to PharmaCielo. Edward Garca, the mayor of Corinto, estimates that two-thirds of his town of 32,000 people depend on cannabis for a living.That people can even pay their taxes is because they are growing marijuana, he said.ImageCredit...Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesThe prospect of moving to any other crop gives growers in this area chills. Who would buy tomatoes when there are plenty on the market already?Elmer Orozco tried planting them about eight years ago and discovered that, unlike with marijuana, which goes to international markets, the only market he had access to for his tomatoes was the one downtown. Buyers offered him about 13 cents per kilogram of his tomatoes.Mr. Orozco went back to marijuana and its high prices.Other agriculture isnt profitable here, he said.But Ms. Riveros, the mother who trims marijuana plants, says the profits of the illegal trade have fallen since the FARC stood down, by more than half. Experts say the peacetime market has been flooded with cannabis that can move out of rebel territory more easily now that the rebels do not control it.Her hopes now rest with PharmaCielo. It would be a miracle for us, she said.But for now she still cuts cannabis for the mafia groups that come by Corinto.She pulled out a half-filled sack and started trimming, using scissors with an index finger that had grown crooked after years of the same work. Her son, 8, sat next to her, watching Colombian show horses on YouTube, using a wireless router they had bought with the marijuana money.At one point, prospective clients pulled up in a car to her small adobe home. Ms. Riveros pulled out a plastic bag with trimmed cannabis.It will be much more technical with the company, she said, referring to PharmaCielo.It was getting to be evening. Ms. Riveros strolled through a field of her own plants, then wandered over to an oven in a shed where long cannabis branches were hanging to dry from the ceiling.As the sun set, the growers in the village were beginning to turn on the lights above their plants, plot by plot. Before long, the entire hillside seemed lit up. The other mountains were, too. The lights of the high-rises of Cali shimmered in the far distance.Isnt it all just beautiful? Ms. Riveros asked.ImageCredit...Juan Arredondo for The New York Times | World |
DealBookCredit...Loic Venance/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesDec. 28, 2015Dinner is about to begin. Please take your seats. Lets save the speeches for later in the evening and were going to keep them brief this year. That includes you, Bill Ackman.As 2015 comes to an end, its time for DealBooks annual Closing Dinner, a Wall Street ritual that may seem to be a vestige of a different era in the face of recently announced layoffs and continued cost-cutting. To reflect this new thrifty environment, weve asked Chipotle to cater. (Fingers crossed.)Of course, the biggest challenge in organizing this dinner is the seating assignments and the requests that come in from all of those persnickety executive assistants. The health care table, which is usually straightforward, was especially tricky this year. For example, I was told that the executive team from Valeant did not want to be seated at the same table with Martin Shkreli, the drug company executive arrested and charged with securities fraud this month. Something about optics. (Mr. Shkreli has pleaded not guilty.) And finding a seatmate for Elizabeth Holmes, whose blood-testing start-up, Theranos, has come under scrutiny, also proved challenging. We settled on seating her next to her lawyer, David Boies, a Theranos board member.Then we had to contend with the seating assignments for the activist investors table, which we usually keep in the back because it often gets so rowdy. This year, given their newfound prominence in the boardroom, weve moved the table to the front. Carl Icahn has assured me hes going to going to keep it classy and has invited two guests: Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, one of Mr. Icahns biggest stock positions, and his friend Donald Trump, who has pledged to make Mr. Icahn secretary of the Treasury if he wins the presidency. (Really, this is not a joke.)Weve also got the unicorn table this year, which includes Travis Kalanick of Uber and Brian Chesky of Airbnb. The Silicon Valley executives are seated next to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been squabbling with Airbnb and appeared to capitulate in his battle with Uber earlier this year. The mayor, still stinging over mocking him by name in its app, grudgingly agreed to sit next to Mr. Kalanick. But he was excited to chat with Mr. Chesky and float his idea for a new revenue stream for the city by renting out his Yalie sons empty bedroom via Airbnb.Finally, theres the Giving Pledge table in the very front: Mark Zuckerberg, who announced plans to give away 99 percent of his Facebook stock, just as his role models Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates are doing with their wealth. He got dinged by critics for using a limited liability company structure rather than a traditional nonprofit. But give the guy a break, hes going to give away billions. Happily, Mr. Zuckerberg also generously agreed to pick up the Chipotle bill tonight, and hes even springing for the guacamole. (Yes, we know, guacamole is extra.)ImageCredit...Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesFinally, with Mr. Trump in attendance, we decided to balance things out by inviting Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. We placed Mrs. Clinton at the table with Wall Street chief executives. Mr. Sanders sat alone.Now on to the toasts and roasts as we look back on 2015 and look ahead to the new year:CHEERS, MS. YELLEN The Federal Reserve chairwoman, Janet Yellen, seated on the dais, has been repeatedly criticized by many Wall Street players for not raising interest rates fast enough. Yet she held firm and took her time until she believed she could raise rates without causing a three-alarm panic. She did it in December, just as she said she would, and the market did, well, next to nothing which was exactly her goal. It is hard to imagine it going much smoother, given all the consternation around a raise over the last two years. Could it have happened sooner? Perhaps. But well never know. What we do know is that so far, during her first two years at the helm, Ms. Yellen seems to be steering the ship carefully and confidently. It is too soon to say whether her policies will prove successful, but so far, kudos are in order.DONT HOLD YOUR BREATH Just when we thought tax inversion deals had been slowed by new rules from the Treasury Department, we got the biggest inversion deal in history: Pfizer buying Allergan for $150 billion. Through all sorts of financial sleight of hand and legal maneuvering, Allergan, the far smaller company, will end up buying Pfizer, with the combined company claiming residency in Ireland. Its easy to be cynical about the deal and call Pfizer unpatriotic and I have! but the real culprit is the nations byzantine corporate tax system, which hasnt been significantly updated since 1986. That doesnt make sense. Both Democrats and Republicans have argued that we need to reform the tax system, and both sides actually arent that far apart. Perhaps 2016 will be the year this gets fixed. If it doesnt, well be talking at next years dinner about other iconic American companies renouncing their citizenship for a cheaper tax rate abroad.THE ACTIVISTS WON. NOW WHAT? First, Ellen Kullman, DuPonts longtime chief executive, was shown the door. (She claimed to retire.) Then DuPont, only two months later, announced plans to merge with Dow Chemical. What drove these corporate machinations? Activist investors. Nelson Peltz pressured DuPonts board to oust Ms. Kullman and combine with Dow Chemical. Meanwhile, Dan Loebs Third Point aimed his sights at Dow Chemical. (Dow Chemical did the deal with DuPont just one business day before Mr. Loeb was technically allowed to speak out about the company. Dows chief executive, Andrew Liveris, of course, said that the timing was unrelated.) Whether this merger is a success remains to be seen. But more than anything else that happened this year, the deal demonstrates the increasing power of shareholder activists in the boardroom, gaining access and influence. Now that the boardroom is becoming more democratic, its important to remember that democracy can also be messy.CMON GUYS It was the corporate scandal of the year: Volkswagen systematically cheated on emissions tests for years by literally hacking software in millions of its cars. Yes, heads have rolled at the German automaker, but no one has been prosecuted at least not yet.RETURNS, RETURNS, RETURNS The table of hedge fund titans including Mr. Ackman (yes, Bill, were getting to the speeches), Greenlight Capitals David Einhorn and Glenview Capital Managements Larry Robbins was strategically placed near the bar this year, given the industrys miserable returns. According to a report from HSBC, through the end of last month Mr. Ackmans performance was off 19.5 percent, Mr. Einhorns fund had declined more than 20 percent and Mr. Robbinss fund had dropped 17 percent. Unless hedge funds start meaningfully outperforming the market, its going to get harder to justify paying their expensive fees if its justifiable at all.In case there was any confusion, this dinner is all fictitious. (Every year, at least one reader asks about getting invited.) | Business |
Americas|Artist Says Brazilian Protesters Copied His Giant Rubber Duckhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/world/americas/florentijn-hofman-brazilian-protesters-copied-his-giant-rubber-duck.htmlCredit...Victor Moriyama/Getty ImagesApril 1, 2016As Brazilians have protested corruption scandals in their government and called for the impeachment of their president, a Dutch artist has mounted a singular protest of his own. He says the giant yellow rubber duck that protesters have hauled into the streets as a makeshift mascot in the past month is too similar to his own creation.The duck used in the demonstrations has Xs in place of its eyes and a Portuguese slogan across its chest that says: We wont pay for what is not our fault anymore. But representatives for the Dutch artist, Florentijn Hofman, who is known for his outsize creations depicting animals, say they saw too many similarities between his rubber duck and the one used in Brazil and they are not amused.Mr. Hofmans six-story-tall version of the bathtub toy appeared in a harbor in Hong Kong as part of an art festival in 2013. A Brazilian industrial group, FIESP, used a similar rubber duck in the demonstrations, and Mr. Hofmans representatives say that it featured the same design and technical patterns of the previous work and that its just odd that the protest duck was produced in the same factory where Mr. Hofmans art duck was created.A spokeswoman for Mr. Hofman, Kim Engbers, said in an email: Of course we want to emphasize that it is a shame that this parody is used for propaganda. Our project is meant to be nonpolitical.She added: It is a positive work and has healing functions.Ms. Engbers, however, stopped short of calling the Brazilians use of the rubber duck a copyright infringement.The owner of the factory that produced the duck said the design had not been copied, and a spokesman for FIESP said the group had been assured that the design was an original, the BBC reported.This is the not the first time Mr. Hofman has raised concerns about what he considers an unauthorized appearance of a duck similar to his.To me, the rubber duck is an icon, Mr. Hofman has said.In July, he complained about a duck that appeared briefly on the Delaware River at the Tall Ships Philadelphia festival. Event organizers disputed the claim that the duck was one of his.He also created an 82-foot-tall bunny that was featured at a festival in Taiwan in 2014. As it was being disassembled, it accidentally caught fire; its head and legs were destroyed, leaving behind a charred torso, an ear and an arm. | World |
Credit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesMarch 18, 2017BERLIN When visitors want to experience this citys much celebrated alternative culture, they often make their way to Heinrichplatz, a graffiti-covered square in the Kreuzberg neighborhood that for decades has been a hub for independent arts, underground night life and radical politics.But on a recent Saturday afternoon, the usual clusters of selfie-snapping tourists and cafegoers were met by hundreds of demonstrators carrying signs that read, Were all staying or Say no to crowding out, and protesting rising rents, forced evictions and rampant real estate speculation.Massive crowding is happening to the extent that a lot of people cant pay their rent, or they are having their leases canceled for the slightest triviality, said Sara Walther, one of the organizers, stubbing out a rolled cigarette. People are finally starting to defend themselves.Over the past decade, people have poured into Berlin, attracted by its relative affordability, cultural wealth and anything-goes spirit. But now the city is trying to regulate what has elsewhere proved to be unstoppable: gentrification.Under pressure from a growing grass-roots movement, the city authorities have put into effect a slate of measures, including rent caps, a partial ban on vacation rentals, development-free zones and increased social housing subsidies. The goal is to bridle the bullish housing market and conserve the diverse social and cultural makeup of the city center.The problem of rising rents and lack of living space is one of the most important issues for Berlin, said Petra Rohland, a spokeswoman for the citys Department of Urban Development and Housing.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesNot long ago, these problems would have been unthinkable. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, this city was littered with uninhabited buildings and large sections of valuable but disused land along the strip where the Berlin Wall once stood. To spur development, city officials sold off land and more than 110,000 government-owned apartments to foreign investors, while also funding urban renewal campaigns.At the same time, a government program to subsidize some apartments was eliminated, meaning that as Berlin became a popular destination in the late 2000s, it was fertile ground for rampant rent hikes.Last year, more than 60,000 people arrived here, a pace similar to much larger cities. Prices have soared in fashionable districts like Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, where rents rose in the past decade by more than 80 percent, according to data from the Empirica Institute, which tracks property prices. But incomes in Berlin remain relatively low, with more than half the population qualifying for public housing, meaning that many longtime residents and other low earners are being priced out.People have lived and worked here for a long time, and even if they arent making much money, they are part of the city, said Malte Voss, a freelance videographer who is part of an embattled tenant collective at Lausitzer 10-11, a brick loft complex that houses artist studios, workshops and left-leaning nongovernmental organizations. They are the reason Kreuzberg is like it is.Late last year, the tenant collective learned that its landlord, Taekker, a Danish development firm, intended to sell the building to private investors who planned a conversion to luxury loft apartments.The tenants set up a publicity team and, with informal support from the city, began negotiations with Taekker.More and more tenants are organizing themselves, Wibke Werner, deputy director of the Berlin Tenants Association, said. Not since the squatter movement of the 70s and 80s has there been so much momentum.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesToday, the streets of Kreuzberg are peppered with stickers, fliers and graffiti expressing support for grass-roots coalitions. One group, Bizim Kiez, came together in 2015 in defense of a Turkish family-owned grocery store threatened by eviction. The eviction was eventually canceled under heavy public pressure, but last year its owner was forced to give up the store, Bizim Bakkal, because of health problems that he said had stemmed from the fight with the landlord.The phrase Bizim bleibt, or Bizim stays became a rallying cry for the wider movement and gave birth to the Bizim Kiez organization, which is fighting to maintain diversity in the neighborhood.After tenant outcry, the city also saved at least two apartment blocks in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg from being sold, using a legal tool known as the right of first refusal, which lets officials intervene if they can find funding for the purchase. In another case, the city recently stepped in and purchased a large disused freight station in the eastern district of Kpenick, which it plans to convert into affordable housing.But like the right of first refusal rule, which depends on flush state funding, many of the anti-gentrification measures have limitations. The system of rent caps, which forbids landlords to charge more than 10 percent above the district average for a new rental contract, has many exceptions and loopholes. Often, landlords simply ignore it.People are happy if they find an apartment in the city they can afford, said Ms. Werner of the tenants association. Its not the first thing they do to enter into a conflict with their landlord.More effective are the so-called milieuschutz laws, translated as social environment protection, meant to prevent landlords from imposing expensive renovations that would effectively price out the current tenants. Today, there are more than 30 milieuschutz zones in Berlin, with more expected, though the protections are not ironclad. These zones prevent landlords from converting rental apartments to condos unless they promise to sell only to current tenants for a period of seven years.But then its very probable the landlord will try to kick out the tenants and sell the condos for lots of money, Ms. Werner said. We think the transition from rental to condos should be forbidden totally.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesAmid so much grass-roots resistance, there are concerns that all of this new regulation will create an undue burden on property owners and frighten away potential investors.These measures lead to a significant restriction of property investment, said Carsten Brckner, chairman of the German homeowners association Haus & Grund. Everyone has the right to live everywhere. That this possibility is also dependent on the economic performance of the individual should not surprise us.The rent caps and milieuschutz laws, he added, combine to make modernization difficult, if not impossible, leading to deterioration of the property portfolio.Yet there are also concerns that the booming property market is not sustainable. Recent figures released by the German Property Federation show that purchase prices on residential real estate in Berlin grew by 94 percent from 2010 to 2016, while rents increased by only 40 percent. This gap seems to be widening, the report says, which generally raises concern for a real estate bubble.Johannes Novy, a prominent German urbanist, said Berlins affordability, mixed social makeup and spirit of experimentation are what made it attractive to begin with. The recent regulation and grass-roots organizing are positive steps, he said, but many of these measures have come far too late, and at this point its very difficult to stem the tide.What is at stake in the current debate, many say, is the very heart of the city.In a typical capitalist city, gentrification and pricing out is normal, said David Schuster, one of the organizers of the Kreuzberg protest, which ended up drawing more than 1,000 people, far more than expected. But thats not what we want.Manuel Kony, a 28-year-old sales manager watching the demonstration from the side of the street, said balance should be the goal. I think you have to find an equilibrium, where people can find reasonable rental prices, but the city is still allowed to develop further, he said.Otherwise, you end up with a kind of banlieue situation, he added, referring to the crime-ridden exurban districts that have garnered so many headlines in France. Do we really want what happened in Paris? | World |
TrilobitesCredit...Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesMarch 13, 2017When did North America become a home where the ancestors of buffalo roamed? Between 195,000 and 135,000 years ago, according to a study published Monday that reports on the oldest fossil and genomic evidence of bison on the continent.Scientists have set out to chronicle when the massive, furry beasts first crossed into North America from Asia via the Bering land bridge because that event was the beginning of a striking change in the ecology of the continent. They refer to it as an invasion because once the bison arrived, they thrived everywhere and began competing with the horses and mammoths that had grazed the Great Plains for millions of years.The only other invasion of North America that has had such an ecological and environmental impact has been us, said Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary molecular biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a co-author of the paper, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.In the millenniums that followed, the ancient bison evolved into the iconic American buffalo we know today.Dr. Shapiro worked with Duane Froese, an earth scientist from the University of Alberta in Canada and the lead author of the paper, to construct the chronology of the bison colonization.One key to narrowing down when the bison arrived came from a serendipitous find made by Dr. Froeses colleague Alberto Reyes, a geologist from the University of Alberta. In 2006 while studying ancient volcanic ash buried in the northern Yukon in northwestern Canada, Dr. Reyes stumbled across a bone jutting from the frozen mud near the ash layer.ImageCredit...Alberto ReyesHe passed it off to Grant D. Zazula, the paleontologist on the site, and returned to his lab to write a paper on the history of permafrost. It was not until several years later while he was working on the paper that something jogged his memory.This light bulb went off as I was going through my old field notes, Dr. Reyes said. Oh my God, I forgot about this bone that I gave to that paleontologist. That bone could be pretty important.It was.The fossil was of a bone from the front foot of a steppe bison, an extinct species that came from Siberia, believed to be 130,000 years old. That would make it the oldest bison fossil found on the continent. Dr. Reyes determined its age by using the ancient volcanic ash layer near where it was found, which has a known age, as a reference.For corroboration, the team performed a genetic analysis of the bone. In addition to sequencing the mitochondrial DNA of the bone, the team also sequenced the mitochondrial genome of a 120,000-year-old fossil belonging to an extinct giant longhorn bison that was found in Snowmass Village, Colo., a ski resort town.Thought to be the largest bison to have ever lived, the giant longhorn was about two tons and more than eight feet tall at the shoulders. It lived in what is now the southern part of Canada and in the contiguous United States.After sequencing both beasts DNAs, the team compared them with the genomes of about 40 other bison fossils from Siberia and North America. It found that the steppe and longhorn bison specimens were genetically very similar and that both were descendants from the first bison to come to North America, even though they looked very different and lived far apart.ImageCredit...Duane FroeseThe teams genetic analysis suggests that after bison ancestors first invaded from Asia more than 130,000 years ago, when sea levels are thought to have been much lower, they dispersed throughout the continent within about 20,000 years, much quicker than previously thought. During that time their looks and body sizes changed as they adapted to their specific environments, rapidly giving rise to creatures like the giant longhorn.This revises everything we thought about how bison came into North America and evolved after that, Dr. Shapiro said.Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary biologist from McMaster University in Ontario, who was not involved in the study, was impressed with how the team integrated paleontological, geological and genetic information into a single narrative that is quite convincing.He added that until more fossils come along, this will stand as the best estimate of the timing of bison into North America. | science |
As Infections Rise, C.D.C. Urges Some Vaccinated Americans to Wear Masks AgainIn communities with growing caseloads, vaccinated and unvaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors in public areas, health officials said.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesPublished July 27, 2021Updated Aug. 15, 2021Revising a decision made just two months ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that people vaccinated against the coronavirus should resume wearing masks in public indoor spaces in parts of the country where the virus is surging.C.D.C. officials also called for universal masking for teachers, staff, students and visitors in schools, regardless of vaccination status and community transmission of the virus. With additional precautions, schools nonetheless should return to in-person learning in the fall.The recommendations are another baleful twist in the course of Americas pandemic, a war-weary concession that the virus is outstripping vaccination efforts. The agencys move follows rising case counts in states like Florida and Missouri, as well as growing reports of breakthrough infections of the more contagious Delta variant among people who are fully immunized.The Delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the C.D.C., said at a news briefing on Tuesday.The C.D.C. said Americans should resume wearing masks in areas where there are more than 50 new infections per 100,000 residents over the previous seven days, or more than 8 percent of tests are positive for infection over that period. Health officials should reassess these figures weekly and change local restrictions accordingly, the agency said.By those criteria, all residents of Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana, for example, should wear masks indoors. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. counties qualify, many concentrated in the South.The agency said that even vaccinated Americans in areas without surges might consider wearing a mask in public indoor settings if they or someone in their household has an impaired immune system or is at risk for severe disease, or if someone in the household is unvaccinated.That includes vaccinated parents of children under age 12, who are currently ineligible for the shots.C.D.C. officials were persuaded by new scientific evidence showing that even vaccinated people may become infected and may carry the virus in great amounts, perhaps even similar to those in unvaccinated people, Dr. Walensky acknowledged at the news briefing.Data from several states and other countries show that the variant behaves differently from previous versions of the coronavirus, she added: This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation.This is not a decision we at C.D.C. have made lightly, Dr. Walensky added. This weighs heavily on me. Americans are tired and frustrated, she said, and mental health challenges are on the rise.After the agencys announcement, White House staff were instructed to begin wearing masks again indoors. The Biden administration is considering requiring all federal employees to be vaccinated or to submit to regular testing and workplace restrictions, requirements similar to those being imposed in New York City and California.We have a pandemic because of the unvaccinated, and theyre sowing enormous confusion, President Biden told reporters on Tuesday. The more we learn about this virus and the Delta variant, the more we have to be worried and concerned. And theres only one thing we know for sure if those other hundred million people got vaccinated, wed be in a very different world.The C.D.C. needed to revisit its recommendations, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the administrations lead adviser on the pandemic. I dont think you can say that this is just flip-flopping back and forth. Theyre dealing with new information that the science is providing.The vaccines remain remarkably effective against the worst outcomes of infection with any form of the coronavirus, including hospitalization and death. But the new guidelines explicitly apply to both the unvaccinated and vaccinated, a sharp departure from the agencys position since May that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most indoor spaces.Those recommendations, which had seemed to signal a winding down of the pandemic, were based on earlier data suggesting that vaccinated people rarely become infected and almost never transmit the virus, making masking unnecessary.But that was before the arrival of the Delta variant, which now accounts for the bulk of infections in the United States. And it may be followed by others. The big concern is that the next variant that might emerge just potentially a few mutations away could evade our vaccine, Dr. Walensky said.Whether masks become ubiquitous again may depend on local surveillance and outreach efforts, which vary from state to state. Many Americans simply do not know what infection rates and positive test rates are in their area on a week-by-week basis.Based on what scientists are learning about the Delta variants ability to cause breakthrough infections, this is a move in the right direction, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York.The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the two leading teachers unions, strongly endorsed the C.D.C.s move to universal masking in schools.Masking inside schools, regardless of vaccine status, is required as an important way to deal with the changing realities of virus transmission, said Randi Weingarten, president of the A.F.T. It is a necessary precaution until children under 12 can receive a Covid vaccine and more Americans over 12 get vaccinated.Other union officials said the guidance did not go far enough, and would fail to protect frontline and essential workers in supermarkets, retail stores and meatpacking plants.A national mask mandate is the only way we can finally take control of this virus, said Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International.ImageCredit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesWhether state and local government officials are willing to follow the agencys guidance is far from certain. And there is sure to be resistance from pandemic-fatigued Americans, particularly in regions of the country where vaccination rates are low and concerns about the virus are muted.Some jurisdictions, like Los Angeles County and St. Louis County, have already reinstated mask mandates in response to rising cases. But officials in some communities in Los Angeles County have said they will not enforce a mandate. And the Missouri attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the city of St. Louis to stop the measure.Businesses, too, are likely to find that new mask recommendations complicate plans to return to their offices in places where the virus is spreading and may necessitate new mandates for employees to get vaccines.The Washington Post, for example, on Tuesday said it would require proof of vaccination as a condition of employment when workers return to the office in September, after hearing concerns from many employees about the emergence of coronavirus variants.If businesses believe that such mandates would be beneficial, we encourage them to do so, Dr. Walensky said at the news briefing. Were encouraging, really, any activities that would motivate further vaccination.As recently as last week, a C.D.C. spokesman said that the agency had no plans to change its masking guidance, unless there was a significant change in the science. Now researchers have begun to turn up disturbing data.The Delta variant is thought to be more than twice as contagious as the original version of the virus. Some research now suggests that people infected with the variant carry about a thousandfold more virus than those infected with other variants, and they may stay infected for longer.C.D.C. officials were swayed by new research showing that even vaccinated people may carry great amounts of the variant virus in the nose and throat, suggesting that they also may spread it to others.Large so-called viral loads may help explain reports of breakthrough infections in groups of vaccinated people. For example, an outbreak that began in Provincetown, Mass., after Fourth of July festivities there, has grown to include at least 765 cases, according to Steve Katsurinis, chair of the Provincetown Board of Health.Of the 469 cases reported among Massachusetts residents alone, 74 percent were in people who were fully immunized, Mr. Katsurinis said.Smaller clusters of breakthrough infections have been reported after weddings, family reunions and dinner parties. Some of the infected people had symptoms, but the vast majority were not seriously ill, suggesting that immunity produced by the vaccines quickly curbs the virus.Vaccines are not a force field, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Universitys Bloomberg School of Public Health. Instead, vaccination trains the immune system to recognize cells that become infected with the virus.The term breakthrough infection is probably a bit misleading, she said. Its probably more realistic that we talk about breakthrough disease and how much of that is occurring.Dr. Walensky acknowledged that some vaccinated people can become infected with the Delta variant and may be contagious, but maintained that it was a rare event. So far vaccinated people account for just 3 percent of hospitalizations, officials have found.Dr. Gounder and other experts said that it is unclear how often vaccinated people transmit the virus to others, but it may be more common than scientists had predicted as the original virus was spreading last year.ImageCredit...Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesVaccinated people particularly those with weak immune systems or otherwise at high risk should consider wearing masks even in areas of low transmission, said Dr. Scott Dryden-Peterson, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. Masks can effectively reduce the amount of virus that we breathe in and prevent us from getting sick, and so they augment the impact of our vaccine. Almost everywhere in the U.S., its a good idea, he said.Infections have been rising swiftly in the United States, to more than 56,000 daily cases on average, as of Tuesday, more than four times the number a month ago. Hospitalizations have also been ticking up in nearly all states, and deaths have risen to an average of 275 per day.Federal officials need to articulate clear plans for testing and long-term masking, experts said.The question is, what are the offramps for masking? asked Dr. Nuzzo. If we want to continue to ask people to step up, we need to give them a vision of what were working toward.The C.D.C. should simply have told all Americans to wear masks indoors, said Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at University of Washington and former C.D.C. scientist.If you look at the country, every state is seeing a rise in transmission, Dr. Mokdad said. So why not say, Everybody in the U.S. should be wearing a mask indoors? The whole country is on fire.Reporting was contributed by Roni Caryn Rabin, Neil MacFarquhar and Daniel E. Slotnick in New York, and Annie Karni and Sheryl Gay Stolberg in Washington. | Health |
VideotranscripttranscriptFrom Gay Rights to Bush v. Gore: Anthony Kennedys LegacyThe Timess Supreme Court correspondent, Adam Liptak, looks at many of Justice Anthony Kennedys most consequential votes.Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, effective July 31. Justice Kennedys greatest judicial legacy was his championship of gay rights. He wrote every major gay rights decision, including one called Obergefell, which established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and it will be what he is most remembered for. Justice Kennedy was a moderate conservative; voted more often with the courts conservative wing; was the author of Citizens United, which amplified the role of money in politics; cast a vote with the five-justice majority in Bush v. Gore in 2000, which handed the presidency to President George W. Bush I George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear. joined the five-justice majority in District of Columbia against Heller, which revolutionized Second Amendment law and established a personal right to keep and bear arms. He was often prepared to cut back on the death penalty, whether it involved people with intellectual disabilities, people who committed crimes when they were younger than 18 or people who committed crimes other than murder. He joined the controlling opinion and in a 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood against Casey, which re-established and saved Roe v. Wade, the decision that guarantees a constitutional right to abortion. And in recent years, he has joined the courts liberals in cases on affirmative action and abortion. And those cases in which Justice Kennedy joined the courts four more liberal members are almost certainly at risk if President Trump appoints a conservative to the court.The Timess Supreme Court correspondent, Adam Liptak, looks at many of Justice Anthony Kennedys most consequential votes.CreditCredit...Eric Thayer/Getty ImagesJune 27, 2018WASHINGTON Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced on Wednesday that he would retire this summer, setting in motion a furious fight over the future of the Supreme Court and giving President Trump the chance to put a conservative stamp on the American legal system for generations.Justice Kennedy, 81, has been a critical swing vote on the sharply polarized court for nearly three decades as he embraced liberal views on gay rights, abortion and the death penalty but helped conservatives trim voting rights, block gun control measures and unleash campaign spending by corporations.His replacement by a conservative justice something Mr. Trump has vowed to his supporters could imperil a variety of landmark Supreme Court precedents on social issues where Justice Kennedy frequently sided with his liberal colleagues, particularly on abortion.Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have hoped for months that Justice Kennedy might retire, clearing a way for a new, more conservative jurist before Democrats had an opportunity to capture the Senate and block future Republican nominees. In contrast to his frequent criticisms of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a generally reliable conservative, Mr. Trump has frequently heaped praise on Justice Kennedy and even has suggested that he might nominate one of his former clerks to the bench subtle nudges the president hoped would make Justice Kennedy more comfortable with the idea of stepping down.ImageJustice Kennedy hand-delivered a short letter of resignation to Mr. Trump on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after a half-hour meeting at the White House, where the president called him a jurist with tremendous vision and tremendous heart.Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises, Justice Kennedy wrote to Mr. Trump.The president called Justice Kennedy a special guy and a star during a Wednesday night rally in Fargo, N.D., and said that he would find a replacement with intellect who would last for several decades on the bench.Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump promised to begin an immediate search for a replacement and to pick from a list of 25 conservative jurists he had previously identified as candidates for the courts next vacancy. In comments to reporters, Mr. Trump said he would nominate somebody who will be just as outstanding as Justice Kennedy.Potential nominees include Brett M. Kavanaugh, a federal appellate judge for the District of Columbia Circuit who clerked for Justice Kennedy at the Supreme Court. Another possibility is Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, whom Mr. Trump seriously considered last year to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. The president chose Judge Neil M. Gorsuch instead.The Senate, which must confirm the presidents pick for the court, is under Republican control, which gives Mr. Trump the opportunity to win approval of his choice without any Democratic support. But the Senates makeup could change after congressional elections this fall, putting immense pressure on the president and his party to nominate and confirm a justice before November.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, called on senators to make sure the presidents nominee would be considered fairly without being subjected to personal or character attacks.We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedys successor this fall, Mr. McConnell vowed in brief remarks on Wednesday.But Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, demanded that the Senate wait to confirm Justice Kennedys replacement until after the midterm elections. Mr. Schumer noted that Republicans delayed consideration of President Barack Obamas court nominee in 2016, Judge Merrick B. Garland, citing the presidential election that year.The Republicans prevented even a hearing for Mr. Obamas nominee, which effectively handed Mr. Trump the chance to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Scalia. The move infuriated Democrats, who accused Republicans of stealing Mr. Obamas right to fill a seat on the court.Mr. Schumer said senators should not consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year, saying that anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy.People are just months away from determining the senators who should vote to confirm or reject the presidents nominee, Mr. Schumer said on the floor of the Senate, and their voices deserve to be heard now, as Senator McConnell thought that they deserved to be heard then.Justice Kennedy, a Californian and graduate of Harvard Law School, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. But he was never a reliable conservative and evolved into one of the courts most unpredictable jurists.He wrote some of the countrys most important gay rights decisions and helped to drastically shift the United States legal treatment of gays, lesbians and transgender people. In 2015, he wrote the courts opinion that established the right for gay people to marry each other.Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilizations oldest institutions, Justice Kennedy wrote of gay Americans. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.Justice Kennedy has also served as the linchpin of the judicial defense of abortion rights, frequently siding with the courts liberals in turning back conservative challenges to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that established a constitutional right to abortion.But Justice Kennedy has also been a decisive vote for rulings that cemented conservative principles in some of the most contentious issues in American political life.He wrote the opinion in Citizens United, which gave corporations the right to make unlimited campaign contributions. He joined the courts conservatives in 2008 in declaring that the Constitution protects a persons right to keep a loaded gun at home for self-defense.After the 2000 election, Justice Kennedy also joined the majority in Bush v. Gore, handing the presidency to Mr. Bush and drawing the ire of Democrats who believed the election was stolen from Vice President Al Gore.In leaving this year, Justice Kennedy gives Mr. Trump and the Republican Party the opportunity to undermine the permanence of the liberal cases that he shaped. His retirement will have far more effect than Mr. Trumps selection of Justice Gorsuch, a conservative who replaced another conservative, Justice Scalia.During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump promised voters that he would choose a Supreme Court nominee should he get the opportunity from a list of mostly conservative judges that he made public.ImageCredit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesHe first offered 11 names, then added 10 more, compiled by Donald F. McGahn II, Mr. Trumps longtime election lawyer and now the White House counsel, with input from the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, two conservative legal organizations. Since last year, the list which is published at whitehouse.gov has grown to 25 names.We have a very excellent list of great, talented, highly educated, highly intelligent hopefully, tremendous people. I think the list is very outstanding, Mr. Trump said Wednesday. So it will be somebody from that list.In addition to Judge Kavanaugh and Judge Hardiman, Mr. Trump is expected to seriously consider William H. Pryor Jr. and Amul R. Thapar, both appeals courts judges. Mr. Trump interviewed Judges Hardiman, Pryor and Thapar in 2017 before picking Judge Gorsuch.The White House is likely to conduct a similar process this year, with Mr. Trump meeting personally with several candidates and discussing the issue with advisers inside and outside the administration.Because Mr. Trump is unpredictable, it is possible that he might pick someone like Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, a conservative lawmaker who appears on the presidents list of 25 possible nominees. Mr. Trump could also, despite his pledge, veer from the list and pick someone else.In his remarks to reporters shortly after meeting with Justice Kennedy, the president appeared to appreciate the gravity of the choice before him.In our country, the selection of a justice of the United States Supreme Court is considered, I think we can all say, one of the most important events one of the most important things for our country, he said. I mean, you see the decisions that just came down, how big they are, how vital they are.Some people think, the president added, outside of, obviously, war and peace, its the most important thing that you could have. | Politics |
Science|You Can Try Miss Americas Science Experiment at Homehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/science/miss-america-2020-camille-schrier-science.htmlTrilobitesThe catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide can be dangerous at high concentrations, but there is a safe version of Camille Schriers demonstration that is still fun.Credit...Charles Krupa/Associated PressDec. 20, 2019When she walked onto the stage for the talent portion of the Miss America competition, Camille Schrier wore a simple white lab coat, stood in front of three flasks containing hydrogen peroxide and joked, Dont try this at home.Soon-to-be-Dr. Schrier (who is studying to obtain a doctor of pharmacy degree at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond) picked up a beaker of ominous yellow potassium iodide, dumped it into the peroxide and sealed her legacy as a Miss America who would be remembered for winning over the judges with science.Colorful streams of foam erupted from the flasks, blowing the minds of Ms. Schriers audience and judges. Minutes later, Ms. Schrier was crowned Miss America 2020. She edged out 50 other women to win a $50,000 scholarship, as well as a job traveling the country to promote a social impact initiative. (Ms. Schriers platform issue, like her talent, is about science, or more specifically drug safety.)The 24-year-olds classic chemistry demonstration showed that hydrogen peroxide decomposition can be sped up to fantastic effect. But lower concentrations of hydrogen peroxide that are typically found in stores and used for cleaning cuts and scrapes can be safely used to reproduce the experiment at home.Hydrogen peroxide slowly decomposes into water and oxygen all the time, said Amanda Morris, an associate professor of chemistry at Virginia Tech, where Ms. Schrier completed her undergraduate studies in biochemistry and systems biology.We are delighted to see a Virginia Tech science alumna shine on the national stage, said Sally C. Morton, dean of the College of Science at Virginia Tech, and were even more thrilled that she is using her success to showcase the value of STEM education for kids and as a catalyst to encourage young girls to study science and do science.What Ms. Schrier demonstrated in her experiment was that semi-stable compounds like hydrogen peroxide need a little help to speed up the decomposition process at room temperature.You can imagine that its like trying to go over a hill, Dr. Morris said. It takes some energy to walk up the incline and youll sweat a little bit, but once you get past the top, you can keep going really easily.Adding a catalyst, such as potassium iodide, essentially bulldozes a path through the hill. The substance helps hydrogen peroxide form less stable compounds that can stroll through the newly opened path to the other side. Basically the catalyst helps produce water and oxygen, while releasing some heat.Store-bought yeast also contains a chemical called catalase that can help break down hydrogen peroxide, although its effects are not as dramatic as potassium iodide. This means that adding yeast to a solution of hydrogen peroxide will break down the peroxide. The oxygen gas thats released will form bubbles and try to escape.Mixing in a little bit of dish soap in the reaction will create enough surface tension that oxygen bubbles will get trapped, Dr. Morris said. It helps you visualize whats happening by creating foam.Heres the recipe, adapted from Science Buddies, so you can try it out for yourself.MaterialsEmpty plastic bottle3 percent hydrogen peroxide solution, available at nearly any drug or grocery storeOne packet of active yeast found in the baking section of the grocery storeLiquid dish soapWarm waterFood coloring (to make the reaction look pretty)PreparationSet up in a sink or go outdoors. You will want to do the experiment in a location where it will be easy to clean up all the foam afterward.Stand away from the bottle once you add all the chemicals for the reaction. Hydrogen peroxide can irritate the skin and discolor clothing, even in low concentrations. (In chemical experiments using concentrated hydrogen peroxide like the one Ms. Schrier performed, scientists wear safety glasses and personal protective equipment.)ProcedureCarefully pour cup hydrogen peroxide into the plastic bottle and add a big squirt of dish soap. Swirl gently to mix.Add 2 to 3 drops of food coloring to the solution. (If you want to give your foam stripes, put the drops on the edge of the bottles mouth, but do not mix them in.)In a separate container, mix 1 tablespoon of yeast and 3 tablespoons of warm water. Wait about 5 minutes for the yeast to activate.Pour the yeast solution into the bottle with hydrogen peroxide. Step back and watch foam squeeze out like a tube of elephant-size toothpaste! | science |
Venus Williams I May Have Lost Australian Open But I Got a Big Consolation Prize!!! 1/20/2018 Venus Williams didn't look like someone who just got knocked out of the Australian Open, because she seems relaxed as can be with her BF. 37-year-old Venus, who lost on the opening day of the tourney, took a stroll with Nicholas Hammond on Hamilton Island in Queensland, Australia. Venus and Nicholas seemed oblivious to the entourage that followed them. They started dated pretty recently. Nicholas, who's 25, was Venus' plus one at little sister Serena's wedding. Hammond is the heir to the TV Guide fortune. | Entertainment |
Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesShes slept on the ground, eaten handouts and walked for miles. But after weeks traveling with her children, Ani Alvarado is not turning back. I get used to whatever.Ani Alvarado, center, sleeping with her family outside San Pedro Tapanatepec, Mexico.Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesNov. 9, 2018SAN PEDRO TAPANATEPEC, Mexico The migrants, nearly asleep on their feet, waited in the predawn darkness for the trucks that would take them to the next stop in their long, unpredictable migration to the United States.Hundreds of them were clogging the streets around the central plaza of San Pedro Tapanatepec, where they had spent two torrid days and two sleepless nights. About 3:45 a.m., the trucks, on loan to the Catholic Church, finally appeared.The crowd surged toward the hulking flatbeds, jostling with baby strollers and backpacks, the trucks taillights casting a reddish glow on faces loaded with exhaustion and worry.Ani Alvarado, her two young sons trailing close behind like pilot fish, sliced nimbly through the crowd. But she was too late. The trucks were full.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMs. Alvarado, 29, and her sons, Christian Jared, 9, and Wilman Dubier, 5, turned to their traveling companions her cousin Sindy Jimnez, 18, and Ms. Jimnezs 3-year-old son, Osmin Yadiel; and Ms. Jimnezs aunt, Hilda Rosa Banegas, 42, and her son, Elmer Jess Mendoza Banegas, 16.Hoisting their knapsacks on their shoulders, the seven stepped into the stream of migrants and started walking north a quiet procession that already stretched for miles into the dark Mexican countryside.The migrant caravan began on Oct. 12 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with several hundred participants and quickly grew by several thousand as it crossed the border into Guatemala and wound north into Mexico.It became the largest and most dramatic iteration of a yearslong tradition that had largely passed unnoticed: Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence in their homelands, traveling en masse toward the United States, the size of their groups providing security from the criminals who prey on migrants during the journey.The caravan, which arrived in Mexico City this week, captured the attention of President Trump soon after it began. During the run-up to the midterm elections, Mr. Trump used the caravan to fire up anti-immigrant sentiments and rally his base. He also used it to justify the deployment of thousands of troops at the southwest border.And on Thursday, the Trump administration enacted new rules giving the president authority to deny asylum to almost any migrant who crosses the border illegally a significant overhaul of longstanding laws that have allowed people fleeing persecution to ask for sanctuary.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesOn Friday, several hundred migrants left the stadium in Mexico City where they had been sheltered to continue their trek, walking along the citys main highway as rush-hour traffic sped by. The remaining group as many as 4,000 planned to leave early Saturday.Even from the early days of their trip, many migrants in the caravan knew Mr. Trump had cast them as an invading horde looking to game the system and steal jobs from United States citizens. But to many, his declarations have been little more than a distant rumble on the horizon, a problem for later.Driven by a deep faith rooted in Christianity, many have clung to a belief that everything would work out in the end, that Mr. Trumps heart would be touched and he would allow them into the United States to work.Even Ms. Alvarado subscribed to this hopeful philosophy.Well, I cant think the opposite way, she shrugged.While most migrants in the caravan are young men, the group also includes many families with young children who have now been traveling for four weeks.Ms. Alvarado and her relatives left their home on the outskirts of Comayagua, a city in central Honduras, on Oct. 12. They came from a family of farm laborers who worked for abysmal wages in coffee plantations. Generations of residents from Comayagua had made the trek to the United States to find better-paying work, and the possibility was always forefront in the minds of those who remained behind.Ms. Alvarado, one of the few in her family who had managed to escape the coffee fields, had been working as an assistant in a government social development program, but barely getting by on a salary of $200 a month.In October, she heard on television about the caravan taking shape in San Pedro Sula and decided it was her best chance to make it to the United States southern border. Within a couple of days, Ms. Alvarado had set off to join it. The other two women and their children went, too, viewing the caravan as their safest and least expensive opportunity to migrate.Each mother had a different destination in the United States in mind; the groups relationship with the country was already complex.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMs. Alvarado, who had spent a year living and working without immigration papers in New York and Ohio, hoped to reunite with the father of her son, Dubier, in Ohio. Ms. Jimnez planned to move in with her father in Ohio.Ms. Banegas, who had been working in the coffee fields since she was 7 and had seven children, said she had only one thing in mind: finding work, wherever. Her plan was to stay in the United States for a few years then return to Honduras. Two of her children were already married, and the rest, she said, had remained in Honduras with their father.In the few bags they carried, the group had packed only essentials, mostly clothes. They could not afford to carry anything of sentimental value.They, like most members of the caravan, were ill-prepared for walking. Ms. Jimnez was wearing pink plastic sandals. Ms. Banegas and her son wore flip-flops. Ms. Jimnezs 3-year-old had to be carried by the adults for much of the way.For sustenance, they relied on food donated by local governments, civic groups and well-meaning people. At night, they mostly bedded down on plastic sheeting and in public squares and parks along with the thousands of other members of the caravan.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesIn San Pedro Tapanatepec, on the 16th day of the migration, the group laid out their plastic sheeting in the towns central plaza, in the shade cast by the Catholic church, then strolled down the hill to jump in a river. The children, stripped to their underwear, played in the water while the women washed clothes. Ms. Alvarado, still wearing her jeans, sank into the river up to her hips and dipped her long dark hair in the water.Two mornings later, after a rest day, they were on the move once again, departing San Pedro Tapanatepec and bound for Santiago Niltepec, about 30 miles to the northwest. They said little as they walked, tired and hungry, through the darkened streets of Tapanatepec, moving past clumps of migrants resting on the shoulder of the road. From time to time, Ms. Alvarado and her group stopped, too, slumping to the ground to rest.The group did not plan to apply for asylum. Rather, like many other families in the caravan, their plan was to cross between official border entries and turn themselves into the United States Border Patrol. Since they were women traveling with children, they hoped they would be released quickly from detention and allowed to remain in the United States pending the outcome of their deportation cases. Its a practice that has been widely used for years, but one that Mr. Trump is seeking to end.Ms. Banegas said she picked Elmer, who left school three years ago to work in the coffee fields, to travel with her to the United States because he was her oldest minor child.With him, I might have a better chance of getting in, she said.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThe women had heard that the Trump administration policy of family separation had ended. Other migrants from their hometown had successfully crossed into the United States since then and had been released with their children.Still, nobody was sure what might actually happen.The only fear is the fear of losing a child along the entire trajectory, Ms. Alvarado said.But the matter of the border was in the future. For now, Ms. Alvarados group was concentrating on getting through each day.Im focused on the journey, on survival on the road, Ms. Alvarado said.At a highway checkpoint, they joined hundreds of other migrants hoping to catch a ride. A car began to slow. Ms. Alvarado bolted forward and crammed in with her two sons. The other four, lagging behind, were shut out. For the first time since leaving Honduras, the group had split up.Ms. Jimnez, Ms. Banegas and their children started walking again. A stranger had given Ms. Jimnez an old stroller, and her son was soon fast asleep in it.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York TimesAfter several miles, they came to a crossroads where several women were handing out water and tortillas slathered with black beans and cheese. At the invitation of another migrant, an acquaintance, Ms. Jimnez, Ms. Banegas and their children took a taxi to the next town, then leapt in another taxi, which carried them the rest of the way to the days final destination, Santiago Niltepec.In Santiago Niltepec, the women tracked down Ms. Alvarado in a police barracks that had been converted into a shelter. She had staked out a patch of the concrete floor and laid out plastic sheeting for the group. Volunteers handed out secondhand clothing and food.Reflecting on the trip, Ms. Alvarado said it had been easier than she expected, even with all the walking. Strangers had eased their passage. She had no complaints.I get used to whatever, she said. I learned from life.ImageCredit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times | World |
Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York TimesJune 8, 2018WASHINGTON China has stolen sensitive data related to naval warfare from the computers of a Navy contractor, American officials said on Friday, in another step in the long-running cyberwar between two global adversaries.The breach occurred this year, the officials said, when Chinese government hackers infiltrated the computers of a company working on a Navy submarine and underwater programs contract. The company, which was not identified, was doing work for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, which is based in Newport, R.I.Officials said that the data gleaned by China was unclassified.Navy officials declined to speak publicly about the hack, which was first reported by The Washington Post.But in a statement, Lt. Marycate Walsh, a Navy spokeswoman, cited measures in place that require companies to notify the government when a cyberincident has occurred that has actual or potential adverse effects on their networks that contain controlled unclassified information.She said it would be inappropriate to discuss further details at this time.China and the United States have been locked in an escalating fight over cyber and military technology, with Beijing making rapid gains in recent years. American officials from both the Trump administration and the Obama administration before it concede that Washington has struggled to deter Chinese hacking, and have predicted the cyberattacks will increase until the United States finds a way to curb them.The theft of the Navy system is hardly the largest, or the most sensitive, of the designs and systems stolen by Chinese hackers over the years. But it underscores a lesson the American government keeps learning: No matter how fast the government moves to shore up it cyberdefenses, and those of the defense industrial base, the cyberattackers move faster.The plans for the F-35, the nations most expensive fighter jet in history, were taken more than a decade ago, and the Chinese model looks like an almost exact replica of its American inspiration.A Peoples Liberation Army unit, known as Unit 61398, was filled with skilled hackers who purloined corporate trade secrets to benefit Chinese state-owned industry. But many of its targets were defense related as well. Members of the unit were indicted in the last two years of the Obama administration, but none are likely to come back to the United States to stand trial.The most sophisticated hack of American data took place at the Office of Personnel Management. It lost the files of about 21.5 million Americans who had filed extensive questionnaires for their security clearances. The forms listed far more than Social Security numbers and birth dates. They detailed medical and financial histories; past relationships; and details about children, parents and friends, particularly non-United States citizens.The office stored much of the data at the Interior Department and encrypted nearly none of it. So when the Chinese copied it in a highly sophisticated operation, they were prepared to use big data techniques to draw a map of the American elite, who worked on which projects and who knew whom. The loss was so severe that many American intelligence agencies canceled the deployment of new officers to China.But the United States is unlikely to retaliate. To most intelligence officials this is just another espionage case, bearing similarities to what the United States does around the world.Lieutenant Walsh said that the Navy treated the broader intrusion against our contractors very seriously.If such an intrusion were to occur, the appropriate parties would be looking at the specific incident, taking measures to protect current info, and mitigating the impacts that might result from any information that might have been compromised, she said.The United States and China are wrangling over trade issues but also jointly looking to rein in North Koreas nuclear ambitions. President Trump is headed to Singapore this weekend for a June 12 summit meeting with North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un.The United States and China are also tangling over Beijings militarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea.Last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis harshly criticized the Chinese government for continuing to militarize a string of islands in the South China Sea, calling the presence of advanced military equipment and missiles there a flagrant show of military power.To add muscle to American complaints, Mr. Mattis recently disinvited the Chinese military from a large, multinational naval exercise this summer in part because of the anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles, and other weapons, that China has positioned on the Spratly Islands.A United States official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to be identified in discussing the issue, said the Navy was investigating the breach with the help of the F.B.I. | Politics |
Our Coverage of the Coronavirus PandemicIn the United StatesEven with coronavirus cases on the rise, millions of Americans are expected to take to the skies and roads Memorial Day weekend, in what is likely to be one of the busiest travel periods since the start of the pandemic.White House officials said that they were introducing new models for distributing Paxlovid, the Covid-19 pill made by Pfizer, in an effort to get the treatment to more people and keep death rates relatively low even as cases increase.Around the WorldBeijing is not under official lockdown yet, but one can barely tell that thats the case. As the Chinese government enforces strict safety measures in the city to prevent a complete shutdown, its hard to find anywhere to go.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain presided over a disorderly workplace in which there were widespread violations of coronavirus restrictions, according to a long-awaited government reporton lockdown parties at Downing Street.ResearchA large new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in five adult Covid survivors under the age of 65in the United States has experienced at least one health condition that could be considered long Covid.How safe really is it to go back to the gym right now? Research shows that people working out may expel a shocking number of the tiny aerosol particlesthat can transmit the coronavirus.Health GuidanceMasks: Does a mask protect you against Covid if others arent wearing one? This is what the evidence shows.Second Boosters: Should you get a fourth Covid shot? Older individuals and those with some health conditions may benefit from it.Long Covid: There is no universal definition of the condition, but clues about causes and potential treatments are beginning to emerge. Heres what we know so far.At Home: When someone in your house tests positive for Covid, there are some guidelines to follow.Covid Treatments in N.Y.C.: Antiviral pillsand monoclonal antibodies are available across the city. Here is how to get them. | Health |
Even as some governments contemplate reopening, the spread of the virus has accelerated in countries in Africa and South America.Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMay 1, 2020The World Health Organization extended its declaration of a global health emergency on Friday amid increasing criticism from the Trump Administration about its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.The move comes exactly three months after the organizations original decision to announce a public health emergency of international concern on Jan. 30. At the time, only 98 of the nearly 10,000 confirmed cases had occurred outside Chinas borders.But the pandemic continues to grow. More than 3.2 million people around the world are known to have been infected, and nearly a quarter million have died, according to official counts. There is evidence on six continents of sustained transmission of the virus.All of this has led experts in the W.H.O.s emergency committee to reconvene to assess the course of the outbreak, and to advise on updated recommendations, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organizations director-general.The pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern, Dr. Tedros said, adding that the crisis has illustrated that even the most sophisticated health systems are struggling to cope with a pandemic.A rapid rise in new cases in Africa and South America, where many countries have weak health care systems, was alarming, he said. The acceleration is occurring even as the spread of the virus has appeared to slow in many countries in Asia and Europe.Although people are slowly starting to return to work in China after weeks of lockdowns, businesses, schools and cultural institutions are still shuttered in most parts of the world. The virus has badly damaged the global economy.VideotranscripttranscriptThe Pandemic Remains a Public Health Emergency, W.H.O. SaysThe World Health Organization extended its declaration of a global health emergency as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow.The Covid-19 crisis has illustrated that even the most sophisticated health systems have struggled to cope with a pandemic. W.H.O. has grave concerns about the potential impact the virus could have as it starts to accelerate in countries with weaker health systems. Of course, the pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern. We will continue working with countries and partners to enable essential travel needed for pandemic response, humanitarian relief and cargo operations, and for countries to gradually resume normal passenger travel.The World Health Organization extended its declaration of a global health emergency as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow.CreditCredit...Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesAcross the United States, governors are struggling to square constituents demands for an end to stay-at-home orders with the consequences of loosening social distancing rules.Scientific and public health experts have warned that reopening restaurants, movie theaters and malls may lead to a deadly second wave of infection.Several Republican senators, especially those locked in difficult races, have started shifting the blame for the spread of the virus onto China. Party officials hope that deflecting anger over the human casualties and economic pain in the United States will help salvage a difficult election.President Trump has embraced the strategy, calling out Chinas misinformation and the W.H.O.s China-centric response in the early days of the pandemic.He has accused the W.H.O., without evidence, of helping China to obscure the extent of its epidemic in the early days, as well as being slow to release guidelines for precautions against infections.In fact, the W.H.O. began raising alarms in early January, as soon as it was informed by China of a new, mysterious illness in the city of Wuhan. On Friday, Dr. Tedros insisted that the W.H.O. did not waste any time in traveling to Beijing to discuss with the leadership and to find, to see for ourselves, the situation in China.In mid-April, Mr. Trump announced he would halt funding to the W.H.O. The United States is by far the organizations largest benefactor.Dr. Tedros announced Friday that the European Investment Bank would provide grants and financial support to help strengthen global supply chains, and facilitate the distribution of diagnostics, personal protective equipment and other medical supplies.We look forward to seeing how that type of innovative financing could deliver real results for global health when W.H.O. is advocating health for all, Dr. Tedros said. W.H.O. is deeply grateful to the European Investment Bank for its support and collaboration.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]But the Trump administration has not been alone in criticizing the W.H.O. Some public health experts and officials of other countries, including Japans finance minister, have also said the organization was too deferential to China.Others have said the W.H.O. should have realized in early January that there was human-to-human transmission of the virus, and that the organization should stop blocking participation by Taiwan.Yet the W.H.O. has still managed the coronavirus crisis as well as it could, and better than the Trump administration has, many experts say.The W.H.O. helped arrange testing supplies and personal protective equipment for countries in need and held daily news meetings to warn the world that the virus was spreading and that countries should do everything they could to stop it.At nearly every briefing, Dr. Tedros repeated: We have a window of opportunity to stop this virus. But that window is rapidly closing.On Friday, Didier Houssin, chair of the W.H.O. emergency committee, said that committee members had made more than 20 recommendations, hoping to reduce disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.The guidance focuses on mitigating interruptions to the distribution of food and medicines caused by lockdowns, a safe return to work, and resumption of normal air travel. The committee said researchers would continue to look for the animal thought to be the original source of the coronavirus, and to develop potential vaccines and therapies.We encourage countries to follow W.H.O.s advice, which we are constantly reviewing and updating as we learn more about the virus, and as we learn more from countries about best practices for responding to it, Dr. Tedros said. | Health |
Soccer|Klinsmann: The Door Is Still Open for World Cup Rosterhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/sports/soccer/klinsmann-the-door-is-still-open-for-world-cup-roster.htmlCredit...Victor Decolongon/Getty ImagesFeb. 5, 2014After a monthlong January training camp and an exhibition victory over South Korea, United States national soccer team members have gone their separate ways until the team's next game: an international friendly at Ukraine on March 5.After Saturdays victory against South Korea, Coach Jurgen Klinsmann talked with U.S. Soccers website about his team as it prepares for the World Cup in Brazil. The full question-and-answer session is here, but among the takeaways: Klinsmann described the camp as helpful, and it was for him in many ways. The team spent two weeks in Brazil, living and working in the Sao Paulo training base that it will call home during the World Cup in June, and U.S. Soccer staff members were able to visit the three cities where the team will play in the first round: Manaus, Natal and Recife. Klinsmann also got a long look at most of the M.L.S.-based players in the pool for Brazil, including some newcomers, and the only Europe-based player he invited, midfielder Mix Diskerud. Klinsmann also had praise for the players who took the field against South Korea. I like that our back four didnt get nervous when they were high pressured. They still tried to play out of the back away from that high pressure. I liked that our midfield staggered and tried to find different ways to make themselves available. There was a lot of movement off the ball, so we found our people in midfield and even up front. But the work is not done, he said, adding: We want to see that being translated to the next opportunity in March against Ukraine with other players coming into the group.Klinsmanns most interesting comments, at least for fans wondering about who will make the roster for Brazil, came later, when he reintroduced a few names that most thought had played their way off his radar:Q: You have stated that the door is still open for players to make their case for the World Cup roster. There are several players in Europe who are experiencing new opportunities with their clubs and others coming back from injury. What do you need to see from them?A: We just want them to be on the field and build their case. We communicate with them, players like Oguchi Onyewu, Tim Ream and Danny Williams. You have Brek Shea, who went down into the Championship from Stoke to play games and is now playing 90 minutes almost every week. You have Timmy Chandler at Nurnberg, who for six months has been doing a very consistent, good job. Jermaine Jones goes to Besiktas and will pick up the rhythm of playing games again.We follow the players that have injury problems like Steve Cherundolo, who is still having issues, and John Anthony Brooks with Hertha Berlin who is hopefully back next week. Same with Fabian Johnson who broke his arm and is hopefully back next week as well. Being in February and a few months prior to the World Cup, you want to see them all play. You have to give them a clear message that only if you pick up a rhythm and play week in, week out, will you complete one of the big keys in order to make the World Cup roster. Thats why we are really happy some of them now are starting to get their rhythm. This all plays a vital role in evaluating them, and then we have to make the vital calls in May.Q: The guys you just mentioned who are just retuning or will return to playing regularly, is the door still open for them?A: Absolutely! The door is still open until May. Its about what happens over the next couple of months. We coaches are going to do our homework as well. We are going to put the puzzle together of hopefully 23 players that are totally committed, that are not only giving everything they have, but that also mix well together. The tricky part about a World Cup roster is that you want to bring in a group that really is on the same page with one another, that support one another and are willing to take the challenge to another level maybe two levels within a short period of time.You can read the full interview at U.S. Soccers website here. | Sports |
Steve Wilkos Hospitalized After Gnarly Car Wreck 1/23/2018 Steve Wilkos is lucky to be alive after a car crash sent the talk show host and former Jerry Springer bodyguard to the hospital. Law enforcement sources in Darien, Connecticut tell us Wilkos was involved in a single-car accident Sunday afternoon. We're told his vehicle struck several poles and a tree before ending up on its side ... Wilkos was transported to a local hospital for his injuries but has since been discharged. Wilkos tells TMZ he typically wears glasses when he drives, but he was not wearing them before the crash. He says he was reaching for his glasses to put them on when he hit the curb and then struck the poles and a tree. Wilkos says he never drinks or does drugs. Wilkos tells us he's pretty beat up but will be ok. In a terrible coincidence, Wilkos says the same day he crashed, his audio guy on the show and the crew member's wife were driving in the same area when they crashed -- both were killed. Production is set to start back up in a few days. Car flips on West Avenue after striking poles and tree Sunday, driver transported to hospital https://t.co/AN1ioDCvAu pic.twitter.com/bdeUJ78Ts1 @DarienTimes Wilkos found his fame as Jerry Springer's bodyguard on the popular talk show before creating his own show -- "The Steve Wilkos Show" -- in 2007. Police tell us the crash remains an "active and open investigation." | Entertainment |
Out ThereIs the object a galaxy of primordial stars or a black hole knocking on the door of time? The Webb space telescope may help answer that question.Credit...Harikane et al.Published April 7, 2022Updated April 8, 2022Astronomers have been leapfrogging each other into the past lately. Last week, a group using the Hubble Space Telescope announced they had discovered what could be the most distant and earliest star ever seen, nicknamed Earendel, which twinkled 12.9 billion years ago, only 900 million years after the Big Bang.Now another international group of astronomers, pushing the limits of the biggest telescopes on Earth, say they have discovered what appears to be the earliest and most distant collection of starlight ever seen: a reddish blob usefully named HD1, which was pouring out prodigious amounts of energy only 330 million years after the Big Bang. That realm of time is so far unexplored. Another blob, HD2 appears almost as far away.Astronomers can only guess what these blobs are galaxies or quasars or maybe something else entirely while they wait for their chance to observe them with the new James Webb Space Telescope. But whatever they are, astronomers say, they could shed light on a crucial phase in the cosmos as it evolved from pristine primordial fire into planets, life and us.I am excited as a kid who spots the very first firework in a magnificent and highly anticipated show, said Fabio Pacucci of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This could well be one of the first glimmers of light to illuminate the cosmos in a show that ultimately created every star, planet and even flower that we see around us today more than 13 billion years later.Dr. Pacucci was part of a team led by Yuichi Harikane of the University of Tokyo that spent 1,200 hours using various ground-based telescopes to search for very early galaxies. Their findings were released Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their work was also reported in Sky & Telescope magazine earlier this year.In the expanding universe, the farther an object is from us, the faster it is moving away from us. Just as the sound of a receding ambulance siren shifts to a lower tone, that motion causes an objects light to shift to longer redder wavelengths. In search of the most distant galaxies the astronomers sifted through some 70,000 objects, and HD1 was the reddest one they could find.HD1s red color matched the expected characteristics of a galaxy 13.5 billion light years away surprisingly well, giving me a little bit of goose bumps when I found it, Dr. Harikane said in a statement released by the Center of Astrophysics.The gold standard of cosmic distances however is the redshift, derived by obtaining a spectrum of the object and measuring how much the wavelengths emitted by characteristic elements have increased or shifted to the red. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA a collection of radio telescopes in Chile Dr. Harikane and his team got a tentative redshift for HD1 of 13, meaning that the wavelength of the light emitted by an oxygen atom had stretched to 14 times its wavelength at rest. The other blobs redshift has not been determined.That dated the presumed galaxy to only 330 million years after time began, smack in the hunting ground of the Webb telescope, which will also be able to confirm the redshift measurement.If the redshift from ALMA can be confirmed, then this would indeed be a spectacular object, said Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona, who is a principal investigator for the Webb telescope.According to the story astronomers tell, the road to the universe as we know it started about 100 million years after the Big Bang, when hydrogen and helium created in the primordial explosion began to condense into the first stars, known as Population 3 stars (Populations 1 and 2, which have large amounts of heavier elements, are present in galaxies today). Such stars, composed of only hydrogen and helium, have never been observed, and they would have been much bigger and brighter than the ones in the universe today. They would have burned hot and died fast in supernova explosions that then jump-started the chemical evolution polluting a pristine universe with elements like oxygen and iron, the stuff of us.Dr. Pacucci said they first thought that HD1 and HD2 were what are called starburst galaxies, which billow with new stars. But after further research, they discovered that HD1 seemed to be producing stars more than 10 times faster than such galaxies usually do.Another possibility, Dr. Pacucci said, is that this galaxy was birthing those very first ultraluminous Population 3 stars. Yet another explanation is that all this radiance comes from material splashing into a supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of the sun. But astronomers have trouble explaining how a black hole could have grown so big so early in cosmic time.Was it born that way in the chaos of the Big Bang or was it just stupendously hungry?HD1 would represent a giant baby in the delivery room of the early universe, Avi Loeb, a co-author on Dr. Pacuccis paper, said. | science |
Credit...Alvin Baez-Hernandez/ReutersDec. 24, 2015Puerto Ricos beleaguered electric utility announced new progress late Wednesday in its continuing efforts to avoid a default on as much as one-eighth of the islands total debt of $72 billion.Officials said that two bond insurers had agreed to take part in a five-year restructuring plan for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, an islandwide monopoly. The insurers involvement signaled that Prepa had found a way to satisfy its bondholders, who expect to be paid about $177 million on Jan. 1, without having to part with that much cash itself.Prepa is one of 13 branches of the Puerto Rican government scheduled to make bond payments on Jan. 1, for a total of around $902 million.Cash is in short supply, and the islands governor, Alejandro Garca Padilla, has warned that if he must choose between paying bondholders and providing essential public services, he will provide the services. His warnings have given rise to intense speculation as to which types of bond debt may be paid, and which may not.The bond insurers participating in the restructuring deal were said to be operating units of Assured Guaranty and National Public Finance Guarantee. An official with knowledge of the negotiations said a third bond insurer with a smaller exposure, Syncora Guarantee, might join the process later.On Jan. 1, the two participating bond insurers will purchase $50 million of new revenue bonds from Prepa; a creditors committee known as the Ad Hoc Group will purchase an additional $65 million worth of bonds. Those purchases will give Prepa $115 million of fresh cash, which it can use to honor a large part of its scheduled bond payment due that day. Prepa is expected to make the rest of the payment out of its own resources, according to people familiar with the talks.In other respects, the restructuring plan resembles terms that were made public earlier this year. They called for giving Prepa five years worth of interest-rate relief, which would save the utility more than $700 million.In addition, the creditors have agreed to permanently reduce Prepas outstanding bond principal by more than $600 million, according to a summary provided by the utility. This would be accomplished through a debt exchange, in which the holders of Prepas current, junk-rated bonds could turn them in and receive new investment-grade bonds.Lisa J. Donahue, Prepas chief restructuring officer, said that to make sure the new bonds qualify for investment-grade ratings, the two bond insurers had agreed to backstop them by posting a type of financial guarantee, called a surety. The idea is to make investors want to exchange their shaky old bonds for the new ones, despite the lower face value, by making the new bonds a better credit risk.The debt exchange is not expected to take place until next summer, and, until then, the negotiators must steer the deal around a number of obstacles. The first will fall no later than Jan. 23 a deadline for the Puerto Rican legislature to pass enabling legislation for the deal. Legislators have so far shown little appetite, because they would also have to request a rate increase for Prepa.Elected officials anywhere would be reluctant to authorize a rate increase in an election year, but in Puerto Rico the increase would come in the wake of new taxes imposed because of the financial crisis, school and hospital closings, and other painful austerity measures.In addition, a large number of Prepas bondholders continue to stay aloof from the restructuring talks, perhaps hoping an even better deal might appear later.The creditors on board so far represent about 70 percent of Prepas $9 billion debt; they include the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank, mutual funds, hedge funds, and banks that finance Prepas fuel purchases.The holders of the remaining 30 percent of the debt have not yet signed onto the deal, and it is not clear whether enough of them ever will, at least under the incentives proposed by the current deal. But one more factor is expected to come into play in the first half of 2016: There are signs that Congress is preparing to make some form of bankruptcy protection available to Puerto Rico.Currently, none of the islands government bodies have any legal standing to take shelter in Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. But that could change soon, and the bankruptcy laws include what are known as cramdown provisions, which make it possible for a bankruptcy judge to force holdout creditors to accept a deal. | Business |
TrilobitesScientists say rocks on the English coast contain clues of the processes that drove the end-Triassic event that killed as much as a quarter of all life on Earth.Credit...Victor O. LeshykFeb. 3, 2022Some 200 million years ago, the rocks that became the Palisades cliffs just across the Hudson River from Manhattan formed during volcanic activity that helped rip apart the ancient supercontinent Pangea. That volcanism helped lead to the birth of the Atlantic Ocean while it also contributed to killing off as much as a quarter of all life on Earth during the event known as the end-Triassic mass extinction.Marine animals like ammonites, ichthyosaurs and corals took huge hits during the extinction, and scientists have long suspected that the Atlantic-forming volcanism had something to do with it because of its effects on the climate and oceans. But evidence of what exactly killed life has been scant, making it one of the least understood of the so-called Big Five mass extinctions that punctuate the history of life on Earth.Research published in January in the journal Geology, though, is starting to fill in the gaps of this prehistoric murder mystery.By studying rocks in the southwest of England, a team of scientists found evidence of two triggers. One is that as oceans absorbed carbon dioxide emissions from the volcanic activity, they became so acidic that animals with shells dissolved in the water and died. The other is that the oceans lost their oxygen and became toxic to all but the most hardy ocean creatures.The main question that we set out to address is: What are the specific kill mechanisms of marine life at the end-Triassic? said Jessica Whiteside, a geochemist at the University of Southampton in England, and an author of the new research. The answer to which helps provide context for, and perhaps helps predict the future ecological and biodiversity effects of current CO2.Dr. Whiteside described the discovery of clues in rocks of Englands Blue Lias Formation, which emerged in the wake of the volcanism.What I noticed early on were these weird ghost fossils, she said. Ghost fossils are impressions of things like shells that remain in the rock, but without any remnant of the shells that made them a sign that the shells dissolved in acidic waters.ImageCredit...Fabienne Fossez/Alamy Other clues were chemical traces, or biomarkers, of a kind of bacteria known to thrive in waters without oxygen, and where there are dangerously high levels of a toxin called hydrogen sulfide.Bathed in toxic waters with no oxygen to breathe, marine life on top of being dissolved alive was all but doomed.Noah Planavsky, a biogeochemist at Yale University who was not involved in the research, said the discovery of the biomarkers provided strong evidence for toxic, oxygen-deficient waters. He added that this is something we can expect in the future, in our contemporary oceans.These kill mechanisms also reveal how mass extinctions arent always instant events like an asteroid hitting the planet, said Stephen Brusatte, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the new work.Were used to thinking of mass extinctions as these single catastrophic events, where there is a lone killer that we can put all of the blame on, Dr. Brusatte said. But this study shows that there is often nuance to these episodes of mass death.Less clear is what drove the extinctions on land. Until the end-Triassic extinction, relatives of todays crocodiles dominated land ecosystems, while early dinosaurs were relatively minor players. But after the extinction, the crocodile relatives vanished, and dinosaurs started shifting into the limelight.This part of the story is still poorly known compared to what was happening in the oceans, and its intriguing to wonder whether there were multiple kill mechanisms on land, too, Dr. Brusatte said. If so, this could help explain why the dinosaurs were able to survive, and then disperse across the wasteland world in the aftermath. | science |
Credit...Anupam Nath/Associated PressMarch 3, 2017MUMBAI, India The government of the northeastern Indian state of Assam announced this week that Sanskrit, the ancient Hindu language of the Brahmin priesthood, would now be mandatory for students in the upper grades of all public high schools.Wider teaching of Sanskrit has been championed by activists from the Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu nationalists, who view it as a way to strengthen Indians knowledge of and respect for precolonial civilizations.But the announcement was met with incredulity from groups representing students, who pointed out that some schools do not teach indigenous languages widely spoken in the area. Even in Sanskrits golden age, some 1,500 years ago, it was primarily used as a language of scholarly discourse. In census surveys since 2001, only 14,000 to 50,000 Indians list Sanskrit as their first language.We strongly oppose this decision because in our community, nobody normally uses Sanskrit, said Lurin Jyoti Gogoi, general secretary of the All Assam Students Union.Kamrul Islam Chaudhary, a secretary with the National Students Union of India from Assam, said that few teachers in the state were capable of teaching Sanskrit, and that outside instructors would have to be hired.What about the local people? Mr. Chaudhary asked.The decision to make Sanskrit mandatory applies to public school students in eighth through 10th grade, but the requirement will eventually be extended to primary schools, said Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assams education minister. Once primary schools are included, it will be necessary to train 56,000 teachers to meet the need, Mr. Sarma added.The study of Assamese, which is spoken mainly in Assam State, or one of the other regional languages like Bodo or Bengali, will be made compulsory in the states private schools through eighth grade. Most Indian states teach three languages to their students, including a regional language and, usually, Hindi and English.Members of opposition parties questioned the Sanskrit decision, saying that students were already overloaded and needed instruction in topics that were more relevant to their lives in Assam.Our children dont know much about our history, culture and geography, said Debabrata Saikia, who leads the opposition Indian National Congress in the state assembly. So we want to make history and geography separate subjects in the school, but the government is not doing anything about it.Until now, history and geography have been lumped together with environmental studies, but Mr. Sarma said he intended to introduce separate textbooks for those subjects. In addition to Sanskrit, computer science will also now be required in state schools.Mr. Sarma said the state governments decision had received wide support, and he dismissed any dissent as a result of miscommunication. They are not opposing the decision per se, just questioning how it will be implemented, he said.I think at the end of the day, everybody will be happy, he added. The government is still working it out, and when it happens, it will come out as a good package.But some, like Mr. Chaudhary of the National Students Union, challenged that view and questioned the state governments intent. Mr. Chaudhary called the Sanskrit requirement a ploy to insert ideologues into every school, referring in particular to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu right-wing group closely affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. | World |
An employee of Kalo, the manufacturer of Evzio, the injectable overdose treatment, demonstrating how to use the product. Credit Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated Press In recent months, anger over rising drug costs set off a civil war within the pharmaceutical industry, pitting drug makers against other players in the health care system, including the little-known pharmacy benefits managers that negotiate with drug makers on behalf of insurers, large employers and government health programs. The New York Times, in collaboration with ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism, will be writing about the rising cost of prescription drugs and how changes in the industry are affecting consumers. We'd like to hear from patients about any difficulties they have had obtaining or paying for prescription drugs. Reporters from The Times and ProPublica may contact you to learn more about your story. Required fields are marked with an asterisk. Please describe the interaction. * You have 500 words left. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your experience paying for prescription drugs? You have 500 words left. What is your name? *First and last preferred, please. How old are you? What is your email address? *We will not share your email address. A reporter might contact you to learn more about your story. What is your phone number? We will not share your phone number. A reporter might contact you to learn more about your story. By clicking the submit button, you agree that you have read, understand and accept the Reader Submission Terms in relation to all of the content and other information you send to us ('Your Content'). If you do not accept these terms, do not submit any content. Of note: Your Content must not be false, defamatory, misleading or hateful or infringe any copyright or any other third party rights or otherwise be unlawful. We will use the contact details that you provide to verify your identity and answers to the questionnaire, as well as to contact you for further information on this story. If we publish Your Content, we may include your name and location. Thank you for your submission. More on NYTimes.com | Health |
Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York TimesJune 7, 2018WASHINGTON President Trump hired Rudolph W. Giuliani to speak for him. But no less than Mr. Trumps wife and his chief diplomat spent Thursday explaining that Mr. Giuliani does not always know what he is talking about.Melania Trump, the first lady, let it be known that Mr. Giuliani has no idea how she feels about Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actress who goes by the name Stormy Daniels and says she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, while Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, made clear that Mr. Giuliani has nothing to do with North Korea policy. Their pushback came in response to the latest in a series of seemingly off-script moments by Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has joined the legal team representing Mr. Trump in the special counsels investigations into his campaign and associates.Mr. Giuliani has been something of a loose cannon, making public comments that surprised other advisers, were later contradicted or touched on matters beyond his ostensible mandate. At a conference in Israel this week, Mr. Giuliani said Mrs. Trump accepted her husbands denial that he had any sexual liaisons with Ms. Clifford. She believes her husband and she knows its untrue, Mr. Giuliani said.That drew a sharp retort from the first ladys office. I dont believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani, the first ladys spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in an email to The New York Times.The unusually pointed response from a first lady who rarely engages in conflicts the way her husband does may have spoken to a sensitivity that goes beyond Mr. Giuliani. Even as she rejected Mr. Giuliani as a spokesman for her feelings, Mrs. Trump did nothing to affirm that she did accept her husbands explanation of what happened with Ms. Clifford.VideotranscripttranscriptHow Rudy Giuliani Is Going Off-ScriptRudolph Giuliani President Trumps lawyer and a former mayor of New York spoke on a variety of topics, like the Mueller investigation and Stormy Daniels, while in Israel. He also danced at a restaurant.Rudy Giuliani is technically off the clock, and physically across the globe. But Americas mayor is very much in the limelight. What is going on with Rudy Giuliani? Rudy Giuliani is being widely criticized today for comments he made in Israel. Going rogue once again. Rudy Giuliani diverted from the official lines. And you have to wonder: Why? During a trip to Israel for a private speaking engagement, Giuliani, who is now one of Trumps private lawyers, chose to weigh in on an array of hot-button issues. First, there was his explosive account of how the North Korean leader apparently demeaned himself to get President Trump to reschedule the summit. Well, Kim Jong-un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in. Giuliani also floated a theory to tarnish the Russia investigation. A group of 13 highly partisan Democrats that make up the Mueller team excluding him are trying very, very hard to frame [Trump], to get him in trouble when he hasnt done anything wrong. But Giuliani reserved the bulk of his fire for Stormy Daniels, who has become one of President Trumps archenemies. Im sorry. I dont respect a porn star star the way I respect a career woman. So, Stormy, you want to bring a case? Let me cross-examine you. As for Daniels alleged affair with President Trump in 2006, Giuliani said it was a lie. Oh, very, very credible source: Stormy, Stormy the porn star. I dont believe her. I dont know sue me, Stormy. I dont believe you. And neither does Melania Trump, according to Giuliani. She believes in her husband. She knows its not true. Look at his three wives, right? Beautiful women, classy women, women of great substance. Stormy Daniels? We have to respect on the stage every woman. Yes, I respect porn stars. Dont you respect porn stars? Or do you think that porn stars desecrate women? One thing that was less controversial: Giuliani appeared to be enjoying his visit to the Holy Land as cameras spotted him partaking in some napkin-spinning revelry at a Jerusalem hot spot.Rudolph Giuliani President Trumps lawyer and a former mayor of New York spoke on a variety of topics, like the Mueller investigation and Stormy Daniels, while in Israel. He also danced at a restaurant.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesAlso left uncertain was the degree to which Mr. Giuliani is freelancing when he says such things or reflecting what the president wants him to say. In a telephone interview on Thursday, Mr. Giuliani did not say his client had told him about Mrs. Trumps feelings. But the president has frequently instructed his lawyer on what to say about topics related to Ms. Clifford and the special counsel investigation.Mr. Trump may not have had qualms about Mr. Giulianis public denunciation of Ms. Clifford. At the same conference, Mr. Giuliani said she was not credible because of her career in the sex industry. Im sorry, I dont respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman and as a person and isnt going to sell her body for sexual exploitation, he said.Ms. Cliffords lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said Mr. Giuliani was the one with the credibility problem. My client @StormyDaniels should be celebrated for her courage, strength and intelligence, he wrote on Twitter. She is one of the most credible people I have ever met regardless of gender. Period. I would be put her character up against Mr. Giulianis any day of the week.As for Mr. Pompeo, he looked pained when asked at a White House press briefing on Thursday about Mr. Giulianis foray into North Korea diplomacy. While in Israel, Mr. Giuliani said Mr. Trump agreed to resume plans for a summit meeting only after Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, pleaded with him to do it.Kim Jong-un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in, Mr. Giuliani said.Mr. Pompeo, who has met twice with Mr. Kim and led Mr. Trumps efforts to set up a meeting to discuss North Koreas nuclear program, made clear that he did not find Mr. Giulianis intervention helpful.I know Rudy, he told reporters at the White House after a meeting between Mr. Trump and Japans prime minister. Rudy doesnt speak for the administration when it comes to this negotiation and this set of issues.The often prickly North Koreans did not immediately respond to Mr. Giulianis portrayal of what happened, and Mr. Pompeo sought to play it down as a joke. I took him as being in a small room and not being serious about the comments, he said. I think it was a bit in jest. Were moving forward. Were focused on the important things.Mr. Giuliani also ventured into Middle East peace as Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, has developed a plan to resolve the decades-old dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.Mr. Giuliani suggested that the Palestinians should, like Mr. Kim, get down on their knees and beg. Thats what needs to happen with the Palestinian Authority, he said. They have to be seeking peace. Youve got to change the dynamic and put the pressure on them.The former mayor told Israeli reporters that he had seen Mr. Kushners secret peace plan and that it made all the sense in the world. But Mr. Giuliani called The Wall Street Journal afterward to say he only knew what had been in news reports. I have not seen any secret plan or been told about one, he said. I based my comments on the publicly available discussion of the plan. | Politics |
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesFeb. 14, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Noelle Pikus-Pace thought she lost it. As she came out of the fifth curve at Sanki Sliding Center on Friday night, Pikus-Pace, the veteran American skeleton rider, felt her body bump the wall and her heart sink to her toes.That was it, she thought. It is gone. Nine years ago, she was in a horrific accident in which she was struck by a bobsled and thrown 30 feet into the air. She came back from that, and four years ago, she missed a medal in Vancouver by one-tenth of a second. Then she retired. Then she became pregnant. Then she had a miscarriage and, in the midst of that heartache, decided to return to the sport for one more chance at Olympic success.On Friday, it was all in front of her with one run to go. And then she hit the wall.I figured, There it goes, she said. I thought it was over.She was wrong. Even with the early bump, Pikus-Pace, 31, capped her career for sure this time, she said with a silver medal that she celebrated by climbing into the stands beside the finish line so she could share it with her family. Britains Elizabeth Yarnold won the gold medal, and Russias Elena Nikitina took the bronze.Pikus-Pace brushed away tears as she thought back on the emotional peaks and valleys that led her to the medal podium at the Sochi Games. ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf I hadnt gone through all those things, I wouldnt be here today, she said. And this is right where I want to be.A few feet away, another American was crying for a different reason. As close as Pikus-Pace was to a medal in Vancouver, Katie Uhlaenders margin of agony here was even tighter; she finished fourth, four-hundredths of a second behind Nikitina.Uhlaender was the fifth-to-last rider to go in the final heat, so she guessed that if she could stay ahead of the two Russians who followed her, she would probably finish third behind Yarnold and Pikus-Pace.After Olga Potylitsina could not beat her, Uhlaenders hopes began to rise. When Nikitina had a few sloppy bumps early in her run, Uhlaender said, I thought my dream came true for a second. Uhlaender hid her eyes as Nikitina came across the finish line. When she finally looked up at the scoreboard and saw the time, she was stunned.I put my heart out there, Uhlaender said. Which is why Im crying because it broke a little.It was a dramatic ending to an evening session that, for the most part, went as expected. The fields much-celebrated helmet designs were on display again including Canadas Melissa Hollingsworth, who wore her devious horse-skull helmet and the timings of the runs were predictable: Yarnold and Pikus-Pace showed they were in a class by themselves. The rivalry between the two this past year was undeniable. They each won four times on tour leading up to the Olympics and were by far the best two racers. Yarnold described their relationship as friendly Were all very close, like a family, she said but there were still flash points of tension.The only pre-Olympics race that Pikus-Pace did not medal in was a November World Cup event in Calgary. She actually posted the best times at the race and assumed she had won, only to be disqualified after the competition was finished because, the jury said, she had an extra piece of tape looped around one of her sleds handles that was illegal.Yarnold and other members of the British team denied they had anything to do with the jury examining Pikus-Paces sled, but members of the American team have raised questions about what, exactly, led to the inquiry. Once Pikus-Pace was disqualified, Yarnold who had placed second was named the winner.Its unfortunate, but she had an illegal sled, Yarnold said last week. We take the equipment rules in our sport very seriously.At the Olympics, there were no such equipment controversies, and the rivals showed their mastery without any scrapes. Yarnold never trailed in the event, setting a track record on her first run and breaking it on her third when she zoomed down in 57.91 seconds. Pikus-Pace, who is a notorious slow starter an area in which Yarnold excels continued that trend by posting plodding times at the top of the track but making up for it with slick turns on her way down. In her final Olympics, however, she could not catch her British nemesis.In truth, she said afterward, she did not care. On her final night as an athlete, she watched her daughters gleefully scamper around the medal podium on which she had just stood.I just tried to have fun with it, she said. A silver medal this is better than gold for me. | Sports |
Credit...Jessica Chou for The New York TimesThe F.T.C. chairman seems to have the votes to approve a settlement. One of the biggest issues has been whether to hold Mark Zuckerberg liable for future violations.Whether a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission should hold Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, liable for future mishandling of users data has been a point of contention in talks.Credit...Jessica Chou for The New York TimesMay 4, 2019WASHINGTON Facebooks announcement in late April that it had set aside $3 billion to $5 billion to settle claims that it mishandled users personal data suggested a strong consensus by federal regulators that the social media giant needed to be held accountable.But the reality behind the scenes at the Federal Trade Commission is far more complicated, reflecting the politics and give-and-take of the negotiations.The F.T.C.s five commissioners agreed months ago that they wanted to pursue a historic penalty that would show the agencys teeth. But now, the members are split on the size and scope of the tech companys punishment, according to three people with knowledge of the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity.The division is complicating the final days of the talks.Along with disagreement about the appropriate financial penalty, one of the most contentious undercurrents throughout the negotiations has been the degree to which Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, should be held personally liable for any violation of a 2011 agreement, according to two of the people.Facebook has put up a fierce fight, saying Mr. Zuckerberg should not be held legally responsible for the actions of all 35,000 of his employees.The talks could fall apart, but negotiations are moving forward and are expected to conclude within days, with an announcement made soon after. This account of the F.T.C.s investigation of Facebook is based on interviews with a half dozen people.Joseph J. Simons, the commissions Republican chairman, appeared to have the votes of the other two Republican commissioners, giving him the three needed to approve a deal. But a 3-to-2 decision along party lines, which Mr. Simons has said he wants to avoid, could lead to strong rebukes on Capitol Hill.The stakes are enormous for the agency and Mr. Simons. The case is being closely watched globally as a litmus test on how the United States government will police the countrys tech giants.The commission has a reputation of pulling some punches, particularly in contrast with regulators in Europe, who have pursued forceful action on both privacy and antitrust issues. The largest F.T.C. fine against a tech company was $22.5 million against Google in 2012, for misleading users about how some of its tools were tracking them.ImageCredit...Andr Chung for The New York TimesAny settlement will also be looked at as a measure of the Trump administrations willingness to penalize one of the countrys most valuable and influential companies. The administration has whittled away regulations in many industries, but President Trump has repeatedly said tech giants like Facebook and Amazon have too much power.Many Democrats have led efforts to rein in Silicon Valleys power.This is a hugely important decision because it will be watched by all these big companies to see if there is actually going to be a new day on the enforcement front, said Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has pushed for Mr. Zuckerberg to be held personally liable in any settlement.Rohit Chopra, one of the two Democrats on the commission, has publicly urged stronger punishment of repeated offenders of F.T.C. rules.But Mr. Simons has appeared unwilling to force the issue and drag the case to court, which could be a risky move. He has recently intensified his efforts to get at least one of the two Democrats on his side, according to one of the people with knowledge of the talks. But the internal disagreements have held up a final agreement.In addition to the fine, Facebook has agreed, as part of a proposed settlement, to create new positions that would be focused on privacy policies and compliance, two of the people said. The agency, in coordination with the company, would set up an independent committee to oversee Facebooks privacy efforts. That committee and the F.T.C. would appoint an outside assessor to monitor the companys handling of data.The company has also agreed to assign an executive as a privacy compliance officer, making privacy oversight a job within the top ranks, the people said. Mr. Zuckerberg could be given the job, according to one person with knowledge of the talks, although another person expressed doubts.But the settlement probably wont include limits on Facebooks ability to track users and share data with its partners, mandates that privacy advocates have raised as important for regulation in the United States, and that Facebook has fought. Mr. Simons has argued that the settlement proposal sets a new bar for enforcement of privacy violations and wants to avoid litigation that risks losing that opportunity.Five billion dollars is a lot of money, said David Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former head of consumer protection for the F.T.C. And at the end of the day, it is not in the commissions interest to go to trial, because there is no guarantee they will get relief beyond whats already on the table.The F.T.C. and Facebook declined to comment for this article.The roots of the investigation stem from a case that Facebook settled with the agency in 2011. The company was accused of deceiving consumers about how it handled their data. As part of the settlement, it said it would overhaul its privacy practices.In March 2018, The New York Times and The Observer of London reported that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm that had worked for Mr. Trumps presidential campaign, had used a vast trove of Facebook data to compile voter profiles. The agency then opened an investigation into whether the company had violated the 2011 agreement.ImageCredit...Guerin Blask for The New York TimesFacebook has apologized for reacting slowly to the revelations about Cambridge Analytica. But the company has said an academic researcher with access to the data broke its rules by sharing the data with the consulting firm.At the same time, sentiment in Washington was turning against Big Tech. It had become clear that Russia used online services to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were being blamed for the spread of harmful content and fake news. Politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, were accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices.Weeks after the investigation started, Mr. Simons, a longtime Republican antitrust lawyer, was sworn in to lead the agency. Two other Republicans, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, and two Democrats, Rebecca Slaughter and Mr. Chopra, were confirmed by the Senate as the other commissioners at the same time.All five first met to discuss the Facebook case in December. The commissions staff said they had found several violations of the 2011 agreement and a corporate culture that did not make privacy a priority, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.There was wide agreement among the commissioners that the charges against Facebook appeared strong and that they should respond vigorously, according to the two people.In the days and weeks after that meeting, staff members began to discuss a potential fine and other penalties with the commissioners. A fine far above $7 billion appeared to have strong agreement, according to one of the people.Staff members and commissioners also began talking about making Mr. Zuckerberg personally liable, meaning that he could be named as a defendant in a future case.In an early version of the complaint and proposed settlement, Mr. Zuckerberg was named as a responsible party, the two people said. The focus on Mr. Zuckerberg was first reported by The Washington Post.Facebook pushed back on the inclusion of Mr. Zuckerberg, saying it would not agree to that in a settlement.Democrats in Washington have recently been pushing for more accountability for top executives of companies under scrutiny.Soon after he joined the F.T.C., Mr. Chopra wrote a memo to all staff members saying the agency should address management deficiencies through structural remedies, including the dismissal of senior management.Mr. Simons has also publicly called for stronger enforcement of tech companies. But at a privacy conference in Washington on Thursday, he described the big trade-offs in naming chief executives in complaints.When you get to a position when threatening to name individuals and make them personally liable, companies are less likely to settle and you end up having to litigate a lot more than you would otherwise, Mr. Simons said. You have to think are you getting sufficient relief for consumers without having to name these people as a sufficient deterrent.Republican lawmakers would probably criticize an order that included Mr. Zuckerberg in the complaint.Its one thing if Facebook were an entity that itself couldnt be held liable, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, said in an interview.To hold a C.E.O. liable is extraordinary and not needed here.A few weeks ago, the commissioners were shown an updated proposed deal. It had a fine of around $5 billion and no mention of liability for Mr. Zuckerberg.The proposal set off a frenzy of discussion among the commissioners and staff members. Soon, details about the discussion began to leak out in the news media.Senior executives at Facebook believed that people within the F.T.C. were divulging details to influence negotiations, according to two people.Facebook, which had $56 billion in revenues in 2018, responded by announcing the expected $3 billion to $5 billion penalty, partly in an effort to set expectations for what the company thought it would finally have to pay, the two people said.Talks between Facebook and agency officials have continued over the past several days. Mr. Simons was trying to persuade Ms. Slaughter, who appeared to side with Mr. Chopra, to see his perspective. The commissioners are expected to vote on the settlement in the coming days.Having a good bipartisan consensus makes a huge difference to the effectiveness of the agency, Mr. Simons said in an interview in February. So I think its very important, and we are trying very hard to do that. | Tech |
Credit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesJune 3, 2018SAN FRANCISCO Regina Bateson had just finished an Easter egg hunt with her children on April 1 when her phone started buzzing. Take a look at Facebook, messages from her friends and colleagues urged.Ms. Bateson, a Democrat running for Congress in the California primary on Tuesday, quickly opened up the social network. There, she saw what appeared to be a news article that painted her as underhandedly trying to torpedo the campaign of a rival Democratic candidate. When Ms. Bateson clicked through the article, she was directed to a Facebook page run by Sierra Nevada Revolution, a local progressive group she had clashed with in the past.The article was not a news story, she found, but a political ad paid for by Sierra Nevada Revolution. And while Facebook rolled out new rules on April 6 mandating that campaign ads be clearly labeled and say who had purchased them, Sierra Nevada Revolutions ad about Ms. Bateson continued to be targeted to local voters throughout that month without any of those disclosures.It was a perfectly targeted negative campaign ad, but the average person had no idea who had really written it or what their motivations were, said Ms. Bateson, 35, who is running in the Fourth Congressional District, a mountainous stretch of land between Sequoia National Forest and Lake Tahoe. She said she was frustrated by Facebooks inability to label the so-called article as a political ad.Ms. Batesons experience underscores Facebooks difficulties as the Silicon Valley company aims to prevent manipulation of its ad system in elections, especially as the midterms loom this November. While the company has introduced several measures to improve the transparency of political ads on its platform, some groups and individuals appear to be finding ways to flout the new restrictions and Facebook has not been able to catch them.That raises questions about whether there are other gaps. Apart from improving transparency of political ads, Facebook has announced that it will not run a campaign ad in the United States unless it verifies the advertiser through a Social Security number, that it will keep a public archive of all political ads so they are easily searchable and that it has added a paid for label atop campaign ads so users can get more information.Paul Smith, the administrator of Sierra Nevada Revolutions Facebook page, said that despite Facebooks efforts, he was able to place other political ads some about Ms. Bateson and some about other issues without labeling them. He didnt say how many.There is another potential loophole in Facebooks rules. It appears that one person can go through the verification process and then give the account to someone else. Mr. Smith, for instance, said that while Facebook had authenticated him as a political advertiser, he later handed over control of Sierra Nevada Revolutions account to others. That meant others could have used his Facebook verification to post political ads without the social networks knowing it was not him.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesThey dont know we are five people running it, or however many, Mr. Smith said in a phone interview. Its also not consistent. Occasionally, we slip a political ad by Facebook because its not flagged.Rob Leathern, Facebooks director of product management, said he was grateful that The New York Times had brought the actions of Sierra Nevada Revolution to the companys attention. We are looking into it because its against our policies to share passwords or give someone else access to a persons Facebook account, he said, adding, We use signals such as two-factor authentication to detect and prevent this type of abuse, but steps like these wont stop every attempt to game the system.Facebook is being driven by its failure in the 2016 American presidential election to stop Russian agents from using the platform to spread divisive messages to voters. In the aftermath, the company announced changes, including working with independent fact-checkers and starting a news literacy campaign to help people spot disinformation. Facebook also banned political ads from foreign groups in some elections, including Irelands recent abortion referendum.The largest effort has focused on authenticating and cataloging campaign ads on Facebook. The system is a work in progress, executives said in a recent call with reporters. But they said they hoped the transparency requirements would deter bad actors especially those from foreign nations from meddling in American elections.We believe the process we put in place is a solid step, but we also know that initially there will be instances where we dont catch ads that should have been labeled and the authorization process wasnt completed by the person placing the ad, Mr. Leathern said in the call.The Fourth District race has received national attention because four Democrats are running to oust Representative Tom McClintock, a five-term Republican. Ms. Batesons main rival is Jessica Morse, who previously worked for the State Department and other agencies. Both are campaigning for office for the first time. Mr. McClintock has said he believes that his seat is safe.To run, Ms. Bateson, who grew up in Roseville, Calif., took a leave of absence last year from her job as a political-science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She moved from Boston back to her hometown, which is just outside Sacramento, with her husband, Vivek Krishnamurthy, who is a lawyer, and their three children. Ms. Bateson is running on a platform that includes protection of the Affordable Care Act.Sierra Nevada Revolution, which is facing a complaint to the Federal Election Commission over its failure to register as a political organization, clashed with Ms. Bateson starting in March when the group endorsed Ms. Morse. It attacked Ms. Bateson for having challenged Ms. Morses credentials this year.The group often posted its criticism of Ms. Bateson on Facebook. Mr. Smith said he was in control of the account when it posted its first ad blasting her, adding that he spent more than $3,000 of his own money on that ad and others.That first ad, which Facebook did not designate as a political ad, was titled, Lose by any means necessary. It accused Ms. Bateson of running a scorched earth campaign and helping the Republican candidate by turning on her fellow Democrats.Another Sierra Nevada Revolution ad, which ran on Facebook on May 26 and mentioned Ms. Bateson and other topics, did not say who had paid for it, as required. Facebook said that it had made a mistake and that the ad was removed before being republished later with the correct label.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesIn total, Sierra Nevada Revolution ran 29 Facebook ads in May aimed at swaying peoples votes in Californias primary, according to Facebooks ad archive.Ms. Bateson said that her own campaign was not verified as a political advertiser by Facebook and had filled out the paperwork only in recent weeks. Her campaign was working with an outside digital advertising firm to run ads on Facebook.But she worried that it would be too little, too late especially since others have already made a mark through political Facebook ads that were not properly labeled.Here we are with people already voting by mail in the primaries, and we see serious problems with their system, Ms. Bateson said of the social network. We see that someone from here with local knowledge of our election can use Facebook to really influence people. | Tech |
Viktor Ahn bested his Russian teammate by three-quarters of a second to win the mens 1,000-meter short-track event. It is his second medal of the Sochi Games. Ahn, who was a South Korean speedskating star, became a Russian citizen in 2011 and pledged to compete for Russia. Here are the positions of the medalists in the first turn of each of the races nine laps. Related Article 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Sin South Korea Disqualified Finish: final Lap Finish: | Sports |
Dec. 14, 2015NBCUniversals research chief has called the Olympics his billion-dollar research lab.The Games offer a perfect opportunity every two years to analyze how media habits are changing, said Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at the company, because they deliver a large audience that tunes in to hundreds of hours of coverage across a proliferation of screens over a 17-day period.For the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next year, NBCUniversal plans to team up with the television tech company TiVo and RealityMine, a research start-up, to track how people watch the Games on television, mobile and digital platforms.The partnership, to be announced on Monday, is intended to provide insights into the daily habits of Olympics viewers and the interplay between watching coverage on television and using tablets and smartphones. It is also expected to deliver clues to how people watch outside the home, as well as the effect of social media on viewership and the effectiveness of advertising during Olympics coverage.The deal is part of a growing push across the media industry to better understand how vast digital changes are transforming the way people consume entertainment. Industry executives have said that they are seeking alternatives to Nielsen, the dominant measurement company for user engagement, which they complain has been slow to adapt.As Nielsen has introduced new offerings to track digital media, rivals also have pushed ahead. In September, two smaller measurement companies, comScore and Rentrak, announced plans to merge, seeking to create a stronger challenge to Nielsen.More competition is always healthy, Mr. Wurtzel said. Frankly, it is a good opportunity to see whether or not there are some other players out there that can contribute to the TV measurement industry.TiVo, which introduced the first digital video recorder in 1999, has built a research business based on proprietary TiVo set-top-box data and partnerships with cable and satellite companies. Its panel now includes 2.3 million households. RealityMine was founded in 2012 and tracks digital media activity, offering the ability to measure how people watch programming across platforms. (RealityMine also plans to announce on Monday that it has landed a $16 million investment.)Noting that TiVo places software in homes that captures every second of television viewing, Tom Rogers, the companys chief executive, said, We know what actual homes are doing, what they watch, what they buy.Mr. Wurtzel said getting the research right was crucial to NBCUniversal, which in 2014 agreed to pay $7.75 billion for exclusive broadcast rights to the six Olympic Games from 2022 to 2032.The research helps dictate programming decisions. During past Olympics, for example, one major concern was that live-streaming a sporting event during the day would cannibalize viewership of the same event when it was shown later on tape delay. Mr. Wurtzel said the research showed that the live stream actually served as a promotional tool to drive viewership for the prime-time event.The notion of ubiquity is not cannibalization, he said.Mr. Wurtzel said that research around the Olympics is also valuable because it can accelerate the adoption of new media habits. His prediction for the 2016 Games is a surge of mobile viewing among broader audiences.During those three weeks, he said, you get a glimpse into the future. | Business |
Desiigner Hyped A.F. at the Royal Rumble ... Hollas at Torrie Wilson! 1/29/2018 Move over, Wale -- there's a new WWE superfan rapper, and his name is Desiigner! Want proof? Check out the "Panda" M.C. at the Royal Rumble in Philly Sunday night ... losing his damn mind with pretty much every Rumble entrant. The highlights ... -- Hollerin' at "sexy ass" Torrie Wilson (can't blame him) -- EXPLODING when Rey Mysterio hit his signature "619" -- Imitating his friend, Paul Heyman, introducing Brock Lesnar OCTOBER 2017 ARY DALTON Fun fact: Desiigner performed at Heyman's son's bar mitzvah a few months back. Dude clearly loves him some wrestling. Let's get him ringside next time, Vince!! | Entertainment |
DealBook|Higher One, a Financial Aid Provider, Ordered to Repay Feeshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/business/dealbook/higher-one-a-financial-aid-provider-ordered-to-repay-fees.htmlCredit...Wendy Carlson for The New York TimesDec. 23, 2015Two federal agencies have ordered a major marketer of student debit cards to pay millions of dollars in restitution to users of its services for failing to disclose details about fees.Higher One, whose OneAccount division provided cards and checking accounts to students for books, school supplies and other living expenses, improperly collected millions of dollars because of its failure to fully inform consumers about certain fees and other features, the two federal regulators said in separate statements Wednesday.The Federal Reserve is seeking $24 million worth of repayment to about 570,000 students, while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ordered Higher One and its partner bank, WEX Bank, to return $31 million to 900,000 consumers, the statements said. Most of the abuses took place in 2012, 2013 and early 2014, the regulators said.Higher One also neglected to inform students about locations of A.T.M.s where they could collect cash without paying additional fees and it displayed school logos, which suggested endorsement of the product by their colleges, the Federal Reserves statement said.Deceptive marketing practices with respect to student loans will not be tolerated, said a Federal Reserve governor, Lael Brainard, in the statement. This action ensures that students who were misled into paying fees to access their financial aid funds will receive restitution for those fees.Higher One has come under fire for similar practices in the past. In 2012, the company settled with the F.D.I.C., agreeing to repay $11 million to 60,000 students for charging excessive fees to students who overdrew their accounts.Higher One said on Dec. 15 that it reached an agreement to sell all the assets and some of the liabilities of its disbursements unit, which includes OneAccount, to one of its bank partners, Customers Bank and its parent company, Customers Bancorp, for $37 million in cash.With the announcement of the sale of Higher Ones disbursements and OneAccount businesses to Customers Bank, were bringing this longstanding matter to a close and look to begin a new chapter for Higher One, Marc Sheinbaum, who joined Higher One as chief executive in 2014, said in a statement on Wednesday.The F.D.I.C. ordered Higher One to pay a penalty of $2.23 million and WEX Bank to pay $1.75 million, according to a statement Wednesday. The Federal Reserve sought $2.23 million in penalties from Higher One.The F.D.I.C. said it was working with Higher One and WEX Bank to provide better disclosure. | Business |
Floyd Mayweather Steps In MMA Cage ... Conor Responds 1/30/2018 -- Sources connected to Floyd tell us ... Floyd rented out the entire Syndicate MMA gym in Las Vegas on Monday for a private workout session. As far as the MMA training goes, we've spoken to multiple people and everyone is being VERY tight-lipped about what Floyd was working on inside the gym. We obviously know he spent some time in the cage -- but no one will say if Floyd was doing actual MMA training or just getting his usual boxing workout in with a change of scenery. FYI, a ton of legit pro MMA fighters train at Syndicate, including UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin, Jessica-Rose Clark, Mike Pyle and Julian Marquez. -- Conor has seen the video and offered up some thoughts ... "Hahahaha very good. Keep up the good work my son. Yours sincerely, Senior." Well, here's Conor McGregor's dream come true ... Floyd Mayweather stepped into an MMA cage in what appears to be another attempt to bait the UFC star into another fight. Floyd posted the footage on social media Tuesday -- one day after he took a shot at Conor for his #MCM ... which Floyd dubbed, "Mayweather Crushes McGregor." Both Conor and Floyd made a killing off their superfight in 2017 -- but McGregor says he wants his next fight to be in the octagon. So, how would that go? Oscar De La Hoya just told us the other day Floyd wouldn't last 10 seconds with The Notorious. But we'd all probably pay to see it anyway ... and Floyd knows it. 1/29/18 TMZSports.com | Entertainment |
Sports BriefingFeb. 22, 2014The Giants said Friday that they had given Coach Tom Coughlin a one-year contract extension through the 2015 season. The agreement was expected because the Giants have a history of not allowing their coach to go into a season as a lame duck.Coughlin, 67, who has won two Super Bowls, and the Giants had wanted to get the deal done earlier, but it was delayed while he reshaped his offensive staff. The Giants missed the playoffs in the last two seasons and three of the last four. | Sports |
Europe|Basque Separatist Group ETA Is Said to Promise to Disarmhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/eta-basque-disarm-spain.htmlCredit...ReutersMarch 17, 2017ETA, the Basque separatist group, is expected to turn over its remaining weapons next month, the Basque regional leader and a Basque activist said Friday, a development that brought a cautious response by the Spanish government as the organization has not followed through on similar pledges in the past.The Spanish government, which has called for the unilateral and unconditional dissolution of ETA, made disarmament an essential condition of its willingness to declare that the group had ended its five-decade campaign of terror, but experience led officials in Madrid to take a wait-and-see approach.ETA needs to disarm and dissolve itself and that position has not changed, not even by a centimeter, in six years, igo Mndez de Vigo, the culture minister and the spokesman for the Spanish government, said at a news conference in Madrid on Friday.ETA promised to hand over its weapons unconditionally by April 8, according to a report in Le Monde, the French newspaper, that was based on a statement provided by Jean Nol Etcheverry, a Basque separatist and environmentalist militant.Iigo Urkullu, the Basque regional government leader, said Friday in response to the Le Monde report that his Basque administration considered the weapons pledge from ETA to be credible and would do all that is in our hands for the disarmament to come through well.But, he added, not everything is in our hands.The Basque separatist group, which is considered by the United States and the European Union to be a terrorist organization, declared a unilateral cease-fire in 2011, but it refused to surrender unconditionally and turn over all its weapons.The government in Madrid has continued to successfully pursue its members, in close cooperation with French and other police forces, to the point that security specialists no longer consider ETA a serious threat.ETA, which long sought to establish an independent Basque homeland in an area that covers parts of northern Spain and southwestern France, killed more than 800 people but is now depleted of organizational leadership and access to weapons.About a year after he was identified by the Spanish police as the leader of ETA, Mikel Irastorza was arrested in November in a French village near the border with Spain.The authorities have also seized weapons, including a cache that was found in a forest north of Paris last fall, containing about 145 handguns. The organization has not killed anyone in Spain since 2009. | World |
Hong Kong DispatchCredit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesNov. 17, 2018HONG KONG Squeezed tightly between two megacities with a combined population of 20 million are some of East Asias most important wetlands, where rare birds sing out amid traditional shrimp ponds.Look up, and looming right above this rustic setting are the crush of skyscrapers in Shenzhen, China, almost close enough to touch. Just out of view behind some hills to the south are the congested streets of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.But in this corner of northwest Hong Kong, tens of thousands of cormorants, herons, egrets, sandpipers and other birds, including endangered species like the black-faced spoonbill, gather each winter to feed on the mud flats. Eucalyptus trees line a path that cuts along the shrimp and fishponds, where small restaurants serve up the days harvest.For bird watchers, bike riders and day-trippers from Hong Kong, the wetlands offer welcome respite from the citys crowds, even if the sound of birdcalls is regularly interrupted by the clank of hammers and the beep-beep of reversing vehicles from an industrial district nearby.But in a place where land prices are among the most expensive in the world, shopping malls and apartment blocks are far more profitable than shellfish, and the area is increasingly attractive to developers.In a few years, this will all be housing, said Yip Ka-kit, 32, as he took a break from riding his bicycle around Nam Sang Wai, a 400-acre wedge of the wetlands bounded by two rivers and filled with fish ponds and reed beds. People in Hong Kong only care about the economy.Signs warning of the punishment for arson up to life in prison hang prominently in the wetlands, a reminder of one of their most imminent threats: fire. A series of blazes this spring scorched parts of Nam Sang Wai.It is not the first time suspicious fires have burned in the area, which environmentalists and officials believe may have been set to undermine its ecological value.ImageCredit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesPolice say they are investigating, but have arrested no suspects. Last year during a public hearing, a representative of a company that has applied to develop the area denied it had any role in the blazes.There has been a longtime struggle between the landowners and preservationists about the future of that piece of wetland, said Eddie Chu, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council who represents the area and has called for protection of Nam Sang Wai.Seen from above, the wetlands look like a net, with thin bands of land looping around blue blocks of water.For centuries, rice paddies filled the area. Then beginning in the 1940s, the people who worked this land, many of them refugees from war and political chaos in China, turned the paddies into fishponds that earned far more than rice.ImageCredit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesFor decades, landowners have sought to develop the area, only to be rebuffed by the courts and government agencies. Last year the local planning board rejected the most recent proposal from a developer because of concerns about the potential loss of wetlands. The developer said it would appeal.The total size of the wetlands area is about 4,350 acres, equivalent to five of Manhattans Central Park. Part of the wetlands are off limits to large-scale development, including the Mai Po Nature Reserve, which is protected under the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation of wetlands.The reserve includes traditional shrimp farming ponds that have largely disappeared from the rest of China. The ponds, known as gei wai, make use of the tides to suck in young shrimp from Deep Bay. The ponds are then closed off, allowing the shrimp to grow in protected lagoons, until they are harvested by draining the water during an ebb tide.The World Wide Fund for Nature in Hong Kong operates 21 gei wai in the reserve. The shrimp are harvested at night.ImageCredit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesOne night several pounds of shrimp were netted as a group of environment officials from mainland China watched and later dined on the shrimp, which were accompanied by soy sauce, chili peppers and beers.When we harvest there are small fish and shrimp we dont want, and the birds come and eat, said Wen Xianji, assistant director of the Mai Po reserve. This traditional way of aquaculture benefits both humans and birds.The nature reserve has the added protection of its location along Hong Kongs border with Shenzhen, where permits limit entry from the Hong Kong side, and a 15-foot fence topped with barbed wire blocks people from crossing from the mainland.Still, poachers do sometimes visit by boat to catch mudskippers, amphibious fish used in Chinese medicine.But other areas nearby, like Nam Sang Wai, have less concrete protections.The most recent development proposal in Nam Sang Wai would have included apartments for 6,500 people.The developer, a joint venture between a family that has long owned the land and Henderson Land Development, a large Hong Kong property company, said it would follow a model like the London Wetland Center, which included a residential development that financed a habitat preservation project.The proposed development itself would take up less than 10 percent of Nam Sang Wais 400 acres, with the remainder preserved as managed wetlands, its backers say.Environmental groups, however, oppose the plan.So far from what weve seen the scale of development is not compatible with the area, said Woo Ming-chuan, conservation officer for the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society. Its quite sensitive and unique, and they want to build residential towers.ImageCredit...Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York TimesMs. Woo said she believed any plan that sacrifices some of the wetlands would only encourage further encroachment.We are afraid that once approved it will be a precedent for similar applications in the future, she said.For now, the area remains a popular weekend destination for walkers, cyclists and nature lovers, with the entrance to the wetlands a short walk from a shopping mall that sits atop a rail station.A short sampan ride takes visitors across a branch of the Shan Pui River. The captain can often be found sleeping on the boat, waiting for passengers to board the small wooden craft, with a maximum capacity of seven. It is the only ferry in Hong Kong that traverses a river and the only one human-powered.Among people who visit the area, the fear is that the forces of development will eventually win out.Of course I want them to preserve this place, said Mr. Yip, the cyclist. If they fill in everywhere in Hong Kong with houses, there will be nothing left to do here. | World |
TrilobitesData from a European satellite has revealed the tectonic underworld below the frozen southernmost continent.Credit...NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response TeamNov. 23, 2018The eastern section of Antarctica is buried beneath a thick ice sheet. Some scientists simply assumed that under that cold mass there was nothing more than a frozen tectonic block, a somewhat homogeneous mass that distinguished it from the mixed up geologies of other continents.But with the help of data from a discontinued European satellite, scientists have now found that East Antarctica is in fact a graveyard of continental remnants. They have created stunning 3-D maps of the southernmost continents tectonic underworld and found that the ice has been concealing wreckage of an ancient supercontinents spectacular destruction.The researchers, led by Jrg Ebbing, a geophysicist at Kiel University in Germany, reported their discovery earlier this month in Scientific Reports.The findings relied on data from the Gravity Field and Steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite, which orbited Earth just 155 miles above the surface until late 2013, when it re-entered the atmosphere at the end of its mission. Called the Ferrari of space, this sleek instrument could measure the gravitational fields weaving through Earths crust and mantle.Kate Winter, who studies Antarcticas glaciers at Northumbria University in England and wasnt involved in the study, said that the GOCE satellite data, helped us to piece the supercontinent back together in magnificent detail.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]GOCEs eye revealed that East Antarctica is a jigsaw puzzle of at least three geological titans named cratonic provinces. Cratons (from the Greek kratos, meaning strength) are stable rocky cores of continents that survived hundreds of millions of years of destructive action by Earths plate tectonics.One craton has geological similarities with some of Australias bedrock, while another resembles part of Indias. The third is an amalgamation of pieces of old seafloors.Fausto Ferraccioli, a senior geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey and co-author of the study, said that how and when all these provinces came together to make up East Antarctica as we see it today is still a matter of speculation and debate.The pieces may have been assembled as far back as 1 billion years ago, when the supercontinent Rodinia was built, or as recently as 500 million years ago, when another supercontinent, Gondwana, came together. Either way, what has been found beneath Antarctica is part of whats left after Gondwanas dissolution, around 160 million years ago.VideoAn animation showing the separation of Antarctica and Australia, the two large blue masses, from the Gondwana supercontinent over tens of millions of years.CreditCredit...By P. Haas/kiel UniversityAntarctica has been called the least understood continent on Earth, and many mysteries remain about its subsurface world. Theres only so much that magnetic and seismic data, and ground-penetrating radar attached to airplanes, can do to see through the 1.3-mile-thick ice sheet that covers 98 percent of it.Thats where the European Space Agencys GOCE (pronounced GO-chay) enters the story. Gravitational field strengths change depending on the objects they are associated with, and GOCE, with its ultrasensitive gravity-measuring probe and proximity to Earths surface, could detect masses deep below Antarcticas icy surface in breathtaking detail.The beauty with GOCE is that we can go deep down in the lithosphere to get to the roots of the continents, Dr. Ferraccioli said.Dr. Winter said that despite these discoveries, the exact geological makeup of Antarcticas innermost land, which sits in East Antarctica, is yet to be discovered. One solution would be to drill into the heart of the continent and sample the rock directly, using GOCEs maps to guide scientists searching for the perfect spot to dig.Knowing what rock the worlds largest ice sheet sits on is important in a warming world, as subglacial geology influences how ice shifts as the climate changes. But this study has more significant implications that go much deeper into our understanding of our world.Plate tectonics is the engine that drives our planet. It forges volcanoes, fuels atmospheres, digs out ocean basins and creates mountain ranges. We cant understand Earths entire evolution if we cant complete the puzzle, and the data from the dead satellite has just helped discover a few more of its missing pieces.ImageCredit...European Space Agency | science |
Technology|Apple Unveils a Smaller HomePodhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/technology/apple-unveils-a-smaller-homepod.htmlOct. 13, 2020, 1:24 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 1:24 p.m. ETCredit...AppleFirst up from Apple in its new product lineup on Tuesday was a HomePod Mini, a smaller and cheaper version of its HomePod smart speaker, which hasnt been as successful as the products it emulated, the Amazon Echo and Google Home.To distinguish the HomePod, Apple has emphasized the speakers ability to fill a room with high-quality sound. The original device was not popular, largely because of its higher price tag of $350. In addition, Siri, Apples virtual assistant, is not as capable as Amazons Alexa and Google Assistant. In our tests, Siri on HomePod was dumber than Siri on other products, including the iPhone.Apple said on Tuesday that Siri was continuing to improve.Regardless, the HomePod has a long way to go. The company hasnt disclosed its sales, but the market-research firm Strategy Analytics estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2019, Apple had less than 5 percent of the global market share for smart speakers, well below the 28 percent share for Amazon and 25 percent share for Google.The HomePod Mini will be priced at $99, Apple said. That compares with Amazon Echo at $99 and the mini Echo Dot at $49. Google Home, which is now called Nest Audio, costs $99 and its mini version, Nest Mini, is priced at $49. | Tech |
Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2014SOCHI, Russia It was a teenage figure skaters fear, impenetrable, overwhelming.What if she did not make it to the Olympics? The question seemed to paralyze Gracie Gold. Each mistake at practice became a validation of her unworthiness. At dinner, Gold would sometimes break into tears. She said she felt lost, uncertain.Pressure changes people, Denise Gold, Gracies mother, said Sunday to reporters. Its hard to live under fear.A switch of coaches, success on the international level and visits to a sports psychologist have brought about a striking change in the last few months.The newly assured Gold, 18, won the United States championship in January and helped the Americans win a bronze medal in the Olympic team event. She is now considered a medal candidate in the individual womens competition Wednesday and Thursday.Now that I actually have a medal, it definitely makes me hungry for another one, Gold said. And it makes me hungry for a different color one.With her Wheaties box name, blond hair and red lipstick, Gold can become one of the breakout American stars with a medal-winning performance in perhaps the most anticipated event at the Sochi Games.Kim Yu-na, the defending champion from South Korea, and Yulia Lipnitskaya, the gymnastic 15-year-old from Russia, are the favorites. But a bronze medal, or even a silver, could be in play among Gold; Mao Asada, the reigning silver medalist from Japan; and Carolina Kostner, the 2012 world champion from Italy.Frank Carroll, Golds coach since September, has subtly and not so subtly been making a case for his skater. He refers to Lipnitskaya simply as that little girl. He said he could no longer distinguish Kims style from that of other South Korean skaters. And he has pointed out Asadas struggles with her signature jump, the triple axel.I watched Mao Asada in the team event, Carroll said, and I kept thinking: Is this girl better than Gracie? Are her skating skills better? Is her interpretation better? I said to myself, You know what, I dont think so.At the national championships in Boston last month, Gold seemed guarded in her interviews, rehearsed to the point of mechanical response. Since then, she has seemed much more relaxed and forthcoming, juggling lemons on The Tonight Show and cleverly saying that the elastic Lipnitskaya has no spine, but she has iron in her bones.Describing her recent openness, Gold said, I guess I was kind of tired of being called a cardboard cutout.The transformation in her confidence has been arresting. In August, Gold turned 18 and her life seemed to fall into a panic. At a preseason training camp in Colorado Springs, she struggled. She could not rely on her jumping. She demanded perfection from herself and became consumed by her flaws.She was really, really crumbling, Denise Gold said.In September, Gracie moved from Chicago to Los Angeles to train with Carroll, 75, one of skatings most venerable coaches. He is known for his candor and positive reinforcement. That approach has produced five individual Olympic medals, including gold by Evan Lysacek in 2010 and silver by Michelle Kwan in 1998.I think what he brought to her was a sense of calmness, Denise Gold said.And if Gracie did not reach the Olympics? Well, Carroll told her in the fall, he had not made the Olympics as a skater and had lived a good life.VideoThe American figure skater spoke about Yulia Lipnitskaya, the Russian skater who is one of the favorites to win gold.He taught her how to save the landing of a jump, catlike, even if the rotation was tilted. Perhaps most important, Carroll emphasized that its not the perfect skater that wins, its the best skater. It was O.K., even necessary, to accept some failure.In October, at Skate Canada, an international competition on the Grand Prix circuit, Gold defeated Lipnitskaya in the short program and finished third over all. She has learned to think ahead during her routines, instead of analyzing what had occurred and becoming distracted by a fall or an imperfect spin.Its how I released some of that perfectionist quality and switched the focus to excellence, Gold said.Still, the fear of failure did not fade. Commercials, necessarily filmed ahead of time, referred to her as an Olympian or Olympic hopeful, even though Gold had not yet qualified for Sochi.It kind of freaked me out, Gold said.Finally, as the American championships approached, Carroll said that Gold was able to pat herself on the head and admit that practice was O.K. with a blemish or two instead of responding that it was horrible.According to her mother, Gold has also worked with Ken Ravizza, a professor of applied sport psychology at California State University, Fullerton, who emphasized that athletes should be able to perform even when outside the so-called zone of comfort and flow.Among the questions that Ravizza posed, Denise Gold said, was, Are you a bad enough skater that you have to feel great to do your stuff?At practice Tuesday night, Gold again appeared buoyant.Frank told her to be herself, and it seems to be working, Kwan said of Carroll. She looks flawless. | Sports |
Philadelphia Eagles Another Fan Punches Police Horse 1/22/2018 For the second time in 2 weeks ... a Philadelphia Eagles fan has been arrested for punching a police horse at the stadium. This time, the perp is Andrew Tornetta -- who cops say was going H.A.M. during a pre-game tailgate at Lincoln Financial Field before the Eagles took on the Vikings in the NFC Championship. Cops say mounted Pennsylvania State Police units were breaking up a crazy situation when Tornetta refused to comply with orders to disperse. Instead, Tornetta punched a police horse twice in the right shoulder and then socked the human officer in the face ... according to cops. Tornetta allegedly tried to flee -- and removed his sweatshirt to try to evade police -- but was eventually caught and arrested for aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and related charges. As we previously reported, another fan was arrested for punching a police horse in the face at Lincoln Financial Field the previous weekend ... when the Eagles defeated the Falcons. | Entertainment |
The presidents demand for action to overturn the result of the election in the state raised questions about whether he violated election fraud statutes, lawyers said, though a charge is unlikely.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJan. 3, 2021The call by President Trump on Saturday to Georgias secretary of state raised the prospect that Mr. Trump may have violated laws that prohibit interference in federal or state elections, but lawyers said on Sunday that it would be difficult to pursue such a charge.The recording of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, first reported by The Washington Post, led a number of election and criminal defense lawyers to conclude that by pressuring Mr. Raffensperger to find the votes he would need to reverse the election outcome in the state, Mr. Trump either broke the law or came close to it.It seems to me like what he did clearly violates Georgia statutes, said Leigh Ann Webster, an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer, citing a state law that makes it illegal for anyone who solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in election fraud.At the federal level, anyone who knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process is breaking the law.Matthew T. Sanderson, a Republican election lawyer who has worked on several presidential campaigns including those of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor said that while it did appear that Mr. Trump was trying to intimidate Mr. Raffensperger, it was not clear that he violated the law.That is because while Mr. Trump clearly implied that Mr. Raffensperger might suffer legal consequences if he did not find additional votes for the president in Georgia, Mr. Trump stopped short of saying he would deliver on the threat himself against Mr. Raffensperger and his legal counsel, Ryan Germany, Mr. Sanderson said. You know what they did and youre not reporting it, the president said during the call, referring to his baseless assertions of widespread election fraud. Thats a criminal thats a criminal offense. And you cant let that happen. Thats a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And thats a big risk.Lacking additional clear evidence of Mr. Trumps intent to follow up on any apparent threat, including the potential criminal charges he suggested Mr. Raffensperger or his office might face, Mr. Sanderson said, Ultimately, I doubt this is behavior that would be prosecuted.Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general and lawyer who represented clients that have been critical of Mr. Trump, said he believed Mr. Trump violated federal law.But the meandering nature of the phone call and the fact that the president made no apparent attempt to conceal his actions as other call participants listened could allow Mr. Trump to argue that he did not intend to break the law or to argue that he did not know that a federal law existed apparently prohibiting his actions.The federal law would also most likely require that Mr. Trump knew that he was pushing Mr. Raffensperger to fraudulently change the vote count, meaning prosecutors would have to prove that Mr. Trump knew he was lying in asserting that he was confident he had won the election in Georgia.It is unlikely federal prosecutors would bring such a case, Mr. Bromwich said. But it certainly was god awful and unbelievable. But prosecuting a federal crime is obviously a very different thing.David Worley, a Democrat and a supporter of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. who is a member of the State Election Board in Georgia, wrote Sunday evening to Mr. Raffensperger and other members of the board asking the secretary of state, who is the board chairman, to open an investigation into the phone call to see if it violated state law, including a provision prohibiting conspiracy to commit election fraud.If the board concludes a law has been broken, Mr. Worley said, it could ask state law enforcement authorities to consider filing criminal charges or a civil case against Mr. Trump.To say that I am troubled by President Trumps attempt to manipulate the votes of Georgians would be an understatement, Mr. Worley, who is the sole Democrat on the five-member board, wrote in the email. Once we have received your investigative report, it will be the boards duty to determine whether probable cause exists to refer this matter.State officials in Georgia might also face a challenge in bringing a case against a federal official, or even a former federal official, said Ms. Webster and Ryan C. Locke, a second Atlanta criminal defense lawyer.Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said the question would largely be up to the Justice Department in the Biden administration.There is a good argument that Trump is seeking to procure a fraudulent vote count by stating that he needs exactly 11,780 votes and is threatening the secretary of state if he does not produce them, Mr. Potter said. But even if the Biden Justice Department thinks they have a good case, is that how they want to start off the Biden presidency? That is a policy decision.Congressional Democrats suggested they would examine the legal implications of the call. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the call raised new legal questions for Mr. Trump even if it was not a clear violation of the law.In threatening these officials with vague criminal consequences, and in encouraging them to find additional votes and hire investigators who want to find answers, the president may have also subjected himself to additional criminal liability, Mr. Nadler said in a statement. | Politics |
A recent visit to Nauru revealed the effects of Australias offshore detention policy and its impact on mental health. Credit...Mridula AminNov. 5, 2018TOPSIDE, Nauru She was 3 years old when she arrived on Nauru, a child fleeing war in Sri Lanka. Now, Sajeenthana is 8.Her gaze is vacant. Sometimes she punches adults. And she talks about dying with ease.Yesterday I cut my hand, she said in an interview here on the remote Pacific island where she was sent by the Australian government after being caught at sea. She pointed to a scar on her arm. One day I will kill myself, she said. Wait and see, when I find the knife. I dont care about my body. Her father tried to calm her, but she twisted away. It is the same as if I was in war, or here, he said.Sajeenthana is one of more than 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers who have been sent to Australias offshore detention centers since 2013. No other Australian policy has been so widely condemned by the worlds human rights activists nor so strongly defended by the countrys leaders, who have long argued it saves lives by deterring smugglers and migrants.Now, though, the desperation has reached a new level in part because of the United States.Sajeenthana and her father are among the dozens of refugees on Nauru who had been expecting to be moved as part of an Obama-era deal that President Trump reluctantly agreed to honor, allowing resettlement for up to 1,250 refugees from Australias offshore camps.So far, according to American officials, about 430 refugees from the camps have been resettled in the United States but at least 70 people were rejected over the past few months.That includes Sajeenthana and her father, Tamil refugees who fled violence at home after the Sri Lankan government crushed a Tamil insurgency.ImageCredit...Mridula Amin and Lachie HintonA State Department spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the rejections, arguing the Nauru refugees are subject to the same vetting procedures as other refugees worldwide. Australias Department of Home Affairs said in a statement that Nauru has appropriate mental health assessment and treatment in place. But whats clear, according to doctors and asylum seekers, is that the situation has been deteriorating for months. On Nauru, signs of suicidal children have been emerging since August. Dozens of organizations, including Doctors Without Borders (which was ejected from Nauru on Oct. 5) have been sounding the alarm. And with the hope of American resettlement diminishing, the Australian government has been forced to relent: Last week officials said they would work toward moving all children off Nauru for treatment by Christmas. At least 92 children have been moved since August Sajeenthana was evacuated soon after our interview but as of Tuesday there were still 27 children on Nauru, hundreds of adults, and no long-term solution. ImageCredit...Pool photo by Jason OxenhamThe families sent to Australia for care are waiting to hear if they will be sent back to Nauru. Some parents, left behind as their children are being treated, fear they will never see each other again if they apply for American resettlement, while asylum seekers from countries banned by the United States like Iran, Syria and Somalia lack even that possibility.For all the asylum seekers who have called Nauru home, the psychological effects linger.I Saw the Blood It Was EverywhereNauru is a small island nation of about 11,000 people that takes 30 minutes by car to loop. A line of dilapidated mansions along the coast signal the islands wealthy past; in the 1970s, it was a phosphate-rich nation with per capita income second only to Saudi Arabia.Now, those phosphate reserves are virtually exhausted, and the country relies heavily on Australian aid. It accounted for 25 percent of Naurus gross domestic product last year alone.ImageCredit...Mridula AminMathew Batsiua, a former Nauruan lawmaker who helped orchestrate the offshore arrangement, said it was meant to be a short-term deal. But the habit has been hard to break. Our mainstay income is purely controlled by the foreign policy of another country, he said.In Topside, an area of old cars and dusty brush, sits one of the two processing centers that house about 160 detainees. Hundreds of others live in community camps of modular housing. They were moved from shared tents in August, ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum, an intergovernmental meeting that Nauru hosted this year.Sukirtha Krishnalingam, 15, said the days are a boring loop as she and her family of five certified refugees from Sri Lanka wait to hear if the United States will accept them. She worries about her heart condition. And she has nightmares.At night, she screams, said her brother Mahinthan, 14.In the past year, talk of suicide on the island has become more common. Young men like Abdullah Khoder, a 24-year-old Lebanese refugee, says exhaustion and hopelessness have taken a toll. I cut my hands with razors because I am tired, he said. ImageCredit...Mridula AminEven more alarming: Children now allude to suicide as if it were just another thunderstorm. Since 2014, 12 people have died after being detained in Australias offshore detention centers on Nauru and Manus Island, part of Papua New Guinea. Christina Sivalingam, a 10-year-old Tamil girl on Nauru spoke matter-of-factly in an interview about seeing the aftermath of one death that of an Iranian man, Fariborz Karami, who killed himself in June. We came off the school bus and I saw the blood it was everywhere, she said calmly. It took two days to clean up. She said her father also attempted suicide after treatment for his thyroid condition was delayed.Seeing some of her friends being settled in the United States while she waits on her third appeal for asylum has only made her lonelier. She said she doesnt feel like eating anymore. Why am I the only one here? she said. I want to go somewhere else and be happy.Some observers, even on Nauru, wonder if the children are refusing to eat in a bid to leave. But medical professionals who have worked on the island said the rejections by the Americans have contributed to a rapid deterioration of peoples mental states. Dr. Beth OConnor, a psychiatrist working with Doctors Without Borders, said that when she arrived last year, people clung to the hope of resettlement in the United States. In May, a batch of rejections plunged the camp into despair. ImageCredit...Mridula AminMr. Karamis death further sapped morale.People that just had a bit of spark in their eye still just went dull, Dr. OConnor said. They felt more abandoned and left behind.Many of the detainees no longer hope to settle in Australia. New Zealand has offered to take in 150 refugees annually from Nauru but Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, has said that he will only consider the proposal if a bill is passed banning those on Nauru from ever entering Australia. Opposition lawmakers say they are open to discussion.In the meantime, Nauru continues to draw scrutiny.Im Not Going Back to NauruFor months, doctors say, many children on Nauru have been exhibiting symptoms of resignation syndrome a mental condition in response to trauma that involves extreme withdrawal from reality. They stopped eating, drinking and talking. Theyd look right through you when you tried to talk to them, Dr. OConnor said. We watched their weights decline and we worried that one of them would die before they got out.Lawyers with the National Justice Project, a nonprofit legal service, have been mobilizing. They have successfully argued for the medical evacuation of around 127 people from Nauru this year, including 44 children. In a quarter of the cases, the government has resisted these demands in court, said George Newhouse, the groups principal lawyer. Weve never lost, he said. It is gut-wrenching to see childrens lives destroyed for political gain.ImageCredit...Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesA broad coalition that includes doctors, clergy, lawyers and nonprofit organizations, working under the banner #kidsoffnauru, is now calling for all asylum seekers to be evacuated. Public opinion in Australia is turning: In one recent poll, about 80 percent of respondents supported the removal of families and children from Nauru.Australias conservative government, with an election looming, is starting to shift.Weve been going about this quietly, Mr. Morrison said last week. We havent been showboating. But there are still questions about what happens next. Last month, Sajeenthana stopped eating. After she had spent 10 days on a saline drip in a Nauruan hospital, her father was told he had two hours to pack for Australia.Speaking by video from Brisbane last week (we are not using her full name because of her age and the severity of her condition), Sajeenthana beamed. I feel better now that I am in Australia, she said. Im not going back to Nauru.But her father is less certain. The United States rejected his application for resettlement in September. There are security guards posted outside their Brisbane hotel room, he said, and though food arrives daily, they are not allowed to leave. He wonders if they have swapped one kind of limbo for another, or if they will be forced back to Nauru. Australias Home Affairs minister has said the Nauru children will not be allowed to stay. Anyone who is brought here is still classified as a transitory person, said Jana Favero, director of advocacy and campaigns at the Asylum Seeker Resource Center. Life certainly isnt completely rosy and cheery once they arrive in Australia.On Monday, 25 more people, including eight children, left the island in six family units, she said. Those left behind on Nauru pass the days, worrying and waiting. ImageCredit...Mridula AminChristina often dreams of what life would be like somewhere else, where being 10 does not mean being trapped. A single Iranian woman who asked not to be identified because she feared for her safety said that short of attempting suicide or changing nationality, there was no way off Nauru. She has been waiting two years for an answer to her application for resettlement in the United States one that now seems hopeless given the Trump administrations policies. Each night, often after the power goes out on Nauru, she and her sister talk about life and death, and whether to harm themselves to seek freedom.If you or someone you know needs help, support can be found in your area by clicking here: the International Association for Suicide Prevention. In Australia, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.Mridula Amin reported from Nauru, and Isabella Kwai from Sydney. Lachie Hinton contributed reporting from Nauru, and Damien Cave from Sydney. Want more Australia coverage and discussion? Sign up for the weekly Australia Letter, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group. | World |
Portugal DispatchCredit...Ana Brigida for The New York TimesNov. 11, 2018NAZAR, Portugal At the market in the ancient fishing village of Nazar, Portuguese pensioners shopped for their fruit and vegetables. Retired fishermen chatted over coffee. And a record-breaking American surfer sipped on a cucumber and celery smoothie.It was Garrett McNamara, a 51-year-old from Hawaii who until recently held the world record for the highest wave ever surfed. And who, for most of his life, had never visited Europe and had to take some time to find Portugal on a map.I never envisaged this, said Mr. McNamara, who tended to surf in the Pacific Ocean. Portugal was never a destination.For centuries, Nazar was a traditional seaside town, where fishermen taught their children to avoid the huge waves that crashed against the nearby cliffs. But over the past eight years, those same waves have turned the place into an unlikely draw for extreme surfers like Mr. McNamara, their fans and the global companies that sponsor the athletes.ImageCredit...Ana Brigida for The New York TimesTall as a 10-story building, the waves are caused by a submarine canyon three miles deep, and 125 miles long that abruptly ends just before the towns shoreline.When Mr. McNamara first saw the giant walls of water in 2010, it was like finding the Holy Grail, he said. Id found the elusive wave.Up in the towns 17th-century fort, tourists now ogle surfboards in the same rooms where the marine police used to store confiscated fishing nets. Out in the bay, professional drivers are testing new jet-skis yards from where villagers dry fish on the beach. In the port, surfers rent warehouses next to where fishermen unload their catch.Its a very interesting mixture of history and tradition and a surfing community, said Maya Gabeira, who holds the record for the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman, achieved at Nazar last January, and who has had a base in the town since 2015. Were not the predominant thing here.The dynamic constitutes a sea change for both the big-wave surfing world, whose members have historically gravitated toward the surf hubs of Hawaii and California, and the 10,000 villagers of Nazar, who were used to having the place to themselves over the winter.ImageCredit...Ana Brigida for The New York TimesThe story of how it happened depends on who is telling it.For Dino Casimiro, a local sports teacher, the tale began in 2002, when he and a group of friends set up a club in 2002 to help popularize water sports among locals, and publicize Nazars waves among foreigners.For Jorge Barroso, the former mayor, the turning point was in 2007, when he first gave Mr. Casimiro permission to hold a water sports competition off the most northerly and the most deadly of the towns two beaches.And for the towns current mayor, Walter Chicharro, the story starts soon after his election in 2013, when he pumped more money into publicizing and professionalizing the towns surfing scene.But the watershed moment really came in 2010, when Mr. McNamara finally took up a five-year-old invitation from Mr. Casimiro to come to Nazar, and try out the waves that break off the towns north beach.For all concerned, these were uncharted waters literally and metaphorically. Not only had Mr. McNamara never visited Europe, but the villagers, many of whom knew someone who had died at sea, had never considered their tallest waves swimmable, let alone surfable.Bodyboarders like Mr. Casimiro had long tried their luck. But surfing particularly in the winter was thought impossible.I thought he was crazy, said Celeste Botelho, a restaurant owner who gave subsidized meals to Mr. McNamara and his team throughout the 2010 winter. We thought of that beach as a wild beach.Ms. Botelho even avoided growing too attached to Mr. McNamara and his family: She feared he might soon drown.Mr. McNamara was meticulous in his preparation, spending that winter studying the rhythm of the swell and the contours of the seabed, sometimes with the help of the Portuguese Navy.A year later, in 2011, Mr. McNamara was ready to surf Nazars waves at somewhere near their peak. That November, he conquered a 78-foot wave turning Mr. McNamara into a world-record holder, and Nazar into a name recognized throughout the surfing world.ImageCredit...Ana Brigida for The New York TimesThe tourists started to turn up in meaningful numbers in late 2012, eager to see the worlds tallest waves. Previously, the towns hotels and restaurants emptied out in September. Now they had business all year round.Under the new mayor, Mr. Chicharro, the towns fort was opened to the new visitors, both as a viewing post for the waves, and a shrine to those who had tamed it. About 40,000 visited it in 2014, while more than 220,000 have entered so far in 2018.I said to my wife, Ive got to see it to believe it, said Kevin Spiers, a surf enthusiast from Toronto who visited the fort in October. I thought we had to come here.From surf schools to souvenir shops, surfing is now big business in Nazar.When Paulo Peixe founded the Nazar Surf School, shortly before Mr. McNamara broke the world record, surfers were seen as guys who dont like to work, Mr. Peixe said. Now its different. Theres the idea that surfing is good.Ms. Botelho, initially so fearful of Mr. McNamaras project, has now named her menu after him. The town has played host to a surf-themed film festival, while the World Surf League, professional surfings governing body, runs regular competitions here.ImageCredit...To Mane/European Pressphoto AgencyI dont think theres any other place on the planet right now that is as popular a big-wave surfing location as Nazar, said Tim Bonython, a documentary filmmaker, renowned in the surfing world, who recently bought a house in the town.At least 20 professional surfers stay in Nazar during any given week over the winter, several officials and surfers reckoned. They are drawn not just by the height of the waves, but by their regularity: Big swells hit Nazar for unusually long stretches of the year.Its so consistent, said David Langer, an American surfer who moved here in 2013. Its literally 10 times more active than any other big-wave place.Some big-wave surfers have yet to be convinced. The biggest waves here are so tall that its hard to tackle them without being towed toward them by a Jet Ski. Purists would rather paddle into the waves unassisted, Mr. Bonython said.And then theres the risk. All big waves are dangerous, but Nazar is particularly unpredictable.Its unlike any other wave at big-wave spots, said Andrew Cotton, who broke his back at Nazar last year. At other big wave sites, he said, the waves break in the same place, and theres always a safe zone and an impact zone, he said. Whereas Nazar is just all over the place.ImageCredit...Ana Brigida for The New York TimesThe town has now become so used to the presence of surfers, and the business they bring, that even the local fishermen, who sometimes jostle for space in the water with surfers, are generally welcoming.Surfers have a different relationship with the sea, said Joao Carlines, a retired fisherman who now dries fish on the beach for a living. But Im happy the towns become known for surfing because it means we have people coming here in the winter.But there are tensions. The number of outsiders buying property in Nazare is still relatively low, but property prices and rental rates are rising, as they are in the rest of the country.That bodes well for one generation of property-owning Nazarenes, but some fear that the next generation will eventually have to move from the town center to find affordable housing.The bad part, said Mr. Peixe, the surf school director, is that were probably going to lose the idea that were a traditional village. | World |
Credit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2014GOODYEAR, Ariz. The first time Todd Frazier set foot on a major league field, he stood next to Derek Jeter. Frazier was 12.Now Frazier is the third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, entering his fourth season at age 28. He is part of a younger generation of players who were raised on Jeter, the Yankees captain, who will meet with members of the news media on Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., to discuss his pending retirement.Jeter, who turns 40 in June, said last week that this would be his final season. When Frazier heard the news, he was busy dodging snowstorms as he tried to leave for spring training. Frazier still spends his winters in New Jersey, where he starred for the Toms River Little League team in 1998.Frazier went 4 for 4 with a home run in the championship game of the Little League World Series, leading Toms River to a victory over Japan. A few days later, on Sept. 1, the team took a bus to Yankee Stadium to be honored before a game against Oakland.Frazier remembers watching Matt Stairs, the Athletics slugger, launch home runs in batting practice, and then receiving Stairss broken bat as a souvenir.I was just in awe, Frazier said. Im like, God, one day, I need one opportunity to get up here, and I just relished it. It was so much fun.Before the first pitch, each Toms River player took the field with the Yankee who played the same position. Frazier was a shortstop then, so he stood beside Jeter, who was then in his third full season and about to win his second World Series.Fraziers favorite Yankee was actually Paul ONeill I liked his energy, hitting the water coolers, Frazier said but as he grew up, he found himself rooting for the Boston Red Sox, attracted by their colorful personalities. But he made small talk that night with Jeter, who signed Fraziers baseball. And like so many Red Sox fans, Frazier respected Jeter.I didnt root for him, but when he did good, you couldnt be mad at him, Frazier said. Not at all.Frazier attended Rutgers and was chosen by the Reds in the first round of the 2007 draft, reaching the majors in 2011. (He wears 21, ONeills number, but said it was a coincidence.) Two years ago, Frazier said, he worked out with Jeter in Florida and reminded him of their first meeting.Jeter laughed, Frazier said, and begged him not to tell anyone. He signed the photograph from 1998, which Frazier keeps in a frame at home.The last time we played him in New York, he kind of winked at me, gave me a fake bunt because he was the first batter of the game, Frazier said. So he remembered. It was pretty cool how he doesnt forget his roots or the people he gets to know.Frazier said he admired Jeter for the way he conducted himself not really undercover, Frazier said, but kind of smooth and he knows that Jeter was born in New Jersey. So was Frazier, and the player Frazier said could supplant Jeter as a role model for todays Little Leaguers.I would say my buddy Mike Trout, honestly, Frazier said. I know hes young, but he plays the game hard. Hes on his way to making a big contract. I could see him making that, but understanding, I still have a lot to learn, a lot to go, and its not about the money, its about playing this game hard. He does that. In three or four years, as he grows as an athlete, I really see him being the face of Major League Baseball.Trout, a Los Angeles Angels outfielder, grew up in Millville, N.J., and has listed Jeter among his childhood favorites. Like many others across baseball last week, including Bryce Harper, Hanley Ramirez and B. J. Upton, Trout saluted Jeter on Twitter after learning of his plans to retire.Grew up watching Jeter play, Trout wrote. Always aspired to be the player he was on and off the field. The Angels, the Reds and the rest of the teams on the Yankees schedule have one final chance to compete against Jeter. The players who grew up watching him, like Frazier, will cherish the opportunity.I can say, I know Derek Jeter, Frazier said. Thats pretty awesome to say. | Sports |
The Covid Vaccine We Need Now May Not Be a ShotNasal vaccines under development around the world may make better boosters by stopping the coronavirus in the airways.Credit...Amarjeet Kumar Singh/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesPublished Feb. 2, 2022Updated Feb. 3, 2022HYDERABAD, India On the outskirts of this centuries-old Indian city, a world away from its congested roads and cacophony, the gleaming modern laboratories of Bharat Biotech are churning out a Covid vaccine that would be sprayed into the nose rather than injected into the arm.Currently available vaccines produce powerful, long-lasting immunity against severe illness, as several studies have recently shown. But their protection against infection from the coronavirus is transient, and can falter as new variants of the virus emerge a failing that has prompted talk of regular booster shots.Nasal vaccines may be the best way to prevent infections long term, because they provide protection exactly where it is needed to fend off the virus: the mucosal linings of the airways, where the coronavirus first lands.Bharat Biotech is among the worlds leading vaccine manufacturers. Its best known product, Covaxin, is authorized to prevent Covid in India and many other countries. But its experimental nasal vaccine may prove to be the real game changer.Immunizing entire populations with a nasal or oral vaccine would be faster in the middle of a surge than injections, which require skill and time to administer. A nasal vaccine is likely to be more palatable to many (including children) than painful shots, and would circumvent shortages of needles, syringes and other materials.Intranasal vaccines can be administered easily in mass immunization campaigns and reduce transmission, said Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director of Bharat Biotech.There are at least a dozen other nasal vaccines in development worldwide, some of them now in Phase 3 trials. But Bharat Biotechs may be the first to become available. In January, the company won approval to begin a Phase 3 trial of the nasal spray in India as a booster for people who have already received two shots of a Covid vaccine.ImageCredit...Mikhail Tereshchenko\TASS, via Getty ImagesThe Omicron variant made it all too clear that even three doses of a vaccine, while they provide powerful protection against severe illness, may not prevent infection. Thats because injected vaccines produce antibodies in the blood, comparatively few of which make it to the nose, the entryway for the virus.So-called mucosal vaccines ideally would coat the mucosal surfaces of the nose, mouth and throat with long-lasting antibodies, and would be much better at preventing infection and spread of the virus. It is the difference between planting sentries at the gates to bar intruders and trying to oust them after they had already stormed the castle.Nasal vaccines are the only way to really circumvent person-to-person transmission, said Jennifer Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto. We cant live forever sheltering vulnerable people and boosting them so that their antibody levels stay artificially high.Nasal vaccines have been shown to protect mice, ferrets, hamsters and monkeys against the coronavirus. A new study last week offered powerful evidence in support of their use as a booster.An intranasal booster induced immune memory cells and antibodies in the nose and throat, and strengthened protection from the initial vaccination, the researchers reported. The study has not yet been published in a scientific journal.Our approach is to not use a nasal vaccine as a primary vaccination, but to boost with nasal vaccine, because then you can leverage the existing immunity thats already created, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who led the study.When she and her colleagues used a mix of proteins from the new coronavirus as well as the related SARS virus, their experimental nasal vaccine seemed capable of fending off a broad range of coronavirus variants.Theres some flexibility, and there might be more resilience against the virus, said Dr. Gommerman, who was not involved in the work. And because we dont know what the virus will do next, thats awfully appealing.The current Covid vaccines are injected into muscle, and excel at training immune cells to tackle the virus after it enters the body. They produce antibodies called IgG that circulate in the blood and can be marshaled when needed.But few of these antibodies travel to the nose and throat, and even those that do wane quickly.By contrast, nasal vaccines produce a special set of antibodies, called IgA, that thrive on mucosal surfaces like the nose and throat. And these antibodies may wane more slowly.A vaccine delivered with a nebulizer could coat the entire airway, including the lungs, with IgA antibodies. Its not just the tip of the nose thats protected, Dr. Iwasaki said.Mounting evidence supports IgA antibodies as the key to preventing infection. In one study, Dr. Gommerman and her colleagues found that only about 30 percent of people had detectable IgA antibodies after receiving a second dose of vaccine.Those who had lower levels of IgA within a month of the second dose were more likely to develop a breakthrough infection. IgG levels seemed to have no impact on the outcome.Location really matters, and mucosal immunity is really important for protection from infection, said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University who was involved in the work.ImageCredit...Pallava Bagla/Corbis, via Getty ImagesPeople who gain immunity because of an infection with the virus rather than from an injected vaccine tend to have strong mucosal immunity, at least for a while. That may help explain why they seemed to fare better against the Delta variant than those who had been vaccinated, Dr. Tal said.But she warned that trying to obtain mucosal immunity by getting infected was dangerous. The way to get people that kind of mucosal protection really, really, really should be with a nasal vaccine, she said.Injected vaccines are the right approach for generating the systemic immunity needed to prevent death and disease, the urgent goal at the start of the pandemic, Dr. Tal said. And the Trump administration ushered in several candidates through Operation Warp Speed.That was a good first step, but we needed to have intranasal vaccines ready for boosting for right after that, she added. What I really wish we had was a Warp Speed 2.0 for nasal vaccines.But developing nasal vaccines is complicated. Measuring mucosal antibodies is much more difficult than quantifying antibodies in the blood. The amounts are often low and can fluctuate wildly. For example, the aroma of a delicious meal may flood the mouth with saliva, diluting mucosal antibody levels.Its just like a stepchild for vaccine development, because its hard, Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said of mucosal vaccines.The only nasal vaccine approved in the United States for respiratory diseases is FluMist, and even that has been riddled with problems. FluMist relies on a weakened flu virus, so it works well in children who have never been exposed. But in many adults, existing immunity to flu killed the weakened virus and left the vaccine ineffective.Trying to enhance the vaccine with an extra ingredient, called an adjuvant, inflamed the nasal mucosa and led to Bells palsy in some people.But those problems would not plague a nasal vaccine that uses a viral protein, Dr. Iwasaki said: Our approach is so different, I dont think it suffers from that kind of limitation.Still, there has been little talk of nasal vaccines for Covid in the United States, which has embraced the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.A lot of these developments take place in other regions of the world, said Dr. Krammer, who is involved in an effort to create a nasal vaccine. The appetite for new vaccines in the U.S. is very low.One reason for the hesitation is that no one yet knows how powerful immunity might be from a mucosal Covid vaccine, and how long it might last, Dr. Gommerman said.But mRNA vaccines likewise were a gamble at the start of the pandemic, she noted: I dont think thats a good enough reason to not try. | Health |
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/technology/personaltech/keeping-a-computer-offline.htmlFeb. 18, 2014Q. Is it possible to use a computer and purposely have it not connected to the Internet so it is not subject to hacking or malware?A. Keeping your computer offline is certainly possible, but doing so would probably limit many of its functions. For instance, software updates, program authentications, email, web browsing, video streaming, online gaming and music downloads all require an Internet connection.Security programs, if you have any installed, also get their updates delivered over the Internet.Yanking the Ethernet cable or turning off the computers Wi-Fi receiver cuts it off from the world outside, but you can still use the machine as long as you have the appropriate software installed (or can buy it on disc) before you cut the cord.Among other things, you can use the computer as a high-tech typewriter with word-processing software and a printer directly cabled to it; files can be transferred to other computers via USB drives. You can also use the computer for games and to view multimedia stored on disc or the hard drive.Sharing Audio Through BluetoothQ. Is there a way to use two Bluetooth headsets simultaneously, so that my wife and I can both watch a movie on our iPad at the same time?A. The wireless Bluetooth technology used by the iPad allows for the audio signal to stream only from one device to another. While you can normally use only one set of headphones at a time with the iPad, third-party accessories may offer a solution.For example, some users have reported success with add-ons like a Kokkia multistream Bluetooth transmitter (starting around $60 at the companys store), which promises to stream the audio from an iOS device to two different headsets. Depending on your iPad model, you might need additional adapters to fit a multistream Bluetooth transmitter to the tablets connection port, so you may want to do more research before you buy.Although you lose the freedom of a wireless connection, using two sets of wired headphones and a Y-shaped splitter for the iPads headphone jack is another way to share the sound. Some headphone splitters can be found online for around $5 or less.TIP OF THE WEEK Although desktop programs have given some ground to browser-based apps in recent years, Microsoft Office programs are still heavily used especially by corporations and educational institutions. The Office formats are so common that many online services support them: Google Drive and Apples iWork for iCloud can both open and save files in Microsofts Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats. But for those who want a more familiar interface or fewer conversion issues with files, Microsoft includes its free Office Web App versions with its own Outlook.com service.To use the Office Web Apps, log in to your Outlook.com account. In the top-left corner, click the arrow next to Outlook and select the SkyDrive icon. (Microsoft has announced plans to change the name from SkyDrive to OneDrive soon, so you may see that option instead.) Once in the SkyDrive/OneDrive screen, click the Create button at the top. The menu offers the choice to start a Word document, Excel worksheet or survey, PowerPoint presentation, OneNote notebook or a plain text file.In editing mode, you can type questions about formatting or using Office App features in the Tell Me search box in the toolbar; a link to the dedicated Help guide is available under the File menu in each Office Web App. Microsofts site has more about using the Office Web Apps at bit.ly/1nwjdlN. | Tech |
MatterCredit...Matthew DoddMarch 1, 2017They are microscopic artwork: tiny tubes and long filaments, strange squiggles etched into some of the most ancient rocks known.On Wednesday, researchers reported that these may be the oldest fossils ever discovered, the remains of bacteria thriving on Earth not long, geologically speaking, after the very birth of the planet. If so, they offer evidence that life here got off to a very early start.But many experts in the field were skeptical of the new study or downright unconvinced.Martin J. Van Kranendonk, a geologist at the University of New South Wales, called the patterns in the rocks dubiofossils fossil-like structures, perhaps, but without clear proof that they started out as something alive.Heated disputes are nothing new in the search for the earliest life on Earth. In 1993 J. William Schopf, a paleontologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues found what that they, too, argued were the worlds oldest fossils: chainlike blobs in 3.46 billion-year-old rocks made, they said, by bacteria. Other researchers later argued that the structures were just oddly shaped minerals.But additional specimens from other sites came to light over the past two decades, and many of them have withstood scrutiny. There is now solid evidence of life dating back about 3.5 billion years.Earth was a billion years old by then, and scientists have long wondered if even older fossils might be found.In August, Dr. Van Kranendonk and his colleagues reported discovering fossils in Greenland dating back 3.7 billion years. The scientists argued that the organisms were once mats of bacteria that grew in shallow coastal waters.In the new study, published in the journal Nature, Mattew S.Dodd, Dominic Papineau and their colleagues at University College London studied rocks that were either slightly older or much older than those containing the Greenland fossils.They came from a remote geological formation in Canada called Nuvvuagittuq, which stretches across four square miles on the coast of Hudson Bay. Geologists surveyed the formation for the first time in the 1990s.Researchers have variously estimated its age at 3.77 billion years or 4.22 billion years just 340 million years after the formation of the planet.In 2008, Dr. Papineau collected rocks from the formation and found a number of clues indicating that they had formed around hydrothermal vents on the ancient sea floor that spewed iron and other minerals.He also found hints that there might have been life there tiny blobs of rock, for instance, that contained a compound called apatite, which can form from phosphorus released by dying organisms.ImageCredit...Dominic PapineauThe tubes and other structures in the rock that Mr. Dodd found are also reminiscent of bacteria that live today around hydrothermal vents. They grow as filaments, feeding on iron compounds and creating tube-shaped cavities in the sediment.Similar filaments contain iron compounds in the Nuvvuagittuq rocks, Mr. Dodd and his colleagues found, and they are attached to round clumps that resemble the tiny anchors bacteria use to hold on to rock surfaces. The rocks also contain forms of organic carbon that could have been created by bacteria.The researchers argue that it would be unlikely for all of these features to have formed in the absence of life. Then youre left with one scenario a biological origin, Mr. Dodd said.Such a discovery could have big implications for the understanding of lifes early evolution.If these really are fossils 3.77 billion years old, then they show that life was already diversifying by that time, thriving in both the shallow ocean in what is now Greenland and the deep ocean in todays Canada.And if these are fossils 4.2 billion years old, then scientists will have evidence that life began quickly on Earth, not long after the oceans formed.Yet Frances Westall, the director of research at the CNRS-Centre de Biophysique Molculaire in Orlans, France, isnt convinced these are fossils at all. I am frankly dubious, she said.For one thing, she has argued, the filaments in the Nuvvuagittuq rocks are too big. She and her colleagues have found filaments formed by bacteria in rock dating back 3.3 billion years, and these are far smaller.On the early Earth, bacteria were forced to stay small, Dr. Westall said, because the atmosphere did not yet have enough oxygen to fuel their growth.Long after the Nuvvuagittuq rocks formed on the sea floor, they were heated to tremendous temperatures. Some experts doubted that microscopic fossils could have survived such a baking.These authors built their research on pushing speculative ideas and appear totally unaware of the considerable evidence against their interpretation, said Wouter Bleeker, of the Geological Survey of Canada.In response, Dr. Papineau observed that the type of rock studied, known as chert, is very hard and might have protected fossils from high temperatures.I think the authors have done a good job, said David Wacey, who researches the origins and evolution of life at the University of Western Australia. With the new evidence, he said, One comes up with a pretty convincing biological scenario for the origins of the mysterious rock features.Dr. Wacey was not surprised that the new work had drawn criticism. It may be many years before a consensus is reached, he said. But this is how science progresses. | science |
Trump Bans Alipay and 7 Other Chinese AppsThe White House took a surprise parting shot at China on Tuesday by banning the popular Chinese payment service and other applications.Credit...Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJan. 5, 2021WASHINGTON President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order prohibiting transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Alipay, the payment platform owned by Ant Group, and WeChat Pay, which is owned by Tencent.The move, two weeks before the end of Mr. Trumps term, could help lock in his administrations harsher stance toward China and is likely to further rankle Beijing. But defining the scope of the order and enforcing it would presumably fall to the incoming Biden administration, which has not clarified whether it will try to enact Mr. Trumps bans, creating uncertainty about the efficacy of the move.The executive order, issued late Tuesday, will bar any transactions with persons that develop or control the apps of Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay, WPS Office and their subsidiaries after a period of 45 days.In the order, the president said that China had been using bulk data collection to advance its economic and national security agenda, and that the targeted apps put Americans at risk.The United States has assessed that a number of Chinese connected software applications automatically capture vast swaths of information from millions of users in the United States, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information, the order said. At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by these Chinese connected software applications, he wrote.At a daily news conference on Wednesday, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for Chinas Foreign Ministry, called the order another example of American bullying and hegemonic behavior, which has overextended the concept of national security, abused national power, and unreasonably suppressed foreign companies. It harms others without benefiting itself. She added that Beijing will of course take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.The executive order is the latest escalation by the Trump administration against China. Under Mr. Trump, the White House has ramped up tariffs and waged a trade war. It has also targeted Chinese-owned social media services, saying they provide a conduit for Chinese espionage and pose a national security risk to the American public. Last fall, the Trump administration issued executive orders banning two other popular Chinese-owned social media services, TikTok and WeChat.But both of those bans have become entangled in litigation, and the services continue to operate in the United States. That raises the question of whether American courts will issue an injunction to stop Mr. Trumps latest bans on Chinese services as well.In a briefing Tuesday evening, a senior official with the Trump administration said that it still expected to prevail in those court cases, and that legal challenges to the TikTok and WeChat orders had centered on First Amendment rights, which would most likely not be a significant concern with the payment platforms and other apps affected by the latest order.The senior official also said the Trump administration had not been in contact with the Biden administration about the order. The Biden administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Tencent declined to comment. The other Chinese tech companies affected by the order did not immediately have a comment.The orders reach may be limited, given that the vast majority of users of the affected apps reside in China. Users of Alipay, for example, are generally required to possess a bank account in China and a Chinese cellphone number. Samm Sacks, a cybersecurity policy and China digital economy fellow at the New America think tank, said it was unlikely that many of the apps included in the executive order handled much data belonging to American citizens.Still, the restrictions could fall heavily on Chinese-Americans who travel between the countries or use the services to stay in touch or carry out business with contacts in China.The measure may also box in President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has indicated that he wants to recalibrate Americas policies toward China while continuing to pressure the country on some issues.The executive order will take effect on Bidens watch, said Ms. Sacks. Even if his team doesnt buy the national security risk, politically the order will be tough to unwind without looking like a concession to Beijing. I see the order as a last-minute flailing to try to tie Bidens hands.The new order tasks the secretary of commerce with identifying the type of transactions that will be affected in 45 days. It also directs the secretary to identify and take appropriate action against other apps, and make broader recommendations on how the United States should develop a program to control the flow of personal U.S. data to foreign adversaries, the senior Trump administration official said. The official said the order was not meant to prevent the Chinese companies from paying their employees in the United States.In a statement, Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, said he had directed his department to begin enacting the orders, including identifying prohibited transactions related to certain Chinese connected software applications.I stand with President Trumps commitment to protecting the privacy and security of Americans from threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party," he added.The executive order came as the Trump administration and members of Congress also pressured the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday to remove Chinas three major state-run telecommunications companies from the exchange.The stock exchange late Monday had reversed its original plans, announced last week, to delist the companies to comply with an executive order from the administration aimed at stopping American investment in companies linked to the Chinese military.Alan Rappeport and David McCabe contributed reporting. Claire Fu contributed research. | Tech |
Golf|Loupe Sets Early Pace at Pebble Beachhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/sports/golf/loupe-sets-early-pace-at-pebble-beach.htmlSports BriefingFeb. 7, 2014Andrew Loupe shot an eight-under-par 63 in the first round of the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, the lowest score among those who finished the round. After waiting three hours to tee off because of rain, Loupe played bogey-free on the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula. Tiger Woods said he would skip the Match Play Championship in Arizona in two weeks. This will be the first time Woods has missed the event when he was healthy and it was in the United States. (AP) | Sports |
Credit...Dennis Brack/Bloomberg NewsNov. 8, 2018SYDNEY, Australia President Trump this week nominated a Republican lawyer to become the United States ambassador to Australia, filling the long vacant post with a Washington insider who helped the president select his 2016 running mate.The lawyer, Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate, will be the first American ambassador to Australia in two years.The delay in selecting an ambassador has been a sore point between the two countries, with one former prime minister saying the snub indicated Australia had become a second-class ally.Mr. Culvahouses nomination represents an effort to repair the relationship at a time when Australia is looking to the United States to help balance an emboldened China in the Asia-Pacific region.Marise Payne, Australias foreign minister, welcomed the nomination, saying Mr. Culvahouse will bring a wealth of legal and policy expertise to the role.Who is Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr.?A lawyer from Tennessee, Mr. Culvahouse, 70, is perceived as an adept Washington insider. Known to many as AB, he served as White House counsel to Ronald Reagan and vetted Republican vice-presidential running mates including Mike Pence in 2016 and Sarah Palin, who he called high risk, high reward in 2008.Mr. Culvahouse has served on several government advisory boards and committees, touching on issues like foreign intelligence, defense and nuclear weapons. He is also the chairman emeritus for OMelveny & Myers, a law firm with offices around the world.The Australia job is his first diplomatic posting.What do Australians think?American efforts to fill the job have been marred by false starts: One picks nomination was pulled at the last minute so he could head the American embassy in South Korea instead. Another nominee, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, turned down the job in May.Foreign policy experts on Thursday praised the choice of Mr. Culvahouse.He is clearly politically astute, hes experienced. Hes got political acumen. Its quite likely hell do a very good job, said John Blaxland, a professor of international security and intelligence studies at the Australian National University.Mr. Culvahouses connections to the president and Washington also bode well for Australia because they signal a direct line of communication to the highest levels of the White House.That will be powerful, said Michael Shoebridge, a director of defense and strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.What challenges will he face?The biggest challenge for the new ambassador will be successfully navigating the nuances that distinguish Australias relationship with Asia from that of the United States.There is considerable bipartisan anxiety in Australia over what critics see as an inconsistent, transactional approach to the region by the Trump administration. Some fear Australia could get caught in the middle of the superpowers rivalry, damaging its own interests.Mr. Culvahouse will have to convince Australia that the U.S. is up to this challenge, despite the fact that he serves a president who sends highly ambiguous signals about U.S. resolve, said Sam Roggeveen, director of international security at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. | World |
June 25, 2017Elias Burstein, a pioneering physicist whose research helped pave the way for the development of silicon semiconductors, died on June 17 at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 99.His family confirmed his death.Professor Burstein worked for more than seven decades in his field, much of the time as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.He was one of the first scientists to use lasers to do research on semiconductors and insulators. And he held patents for a method to introduce impurities into the otherwise stable element silicon, increasing its semiconducting capacity.The process, called doping, allows the crystal lattice of silicon to carry more charges, making silicon a much more useful and efficient semiconductor. Doping also reduces the amount of energy needed to change electron states from active to inactive, and back.Professor Burstein also helped discover the mechanisms underlying inelastic light scattering, in which photons (about one in every 10 million) are occasionally produced from a molecule or an atom at a frequency different from the ones used to incite them.The process, also known as Raman scattering, often occurs when molecules are in transition to another energy level. Observations of the process make it helpful in analyzing the composition of materials, whether they are gases, liquids or solids.Professor Burstein published more than 200 scientific papers. A great deal of his work was in studying such crystalline structures as rock salt and zincblende, an ore from which zinc is extracted.He edited or helped edit many books, including Contemporary Concepts of Condensed Matter Science, a series published by Elsevier. He was a founder of Solid State Communications, a peer-reviewed scientific journal on solid-state physics, and was its first editor in chief, from 1963 to 1992.In 1961, at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Burstein, along with Robert Hughes, a professor of chemistry, and Robert Madden, a member of the metallurgy department, founded the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter.He was born on Sept. 30, 1917, in Brooklyn to Samuel Burstein and Sara Plotkin. He earned a bachelors degree in chemistry from Brooklyn College in 1938 and a masters in chemistry from the University of Kansas in 1941.From 1941 to 1943, he studied chemistry and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working toward a doctorate. But World War II intervened, and he went to work at the Naval Research Laboratory, in the physics section of its crystal branch division. In three years he was promoted to head the division, and 10 years later he was named to lead the laboratorys section for semiconductor research.He joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty as a professor of physics soon afterward. In 1982, he succeeded John Robert Schrieffer, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, in the Mary Amanda Wood endowed chair in physics at the university. He retired from the full-time faculty in 1988, but continued as an emeritus professor, often working in the lab with students.He is survived by his wife, the former Rena Benson; three daughters, Joanna Mitro, Sara Donna and Mimi Burstein; and two grandchildren.Professor Burstein frequently held visiting professorships, among them at Hebrew University in Israel in 1974, Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1981, and the University of California, Berkeley, in 1996.He was elected in 1979 to the National Academy of Sciences and received the Frank Isakson Prize of the American Physical Society in 1986. The Isakson Prize citation referred to his pioneering work on the optical properties of semiconductors and insulators as well as his studies of Raman scattering.But while Mr. Burstein received four honorary doctorates one, in technology, from Chalmers and three, in science, from Brooklyn College, Emory University and Ohio State University he never formally completed his Ph.D.He never found the time, he said. | science |
SidebarCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesJune 25, 2018WASHINGTON Tyson Timbs would like his Land Rover back.The State of Indiana took it, using a law that lets it seize vehicles used to transport illegal drugs. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Constitution has anything to say about such civil forfeiture laws, which allow states and localities to take and keep private property used to commit crimes.Mr. Timbs bought the Land Rover after his father died. The life insurance money amounted to around $73,000, and he spent $42,000 of it on the vehicle. He blew most of the rest on drugs.Unfortunately, I had a whole bunch of money, which isnt a good idea for a drug addict to have, Mr. Timbs recalled the other day. I used a lot, and eventually the money ran out. It was an addicts life.Mr. Timbss habit started with an opioid addiction and progressed to heroin. He used his Land Rover to get drugs and, on at least two occasions, to sell them. The buyers were undercover police officers.Mr. Timbs pleaded guilty to one of the drug sales, in which $225 had changed hands, and he was sentenced to a year of house arrest followed by five years of probation. He also agreed to pay an array of fees and fines adding up to about $1,200.But Indiana wanted more. Using the civil forfeiture law, it took the Land Rover.Mr. Timbs, 37, has put his life back together, but it has not been easy. I have to go to meetings, to counseling, to probation appointments, he said, making clear that he was not complaining.They want you to get a job, he said. Its hard to do without a vehicle. Plus, I was a felon, which makes it even harder to find a job.He found work as a machinist in a factory some 40 minutes from his home in Marion, Ind., where he lives with his aunt. He borrows her car to get to work, and he feels guilty about that.She has to take a bus back and forth to her kidney dialysis appointments, he said.As Justice Clarence Thomas explained last year in an opinion urging the Supreme Court to examine civil forfeiture laws, government seizures of property used to commit crimes have become worrisomely popular.Forfeiture has in recent decades become widespread and highly profitable, Justice Thomas wrote. And because the law enforcement entity responsible for seizing the property often keeps it, these entities have strong incentives to pursue forfeiture.ImageCredit...Jonathan Ernst/ReutersThis system where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses, he wrote, citing excellent reporting from The Washington Post and The New Yorker.The burdens of civil forfeiture fall disproportionately on the poor, said Wesley P. Hottot, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represents Mr. Timbs.Tysons case illustrates how civil forfeiture makes it harder for people who have made mistakes to correct those mistakes and re-enter society, Mr. Hottot said. It shouldnt take the United States Supreme Court to make clear that you dont take everything from a person whos facing the kinds of challenges Tyson is.Mr. Timbs won the early rounds in Indianas lawsuit seeking to take his vehicle, based on the Eighth Amendment, which says that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.Judge Jeffrey D. Todd, of the Grant County Superior Court, said the amendments second clause the one barring excessive fines protected Mr. Timbs. The Land Rover, the judge wrote, was worth about four times the maximum fine Mr. Timbs could have been ordered to pay, which was $10,000. It was also worth more than 30 times the fines that were actually imposed.The amount of the forfeiture sought is excessive and is grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendants offense, Judge Todd wrote.An appeals court agreed. In dissent, Judge Michael P. Barnes wrote that civil forfeiture laws can be abused but that Mr. Timbs should lose the vehicle.I am keenly aware of the overreach some law enforcement agencies have exercised in some of these cases, Judge Barnes wrote. Entire family farms are sometimes forfeited based on one family members conduct, or exorbitant amounts of money are seized. However, it seems to me that one who deals heroin, and there is no doubt from the record we are talking about a dealer, must and should suffer the legal consequences to which he exposes himself.The Indiana Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Timbs, on interesting grounds. It said the Eighth Amendments prohibition of excessive fines did not apply to ones imposed by states.This is, surprisingly, an open question. The Bill of Rights originally restricted the power of only the federal government, but the Supreme Court has ruled that most of its protections apply to the states under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, one of the post-Civil War amendments.But there are a few exceptions, and the Supreme Court has been inconsistent about where it stands on the excessive fines clause. Mr. Timbss case is poised to resolve the question. It will be argued in the fall.In the meantime, Mr. Timbs sometimes lapses into frustration and bitterness.I dont deserve this, he said. Nobody does. Its an unnecessary stressor. I struggle with more than addiction. I struggle with anxiety and depression. I dont feel like much of a man, because I dont have a vehicle. | Politics |
Credit...Laura Boushnak for The New York TimesNov. 19, 2018MOSTAR, Bosnia and Herzegovina When a fire breaks out in the Bosnian city of Mostar, Sabit Golos, a veteran firefighter, knows that he does not have to worry unless the flames take hold on the Muslim side of what, from 1992 until 1994, was the front line in a vicious ethnic conflict.That is because Mostar, though long at peace, has two separate fire brigades, one made up mostly of Muslims like Mr. Golos, who are responsible for putting out fires on the east side of the old front line and a second one staffed by Catholic Croats who douse flames on the other side.The line vanished long ago as a boundary between warring communities and does not officially exist. But it lives on in the mind, an emblem of the ethnonationalist fissures that paralyze Mostar and the whole of Bosnia.As Europe and the United States struggle with the rise of ethnic nationalism as a divisive force, Bosnias divisions offer a dark lesson in how, once cleaved apart by fear and fighting, communities can stay splintered long after many people have forgotten what it was that pushed them apart.The entrenched disunion here was reflected in recent national elections, marked by nationalist rhetoric and open questioning of Bosnias continued existence as a state.Europe is worried these days about the rise of the far right, but this place was way ahead of the curve in showing how dangerous and enduring ethno-nationalism can be, said Tim Clancy, an American resident of Bosnia who worked in Mostar throughout the war helping victims of the fighting.Both of Mostars fire brigades are part of the same municipal fire service just as Mostars two garbage collection companies, two hospitals, two electricity companies, two bus stations, two popular nightclubs and two soccer teams all technically serve the same city. But they are in reality barricaded behind the zigzagging line drawn in blood a quarter of a century ago, during Europes worst conflict since World War II.ImageCredit...Laura Boushnak for The New York TimesEverything in this town is very clear. Everyone knows whose territory lies where, Mr. Golos said, adding that his brigade never gets asked by Mostars fire service dispatcher to fight a blaze in an area that was controlled by Croat forces during the war, no matter which of the citys two fire stations is closer.You are looking at your own future here, said Adnan Huskic, a scholar in politics and international relations at the School of Science and Technology in Sarajevo. We have been dealing with the rise of nationalist populism for years.Instead of creating a unitary state, the 1995 agreement that halted the bloodletting in Bosnia reached in Dayton, Ohio by the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia only entrenched the nationalist elites that prosecuted the war. It divided Bosnia into two entities a Serb-run Republika Srpska and a mixed Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the summit of this ramshackle state stood the presidency, controlled by three elected presidents, one each for Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims, who are known as Bosniaks.Authority was further subdivided, largely along ethnic lines, with the establishment of 10 local units of government called cantons, each with its own president and set of ministers who duplicate many of the functions of the weak national government.Mr. Golos, the Muslim firefighter, said he has many friends across the ethnic boundary and feels no enmity toward Serbs, who started the fighting but have now mostly left the city, or Croats, who rained artillery shells and sniper fire into his neighborhood during the war.But he worries that, instead of fading, wartime divisions have only hardened. Because of largely segregated schooling, a postwar generation of young Croats and Bosniaks, Mostars two main ethnic groups, often know only members of their own group and have little or no shared experience.We have moved backwards, not forward, Mr. Golos said.His 20-year-old daughter, Amila, attended high school in the same building as Croat students but never mixed with them because students went to classes in shifts Muslims from 7:30 a.m. and Croats from 2 p.m., a common arrangement in Bosnia.ImageCredit...Laura Boushnak for The New York TimesShe said she has no Croat friends, though she does know a few Serbs. On weekends, she added, Muslim youth go to Art, a nightclub in the east of the city, while Croats prefer Pink Panther on the other side of town. I dont want us to be divided like this but have to accept that the division exists, she said.Like many young Bosnians, she is now thinking about emigrating to Western Europe, because work there is easier to find and better paid and also to escape the despair that grips many young people.The economy is growing, thanks in part to large infusions of foreign aid, but unemployment among young people is nearly 60 percent.For more than two decades of staggering from crisis to crisis, Bosnias fragile system has defied predictions of imminent collapse. This ability to survive against the odds, however, is now seriously at risk, said Paddy Ashdown, a British politician who from 2002 to 2006 served as Bosnias most senior foreign official, its so-called high representative.His gloomy prognosis follows national elections held in October that were dominated, particularly in the Republika Srpska, by divisive appeals for tribal loyalty.The result of the balloting, which selected a hard-line nationalist as the Serb member of Bosnias tripartite presidency, has stirred fury among Croats, who complain that the election for their own slot on the presidency was tainted by ethnically impure voting: Many Muslims voted for the Croat winner, a moderate Croat now denounced by hard-liners because of his support across ethnic lines.Does this lead to conflict? Probably no. But the international community is sleepwalking into an international disaster of major proportions, Mr. Ashdown said.ImageCredit...Laura Boushnak for The New York TimesThe problem now, he said, is not just that Bosnia is still so divided but that Europe and the United States are themselves so polarized and have diminishing interest in Bosnias troubles. The emerging vacuum is being filled by Russia and Turkey, each keen to reassert itself in the Balkans Russia as a protector of the Serbs and Turkey on behalf of Muslims.These times remind me of the 1930s. Everything is falling apart. The center cannot hold, Mr. Ashdown added.Rupert Smith, a British general who commanded United Nations forces in Bosnia at the time of the Dayton agreement, said the American-brokered deal was never meant to be a long-term settlement but simply a cease-fire agreement that mirrored and inadvertently reinforced the ethnic divisions on the ground at the time.But he thinks that the Clinton administration made a big mistake by pushing for early Bosnian elections that only cemented divisions, he said in a telephone interview, because they favored the nationalist groups that had created the conflict.Over two decades later, the same parties or successors rooted in the same ethnic allegiances still dominate national and local politics. In Mostar, power is divided between the Croat HDZ and Bosniak SDA, the same parties that reduced the center of the city to a wasteland.It is often said that war is a continuation of politics by other means, but here in Bosnia politics is a continuation of war by peaceful means, said Adis Maksic, head of the department of international relations and European studies at International Burch University, a private college near Sarajevo. Bosnia, he added, is not so much at peace as in a state of non-war.While friction between communities is rare in daily life, Amna Popovac, an activist in Mostar for Nasa Stranka, a multiethnic party struggling to break down barriers, said nationalist political leaders, all of them men, constantly stoke fear of conflict to rally support and avoid tackling real problems. Testosterone plays a big role in our politics, she said.ImageCredit...Laura Boushnak for The New York TimesIn a recent report on Bosnia to the United Nations, the current high representative in Sarajevo, Valentin Inzko, gave a bleak account of Bosnias disarray. He complained that ahead of the October election, Bosnian politicians and parties focused primarily on criticizing each other or the international community and grandstanding on divisive nationalist issues, rather than governing effectively and adopting necessary reforms.Such grandstanding, amplified by a paternalistic economic system in which jobs and the spoils of corruption are often divided along ethnic lines, has crippled Bosnia as a functioning state.It took years of pushing by the World Bank and others, for example, before Mostar finally agreed to establish a common garbage dump to take trash from the citys two garbage collectors, one dominated by Muslims and one largely Croat.Even now, said Nevenko Herceg, the president of the cantonal government, the common dump, run by a private company in the largely Muslim side of the city, sometimes refuses to take Croat trash.The wartime front line runs along the Neretva River, now spanned again by a rebuilt Stari Most, or Old Bridge, a 16th-century jewel of Ottoman architecture destroyed by Croat artillery fire during the war, and then cuts across the river for a few hundred yards into territory on the west bank, running along a boulevard lined with ruins and buildings still pockmarked by bullets.Even today, the street has two names: the Boulevard of the Peoples Revolution for residents on the Muslim side, and the Boulevard of the Croat Defenders for those on the opposite side.Differences between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs are so small they speak the same language, look the same and mostly eat the same food that some scholars of the 1990s war have turned to Freud and what he called the narcissism of minor differences to explain the fury of their rival nationalisms.The only clear marker is religion, though Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks and Orthodox Serbs are still united by the fact that few worship regularly and nearly all like going to bars and cafes.Bosnias biggest curse, said Ms. Popovac, the activist in Mostar, is not ethnic or religious enmity but its nationalist political leaders, who fan the fears of the communities they claim to represent to save themselves and a deeply corrupt system that has enriched them.Just follow the money, she said. | World |
Sports Briefing | BaseballFeb. 16, 2014The Boston Red Sox right-hander Ryan Dempster plans to take this season off, a decision that surprised teammates and will cost him $13.25 million in salary. Dempster, 36, said he was stepping away for physical reasons and to spend more time with his family. But he left a slight opening to play in 2015. Pitcher A .J. Burnett and the Philadelphia Phillies completed a contract that guarantees him $15 million for 2014 and $22.5 million over two seasons. Burnett is 37. (AP) The Atlanta Braves added to their extensive wave of long-term deals with their young stars by agreeing to a four-year, $42 million contract with the All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel, who avoided salary arbitration. (AP) | Sports |
Across the developing world, hundreds of millions of people are unable to get a vaccine to protect themselves from the ravages of Covid-19, and millions of them have already become infected and died. Depending on wealthy nations to donate billions of doses is not working, public health experts say. The solution, many now believe, is for the countries to do something that the big American mRNA vaccine makers say is not feasible: Manufacture the gold-standard mRNA shots themselves. Workers inspecting and packing vials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine at a Serum Institute of India site in Pune, India.Karan Deep Singh/The New York Times Despite mounting pressure, the chief executives of Moderna and Pfizer have declined to license their mRNA technology in developing countries, arguing it makes no sense to do so. They say that the process is too complex, that it would be too time- and labor- intensive to establish facilities that could do it, and that they cannot spare the staff because of the urgent need to maximize production at their own network of facilities. You cannot go hire people who know how to make mRNA: Those people dont exist, the chief executive of Moderna, Stphane Bancel, told analysts. But public health experts in both rich and poor countries argue that expanding production to the regions most in need is not only possible, it is essential for safeguarding the world against dangerous variants of the virus and ending the pandemic. Setting up mRNA manufacturing operations in other countries should start immediately, said Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, adding: They are our insurance policy against variants and production failure and absolutely can be produced in a variety of settings. The vaccine needs of poorer countries were supposed to be met through Covax, a multinational body meant to facilitate global vaccine distribution but donations have been slow and limited. Wealthier countries have locked up supply. Just 4 percent of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated. Experts in both the development and production of vaccines say the mRNA vaccines involve fewer steps, fewer ingredients and less physical capacity than traditional vaccines. Companies in Africa, South America and parts of Asia already have much of what they would need to make them, they say; the technology specific to the mRNA production process can be delivered as a ready-to-use modular kit. Most estimates put the cost of setting up production at $100 million to $200 million. A few large pharmaceutical producers in developing countries have these funds at hand; others would need loans or investors. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the International Finance Corporation both have billions of dollars in funding available for this kind of project, as low-interest loans or a share of equity. The New York Times interviewed dozens of executives and scientists at vaccine, drug and biotechnology companies across the developing world and from those conversations, found 10 strong candidates to produce mRNA Covid vaccines in six countries on three continents. The key criteria include existing facilities, human capital, the regulatory system for medicines and the political and economic climate. Which Companies Could Produce mRNA Vaccines? The Times assessed leading companies based on suitable production facilities and the availability of skilled workers, the countrys history of drug regulation and certification for drug export, and other political and economic factors that affect research and trade. By The New York Times. Ratings are based on interviews with experts. The candidates include companies that are already making other Covid vaccines, such as the Serum Institute of India, the worlds largest vaccine maker; public institutions that are already testing their own mRNA vaccines for the coronavirus; and firms tapped by the World Health Organization to be regional centers for mRNA development. Two companies in Asia are already making their own mRNA vaccines against Covid. Gennova Biopharmaceuticals in Pune, India, has one in Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. Gennova says that unlike the mRNA shots currently in use, its vaccine can be stored at the temperature of a standard medical refrigerator. Gennovas manufacturing site in Pune, India.Karan Deep Singh/The New York Times Gennova is headed by Sanjay Singh, a biochemist who worked on malaria vaccines at the National Institutes of Health in the United States for six years before returning to India. The company is negotiating with contract manufacturers to make its vaccine while also working to expand its existing production capacity from 100 million to one billion doses a year, and it could be in production with its Covid shot within months, Dr. Singh said. Researcher Debasmita Panda at one of Gennovas mRNA labs in Pune.Karan Deep Singh/The New York Times BioNet-Asia, a Thai drug maker, is producing test batches of a Covid mRNA vaccine developed at Chula Vaccine Research Center in Bangkok that is in Phase 2 trials. If results continue to be positive, the vaccine could go to Thailands drug regulator by March, and BioNet would be ready for commercial production on approval, said Kiat Ruxrungtham, who heads the research team making the ChulaCov19 vaccine. BioNet employees inspecting and testing a pre-filled syringe packing machine at a factory in Ayutthaya, Thailand.Adam Dean for The New York Times Having this capability and capacity of this technology platform within the country the goal is when you have a new variant spreading or you have the next pandemic, you can start things very quickly instead of waiting to buy vaccines like we have been doing so far, Dr. Ruxrungtham said. The BioNet vaccine factory in Ayutthaya, Thailand.Adam Dean for The New York Times Other drug companies would like to license one of the existing mRNA vaccines pay a fee to receive the formulation and instructions, then share a royalty on each dose they sell and start making it as quickly as possible. Stephen Saad, chief executive of Aspen Pharmacare in Durban, South Africa, said that with an investment he estimated at $100 million, his firm could be producing a billion doses of mRNA vaccine within a year more than enough to supply all of Africa, across which Aspen already has a distribution network. Bio-Manguinhos, the immunobiology arm of a venerated Brazilian public health research organization, will soon start clinical trials of an RNA-based Covid vaccine, said Sotiris Missailidis, deputy director of technology development for the research center. Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York Times This year, Bio-Manguinhos nearly doubled its production capacity to 215 million doses of other vaccines, including AstraZenecas Covid shot, which it produces under contract. Brazil has a medical regulatory agency that maintains the same standards as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. A laboratory at Bio-Manguinhos in Rio de Janeiro.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York Times A range of factors has restricted access to vaccines in developing countries, including supply chain and shipping bottlenecks, and politics: the Serum Institute was supposed to supply Covax, but Indias government banned exports at the height of that countrys second wave. Aspen in South Africa won a contract to bottle the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but it had to export many of the shots right back to Europe and to Canada until activists created a public outcry. What weve learned through this pandemic is that it really does matter where the doses are coming off the production line, said Andrea Taylor, who tracks vaccine production for the Duke Global Health Innovation Center. Making mRNA vaccine shots differs in significant ways from traditional vaccine production. It is an enzymatic process, not a biological one that involves live cells, and in many ways is closer to the work of making drugs, said Zoltan Kis, a chemical engineer who analyzed mRNA production capacity for the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub at Imperial College in London. In fact, when BioNTech was ready to start production of its vaccine, it went not to a vaccine maker but to a cancer drug plant in Germany. Modernas contract manufacturer in Switzerland employed former food scientists from Nestle, enlisted to transfer their chemistry skills. Its a game changer because you dont have to deal with the same stakeholders anymore, said Alain Alsalhani, a vaccines expert with Doctors Without Borders access-to-medicines campaign. Modernas contract manufacturers use a modular production kit that can make 100 million doses some in the business compare the concept to an Ikea kitchen. The Covid mRNA vaccines have already earned more in a single year than any previous product in pharmaceutical history and are on track to bring in more than $53 billion in revenue this year alone. The longer Pfizer and Moderna have a proprietary lock on the technology to make them, the greater the edge they will have on any future vaccine for cancer or other diseases, said Zain Rizvi, an expert on access to medicines with the advocacy organization Public Citizen. When a company has a functioning production line, it is a straightforward process to swap the mRNA content and make vaccines for a different pathogen, such as malaria or H.I.V. This argument over manufacturing Covid mRNA vaccines echoes one that was made two decades ago about treatments for H.I.V. Hundreds of thousands of people died of AIDS in Africa long after antiretroviral drugs were widely available in wealthy nations, because the patented medications were being sold at a price far too high for governments in the worst-affected countries to purchase. Treatment access advocates staged a global campaign demanding that the drug makers license low-cost producers or release the rights to their intellectual property to allow someone to fill the gap. Employees entering the Serum Institute of India campus in Pune.Karan Deep Singh/The New York Times Although major Western pharmaceutical companies insisted there was no way to make the drugs more cheaply, Indian, Brazilian, Thai and South African drug makers said they could do it. Indian generic companies reverse-engineered many of the formulas, and today, the bulk of the worlds AIDS drugs are made in these countries. Now, the W.H.O. has taken on a similar challenge. Because efforts to win licensing deals or other cooperation from Pfizer and Moderna have been unsuccessful to date, the organization is backing an effort to reverse-engineer Modernas vaccine at a technology transfer hub in South Africa, said Martin Friede, who runs the Initiative for Vaccine Research at the W.H.O. The biotechnology company Afrigen Biologics will make the mRNA and the Biovac Institute will manufacture the vaccines. Konanani Tshikalange, a biotech intern, at work at Afrigen in Cape Town, South Africa.Sydelle Willow Smith for The New York Times Patrick Tippoo, head scientist at Biovac, which has a contract to bottle the Pfizer Covid vaccine, said the institute would prefer to own the technology to make an mRNA vaccine. But the fastest route to production would be a partnership with the maker of one of the existing mRNA vaccines. If Biovac had access to the recipe and instruction from people who have made the vaccine, and were to purchase modular production suites, the company could make the vaccines in 12 to 18 months, he said. Peter Booysen checking a fermenter at the Biovac Institute in Cape Town, South Africa.Sydelle Willow Smith for The New York Times Instead of sharing its recipe, Moderna announced earlier this month that it would spend up to $500 million to build its own vaccine plant in Africa. (The company did not specify which of the 54 countries it planned to build in or how long it would take.) And BioNTech, the inventor of Pfizers mRNA process, has announced plans to build plants in Africa in the next four years. The Western pharmaceutical industry, and some supply chain and health experts, says the fastest route to closing the Covid vaccine gap is to focus on a more equitable distribution of vaccines made by the existing players. No enforced technology transfer would do more to address equity than whats already lined up, said Thomas Cueni, director of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, an industry lobby group in Geneva. Biovac in Cape Town is a part of the W.H.O. project to reverse-engineer an mRNA Covid vaccine.Sydelle Willow Smith for The New York Times Intent on spreading production capacity across the developing world, the W.H.O. is also working on a second track that will seek partnerships with institutions such as Dr. Ruxrungthams research center in Bangkok, with their own mRNA vaccines. These vaccines would potentially be cheaper to produce and, critically, could be heat stable not requiring ultra cold storage and thus far more appropriate for use in low resource settings, Dr. Friede said. Some of the efforts are producing innovations that could benefit their regions far beyond the current pandemic. Gennova in India has worked with a Seattle startup called HDT Bio to develop a new method to deliver mRNA with a lipid nanoparticle, one that does not require extreme cold storage. We wanted to solve the problem of the scalability issue, and the temperature issue, Dr. Singh, the chief executive of Gennova, said. If we can solve these problems, we are building a solution not just for India but also a global solution. Gennova received seed funding from the government of India, and it plans to use internal resources, and a potential partnership it is negotiating with a large multilateral agency, to take its vaccine forward, Dr. Singh said. While Gennova has the technology, other producers such as the Brazilian and Argentine vaccine makers would need infrastructure such as the kits Moderna used to set up production with its contractor in Switzerland. For the producers not yet working with mRNA, the fastest way to start making Covid shots would be a partnership with Pfizer or Moderna, but the technology transfer process would involve hundreds of steps, said Prashant Yadav, a supply chain expert with the Center for Global Development. Can you do it for mRNA just by sending the transfer document blueprints and having a few Zoom calls, or a team to visit for a few days? In most cases, probably not, he said. An experienced team that stayed onsite for a period of time would be crucial. Dr. Yadav estimated it would take one of the producers in South Africa or Brazil up to 18 months to have an mRNA vaccine ready to go in arms, with a recipe-share. There would also need to be a parallel process of boosting the capacity of national regulatory agencies which will be critical to maintaining quality. Dr. Kis said that any manufacturer that had a site at the standard set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-governed system of best practice for pharmaceutical manufacturing could switch to mRNA production in six months, using the pop-up production kits. We will build facilities in these regions to enable them to respond to this current pandemic or maybe the pandemic will be over but this time the world has seen what the cost of not being prepared is, so hopefully this time weve got the political will, Dr. Friede of the W.H.O. said. Richer countries are going to have to put their hands in their pockets and contribute to the construction and maintenance of these facilities. Because in a pandemic, youre not safe until your neighbor is safe. Muktita Suhartono and Richard C. Paddock in Bangkok and Karan Deep Singh in Pune contributed reporting. | science |
TrilobitesA scientist who has studied falling playing cards, coiling rope and other phenomena has now analyzed what transforms a carpenters tool into a sonorous instrument.Credit...Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesMay 1, 2022Early in the 19th century, an unknown musician somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains discovered that a steel handsaw, a tool previously used only for cutting wood, could also be used to produce full and sustained musical notes. The idea had undoubtedly occurred to many a musically-inclined carpenter at other times in other places.The key is that the saw must be bent in a shallow S-shape. Leaving it flat, or bending it in a J- or U-shape, will not do. And to resonate, it must be bowed at exactly the right sweet spot along the length of the saw. Bowed at any other point, the instrument reverts to being a useful, but unmusical, hand tool.The seated musician grips the handle of the saw between her legs, and holds the tip with either her fingers or a device called an end clamp, or saw cheat. She bends the saw into a shallow S-shape, and then draws the bow across the sweet spot at a 90-degree angle with the blade. The saw is then bent, changing the shape of the S to lower or raise the pitch, but always maintaining the S-shape, and always bowed at the moving sweet spot of the curve. The longer the saw, the greater the range of notes it can produce.Now L. Mahadevan, a professor of physics and applied mathematics at Harvard, along with two colleagues, Suraj Shankar and Petur Bryde, has studied the way the saw produces music and drawn some conclusions that help explain, mathematically, its beautiful sounds. The report was published April 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.Studying musical saws may seem an odd choice for a Harvard professor of mathematics, but Dr. Mahadevans interests are broad. He has published scientific papers explaining falling playing cards, tightrope walking, coiling rope, and how wet paper curls, among other phenomena that may appear at first glance unlikely subjects for mathematical analysis. In such a list, the musical saw seems no more than a logical next step.To understand the musical saw, imagine an S lying on its side, a line drawn through its center, positive above the line and negative below it. At the center of the S, he explained, the curvature switches its sign from negative to positive.A simple change from a J- to an S-shape dramatically transforms the acoustic properties of the saw, Dr. Mahadevan said, and we can prove mathematically, show computationally, and finally hear experientially that the vibrations that produce the sound are localized to a zone where the curvature is almost zero.That single location of sign-changing, he said, gives the saw a robust ability to sustain a note. The tone slightly resembles that of a violin and other bowed instruments, and some have compared it to the voice of a soprano singing without words.Dr. Mahadevan acknowledges that while he set out to understand the musical saw in mathematical terms, Musicians have of course known this experientially for a long time, and scientists are only now beginning to understand why the saw can sing.But he thinks research into the musical saw may also help scientists better understand other very thin devices.The saw is a thin sheet, he said, and its thickness is very small compared to its other dimensions. The same phenomena can arise in a multitude of different systems, and might help design very high quality oscillators on small scales, and even perhaps with atomically thin materials such as sheets of graphene. That could even be useful in perfecting devices that use oscillators, such as computers, watches, radios and metal detectors.For Natalia Paruz, a professional sawist who has played with orchestras worldwide, the mathematical details may be less significant than the quality of her saws. She began by playing her landladys saw when it wasnt being used for other purposes. But now she uses saws specifically designed and manufactured to be used as musical instruments.There are several American companies that make them, and there are manufacturers in Sweden, England, France and Germany. Ms. Paruz said that while any flexible saw can be used to produce music, a thicker saw produces a meatier, deeper, prettier sound.But that pure tone, whatever its mathematical explanation, comes at a cost. A thick blade, she said, is harder to bend. | science |