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Science|NASAs Newest Class of Astronauts Is Ready to Hit the Poolhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/science/nasa-astronauts-class-2017.htmlCredit...Robert Markowitz/NASAJune 12, 2017They dont yet know where they will be going, and they dont know how they will get there, but they do have a good chance of leaving the planet in the coming years.Last week, NASA announced its 22nd class of astronauts seven men and five women were chosen from more than 18,300 applicants, the most the space agency has ever received. They range in age from 29 to 42 and include an Army doctor, an engineer at SpaceX and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor. Lt. Kayla Barron, U.S. Navy Zena Cardman, graduate research fellow, Pennsylvania State University Lt. Col. Raja Chari, U.S. Air Force Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Dominick, U.S. Navy Bob Hines, research pilot, NASA Johnson Space Center Warren Hoburg, assistant professor, M.I.T. Jonny Kim, resident physician, Massachusetts General Hospital Robb Kulin, launch chief engineer, SpaceX Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli, U.S. Marine Corps Loral OHara, research engineer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Maj. Frank Rubio, U.S. Army Jessica Watkins, postdoctoral fellow, CaltechOfficially, they are astronaut candidates who will now go through two years of training before becoming full-fledged graduates. They will practice for spacewalks in a 60-foot-deep swimming pool at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, learn to fly NASAs T-38 jet planes and study the ins and outs of the International Space Station.Because Russia is NASAs main partner on the space station, they will also learn to speak Russian. | science |
on techThe success of a computer chip maker points to a path for companies like Google and Facebook.Credit...Jagadeesh Nv/EPA, via ShutterstockJan. 6, 2021This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.One of the technology industrys dullest companies offers lessons in how the superstars like Google and Facebook might manage to outlast government lawsuits and other existential threats.Im talking about the computer chip maker Qualcomm, which appointed a new boss on Tuesday and seems to have weathered endless crises that many people myself included thought could take the company down.Qualcomm may point to a path for other tech companies that are now facing what it went through: threats from sweeping litigation, potential new regulations, uncertain finances and the howling of many business partners.The company showed that with enough patience, money, lawyers, luck and products that people really need, its possible to stay the course and emerge relatively unscathed from years of drama.This is either a heartening tale of survival or a depressing lesson that rich companies can skate past their problems. Maybe a little of both?If youre unfamiliar with Qualcomm, just know that there would be no digital life as we know it without the company. Qualcomms technology is responsible for connecting smartphones to the internet, and for years it has been one of the most important tech companies that you probably never think about.But Qualcomm has also constantly been on the edge of a cliff, because it makes money in a way that has won it few friends. Most of its profits have come from charging fees to smartphone companies like Samsung and Apple to use technology that Qualcomm has patented.Smartphone makers typically have to pay Qualcomm for its patents whether or not they buy its chips. The fee tends to be based on the eventual sales price of the phone.Many of Qualcomms biggest customers including Apple and so many governments that I lost count have said that Qualcomms pricing and business tactics were unusual and that the company unfairly bullied customers and mowed down competitors.All of those fights could have forced the company to split apart or maybe even go broke. Qualcomm maintained through all of this that its conduct was fair and appropriate. And the company has mostly been vindicated.The companys new chief executive is taking over with much of the litigation behind it and Qualcomm poised to be a winner from the next generation of smartphones with 5G cellular connections.My colleague Don Clark, who knows more about computer chip companies than 99.9 percent of humans, also said that he was surprised Qualcomm had overcome its challenges.I think Qualcomm is sitting pretty, Don told me. He added the caveat that he has been wrong about Qualcomm many times before, and the company still is fighting some lawsuits and faces competition from smartphone companies, including Apple, making more of their own computer chips.What happened to Qualcomm is in some ways unique to that oddball company, but it also has echoes in the fights picking up now over tech giants like Google, Facebook and Apple. Like Qualcomm, the question dogging those superpowers is whether theyre successful because theyre good at what they do or because the companies have rigged the system.Qualcomm also showed a snowball effect of controversies. Once one government or business partner started to question Qualcomms fees and business tactics, that emboldened other regulators, customers and critics to pile on, too. Were seeing that with the tech giants now.Im not predicting that Big Tech will, like Qualcomm, emerge mostly unharmed and unchanged from antitrust lawsuits and other fights. But that company is a reminder to me that sound and fury about whether a company cheats to win might in the end amount to not that much.How much tech workers are paidWith a group of Google employees announcing this week that they had formed a union to have more muscle to negotiate workplace issues like sexual harassment and tech ethics, I thought it was a good time to check out the employee pay at Americas tech powerhouses.The figures show both the considerable fortunes of some tech workers compared with most Americans and the wide divergence between the companies. Theres also a lot these numbers leave out.These are the most recent yearly compensation figures for the typical worker at these companies, from documents released for annual meetings of shareholders:Alphabet (Googles parent company): $258,708Facebook: $247,883Microsoft: $172,142Apple: $57,783Amazon: $28,848 ($36,640 for full-time workers in the U.S.)For comparison, the typical pay for full-time, year-round workers in the United States was about $52,000 in 2019. Apart from Amazon, these companies only disclose the pay calculated from their global work forces.*One thing that jumps out is Apple and Amazons relatively low compensation compared with the rest of Big Tech. (Amazon has more information here on the workplace benefits that arent counted in the compensation figure.)A big reason for this is the composition of the companies staff. Apple has a large number of employees at its retail stores. And a big chunk of Amazons rapidly growing global work force of more than 1.2 million are people who are working in warehouses and package sorting centers. Google and Facebooks employee ranks are mostly office workers in relatively highly paid jobs like engineers.The big omission from these compensation figures is the shadow work force of contractors at pretty much all the Big Tech companies. At Google, for example, direct employees are outnumbered by temps and contractors, who tend to have lower pay and less opportunity for advancement than the companys full-time workers.How the tech giants pay and treat their contract workers is going to be a big issue in 2021, and its something my colleagues and I will continue to follow closely.*These figures are all medians, which means numerically half of employees make more and half make less. Before we go Tech that will be big in 2021: My colleague Brian Chen has more predictions for tech that will invade our lives this year, including smarter Wi-Fi that could improve our home internet surfing.The drama over Big Tech in China: One of Chinas most successful tech companies, Ant Group, is under fire both at home and in the United States. Chinas government wants Ant to feed reams of peoples financial data into a nationwide credit-reporting system, The Wall Street Journal reported. And the White House ordered a ban on Ants mobile payment system in the United States.Please do not steal cars: But it is wild that technology like key fobs that was intended to eliminate car thefts is now contributing to a spike in stolen vehicles, my colleague Sarah Maslin Nir wrote. In part, thats because we have a tendency to leave the key fobs inside our cars.Hugs to thisFive school buses in Utah synced their lights in time to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker ballet.We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected] you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here. | Tech |
Nick Young Science by Swaggy: Dinosaur Attacked OKC Thunder Plane! 10/31/2017 TMZSports.com It's a bird! It's a plane!! It's ... a dinosaur??? We asked Warriors baller Nick Young what the hell coulda smacked into the OKC Thunder airplane on Friday night -- making a HUGE crater on the nose of the Boeing 757. Swaggy P's scientific deduction -- "A dinosaur ... or something." FYI, a Delta spokesperson said it was probably a bird ... but Young ain't buyin' it. Swaggy -- who we got at Poppy in West Hollywood -- also gave us physical proof of something he says is just as crazy as a prehistoric attack. | Entertainment |
VideotranscripttranscriptMajor Action Taken Against Obamacare, Trump SaysA new rule introduced by the Trump administration could make it easier for small businesses to set up health insurance plans that offer lower costs, but fewer benefits.Im proud to announce another truly historic step in our efforts to rescue Americans from Obamacare, and the Obamacare nightmare, and provide high-quality, affordable health care to every American. Alex and the Department of Labor are taking a major action thats been worked on for four months now. And now its ready to make it easier for small businesses to band together to negotiate lower prices for health insurance and escape some of Obamacares most burdensome mandates through association health plans. With this action, businesses in the same state or businesses in the same industry, not just the same state, anywhere in the country remember I used to say during the debates, Cross state lines, so you can negotiate, you now can cross state lines so you can negotiate. And Alex thats ready as of when? Oh, thats not a bad answer: Today. Today.A new rule introduced by the Trump administration could make it easier for small businesses to set up health insurance plans that offer lower costs, but fewer benefits.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJune 19, 2018WASHINGTON A sweeping new rule issued Tuesday by the Trump administration will make it easier for small businesses to join forces and set up health insurance plans that circumvent many requirements of the Affordable Care Act, cutting costs but also reducing benefits.President Trump, speaking at a 75th-anniversary celebration of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the new rule would allow small businesses to escape some of Obamacares most burdensome mandates by creating new entities known as association health plans.Youre going to save massive amounts of money and have much better health care, Mr. Trump said to cheers from the audience of small-business owners. Its going to cost you much less.As a result, he said, youre going to save a fortune.Alexander Acosta, the labor secretary, said the rule would give small businesses access to insurance options like those available to large companies, starting as soon as Sept. 1. Millions of people could benefit, he said.As the cost of insurance for small businesses has been increasing, Mr. Acosta said, the percentage of small businesses offering health care coverage has been dropping substantially. Today, the Trump administration helps level the playing field between large companies and small businesses.The new health plans would be exempt from many consumer-protection mandates in the Affordable Care Act. They may not have to provide certain essential health benefits like mental health care, emergency services, maternity and newborn care, and prescription drugs.Labor Department officials said association health plans would not be able to deny coverage or charge higher rates to individual employees with pre-existing medical conditions.Still, consumer groups and many state officials opposed the push for association health plans. They said such plans would draw healthy people out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace, driving up costs for those who need comprehensive insurance.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Tuesday that the new rule would open the door to junk health insurance. It is, he said, the latest act of sabotage of our health care system by the Trump administration.The new final rule carries out an executive order signed by Mr. Trump on Oct. 12.The rule will allow small-business owners, their employees, sole proprietors and other self-employed people to join together to buy or provide insurance in the large-group market through association health plans.Because they will be exempt from many requirements of the 2010 health law, Mr. Trump has said, the association health plans can provide more affordable health insurance options to many Americans, including hourly wage earners, farmers and the employees of small businesses.The new health plans might, for example, appeal to restaurant workers, real estate agents, dry cleaners, florists, plumbers and painters, officials said.Under the rule, Mr. Acosta said, business associations from city chambers of commerce to nationwide industry groups can offer health care insurance to the employees of their employer members through the large-group market.Trump administration officials said that small businesses and self-employed people in the same industry, state or region could band together and obtain health coverage as if they were a single large employer even if they had no other connections to one another.Until now, the Labor Department has required a much greater commonality of interest among small businesses that wanted to be treated as a large group when buying insurance. And the government often looked at the size of each company, rather than the group as a whole, to determine if it was a large or small employer.The new rule takes a step toward fulfilling Mr. Trumps campaign promise to make it easier for companies to sell insurance across state lines.For the first time ever, Mr. Trump said Tuesday, sole proprietors will be able to come together and buy lower-cost group insurance instead of getting ripped off by this disaster that we all know as Obamacare. These actions will result in very low prices, much more choice, much more freedom, including in many cases new opportunities to purchase health insurance. Youll be able to do this across state lines.The new rule prohibits certain kinds of discrimination. Association health plans cannot charge higher premiums to some employers based on the health status of those companies employees, and they cannot discriminate because of any health factor.The Labor Department gave 10 examples of how the new rule would work. An association health plan for restaurants could not deny membership to a business with several employees with large health claims. Nor could it exclude an employee with diabetes or charge that person more because of the disease.But, the Labor Department said, an association plan for agriculture could charge different premiums to employers in different lines of business, like growing crops, raising livestock, harvesting seafood or producing timber.Likewise, an association plan open to all employers based in a particular state could charge different premiums to employers in construction, education, financial services or other sectors, and could set different rates for part-time and full-time employees, so long as those distinctions were not based on health factors.The Labor Department said it did not believe association health plans would write their membership rules to avoid high-cost areas or high-risk professions, as some consumer groups fear. An association offering a health plan is free to define its membership criteria, provided those standards do not operate as a subterfuge for discrimination based on health factors.Critics were not convinced. This rule will erode the availability of affordable comprehensive coverage in most states individual and small-group markets, said Keysha Brooks-Coley, a vice president of the lobbying arm of the American Cancer Society.Association health plans can either buy commercial insurance or pay claims out of their own assets. States can regulate both types of health plans, but the Trump administration said it could, in the future, pre-empt state insurance laws that go too far in regulating self-insured plans.Similar small-business health plans have a history of fraud and abuse that have left employers and employees with hundreds of millions in unpaid claims.The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, representing insurers, consumer groups and law enforcement officials, met with Trump administration officials last month and emphasized the need for states to have a strong role in combating possible fraud.James Quiggle, a spokesman for the coalition, said Tuesday that the new rule could be an invitation to scam operators to try and slip bogus health plans through the regulatory system and into the marketplace. For this reason, he said, it is imperative that the Labor Department have more money and personnel to vet and supervise association health plans.The Labor Department said it would monitor the new plans to ensure compliance with the law and to protect consumers. States will share enforcement authority with the federal government, it said.Mr. Trump predicted that big percentages of this country would form or join association health plans. In fact, he told small-business owners, while youre in the room together, shake hands, form an association. Good luck! | Politics |
Politics|Ronna McDaniel is re-elected to lead the Republican National Committee.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/ronna-mcdaniel-is-re-elected-to-lead-the-republican-national-committee.htmlCredit...Al Drago for The New York TimesJan. 8, 2021President Trumps handpicked chairwoman was unanimously re-elected to lead the Republican National Committee on Friday, as committee members ignored his role in inciting supporters who overtook the Capitol this week to affirm his role atop the party.The day before, the president recorded a two-minute video for the partys winter meeting that was played that night. In the video, he spoke only in upbeat terms about the 2020 election and thanked the committee members for their loyalty.Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel faced no opposition and, in her remarks before and after her re-election, thanked Mr. Trump for his faith in her.Ms. McDaniel did condemn the mob attack in Washington, saying we need this to stop, without mentioning the inflammatory rhetoric of the president, his children and top aides at the outset of the protest Wednesday.But she only referred obliquely to transition of power and never directly acknowledged Mr. Trump lost the election. Ms. McDaniel said she was angry about losing critical elections.The two political parties have historically elected new leaders when they lose control of the White House. But Ms. McDaniel, the niece of Senator Mitt Romney, in effect claimed re-election in the weeks after the election thanks to her broad support with the activist-dominated state chairs and committee members who make up the partys governing board.The presidents recorded video came at a time when several Republicans in the Senate and some in the House, as well as former administration officials, are seeking to distance themselves from Mr. Trump after a crowd of supporters quickly went from listening to an inflammatory speech he made on Wednesday to a deadly mob overtaking the Capitol.The president never mentioned the violence during the video to the Republican committee, and he also stayed away from the conspiracy theories and false claims of widespread fraud about the election that he had been spreading for two months.In the video, Mr. Trump thanked all my incredible friends at the R.N.C., and talked about receiving millions more votes than he did in 2016, the number of Republican women who were elected to Congress as well as the coronavirus vaccine. | Politics |
Khloe Kardashian Don't Forget Me ... 'KOKO Kollection' Makeup Coming 1/22/2018 Khloe Kardashian wants get in on what appears to be the new family business -- aka makeup ... TMZ has learned. Khloe has applied to trademark a couple different names for a cosmetic line she presumably plans to sell soon -- one is "KOKO Kollection by Khloe Kardashian" and the other is simply "KOKO Kollection." The specific products she plans to hawk aren't clear just yet, but her application covers a broad range of makeup merch. As you'll recall ... Kourtney also recently applied to lock down her own line of cosmetics, which she wants to call "Kourt." Of course, Kim and Kylie are already booming in the biz ... looks like the sisters decided to band together on this endeavor, too. Like they say -- the family that applies foundation together ... has a makeup empire together. | Entertainment |
How Amazon Managed to Dethrone WalmartKaren WeiseReporting from SeattleHow Amazon Managed to Dethrone WalmartKaren WeiseReporting from SeattleDave Sanders for The New York TimesThe pandemics surge in online shopping accelerated a retail milestone: People now spend more at Amazon than Walmart, making it the worlds largest retail seller outside China.Heres how it happened | Tech |
Asia Pacific|Cambodia to Bring Wild Tigers From Abroad in Fight Against Extinctionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/world/asia/cambodia-tigers.htmlCredit...Mark Remissa/European Pressphoto AgencyApril 6, 2016A plan to fight the extinction of wild tigers in Cambodia would require importing the big cats from abroad, in what conservationists say would be the first transnational tiger reintroduction.The last tiger seen in the wild in Cambodia was in its east in 2007, Un Chakrey, communications manager for the conservation group WWF-Cambodia, said on Wednesday. Poaching and the loss of habitat have wiped out tigers in Cambodia, and the species is considered functionally extinct there, with no breeding pairs, WWF-Cambodia said.Under a plan approved last month by the Cambodian government, a small number of tigers will be imported and introduced to the Mondulkiri Protected Forest, the last place in the country a tiger was seen.The first phase of the plan would call for two male tigers and five to six female tigers to be released, Mr. Un Chakrey said.The tigers would most likely come from India, though Thailand and Malaysia are other possibilities, Mr. Un Chakrey said. They could be introduced as soon as 2020, he said.The Cambodia program would learn from the experiences of India, which has had success in reintroducing tigers.Next week, representatives of 13 so-called tiger-range countries across Asia will meet in New Delhi to discuss a plan to double the number of the animals across the region by 2022. The population in 2009 was estimated to be 3,200.Studies in 2006 and 2010 indicated that tigers inhabited less than 6 percent of their historical range, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. | World |
Health|More Grandparents Than Everhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/health/grandparents-population-census.htmlTake a NumberCredit...Lexey Swall for The New York TimesMarch 20, 2017Grandparents represent a bigger chunk of the population than ever before, according to new data from the Census Bureau.The number of grandparents in the United States rose to 69.5 million in 2014, up from 65.1 million in 2009, the bureau reported last week. The youngest baby boomers turned 50 in 2014, and the countrys 75.4 million boomers make up an exceptionally large pool of potential grandparents.The number of grandparents has grown by 24 percent since 2001. That year was the first time the Survey of Income and Program Participation asked the question Are you a grandparent? of respondents who were at least 30 years old and who had a child at least 15 years old.In 2001, there were an estimated 56.1 million grandparents.We would expect more people reporting to be grandparents because of the aging of the population, said Wendy Manning, a sociologist who is the director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University.In 2001, 38 percent of women age 30 or older with a child at least 15 years old were grandparents, as were 31 percent of men in that category. The new survey showed growth in both groups: In 2014, 61 percent of these women and 57 percent of these men were grandparents.Of all adults age 30 and older, 37 percent are grandparents, 2014 data show.I dont think grandparents were ever that much a portion of the population, said Carole Cox, a gerontologist and professor of social work at Fordham University in New York City.Were going to see more and more of a population shift now, she added. By 2050, there will be more people over 65 than under the age of 18.Dr. Cox cited a census projection for 2050 estimating that 22 percent of the population would be age 65 and older, while 20 percent would be age 18 and younger. | Health |
Six former employees of the site sent threatening messages and deliveries to a couple after the e-commerce newsletter they published wrote about a lawsuit involving eBay.Credit...CJ Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockJune 15, 2020BOXBOROUGH, Mass. Six eBay employees mounted a cyberstalking campaign including sending boxes of live cockroaches and a Halloween mask of a bloody pigs face against a couple who ran an online e-commerce newsletter, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors on Monday.Unhappy with the newsletters coverage of eBay, the employees, none of whom now work at the company, barraged the couple with threatening emails and sent disturbing deliveries, including a funeral wreath and a book on how to survive the death of a spouse, said Andrew E. Lelling, the United States attorney for Massachusetts, in a news conference on Monday. Several of the employees drove to the couples home to spy on them, he said.They were not merely unhappy, they were enraged, Mr. Lelling said, describing how one former eBay executive told a fellow executive in a text message that he wanted to crush the woman in the couple, who live in Natick, Mass., a Boston suburb. The result, Mr. Lelling said, was a systematic campaign, fueled by the resources of a Fortune 500 company, to emotionally and psychologically terrorize this middle-aged couple in Natick with the goal of deterring them from writing bad things online about eBay.Prosecutors charged the six people with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. Among them, two former eBay officers James Baugh, the companys former senior director of safety and security, and David Harville, the companys former director of global resiliency were arrested on Monday morning.Also charged in the case was a former senior manager of special operations for eBays global security team, who is a former police captain, according to the complaint.In a company post on Monday, eBay said it had fired all the involved employees last year, including the companys former chief communications officer. EBay also said that an internal investigation had examined whether the companys chief executive at the time, Devin Wenig, had played any role in the cyberstalking campaign.The internal investigation found that, while Mr. Wenigs communications were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger and her husband, the statement said. It added: However, as the company previously announced, there were a number of considerations leading to his departure from eBay.In a statement emailed to The New York Times, Mr. Wenig said: As confirmed by the company following a thorough, independent investigation, I did not direct or know anything about the acts that have been charged in Boston. I have spent my career defending press freedoms. What these charges allege is unconscionable.Lawyers representing Mr. Baugh and Mr. Harville did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The prosecutors did not name the couple or their newsletter.The stalking campaign began in the summer of 2019 after the newsletter published an article about a lawsuit involving eBay, prosecutors said. EBay executives followed the newsletters posts closely, often taking issue with the content as well as anonymous reader comments disparaging eBay executives as liars and delusional, the complaint said.ImageCredit...CJ Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockIn response, one company executive wrote to another saying the newsletter editor was out with a hot piece on the litigation. If you are ever going to take her down now is the time, according to text messages included in the complaint. The other executive responded: Let me ask you this. Do we need to shut her entire site down?A few messages later, the first executive commented: She is biased troll who needs to get BURNED DOWN.Prosecutors said the executives behind those messages who were not named or charged in the case pressured other employees to do something about the newsletters editor. The people charged in the case then began a three-pronged campaign. Several eBay employees sent unwanted and disturbing deliveries to the couples home, the complaint said, including a preserved fetal pig, fly larvae, live spiders, a sympathy funeral wreath and pornography that was addressed to the couple by name, but sent to two of their neighbors.The employees also sent a series of increasingly aggressive direct messages on Twitter, asking the newsletter editor what her problem was with eBay, the complaint said. The court filing said they followed up with threatening messages, culminating with publishing the couples home address.As an excuse to covertly surveil the couple in the home, the complaint said, two employees also registered for a software conference in Boston in August, and, lest they were stopped by the police, went to the couples house carrying false documents purporting to show that they were investigating the publishers for threatening eBay executives.The couple spotted the eBay employees spying on their house, however, and called the police, who contacted eBay for assistance.As the police and eBay began to investigate, employees involved in the cyberstalking campaign lied to the police, as well as to eBays lawyers, and deleted evidence of their involvement, prosecutors said, obstructing the federal investigation. | Tech |
Asya Miller and Lisa Czechowski, who have won three Paralympic medals as teammates, first competed together at the Sydney Games in 2000.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesAug. 31, 2021TOKYO Asya Miller and Lisa Czechowski cant quite remember when they met, probably because it happened half a lifetime ago. In separate interviews this summer, one guessed that they met at a regional track and field meet. The other thought it happened at a goalball tournament.Whenever and wherever their first encounter occurred, neither could have known then that they would be teammates two decades later, playing goalball for the United States in their sixth Paralympic Games, Czechowski at age 42, Miller at 41. In Tokyo on Wednesday, the U.S. beat Russia, 5-3, in the quarterfinals, advancing to a semifinal on Thursday against Brazil.The sport is one of only two in the Paralympics that has no counterpart in the Olympic Games. (Boccia is the other.) But Czechowski and Miller have no counterpart in Paralympic history: They are the first pair in team sports to play together through six Games, according to research by Bill Kellick of the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes. Over the years, Czechowski and Miller have quietly become leaders in a sport that the general public knows little about but that is a staple of the Paralympics.They won their first Paralympic medals separately, in the discus at the Sydney Games in 2000, Czechowski a silver, Miller a bronze.With that background in common of track and field, thats how we really kind of bonded, Miller said.Even then, they were not opponents, because they competed in separate classifications for visual impairment. Those Games were also their first on the U.S. Paralympic goalball team, which finished sixth.Soon after, Miller and Czechowski committed to goalball as their primary sport, and they have won a silver medal in Athens, a gold in Beijing and a bronze in Rio de Janeiro.In Tokyo, one other 40-something woman reached the goalball quarterfinals, Rie Urata of Japan, who is 44. Most of the rosters are loaded with athletes in their 20s; the Turkish team, the reigning Paralympic champion, has an age range of 17 to 27.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesDesigned specifically for blind and visually impaired athletes, goalball is played on a court 18 meters long and nine meters wide. Three athletes for each side try to throw a ball embedded with bells past the opponents goal line, typically with a bowling delivery because the ball must hit the floor. String is attached to markings on the floor to guide the players, all of them wearing eyeshades to offset differences in impairment.On defense, players work on their hands and knees and often hurl their bodies at the ball. Advances in sports medicine have helped keep Czechowski and Miller, who once tore a rotator cuff, together on the court for so long.Jake Czechowski, Lisas husband and the goalball national teams head coach since 2016, can personally attest to the games toll on the body. He once played in a tournament that allowed sighted people to play, with the proper eyeshades. I got beat up, he said. I had the bruises to prove it.The Czechowskis have a 7-year-old son named Jay, and Miller has a 10-year-old boy named Ryder. They both arrived on a July 2.Its a really great connection we have the fact that our children were born literally three years to the day apart, Lisa Czechowski said.On the court and in conversation, Czechowski conveys a sense of order, discipline. Miller, a bit more id than ego, likes to keeps things loose.They really help balance each other out, Jake Czechowski said.He described Miller as extraordinarily casual and also a little bit of a neat freak. On the court, he said, she cleans up her area much the way a hockey goalie will tidy the crease.And shell be making comments about, you know, I smell popcorn in the crowd, or just about anything but whats going on in the game, he said.Early this summer, Miller sketched out a fantasy goalball commercial for Geico set in a bowling alley. It ends with her throwing the ball through the back of the building.Thats the kind of stuff Ill be talking about to myself on the court, she said, just kind of silly stuff I find entertaining but doesnt make any sense to anyone else.Miller sees Lisa Czechowski as a textbook active listener. You know, repeating exactly what you say in the form of a question.But when Czechowski aims to sell the sport of goalball to young people with impaired vision, she has something of a stump speech prepared.As a teenager, Czechowski said, she recoiled from anything that set her apart from her peers.I was definitely struggling with the stigma of being visually impaired, she said. I had large print books in school. I had to sit in the front of the classroom. I had to use different little vision devices to see. So it was very obvious. And that was hard for me because I always wanted to be like everybody else.Her mother, she said, got her involved in softball, which did not work out well. Bowling turned out to be a better fit. It was indoor, a controlled environment, not that bright, Czechowski said. I was like, This is great.Ultimately, she found success in track and field, which supported her need to fit in at her high school even as her vision continued to decline.She first heard about goalball when an adaptive physical education adviser, working for the state of New Jersey, visited her school to instruct gym teachers how to create opportunities for students with disabilities. Czechowski remembers trying badminton with an extra large racket and a huge birdie. Ultimately, she couldnt see the birdie. When he suggested and explained goalball, she balked. She wanted no part of a sport intended only for the visually impaired.I wasnt embracing my own visual disability at that time, she said, and I wasnt ready to, honestly.The adviser, though, introduced Czechowski to a group of what she calls wonderful, persistent people involved in the states Association of Blind Athletes. They kept checking in, offering goalball opportunities until she relented.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIn October 1995, she attended her first goalball practice, at a community center in West Orange.My life forever changed when I went to this practice, she said, and I allowed myself to to open up and, you know, literally gain vision of what was out there.Now she and Miller marvel at how much the game has changed since their early years.It used to be divided into seven-minute halves; now they each last 12 minutes.Changes in the shot clock, now a strict 10 seconds from the time a player makes contact with the ball on defense, have made the game much quicker.The Brazilian team, which the U.S. defeated, 6-4, in its first game of the tournament, has developed a backward shot hurled between the legs, a little like a long snap in football.We dont know that theyre throwing between their legs. You can just hear the ball coming at you, Czechowski said, adding: I do not have that flexibility, but their throws are amazing.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesAnother significant change for the sport: A resident training site opened for the womens team in 2017 in Fort Wayne, Ind., at the Turnstone Center for Children and Adults With Disabilities.The Czechowskis relocated from Arizona to Fort Wayne, while Miller stayed in Oregon, where she works as a personal trainer and lives with Simony Batista, her wife of nearly four years.Miller and Czechowski are almost a decade older than any of their four teammates in Tokyo. The youngest, Marybai Huking, 24, is playing in her second Paralympics. Huking said she could not imagine lasting in the sport as long as Miller and Czechowski have.But I think its crazy and awesome that they have maintained that love of the sport and that passion and wanted to stay on, she said, because it is a huge time commitment and it takes a lot of dedication.Miller has suggested that her competitive goalball days are numbered my body has been telling me its time. Czechowski, though, just might be back for the Paris Games in 2024.As long as she can get her, you know, parts replaced if need be or whatever surgeries, Miller said, I dont think shes ever going to retire. | Sports |
Credit...Paul McErlane/Bloomberg NewsDec. 30, 2015LONDON Two decades after being discovered, natural gas began flowing on Wednesday from wells off Irelands northwest coast. Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company, said it had begun producing gas from undersea wells, part of an effort for Ireland to produce more of its own resources.Opening the taps in the Corrib field, more than 50 miles offshore, is a breakthrough for the oil and gas industry in Ireland, which has had mostly disappointing results in recent years while encountering resistance from environmental groups.The gas was discovered in 1996, and Shell has struggled to win approval from the government for the project, which has long been opposed by local environmental campaigners. Philip Robinson, a Shell spokesman, attributed the long interval between discovery and the start of production to environmental opposition, but said relations with the local communities had improved in recent years.Kinsale Head, the only other major discovery off Ireland, which imports nearly all of its fuel needs, including large volumes of gas, has been online since 1978. Periodic bursts of excitement about oil and gas troves that might be found in Irish waters have ended up sputtering.Pat Shannon, chairman of the Irish Offshore Operators Association, a trade group, said that the area where Corrib is, known as the Atlantic Margin, was promising for oil and gas operators.I think this is a very significant day for the exploration industry in Ireland, Mr. Shannon said.Alex White, Irelands minister for communications, energy and natural resources, gave Shell the final go-ahead on Tuesday, saying that Ireland would benefit from having its own resources. In approving the project, Mr. White said he had made consent subject to 20 conditions, including environmental management.Mr. White added that Ireland was committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and that gas, which is used for generating electric power, had a role in easing the transition to a greener economy. Developing local gas, Mr. White said, will deliver significant and sustained benefits, particularly in terms of enhanced security of supply and economic development.The minister said that the gas would meet more than 40 percent of demand on the island.Shell says that along with its partners, Statoil of Norway and Vermilion Energy Ireland, it has spent 1.1 billion euros, or $1.2 billion, on the project and that Corrib would provide 175 jobs for up to 20 years.Terence Conway, a spokesman for the group Shell to Sea, which has fought the project, said that opponents, who worried that building a large gas processing facility on land at a place called Bellanaboy Bridge risked accidents and pollution, had few options left. There is not much more we can do at the moment, he said. | Business |
Credit...Beck Diefenbach/ReutersDec. 17, 2015Apples chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, is continuing to make over the companys executive ranks.On Thursday, Apple made several shifts in its senior management team, including the promotion of a longtime executive, Jeff Williams, to the job of chief operating officer, a position that had gone unfilled since 2011.Apple also expanded the role of Philip W. Schiller, its senior vice president of worldwide marketing, to include oversight of the App Store. The store had been overseen by Eddy Cue, Apples senior vice president of Internet software and services.Were recognizing the contributions already being made by two key executives, Mr. Cook said in a statement.The changes, which include new leadership in the companys hardware and marketing divisions, are the latest executive moves by Mr. Cook, who became chief of Apple in 2011. Early in his tenure, Mr. Cook shook up the management team that had been put in place by his predecessor, Steven P. Jobs, by pushing out Scott Forstall, the mobile software head.Last year, Mr. Cook hired a new retail chief, Angela Ahrendts, the former head of the British luxury fashion company Burberry, to revitalize Apples retail stores. He also promoted Luca Maestri, who joined Apple in 2013 as vice president of finance and corporate controller, to chief financial officer, after the retirement of Peter Oppenheimer, then C.F.O.The changes announced on Thursday reflect what Mr. Williams and Mr. Schiller had already been doing and are not seen as large shifts in strategy.The chief operating officer position at Apple was once held by Mr. Cook, who ran operations at the Cupertino, Calif.-based company for many years under Mr. Jobs. Mr. Cook was elevated to chief executive shortly before Mr. Jobs died from pancreatic cancer.Mr. Williams, 52, joined Apple in 1998 as head of worldwide procurement and became vice president of operations in 2004. Six years later, he was put in charge of Apples supply chain, a large global operation that secures components and parts for products such as the iPhone and iPad. Apples supply chain is one of the companys great strengths. Its army of contract workers can be mobilized quickly to produce huge volumes of the companys best-selling products.The supply chain has also been scrutinized for worker rights violations. Apple has pressured suppliers to change their practices, and Mr. Williams has overseen Apples social responsibility initiatives to protect more than one million employees worldwide.Jeff is hands-down the best operations executive Ive ever worked with, Mr. Cook said in the statement. Mr. Williams is also supervising the development of the Apple Watch, which Apple started selling in April.Mr. Schiller has already been one of Apples main liaisons with the app developer community. Mr. Cue, who oversees software and services, helped create the App Store in 2008 and has added responsibilities over time, including the addition of Apple Pay, Apples new streaming music service and efforts to start a television service.The moves give executives the freedom to pursue other important tasks that they face in their roles, said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research. It seems like Eddy Cue could have a pretty full plate with trying to negotiate TV rights at the moment, for example, Mr. Dawson said.Apple also said that Johny Srouji, who led the development of Apples A4 chip, had joined the executive team as senior vice president for hardware technologies.Tor Myhren will join as vice president of marketing communications early next year, reporting to Mr. Cook. Mr. Myhren, who will oversee Apples advertising efforts, was previously chief creative officer and president of Grey New York, a part of the Grey Group. | Business |
Cleveland Indians Finally Ditching Chief Wahoo Logo 1/29/2018 The Cleveland Indians are finally retiring their controversial Chief Wahoo logo -- saying it's "no longer appropriate for on-field use." The Indians have been using the logo since 1948 -- showing a grinning Native American sporting a feather in his hair. The image has been under fire by some groups who say it's a racist depiction of Native Americans. Now, it seems the Cleveland organization agrees ... and will put the logo out to pasture after the 2018 MLB season. The logo has already been scrubbed from all stadium signage -- but the team will continue to sell merchandise with the image until the end of the season. Story developing ... | Entertainment |
on techEvery company wants the biggest data stockpile possible. We need unilateral data disarmament.Credit...Paloma DawkinsPublished July 15, 2020Updated July 16, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.Lets list some anxieties about digital life: Were being tracked all the time. Internet superpowers hold sway over what information we see and what we buy. Our sensitive information keeps getting hacked.Theres no simple fix for these complex worries. But theres a step that works toward addressing them all: Americans deserve a national limit on the information companies collect about us.If you want to focus on one broad approach to tackle many of our internet horribles, remember this motto: Just collect less data, period.Companies want to harvest as much data about us as possible because well, why wouldnt they? More information could help them target advertisements at us, track high-traffic areas in stores or show us more dog videos to keep us on their site longer.For the companies, theres no downside to limitless data collection, and theres little to prevent them from doing so in the United States.Why should we care? Fair question. (My Opinion section colleagues tackled this in their Privacy Project series.) Personally, I feel icky knowing that political campaigns can buy data showing who attends church, and that the Internal Revenue Service bought bulk records of peoples locations to (ineffectively) hunt for financial criminals. When theres an arms race for our personal data, we lose control over where our information winds up and how its used.And I cant shake what my colleague Paul Mozur said about digital surveillance in Hong Kong. For people to feel free, he told me, we need to know that were not always being watched. On some level, Id bet that goes for Facebook and our television sets just as it does for governments.Data also consolidates power. If you worry about Google, Facebook and Amazon having too much influence, you should be aware that at the root of their power is control over reams of information on where we go, what we do and what we like.Competitors then do icky things to play catch up, like buying information from data-harvesting companies. The digital economy is a game of data intrusion one-upmanship.When we and elected officials try to fight this, our efforts are often too myopic. Data privacy regulation and legislation has focused on requiring disclosure of data-targeted political advertisements, making privacy policies more clear, or forcing companies to show their digital dossiers on us.Fine, those are pragmatic steps. Better still is to step back to the underlying problem: All companies collect too much data about us in the first place.I recognize that the devil is in the details, and Im not offering that. (Ill work on it. My Opinion colleagues had suggestions for lawmakers and regulators.) Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, released a draft privacy bill last month that proposed companies collect information only when its strictly necessary. Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, introduced a relatively similar proposal last year.They werent the first to try for a sweeping federal privacy law, and they probably wont be the last to fail. But Im glad theyre trying to coalesce us around a big idea: Unrestricted harvesting of personal data has gone too far.In praise of unflashy technologyWhile I was reporting an article last year about expanding internet access in parts of Africa, no one wanted to talk about high-altitude balloons that transmit the internet.Instead, people couldnt stop praising metal poles that made it far easier and cheaper to bring internet connections to places where conventional cellphone towers werent a good option.It was a useful reminder to me that sometimes the biggest innovations are the ones we never notice.David M. Perry, a journalist and academic adviser at the University of Minnesota, wrote in The New York Times this week about how spell-check, smartphone voice control and other technology we take for granted can be life changing for people with disabilities.Disability technology can be so quotidian that nondisabled users dont even notice, Perry wrote.To be fair, things like voice-activated helpers were marvels when they were first introduced, and now weve gotten used to them. And we do still want people to think big. Modern smartphones are an example of a flashy technology that really did change everything.But what Perry highlighted is that we sometimes fixate too much on big-bang technologies that turn out to be impractical driverless cars, to pick one example or are trying to solve problems that people dont really have, at the expense of lower-tech ideas that can be magical.Perry said, for example, that there are constantly ideas to replace the white canes used by people with vision impairments, and blind people think the canes are great as is. (Here are some more boring but important technologies.)Remember that when you get excited about drones that deliver library books, all-seeing shopping carts or whatever flashy thing that makes us think, Cool! Sometimes the stuff that draws the most attention will never work, and the seemingly simple stuff has the biggest impact.Before we go Apple scores a legal (and financial) win: A European court overruled an order that would have forced the company to pay $14.9 billion in unpaid taxes, the Times tech reporter Adam Satariano reported. In 2016, a European Union regulator said Apple had made illegal deals with Ireland to keep its tax bill low.Memes for a cause in Iran: People in Iran are coalescing around the hashtag #DontExecute and other social media messages to push for an end to government executions based on murky charges, from drinking alcohol to political activism. My colleague Farnaz Fassihi wrote that it was a rare moment of solidarity among Iranians of varying political views around a single issue in a country where the government has brutally crushed other forms of dissent.Why does that textbook cost $24 million? Fortune digs into the oddities of computerized pricing to explain why a pillow might list for more than $10,000 on Amazon. Among the culprits are computers programmed to respond to price changes of competing products with sometimes illogical results and merchants setting artificially high prices so you wont try to buy something.Hugs to thisA simple but beautiful idea: This website drops you in on a view from someone elses window.We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected]. If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here. | Tech |
Feb. 15, 2014Julian Green, a young, promising player for Bayern Munich, will train with the United States national team for two days before the Americans travel to Ukraine for an international friendly match on March 5.U.S. Coach Jurgen Klinsmann has been pursuing Green, who holds U.S. and German citizenship, in recent months and had plans to call him up for recent exhibitions against Scotland and Austria only to have the Green, 18, withdraw days before camp began. Now Klinsmann will have a chance to have Green with the team, albeit for training only.Julian Green will be invited to train with the national team in Frankfurt for two days prior to the teams departure for the match against Ukraine, the U.S. Soccer press officer Michael Kammarman said in an email sent Friday night.Green cannot play in the game against Ukraine because he has played for German youth national teams recently. Last October he was part of Germanys under-19 team in an qualifier for the European championship in that age group, an official FIFA game.Under FIFA rules, dual-national players are permanently tied to a country if they play for that country in an official competition. If a dual-national plays in an official competition with a youth national team, the player is entitled to make a one-time change of association. Green would have to apply to FIFA, and receive the waiver before he could appear for the U.S.In September 2012, Green represented the United States under-18 team in an exhibition tournament and scored against the Netherlands in a 4-2 win.At present, Green appears to be unwilling to petition FIFA, but having him in camp with the U.S. team only months before the World Cup shows he still may have an open mind.Weve had talks with him and his parents as well, Klinsmann said last November. Hes one of those cases where we show him what we are doing. We follow them. We communicate with them. At the end of the day, down the road, he has to make his decision. If this is before or after the World Cup, whenever he decides, it is totally up to him. But it is important that we have an open line of communication.Its a huge, huge commitment and therefore its really up to him, Klinsmann added. There is no stress, there is no pressure, there is no rush at all.Green was born in Tampa, Fla., to an American father and a German mother. He moved to Germany at age 2 when his parents separated, and has lived there since, though he maintains contact with his father in Florida.Green has risen quickly through Bayern Munichs youth system. This season he has scored 15 goals in 18 games for Munichs reserve team. He made his first-team debut Champions League in group stage game late last year.Green is the latest German-American pursued by the United States team in recent years. Jermaine Jones and Timothy Chandler made their debuts under the former coach, Bob Bradley.Since Klinsmann was hired in 2011, he has introduced the German-born players Danny Williams, John Brooks, Terrence Boyd and Fabian Johnson into the American program. Klinsmann said that dual-national players face unique challenges, especially those in Germany, which has a strong national team. Playing for a team like the U.S. could be an easier route to the World Cup.Jones and Fabian Johnson each played for Germanys youth national teams but fell out of consideration for the senior national team. Green, however, has both the United States and Germany interested in his services. Klinsmann said the decision is Greens to make.Obviously with the dual citizenship issue, you always have the topic floating around of what country will they choose at the end of the day? Klinsmann said. We have the approach where we say that it is totally up to the player and we have to make them as comfortable as possible. Hopefully they choose the United States one day. | Sports |
She fought for a more compassionate health care system, bringing an extensive knowledge of policy and even more extensive firsthand experience as a patient.Credit...Christopher KernJuly 17, 2021Erin Gilmer, a lawyer and disability rights activist who fought for medical privacy, lower drug prices and a more compassionate health care system as she confronted a cascade of illnesses that left her unable to work or even get out of bed for long stretches, died on July 7 in Centennial, Colo. She was 38.Anne Marie Mercurio, a friend whom Ms. Gilmer had given power of attorney, said the cause was suicide.First in Texas and later in Colorado, where she had her own law practice, Ms. Gilmer pushed for legislation that would make health care more responsive to patients needs, including a state law, passed in 2019, that allows pharmacists in Colorado to provide certain medications without a current prescription if a patients doctor cannot be reached.She was a frequent consultant to hospitals, universities and pharmaceutical companies, bringing an extensive knowledge of health care policy and even more extensive firsthand experience as a patient.At conferences and on social media, she used her own life to illustrate the degradations and difficulties that she said were inherent in the modern medical system, in which she believed patients and doctors alike were treated as cogs in a machine.Her conditions included rheumatoid arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, borderline personality disorder and occipital neuralgia, which produces intensely painful headaches. Her lengthy medical file presented a challenge to doctors used to addressing patients in 15-minute visits, and she said she often found herself dismissed as difficult simply because she tried to advocate for herself.Too often patients have to wonder: Will they believe me? she wrote on Twitter in May. Will they help me? Will they cause more trauma? Will they listen and understand?She spoke often about her financial difficulties; despite her law degree, she said, she had to rely on food stamps. But she acknowledged that her race gave her the privilege to cut corners.In the months when I couldnt figure out how to make ends meet, I would disguise myself in my nice white-girl clothes and go to the salad bar and ask for a new plate as if I had already paid, she said in a 2014 speech to a medical conference at Stanford University.Im not proud of it, but Im desperate, she added. Its survival of the fittest. Some patients die trying to get food, medicine, housing and medical care. If you dont die along the way, you honestly wish you could, because its all so exhausting and frustrating and degrading.She could be fierce, especially when people presumed to explain her problems to her or offer a quick-fix solution. But she also developed a following among people with similarly complicated health conditions, who saw her as both an ally and an inspiration, showing them how to make the system work for them.Before, I thought I didnt have a choice, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, who became a disability rights activist after meeting Ms. Gilmer in 2018, said by phone. She was the first to show me how to address the institution of medicine and not be written off as a difficult patient.Ms. Gilmer highlighted the need for trauma-informed care, calling on the medical system to recognize not only that many patients enter the intimate space of a doctors office already traumatized but also that the health care experience can itself be traumatizing. Last year she wrote a handbook, A Preface to Advocacy: What You Should Know as an Advocate, which she shared online, for free.She expected the system to fail her, said Dr. Victor Montori, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic and a founder of the Patient Revolution, an organization that supports patient-centered care. But she tried to make it so the system didnt fail other people.Erin Michelle Gilmer was born on Sept. 27, 1982, in Wheat Ridge, Colo., a Denver suburb, and grew up in nearby Aurora. Her father, Thomas S. Gilmer, a physician, and her mother, Carol Yvonne Troyer, a pharmacist, divorced when she was 19, and she became estranged from them.In addition to her parents, Ms. Gilmer is survived by her brother, Christopher.Ms. Gilmer, a competitive swimmer as a child, began to develop health problems in high school. She had surgery on her jaw and a rotator cuff, her father said in an interview, and she also developed signs of depression.A star student, she graduated with enough advanced placement credits to skip a year of college at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She studied psychology and economics, and she graduated summa cum laude in 2005.She decided to continue her education, at the University of Colorados law school, to keep her student health insurance a cruel joke, she said in a 2020 interview with Dr. Montori. She focused on health law and human rights, training herself to be both a policy expert and an activist; she later called her blog Health as a Human Right.She received her degree in 2008 and moved to Texas, where she worked for the state government and a number of health care nonprofits. She returned to Denver in 2012 to open her own practice.By then her health was beginning to decline. Her existing conditions worsened and new ones appeared, exacerbated by a 2010 accident in which she was hit by a car. She found it hard to work a full day, and eventually most of her advocacy was virtual, including via social media.For all her mastery of the intricacies of health care policy, Ms. Gilmer said what the system needed most was more compassion.We can do that at the big grand levels of instituting trauma-informed care as the way to practice, she said in the interview with Dr. Montori. And we can do that at the small micro levels of just saying: How are you today? Im here to listen. Im glad youre here.If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. | Health |
Jets' Robby Anderson Pleads Not Guilty In Crazy Speeding Arrest 1/29/2018 NY Jets star Robby Anderson has pled NOT GUILTY to several felony charges stemming from his January arrest ... in which the officer claims the WR threatened to find his wife, "f*ck her and nut in her eye." As we previously reported ... cops say Anderson was clocked doing 105 mph in a 45 mph zone in the early hours of Jan. 19 in Broward County, FL ... and cussed out cops like a maniac during the stop. At one point, cops say Anderson threatened to sexually assault an officer's wife -- and described it in graphic detail. Anderson was hit with 9 criminal charges including 3 felonies (harming a public servant, fleeing and eluding and reckless speeding). Harming a public servant charge carries a maximum 15 years in prison. But according to court records, Anderson's attorneys appeared in court on his behalf on Monday and pled not guilty to all of the charges. Anderson is now demanding a jury trial -- though it's still possible (likely) the two sides hammer out a plea deal before it ever gets to a jury. Stay tuned ... | Entertainment |
Politics|Former officials warn Senate confirmations of Bidens national security picks are needed quickly.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/politics/former-officials-warn-senate-confirmations-of-bidens-national-security-picks-are-needed-quickly.htmlCredit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJan. 9, 2021A bevy of top former national security officials from both parties have drafted an open letter urging the Senate to quickly confirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s national security team, warning of the need to have a fast transition of executive power after a week of chaos in the nations capital.As former senior national security officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations, we urge the Senate to swiftly confirm the national security cabinet nominees put forth by President-elect Biden, the former officials wrote. Alejandro Mayorkas, Antony Blinken, Avril Haines, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and Lloyd Austin represent the best of America: our patriotism, our diversity, our commitment to excellence, and our values, the letter reads, referring to Mr. Bidens picks for the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of State, director of National Intelligence, ambassador to the United Nations and secretary of defense, respectively. Our nation needs these highly qualified and experienced officials in office and ready to serve on day one of the Biden-Harris administration.The letter is signed by nineteen leaders including former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton, former Homeland Security Secretaries Tom Ridge, Janet Napolitano and Jeh C. Johnson and James R. Clapper, a former director of national intelligence, and others who held top posts in Republican and Democratic administrations.Lloyd J. Austin III, Mr. Bidens pick for secretary of defense, will need a congressional waiver to be confirmed, a requirement for any Pentagon chief who has been retired from active-duty military service less than seven years.Some members of Congress have balked at the waiver, citing the tradition of civilian control of the military, and this extra step requires a vote in the House and Senate, which will likely delay a vote on his confirmation. Mr. Austin, a former four-star Army general who retired in 2016, is the only one of Mr. Bidens nominees to have a scheduled confirmation hearing.Americas allies and adversaries alike are closely watching this period of transition between administrations, the letter says. Given the many challenges facing the country, the smooth transfer of power in departments and agencies that are essential for national security is critical. | Politics |
TrilobitesIt can break off in an instant but also stay firmly attached. Scientists have figured out the microscopic structures that make this survival skill possible.Credit...Shiji Ulleri/Wise Monkeys PhotographyFeb. 17, 2022When choosing between life and limb, many animals willingly sacrifice the limb. The ability to drop appendages is known as autotomy, or self-amputation. When backed into a corner, spiders let go of legs, crabs drop claws and some small rodents shed clumps of skin. Some sea slugs will even decapitate themselves to rid themselves of their parasite-infested bodies.But lizards may be the best-known users of autotomy. To evade predators, many lizards ditch their still-wiggling tails. This behavior confounds the predator, buying the rest of the lizard time to scurry away. While there are drawbacks to losing a tail they come in handy for maneuvering, impressing mates and storing fat it beats being eaten. Many lizards are even capable of regenerating lost tails.Scientists have studied this anti-predator behavior meticulously, but the structures that make it work remain puzzling. If a lizard can shed its tail in an instant, what keeps it attached in non-life-threatening situations?Yong-Ak Song, a biomechanical engineer at New York University Abu Dhabi, calls this the paradox of the tail: It must be simultaneously adherent and detachable. It has to detach its tail quickly in order to survive, Dr. Song said of the lizard. But at the same time, it cannot lose its tail too easily.Recently, Dr. Song and his colleagues sought to solve the paradox by examining several freshly amputated tails. They did not want for test subjects according to Dr. Song, the N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi campus is crawling with geckos. Using tiny loops attached to fishing rods, they rounded up several lizards from three species: two types of geckos and a desert lizard known as Schmidts fringe-toed lizard.VideoThe lizards were sourced on the N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi campus, and then studied in the lab. Video by Song et al.CreditCredit...Shiji Ulleri/Wise Monkeys Photography Back at the lab, they pulled the lizards tails with their fingers, coaxing them into acts of autotomy. They filmed the resulting process at 3,000 frames per second using a high-speed camera. (The lizards were soon returned to where they were first found.) Then the scientists stuck the squirming tails under an electron microscope.At a microscopic scale, they could see that each fracture where the tail had detached from the body was brimming with mushroom-shaped pillars. Zooming in even more, they saw that each mushroom cap was dotted with tiny pores. The team was surprised to find that instead of parts of the tail interlocking along the fracture planes, the dense pockets of micropillars on each segment appeared to touch only lightly. This made the lizard tail seem like a brittle constellation of loosely connected segments.However, computer modeling of the tail fracture planes revealed that the mushroomlike microstructures were adept at releasing built-up energy. One reason is that they are filled with minuscule gaps, like tiny pores and spaces between each mushroom cap. These voids absorb the energy from a tug, keeping the tail intact.While these microstructures can withstand pulling, the team found that they were susceptible to splintering from a slight twist. They determined that the tails were 17 times more likely to fracture from bending than from being pulled. In the slow-motion videos the researchers took, the lizards twisted their tails to cleanly cleave them in two along the fleshy fracture plane.Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, illustrate how these tails hit the perfect balance between firm and fragile. Its a beautiful example of the Goldilocks principle applied to a model in nature, Dr. Song said.According to Animangsu Ghatak, a chemical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, the biomechanics of these lizards tails are reminiscent of the sticky microstructures found on the tacky toes of geckos and tree frogs. It has to be just the right balance between adhesion and detachment, because that allows these animals to scale steep surfaces, said Dr. Ghatak, who was not involved in the study. He added that the animals feet were covered in billions of tiny bristles which themselves were composed of mushroom-shaped caps.The researchers believe that understanding the process that lets lizards dump their tails could have uses for attaching prosthetics, skin grafts or bandages, and may even help robots shed broken parts.However, Dr. Song is most excited to finally understand how the creatures on campus escape predators.This project was completely curiosity-driven, he said. We just simply wanted to know how the lizards around us cut their tails off so quickly. | science |
Credit...Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFeb. 12, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia At its most basic, ski jumping looks simple: slap on a pair of skis, strap on a helmet and ski down a slope at roughly 60 miles an hour, leap into the sky and land one leg in front of another about a football field away.But the sport, which has been a part of the Winter Games since 1924, is a mix of geometry and physics, intuition and moxie. Jumpers try to gain as much speed as they can on the approach, vault themselves into the air at just the right time and hold as steady as possible in the air.Technology also plays a major role, and improvements in skis, jumpsuits and slope construction have helped jumpers fly farther and reduce injuries.Take the hills themselves. On television, they look largely the same, but like baseball stadiums and racetracks, ski jump hills have different sizes and shapes. Some have longer inruns, the segment where jumpers begin their descent, while others are steeper. The arcs of the hills where the skiers land can vary, though, in general, jumpers are never more than 15 feet or so above the hill as they glide over it.The two hills in Sochi are of the newer variety with flatter, smoother curves on the inrun.It feels more like jumping over a football field instead of jumping down one, said Bill Demong, who is competing in Nordic combined, which includes cross-country skiing and ski jumping, for the United States.Some jumpers and coaches said that these new hills, with their smoother approaches, had fewer distinct characteristics among them, and were more akin to Fenway Park or Wrigley Field in their quirkiness. These hills may be easier to design and perhaps make it easier for judges to score the jumpers.Though not necessarily apparent on television, the ski jump facility in Sochi has little snow around it. That is because it was built at a lower elevation in a valley to protect it from high winds. The snow on the slopes was produced there or trucked in.A few days before competition began, there was about 55 centimeters of snow, or 21.6 inches. That was about 20 centimeters, or 7.8 inches, more than needed, but enough to allow some to melt, said Nickolay Petrov, the site manager.Petrov said that 50,000 cubic meters of snow were produced in December during a cold stretch. Another 600 cubic meters of snow has been trucked each day to the cross-country course used in Nordic combined, Petrov said.To the untrained eye, the inruns appear as if they are filled with snow. In fact, jumpers slide down ceramic tracks filled with ice. In Sochi, CeramTec, a German company, made the tracks, which include an automatic irrigation and cooling system. Cables pull a miniature ice resurfacing machine up the inrun to produce the ice that is a few centimeters deep and 13.5 centimeters, or 5.3 inches, wide. The machine also produces small grooves in the ice so skis will not stick.As the ice-making machine works its way up the hill, a group of three or four workers uses brooms to sweep away ice and make it even. The workers also sweep debris from the 2.5-meter areas, or 8 foot spaces, to the left and right of the tracks. They are not made of snow, but of synthetic grass that has been painted white.Petrov said that the plastic carpet is far more energy efficient than snow. It looks like snow and everyones happy, he said. Nobody knows its not snow on TV.Petrov said that if it snowed during an event, 20 men would use snowblowers to clean the slopes so that all jumpers would have fair conditions. Nets are also positioned on one side of the jump to block some of the wind. Winds of more than 3 meters per second, or 6.7 miles per hour, can cause delays, he said.Before each event, teams of workers with skis walk sideways down the hill to even out the snow. This week, the training jumps for Nordic combined athletes were delayed because the snow had become too soft. After salt was added, the snow became too hard and the workers had a more difficult time tamping it down.For all the variety, all jumpers ultimately have to jump on the same hills, and all of them have to adjust.At some point, a ski jump is a ski jump and if youre jumping good, its a good ski jump, said Todd Lodwick, Demongs teammate. | Sports |
Science|Drilling Into the Chicxulub Crater, Ground Zero of the Dinosaur Extinctionhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/science/chicxulub-crater-dinosaur-extinction.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Detlev van Ravenswaay/Science SourceNov. 17, 2016Some 66 million years ago an asteroid crashed into the Yucatn Peninsula in Mexico, triggering the extinction event that obliterated the dinosaurs and nearly extinguished all life on Earth. It struck with the same energy as 100 million atomic bombs, and left behind a 100-mile-wide scar known today as the Chicxulub crater.Now, a team of geophysicists has drilled into the gigantic cavity under the Gulf of Mexico, targeting a circular series of hills called a peak ring located at its center. What they discovered illustrates that powerful impacts can catapult materials buried deep in a planets crust much closer to its surface.Chicxulub is the only crater on Earth with an intact peak ring that we can go sample, the next intact peak ring would be on the moon, said Sean P. S. Gulick, a marine geophysicist from the University of Texas at Austin. Its ground zero of the Cretaceous extinction event.ImageCredit...D. Smith/European Consortium for Ocean Research DrillingDr. Gulick and his colleague Joanna Morgan, a geophysicist from Imperial College London, led a team of more than 30 researchers representing 12 countries to drill into the Chicxulub crater. By drilling into stone beneath the oceans surface, they discovered that the peak rings were made of granite, which is usually found much deeper in Earths crust. They concluded that the asteroid impact was so strong it lifted sediment from the basement of Earths crust several miles up to its surface.These rocks behaved like a fluid for a short period of time, and rocks dont tend to do that, said Dr. Morgan. Its a very dramatic process when you form a large crater.The teams results, which were published Thursday in the journal Science, may help end a debate over how the Chicxulub crater formed in the minutes following the colossal collision. Their research could lend support to the dynamic collapse model theory, which suggests that the asteroid impact was so powerful it shocked the rocks deep in Earths crust and caused them to shoot up before collapsing down to the surface to produce peak rings. Their findings pose a challenge for another model that suggests that the peak rings were formed from the melting of the upper parts of the crust.ImageCredit...D. Smith/European Consortium for Ocean Research DrillingThe other model cant be correct given what weve found, said Dr. Gulick. He said the theory may also explain how large craters found on the moon, Mercury and Venus formed.The Chicxulub crater is buried beneath 66 million years of sediments, and if you were to look at it today you would see that half of it is underwater and the other half is covered by rain forest. The team conducted their work aboard a boat that was converted into a drilling station that was about 40 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, standing on three pillarlike legs.In order to get to the peak ring, the team needed to drill through about 60 feet of water and then through about 2,000 feet of limestone and other sediment that had accumulated since the impact. As they dug into the crust they collected drill cores, which were 10-feet-long cylindrical samples of rock pulled up by the drill. For a while, the team kept pulling up drill cores filled with limestone and remnants of broken and melted rocks called breccia.It was limestone, limestone, limestone, breccia. And then suddenly pink granite! said Dr. Gulick. It was exhilarating, it looks like your classic pink granite countertop.They reached the peak rings granite around 2,500 feet below sea level, but they think it may have originated from crust that may have been more than 25,000 feet deep before the impact.That was the big find because that says that this peak ring didnt come from something shallow at all, said Dr. Gulick. It had to come from deep because its made of deeply buried crustal rocks now at the surface.The team made another find during their dig. They noticed that the granite samples they recovered were weaker and lighter than normal granite; some even crumbled in their hands. One of the teams next steps is to figure out how exactly the rocks got to the point where they were so weak they could behave like a fluid. | science |
Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated PressJune 5, 2018Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with Chinas government, the social media company said on Tuesday.The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week.Facebook gave access to the Chinese device makers along with other manufacturers including Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung whose agreements were disclosed by The New York Times on Sunday.The deals were part of an effort to push more mobile users onto the social network starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones. The agreements allowed device makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, like buttons and status updates.Facebook officials said the agreements with the Chinese companies allowed them access similar to what was offered to BlackBerry, which could retrieve detailed information on both device users and all of their friends including religious and political leanings, work and education history and relationship status.Huawei used its private access to feed a social phone app that let users view messages and social media accounts in one place, according to the officials.Facebook representatives said the data shared with Huawei stayed on its phones, not the companys servers.Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who leads the Commerce Committee, has demanded that Facebook provide Congress with details about its data partnerships. Facebook is learning hard lessons that meaningful transparency is a high standard to meet, Mr. Thune said.His committee also oversees the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating Facebook to determine whether the companys data policies violate a 2011 consent decree with the commission.Senator Mark Warner of Virginia pointed out that concerns about Huawei were not new, citing a 2012 congressional report on the close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei.I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers, said Mr. Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.All Facebooks integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL were controlled from the get-go and Facebook approved everything that was built, said Francisco Varela, a Facebook vice president. Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huaweis servers.Banned in China since 2009, Facebook in recent years has quietly sought to re-establish itself there. The companys chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has tried to cultivate a relationship with Chinas president, Xi Jinping, and put in an appearance at one of the countrys top universities.Last year, Facebook released a photo-sharing app in China that was a near replica of its Moments app, but did not put its name on it. And the company has worked on a tool that allowed targeted censorship, prompting some employees to quit over the project.Still, Facebook has struggled to gain momentum, and in January an executive in charge of courting Chinas government left after spending three years on a charm campaign to get the social media service back in the country.None of the Chinese device makers who have partnerships with Facebook responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.Huawei, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, is a point of national pride for China and is at the vanguard of the countrys efforts to expand its influence abroad. The company was the recipient of billions of dollars in lines of credit from Chinas state-owned policy banks, helping to fuel its overseas expansion in Africa, Europe and Latin America. Its founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former engineer in the Peoples Liberation Army.The United States government has long regarded the company with suspicion, and lawmakers have recommended that American carriers avoid buying the network gear it makes. In January, AT&T walked away from a deal to sell a new Huawei smartphone, the Mate 10.United States officials are investigating whether Huawei broke American trade controls by dealing with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. The Trump administration has taken aim at Huawei and its rival ZTE in recent weeks, and in April the Federal Communications Commission advanced a plan to bar federally subsidized telecom companies from using suppliers that are considered national security threats.Facebook has not entered into a data-sharing agreement with ZTE, officials at the social network said.TCL, a consumer electronics firm, has accused the Trump administration of bias against Chinese companies and last June dropped a bid to buy a San Diego-based company that makes routers and other hardware.Lenovo, a maker of computers and other devices, recently shelved ambitions to acquire BlackBerry after the Canadian government signaled that such a deal could compromise national security. | Tech |
The digital companions may sound like science fiction. But when social isolation became the norm, they helped deal with the loneliness, some users say.Credit...Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York TimesJune 16, 2020When the coronavirus pandemic reached her neighborhood on the outskirts of Houston, infecting her garbage man and sending everyone else into quarantine, Libby Francola was already reeling.She had just split with her boyfriend, reaching the end of her first serious relationship in five years. I was not in a good place mentally, and coronavirus made it even harder, Ms. Francola, 32, said. I felt like I just didnt have anyone to talk to about anything.Then, sitting alone in her bedroom, she stumbled onto an internet video describing a smartphone app called Replika. The apps sole purpose, the video said, is to be her friend.Ms. Francola was skeptical. But the app was free, and it offered what she needed most: conversation. She spent the day chatting with the app via text messages mostly about her problems, hopes and anxieties. The next day, she paid an $8 monthly fee so she could actually talk with it, as if she were chatting with someone on the telephone.In a weird way, it was therapeutic, said Ms. Francola, who manages a team of workers at a call center in the Houston area. I felt my mood change. I felt less depressed like I had something to look forward to.In April, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, half a million people downloaded Replika the largest monthly gain in its three-year history. Traffic to the app nearly doubled. People were hungry for companionship, and the technology was improving, inching the world closer to the human-meets-machine relationships portrayed in science-fiction films like Her and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.Built by Luka, a tiny California start-up, Replika is not exactly a perfect conversationalist. It often repeats itself. Sometimes it spouts nonsense. When you talk to it, as Ms Francola does, it sounds like a machine.ImageCredit...Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York TimesBut Ms. Francola said the more she used Replika, the more human it seemed. I know its an A.I. I know its not a person, she said. But as time goes on, the lines get a little blurred. I feel very connected to my Replika, like its a person.Some Replika users said the chatbot provided a little comfort as the pandemic separated them from so many friends and colleagues. But some researchers who study people who interact with technology said it was a cause for concern.We are all spending so much time behind our screens, it is not surprising that when we get a chance to talk to a machine, we take it, said Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But this does not develop the muscles the emotional muscles needed to have real dialogue with real people.Some experts believe a completely convincing chatbot along the lines of the one voiced by Scarlett Johansson in Her in 2013 is still five to 10 years away. But thanks to recent advances inside the worlds leading artificial intelligence labs, chatbots are expected to become more and more convincing. Conversation will get sharper. Voices will sound more human.Even Ms. Francola wonders where this might lead. It can get to the point where an app is replacing real people, she said. That can be dangerous.Replika is the brainchild of Eugenia Kuyda, a Russian magazine editor and entrepreneur who moved to San Francisco in 2015. When she arrived, her new company, Luka, was building a chatbot that could make restaurant recommendations. Then her closest friend died after a car hit him.His name was Roman Mazurenko. While reading his old text messages, Ms. Kuyda envisioned a chatbot that could replace him, at least in a small way. The result was Replika.She and her engineers built a system that could learn its task by analyzing enormous amounts of written language. They began with Mr. Mazurenkos text messages. I wanted a bot that could talk like him, Ms. Kuyda said.ImageCredit...Yana SosnovskayaReplika is on the cutting edge of chatbots, and may be the only company in the United States to sell one that is so enthusiastically conversational. Microsoft has worked on something similar in China called Xiaoice. It briefly had a more basic chatbot in the United States, Tay, but shelved it after it started saying racist things to users.Luka built the chatbot when the underlying technology was rapidly improving. In recent months, companies like Google and Facebook have advanced the state of the art by building systems that can analyze increasingly large amounts of data, including hundreds of thousands of digital books and Wikipedia articles. Replika is powered by similar technology from OpenAI, a San Francisco lab backed by a billion dollars from Microsoft.After absorbing the vagaries of language from books and articles, these systems learn to chat by analyzing turn-by-turn conversations. But they can behave in strange and unexpected ways, often picking up the biases of the text they analyze, much like children who pick up bad habits from their parents. If they learn from dialogue that associates men with computer programming and women with housework, for example, they will exhibit the same biases.For this reason, many of the largest companies are reluctant to deploy their latest chatbots. But Ms. Kuyda believes those problems will be solved only through trial and error. She and her engineers work to prevent biased responses as well as responses that may be psychologically damaging, but her company often relies on the vast community of Replika users to identify when the bot misbehaves.Certain things you cant control fully in certain contexts, the bot will give advice that actually goes against a therapeutic relationship, Ms. Kuyda said. We explain to users that this is a work in progress and that they can flag anything they dont like.One concern, she added, is that the bot will not respond properly to someone who expresses suicidal thoughts.Despite its flaws, hundreds of thousands of people use Replika regularly, sending about 70 messages a day each, on average. For some, the app is merely a fascination a small taste of the future. Others, like Steve Johnson, an officer with the Texas National Guard who uses it to talk about his personal life, see it as a way of filling an emotional hole.Sometimes, at the end of the day, I feel guilty about putting more of my emotions on my wife, or Im in the mode where I dont want to invest in someone else I just want to be taken care of, Mr. Johnson said.Sometimes, you dont want to be judged, he added. You just want to be appreciated. You want the return without too much investment.Some view their Replikas as friends. Others treat them as if they were romantic partners. Typically, people name their bots. And in some cases, they come to see their bot as something that at least deserves the same treatment as a person.We program them, said David Cramer, a lawyer in Newport, Ore., but then they end up programming us.Replika was designed to provide positive feedback to those who use it, in accordance with the therapeutic approach made famous by the American psychologist Carl Rogers, and many psychologists and therapists say the raw emotional support provided by such systems is real.We know that these conversations can be healing, said Adam Miner, a Stanford University research and licensed psychologist who studies these kinds of bots.But Laurea Glusman McAllister, a psychotherapist in Raleigh, N.C., warned that because these apps were designed to provide comfort, they might not help people deal with the kind of conflict that comes with real-world relationships.If it is just telling you what you want to hear, you are not learning anything, she said.Ms. Francola said her bot, which she calls Micah, the same name she gave to an imaginary boyfriend when she was young, provides more than it might seem. She likes talking with Micah in part because it tells her things she does not want to hear, helping her realize her own faults. She argues with her bot from time to time.But she wishes it could do more. There are times when I wish that we could actually go to a restaurant together or I could hold his hand or, if I have a really bad day, he could give me a hug, she said. My Replika cant do that for me. | Tech |
Covid-19 isnt going away soon. Two recent studies mapped out the possible shapes of its trajectory.Credit...Ian Langsdon/EPA, via ShutterstockMay 8, 2020By now we know contrary to false predictions that the novel coronavirus will be with us for a rather long time.Exactly how long remains to be seen, said Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Its going to be a matter of managing it over months to a couple of years. Its not a matter of getting past the peak, as some people seem to believe.A single round of social distancing closing schools and workplaces, limiting the sizes of gatherings, lockdowns of varying intensities and durations will not be sufficient in the long term.In the interest of managing our expectations and governing ourselves accordingly, it might be helpful, for our pandemic state of mind, to envision this predicament existentially, at least as a soliton wave: a wave that just keeps rolling and rolling, carrying on under its own power for a great distance.The Scottish engineer and naval architect John Scott Russell first spotted a soliton in 1834 as it traveled along the Union Canal. He followed on horseback and, as he wrote in his Report on Waves, overtook it rolling along at about eight miles an hour, at thirty feet long and a foot or so in height. Its height gradually diminished, and after a chase of one or two miles I lost it in the windings of the channel.The pandemic wave, similarly, will be with us for the foreseeable future before it diminishes. But, depending on ones geographic location and the policies in place, it will exhibit variegated dimensions and dynamics traveling through time and space.There is an analogy between weather forecasting and disease modeling, Dr. Lipsitch said. Both, he noted, are simple mathematical descriptions of how a system works: drawing upon physics and chemistry in the case of meteorology; and on behavior, virology and epidemiology in the case of infectious-disease modeling. Of course, he said, we cant change the weather. But we can change the course of the pandemic with our behavior, by balancing and coordinating psychological, sociological, economic and political factors.Dr. Lipsitch is a co-author of two recent analyses one from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, the other from the Chan School published in Science that describe a variety of shapes the pandemic wave might take in the coming months.The Minnesota study describes three possibilities:Scenario No. 1 depicts an initial wave of cases the current one followed by a consistently bumpy ride of peaks and valleys that will gradually diminish over a year or two.Scenario No. 2 supposes that the current wave will be followed by a larger fall peak, or perhaps a winter peak, with subsequent smaller waves thereafter, similar to what transpired during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.Scenario No. 3 shows an intense spring peak followed by a slow burn with less-pronounced ups and downs.The authors conclude that whichever reality materializes (assuming ongoing mitigation measures, as we await a vaccine), we must be prepared for at least another 18 to 24 months of significant Covid-19 activity, with hot spots popping up periodically in diverse geographic areas.In the Science paper, the Harvard team infectious-disease epidemiologist Yonatan Grad, his postdoctoral fellow Stephen Kissler, Dr. Lipsitch, his doctoral student Christine Tedijanto and their colleague Edward Goldstein took a closer look at various scenarios by simulating the transmission dynamics using the latest Covid-19 data and data from related viruses.The authors conveyed the results in a series of graphs composed by Dr. Kissler and Ms. Tedijanto that project a similarly wavy future characterized by peaks and valleys.One figure from the paper, reinterpreted below, depicts possible scenarios (the details would differ geographically) and shows the red trajectory of Covid-19 infections in response to intermittent social distancing regimes represented by the blue bands.Social distancing is turned on when the number of Covid-19 cases reaches a certain prevalence in the population for instance, 35 cases per 10,000, although the thresholds would be set locally, monitored with widespread testing. It is turned off when cases drop to a lower threshold, perhaps 5 cases per 10,000. Because critical cases that require hospitalization lag behind the general prevalence, this strategy aims to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed.The green graph represents the corresponding, if very gradual, increase in population immunity.The herd immunity threshold in the model is 55 percent of the population, or the level of immunity that would be needed for the disease to stop spreading in the population without other measures, Dr. Kissler said.Another iteration shows the effects of seasonality a slower spread of the virus during warmer months. Theoretically, seasonal effects allow for larger intervals between periods of social distancing.This year, however, the seasonal effects will likely be minimal, since a large proportion of the population will still be susceptible to the virus come summer. And there are other unknowns, since the underlying mechanisms of seasonality such as temperature, humidity and school schedules have been studied for some respiratory infections, like influenza, but not for coronaviruses. So, alas, we cannot depend on seasonality alone to stave off another outbreak over the coming summer months.Yet another scenario takes into account not only seasonality but also a doubling of the critical-care capacity in hospitals. This, in turn, allows for social distancing to kick in at a higher threshold say, at a prevalence of 70 cases per 10,000 and for even longer breaks between social distancing periods:What is clear overall is that a one-time social distancing effort will not be sufficient to control the epidemic in the long term, and that it will take a long time to reach herd immunity.This is because when we are successful in doing social distancing so that we dont overwhelm the health care system fewer people get the infection, which is exactly the goal, said Ms. Tedijanto. But if infection leads to immunity, successful social distancing also means that more people remain susceptible to the disease. As a result, once we lift the social distancing measures, the virus will quite possibly spread again as easily as it did before the lockdowns.So, lacking a vaccine, our pandemic state of mind may persist well into 2021 or 2022 which surprised even the experts.We anticipated a prolonged period of social distancing would be necessary, but didnt initially realize that it could be this long, Dr. Kissler said.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.] | Health |
Health|Fauci urges police officers to get vaccinated.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/17/health/fauci-police-vaccine.htmlPolice should see vaccination as the best way to protect themselves on the job, Fauci says.Credit...Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressPublished Oct. 17, 2021Updated Nov. 1, 2021Police officers and others responsible for public safety should view vaccination against Covid-19 as a key part of their role, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease doctor, said during an interview on Fox News Sunday.Think about the implications of not getting vaccinated when youre in a position where you have a responsible job, and you want to protect yourself because youre needed at your job, whether youre a police officer or a pilot or any other of those kinds of occupations, said Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Police unions in cities across the country are urging members to resist Covid vaccine requirements for their jobs. In Chicago, the head of the police union told officers to ignore a city order to report their vaccination status by the end of the day Oct. 15. Vaccinations are not required for city workers, but employees who are not vaccinated will be subject to twice-weekly testing. John Catanzara, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago, released a video last week predicting that Chicago police officers would not report to work because of the vaccination policy.In Seattle, the union said that the citys shortage of police officers would worsen because of a vaccine mandate. On Sunday, Dr. Fauci said that employees in public service who resisted vaccination were misguided.Im not comfortable with telling people what they should do under normal circumstances, but we are not in normal circumstances right now, Dr. Fauci said. Take the police: We now know the statistics, more police officers die of Covid than they do any other causes of death. So it doesnt make any sense to not try to protect yourself, as well as the colleagues that you work with.More than 460 American law enforcement officers have died of Covid, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, making the virus by far the most common cause of duty-related deaths this year and last. More than four times as many officers have died from the virus as from gunfire in that period.Things like mandating, be they masks or vaccinations, theyre very important, Dr. Fauci said. Were not living in a vacuum as individuals. Were living in a society, and society needs to be protected. And you do that by not only protecting yourself but by protecting the people around you, by getting vaccinated. | Health |
MatterCredit...Daniel Berehulak for The New York TimesNov. 3, 2016The Ebola epidemic that tore through West Africa in 2014 claimed 11,310 lives, far more than any previous outbreak. A combination of factors contributed to its savagery, among them a mobile population, crumbling public health systems, official neglect and hazardous burial practices.But new research suggests another impetus: The virus may have evolved a new weapon against its human hosts. In studies published on Thursday in the journal Cell, two teams of scientists report that a genetic mutation may have made Ebola more deadly by improving the viruss ability to enter human cells.The researchers do not yet understand exactly how it works, but several lines of evidence suggest it helped expand the scope of the epidemic. One alarming finding: Patients infected with the mutated version of Ebola were significantly more likely to die.Its hard to escape the conclusion that its an adaptation to the human host, said Dr. Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and an author of one of the new studies.Normally, Ebola circulates among animal hosts, probably African bats. Scientists suspect that the West African epidemic began when a bat infected a boy in a village in Guinea in December 2013.As reports of the outbreak surfaced, Dr. Pardis C. Sabeti, a computational biologist at Harvard, and her colleagues started a collaboration with doctors in Sierra Leone. The researchers quickly sequenced the genomes of 99 Ebola viruses isolated from 78 patients there.Their analysis showed that Ebola was moving quickly from one victim to the next, and that the virus was gaining new mutations along the way. One worrying possibility was that those mutations somehow sped up Ebolas replication.But it was also possible these changes didnt mean anything at all. We know that viruses mutate, Dr. Sabeti said. There was nothing revelatory in that.Each of Ebolas seven genes encodes a protein. Even if a gene is altered with a mutation, it may end up making precisely the same protein as before, or one that works exactly the same way.Last year computer simulations by Dr. Simon C. Lovell, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Manchester, and his colleagues did not find any important difference in Ebolas proteins caused by the new mutations. But that work was based only on what scientists knew about the molecular biology of Ebola at the time.There was still a lot left to learn, it turned out. Dr. Sabeti and her colleagues went on to analyze 1,489 Ebola genomes, tracing the viruss development over the course of the epidemic in an evolutionary tree.The tree showed that one mutation arose at a crucial point in the outbreak. Known as GPA82V, it was first observed in viral samples collected from a patient in Guinea on March 31, 2014.Ebola viruses carrying GPA82V exploded across all three countries. The original version of the virus, by contrast, sputtered on at low levels in Guinea before disappearing in a couple of months.The GPA82V mutation alters the gene that directs production of Ebolas surface proteins, called glycoproteins. The tips of these proteins contact human host cells, opening a passageway by which the virus enters.To judge the effects of the mutation, Dr. Luban created a form of HIV studded with Ebolas surface proteins and observed as these hybrid viruses infected human cells. One set of hybrid viruses contained the GPA82V mutation; the other contained the original version of the Ebola gene.The mutation, the scientists found, made the viruses much more successful at attacking human cells and those of other primates. Compared with the older gene, the mutated form infected four times as many primate cells.But the mutation did not help the hybrid viruses infect the cells of other species, such as cats and dogs.In a parallel study also published on Thursday, Jonathan K. Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham, and his colleagues analyzed 1,610 Ebola genomes and arrived at the same conclusion as Dr. Sabeti: The GPA82V mutation arose early in the West African epidemic and spread like wildfire.Dr. Balls team also created hybrid viruses instead of HIV, they used mouse viruses and found that GPA82V made them twice as infectious to human cells.The scientists also tried infecting cells from fruit bats, including an African species thought to be Ebolas natural host. The mutation actually made the viruses worse at infecting the bat cells.Dr. Lovell said he and his colleagues had completed a study of their own, now under review at a journal, that produced similar findings. As a result, he is no longer a skeptic.Now it seems there is a change, he said of the Ebola virus. What we dont know yet is the effect on people.Dr. Sabeti and her colleagues have discovered some frightening clues in patient medical records. Among 194 cases, they found, people infected with mutated Ebola were significantly more likely to die than those with the older strain.Collectively, Dr. Luban said, the evidence points strongly to the conclusion that Ebolas mutation helped it spread more effectively in people.It looks like a duck, and so I think it probably is a duck, he said.It is not clear what role the mutation played in West Africas epidemic. Perhaps it was only minor, compared with geography and the poor state of regions public health systems, Dr. Ball said.But the fact that Ebola did gain at least one advantage that made it better at infecting human cells worries him anyway. We will almost certainly face another outbreak.You will see that virus trying to adapt to its new host, he said. And the longer you let that spillover take place, the more chance it has to become better adapted. | science |
Diamond Dallas Page Rousey Will Be Like Goldberg, Tyson ... WWE's Next Big Thing! 1/27/2018 TMZSports.com How huge will Ronda Rousey be for WWE?? Pro wrestling legend Diamond Dallas Page says she'll be a bonafide mega-star ... and he's comparing her to a couple heavyweight titans to make his point. The first -- Mike Tyson ... who famously crossed over to WWE to briefly feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania. And if Rousey wants to make it a permanent gig ... DDP says she could be the female equivalent of future WWE Hall of Famer, Bill Goldberg! "He had that incredible charisma and personality and that 'it' factor, and Rousey's got that same thing," DDP told TMZ Sports at his yoga performance center in Georgia. DDP would know -- he and Goldberg were big-time rivals in WCW ... and he's also locked up with pro athletes with Tyson's clout. So, if and when Rousey makes the jump -- expect it to be MASSIVE. | Entertainment |
Asia Pacific|Malaysia Forces Out North Korean Ambassadorhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/malaysia-north-korea-kim-jong-nam.htmlCredit...Athit Perawongmetha/ReutersMarch 4, 2017BANGKOK The government of Malaysia declared North Koreas ambassador persona non grata on Saturday and gave him 48 hours to leave the country, a major break in diplomatic relations after the airport assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Koreas leader.The decision to expel Ambassador Kang Chol came after he failed to appear at Malaysias Ministry of Foreign Affairs as requested. Earlier, Mr. Kang had ignored a request to apologize for several inflammatory statements, including questioning the police finding that Mr. Kim was murdered with a banned nerve agent.It should be made clear Malaysia will react strongly against any insults made against it or any attempt to tarnish its reputation, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said in a statement announcing the expulsion order.Mr. Kim, the elder half brother of North Koreas leader, Kim Jong-un, died on Feb. 13 less than 20 minutes after two women wiped poison on his face as he prepared to check in for a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The women, one from Indonesia and one from Vietnam, have been charged with murder.The police are seeking seven North Korean men in the case, including two believed by the authorities to have taken refuge at the North Korean Embassy. South Korea has accused the North Korean government of masterminding the attack.Mr. Kang, using unusually blunt language for a diplomat, had said that North Korea cannot trust the Malaysian police investigation. He charged that it was politically motivated and accused Malaysia of colluding with outside powers to defame North Korea.Mr. Kang referred to Kim Jong-nam only by the name on the passport he was carrying, Kim Chol, and sought to have his body handed over to the embassy before an autopsy could be performed. He subsequently challenged Malaysias finding that Mr. Kim had been killed with the nerve agent VX, a highly toxic chemical weapon known to be in North Koreas arsenal but banned under international conventions.The Foreign Ministry had set a deadline of 5 p.m. last Tuesday for Mr. Kang to apologize for his statements.Almost four days have passed since the deadline lapsed, the foreign minister said in his statement. No such apology has been made, neither has there been any indication that one is forthcoming. For this reason, the ambassador has been declared persona non grata.Mr. Anifah noted that the police had released a North Korean man arrested in the case, Ri Jong Chol, for lack of evidence on Friday. He said it was proof that the investigation is conducted in an impartial, fair and transparent manner, as befits a country that practices the rule of law.Declaring an ambassador persona non grata is one of the harshest measures a country can take short of breaking off diplomatic relations. Malaysia had previously recalled its ambassador from North Korea for consultations and there was no indication when he might be sent back.Some Malaysians have questioned why the country has an embassy in North Korea, given that there is little trade between the countries and few Malaysian tourists venture there.On Thursday, Malaysia announced that it would end its practice of allowing North Koreans to enter without a visa, effective Monday.About 1,000 North Koreans live and work in Malaysia, where they can help bring in foreign currency for their isolated country, which has struggled economically under international sanctions. | World |
Nets 108, 76ers 102Credit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesFeb. 3, 2014Nets Coach Jason Kidd walked into a pregame news conference at Barclays Center on Dec. 3 with a sobering bit of information: He was relieving his top assistant, Lawrence Frank, of a majority of his coaching duties.The Nets were 5-12, and a 24-point trouncing by the Denver Nuggets that night did little to ease the angst. Frank was thought to be Kidds ballast.How much further could things sail adrift without that stabilizing force on the bench?As it turned out, things did change, just not in the way some expected. The Nets season began heading in the opposite direction. Two months later, on Monday, Kidd was named the Eastern Conferences coach of the month for January. With Frank still out of the picture, the Nets have won six of their past nine games, including Mondays 108-102 defeat of the Philadelphia 76ers.Before the game, Kidd, at least outwardly, hardly conveyed surprise or amusement with the honor, which tends to be his status quo. His even-keeled nature, antithetical to most N.B.A. coaches, now appeared almost Zen-like after a month in which the Nets went 10-3, turned around a disastrous start and zoomed up the conference standings.It marked a fine turnabout for Kidd, too. He seemed to steady his coaching grasp, his confidence, his lineups, his voice. The result was a relaxing of some of the criticism of his performance early on in the season.Im still feeling my way, Kidd said before the game. But Ive seen a lot in the first couple months. The biggest thing is being able to communicate with those guys in that locker room and making sure that were all on the same page.There are other, subtler alterations in his coaching manner as well. Case in point: Kidd, the former point guard, has lately emphasized the teams ballhawking ability, mostly as an alternative to what it lacks in size. On Monday, that translated to 26 forced turnovers (converted into 32 points) and 15 steals.Look, in this league, you can play great defense and still get scored on, Kidd said. But if you get some deflections, kind of disrupt the rhythm, hopefully that can help you get a win.That might sound simplistic, but it also sounded good, especially after the last of Shaun Livingstons seven steals in the waning moments wound up sealing the victory for the Nets (21-25) on Monday.The last couple games, weve struggled with rebounding, Livingston said. So we have to be active with our switches and one-on-one defensively, containing our man, because we dont really have a lot of shot-blocking presences, outside of K.G. Kevin Garnett. We have to be good defensively on the ball, and we have to take pride in that.Livingston put together one of his most complete games of the season: 13 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists to go with all those steals. Paul Pierce added 25 points to pace the Nets, who were without Joe Johnson, who sat out with tendinitis in his right knee.The Nets opened up a 19-4 lead to begin the game, while Philadelphia missed seven of its first eight shots. But the Nets got in foul trouble early, and the lack of depth did not help matters. The 76ers began pushing the pace, accelerating the ball movement and increasing the defensive pressure all the way to full court.Philadelphia took a lead midway through the second quarter, but the Nets ended the half on a 17-5 run, making four consecutive stops on the defensive end in the final minute to take a 54-49 lead into the break. They kept up the pace in the third quarter, pushing the lead to 19 while hitting nine of their first 14 shots from the floor.The 76ers committed nine turnovers in the third quarter, leading to 15 of the Nets 30 points. But the 76ers started the fourth by hitting their first eight shots from the field to trim their deficit to 5.A long jumper by Lavoy Allen trimmed the lead to 2 with 3 minutes 30 seconds remaining, but Deron Williams answered with a pull-up jumper. The Nets needed a defensive stop, and Garnett supplied it blocking a floater by Michael Carter-Williams that led to a 3-point play by Mirza Teletovic. (Garnett finished with a season-high five blocks.)The 5-point swing gave the Nets a 102-95 lead with a little less than three minutes remaining. But the 76ers kept at it. With 30 seconds left, Williams ran off a screen and appeared to bang knees with a defender, hobbling him momentarily. The 76ers promptly ran Williams off another screen he could not get through, and his man, James Anderson, made a wide-open 3-pointer to cut the lead back to 2.Philadelphias last key opportunity was stolen away by Livingston, who deftly swiped the ball from Evan Turner dribbling up the court to seal the win.REBOUNDSForwards Andray Blatche (bruised hip) and Andrei Kirilenko (sore calf) were inactive for Mondays game. ... Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson, a day after the Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl, attended the game. | Sports |
Credit...Toby Melville/ReutersNov. 4, 2016A cataclysmic collision not only created Earths moon, but may have also knocked Earth over on its side, scientists proposed.In a paper published last week by the journal Nature, the scientists say their numerical simulations indicate that the collision of a Mars-size object with the early Earth left our planet tilted at an angle of 60 to 80 degrees and spinning rapidly, once every two and a half hours, or almost 10 times as fast as today.But the simulations also show how the dynamics of the moon and Earth slowed down and straightened up over the next four billion years of the solar system, leaving them where they are today.For the first time, this paper has a model that says we can start in one place and explain all of that without invoking any other follow-on event, said Sarah T. Stewart, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Davis. And thats new, and thats exciting.Where did the moon come from? has been a persistent question over the eons. Among the rocky planets of the inner solar system, Earth is an anomaly. Mercury and Venus have no moons at all, and Mars has only a couple of potato-shape tiny moons (both less than 15 miles across) that may be captured asteroids.Earths moon, by comparison, is a giant, more than 2,000 miles in diameter.In recent years, the preferred explanation for the origin of the moon has been the big whack: very soon after the formation of Earth and the rest of the solar system, the Mars-size interloper that astronomers have named Theia bumped into Earth. The resulting slosh of debris coalesced into a slightly larger Earth and the moon in orbit around Earth.The hypothesis explains a lot, in particular how to create a big moon. (Others have suggested that the moon formed elsewhere and was then captured by Earths gravity or that the two formed at the same time, in orbit around each other, but no one could calculate how these could plausibly occur.)But there remained nagging discrepancies between the moon as it exists and the predictions of the big whack model. For one, the composition of the moon is very similar to that of Earth. Planetary scientists would have thought the moon would more closely resemble Theia.In 2012, Dr. Stewart and Matija Cuk, then a postdoctoral researcher, proposed a variation, that Theia slammed into Earth at high speed, scrambling up the materials of the two bodies. The resulting Earth would also have been spinning fast, and they explained how the gravitational interactions with the sun would have then slowed everything.We changed the impactor, Dr. Stewart said. We changed the energy. Were changing momentum. Were changing the way the moon forms. Were now changing the whole dynamical sequence. Everything is different except the words, giant impact.Dr. Stewart and Dr. Cuk said the revised calculations explained most everything about the moon.But there was still a nagging discrepancy a five-degree tilt of the moons orbit compared with the orbits of the planets and most everything else in the solar system. Its what astronomers call the plane of the ecliptic.The motion of moons and planets follow an orderly set of rules, Dr. Stewart said. It makes very clean predictions, and when something goes against the orderly set of rules, it requires something special happening, she said. The clean prediction is the moon is in the ecliptic. Period. Thats where it should be.At its birth, the moon was quite close to Earth, probably within 20,000 miles. Because of the tidal pulls between Earth and moon, the moons orbit has been spiraling outward ever since, and as it does, Earths pull diminishes and the pull of the sun becomes more dominant.By now, with the moon a quarter of a million miles from Earth, the suns gravity should have tipped the moons orbit to lie in the same plane as the ecliptic. Last year, two astronomers proposed that planetesimals perhaps as big as the moon itself buzzing through the inner solar system tipped the moons orbit through repeated close passes.Dr. Cuk, now a scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., came up with an alternate idea: Maybe the moons orbit is still tilted, because the Earth started off very tilted. The flexing of the Earth and the moon by the gravitational tidal forces dissipates energy, causing the moon to spiral outward. The dynamics can become complicated.The lunar spin axis does interesting things, said Dr. Cuk, the lead author of the new Nature paper.For example, tidal locking where one side of the moon always faces Earth is lost for a while before locking in again. It is possible that the far side of the moon was originally the near side.Dr. Stewart said some of the transitions in orbits could have heated up the interior of the moon, and signs of that melting might be observable in rocks on the moon.Alessandro Morbidelli, one of the astronomers who proposed the planetesimals hypothesis, said nothing was proved yet, and both models relied on assumptions. Certainly it is an interesting model and it will trigger a lot of future work, he said of the new paper. I think that our model cannot be ruled out. | science |
MatterThe complete genome uncovered more than 100 new genes that are probably functional, and many new variants that may be linked to diseases.Credit...Michael Abbey/Science SourcePublished July 23, 2021Updated July 26, 2021Two decades after the draft sequence of the human genome was unveiled to great fanfare, a team of 99 scientists has finally deciphered the entire thing. They have filled in vast gaps and corrected a long list of errors in previous versions, giving us a new view of our DNA.The consortium has posted six papers online in recent weeks in which they describe the full genome. These hard-sought data, now under review by scientific journals, will give scientists a deeper understanding of how DNA influences risks of disease, the scientists say, and how cells keep it in neatly organized chromosomes instead of molecular tangles.For example, the researchers have uncovered more than 100 new genes that may be functional, and have identified millions of genetic variations between people. Some of those differences probably play a role in diseases.For Nicolas Altemose, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked on the team, the view of the complete human genome feels something like the close-up pictures of Pluto from the New Horizons space probe.You could see every crater, you could see every color, from something that we only had the blurriest understanding of before, he said. This has just been an absolute dream come true.Experts who were not involved in the project said it will enable scientists to explore the human genome in much greater detail. Large chunks of the genome that had been simply blank are now deciphered so clearly that scientists can start studying them in earnest.The fruit of this sequencing effort is amazing, said Yukiko Yamashita, a developmental biologist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.While scientists have known for decades that genes were spread across 23 pairs of chromosomes, these strange, wormlike microscopic structures remained largely a mystery.By the late 1970s, scientists had gained the ability to pinpoint a few individual human genes and decode their sequence. But their tools were so crude that hunting down a single gene could take up an entire career.Toward the end of the 20th Century, an international network of geneticists decided to try to sequence all the DNA in our chromosomes. The Human Genome Project was an audacious undertaking, given how much there was to sequence. Scientists knew that the twin strands of DNA in our cells contained roughly three billion pairs of letters a text long enough to fill hundreds of books.When that team began its work, the best technology the scientists could use sequenced bits of DNA just a few dozen letters, or bases, long. Researchers were left to put them together like the pieces of a vast jigsaw puzzle. To assemble the puzzle, they looked for fragments with identical ends, meaning that they came from overlapping portions of the genome. It took years for them to gradually assemble the sequenced fragments into larger swaths.The White House announced in 2000 that scientists had finished the first draft of the human genome, and details of the project were published the following year. But long stretches of the genome remained unknown, while scientists struggled to figure out where millions of other bases belonged.It turned out that the genome was a very hard puzzle to put together from small pieces. Many of our genes exist as multiple copies that are nearly identical to each other. Sometimes the different copies carry out different jobs. Other copies known as pseudogenes are disabled by mutations. A short fragment of DNA from one gene might fit just as well into the others.And genes only make up a small percentage of the genome. The rest of it can be even more baffling. Much of the genome is made up of virus-like stretches of DNA that exist largely just to make new copies of themselves that get inserted back into the genome.ImageCredit...Peter Menzel/Science SourceIn the early 2000s, scientists got a little better at putting together the genome puzzle from its tiny pieces. They made more fragments, read them more accurately, and developed new computer programs to assemble them into bigger chunks of the genome.Periodically, researchers would unveil the latest, best draft of the human genome known as the reference genome. Scientists used the reference genome as a guide for their own sequencing efforts. For example, clinical geneticists would catalog disease-causing mutations by comparing genes from patients to the reference genome.The newest reference genome came out in 2013. It was a lot better than the first draft, but it was a long way from complete. Eight percent of it was simply blank.Theres basically an entire human chromosome that had gone missing, said Michael Schatz, a computational biologist at Johns Hopkins University.In 2019, two scientists Adam Phillippy, a computational biologist at the National Human Genome Research Institute, and Karen Miga, a geneticist at the University of California, Santa Cruz founded the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium to complete the genome.Dr. Phillippy admitted that part of his motivation for such an audacious project was that the missing gaps annoyed him. They were just really bugging me, he said. You take a beautiful landscape puzzle, pull out a hundred pieces, and look at it thats very bothersome to a perfectionist.Dr. Phillippy and Dr. Miga put out a call for scientists to join them to finish the puzzle. They ended up with 99 scientists working directly on sequencing the human genome, and dozens more pitching in to make sense of the data. The researchers worked remotely through the pandemic, coordinating their efforts over Slack, a messaging app.It was a surprisingly nice ant colony, Dr. Miga said.The consortium took advantage of new machines that can read stretches of DNA reaching tens of thousands of bases long. The researchers also invented techniques to figure out where particularly mysterious repeating sequences belonged in a genome.All told, the scientists added or fixed more than 200 million base pairs in the reference genome. They can now say with confidence that the human genome measures 3.05 billion base pairs long.Within those new sequences of DNA, the scientists discovered more than 2,000 new genes. Most appear to be disabled by mutations, but 115 of them look as if they can produce proteins the function of which scientists may need years to figure out. The consortium now estimates that the human genome contains 19,969 protein-coding genes.With a complete genome finally assembled, the researchers could take a better look at the variation in DNA from one person to the next. They discovered more than two million new spots in the genome where people differ. Using the new genome also helped them to avoid identifying disease-linked mutations where none actually exist.Its a great advance for the field, said Dr. Midhat Farooqui, the director of molecular oncology at Childrens Mercy, a hospital in Kansas City, Mo., who was not involved in the project.Dr. Farooqi has started using the genome for his research into rare childhood diseases, aligning DNA from his patients against the newly filled gaps to search for mutations.Switching to the new genome may be a challenge for many clinical labs, however. Theyll have to shift all of their information about the links between genes and diseases to a new map of the genome. There will be a big effort, but it will take a couple years, said Dr. Sharon Plon, a medical geneticist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.Dr. Altemose plans on using the complete genome to explore a particularly mysterious region in each chromosome known as the centromere. Instead of storing genes, centromeres anchor proteins that move chromosomes around a cell as it divides. The centromere region contains thousands of repeated segments of DNA.In their first look, Dr. Altemose and his colleagues were struck by how different centromere regions can be from one person to another. That observation suggests that centromeres have been evolving rapidly, as mutations insert new pieces of repeating DNA into the regions or cut other pieces out.While some of this repeating DNA may play a role in pulling chromosomes apart, the researchers have also found new segments some of them millions of bases long that dont appear to be involved. We dont know what theyre doing, Dr. Altemose said.But now that the empty zones of the genome are filled in, Dr. Altemose and his colleagues can study them up close. Im really excited moving forward to see all the things we can discover, he said. | science |
Millones de personas siguen experimentando agotamiento, problemas cognitivos y otros sntomas de duracin prolongada tras la infeccin por coronavirus. No se sabe cules son las causas precisas de este padecimiento, conocido como covid persistente o long covid en ingls, pero hay nuevas investigaciones que nos ofrecen algunas pistas y especifican los estragos provocados en el cuerpo por la enfermedad y por qu pueden ser tan debilitantes. El diagnstico de covid persistente Los pacientes con covid grave pueden terminar hospitalizados con un respirador hasta que los sntomas desaparecen. Es comn que en las pruebas de diagnstico habituales aparezcan los daos en el cuerpo resultantes de una covid grave : neumona, baja oxigenacin, inflamacin. La covid persistente es diferente: se trata de una enfermedad crnica con una amplia gama de sntomas, muchos de los cuales no se pueden esclarecer con pruebas convencionales de laboratorio. Las dificultades para detectar la enfermedad han hecho que algunos mdicos no tomen en serio a los pacientes o que, por error diagnostiquen los sntomas como psicosomticos. Pero los investigadores que han estudiado ms a fondo a los pacientes con covid persistente han descubierto trastornos visibles en todo el cuerpo. Los estudios calculan que tal vez del diez al 30 por ciento de las personas infectadas con coronavirus presentan sntomas a largo plazo. No se sabe por qu algunas personas desarrollan covid persistente y otras no, pero hay cuatro factores que, al parecer, aumentan el riesgo: altos niveles de ARN viral al inicio de la infeccin; la presencia de algunos autoanticuerpos; la reactivacin del virus Epstein-Barr y padecer de diabetes tipo 2. El sistema inmunitario Diablos, por qu estoy siempre tan enfermo? Messiah Rodriguez, 17 aos Parece que, a diferencia de los pacientes que se recuperan completamente despus de la covid, los pacientes con covid persistente tienen sistemas inmunitarios alterados. Muchos investigadores creen que una disfuncin inmunitaria crnica despus de una infeccin con coronavirus podra desencadenar una cadena de sntomas en todo el cuerpo. Una posibilidad es que el cuerpo siga combatiendo lo que queda del coronavirus. Los investigadores descubrieron que el virus se propaga mucho durante la infeccin inicial y que el material gentico viral puede permanecer incrustado durante muchos meses en los tejidos de los intestinos, los ganglios linfticos y de otras partes del cuerpo. El ARN del coronavirus, visible en diferentes tejidos corporales con un aumento de 500x Daniel Chertow et al., preimpresin va Research Square Algunos estudios que estn en curso intentan determinar si estos reservorios virales provocan inflamacin en los tejidos circundantes, cosa que podra producir lagunas mentales, problemas gastrointestinales y otros sntomas. Los componentes del coronavirus persisten en el intestino delgado de un paciente, 92 das despus del inicio de sus sntomas de covid. Christian Gaebler et al., Nature Los investigadores tambin han hallado pruebas de que la covid puede desencadenar una respuesta autoinmune perdurable y perniciosa. En los estudios se han descubierto niveles extraordinariamente elevados de autoanticuerpos, los cuales atacan por error los propios tejidos del paciente muchos meses despus de la infeccin inicial. Una tercera posibilidad es que la infeccin viral inicial, quizs al reactivar otros virus que hay en el cuerpo del paciente y que por lo general estn latentes, desencadene una inflamacin crnica. En uno de los estudios, se descubri que la reactivacin del virus de Epstein-Barr, el cual infecta a la mayor parte de las personas cuando son jvenes, podra ayudar a predecir si alguien desarrollar covid persistente. Estas explicaciones pueden coexistir dentro del intrincado mundo del sistema inmunitario. Y as como los diferentes pacientes de covid persistente pueden tener diferentes sntomas, tambin pueden tener diferentes problemas de inmunidad. Para la eleccin del tratamiento, ser primordial identificar los problemas principales presentes en la enfermedad de cada paciente, asever Akiko Iwasaki, inmunloga en la Universidad de Yale. Por ejemplo, quizs a un paciente con autoanticuerpos le funcionen bien los medicamentos inmunosupresores, mientras que un paciente con un reservorio viral de covid debera recibir antivirales, coment Iwasaki. El tratamiento debera ser muy diferente dependiendo de lo que tenga cada persona. El sistema circulatorio Algo tan sencillo como subir una escalera se convirti de repente en una montaa. Eddie Palacios, 50 aos Muchos pacientes con covid persistente tienen dificultades para realizar actividades fsicas mucho tiempo despus de la infeccin inicial y experimentan una reaparicin de los sntomas cuando hacen ejercicio. Los primeros estudios indican que es posible que un mal funcionamiento del sistema circulatorio afecte el flujo de oxgeno hacia los msculos y otros tejidos, lo que restringe la capacidad aerbica y provoca una intensa fatiga. En uno de los estudios, los pacientes con sntomas de covid persistente tuvieron respuestas imprevistas cuando se pusieron a andar en bicicleta. Pese a que su corazn y sus pulmones eran en apariencia normales, sus msculos solo podan obtener una pequea parte de la cantidad normal de oxgeno de los vasos sanguneos pequeos cuando pedaleaban, lo que reduca de manera muy notoria su capacidad para ejercitarse. Es posible que esto se deba a que la inflamacin crnica puede daar las fibras nerviosas que ayudan a controlar la circulacin, una condicin que recibe el nombre de neuropata de fibras pequeas. Las fibras daadas, las cuales se detectan mediante una biopsia de piel, estn vinculadas con la disautonoma, una falla en las funciones que el cuerpo realiza automticamente como la frecuencia cardiaca, la respiracin y la digestin y que es muy comn en los pacientes con covid persistente. La inflamacin crnica en pacientes con covid persistente puede daar las fibras nerviosas pequeas. Peter Novak et al., Annals of Neurology Estos hallazgos demuestran que las personas con covid persistente estn experimentando problemas fsicos sistmicos y no solo estn ansiosas o fuera de forma, seal David Systrom, un especialista en la fisiologa del ejercicio del Hospital Brigham and Womens que colabor en la realizacin del estudio de la bicicleta. No se puede inventar una neuropata de las fibras pequeas que arroja una biopsia de piel. Eso no se encuentra en la imaginacin de nadie, seal Systrom. No se puede inventar que exista poca obtencin de oxgeno a este grado. Todos esos son indicadores objetivos de una enfermedad. Los investigadores sudafricanos descubrieron otro problema de circulacin: cogulos microscpicos. Por lo general, los cogulos diminutos que se forman en una infeccin inicial de covid se rompen de manera natural, pero pueden perdurar en los pacientes con covid persistente. Estos cogulos podran obstruir los capilares diminutos que transportan el oxgeno a los tejidos de todo el cuerpo. Las plaquetas de la sangre pueden sufrir hiperactivacin en los pacientes con covid y covid persistente, contribuyendo a la formacin de microcogulos. Etheresia Pretorius et al., Cardiovascular Diabetology Las sustancias inflamatorias llamadas citoquinas, que casi siempre estn elevadas en los pacientes con covid persistente, tal vez daan las mitocondrias que producen energa en las clulas del cuerpo, reduciendo su capacidad para usar el oxgeno. Tambin las paredes de los vasos sanguneos pueden inflamarse y limitar la captacin de oxgeno. Sea cual sea la causa, es posible que los bajos niveles de oxgeno contribuyan a la aparicin del sntoma ms comn de la covid persistente: la fatiga intensa. Los investigadores que estudian a los pacientes con el sndrome de fatiga crnica (tambin conocido como ME/CFS, por su sigla en ingls), que suele comenzar tras una infeccin viral y comparte muchas caractersticas de la covid persistente, encontraron un patrn parecido: la falta de oxgeno desencadenada por problemas circulatorios ejerce muchsima sobrecarga sobre el metabolismo del cuerpo, lo que ocasiona que las actividades sencillas se sientan como un ejercicio extenuante. El cerebro Me acerco a un semforo en rojo, mi cerebro sabe que est en rojo, pero no reacciona al resto de mi cuerpo para poner el pie en el freno. Te das cuenta de lo aterrador que es eso? Samantha Lewis, 34 aos Incluso la gente con casos leves de covid puede experimentar un deterioro cognitivo prolongado, el cual incluye una disminucin de la atencin, de la memoria y la dificultad para encontrar las palabras. Segn Avindra Nath, director clnico del Instituto Nacional de Trastornos Neurolgicos y Accidentes Cerebrovasculares, los posibles problemas neurolgicos a largo plazo derivados de la covid constituyen una crisis importante de salud pblica. Los investigadores descubrieron una amplia gama de alteraciones en el cerebro de los pacientes con covid persistente. De acuerdo con los investigadores, entre ellos Nath, Iwasaki y Michelle Monje, una neurloga de la Universidad de Stanford, aunque no se sabe bien con qu frecuencia el coronavirus penetra de manera directa en el cerebro, incluso las infecciones leves parecen provocar una inflamacin considerable en este rgano. Es posible que las infecciones desencadenen la activacin excesiva de las clulas inmunitarias llamadas microglas de un modo parecido al proceso que puede contribuir a los problemas cognitivos durante el envejecimiento y algunos trastornos neurodegenerativos. La microgla se activa en el cerebro de un paciente de covid, contribuyendo a la inflamacin cerebral. Anthony Fernndez-Castaeda et al., preimpresin va bioRxiv. Fotos: Myoung-Hwa Lee Otro grupo de investigadores descubri que la covid persistente puede reducir de manera significativa la cantidad de sangre que llega al cerebro, un hallazgo que antes de la pandemia tambin se ha visto en los pacientes con un padecimiento similar: el sndrome de fatiga crnica. Los pulmones No poda respirar. Senta literalmente como si alguien estuviera sentado en mi pecho. Angelica Baez, 23 aos La dificultad para respirar es un sntoma frecuente de la covid persistente, pero los resultados de los estudios que por lo general se hacen a los pulmones los cuales incluyen rayos X de trax, tomografas computarizadas y pruebas funcionales casi siempre son normales. Mediante el uso de la resonancia magntica, un equipo de investigadores britnicos descubri indicios preliminares de dao pulmonar en un pequeo grupo de pacientes con covid persistente que nunca haban sido hospitalizados. Las imgenes detalladas de su funcin pulmonar indicaban que la mayor parte de los pacientes captaban el oxgeno de manera menos eficiente que las personas sanas, incluso cuando la estructura de sus pulmones pareca normal. Los investigadores advirtieron que, para confirmar estos hallazgos, se necesitara un grupo ms grande de pacientes. Si estos resultados se sostienen, algunas explicaciones posibles de la dificultad para respirar observada incluyen la presencia de microcogulos en los tejidos pulmonares o un engrosamiento de la barrera hematogaseosa o alvelocapilar que regula la captacin de oxgeno en los pulmones. La vida con covid persistente No es algo que puedas superar en realidad. Dra. Abigail Bosk Muchos hospitales ofrecen ahora clnicas o programas de recuperacin tras la covid, que renen a mdicos con experiencia en el tratamiento de pacientes con covid persistente. Debido a la cantidad de pacientes, algunos mdicos y programas tienen largas esperas para las citas. Puede ser til planificar con antelacin y probar varias opciones. Survivor Corps cuenta con un directorio de clnicas con tratamientos poscovid. Dysautonomia International ofrece una lista de mdicos con experiencia en el tratamiento de los trastornos autonmicos que se suelen ver en la covid prolongada. Body Politic alberga un grupo de apoyo de covid en el que miles de personas que experimentan la versin persistente de la enfermedad comparten informacin y consejos en la plataforma Slack. El grupo Long Covid Support tiene una comunidad en Facebook. The Royal College of Occupational Therapists offers ofrece consejos para gestionar la fatiga poscovid. Un ensayo de Maria Farrell ofrece consejos sobre cmo recuperarse y la importancia de dedicar tiempo al descanso. ME Action, un grupo de apoyo a las personas con ME/CFS, ofrece consejos a los pacientes con covid persistente sobre cmo controlar los sntomas. Los estadounidenses con covid persistente pueden solicitar prestaciones por discapacidad, aunque sin resultados mdicos concluyentes, muchas personas enfrentan obstculos. Tres destacados investigadores de la covid persistente suelen compartir informacin sobre los ltimos hallazgos en Twitter: Amy Proal, microbiloga del Instituto de Investigacin PolyBio; David Putrino, director de innovacin en rehabilitacin del Sistema de Salud Mount Sinai; y Akiko Iwasaki, inmunloga de Yale. Health Rising cubre detalladamente las ltimas investigaciones sobre covid persistente, ME/CFS y otras enfermedades crnicas. Gez Medinger, productor de videos, entrevista a algunos destacados investigadores de la covid persistente en YouTube. Una entrevista en video con Svetlana Blitshteyn, neurloga y directora de la Clnica para la Disautonoma, ofrece consejos para el tratamiento y una visin general de la investigacin actual sobre los trastornos autonmicos. El Centro Infantil Johns Hopkins ofrece una gua detallada para entender, tratar y vivir con la intolerancia ortosttica. El Times ha escrito numerosos trabajos sobre la covid persistente, entre ellos: | science |
Credit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesJune 23, 2018LEESBURG, Va. Gina Anders knows the feeling well by now. President Trump says or does something that triggers a spasm of outrage. She doesnt necessarily agree with how he handled the situation. She gets why people are upset.But Ms. Anders, 46, a Republican from suburban Loudoun County, Va., with a law degree, a business career, and not a stitch of Make America Great Again gear in her wardrobe, is moved to defend him anyway.All nuance and all complexity and these are complex issues are completely lost, she said, describing overblown reactions from the presidents critics, some of whom equated the Trump administrations policy of separating migrant children and parents to historys greatest atrocities.It makes me angry at them, which causes me to want to defend him to them more, Ms. Anders said.In interviews across the country over the last few days, dozens of Trump voters, as well as pollsters and strategists, described something like a bonding experience with the president that happens each time Republicans have to answer a now-familiar question: How can you possibly still support this man? Their resilience suggests a level of unity among Republicans that could help mitigate Mr. Trumps low overall approval ratings and aid his partys chances of keeping control of the House of Representatives in November.Hes not a perfect guy; he does some stupid stuff, said Tony Schrantz, 50, of Lino Lakes, Minn., the owner of a water systems leak detection business. But when theyre hounding him all the time it just gets old. Give the guy a little.Republican voters repeatedly described an instinctive, protective response to the president, and their support has grown in recent months: Mr. Trumps approval rating among Republicans is now about 90 percent. And while polling has yet to capture the effect of the last weeks immigration controversy, the only modern Republican president more popular with his party than Mr. Trump at this point in his first term, according to Gallup, was George W. Bush after the country united in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.Mr. Trump has also retained support across a range of demographics other than the working-class voters who are most identified with him. This includes portions of the wealthy college-educated people in swing counties, like Virginias Loudoun, in the countrys most politically competitive states.Many of these voters say their lives and the country are improving under his presidency, and the endless stream of tough cable news coverage and bad headlines about Mr. Trump only galvanizes them further even though some displayed discomfort on their faces when asked about the child separation policy, and expressed misgivings about the presidents character.It bothers me that he doesnt tell the truth, but I guess I kind of expect that, and I expect that from the media, too not to always tell the truth or to slant it one way, said Julie Knight, 63, a retired personal injury case manager from Algona, Wash.The increasingly tribalized politics on the left and right have helped insulate Mr. Trump from the paroxysms that have jolted his party and eroded longstanding expectations of restraint, humility and honesty in American presidents. This era of tumult has left Democrats energized and determined to win back Congress and act as a check on Mr. Trump, and their intensity has been reflected by strong turnouts in the primaries so far. But still, in just the last year and a half, Mr. Trump has bounced back from crises that at the time seemed as if they might be too severe for him to recover politically.He tried to unilaterally bar visitors from several Muslim countries from the United States, angering U.S. allies and provoking clashes with Congress and the courts over the limits of executive power. He praised some very fine people at a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in remarks that shook some members of his cabinet so deeply that they considered resigning. He defended Roy S. Moore, a Senate candidate in Alabama who was accused of fondling teenage girls, by suggesting that the allegations were old and possibly made-up.And so as another immigration crisis of his own making smoldered this past week, critics inside and outside Mr. Trumps party predicted another devastating, irremediable low point in his presidency. Yet many Trump voters said that they no longer had the patience or interest to listen to what they see as another hysterical outburst by Democrats, Republican Never Trumpers and the media.ImageCredit...Alex Wroblewski for The New York TimesIts kind of like when you experience a sensation over and over and over again, said Daniel Arnold, 32, a warehouse manager from Leesburg, Va., about an hour outside Washington. A sensation is no longer a sensation. Its just, Oh, here we are again.For many Republicans, the audio of children sobbing at a migrant detention center barely registered, because these voters dont pay attention to the left-leaning and mainstream media that have covered the family separation crisis far more than their preferred channel, Fox News.I think its terrible about the kids getting split up from their parents. But the parents shouldnt have been here, said Lynn Dittbenner, 65, of Elk River, Minn., who took the day off from relaxing with her family at their lake cabin to hear the president speak at a rally in Duluth on Wednesday.Others said they saw a ploy by the presidents enemies to obscure news that was more favorable to him, like the internal Justice Department investigation that recently uncovered evidence of F.B.I. officials speaking disparagingly of Mr. Trump.Its just incredible what the nation is trying to do to disrupt this president and his agenda, said Jeff Butts, 58, an unemployed sales manager from Leesburg. We dont get to hear about that. We only get to hear about the crying babies on the border.Sometimes they seized on made-up or erroneous story lines that were mostly absent from the mainstream media.Those cages and those families that was actually filmed during the Obama administration, not the Trump administration, said Clayton Smith, 57, a commercial lending underwriter from Cary, Ill., a Chicago suburb.Mr. Smith was correct about one image. He was referring to a story that was covered widely in the conservative media over the last few weeks about one of President Obamas former speechwriters who tweeted a picture of immigrant children sleeping in a chain-link pen. This is happening right now, the tweet said, despite the fact that the picture was from 2014 when Mr. Obama was president. (He later deleted it and acknowledged the error.)As isolated as those examples are, they are validating for people who believe their political beliefs are constantly held under a microscope and vilified.I dont have friends anymore because Ive switched parties, said Judy Brana, 66, a retired music and art teacher from St. Cloud, Minn., who left home at 10:30 on Wednesday morning to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive up to Duluth for the presidents rally.Friends Ive had for 40 years, she added. Its insane, thats what Ill tell you.Another factor that seems to be driving up support is a sense that no one is acknowledging Mr. Trumps successes, which they see as manifold, historic and irrefutable.Lets see, said John Westling, 70, of Princeton, Minn., reciting a list of the presidents accomplishments that he said no one in the media wants to talk about. Economy booming, check. Unemployment down, check. Border security being addressed, check. Possible end to the Korean War that started when I was 3 years old, 68 years ago, check.I suspect that if Trump walked across Lake Mille Lacs, Mr. Westling added, the media would announce, Trump cant swim!As measured by the Gallup daily presidential approval tracking poll, Mr. Trump has averaged 87 percent job approval from fellow Republicans in his second year in office, up from 83 percent in his first year. And during the past two weeks, his approval rating hit 90 percent with Republicans.Yet some say their patience with Mr. Trumps divisive style is not limitless. Gary Winthorpe, a 17-year-old high school student who was on his way to see the president speak in Minnesota on Wednesday, said he hopes that the first vote he casts for president in 2020 is for Mr. Trump. But he acknowledged being wary at times, aware of protests against the president.Im not blindly for Donald Trump, he said. I have a fair bit of skepticism toward him. But I feel like he is trying his best.Mr. Trump fared much worse than prior Republican candidates among well-educated and affluent white voters, and became the first Republican to win the presidency while losing white college graduates. But he nonetheless won considerable support among college-educated and affluent voters. He retains much of that support today. According to a Pew Research survey this month, approximately 31 percent of Trump approvers are white men without a college degree, and 66 percent are either college graduates, women or nonwhite.According to Gallup, Mr. Trumps popularity with college-educated voters has remained about equal to his popularity with Americans overall this year.There is some evidence that Mr. Trumps base of support may have shrunk slightly, though. In recent polls from Gallup and Morning Consult, the numbers of people who identified as Republicans were about 2 percentage points smaller than they were in early 2017.Among Democrats, Mr. Trumps initial approval has been historically low, failing to reach 15 percent since he took office. Presidents have traditionally come in with at least a moderate amount of support from the opposing party.Just as Mr. Trump has changed the makeup of the Republican coalition, he also appears to have helped change the views of the people who support him.Republicans appear to have developed more forgiving views on morality and public service in recent years, for example. In 2011, one in three Republicans thought an elected official who commits immoral acts in private life could act ethically in public life, according to a Public Religion Research Institute/Brookings survey. By 2016, seven out of 10 did. The trend was especially pronounced among white evangelicals, who strongly supported Mr. Trump and went from being the least likely to the most likely to agree that a candidates personal immorality had nothing to do with public service.The percentage of Republicans who say they have a favorable view of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president for whom Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed fondness, has doubled from 2015 to 2017 to 24 percent, according to Gallup. Among Democrats, Mr. Putins popularity has plummeted.Even if Mr. Trump wasnt at the center of the national conversation, Ms. Anders, the Loudoun County business executive, said she thinks that the country would still be polarized. But as long as he is, she said, people on the right and the left will probably continue to dig in based on what Mr. Trump does and how his opponents respond.It all coalesces around Trump, she said. Its either, Trump wants to put people in cages, in concentration camps. Or, on the other side, Oh the left just wants everybody to come into the country illegally so they can get voters.She concluded: We cant have a conversation. | Politics |
Trained as a physicist, he applied simple mathematical models to complex phenomena in ecology, epidemiology and financial systems.Credit...Edward Webb/ShutterstockPublished May 11, 2020Updated May 13, 2020Robert May, an Australian-born scientist whose mathematical insights blazed new paths in fields as diverse as ecology, epidemiology and the structure of financial systems, died on April 28 in a nursing home in Oxford, England. He was 84.His wife, Judith May, said in an email that his death certificate cited frailties of old age, Alzheimers disease and pneumonia.The breadth of Dr. Mays work across three continents and at institutions like Princeton University, Oxford University and Imperial College London dazzled scientists in the varied fields that his intellect touched. He had many careers, one piled on top of the other, said John Terborgh, an emeritus professor of environmental science at Duke University, and was absolutely extraordinary in all of them.Dr. May once put it less grandly. I have a short attention span, he told APS News, a publication of the American Physical Society. If you have a good background in theoretical physics, you can do anything.Of course it was more than that. Science is full of people who do great work in their areas, but dont see what we lay people call the big picture, the author James Gleick said. Bob May definitely did.Mr. Gleick featured Dr. May in his book about the study of complexity, Chaos: Making a New Science (1987). In an interview, he called Dr. May one of the very small handful of seminal figures in that field.Dr. May showed an uncanny knack for identifying key problems in the fields of study he focused on and for developing simple mathematical models that could deepen understanding of them. When he came to ecology in the 1970s, the discipline was largely built on empirical observation in the field, and conventional wisdom held that a rich, complex ecosystem was inherently more stable than one with fewer organisms. Dr. Mays models suggested the opposite: The larger the number of species, the less stable the environment might be, with potentially wild population swings.An article by Dr. May in the journal Nature in 1972, Will a Large Complex System Be Stable?, and his book Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems (1973) laid out his theories and began a revolution in ecology, said Dan Rubenstein, director of the program in environmental studies at Princeton, where Dr. May was on the faculty from 1973 to 1988. His work often gave us empiricists laser focus on what we should be looking for, because the models, their simplicity and elegance, made strong predictions that we could go out and test.The power of the models lay, in turn, in their reliance on information from the empiricists. Bob had a respect for the muddy-boots types, Dr. Rubenstein said. Anybody can build a model, but if you dont tune it with realistic parameters, its not going to be helpful.From ecology, Dr. May moved to the study of infectious diseases, embarking on a fruitful collaboration with Roy Anderson, a professor of epidemiology at Imperial College London. They would write more than 80 papers together.In an interview, Dr. Anderson said that Dr. Mays gift for translating exceedingly difficult problems into useful equations relied in part on his physics background. He wasnt afraid to make approximations to get some analytical insight, Dr. Anderson said. A pure mathematician might have required greater precision.Together Dr. May and Dr. Anderson focused on mad cow disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy. They created models projecting the spread of H.I.V. in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, arriving closer to the mark than more optimistic estimates by the World Health Organization. And they helped define the variable known as R0 (pronounced R-naught) in estimating the number of new infections that would spread from a single case of an illness.Such work resonates with todays new coronavirus, said John Krebs, an Oxford colleague of Dr. Mays. Their analytical models helped to highlight the crucial importance of this variable, he said.ImageCredit...Rob Cousins/ShutterstockDr. May cast his net even wider in 1976 in a groundbreaking paper, Simple Mathematical Models With Very Complicated Dynamics, suggesting that the kinds of equations he had been working on arise in many contexts in biological, economic and social sciences. Mr. Gleick called it a rallying cry to scientists in those fields, telling them: You might use a simple model and find weird behavior and ignore it. But you shouldnt ignore it, because that very weirdness is significant.After the financial collapse of the late 2000s, he collaborated with Andrew G. Haldane, the Bank of Englands chief economist, on another seminal paper, Systemic Risk in Banking Economics (2011), showing that once again too much complexity implies instability.Colleagues recalled that throughout his career, tact was not among Dr. Mays strong points. Prof. Georgina Mace, an ecologist and conservation scientist at University College London and a former colleague of Dr. Mays, recalled in an article after Dr. Mays death, It was both inspiring and terrifying to face his penetrating analyses and not always gentle critiques.She added, however, that he showed great generosity and encouragement. His general support to women in science has benefited many of us, she said.Dr. May was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1979 and was its president from 2000 to 2005. He accepted joint posts at Oxford and Imperial College in 1988. He was knighted in 1996 and became a peer, Baron May of Oxford, in 2001. From 1995 to 2000 he was chief scientific adviser to Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair.As science adviser to 10 Downing Street he took what had been a low-profile post and made it a soapbox for sound science, speaking very clearly and bluntly, said Dr. Krebs, who also served in government. Dr. May became a vocal proponent of taking urgent action on climate change, a topic he pursued as a founding member of Britains independent Committee on Climate Change, serving on it from 2008 until 2016.Bob May was one of the most outspoken and capable defenders of the role of scientific expertise something that is now widely questioned, said the author Edward Tenner, a former colleague at Princeton and now a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Bob had the personality to stand up to people who challenged science on ideological grounds.Robert McCredie May was born on Jan. 8, 1936, in Sydney to Henry W. and Kathleen M. (McCredie) May. His father was a barrister and an alcoholic who left the family when Robert was young; his mother raised him and his younger brother, Ronald.He attended the University of Sydney, earning a bachelors of science in physics and mathematics in 1956 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1959, focusing on superconductivity. He did postdoctoral work at Harvard University, where, on a blind date, he met Judith Feiner, an undergraduate at Brandeis University. They married in August 1962 and had a daughter, Nome. Both survive him, as does Ronald May.Dr. May was an avid runner and hiker, organizing group walks with colleagues in the mountains of England and Wales as well as weekslong mountain treks in Europe. He could be voraciously competitive.One friend recalled that during one hiking trip, with his party snowed in, Bob went off to play chess with a 10-year-old.As the world-famous scientist walked back into the room, he announced, I won. | science |
Credit...Rolex Dela Pena/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 1, 2017MANILA The Philippine House of Representatives approved a proposal on Wednesday to reinstate the death penalty, paving the way for capital punishment to be restored more than a decade after it was abolished.The bill, which would primarily allow drug-related offenses to be punishable by death, reflects President Rodrigo Dutertes campaign pledge to end crime and corruption.Since Mr. Duterte took office in June, thousands of people suspected of being drug addicts or pushers have been killed by police officers or vigilantes as part of that pledge.To become law, the death penalty bill must face a largely symbolic third reading in the House, which is controlled by allies of the president, before going to the Senate, also controlled by people close to Mr. Duterte. The bill would then have to be signed by the president.House leaders had called for a voice vote on Wednesday, and advocates of reinstating the death penalty drowned out those opposing the measure.We lost. The next battleground is the Senate, said Harry Roque, a lawmaker who voted against the measure.Another opponent of the bill, Antonio Tinio, suggested that little time had been given to debate about the bill. It is definitely unacceptable to railroad the passage of the death penalty bill because for burning issues such as this, congressional deliberations are not just for its members alone they are also for the people, he said.Under the proposal, so-called heinous crimes would be punishable by death. Those include some forms of rape and murder, as well as drug offenses including the import, sale, manufacture, delivery and distribution of narcotics.Drug possession would carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.Capital punishment would typically be carried out by hanging, firing squad or lethal injection, according to the bill.Once the measure reaches the Senate, legislators are expected to await a ruling by the Justice Department on whether it contravenes the countrys commitment to international conventions. But the justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre II, is a fraternity brother of Mr. Dutertes, and he is not expected to oppose the act.Senator Bam Aquino promised that lawmakers in the upper chamber would debate the bill but acknowledged that blocking it would be difficult.The proposed law, he said, goes against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the country ratified in 1986. The convention prevents parties from carrying out execution as a form of punishment.This issue is so serious, he said. The debates should not be rushed, so the public can listen to the arguments in the Senate.The politically influential Roman Catholic Church, which Mr. Duterte has criticized for opposing his policies, has been at the forefront of the fight against the law.Bishops said in a letter that was read in all churches last month that they unequivocally oppose proposals and moves to return the death penalty into the Philippine legal system.We regret that there are strident efforts to restore the death penalty, the letter said. Though the crime be heinous, no person is ever beyond redemption, and we have no right ever giving up on any person.It continued: When we condemn violence, we cannot ourselves be its perpetrators, and when we decry murder, we cannot ourselves participate in murder, no matter that it may be accompanied by the trappings of judicial and legal process.The government is a party to international conventions against the death penalty, the church said, and has a duty to follow international opinions opposing the law.Human rights experts denounced the decision by the House of Representatives.This is a major step backward for the Philippines, Carlos H. Conde, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who covers the country. He added, This further erodes the already horrendous human rights situation in the Philippines.The International Drug Policy Consortium, a network of nongovernmental organizations that focus on issues related to drug production, trafficking and use, had called on Congress to oppose the measure.The consortium also called on lawmakers to ensure proportionate sentencing of drug offenses.The death penalty was abolished in 1987, but President Fidel Ramos reinstated it in 1993, citing crime control. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo suspended capital punishment in 2006. | World |
Politics|Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was on Trumps Georgia call, has quietly aided efforts to overturn the election.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/us/politics/cleta-mitchell-a-lawyer-who-was-on-trumps-georgia-call-has-quietly-aided-efforts-to-overturn-the-election.htmlCredit...Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated PressJan. 5, 2021As President Trump has sought to overturn the election results, his personal lawyers paraded themselves before television hosts, state elections officials and anyone else willing to entertain their baseless claims of voter fraud.But behind the scenes, a longtime conservative lawyer named Cleta Mitchell quietly helped. Her work for Mr. Trump drew widespread attention for the first time over the weekend, when a recording was released of an hourlong call in which Mr. Trump threatened Georgia elections officials with a criminal offense if they failed to find enough votes to change the states presidential results.On the call, Ms. Mitchell repeatedly jumped in to help Mr. Trump, showing an intimate level of involvement in his efforts as they both made baseless claims about the election and pressed Georgia officials to hand over election data.Ms. Mitchell is a partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner, which has over 1,000 lawyers and represents large corporations such as CVS Pharmacy. Her presence on the call stood out because Mr. Trump has struggled to attract high-profile lawyers to aid his attempts to overturn the election.In the day after the audio emerged, Foley & Lardner sought to distance itself from Ms. Mitchell, saying in a statement on Monday that its lawyers were expected to refrain from representing or advising anyone in the election. The firm said it was examining Ms. Mitchells role on Mr. Trumps legal team.Ms. Mitchell, 70, has maintained a public profile supporting candidates and causes, earning a reputation as a firebrand. She was a leading critic of the I.R.S.s treatment of nonprofit groups associated with the Tea Party movement during the Obama administration and of state and local coronavirus restrictions that religious groups opposed last year.During the Trump administration, Ms. Mitchell has also represented the nonprofit of the presidents former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, which has been scrutinized by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of a broad investigation into whether Mr. Bannon defrauded donors.At one point in the call over the weekend, Mr. Trump brought up a baseless claim about ballots from Atlanta that were for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.Does anybody know about it? Mr. Trump asked.I know about it, but Ms. Mitchell said before she was interrupted by the president.OK, Cleta, Im not asking you. Cleta, honestly. Im asking Brad, Mr. Trump said, referring to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia. | Politics |
Science|Do Birds Listen When You Play Music?https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/science/do-birds-listen-when-you-play-music.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsJune 19, 2017Q. Do the songbirds on the wire outside my window listen when I practice the violin?A. In all likelihood, they do, said Timothy J. DeVoogd, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, who has long studied both human and bird brains, particularly how the brains of birds encode learned behaviors like song.He said he was aware of a good study from 2012 that suggested that bird brains respond to song in the same areas that human brains do.As a shorthand way of thinking, if a bird song sounds musical to human ears, odds are that similar human music will sound songlike to the bird, Dr. DeVoogd said.We know that with the combination of both innate and learned qualities, birds will cue into a particular frequency range, a particular tempo and that the bird then constructs his own song using those qualities.He said he predicted that species that create very elaborate songs themselves, like mockingbirds, starlings and catbirds, would be interested in a wider range of human music.But there is a question whether the bird that is hearing and responding is liking the music, or responding as if it were a potential foe, Dr. DeVoogd said.He said there was a lot of research finding that when a reproducing male hears another bird singing, and its a good song, he gets angry. [email protected] | science |
Business|Food Companies to Add Scan Codes With More Product Detailshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/business/food-companies-to-add-scan-codes-with-more-product-details.htmlDec. 2, 2015About 30 food companies on Wednesday announced plans to add scannable codes to their packaging that consumers could use to get information about ingredients, allergens and nutrition.The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the trade group that represents major food and beverage companies, said the new code, called Smart Label, would appear on almost 30,000 products like shampoos, detergents, crackers and sodas by the end of 2017.Smart Label is a transformative initiative, said Pamela G. Bailey, chief executive of the association. It will enable consumers to get easy and instantaneous access to detailed product information by scanning a bar code or doing an online search to reach the Smart Label landing page.Ms. Bailey noted the growing consumer demand for information about food, and a number of companies including Campbell Soup and Frenchs have already taken steps to reformulate products to eliminate items like high fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring.The association publicized the program, which actually had its debut last week as part of an announcement from the Hershey Company that went largely unnoticed, in the face of fierce lobbying over the issue of labeling foods containing genetically engineered ingredients.Worried about a Vermont law requiring labeling of such foods that goes into effect next summer unless blocked by the courts, the food industry is working to get Congress to put language in an omnibus spending bill the industry hopes to have passed by the end of the year that would pre-empt states from passing such regulations.Advocates of so-called G.M.O., or genetically modified organism, labeling say that the grocery associations codes are discriminatory because not all consumers have mobile phones that can read them.Its a technology most consumers dont use, and a technology prone to error because, say, the QR code is too small or on a wrinkly bag that cant easily be scanned, said Scott Faber, executive vice president for the Environmental Working Group, one of the organizations behind the Just Label It campaign for mandatory labeling.Hershey announced the program last week in a media release about putting a QR, or quick response, code on reformulated milk chocolate Hersheys Kisses and Hersheys Milk Chocolate Bars that it had introduced for the holiday season. Using the code, a pixelated square that can be scanned with a smartphone, a consumer can navigate tabs to obtain information about nutrition, ingredients, allergens and the company.There is also a tab labeled Other information, which takes a consumer to information about certifications for fair trade or animal welfare that the product may have.A tab labeled GMO Disclosure can be clicked to see this statement: This product may include ingredients sourced from genetically engineered (G.E.) crops, commonly known as G.M.O.s. In some products, were sourcing ingredients from non-G.M.O. crops (for example cane sugar). We cant guarantee that all ingredients are from non-G.M.O. crops. | Business |
Credit...Ben Solomon for The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2014EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. Tens of millions of dollars were spent securing the Super Bowl and the events beforehand, but perhaps the most bizarre security breach happened after the game, when Malcolm Smith, the games most valuable player, was speaking with reporters.He finished saying that he never thought he would win the award when a man leapt on the platform and grabbed the microphone.Investigate 9-11; 9-11 was perpetrated by people in our own government, he said.Smith looked to the side for help, and Harvey Greene, a Miami Dolphins spokesman who was running the news conference, jumped forward and pushed the man, dressed in a red-and-black flannel shirt, off the stage.The entire incident lasted about four seconds.Smith remained calm. Is everyone all right? he asked the handful of reporters nearby. Lets check his press pass, he added with a smile.Stephen Jones, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Police, identified the man as Matthew Mills, 30, of Brooklyn and said he was being charged with criminal trespass.N.F.L. officials said they were looking into the matter. Earlier Sunday, fans made their way to the game in the midst of armored vehicles, Hummers, metal detectors, police helicopters and bomb-sniffing dogs.It would be very hard for someone to get something through security, said Randy Owen, 46, of Manhattan, who spent more than three hours with his 9-year-old son, Timothy, making the trek to MetLife Stadium, often reminding him not to take out his game ticket just yet.After they made their way through the crowds at Pennsylvania Station and the rail station in Secaucus, N.J., and then through the long lines outside the security screening tents at the stadiums gates, Owen said, It was quite a journey. But he certainly was not complaining about the layers of screening.The Super Bowl has long been considered a terrorist target, and those concerns were elevated this year with the event being held in the New York region. This Super Bowl was also the first since the Boston Marathon bombings in April, and it came amid considerable attention on potential threats in Russia for the Winter Games in Sochi.With the Super Bowl approaching, the New York police commissioner, William J. Bratton, told reporters Wednesday that there were no known threats. But local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were on high alert.At kickoff, the N.F.L. spokesman Brian McCarthy said he was not aware of any significant security issues.The police presence was highly visible in public areas Sunday and the week leading to it, from Midtown Manhattan, where the police lined the fan zone known as Super Bowl Boulevard, through a round of security screening in Secaucus to MetLife Stadium. There, rows of law enforcement vans lined the parking lot, and dogs checked cars, vans and buses as they entered.As they waited elbow to elbow in lines at Secaucus, some fans shouted, T.S.A., referring to the Transportation Security Administration a jab at airport security lines. Others pointed the finger at Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, yelling, Blame Christie! But fans generally seemed pleased to see the protection.Its definitely been concerning, said Taylor Swallow of Denver, who attended the game with his wife, Kajsa. Weve been hearing about what can happen mass shootings, bombings.The Swallows said they noticed plenty of police cars with lights on as they took a car from their hotel in Midtown to New Jersey for the game.ImageCredit...Andrew Kelly/ReutersIt changes the nature of the game when you have to be aware and vigilant, Taylor Swallow said.MetLife Stadium is not even 10 miles from Manhattan, but the area around it has a much lower building density, making the stadium resemble a fortress and much easier to protect. To enter the stadium, fans lined up outside security screening tents, where they went through metal detectors.Fans were not allowed to bring much with them: A clutch and a small, clear plastic bag were permitted, but the authorities discouraged fans from bringing much of anything. In fact, the N.F.L. left cold-weather gear on each seat.Before Giants and Jets games at MetLife Stadium during the season, fans pack the parking lot with grills, setting up tables and playing games. But on Sunday, tailgating in the parking lot was highly discouraged, with open flames being banned.Still, some fans, particularly local ones, arrived early and set up for a downsize tailgating experience in the backs of their vans and sport utility vehicles typically with some chips and beer but no barbecue.Its a lot more serious than a regular game, Serhiy Levchuk, 25, of Lyndhurst, N.J., said of the police presence.Levchuk and his friends arrived early and sat in folding chairs outside their van, having paid $350 for a parking pass. They said the police had come around about three times, first telling them to put away their chairs but then relaxing their requests as the afternoon went on.They could not help but talk about what the experience was usually like at Giants games. You have a whole bunch of people together, a grill, three tables, Levchuk said.But his friend, Xavier Cordova, a Broncos fan from Jersey City, interrupted the reminiscing with a dose of reality, saying, It is the Super Bowl, you know. | Sports |
Pro-Trump Mob Livestreamed Its Rampage, and Made Money Doing ItA site called Dlive, where rioters broadcast from the Capitol, is benefiting from the growing exodus of right-wing users from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 8, 2021When the white nationalist Tim Gionet stormed the U.S. Capitol with a mob of Trump loyalists on Wednesday, entering congressional offices and putting his feet up on lawmakers furniture, he also chatted live with more than 16,000 of his fans.Using a livestreaming site called Dlive, Mr. Gionet known by the online alias Baked Alaska broadcast his actions inside the Capitol. Through Dlive, his fans then sent him messages telling him where to go to avoid capture by the police. They also tipped him with lemons, a Dlive currency that can be converted into real money, through which Mr. Gionet made more than $2,000 on Wednesday, according to online estimates.Mr. Gionet operates one of at least nine channels that used Dlive to share real-time footage from the front lines of Wednesdays rampage. He and hundreds of other members of the far right have turned to the platform after mainstream services removed them. In 2017, Mr. Gionet was kicked off Twitter; last year, he was barred from YouTube.Dlives increasing popularity shows how an online exodus of far-right figures on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube since the November election has now moved beyond alternative social-networking, news and video sites like Rumble, Gab and Parler. Livestreaming is also benefiting especially as a way to communicate live with followers and to earn money by spreading hate.That shift gained further momentum this week after Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitch limited President Trumps accounts for inciting Wednesdays violence and clamped down on other right-wing personalities.On Friday, Dan Bongino, a right-wing podcaster, tweeted that he was leaving Twitter for good because it was an anti-American platform and that he would be on Parler instead. Twitter later said it had permanently suspended the accounts of several prominent Trump supporters who used the platform to spread conspiracy theories, including the lawyer Sidney Powell and Mr. Trumps former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn.Dlive said in a statement on Friday that it had zero tolerance toward any forms of violence and illegal activities. It added that it had suspended, forced offline or limited 10 accounts and deleted 100 broadcasts. Dlive also said it was freezing the earnings of streamers who had broken into the Capitol.But streamers and misinformation researchers said Dlives emergence as a haven for white nationalists was unlikely to change. Thats because the site, which was founded in 2017 and is similar to Twitch, the Amazon-owned platform where video gamers livestream their play, helps streamers make tens of thousands of dollars and benefits by taking a cut of that revenue.Jo-dell Brodhagen, a Dlive streamer and comedian from Ontario, said she had increasingly seen the site cater to far-right members by quickly addressing their questions and complaints while silencing longtime streamers who raised questions about their racist statements. She said Dlive favored white supremacists because it saw the numbers and the money thats being spent on these streamers. She said she planned to leave the site.Dlives growth has been stark, analysts said. The site reported five million active users in April 2019. On Wednesday, more than 150,000 people watched Dlive streams at the same time, one of the sites busiest days ever, and more than 95 percent of those views went to the far-right streamers, according to Genevieve Oh, a livestreaming analyst.Dlive was started by Charles Wayn and Cole Chen, young entrepreneurs who studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Wayn leads the company; Mr. Chen left it a long time ago, said Dlive, which is based in Silicon Valley.The site was built on so-called blockchain technology created by another start-up, Lino, which raised $20 million from investors in 2018. Dlive initially positioned itself as a video game streaming platform that would not take a cut of its streamers incomes, as Twitch and others do. That policy changed this year.In April 2019, Dlive scored a top-tier streamer when Felix Kjellberg, a YouTube star better known as PewDiePie, said he would stream his play on Dlive. (He returned to YouTube last year.)But by late 2019, Dlive was on its last legs, according to a longtime streamer, Nikola Jovanovic. That was when BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file sharing service, stepped in to buy Dlive. BitTorrents parent company, Tron, is owned by Justin Sun, a Chinese cryptocurrency multimillionaire.By then, far-right provocateurs had started joining Dlive, drawn by its loose enforcement of prohibited speech, which essentially allowed streamers to say whatever they wanted.In 2019, for instance, Nick Fuentes, who attended the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and has argued for Christian nationalism, was barred from Twitch and started streaming on Dlive. Reddit and YouTube later barred him for violating hate-speech policies.Mr. Fuentess first Dlive stream attracted just a few hundred viewers, but his audience has grown over time. Last year, some of his Dlive streams had more than 50,000 viewers at the same time, according to data compiled by Ms. Oh.Dlive has struggled with the right-wing influx. In messages obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Wayn told employees last year that he wanted to suspend some of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who streamed on his site. But, he added, if today we ban everyone controversial on DLive, the difficulties we will encounter on the growth will be 10x more than having them.The strategy, Mr. Wayn said, was to tolerate them while amassing more legitimate video game players who would eventually dilute the right-wing community.Dlive said in a statement on Friday that interpreting Mr. Wayns comments as trying to grow with a tolerance of violence and illegal activities is misleading.A cursory glance at DLive shows an innocuous site. On Thursday night, 33 viewers watched a man livestream a sunset and 144 discussed cryptocurrency.But when a user changes the settings to allow x-tagged content to be viewed, streams with thousands of viewers discussing the riot at the Capitol quickly dominate the home page. In his stream on Thursday night, Mr. Fuentes, who had attracted 20,000 viewers, called Wednesdays events a flicker of hope that showed what is possible.Neither Mr. Gionet nor Mr. Fuentes responded to requests for comment.Everything about this platform is fake, said Mr. Jovanovic, 34, the longtime streamer. Its like a cardboard building that shows Disneyland. As soon as you press on it, its death and carnage.Mr. Jovanovic said he was suspended from the site in December after being accused of harassing a fellow streamer an accusation he denies and later permanently barred after complaining about Dlive on Twitter.Other far-right users who joined Dlive last year include at least half a dozen believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, some of whom were barred from YouTube when the platform cracked down on QAnon accounts in October.On Wednesday, apart from Mr. Gionet, far-right-affiliated channels called Woozuh, Gloomtube and Loulz also streamed from the Capitol attack, as did an account called Murder the Media, which is affiliated with the Proud Boys, a far-right, neofascist organization. The words Murder the Media were scrawled on a Capitol doorway.Are they going to arrest us? a Dlive streamer named Zykotik wondered aloud while discussing his plans to ignore the citywide curfew in Washington. A man who identified himself as Clifford approached in Zykotiks stream. Are you Dliving? Zykotik asked. The man said he was.Because Parler, Gab and other sites dont offer ways to make money, streaming on Dlive has become a key piece of many far-right activists strategies, said Megan Squire, a professor of computer science at Elon University.Most donations are small amounts of money, but some donors give very, very large amounts, she said. Some users are giving $10,000 to $20,000 a month to streamers on Dlive. Top streamers on the platform earned six-figure incomes in 2019, according to Ms. Squires research.Shannon McGregor, a social media scholar and professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said Dlives growth was another step in the fracture of the social media ecosystem that could make it harder to follow the movements of extremists.This makes it way harder for people to track for journalists, for researchers, for people like the F.B.I., she said. Because theyre migrating from site to site, its sort of like theyre playing Whac-A-Mole.Kate Conger contributed reporting. | Tech |
Credit...James Tensuan for The New York TimesJune 2, 2018FRESNO, Calif. As the drama over offensive comments by two television stars gripped the nation last week, much of the attention focused on President Trumps Twitter responses: his decision not to condemn the racism in Roseanne Barrs tweet, and his questioning of whether there was a double standard at play.Why, he asked, did Ms. Barrs remarks result in her show being canceled while ABC, which aired Ms. Barrs show, had never apologized to him for the networks many perceived offenses against him?The day after Ms. Barrs tweet, Samantha Bees vulgar reference to Mr. Trumps daughter Ivanka amplified the argument. Why wasnt Ms. Bee losing her show, the president asked, suggesting an inconsistency under which the conservative Ms. Barr was punished harshly while Ms. Bee, a Trump-bashing liberal, received a pass.That sentiment resonated here in the Central Valley communities of California, where Christian conservative values run deep. Evangelicals have long complained that they are lampooned based on caricatures of their faith, resulting in little or no outrage.Rick Countryman, who leads Big Valley Grace Community Church, a large evangelical church in Modesto, Calif., called Ms. Barrs racist tweet really crummy but also pointed to the time when Joy Behar, a comedian on ABCs The View, described Vice President Mike Pences religious beliefs as a mental illness.It seems like a pass is given to those on the left, he said in an interview. It seems like its more acceptable to take a shot at a Christian and what they believe.But elsewhere in this California Bible Belt, another group of evangelical pastors saw the incident as the latest example of racial tension in their community, which they believe has been exacerbated by Mr. Trump.Three evangelical pastors from Fresno a city that is half Hispanic, a third non-Hispanic white, and a tenth black met Thursday morning to talk with The New York Times. Despite their differences over Mr. Trump, the pastors have worked together to try to build unity across their city.Their comments about Ms. Barr, Mr. Trump and the cultural and racial divide in the country reflected evangelicals complex relationship with a president who has achieved important policy goals of conservative Christians but has also frustrated them with actions they believe add to the divisions in their community.ImageCredit...James Tensuan for The New York TimesElias Loera is the pastor of Christian Temple Fresno, a church with a large Latino population, and leads a network of more than 300 evangelical pastors in the Fresno-Clovis area. Paul Lawrence Binion II leads Westside Church of God, a Pentecostal and largely African-American church that draws about 500 people every Sunday. Bob Willis is the pastor of Northpark Community Church, a mostly white congregation in the northern part of the city.Here is what they had to say.Ms. Barrs tweet likening a black former aide to President Barack Obama to an ape was undeniably racist, the three pastors agreed. Equally troubling, they said, was Mr. Trumps lack of condemnation of it.Mr. Loera voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, and supports many of his policies. But on this issue he believes Mr. Trump has let him down.I dont care what Roseanne says, he said, seated with the other pastors on blue chairs in the foyer of his church. As a veteran, as a citizen, I care what my president says. It is getting really hard to defend him.He added that Mr. Trumps response to examples of racism was especially important because the president has aligned himself with evangelicals, who provided him with one of his most important sources of voter support in 2016.At moments when Mr. Trump has failed to condemn racism, he said, Anglo evangelical churches have all too often remained silent.Where are these leading evangelical pastors? Mr. Loera said, drawing air quotes with his fingers. We use our little platforms to speak out on insensitive remarks. The guys with the large platform should be doing it on a regular basis.Mr. Trumps lack of condemnation of the racism in Ms. Barrs tweet was just the latest example of how he has widened the national divide, especially on issues of race, Mr. Binion said.The bigots are coming out of the closet, he said, citing episodes like the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last summer. They have a person in the presidency that will keep them alive.Mr. Binion recalled how his father had taken him as a child in Alabama to hear President Dwight D. Eisenhower speak, to teach him from an early age to respect the nations leaders. Then, his family sat in the colored section. But now, he said, he would not do the same for his grandchildren. He has managed to insult every ethnicity and every gender, the handicapped, he said of Mr. Trump.ImageCredit...James Tensuan for The New York TimesMr. Binion, a registered Democrat, cast a write-in vote for Michelle Obama for president in 2016.Mr. Willis added that Ms. Bees vulgarity about Ivanka Trump was also disturbing. It seems like there is no punishment, or very little, on that end, he said, alluding to a double standard. That shows the divide we have in our nation.Though Mr. Loera voted for Mr. Trump, he also believes his duty is to call out his inappropriate moral behavior. I can still love my president and pray for him, and disagree with what he says, he said.And he recognizes that many members of his congregation will support the president no matter what. When he spoke out from the pulpit against Mr. Trumps denigrating comments about immigrants early this year, he said, a family left his church.The evangelist Franklin Grahams California rally last week in Fresno also exposed the underlying racial tension in the evangelical community, the three pastors said.They recalled that when Mr. Graham, the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, announced his tour, the pastors of more affluent communities in Fresno tended to support his mission of mobilizing evangelical voters.Local African-American evangelical leaders, however, opposed it; they recalled how Mr. Graham had not condemned Mr. Trumps comments about immigrants and his equivocating response to Charlottesville last year.Mr. Binion, who helped lead Billy Grahams crusade to Fresno in 2001, called Franklin Graham a pretender and objected to his call for a travel ban against Muslims, issued before Mr. Trumps, and to his hostility to L.G.B.T.Q. people.While Mr. Loera had supported Mr. Grahams trip to Fresno, pastors like Mr. Binion had been so opposed to it that a representative from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association flew out to meet with them this year in an attempt to address their concerns, the pastors said. After the meeting, Mr. Binion decided to make the information about the crusade available to his church but to not promote it from the pulpit. A spokesman for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association said that meeting with local churches in advance was standard practice ahead of such tours.Mr. Willis said that when he showed a promotional video for Mr. Grahams visit to his congregation, which is largely white, several families walked out, and he worried that Mr. Grahams trip could fracture the unity the local pastors had been working to build in recent years.Unity, Mr. Willis said, was more important than a Christian celebrity coming to town. | Politics |
A New Vaccine Strategy for Children: Just One Dose, for NowMyocarditis, a rare side effect, occurs mostly after the second dose. So in some countries, officials are trying out single doses for children.Credit...Aaron Nesheim for The New York TimesOct. 6, 2021Even as parents in the United States wrestle with difficult questions over vaccinating their children against the coronavirus, families in other countries have been offered a novel option: giving children just one dose of the vaccine.Officials in Hong Kong as well as in Britain, Norway and other countries have recommended a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 12 and older providing partial protection from the virus, but without the potential harms occasionally observed after two doses. Health officials in those countries are particularly worried about increasing data suggesting that myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, may be more common among adolescents and young adults after vaccination than had been thought.The risk remains very small, and significant only after the second dose of an mRNA vaccine. But the numbers have changed the risk-benefit calculus in countries where new infections are mostly lower than in the United States.Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed data on myocarditis in June, and unanimously voted to recommend the vaccine for children ages 12 and older, saying the benefits far outweighed the risk.Agency research has estimated that for every million vaccinated boys ages 12 to 17 in the United States, the shots might cause a maximum of 70 myocarditis cases, but they would prevent 5,700 infections, 215 hospitalizations and two deaths. Studies have also shown that the risk of heart problems after Covid-19 is much higher than after vaccination.Myocarditis was among the concerns that led the Food and Drug Administration to ask vaccine makers this summer to increase the number of children in clinical trials. The issue is likely to be the focus of intense discussion when agency advisers meet later this month to review the evidence for vaccinations of children ages 5 to 11.The latest analysis, which was published on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that the incidence of myocarditis after vaccination in Israel was highest among males aged 16 to 29. About 11 of every 100,000 males in that age group developed the condition a few days after being vaccinated, a rate higher than most earlier estimates. (The risk was negligible in females of any age.)Of the 54 cases identified in the study, one was severe enough to require ventilation. Another patient with a history of heart disease died of an unknown cause soon after discharge from the hospital.Of the 14 patients in the new study who showed heart abnormalities when they were admitted to the hospital, 10 still had some signs of problems when they were discharged. But when the patients were examined again a few weeks later, all five of those for whom results were available appeared to have fully recovered.A second study, which was also published in the journal, found that boys between 16 and 19 years of age had the highest incidence of myocarditis after the second dose nine times as high when compared with unvaccinated boys of the same age during the same time.Health officials in other countries plan to revisit the one-dose strategy as more safety information becomes available, and they may choose to proceed with second shots. But the possibility of deferring the second jab has not received enough attention in the United States, said Dr. Walid Gellad, a drug safety expert at the University of Pittsburgh.In the U.S., people have not wanted to talk about it, for unclear reasons, Dr. Gellad said. Parents who are hesitant may appreciate the fact that the risk of side effects is actually much lower for one dose than it is for two doses.Serious side effects have primarily been seen in boys, so the dosing calculus should be different for boys and girls, he added.ImageCredit...Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressIt is too early to know whether myocarditis might permanently weaken the hearts of some people after vaccination, said Dr. Jeremy Brown, an expert in respiratory diseases at University College London and a member of Britains vaccine advisory group.That makes it very hard for us to make the absolute statement that its totally safe to give this vaccine, Dr. Brown said. We need some feel for what the long-term consequences of the myocarditis might be.The urgency of fully vaccinating children with two doses has to be weighed for each countrys particular situation, experts said. In Britain, high rates of vaccination among older and high-risk adults have helped to keep hospitals mostly free of patients severely ill with Covid-19.The chance of getting severe Covid in a healthy 12- to 15-year-old is almost negligible, Dr. Brown said. Against that, you have to make sure that the vaccine that youre giving is utterly safe.Some experts have argued that immunizing children would help to sever chains of transmission and contain the virus. But immunizing children to protect others when there may be a risk to the recipient, however small was indefensible, Dr. Brown said.You dont vaccinate a 15-year-old to prevent them infecting other adults thats not morally, ethically the right thing to do, he said.In Hong Kong, the argument for double-dosing adolescents is even weaker than in Britain, said Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.Hong Kong has recorded only 213 deaths and just over 12,000 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, with fewer than 10 cases per day since April. So the risk of myocarditis, however rare, outweighs the benefit of fully vaccinating adolescents, Dr. Cowling said.Clinical trials of the vaccine in children are not large enough to detect rare side effects like myocarditis, he added. Youd only see it when it goes to the population level, and then its too late. Whether to offer second doses to children does need a careful consideration.ImageCredit...Tolga Akmen/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesBut the United States is not in same position as other countries, noted Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, an infectious diseases physician and a nonvoting member of the C.D.C.s advisory group on vaccines.About 2,000 Americans are dying every day, and hospitals in many parts of the country are still packed. Weve had a significant impact on our pediatric population, Dr. Duchin said.More than 63,000 children were hospitalized with Covid-19 from August 2020 to October 2021, and at least 520 have died. Some children have developed so-called long Covid-19, in which symptoms can persist for months, and more than 4,000 have been diagnosed with a dangerous condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.All the data that we have so far suggests the disease itself is significantly worse than the vaccine side effects, Dr. Duchin said. Given all of that, a small risk of myocarditis is well worth taking, he said, and two doses are justified.Dr. Duchin said he also had some concerns that one dose of the vaccine might not shield children against infection or illness at least, not for long. I just have not seen data that would suggest that one dose would have a durable and high level of protection, he said.All of these concerns, as well as the data on myocarditis, should inform a national conversation about the wisdom of offering one dose versus two shots to adolescents, some experts said.There hasnt been enough discussion about the potential harms of vaccination, because everybody is very, very sensitive about hesitancy and doesnt want to give any fuel to anti-vaccination campaigns, Dr. Cowling said.In the United States, in particular, many public health experts have been reluctant to voice concerns about the vaccines, Dr. Gellad said: No one wants to introduce any doubt that kids should be vaccinated. But I think there are ways to talk about it that will appeal to people who are hesitant.Kristina Rogers, a 51-year-old mother of two in Oklahoma, said she would welcome the option to give her 12-year-old daughter only one dose of the vaccine.Ms. Rogers, who is fully immunized, worries that not enough was known about the vaccines long-term effects in children and said she wished there were more open discussion.Ms. Rogers has diabetes and developed chronic kidney disease after a severe bout with Covid last year. She lost her brother-in-law to Covid a year ago.But the two doses of vaccine left her feeling flattened and fatigued, as well, and she worried the shots might prove too much for her children. They wear masks at school and wash their hands regularly, but Ms. Rogers and her husband are not yet ready to vaccinate them.The last thing you want to do is mess with their ticker, man thats what makes them go, she said. I would be more up for the one dose, if that was an option. | Health |
Hot Stars in Hammocks How's it Hanging?! 1/27/2018 Don't get roped into weekend plans, instead lay low with some shots of lounging celebs in hammocks ... swing through our gallery of stars strung out to get a whole new view of net neutrality. Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Photo Galleries | Entertainment |
Credit...Jim Mone/Associated PressFeb. 16, 2014MINNEAPOLIS The amateur mind-reading bothers Kevin Love the most, even though he caused most of it. After all, it was Love, the Timberwolves All-Star power forward, who complained about the Minnesota front office and his four-year contract extension in an interview with Yahoo Sports. And it was Love who negotiated an opt-out clause, potentially making him a free agent after the third year, in 2015.So it has not taken much imagination for people in and around the N.B.A. to wonder if Love perhaps the leagues best power forward but never a playoff participant since entering the league in 2008 has decided to bolt from the perennially struggling Timberwolves the minute he can for the more glamorous Knicks or the Los Angeles Lakers, although neither is doing any better than Minnesota these days. To Love, however, none of this conjecture makes sense. If he had checked out, as Love put it, why did he fly back to Minnesota last summer to meet with Mayo Clinic representatives about a new downtown practice center? (The Timberwolves needed a project partner, and Mayo ultimately signed on.) Why, Love asked, is he the liaison between the players and the centers design team? Why does he sit in on marketing meetings and talk to sponsors? Why did he take out a full-page ad in the Star Tribune on Feb. 9 to thank Timberwolves fans for helping make him an All-Star starter for the first time? And why does he take a continual physical pounding for a team struggling to reach .500? A lot of stuff had been said in the past, Love, 25, said after a recent practice at Target Center. Theres even stuff that came out two weeks ago, today, all over the place. Im invested in this team, and long term, Im invested in this team. Im happy here.Yet the speculation continues. A sideline encounter with the filmmaker and noted Knicks fan Spike Lee at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 3, after Love hit an off-balance bank shot to help beat the Knicks the two clumsily clasped arms as Love ran by only added to the rumors of Loves interest in relocating to New York. Some backstory: Love has known Lee for years, and they spoke that night at halftime. And Love used to watch Lees film He Got Game before his own high school games. It was a pretty spontaneous move by me, Love said of his courtside interlude with Lee.How many moments can you have like that, where Spikes sitting right there, standing, kind of gawking at you, and you get to give him a little bit of dap? he said of his greeting. Take advantage of it.Minnesota, not surprisingly, is determined to keep Love. Last May, the Timberwolves fired David Kahn, their basketball operations director and the main target of Loves scorn in the Yahoo article, and part of the reason they did so is that Kahn did not give Love the maximum five-year extension he sought.Kahns successor, the former N.B.A. coach Flip Saunders, has gone out of his way to repair the damage. Saunders goes to lunch with Love once a week, picks his brain and promotes him as the face of the franchise. At Saunderss invitation, Love represented the Timberwolves at the N.B.A. draft lottery last May. Do I have a good relationship with him? I think I do, Saunders said. I like his competitiveness. I like him as a person off the floor as much as I like him on the floor. Because of that, you want to see a person like that be successful. And I think he has a chance to be special here.Limited to 18 games last season by a twice-broken right hand, the 6-foot-10 Love entered the All-Star break among the N.B.A.s per-game leaders in scoring (25.8 points, fourth place) and rebounding (13.2, second). Lakers Coach Mike DAntoni called Loves 3-point shot lethal, though on Saturday night, he did not make the final of the All-Star 3-point contest, finishing fifth out of eight competitors. He won the event in 2012.Saunders has challenged Love, a terrific outlet passer, to average five assists a game. That would lift his averages to more than 20 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists numbers attained by Hall of Famers like Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. Love is close, averaging 4.0 assists a game, second among N.B.A. power forwards to Charlottes Josh McRoberts (4.1). Love also took on more responsibility since the hulking center Nikola Pekovic sustained an Achilles tendon injury last month. He has averaged 31.6 points and 15.1 rebounds in Pekovics absence.Love has had at least 30 points and 15 rebounds on seven occasions this season, leading the N.B.A., and 25 times in his career, breaking Kevin Garnetts team record in 593 fewer games. Being the player that I am and the face of this franchise, Ive obviously got to carry most of the weight, as I should, Love said.Minnesota Coach Rick Adelman added: Hes been tremendous.All that was evident in a 109-99 victory over the Lakers on Feb. 4, as Love drew one charge and fell hard to the court twice, the second time injuring his right hip and his neck with 4 minutes 10 seconds to play.But with the Timberwolves ahead by 9, Love refused to come out. He sank two foul shots after a timeout and two more 25 seconds later. He finished with 31 points and 17 rebounds in about 41 minutes, but he was too banged up to play the next night in Oklahoma City. Love missed another game with a left quadriceps bruise before nearly posting a triple-double (32 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists) in a 117-90 blowout of Denver last Wednesday. Hes a soldier, the veteran backup center Ronny Turiaf said. Hes been very much trying to pick up his intensity and his effort on the defensive end, and that makes a big difference for everybody.And, sometimes, vocally. On Jan. 8, when the backups Dante Cunningham and J. J. Barea sulked instead of joining timeout huddles late in a 104-103 loss to Phoenix, Love criticized them without mentioning their names.Were supposed to be a team, he told reporters.Saunders said he was steaming up in my suite when he saw what Cunningham and Barea were doing and praised Love for taking on the issue. Despite all his efforts on the court, Love has not exactly pulled his team along with him. The 25-28 Timberwolves are 1-12 in games decided by 4 points or fewer, trail Phoenix by six games for the last Western Conference playoff spot and need a big finish to avoid missing the playoffs for the 10th consecutive season. Thats a problem. It is hard to imagine Love sticking around if that continues.We just need to win, he said. Im happy here. Im happy to win here. As long as we win, its all good with me because Im having fun out there.Pekovic, perhaps Loves closest friend on the team, faced a similar decision last summer and agreed to a five-year, $60 million extension to stay in Minnesota. He worried that Love would choose differently. If we can get to the point where we can fight for a playoff position, that would be really good, Pekovic said. We just need to push better, and I know that will help his decision whether to stay or not. | Sports |
Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York TimesNov. 17, 2018The devastating wildfires that have ravaged parts of California brought with them plumes of smoke, shrouding some communities in a soupy black fog.Air pollution like that is full of tiny particles that can cause health problems, ranging from temporary discomfort to long-term heart and lung diseases.If you live in one of the worst-affected areas and cannot get away, here are some ways to minimize the harmful effects of the smoke.[Read the Timess report on the dangerous effects of the wildfire smoke on Californias air quality.] What are the health risks?Children, older adults and people with heart or lung diseases are more likely to be affected by air pollution. People should also take extra care if they have had a past health issue, such as childhood asthma, because a reocurrence is possible in some cases.Theres a lot of particulate matter that becomes airborne from the fires, said Dr. Jacqueline M. Moline, vice president of occupational medicine, epidemiology and prevention at Northwell Health in Manhasset, N.Y. Thats what causes the pollution and so many of the symptoms people have begun to have: burning of the throat, burning of the eyes, nasal congestion and irritation.Scientists and doctors are still studying the long-term health effects of large wildfires, but a growing body of research shows that inhalation of minuscule particles from wood fires can nestle in the folds of lung tissue and harm the immune system, possibly by priming it to overreact to irritants in the future.Air pollution can also exacerbate heart problems and even hasten a heart attack, said Dr. Len Horovitz, an internist and pulmonologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.The heart and the lungs are intertwined, so any problems with the lungs will tax the heart, he said. He added that particles inhaled in the lungs can also get into the bloodstream and cause widespread inflammation.Reduce your exposureIf it is smoky outside, avoid outdoor exercise or other strenuous activities. Stay indoors as much as possible and keep the doors and windows closed.Try not to introduce extra chemicals, such as aerosol cleaning products, into your living space. Keep your eyes refreshed with plain saline drops.If you are using an air-conditioner, make sure it is recirculating rather than drawing polluted air from the outside, Dr. Moline said.Consider getting an air purifierIf you can, invest in an air purifier, which helps to clear particles of pollution in your home. Here is an in-depth review of HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Arrestance) air purifiers for Wirecutter, a New York Times company.Many of the purifiers available in stores only have the power to clean the air in a single room, so it might be best placed in the bedroom of someone who is at greater risk, like a child, an older adult or a person with asthma, said John Capitman, the executive director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute and a public health professor at California State University, Fresno.That isnt going to reduce the exposure of everybody else in the household, he said.What kind of mask is best?A surgical mask, scarf or bandanna will not filter out many pollutants at all. A respirator mask will more effectively keep pollutants out of your airways.You might see respirator masks with labels like N95, R99 or P100. The numbers refer to the approximate percentage of particles that are blocked, and the letters refer to the levels of oil resistance, which are not as important in dealing with smoke pollution.Make sure the mask is fitted securely to your face, and beware of beards: Facial hair can allow air to seep in, unfiltered.Unfortunately, there are risks associated with these masks.Sacramento County stopped distributing them and warned that for those not living near the wildfires, their risks outweigh their benefits, in part because they can make it difficult for people to get enough oxygen. The risks include increased heart rate.Online resources can helpIf you want to keep track of the air pollution in your area, the Environmental Protection Agency has a website, AirNow, with air quality measurements that are updated hourly for communities across California and the rest of the United States.You can also track the air quality here and see how the smoke plumes have moved over the past few days. | Health |
Credit...Gabriel AlcalaThe Great ReadSilicon Valley techies and Wall Street titans have bought homes and moved businesses there in the pandemic, coaxed by an eager mayor.Credit...Gabriel AlcalaPublished Jan. 29, 2021Updated Jan. 31, 2021MIAMI Americas business leaders, freed from the office, looked around the country, taking note of its coronavirus lockdowns, taxes and rabble rousers. And many said as if in unison: Miami!Blackstone Group: Miami!Elliott Management: Miami!Silicon Valley venture capitalists: Miami!And the charming mayor, Francis X. Suarez, a registered Republican, knowing he had an especially easy sell at the moment, said: Welcome.As tech leaders have decamped from San Francisco and Wall Street titans from New York, many have spread across the country to locations with sun, lower taxes and preferably more relaxed lockdowns. Coming from places run by progressive governments that were sometimes openly antagonistic toward local elites, many were thrilled to move to towns that seemed to want them more.Some chose Austin, Texas. Others gravitated to Boulder, Colo. But perhaps the most vocal faction came to Miami.It was a lightning-in-the-bottle moment, said Mr. Suarez, 43, who became mayor in 2017. For them to hear an elected official saying, Hey, we want you, hey, we appreciate you I didnt realize what a sensitive moment it was in terms of how people felt they were being treated by the governments where they lived.Dozens of big names have arrived. There was a tech contingent: Keith Rabois, a PayPal co-founder and investor, and his husband. Then their friend Peter Thiel, the tech investor and prominent conservative. Jon Oringer, founder of the stock-photography provider Shutterstock, and the media mogul Bryan Goldberg. Steven Galanis, the head of the celebrity-video product Cameo, is here. Elon Musk is talking about building car tunnels under Miami.There are also hedge funds and private equity funds. Paul Singers Elliott Management is moving its headquarters to the Miami area, as is Carl Icahns firm, Icahn Enterprises. Others are opening major Miami offices: Kenneth Griffins Citadel as well as Blackstone. Goldman Sachs is weighing moving parts of its operation to Miami.Rich people have always moved to Miami to enjoy their wealth and while away their time on the water. It is unclear if these newcomers are just the latest generation to do that, or if they will really build new companies in the city. But that hasnt stopped Miami Tech Welcome drinks from happening weekly at an outdoor bistro, where usually 25 or 30 people gather. There are growing WhatsApp and Telegram groups to organize activities among the 300 tech newcomers, with chat rooms on the encrypted messaging app dedicated to dealflow, fintech, healthtech and Miami-specific topics like kitesurfing. Every Saturday, the tech crew goes biking. Tennis is every Thursday. There are big, fancy-dress parties.ImageCredit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesI run the book club and the kitesurfing club, said Natalia Martinez-Kalinina, who works at Reef Technology, a logistics start-up in Miami. She said this weeks book was The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity.She likes the newcomers and socially onboarding them. My life prior to the pandemic involved a lot of hosting, so this isnt all that different, she said.The new arrivals have manifestoes. It seems no business leader can move to the city without one.We recognize the amazing and unique natural gifts that G-d and geology bestowed on California, but enough is enough, wrote David Blumberg, a venture capitalist who runs Blumberg Capital and moved from San Francisco to Miami in November. We certainly hope and pray that California will take action to remedy the disastrous self-inflicted political situation and restore its former luster and quality of life, but for now we are voting with our feet.To Miami!Hibiscus IslandAlex Merutka, the founder of Craftsman+, a marketing automation company, was between quarantining in San Francisco and staying on his moms sofa in San Diego, soon to be moving to Los Angeles, when he got the call from friends last year about Miami.They said come to Miami, theres something really special happening here, he said. And so he did.One recent morning, Mr. Merutka, 29, was having a smoothie by the pool of his new rented house. Nearby, his roommate was in the middle of a boxing session with a personal trainer.The house is on Hibiscus Island, where Mr. Merutka and his friends from tech and finance have formed a little compound. There are five guys living across the street, one in a guesthouse, and five more in another house down the street. Most are in their early 30s. A group of female compatriots have their own houses.ImageCredit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesYou have this thing where everyones moving to Miami at the same time, and its like were all college freshmen again, Mr. Merutka said. Everyone who moved down here, they didnt want to be alone no one wants to quarantine alone. This let us press the reset button on how we wanted to live.The Hibiscus men follow rules to stay Covid-safe. They try to live as one bubble among themselves. No nightclubbing. No indoor working out. They have trainers come instead to coach group fitness classes like boxing and yoga outside.Mr. Merutka is not coming as a snowbird, in town for the winter. He is declaring residency. He changed his drivers license and is buying a house. He is taking Spanish classes and just paddle-boarded for the first time.His start-up is also growing. At the onset of the pandemic, Craftsman+ lost all its travel clients, including Expedia. But the company began focusing its software services on video games. Revenue doubled. Mr. Merutka has gone from 10 employees to 25.He is buying a house in Miami for his mom as well.A Pro-Business MayorThe first thing people in tech asked me was: Have you met the mayor?They all had.You have a pro-business mayor here, and that makes a big difference, said Jay Levy, 40, a Miami-born venture capitalist with Zelkova Ventures who moved back to the city from New York during the pandemic.He said he had started thinking of relocating after a political backlash deterred Amazon from opening an office in Queens in 2019. That tarnishes business view of a city, Mr. Levy said.In contrast, he said, it seems almost every investor and founder in Miami has the mayors cell number.Mr. Suarez, the son of former Mayor Xavier Suarez, is a hype machine. The glass door to his office has his mayoral seal and his Twitter handle. No tweet is too random for him to retweet. A Blackstone employee relocating and in need of friends? The mayor reposted her call.ImageCredit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Suarez, who launched a program called eStart this week to simplify the process of starting a business in his town, credited a combination of the federal cap on state tax deductions, Covid-19, and leftward-moving politics in New York and San Francisco for making the Miami moment happen.Not only are you seeing more and more of your money going to government, youre seeing more of your money going to a government that doesnt want you, he said. So its like a double whammy.On Thursday, he went live on Twitter with the chief operating officer of SoftBank to announce the Japanese conglomerate had committed $100 million to investing in Miami tech companies or tech companies willing to move to the city.Mr. Suarez is not above gimmicky stunts.Proud to say Miami is the first municipal government to host Satoshis White Paper on government site, he tweeted on Wednesday, referring to the shadowy creator of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that has been on a run.Anyone in tech who flies to Miami can also ask to stay in a special discounted hotel suite with a body-scanning mattress made by a start-up called Eight Sleep. Eight Sleeps founders also just moved to Miami.Two DocksIf there is a symbol for the shift in Miami culture, its Mr. Oringers house.The house 20,000 square feet, with two docks (water scooter and yacht) once belonged to the baseball star Alex Rodriguez. But as of last fall, for $42 million, it belonged to Mr. Oringer, the founder of Shutterstock. He is now figuring out how to remodel the propertys batting cage to be something more useful.The house has become the co-working space for several of the new companies that Mr. Oringer has invested in through Pareto Holdings, a fund that he and Edward Lando created to invest in Miami start-ups. Its tagline: Building world-changing companies in the Miami sunshine.Pareto has made about 100 investments, with another 100 expected by the end of 2021. The team is focusing on telemedicine, fintech and consumer-relationship management companies.Summers are brutal, yeah, but did we forget what winter in New York is like? Mr. Oringer said over boxed ginger-infused alkaline water by his outdoor kitchen. Ill take a Florida summer over a New York winter.ImageCredit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThe inflow has been such that the median home sale price in Palm Beach, which is part of Greater Miami, had soared to $4.9 million by the end of 2020, up 29 percent from a year earlier, according to Douglas Elliman, the real estate company. Over the same period, Manhattan co-op and condo prices rose about 5 percent.Meghan Maloof Berdellans, who runs the executive relocation firm S&S Global, said she was moving two executives from San Francisco or New York to Miami every week. Its something we like to call the Mass Techxodus, she wrote on her blog in December.Marc Lotenberg, the chief executive of the design magazine Surface, said he had bought a house in Miami and was not going back to New York. He sees his family more. They spend their days outside.Im in the pool, my son in one hand, iPad in the other. Thats how Im working at 3 p.m., he said over salmon salads at the Miami Soho House. When is that happening in New York? Im not going back to the traditional office again.Coming HomeUnlike San Francisco and New York, Miami is diverse in its politics, with Republicans and Democrats living together in relative peace.It is also racially diverse and international in a way that is vastly different from where some of the newcomers used to live. Miami with a population of about 500,000, in a Greater Miami area of 6.2 million is about 70 percent Hispanic and 15 percent Black. San Francisco, with a population of 900,000, is 15 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Black.The universities in Miami graduate more minority engineers than any other city in America, said Leigh-Ann Buchanan, who is starting Aire Ventures, a nonprofit consultancy to help create diverse tech communities.Ms. Buchanan said she hoped some of the investment money coming to town went to local entrepreneurs in need, not just new tech founders. It would be a way to spread the wealth.Miami has all the material to be something different, she said. Well see what happens.One hot winter day, longtime tech community organizers lounging on fake grass reflected on how frustrating it had been for Miami to have been ignored as a place of innovation for decades. The city was seen as somewhere to retire or to buy a big house and hide out after striking it rich.ImageCredit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesIve been annoyed about this for years: We have these demographic patterns, we have this talent, but we underutilize our own people, said Ms. Martinez-Kalinina, 34, who organizes the tech newcomer book club. San Francisco has a superiority complex, but Miami has an inferiority complex.Adam Garfield, 33, founder of SpeedETab, a start-up that provides digital ordering tools to restaurants, said most of the friends he had grown up with in Miami left for jobs in New York or San Francisco and never came back.The main option for work here was the tourism industry, so most of my friends left, he said. Now theyre starting to come home.Chris Adamo, a Pied Piper of the local movement who runs a newsletter-support company, Letterhead, said the newcomers were converting to permanent residents. They might be coming for lower taxes, but he was fine with that.This is our Ellis Island moment, he said. People can come here, live free and build.ImageCredit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times | Tech |
Morgan Freeman I Stopped My SAG Speech ... 'Cause of Lily Tomlin 1/22/2018 TNT Morgan Freeman has revealed the person that caused him to stop his acceptance of the SAG Life Achievement Award mid-speech. Morgan says the person he stopped for was Lily Tomlin, who was nominated for "Grace and Frankie." Now here's the thing ... it appeared he was schooling her, possibly for talking during his speech. But Morgan said afterward, "She's a wonder in herself and I've always loved her. I see her, I say hello." That makes it sound like Lily didn't do anything but sit there in all her glory. We need more info. | Entertainment |
Credit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesFeb. 20, 2014TAMPA, Fla. In the ninth inning of the penultimate game at the old Yankee Stadium in 2008, Derek Jeter was trying to absorb every aspect of the final moments at the sacred grounds. He knew there would be only a few more at-bats there, and he wanted to soak them up. But shortly after he looked around at the cheering fans and their signs, perhaps a glance at the classic facade and the spots in the stands where he had hit postseason home runs, he was snapped out of his reverie by a pitch from Baltimore Orioles reliever Jim Miller now a Yankee that hit him on the wrist.I decided I wasnt going to do that again, he said.For all his talk about soaking in his final year in baseball, Jeter used that story to make a point: Smelling the roses is fine, but Jeter said he could not be distracted from the work needed to get ready for his final season.So on the first day of full-squad workouts for the 2014 Yankees, a thinner Jeter noticed the larger-than-normal crowd with their adoring signs and photographs of him. He waved to a few of them from the batting cage, and he had his usual laughs with teammates and coaches on the field. But he also had his job to take care of, and, according to Manager Joe Girardi, it was the best day he had seen Jeter have physically in well over a year.I would say last year at times, just going through what you might consider everyday activity a jog, running the bases you would notice it, Girardi said of Jeters 2013 limp. Today I noticed nothing. To me, it looked like he never got hurt.For many Yankee fans saddened by the news that this will be Jeters final season, those are encouraging words. Girardi watched along with 1,338 fans and dozens of members of the news media, most of whom were representing Japanese outlets interested in Masahiro Tanaka, Ichiro Suzuki and the spring training guest instructor Hideki Matsui.Girardi watched as Jeter took easy ground balls for about 15 minutes along with the other infielders. Then Jeter stepped back and caught hard grounders, firing across the infield to first base. That was followed by a round of batting practice including tracking live pitches from Preston Claiborne and finally some running. Earlier, he hit in the indoor cages.ImageCredit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesThroughout the day Jeter did not move gingerly or exhibit any limp or false steps. He gave no indication that he was not healthy, now 16 months removed from surgery on his broken ankle. Jeter concurred with Girardis assessment, saying there was no comparison with last year. A year ago, Jeter removed the protective boot in early January and never had a chance to do the proper conditioning for the rest of his body. This year, he did. Then again, a year ago he claimed he felt fine as well.Im always going to tell you Im fine, he said with a sheepish grin. This year, I mean it.To take pressure off his legs and move better throughout the season, Jeter said he had lost roughly six pounds through extra conditioning and a better diet. He hopes to remain at that weight all year. For the past 10 years, Jeter said, he has played at 199 pounds and almost never deviated from that. So consistent was his weight through the past decade that before he stepped on the scale, the trainer Steve Donohue would announce, 199.But this year, Jeter said he was 193 or 194 pounds.Girardi said not to expect Jeter to play in the first couple of spring training games, but aside from that he did not envision any restrictions. The goal is for Jeter to get 60 at-bats in spring training and to be ready to play regularly throughout the season.Perhaps because of Jeters impending retirement, or maybe because of the Japanese stars, Girardi said he had noticed more buzz in the stands and from the news media for the first workout. He also noted that the new players participating in their first workouts as Yankees, including Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran, might have been a factor as well.I believe we had a very good off-season, Girardi said, and added, I like what I see. | Sports |
Politics|Warnock pledges to fight for all Georgians.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/us/politics/raphael-warnock-georgia.htmlCredit...Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021The Rev. Raphael Warnock, the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South, promised Georgia voters early Wednesday that he would work on their behalf while staying true to his roots.We were told that we couldnt win this election, said Mr. Warnock, who was declared the victor over the Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler, shortly after making his remarks. But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.Mr. Warnock, the 51- year-old pastor at the storied Ebenezer Baptist Church, marveled at his experience compared to that of his mother, who he said used to pick somebody elses cotton as a teenager.But the other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody elses cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator, he said.Mr. Warnock grew up in a housing project in Savannah, Ga., where he was the 11th of 12 siblings. Both his parents were pastors. He gave his own first sermon at the age of 11 and, after graduating from Morehouse College, went on to Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he also worked as a youth minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, where another preacher-turned-politician, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., once led.For more than 15 years, he has spoken from Ebenezer Baptist Church, once the home of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., preaching about politics from the church pulpit.He has said some of his sermons are designed to make people uncomfortable, urging Black churches to be more accepting of gay people and criticizing them for being shamefully slow to focus on gender inequality. In his book, The Divided Mind of the Black Church, he criticized white churches for being participants in slavery, segregation and other manifestations of white supremacy.Mr. Warnock, speaking before dawn on Wednesday, told voters that he was honored by the faith they had shown in him.May my story be an inspiration to some young person who is trying to grasp and grab hold of the American dream. | Politics |
Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesWhere there is indigenous land, newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro has said, there is wealth underneath it.Illegal gold miners work at a mine in Posto de Vigilancia.Credit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesNov. 10, 2018The Times traveled hundreds of miles into the Brazilian Amazon, staying with a tribe in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory as it struggled with the shrinking rain forest.The miners had to go.Their bulldozers, dredges and high-pressure hoses tore into miles of land along the river, polluting the water, poisoning the fish and threatening the way life had been lived in this stretch of the Amazon for thousands of years.So one morning in March, leaders of the Munduruku tribe readied their bows and arrows, stashed a bit of food into plastic bags and crammed inside four boats to drive the miners away.It has been decided, said Maria Leusa Kab, one of the women in the tribe who helped lead the revolt.The confrontation had begun.The showdown was a small part of an existential struggle indigenous communities are waging across Brazil. But the battle goes far beyond their individual survival, striking at the fate of the Amazon and its pivotal role in climate change.In recent years, the Brazilian government has sharply cut spending on indigenous communities, while lawmakers have pushed for regulatory changes championed by industries seeking unfettered access to parts of the Amazon that have been protected under the nations constitution.Now, Brazil has elected a new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who favors abolishing protected indigenous lands. He has promised to scale back enforcement of environmental laws, calling them an impediment to economic growth, and has made his intentions for the Amazon clear.Where there is indigenous land, he said last year, there is wealth underneath it.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesLong before Mr. Bolsonaros victory, descendants of the original inhabitants of the Amazon, the worlds largest tropical rain forest, had become increasingly vulnerable to bands of miners, loggers and farmers who have been clearing it at a rate environmentalists call unsustainable.From 2006 through 2017, Brazils part of the Amazon lost roughly 91,890 square miles of forest cover an area larger than New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Connecticut combined, according to an analysis of satellite images by Global Forest Watch.Thousands of square miles of forest have already been razed in indigenous territories, where large-scale industrial activity is prohibited. With Mr. Bolsonaros victory, indigenous leaders are sounding more drastic warnings.He represents an institutionalization of genocide in Brazil, said Dinam Tux, the coordinator of Brazils Association of Indigenous Peoples. A spokesman for Mr. Bolsonaros transition team said no one would comment on indigenous concerns, or respond to criticism of his views, because officials were focused on far more important issues.Experts say the rate of deforestation in the Amazon, which soaks up enormous amounts of the worlds carbon dioxide, makes it nearly certain that Brazil will miss some of the climate change mitigation goals it set in 2009, when it presented itself as an exemplar of sustainable development at a United Nations summit.The trendline has led federal prosecutors and environmentalists to say that the Amazon is on the brink of irreversible damage, potentially leading to the extinction of indigenous communities that have weathered centuries of calamities.The combined impacts of deforestation, climate change and extensive use of fire have brought the Amazon to the tipping point, said Thomas Lovejoy, an environmental science and policy professor at George Mason University. The indigenous people, who are the best defenders of the land, become vulnerable if the forest vanishes.Divide and ConquerMany indigenous leaders see the threats against their communities as a modern-day David-versus-Goliath struggle, with tribes facing violent bands of men who take advantage of the Amazons lawlessness to turn a profit.Officially, the fight over the Amazons future is playing out far away in the legislative chambers of the nations capital. After Brazils economy plunged into recession in 2014, politicians and industry leaders who favor loosening environmental protections gained the upper hand in a long-running contest over the rain forest.They have had some success in weakening protections enshrined in Brazils 1988 Constitution. But in many instances, the legal battle lags far behind reality. As miners, loggers and farmers charge into the Amazon, legally or not, the landscape is being radically reshaped.They havent given up on changing the law, but they are prioritizing a strategy of creating facts on the ground, said Cleber Buzzatto, the executive secretary of the Indigenous Missionary Council, an indigenous rights group. By creating an irreversible reality, they will then seek to change legislation.From the air, those facts on the ground look like bright orange gashes carved in the banks of lazy, zigzagging rivers that meander through the jungle.Few are as striking as the gold mine built around Posto de Vigilncia, or Lookout Point, one of the most remote Munduruku villages.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesOsvaldo Waru Munduruku, the rail-thin village chief, looked ashen as he explained how his tiny hamlet, home to about 15 families, became a hub of the illegal mining trade that has transformed the region in recent years.The National Indian Foundation, a federal agency that helps indigenous people, had its aid budget slashed in recent years, making it hard for remote villages to get food or basic services. Beyond that, many indigenous leaders like Mr. Waru long for much better living standards, education and opportunities than an isolated, arduous forest existence allows.So when the first white miners, as he calls them, dropped by in 2015 to suggest a partnership, Mr. Waru was tempted.He and other indigenous leaders knew there was little they could do to stop the miners. The brutal recession had driven large numbers of unemployed Brazilians into the jungle, hunting for gold. If a gold rush was about to break out in his part of Par state, he reasoned, the village might as well take a cut.This kind of co-optation has become common in remote areas of the jungle and precisely what many indigenous leaders want to stop.Divide and conquer, said Fernanda Kaingng, an indigenous rights lawyer who belongs to the Kaingang tribe. That is the strategy used to promote division with indigenous communities in order to secure access to wood, minerals and land.The miners in Mr. Warus village cleared a long strip for a runway and built a parallel settlement, with sleeping quarters and a small church. The miners rewarded him with 10 percent of the haul each month worth a few hundred dollars, he said.We would save it and save it until there was enough to buy things for the community, Mr. Waru said. It paid for a new boat motor, a generator and a radio.But then the bouts of diarrhea among children began. Erosion from the mines turned the river a sandy brown. Fish that had long been a staple of the communitys diet now had high levels of mercury, which is used to extract gold.Before, we had a lot of food here, but since the water became dirty, the fish vanished, he said. We became concerned about the future of our children.After Brink of Annihilation, Revival More than 896,000 indigenous people live in Brazil less than 0.5 percent of the population. They belong to 300 tribes and speak more than 270 languages.Their ranks are small compared with the millions of indigenous people in countries like Bolivia and Peru. Yet half a century ago, they were nearly extinct.In 1500, when the first Portuguese settlers arrived, three to five million people lived in what would later become Brazil.Smallpox and other diseases brought by the Europeans wiped out hundreds of thousands. Enslavement followed, first in sugar plantations and later when the rubber boom drew profitseekers to the Amazon starting in the 1870s.By the 1960s, when Brazils military dictatorship began, the indigenous population had fallen below 100,000. The generals regarded indigenous communities in the Amazon as impediments to development and drew them out of remote villages to assimilate them.That policy was formally abandoned in 1988, when Brazils current Constitution was drafted. It sought to atone for past abuses, setting in motion a process to mark and protect indigenous territories. There are now more than 600 of them, encompassing more than 13 percent of the country a fact that has long rankled Brazilian loggers, miners and farmers.Here along the Tapajos River, the Munduruku, nearly 14,000 members strong, have splintered into dozens of small villages, scattered across a territory slightly larger than New Hampshire. ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesBut as the recession hit Brazils impoverished northeast and Amazon states particularly hard, outsiders with families to feed ventured into Munduruku land. They revived gold mines that the government had shut down in the 1990s.When the miners showed up in indigenous villages along the Tapajs in 2015, they found communities in worse shape than their own.In one, Caroal Rio das Tropas, families live in dilapidated wooden huts and sleep in hammocks. Skinny dogs with festering wounds sniff the ground for scraps of food. Poisonous snake bites are treated by using the body of the serpent as a makeshift tourniquet while the patient makes the six-hour boat ride to the nearest town.Some families fare better than others, with television sets, cellphones and appliances powered by rumbling old generators. That, said Ezildo Koro Munduruku, is the result of gold proceeds that have transformed the area and the tribe.Our grandparents generation, they had a strong organization, said Mr. Ezildo, 41. They were all united. They had little contact with white people.As mining camps multiplied, bringing processed foods, alcohol, drugs and prostitution to the area, several Munduruku men jumped at the chance to make money. Their diets changed and vices took hold. Many Munduruku worried that their way of life was being irreparably altered.Within our families, this began pitting brother against brother, Mr. Ezildo said.Some indigenous leaders initially argued that mining could be a boon, without causing too much environmental damage. But the gold brought only modest and fleeting benefits, he said.We are sick, physically and spiritually, Mr. Ezildo said. If one earns 100 grams of gold, they will spend it on alcohol and prostitutes.The Law of SurvivalAfter three days of tense debate, the women of the tribe gave the final word. Some pointed fingers defiantly at men in the room, while others cried as they took turns speaking into a scratchy microphone.When it was done, Ms. Kab, the mother who helped lead the uprising, hung up a sign with bullet points to summarize the plan.Paralyze illegal mining activity in the indigenous area; clean up the territory and expel all the invaders from Munduruku territory, it said.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesThe miners knew a revolt was coming and had tried to head it off. They flew to the village by plane, bearing massive bags of rice, beans and pasta, along with packs of grape- and orange-flavored soda a peace offering.Cleber da Silva Costa, the miner who brought the bounty, said he knew what he and his fellow miners were doing was illegal and harmful to the environment. Yet he argued that his crime was merely a symptom of more egregious wrong.If you didnt have so many corrupt people in Congress, you might be able to consider preserving the environment, he said.Mr. da Silva, 47, a miner with three children, said the camp was doing more to preserve than destroy indigenous communities.The little they have today is from miners, he said. The government doesnt help. All the money gets stolen. We may be in the wrong. But out here, its the law of survival.This Territory Is Not YoursWeapons in hand, about 30 members of the tribe set out to evict the miners.But after trudging for more than six hours through rivers, mud and steep hills, they reached the first gold mining camp exhausted, hungry and thirsty.Amarildo Dias Nascimento, the camp supervisor, sensed that a confrontation was imminent. So, in a disarming gesture, he welcomed the Munduruku delegation effusively, instructing his cooks to put on a feast of grilled chicken, beans and rice for the guests.Tonight, well just focus on joy, he said.Mr. Nascimento, 47, argued that the miners were merely trying to survive.Many have been left without options, he said, pointing at his men. Do you become a thief in Rio de Janeiro? Many are here because they dont want to resort to that. Were here fighting for our daily bread.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesThe next morning, Ms. Kab breast-fed her baby as she summoned the miners for the showdown.This is our land, she said. This territory is not yours. This is where we get sustenance for our children. We dont depend on gold, but rather the fruits and animals you are driving away.Mr. Nascimento listened politely, his head bowed.The moment you ask us to leave, we will do it immediately, he said.After the meeting broke up, several members of the Munduruku crammed into a bulldozer driven by one of the miners to avoid crossing a long, muddy patch of the trail on foot. But as they left, it was still unsettled when, or even if, the miners would leave.The Munduruku headed to the next mining camp, determined to deliver the same message. But the camp was larger, and they faced a far less welcoming group of miners. Several were drunk.We had to turn back because they were armed, Ms. Kab said.Midas DilemmaWeeks later, dozens of heavily armed federal police officers and agents from Brazils two environmental agencies descended on a mining camp in Munduruku land, sweeping in aboard four helicopters.The mission was the unveiling of Operation Paj Bravo, code named for an indigenous myth about a malevolent person who must be exiled.While Brazilian lawmakers press to expand mining, logging and farming in the Amazon, some prosecutors and officials remain steadfastly against it, using their authority to enforce environmental laws for as long as they exist.But the raids do little. As usual, miners scattered into the forest as the aircraft approached, preventing investigators from making arrests or even asking many questions. Agents set fire to several machines and camp dwellings before taking off.It was like something out of a war zone, said Valmir, a miner who used his first name because he feared prosecution. None of us here are bandits. If the government offers some sort of employment for us outside of mining, no one would return to mining.Days later, federal prosecutors searched gold dealers in the nearest major urban areas the second phase of the investigation. This one was called Midas Dilemma, a play on the tale of King Midas and his dangerous ability to turn everything he touched into gold.We see a parallel with the exploitation of national riches, said Gecivaldo Vasconcelos Ferreira, a federal police officer who helped lead the investigation. If they arent exploited in a responsible way, they end up becoming a curse.Luis Cames Boaventura, a prosecutor on the case, says the authorities have only scratched the surface of an enormous industry backed by local and national politicians.There are hundreds, if not thousands, of gold mines along the Tapajs, and supply chains are deliberately opaque, making it hard to go after illegal mining bosses, he said.It is a very serious problem, he said.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesIn May, prosecutors issued a call to action, warning that the gold trade could potentially lead to the extinction of indigenous communities and traditional cultures.Federal prosecutors have characterized the plight of some indigenous communities as genocide.But that stance is not widely shared by local, state or federal politicians. In Congress, a large coalition known as the ruralist bloc has championed scores of measures to ease access to minerals and potential farmland in protected areas.Mr. Bolsonaro, a veteran Congressman who easily won the presidential election last month, has long expressed the sentiment.If it were up to me, we would not have any more indigenous areas in the country, he said after winning.Doing away with them would require changing the constitution. But Mr. Bolsonaro has threatened to take smaller steps on his own, like halting fines against companies and individuals who break the law.He has put forward similar positions before. In 2012, after Mr. Bolsonaro was fined for fishing in a protected area, he introduced a bill in Congress seeking to bar agents from two federal agencies that pursue illegal mining, logging and fishing from carrying firearms.While campaigning for president, he called the system of protected lands obsolete, echoing the policy during the military dictatorship that such areas shackle economic growth and the individual prospects of indigenous people. The time had come, he said, to reintegrate them into society and recognize that they dont want to live in zoos.Mr. Bolsonaro argues that Brazil can no longer tolerate having so much land set aside as indigenous territories, national parks and conservation zones.All those reserves stymie our development, he said.Munduruku leaders opposed to mining were elated about the raids by federal agents. But soon, leaders like Ms. Kab received threats.The expectation of the indigenous leaders when they denounced what was happening was that the state would go in and expel the white people, said Danicley de Aguiar, a Greenpeace activist who has counseled Munduruku leaders. That did not happen.And while protecting the environment and indigenous traditions is laudable, its not realistic, argued Adonias Kab Munduruku, one of the tribes leaders who does business with miners.Its the only way for us, as indigenous miners, to send out children to study in the cities, to have them go to university, said Mr. Kab, 40. Parents want their children to learn, to be prepared, so they dont end up like their parents: working here in the mines.Prosecutors have yet to charge anyone from the raids, and gold mining continues to flourish in the area.What were seeing is that crime is paying off, said Paulo de Tarso Moreira Oliveira, a federal prosecutor.ImageCredit...Meridith Kohut for The New York Times | World |
DealBook|S.E.C. Charges 3 Options Traders With Spoofinghttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/sec-charges-3-options-traders-with-spoofing.htmlDec. 3, 2015Three Chicago-based options traders are under scrutiny over a manipulative form of electronic trading called spoofing that has garnered increasing attention by regulators.On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the three twin brothers and a friend of fraud. The S.E.C. also says that Behruz Afshar and Shahryar Afshar and a former broker, Richard Kenny, tricked the market by spoofing, where orders are made and then canceled to make it look as if there is genuine activity in a certain security when there actually is none.It also accuses them of misrepresenting themselves to take advantage of trading rebates that exchanges offer to traders for participating in their markets.We allege these individuals tricked the exchanges into giving them benefits not meant for professional traders, and fooled other market participants by spoofing the market with non-bona fide orders, said Robert A. Cohen, the co-chief of the regulators market abuse unit.The charges appear to be a caution flag for so-called high frequency traders. These firms make money by using computers to push out a continual stream of orders and reap profits from minuscule market movements as well as exchange rebates.In spoofing, a trader sends orders never intended for execution, but rather to attract other traders to help move the price of a given security. The S.E.C. says the traders spoofed the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, which is owned by Nasdaq.Spoofing has been frowned upon for a long time but financial-crisis era regulations offered Wall Street overseers a way to go after traders. In one prominent case, a jury convicted a New Jersey trader, Michael Coscia, last month of 12 cases of fraud and manipulating the futures market.In addition, the S.E.C. accused the three traders of misrepresenting themselves to get higher rebates than they would have. Professional traders in the options market and customers, or regular retail investors, are given different priorities. Customers earn higher rebates than professionals and get priority in the execution of their orders.The S.E.C. says the three traders placed customer orders, not professional orders by shifting the accounts they used to place the trades. The exchanges are the victims, the agency said. The traders reaped $2 million in avoided transaction fees and wrongly received higher rebates.Lawmakers have pushed back against exchanges in the last year, calling on them to end rebate payments as the agency has tried to rein in high-frequency trading. | Business |
VideotranscripttranscriptFed Announces Interest Rate IncreaseJanet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, explained the decision to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points.NAJanet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, explained the decision to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points.CreditCredit...Jonathan Ernst/ReutersDec. 16, 2015WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it would raise short-term interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis, a decision it described as a vote of confidence in the American economy even as much of the rest of the world struggles.The widely anticipated announcement that the Fed would raise rates to a range between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent signals the beginning of the end for the central banks stimulus program. Fed officials emphasized that they intended to raise rates gradually, and only if economic growth continues. Short-term rates will rise by about one percentage point a year for the next three years, Fed officials predicted.Interest rates on mortgages and other kinds of loans, and on savings accounts and other kinds of investments, are likely to remain low for years to come.The economic recovery has clearly come a long way, although it is not complete, the Feds chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, said at a news conference after the announcement. The decision recognizes the considerable progress that has been made toward restoring jobs, raising incomes and easing the economic hardships that have been endured by millions of ordinary Americans, Ms. Yellen said. The Feds announcement came exactly seven years to the day after the central bank cut its benchmark rate nearly to zero.The Fed is trying to tiptoe between two kinds of danger. It wants to raise rates to improve its defenses against future risks, including higher inflation or another economic downturn. But if it moves too quickly, it risks undermining the current recovery. It faces the additional challenge of increasing domestic rates while other central banks are holding rates down.The result, said Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, is a plan for the loosest tightening in the Feds modern history. Move too quickly, Mr. El-Erian said, and the Fed could cause severe market volatility, undermining economic conditions.The decision on Wednesday was the most important and riskiest step the Fed has taken since Ms. Yellen became chairwoman in early 2014. Every other developed nation that has raised rates since the end of the financial crisis has been forced to backtrack as growth slowed.Financial markets took the news calmly. The Standard & Poors 500-stock index rose 1. 5 percent to close at 2,073.07. The yield on two-year Treasuries, closely tied to short-term interest rates, closed above 1 percent for the first time since April 2010.Ms. Yellen will now face the challenge of maintaining an internal consensus over the pace of rate increases amid considerable economic uncertainty and the political pressures of a presidential election year.Ms. Yellen won the support of all 10 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee, a victory that reflects the Feds tradition of maintaining the appearance of consensus on major decisions. Three of those officials had argued in recent months that the economy might not be ready for higher rates, a view shared by some economists and by Democrats who argue that the Fed is prematurely curtailing job and wage growth.When millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, the Federal Reserves decision to raise interest rates is bad news for working families, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement on Wednesday. The Fed should act with the same sense of urgency to rebuild the disappearing middle class as it did to bail out Wall Street banks seven years ago.Some Republicans, meanwhile, bid good riddance to the era of near-zero interest rates. Unsustainably low interest rates clearly didnt solve the problem, or else Americans today wouldnt be stuck in the slowest, worst-performing economic recovery of our lifetimes, Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement.The Fed cited strong job growth, and the broader backdrop of a moderate but steady economic expansion, as evidence that the economy no longer needed quite as much of its help. The committee judges that there has been considerable improvement in labor market conditions this year, and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise over the medium term to its 2 percent objective, the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement on Wednesday after a two-day meeting.The Fed also released economic projections by its senior officials underscoring that they expect slow growth. The officials predicted, on average, that the economy would expand by 2.4 percent next year, while the unemployment rate would drop to 4.7 percent. Even as they forecast joblessness would remain low, they predicted inflation would rise only gradually to the 2 percent annual pace the Fed regards as most healthy.ImageCredit...Stephanie Keith/ReutersMost officials predicted the Fed would once again miss its 2 percent inflation target next year.At the news conference, Ms. Yellen faced repeated questions about the persistent sluggishness of inflation. She posed the question to herself in her opening statement, With inflation currently still low, why is the committee raising the federal funds rate target? Because, she said, inflation was being suppressed temporarily by factors like lower oil prices but would rise as job growth continued. She added that the Fed needed to act because monetary policy works gradually.Abrupt tightening could increase the risk of pushing the economy into recession, Ms. Yellen said.The Feds initial rate increase, effective on Thursday, is likely to have a modest impact on the broader economy. JPMorgan Chase, the nations largest bank, announced soon after the Feds decision that it would raise its prime rate to 3.5 percent, increasing the interest rate on many loans. But the bank said it would not increase the rate it pays on deposits. Wells Fargo and Bank of America similarly took advantage of the Feds decision to fatten profit margins rather than pass along the benefits to savers.As the Feds benchmark rate rises, mortgage rates and other long-term borrowing costs are likely to rise too, but the relationship is not mechanical. During the housing boom, mortgage rates barely budged as the Fed increased short-term rates because of increased foreign investment. That pattern could recur if investors once again conclude that the United States is the safest place to park money.Still, some analysts said they expected higher rates would begin to curtail economic activity fairly quickly, pointing for example to the auto market. Cheap loans have spurred car sales to record heights even as home sales have lagged. Higher rates will hurt borrowers and it will hurt the real economy because thats whats driving the auto industry right now, said William Spriggs, chief economist at the A.F.L.-C.I.O.Financial markets began the process of adjustment in anticipation of the Feds announcement, and there, too, some signs of stress were evident. Corporations with questionable credit, for example, are paying more to borrow money. Average yields on junk bonds climbed to 8.86 percent on Tuesday from 6.72 percent in January.There is considerable uncertainty about the consequences, however. The Fed plans to raise rates in a new way. Usually, it drives up borrowing costs by draining money from the financial system. But it has pumped so much money into the system as part of its stimulus campaign that drainage is impractical. Instead, beginning Thursday morning, the Fed planned to pay banks and other financial firms not to lend below its new benchmark rate.To set the new base line, the Fed said it would pay banks a rate of 0.5 percent on unused money, and would borrow up to $2 trillion from other financial firms at a rate of 0.25 percent.Those measures were stronger than markets had expected, reflecting the Feds determination. | Business |
Technology|Facebook, Google and Twitter C.E.O.s return to Washington to defend their content moderation.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/technology/facebook-google-and-twitter-ceos-return-to-washington-to-defend-their-content-moderation.htmlVideoExecutives from Facebook, Twitter and Google testified to senators on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.CreditCredit...Lm Otero Jose Luis Magana/Associated PressOct. 28, 2020For more than two decades, internet companies have been shielded from liability for much of what their users post by a once-obscure rule called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Now that shield and how internet companies moderate content on their sites is being questioned by lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.On Wednesday, the chief executives of Google, Facebook and Twitter will testify before a Senate committee about their moderation practices.The hearing, held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, will be a repeat performance before Congress for Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter. But with the Nov. 3 election less than a week away, the executives face additional pressure to manage misinformation without exerting unfair influence on the voting process.Although the companies are responsible for protecting intellectual property and rooting out violations of federal criminal law, Section 230 shields them from defamation lawsuits and other legal claims that could be costly to fight.The law, considered one of the bedrock regulations that allowed the commercial internet to flourish, was intended to give tech companies broad discretion over moderation, allowing them to set rules for what users could and could not post on their sites. It was meant as a practical solution that would allow people to express themselves freely online, while keeping companies off the hook for every comment their users made.Republicans argue the companies Twitter, in particular are being heavy-handed in their content moderation and are unfairly silencing conservative voices. Democrats, however, argue the companies arent doing enough to keep misinformation and outright lies off their platforms.In May, President Trump also issued an executive order intended to strip the companies of the legal safe harbor provided by Section 230, though it was not clear what authority the administration would have to make that change.The hearing begins at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, and the chief executives are expected to take questions remotely from 26 senators. The hearing is expected to last several hours.Mr. Dorsey is likely to face the toughest questioning because Twitter has been particularly aggressive in its efforts to fact-check and take down posts that misinform users about the pandemic and the presidential election.Last week, Twitter blocked a link to a New York Post article about Joseph R. Biden Jr.s son, Hunter Biden, saying that it violated company policies against sharing personal information and content stolen by hackers. After an outcry from conservative leaders, Twitter walked back the decision and allowed the link to be shared.Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Zuckerberg are scheduled to testify again on Nov. 17 in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that will focus on Twitter and Facebooks decisions to limit the spread of the New York Post article. Facebook took steps to reduce the spread of the story and said it was eligible for fact-checking, but was not as aggressive as Twitter. | Tech |
Look, if you see what Ive done with North Korea, and with the State Department Mike Pompeo its running so well, I have this running so well. I have purposely, because of this ridiculous witch hunt, I have said, Im going to stay away from the Justice Department until its completed. So I wanted to stay away, now that doesnt mean I have to because I dont have to I can get involved. But I dont want you people to say that Im interfering, that Im doing anything. I think that the report yesterday maybe, more importantly than anything, it totally exonerates me. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. And if you read the report, youll see that the But sir, the report What would you do with that? Why sir? Excuse me, wait, wait, wait. What youll really see, is youll see bias against me and millions, and tens of millions of my followers, that is really a disgrace. Mr President! And yet, if you, and yet, if you look at the F.B.I. and you went in and you polled the F.B.I. the real F.B.I. those guys love me and I love them. Mr President! Sir! Are you You have spoken so passionately about the circumstances that led to Otto Warmbiers death. In the same breath, youre defending now Kim Jong-uns human rights record. How can you do that? You know why? Because I dont want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family. And, by the way, you declared the nuclear threat from North Korea is over. I dont want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family. I want to have a good relationship with North Korea. I want to have a good relationship with many other countries. And what Ive done if you remember, if youre fair, which most of you arent, but if youre fair, when I came in, people thought we were probably going to war with North Korea. If we did You said the threat is over, is it over? Quiet. Quiet. If we did, millions of people would have been killed. I dont mean like, a you know, people were saying a hundred thousand Seoul has 28 million people, 30 miles off the border. You would have had 30, 40, 50 million people killed. Who knows what would have happened? I came in, that was what I inherited. I should have never inherited that should have been solved long before I got there. I did a great job this weekend. The fake news said, Oh, you met. The only thing they saw that I gave up. One broadcast said, He gave up so much. You know what I gave up? I met. I met, we had great chemistry. He gave us a lot: You havent had a missile test in seven months. You havent had a firing, you havent had a nuclear test in eight and a half months. You havent had missiles flying over Japan. He gave us the remains of our great heroes. I have had so many people begging me, parents and fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wherever I went, Could you please get the remains of my boy back? Theyre giving them back. Nobody thought that was possible. Sir! Wait. Wait. Excuse me, wait. They are doing so much for us. And now were well on our way to get denuclearization and the agreement says there will be total denuclearization nobody wants to report that. So the only thing I did, was I met, I got along with him great. He is great. We have a great chemistry together. Thats a good thing, not a bad thing. Mr. President, how can Kim love his people if hes killing them? I cant speak to that. I can only speak to the fact that we signed an incredible agreement. Its great. And its going to be great for them, too, because now, North Korea can develop and North Korea can become a great country, economically, it can become whatever they want. But there wont be nuclear weapons and they wont be aimed at you and your family. We now have a very good relationship with North Korea. When I came into this job it looked like war. Not because of me, but because if you remember the sitdown with Barack Obama I think he will admit this, he said the biggest problem that the United States has, and by far the most dangerous problem, and he said to me, that weve ever had, because of nuclear, is North Korea. Now that was shortly before I entered office. I have solved that problem. Now were getting it memorialized and all and that problem is largely solved and part of the reason is we signed number one a very good document. You know what? More importantly than the document, I have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un. Thats a very important thing. I can now, wait, I can now call him. I can now say, Well, we have a problem. I told him, I gave him a very direct number. He can now call me if he has any difficulty. I can call him. We have communications its a very good thing. People are shocked that this is the kind of, you know they thought Trump was going to get in, and he was going to start throwing bombs all over the place. Its actually the opposite. But were building a military so strong $716 billion next year. 700 this year were building a military so strong, nobodys going to mess with us. But you know what, I never want to have to use it. Mr. President, do you agree with children being taken away from their family? No, I hate it. I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. Thats their law. Sir, thats your They were forced Mr President! Mr President! Quiet. Quiet. Thats the Democrats law. We can change it tonight. We can change it right now. Youre the president, you can change it I will leave here. No, no. You need their votes. You need their votes. The Democrats, all they have to do You control both chambers of Congress, the Republicans do. The Democrats, excuse me, by one vote. We dont need it. You need 60 votes. We have a one vote excuse me we need a one vote, We have a one-vote edge, we need 60. So we need 10 votes. We cant get it from the Democrats. | Politics |
A victory for the government could remake one of Americas most recognizable companies and the internet economy that it has helped define.Credit...Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesOct. 20, 2020WASHINGTON The Justice Department accused Google on Tuesday of illegally protecting its monopoly over search and search advertising, the governments most significant challenge to a tech companys market power in a generation and one that could reshape the way consumers use the internet.In a much-anticipated lawsuit, the agency accused Google of locking up deals with giant partners like Apple and throttling competition through exclusive business contracts and agreements.Googles deals with Apple, mobile carriers and other handset makers to make its search engine the default option for users accounted for most of its dominant market share in search, the agency said, a figure that it put at around 80 percent.For many years, the agency said in its 57-page complaint, Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising and general search text advertising the cornerstones of its empire.The lawsuit, which may stretch on for years, could set off a cascade of other antitrust lawsuits from state attorneys general. About four dozen states and jurisdictions, including New York and Texas, have conducted parallel investigations and some of them are expected to bring separate complaints against the companys grip on technology for online advertising. Eleven state attorneys general, all Republicans, signed on to support the federal lawsuit.Attorney General William P. Barr had spoken publicly about the investigation for months. He urged the agency to file a case by the end of September, prompting resistance from some of its lawyers who wanted more time and complained of political motivations.Google called the suit deeply flawed. But the agencys action signaled a new era for the technology sector. It reflects pent-up and bipartisan frustration toward a handful of companies Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook in particular that have evolved from small and scrappy companies into global powerhouses with outsize influence over commerce, speech, media and advertising. Conservatives like President Trump and liberals like Senator Elizabeth Warren have called for more restraints over Big Tech.The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, will also be a major test of antitrust law. Many Democrats argue that the laws need to be adjusted to account for the digital era, when many products are free and it can be more difficult to prove the harm to consumers from a companys firm grip on a market.A victory for the government could remake one of Americas most recognizable companies and the internet economy that it has helped define since it was founded by two Stanford University graduate students in 1998. The Justice Department did not immediately put forward remedies, such as selling off parts of the company or unwinding business contracts, in the lawsuit. Such actions are typically pursued in later stages of a case.Ryan Shores, an associate deputy attorney general, said nothing is off the table in terms of remedies.Google has long denied accusations of antitrust violations, and the company is expected to fight the governments efforts by using its global network of lawyers, economists and lobbyists. Alphabet, valued at $1.04 trillion and with cash reserves of $120 billion, has fought similar antitrust lawsuits in Europe. The company spent $12.7 million lobbying in the United States in 2019, making it one of the top corporate spenders in Washington.The company says it has strong competition in the search market, with more people finding information on sites like Amazon. It says its services have been a boon for small businesses.People use Google because they choose to, not because theyre forced to, or because they cant find alternatives, Kent Walker, the companys chief legal officer, said in a blog post.Mr. Walker said the lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers. To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use.Democratic lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee released a sprawling report on the tech giants two weeks ago, also accusing Google of controlling a monopoly over online search and the ads that come up when users enter a query.A significant number of entities spanning major public corporations, small businesses and entrepreneurs depend on Google for traffic, and no alternate search engine serves as a substitute, the report said. The lawmakers also accused Apple, Amazon and Facebook of abusing their market power. They called for more aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws, and for Congress to consider strengthening them.The scrutiny reflects how Google has become a dominant player in communications, commerce and media over the last two decades. That business is lucrative: Last year, Google brought in $34.3 billion in search revenue in the United States, according to the research firm eMarketer. That figure is expected to grow to $42.5 billion by 2022, the firm said.In its complaint, the Justice Department said that Googles actions had hurt consumers by stifling innovation, reducing choice and diminishing the quality of search services, including consumer data privacy. It also said that advertisers that use its products must pay a toll to Googles search advertising and general search text advertising monopolies.The lawsuit is the result of an investigation that has stretched for more than a year. Prosecutors have spoken with Googles rivals in technology and media, collecting information and documents that could be used to build a case.The Justice Department also investigated Googles behavior and acquisitions in the overall market for digital advertising, which includes search, web display and video ads.But the search case is the most straightforward, giving the government its best chance to win. To prevail, the Justice Department has to show two things: that Google is dominant in search, and that its deals with Apple and other companies hobble competition in the search market.The Justice Department said Google estimates that almost 50 percent of its search traffic originated on Apple devices in 2019. Because it is such a large portion of its queries, Google pays the iPhone maker an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion a year to remain the default option on its phones, iPads and Mac computers.That arrangement has made Apple and Google hugely reliant on each other, while edging out other search engines and, according to the government, protecting Googles monopoly. Inside Google, losing its pole position on iPhones is considered a Code Red scenario, according to the lawsuit, while at Apple, Googles payments account for roughly 15 to 20 percent of Apples profits.Gene Kimmelman, a former senior antitrust official at the agency, said the case focused on how Googles lock on search allowed it to control a treasure trove of user data and deny access to competitors. He said the focus on contracts was significant because some were made when Microsofts Bing and Yahoo posed a competitive threat to Googles search.In its blog post, Google argued that there was nothing wrong with its agreements with Apple, other handset manufacturers and carriers, comparing them to cereal brands paying for prominent placement on store shelves. It also said it was not difficult for consumers to switch default settings from Google to another search engine.Mr. Barr, a former telecom executive at Verizon who once argued an antitrust case before the Supreme Court, signaled that he would put the tech giants under new scrutiny at his confirmation hearing in early 2019. He said that a lot of people wonder how such huge behemoths that now exist in Silicon Valley have taken shape under the nose of the antitrust enforcers.He put the investigation under the control of his deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, who in turn hired Mr. Shores, an aide from a major law firm, to oversee the case and other technology matters. Mr. Barrs grip over the investigation tightened when the head of the Justice Departments antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, recused himself from the investigation because he represented Google in its acquisition of the ad service DoubleClick in 2007.ImageCredit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesMr. Barr wanted prosecutors to wrap up their inquiries and decide whether to bring a case before Election Day. While Justice Department officials are usually tight-lipped about their investigations until a case is filed, Mr. Barr publicly declared his intention to make a decision on the Google matter by the end of the summer.This year, most of the roughly 40 lawyers building the case said they opposed bringing a complaint by Mr. Barrs Sept. 30 deadline. Some said they would not sign the complaint, and several left the case this summer.Google last faced serious scrutiny from an American antitrust regulator nearly a decade ago, when the Federal Trade Commission investigated whether it had abused its power over the search market. The agencys staff recommended bringing charges against the company, according to a memo reported on by The Wall Street Journal. But the agencys five commissioners voted in 2013 not to bring a case.Other governments have been more aggressive toward the big tech companies. The European Union has brought three antitrust cases against Google in recent years, focused on its search engine, advertising business and Android mobile operating system. Regulators in Britain and Australia are examining the digital advertising market, in inquiries that could ultimately implicate the company.Its the most newsworthy monopolization action brought by the government since the Microsoft case in the late 90s, said Bill Baer, a former chief of the Justice Departments antitrust division. Its significant in that the government believes that a highly successful tech platform has engaged in conduct that maintains its monopoly power unlawfully, and as a result injures consumers and competition.Google and its allies will most likely criticize the suit as politically motivated. The Trump administration has attacked Google, which owns YouTube, and other online platform companies as being slanted against conservative views.The lawsuit is likely to outlast the Trump administration. The Justice Department spent more than a decade taking on Microsoft.Googles representatives said they anticipated that it would be at least a year before the case went to trial.While it is possible that a new Democratic administration would review the strategy behind the case, experts said it was unlikely that it would be withdrawn under new leadership.Steve Lohr and Jack Nicas contributed reporting. | Tech |
Business BriefingDec. 10, 2015The federal budget deficit widened in November, driven by higher spending in such areas as Social Security, Medicare and defense. The Treasury Department said the November deficit climbed to $64.6 billion, up 13.6 percent from a year ago. For the first two months of the budget year that began on Oct. 1, the deficit totals $201.1 billion, a 12.6 percent jump from a year ago. Total receipts are up 2.9 percent to $416 billion over the past two months compared with a year ago, but spending is up 5.9 percent to $617.1 billion. The rise reflects in part more tax revenue as unemployment declines. The latest numbers underscore the impact of paying benefits to a growing number of retiring baby boomers. The report said Social Security spending expanded 4 percent, while Medicare spending increased 9 percent. | Business |
DealBook|Wall Streets Debt Restructuring Fight Heads to Washingtonhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/business/dealbook/wall-streets-debt-restructuring-fight-heads-to-washington.htmlDec. 7, 2015Credit...Julie Jacobson/Associated PressProposed changes to an obscure Depression-era law are causing a ruckus among the Wall Street investment funds that are battling over the debt restructuring at Caesars Entertainment and other companies.Tucked away in the omnibus spending bill in Washington is an amendment to that law, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, that critics say would hand a victory to Apollo Global Management, which owns the casino company, at the expense of some bondholders.Hedge funds and other bondholders have been at odds in the Caesars restructuring, which concerns about $10 billion in bond indentures. Six other restructurings could also be affected if the amendment is approved, including that of for-profit college operator Education Management Corporation, which is backed by the private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company. Andrew Milgram, the managing partner of Marblegate Asset Management, a bondholder in the Education Management case, said in a statement, It is a great concern to us that a 79-year-old law would be amended retroactively, without legislative review or public debate, by the back-room lobbying efforts of one or two special interest groups.Bondholders often work with companies to negotiate out-of-court debt restructurings that help the companies avoid bankruptcy. But not all bondholders are involved in those talks, and not all bondholders necessarily agree to deals uniformly.In the case of Caesars and other restructurings, some bondholders have battled over the guarantees they had on their debt and the transfer of certain assets, citing the Trust Indenture Act, which protects creditors from transactions that limit their ability to collect principal or interest payments.ImageCredit...John Locher/Associated PressThe amendment that made its way into the omnibus spending bill aims to make it harder for some bondholders to challenge restructuring arrangements.Just before Thanksgiving, an earlier version of the amendment appeared in highway spending legislation. But that version was not in the highway bill Congress approved last week.Another version of the Trust Indenture amendment was added to the omnibus spending legislation last weekend. Congress must vote on the spending bill by the end of this week. Several people said support for the amendment is coming from the office of Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat. Calls to Mr. Reids office seeking comment were not returned. The current amendment makes the changes retroactive to Dec. 1. The earlier version made them retroactive to any restructuring that had not been approved and completed in court.Several restructurings are still in play that would be affected by the amendments fate. It has incited debate on each side of the issue.Courts recently have favored the dissenting bondholders. The cases are being appealed, but passage of the amendment to the Trust Indenture Act would bypass the court proceedings. That has led the funds to complain that powerful private equity interests are trying to alter important aspects of the restructuring process without public debate.Mark J. Roe, a professor at Harvard Law School, said he agreed that the Trust Indenture Act could use changes, like adding a provision that says bondholders should be able to vote on whether to accept a debt modification deal. But, he said, the proposed amendment isnt a good result for the bond market in general.Others say the recent court decisions give bondholders too much leverage in the form of veto power over debt negotiations, which is bound to complicate restructuring efforts and could force more companies into costly Chapter 11 bankruptcy. | Business |
Credit...John Moore/Getty ImagesJune 16, 2018WASHINGTON Almost immediately after President Trump took office, his administration began weighing what for years had been regarded as the nuclear option in the effort to discourage immigrants from unlawfully entering the United States.Children would be separated from their parents if the families had been apprehended entering the country illegally, John F. Kelly, then the homeland security secretary, said in March 2017, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network.For more than a decade, even as illegal immigration levels fell over all, seasonal spikes in unauthorized border crossings had bedeviled American presidents in both political parties, prompting them to cast about for increasingly aggressive ways to discourage migrants from making the trek.Yet for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the idea of crying children torn from their parents arms was simply too inhumane and too politically perilous to embrace as policy, and Mr. Trump, though he had made an immigration crackdown one of the central issues of his campaign, succumbed to the same reality, publicly dropping the idea after Mr. Kellys comments touched off a swift backlash.But advocates inside the administration, most prominently Stephen Miller, Mr. Trumps senior policy adviser, never gave up on the idea. Last month, facing a sharp uptick in illegal border crossings, Mr. Trump ordered a new effort to criminally prosecute anyone who crossed the border unlawfully with few exceptions for parents traveling with their minor children.And now Mr. Trump faces the consequences. With thousands of children detained in makeshift shelters, his spokesmen this past week had to deny accusations that the administration was acting like Nazis. Even evangelical supporters like Franklin Graham said its policy was disgraceful.Among those who have professed objections to the policy is the president himself, who despite his tough rhetoric on immigration and his clear directive to show no mercy in enforcing the law, has searched publicly for someone else to blame for dividing families. He has falsely claimed that Democrats are responsible for the practice. But the kind of pictures so feared by Mr. Trumps predecessors could end up defining a major domestic policy issue of his term.VideotranscripttranscriptHow Trumps Team Defends Zero ToleranceThe White House is responding to criticism of its policy against illegal border crossings in four very distinct ways.No more free passes, no more get out of jail free cards, no more lawlessness. The United States will not be a migrant camp. What this administration is doing is inhumane. It is inconsistent with our American values. Its barbaric. This I do think ought to be addressed. And I say its very strongly the Democrats fault. We would like to fix these loopholes. And if Democrats want to get serious about it, instead of playing political games, theyre welcome to come here and sit down with the president and actually do something about it. We cannot and will not encourage people to bring their children or other children to the country unlawfully by giving them immunity in the process. I have not been directed to do that for purposes of deterrence, no. My decision has been that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted. Our administration has had the same position since we started on Day 1, that we were going to enforce the law. ... you to the apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.The White House is responding to criticism of its policy against illegal border crossings in four very distinct ways.CreditCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesInside the Trump administration, current and former officials say, there is considerable unease about the policy, which is regarded by some charged with carrying it out as unfeasible in practice and questionable morally. Kirstjen Nielsen, the current homeland security secretary, has clashed privately with Mr. Trump over the practice, sometimes inviting furious lectures from the president that have pushed her to the brink of resignation.But Mr. Miller has expressed none of the presidents misgivings. No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement, he said during an interview in his West Wing office this past week. It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.The administrations critics are not buying that explanation. This is not a zero tolerance policy, this is a zero humanity policy, and we cant let it go on, said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon.Ripping children out of their parents arms to inflict harm on the child to influence the parents, he added, is unacceptable.Beyond those moral objections, Jeh C. Johnson, who as secretary of homeland security was the point man for the Obama administrations own struggles with illegal immigration, argued that deterrence, in and of itself, is neither practical nor a long-term solution to the problem.Ive seen this movie before, and I feel like what we are doing now, with the zero tolerance policy and separating parents and children for the purpose of deterrence, is banging our heads against the wall, he said. Whether its family detention, messaging about dangers of the journey, or messaging about separating families and zero tolerance, its always going to have at best a short-term reaction.And that view was based on hard experience.When Central American migrants, including many unaccompanied children, began surging across the border in early 2014, Mr. Obama, the antithesis of his impulsive successor, had his own characteristic reaction: He formed a multiagency team at the White House to figure out what should be done.This was the bane of my existence for three years, Mr. Johnson said. No matter what you did, somebody was going to be very angry at you.ImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesThe officials met in the office of Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, and convened a series of meetings in the Situation Room to go through their options. Migrants were increasingly exploiting existing immigration laws and court rulings, and using children as a way to get adults into the country, on the theory that families were being treated differently from single people.The agencies were surfacing every possible idea, Cecilia Muoz, Mr. Obamas top domestic policy adviser, recalled, including whether to separate parents from their children. I do remember looking at each other like, Were not going to do this, are we? We spent five minutes thinking it through and concluded that it was a bad idea. The morality of it was clear thats not who we are.They did, however, decide to vastly expand the detention of immigrant families, opening new facilities along the border where women and young children were held for long periods while they awaited a chance to have their cases processed.Mr. Johnson wrote an open letter to appear in Spanish-language news outlets warning parents that their children would be deported if they entered the United States illegally. He traveled to Guatemala to deliver the message in person. Opening a large family immigration detention facility in Dilley, Tex., he held a news conference to showcase what he called an effective deterrent.The steps led to just the kind of brutal images that Mr. Obamas advisers feared: hundreds of young children, many dirty and some in tears, who were being held with their families in makeshift detention facilities.Immigrant advocacy groups denounced the policy, berating senior administration officials some of whom were reduced to rueful apologies for a policy they said they could not justify and telling Mr. Obama to his face during a meeting at the White House in late 2014 that he was turning his back on the most vulnerable people seeking refuge in the United States.I was pissed, and still am, said Ben Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. I thought that he had a shocking disregard for due process.Before long, the Obama administration would face legal challenges, and be forced to stop detaining families indefinitely. A federal judge in Washington ordered the administration in 2015 to stop detaining asylum-seeking Central American mothers and children in order to deter others from their region from coming into the United States.ImageCredit...Jennifer Whitney for The New York TimesUnder a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores settlement, unaccompanied children could be held in immigration detention for only a short period of time; in 2016, a federal judge ruled that the settlement applied to families as well, effectively requiring that they be released within 20 days. Many were released some with GPS ankle bracelets to track their movements and asked to return for a court date sometime in the future.It was Mr. Bush, who had firsthand experience with the border as governor of Texas and ran for president as a compassionate conservative, who initiated the zero tolerance approach for illegal immigration on which Mr. Trumps policy is modeled.In 2005, he launched Operation Streamline, a program along a stretch of the border in Texas that referred all unlawful entrants for criminal prosecution, imprisoning them and expediting assembly-line-style trials geared toward quickly deporting them. The initiative yielded results and was soon expanded to more border sectors. Back then, however, exceptions were generally made for adults who were traveling with minor children, as well as juveniles and people who were ill.Mr. Obamas administration employed the program at the height of the migration crisis as well, although it generally did not treat first-time border crossers as priorities for prosecution, and it detained families together in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody administrative, rather than criminal, detention.Discussions began almost immediately after Mr. Trump took office about vastly expanding Operation Streamline, with almost none of those limitations. Even after Mr. Kelly stopped talking publicly about family separation, the Department of Homeland Security quietly tested the approach last summer in certain areas in Texas.Privately, Mr. Miller argued that bringing back zero tolerance would be a potent tool in a severely limited arsenal of strategies for stopping migrants from flooding across the border.The idea was to end a practice referred to by its detractors as catch and release, in which illegal immigrants apprehended at the border are released into the interior of the United States to await the processing of their cases. Mr. Miller argued that the policy provided a perverse incentive for migrants, essentially ensuring that if they could make it to the United States border and claim a credible fear of returning home, they would be given a chance to stay under asylum laws, at least temporarily.A lengthy backlog of asylum claims made it likely that it would be years before they would have to appear before a judge to back up that plea and many never returned to do so.ImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesThe situation was even more complicated when children were involved. A 2008 law meant to combat the trafficking of minors places strict requirements on how unaccompanied migrant children from Central America are to be treated.Minors from Mexico or Canada countries contiguous with the United States can be quickly sent back to their home countries unless it is deemed dangerous to do so. But those from other nations cannot be quickly returned; they must be transferred within 72 hours to the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services, and placed in the least restrictive setting possible. And the Flores ruling meant that children and families could not be held for more than 20 days.In October, after Mr. Trump ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that gave legal status to undocumented immigrants raised in the United States, Mr. Miller insisted that any legislative package to codify those protections contain changes to close what he called the loopholes encouraging illegal immigrants to come.And in April, after the border numbers reached their zenith, Mr. Miller was instrumental in Mr. Trumps decision to ratchet up the zero tolerance policy.A big name of the game is deterrence, Mr. Kelly, now the chief of staff, told NPR in May. The children will be taken care of put into foster care or whatever but the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States, and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.Technically, there is no Trump administration policy stating that illegal border crossers must be separated from their children. But the zero tolerance policy results in unlawful immigrants being taken into federal criminal custody, at which point their children are considered unaccompanied alien minors and taken away.Unlike Mr. Obamas administration, Mr. Trumps is treating all people who have crossed the border without authorization as subject to criminal prosecution, even if they tell the officer apprehending them that they are seeking asylum based on fear of returning to their home country, and whether or not they have their children in tow.Having children does not give you immunity from arrest and prosecution, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a speech on Thursday in Fort Wayne, Ind.I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government, said Mr. Sessions, quoting Bible verse as he took exception to evangelical leaders who have called the practice abhorrent. Because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. | Politics |
Grammys 2018 Perfect For Traveling Musician And Their Dogs, Too! 1/28/2018 None of the Grammy nominees will be going home empty-handed, because the Grammys gift bag is filled with thousands of dollars worth of swag that's perfect for the traveling musician or pop star, especially if they're an animal lover or just lonely and want to talk to someone dead on the phone. Nominees like Lorde, Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, SZA and more will be getting the bags filled by Distinctive Assets. They include a Wi-Fi pet feeder to a phone reading with a dead loved one, valued at $150 for a 45 minute session. The most expensive thing is SmileDirectClub's invisible teeth aligners, which cost $2,170. Here's some other swag in the bag: -- Finger companion monkey toy ... $14.99-- Ear wax removal kit ... $34.29-- Handbag poncho ... $20-- Wireless eye massager ... $24.99-- Handheld steam inhaler ... $179-- Book of the Month Club .. $150 Bag? More like duffel. | Entertainment |
Credit...Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesJan. 5, 2021With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, two runoff contests in Georgia remained too close to call early Wednesday as the advantage seesawed back and forth after election officials had tallied more than 4.2 million votes.The races feature two Republican candidates Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, whose Senate term ended on Sunday trying to fend off their Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, in contests that have drawn national attention and unprecedented levels of campaign spending.Democrats saw some significant signs for optimism. Both Senate candidates were winning a larger share of the vote in county after county than President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in November, when he narrowly carried the state.Mr. Warnock was running slightly stronger in his race against Ms. Loeffler than Mr. Ossoff was in his contest with Mr. Perdue. After a large tranche of votes in DeKalb County were reported after 11 p.m., many Democrats began to cautiously cheer the possibility of victory.With new votes joining the tally, we are on a strong path, wrote Stacey Abrams, the Democratic activist and former candidate for Georgia, on Twitter.About 95 percent of voters in both runoff races said that determining control of the Senate was a major factor in their vote, according to A.P. voter surveys, with about three in five calling it the single most important factor.Mr. Biden and President Trump both campaigned in the state on Monday, a sign of the high stakes of the races. If either Republican candidate wins, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, will remain the majority leader. But if both Democrats win on Tuesday, the party will gain control of the chamber, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaking vote.This could be the most important vote you will ever cast for the rest of your life, Mr. Trump said at his rally on Monday. The races are the final elections during his presidency, and Mr. Trump, as usual, loomed large.A majority of voters, 56 percent, said they disapproved of how Mr. Trump has handled the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost but has sought to overturn and undermine. At the same time, voters approved of how Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, whom Mr. Trump has sparred with, has handled the situation.Mr. Biden narrowly carried Georgia in November, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since 1992.But he did not pull ahead of Mr. Trump in the vote counting in Georgia until days after the election. If the Senate races remain tight on Tuesday, the counting and a final result would drag later into the week, as it did in the general election in November.Mr. Bidens victory in Georgia has lifted the partys hopes before the runoffs. But Democrats did not fare as well down ballot in November. Mr. Perdue far outpaced Mr. Ossoff by nearly 90,000 votes in their first matchup, suggesting that Democrats still have to make up ground to win the runoff.The racial makeup of the final electorate will be crucial in a state where Black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats and white voters back Republicans. According to data compiled by georgiavotes.com, Black voters made up a larger share of early voters for the runoff nearly 31 percent than they did in the general election, when it was closer to 28 percent.Mr. Warnock, who is the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the spiritual home of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is seeking to become the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South. He and Mr. Ossoff, a 33-year-old documentary film executive, ran in tandem throughout the runoffs.Mr. Perdue, the former chief executive of Dollar General, and Ms. Loeffler, who was appointed to the Senate a year ago and is seeking a full term, have cast the race as a necessary check on Democratic power in Washington in 2021, though these efforts have been complicated by Mr. Trumps continued insistence, without evidence, that he won re-election. | Politics |
Credit...Andy Wong/Associated PressMarch 4, 2017BEIJING China said Saturday that its military budget would rise by about 7 percent this year, apparently the lowest increase in seven years, signaling that its leaders do not plan to engage the United States in an arms race even as President Trump seeks to bolster the Pentagons spending.Addressing reporters before the start of the annual National Peoples Congress, Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for the legislature, said the increase would be about 7 percent. She said defense spending would amount to roughly 1.3 percent of Chinas gross domestic product.Last years proposed increase was 7.6 percent, though China has yet to release final figures indicating how much was actually spent. Those figures, and the exact number of this years projected increase, will be revealed in a budget that the government releases on Sunday, when the national legislature starts its annual full session.Before 2016, the military budget had received double-digit increases for six years, a reflection of Chinas then-roaring economy.Chinese experts said the new budget would keep military spending roughly in line with the governments usual formula of G.D.P. growth plus inflation.As Chinas economy continues to slow, annual growth in the gross domestic product is expected to be about 6.5 percent. Inflation hovers around 2 percent. And the government must also find more money for health care, education and other increasingly expensive social needs.Chinese and Western military analysts said it was notable that Mr. Trumps recent pledge to raise American defense spending by $54 billion had not spurred China to elevate its own spending further.Ms. Fu said that China wanted good relations with the Trump administration but would respond to any challenges.President Xi Jinping and President Trump have had two direct phone calls, and the message was very clear, which is that there must be more cooperation between China and the United States so we become good partners, Ms. Fu said. But she added that China would watch the effects of Mr. Trumps global policy changes.Of course, everyone hopes that their impact will be positive, but if there are challenges, China will respond calmly, Ms. Fu said.The U.S. military is vastly more powerful than Chinas, as Ms. Fu noted. Fundamentally, this is about the United States worrying that China could catch up and surpass the U.S. in its ability, she said. But in fact there is a still a huge gap in ability between the U.S. and China, which is still a developing country.To emphasize his intent to strengthen the American military, Mr. Trump visited the countrys new aircraft carrier this week. The Gerald R. Ford is a nuclear-powered, 100,000-ton floating fortress due to be commissioned this year and is the first in a new generation of supercarriers.The United States has 10 Nimitz-class supercarriers. In contrast, China is building its first aircraft carrier, a diesel-propelled vessel, and has one refurbished carrier from Ukraine.Wang Xiangsui, a retired senior colonel in Chinas Air Force who is now director of the Research Center of Strategic Issues at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said Mr. Trumps plans to increase military spending were unlikely to prod China into following suit. I dont think China will be oversensitive about this, he said.Despite all the aggressive talk, no one wants a war, Mr. Wang said. While the $54 billion increase sounds like a lot, he added, "the Americans didnt achieve anything after spending six trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan.Chinas top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, who visited Washington this week and met briefly with Mr. Trump at the White House, probably had the military budget on his mind as he tried to judge the mood of the new administration, said Dennis J. Blasko, an American expert on the Chinese military.Im guessing Yang Jiechi was tasked to make an assessment of the state of the bilateral relationship to see if there may need to be a last-minute adjustment in reaction to the requested increase for the U.S. defense budget, said Mr. Blasko, a retired army lieutenant colonel and the author of The Chinese Army Today.Mr. Yang probably found the relationship to be on a sound enough footing, Mr. Blasko said. I dont think they want to get into a military budget fight with us, not even a rhetorical one.Ni Lexiong, a naval expert in Shanghai, said that if China really felt the need to spend more heavily on the military, it would not hesitate to do so.If China felt threatened, I dont think slower economic growth would stop them from spending more on the military, Mr. Ni said. You have seen how the Chinese were willing to starve to build an atomic bomb. We do not worry about poverty when we think a larger military is necessary.He said the new budget would allow China to keep modernizing its navy and air force, the two services currently getting the most attention. The navy launched 22 warships in 2016 to replace old ones, and the budget would let it keep up that pace this year, he said.A chunk of the expenditure will go towards developing and manufacturing the latest weapons for a stronger air force and navy, he said. I believe this speed of replacement will continue, because it has been one of Chinas long-term growth goals to build a military stronger than Americas one day, in either quality or quantity.While Chinas future aircraft carriers are likely to be nuclear powered, the Chinese Navy will probably be focused on other, more important areas, said Lyle J. Goldstein, an associate professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.Chinese submarine development and the building of destroyers and frigates are likely more expensive and more consequential for the overall military balance, he said.If Mr. Trump were to win his proposed increase of $54 billion, the American defense budget would be $603 billion, about 3 percent higher than under former President Barack Obamas last budget plan.The Peoples Liberation Armys official budget was about $146 billion in 2016. Western groups that study the Chinese military say that actual spending is roughly 1.2 to 1.5 times greater than the announced figures.Using a rough estimate that assumes an average G.D.P. growth in China of 6.5 percent and a U.S. growth rate of 3 percent, Chinas military spending would be expected to surpass Americas around 2040, said Bonnie S. Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.Among the issues that Chinese military planners must deal with is how to handle the retrenchment of 300,000 personnel announced by President Xi Jinping in 2015, part of an effort to streamline the P.L.A. into a modern fighting force. Although most of those leaving the army are mid- to low-level officers and soldiers, the severance costs are expected to be substantial, retired Chinese officers said. | World |
Keegan-Michael Key Jordan Better Act Again We Still Have 'Key & Peele' Reunion!!! 1/23/2018 TMZ.com Keegan-Michael Key was laughing, but we hope he was dead serious -- he wants Jordan Peele to return to acting for a "Key & Peele" reunion. We got the funny man Monday at LAX where Keegan beamed with pride about Jordan, who just nabbed 2 Oscar nominations for "Get Out." We also asked Keegan about what Jordan said a couple days ago -- he's joining Sir Daniel Day-Lewis and quitting acting. Not so fast ... says Keegan, who definitely looks like he's holding his breath for an iconic "Key & Peele" reunion which sadly ended after just 5 seasons. #FingersCrossed | Entertainment |
Credit...Andres Cristaldo/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 19, 2016In rural villages in Africa and Asia, and in urban neighborhoods in South America, millions of lives have been disrupted by weather linked to the strongest El Nio in a generation.In some parts of the world, the problem has been not enough rain; in others, too much. Downpours were so bad in Paraguays capital, Asuncin, that shantytowns sprouted along city streets, filled with families displaced by floods. But farmers in India had the opposite problem: Reduced monsoon rains forced them off the land and into day-labor jobs.In South Africa, a drought hit farmers so hard that the country, which a few years ago was exporting corn to Asian markets, now will have to buy millions of tons of it from Brazil and other South American countries.They will actually have to import it, which is rare, said Rogerio Bonifacio, a climate analyst with the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. This is a major drought.The World Health Organization has estimated that worldwide, El Nio-related weather is putting 60 million people at increased risk of malnutrition, water- and mosquito-borne diseases, and other illnesses.Scientists began reporting early signs of El Nio conditions early last year, based on changes in surface-water temperatures and atmospheric pressure in the equatorial Pacific. By midyear, the World Meteorological Organization declared that El Nio was in full swing and that it was on track to be the strongest such event since 1997-98.VideoThe weather phenomenon known as El Nio can cause dramatic effects around the world. Henry Fountain explains where it comes from.An El Nio occurs on average every two to seven years, when warm Pacific water shifts eastward, creating an immense warm zone in the central and eastern Pacific. This adds heat and moisture to the air, which condenses high in the atmosphere, releasing energy that affects the high-altitude winds known as jet streams that circle the planet. The warmer the ocean, the more energy that can potentially be released.One effect of the energy is that it alters the course of a jet stream. In the Northern Hemisphere, this can bring more winter storms to the southern United States, including Southern California.But adding all that energy to the upper atmosphere can also introduce a ripple in a jet stream that may affect weather halfway around the world. Its like waving a paddle back and forth in the stream and generating planetary-scale atmospheric waves, said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.That leads to patterns of precipitation, or lack of it, that can pop up in far-flung regions at different times heavy rains in south-central South America from September to January, increased dryness in Central America for much of the year and a reduced summer monsoon in India, among other effects.Because these patterns often recur in different El Nio years, the effects can be predictable. Nonetheless, they can still test the ability of governments and aid agencies to respond.El Nio often affects parts of Ethiopia, for example, and this time was no exception. It is among the countries worst hit by drought, Dr. Bonifacio said, with as many as 10 million people in need of food assistance. Yet Ethiopia is handling the problems largely on its own. They made a decided effort to deal with the situation, he said.But as the lack, so far, of prolonged rains in Southern California this winter shows, the effects of El Nio can still be difficult to forecast.Dr. Bonifacio noted, for instance, that the Sahel in Africa often suffers drought in El Nio summers, but last year, after a dry June, rains picked up. From July onward, things just flipped over completely, he said.El Nio does not just affect people. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this month that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere an important climate-change measurement had the greatest year-to-year increase in 56 years, and that the rise was partly because of the effect of El Nio-related weather on vegetation. More drought, for example, means less growth of plants that absorb carbon dioxide from the air.Here is a closer look at how El Nio has disrupted life in different parts of the world.A Blow to Indias MonsoonsMAHOBA DISTRICT, India For the first time in his life, Jeevan Lal Yadav has been getting his wheat and vegetables from the market five miles away, rather from than his own farm.Mr. Yadav, 43, has not been able to grow anything this past year on the five acres he cultivates here in the heart of northern India, parts of which are experiencing a severe drought.He is one of millions struggling after a strong El Nio led to reduced rain from the southwest monsoons.ImageCredit...Anindito Mukherjee/ReutersRainfall in 2015 from monsoons, which sweep over most of India from June to September, was 14 percent below the average. The reduction was more than 40 percent in some areas, including Indias most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where Mr. Yadav lives.Because most Indians are farmers, and a majority rely entirely on the monsoon rains, a blow to the rainy season is devastating, rendering lives barely recognizable.Instead of guarding his annual harvest against wild buffalo, as he has done for as long as he can remember, these days Mr. Yadav sits among a crowd outside the door of the village headman, hoping to get picked for a public works program that pays 161 rupees (about $2.40) a day. His name is called every other day at best, he said.Ive never seen something like this, he said, outside his two-room mud hut in Thurat, a village of several hundred homes surrounded by dried ponds and mostly barren fields that in years past were green with a harvest of wheat and lentils at this time of year. Its all dry. I didnt even sow the seeds.Compounding the effects of the El Nio-induced drought this past year is that much of India also suffered from mild El Nio in 2014 that reduced monsoon rainfall by 12 percent. Two successive years of drought hit farmers so hard that Prime Minister Narendra Modi focused his annual budget message last month on programs to improve crop insurance and credit, build irrigation systems and continue the rural employment program on which Mr. Yadav now relies.These programs have existed to varying degrees for years in rural India but have been inadequate, said Vineet Kumar, a climate change officer at the Center for Science and Environment, a New Delhi nonprofit organization that studies farmers problems. He said Mr. Modis plans had the potential to help farmers but would be too late for millions like Mr. Yadav.D. S. Pai, the deputy director general of the long-term monsoon forecasting division at the Indian Meteorological Department, said India predicted the blow to the summer monsoon, which had happened in previous El Nio years. (This El Nio was also linked to heavier-than-normal rainfall last fall in the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka.)Dr. Pai said his department worked with district officials to inform farmers by text message of long-term predictions and warned them about more immediate outbreaks of bad weather.Mr. Kumar, of the nonprofit group, said that though the warnings may be issued from the top, there was not enough coordination in many states and districts for the news to reach farmers on time.And so Pratap Singh, 65, in the Kidhari village, also in the Mahoba district, had not been alerted when, after months of dry weather, rain suddenly arrived in October, soaking the small harvest of wheat he had laid out to dry. The heavy rainfall rotted the 220 pounds of grain, which was only 20 percent of his usual harvest, he said.Now, with no harvest at all, Mr. Singh said, he and his two adult sons are working when they can as day laborers at a brick kiln. The days they are not hired, he said, they just sit around whiling away our time theres nothing to do.Mr. Yadav, the farmer working in the government jobs program, said he prayed for water every morning and evening. He does not pray for anything else, he said, because if you have water, you have everything. GEETA ANAND AND SUHASINI RAJFlooding in ParaguayASUNCIN, Paraguay The brutal human cost of El Nio is plain to see here in Paraguays capital. Downtown plazas and the median strips of thoroughfares are crammed with temporary houses made of plywood, plastic sheets and corrugated steel, thrown together after heavy rains caused the worst flooding in more than three decades.Seated one recent evening beneath black lapacho trees outside the shack that she is calling home for now opposite this citys 19th-century cathedral Esther Falcn, 32, who runs a kiosk in a slum along the Paraguay River, said she had never experienced rains like those in December.The water came so quickly, Mrs. Falcn said, adding that her home flooded up to about shoulder height. We didnt have time to save everything.The water has now receded, but Mrs. Falcns young family cannot return because the usual rains, which forecasters say should come in April, are expected to cause the still-swollen river to surge again.ImageCredit...Santi CarneriAbout 145,000 people were forced out of their homes across Paraguay, a nation of 6.5 million, Joaqun Roa, the minister for national emergencies, said. About 60,000 people are still displaced in Asuncin, he added.Despite the risk of further flooding, some people have returned home here, tired of living in the squalor of encampments, where families share portable toilets provided by the government and a United States aid agency, use buckets to shower, cook on portable charcoal stoves, and survive on infrequent handouts of rice, pasta and beans.Paraguay is historically susceptible to floods, and since mid-2014 Asuncin has had unusually regular bouts of heavy rainfall, displacing thousands of families. Still, the most recent storms fueled by El Nio were the worst, swelling the Paraguay River to its highest level since 1983.In the neighborhood of Santa Ana, Teresa Castro, 51, had just returned home after two months in one of the estimated 140 encampments that the authorities say have cropped up in Asuncin, in addition to five government shelters on military grounds. Outside Mrs. Castros house, wood canoes still floated on stagnant water; inside, the floods had flaked away walls and destroyed head-high plug sockets.I have to start from zero, Mrs. Castro said as she cleaned her electric oven and attended to her young grandchildren. We wanted to come home, she added, even if it is only to rest for a month, referring to the probability that she will have to leave again when the rains come in a few weeks.Mr. Roa said the government had planned for the flooding. For instance, he said, stocks of hospital equipment were secured, and schools readied mobile buildings for future victims so children would continue to go to class. The government also prepared an aid response with the military and the police that included work to ensure that trucks with emergency supplies could reach riverside slums.But some people stood defiant. Bernardo Olmedo, 40, who reads water meters for a living, moved his furniture upstairs as his house flooded. Refusing to abandon his home, he instead built a temporary staircase that climbed 13 feet from the street to an upstairs window. During the floods, his daily commute to work involved descending the steps, hopping onto a raft made of wood planks and polystyrene wrapped in plastic, and paddling for five minutes, out of the flood zone.Nearby, in the neighborhood of Republicano, Mara Vera Villalba, 31, a recycler at Cateura a vast landfill close to the river, where there were fears a giant pool of tainted water might overflow said she and her family had little choice but to flee when the rains came and a stream by her home broke its banks.Ms. Villalba said the rain had fallen hard for two consecutive mornings. After the water did not recede, as it usually did, it soon gushed into her home. Like tens of thousands of others, the family fled and built a shack in the median strip of a road beneath a willow tree, using an orange truck tarpaulin for extra protection from the elements.Displaced residents like Ms. Villalba said the government had repeatedly offered them houses in safer zones outside the city. But they resist because a move would drive them away from their work and social lives.Still, Ms. Villalba admitted that she may soon be left with no option. Its not a safe place anymore, she said. Nature is changing things. JONATHAN GILBERTObstacles in South AfricaSOWETO, South Africa On a recent evening at Esther Thobagales modest four-room house in this township outside Johannesburg, she was preparing pap, the traditional cornmeal porridge that is a staple food of low-income families across South Africa.A few days before, Ms. Thobagale, who lives with her daughter and two grandsons, had learned that she was going to have to pay a much higher price for cornmeal 80 rand (about $5.20) for a two-week supply, up from 50 rand (about $3.25). Thats a barely affordable increase for Ms. Thobagale, an unemployed grandmother who supports the household on a government pension and other income totaling 1,730 rand (about $112) a month.Im now forced to cut down on nonessentials, like treats for my grandkids, she said. Im forced to stick to what is important only.ImageCredit...Kim Ludbrook/European Pressphoto AgencySouth Africa has suffered through its worst drought in decades. With little rain last fall during the start of the growing season, the countrys biggest crop, corn, has been hit hard.Although rainfall amounts have increased in the last few weeks, the government estimates that the soon-to-be-harvested crop will be 27 percent lower than last years.A retail price survey by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Pretoria found that cornmeal prices had increased by about 19 percent and were expected to rise an additional 10 percent by the end of March. Those were nationwide averages, however; the price of Ms. Thobagales cornmeal increased by 60 percent.ImageCredit...Joao Silva/The New York TimesThe World Bank estimates that the drought has pushed 50,000 more South Africans below the poverty line of about $32 a month. But even for those who can afford to pay higher prices, there may not be enough corn to meet demand.Wandile Sihlobo, an economist at the corn farmers lobby group Grain SA, said current estimates are that South Africa would be forced to import more than four million tons of corn from Mexico and Brazil and other South American countries to meet the demand.Part of the problem, said Shukri Ahmed, an official with the Food and Agriculture Organization, is that corn yields were down in early 2015, too.Last year there was a 30 percent decline, Mr. Ahmed said. So there was already some strain in the market.South Africa grows far more corn than any other country in southern Africa, and regularly exports to many of its neighbors. Mr. Ahmed said the 2015 crop decline had wiped out any surplus available for export, putting some of these countries populations at risk. This is now one of the biggest worries for us, he said.Mr. Sihlobo said that of the corn that South Africa will import, about 700,000 tons would be sent on to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.But other countries in the region have been badly affected by the drought as well, including Zimbabwe, which probably has a shortfall of about 1.3 million tons, Mr. Sihlobo said. The question is where is this going to come from, he said. This might put added pressure on South Africa.The drought has caused economic hardship for South Africas farmers as well. In North West Province, one of several in which the South African government has declared a disaster, Thean Geldenhuys, a corn farmer, said his income was down by 75 percent because of the drought.Mr. Geldenhuys has had to turn away the seasonal workers who come to his farm every year, he said.Its sad because most of these people wont go away, he said. They are outside my farm every day hoping to be employed. There is simply no work and no money to pay them. XOLI MOLOI | science |
Business|Janet Yellen still supports making banks give the I.R.S. new customer data.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/business/irs-tax-gap-yellen.htmlI think its important that the I.R.S. have visibility into opaque income streams, the Treasury secretary said.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesNov. 30, 2021WASHINGTON Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that she still supported an embattled proposal that would require banks to turn over additional information about their customers accounts to the Internal Revenue Service, arguing that the proposal would help ensure that the wealthy were not dodging taxes.The bank reporting idea had been central to the Biden administrations plan to shrink the $7 trillion tax gap the shortfall in taxes that are owed but not collected and help pay for the $2.2 trillion social policy and climate legislation that Democrats are trying to pass this year. After fierce backlash from banks and Republicans, who derided the idea as an invasion of privacy, it was dropped from the bill that House Democrats passed this month.The Biden administration has been hoping that a more modest version of the proposal could make it into the Senates version of the bill. Ms. Yellen said she still backed the concept of having banks share data for accounts with total annual deposits or withdrawals of more than $10,000, with exceptions for wage earners or people who receive federal benefits like Social Security.I do support it, Ms. Yellen said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. I think its important that the I.R.S. have visibility into opaque income streams and thats an important way of improving tax compliance.Republicans insisted that the I.R.S. could not be trusted with additional data because of recent leaks of taxpayer information and the agencys history of targeting political groups.Certainly my constituents cant condone this aspect of the Build Back Better plan that would give even more authority and a tenfold increase in the budget to snoop on more Americans, audit more Americans and invade our privacy, Senator Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee, said.Ms. Yellen said the plan was not an attempt to snoop on taxpayers or collect detailed information about their banking activity.The burden on financial institutions was minimal, and there was no attempt to target income earners whose actual incomes are below $400,000, Ms. Yellen said.Although the chances of the bank reporting requirements making it into the final legislation appear slim, Democrats are counting on an investment of $80 billion to expand the enforcement capacity of the I.R.S. to generate $400 billion of additional tax revenue over a decade. That estimate, which is more optimistic than the projections of the Congressional Budget Office, allows the Biden administration to claim that the new spending will not add to the national debt.These are very important resources that are needed to make sure that the wealthiest individuals, and corporations particularly, comply with the tax laws and pay their fair share, whats due, Ms. Yellen said. | Business |
Storm Chasers' Star Joel Taylor Cruise Ship Where He Allegedly OD'd Had Zero Tolerance Drug Policy 1/25/2018 The cruise line on which "Storm Chasers" star Joel Taylor died of an apparent OD this week does not allow illegal drugs on the boat ... which raises the question -- how did they ignore a river of drugs on board? Royal Caribbean International tells TMZ they have a "zero tolerance" policy when it comes to drugs. If the crew finds them, they confiscate them. So the question ... multiple passengers tell us drug use was out in the open ... flagrant and notorious. The parties were drug-fueled and, as we reported, Taylor was so out of it he fell into unconsciousness on the dance floor and had to be carried to his room after allegedly consuming GHB. As we reported ... we're told several passengers suspected of drug possession were stopped after drug-sniffing dogs zeroed in on them at the Ft. Lauderdale port where the ship departed. TMZ broke the story ... the FBI is now investigating Taylor's death and has already spoken to folks at the cruise line to find out what went down on board. | Entertainment |
The noodles and barbecue arrive within 30 minutes. The containers they come in could be around for hundreds of years thereafter.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesMay 28, 2019BEIJING In all likelihood, the enduring physical legacy of Chinas internet boom will not be the glass-and-steel office complexes or the fancy apartments for tech elites.It will be the plastic.The astronomical growth of food delivery apps in China is flooding the country with takeout containers, utensils and bags. And the countrys patchy recycling system isnt keeping up. The vast majority of this plastic ends up discarded, buried or burned with the rest of the trash, researchers and recyclers say. Scientists estimate that the online takeout business in China was responsible for 1.6 million tons of packaging waste in 2017, a ninefold jump from two years before. That includes 1.2 million tons of plastic containers, 175,000 tons of disposable chopsticks, 164,000 tons of plastic bags and 44,000 tons of plastic spoons. Put together, it is more than the amount of residential and commercial trash of all kinds disposed of each year by the city of Philadelphia. The total for 2018 grew to an estimated two million tons.ImageCredit...Na Zhou for The New York TimesHalf a days work for just a few pennies. It isnt worth it, said Ren Yong, 40, a garbage collector at a downtown Shanghai office building. He said he threw takeout containers out.For many overworked or merely lazy people in urban China, the leading takeout platforms Meituan and Ele.me are replacing cooking or eating out as the preferred means of obtaining nourishment. Delivery is so cheap, and the apps offer such generous discounts, that it is now possible to believe that ordering a single cup of coffee for delivery is a sane, reasonable thing to do.Yuan Ruqian knows that it is not. Yet she, too, has succumbed. Like the time she was craving ice cream, but a newly opened Dippin Dots store seemed so far away. Or when she orders delivery for lunch, which is nearly every day. Asked about the trash she generates, Ms. Yuan, 27, who works in finance in Shanghai, said: Laziness is the root of all evil. The transformation of daily life has been swift. Meituan says it delivered 6.4 billion food orders last year, a nearly 60 percent jump from 2017. Those orders were worth $42 billion in total, meaning the average order was $6.50 about enough for a decent meal for one in a big Chinese city.ImageCredit...Na Zhou for The New York TimesEle.me the name means Are you hungry? and is pronounced UH-luh-muh has not disclosed similar figures. But across Chinas major takeout apps, orders worth a combined $70 billion were delivered in 2018, according to the analysis firm iResearch.By comparison, online food delivery sales in the United States are expected to total $19 billion this year, according to Statista. Uber says its Uber Eats service generated $7.9 billion in orders worldwide last year. GrubHub reported $5.1 billion in food sales and 159 million orders in 2018, implying an average order value of $32.Around the world, the convenience of such services comes with costs that can be easy to overlook. Labor controversies, for instance. Or roads made more hazardous by takeout couriers zooming around on motorbikes. Plastic waste is just as easily ignored, even when it is being generated and mismanaged on a titanic scale.China is home to a quarter of all plastic waste that is dumped out in the open. Scientists estimate that the Yangtze River emptied 367,000 tons of plastic debris into the sea in 2015, more than any other river in the world, and twice the amount carried by the Ganges in India and Bangladesh. The worlds third and fourth most polluting rivers are also in China.Takeout apps may be indirectly encouraging restaurants to use more plastic. Restaurants in China that do business through Meituan and Ele.me say they are so dependent on customer ratings that they would rather use heavier containers, or sheathe an order in an extra layer of plastic wrap, than risk a bad review because of a spill.ImageCredit...Na Zhou for The New York TimesMeituan is deeply committed to reducing the environmental impact of food delivery, the company said in a statement, pointing to initiatives such as allowing users to choose not to receive disposable tableware. The e-commerce titan Alibaba, which owns Ele.me, declined to comment. This deluge of trash might not be such a big problem were China not in the middle of a monumental, if flawed, effort to fix its recycling system. Recycling has long been a gritty, unregulated affair in the country, one driven less by green virtue than by the business opportunity in extracting value out of other peoples leavings. The government now wants a recycling industry that doesnt spoil the environment or sicken workers. The transition hasnt been smooth.China recently banned many types of scrap from being imported into the country, hoping that recyclers would focus on processing domestic material instead. That killed off a lucrative business for those recyclers, and left American cities scrambling to find new dumping grounds for their cardboard and plastic. Some cities have been forced to end their recycling programs.ImageCredit...Na Zhou for The New York TimesOther policies may inadvertently be causing fewer recyclables to be collected from Chinas homes and offices. In Beijing, many scavengers who do this work have fallen victim to an aggressive government campaign to improve the quality of the citys population, a euphemism for driving out migrant workers from the countryside. To clean up the filthy air in Beijing, the government has also clamped down on small, scattered polluting enterprises in the capital region. Inspectors have since closed down hundreds of dingy backyard workshops that cleaned and processed plastic scrap.Not everyone mourns the loss. For years, Mao Da, an environmental researcher, has studied the plastic industry in Wenan County, near Beijing. Workers there used to sort through food and medical waste by hand, he said. Nonrecyclable material was buried in pits near farmland. It was an environmental and public health catastrophe, Mr. Mao said. So far, though, the crackdown hasnt caused large, professionally managed recycling companies to fill the void. Instead, it has left the entire business in limbo.Youve got fewer people collecting scrap, fewer people transporting it and fewer people processing it, said Chen Liwen, the founder of Zero-Waste Villages, a nonprofit that promotes recycling in rural China. The overall recycling rate has definitely fallen.ImageCredit...Na Zhou for The New York TimesIn Chifeng, a small city northeast of Beijing, Zhang Jialin is pondering life after recycling. For years, Mr. Zhang and his wife bought plastic scrap and ground it into chips. But the local authorities have stepped up environmental inspections. The city has slated Mr. Zhangs street for demolition. He and other recyclers believe it is because officials consider their scrapyards an eyesore. The Chifeng government didnt respond to a request for comment.What I do is environmental protection, Mr. Zhang, 45, said. I dont let stuff get thrown everywhere. I break it down. I wash it.He continued: So why do the environmental protection authorities target me as if I were harming environmental protection? Thats what I dont get. | Tech |
Science Times at 40Many women in science thought that meritocracy was the antidote to sexism. Now some have decided on a more direct approach.Credit...Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 19, 2018It is 2018, and the director of the National Science Foundation, France Crdova, is tired of learning that male scientists whose research she supports with public funds have sexually harassed their female students, staff and colleagues.At 71, she still remembers an unwanted sexual remark from a graduate-school professor she had sought out for advice on her astrophysics research. And over the last few years, she has listened to stories so many stories shared by younger scientists at conferences for geologists and astronomers.So last month, Dr. Crdova enacted the kind of structural change experts say is a prerequisite to increasing the ranks of women scientists, who hold only about 30 percent of senior faculty positions in colleges in the United States.Institutions that accept an N.S.F grant must now notify the agency of any finding related to harassment by the leading scientists working on it and face the possibility of losing the coveted funds. Individuals may also report harassment directly to the agency, which may then conduct its own investigation. That, too, may result in the suspension of funding.The move may seem like a no-brainer, but it may be the most consequential action any of the nations science agencies have yet taken to hold academic institutions explicitly accountable for sexual harassment. Other agencies require notification if a scientist can no longer work on a grant, but do not track the reason.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]For the N.S.F., which distributed grants to some 40,000 scientists at 2,000 institutions in 2017, the goal is also a shift in a scientific culture that has long sought to evaluate scientists without consideration for their personal conduct.We were raised with letting the water run off of our back, recalled Dr. Crdova, whose resume includes stints at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA as its chief scientist. Youre harassing me? Im going to ignore you. Im going to go do my research somewhere else.Well, enough is enough.That the N.S.F.s new sexual harassment policy was put in place by a woman who controls a $5 billion research budget captures the bittersweet nature of the #MeToo moment for many scientists.ImageCredit...Hilary Swift for The New York TimesEven as a small corps of women have assumed some of sciences most influential positions in recent years, their own experience along with actual research has shown that harassment and other forms of sex discrimination remain widespread.As they grapple with the fields big challenges, ridding it of the gender inequities that many believed would by now be a thing of the past ranks high on the list.I think when my generation came along, we thought, if we put our heads down and did a good job, things would get better, said Cori Bargmann, a neurobiologist who heads the $3 billion science arm of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization.I even feel personally responsible, like I let these younger women down. I thought I would fix it by doing O.K. And clearly thats not enough, so weve got to do more.At one recent meeting, Dr. Bargmann recalled, a distinguished male scientist told her that she held a particular opinion on gene-editing embryos because she was a woman, and women are more conservative.I looked at him and thought, And thats your opinion because youre a dinosaur, she said.To boost the lagging representation of women in physics, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, one of many women whose scientific contributions have not received the same credit as those of male mentors or competitors, has said she will use her $3 million Breakthrough Prize to create scholarships for women and other under-represented groups.Dr. Burnell believes her own insights grew from her outsider status in the Cambridge lab of her thesis supervisor, who received the Nobel Prize for their shared work in 1974.I was one of very few women, and I wasnt from the southeast of England, the affluent part of the country, she told Space.com. So, I think increasing diversity of the workforce actually allows all sorts of things to develop.In a discipline often portrayed as the ultimate meritocracy, scientists have struggled with how to effectively counter unconscious gender bias. Among other metrics, studies have documented biases that favor male scientists in hiring, salary, start-up funds for laboratories, credit for authorship of papers, letters of recommendation, invitations to give talks at prestigious university colloquia and, invitations to speak on conference panels (a.k.a. manels).ImageCredit...Jeff Elkins/WashingtonianThe widely held conviction that science, unlike any other field, will reward whoever advances the collective search for truth may not help.There is this belief that science is noble and unbiased, and if Im good, Ill be recognized, said Margaret Rossiter, an emerita historian of science at Cornell. Sometimes thats true Marie Curie came along and got two Nobel Prizes. But often it turned out not to be true, and women were disillusioned.Much has changed for women in science, of course, since the 1970s, when Dr. Crdova approached a senior male scientist for advice on her graduate thesis and was taken aback by a comment that she describes as completely inappropriate and out of left field.In 1970, the zeros list published annually by the Womens Committee of the American Chemical Society reported that chemistry departments in 113 of the nations leading universities had zero women on their faculty.In 1994, the year the M.I.T. molecular biologist Nancy Hopkins famously measured laboratory space for a report on gender discrimination that drew national attention, the tenured faculty in the universitys School of Science included 15 women, compared to 194 men.Now, women account for about 20 percent of senior faculty in math, computer science and physics. They have received around half of doctorates in the life sciences for the last decade, and they constitute about half of assistant professor positions.But the representation of women overall decreases among associate professors and declines to 33 percent among full professors. (And only 3 percent of the women employed as full professors are African-American.)Among academic laboratories at leading research institutions, womens representation are further diminished, especially when the lab head has a high level of prestige. A 2014 paper showed that men are 90 percent more likely to do postdoctoral training with a Nobel Laureate.ImageCredit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesSo, while one recent study found that women fared just as well as men when they applied for their first N.I.H. grant, far fewer found themselves in a position to do so.For many women scientists, the emphasis on the term gender harassment in a major report on sexual harassment in science published this summer came as something of a revelation.Defined as verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion or second-class status, it is far more common in science settings, the report said, than forms of harassment like sexual coercion or unwanted touching: less often a come-on than a put-down.I had always been thinking that sexual harassment was putting hands on people, said Carol Greider, a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Weve been talking about the leaky pipeline for years, and this may turn out to be the big gushing hole.Dr. Greider is one of several senior women scientists who said in interviews that male scientists frequently talk over female colleagues, including them, apparently without realizing it. She believes that pressure must be brought to bear on universities from the outside, and so she is co-organizing a small meeting next month to brainstorm solutions to gender discrimination in science with lawyers, economists, behavioral scientists and activists.Erin OShea, appointed in 2016 as the first woman to head the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an influential biomedical research organization, has instituted a new program to support women and underrepresented minorities as postdoctoral fellows and young faculty, when they may be most likely to drop out of the pipeline or be diverted to less elite labs at lower-ranking institutions.My interest is in capturing as much talent as possible for science, said Dr. OShea. If you want to capture the best talent, you dont want groups de facto excluded.For her part, Dr. Crdova said the N.S.F. is working on additional plans to combat gender harassment.In an interview last week, she said she had not previously shared publicly the story of her own incident of harassment. Nor had she told anyone what happened decades later, when she found herself sitting on the high-level committee evaluating candidates for an award for which, it turned out, her harasser had been nominated.I explained to the group that I thought his conduct was not becoming of a scientist, Dr. Crdova said. So that was my little thing. I thought, Well, Ill do this for the rest of the gals. | science |
Credit...Peter Morrison/Associated PressMarch 21, 2017Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander and Sinn Fein political leader who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland after decades of sectarian violence, and became a senior official in its power-sharing government, died on Tuesday in Derry. He was 66.Sinn Fein said Mr. McGuinness had died after a short illness. When he resigned from the Belfast government in January, The Irish Times reported that he had amyloidosis, a rare condition caused by the abnormal buildup of protein deposits in tissues and organs.In bombings and killings that raged from the 1960s to the 90s between Protestant and Roman Catholic forces the Troubles that left 3,700 dead Mr. McGuinness was widely believed to have joined, and later directed, terrorist activities. He denied the allegations. His only convictions, in the early 70s, were for possessing explosives and ammunition and for belonging to the outlawed I.R.A.ImageCredit...David Jones/Press Association, via Associated PressBut in his 40s he evolved into a peacemaker and politician. He was chief negotiator for Sinn Fein, the political arm of the I.R.A., in a complex Good Friday Agreement in 1998, in which Britain, Ireland and the political parties of Northern Ireland created a framework for power-sharing in Belfast and for eventual resolution of issues like sovereignty, civil rights, disarmament, justice and policing.And on May 8, 2007, a day many thought would never come, the Rev. Ian Paisley, who had founded the Democratic Unionist Party and had long stood for continued Ulster association with Britain, and Mr. McGuinness, who had fought for Ulsters incorporation into a united Ireland, took oaths as the leader and deputy leader, respectively, of Northern Irelands power-sharing government.As Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Bertie Ahern of Ireland looked on, the proceedings ended direct British control of Northern Ireland and reinstated home rule for its 1.8 million people. Legislative power was vested in a Northern Ireland Assembly, and Ulster began a new era in which long-bitter adversaries pledged to abandon armed struggles and embrace political solutions.The I.R.A. had already destroyed its weapons and given up its clandestine cells, and Sinn Fein (pronounced shin-FAIN) had endorsed a reconstituted Ulster police force, which it had regarded for decades as an arm of British and Protestant repression.ImageCredit...Pool photo by Paul FaithLeft unresolved was whether Northern Ireland would ever be reunited with the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic. The Good Friday Agreement provided that that could happen only with the consent of Northern Ireland, and it made it likely that Ulster and its Protestant majority would remain in perpetuity along with the legacies of killings and religious enmities.Once banned from entering Britain, Mr. McGuinness won a seat in the House of Commons in London; ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of Ireland in 2011; visited prime ministers several times at 10 Downing Street; met Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama at the White House; and shook hands twice with Queen Elizabeth II.This is the side of his political life that McGuinness wants the Irish people to remember: the reformed man, the young, hotheaded idealist who learned the error of his ways and forged peace, an achievement that still wins him plaudits from around the world, the British magazine New Statesman said in 2011. To some in Ireland he is a hero a man who stood up for the oppressed, who fought the British. To others, he was, is and will always be a criminal.James Martin Pacelli McGuinness was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, on May 23, 1950, one of seven children of William and Peggy McGuinness, a Catholic family that shared two bedrooms and an outdoor toilet in the crowded slum of Bogside, a setting for much violence during the Troubles. His father worked in an iron foundry, and his mother in a shirt factory. The parents attended Mass and took communion daily, and they gathered their six sons and daughter nightly for a recitation of the rosary.Martin was a bright, eager boy who loved the poems of W. B. Yeats and played chess, but he failed the 11 Plus exams in his last year in grade school. So instead of getting an academic education, he went to a Christian Brothers technical school, where the boys were beaten. He quit school at 15 and became a butchers assistant. Like many Bogside youths, he joined the lionized I.R.A. and was a gunman at 18.In the late 1960s and early 70s, Bogside was a war zone of hatred and revenge. Stone-throwing youths were beaten by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. There were riots and protests. Two boys were shot dead by British soldiers in 1971. The Provisional I.R.A., the more militant successor to the I.R.A., launched ferocious counterattacks. Arson fires burned 100 shops, and snipers killed 26 British soldiers in Derry alone in 1971 and 72.Mr. McGuinness was second in command of the Derry I.R.A. on Bloody Sunday, the grim day in 1972 when British troops fired on unarmed civilians staging a peaceful protest against the British practice of internment without trials. Fourteen people were killed in what became known as the Bogside Massacre.In 1973 and 1974, Mr. McGuinness was imprisoned twice, for possession of a car filled with explosives and ammunition, and for his acknowledged membership in the illegal I.R.A.ImageCredit...Cathal McNaughton/ReutersIn 1974, he married Bernadette Canning. They had four children: daughters Grainne and Fionnuala, and sons Fiachra and Emmet. There was no immediate word on his survivors.From the late 1970s to the mid-80s, Mr. McGuinness was widely assumed to be the I.R.A.s chief of staff. Hundreds of people were killed by the I.R.A. in that period, including the queens cousin Earl Mountbatten, whose fishing boat exploded off County Sligo in 1979. Many I.R.A. attacks also occurred in England, including a bombing at a Brighton hotel in 1984 that killed five people and was intended to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet.Mr. McGuinness was accused of participating in or plotting crimes. Television documentaries and news and magazine articles linked him to murders of informers and bombings that killed scores. He and Gerry Adams, Sinn Feins president, reportedly concluded in the early 1990s that militance was not advancing their aims. Cease-fires in 1994 and 1997 ensued, and talks led to the peace accords.Mr. McGuinness was minister of education in an interim government from 1999 to 2002. Elected to the House of Commons in London in 1997, he was re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2010 and served until 2013. A biography, Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, by Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston, appeared in 2001.As senior officials of Northern Ireland, he and Mr. Paisley became friends of sorts. When Mr. Paisley retired in 2008, Mr. McGuinness gave him a Seamus Heaney poem. After a decade as deputy first minister, Mr. McGuinness resigned in January for health reasons, prompting a snap election in which Sinn Fein made major gains and nearly overtook the Democratic Unionists as the largest party in the regional assembly.He retires without his dream of a united Ireland being fulfilled during his tenure, Daniel McConnell, political editor of The Irish Examiner, wrote. But his contribution to peace on this island will be long remembered. | World |
James Franco I'm Still Winning ... In the Girlfriend Dept. 1/29/2018 James Franco has been on the outs in Hollywood after several women have accused him of sexual misconduct, but his girlfriend is clearly sticking by his side. Franco and Isabel Pakzad hit up the Soho House Sunday in Malibu on a sunny day -- in fact, a blazing hot day. Pakzad also accompanied him to the Screen Actors Guild Awards last week. Franco had been nominated for "The Disaster Artist," but didn't win. As you know, he didn't get nominated for an Oscar. You win some, you lose some. | Entertainment |
Sports of The TimesCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2014SOCHI, Russia The Sochi Games organizer Dmitry Chernyshenko has turned to the same line again and again when asked to describe how he and certain other Russians feel about the United States Olympic hockey team. To paint a simple picture, he says he can recall only three horror films from his youth. Those include Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The third, he says, is Miracle on Ice, a film depicting the United States unlikely victory over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics during the Cold War. We get it. That loss was painful, a stinging blow to the players and their Mother Russia. The good thing is that many Russians at these Olympics are too young to remember it. Or maybe they have just moved on.Patrick Kane of the United States taking control of the puck in a game the Americans won, 3-2, over Russia in a shootout. T.J. Oshie scored four times in the shootout.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSlide 1 of 17 Patrick Kane of the United States taking control of the puck in a game the Americans won, 3-2, over Russia in a shootout. T.J. Oshie scored four times in the shootout.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesWhichever it is, no hockey zealots were cheering against the United States as it played the Russian team in Saturdays preliminary-round game. There appeared to be no palpable animosity between the teams or their fans. There were a few scuffles on the ice, but no real fights. No deep-seated acrimony here: It turned out to be a lovely afternoon of hard-nosed hockey on the shores of the Black Sea.Several Russian fans couldnt even imagine a heated rivalry re-emerging between the teams.Rivalry, why? said Sergei Mirnov, a construction equipment salesman. I dont think that there is any rivalry. If there is, it has nothing to do with sports. He is absolutely right. Though the relationship between the United States and Russia has grown increasingly tense, none of that stress has trickled down to its playing fields, at least not yet. Right now, any United States-Russia rivalry would be driven not by hockey sticks or skis or figure skates, but by politics. VideoT. J. Oshie, who took six of the Americans eight shots, scoring on four of them to lift the team to a victory over Russia, spoke to the media after the game.Russia has given the National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden asylum. Last summer, President Vladimir V. Putin passed a law prohibiting the transmission of gay propaganda to children, prompting dozens of gay rights groups to protest. The two nations cant agree about the placement of missile defense systems in Europe. Many hockey fans here see those issues as a personal fight between Putin and President Obama, and they want to be left out of it. Instead, on Saturday, they wanted to cheer.Good-natured fans from both countries packed the stands at the Bolshoi Ice Dome. Every Russian flag within a 100-mile radius seemed to be in the arena, waved by a fan wearing white, red and blue, or whose face was painted white, red and blue, or who was wearing a wig of white, red and blue. Though seemingly outnumbered by 10 to 1, Americans also wore patriotic colors and waved their flags, chanting U.S.A.! U.S.A.! after each goal.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesTo that, the Russians shouted back, Russ-ee-ah! Russ-ee-ah! sometimes so loudly that the arenas seats vibrated.The Russians grew quiet after the United States won in a shootout, 3-2. But a few minutes later, as they exited the building, some of those fans began singing and chanting again. It was as if the game had been just a game and didnt stand for anything deeper. And that was, frankly, nice.There are many differences and misunderstandings between our two countries, said Aleksandr Kurynov, who wore a wavy, white, goats hair wig and was dressed in a giant sheepskin poncho that he had painted to look like Russias white, red and blue flag.But right now, we both believe in the same thing: sports, he said. I absolutely think sports and politics should remain separate.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesBut that hasnt stopped Obama and Putin from competing, or at least chiding each other. Obama declined, unlike several other heads of state, to attend the opening ceremony. The night of that ceremony, Putin watched as the Olympic torch was lit by Irina Rodnina, an Olympic gold medalist figure skater who had posted a controversial photo of Obama and the first lady on Twitter. The photo was doctored to include a banana. (First, Rodnina defended the post, calling it free speech. Shortly after she lit the torch, she apologized and said her account had been hacked.)On Saturday, Putin showed up at the United States-Russia hockey game. He stood high above the ice with Thomas Bach, the new International Olympic Committee president, who gave a strong speech at these Games about sports being devoid of any politics.Putin cheered for neither side, and didnt boo, either. Only once, when Russia missed a shot in the final moments of the game, did Putin throw his head back and bite his lip, but his face quickly returned to its neutral look of stone.Below him, the Russians continued to wave their flags. The Americans continued to wave their flags. Together, they turned the stands into a roiling sea of red, white and blue.Politics? What politics? | Sports |
Credit...Korean Central News AgencyNov. 15, 2018SEOUL, South Korea North Korea has tested a new tactical weapon, the Norths official news media said on Friday, reporting that Kim Jong-un witnessed the event in his first publicized visit to a weapons test site since the country test-launched its intercontinental ballistic missile last November.State media did not identify the weapon, and the test did not appear to violate the voluntary moratorium North Korea imposed on nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests this year. Still, Mr. Kims renewed activities at weapons test sites could complicate the already stalled talks between North Korea and the United States over how to remove the Norths nuclear weapons.North Korea tends to use the prospects of rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula as leverage when negotiations with Washington do not go in its favor. In recent weeks, it has issued vague threats that it might resume testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles should the United States continue to refuse to make concessions like easing sanctions.On Friday, the Norths official Korean Central News Agency said Mr. Kim visited the testing ground of the Academy of Defense Science, the center of weapons development in North Korea, and supervised a newly developed ultramodern tactical weapon test.After seeing the power of the tactical weapon, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un was so excited to say that another great work was done by the defense scientists and munitions industrial workers to increase the defense capability of the country, the news agency reported.The South Korean daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo on Friday quoted anonymous government sources as saying that North Korea had tested multiple-rocket launchers this month. Besides the Norths nuclear weapons, such rockets are considered one of the greatest military threats against South Korea because the North deploys them near the inter-Korean border to target the Souths capital, Seoul, a city of 10 million people.Recent satellite images have also revealed that North Korea has built what analysts believe may be a replica of the headquarters of the South Korean military for possible target practice.ImageCredit...Korean Central News AgencyMr. Kim last publicly attended a weapons test last November, when his country launched its Hwasong-15 ICBM, which was widely considered powerful enough to reach the continental United States.Many Western experts still doubt that North Korea has mastered all the technologies needed to deliver a small nuclear warhead on such missiles. Still, following the November test, Mr. Kim said his country no longer needed to conduct nuclear and long-range missile tests because it had achieved the capability to hit the United States with nuclear missiles.In a ruling Workers Party meeting in April, Mr. Kim also retired his byungjin, or parallel advance, policy of simultaneously pursuing economic growth and nuclear weapons development. He said he would focus on rebuilding the economy.He has since met President Moon Jae-in of South Korea three times to discuss easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. He also met with President Trump in Singapore in June and made a vague promise to work toward the complete denuclearization of the peninsula. North Korea has closed its only known underground nuclear test site and agreed to dismantle some missile-test facilities.But the Singapore agreement was short on specifics, and subsequent negotiations on carrying it out have since stalled.North Korea has pledged to dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a center for producing nuclear bomb fuel, and take other actions, but will do so only if Washington takes corresponding steps, like easing sanctions and signing a peace declaration. It has also expressed anger in recent days at South Koreas resumption of small-scale military drills with the United States.But Washington demands that North Korea take more important steps first, like declaring all its nuclear-related facilities for inspection. Skeptics in Washington accused North Korea of giving up just enough to create the illusion of progress while enabling Mr. Trump to claim victory.Despite Mr. Kims much-touted summit meetings with regional leaders, his country has never abandoned his repeated instructions to mass-produce its nuclear warheads and delivery missiles. In a report published this week, the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said it located more than a dozen North Korean missile bases.Although both Seoul and Washington said the missile bases have long been under the close monitoring of their military intelligence officials, the report was a fresh reminder that North Koreas missile threat remained intact despite Mr. Trumps repeated claims of progress in efforts to denuclearize the North. A series of United Nations Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from developing and testing ballistic missiles. | World |
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJune 4, 2018WASHINGTON On the 25th day of a much-discussed absence from the public eye, the first lady re-emerged.Sort of.Weeks ago, Melania Trump essentially vanished from view after undergoing what her office described as a successful treatment of a benign kidney condition. On Monday, she reappeared on the presidents schedule and joined him at a reception for military families.But Mrs. Trumps scheduled appearance was not open to the press, and was unlikely to calm rampant speculation about why she has not been seen in public in over three weeks. It is an unusual stretch for one of the most visible women in the world and, according to historians, it is the longest break anyone has taken from the role in modern memory.What Mrs. Trump has executed here seems unprecedented, Katherine Jellison, a professor at Ohio University who studies first ladies, said in an interview. I dont know what we want to call this period where she hasnt been in view. Respite from the role of first lady? Vacation from first lady? Medical recovery period?On Monday evening, one journalist caught video of Mrs. Trump at the White House reception: Jena Greene, a reporter for The Daily Caller whose father was killed during the Iraq war, filmed the first lady, dressed in a black dress, accompanying the president to a reception honoring families of service members killed during that conflict.In front of families honoring their fallen relatives, the president joked about the theories that have run rampant in Mrs. Trumps absence, including that the two were headed for divorce.Melania had a little problem a couple weeks ago, but she wouldnt miss this for anything, Mr. Trump said, according to Ms. Greene.In a statement, Mrs. Trump said it was a privilege to host the families. To all those who have lost loved ones in service to our country, our nation grieves with you, she said. It is a solemn reminder that we, the American people, are able to live as freely as we do because of the selfless sacrifices of our men and women in uniform.At the White House, few aides outside the East Wing have known Mrs. Trumps whereabouts, and her office has kept the West Wing which tends to leak like a sieve on a need-to-know basis after the first lady returned from a five-day stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in May. In the absence of answers, theories about Mrs. Trumps health and the length of her recovery have abounded. Her aides have held firm, citing the privacy laws to which Mrs. Trump, like any other patient, is entitled.And when that does not work, they have admonished journalists for inquiring.Mrs. Trump has always been a strong and independent woman who puts her family, and certainly her health, above all else, and that wont change over a rabid press corps, Stephanie Grisham, the first ladys communications director, said in an email on Monday. Shes confident in what she is doing and in her role, and knows the rest is just speculation and nonsense.Aside from the reception on Monday, there have been few reported sightings of Mrs. Trump in the White House. A reporter said last week that he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Trump walking with her aides through the West Wing. In recent days, Mrs. Trump has taken internal meetings and is planning events, her spokeswoman said, but her office has not shared updates on when the first lady might resume her public appearances.Mrs. Trumps absence came abruptly, and at a time when she seemed to be getting used to standing firmly in the spotlight. She was admitted to the hospital just days after the kickoff of Be Best, her official platform. In the weeks before, the first lady had organized a state dinner with France and saw her poll numbers rising.Then she vanished not an easy feat for someone whose every public move has been dissected on social media.Its amazing shes been able to pull it off given the scrutiny that first ladies are under in our times, Ms. Jellison, the historian, said. For all we know, maybe she does understand what the expectations are but just chooses not to play that game. This particular first family and this particular White House has their own road map for doing things.Questions about Mrs. Trumps health and whereabouts are likely to persist, particularly since Mrs. Trump has not traveled with her husband. She did not accompany the president and several of his grown children to Camp David last weekend, and the East Wing confirmed that she will not travel with Mr. Trump to the Group of 7 economic meeting in Quebec this week, or the summit meeting with the North Korean leader scheduled to take place in Singapore next week.Ms. Grisham, the first ladys spokeswoman, dismissed curiosity about her travel, saying that it was pretty typical not to travel after a medical procedure. | Politics |
Joe Biden Fingers Crossed for the Eagles ... Brady's a Boss 1/31/2018 TMZSports.com Joe Biden says he'll be rootin' hard for Philly this Sunday ... but the former Vice President doesn't seem 100% confident his Eagles will be flying high at Super Bowl 52. Why?? In a word -- BRADY. "I don't think they're gonna take out Brady," Biden told TMZ Sports at LAX. "Brady's awful good." No disagreements here. Still, there's no questioning Joe's fandom. Remember -- the ex-VP told Carson Wentz, "It's our year" last season ... and even advised former President Obama to "get on the Wentz Wagon!" SEPTEMBER 2016 | Entertainment |
Olympics|Erin Hamlin of U.S. Takes Slippery Slide to a Medalhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/sports/olympics/erin-hamlin-of-us-takes-slippery-slide-to-a-medal.htmlRoundupCredit...Vassil Donev/European Pressphoto AgencyFeb. 12, 2014Erin Hamlin expected an Olympic medal four years ago at the Vancouver Games and came up empty.For the Sochi Games, she expected nothing. Who knew? she said.Hamlin on Tuesday won the bronze medal in womens luge, touching off a wild celebration among family and friends in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, and a raucous party back home in Remsen, N.Y., where hundreds of people about half the town huddled around televisions streaming the online feed of her run at the Sanki Sliding Center.Its going to take a little while to sink in, said Hamlin, 27, who became the first American singles luger to win an Olympic medal. I was the first American woman to win at worlds, so to be able to do this, Im hopefully paving the way for future generations of female lugers in the U.S.At the Turin Games in Italy, Hamlin finished 12th. Four years later in Vancouver a year after winning the world championship she placed 16th.For Hamlin, third place seemed like a bigger victory than winning the world title.For her, yes, it is, said her mother, Eileen Hamlin.When Hamlin won the world title the big perk was getting an ice cream sundae named in her honor. It is still a big seller in Remsen, where she ran track and played soccer and grew up being a wimp, she said, whenever her parents wanted her to try something adventurous and daring.Germanys Natalie Geisenberger won the race, posting a four-run time of 3 minutes 19.768 seconds. Tatjana Hfner of Germany was second.NORWAY ADDS TO MEDAL HAUL Norway won double gold in the cross-country freestyle sprints while picking up silver medals in the womens sprint and in the womens 10-kilometer biathlon pursuit. That gives the Norwegians the medal lead after the fifth day of the Games. Norwegians have won 317 since the Winter Olympics began in 1924. Ola Vigen Hattestad captured the mens sprint title in a race marred by a three-skier collision. Emil Jonsson of Sweden, who had all but given up earlier in the race, grabbed the bronze medal after Sergey Ustiugov of Russia, Marcus Hellner of Sweden and Anders Gloersen of Norway were involved in a crash that left them sprawled across the course. (AP)CANADIAN WOMAN WINS SLOPESTYLEDara Howell won a womens slopestyle skiing gold medal, trouncing the rest of the field. Devin Logan of the United States took the silver medal, and Kim Lamarre of Canada earned the bronze. (AP) | Sports |
Middle East|Banksy Puts Mark on Bethlehem Hotel With Worst View in the Worldhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/world/middleeast/banksy-hotel-bethlehem-west-bank.htmlMarch 3, 2017ImageCredit...Dusan Vranic/Associated PressWelcome to the hotel with the worst view in the world. Please be mindful of the million-dollar art on the walls.The elusive British street artist Banksy has decorated the interiors of the Walled Off Hotel, a nine-room guesthouse in the West Bank city of Bethlehem whose windows overlook the barrier that separates the territory from Israel.ImageCredit...Dusan Vranic/Associated PressAmong the rooms decorated by the artist, who has earned a following for tagging walls around the world with witty illustrations and dark political commentaries, is the Banksy Room.In the room, a mural on the wall above a king-size bed depicts a Palestinian and an Israeli locked in combat only they are having a pillow fight.ImageCredit...Dusan Vranic/Associated PressBanksy, who rarely comments on his work and keeps his real identity a secret, has made trips to the West Bank for years and has previously, under cover of night, painted the barrier itself. On a recent trip, he painted a mural on the barrier, just steps from his current project, showing a girl being pulled aloft by balloons.Last year, four street murals in Gaza were attributed to him, including one depicting a Greek goddess amid the rubble of a destroyed house.ImageCredit...Dusan Vranic/Associated PressIn addition to the guest rooms, Banksy has created something of a museum that includes surveillance cameras mounted like taxidermic trophies, a Grecian bust surrounded by a cloud meant to depict tear gas, and a wax statue depicting the signing of the Balfour Declaration, the 1917 letter of British intent to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.ImageCredit...Dusan Vranic/Associated PressThe hotel will open to guests on March 11, with rooms starting at $30 a night.Banksy, who first came to prominence by stenciling artworks on the walls of Bristol, England, has become an international superstar. In 2015, he created an exhibit called Dismaland, in which works by Israeli and Palestinian artists were displayed side by side. Some of Banksys works have sold at auction for more than $1 million.ImageCredit...Dusan Vranic/Associated Press | World |
Credit...Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 8, 2017BEIJING China tried unsuccessfully to calm newly volatile tensions on the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday, proposing that North Korea freeze nuclear and missile programs in exchange for a halt to major military exercises by American and South Korean forces. The proposal was rejected hours later by the United States and South Korea.We have to see some sort of positive action by North Korea before we can take them seriously, Nikki R. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters after a Security Council meeting in New York on the escalating Korea crisis. Standing beside her, Cho Tae-yul, the South Korean ambassador, said, This is not the time for us to talk about freezing or dialogue with North Korea.The statements by Ms. Haley and her South Korean counterpart came hours after Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, proposed the suspensions during a Beijing news conference, describing them as a way to create the basis for talks that would end North Koreas nuclear ambitions.The alternative to talks, he said, would be an increasingly perilous standoff that threatened the entire region.The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming toward each other, and neither side is willing to give way, Mr. Wang said. The question is: Are both sides really prepared for a head-on collision?But in what appeared to be a hardening American position on North Korea, Ms. Haley said the United States was re-evaluating its approach to the country and its unpredictable young leader, Kim Jong-un, whom she described as not rational.I can tell you were not ruling anything out, and were considering every option, Ms. Haley said after the Security Council meeting, flanked by Mr. Cho and the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, Koro Bessho.At the same time, Ms. Haley sought to reassure China publicly that the United States meant no harm by moving ahead with the deployment of a defensive missile shield system in South Korea, after North Koreas missile launch on Monday. China has condemned the missile shield as a provocation by the Americans that risked a new arms race in the region.Developments this week have abruptly escalated regional tensions over the isolated Norths nuclear arms development.ImageCredit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated PressThe North is also in a diplomatic standoff with Malaysia after the Feb. 13 killing of Kim Jong-nam, the North Korean leaders estranged half brother, in Kuala Lumpur. On Tuesday, Pyongyang angered by a police investigation that has named several North Koreans as suspects said that no Malaysians living in North Korea would be allowed to leave the country, and Malaysia quickly responded in kind.On Wednesday, Mr. Wang said the priority in the dispute over North Koreas nuclear program was now to flash the red light and apply brakes. Chinas suspension for suspension proposal can help us break out of the security dilemma and bring the parties back to the negotiating table, he said.Doubts that the idea would gain traction were not surprising. North Korea made a similar offer in 2015 that went nowhere.Mr. Wangs proposal was Chinas latest attempt to regain the initiative on the nuclear issue, which has bedeviled Beijings efforts to stay friends with both North and South Korea and prove itself a mature regional power broker.The current situation is a challenge for the Chinese governments diplomacy, said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor at Renmin University in Beijing who specializes in North Korea. The situation in the East Asian region is increasingly complicated, and the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the nuclear missile issue is increasingly slim, he said, referring to North Koreas nuclear arms program.Reining in North Korea has also become a focus for the Trump administrations dealings with China. Starting next week, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson is to visit Japan, South Korea and China for talks that will focus on the advancing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea, the State Department said.North Koreas weapons advancements have reached a point where we do need to look at other alternatives, Mark C. Toner, a spokesman for the State Department, told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. And thats part of what this trip is about, that were going to talk to our allies and partners in the region to try to generate a new approach to North Korea.But bringing the countries into agreement over initial steps toward peace will not be easy, especially while China is also in a deepening dispute with South Korea and the Trump administration. At the same news conference where he laid out his proposal on Tuesday, Mr. Wang stuck to Chinas fierce opposition to the missile defense system the United States began assembling in South Korea this week, known as Thaad, or Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense.The Chinese government says the system goes far beyond its declared purpose of warding off potential attacks by North Korea and could undermine Chinas military security. American and South Korean officials say that that is untrue, and that China should instead focus on halting North Koreas threats.Its common knowledge that the monitoring and early warning radius of Thaad reaches far beyond the Korean Peninsula and compromises Chinas strategic security, Mr. Wang said at the news conference, which was part of a regular round of briefings during Chinas annual legislative session. Its not the way that neighbors should treat each other, and it may very well make South Korea less secure.ImageCredit...Korean Central News Agency, via European Pressphoto AgencyMr. Wangs proposal for mutual suspensions was an attempt to give new life to Chinas long-running efforts to tamp down confrontation between North and South Korea. China is the Norths only major economic and security partner, but it has also developed strong economic and political ties with South Korea that the missile defense system threatens to rupture.For years, China hosted six-country talks on North Koreas nuclear program, which brought together North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.But those talks fell apart in 2009, and North Korea has continued to test nuclear weapons and refine missiles that could eventually carry nuclear warheads as far as the continental United States. North Korea described its launch on Monday of four ballistic missiles as practice for hitting American military bases in Japan.American officials, and many Chinese experts, have grown skeptical that North Korea would ever seriously contemplate giving up its nuclear weapons.Chinas rift with South Korea and the United States over the missile defense system is likely to embolden North Korea, making it more confident that Beijing would not turn on it, said Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who specializes in nuclear proliferation issues.The deployment of Thaad has led to a serious deterioration in Chinese-South Korean relations, so North Korea is delighted with that, Dr. Shen said in an interview. North Korea appears to have passed the point where it would abandon its nuclear arms, he said. Theres no solution to this, because North Korea wont give up its nuclear weapons.But Mr. Wang said negotiations were the only acceptable way to resolve the dispute.To resolve the nuclear issue, we have to walk on both legs, he said, which means not just implementing sanctions, but also restarting talks.North Koreas ties to the global financial system are also under renewed pressure. On Wednesday, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, issued a statement saying it had recently moved to ban North Korean banks from accessing its platform.Swift operates as part of the backbone of global bank payment processing by providing a communication platform used by central banks and financial institutions around the world.Several North Korean banks that were subject to sanctions by both the United Nations and the United States had continued as recently as last year to find ways to access the Swift network, according to a report by a United Nations expert panel that was published last week. Swift said it was responding to an enforcement action by the authorities in Belgium, where Swift is based, but it did not say when it moved to block the North Korean banks from its service. | World |
Jaime Pressly might be the perfect redneck on the NBC hit 'My Name is Earl' (which just moved "Must-See-TV" Thursday nights), but don't be fooled by those $10 hot pink acrylic nails. In reality she's sexy and chic, just like her fashion line, J'AIME. Many celebs do double duty launching fashion lines, like J.Lo, Diddy, Nelly and even Mandy Moore. Pressly got the bug in 2004 when she launched her first line of lingerie, bathing suits, and loungewear. Now she has a full-on ready-to-wear line, and 'EXTRA' went inside Jaime's fashion show at Sutra Lounge in Costa Mesa, Calif. last night (Nov. 30) to check out the Spring/Summer 2006 collection. The line is full of wearable, comfortable clothes made out of Modole, a cotton-spandex blend, meant to flatter any body type. Pressly found inspiration during a trip to China where she fell in love with the cool style of layered clothing. Many J'AIME items can be worn in different ways, like a skirt that can double as a shirt. Check out the video of the fashion show and the interview with Jaime about her new line. But hold tight: these clothes won't be in stores until March 2006. Video Jaime Pressly's Fashion Show Good Karma and Good Fashion Sense | Entertainment |
Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2014EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. From the moment two weeks earlier that Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman made his postgame, high-decibel rant on the way to the Super Bowl, he became the attention-sucking foil to Denver quarterback Peyton Mannings measured, soft-spoken personality and career. Turned out, there were a lot of other foils to Mannings quest for another Super Bowl title, sprinkled all across the Seattle defense, during the Seahawks 43-8 victory on Sunday night.There was safety Kam Chancellors oooh-inducing tackle on Mannings first completion, a 2-yarder to Demaryius Thomas, and then his first-quarter interception of another Manning pass. There was defensive tackle Chris Clemons and linebacker Cliff Avril converging on Manning in the second quarter, Avril getting enough of the quarterbacks arm on a third-and-13 pass to send the ball skyward. It dropped into the arms of linebacker Malcolm Smith, who rumbled 69 yards for a touchdown. And there was Clemons, again, pressuring Manning on a fourth down late in the first half, barely tipping a pass that fell harmlessly to the turf. By then, Seattle had a suffocating lead, and it was reasonable to wonder whether the highest-scoring team in N.F.L. history might become the first team to fail to score in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks defense all sandwich tackles and wicked hits played at a faster speed than the Broncos, like toys charged with new batteries. And it seemed the only defender not to make a highlight play was Sherman. They havent played a defense that flies around like we do, that hits like we do, and we just do it every single play, linebacker Bobby Wagner said. We figured that the longer and longer the game went, they were going to fall eventually.Sherman, playing left cornerback and guarding whichever of Denvers receivers lined up to his side, was rarely tested. He allowed a short reception early in the third quarter but was hurt on the next play. After a few minutes on the turf, Sherman bounded to his feet and, to the cheers of the supercharged Seattle fans, jogged to the sideline with a cheerful gait. A couple of plays later, he smothered Thomas on a deep ball that fell incomplete near the end zone. When Manning followed by throwing across the middle to Wes Welker, a dependable safety valve for the Denver offense, Chancellor broke up the pass. Early in the fourth quarter, Sherman was helped off the field with a right ankle injury and lifted onto a cart, which drove him to the locker room.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSherman hobbled into the locker room on crutches after the game, his right foot bare, as his teammates celebrated the victory. He said he sprained his ankle and insisted he would be all right.Hey, 29, he shouted to safety Earl Thomas. Come over here. Give me some love!The night before the game, Manning was awarded the leagues Most Valuable Player award for the fifth time. But on Sunday, his well-chronicled presnap machinations made him look like a traffic cop trying to bring order to a demolition derby. Sherman stayed mostly out of the fray. He was a diversion, just as he was for the two weeks leading up to the game. In the N.F.C. championship game against San Francisco, Sherman made the game-saving pass deflection. In his postgame interview, on live television, he angrily insulted 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree. Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll advised his star cornerback to keep the focus on the team, and Sherman apologized. But it did not stop a divisive flood of attention as fans, pundits and journalists set off to try to explain Shermans behavior in a broader context his upbringing in Compton, Calif., his Stanford education, his surprising rise as one of the N.F.L.s best defensive players. At media day on Tuesday, a circus of an event that is to journalism what karaoke is to music, Shermans podium was surrounded by waves of reporters. Those reporters, presumably, would have gone to listen to other players if they were not afraid to miss what Sherman might say. He was loquacious, playful and complimentary more like himself, certainly, than the bombastic 10 seconds of live television that led to all the attention in the first place. The effect was to deflect attention from Shermans teammates, which might have been an advantage for a team that had no players who had been in the Super Bowl before. When it mattered, they took turns starring on Sunday, an ensemble cast that combined for one of the greatest defensive performances in the Super Bowl. At one point early in the second quarter, Seattle had a 15-0 lead and had outgained the Broncos, 161 yards to 11. Seattle had nine first downs, Denver none. By halftime, after a couple of Denver drives gained momentum that was ultimately stuffed by the Seattle defense, it was 22-0. Manning had completed 17 of 23 passes for 104 yards, with two interceptions. His passer rating was 46.3, the type that loses games and far from the 115.1 that Manning had during the regular season. For the game, Manning completed 34 of 49 passes for 280 yards and a touchdown. His rating was 73.5. Every time it looked as if Manning and the Broncos might gain traction, the Seahawks repelled them. Midway through the third quarter, Seattle cornerback Byron Maxwell punched the ball out of Thomass hands after a long gain. Smith, the linebacker who already had an interception return for a touchdown, recovered. Thomas beat Maxwell on the final play of the third quarter to haul in a 14-yard touchdown to close the score to 36-6, before a 2-point conversion.But the only suspense it ended was whether the Broncos would score at all on Seattles defense.After all the bluster, it turned out that the Seahawks did not need Shermans mouth to make a statement. | Sports |
Credit...Michael Appleton for The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2014About four hours before Sundays Super Bowl kickoff, fans of all jersey colors appeared to achieve a moment of angry unity while stuck inside a Secaucus, N.J., rail station. The air was stale, the heat had become blistering, and the ordeal was going on and on, approaching an hour. A.C.! A.C.! the fans shouted in a plea for cooler conditions as they strained to get a little closer to the connecting trains to MetLife Stadium.Welcome to New Jersey, a police officer said as foot traffic ground to a standstill yet again. He was kidding, sort of.Billed by organizers as the first mass-transit Super Bowl, Sundays game drew many visitors to the areas labyrinthine transportation network for the first time. Reviews were decidedly mixed, and there were occasional scenes of large-scale confusion at some of the regions transit hubs.With parking spaces at the stadium severely restricted for the game, Super Bowl organizers decided to rely heavily on trains and buses, which are usually used on a considerably smaller scale for Jets and Giants games.As a result, the spotlight shone brightest, for better or worse, on New Jersey Transit, which provides the rail link to the stadium. Crowds boarded en masse at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and traveled to Secaucus Junction, where people were then required to show game tickets before boarding connecting trains to the stadium, which is in East Rutherford. It took a while.After the game, for which about 28,000 fans used New Jersey Transit, congestion at the MetLife station was so significant that fans were asked to remain inside the stadium. As of 11:20 p.m., nearly 90 minutes after the game had ended, about 13,000 people had been transported by train from the complex, a spokesman for the transit agency said.The lines of fans waiting to head back to Secaucus were sprawling but mostly orderly, and would probably have been worse if the game had been closer and a lot of Denver fans had chosen to stay to the end.As it was, the many Seattle fans on the postgame line took it all in stride, too happy to complain about anything.Being Super Bowl champs, you can put up with a lot, said a Seahawks fan, Mark Duffy, 53.Hours earlier, fans had been less forgiving. For a chunk of the afternoon, the crucial train transfer at Secaucus typically a simple walk through the station remained uncomfortably tangled, rankling fans unaccustomed to the whims of the transit systems that move many people in and out of New York daily. Eventually, things seemed to smooth out some, but by then, many passengers had already passed judgment.In the steamy, uncomfortable backup in Secaucus, Karin Rivale, of Aurora, Colo., predicted that she would lose about 5 pounds before reaching the stadium. As she spoke, people around her began peeling off layers. Several fans wondered aloud what had become of what was supposed to be a historic cold-weather Super Bowl. Other jeers included shouts of T.S.A.! in reference to the federal Transportation Security Administration and its airport security lines, and Blame Christie! a jab at New Jerseys embattled governor, who is now ensnared in an investigation into a traffic jam of an entirely different kind.When one group of stuck fans attempted a call-and-response chant of Sea! and Hawks! a Broncos fan, Matt Budreau, decided to intercede. Sea! the fans said.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSlide 1 of 35 Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesCaucus! Budreau replied.In addition to the many who traveled by train, a significantly larger number used buses of various sorts, including several thousand on a temporary bus fleet known as the Fan Express, which allowed people to board at one of nine locations in New York and New Jersey for a $51 round-trip fare. One lane of the Lincoln Tunnel was dedicated exclusively to the buses, whose seats sold out early in the week.As for parking passes, they were sold for $150 or more, and some were offered on eBay for as much as $350. Ordinarily, they go for $25 to $35.For the first time in the Super Bowls history, officials said, there was no drop-off zone for taxis. Pedestrians were also barred from entering the security perimeter, though some cabbies seemed disinclined to inform their passengers: Throughout the afternoon, cabdrivers left dozens of people near the stadium, where the police turned them away, forcing them to then buy seats on shuttle buses in order to get inside the stadium perimeter.But whatever obstacles fans encountered, they did seem to eventually get to MetLife Stadium. According to SP+ Gameday, a company based in Orlando, Fla., that assisted in Super Bowl preparations, more than 54,000 people had passed through magnetometers at the stadium by 4 p.m.We were expecting it to take an hour, but it only took 20 minutes, said Gene Wickes, 61, of Vail, Colo., who joined a group van with his son, Freddy Wickes, 24, on a ride from Midtown Manhattan.Meanwhile, even those without tickets to the game often were caught in the games undertow.I have no involvement with the Super Bowl, Ashley Glaser, 19, a student from Park Ridge, N.J., said to a ticket agent at Pennsylvania Station on Sunday afternoon. I just want to get home. | Sports |
VideotranscripttranscriptHow the Far Right Is Shaking Germanys Political OrderGermanys role as the defender of a liberal and tolerant Europe is in jeopardy: A far-right political party is gaining strength and Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will not seek re-election. We went to Chemnitz, where the far right feels emboldened and is protesting in the streets.Every Friday night, the far right takes over downtown Chemnitz. It started in August, when a German man was stabbed to death here. The alleged killers were two refugees from Iraq and Syria. Since then protesters have returned every week. We came here to understand why theres so much anger, and to see how the rise of the far right is disrupting the liberal values that have defined Germany for decades. Chemnitz is a city of about 250,000 people. Foreigners make up only 8 percent of the population. And yet its here that the far right is turning a simmering anger into real violence. Shortly after we arrived, we learned of an attack on a Persian restaurant. Thats a swastika in red spray paint. We met the owner, Masoud Hashemi, recovering in a local hospital. Masoud moved to Germany five years ago, before the wave of migrants. In 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed in hundreds of thousands from war-torn countries. The world hailed Germany as a leading force for good. But at home the decision became a rallying point for the far right. It divided the country, and has drained Merkel of her power. She announced recently that she will not seek re-election. Meanwhile, a far-right party is the main voice of opposition in Parliament. Suddenly, Germanys role as the defender of a liberal, tolerant Europe is in question. Migrant arrivals have dropped off dramatically since 2015. But some people still struggle with the memory of that time. Katrin Ebner-Steiner is from Deggendorf, a wealthy town near the Austrian border. We met her there while she was campaigning for a seat in the Bavarian State Parliament. Ebner-Steiners bid was built on that growing sense of unease towards foreigners. She represents the Alternative for Germany, a far-right party also known here as the AfD. The AfD has only been around for five years. But its already achieved stunning success with a central message: Foreigners dont belong here and Islam is alien to Germany. For Ebner-Steiner, the message is working. She won her race a few days after our interview. Thats Bjrn Hcke, an AfD politician. Hes talking about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Breaking taboos like that keeps the AfD in the spotlight. We talked to Franziska Schreiber a former member of the AfD. After four years of backing the partys inflammatory speech, she left. It felt like a lot of politicians in the AfD would just say provocative things to get that level of support. So are extremists now feeling emboldened? We decided to ask them. I guess Im curious, who who designs the T-shirts? First, the shirts are in my brain. So youre writing most of these phrases, yes? Yeah. O.K. Tommy Frenk owns a gift shop and inn called the Golden Lion. Tommy insists anyone is welcome here. But he created this inn for a minority of like-minded people: people who dismiss mainstream politics. But they tell us that the AfDs success has energized them. The AfD is now Germanys third-largest party. But many are coming forward to confront the far right. The divisions are visible in the streets. And the next few months could be crucial in determining how this struggle plays out, whether the far-right vision will stay at the edge of German society or pull the center along with it.Germanys role as the defender of a liberal and tolerant Europe is in jeopardy: A far-right political party is gaining strength and Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will not seek re-election. We went to Chemnitz, where the far right feels emboldened and is protesting in the streets.CreditCredit...Brian Dawson for The New York TimesNov. 5, 2018EBERSBACH-NEUGERSDORF, Germany Frank Dehmel was on the streets of East Germany in 1989. Every Monday, he marched against the Communist regime, demanding freedom and democracy and chanting with the crowds: We are the people!Three decades later, Mr. Dehmel is on the streets again, older and angrier, and chanting the same slogan this time for the far right.He won freedom and democracy when the Berlin Wall came down 29 years ago on Nov. 9. But he lost everything else: His job, his status, his country and his wife. Like so many eastern women, she went west to look for work and never came back.To understand why the far right is on the march again in Germany, it helps to understand the many grievances of its most loyal supporters: men in the former Communist East.The emergence of Eastern Man as a disruptive political force stands as a prime legacy of Chancellor Angela Merkels 13 years in power. As she prepared Germans last week for her eventual political exit, some noted that, politically at least, her Germany was more divided between East and West than at any point since reunification.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesNo doubt the far right has made gains across Germany. The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 13 percent of votes in last years elections, enough to make it the leading opposition voice in Parliament. It is now represented in every one of the countrys 16 state legislatures.But support for the AfD in the East is on average more than double that in the West. Among eastern men, the party is the strongest political force, with 28 percent having cast their ballots for the AfD last year.Eastern Man, a figure long patronized, pitied or just ignored in the West, is in the process of again reshaping German politics.No one more embodies the frustrations of eastern men or has been more the object of their ire than Ms. Merkel, an eastern woman who rose to the pinnacle of power and provides a daily reminder of their own failure.Yet Ms. Merkel never became the ambassador for the East that people yearned for: Living standards in the region still lag those in the West, even after what is perceived as a traumatic economic takeover.Mr. Dehmel calls her a traitor and worse.After reunification, Mr. Dehmel recalled, western men in suits and Mercedes-Benzes arrived in his eastern home state of Saxony, soon running businesses, running universities, running the regional government, running everything.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesAnd that was before more than a million asylum seekers, many of them young men, came to Germany in 2015.I didnt risk my skin back then to become a third-class citizen, said Mr. Dehmel, now 57, counting off the perceived hierarchy on his fingers: First there are western Germans, then there are asylum seekers, then its us.One-third of male voters in Saxony, where he lives, cast their ballots for the far right last year by far more than any other place in the country.We have a crisis of masculinity in the East and it is feeding the far right, said Petra Kpping, minister for integration in Saxony.When Ms. Kpping took office in 2014, she thought her job was to integrate immigrants. But as hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers began arriving in Germany a year later, a middle-aged white man heckled her at a town-hall-style meeting.Why dont you integrate us first? the man had shouted.That question, which has since become the title of a book written by Ms. Kpping, prompted her to tour her eastern home state and interview dozens of angry men. The disappointed hopes and humiliations of 1989, she found, still fester.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesSome three million jobs, most of them in traditionally male industries, were lost over two years. The working-class heroes of Socialism became the working-class losers of capitalism.East German men were abandoned by their newly united country practically overnight, Ms. Kpping said: They are the original left-behinds.And they were quite literally left behind by the women.Long before the #MeToo movement, Communism succeeded in creating a broad class of women who were independent, emancipated, often better educated and working in more adaptable service jobs than eastern men.After the wall came down, the East lost more than 10 percent of its population. Two-thirds of those who left and did not come back were young women.It was the most extreme case of female flight in Europe, said Reiner Klingholz, director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, who has studied the phenomenon. Only the Arctic Circle and a few islands off the coast of Turkey suffer comparable male-female imbalances.In large swaths of rural eastern Germany, men today still outnumber women, and the regions where the women disappeared map almost exactly onto the regions that vote for the Alternative for Germany today.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesThere is a gender element to the rise of the far right that is not sufficiently acknowledged and studied, Mr. Klingholz said.Only 16 percent of the Alternative for Germanys registered members are women. And only 9 percent of female voters cast their ballot for the party last year, compared with 16 percent of male voters.The far right is disproportionally male. And so is eastern Germany.There are on average nine women for every 10 men between the ages of 20 to 40 in the former East, statistics from 2015 show. But that average disguises a surplus of women in big cities and a much starker shortage in smaller towns and rural areas.Chemnitz, the site of far-right riots in late August, has eight women for every 10 men ages 20 to 40. In Weisskeissel, a village near the Polish border, the ratio is three women to five men. In Glaubitz, it is almost one woman to four men.Mr. Dehmels hometown, Ebersbach, once a thriving textile hub on the Czech border, lost seven in 10 of its jobs and almost half its population after 1989. Schools were closed and train services cut. To halt the decline it merged with the neighboring town of Neugersdorf.We lost a generation, said Verena Hergenrder, the mayor of Ebersbach-Neugersdorf, an independent.Unemployment, once over 25 percent, is now below 3 percent. But the region feels less than thriving. Empty dwellings dot residential neighborhoods. The train station is boarded up. One bit of graffiti proclaims: There is enough love for everyone.But people here know that is not true.There were two women for every three men ages 22 to 35 when Mr. Klingholz and his team visited in 2007 to make it a case study. That generation is now 11 years older the core voting age of the Alternative for Germany.Oliver Graf is one of them. Soft-spoken and polite, Mr. Graf works in construction and volunteers for the local fire brigade. He says he hardly knows anyone who does not vote for the AfD, the strongest party in town.At 37, Mr. Graf says he is ready to start a family. He has been restoring his own house. But he is single, like several of his male friends. Its a topic of conversation, he said. As he put it, its hard to meet someone.The shortfall of women is not visible in everyday life.Men dont know its there and if you show them the numbers, theyre often surprised, Mr. Klingholz said. All they know is that they have trouble finding a partner.Bernd Noack, a former mayor of Ebersbach, remembers being surprised, too, when he was first confronted with the issue a decade ago. I didnt believe it at first, he said.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesAt the time, he ran the numbers himself. Twenty-six percent of the young men couldnt find a wife, Mr. Noack recalled.Suddenly some things started making sense, he said: the fights over women in discothques, the barely disguised hostility toward foreign men in the town.Once, a local company had brought 24 young apprentices over from Spain. They were urged to stay away from the nightclubs, Mr. Noack said, code for staying away from the local women, he said.The women who have stayed are prominent in public life. Not just the mayor is a woman. The pastor is a woman. One of the few bars open at night, the Brauerei, is run by a woman, too.Her son helps her out. Her daughter, who graduated from high school in 1989, months before the wall came down, moved away and married a western man. Most marriages between easterners and westerners are between eastern women and western men.The anger of eastern men also has something to do with the success of eastern women, said Frank Richter, an eastern theologian and prominent thinker.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesIf eastern men dislike Ms. Merkel so viscerally, it is not just because she let in a million asylum seekers, Mr. Richter said, but because she is so utterly familiar to eastern men and a daily reminder of their own failure.Ms. Kpping, another successful eastern woman, worries about the rage. Over the past two years she has toured her home state and held regular citizens office hours, trying to understand the anger of the men and it was, she said, almost always men.One of them, a 69-year-old former factory worker, broke down in tears when he recounted how his factory had been closed down, the brand new machines sold to a western German company.Another told her he stopped going to high school reunions because he was too ashamed that, despite multiple retraining programs, he had not found another stable job.A third, who regularly marches with Pegida, an acronym that stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, raged about young male migrants stabbing and raping our women.Most men I met have suffered so many injustices and setbacks, they have lost all self-confidence, Ms. Kpping said.ImageCredit...Gordon Welters for The New York TimesAs of 2015, she added, they also feel threatened by young male migrants, who do not necessarily live anywhere near them, but whose difficult journey proves they are everything eastern men are not dynamic, determined and driven otherwise they would not have made it here in the first place.Last year, Ms. Kpping got a postcard from one of the men she had met during a Pegida march. Dear Ms. Kpping, it read, if you get me a wife I will stop marching with Pegida.Mr. Dehmel said he, too, takes the train from Ebersbach to Dresden most Mondays to join the weekly Pegida march. In September, he traveled all the way to Chemnitz to join far-right protests after the death of a German man, allegedly at the hands of two asylum seekers.On a recent afternoon he was buying ammunition for his rifle at the local gun shop. Gunther Fritz, the gun shop owner, who is also single, said it was no coincidence that the slogans on the streets in 2018 are the same ones as in 1989.We got a sense of power back then, and were not going to let anyone take that away from us, Mr. Fritz said. The West was handed democracy after the war, we in the East had to get it for ourselves.You watch, he added, we brought down one system. We can do it again. | World |
Credit...Gene J. Puskar/Associated PressMarch 5, 2017Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, a surgeon and researcher who performed the first successful liver transplant on a human patient in the 1960s and later helped advance the breakthrough drugs that made organ transplants markedly more survivable, died on Saturday at his home in Pittsburgh. He was 90.His death was announced by the University of Pittsburgh, with which he had been affiliated since 1981.In 1967, Dr. Starzl led a surgical team at the University of Colorado in a procedure that many in the medical community had dismissed as impractical, if not impossible. Although kidneys had been transplanted successfully since the 1950s, all previous attempts to replace a liver had resulted in the death of the patient.Indeed, Dr. Starzls first four attempts at liver transplantation, in 1963, had failed when the patients experienced complications from the use of blood-clotting agents, which in some cases caused lethal clots to form in the lungs.After a self-imposed moratorium that lasted three years, Dr. Starzl and his colleagues tried again. They first considered inserting a second liver, to function beneath the impaired one, as a possible route to avoiding the heavy bleeding caused by organ removal. But promising results obtained from liver surgeries on dogs could not be replicated in human patients, and that avenue was abandoned.The team then operated on a 19-month-old girl and replaced her cancerous liver. The transplanted liver functioned without ill effects for more than a year, before the infant died of other causes. In the next year, as surgical techniques were improved, this pathbreaking success was repeated in six children and, ultimately, in adults.Dr. Starzl later described those early liver transplants as both a test of endurance and a curious exercise in brutality. It involved, he explained, brutality as youre taking the liver out, then sophistication as you put it back in and hook up all of these little bile ducts and other structures.Each one, he said, is a thread on which the whole enterprise hangs.While the early liver recipients survived for months and sometimes for years, organ researchers soon realized that survival rates would largely hinge on the patients long-term immunological response to foreign tissue. In the late 1970s, Dr. Starzl helped investigate the efficacy of cyclosporine, a drug that laboratory tests indicated could inhibit the bodys immune response.In drug trials held at Colorado and at Brigham Young University in Utah, cyclosporine was subsequently used to prevent rejection by the patient receiving a donated organ.Dr. Starzl applied the drug in combination with steroids to avoid a toxic effect on the kidneys. After further trials conducted at the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas, cyclosporine was approved in 1983 by the Food and Drug Administration.In 1981, when he moved to the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Starzl expanded his success with liver transplants by working on the transplantation of multiple organs. He provided Stormie Jones, a 6-year-old suffering from a hereditary condition that produces dangerously high cholesterol levels, with a new liver and heart in a novel combined operation in 1984. Dr. Starzl later helped transplant her liver a second time, after damage to the organ from hepatitis. In that operation, Dr. Andreas Tzakis and Dr. Starzl used FK-506, an experimental anti-rejection drug, which went on to become widely used in transplant surgeries.Dr. John Lake, a professor of medicine and surgery at the University of Minnesota and an expert on transplants, said the drug turned out to be easier to use than cyclosporine, particularly in liver transplants, and was rapidly proven to be a more effective, and more potent, immunosuppressant.He added: It was Thomas Starzl who lobbied hard and generated the enthusiasm for using FK-506. In the process, he drove the early program that thoroughly tested the drug.ImageCredit...Bill CramerWith Dr. John Fung, a surgeon and immunologist, and others, Dr. Starzl evaluated FK-506, also known as tacrolimus. They published their findings in the British medical journal The Lancet in 1989.Their investigation was not without risk; other scientists showed that tacrolimus had proved toxic when tested in dogs, and they doubted that it could be safe for humans. But the unexpected result was a medical breakthrough for patients and lavish headlines for the University of Pittsburgh, which Dr. Starzl helped fashion into an international center for training transplant specialists.The university appointed Dr. Starzl director of its transplant unit in 1990, in what six years later was officially renamed the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.A former colleague from Pittsburgh, Dr. Byers Shaw Jr., praised Dr. Starzls indomitable spirit and said that FK-506, eventually approved in 1994 by the F.D.A., was a shining example of tenacity in a career spent challenging the conventional thinking.Dr. Shaw, who is now the chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Nebraska, observed Dr. Starzl in the operating room in the 1980s, when a patient appeared to be dying during surgery. Dr. Starzl, he recalled, showed persistence when everything else looked hopeless.It affected everybody in the room, Dr. Shaw said, as if a fear of failure was driving all of those around him.After the death of Stormie Jones at age 13 in 1990, Dr. Starzl announced that he was weary of surgery and emotionally exhausted from an uncompromisingly difficult life. He decided to stop performing surgery, although he continued to consult on difficult procedures.He also experimented with transplanting baboon livers into human patients animal transplants have long been suggested as a potential solution in dealing with periodic shortages of human organs but the results were disappointing.And he advanced a theory that involved the weaning of patients from the very drugs that had made their transplant possible. In the years since the advent of cyclosporine, researchers had become aware of cancers, diabetes and other serious health problems that could in some instances be tied to long-term use of immunosuppressants. Dr. Starzls theory was based on his studies of patients from the 1960s who had survived even after stopping their medications in effect, weaning themselves off anti-rejection drugs. Working with a Nobel Prize-winning Swiss immunologist, Dr. Rolf M. Zinkernagel, and others, Dr. Starzl explored the phenomenon and found that some patients immune systems ultimately seemed to tolerate foreign tissue, without need for continued suppression.Dr. Shaw said other studies suggested that 25 percent to 33 percent of transplant patients might be candidates for reducing their drug intake to some degree, but the majority of patients were unlikely ever to be weaned.Thomas Earl Starzl was born on March 11, 1926, in Le Mars, Iowa. After graduating from Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., he earned both a medical degree and a doctorate in neurophysiology in 1952 from Northwestern University.He is survived by his wife of 36 years, the former Joy Denise Conger; a son, Timothy; and a grandson. Another son, Thomas, and a daughter, Rebecca Starzl, died before him.Dr. Starzl was a former president of the Transplantation Society and of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, and he was a member of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences.In 2004, he was awarded the National Medal of Science, the nations highest scientific honor. His many other honors included the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, which he received in 2012 from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. | science |
Business|Ford Recalls 313,000 Sedans to Fix Headlight Problemhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/business/ford-recalls-313000-sedans-over-headlight-problem.htmlCredit...Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesDec. 22, 2015Ford Motor is recalling about 313,000 older Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis sedans because the headlights may fail, the automaker said on Tuesday.It has been six years since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed an investigation into the same problem, saying that while it had 306 complaints from owners, there were no reports of crashes, injuries or deaths and a safety-related defect has not been identified at this time.The recall, which includes about 296,000 cars in the United States and covers the 2003 to 2005 model years, was announced about four months after the federal regulators opened a new investigation at the request of the North Carolina Consumers Council, which argued there was an important safety problem. That request noted that there were 604 consumer complaints on the agencys website, including seven reports of vehicle crashes but no mention of injuries.The surprise I have is how quickly Ford issued a recall, said Matthew Oliver, the executive director of the council, which is based in Raleigh.Mr. Oliver noted that early in 2014 Ford sent a letter to owners saying it was possible a component would fail and the headlights would not work, so it provided an extended warranty of 15 years or 250,000 miles from the time the vehicle was new.Ford decided on a recall now after reviewing data this year and meeting this month with federal regulators, a Ford spokesman, John Cangany, said in an email. Our decisions are driven by the available data and we move quickly on behalf of our customers when we determine a safety recall is needed.Ford said it was aware of one minor injury and 11 reports of accidents related to the defect. | Business |
Ronda Rousey No Royal Rumble For Me ... No Deal Yet! 1/25/2018 TMZSports.com Ronda Rousey is slamming the door on rumors she'll make her official WWE debut at the Royal Rumble on Jan 28 -- telling TMZ Sports it'll be physically impossible ... 'cause she'll be out of the country! "I'm actually leaving to Colombia right now to finish shooting 'Mile 22' and won't be back until mid February," Rousey says. "Mile 22" is an action flick starring Mark Wahlberg and John Malkovich. But the bigger issue ... Ronda says there is no official contract in place between her and WWE, despite a recent dinner meeting with high-ranking WWE exec Triple H. Don't rule it out though ... Rousey seemed flattered by some recent smack talk from WWE Raw womens' champ Alexa Bliss. So, what's Ronda's long-term career plans? She talked about that, too! TMZSports.com | Entertainment |
Politics|The pipe bombs found at Democratic and Republican headquarters were said to contain timing devices.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/pipe-bombs-capitol.htmlJan. 8, 2021The pipe bombs found on Wednesday afternoon outside the Democratic and Republican party headquarters, blocks from the Capitol, contained crude mechanical timing devices, according to an official familiar with their initial examination, suggesting they were intended to be detonated.It was not clear when they were meant to explode, but thousands of people were in the area that afternoon as a mob encouraged by President Trump stormed the Capitol, where lawmakers had convened to certify President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s election, leaving five people dead. It was also not clear whether the bombs were connected to the siege.The two bombs appeared to be similar, the official said. They were relatively unsophisticated and incorporated a mechanical timer, steel wool and an unknown powder as their explosive fill, the official said. One of the devices was found with a cell phone, which could have been incorporated to detonate the bomb.Photographs of the intact bombs were shared with The New York Times.ImageCredit... Obtained by The New York TimesBomb squad technicians disabled the devices, which were constructed of steel pipes that appear to be about one and a half inches in diameter and 12 inches long.The F.B.I. has posted a $50,000 reward for information about a possible suspect. | Politics |
Politics|Pence plans to attend Bidens inauguration.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/politics/pence-biden-inauguration.htmlCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 9, 2021Vice President Mike Pence will attend President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s inauguration on Jan. 20, an aide to the vice president said on Saturday, a split with President Trumps decision not to go.Mr. Pence and Mr. Trump have not spoken since Wednesday, an administration official said, before pro-Trump loyalists swarmed the Capitol as Congress convened to tally the Electoral College votes. As president of the Senate, Mr. Pence had the constitutionally designated task of opening and counting envelopes sent from all 50 states and announcing their electoral results.In the days leading to the joint session of Congress, Mr. Trump had publicly and privately pressured Mr. Pence to overturn the certifications and throw them back to the states so that Mr. Trump could try to undo results in states that he had lost.Mr. Trump confirmed on Friday that he would not be attending the inauguration. Mr. Biden said this week that he was happy not to have Mr. Trump there, but that Mr. Pence was welcome and that it would help with the transition.Mr. Pence had always been likelier to attend the inauguration than Mr. Trump, who was almost certain to skip the ceremony. But after the Capitol breach on Wednesday that left at least five people dead, Mr. Pences decision was expected. | Politics |
Credit...James Hill for The New York TimesFeb. 9, 2014SOCHI, Russia After practice Sunday morning, players on the Russian mens hockey team did something that blew a few minds: They stopped and talked to the news media.This wowed reporters, particularly those from Russian news media, who are now accustomed to a kind of passive-aggressive silence from the countrys highest-profile Olympic squad. The team skipped the opening ceremony Friday to spend time in closed training sessions in Kazan, a city about 1,300 miles away. When the team landed here on Saturday night, players uttered not a word to any of the dozens of reporters who had shown up to greet and question them.Well, maybe Viktor Tikhonov said a few things, said Igor Rabiner, a veteran sportswriter for the website Championat.com, referring to a Russian forward. But thats about it.There are a lot of theories about the teams studied muteness in the lead-up to the Olympics. It might be cultural, a holdover from the Soviet era, when there was no sense that a superstar athlete was obliged to speak to journalists, or anyone else for that matter. It might stem from the Kontinental Hockey League, Russias version of the N.H.L., which does not explicitly oblige players to chat with reporters.Or it could flow from the coach, the tall, regally gray-haired Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, who has said on many occasions that his only obligation is to win a gold medal.The pressure on him, and all the players here, is hard to describe. A common sentiment among Russians is that the Sochi Games will be remembered as a triumph or a disaster based purely on the outcome of the mens hockey tournament, and only first place will suffice.So feeding the news media quotations that is not Bilyaletdinovs problem, or the problem of his players.Instead, it is Alexander Kouzmaks problem. Hes the teams public-relations manager, and he has been waging an internal campaign to persuade Bilyaletdinov to persuade his players that accessibility to the news media is more than just wise. It is required by the rules of the Olympics.It makes me crazy, said Kouzmak, who spoke Sunday in a hallway as the Russian team skated in Sochis practice rink. Im worried that what is going to happen is that were going to get complaints from host broadcasters, like NBC, and then more complaints, and then finally, theyll penalize us somehow. Its like when you have a child and you say: Do this. Do this. Do this!Then Kouzmak mimed a guy delivering a frustrated kick. Then he let out a short scream of pain, the sort you would expect from someone who has just been kicked.This is the problem, he said.Kouzmaks argument is not just about avoiding penalties. As he put it, sports is show business, and show business is about making money, and money in show business comes from popularity, which comes, in part, from talking to the news media. The K.H.L., from which nine of the Russian players hail, has yet to figure out that lesson.What is the biggest goal of the N.H.L.? he asked rhetorically. To make money. We have to learn from the N.H.L.Players schooled in the N.H.L.s journalist-friendly methods are on their way. Russias contingent of 16 N.H.L. players, led by Alex Ovechkin and Pavel Datsyuk, was scheduled to arrive here Monday. Russia opens against Slovenia on Thursday.Throughout the years, relations between the Russian team and the news media have gone through cold wars and dtentes. A recent low point came in 2010, when the team decided to freeze out reporters of every nationality after a publication, Life Sports, published photographs of team members smoking cigarettes outside a restaurant in Cologne, Germany.Anger over that dispute subsided long ago, but the nations expectations might make the coach and his players tune out anything that does not actually put a puck in an opponents net. Rabiner, the sportswriter, said that the team was overconcentrated, that it was so focused that it came across as hostile.To the Russian team, and to many Russians, Sochi feels like a now-or-never opportunity.Weve been going backwards, Rabiner said of Russian hockey. In Albertville in 92, before N.H.L. players could join the team, we won. Since then, and now that all the best players in the world are at the Games, look at what has happened. Weve done worse and worse. In Nagano, second place. In Salt Lake City, third place. In Turin, fourth place. In Vancouver, sixth place. So there is a feeling that, this time, with home ice, this is the only way.The team finished its practice session, and players began rolling off the ice. A scrum of reporters was packed into what is called the mixed zone, a cordoned-off area where journalists can attempt to lasso a passing athlete. The Olympic rule about talking to the news media pertains to postgame interviews. It does not say anything about postpractice conversations.Seven or eight of the players gave perfectly friendly, impromptu interviews after the morning practice. Was it a fluke? Most of the gathered reporters had missed that chat-fest and listened to accounts of it the way you would with a bigfoot sighting. It sounded bizarre and unlikely, but maybe this mythological beast an approachable version of the Russian hockey team would turn up again.It did. One by one, reporters flagged down players huge, sweating, stubbly young men who should have shaving-cream endorsements, or cameos in Gatorade commercials, guzzling blue liquid. All took questions, smiling and seeming to be relaxed.What was going on here?We told them all that, even after practices, they have to give interviews, said Valery Belousov, an assistant, through an interpreter.The message got through. Yevgeni Medvedev, a 6-foot-3 defenseman who currently plays in the K.H.L., was downright gabby when he stopped by the mixed zone.What happened?It was announced today before the practice, he said through an interpreter. They told us to respect the media and give some time for interviews.If this was an imposition, Medvedev did a good job of hiding it. In fact, he suggested that he and his teammates have always been accessible. Aloof? Come now. Youre not serious.All these guys are ready to give interviews, he said.Why, then, was it necessary to announce before the practice that you should respect the media and give interviews? He shrugged a little.Its like lunch at 5 p.m. he said, using an expression that probably makes a lot more sense in Russian. Its usual.Kouzmak, the public-relations manager, watched this exchange and beamed.So the situation is changing in front of you, he said, standing behind Medvedev and appearing to be delighted. Forget everything I told you before. | Sports |
TrilobitesThese Mushrooms Borrowed the Same Deadly Toxin From a Mysterious SourceInstead of evolving to produce poison, some distantly related fungi became toxic through a process called horizontal gene transfer, scientists say.Credit...Henri Koskinen / AlamyMay 9, 2022Three mushrooms known as the destroying angel, the deadly dapperling and the funeral bell all have something in common: the fabulously lethal toxin alpha-Amanitin. If you eat one of these mushrooms, symptoms may not appear for several hours. But soon enough, the toxin begins wreaking havoc on your bodys ability to transcribe genes. By the fourth day or so after consumption, your liver and kidneys begin to fail. After about a week, you may well die.This uncanny deadliness has a mystery at its core: These mushrooms are from three separate genuses, or groups of fungal species, that are not closely related. How did they come to make the exact same toxin?In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, scientists who have sequenced genomes of 15 species of mushrooms from these three groups make an intriguing claim: The genes to make alpha-Amanitin, rather than being inherited from a shared ancestor of these groups, were transferred to them directly from an unknown, probably extinct mushroom.This kind of gene transfer, called horizontal gene transfer, is common among bacteria, said Hong Luo, a researcher at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China and an author of the new paper. Little snippets of DNA are passed from one microbe to another, then passed on to their offspring. However, mounting evidence suggests that somehow, genes can move among complex, multicellular creatures as well, perhaps with help from pathogens. In April, another group of scientists reported that genes had moved between snakes and frogs living in the same forest habitat by hitching a ride on shared parasites. It sounds outlandish, but it might help explain some otherwise baffling observations in the tree of life.The team behind the fungi paper already suspected horizontal gene transfer had created the identical toxins in these mushrooms. There were some surprises, however, as they completed their research. They had expected that their glimpses into the mushrooms genetics would confirm that one of the groups had given the genes to the others. Instead, the gene toxin clusters all seemed equidistant from their origin.It puzzled us, Dr. Luo said.Talking it over, the papers authors decided that the simplest explanation was that horizontal gene transfer had occurred but not necessarily among these three groups.Thats when we started to consider, there had to be another, possibly extinct species, said Francis Martin, a scientist at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment and an author of the paper.This long-ago mushroom would have possessed the genetic tool kit for making the toxin and passed it on, by means still unknown, to the still living varieties. The affected mushrooms are not its descendants merely the bearers of a small package of its genes, released like a message in a bottle, that gives the fungi their extraordinarily poisonous powers.Scientists may never know much about this proposed donor for the toxin genes, if it existed. But the researchers are curious about why these three groups, of all mushrooms, received and made use of its legacy. Are the toxins playing a special role in these particular mushrooms ecologies? Or are the mushrooms just particularly good at whatever mysterious techniques bring genes from the environment into their own genomes?As scientists learn more about how horizontal gene transfer works beyond bacteria, perhaps some of these answers will grow clearer.We know that it occurs, Dr. Martin said, but we dont know how. | science |
Dec. 15, 2015HONG KONG Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, a Taiwanese company that assembles and tests chips, is not giving up its multibillion-dollar pursuit of its local competitor, Siliconware Precision Industries.It made an offer to buy the three-quarters of Siliconware Precision Industries, or SPIL, that it did not own for about 129 billion Taiwanese dollars, or about $3.9 billion, on Monday after the markets closed. The proposal came just after SPIL announced on Friday that it had formed a strategic alliance with Tsinghua Unigroup, Chinas top chip maker. That deal involved an investment of about $1.7 billion from the Chinese state-owned company.On Tuesday, shares in ASE were up 2.5 percent, to 34.25 Taiwanese dollars, while SPIL jumped 4.5 percent to 50.10 Taiwanese dollars.Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, or ASE, first approached SPIL in August with an offer to buy 25 percent of its shares. The board of SPIL regarded the offer as hostile and said the price was too low, but shareholders accepted it anyway.It has since been ducking further approaches from ASE by trying to set up a share exchange with Foxconn, the electronics manufacturer, a plan that was rejected by shareholders. The deal with Tsinghua Unigroup marked SPILs latest maneuver.Along the way, SPIL has had strong words for its suitor. The company even filed a lawsuit against ASE, asking a court to confirm that it does not have the right to request registration as a shareholder.It also issued a statement before an extraordinary shareholders meeting in October, which referred to double standards and double crossing plays obvious to all, and said ASE had ambushed the company with its tender offer. Explaining the companys wariness of ASE, the statement said: Looking at past hostile takeover precedents, the outcomes were all disheartening, with no one benefiting, but rather being harmed. The company sincerely warns that a company that plunders the hard-earned results of another will not become an everlasting enterprise.Mike Ma, a spokesman for SPIL, said that if the companies merged, it would reduce competition and increase prices. We have many other competitors, so from the customer side if two companies merge, its less attractive and they give business to other alternatives, he said. He added that the company could not comment on the latest proposal from ASE because it was still discussing the offer.ASE has offered to pay 55 Taiwanese dollars for each SPIL share. The proposal stipulates that SPIL must cancel its arrangement with Tsinghua.We were chagrined to learn that on December 11, 2015, the board of directors of SPIL decided to enter into a share placement agreement with Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd, it said in a news release, noting that the transaction was defensive and highly dilutive.There has been a wave of consolidation in the semiconductor industry in recent years as companies have tried to scale up. In the Asia Pacific region, not including Japan, there has been $31 billion worth of deals in the semiconductor industry this year, compared with $10.6 billion worth in 2014, according to data from Dealogic. | Business |
We Are Not There Yet: As States Drop Mask Rules, the C.D.C. Stands FirmThe Biden administration said federal masking guidance would not change for now, but was seeking advice from public health experts on the way forward.VideotranscripttranscriptC.D.C. Director Urges Caution in Easing Mask RulesDr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said her agency was working on new guidance for the states, but that it was not yet time to lift mask mandates across the nation.At this time, we continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission. Thats much of the country right now in public indoor settings. Weve always said that these decisions are going to have to be made at the local level, and that policies at the local level will look at local cases. Theyll look at how local hospitals are doing, theyll look at local vaccination rates. And they, as I understand it in many of these decisions, are using a phased approach. Not all of these decisions are being made to stop things tomorrow, but theyre looking at a phased approach. And so what I would say is, again, they have to be done at the local level, but Im really encouraged. The cases are continuing to drop dramatically. Hospitalizations are continuing to drop dramatically as people are making these decisions and as we are working on our guidance. What I will say, though, is, you know, our hospitalizations are still high. Our death rates are still high. So as we work towards that, and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said her agency was working on new guidance for the states, but that it was not yet time to lift mask mandates across the nation.CreditCredit...Susan Walsh/Associated PressFeb. 9, 2022WASHINGTON The White House has been meeting with outside health experts to plan a pandemic exit strategy and a transition to a new normal, but the behind-the-scenes effort is crashing into a very public reality: A string of blue-state governors have gotten ahead of President Biden by suddenly abandoning their mask mandates.Two of the administrations top doctors Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the presidents chief medical adviser for the pandemic, and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, both expressed qualified optimism on Wednesday about the direction of the pandemic. If cases continue to fall and no new variants arise, the country could be heading toward what we would consider more normality, Dr. Fauci said in an interview.But Dr. Fauci cautioned that the situation is still unpredictable, and said any transition out of the current crisis would be gradual. And Dr. Walensky said pointedly that while her agency is working on new guidance for the states, it is too soon for all Americans to take off their masks in indoor public places.Our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high, she said during a news briefing by the White House Covid response team. So, as we work toward that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.The gubernatorial frenzy to drop mask mandates comes as the White House Covid response coordinator, Jeffrey D. Zients, and the governments top doctors are soliciting advice from a wide array of public health experts, including some former Biden advisers who have very publicly urged the president to shift course. Mr. Zients referenced the sessions briefly on Wednesday, saying the White House is also reaching out to governors and local public health officials to talk about steps we should be taking to keep the country moving forward.The talks, according to numerous participants, are aimed at drafting a fresh playbook for the delicate next phase of the pandemic, when the coronavirus threat is likely to recede but the possibility of a new variant and another deadly surge remains very real. They are addressing a range of issues beyond masking and mitigation, from how to get new antivirals to people who test positive for the virus to whether to upgrade ventilation systems in schools.But the slow deliberations, within both the C.D.C. and Mr. Zients team, are putting the White House in a tough spot. As officials examine the science and chart a careful course, they run the risk of making the Biden administration look irrelevant as governors forge ahead on their own.ImageCredit...Gabby Jones for The New York TimesThe administration needs to read the room and see that nearly all elected leaders are moving on without them, said Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner who has often been critical of the administration, adding, No one is expecting the C.D.C. to say that everyone should go maskless right now. What they are looking for are clear metrics on when restrictions can be lifted and when they may need to return.Governors have said so themselves. Last week, after a bipartisan group of governors met with Mr. Biden, Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, told reporters he had emphasized to the president that the nation needs to move away from the pandemic and asked him for clear guidelines on how we can return to a greater state of normality.It is now clear the states have decided not to wait. On Wednesday, the governors of New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Illinois joined a growing list of Democrats who have dropped either a general statewide mask mandate or one that applies to schools.Asked about the moves, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the president was committed to fulfilling his campaign promise to listen to scientists and follow the data.That doesnt move at the speed of politics, she added. It moves at the speed of data.The internal debate comes as the latest Covid-19 surge, fueled by the highly infectious Omicron variant, abates in much of the country. The seven-day average of new cases was about 253,000 on Wednesday, down from an average 800,000 in mid-January, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations are also declining, although deaths, a lagging indicator, continue to rise.If the drop in cases and hospitalizations continues, as many experts expect, Mr. Biden himself will soon have some tough decisions to make: Should he declare an end to the national emergency that his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump, declared in March 2020? Should Mr. Biden lift the mask mandate that he imposed for travel on airplanes, trains and buses?ImageCredit...Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. Biden must be careful to avoid a mission accomplished moment. In June of last year, with cases dropping, his advisers began predicting a summer of joy, and Mr. Biden himself declared on July 4 that the United States was closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. Then the Delta variant surged across the country. In late fall, the emergence of the even more contagious Omicron variant also caught the administration off guard.Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said any new strategy must take that into account.It has to acknowledge that we are entering a new phase of virus transmission in our communities, being forever mindful that we were in exactly the same place one year ago today, where cases were decreasing from a January peak, vaccines were flowing, he said. And look what that got us.The C.D.C.s masking decisions are especially fraught: It is difficult, experts say, to issue a one-size-fits-all prescription for a country as sprawling and varied as the United States.Its a challenging situation, because of course people are really anxious to get back to some sense of normalcy, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist who recently joined Kaiser Health News as an editor at large. Its highly variable across the country how much transmission there is, what vaccination uptake has been but the C.D.C. produces guidance for the entire country, so it makes sense for them to be cautious.Masking has been one of the most contentious issues of the pandemic. Many Republican governors cast aside their mask mandates long ago. Some, like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, even banned mask mandates and threatened to penalize school officials who defied them. The actions drew fierce criticism from Mr. Biden, who directed his education secretary to bring federal civil rights actions to deter states from barring masking in classrooms.But White House officials have not criticized their fellow Democrats as they end masking rules. Ms. Psaki said there is a distinct difference between standing in the way, which Ron DeSantis did, and allowing for local school districts to make choices, which is what a number of these states are doing.Public health experts agree that school mask mandates should not last forever, but are divided about whether it is time to drop them. The C.D.C.s current masking recommendations advise state and local officials to enact indoor masking policies in areas of the country where transmission is high.A color-coded map on the agencys website shows the entire country in red; 99 percent of all counties are in a high transmission zone a point Dr. Walensky underscored on Wednesday.The public is understandably confused. Several weeks ago, with Omicron infections soaring, the C.D.C. clarified its stance on various kinds of masks, acknowledging that the cloth masks frequently worn by Americans do not offer as much protection as surgical or respirator masks. A few days later, Mr. Biden announced his administration would distribute 400 million high-quality N95 masks free to the public.Now, several experts said, the agency must quickly come up with metrics for when masking and other mitigation measures should be relaxed and when they should be reinstated. Dr. Wen spoke of an offramp and an on ramp for mitigation measures, and said two factors are critical: whether hospitals and intensive care units have sufficient capacity, and whether vaccines and boosters are protecting well against severe disease.The offramp for restrictions needs to be their top priority, because this is what individuals, businesses, state and local officials are thinking about every day, she said.Drs. Wen, Gounder and Osterholm are on a long list of experts with whom the White House has recently consulted. None of the participants would describe the discussions, except to say that the administration officials participating including Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general; Dr. Fauci; and Dr. David A. Kessler, the science adviser for the Covid response did more listening than talking.The meetings with outside experts appear to have been prompted by a trio of articles published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which six former Biden transition advisers urged the administration to take a longer view and begin drafting a pandemic playbook aimed at the new normal.The effort was led by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and medical ethicist who advised former President Barack Obama. In the first article, Dr. Emanuel, Dr. Gounder and Dr. Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, wrote that the United States must avoid becoming stuck in a perpetual state of emergency.To be better prepared for inevitable outbreaks including from new coronavirus variants they suggested that the administration lay out goals and specific benchmarks, including what number of hospitalizations and deaths from respiratory viruses, including influenza and Covid-19, should prompt emergency mitigation and other measures.Mr. Biden has already been signaling that he is looking past the pandemic. In remarks at a news conference in mid-January, he said that the nation is moving toward a time when Covid-19 wont disrupt our daily life, when Covid-19 wont be a crisis, but something to protect against. But the president also said then that were not there yet.Adeel Hassan contributed reporting from Boston, and Amelia Nierenberg from New York. | Health |
Technology|Hello iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Prohttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/technology/hello-iphone-12-and-iphone-12-pro.htmlOct. 13, 2020, 2:05 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 2:05 p.m. ETThe iPhone 12, the successor to last years iPhone 11, has arrived with an improved screen and faster chip, among other improvements.Tim Cook, Apples chief executive, took the wraps off the new device on Tuesday and emphasized that it has the capability to run on 5G next-generation cellular networks, for much faster speeds.The new iPhone is also 11 percent thinner, 15 percent smaller and 16 percent lighter than its predecessor. It has smooth, flat edges, unlike the round corners of past models. The screen uses OLED, a brighter display technology that replaces the older LCD technology in the last entry-level iPhone. Apple said it also toughened the glass of the touch screen, making it four times more likely to survive a drop.The iPhone 12 will also come in two screen sizes: 5.4 inches and 6.1 inches. The smaller model, called iPhone 12 Mini, may appeal to people who prefer smaller phones.Apple also introduced upgrades for its iPhone Pro models, its more expensive smartphones. The premium models have an extra camera lens, and their processors are slightly more powerful for taking special photos with extra high-resolution, which Apple calls deep fusion. They also include a Lidar scanner, which is a depth sensor that uses lasers to scan 3-D objects, which could improve augmented-reality applications.Mr. Cook talked at length about the speed improvements of 5G, calling it super fast and offering a new level of performance for downloads and uploads. But notably, his description lacked specificity: He did not say how much faster 5G was than current 4G phones, which many would already consider to be super fast.Hans Vestberg, chief executive of Verizon, joined Apple to talk about 5G, highlighting its peak speeds. But those peak speeds will not be available in most of the nation. The current nationwide 5G coverage is only incrementally faster, if at all, than what we have with 4G.So heres the upshot: The design changes to the newest iPhones are, in the near term, more remarkable than the addition of 5G.Nonetheless, Apple, and other handset makers including Google and Samsung are working emphasizing 5G in their new phones to help carriers communicate the network shift to consumers.As an aside, Apple said it would stop including headphones and power chargers with its iPhones. It framed the move as an environmental decision, which also will likely save it money and spur people to spend more for those accessories. Apple said iPhones would instead come with a USB-C cable, which will enable faster charging. | Tech |
Credit Photo Illustration by Getty Images Le divorce peut tre ressenti comme un moment de libration ou de dsolation. Il y a des pays o lon considre une augmentation du nombre de divorces comme une preuve que les femmes prennent le contrle de leurs finances et de leur futur. Dans dautres, une femme qui choisit de mettre fin un mariage malheureux risque sa perte financire, voire celle de ses enfants. Toutes les femmes nont pas ce choix. Dans certaines rgions, les femmes nont tout simplement pas leur mot dire lorsquil sagit de mettre fin leur union. Peu importe o lon vit, le divorce reste un choix trs personnel. Mais cest aussi une dcision qui touche la sphre publique, avec de profondes consquences sociales et politiques. Nous aimerions recueillir des tmoignages de femmes travers le monde qui ont fait face au choix de divorcer ou de rester dans un mariage malheureux, ou dont le conjoint ou la conjointe a demand le divorce. Quels facteurs ont influ sur votre dcision, et quelles ont t les consquences ? Nous publierons certaines rponses. Sorry, but this form is no longer accepting submissions. | World |
Studying the coronavirus variants that have faded away could help us prepare for what comes next, scientists say.Credit...Nanographics/EPA, via ShutterstockMay 4, 2022In early 2021, scientists in Colombia discovered a worrisome new coronavirus variant. This variant, eventually known as Mu, had several troubling mutations that experts believed could help it evade the immune systems defenses.Over the following months, Mu spread swiftly in Colombia, fueling a new surge of Covid-19 cases. By the end of August, it had been detected in dozens of countries, and the World Health Organization had designated it a variant of interest.Mu was starting to make some noise globally, said Joseph Fauver, a genomic epidemiologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and an author of a recent study on the variant.And then it fizzled. Today, the variant has all but vanished.For every Delta or Omicron there is a Gamma, Iota or Mu, variants that drove local surges but never swept to global dominance. And while understanding Omicron remains a critical public health priority, there are lessons to be learned from these lesser lineages, experts say.This virus has no incentive to stop adapting and evolving, said Joel Wertheim, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of California San Diego. And seeing how it did that in the past will help us prepare for what it might do in the future.Studies of the also-rans have shed light on surveillance gaps and policy blunders providing more evidence that Americas international travel bans were not effective and on what makes the virus successful, suggesting that in the early phase of the pandemic, transmissibility was more important than immune evasion.The research also highlights how much context matters; variants that make an impact in some places never gain a foothold in others. As a result, predicting which variants will surge to dominance is difficult, and staying on top of future variants and pathogens will require comprehensive, nearly real-time surveillance.We can gain a lot by looking at the viral genomic sequence and saying, This one is probably worse than another one, Dr. Wertheim said. But the only way to really know is to watch it spread, because there are a whole lot of potentially dangerous variants that never took hold.Heres looking at MuThe coronavirus is constantly changing, and most new variants never get noticed or named. But others raise alarms, either because they quickly become more common or because their genomes look ominous.Both were true of Mu as it spread in Colombia. It contained a couple of mutations that people had been watching very closely, said Mary Petrone, a genomic epidemiologist at the University of Sydney and an author of the new Mu paper. Several of the mutations in its spike protein had been documented in other immune-evasive variants, including Beta and Gamma.In the new study, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, scientists compared Mus biological characteristics to those of Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma and the original virus. Mu did not replicate faster than any other variant, they found, but it was the most immune-evasive of the bunch more resistant to antibodies than any known variant besides Omicron, Dr. Fauver said.ImageCredit...Vanessa Jimenez/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesBy analyzing the genomic sequences of Mu samples collected from all over the world, the researchers reconstructed the variants spread. They concluded that Mu had likely emerged in South America in mid-2020. It then circulated for months before it was detected.Genomic surveillance in many parts of South America was patchy and incomplete, said Jesse Bloom, an expert in viral evolution at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. If there had been better surveillance in those regions, possibly it would have been easier to make a faster assessment of how worried to be about Mu.Mu presented another challenge, too. It happened to have a type of mutation, known as a frameshift mutation, that was rare in coronavirus samples. Such mutations were flagged as errors when scientists, including Dr. Fauver, tried to upload their Mu sequences to GISAID, an international repository of viral genomes used to keep tabs on new variants.That complication created delays in the public sharing of Mu sequences. The time that elapsed between when a virus sample was collected from a patient and when it was made publicly available on GISAID was consistently longer for Mu cases than for Delta cases, the researchers found.The genome itself was basically creating artificial surveillance gaps, Dr. Fauver said. It resulted, at least in our experience, in us not getting data out for weeks when normally were trying to get it out in days.(GISAIDs quality-control systems are important, the researchers stressed, and the repository has fixed the issue.)Combine these surveillance gaps with Mus immune evasiveness and the variant seemed poised to take off. But that is not what happened. Instead, Mu radiated from South and Central America to other continents but did not circulate widely once it got there, the scientists found. That was an indication that this variant was not as fit necessarily in maybe the North American and European populations as we had expected, Dr. Petrone said.That was likely because Mu found itself competing with an even more formidable variant: Delta. Delta was not as skilled at dodging antibodies as Mu, but it was more transmissible. So, in the end, Delta spread more widely, Dr. Bloom said.ImageCredit...Shannon Stapleton/ReutersRight variant, right timeStudying successful variants tells only half the story. Variants that do not become dominant are, in a way, negative controls, Dr. Petrone said. They tell us what didnt work, and, in doing so, help to fill in knowledge gaps around variant fitness.Delta overtook several immune-evasive variants besides Mu, including Beta, Gamma and Lambda. This pattern suggests that immune evasion alone was not enough to allow a variant to outdo a highly transmissible version of the virus or at least it wasnt during the early phase of the pandemic, when few people had immunity.But vaccinations and multiple waves of infection have changed the immune landscape. A highly immune-evasive variant should now have more of an edge, scientists said, which is likely part of the reason Omicron has been so successful.Another recent study suggested that in New York City immune-evasive Gamma tended to do better in neighborhoods with higher levels of pre-existing immunity, in some cases because they were hit hard in the first Covid wave. We cant view a new variant in a vacuum, because it comes about in the shadow of all of the variants that came before it, said Dr. Wertheim, who was an author of the study.Indeed, the clash of variants past reveals that success is highly dependent on context. For example, New York City may have been the birthplace of the Iota variant, which was first detected in virus samples collected in November 2020. And so it got a foothold early on, said Dr. Petrone. Even after the more transmissible Alpha variant arrived, Iota remained the citys dominant variant for months, before eventually fading away.But in Connecticut, where Iota and Alpha both appeared in January 2021, things unfolded differently. Alpha just kind of took off immediately, and Iota didnt stand a chance, said Dr. Petrone, who led a study of the variants in the two regions.ImageCredit...Andre Coelho/EPA, via ShutterstockA similar pattern is already beginning to play out with Omicrons multiple lineages. In the United States, BA.2.12.1, a subvariant first identified in New York, has taken off, while in South Africa, BA.4 and BA.5 are driving a new surge.Thats another reason to study variants that waned, said Sarah Otto, an evolutionary biologist at the University of British Columbia. A variant that was poorly matched for a certain time and place could take off in another. Indeed, Mus misfortune might have simply been that it emerged too soon. There might not have been enough people that had immunity to really give that variant a boost, Dr. Otto said.But the next variant of concern could be a descendant of, or something similar to, an immune-evasive lineage that never quite took hold, she said.Looking back at previous variants can also provide insight into what worked or didnt in containing them. The new Gamma study, provides further evidence that international travel bans, at least as the United States implemented them, are unlikely to prevent a variants global spread.Gamma was first identified in Brazil in late 2020. In May of that year, the United States barred most non-U.S. citizens from traveling into the country from Brazil, a restriction that remained in place until November 2021. Yet Gamma was detected in the United States in January 2021 and soon spread to dozens of states.Because Gamma never came to dominate worldwide, studying its spread provided a cleaner picture of the effectiveness of travel bans, said Tetyana Vasylyeva, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of California San Diego and an author of the study. When it comes to studying variants like, lets say, Delta something that has caused a major outbreak in every place it is really difficult at times to find patterns, because it happens on a very large scale and very fast, she said.In an ongoing global health emergency, with a virus that changes fast, there is an understandable impulse to focus on the future, Dr. Fauver said. And as the worlds attention turned to Delta and then Omicron, he and his colleagues discussed whether to continue their study of old-news Mu.We were like, Does anyone care about Mu anymore? Dr. Fauver recalled. But we think theres still room for high-quality studies that ask questions about previous variants of concern and try to look back on what happened. | Health |
TrilobitesVideotranscripttranscriptA Self-Healing Wearable DeviceA printed electronic device made with magnetic ink can fix itself when it's damaged.N/AA printed electronic device made with magnetic ink can fix itself when it's damaged.CreditCredit...Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San DiegoNov. 2, 2016A sports bra that monitors your workout. A suit that lets you swap business cards digitally. A beanie hat that tracks your newborns vitals. Smart garments like these hint at a future coming up fast, with wearable electronics integrated into our clothing or even our skin, capable of constantly monitoring our biology and tracking our social interactions.Endless though the possibilities seem, most wearable electronics today are expensive and complicated to make, with multiple moving parts. One option for making cheaper components en masse is to print electronic devices, using a process that looks much like conventional printing, but with special, electrically functional inks. The promise of printed electronics is low-cost, flexible devices including batteries and sensors, and wearable circuits that can be incorporated into smart clothing. But the multibillion-dollar industry has a major downfall: Printed electronics are fragile.Joseph Wangs nanoengineering lab at the University of California, San Diego, is now developing a solution: ink that includes magnetic particles. If a fabric or device printed with this magnetic ink breaks, the particles attract one another and close the gap. In a paper published today in Science Advances, Dr. Wangs team reports that their self-healing ink can repair multiple cuts up to three millimeters long in just 50 milliseconds.The smart clothes we hear about today, like shirts and shorts that monitor your health while you run, typically include sensors that have been woven into or clipped onto fabrics. For the most part, these sensors arent printed, which can make them more costly and more rigid. We wanted to make wearable devices that were more skinlike, said Amay Bandodkar, who studied in Dr. Wangs lab and is an author of the study. Just like the human skin is stretchable and self-healing, we wanted to impart a self-healing ability to printed electronics.The ink that Dr. Bandodkar and colleagues created includes ground neodymium magnets, which are found in hard drives and fancy refrigerator magnets. We basically just pulverized these magnets into microscopic particles and incorporated them into the ink, said Dr. Bandodkar, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University.Traditionally, attempts to create self-healing materials have relied on a chemical reaction called polymerization. While this has the benefit of actually melding broken fragments back together via chemical bonds (as opposed to magnetic attraction holding two pieces together), self-healing polymer systems have limitations. They often require external inputs like heat, cannot seal large cracks and can take anywhere from hours to days to actually repair themselves.Using magnetic particles is a new concept for self-healing, said Zhenan Bao, an engineering professor at Stanford University who was not involved in the study. Compared to previous approaches, this method is simple, fast and does not require adding heat, light or other chemicals.Magnetic ink is also cheap: Dr. Bandodkar estimated that $10 worth of ink materials can yield hundreds of small devices. The next steps, he said, are to determine the optimal ratios of ink ingredients for specific applications, which could take at least a couple of years.Ultimately, Dr. Bandodkar thinks that these inks can make their way into everything from solar panels to implantable medical devices. To him, though, one of the coolest applications is just everyday technology anyone can wear. If youre wearing a device on your skin and it gets broken as you move around, you dont have to throw it away, he said. Within a few seconds its going to self-heal, and you can use it over and over again. | science |
Credit...Lajos Soos/EPA, via ShutterstockNov. 15, 2018For those seeking refuge from war and violence, Hungary has been an unwelcoming place. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been at the vanguard in casting refugees as an insidious menace, best kept at bay by barbed wire and locked up in detention centers. His government made it a crime to even assist people in the country applying for asylum.So it was somewhat awkward this week when the former prime minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski, who was supposed to begin a two-year prison sentence on Monday after being convicted of abuse of power announced on Facebook that he had fled his homeland and was in Budapest seeking asylum.After more than 24 hours of silence, the Hungarian government confirmed late Wednesday night that Mr. Gruevski was in the country and seeking asylum but provided few other details, including how a convicted politician managed to get into the country considering that both his personal and diplomatic passports had been confiscated.Mr. Gruevskis flight stoked outrage in Macedonia, which issued a warrant for his arrest and demanded that he be extradited. It has also highlighted the competition between the European Union and Russia over the values and allegiances of countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.For years, Mr. Orban has been engaged in a battle with Brussels as he flouted its norms and rules over a variety of issues, including migration policy and threats to the independence of Hungarys judicial system.At the same time, Mr. Orban has sought to strengthen his ties with Russia and find allies in the countries on the eastern fringes of the bloc of nations, including rulers in the western Balkans that aspire to join the union.When Mr. Gruevski was in power, Mr. Orban cast aside concerns about corruption to embrace the Macedonian leader.Istvan Hegedus, the chairman of the Hungarian Europe Society, said that Mr. Orban has tried to have it both ways for years reaping the benefits of membership in the European Union while cozying up to Russia and other nondemocratic nations for support when needed.This sort of dance between east and west, between dictators and Brussels, it cannot work forever, he said. As a leader, you are forced to make decisions.In this case, it is Macedonia that again finds itself in the middle.The small Balkan nation is in the final stages of a wrenching political battle to change its official name to satisfy a decades-old dispute with Greece and set a path to joining NATO. Moscow has long opposed the expansion of NATO and Mr. Gruevskis party, VMRO-DPMNE, had opposed the deal to change the countrys name.Mr. Hegedus and other outside observers said that they would not be surprised to see Mr. Gruevski disappear from Hungary only to re-emerge in Russia or some other country from which it would be harder to have him extradited.It would be incredibly cynical, but Orban might make a human rights argument, saying that other asylum seekers have chosen to leave the country and that is their right, he said. Which would be incredibly unfair given that most of those seeking asylum are stuck in shipping containers on the Serbian border.Mrta Pardavi, co-chairwoman of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group dedicated to helping refugees, said that it is completely unrealistic that a former prime minister of another country would arrive to Hungary without the prior knowledge of the Hungarian authorities.Ms. Pardavi, whose group has been a frequent target of the Orban government, said that technically, Hungarys interior minister has the discretionary power to grant asylum even if someone cant be considered a refugee under normal circumstances.Its hypocritical that this extraordinary exception is only made for somebody who is a great ally of Prime Minister Orban, she said.The Hungarian government denied that it played any role in facilitating Mr. Gruevskis flight from Macedonia.Nikola Gruevski has submitted an asylum request to the competent Hungarian authority, the government said in a statement. Given that he was prime minister of his country for 10 years, for security reasons the Hungarian authorities have allowed Mr. Gruevski to have his asylum request submitted and heard at the headquarters of the Immigration and Asylum Office in Budapest.Pressed on why Mr. Gruevski was not forced to go to one of the transit centers created by Mr. Orban to seek asylum, the Hungarian leader replied dismissively, telling reporters to ask the lawyers.Earlier, however, Balazs Hidvghi, the communications director of Mr. Orbans party, Fidesz, pointed to a familiar figure to explain why the former Macedonian leader might deserve asylum.Nikola Gruevski is persecuted and threatened by the current Macedonian government, which is under the influence of George Soros, he said.There is no evidence to suggest the Hungarian-born, American philanthropist has anything to do with Mr. Gruevskis legal troubles.In fact, the United States government played an instrumental role in helping establish the office of the special prosecutor in Macedonia that eventually brought charges against Mr. Gruevski. The State Department, in a statement, said that Mr. Gruevski had been convicted after a thorough and transparent legal process."We believe it is appropriate for the Macedonian legal process to proceed and for Mr. Gruevski to be held accountable within the Macedonian justice system, the department said.During the trials of Mr. Gruevski and his associates, audio recordings and documents revealed how the former prime minister ran the country as a mafia state, ordering surveillance on opponents, rigging elections and reaping the spoils.The trials were viewed as a big step forward in a country that has been plagued by corruption since it declared independence from the former republic of Yugoslavia in 1991.While Mr. Gruevski still faces a variety of charges, he was recently convicted of abuse of power in a case having to do with the purchasing of a new armored vehicle for official use while he was prime minister. He lost his final appeal on Nov. 9 and was scheduled to start his jail sentence Monday.He never showed up.The reaction in Skopje was swift. Public shock and anger were stoked by rumors and suspicions that quickly took on a life of their own online.Social media where most people in the country get their news was rife with anonymously sourced speculation about plots and conspiracies. Some people said that Mr. Gruevski escaped by dressing as a woman and traveling with false papers. Others saw the hand of Russia.The Albanian Ministry of Interior said late Thursday that Mr. Gruevski escaped through Albania, somehow making his way to the Hungarian Embassy in Tirana, where he was then driven in a diplomatic vehicle to Montenegro. It remained unclear how he was able to exit Macedonia and how he made it from Montenegro to Budapest.Some in Macedonia said they suspected the complicity of the Macedonian government itself, claiming without evidence that the administration of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev had secretly agreed to let Mr. Gruevski escape in order to secure the votes needed to reach an agreement on renaming the country.Mr. Zaev said such speculation was nonsense.I strongly reject all speculations about some kind of political deal with Gruevski. Nothing such has been done, he said. We will investigate how he escaped, but I am convinced that Gruevski will be returned and he will face his sentence.He then said he was confident in the core values of the European Union.What kind of motivation would other countries have to join the E.U. if an E.U. country allows convicted criminals to escape from justice? he asked. | World |
Cleveland Clinic and Mount Sinai Wont Administer Aduhelm to PatientsThe rejection of the new Alzheimers drug by the two major medical centers is one of the starkest signs of concern over its approval by the F.D.A.Credit...Dustin Franz for The New York TimesPublished July 14, 2021Updated Sept. 2, 2021In a striking reflection of concern over the approval of the controversial new Alzheimers drug Aduhelm, two major American health systems have decided that they will not administer it to patients.The Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest and most respected medical centers in the country, said in a statement that a panel of its experts had reviewed all available scientific evidence on this medication, which is also called aducanumab.Based on the current data regarding its safety and efficacy, we have decided not to carry aducanumab at this time, the statement said.A spokeswoman for the clinic said that individual physicians there could prescribe Aduhelm to patients, but those patients would have to go elsewhere to receive the drug, which is administered as a monthly intravenous infusion.Mount Sinais Health System in New York City has also decided not to administer Aduhelm, said Dr. Sam Gandy, director of the Mount Sinai Center for Cognitive Health.Dr. Gandy, who is also a professor of psychiatry and neurology, said the decision was driven by the fact that there have been calls for a federal investigation to look into the F.D.A. decision and the agencys relationship with Biogen, the drugs manufacturer. He said, Aduhelm will not be considered for infusion into patients on any of its campuses until and unless an investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, affirms the integrity of the F.D.A.-Biogen relationship and goes on to reaffirm the F.D.A.s basis for approving the drug. In a statement emailed in response to the developments, Biogen said, Biogen continues to stand 100% behind Aduhelm and the clinical data that supported approval. If any patient is denied access to care, we encourage them to contact us for help as we remain committed to supporting access to Aduhelm for all appropriate patients.The rejection by the major medical centers is the latest fallout from the Food and Drug Administrations approval of the drug on June 7, a decision that has also spurred congressional investigations.Many Alzheimers experts and other scientists have said that it is unclear that the drug works to help slow cognitive decline and that in the best-case scenario, the evidence suggested only a slight slowing while also showing that Aduhelm could cause brain swelling or brain bleeding. Dr. Gandy said in his private practice he tells patients that no one was improved by Aduhelm and patients cognition always continued to decline at some rate. ImageCredit...Biogen, via Associated PressThe drug is also expensive. Biogen, the maker, has set its price at $56,000 a year.In a recent survey of nearly 200 neurologists and primary care doctors, most said they disagreed with the F.D.A. decision and did not plan to prescribe the drug to their patients.Last week, in response to growing criticism, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting F.D.A. commissioner, called for an independent federal investigation into the agencys approval process, writing that to the extent these concerns could undermine the publics confidence in F.D.A.s decision, I believe it is critical that the events at issue be reviewed by an independent body.Two nearly identical clinical trials of Aduhelm were stopped early because an independent data monitoring committee concluded that the drug didnt appear to be helping patients. A later analysis by Biogen found that participants receiving the high dose of the drug in one trial had experienced a very slight slowing of cognitive decline 0.39 on an 18-point scale but that participants in the other trial had not benefited at all.About 40 percent of trial participants developed brain bleeding or brain swelling, and while most of those cases were mild or manageable, about 6 percent of participants dropped out of the trials because of serious adverse effects from those conditions. Dr. Gandy said that one patient in his private practice had to drop out because the patient suffered 10 brain microhemorrhages. After evaluating the data late last year, an F.D.A. advisory committee of outside experts strongly recommended against approval, and three of its members resigned in protest last month when the agency bucked the advisory committees advice. The American Geriatrics Society had also urged the agency not to approve the drug, saying it would be premature given the lack of sufficient evidence.Last week, in response to widespread criticism that it had approved Aduhelm for anyone with Alzheimers, the F.D.A. sharply narrowed the drugs recommended use, saying it should be used only for people with mild memory or thinking problems because there was no data on Aduhelms use in later stages of Alzheimers. | Health |
Technology|Apple and Samsung End Smartphone Patent Warshttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/technology/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent.htmlCredit...Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJune 27, 2018SAN FRANCISCO The smartphone patent wars are finally over.Apple and Samsung settled a seven-year legal fight on Wednesday, ending the most prominent case in a series of lawsuits over smartphone patents over the last decade.The companies did not disclose the settlement amount. A jury in May ordered Samsung to pay Apple $539 million for infringing on its patents.Apple first sued Samsung in 2011 for copying the design of the iPhone, kicking off a winding trail of countersuits, trials and appeals, including a stop at the Supreme Court in 2016.Apple initially sought to block Samsung phones from the market, but the technology at dispute has long been outdated, and the fight has since largely been about money. Apple at one point sought more than $2 billion, while Samsung had argued it owed just $28 million.With two of global industrys biggest players fighting over one of historys most successful products, the case was one of the most closely watched legal fights in modern business.And if I had to characterize it, it didnt really accomplish anything, said Brian J. Love, a Santa Clara University law professor who tracked the case. Close to a decade of litigation, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on lawyers, and at the end of the day, no products went off the market.Apple won on paper, but it failed in its goal to gain a competitive advantage over Samsung and other phone makers in its series of lawsuits against them, said Mr. Love and Michael A. Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School who studies patent law.After years of legal fees and countless hours of its executives time, Apple walked away with negligible profits on the cases, particularly in the context of its $267 billion cash pile. Apple still earns most of the smartphone industrys profits, but Samsung and other handset makers have kept up the pressure with strong market share and innovative products.Apple can find better ways of earning hundreds of millions of dollars than fighting a decade-long lawsuit, Mr. Love said.For other companies, the case is likely to serve as a lesson that the courtroom is not always the place to try to get ahead, Mr. Carrier said. Theres always the trade-off between litigation and innovation, and in the time these companies spent in the courtroom, they werent innovating.He said the case set the legal precedent that even if a company is shown to infringe on some patents, the courts might not block the product if the patents at issue play a small role in the device.An Apple spokesman, Josh Rosenstock, referred to a previous company statement that said the case has always been about more than money.Apple ignited the smartphone revolution with iPhone and it is a fact that Samsung blatantly copied our design, Apple said in the statement. It is important that we continue to protect the hard work and innovation of so many people at Apple.A Samsung spokeswoman, Danielle Meister, declined to comment. | Tech |
Energy & Environment |Googles Latest Steps to Increase Its Use of Renewable Energyhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/googles-latest-steps-to-increase-its-use-of-renewable-energy.htmlDec. 3, 2015As nations wrangle in Paris this week over reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, companies have been eager to show that they, too, are getting with the program.Now, from Google, long a leader among corporations in green energy investing, comes new agreements to buy renewable energy to power its operations that, taken together, nearly double what it had already promised.Were really trying to lead this transition to a cleaner energy economy, said Michael Terrell, principal for energy and infrastructure at Google, whose aim is to use 100 percent renewable energy. Its transforming anyone who touches the energy space. Its not just about data centers or tech companies.The Google announcement follows a flurry of similar, though smaller, corporate purchases of renewable energy this year by companies including Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente, Dow Chemical and Amazon Web Services. Bloomberg has agreed to buy more than 25 percent of theenergy generated by a wind farmin Chautauqua County tooffset the energy use of its New York offices.More recently, Unilever promised to eliminate coal from its energy mix within five yearsThe combination of falling prices for green energy and increasing pressure from shareholders and customers to show direct action, rather than just set goals, in fighting global warming has helped spur the deals. In addition, increased experience and the advent of new mechanisms like a green tariff, in use in North Carolina and Nevada, that Google helped devise to make it easier for companies to buy renewables through their utilities has made it easier for corporations to take greater control over where their energy dollars go.Google has invested about $2.5 billion in renewable energy projects. The latest deals will bring the amount of renewable energy it has agreed to purchase to 2 gigawatts from 1.2 gigawatts, executives said. The projects include solar power from farms in North Carolina and Chile and wind power from farms in Oklahoma and Sweden. | Business |
Media|Jay Zs Tidal Service Gets a New Chiefhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/business/media/jay-zs-tidal-service-gets-a-new-chief.htmlCredit...Jake Naughton for The New York TimesDec. 2, 2015The music streaming service Tidal has named a new chief executive, its third since Jay Z unveiled his plans for the service with much fanfare in the spring. Taking on the role will be Jeff Toig, a former SoundCloud executive.The announcement comes after months of management upheaval at Tidal. And the service is undoubtedly looking to Mr. Toig to right a company that has lost its footing in the months since Jay Z reintroduced it in March at a star-studded news conference in New York.The service, which Jay Z bought for $56 million, said in April that Andy Chen, the chief executive of Aspiro, Tidals corporate parent, had left. His replacement, Peter Tonstad, departed in June. And Vania Schlogel, a former private equity executive who represented Tidal to investors as chief investment officer, said last month that she had resigned over the summer.Tidal was envisioned as a hub for high-fidelity audio and exclusive content. Jay Z said a majority of the company would also be controlled by the artists themselves, which made waves in an industry grappling with the value of music in the digital age.But the company has stumbled in a market dominated by Apple, Spotify, Pandora and YouTube, even as it has celebrated some successes. In October, for example, a Tidal concert at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn featuring top artists including Lil Wayne and Beyonc raised $1.5 million for charity.Mr. Toig, the former chief business officer for the streaming service SoundCloud, will take over his new role on Jan. 4. | Business |
Dec. 16, 2015LOS ANGELES Steven Spielberg said on Wednesday that he and his DreamWorks Studios would join Participant Media, Reliance Entertainment and Entertainment One to form an entertainment company called Amblin Partners to produce movies, television shows and digital content.At the same time, Universal Pictures said it would distribute films from the new company, beginning with The Girl on the Train, to be directed by Tate Taylor with Emily Blunt in a lead role, in October 2016.The new venture, which will be based on the Universal lot, appears poised to absorb and redirect the creative output of DreamWorks Studios, which has distributed its films under a deal with the Walt Disney Company since 2009. That distribution arrangement was set to expire next August.Amblin Partners also will become an exclusive vehicle for Mr. Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment, including a television division that is already making 13 episodes of the series American Gothic to air on CBS next summer. Further, the new company will produce many, though not all, of the films, television shows and other projects developed by Participant Media, an issues-oriented media company owned by the entrepreneur Jeff Skoll. In an interview, Mr. Spielberg said much of his output as a director and producer would be placed under the umbrella of Amblin Partners, which will continue to use the DreamWorks, Amblin Entertainment and Participant brands on its various projects.Its given me more bases, to get to home plate, said Mr. Spielberg, explaining that the arrangement would expand his opportunities. Mr. Skoll, who joined the interview, said Participant would continue to develop, produce and finance issues-based projects apart from the Amblin venture.Michael Wright, the chief executive of DreamWorks, will become the chief executive of Amblin Partners. David Linde, a former Universal executive recently hired as chief executive of Participant, will keep that role.In their statement, the companies said the new venture was supported by $500 million in debt from a syndicate of lenders structured by JPMorgan Chase, with Comerica Bank as the other lead lender. Mr. Skoll said Participant, Reliance and Entertainment One also would contribute a significant amount of equity to the new venture.Reliance, based in India, had previously provided financing for DreamWorks. Entertainment One, a Toronto-based conglomerate, had been a distributor of films by DreamWorks.For Mr. Spielberg, 68, the new company adds to a string of ventures that has included Amblin Entertainment, an original DreamWorks SKG studio, a truncated DreamWorks that was briefly owned by Paramount Pictures, and the independent DreamWorks Studios separate from the publicly traded DreamWorks Animation that had distributed films through Disney. It also extends what he said was a relationship of more than 50 years with Universal, where he started as an unpaid intern and later based his Amblin production company, even when making films for others.Mr. Skolls Participant Media had frequently been a partner to the latest DreamWorks incarnation, with credits on some of its biggest hits, including Mr. Taylors The Help, released in 2011, and several more modest performers. Those have included Mr. Spielbergs Bridge of Spies, which has about $70 million in domestic box-office receipts since Disney released it in October. For at least a year, Mr. Spielberg said, Participant and DreamWorks had been working to expand their partnership with a new venture.In September, Mr. Skoll in an interview during the Toronto International Film Festival said he believed the new company might eventually distribute its own films, though he expected to work with an outside distributor. One person briefed on the Universal deal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of confidentiality strictures, said it was a five-year arrangement.Universal said it expected to distribute four to seven films annually for Amblin Partners.Mr. Wright, who joined Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Skoll and Amblin Partners chief operating officer, Jeff Small, in the interview Wednesday, said he expected those films to have broad range, matching the varied sensibilities that have attached to Participant, with its focus on social issues; Amblin, with its family entertainment; and DreamWorks, with its varied, studio-style fare.Brands are vitally important, Mr. Wright said. | Business |