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Credit...U.S. ArmyNov. 6, 2018WASHINGTON Navy criminal authorities have completed their investigation into the strangling of an Army Green Beret in June 2017 in Mali, and sent their report to an American admiral who will decide what charges, if any, will be brought in the case, officials said on Tuesday.The results of the yearlong inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into the death of Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar, 34, a veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, were not made public.But two members of the elite SEAL Team 6 who were in Mali on a secret assignment and shared embassy housing with Sergeant Melgar in the Malian capital, Bamako, have been under investigation into his death.The Navy investigators report will now be reviewed by Rear Adm. Charles W. Rock, the commander of Navy Region Mid-Atlantic in Norfolk, Va. As the so-called consolidated disposition authority, Admiral Rock has been assigned by the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, to oversee the case going forward.Capt. Greg Hicks, the Navys chief spokesman, said Admiral Rock would review all relevant information pertaining to Staff Sergeant Melgars death and make determinations regarding administrative or disciplinary actions as appropriate.As in all military justice matters, any charges or actions will be handled in military service channels, Captain Hicks said in a statement in response to questions from The New York Times. During this process, it is paramount that the rights of all parties including the service member who may be the subject of the investigation are protected.He declined to comment further.Admiral Rock will also examine the involvement of two Marine Raiders who lived in the same house as Sergeant Melgar and the two members of the Navy SEALs, Navy officials said.According to a preliminary report dated Sept. 15 by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, the two Navy commandos said they found Sergeant Melgar unresponsive after wrestling with him.One of the commandos later told a witness that he had choked Logan out, and that he and the other Navy commando wanted to get back at the sergeant for a perceived slight, according to the document, which was first reported in November 2017 by NBC News.So far, no one has been charged in Sergeant Melgars death, which a military medical examiner last year ruled a homicide by asphyxiation, or strangulation.The Naval Criminal Investigative Service took over the case in September 2017 from Army criminal authorities after the status of the two Navy commandos was changed from witnesses to persons of interest. That meant officials sought to determine what the commandos knew about the death and whether they were involved in its cause.The SEALs were in Mali on a clandestine mission to support French and Malian counterterrorism forces battling Al Qaedas branch in North and West Africa, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, as well as smaller cells aligned with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.The Americans helped provide intelligence for missions, and had participated in at least two such operations in Mali before Sergeant Melgars death. About two dozen American troops operate in Mali at any given time, mostly to help on training and counterterrorism missions.SEAL Team 6, formally known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, has over the past decade carried out kill-or-capture missions in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen, as well as the one that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.According to the preliminary Army report, one of the SEAL members put Sergeant Melgar in a chokehold. When the sergeant passed out, the commandos frantically tried to revive him going so far as to perform CPR and a field-expedient emergency tracheotomy. When that failed, they rushed him to an emergency clinic, where he was pronounced dead.Officials have said that one service member who knew Sergeant Melgar said that the sergeants chain of command immediately grew suspicious when the initial incident reports said the death was the result of a drunken accident. His friends and superiors knew that Sergeant Melgar did not drink.The SEAL commando who said he put Sergeant Melgar in a chokehold is Petty Officer First Class Tony E. DeDolph, a former professional mixed martial arts fighter, according to the Army document. His identity was reported last year by The Intercept.Petty Officer DeDolph and the second Navy commando, Chief Petty Officer Adam C. Matthews, were flown out of Mali shortly after Sergeant Melgars death and were sent to the units headquarters in Dam Neck, Va., where Navy officials said on Tuesday they remained, effectively on administrative leave.At the time, Sergeant Melgars killing was the latest violent death under mysterious circumstances for American troops on little-known missions in that region of Africa.Four American soldiers were killed in an October 2017 ambush in neighboring Niger during what was initially described as a reconnaissance patrol, but was later changed to supporting a much more dangerous counterterrorism mission against Islamic militants. | World |
Mo'Nique vs. Netflix They Lowballed My Negotiations 'Cause I'm a Black Woman 1/19/2018 1/19/18 TMZ.com Mo'Nique claims Netflix severely short-changed her during negotiations for a comedy special ... and she says the proof is in how much some other comedians got paid for specials. The Oscar winner told us Friday ... Netflix offered her $500k, but she rejected the offer in light of the fact Amy Schumer, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock pocketed eight figures. Mo'Nique's not just walking away from the table though ... she's now calling for a boycott of Netflix. She strongly believes this is case of racism and sexism -- especially because she'd stack her resume in comedy up against anyone else. Netflix says it does not comment on contract negotiations. | Entertainment |
The China Factor | Part 7VideotranscripttranscriptSolitude and Industry Collide Near MumbaiAn industrial zone for blue-chip multinationals is changing the landscape in western India. But three years after the biggest leaseholder signed on, some land once used for grazing still stands empty.NAAn industrial zone for blue-chip multinationals is changing the landscape in western India. But three years after the biggest leaseholder signed on, some land once used for grazing still stands empty.CreditCredit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesDec. 30, 2015SHINDE, India When a Chinese truck company wanted to open a factory in India, its president looked at sites that had a mountain in back and a river in front especially auspicious locations in the traditional practice of feng shui.The company, Beiqi Foton Motor, found a seemingly ideal spot, securing 250 acres of farmland in this western Indian village. Foton wants another 1,250 acres nearby to build an industrial park for suppliers.But the mountain here is sacred to many Hindus. For at least 2,000 years, the cliffside caves have been home to generations of monks. One of the most revered Hindu saints is said to have attained a pure vision of his god during the 17th century while meditating in the highest cave overlooking what is now Fotons site.The culture clash was immediate.Foton erected barbed-wire fences and hired uniformed guards to keep out trespassers. Cattle herders and Hindu pilgrims have repeatedly trampled the fences. The monks do not want a noisy neighbor.In todays life, spirituality and science are both important, and neither should deny the other, Kailash Nemade, a monk, said during a pause from chanting religious poems. But this factory should not come here, because it will ruin the spirituality of the mountain.Chinese companies have embarked on ambitious overseas expansion efforts, snapping up land in dozens of countries to build factories, industrial parks, power plants and other operations. While the investments provide critical support for many economies, Chinese businesses are struggling to navigate complex cultural, political and competitive dynamics.Chinas economic slowdown this year, along with a stock market plunge and a currency devaluation, have not deterred the countrys companies. Many have accelerated their global shifts as their home market becomes less attractive.But Chinese enterprises lack the experience of their Western counterparts, which have spent decades developing international operations. As Chinese companies have built their businesses largely at home, they havent had to address the same challenges.In China, companies with strong Communist Party connections can bulldoze communities and religious sites. The Chinese government bans independent labor unions. While strikes and other labor protests are becoming more common, they are quickly squelched by the government if they show signs of spreading.As Chinese companies now venture overseas, they are dealing with a wave of resistance.In Africa, workers at Chinese-run oil fields and copper mines have gone on strike over low pay and dangerous working conditions. The Myanmar government halted Chinas construction of a hydroelectric dam there after protests over environmental damage and the displacement of villagers. And in Nicaragua, residents have resisted the planned resettlement of villages to make way for a canal proposed by a Chinese businessman.In India, Fotons experience provides a look into the internal struggle that countries face.India desperately needs outside investment to support the 13 million young people entering its labor force every year and to begin relieving chronic unemployment in its countryside. Indian and Western factories within a few miles of Fotons site have created thousands of jobs.Western companies have tried to tread more carefully in India, in some cases learning from past mistakes. They have worked closely with communities, explaining their projects to residents. The companies have typically sent teams of executives, often with overseas experience.Foton strongly defends its plans. The company says that its plant and supplier park will create a much-needed economic boost.Because of these projects, the employment of thousands of people, even tens of thousands, will be accomplished, said Zhao Jingguang, Fotons executive vice president.But Foton keeps revising production plans and delaying construction. With the project stalled, the promised jobs have not materialized.Fotons corporate style has also caused friction. It managed the project mainly from Beijing, sending executives to India for two-week visits. When Fotons Indian managers needed to work with the main office, they sat through videoconferences that lasted hours, with Chinese executives often speaking at length in Chinese.Mr. Zhao denies that the company picked the location for its feng shui, which the Chinese government condemns as superstition. Still, he acknowledged that there is a river, should be good feng shui.But the land deal has been less than harmonious.Regulations mandate that factories be located at least 500 meters from temples, preventing construction on half of Fotons site. A state agency also reserved land for a 15-yard-wide dirt access road to help pilgrims reach a footpath to the caves.ImageCredit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesDespite Fotons efforts, many villagers and monks say the factory would still be too close. Pilgrims, who can number over 5,000 during religious festivals, would have only a half-acre site to pitch their tents.Sitting cross-legged in a pink-painted cave, the monks leader, a Hindu holy man named Vishwanath Maharaj, listened closely when asked for his view on Fotons plans. But he merely gave a slight smile and shrugged his shoulders, preserving his 35-year vow of silence.The Land GrabWhen President Xi Jinping of China arrived in India a year ago for a visit, he was welcomed at each stop by gleaming military honor guards, including a row of turbaned cavalry lancers on horseback.Mr. Xi and his host, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, smiled as a succession of deputies and executives exchanged more than a dozen commercial and cultural agreements with one another. One of the agreements called for the creation of the supplier park, where Foton would rent out space to Chinese parts manufacturers.China and India both want to strengthen their economic ties, even as their militaries remain wary of each other. The $300 million Foton project, including the plant and the industrial park, is one of Chinas largest investments in India.Your vision cannot be too small, Mr. Zhao said. Nowadays, people say you must have an international vision.ImageCredit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesFollowing the lead of the United States, Japan, Europe and other big economies, Chinese companies are diversifying overseas to find new customers, markets and opportunities.A decade ago, Chinas overseas purchases of companies, land, equipment and other physical assets totaled just $20 billion a year. Last year, Chinas total was $120 billion. It trails only the United States, and American overseas investments have been heavily aimed at limiting taxes.Pune and its environs have long been a hub of foreign investment, tracing their industrial roots to a munitions factory built in 1869 under British rule. Big assembly plants now churn out Chevrolets, Mercedes, Mahindras and other cars. A Corning plant makes fiber-optic cables. A General Electric factory creates wind turbines.For Foton, India offered cheaper labor than its home country and a strong market for its products. Indias position between Southeast Asia and Africa provided a natural hub to supply other developing markets as well.Even without the supplier park, Foton has leased the biggest site in the area, 250 acres, for 95 years. Corning, G.E. and others nearby have less than 100 acres apiece for their factories. A Bridgestone tire factory occupies 185 acres.In Shinde, speculators have bid up the price of land, expecting that the state government will buy it and lease it to Foton. But many villagers are opposed to selling, since the deal would eliminate much of the farmland that is left.ImageCredit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesKaluram Kendale, who grows onions and raises buffaloes, does not want to sell. He is upset that the state government already forced him to sell five of the 12 acres that his family farmed for generations.If I sell the land, its one-time money, he said. But my land is beautiful, its fertile, and its a permanent source of income for my family.A Village DividedChhaya Shinde, who grew up in a mud-walled sharecroppers cabin with dirt floors, was a star student, learning to read and write Hindi and Marathi, the local tongue.Her father, unlike most in her impoverished hamlet, wanted his daughter to get an education. He paid $16 a year for Ms. Shinde to attend a school in a nearby village. She dreamed of becoming a social worker to help the elderly.Ms. Shindes education ended after Foton came to town.While landowners got paid for their fields, sharecroppers got nothing. Ms. Shindes father, a millet farmer, lost much of his income. Ms. Shinde had to drop out of school a year ago.I had no money, said a tearful Ms. Shinde, 18. I was at home, so I had to be married off.Since the arrival of Foton, the gulf between the rich and the poor here has widened.The Panmands, who owned the land where Ms. Shindes family farmed, sold half of their 58 acres for the Foton factory and two other factories. With the proceeds, they built a 10-bedroom villa with a large courtyard and a fish pond.For people who are rich, its beneficial because they can buy a lot of things, said Vijay Panmand, 28. But for the poor, it is not good. Where will they work?When Suresh Ghanwat sold land, he invested a portion of the money in a three-story apartment building, renting out the top and bottom floors. He also set up a concrete-block business, producing a daily profit of $80.But many families are like Ms. Shindes, trying to survive in cramped, dark cabins.Indian laws on land deals are fairly generous by developing-country standards, calling for compensation for tenant farmers and sharecroppers. But to qualify, they need to live on the land or record the arrangement in official logs. Ms. Shindes family did neither.Ms. Shinde, who wears a pair of simple barrettes to hold back her dark hair and slim golden bangles that encircle each wrist and ankle, now labors part time on one of the Panmand familys remaining fields.I wish they had never come here, she said of Foton, wielding a hand-held scythe to cut pearl millet. Those who were rich became richer, and the poor, poorer.ImageCredit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesFoton vs. the Civil ServantWhen Foton acquired the land here three years ago, young babul trees sprouted as soon as the farmers left. Today, Fotons site has roughly 12,000 full-grown babul trees, a widely loathed plant with two-inch thorns.Their height, up to 10 feet, brings a tree preservation ordinance into play. When Foton eventually starts building, it will have to get permission from the forestry ministry to cut the trees down.As the babul trees flourish, Fotons leadership has agonized over what to build, according to five former executives. The original plan called for welding, assembling and painting heavy-duty trucks.The plan shifted to building delivery trucks, and then to assembling sport utility vehicles and cars. In that time, Fotons Indian operation has had four chairmen and at least three executive vice presidents.Mr. Zhao of Foton said the company hoped to start building the factory by early next year. The first vehicle most likely will not roll off the factory line until at least 2017.The supplier park looks less certain.Both the Beijing government and the New Delhi establishment regard the deal as important. But Foton did not enlist the support of local bureaucrats, and a civil servant in Mumbai could ultimately derail the project.The state land agency, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, has to approve the deal. And the agencys chief executive, Bhushan Gagrani, has resisted, citing a dearth of farmland and earlier disputes with families like the Ghanwats. He wants to steer the supplier park farther inland, where unemployment is more acute and farmland abundantly available.But the alternative sites would require supply trucks to haul parts for several hours. Foton, Mr. Gagrani said, did not send anyone even to look at them.The Indian prime minister, accompanied by an entourage that included Mr. Gagrani, traveled to China in mid-May. Chinese officials pressed the case for the Foton supplier park again.But a deal may not be possible now.Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer, has decided to build a mobile phone factory nearby. Foxconn negotiated its deal directly with the state government.Any land left, Mr. Gagrani said, we are giving to Foxconn. | Business |
The agency threw out previous recommended limits on doses but encouraged nonopioid therapies wherever possible.Credit...Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFeb. 10, 2022The federal government on Thursday proposed new guidelines for prescribing opioid painkillers that remove its previous recommended ceilings on doses for chronic pain patients and instead encourage doctors to use their best judgment.But the overall thrust of the recommendations was that doctors should first turn to nonopioid therapies for both chronic and acute pain, including prescription medications like gabapentin and over-the-counter ones like ibuprofen, as well as physical therapy, massage and acupuncture.Though still in draft form, the 12 recommendations, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are the first comprehensive revisions of the agencys opioid prescribing guidelines since 2016. They walk a fine line between embracing the need for doctors to prescribe opioids to alleviate some cases of severe pain while guarding against exposing patients to the well-documented perils of opioids.Dr. Samer Narouze, president of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, an association of clinicians, praised the tone, level of detail and focus of the project. Its a total change in the culture from the 2016 guidelines, he said, characterizing the earlier edition as ordering doctors to just cut down on opioids period.By contrast, the new proposal has a much more caring voice than a policing one, and its left room to preserve the physician-patient relationship, added Dr. Narouze, chairman of the Center for Pain Medicine at Western Reserve Hospital in Cuyahoga Falls, OH.The 229-page document warns of addiction, depressed breathing, altered mental status and other dangers associated with opioids, but it also notes that the drugs serve an important medical purpose, especially for easing the immediate agony from traumatic injuries such as burns and crushed bones. In those instances when opioids seem the way to go, the recommendations said, doctors should start with the lowest effective dose and prescribe immediate-release pills rather than long-acting ones.The recommendations are now open on the Federal Register for public comment for 60 days. The agency will review the comments and most likely issue a final version by the end of 2022. Like the 2016 guidelines, they are suggested practices and not mandatory.We are welcoming comments from patients who are living with pain every day and from their caregivers and providers, said Christopher Jones, a co-author of the draft and acting director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the arm of the C.D.C. that released the new guidelines.Kate Nicholson, executive director of the National Pain Advocacy Center, a patient organization that says it does not take funding from the pharmaceutical industry, found much to admire in the new guidelines. We went from one side of the pendulum, with overly liberal prescribing of opioids, and that did harm, to just looking at gross drops in prescribing without looking at individual needs. And that did harm, said Ms. Nicholson, whose input was sought during the development of the draft. This is closer to a Goldilocks solution where chronic pain is not a monolith.The guidelines do not apply to patients suffering pain from cancer or sickle cell, or are in end-of-life or palliative care. Ms. Nicholson said, however, that relying on such disease categories which insurance companies seize upon to make reimbursement rulings doesnt tell us enough about who actually has severe pain.The 2016 guidelines generated anger and fear in many chronic pain patients, many of whom rely on doses far higher than the recommended ceiling of 90 morphine milligram equivalents daily. Hundreds of pain medicine specialists protested as well.Though the dosing ceilings were merely a recommendation, dozens of states codified them. Fearing criminal and civil penalties, many doctors misapplied them as rigid standards, tapering chronic pain patients too abruptly and even tossing some from their practices.Studies show that the number of opioid prescriptions overall has been dropping since 2012, and the decline escalated after the 2016 guidelines came out.The new proposed recommendations step back from the notion of one-size dosing fits all and instead builds in flexibility to recognize that pain care needs to be individualized, Dr. Jones said.But the recommendations make it abundantly clear that doctors should regularly reassess the benefits and risks of opioids.The evidence around the long-term benefits of opioids continues to remain very limited, Dr. Jones said.In another indication that the C.D.C. sees these new guidelines as a course-correction to the earlier ones, the agency now suggests that when patients test positive for illicit substances, doctors should offer counseling, treatment and, when necessary, careful tapering. Because doctors had interpreted the 2016 dosing limits narrowly, some had worked up one-strike policies and were summarily ejecting such patients.Dr. Jones said that such results should instead be considered one piece of diagnostic information among many. An unduly high level of opioids could indicate the patient still has untreated pain or even a substance use disorder. If you instead retain the patient and have those conversations, theres now an opportunity to improve the patients life, he said.Drawing from a mountain of research that accumulated in recent years, the proposed guidelines also offer extensive recommendations for the treatment of acute pain short-term pain that can come with an injury like a broken bone or the aftermath of surgery. They advise against prescribing opioids, except for traumatic injuries, such as burns and auto accidents.In granular detail, they compare the relief provided by opioids to that offered by alternatives such as exercise and acupuncture and other drugs. And they give fine-tuned recommendations for discrete areas of pain, such as lower back, knees and neck.The guidelines, for example, note that opioids should not be used for episodic migraines. They endorse, among other treatments, heat therapy and weight loss for knee osteoarthritis, and, for neck pain, suggest options like yoga, tai chi, qiqong, massage and acupuncture.Dr. Marie Hanna, an associate professor of anesthesia and critical care at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said she was particularly enthusiastic about the depth and breadth of research that the guidelines provide in support of nonopioid treatments, including manual manipulation, laser therapy and exercise.This is what weve been talking about for years, but no one was listening. Now we have the evidence to show that these treatments are effective. Im very optimistic, added Dr. Hanna, a member of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, an organization of pain researchers and providers across several disciplines.The recommendations also say that many studies show that, over time, pain alleviation from opioids usually plateaus and then wanes, requiring ever higher doses.We never wanted to pretend that opioids arent really important tools, said Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, a professor of emergency medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who served on an advisory panel for the prescribing guidelines. But after youve got that cast on, were going to wean you off those opioids. One long-bone fracture doesnt mean six weeks of opioid prescriptions. | Health |
Guess Who This Camo Kid Turned Into! 1/26/2018 Before this shady little lady had a bright future in the rap game, she was just another cute kid wearing camo in New South Wales, Australia. Can you guess who she is? Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Photo Galleries | Entertainment |
Feb. 5, 2014CBS decided that carrying Sunday afternoon N.F.L. games, playoff matchups and, every third year, a Super Bowl was not enough. So it announced Wednesday that it would carry eight Thursday night games in 2014 on a one-year contract that was believed to be worth at least $250 million. There is truly nothing like the N.F.L., said Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS. You want as much as you can get. Its the most powerful programming on the air. In effect, CBS Sports has taken control of what had been a 13-game Thursday night schedule on NFL Network. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, CBSs lead N.F.L. announcing team on Sunday afternoons, will have the same role for Thursday night games. Their priority will be Thursday, said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, who added that they would probably get some Sundays off. We wont burn out our A talent and A production teams.Beginning Sept. 11, CBS will produce and show eight games, each of which will be simulcast on NFL Network; eight other games will be on NFL Network. Two of the 16 games will be played as a Saturday doubleheader, on Dec. 20. Not surprisingly, the league received bids for the Thursday night package from all of its current broadcast partners CBS, NBC, Fox and ESPN, on behalf of ABC as well as from Turner Sports. Ultimately, the victory went to the strongest network in prime time, which, it could be argued, needed the games the least. CBS has more viewers than any other network, and it was important for us from the beginning to have the biggest megaphone possible, said Brian Rolapp, the chief operating officer of NFL Media. Their reach was very attractive. Theyre aggressive on all fronts.CBS is hoping the deal, with a league option to extend for a second season, is the prelude to a lengthier one. There has been speculation that the league might use a short-term deal with a broadcast network as leverage to secure a longer and more expensive one with a cable network.Were looking at this as a long-term commitment, McManus said. He added that the network was playing aggressive defense against its competitors. Our goal is to have a highly rated N.F.L. package on Thursday night and not have to compete against one on another network, he said.Mark Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Sports Group, said from Sochi, Russia, We wish we had won it, but we take solace in knowing its a short-term deal and well compete for it again. Lazarus said Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, who call NBCs Sunday night games, had been part of the networks plan for Thursday night.To make room for the games, CBS will delay the start of its fall season on Thursday nights until early November. Moonves said that some of the series affected which include The Big Bang Theory at 8 p.m. Eastern and Elementary at 10 p.m. could shift to help programming on other nights before returning to their regular time slots after the final game. This season, CBS has a large lead with its Thursday night programming among all viewers and among men ages 18 to 49. But ABC leads among women 18 to 49 and could have used football to raise its distant second-place rank among men in that range.The CBS deal is central to the N.F.L.s strategy to expand the audience for Thursday games. NFL Network reaches 72 million subscribers, about 40 million fewer than the broadcast networks. The league wants to promote and build the Thursday games into a franchise whose viewership could approach that of its Sunday and Monday night games. With five games left on NFL Network after the CBS deal, the channel will add three from CBSs and Foxs schedules. | Sports |
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Americas|Brazils Largest Food Companies Raided in Tainted Meat Scandalhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/americas/brazil-food-companies-bribe-scandal-salmonella.htmlCredit...Nacho Doce/ReutersMarch 17, 2017RIO DE JANEIRO Federal agents raided the operations of Brazils largest food companies on Friday over accusations that their employees oversaw a scheme that included bribing inspectors to allow rotten meals to be served in public schools and salmonella-contaminated meat to be exported to Europe.The investigation by Brazils Federal Police, an agency similar to the F.B.I., deals yet another blow to the countrys business establishment, which is struggling to recover from colossal graft scandals around Petrobras, the national oil company, and Odebrecht, a huge construction company.In the newest corporate scandal, investigators said that employees at two food-processing giants, JBS and BRF, paid federal inspectors to ignore the adulteration or expiration of processed foods. Inspectors also falsified sanitary permits, and bribes were channeled to the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party of President Michel Temer, according to the authorities.Rafael Cortez, a political scientist at Tendncias, a consultancy in So Paulo, called the meatpacking inquiry one more element that will add to the picture of political instability. Brazils political establishment was already reeling from an array of other graft cases.The meatpacking investigation also casts doubt on Brazils agribusiness industry, a relatively resilient pillar of the nations weak economy. JBS is one of the worlds largest meat producers, with the United States chicken processor Pilgrims Pride among its foreign subsidiaries. BRF is a major exporter of meat to the Middle East and Asia.Companies caught up in the investigation, which also includes smaller meatpacking businesses, were accused of delivering cash bribes in plastic containers alongside prized cuts of beef like picanha, or sirloin cap.At the same time, the authorities said, inspectors turned a blind eye to practices like exporting meat contaminated with salmonella to Italy, raising the prospect that Brazilian meat exports could face restrictions in important markets.Investigators said that practices by regional food processing companies included marketing a product labeled turkey sausage that had chicken and soybean protein substituted for much of the turkey, and adulterating expired meats with a type of acid that investigators said has been linked to cancer. These products were then sold to schools in the southern state of Paran.Children in the public schools of Paran are eating meals made of expired, spoiled meat or even carcinogens in order to bolster the interests of this powerful criminal organization, Maurcio Moscardi Grillo, a federal investigator, wrote in his description of the case.BRF said in a statement that it was cooperating with the authorities and insisted that its products posed no risk to consumers. JBS said that its headquarters in So Paulo were not targeted in the raids, and that it vehemently repudiates the adulteration of its products.Brazils ministry of agriculture said that more than 30 of its employees were removed from their posts as a result of the investigation.This is a tremendous blow for us, Blairo Maggi, the agriculture minister, told the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, emphasizing that his greatest concerns were the image of Brazil abroad and the loss of confidence of our consumers. | World |
Credit...Elanti MediaMaori may have been first to reach Antarctica, in the seventh century. But the past matters less than what lies ahead, Indigenous scholars say.A post carved by Fayne Robinson at the Scott Base, a New Zealand Antarctic research station. The carving is called Te Kaiwhakatere o te Raki, which translates to navigator of the heavens.Credit...Elanti MediaPublished July 2, 2021Updated Oct. 6, 2021Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.The voyager Hui Te Rangiora, the story goes, had sailed his vessel south in the early seventh century in search of new lands when something alien appeared on the horizon. He saw enormous, barren summits jutting out of the sea and into the sky. He saw unfamiliar shapes in the waves: tresses waving at the surface, animals that dove to great depths and seas of pia, the Polynesian name for the white tuber called arrowroot. Hui Te Rangiora had sailed his vessel from the tropics to Antarctica.The ethnologist Stephenson Percy Smith reached this conclusion in 1899, when he wrote about this Polynesian narrative in a history of the Maori people, the early Polynesian settlers of New Zealand. Mr. Smith identified the bare rocks as icebergs, the wavy tresses as brown strands of bull kelp and the deep-diving animal as a sea lion or walrus. Perhaps the most convincing shred of evidence is the narratives term for the frozen ocean: Te tai-uka-a-pia, in which tai means sea, uka means ice, and a-pia means in the manner of arrowroot. When scraped, arrowroot flesh looks uncannily like snow. So from Hui Te Rangioras perspective, icebergs might have resembled mounds of powdered pia.Its fascinating to imagine what it must have been like to see those things, to try to make them familiar to us, said Krushil Watene, a Maori expert on Indigenous philosophies at Massey University in Auckland. Dr. Watene is an author on two studies published recently, with Priscilla Wehi, a conservation biologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, that explore the historical and future links between Indigenous peoples and Antarctica.The first study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, plumbed literary, oral and artistic archives for historical accounts of Maori in Antarctic and subantarctic regions. The second, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, looks ahead, proposing an Indigenous framework to manage and conserve the southernmost continent.The authors hope to apply to Antarctica the Maori principle of kaitiakitanga, the concept of guardianship and stewardship of the environment. Their suggestions include getting more Indigenous voices in Antarctic governance and granting Antarctica legal personhood.Its about valuing a place in its own right and protecting it for its own sake, Dr. Watene said.Early voyages southImageCredit...Alasdair Turner/Cavan Images, via AlamyIn early June, when the authors first paper came out, the media seized on the suggestion that Hui Te Rangiora may have reached Antarctica as early as the seventh century. Maori may have discovered Antarctica 1,300 years before Westerners, one headline proclaimed.If Hui Te Rangiora indeed made it to the frozen continent more than 1,000 years ago, his voyage would shatter the record of the previous first-confirmed sighting of the continent, by a Russian ship in 1820. But the authors were surprised that the news media latched onto this anecdote, as they did not intend to popularize what they saw as an imperial narrative of people discovering new land.Its not simply about which humans were in Antarctica first, Dr. Wehi said. Its actually about these linkages that have gone on for many hundreds of years and will go on into the future.Similarly, the researchers were not the first to learn that Maori voyagers may have reached Antarctica so long ago; the feat was known in certain communities, such as those near Bluff, the southernmost town in New Zealand, Dr. Watene said. She and her colleagues relied on the archive of oral tradition to understand the early connection between Maori and Antarctica.People have very clear transmission roots of the knowledge and very sure methods for passing on information, Dr. Wehi said, pushing back on the notion among some historians that oral tradition is an unreliable source.Why wouldnt we find a continent if we found the most isolated islands in the world? asked Keolu Fox, a genetic researcher at the University of California, San Diego, who is Native Hawaiian and was not involved with the studies. Native Hawaiians and the Maori are both Polynesian peoples.Dr. Fox pointed to a traditional double-hulled voyaging canoe built in 1975 that has sailed around the world using traditional Polynesian way-finding techniques. Do we literally need to saddle up Hokulea to prove it to you?In the fall of 2020, the authors held a series of virtual seminars to bring together researchers and the Maori community to discuss this history. (The coronavirus pandemic derailed their original plan to meet in person.) Participants shared stories that expanded the teams knowledge of existing narratives, like that of Hui Te Rangiora, and revealed numerous new ones to the participants, Dr. Watene said.The team also consulted traditional carvings, some of which depict Hui Te Rangioras voyage and the presence of the southern oceans in early Polynesian seafarers navigational maps of the sky. And archaeologists have observed ovens, middens and stone tools on subantarctic islands dating back as early as the 14th century, suggesting that Polynesian people lived in the region for at least one summer.The researchers found many more connections than expected in more recent history. In 1840, the Maori sailor Te Atu became the first New Zealander to sight the Antarctic Coast while aboard a United States expedition in the southern oceans. Near the turn of the 20th century, Maori sailors were recruited onto whaling expeditions for their harpooning expertise. And from the 1950s onward, three Maori men joined the New Zealand Antarctic Program as a foreman, a seaman and a diesel engineer. The engineer, Robert Sopp, carved a figurehead, inscribed with a proverb about friends, to present to McMurdo Station, one of the United States Antarctic outposts.Two researchers who were not involved with the study, Sandy Morrison and Aimee Kaio, work with tribal groups to learn more about these community-held histories. I expect there will be a great many more narratives that are still to come to light, Dr. Wehi said.Antarcticas Maori presentImageCredit...via Daniel HikuroaDan Hikuroa, a senior lecturer in Maori studies at the University of Auckland who spoke at the seminar, did his graduate research in Antarctica more than 20 years ago. He spent 78 days on the icescape leading an expedition to map the geology and document the creatures and plants fossilized in Jurassic-age rocks to better understand how the ancient supercontinent Gondwana broke apart.What first struck him about Antarctica was the deafening silence. He remembers sitting down and hearing a rustling noise with a tempo. The sound, he soon realized, came from a vein on his forehead that brushed against his balaclava as it throbbed with blood. In that moment, he forgot about being a scientist and felt how my sense of being was being realized by connecting with the place, Dr. Hikuroa said. During the rest of his summer there, he spent long moments sitting and staring out into the piercingly clear horizon, at the curvature of Earth.When Dr. Hikuroa returned to finish his graduate program, he spent time with family. All my Maori aunties loved that their boy had been to Antarctica, he said. But then his uncle pulled him aside and asked, When are you going to do anything thats of use to us?Dr. Hikuroa took his uncles advice to heart. He got a postdoctoral position studying climate change, and now focuses his research on working with and for Maori communities. He did not think about going back to the Southern Ocean until the seminar in 2020, when he learned that Maori may have ventured there centuries ago.He was not surprised by that theory. Definitely not, Dr. Hikuroa said, noting the quality of traditional Maori voyaging technology and mastery of navigation. You could take any one of those navigators and put them anywhere in the Pacific blindfolded, he said, adding that they would have found their way back if the sky was clear and the stars were out.Jacqueline Beggs, an ecologist at the University of Auckland, banded Adlie penguins in Antarctica during the summer of 2001. Her partner, Peter Wilson, who for a time spent every Christmas in Antarctica running the Adlie penguin program, had shared so many stories of penguins and inescapable sunlight that Dr. Beggs wanted to go, too. She remembered feeling like a fish out of water not because of her heritage but her gender. There wasnt much of a sense of presence of Maori or women on that continent, she said.Like Dr. Hikuroa, Dr. Beggs had not known that early voyagers may have reached Antarctica. As a sailor with a history of seafaring on both the white and Maori sides of her family, she was thoroughly impressed. Theres no way I could contemplate going to Antarctica, she said, adding that the farthest south she has sailed is to the subantarctic Campbell Island. It would have been a long and incredibly dangerous voyage south, she said.In 2013 Fayne Robinson, a Ngai Tahu carver, carved a post called Te Kaiwhakatere o te Raki, which translates to navigator of the heavens, at Scott Base, a New Zealand Antarctic research station. The head looks upward into the sky to symbolize celestial navigation, and the post celebrates past explorers who had ventured to the arrowroot-colored continent.ImageCredit...via Jacqueline BeggsAntarctica, a Person?Dr. Wehi and Dr. Watene hope this now-visible history might make a stronger case for future Indigenous management of Antarctica. The continent is governed by the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which specified that the continent be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and that all scientific research done on there would be made freely available. New Zealand, one of the first 12 signatories to the treaty, is in the midst of resetting its Antarctic research strategy. One section of the treaty, which came into effect in 1998, will most likely be up for review in 2048, and environmental protections such as the prohibition of mining could be revised or rejected by signatories.In fewer words, its a good time to reframe what the continents priorities should be.In 2016, Antarcticas Ross Sea was designated the worlds largest marine protected area. The sea teems with Antarctic toothfish, a lucrative fishery, and its new status agreement allows fishing in certain areas while entirely protecting others. As New Zealand resets its strategy, it will evaluate whether this hybrid model has been effective. The researchers point to a 2010 assessment that analyzes the toothfish fisherys long-term sustainability through a Ngai Tahu lens of best fishing practices. Some of these practices include setting minimum catch and size limits and protecting stocks over seamounts, where the toothfish spawn.More generally, the researchers call for more meaningful Indigenous presence in Antarctic governance, such as partnerships with the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, an international alliance of organizations working on conservation. Dr. Watene also emphasized that Indigenous voices could be a driving force setting policy in local communities. For example, the researchers suggest increasing the visibility of the Maori Antarctic relationship in gateway cities such as Christchurch, where people stop over before traveling farther south.Youre stuck for days and days, and you need something to do, Dr. Wehi said. Its a real opportunity to inform people, and for people in those cities to present their vision of Antarctica.The authors most ambitious proposal would grant Antarctica legal personhood, giving the natural formation the same rights as a human being. This conservation tactic has succeeded with the Whanganui River in New Zealand, the Atrato River in Colombia and all rivers in Bangladesh. In the case of the Whanganui, the river can now be represented in court and appointed two guardians to speak on its behalf.Dr. Hikuroa expressed support for this idea, adding that an Indigenous worldview would also consider the Southern Ocean its own personality.Dr. Beggs noted that while Maori are one of the nearest Indigenous peoples to Antarctica, she hoped that other Native peoples might also influence the future of the continent.We as a global community all have a responsibility as kaitiakitanga guardians for that special place, Dr. Beggs said, to ensure it is looked after for generations to come. | science |
If funded, a government program costing several billion dollars could develop prototype vaccines to protect against 20 families of viruses.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesPublished July 25, 2021Updated Sept. 9, 2021In one sense, the world got lucky with the new coronavirus. By sheer chance, scientists just happened to have spent years studying coronaviruses, developing exactly the tools needed to make Covid vaccines as soon as the viruss genetic sequence was published.But what will happen if the next pandemic comes from a virus that causes Lassa fever, or from the Sudan strain of Ebola, or from a Nipah virus?Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is promoting an ambitious and expensive plan to prepare for such nightmare scenarios. It would cost a few billion dollars a year, take five years for the first crop of results and engage a huge cadre of scientists, he said.The idea is to make prototype vaccines to protect against viruses from about 20 families that might spark a new pandemic. Using research tools that proved successful for Covid-19, researchers would uncover the molecular structure of each virus, learn where antibodies must strike it, and how to prod the body into making exactly those antibodies.If we get the funding, which I believe we will, it likely will start in 2022, Dr. Fauci said, adding that he has been promoting the idea in discussions with the White House and others.Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, also thought it likely that the necessary funds would be allocated, calling the project compelling.As we begin to contemplate a successful end to the Covid-19 pandemic, we must not shift back into complacency, Dr. Collins said.Much of the financial support would come from Dr. Faucis institute, but a project of this scope would require additional funds that would have to be allocated by Congress. This years budget for the infectious diseases institute is a little over $6 billion. Dr. Fauci did not specify how much additional money would be needed.If surveillance networks detected a new virus spilling over from animals into people, the logic goes, scientists could stop it by immunizing people in the outbreak by quickly manufacturing the prototype vaccine. And if the virus spread before the world realized what was happening, the prototype vaccines could be deployed more widely.The name of the game would be to try and restrict spillovers to outbreaks, said Dr. Dennis Burton, a vaccine researcher and chairman of the department of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research Institute.ImageCredit...Tony Luong for The New York TimesThe prototype vaccines project is the brainchild of Dr. Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He presented the idea in February of 2017 at a private meeting of institute directors.Year after year, viruses had threatened to turn into pandemics, Dr. Graham said: the H1N1 swine flu in 2009, Chikungunya in 2012, MERS in 2013, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016. Each time scientists scrambled to try to make a vaccine. Their only success was a partial one, with an Ebola vaccine that helped control the epidemic but would not work against other Ebola strains. The other epidemics waned before the vaccines could be made or tested.We were tired, Dr. Graham said.But researchers had new tools developed over the past decade that could make a big difference. They allowed scientists to view molecular structures of viruses, isolate antibodies that block the viruses and find out where they bind. The result was an ability to do structure-based design for new vaccines that target the pathogen more precisely.When he heard Dr. Grahams pitch in 2017, Dr. Fauci was inspired. It struck me and others in the executive committee as something that is really doable, Dr. Fauci said.Dr. Graham published a review paper outlining the proposal in Nature Immunology in 2018. But without the urgency of a threatening pandemic, his idea remained just that.Now, though, many think the time has come.The allergy and infectious diseases institute has created a spreadsheet for each of the 20 virus families showing what is known about each pathogens anatomy and vulnerabilities, said Dr. John Mascola, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the institute.For each virus family we are in a different state of knowledge and vaccine development, Dr. Mascola said. Vaccines for Lassa fever and Nipah virus, for example, are in early stages. Vaccines for Chikungunya and Zika are further along.The work to fill in the gaps in vaccine development would be done with research grants to academic scientists. There is a lot of enthusiasm among academic researchers, said Dr. Barton Haynes, director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. Although the proposal is not well known among the general public, Dr. Fauci said he has discussed it in talks to scientific audiences.The program would also establish collaborative agreements with pharmaceutical companies to produce prototype vaccines quickly, Dr. Fauci said.That is what happened with the shots for Covid-19. The SARS and MERS epidemics led scientists to work on a coronavirus vaccine. That led to the discovery that coronaviruses use a spike protein to infect cells, but the spike changes shape readily and needs to be held in one position to be useful as a vaccine. That could be done, researchers discovered, with tiny molecular changes in the spike protein.Days after the new coronaviruss sequence was published, scientists had designed vaccines to fight it.That, Dr. Fauci said, is what pandemic preparedness can do. Hed like to have prototype vaccines for 10 out of the 20 virus families in the first five years of work.It would require pretty large sums of money, Dr. Fauci acknowledged. But after what weve been through, its not out of the question. | Health |
Now that the stock market has largely shrugged off the coronavirus, start-ups are scrambling to go public.Credit...via Nasdaq, Inc.June 17, 2020SAN FRANCISCO As the coronavirus spread in March, Vroom, a start-up that sells used vehicles online, shelved its plans to go public and rushed to shore up its operations.But with many dealerships closed under shelter-in-place orders, people started buying more cars online, benefiting Vroom with record sales in March and April, the company said.We saw the whole world stabilizing, said Paul Hennessy, the chief executive. At the end of April, we said, OK, maybe we should actually go on the offensive here.Vroom, which is based in New York, capped that offensive by going public last week. Its share price more than doubled on the first day of trading as the company raised $495 million from its offering.Vroom is part of a group of start-ups that have moved quickly to go public as the initial shock of the coronavirus has worn off. The stock market, which plummeted when the outbreak swept the United States, has rallied strongly in recent weeks. Since its nadir in late March, the S&P 500 index has climbed 40 percent.As the market has bounced back, SelectQuote, an online insurance provider; ZoomInfo, a sales software data provider; Warner Music Group, a record label; and Vroom have gone public. And more initial public offerings are on the way.Lemonade, an insurance start-up valued at $2.1 billion, announced last week that it had confidentially filed to go public. DoubleDown Interactive, a mobile gaming company, also filed to go public this month.Some of the biggest Silicon Valley start-ups are taking steps toward an I.P.O., too. Airbnb, the home rental start-up valued at $31 billion, said it hadnt ruled out going public this year. Palantir, a digital surveillance company valued at $20 billion, is preparing to file for an I.P.O. in the coming weeks, said a person briefed on the start-ups plans, who declined to be named because the talks were private.Palantir declined to comment; Bloomberg reported earlier on its I.P.O. plans.The window is open, said Previn Waas, a partner focused on I.P.O.s at the professional services firm Deloitte. Everyone has figured out that a virtual I.P.O. is possible. Theres an appetite for companies to go public.Jeff Thomas, head of West Coast listings and capital markets at the Nasdaq stock exchange, said, Everybody who was in process is gearing back up.Morgan Stanley had spent the last few months helping companies affected by the coronavirus find financing in every form except public offerings, said Colin Stewart, Morgan Stanleys head of technology equity capital markets. The market was too volatile, and companies had to assess how the virus had changed their financial forecasts, he said.But now with the stock market more stable, the situation has changed. Its clear there is a lot of pent-up investor demand to look at I.P.O.s, Mr. Stewart said.Wall Street is embracing them even though many of the companies are losing money. Vroom lost $143 million last year on $1.2 billion in revenue, according to its disclosures. The food delivery start-up DoorDash, which filed in February to go public and has seen increased use in the pandemic, has also burned through hundreds of millions in cash and is unprofitable.Last year, high-profile money losers such as Uber and Lyft also went public and promptly skidded in the stock market. Their disappointing performances and the failed I.P.O. of WeWork set off a wave of prudence across the start-up world.But excitement for new listings especially for fast-growing tech companies has sidelined the question of profitability. Investors have become more tolerant of money-losing companies because the virus has accelerated the adoption of technology like e-commerce, virtual learning, streaming, telehealth and delivery, said Gavin Baker, chief investment officer at Atreides Management, which invests in private and public companies.Covid pulled the world into 2030, Mr. Baker said.Not all of the companies that were on track to go public this year may make it, given how the economy is reeling from the pandemic. In early March, EquityZen, an investment service that tracks I.P.O.s, published a list of nine potential candidates for the year. Four including the home rental company Vacasa, the 3-D printing company Desktop Metal and Velodyne Lidar, which makes technology for driverless cars have since laid off staff because of the coronavirus.If we wrote the list today, it would have a very different set of components, said Phil Haslett, a co-founder of EquityZen.Airbnb, which had said it would go public this year, was hit especially hard by the travel shutdown. It raised new funding in April and cut a quarter of its staff. Asked about going public this year, Brian Chesky, its chief executive, said in a recent interview: You can deal with some volatility, but there is a threshold. Were kind of feeling out where that threshold is.The window for I.P.O.s right now may be small. A second wave of virus-related shutdowns could send the stock market into another tailspin. Companies also need to navigate disclosing their second-quarter financials, as well as holidays like Labor Day and Yom Kippur. Plus there is the November presidential election, which may create volatility in the market.As a result, more companies than usual are aiming to go public in August, a month they traditionally avoided because people were often on vacation, Mr. Thomas of Nasdaq said. The exchange is telling companies to be ready to go public any time, he said, and to have alternative financing ready in case they cant.ImageCredit...via ZoomInfoFor chief executives trying to take their companies public now, the timing is a nail-biter. Henry Schuck, founder and chief executive of ZoomInfo, had been planning to get his company out to the stock market in late March. But when the virus hit, he started checking the VIX, an index that measures stock market volatility, every day. The index had rarely topped 20 over the past decade, but in March, it topped 80.The market was just not in a place to have an I.P.O. come out, he said.In May, after the market had stabilized, Mr. Schuck decided to go for it. But there were other challenges. While executives typically go on a roadshow to pitch their companys shares to investors, he was stuck at home.So he crammed back-to-back virtual meetings with investors into a week. Even though he was at home, he said, he made sure to dress up and even wear shoes. On the morning of ZoomInfos I.P.O. on June 4, Mr. Schuck hit a ceremonial virtual button to open trading, alongside his wife and 4-year-old daughter. ZoomInfos shares rose more than 60 percent on the first day of trading.Mr. Hennessy of Vroom also held a virtual roadshow, taking meetings with investors via teleconference from his home in Suffern, N.Y. He said he appreciated the efficiency of the roadshow, which would normally have lasted two weeks across multiple cities.On the day of the I.P.O. on June 9, Mr. Hennessy and his executive team could not travel to Nasdaq, where Vroom was listing, to press the opening buzzer since the exchange was not open to visitors. Nasdaq provided Vrooms employees with an app to upload photos of themselves, which the exchange displayed on its tower in New Yorks Times Square.Vrooms office, nearby at 37th Street and Broadway, remained closed, but a few employees in masks went to see their faces displayed on the tower, Mr. Hennessy said. He said he had preferred it to an in-person ceremony, since people in the whole company got to participate by sending in photos and sharing screenshots of themselves on the tower.Those Nasdaq moments are over in a few minutes with some confetti, he said. This lasted a couple of hours. | Tech |
Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesFeb. 13, 2014SOCHI, Russia Before boarding the new trains serving Sochi and the Olympic sites here, passengers must pass through metal detectors and place their bags on X-ray machines just as in airports. What many do not realize is that they are also being scanned by a far more sophisticated system that gauges emotional state in an effort to identify potential terrorists. The system, developed by Elsys Corporation, a Russian company based in St. Petersburg, uses computer analysis of live video images to measure tiny muscle vibrations in the head and neck known as vestibular-emotional reflexes. Called VibraImage, the system is part of the effort by the Russian government to protect the Olympic Games. It is designed to detect someone who appears unremarkable but whose agitated mental state signals an imminent threat. VibraImage is just one aspect of the remarkable security in place in Sochi, an initiative that Russian officials refuse to discuss but that is adding to what is believed to be the most expensive Olympics. The effort involves tens of thousands of officers deployed here from all over the country, including Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East, as well as warships in the Black Sea and surveillance blimps overhead.Train stations are also equipped with less subtle security features, including steel capsules that security officials can use to seal up a suspicious device that they think may be about to explode. Transportation hubs are hardly the only places with intense monitoring. In addition to tickets for the various events, all fans visiting the Olympic Park over the age of 2 must have registered in advance for a Spectator Pass a laminated credential, which must be worn around the neck and is scanned at the entrance and exit to the park and again on entrance and exit at the various arenas and other venues. Registering for the pass requires submitting personal data, including birth date, passport details, a telephone number and a photograph. As each fan arrives at the main bank of metal detectors and scans his or her pass, the photograph appears on a screen so officers can verify each visitors identity. Only when the security system recognizes that a pass is valid does a green arrow light up; a visitor is then invited to pass through a turnstile and into the park. The passes have become so ubiquitous that at times it seems everyone in the city is wearing them, even in downtown Sochi, far from the Olympic Park. While heightened security is now standard at all major world events, the Sochi Games are the first Olympic Games being held on the edge of a war zone the long-simmering Muslim insurgency in the North Caucasus, just on the other side of the mountains from here. President Vladimir V. Putin and other officials have promised that fans and athletes will be safe and that the security apparatus will not detract from the convivial atmosphere. It is a difficult balance. Rather than wearing their routine police uniforms, the vast majority of security officers are dressed in a purple version of the official Olympics gear made by the sportswear company Bosco a dazzling and gaudy quilt design intended to patch together folk designs from many parts of Russia. In addition, most officers are not displaying any visible weapon, a striking contrast from most events in Russia, where the police often appear heavily armed. Still, although grateful for the precautions, some fans say the security seems excessive. It seems to me a little bit too much, said Elena Sharapova, 33, who was headed home to Tuapse, about two and a half hours up the Black Sea coast from Sochi, after spending the day at the Games with her daughter, Veronika, 12. It was a view seconded by her friend Yelena Shapovalova, 32. Its a little bit annoying; probably were just not accustomed to these things, Shapovalova said. Sharapova, who as a result of free face-painting in the park had the multicolor Olympic rings on one cheek and the red, white and blue Russian flag on the other, said she was proud of Russia as the host of the Games. But in a voice that was hoarse after cheering and shouting for the Russian short-track speedskaters, she said that the security measures could accomplish only so much and that it was probably more dangerous away from the official sites. She noted that the police had failed to question her about several small vials of medicine she was carrying. We experience more threats when we are outside the Olympic facilities, Sharapova said. Some fans expressed both satisfaction and pride in Russias security capabilities. Grigory Poronik, an executive with the company Russian Helicopters who was visiting the Olympics from Moscow, said he was confident that the Russian security services would keep the Games safe. Asked if security was sufficient, Poronik replied: You better ask the foreigners. They were scared. Were not.He added, Americans even offered assistance in this respect, which we did not need. In fact, given the heightened security concerns, the United States took substantially greater precautions for the official delegation, which was led by the former homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano and included a number of prominent gay athletes, as a statement against Russias law barring so-called propaganda about gay relationships. The American delegation, which arrived in Sochi for last Fridays opening ceremony and stayed through the weekend, traveled in armored cars and with other extra protective measures, officials said. The opening ceremony and the initial days of competition proceeded without incident, undoubtedly permitting Russian officials and their counterparts at the International Olympic Committee to breathe an initial sigh of relief, but anxiety will run high until after the closing ceremony on Feb. 23. Away from the Olympic sites, it is more common to see officers carrying guns, including automatic weapons. In addition, military personnel are deployed at a nearby base, composed of dozens of tents, with hundreds of trucks and other vehicles at the ready. The authorities also built a small compound, on a hillside near the Olympic Park, equipped with antiaircraft missiles. Evgeni Apykhtin, who lives in Almaty, Kazakhstan, but was born in Omsk, in Siberia, said he had no trouble with security, even though he was dressed in an elaborate traditional costume, including a Kazakh hat and cloak, and was carrying the blue-and-yellow Kazakh flag on a long telescopic pole and a traditional stringed instrument called a dombra. Boarding the train at the Olympic Park station, Apykhtin said he was glad for the extra safety. There are so many idiots, he said. Its better to have us all checked. | Sports |
Politics|Black voters and faith leaders rejoice at Warnocks historic win: I think it speaks volumes.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/black-voters-and-faith-leaders-rejoice-at-warnocks-historic-win-i-think-it-speaks-volumes.htmlCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021ATLANTA Michael Simmons, 63, has not missed voting in a major election since 1976. The most important for him was 2008, when he cast a ballot for President Barack Obama. But his votes in Novembers general election and the Senate runoffs on Tuesday were ranked closely behind.The Rev. Raphael Warnocks success in the Senate runoffs sent a jolt of jubilation through much of Georgias African-American community, as they saw a Black man taking an office that had been held by segregationists when he was born. There was also a level of pride in having an emissary of the Black church serve in the highest levels of government.I never would have thunk put that down, thunk! Id see this happen, said Mr. Simmons, a manager at a nonprofit organization in downtown Atlanta. Personally, I dont expect the world to change because we have a Black man in the Senate, but we can see progress.The office of the nonprofit where Mr. Simmons works is just a few blocks from Ebenezer Baptist Church, the renowned congregation that Mr. Warnock leads. Mr. Simmons often saw Mr. Warnock walking around the neighborhood.The win carried enormous significance for him: This was a place where for many years we got the short end of the stick, Mr. Simmons, who grew up in Alabama and moved to Atlanta after college, said.He also thought the rest of the country now owed a debt to Georgia for the work of the states Black voters and particularly the efforts of Stacey Abrams. I think there ought to be a lot of gratitude for what weve done.Dorothy Boler, who moved to Atlanta from Chicago 25 years ago, said she had been proud to cast her ballot for Mr. Warnock during the early voting period. I praised the Lord he got in there, she said. Were going to make history.African-American faith leaders said on Wednesday that they, too, were thrilled with Mr. Warnocks victory, which they also saw as a rebuke of his Republican opponent, Kelly Loeffler, who had portrayed him as a radical and socialist and had attacked him using excerpts from his sermons that he and his supporters said were taken out of context. I went all over this state, said Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, the presiding prelate in Georgia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Blacks couldnt wait to get to the polls. She gave us more reasons to get out to vote couldnt wait to vote just to vote against her.On Wednesday afternoon, he compared the celebration in Georgia with the turmoil in Washington, where a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, and said it underscored for him a transformation happening not just in his state but across the country, one that gives him optimism.I think it speaks volumes and I think that, despite what you see on television like this, there is still a part of this country that is coming together, Bishop Jackson said. Thats the group that Trump speaks for, he added, referring to the rioters, but its a dwindling portion of the country. | Politics |
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Science|What will it cost to fly Virgin Galactic to space?https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/science/cost-to-fly-virgin-galactic-space.htmlCredit...Virgin Galactic/Via ReutersPublished July 11, 2021Updated Sept. 15, 2021Not long after Richard Branson re-entered Earths atmosphere on Sunday, he and other employees of his Virgin Galactic venture boasted that the company would greatly expand opportunities for the general public to travel to space. For the moment, those otherworldly views and feelings of weightlessness will still be held in rarefied air.A seat on one of the companys spaceships originally cost $200,000. The company later raised the price to $250,000. It then stopped sales after a crash during a test flight in 2014. When the company resumes sales later this year, the price will probably rise again, said Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactics chief executive.Were here to make space more accessible to all, Mr. Branson said on Sunday as he was presented with his astronaut wings after his milestone flight.For a vast majority of Americans, the cost of such a trip is out of reach. In the future, Virgin Galactic and other spaceflight companies hope broadening opportunities to fly to space will bring down the cost of a ticket. But for now, primarily people with spare cash equivalent to the cost of some houses will be able to afford a few moments at the edge of space.Nevertheless, the company estimated on Sunday that more than 600 people from some 60 countries had signed up for one of its flights. The first paying SpaceShipTwo passengers may begin flying in the next year, after the company completes two more test flights.During Virgin Galactics livestream on Sunday, some space tourists-in-waiting spoke about how they were looking forward to taking the flights. They had been invited to watch Mr. Bransons flight from Spaceport America in New Mexico. There was no discussion of the steep cost associated with space travel, which is not limited to Virgin Galactic.An unnamed passenger paid $28 million to join the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos later this month when his rocket company, Blue Origin, is to launch its New Shepard rocket and capsule. The company has yet to announce the standard fare for a trip on its spacecraft when Mr. Bezos isnt in the next seat.While the price of a brief suborbital trip with Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin is expensive, trips even higher to orbit and beyond are downright, well, astronomical.Three people paid $55 million each to Axiom Space in Houston to fly in SpaceXs Crew Dragon to the International Space Station as soon as early next year.But not all trajectories to space will involve six or seven figures. On Sunday, Mr. Branson announced that Virgin Galactic would give away two tickets to space as part of a sweepstakes initiative with the charitable fund-raising platform Omaze.No donation is required to win, according to Omaze, which said that a nonprofit organization, Space for Humanity, would seek to democratize space and send citizen astronauts of diverse racial, economic and disciplinary backgrounds to space.If you ever had a dream, now is the time to make it come true, Mr. Branson said. | science |
Media|Editor Quits After Sheldon Adelson Buys Las Vegas Review-Journalhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/business/media/editor-quits-after-mogul-buys-paper-in-las-vegas.htmlDec. 22, 2015Credit...Tyrone Siu/ReutersMichael Hengel, editor of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, announced his resignation on Tuesday, less than two weeks after the billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bought the newspaper and days after it published an article that was indirectly critical of the new owners.In an announcement to the newsroom, Mr. Hengel said he was offered a voluntary buyout, according to reporters who were present at the meeting.The Review-Journal reported last week that Mr. Adelson and his family were behind the $140 million purchase of the newspaper. The identity of the buyer had been kept private after the sale was announced, which raised questions about the new owners transparency.In a statement that was expected to appear on the front page of The Review-Journal on Wednesday, the newspapers new owners said Mr. Hengel had accepted a voluntary buyout offer from the previous owners and that offers were also made to other qualified employees. Other employees have accepted the buyout offer, the statement said.The statement added that an interim editor would be appointed and that a search for a permanent editor would begin immediately.We pledge to publish a newspaper that is fair, unbiased and accurate, the new owners said in the statement. They also said they were committed to making the new investments necessary for the newspaper to succeed, and that they regarded themselves as stewards of this essential community institution.Mr. Hengel could not immediately be reached for comment.Reporters at the newspaper reacted on Twitter, posting photos of Mr. Hengel as he made his announcement. One reporter, Neal Morton, wrote that Mr. Hengel said, I think my resignation probably comes as a relief to the new owners, and it is in my best interest and those of my family.Reporters described the mood after Mr. Hengels announcement as stunned and somber. | Business |
Dec. 9, 2015Credit...Thor Swift for The New York TimesThis year has proved a tough one for stock market debuts. But the year is poised to end on a high note, thanks to a software company born in Australia.Atlassian, a maker of business development and collaboration software, priced its initial public offering at $21 a share on Thursday, above its expected price range of $19 to $20, and raising $462 million.At the I.P.O. price, the company was valued at $4.38 billion, making it the fifth biggest company to go public this year, according to Renaissance Capital. The software makers last private investment round valued it at $3 billion.The stock sale is a rare bright spot for companies looking to go public. Even prominent names have struggled to win the valuations that they had sought. That has chilled a once-heated market, with the number of I.P.O.s filed this year down 32.6 percent from the same time last year, according to data from Renaissance Capital.Companies as varied as the luxury department store Neiman Marcus and the Caribbean telecommunications company Digicel postponed their market debuts after investors proved reluctant to pay up.And many of those who did make it to the public markets have suffered from faltering performance. Over all, the average I.P.O. that priced this year has fallen 2.4 percent from its offer price, according to Renaissance Capital.Tech companies, which had flown high over the last several years with intense investor enthusiasm, have proved no exception. Square, the payments company co-founded by the Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey, took a steep discount when it priced its I.P.O. last month, and after an initial trading pop its shares have fallen 8 percent, to $11.99. (They are still above their offer price of $9.)Unlike many other tech unicorns companies valued above $1 billion Atlassian was founded not in Silicon Valley but in Australia, begun in 2002 and initially financed in part by some $10,000 in credit card debt.Since then, the company has grown to 51,000 customers and more than 1,200 employees.The company makes a number of products meant to make life easier for software developers, like its JIRA project management tool a name derived from the Japanese moniker for Godzilla its HipChat chat software, and its Bitbucket code management tool.Among its most notable traits is that Atlassian has not actually collected money from outside investors. Instead, it is a bootstrapped company, financed by its own profits. (Several financial firms, including Accel Partners and T. Rowe Price, bought shares from employees in so-called secondary transactions, but never actually invested directly in the company.)The company has been profitable for the last three years. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, the company earned $6.8 million on revenue of $319.5 million, compared with net income of $19 million on revenue of $215 million in the previous year.Another distinguishing feature of Atlassian is that it does not employ a huge sales force, bucking the trend of software companies hawking their products as far and wide as possible. Instead, the company relies on word-of-mouth marketing, as teams within a client persuade others to adopt its software.The company is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market on Thursday under the ticker symbol TEAM.Its offering was led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. | Business |
Ed Sheeran, Darren Criss We're Getting Hitched to Our Girlfriends!!! 1/20/2018 Commitment is in the air, because Ed Sheeran and Darren Criss just got engaged!!! Ed's gonna marry his girlfriend Cherry Seaborn, a 25-year-old accountant. He posted this ... "Got myself a fiance just before new year. We are very happy and in love, and our cats are chuffed as well xx." Ed has said Cherry was his inspiration for the song, "Perfect." Darren Criss has decided to take his 7-year-relationship with GF Mia Swier to the next level, or as he put it, he's "kicking [it] up a notch." Criss is on a roll with his role as Andrew Cunanan in "Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story." Congrats to all. | Entertainment |
In the race for the most powerful computers, Fugaku, a Japanese supercomputer, recently beat American and Chinese machines.Credit...Dai Kurokawa/EPA, via ShutterstockJune 22, 2020China and the United States are locked in a contest to develop the worlds most powerful computers. Now a massive machine in Japan has topped them both.A long-awaited supercomputer called Fugaku, installed in the city of Kobe by the government-sponsored Riken institute, took first place in a twice-yearly speed ranking that was released on Monday. The Japanese machine carried out 2.8 times more calculations a second than an IBM system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which Fugaku bumped to second place in the so-called Top500 list.Another IBM system, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, slid to third place in the ranking from second, while systems in China moved to the fourth and fifth spots from third and fourth.Supercomputers have become a symbol for both technical and economic competitiveness. The room-size systems are used for complex military and scientific tasks, including breaking codes, modeling climate change and simulating new designs for cars, weapons, aircraft and drugs. Riken has said Fugaku is already being used to help study, diagnose and treat Covid-19.Japan remains a relatively small player in supercomputing. China placed 226 systems in the latest Top500 list; the U.S. total was 114, though they accounted for a greater share of aggregate computing power.But Japan has a long history of pushing the state of the art in computing. A prominent example is the K Supercomputer, its predecessor at Riken, which took the No. 1 spot on the Top500 list in 2011 before being displaced the next year by a system at Livermore.The predecessor was just a knockout, said Steve Conway, a veteran analyst of the supercomputer market who is a senior adviser at the firm Hyperion Research. People are expecting this to be very good also.Horst Simon, who has studied Fugaku as deputy director of research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, called it a very remarkable, very admirable product. But it may not last long as the worlds fastest supercomputer in view of forthcoming Department of Energy systems at Oak Ridge and Livermore and likely advances in China, he said.Fugaku, another name for Mount Fuji, required some lofty spending. The six-year budget for the system and related technology development totaled about $1 billion, compared with the $600 million price tags for the biggest planned U.S. systems.The machine may also make waves because of its computer chips. Fujitsu, Rikens partner in developing Fugaku, chose to design processors using the basic technology at the heart of billions of smartphones. It licensed designs from Arm, a company long based in Britain that is now owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.By contrast, most supercomputers use microprocessors that evolved from the chips that Intel and Advanced Micro Devices first sold for PCs. The most powerful machines have been accelerated using more specialized chips, such as the Nvidia graphics processors used to run video games and, more recently, artificial intelligence applications.Arm licensees have tried for years to gain a foothold in data centers without much success. But the cloud service operated by Amazon has begun aggressively promoting Arm-based offerings.Christopher Bergey, senior vice president of Arms infrastructure business, predicts more gains in high-performance computing. For one thing, the longtime supercomputer maker Cray, recently bought by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, plans to sell systems based on Fujitsus Arm-based chips.Fugaku is the culmination of almost 10 years of investment and work, Mr. Bergey said. Its a pretty exciting time.The Top500 list, compiled by researchers in the United States and Germany, is being released to coincide with a supercomputing event that is ordinarily held in Frankfurt but that is going virtual this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. | Tech |
March 3, 2017BEIJING FAKE NEWS, a Twitter post declared. Prejudice-based, another said. Cleverly orchestrated lies, a news article asserted.President Trumps harangues against the American news media appear to have inspired a new genre of commentary in Chinas state media, whose propagandists spiced up social media posts and news articles with Trumpian flourishes this week.Peoples Daily, the flagship newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, mimicked Mr. Trumps characteristic bluster and his fondness for capital letters on Friday in denouncing Western news coverage of a Chinese lawyer and human rights advocate who said he had been tortured.An article on the topic a day earlier by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, had accused the foreign news media of hype and suggested that legal activists were manipulating the press to smear the Chinese government.The stories were essentially fake news, Xinhua wrote, adopting a phrase that Mr. Trump has embraced.The Chinese government has long denounced Western news organizations as biased and dishonest and in Mr. Trump, Beijing has found an American president who often does the same.The irony in Chinas criticism is apparent, given Beijings history of obscuring facts and censoring stories that officials deem a threat to the party.Experts said on Friday that Mr. Trumps continuing attacks on the news media would help lend credibility to Chinese efforts to undermine Western ideals and foreign journalists.Trumps attacks on the media will offer a good excuse for Chinese officials to step up their criticism of Western democracy and press freedom, said Qiao Mu, a journalism professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. China can turn to Trumps attacks to say Western democracy is hypocrisy.Some of Mr. Trumps remarks about the news media would not seem out of place in some of Chinas leading broadsheets, where commentators regularly denounce independent reporting by foreign news outlets on delicate subjects like Taiwan or religious persecution.Rights advocates said Mr. Trump had given China an opportunity to further distort the boundaries of journalism.If the Chinese version of journalism, which is really only propaganda, is considered mainstream, it will challenge the understanding of what real journalism should be, said Patrick Poon, a researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong.The heated commentary in the Chinese news media came in response to foreign coverage of a Chinese lawyer, Xie Yang, whose account of torture at the hands of interrogators was widely reported in January, including in The New York Times. The reports about Mr. Xie, who is still in custody, were based on transcripts of his interviews with his lawyers.Xinhuas report suggested that the account of the torture of Mr. Xie, who was formally arrested last year on a charge of inciting subversion of state power, was fabricated.Investigations by reporters and an investigative team have showed that the accusations were nothing but cleverly orchestrated lies, the report said.Xinhua said Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer, had invented the story and shared it with foreign activists.One of Mr. Xies lawyers, Chen Jiangang, denied that on Friday. In a statement, Mr. Chen reiterated that Mr. Xie had provided the account of his torture, describing in detail the meeting at which he had done so.Chinese officials routinely block efforts to report on topics that the government deems delicate. On Friday, the BBC reported that its journalists had been harassed by the authorities in a village in Hunan Province while trying to interview a woman who says her familys land was stolen. The BBC said that its journalists were assaulted during the encounter, and that a crowd in the village had smashed the crews cameras. | World |
Health|Study Focuses on Repeated Hits, Not Concussionshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/health/study-focuses-on-repeated-hits-not-concussions.htmlCredit...Gretchen Ertl for The New York TimesMarch 31, 2016Some scientists studying the relationship between contact sports and memory or mood problems later in life argue that cumulative exposure to hits that cause a snap of the head not an athletes number of concussions is the most important risk factor. That possibility is particularly worrisome in football, in which frequent subconcussive blows are unavoidable.On Thursday, researchers based at Boston University reported the most rigorous evidence to date that overall exposure to contact in former high school and college football players could predict their likelihood of experiencing problems like depression, apathy or memory loss years later.The finding, appearing in The Journal of Neurotrauma, is not conclusive, the authors wrote. Such mental problems can stem from a variety of factors in any long life.Yet the paper represents researchers first attempt to precisely calculate cumulative lifetime exposure to contact in living players, experts said. Previous estimates had relied in part on former players memories of concussions, or number of years played. The new paper uses more objective measures, including data from helmet accelerometer studies, and provides a glimpse of where the debate over the risk of contact sports may next play out, the experts said. They used a much more refined and quantitative approach to estimate exposure than Ive seen in this area, said John Meeker, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, who was not a part of the research team. But he added, Their methods will have to be validated in much larger studies; this is very much a preliminary finding.The study did not address the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative scarring in the brain tied to head blows, which can be diagnosed only after death.The Boston team estimated overall exposure to contact in 93 former high school and college players ages 24 to 82. The estimate was based on the number of seasons played; at which position; and the average number of hits expected for that position, at each level of play, beginning in youth leagues.A hit was defined as an impact causing 10 times gravitational acceleration that is, a snap of the head more forceful than one produced by, say, jumping. Those hits included blows not directly to the head.The researchers used data from helmet accelerometer studies to estimate the average number of these hits per position. For example, a college linebacker might have 685 impacts per season, and a college quarterback closer to 200.Those hits added up, the researchers found: The greater the number in a career, the higher the likelihood of problems later in life. The cumulative number of hits was also a better predictor of later-life impairments than other measures, such as a players concussion total or the age when he began playing, the study found. I think of the study as just the beginning of trying to characterize exposure in a more precise way, said Michael McClean, a Boston University public health researcher and one of the authors of the paper. Robert Stern, another of the authors, said: We do not want to imply that the numbers or thresholds in this paper should be used to evaluate risk for any individual athlete. Were going to need much larger studies to get numbers that are meaningful. | Health |
RoundupFeb. 1, 2014CARSON, Calif. When the United States goes to the World Cup this summer, a familiar question will greet Jurgen Klinsmann, just as it has the coaches who have preceded him: Where will the goals come from?The United States has scored 14 goals in the last four World Cups, a stretch of 15 games, and for all the forward steps that soccer has made in this country, the scoring options do not look much brighter. Not with Jozy Altidore sitting on the bench at Sunderland, Clint Dempsey trying to regain his form on loan at Fulham and age perhaps turning Landon Donovan into a role player.So, as the United States gears up for Brazil, there may be, as usual, room on the roster for someone who can put the ball in the back of the net.On Saturday, Chris Wondolowski made his case by scoring the goals that gave the United States a 2-0 victory against South Korea before a capacity crowd of 27,000.The game was the culmination of a four-week camp that included a 12-day stint in Brazil, where coaches, players and staff members were familiarized with the hotels, practice fields and stadiums they will be visiting in June. It did not include European or Mexican League-based players whose club teams are in season, so it was a chance for Major League Soccer players to make the most of an extended look from Klinsmann.Theres not too many opportunities left before the World Cup, defender Michael Parkhurst said Friday before the teams final practice. You dont get three to four weeks in front of Jurgen too often.Nobody took better advantage than Wondolowski, who scored eight goals in nine appearances. If there are questions about whether he can score against World Cup competition his goals have come against Guatemala, Belize, Cuba and a South Korean squad whose best players were in Europe his opportunism is beyond reproach.His first goal came in the fourth minute, when Donovan neatly sprang Graham Zusi down the right flank. His cross was met with a left-footed volley by Brad Davis, whose shot was saved by South Korean goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong. But the ball popped right to Wondolowski, who headed it home. The other, in the 60th minute, came via a ricocheted pass from Zusi to Donovan that instead landed at Wondolowskis feet. His first touch beat Jung to the near post.If youre committed, if youre hungry and you show it every time, the coach sees that, Klinsmann said of Wondolowski.Wondolowski said it was too early to be thinking about Brazil. You cant play the numbers game, he said. You hope for a call-up and when you get one, you try to make the most of it. You let your work do the talking.The opportunity that Wondolowski seized might have gone to Mike Magee, a 29-year-old journeyman who blossomed last season when he scored 21 goals and was chosen the most valuable player of M.L.S. But Magee, in his first national team camp, was struck by food poisoning, according to U.S. Soccer officials, and did not suit up.Stylistically, there was little that South Korea might have done to prepare the United States for qualities it will see in group play in Brazil: Ghanas strength and athleticism, Portugals skill and flair, and Germanys toughness and tactical awareness.The two green center backs, Omar Gonzalez and Matt Besler, who mirrored the United States resurgence during qualifying by emerging as a stalwart tandem, were less than impressive.ImageCredit...Ian Macnicol/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesTheir defending was solid, as it had been throughout qualifying, but Klinsmann said Friday that there would be a different standard in Brazil than there was against Concacaf foes: Defending will be not just winning balls, but also doing something with them.You cant make passing mistakes in the defensive area because the transition is going to happen so quickly on those teams were going to face, youre pretty much done, Klinsmann said. Too often, though, Besler and Gonzalez seemed to run out of ideas and Gonzalezs spotty passing led to several turnovers. The most comfortable back was Parkhurst, who played a solid if defensive-minded left back, where he may provide insurance for DeMarcus Beasley.South Korea controlled possession most of the match, getting 10 shots. But none got past Nick Rimando and into the net, which was not a problem for Wondolowski.SUNDERLAND TOPS NEWCASTLE Sunderland powered to a 3-0 win at its rival Newcastle United for the second straight season to move clear of the relegation zone in Englands Premier League.Sunderland was ahead, 2-0, after only 23 minutes when Fabio Borini scored on a penalty kick in the 19th minute and Adam Johnson added his sixth goal in his last four league games four minutes later.Also on Saturday, Andy Carroll twice set up goals for Kevin Nolan before being sent off as 10-man West Ham beat Swansea, 2-0. (AP)ENGLISH CLUBS TOP SPENDERS Premier League clubs in England were again the biggest spenders in Europe in the January transfer period, spending $213 million to break the record for a season.Figures from the soccer finance experts at the accounting firm Deloitte show that teams in Englands top division had an outlay of $1.25 billion over the summer and January transfer periods, breaking the previous record of $1.10 billion from the 2008-9 season.Frances top clubs were the second-biggest spenders in January, with their total outlay about 40 percent of the Premier League. (AP)MADRIDS BALE IS OUT Gareth Bale, who has been plagued by injuries this season, will miss Real Madrids match at Athletic Bilbao on Sunday because of a slight calf strain.Bale struggled in the first half against Granada last weekend after being kicked in the groin and then left the game at halftime with a calf injury. (REUTERS)U.S. WOMEN EXTEND STREAK Sydney Leroux scored in the 78th minute, and the United States womens national team earned a 1-0 victory over Canada in Frisco, Tex., on Friday night.The American team extended its home unbeaten streak to 78 games. Canada has not beaten the United States since 2001.Hope Solo preserved the win in the 87th minute with a diving save of a Jonelle Filigno shot.(AP) | Sports |
Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021Congress rejected an attempt from Republicans to overturn the will of Pennsylvania voters early Thursday, effectively ending a final attempt from insurgents to turn a loss for President Trump in the state into a win.The House rejected the challenge by a vote of 282 to 138, after a long debate dragged past 3 a.m. in Washington. A scuffle almost broke out on the chamber floor after Representative Conor Lamb, Democrat of Pennsylvania, delivered a particularly fiery speech in condemnation of the Republican objections.That attack today, it didnt materialize out of nowhere, Mr. Lamb said. It was inspired by lies, the same lies youre hearing in this room tonight, and the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves.By a vote of 92 to 7, the Senate turned back the Pennsylvania challenge shortly before 1 a.m., as the number of objections to the counting of Electoral College votes dwindled after the mobs brazen effort to keep President Trump in office, despite his decisive election loss in November.Those senators voting against the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania were: Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rick Scott of Florida.As most Republicans and all Democrats rejected the attempt, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, forcefully turned back the plot, registering his vote as hell no.Earlier in the evening, lawmakers rejected an attempt to overturn the Arizona electoral slate. The House blocked the attempt with a 303-to-121 vote while the Senate offered a sharper rebuke with a 93-to-6 vote.After debating the merits of subverting the majority of Arizona voters, lawmakers sped through the certification for several states after at least four Republican lawmakers, including Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, said they had changed their minds and would vote to uphold the Electoral College results after having previously said that they would object to them.Those voting against the results of the election in Arizona were: Mr. Hawley, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Tuberville, Ms. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Marshall and John Kennedy of Louisiana.The move by Ms. Loeffler, who lost a special election in Georgia and failed to retain her Senate seat, amounted to one of her last acts in the upper chamber, and she announced her reversal during remarks on the Senate floor after the debate resumed late Wednesday.Ms. Loefflers remarks came after Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Senator Steve Daines of Montana condemned the actions of Trump loyalists who broke into the Capitol earlier on Wednesday and said they would no longer back an effort by some of their Republican colleagues to throw out the election results.Ms. McMorris Rodgerss remarks were particularly pointed.Thugs assaulted Capitol Police officers, breached and defaced our Capitol building, put peoples lives in danger and disregarded the values we hold dear as Americans, Ms. McMorris Rodgers said in a statement, which she released a day after declaring she would object to the vote counts. To anyone involved, shame on you.What we have seen today is unlawful and unacceptable, she added. I have decided I will vote to uphold the Electoral College results, and I encourage Donald Trump to condemn and put an end to this madness.Shortly after Ms. McMorris Rodgers announced her decision, Mr. Daines followed suit, saying he, too, would certify electoral votes after having previously signed onto a letter saying he and other Republican senators intend to vote on Jan. 6 to reject the electors from some states.Today is a sad day for our country. The destruction and violence we saw at our Capitol today is an assault on our democracy, our Constitution and the rule of law, and must not be tolerated, he said in his new statement Wednesday night. | Politics |
VideoAfrica is in the midst of a poaching crisis. Now conservationists are testing a high-tech tool to help track and stop poachers in Malawis Liwonde National Park.CreditCredit...Rachel NuwerMarch 13, 2017LIWONDE, Malawi Night has fallen at Liwonde National Park, but the trespassers are clearly visible. Three hundred feet in the air, a thermal camera attached to a BatHawk drone tracks their boat, a black sliver gliding up the luminous gray Shire River.Theyre breaking the law by coming into the park, said Antoinette Dudley, one of the drones operators, pointing to her computer screen.More than two miles from the boat, she and her partner, Stephan De Necker, are seated in a Land Cruiser that serves as their command center. A monitor attached to the drivers seat displays the drones vitals, and another behind the passengers seat streams live video from the camera, operated with an old PlayStation console.Lets give them a scare, said Mr. De Necker. With the tap of a few keys, he switches on the drones navigation lights and sends it beelining toward the boat.The reaction is instantaneous: The boat makes a U-turn, high-tailing it out of the park.Africa is in the midst of a profound poaching crisis: The continents elephant population declined by 30 percent from 2007 to 2014, much of it because of poaching. At least 1,338 rhinos were killed for their horns in 2015 alone. Criminals are becoming increasingly militarized in their tactics, and efforts to stop them have had little success.Liwonde has lost about 50 elephants and two rhinos since 2014 to poachers. In August 2015, the Malawi Department of National Parks enlisted the help of African Parks, a nonprofit that specializes in rehabilitating struggling protected areas.Since taking over operations here, the group has confiscated upwards of 18,000 illegal snares, made over 100 arrests, installed more than 60 miles of electric fencing and removed 261 elephants to another reserve.But African Parks also has embarked on an unusual high-tech experiment, calling in a drone team from South Africa. With funding from the World Wildlife Fund, including a $5 million grant from Google, drones are being tested here in the first systematic evaluation of their potential to combat poachers.UAV & Drone Solutions, the company that employs Ms. Dudley and Mr. De Necker, is the first licensed drone operator in Africa, a certification that permits the company to fly drones up to 15 miles away and to operate at night crucial advantages, given that the vast majority of poachers are active after dark and few parks are able to carry out effective nocturnal patrols.ImageCredit...Rachel NuwerThe group now operates in South Africa, Malawi and Zimbabwe, and soon will expand to Botswana. Their fixed-wing, bespoke BatHawk drones are outfitted with cameras, video transmitters and telemetry, and with battery changes they can fly for more than eight hours.U.D.S. does this better by far than anyone else, said John Petersen, the board chairman of the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, a nonprofit. Theres no one else in the world we know of that are flying regular missions almost exclusively at night.The idea of using drones to combat poachers is not new. Conservationists enthusiastically embraced the devices as a silver bullet a few years ago but disappointment was swift.Industry-grade equipment and software are needed, but they tend to be well beyond the budgets of strapped conservation organizations. Park managers opted for inappropriate models, too fragile for wild landscapes and lacking the necessary flight capabilities and cameras.I dont think the world of conservation has the money to spend that would be needed to make an anti-poaching drone effective, said Richard Vigne, the chief executive of Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.Conservationists failed to do the homework needed to see if drones were actually suitable for their needs, said Nir Tenenbaum, the director of Wildeas, a conservation technology consultancy.So many groups want technology to solve all their problems, but usually they dont understand the tech, he said.Government officials havent helped. In Namibia, trial flights and training undertaken by the W.W.F., supported by the Google grant, were cut short when the government suspended the use of drones. Other nations have banned unmanned aerial vehicles entirely or have strictly limited their use.Only recently has that begun to change. In 2015, South Africa established some of the first formal drone legislation, and other countries have started making limited exceptions for their use.The Lindbergh Foundations Air Shepherd program, along with the South Africa-based Peace Parks Foundation and the W.W.F.s Google grant, have covered about half U.D.S.s $100,000 monthly operational costs.ImageCredit...Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesDespite these resources, Otto Werdmuller Von Elgg, the companys co-founder, has discovered that drones are far from the blanket solution everyone had hoped for.I am very convinced that we are onto something, but were only beginning to understand how this tool can be used effectively, he said. The challenge now is determining how we integrate drones into existing anti-poaching operations.So far, no arrests of poachers have been made solely based on drone surveillance, and pilots have only spotted poachers a handful of times. Drone teams often dont get ground support in the form of rangers able to follow up on leads, and must frequently fly without guidance on where poachers might be, according to Mr. Werdmuller Von Elgg.During trials in South Africas Kruger National Park, a protected area roughly the size of Israel, we were told to go find people in this vast area based on no intelligence it was an absolute waste of time, Mr. Werdmuller Von Elgg said. We were just turning batteries into noise.When the drone team at Kruger finally did detect a group of rhino poachers, they called park officials. But officials said that there were no rangers available for deployment.It was very frustrating, said Ms. Dudley, who had spotted the intruders. You get upset with people because they say they want you there and you deliver the service, but then they dont back you up.But Otch Otto, formerly the mission area operations manager of ranger services at Kruger, believes that limited resources were better spent on proven techniques and technologies, not experimental flying drones.The technology is in the research phase, and to dedicate a reaction capability to something unproven does not serve the rhino, he said.Data analysis has also been a challenge. Currently, drone operators must watch live video feed to detect intruders and it is all too easy to miss the poachers.It could be numerous reasons the operator looks away for 20 seconds, or goes to grab a cup of coffeeand misses it, said Cedric Coetzee, the general manager for rhino security at Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife in South Africa. Its not going to go beep-beep-beep, and off you go. You have to spot it.ImageCredit...Rachel NuwerIndeed, pilots at a reserve managed by Mr. Coetzee missed a group of trespassers briefly picked up by their drone. The poachers were discovered only later in a review of the video feed.Serge Wich, an ecologist at Liverpool John Moores University in Britain and co-founder of the nonprofit Conservation Drones, is collaborating with colleagues from the astrophysics department to develop drone software that differentiates between humans and animals.Once this is finalized, instead of having hours and hours of video to look at that doesnt have meaningful information, rangers will get a ping when theres a high chance that a poacher has been detected, Professor Wich said.Perhaps the biggest challenge is that conservationists do not know how to most effectively put anti-poaching drones to use, because there have been no rigorous long-term evaluations.South Africas Council for Scientific and Industrial Research conducted a two-month trial with U.D.S. and concluded that the technology is a remarkable support tool, but officials have yet to release the data supporting those findings.Most evidence supporting drones is anecdotal: Mr. Coetzee said he has seen a significant reduction in park incursions when and where drones fly, but added that other factors could have been at play. Drones may deter trespassers, he said, but they may simply go elsewhere in the reserve.W.W.F. plans to tease out the answers to these questions by evaluating the drones effectiveness against poachers here in Liwonde. Trials with two Bathawks and three DJI Phantom drones began in August. The foundation also has begun a test in Zimbabwe.Whether drones also can help reduce animals contact with humans is also on the agenda. One unexpected discovery: DJI Phantom drones can steer elephants away from park boundaries likely because they sound like a bit like bees, and elephants hate bees.At the end of the experiment, hopefully well be able to say heres some good things you can do with drones and here are the things you shouldnt try because they probably wont work, said George Powell, W.W.F.s director of wildlife technology.Were going to do this as scientists, and hopefully well save some elephants in the meantime. | science |
Olympics|Video: Things You Dont Know About Short-Track Speedskatinghttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/sports/olympics/things-you-dont-know-short-track-speedskating.htmlVideoShort-track speedskating has been an Olympic event since 1992, but the competitors say that much remains unknown about the high-paced sport.Feb. 18, 2014Its a fast and sometimes brutal sport, with competitors on razor-sharp blades skating just inches from one another around a small, oval track. One mistake can send a skater tumbling to the ice, often taking other skaters along in a calamitous chain reaction familiar to those who follow the sport.At this years Sochi Games, in fact, the Chinese skater Li Jianrou was bringing up the rear of the pack in the womens 500-meter event when every other skater went down, sending them to slam helplessly into the padded walls as Li finished the race to win gold.In the 2009 Olympic trials, the American skater J.R. Celski cut his own thigh with his skate blade when he crashed, a wound that required 60 stitches to close. He is back skating for the United States team this year at Sochi, and in this video he and his fellow skaters share some of the secrets of the sport. | Sports |
At facilities in several states, many workers are still not immunized. I just feel like a sitting duck, one resident said.Credit...Tamara Kenyon for The New York TimesOct. 20, 2021When Jim Lewis was told earlier this month that his 90-year-old mother, who lives in a nursing home outside of Boise, Idaho, tested positive for Covid-19, he wondered if she had gotten the virus from an unvaccinated employee.And he had reason to worry. A little more than half of the workers in the home, Creekside Transitional Care and Rehabilitation, were not vaccinated at the time, federal data show.It was obvious that the facility had staff members who were vaccine hesitant, said Mr. Lewis, whose mother and immediate family are all immunized.Idaho was hard hit by the Delta surge this summer and early fall, and nursing homes were not impervious to the highly contagious variant that swept through many states with lower vaccination rates. Ten states, including Florida, Michigan and Ohio, still report vaccination rates for nursing home staff under 60 percent.Others, like New York and California, and some large nursing home chains have imposed their own mandates. But many nursing home administrators are waiting for the federal government to issue new rules that will govern a mandatory vaccination program for all their staff members that President Biden first announced two months ago. And some facilities and labor groups are still pushing for a testing option in lieu of a shot.But months of delays and vaccine resistance have had wrenching consequences for families like Mr. Lewiss, who once again are barred from visiting because of outbreaks. Creekside did not return repeated calls and emails seeking comment.After steep declines earlier this year, Covid cases and deaths in nursing homes climbed in August and September, resulting in about 4,000 deaths even though nearly 90 percent of the nations nursing home residents were fully vaccinated. Residents are particularly vulnerable to breakthrough infections because so many are older and suffer from serious medical conditions, like the multiple myeloma the former secretary of state Colin Powell was being treated for when he died from complications of Covid on Monday.It is medically wrong and borders on unethical to have unvaccinated nursing home staff caring for residents, said Dr. Michael Wasserman, a geriatrician and former nursing home executive who has become a critic of the industry. The vaccine works. It has made a profound difference.The Biden administration has said that nursing homes could face a loss of government funding the industry heavily relies on Medicaid and Medicare funds if they do not comply, but the regulations for enforcement of a mandate have yet to be disclosed.Federal officials say they expect to issue the regulations sometime later this month. The rules were delayed from last month after the mandate was broadened to include all health care workers.Officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which will be issuing the rules, would not comment on the forthcoming regulations and did not make anyone available for an interview. It is unclear whether they are considering a testing option for nursing homes, according to people who have worked closely with the administration.Residents and their families say they are frustrated with the monthslong delays in securing that extra layer of protection, given that so many of the unvaccinated are aides and nurses who provide the most direct, daily care.Elizabeth, a nursing home resident in Minnesota, said she caught Covid earlier this year from an unvaccinated worker before she got her second dose of the Moderna vaccine. When she asked when the staff might be vaccinated under the presidents order, she was told the nursing home may focus on testing workers rather than requiring them to be vaccinated.Nothing has happened, said the resident, who asked that only her middle name be used and that her nursing home not be identified in fear of retaliation, a concern shared by others interviewed for this article.Her states Covid surge prompted the governor to call in the National Guard last week to help ease its severe shortage of health care workers.I just feel like a sitting duck, she said. While she continues to wear a mask, some of the staff are no longer taking the same precautions to control the spread of the virus. It just feels horribly unsafe, she said.ImageCredit...Alisha Jucevic for The New York TimesWaning effectiveness of the vaccines that were first given to many nursing home residents has also raised concerns in the last few months.People are dying, residents are dying, said Susan Reinhard, the director of the AARP Public Policy Institute, which has pushed for more transparency about vaccination rates in nursing homes. They should be afraid.Lower vaccination rates translate into more infections, and mandates are a way to increase those rates, said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who advised Mr. Biden during his transition. We should be clear that mandates have been working and have been working in every industry that has tried them, he said.Vaccination rates among nursing home staff increased to 69 percent by early October from 62 percent in early August, when Mr. Biden announced the mandate, but some facilities still report a staff rate of half or fewer, according to the latest federal data.While some nursing homes have moved ahead with their own mandates, many are taking a wait-and-see approach, said Mark Neuberger, a lawyer with Foley & Lardner who advises health care organizations on employment issues.Will there be an alternative? asked Zach Shamberg, the chief executive of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, a state trade group representing nursing homes that is pushing to be able to test employees in lieu of the vaccine. That is preferable to simply losing those workers, especially as providers are combating work force shortages.Many nursing homes remain very concerned that we are not going to see vaccination acceptance rates increase, he said.Our hope is that the small print allows us to do a test-out option, said Mary Susan Tack-Yurek, the chief quality officer and a partner at Quality Life Services. The family-owned nursing home chain in western Pennsylvania reports that a little more than half of the staff is vaccinated. Are we pleased with our staff vaccination rate? No, we are not pleased with it, she said.But if those workers left rather than be forced to get the shots, we just couldnt function, Ms. Tack-Yurek said. There arent enough resources in agency staffing, in the National Guard, to pull from other states, to make it up.ImageCredit...Angelo Merendino for The New York TimesThe nursing home chain, which employs about 1,100 people, has been unable to persuade workers to get immunized, despite holding raffles offering rewards like a chance to go to Disneyworld or $5,000 in cash. The response was minimal, Ms. Tack-Yurek said.Other nursing home officials dismiss the option of testing as an alternative. We already have testing, said Brendan Williams, the chief executive of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, whose members have been more successful in vaccinating their employees. That is just preserving the status quo.Much depends on the communities where nursing homes draw their workers. If an areas opposition to vaccination is strong, it becomes more difficult to sway recruits to get shots, and vice versa.At Chaparral House in Berkeley, Calif., where vaccination rates are high, the vast majority of employees presented with paperwork to get immunized were willing, said the nursing homes chief financial officer, Chuck Cole. Most people didnt read beyond the first paragraph, he said, because they were already persuaded they should get the shot. That was very important.By talking one-on-one with the small number of workers who were concerned about the vaccine, the nursing director and administrator were able to persuade the holdouts, he said. Only one employee of roughly 150 still refuses to get vaccinated.Covid cases in the United States have dropped significantly in the last month, as more people are vaccinated and the Delta surge seems to be subsiding in most regions of the country.The state mandates are helping to increase levels of protection for all age groups, and about 14 percent of the nations nursing home residents have already received a booster dose.And some nursing homes that successfully imposed their own requirements are contributing to a higher success rate, said Brian McGarry, a health researcher at the University of Rochester who is studying levels in nursing homes. Genesis HealthCare, a large chain in Pennsylvania, said while there were some departures, all of its staff is now vaccinated.We are seeing the benefits of our policy in resident safety, as our Covid rates (and particularly the severity of any infections) have declined considerably since we instituted our policy, despite overall community infection rates remaining very high, said Lori Mayer, a company spokeswoman, in a statement.The mandates are starting to help, Dr. McGarry said. The actual enactment of a requirement by a state or facility is a heavy lever and signal to this group that its not going to be optional any more. | Health |
Credit...Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesJune 19, 2018WASHINGTON The United States withdrew on Tuesday from the worlds most important human rights body in protest of its frequent criticism of Israels treatment of Palestinians. It was the latest effort by the Trump administration to pull away from international organizations and agreements that it finds objectionable.It was the first time a member has voluntarily left the United Nations Human Rights Council. The United States now joins Iran, North Korea and Eritrea as the only countries that refuse to participate in the councils meetings and deliberations.Earlier this year, as it has in previous years, the Human Rights Council passed five resolutions against Israel more than the number passed against North Korea, Iran and Syria combined, Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said in a speech on Tuesday. This disproportionate focus and unending hostility toward Israel is clear proof that the council is motivated by political bias, not by human rights.If the Human Rights Council is going to attack countries that uphold human rights and shield countries that abuse human rights, then America should not provide it with any credibility, Ms. Haley said.Human rights advocates denounced the decision.All this administration seems to care about when it comes to the council is defending Israel, said John Sifton, an advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization. If the Trump administrations complaint is that the council is biased and flawed, theyve just made it more so.In a series of posts on Twitter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel welcomed the decision. The U.S. decision to leave this prejudiced body is an unequivocal statement that enough is enough, he wrote on Tuesday.But Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said through a spokeswoman that he would have preferred that the United States remained in the council. He noted that the United Nations human rights architecture plays an important role in the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide.Conservatives have been complaining about the council since its inception in 2006, and the administration of President George W. Bush refused to join the body, citing concerns of bias. Ms. Haley has been a fierce critic of the council since joining the Trump administration and is known to have pushed for a withdrawal.Elliott Abrams, a former Republican diplomat and now a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the Human Rights Councils bias against Israel was too much to ignore.There is always an argument for staying, which is that the United States will be in a better position to help defend Israel, Mr. Abrams said. But this council is hopelessly compromised, so leaving is the right choice.The withdrawal comes as the Trump administration faces condemnation by rights groups and governments worldwide for its decision to separate children from their families at the border. On Monday, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for human rights, called for an immediate end to the practice, describing such a tactic as inflicting abuse on children and unconscionable.Mr. Trump has turned decades of American foreign policy on its head by attacking or undermining much of the rules-based order that the United States established after World War II. Previous administrations viewed the interlocking network of alliances, trade rules and international organizations as beneficial to the United States.But Mr. Trump has ripped up the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal both of which were negotiated under the strong influence of world powers. He has also imposed tariffs on the United States closest allies and left the Group of 7 summit meeting this month in chaos and recriminations after he denounced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada as very dishonest & weak.The Trump administration has made clear that it will not countenance the level of criticism and what it describes as slanted resolutions by the Human Rights Council that have historically been directed at the United States and Israel. On her first day as ambassador, Ms. Haley warned that for those who dont have our back, were taking names.Rob Berschinski, a senior vice president at Human Rights First, another nonprofit organization, conceded that no one believed the human rights council was perfect. But, he said, leaving it is a mistake.Countries like China, Russia and Venezuela will applaud this decision because we are freely giving up leverage over them that we previously had, Mr. Berschinski said.Ms. Haley has castigated the 47-member Human Rights Council, calling it a haven for hypocrisy and an outlet for isolating Israel, the United States main ally in the Middle East.A year ago, she addressed the council at its opening session in Geneva with a sharply critical speech, questioning whether it even supports human rights or is merely a showcase for dictatorships that use their membership to whitewash their brutality.At the time, Ms. Haley asserted that the United States did not seek to leave the council but wanted to re-establish the councils legitimacy.Among her demands was to change the way seats are won on the council so that countries with histories of rights abuses cannot occupy them. But she said on Tuesday that Russia, China, Cuba and Egypt resisted those overhaul efforts, and others were unwilling to challenge the status quo.In his own brief remarks on Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Human Rights Council an obstacle to the progress of human rights and a threat to the United States.When organizations undermine our national interests and our allies, we will not be complicit, he said. When they seek to infringe on our national sovereignty, we will not be silent. | Politics |
A group of biologists and other scientists said humans began growing cannabis about 12,000 years ago not just for food, but also for hemp and, yes, probably to get high.Credit...Kelsey McClellan for The New York TimesPublished July 18, 2021Updated Oct. 27, 2021People feeling the effects of marijuana are prone to what scientists call divergent thinking, the process of searching for solutions to a loosely defined question.Heres one to ponder: Where did the weed come from? No, not where it was bought, but where and when was the plant first domesticated?Many botanists believe that the cannabis sativa plant was first domesticated in Central Asia. But a new study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances suggests that East Asia is the more likely source, and that all existing strains of the plant come from an ancestral gene pool represented by wild and cultivated varieties growing in China today.The studys authors found that the plant was a primarily multipurpose crop grown about 12,000 years ago during the early Neolithic period, probably for fiber and medicinal uses.Farmers began breeding the plant specifically for its mind-altering properties about 4,000 years ago, as cannabis began to spread into Europe and the Middle East, the authors of the study said.Michael Purugganan, a professor of biology at New York University who read the study, said the usual assumption about early humans was that they domesticated plants for food.That seems to be the most pressing problem for humans then: How to get food, said Professor Purugganan, who was not involved in the research. The suggestion that even early on they were also very concerned with fiber and even intoxicants is interesting. It would bring to question what were the priorities of these Neolithic societies.A 2016 study by other scientists said that the earliest records for cannabis were mostly from China and Japan, but most botanists believe that it was probably first domesticated in the eastern part of Central Asia, where wild varieties of the plant are widespread.Genetic sequencing for the latest study suggests that the species has a single domestication origin in East Asia, the researchers wrote.By sequencing genetic samples of the plant, they found that the species had most likely been domesticated by the early Neolithic period. They said their conclusion was supported by pottery and other archaeological evidence from the same period that was discovered in present-day China, Japan and Taiwan.But Professor Purugganan said he was skeptical about conclusions that the plant was developed for drug or fiber use 12,000 years ago since archaeological evidence show the consistent use or presence of cannabis for those purposes began about 7,500 years ago.I would like to see a much larger study with a larger sampling, he said.Luca Fumagalli, an author of the study and a biologist in Switzerland who specializes in conservation genetics, said the theory of a Central Asian origin was largely based on observational data of wild samples in that region.Its easy to find feral samples, but these are not wild types, Dr. Fumagalli said. These are plants that escaped captivity and readapted to the wild environment.By the way, thats the reason you call it weed, because it grows anywhere, he added.The study was led by Ren Guangpeng, a botanist at Lanzhou University in the western Chinese province of Gansu. Dr. Ren said in an interview that the original site of cannabis domestication was most likely northwestern China, and that the finding could help with current efforts in the country to breed new types of hemp.To conduct the study, Dr. Ren and his colleagues collected 82 samples, either seeds or leaves, from around the world. The samples included strains that had been selected for fiber production, and others from Europe and North America that were bred to produce high amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plants most mood-altering compound.Dr. Fumagalli and his colleagues then extracted genomic DNA from the samples and sequenced them in a lab in Switzerland. They also downloaded and reanalyzed sequencing data from 28 other samples. The results showed that the wild varieties they analyzed were in fact historical escapes from domesticated forms, and that existing strains in China cultivated and wild were their closest descendants of the ancestral gene pool.Although additional sampling of feral plants in these key geographical areas is still needed, our results, which are based on very broad sampling already, would suggest that pure wild progenitors of C. sativa have gone extinct, they wrote.As hemps function as a global source for textiles, food and oilseed dried up in the 20th century, the use of cannabis as a recreational drug increased, the new study noted. But there are still large gaps in knowledge about its domestication history, it said, in large part because the plant is illegal in many countries.It can also be hard to understand precisely how plant species are domesticated in the first place, said Catherine Rushworth, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota who studies plant evolution.Although scientists can make some basic predictions about how a given plant species will diverge in nature, she added, such predictions go out the window when a natural selection process is driven by humans.So, for example, we might think that species would diverge when theyre adapting to different habitats, or to different pollinators, she said. But people are often the pollinators and people have created those habitats.Joy Dong and Maria Cramer contributed reporting. | science |
Credit...Baz Ratner/ReutersNov. 22, 2018JERUSALEM A Tel Aviv court on Thursday sentenced a 19-year-old American-Israeli man to 10 years in prison for sowing havoc and terror with fake bomb threats against hundreds of institutions, including schools, hospitals, malls, police stations and Jewish centers in the United States and other countries.For months, prosecutors said, the teenager, who has not been publicly identified, threatened airports and commercial airlines, prompting the authorities to scramble fighter jets to escort planes forced to make emergency landings.His targets included the Israeli Embassy in Washington and a Delaware state senator, Ernesto Lopez, who had issued a statement condemning the hoaxer. Senator Lopez received a call warning him that if he did not pay blackmail, his daughter would be murdered.The actions of the defendant caused panic and forced mass evacuations, and his focus on Jewish institutions stoked fears of rising anti-Semitism.One can easily imagine the terror, the fear and the horror that gripped the airplane passengers who were forced to make an emergency landing, some of whom were injured while evacuating the plane, the judge, Zvi Gurfinkel, wrote in his verdict, and the terrified panic caused when there was a need to evacuate pupils from schools because of fake bomb threats.A United States indictment has also been served against the hoaxer, who holds both Israeli and American citizenship, as the Justice Department has accused him of hate crimes.The teenager from southern Israel was legally a legal minor when he began his campaign of terror. He was convicted of the crimes committed after he turned 18, including extortion, making threats and false reports, conspiracy to commit a crime, and money laundering.Using sophisticated software to camouflage his voice and disguise his location, he offered his services to others on the dark net and traded in drugs, bomb-making guides and child pornography all from his bedroom in the fifth-floor apartment in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, where he lived with his parents, officials said.After months of an investigation by the cyberunit of the Israeli police, in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other foreign police and security agencies, the apartment, in an upscale neighborhood, was raided in March 2017, and officers arrested the teenager.During the search of his room, the police said, he grabbed a pistol from a police officer and had to be wrestled to the ground.According to court documents, the defendant demanded payment for his services on the dark net in Bitcoin, the virtual cryptocurrency, and earned nearly 184 Bitcoin, now worth about $800,000.In his decision, the judge provided details of the defendants price list for his services. A phone threat to a private house cost $40; a call to a school cost double that; and for a call warning of a bomb on a plane, he charged $500.Since the defendant refused to reveal the codes to access his Bitcoin wallet, most of his earnings have not been recovered. Only a few thousand dollars were found in cash, according to the Israeli authorities.The teenagers defense lawyers argued that his judgment had been impaired because he had severe autism and a brain tumor and is not able to distinguish right from wrong, making him unfit to stand trial.A medical panel found that he was autistic but concluded that he understood that his actions were forbidden and that he was responsible for them.Judge Gurfinkel said the young mans condition had been taken into consideration in sentencing, otherwise he would have faced 17 years in prison.After the sentencing in Tel Aviv on Thursday, the teenagers mother told reporters outside the courtroom: This is the most cruel, cruel thing in the world. Im very sorry, but I am ashamed that the country acts this way. She added that her son needed treatment and rehabilitation and that his place is not in prison.Because of the court restrictions, little is known about the mans family. His behavior was considered unusual from an early age, according to court documents, and he was home-schooled because he never adapted to regular educational frameworks.At the time of his arrest, neighbors said the defendants father was an Israeli-born engineer and his mother was a Westerner, presumably an American.The hoax calls appear to have started in the spring of 2015, when he would have been about 16. Between April 2015 and March 2017, prosecutors said, he called about 2,000 institutions, claiming that bombs had been planted or threatening an imminent shooting attack, prompting evacuations and bringing out the police and emergency services.The hoaxer usually chose elementary schools, because those threats created more chaos and were taken more seriously.In addition to the United States and Israel, threats were received in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.Flights were canceled and planes grounded. In the familys apartment, a few blocks from the beach, the defendant had installed a powerful antenna enabling him to connect with distant wireless networks. He then followed the reports in the news media and documented the results of his actions. | World |
Politics|Pence is said to have told Trump he lacks the power to change the election result.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/pence-is-said-to-have-told-trump-he-lacks-the-power-to-change-the-election-result.htmlCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trumps baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said.Mr. Pences message, delivered during his weekly lunch with the president, came hours after Mr. Trump further turned up the public pressure on the vice president to do his bidding when Congress convenes Wednesday in a joint session to ratify Mr. Bidens Electoral College win.The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors, Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning, an inaccurate assertion that mischaracterized Mr. Pences largely formal and constitutionally prescribed role of presiding over the House and Senate as they receive and certify the electoral votes conveyed by the states and announcing the outcome.Mr. Pence does not have the unilateral power to alter the results sent by the states to Congress.More Republican senators came out on Tuesday against attempts to undermine the results, including Tim Scott of South Carolina and James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, who said he viewed challenging any states certification as a violation of my oath of office.In a process that is likely to go on for many hours, Mr. Pence will preside on Wednesday over a roll call of the states. If at least one senator and one House member object to the results from a state, they can force a debate of up to two hours about those results. Each chamber will then vote separately on whether to certify that states results.For results to be overturned, both the House and the Senate would have to agree to do so. Because the House is controlled by the Democrats, there is no realistic possibility of any states outcome being rejected. In addition, many if not most Senate Republicans appear likely to join all Democrats in rejecting challenges to the results.When the results from all of the states have been considered, Mr. Pence, who as vice president also serves as presiding officer of the Senate, will be called on to read out the Electoral College votes for each candidate, formalizing Mr. Bidens victory.Mr. Pence has spent the past several days in a delicate dance, seeking at once to convey to the president that he does not have the authority to overturn the results of the election, while also placating the president to avoid a rift that could torpedo any hopes Mr. Pence has of running in 2024 as Mr. Trumps loyal heir.Even as he sought to make clear that he does not have the power Mr. Trump seems to think he has, Mr. Pence also indicated to the president that he would keep studying the issue up until the final hours before the joint session of Congress begins at 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to the people briefed on their conversation. | Politics |
RoundupFeb. 8, 2014Melvin Ejim scored a Big 12-record 48 points and grabbed a career-high 18 rebounds to lead No. 16 Iowa State to an 84-69 home victory over Texas Christian on Saturday.Ejim, whose previous high in points was 23, padded his Big 12 scoring lead while topping the conference record of 44 points, by Michael Beasley (2008) and Denis Clemente (2009) of Kansas State. He fell short of Iowa States record, though (54, by Lafester Rhodes in an overtime victory over Iowa in 1987).Ejim, who made 20 of his 24 shots from the field Saturday, had two 3-pointers and six dunks for the Cyclones (18-4, 6-4).Kyan Anderson led T.C.U. (9-13, 0-10) with 27 points and 8 assists. FLORIDA 78, ALABAMA 69 Scottie Wilbekin had 16 points, and No. 3 Florida beat visiting Alabama for its 15th straight victory.The Gators (21-2, 10-0 Southeastern Conference) handled the Crimson Tide (9-14, 3-7) for the second time in 16 days and extended a team record for consecutive home wins to 29.WICHITA ST. 82, N. IOWA 73 Tekele Cotton scored 18 points and fourth-ranked Wichita State beat host Northern Iowa, clearing perhaps its toughest remaining hurdle for an unbeaten regular season.The Shockers (25-0, 12-0 Missouri Valley Conference) became the first team to open 25-0 since Derrick Rose helped Memphis win its first 26 games in 2007-8.Northern Iowa (11-13, 5-7) got as close as 44-43 before Wichita State went on a 12-1 run. SAN DIEGO ST. 73, NEVADA 58 Xavier Thames scored 17 points and No. 5 San Diego State beat Nevada (12-12, 7-4 Mountain West). The Aztecs (21-1, 10-0 ) matched the 20-game win streak by the 2010-11 team. S.M.U. 76, CINCINNATI 55 Nick Russell had 15 points to go with several big steals, and Southern Methodist (19-5, 8-3 American Athletic Conference) remained undefeated at home with a victory over No. 7 Cincinnati, ending a 15-game winning streak by the Bearcats (22-3, 11-1).KANSAS 83, WEST VIRGINIA 69 Andrew Wiggins scored 19 points, Wayne Selden had 17, and No. 8 Kansas (18-5, 9-1 Big 12) beat visiting West Virginia (14-10, 6-5), which dealt with foul trouble nearly the entire game. IOWA 85, MICHIGAN 67 Roy Devyn Marble scored 22 of his 26 points in the first half, and No. 17 Iowa (18-6, 7-4 Big Ten) avoided a third straight loss at home, beating No. 10 Michigan (17-6, 9-2). ImageCredit...Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDUKE 89, BOSTON COLLEGE 68 Jabari Parker set career highs with 29 points and 16 rebounds, and No. 11 Duke (19-5, 8-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) coasted by host Boston College (6-17, 2-8).ST. LOUIS 65, LA SALLE 63 Jordair Jett scored 19 of his game-high 25 points in the second half, making the game-winner with four seconds left, and No. 13 St. Louis (22-2, 9-0 Atlantic 10) extended its team-record winning streak to 16 games with a victory at La Salle (12-11, 4-5).KANSAS ST. 74, TEXAS 57 Marcus Foster had a career-high 34 points and host Kansas State (16-7, 6-4 Big 12) ended the seven-game winning streak of No. 15 Texas (18-5, 7-3). KENTUCKY 69, MISSISSIPPI ST. 59 Julius Randle scored 16 points, and another freshman, James Young, added 11 as No. 18 Kentucky won at Mississippi State (13-10, 3-7 SEC). But it was the seldom-used veterans Jon Hood and Jarrod Polson who were on the court when the Wildcats (18-5, 8-2) closed the first half on a 19-6 run, which proved to be the games decisive stretch.TEXAS TECH 65, OKLA. ST. 61 The Oklahoma State star Marcus Smart shoved a fan underneath the basket in the waning seconds of Texas Techs win over the 19th-ranked Cowboys in Lubbock.Smart tried to a dunk attempt from behind with 6.2 seconds to go and tumbled into the front row of the crowd. He was helped to his feet by one man but then got in the face of another fan in a black shirt. Smart was called for a technical foul but was not ejected.VIRGINIA 64, GEORGIA TECH 45 Malcolm Brogdon scored 14 points and tied his career high with 11 rebounds as No. 20 Virginia (19-5, 10-1 A.C.C.) won at Georgia Tech (12-12, 3-8). OKLAHOMA 88, BAYLOR 72 Isaiah Cousins scored 15 of his career-high 21 points in the second half to help No. 21 Oklahoma (18-6, 7-4 Big 12) beat visiting Baylor (14-9, 2-8).MEMPHIS 60, GONZAGA 54 Chris Crawford and Michael Dixon Jr. both had 11 points, and No. 24 Memphis (18-5) scored the final 10 points of the game to beat 23rd-ranked Gonzaga (21-4) in Memphis. PITT 62, VIRGINIA TECH 57 Cameron Wright scored 4 of his 18 points in the second overtime to help No. 25 Pittsburgh (20-4, 8-3 A.C.C.) beat Virginia Tech (8-15, 1-10) and snap a two-game home losing streak.YALE 74, HARVARD 67 Justin Sears scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead Yale (11-9, 5-1) in a victory that snapped a 20-game home winning streak for Harvard (18-4, 5-1) and moved the Bulldogs alongside the Crimson atop the Ivy League.RUTGERS 79 S. FLORIDA 69 Kadeem Jack scored a career-high 31 points, leading Rutgers (10-14, 4-7 American Athletic Conference) past host South Florida (12-12, 3-8).IN OTHER GAMES Maurice Creek scored 20 points as hot-shooting George Washington (19-4, 7-2 Atlantic 10) posted a 93-67 win over Fordham (9-13, 2-7) to remain unbeaten at home. ... Fran Dougherty had 19 first-half points and 23 over all to lead Pennsylvania (6-13, 3-2 Ivy League) to a 68-60 win over visiting Columbia (14-9, 3-3). ... Sean McGonagill and Steven Spieth scored 20 apiece as Brown (12-8, 4-2 Ivy) cruised to a 75-62 win over host Dartmouth (9-11, 2-4). ... Spencer Weisz scored 18 points as Princeton (13-6, 1-4 Ivy) rolled to a 69-48 victory over visiting Cornell (1-19, 0-6). | Sports |
Frustrated by the prospect of a new surge, many Americans are blaming the unvaccinated. A tougher stance may backfire, some experts warn.Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesPublished July 27, 2021Updated Aug. 7, 2021As coronavirus cases resurge across the country, many inoculated Americans are losing patience with vaccine holdouts who, they say, are neglecting a civic duty or clinging to conspiracy theories and misinformation even as new patients arrive in emergency rooms and the nation renews mask advisories.The country seemed to be exiting the pandemic; barely a month ago, a sense of celebration was palpable. Now many of the vaccinated fear for their unvaccinated children and worry that they are at risk themselves for breakthrough infections. Rising case rates are upending plans for school and workplace reopenings, and threatening another wave of infections that may overwhelm hospitals in many communities.Its like the sun has come up in the morning and everyone is arguing about it, said Jim Taylor, 66, a retired civil servant in Baton Rouge, La., a state in which fewer than half of adults are fully vaccinated.The virus is here and its killing people, and we have a time-tested way to stop it and we wont do it. Its an outrage.The rising sentiment is contributing to support for more coercive measures. Scientists, business leaders and government officials are calling for vaccine mandates if not by the federal government, then by local jurisdictions, schools, employers and businesses.Ive become angrier as time has gone on, said Doug Robertson, 39, a teacher who lives outside Portland, Ore., and has three children too young to be vaccinated, including a toddler with a serious health condition.Now there is a vaccine and a light at the end of the tunnel, and some people are choosing not to walk toward it, he said. You are making it darker for my family and others like mine by making that choice.On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City ordered that all municipal workers be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the time schools reopen in mid-September or face weekly testing. Officials in California followed suit hours later with a similar mandate covering all state employees and health care workers.The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday required that 115,000 on-site health care workers be vaccinated in the next two months, the first federal agency to order a mandate. Nearly 60 major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, on Monday called for mandatory vaccination of all health care workers.Its time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks, a frustrated Gov. Kay Ivey, Republican of Alabama, told reporters last week. Its the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.There is little doubt that the United States has reached an inflection point. According to a database maintained by The New York Times, 57 percent of Americans ages 12 and older are fully vaccinated. Eligible Americans are receiving 537,000 doses per day on average, an 84 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million in early April.As a result of lagging vaccination and lifted restrictions, infections are rising. As of Sunday, the country was seeing 52,000 new cases daily, on average, a 170 percent increase over the previous two weeks. Hospitalization and death rates are increasing, too, although not as quickly.ImageCredit...Tojo Andrianarivo for The New York TimesCommunities from San Francisco to Austin, Texas, are recommending that vaccinated people wear masks again in public indoor settings. Citing the spread of the more contagious Delta variant of the virus, the counties of Los Angeles and St. Louis, Mo., have ordered indoor mask mandates.For many Americans who were vaccinated months ago, the future is beginning to look grim. Frustration is straining relations even within closely knit families.Josh Perldeiner, 36, a public defender in Connecticut who has a 2-year-old son, was fully vaccinated by mid-May. But a close relative, who visits frequently, has refused to get the shots, although he and other family members have urged her to do so.She recently tested positive for the virus after traveling to Florida, where hospitals are filling with Covid-19 patients. Now Mr. Perldeiner worries that his son, too young for a vaccine, may have been exposed.It goes beyond just putting us at risk, he said. People with privilege are refusing the vaccine, and its affecting our economy and perpetuating the cycle. As infections rise, he added, I feel like were at that same precipice as just a year ago, where people dont care if more people die.Hospitals have become a particular flash point. Vaccination remains voluntary in most settings, and it is not required for caregivers at most hospitals and nursing homes. Many large hospital chains are just beginning to require that employees be vaccinated.Even though she is fully vaccinated, Aimee McLean, a nurse case manager at University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, worries about contracting the virus from a patient and inadvertently passing it to her father, who has a serious chronic lung disease. Less than half of Utahs population is fully vaccinated.The longer that were not getting toward that number, the more it feels like theres a decent percentage of the population that honestly doesnt care about us as health care workers, Ms. McLean, 46, said.She suggested health insurers link coverage of hospital bills to immunization. If you choose not to be part of the solution, then you should be accountable for the consequences, she said.ImageCredit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesMany schools and universities are set to resume in-person classes as early as next month. As the number of infections increases, these settings, too, have seen tension rise between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.Recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on K-12 school reopening are tied to rates of community virus transmission. In communities where vaccination lags, those rates are rising, and vaccinated parents must worry anew about outbreaks at schools. The vaccines are not yet authorized for children under 12.The American Academy of Pediatrics has advised that children wear masks in class when schools reopen. On Friday, school districts from Chicago to Washington began putting mandates into effect.Universities, on the other hand, often can require vaccinations of students and staff members. But many have not, frustrating the vaccinated.If were respecting the rights and liberties of the unvaccinated, whats happening to the rights and liberties of the vaccinated? said Elif Akcali, 49, who teaches engineering at the University of Florida, in Gainesville. The university is not requiring students to be vaccinated, and with rates climbing in Florida, she is worried about exposure to the virus.Some are even wondering how much sympathy they should have for fellow citizens who are not acting in their own best interest. I feel like if you chose not to get vaccinated, and now you get sick, its kind of your bad, said Lia Hockett, 21, the manager of Thunderbolt Spiritual Books in Santa Monica, Calif.As the virus begins to spread again, some vaccinated people believe the federal government should start using sticks rather than carrots, like lottery tickets.Carol Meyer, 65, of Ulster County, N.Y., suggested withholding stimulus payments or tax credits from vaccine refusers. I feel we have a social contract in this country with our neighbors, and people who can get vaccinated and choose not to get vaccinated are breaking it, Ms. Meyer said.Bill Alstrom, 74, a retired innkeeper in Acton, Mass., said he would not support measures that would directly affect individual families and children, but asked whether federal government funding should be withheld from states that dont meet vaccination targets.Maybe the federal government should require employees and contractors to be vaccinated, he mused. Why shouldnt federal funding be withheld from states that dont meet vaccination targets?ImageCredit...Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesThough often seen as a conservative phenomenon, vaccine hesitancy and refusal occur across the political and cultural spectrum in the United States, and for a variety of reasons. No single argument can address all of these concerns, and changing minds is often a slow, individualized process.Pastor Shon Neyland, who regularly implores members of his church in Portland, Ore., to get the Covid-19 vaccines, estimated that only about half of the members of the Highland Christian Center church have gotten shots. There have been tensions within the congregation over vaccination.Its disappointing, because Ive tried to help them to see that their lives are in jeopardy and this is a serious threat to humanity, he said.Shareese Harris, 26, who works in the office of Grace Cathedral International in Uniondale, N.Y., has not been vaccinated and is taking my time with it. She worries that there may be long-term side effects from the vaccines and that they were rushed to market.I shouldnt be judged or forced to make a decision, Ms. Harris said. Society will just have to wait for us. Rising resentment among the vaccinated may well lead to public support for more coercive requirements, including mandates, but experts warn that punitive measures and social ostracism can backfire, shutting down dialogue and outreach efforts.Elected officials in several Los Angeles County communities, for example, are already refusing to enforce the countys new mask mandate.Anything that reduces the opportunity for honest dialogue and an opportunity for persuasion is not a good thing, said Stephen Thomas, a professor of health policy and management at University of Maryland School of Public Health. We are already in isolated, siloed information systems, where people are in their own echo chambers.Gentle persuasion and persistent prodding convinced Dorrett Denton, a 62-year-old home health aide in Queens, to be vaccinated in February. Her employer urged Ms. Denton repeatedly to be immunized, but in the end it was her doctor who persuaded her.She says to me: Youve been coming to me from 1999. How many times did I do surgery on you, and your life was in my hands? You trust me with your life, dont you? Ms. Denton recalled.I said, Yes, doctor. She said, Well, trust me on this one.Giulia Heyward contributed reporting from Miami, Sophie Kasakove from New York and Livia Albeck-Ripka from Los Angeles. | Health |
Credit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesNov. 19, 2016BOWLING GREEN, Ky. Crosby J. Gardner has never had a girlfriend. Now 20 and living for the first time in a dorm here at Western Kentucky University, he has designed a fast-track experiment to find her.He ticks off the math. Two meals a day at the student dining hall, three courses per meal. Girls make up 57 percent of the 20,068 students. And so, he sums up, gray-blue eyes triumphant, if he sits at a table with at least four new girls for every course, he should be able to meet all 11,439 by graduation.Im Crosby Gardner! he announces each time he descends upon a fresh group, trying out the social-skills script he had practiced in the universitys autism support program. What is your name and what is your major?The first generation of college students with an autism diagnosis is fanning out to campuses across the country. These growing numbers reflect the sharp rise in diagnosis rates since the 1990s, as well as the success of early-learning interventions and efforts to include these students in mainstream activities.But while these young adults have opportunities that could not have been imagined had they been born even a decade earlier, their success in college is still a long shot. Increasingly, schools are realizing that most of these students will not graduate without comprehensive support like the Kelly Autism Program at Western Kentucky. Similar programs have been taking root at nearly 40 colleges around the country, including large public institutions like Eastern Michigan University, California State University, Long Beach, the University of Connecticut and Rutgers.For decades, universities have provided academic safety nets to students with physical disabilities and learning challenges like dyslexia. But students on the autism spectrum need a web of support that is far more nuanced and complex.Their presence on campus can be jarring. Mr. Gardner will unloose monologues unfiltered, gale-force and repetitive that can set professors teeth on edge and lead classmates to snicker. When agitated, another student in Western Kentuckys program calms himself by pacing, flapping his hands, then facing a corner, bumping his head four times and muttering. One young woman, lost on her way to class and not knowing how to ask for directions, had a full-blown panic attack, shaking and sobbing violently.Autism affects the brains early development of social and communication skills. A diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder can encompass an array of people, from the moderately impaired and intellectually nimble like Mr. Gardner, a junior majoring in biochemistry, to adults with the cognitive ability of 4-year-olds. Until 2013, students who could meet college admission criteria would most likely have received a diagnosis of Aspergers syndrome, which has since been absorbed into autism spectrum disorder.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesThe social challenges of people on the spectrum can impede their likelihood of thriving not only in college, but also after graduation. Counselors in programs like Western Kentuckys not only coach students who struggle to read social cues, but also serve as advocates when misreadings go terribly awry, such as not recognizing the rebuff of a sexual advance.When a professor complains about a student who interrupts lectures with a harangue, Michelle Elkins, who directs the Western Kentucky program, will retort: I am not excusing his behavior. I am explaining his brain function.Breaking the IceAt suppertime, the dining hall at Western Kentuckys student union is crowded, clamorous and brightly lit. Students in the Kelly program, who often have sensory hypersensitivities as well as social discomfort, usually prefer eating alone in their rooms.But one night this fall, some gathered for a weekly dinner with peer mentors students hired by the program to be tutors and social guides. The Kelly students tentatively approached a meeting place in the lobby. As they recognized their mentors among the milling crowd, relief flooded their faces.The meal began awkwardly. One Kelly student buried himself in a textbook. Another gazed around the dining hall, humming.Gradually, the mentors drew them out. How was your day? Have you tried any clubs? Jacob, a freshman from Tennessee who is in a Chinese immersion curriculum and asked that his last name not be used to protect his familys privacy, said he had joined the French, Spanish and German clubs.When do you sleep? I inquired with a smile.A few mentors laughed appreciatively. Jacob looked puzzled. I dont get the humor in that question, he said.When the topic shifted to a social event coming up at the center a video game party conversational buy-in was guaranteed. Even so, as various games were suggested, the dinner table exchanges were more proclamation than conversation:In my opinion, Pokmon Go is a stupid idea, Mr. Gardner shouted.Ms. Elkins fixed him with a look. Good you added, in my opinion, Crosby, she said.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesThe autism programs home, a matter-of-fact clinical education building at the edge of the university, is a peaceful, dimly lit haven from the churning campus. The 45 undergraduates in the program spend three hours a day here, four days a week.They study, meeting with tutors, and confer with counselors and a psychologist to review myriad mystifying daily encounters. The counselors maintain ties with dorm supervisors, professors and the career center, mediating misunderstandings.By 2019, the program, which started with three students a little over a decade ago, anticipates being able to admit 77 students. Like most such programs on other campuses, it charges a fee; W.K.U.s is $5,000 a semester, much of which may be covered by federal vocational rehabilitation funds.In addition to shoring up academic and organizational skills, the program aims to ease students into the social flow of campus. This year, group discussions will tackle topics that include sex and dating.Some of these students have enough self-awareness to feel the excruciating loneliness of exclusion. One student told me, I was so excited about college because I hear you dont get bullied there, and I dont know what thats like, said Sarah McMaine-Render, the programs manager.Others remain relatively oblivious to the social world surging around them.Impulse control is an issue for many of these students: They will stand up and abruptly leave class. Some need reminders about basic hygiene. Because having a roommate can be unnerving, most have single rooms in the dorms.But they all have the requisite academic ability: Before applying to the support program, they must be admitted by the university. Some are exceptionally bright. I have a 4.0 G.P.A. but David leaves me behind in the dust, Liz Ramey, 19, a student mentor, said of David Merdian, a Kelly sophomore who studies mathematical economics with a concentration in actuarial science.With the programs help, some of the students, most of whom are male, can enter the four-year university directly from high school. Others first try community college. After Kaley Miller graduated from high school, relatives, who did not believe she could live independently, put her in a group home and then a residential home with elderly adults, where she spent her days doing factory piecework. Finally, at a psychiatrists suggestion, Ms. Millers parents decided to let her try a college that provided support for students on the spectrum.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesWhen she moved into a W.K.U. dorm, Ms. Miller, 24, a junior and a meticulous art student, reacted in wonderment. There were so many people my age and everyone was so normal, she said.Out of the ShadowsIn 2012, Andy Arnold, who was given an autism spectrum diagnosis as a child, enrolled as a freshman at Western Kentucky.It was terrifying, he recalled. I was anxious and went off my meds. Id forget to shower and brush my teeth. I would do rituals, like walking around outside the dorm. I kept grabbing at the back of my neck.I started skipping classes. I didnt really know how to study, so I fell behind quickly. I ate too much. I behaved irrationally to people.He dropped out.He lived at home, taking online courses for a few years, then reapplied to W.K.U. Now 23, he is back at school and this time, he is in the autism support program.I feel less panicky, Mr. Arnold said. I like getting to know people here at the center. We have something in common.It is hard to know how many students with autism attend four-year schools. A 2012 study in the journal Pediatrics found that about 50,000 teenagers with the diagnosis turn 18 each year and 34.7 percent attend college. Without support, though, few graduate.That is in part because many students with an autism diagnosis do not step forward, fearing stigma. Some experts speculate that for every college student on the spectrum who identifies himself or herself with a diagnosis, there may be two more who are undisclosed.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesBut as the growth of the so-called neurodiversity movement prompts people on the spectrum to define themselves as different but not deficient, more students are emerging from the shadows. The Bridges to Adelphi program at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., serves about 100 students with autism. At the University of Texas in Dallas, 450 students with the diagnosis have registered for services with the Student AccessAbility office.Their presence on campuses is also a testament to the tenacity of families and disability advocates who, since the 1990s, when awareness of autism began to mushroom, have pressed for earlier diagnoses and interventions. Much of that battle unfolded in public secondary schools, leading to more services.Over the last decade, officials at mainstream universities began realizing that growing numbers of spectrum students were being admitted and, like Mr. Arnold, were foundering.It was one thing for administrators to authorize accommodations like extra time on tests for students with dyslexia or attention deficit disorder. But how should they bolster students whose behavior was the primary expression of the disability who could not stop shouting out answers in class and feared dorm showers?And so the new autism support programs vary in emphasis. Some are based in disability resource centers, while others are in mental health offices, focusing on social skills and anxiety reduction.Our mission is to help them transition into the university, be successful here, and then transition out of the university to be successful in adult life, said Pamela Lubbers, who directs one of the countrys most structured, coordinated programs, with 17 students, at Rutgers-New Brunswick.Ms. Lubbers meets weekly with students, working them through a standardized to do checklist to help them identify small-step tasks to feel less overwhelmed, review their goals (Describe the best social interactions you had this week), and problem-solve. (You think you left your I.D. on the campus bus. What steps will you take to find or replace it?)But even with support, these students often need extra time to graduate. Indeed, many do not make it that far. Some crumble under academic and organizational stress. Others succumb to campus allures like alcohol and drugs.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesAnd others are expelled on sexual harassment grounds. They are so eager to fit in that they may, for example, comply with the demands of a bully who says, Ill be your friend and go to dinner with you every night next week if you kiss that girl, said Jane Thierfeld Brown, who consults with families and colleges about supporting students on the spectrum.But with support, there are also those, like Ryan Hodges, who surpass expectations.Mr. Hodges received his diagnosis at age 4. In high school did we know hed go to college? No, said his father, Jeff, a Nashville businessman. Did we hope? Yes.They set their sights on W.K.U. because of the program. Now 23, Ryan has grown immeasurably in social confidence, his father said, and is on track to graduate at the end of this semester.Whether they are prepared for the next transition remains an open question. Most programs do not keep tabs on their students after graduation.Despite the career coaching offered for Kelly students, some still cannot present themselves well in job interviews. Living at home again, unemployed, they may regress.The goal is not necessarily a college degree but becoming an independent, successful adult, Dr. Brown said. And a bachelors degree doesnt guarantee that.Still, many graduates from Western Kentuckys program are employed. Mrs. McMaine-Render, who stays in touch with some through social media, mentions one who works in film, others in technology, some in retail, and another who is applying for graduate school in physics.What about their social lives?Mrs. McMaine-Render paused and looked at her lap. Sometimes Im too scared to ask, she said.ImageCredit...Mark Makela for The New York TimesThe Supercenter ChallengeAlways with an eye toward life after college, the program encourages students to learn practical skills.Hence Western Kentuckys weekly trip to Walmart.One recent Friday afternoon, Mrs. McMaine-Render drove seven students in the programs van, which resounded with cheerful non sequiturs.I dont mean to be rude but could you not talk now? one student told another. Your voice is very loud in my head!Mrs. McMaine-Render pulled into the parking lot and nudged the students out of the van. They ambled toward the store, blithely indifferent to incessantly roaming cars. Then she waved and drove off, leaving them to tackle the Walmart Supercenter on their own.In a frenzy, the group scattered. Some boys barreled up and down aisles, flinging items at random into their clattering shopping carts. Essentials: Twix. Strawberry Twizzlers. Doughnuts. Frosted cookies. Six-packs of Coke. Slippers. Napkins. Pokmon cards. More Pokmon cards.One boy decided he wanted to reheat chicken wings in his dorm. He needed a baking tin. But that meant locating the cookware aisle. Which meant finding an employee, then asking for directions. Scary!Checking out was another challenge. For the students entire lives, their purchases had been paid for by adults. Now they were peering at register totals, fumbling for credit cards, swiping and swiping, then attempting the chip system, one way and then the other, forgetting PINs. Over all, they did just fine.They reassembled outside, sweating and smiling, surrounded by the fruits of their considerable shopping labors.Ms. Ramey, the student mentor, picked them up. On the drive back to school, the students toggled between yakking about their shopping victories and falling silent, drained. Ms. Ramey pulled up to their dorms, one by one.One by one, they unloaded their bags and, without so much as a thank you or even goodbye, set off.Have a good weekend! she kept prompting.Startled, each boy looked back at the car, bewildered. Another missed social cue?Oh, right! Jolted, some remembered to smile, and even to wave farewell. | Health |
Credit...Jim Yungel/NASAMarch 30, 2016For half a century, climate scientists have seen the West Antarctic ice sheet, a remnant of the last ice age, as a sword of Damocles hanging over human civilization.The great ice sheet, larger than Mexico, is thought to be potentially vulnerable to disintegration from a relatively small amount of global warming, and capable of raising the sea level by 12 feet or more should it break up. But researchers long assumed the worst effects would take hundreds if not thousands of years to occur.Now, new research suggests the disaster scenario could play out much sooner.Continued high emissions of heat-trapping gases could launch a disintegration of the ice sheet within decades, according to a study published Wednesday, heaving enough water into the ocean to raise the sea level as much as three feet by the end of this century.With ice melting in other regions, too, the total rise of the sea could reach five or six feet by 2100, the researchers found. That is roughly twice the increase reported as a plausible worst-case scenario by a United Nations panel just three years ago, and so high it would likely provoke a profound crisis within the lifetimes of children being born today.The situation would grow far worse beyond 2100, the researchers found, with the rise of the sea exceeding a pace of a foot per decade by the middle of the 22nd century. Scientists had documented such rates of increase in the geologic past, when far larger ice sheets were collapsing, but most of them had long assumed it would be impossible to reach rates so extreme with the smaller ice sheets of today.We are not saying this is definitely going to happen, said David Pollard, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University and a co-author of the new paper. But I think we are pointing out that theres a danger, and it should receive a lot more attention.The long-term effect would likely be to drown the worlds coastlines, including many of its great cities.New York City is nearly 400 years old; in the worst-case scenario conjured by the research, its chances of surviving another 400 years in anything like its present form would appear to be remote. Miami, New Orleans, London, Venice, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia, are all just as vulnerable as New York, or more so.In principle, coastal defenses could be built to protect the densest cities, but experts believe it will be impossible to do that along all 95,000 miles of the American coastline, meaning that immense areas will most likely have to be abandoned to the rising sea.The new research, published by the journal Nature, is based on improvements in a computerized model of Antarctica and its complex landscape of rocks and glaciers, meant to capture factors newly recognized as imperiling the stability of the ice.The new version of the model allowed the scientists, for the first time, to reproduce high sea levels of the past, such as a climatic period about 125,000 years ago when the seas rose to levels 20 to 30 feet higher than today.That gave them greater confidence in the models ability to project the future sea level, though they acknowledged that they do not yet have an answer that could be called definitive.ImageCredit...Jim Yungel/NASAYou could think of all sorts of ways that we might duck this one, said Richard B. Alley, a leading expert on glacial ice at Pennsylvania State University. Im hopeful that will happen. But given what we know, I dont think we can tell people that were confident of that.Dr. Alley was not an author of the new paper, though it is based in part on his ideas about the stability of glacial ice. Several other scientists not involved in the paper described it as significant, with some of them characterizing it as a milestone in the analysis of huge ice sheets and the risks they pose in a warming world.But those same scientists emphasized that it was a single paper, and unlikely to be the last word on the fate of West Antarctica. The effort to include the newly recognized factors imperiling the ice is still crude, with years of work likely needed to improve the models.Peter U. Clark of Oregon State University helped lead the last effort by a United Nations panel to assess the risks of sea level rise; he was not involved in the new paper. He emphasized that the research, like much previous work, highlighted the urgency of bringing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under control.ImageCredit...NASA, via CorbisDr. Clark described the new work as a really important paper that adds to the growing recognition that in the absence of rapid and strong mitigation of carbon emissions, we are in store for a large sea level rise at rates that may be even faster than has been considered.It was his panel that had estimated an upper limit of three feet or so on the likely sea level rise in the 21st century, while specifically warning that a better understanding of the vulnerability of Antarctic ice could change that estimate.The new research is the work of two scientists who have been at the forefront of ice-sheet modeling for years. They are Robert M. DeConto of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Dr. Pollard, who is a colleague of Dr. Alleys at Penn State.In a lengthy interview on Monday, Dr. DeConto recounted years of frustration. The computer program he had built in a long-running collaboration with Dr. Pollard showed increasing sophistication in its ability to explain the behavior of ice sheets, but it had some trouble analyzing the past.Unless global temperatures were raised to unrealistic levels, the model would not melt enough ice to reproduce the high sea levels known to have occurred in previous periods when either the atmosphere or the ocean was warmer. The ability to reproduce past events is considered a stringent test of the merits of any geological model.We knew something was missing, Dr. DeConto said.The new idea came from Dr. Alley. He urged his colleagues to consider what would happen as a warming climate attacked huge shelves of floating ice that help to protect and buttress the West Antarctic ice sheet.Smaller, nearby ice shelves have already started to disintegrate, most spectacularly in 2002, when an ice shelf the size of Rhode Island, the Larsen B shelf, broke apart in two weeks.The West Antarctic ice sheet sits in a sort of deep bowl that extends far below sea level, and if it loses its protective fringes of floating ice, the result is likely to be the formation of vast, sheer cliffs of ice facing the sea. These will be so high they will become unstable in places, Dr. Alley said in an interview, and the warming atmosphere is likely to encourage melting on their surface in the summer that would weaken them further.The result, Dr. Alley suspected, might be a rapid shrinkage as the unstable cliffs collapsed into the water. Something like this seems to be happening already at several glaciers, including at least two in Greenland, but on a far smaller scale than may be possible in West Antarctica.When Dr. DeConto and Dr. Pollard, drawing on prior work by J. N. Bassis and C. C. Walker, devised some equations to capture this ice-cliff instability, their model produced striking results. In contrast to many prior attempts, it suddenly had no difficulty recreating the high sea levels of past warm periods.The obvious next step was to ask the model what might happen if human society continues to warm the planet by pouring huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.The answer the scientists got is described in their paper in the dry language of science, but it could easily serve as the plot device of a Hollywood disaster movie. They found that West Antarctica, which is already showing disturbing signs of instability, would start to break apart by the 2050s.Vulnerable parts of the higher, colder ice sheet of East Antarctica would eventually fall apart, too, and the result by the year 2500 would be 43 feet of sea level rise from Antarctica alone, with still more water coming from elsewhere, the computer estimated. In some areas, the shoreline would be likely to move inland by miles.The paper published Wednesday does contain some good news. A far more stringent effort to limit emissions of greenhouse gases would stand a fairly good chance of saving West Antarctica from collapse, the scientists found. That aspect of their paper contrasts with other recent studies postulating that a gradual disintegration of West Antarctica may have already become unstoppable.But the recent climate deal negotiated in Paris would not reduce emissions nearly enough to achieve that goal. That deal is to be formally signed by world leaders in a ceremony in New York next month, in a United Nations building that stands directly by the rising water. | science |
Donald Trump Jabs NFL at State of the Union 'Stand for the Anthem!' 1/31/2018 Fox News Donald Trump used the State of the Union to take a not so thinly veiled shot at Colin Kaepernick and the NFL ... telling Americans they should all STAND for the national anthem. Trump was praising 12-year-old Preston Sharp for putting flags on the graves of American military veterans when he pivoted and brought up the anthem. "Prestons reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance and why we proudly STAND for the national anthem!" The line drew a roar from the crowd. Trump smiled and pointed. Of course, Trump's been on a tear against Colin and the NFL for months -- and previously said any player who takes a knee during the anthem should be punished by the league. 9/22/17 FOX News He also referred to a player who kneels as a "son of a bitch" and called for them to fired. | Entertainment |
By studying the relationship among ethnicity, migration history and the digestive systems microbiome, researchers hope to gain insights on health disparities in diverse communities.Credit...Erik Daily/La Crosse Tribune, via Associated PressNov. 8, 2018Bodies that migrate across borders undergo tremendous change. Immediately, feet alight on alien terrain, ears channel novel sounds and noses breathe in unfamiliar scents. More gradually, daily routines fall into new rhythms, cultural norms hybridize and dreams evolve. Another transformation occurs deep within the body, two recent studies from the Netherlands and United States find, as the trillions of microbes that live in the human digestive system shift in composition.While many factors may influence how this change occurs, the studies suggest that scientists should consider individuals migration status and ethnic origin as they aim for clinical interventions based on the gut microbiome. Researchers are trying to understand what governs gut microbial composition, in part because of increasing evidence that the trillions of microorganisms teeming in our guts influence health in myriad ways. Most chronic diseases have been tied to deviations in gut microbiome, though the specifics of cause and effect still need to be parsed out. [Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]The first study, published in Nature Medicine in August, compared the gut microbiomes of adults from Amsterdams six largest ethnic groups. A team led by Mlanie Deschasaux, an epidemiologist at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, assessed stool samples from 2,084 individuals who were ethnically Dutch, Ghanaian, Moroccan, Turkish, African Surinamese or South Asian Surinamese. Most of the non-Dutch participants had immigrated to the Netherlands as adults. Between ethnic groups, the researchers discovered significant differences in overall gut microbe composition. Of the various factors studied, ethnicity was the strongest determinant of gut microbial makeup.Across the Atlantic, Pajau Vangay and Dan Knights, of the University of Minnesota, worked with two local communities to study how migration alters the human gut microbiome. They published their results in Cell last week. One community, the Hmong, began arriving in Minnesota in the 1970s as refugees from the CIA-backed Secret War and Vietnam War, which ravaged their communities in Laos. The second group, the Karen, arrived in Minnesota in larger numbers in the past decade, fleeing human rights abuses in Myanmar.Stool samples and other data from more than 500 women revealed that immigrants from these groups began losing their native microbes almost immediately after resettling. They picked up American microbes, but not enough to compensate for the loss of native strains, so they end up losing a substantial amount of diversity overall, Dr. Knights said. Furthermore, losses were greater in obese individuals and children of immigrants.Dr. Vangay, a second-generation Hmong immigrant, partnered with Kathie Culhane-Pera, a family doctor, to involve Hmong and Karen community researchers. Together with the academics, the community researchers developed the studys design, recruitment methods and strategies for sharing results.ImageCredit...Pajau VangaySeparately, advisory boards of Hmong and Karen health professionals and community leaders gave input, resulting in a project conducted largely by and for the communities it studied, said Houa Vue-Her, a Hmong advisory board member.The study would not have worked otherwise, she added. Some Hmong with traditional spiritual beliefs might resist giving samples for laboratory testing, for instance, out of fear that it would interfere with reincarnation. Lingering trauma from the wars and the federal governments secrecy might prevent many others from trusting outsiders.The most obvious culprit behind the loss of native gut microbes is diet. Along with native gut flora, immigrants lost enzymes linked to digesting tamarind, palm, coconuts and other plants commonly eaten in Southeast Asia, the study found. The longer immigrants lived in Minnesota, the more their gut microbiomes shifted to one reflective of a typical American diet high in sugars, fats and protein.But diet alone could not explain all of the changes, Dr. Knights said. Other factors might include antibiotic medications, different birthing practices and other lifestyle changes.Dr. Deschasaux noted that her study and Dr. Vangays reach somewhat contrasting findings. While she found that immigrants maintained ethnic-specific microbiome profiles, even after decades in Amsterdam, Dr. Vangay found that the gut microbiomes of Hmong and Karen immigrants steadily assimilated to their new locale.The divergence might relate to differences in typical Dutch and American diets with perhaps less sugar, fat and meat and more raw vegetables in Dutch diets and possibly lower rates of acculturation by the Dutch immigrants compared with Hmong and Karen refugees, Dr. Deschasaux speculated.Yet both studies have implications for health disparities. Obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome all have been linked to the gut microbiome, and the ethnic groups Dr. Deschasaux studied in Amsterdam experience varying degrees of these conditions. Compared to the ethnic Dutch, for instance, Dutch Moroccans in her study had a higher prevalence of obesity, and South-Asian Surinamese had a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.Similarly, research has shown that living in the United States increases the risk of obesity among immigrants, and Southeast Asian refugees are particularly vulnerable.It was actually a challenge finding participants who fell in the normal range of body mass index for the study, said Mary Xiong, a second-generation Hmong American and a community researcher in the Minnesota project. That opened my eyes about how much of a concern this is.That urgency in part motivated Dr. Vangay and her collaborators to relay their results back to community members.Many of these communities are not even aware that the gut microbiome exists, Dr. Vangay said.In many ways, she added, our best recommendation to community members was to hold onto their roots. For instance, the researchers partnered with Yia Vang, co-founder of Union Kitchen, a Minnesota-based Hmong pop-up restaurant, to hold cooking workshops for the Hmong community. One of the dishes that participants made was zaub qaub, or fermented mustard greens.In addition to being packed with probiotics, zaub qaub is one of the most iconic Hmong dishes, as kimchi is to Koreans, Mr. Vang said. When I eat it, Im partaking in the history of our people. The flavor Im eating is the same flavor my great-great-grandmother ate on the hills of Laos. | Health |
Credit...Justin Lane/European Pressphoto AgencyDec. 4, 2015In a speech to Wall Street investors, the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, reinforced his promise to do all in his power to push Europes stagnating economy toward a full recovery.The address, with its bold language and clearly stated goals, seemed to be an attempt by Mr. Draghi who, perhaps more than any central banker alive, relies on the power of his words to move markets to respond to the disappointing market reaction after the latest stimulus measures he announced on Thursday.Mr. Draghi said there was no particular limit to how we can deploy any of our tools in terms of what the central bank could do to foster demand and, crucially, fulfill its stated goal of lifting inflation to 2 percent.He emphasized, as well, the stimulative effect of the decision to extend the banks program of purchasing about 60 billion euros worth of bonds a month to March 2017 (or beyond) and to reinvest the principal from these securities.That would mean that 680 billion euros in extra cash about 6.5 percent of overall output in the eurozone would be pumped into European capital markets by 2019, he reminded investors.In that regard, Mr. Draghis remarks were reminiscent of a speech he delivered in London in July 2012 also to a room full of investors when he said that the bank was ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.Those words gave people the confidence to plunge back into the market and buy European government bonds in bulk, and they underscored the extent to which Mr. Draghi was willing to take his message directly to investors when he sensed that his monthly news conferences were not doing the trick.This time, however, the situation is different. Unlike in 2012, there is no existential threat to the euro. But after more than a year of stimulus from Mr. Draghi and just the faintest glimmer of an economic recovery, the markets were expecting another powerful jolt from Super Mario, as he is known on trading desks throughout the world.ImageCredit...Lucas Jackson/ReutersOn a panel that followed his talk, the former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, cited those famous words when he asked Mr. Draghi why the markets had not responded to his latest suite of policy actions.Mr. Draghi is the coolest of customers when he is on the public stage, rarely showing emotion in terms of how the markets respond to what he says and does.But this time, he seemed just a little defensive in his response. Mr. Draghi said he had read what his critics were saying and disagreed with their analysis that he was holding back on more aggressive moves for some reason perhaps because of opposition from Germany, which has long resisted so-called quantitative easing.Like central banks everywhere, we have those that dissent, Mr. Draghi said. But the bottom line is that Q.E. is here to stay.Then, in case there was any room for doubt, Mr. Draghi said that the European Central Bank had the power to act and the determination to act and the commitment to act.On the panel, Mr. Draghi also took the opportunity to respond to critics primarily in Germany who contend that his extra-easy policies, and the sharp drop in government borrowing rates they have precipitated, have caused European governments to backtrack on their reform commitments.Low interest rates have no correlation to governments not willing to make reforms, Mr. Draghi said. Does a government, he asked, decide to not go forward with a plan to overhaul its pension or health sector just because rates are low?I dont think so, he opined.He pointed out, too, that countries like Spain and Italy have pushed forward politically difficult labor market reforms at the same time that interest rates remained low.Mr. Draghi did his best to make clear that governments needed to do more in terms of improving their tax policies and regulatory climates for business if a true recovery was to take shape in Europe.Monetary policies cannot achieve everything, he said. | Business |
A New Comet A recently discovered comet made its closest pass to the Earth on Tuesday, at a distance of 52 million miles a little more than half the distance from Earth to the Sun. The comet, known as Comet SWAN but officially named C/2020 F8 (SWAN), is now visible to the naked eye in the Southern hemisphere. Comet SWAN on May 2.Damian Peach An animation of Comet SWAN on April 29.Gerald Rhemann Comet SWANs faint tail on April 17.Gerald Rhemann Finding Comet SWAN The comet was discovered in early April by Michael Mattiazzo, an amateur comet hunter who noticed a faint smudge on images from the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) instrument on the SOHO spacecraft. An early image of the comet by Mr. Mattiazzo showed a greenish halo with a faint tail. Comet SWAN on April 10.Michael Mattiazzo The comet brightened over time and now appears as a white ball moving diagonally across the SWAN images. An animation of SWAN images from late April and early May.NASA and ESA The SOHO spacecraft was launched in 1995 to study the sun and the solar wind, but its images of the sky have led to more than 3,000 comet discoveries. An artists impression of the SOHO spacecraft.NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center Other Recent Comets Last month the Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 30th birthday and captured images of comet ATLAS breaking into fragments. Fragments of comet ATLAS on April 20.NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA), Quanzhi Ye (Univ. of Maryland) And in March a fragment broke off of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, which swung past the sun in December. Comet Borisov in front of a distant spiral galaxy on Nov. 16.NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt | science |
Credit...Erin Schaff for The New York TimesJune 26, 2018WASHINGTON A federal judge in California issued a nationwide injunction late Tuesday temporarily stopping the Trump administration from separating children from their parents at the border and ordered that all families already separated be reunited within 30 days.Judge Dana M. Sabraw of the Federal District Court in San Diego said children under 5 must be reunited with their parents within 14 days, and he ordered that all children must be allowed to talk to their parents within 10 days.The unfortunate reality is that under the present system, migrant children are not accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property, the judge wrote.Judge Sabraws order, which is likely to prompt a high-profile legal battle with the Justice Department, came on the same day that President Trump won a landmark legal victory when the Supreme Court upheld his travel ban, ending a 17-month legal fight.But the judges ruling in the family separation case raises the stakes on an issue that had already become an intensely difficult political crisis for Mr. Trump. The president last week issued an executive order seeking to bring family separations to an end, but saying little about reuniting families.The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a lawsuit to stop the separations before the presidents executive order. In his order, Judge Sabraw said that children may be separated at the border only if the adults with them present an immediate danger to the children.He also said that adults may not be deported from the United States without their children.The facts set forth before the court portray reactive governance responses to address a chaotic circumstance of the governments own making, the judge wrote in the opinion. They belie measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process enshrined in our Constitution. This is particularly so in the treatment of migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers and small children. 24 pages, 1.22 MB In a statement, Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer in the case for the A.C.L.U., hailed the judges order.This is an enormous win and will mean that this humanitarian crisis is coming to an end, Mr. Gelernt said. We hope the Trump administration will not think about appealing when the lives of these little children are at stake.The A.C.L.U. lawsuit was initially brought on behalf of two cases in which the children of immigrants were taken from them after they crossed the border.In one case, a woman entered the United States legally at a port of entry, fleeing persecution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The lawsuit says that her 6-year-old daughter was taken from her and sent to a facility in Chicago, where she stayed for nearly five months.In another case, a woman from Brazil, identified as Ms. C, crossed the border illegally with her 14-year-old son, who was separated from her and also sent to a facility in Chicago. The mother and son were apart for nearly eight months, according to the lawsuit.During the five months she was detained, Ms. C. did not see her son, and they spoke on the phone only a handful of times, the lawsuit says. Ms. C. was desperate to be reunited with her son, worried about him constantly and did not know when she would be able to see him.Earlier Tuesday, seventeen states sued Mr. Trump for his administrations practice of separating immigrant parents from their children, saying that the tactic is causing devastating harm, even as a top official said the government was struggling to reunite families fractured by the policy.On a day when Mr. Trump basked publicly in the glow of a victory, with the Supreme Court upholding his travel ban, he faced a new legal challenge to what has emerged as the most controversial piece of his immigration agenda.The states, including Washington, California and New York and joined by the District of Columbia, branded the forcible separation of immigrant families unconstitutional, cruel and unlawful, calling it a violation of the principles of due process and equal protection. They requested that the court halt it and immediately compel the government to reunite parents with their children.The Trump administration says it is trying to do just that, but success has proved vexing. The administration has appeared unprepared for the fallout from its decision to prosecute every immigrant apprehended entering the country without authorization including those who are seeking asylum without exceptions for parents.Even after Mr. Trump reversed course last week and moved to detain migrant parents facing charges of unlawful entry with their children, the challenge of reuniting families already torn apart has morphed into a crisis of its own.Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, told senators on Tuesday that his department which is charged with taking custody of undocumented unaccompanied minors was having trouble figuring out how to care for the children it was holding who had been separated from their parents.Some of them, he said, were in federal custody even though their parents had been sent back to Central America after trying to enter the United States illegally.VideotranscripttranscriptWhat Immigration Detention is Like at Age 14For one teenager who fled violence in El Salvador on his own in 2014, the days he spent in a Texas border detention center were some of the worst of his life. He tells us what it was like.Saul Martinez spent six days at a border patrol detention center in 2014, after a month-long trek from El Salvador. He was part of the surge of children who arrived at the southern border alone, mostly from Central America. And back then, like now, the government wrestled with how to handle thousands of children caught up in the immigration system. We now have an actual humanitarian crisis on the border that only underscores the need to drop the politics and fix our immigration system once and for all. Images like these led to public outcry on the treatment of vulnerable children. But he did tell his story when he testified before members of Congress. The panel wanted to hear why he had come. He wanted to tell them what had happened once he arrived. He remembers the rooms being filled with children and mothers waiting for their names to be called. After six days, he was flown to a shelter in Miami, run by a separate government agency. He says it was very comfortable. And on Mothers Day, he was finally reunited with his mother. Four years later, Saul has a green card, a job and one year left of high school. And there is a new crisis unfolding at the southern border. But for kids like Saul, it feels like history is repeating itself.For one teenager who fled violence in El Salvador on his own in 2014, the days he spent in a Texas border detention center were some of the worst of his life. He tells us what it was like.As to any parent whos deported, the child has independent rights, Mr. Azar said during a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, where his plan to discuss prescription drug pricing was upended by a grilling over the separated families. We often do find, when a parent is deported, that they ask the child to remain separate and remain in this country.Mr. Azar said his department is holding 2,047 separated children, only six fewer than it held last week when Mr. Trump signed the executive order.Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, conceded that the process of reuniting families would be difficult. This is a complex situation, Mr. Shah told CNN in an interview. Our goal is to fully reunite as many families as possible, as quickly as possible.Yet in the lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court in Seattle, the attorneys general for the states noted that Mr. Trumps order last week did not apply to families already broken apart, nor did it prevent the tactic from being used in the future.A top official at Customs and Border Protection said Monday that the agency would cease referring parents traveling with minor children for criminal prosecution in order to keep families together. But White House officials said Monday that the change was temporary and only being carried out because the government would soon run out of space and resources to detain families together.Amid the chaos, the first lady, Melania Trump, who traveled last week to a facility housing undocumented children who had been separated from their parents at the border, has planned another such visit this week, according to a spokeswoman.The president, emboldened by the Supreme Courts validation of the travel ban, continued on Tuesday to rail against immigration laws that afford those fleeing danger and persecution in their home countries the chance to have their asylum claims adjudicated by a judge. If they step on our land, they have judges its insane, Mr. Trump said. He said the United States should adopt stricter laws that send an unmistakable message that only immigrants who have special skills to boost the American economy should be allowed into the country.Its called, Im sorry, you cant come in. You have to go in through a legal process, Mr. Trump said of his approach, during a lunch at the White House with Republican members of Congress. I have to let people come in, but they have to come in through a merit. They have to be people that can love our country and help our country.Vice President Mike Pence, traveling in Brazil, implored would-be immigrants not to attempt to cross the United States border without authorization.Dont risk your lives or the lives of your children by trying to come to the United States on the road run by drug smugglers and human traffickers, Mr. Pence said. If you cant come legally, dont come at all.The lawsuit filed Tuesday took aim at the administrations hostility toward asylum seekers, maintaining that officials at the border were violating the law by turning them away before they could reach a port of entry to lawfully make their claim or, in some cases, before detaining them and taking away their children.By criminalizing the pursuit of asylum, this policy runs counter to established immigration and refugee laws, the lawsuit said.White House officials did not respond to requests for comment about the legal challenge.Yet even as Mr. Trump vented his anger about the current state of immigration laws, his on-again, off-again push for a legislative overhaul of immigration policy appeared headed for defeat. The House was poised to reject a broad immigration bill slated for a vote on Wednesday, a result that is likely to prompt lawmakers in that chamber to shift their focus to narrower legislation meant to ensure that families are kept together at the border.If the broad overhaul fails, it would be the second time in a week that a wide-ranging immigration bill died in the House because of persistent divisions among Republican members and mixed signals from a president who is reluctant to be seen as suffering a defeat. The House voted down a hard-line immigration bill last week, with 41 Republicans joining Democrats in siding against the measure.It was not clear on Tuesday whether the overhaul to be voted on this week a compromise worked out by Republican moderates and conservatives would fare any better.The bill would provide a path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, while keeping migrant families together at the border and providing billions of dollars for Mr. Trumps promised wall on the southern border with Mexico. Democrats are expected to broadly oppose it, and many conservative Republicans are also expected to vote against the measure, which has been criticized from the right as amnesty.Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin reiterated Tuesday that he wants migrant families to be kept together. But he held back from previewing how the House might take action if the broad legislation fails on Wednesday.I want to lean into that vote, Mr. Ryan said, adding, If that doesnt succeed, then well cross that bridge. But the last thing I want to do is undercut a vote on what is a great consensus bill.With the bills defeat all but certain, Republicans in the House appear ready to pursue a narrower measure on the issue of family separation.We want to make sure thats addressed regardless, said Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative members.With the Fourth of July looming, it was not clear how quickly the House might be able to take action on that subject. The chamber is scheduled to finish its work for the week on Thursday and not return until July 10. Senators have also been pursuing stand-alone legislation intended to keep families together.The broader immigration overhaul had first been scheduled for a vote in the House last Thursday. But Republican leaders delayed the vote until Friday, and then pushed it to this week, as they tried to grow its support in the chamber. | Politics |
Credit...NSW Rural Fire Service, via Associated PressMarch 2, 2017Southeastern Australia has suffered through a series of brutal heat waves over the past two months, with temperatures reaching a scorching 113 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts of the state of New South Wales.It was nothing short of awful, said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. In Australia, were used to a little bit of heat. But this was at another level.So Dr. Perkins-Kirkpatrick, who studies climate extremes, did what comes naturally: She looked to see whether there was a link between the heat and human-driven climate change.Her analysis, conducted with a loose-knit group of researchers called World Weather Attribution, was made public on Thursday. Their conclusion was that climate change made maximum temperatures like those seen in January and February at least 10 times more likely than a century ago, before significant greenhouse gas emissions from human activity started warming the planet.Looked at another way, that means that the kind of soaring temperatures expected to occur in New South Wales once every 500 years on average now may occur once every 50 years. What is more, the researchers found that if climate change continued unabated, such maximum temperatures may occur on average every five years.For the overall 2016-17 summer in New South Wales, the researchers say, climate change made the hot average temperatures which set records for the state at least 50 times more likely than in the past.The findings are the latest in what has become a growing field: studies that try to assess the influence of climate change on extreme weather as soon as possible. The idea is to offer scientific analyses of heat waves, floods and other events while people are still talking about them, and to counter the spread of misinformation, intentional or not, about the impact of global warming.Climate scientists have long said that climate change should bring an increase in extreme events like dry spells and heat waves. Because warmth causes more evaporation and warmer air holds more moisture, climate change should also lead to more intense and frequent storms.Studies have shown that these effects are occurring on a broad scale. But the natural variability of weather makes looking at individual events more difficult.World Weather Attribution, which is coordinated by Climate Central, a research organization in Princeton, N.J., is one of a number of groups doing rapid analysis. Among other events, they have looked at flooding in Germany and France last May; high temperatures in the Arctic in November and December; and an usually strong storm that hit northern Britain in 2015.Not all attribution studies have found a climate-change link. In general, studies of heat waves tend to produce the clearest signal of the influence, or not, of global warming.Australian heat waves have been examined in the past, most recently in several studies that showed a clear link between climate change and a period of torrid weather in 2013. David Karoly, a scientist at the University of Melbourne, was involved in one of the studies, which took more than six months to produce.That was considered very rapid at the time, Dr. Karoly said.As a member of World Weather Attribution, Dr. Karoly helped with the study of the recent heat waves, which took about two weeks.A big difference between the two studies is in the use of computer climate models both of the current atmosphere with its greenhouse gas emissions and of a hypothetical atmosphere as if those emissions had never occurred and climate change was not happening.For the older study, as for most attribution studies in the recent past, the models were run over and over again, which took months. The newer, rapid studies use models that have already been run, extracting data as needed. | science |
Baseball|Matsuzaka Says Tanakas Biggest Adjustment May Be to Life in the U.S.https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/sports/baseball/matsuzaka-says-tanakas-biggest-adjustment-may-be-to-life-in-the-us.htmlFeb. 11, 2014PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. About an hour before Masahiro Tanaka was officially introduced on Tuesday as a Yankee, as the next great Japanese import, Daisuke Matsuzaka was asked what advice he would give Tanaka. Essentially, what was his experience like? Matsuzaka paused, sort of smiled, started to talk and paused again. About seven years ago, the Boston Red Sox paid $103 million to bring him to the United States. In his second season, in 2008, he went 18-3. But not much went right after that. Matsuzaka was toiling in the minor leagues last season when the Mets gave him a chance. To get to the Mets spring training camp this year, he flew from Tokyo to Boston and then drove to Florida, accompanied by his interpreter, Jeff Cutler. He had only a minor league contract and a fighting chance to compete for the fifth spot in the Mets rotation. At the beginning, hes going to have to spend a lot of time adjusting and adapting to life over here and baseball over here, Matsuzaka said through Cutler. But as long as hes able to deal with that and overcome those things, I think he is a pitcher that has talent. I think he can have success over here. Matsuzaka added: Baseball wasnt too stressful or too difficult to adjust to. It was more of the things that happened in daily life, the American lifestyle, the cultural aspect of it, just things that were different. It took a little while to get used to and understand.Matsuzaka, 33, said he and Tanaka, 25, were not particularly close, although he said they knew each other from playing together in the World Baseball Classic. Asked about the concern over high pitch counts in Japan Tanaka threw 160 pitches in one game of the Japan Series last year and the potential for injury, Matsuzaka said: I dont believe thats necessarily true. I think some people throw lots and lots and never get injured, and others dont throw at all and get injured. Matsuzaka once again credited the Mets pitching coach, Dan Warthen, for helping him focus on the mound and for a few mechanical adjustments. Matsuzaka posted a 1.37 earned run average over his final four starts last year. | Sports |
Technology|No, there is not evidence that Ginni Thomas paid for buses to bring people to the Capitol siege.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/technology/no-there-is-not-evidence-that-ginni-thomas-paid-for-buses-to-bring-people-to-the-capitol-siege.htmlJan. 11, 2021, 4:13 p.m. ETJan. 11, 2021, 4:13 p.m. ETCredit...Patrick Semansky/Associated PressAn unsubstantiated claim that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a prominent conservative activist, paid for dozens of buses to ferry demonstrators to Washington have proliferated online after a pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol last week.Just three tweets making the claim amassed more than 420,000 retweets and shares. Ms. Thomas did endorse the protests in Facebook posts on Wednesday (she appears to have since deleted her Facebook page) and has previously spread conspiracy theories.Ms. Thomas did not immediately respond to emails and a phone call for comment, but there is no evidence that she funded transportation for the rioters.The rumors may have originated from and mischaracterized a popular tweet from the writer Anne Nelson pointing out that Ms. Thomas is on the advisory board of Turning Point USA, a conservative student group.The founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, said in a since-deleted tweet that Turning Points political action arm and an affiliated group, Students for Trump, were sending more than 80 buses of patriots to D.C. to fight for the president on Jan. 6.While 80 buses was the number that Turning Point Action had committed to funding, Mr. Kirks tweet was ultimately inaccurate as the groups ended up sending just seven buses from New Jersey, North Carolina, and other locations, according to a spokesman for Turning Point.Ms. Thomas did not fund any buses herself, the spokesman said. Ms. Nelson, the author of a book about an influential conservative group whose members include Ms. Thomas, also told The New York Times that the claim that Ms. Thomas paid for buses is far beyond any of the documentation Ive presented.An itinerary provided to The New York Times by Turning Point noted that the buses would arrive at the South Lawn of the White House at 9 a.m. on Jan. 6, and that there was no exact time for the buses to depart because the duration of Mr. Trumps speech was unclear. It did not provide any instructions about joining the march to the Capitol, and Brian Caviness, a student who traveled with the group, was quoted by The Fort Worth Star-Telegram as saying that he did not do so as that wasnt part of the plan. | Tech |
Science|This Week Surfers Will Ride a Wave in the Amazonhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/science/amazon-river-tidal-bore-wave-surfing-pororoca.htmlTrilobitesCredit...Tarso Sarraf/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 14, 2016The beast that river-dwellers have long feared is coming later this week.Its a wave called Pororoca, the great roar, and its low bellow can be heard up to an hour before it arrives. It tumbles in from the ocean and travels up the Amazon on a path of destruction. While the regions residents accept the rivers wrath and start moving their boats and animals, daredevils called bore riders grab their surfboards.This beast that they will ride is called a tidal bore, a wave that flows in from the ocean and propagates to dozens of rivers around the world. Along the Amazon, one of the strongest bore tides brings big waves that travel for miles and seem to last forever, perfect for a long ride.Local legend has it that three mischievous children travel up the Amazon playing practical jokes. But the scientific harbinger of this curse or gift if youre a surfer is that familiar force we call gravity.During new and full moons, when the river is relatively shallow and the ocean tide is high, water flows in from the Atlantic, rather than the other way around. As river and ocean collide, the Amazons flow reverses and a water swell speeds upstream with incredible force.The strongest tidal bores occur on biannual equinoxes in September and March, when the sun, moon and Earth align; their combined gravitational pull brings ocean tides to their peak. A full moon on March 23 combined with the equinox means good news for bore riders like Serginho Laus, a surfer and Pororoca pioneer. He broke records in 2003 for his 33.25-minute, 6.3-mile ride along the pororoca of the Araguari, a river in the Brazilian Amazon basin.Surfing the Amazonian bore tides is dangerous, Mr. Laus says, not only because of their force he compares it to a tsunami but because these rivers carry the blood of a breathing jungle. Youre the stranger in a land of jaguars, crocodiles, snakes, piranhas, parasites and tropical diseases.You cant go alone, he says. You need to have a crew, with boat pilots and locals that know the way of the river.Even if youre not ready to ride, you can attend one of a number of festivals celebrating the Pororoca in Brazil this spring. The most famous is So Domingos do Capim in Para State. But Mr. Laus says he prefers the rawness of the river at Mearim in Maranhao State.We have the real Amazon beside us without cities, without people just us and nature, he said.Dates depend on the moon and are still being announced, but you can learn about a few of the surfing competitions on this Facebook page and website. | science |
What's The Big Frigin' Difference?! 1/20/2018 Don't let these two almost identical images of Jillian Michaels weigh you down ... see if you can workout the differences between these two super similar shots. **HINT -- There are THREE differences in the above photographs!** Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Jillian Michaels Photo Galleries What's The Big Frigin' Difference | Entertainment |
N.F.L.|Athletes Offer Support to Michael Sam on Social Mediahttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/sports/football/athletes-offer-support-to-michael-sam-on-social-media.htmlFeb. 9, 2014Following the news that Michael Sam was poised to become the first publicly gay player in the National Football League, if, as expected, he is chosen in an early round of the N.F.L. draft in May, current and former athletes quickly voiced their support on social media for his decision to come out.His teammates at Missouri, who knew that he was gay before he spoke to The Times, quickly rallied around him.We are a FAMILY. And we support all of our players. Nothing changes. Kentrell Mizzou (@Kentrell_Mizzou) February 10, 2014 Chase Daniel, a Missouri alumnus who is now a quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, added his support:Some N.F.L. players suggested he would be welcome in their locker rooms. Tom Crabtree, a tight end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wrote:Pat McAfee, a punter for the Indianapolis Colts, said:He also won praise from former athletes who have come out. John Amaechi, who in 2007 was the first former N.B.A. player to come out after retiring, said:Esera Tuaolo, who played for five teams in the N.F.L. from 1991 to 1999 and came out in 2002, wrote:Jonathan Martin, the Miami Dolphins offensive tackle who left the team in November because he felt bullied in the locker room, offered his respect:Malcolm Smith, the Super Bowl M.V.P. linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks wrote:Jason Collins, a reserve basketball player who came out in 2013 but was not signed by a N.B.A team, wrote: | Sports |
March 1, 2017WASHINGTON Russian aircraft mistakenly bombed Syrian Arab fighters who were being trained by the United States, the commander of the American-led operation in Iraq and Syria said Wednesday. American advisers were about three miles away when the Russian strike occurred.The episode pointed to the risk of unintended clashes among the myriad forces operating on a fluid battlefield in Syria, as the American command looks toward the fight to retake Raqqa, the Islamic States de facto capital in the country.Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who commands the American-led task force that is fighting the militants in Iraq and Syria, said the strike by Russian and Syrian government planes led to casualties among the Syrian fighters, but he declined to say how many were hurt or if any were killed.He added that the Russian attack appeared to have been a mistake: The Russian military thought it was bombing villages held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, when in fact they were recently occupied by Syrian Arab fighters.We had some Russian aircraft and regime aircraft bomb some villages that I believe they thought were held by ISIS, General Townsend said in a video news conference with reporters at the Pentagon. Actually on the ground were some of our Syrian Arab coalition forces.ImageCredit...Ali Abdul Hassan/Associated PressA spokesman for the American-led command in Baghdad said that the Russian airstrikes took place about 10 miles southwest of Manbij. The Russian bombing stopped after American military officers at the air war command in Qatar called their Russian counterparts in Syria.In Moscow, the Defense Ministry asserted that the United States had provided the coordinates of American-backed forces in northern Syria before the airstrikes and that Russian and Syria warplanes had not struck any areas that had been properly designated.No airstrikes were carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft in areas designated by the U.S., the ministry said in a statement.The battlefield in northern Syria is crowded with a diverse array of forces near Al Bab, including Turkish-backed Syrian militias, Syrian government forces, Kurdish and Arab fighters backed by the United States, and ISIS militants.Around Al Bab, all the forces that are acting in Syria have converged literally within hand-grenade range of one another, General Townsend said.There has been a similar convergence of forces to the east where Syrian government forces have advanced to the point where they are within rifle range of Syrian Arab fighters backed by the United States who are defending the area around Manbij, the general added.Its very difficult and complicated, he said.General Townsend said the United States was encouraging all sides to focus on the fight against the Islamic State and not let tensions among groups divert them from the need to take Raqqa.Thats what we ought to keep our efforts focused on and not fighting deliberately or accidentally with one another, he said.This is the second time in recent weeks that there has been an episode of so-called friendly fire involving the Russians. Last month, Russian fighters mistakenly bombed Turkish soldiers near Al Bab.The Russian airstrikes also raise the question of whether the American military needs to broaden its dialogue with Russian commanders over operations in Syria. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met last month in Azerbaijan with Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian general staff. It was their first meeting and the discussion included how to enhance communications, the Pentagon said.Discussing the fighting in Iraq, General Townsend also said that some low-level Islamic State fighters had sought to escape from Mosul disguised as civilians, but that they had been detained.He said that there were 12,000 to 15,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, some 2,000 of them in western Mosul and in and around the nearby town of Tal Afar.Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has presented the White House with his recommendations on how to step up the military campaign against ISIS, which President Trump vowed to demolish and destroy in his address to Congress on Tuesday.General Townsend suggested that he did not foresee the United States bringing in large numbers of coalition troops to help with Iraq and the assault on Raqqa. | World |
The Week AheadDec. 20, 2015Heres what to expect in the coming week in business news.Drone Registration Begins ImageCredit...Rick Bowmer/Associated PressDrone pilots, start your web browsers. The Federal Aviation Administration plans to open a website Monday for its mandatory registration program, aimed at improving safety by making people more accountable for their use of remote-control flying machines.Owners will be required to submit their names, home addresses and email addresses to a national database, and to put a registration number on drones weighing from half a pound to 55 pounds. An owner of a drone before Monday will have until Feb. 19 to register. Anyone who gets a drone after the website opens will have to register before its first flight. Cecilia Kang_____Third-Quarter Growth The Department of Commerce will release its third and final estimate of economic growth in the third quarter at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. Wall Street is expecting a slight downward revision in the pace of expansion for the period of July, August and September.Reported growth is expected to fall to 1.9 percent from an earlier estimate of 2.1 percent. The downshift is most likely because of inventory adjustments on the part of businesses as well as fewer services purchases by consumers. Nelson D. Schwartz_____Nikes EarningsNike, one of a shrinking number of star performers in the world of retailing, is expected to report earnings on Tuesday, and analysts expect another solid quarter of growth. Nike is not entirely immune from the slumping mall traffic and sluggish holiday sales afflicting its peers.But high demand for its athletic shoes and clothes, and a strong e-commerce business, have helped set Nike apart. Analysts expect Nikes earnings to be about 85 cents per share, compared with 74 cents for the same quarter last year. Hiroko Tabuchi_____New-Home Sales ReportImageCredit...Mike Blake/ReutersThe Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are scheduled to report the latest data on November new-home sales at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Economists are expecting a slight increase in sales, which are running at an annual rate of about 500,000.New-home purchases tend to be volatile, and economists are watching for any sign that the recent rate increase by the Federal Reserve will eventually affect the real estate market. But with unemployment still falling and wages beginning to rise in some sectors, the real estate business is expected to remain fairly robust. Nelson D. Schwartz_____Closing Early for ChristmasTraders around the world will wrap up business early on Thursday, ahead of the Christmas holiday. In the United States, major stock markets will close at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and bond trading is expected to shut down at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Many markets in Europe also close early for Christmas Eve. Jesse Pesta_____Battling for Theater ScreensImageCredit...Mike Segar/ReutersWith most schools on holiday break and families looking for activities to entertain themselves, Hollywood kicks into overdrive. Seven major movies will arrive in theaters in the coming days or expand into wide release: Concussion, with Will Smith, above, Daddys Home, Joy, Point Break, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant and The Big Short.Last year at this time, American Sniper became a juggernaut. But a year ago, there was no Star Wars: The Force Awakens taking up theater space. As a result, a brawl has broken out among studios and directors over screens because there will not be room for everything. Movies like Concussion, a drama about football-related brain injuries, and Point Break, a remake of the 1991 crime thriller, may have to prove their appeal quickly or lose screens. Brooks Barnes_____Data on Japanese EconomyImageCredit...Yuya Shino/ReutersJapans economy has been known to throw feints at statisticians. Last month, the country appeared to be in recession, until new data caused government analysts to change their minds a few weeks later. Fresh numbers are due on Friday, but it is unlikely that they will make the economys direction much clearer. The unemployment rate, now at a two-decade low of 3.1 percent, is expected to remain at or near that level.An unwelcome three-month decline in core consumer prices most likely came to an end in November, with prices flat or up slightly, according to predictions by private sector economists. But consumers still seem defensive: Household spending is expected to have dropped by more than 2 percent in November, the third consecutive month of decline. Jonathan Soble | Business |
Credit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2014EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. Confetti cannons boomed around Peyton Manning after Seattles 43-8 dismantling of Denver last Sunday at MetLife Stadium, and he sought out Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson to congratulate him on the stunningly lopsided Super Bowl triumph.At 37, Manning, a five-time most valuable player, had failed to cap off the greatest season by a quarterback in N.F.L. history. Wilson had just become the first champion from the new guard of athletic, mobile quarterbacks that includes Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III and Andrew Luck.A passing of the torch from the classic pocket passer to the fleet-footed quarterback?No way, insisted John Elway, the Broncos executive vice president for football operations.Well, Joe Flaccos a pocket guy and he won it last year, right? Elway said. And Colin Kaepernick was the guy that ran around last year. So, last year, the pocket guy won it. This year, the runaround guy won it. So, to me, thats your answer. The bottom line was the way Seattle played.Joe Theismann, who was the Redskins quarterback when they won the Super Bowl in 1983, could not agree more.We certainly have some young, athletic quarterbacks in this league, but if you look at the guys who have won it Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning theyre not move-around guys, Theismann said. Even Aaron Rodgers, who has tremendous athletic skills when it comes to moving around, throws out of the pocket.To have any longevity as a professional quarterback, you must develop your skills to be able to throw out of the pocket. Otherwise, you take too many hits. Now, if you have athleticism like Russell Wilson, thats a bonus.Wilson does not tuck the ball looking to run but to find passing lanes because at 5 feet 11 inches, he cannot always see over his hulking linemen.To me, this game boiled down to two facts: turnovers and Denvers five guys up front could not block Seattles four guys up front, Theismann said. You have to give Seattle defensively all the credit in the world to be able to rush four and move Peyton and drop seven and cover their routes.Other than that, I think to make a general statement of the quarterback position being a non-dropback position or a passing of the torch, I just dont see it. You have to be able to throw the ball effectively from the pocket to be able to capitalize on all the rules that exist.What the Seahawks provided the league more than a changing of the guard was a blueprint on how defenses can finally turn the tide on the pass happiness that has engulfed the N.F.L. for so long.Denver scored a record 606 points in 2013 and Manning set a slew of records, including 55 touchdown passes. But the most productive scoring machine in N.F.L. history sputtered against Seattles stifling defense.ImageCredit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesIt was not as if Wilson beat them.Sure, he made some third-down conversions, but his two touchdown passes came when the game was already a runaway. Seattle also scored on a safety, two field goals, an interception return, a kickoff return and a run by Marshawn Lynch.That is the point: the Seahawks never intended for Wilson to be the fulcrum of their team. They are built around their defense and ground game. Wilsons Super Bowl line was impressive: 18 of 25 for 206 yards, 2 touchdown passes, no interceptions.Russell is not a stats guy, Seahawks General Manager John Schneider said. Its all about winning games. Russell is a guy that tilts the field. So it was pretty evident the way the field was tilted, and hes just a guy who is in command all the time.The Seahawks strategy was to contain the Broncos vaunted short passing game predicated on their trademark pick plays that allowed them to gain so many yards after the catch.They gladly let Manning set a Super Bowl record with 34 completions, but they held his highly productive receivers to just 8.24 yards a catch, the third-worst mark in Super Bowl history, according to Stats L.L.C.What Richard Sherman and the rest of Seattles cornerbacks did was backpedal whenever they saw Denvers receivers bunched up, thus preventing receivers from running interference for one another by taking out a cornerback. When the play unfolded, the cornerbacks would rush up to make the tackle.When I step back and I look at this football game, No. 1, the officials did what I thought they were going to let them do and that was let them play football, Theismann said of the defensive backs being allowed to play aggressively. No. 2, I didnt think Denvers offensive line was capable of blocking Seattles front four. Thats why I picked Seattle in the game.And thats really not a reflection on Peyton Manning. Its not a reflection on the drop-back skills. What Peyton Manning did all year was mask the problems and the injuries that Denver had on its football team. Thats what he did. Thats how great he is.Expect other teams to try to emulate the Seahawks in 2014, but it will not be easy, Theismann said, because you can count on one hand the teams that can put pressure on somebody the way Seattle can.Cincinnati, St. Louis, Arizona, San Francisco, New Orleans and Carolina could. And most are in the N.F.C. and all of Seattles division opponents are in that group, which will make the Seahawks title defense especially difficult.The Broncos were also built to punish passers, but five defensive starters were in street clothes for the Super Bowl, including Von Miller.They will count themselves a championship contender again if they regain their health and pair a dominant defense with Mannings offense. They have tweaks to make but certainly no makeover.This team scored 606 points, Elway said. There are a lot of good things about this offense. Obviously, theres some things we can do. Well learn from this. | Sports |
Credit...Provided by the Schultz familyMarch 5, 2016Dr. Myron G. Schultz, whose detection of a cluster of pneumonia cases in the early 1980s helped public health officials identify the AIDS epidemic, died on Feb. 19 in Atlanta. He was 81.The cause was pulmonary hypertension, his wife, Selma, said.Dr. Schultz, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, created the Parasitic Diseases Drug Service to provide physicians with medicines to treat rare illnesses. One was pentamidine. Prescribed for patients with African sleeping sickness, it was also made available to treat patients with pneumocystis pneumonia in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when few alternatives were available.In August 1981, because we were providing pentamidine, cases of pneumocystis in adult males quickly came to our attention, and that was the opening salvo for the AIDS epidemic, Dr. Schultz recalled in 2012 in an interview with The Global Health Chronicles, a journal published jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Emory University.Dr. Schultz, who was known as Mike, was the director of parasitic diseases in the Division of Epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control. He also founded the travelers health unit and developed a brochure called Health Information for International Travel now known as the Yellow Book to advise international travelers about health risks.Myron Gilbert Schultz was born in the Bronx on Jan. 6, 1935, the son of Everett and Ruth Schultz. His father was a diamond setter. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, Cornell Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine and Albany Medical College. He was working as the track veterinarian at Saratoga Raceway in upstate New York when he decided that he would rather practice on humans.I had a unique life, he recalled in the 2012 interview. I would work at the racetrack in the evening and then go and deliver babies at the hospital.In addition to his wife, the former Selma Rosenthal, he is survived by their daughter, Naomi Mass; their son, Dr. Joseph Schultz; a sister, Faith Zubaski; 13 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.Dr. Schultzs curiosity took him beyond the scores of field investigations he supervised. He once theorized how Robert Louis Stevenson was able to complete two versions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in six days and six nights (he burned the first) without rest and yet remain untired.I found a notation from Stevensons stepson that his mother, Fanny Osbourne-Stevenson, was an avid reader of The Lancet, in order to find anything that might help her husband, Dr. Schultz said, referring to the venerable medical journal. And sure enough, six weeks before Stevenson wrote Jekyll and Hyde, there was a paper in The Lancet about how good cocaine is for laryngeal disorder, he continued. To top it off further, when it was all done weeks afterward, Stevenson said: Well, I didnt write it. My brownies wrote it for me. | Health |
Personal Tech|Making an Android Tablet Easier to Readhttps://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/technology/personaltech/making-an-android-tablet-easier-to-read.htmlFeb. 21, 2014Q. The seven-inch Nexus tablet itself is just big enough, but I find the type too small. Is it possible to increase the size of the text on the screen?A. You should have your choice of a few preset text sizes on the Nexus 7. On a tablet running Android 4.4 (the KitKat version of the operating system), open the Settings icon from the Apps screen. As an alternative, you can swipe down from the top right corner of the screen to open the Quick Settings box and then tap the Settings icon.On the Settings screen, in the Device area, tap Display. In the list of Display settings, tap Font Size. Here, you can move from the default Normal and switch to Large or even Huge to increase the screen text size for apps and menus on the tablet. For those who find the normal text size too big, the Font Size options also include a Small option.Changing a Wi-Fi Networks NameQ. How do I change the default name of my home wireless network from my Mac? The network is running from an Apple AirPort Extreme.A. Changing the wireless networks name to something less generic is a good idea for general security and can be done by logging into the router. As with all of Apples AirPort base stations, you can get into the settings through the AirPort Utility program.If you set up the network yourself, you should already have a copy of the software in your Applications or Programs folder; OS X usually deposits the AirPort Utility inside the Utilities folder that is within the Macs Applications folder. The AirPort Utility software for Mac and Windows can also be downloaded from Apples support site. (An app version for iOS devices is also available.)On the Mac, open the AirPort Utility program. In the window that appears, click the icon for your AirPort Extreme router and then click the Edit button in the box that pops up. Type in the password you picked when you first set up the base station to get into the settings. Click the Wireless tab at the top of the settings window, and in the Wireless Network Name box, type in a new name for your network. In this same settings area, you also have the option to change the password needed to use the network. Click the Update button when finished.If you have forgotten the password for the base station, you can perform a soft reset to temporarily disable the security so you can pick a new password. Apples site has instructions for resetting its AirPort hardware, as well as recommended settings for Wi-Fi network names and other AirPort security options. | Tech |
As Georgians Prepare to Vote, Trump Interference Draws RebukeA top election official condemned President Trumps baseless attacks on voting integrity, as the president and Joe Biden rallied support for their candidates in the crucial Senate runoffs.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 4, 2021[Heres what you need to know about President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s Inauguration Day.]ATLANTA On the eve of Georgias high-stakes Senate runoffs, a top state election official on Monday delivered a stinging condemnation of President Trump over his false claims of voter fraud, and issued an emotional appeal to Georgians to ignore the presidents disinformation and cast their ballots on Tuesday in a race that will determine control of the Senate.The official, Gabriel Sterling, ticked off a point-by-point rebuttal of Mr. Trumps grievances about his loss in Georgia to Joseph R. Biden Jr., which the president aired most recently over the weekend in a phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican. Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Raffensperger during the conversation to find votes to overturn his general election loss.I wanted to scream, Mr. Sterling said at an afternoon news conference, referring to his reaction to the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Raffensperger. Mr. Sterling, the states voting system implementation manager, said the presidents allegations of fraud had been thoroughly debunked.I personally found it to be something that was not normal, out of place, and nobody I know who would be president would do something like that to a secretary of state.VideotranscripttranscriptEverybodys Vote Did Count, Top Georgia Election Official SaysGabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia, delivered a scathing refutation on Monday of President Trumps false claims of voter fraud.The secretary wants me to make clear that everybodys vote is going to count. Everybodys vote did count. I want to make that abundantly clear. If you care about, you know, the values and direction of the nation you want to see, it is your obligation to turn out and vote tomorrow be you a Democrat or Republican. However right now, given the nature of the presidents statements and several other people who have been aligned with him previously, have literally had a rally saying protest and dont vote, we are specifically asking you and telling you, please turn out and vote tomorrow. The presidents legal team had the entire tape. They watched the entire tape, and from our point of view, intentionally misled the State Senate, voters and the people in the United States about this. It was intentional. It was obvious, and anybody watching this knows that anyone watching it knows that. Thats why we released the entire tape for people to watch. Weve seen nothing in our investigations of any of these data claims that shows there are nearly enough ballots to change the outcome. And the secretary and I at this podium have said since Nov. 3, there is illegal voting in every single election in the history of mankind because there are human beings involved in the process. Its going to happen. Its a question of limiting it and putting as many safeguards as you can in place to make sure it doesnt happen.Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia, delivered a scathing refutation on Monday of President Trumps false claims of voter fraud.CreditCredit...Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockHis sharp rebuke offered the most vivid example of how Mr. Trumps sustained assault on Georgias voting integrity has roiled the states politics ahead of Tuesdays runoffs. Even as Mr. Trump prepared to campaign in Northwest Georgia on Monday night for the two Republican incumbents, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, party officials worried that his unfounded claims of a rigged election would depress turnout among their base.The president and Mr. Biden were making last-ditch efforts to sway the outcome of the two runoff races that decide not just which party will control the Senate but the arc of Mr. Bidens first-term policy agenda. If the two Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, both win, Democrats will control the White House and both chambers of Congress.At his rally Monday night in Dalton, in northwest Georgia, Mr. Trump recycled his baseless claims that he was the victim of electoral fraud, and he promised to fight on. That was a rigged election, but were still fighting, and youre going to see whats going to happen, he said. Mr. Trump also called Tuesdays vote one of the most important runoff elections in the history of our country, and praised Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler.The Democrats were trying to steal the White House, he told the crowd, so they could not afford to let them steal the Senate.He repeated his bogus assertion that he won by a landslide and said that he hoped Vice President Mike Pence comes through for us, an allusion to Mr. Pences role presiding over Congress when it meets to certify Mr. Bidens victory on Wednesday. Hes a great guy, he said of Mr. Pence. Of course, if he doesnt come through I wont like him quite as much.Sweeping into Atlanta late Monday afternoon, Mr. Biden made no direct mention of Mr. Trumps telephone call but did obliquely criticize the presidents strongman tactics.Addressing a few hundred supporters splayed out on the hoods and roofs of their cars in a downtown parking lot, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump was absorbing a harsh lesson in democracy.As our opposition friends are finding out, all power flows from the people, said the president-elect, adding that politicians cannot seize power.ImageCredit...Pete Marovich for The New York TimesClad in a black mask emblazoned with the word VOTE, Mr. Biden encouraged the multiracial audience of Georgians to do just that.Its not hyperbole, you can change America, he said.That was the heart of Mr. Sterlings message as well as he implored voters to head to the polls on Tuesday. If youre a Georgia voter, if you want your values reflected by your elected officials, I strongly beg and encourage you, go vote tomorrow, he said. Do not let anybody discourage you. Do not self-suppress your own vote.Hours before Mr. Trumps appearance in Dalton, many of his die-hard supporters defended his phone call to Mr. Raffensperger.Neal Fitzgibbons, of Kennesaw, said the president just wanted the secretary of state to look really closely at all the irregularities we saw.Mr. Fitzgibbons cited many of the same debunked claims that the president made.Things were questionable, if not downright thievery, and should be looked at, he said.The visits by Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump ratcheted up the intensity in races that have already become the most expensive Senate contests in U.S. history. Including the campaigning before the runoff, more than $469 million has been spent in the Perdue-Ossoff contest, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and more than $362 million has been spent in the Loeffler-Warnock race.As they have throughout the race, Republicans continued to warn on Monday of a dire slide into a hard-left socialism if Democrats gain control of both Congress and the White House.And Democrats are making the case that Mr. Trump sought nothing less than to nullify the will of the electorate and undermine Democracy with his call to Mr. Raffensperger.Earlier in the day, Mr. Pence amplified the Republican message in a visit to a megachurch in the central Georgia city of Milner.Standing before an image of an American flag and twin screens that declared, DEFEND THE MAJORITY, Mr. Pence said, We need Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to get in the way of the radical left agenda in Washington, D.C., as the crowd broke in with chants of both Four more years and Stop the steal.Mr. Pence did not mention the presidents phone call on Saturday to Mr. Raffensperger, which was first reported by The Washington Post. A number of legal scholars said that the president may have violated state and local laws, although they also said that pursuit of criminal prosecutions would be unlikely.ImageCredit...Nicole Craine for The New York TimesNonetheless, Georgia elections officials on Monday had received at least two formal calls for investigations into whether Mr. Trump had violated state laws.In an appearance on Monday in Conyers, a suburb east of Atlanta, Mr. Ossoff, the head of a video production company who is challenging Mr. Perdue, sought to draw parallels between Mr. Trumps phone call and Georgias long history of voter suppression and disenfranchisement.The president of the United States on the phone trying to intimidate Georgias election officials to throw out your votes, Mr. Ossoff said to a gathering of volunteers preparing to go canvassing. Lets send a message: Dont come down to Georgia and try to mess with our voting rights.Among rank-and-file Democrats, the presidents phone call only added to their anger and their desire to push the senators who have so closely aligned themselves with Mr. Trump out of office.Hillary Drummond Simpson, a retired elementary and middle schoolteacher, said that she was left puzzled by the support that the president still had. I dont get it, she said. I dont understand what they are looking for in a leader.ImageCredit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesVerdaillia Turner, who was in Conyers to help with canvassing, said she thought the presidents strong-arm tactic might help Democrats build momentum. Its like a perfect, beautiful storm, and all eyes are on us, said Ms. Turner, the president of the Georgia Federation of Teachers.Ms. Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman facing off against Mr. Warnock, deflected questions about Mr. Trump and his phone call as she campaigned around the state before heading to join the president Monday night. My sole focus is on tomorrow, Jan. 5, she said at an Atlanta-area airport.At the rally Monday night, and earlier in a tweet, Ms. Loeffler said that she would join the dozen or so U.S. senators on Wednesday to vote against the certification of the election results granting Mr. Bidens victory.Mr. Perdue, who has been quarantined because of a possible exposure to the coronavirus, appeared Sunday night on a Fox News program where he said that he did not think the presidents pressure campaign on Mr. Raffensperger would affect the election.Mr. Perdue blamed Mr. Raffensperger for the leaked recording of the one-hour conversation.He also defended Mr. Trumps assertions about electoral fraud. What the president said is exactly what hes been saying the last few months, and that is, the last two months anyway, weve had some irregularities in the election in November and he wants some answers. He has not gotten them yet from the secretary of state.Though Georgia has suffered a number of problems administering elections of late, with long lines, delayed results and technical glitches, some elections officials expressed confidence that Tuesdays election would go smoothly.Officials in Fulton County said that 370,000 ballots had already been cast there. While not specifically mentioning Mr. Trump, the Fulton County elections director, Richard Barron, addressed an audio recording late yesterday in which Fulton County was mentioned more than a dozen times.In the tape, Mr. Trump made a number of claims about election fraud by Fulton County, including allegations of what he called ballot stuffing. Mr. Raffenspergers office said those claims were investigated and rejected as unfounded.Theres been a great deal of misinformation out there, Mr. Barron said. We dont have the resources to respond to each one of them. And weve been focusing on preparing for tomorrow and conducting the election legally and fairly.ImageCredit...Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesAt his news conference, Mr. Sterling spent some time going through numerous individual false claims made by the president or his lawyers. They have claimed that thousands of votes were cast in Georgia by people who were under 18, werent registered to vote, registered late or registered with a post office box instead of a residential address. The secretary of states office investigated the claims, Mr. Sterling said, and did not find a single ballot cast by anyone in any of those categories.He added that Mr. Raffensperger does not have a brother named Ron who works for a Chinese technology company, as one of the conspiracies retweeted by the president claims.In fact, Mr. Sterling said, Mr. Raffensperger does not have a brother named Ron at all.Richard Fausset and Rick Rojas reported from Atlanta, and Maggie Astor from New York. Reporting was contributed by Astead W. Herndon from Dalton, Ga., and Stephanie Saul and Shane Goldmacher from New York. | Politics |
Credit...Josh Haner/The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia Sarka Pancochova, a Czech snowboarder, led the slopestyle event after the first run. On her second trip down the course of obstacles and jumps, she flew through the air, performed a high-arcing, spinning trick and smacked her head upon landing. Her limp body spun like a propeller into the gully between jumps and slid to a stop.Pancochova was soon on her feet, and the uneasy crowd cheered. Her helmet was cracked nearly in half, back to front.She was one of the lucky ones, seemingly O.K., but her crash last week was indicative of a bigger issue: a messy collage of violent wipeouts at these Olympics. Most of the accidents have occurred at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, the site of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events like halfpipe, slopestyle and moguls.And most of the injuries have been sustained by women.Through Monday night, a review of the events at the Extreme Park counted at least 22 accidents that forced athletes out of the competition or, if on their final run, required medical attention. Of those, 16 involved women. The proportion of injuries to women is greater than it appears given that the mens fields are generally larger.The question, a difficult one, is why.The Winter Games have always had dangerous events. But the Extreme Park, as the name suggests, is built on the ageless allure of danger. All of the events there have been added to the Olympic docket since 1992, each a tantalizing cocktail of grace and peril.But unlike some of the time-honored sports of risk, including Alpine skiing, luge and ski jumping, there are few concessions made for women. For both sexes, the walls of the halfpipe are 22 feet tall. The slopestyle course has the same tricky rails and the same huge jumps. The course for ski cross and snowboard cross, a six-person race to the finish over jumps and around icy banked curves, is the same for men and women. The jumps for aerials are the same height. The bumps in moguls play no gender favorites.Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men, said Kim Lamarre of Canada, the bronze medalist in slopestyle skiing, where the competition was delayed a few times by spectacular falls. I think they could do more to make it safer for women.Compare the sports with downhill skiing, in which women have their own course, one that is shorter and less difficult to navigate. Or luge, in which female sliders start lower on the track than the men. Or ski jump, in which women were finally allowed to participate this year, but only on the smaller of the two hills. The Olympics have a history sexist, perhaps of trying to protect women from the perils of some sports.But equality reigns at the Extreme Park, even to the possible detriment of the female participants.J. F. Cusson, ski slopestyle coach for Canada and a former X Games gold medalist, said that his womens team usually did not practice on jumps as large as the ones the men use, for fear of injury.ImageCredit...Associated PressBut when they compete, they have to jump on the same jumps, so they get hurt, he said. Its a big concern of mine.The most serious injury so far was to Maria Komissarova of Russia, who fractured her spine during training for ski cross. The course is longer and has larger jumps than before. It also has room for six racers, where previous Olympics ran heats of four.Its one of the bigger courses, but its not especially unsafe, said Ralph Pfaeffli, coach of Switzerlands ski cross team. It clearly will have some challenge, and we will have to adapt.On the first qualifying run of snowboardings version of the event, in which athletes are timed descending alone, Helene Olafsen of Norway, a medal favorite, wrecked and hurt her knee. Five riders later, Jackie Hernandez of the United States landed sideways and fell backward, sustaining a concussion when her head hit the ground. In the finals, Michela Moioli of Italy crashed, and injured her knee.In moguls, Heidi Kloser of the United States broke her leg and tore knee ligaments, and Seo Jung-hwa of South Korea sustained a concussion. In training for the skiing halfpipe, Rowan Cheshire of Britain was knocked out when she smashed her face on a landing. She left on a stretcher, spent the night in a hospital and posted a photograph on Twitter. In snowboard slopestyle, Merika Enne of Finland, Christy Prior of New Zealand and Kjersti Buaas of Norway were knocked out of the competition, apparently sustaining concussions.On the same course, in ski slopestyle, Yuki Tsubota of Canada cartwheeled violently after a jarring landing, her knee smashing her jaw. It followed the now-familiar progression: a nasty tumble, a huddle of medics and a downhill ride in a stretcher, out of the Olympics.In some of the events, like the halfpipe and moguls, athletes can decide how fast or high they want to go. But in sports like slopestyle, snowboard and ski cross, they have to maintain a certain speed to launch themselves a certain distance to negotiate the course. Slowing down can be just as dangerous as going fast, and few medals are earned with the brakes on.Olympic organizers want to build courses and competitions that are the equal, at least, of the Winter X Games, where men and women compete on the same courses and where most of the Extreme Park events gained wide popularity. But the invitation-only X Games have small fields, often 10 or fewer of the worlds best. The Olympics, by design, want larger fields with a wide cross-section of countries. The drop-off in talent between top athletes and the bottom of the field can be drastic.There were concerns about slope-style, which made its Olympic debut here, from the beginning. Men and women worried aloud about the course during training, complaining mostly about jumps bigger than many had seen before. The American snowboarder Shaun White said the course could be intimidating, and then pulled out of the competition, worried that an injury would spoil his chance to compete in the gentler confines of the halfpipe.Theres a lot of consequence on that course, snowboarder Charles Reid of Canada said.But the men managed to negotiate the slopestyle course with just one Olympic-ending injury. The women had far more difficulty.ImageCredit...Javier Soriano/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesKaya Turski of Canada, a favorite in ski slopestyle, foreshadowed the havoc when she said before the competition that the course was a little scary and unnecessarily risky. She said that a lot of the women had not been on a course anywhere nearly as large and intimidating. The precompetition anxiety was palpable.Its probably the most difficult course weve ever been on, Turski said.She then crashed on each of her two runs in qualifications and finished 19th.The slopestyle course did present options, including two ramps at each of the three big jumps, one slightly smaller than the other. About half the womens field used the smaller jumps in qualifications (none of the men did), and a few of the 12 finalists used the smaller jumps, but that did not prevent injuries.I see it every contest, Cusson said. Unless they are forced to hit the smaller side, the best ones will always go for the bigger jumps. They want to prove to everybody that they are capable. And then all the other girls will follow.While men are now attempting triple flips, women are not to the point of doing doubles. Cusson believes that the smaller jumps are sufficient for the tricks that women are doing. At last years world championships in Norway, Cusson required his team to use the smaller jumps to limit injuries. Some women were upset, afraid that their scores from judges would be lower without the greater risk. But Canada finished first, second and fifth in the competition.If all the girls did it, if they all hit the smaller jump, the problem would be solved, Cusson said.But most women grew up in a time when they view themselves as capable as men.We should be able to showcase our sport on the big jumps, said Devin Logan of the United States, who won a silver medal in ski slopestyle. Logan said she preferred the bigger jumps because they give her more time in the air to perform her tricks, though she appreciates the option that the smaller jumps provide in poor weather or snow conditions. But peer pressure can be an issue, she said.Were all competitive athletes, Logan said. We all want to stand on the podium. If someone is hitting tricks off the bigger jumps, then youre going to want to, too.A day after Pancochovas helmet-splitting accident, she was back on her snowboard.I feel good and Im back at it, she posted on Instagram, with a photograph of herself smiling atop the halfpipe wearing a new helmet.She was not one of the 16 female athletes knocked out of the Olympics at the Extreme Park. She survived her wicked slopestyle fall to compete in halfpipe three nights later.She reached the semifinals, but missed the final after falling on both of her runs. Each time, she stood up and slid away. | Sports |
The China Factor | Part 6Credit...Fatih Akta/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesDec. 25, 2015ANKARA, Turkey As tensions in the Mideast and Ukraine rose in recent years, Turkey moved to jointly manufacture a sophisticated missile defense system. The $3.4 billion plan would have given Turkeys military more firepower and laid the foundation to start exporting missiles.But Turkey abruptly abandoned the plan just weeks ago in the face of strong opposition from its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Their main objection: Turkeys partner, a state-backed Chinese company. Western countries feared a loss of military secrets if Chinese technology were incorporated into Turkeys air defenses.As one of its highest economic and foreign policy goals, China has laid out an extensive vision for close relations with Turkey and dozens of countries that were loosely connected along the Silk Road more than 1,000 years ago by land and seaborne trade.But Beijings effort to revive ancient trade routes, a plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative, is causing geopolitical strains, with countries increasingly worried about becoming too dependent on China.ImageCredit...Hakan Goktepe/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesKazakhstan has limited Chinese investment and immigration for fear of being overwhelmed. Kyrgyzstan has pursued warmer relations with Moscow as a balance to Beijing.With the missile deal, Turkey was turning toward China partly to reduce its reliance on NATO. Our national interest and NATOs may not be the same for some actions, said Ismail Demir, Turkeys under secretary for national defense.But the deal immediately raised red flags in the West.Besides the technology issues, the Chinese supplier, the China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation, was the target of Western sanctions for providing ballistic missile technology to Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. So Turkish exports based on a partnership with China Precision could have also been subject to sanctions.Complicating matters, China and Russia are close allies on many issues. Russia is especially distrusted in Turkey because of its military intervention in Syria and its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. And Turkey had been a close American ally ever since it sent a large contingent of troops to fight North Korea and China during the Korean War.The Chinese missile project was one of the things that really made people say Turkey is shifting, wow, said Mehmet Soylemez, an Asian studies specialist at the Institute for Social and Political Researches, an independent research group in Ankara. China wants to remake the global financial and economic structure.ImageCredit...Ibrahim Erikan/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesWith its wealth and markets, China is a tantalizing partner.Many countries along the former Silk Road are frustrated by the difficulty of developing closer economic ties to the European Union. And they are alarmed that the American-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major regional trade deal, could give an edge to Malaysia and Vietnam.So many years, we have been kept waiting at the edge of the E.U., and people are losing hope, said Sahin Saylik, the general manager of Kirpart Otomotiv, a large Turkish auto parts manufacturer. Turkey is not in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and problems in the Arab world are pushing Turkey to have other alternatives.But the relationship with China is lopsided. Turkey imports $25 billion a year worth of goods from China, while exporting only $3 billion there.In Turkey, stores are full of Chinese goods, from vacuum cleaners to tableware. Chinese companies have purchased coal and marble mines, as well as a 65 percent stake in Turkeys third-largest container port. China is helping build nearly a dozen rail lines, and it is already a military supplier, selling lower-tech battlefield rockets to Turkey.Companies are increasingly turning to China for cost reasons, buying components or importing fully assembled products. Arzum, one of Turkeys best-known appliance manufacturers, did the engineering and marketing for its popular new Okka single-cup Turkish coffee brewers locally. But the brewers are manufactured in southeastern China.Ten years ago, Turkey didnt exactly see the threat of China for manufacturing, said T. Murat Kolbasi, Arzums chairman. The threat has to be changed to the opportunity.Chinese companies can quickly sever ties as well.The state-controlled China Machinery Engineering Corporation abruptly backed out of a $384.6 million deal to buy a 75 percent stake in the electricity grid of Eskisehir and nearby provinces in Turkey. It happened days after national elections in Turkey last June cast uncertainty on the future of the industrys regulations.China Machinery provided no official reason to the Turkish Electricity Distribution Company for canceling the deal. The Chinese company declined to comment.Turkish Electricity, a nationwide grid company, is suing the Chinese company in an effort to collect a breakup fee. Mukremin Cepni, chief executive of Turkish Electricity, said that he had worked 18 months on the Eskisehir deal and was unenthusiastic about any more tie-ups with China.I wont think well of them, because personally I struggled a lot, and their going away without giving any reason exhausted us, said Mr. Cepni.ImageCredit...Byron Smith for The New York TimesEthnic issues have further complicated Chinas relations. Many countries in the region are Muslim, and versions of Turkish are spoken in more than a dozen countries, partly a legacy of the Ottoman Empire.That history has fanned regional tensions over Beijings stringent policies toward the Uighurs, Muslims in Chinas Xinjiang region who speak a Turkic language. Beijing has blamed Uighurs for a series of attacks on Han Chinese from eastern China.When China suppressed Uighur protests in 2009, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister at the time, condemned the actions as a kind of genocide. Last July, Turks and Uighurs held two rounds of protests in Istanbul and Ankara.Now the president of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan is prioritizing ties with China. He calmed the anti-Chinese protests last summer by urging his countrymen to be wary of rumors on social media about Chinas treatment of the Uighurs.Nationalistic Turkish groups like Anatolia Youth, previously outspoken about the Uighurs, have responded by softening their stance toward China. Mahmut Temelli, the chairman of Anatolia Youths foreign relations council, said that he believed that on missiles, the bid should have remained with China.The missiles became an international issue two years ago, when Turkeys defense ministry announced it favored a Chinese bid. It beat out an American offer to sell fully built Patriot missiles, as well as similar deals with Western Europe and Russia.Turkey wanted to churn out missiles, potentially for export in a few years, and to stop relying on NATOs occasional deployments of Patriots. You cannot protect a 911-kilometer border just with Patriots, said Merve Seren, a security specialist at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a pro-government public policy group in Ankara.And Turkeys F-16 fighters, like the two that shot down a Russian warplane in late November, cannot be on patrol continuously, said Mr. Demir, the defense under secretary. Missile systems can be ready around the clock.As the Syrian conflict worsened, NATOs limited supply of Patriot missiles meant that it sent only enough to protect three Turkish cities. NATO had begun to withdraw them when the Russian warplane was shot down.NATOs deployment of air defense systems is on and off, Mr. Demir said, just hours after the the episode with the Russian warplane, videos of which played on the television in the background. I dont know if it gives a message that your partners can rely on.ImageCredit...Byron Smith for The New York TimesBut Turkey had a huge blind spot with the missile project.Turkish military analysts compared a long list of variables, like missile range and the willingness to share technology and manufacturing. The analysis was approved by a committee including the defense minister, generals and Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Demir said.But nobody consulted the foreign ministry on how Turkeys allies would react, partly because NATO had already tolerated Greeces acquisition of Russian air defense missiles from Cyprus. They were informed after the process was completed, Mr. Demir said. It was not treated as a special project that will have a lot of political results.Within days of the announcement about Chinas leading bid, NATO member countries organized a campaign to overturn the decision. President Obama, Western European heads of state and top NATO commanders contacted Turkish leaders.NATO officials have been cautious, saying any country has a right to choose its own equipment. But they have publicly expressed concern that Chinese missiles might not be compatible with NATO equipment and privately that they were loath to share technical details to make compatibility possible.Last month, Turkey opted to go ahead on its own. It will probably subcontract some components to foreign manufacturers, possibly China Precision.An engraved metal plate from China Precision in a polished rosewood box still sat on a shelf outside Mr. Demirs office the morning the Russian warplane was shot down. Hours of negotiating with Chinese arms makers has forged a relationship that will make future military cooperation easier, Mr. Demir said.There is a value, he said, in the time we have spent with these companies. | Business |
The agency approved three Vuse vaping products and said their benefits in helping smokers quit outweighed the risks of hooking youths.Credit...Brian Ach/Associated Press, for R.J. Reynolds Vapor CompanyOct. 12, 2021The Food and Drug Administration for the first time on Tuesday authorized an electronic cigarette to be sold in the United States, a significant turn in one of the most contentious public health debates in decades.In greenlighting a device and tobacco-flavored cartridges marketed by R.J. Reynolds under the brand name Vuse, the agency signaled that it believed that the help certain vaping devices offer smokers to quit traditional cigarettes is more significant than the risks of ensnaring a new generation.The authorized products aerosols are significantly less toxic than combusted cigarettes based on available data, the F.D.A. said in a statement announcing the decision.The statement concluded, The F.D.A. determined that the potential benefit to smokers who switch completely or significantly reduce their cigarette use, would outweigh the risk to youth.The watershed decision could pave the way for authorization of some other electronic cigarettes, including those of the once-dominant maker Juul, to stay on the market. For more than a year, the manufacturers of e-cigarettes have been in a holding pattern most of their products on the market but awaiting official authorization as the F.D.A. has investigated whether they were a benefit or a danger to public health.The importance of the F.D.A. authorizing a vaping product as appropriate for the protection of public health should not be understated, said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, an industry group. He added, Now that the F.D.A. has acted, we are hopeful that adult consumers and health communicators will begin to understand the harm reduction benefits offered by these and other smoke-free products.Over the past few months, as part of its review, the agency has also ordered thousands of vaping products off the market, including a brand that has surpassed Juul as a favorite among teenagers for its fruity and candy flavors, Puff Bars. On Tuesday, it also rejected 10 other Vuse flavored products but declined to say which ones.Condemnation of the decision to authorize some products was swift.This throws young people under the bus, said Erika Sward, national assistant vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association. She said the concern was both with the broader logic endorsing these products and with Vuse, which in the governments most recent survey on youth tobacco use was found to be one of the most popular vaping brands with young people.Vuses owner, R.J. Reynolds, is one of the worlds largest cigarette companies. Another major cigarette company, Altria, owns a 35 percent stake in Juul.Ms. Sward said that an industry that lied about hooking generations on a deadly product that killed millions was now positioned to control the next iteration of the nicotine market. The industry has been waiting for their next big thing and they found it with e-cigarettes, she said.Kaelan Hollon, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American, R.J.R.s parent company, said that the decision represents an important moment for Reynolds and that it showed that the authorized products are appropriate for the protection of the public health.E-cigarettes first came on the American market in the early 2000s as devices designed to give smokers the nicotine fix they craved without the carcinogens that come from burning cigarettes. But about six years ago, with the introduction of Juuls sleek products with fruity and dessert flavors, use of e-cigarettes among teenagers began to soar and public health officials worried that a generation of nonsmokers was becoming hooked on nicotine.Allowing some vaping devices to stay on the market as an alternative to smoking, some public health experts believe, might make it easier for the government to impose more stringent regulation on traditional cigarettes, whose carcinogenic fumes can cause cancer and play a role in more than 400,000 deaths in the United States each year.After resolving the vaping issue, the F.D.A.s tobacco division will push forward on a plan to reduce the amount of nicotine in combustible cigarettes. In its tobacco control strategy, announced in July 2017, the F.D.A. said it would try to force tobacco companies to lower the nicotine in their products to nonaddictive levels. The cigarette industry opposes the move.The F.D.A. is also still working on its plan to eliminate menthol cigarettes from the market, a prospect the tobacco industry is vigorously lobbying against.Clifford Douglas, director of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network, said that the authorization of Vuse was good initial news in terms of the agency making clear its focus on providing well-assessed harm reduction alternatives for adults.This decision makes clear the F.D.A.s scientific understanding that e-cigarettes are intrinsically significantly less hazardous than combustible tobacco products, Mr. Douglas said. And it makes equally clear that these products can be good for the protection of public health, and therefore potentially help millions of addicted adult smokers quit smoking.The specific products granted authorization by the F.D.A. are the Vuse Solo Power Unit, and two tobacco-flavored replacement cartridges, each with around 5 percent nicotine.In its announcement, the F.D.A. said that it was aware of the heavy use of Vuse products by youth but that it was approving tobacco flavors, which are less appealing to teenagers. The agency also said that it was imposing digital, radio and television marketing restrictions, while critics argued that the F.D.A. appeared to leave plenty of room for other marketing that could affect youth.They are just inadequate, said Eric Lindblom, a former F.D.A. tobacco policy official and a senior scholar at Georgetown Laws ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law.He took issue with the restrictions on television advertising, which allow only commercials on shows with a low percentage of teenage users. Mr. Lindblom said that teenagers could still see the Vuse ads, either on television or if they are copied and put on YouTube, as happened with Juul.They are allowing marketing through partners, celebrities and brand ambassadors. This is a real problem, Mr. Lindblom said.Among the key issues that the F.D.A. did not resolve Tuesday was what it plans to do about menthol-flavored e-cigarettes, which critics say appeal to youth and e-cigarette advocates say will help lure current smokers to quit. The agency said it was still evaluating the Vuse application for menthol.Reynolds, in its own statement, said that it could still lawfully sell the products that remain under review. | Health |
Beijing JournalCredit...Gilles Sabri for The New York TimesMarch 19, 2017BEIJING Stepping off a stylish, compact, orange-and-silver bicycle on the sidewalk outside her Beijing office, Cao Dachui kicked down its metal stand and locked the back wheel. Her half mile ride from a nearby subway station cost just 14 cents, and she could leave the bike anywhere.Its so very convenient, Ms. Cao, 27, said as buses and cars roared by, disgorging the stink of gasoline exhaust. Walking to the advertising agency would have taken twice as long. Life has really gotten easier, she said. Her friend Ma Zheng, 23, who was parking his own shared bike, nodded.Beijing was once a city of bikes, the capital of a country known as the Bicycle Kingdom for the millions of two-wheelers that dominated urban transport in a state-planned economy where cars were reserved for official business and the politically powerful. Decades of remarkable economic growth, beginning in the 1990s, led to a huge influx of cars in cities like Beijing, where owning one became not just a marker of reaching the middle class but also practically a prerequisite for marriage. As the economy roared, autos pushed bikes off the roads, creating heavy pollution and miserable traffic.Now, Beijing may be returning to its roots with a modern twist. Thanks to about two dozen technology start-ups, brightly colored shared bikes have flooded Beijing since last year, dotting a normally drab cityscape with flashes of bumblebee yellow, kingfisher blue and tangerine.Beijing commuters have long endured packed buses and airport-style security checks at subways, so many Chinese like Ms. Cao are embracing the shared bikes for the flexibility and freedom they offer. Commuters pick up the bikes and then ride and drop them off anywhere they like, locking the back wheel, with no need to find a stand or retether them, in contrast to city bike programs in Paris or New York.Urban obstruction is nothing new here. Scooters whiz down sidewalks and cars often park randomly, even on crosswalks, giving daily life in Beijing the feeling of a hectic video game. But the bikes strewn around the city like bright candies have taken Beijings chaos to another level, and drivers are particularly upset.ImageCredit...Gilles Sabri for The New York TimesIn the last few months, the bikes have been going crazy. Theyre like monsters occupying the city, said Huang Linwei, 29, a designer who drives to work in Beijing every day from Tongzhou, an eastern suburb. More than once Ive found it difficult to park my car because the bikes are parked all over the place!Others fear for their livelihood. Xu Jianmin, 56, an electric rickshaw driver, said he had made less money transporting commuters since the tens of thousands of bikes began appearing this winter.I know our business is kind of a gray zone, that we are not registered with the government, and of course nobody cares if were affected, Mr. Xu said. But I have to make money.I probably would like the bikes, too, if I had another job, he added.There have also been highly publicized instances of misuse and vandalism. In February, the police detained two nurses at a military hospital in Beijing for five days after they locked bikes with chains to stop others from using them.Angela Cai, a spokeswoman for Ofo, a market leader in bike-sharing in cities across China, said the company was working to address the dumping of bikes in public places. Workers wearing heavy blue coats can now be spotted on side roads in Beijings Chaoyang district, picking up discarded Ofos.This month, the municipal government said it would issue parking, management and maintenance regulations for the bikes by June, and that it expected the companies to cooperate.ImageCredit...Gilles Sabri for The New York TimesRiding the bikes requires only a few taps on a smartphone.Customers download one of the start-ups apps, electronically transfer a deposit and then pay per ride by using a bikes individual code. Bikes that rely on mobile technology feel right at home in a place like Beijing, where even elderly people are often early adapters of technology.Some companies offer booking services and even GPS to enable riders to find the nearest pair of wheels. But it doesnt always work as well as it sounds when I booked a bike recently, I wandered in circles for 10 minutes without finding it. I was at a high-rise mall, and it is possible the bike was parked on a different floor from those I was able to check.Costing as little as 7 cents a half-hour and designed to take people the last leg from public transport to their places of work or entertainment, the bikes have the potential to transform urban living and even shape peoples decisions about where to live and work. Those are vital issues in this sprawl of about 20 million people, many of whom spend hours a day commuting.Having a bike like this might allow me to choose, say, to live a bit further out, or take another job in a place that isnt as easy to get to, said Ms. Cao, the employee at the advertising agency.Analysts in China say there are three factors behind the sudden surge: a lot of cash looking for a home, a good idea and government support.Since March 2015, two industry leaders Mobike and Ofo have attracted about $750 million in private investment from China and overseas, the bulk of it in recent months, according to Ofo and Caixin, a financial magazine.ImageCredit...Gilles Sabri for The New York TimesBut easy money is only part of the story, according to Wang Chenxi of Analysys, a Chinese data and analysis firm. Behind this is the push of capital, but shared bikes are a good product, Ms. Wang said in an interview via WeChat, a messaging app. Capital needs an outlet, and just at that moment, shared bikes came along.Ms. Cai, the Ofo spokeswoman, said the company thought that as the citys population grew, and traffic jams got worse, shared bikes could solve the last mile problem in an environmentally friendly way.Another important reason for the speed and scale of the investment in the bike-sharing start-ups is government support, said Lin Chen, a professor at the China Europe International Business School, which is based in Shanghai. Capital only goes quickly to industries that the government supports, she said.The bikes have become so popular so quickly that they have also led to questions in Chinese media of an industry bubble and predictions of a battle for market share among the different start-ups, like what happened among ride-hailing companies in China. Uber China ultimately sold itself to its fiercest rival there, Didi Chuxing.A recent headline on the Chinese portal sohu.com asked: Are the recently extremely popular shared bikes a bubble, or the next Didi?Among frequent users of the bikes, they provoke a tangible sense of enthusiasm even glee.One recent afternoon, Feng Yuqin, 70, used her smartphone to unlock a bike parked on a sidewalk near Ms. Caos office. She said that she used to ride either her own pedal bike or her electric bike to the park to exercise, but that the bikes had been stolen a few times.With these, theres no loss, she said. It makes me really happy! | World |
VideotranscripttranscriptTrump Should Not Try to Pardon Himself, Ryan SaysSpeaker Paul D. Ryan also joined other lawmakers in saying that the F.B.I. did nothing wrong by using a confidential informant to contact members of the Trump campaign as it investigated its ties to Russia.Normally, I dont like to comment on unclassified briefings. Let me say it this way: I think Chairman Gowdys initial assessment is accurate. I think but we have some more digging to do. Were waiting for some more document requests. We have some more documents to review. We still have some unanswered questions. It would have been helpful if we got this information earlier. As Chairman Nunes said just the other day, if we got all the information were looking for, we could wrap this up faster. But I have seen no evidence to the contrary of the initial assessment that Chairman Gowdy has made. Mr. Speaker, do you believe that the president has the power to pardon himself? I dont know the technical answer to that question, but I think obviously the answer is he shouldnt and no one is above the law. Ill leave it at that. Thanks.Speaker Paul D. Ryan also joined other lawmakers in saying that the F.B.I. did nothing wrong by using a confidential informant to contact members of the Trump campaign as it investigated its ties to Russia.CreditCredit...Erin Schaff for The New York TimesJune 6, 2018WASHINGTON Speaker Paul D. Ryan contradicted President Trumps assertions of a broad conspiracy by federal law enforcement on Wednesday, joining other lawmakers in saying that the F.B.I. did nothing wrong by using a confidential informant to contact members of the Trump campaign as it investigated its ties to Russia.And he said that Mr. Trump should not try to pardon himself, despite the presidents assertion two days earlier that he has the power to take such a step.I dont know the technical answer to that question, but I think obviously the answer is he shouldnt, Mr. Ryan told reporters. And no one is above the law.Mr. Ryans warning was the latest indication that the president is beginning to face trouble on Capitol Hill, where members of his own party are showing small signs of resistance. From international trade and China to immigration and the conduct of his cabinet, serious dissent from at least some Republicans is beginning to boil over.At the forefront is an effort by Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania to try to attach legislation to a must-pass defense policy bill that would require Mr. Trump to petition Congress for approval to impose national security tariffs, like those the White House has imposed on steel and aluminum produced in Canada, Mexico and Europe.More than a half-dozen Republican senators have signed on to the amendment, and a small group of Republicans decamped Wednesday to the White House to try to navigate tensions with a protectionist president who has drastically departed from his partys traditional embrace of free markets.I think this is a very bad idea, Mr. President, Mr. Toomey said on the Senate floor. I think it is a very bad path to be going on, very bad policy.Some Republicans are just as furious about Mr. Trumps efforts to lift sanctions on a Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE. Last month, the House passed a bill that would prevent the administration from easing restrictions on the company, and the Senate Banking Committee approved a similar amendment that would prevent the president from modifying penalties on Chinese telecom companies that had violated American law in the past year.On immigration, almost two dozen House Republicans are demanding votes on legislation that would help young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, but are balking at the presidents get-tough demands on other immigration matters. And Iowas senators, Charles E. Grassley and Joni Ernst, both Republicans, came out swinging this week against the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, whom Ms. Ernst called as swampy as you get.But for Republicans, no issue has consumed more oxygen than the Justice Department inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump has seized on the disclosure of the use of an informant to claim, without evidence, that federal law enforcement officials had improperly placed a spy in his campaign for political purposes. He demanded a Justice Department inquiry of the matter and named the matter SPYGATE in repeated posts on Twitter.Mr. Ryan became the highest-ranking Republican to throw cold water on that interpretation, which Democrats and former high-level law enforcement officials have claimed is part of an unrelenting effort to discredit the open investigation into Mr. Trump and his campaign. Mr. Ryan backed Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, who led the Houses politically charged investigation into the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, but infuriated some Republican partisans by rebuffing Mr. Trump on Spygate.Chairman Gowdys initial assessment is accurate, but we have more digging to do, Mr. Ryan told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.The comments appeared to be the latest sign that an uneasy truce between the partys two most powerful figures might be fraying once more, and now that Mr. Ryan has announced he is not running for re-election. Despite a burst of Republican policy achievements including a $1.5 trillion tax cut the two men have more often than not appeared to embody two entirely independent Republican parties.Mr. Trump has railed against free trade, immigration and Republican efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare, while veering toward the conspiratorial. Mr. Ryan, a Wisconsin conservative a generation younger, still speaks of trying to broaden the Republican Partys appeal to minorities and has fought to move the president away from protectionist policies and racially divisive messaging.And while Mr. Trump has denounced the Russia investigation, and pulled much of the party along with him, Mr. Ryan has repeatedly insisted that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, be allowed to finish his work.Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Ryan were among a small group of congressional leaders briefed on the informant late last month by top officials from the F.B.I., Justice Department and the office of the director of national intelligence. The unusual meeting came after Mr. Trump intervened on behalf of Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who was demanding information related to the informant.Mr. Ryan has encouraged Mr. Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor and one of the House Republicans most experienced investigators, to help calm tensions between Mr. Nunes and the Justice Department. The two sides have repeatedly clashed as Mr. Nunes, a close ally of the presidents, has demanded greater and greater access to delicate case files.Democrats emerged from the highly secretive briefing saying that they had seen no evidence to support any allegation that the F.B.I. or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the Trump campaign, or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols. But Mr. Gowdy was the first Republican to break ranks a few days later, when he said on Fox News that the agency had acted properly.I think when the president finds out what happened, he is going to be not just fine, he is going to be glad that we have an F.B.I. that took seriously what they heard, Mr. Gowdy said.He added, I am even more convinced that the F.B.I. did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.People familiar with the matter have said that the informant was an American academic and veteran of Republican administrations who was to trying to glean information about what several campaign aides knew about the Russian efforts to hack into Democratic emails.Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also put his support behind Mr. Gowdys analysis on Wednesday, after Mr. Ryans remarks. Mr. Burr had been silent after participating in the confidential briefing on the matter in late May.Mr. Trumps and Mr. Nuness conservative allies, who have not been briefed on the matter by law enforcement or intelligence officials, have publicly disagreed with Mr. Gowdy, claiming that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department had essentially pulled wool over the eyes of the South Carolina Republican.Mr. Nunes, for his part, appeared to dismiss the importance of Mr. Gowdys statements in an interview on Sunday.Mr. Gowdy loves the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice, Mr. Nunes said.Still, Mr. Nunes signaled Sunday that he would like to bring the episode to a close. Speaking on Fox News, he said that he expected the Justice Department to share additional information and documentation with him this week.Just provide us all the documents, everything were asking for and let us comb all the way through it, and well issue a letter on Friday and well be done with this, Mr. Nunes said.Mr. Ryans warning on a self-pardon reflected other Republican concerns. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, cast the issue of Mr. Trump pardoning himself in similar terms on Tuesday.He obviously knows that would not be something that he would or should do, Mr. McConnell said. | Politics |
Mally Mall Trump's Good for Economy ... It's the Racist Stuff I Hate 1/26/2018 TMZ.com Mally Mall doesn't have a problem with the way Donald Trump is handling the economy, only with how the prez handles the American people. We got Mally Mall heading into Lucky Strike in Hollywood Thursday night and surprisingly the rapper had something nice to say about Trump, but only when it comes to the way 45 does business for America. Trump's been shaking the U.S. economy, first by pulling America out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated under the Obama administration and now enforcing trade laws. The TTP is now an 11-nation pact that will be signed in March, without the U.S. Mall says he doesn't mind Trump shaking the economy, but when it comes to the people, Trump's been "too real" and needs to stop making racist comments. | Entertainment |
Dec. 9, 2015Fiat Chrysler is expected to pay the federal government as much as $70 million in penalties for significantly underreporting the number of death and injury claims tied to potential defects in its cars, according to a person briefed on the fine.The penalty, expected to be announced as early as Thursday, is the second time this year that the automaker would pay a multimillion-dollar fine in relation to safety problems.In July, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration levied a penalty against the company that could reach $105 million over its handling of multiple recalls affecting more than 11 million vehicles.A Chrysler spokesman declined to comment as did the auto safety agency. In September, regulators at the safety agency said Fiat Chrysler had failed to disclose claims that blamed vehicle defects for serious deaths and injuries, as is required by law under a system called Early Warning Reporting.At the time, the agencys administrator, Mark Rosekind, said that early information pointed to flaws in the automakers systems for gathering and reporting the data and characterized those flaws as representing a significant failure to meet a manufacturers safety responsibilities.Now, the agency has completed its investigation and settled on a penalty. The maximum penalty under the law is $35 million, so the $70 million most likely represents two violations.The death and injury disclosure system is aimed at helping regulators identify potential defects. It was put in place in 2000, after a wave of highway rollovers in Ford Explorers with Firestone tires.A former head of the safety agency said the Fiat Chrysler penalty is overdue.Chrysler has been violating the law with impunity for too long, said Joan Claybrook, a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and a longtime consumer safety advocate. Im surprised its only $70 million.The penalty is only the latest in a series of escalating fines issued by the safety agency.In October, regulators imposed a record penalty on Takata, the Japanese supplier that produces defective airbags whose components can rupture violently, sending metal flying at passengers. In that case, Takata could pay as much as $130 million if it does not live up to the terms of its agreement with the safety agency.And in January, Honda agreed to pay $70 million in fines for significantly underreporting death and injury claims under the Early Warning Reporting system. In that case, more than 1,700 deaths and injuries over an 11-year period were not reported to regulators. At the time, the penalty was the largest ever imposed on an automaker by the safety agency. Hondas penalty followed one imposed in October 2014 on Ferrari, for $3.5 million, because it failed to submit any Early Warning reports on fatal accidents.The agency is currently authorized to impose a maximum fine of $35 million for each violation, though that number is set to increase. Congress recently passed a transportation bill that would allow the agency to levy a fine capped at $105 million, but the change wont go into effect until the agency has issued a final rule, according to the legislation.Chrysler just made it in under the wire, Ms. Claybrook said, referring the penalty.The cap was criticized by many lawmakers last year when regulators imposed a penalty of $35 million on G.M. after it failed to report for more than a decade a deadly ignition defect. At the time, the defect was linked to 13 deaths. It is now linked to at least 124.The penalty was reported by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. It could come just days after the highway safety agencys announcement that it will overhaul a rating system for cars that has for years awarded high marks to almost all vehicles. The action is another move against the auto industry for the agency, which came under withering criticism last year from lawmakers in congressional hearings for not being aggressive enough on the industry it is charged with overseeing.Last September, an investigation by The New York Times found that, during the last decade, the agency had often been slow to identify and act on safety defects, and reluctant to use its full legal powers against automakers. | Business |
Some conservatives want to recall him and others want to censure him. In the state he represents, though, many view speaking out against President Trump as an act to admire, not an apostasy.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesFeb. 10, 2020SALT LAKE CITY Phil Lyman wanted to do something swift and stern.Within hours of Senator Mitt Romneys vote to remove President Trump from office on Wednesday, Mr. Lyman, a freshman state representative from southern Utah who keeps an autographed Make America Great Again hat in a plexiglass case in his office, was at work drafting a resolution to censure the senator.I mean, I respect a guy that will stand up for his opinion, but its not without some repercussions, Mr. Lyman said. His action warrants an additional action on the part of the State Legislature.But just as swiftly came the pushback to Mr. Lyman from Utahs Republican leadership.Censuring Senator Romney for voting his conscience is a tricky place to be, the speaker of the state House, Brad Wilson, said in an interview.The governor, Gary Herbert, told The Salt Lake Tribune, I think that would be just a mistake to go down that road.The president of the State Senate, J. Stuart Adams, pleaded for reconciliation. What I dont want to do is move into the negative rhetoric I think is coming from Washington, D.C., he said at a news conference on Friday.Barely eight years ago, Mr. Romney was the Republican nominee for president and putative leader of the party. Today, the way many Republicans accept and even encourage the attacks on him from Mr. Trump, who last week accused him of using religion as a crutch to justify the impeachment vote, vividly illustrates the turn the party has taken.Utah Republicans never quite fell for Mr. Trump as hard as the rest of their party did. The states political sensibilities, heavily influenced by its Mormon culture, are more agree-to-disagree than salt-the-earth. The presidents coarse language, belittling nicknames and aversion to humility help explain why his approval ratings over all in Utah have been below 50 percent for most of the last three years.And while they support Mr. Trump as their president very few Republicans here say they would have voted to convict him as Mr. Romney did they have refused to join the pile-on they see happening back east on Fox News sets and in social media feeds of the presidents followers, where their junior senator is being vilified as a coward and Judas who should be expelled from the Republican Party.Not only does Mr. Lymans censure resolution appear to be dead on arrival, but the leader of the State Senate, Mr. Adams, also said last week that he would rather not vote on or debate any action related to Mr. Romney at all. He stressed that anything his chamber took up should be positive a word he used repeatedly as he spoke to reporters at the State Capitol on Friday. He said he preferred something like a unanimously agreed-to statement that affirmed Mr. Trumps strengths as president.It may feel right you want to swing at someone but I think its better off to do whats right, Mr. Adams said in an interview. Though he disagreed with how Mr. Romney voted, he added, I have respect for what he did.Utah is one of the rare places where the few Romney-style Republicans who remain are relatively safe from a challenge from their right, where speaking out against the president can be an act to admire, not an apostasy.With the most vitriolic condemnation of Mr. Romney coming from outside Utah, there has been something of a rallying effect around the senator.Not everyone hates Romney, read the headline on an opinion article in The Tribune this weekend. In spite of the loud voices who are busy calling him names, there are many of us out here who are cheering for him, wrote the author, Holly Richardson, a former Republican legislator.ImageCredit...Niki Chan Wylie for The New York TimesSalt Lake Citys other major paper, The Deseret News, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published an editorial arguing against a censure of the senator and has run numerous other supportive pieces, including one declaring that his vote was what a Christian conscience demands.Chris Karpowitz, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University, said the disputes between Mr. Romney and Mr. Trump illustrated two different visions about what it means to be a Republican.Sometimes they line up on policy, Dr. Karpowitz added. But in terms of style and rhetoric and commitment to what in previous years were thought of as core values, they couldnt be more different.No state as heavily Republican has been so chilly to the president. Though active registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in Utah by more than three to one, Mr. Trump won only 45 percent of the vote in Utah in 2016. Hillary Clinton and Evan McMullin, a former intelligence officer who ran as a third-party candidate, split up the rest of the vote.Last week, national conservative activists promoted a Recall Romney effort online and shared stories about a proposal circulating in the legislature that aimed to give voters the ability to recall their United States senators. Aimee Winder Newton, a Republican candidate for governor, said that such a move would have worrisome repercussions. I get that many state legislators are disappointed, she wrote on Twitter. But creating a culture of censuring could come back their way.In reality, the recall bill was drafted months ago and has little support in Salt Lake City. Its sponsor has said that it has nothing to do with Mr. Romney or impeachment, and is instead meant to bolster the rights of Utahans to hold all senators accountable.Lawmakers and constitutional experts said the measure would probably not survive a court challenge anyway.My strong impression, said Edward Foley, the director of election law at Ohio State University, is that this kind of recall would be clearly unconstitutional. After all, the Constitution itself specifies six-year terms for senators, and has no mechanism other than expulsion by the Senate itself for a state to end a U.S. senators service before the six years are up.Mr. Romney is by no means infallible among Utahans. And Mr. Trump is more popular here now than he was four years ago, thanks to a strong economy and his dedication to filling the courts with conservative judges.Though Mr. Romney is often associated with Utah because of his role in leading Salt Lake Citys effort to prepare for the 2002 Winter Olympics, he had spent most of his life living elsewhere before deciding to run for Senate in 2018 a liability in a state where many families can trace their lineage back to the mid-19th century, when Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. His campaign ran into trouble early on with activist Republicans when he lost to a little-known legislator at the state convention, which forced a primary he later won. In the general election he won with almost 63 percent of the vote statewide.But the objections of grass-roots conservatives who have outsize influence in state conventions had little to do with Mr. Romneys history of feuding with Mr. Trump. Instead, they bristled at an attempt by Mr. Romney to gather enough signatures to circumvent the convention.Mr. Romney has worked diligently to cultivate relationships with Republicans in Salt Lake City. After he left Washington the day of his vote on the president, one of his first stops was at the State Capitol to meet Republican lawmakers to explain himself. He spoke at two different meetings, one with House members and another with the Senate leadership.He delivered a version of the speech he gave on the Senate floor last Wednesday in which he said his oath to God and faith guided him toward the most difficult decision I have ever faced. Some legislators questioned his motives, asking why they should believe that he wasnt just trying to get even with the president. Others worried about Utah suddenly finding itself in the presidents cross hairs and whether it would damage its relationship with the federal government, which controls about two-thirds of the states land.ImageCredit...Niki Chan Wylie for The New York TimesFor a lot of us, said Speaker Wilson, the question was: What does this decision mean for your effectiveness as our senator?The meeting was intended primarily for legislative leaders, but Mr. Lyman, the author of the censure resolution, was invited as well. In an interview, he said that Mr. Romney had earned his respect for showing up, but not for his vote. He had only a few seconds to address Mr. Romney as the senator was leaving and used the opportunity to defend Mr. Trump for reducing the size of protected federal land in Utah so it could be used for commercial purposes.Theres a lot of talk in politics, Mr. Lyman recalled telling the senator. And President Trump actually came out here and did something.But even Mr. Lymans disappointment with Mr. Romney has its limits. Next to the bookcase in his office at the Capitol where he has his autographed MAGA hat stands another political memento he is proud of: a life-size cutout of Mr. Romney. | Politics |
Credit...Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressDec. 28, 2015Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, a drug company whose business model has been under siege, announced on Monday that J. Michael Pearson, its chairman and chief executive, was on medical leave and that a team of executives would run the company while he was out.Valeant confirmed last week that Mr. Pearson had been hospitalized and was being treated for a severe case of pneumonia.Mr. Pearson is known for an aggressive strategy that has helped propel Valeant into the ranks of the worlds largest drug companies in less than a decade. But this strategy has also thrust some of the companys more controversial tactics into the spotlight. The drug makers action of acquiring old drugs and sharply raising their prices, often by several hundred percent, has attracted widespread condemnation.The companys stock price fell more than 10 percent on Monday after the news, a sign that investors link Valeants growth to Mr. Pearson, according to David Steinberg, an analyst with Jefferies. Michael Pearson is most closely associated with his company than probably any other pharmaceutical executive, Mr. Steinberg said.Valeants shares have fallen more than 50 percent since their 52-week high in early August.Valeant also faced scrutiny over its relationship with Philidor Rx Services, a mail-order pharmacy that dispensed some of Valeants expensive dermatology drugs and handled getting them reimbursed by insurance companies. Valeant severed its ties to Philidor in October, after questions were raised about the practices.Valeant did not name an interim chief. Instead, its board created an office of the chief executive, which will include Robert Chai-Onn, its executive vice president and general counsel; Dr. Ari Kellen, executive vice president and company group chairman; and Robert Rosiello, executive vice president and chief financial officer. Valeant also created a board committee to oversee and support the new office of the chief executive.The committee will be working closely with the entire management team to ensure that the company continues to operate normally while Mike focuses on his health, Robert A. Ingram, Valeants lead independent director, said in a statement. I am confident that with the vast industry and business knowledge from the management team and the board of directors, we will manage through this period.Antibiotics can help patients suffering from a typical case of bacterial pneumonia feel better within a week or two, according to Dr. Alan Glaseroff, the director of coordinated care at Stanford Health Care. But recovering completely could take four to six weeks, he said. Recovery times can vary widely, however, depending on the age and immune system of the patient, he said.Mr. Pearson, 56, became chief executive in 2008 and has spearheaded the enormous growth that has defined Valeant since. A 2010 merger with Biovail, one of Canadas largest drug makers, effectively put Valeant on the map and preceded a string of aggressive acquisitions that would help Valeants stock price to skyrocket over the next five years.I think hes been sort of credited with creating a vision for the company and a set of guiding principles in terms of how they look at deals, said Irina Koffler, a senior analyst at Mizuho Securities USA. That vision included moving toward elective spending like cosmetic dermatology and consumer products, as the Affordable Care Act and other factors were helping to reshape the insurance landscape. Valeant agreed to acquire Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation, the maker of Restylane and other injectables, in 2012. The following year, it made a deal to buy Bausch & Lomb, one of the largest makers of contact lenses, solutions and other eye-care products.But Valeants tactics have also come under fire. Last year, Mr. Pearson took the highly unusual step of partnering with the hedge fund manager William A. Ackman in a hostile takeover bid for Allergan, the maker of Botox.While the monthslong pursuit ultimately ended unsuccessfully, the partnership has had lingering implications: In anticipation of the deal, Valeant sold off a line of aesthetic products, including Restylane, to avoid overlapping with Allergans products. And both Valeant and Mr. Ackmans hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, face an insider trading lawsuit related to an investment Mr. Ackman made in Allergan before the takeover bid was publicly disclosed. Representatives from Valeant and Pershing Square declined to comment on the suit. | Business |
Business|5% of Sothebys Workers Take Buyoutshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/business/5-of-sothebys-workers-take-buyouts.htmlDec. 14, 2015The auction house Sothebys has accepted the buyouts of 80 employees, or 5 percent of its 1,600-person global work force, the company reported in records filed on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.As a result of the buyout offer, which expired Dec. 9, Sothebys said in the filing that it expected a charge of about $40 million in the fourth quarter of 2015.Sothebys announced the buyouts last month at the end of the auction season as an effort to reduce expenses and impose a lower and more flexible cost structure.In a letter to staff members at the time, Tad Smith, Sothebys new chief executive, said he hoped the buyout program would achieve both the efficiencies from which our organization would benefit, as well as create enhanced professional development and leadership opportunities for those who will steer Sothebys into the future.The company said the number of volunteers for the buyout enabled it to avoid layoffs. Employees who chose to participate were accepted only after approval by Sothebys management.The auction houses stock price has declined over the last six months, and its third-quarter results showed a 12 percent decrease in commissions from sales compared with the same period in 2014.Sothebys also took a financial risk in guaranteeing $515 million to the family of A. Alfred Taubman, its former chairman, to secure his collection for the most recent sale cycle. With more than $1 billion in auction sales this fall, Sothebys has said it expects to break even on that commitment. The final Taubman sale, old masters, is scheduled for Jan. 27. | Business |
Scientists have never before gotten such a clear view of moons in the making.Credit...ESO/A. Mller et al.July 23, 2021Our solar system is home to a magnificent menagerie of moons, from icy ones filled with turbulent oceans to volcanic ones decorated with pits of raging hellfire. To date, astronomers have discovered 4,438 worlds orbiting other stars, and there is no doubt that diverse moons dance around most of these exoplanets. But stargazers have yet to conclusively find any these exomoons have proven too small and too far-flung to be spotted.Now, after years of observations of a pair of Jupiter-like exoplanets nearly 400 light-years from Earth, astronomers have found the next best thing: a disk of debris orbiting one of these worlds, a ring of rock and gas gradually coalescing under its own gravity. In other words, astronomers have caught a circumplanetary foundry in the act of making moons.This is the first time such a feature has been unambiguously detected. And unlike many extrasolar discoveries, this object was not found through indirect methods the subtle wobbling of a star revealing the presence of an orbiting planet, for example. This disk was effectively photographed. This is a real image of a baby planet surrounded by its very own moon-making forge.Astronomers are unreservedly thrilled, and a little lost for words. I dont have coherent scientific thoughts. I just look at the image and say wow, every time I see it, said Bruce Macintosh, an astronomer at Stanford University not involved with the study.ImageCredit...ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Benisty et al.This discovery reported Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters will help scientists address one of the most perplexing questions in astronomy: How do planets and their moons form? Possible answers invoke myriad world-making methods, from titanic impacts to the gluing together of spaceborne hail, where the conglomerating force of gravity may battle disruptions from magnetic whirlpools that nascent worlds are thought to encounter.We have all these theories that are beautiful, but if you cannot test them, they could be completely wrong, said Myriam Benisty, an astronomer at the University of Grenoble and the studys lead author. This extraordinary system she and her colleagues identified is a perfect place to review these ideas.The solar system, 4.6 billion years old, is somewhat middle-aged. This distant star system, in contrast, is in its childhood. Its star, PDS 70, came to life a mere six million years ago. The star-encircling disk of gas and dust that made its two Jupiter-like planets, PDS 70b and PDS 70c, is still present. As new planets are slowly pieced together, the two youths that already exist continue to siphon off this disks debris and fortify themselves with it.The Very Large Telescope in Chiles Atacama Desert found both exoplanets, with PDS 70bs discovery announced in 2018, and PDS 70cs in 2019. A month later, scientists using Chiles Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) reported that radio waves emitted by fine dust were emanating from around PDS 70c promising evidence that a moon-making debris disk surrounded it.The signal, though, was faint. Dr. Benisty and her colleagues used ALMA to conduct follow-up observations, demonstrating with little doubt that PDS 70c has its own disk of debris, one substantial enough to make three moons the size of Earths satellite.It wont be long before such discoveries become routine. In the coming months and years, increasingly powerful telescopes and space observatories will become operational. Soon, the first exomoons themselves will be captured on camera. One day, perhaps, we will capture an exo-Earth on camera a second pale blue dot. That is our dream, said Kate Follette, an astronomer at Amherst College not involved with the study.Astronomers are impatient to see it all. But their appetite for discovery has been temporarily satiated by the remarkable sight of alien moons preparing to make their debut. Its rare, especially in our field, that you see something this beautiful, Dr. Follette said. | science |
Vote Certification Proceedings Restart After Siege at Capitol: Reporter Analysis The debate in Congress to certify President-elect Joe Bidens Electoral College victory has renewed hours after the proceeding was disrupted by a pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol. We covered the evening's events as they unfolded. Catie EdmondsonCongressional CorrespondentSee how quickly this process goes when you dont try to throw out a states electors? Jan. 7, 2021, ichael D. ShearWhite House CorrespondentYou had to speak up, Catie! Jan. 7, 2021, im RutenbergWriter-at-largeRepresentative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who helped start these objections, rises to block the vote from Nevada. He fails without Senate support. Jan. 7, 2021, atie EdmondsonCongressional CorrespondentBrooks has been a leader of this entire effort. Jan. 7, 2021, nnie KarniWhite House Correspondent Pence denies the objection, again, to cheers. Jan. 7, 2021, eid J. EpsteinNational Politics ReporterEight more states electoral results will be heard before we get to Pennsylvania, the next state expected to prompt a Senate objection. Jan. 7, 2021, ichael D. ShearWhite House CorrespondentWho knew there were so many M and N states? Jan. 7, 2021, eid J. EpsteinNational Politics ReporterJosh Hawley has said he will maintain his objection to counting the Pennsylvania electoral votes. We shall see if that holds, given the days events and the hour. Jan. 7, 2021, nnie KarniWhite House Correspondent If that falls apart, we could be close to the moment of truth: Pence announcing the election of Biden and Harris. Jan. 7, 2021, atie EdmondsonCongressional CorrespondentI find your optimism at this late hour inspiring, Annie. Jan. 7, 2021, eid J. EpsteinNational Politics ReporterAnnie, on the other hand, if there are Senate objections to both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, we could all get a good nights sleep and wake up to catch Pence making that announcement. Jan. 7, 2021, nnie KarniWhite House Correspondent Wow. So many great options. Jan. 7, 2021, eid J. EpsteinNational Politics ReporterHere we go. Jan. 7, 2021, im RutenbergWriter-at-largeHere we go, Pennsylvania. Republican objectors have Hawleys backing, so the debate begins anew. Jan. 7, 2021, im RutenbergWriter-at-largeThe House and Senate cease their joint session to separately discuss these objections. Jan. 7, 2021, homas KaplanNational Politics ReporterThis will not boost Hawleys popularity among fellow senators, I think its fair to say. Jan. 7, 2021, nnie KarniWhite House Correspondent The Senate is retiring to its chamber. Jan. 7, 2021, eid J. EpsteinNational Politics ReporterAnd now we have another two hours of debate in each chamber, which equals about three to four hours of real time. Jan. 7, 2021, aggie HabermanWhite House CorrespondentHawley has made his bet that being the owner of Trumpism is the path forward. That is a much tougher bet after today, in terms of pure mimicry. Jan. 7, 2021, nnie KarniWhite House Correspondent As the House and Senate go back to debate, we here at the live chat are going to call it quits for the night. There are reports that the Senate will yield all of its two hours, but the House is likely to take its time. As Reid noted, if the lawmakers reconvene and there is a Senate objection to Wisconsins electoral votes, the certification could go all night. And the elusive moment of truth when Pence confirms that Biden and Harris won the election could come perhaps much later in the morning. Thank you for watching and reading, and follow along at nytimes.com for more coverage of todays violence at the Capitol and the aftermath. Jan. 7, 2021, | Politics |
Asia Pacific|North Korea Tried to Jam GPS Signals Across Border, South Korea Sayshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/world/asia/north-korea-jams-gps-signals.htmlCredit...Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersApril 1, 2016SEOUL, South Korea South Korea said on Friday that North Korea had tried to jam GPS signals in the South, a form of sabotage it has attempted before, but that no disruption of mobile communications or of air or ship traffic had resulted.The Pyongyang government has made several similar attempts since 2010, according to South Korean officials. In 2012, jamming signals sent by the North forced 252 commercial flights to turn off their GPS and use an alternate navigation tool. The latest signals, detected on Thursday, were not as strong as in past attempts, the South Korean Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said in a statement.South Korea traced the signals to Haeju, a town on North Koreas southwestern coast, and to Diamond Mountain in the countrys southeast, the Science Ministry said. The jamming signals were still being sent on Friday, said Moon Sang-gyun, a spokesman for the Souths Defense Ministry. The Defense Ministry and the Souths Unification Ministry called them a provocation and called on the North to stop them.Last week, Alison Evans, a senior analyst and East Asia expert for IHS, a research organization in London, said North Korea was likely to attempt cyberattacks or try to disrupt GPS signals in the South to show its displeasure with annual United States-South Korean joint military exercises that have been underway since early March. But she said Pyongyang was likely to try to manage the risk of escalation while doing so.The Science Ministrys announcement came as President Park Geun-hye was in Washington for a nuclear security summit meeting, where she met with President Obama and with President Xi Jinping of China to discuss the enforcement of new sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for its most recent test of a nuclear device and launch of a long-range rocket.The North has launched a number of short- and medium-range missiles since the United Nations adopted the tougher sanctions last month. It launched another short-range missile on Friday from its east coast, said a South Korean military official, who asked not to be identified because a formal announcement had not yet been made. | World |
Europe|Northern Ireland Voters Give Sinn Fein Its Biggest Win Everhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/europe/northern-ireland-election-sinn-fein.htmlVideoIn the closest election results ever in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein, the main Catholic nationalist party, won only one seat fewer than the Democratic Unionist party, throwing nearly two decades of peaceful power sharing into turmoil.CreditCredit...Clodagh Kilcoyne/ReutersMarch 4, 2017DUBLIN Sinn Fein, the main Catholic nationalist party in Northern Ireland, has won its greatest share of legislative seats ever after a snap election, creating a virtual tie with its Protestant rivals and throwing nearly two decades of peaceful power sharing into turmoil.The election comes at a time of increased polarization and fears that Britains planned exit from the European Union could lead to customs and security checks along the border with Ireland, economic strife and a return to sectarian conflict. Never before has the Protestant majority, which has used its status to shape social policy and block efforts to merge with Ireland, been so threatened politically.Sinn Fein won 27 of 90 available posts in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Its rival, the Democratic Unionist Party, made up of Protestants who support remaining a part of Britain, lost 10 seats and were left with 28. Voting took place on March 2.Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to the decades-long sectarian strife known as the Troubles, Catholics and Protestants share governance of the region, along with the British government. The two parties must now form a new government within the next three weeks or else return to a period of direct rule from Britain.Michelle ONeill, Sinn Feins new leader in Northern Ireland, called the outcome a great day for equality and said she wanted negotiations to begin as soon as possible.In addition to concerns over Britains decision to leave the European Union, known as Brexit which a majority of voters in Northern Ireland did not support many residents were angry about a botched incentive plan for green energy that was put in place by the unionists.So far that program is 490 million pounds, or nearly $600 million, over budget, and the shortfall will have to be paid out of the block grant allocated to Northern Ireland each year from Britain.The controversy led in January to the resignation of Martin McGuinness as the Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland, and calls for a snap election.The Democratic Unionist Party is allied with Britains Conservative Party, which is pursuing Brexit, while Sinn Fein wants Northern Ireland to stay in the European Union and eventually merge with Ireland.There is also growing indignation about a perceived lack of concern from London about Northern Ireland.The United Kingdom has been so preoccupied with matters elsewhere, even at this point of crisis, said Mick Fealty, the founding editor of Slugger OToole, an influential political discussion forum. Its been reflected in the British medias coverage of both Brexit in Northern Ireland, and the election. There just hasnt been any.The Democratic Unionist Party leader, Arlene Foster, is now under pressure to step down, but a statement from the party on Saturday said that she will be remaining as the leader.If the two leading parties do not reach agreement within the three-week time frame imposed by the British-appointed secretary of state for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, the government must either call another election or reimpose direct rule. | World |
Abuja JournalCredit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesMarch 5, 2017ABUJA, Nigeria To the seasoned air traveler, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport has room for improvement.Travelers must climb a grimy stairwell to get to gates for boarding. The restaurant food is usually stale. The coffee is powdered. Security officers sometimes ask for a little extra something for their efforts. The bin they use for stashing confiscated items on a day not long ago held an assault rifle.Yet for Nigerians living in the sleepy capital, Abuja, the airport with its more than 80 flights a day usually serves the purpose of getting them to their destinations, despite delays and cancellations that plague any busy airspace.And so the governments announcement that it plans to close the airport for six weeks starting early Wednesday to repair a runway has prompted fears about a major disruption to Abujas lifeline to the rest of the country and the world.After mounting complaints about the poor state of the runway from airlines, and with safety consultants fearing impending disaster, government officials finally acceded to fixing its many cracks and holes repairs that are 15 years overdue.Officials decided the damage was so bad that it couldnt be fixed piecemeal and required a total shutdown of operations. They have said repairs should take no more than six weeks, but skeptical passengers accustomed to unfulfilled government promises worry that work could drag on for months.ImageCredit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesI passed through the low-slung airport a few times recently. Construction equipment was already in place. Passengers balled up at the entrance were in typically testy moods. I was fleeced by a man claiming he would handle my ticket purchase on Air Peace, a domestic carrier, only to realize too late that he was merely a go-between with big shoulders who could muscle his way to the front of the line.The governments Plan B for the airport isnt soothing concerns. Planes are to be rerouted to a tiny airport in Kaduna, where on a typical day only a handful of flights go in and out. A new terminal being built in Kaduna to handle the influx was still under construction.Passengers will be ferried free of charge by bus on a roughly three-hour trip to Abuja along a road famous for kidnappings and banditry in a region where nomadic herdsmen and farmers engage in frequent deadly clashes. Officers from the air force, road safety corps and the secret police will be posted along the road linking the two cities, and officials have assured the public that everyone will be safe.While the shutdown will cause hassles for travelers, it will upend the financially fragile lives of workers in an economic ecosystem that thrives both inside and on the fringes of the terminals.Food service providers, security services and others say they may not be able to pay workers.Kaduna is not that big. Not all of our staff can go there, said Aliyu Oladimeji, a manager whose baggage-handling company still hadnt decided how it would sort out employee salaries during the shutdown. Theres nothing we can do. We just have to bear it.Sandra William runs a restaurant selling dishes like rice, vegetable stews and semo, a doughy wheat-based ball used for dipping in her stews, to travelers in the arrivals hall. She is worried the six weeks of nonoperation wont be deducted from the annual rent she pays for her stall.For me, safety is first, she said. But its still going to affect me. If we dont sell, I cant pay my rent.The closing of the airport couldnt come at a worse time for Nigeria. Still reeling from low oil prices, a currency crisis, and expensive wars against militants blowing up its pipelines in the south and Boko Haram rampaging in the north, the countrys economy has sunk into recession.To add to the anxiety, President Muhammadu Buhari left the country for medical treatment in January and has yet to return.Many people fear that shutting the airport in the capital is going to further isolate the nation from help that it badly needs to pull out of its economic mess.Aid groups that in recent months have ramped up logistically challenging operations in the nations northeast, which has suffered pockets of famine, are trying to rearrange humanitarian flights that normally leave from Abuja.Everybody is worried in Nigeria, said Emmanuel Onyekwena, the chief executive of Tolmann Allied, who uses the Abuja airport at least once every two weeks to travel for his company, which supports the nations oil and gas industry. The seat of power is here. The people who make decisions are here.ImageCredit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesThe Abuja airport opened in 1982, and it hasnt had a thorough resurfacing since then, said Henrietta Yakubu, acting general manager of the corporate affairs for the Department for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. Temporary patches put on the runway every few weeks by maintenance crews are no longer working, Ms. Yakubu said.Proper maintenance should have been done, but it wasnt done, she said.Some international airlines have decided to reject the governments plan to fly to Kaduna and instead are rerouting flights to Lagos until the Abuja airport is operational. Domestic travelers accustomed to hopping a 70-minute flight from Lagos to Abuja face a nearly 11-hour drive that can be much longer with traffic.In past months, fliers of Nigerian skies already had been experiencing big problems. The country has had a shortage of dollars, and airline fuel, imported using foreign exchange, has at times been difficult to secure. Flights have been canceled prompting full-fledged brawls at airline counters, documented on social media.On a recent sunny afternoon, Jesse Shedrack, one of the 850 taxi drivers who ferry passengers into town, was waiting under a canopy by the airport terminal with other drivers, all of whom were outraged that their work would be cut off.Its a federal capital, he said. You close the airport for six weeks, its unheard-of.Mr. Shedrack and other drivers said they couldnt relocate to Kaduna because they would come into conflict with an association of drivers who work there. If we go there, there will be a riot, he said.The closing will also upend the lives of children who sell bags of six or seven peanuts in the shell, of men who push luggage carts for a fee, of people who hawk manila folders stuffed with a type of spicy beef jerky, of money changers and phone credit sellers all of whom rely on travelers to manage their precarious financial situations.Abdul Ganiyu sells tiny luggage padlocks for the equivalent of about $1 in the airport parking lot. He has grown accustomed to earning between $12 and $24 a day, enough to feed his wife and two children. He doesnt know what hell do for income when the airport closes and is praying repairs stay on schedule.Im just hoping God opens a way for us, he said. | World |
Technology|On Facebook, Misinformation Is More Popular Now Than in 2016https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/technology/on-facebook-misinformation-is-more-popular-now-than-in-2016.htmlOct. 12, 2020, 6:00 a.m. ETOct. 12, 2020, 6:00 a.m. ETCredit...Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesDuring the 2016 presidential election, Russian operatives used Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to spread disinformation to divide the American electorate. Since then, the social media companies have spent billions of dollars and hired tens of thousands of people to help clean up their act.But have the platforms really become more sophisticated at handling misinformation?Not necessarily.People are engaging more on Facebook today with news outlets that routinely publish misinformation than they did before the 2016 election, according to new research from the German Marshall Fund Digital, the digital arm of the public policy think tank. The organization, which has a data partnership with the start-up NewsGuard and the social media analytics firm NewsWhip, published its findings on Monday.In total, Facebook likes, comments and shares of articles from news outlets that regularly publish falsehoods and misleading content roughly tripled from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2020, the group found.About two thirds of those likes and comments were of articles published by 10 outlets, which the researchers categorized as false content producers or manipulators. Those news outlets included Palmer Report and The Federalist, according to the research.The group used ratings from NewsGuard, which ranks news sites based on how they uphold nine journalistic principles, to sort them into false content producers, which repeatedly publish provably false content; and manipulators, which regularly present unsubstantiated claims or that distort information to make an argument.We have these sites that masquerade as news outlets online. Theyre allowed to, said Karen Kornbluh, director of GMF Digital. Its infecting our discourse and its affecting the long-term health of the democracy.Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman, said that analyzing likes, shares and comments to draw conclusions was misleading because the data does not capture what most people see on Facebook. The social network does not make other data, such as the reach of posts, publicly available; engagement data is the only information it provides.Ms. Kornbluh said Facebook users engaged more with articles from all news outlets this year because the coronavirus pandemic forced people to quarantine indoors. But the growth rate of likes, shares and comments of content from manipulators and false content producers exceeded the interactions that people had with what the researchers called legitimate journalistic outlets, such as Reuters, Associated Press and Bloomberg.Ms. Kornbluh said social media firms face a conundrum because their businesses rely on viral content to bring in users, who they can then show ads to. Tamping down on misinformation just runs against their economic incentives, she said. | Tech |
Democrats had huge breakthroughs in winning the presidential vote and two Senate runoff elections. But power in the states government largely remains in the hands of Republicans.Credit...Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesJan. 10, 2021ATLANTA For two months, Georgia Republicans have watched their party descend into a morass of betrayal, chaos and blame. A top state election official accused President Trump of fomenting a civil war among fellow Republicans as he pressured the governor and the secretary of state to help overturn his electoral defeat.And, of course, there was the sting of defeat itself in both the presidential race and the two Georgia Senate runoff elections last week, which relegated Republicans to minority status in both houses of Congress.But then there was Lauren McDonald Jr., a veteran state public service commissioner who goes by Bubba.Mr. McDonald was the third Republican candidate on Tuesdays runoff ballot. And his 42,000-vote victory in a race in which many voters likely motivation was simple party affiliation was a comforting signal to many Georgia Republicans that their party was in better shape than shocking defeats at the top of the ballot might have indicated.Brian Robinson, a longtime Republican and a Georgia political consultant, said the party had certainly been left shaken by it all. However, he added, Bubba McDonald showed theres still a pretty strong generic Republican vote out there.The recent trio of high-stakes Democratic victories in Georgia, fueled by the states changing demographics and by distaste for Mr. Trump, may mean that Georgia has finally achieved battleground status. And Democrats, observing a Republican house divided, are hoping for more. They are particularly focused on defeating Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022, anticipating that Stacey Abrams Georgia Democrats biggest national star since Jimmy Carter will take on Mr. Kemp in a rematch of their close and bitter 2018 race.But none of that will be easy in a state that retains a strong conservative streak, and where Republicans control most of the levers of power. Every statewide elected office in state government is currently in Republican hands. And Democrats, who had hoped to make big inroads in the state legislature, netted only two State House seats and one State Senate seat in Novembers elections, leaving Republicans with comfortable majorities in both houses.Indeed, the possibility of enduring Republican strength in Georgia may illustrate the limits of the damage the Trump era may end up having beyond Washington, particularly in places where the G.O.P. has spent years building solid state parties that cater to a receptive conservative voting base. Republicans cemented or broadened gains in legislatures and state offices around the country even while they were losing the White House and the Senate.Mr. McDonald, in an interview on Friday, noted that he had been an early supporter of Mr. Trumps and continued to count himself as one. In my opinion, hes been a very strong president, he said. But lets turn the page and move on.Even optimistic Georgia Republicans concede that it is difficult to know how badly the Republican brand has been damaged by Mr. Trump, particularly after he incited a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, and after his incessant and baseless argument that the election was stolen from him in Georgia and elsewhere. (Mr. McDonald declined to comment when asked his opinion about the storming of the Capitol.)ImageCredit...Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is also difficult to assess Mr. Trumps influence after he leaves the White House. In Georgia, for instance, he has threatened to back a Republican primary challenger for governor as a means of punishing Mr. Kemp for his lack of fealty.Charles S. Bullock III, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, noted that Mr. Trump continued to have many ardent fans in the state and that many of them believed the election had been stolen. Even if Mr. Kemp were to survive a primary challenge from a Trumpist candidate, such a challenge could siphon off supporters and contributors before he even had the chance to square off against the formidable Ms. Abrams.More generally, Dr. Bullock said, Republicans should be nervous with their margins in statewide races having dwindled year after year. The two parties may be just about evenly matched going into 2022, he said. But the trends have been moving toward the Democrats.Some hoped that the widespread disgust over the storming of the Capitol would break the spell of the cult surrounding Mr. Trump, as Mr. Robinson described it. Mr. Kemp strongly condemned the action Wednesday, calling it un-American.Mr. Trump has been a dominant and fearsome force among Georgia Republicans, capable of elevating or debilitating the prospects of a candidate with a tweet. Yet after losing his own re-election campaign and then being blamed for the defeats in the Senate races, his grasp has eroded considerably, so much so that some party leaders and elected officials saw him as a liability and a cautionary tale of what could happen when a party was commandeered by a single personality.Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, one of the Republican state officials who became a target after resisting the presidents campaign of pressure to overturn his loss, contends that, ultimately, he will be vindicated.I think that an overwhelming majority of the voters will come back our direction and reward us, Mr. Duncan said. And if they dont see that as a valuable trait of their lieutenant governor, then I dont want to represent them. Ill be perfectly fine getting defeated if they dont reward or recognize the value of honesty and integrity. Im not their guy.When Mr. Trump is taken out of the equation, Republicans fundamentals are indeed strong in Georgia, at least for the immediate future.Their legislative dominance means that Republicans this year will control the decennial redrawing of state legislative and congressional district maps, giving them the ability to protect their own and create new problems for some sitting Democratic office holders. In the legislative session that begins Monday, Republicans are promising to impose strict new limits on voting in the wake of record voter turnout.Republican legislators and state officials have discussed eliminating no-excuse absentee voting, which surged in popularity in the pandemic. They have also considered eliminating drop boxes for absentee ballots, curbing unsolicited absentee ballot applications and requiring a photo identification requirement for mail-in ballots.Georgias Republican House speaker, David Ralston, said he was unlikely to support eliminating no-excuse absentee voting. But any attempts to curtail the current system are likely to be cited by Democrats as examples of voter suppression, a charge they have leveled against Mr. Kemp, a former secretary of state, for years.Moreover, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, one of the two Democratic Senate victors this week along with Jon Ossoff, will have to run for re-election in 2022, because, in defeating Senator Kelly Loeffler, he is technically finishing out the term of the retired former Senator Johnny Isakson. He is likely to be a top target for national Republicans.The activists who have been helping drive turnout and bolster Democrats know they have their work cut out for them.ImageCredit...Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesIts going to remain a purple state, said Esteban Garces, a co-executive director of Poder Latinx, an organization that had been heavily involved in registering and mobilizing Latino voters in Georgia during the recent elections.They were narrow, and thats the truth of it, Mr. Garces said of the recent wins by Democrats in the presidential and Senate races. That means the work on the ground is going to have to be replicated time and again.Kelly Dietrich, the chief executive of the National Democratic Training Committee, an organization that prepares Democrats to run for elected office, said he was bullish on Mr. Warnocks 2022 run, as well as for other Democratic candidates in Georgia. Its that long-term infrastructure required to build long-term power, he said of the work being done.He added that Republicans would be weighed down by the identity crisis left in the wake of the Trump administration.This reckoning is their own doing, Mr. Dietrich said. Theyve created a monster, and they cant control it.Some reckoning has already begun. This week, Erick Erickson, the influential conservative radio host and Trump critic, called for the resignation of the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, David Shafer, a staunch supporter of the president who also promulgated claims of electoral fraud after Mr. Trumps loss. Mr. Erickson argued that that strategy, which might have depressed Republicans desire to turn out in the runoff, ran counter to Republicans interests. (Mr. Shafer could not be reached for comment.)The invasion of the U.S. Capitol may also continue to have political repercussions in Georgia. On Friday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a robocall telling Trump supporters to march on the Capitol and fight to protect the integrity of our elections had been put out by the Rule of Law Defense Fund, an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association. That group is chaired by Chris Carr, the Georgia attorney general.Katie Byrd, a spokeswoman for Mr. Carr, said Friday that Mr. Carr had no knowledge of the decision to put out the robocall and noted that he had publicly condemned the violence and destruction we saw at the U.S. Capitol.And despite some of the positive signs, Republicans are also weighing how the last days of the Trump era have weakened them and are ruminating on the future of their partys collective identity. Trey Allen, a Republican commissioner in Columbia County, near Augusta, said the party would have to move beyond being defined by a single personality and focus on classic conservative themes that are still popular with many Georgia voters.We will hopefully tighten up our platform, said Mr. Allen, a self-described Reagan Republican who voted for Mr. Trump twice, and focus on the things that make conservatives who they are: strong economy, strong military, less government, more freedoms.Mr. Duncan said that Republicans needed to prioritize policy over personality. He imagined what he described as G.O.P. 2.0, a version of the party that embraced traditional conservative ideals while also being more empathetic and having a more gentle tone, to win back voters who rejected Mr. Trumps vitriolic style.If we dont learn from our mistakes, he said, were going to continue to lose from our mistakes. This is the perfect moment in time to start G.O.P. 2.0 and realize we can never let a person be more important than a party. | Politics |
Technology|The Subscription Buffet May Be Overhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/technology/digital-subscriptions.htmlon techSpotify, YouTube and others are experimenting with changing their one-size-fits-all digital subscriptions.VideoCreditCredit...Asya DemidovaAug. 4, 2021This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.An all-you-can-eat buffet can be glorious. (Uh, at least before Covid-19.) Pay a single price and get options to tuck into roast beef, pizza, green beans, a chocolate fountain and more. Its gluttony made easy.Many of the subscriptions to digital services work the same way. Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime typically charge one fee for access to a collection of goodies.There are signs, however, that the all-you-can-eat digital subscriptions are becoming more nuanced. Some companies including Disney and Whole Foods, the grocery chain that is owned by Amazon, are charging subscribers more for compelling extras. Others including Spotify and YouTube are experimenting with subscriptions that cost less but come with compromises. Both strategies may show that the endless digital buffet is changing for good.I dont know whether the subscription strategies will stick, or how we might respond to having more choices. Maybe youd like the option to pay less at the buffet because you always skip dessert or to pay a little more for filet mignon. Or it could ruin the simple appeal of the buffet.Either way, we should get used to more experiments. This week, The Verge reported that both Spotify and YouTube are trying out lower-priced subscription offers with limitations. YouTube, which charges $12 a month in the United States for its video and music service without commercial breaks, is testing an offer in some European countries at less than half the usual rate. This offer excludes some of the typical features that paying customers receive, including the ability to download a video for later when you wont have an internet connection. Spotify is also experimenting with a limited offering for as low as 99 cents a month compared with a typical $10 monthly subscription.Disney is going the other way by charging extra to Disney+ streaming subscribers who want to watch at home some of its newly released movies. Bloomberg News reported this week that Whole Foods is testing a $9.95 delivery fee in some U.S. cities. Until now, both Whole Foods and Amazons Fresh grocery service have mostly not charged an additional delivery fee to Prime members. (Fresh will apparently not require a separate delivery fee. I dont get it, either.)Many of the all-you-can-eat digital subscription services are a little nuanced already, with higher prices for households with more devices and less expensive subscriptions with limitations in some lower-income countries.Mostly, though, these companies have a relatively straightforward proposition of a single price for everything that they offer. And there are potential risks when companies shift away from the all-you-can-eat model. People who already pay for Prime or Disney+ might feel ripped off when theyre asked to pay even more. Lower-cost subscription options might entice users who had been paying full price.One of Netflixs overlooked superpowers is that theres (mostly) just one version, without add-ons for sports or new-release movies, or different prices with and without commercials. The simplicity of a single subscription offer removes the need to evaluate a bunch of options before deciding to sign up.But the advantage of adding more subscription permutations is they might offer more people what they want. I dont pay for a subscription to Spotify, but I might be tempted if I could pay a little less even if I dont get all the goodies of full paying members. I could also imagine that an electronica fan might like a cheaper Spotify subscription that includes only the music that hes likely to listen to.It can feel as if online subscriptions have been around forever, but theyre a relatively new and still evolving feature of online life. Im still not sold that subscriptions to everything are the best path, for either our wallets or the companies and people trying to earn a living online. But it makes sense that subscription offers will start to fragment because not everyone wants the same thing. We might get more of exactly what we want, and we may come to miss the gluttony made simple.Before we go Humanitys collective power is needed to fix our biggest problems. But my Opinion colleague Farhad Manjoo asks, What if humanitys capacity to cooperate has been undone by the very technology we thought would bring us all together?Self-driving cars arent mainstream, but theyve already changed the labor market: Rest of World looks at how outsourced work has been altered as fleets of people in lower-income countries are training software to think more like human drivers and that includes tasks such as labeling digital images of drops of water. (My colleague Cade Metz has also written about all of the humans needed to teach artificial intelligence software.)In todays installment of technology is not magic: Software algorithms intended to help hospitals quickly diagnose coronavirus patients or predict how sick they might become mostly didnt make a difference and some might have made things worse, MIT Technology Review reports.Related: Peanut the waiter robot is bad at its job.Hugs to thisI am in love with this horse dancing and prancing to nightclub music. (Here is more on Mopsi and his human rider Steffen Peters at the Olympics.) | Tech |
Politics|A Democratic takeover of the Senate would redefine Bidens presidency in dramatic ways.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/a-democratic-takeover-of-the-senate-would-redefine-bidens-presidency-in-dramatic-ways.htmlCredit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Tuesday promoted the Senate runoffs in Georgia as an opportunity to break the gridlock that has gripped Washington, and his team was cautiously optimistic about the outcome.In recent days many on his team had downplayed the idea that they would command a legislative majority in the Senate out of superstition, several jittery Democratic aides suggested in the days leading up to the election.But the growing possibility of one-party control has now been hurled on their doorstep.In the most basic sense, the addition of two Democrats the Rev. Raphael Warnock, who has won his race, and Jon Ossoff, who is maintaining a lead in his to the Senate would redefine Mr. Bidens approach to lawmaking, giving him more power but possibly challenging his preferred approach of broad bipartisan deal-making.Biden will say all the public things about how he needs to get Republican support, but the truth is that this fundamentally changes the dynamic, said David Krone, former chief of staff to former Senator Harry Reid, the last Democratic majority leader. Democrats now control the floor. So he can bring up all kinds of bills that would have been blocked by the Republicans, and force votes on big bills like a major infrastructure package that never would have seen the light of day.During the primaries and general election, Mr. Biden and his aides pointed out that he had developed a sturdy, if not overly warm, working partnership with the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell. But a Senate takeover might require a shift in Mr. Bidens compromising approach in favor of the hard-edge tactics demanded by his partys ascendant left wing.Embedded in the Democrats jubilation Wednesday was a gnawing sense of urgency.Many in the party fear a Republican takeover of the House in 2022, and a similar possibility looms in the deadlocked upper chamber. But many in Mr. Bidens circle believe he has two years to jam through Democratic priorities, starting with his pledge to pass a $2,000 payout to ease the economic hardship of the pandemic.Controlling the majority offers many new opportunities. The central role of Black voters in Georgia and elsewhere virtually ensures that Mr. Biden will push civil and voting rights reform, one Democratic leadership aide said in condition of anonymity. But it also means he will have to referee fierce disagreements among Democratic factions that have already begun feuding in the House over the Green New Deal and expansion of health care.Then theres Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.While all eyes were on the twilight machinations of Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday, his replacement will have significantly more power.She will play a decisive role in the 50-50 Senate on party-line votes, exercising real legislative power and positioning her as Mr. Bidens visible partner and natural successor, especially if he chooses not to run for re-election in 2024. | Politics |
He helped find the virus that causes AIDS, fell into a feud over it and later turned controversial, taking an anti-vaccine stance during the Covid-19 crisis.Credit... Nancy Siesel/The New York TimesPublished Feb. 10, 2022Updated Feb. 11, 2022Luc Montagnier, a French virologist who shared a Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the virus that causes AIDS, died on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. He was 89.The town hall in Neuilly confirmed that a death certificate for Dr. Montagnier had been filed there.For all the glory that Dr. Montagnier earned in helping to discover the virus, today known as H.I.V., in later years he distanced himself from colleagues by dabbling in maverick experiments that challenged the basic tenets of science. Most recently he was an outspoken opponent of coronavirus vaccines.The discovery of H.I.V. began in Paris on Jan. 3, 1983. That was the day that Dr. Montagnier (pronounced mon-tan-YAY), who directed the Viral Oncology Unit at the Pasteur Institute, received a piece of lymph node that had been removed from a 33-year-old man with AIDS.Dr. Willy Rozenbaum, the patients doctor, wanted the specimen to be examined by Dr. Montagnier, an expert in retroviruses. At that point, AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, had no known cause, no diagnostic tests and no effective treatments. Many doctors, though, suspected that the disease was triggered by a retrovirus, a kind of germ that slips into the host cells DNA and takes control, in a reversal of the way viruses typically work; hence the name retro.From this sample Dr. Montagniers team spotted the culprit, a retrovirus that had never been seen before. They named it L.A.V., for lymphadenopathy associated virus.The Pasteur scientists, including Dr. Franoise Barr-Sinoussi, who later shared the Nobel with Dr. Montagnier, reported their landmark finding in the May 20, 1983, issue of the journal Science, concluding that further studies were necessary to prove L.A.V. caused AIDS.The following year, the laboratory run by the American researcher Dr. Robert Gallo at the National Institutes of Health, published four articles in one issue of Science confirming the link between a retrovirus and AIDS. Dr. Gallo called his virus H.T.L.V.-III. There was some initial confusion as to whether the Montagnier team and the Gallo team had found the same virus or two different ones.When the two samples were found to have come from the same patient, scientists questioned whether Dr. Gallo had accidentally or deliberately got the virus from the Pasteur Institute.And what had once been camaraderie between those two leading scientists exploded into a global public feud, spilling out of scientific circles into the mainstream press. Arguments over the true discoverer and patent rights stunned a public that, for the most part, had been shielded from the fierce rivalries, petty jealousies and colossal egos in the research community that can disrupt scientific progress.Dr. Montagnier sued Dr. Gallo for using his discovery for a U.S. patent. The suit was settled out of court, mediated by Jonas Salk, who had years earlier been involved in a similar battle with Albert Sabin over the polio vaccine.ImageCredit...Associated PressIn 1986, the virus that causes AIDS, known by Americans as H.T.L.V.-III and the French as L.A.V., was officially given one name, H.I.V., for human immunodeficiency virus.The following year, with the dispute between the doctors still raging, President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac of France stepped into the fray by signing an agreement to share patent royalties and proclaiming both scientists discoverers of the virus.Dr. Montagnier and Dr. Gallo shared many prestigious awards, among them the 1986 Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, which honored Dr. Montagnier for discovering the virus and Dr. Gallo for linking it to AIDS. And in 2002 they appeared to have resolved their rivalry when they announced that they would work together to develop an AIDS vaccine. Then came the announcement of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.Dr. Gallo had long been credited with linking H.I.V. to AIDS, but the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine singled out its discoverers, not him, in awarding half the prize jointly to Dr. Montagnier and Dr. Barr-Sinoussi. (The other half was awarded to Dr. Harald zur Hausen of Germany for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer.)The Nobel committee said it had no doubt as to who had made the fundamental discoveries concerning H.I.V. Introducing the winners at the award ceremony in Sweden, Prof. Bjrn Vennstrm, a committee member, said, Never before had science advanced so quickly from finding the disease-causing agent to anti-viral agents.In his acceptance speech, contrary to the views of other AIDS experts, Dr. Montagnier said he believed that H.I.V. relied on other factors to spark full-blown disease. H.I.V. , he said, is the main cause, but could also be helped by accomplices. He was referring to other infections, perhaps from bacteria, and a weakened immune system.By then, AIDS-related illnesses had killed more than 25 million people and an estimated 33 million were living with H.I.V.After his work with H.I.V., Dr. Montagnier veered into nontraditional experiments, shocking and infuriating many colleagues. One experiment, published in 2009 in a journal he founded, claimed that DNA emitted electromagnetic radiation. He suggested that some bacterial DNA continued to emit signals long after an infection had been cleared.He was always controversial, but I had the greatest respect for the team he assembled, said Donald P. Francis, who directed the AIDS laboratory at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and who was one of the first scientists to suggest that AIDS may be caused by an infectious agent.In a 2010 interview with Science, Dr. Montagnier defended his theories about DNA, saying: Its not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study. That same year, he accepted a professorship at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai to investigate DNA emissions. He stayed there for about two years before returning to Paris.Dr. Montagnier set off another uproar among scientists when, speaking at a conference on autism in 2012, he suggested that long-term antibiotics could be successful in treating that illness.Last May, he added fuel to the spread of false information about Covid-19 vaccines by claiming, in a French video, that vaccine programs were an unacceptable mistake because, he said, vaccines could cause viral variants.And in January, in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal written with the Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld, he criticized President Bidens vaccine mandates. The authors said it was irrational, legally indefensible and contrary to the public interest for the government to mandate vaccines absent any evidence that the vaccines are effective in stopping the spread of the pathogen.ImageCredit...Luca Bruno/Associated PressMark Wainberg, who was president of the International AIDS Society, professor of medicine and microbiology at McGill University in Montreal and director of AIDS research at the Jewish General Hospital in that city, said in a 2014 interview for this obituary that Montagnier was in the right place at the right time, referring to his Nobel-Prize winning research. (Dr. Wainberg died in 2017.)But in speaking of Dr. Montagniers later work, he said, The fact is that his scientific ideas have not been considered credible by his peers nor have they stood the test of time.Luc Montagnier was born on Aug. 18, 1932, in Chabris, France, the only child of Antoine and Marianne (Rousselet) Montagnier. His father was an accountant, and his mother was a homemaker. He once told The International Herald Tribune that his father, who had a makeshift chemical laboratory in the familys garage, had inspired him to become a doctor so that he could explain the world through science.Dr. Montagnier earned degrees from the University of Poitiers and Paris as well as from the Sorbonne, where he taught physiology. He worked at the Virus Unit of the Medical Research Council in London from 1960 to 1963, and for a year at the Institute of Virology in Glasgow. He and a colleague there discovered the first double-stranded RNA virus and a new way to culture cancer cells.Dr. Montagnier returned to Paris to direct a laboratory at the Curie Institute and, in 1972, founded and directed the Viral Oncology Unit at the Pasteur Institute, where he led the team that discovered the virus that causes AIDS.He married Dorothea Ackerman in 1961. They had two daughters, Anne-Marie and Francine, and a son, Jean-Luc. Information about his survivors was not immediately available.Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris. | science |
DealBook|John Thains Tin Ear Survives to the End at CIThttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/business/dealbook/john-thains-tin-ear-survives-to-the-end-at-cit.htmlBreakingviewsDec. 10, 2015Credit...Nick Ut/Associated PressJohn Thain once spent $1.2 million of Merrill Lynchs money remodeling his office there, including $35,000 for an antique commode.He turned out to be the last boss of the Wall Street brokerage firm, which was sold to Bank of America during the financial crisis, and vowed to reimburse the firm for the costs. Mr. Thain eventually went on to run the CIT Group, a midmarket lender, and did a creditable job turning it around, but his tin ear hasnt left him.Mr. Thain, the chief executive of CIT, is retiring at the end of March. His board just changed its definition of retirement in a way that allows Mr. Thain to keep stock that he might otherwise lose. Awards to employees that are not yet available to them unvested equity, as it is called often are forfeited when they quit. Under CITs long-term incentive plan, people could keep such awards if they retired at 55 with at least 11 years of service, or at 65 after five years at the company.Neither set of parameters fit Mr. Thain. He turned 60 this year, and when he retires, hell have just wrapped up six years in the job. The company said this week that those precise criteria had been added to the retirement provisions that allow shares to keep vesting. The change may not cover all of Mr. Thains unvested stock. If it does, though, the value of those awards, as shown in CITs proxy statement in April, could be as much as $13 million.At a conference on Wednesday, Mr. Thain said that the shift was to rationalize the retirement definition to a rule of 66 reflecting the sum of retirement age and years of service. That may be reasonable, but would be better changed for the next chief executive than to hand him a potential multimillion-dollar windfall on the way out. The approval by CITs board also would be more convincing if Mr. Thain were not also chairman.The former Merrill chief has largely accomplished the needed restructuring of the $8.5 billion CIT. For his efforts, Mr. Thain was paid $8.8 million in 2014 after taking home $8.2 million the year before. Its perhaps in character, though, that his final bow at CIT should include the fine-print equivalent of a decorative cabinet. | Business |
Credit...Al Drago for The New York TimesJune 13, 2018WASHINGTON Speaker Paul D. Ryan, seeking to unite his fractious conference around a compromise immigration bill, assured Republican lawmakers during a closed-door session on Wednesday that President Trump is backing the effort, though passage of the measure next week remains very much in doubt.Wednesdays gathering came less than 12 hours after Mr. Ryans office announced that the House would consider immigration next week but not bipartisan bills prompted by a desire to protect young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Instead, lawmakers will consider a hard-line measure that emphasizes border security and the somewhat more moderate compromise measure, yet to be finalized, that still meets Mr. Trumps standards.Mr. Ryans voting plan and the unfinished compromise measure were products of weeks of tense negotiations between Republican conservatives, including hard-liners in the House Freedom Caucus, and a band of rebellious Republican moderates. But in the end, the moderates stumbled before the finish line. They had been gathering signatures for a so-called discharge petition that would have forced Mr. Ryan to bring two bipartisan bills to the floor, but the effort collapsed two signatures short of the number needed.Its not my ideal place to be, said Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, one of 23 Republicans who signed the petition. My ideal option would be a bipartisan bill in the House. But its the cards that we were dealt, and I think were trying to make good use of these cards.The compromise bill will be built around four principles Mr. Trump has called them the four pillars that the president has insisted any immigration bill contain: a path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers; beefed-up border security, including $25 billion for the wall the president wants to build on the southwest border; an end to the current diversity visa lottery system, which is aimed at bringing in immigrants from underrepresented nations; and limits on family-based migration, known as chain migration.Mr. Ryan told reporters that the last thing I want to do is bring a bill out of here that I know the president wont support.Democrats who had seen a glimmer of hope in the moderates discharge petition slammed the Ryan plan as a betrayal of bipartisan efforts to address the fate of the Dreamers.All 193 Democrats had signed the discharge petition. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip, said he expects that he and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, will urge all Democrats to vote against both bills. Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the chief Democratic sponsor of one of the bipartisan measures, said his Democratic colleagues would almost certainly heed their leaders call.We have no bill text, and we have votes assured next week, Mr. Aguilar said in an interview. To my colleagues, good luck, but theyre not going to be able to count on any Democrats to help them when they lock us out of the process at the 11th hour.Mr. Trump expressed his support for the Republican compromise measure in a telephone call with Mr. Ryan, according to Republican lawmakers and White House officials. Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, said the White House had input into the legislation, adding, We were part of the back-and-forth with them.ImageCredit...Al Drago for The New York TimesBut White House officials said the president would be cautious about offering a full-throated endorsement of either of the measures that are slated for a vote next week. Mr. Trump does not relish the idea of leading the charge for a bill that might not pass, and his advisers have told him that House Republicans even those who support the legislation itself may be reluctant to vote for it if they believe it has no chance of passing the Senate.The hard-line bill, known as the Goodlatte bill after its chief author, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia, is highly unlikely to garner enough votes to pass the House. But the compromise bill also faces a highly questionable path because conservatives, having secured a vote on the Goodlatte bill, may have little incentive to vote for a more moderate measure that could be perceived as providing amnesty to Dreamers.Were working to try to get a bill that will pass, said Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida and a leader of moderates who have pushed for the House to vote on immigration. I dont think anyones in a position to make any guarantees on whether a bill will pass or not.Immigrant rights advocates accused the immigration moderates of caving to party pressure.Its a show vote for the right-wingers and a show vote for the so-called moderates, said Frank Sharry, the executive director of Americas Voice, an immigrant rights group. Neither will pass. They will not get Democratic support. Its a sham. The heroic moderates who were going to fight for Dreamers turned out to be easily rolled by Ryan and the Freedom Caucus.The votes next week will put the politically divisive issue of immigration front and center in the national debate in the middle of a difficult election year for Republicans. It comes nine months after Mr. Trump moved to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era initiative also known as DACA, which protected Dreamers from deportation.After moving to end DACA in September, Mr. Trump called on Congress to pass legislation to replace it by March, but so far, lawmakers have been unable to do so. The Senate debated immigration for a week in February, and passed nothing.Had the discharge petition succeeded, the House would have also voted on the Dream Act, a stand-alone bill backed by Democrats that would offer a path to citizenship for the Dreamers, as well as Mr. Aguilars measure, which would pair a path to citizenship with increased border security.Several of the petitions Republican signatories credited their effort with prompting House Republican leaders to put immigration an issue they had been loath to address on the legislative schedule.I think it is our signing the discharge petition that is in large measure responsible for the fact that this is going to be brought to the floor of the House, said one of those who signed, Representative Leonard Lance, Republican of New Jersey.Mr. Curbelo insisted that moderates were not abandoning the petition drive, suggesting that it could be rekindled if necessary.Its there if we need it, he said, and we may need it. | Politics |
Credit...Joyce Dopkeen/The New York TimesDec. 2, 2015Joseph F. Engelberger, a visionary engineer and entrepreneur who was at the forefront of the robotics revolution, building robots for use on assembly lines and fostering another, named Seymour, to handle chores in hospitals, died on Tuesday in Newtown, Conn. He was 90.The Robotic Industries Association confirmed his death.Mr. Engelberger was a force in robotics from its early days, in the 1960s, when his company, Unimation, in Danbury, Conn., developed the Unimate, a robotic arm that would greatly accelerate industrial production lines.Based on concepts for programming machinery advanced by an inventor, George Devol, the arm was first used in the die-casting industry to pluck new parts from their molds.Mr. Engelbergers salesmanship soon found a receptive market in the auto industry; General Motors, Ford and Chrysler had begun to favor robots for manufacturing in the 1970s and embraced the Unimate.But not everyone was eager to adopt them. Labor unions and some corporate managers resisted robotics at first, worrying, as Mr. Engelberger later put it, that the robots can take all the jobs away.He disagreed with that notion.Its unjustified, he told The New York Times in 1997. The robots take away subhuman jobs which we assign to people.Unimate proved to be more precise than the human hand in completing some repetitive and dangerous tasks. Automobile makers employed the arm to weld and move vehicle parts, apply adhesives to windshields and spray-paint car bodies jobs that had posed chemical hazards to workers.Unimation grew to employ as many as 1,000 people and was purchased in the early 1980s by Westinghouse.Mr. Engelberger then turned to the next generation of robotics technology: mobile machines that would operate with ever greater autonomy.He consulted with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration about the potential for unmanned, remotely controlled devices in space exploration, and his expertise was sought by scientists in Japan, where the momentum in the robotics industry had shifted. Japanese electronics companies had adapted robots to make circuit boards and other intricate components.In the 1990s, working with HelpMate Robotics in Danbury (he was its chairman for a time), Mr. Engelberger helped create a robotic courier that found a niche in hospitals. The device, named Seymour, could deliver meals, medical records, supplies and more, and found round-the-clock employment in about 100 hospitals across the country.Yet Seymour was only a prototype for Mr. Engelbergers larger ambitions. He foresaw a mobile household robot that would incorporate navigation devices, cameras, medical instruments and alarms and enable more of the elderly to remain in their own homes in safety.He envisioned such a robot as having arms and stereoscopic vision, to guide a person to a door or bathroom. It might carry a device to measure a patients heart rate, blood sugar and other vital signs, and then be able to relay those readings to a doctor.It might also act as a watchdog, using voice-recognition software to identify intruders and employing pepper spray or an electric shock to chase them away.In the best of all worlds, Mr. Engelberger suggested, robots might also take on some human qualities. Modest conversational gambits are possible, he said, though he allowed that technology would not permit a person to discuss Spinoza with the robot anytime soon.An advanced domestic robot remains on the drawing board. But highly sophisticated robots like the Mars lander, deploying what amounts to a chemistry lab to analyze planetary soil, have come to pass.William L. Whittaker, a leader in robotics research and a professor in the subject at Carnegie Mellon University, credited Mr. Engelberger with being an authentic, empowering and no-nonsense influence in the development of robotic technology.His strengths were sales, marketing and finding utility in the world for an emerging technology, Dr. Whittaker said in an interview in 2008, in the process helping to build the robotics movement.(Dr. Whittaker himself designed a remotely guided robotic car and machines that helped to clean up after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979.)Mr. Engelberger explained his ideas in two books, Robotics in Practice (1980) and Robotics in Service (1989). Dr. Whittaker said Robotics in Service in particular bridged the realms of research and daily enterprise and bundled disparate subjects under one cover, providing an excellent cross section.Joseph Frederick Engelberger was born on July 26, 1925, in Brooklyn to Joseph and Irene Engelberger, immigrants from Germany. He studied science and engineering at Columbia University before joining Manning, Maxwell & Moore, an engineering firm and maker of industrial equipment in Bridgeport, Conn.He left the company to help establish Consolidated Controls Corporation and Unimation, where he was the companys president.In 1997, Mr. Engelberger received the Japan Prize for his pathbreaking leadership in robotics. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering.Mr. Engelbergers wife of more than 50 years, Marge, died in 2007. He is survived by a son, Jeffrey; a daughter, Gay Engelberger; and a grandson.Of all the possible uses of robots, Mr. Engelberger remained wary of a military role, which he considered a misappropriation of what was otherwise a scientific blessing. While noting that ballistic missiles and similar weapons already incorporated robotics, he resisted a suggestion that robot armies could substitute for human troops to save lives in warfare.It would not be long, he said, before antagonists would find ways to undermine each other.It starts out innocently enough, Mr. Engelberger said, to use robots as corpsmen to go out and pick up the wounded soldiers.Then it occurs to them not to send the soldiers out, he said of commanding officers, and to give robots weapons of destruction.Thats not good, he said, but I dont know what to do about it. | Business |
on techThese companies have mastered spending big to stay Big Tech.Credit...Charlie Le MaignanPublished Oct. 30, 2020Updated Nov. 1, 2020This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays.My colleagues wrote about the eye-popping sales numbers coming from Americas technology superstars, including Google, Facebook and Amazon. Their sales and profits this year, in the middle of a pandemic, are truly hard to fathom. Its so much money, you guys.But these companies also spend gobs of money, which in turn helps them make more money.The ability to spend like crazy because Big Tech has money and hardly anyone questions how the companies spend it is one of the secrets to why the tech industry giants are so difficult to unseat.A few examples: Amazon hired 250,000 full- and part-time employees on average roughly 2,800 each day in the 90 days that ended in September and then about 100,000 more people in October, the company said. Google has spent nearly $17 billion this year on things like hulking computer equipment thats about the same as Exxons comparable spending figure for digging oil and gas out of the ground.Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg talked excitedly on Thursday about spending whatever it takes on futuristic projects like eyeglasses that overlay virtual images with the real world. Imagine walking down the street and seeing a virtual list of menu items for the taco shop on the corner.Some of this stuff, yes, can immediately help companies generate more of those eye-popping sales and profits that my colleagues wrote about. When Amazon hires people to work in its warehouses or to drive trucks, those workers help push more packages to your door this Christmas.But a lot of this stuff, honestly, who knows. What the heck is Apple cooking up in its research labs, on which it spent $19 billion in the last year? Can Facebook get us to buy into a future of our world mixed with virtual images? Are Amazons gazillions of new package warehouses, transportation depots and computer centers really justified? This is the kind of stuff that might never pay off.And thats one reason Big Tech is so different. Few large companies get mostly patted on the back for spending money in ways that may or may not pay off.This is part of the ultimate dilemma about these technology giants that dominate our lives and often our leisure and work hours. They make tons of money, which means they have more money to stay on top. (Also, governments and competitors say these companies break the rules to advantage themselves at the expense of rivals, hurting consumers like us.)One of the most cringe-inducing words in business is moat. What this means is a company has some unique advantage a globally recognized brand name for Coca-Cola, or a unique technology that helps Uber move cars around efficiently that gives it an unbreachable border of water filled with monsters.Its a terrible, overused piece of jargon. But the tech superstars have a moat. (Imagine me cringing as I typed that.) Their unique advantage is access to giant piles of money. And theyre using it to dig that watery trench of monsters even deeper.SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS: We want to hear your election tech questions. What are you curious or concerned about related to how tech companies are handling election-related misinformation, or how secure Americas election technology is? Send your questions to [email protected], and well answer a selection. Please include your full name and location.Dont fall for bogus holiday deals onlineRetailers really, really, really want you to start your holiday shopping early, because well, read this about possible holiday package shipping delays. That means Black Friday and other preholiday sales have already started. The problem is, a lot of times when websites scream DEAL its not actually a good deal.Nathan Burrow from The New York Timess product review website, Wirecutter, has these tips to make sure were not getting fooled by something that promises a discount but is a bad buy:Comparison shop: The hot item that the website says you cant find for less anywhere else? Yeah, you probably can. Type the name of the product into a shopping search in your web browser. (If youre considering a flash sale online, first add the item to your shopping cart. Often you have up to 15 minutes to check out, enough time to check on the price.)Read the reviews: Customer reviews arent always reliable. So read up on a product that intrigues you from multiple publications may I suggest Wirecutter? This isnt a guarantee that youre getting a good price, but it will help you avoid getting excited by a sale and buying a junk product.Use (free!) shopping tools: Websites like CamelCamelCamel.com or Keepa will give you a useful, albeit imperfect, idea of how much a given item has sold for on Amazon over time. Thats a good indication of whether youre getting a good deal right now, or can wait.Even when youre not shopping on Amazon, you can check whether the retailers price is a good deal by comparing it to how much the same product tends to sell for on Amazon.Have an informed plan: Dont believe the hype, be patient and know that there are good discounts to be found. You may just need to cut through the noise to find them.Before we go Hes a star on Facebook. Hes not sure why: My colleague Kevin Roose talked to Dan Bongino, the right-wing commentator who said he cant really explain why he went from a B-list pundit to one of the most popular figures on Facebook. Kevin writes that its both charming and terrifying that people like Bongino get big on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok because their personas happen to fit into the grooves of a platforms algorithm.Listen to this to understand the antitrust case against Big Tech: Lina Khan helped reshape the legal views on how antitrust laws apply to big technology companies. On my colleague Kara Swishers podcast, Sway, Khan had a clear explanation of how she believed big technology companies hurt all of us, and she gave a glimpse inside Congresss recent investigation into Big Tech power.Sigh. Math problems by emoji is not a good solution: Bloomberg News writes about teachers in the Philippines improvising remote classes with printed handouts and lessons over Facebook Messenger, because a majority of the countrys households have limited internet access. One teacher started texting her students a daily math problem using emojis in place of numbers.Hugs to thisThe best moment of my week was reading this article about people who are obsessed with the $300 12-foot Halloween skeleton sold by Home Depot. (Also hello to this video of a Home Depot skeleton lashed to the roof of a Mini Cooper.)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 |
China is heavily reliant on imported computer chips, despite efforts to develop its own semiconductor industry. Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesMay 21, 2019BEIJING For all of Chinas efforts to become a global force in high technology rivaling the United States, it has mostly failed to produce top-flight contenders in one crucial area: the industry that gave Silicon Valley its name. Last year, China imported more than $300 billion worth of computer chips, the backbone of all digital products. That is more than it spent on crude oil from abroad. Washington has now turned Chinas reliance on American microchips against Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that the Trump administration has labeled a national security threat. The Commerce Department last week restricted American firms from selling components and technology to the company, essentially cutting Huawei off from Google software, Qualcomm chips and more. The department said Monday that it would allow Huawei to continue doing business with American suppliers for 90 days to prevent disruption to mobile networks that use the companys equipment. Yet Washingtons move still strikes at a national soft spot for China that has weighed on the minds of the countrys leaders for decades. Desperate to reduce the dependence on imports, the authorities in China have pledged tens of billions of dollars to help foster homegrown chip champions. The countrys dreams of semiconductor hegemony have added to the trade tensions with the United States, which wants Beijing to scale back what it considers unfair government support for Chinese firms. Washington has found reason to directly punish one state-backed chip maker, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company. After Micron Technology, an American rival, accused the Chinese company of pilfering chip designs, the Commerce Department blocked it from buying American components. ImageCredit...Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThe fruits of Chinas chip drive have been mixed at best. Chinese firms market share remains modest in most areas of semiconductor production. Nearly all of the most complex chips must still be imported. Several Chinese state-backed makers of memory chips, which store data, have announced big production plans. But the global market for such chips is currently saturated, suggesting grim prospects for turning a profit. On the whole, government support has helped the Chinese industry, said Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at ICwise, a semiconductor market research firm in Shanghai. But now that the market has become overheated and fickle, the negative effects are increasingly apparent, he said. Local governments in China dont understand the industry, Mr. Gu said. They are merely using up resources that private companies know how to spend more effectively, he added.Chinas role as the worlds leading assembler of electronics, and its vast consumer market for electronics, has convinced some observers that given enough time, the country would inevitably attract or foster the knowledge for producing advanced chips. If China could catch up in making toys and then in producing cellphones, the thinking goes, then why not in semiconductors someday? For now, surviving without American chips promises to be the ultimate test for Huawei, despite the companys recent strides in developing its own processors.In an interview with Chinese media on Tuesday, Huaweis founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, said that in peaceful times, half of Huaweis chips came from American companies, and the other half it developed itself. Huawei has stockpiled chips for emergencies like this, Mr. Ren said. But the company could never entirely reject American technology, he said. Even members of his own family, he said, are iPhone users.We will not recklessly get rid of American chips, Mr. Ren said. We need to grow together.Beijings angst over foreign semiconductors has a long pedigree. As Japan, South Korea and Taiwan emerged with formidable chip industries in the 1980s and 90s, China experimented with various forms of state planning to develop its own abilities. In 2014, Beijing set a goal of becoming a global leader in all segments of the chip industry by 2030, and national and local government semiconductor investment funds began springing up across the country.The results of those efforts are hard to spot, however, in the innards of leading Chinese tech companies products. To crack open one of Huaweis smartphones or cellular base stations is to see the extent to which advanced technology is a truly globalized endeavor, even as Beijing and Washington have come to distrust each others tech providers. In Huaweis new P30 Pro flagship phone, for example, American firms supply a number of key components, including parts that help process the radio signals that carry calls and data through the air, according to an analysis by System Plus Consulting, a research firm in France. The P30 Pros memory chips are from Micron and the Japanese company Toshiba. The camera technology is from Sony of Japan. The processor, the brains of the phone, was developed by Huawei itself. Huaweis semiconductor division, HiSilicon, has surprised industry observers with the progress it has made in developing processors and baseband chips, which connect phones to data networks. Yet even HiSilicon may be affected by the Commerce Departments restriction. Many of the leading providers of chip design software are American. For other kinds of components, Huawei should not have much trouble finding non-American substitutes if it is fully cut off from American suppliers. In memory chips, for instance, Micron is a leading global supplier, but so are Samsung and SK Hynix of South Korea. In general, the more advanced the silicon, the more likely it is that Huawei will have to compromise on quality to avoid American providers like Broadcom, which supplies specialized chips for Huaweis data centers, and Nvidia, which makes high-end graphics processors for Huaweis laptops. The companys options may also be limited when it comes to the critical components that help smartphones process radio signals. American companies, including Skyworks and Qorvo, lead the market for these radio frequency parts, which are technologically demanding to produce. Its just very difficult unless this is your bread and butter, Liam K. Griffin, Skyworkss president and chief executive, said on a conference call this month with analysts. We have years and years of experience here working with this.Paul Mozur contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Carolyn Zhang contributed research. | Tech |
Credit...Gael Grilhot/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNov. 18, 2018AMSTERDAM A commander in a Central African Republic militia who is known as Rambo and is wanted on suspicion of war crimes, including murder, deportation and torture of Muslims, has been handed over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the tribunal said.Officials from the Central African Republic transferred the commander, Alfred Yekatom, on Saturday to officials from the court, which is looking into more than six years of violence that has destabilized a fragile region at the heart of the continent.Mr. Yekatom, a sitting member of Parliament, was flown out of the country and arrived in the courts detention center in The Hague early Sunday, officials there said.There was no immediate comment from Mr. Yekatom or any lawyers representing him.A United Nations commission of inquiry found that Christian militias under Mr. Yekatom had carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting Muslims.The International Criminal Court, set up to prosecute the worst crimes when member countries cannot or will not do so, issued a sealed arrest warrant for Mr. Yekatom on Nov. 11.We allege Mr. Yekatom is criminally responsible for several counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the Central African Republic between 5 December 2013 and August 2014, said an International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda. Now, he must answer in court for his actions.Ms. Bensouda is carrying out two separate investigations into conflicts in the Central African Republic. Mr. Yekatoms arrest is the first in the more recent conflict.She paid tribute to witnesses who helped her build the case against Yekatom, saying justice would not be possible without them, according to The Associated Press.We cannot undo the suffering that has been inflicted on victims, but we remain committed to doing our part, Ms. Bensouda added, to advance justice and accountability in the Central African Republic.A pretrial chamber found reason to suspect Mr. Yekatom of commanding around 3,000 members of an armed group operating within the anti-Balaka movement, which was carrying out systematic attacks against the Muslim population.Among the charges in the warrant are murder, cruel treatment, deportation, imprisonment, torture, persecution, enforced disappearance and the recruitment of child soldiers under the age of 15.No date has been set yet for Mr. Yekatoms initial appearance, but he must be brought before a judge within several days under court rules.A former French colony, the Central African Republic is one of Africas poorest countries despite reserves of gold and diamonds. It was plunged into chaos when the predominately Muslim Seleka rebels started attacking towns and grabbing territory before seizing power in March 2013.Selekas rule prompted a backlash from Christian militia known as anti-Balaka. Under international pressure, Seleka handed power to a transitional government, but the move effectively partitioned the country and bloody clashes continue.The government of the Central African Republic asked the I.C.C. in May 2014 to investigate crimes said to have been committed by both the Seleka and the anti-Balaka.In June, appeals judges from the court overturned the conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for atrocities committed by his forces in Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003, saying the trial judges had made errors. | World |
Credit...Jean Chung for The New York TimesMarch 8, 2017INCHEON, South Korea Until recently, Beyond Cosmetics could not fill Chinese orders fast enough for its Green Piggy Collagen Jella Pack, a creamy beige substance containing pig collagen, or its Carbonated Bubble Clay Mask, which leaves the users face covered with foam.Then, in November, international politics struck this South Korean maker of skin care products. As Chinas ire grew over plans by Washington and Seoul to park a missile defense system on South Korean soil, sales of the two beauty aids fell to one-fifth of Beyond Cosmetics sales, from one-half.Now, as the deployment of the system begins this week and China threatens to punish South Korea further, companies like Beyond Cosmetics have been bracing for worse. The intensifying diplomatic ruckus is exposing deep cracks in South Koreas economic success story and forcing the nation to confront its dependence on China, its largest trading partner.Even before the current crisis, Beyond Cosmetics had started to look beyond China, where it was increasingly running into problems like tougher government rules and rising homegrown competition.We thought we could do something better with our time than attempt to go further into the Chinese market, said Kim Byung-sun, the companys vice president, adding that he traveled regularly to promote halal-certified products in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country, and long-lasting matte lipsticks that can withstand the humidity in Thailand.ImageCredit...Jean Chung for The New York TimesAn export powerhouse that began its upward trajectory decades before Beijing embraced capitalist economics, South Korea has long benefited from Chinas rise. Chinese factories are major buyers of Korean-made components. A growing Chinese middle class embraced Korean devices, cosmetics, television shows and music, often in shopping trips across the Yellow Sea.All of that may be in jeopardy now. Consumer boycotts have hit Korean chain stores in China. K-pop shows there have been canceled. Just last week, the Chinese National Tourism Administration ordered regional travel agencies to halt sales of package tours to South Korea.But even before China began lashing out at South Korea, the economic relationship between the industrial giants had started to shift. China is increasingly a competitor as much as a customer for South Korea. Chinese companies have improved product quality and can compete on price, both at home and abroad, in everything from complex components to cosmetics to smartphones.That presents major challenges for a country where a bribery scandal has engulfed both the countrys president and the de facto chief of its biggest conglomerate, Samsung, and raised questions about whether an economy driven by exports and close ties between officials and big business have reached their limit. To thrive long term, experts say, South Korea needs to consider overhauls that will help empower entrepreneurs and spread wealth domestically.A key question is whether Korea is going to be able to make a shift away from a trade- and export-led growth model that brought them dramatic economic success, said Mark W. Lippert, who recently left Seoul as the American ambassador to South Korea.ImageCredit...Jean Chung for The New York TimesChinese manufacturers have started to make the parts and components that South Korean companies have been selling into China, where factory workers assemble them into products destined for European or American consumers. This so-called intermediary trade currently accounts for about three-quarters of all of South Koreas exports to China.Chinese companies are also making more of their own consumer goods such as cars, phones and flat-panel television screens. Samsung, which commanded a 20 percent share of the Chinese cellphone market in 2012, now has only 6 percent, according to GfK, the market researcher. The top four best-selling cellphone brands in China, according to IDC, the technology research firm, are now made by Chinese companies.Mr. Kim, of Beyond Cosmetics, says Chinese cosmetics manufacturers have wooed South Korean research employees with salaries that are three times higher than what his company can offer, in addition to benefits like housing and cars.In 2015 and 2016, South Koreas exports fell for the first time in close to 60 years, the Korea International Trade Association said. Last year, exports to China slid 9.3 percent compared with a year earlier as the Chinese economy slowed down, though those figures were up in the first two months of this year.Regardless of the industry, Korea has depended on China too much, said Kang Seon-jou, professor of trade and economic studies at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.ImageCredit...Jean Chung for The New York TimesBeijing has protested South Koreas agreement to host the missile defense system called the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad and the Chinese state news media have been calling for a boycott, affecting everything from South Korean pop stars and television programs to Korean-owned supermarkets. This week, alarmed by the most recent test of ballistic missiles by North Korea, the United States began to deploy the system.That is affecting an effort by South Korea to reap more economic power from its popular culture. Several musical events featuring its performers in China have been canceled, and South Korean dramas have been pulled from Chinese online video services.Lotte, a South Korean conglomerate that is providing land for the Thaad deployment, has reported that its online stores in China have been hacked and that half its China-based shops have been shut down for reported fire code violations.Although Lotte is reluctant to blame the Thaad backlash, Chinese consumers seem ready to do so. Over the weekend, hundreds of angry protesters, waving Chinese flags and singing, assembled outside Lotte shops and demanded that the public boycott South Korean products.In Incheon, a port city less than 250 miles from the nearest port in China, visiting Chinese consumers arrive by ferry to snap up items like rice cookers, toilet seats, food and makeup.ImageCredit...Jean Chung for The New York TimesStill, local merchants are experiencing what they say is a slowdown in tourist activity from China. Incheon officials said that this month, several large Chinese businesses that were planning to send thousands of employees to company workshops in the city canceled the visits.Although the number of Chinese visitors to Incheon rose in 2016 over a year earlier, when an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome caused tourism to plunge, the numbers have not returned to 2014 levels. Yoo Jeong-bok, Incheons mayor, said in an interview at city hall, If we didnt have these geopolitical security issues, I think these 2016 figures would have been much higher.Lee Chung-ha, 65, owner of a small dealer of Korean-made rice cookers, said he used to sell about 30 cookers a day to Chinese visitors. On a recent Wednesday, he was unable to sell even one and cited the Thaad deployment as the biggest factor.In the underground Sinpo International Market, a warren of small retail stalls selling clothing, handbags and used cellphones, business was sluggish on a recent visit.Things are really bad right now, said Kim Min-seop, 52, owner of Mirae Mobile, where he sells recycled cellphones and iPads. But to be honest, what can the government do? This is such a sensitive political issue.Down the hall, at a tiny skin care salon, Kim Chun-yeo, 57, the owner, sat alone on a small stool waiting for a customer to stop by. An ethnic Korean who was born in China, Ms. Kim opened her stall two years ago. About half of her business came from Chinese visitors, including a steady stream of cruise ship and ferry workers who wanted facials. Now, shes lucky to get one or two customers a day.Ms. Kim never thought she would need to pay so much attention to politics. I think the politicians have not done well, she said. Because for the economy to be good, we have to have a relationship with China. I think Korea should be smarter by trying to cooperate with China. | World |
Asia Pacific|Pakistan Hosts Major Cricket Game Despite Security Fearshttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/world/asia/pakistan-cricket-match-psl.htmlCredit...Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMarch 6, 2017ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Amid tight security, thousands packed Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Sunday as Pakistan for the first time in years hosted international cricket players on home soil.The match was the last in a domestic cricket series known as the Pakistan Super League. International teams had largely refused to play in Pakistan since a terrorist ambush of the Sri Lankan team in 2009, in which eight people were killed.Given security fears, the Pakistan Super League games have been played in the United Arab Emirates, and the decision to host the final match of the series in Lahore became a polarizing issue as some politicians opposed the idea.Concerns for the safety of players and fans on Sunday were high. Last month, Pakistan staggered through a series of deadly suicide bombings, and threats of future attacks have left widespread anxiety. An attack on a Sufi shrine alone killed more than 80 people.But Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, decided to go forward with the final match in Lahore, seeing it as an opportunity to bring cricket with international players back to the country.At least 8,000 police officers and soldiers provided security at the Sunday match. Enthusiastic spectators lined up hours ahead of the event to get through security cordons. Inside the stadium, the atmosphere was electric, even carnival-like.The fact that the stadium was named for an international pariah was the least of concerns for the jubilant fans, who watched as the Peshawar Zalmi beat the Quetta Gladiators by 58 runs.Once called Lahore Stadium, the arena was renamed for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan dictator who became a popular figure in Pakistan after he expressed support for the countrys nuclear program during a visit in 1974.As the perception of Colonel Qaddafi has soured in Pakistan, some have sought to rename the stadium. Last year, Najam Sethi, a senior official of the Pakistan Cricket Board and a leading political commentator, suggested that it be renamed after one of the countrys most noted philanthropists. | World |
Machine LearningVideoMolly Wood says bigger may be better when it comes to smartphones.Feb. 26, 2014The tablet and the phone are fast becoming the same device, and I for one cant wait.Bigger phones have been a big trend over the last couple of years, and despite a somewhat mocking moniker, the phablet (phone plus tablet) is here to stay. I predict that within a few years, seven- and eight-inch tablets, like the iPad mini, will begin to disappear, replaced by phones that are nearly equal in size.Tablets were a revolution in consumer electronics, mainly because they made us realize how much more we could do with our portable touch screens. The first tablets, like the original iPad and the Google Nexus 10, were 10 inches, great for watching movies and TV shows. But despite rocketing sales growth at first, most people found that a laptop with a keyboard is still better for getting work done. And at 1.5 to 2 pounds, those early tablets were slightly big and heavy to hold for reading, or to carry around day to day.Thus, the smaller tablet was born the Google Nexus 7, the Amazon Kindle and Apples reluctantly birthed iPad Mini. At 7 inches (or 7.9 inches, in the case of the iPad Mini), those tablets are lightweight, easy to toss in a purse or backpack, and better for use as a multimedia-enabled e-reader because they are more comfortable to hold. For a brief halcyon period, sales of smaller tablets began to crush sales of 10-inch devices.Now, even those tablet sales have slowed. The research firm IDC predicts that tablet sales growth, though still expanding, will slow to the single digits by 2017, with sales of smaller tablets falling the fastest. It seems that many of us come to the conclusion Ive reached of late: I dont want a smaller tablet. I want a bigger phone.Big phones may take some getting used to theyre less pocketable and a little comical when used for actual talking but theyre much more useful than small tablets for unifying your communications on one device. Theyre always connected and more portable than a tablet, and the phone is already the device youre using for texting, taking pictures and browsing the web. Why not a bigger screen for watching videos and reading email?At the moment, the industry is still trying to figure out exactly what size phone makes sense, but the new norm in screen size keeps creeping up. Some phones are clearly considered or labeled phablets, like the LG Optimus G Pro 2, announced this week at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain. Its screen is 5.9 inches, or just about an inch smaller than the Nexus 7. The Chinese manufacturer ZTE announced its Grand Memo II phablet, with a 6-inch display; Chinas Huawei dropped all pretense with the 7-inch MediaPad X1, with 4G LTE connectivity built into a device that is almost all tablet, hardly any phone.But even phones that arent strictly phablets are getting bigger. Samsung announced its Galaxy S5 this week in Barcelona, and its screen measures in at 5.1 inches. LG has been successful with the 5.2-inch LG G2; 4.6-inch displays are almost the new minimum. When Samsung introduced a Galaxy S4 Mini, its screen was 4.3 inches 0.3 inches larger than the iPhone.Apple now stands as the last holdout against the big phone trend. The iPhone 5S screen is stubbornly stuck at four inches, which seems tiny when stacked up against current Android phones. The iPhone 4S has an eye-squinting 3.5-inch screen. Analysts, consumers and even Donald Trump have begged Apple to make a bigger phone. Rumors abound that one or even two new bigger-screen iPhones could be in development for September. Apple declined to comment on whether a bigger iPhone is in the works.But while youre waiting for Apple, there are other good options to consider.Ive spent the last couple of weeks with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which has a 5.7-inch screen and includes a stylus, and I think its the best of the bunch. I also love the LG Optimus G Pro; I expect its successor, the LG Optimus G Pro 2, to be excellent, although it may not be picked up by United States carriers.That leaves us the Note 3. The original Galaxy Note really kicked off the phablet craze. It was introduced in 2011, and had a then-astonishing 5.3-inch screen. Despite the mockery from a lot of circles, the Note became a cult hit. It sold 10 million units and broke new ground on screen-size acceptance.The Note 3 has been a success, as well; Samsung said it sold 10 million Note 3 devices in just 60 days after its introduction in September. I can see why; the Note 3s screen is absolutely luxurious for reading email, scrolling through Twitter, looking at photos and, most of all, for playing Candy Crush. Try it: Youll never play on an iPhone again.The Note 3 is lightweight, with a faux-leather back that makes it feel refined in a vegetarian sort of way. It weighs about six ounces to the iPhone 5Ss four, which is not significantly heavier to hold and type on. And the typing itself is comfortable and natural; the screen is big enough that theres room for a row of numbers above the qwerty keys, so no switching between the letters and symbols menu when you need to add numbers. Theres even room for a period key. What a concept, right?The stylus is a big differentiator between the Note 3 and other phablets. I could take it or lose it. It adds functionality, like the ability to quickly and easily take a screenshot that you can then draw on and share, or a quick way to scribble a memo or scrapbook a page for later. But the LG Optimus G Pro lacks the stylus, and I find it just as usable.Im happiest when Im using the Note 3 just as Id use a tablet: playing games, browsing the web, checking Facebook, watching video, reading books and magazines, and sending email. But what makes the phone better than the tablet is one-stop shopping for all my communications. I can also text, Instagram and even make a call, without switching devices.Our smartphones remain the center of our connected lives; bigger screens make them that much more useful and immersive, even if they may also require bigger pockets, purses and man purses. Embrace the phablet and use Bluetooth for making calls. Youll feel much less silly that way. | Tech |
Credit...Joshua Bright for The New York TimesNov. 20, 2018ORANJESTAD, Aruba Why should the world be paying attention to the election of a woman to lead a coalition government in an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of the Netherlands? Because it may just answer the question: What if a country was run by women?Aruba gives us opportunity, said Prime Minister Evelyn Wever-Croes, who last year became the first woman to ascend to the post in the country after a complicated election in which she was charged with forming its first coalition government in 16 years.Although women have risen to such leadership positions in much larger nations like Margaret Thatcher of Britain or Angela Merkel of Germany or Michelle Bachelet of Chile to name just a few Mrs. Wever-Croess election is significant, coming at a time when womens ascent into top decision-making roles globally has sputtered.Unlike some of her counterparts, she is not just a woman in a top leadership position overseeing a government mostly run by men. Many women hold top jobs in the Aruban government, and Mrs. Wever-Croes wants to find more.Her job is more challenging than it might seem. Despite the islands year-round sunny weather and pristine beaches, it has a long, complex history and is facing challenging financial issues it has both a budget deficit and a rising national debt and is under financial supervision of the Dutch government in The Hague. Aruba left the group of Caribbean islands known as the Netherlands Antilles in 1986 but remained part of the Netherlands.Failure to meet the terms of financial supervision would result in direct intervention by the Dutch in Arubas domestic financial affairs, even though the island has autonomy in local matters.Mrs. Wever-Croes, who was born into a family of politicians, said she had not intended to seek elected office until she found herself running out of excuses not to. Someone has to do it she says, and adds, you cant just look at a situation and complain.Her first job was in Arubas tax department after she graduated from Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands. Thirteen years later, after rising to lead the office of the Tax Inspectorate, she left for private practice as a tax attorney while raising her family. She returned to politics when she was elected to Parliament in 2009.She is now 52 and a grandmother.Getting more women to run for political office is a priority for her, as is refusing to accept the first no she hears from those she asks. Women often list the same reasons she initially gave for not wanting to enter politics private sector career, family, personal life so initially she accepted it.Now, she responds with an additional push. Staying in our comfort zone wont bring us the change we need for our families and in Aruba, she said.One-third of the seats in the 21-seat Parliament are held by women, as are two of eight cabinet positions (including Mrs. Wever-Croess). While men far outnumber women in elected positions, women are leading in policy and influential industry posts.ImageCredit...Corbis, via Getty ImagesXiomara J. Ruiz-Maduro, the minister of finance, economic affairs and culture, is a woman. She also entered politics in 2009 and was appointed to Mrs. Wever-Croess cabinet shortly after the prime minister took office. Her first order of business was a challenging one: To come up with budget and debt proposals that would satisfy the Netherlands.With a growing national debt estimated at about 91 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), it was agreed that the 2018 budget deficit would not exceed the one in 2017. Aruba has seen modest economic growth in 2017 and 2018 but it is fragile in the short-term because it relies so heavily on one sector tourism.Mrs. Wever-Croess own duties include energy, integrity and innovation. Integrity is a new addition to the prime ministers job, added by Mrs. Wever-Croes to address the decline in public trust in elected officials.She has had to diplomatically lower expectations on the countrys sustainable energy transition during meetings at the United Nations in September, navigate the erosion of public trust in elected officials at home after a bribery scandal involving a former minister of labor, and address the sustainability of the countrys economic growth.As these pressing issues are discussed, Mrs. Wever-Croes and Mrs. Ruiz-Maduro look across the boardroom table and, more often than not, see other women. Tourism accounts for up to 92 percent of Arubas GDP. The two organizations responsible for destination management and representation of travel industry interests (Aruba Tourism Authority and the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association) have women chief executive officers. The countrys director of Economic Development is a woman, as are the five sector heads reporting directly to her.The Central Bank of Aruba has been under the leadership and direction of the economist Jane Figaroa-Semeleer since 2008.Then there is the countrys first chief innovation officer, the minister plenipotentiary for Aruba (representing the governments interests in the United States) as well as the countrys appointee to the state council in the Netherlands. The council is an advisory body in the Netherlands composed of members of the royal family and other members appointed by the crown once again, roles occupied by women. The state council has significant legislative oversight and judicial authority.Mrs. Wever-Croess path to career prominence is mirrored in those of her female peers. These are women who, immediately upon graduating from high school in the 1980s, went to university before entering the work force.They proceeded to work hard, have children and get promoted. Not working did not appeal as an option for any of these women. I wouldnt know what to do with my life if I wasnt working, said Maria Diijkhoff-Pita, director of the Department of Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry.How have they achieved uninterrupted career progression, a goal that has eluded so many women? Part of the answer lies with the countrys former oil refinery. From its opening in 1928 until it closed in 1985, it was the countrys major private employer.Automation of the refinerys operations in 1956 ushered in a first wave of dislocation and reinvention for Aruba. Men left to work in other Caribbean countries, while the women stayed home. Many started home-based businesses to supplement family incomes, while others took positions in government or stepped into roles in the nascent tourism industry.The next wave of economic reinvention started with the refinerys closure and Arubas withdrawal from the Dutch Antilles, which led to the closure of the University of the Dutch Antilles, the only university then on the island.Girls and boys now had to leave the island for college.For many reasons, including service to country, family responsibility and personal choice, Mrs. Wever-Croes and most of her female peers returned home upon graduation to pursue their careers rather than remaining abroad.As the countrys economic prospects began to improve, the women were to borrow a line from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright there when the country came looking for them.Mrs. Wever-Croes recognizes there are still inequities in Aruba, which is why she is pushing a human-centered Hunto Pa Aruba (Together For Aruba) socio-economic plan. Men and women, everyone needs to contribute, she said.The state of the countrys financial affairs is an ongoing challenge.I have to be frank, were still in crisis, Mrs. Wever-Croes said, in a manner reminiscent of someone who has had to make difficult decisions before.Women Leaders to Watch in Aruba1. Evelyn Wever-Croes, prime minister2. Xiomara J. Ruiz-Maduro, minister of finance3. Jane Figaroa-Semeleer, president, Central Bank of Aruba4. Mildred G.M. Schwengle, member, State Council of the Kingdom of the Netherlands5. Ronella Tjin Asjoe-Croes, chief executive officer, Aruba Tourism Authority6. Tisa LaSorte, chief executive officer and president, Aruba Hotel & Tourism Association7. Susana Maduro, cororate comunications officer, Setar N.V.8. Joselin S. Croes, chief of staff, minister of justice, safety and integration and minister plenipotentiary for Aruba in the United States9. Isella Wernet, director, Futura, and general advisor, Ministry of General Affairs, Integrity, Energy, Innovation and Government Organisation10. Amalin L.A. C. Flanegin, supervisory issues and legal affairs, Central Bank of Aruba11. Maria DiijkhoffPita, director, Department of Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry12. Hellen van der Wal, member, Board of Financial Supervision of Aruba13. Varelie Croes, chief innovation officer, Aruba14. Michelle de Groot, director, Aruba Trade and Industry Association | World |
Special Report: Energy for TomorrowCredit...Courtney WeatherbyDec. 8, 2015Hydroelectric dams grace bank notes in developing countries, from Mozambique to Laos, Kyrgyzstan to Sri Lanka, a place of honor reflecting their reputation as harbingers of prosperity. That esteem, now enhanced by hydropowers presumed low-carbon profile, continues to overrule concerns about environmental consequences and displaced people, as evidenced by a surge in dam-building in the developing world. The phenomenon is perhaps most intense in the Mekong River Basin, in Southeast Asia, where 12 more dams are planned for the main stem of the river and 78 on its tributaries. Because many of these projects seem inevitable, institutions, nongovernmental organizations and academics worldwide, from the World Bank to the German Corporation for International Development to the Nature Conservancy, are developing strategies for dams with softer environmental footprints. The Mekong is the richest inland fishery in the world, with more than 60 million people who live along it surviving on subsistence fishing.The dams would have catastrophic impacts on fish productivity and biodiversity, including species such as the Irrawaddy dolphin, according to a 2012 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sediment mobility is also a concern. Vietnam, despite its own dams, is concerned that new upstream dams would deprive its low-lying delta the countrys rice basket and home to millions of critical sediment replenishment in the face of sea-level increases and saltwater intrusion. Nevertheless, the countries along the Mekong China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are eager to develop, and for now that means large dams. Historically, dam builders sought to maximize hydroelectricity and profits. Aquatic scientists came in at the tail end of the planning process to assess the environmental impacts and try to mitigate them to some degree. A recent paper in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests a seemingly obvious yet novel approach: Bring in aquatic scientists at the beginning so that engineers can consider ecological principles first, not last.The paper came out of meetings organized by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center in Annapolis, Md., in 2013. Engineers and aquatic scientists discussed their core requirements for a hypothetical case study of the Iowa River in the United States. For the engineers, it was revolutionary to get quantitative environmental variables at the beginning of the process that they could put into a model to address ecosystem issues. I can work with that, said Casey Brown, an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a co-author of the paper.John H. Matthews, an ecologist and secretariat coordinator for the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation and a co-author of the paper, said: Engineers are native problem solvers. If you can define a problem accurately and broadly, they will come up with a solution.Called ecological engineering decision scaling, the framework models tradeoffs between power loss and environmental gain to find the sweet spot. That approach can work especially well if planners consider the entire river basin rather than just a single dam, a strategy that is also atypical, Mr. Brown said.For example, a 2012 study considered 26 dams proposed for the Mekongs tributaries and found that building them all would reduce migratory fish by 20 percent. Forgoing just a few dams could minimize fish losses to 3 percent, while still producing 75 percent of the energy, according to the study.Taking a holistic look at the river system is also economically advisable because multiple dams have a cumulative impact not just on the environment but also on energy performance. Projects can end up interfering with each other, said Jeff Opperman, senior freshwater scientist with the Nature Conservancy. Nevertheless, there are ways to reduce the impact of a single dam by softening the barrier it creates to fish and sediment moving through the river.After the Xayaburi Dam in Laos came under heavy public criticism, planners widened the fish passage channel, put switchbacks in the fish ladder to make it easier to climb, and added several entry points at different flow velocities to attract different species of fish, according to a report from the Stimson Center, a public policy institute in Washington.To allow sediment through the proposed Sambor Dam in Cambodia, the Natural Heritage Institute in San Francisco advocates a bypass channel for environmental releases of water to help river ecology and the full opening of dam gates in certain seasons to flush sediment. The way a dam is operated can also soften its impact. Typically, dam operators respond to energy demand by moving a lot of water through, then rapidly cutting off the flow when demand drops.Its a very unnatural stream flow that has many negative impacts to the ecosystem, said N. LeRoy Poff, professor of biology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and a co-author of the Nature Climate Change paper. One remedy is a second dam downstream that re-regulates the river flows out of the dam, mimicking on the downstream side the flow of water thats coming in on the upstream side. Dam developers may be growing more receptive to some of these strategies because water flows are becoming more unreliable as the climate changes, said Mr. Matthews, the ecologist. That raises questions about the risk of such large investments. Increasingly organized social and environmental opposition to large dam projects are also raising financial risks.Reducing the risk of controversy by engaging stakeholders in early planning and environmental impact studies can lower risk for investors, reducing financing costs, said Mr. Opperman, at the Nature Conservancy. Nevertheless, even as hydropower booms, its days may be numbered because of the rapidly decreasing price of more agile alternatives like wind and solar. | Business |
Credit...Kobi Gideon/Israeli Government, via European Pressphoto AgencyNov. 8, 2018JERUSALEM The Israeli police on Thursday recommended the indictment of one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus closest confidants and three others from his inner circle in a sprawling bribery case involving the multibillion-dollar purchase of submarines and missile boats from Germany.Mr. Netanyahu was not a suspect in the naval-acquisition scandal, which has been called Case 3000, and in fact he was cleared months ago, though he was questioned. The police have recommended criminal bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges against Mr. Netanyahu in two other corruption investigations.The police said they had sufficient evidence to charge David Shimron, a second cousin of Mr. Netanyahus as well as his personal lawyer, with bribery and money laundering.Mr. Shimron, they said, had exploited his status and closeness to the prime minister to promote the submarine purchase on behalf of Michael Ganor, an Israeli agent working for ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, the shipyard that build the vessels. In exchange, Mr. Shimron was paid a reward for success of nearly $75,000 for opening doors and influencing officials in favor of the deal, the police said. Mr. Ganor turned states witness in 2017.Also accused is David Sharan, who was chief of staff to Mr. Netanyahu from late 2014 to 2016. The police said Mr. Sharan received about $35,000 from Mr. Ganor from 2013, when Mr. Sharan was an aide to the minister of finance, until 2016, though the money was paid through other businessmen to conceal the connection.The police recommended indicting two others from Mr. Netanyahus inner circle: Avriel Bar-Yosef, a reserve brigadier general and former deputy head of the National Security Council, who was Mr. Netanyahus nominee to be his national security adviser until the scandal broke; and Eliezer (Modi) Zandberg, who was Mr. Netanyahus appointee as chairman of Keren Hayesod, an organization that leads fund-raising efforts for Israel in dozens of countries.Mr. Bar-Yosef is accused of helping Mr. Ganor get hired to represent ThyssenKrupp and then taking a cut of his fees. Mr. Zandberg is accused of using his influence to help Mr. Ganor with access to officials and inside information in exchange for payoffs of about $27,000.With elections expected early next year, it is unclear how the police recommendations in the submarine case will affect Mr. Netanyahus standing. The growing list of people close to the Israeli leader who face possible criminal charges could be used against him by his challengers. But Mr. Netanyahu could point to the end of the police inquiry as proof that he personally had nothing to do with improprieties in the submarine acquisition, as he has maintained all along.Ehud Barak, the former prime minister who has been a vocal critic of Mr. Netanyahus, wrote on Twitter in Hebrew that the indictments amounted to the collapse and betrayal of state security.If he knew, he belongs in prison. If he didnt, he is not qualified to run a state, Mr. Barak wrote, adding: Treasonous, disgraceful and contemptible.Another Netanyahu confidant, Yitzhak Molho, was also caught up in Case 3000: the police said he had met with Mr. Ganor about the submarine deal without reporting the meeting. That violated conflict-of-interest rules governing Mr. Molhos dual roles as a top diplomatic emissary for Mr. Netanyahu and a partner with Mr. Shimron in a leading Israeli law firm. But the police said that they had insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Molho with a crime.The police did recommend charges against Shay Brosh, a reserve brigadier general and former head of the elite naval commando unit Shayetet 13, and Maj. Gen. Eliezer Merom, the former commander of Israels navy, who the police said had received about $160,000 in bribes. | World |
Facebook was going to compete with Google for some advertising sales but backed away from the plan after the companies cut a preferential deal, according to court documents.Credit...Paige Vickers Published Jan. 17, 2021Updated April 6, 2021In 2017, Facebook said it was testing a new way of selling online advertising that would threaten Googles control of the digital ad market. But less than two years later, Facebook did an about-face and said it was joining an alliance of companies backing a similar effort by Google.Facebook never said why it pulled back from its project, but evidence presented in an antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 state attorneys general last month indicates that Google had extended to Facebook, its closest rival for digital advertising dollars, a sweetheart deal to be a partner.Details of the agreement, based on documents the Texas attorney generals office said it had uncovered as part of the multistate suit, were redacted in the complaint filed in federal court in Texas last month. But they were not hidden in a draft version of the complaint reviewed by The New York Times.Executives at six of the more than 20 partners in the alliance told The Times that their agreements with Google did not include many of the same generous terms that Facebook received and that the search giant had handed Facebook a significant advantage over the rest of them.The executives, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their business relationships with Google, also said they had not known that Google had afforded such advantages to Facebook. The clear disparity in how their companies were treated by Google when compared to Facebook has not been previously reported.The disclosure of the deal between the tech giants has renewed concerns about how the biggest technology companies band together to close off competition. The deals are often consequential, defining the winners and losers in various markets for technology services and products. They are agreed upon in private with the crucial deal terms hidden through confidentiality clauses.Google and Facebook said that such deals were common in the digital advertising industry and that they were not thwarting competition.Julie Tarallo McAlister, a Google spokeswoman, said the complaint misrepresents this agreement, as it does many other aspects of our ad tech business. She added that Facebook is one of many companies that participate in the Google-led program and that Facebook is a partner in similar alliances with other companies.Christopher Sgro, a Facebook spokesman, said deals like its agreement with Google help increase competition in ad auctions, which benefits advertisers and publishers. Any suggestion that these types of agreements harm competition is baseless, he said. Google and Facebook declined to elaborate on the specifics of their deal.The Wall Street Journal had reported on aspects of the draft complaint earlier.The swell of recent antitrust cases filed against Google and Facebook has cast a spotlight on lucrative deals among Big Tech. In October, the Justice Department sued Google and homed in on an agreement with Apple to feature Google as the preselected search engine on iPhones and other devices.This idea that the major tech platforms are robustly competing against each other is very much overstated, said Sally Hubbard, a former assistant attorney general in New Yorks antitrust bureau who now works at Open Markets Institute, a think tank. In many ways, they reinforce each others monopoly power.Google and Facebook accounted for more than half of all digital advertising spending in 2019. In addition to displaying advertising on their own platforms, such as Googles search engine and Facebooks home page, websites, app developers and publishers rely on the companies to secure advertising for their pages.The agreement between Facebook and Google, code-named Jedi Blue inside Google, pertains to a growing segment of the online advertising market called programmatic advertising. Online advertising pulls in hundreds of billions of dollars in global revenue each year, and the automated buying and selling of ad space accounts for more than 60 percent of the total, according to researchers.In the milliseconds between a user clicking on a link to a web page and the pages ads loading, bids for available ad space are placed behind the scenes in marketplaces known as exchanges, with the winning bid passed to an ad server. Because Googles ad exchange and ad server were both dominant, it often directed the business to its own exchange.A method called header bidding emerged, in part as a workaround to reduce reliance on Googles ad platforms. News outlets and other sites could solicit bids from multiple exchanges at once, helping to increase competition and leading to better prices for publishers. By 2016, more than 70 percent of publishers had adopted the technology, according to one estimate.Seeing a potentially significant loss of business to header bidding, Google developed an alternative called Open Bidding, which supported an alliance of exchanges. While Open Bidding allows other exchanges to simultaneously compete alongside Google, the search company extracts a fee for every winning bid, and competitors say there is less transparency for publishers.The threat of Facebook, one of the biggest ad buyers on the internet, supporting header bidding was a grave concern at Google. The draft of the complaint reviewed by The Times cited an email from a Google executive calling it an existential threat that required an all hands on deck approach.Facebook announced in March 2017 that it was testing header bidding with publishers like The Washington Post, Forbes and The Daily Mail. Facebook also took a jab at Google, saying the digital ad industry had been handing over profits to third-party middlemen who make the rules and obfuscate the truth.Before Google and Facebook signed the deal in Sept. 2018, Facebook executives outlined the companys options to Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, according to the draft of the complaint: hire hundreds more engineers and spend billions of dollars to compete against Google; exit the business; or do the deal.To many in the ad industry, Facebook joining Googles alliance felt like a reversal on header bidding. One Open Bidding partner said it had been excited to be in discussions with Facebook about setting up an alternative to Googles alliance only to have conversations abruptly cease in 2018.Facebook disclosed that it had joined Googles program in one line in a Dec. 2018 blog post. But it did not reveal that Google, according to the draft complaint, provided Facebook with special information and speed advantages to help the company succeed in the auctions that it did not offer to other partners even including a guaranteed win rate.In this market, where fractions of a second count, a speed advantage was decisive. Facebook had 300 milliseconds to bid for ads, according to court documents. But the executives at Googles partner companies said they usually had just 160 milliseconds or less to bid.Facebook had yet another advantage: Direct billing relationships with the sites where ads would appear, according to the court documents. For most other partners, Google controlled pricing information, effectively putting up a wall between Open Bidding participants and site owners and hiding how much of winning bids sites end up receiving, the executives at other companies said.Google agreed to help Facebook have a better understanding of who would be shown the ads by helping the company identify 80 percent of mobile users and 60 percent of web users, the documents said. But several other partners said they had little such help understanding who was being shown ads.Adam Heimlich, the chief executive of Chalice Custom Algorithms, a marketing and data science consulting company, said the deal gave Facebook so much advantage that it was like allowing the social network to start every tournament in the finals.Facebook promised to bid on at least 90 percent of auctions when it could identify the end user and committed to spending a certain amount of money as much as $500 million a year by the fourth year of the agreement, according to the draft of the complaint. Facebook also demanded that data about its bids not be used by Google to manipulate auctions in its own favor, a level playing field not explicitly promised to other Open Bidding partners.Perhaps the most serious claim in the draft complaint was that the two companies had predetermined that Facebook would win a fixed percentage of auctions that it bid on.Unbeknown to other market participants, no matter how high others might bid, the parties have agreed that the gavel will come down in Facebooks favor a set number of times, the draft complaint said. A Google spokeswoman said Facebook must make the highest bid to win an auction, just like its other exchange and ad network partners.While both companies said that the deal is not an antitrust matter, they included a clause in the agreement that requires the parties to cooperate and assist each other if they are investigated for competition concerns over the partnership.The word antitrust is mentioned no less than 20 times" throughout the agreement, the draft complaint said.Steve Lohr contributed reporting. | Tech |
Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersMarch 6, 2017SEOUL, South Korea A special prosecutor in South Korea asked state prosecutors on Monday to indict President Park Geun-hye on bribery charges, saying that Ms. Park and her secretive confidante conspired to take $38 million in bribes from Samsung, one of the worlds largest technology companies.The special prosecutor, Park Young-soo, recommended the indictment as he announced the results of his teams 90-day investigation into a corruption scandal surrounding Ms. Park, who was impeached by a parliamentary vote in December.The inquiry resulted in the indictments of 30 people, including several former aides to Ms. Park, on criminal charges, including the abuse of official power. But the prosecutor could not bring any charge against Ms. Park because she is protected from indictment while in office.His mandate now over, Mr. Park said he was leaving the task of indicting Ms. Park once she is out of office to state prosecutors.Ms. Parks presidential powers have been suspended since the impeachment vote in December. The Constitutional Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether she should be reinstated or formally removed from office. Even if she resumes the presidency, her five-year term ends in February, after which she can face criminal charges.On Monday, Ms. Parks lawyer, Yu Young-ha, rejected the special prosecutors findings, saying his investigation was politically biased and lacking in fairness. He called the bribery allegation an absurd fiction.But on Monday, Mr. Park, the special prosecutor, who is not related to Ms. Park, said his team found enough evidence that Ms. Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, conspired to collect bribes from Samsung.On Feb. 28, he indicted Lee Jae-yong, the third-generation scion of the family that runs Samsung, on charges of giving or promising $38 million in bribes to Ms. Park and Ms. Choi. He also added a bribery charge to the case against Ms. Choi, who is already on trial.Mr. Lee offered the bribes in return for political favors from Ms. Park, most notably government support for a merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015 that helped him inherit corporate control of the Samsung conglomerate from his incapacitated father, Lee Kun-hee, the prosecutor said.Acting on Ms. Parks order, her aides forced the government-controlled National Pension Service, a major shareholder at the two Samsung companies, to vote for the merger, though it was opposed by many minority shareholders and devalued the pension funds own stocks there, the prosecutor said.ImageCredit...Jung Ui-Chel/European Pressphoto AgencyOn Monday, Samsung denied the special prosecutors findings.Samsung has not paid bribes nor made improper requests seeking favors, it said in a statement. Future court proceedings will reveal the truth.On Monday, Mr. Park, the special prosecutor, said that the president should also face a criminal charge of abusing official power, saying she conspired with aides to blacklist thousands of artists, writers and movie directors deemed unfriendly to her government and exclude them from government-funded support programs.Ms. Park also fired three senior Culture Ministry officials who had been reluctant to discriminate against some of the 9,473 names on the list, the prosecutor said. She demoted and later fired another senior ministry official who had angered Ms. Choi, her friend, by investigating allegations of corruption involving her family, the prosecutor said.While blackballing unfriendly artists, Ms. Parks office ensured that pro-government civic groups received special favors, he said.It asked the Federation of Korean Industries, which lobbies on behalf of Samsung and other big businesses, to provide $5.9 million for those groups between 2014 and 2016, the special prosecutor said. Some of those groups, like the right-wing Korea Parent Federation, have held noisy protests in downtown Seoul calling the critics of Ms. Park commies.Besides Samsung, scores of other South Korean companies were found to have made payments to two foundations controlled by Ms. Choi. But on Monday, the special prosecutor did not recommend further actions against them, and state prosecutors had earlier said that those companies were coerced to donate and were not engaged in bribery.Ms. Park has repeatedly denied any legal wrongdoing, insisting that she was framed by hostile political forces and that she was not aware of any criminal conspiracy by Ms. Choi. She said she only let Ms. Choi edit some of her speeches and run her personal errands.On Monday, the special prosecutor said Ms. Park and Ms. Choi had 573 phone conversations between April and October last year using cellphones issued under borrowed names. Of these calls, 127 took place between September, when Ms. Choi left for Germany, and October, when she returned home to be arrested.The prosecutor accused Ms. Park of impeding his investigation. She refused to be questioned by his investigators and also did not allow them to search her office. As a result, he said his team could not fully determine what she was doing at her residence for seven hours in April 2014, when a ferry loaded with hundreds of schoolchildren sank, killing more than 300.Ms. Park said she was working at the time, getting reports on the disaster. But she has been haunted by lurid rumors, some of them claiming that she was having a romantic encounter or undergoing plastic surgery.On Monday, the prosecutor said a cosmetic surgeon gave Ms. Park at least five simple face-lifting operations at her residence between 2013 and 2016. Even unlicensed people visited her there to give her nutritional shots and help her with kinesiotherapy and reiki, a form of traditional healing. But investigators could not find evidence that such things took place on the day of the ferry disaster. | World |
Credit...Richard Perry/The New York TimesDec. 3, 2015When Ron Boire was growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, helping out around the property for $2 an hour, he saw new books as an out-of-reach luxury.We didnt have any money, and my mother was a voracious reader, he said. I remember telling a friend, when I grow up, I want to be able to afford hardcover books.Mr. Boire, who took the helm as chief executive of Barnes & Noble in September, still seems to have a soft spot for physical books. Walking through the first floor of a Barnes & Noble store in Union Square in Manhattan recently, Mr. Boire couldnt help himself from reflexively straightening the jagged piles of books on the display tables so that the spines lined up neatly.Now Mr. Boire, 54, the former chief executive of Sears Canada and a retail veteran who has worked at Brookstone, Best Buy and Toys R Us, is under pressure to reverse the fortunes of the beleaguered bookstore chain, which has been stung in recent years by the rise of Amazon, steep losses from its Nook e-reader division and a string of store closings.To that end, Mr. Boire is leading a push to rebrand Barnes & Noble as more than just a bookstore by expanding its offerings of toys, games, gadgets and other gifts and reshaping the nations largest bookstore chain into a lifestyle brand.Everything we do around learning, personal growth and development fits our brand, Mr. Boire said. Theres a lot of opportunity.Facing spiraling losses from store closings, Barnes & Noble is searching for ways to increase foot traffic and drive sales. Last month, the chain held a coloring event at stores around the country, where it doled out sample sheets from coloring books and art supplies. It also recently held a national Mini Maker Faire promoting technology literacy at its stores, with coding and 3-D printing workshops.Near the front of the Union Square store, a large display table was dedicated to vinyl records and turntables, and another area showcased tech gadgets. Near the registers, a table was covered with adult coloring books, one of the fastest-growing book categories, and art supplies.The macro trend is about physical interaction with things, Mr. Boire said. I think its here for the long haul.That philosophy could be tested as Barnes & Noble enters the critical holiday shopping period and faces new questions about its financial health after another disappointing fiscal quarter.On Thursday afternoon, Barnes & Noble reported that during its second fiscal quarter of 2016, which ended on Oct. 31, sales fell 4.5 percent, to $895 million, compared with the previous year. The company posted a net loss of $27.2 million, or 36 cents a share, compared with the previous years losses of $5.1 million, or 16 cents a share. By midday Friday, its stock was down almost 20 percent.Earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization fell to $20.5 million, a drop that the company attributed in part to a $10.5 million severance charge for its former chief executive, Michael P. Huseby, who became the executive chairman of Barnes & Noble Education, the companys college bookstore business.Toys and games, a small but increasingly critical part of the business, provided a bright spot, growing nearly 15 percent in the last quarter. In a conference call with investors, Mr. Boire underscored this point by singling out coloring books and strong sales of Adeles new album 25 among the companys recent successes.Some analysts said there were reasons to be hopeful about the companys future. Through Black Friday weekend, comparable store sales were up 1.1 percent, providing an encouraging forecast for the chains holiday sales.The only number that counts is Christmas, said John Tinker, a media analyst at Gabelli & Company.Barnes & Noble stands to benefit from falling e-book sales and the stability of print, an unexpected reversal that could help drive customers back to brick-and-mortar bookstores. Paperback sales were up 13 percent in the first seven months of 2015, while e-books were down 11 percent, according to the Association of American Publishers.As a retail bookseller, its in decent shape, considering the direction the company was heading with so many store closings and so much visible bleeding in terms of the Nook business, said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. Theres solid leadership, whereas before, there was infighting about what the strategy would be.Still, the companys struggles are probably far from over. Barnes & Noble has been battered by Amazon, its powerful online rival, and has incurred big financial losses from its largely failed attempt to carve out territory in the e-book space with the Nook. While the company posted lower losses in its Nook division in the most recent quarter, sales were still disappointing, as the Nook segment tumbled 31.9 percent to $43.5 million, primarily because of lower digital content sales.The chain has closed more than 70 stores around the country in the last five years, and plans to close 10 more in the coming year.Analysts and investors have taken Mr. Boires appointment as a sign that the company will continue to expand and emphasize its nonbook merchandise. Mr. Boire got his start in sales at Sony in the 1980s, and from there went on to positions at Best Buy, Brookstone, Toys R Us and Sears before he was brought in to succeed Mr. Huseby at Barnes & Noble this fall.Some warn that Barnes & Noble needs to tread carefully to avoid alienating longtime customers who worry that books might become an afterthought.The real question is whether they can do it in an organic, integrated fashion, so that theyre not offering random merchandise, but its connected to a broader philosophy, said Lorraine Shanley, president of Market Partners International, a publishing consultant firm.At the same time, Barnes & Noble has made a push to make its thousands of books more enticing and searchable. Categories like parenting and Christian publishing that were once haphazardly organized alphabetically by author are now broken out into logical subcategories, so that parenting books are stocked according to the age of the child, and Christian books are arranged into categories like relationships or health and wellness. The sales results were instantaneous, said Mary Amicucci, who oversees the adult consumer and childrens book business.The company has doubled the amount of floor space devoted to graphic novels and manga, and has expanded its stock of collectible figurines.Such efforts might not be enough to restore investors confidence in the booksellers uncertain future, particularly as Amazon continues to expand. Amazon recently opened its first physical retail store in Seattle and indicated that it might open more stores around the country.Theres still another round of disruptive innovation to come, Mr. McQuivey said. Its unclear whether Barnes & Noble is in any better position to deal with it than it was during the last round of disruptive innovation. | Business |
Credit...Fred R.Conrad/The New York TimesDec. 11, 2015Two months ago, Thomas Lapointe, lead portfolio manager of the Third Avenue Management junk bond fund, delivered a bullish presentation at a conference at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Yes, fund assets were down, he assured worried investors, but there was value out there. The right approach was to stay the course, he said, according to an investor in attendance.But in a conference call on Friday, a day after Third Avenue said it would bar investors from getting their money back, the usually upbeat Mr. Lapointe struck a starkly different tone.The dislocation in the market has been tremendous, he said, according to a person who listened to the call. And the magnitude and scope of managing this fund over the past year has been a humbling experience.The rare step taken by Third Avenue executives to keep investors from selling their shares rattled markets that were already bracing for the impact of the Federal Reserves probable interest rate increase next week.With investors withdrawing from the riskier pockets of the bond market, the lockout by Third Avenue ignites fears that mutual funds that have loaded up on hard-to-sell securities like junk bonds, leveraged loans and emerging market debt may face a similar predicament.Mutual funds typically allow investors to withdraw funds on a daily basis. The step by Third Avenue to put the Focused Credit Fund into a liquidating trust and sell its assets over the course of a year or so was a rude surprise to its investors.Financial advisers who were in close contact with Third Avenue said that in recent weeks they received little indication that the fund was on the verge of such a drastic step.The funds value had shrunk to about $790 million from about $2.5 billion, but other high-yield bond funds had lost more assets. Behind the scenes, though, the Focused Credit Funds large position in so-called Level 3 assets securities that trade so infrequently that prices for them can only be estimated was causing serious problems.As Mr. Lapointe and his team moved to unload bonds that they could actually sell, the Level 3 assets increased from around 15 percent of assets in Third Avenue portfolios to around 25 percent a level regulators generally deem unacceptable. Executives even took the extreme step of tapping an emergency credit line from a bank in order to bolster their cash position, said a person who had been briefed on the move by a Third Avenue executive.Making the job of Third Avenue executives more difficult was that other debt investors were smelling blood in the water.In the last few days, we were unable to sell our investments at reasonable prices because market participants were aware we were forced sellers, said David Barse, Third Avenues chief, on the conference call, according to a person who listened in.The market in junk bonds continued to sell off on Friday. Some see the turmoil as a warning signal of a broader slowdown in the economy as companies, many of which have borrowed heavily in recent years, struggle to pay down their loans.There is a real risk that this could keep echoing in the months ahead, said Jeffrey Gundlach, the manager of the DoubleLine Total Return Fund who has been warning others about the junk bond market for some time. It is a really bad thing when a mutual fund does something like this, and it makes me worry that you are going to see similar problems with leveraged hedge funds.As an indicator of how bad things have become in the high-yield market, Mr. Gundlach noted that the $10 billion high-yield exchange-traded fund managed by State Street, largely seen as a barometer for the junk bond market, was trading lower today than it did right after the Lehman Brothers crisis in 2008.When the market is pricing assets that low, you should worry, he said.Mutual fund analysts say that the Third Avenue fund is perhaps the riskiest of the many high-yield funds that investors have been piling into in recent years.Mr. Lapointe and his team of analysts acted more like private equity investors, taking large stakes in companies that were either already bankrupt or emerging from bankruptcy. Unlike most funds that hold bonds that can be bought and sold, albeit with some difficulty, private equity funds are not required to pay back investors on demand it is a must for mutual funds.This was not your typical high-yield fund, said Sumit Desai, a junk bond expert at the fund-rating shop Morningstar. They were in the murkiest areas of the market, and they owned stuff that your traditional junk bond manager would never touch.In that regard, Mr. Desai noted, the Third Avenue implosion should not necessarily mean that all high-yield funds are now at risk. Still, he pointed out that rock-bottom interest rates pushed a number of funds into the riskiest niches of the junk bond market.Among the high-yield bond funds that have experienced more investor outflows than Third Avenue this year are two that have the largest exposure to risky bonds that carry the lowest credit ratings because of their high risk.One is the Ivy High Income Fund a $6 billion fund that has lost $1.8 billion this year and has 48 percent of its assets in securities which carries a CCC credit designation, the lowest credit rating a fund can receive. According to Morningstar, this funds most recent cash level was reported to be 1.5 percent quite a low cushion given the composition of its portfolio.A spokesman for Ivy Investment Management did not respond to a request for comment.On a larger scale, American Funds $16.8 billion high-yield fund has 30 percent of its portfolio in these types of bonds and this year has seen $1.3 billion in investor redemptions.On the conference call with investors, the Third Avenue executives insisted that they had ultimately acted in favor of investors by putting up gates, or keeping investors from accessing funds, which hedge funds often do but is rarely, if ever, seen in a mutual fund. But the executives did little to disguise how shocked they were at the speed of their funds demise.Responding to an email query from a fund shareholder, Mr. Lapointe said that a significant part of my net worth was invested in the fund.But beyond saying that investors would be getting a series of distributions over the next year, specific details were scant about why the fund did not have more cash on hand or when investors could expect to be made whole.This has been very painful for us, Mr. Barse said, according to the investor who listened to the call. Our sales representatives will be in touch. | Business |
on techA Google research scientist explains why she thinks the police shouldnt use facial recognition software.VideoCreditCredit...By Ziv SchneiderPublished June 9, 2020Updated Aug. 1, 2021Ovide: What are your concerns about facial recognition?Gebru: I collaborated with Joy Buolamwini at the M.I.T. Media Lab, who led an analysis that found very high disparities in error rates [in facial identification systems], especially between lighter-skinned men and darker-skinned women. In melanoma screenings, imagine that theres a detection technology that doesnt work for people with darker skin.I also realized that even perfect facial recognition can be misused. Im a black woman living in the U.S. who has dealt with serious consequences of racism. Facial recognition is being used against the black community. Baltimore police during the Freddie Gray protests used facial recognition to identify protesters by linking images to social media profiles.But a police officer or eyewitness could also look at surveillance footage and mug shots and misidentify someone as Jim Smith. Is software more accurate or less biased than humans?That depends. Our analysis showed that for many, facial recognition was way less accurate than humans.The other problem is something called automation bias. If your intuition tells you that an image doesnt look like Smith, but the computer model tells you that it is him with 99 percent accuracy, youre more likely to believe that model.Theres also an imbalance of power. Facial recognition can be completely accurate, but it can still be used in a way that is detrimental to certain groups of people.The combination of overreliance on technology, misuse and lack of transparency we dont know how widespread the use of this software is is dangerous.A maker of police body cameras recently discussed using artificial intelligence to analyze video footage and possibly flag law-enforcement incidents for review. Whats your take on using technology in that way?My gut reaction is that a lot of people in technology have the urge to jump on a tech solution without listening to people who have been working with community leaders, the police and others proposing solutions to reform the police.Do you see a way to use facial recognition for law enforcement and security responsibly?It should be banned at the moment. I dont know about the future.You can watch our entire conversation about helpful uses of A.I. and its downsides here.Tip of the WeekStopping trackers in their tracksBrian X. Chen, a consumer technology writer at the The New York Times, writes in to explain ways that emails can identify when and where you click, and how to dial back the tracking.Googles Gmail is so popular in large part because its artificial intelligence is effective at filtering out spam. But it does little to combat another nuisance: email tracking.The trackers come in many forms, like an invisible piece of software inserted into an email or a hyperlink embedded inside text. They are frequently used to detect when someone opens an email and even a persons location when the message is opened.When used legitimately, email trackers help businesses determine what types of marketing messages to send to you, and how frequently to communicate with you. This emailed newsletter has some trackers as well to help us gain insight into the topics you like to read about, among other metrics.But from a privacy perspective, email tracking may feel unfair. You didnt opt in to being tracked, and theres no simple way to opt out.Fortunately, many email trackers can be thwarted by disabling images from automatically loading in Gmail messages. Heres how to do that:Inside Gmail.com, look in the upper right corner for the icon of a gear, click on it, and choose the Settings option.In the settings window, scroll down to Images. Select Ask before displaying external images.With this setting enabled, you can prevent tracking software from loading automatically. If you choose, you can agree to load the images. This wont stop all email tracking, but its better than nothing.Bonus tech tip! Some readers asked for more help setting up notifications that can alert you to fraudulent credit card charges. Signing up for these is not easy because, lets face it, financial websites are not the simplest to use.On the apps and websites for the credit cards I have, I found these alerts in menus labeled Profile and Settings or Help & Support. Look for Alerts or dig into the privacy and security options. Sign up for an email or app notification each time your card is used to make a purchase online and over the phone.Most of the time, those purchases are from you. But you want to know right away in the (hopefully) rare times when theyre not.Before we go Behind the pro-China Twitter campaign: An analysis by my New York Times colleagues found a new and decidedly pro-China presence on Twitter, made up of a network of accounts exhibiting seemingly coordinated behavior. The findings add to evidence suggesting that Twitter is being manipulated to amplify the Chinese governments messaging about the coronavirus and other topics.Restaurants really arent fans of those apps: Nathaniel Popper, a Times tech reporter, explains why restaurants are increasingly unhappy about the high fees and other aspects of food delivery services like Grubhub and Postmates. (Ill have a conversation with Nathaniel about this in Wednesdays newsletter.)The downsides of every gathering of humans: The neighborhood social network Nextdoor has been both a place for people to help one another during the pandemic, and a way for neighbors to lash out at one another over perceived slights or fan fears about crime. The Verge writes about the challenges faced by the volunteers on Nextdoor who are moderating discussions about race and the recent protests.Hugs to thisNPRs Pop Culture Happy Hour recently introduced to me the whimsical mini childrens stories that the writer Anne Louise Avery composes on Twitter.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] this newsletter in your inbox every weekday; please sign up here. | Tech |
Philadelphia PD Only 6 Arrests Despite Pre-Game, Post-Game Insanity 1/22/2018 There was blood before the game ... and fires afterward -- but the Philadelphia PD tells us only 6 PEOPLE were arrested on Sunday in connection to the NFC Championship madness. One person was arrested for assault on a police officer -- we're told the incident took place in the parking lot at Lincoln Financial Field before the game. 2 more people were arrested for disorderly conduct -- and 3 others were busted for counterfeit ticket sales. All in all ... seems like a win considering the videos and photos that surfaced showing police on horseback taking control during the pregame tailgates. Afterward, fans went crazy in the streets -- but according to police, it wasn't as bad as social media made it look. Congrats! | Entertainment |
T.I. Arrest 911 Call from Guard Shack 5/17/2018 TMZ.com The security guard who called cops on T.I. felt threatened and frantically called 911 as T.I. walked back to his guard shack. TMZ's obtained the 911 call ... where you can hear the guard telling the operator, "A resident is walking back here at the guard shack where I'm at." The guard continued describing the scene, "I've been threatened by a resident and he's here now knocking on the door." You can hear T.I. in the background telling him to step outside the guard shack because he wants his name. The guard refused to give him that information. T.I. also reminded the man he owns a home there and pays for his services. T.I. got heated and repeatedly said, "You're making it worse for yourself, man" and warned that at some point "you're gonna have to deal with me." He does calm down and asks the guard to step outside to talk. 5/16/18 TMZ.com TMZ also obtained police video back at the station after T.I. was arrested for public drunkenness, simple assault and disorderly conduct. An officer told him he was "acting a fool" for going back to the guard shack. As you'd imagine ... T.I. strongly disagreed. | Entertainment |
Jay-Z I Fought to Save My Marriage ... After Infidelity 1/28/2018 CNN Jay-Z says he was straight with Beyonce and dealt with his infidelity head on to save his marriage, because she was his soul mate and it was definitely worth fighting for. Jay appeared on CNN's Van Jones show Saturday night where he said issues like infidelity have to be addressed head-on, and if they're not the marriage is going to blow up. He says, "For us, we chose to fight for our love, for our family, to give our kids different outcome, to break that cycle for black men and women." The famous couple hit up Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party Saturday night ... and there's little doubt their marriage is now strong. | Entertainment |
Credit...Kyle Johnson for The New York TimesJune 28, 2018SEATTLE Amazon has more than 100 warehouses. It has a fleet of trucks, and even its own airplanes. Now, in another effort to help get its millions of packages to shoppers faster, it wants to build an army of delivery people, too.The company announced Thursday a new program aimed at helping people start their own businesses delivering packages for Amazon.For a minimum investment of $10,000, people in the United States will be able to open and manage their own delivery service handling Amazon packages. Although the couriers will not be employees of the company, theyll get access to Amazon-branded vehicles, uniforms and more.By the companys calculations, an owner could earn as much as $300,000 a year in profit by operating a fleet of up to 40 vehicles.The program is a potential solution to a growing problem Amazon faces as it handles an ever-increasing number of packages for customers all across the country: How to quickly get packages from its various package-sorting centers to peoples doorsteps.But the start-up service is certain to raise questions about whether it could challenge or even replace some of the work currently done by Amazons partners, including United Parcel Service and the United States Postal Service.[Read about how Amazon has shifted away from being an impartial, may-the-best-product-win distribution partner to being a direct competitor to vendors.]Amazons business ties with the Postal Service have come under considerable scrutiny in recent months. President Trump has argued on Twitter that Amazons agreement with the Postal Service, which sets the amount Amazon pays the agency, was costing taxpayers billions of dollars.I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy, Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet in April.While the details behind the agreement are not public, available evidence suggests the opposite: that Amazons business has been a boon to the post office. Some current and former White House officials have said that Mr. Trump sometimes blends Amazon with The Washington Post, which has covered his administration aggressively. The Post is owned by Amazons founder, Jeff Bezos.In mid-April, President Trump abruptly issued an executive order demanding an evaluation of the Postal Services finances. The order did not mention Amazon, but it was clear that he would like for the panel to substantiate his claims that the financial arrangement between the Postal Service and Amazon, its biggest shipper of packages, is a money loser.Executives at Amazon dismissed any link between the new delivery program and Mr. Trumps Twitter attacks about its agreement with the post office.This doesnt play into that debate at all, Dave Clark, Amazons senior vice president of worldwide operations, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon at the Admirals House, a historic landmark property overlooking Elliott Bay in Seattle.Mr. Clark said his job was to think five to 15 years down the road about Amazons needs and that the new delivery program was designed to meet future growth and capacity demands. He added that Amazon would continue to use all of its partners, including the Postal Service, to get packages to its customers.Amazon has been testing a number of programs that could replace or reduce its reliance on its delivery partners. This year, for instance, it plans to test a new service in which company couriers would pick up products from businesses that sell goods through Amazon and deliver that merchandise to its warehouses. Currently, that work is done by UPS, FedEx and other companies.ImageCredit...Kyle Johnson for The New York Times[Read about how Amazons past actions have led to stock sell-offs for a wide range of companies.]The new program is also separate from Amazon Flex, which pays individuals $18 to $25 an hour to deliver packages from their own vehicle.Under the program, individuals will not be employees or even independent contractors of Amazon, but rather, be owners of their businesses, contracted with Amazon to deliver packages. Amazon said its vehicles could be used to deliver packages only from the company, not its competitors.The program will start in more than two dozen states, many of them along the coasts. But company executives encouraged interested individuals to sign up even if their city or region wasnt currently listed, because Amazon expects the program to grow.Amazon hoped in the next 12 to 18 months to have hundreds of people sign up, calling them delivery service partners. If the service is successful, it would most likely be extended to other countries, Mr. Clark said.And in a bid to attract the nations military veterans to the program, Amazon is offering $10,000 reimbursements for qualified candidates to start their own businesses.All of those who are accepted into the start-up program will get access to a variety of discounts Amazon has negotiated on their behalf, including the Amazon-branded vehicles, as well as fuel, insurance coverage and more, executives said.One of Amazons test participants in its new offering, Olaoluwa Abimbola, said that after arriving from Nigeria, he spent years working at a desk job and, more recently, driving for Amazon Flex. Now, he said, he was excited to be running his own company, which has 40 full- and part-time employees.This means the world to me, Mr. Abimbola said in front of a gray Amazon Prime truck behind the Admirals House. This opportunity provides a future for my family, for my daughters. Im living my dream and having the time of my life. | Tech |
Credit...King Rodriguez/Presidential Office, via European Pressphoto AgencyMarch 20, 2017MANILA The Philippines will not legalize same-sex marriage anytime soon, President Rodrigo Duterte has said, reversing a campaign promise in which he pledged to support legislation to allow gay unions.Mr. Duterte stressed that the country was Asias bastion of Roman Catholicism, which steadfastly opposes same-sex marriage.He pointed to a recent issue of Time magazine that tackled gender issues, featuring a transgender woman on its cover.That is their culture, he said, referring to other countries where the American magazine circulates. Thats for them. That cant apply to us, because we are Catholics, Mr. Duterte said in a lengthy speech on Sunday to the small Filipino community in Myanmar, where he arrived as part of a visit to bolster regional ties. He left for Thailand on Monday.A transcript of the speech was distributed to journalists in Manila on Monday.And there is the civil code, which states you can only marry a woman for me, and for a woman to marry a man. Thats the law in the Philippines.Mr. Duterte, who turns 72 next week, said he was only following what was in the books, asserting that he did not take issue with anyones sexuality. Two of his brothers-in-law, and some of his cousins, are gay, he said.But he stressed: Wherever God has placed you, stay there. He noted that no one was empowered to erase the great divide between a woman and a man.This stood in contrast to Mr. Dutertes stance during the 2016 campaign, when he expressed support for possible legislation allowing same-sex marriage.In a pre-election forum in January last year, Mr. Duterte endeared himself to progressives and the gay community when he was asked whether he would push for legislation to allow same-sex marriages, and he replied that he would. He said there appeared to be an error in the Bible when it said unions must be only between men and women.It should have stated that marriages were for Adam, Eve and the gays, he said, to cheers from the crowd.But since winning the presidency by a wide margin in May, Mr. Duterte has yet to act on that promise.His allies in the House of Representatives, who control the votes there, have relegated a bill that seeks to protect the rights of gays and lesbians to the back burner, arguing that it was not a priority.The bill would have legalized same-sex civil marriage in the Philippines, where the Catholic Church wields substantial political influence.The church successfully blocked until 2012 the passage of a family planning law that called for free contraceptives, and it is still in the forefront of efforts to stymie talk of legalizing divorce. Apart from the Vatican, the Philippines is the only nation in the world that still outlaws divorce.Former Representative Etta Rosales filed a same-sex marriage bill in the House 18 years ago, but it has never progressed beyond first-round discussions.Senator Risa Hontiveros sponsored a counterpart measure in the upper chamber last year. That bill has received a first reading, but it still has a long way to go before becoming a law.The bill seeks to eliminate discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people in education, health, labor and other sectors. Senators are set to debate the proposal and amend some provisions if necessary before putting it up for a new round of voting on the floor.Ms. Rosales, who remains an activist, charged that Mr. Duterte had a narrowed view of the issue.When people love each other, whether heterosexual or of the same sex, what is paramount is the love towards the other persons humanity, Ms. Rosales said. This must be respected. Same-sex marriage, deriving from that principle, protects both parties with respect to property rights and even in caring for children both parties decide to adopt.She accused Mr. Duterte of being unable to grasp truths beyond his myopic world of self-delusion.Mr. Duterte has had a complicated relationship with the Catholic Church, which he has assailed in vulgar terms as a hypocritical institution. He has openly accused its leaders of corruption and sexual exploitation.The usually outspoken church has largely kept silent in the face of such attacks, but it has lately been forced to criticize the government amid mounting pressure to say something about Mr. Dutertes bloody crackdown on drugs.The church can still be a political force if it chooses. It helped topple two presidents Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001 over allegations of corruption. And in February, it gathered about 30,000 people in a largely peaceful protest against Mr. Duterte. | World |
Credit...AmazonMay 9, 2019Amazon barreled into the childrens smart-speaker market last year with a brightly colored device called Echo Dot Kids Edition. The tech giant played up the device as a simple way for youngsters to converse with Alexa, the companys voice-activated virtual assistant, and obtain age-appropriate apps.But recent research commissioned by two prominent advocacy groups found that the device also enabled children to easily divulge their names, home addresses, Social Security numbers and other intimate information to Alexa. In addition, the researchers reported that Amazon made it cumbersome for parents to delete their childs personal details from the system.On Thursday, the two groups the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy joined more than a dozen others in lodging a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. The groups say that Amazons practices violated the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law protecting the personal information of people under 13.Among other things, the complaint said that Amazon had failed to obtain verified consent from parents before collecting their childrens voice recordings and had kept such records unnecessarily after extracting the data to respond to children. The groups also complained that Amazon had not sufficiently disclosed how it collected and used childrens data.It seems pretty clear from our findings that the only control that parents really have is not purchasing this device, Josh Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, said in an interview. Once they purchase it, they are essentially ceding control of their childrens data which could be really sensitive when youre talking about a voice-activated device that lives in a home to Amazon.Amazon said in a statement that the device and a related subscription service for children, called FreeTime Unlimited, are compliant with the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act. The company added that its site provided information about Alexa-related privacy practices. Before childrens services can be used on Alexa, a user must consent and provide a credit-card number or a code number sent by Amazon via text message.Amazon is seeking to capture childrens attention at a time of heightened public concern over the data-mining of youngsters.The childrens online privacy law requires digital services aimed at those under 13 to obtain a parents verifiable permission before collecting their childs name, home address, precise location, phone number, video, voice recording and other personal information.Over the last year, however, state and federal regulators have charged numerous tech giants and start-ups with failing to comply with that law. An investigation by The New York Times last year found that app stores had allowed childrens services to track youngsters locations without their parents permission.Because many parents, advocacy groups and regulators consider voice recordings to be among the most sensitive types of childrens data, Amazons Echo Dot Kids device has found itself under particular scrutiny.This gadget records childrens voice commands and uses artificial intelligence to respond. Children can ask the system to play music, answer questions, tell jokes or remember information they tell it. The device also comes with a subscription to an Amazon service that gives children access to thousands of apps while enabling their parents to manage screen time.But the advocacy groups say that the device failed to comply with provisions in the privacy law requiring digital services for children to provide parents with clear explanations of their data practices and to delete a childs information as soon as it is no longer needed to fulfill the service for which it was collected.In particular, researchers tested the device last month by having a child ask Alexa to remember a made-up phone number, Social Security number, home address and phrases like I am allergic to peanuts.After the testers used parental controls to delete the voice recordings, they found that Alexa still remembered and was able to repeat the personal information included in the recordings. In order to delete the underlying data, researchers had to contact Amazon customer service and ask to have the childs entire profile deleted.In a response to questions about the device last year from concerned members of Congress, an Amazon executive said that the company kept a childs voice recordings indefinitely by default, saying they were retained for the parents review until the parent deletes them.Amazon also retained the recordings to improve its services, such as training its speech recognition system to better understand childrens requests, the executive said. | Tech |
Credit...Radek Pietruszka/EPA, via ShutterstockNov. 11, 2018WARSAW It was meant to foster unity and celebrate the sacrifices of past generations in the creation of the modern Polish nation. But after days of wrangling and controversy, the countrys Independence Day celebration on Sunday ended up highlighting Polands deep divisions.President Andrzej Duda and senior members of the government walked at the front of a state-sponsored procession through the streets of Warsaw behind a huge red-and-white Polish flag with an inscription For you, Poland.And Mr. Duda told the crowd that this march should unite all Poles, adding, Let this march be for everyone.But hundreds of yards behind the officials from the governing Law and Justice Party were far-right activists known for promoting racist, homophobic and supremacist slogans.Wreathed in an eerie red mist from burning flares, thousands of nationalists chanted: Use a sickle, use a hammer, smash the Red rabble. Some shouted: White Poland.They marched holding a banner with the slogan God, Honor, Fatherland and thousands of Polish flags. But some wore balaclavas and waved the green flags of the ultranationalist group National Revival of Poland. Also visible were the flags of Forza Nuova, an Italian neofascist group.ImageCredit...Agata Grzybowska/Agencja Gazeta, via ReutersNo members of the opposition or leading public figures who are not close to the government attended the event, which the police said attracted 250,000 people, and which critics said was a surrendering of Independence Day to radical groups.The procession one of scores of events across Europe to mark the 100 years since the end of World War I followed days of legal turmoil after the mayor of Warsaw banned the Independence March organized every year by far-right groups. Among them are the National Radical Camp, which human rights activists have for years said should be made illegal.The march, which in previous years involved violent clashes with the police, made international headlines last year when demonstrators chanted, Pure Poland, white Poland, and Refugees, get out! and a small group of hard-liners carried banners with the slogan White Europe of brotherly nations.The organizers challenged the mayors ban, and a Warsaw court eventually sided with them, calling the decision preventive censorship. Before that ruling was handed down, however, officials decided to hold a state procession in place of the Independence March, prompting more anger from nationalists.The far-right groups and government eventually agreed to walk together in one procession divided into two parts one for the officials, and one for the nationalists.Despite earlier concerns, Sundays march was a peaceful affair.But Andrzej Rychard, a sociologist at the Polish Academy of Science, called it a bad sign. The nationalist government, he said, now finds itself trapped by the radical groups after years of flirting with them.As a citizen, Im indignant that the authorities were incapable of forcing the nationalists to give up their own banners and stick to Polish flags only, Mr. Rychard said. I also dont understand how it happened that the nationalists, who are politically irrelevant, have become an equal partner for the government.ImageCredit...Pawel Supernak/EPA, via ShutterstockThe increasingly euroskeptic governing party, which has fallen out with the European Union over the partys attempts to take control of Polands independent judiciary, became the first member of the bloc to set off a process that could see the country lose its voting rights.Political divisions also marred the official ceremony earlier on Sunday at Warsaws Pilsudski Square, named after Gen. Jozef Pilsudski, one of the fathers of Polands independence.The top delegation at the event was led by President Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the head of Law and Justice, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. But Donald Tusk the president of the European Council, a former prime minister and a fierce opponent of the government stood at the back, barely visible, seemingly distancing himself from the politicians from the conservative governing party.I know that we often argue about the shape of our country. I know that sometimes we do it too intensely, Mr. Tusk said as he addressed the crowd. Forgive us, Poland.Krystyna Skarzynska, a professor of psychology at Warsaw University, said the dynamic of the ceremony reflected pettiness and hypocrisy in the leading politicians remarks.Theyve been talking us to death about this need for unity, but they didnt even welcome Donald Tusk during the ceremony, she said in an interview. They didnt mention Lech Walesa, who had played a great role in Polands independence, either.Mr. Walesa, a former president and the iconic leader of the Solidarity social movement, has for years been a fervent critic of the Law and Justice Party and refused to celebrate the anniversary with the government. | World |
Credit...Lost My NameDec. 22, 2015One of the best presents that Asi Sharabi ever got was a bad book.It was a customized book for his 3-year old daughter, Thalia, and apart from the initial thrill of seeing her name in the story, there was not much to distinguish it from a mediocre mass-produced picture book.It was very underwhelming, Mr. Sharabi said.But it eventually led to an idea: What if you could use technology to fashion a story for each young reader and create a more sophisticated childrens book? Mr. Sharabi consulted two friends, a writer and a technologist, and they decided to try it themselves.They came up with a story about a child who has forgotten his or her name and goes on a journey to find it, encountering creatures and characters that provide clues. A boy named Sam, for example, will meet a squid, an aardvark and a mermaid, who each present him with a letter of the alphabet. The technologist, Tal Oron, designed software to generate individual versions of the book based on particular names.They tested the name Andrew first. It worked. Nearly four years later, their company, Lost My Name, has created illustrated books based on more than 150,000 names. More than a million copies of The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name have sold in 160 countries this year, including around 370,000 in the United States.Its an old-fashioned book, but with a lot of technology behind it, said Mr. Sharabi, a 42-year-old former marketing consultant.Since the codex format was invented more than 1,900 years ago as an alternative to the scroll, printed books have not evolved much as a creative medium. Most of the technological advances in publishing have been digital, as publishers and app designers experiment with e-books that are enhanced with videos, music and other interactive elements.But print is starting to get a high-tech makeover, too, as more tech start-ups seek a toehold in publishing and on-demand technology gets faster, cheaper and better.With its software-generated stories, Lost My Name has carved out an unusual niche within childrens publishing. Instead of relying on audio and visual bells and whistles to engage children, like three-dimensional pop-ups or buttons that play music, Lost My Name aims to make the narrative itself more captivating, by using computer codes to weave personal details into the storyline. Despite all the technology driving it, the resulting product looks and feels oddly, and charmingly, traditional.While the execution is somewhat more sophisticated, the idea behind Lost My Name is hardly new. Personalized books have been around for decades. The early versions were little more than do-it-yourself scrapbooks with blank spaces where children could write in their names and paste pictures on the pages.Since then, the medium has evolved, as major publishers, authors and childrens entertainment companies dabble in personalization in hopes of extending their brands and forging more intimate connections with young readers. Companies like Hallmark, I See Me and Frecklebox have developed hundreds of personalized books, stickers, coloring books and other items. In 2013, the independent publisher Sourcebooks created Put Me in the Story, a line of personalized childrens titles based on beloved brands and characters like Elmo, Hello Kitty, Peanuts, and Lemony Snicket. Its top-selling personalized title, Marianne Richmonds I Love You So, has sold more than 100,000 copies.Apart from the odd breakout hit, customized books remain a tiny part of the booming childrens book business. Such titles cannot be mass-produced and stocked in stores, where the majority of childrens books are purchased (roughly 60 percent, according to Nielsen). And while some publishers and educators say personalized books help keep young readers engaged with print in an era of multiplying digital distractions, others are skeptical. Reading is an essential way children learn to empathize with others and adopt someone elses perspective, and some warn that self-referential books could undermine that. Most families will not acquire a whole library of personalized books, lest they encourage narcissistic tendencies among young readers.Its a bit of a one-trick pony, said Thad McIlroy, a digital publishing analyst. Once youve dazzled them by including their name, whats left? I doubt its addictive.Still, some see the success of Lost My Name as evidence of a growing market for more creative, technologically advanced personalized books. One of the things thats setting them apart from the competition is the high-quality visuals and the text, Mr. McIlroy said. Its imaginative and beautifully executed.This fall, Lost My Name released its second customized book, The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home, geared toward children ages 4 to 8. At first glance, it looks like a typical childrens book, with colorful images of aliens and faraway galaxies and silly rhymes describing a childs journey through space.But what initially seems like a breezy, whimsical story required more than 25,000 lines of computer code. In addition to the author and illustrator listed on the cover, a dozen developers worked on the book. The story adds an extra personal element by integrating the childs neighborhood and home into the plot, along with his or her name.The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home centers on a child who is lost in space with a robot sidekick and trying to get home. The child sees his or her name written in stars, and flies through the solar system toward earth. After a few wrong turns in the spaceship, the child will see a familiar local landmark the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Eiffel Tower, for example, drawn from a database of hundreds of landmarks then an aerial map of his or her own neighborhood, and finally, an image of a door with his or her own home address.To create the book, customers enter the childs name, gender and home address, which will be kept confidential; choose one of three character types with varying hair and skin tones; and select one of nine available languages. The software generates a preview of the book, and once an order is placed, a unique book is made at one of 10 print-on-demand locations around the world. The company sells its books directly to customers, for $30 each, through its website, making it more like the eyewear retailer Warby Parker or the online razor company Harrys than a typical childrens book publisher. The company, which began with Mr. Sharabi, Mr. Oron, the writer David Cadji-Newby and the illustrator Pedro Serapicos, now has 70 employees, including 30 programmers, in its office in east London. This summer, it raised $9 million from venture capital firms including Google Ventures, the Chernin Group, Allen & Company and Greycroft Partners.Looking back, Mr. Sharabi said, he realized that none of this would have happened if he had not received that uninspired personalized book for his daughter.I will forever be grateful to my brother-in-law for bringing me this mediocre book, he said. | Business |
Little Women: LA' Briana Renee Quits Divorce Drama Off Limits 1/25/2018 "Little Women: LA" star Briana Renee will not join the cast for season 7 ... TMZ has learned. Production sources tell us Renee -- who has been on the show from its start -- chose not to sign back on at the end of season 6. We're told Bri already knew she'd be filing for divorce from husband Matt Grundhoffer, and she didn't want it to play out on camera. Our sources say Bri will take the time off to focus on herself, her kids and her music career. We're told producers won't replace Bri, and have already started production with the other 6 principal cast members. | Entertainment |
Science|Is the Plague Still Alive in Musty 14th-Century Tomes?https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/science/is-the-plague-still-alive-in-musty-14th-century-tomes.htmlQ&ANov. 7, 2016Credit...Victoria RobertsQ. Are people who work with books and manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries at risk from disease-causing bacteria or viruses from that time?A. Almost certainly not, because of how diseases spread and how long most microbes can survive on dry surfaces.The disease that springs to mind from outbreaks during that time is bubonic plague. That illness, an infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is very hard to spread even from person to person, unless there is direct contact with liquid bodily secretions.As for other disease-causing bacteria and viruses, many, including some kinds of Enterococcus, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus, can survive outside the body for significant lengths of time on dry surfaces, a systematic review in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases found. But their survival is measured in days, weeks or months, not centuries.One possible exception is anthrax, which forms protective spores that can survive in some cases for decades and perhaps centuries. One researcher speculated that it was the cause of mysterious outbreaks beginning in 1485 of an illness called English sweating sickness.No cases of anthrax transmission by way of medieval manuscripts have been reported, however. [email protected] | science |
Kentucky Derby Celebs Already Racing For the Biggest Baller Crown 5/6/2017 The Kentucky Derby is here, which means it's time for fancy clothes, funky hats ... and a bunch of celebs showing up dressed to the nines to place their bets. Katie Couric, Aaron Rodgers, Megyn Kelly, Jerry Rice and Harry Connick Jr. are gathering around the track at Churchill Downs to watch the 143rd running of the race. And of course, Tom Brady and nearly half the Patriots roster are there too. Derby post time isn't until -- but in the race for most photographed face at Churchill Downs ... they're already coming down the back stretch. | Entertainment |
Lisa Marie Presley Estranged Hubby Opens Up About Marital Gender Pay Disparity 1/22/2018 Lisa Marie Presley's estranged husband just conceded she runs circles around him when it comes to income, and that's why he's asking the judge to forcibly open her purse. Michael Lockwood just filed legal docs asking the judge in the couple's ongoing divorce to make Lisa Marie foot the $450,000 bill for his lawyers' fees. To justify that ... he submitted income declarations that show he makes a tiny fraction of what she pulls in. According to the docs, Michael earns between $20 and $25 an hour at 2 different music stores, doing things like cleaning guitars and running errands for the owner. Lisa Marie, on the other hand, rakes in just shy of $350,000 per month with an annual income of $4.2 mil. | Entertainment |