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Tenure: Aug. 11, 1987 to Jan. 31, 2006 Mr. Greenspan presides over a Great Moderation nearly two decades of strong growth, modest inflation and low unemployment, with just a few bumps along the way. October 1987: Shortly into Mr. Greenspans tenure, the Fed eases rates after the stock market crashes. July 1988: In Mr. Greenspans early years as Fed chairman, inflation rises above 5 percent amid strong growth and doubts about the Feds post-Volcker backbone. Mr. Greenspans response, a sharp increase in interest rates, pushed the economy into recession in the early 1990s, but it consolidates the Feds control. Neither inflation nor interest rates have returned to those heights in the last 25 years, and the recession is followed by the longest peacetime expansion in the nations history. July 1996: Mr. Greenspan makes a winning bet in the mid-1990s, resisting pressure to raise interest rates as unemployment declines. He argues that increased productivity, including the fruits of the computer revolution, have increased the pace of sustainable growth. Indeed, the Fed finds itself debating whether there is such a thing as not enough inflation, and a new Fed governor named Janet L. Yellen plays an important role in convincing Mr. Greenspan that a little inflation helped to lubricate economic growth. December 1996: Mr. Greenspan warns of the danger of irrational exuberance in financial markets, an admonition that goes unheeded. The Fed decides that popping bubbles is not part of its job description, leading critics to charge that Mr. Greenspans monetary policies spawned an era of booms and busts, culminating in the 2008 financial crisis. June 2003: Struggling to revive the economy after a brief recession, the Fed cuts its benchmark rate to 1 percent, then regarded as the lowest viable level. Ben S. Bernanke, in his first stint at the Fed, presents a paper exploring supplemental strategies a central bank could use to stimulate the economy after pushing rates to the floor. | Business |
DealBook|Icahn Has High Bid for Pep Boys as Bridgestone Backs Awayhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/dealbook/shares-of-pep-boys-surge-in-wake-of-raised-icahn-offer.htmlCredit...Karsten Moran for The New York TimesDec. 29, 2015The activist investor Carl C. Icahn appears to have made the winning bid for Pep Boys Manny, Moe & Jack, the auto parts retailer after Bridgestone said Tuesday evening that it would not increase its offer.Shares of Pep Boys shot up 8.8 percent on Tuesday after Icahn Enterprises said that it had raised its bid to $18.50 a share in cash, valuing Pep Boys at about $1 billion.Pep Boys said that its board received the offer Monday afternoon and that it had determined it was superior to an earlier offer it had accepted from Bridgestone, the Japanese tire maker. The board notified Bridgestone that it was terminating their agreement, Pep Boys said in a statement on Monday, which was included in a securities filing on Tuesday.After the close of the stock market on Tuesday, Bridgestone announced that it would not make a counteroffer in response to Icahn Enterprises latest bid.The bidding war between Mr. Icahn and Bridgestone began in October with Bridgestones offer of $15 a share. The two bidders have been back and forth since, intensifying their activity in recent weeks. Bridgestone agreed last week to raise its offer to $17 a share and increase the termination fee to $39.5 million from $35 million.Pep Boys, based in Philadelphia, put itself on the market in June. Mr. Icahn has a 12.1 percent stake in the company. | Business |
Middle East|Iran Plans Visit to Rival Saudis to Discuss Hajj Pilgrimagehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/world/middleeast/iran-plans-visit-to-rival-saudis-to-discuss-hajj-pilgrimage.htmlCredit...Associated PressApril 6, 2016BEIRUT, Lebanon Iran announced on Wednesday that it intended to send a delegation to Saudi Arabia this month to discuss the hajj pilgrimage, a rare official meeting between the Middle Eastern rivals at a time of deep regional tensions.The delegation wants to discuss arrangements for Iranians to attend this years pilgrimage as well as compensation for the relatives of 461 Iranians who died in a human crush during the event last year, said Saeed Ohadi, the head of Irans pilgrimage organization, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.The pilgrims were killed during the rite last year when large crowds ran into each other in the narrow alleys of a pilgrims camp, crushing many people who had no way to escape.More than 2,400 pilgrims from three dozen countries died, according to a count by The Associated Press, a toll that would make the crush the deadliest event in the history of the hajj.The Saudi government announced soon after the event that 769 people had been killed, but it has not updated the number since. Top Saudi officials at the time promised a thorough investigation, but no results have been made public.The deaths exacerbated already tense relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which had more pilgrims among the dead than any other country. The two powers follow different sects of Islam Saudi Arabia is Sunni and Iran is Shiite and are facing off in proxy struggles across the region.In January, Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after the Saudi governments execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric.The hajj is one of the most important obligations in Islam, and all Muslims who can afford to are supposed to perform it once in their lives. Saudi Arabia takes great pride in hosting the event, and the Saudi monarch bears the title of the custodian of the two holy mosques, emphasizing his personal responsibility for the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.Mr. Ohadi, of Irans pilgrimage organization, said the visit of the Iranian delegation was scheduled for April 14 but would only proceed if its members received their visas on time.He said there was a contradiction in the words and deeds of Saudi officials about admitting Iranian pilgrims this year that needed to be resolved. He added that the Saudi government had not yet taken any move to pay compensation to the families of those who died last year.Saudi officials have not spoken publicly about the Iranian visit, and there was no mention of it Wednesday by the official Saudi Press Agency. | World |
Credit...Yoan Valat/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 21, 2017PARIS Frances interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down, after a financial prosecution office said it was opening a preliminary investigation into parliamentary jobs he gave to his daughters.Mr. Le Roux said he had done nothing wrong as he announced his resignation at a news conference in Bobigny, northeast of Paris. But, he said, he was resigning so as not to distract from the daily fight against terrorism, against crime.Under French law, it is not illegal for members of Parliament to hire their family members as aides, provided that the work is genuine. It is a common practice, yet it is increasingly perceived as a sign of the widening gap between the political elite and the French people.A similar scandal has engulfed the campaign of Franois Fillon, a presidential candidate from the center-right Republican Party, since the end of January, after a satirical newspaper reported that he had hired his wife and children as parliamentary assistants over the years and paid them with public money for possibly bogus jobs.Mr. Fillon, once considered the front-runner to be the next president, was charged last week with embezzlement. He has plummeted in opinion polls since the scandal and is now lagging behind the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen of the National Front, and the centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is an independent.ImageCredit...Jacques Demarthon/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMs. Le Pen and her party are also facing several investigations, which have not seemed to affect her standing in the polls.Calls for Mr. Le Roux to step down came from Mr. Fillons ranks as well as from within Mr. Le Rouxs party, the Socialists.We cant tell Franois Fillon, Step down, be an example and have the head of a ministry whats more, a sovereign one not apply this to himself, Benot Hamon, the Socialist candidate in the presidential election, said at a news conference in Brussels.Journalists from the French television show Quotidien revealed Monday that Mr. Le Roux, a lawmaker from 1997 to 2016, had hired his two daughters as parliamentary assistants from 2009 to 2016, paying them a total of 55,000, or $59,000, for 24 jobs, starting when they were 15 or 16 and still in high school.According to Quotidien, at least two of the jobs overlapped with times when Mr. Le Rouxs daughters were interning abroad or studying. Mr. Le Roux, 51, acknowledged at the news conference that he had hired his daughters during school and university vacations, but defended his honesty, saying that their jobs had been specific and official and had corresponded to work effectively carried out.Matthias Fekl, 39, a junior minister for foreign trade and tourism, will replace Mr. Le Roux until the next president is elected and forms his or her government in May. The interior ministryis responsible for the internal security of the country, and Mr. Fekl will lead it at a time when the country is on high alert with fear of terrorist attacks.On Saturday, a man was killed in Orly Airport after attacking a soldier in a possible act of terrorism. | World |
Credit...Amr Nabil/Associated PressMarch 13, 2017CAIRO An Egyptian prosecutor ordered Hosni Mubarak, the toppled autocrat, released from the Maadi Military Hospital in southern Cairo, where he has been held for much of the last six years.But as of Monday night, Mr. Mubarak, 88, still had not left the hospital, underscoring the murkiness surrounding his status. His detention has been viewed by many Egyptians as a political matter as much as a legal one.Mr. Mubarak led Egypt for almost 30 years until he was toppled in 2011. He was later prosecuted on a variety of charges, including corruption and murder, but almost all the cases eventually foundered. His only standing conviction is for his role in embezzling state funds to redecorate his familys lavish residences.He appeared to be set for release earlier this month after the countrys top appeals court cleared him of responsibility for the killings of 239 protesters by the police. On Monday, the Cairo prosecutor, Ibrahim Saleh, ruled that there was no longer any reason to hold him.As far as I am concerned, he was in prison until today, and now he is free, Mr. Saleh said in a telephone interview.Mr. Mubaraks longtime lawyer, Farid el-Deeb, said Monday that Mr. Mubarak would be released from detention in the next few days.The freeing of one of the Arab worlds most notorious strongman leaders, a longtime American ally accused of cronyism and corruption, would be a landmark in Egyptian history. In some respects it illustrates how little the country has changed, despite the tumultuous days of the Arab Spring, when millions of Egyptians thronged the streets clamoring for a radical new direction.Some of those frustrations were evident on Monday on social media, one of the few avenues of free speech left in Egypt, where some people were voicing bitter criticism by borrowing a phrase, on the asphalt, that is usually associated with the release of jailed democracy activists.Mubarak on the asphalt, and the youths are in prison, a Twitter user who gave his name as Mohamed 303 wrote.Even so, Mr. Mubaraks supporters have begun to shrug off the stigma associated with his name and to praise him as a bulwark against chaos. Regardless of Mubaraks disasters, he did not run away, wrote another Twitter user who gave his name as Mohamed. He appeared in court, and he did not bring strife to this country.Though the prosecutors release order was not surprising, it was undoubtedly awkward for Egypts current leader, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who sometimes praises the revolution that overthrew Mr. Mubarak.As a former president, Mr. Mubarak will enjoy state protection at his home in Heliopolis, the affluent Cairo neighborhood where he lived for much of his rule. His lawyer said that is where he will go when he leaves the hospital.His legal woes are not entirely over. He has been implicated in a corruption case over the theft of funds from a state-run newspaper, and the Illicit Gains Authority has a long-running investigation into the sources of his wealth.Those matters will help Mr. Sisi keep Mr. Mubarak in line, according to Hossam Bahgat, a prominent journalist who has also investigated Mr. Mubaraks wealth. They are keeping those cases, in case they want to punish him, or if he does something wrong, Mr. Bahgat said.Mr. Mubaraks decision to cede power in February 2011 had ripple effects throughout the Arab world, and preceded the overthrow of longtime dictators in Libya and Yemen later that year. But the promise of the Arab Spring soon dissipated as Libya and Yemen plunged into chaos, Syria descended into civil war, and the militants of the Islamic State used the resulting chaos to pursue their vision of jihadist Armageddon.The first democratic presidential election in Egypts history brought Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to power in June 2012. But just 12 months later, he was ousted by military officers and replaced with Mr. Sisi, a serving general who later left the military to become a civilian president.Under Mr. Sisi, Egypts courts have jailed tens of thousands of Brotherhood members, opposition activists, lawyers, journalists and other critics of his rule. The political prisoners include many of the same people who helped topple Mr. Mubarak in 2011 a paradox that will not be lost on many Egyptians if Mr. Mubarak is indeed released. Mr. Sisi pardoned 203 prisoners on Monday who had been held for politically related crimes, but the list did not include any prominent opposition activists. | World |
Another ViewDec. 22, 2015Michael W. Peregrine, a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, advises corporations, officers and directors on issues related to corporate governance, fiduciary duties and internal investigations. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of McDermott Will & Emery or its clients. The pursuit of legitimate corporate strategic goals is increasingly running into the concerns of corporate officers who see themselves at greater personal legal risk if there are ever allegations of corporate misconduct.This governance challenge is a byproduct of new enforcement policies from the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the individual culpability of corporate officials.The S.E.C. has focused its oversight efforts on the accountability of so-called gatekeepers officers and directors, as well as auditors, lawyers and compliance officers. The Justice Department, meanwhile, is seeking to combat corporate misconduct prosecution by going after individuals.These new policies shift the primary attention in corporate investigations to employees from the organization as a whole . They also create incentives for companies to give up individuals believed responsible for corporate wrongdoing, in order to receive leniency in any possible settlement with the government.Officers and executives are becoming increasingly sensitive to both the existence of the new policies and the tensions they may create in the relationship between management and the board. Indeed, a senior Justice Department official has acknowledged that although the new policies may make some employees nervous, some may have reason to be nervous.And they may be. Yet boards should be nervous as well not necessarily for their own exposure, but for the fate of major strategies that management is charged with putting into effect.The law protects directors who are innovative and accept informed risks in their pursuit of corporate strategies. The concept of risk is not antithetical to effective governance, legal compliance and prudent corporate strategy. Indeed, a boards excessive strategic conservatism may be harmful to the corporations long-term sustainability.Yet in the new enforcement environment, some executives may have a different perspective on risk, at least as it relates to their role in adopting certain corporate strategies.The primary board concern is that some gatekeepers may engage in self-protective conduct that hampers valid company initiatives.Such conduct may manifest itself in both obvious and subtle ways.Examples of obvious self-protective conduct could include the gatekeepers refusal to engage with the initiative, written or oral expressions of discomfort made to corporate leadership or even resignation.Examples of subtle self-protective conduct could include excessive cautiousness, substantial equivocation in observations or recommendations or simply delegating initiative responsibility to a lower level of management. Whether obvious or subtle, it is conduct intended to provide the gatekeeper with plausible deniability as to material involvement with, and support of, the initiative.To a certain extent, thats just human nature. And the government may applaud such conduct as an appropriate check and balance to problematic corporate conduct.But it becomes a governance issue when such self-protective conduct impedes legally appropriate strategies. Attentive boards should seek to address the understandable concerns of its gatekeepers.Fundamental to any board response is an awareness that such tension exists, why it exists and the problems it can create for the corporations strategic vision. More specific governance steps would include efforts to assure gatekeepers that the corporation is protective of their personal interests as well.One step would be to provide assurance that corporate strategic plans are consistent with the board-approved risk profile and that all major decisions have been carefully vetted by experienced legal counsel. A second step would be to enhance confidence in the boards commitment to effective, rigorous corporate compliance and risk management programs. In addition, gatekeepers should also receive clear legal guidance on the proper use of the corporations strategic plan. Make it known that company lawyers are available to counsel gatekeepers at all times.A fourth step would be to carefully review the adequacy of existing indemnity and insurance coverage available to gatekeepers. The goal would be to confirm that state of the art coverage is in place with the best possible terms.These and other steps should help reduce the anxiety of gatekeepers and other management team members concerning their personal liability exposure. In so doing, these steps may remove unnecessary barriers to the use of corporate strategies.Theyre also consistent with a top-down organizational culture of compliance that the board is responsible for maintaining. And, ultimately, thats what the new government enforcement policies seek to achieve. | Business |
Olympics|Sweden and Switzerland Win Hockey Openershttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/sports/olympics/olympics-roundup.htmlRoundupCredit...Julio Cortez/Associated PressFeb. 12, 2014Sweden scored goals early, and goalie Henrik Lundqvist made them stand up. Switzerland waited until the last minute.Both teams are off to solid starts in Olympic mens hockey.Erik Karlsson scored two goals in the Swedes 4-2 victory over the Czech Republic on Wednesday night, and Simon Moser scored with 7.9 seconds left in Switzerlands 1-0 victory over Latvia in the opening games of the Sochi tournament.Karlsson and his fellow defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson made impressive Olympic debuts for Sweden, the gold medal winners in 2006. The team captain Henrik Zetterberg and Patrik Berglund also had goals, and Lundqvist, the Rangers goalie, made 27 saves at the Bolshoi Ice Dome. Jaromir Jagr scored a goal in his fifth Olympics for the Czechs.With his late goal, Moser delivered a hard-luck loss to Latvia goalie Edgars Masalskis, who made 38 saves. ANOTHER LUGE GOLD FOR GERMANY Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt won Germanys third gold medal in luge, denying the Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger a record third straight title.Wendl and Arlt completed their two runs down the Sanki Sliding Center track in 1 minute 38.933 seconds. The Lingers won silver and Latvias Andris and Juris Sics took bronze after winning silver in Vancouver.GERMAN WINS IN NORDIC COMBINED Eric Frenzel of Germany led after ski jumping and then powered home on the cross-country course to win the gold medal in the Nordic combined individual normal hill. Frenzel, last years World Cup champion and this years runaway leader, started the 10-kilometer cross-country race with a six-second advantage over Akito Watabe of Japan.Watabe and Frenzel opened up an early lead of about 20 seconds on the rest of the pack, then traded places a few times before Frenzel skied away in the final kilometer. His time was 23 minutes 50.2 seconds. The silver went to Watabe in 23:54.4. Magnus Krog of Norway earned the bronze in 23:58.3.SKI JUMPERS HURT IN TRAINING The gold medalist Kamil Stoch of Poland and the Russian ski jumper Mikhail Maksimochkin were injured after crashing during landings while training for the individual large hill event.Stoch, who won gold in the normal hill event Sunday, was the last jumper of the night when he fell after missing his landing. He had a bloodied nose but walked off the hill after having a brace put onto his left arm.Hes going to the village with a doctor, but hes O.K., said Polands coach, Lukasz Krusek.Paramedics earlier immobilized Maksimochkin with a neck and back brace and strapped him down on a stretcher before taking him away. He was taken from the RusSki Gorki Jumping Center in an ambulance escorted by a police car. On its website, the governing body F.I.S. said Maksimochkin had not sustained any serious injuries but would remain in the hospital overnight.CHINESE CURLERS STAY UNBEATEN Chinas curlers kept up their surprise run by beating Switzerland and Germany, leaving the team at the top of the standings with four straight wins. With Sweden (3-1) losing to Denmark, 8-5, in the evening session, Norway (3-0) is the only other unbeaten team after defeating Germany, 8-5, in the morning. On the womens side, undefeated Canada downed Britain, 9-6, in a game that went down to the final stone and sent the United States to the edge of elimination. The Canadians joined Switzerland in first place at 3-0. | Sports |
Global HealthCredit...James Gathany/C.D.C.Nov. 21, 2016Simple cellphones can tell one type of mosquito from another by their hums, which may be useful in fighting mosquito-borne diseases, according to new research from Stanford University.Calling their project Shazam for Mosquitoes, after the phone app that identifies music, students from the universitys Bio-X institute showed that common cellphones could record mosquito wing beats accurately enough to distinguish, for example, Culex mosquitoes, which spread West Nile virus, from Aedes mosquitoes, which spread Zika.Even older flip phones, which are still used in parts of Africa, are sensitive enough to do the job.The students envision a crowdsourcing initiative in which phone users around the world send in sound samples of mosquitoes landing on them, which could be sorted by the embedded GPS and time coordinates to build a worldwide mosquito distribution map.It would be far less cumbersome than the current technique: trapping insects for hand sorting.Mosquitoes use their wing-beat hums to find one another for mating. The sounds are distinct, and even big and small members of one species make similar hums.Less than half a second of flight is needed to capture a mosquitos acoustic signature, and the technique works even against background noise like sirens or conversation, said Haripriya Mukundarajan, a mechanical engineering student who presented the research at the annual conference of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. It is set to be posted soon on bioRxiv, a site where scientitists seek comments on their work before publishing it.Preliminary testing in a California state park and in Madagascar proved the concept, she said, although more work remains.Brian D. Foy, a specialist in mosquito-borne diseases at Colorado State University, said he thought the idea sounded cool and would promote citizen science, but he remained skeptical that it would replace trapping.Sound wouldnt tell, for example, whether the mosquitoes carried diseases. Also, he said, it is sometimes important to detect individual species and subspecies.Joseph M. Conlon, a technical adviser to the American Mosquito Control Association, expressed reservations, saying that wing-beat frequencies could vary with temperature, humidity and the mosquitos age, nutritional status and other variables.For now, he said, wing-beat identification was more of a novelty than a viable tool, but it could be the wave of the future, and the technology should be explored. | Health |
Credit...Andrew Burton/Getty ImagesDec. 27, 2015Such is the state of air travel these days that even the fees have fees.It is a ritual that will most likely sound familiar to many holiday travelers: Your plans suddenly change, and a flight must be switched. Soon you are paying a flight-change fee of $200 or so. But so extreme have these airline change fees become that a cottage industry has emerged offering a way for travelers to avoid the charge for a fee, of course. And even the airlines are getting in on the act.It is part of what has become a booming business for the carriers. Altogether, change fees generated $2.98 billion for the domestic airlines in 2014, triple the amount in 2007, when most fees were introduced, according to the Department of Transportation.The figure is on pace to be even higher in 2015. And it does not even include revenue from those travelers who simply decide to leave a flight behind and book a new ticket.Now, two companies Options Away, founded by a former currency trader, and Flyr, a San Francisco-based data science company see the rise in change fees as an opportunity. They offer ways to hold or lock in rates for up to three weeks. It costs anywhere from a few dollars to upward of $50.Heidi Brown, who started Options Away in 2012, said her concept of the company came from the queasy feeling she would get every time she bought a plane ticket and worried that her plans might change. She made it her mission to relieve the financial stress caused by change fees.I know why people buy options: because of uncertainty, Ms. Brown said. I thought, I would be willing to put down $10 if it bought me a few days.Flyr introduced a similar service, FareKeep, this summer.The services work like this: A traveler pays a nonrefundable fee to Flyr or Options Away, which holds an airfare for the specified time but does not actually purchase a ticket until the travelers plans are completed. If a flight appears at risk of selling out during the option period, Flyr says it will work with the client to find similar itineraries, while Options Away says it monitors flights actively enough to avoid those risks (and will not offer holds on flights that appear most in danger of selling out).If the client decides to travel on the specified date, he or she simply completes the ticket purchase. If, however, the itinerary must change or be canceled altogether, Flyr or Options Away keeps only the fee. It is an option that Scott Brunner, a loyal Delta flier, could have used. He booked flights on Nov. 15 for him and his daughter to travel around Christmastime, only to realize two days later that he had mistakenly switched the destination and arrival airports. So he called Delta to make the change.I thought it would be simple, Mr. Brunner said. Indeed, the customer service rep made the change immediately.Then Delta dropped the hammer. Thats going to be $150, he was informed.Asked about the airlines policies, a Delta spokesman referred to the companys ticket rules, which are listed on its website.Options Away now has partnerships with Expedia and American Airlines. Like other airlines, American is trying to offer customers more peace of mind, for a price.United offers a fare-locking product, for $7, that allows travelers to hold a nonrefundable airfare for three days ($9 for seven days). Other airlines, like Allegiant, encourage travelers to spend more for so-called flex packages that enable them to make trip changes at no extra cost.It is a market that was hard to imagine a decade ago, before the ancillary add-on charges for seemingly everything except ice cubes became the industry standard, according to Tom Bacon, an airline industry consultant and strategist. Only Southwest Airlines, which distinguishes itself among major airlines by largely shunning fees, does not charge to switch flights.Ms. Brown had to laugh at the incongruity of her own business, which formed in response to the inflexibility of the airlines but now thrives partly because of it. Theres not going to be any quote from me saying I hate airline change fees, she said.But others dont see much benefit for consumers, and some advocacy groups, as well as lawmakers, are pushing back. Theyre just adding confusion to an already confusing process, said Charlie Leocha, chairman of Travelers United, an advocacy group for travelers. Mr. Leochas group has started to put pressure on policy makers in Washington.In August, ranking members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation recommended that airline change fees be limited to a reasonable amount tied to lead time before departure and a maximum percentage of the original fare paid. Mr. Leocha said he was hopeful that it would be included in transportation legislation to be voted on in March.To Mr. Leocha, the current federal restrictions on change fees tickets booked at least seven days in advance must be fully refundable within 24 hours are too short for many travelers. In many cases, he said, travelers choose simply to let the flight leave without them rather than pay the extra $200 if the original fare was relatively inexpensive.Its beyond ridiculous, Mr. Leocha said. And there is no justification for it.American Airlines and United Airlines referred a request for comment to Airlines for America, a trade group. A spokeswoman, Melanie Hinton, said that airfare structures and cancellation fees represented the opportunity cost that airlines sought to recover. The airline has to take into consideration both the ability to sell his original seat and calculate the impact and risk of potential revenue loss for that new seat, she wrote in an email.Robert W. Mann Jr., an airline industry analyst, agrees that opportunity costs do exist for airlines, even today, when tickets are in demand and the likelihood of reselling seats that may have been changed or canceled is strong.But he challenged the economics of charging a flat fee of $200, rather than a sliding scale, which is used by only a few airlines, like JetBlue. When you have to pick a universal number, there are cases where you gave it away way too cheaply even if you are assessing a fee, he said. And there are lots of cases where maybe the balance was in favor of the company, so it is just gravy.Quinn Hirsch, 21, a graduate student in Boston, used Twitter to plead with JetBlue to allow her to push up her flight home to Chicago ahead of a winter storm in November. But the airline declined to waive its $75 change fee, and wanted Ms. Hirsch to pay the $130 difference between the two flights. She decided not to pay the surcharges, and then her flight wound up being canceled.Everybody knew this storm was coming, Ms. Hirsch said. But $200 is not reasonable and not in my budget.A JetBlue official said the company offered several fare options to travelers, including one called BlueFlex, which comes with no change fees or cancellation charges.Back in Atlanta, all Mr. Brunner was asking for was some leniency. The change I asked them to make costs Delta nothing but about five minutes worth of a customer service reps time, Mr. Brunner said. The big sticking point to me is the customer relationship. Im a loyal customer, dang it, treat me like one. | Business |
Scientists say its less like a wobble and more like a slow, predictable cycle. And while the phenomenon will contribute to rising tides caused by climate change, it is just one of many factors.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York TimesJuly 16, 2021Sometimes, the moon seems to move in mysterious ways.Its mostly circles and ovals, depending on your perspective. But there is also something else a so-called wobble animating those rotations and revolutions. According to a study published last week, the phenomenon is expected to lead to more flooding here on Earth in the middle of the next decade.While that may sound alarming, the wobble is nothing new. It is a regular oscillation that humans have known about for centuries, and it is one of many factors that can either exacerbate rising sea levels or counteract them, alongside other variables like weather and geography.The authors of the study, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Climate Change, aimed to untangle all of those variables in an effort to improve predictions about the future of floods. Their results underscored a basic fact separate from the movement of the moon: Our oceans are rising because of climate change.Theyre getting awfully close to the brim in coastal communities due to decades of sea level rise, said William V. Sweet, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and one of the papers authors.Rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions are not the only cause of higher flood risks, and the report explored the interplay of many variables that push and pull at ocean levels.Its really helping diagnose and disentangle the predictability of the tide and its potential impacts along the coast, Dr. Sweet said.But in news media reports about the study, one particular variable seemed to capture outsize attention: the moon wobble. The study warned that we should expect this wobble to heighten high tides in the middle of the 2030s, but it also showed that this prediction does not apply uniformly to every coastline everywhere.As NASA put it in a news release last week: Theres nothing new or dangerous about the wobble; it was first reported in 1728. Whats new is how one of the wobbles effects on the moons gravitational pull the main cause of Earths tides will combine with rising sea levels resulting from the planets warming.So where, exactly, does this wobble come from?First, some background: High tides on this planet are caused mostly by the pull of the moons gravity on a spinning Earth. On most beaches, you would see two high tides every 24 hours.The moon also revolves around the Earth about once a month, and that orbit is a little bit tilted. To be more precise, the moons orbital plane around the Earth is at an approximate five-degree incline to the Earths orbital plane around the sun. (Here are a couple videos to illustrate this.)Because of that, the path of the moons orbit seems to fluctuate over time, completing a full cycle sometimes referred to as a nodal cycle every 18.6 years. It happens on such a slow scale, said Benjamin D. Hamlington, a co-author of the paper who leads the Sea Level Change Team at NASA. I think precession is a more specific word than wobble.At certain points along the cycle, the moons gravitational pull comes from such an angle that it yanks one of the days two high tides a little bit higher, at the expense of the other. This does not mean that the moon itself is wobbling, nor that its gravity is necessarily pulling at our oceans any more or less than usual.The emphasis on the nodal cycle is a little bit different from the message we were trying to convey, Dr. Hamlington said. But he added that the phenomenon was worth paying attention to.High-tide flooding related to climate change is expected to break records with increasing frequency over the next decade, and people who want to accurately forecast that risk have to work with a lot of noisy data, including weather patterns, astronomical events and regional tidal variation.The moon wobble is part of that noise, but it has always maintained its own slow, steady rhythm.Its just acting in the background as sea levels rise, said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miamis Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.During its most rapid upward phase, it acts to enhance the effective sea level, and during its most rapid downward phase, like were in now, it acts to suppress the effective sea level, said Mr. McNoldy, who has written about the lunar nodal cycle but was not a part of the Nature study. It is not part of sea level rise projections, because its not sea level rise; its just an oscillation.Other variables aside and speaking very generally, since every region is different the effect of the wobble could cause high tide levels at a beach to oscillate by one or two inches over the course of its long cycle.That may sound small. But in certain situations, it can matter quite a bit.It just kind of raises the baseline, said Philip R. Thompson, the lead author of the study and the director of the Sea Level Center at the University of Hawaii. And the more your baseline is raised, the smaller weather event you need to cause a flooding event.Understanding that baseline is important even when we are in the phases of the nodal cycle that would seem to counteract rising sea levels, which is whats happening now.If we know whats going on, then we shouldnt be complacent, Dr. Thompson said. Its important to realize that at the mid-2030s point, where the switch flips and the natural cycle seems to amplify the rate of sea level rise, then we are going to see a rapid change. | science |
Kobe Bryant Gets Oscar Nom Hollywood Has Huge Problem 1/23/2018 Kobe Bryant was just nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for his movie, "Dear Basketball" ... but it begs the question, Time's Up? In a time where huge Hollywood stars are crushing people like Aziz Ansari, James Franco and others ... ya gotta remember, Kobe was formally charged with raping a woman back in 2003. Remember, Bryant admitted having sex with a 19-year-old hotel staffer in Eagle, Colorado -- but insisted it was consensual. By his account, things went south when Kobe asked the woman if he could ejaculate in her face during the sexual encounter. Kobe claims the woman denied his request and he stopped cold. The woman clearly saw things differently. When approached by police, Kobe asked the cops if he could pay her off to make the situation go away. Kobe was charged with sexual assault -- but the case was dropped when the accuser stopped cooperating with prosecutors. At the time, she claimed she was receiving hate mail and death threats. She filed a civil suit against Kobe, which he later settled. There are reports he paid around $5 million, though Kobe claimed he never paid her a dime. Kobe later released an apology saying, "I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year." Kobe added this part ... which sounds a lot like Aziz's explanation: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." So, the big question ... how will Hollywood react if Kobe wins? Oscars | Entertainment |
The stakes were clear: This vote could help set the countrys direction for the next two years. Some wanted a Senate that would back Joe Biden. Others sought a balance of power.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesJan. 5, 2021MARIETTA, Ga. These were the deciders, the voters who shuffled along in lines that began before dawn on Tuesday and continued until long after the sun had set, their ballots the coda to a pair of contests that would determine which political party controls the U.S. Senate.For weeks, they had been bombarded with ads on television and radio, with text messages and phone calls, all stressing the magnitude of their choices.You always hear every election cycle that this vote matters more than anything, said Jasmine Knapp, 30, who voted for whom, she would not say at a polling site in Dalton, about 90 miles north of Atlanta. But that feels true this time."The gravity of the high-stakes contests was reflected in the participation: More than three million people cast their ballots early, or roughly 40 percent of the states registered voters a staggering level of turnout in a runoff election.On Tuesday, steady lines at dozens of polling sites signaled continued enthusiasm for a contest that has implications far beyond Georgia. The direction of American politics for at least the next two years will be shaped by the outcome.The state in recent weeks has been gripped by talk of transformation, as a once reliably Republican stronghold voted for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., the first Democratic victor in 28 years. And the runoffs have emerged as a test of how much Georgia has evolved, as the Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock forced both of the states incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler into a second round of voting.Those circumstances factored heavily in the decisions of many voters, who said their opinions of President Trump and concerns over which party controls the Senate drove them to the polls. The individual candidates mattered less, they said.The campaigns, too, painted the races in the starkest of terms, with the Democratic candidates called radicals and socialists by their Republican challengers, and the Democrats, enraged at Mr. Trumps baseless claims of a fraudulent general election, insisting that nothing less than democracy was at stake.That intensity fueled participation.Were tired of this, said Sony Tiggs, an account manager who moved to the Atlanta suburbs from Chicago two years ago and who voted for the Democrats.ImageCredit...Nicole Craine for The New York TimesIn Dalton, a rural area where Mr. Trump held a rally on Monday to mobilize support for the Republican candidates, conservatives knew their task was to overcome a strong Democratic turnout in early voting and absentee ballots.Turnout is high, you can tell because theres never a line, said Lane Lewis, 44, who waited until election day to vote because he was more confident that his ballot would be counted.In the affluent Atlanta suburbs of Cobb County, which have been at the heart of Georgias changing politics, many voters talked about seeking balance. Some voted for Mr. Biden in the general election, but then voted for Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler, citing concerns about Democrats having too strong of a grip on power.Its critical, Carol Farrish, a teacher who said she voted for the Republicans, said of her vote. We need a balance of power so that one party cant steamroll the other.Tyler Applonie, 37, said he voted for Mr. Trump in November but was not terribly discouraged when Mr. Biden won. While he said he supported Mr. Trumps policies, he was leery of the sense of chaos Mr. Trump had stirred up in the country.On Tuesday, Mr. Applonie said he voted for the Republican candidates mainly because he was worried about Democrats gaining too much power. He said he also believed the country benefited from the push and pull of negotiations.It almost feels radical to be in the center, said Mr. Applonie, who works in sales for a technology company. My hope is compromise. The risk is that there could be complete gridlock.But gridlock is precisely what Joy Phenix wanted.They need a backstop, Ms. Phenix said of the Democrats, adding that, as a Libertarian, her aim was to try to stand in the way of government overreach. She voted for Mr. Biden and the Republican senators; she said that if Mr. Trump had won, she would have voted for the Democrats.A recently formed political action committee called Georgia Balance has spent $2.5 million targeting those who voted for Mr. Biden but feared full Democratic control of Congress.The group published an online video ad in which a woman in a well-appointed kitchen identifies herself as a Georgian, a mother of three and a Biden voter. In the Senate runoff, Im voting for David and Kelly, the woman says. We just need to take a breath. America needs balance. With Joe, Kelly and David, well have it.ImageCredit...Audra Melton for The New York TimesVoting on Tuesday was relatively smooth, with voting rights groups, the political parties and the campaigns all reporting no significant problems. State elections officials said the average wait time statewide was five minutes.Across the state, a steady stream of people cast their ballots. In some places, hourlong lines stretched outside polling places. In others, it was barely a trickle. Tyler Perry, the entertainment mogul who lives in Atlanta, flew home from Wyoming after his absentee ballot never arrived. Too important to miss, he said on Twitter. Too important to miss!In the west end of Atlanta, Whitney Leonard, 24, said she was not beholden to the Democratic Party, but she believed that Democratic control of the Senate was crucial to undoing the damage she said Mr. Trump had caused.She cast her very first ballot in the general election. She had been incarcerated and finished probation last year. You dont know how much of a privilege it is to vote, Ms. Leonard said, until its been taken away from you.Outside a church in Norcross, in Gwinnett County outside of Atlanta, Rosie Ramirez tried to take a selfie with a Vote Aqu banner flapping behind her. The peach sticker on her sweater declared that she had cast her ballot.She was also worried about health care because she needs a liver transplant. Its very, very expensive, she said. I need good insurance.But standing in the choppy wind on a crisp afternoon, she was enveloped in enthusiasm.Its my country! Ms. Ramirez said after casting her ballot. I came here to express my voice!Richard Fausset and Sean Keenan contributed reporting from Atlanta, and Astead W. Herndon from Dalton, Ga. | Politics |
DealBook|Clydesdale Bank to Pursue I.P.O. as Part of Spinoffhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/business/dealbook/clydesdale-bank-to-pursue-ipo-as-part-of-spinoff.htmlDec. 14, 2015Credit...Jeff J. Mitchell/ReutersLONDON Clydesdale Bank said on Monday that it planned to pursue an initial public offering as part of its spinoff from National Australia Bank next year.The company operates under the Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank brands in Britain and is one of Britains largest midsize banks.Clydesdale expects to list up to 25 percent of its shares in an initial public offering, with the remainder being distributed to National Australia Bank shareholders as part of its spinoff. The offering and spinoff are expected to be completed in early February.We are in a good position as we move into this exciting new period as an independent bank, David Duffy, the Clydesdale chief executive, said in a news release. Much has been done to reshape and strengthen the business; supporting our plans for growth by building a better bank for customers.Mr. Duffy joined Clydesdale this year after serving as the top executive at Allied Irish Bank, a nationalized lender, since 2011.The company will seek to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange and have a secondary listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. The spinoff is not contingent on the initial public offering proceeding.Clydesdale Bank was founded in Glasgow in 1838, while Yorkshire Bank was founded in West Yorkshire in 1859. Clydesdale is one of the three banks authorized to print pound notes in Scotland.As of Sept. 30, the company had 2.8 million retail and business customers and customer deposits of 26.3 billion pounds, or about $40 billion.Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Macquarie Capital are serving as global co-coordinators on the offering. | Business |
Cristiano Ronaldo No, Not the Face ... Not the Face!!!! 1/21/2018 Cristiano Ronaldo faced off with a cleat and won a goal, but lost some skin in the process -- which seemed to piss him off after a quick mirror check on the nearest phone possible. The Real Madrid striker suffered a nasty injury Sunday in the final few minutes of his team's match against Deportivo -- going in for a header, scoring ... but walking away with a bloody face from a cut near his eye. As he left the pitch, Ronaldo used a team medic's phone to check out the damage to his second crown jewel (feet first, of course) -- and couldn't help but look annoyed AF. He certainly paid the price for Real Madrid's 6-1 lead in the 84th minute. But hey, the goal itself looked pretty sick from our POV ... for whatever that's worth. AND ANOTHER!!!!@Cristiano takes one for the team, but gets a second goal for his efforts. pic.twitter.com/fQb9Bd6YAy @beINSPORTSUSA | Entertainment |
Media|Blendle, a Journalism Payments Start-Up, Targets a U.S. Start Datehttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/media/blendle-a-journalism-payments-start-up-targets-a-us-start-date.htmlDec. 9, 2015Blendle, a publishing start-up that aims to simplify the way that people pay for journalism online, will be introduced in beta form in America in early 2016, the company said Wednesday.The company allows people to pay small amounts for individual articles, rather than having to sign up for full subscriptions to particular publications. It is backed by The New York Times and the German publishing company Axel Springer, and has more than 500,000 subscribers in Germany and the Netherlands, where it signed up major national publishers, as well as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.Paywalls are getting more and more common in the United States, Alexander Klpping, the companys founder, said in a statement. Some of the best content is only available behind those paywalls, doesnt go on the web until days after publication in print newspapers and magazines and is still viewed through an array of intrusive ads.The company, Mr. Klpping said, seeks to address those difficulties, and also curates and suggests articles, using both technology and human editors. It has been called the iTunes of journalism, a reference to Apples music store, which stores credit card details so that people can buy music easily.So-called micro-payments, or the ability for readers to quickly buy individual articles with a minimum of form-filling, have long been a hope for a beleaguered news industry struggling to make ends meet online. Many publishers are moving toward subscription models, as digital advertising remains a much less lucrative business than its declining print counterpart.The articles that have sold best so far, Blendle said, are longer, and offer background, analysis or opinion. | Business |
DealBook|Sheldon Adelson Bought the Wrong Newspaperhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/business/dealbook/sheldon-adelson-bought-the-wrong-newspaper.htmlBreakingviewsDec. 17, 2015The mystery of who bought The Las Vegas Review-Journal has been solved.But why Sheldon Adelson, who controls the casino operator Las Vegas Sands, snapped up Nevadas top paper remains unclear. Acquiring The South China Morning Post might have made more business sense.Mr. Adelson tried to keep his $140 million purchase secret by using a Delaware-based shell company. When asked whether he was the buyer, the casino mogul said he had no personal interest in the newspaper. For now at least, The Review-Journal employs investigative journalists, so its no surprise that Mr. Adelson was outed.But why own a publication with a declining circulation of around 170,000? Mr. Adelson, who got his start selling newspapers on a Boston street corner, is already a big deal in Nevada, and worth some $24 billion, according to Forbes. Hes a huge Republican donor and Nevada is an important swing state. Yet The Review-Journal is already on Mr. Adelsons side, having endorsed the Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.More to the point, Vegas represents just a sliver of Mr. Adelsons gambling empire. The $35 billion Las Vegas Sands reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, of $208 million from its Las Vegas properties in the first nine months of 2015. Sands casinos in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, now administered by China, generated $1.6 billion of Ebitda eight times as much, even after a 36 percent drop from the same period in 2014. The United States companys 70 percent stake in the Hong Konglisted parent of the Macau casinos accounts for more than half of its market capitalization.And the Macau operations need the most help. The junkets of Chinese businessmen and Communist Party officials that kept casinos humming have ground to a near halt thanks largely to President Xi Jinpings corruption crackdown. Casino gambling revenue in Macau is running 35 percent lower this year than last, and the territorys gross domestic product has shrunk by a quarter.Macaus secretary for economy recently met with casino operators to gauge their views on the crisis. Ideas like smoking bans and orders to create more family-friendly entertainment were on the table.For Mr. Adelson, the bully pulpit of a prominent newspaper in Hong Kong, close to the gambling pits of Macau, might do more for business than one in Vegas. But Alibaba, the e-commerce group founded by Jack Ma, just snapped up the Morning Post. | Business |
Verne Troyer Flexes Mini Muscles in Workout w/ NFL Prospect 1/24/2018 Verne Troyer ain't messing around when it comes to his 2018 #FitnessGoals ... CRUSHING the weight room with NFL prospect Du'Vonta Lampkin! Verne gives up 300 POUNDS to Du'Vonta ... but he did a damn good job keeping up with the former Oklahoma defensive tackle out at Sports Academy in Newbury Park -- flippin' tires and reppin' barbells like a regular frat bro. Mini-Me got teamed up with one of the largest human beings in the draft thanks to Vayner Sports ... and we're glad they did. Get it, Verne!!! | Entertainment |
Kendrick Lamar Kicks Off 2018 Grammys By 'Shooting' His Dancers 1/28/2018 CBS Kendrick Lamar started the 2018 Grammys with some violent imagery that included him fake shooting his dancers onstage. K.Dot kicked off the award show Sunday night with a politically-charged performance -- during which he "shot" down his many dancers one by one ... sound effects and all. It was a little shocking to say the least, and presenter Dave Chappelle expressed as much by asking ... "Is this on cable? On CBS?" He added ... "This brother's taking enormous chances." Looks like we're in for quite a show. | Entertainment |
Technology|Google Sets Limit on How Long It Will Store Some Datahttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/google-data-storage.htmlThe internet company has long been criticized about how much information it keeps on users. The change applies only to new accounts.Credit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesJune 24, 2020OAKLAND, Calif. After years of criticism about how it keeps a record of what people do online, Google said it would start automatically deleting location history and records of web and app activity as well as voice recordings on new accounts after 18 months.The limited change, announced on Wednesday, comes after Google introduced an option last year to allow users to automatically delete data related to their web searches, requests made with the companys virtual assistant and their location history. At the time, it offered users the ability to erase the data after three months or 18 months.The policy sets Google accounts to delete that data by default on new accounts, instead of requiring users to go into the products settings to change to an option to delete. The settings on existing accounts will remain unchanged.Google, which boasts that it has more than one billion monthly users for seven of its services, said it did not alter the settings for existing accounts because it did not want to upset users with an unexpected change. However, the company said it planned to alert users to the ability to change the deletion settings in emails and promotions on its products.The shift addresses the power of defaults, or predetermined choices made for the user, to guide peoples behavior in how they use online services. Some users never tinker with the settings, which means they do not exercise choice in the level of privacy or data collection that they prefer.While critics have argued that Google collects an abundance of data to improve the targeting of advertisement to make more money, the company has said that user data is important to personalize products and make it more useful.In the announcement on Wednesday, Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Googles parent company, Alphabet, said the company was challenging ourselves to make helpful products with less data.Google said it would also change the default setting on new YouTube accounts to erase viewing history after three years, although users can choose to delete that record after three months, 18 months or choose not to delete it at all.The company also announced other efforts aimed at making it easier to manage online privacy, including new features to make it easier to enable incognito mode a more private form of browsing in several of its products. Google said it would also add a feature to help users learn their privacy settings from its search engine by typing in a query like Google Privacy Checkup. | Tech |
Enzo Amore Denies Rape Allegations 'Cooperating with Authorities' 1/23/2018 Ex-WWE superstar Enzo Amore has broken his silence about allegations he raped a woman back in October -- claiming his accuser is lying and he's working with cops in an effort to clear his name. Amore has lawyered up and his attorney issued a statement saying, "Over the last two days, Philomena Sheahan has made multiple public accusations against Eric Arndt (also known as Enzo Amore with the WWE), including allegations of sexual misconduct concerning an October 2017 incident in Phoenix." "Mr. Arndt fully and unequivocally denies those accusations." "He is cooperating with the authorities in this matter and looks forward to having it resolved in a timely manner. Neither Mr. Arndt nor his counsel will be making any further public comments on this matter." As we previously reported, the Phoenix P.D. is investigating Amore after Sheahan claimed he raped her repeatedly in an Arizona hotel room, despite repeated pleas to stop. The WWE cut ties with Amore in light of the allegations. | Entertainment |
Despite progress on a vaccine, there is no guarantee it will be effective, experts said, and testing and contact tracing are still short of the levels needed.Credit...Pool photo by Win McNameePublished May 12, 2020Updated May 22, 2020The scientists and public health officials who are leading the federal governments response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday painted a sobering picture of a country ill-prepared to reopen and contain the spread of the virus in the coming months.At a Senate hearing, the officials cautioned that a vaccine would almost certainly not come in time to protect students for the return to school in the fall, that a recently authorized treatment was not a game-changing advance and that states must rebuild their depleted public health systems by hiring enough people before they could effectively track the spread of the virus and contain it.The nations top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, warned that if parts of the country reopen too quickly, there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control, which, in fact, paradoxically, will set you back.Dr. Fauci said that approach would lead not only to some suffering and death that could be avoided but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery, because it would almost turn the clock back rather than going forward.The discourse at the hearing, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, contrasted with the victorious tone that President Trump has taken in news conferences, when he has frequently exaggerated the adequacy of the countrys testing and has emphasized the imminent need for the country to reopen.Instead, Republican and Democratic senators alike spent hours seeking detailed information from the four experts, who, in addition to Dr. Fauci, included the heads of both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the top federal official overseeing testing. The topics included whether children should be included in clinical trials for vaccines, how often nursing homes should be tested, the availability of dental care and the consequences of keeping children out of school for too long.Testing and contact tracingThe question of testing and contact tracing why it is still inadequate, and whether it can be scaled up enough to safely allow communities to reopen came up repeatedly from senators of both parties.Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the C.D.C., said that the coronavirus outbreak went beyond the capacity of the governments contact-tracing program, and conceded: We lost the containment edge.He said the C.D.C. had retrained 500 people nationwide to help build up the contact-tracing capacity that states would need to prepare for the fall and winter. He also made several comments that reflected his dissatisfaction with the nations fragmented public health network, and his agencys outdated system of tracking and analyzing critical data from the states.Theres an archaic system, a nonintegrated public health system, Dr. Redfield said. This nation needs modern, highly capable data analytics.Adm. Brett P. Giroir, the assistant secretary of health who is overseeing the governments testing response, testified that the administration was planning to send 12.9 million testing swabs to states over the next four weeks, and that by September the country would have the ability to conduct 40 to 50 million tests per month.He also pointed to new technologies, such as a recently approved antigen test, that could further increase the capacity. The volume of testing in the United States has been steadily increasing, with nearly 400,000 new tests processed on Monday, a daily record, according to the Covid Tracking Project. But that is still not at the level that many public health experts say will be needed to safely reopen society. Some experts have said that millions of people per day must be tested in order to quickly identify hot spots and get the virus under control. That would be far more than the number Admiral Giroir was promising.Shipping millions of swabs to states does not guarantee that they will immediately begin to scale up testing. In recent weeks, the availability of supplies has eased and many testing sites are no longer experiencing shortages, but other bottlenecks have limited the number of tests that can be done, including a lack of workers to take samples from patients and a dearth of protective equipment to keep the workers safe.On Monday, a coalition of public health organizations sent a letter to Congress asking for at least $7.6 billion to increase the contact-tracing work force in the United States. The organizations say they need at least 100,000 additional contact tracers, 10,000 supervisors and 1,600 epidemiologists to rapidly build contact tracing capacity in response to the coronavirus pandemic.During the hearing, Dr. Redfield said a national surveillance system for the virus was being developed with a special focus on nursing homes where a third of the nations deaths from the coronavirus have taken place. Facilities would have to report all infections in both residents and staff members to public health authorities, and notify residents family members of cases, he said, but he was uncertain about the timing of carrying out such guidelines.Im pretty confident its operational, but I need to double-check just to make sure, he said.Reopening schoolsImageCredit...Pool photo by Toni L. SandysThe closing of schools and universities has represented one of the biggest upheavals in the outbreak. It is not clear what role children and young people play in the spread of the coronavirus, yet, at the same time, keeping schools closed prevents their parents from returning to work, a major impediment to economic recovery.If we keep kids out of school for another year, whats going to happen is the poor and underprivileged kids who dont have a parent thats able to teach them at home will not get to learn for a full year, said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who also noted that children and young people were dying at a far lower rate than older people.Dr. Fauci pushed back, however, saying that the viruss effect on children was still not well understood. We really better be very careful, particularly when it comes to children, because the more and more we learn, were seeing things about what this virus can do that we didnt see from the studies in China or in Europe, he said.He pointed to recent cases of children who tested positive for the virus and developed a serious inflammatory syndrome similar to a rare condition known as Kawasaki disease.Dr. Fauci and others said the answer might be that schools would reopen differently throughout the country, depending on the state of the local outbreak. It is not going to be universally homogeneous, he said.Other questions were raised about how students would be tested once schools reopened, especially at colleges and universities. Admiral Giroir, the assistant secretary of health, said college students could be tested using rapid tests that are expected to be more widely available in the fall.Its certainly possible to test all of the students, he said, adding that there could be a surveillance plan to test students at different times to identify the virus if it started to spread. He also pointed to experimental technologies, such as testing wastewater for the coronavirus, to see if the virus was circulating in the population.The race for a vaccineScientists hope to know by late fall or early winter whether they have at least one possible effective vaccine, Dr. Fauci told the senators.Several experimental vaccines are already being tested in humans, including one that Dr. Fauci said his institute was heavily involved in, made by the company Moderna. But, Dr. Fauci cautioned, even at the top speed were going, we dont see a vaccine playing in the ability of individuals to get to school this term.Although Dr. Fauci said he was cautiously optimistic that an effective vaccine would be developed, he warned there was no guarantee that it would happen. You can have everything you think thats in place, and you dont induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective and durably protective, he said.Another concern is disease enhancement, the possibility that a vaccine may induce an immune response that will make the illness worse instead of protecting people from the virus. We want to make sure that doesnt happen, Dr. Fauci said, adding, I still feel cautiously optimistic that we will have a candidate that will give some degree of efficacy, hopefully a percentage enough that will induce the kind of herd immunity that would give protection to the population as a whole.Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said his agency would evaluate about 10 vaccine candidates in early studies, and then select four or five to progress into larger studies in humans.He said the F.D.A. would also make sure that there were enough vials, needles, syringes and other products needed to administer a vaccine.Weve been leaning in on the supply chain to ensure that when a vaccine is ready to go, we will have the necessary supplies to actually administer it and operationalize the vaccination, Dr. Hahn said.Asked by Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, what steps had been taken to make sure clinical trials for treatments and vaccines account for racial and ethnic disparities, Dr. Fauci replied that the clinical trials were designed with sites chosen to include both minority populations and populations at high risk.Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, pressed the officials to guarantee that if a vaccine becomes available, it will be available free to everyone, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. Dr. Hahn said he shared that concern, but when Mr. Sanders asked if that meant he would make sure everyone had access, Dr. Hahn replied, Sir, the payment of vaccines is not a responsibility of the F.D.A., but Im glad to take this back to the task force.Mr. Sanders then addressed the admiral, asking him: Mr. Giroir, do you think we should make that vaccine, when hopefully it is created, available to all regardless of income? Or do you think that poor people, working people, should be last in line for the vaccine?Admiral Giroir agreed that everyone should be able to get a vaccine, but added that he did not control whether that was the case. I will certainly advocate that everyone is able to receive the vaccine regardless of income or any other circumstance, he said.ImmunityImageCredit...Pool photo by Toni L. SandysMr. Paul, the Kentucky senator, made a series of assertions about the medical science that were intended to suggest that reopening parts of the country might not be as dangerous as public health experts have suggested.Mr. Paul, who is also a physician, cited several studies suggesting that recovered coronavirus patients have some form of immunity, and said that the findings were not being reported by the news media. In fact, the findings have been covered widely by The New York Times and other news outlets. Governments worldwide have seized on the findings to suggest that widespread use of antibody testing may be the key to reopening economies.The few antibody surveys available suggest that fewer than 5 percent of Americans have been exposed to the virus and may have antibodies, except in places like New York City and the Bay Area in California. That means that a vast majority of Americans are still vulnerable to the virus.The World Health Organization recently reminded government officials that scientists still did not know how strong immunity might be in recovered patients, or how long it could last.Mr. Paul cited Sweden, which has generally allowed businesses to stay open, as a model for coping with the pandemic. But the jury is still out: The coronavirus death rate in Sweden is actually higher than that in the United States.Roni Caryn Rabin contributed reporting. | Health |
TrilobitesMadagascars Got Talent: Lemurs That Sing With RhythmFor the first time, researchers have found a nonhuman animal that seems to have a sense of the beat.VideoThey sound like air being squeezed out of a balloon, but a closer listen showed lemur songs are rhythmic.CreditCredit...University of TurinOct. 25, 2021Our distant primate relative, the Indri indri, is a critically endangered species of lemur found only in Madagascar. These black-and-white primates are the weight of a small dog and look like a cross between a cat and a koala. And they sound depending on whom you ask like the shriek of a balloon quickly releasing air.Andrea Ravignani, a cognitive biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, disagrees with the balloon part.Every scientific discipline has its concept of beauty, but I think their vocalizations are beautiful, he said. And also quite complex.Dr. Ravignani and his colleagues investigated that complexity and found that, although the last common ancestor between humans and indris lived over 77 million years ago, were more similar than you may think, at least when it comes to singing. They published their findings on Monday in Current Biology.Singing and rhythm in other animals have intrigued scientists for decades, in part because they can provide us insight into our own evolution.We can infer things about when, and how, we acquired certain key aspects of musicality, like our ability to move to a beat or coordinate our pitch with others, said Aniruddh Patel, who was not involved in the study but whose research at Tufts University focuses on music cognition in humans and other species, like Snowball the cockatoo. You may have seen Snowball bopping to the beat of Everybody (Backstreets Back) by the Backstreet Boys in a late-2000s YouTube video.Following Snowball, there were rhythm findings in other organisms like parakeets and a California sea lion named Ronan. But the rhythmic capabilities of our closer relatives, especially as they related to singing, remained more mysterious.Only a few primate species sing, so they are precious resources in our search for the evolutionary origins of human musicality, Dr. Patel said.ImageCredit...Filippo CarugatiResearchers from Madagascar and the University of Turin recorded songs from 20 indri groups (39 animals total) for over 12 years and searched those songs for rhythmic features found in human music. They discovered two examples of humanlike rhythm in the lemur songs: a 1:1 rhythm, in which intervals between two sounds have the same duration, and a 1:2 rhythm, in which the second interval is twice as long as the first one. They also noticed a gradual decrease in tempo, a common feature in human music called a ritardando.This is the first time these categorical rhythms have been identified in a nonhuman mammal. The findings suggest that the lemurs have a sense of the beat, the repeating pulse that allows us OK, some of us to move in time with music.When youre listening to a musical piece and dancing to it, youre basically processing this very complex stream of sounds, extracting some regularities from it, and then predicting whats coming next, Dr. Ravignani said. If an indri had some sort of metronome in its head going tac, tac, tac, then they would likely produce what we see. Its so close to human music its quite astonishing.Whether this musical overlap between humans and indris is a case of common ancestry or convergent evolution where our rhythmic abilities evolved independently remains unclear. The researchers suspect its a combination of the two.ImageCredit...Filippo CarugatiIt is easy to suggest that rhythmic categories may have followed the same evolutionary trajectory in singing species such as songbirds, indris and humans, said Chiara De Gregorio, a researcher at the University of Turin and study co-author. But we cant rule out that human music is not truly novel but possesses intrinsic musical properties that are more deeply rooted in the primate lineage than previously thought.Exploring our commonalities with indris is helping to demystify the evolutionary origins of human music, but it is also bringing much-needed attention to these lemurs who are of incredible cultural importance to the Malagasy people. | science |
Politics|Senator Loefflers loss makes an awkward backdrop for her starring role in seeking to overturn Trumps loss.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/senator-loefflers-loss-makes-an-awkward-backdrop-for-her-starring-role-in-seeking-to-overturn-trumps-loss.htmlCredit...Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021Senator Kelly Loefflers stinging loss in Georgia trained increased scrutiny on the prominent role she planned to play on Wednesday in seeking to overturn President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory in her home state when Congress meets to formalize his Electoral College win.Ms. Loeffler had announced on Monday, ahead of a pair of high-stakes Georgia runoffs that will determine Senate control, that she was planning to join the small group of senators lodging objections, and a person familiar with her thinking said Tuesday that she would likely focus on Georgia. But with the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, declared the winner by The Associated Press, Ms. Loeffler found herself in an awkward position: a lame duck senator contemplating a starring role in a politically fraught fight for a president who clearly lost. Her promise to object may have helped gin up turnout among the presidents loyal supporters in Georgia, but it does little for Ms. Loeffler now that the election has passed. In a speech to supporters late Tuesday night, she did not concede and said she still planned to travel to Washington to contest Mr. Trumps loss.In the morning, in fact, Im going to be headed to Washington, D.C., to keep fighting, she said. Were going to fight for this president, so I am asking for every single Georgian, every single American: Stay in the fight with us.A spokesman for the senator did not respond to questions on Wednesday morning seeking to clarify her position.Other senators could still join House members to object to Georgias electors, but so far, few senators have been willing to raise their hands for a job their own Republican leaders have warned will dangerously divide the party and embarrass the Senate.If Georgias results go unchallenged, it could speed up the counting process by three to four hours.Despite her loss, Ms. Loeffler remains a senator until the race is certified and Mr. Warnock is sworn in because of election law governing special elections in Georgia. Her fellow Republican, Senator David Perdue, who was trailing his Democratic opponent in a runoff for a regularly scheduled election, already had to forfeit his seat when his term expired last week. | Politics |
George Lopez I Quit Golf!!! Until Trump Passes DREAM 1/31/2018 TMZ.com George Lopez is ditching his love affair with golf to stand in solidarity with DACA. We got the comedian leaving the Laugh Factory Tuesday night in WeHo and asked him about Trump's first State of the Union address. GLo laughed it off, but then got serious about the DREAM Act -- which would allow undocumented children of immigrants to go to school, work and eventually become U.S. residents. Seems like George had a few drinks before we got him, but it also seems like he's dead serious about the protest. He's scheduled to host his 11th Annual Celebrity Golf Classic in May ... so, the clock's ticking. | Entertainment |
New York to Delist Chinese Telecom Firms in Symbolic ShiftThe move follows an order from the Trump administration, which says the companies are tied to Chinas military. But they dont need Wall Street as much as they once did. Credit...Tingshu Wang/ReutersJan. 1, 2021The New York Stock Exchange said it would delist Chinas three big state-run telecommunications companies following an executive order from the Trump administration, in a symbolic severing of longstanding ties between the Chinese business world and Wall Street.The exchange said in a statement late Thursday that it would halt trading in shares of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom by Jan. 11. It cited an executive order issued in November by the Trump administration that barred Americans from investing in companies with ties to the Chinese military. The United States Department of Defense had previously listed the three companies as having significant connections to Chinese military and security forces.The companies Hong Kong offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday, the New Years Day holiday. The delistings were widely expected after the executive order was issued in November. The order was part of a broader effort by American officials to weaken the extensive economic links between the United States and China, including Chinese access to Wall Street money. The move is likely to have little impact on Chinas military or security ambitions, which are generously funded by Beijing, or on the companies themselves, which can raise money from international investors by selling shares in Hong Kong. Still, the delisting of the three telecom giants reflects Chinas rise in power and wealth, as well as the growing estrangement between the worlds two biggest economies. It also highlights the faltering of long-established business ties between the United States and China, which were set up over decades as China sought to internationalize and reform its state-run corporate behemoths.All three companies operate under Beijings firm control. They are ultimately owned by a government agency, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and are often ordered to pursue Beijings goals. Chinas ruling Communist Party sometimes shuffles executives among the three companies. They are the only three companies in China that are allowed to provide broad telecommunications network services, which Beijing regards as a strategic industry that must remain under state control. Such big, state-controlled firms have long been seen by economists and even some Chinese officials as holding back the countrys growth.China Mobile, the largest of the three companies, first listed its shares in New York in 1997, at a pivotal time for the Chinese economy. Reform-minded officials in Beijing were trying to get economic growth back on track, after Chinas 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests frightened off foreign investors and delayed what the officials saw as necessary overhauls.One such overhaul had to do with bloated state-owned enterprises. Chinas leaders forced them to lay off workers and focus on profits and productivity. Listing shares in the United States, the thinking went, would make them more responsive to investors and more driven to focus on the bottom line. China Mobile was one of the first major Chinese state-owned enterprises to sell shares in New York. The other telecom companies followed, as did state-run banks, oil companies and airlines. Major private Chinese companies have also sold shares there, including Alibaba, the online shopping giant, which in 2014 held what was then the worlds largest initial public offering in New York. Today, Chinas need for Wall Streets money and know-how has diminished. The stock exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong are among the worlds largest. Underscoring the shift, Alibaba last year listed shares in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese city that allows investors to move money freely across its borders, unlike the mainland. Chinese leaders view of state-owned enterprises has also changed. Xi Jinping, Chinas top leader, has talked about making state companies bigger and stronger rather than more streamlined. That has led to concerns among some economists and entrepreneurs that the Chinese government is taking a greater role in private enterprise. | Business |
In April, armed protesters crowded into the State Capitol in Michigan. Frightened lawmakers saw echoes of that day in Wednesdays deadly riot at the Capitol in Washington.Credit...Seth Herald/ReutersJan. 9, 2021LANSING, Mich. First came the Unlock Michigan protest. More than 1,000 cars, many draped with flags supporting President Trump, drove around the Michigan State Capitol, blaring their horns and decrying Gov. Gretchen Whitmers coronavirus lockdown orders. Hundreds of others, many armed with military-style weapons, milled about on the lawn.Two weeks later, on April 30, the dissent escalated. Gun-toting protesters rushed the State Capitol, not long after Mr. Trump tweeted Liberate Michigan. They demanded entry into the House of Representatives chamber, chanting Let Us In.A handful of them, wearing camouflage fatigues with semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders, watched ominously from the gallery above the Senate chamber as the elected officials did their work. The lawmakers passed bills and resolutions and gave angry floor speeches about the extraordinary show of force looking down at them. At least two of the protesters were among 14 people later charged in a failed plot to kidnap Ms. Whitmer and bomb the state Capitol.On Wednesday, as a mob of pro-Trump loyalists breached the U.S. Capitol in Washington after an angry rally focused on overturning the election President Trump had lost, Michigan State Senator Sylvia Santana watched in stunned but not surprised horror.She had worn a bulletproof vest onto the states Senate floor back in April, and now was watching a similarly frightening episode unfold in Washington.Michigan was the precursor for what happened, she said in an interview on Thursday. The same feeling that I had Wednesday was the same feeling I had back in April, when I feared that I might not make it back home to my family. Those are the same feelings I felt on the Senate floor that day with those men up in the gallery with large weapons looming over us and knowing that they could get trigger happy at any time.She was not alone.State Senator Erika Geiss, a Democrat from Taylor, Mich., who now keeps a bulletproof vest at her desk, watched the events in Washington with the same sense of recognition and dread.What I saw on Wednesday really made me feel like what happened here this past spring and summer was a dress rehearsal for what happened in Washington, she said. It was the same energy that was present at the Capitol in Michigan. It was just palpable coming through the television screen.Amy Cooter, an expert on domestic terror groups and a lecturer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said it was not difficult to draw a line straight from those early rallies in Michigan to Washington and even earlier, to Charlottesville, Va., when white supremacists marched through the streets in 2017, chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans and clashing with counter protesters. And given the general lack of consequences in Michigan last spring, this becomes normalized and legitimate and made it easier to scale up to what unfolded in Washington.But State Representative Beau LaFave, a Republican from Michigans Upper Peninsula, said its a stretch to connect those dots. There were a lot of angry people at both things, but nobody did any damage or hurt anyone in Michigan, he said. They were angry and yelling, but they didnt punch any cops, and they didnt do any damage inside the building.Indeed, while the protest in April was loud and tense, it did not get violent, although one person was arrested after an altercation between two men outside. But the rhetoric in the crowds at protests in April and May was heated. One protester carried a sign that read, Tyrants Get the Rope, and another carried an American flag that had a doll made to look like Ms. Whitmer hanging from it.Meshawn Maddock, head of the national organization, Women for Trump, and in line to become the vice-chair of the states Republican Party, helped organize that Unlock Michigan rally in April and recently organized busloads of Michiganders to travel to Washington. Photos and videos from the rally in the nations capital filled her social media pages and, while walking toward the U.S. Capitol, she praised the most incredible crowd and sea of people Ive ever worked with.While she attended the rally outside the Ellipse, she said she was not at the Capitol when the mob of Trump supporters stormed the building, and she later condemned the violence.On Wednesday, while Ms. Maddock was in Washington, several hundred people gathered outside Michigans statehouse to protest the election certification happening nearly 600 miles away. The statehouse was closed, though, to comply with Covid rules that it be shuttered when the Legislature is not in session. The rally, which featured Trump flags and hats and a handful of men armed with weapons, remained peaceful and pointed. One protester waved a Trump flag that had four bobblehead dolls hanging from it: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.Michigan is an open carry state, so it is not unusual to see armed individuals walking the halls of the state Capitol. The Capitol Commission, the body that sets rules and approves maintenance projects for the building, debated banning guns in the Capitol after that April protest, but no action has been taken.ImageCredit...Nicole Hester/Ann Arbor News, via Associated PressJohn Truscott, a member of the commission, recalled an incident in the early 1990s, when some welfare rights advocates stormed the Capitol and burned flags in the buildings Rotunda to protest budget cuts during former Gov. John Englers State of the State speech.It seems so quaint now, he said of the 1990s protest. That group had spotlights and bullhorns and were throwing snowballs at the windows. I dont think anyone was prepared for what we saw [in Washington.] Well be discussing these things going forward.The need for a discussion was heightened Thursday when a bomb threat was called into the Capitol shortly before 7 a.m. Though closed to the public, state employees who were in the building were evacuated while it was swept by Michigan State Police, who found no bomb but later charged a 48-year-old man with making the threat.Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican from Clarklake, Mich., said he is amenable to banning open carry in the Capitol, but would not want to prohibit all guns there.Michigan is not the only state where guns are welcome at the Statehouse.In Texas, where the embrace of guns dates back to the states frontier culture, firearms are often visible in protests and other public gatherings. Texans with a state-issued permit can carry handguns either concealed or openly and no licenses are required to openly carry shotguns or rifles.Several pistols and rifles, including at least one AR-15, were visible among more than 200 protesters, predominantly supporters of Mr. Trump, who converged in a largely peaceful demonstration near the State Capitol in Austin on Wednesday as the chaos unfolded in Washington.State law enforcement officers ultimately banned the protesters from the State Capitol grounds out of concern that the Texas demonstrations would turn ugly. Anyone licensed to carry guns in Texas can tote them anywhere inside the Texas Capitol by showing their permit to a Department of Public Safety trooper at the Capitol entrance.But the combination of the April incident and the invasion of the Capitol in Washington has left nerves particularly raw for many Michigan legislators.State Senator Dayna Polehanki, a suburban Detroit Democrat, bought extra work supplies during the Christmas break a police helmet, gas mask and can of mace that she said she will store along with her bulletproof vest at her desk in the Senate chamber. She posted pictures of the armed men in the Senate gallery in April that went viral and has been calling for more substantive gun bans and safety policies in the building ever since. Her resolve only grew after Wednesdays riot in Washington.She said that after seeing what happened in Washington, I cant say with certainty that it wouldnt happen here too. Those insurrectionists won the day. The difference here is that guns are welcome in our Capitol.ImageCredit...Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal, via Associated PressDavid Montgomery contributed reporting from Austin, Texas. | Politics |
Three recent developments incremental and undramatic but encouraging are likely to improve the lives and health of seniors.Credit...Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersFeb. 28, 2022The Covid pandemic has presented older Americans with plenty of grim news, from staffing shortages in long-term care and hospices to the punishing effects of loneliness and isolation. But there have been encouraging developments too the kind of incremental progress that can take years to achieve, as lawsuits wend their way through courts, bills die in state legislatures and rise again, and the pandemic complicates everything.The results are not always dramatic, but they can improve lives and health for older people, especially those with low income. Here are three.A New Right to Appeal Medicare DecisionsFirst, a federal appellate court recently ruled that if Medicare declines to pay for your rehabilitation in a nursing home after youve left the hospital, because you were on observation, you can appeal the decision.This issue has boggled patients and families for years. You were in a hospital bed, doctors and nurses provided care, you were examined and perhaps received medication, but you were not actually admitted. Or you were, and then the hospital changed your status to on observation. Technically you were an outpatient, not an inpatient.But Medicare requires three consecutive days as an inpatient for you to be eligible for nursing home coverage. So you are left either having to pay the tab yourself (the national average nursing home cost is $260 a day) or forgoing care. In fact, if you are among the 9 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who dont have Part B, which covers outpatient care, you must pay the hospital bill, too.Hundreds of thousands of patients discharged from hospitals have probably faced this conundrum. You can appeal just about every issue regarding your Medicare coverage, but not that one, said Alice Bers, litigation director at the Center for Medicare Advocacy.To change this, the center along with Justice in Aging and a private law firm sued the federal Department of Health and Human Services in 2011.Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that Medicare beneficiaries have a constitutional right to appeal if hospitals reclassify them as observation patients. If patients win their appeals, traditional Medicare will pay for up to 100 days of nursing home care, and those who were previously forced to pay out-of-pocket could receive refunds. (Medicare Advantage plans dont generally require the three-day stay.)The Center for Medicare Advocacy answers frequent questions here.One catch: The government could still ask the Supreme Court to take the case, or seek a rehearing by the Second Circuit court. And the Medicare appeals process is no picnic. People have the best chance of winning if they persist and work their way up through the levels, Ms. Bers said.Repealing the three-day requirement would take Congressional action. But at least with the right to appeal, you have a fighting chance.California Eases Medicaid QualificationsIn a second promising development, California is eliminating asset limits for older people who are trying to qualify for Medicaid, and other states are considering similar moves.Medicaid, the state and federal program that provides health care for the poor and for people with disabilities, and also pays for long-term care in nursing homes and at home, sets strict ceilings on recipients wealth. In most states, if you are older than 65, you can amass no more than $2,000 in assets, or $3,000 for a couple (usually with a home and a car exempted).It makes people live in very deep poverty, unable to save for emergencies or even modest expenditures, said Amber Christ, director of health care policy and advocacy for Justice in Aging. If you go over the limit by a dollar, you lose eligibility.California will abolish this ceiling in two steps. In July, the asset limit rises to $130,000 for an individual and another $65,000 for each family member. In July 2024, the state will discard asset limits altogether. If you are older or disabled, you will qualify for Medi-Cal (as California calls its Medicaid program) if your income does not exceed 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The state estimates that about 17,000 residents will become newly eligible.Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has incorporated a similar measure in her proposed state budget, eliminating asset limits as of Jan. 1, 2023; the state legislature will tackle the budget in March. Arizona eliminated asset limits in 2001, although not for long-term care, and other states are looking into the approach, Ms. Christ said.One catch: This year, 138 percent of the federal poverty level amounts to an annual income of $17,774. Medi-Cal recipients must still be poor, but less poor than before, and will be better able to hold onto their health coverage.Social Security Offices to ReopenImageCredit...Fred Prouser/ReutersIn a third piece of a good news, the Social Security Administration has finally announced that it will soon reopen its 1,200 local offices.Except for limited dire need appointments made at the discretion of managers, offices have remained closed since the pandemic hit in March of 2020. Now, said Mark Hinkle, a spokesman for the agency, we anticipate that local field offices will restore increased in-person service to the public, without an appointment, in early April.This matters. There are things that have to be done in person for Social Security, said Kate Lang, senior staff attorney at Justice in Aging. You can apply online for retirement benefits but not for survivors benefits or for Supplemental Security Income, or S.S.I., which helps support seniors with very low income.These in-person requirements have meant that hundreds of thousands of applicants who would normally walk into local Social Security offices, carrying the required original documents, have been out of luck for two years.Moreover, people already on benefits have gotten notices saying their benefits are being reduced or discontinued, and theyre unable to get in touch with anyone at Social Security to find out whats going on, Ms. Lang said. Theres no way to fix these problems.Trying to reach Social Security by phone can be an exercise in frustration. A report from the agencys inspector general found that monthly calls to field offices rose from 4.6 million before the pandemic to 7.5 million in April through September 2020, and to 12 million in March of 2021. If you called field offices or the national 1-800 number, you often encountered busy signals or long waits; many callers abandoned the effort.Even after the Social Security Administration agreed to reopen offices, protracted negotiations with its uneasy employees followed. But the agency and its unions have reached agreements, although they are still working out the logistics of reopening.One catch: Visitors to a field office will likely face occupancy limits, and the agency must cope with huge backlogs. In an email, Mr. Hinkle said that the agency encourages the public to use its online or phone services when possible and to schedule in-person appointments in advance.Ms. Lang noted: Its not like everything will be hunky dory on April 1. In fact, Justice in Aging has brought a class-action suit against the Social Security Administration on behalf of S.S.I. recipients who were unable to provide information or challenge decisions while offices were shuttered.But, Mr. Hinkle said, offices will reopen this spring dependent on the course of the pandemic indisputably a good thing. | Health |
Politics|Trump Falsely Claims Were Now Exporting Energy for the First Time https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/us/politics/fact-check-trump-energy-exporter.htmlFact Check of the DayThe United States has been exporting energy for decades, and is not projected to become a net exporter until 2022. June 6, 2018what was said Were now exporting energy for the first time. Never did it. Now were exporting energy. President Trump, speaking at a briefing at FEMA headquarters on Wednesday. the factsFalse. The United States has exported energy sources like coal, natural gas, petroleum and electricity for decades, so Mr. Trump is wrong that this is happening for the first time. Asked on Wednesday for clarification, the White House referred to the Energy Information Administrations latest annual outlook, which projected that the United States would become a net energy exporter by 2022 meaning that at that point, the country will export more energy than it imports. Thats neither now nor the first time. Currently, the United States is still a net importer. Additionally, data from the energy statistical agency shows that the United States was a net exporter for several years before 1953. The White House also cited a March report from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that said the United States became a net exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2017 the first time since 1957. The United States is and has been a net energy exporter of coal since at least 1949. Conversely, the country has relied on foreign oil imports since the 1950s. Sources: White House, Energy Information Administration, House Committee on Energy and Commerce | Politics |
Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMarch 8, 2017LONDON The London newsroom and studios of RT, the television channel and website formerly known as Russia Today, are ultramodern and spacious, with spectacular views from the 16th floor overlooking the Thames and the London Eye. And, its London bureau chief, Nikolay A. Bogachikhin, jokes, We overlook MI5 and were near MI6, Britains domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.Mr. Bogachikhin was poking fun at the charge from Western governments, American and European, that RT is an agent of Kremlin policy and a tool directly used by President Vladimir V. Putin to undermine Western democracies meddling in the recent American presidential election and, European security officials say, trying to do the same in the Netherlands, France and Germany, all of which vote later this year.But the West is not laughing. Even as Russia insists that RT is just another global network like the BBC or France 24, albeit one offering alternative views to the Western-dominated news media, many Western countries regard RT as the slickly produced heart of a broad, often covert disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about democratic institutions and destabilize the West.Western attention focused on RT when the Obama administration and United States intelligence agencies judged with high confidence in January that Mr. Putin had ordered a campaign to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, discredit Hillary Clinton through the hacking of Democratic Party internal emails and provide support for Donald J. Trump, who as a candidate said he wanted to improve relations with Russia.The agencies issued a report saying the attack was carried out through the targeted use of real information, some open and some hacked, and the creation of false reports, or fake news, broadcast on state-funded news media like RT and its sibling, the internet news agency Sputnik. These reports were then amplified on social media, sometimes by computer bots that send out thousands of Facebook and Twitter messages.To many Americans, the impression that RT is an instrument of Russian meddling was reinforced when its programming suddenly interrupted C-Spans online coverage of the House of Representatives in January. (C-Span later called it a technical error, not a hacking.)Watching RT can be a dizzying experience. Hard news and top-notch graphics mix with interviews from all sorts of people: well known and obscure, left and right. They include favorites like Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and Noam Chomsky, the liberal critic of Western policies; odd voices like the actress Pamela Anderson; and cranks who think Washington is the source of all evil in the world.But if there is any unifying character to RT, it is a deep skepticism of Western and American narratives of the world and a fundamental defensiveness about Russia and Mr. Putin.ImageCredit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAnalysts are sharply divided about the influence of RT. Pointing to its minuscule ratings numbers, many caution against overstating its impact. Yet focusing on ratings may miss the point, says Peter Pomerantsev, who wrote a book three years ago that described Russias use of television for propaganda. Ratings arent the main thing for them, he said. These are campaigns for financial, political and media influence.RT and Sputnik propel those campaigns by helping create the fodder for thousands of fake news propagators and providing another outlet for hacked material that can serve Russian interests, said Ben Nimmo, who studies RT for the Atlantic Council.Whatever its impact, RT is unquestionably a case study in the complexity of modern propaganda. It is both a slick modern television network, dressed up with great visuals and stylish presenters, and a content farm that helps feed the European far right. Viewers find it difficult to discern exactly what is journalism and what is propaganda, what may be fake news and what is real but presented with a strong slant.A recent evening featured reports of Britain refusing to condemn human rights violations in Bahrain and a mainstream media firestorm over Attorney General Jeff Sessionss chats with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Other reports included the liberation of Palmyra by the Syrian Army with the support of the Russian Air Force; an interview with former British ambassador to Syria and a United States critic, Peter Ford; and a report about a London professor decrying the fall in British living standards.There are clickbait videos on RTs website and stranger pieces, too, like one about a petition to ban the financier George Soros from America for supposedly trying to destabilize the country and drown it with immigrants for a globalist goal.Mr. Bogachikhin and Anna Belkina, RTs head of communications in Moscow, insist it is absurd to lump together RTs effort to provide alternative views to the mainstream media with the phenomena of fake news and social media propaganda.Theres an hysteria about RT, Ms. Belkina said. RT becomes a shorthand for everything.For example, she says, while RT was featured heavily in the American intelligence report, it was largely in a seven-page annex (of a 13-page report) that was written more than four years ago, in December 2012, a fact revealed only in a footnote on Page 6.She flatly denies any suggestion that RT seeks to meddle in democratic elections anywhere. The kind of scrutiny were under we check everything.ImageCredit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesFor RT and its viewers, the outlet is a refreshing alternative to what they see as complacent Western elitism and neo-liberalism, representing what the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov recently called a post-West world order.With its slogan, created by a Western ad agency, of Question More, RT is trying to fill a niche, Ms. Belkina said. We want to complete the picture rather than add to the echo chamber of mainstream news; thats how we find an audience.Nearly all the mainstream media came out against Mr. Trump during the campaign and much of the news coverage about him was negative, she said.This is why we exist, Ms. Belkina said. Its important to watch RT to hear alternative voices. You might not agree with them, but its important to try to understand where theyre coming from and why.A French legislator, Nicolas Dhuicq, who has appeared on RT and went to Russian-annexed Crimea in 2015 as part of a delegation of French legislators, said that RTs aim was to make the voice of Russia heard, to make the Russian point of view on the world heard.Still, Mr. Dhuicq said, the impact of RT, in my opinion, is very low. He added: There is enormous paranoia when we imagine that RT will change the face of the world, influence national or other elections.Afshin Rattansi, who hosts a talk show three times a week called Going Underground, came to RT in 2013 after working at the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and Irans Press TV. Unlike at the BBC and CNN, I was never told what to say at RT, he said. There have been two cases of RT announcers quitting because of what they said was pressure to toe a Kremlin line, especially on Ukraine, but not in London, Mr. Rattansi said.Michael McFaul, a Stanford professor who was the United States ambassador to Russia during the Obama years, said that RT should not be lightly dismissed. There is a demand in certain countries for this alternative view, an appetite, and we arrogant Americans shouldnt just think that no one cares.ImageCredit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesBut there is a considerably darker view, too. For critics, RT and Sputnik are simply tools of a sophisticated Russian propaganda machine, created by the Kremlin to push its foreign policy, defend its aggression in Ukraine and undermine confidence in democracy, NATO and the world as we have known it.Robert Pszczel, who ran NATOs information office in Moscow and watches Russia and the western Balkans for NATO, said that RT and Sputnik were not meant for domestic consumption, unlike the BBC or CNN. Over time, he said, Its more about hard power and disinformation.The Kremlin doesnt care if you agree with Russian policy or think Putin is wonderful, so long as it does the job you start having doubts, and of 10 outrageous points you take on one or two, he said. A bit of mud will always stick.Probably more important than RT, Mr. Pszczel said, are Sputnik and local language outlets sponsored by Russia, like the Slovak magazine Zem a Vek, known for its conspiracy theories. Sputnik is the largest source of raw news in the Balkans, he said, because its a free product in local languages. And then they set up some friendly association, at some small university, which holds seminars, and then a number of strange websites start promoting the product, like an industrial marketing operation.But RT is also helpful in another traditional Moscow effort: making friends with useful people, and not just Mr. Assange, Mr. Pomerantsev said. RT made Mike Flynn feel good after losing his job as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he said, paying him a reported $40,000 to come to RTs anniversary celebration in Moscow and sit near Mr. Putin. And Mr. Flynn, for a time, was national security adviser of the United States.Mr. Nimmo of the Atlantic Council noted RTs small reach in Germany, where Angela Merkel, a Putin critic, is facing a tough re-election fight, and where there are up to 3.5 million Russian speakers. I strongly suspect that RT Deutsch has a trivial effect compared to Russian-speaking Germans watching Russian television, he said.Stefan Meister, who studies Russia and Central Europe for the German Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that we shouldnt overestimate RT. The main success of the Russians is the link to social media through bots and a network of different sources. That network, he said, is increasingly well organized, with more strategic and explicit links between sources and actors Russian domestic media, troll factories, RT, people in social networks and maybe also the security services.Open societies are very vulnerable, Mr. Meister said, and its cheaper than buying a new rocket.RT is part of the reality of the 21st century, Mr. Pomerantsev said. Everyone will do it soon. Its the world we have to live in. Hacks and leaks are much more disruptive, he said. If you can take out the electrical grid in Ukraine, thats scary. Its hard to get too scared about Larry King on RT.Mr. Pomerantsev agrees with Ms. Belkina that RT is not inventing popular mistrust about Western democracy. The Russians are about sowing mistrust about institutions that is there already, feeding it, he said. How do we make our institutions more trustworthy? | World |
Credit...Mic Smith/Associated PressHomeowners are slowly growing wary of buying property in the areas most at risk, setting up a potential economic time bomb in an industry that is struggling to adapt.Waves crashing over an experimental sea wall built to protect homes during high tide in Isle of Palms, S.C., last year.Credit...Mic Smith/Associated PressNov. 24, 2016MIAMI Real estate agents looking to sell coastal properties usually focus on one thing: how close the home is to the waters edge. But buyers are increasingly asking instead how far back it is from the waterline. How many feet above sea level? Is it fortified against storm surges? Does it have emergency power and sump pumps?Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.A warming planet has already forced a number of industries coal, oil, agriculture and utilities among them to account for potential future costs of a changed climate. The real estate industry, particularly along the vulnerable coastlines, is slowly awakening to the need to factor in the risks of catastrophic damage from climate change, including that wrought by rising seas and storm-driven flooding.But many economists say that this reckoning needs to happen much faster and that home buyers urgently need to be better informed. Some analysts say the economic impact of a collapse in the waterfront property market could surpass that of the bursting dot-com and real estate bubbles of 2000 and 2008.The fallout would be felt by property owners, developers, real estate lenders and the financial institutions that bundle and resell mortgages.Over the past five years, home sales in flood-prone areas grew about 25 percent less quickly than in counties that do not typically flood, according to county-by-county data from Attom Data Solutions, the parent company of RealtyTrac. Many coastal residents are rethinking their investments and heading for safer ground.I dont see how this town is going to defeat the water, said Brent Dixon, a resident of Miami Beach who plans to move north and away from the coast in anticipation of worsening king tides, the highest predicted tide of the year. The water always wins.These concerns have taken on a new urgency since the presidential election of Donald J. Trump, who has long been a skeptic of global warming, claiming in 2012 that it was a concept created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.A real estate developer, Mr. Trump is also the owner of several South Florida properties, including Mar-a-Lago, a 20-acre site that stretches between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway in Palm Beach.Mr. Trumps recent selection of Myron Ebell to lead his Environmental Protection Agency transition team intensified these worries in Florida and among many climate scientists. Mr. Ebell has helped lead the charge against the scientific consensus that global warming exists and is caused by people.ImageCredit...Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesState lawmakers in Massachusetts and New Jersey are pushing to impose new rules on real estate agents and others, obligating them to disclose climate-related damage like previous flooding.Banks and insurers need to protect their collateral and investors more by improving their methods for estimating climate-change risks and creating more standardized rules for reporting them publicly, economists warn.In April, Sean Becketti, the chief economist for Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giant, issued a dire prediction. It is only a matter of time, he wrote, before sea level rise and storm surges become so unbearable along the coast that people will leave, ditching their mortgages and potentially triggering another housing meltdown except this time, it would be unlikely that these housing prices would ever recover.ImageCredit...Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesSome residents will cash out early and suffer minimal losses, he wrote. Others will not be so lucky.Bulls-Eye for Property DamageMuch of the uncertainty surrounding climate change focuses on the pace of the rise in sea levels. But some argue that this misses the point because property values will probably go under water long before the properties themselves do.What is often called nuisance flooding inundation caused more by tides than weather is already affecting property values. Often just a foot or two deep, this type of flooding can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars and contaminate groundwater.ImageCredit...Max Reed for The New York TimesFlorida has six of the 10 American urban centers most vulnerable to storm surge, according to a 2016 report from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. Southeast Florida experiences about 10 tidal floods per year now. That number is likely to be around 240 floods per year by 2045, according to climate researchers.In the past year, home sales have increased 2.6 percent nationally, but have dropped about 7.6 percent in high-risk flood zones in Miami-Dade County, according to housing data. Many coastal cities are taking steps toward mitigation, digging runoff tunnels, elevating roads and building detention ponds.James Murley, Miami-Dades chief resilience officer, said it was important to avoid spooking the market since real estate investment produces much of the revenue that pays for these upgrades. This balancing act is especially important in Florida because the state and localities rely heavily on property and sales taxes for funding such projects.Florida is not alone. Forty percent of Americans live and work in coastal areas, and those who can afford it are protecting their investments by building private bulkheads and lifting their homes onto stilts. But skeptics question the logic of upgrading individual properties if the surrounding areas do not keep pace and flooding or the rise in sea levels swamps nearby roads.For many home buyers and owners, the cost of flood insurance is a growing worry. As premiums rise, property values fall, a trend already hurting home prices in places like Atlantic City, Norfolk, Va., and St. Petersburg, Fla., according to local real estate agents.Roy and Carol Baker, who now live in Sarasota, Fla., recalled trying for several months to sell their home in nearby Siesta Key in 2014. Interested buyers kept backing out of the purchase when they found out that the annual flood insurance premium was roughly $7,000, they said.This experience will become more common, economists say, as the federal government shifts away from subsidizing flood insurance rates to get premiums closer to reflecting the true market cost of the risk.ImageCredit...Max Reed for The New York TimesAs difficult as it is to predict the pace of climate change, modeling how it will affect the real estate market is even more complicated. Like a game of hot potato, builders, homeowners, banks, flood insurers and buyers of securitized mortgages try to hand off risky properties before getting burned. Developers erect houses and sell them typically within a couple of years, long before their investments depreciate. Banks earn commissions even on risky home loans before bundling these mortgages into securities and selling them to large pension funds, insurers or other buyers.Home buyers tend to think short term, focus on what they can afford and hope that the local infrastructure keeps pace with the rise in sea levels. Home buyers are also generally on their own as they look at prospective properties and try to size up their risk, as real estate agents vary in what they disclose.Most real estate agents say they try to tackle the issue head-on, providing clients with maps indicating federally declared high-risk flood zones, and using climate-change preparedness as a selling point, emphasizing if the house has a backup generator or shingles that can withstand hurricane-strength winds.But real estate agents risk putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage by overstating threats. Good information is hard to come by. No one knows whether, when or by how much properties will depreciate, seas will encroach or flood insurance policies will change.ImageCredit...Benjamin Donald Boshart for The New York TimesValerie Amor, a real estate agent in Fort Lauderdale, said that, unlike most in her industry, she does a feasibility study before she assists in either buying or selling property.It should not be left as a moral or personal decision, said Ms. Amor, adding that more disclosure should be mandatory.Disclosing Natural DisastersNorfolk is a city surrounded by water. In 2014, the Federal Emergency Management Agency expanded the area designated as highest risk for a flood in an update to regional maps, requiring thousands of new homeowners to have flood insurance. The real estate industry worried about the impact on the market. Lawmakers responded.The region around Norfolk has among the highest rates of annual sea level rise on the East Coast. Rising water and sinking land could push the relative sea level up in some parts by six feet by the end of the century, the United States Army Corps of Engineers estimates. Flood insurance in moderate- to low-risk areas nationally costs more than $200 a year, according to the National Flood Insurance Program, but for properties in flood zones, those rates could rise by as much as several thousand dollars.ImageCredit...Benjamin Donald Boshart for The New York TimesVirginia requires real estate agents to reveal whether a property is in a military airplane noise zone, has defective drywall or has ever been used to manufacture methamphetamine. After the flood maps were updated, the industry wondered what new disclosure rules would be mandated. Should homeowners or their agents be required to reveal to potential buyers if the house had been flooded? Should they have to tell how much flood insurance cost and was estimated to rise?Within a year, state lawmakers passed a real estate disclosure law that the industry hailed as a major step forward. We are immensely satisfied, Deborah Baisden, then president of the Virginia Association of Realtors, said of the law.While the law encourages home buyers to exert due diligence in investigating the risk of living in a flood hazard area, it also explicitly states that the seller of a home is not obligated to disclose whether the home is in a zone that FEMA regards as high risk.Some city officials said the law did not go far enough. Its a nondisclosure disclosure, Meg Pittenger, an environmental manager for the city of Portsmouth, Va., told a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot. She added that it should have required sellers or agents to inform prospective buyers whether a property lies in a flood zone.Flood risks are easily overlooked because past flood damage often goes unreported and, as in Virginia, the burden of discovering it falls to the buyer. LexisNexis, a news and legal research company, can supply sellers a report with the history of flood claims on the property, but buyers usually do not know to ask for it. FEMA collects information on federal insurance claims for homes nationally, but the agency has been reluctant to make it public for privacy reasons.States and local real estate agents are handling disclosure differently. In Florida, real estate agents have to notify purchasers if a property is subject to natural hazards, but the law applies only to a limited area along the Florida coast and has no penalties for noncompliance. And in 2010 lawmakers stripped the requirement to disclose a propertys windstorm mitigation rating.California, Washington and Pennsylvania, on the other hand, require the disclosure of past flooding or susceptibility to future flooding. In New York, sellers are required to disclose whether a property sits in a flood plain. It may be a matter of life and death, said State Senator Stewart Greenleaf of Pennsylvania, who sponsored a state disclosure rule that became law this year.Some real estate agents around Boston have begun taking prospective buyers to newly repaired multimillion-dollar sea walls built to protect homes from storm damage. They also have begun to encourage clients to increase the marketability of their properties by installing storm-resistant technology, including steel beams and window flaps that allow water to flow in and out of a basement during a flood.Not everyone favors more disclosure, said Daren Blomquist, the senior vice president of communications at Attom Data Solutions, the real estate data tracking firm that serves brokers, lenders and insurers. After strong objections from real estate companies, which threatened to stop providing data, his firm took down its web page that integrated real estate listings with plot-by-plot information about the risks of floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other natural hazards.The pressure was intense, he said, adding that the company still provides this information on separate web pages.Banks and Insurers Try to AdaptIt is not just property owners, buyers and sellers who are struggling to estimate the potential financial impact of climate change on the real estate market. These risks compound as individual mortgages get bundled and sold as securities. In his April report, Mr. Becketti, the Freddie Mac economist, emphasized how difficult it was to predict whether the bubble in coastal real estate would slowly deflate or suddenly pop.Will the value of the house decline gradually as the expected life of the house becomes shorter? he wrote. Or, alternatively, will the value of the house and all the houses around it plunge the first time a lender refuses to make a mortgage on a nearby house or an insurer refuses to issue a homeowners policy?The real estate and mortgage markets have been slow to confront climate change, said Albert Slap, an environmental lawyer and the president of Coastal Risk Consulting, a company that advises communities on how to prepare for sea level rise. Most buyers of securities, for example, underestimate the risk in their portfolios by relying on FEMA flood maps, he said. Strictly backward looking, these maps are based on floods that have already occurred.To make matters worse, the National Flood Insurance Program is more than $20 billion in debt. After several major coastal storms, Congress tried to fix the program, passing a law in 2012 requiring that insurance premiums be recalculated to accurately reflect risk. Coastal homeowners rebelled, arguing that the legislation made insurance unaffordable, and in 2014 Congress repealed parts of the law.George Kasimos, a real estate expert in Toms River, N.J., said homeowners had good reason to react. A homeowner may be approved for a $300,000 mortgage with a $3,000 a year flood insurance premium, he said, but the same persons loan application would most likely be rejected with a $10,000 flood insurance premium. As insurance prices rise, some home purchases will become cash only, squeezing more middle-class and lower-income buyers out of the market.The North Carolina shore has been especially popular among baby boomers along the East Coast looking for an affordable retirement option.ImageCredit...Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesDavid Jacobs, 54, said he expected that his home about 50 feet from the water in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. will be washed away soon enough. It pains me to think my children and grandchildren may not be able to enjoy it, he said, adding that his flood insurance is now about $400 more per month than it was when he moved there in 2013.Economists have also called for reporting rules so securities investors would know what portion of their bundled mortgages includes high risk from climate change, like properties in coastal regions, river flood plains, flammable canyons and mountainsides, earthquake zones, tsunami washout zones and tornado alleys.Coastal mortgages are growing into as big a bubble as the housing market of 2007, said Philip Stoddard, the mayor of South Miami. But this time, he said, there will not be a rebound because the waters will not recede and properties will eventually lose all of their value.Politicians are more focused on keeping developers calm and reassuring people that technological solutions will save the day, he said, which plays into an expectation, especially among the wealthiest homeowners, that the government will bail them out if property values crash.Riding Out the StormCoastal homeowners are reluctant to leave. Robert Meyer, the co-director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has been using web surveys to assess the willingness of South Florida residents to pay higher taxes for climate-change upgrades rather than move.They show a remarkable willingness to stick it out, Mr. Meyer said. His study found that by 2050 people would still be living in the riskiest areas and would have incrementally paid billions of dollars for adaptation measures.ImageCredit...Max Reed for The New York TimesDespite the slowdown in home sales, many flood-prone cities are still growing. Skyscrapers and new apartment buildings are going up all around Fort Lauderdale. The local chamber of commerce says the city expects to add about 50,000 people in the next 15 years and currently lacks housing to accommodate them. In Miami, much of the new construction consists of luxury condos aimed at a large number of cash buyers from Russia and Latin America.Nationally, median home prices in areas at high risk for flooding are still 4.4 percent below what they were 10 years ago, while home prices in low-risk areas are up 29.7 percent over the same period, according to the housing data.Chris Bergh, the South Florida conservation director at the Nature Conservancy, said he was worried because his house on Big Pine Key was just over a half-mile from the beach and only about five feet above sea level.In planning for my 7-year-old childs future, he said, I cant count on him inheriting a valuable piece of property on Big Pine Key. | science |
Credit...Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesJune 26, 2018There will be important primaries or runoff elections on Tuesday in seven states, including New York, where establishment candidates in both parties face tests in colorful, close primary battles.A former congressman on Staten Island will try to regain his seat, hoping Republican voters look past his criminal record as a tax evader. On the Democratic side, challenges to incumbents have revealed tensions between party leaders backing entrenched candidates and new candidates who represent an infusion of activism in the party.Voters will also go to the polls in Utah, Maryland, Colorado, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina.They will be winnowing down the field of candidates from both parties who will face off in the midterm elections on Nov. 6. Here are a few things to watch for.ImageCredit...Craig Ruttle/Associated PressNew YorkMuch of the attention on Tuesday will be on a Republican race on Staten Island, where Michael Grimm, a former congressman who pleaded guilty to felony tax fraud in 2014, is running to regain his seat in the 11th District.Mr. Grimm is facing Representative Dan Donovan, the Republican who succeeded him. A victory by Mr. Grimm would give Democrats an opening in solidly Republican territory, as they will aggressively use Mr. Grimms criminal record against him.Democrats plan to compete hard this fall across New York State, where they hope to pick up Republican-held House seats in regions as varied as the suburbs of Long Island and the farmland along the border with Canada. But crucial races Tuesday will also focus attention on intraparty competition involving four incumbents in and around New York City. Though they are favored to win, the incumbents have faced aggressive challenges from insurgent candidates.The most closely watched race will be in the 14th District, where the 10-term incumbent Joseph Crowley has been challenged by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive candidate who has called for dismantling the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.Also facing tough primary challengers in the metropolitan area: Representatives Eliot L. Engel, Yvette D. Clarke and Carolyn Maloney, who is running against Suraj Patel, a hotel executive, in the 12th District.Elsewhere in the state, Democrats in the 24th District, which stretches from south of Syracuse to the shores of Lake Ontario, will pick a candidate to take on Representative John Katko, a Republican. The party-endorsed candidate, Juanita Perez Williams, a former Navy officer, is facing off against Dana Balter.Seven Democrats are competing in a primary to run against Representative John Faso, a Republican, in the 19th District, comprising the Hudson Valley and the Catskill Mountains.In the First District, on Long Island, voters will pick between five Democrats vying for the chance to challenge Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican.The 21st District, which hugs the Canadian border, has five Democrats who want the chance to compete against Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican, in November.ImageCredit...Patrick Semansky/Associated PressMarylandThe Democratic primary is the race to watch in Maryland on Tuesday.A crowded slate of Democrats is competing for the chance to challenge Gov. Larry Hogan, a popular Republican. They include Ben Jealous, the former president of the N.A.A.C.P., and Rushern Baker, the executive of Prince Georges County. Theyre widely seen as the front-runners.A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll this month found that Maryland voters generally approve of Mr. Hogan, who withdrew National Guard forces from the Mexican border last week, even though they disagree with his opposition to liberal policies like legalizing marijuana and raising the minimum wage.Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, a two-term incumbent who was once the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also faces a primary challenge.Chelsea Manning, the former Army private who was convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2013, is running against him.ImageCredit...Rick Bowmer/Associated PressUtahMitt Romney is the man to watch in Utah.The former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican candidate for president is hoping to restart his political career with a Senate run in one of the deepest red states in the country. He wants to replace Orrin G. Hatch, who is retiring at the end of this term.It hasnt been totally smooth sailing for Mr. Romney, though. He must compete in the Republican primary because he failed to win more than 50 percent of the vote at the Utah Republican convention in April.That embarrassing result was driven in part by questions about his commitment to Utah, where Mr. Romney helped plan the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics but has never held elected office.Nevertheless, Mr. Romney is expected to defeat his opponent, a state senator named Mike Kennedy.ColoradoThe biggest race in the state is the contest to succeed Gov. John Hickenlooper, a moderate Democrat who is being term-limited out of office. Four candidates from each party are angling to replace him.The race raises question about whether social and economic change everything from rising home prices to legalized marijuana may be turning Colorado, once reliably purple, into a more deeply blue state. The states 1.2 million independent voters can participate in party primaries for the first time this year.The Democratic candidates include Representative Jared Polis; Cary Kennedy, a former state treasurer; and Mike Johnson, a former state senator. The Republican front-runner is Walker Stapleton, the state treasurer. He has campaigned as a supporter of President Trump, praising both his tax cuts and his opposition to sanctuary cities.There is also an interesting Democratic race in the First District, in Denver, a seat Representative Diana DeGette has held for more than 20 years. Ms. DeGette, a member of the House Democratic leadership, is facing a left-wing primary challenge from Saira Rao, a former Wall Street lawyer and political newcomer who has denounced corporate influence on the Democratic Party.ImageCredit...Jose Luis Magana/Associated PressOklahomaOklahoma also has a closely watched governors race this year, but the state is so deeply red that the energy there is mostly focused on the Republican primary.Gov. Mary Fallin, a two-term Republican incumbent whose approval ratings have suffered amid budget woes, is leaving because of term limits.That has set up a contest between her lieutenant governor, Todd Lamb, and a string of challengers, including Mayor Mick Cornett of Oklahoma City, State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones and Kevin Stitt, a banker.Voters will also decide on State Question 788, a proposal that would legalize medical marijuana for users who obtain a license.South CarolinaGov. Henry McMaster, who stepped into the governors mansion after Nikki Haley joined the Trump administration last year, was forced into a runoff when he failed to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the Republican primary last week. The governor has aligned himself closely with President Trump and got a boost from the president at a rally in Columbia on Monday evening.Mr. McMaster, who won roughly 42 percent of the primary vote, will go up against John Warren, a businessman who styles himself as a Trump-like political outsider. Mr. Warren won around 28 percent of the primary vote.MississippiMississippi will hold a Democratic runoff on Tuesday to determine who will challenge Roger Wicker, the states junior senator, in the midterm elections. But it is one of the most solidly Republican states in the country, making Mr. Wickers re-election appear all but guaranteed.The runoff candidates are Howard Sherman and David Baria, who each secured around 31 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary earlier this month. | Politics |
Kimora Lee Simmons Russell's Innocent of Rape 1/26/2018 BACKGRID Kimora Lee Simmons thinks the woman who just sued her ex-husband, Russell Simmons, for rape is lying. A photog got Kimora out Thursday after Jennifer Jarosik filed a lawsuit claiming Russell propositioned her for sex in 2016 and when she refused he brutalized her by striking and pushing her and then raping her. Kimora takes a beat before answering, but says she believes he's innocent. Russell and Kimora were married between 1998 and 2009, although they split in 2006, and they have 2 kids together. As for Jarosik ... she's suing Russell for more than $5 million. | Entertainment |
She overcame bias against women in science and personal tragedy to perform groundbreaking work. She earned recognition for her achievements last year.Credit...AIP Emilio Segr Visual ArchivesOct. 13, 2021Myriam P. Sarachik, a scientist whose groundbreaking experiments illuminated subtle but fundamental physics in the electronic and magnetic behavior of materials, died on Oct. 7 in Manhattan. She was 88.The death, at Mount Sinai West hospital, was caused by a stroke, her daughter, Karen, said.In the 1960s, Dr. Sarachik (pronounced SAHR-ah-chick) entered and succeeded in a field, experimental physics, where women were a rarity. Even her mentors insisted that she might really have preferred being a housewife or a part-time teacher. But she persisted, becoming a professor in 1964 at the City College of New York.Six years later, her career was interrupted by tragedy. Dr. Sarachik came home to find her younger daughter, Leah, 5, the nanny and the family car missing. The nanny had abducted the girl, driven to Vermont and killed her before committing suicide. An intensive search that included Dr. Sarachiks colleagues led to the discovery of Leahs body in a trash can behind a summer house.Dr. Sarachik began her recovery, filling her days with needlework that she displayed on the walls of her apartment. She helped her graduate students finish their degrees. She taught some classes. But she largely withdrew from physics research for more than a decade.She returned to the laboratory in the 1980s and then began performing her leading-edge work on superconductivity and molecules that acted like magnets.Last year, the American Physical Society awarded her the Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research for fundamental contributions to the physics of electronic transport in solids and molecular magnetism.Dr. Sarachik also mentored younger women in the field and served on committees defending human rights for scientists around the world.She always pushed the boundaries, said Laura H. Greene, the chief scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fla. She was always a pioneer.Dr. Sarachiks first experimental triumph came in 1963. For decades, physicists had observed some metallic materials whose electrical resistance the amount of sluggishness in the flow of electricity through them exhibited odd behavior.Typically, as a metal cools, the electrons move more readily, and the resistance drops. But some metallic alloys bucked that trend. Instead, in these materials, electrical resistance below a certain temperature started rising again as they were further chilled. It was a mystery why.A Japanese physicist, Jun Kondo, had come up with a possible explanation for the phenomenon, but it was Dr. Sarachik, working in a temporary job at Bell Labs in New Jersey, who provided the first experimental verification of what is now known as the Kondo effect, a fundamental aspect of how some metals behave. She showed that magnetism from small amounts of iron in a metal alloy could cause the electrical resistance to rise, matching Dr. Kondos predictions.For years, Dr. Sarachik received little recognition for her achievement, and there was no offer to stay at Bell Labs when her position expired. She also refused an offer from Philips Research Laboratories, just north of New York City, because the company had offered her a salary thousands of dollars lower than the pay offered to men.I objected, placed an inquiry, and was told that the offer was in line with industrywide practice regarding women, she recalled in an autobiographical sketch published in 2018.City College offered her a position as an assistant professor, and she taught there until retiring in 2018 and taking emeritus status.ImageCredit...Calla Kessler for The New York TimesMyriam Paula Morgenstein was born on Aug. 8, 1933, in Antwerp, Belgium. Her father, Schloimo Morgenstein, was a diamond dealer, and her mother, Sarah (Segal) Morgenstein, was a homemaker. Orthodox Jews, they decided in 1940 to flee the Nazi threat.Their flight included false papers, bribes, running through open fields, being seized while trying to cross into Spain, internment in a prison camp in German-occupied France and then an escape from it into Vichy France. (Decades later, she wrote, she learned that barbed wire had been erected at the camp after their escape and that by mid-1942 most of those interned there had been sent to extermination camps in Poland.)Myriam, her parents and her two brothers made their way to Cuba and then to New York City. She was among the first girls to attend the Bronx High School of Science, which had only just gone coed, and then entered Barnard College, where she majored in physics and graduated in 1954.She continued studying physics at Columbia University, finishing a masters degree in 1957 and a doctorate in 1960. She then decided to give up physics and stay at home and take care of Karen, her newborn daughter.I was home for about a month, and I realized I was never going to survive this, Dr. Sarachik recalled in her speech accepting the American Physical Society award. Her husband, Philip Sarachik, an electrical engineering professor at New York University whom she married in 1954, urged her to return to work.But her job search went nowhere. In despair, she reached out to one of her Columbia professors, Polykarp Kusch.I asked him to please help me, Dr. Sarachik said. He argued with me long and hard. He said: You dont really want to do what you think you want to do. You dont want to do research. Maybe you should take a part-time teaching job. And I said, No, I want to do research.When Dr. Sarachik insisted, Dr. Kusch arranged for her to have an interview at Bell Labs.In the 1980s, Dr. Sarachik explored how some two-dimensional materials, generally insulators that do not conduct electricity, could turn into metallic conductors, something theorists said was impossible.She also led experiments about the quantum behavior of molecules that act like magnets. The work demonstrated that the north and south poles of these molecules, each consisting of a couple hundred atoms, could spontaneously flip at cold temperatures where such flips were forbidden by classical physics.Other physicists had tried to show this as well. But at the time, the materials consisting of these molecules could be made only as powders. The magnetic fields of these crystal specks pointed in random directions, and the evidence was inconclusive.She was not satisfied with any speculations, said Eugene Chudnovsky, a physicist at Lehman College and the City University of New Yorks Graduate Center. I was actually telling her, Myriam, you have very interesting results, you should publish them. And she was telling me: No, lets wait. I want to understand it better.One of Dr. Sarachiks students, Jonathan Friedman, provided a solution by mixing the powder in a liquid glue and placing the mixture in a strong magnetic field. The crystals lined up with the magnetic field and, as the glue dried, remained pointing in that direction.That data, unambiguous, set off an explosion of research in this area, Dr. Chudnovsky said.In addition to her daughter, Dr. Sarachik, who lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is survived by her husband; a brother, Henry Morgenstein; and three grandchildren.In her 2018 autobiographical sketch, Dr. Sarachik ended with observations about fundamental scientific questions that remain, like the nature of human consciousness.Science is just beginning to make some progress toward understanding awareness, she wrote. But the real mystery is self-awareness. Why me? My self-awareness will soon be extinguished. For the moment, Ive been having one hell of a ride! | science |
Credit...Gautam Singh/Associated PressNov. 21, 2018NEW DELHI John Allen Chau seemed to know that what he was about to do was extremely dangerous.Mr. Chau, an American thought to be in his 20s, was floating in a kayak off a remote island in the Andaman Sea. He was about to set foot on one of the most sealed-off parts of India, an island inhabited by a small, enigmatic and highly isolated tribe whose members have killed outsiders for simply stepping on their shore.Fishermen warned him not to go. Few outsiders had ever been there. And Indian government regulations clearly prohibited any interaction with people on the island, called North Sentinel.But Mr. Chau pushed ahead, setting off in his kayak, which he had packed with a Bible. After that, it is a bit of a mystery what happened.But the police say one thing is clear: Mr. Chau did not survive.On Wednesday, the Indian authorities said that Mr. Chau had been shot with bows and arrows by tribesmen when he got on shore and that his body was still on the island. Fishermen who helped take Mr. Chau to North Sentinel told the police that they had seen tribesmen dragging his body on the beach.[Read about T.N. Pandit, an anthropologist who spent time with the Jarawa and Sentinelese tribes in the Andaman Sea.]It was a misplaced adventure, said Dependra Pathak, the police chief in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He certainly knew it was off limits.Mr. Pathak said Mr. Chau, believed to be 26 or 27 and from Washington State, may have been trying to convert the islanders to Christianity. Right before he left in his kayak, Mr. Chau gave the fishermen a long note in case he did not come back. In it, police officials said, he had written that Jesus had bestowed him with the strength to go to the most forbidden places on Earth.On Wednesday, in a post on Mr. Chaus Instagram account, his family expressed deep sadness and said he was a beloved son, brother, uncle, and best friend to us. To others he was a Christian missionary, a wilderness EMT, an international soccer coach, and a mountaineer.They also seemed to hold out some hope that he had survived, saying the report of his death was unconfirmed. They also said they forgave those who might have been responsible for his death.Family members did not respond to phone messages.The Andaman and nearby Nicobar Islands are beautiful, palm-fringed specks ringed by coral in the Indian Ocean. The government controls access very carefully; of the more than 500 islands, many areas are off limits.On Nov. 14, Mr. Chau hired a fishing boat in Port Blair, the main city in the Andamans, to take him to North Sentinel. He waited until darkness to set off, police officials said, so he would not be detected by the authorities.T. N. Pandit, an anthropologist who visited North Sentinel several times between 1967 and 1991, said the Sentinelese people who officially number around 50 and who hunt with spears and arrows fashioned from scraps of metal that wash up on their shores were more hostile to outsiders than other indigenous communities living in the Andamans.ImageCredit...Sarah Prince/Associated PressOnce, when Mr. Pandits expedition offered a pig to the Sentinelese, two members of the tribe walked to the edge of the beach, speared it and buried it in the sand.During another encounter, Mr. Pandit was separated from his colleagues and left alone in the water. A young tribesman on the beach pulled out a knife and made a sign as if he was carving out my body.He threatened; I understood, Mr. Pandit said. Contact was different with the Sentinelese, he added, noting that the Jarawa, another tribe, invited us to come ashore and sang songs.Being left alone was very important for the Sentinelese, said Stephen Corry, the director of Survival International, a group that protects the rights of indigenous tribal peoples around the world.This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen, Mr. Corry said in a statement, adding that the Indian government must protect the tribe from further invaders.Gift-giving expeditions to the Sentinelese stopped in 1996. The Indian Navy now enforces a buffer zone to keep people away. In 2006, the Sentinelese killed two fishermen who had accidentally drifted on shore.According to the fishermen who helped Mr. Chau, they motored for several hours from Port Blair to North Sentinel. Mr. Chau waited until the next morning, at daybreak, to try to get ashore.He put his kayak in the water less than half a mile out and paddled toward the island.The fishermen said that tribesmen had shot arrows at him and that he had retreated. He apparently tried several more times to reach the island over the next two days, the police say, offering gifts such as a small soccer ball, fishing line and scissors. But on the morning of Nov. 17, the fishermen said they saw the islanders with his body.The seven people who helped Mr. Chau reach the island have been arrested and charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and with violating rules protecting aboriginal tribes.In the Instagram post, the family asked for the release of the seven and said he had ventured out on his own free will.Another case has been registered against unknown persons for killing Mr. Chau. But in the past, the authorities have said that it is virtually impossible to prosecute members of the protected tribes because of the areas inaccessibility and the Indian governments decision not to interfere in their lives.In a blog post from several years ago, Mr. Chau said he had coached soccer, worked for AmeriCorps and that he was an explorer at heart. The Indian police said he had visited the Andamans at least three times.When asked what was the top of his must-do list, Mr. Chau had written on the blog: Going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India is on the top theres so much to see and do there! | World |
Credit...Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated PressMarch 21, 2017ATHENS Greek counterterrorism officers have uncovered eight parcel bombs resembling those sent last week to the German finance minister in Berlin and to the Paris offices of the International Monetary Fund, a police official said on Tuesday.The devices were discovered on Monday during a search of the Hellenic Posts main sorting office, north of Athens, according to a police spokesman, Theodoros Chronopoulos. The packages were destined for European countries, he said, calling them similar to the ones sent to the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schuble, and to the I.M.F.s offices.According to reports in the Greek news media, which Mr. Chronopoulos did not confirm, the packages intercepted at the Athens sorting office were addressed to European Union officials and to multinational companies. The targets reportedly included the leader of the eurozone group of finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who coordinates meetings on Greek bailout talks, and an unidentified official of the European Central Bank, one of Greeces three main international creditors.European Union finance ministers meeting on Tuesday in Brussels to discuss issues including tax policy were made aware of the parcel bombs, but they did not interrupt their talks. Certainly, we are following these developments with concern, Valdis Dombrovskis, a vice president of the European Commission, said.According to the Greek news reports, the senders listed on the packages were two former Greek finance ministers, Gikas Hardouvelis and Yanis Varoufakis, who led bailout negotiations. It was unclear why their names were chosen, but the authorities say they do not believe either man had anything to do with the matter.The parcel bombs sent to Mr. Schuble and to the I.M.F.s offices in Paris bore the names of two Greek opposition lawmakers who are broadly perceived in Greece as backing the bold economic changes being pushed by the countrys creditors.The letter bomb sent to the I.M.F.s offices in Paris exploded on Thursday, slightly injuring the worker who opened it. A day earlier, staff members at the German Finance Ministry in Berlin intercepted a parcel bomb sent to Mr. Schuble. Each device contained small quantities of gunpowder, according to the authorities.A Greek extremist group called Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire claimed responsibility for the parcel addressed to Mr. Schuble but made no reference to the Paris attack or to any other possible targets. In a statement on an anarchist website, the group said it would issue a proclamation with more details, fueling speculation about further attacks and a resurgence of domestic terrorism in Greece, where bailout talks have dragged on and political and economic instability are rising.Mr. Chronopoulos said the new parcel bombs appear to be the work of the same group. We dont know yet but it seems so, he said.The Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire claimed responsibility for parcel bombs sent in 2010.One was addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and intercepted at her office. Another was sent to Silvio Berlusconi, Italys prime minister at the time, and was intercepted at the Bologna airport. (It exploded, but caused no injuries.) A third, meant for Frances president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, was stopped in Athens, along with a package addressed to Eurojust, the European Unions judicial cooperation agency, in the Netherlands.Several more were sent to embassies in Athens. One, addressed to the Mexican Embassy, exploded in the hands of a courier, causing minor injuries. | World |
A Historic Event: First Malaria Vaccine Approved by W.H.O.Malaria kills about 500,000 people each year, about half of them children in Africa. The new vaccine isnt perfect, but it will help turn the tide, experts said. VideotranscripttranscriptA Historic Day: W.H.O. Approves First Malaria VaccineDr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organizations director general, said the long-awaited vaccine was a breakthrough for science and could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.As some of you may know, I started my career as a malaria researcher, and I longed for the day that we would have an effective vaccine against this ancient and terrible disease. And today is that day an historic day. Today, W.H.O. is recommending the broad use of the worlds first malaria vaccine. This recommendation is based on results from an ongoing pilot program in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that has reached more than 800,000 children since 2019. This long-awaited malaria vaccine is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control. Using this vaccine, in addition to existing tools to prevent malaria, could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organizations director general, said the long-awaited vaccine was a breakthrough for science and could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.CreditCredit...Cristina Aldehuela/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesOct. 6, 2021The world has gained a new weapon in the war on malaria, among the oldest known and deadliest of infectious diseases: the first vaccine shown to help prevent the disease. By one estimate, it will save tens of thousands of children each year. Malaria kills about half a million people each year, nearly all of them in sub-Saharan Africa including 260,000 children under 5. The new vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, rouses a childs immune system to thwart Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of five malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in Africa. The World Health Organization on Wednesday endorsed the vaccine, the first step in a process that should lead to wide distribution in poor countries. To have a malaria vaccine that is safe, moderately effective and ready for distribution is a historic event, said Dr. Pedro Alonso, director of the W.H.O.s global malaria program.Malaria is rare in the developed world. There are just 2,000 cases in the United States each year, mostly among travelers returning from countries in which the disease is endemic. The vaccine, called Mosquirix, is not just a first for malaria it is the first developed for any parasitic disease. Parasites are much more complex than viruses or bacteria, and the quest for a malaria vaccine has been underway for a hundred years.Its a huge jump from the science perspective to have a first-generation vaccine against a human parasite, Dr. Alonso said. In clinical trials, the vaccine had an efficacy of about 50 percent against severe malaria in the first year, but the figure dropped close to zero by the fourth year. And the trials did not directly measure the vaccines impact on deaths, which has led some experts to question whether it is a worthwhile investment in countries with countless other intractable problems.But severe malaria accounts for up to half of malaria deaths and is considered a reliable proximal indicator of mortality, said Dr. Mary Hamel, who leads the W.H.O.s malaria vaccine implementation program. I do expect we will see that impact.A modeling study last year estimated that if the vaccine were rolled out to countries with the highest incidence of malaria, it could prevent 5.4 million cases and 23,000 deaths in children younger than 5 each year.A recent trial of the vaccine in combination with preventive drugs given to children during high-transmission seasons found that the dual approach was much more effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death than either method alone.The malaria parasite, carried by mosquitoes, is a particularly insidious enemy, because it can strike the same person over and over. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, even those where most people sleep under insecticide-treated bed nets, children have on average six malaria episodes a year.Even when the disease is not fatal, the repeated assault on their bodies can permanently alter the immune system, leaving them weak and vulnerable to other pathogens. ImageCredit...Cristina Aldehuela/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMalaria research is littered with vaccine candidates that never made it past clinical trials. Bed nets, the most widespread preventive measure, cut malaria deaths in children under 5 only by about 20 percent.Against that backdrop, the new vaccine, even with modest efficacy, is the best new development in the fight against the disease in decades, some experts said.Progress against malaria has really stalled over the last five or six years, particularly in some of the hardest hit countries in the world, said Ashley Birkett, who heads malaria programs at PATH, a nonprofit organization focused on global health.With the new vaccine, theres potential for very, very significant impact there, Dr. Birkett said.Mosquirix is given in three doses between ages 5 and 17 months, and a fourth dose roughly 18 months later. Following clinical trials, the vaccine was tried out in three countries Kenya, Malawi and Ghana where it was incorporated into routine immunization programs.More than 2.3 million doses have been administered in those countries, reaching more than 800,000 children. That bumped up the percentage of children protected against malaria in some way to more than 90 percent, from less than 70 percent, Dr. Hamel said.The ability to reduce inequities in access to malaria prevention thats important, Dr. Hamel said. It was impressive to see that this could reach children who are currently not being protected.It took years to create an efficient system to distribute insecticide-treated bed nets to families. By contrast, including Mosquirix among routine immunizations made it surprisingly easy to distribute, Dr. Hamel added even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted lockdowns and disrupted supply chains.We arent going to have to spend a decade trying to figure out how to get this to children, she said.This week, a working group of independent experts in malaria, child health epidemiology and statistics, as well as the W.H.O.s vaccine advisory group, met to review data from the pilot programs and to make their formal recommendation to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the W.H.O.We still have a very long road to travel, but this is a long stride down that road, Dr. Tedros said at a news conference on Wednesday. The next step is for Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, to determine that the vaccine is a worthwhile investment. If the organizations board approves the vaccine not guaranteed, given the vaccines moderate efficacy and the many competing priorities Gavi will purchase the vaccine for countries that request it, a process that is expected to take at least a year.But as with Covid-19, problems with vaccine production and supply could considerably delay progress. And the pandemic has also diverted resources and attention from other diseases, said Deepali Patel, who leads malaria vaccine programs at Gavi.Covid is a big unknown in the room in terms of where capacity is currently in countries, and rolling out Covid-19 vaccines is a huge effort, Ms. Patel said. Were really going to have to see how the pandemic unfolds next year in terms of when countries will be ready to pick up all of these other priorities. | Health |
Asia Pacific|Duterte Aide Bristles at Times Article, Calling It a Hack Jobhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/world/asia/duterte-aide-bristles-at-times-article-calling-it-a-hack-job.htmlCredit...Dean.K/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 22, 2017MANILA The Philippine government sharply criticized The New York Times on Wednesday for an article profiling the countrys president, Rodrigo Duterte, calling it a well-paid hack job for well-heeled clients with shady motives.Ernesto Abella, a presidential spokesman, said in a statement that the article, which appeared on Wednesday in the Philippines, unfairly tracked Mr. Dutertes rise to power in the context of violence while ignoring his positive accomplishments.The Times article said that as a mayor of Davao City, and as president of the Philippines, Mr. Duterte had encouraged the police and vigilantes to kill thousands of people with impunity. The article also detailed Mr. Dutertes personal drug use.Mr. Abellas statement said that The Times deliberately fails to mention the many initiatives the president made when he was Davao City mayor.He said that since assuming power last year, Mr. Duterte had been actively engaging Muslim and communist rebels in peace talks aimed at ending decades of bloody insurgency. Davao City, Mr. Abella said, has been hailed as one of the safest cities in the world.One gets the feeling NYT is not interested in presenting the whole truth, only that with which they can bully those who attempt an independent foreign policy, Mr. Abella said.The Times made repeated requests to interview Mr. Duterte for the article, both through Mr. Abella and another official spokesman.And although Mr. Abella denied assertions made in the article, he did not challenge any of the facts presented in it. The article quoted several people close to Mr. Duterte, including lifelong friends, three cabinet officials and three of his siblings.The report tracked Mr. Dutertes rise to power, from his childhood to becoming the longtime mayor of Davao in the countrys violence-plagued southern Philippines. | World |
Carey Mulligan I'm Freezing My Head Off in Sundance!!! 1/21/2018 Carey Mulligan may have been under the false impression SUN-dance did not require headgear, but she learned a hard lesson Saturday during the famous film festival. Carey left the hotel without headgear, which she clearly soon regretted. She braved the 20 degree cold to see the sights, along with Zoe Kazan, the screenwriter who wrote "Wildlife" in which Carey stars. Carey is in Sundance promoting her film, "Wildlife" ... based on a 1990 novel about a boy who watches his parents' marriage fall apart. The Sundance Film Festival goes until a week from today. | Entertainment |
on techHow Facebooks most recent crisis started, and what it says about the companys role in our lives.Credit...Mark PernicePublished July 9, 2020Updated July 16, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.The words crisis and Facebook are practically joined at the hip. But the last month or two have been something else.Facebook has dealt with an employee protest over how it handled inflammatory posts by President Trump, an advertiser boycott over hate speech in its online hangouts, and a scathing civil-rights audit that faulted Facebook for potentially deepening social polarization and fueling the harassment of vulnerable communities.I spoke to Mike Isaac, who reports on Facebook for The New York Times, about the companys decisions that helped set off the most recent drama, and what this crisis reveals about Facebooks role in our lives.Shira: How did this latest crisis start?Mike: Beginning last fall, Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, in particular made a series of decisions to give relatively free rein to posts by political figures, including President Trump, even if they said divisive or false things on Facebook.That set of policy choices is the root of the advertising boycott of Facebook, and it was highlighted in the report that came out of a two-year civil rights audit of the company. Civil rights advocates and others believed that Facebook made a misguided choice to prioritize free expression of the powerful and ignore the harm that expression can cause for people with less power.Facebook says its stuck between political conservatives who generally want the company to intervene less in what people say online, and those on the left who want it to intervene more. Do you agree?I get that theyre in a no-win situation. But Facebook put itself in this position. It wants all the power and is doing all it can to keep it, and that means the company will have to make tough decisions and deal with the blowback even if that blowback is inconsistent.Are the criticisms now about Facebook actually misplaced anger from the left about Mr. Trump?Thats an undercurrent, yes, but it doesnt invalidate the structural problems that critics of Facebook have pointed out for a long time. Facebook has been completely inconsistent with how it referees politicians or other prominent people who say outrageous or misleading things, and it seems like they change their minds depending on the political moment.Many of the popular, divisive Facebook posts arent from politicians. Is it misguided to focus on what elected officials post?It isnt, because what elected officials say has high-stakes consequences if it makes people less likely to vote, for example.Is Facebook a mirror on society, as the company says? Humans can be mean and divided, and thats why Facebook is, too?Its not a one-to-one reflection of the world when one influential person the political operative Roger Stone, for example, as we learned on Wednesday can manipulate Facebook to spread a distorted view of the world to millions of people.What might be the next drama for Facebook?Private Facebook groups are a slow burning crisis in the making. Facebook and Zuckerberg have seen that people are gravitating more to these smaller, closed groups, where extremism can flourish in secret and its harder to monitor and moderate. Zuckerberg has said private groups are the future of Facebook, and thats going to come with a host of problems.If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here.Amazon (slightly) tames its Wild WestThe great thing about Amazon is that it sells almost everything you might want. Thats also one of the most dangerous things about Amazon. And the company just showed that it knows this is a big risk for it and all of us.You might not notice this when youre shopping, but most of the stuff sold on Amazon doesnt come from the company itself but from a sprawling network of merchants large and dinky that set up shop inside Amazons virtual mall. (This Crock-Pot for purchase on Amazon, for example, is sold by a merchant called Txvdeals. This one is sold by Amazon itself.)These mostly unknown merchants give Amazon a larger variety of products than it could ever stock and sell on its own. They also create a dangerous Wild West.Numerous investigations have found that these merchants have sold thousands of unsafe, sometimes illegal, products, including childrens toys containing lead. Companies complain that some of those sellers trick people into buying shoddy counterfeits, or manipulate Amazon reviews so we think products are better or more popular than they really are.Amazons critics say the company has done far too little to protect shoppers from the rogue merchants. Its a good bet that Jeff Bezos, Amazons chief executive, will be asked about risky merchants when he and other big tech bosses testify at a congressional hearing later this month.Amazon this week took a notable (and overdue) step that should slightly reduce the risk.Merchants will soon be required to show their names and addresses on their Amazon profile pages. I know this doesnt seem like a big deal, but until now merchants who sold on Amazon in the United States although not in some other countries were able to shield their business information from the public. That made it harder to hold those merchants accountable for bad behavior.Some merchants will still find ways to stay anonymous, but this is a good and necessary baby step.The question is whether Amazon can keep the best elements of its sprawling merchant network, while reining in the abuses that threaten to erode our trust in what we buy there. Its a tall order.Before we go They encourage people to go from training wheels to driving motorcycles. The trading app Robinhood says it wants to make financial investing available to a broad group of people. But my colleague Nathaniel Popper also found that compared to similar services, people on Robinhood make riskier investments at a faster pace which exposes them to more losses. The structure of Robinhood, combined with technical glitches and a difficulty in getting help, has resulted in some heartbreaking consequences, Nathaniel writes.People. Went. Wild. Tyler Blevins known as Ninja, one of the worlds most popular video gamers streamed himself playing the Fortnite game on YouTube, and video game fans lost their collective minds. If you needed proof that big-name video gamers can rival the popularity of stars from Hollywood or sports, Ninja just provided it, as my colleague Kellen Browning wrote.A 73-year-old prophecy of our smartphone-addicted lives: A 1947 French film imagined how we would be glued to watching tiny screens as we drove our cars and walked around the world. This premise, posted by the blogger Jason Kottke, was based on the then-emerging technology of television, but it sure seems familiar.Hugs to thisPlease find a moment today to park yourself in the coolest spot in the house, as Feline Dion (!!!!) does in this video.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 |
Feb. 5, 2014SAN FRANCISCO Investigators say they believe they have identified the entry point through which hackers got into Targets systems, zeroing in on the remote access granted through the retailers computerized heating and cooling software, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. The latest revelation highlights the reality that a large company is actually a sprawling network of interconnected vendors, and that weak security at any one vendor can lead to a breach that costs hundreds of millions of dollars.Target, Neiman Marcus and the Michaels chain of arts and crafts stores are among the major retailers whose systems have been hacked with what investigators suspect is similar malware that invades the computerized register system and snatches consumer data, according to people with knowledge of the investigations. But it has not been disclosed whether other companies were possibly invaded through outside vendors with remotely controlled access. Target had already confirmed that hackers used a vendors stolen credentials to get inside its corporate network and crawl into a server containing 70 million customers names, mailing addresses and email addresses and into the companys crown jewels: the in-store cash register systems that authorized 40 million customers credit and debit cards over the course of a few weeks during the holiday shopping season last year. Using the vendors access, hackers were able to burrow into Targets systems so thoroughly that even three days after Target thought it had expelled them, the retailer found malware on 25 registers, John J. Mulligan, Targets chief financial officer, testified at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said the company would not comment on its vendors or specific details of the investigation. Brian Krebs, a security blogger who first reported the Target breach, was also the first on Wednesday to identify the vendor whose remote access had been compromised. But investigators would not confirm the vendors identity. Security experts say that it is common for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning companies so-called HVAC companies to be granted network access to clients so that they can monitor retail stores and diagnose problems remotely.Remote access to these systems is really common and integrators are almost always on the corporate network, said Billy Rios, director of threat intelligence at Qualys, a cloud security firm. Mr. Rios said that the security at such companies tended to be poor and that vendors often used the same password across multiple customers.Over the last two years, Mr. Rios and Terry McCorkle, also of Qualys, said that they found 55,000 HVAC systems connected to the Internet. In most cases, they said, the systems contained basic security flaws that would allow hackers a way into companies corporate networks, or the companies installing and monitoring these systems reused the same remote access passwords across multiple clients.The payment card industrys data security requirements dictate how employees, administrators and vendors can remotely connect to systems. They require that merchants like Targetemploy two-factor authentication which adds a second, temporary password during the login process for employees, administrators and vendors trying to gain entry to their systems remotely.Security specialists confirmed Wednesday that Targets heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems were connected to the Internet. But Target would not saywhether its vendors were required to use two-factor authentication or to use virtual private network, or VPN, technology, which creates a private tunnel between employees and vendors working remotely and the companys private corporate network. The company has said, however, that it passed a security audit before its breach last November.Security experts advise companies to wrap additional digital security defenses around valuable assets, such as a companys intellectual property, or in Targets case, the cash register systems that process credit card payments.A lot of organizations dont know these systems are online, said Mr. McCorkle. They are truly designed to be bridges onto corporate networks. | Tech |
On BaseballCredit...David Wallace/The Arizona Republic, via Associated PressFeb. 18, 2014PEORIA, Ariz. The Seattle Mariners rebuilt their spring training complex this year, and now, they hope, they have reshaped their identity. The man with three lockers one with his name above it, between two empty stalls in the far left corner of the clubhouse is the cornerstone, charged with reviving a sagging brand.It took a 10-year, $240 million contract for the Mariners to lure Robinson Cano from the Yankees, and he is not thinking too far ahead. That is for the best, and in line with the franchises vision.I dont want to think about five years from now, Cano said Tuesday after his first workout. I want to go year by year. Were going to play 2014. You dont want to think about 17, whats going to happen.The Mariners, who have lost half their fans in the last 11 years, cannot worry about how Cano will play later in the deal. After four losing seasons in a row and eight of the last 10 overpaying for Cano was their best hope to be relevant beyond their ace right-hander, Felix Hernandez.When I got the job five years ago, we were saying we wanted to build the thing through player development and scouting, General Manager Jack Zduriencik said. Weve done that; weve stripped it down, now weve built it back up, and weve got some really nice young players.But we were at a point that we had a star in Felix, and we didnt have a star on the field. We thought it was important to launch out and try to bring in a really good player.They found one in Cano, a five-time All-Star who has averaged 160 games the last seven seasons. His combination of high-level production and durability is rare, especially at second base, although his habit of not always hustling on ground balls remains a flash point.Kevin Long, the Yankees hitting coach, told The Daily News that while he roots for Cano, he never understood why Cano refused to run hard every time. Cano would not return fire Tuesday, but his new manager, Lloyd McClendon, did.I didnt know he was the spokesman for the New York Yankees, McClendon said of Long. My concern is Robinson Cano in a Seattle Mariners uniform and what he does moving forward.McClendon said he spoke with Cano and emphasized that he expects a fair effort from every player. But he added: In the big scheme of things, would I rather have a guy out there for 160 games, hitting .300 and driving in over 100? Ill take that.Cano, a career .309 hitter, averaged 24 homers and 97 runs batted in per season for the Yankees. In the history of the Mariners, only four players have reached or exceeded those levels in a season, and none since Bret Boone in 2001. That was also the year Seattle last reached the playoffs.Zduriencik added more than Cano to his young core, acquiring closer Fernando Rodney and outfielders Logan Morrison and Corey Hart. Morrison, who spent the last four seasons with the Marlins, said that when he was traded to Seattle in December, he knew of only three players on the team: Hernandez, Cano and center fielder Michael Saunders.I couldnt even tell you their records, if they were above .500 or not; theyre just one of those teams I didnt pay attention to, Morrison said, adding that the new additions had changed the expectations. Theres definitely a message that they want to win, and they want to win right now.Brad Miller, 24, hit .265 as a rookie last season and projects to be Canos double-play partner at shortstop. He said he was startled this winter when he learned from a friend that his team had signed Cano.I could never picture him in anything other than a Yankee uniform, Miller said, because thats what Ive grown up seeing him play in.But that was Cano, all right, whipping his slick left-handed swing on the dusty back fields, a Mariners compass rose on his cap. A complementary star until now, Cano is the frontman for the Mariners, who put him on the cover of their pocket schedule and season-ticket brochure.Hernandez, a former Cy Young Award winner, seems happy to cede the spotlight. He is tied to the Mariners through 2020, and decided to stay partly because he believes in the plan of the front office. Hernandez, from Venezuela, spent most of his winter in Seattle, including early February, when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.The parade was unbelievable, Hernandez said. I watched it on TV. I was going to go, but it was too many people. It was crazy. It was like a million people.The Mariners still seem a long way from staging a similar party. They paid a lot for Cano to bring them closer, but for an organization stuck in neutral, progress has to start somewhere.I chose here, Im here now, and Im excited, Cano said. I just cant wait for the season to start. | Sports |
Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York TimesNov. 4, 2018The president of the United States has one of the most powerful bully pulpits in the world.President Trump has used that platform to spread his populist message through language often shorn of diplomatic niceties and demeaning of his opponents. And his language has been picked up by a number of leaders in other countries to offer justification of their own actions and to promote like-minded policies.Some leaders or leaders of national institutions have used similar language to go after political opponents, push their own populist agendas or even shield themselves from criticism of human rights abuses or the erosion of democratic norms. The latest example came on Friday, when the Nigerian army cited remarks by Mr. Trump to defend its owns actions after fatally shooting unarmed protesters.Nigerian army justifies deadly shootings with Trump clip.ImageCredit...Afolabi Sotunde/ReutersMr. Trump has excited his base with calls to crack down on illegal migration on the southern border of the United States. In a news conference on Thursday, he suggested that American military personnel could fire on migrants who threw rocks at them.Theyre going to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back, Mr. Trump said. I told them consider it a rifle. Mr. Trump later qualified his statement by saying, That doesn't mean shoot them.But less than 24 hours after his first remarks, the Nigerian army posted a video of the comments on Twitter to justify its own soldiers fatal shooting of rock-wielding protesters earlier in the week. The army later deleted the post, though a spokesman defended its use.The government said three protesters were killed in the confrontation on Monday in the capital, Abuja. Rights groups say more than 40 people died in that episode and in two smaller protests before and after. The soldiers fired on a march of about 1,000 Islamic Shiite activists who had blocked traffic on the outskirts of the capital. Footage posted on social media showed several protesters hurling rocks at soldiers, and soldiers shooting some of the protesters as they fled.Cries of fake news have been picked up by autocrats and others.ImageCredit...Marko Djurica/ReutersSince the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has regularly deflected criticism with cries of fake news. He has also used the term to sow distrust of established news media and create doubts in the minds of voters as to whom and what can be trusted. The tactic has widely been copied by other leaders, who have used it in their own speeches and interviews, seeking similar effect. In response to a February 2017 Amnesty International report saying his government was responsible for thousands of secret deaths in prisons, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria told Yahoo News: You can forge anything these days. We are living in a fake-news era.Speaking to The New York Times in December, a Myanmar security official denied the existence of a large Muslim minority group, the Rohingya. There is no such thing as Rohingya, said the official, U Kyaw San Hla, calling the statement fake news. The military in Myanmar has carried out brutal and systematic attacks on the Rohingya, using the fake news response to dismiss scrutiny. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a close ally of Mr. Trump, regularly invokes fake news now to denounce his critics, labeling the work of several major news outlets as that in posts on social media. Polands right-wing government, which has aligned itself closely with Mr. Trump, has picked up the phrase, too. President Andrzej Duda has restricted press freedom in his own country, signing into law a bill giving the government broad controls over the news media. He posted a message on Twitter in January in support of Mr. Trumps repeated use of the term.Europes far right cites Trump on migration. Since hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers entered the European Union in 2015, migration has become one of the Continents most divisive issues. And in talking about it, Europes populists and right-wing politicians have found common cause with Mr. Trump. He has cited and supported their anti-immigration positions, and they have used that backing and his slogans and tough talk to bolster their own positions.Theo Francken, Belgiums immigration minister and an enthusiastic follower of Mr. Trump on social media, on Friday pointed to Mr. Trumps call to end birthright citizenship in the United States as a step to emulate. A lot can be said in favor of this idea, including in Belgium, he said. Mr. Francken recently wrote a book about Europe, Continent Without Borders, that called for locking down European Union bordersThe leader of Italy's right-wing League party, Matteo Salvini, has also drawn inspiration from the American president.Mr. Salvini, who wields considerable sway as the countrys interior minister and deputy prime minister, came to power on an anti-immigrant platform. And he adopted the slogan Italians First while campaigning this year, an echo of Mr. Trumps America First motto. Brazils new leader follows Trump on embassy in Israel.ImageCredit...Ricardo Moraes/ReutersSince Mr. Trumps election, populist leaders with a similarly brash style, have risen to power. Brazils newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro, rallied supporters with calls like Lets make Brazil great that were reminiscent of Mr. Trumps election slogan. His recent election marked a radical shift to the right in one of the worlds largest democracies.Mr. Bolsonaro, who takes office in January, said this week that he plans to follow suit on one of Mr. Trumps most contentious foreign policy actions by moving the Brazilian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the contested city of Jerusalem. Last year, Mr. Trump reversed nearly seven decades of American foreign policy and set off Palestinian outrage by moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem.And like Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro has also strongly criticized the United Nations for what he sees as overreach. Milan Schreuer and Rick Gladstone contributed reporting. | World |
Credit...Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 21, 2017TOKYO Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has staked a significant part of his governing agenda on his plans to empower women. But an unrelenting scandal over allegations that a right-wing education group received improper political favors has ensnared two of the most prominent women in Mr. Abes life: his wife, Akie Abe, and his defense minister, Tomomi Inada.The scandal has dented Mr. Abes popularity, and his feminist credentials have been especially hard hit.As the scandal began to dominate headlines last month, Mrs. Abe resigned as honorary principal of a new school planned by the right-wing group in Osaka. The group, Moritomo Gakuen, promotes elements from Japans prewar patriotic school curriculum and bought land from the government at a steep discount.Last week, the leader of the group said Mrs. Abe gave him an envelope of cash two years ago as a donation from the prime minister, a claim Mr. Abe has vociferously denied.Ms. Inada, Japans second female defense minister, whom Mr. Abe has been grooming to be his successor, is fighting calls for her resignation after she retracted a statement that she had never represented the school group in a lawsuit. In fact, she appeared in court on its behalf in 2004. She said she had initially forgotten and apologized in Parliament.High-profile women are often scrutinized in Japan, which ranks the lowest among advanced industrial countries for female representation in Parliament. But the emergence of Mrs. Abe and Ms. Inada as central figures in the school scandal has emboldened critics who have long portrayed them as problematic advocates for womens rights.Mrs. Abes feminism is quite shallow, said Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor of political science at Hosei University. He added that although Mrs. Abe appeared occasionally at events that campaigned for women in agriculture or innovation in womens work-life balance, the first lady had not been seen as committed to real, systemic change.Mrs. Abe, who did not respond to requests for comment, has supported womens causes in Iran and is a patron of the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, whose mission is to provide a college education to women from deprived backgrounds. In her memoir, I Live My Own Life, Mrs. Abe said she supported her husbands efforts to create a society in which women can shine, writing that women dont need to work just like men do.ImageCredit...Jrmie Souteyrat for The New York TimesThe Japanese news media sometimes describes Mrs. Abe as the prime ministers at-home opposition party, because she has expressed more progressive views on issues like lesbian and gay rights and nuclear power in addition to supporting womens causes.But the disclosure of her ties to the right-wing school group has undermined that reputation.Moritomo Gakuen already operates a kindergarten that requires students to recite the Imperial Rescript on Education, a 19th-century royal decree that prescribes that subjects be ever united in loyalty and filial piety and that husbands and wives be harmonious. Its leader, Yasunori Kagoike, has been accused of bigotry against Chinese and Koreans.In response to questions for Mrs. Abe, the office of the prime minister referred to his comments in Parliament on Friday, when he defended his wife, saying that she had never given money to the school group and that neither of them was involved in selling public land to the proposed school.Moritomo Gakuen has decided it will not build the school and has been ordered to return the land to the government. Mr. Kagoike is expected to testify in Parliament on Thursday.Women who want to see more female representation in positions of power say they are even more disappointed by Ms. Inada.Inada is anti-feminist, said Mari Miura, a professor of political science at Sophia University, pointing to the defense ministers membership in an ultraconservative activist group that believes women belong in the home. She added that Ms. Inada had resisted calls to push legislation that would allow married women to use different surnames from those of their husbands, a cause important to Japanese feminists.Ms. Miura said Mr. Abe had chosen Ms. Inada because she shared his revisionist view that Japan had been unfairly accused of atrocities in World War II. The women chosen by him are just symbolic or a cosmetic way of conveying womens advancement, Ms. Miura said. And that doesnt really empower women at all.Ms. Inada was one of three women to assume political leadership positions in Japan last summer, but from the moment she was appointed, critics have questioned her qualifications.Even in her own Liberal Democratic Party, some lawmakers have asked why a lawyer who had never been a vice minister in either the Defense or Foreign Affairs Ministries would be selected for such a significant post, particularly as tensions in the region escalate, with North Korea developing nuclear missiles and China pushing territorial claims.At times, the commentary has strayed to her appearance. Observers on social media complained about the casual outfit and oversize sunglasses she wore on a plane to Djibouti in eastern Africa over the summer, when she met with Japanese troops on a counterpiracy mission. On another occasion, after she visited a Japanese naval ship, a popular tabloid magazine disapproved of the high heels she wore.ImageCredit...Charles Atiki Lomodong/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesHer biggest opponents argue that while such appraisals are unfortunate, Ms. Inada has shown her lack of qualifications in multiple ways.Its very disappointing that all the attention goes to female politicians fashion, said Kiyomi Tsujimoto, a member of the House of Representatives from the opposition Democratic Party who has been one of Ms. Inadas harshest critics in Parliament. The real problem, Ms. Tsujimoto said, is that Ms. Inada does not have confidence and experience and knowledge of the army.Ms. Inada once shed tears in parliamentary session under questioning by Ms. Tsujimoto, who had asked whether she had flown to Djibouti to avoid visiting the contentious Yasukuni war shrine on the annual day in August that commemorates the end of World War II.Questions about Ms. Inadas competence have intensified since disclosures that the Ground Self-Defense Force, Japans army, had withheld reports on the activities of peacekeeping units in South Sudan.While both Ms. Inada and Mr. Abe had portrayed the operation as safe, the reports, which surfaced in the Japanese news media last month, described several episodes of combat between warring factions in South Sudan. The law forbids Japanese troops to participate in missions where active conflict is involved.In a faxed statement, Ms. Inada said she had not seen the leader of the Moritomo Gakuen group for 10 years. And she said that she had ordered a special investigation into the South Sudan reports. If any problems emerge, she wrote, I will try to improve it under the defense ministers responsibility.But analysts say that if army officials or bureaucrats hid the reports from her, that shows her lack of power in the ministry.Its hard to see how shes going to gain any amount of authority or trust from the public, let alone the people she has authority over, said Jeffrey Hornung, a fellow in the security and foreign affairs program at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, a research institute based in Washington.In Parliament last week, Mr. Abe defended Ms. Inada, saying he wanted her to continue to perform her duties with sincerity.For now, critics say Ms. Inada may survive the scandal.If Abe throws her under the bus, hes likely to get spattered because hes her career mentor, said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo. On the other hand, he added, he needs a scapegoat so he can change the channel. | World |
The administration wants to require hospitals to reveal the rates they privately negotiate with insurers for all sorts of procedures, amid the public outcry over surprise medical bills. Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York TimesPublished Dec. 4, 2019Updated Dec. 5, 2019The nations hospital groups sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over a new federal rule that would require them to disclose the discounted prices they give insurers for all sorts of procedures.The hospitals, including the American Hospital Association, argued in a lawsuit filed in United States District Court in Washington that the new rule is unlawful, several times over. They argued that the administration exceeded its legal authority in issuing the rule last month as part of its efforts to make the health care system much more transparent to patients. The lawsuit contends the requirement to disclose their private negotiations with insurers violates their First Amendment rights. We make the case that the burden placed on our members to come up with this information is extensive, Tom Nickels, an executive vice president with the American Hospital Association, said in an interview. The administration wanted the disclosure rule, which would go into effect in 2021, to allow patients to better shop for deals on a range of services, from M.R.I.s to hip replacements. Hospitals should be ashamed that they arent willing to provide American patients the cost of a service before they purchase it, Caitlin Oakley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an emailed statement. President Trump and Secretary Azar are committed to providing patients the information they need to make their own informed health care decisions and will continue to fight for transparency in Americas health care system. While the administration already requires hospitals to post some of their list prices, the public outcry over surprise medical bills and high out-of-pocket costs led the administration to seek even more detail on the discounted prices that are kept secret between hospitals and insurers.Patients have long complained that they are completely in the dark about what a doctors visit or surgery will cost until after they receive the bill. Knee surgery, for example, can cost thousands of dollars more at one hospital than at another in the same region. The administration clearly anticipated a legal challenge. In fact, when he announced the hospital price disclosure rule, Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, was adamant that the rule would withstand a court challenge. We may face litigation, and we feel we are on a very firm legal footing, he said last month. H.H.S. has been willing under this administration to test the limits of their authority, that would subject them to more litigation, said Emily J. Cook, a health care lawyer in Los Angeles. While her firm is not representing any of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, one of them is a client, she said. At the heart of the administrations efforts is an attempt to tackle rising hospital costs, which have outpaced the increase in physician prices, according to a recent study by health economists in Health Affairs. The economists estimated that hospital inpatient prices increased 42 percent from 2007 to 2014. In an op-ed article published in The Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, Seema Verma, the administrator for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, promoted the administrations efforts to benefit patients. The decades-long norm of price obscurity is just fine for those who get to set the prices with little accountability and reap the profits, but that stale and broken status quo is bleeding patients dry, she wrote. The price transparency delivered by these rules will put downward pressure on prices and restore patients to their rightful place at the center of American health care. The hospital groups, which also include the Association of American Medical Colleges, the National Association of Childrens Hospitals and the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals, argued in the lawsuit that the rule would not accomplish the administrations aim of helping consumers avoid surprise bills. Three individual hospitals also joined the case. Americas hospitals and health systems remain committed to providing patients with the information they need to make informed health care decisions, the lawsuit said. It contended that the rule will generate confusion about patients financial obligations, not quell it. The lawsuit was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The Trump administration has also proposed a rule requiring insurers to allow patients to get advanced estimates of their out-of-pocket costs before they see a doctor or go to the hospital. The industrys major trade associations wrote a letter on Tuesday, requesting an additional 90 days to comment on the proposal, pushing the deadline to mid-April. The sheer volume of data that the government is proposing health plans disclose is staggering dollar amounts for every single item or service, for every single provider and facility, for every single individual and employer plan, wrote executives from Americas Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. The administrations efforts to push the industry to make more information public to patients faces a real legal challenge, and it has been unsuccessful in other attempts. When the administration earlier tried to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose the list price of prescription drugs in television ads, the drug companies argued that the Department of Health and Human Services had exceeded its regulatory authority and that the requirement also violated its First Amendment rights. A federal judge ruled last summer that H.H.S. had, in fact, exceeded its regulatory authority with the rule, which was seen as largely symbolic because list prices are not what patients typically pay. The decision is under appeal.The hospitals have also been successful to date in other cases arguing that the agency lacks the authority to issue payment rules, said Ms. Cook, although the government could also win those cases on appeal. The courts are displaying less deference to rule making by government agencies, said Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, a lawyer in Washington who works with clients to challenge administrative actions. The hospitals could also succeed by raising First Amendment grounds, he said. That argument has gained a lot of traction over last 10 years, he said. [Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.] | Health |
TrilobitesScientists dig into the diet, health and history of Danish hunter-gatherers in a new study.Credit...Theis JensenDec. 17, 2019When hunter-gatherers living in what is now southern Denmark broke down pieces of birch bark into sticky, black tar about 5,700 years ago, they almost certainly didnt realize that they were leaving future scientists their entire DNA.Ancient people used the gooey birch pitch to fix arrowheads onto arrows and to repair a variety of stone tools. When it started to solidify, they rolled the pitch in their mouths and chewed on it, like some sort of primitive bubble gum. Chewing on birch pitch would have made it pliable again for using on tools. It might have also relieved toothaches because of the antiseptic oils in the gum. Its possible that children also used it recreationally, much like modern humans do today. When they spat the gum out, the same antiseptic properties helped preserve the DNA in their saliva.The ancient DNA, described in a paper published Tuesday in Nature Communications, is especially valuable because few human bones from the Mesolithic and Neolithic Stone Ages have been found in Scandinavia. DNA from the chewed-up gum provides clues about the people who settled in the area, the kind of food they ate and even the type of bacteria they carried on their teeth.It is very exciting to be able to extract a full human genome from anything other than bone, said Hannes Schroeder, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen, who led the research. This sample had lots of microbial DNA preserved as well.Researchers uncovered the wad of gum last year from the site of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link tunnel. Planned construction of the underwater tunnel, which will connect the Danish island of Lolland with the German island of Fehrman, has forced archaeologists to rush to collect artifacts and fossil evidence before they are lost forever.Findings from the site suggest that people living in the area relied heavily on fishing, hunting and the gathering of wild nuts and berries for their survival, even as other Scandinavian populations started farming and domesticating animals, Dr. Schroeder said.When researchers analyzed human DNA preserved in the 5,700-year-old birch pitch, they found that the individual who chewed on it was a female, who was more closely related to hunter-gatherers from continental Europe than those from central Scandinavia. They named her Lola.Her genes suggest she likely had a striking combination of dark skin, dark hair and blue eyes. She also probably couldnt digest milk. But these characteristics are not surprising. They have been noted in reconstructions of a 10,000-year-old British skeleton called the Cheddar Man, as well as other European hunter-gatherers. (Experts believe Northern Europeans evolved lighter skin and hair to adapt to the lower light conditions in regions where they lived much later on, and the genetic mutation for digesting milk came around once they became more dependent on livestock for food.)Lola, however, had been eating duck and hazelnuts before she started chewing on birch pitch, based on additional DNA found in the birch sample.This is a snapshot of a real person in real time, said Natalija Kashuba, an archaeologist at Uppsala University in Sweden, who also studies birch pitch samples but was not involved in the latest research. Its as close as well ever come to standing face to face with an individual from the Stone Age of Scandinavia.Researchers also detected DNA from bacteria and viruses in the birch resin, providing a snapshot of the ancient oral microbiome that scientists had never seen before. That changes the game, Dr. Kashuba said.Studying ancient oral microbiomes could reveal larger truths about how bacteria interact with one another, how they change over time or with the type food a person eats, as well as how they may be implicated in health and disease questions that also interest scientists studying the modern microbiome.The Danish team identified several species of bacteria that were similar to those hiding in peoples plaque and on the tips of their tongues today. Some included bacteria known to cause gum disease, such as Porphyromonas gingivalis. The birch pitch sample also had traces of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria and Epstein-Barr virus, which provide clues to Lolas health.For the wealth of information the small piece of pitch provides, it raises just as many questions, Dr. Kashuba said. Scientists are unable to glean an individuals age from the DNA stored in the sample. Theyre also unsure exactly why some individuals chewed it. But because people chewed gums made of pitch and other substances all around the world, we could be left with a trove of already-been-chewed treasure for tracing people, activities and bacteria of the past. | science |
Science|What is New Shepard and where will it fly?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/new-shepard-flight.htmlOct. 13, 2021, 7:01 a.m. ETOct. 13, 2021, 7:01 a.m. ETCredit...LM Otero/Associated PressNew Shepard is the centerpiece rocket of Blue Origins space tourism business. A booster rocket at the bottom stands six stories tall, with a capsule sitting on top that can seat up to six crew.The suborbital rocket is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space in 1961 and one of the astronauts who walked on the moon. It takes off from Blue Origins Launch Site One, a launchpad in rural West Texas about 100 miles from of El Paso.The full mission lasts about 10 minutes. New Shepard launches to an altitude of roughly 63 miles, a widely recognized marker of where space begins and known as the Krmn line.At peak altitude, the booster rocket releases its crewed capsule. The booster then begins a descent back toward the ground, reigniting its single engine to land vertically on a slab of concrete five miles from where it launched.Back in space at the same time, the crew capsule is suspended in a free fall some 63 miles high. The passengers experience roughly four minutes of weightlessness in microgravity as well as views of Earths slightly curved horizon where its atmosphere meets space. Each seat has its own window of 3.5 feet by 2.3 feet.Im thrilled and anxious, and a little nervous and a little frightened, about this whole new adventure, Mr. Shatner said during an interview on NBCs Today show on Monday.During Blue Origins first crewed flight in July, passengers unbuckled and floated throughout the 530-cubic-foot capsule, amused by the weightlessness. They tossed candies to one another and did somersaults before getting back in their seats.During the capsules free fall toward land, it deploys an initial set of parachutes to brake its speed, then another set of three bigger parachutes to carry the capsule softly to land at about 15 miles per hour. Milliseconds before landing in the desert also not far from the launchpad the capsule releases a burst of air from its underside to cushion the touchdown. The seats inside are supported by a scissor-like mechanism that further limits the impact.Blue Origin had boasted that the windows on New Shepards crew capsule are the biggest to fly in space, but Elon Musks SpaceX snatched that superlative in September when it launched its Crew Dragon capsule to low-Earth orbit with a new glass dome that stretches 46 inches wide and 18 inches deep, covering 2,000 square inches in all. | science |
TV SportsMissing Costas? Fleeting Glimpses of a Lasting PresenceFeb. 19, 2014Credit...Bob Levey/Getty ImagesHow much time would you guess Bob Costas spends on the air during one of NBCs prime-time Olympic shows? Fifteen or 20 minutes? A half-hour?Costass longevity at the Olympic anchor desk his post since 1992, until an eye infection forced him off the air last week has fed the notion that he is highly visible each night. He is seen regularly, of course: at the start of each broadcast, and when he hands off from one sport to another, conducts interviews, offers bits of historical context and updated medal counts, and promotes the next days broadcast.I dont keep track of how many times Im on or not, Costas said by telephone Wednesday from Sochi, Russia. But it seems it would ebb and flow with how jam-packed an evening is. If Im on 12 times tonight and 6 times last night, Im not aware of it. And I dont care.He has no fixed length of on-screen time. But it turns out hes not on much. In his first two nights back after sitting out six days with the infection, Costas was a visible presence for a mere 5 minutes 28 seconds on Monday and for 10:17 on Tuesday, nearly half of it an interview with the figure skating analysts Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir.Costas was surprised by his figure for Mondays show. If you told me 15 minutes, I would say that sounds right, he said.The on-air totals for Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, who filled in during Costass convalescence, were just as modest during the three random nights I measured them, ranging from 3:57 to 8:18. (All these times exclude the minute or two of opening narration to set the stage for the night.)The job of the Olympic prime-time host is a peculiar one. It isnt calling a game or moderating discussions. Costas serves as traffic cop and institutional memory. And with the exception of interviews, much of what he does is in modest bits 13 seconds here, 49 seconds there, a minute now and then.If Costas is not seen much, what is he doing? In an Olympics that is recorded for prime-time viewing, as this one is, NBC creates its broadcast piece by piece, and not necessarily in the order they will be aired. When we know how long each package is, Costas said, the writers and I will shape the leads and the tags and write down my observations. Interviews with athletes occur when the athletes are available. Although the first thing Costas did when he got to work Wednesday night (Sochi time) was interview Ted Ligety, the giant slalom gold medalist, their conversation was not scheduled to be seen early in the show.In a live Olympics, Costas said, you need to do more traffic copping, jumping from place to place. But in a taped Olympics, the producers can shape it.Depending on the sports that fit into the nightly jigsaw puzzle, Costas might disappear from the air for long stretches. On Monday night, at around 9:40 p.m. Eastern, Costas wrapped up bobsledding, and NBC headed to the final ice dancing performances. NBC went without Costas for about 90 minutes as it broadcast a dance and a commercial break, the kiss-and-cry, the next routine and a break, and on and on, until Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the gold medal.I dont mind when Im not on, Costas said. I will do as much or as little as you need me to do. If you need to do five minutes and that gets it done, thats fine.If the host is not seen much over a shows three or four hours, has the positions importance been overestimated? Perhaps. Did Lauer and Vieiras fill-in work suggest that the role could be filled by other experienced anchors? Maybe. But with 11 prime-time hosting gigs, Costas brings a reassuring presence and cumulative Olympic knowledge to each broadcast. The response to, and news media coverage of, Costass six-day absence suggests at least two possibilities: that people respect and missed him, or that the 24-hour news cycle simply loves a new subject to gnaw over.Bobs impact on the Olympics is greater than the amount of minutes hes actually seen, said Mike Weisman, a former executive producer of NBC Sports and a longtime friend of Costass. And when Bob wasnt there, it was a major story. How many other broadcasters can you say that about? Similarly, when Jim McKays Olympic hosting ended with ABCs last production in Calgary in 1988, he was missed. He probably still is. McKays and Costass personalities became enmeshed with their networks Olympic brands, but neither man made a memorable skiing, bobsledding, skiing, biathlon or hockey call. They always left that to others. Not enough is made of the extraordinary contributions and skills of someone like Tom Hammond, Costas said of his NBC colleague, who is calling figure skating in Sochi. Tom has made some of the best sportscasting calls Ive ever heard in track and field. | Sports |
Sports Briefing | TennisFeb. 9, 2014Karin Knapp won her second match of the weekend and gave Italy a 3-1 win over the United States in their first-round Fed Cup match in Cleveland. Knapp defeated Alison Riske, 6-3, 7-5, to give Italy the victory in the best-of-five series.Lauren Davis and Madison Keys of the United States earned a 6-2, 6-3 win in the doubles match against Nastassja Burnett and Alice Matteucci.Italy moves on to the World Group semifinals on April 19 and 20 to face Spain or the Czech Republic, whose first-round tie was extended into Monday because of rain.The United States moves to the World Group playoff in April and will need to win to avoid falling back. The United States Fed Cup team is 0-11 after trailing by 0-2 after the first day of play since the World Group format began in 1995. | Sports |
Quint in 'Can't Buy Me Love' 'Memba Him?! 1/31/2018 Cort McCown is best known for playing the trash-talking jock Quint -- opposite Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Peterson -- in the popular 1987 film "Can't Buy Me Love." Guess what he looks like now! Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Memba Them Photo Galleries | Entertainment |
on techTechnology was supposed to be all about welcoming newcomers. But is it?Credit...Ben WisemanJuly 24, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.Digital success can be as flimsy as tissue paper. Remember Groupon? BlackBerry went from the king of our pockets to nada in a hot minute. Heck, it seemed like we got bored of those internet cake videos in a week.Even in technology, though, some habits can prove tenacious.No one has been able to get large numbers of Americans to use something other than Google for all our burning questions. The world has settled into only two flavors of smartphones: iPhones and Androids. And in the United States, its tough to crack Amazons lock on online shopping.Its not necessarily because these products or services are better than the alternatives. They might be, but there are also strategic arts that explain why some companies endure. And theres the power of inertia. Sometimes we do what we do because thats what we do.Theres nothing necessarily wrong with these habits. But we have long thought of technology as more dynamic and open to newcomers. And yet, is it?Lets focus on online shopping. In the United States, Amazon has at least seven times the online business of Walmart, Target, eBay or anyone else.Amazon is really good at what it does. It sells just about every product imaginable for good or for ill, buying is easy and stuff typically arrives reliably and fast. Prices often arent the cheapest, and Amazons website feels like it was made by 1990s robots rather than by humans with souls but no matter.And also theres the power of habit that Amazon cleverly reinforces. Were on Amazon because were used to it, and it just works. Merchants focus their attention on Amazon because were all shopping there. And the Prime shopping club is essentially an incentive to never shop anywhere else.My colleague Dai Wakabayashi chronicled this week Googles repeated, mostly failed efforts to make it as easy as possible for merchants to sell us stuff through Google instead. Dai told me that Google is now letting merchants list many products without paying sales commissions, and its making it easy for them to port over information directly from their Amazon product listings. Google is trying so hard!Google can be a scatterbrained mess, but its also rich and attracts billions of eyeballs every day. If it cant persuade Americans to shop somewhere other than Amazon, that shows us something both about Amazons strengths and about how tough it can be to persuade us to try something different. (Worth noting: Amazon rules online but a vast majority of our consumer spending happens in stores.)Everyone in Silicon Valley knows the history of technology winners becoming losers in a flash, so many successful tech companies live in fear of losing it all.One question for those of us who use technology, and for governments concerned about keeping competition healthy, is whether theres something different that makes todays tech powers more immovable than yesterdays. This is at the heart of the upcoming congressional antitrust hearings involving four of Americas digital superpowers.The bottom line is internet users like us benefit if lots of companies are afraid for their future and fighting hard for our attention and dollars. But in some corners of technology, thats not really happening.Every fight is about dataIm constantly struck that lots of problems about our digital lives boil down to data: who has it, who doesnt and how its interpreted and kept secret.Let me give you one example: The Wall Street Journal and NBC News had details this week about Facebook previously shelving internal studies of possible racial bias on its site including research that dug into why Black people appeared far more likely to have their accounts disabled for perceived violations of hate speech rules.Facebook said in part that it worried these research projects relied on faulty data. Facebook doesnt know if youre Black, but it makes inferences about race from the information you engage with. Those inferences can be wrong, and Facebook said it didnt want to rely on bad data.Mind you, Facebook uses this same data to target advertising for companies who want to sell to Black people. The data was good enough for Facebooks paying customers. (And, a former Facebook researcher tweeted that those probing possible bias didnt rely only on Facebooks inferences on race.)The reason we know about this fight inside Facebook is that the companys employees see data that we never will, and some of them were uncomfortable with how their bosses used or suppressed the information. There are similar tales at YouTube and at just about every internet superpower.There are two crucial lessons here: First, we often think data is somehow pure and untainted by human bias, but thats wrong. Information is gathered and interpreted by humans or by computers programmed by humans and is therefore subject to our whims and bias.And second, we are hopelessly incapable of understanding the inner workings of the worlds biggest information machines because they see every morsel of information happening inside their walls and we see only what they choose to tell us. Data is power, and we have little of both.Before we go Trying to influence the influential: George Mason Universitys Global Antitrust Institute has pushed a message of restraint in antitrust enforcement to hundreds of overseas regulators and judges at lavish all-expense paid conferences in Hawaii, Tokyo and Portugal. My colleague Dai found that Google, Amazon, Qualcomm and other big tech companies helped pay for these events, which critics said presented a one-sided view of corporate regulation intended to benefit the big companies.Everything is data, part deux: Another way tech companies consolidate and keep power is by harnessing data to learn about competitors and countermove against them. The Wall Street Journal wrote about Amazon appearing to use its interactions with business partners or potential ones to help develop competing products. And the tech news publication the Information wrote about Google using data from Android phones to learn about how people use rival apps.My new favorite couple: I loved this New York Times article about the owners of a laundry shop in Taiwan who have become Instagram stars for posing in garments that people abandoned. I can tell theyre elated, said the unofficial stylist and grandson of the couple, who are in their 80s. (Check out their account for yourself. These two have got style.)Hugs to thisMay we all have the calm and grace of this bear sitting on patio furniture. (Thanks to my colleague Charlie Warzel for spotting this gem.)We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else youd like us to explore. You can reach us at [email protected]. If you dont already get this newsletter in your inbox, please sign up here. | Tech |
Credit...Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressJune 8, 2018President Trump is scheduled to depart for Canada on Friday morning for the annual G-7 summit meeting, a gathering of leaders of the United States and six of its main allies. But the two-day meeting comes at a fraught moment, with the American president locked in a bitter trade dispute with the other leaders over Mr. Trumps imposition of tariffs. Here are five things to watch:The locale: La MalbaieIf any place could soothe the tempers of G-7 leaders, it is the weekend getaway village of La Malbaie, 90 miles northeast of Quebec City, near the languid waters of the St. Lawrence River. Even the police, flown in from as far as St. Johns, Newfoundland, are friendly, waving cars through their blockades past the imposing Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu hotel, where the leaders will meet.The villages waterside square, where locals celebrate holidays together, has been transformed into a free speech zone, but on Thursday evening, the only sound produced there came from birds.The battlefield: TwitterForget the formal and old-fashioned statements from summit meetings past. In the hours before the opening of the gathering, Mr. Trump and the other leaders waged a nasty Twitter fight over trade, ditching diplomacy for schoolyard taunts.Given Mr. Trumps regular use of social media to attack his rivals and the apparent willingness of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, to meet Mr. Trump on the digital battlefield the summit meeting itself could play out on Twitter as well. The key accounts to follow: @realDonaldTrump, @EmmanuelMacron, @JustinTrudeau and @theresa_may.The clues: Body languageSummit meetings are public spectacles, but the real work happens behind closed doors. So one of the best ways to figure out whats going on is to watch the body language during the brief glimpses before and after the meetings and lunches.If Mr. Trump slumps down or crosses his arms tightly, that could be an indication that hes angry about what just took place. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is not great at hiding her displeasure, if she gives Mr. Trump the cold shoulder it could be telling. And if the famous bromance between Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump is no longer, that should be obvious by the way they shake hands.The end game: ConcessionsAhead of the summit meeting, Mr. Trump has given no indication that he will retreat from his imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Europe and Canada. But if the allies succeed in pressing their case that the trade policy is illegal and unfair, it may be evident in announcements from the United States of exemptions for some of the countries involved. That seems highly unlikely, given the statements by Mr. Trump and his top trade officials.But the president is famous for abruptly changing course in ways that most of his predecessors would have avoided for example, the on-again, off-again, on-again summit meeting with North Korea.The drama: A communiqu?The tradition at G-7 summit meetings is to conclude with a joint statement, carefully worked out to highlight the agreement and cooperation among the leaders on a broad range of topics. That seems highly unlikely this time.In fact, Mr. Macron and Mr. Trudeau have already threatened to boycott such a joint statement unless Mr. Trump reverses his tariffs. And Mr. Macron has suggested that the six other countries could rebuke Mr. Trump by issuing their own declaration of principles without the United States. That would be a remarkable moment that underscores the extent to which the American president has isolated himself from the countrys traditional allies. | Politics |
June 2, 2015Instagram is cranking up its money machine, and that means a lot more ads in your photo feed.Facebook, which bought Instagram in 2012, has kept the mobile photo-sharing service mostly free of advertising, allowing only a handful of big brands to put a few carefully drafted commercial messages on the service.But on Tuesday, the company announced plans to open the Instagram feed to all advertisers, from the local tattoo parlor to global food makers, later this year. Marketers will be able to target ads to the services 300 million users by interest, age, gender and other factors, just as they can on Facebook.Instagram will also begin testing a type of ad that allows viewers to click on a link to buy a product or install an app that is advertised.The commercialization of Instagram, while sure to disappoint some users, was probably inevitable. Major social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest have committed to keep their services free to users, and they have turned to advertising to pay the bills.Instagram offered its first ads in November 2013, but since it has been subsidized by Facebook, it has had time to develop an ad strategy.The advertising expansion has long been anticipated by marketers and investors, who see big money for Facebook and the brands in ads shown to Instagrams users a generally young, passionate group who share, like, click and comment on posts at a much higher rate than users of other services, including Facebook.One Wall Street firm, RBC Capital Markets, has estimated that Instagram ads could bring in $1.3 billion to $2.1 billion in additional revenue to Facebook this year alone, depending on how quickly its new ad offerings are introduced.Consumer brands and retailers have been particularly eager for an easy way to lead people who, for instance, like an Instagram photo of a pair of ballet flats, to a place where they could buy the shoes.Right now, that experience is clumsy, especially on mobile phones, when users are forced to cut and paste a link into their browsers or search for the shoes on a retailers site.Its not fun as a user and hard to track as a brand, said Kfir Gavrieli, chief executive and co-founder of Tieks, a Los Angeles maker of foldable ballet flats that sells its wares entirely online. Mr. Gavrieli, whose company has about 400,000 Instagram followers, was briefed by Facebook on the coming changes and said he was eager to try the companys new targeting and click-to-buy options.Nevertheless, increased advertising could also turn off Instagram users. The services founder, Kevin Systrom, who still runs the service within Facebook, built it to be a place to relax and appreciate beautiful photos and videos posted by people and companies that users have chosen to follow. When Facebook bought Mr. Systroms company for $1 billion, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, said he wanted to preserve that experience.Filling the feed with unexpected ads from random companies could alter that.Its not necessarily going to be the beautiful imagery that fans are used to, said Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst at eMarketer, who was briefed in advance about the companys plans. She cited the infamous Facebook ads promoting belly-fat reduction as an example of ugly ads that could soon show up in Instagram feeds.Instagram insists that it is treading carefully to balance the desires of its advertisers and its users and does not want to appreciably change the user experience.Visual storytelling for brands has more resonance. People remember it more, said James Quarles, Instagrams global head of business and brand development. But we want to make sure the ads they see are for things that matter to them.Instagram has roughly the same number of users as Twitter. But Instagram has been much slower than Twitter and its own sister network, Facebook, in allowing ads on the service and building sophisticated targeting tools to help marketers reach potential customers.Google has also been creative. Last week, for example, it began public testing of a tool that allows people to buy products from within a YouTube video. And Pinterest, another growing social network, said Tuesday that it would allow sellers to add buy buttons on items they post to the site.Instagram has taken it in a very gradual way to maintain as much of the purity of the environment as they can, said Brian Wieser, a media analyst with Pivotal Research.Collectively, the expanded advertising options signal that Facebook is becoming serious about making money from Instagram, which has a younger audience than the main Facebook social network, whose core users are middle-age mothers.Who are brands obsessed with? High-income teens and people in their 20s, said Scott Galloway, a New York University marketing professor and chairman of L2, a research firm that studies how consumer brands use social media. Those people are leaving Facebook. Where are they going? Instagram. Facebook has shored up its rear flank with this important cohort with Instagram.There is little doubt that Instagram is a powerful storytelling platform for marketers. But so far, most of them have not advertised on the service but instead have used it for more subtle forms of marketing.The Oreo cookie brand, for example, just finished Tiny Tasty World, a campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter that turns Oreos into miniature life scenes. In one, tiny people lounge on beach towels that rest on top of a golden Oreo in the sand. That post drew nearly 25,000 likes and more than 200 comments on Instagram.The visual style really resonates with people, said Kerri McCarthy, a brand manager for Oreo North America.So far, Oreo has only posted images on its Instagram account and has not paid for advertising, Ms. McCarthy said. While that has been successful since December, the size of Oreos audience has doubled to roughly half a million followers paid advertising could further increase the brands reach.That opportunity to reach people who are not yet fans but have the demographic traits that make them likely customers is part of Facebooks appeal to advertisers.And over the coming months, the company says, it will bring that targeting to Instagram, which could appeal even to brands with large numbers of followers.GMC, the truck brand of General Motors, for example, uses such targeting to advertise on Facebook to potential truck buyers, a group it has identified through outside marketing data as well as Facebooks data about its users.By contrast, the automakers first Instagram ad, a panoramic experiment that made its debut last week, was sent to all American Instagram users ages 25 to 54.Instagram, at this point, doesnt have the level of sophistication that Facebook has, said Janet Keller, GMCs marketing director. Ideally, down the road we would have access to a lot more targeting and filtering.Mr. Quarles of Instagram was much more cautious about promising the other feature that advertisers really want: the ability to embed a link in a post so that interested viewers can click to buy a product or learn more.Instagram will begin testing such call to action buttons soon, but only in ads and only in Spain, Mr. Quarles said.Our sense is that the time from being inspired to making that purchase is probably a longer one than a single session on Instagram, he said.Retailers would beg to differ.Many of them already use third-party workarounds, such as Curalates Like2Buy tool, to allow fans to shop their Instagram feeds. Visitors to the Instagram pages of Target, Nordstrom, Forever 21, Williams-Sonoma and other retailers can click on a special link that the store posts in its account description that leads to a mirror image of its Instagram feed but one where photos are clickable and link to product pages where a shopper can buy the items.We have a lot of marketers who post beautiful photographs, and its inspiring, and it causes people to want those products, said Apu Gupta, chief executive of Curalate.Instagrams lack of product links has not only frustrated marketers, he said, its frustrated consumers, too. | Tech |
Credit...Olivier Hoslet/European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 1, 2017BRUSSELS The European Union took a step toward coming to terms with the obvious on Wednesday: The 27 diverse nations in the bloc do not necessarily agree on the direction they are moving, how fast to get there, or how closely they should remain together.For decades, the Eurocrats leading the bloc have usually insisted that there is one direction and one speed an inevitable momentum toward an ever closer union. But with Britain preparing to soon formally leave the bloc, and with other crises creating internal strains, Jean-Claude Juncker, the leader of the groups executive body, is offering something new on the menu: a buffet of options for leaders to consider over the next year or so.Mr. Juncker set out five potential paths for the blocs future on Wednesday. Several envision things continuing as they are or even tighter integration, while others acknowledge that Europe can work at different speeds and would roll back some of the powers of the European Commission, the permanent bureaucracy, which Mr. Juncker heads.Those options include narrowing the blocs focus to the so-called single market and its 500 million consumers, or creating a multispeed Europe, in which countries willing to integrate in specific areas would do so as coalitions of the willing. Another would represent a humbling rollback of European aspirations, ending efforts for further integration in areas like migration, security and defense.Speaking to the European Parliament, Mr. Juncker urged governments, which hold the real power in the bloc, to stop bashing the E.U. for problems, like youth unemployment and low economic growth, that are the responsibility of nation states.It would do us all good if we simply stopped Brussels-bashing, E.U.-bashing, he said.That is highly unlikely, of course, given the prominence of anti-European right-wing parties running historically strong campaigns in core member states like France, Germany and the Netherlands. They are following the success of the anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party in Britain, which pushed Brexit, as Britains withdrawal from the European Union is commonly known.Mr. Junckers scenarios are also an implicit acknowledgment that this crisis of faith in the European Union may not be making the bloc stronger, but represent a threat to its very future.In conceding that there could be more than one way forward, Mr. Juncker may have helped the European establishment fend off those critics who say countries must leave the bloc in order to regain greater control of their sovereignty.The risk, some say, is that you can undermine the coherence and unity of the union, but thats too bad, because it cant hold together if its not flexible, said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research institution in London. For instance, why pretend all countries will join the euro? It wont happen.The mantra of European Union bureaucrats has always been that crises make it stronger, creating the need for more Europe, rather than less. Stronger is implicitly defined as more integration and centralizing more power with European institutions in Brussels.But with the European Union encountering trouble on every corner Brexit, right-wing politics, migration, poor economic growth, and the continuing problem in the eurozone over what to do with massive Greek debt and Italian banks it is now the bloc itself that is in crisis.Mr. Juncker, who is sometimes criticized as disengaged or passive, set out to form the debate.A united Europe at 27 needs to shape its own destiny and carve out a vision for its own future, he wrote in his white paper outlining reflections and scenarios for the EU27 by 2025.Mr. Juncker wants national leaders to give him a mandate at a meeting on March 25 in Rome to begin a popular consultation. He will then need to decide how to carry out the work.One thing that will not change anytime soon is the glacial pace of European decision making. The process of determining what path to take will probably take at least two years, a similar time frame to the one negotiators will have to complete Britains withdrawal from the European Union.For now, many of the suggestions are vague and exploratory.Guy Verhofstadt, a pro-European lawmaker who represents Belgium in the European Parliament, told Mr. Juncker that there was a simpler solution to dealing with the migration crisis, to stabilizing troubled banks and to lowering energy prices: scrap the need for all member states to agree on major policy decisions, a root cause of deadlock.The unanimity rule has become an obstacle, a permanent blockade, Mr. Verhofstadt said.The issues are sensitive. Even the suggestion of a varied Europe brought some howls. Gianni Pittella, the leader of the Socialist Democrats in the European Parliament, suggested that Mr. Juncker had shied away from choosing a single pathway to restore faith in the European project because of political cowardice.We cannot accept the sacrifice of a common European future as a result of the shortsightedness of the council or because of a fear of possible outcomes of national elections, Mr. Pittella said in a statement, referring to the European Council, which brings together national leaders, but not explicitly naming France, Germany or the Netherlands.Which of Mr. Junckers scenarios is likely to prevail will depend on the outcome of elections in those countries and on the winners of the next round of European elections, to be held in 2019. | World |
The agency said that Congress should repeal parts of a law that has been crucial for the growth of companies like Facebook and Twitter.Published June 17, 2020Updated Dec. 15, 2020WASHINGTON The Justice Department released recommendations on Wednesday to pare back the legal shield for online platforms that has been crucial to their growth since the earliest days of the internet, taking a direct shot at companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that have come into the cross hairs of the Trump administration.In a 25-page recommendation, the agency called on lawmakers to repeal parts of a law that has given sites broad immunity from lawsuits for words, images and videos people have posted on their services.The changes to the law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, would put the onus on social media and other online platforms to more strongly police harmful content and conduct while also being consistent about their moderation.The Justice Department proposal, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, is a legislative plan that would have to be adopted by Congress. It adds to growing calls in Washington, from elected officials of both parties, to change Section 230.Last month, President Trump signed an executive order to limit protections for online platforms. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has criticized the law before, too. On Capitol Hill, Republicans have become increasingly critical of Facebook, Google and Twitter for abusing the safe harbor to take down content that employees disagree with, including conservative views.The size of the largest tech companies, the agency said in its recommendation, has raised valid questions of whether those large tech companies still require the blanket immunity of Section 230 provided to the nascent internet industry.The tech industry criticized the agencys proposal on Wednesday as a political ploy meant to aid Mr. Trumps battle against social media firms. Mr. Trump announced his social media executive order after Twitter labeled his tweets last month for violating the companys rules against voter suppression and the glorification of violence.Internet companies say they are already liable to some degree for criminal content and a reinterpretation of the 1996 legislation would constrain their ability to moderate harmful and problematic third-party content without fear of more liability.This is a coordinated attack by the administration against tech businesses to sidestep the First Amendment, said Carl Szabo, vice president of the tech lobbying organization NetChoice.The Justice Department recommendation is part of a sweeping review of big tech announced last July by Attorney General William P. Barr. As part of that review, the agency is expected to bring an antitrust monopolization case against Google in the coming months.The proposal is based on a 10-month investigation into online platforms and their record on monitoring and ridding sites of harmful content, including child exploitation and pornography. Earlier this year, Mr. Barr also instructed his staff to review Section 230, which was created to help encourage the growth of internet start-ups. In February, Mr. Barr held a daylong workshop focused on how to revise the law.A driving motivation behind our broader perspective, including Section 230, is the need for the departments enforcement efforts to keep up with rapidly changing technological landscape around us, Mr. Barr said at the February event. No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts; they have become titans of U.S. industry.The law generally shields websites from legal action for images, text and videos posted by users. The law also gives the website broad immunity for taking down that material.The agencys proposal, if passed by Congress, would open the door to civil lawsuits for posts with illegal and harmful content. It explicitly calls for an end to immunity on the most egregious content online, such as child exploitation and abuse, terrorist content and cyberstalking.The agencys proposal would also put greater scrutiny on the moderation of content, the focus of Mr. Trumps complaints. He and other Republicans have accused Twitter, Google and Facebook of suppressing and removing the materials of conservative public figures and media outlets. The agency proposes to strike language in the law that allows platforms to take down a broad array of otherwise objectionable content.The Justice Department said in its recommendation that technology has become essential to society and that several online platforms have become the nations biggest and most valuable companies. It proposed reforms that would bar the biggest tech platforms from using Section 230 speech protections in its defense in antitrust cases.Their use of sophisticated algorithms for targeting and connecting users and a broad interpretation of the law by courts have reduced the incentives of online platforms to address illicit activity on their services and, at the same time, left them free to moderate lawful content without transparency or accountability, the agency said in its report. | Tech |
Credit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York TimesNov. 23, 2018KARACHI, Pakistan In the most significant strike against Chinese interests in Pakistan in years, three militants assaulted the Chinese Consulate in the southern port city of Karachi on Friday morning, killing two police officers and two civilians at a checkpoint before being gunned down by security forces.On a day of violence that included a bombing that killed at least 30 people in northwestern Pakistan, the attack on the consulate in Karachi was a rare moment of upheaval for a tightening economic and strategic partnership between Pakistan and China.A Twitter account associated with the Baluchistan Liberation Army, a separatist group in the sprawling and violent province of Baluchistan, said that three of its members had embraced martyrdom in an attack on the Chinese Consulate. And a spokesman for the group was quoted by Reuters as accusing China of exploiting our resources.Pakistan has been a showcase for Chinas huge international development program, the One Belt, One Road initiative, in recent years. China is estimated to have spent some $62 billion on those projects in Pakistan, mostly to build a transportation corridor through Baluchistan to a new, Chinese-operated deepwater port in the Pakistani town of Gwadar.The road corridor being built through Baluchistan, which is also rich in natural resources, is one of the most strategic projects associated with the Belt and Road initiative. Its stated purpose is to greatly reduce shipping costs and time for Chinese goods, but it would also give China an important alternative if faced with naval blockades by the United States or its Asian allies.Baluchistan has also been the center of two resilient insurgencies, making it one of the most sensitive areas for Pakistans powerful military establishment: Ethnic Baluch separatists there have been pursued by a stifling Pakistani security presence, and part of the leadership of the Afghan Taliban also continues to take shelter there, in the city of Quetta.In a video sent to an Indian news service in March, Aslam Baloch, a senior commander of the Baluchistan Liberation Army, accused China and Pakistan of plundering resources in Baluchistan, which his group wants to turn into an independent state.ImageCredit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York TimesForeign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told Pakistans National Assembly that the first attacker at the consulate on Friday detonated an explosive vest, while the other two opened fire and tried to rush toward the area where visas are issued.Amir Jan, a driver who had been washing his car near the consulate, said he saw three men with Kalashnikov assault rifles move toward the consulate around 9:15 a.m. He said one threw a grenade before they all opened fire.Officials later said that two Pakistani civilians, a father and son who had come from Quetta to get Chinese visas, were also killed in the attack.Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a statement on Twitter insisting that such attacks could not shake the relationship between China and Pakistan. He said the strike had clearly been intended to scare Chinese investors and came as a result of trade agreements announced during his trip to China this month.The Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, the capital, later issued a statement extending condolences over the deaths and expressing faith in Pakistani security. We believe that the Pakistani side is able to ensure the safety of Chinese institutions and personnel in Pakistan, the statement said, adding that any attempt to undermine the countries relationship was doomed to fail.After the attack in Karachi, another bombing this one in the Orakzai region of northwestern Pakistan showed the continuing threat posed by militants on a separate front.At least 30 people were killed and 40 or more wounded when a bomb blast ripped through a fruit and vegetable market in the Hangu district there, officials said. The market was near a seminary for Shiite Muslims, a minority in Pakistan that is frequently targeted by extremist Sunni groups.The dead include Sunnis, Shiites and a couple of Sikh community members, said a local official, Mutahir Zeb Khan. We are identifying the dead.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which ended a brief lull in violence in the restive northwestern region, where the Pakistani Taliban were once active.Mr. Khan, the prime minister, implicitly linked the two attacks Friday, saying they represented a planned campaign to create unrest in the country by those who do not want Pakistan to prosper.ImageCredit...Saiyna Bashir for The New York TimesThe State Department condemned the attacks and commended the Pakistani security forces response to the Chinese Consulate, in a statement made Friday.The United States stands with the Pakistani people in the face of these terrorist acts, and will continue to seek opportunities to cooperate with the Pakistani government to combat these threats in the region, Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said.Karachi, home to 15 million people, is Pakistans largest city and its economic powerhouse. The neighborhood where the consulate attack happened, near the Arabian Sea, is mostly residential and upscale, including other consulates, schools and restaurants.The gunfire could be heard from several miles away, and witnesses on social media posted photos of smoke rising into the air as the attack unfolded. Schools in the area were placed on lockdown.Pakistan has tightened its economic ties to China in recent years, with Beijing recently giving Pakistan a $2 billion loan to help shore up its finances. That followed $1 billion received from Chinese banks in April. But even that substantial aid is far outstripped by the scale of Belt and Road spending in Pakistan.The investment in Pakistan led to an increase in the number of Chinese citizens in the country, and concern grew for the foreigners safety. In 2017, two Chinese citizens were abducted and killed in Quetta, in Baluchistan. The Islamic State claimed credit for that attack.The Baluchistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for an attack in August on a bus carrying Chinese mining workers in southwestern Pakistan, near the countrys borders with Afghanistan and Iran. The suicide bomber died and the workers were slightly injured.China is also starting to come under scrutiny from some public figures in Pakistan for its treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims in Chinas Xinjiang region. | World |
Credit...Chris Maggio; ShutterstockThe ShiftThis week, gleeful online hordes turned the stock market upside down. This shouldnt come as a surprise.Credit...Chris Maggio; ShutterstockJan. 28, 2021Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.This week, the biggest story in the financial markets is the absurdist, pretty-sure-I-hallucinated-it drama involving GameStop, a struggling video-game retailer that became the rope in a high-stakes tug of war between Wall Street suits and a crusading internet mob.The simplest explanation for what happened is that a bunch of hyper-online mischief-makers in Reddits r/WallStreetBets forum a clan of self-described degenerates with user names like dumbledoreRothIRA and Coldcutcombo69 decided it would be funny and righteous (and maybe even profitable, though that part was less important) to execute a short squeeze by pushing up the price of GameStops stock, entrapping the big-money hedge funds that had bet against it.The strategy worked. Within two days, GameStop was the most heavily traded stock in the world, Elon Musk and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got behind the revolt, and r/WallStreetBets users were posting screenshots of their suddenly inflated account balances. The schemes originator, whose Reddit user name is unprintable in a family paper, claims to have turned an initial investment of $50,000 into a windfall of more than $40 million. One of the hedge funds that had shorted GameStops stock, Melvin Capital, had to get a $2.75 billion bailout from two other investors after it was hammered with huge losses.Depending on whom you ask, the GameStop saga is either a cautionary story about a bunch of reckless nerds destabilizing the stock market for laughs in a way that is likely to backfire on them spectacularly, or a David-and-Goliath morality tale about a fearless band of retail investors cleverly putting one over on corrupt financial elites. (The truth is somewhere in the middle. There really is a revenge of the nerds angle here, but there are also plenty of rich investors cashing in on GameStop alongside the line cooks and high school students.)In any reading, the most unusual thing about Wall Streets being challenged by a rowdy band of Redditors is that it took so long to happen. This kind of populist revolt internet-based insurgents gleefully pulling down the pants of the unsuspecting establishment has been happening for years, to many powerful institutions.In fact, its harder to think of a pillar of the global establishment that hasnt been trampled by a similar stampede in recent years. Book publishers, movie studios, restaurant chains all of them have, in some way, been forced to cede power to their online critics. Our politics, too, have been transformed by internet activists, with TikTok teens disrupting presidential rallies and Twitch-streaming memelords storming the Capitol.No matter what their goals are moving a stock, overturning a presidential election, getting the graphics on a Sonic the Hedgehog movie changed these internet-based insurgencies tend to follow a similar pattern. One day, a group decides to take action against a system it feels is immoral or corrupt. Members identify structural weak points (a vulnerable political party, a risk-averse studio head, an overexposed short position) and figure out creative ways to exploit them, using social media for leverage and visibility. With enough highly motivated people pushing in the same direction, they eventually prevail, or get enough attention that it feels like they did.These online crusades can be waged in good faith or in bad faith, and some can become deeply destructive. (The classic example of a bad-faith battle is Gamergate, a 2014 culture war that started as a feud over video game journalism but morphed into a toxic campaign of violent misogyny and racism that paved the way for the alt-right.) But the best ones can jolt the status quo in useful ways: exposing injustice, challenging outdated norms or merely putting indolent gatekeepers on notice.Wall Street was among the last powerful institutions to be overrun by online populists, in part because it had a higher barrier to entry. Anyone with an internet connection and a Twitter account can start a hashtag campaign, but because trading stocks costs money and required some level of expertise and time commitment it was mostly left to professionals.Smartphone-based trading apps like Robinhood changed that, by introducing commission-free trades and an interface that made executing a gamma squeeze as straightforward as ordering a burrito from Uber Eats. Suddenly, millions of amateurs could organize themselves, generate their own market research and investment theses, drum up excitement in Reddit threads and TikTok videos, and enter the casino with the big boys. (Whether storming the high-roller tables has helped them financially is another question entirely.)Plenty of reporting on the GameStop saga has captured the jokey, profane enthusiasm of the traders, and the stunned disbelief of their Wall Street antagonists. But theres an economic justice angle that is easy to miss. On r/WallStreetBets, youll find impassioned essays from traders who say betting on GameStop has made them feel newly empowered in a financial system that has only taken advantage of them and their families for years.Greed is absolutely out of control at the top, and this funny little news story is tangible proof of that, wrote one user in a popular post on Wednesday. Do not let them gaslight you into thinking that its wrong for you to get a slightly larger sliver of the pie.If you can get past the all-caps lunacy and strange inside jargon, the Redditors make some good points. Big banks and hedge funds really do play by different rules than retail investors. Wall Street banks really did get bailed out after the 2008 financial crisis while Main Street homeowners suffered. M.B.A.s in fancy suits are probably no more likely to give you good investing advice than guys on YouTube with names like RoaringKitty.While watching the GameStop drama, Ive been reflecting on what the author Martin Gurri calls the revolt of the public. Mr. Gurri writes that the internet has empowered ordinary citizens by giving them new information and tools, which they then use to discover the flaws in the systems and institutions that govern their lives. Once theyve discovered these shortcomings, he writes, these citizens often rebel, tearing down elites and dominant institutions out of anger at having been lied to and withheld from.The result, Mr. Gurri writes, is a kind of vengeful nihilism, an urge to burn down the establishment without a clear sense of whats supposed to replace it.To me, that sounds a lot like GameStop. Retail investors, armed with new kinds of tools and information that allow them to compete on equal footing with professionals, are looking at the Masters of the Universe and going: Really? Those guys run the market?In other words, this is not just a speculative bubble or a stupid prank. Its an authority crisis. And even if GameStop stock crashes or regulators step in and call off the party, these disillusioned day traders will keep trying to create chaos for the elites they feel have spent decades profiting at their expense.The rebels may not win in the long run. Institutional power has a way of reasserting itself after sudden shocks. Eventually, the National Guard arrives, the studio head gets a backbone and the regulators show up. Already, we are seeing the GameStop brigade running up against the limits of its power. On Wednesday, Discord a chat app that Reddit day traders had turned into their virtual casino floor banned the Wall Street Bets server, citing violations of its hate-speech policy. On Thursday, Robinhood an app whose entire public brand consists of stand with the little guy messaging blocked users from buying shares in GameStop and several other stocks that the r/WallStreetBets crowd had targeted.But for the Reddit day traders, the important victory was always the symbolic one. They might lose their shirts, but theyve sent the message that with enough passion and rocket-ship emojis, a crowd of profane, irreverent degenerates again, their words, not mine can turn the stock market on its head.The hordes are here, and Wall Street will never be the same. | Tech |
DealBook|New Rules on Reporting Brokers Dismissals to Begin Dec. 12https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/business/dealbook/new-rules-on-reporting-brokers-dismissals-to-begin-dec-12.htmlDec. 1, 2015New rules significantly shorten the window of time brokerage firms have to report the details of a brokers departure from their firm an effort by securities regulators to make background information about brokers more accessible to consumers.Starting on Dec.12, brokerage firms will have to report the details of a brokers termination in three business days, down from 15. The Securities and Exchange Commission recently approved the change for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the regulator of 629,530 registered securities representatives.The information is reported to Finras BrokerCheck, a free online database intended for consumers to use to evaluate information about their brokers, or those they plan on using, including possible red flags such as frequent job-hopping. Finra has been trying to raise the profile of BrokerCheck in recent months, introducing a national print, online and television ad campaign this year.Critics have said BrokerCheck has only limited usefulness, however. Information on the database includes a brokers licenses, registrations, employment history and regulatory black marks. But it isnt a customer review service, such as Yelp.com.When a broker leaves a firm, the brokerage has to file a report called a U5 detailing the circumstances of the departure. If a broker was fired for a sales violation, that information would be reported to BrokerCheck. Not everything makes it onto BrokerCheck, however, such as internal employee reviews or problems not related to sales.It is better than nothing, says William Jacobson, the director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School. Its not the answer to all problems but at least it gives you some information, he said. Anything Finra can do to get more information into the public domain is a good thing.The 15-day delay in reporting the U5 information to BrokerCheck was designed to give brokers a chance to respond to any negative information on the report, Finra says. The regulator said the new three-day waiting period is more reasonable. | Business |
Out ThereCredit...Kevin Lamarque/ReutersNov. 21, 2016GREENBELT, Md. The next great space telescope spread its golden wings this month.Like the petals of a 20-foot sunflower seeking the light, the 18 hexagonal mirrors that make up the heart of NASAs James Webb Space Telescope were faced toward a glassed-in balcony overlooking a cavernous clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center here.Inside the room, reporters and a gaggle of space agency officials, including the ebullient administrator Charles Bolden, were getting their pictures taken in front of the giant mirror.Now, after 20 years with a budget of $8.7 billion, the Webb telescope is on track and on budget to be launched in October 2018 and sent a million miles from Earth, NASA says.VideotranscripttranscriptUnfurling the Webb TelescopeThis animation depicts the planned deployment of the Webb Space Telescope and its sunshield.N/AThis animation depicts the planned deployment of the Webb Space Telescope and its sunshield.The telescope, named after NASA Administrator James Webb, who led the space agency in the 1960s, is the long-awaited successor of the Hubble Space Telescope.Seven times larger than the Hubble in light-gathering ability, the Webb was designed to see farther out in space and deeper into the past of the universe. It may solve mysteries about how and when the first stars and galaxies emerged some 13 billion years ago in the smoky aftermath of the Big Bang.Equipped with the sort of infrared goggles that give troops and police officers night vision, the Webb would peer into the dust clouds and gas storms of the Milky Way in which stars and planets are presently being birthed. It would be able to study planets around other stars.ImageCredit...Kevin Lamarque/ReutersThat has been NASAs dream since 1996 when the idea for the telescope was conceived with a projected price tag then of $500 million But as recently as six years ago, the James Webb Space Telescope was, in the words of Nature magazine, the telescope that ate astronomy, mismanaged, over budget and behind schedule so that it had crushed everything else out of NASAs science budget.A House subcommittee once voted to cancel it. Instead, the program was rebooted with a strict spending cap.The scientific capabilities of the telescope emerged unscathed from that period, astronomers on the project say. The major change, said Jonathan P. Gardner, the deputy senior project scientist, was to simplify the testing of the telescope.Most of the pain was dealt to other NASA projects like a proposed space telescope to study dark energy, which the National Academy of Sciences had hoped to put on a fast track to be launched this decade. Its now delayed until 2025 or so.Typically for NASA, the Webb telescope was a technologically ambitious project, requiring 10 new technologies to make it work. Bill Ochs, a veteran Goddard engineer who became project manager in 2010 during what he calls the replan, said the key to its success so far, was having enough money in the budget to provide a cushion for nasty surprises.The telescope smiling up at us like a giant Tiffany shaving mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter, or just over 21 feet, compared with 2.4 meters for the Hubble. The aim is to explore a realm of cosmic history about 150 million to one billion years after time began known as the reionization epoch, when bright and violent new stars and the searing radiation from quasars were burning away a gloomy fog of hydrogen gas that prevailed at the end of the Big Bang.In fact, astronomers dont know how the spectacle that greets our eyes every night when the sun goes down or the lights go out wrenched itself into luminous existence. They theorize that an initial generation of stars made purely of hydrogen and helium the elements created during the Big Bang burned ferociously and exploded apocalyptically, jump-starting the seeding of the cosmos with progressively more diverse materials. But nobody has ever seen any so-called Population 3 stars, as those first stars are known. They dont exist in the modern universe. Astronomers have to hunt them in the dim past.That ambition requires the Webb to be tuned to a different kind of light than our eyes or the Hubble can see. Because the expansion of the cosmos is rushing those earliest stars and galaxies away from us so fast, their light is red-shifted to longer wavelengths the way the siren from an ambulance shifts to a lower register as it passes by.So blue light from an infant galaxy bursting with bright spanking new stars way back then has been stretched to invisible infrared wavelengths, or heat radiation, by the time it reaches us 13 billion years later.VideotranscripttranscriptHubble Reflects the CosmosAfter 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope is still surprising us. Hubble has been called the most important advance in astronomy since Galileo, and its greatest discoveries might still be ahead.When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, NASA called it the greatest advance in astronomy since Galileo. Instead, within days it became a laughing stock. Hubble had an 8-foot diameter mirror, but a chip of paint on a measuring rod caused the huge mirror to be 4 millionths of an inch too flat, leaving the telescope with blurry vision. Hubble needed glasses. Three years later, the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor rode to the rescue. Spacewalking astronauts installed tiny mirrors to correct Hubbles vision. The universe snapped into focus. Hubble scanned the heavens with unmatched clarity. Its cosmic postcards captivated the world. Four internal flywheels can spin Hubble in any direction. Once pointed, sensors lock onto guide stars, holding the telescopes suite of instruments steady for hours or days at a time. Hubbles cameras record in black and white, through filters that isolate different wavelengths of light. Then each image is assigned a color that makes sense to the eye. When merged - this blended light shows the Pillars of Creation. A dusty birthplace of stars deep within the Eagle Nebula. Just below Orions belt, the cold clouds of gas that form the Horsehead nebula are shadowed and opaque in visible light. But Hubble can photograph the unseeable, peering deep into the ultraviolet and infrared, revealing internal structures and the hidden light of newborn stars. Translating the near blackness of cold space for our limited human eyes. Hubble was reborn again and again over the years by astronauts who replaced instruments when they wore out. But NASA declared an end to the servicing missions in 2003, after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. There was a national outcry. In the end NASA agreed to one last service mission, led by astronomer and astronaut John Grunsfeld. As the shuttle Atlantis prepared to pull away, he (said goodbye to the old telescope / gave the old telescope one last pat, and a salute). After 25 years, Hubble is still surprising us. And its greatest discoveries might still be ahead of it.After 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope is still surprising us. Hubble has been called the most important advance in astronomy since Galileo, and its greatest discoveries might still be ahead.As a result, the Webb telescope will produce cosmic postcards in colors no eye has ever seen. It also turns out that infrared emanations are the best way to study exoplanets, the worlds beyond our own solar system that have been discovered in the thousands since the Webb telescope was first conceived.In order to see those infrared colors, however, the telescope has to be very cold less than 45 degrees Celsius above absolute zero so that its own heat does not swamp the heat from outer space. Once in space, the telescope will unfold a giant umbrella the size of a tennis court to keep the sun off it. The telescope, marooned in permanent shade a million miles beyond the moon, will experience an infinite cold soak.The sunshield consists of five thin, kite-shaped layers of a material called Kapton. Way too big to fit into a rocket, the shield, as well as the telescope mirror, will have be launched folded up. It will then be unfolded in space in a series of some 180 maneuvers that look in computer animations like a cross between a parachute opening and a swimming pool cover going into place.ImageCredit...Chris Gunn/NASAOr at least that is the $8 billion plan.Engineers have done it on the ground, and it worked. The same people who refolded the shield after each test will fold it again, in a process Mr. Ochs compares to packing up your parachute before a jump. The test will come in space, where no one will be able to help if things go wrong.That whole process will amount to what Mr. Ochs called six months of high anxiety.For the most part, it all has to work, Mr. Ochs said.The last time NASA did something this big astronomically, in 1990, things didnt quite work. Once in orbit, the Hubble couldnt be focused; it had a misshapen mirror that had never been properly tested. Astronauts eventually fitted it with corrective lenses, and it went on to become the crown jewel of astronomy.ImageCredit...Chris Gunn/NASAMaking sure that doesnt happen this time is the agenda for the next two years. Our telescope is finished, John C. Mather, the senior project scientist, said. Now we are about to prove it works.In the coming weeks, the mirror and the box of scientific instruments on its back will be put on a rig and shaken to simulate the vibrations of a launch, and then sealed in an acoustic chamber and bombarded with the noise of a launch.If the parts survive unscathed, the telescope assembly will be shipped to a giant vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There it will be chilled to the deep-space temperatures at which it will have to work, and engineers will actually focus the telescope, twiddling the controls for seven actuators on each of the 18 mirror segments. No Hubble surprises here.Then the telescope will go to Los Angeles to be mounted on its gigantic sunshield. That whole contraption, now too big for even the giant C-5A military transport plane, will travel by ship through the Panama Canal to French Guiana.It will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket supplied by the European Space Agency as part of Europes contribution to the observatory, and go into orbit around the sun at a point called L2 about a million miles from Earth. Canada, NASAs other partner, supplied some of the instruments.Then come the six months of anxiety. Sometime in the spring of 2019, if all goes well, the telescope will record its first real image of what, the assembled astronomers were not ready to guess. In a bonus undreamed of when the Webb telescope was first conceived, it looks as if the Hubble will still be going strong when the Webb is launched. They will share the sky and the potential for joint observing projects. A million miles apart, they can view objects in the solar system from different angles, providing a kind of stereoscopic perspective.Besides the expected baby galaxies and the exoplanets, there are, as astronomers like to remind us, always new surprises (like colliding black holes when the LIGO observatory was turned on last year) when humanity devises a new way to look at the sky.Asked what the telescopes greatest discovery would be, Dr. Mather said, If I knew, I would tell you.Nor would the project members talk about contingency plans to rescue the telescope if anything goes wrong a million miles from Earth. There are no plans to fix it or bring it back. They know how to attach a probe or robot to the telescope, Dr. Mather said, but we are planning to not need it, thank you. | science |
SinosphereCredit...Damir Sagolj/ReutersApril 1, 2016HONG KONG It was not intended as a joke. But on April Fools Day, its hard to be certain.On Friday, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, which is not known for its sense of humor, explained how the nation should view the Wests so-called Fools Day.Fools Day is not in line with our countrys traditions and socialist core values, Xinhua said in a message posted on its Weibo account Friday morning. We hope you will not believe, create or spread rumors.The message quickly received thousands of reposts and comments. Some people endorsed the rejection of a Western celebration, while others embraced April Fools. Many did not take the state news agency seriously.Xinhua is in fact celebrating Fools Day itself, wrote Zhao Yan, a television writer in Guangdong Province.This is the funniest joke Ive seen all day, another person wrote on Weibo.Some criticized the state news media. No matter that socialism, democracy, rule of law are all modern phrases that came from the West, wrote Li Fangping, a lawyer, on Weibo. Isnt it funnier that Xinhua, Peoples Daily and China Central Television are all fooling us a little?Of course, the mainstream media takes the lead in fooling the people and pretending everything is going great, someone else commented. For us, every day is Fools Day.April Fools isnt celebrated in China except by a small number of people, generally college students who might use it as an excuse to pull pranks.In recent years, the Chinese authorities have sought to curtail the influence of some Western ideas. The education minister, Yuan Guiren, laid out new rules in 2015 banning the use of textbooks promoting Western values.Last month, the minister of civil affairs, Li Liguo, said the country would move to curtail bizarre and foreign names for buildings and residential compounds that violate the socialist core values and conventional morality.The rejection of April Fools Day also reflects persistent concerns about the spread of rumors and false stories online.In 2013, China issued guidelines calling for up to three years imprisonment for anyone who posts rumors that are reposted by more than 500 people or seen more than 5,000 times. People have been punished for posting about aliens and zombies, among some of the more elaborate online hoaxes.Some people who read Xinhuas statement on Friday were not sure if the news agency was inadvertently engaging in exactly the type of activity it was warning against.Heh, heh, old Xinhua, you sure can preach, but you dont really have a sense of humor, commented Tang Jun, secretary general of the Research Center of Social Policies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Arent you afraid that putting out this kind of message on Fools Day will make you guilty of black humor? | World |
Credit...Wu Hong/European Pressphoto AgencyFeb. 26, 2014BARCELONA, Spain Smartphones are going against one of the long-held rules in portable electronics, that smaller is better.Year by year, computers, storage devices and music players have shed size and weight. And for decades, it has been happening with cellphones, too.But now cellphones, and smartphones in particular, are going the way of the television: They just keep getting bigger and bigger. And people keep buying them.The trend became even more apparent this week, as handset makers introduced a number of big-screen smartphones from five diagonal inches to more than seven inches at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain.Samsung Electronics, Sony and the Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE, among others, are all betting that consumers find images and video to be more vivid and engaging on a bigger screen, and that they may prefer to carry a larger phone instead of both a smartphone and a tablet.The turn to bigger screens is a sharp departure from the dominant strategy of phone makers just a few years ago, when critics often and loudly mocked devices with big screens, joking that people would never buy them because they would not fit in the pockets of tight hipster jeans, or because people would not want to be seen clutching big devices to their skulls.But Samsung, the No. 1 phone maker in the world, pushed hard on phones with bigger screens, and the effort has paid off with millions of units sold, particularly in Asia.Samsung has said its research found that people liked bigger-screen phones because they wanted a device that was good for handwriting, drawing and sharing notes. Asian-language speakers found it easier to write characters on a device using a pen rather than typing.VideoMolly Wood says bigger may be better when it comes to smartphones.Now Samsung and other phone makers believe they will find a more receptive audience outside Asia, too, including in the United States and Europe.The cultural difference is not much, said Lee Young-hee, head of marketing for Samsungs mobile division. Most people like the bigger display its more and more welcomed by people around the world.Demand for big-screen phones is clearly strong. IDC, the research firm, estimates that at least 20 percent of all smartphones shipped last year in China, the largest smartphone market in the world, were five inches or larger. It predicts that number will balloon to 50 percent by 2017.IDC also recently predicted that the growth of tablet sales would slow this year, partly because many people are gravitating toward larger phones and shifting away from smaller tablets.In some markets consumers are already making the choice to buy a large smartphone rather than buying a small tablet, said Tom Mainelli, an IDC research director who follows tablets.The most extreme example of a big phone announced this week came from Huawei, which introduced the MediaPad X1, a smartphone with a seven-inch screen, usually a size used in tablets. Because the device has a phone connection, Huawei calls it a phablet.Roland Sladek, a vice president for international media affairs at Huawei, said the company found that people liked to spend at least an hour a day on mobile devices, and that has driven the demand for larger screens.Other makers are pushing slightly smaller versions. Samsung this week introduced the Galaxy S5, its latest flagship smartphone, which, at 5.1 diagonal inches, is just a smidge bigger than its predecessor. Sony unveiled the Xperia Z2, a 5.2-incher. ZTE introduced the Grand Memo II, a six-inch phone; last month it introduced the Boost Max, a 5.7-incher that the company hopes will help it gain some traction among American buyers.In the U.S., people live in the big house, drive a big car and I think theyll also like big phones, Lixin Cheng, chief executive of ZTEs American division, said in an interview.ImageCredit...Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesHe said that with software becoming more sophisticated and data networks speeding up for watching videos, people just want bigger screens.Reception to big-screen phones is still relatively muted in the United States. The NPD Group, a research firm, said that out of the 121 million smartphones sold in the United States last year, only 3.3 million were 5.3 inches or larger, what NPD considers a phablet. In the fourth quarter, phablets represented only 4 percent of United States smartphone sales, NPD said.That is largely because Apple, the No. 1 phone maker in the United States, has refrained from making a bigger iPhone. Some analysts say they are skeptical that large phones will take off in the United States unless Apple releases one.Rumors abound that Apple is already planning to release at least one bigger iPhone this year. Timothy D. Cook, Apples chief executive, has said the company would consider releasing one only when the technology was good enough to meet Apples high standards for quality. Starting with the sixth-generation iPhone, Apple increased the size of the iPhone screen to four inches, up from 3.5 inches in the earlier models still considerably smaller than many devices coming from its Asian rivals.Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, declined to comment for this article. But the global market data, along with the traction that Apples Asian competitors are gaining, show a clear opportunity for Apple to expand sales with a bigger iPhone, perhaps among affluent customers in China, where the company hopes to be a more dominant player.Apple could position a bigger iPhone as a premium product, costing even more than its current high-end iPhone, said Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a research firm. It could be marketed toward wealthy older customers who would enjoy a bigger screen because their vision is becoming worse and their fingers are not as dexterous, he said.Laurence Isaac Balter, chief market strategist at Oracle Investment Research, which has clients that own Apple shares, thinks it is necessary for Apple to introduce a larger phone. It would clearly appeal to people who want just one device instead of both a phone and a tablet, he said.The fact that today many Apple users walk around with an iPad Mini and an iPhone is ludicrous, Mr. Balter said. In the end the manufacturer that delivers the one device that does it all will be the winner.Lenovo, the Chinese company that is buying the handset division of Motorola from Google, said that there seemed to be no turning back from supersizing smartphones in markets around the world.Liu Jun, executive vice president for Lenovos mobile business group, said: Simply put, more and more people are using their smartphones for entertainment, and people like viewing their photos, TV shows and movies on a larger hand-held screen. | Tech |
The top federal prosecutor in Washington said investigators were examining anyone involved, not only the people who went into the Capitol.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York TimesJan. 7, 2021WASHINGTON The Justice Department said on Thursday that it would not rule out pursuing charges against President Trump for his possible role in inciting the mob that marched to the Capitol, overwhelmed officers and stormed the building a day earlier.We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building, Michael Sherwin, the U.S. attorney in Washington, told reporters.Mr. Sherwin was asked whether such targets would include Mr. Trump, who exhorted supporters during a rally near the White House, telling them that they could never take back our country with weakness. Propelled by Mr. Trumps baseless claims of election irregularities, the protesters had gathered to demonstrate against Congresss certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.s Electoral College victory and moved on to the Capitol after the presidents rally.Mr. Sherwin said he stood by his statement. Were looking at all actors, he said. If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, theyre going to be charged.His comments were an extraordinary invocation of the rule of law against a president who has counted on the Justice Department to advance his personal agenda, and they came as former Trump officials and others condemned Mr. Trumps actions. Former cabinet officials including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Attorney General William P. Barr, once one of the presidents most important defenders, blamed him for Wednesdays violence. Several officials resigned, and even some Republican lawmakers said Mr. Trump had gone too far.The Justice Department generally asserts that sitting presidents cannot be charged with a crime, but that protection covers Mr. Trump for only 13 more days.Mr. Biden, who has said he has no appetite to investigate and prosecute the Trump administration, unequivocally blamed Mr. Trump on Thursday for trying to use a mob to silence the voices of nearly 160 million Americans who voted in the presidential election.ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesHe said that Mr. Trump had treated Mr. Barr and the Justice Department as his personal lawyer and the department as his personal law firm, and said that Judge Merrick B. Garland, his own nominee to be the next attorney general, would need to restore rule of law.There is no more important place for us to do this work than the Department of Justice that has been so politicized, Mr. Biden said. We need to restore the honor, the integrity, the independence of the Department of Justice in this nation thats been so badly damaged.The Justice Department faces the daunting task of prosecuting a large number of people who broke into the Capitol, since the U.S. attorneys office in Washington acts as the main prosecutor for the District of Columbia.Mr. Sherwin said his prosecutors and the citys Metropolitan Police Department were working around the clock to identify and arrest suspects. He complained that their job was made harder because the U.S. Capitol Police did not detain most of the rioters who forced their way into the building.The scenario has made our job difficult, Mr. Sherwin said, noting that the police, F.B.I. agents, counterterrorism investigators and other law enforcement officials now had to rely on social media posts and video footage to identify suspects. That has made things challenging.He said the Capitol Police had not explained why they arrested only 14 people and let hundreds more peacefully walk out of the building. The chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, resigned on Thursday, amid questions about his forces failure to protect the building.ImageCredit...Win Mcnamee/Getty ImagesIn all, prosecutors have filed 40 cases in Superior Court on charges including unlawful entry, assault and firearms offenses, and they were preparing to file complaints for 15 federal criminal cases all related to the breach of the Capitol, including unauthorized entry, illegal possession of a firearm and theft of property.The citys police also announced that they had arrested nearly 70 people at the riot on charges that included unlawful entry, illegal gun possession and assault.Rioters rifled through the offices of lawmakers and stole electronics, prosecutors said. Mr. Sherwin said that the theft of files and electronics opened the possibility of national security breaches but that the Justice Department did not yet have a full understanding of the scope of the problem.One federal complaint accused a man named Mark J. Leffingwell of assaulting a Capitol Police officer around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday in a hallway in the Senate wing of the Capitol. The officer, Daniel Amendola, said in the complaint that Mr. Leffingwell was part of a crowd that had breached a window. When Officer Amendola sought to stop him and others from entering the building any further, Mr. Leffingwell punched him repeatedly in the head and chest, according to the complaint. Mr. Leffingwell then spontaneously apologized.Prosecutors also unsealed charges against a Maryland resident, Christopher Alberts, accusing him of illegally carrying a Taurus 9-millimeter pistol at the riot. Officers first saw Mr. Alberts leaving the Capitol complex around 7:30 p.m. and noticed a bulge on his right hip. When they stopped Mr. Alberts, the officers found the pistol, which had one round in the chamber and a magazine filled with 12 rounds, according to the complaint. They also discovered that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and had a gas mask in his backpack.After he was taken into custody, the complaint said, Mr. Alberts told the police that he had the weapon for personal protection and did not intend to harm anyone.Mr. Sherwin said he would not rule out investigations into Mr. Trump and his inner circle for their roles in the rioting, just as he would not rule out an investigation into anyone who may have assisted, facilitated or played an ancillary role in the events.All options are on the table, he said. We will look at every actor and all criminal charges.Mr. Trump is said to have discussed in recent weeks the possibility of pardoning himself, an unprecedented and untested use of presidential power, but it is uncertain whether that would ultimately protect him.Mr. Trumps eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also told the crowd on Wednesday that Republicans in Congress should back Mr. Trumps efforts to undo the election result: Were coming for you, he said of lawmakers who refused. And Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trumps personal lawyer, said that to win the election, his supporters would need to engage in trial by combat against Democrats.Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, called on Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday to invoke the 25th Amendment and immediately remove Mr. Trump for urging on the mob.That amendment would allow Mr. Pence and a majority of the cabinet to wrest the power of the presidency from Mr. Trump. But Mr. Pence is said to oppose such a move.Ms. Pelosi said Democrats were prepared to impeach Mr. Trump for a second time should Mr. Pence not act.Reporting was contributed by Charlie Savage, Alan Feuer, Thomas Kaplan and Michael Wines. | Politics |
Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 7, 2017Between seemingly nonstop political jolts and springlike winter days, the world has felt like a pretty unstable place lately. As news alerts buzz your phone and temperatures fluctuate wildly from day to day, you may ask yourself, are there any stable places left in the world?The answer is yes. So, relax.An annual survey of the best countries in the world was released on Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report, along with Y&Rs BAV Consulting and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Their 2017 rankings prioritized countries that enjoyed some measure of peace, quiet and prosperity.Our data captured widespread global concern for the social and geopolitical changes that cast many nations into uncertainty and turmoil, said John Gerzema, chief executive of BAV Consulting. The new rankings reflect peoples desire to restore some sense of order by rewarding nations they perceive as championing neutrality, stability and diplomacy.The survey was conducted after the 2016 United States presidential election and polled more than 21,000 people described by organizers as business leaders, informed elites and general citizens. America slid three spots and was ranked the seventh-best country in the world.The results are broken down into a range of categories that include the most powerful country, the best country to invest in, and the best country for women, children and retirees. Here is a quick look at their findings to satiate your escapist fantasies.The Best CountriesImageCredit...Clara Tuma for The New York TimesSwitzerland took the top spot for the first time based on a combination of its attitude toward education, democracy, business and quality of life. Canada was ranked second and Britain third. Germany, last years winner, slid to fourth in part because of a string of terrorist attacks and political tension over its decision to admit large numbers of refugees. Japan came in fifth place.The United States dropped to No. 7. Survey respondents gave it lower marks on business friendliness, respect for human rights and democracy, and educational quality; they also said they had less desire to visit the country. Nearly 75 percent of respondents said they lost some degree of respect for the United States after the election of Donald J. Trump as president.The Most Powerful CountriesImageCredit...Stephen B. Morton for The New York TimesThat said, Americas slide in the general rankings did not diminish respondents sense that it is the most powerful country in the world, based on military and economic might and its political influence across the globe.The United States leads the world in military spending the military gets a larger share of the federal budget than any other part of government and President Trump has called for that to grow by $54 billion. Following the United States on the list were Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany.The Best Countries for WomenImageCredit...Rob Schoenbaum for The New York TimesSweden was ranked the best country in the world for women. That may come as a surprise to American conservatives, some of whom like the Fox News host Bill OReilly have argued in recent weeks that criminal hordes of Muslim immigrants have forced frightened Swedish women to barricade themselves at home.That Sweden had a temporary mansplaining hotline last year which women could call to report condescending instances of men explaining things to them that they already knew may have helped matters. The United States was ranked 16th.The ranking was based on how survey respondents viewed a countrys position on human rights, gender equality, income equality, safety and overall progressive attitude. Scandinavia did well, with Sweden followed by Denmark and Norway. The Netherlands was fourth and Canada fifth.The Best Countries for ChildrenImageCredit...David Ramos/Getty ImagesScandinavia also dominated the rankings when respondents were asked what they thought would be the best country to raise children in. Sweden came in first again, followed by Denmark, Norway, Finland and Canada. The United States did not fare too well in this category: It came in 19th, behind much of Europe but ahead of Japan.The results were based on how respondents ranked each country in terms of its commitment to human rights, gender equality, income equality, public education and health. Respondents were also asked if they thought each country was generally happy and safe.The Best Countries for RetireesImageCredit...Fiona Goodall/Getty ImagesPerhaps because this survey was partly conducted by a business school and a consulting firm, it also asked respondents which countries they would consider moving to in their retirement if price was no obstacle. The United States did not rank in the top 20.The No. 1 response was New Zealand, followed by Australia, Switzerland, Canada and Portugal. Respondents thought these countries had nice climates and were affordable, friendly, committed to public health care and respectful of property rights. They also thought taxes would be low. | World |
Health|With no way to identify Omicron and Delta patients, treatment decisions are vexing doctors.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/health/doctors-omicron.htmlCredit...Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJan. 3, 2022Most U.S. doctors have no way to determine which variant of the coronavirus a patient is carrying, a distinction that could mean the difference between life and death.High-risk patients carrying the Delta variant could benefit greatly from two particular monoclonal antibody treatments shown to reduce hospitalization and death. But those medications would most likely do nothing for patients with Omicron, who would only respond to a third antibody treatment that is in very short supply.While U.S. officials have endorsed using a workaround test that can identify Omicrons genetic signature, experts say its not feasible for large health systems facing a crush of patients to employ in each case.That makes treating patients challenging in places like Maryland, where cases are spiking and Omicron accounts for roughly 58 percent of them. The Delta variant is also holding strong in the Great Plains and swaths of the West, including California.While there is no approved test to determine each individuals variant, a national network of state and other labs use genome-sequencing tests to track variants broadly in communities. Health systems then use those regional estimates or their own data to decide which antibody treatments to use in their clinics and hospitals.Many of them concluded that a community of largely Delta patients would benefit most from the antibody drugs made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, while communities where Omicron patients are predominant would benefit from antibodies from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology.ImageCredit...Ted S. Warren/Associated PressFederal officials have dabbled with making the decision for the nation. On Dec. 23, they stopped shipments of antibody treatments by Eli Lilly and Regeneron after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 73 percent of U.S. Covid cases were Omicron.An outcry followed from Republican political leaders, who argued that some people in their states were still infected with Delta. And on Tuesday, the C.D.C. slashed its estimate of national Omicron cases to 59 percent. On Dec. 31, federal officials resumed national shipping all of the antibody treatments.For the next few weeks, as the country grapples with this uneven mix of both variants, tailoring treatments to each patient will be extraordinarily difficult, said Dr. Alex Greninger, assistant director of the clinical virology laboratories at the University of Washington Medical Center.Dr. Greninger is credited with developing one of the first tests to detect the coronavirus in the United States. But he is pessimistic that health systems can pivot quickly to sort out which patients have Delta or Omicron. And although a shortcut test can detect Omicron, theres no simple way to report the results in bulk, he said.Whats more, the genome sequencing used by public health officials takes nearly a week too long to target the early antibody treatments that have been found to reduce the need for hospitalizations. That makes patient care particularly difficult right now, said Dr. Mark Siedner, an infectious disease clinician and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.In Massachusetts and nearby states, an estimated 44.5 percent of cases are Omicron. Dr. Siedner said his health system has stopped using the Regeneron and Eli Lilly antibodies that are not effective against Omicron and are anxiously awaiting more doses of the effective treatment by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology.Were in a holding pattern and its a terrible time to be in that place, he said. | Health |
Golf|Burrowing Animal Assists Watson at Phoenix Openhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/sports/golf/burrowing-animal-assists-watson-at-phoenix-open.htmlSports BriefingFeb. 1, 2014A desert creature saved Bubba Watson at least a stroke in the Phoenix Open. Watsons drive on the par-5 13th went into a desert bush and tumbled into a burrowing animals hole, giving him a free drop. He ended up saving par on the way to a three-under 68 and a two-stroke lead at 15 under. The defending champion Stephen Gallacher had seven birdies and an eagle on the back nine to surge past Rory McIlroy and take a two-shot lead into the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic in the United Arab Emirates. | Sports |
Credit...EPA, via ShutterstockNov. 6, 2018HUDAYDAH, Yemen The fight in Yemen has escalated drastically over the past week, exacerbating a dire humanitarian crisis that the United Nations says could spiral into famine despite, or even because of, a diplomatic push by the United States to get both sides to the peace table.The Saudi-led coalition, which the United States has armed and supported, has launched a punishing wave of airstrikes against the rebel Houthis. The warplanes have hit targets in the capital, Sana; in the mountainous northern provinces; and in the Red Sea port of Hudaydah where, aid workers warn, the countrys main humanitarian lifeline hangs by a thread.A senior aid worker and two Western officials, who asked not to be identified so they could speak openly about Hudaydah, said in interviews that the coalition, commanded locally by the United Arab Emirates, had redoubled its five-month offensive to snatch the city from Houthi control.Columns of Yemeni militias fighting under the coalition flag have burst across a major front line and swept through the desert on the eastern edge of the city, threatening to encircle it completely, they say. Warplanes and attack helicopters have pummeled Houthi positions in the city in what aid workers called a near-continuous barrage of air attacks.Inside the city, local people reported that Houthi fighters had entrenched themselves, taking up positions in apartment buildings, hospitals and homes. At least 150 fighters from both sides have been reported dead so far.Tens of thousands of civilians, including some who only recently returned to the city during a lull in fighting, are sheltering in their homes, anxiously waiting. As the front lines have shifted, some have been forced to flee. A handful have been killed by stray gunfire.ImageCredit...Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesEven with the clashes, the port of Hudaydah, which lies just north of the city, is still working. On Tuesday, seven ships were at berth with an additional eight waiting to dock, including one vessel containing 10,000 tons of relief grain, the Western officials said.Strikingly, they added, the relief shipment was financed by the United Arab Emirates the same power that was sending warplanes screaming over the city as its officers commanded the assault on Hudaydah from the south.The surge in fighting started days after the United States defense secretary, Jim Mattis, called for the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis to start peace talks within 30 days. His statement came amid growing questions over whether the United States military was doing enough to reduce civilian deaths.Yemens crisis, already grave for several years, has recently deteriorated so rapidly that the United Nations has warned that 14 million people, or half the population, could soon be on the brink of starvation. This week, the chief humanitarian coordinator, Mark Lowcock, called that prospect the apocalyptic scenario.The surge in fighting may stem from a Saudi desire to score territorial gains before any talks. But analysts say it could just as easily plunge the country deeper into war.Any military escalation does not help efforts to relaunch the political process, Martin Griffiths, the United Nations peace envoy, said in a text message. No one wants to see a catastrophe in Hudaydah.During a previous offensive a year ago, the Houthis retaliated by firing missiles that came close to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, prompting the Saudis to impose an air and sea blockade on Houthi-controlled ports that lasted for seven weeks. This time, at the urging of United Nations officials, the Houthis have not fired any missiles over the border. But as fighting escalates, officials warn it is unclear how long that restraint will last.For now, the main concern is keeping Yemens chief gateway for humanitarian supplies open.About 75 percent of all international relief passes through Hudaydah, and the citys population has swelled in recent weeks as refugees who fled in June filtered home. Radhwan Shujaibi, a father of four, said he could no longer stand the cramped, desperate conditions his family had endured in Sana.Now, here we are in our home, he said. We live with dignity, we die with dignity.In the city center, Houthi fighters riding motorbikes circulate through the largely empty streets, carrying sniper rifles and rocket launchers. Some ousted residents from their homes, which they used for sniper positions. The Houthis have been preparing for a battle inside the city for months, digging trenches in streets and laying land mines.Residents say there is a steady drumbeat of explosions from artillery or strikes by coalition warplanes and Apache attack helicopters. Early Monday, mortar shells hit a printing plant on the city outskirts, killing at least one worker and wounding three, according to plant officials.Aid workers say that 90 percent of patients have fled the citys main hospital, which now lies within half a mile of the front line. Unicef reported that 59 children, including 25 in the hospitals intensive care unit, were at imminent risk of death.Over the weekend, the United Nations intervened to stop the Saudi-led coalition from bombing the hospital, where Houthi fighters had taken up positions on the roof.That is a frequent problem in Hudaydah, where Houthi fighters often fight near humanitarian buildings that are protected by a no-strike list drawn up by the coalition, the United States and the United Nations. Houthi fighters cache weapons or station troops beside such buildings in the hope of protecting them from airstrikes but in so doing, can turn the buildings into legitimate military targets.The Saudi-led coalition has assured the United Nations that it does not intend to bring the fight into Hudaydah or to capture the city port. But the Saudi-led forces are now a few miles from the citys northern gates. Should they capture that area, they could encircle the city and impose a siege that would trap tens of thousands of civilians alongside the Houthis.The United Nations has positioned a ship offshore to evacuate its staff should fighting spread to the streets. For civilians, a siege would even further limit access to food or clean water, and could lead to a deadly cholera epidemic. As the fighting nears, many are making difficult calculations.Bandar Khaled, a shipping official who has been out of work for months, said he feared that his family would soon be unable to leave. Getting trapped in here would be the worst, he said.Part of the problem, said a senior Western official familiar with the peace efforts, is the political turmoil caused by the death of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. With Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a critical American ally, under intense scrutiny over his presumed role in Mr. Khashoggis death, the direction of Saudi policy in Yemen is increasingly unclear.Some American officials, led by Mr. Mattis, are seeking to help Prince Mohammed extract himself from the Yemen war, a grinding and thus far unsuccessful campaign that some officials fear is becoming a military and diplomatic quagmire akin to Vietnam.The Western official said that Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of the United States Central Command, had drafted a proposal that would see the Saudis reduce airstrikes over Yemen in return for a Houthi commitment not to fire rockets into Saudi Arabia.In parallel, Mr. Griffiths, the United Nations envoy, is hoping to achieve some political momentum before he addresses the Security Council on Yemen on Nov. 16.But there remains a deep gulf of trust. An attempt to bring the Houthis to peace talks in Geneva in September collapsed after Houthi officials failed to turn up. Houthi officials complained then that they did not trust the Saudis, who control the airspace over Yemen, to ensure their safe passage to and from the country.United Nations officials say they are currently working to overcome those concerns and get both side to the talks. | World |
Credit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesJune 4, 2018 Apple is adding tools to help get your information addiction under control. The company revealed new software for the Apple Watch. A new feature in Apples web browser will make it harder for sites to track you. The company previewed iOS 12, the new version of the iPhone and iPad operating system, including improved speed, bug fixes and other improvements. Apple revealed Siri and photo updates that catches up to competitors.Features to help manage time spent on devices.The most notable new feature in iOS 12 is called Screen Time, a tool to help iPhone customers manage the time they spend on their devices.The feature shows you a dashboard of apps you regularly use and the amount of time you tend to spend with them. You can also add limits to how much you use certain apps: For example, you can give yourself an hour a day to spend inside Instagram, Facebooks photo-sharing app. Parents will also be able to use Screen Time to place limits on how their children use their iPhones.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesApples software chief, Craig Federighi, said Apple felt it was time to address smartphones oversize impact on everyday life. For some of us, its become such a habit we might not even recognize how distracted weve become, he said.The announcement was a bizarre one: A company using one of its biggest events of the year to showcase new tools that help customers use its products less.But the move is most likely shrewd. Apple depends on customers buying its devices, not spending lots of time on them. Apple is pitching the tools as evidence that it is putting its customers interests first and that if people are worried they are addicted to their smartphone, the iPhone is the device that will help them.The new tools are also a shot across the bow to Silicon Valleys other big tech companies, like Google, Twitter and particularly Facebook, that depend on users spending more time with their services.Apples move is also not happening in a vacuum. Silicon Valley has faced early signs of a reckoning over tech addiction, including an open letter to Apple from investment firm Jana Partners and the California State Teachers Retirement System. The letter urged Apple to research the health effects of its products, particularly on children.Will this be enough to help people curb their addiction? Presumably, if you set a limit for yourself you will be able to easily remove the restriction and continue using an app like Instagram when you run out of time.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesIf anything, the feature will certainly make people more mindful (and perhaps ashamed) of how often they use certain apps and encourage them to put their phones down. Brian X. Chen and Jack NicasApple says it is different about your privacy, too.Apple took another swing at its rivals Google and Facebook with tools that sharply diminish their ability to track users as they surf across the web.Apple said that by default its Safari browser would disable tracking software that advertising companies like Facebook and Google embed in websites to track users activity across the internet. The software is often embedded in tools to share, comment or like content on third-party sites.To share an article directly to Facebook from a news site, for instance, users of Safari will need to manually allow the software to track them. Apple said it would also make it more difficult for companies that track users using a different technology, known as fingerprinting.As the world wakes up to the sheer amount of user data tech companies have collected over the years, Apple is doubling down on its bid to be the privacy-focused tech firm. Unlike Google and Facebook, which rely on user data to sell ads, Apples main business is selling devices to consumers, so its focus on privacy has become a central selling point.Apple said it would also restrict third-party developers access to more data on Mac computers, a nod to the scandal over how a Facebook developer enabled the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly harvest the data of millions of Facebook users. Jack NicasThe Apple Watch gets a throwback feature.The Apple Watchs latest operating system has a nifty throwback to an old technology: walkie-talkie. You press to talk, and your friend can hear your voice just like a walkie-talkie, said Kevin Lynch, Apples head of Watch software.The feature works only with users who opt in I need your approval to send you a walkie-talkie message but its striking for the way it improves the Watchs best feature, letting users stay in touch without having to use a phone.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesThere were also a few new features for activity monitoring. The new software will automatically start tracking a workout even if you didnt let tell it you were working out. And it has a new way to let you compete with friends. For instance, you can set up a weeklong exercise-off between you and a friend.But all this requires waiting. The new OS will be available for the Watch later this year, through a software update. Farhad ManjooChanges to address software speed issue.Apples head of software, Craig Federighi, opened the event with the introduction of a new mobile operating system, iOS 12, an update that he said was focused on speed.For iOS 12, we are doubling down on performance, he said. The update increases the speed for many important features of iOS, like the camera app and keyboard. In Apples testing, apps launched two times faster in iOS 12 compared with the last system.By highlighting speed, Apple is addressing a common complaint among owners of iPhones who feel that their devices seem to slow down after every new upgrade. Keep in mind that last year, Apple came under scrutiny amid revelations that it slowed performance of older iPhones with aging batteries.The new operating system will work with devices as far back as the iPhone 5S from 2013.Heres something Apple should fix at the event: its Wi-Fi. None of us are able to get on the internet. Im barely hanging on to a connection on my iPhone hot spot. Wireless has always been spotty at these events with so many devices in the audience fighting for a connection, but this is exceptionally bad. Brian X. ChenImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesA focus on the little things.Its crystal clear that iOS 12 is focused on improving on existing features rather than bombarding users with brand-new features.In addition to updating the Photos app and expanding Siri, Apple made minor updates to its Apple News, Stocks, Messages and FaceTime apps. The Apple News app now lets you discover articles through topics, and the Stocks app now loads Apple News stories that are related to stocks that you follow.The Messages app was updated to let you create some custom emojis with the camera. And the FaceTime app lets you do a video call between multiple people, similar to Google Hangouts.Again, Apple is responding to some negative feedback. Over the last few years, app developers and users have complained that iOS was getting increasingly bloated and confusing to use.This is a good time for Apple to slow down on adding new features, especially after the introduction of the iPhone X, which fundamentally changes how the iPhone works by removing the home button. Brian X. ChenApples new update strategy is on display.This software conference illuminates Apples revised software strategy. In the past, Apple updated each new version of iOS on an annual basis with a long list of new features.But recently, the company announced to employees that it would revise its strategy to a two-year cycle. In other words, next year, you can expect iOS 13 to have a barrage of new features. In the following year, iOS 14 will focus on improving those features. Rinse and repeat.However, Apple doesnt appear to be slowing down the pace of upgrades for the Apple Watch, a much younger product. Each version of Watch OS has introduced significant changes to the way the watch works. Apples allocation of resources to the watch shows that the company is treating the wearable computer as the post-smartphone device.In a decade, will we all be wearing our phones? Brian X. Chen | Tech |
Business BriefingDec. 29, 2015DuPont will cut 1,700 jobs in its home state, Delaware, and thousands more globally as it prepares for its merger with Dow Chemical. The companies announced this month that they would join to create a giant chemical producer that would eventually be split into three independent companies. At that time, DuPont announced a $700 million cost savings and restructuring program but did not specify how many jobs would be affected. On Tuesday, the chief of DuPont, Ed Breen, sent a letter to employees informing them that approximately 1,700 Delaware positions would be eliminated in the beginning of the year. DuPont, which has been based in Delaware for 213 years, said it would have preferred to let affected employees know of the news first. But it made the announcement during the holidays, because it was legally required to inform the state by the end of the year of the local job cuts. The company, which has about 54,000 employees worldwide, said the restructuring program would ultimately affect about 10 percent of that work force. The combined Dow-DuPont business will have dual headquarters in Delaware and Michigan, where each company is based, until it separates into three independent publicly traded companies focused on agriculture, material science and specialty products. Dow and DuPont expect their combination will cut annual expenses by $3 billion. | Business |
World BriefingApril 4, 2016Egyptian officials have postponed a trip to Rome to discuss the investigation into the killing of a 28-year-old Italian graduate student whose body was found on the outskirts of Cairo in February, judicial and security sources said on Monday. Human rights groups have said torture marks on the body of the student, Giulio Regeni, indicated that he died at hands of the Egyptian security forces, an allegation the Cairo government denies. The case has raised fresh questions about accusations of police abuse in Egypt, a strategic ally of the West and an important trade partner for Rome. Egyptian officials were initially scheduled to arrive in Italy on Tuesday. They will now make the visit on Thursday and Friday, judicial sources said, giving no reason for the decision. They had earlier said there was no new date set for the visit. On March 25, the Egyptian police said they had discovered Regenis bag and passport following a shootout with a criminal gang whose members had posed as policemen. Italian officials dismissed the story and Mr. Regenis family said it was clear he had not been killed for criminal gain. | World |
You May See a New Meteor Shower in Night Skies, or Nothing at AllA comets breakup three decades ago could produce a seldom-seen meteor storm on Monday night. Or it could be a complete dud.Credit...Bill Ingalls/NASA, via Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMay 30, 2022Updated 4:46 p.m. ETA never-before-seen meteor shower may light up the skies with untold numbers of brilliant streaks the evening of Monday night into Tuesday morning.Or the event could fizzle out and be a dud.Those are the best predictions that meteor watchers have for the Tau Herculids, a potential celestial spectacle that has sky-watching enthusiasts eager with anticipation.Meteor showers can happen when the Earth plows into debris produced by a comet (or, occasionally, asteroids). The source of the Tau Herculids is Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, or SW3 for short. Discovered in 1930, the trifling ice ball originally clocked in at about two-thirds of a mile in diameter, so it rarely produced enough material to generate major nighttime fireworks. But in 1995, SW3 crumbled, producing a large fragment field that our planet is about to encounter.When and where can I see the potential shower?If the Tau Herculids happen, they will be most visible throughout the lower 48 United States on the evening of Monday, May 30, and the early morning of Tuesday, May 31, likely around 1 a.m. Eastern time. The further south you live, the better your view. Skywatchers in West Africa, the Caribbean and South America are also favored to see some action. Those in high latitude places like Alaska are out of luck.To catch the shower, get away from bright city lights and find the darkest and clearest location you can, one with few hills or other obstacles on the horizon. The moon will be new that night, so its light will not interfere with the display. Allow about half an hour for your eyes to adjust to the darkness.The best piece of equipment is to go to your attic and haul out that beach chair, said Joe Rao, an associate astronomer at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Then just lay back and look up.Meteor showers appear to emanate from a point in the sky known as their radiant. The Tau Herculids, the meteor shower from SW3, was predicted to come from the constellation Hercules hence the showers name a forecast that has since turned out to be incorrect.The Tau Herculids will actually originate from the constellation Botes, radiating from just above the star Arcturus, a ruddy orange-yellow entity that will be the brightest star in the sky of the Northern Hemisphere at that time. Locating Arcturus is easy if you can find the Big Dipper: Simply trace a line from the last two stars in the Dippers handle in a direction away from its bowl. The first bright star you see should be Arcturus.Unlike meteor showers that are visible for days before and after a peak night, this show will not last long, if it occurs at all.This is not a long-term event, said Robert Lunsford, the secretary-general of the International Meteor Organization. I would certainly try to be out at 10 oclock Pacific time or 1 a.m. Eastern, because if nothings happening then, then its a nonevent.How many meteors might the Tau Herculids produce?Thats the $64,000 question, said Mr. Rao. Theres no consensus. The predictions are absolutely all over the place.NASA models are on the pessimistic side, suggesting few or potentially no meteors will be visible. But Mr. Rao points to estimates from reputable meteor watchers at the opposite end of the spectrum who predict seeing as many as 10,000 meteors to 100,000 meteors per hour. If those are true, the Tau Herculids will be a meteor storm and possibly one of the biggest displays in recorded history.Id be happy just to see one in the entire hour, Mr. Lunsford said. But theres a possibility we could see one per second.Much will depend on the size and the speed of the debris as it hits the atmosphere and how big the comets leftover particles are.The particles may be sand-grain-sized, said Mr. Rao. I maintain that there must be stuff out there at least as big as pebbles, or nuggets, or even ping-pong-ball-size.If the fragments are on the smaller side, they may produce many slow streaks that are too dim for the human eye to see. Night sky devotees have been burned before when announcing possible wonders like the supposedly once-in-a-lifetime sighting of Comet Kohoutek in 1974 that failed to live up to expectations.Weve gotten a lot of black eyes over predicting some marvelous event, and then nothing happens, said Mr. Lunsford. We need a certain set of circumstances to occur for this meteor shower, and the likelihood is remote. But we owe it to the general public to let them know this is a possibility.Why might the Tau Herculids appear for the first time?VideoFragment B of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 over the course of three days as observed by the Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys.CreditCredit...NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (APL/JHU), M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)New meteor showers are rare events, Mr. Lunsford said, happening only a couple times a century.But in October 1995, astronomers began getting phone calls from people claiming to have discovered a new comet, Mr. Rao said. The comet wasnt new: It was SW3 falling apart and becoming hundreds of times as bright as normal, he added.It was like breaking open an egg, he said. All this dusty debris suddenly emerged.While our planet has already hit bits of SW3s dust, this will be the first time the Earths orbit meets all the material that burst out in 1995.No one is exactly sure what caused SW3s collapse, but NASAs Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes watched the comet fragment for years. It was possible that the icy object made too many close passes to both the hot sun and the powerful gravitational pull of Jupiter.Maybe after countless numbers of times of having its orbit perturbed, its like the comet finally said, I cant deal with this anymore, and broke up into pieces, Mr. Rao said.When did we learn what caused meteor showers?Humans have been spotting shooting stars for millenniums. It is unknown when ancient skygazers first associated them with a particular point in the sky. Mark Littmann, author of The Heavens on Fire: The Great Leonid Meteor Storms, says that some Indigenous traditions in the Americas may indicate an early understanding of radiants.The Kiliwa, who are Indigenous people in Baja California, Mexico, for instance, describe meteor showers as a kind of fiery celestial urine coming from a constellation they call Xsmii.If you think of a meteor shower, and you have, excuse me, the spray coming out, it suggests that they noticed there was a radiant, Dr. Littmann said. That would be the most ancient observation of a radiant that we have.The oldest-known written observation of a radiant came from Islamic sky watchers who recorded a great shower after the death of the conqueror Abu Ishaq Ibrahim II ibn Ahmad in A.D. 902. They noted that the meteors were coming from one spot as they rained, Dr. Littmann said.Our modern understanding of meteor showers can be traced to the late 18th century, when people noted a major comet passing by a year before a large meteor storm from the direction of the constellation Leo. Then on Nov. 12, 1833, the Leonids shower put on a display so spectacular that thousands of shooting stars fell every minute.There were reports of people falling to the ground in prayer and rushing to church to repent their sins, Dr. Littmann said.Denison Olmsted, who was an astronomer in Connecticut, was awakened by his neighbors that night and went out to see the storm. Olmsted wrote to a local newspaper asking viewers to send him their own accounts, a request that was reprinted in newspapers across the country.After collecting many replies and conducting further investigations, Olmsted concluded that meteor showers originate beyond our planet, contradicting a long-held belief expressed by Aristotle that meteors were exhalations from Earths surface.He really should be credited as the father of meteor science, Dr. Littmann said. | science |
DealBook|R.E.I.T. Spinoffs in Washingtons Cross Hairshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/dealbook/reit-spinoffs-in-washingtons-cross-hairs.htmlDec. 8, 2015Credit...McDonald'sA strategy that became popular with retailers, shopping mall operators and restaurant groups in the last few years has come under fire from House Republicans, who submitted a bill late Monday that would remove the tax advantages.The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, proposes to prevent spinoff companies from converting to real estate investment trusts for 10 years. His proposal also prevents a R.E.I.T. from qualifying as tax-free unless it is spun off from another R.E.I.T.The R.E.I.T. spinoff strategy has received a lot of attention in tax circles. In September, the Internal Revenue Service said it would stop issuing private letter rulings on these transactions, suggesting it is giving such deals added scrutiny. The agency said the spinoffs raised significant concerns.A real estate investment trust is a publicly traded company that owns property. Income is not taxed as long as most of it is distributed to shareholders.Activist investors have pushed big property-owning companies like Macys and McDonalds to spin off their real estate holdings into R.E.I.T.s to free up cash for other purposes, though those companies have resisted.Other companies have not, however. Darden Restaurants, for one, completed the spinoff of Four Corners Property Trust last month, while Sears Holdings spun off Seritage Growth Properties in July.Lawyers who work with companies to set up R.E.I.T.s say the legislation, which would apply to any transactions as of Dec. 7, could cast uncertainty over deals that are currently underway.Whats troubling is that it has an immediate effective date, said Michael J. Brody, co-chairman of the R.E.I.T. industry group at the law firm Latham & Watkins.The proposal was part of 175 pages of amendments intended to extend individual and corporate tax breaks through next year. It is a placeholder while Congress decides which ones to make permanent. The amendments include extending research credits for corporations and modifying the definition of hard cider. | Business |
Credit...Illustration by Sam Manchester/The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2014SOCHI, Russia The music you hear during the figure skating competition this week is the sound of an era ending.Next season, new rules will allow men, women and pairs skaters to use vocal music with lyrics in their programs. That could mean arias, rap, Springsteen ballads, Adele love songs, Daft Punk incantations, whatever. The move, designed in large part to appeal to a younger audience, may seem overdue to anyone who has noticed figure skatings popularity decline sharply in recent years. Less Moonlight Sonata, the thinking goes, and more Call Me Maybe.We have to innovate, said Katia Krier, a coach with Frances figure skating team. Our sport is already losing viewers, but we have to give people the desire to watch us. I think this could help. Its a double-edged sword, of course. We have to be careful not to go over the top, but if music with lyrics is used well, it can really bring something more.Ice dancing, the fourth of the Olympic figure skating disciplines, has allowed music with lyrics since the late 1990s, in part because coaches found it difficult to find suitable music without words for certain genres. Synchronized skating, which is not in the Olympics, also permits it. Now the sports traditional disciplines will have a new set of musical standards, although there will be no obligation for skaters to choose vocal music. The new rule simply gives them the option, but there is still resistance to the change.There is concern about conflating competitive skating with exhibition skating, which has long used popular music with lyrics in abundance. There is concern about alienating the established fan base and about controlling the content in an era with plenty of explicit lyrics.Its still a family sport, and we do have to be careful with what music we use, said Jason Dungjen, coach of the United States team.The sports world governing body, the International Skating Union, has a code of ethics that could be applied to skaters who push past the boundaries. But there is also the worry that the new music choices will damage the sports credibility.I am not a person who is elitist in any way, said Kori Ade, who coaches Jason Brown, the American skater who finished ninth in the Sochi Games last week. Im all about inclusion, and all about diversity, and all about hip-hop. I mean, thats me. But I think that there is something so regal about skating that might not carry with Top 40.I think its not going to come off well. I think its going to come off really corny. And even though people dont have to do it, Im afraid people are going to attempt it poorly, and then it will make the sport look even stupider.With instrumental pieces, skaters are essentially providing the narrative with their routine. Now it might become more complicated as skaters must decide how to or whether to act to the words. Occasional kitsch is a certainty, but as Krier points out, Theres already kitsch without lyrics.Kurt Browning, the former world champion from Canada, said he thought the potential rewards and risks would be magnified.Lyrics and words artistically are an opportunity, Browning said. But its also a bigger chance to screw up. So well have to see how smart some of them are. I think some of the lower guys can really bring some attention to themselves, and the top guys have to be careful.Some of the lower-ranked skaters are resistant, too. Jorik Hendrickx, 21, from Belgium, skated his free program on Friday to George Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue, a classic piece of instrumental music that has been done, and done, and then done some more in figure skating. But Hendrickx said that even with the lyrics option, he would like to stick with Gershwin.I love it, but if everyone is doing something special and Im still doing Rhapsody in Blue, Im not sure I will get the same scores, he said. This rule change is a big change, and I think a lot of skaters dont like it.I mean, skating will be skating. Its still jumping and spinning even if the music is different. They are trying to get more people and audience in it, but I think if you dont like it without vocals, youre not liking it with vocals, either.Perhaps not, but at this stage, skating happily onward to the sound of the status quo does not seem reasonable. Figure skating is suffering in North America and Europe and has an aging audience. One of its few thriving major markets is in Japan.Fabio Bianchetti, an International Skating Union official, said the sports governing body had rejected previous attempts to approve lyrics for singles and pairs. But in 2012 it changed tack, approving the rule change by a two-thirds majority at its congress, to go into effect after this Olympic season. The move was also motivated, Bianchetti said, by the desire to encourage participation in the sport.The young people requested to have vocal music with lyrics because it is more connected to the music of today, and they like to skate to the music they are hearing, said Bianchetti, a member of the governing bodys technical committee for singles and pairs skating.Lili Gataullina, a 19-year-old from Kazan, Russia, who attended the ice dance on Monday night in Sochi, is part of the I.S.U.s target audience. Why not? she said of the rule change. I think if there are words they can be like a story, and the skaters can express their emotions even more. So I think thats a good idea, and tonight, I liked the ones who were dancing with music with lyrics.Laura Sciarrillo, a 24-year-old spectator from Milan, said that she was often distracted when skaters used instrumental versions of popular songs. Sometimes, I think if they would have used the real version of the song, it would have been way better, she said. So I think it will be a good thing to make it younger. Because right now, its not old, but there are some pretty settled ideas.A few rebels have tested the rules in the past. Browning said that in 1988, he kept the word Tequila in place when he skated one of his programs to the otherwise instrumental song of the same name.I never got a deduction from the judges, he said.Florent Amodio, the flamboyant French skater now coached by Krier, performed a Michael Jackson medley words included during the 2011-12 season and happily lived with the automatic deduction for the sake of his art.But such bold gestures have been the exception. On Friday night, there was a Beatles medley performed by Daisuke Takahashi of Japan that had no Beatles voices to accompany it.Such Muzak moments, presumably, are ending, and though figure skating has other problems garish costumes, affordability and ferocious competition from traditional and emerging sports its leaders are betting that it is worth the risk to give teenagers and teenagers at heart what they seem to want.After all, guess what was playing at the Iceberg Skating Palace to entertain the crowd as the ice was cleaned during intermissions at the mens free skate?Music with lyrics. | Sports |
DealBookCredit...Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesDec. 7, 2015You probably own a stake in a gun manufacturer, whether you know it or not.Just take a look at your 401(k) plan. If youre in one managed by Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity or just about any other mutual fund group, youre most likely the owner of shares in the three primary publicly traded gun or ammunition makers: Smith & Wesson; Sturm, Ruger & Company; and the Olin Corporation.If you own any of the broad index funds or even a target-date retirement fund, youve got a stake in the gun industry.Investments in gun makers, at least over the past five years, have performed well. Shares of Smith & Wesson are up nearly 400 percent since 2010. On Monday, shares of Smith & Wesson reached their highest price since 2007 after President Obama called for more gun control laws, leading investors to anticipate a rush of gun sales ahead of any restrictions.What if you own one of these 401(k) plans, but dont want to financially support gun makers? Is there anything you can do about it?There is a growing movement among public pension funds, public advocates and other organizations to help investors divest themselves of financial stakes in the gun and ammunition industry. A number of these initiatives began after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., and have been reignited over the killings in San Bernardino, Calif. The perpetrators of last weeks mass shooting bought a cache of guns and ammunition legally including a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 .223-caliber assault rifle and a Smith & Wesson handgun.The Campaign to Unload, for instance, is a group of more than 50 organizations across the country that are attacking the sources of funding for gun makers. It set up a website Unload Your 401(k) that allows users to look up their retirement plans to see if they have financial exposure to gun manufacturers. Snoop Dogg, the rapper, has endorsed the Campaign to Unload. Im unloading for my loved ones that Ive lost, he said in a statement. Im going all in for gun-free investing.Just over the weekend, Letitia James, New York Citys public advocate, took an even more unusual step. Hoping to cut off funding for gun makers, she sought to pressure TD Bank, which has provided $280 million in financing to Smith & Wesson, to cut its ties with the gun maker.As we stare at the financial smoking gun that enables gun violence, inaction is not an option, Ms. James wrote in a letter to TD Bank. If you want to do business with New York City, you cant be in bed with companies that manufacture the agents that kill our children and families.A spokeswoman for TD said, We are deeply saddened by the events in San Bernardino and our sympathies go out to the individuals and their families affected by this tragedy. As a matter of corporate policy we do not comment on the nature and specifics of our relationships with our customers.Of course, gun manufacturers are legitimate businesses, as are the financial services companies that fund them. On Monday, in a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke to this in bemoaning the Supreme Courts refusal to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a Chicago suburbs ordinance that banned certain weapons.The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting, Justice Thomas wrote. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.In attacking the gun industry, Ms. James is taking a page from other successful efforts to pressure sin industries like cigarettes and coal. While seeking divestments has long been popular, they have had little direct impact, according to studies, despite the headlines they often generate.But efforts to prevent banks and other financing sources from lending money to certain companies has been far more effective. For instance, as chronicled in this column earlier this year, a number of advocacy groups successfully ended the practice of mountaintop removal of coal in Appalachia, an environmentally devastating practice, by pressuring banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Credit Suisse to choke off funding, which they did over nearly a decade of pressure.Leah Gunn Barrett, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, who is involved in the Campaign to Unload, said this tactic could have an impact. They are impervious to public polls, she said. It is all about money for them.Last week, Stop Handgun Violence, a gun control organization based in Newton, Mass., also looked to use financial levers as it continued to wage its campaign against Remington Outdoor (formerly the Freedom Group), the gun manufacturer owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. One of the guns used in San Bernardino was a Bushmaster AR-15, a Remington Outdoor brand.After Sandy Hook, which also involved a Bushmaster rifle, several public pension funds that had money invested in Cerberus called on it to sell the company. Cerberus publicly pledged to sell, but after an unsuccessful auction, decided to maintain ownership while allowing investors to sell their stakes. Last spring, it bought out investors like the California State Teachers Retirement System, but maintained ownership of the company. Privately, the firm told investors it would be unfair to sell the company at a huge loss for investors who didnt have a problem with owning a gun maker.Now, Stop Handgun Violence has urged Americans to boycott all companies owned by Cerberus, including Shaws, Star Market, Safeway, Osco Drug and Steward Health Care. Its unclear how widespread the boycott will be or whether it will influence Cerberuss control of Remington Outdoor.A spokesman for Cerberus declined to comment. In 2013, after Sandy Hook, the firm made clear in a statement that it did not want to get involved in social or political issues. Instead, it saw its job as trying to make money for its investors.As a firm, we are investors, not statesmen or policy makers, it said. Our role is to make investments on behalf of our clients. It added: It is not our role to take positions or attempt to shape or influence the gun policy debate.That stance is often the default position on Wall Street. It shouldnt be. | Business |
Credit...I.O.C. Olympic Museum/AllsportFeb. 11, 2014SOCHI, Russia As pairs skating began Tuesday, the elderly couple walked to their seats at Iceberg Skating Palace, inconspicuous even in a section reserved for honored guests.Oleg and Lyudmila Protopopov dressed in Alpine sweaters, he in track pants with his hair below the collar, she in a coat with her hair in a bun. Fifty years earlier, they had begun what remains the longest winning streak in the Winter Olympics 12 consecutive gold medals won by Soviet and Russian pairs skaters over 42 years until a disappointing fourth-place finish at the 2010 Vancouver Games.This is our jubilee year, Lyudmila Protopopov, 78, said during an intermission, referring to the first of two gold medals the couple won for the Soviet Union in 1964 and in 1968. Of course want to get a present from the Russian pairs. We lost last time. We hope this is a rejuvenation.Many expect it will be.Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, the current world champions from Russia, won Tuesdays short program with a world-record 84.17 points. Their chief rivals, Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, the 2010 Olympic bronze medalists from Germany, finished second with 79.64 points.The long program is Wednesday. A restoration of Russias dominance is in reach, but Oleg Protopopov said he would not become overly confident.In figure skating, the blade is curved and the ice is slippery, he said. You can predict something, but you will be wrong.Once, the Protopopovs might have felt ambivalent about attending a Winter Olympics in Russia. They defected in 1979, feeling discarded, they said, and told they were too old to skate.They did not return to Russia until 2003, a dozen years after the Soviet Union collapsed, and now live in Lake Placid, N.Y., and in Grindelwald, Switzerland. But they seemed grateful and ebullient on Tuesday, smiling, clapping, taking photographs.The past was the past.We lived how we lived before, and we live how we live now, Oleg said. Nothing has happened to our skating.He had a stroke in 2009 and had a pacemaker implanted. Still, the Protopopovs skate on most days and appear much younger than their years, their eyes clear and their faces nearly as smooth as their graceful performances.For me, this couple invented the classical, balletic sport of figure skating, Paul Wylie of the United States, the 1992 mens Olympic silver medalist, said as he took a photograph with the Protopopovs. They still epitomize artistry and athleticism like nobody else.Skating is more than exercise, the couple said. It gives them a feeling of flight and freedom.We love to be alive, Oleg said.If we stop skating, he said, making a downward gesture with his thumbs.We dont think about finishing, Lyudmila said.Skating has evolved greatly. The old 6.0 system has been discarded, replaced by a code of accumulated points. The goal was to instill greater objectivity after a vote-trading scandal discredited the pairs and ice dancing competitions at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. But many believe skating has become a scavenger hunt for points to the detriment of artistry and beauty.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIf you want to create music on the ice, you need to create something between the notes, Oleg said. In this kind of skating, sportsmen have no possibilities physically and aesthetically to do this.Yet on Tuesday, the Protopopovs stood and applauded for Trankov and Volosozhar, who are fast and powerful with their soaring twists and throws, but also suggestive of the classical with their music and emotion. They prevailed over the more playful Pink Panther routine performed by Savchenko and Szolkowy.They are closer to our style, Lyudmila said of the Russian pair. Not completely, but closer.It was once said that the Protopopovs developed a style that was not quite skating and not quite ballet but more in the realm of poetry.There was no coach, they said, no choreographer. There was only the creative yearning of the son of a ballerina and his wife, who drew inspiration from watching Sonjie Henie, the three-time Olympic champion from Norway, in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade.As a boy of 9, Oleg Protopopov lived in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, when Germany began its long and brutal siege of the city in 1941. He said he resorted to eating blocks of wood glue to survive and once awakened in a hospital, where his mother did volunteer work, to realize the men on either side of him had died in their sleep.I saw death face to face, Oleg said in a 1997 interview with The New York Times. I know the price of life. We bring life to other people by our skating. We create a feeling of living, of inspiration.The Protopopovs met by accident at a skating seminar in Moscow in 1954. He was 23, she was 20. A decade later, they became the Soviet Unions first Olympic champions in figure skating.Before those 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, a postcard was printed prematurely and inaccurately, Lyudmila said, indicating that Marika Kilius and Hans-Jurgen Baumler of West Germany were the Olympic champions.This postcard cost 2.5 Deutschmarks, Lyudmila said with a laugh. When we won, this became 300 Deutchsmarks.In 1968, the Protopopovs won Olympic gold again in Grenoble, France.They belong at the peak of the pinnacle of pairs skating, Dick Button, a two-time mens Olympic champion, said in a telephone interview from New York. They picked a style for themselves, a classical style, and they had an iconic devotion to it. The flat backs, the head and body stretched to the nth degree. They were not Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.Referring to Volosozhar and Trankov, Button said, Theyre powerful and one of the better pairs in the world today, but they have absolutely zero sense of the body position and style of what the Protopopovs stood for.By 1979, a shift toward power and speed had long come to Soviet pairs skating. Irina Rodnina was on her way to three consecutive gold medals, one with Alexei Ulanov, two with Alexander Zaitsev. The Protopopovs said that Soviet officials wanted them to stop skating and become coaches. They declined, defecting while on a tour of Switzerland.We wanted to continue our skating, Lyudmila said. They said, Its enough, you are too old.For some in Russia, views of the Protopopovs appear complicated by their defection and desire to continue skating to the exclusion of almost everything else.Its a small world they have created in their minds, said Elena Vaytsekhovskaya, the 1976 Olympic champion in platform diving for the Soviet Union who is a columnist for Sport-Express, a Russian sports newspaper. This is terrible to understand that at 20 or 25 or 30, the biggest period of your life is over.Trankov, the current Russians pairs star, was more charitable Tuesday. Appreciatively, he noted the presence of the Protopopovs and connected their story to his. Fifty years ago, he recalled, they had defeated their German rivals at the Olympics.Now its like a new circle in the story, Trankov said. | Sports |
A study shows that even in a country that is considered a bastion of conservation, many big cats were severely wounded in encounters with human snare traps and shotguns.Credit...Paula WhitePublished Feb. 10, 2022Updated Feb. 21, 2022Paula White, a wildlife biologist, was examining lion skulls to estimate the animals ages when she noticed something strange about their teeth. Instead of just showing the normal, gradual wear that happens over time, a sharp, V-shaped notch was cut into the back edge of some of the big cats canines.The bizarre markings, it turned out, had been caused by snares circular wire traps that tighten like a noose around the neck or paw of an animal. Snares are typically a death trap, but the lions whose skulls Dr. White was examining had apparently managed to escape by pulling on the wire with their teeth.Putting this together was a real a-ha moment, said Dr. White, a researcher affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles. It was kind of horrifying but fascinating at the same time.Dr. White and her colleague, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a vertebrate paleobiologist also at UCLA, realized they had stumbled across a valuable data set one that would allow them to calculate the frequency of nonlethal, human-caused injuries to large carnivores.Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science, were worse than expected. More than a third of the lions and a fifth of the leopards they examined had evidence of being snared at some point in their lives. More than a quarter of the lions also had lead shotgun pellets embedded in their skulls, indicating a prior run-in with poachers or other people.If we want these big cats to thrive, we need better data on the nature and magnitude of the threats they face, especially from humans, Dr. Van Valkenburgh said. We can get those data by documenting the history of insults recorded in their bones and teeth.ImageCredit...via Paula WhiteAfrican lions are in precipitous decline. Between 1993 and 2014, population numbers fell by 43 percent, to as few as 23,000 wild individuals remaining today. Less comprehensive evidence indicates that leopard numbers are declining as well.Habitat loss is the primary threat to lions and leopards, but humans also pose a significant danger to the big cats through poaching. Although illegal international trade of lions and other felines is on the rise, for now, big cats killed in retaliation for livestock predation is the bigger problem. Others are killed by snares set for animals like gazelles and antelopes that are part of the bushmeat trade. The snares harm the survival of the big cats by taking out the prey they depend on for food, as well as incidentally catching and killing the predators.Determining the full extent of the impact of snaring and conflict with people is challenging, though. Animals are often killed in very remote locations, and cases go unreported. Most often, animals just disappear and you dont know what happened to them, Dr. White said. If wildlife officials do manage to collect any data, they usually pertain to deaths rather than injuries.The researchers are not certain about how the injuries they have documented may be affecting lions and leopards, but they suspect it must be significant.Youre looking at an animal that depends on its ability to hunt and bring down large prey, which is not an easy way to make a living, Dr. White added. Any kind of physical injury is going to make its life more difficult.ImageCredit...Paula WhiteImageCredit...Paula WhiteThe new research likely the first to systematically document such injuries came about by chance. Dr. White had originally been working with the Zambian government on a project that photographed the skulls and hides of adult male lions and leopards that had been legally hunted as trophies in Zambias Luangwa Valley and Greater Kafue Ecosystem.The archived photos were the starting point for the new study. While examining the skulls, Dr. White and Dr. Van Valkenburgh found that a startling 37 percent of 112 lions and 22 percent of 45 leopards had evidence of being snared at some point in their lives. And 27 percent of the lions had been hit in the face with shotgun pellets.The results are almost certainly an underestimate. For the snaring calculations, the researchers only considered animals that had both tooth wear and corresponding scars on their hides not those that had only tooth wear. For the shotgun estimates, they were only able to examine images of the animals skulls, not their entire skeletons. As Dr. White said, Our reported numbers are conservatively low, even though they are high.While the findings cannot be directly extrapolated to other lion and leopard habitats, Dr. Van Valkenburgh pointed out that the approach is easily repeatable in countries without deep pockets or access to sophisticated technology.Joel Berger, a biologist at Colorado State University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was not involved in the study, agreed that the novel method has truly broad value.This is a remarkable paper that uses an imaginative diagnostic approach, he said.ImageCredit...Paula WhiteCarnivore deaths caused by humans are a significant problem around the world, yet very few studies give insight into this issue at the local level, Dr. Berger continued. That kind of fine scale information is needed, though, if wildlife managers wish to do more than make blind guesses about how to best help carnivores survive.According to Amy Dickman, a conservation biologist at the University of Oxford, Dr. White and Dr. Van Valkenburghs valuable and alarming findings suggest that snaring and conflict may be even more intense threats than previously estimated.This highlights the need to prioritize finding solutions for these problems, Dr. Dickman added. As an example, she said people would be less inclined to snare animals if they had access to sufficient food, and they would be less likely to retaliate against predators if they were given education and support to better protect themselves and their livestock. Engaging people directly in conservation and ensuring that they receive tangible benefits from living alongside wildlife are also parts of the solution, Dr. Dickman said.Conservation is complex, though, and even in the best of circumstances, wildlife can still face pressure from humans. The landscapes in Zambia where the study took place, for example, are considered to be bastions of conservation, with strong anti-poaching and community engagement programs. The fact that snaring and human-wildlife conflict is so high, even in these places, was a sobering revelation, Dr. White said.Its hard to say increase efforts, because clearly, there is a lot of effort already on the ground, she said. But if its not working, youve got to rethink it. | science |
Credit...James Hill for The New York TimesFeb. 19, 2014SOCHI, Russia Its hard enough to be a 15-year-old girl.Its even harder to have Olympic-size pressures while competing for a figure skating title against two friends, a field of elite competitors and a rival 15-year-old prodigy from Russia who enraptured her home crowd.In a sport that, like gymnastics in the Summer Games, routinely churns out elite young female competitors, Polina Edmunds of the United States stands out.Wednesday night wasnt just her Olympic debut; it was her first senior-level international competition, and she scored 61.04 points in the short program, good for seventh place heading into Thursdays free skate.With a confidence her predecessors did not share, Edmunds appeared on the ice in a blaze of electric yellow and sparkles with a dance-heavy program to Pink Cherries (Cha Cha Cha), Bsame Mucho and Another Cha Cha.Her competition for the podium in the womens singles event includes her fellow Americans Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold; the 15-year-old Russian star Yulia Lipnitskaya, who won a gold medal as part of the team event on Feb. 9; the defending Olympic champion, Kim Yu-na of South Korea; and the top-ranked Carolina Kostner of Italy.Within seconds, as the cha-cha blared through the speakers at the Iceberg Skating Palace, the crowd was clapping along as Edmunds whizzed past the judging booth, adorning her jumps with dance steps. (Edmunds trained with a cha-cha teacher for a year to hone her skills.)I was a bit nervous when I stepped out, just because I wanted to skate well, said Edmunds, who started skating at age 2. Everyone is nervous. Yeah, I was mostly just excited and telling myself to stay calm and really enjoy it because no matter what happens, Im still at the Olympics.The difference between Edmunds and the petite girls who gathered the flowers audience members threw on the ice for her was difficult to discern as Edmunds made her way to the kiss-and-cry booth after completing her short program. On the bench, she waved two stuffed-animal good-luck charms: a lion, her high schools mascot; and an elephant from a skating rink near her home in San Jose, Calif.They always say, Trunks up, good luck, she said.Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose which counts Kerri Walsh Jennings, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in beach volleyball, and Brandi Chastain, a two-time gold medalist in soccer, among its graduates staged a send-off for Edmunds, part of the rush of off-ice attention she has received.Its been different, definitely, she said. Ive never had this much media on me, but its a good experience to have and to get ready as I keep competing.Edmunds earned her spot on the United States Olympic team as a silver medalist at the United States Figure Skating Championships in Boston last month. She outscored Mirai Nagasu, the fourth-place finisher in the Vancouver Games, and Wagner, who earned a spot in Sochi despite placing fourth at the nationals. (Wagner scored a 65.21 on Wednesday, putting her in sixth, just ahead of Edmunds. Gold placed fourth with a 68.63.)The deadline for the Olympics is 15 before July, said Edmunds, who turned 15 in May and trains under David Glynn; her mother, Nina; and the serial-medalist-maker Frank Carroll. So if 15-year-olds are good enough to make it by then, theres no question. Everyone earns their spot at the Olympics, and for a 15-year-old to do it, its great that we have the opportunity to come here, and were not held back for our age.For Edmunds, competing in Sochi had additional significance. Her mother is Russian. Edmunds had not visited the country since she was 2, but she fielded a few questions in Russian from local journalists.Her Twitter feed since her arrival in Sochi has told of her chatting with housekeepers in Russian, talking to throngs of reporters about her homework and cheering on her teammates Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who won the first Olympic gold medal in ice dancing for the United States on Monday.As Edmunds made her way off the ice Wednesday night, swapping her skates for white sneakers, she said she was pleased over all with the execution of a clean program.For me its not about really numbers or whatnot, she said. Its about skating what I can do, and what I can do is two clean programs.She did not complain about not receiving higher numbers from the judges. In a sport in which competitors frequently exit competition because of injury or are considered too old before theyre legally permitted to rent a car, Edmunds said her attack on the ice, along with the snagging of higher scores, is only beginning.Im going to keep competing, of course, Edmunds said. | Sports |
Credit...Andrew Scrivani for The New York TimesNov. 16, 2016This story was published in November 2016 and updated in November 2017.If the current state of politics has shown us anything, its that it sometimes seems as if opposing views can never be reconciled.And with American Thanksgiving upon us as far-flung family members from all walks of life gather for a meal the political and personal disagreements that crop up are as traditional as the turkey and cranberry sauce.So this may be a good time to explore what psychologists and philosophers say are the most effective ways to argue. And by argue they do not mean quarrel, but communicate without rancor or faulty reasoning with someone who has an opposing viewpoint, with the hope of broadening ones understanding of people and ideas.Here are a few suggestions:Listen carefullyThe aim of an argument should not be proving who is right, but conveying that you care about the issues, said Amy J. C. Cuddy, a social psychologist and associate professor at Harvard University.Show the person with whom you are speaking that you care about what he or she says.The goal should be to state your views and to hear theirs. It should not be: I am not leaving until you admit that you are wrong, or here is what I believe, and I am not budging from this, said Dr. Cuddy, who has explored the question in Business Insider columns.And when you listen, go all in. Dont half-listen while figuring out what youre going to say next, said Gary Gutting, a philosopher at Notre Dame. Dont drop the anchorSome people start an argument by staking their position and refusing to budge, an impulse that Dr. Cuddy called dropping the anchor.Instead, try to understand the other persons point of view; it does not mean you have to agree with him or her, or that you are abandoning deeply felt objections to, for example, racism or sexism, she said.Think of it from a courage perspective: I can go in and I am going to ask questions that are truly, honestly aimed at increasing my understanding of where he or she is coming from, Dr. Cuddy said. How did they get there, and what is leading to that?Mind your body languageYour body language can send messages that are more compelling than the words coming out of your mouth.Try to avoid gestures that are patronizing or defensive, like crossing your arms or clenching your jaw.Maintain eye contact in a way that is not a stare-down.Lean forward slightly to show you are interested.And no eye-rolling, Dr. Gutting said.Dont argue to winDr. Gutting says it helps to use neutral or charitable language when acknowledging opposing viewpoints, especially during arguments over politics. It lays the groundwork for a more effective argument on points of genuine weakness.Dont think of an argument as an opportunity to convince the other person of your view; think of it as a way to test and improve your opinions, and to gain a better understanding of the other side.It is rarely productive to nitpick errors in your interlocutors remarks or to argue just to win.People do give up views because of rational arguments against them, Dr. Gutting said in the interview. But this is almost always a long process, not the outcome of a single decisive encounter.In How to Argue About Politics, a chapter from his book What Philosophy Can Do, Dr. Gutting writes that, in many political arguments, the people we think we convince almost always already agree with us.Know the factsA good argument is supported by evidence, but that is just a starting point. Sometimes, especially with political back-and-forths, one side will look only at evidence supporting its own position, conveniently leaving out the full picture, Dr. Gutting noted.(This is called the fallacy of incomplete evidence. Here is an extensive list of fallacies, or unsound reasoning.)An effective argument would have to take account of all the relevant evidence, he said.Speak and listen fearlesslyGeorge Yancy, a philosophy professor at Emory University who has written extensively about race, was asked by a student this year why he even bothered to discuss race with white supremacists.Dr. Yancy said he told his student there was a need to inform white people about how African-Americans think about race.This is a moment when we are not just talking past each other, but against each other, Dr. Yancy said in a telephone interview, speaking about the current national climate.So for me, the condition for a conversation has to be that you are unafraid to speak courageously, and you are unafraid to tell your partner exactly what it is that you think about the world.But a two-way argument also requires fearless listening, even if it is me talking to a white supremacist who is trying to tell me that I am inferior, he added. One of the conditions for the possibility of a fruitful argument is to allow for some kind of opening up in myself to hear.Sometimes it takes a painful step to find common ground, Dr. Yancy said.What you need to be able to do is to speak the same language, he said. They believe in God, and you would say: You and I believe the same thing. How is it that this God who loves you cant possibly love me? Is it possible that we can agree to disagree on some issues? | Health |
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesFeb. 19, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Shut out at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Ted Ligety arrived at the Sochi Games as a medal contender in three events.When he did not crack the top 10 in his first two races, he did not have to be told about the mounting pressure. Although that happened anyway.Ted was reading everything on the Internet; its something he likes to do, said Ligetys longtime girlfriend, Mia Pascoe. He saw every article. I told him to stop reading. The Internet is kind of spotty here anyway.Ligety had been the surprise winner of an Olympic gold medal in combined as a 21-year-old at the 2006 Winter Games, but now he was a 29-year-old three-time defending world champion and the best giant slalom skier in the world for the last seven seasons.Friends and family approached him in recent days, wondering how he was holding up. He mentioned to them that so far no favorite in any mens Alpine event at the Sochi Games had come through with a victory.It did not sound encouraging. But it did not haunt him.He woke up today the calmest I have seen him since we arrived in Russia, Pascoe said. He was Ted. He was going to do what he does.What he does is attack a giant slalom racecourse with a self-invented style that is revolutionizing how the event is being skied. What that produced Wednesday was a commanding lead for Ligety after the first of two runs down the mountain.Then, with the gold medal unquestionably his to lose, he skied the judicious, strategic second run he had devised in practice sessions here a year ago. When he confidently and steadily slid past the finish line late Wednesday afternoon, he had a comfortable, nearly half-second victory and the prize that validates one of the notable ski racing careers in American Alpine history.VideoThe American skier talked about not winning a medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and winning a gold in the giant slalom on Wednesday.Ligetys winning time of 2 minutes 45.29 seconds made him the first American man to win the Olympic giant slalom and the first to win two Olympic Alpine gold medals. Trailing Ligety by 48-hundredths of a second was Steve Missillier of France, who was 16-hundredths of a second ahead of his teammate Alexis Pinturault, who won bronze.Ligety, who is known for a laid-back attitude that conceals an intensely analytical mind, understood everything that was at play Wednesday.Ive been answering questions about Vancouver for four years, he said. And all this season, all that people talked about is the Olympics, the Olympics, the Olympics. I was like: Lets do it already. Lets stop talking about the pressure. Lets get the monkey off my back.His opponents, not surprisingly, expected Wednesdays outcome, including the secure margin of victory.Hes been doing this to us for years, probably since 2005, said Benjamin Raich of Austria, who has won 14 Olympic and world championships medals. People ask how to beat him. Up to now it is impossible.Bode Miller called his teammate one of the best giant slalom skiers in history.The Rosa Khutor Alpine complex in the mountains north of Sochi became just the latest laboratory for Ligetys theories on how to get the most out of the new straighter giant slalom skis mandated in 2012. Ligety uses them as no one else does.While other racers try to ski faster by pinching so close to the gates that they smash into them with their shoulders and hips choosing a path that is materially shorter Ligety purposely skis in a rounded route away from the gates on 80 percent of his turns. He also begins his turn so early that he is finished with it by the time he passes the gate. This allows him to flatten and straighten his skis, which makes him faster between turns, even if for only a millisecond.He does not usually try to strike the gates, because it makes it harder to flatten the skis and can disrupt his smooth, curved approach. Ligety seeks a measured rhythm, methodical like the beat of a dance but powerful for its systematic, consistent and uninterrupted flow.ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesWhen one turn is complete, he initiates the next both sooner than anyone else and with more unimpeded speed. The impact of Ligetys larger radius turn also has a counterintuitive result: It enables him to pressure the skis into the snow longer, pushing off the surface to produce additional speed.The net effect of this method might save Ligety about two-hundredths of a second on each turn, which may seem insignificant. But multiply those two-hundredths by the 57 gates of Wednesdays first run and it translates into a roughly one-second lead.And in ski racing one second per run is an eternity.He generates more speed because he leaves space for the speed to accumulate, said Miller, who finished 20th in what was almost certainly his final Olympic race. Everyone watches him and is trying to do what hes doing. Hes just so much better at it than everyone.Ligety had another advantage Wednesday. Last year, the United States team wisely agreed to a training partnership with the Russian skiers, which allowed the Americans to train at Rosa Khutor late last winter in exchange for welcoming the Russians to the Americans early fall training in Colorado late last year.Ligety had multiple days to size up the Olympic giant slalom racecourse. The first five times he tried the course he did not finish. The chief problem was the first jump he faced, called Bears Brow.If youre not careful, you fly too far and cant make the next gate, Ligety said.In both runs Wednesday, the plan was to ski Bears Brow with caution.I might lose a few tenths, but I took the risk out, Ligety said. I avoided losing a whole second.And since Ligety led by 93-hundredths of a second after the first run, handling Bears Brow was foremost on his mind. So while nearly all of the other top racers left the ground off Bears Brow, navigating the steep pitch that followed with varying degrees of success, Ligetys skis never left the ground, keeping his descent crisp and orderly. He threw his skis sideways and went down on one hip near the midpoint of his second run, giving back some of his first-run lead, but that was a part of the plan, too.Tactics, Ligety said. It was all about tactics.You have to be smart, he said. However it looked, I was thinking the whole way down. I always kept a relative sense of control.It could have described how he managed the pressure he was feeling until late Wednesday afternoon.Being a big favorite is not always easy, Ligety said when the race was over and he had a victory that earned him more than just another gold medal. But it helps to remember why youre the favorite in the first place.I kind of went with that. | Sports |
The victory is a landmark breakthrough for African-Americans in politics. Mr. Warnock becomes the first Black Democrat to be elected to the Senate from the South.Credit...Audra Melton for The New York TimesJan. 5, 2021ATLANTA Democrats moved a major step closer to gaining control of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday morning as Georgia voters elected the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor at the storied Ebenezer Baptist Church, in a hard-fought runoff contest that became roiled by President Trumps false claims of voter fraud in the state.Mr. Warnocks victory over the Republican incumbent, Kelly Loeffler, represented a landmark breakthrough for African-Americans in politics as well as for Georgia: He became the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South.For Democrats to take the Senate, which is crucial to enacting President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s first-term agenda, they also need to win Georgias other Senate runoff held on Tuesday. The votes were still being counted in that race between the Republican candidate, David Perdue, and his Democratic rival, Jon Ossoff.But turnout in rural, overwhelmingly white counties where Republicans needed a strong showing was lagging without Mr. Trump on the ballot, and many of Georgias heavily Black localities saw turnout levels that neared those of the presidential race in November.May my story be an inspiration to some young person who is trying to grasp and grab hold to the American dream, Mr. Warnock, who grew up in poverty, said in an online video just before 1 a.m. Wednesday. Invoking his mother, he said: 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.With about 97 percent of the vote counted in the early hours of Wednesday, Mr. Warnock held a lead of roughly 47,000 votes over Ms. Loeffler, after surging ahead late Tuesday night when heavily Democratic DeKalb County reported a trove of ballots.While Mr. Warnocks win was a major gain for his party he is the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate from Georgia since 2000 both political parties remained on edge over the unresolved Ossoff-Perdue race and its implications for the next two years in American politics. Whichever party wins that race will control the Senate, with Republicans counting on Mr. Perdue to prevail and give them the ability to constrain Mr. Bidens policy ambitions.After Mr. Bidens triumph in November, Mr. Warnocks victory provides yet another comeuppance for the Trumpist politics that have come to define the Republican Party over the past four years. Ms. Loeffler had rebranded herself as a hard-line Trump loyalist to fend off a challenge from the right in the first round of voting. In recent weeks, she has continued to embrace the president, even using an election-eve rally with Mr. Trump in Northwest Georgia to proudly declare that she will oppose certifying his loss to Mr. Biden when Congress meets on Wednesday.Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff ran as a virtual package deal, as did the two Republicans, often appearing at events together and crafting similar messages about the stark consequences for the nation if the other side won.Republicans used much of the runoff to focus on Mr. Warnocks sermons, a line of attack that appeared to mobilize African-American voters, especially in more conservative rural Georgia where the church is a pillar of many communities.Mr. Trumps refusal to acknowledge his defeat also robbed Ms. Loeffler of what might have been her best argument in what is still a slightly right-leaning state that she would be a check on the liberal excesses in a government fully controlled by Democrats.Even before polls closed on Tuesday, senior Republican campaign officials were pinning the blame on the president, noting that their polling testified to the power of the check-and-balance argument that the party was unable to make because of Mr. Trumps denial of the election results.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe election was a tumultuous coda to Mr. Trumps presidency, with control of the Senate and the first two years of Mr. Bidens term in the balance. The runoffs were also an important bellwether for a Deep South state where once-dominant Republicans have begun to see their advantage slip because of an increasingly diverse electorate and the changing preferences of suburban voters.Election-day turnout was pivotal for Republicans, who were playing catch-up to Democrats. During an early-voting period that ended last week, more than three million Georgians cast their ballots, and turnout was heavy among African-Americans and in liberal bastions around Atlanta.For voters, the choice between the two pairs of candidates was stark: Mr. Perdue, 71, and Ms. Loeffler, 50, are both white millionaires who leaned into more conservative policy positions like gun rights and opposition to abortion. They also made the case to voters that their business success gave them real-world experience in handling economic matters.Mr. Warnock, 51, and Mr. Ossoff, 33, were a more diverse team. Mr. Warnock is a prominent pastor at the church in Atlanta where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. Mr. Ossoff, who is Jewish, is the head of a video production company and worked as a congressional aide.Both men promised a more robust response to the coronavirus pandemic and an expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and they embraced the national Democratic Party.They also railed against Mr. Trump, who ensured that he was regularly on Georgia voters minds with his incessant and groundless insistence that he was robbed of victory in the state by a rigged general election in November.Soon after his narrow defeat, Mr. Trump spurred a Republican civil war in Georgia, lashing out at two fellow Republicans, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, when they refused to take steps to alter the presidential results. Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler, both ardent defenders of Mr. Trump, chose sides early, accusing Mr. Raffensperger of incompetence and calling on him to resign a few days after the election.ImageCredit...Audra Melton for The New York TimesRight up to the eve of the runoff vote, Republicans worried about the potential fallout from Mr. Trumps efforts to overturn his defeat, particularly the revelation that he had called Mr. Raffensperger on Saturday and pressured him to find the votes that would help the president declare victory. Mr. Trumps spurious claims of fraud stoked fears among some in his own party that his supporters would take him literally and sit out the election on the grounds that their votes would not amount to much in a compromised system.Even on Tuesday afternoon, when his party was fervently pushing election-day turnout, Mr. Trump was calling into question the integrity of Georgias election system. He asserted via Twitter that voting machines are not working in certain Republican strongholds. Mr. Raffensperger said the issues were minor and resolved by 10 a.m.Well before Tuesday, the president left the two Republican senators with a tricky task: arguing that Republican control of the Senate was crucial to constraining Mr. Biden, without conceding that Mr. Biden had actually won the presidency, which would punch a hole in Mr. Trumps false narrative.To the end, though, both candidates hitched themselves to Mr. Trump, calculating that the partys rank and file would sit out the runoff if they distanced themselves in the slightest.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf the Republican hopefuls contorted themselves to accommodate Mr. Trumps die-hard supporters and risked alienating Biden-backing suburbanites in the process the two Democrats did little to defy their own party.In a state where Republicans hold every statewide office, Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff ran as national Democrats rather than emphasizing any differences they had with party orthodoxy, in the fashion of an earlier generation of Georgia Democrats. While resisting some of the ambitions of the far left, like defunding the police, the two candidates expressed support for abortion rights and gun control.Republicans seized on these issues, as well as the biographies of Mr. Ossoff and particularly Mr. Warnock, as they argued that the two men were too liberal for Georgia.Mr. Ossoff was mostly known for having run and lost in an expensive, hotly contested special House election at the outset of the Trump era in 2017. Among Mr. Warnocks main challenges, by contrast, was the length of his record as a public figure and an activist preacher.After Mr. Warnock largely escaped criticism in the November election, when Ms. Loeffler was focused on fending off a challenge from her right, he came in for particularly harsh criticism.Republicans spotlighted Mr. Warnocks most controversial sermons and portrayed him as a critic of the military and law enforcement. Mr. Warnock sought to defuse the criticism and soften his image by airing tongue-in-cheek commercials featuring him with a puppy.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesMr. Ossoff also took some hard shots at Mr. Perdue, calling him a crook over controversial stock trades the senator made, while accusing him of trying to profit off the coronavirus pandemic, something Mr. Perdue denies.Neither party lacked for resources to make its arguments. These were the most expensive Senate contests in U.S. history. Including the campaigning before the runoff, more than $469 million was spent in the Perdue-Ossoff contest, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and more than $362 million was dedicated to the Loeffler-Warnock race.That the races were competitive at all was a testament to the changing nature of Georgia.Though dominated by Republicans for much of the past two decades, the state is shifting because of an influx of newcomers, immigrants and American-born voters, chasing warm weather and Sun Belt opportunity. Democratic hopes were buoyed not only by Mr. Bidens victory, but by the 2018 campaign of Stacey Abrams, who ran a competitive but unsuccessful race for governor.And the two Senate aces were pushed into runoffs by some of the defining forces shaping national politics.Mr. Ossoff made his political debut in 2017 as a fresh-faced and virtually unknown candidate vying for an open House seat in suburban Atlanta. The special election served as one of the first major referendums on Mr. Trump; Mr. Ossoff, despite his obscurity, was inundated with money from energized liberals across the country.Mr. Ossoff lost the 2017 race, but he carried his experience and name recognition into the 2020 battle, where he forced Mr. Perdue into a runoff.In the other race, Ms. Loeffler was appointed to the Senate by Mr. Kemp in December 2019 to fill the seat of Senator Johnny Isakson, who retired because of health concerns.But his choice displeased Mr. Trump, who had wanted Mr. Kemp to tap Doug Collins, then a hard-right congressman from Georgia who had served as one of Mr. Trumps most loyal defenders during his impeachment.Mr. Collins jumped into the race anyway, forcing Ms. Loeffler far to the right; at one point she aired an ad in which she said she was more conservative than Attila the Hun.The strategy helped Ms. Loeffler win a place in the runoff, but seemed to invalidate Mr. Kemps original rationale for appointing her as she rebranded herself as a hard-line Trump loyalist.Rick Rojas, Astead W. Herndon and Sean Keenan contributed reporting. | Politics |
The Chainsmokers' Alex Pall 'Miserable' After Caught Cheating ... 'She Deserves a Better Guy than Me' 1/24/2018 TMZ.com Alex Pall of The Chainsmokers is eating one big ass crow after he was caught cheating on his now ex-girlfriend, Tori Woodward ... and he says he's miserable over what he's done. We got the DJ Tuesday at LAX before he jetted off to Qatar for a gig, and we asked how he was holding up after Tori put him on blast last week for creepin' on camera. Alex pours his heart out -- telling our camera guy his ex deserves a better guy than him. He also explains what he's learned from all this ... and we're inclined to believe him. | Entertainment |
Arnold Schwarzenegger Hasta La Vista, Bugatti!!! 1/30/2018 Arnold Schwarzenegger is one happy used car salesman after someone took his Bugatti Veyron off his hands ... for about $2.5 million. We're told Arnold's 2015 Veyron -- which goes 0-60 mph in 2.5 secs -- only had about 1,000 miles on it ... so it's a sweet ride. The buyer is Obi Okeke, aka Doctor Bugatti ... the same guy who sold Floyd Mayweather a similar whip. Okeke plans to resell it, if you're in the market for something that tops out at 267 mph. And you can afford the inevitable tickets. | Entertainment |
The president pressed the secretary, Brad Raffensperger, to find enough ballots for him to overturn the election.Credit...Brynn Anderson/Associated PressPublished Jan. 3, 2021Updated Jan. 5, 2021Listen to Excerpts From Trumps CallThe president pressured Georgias secretary of state to overturn the states election results.TRUMP: And I could tell you by our rallies, I could tell you by the rally Im having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. Its just not possible to have lost Georgia. Its not possible. When I heard it was close, I said theres no way. But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night, you know that Brad. And thats what we are working on very, very stringently. But regardless of those votes, with all of it being said, we lost by 11 to essentially 11,000 votes. And we have many more votes already calculated and certified too.TRUMP: We have, we have, we have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And theres, theres nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know, I mean, having the, having a correct the people of Georgia are angry and these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that were going to have by that time, which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And theres nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that youve recalculated.RAFFENSPERGER: Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong. We, we talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised. But they I guess, theres a person named Mr. Brainard that came to these meetings and presented data and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so, thats wrong, that was two._______MARK MEADOWS, White House chief of staff: What Im hopeful for is there are some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to, to, to look at this a little bit more fully. As you know, the president mentioned Fulton County, but in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead. And so, Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise is there, theres something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward thats less litigious._______TRUMP: Now, do you think its possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because thats what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery.Do you know anything about that? Because thats illegal, right?RYAN GERMANY, lawyer for Georgia secretary of states office: This is Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.TRUMP: But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?GERMANY: No.TRUMP: Are you sure, Ryan?GERMANY: Im sure. Im sure, Mr. President.TRUMP: What about, what about the, what about the ballots? The shredding of the ballots. Have they been shredding ballots?GERMANY: The only investigation that we have into that they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this stuff from, you know, from, you know, past elections.TRUMP: It doesnt pass the smell test because we hear theyre shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what theyre saying, Oh, were just cleaning up the office. Yeah.______RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they people can say anything.TRUMP: Oh, this isnt social media. This is Trump media. Its not social media. Its really not, its not social media. I dont care about social media. I couldnt care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side, you know. I dont even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election. And youre a Republican.RAFFENSPERGER: We believe that we do have an accurate election.TRUMP: No, no, you dont. No, no, you dont. You dont have, you dont have. Not even close. Youre off by hundreds of thousands of votes.________TRUMP: But the ballots are corrupt. And youre going to find that they are which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know what they did and youre not reporting it. Thats a criminal thats a criminal offense. And you cant let that happen. Thats a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And thats a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what Ive heard. And they are removing machinery and theyre moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal finds. And you cant let it happen and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, Im notifying you that youre letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state._______TRUMP: So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break._______TRUMP: Why dont you want to find this, Ryan? Whats wrong with you? I heard your lawyer is very difficult, actually, but Im sure youre a good lawyer. You have a nice last name.But, but Im just curious why wouldnt, why do you keep fighting this thing? It just doesnt make sense._______TRUMP: So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election and its not fair to take it away from us like this. And its going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that youre going to re-examine it and you can re-examine it, but re-examine it with people that want to find answers, not people that dont want to find answers._______RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, you have people that submit information and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right. | Politics |
Olympics|Todd Lodwick to Carry U.S. Flag at Opening Ceremony in Sochihttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/sports/olympics/todd-lodwick-to-carry-us-flag-at-opening-ceremony-in-sochi.htmlCredit...Harry How/Getty ImagesFeb. 5, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Todd Lodwick, who will be competing in his sixth Olympics, was named the United States flag-bearer for Fridays opening ceremony at the Sochi Olympics.Lodwick, 37, who was chosen by a vote of the team captains in each sport, competes in Nordic combined, which consists of ski jumping and cross-country skiing. His best individual finish at a Games is fourth, in the normal hill event at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. He also won a silver medal in the team event there. He is the first American to compete in six Winter Olympics.Earlier Wednesday, Canada chose Hayley Wickenheiser, a 35-year-old hockey player competing in her fifth Winter Olympics, and Norway picked Aksel Lund Svindal, a 31-year-old Alpine skiing star, as their flag-bearers. Italy previously selected Armin Zggeler, who will be seeking his sixth consecutive medal in luge.The honor of carrying the flag often goes to a veteran athlete or one who has overcome adversity. The most recent Americans to carry the flag in the Winter Olympics are the luger Mark Grimmette, in 2010, and the speedskater Chris Witty, in 2006. The most famous is probably the figure skater Scott Hamilton, who carried the flag in Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980, four years before he won his gold medal. | Sports |
TrilobitesCredit...Zohar LazarMarch 21, 2016The United Nations issues lots of important, if not exactly scintillating, reports. Then there is the annual World Happiness Report, released last week.This one consistently sparks interest beyond the usual coterie of diplomats and foreign-policy wonks. Happiness is a universal aspiration.This year we learn that happiness, like another precious commodity, oil, is not evenly distributed across the globe. Some nations are awash in bliss (see: Denmark), others bone dry (see: Burundi).Every year, happiness rankings capture our imagination. Like sports scores, everyone wants to know how the home team fared. (The United States, according to the United Nations, ranks 13th out of 157 countries.)Do these rankings really mean anything? Not if youre a happiness researcher, it turns out.For us, thats the least important data, said John F. Helliwell, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia and one of the new reports co-authors.What really intrigues Dr. Helliwell and other happiness researchers is not where people are happy but why. The U.N. report identifies six key factors: G.D.P. per capita, life expectancy, social support, trust, generosity and perceived freedom to make life decisions.This year, the report also examined, for the first time, the question of happiness inequality. In some countries, such as the Netherlands, happiness levels are evenly distributed. That is, most Dutch people are more or less equally happy, as measured in self-reported surveys.In other nations, particularly those in the Middle East and Latin America, happiness levels vary tremendously. (Unequal income levels explain some, but not all, of the variation.)This inequity matters, the report concludes, because new research suggests that people are significantly happier living in societies where there is less inequality of happiness.In other words, we can achieve only so much happiness if our neighbors are miserable.Which raises an intriguing question: Can you redistribute happiness?Yes, you can, Dr. Helliwell said, and less painfully than redistributing income. Its possible to boost someone elses happiness without subtracting from your own.In fact, several studies have found that acting altruistically makes a person happier. Its one of those win-win games that everyone is looking for, Dr. Helliwell said.The U.N. report is good news for Bhutan, the nation where happiness is most evenly distributed. No great surprise there: The tiny Himalayan nation single-handedly sparked interest in global bliss with its well publicized measurements of Gross National Happiness.And while the countrys prime minister recently said he plans to dial back this approach, the seeds have been exported and planted around the world and now they are growing vigorously, Dr. Helliwell said.The U.K. and France are both actively pursuing ways to translate happiness data into public policy. Last month, the United Arab Emirates appointed a minister of happiness, the first such position in the Middle East, part of an effort to improve its well-being ranking (currently a not terrible 28th).This fascination with the scorecard rankles some happiness researchers, but not Dr. Helliwell, who views them as a kind of loss leader.It gets people in the store, and once theyre in the store they become interested in asking, Well, what makes for better lives? he said. | science |
Dec. 11, 2015Martin Shkreli is once again provoking alarm with a plan to sharply increase the price of a decades-old drug for a serious infectious disease. This time the drug treats Chagas disease, a parasitic infection that can cause potentially lethal heart problems.Its caused a lot of angst in the Chagas community, said Dr. Sheba Meymandi, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of a Chagas treatment center at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. Everyones in an uproar.The plan also is upsetting some organizations that supply drugs for neglected diseases because Mr. Shkreli has said he wants to take advantage of a federal program intended to encourage companies to develop such drugs. The program awards vouchers that can be sold to other companies for hundreds of millions of dollars.Mr. Shkreli has said he hopes to obtain such a voucher by getting the Chagas disease drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for sale in the United States. Critics say that it would be another case of the system being abused by awarding a voucher not for developing a new drug but merely for obtaining F.D.A. approval of a drug already used in tropical countries.Mr. Shkreli, 32, a former hedge fund manager, declined to comment.He set off a furor in September after his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired the rights to a 62-year-old drug for toxoplasmosis, another parasitic infection, and raised its price overnight to $750 a pill from $13.50.Last month, Mr. Shkreli led an investor group that took control of a failing California biotechnology company, buying a majority of its shares on the open market at an average price of about $1.50 a share. The stock of the company, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, now sells for about $28, based in part on expectations that the company will prosper under Mr. Shkreli.As one of his first moves at KaloBios, Mr. Shkreli agreed to license the worldwide rights to one version of benznidazole, a standard treatment in South and Central America, where Chagas disease is most common.ImageCredit...Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesBenznidazole has never been approved for sale in the United States but is provided free to patients by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on an experimental basis.Mr. Shkreli said on a conference call with KaloBios investors last week that if the company won F.D.A. approval for benznidazole, it would have exclusive rights to sell it in the United States for at least five years. He said the price would be similar to that of hepatitis C drugs, which cost $60,000 to nearly $100,000 for a course of treatment.In Latin America, benznidazole costs $50 to $100 for the typical two-month course of treatment.KaloBioss price would be pretty devastating, said Dr. Meymandi of U.C.L.A. The people with Chagas for the most part are poor and many lack insurance, she said.It is estimated that 300,000 people in the United States have Chagas disease, virtually all of them immigrants from Latin America who were infected before they came.Chagas is caused by a parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, that is in the feces of an insect called the kissing bug, because it often bites people on the face. The first phase of the infection, the acute phase, can last a few weeks or as long as three months. In most cases, people have no symptoms, though some have fever or swelling at the bite site and in rare cases more severe complications. The parasite persists in the body, and roughly 30 percent of people will develop serious heart problems many years later. The disease can also cause difficulty in swallowing and defecating.Benznidazole, first used in the 1970s, was developed by Roche. But in 2003, with sales slow, Roche donated its remaining supply and the rights to Lafepe, a company owned by a state government in Brazil. A severe shortage occurred a few years ago. A company in Argentina, Elea Laboratories, then became a supplier.While the disease control centers provide the drug free, many doctors are deterred by the paperwork involved in applying for each patient. So specialists say that having a commercial supplier with an approved drug, which would allow doctors to simply write a prescription, would be better, if the price was reasonable.ImageCredit...David Scharf/CorbisKaloBios paid only $2 million initially for worldwide rights to a version of benznidazole developed by Savant Neglected Diseases, a tiny company in California. It might have to pay an additional $20 million over time plus royalties on sales.Mr. Shkreli said on the conference call that, based on discussions with the F.D.A., KaloBios would probably not have to do clinical trials to win F.D.A. approval, just some smaller, quicker studies. That would allow KaloBios to apply for approval in about a year.Mr. Shkreli estimated that 3,000 to 7,000 people would require treatment for acute infection each year in the United States.But many specialists say that is wildly unrealistic because there are few cases of acute disease in the United States and they are rarely detected.I dont see him having a market at all, said Dr. Robert H. Gilman, professor of international health at Johns Hopkins University. At the current rate of diagnosis, I dont see it.Susan Montgomery, who runs the program at the disease control centers that provides benznidazole, said there have been only seven acute cases caused by the kissing bug and detected in the United States since 1955. She said that over all the centers provide 60 to 70 courses of treatment a year of benznidazole or nifurtimox, another Chagas drug.A bigger market could be to treat chronically infected patients. But a clinical trial involving patients who already had at least some heart damage found that the drug did not slow the progression of heart disease compared with a placebo. Some doctors say it would be better to treat patients before heart disease develops, but not many asymptomatic people are screened to see if they are infected.ImageCredit...Richard Perry/The New York TimesKaloBios has competition. Elea, the Argentine supplier, is trying to get F.D.A. approval.Still, even if sales do not materialize, the voucher could be the real prize.The only reason for him to do this is to get the voucher and turn around and sell it, said Dr. Caryn Bern, a Chagas disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.Under a program created by Congress in 2007, companies that get drugs approved for qualifying tropical diseases receive a voucher that entitles the holder to an expedited review by the F.D.A. of another drug, shaving four months off the process. A similar program was created for rare pediatric diseases. For a company with a drug for diabetes or arthritis with expected sales of billions of dollars a year, an extra four months on the market before patents expire could be valuable. So companies that earn the vouchers typically sell them to other drug companies for prices that have reached $350 million.But critics say that the award of a voucher for F.D.A. approval of a drug already used in tropical countries is more a get-rich-quick scheme than a benefit to people with neglected diseases.Critics cite Knight Therapeutics, which in March 2014 won F.D.A. approval of miltefosine to treat leishmaniasis. The drug was already being used abroad, and most of its development was done by the World Health Organization and partners.Organizations that help provide drugs for neglected diseases say that Knight never offered the drug for sale in the United States, and that the supply in developing countries has been unsteady, with burdensome minimum purchase requirements.Meanwhile, Knight sold the voucher it obtained to Gilead Sciences for $125 million.Its an abuse of the system, said Dr. Bernard Pcoul, executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a nonprofit organization.Executives at Knight said the company was preparing to introduce miltefosine in the United States. Endo International, which sells the drug overseas, said complex international regulations made it difficult to supply the product consistently and that it was considering a partnership or other measure to ease access.Mr. Shkrelis previous company, Retrophin, sold a voucher to Sanofi for $245 million, though that happened after he had left. | Business |
Tech TipHate it or love it, your electronic inbox is still a popular point of contact and communication. Heres how to keep it under control.Credit...Google; AppleJune 1, 2022, 9:00 a.m. ETEmail has been known to stress out some members of Generation Z and others who favor the immediacy of chat apps over a teeming inbox. But the old electronic postal system still has its fans, who may prefer its slowness or usefulness for composing longer messages, delivering file attachments and organizing the digital paper trail. Many apps include shortcuts to streamline the mail handling, so if you often plow through your inbox on your phone, here are a few of those timesavers for Googles Gmail and Apples iOS Mail.Set Your SwipesFiling or dumping messages quickly lets you take command of your inbox right away and you can do that with your thumb, thanks to the swipe controls in the mail app. For example, you can assign one action (like flag) to a leftward swipe and pick another (like archive) for your rightward swipe. And Delete is always an option.In the Gmail app for Android, tap the menu icon in the upper-left corner, select Settings from the list, and choose Swipe actions. Tap the Change button to select an action for both the left and the right swipe motion. The iOS version uses different wording but similar steps.To set up your swipe actions in iOS Mail, tap the Settings icon on the iPhones home screen, select Mail, and then choose Swipe Options. Choose the action you want to assign to the Swipe Left and Swipe Right functions.Want to delete a bunch of messages all at once? In Gmail, tap the icon next to each unwanted message in the inbox, and then tap the trash icon. In iOS Mail, tap the Edit button first, then select the messages and tap Trash in the lower-right corner of the screen.ImageCredit...Left, Google; right, AppleScreen Your MailYour phones notifications settings can tell you when new mail arrives. If youd like a different way to peek at recent messages, you can add a mail widget to your home screen.On most phones running Android 9 or later, press an empty area of the home screen until the Widgets menu appears. Select Gmail or another mail widget you want to use, then slide it to the place on the home screen where you want it.On an iPhone running iOS 14 or later, press your finger on an empty area of the home screen (or Today screen) until the icons begin to wiggle, then tap the + button in the upper-left corner. In the Search Widgets box, enter mail, which brings up the option for iOS Mail or Gmail, if you use it; note that sometimes, widgets are finicky. Make your selection, and then tap the Add Widget button on the next screen.In iOS Mail, you can also long-press the inbox preview to see more of a message and get an actions menu to reply, forward or flag it.Take Care of BusinessThose times when youre waiting around for a meeting (or other event) are a good opportunity to manage your mail. Most mail apps offer several productivity features.In a new Gmail message, tap the paper clip icon at the top of the screen to add an attachment, like a photo or a file stored on your Google Drive. You can tap into the three-dot More menu on a newly received message and add it to your Google Tasks to-do list. Want to respect office hours and set a message to be sent at a later time? After you compose the text, tap the More menu in the upper-right corner of the screen and choose Schedule Send.ImageCredit...Left, Google; right, AppleTo add an attachment in Apples iOS Mail app, start a new message and tap a blank area where you want to insert the file. On the toolbar that appears over the keyboard, tap the icon for the type of file you want to attach; Apples Mail Drop feature can send an attachment as large as 5 megabytes using its iCloud service. Tap the square icon to the right of the camera icon to scan a new document and attach it to the message. Need to annotate that file or sign a form? Tap the pen icon to mark it up onscreen by stylus or fingertip.Quit Those ListsA major cause of inbox overload can be a steady flow of mailing-list messages from organizations and merchants. If you decide you no longer wish to keep reading (or deleting) these missives, scroll down to the bottom of the message and look for a link to unsubscribe or change your email preferences. Most legitimate companies include these options.ImageCredit...Left, Google; right, AppleThe iOS Mail app often displays an Unsubscribe button at the top of a mailing-list message. Tap the button and confirm your intention to leave the list and have your inbox get just a little more manageable. | Tech |
Credit...Pool photo by Patrick KovarikMarch 21, 2017PARIS The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen clashed sharply with her probable presidential opponent, the centrist Emmanuel Macron, over immigration, integration and Frances role in the world, during a marathon televised debate Monday night, a vivid prelude to the election battle to come.Facing off for the first time in a five-candidate debate that stretched for three and a half hours, Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Macron offered the starkest of contrasts, with the National Front leader providing a dark picture of a France besieged by immigrants and Islam, and her rival preaching conciliation.The debate also included the three other main contenders the Socialist Benot Hamon, the Republicans Franois Fillon, and the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mlenchon but it was the fight between Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen that riveted attention.Mr. Macron, a former economy minister who founded a political movement centered on jump-starting Frances stagnant economy, but who has never held an elected office, appeared flustered at times as Ms. Le Pen displayed a mocking smile.The first round of voting in the presidential election will be on April 23, and the top two candidates will advance to the second round on May 7. Opinion polls show that Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen are the most likely to make it to that runoff a result that would be a stunning rebuke for Frances two main political parties, the Socialists and the Republicans.Ms. Le Pen, inheritor of the anti-immigrant, populist National Front party from her father, concentrated her fire Monday night on her younger opponent.Mr. Macron, 39, has advanced more by offering a fresh face than by political savvy, and Ms. Le Pen, 48, sought to exploit his vulnerability, forcing him to define himself in opposition to her strident positions.She accused Mr. Macron of supporting the burkini, the full-body swimsuit at the center of a rancorous debate last summer over displays of the Muslim faith.Weve got Islamists in our country, Ms. Le Pen said. The demands are incessant, she said, citing food and clothing.An unsettled Mr. Macron shot back: Im not putting words in your mouth. I dont need a ventriloquist.The trap you are falling into, Madame Le Pen, with your provocations, is to divide society, he said, adding that she was making enemies out of more than four million French men and women whose religion happens to be Islam.The other three candidates present Monday night tried to get shots in at the two front-runners.Mr. Fillon was once favored to win the election, but he has been wounded by a series of scandals, most notably charges of embezzlement over allegations that he put family members on the government payroll for nonexistent jobs.He sought during the debate to project a reassuring image of gravity, but he was forced to acknowledge that he might have made some mistakes. Most recently, he was accused of accepting two suits worth 13,000 euros, or about $14,000, from a political fixer.That has left Mr. Fillon vulnerable to sly insinuations about his ethics. Mr. Hamon, for instance, pointedly described himself as someone who would be an honest and fair president, free from the influence of money and lobbies.Mr. Hamon, the Socialist candidate, has promised a guaranteed universal income and has spoken of cutting the already reduced French workweek, but his chances are thought to be lowered by the presence of Mr. Mlenchon, whose positions are largely similar.Ms. Le Pen, who also faces accusations related to fictional jobs, accused Mr. Mlenchon of being a Robespierre when he called on voters to reward the virtuous and punish those who dont seem so.Mr. Macron, for his part, projected an image of innocence and virtue, and Ms. Le Pen aimed directly for it, with the most savage blast of the evening aimed at his reputation for speaking at length but saying little.After a windy declaration by Mr. Macron on protecting Frances independence, Ms. Le Pen, whose campaign is centered on a withdrawal from the European Union, mockingly repeated the word before firing back.Youve spoken for seven minutes, and I have no idea what you said, she said. You havent said anything. Every time you talk, you take a little of this, and a little of that, and you never settle on anything. | World |
Stormy Daniels President Trump Makes Stripping Great Again!!! 1/23/2018 Stormy Daniels opened her big mouth -- about President Trump, that is -- and that proved to be her best career move, because she's now coming to a dance pole near you. Stormys feature dance booking agent, Danny from Centerfold Features, tells TMZ ... he's been getting bombarded with calls from other strip joints who want to book her following a show with a standing-room only crowd at Trophy Club in Greenville, South Carolina. We're told Stormy -- who said she hooked up with 45 back in 2006 -- is booked solid through June, but Danny anticipates she'll be booked til the end of the year by next week. Some of her future gigs: -- Feb 8, 9, 10: Dj vu & Little Darlings both in Oklahoma City -- March 22, 23, 24: Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Shreveport, LA -- March 29, 30, 31: Dj vu in Nashville -- April 6 & 7: Lust Gentlemens Club in WV -- April 27 & 28: Bucks Wild in Ft. Worth and Dallas -- June 1, 2: Gentlemens Gold Club in Maryland Danny says he's been working with Stormy for 5 years now and this is hands down the most sought-after she's ever been. Get ready for the storm ... and some wet conditions. | Entertainment |
Science|For African Broadbills, Seduction to the Sound of Feathershttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/science/for-african-broadbills-seduction-to-the-sound-of-feathers.htmlScienceTakeVideotranscripttranscriptScienceTake | Wings That SingMale African broadbills use their wings, not their voices, to make sounds that attract females.xMale African broadbills use their wings, not their voices, to make sounds that attract females.April 4, 2016Its called wing song. And it is not new age harp music or the latest calming aromatherapy. It is, oddly enough, a song that a bird makes with its wings.Although most birds make calls to advertise themselves or defend their territory, with their voices, some use their wings or tail feathers.One of the wing singers is the male African broadbill, as Christopher J. Clark, Richard O. Prum and colleagues reported in an article in Journal of Experimental Biology. They traveled to Uganda to record and analyze just how the bird produces what the study calls a loud brreeeet while making a quick, circular flight from its perch.Dr. Clark, now a biologist at the University of California, Riverside, was a researcher at Yale in the laboratory of Dr. Prum, an ornithologist and evolutionary biologist, when they went to Africa recently for research. But Dr. Prums interest goes way back.I first heard a tape of this bird in the mid-80s, Dr. Prum said, and Ive been obsessed with them going on 30 years.He had studied the wing songs of manakins, but the broadbills were still on his mind when Dr. Clark, who had been researching the sounds hummingbirds make with their tails, arrived at Yale.Their flight videos, with synchronized sound, showed that the male birds the ones who sing made the breeeeet on downstrokes of the wings. The researchers went on to test a broadbill wing and individual feathers in a wind tunnel.Two of the outer primary feathers on the wing responded to wind and produced the loudest sound with a kind of movement called aeroelastic flutter. This is the mechanism found in hummingbird tail feathers, and it is one of several ways that feathers can make bird calls.The many species of birds that have evolved male nonvocal calls present a puzzle to Dr. Prum: Why the hell would anyone evolve a totally new way to make sound? They had voice boxes first and developed wing and tail sounds later.I dont think we have an answer, he said. Its not just about information communication. Its not just about the right frequency..What it might be about, he said, is aesthetic innovation. Novelty itself might be a factor in the evolution of sexual displays by these male birds.What is important is the sensory delight of the females, he added. What do they like?The male broadbills have found one answer. | science |
Politics|Police officers who traveled to Washington are being investigated for connection to the Capitol melee.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/politics/capitol-police.htmlPolice officers who traveled to Washington are being investigated for connection to the Capitol melee.Credit...Stephanie Keith/ReutersJan. 9, 2021Police departments across the country have suspended officers or referred them to internal reviews for attending the events on Jan. 6 in Washington that devolved into an assault on the U.S. Capitol.The commanding officers or officials involved in the cases in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington State stressed that while the officers attended as private citizens, the question of whether they broke the law would be investigated.In San Antonio, Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County said he had referred Lt. Roxanne Mathai to the internal investigations department after she posted a video of herself on Facebook from near the Capitol, wearing a red, white and blue face mask and wrapped in an American flag. The officer waxed enthusiastic about the day but stated explicitly that she would not enter the Capitol.Plumes of tear gas waft in the background of the video, and Mr. Salazar said investigators would determine whether police had declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. If that is the case and she remained on scene and began filming and began making challenging statements, that means breaking the law, the sheriff said.Mr. Salazar, noting that Ms. Mathai had already been suspended from the force since October on another matter, said at a news conference on Friday that he had referred the video to the F.B.I. and to the internal investigations department.Ms. Mathai could not be reached for comment.Thomas Goldie, a Pennsylvania police officer, posted pictures of himself on Facebook from the rally wearing a Trump cap, but there was not yet any indication that he had been in the Capitol, said Jim Miller, chief of the Zelienople Police Department, a 10-member force in a small town 29 miles north of Pittsburgh.Him being there is not a problem he had a right to be there, but not to break into the Capitol, obviously, said Mr. Miller, adding that the legal department was reviewing the matter. Mr. Miller said Mr. Goldie was on vacation and had yet to return. Mr. Goldie did not respond to telephone messages.In Seattle, the Police Department announced on Friday that two officers were being placed on administrative leave after attending the demonstration. Internal investigators would determine if the officers were directly involved in any of the illegal events, Chief Adrian Diaz said in a statement.And in Troy, N.H., Richard Thackston, the head of the town Board of Selectmen expressed support for the police chief, David Ellis, after there were calls for his resignation for attending the events in Washington. Neither man responded to telephone messages left at the town hall and with the police dispatcher.Mr. Ellis told New Hampshire Public Radio that he opposed the violence. At a regular meeting of the selectmen on Thursday night, Mr. Thackston said Troy residents and many outsiders had called for Mr. Ellis to be dismissed.He said that while the events at the Capitol were appalling, everybody has the right to participate in political events without fear of being fired. So, Dave Ellis in my book is just fine, Mr. Thackston added. And the rest of the world needs to go about and mind its own damn business. | Politics |
Credit...John Taggart for The New York Times.June 21, 2018WASHINGTON Americans have done more and more of their shopping online in recent years, drawn by the promise of low prices, wide selection and buy-from-home convenience. But e-commerce has also had another edge: Many of those sales were, in effect, tax-free.The Supreme Court on Thursday moved to close that loophole, ruling that internet retailers can be required to collect sales taxes even in states where they have no physical presence.The decision, in South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., was a victory for brick-and-mortar businesses that have long complained they are put at a disadvantage by having to charge sales taxes while many online competitors do not. And it was also a victory for states that have said that they are missing out on tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue.State and local governments have really been dealing with a nightmare scenario for several years now, said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington think tank. This is going to allow state and local governments to improve their tax enforcement and to put local business on a more level playing field.In Thursdays ruling, the court effectively overturned a system that it created. In 1992, the court ruled in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota that the Constitution bars states from requiring businesses to collect sales tax unless they have a substantial connection to the state. The Quill decision helped pave the way for the growth of online retail by letting companies sell nationwide without navigating the complex patchwork of state and local tax codes.But as online retailing has grown, the dynamics have shifted. Online sellers are no longer scrappy upstarts competing with more established businesses. Amazon had $119 billion in revenue from product sales last year, making it bigger than all but the largest traditional retailers.And state budgets are increasingly feeling the pinch. Writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the Quill decision caused states to lose annual tax revenues of up to $33 billion.Quill puts both local businesses and many interstate businesses with physical presence at a competitive disadvantage relative to remote sellers, he wrote. Remote sellers can avoid the regulatory burdens of tax collection and can offer de facto lower prices caused by the widespread failure of consumers to pay the tax on their own.Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch joined the majority opinion.In dissent, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. agreed that the courts rulings in this area had been wrongly decided, but said there were insufficient reasons to overrule the precedents. Any alteration to those rules with the potential to disrupt the development of such a critical segment of the economy should be undertaken by Congress, he wrote.Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the dissent.In the years since 1992, three members of the court had indicated that they might be ready to reconsider the Quill decision. In a 2015 concurring opinion, for instance, Justice Kennedy seemed to call for a fresh challenge.South Dakota responded by enacting a law that required all merchants to collect a 4.5 percent sales tax if they had more than $100,000 in annual sales or more than 200 transactions in the state. State officials sued three large online retailers Wayfair, Overstock.com and Newegg for violating the law. Lower courts ruled for the online retailers, citing the Quill decision.Marty Jackley, South Dakotas attorney general, called Thursdays ruling a big win for South Dakota and Main Streets across America. He said the decision could be particularly significant for rural areas where local businesses have been hit hard by competition from online retailers.Mr. Jackley is a Republican. But South Dakotas appeal drew bipartisan support, including from attorneys general in 35 states and the District of Columbia.Mr. Jackley estimated that South Dakota would be able to begin collecting sales tax on online purchases in 30 to 90 days. Other states may be close behind: Anticipating Thursdays ruling, several states, including North Dakota, have passed laws modeled on South Dakotas.President Trump, who has previously accused Amazon of avoiding taxes, wrote on Twitter that the decision was a great victory for consumers and retailers.Other states will have to change their laws if they want to take advantage of the decision, said Hayes Holderness, a law professor at the University of Richmond. He predicted a flurry of activity in legislatures.Many of those laws could face their own legal challenges. Justice Kennedys decision left open the possibility that some transactions were so small and scattered that no taxes should be collected. The court also did not decide whether states may seek sales taxes retroactively, which South Dakotas law does not.Thursdays ruling should benefit local coffers as well, at least where local sales taxes are collected at the state level. But it wont help municipal governments in states such as Pennsylvania and New Mexico where quirks in tax codes prevent local jurisdictions from taxing remote sellers.For consumers, the reversal of Quill could mean paying more for products bought online. In theory, most states already require consumers to pay a use tax equivalent to the state sales tax when buying online. But in practice, few consumers do so.Owners of brick-and-mortar stores welcomed the ruling.I firmly believe that its a huge stride in leveling the playing field, said Jason Patton, owner of Oz Music in Tuscaloosa, Ala. In my record store, the average price point is around $20. Im not going to say I continually lost customers because of the sales tax, but on higher-ticket items, that tax absolutely matters.Shares in Amazon fell 1.1 percent on Thursday, and other online retailers took a bigger hit. Overstock.com shares were down more than 7 percent.Today, the U.S. Supreme Court has reshaped the interstate commerce landscape in a move that could impact small business innovation on the internet, which has been a driving force behind our nations economy for the last 15 years, said Jonathan E. Johnson III, a member of Overstock.coms board.Overstock said the decision would have little impact on its business but argued that with more than 12,000 different state and local taxing districts, the ruling would present a compliance challenge for internet start-ups. Chief Justice Roberts made a similar argument in his dissent.Many experts, however, played down that problem. When the Supreme Court decided the Quill case in 1992, complying with various state and local tax laws would have been a major hurdle for small businesses. But today, many companies offer software that helps small businesses navigate local laws.The digital and internet revolution contributed to the problem, but those same factors contributed to the solution, which is easy-to-use tax-automation software, said Daniel Hemel, a University of Chicago law professor.Wayfair, in a statement, said it already collected sales tax on approximately 80 percent of its orders in the United States. As a result, we do not expect todays decision to have any noticeable impact on our business, the company said.The impact on Amazon could be even smaller: As of last year, the company collected sales tax in the 45 states that have one.But about half of Amazons total online sales come from independent merchants who simply post their inventory on the online store. In most states, those merchants are responsible for calculating and paying the various state taxes if they are owed. In the past year, Washington State and Pennsylvania have enacted laws requiring internet retailers to collect taxes on third-party sales. More states are expected to follow suit.Amazon declined to comment on the ruling.In his ruling on Thursday, Justice Kennedy wrote that world had changed since 1992, when mail-order sales totaled $180 million. Last year, remote sellers racked up sales exceeding half a trillion dollars, he noted.That growth seems unlikely to slow. Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a group that supports independent businesses, said the tax-free nature of online retail had given Amazon and other internet sellers a big advantage when they needed it most.Its hard to overstate how much not having to collect sales tax mattered in the first 15 years of Amazons growth, Ms. Mitchell said. | Politics |
Credit...Mickey Welsh/The Montgomery Advertiser, via Associated PressJune 22, 2018President Trump moved on Friday to leave an even deeper mark on Republican primary season, boosting a personal ally who is running for governor of Florida and extending political clemency to a former critic, Representative Martha Roby of Alabama, who is in a difficult race for re-election.Ms. Roby has faced criticism from the right since withdrawing her endorsement of Mr. Trump in the closing weeks of the 2016 presidential election, after the release of the Access Hollywood recording that showed Mr. Trump boasting about groping women. Alabama Republicans declined to re-nominate her in a primary election earlier this month, forcing her instead into a July 17 runoff vote.Mr. Trump is not known for showing mercy toward political detractors, but he gave Ms. Roby his stamp of approval on Friday morning, tweeting that she had been a consistent and reliable vote for our Make America Great Again Agenda. And he took aim at Ms. Robys challenger, Bobby Bright, a former Democratic member of Congress who switched parties to run against her.She is in a Republican Primary runoff against a recent Nancy Pelosi voting Democrat, Mr. Trump said. I fully endorse Martha for Alabama 2nd Congressional District!Ms. Roby has tried for more than a year to smooth over her relationship with Mr. Trump, and Republican congressional leaders had appealed to the White House for help even earlier in her fight for re-election. A mainstream conservative from the states Southeast corner, Ms. Roby is one of only a handful of Republican women serving in the House, a number of whom are retiring or seeking statewide office.House Speaker Paul D. Ryan urged Vice-President Mike Pence to endorse Ms. Roby before her primary earlier this month, but Mr. Pence was uneasy about backing her candidacy without the presidents full embrace of her candidacy. Earlier this year, the vice-president endorsed a House candidate in Texas whom Mr. Trump had not publicly supported, irritating White House officials; the situation with Ms. Roby was even more delicate because of her past criticism of the president. (The candidate in Texas, Bunni Pounds, failed to win the nomination).Less welcome to traditional party leaders, however, might be Mr. Trumps emphatic endorsement in the Republican race for governor of Florida. The president reiterated his support for Representative Ron DeSantis, a conservative lawmaker who frequently defends him on Fox News, and who is viewed with skepticism by party leaders in his state.Mr. DeSantis is in a competitive primary with Adam Putnam, Floridas agriculture commissioner and himself a former congressman, and much of the state Republican establishment has lined up behind Mr. Putnam. After Mr. Trump praised Mr. DeSantis in a December tweet, Republicans including Vice President Mike Pence sought to dissuade the president from inserting himself any further into the race.But Mr. Trump left no doubt about his affections in the race, tweeting on Friday that Mr. DeSantis had his full Endorsement!While Ms. Robys district is unlikely to feature a close race in the general election, the campaign for Florida governor could be one of the most intensely contested statewide elections of 2018. Some Florida Republican leaders had expressed concern to the White House that Mr. DeSantis has taken votes, affecting popular programs like Medicare, that could hobble him in November.But whatever daylight still exists between Mr. Trump and other Republicans about the race, he and Mr. Pence are on the same page: Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pence, said on Friday that he was supportive of the presidents endorsement.Mr. Trumps endorsements come at a time of seemingly renewed confidence for the president in weighing in on Republican primary elections. Mr. Trump had shied away for a time from meddling in nomination fights, feeling embarrassed after campaigning in special elections in Alabama and Pennsylvania, only to see his chosen candidates lose.But Mr. Trump has abandoned that restraint in recent days, and last week he sided against Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a dissident Republican, in a primary that Mr. Sanford lost. Next week he is going to gamble that his popularity with conservative activists is enough to help put Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina over the top: Mr. Trump is set to campaign Monday with Mr. McMaster outside Columbia, S.C.The governor, one of the earliest elected officials to endorse Mr. Trumps candidacy, failed to reach a majority in a primary earlier this month and is facing a competitive runoff Tuesday against a conservative political newcomer. | Politics |
Credit...Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 8, 2018Update: The Tai Kwun Center for Heritage and Arts said on Friday that it would host the Ma Jian events as scheduled.HONG KONG A cultural venue run by a nonprofit organization with close ties to the Hong Kong government has abruptly canceled plans to host two events featuring an exiled Chinese writer, in what some saw as the latest sign of eroding freedoms in the city. The cancellation came just days before the writer, Ma Jian, was scheduled to speak at the Tai Kwun Center for Heritage and Arts as part of the annual Hong Kong International Literary Festival. It left festival organizers scrambling to find a new venue for the Saturday events.We do not want Tai Kwun to become a platform to promote the political interests of any individual, Timothy Calnin, director of Tai Kwun, said in a statement sent to reporters on Thursday. We have therefore worked closely with the Hong Kong International Literary Festival to find a more suitable alternative venue.Mr. Ma, 65, who is currently based in London, was scheduled to speak at a panel discussion on Hong Kong literature as well as give a talk about his new novel, China Dream. Published in Britain last week, the book, whose title refers to the signature propaganda catchphrase of Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, was described by the publisher as a biting satire of totalitarianism that reveals what happens to a nation when it is blinded by materialism and governed by violence and lies.While Tai Kwun, which is financed and operated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, did not make specific reference to Mr. Ma in its statement, the venues decision to pull out of the events came after the author wrote in a Twitter post last week that publishers in Hong Kong had declined to publish China Dream the first time thats happened to one of my books.Speaking by telephone from London, several hours before his flight to Hong Kong, the writer accused Mr. Calnin of turning a literary festival into a political matter.He hasnt even read the book yet and he has already passed a political judgment, said Mr. Ma.Mr. Mas books have been banned in mainland China ever since his first novella, Stick Out Your Tongue, a collection of short stories about the Han Chinese occupation of Tibet, was published in 1987.Mr. Ma, an outspoken critic of the Communist government whose other novels include Red Dust and Beijing Coma, lived in Hong Kong for a decade as a dissident before moving to Germany and then London.Though he has been barred from entering mainland China since 2011, Mr. Ma, a British citizen, said he has permanent resident status in Hong Kong, and he spoke at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival as recently as 2013.ImageCredit...Thomas Wieck/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesTai Kwuns last-minute decision to withdraw from the events comes amid growing concerns about the future of the semiautonomous Chinese city as a haven for rule of law and civil rights in Asia. Last week, the political cartoonist Badiucao, whose works satirize leaders of mainland China and Hong Kong, called off a solo exhibition in Hong Kong one day before its opening after receiving threats from the Chinese authorities.Last month, the Hong Kong authorities expelled Victor Mallet, an editor at The Financial Times, a decision that was widely seen as retaliation for Mr. Mallets role in hosting a talk with a local independence advocate at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong in August.And on Thursday night, Mr. Mallet was denied entry into Hong Kong as a visitor, The Financial Times said.And in recent years, Hong Kong-based publishers have come under increasing pressure, particularly following the disappearance in 2016 of several booksellers who sold gossipy titles on Chinas political elite.Before, Hong Kong was a haven for arts and literature a place where we felt like we could hide from China and find true freedom of thought, said Mr. Ma. But now that era is slowly disappearing.The Tai Kwun Center for Heritage and Arts opened in May after an eight-year, $484 million restoration of the 19th-century central police station compound undertaken by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the citys sole legal betting operator and largest charitable organization, in close cooperation with the city government.In 2016, the Jockey Club drew criticism when it announced a donation of $451 million to open a local branch of Beijings Palace Museum, fueling concerns about the mainland governments growing efforts to assert its influence in Hong Kong. The museum is expected to be completed by mid-2022.Tai Kwun is the primary venue for this years Hong Kong International Literary Festival, which runs through Sunday. Many criticized its decision to pull out of Mr. Mas events.The cancellation appears to be at the very least an act of self-censorship, which would add to a growing list of incidents of suppression of free expression in Hong Kong, Jason Y. Ng, president of PEN Hong Kong, said in a statement. It is all the more jarring that the decision was made by a publicly funded venue that claims to celebrate and support the arts and creativity.It was not the first time a cultural institution in Hong Kong had altered its program because of concerns about politicization. In 2015, the title of an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at M+, Hong Kongs publicly financed, long-planned museum of visual culture, was changed from the more challenging Right Is Wrong to the straightforward M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art after museum committee members raised concerns.The problem in Hong Kong is not censorship, Pi Li, the Sigg senior curator at M+, said at the time. The problem in Hong Kong is self-censorship. Its self-censorship hidden in the procedures, so its difficult to distinguish. | World |
Credit...Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesDec. 21, 2015Martin Shkreli, who was arrested last week on securities fraud charges, has been ousted from his second pharmaceutical company.KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, a California biotechnology company that Mr. Shkreli gained control of in November, announced on Monday that he had been terminated as chief executive and had resigned from his seat on the board on Thursday, the day he was arrested.KaloBios, which had been in severe financial straits before Mr. Shkrelis involvement, did not name a replacement, not even on an interim basis.Last week, Mr. Shkreli was removed as chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company in New York that he co-founded late last year.The charges against Mr. Shkreli predate his management of either Turing or KaloBios. He is accused of using money from his first pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, to pay off money-losing investors in hedge funds he operated. He is also accused of misleading investors in the hedge funds.Mr. Shkreli, 32, who is free on $5 million bail, maintains that he is not guilty and that he will be vindicated. Since his release, he has live-streamed himself playing online chess and guitar on YouTube. On Monday morning, he tweeted that he had regained control of his Twitter account, which had been reportedly hacked over the weekend. KaloBios, a publicly traded company, announced last month that it was planning to go out of business. Some of its experimental drugs had not worked in clinical trials, and it was running out of cash and options.Within days, Mr. Shkreli led an investor group that scooped up 70 percent of KaloBioss shares on the open market, at prices generally under $2 a share. Once his involvement became known, shares shot up briefly to more than $40 each. Trading in the stock has been halted since Thursday. The last quoted price was $23.59 a share.That Mr. Shkreli was terminated by KaloBios so quickly after his arrest was somewhat surprising since the KaloBios board of directors now consists solely of Mr. Shkrelis supposed allies. One board member who came in with Mr. Shkreli, Tony Chase, also resigned, the company said.Given its precarious situation before Mr. Shkreli came in, KaloBios might be in jeopardy, though Mr. Shkreli did organize a private funding round for it that raised $8.8 million.The private placement, in which outside investors paid $24.855 per share, was consummated on Wednesday, one day before Mr. Shkreli was arrested, according to a regulatory filing. It is not clear if the investors will now try to rescind the deal, especially if shares of KaloBios plunge when trading resumes.Mr. Shkreli said he saw promise in one of KaloBioss drug candidates as a possible treatment for a rare form of leukemia. But Bloomberg News reported on Sunday that at least two of the medical centers participating in a clinical trial of that drug had suspended their work after Mr. Shkrelis arrest.An agreement KaloBios made to license a drug for Chagas disease might also be in jeopardy now, since the deal had not closed. A spokeswoman for Savant Neglected Diseases, which licensed the rights to the drug to KaloBios, declined to comment.Mr. Shkreli had said that KaloBios would be able to get the Chagas drug approved for use in the United States without having to do clinical trials and then would be able to charge tens of thousands of dollars for the treatment. He said KaloBios would also be eligible to receive a voucher from the Food and Drug Administration that could be sold to another drug maker for hundreds of millions of dollars.The plan raised alarm among doctors who treat Chagas disease. They said the drug, benznidazole, costs only $50 to $100 for a course of treatment in Latin America, where the disease is most common. In the United States, the drug is given to patients free of charge by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on an experimental basis. About 300,000 Americans, virtually all of them immigrants from Latin America, have Chagas disease, which is caused by a parasite and can lead to severe heart and digestive tract damage decades after the initial infection.The plans for the Chagas disease drug called to mind what made Mr. Shkreli the target of public outrage to begin with. In August, his other company, Turing, acquired the American rights to a 62-year-old drug used to treat a different parasitic infection, toxoplasmosis, and immediately raised the price more than 50-fold, to $750 a pill.Turing is now being run by an interim chief executive, Ron Tilles. Investors in Turing said that they expected cuts in staff and of at least some drug development programs because Turing needed to trim expenses.The judge presiding over the case against Mr. Shkreli, Kiyo Matsumoto of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, granted a request to allow Evan Greebel, a co-defendant of Mr. Shkreli, to travel to Cancun, Mexico, on Wednesday for a long-planned vacation with his family.Mr. Greebel, who was also arrested on Thursday, was an outside lawyer for Mr. Shkrelis first drug company, Retrophin. Mr. Greebel is now a partner in the law firm Kaye Scholer and helped handle the legal matters for the recent fund-raising effort by KaloBios.Mr. Greebel, 42, is free on $1 million bail secured by his home in Scarsdale. His travel is generally restricted to the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, as is Mr. Shkrelis travel. A letter to the judge from Mr. Greebels lawyer said the trip would help preserve as great a sense of normalcy as possible for Mr. Greebels three young children. The letter said prosecutors would not object as long as the confession of judgment on his house was filed before his departure. | Business |
Credit...Bernd Von Jutrczenka/DPA, via Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 6, 2018BERLIN Germanys interior minister faced calls for his resignation on Tuesday, after his dismissal of a spy chief who had given fuel to right-wing and anti-immigrant sentiment failed to end a monthslong controversy that weakened the government.The intelligence chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, became a hero to the growing far right in September, when he contradicted Chancellor Angela Merkel and questioned the validity of a video showing anti-immigrant protesters in the city of Chemnitz chasing people who appeared to be immigrants. At the time, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer who has advocated a harder line on immigration than Ms. Merkel has proposed moving Mr. Maassen to a position in his ministry, but resisted calls to fire him.But it recently emerged that Mr. Maassen had blamed radical-left forces in the coalition government for plotting his demotion from the intelligence post he held for six years. He made that statement last month in a speech to a group of European colleagues, but it was only in the last few days that transcripts of his remarks appeared in the German news media.The comments were unacceptable and crossed a line, and precluded trusting cooperation, Mr. Seehofer said in announcing on Monday afternoon that Mr. Maassen would be dismissed from government service.That did not quell criticism of Mr. Seehofer from political figures who said he should long ago have dismissed Mr. Maassen, whose words and actions prompted questions about whether Germanys intelligence apparatus could be counted on to police the far right. On Tuesday, there were calls for Mr. Seehofers resignation from opposition lawmakers who sit on the parliamentary control committee, which oversees the countrys intelligence agencies and is expected to discuss both the spy chief and the interior minister during its scheduled meeting later in the day.Andr Hahn, a Left party member, said that Mr. Seehofer posed a threat to democracy. Konstantin von Notz, a lawmaker of the Greens party, said that Mr. Seehofer had been untenable for months for several reasons, and compared the interior ministry to a rudderless ship, according to the German Press Agency.Mr. Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian conservatives who are a part of Ms. Merkels coalition, had directly challenged her authority, trying to steer the government in a more anti-migrant direction and to fend off a challenge from the far-right party Alternative for Germany, known as AfD.Instead, his seeming inability to censure Mr. Maassen was one of the reasons voters gave for the severe losses suffered by the conservatives in regional elections in two states last month. A recent national opinion poll showed the alliance of Ms. Merkels conservative Christian Democrats and Mr. Seehofers Christian Social Union with the support of just 24.5 percent of the electorate, down from the 32.9 percent they won in last years general election, and the 41.5 percent they won in 2013.Mr. Maassen had appeared to give cover to the right-wing demonstrators who rioted in Chemnitz, not only doubting the authenticity of the video but also questioning the chancellors use of the word hounding to describe the mobs behavior.Mr. Maassen had already faced criticism for what was seen as improper contact with the AfD, after allegations that he had coached members of the party on how to avoid his agencys scrutiny.Rather than fire Mr. Maassen in September, Mr. Seehofer said he would promote him to the post of state secretary in his ministry, with a significant pay raise, but he reversed that decision in the face of widespread outrage. Instead, Mr. Seehofer set out to shift Mr. Maassen to a lesser ministry post, but this week he abandoned that plan.On Monday, Mr. Seehofer emphasized that his latest decision to let Mr. Maassen go signaled his willingness to advance the work of the governing coalition, which appears more fragile than ever since Ms. Merkel announced last week that she would give up her partys leadership in December and would not run for another term as chancellor.Thomas Haldenwang, previously a vice president of the domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt fr Verfassungsschutz, is to take over Mr. Maassens duties until a permanent successor is appointed.In his leaked speech, Mr. Maassen presented himself as a victim of politics. He said that he was known as a critic of idealistic, nave and left-wing policy on foreigners and security, and that this is why the news media and his opponents pushed him out of his job.He also hinted that he might be interested in going into politics, and at least one party jumped at the chance to embrace him. Jrg Meuthen, a senior member of the AfD, told the German daily Welt, We are a democratic constitutional party and Mr. Maassen would be very welcome in a democratic constitutional party. | World |
Health|Medical groups call for mandatory vaccination of U.S. health care workers.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/health/health-care-workers-vaccine-requirement.htmlMedical groups call for mandatory vaccination of U.S. health care workers.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJuly 26, 2021A group of nearly 60 major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, called on Monday for mandatory vaccination of health care workers. As the highly contagious Delta variant drives a new surge of coronavirus cases, vaccination is an ethical obligation for health care workers, the groups said in a joint statement.The statement said that all health care and long-term care employers should require their workers to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first and take all steps necessary to ensure their health and well-being, the statement said. The document was signed by a wide array of professional associations, including those representing doctors, nurses, pharmacists and infectious disease experts. It said that exceptions could be made for the small subset of employees who are unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons.In recent weeks, more hospitals and health care systems have announced that they would begin employees to be vaccinated. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that the mandates are legal, and many hospitals already require employees to get flu shots.Health care organizations rarely agree on anything, but this is one thing where they are speaking with one voice and unanimity, said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, who organized the joint statement. I think that attests to the wide recognition that this is the right thing to do for this country.Although many health care workers have been eligible for vaccination since December, when the first shots were authorized, a significant number remain unvaccinated. In New York, for instance, roughly 1 in 4 hospital workers have not yet been vaccinated, according to state data. Nationwide, just 58.7 percent of nursing home employees have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Some health care workers have pushed back against vaccine requirements. A small group of employees sued Houston Methodist Hospital over its mandate. The suit was dismissed last month, and more than 150 workers at the hospital were fired or resigned over their refusal to be vaccinated.Some employers have been reluctant to require the vaccines, which currently have an emergency use authorization, until they receive full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. That approval is expected, but could be months away.But the joint statement noted that the Covid-19 vaccines have a good track record so far. We know the vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing severe illness and death from Covid-19, Dr. Susan R. Bailey, the immediate past president of the A.M.A., said in a statement. | Health |
Gigi & Bella Hadid Close Sibling Bond 1/30/2018 Gigi and Bella Hadid embrace one another naked on the new March cover of British Vogue and you gotta think it comes at some pretty impeccable timing. The mag dropped the image on Tuesday morning with the quote "I would do anything for her." Unclear which Hadid sister said it, but doesn't really matter. Some are saying the picture is heavily photoshopped, while others think it's incestuous. Either way, the pic comes on the heels of Kim Kardashian going full nip in an Instagram, and looks like the Hadids one-upped her ... if you're into that sort of thing. You can see the full shoot in the March issue of Vogue, on sale Friday. | Entertainment |
Europe|You Are the Future of Europe, Erdogan Tells Turkshttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/erdogan-turkey-future-of-europe.htmlCredit...Muhammed Muheisen/Associated PressMarch 17, 2017Calling Turks the future of Europe, Turkeys president on Friday implored his compatriots living on the Continent to have multiple children as an act of revenge against the Wests injustices.Go live in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the best houses, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday in the city of Eskisehir, while campaigning for a referendum that would solidify his power. Make not three, but five children. Because you are the future of Europe. That will be the best response to the injustices against you.The remarks come at a time of increasingly fraught relations between Europe and Turkey in the wake of the migrant crisis, the concurrent rise of Islamic terrorism and right-wing nationalism in Europe, and a crackdown on civil liberties in Turkey.Turkish citizens have lived in Europe for decades and have often been the focus of anti-immigrant sentiment. Mr. Erdogan has found that addressing overseas Turks is a convenient way to stir his own citizens nationalism and attack a Europe that has become increasingly hostile to Turkey as his government becomes ever more authoritarian.Last weekend, Mr. Erdogan accused the Netherlands of Nazism after Dutch officials stopped the Turkish foreign minister from landing there for a pro-Erdogan rally, and then escorted the Turkish family minister out of the country, citing risks to public order and security.When those incidents began, I said those are fascistic measures, Mr. Erdogan said Sunday. I said Nazism had risen from the dead.Those comments came just before the Dutch national elections, in which voters rejected the anti-Islamic platform of the politician Geert Wilders but increased his partys seats in Parliament.On Friday, around the time Mr. Erdogan was speaking in Eskisehir, Mr. Wilders wrote on Twitter: The fight against Islamization and the EU will be tougher, stronger and far more effective now, being the second strongest political power! The text #stopislam was included in an image he also posted.Mr. Erdogan is not the first authoritarian leader of a Muslim country to suggest that birthrates could alter the demographics of the West. Already, Muslims in Europe are younger than other Europeans and the number of Muslims on the Continent has been increasing steadily, according to the Pew Research Center.The Muslim share of the population throughout Europe grew about 1 percentage point a decade, from 4 percent in 1990 to 6 percent in 2010, according to Pew. This pattern is expected to continue through 2030, when Muslims are projected to make up 8 percent of Europes population. | World |
The nations 15 operating reactors have also been assessed as safe at least for the moment.Credit...Gleb Garanich/ReutersFeb. 25, 2022The failed Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine as well as the nations 15 operating reactors are safe and secure amid Russias invasion, according to nuclear experts and the International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the United Nations that sets safety standards for the worlds nuclear reactors and inspects them for compliance.The only real issue is if a nearby target got hit and caused some collateral damage, said Edwin Lyman, a reactor expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass. I dont see this as an imminent radiological threat. I dont think Russia would deliberately target a plant.In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered a meltdown that sent radioactive clouds over parts of Europe and locally left a wasteland of contaminated soil. All four Chernobyl reactors are still shut down, and the plants work force closely monitors the safety of Chernobyls Unit 4 reactor, which in 1986 exploded and caught fire. An exclusion zone for hundreds of square miles surrounds the abandoned plant to limit public access and inhabitation.The sprawling plant some 10 miles from Belarus, a Russian ally is on one of Russias main invasion routes. Western experts said it was in Moscows interest to keep Ukraines reactors and electrical system running smoothly if its aim was regime change rather than national ruin.Theres some risk of a direct hit, said R. Scott Kemp, a professor of nuclear science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But I imagine theyll do everything possible to avoid that because they dont want to deal with the fallout.The bigger threat, Dr. Kemp said, is the degradation of Ukraines power grid, which could throw nuclear power plants offline and result in cascading blackouts.The Ukrainian government said on Thursday on its official website that the Russian invasion and its military takeover of Chernobyl may cause another ecological disaster. If the war continues, the government added, a disaster like Chernobyl can happen again in 2022.But nuclear experts rang no strident alarms. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, said in a statement on Thursday that its Ukrainian counterpart reported that the nations 15 nuclear power plants were operating safely. As for the Chernobyl site, he added, the Ukrainian body reported no casualties nor destruction.On Friday, the agency noted reports of higher radiation measurements at the Chernobyl site and quoted Ukraines nuclear body as saying that the readings may have resulted from heavy military vehicles stirring up soil that the 1986 accident had poisoned.The stated readings, the agency added, are low and remain within the operational range measured in the Exclusion Zone since it was established, and therefore do not pose any danger to the public.According to the international atomic agency, Ukraine receives a bit more than half of its electricity from its reactors an unusually high fraction.Two of Ukraines four operational nuclear sites are in its western region far from Russias main invasion routes and presumably out of harms way. The other two are in the southern region, much closer to the ongoing military strikes.The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant the largest of Ukraines atomic plants houses six separate reactors. It sits on the Dnieper River roughly 100 miles north of Crimea. Russia annexed the peninsular part of southern Ukraine in 2014, and the breakaway region serves as a staging area for Russian troops as well as a main invasion route.Recently, the World Nuclear Association, an industry trade group based in London, reported that Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned nuclear power firm, had detailed some of the rules meant to enhance the safety and security of its nuclear plants in wartime.The group said that early this month, as Russia built up its forces around Ukraine, Petro Kotin, the acting president of Energoatom, described how a bombing would prompt a nuclear plant to shut down and said that its operators would unload its radioactive fuel until the threat is eliminated.If a plant lost its external supply of electrical power, Mr. Kotin added, backup generators would kick in to ensure uninterrupted reactor control. Ukraines nuclear power plants, he was quoted as saying, are ready for such a mode of operation: The stock of diesel fuel located at nuclear power plants significantly exceeds the established standards.Mr. Kotin added that Ukrainian power plants are ready even for an aircraft crash because the reactor vessels and the surrounding containment areas were designed to withstand such impacts.On Friday, the World Nuclear Association reported that the security divisions of Ukraines plants are on high alert. | science |
Amazon Wins Court Battle in India Against a Local PowerhouseThe Indian Supreme Court upheld the U.S. companys effort to stop the sale of supermarkets, in a rare win for foreign businesses there.Credit...Niharika Kulkarni/ReutersAug. 6, 2021NEW DELHI Indias Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of Amazons bid to block a multibillion-dollar deal that would give the countrys richest man control over an Indian supermarket chain, in a boost to the American retailing giants ambitions toward Indias nearly $900 billion retail market.Amazon is embroiled in a bitter, politically fraught clash with Reliance Industries, one of the biggest and most powerful companies in India. It essentially pits two of the worlds richest people against each other: Reliances chairman, Mukesh Ambani, a business tycoon known for his affinity for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Jeff Bezos, the chairman of Amazon, who for many personifies the overwhelming wealth and power of the technology industry.Both Amazon and Reliance Industries want a piece of Indias fast-growing technology and e-commerce market, which is worth billions of dollars. At the heart of the dispute is Future Group, which owns supermarkets, snack shops and fashion outlets in some of Indias biggest cities. The companys brick-and-mortar footprint is a prize for any company that wants to sell Indias middle-class consumers everything from vegetables to smartphones.With its ruling on Friday, legal experts said, the Supreme Court gave foreign businesses support for their ventures in India, where the government has limited foreign investment in a number of industries.The court said an interim decision by an arbitrator in Singapore, which effectively put on hold a $3.4 billion sale of Future Group to Reliance Industries, was valid and enforceable in India.The judgment is a rare win for foreign businesses in a country that has routinely made attempts to stall their growth and keep them from becoming dominant players in one of the worlds last frontiers for expansion.Indias economic growth has weakened in recent years, and the harsh toll of the coronavirus outbreak has hit the countrys middle class hard. Still, businesses see huge potential in its talented work force and the aspirations of 1.4 billion people.Most importantly, it builds the confidence of foreign businesses that their interests will be protected in India, no matter what, said Salman Waris, a lawyer and partner at TechLegis in New Delhi who specializes in international technology law.ImageCredit...Amit Dave/ReutersOn Friday, Amazon said in a statement that the company welcomed the Supreme Courts verdict. We hope that this will hasten a resolution of this dispute with Future Group, it said.Tushar Pania, a Reliance spokesman, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Within Indias legal circles, the judgment was seen as another sign of the independence of the countrys judiciary, which has been criticized in the past for eroding free speech.Indias judiciary has long been seen as a pillar of the countrys vast but often unruly democracy. It has recently made a series of progressive rulings, including granting bail to activists arrested under stringent anti-sedition and terrorism laws, striking down a ban on consensual gay sex and upholding the right to privacy.The battle between Amazon and Reliance Industries is far from over.Future Group said in a stock exchange filing on Friday that it intends to pursue all available avenues to conclude the deal with Reliance. Future Group could appeal the Singapore arbitration courts decision or file a review petition with Indias Supreme Court. Lawyers are reviewing the best course of action, said Swetank Jain, a spokesman for the company.Amazon still faces a government antitrust watchdogs inquiry into the deal with a unit of Future Group. Late last month, the Competition Commission of India issued a show-cause notice to Amazon, accusing the company of not being upfront about its interest in Future Retail when the agency signed off on the deal in 2019. (Amazon, a dominant force in e-commerce and other areas and holder of an enormous trove of customer data, is a target of antitrust scrutiny in the United States and Europe as well.)The agencys chairman, Ashok Kumar Gupta, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Future Groups supermarkets and other shops could serve as a base for building or expanding an e-commerce empire in India, a potentially lucrative prize. Indias online market is expected to be worth $85.5 billion by 2025, according to Forrester Research. Facebook, Walmart and others are also investing heavily in the country.Sanjeev Kumar, a New Delhi-based analyst at Forrester Research, said Amazons push to enter Indias nascent retail market for groceries was aimed at fighting Flipkart, which is controlled by Walmart. The countrys retail market for groceries is expected to be worth $10 billion by 2025, he said.ImageCredit...Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesHow much can you grow selling smartphones online? he said. The reason you have so many players fighting for grocery is because its not a basket that just contains grocery. Youre selling toothpastes, personal care items.Future Group offers access to 1,800 brick-and-mortar stores across India. The companys prospects dimmed after it loaded up on debt. It struck a deal with Amazon, which invested $200 million in the company in a way that didnt cross Indian laws against foreign investment. The arrangement included first rights to buy Future Groups retail assets, if Indias stringent rules on foreign direct investment were to change and allow it.But with its stores shuttered because of government coronavirus lockdowns last year and retail sales plummeting, Future Group desperately needed another cash infusion to stay afloat. Amazon wasnt able to help, so Future Group turned to Reliance, and last August a deal was struck. Amazon took its complaints to the arbitrator in Singapore shortly after.The decision is the latest win for foreign business interests in India, where global companies often complain about red tape and regulations that favor homegrown businesses. On Thursday, Indian lawmakers scrapped retrospective taxation, which had given the government the authority to impose capital gains tax wherever corporate ownership changed hands overseas when the companies involved held business assets in India.Retrospective taxation and the countrys history of refusing to accept arbitration awards had damaged Indias image among foreign investors. The government has acknowledged that such foreign investment is critical to Indias postpandemic economic recovery.Government doesnt want to tangle with protracted litigation any further, said Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to Indias information ministry, and the idea is that this bill will help restore trust in the minds of foreign investors. | Tech |
On BaseballCredit...Tom Gannam/Associated PressFeb. 16, 2014TEMPE, Ariz. Mark Mulder was always proud that the competition never drove him from the game. When Mulder was healthy, he was a force. His shoulder betrayed him after 103 major league victories in his 20s, and he accepted the occupational hazard. He did not miss baseball, he said, because he knew his body would not let him play it.I hated the game, because I knew, driving to the park every day, that no matter how hard I worked, no matter what new thing I tried, it wasnt going to work, Mulder said Saturday morning, before the first scheduled bullpen session of his comeback attempt with the Los Angeles Angels. It was like being let down every single day. It just wore me out.Mulder gave up in 2008, with the St. Louis Cardinals, after two walks and a weak pickoff attempt in the first inning of a game in Philadelphia. He played golf, analyzed games for ESPN and helped raise his children. He was content, he said, not a bit restless.Then last fall, while watching a playoff game, he noticed a pitcher separating his hands up near his chest in his delivery. Mulder had always broken his down by his belt. He stood up in his living room and mimicked what he saw on TV, and like that, his arm action felt natural, better than it had in years.It was invigorating, Mulder said, and the more he fiddled with it, the more he convinced himself that at 36, he might have something left. He signed with the Angels and prepared so thoroughly that he reported here having already thrown sessions of 120 pitches, with breaks after every 30, to simulate the starter he used to be. His fastball touched 92 miles an hour.We talked about it three days ago in our first meeting: Mark Mulder may be a little ahead of the rest of the guys in the room, General Manager Jerry Dipoto said. Its almost laughable were talking about the 36-year-old who hasnt pitched in six years. But every time you watch him throw, guys are just gushing about how well hes throwing and the presence he brings.ImageCredit...Matt York/Associated PressAnd then, an hour or so after Dipoto spoke on Saturday, it was all over. Mulder, a fitting symbol of the sunny qualities that make spring training so endearing, ruptured his left Achilles tendon in a routine agility drill. Recovery, he said Sunday, could take eight months.It was something he had done many times before. Mulder was backpedaling, stopped, planted to move forward and heard a loud pop. He thought the heel had ripped off his shoe, and said his first feeling was not pain, but confusion. He looked at his spikes, put his foot back on the ground and realized he could not take a step.News of the injury spread quickly, a sobering reminder of how cruel the game can be, even in its season of renewal. My stomach almost got sick, Tim Hudson, Mulders former teammate, said Sunday morning at the San Francisco Giants camp. It was brutal. He was one of the best in the game when he was with us in Oakland. Every time he went out, I thought there was a chance for a no-hitter. He was that good.So to see him trying to make a comeback, I was happy, like, Good for you, good for the game, good for your team. This was sickening. It really was. My heart broke for him.Hudson, who exchanged text messages Sunday with Mulder, had his own devastating leg injury last July at Citi Field, while pitching for Atlanta. Like Mulders injury, the play was nothing remarkable. Eric Young Jr. chopped a grounder that bounced off the chest of Freddie Freeman at first base. As Freeman gathered the ball, Hudson covered the bag, searching for his footing just as Young crossed, shattering Hudsons ankle in the collision. Hudson was finished for the season.ImageCredit...Gregory Bull/Associated PressGetting carted off, Im thinking, Is this it? Like, really it? Hudson said. I was a free agent; it was the last year of my contract. I was like, Man, I dont even know whats going to happen. All you can do is do what you can to get fixed and get healed, and see where it takes you.Hudsons recovery led him to the Giants, for two years and $23 million, a soft landing after a hard break. He is a bit behind the rest of the staff in conditioning and agility he has not practiced covering first but should be ready for the start of the season.If he had not made it back, though, Hudson said, he would have no regrets. He has 205 victories, tied with C. C. Sabathia for the most among active pitchers. He has enjoyed the second half of a career that Mulder never got. His three children are old enough to have seen him pitch and know what it means.Mulders three children were born after his final major league victory in 2006. They have no memory of him as a baseball player. As he prepared this winter, Mulder said, his motivation was the idea of taking his oldest, Xander, to the field, and throwing with him before games.I told him this is what were going to do, Mulder said Sunday, but by then the truth was obvious. Mulder had crutches and a thick, black boot on his left leg. He will meet with a surgeon on Monday and does not know if he will attempt another comeback next spring.Mulder, who lives near the Angels complex, had called his wife after the injury on Saturday. She told the children, Mulder said, but Xander did not really understand until he saw him. The reality was overwhelming. Father and son cried.There are other reclamation stories in other camps, and most of them will fail, too. Mulders career, while short, was much better than most. He asked for no sympathy Sunday, and noted that other people deal with worse.But he offered a lesson in his brief time back.I tell a lot of young guys to take advantage of these opportunities, because you can throw one pitch and be done, Mulder said. Thats part of the sport, any sport. It can be taken away from you in a heartbeat. | Sports |