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Credit...Darron Cummings/Associated PressJune 29, 2017President Trump has nominated Dr. Jerome M. Adams, the health commissioner for Indiana and a strong advocate of needle exchanges to avoid the spread of disease, to be the surgeon general of the United States.Dr. Adams, 42, was first appointed to the Indiana post in October 2014 when Vice President Mike Pence was governor. Shortly after Dr. Adams took office, there was an unusual H.I.V. outbreak in Scott County, a rural Indiana community near the Kentucky border.Dr. Adams later recalled his meeting on the topic with Mr. Pence, state health officials and doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The governor looked to me and he looked to C.D.C. and said, What do we need to do to respond to this outbreak? Dr. Adams said in an interview with The New York Times. The C.D.C. felt strongly, and I agreed, that providing syringes was the appropriate response, that this is an extraordinary situation that requires extraordinary measures.The needle exchange is credited with helping to stop the outbreak, which had spread largely among people injecting the prescription painkiller Opana.Dr. Adams also said he believed exchanges were not a panacea, and their value should not be overstated.Its only going to work if it allows us to connect people to the resources they need to get clean, to get off drugs and get their infectious diseases appropriately diagnosed and treated, he said.Dr. Adams, who trained as an anesthesiologist, has also been outspoken about the risks of prescription opioid painkillers and the need to address the opioid epidemic.Charles N. Rothberg, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, said Dr. Adams reminded him of C. Everett Koop, who was surgeon general through much of the 1980s. Dr. Adams has a proven track record to make public health a priority despite political hurdles, Dr. Rothberg said in an email. Dr. Adams is in touch with the public needs.Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, who was at the Food and Drug Administration in the Obama administration, said Dr. Adams was a great choice.I think its great to have a state health officer as surgeon general because its a job that really defies politics, said Dr. Sharfstein, who is now an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. From everything Ive seen, Dr. Adams is a very serious and capable physician and public health official. This is an opportunity to speak to the problems as they are and not as they are viewed through an ideological prism.Dr. Adams, who is married and has three children, received bachelors degrees in biochemistry and biopsychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in 1997. He then earned a masters degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley, and a medical degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine.His LinkedIn page says he is also an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Indiana University Health, and cares for patients at Eskenazi Health, Indianapoliss publicly funded hospital.If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Adams would join another prominent health official in the Trump administration who was brought in from Mr. Pences state: Seema Verma, who is now the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.He would replace Sylvia Trent-Adams, who has been acting surgeon general since Mr. Trump ousted Dr. Vivek Murthy, a holdover from the Obama administration. The surgeon general is often called the nations doctor, and works to improve public health. The surgeon general also oversees the 6,700 public health officers, many of whom work in underserved areas.The post has traditionally served as a bully pulpit, and past surgeons general have used it to campaign against tobacco, obesity and gun violence. It was Dr. Murthys stance against gun violence that appeared to have led to his dismissal.

Health

Tarek & Christina El Moussa No Flip Flopping ... Divorce Finalized 1/22/2018 The "Flip or Flop" couple are officially no more -- Tarek and Christina El Moussa have finalized their divorce ... TMZ has confirmed. Tarek filed for divorce from Christina a little more than a year ago, citing irreconcilable differences. They were married for 8 years, and have 2 kids together. The reality TV stars continue to work together on their hit HGTV show, and have stayed relatively friendly since the split. They've also dated other people since breaking up. People first reported the finalized divorce. It's unclear if Tarek will get spousal support from Christina, as he'd requested.

Entertainment

Credit...Mohammad Ismail/ReutersNov. 20, 2018KABUL, Afghanistan The bombing of a crowded religious gathering in Kabul on Tuesday killed at least 55 people, Afghan officials said.Wahid Majrooh, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said that in addition to those who were killed, at least 96 people were wounded in an explosion at the Uranus Wedding Palace, near Kabuls international airport, and that officials were still trying to determine the exact toll. He added that 24 of the wounded were in critical condition.Najib Danish, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, called it a suicide bombing, and confirmed the death toll.Witnesses said there were a thousand people inside the hall when the explosion took place. They included clerics and religious scholars along with others who had gathered to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, a national holiday in Afghanistan.President Ashraf Ghani called the attack a crime against Islam and humanity and declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday.Shamsul Dua, 50, an ice cream vendor, emerged from the hall with his hands, feet and clothing covered in blood. He said the explosion took place seven or eight minutes after the gathering began.I could only see smoke, and debris started falling from the ceiling, he said. I personally saw 30 or 40 dead. Mr. Dua said he had ridden 40 minutes on his bicycle to attend the gathering, which was held at the hall annually.ImageCredit...Rahmat Gul/Associated PressIt was 40 minutes before ambulances arrived to evacuate many of the wounded, he said. Ambulances were seen still coming and going from the wedding palace an hour after the blast, which took place about 6:15 p.m.We are still trying to figure how many were killed and how many were wounded, Mr. Majrooh said.Muhammad Hashim, 36, a survivor, said the blast occurred as verses from the Quran were being recited to begin the commemoration. A lot of people were trampled as others were trying to flee, he said. There are a lot more than 40 dead in there.Nek Amal, 18, was among many who gathered outside the hall seeking news of friends and family members inside.My brother is inside and Ive been trying to reach him but he is not answering the phone, Mr. Amal said. He is there with many friends of his and theyre not answering their phones either.Wedding halls, mosques and religious gatherings have been particular targets of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for this attack. It was the first major bombing in the capital since an Islamic State suicide bomber struck a wrestling gym in September, killing as many as 30 wrestlers during a training session.After a period of frequent, gruesome attacks against soft targets in the capital over the summer, Afghan security forces have made it a priority to disrupt Islamic State cells in Kabul, with assistance ordered by the new commander of American and NATO troops in the country, Gen. Austin Scott Miller.Dozens of suspects were arrested in the capital in September on the eve of Ashura, a Shiite annual commemoration that has frequently been targeted. Officials believe those raids significantly lowered the number of attacks.The Taliban, still responsible for most of the escalating violence throughout the country, have disavowed attacks on civilian targets. There has been speculation that Taliban insurgents, at least, have been refraining from suicide attacks in the capital as they explore preliminary peace talks with the American government.

World

Credit...Alvin Baez/ReutersDec. 16, 2015The governor of Puerto Rico redoubled threats on Wednesday of a major bond default, as an effort to help the struggling commonwealth use bankruptcy to shed debt headed for defeat in Congress.Gov. Alejandro Garca Padilla warned in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington that Puerto Rico would probably miss debt payments in January or May because its government had run out of cash.There is no money, he said. I dont have a printing machine.The governors comments came as Congress omitted from a federal spending bill any measures to allow Puerto Rico to restructure its roughly $72 billion of debt in Federal Bankruptcy Court.Mr. Garca Padilla and his Democratic Party allies in Washington have been pushing for months to allow the island to take shelter from its creditors through bankruptcy. Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which is available to cities, counties and other local governments on the mainland, specifically excludes Puerto Rico as well as states.Many Republican leaders are opposed to giving Puerto Rico access to Chapter 9, in part because of concerns that the island would blaze a trail that severely troubled states might try to follow. The proposal was also vehemently opposed by bondholders, including hedge funds, that have bought billions of dollars of Puerto Ricos debt, under the assurance that it could not be cut in bankruptcy.The omnibus spending bill, hashed out by Republican and Democratic House leaders late Tuesday, offers one of the last chances this year for Congress to assist Puerto Rico. It is expected to be put to a final vote on Friday.Supporters of bankruptcy authority for Puerto Rico vowed to keep fighting for such a measure, which requires congressional approval.In a statement, Speaker Paul D. Ryan said that while we could not agree to including precedent-setting changes to bankruptcy law in this omnibus spending bill, he had instructed various House committees to work with Puerto Rico to come up with a responsible solution by the end of the first quarter of 2016.The Treasury Department has been among those pushing for Congress to create an orderly legal process for Puerto Rico to restructure its debts, rather than leaving it up to a free-for-all among creditors.Some analysts fear that a major default could result in just such a scramble, as creditors file a series of lawsuits seeking to protect their claims to the islands increasingly scarce cash.The Puerto Rico governor has previously raised the specter of default, saying in June that the islands debts were not payable. On Wednesday, he did not specify whether Puerto Rico might default on all or only a portion of the debt coming due on the first of the year.Mr. Garca Padilla said it was becoming increasingly difficult to make debt payments while also providing essential government services.It will probably be on Jan. 1 that I will not have money to do both things, he said. And if I have to choose between Puerto Ricans and creditors, I will choose Puerto Ricans. There is no question.Puerto Rico has already defaulted on a small amount of its debt skipping a $58 million moral obligation bond payment last August but the Jan. 1 payments are seen as an important test of whether Mr. Garca Padilla and his advisers are willing to default on general obligation bonds. That type of debt has historically been marketed as virtually default-proof, and Puerto Ricos general obligation bonds are guaranteed by its Constitution.On Jan. 1, Puerto Rico owes bond payments of as much as $902 million, according to the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan research institute in San Juan.About $332 million of that bond payment is for general obligation bonds. Other large payments are due on the same day from the public corporations that operate the islands water, electricity and highway systems, among others.The omnibus spending bill detailed some additional assistance for Puerto Rico, though critics said those measures would have minimal impact on the islands severe cash shortage. One provision would increase Medicare payments to Puerto Ricos doctors and hospitals by about $900 million.The bill also authorizes the Treasury to provide technical assistance, like helping the Puerto Rico government with its budgeting, forecasting, cash management, information technology and tax collection enhancing the Treasurys current engagement.Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he welcomed further assistance from the Treasury.We can now begin the process of improving basic bookkeeping in the territory and end the opacity and lack of transparency in their finances, he said in a statement on Wednesday. Republican senators on committees with jurisdiction over Puerto Rico have complained that the island has not provided enough information to warrant anything like a cash bailout.Providing blank checks without oversight or fiscal responsibility is not my preferred approach, Mr. Hatch said.Congress missed an opportunity to do the right thing, Mr. Garca Padilla said on Wednesday. Hedge funds proved more persuasive over Congress than the well-being of 3.5 million American citizens living in Puerto Rico.

Business

Science|Fighting Macular Degenerationhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/science/macular-degeneration-cure.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 19, 2016Q. Are there any new treatments in the pipeline for age-related macular degeneration?A. Current treatments for the so-called wet form of macular degeneration, involving injections inside the eye, are already very effective compared with laser treatments, which were used before intravitreal injections, said Dr. Ronald C. Gentile, the surgeon director at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.But several ways to improve their results are in the works, he said.The shots deliver drugs that fight a substance called vascular endothelial growth factor, and thus shrink the growth of what amounts to an abnormal blood vessel harming the retina. A major hurdle now involves the frequency and cost of the needed treatments.Once the drug is inside the eye, the effects wear off and a new injection is needed, Dr. Gentile said. The shots are also less effective in some patients. Even when they work well, some people need a shot as often as every four weeks, while some can wait two or three months. If both eyes are affected and the period of effectiveness is short, doctor visits can be very frequent, so drugs that last longer in the eyeball are being pursued.Researchers are working on slow-release medications as well as a delivery system that acts like a tiny pump in the eye, with a tank that can be refilled every six months.There is also a new drug target: a substance called platelet-derived growth factor that causes abnormal vessel growth as well. Combination drug treatments may be more effective against macular degeneration, Dr. Gentile said.The so-called dry form of macular degeneration, which often underlies the wet form, is harder to fight, he said, and although advances are being made, current antioxidant treatments with vitamins and minerals do not improve vision; they just prevent it from worsening.There has been a lot of hype on using stem cells, Dr. Gentile said, but added that more research was needed. Some vaunted treatments outside regular channels could be potentially harmful as well as expensive, he said.Such work needs to be done in clinical trials by real scientists, he said. [email protected]

science

Roddy Piper Would Be 'Damn Proud' of Rousey ... Wrestler's Kids Say 1/29/2018 TMZSports.com Roddy Piper's kids were downright emotional when talking about how much Ronda Rousey means to their family ... and what a special moment it was to see her wearing the WWE legend's jacket. TMZ Sports spoke with Colt Toombs and Ariel Teal Toombs about the plan to let Ronda wear Roddy's trademark fashion accessory at the Royal Rumble ... and the backstory might make you cry. TMZSports.com Of course, Roddy passed away in 2015 ... and both Colt and Ariel tell us Ronda personally vowed to them that she would do everything in her power to keep his legacy alive. FYI, Ronda has always said Piper was her inspiration ... and she had personally asked him for permission to use his nickname back in the day. He obliged. Now, Roddy's kids say she's doing a damn fine job keeping his spirit alive and they support her 100% moving forward. Get your Kleenex ready ...

Entertainment

Marseille DispatchCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNov. 19, 2018MARSEILLE, France The red-helmeted marine firefighter was firm. Right, he told the anxious families gathered around him, were closing up the building.Bewildered and frightened, they climbed the darkened, rickety staircase of their building on the Rue Jean Roque, past the chunks of missing plaster and thick lines of cracks, some big enough to put an arm into. On the firefighters orders, they gathered their belongings and then left, for the last time.Their decrepit five-story apartment building, long ignored by city officials, was now deemed unsafe. Marseille city leaders, on the defensive after ignoring expert warnings, were racing to respond to a public outcry after two buildings collapsed this month, killing eight people.Nervous officials have since evacuated 1,054 people, and counting, from 111 crumbling apartments in the heart of the ancient and dingy Mediterranean port. But a 2015 report written for Frances minister of housing found that 40,000 dwellings in Marseille were unsafe which is 10 percent of all unsafe buildings in France, and affects 100,000 of the citys inhabitants.Marseille, Frances second-largest city and one of Europes poorest, is facing a housing crisis that, more deeply, is a crisis of poverty. More than a quarter of the population is officially poor.Many are asking why it has taken officials so long to address the dire conditions and what Marseilles persistent poverty says about the neglect of the other France in part immigrant and poor whose decline long preceded President Emmanuel Macrons pro-market changes, and easily threatens to outlast them.ImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAs the city has poured millions into sports facilities and dazzling museums for tourists, little has gone to shore up the hundreds of buildings in the city center, some dating to the 18th century and earlier, which house the poor. Inspections have been haphazard and cursory, alarming reports have been ignored and official efforts understaffed.Despite the 2015 reports determination that 40,000 buildings were unsafe, only a tiny fraction were officially declared unsafe by the city in all of 2016, according to an activist group.ImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesOn Oct. 18, two and a half weeks before the buildings collapsed on the Rue dAubagne, an expert sent by the city declared the first floor of No. 65 unsafe. Not the rest of the building, though.Those who were killed including an immigrant mother of eight, a student, a painter and an out-of-work African migrant with no papers reflected the gap between those who have housing, clean water, education and job opportunities, and the rest, even in a country with an extensive social safety net.In response, thousands of people have poured into the citys streets to protest the authorities perceived negligence.Gaudin, Murderer! they shouted last Wednesday night, referring to the citys powerful longtime mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin. The streets justice will condemn you! they yelled, 10,000 strong in a noisy march on the Baroque City Hall building facing the water.There is no particular fault for which we reproach ourselves, Mr. Gaudin told the local news media after one of the marches. But the response of city officials has been sparing.ImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe people of Marseille, both the smartly dressed and the ragged, have trooped day after day to the makeshift memorial of flowers and candles erected near the disaster site. It wasnt the rain! an ironic reference to City Halls initial explanation, and already an icon of the protest was scribbled on the wall.Who died there? said Rabah Ramdani, a shopkeeper who had come to pay tribute. Only the poor. And it isnt over.Down long and narrow Rue Jean Roque, shady in the autumn sunshine, Bintou Ciss stood outside her tiny alterations shop around the corner from the collapsed buildings, refusing to go inside.Because Im afraid, she said. Everything is rotten here. Its nothing but slums.You can see it, she added, looking up at the facades cracks.In the dilapidated old buildings of the Noailles neighborhood in the city center, where the poor live, fear has taken over. Children say they are afraid to come home from school, working mothers say they wake at night at the slightest vibration, university students sleep somewhere else.Up until now weve been ashamed to bring people here, said Laura Spica, a musician who lives on the street. Now, were not only ashamed, were afraid.ImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesDazzling and pastel-hued, Marseille is a concentration of Frances postindustrial urban pathologies a sort of French Detroit, said the sociologist Michel Peraldi.It has never recovered from the double blows of deindustrialization and decolonization, Mr. Peraldi said. The industries that transformed cheap raw materials no longer exist, and neither do the once closely linked colonies that supplied them. The biggest contemporary employer is the public hospital administration.Unemployment is nearly 50 percent higher than the national average. Immigrants have come in waves since the 1950s from North Africa.There are three generations of unemployed, Mr. Peraldi said. There has never been any clear policy to reintegrate these classes into society.Of the two buildings that fell on the Rue dAubagne, No. 63 was vacant, boarded up and missing much of its roof, and had been taken over by the city. It is thought that the collapse of that structure, feebly supporting the already weakened and inhabited No. 65, brought down No. 65, like a house of cards.What this has revealed is a state of total decadence, and a total insouciance on the part of the elected officials, said Patrick Lacoste, head of an activist group, Center-City for Everybody.This is a political catastrophe, Mr. Lacoste added, because for 23 years City Hall has let the neighborhood die.Enter any building, at random, in the Noailles neighborhood and the staircases tilt queasily downward. It is advisable to hold the handrail.When the neighbor goes up the stairs, the whole place shakes, said Khedidja Dhamani, a middle-aged woman who lives on the Rue dAubagne down the street from the collapsed buildings.ImageCredit...Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesCeilings are missing expanses of plaster, and old wooden beams are often exposed and rotten. In Ms. Dhamanis kitchen, water from the neighbors bath streamed through a large crack.Elsewhere in Noailles, fabled for generations as a food-shopping district, it is common to see rusty steel girders propping up staircases. Stephanie Rose, a young mother of two, tells her children to wear tennis shoes when it rains; the water comes right into the apartment.Nearby on the Rue de lArc, Saida Ouahebs downstairs neighbor asks her not to use her washing machine, because it makes the ceiling shake. Ms. Ouahebs three young daughters are now scared to be in their small two-bedroom apartment. Her 9-year-old refused to leave school one day this week.Were not sleeping well here, said Ms. Ouaheb, who works as a cleaner in a restaurant and whose monthly rent of 640 euros, or about $730, is heavily subsidized by the state.Her Moroccan husband speaks no French, doesnt have the right papers, and doesnt work. Since Monday I am afraid, she said. I would like to leave.At the weeks protest marches, immigrants who live in the downtown slums were largely outnumbered by white, bourgeois residents of Marseille, mostly unaffected by the grim housing conditions. Many nonetheless expressed shame over the deadly disaster.Its incredible that something like this could have happened, here, in France, said Elise Sut, a musician who joined one march.

World

Science|The Secret to a Really Crisp Applehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/science/apples-taste.htmlQ&AMarch 3, 2017Credit...Victoria RobertsQ. Why are some apples mealy while others are crisp?A. When apples are mealy, the cells split apart from each other when you bite into the fruit, whereas with crisp fruits the cells rupture and release juice, said Susan Brown, an expert in apple breeding at Cornell University who has helped develop several varieties.The cells of crisp apples stay intact and full of juice until they are bitten into, while cell walls of mushy fruit have weakened and simply separate from each other upon pressure without providing any snap.There can be several reasons for the differences, Dr. Brown said. The genetics of the variety can influence the taste and feel, she said, with Snapdragon and Honeycrisp known for their juiciness. But often mealy fruit can come from bad handling.If consumers store fruits at room temperature, rather than in the refrigerator, they will soften and get mealy sooner, Dr. Brown said.The differences between varieties can be striking. One study compared the relatively new variety Honeycrisp with the Macoun and Honeygold varieties.The researchers found that the Honeycrisp fruit maintained its cell wall integrity after six months of storage, even without controlled atmosphere conditions, while cell walls of Macoun and Honeygold apples had deteriorated, releasing their juices prematurely. [email protected]

science

Europe|A Message From Turkey, a Nation Under Pressurehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/world/europe/a-message-from-turkey-a-nation-under-pressure.htmlImageMarch 15, 2017In the first of a series, our correspondent takes us behind the scenes of todays Turkey, a nation in crisis facing a crackdown on rights.Before I left to begin reporting for The New York Times in Turkey a nation strained by war, terrorist insurgencies, a refugee crisis and a widening crackdown on dissent Turkish diplomats in Washington sent me on my way with a velvet box.I wasnt sure what to expect when I opened it. Inside, I found a small gray stone with a card that described it as a symbol of Turkeys devotion to democracy. That stone was a chunk of the Turkish Parliament building blasted free by a bomb dropped by coup plotters in the army last summer. Since then, President Recep Tayyip Erdogans government has lashed out, purging tens of thousands of perceived opponents and coup plotters, firing or suspending about 130,000 government employees, and arresting more than 45,000 soldiers, police officers, teachers, politicians and journalists.Given all that, I wondered if the rock was also a subtle warning to avoid straying from the governments narrative of defending democracy. But thats not possible in a country with so many competing agendas. This article is the first in a series in which Ill try to show the difficult choices individuals here have to make as they get caught in the middle.For them, this is no abstract debate. They live in a place where everyday choices and even central points of identity secular or pious, Turk or Kurd, citizen or refugee can at times identify individuals as either loyal to President Erdogans agenda, or as part of the mistrusted opposition.ImageCredit...Patrick Kingsley/The New York TimesI had lived in Turkey before, for most of the past year, as I covered migration and refugee issues. In my recent reporting Ive been struck by how the countrys long-term challenges and new crises have come together in this moment. The country is battling two separate terrorism campaigns (one led by secular Kurds, the other by Islamic State extremists) and two land wars (in southeast Turkey and northern Syria). It is hosting more displaced Syrians around 2.75 million of them than any other country except Syria itself. It is caught between growing tensions over Syria between its NATO allies on one side and its neighbor, Russia, on the other. And it is torn by its own internal debates over the role of Islam in society and over Mr. Erdogans tightening grip on the state. That last question is rising to its apex now. In less than a month, Turkish voters will be asked in a referendum whether to hand Mr. Erdogan even more sweeping authority. In a country where citizens disagree on even the most basic interpretation of Mr. Erdogans actions is he desperately defending a country under siege or cynically maneuvering to seize more power? everyday decisions have become strained, full of political import and potential hazard. ImageCredit...Patrick Kingsley/The New York TimesShould a teacher struggling through a widespread purge of educators voice her concerns about damage to the school system, and risk being purged herself? Can a neighborhood leader reconcile his sacrifice to defend democracy during the coup with the governments crackdown on democratic freedoms? Why must a Syrian boy give up any permanent address, and risk arrest, in the hope of finding work? Please join me as I seek out the people and stories that can lend insight into how this country is navigating a perilous moment in its history, and as I try to piece together a puzzle that keeps changing before our eyes.

World

Credit...U.S. Coast Guard, via European Pressphoto AgencyDec. 3, 2015Corporations continue to use big civil legal settlements with federal regulators as a way to deduct billions of dollars from their American tax bills, largely because the regulators fail to forbid the practice in the terms of the settlements.BPs pending $20.8 billion settlement with the Justice Department and other federal and state regulators related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 allows about $15.3 billion to be classified as a tax-deductible business expense, according to an analysis by the United States Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit advocacy group.Likewise, the Justice Departments $25 billion mortgage settlement with Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial in 2012 billed at the time as the largest consumer financial protection settlement in United States history allowed $20 billion to be eligible as a deduction for those banks.U.S. PIRG analyzed the 10 largest settlements by five federal regulators since 2012, six of them bank settlements in the aftermath of the financial crisis.The report, to be released on Thursday, found that while corporations paid a collective $80 billion to resolve federal charges of wrongdoing, some $48 billion of that amount was eligible as a deduction.The end result was a loss of $17 billion in tax revenue, more than the annual amount in estate taxes collected by the Internal Revenue Service, the group noted.In BPs case, the company had already written off $37.2 billion in cleanup costs arising from the Deepwater Horizon spill and claimed a $10 billion tax credit.Short of changing the federal tax code, which allows companies to classify civil settlements, including restitution and other payments, that are not fines as tax-deductible, U.S. PIRG is urging agencies to disclose more details about their agreements.The public deserves transparency and accountability, said Michelle Surka, U.S. PIRGs tax and budget program director, in an interview.ImageCredit...Alex Wong/Getty ImagesBig settlement announcements that fail to disclose how much of the payment is tax-deductible diminish the deterrence value for companies, she added.Large legal settlement agreements often serve as an expeditious way for a corporation with strong legal muscle to negotiate its way out of a potentially larger fine or penalty without admitting or denying wrongdoing, the report says.A similar sentiment was voiced by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, in legislation they introduced this year, which passed the Senate unanimously in September. That measure, called the Truth in Settlements bill, would require more disclosure about settlements with enforcement agencies. The House has yet to take up the bill.Regulators do not have a strong motive to prohibit the practice in settlements because the tax benefits are one way to bring parties to the negotiating table. Its a powerful incentive for companies, said Lisa B. Petkun, a partner at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia. And to the extent that its a sweetened deal by being deductible, its a carrot for regulators.With federal corporate taxes at about 35 percent and state taxes pushing that up to 40 percent in some cases, youre not going to get a better incentive than a tax incentive to settle, said Diane Giordano, a tax partner at the accounting and advisory firm Marcum.Policies are unevenly applied, U.S. PIRG found in its research. Only about 18 percent of the publicly announced settlements by the Department of Justice explicitly prohibited tax deductions on settlement payments, while 15 percent of cases resolved by the Securities and Exchange Commission had the prohibition, according to the report.Companies have been willing to fight for years to preserve the deductions.Fresenius Medical Care Holdings, a kidney dialysis services provider, settled Medicare civil and criminal fraud charges with federal regulators in 2000, agreeing to pay $486 million. It deducted the $385 million in civil claims and fought the government in court over the deduction, ultimately winning in 2013. It even received a $50 million tax refund, plus interest, U.S. PIRG found.The I.R.S. said that unless enforcement agencies explicitly forbade it, corporations generally deducted settlements as a business expense.The groups report picks up from a 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office that found the tax-deduction eligibility was rarely addressed in agreements between regulators and corporations.U.S. PIRG examined publicly available out-of-court settlements from 2012 to 2014 involving the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the S.E.C., and the Department of Health and Human Services. It also looked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created in 2010 by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.None of the five agencies have publicly announced policies for the tax status of settlements, though the E.P.A. and the C.F.P.B. have acted consistently in making sure portions of their settlements were not tax-deductible, U.S. PIRG said.

Business

Machine LearningVideoA test of four top smartphones to find out which forward-facing camera takes the best selfie.Feb. 5, 2014Selfie was Oxford Dictionaries word of the year in 2013. And selfies are powerful business; #me is the third-most-common tag on Instagram, appended to more than 184 million photos, according to the apps Web viewer, Webstagram. (Numbers 1 and 2 are #love and #instagood.)So why havent mobile phone makers gotten the memo and made great forward-facing cameras? Selfies taken on most major smartphones are almost uniformly of poor quality. Theyre unfocused, pixelated, dark, blown-out, backlit, grainy and worst of all, distorted (I swear, I have a normal size nose!). Even the Instagram filter called 1977 cant hide the fact that most selfies look as if they were taken in the 1970s.Any movement toward improving the front-facing camera seems to have stalled, while head-scratching options like curved screens have grabbed the headlines. This is a miss for phone manufacturers. Debate the value, the silliness or the narcissism of the trend all you want, but even President Obama and Pope Francis were caught in selfies in 2013. Such historic images deserve better cameras.The main problem is the size of our phones. Making better phone cameras means making bigger sensors and bigger optics, and that leads to thicker phones, which manufacturers prefer to avoid. Cost is also a factor, but design concerns take precedence.Its purely a prioritization issue, said Kyle Wiens of iFixit.com, a website devoted to dissecting the internal parts of consumer electronics. Manufacturers could absolutely include better front-facing cameras on phones, he said. It would be trivial for anybody to do, it would just mean a bigger phone.Thinness rules in smartphone design, thanks in part to Apples long obsession with increasingly slender devices. (Its also the argument against bigger batteries, another painfully lagging element of phone design.) But bigger phones are becoming the rage, and if smartphones continue to swell to the size of small tablets, we may find ourselves with more space after all.For now, though, the smartphone landscape is littered with mediocre selfie-cams.The front-facing camera on most major phones in the United States maxes out at just over 2 megapixels a measure of the resolution of the photo. The more megapixels, generally, the better the image.Megapixels arent the only measure of a cameras quality, though. The size of the camera sensor also plays a large role because it determines how much light can be captured in each shot. And most forward-facing phone cameras have relatively small sensors. A low-resolution image combined with a small image sensor is a recipe for a low-quality photo, especially if youre indoors or at a bar or party, where selfies like to proliferate.Only Apple and, depending on whom you ask, HTC, have highlighted the front-facing camera as a major feature. But Apple refers to the camera as a FaceTime camera and primarily promotes its ability to deliver high-quality video conferencing, and less on delivering quality photos.ImageCredit...Peter Kramer/NBCI compared four of the top smartphones in the United States market to see which has the best front-facing camera: the iPhone 5S, the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Nokia Lumia 1020 and the HTC One.The iPhone 5S has just a 1.2-megapixel camera on the front. In general, iPhone cameras are known for having relatively low megapixels but good sensor and optics technology. The iPhones rear camera, for example, is one of the best smartphone cameras available, and is easily capable of replacing a snapshot camera entirely.The Nokia Lumia 1020 has an even better camera arguably the best phone camera in the world, with an astounding 41 megapixels, six lenses, digital zoom, a xenon flash and manual camera controls through its Pro Camera app. But the front-facing camera is just 1.2 megapixels, as well.The Galaxy S4 bumps up to 2 megapixels, with a rear camera of 13, while the HTC One goes all the way to 2.1 megapixels. Its rear camera is just 4, with an emphasis on sensor technology instead of resolution.In my testing, the HTC One produced the best selfies. They were consistently in focus and had rich, true colors, and the camera performed better in low light than the competition. The Nokia Lumia 1020 was a close second, despite its lower resolution, but indoor shots were worse than outdoor shots. The Samsung Galaxy S4 suffers from focus issues, so its selfies were inconsistent, and any bright lights in the background resulted in badly blown-out images.The iPhone 5S was the surprising disappointment of the bunch. Its focus was inconsistent, colors tended to appear washed out, and its lens produced the most distortion of the bunch (once again: My nose does not look like that in real life).Yet none of the selfies I took could reasonably be considered good photos, so Im still hopeful for better front-facing cameras in the future. If size continues to be less of an issue with phone design, the front-facing camera is an opportunity to differentiate. A camera-forward manufacturer like Nokia or a second-tier phone-maker like Sony, HTC or Motorola could introduce a powerful new selfie cam that appeals to millennials and exploits social sharing in a way thats far more effective than an awkward, software-first Facebook phone like the HTC First.High-caliber front-facing cameras do exist in phones from other countries, or from lesser-known brands. For example, the iBerry Auxus Nuclea N2, available in India, features an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. And phones like the Micromax Canvas Turbo A250, the iBall Andi 4.7G Cobalt and the Huawei Ascend P6 also available in India all have at least 5-megapixel front cameras.At the end of the month, a spate of new phones will be introduced in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, an annual mobile device trade show. There will be a crush of announcements about screen size and resolution, processor power (octa-cores!), fingerprint scanners, custom Android flavors, powerful rear-facing cameras and that increasing focus on bent, bendable or at least slightly curved screens. But we are not, at least in an early reading, likely to see major improvements in front-facing phone cameras.Mobile World Congress may not lay claim to the selfie generation in 2014, but supercomputer processors and curved screens arent sexy selling points for smart phones in a now-saturated market. (Can anyone explain what I need a curved screen for? It cant be for talking on the phone who talks on the phone anymore?) Phone makers would do well to look around at what people are actually doing with their phones, and design accordingly. We demand better selfies!

Tech

Inside the RingsCredit...Josh Haner/The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2014SOCHI, Russia Adelina Sotnikova of Russia is a 17-year-old with a teenagers insatiable appetite. She sees her Olympic gold medal as a mere appetizer on figure skatings endless buffet.I want all the gold there is out there, everything that exists in figure skating, in all events, in all competitions, Sotnikova said Friday at a news conference.She deserved to win. Sotnikova was more insistent than Kim Yu-na of South Korea, more athletic and resourceful and complete, powerful in the short program, refined in the long program.Above all, Sotnikova was more cleverly attuned to the current scoring system, rushing to gather points with jumps and spins and footwork and artistry, a kind of Easter egg hunt on ice.ImageCredit...Andrej Isakovic/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesSotnikova landed more three-revolution jumps than Kim did. Her spins and her step sequence were judged better. She did not hold back.Kim is a beautiful skater, but she seemed remote at the Sochi Games, admitting that she lacked motivation after winning a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Games. She seemed not so much disappointed with silver here as relieved that her Olympic career was over.For me, Adelina was the champion, said Eteri Tutberidze, the coach of another Russian teenage star, Yulia Lipnitskaya. That was the skate of her life. Ive never seen her as concentrated and focused.Unfortunately for Sotnikova, her victory has become less a coronation than an autopsy.Her gold medal is certainly defensible, but the opaque judging system is not. The International Skating Union has done a disservice to Sotnikova, undermining the credibility of the outcome by its aloofness, by its lack of transparency and accountability and by its refusal to untangle endless conflicts of interest.A member of the technical panel supervising the womens competition was Alexander Lakernik, who has been a vice president of the Russian figure skating federation.Adelina Sotnikova of Russia delivered a sophisticated performance to win the gold medal.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSlide 1 of 15 Adelina Sotnikova of Russia delivered a sophisticated performance to win the gold medal.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesAmong the judges was Alla Shekhovtsova, the wife of Valentin Piseev, a former president of the Russian skating federation and now its general director.How did Shekhovtsova vote? It is impossible to know because judges scores are submitted anonymously. Perhaps she is the most honest judge in the world. Maybe she placed Sotnikova fifth in a vote of conscience and independence.We cannot know, which leads to doubt and suspicion of favoritism and home cooking in a subjective sport with a tainted history of collusion. That is unfair to both Shekhovtsova and Sotnikova and diminishes the value of the gold medal.Its great for the sport to discuss who had the best jumps and spins, said George Rossano, the editor of the online magazine Ice Skating International, who supported Sotnikova as the gold medalist. But its not good for the sport for people to argue, Did the Russian judge and her friends cause the results to be tainted? Its just bad.Shekhovtsova could not be reached for comment. The International Skating Union said in a statement that it had received no official protest and was confident in the high quality and integrity of its judging system. Asked late Thursday if Sotnikovas victory was a fair result, Aleksandr Gorshkov, the current president of the Russian skating federation, said: I dont think I will give my answer. That is the area of judging.On Friday, the Russians bristled when asked about Shekhovtsova and her conflict of interest. There had never been allegations of impropriety against her, coaches said, noting that there were nine judges on the womens panel, not just one.It doesnt make any sense to discuss this here, said Elena Buyanova, who coaches Sotnikova.The International Skating Union could resolve distrust by avoiding such conflicts. Judges should be independent, not appointed to the Olympics by their national skating federations. The Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, did not get to pick the games referees.Each judges vote should be made public. We need more transparency, David Raith, the chief executive of U.S. Figure Skating, said last month at the national championships.At the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, a referee gave a detailed and convincing account of why Oksana Baiul of Ukraine won the gold medal over Nancy Kerrigan. A similar explanation here, laying out exactly why Sotnikovas technical ambition, spins and footwork received higher marks than Kims, would have been helpful.Some have questioned whether Sotnikovas rising artistic marks this season were overly generous. Collectively known as the program component score, the marks are for skating skills, transitions and linking footwork, performance, choreography and musical interpretation.Sotnikovas component score improved drastically, from 60.31 points early on the Grand Prix circuit to 74.41 in Thursdays long program, essentially matching Kims.She was overscored, but Im not sure had she been scored correctly that it would have been any different, said Kurt Browning, a four-time world champion from Canada.The Russians were unapologetic Friday, as could be expected. As controversy swirled elsewhere, there was only celebration by the host team.We are following the rules that the modern game was offering, said Peter Tchernyshev, Sotnikovas choreographer and a five-time United States ice dancing champion. We won this game.It is a game that desperately needs to reconsider its rules.

Sports

Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersMarch 5, 2017SEOUL, South Korea South Korea said on Sunday that it would quadruple the cash reward it provides for North Korean defectors arriving with important information to 1 billion won, or $860,000, in an effort to encourage more elite members from the North to flee.Since famine hit the North in the mid-1990s, more than 30,000 North Koreans have defected to the South. The South Korean government helps them resettle by providing job training, rent and other subsidies.But it has also offered extra cash rewards for those who defected with information on the North Korean military or the inner workings of the secretive North Korean government, as well as for those who fled with military planes or other weapons.On Sunday, the Unification Ministry, a South Korean government agency in charge of North Korea policies, said that it planned to increase the cash bonus for a defector with such information to $860,000 from $217,000.Defectors who flee with a warship or a military fighter jet will also get $860,000, instead of the current $130,000.Those who arrive with lesser weapons, like a tank or a machine gun, can expect rewards ranging from $43,000 to $260,000.The new cash awards will take effect in April, the ministry said.South Korea said the drastic increases reflected the effects of inflation over the 20 years since the rewards were last adjusted.They come at a time when South Korean officials say that more elite members from North Korea, deeply disappointed with their leader, Kim Jong-un, and fearful of his reign of terror, are trying to defect to the South.Those fears can hardly have been eased by recent reports that North Korea had executed five security officials by antiaircraft fire, possibly because they had failed to prevent United States cyberattacks that disrupted several missile tests.Last summer, Thae Yong-ho, the No. 2 diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in London, arrived in the South with his family, saying he wanted to escape the threat of execution and to give his two sons a better future in South Korea.In 1983, a North Korean military pilot named Lee Woong-pyung fled to the South with his MiG-19 fighter jet, breaching the heavily guarded border between the two Koreas.Today, almost all defectors from the totalitarian North flee through its border with China, though Mr. Kim has taken steps to tighten that border in the five years since he took power.The number of North Korean defectors arriving in the South, which peaked with 2,914 in 2009, dropped to 1,418 last year.Their trip can be costly, running into the thousands of dollars.As it became more risky to cross the border into China, North Korean border guards demanded bigger bribes in return for letting people slip through, according to human rights activists who help defectors.Once in China, defectors have to pay smugglers to take them to countries like Laos and Thailand, where they can seek asylum in the South Korean Embassy.If they are caught in China and repatriated, they could face a long stretch in a prison camp or worse.Many spend months and even years in China as illegal migrants to raise the cash they need to make the trip to the South.More than 70 percent of the defectors who make it to the South are women. They are often forced to work in the sex industry in China, or sold to rural Chinese men who cannot find wives, before they escape to the South, human rights groups say.Defectors who have settled in the South often pay smugglers to help bring their relatives from the North.Some smugglers also collect their fees after the defectors arrive in the South and start earning wages.

World

Adrian Peterson Pump Up Message to Vikings ... 'No Regrets!' 1/20/2018 TMZSports.com He's a legend in Minnesota ... and that's why Adrian Peterson was all about giving his former team a pump-up speech before the NFC Championship game! The NFL superstar spoke with TMZ Sports ... telling us why he's truly excited and happy for Minnesota's success, despite the fact he now plays for the Arizona Cardinals. And if the Vikings can ultimately win the Super Bowl, AP says he wouldn't turn down a ring from the team if they offered him one ... saying, "That would be awesome ... I did help build that stadium a little bit!" There's more ... AP also updates us on his NFL future and how his body feels going into 2018. Spoiler alert -- he ain't even close to hangin' it up! TMZSports.com

Entertainment

Feb. 3, 2014Credit...Barton Silverman/The New York TimesPete Carroll bounded through the front doors of the Sheraton Times Square Hotel a little after 8 a.m. Monday. It was 10 hours after his Seattle Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII, so he had ample time to rest. He just didnt. We can sleep some other time, Carroll said.Carroll is 62, the second-oldest coach in the N.F.L., but has more energy than a case of Red Bull. He ordered his players to stay up all night, to savor the franchises first championship, and so they did. The celebration raged at Seattles hotel in Jersey City, where the teams owner, Paul Allen, opened with his band, the Underthinkers, for the Grammy-winning rap duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.How good is it when you have your owner up on stage playing his guitar with his own band? Carroll said. Paul was hot last night. He was tearing it up, big licks. The party ended just in time (at least we think it did) for Carroll to attend his news conference, where the subjects discussed during the weeklong buildup to the game his coaching style, his philosophies, his lone season with the Jets after Sunday had more resonance, now that the Seahawks were champions. As snow swirled outside, Carroll addressed the factors that fueled his triumphant return to the New York-New Jersey area, where a disappointing phase of his coaching journey began (and ended) 20 years ago. That moment in time was just a moment in time, Carroll said of being fired and replaced by Rich Kotite after the Jets went 6-10 in 1994. It didnt dampen my spirits. It didnt slow me down. If anything, it kicked me in the butt in a better way. Then I got kicked a little harder in New England. I had to learn the hard way, but sometimes thats what had to happen.VideoEvery so often, the Super Bowl turns into a rout, which is exactly what happened on Sunday night at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.CreditCredit...Carlo Allegri/ReutersCarroll spent two years as an assistant in San Francisco and three more preceding Bill Belichick in New England, fired despite two playoff appearances, before landing at Southern California. As the Seahawks lead went from 2-0 to 5-0 to 8-0 to 15-0 to 22-0 in the first half, Carroll said his thoughts drifted to the Trojans Bowl Championship Series title game victory against Oklahoma in 2005.It felt like it, it looked like it, the score was like it, Carroll said. At each stop, Carroll massaged his approach, as freewheeling as it is exacting, willing to take in players of all backgrounds and personalities as long as they shared his competitive spirit. Teaming with General Manager John Schneider, the shrewd architect of this rising power, Carroll built the Seahawks in his image. Many, like Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman and Byron Maxwell and the Super Bowl M.V.P. Malcolm Smith, were selected in the later rounds. Others, like Jermaine Kearse and Doug Baldwin, who each caught a touchdown pass in the second half Sunday, were not even drafted. Misfits, Sherman called them. He meant it as a compliment. Those misfits stifled Peyton Manning and the Denver offense, the highest-scoring in N.F.L. history. Those misfits piled up 43 points. Those misfits are constructed for long-term success, for more than just this Super Bowl, and Carroll said he intended to mention those expectations to his team during a meeting Tuesday.One of the things that happens every so often is teams have a big fallout after they win the Super Bowl, Carroll said. Were not in that situation. Well be battling and competing.The battling and competing begins later, not this week, not when a city awaits its champions.Yeah, lets shut down the darn schools, Carroll said, referencing the downtown parade on Wednesday. Lets have a darn celebration peacefully and rightfully and in great fashion but with great music and fun and great enjoyment and creating the memory that everybody deserves.For Carroll and the Seahawks, another party awaits.

Sports

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/sports/baseball/mets-name-radio-team.htmlSports BriefingFeb. 14, 2014Howie Rose and Josh Lewin will return as the Mets radio team as the games shift to WOR-AM from WFAN-AM and FM. The announcement that they will still call the Mets took a while; the team revealed its move to WOR in November. The Yankees moved to WFAN from WCBS-AM. Seattle signed Fernando Rodney, who had 37 saves for the Tampa Bay Rays last season, to a two-year, $14 million deal. Rodney, 36, ranked second in the American League in saves (85) over the past two seasons.Outfielder Franklin Gutierrez, a Gold Glove winner in 2010, told the Mariners he would not play this season because of a recurrence of the gastrointestinal problem that slowed him last season. (AP) Jim Fregosi, the former All-Star infielder and manager of the Angels, the White Sox, the Phillies and the Blue Jays, was hospitalized in Miami after apparently having a stroke while on a cruise to the Cayman Islands for baseball fans. Fregosi, 71, is an executive for the Braves. (AP)

Sports

Politics|Early voting data suggests both runoffs could be nail-biters.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/us/politics/early-voting-data-suggests-both-runoffs-could-be-nail-biters.htmlCredit...Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockJan. 5, 2021Two Republican candidates, Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, whose Senate term ended Sunday, are battling to keep their seats in Georgias runoff election. If their Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, both win, Democrats will reclaim the Senate majority.Control of the Senate will effectively set the parameters of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.s first two years in office. A Republican-led Senate would complicate his ability to staff his cabinet, pass legislation and advance his political priorities.Heres a look at what we know so far.Early voting data suggests that the races are very competitive. There are some indications that Democrats had a bigger share of the early-voting electorate than they did in the general election, raising hopes for a party that has traditionally been the underdog in runoff races.The outcome now depends on whether Republicans can overcome the Democrats early gains when they head to the polls on Tuesday. Rates of early voting have been lowest in the conservative northwest of the state, worrying some Republicans. But others argue that their supporters typically vote in higher numbers on Election Day and hope that President Trumps rally on Monday in Dalton, a city in the northwest, will push more Republicans to the polls.Strategists from both parties remain uncertain on what to anticipate beyond a tight race. Demographic changes have shifted the politics in Georgia, turning the traditionally conservative Southern state into a hotly contested battleground.In November, Mr. Perdue received 49.7 percent of the vote, just short of the majority he would have needed to avoid a runoff, while his challenger, Mr. Ossoff, had 47.9 percent a difference of about 88,000 votes. The field was more crowded in the other Senate contest: Mr. Warnock finished with 32.9 percent of the vote and Ms. Loeffler with 25.9 percent.Modeling the electorate for these rematches is trickier than usual: Never has a Georgia runoff determined the balance of power in the Senate or been held during a pandemic.Yes, there could be yet another round of counting. After multiple vote counts last year, state officials are preparing for all contingencies.In November, it took a week and a half of counting after Election Day before it was clear that Mr. Biden had won the state.Republicans are expected to command an early lead on election night, because the more conservative areas of the state typically report results faster and because votes cast in person, which have favored Republicans during the coronavirus pandemic, are typically released earlier. Heavily Democratic counties, including the suburban Atlanta areas that helped Mr. Biden win, historically take longer to count votes.A staggering influx of political spending has flooded the state, as campaign operatives, party officials and outside groups descended on the races. Nearly $500 million has been spent on advertising, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking firm, saturating the airwaves at previously unheard-of levels.

Politics

BreakingviewsDec. 1, 2015Credit...Damian Dovarganes/Associated PressPfizers $160 billion takeover of Allergan reached a few milestones in the mergers and acquisitions trade.It was the top deal of the year, exceeding Anheuser-Busch InBevs purchase of SABMiller. Pfizers all-stock transaction for Allergan also vaulted the total value of corporate deal-making in 2015 beyond the record set in 2007, just before the financial crisis shuddered things to a halt.More dubiously, the merger is also one of the largest deals ever predicated on exploiting global tax loopholes. Without the ability for Pfizer, the larger of the two companies, to back its way into Allergans lower-tax Irish domicile, Allergan would have lost some $17 billion of shareholder treasure.That this high-water mark of M.&A. is justified by its tax workaround is a sign that the two-year boom of extraordinary corporate deals is reaching its logical conclusion. Other, perhaps less perceptible, warning bells are clanging, too, which suggest companies are increasingly pursuing financial engineering to fix troubled core businesses, a trend that in previous booms has ended poorly for investors.The desire of companies to band together and reduce overlapping costs will not diminish anytime soon, particularly as the prospects for global economic growth look mediocre at best. Thanks to Pfizers combination with Allergan, the value of worldwide announced M.&A. reached $4.2 trillion this year, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters, up from around $3.5 trillion last year, and surpassing the record achieved eight years earlier.Pfizer is not the first health care company to take advantage of a so-called tax inversion, wherein it merges with a rival based outside the United States to reduce the overall tax burden in ways that enhance the bottom line. Pfizers is, however, far and away the biggest on record. The drug maker, led by Ian C. Read, is expected to save $1.7 billion in taxes annually by 2018, according to an analysis of the deal by my colleague Rob Cyran.Whats more, Pfizers inversion is larger than the previous 10 such deals in the industry combined. That includes the $66 billion merger with Actavis that created Allergan earlier this year. Together, those transactions add up to around $140 billion in value, Thomson Reuters data shows.At least Pfizer can justify the expenditure on Allergan using arithmetic, however illusory the savings may turn out to be if the federal government modifies its tax code in the coming years. A handful of smaller takeovers, unveiled in the days leading to Pfizers big one, are harder to fathom, and point to an anecdotal spate of distracted deal-making that is often emblematic of a peak in the M.&A. business.Take the case of Urban Outfitters, the $2.9 billion apparel retailer, buying a pizza chain. Its acquisition of the Vetri Family group of restaurants is guided by the notion that Urban Outfitters, which also operates the Anthropologie brand, can increase foot traffic to its stores by selling customers food and beverages alongside clothing. According to Urban Outfitters chief executive, Richard A. Hayne: Spending on casual dining is expanding rapidly, and thus, we believe there is tremendous opportunity to expand the Pizzeria Vetri concept.This is a clear instance of strategic shift for a fashion company in trouble. Urban Outfitters shares have lost more than a third of their value this year. Its third-quarter sales, released shortly after the pizza-chain purchase, came in shy of what analysts had been expecting and its same-store sales barely budged from the year before.Pandora, the $3 billion music-streaming pioneer, is another example of a company reverting to M.&A. to stray beyond its challenged main operations. As with Urban Outfitters, the market has not been kind to Pandora shareholders, who are down some 20 percent on their investment year to date. Its not usually a show of confidence, however, that the company has been buying assets in so-called adjacent businesses to its own.On the same day Urban Outfitters got into the pizza game, Pandora agreed to pay $75 million for some technology and intellectual property assets of Rdio, a rival service of sorts that filed for bankruptcy. The deal, coming after a profit-warning shocker and an earlier move into the adjacency of live music ticket sales with the $450 million purchase of Ticketfly, further unnerved shareholders.Pandoras boss, Brian McAndrews, described the deals as defining the next chapter of Pandoras growth story. The implication, however, is that Pandoras current chapter is over. ConAgra, meanwhile, has already started and ended a new phase within this very deal cycle. It disastrously tried to marry its branded consumer goods like Chef Boyardee with Ralcorp, a private-label food manufacturer. Some two years after paying $5.1 billion for the business, it agreed last month to offload it to TreeHouse Foods for $2.7 billion.Earlier eras experienced similar adjacency calamities. Nokia got into mapping software with Navteq, paying $8.1 billion in 2007 and selling it this year for $5 billion less. In a previous boom, Germanys Daimler spectacularly failed to combine its luxury car know-how with the mass-market Chrysler. And the AOL-Time Warner combo still stands as the mother of all mission drifts.As such deals increasingly characterize the latest M.&A. bacchanal along with those where clever financial structures overwhelm strategic logic it presents strong evidence of a last hurrah.

Business

TrilobitesCredit...Bruno Kelly/ReutersMarch 3, 2017Scientists studying the Amazon rain forest are tangled in a debate of nature versus nurture.Many ecologists tend to think that before Europeans arrived in the Americas, the vast wilderness was pristine and untouched by humans. But several archaeologists argue that ancient civilizations once thrived in its thickets and played a role in its development.Now, researchers have found evidence that indigenous people may have domesticated and cultivated Amazonian plants and trees thousands of years ago, further supporting the idea that ancient humans helped shape the forest.Large areas of the Amazon are less pristine than we may think, said Hans ter Steege, a tropical ecologist at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, and an author of a paper published in Science on Thursday. The people who lived there before Columbus left serious footprints that still persist in the composition as we see today.He was one of more than a hundred researchers who found that domesticated tree and palm species like cacao, cashews, the aa palm, the Brazil nut and rubber were five times more likely to dominate the modern Amazonian forest than nondomesticated plants.Carolina Levis, a doctoral student at the National Institute for Amazonian Research in Brazil and Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands, was the lead author on the study. She and her team looked at a database from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network containing 1,170 plots of forest. Most plots measured approximately 2.5 acres each and had previously been investigated on foot by ecologists who counted and identified the plant species in the plots. Ms. Levis then identified 85 domestic plants to analyze.One way the team determined that a plant had been domesticated was a look at its fruit. They found, for example, some peach palms that bore fruit weighing 200 grams, or 0.44 pounds, when the fruit grown in the wild matured to about one gram. Several of the domesticated plants they identified are still grown by South Americans.ImageCredit...Tinde van AndelMs. Levis compared her list of 85 plants to another database of more than 3,000 archaeological sites, including ceramics, dirt mounds and rock paintings, dating back before the Spaniards and Portuguese arrived in the Americas 500 years ago. The domesticated plants flourished near the archaeological sites, far more so than nondomesticated ones.Its the first time that we show these correlations between plant species in the forest today and archaeological finds, she said.The findings suggest that either the ancient civilizations grew and cultivated the plants, or that they purposely settled in areas that had plants they could eat and use. Ms. Levis said she suspected that people were domesticating the plants, although the study did not definitively pinpoint how settlements were chosen. In some plots, more than half of the plant life consisted of domesticated trees and palms.Jennifer Watling, an archaeologist at the University of So Paulo, Brazil, who was not involved with the study, said in an email that the large number of data points sampled by these authors gives good reason to believe that the distribution of domesticated species in many areas of Amazonia is strongly linked to the actions of pre-Columbian societies.But Crystal McMichael, a paleoecologist from the University of Amsterdam, said the database comparisons were not convincing. New direct evidence, like fossils of domesticated plants at the archaeological sites, would help advance such theories, she said. While the study shows a potential association between ancient people and modern forest composition, it does not preclude the possibility that the domesticated plant patterns occurred with more modern settlements, she said in an email.Dr. ter Steege disagreed. The study changed my view of the forest, he said. Its not only the ecology or the environment that created this forest, but also the people who lived there before.

science

Off the DribbleFeb. 8, 2014Credit...Frank Franklin II/Associated PressTo say that Damian Lillard has been busy would be an understatement.Last month, Lillard, the starting point guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, was named to the pool of players being considered for the United States national team, and he was selected as a reserve for the Western Conference All-Star team. Last week, his schedule for All-Star weekend became even heavier when he was chosen to play in the N.B.A.s Rising Stars challenge to go along with appearances in the leagues skills competition, the slam dunk contest and the 3-point contest. Lillard, who won the skills competition last season, would be the first player to appear in every All-Star event if he keeps his schedule. He has to be considered a favorite to repeat in the skills competition, and with 144 3-pointers this season (third in the N.B.A.) he is a contender in the 3-point contest. Things might be more difficult in the dunk contest, where a revamped format will put Lillard on a team with Harrison Barnes and Ben McLemore to face an Eastern Conference squad featuring John Wall, Paul George and Terrence Ross, the defending champion. But even if the 23-year-old Lillard fails to win a single contest, it is remarkable that he is considered a player worthy of each grouping.It is a lot to have on one plate, but Lillard is proving to be among the most versatile and durable players in the league. He has started all 132 Portland games since he was taken with the No. 6 pick in the 2012 draft, leading the N.B.A. in total minutes last season with 3,167. While Lillard has thrived in the limelight, and should see his profile grow during All-Star weekend, it is fair to wonder how much is too much. But for Lillard, a passion to compete against the best is what drives him.In a recent Q. and A. with readers of The Oregonian, Lillard said he probably would not have been interested in playing in a lesser league had he not made the N.B.A.It wasnt about making money and being a professional athlete, Lillard said. I wanted to play in the N.B.A.Players who spread themselves thin over All-Star activities and national team commitments have had their critics in the past, but one surprising supporter for the busy, yet structured schedule is Gregg Popovich, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs. Popovich is known for managing the minutes of his players in a remarkably conservative fashion, even sitting out all of his star players at the same time when the schedule proves particularly hectic. But Popovich, who served as an assistant coach at the 2004 Olympics, said he would rather see young players in this type of controlled environment than testing their game in other ways, such as in unregulated playground games. Its two weeks here, its two weeks there, and a lot of those guys would be playing someplace anyway, Popovich said Thursday before his short-handed team lost to the Nets in Brooklyn. To be in an organized situation thats safe, thats pretty important, and thats what they have. I dont think that it really hurts their longevity. For his part, Lillard said he thought the stress on his body would be minimal from his All-Star weekend commitments.People think theres more energy being exerted than there actually is, Lillard told USA Today. Its really not that much when you think about the time that you actually spend doing it.Even with all of his commitments, Lillard is not approaching the type of use that some stars have endured, largely because of his time in college.A four-year player at Weber State, Lillard has played a combined 8,342 minutes of college and professional basketball through Friday. (He was limited to 10 games in his third college season because of a foot injury.) If he keeps up his current pace, he will be nearing 10,000 regular-season minutes of post-high school ball by the end of this season. In comparison, LeBron James, who entered the N.B.A. straight out of high school, had logged 16,088 minutes through his age-23 season. Kobe Bryant, who also did not play college ball, had logged 13,425 minutes. The Trail Blazers would be forgiven if they cringe as Lillard adds activities to his busy schedule. Before Lillards arrival, Portland watched Brandon Roy, a similarly talented player, have his career fall apart when chronic knee injuries proved too much to overcome. But Popovich says an N.B.A. team can benefit when a player tries out for the national team.For some of the young kids who go there, whether they make it or not, or they play a lot, they usually come back better players, he said.The Trail Blazers, with a history of star players being ravaged by injuries, will have to hope that the benefits of Lillards experiences outweigh the extra miles they put on his young body.

Sports

TrilobitesAmong roosting bats in parts of Africa, the inside of a drop toilet can be a lovely place to hang.Credit...Leejiah DorwardOct. 8, 2021Imagine you are at a research camp in the Tanzanian grasslands and you need to relieve yourself. You walk to the nearby pit toilet: a concrete slab with a tiny portal that opens into an eight-foot pit heaped with human waste. You drop your pants, squat and carry out your business. Suddenly you realize you are not alone. Maybe it is a slight gust of air, or something even more corporeal.Ive had the soft, leathery caress of a bats wing against my buttocks while having a poo, said Leejiah Dorward, a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University in Wales.In Tanzania, the spaces under certain pit latrines have become cozy havens for roosting bats, according to a paper published by Dr. Dorward and colleagues in September in the African Journal of Ecology. The researchers found the pits rotting depths warm the air, and the concrete slab overhead keeps predators out. Even the occasional falling feces or overhead spray does not drive the bats away, though they may startle the animals into flight.Suddenly you would feel one charge upwards and launch itself between your legs, said Amy Dickman, a senior research fellow at Oxford University and director of the Ruaha Carnivore Project in Tanzania. Then you have this furry mammal just flying into your behind. Though Dr. Dickman was not involved with the research, her toilet was one of seven examined by Dr. Dorward.Dr. Dorward first encountered the bats in 2015 at Dr. Dickmans research camp near Ruaha National Park (where he first felt the velvety kiss of furred wings on his derrire), but toilet bats may be familiar bathroom buddies to anyone who has used pit latrines in certain parts of Africa.ImageCredit...Charlotte SearleImageCredit...Leejiah DorwardSospeter Kibiwot, a bat ecologist at the University of Eldoret in Kenya, first saw a toilet bat when he was in elementary school, an encounter that both spooked him and inspired him to learn more about bats. Since my childhood, I have spotted more than 10 pit-latrine roosts, Mr. Kibiwot wrote in an email. Not all such latrines are roosts but just a few.Members of the conservation organization Global South Bats have seen bats roosting in latrines in Zambia and Madagascar and in sewage systems in Mauritius, according to Angelica Menchaca, the groups general director.Realizing the phenomenon seemed absent from scientific literature, Dr. Dorward began to survey the pit toilets around camp for potential occupants in 2017. His first surveilling method was to photograph the bats. His camera would not fit down the drop hole an intentionally tiny opening to ensure humans do not tumble through so he had to disconnect the lens from the camera, pass both pieces through the hole and twist them together without dropping anything.It was not an optimal way of doing it, Dr. Dorward said.He later fashioned a less precarious strategy, inspired by a dental mirror. He taped a small mirror and a flashlight to angled aluminum bars, allowing him to count all the roosting bats, which clung to the wooden bars holding up the concrete slab. Six of the seven toilets at camp were blessed with bats. The oldest toilet, which was established seven or eight years before the survey, housed 9 to 13 bats. The newest toilet had no bats. A toilet with just a foot or two between the hole and the mound of stools had only a few bats.The researchers sent photos of the bats to Bruce Patterson, a mammal curator at the Field Museum in Chicago. Dr. Patterson helped identify the toilet dwellers as Nycteris, or slit-faced bats (the researchers also found a single heart-nosed bat in the surveys). ImageCredit...Leejiah DorwardPaul Webala, a wildlife biologist at Maasai Mara University in Kenya, who has a forthcoming paper about toilet bats in that country, has observed the large-eared slit-faced bat and the Egyptian slit-faced bat in his own latrine surveys.Dr. Patterson said he suspects that Nycteris bats may be most dominant in latrines because their wing shape allows them to maneuver in tight spaces and trespass through small holes. There are lots of bats that would love to roost there but are incapable of doing it because of their flight mechanics, he said.While some bats thrive by making homes of outhouses, adjacency to humans leaves other species in the lurch. Urbanization jeopardizes most bat species, said Danilo Russo, an ecologist at the University of Naples Federico II. Some other researchers said the bats might even be using the latrines as a refuge from their disappearing wilderness. Some bat species live along humans as the last resort, said Mr. Kibiwot, the bat ecologist.For anyone unfamiliar with the design of a drop toilet, the published paper included a hand-drawn graphic, complete with a heap of rotting waste, two bats and a human figure. The squatting chap is totally superfluous to the paper, but just felt right, said Dr. Dorward, who drew the sketch.Fittingly, this illustration was labeled Figure 2 in the paper, an unintentional homage to what the squatting chap may be doing, just above the bats.

science

Economy|Hiring Increased in October, Report Sayshttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/economy/hiring-increased-in-october-report-says.htmlDec. 8, 2015United States employers advertised fewer jobs in October, though overall hiring picked up and people quitting rose slightly, adding to evidence that the job market is slowly improving.The number of job postings fell 2.7 percent to a still-healthy 5.4 million in October compared with the previous month, the Labor Department said Tuesday in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey. That figure is not far from Julys record high of 5.7 million.Hiring increased to 5.1 million, the most since June. And the number of people quitting their jobs, a sign of confidence in the job market, rose to 2.78 million. Still, that figure has been mostly flat this year.Even with the drop in job openings, the data suggests companies are still seeking more workers. The number of available jobs has increased 11 percent in the last year. That suggests businesses are still confident enough in future demand to increase their staffs, despite drags from slower overseas growth.The report is broadly consistent with our view that the labor market will continue to improve but that the rate of job growth will moderate somewhat in the coming quarters, said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase.Janet L. Yellen, the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, is said to closely monitor the openings, hiring and quits figures as the Fed moves closer to raising short-term interest rates. Most analysts expect the Fed to move at its meeting next week.Other surveys indicate that companies intend to keep hiring at a solid clip early next year. The staffing agency ManpowerGroup said in a separate report Tuesday that 20 percent of 11,000 employers it surveyed expected to add workers in the first quarter of 2016.The companys hiring index reached the highest level for a first quarter since the beginning of 2007 just before the recession, the ManpowerGroup said.Rising quits can also help broadly lift wages. That is because most people quit their jobs when they have another one lined up, usually at higher pay. More quitting also forces companies to provide raises for their existing workers to keep them from leaving.Quits plummeted to just 1.6 million in August 2009, two months after the recession ended as Americans clung to the jobs they had. The figure has rebounded since then but remains below the prerecession level of about 2.9 million.The data comes after last Fridays robust jobs report, which showed that employers added 211,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5 percent.Those figures are a net total: Jobs gained minus jobs lost. The data reported Tuesday is more detailed, calculating total hires as well as quits and layoffs.

Business

Politics|A Persistent Gadfly Wins Again in the Supreme Courthttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/a-persistent-gadfly-wins-again-in-the-supreme-court.htmlCredit...Jessica Gresko/Associated PressJune 18, 2018WASHINGTON A determined critic of a Florida city must have the chance to prove that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was arrested while speaking at a City Council meeting, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.The decision was a second Supreme Court victory for Fane Lozman, who calls himself a persistent and tenacious underdog.In 2013, he won his first Supreme Court case against the city, Riviera Beach, when the justices ruled that the city had misused maritime law to seize and destroy his houseboat. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called the decision his favorite of the term.The new case, decided 8 to 1, arose from a 2006 closed-door meeting of city officials. According to a transcript later made public under Floridas freedom-of-information law, the citys leaders spoke freely about finding a way to investigate and threaten Mr. Lozman.Elizabeth Wade, a city councilwoman, said that it would help to intimidate Mr. Lozman and to make him feel unwarranted heat.Five months later, Mr. Lozman rose to address the City Council during the part of a public session set aside for comments from residents. He had barely started talking when Ms. Wade called for a police officer.Carry him out, she said. After Mr. Lozman refused the officers request to leave, he was arrested.A video of the episode shows Mr. Lozman being handcuffed and led away.Mr. Lozman sued, saying he had been arrested in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights. The arrest was payback, he said, for his criticism of the citys plan to redevelop the waterfront by taking private property using eminent domain.But he conceded that there had been probable cause for his arrest, a point that seemed to puzzle Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the author of Mondays majority opinion.Although Lozman does not indicate what facts he believes support this concession, Justice Kennedy wrote, it appears that the existence of probable cause must be based on the assumption that Lozman failed to depart the podium after receiving a lawful order to leave.The federal appeals court in Atlanta said Mr. Lozman had made a compelling First Amendment argument about his arrest. He seems to have established a sufficient causal nexus between Councilperson Wade and the alleged constitutional injury of his arrest, the court said in an unsigned opinion.Despite that, the court ruled that Mr. Lozman could not sue. Since there had been probable cause for the arrest, the court said, it did not matter that it might have also been motivated by retaliation.The question of whether the existence of probable cause is always enough to defeat a lawsuit claiming retaliatory arrest has divided the appeals courts. The Supreme Court agreed in 2011 to decide the question but ended up ducking it.Mondays decision did not provide a definitive answer to the question. Justice Kennedy wrote that Mr. Lozmans case could proceed but only because it had several unusual features, including what may have been an established and official policy to retaliate against him.Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. He wrote that the ruling seemed designed to fit only Mr. Lozmans case and that there should be no exceptions to what he said should be the general rule: that probable cause necessarily defeats First Amendment retaliatory-arrest claims.

Politics

Jay-Z and Beyonce Headline Clive Davis Awesome Pre-Grammy Party!!! 1/28/2018 TMZ.com Beyonce and Jay-Z made the crowd go nuts Saturday night in New York City as they left Clive Davis' Pre-Grammy party. Davis throws the bash every year -- this one was the Sheraton in Times Square. Among the other guests, Jamie Foxx, DJ Khaled, Mariah Carey and bunch of others. Other present include Jennifer Hudson, Martha Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Chrissy Teigen, Cardi B, and Barry Manilow, who performed. Jamie goofed around as he left, taking pics with New York's finest. The Grammys are Sunday night.

Entertainment

Credit...Andrew Harrer/BloombergJune 14, 2018Democrats sharply criticized the nations top bank regulator, Joseph M. Otting, during hearings before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, a day after he answered a question about the existence of lending or housing discrimination by saying he had never personally observed it.Mr. Otting, a longtime bank executive who is close to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, pulled back on his previous comments, telling senators that while he had not personally experienced discrimination, he does believe that it exists.But he went considerably further, distancing himself from other Trump administration officials who have publicly and privately rejected the idea that racial, ethnic and gender prejudice is an endemic part of the nations housing and banking systems.Under intense questioning before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, Mr. Otting, the comptroller of the currency, said that I have personally never observed housing discrimination, adding, Many of my friends from the inner city across America will tell me that it is evident today.He also said that half of the stories written about discrimination were not to be believed before remarking that he did not read newspapers and watched only CNBC and ESPN.That incensed members of the House committee, and, on Thursday, senators pressed Mr. Otting on his comments. Are you sitting before this committee telling a Hispanic American that there is no discrimination in mortgage lending? asked Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who is the son of Cuban immigrants.No, replied Mr. Otting. I think there is disparate impact that occurs in America. What I said was I did not personally observe discrimination.Civil rights groups have long cited the concept of disparate impact in discrimination cases, alleging that inherent bias against minorities, women and disabled people resulted in disparate and unfair treatment in employment, education and housing.The Obama administration used the theory as its main tool to enforce the Fair Housing Act, arguing that lenders and landlords could be guilty of discriminatory practices by failing to be cognizant of prevailing prejudices.Mr. Trumps appointees, led by his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, who also serves as the head of a federal consumer financial watchdog agency created after the fiscal crisis, have sought to reverse those policies.Ben Carson, the housing and urban development secretary, has been especially critical of the disparate impact argument, writing in a 2015 op-ed in The Washington Times that government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse.Last October, Treasury officials under the direction of Mr. Ottings boss, Mr. Mnuchin urged housing officials to reconsider use of the disparate impact rule.In April and May, House and Senate Republicans voted to scrap Obama-era regulations aimed at preventing discrimination in auto lending, which Mr. Trump has since signed into law. Mr. Mulvaney has said the consumer agency he oversees will be re-examining its use of disparate impact considerations in other areas of lending.A spokesman for Mr. Otting said his comments reflected his personal view, but would inform his enforcement and reform of the Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law intended to fight lending discrimination and residential segregation.After the hearing, Mr. Menendez said: Today, a Trump-appointed banking regulator finally admitted what communities of color across New Jersey and the nation have known for decades when banks systematically charge African-Americans and Latinos more for a loan than similar white borrowers, thats discrimination, whatever the banks intent. I intend to hold this administration accountable to ensure equal access to credit for all Americans.Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, pressed Mr. Otting on his tenure as chief executive of OneWest Bank between 2010 and 2015, asking if he had presided over an old boys club that discriminated against women and minority groups.I wouldnt support those activities, he responded. Im not aware of any old boys network that I associate with the banking industry.In another heated exchange with committee Democrats, Mr. Otting pointedly refused to disclose the name of banks identified as engaging in abusive lending practices as part of his offices investigation into industry conduct associated with the governments recent case against Wells Fargo.But Mr. Otting stressed that he was not only conscious of discrimination but also planned to do something about it, citing his effort to modernize the Community Reinvestment Act and his proposal aimed at encouraging larger institutions to engage in responsible small ticket lending in economically distressed communities.Those actions, he said, go right to the core of what youre describing the people in America that need the most help.

Politics

Jane Lynch Mark Salling's Death ... Tragic and Heartbreaking 1/30/2018 SplashNews.com Jane Lynch is clearly struggling with Mark Salling's apparent suicide ... for several complicated reasons. Jane was out in L.A. just a few hours after TMZ broke the story her former "Glee" co-star was found dead. Police believe he hanged himself. Jane said the news was "sad and very tragic." As for how she'll remember Salling? Watch the video, and you can tell Jane was reaching for the right words -- especially in light of the fact Salling had entered a guilty plea to child pornography charges. Ultimately, she took the high road and shared a story about his early days on the "Glee" set.

Entertainment

Credit...Imaginechina, via Associated PressJune 25, 2018America is now home to the worlds speediest supercomputer. But the new list of the 500 swiftest machines underlines how much faster China is building them.The list, published Monday, shows the Chinese companies and government pulling away as the most prolific producer of supercomputers, with 206 of the top 500. American corporations and the United States government designed and made 124 of the supercomputers on the list.For years, the United States dominated the supercomputer market. But two years ago, China pulled even on the Top 500 list. China moved decisively ahead last fall and extended the gap in the latest tally.Making the most powerful supercomputers is regarded as one measure of a nations technical prowess, even if they are a rarefied niche of technology. Countries and companies have increasingly deployed the machines in a wider range of tasks in fields including medicine, new materials and energy technology.Supercomputing is one step in Chinas rapid rise in technology, stirring concerns in America about the countrys grand plan and tactics and the potential economic and geopolitical implications of those advancements.In an assessment last fall, the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan congressional advisory group, pointed to supercomputing as part of Chinas ambitious whole-of-government plan to achieve dominance in advanced technology.China began its supercomputing push in earnest a decade ago. Initially, it absorbed foreign technology, and then steadily developed its own.China was slow to make that work, but its working now, said Richard Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon.The high-performance computing program, policy experts say, offers a blueprint for the multibillion-dollar efforts China has recently begun in fields like artificial intelligence and quantum computing the next frontiers of technology, where economic advantages will be won or lost.Supercomputer technology has occasionally been a trade issue between the United States and China. In 2015, for example, Washington denied Intel a license to sell its microprocessor chips to four supercomputer labs in China, saying the centers worked on technology for the Chinese military.The export ban, supercomputer experts say, served to prod the Chinese to accelerate their development efforts.The lesson the Chinese took away was that you cant rely on the United States, said Jack Dongarra, a supercomputer expert at the University of Tennessee and co-creator of the Top 500 list of the fastest machines. Theyre trying to replace all Western technology with all Chinese-made.Supercomputers were once found almost entirely in national laboratories, and used for government projects like simulating nuclear explosions and modeling weather patterns. But more than half of the 500 fastest are now toiling for corporations.The global supercomputer market is expected to double from 2017 to 2022, to more than $9.5 billion, according to an estimate from Hyperion Research. The research firm defines supercomputers as machines that cost more than $500,000 each.Three Chinese companies are among the top five makers of the 500 fastest supercomputers. Lenovo is first, Inspur is third, and Sugon is fifth. Two American companies are second and fifth, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Cray.The new list confirmed that the current fastest machine resides in the United States. This month, the Department of Energy announced that its new supercomputer, called Summit, had achieved speeds well ahead of the previous leader, the Sunway TaihuLight at a Chinese supercomputing center in Wuxi. Summit, built by IBM in a partnership with Nvidia, is at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.Depei Qian, a top supercomputer researcher in China, marvels at the progress his nation has made in the past decade beyond our expectations, he said.A point of particular pride: The Sunway TaihuLight machine uses homegrown microprocessors. That used to be a weakness, said Mr. Qian, a computer science professor at both Sun Yat-sen University and Beihang University.But while China has made impressive strides, Mr. Qian said the country still lagged in certain advanced hardware technologies and, especially, in software. Software is a tough issue for us, he said. That will take longer.Software is a challenge for supercomputing engineers in general. Supercomputers are increasingly being programmed to process vast amounts of data with artificial intelligence software. So data-handling speeds in software applications often become more important than raw calculating speed, which has been the traditional yardstick of supercomputer performance.The 500 list is based on the machines speed of mathematical calculation. But another benchmark codeveloped by Mr. Dongarra of the University of Tennessee measures data-handling speed in applications. Summit tops that list as well, while the Sunway machine ranks sixth.But China is also catching up in software development, supercomputer experts said. The flagship centers in China today are surprisingly similar to ours, said Rick Stevens, an associate director of the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.Chinas overarching policy, Mr. Stevens said, is to play the long game in technology, and supercomputers are just one part of that.

Tech

New findings indicate the outbreak of severe lung injuries may have peaked, but cases are still surfacing. The agency is urging doctors to monitor people closely after hospitalization. Credit...Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesDec. 20, 2019Health officials are warning doctors to more closely monitor patients with severe lung damage caused by vaping, because some have relapsed or died shortly after being sent home from the hospital.The recommendations are part of four new reports about the nationwide outbreak of severe illnesses from vaping, which has hospitalized 2,506 people and killed 54 as of Dec. 17. The reports were published on Friday, two by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and two by The New England Journal of Medicine.In the new reports, researchers pinpointed the beginning of the outbreak to early June, and said that evidence was mounting to connect the illness to vitamin E acetate an additive to the illicit THC-based products that most patients have vaped.The C.D.C. is confident that vitamin E acetate was strongly linked to an explosive increase in cases last summer, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the agency, said at a news briefing on Friday. But she and other health officials warned that even if THC suppliers stopped adding vitamin E acetate, that would not necessarily make illicit THC safe, because providers could switch to other dangerous substances. Sellers use additives to extend the THC and increase their profits. The C.D.C. is still recommending that people avoid vaping nicotine, because it may also contain unknown additives that may not be safe. Separately, the Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that 44 websites had been seized by the agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration for marketing illicit THC vaping cartridges. By seizing the sites, the agencies basically shut them down. The F.D.A., which has been investigating the supply chain involved in the outbreak, said it did not have evidence directly connecting the lung illnesses to the sites, but had obtained information about some of them from patients and their families. Although most of the lung injuries this year have been attributed to vaping products containing THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana, the new research also suggests that nicotine vaping may be causing health problems in young people. One of the studies found that starting in 2017, long before the outbreak of severe illness, there was a gradual increase in emergency room visits for lung trouble by people using e-cigarettes, especially patients 10 to 19 years old.The scientists said that the growing use of e-cigarettes by teenagers may have caused the increase in those visits to the emergency room. But Dr. Shuchat emphasized that the evidence was not clear and needed more study.In the outbreak of severe lung damage, cases peaked in September. But new ones are still being reported every week nearly 100 occurred from Dec. 10 to Dec. 17 and more deaths are being investigated.One of the new reports found that among 2,409 cases reported to the C.D.C. by early December, 31 patients had to be rehospitalized and seven others died after being sent home. Their median time to winding up back in the hospital was four days, and the median time to death after hospital discharge was three days.Those rehospitalized were more likely than others to have a history of chronic conditions like heart disease, respiratory problems and diabetes. The ones who died after being sent home were more likely to be age 50 or older.Because of those cases, the C.D.C. is urging that patients who are sent home see a doctor within two days, which is sooner than previously recommended. The advice is especially important for people with underlying chronic illnesses, the agency said. It is also providing new guidelines for doctors. It is not clear whether any of the patients who relapsed or died had started vaping again when they got home, Dr. Schuchat said, but she said that it was important for addiction counseling to start before patients leave the hospital. She added: I think its likely that there are a variety of factors here, and the medical conditions were particularly important.Another study addressed the lingering question of whether the outbreak, first widely recognized in August, was really a new illness, or actually something that had been going on for a long time without being detected.The illness appears to be new: Cases spiked in early June, the researchers found, based on analyzing emergency-room visits reported to a database called the National Syndromic Surveillance Program, which was created to detect bioterrorism after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. They examined the reasons for visits, looking for mention of e-cigarettes, along with lung symptoms like shortness of breath and chest pain.Why the surge occurred in June is not known, though researchers suspect it was because of increased use of vitamin E acetate, and other potentially toxic additives, by suppliers of illicit THC vaping products. Minnesota authorities who seized illicit THC vapes found that in 2018, 10 of 10 products contained no vitamin E, whereas 20 of 20 seized in September 2019 did contain it. I believe the practice of diluting THC vaping products with vitamin E really took off this past year, Dr. Schuchat said, adding that the idea of using the vitamin additive had been promoted on YouTube and other social media platforms. But how to explain the gradual increase in emergency room visits by young patients 10 to 19 years old starting in January 2017, well ahead of the outbreak? Though some cases could be linked to whatever later caused the severe illnesses, the researchers said the problems could also have been the result of the increasing use of nicotine e-cigarettes. Among high school students, the proportion who said they had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days rose to 27.5 percent in 2019, from 11.7 percent in 2017.A few years earlier, in 2015, the e-cigarette maker Juul had introduced nicotine salts, which make inhaled nicotine feel gentler on the throat and are more potent because they allow people to inhale higher concentrations of nicotine without discomfort. The ease of vaping with Juuls wildly popular, sleek devices, and the addictiveness of high levels of nicotine could have led some people to vape more and more, exposing them to higher amounts of potential toxins like flavorings and to overdoses of nicotine, which can make people feel quite sick.A study published in 2017 found increased rates of chronic cough and other respiratory problems in teenagers who vaped nicotine, including those who had never smoked cigarettes.Research published last week on adults found that while e-cigarette users were better off than smokers, they were more likely than nonsmokers to develop respiratory disease. The risk was greatest among those who both vaped and smoked, which was common. One of the new articles, published on Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine, strengthens the case against vitamin E acetate, reporting that it was found in lung fluid from 48 of 51 people with the vaping illness 94 percent. Earlier research had made the same finding, but in a smaller number of patients.The 51 patients came from 16 states, indicating that vitamin E acetate was in widespread use, and not from just a single, local supplier of tainted products, Dr. Schuchat said. The new study compared the patients with 99 healthy people who had previously given samples of lung fluid as part of other research on smoking that involved nonsmokers, smokers and vapers. None of the healthy people had the vitamin E additive in their lungs.Researchers dont know how vitamin E acetate could harm the lungs, but they suggested two possible ways. It could disrupt a substance called surfactant, which helps keep open tiny air sacs deep in the lungs and is essential for normal breathing. A second theory is that the heat of vaping could break down the vitamin E acetate into ketene, a dangerous molecule that might produce the kind of chemical burns found in the lungs of some patients.Both ideas need more study and testing in animals, the researchers said.The vitamin E acetate was first found in a THC-vaping product from a sick patient that was analyzed in August by scientists at the New York State Department of Healths Wadsworth Center.Since then, the center has found the substance in more than 100 THC samples, about 69 percent of all the THC vaping cartridges it has tested, David C. Spink, director of the organic and analytical chemistry lab, said in an interview. Most of the samples are 40 percent to 50 percent vitamin E acetate, Dr. Spink said. The lab has also tested six products marketed over the internet to dilute THC for vaping. They came in brown bottles, with nice, professional looking labels on them, but they didnt have a list of ingredients, Dr. Spink said. Three of the six were pure vitamin E acetate. Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]

Health

Credit...Evan McGlinn for The New York TimesDec. 17, 2015Volkswagen has hired Kenneth R. Feinberg, a prominent specialist in compensation funds, to devise and administer a program to address claims related to vehicles that have been affected by the companys admitted use of deceptive software to cheat on emissions tests.Mr. Feinberg is a lawyer known for his work distributing payouts after 9/11, the BP gulf oil spill and the Boston Marathon bombing.Most recently, he has been working for General Motors, administering the victim compensation program tied to the companys deadly ignition defect, which has now been linked to at least 124 deaths and at least 275 injuries. In exchange for accepting compensation offers from G.M.s program, victims of these car accidents and their families forfeited their right to sue the company.Michael Horn, Volkswagens top executive in the United States, said the company was pleased to be working with Mr. Feinberg.His extensive experience in handling such complex matters will help to guide us as we move forward to make things right with our customers, Mr. Horn said in a statement.Many plaintiffs lawyers across the nation are accusing Volkswagen of defrauding customers, who say the value of their cars has dropped. More than 500 lawsuits have been filed against the automaker for its deception and will be heard by a federal judge in California. One of the big goals of the new compensation fund is to attract owners of affected cars away from litigation and into this private program.Thats going to be a real challenge, Mr. Feinberg said. What do we offer people?Mr. Feinberg and Camille S. Biros, who will be deputy administrator of the Volkswagen compensation program, said the automaker approached their team a few weeks ago and had retained their services just days ago. They said that, so far, they had been in touch with employees of Volkswagens American unit and said they expected that the compensation program would be limited to vehicle owners in the United States.The first assignment for Mr. Feinberg and Ms. Biros is to quickly develop a transparent final protocol outlining the parameters for the program. Mr. Feinberg said such a measure has taken about 60 to 90 days for other compensation programs. He and Ms. Biros are seeking input from vehicle owners, their lawyers and others who have been affected to help devise the fund.Nearly all of the details of the fund still need to be worked out, including the timetable for setting up the program and accepting claims. Mr. Feinbergs team and Volkswagen will have to agree on who will be eligible for compensation and what proof they will have to submit. They have yet to determine what remedies the company will be able to offer and what kind of release the company will require in terms of asking vehicle owners to waive their rights to sue.Mr. Feinberg and Ms. Biros said they did not yet know whether Volkswagens program would offer cash compensation, vehicle buybacks or other remedies.VideoMr. Feinberg was interviewed on CNBC on Friday about leading a program to address customers' claims related to Volkswagen's use of software to cheat on emissions tests.Everything is on the table, Ms. Biros said. We havent ruled anything in or out.The program will not interfere in the government regulatory process or undercut the work of the public agencies that are investigating the automakers actions, Mr. Feinberg added. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department are conducting investigations of the automaker, as is a coalition of state-level attorneys general and federal lawmakers.Even without many details available, Volkswagens move to hire Mr. Feinberg is a smart one, financially and in terms of public relations, said Carl W. Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law in Virginia, who has studied auto liability issues.The point is to move away from litigation and stop the hemorrhaging, Mr. Tobias said, adding that Mr. Feinberg was a logical choice to help the company do that.Unlike in the G.M. case, there are no deaths or injuries associated with Volkswagens scandal a significant difference between the two programs, according to Mr. Feinberg. The conversations about compensation, he said, tend to be less emotional when dealing with economic loss rather than with the loss of a loved one or a catastrophic injury.He likened the Volkswagen program to his work in compensating victims of the BP oil spill, many of whom experienced damage to their businesses.Ms. Biros said that she and Mr. Feinberg expected to receive about 500,000 potential claims from owners of affected Volkswagen vehicles. In contrast, there were about 4,300 claims submitted in the G.M. program, and about 1.2 million in the BP program.

Business

DealBook|Deutsche Bank Joins Retreat From Chinahttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/dealbook/deutsche-bank-joins-retreat-from-china.htmlBreakingviewsDec. 29, 2015Deutsche Bank is joining peers in cashing out of China. The German lender is selling a $3.8 billion, 19.9 percent holding, in Hua Xia Bank to local insurer PICC Property and Casualty.Like such rivals as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch before it, Deutsche Bank is crystallizing a solid return while acknowledging that minority stakes on the mainland are of little use.Given Chinas troubles, this is a less-than-ideal time to sell. Shares of the bank, which is listed in Shenzhen, trade at just 6.5 times forward earnings, or 0.9 times book value, both roughly one-third below their 10-year average, Thomson Reuters StarMine data shows.But the foray was still worth the effort. In total, Deutsche Bank invested about 1.3 billion euros from 2006 to 2011. The final sale price will depend on how Hua Xias shares trade. But at the midpoint of the stated range, 3.45 billion, plus 400 million or so of previous dividends, Deutsche Bank will have nearly tripled its money on a gross basis.That is not to be sniffed at, even if taxes on dividends and capital gains will presumably cut the net return significantly. Goldman Sachs made about 3.5 times its money investing in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, albeit over a shorter time frame.Moreover, Deutsche Bank gets a clear capital benefit: a 30- or 40-basis point uplift to its Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, currently at 11.5 percent. Basel III rules make holding small stakes in other financial institutions an extra burden. The German bank is also now off the hook should Hua Xia need shareholders help in shoring up its balance sheet.Shareholders will be heartened in other ways, too. Minority positions with little influence, and no prospect of future control, look badly out of place when banks are struggling to make sustainable returns. This holds doubly true given Chinas slowdown.The era of Western investment in Chinese banks is not quite over HSBC is a notable holdout, firmly committed to its stake in Bank of Communications. But further retreats are likely, such as a sale by Standard Chartered of its holding in Agricultural Bank of China. The exodus will go on.

Business

Meet the new materials overpowering the electric economy.Credit...Lyndon French for The New York TimesMay 16, 2022The story of modern electronics is often equated with the relentless advancement of the silicon-based microchips that process information in our computers, phones and, increasingly, everything else. Moores law has become a well-known summary of how those chips become ever more compact and powerful.But electronics also have a critical, less celebrated role in modern life: directing the electricity that powers all of our gadgets. This field, aptly called power electronics, is changing quickly as engineers switch to power-control devices based not on silicon chips but on new materials that handle electricity more quickly and efficiently. Some novel, post-silicon devices are in use already, and better power electronics will become far more important in the future as much of our economy switches from fossil fuels to electricity. At a time when supply chains for silicon are severely kinked, these newer materials have boomed.This wave of new materials burst from the lab in 2017, when Tesla faced a pivotal moment in its history. The company had released two successful luxury car models, but in its effort to become a major automaker, it gambled the companys future on making a cheaper, mass-market vehicle.When Tesla released its Model 3, it had a secret technical edge over the competition: a material called silicon carbide. One of the key parts of an electric car is the traction inverters, which take electricity from the batteries, convert it into a different form and feed it to the motors that turn the wheels. To get the pin-you-to-your-seat acceleration that Teslas are known for, traction inverters must pump out hundreds of kilowatts, enough power to supply a small neighborhood, while being dependable enough to handle life-or-death highway use.While previous traction inverters had been based on silicon, the Model 3s were made from silicon carbide, or SiC, a compound that contains both silicon and carbon. STMicroelectronics, the European company that produced the silicon carbide chips Tesla used, claimed that they could increase a vehicles mileage range up to 10 percent while saving significant space and weight, valuable benefits in automotive design. The Model 3 has an air-resistance factor as low as a sports cars, Masayoshi Yamamoto, a Nagoya University engineer who does tear-downs of electric-vehicle components, told Nikkei Asia. Scaling down inverters enabled its streamlined design.The Model 3 was a hit, thanks in part to its groundbreaking power electronics, and demonstrated that electric cars could work on a large scale. (It also made Tesla one of the most valuable companies in the world.)Tesla made this fantastic move, said Claire Troadec, an analyst at Yole Dveloppement, a high-tech research and consulting firm in France, referring to the companys switch to silicon carbide. What they did in a year and a half was really amazing.ImageCredit...Jason Henry for The New York TimesWith Teslas fast rise, other automakers have moved aggressively to electrify their fleets, pushed on, in many places, by government mandates. Many of them are also planning to use silicon carbide not only in traction inverters but in other electrical components like DC/DC converters, which power components such as air conditioning, and on-board chargers that replenish the batteries when a car is plugged in at home. Silicon carbide costs much more than silicon, but many manufacturers are concluding that the benefits more than make up for the higher price.Last month, Wolfspeed, a semiconductor manufacturer, opened a $1 billion silicon carbide fab, or fabrication plant, in upstate New York. The company, based in North Carolina, has deals to supply the material to General Motors, among other buyers. Customers of electronic vehicles are looking for greater range, said Shilpan Amin, a G.M. vice president. We see silicon carbide as an essential material in the design of our power electronics.New York Gov. Kathy Hochul talked up the Wolfspeed plant at its opening ceremony. Theres a little place far away called Silicon Valley. You ever hear of that? Yeah, its kind of overrated, she said. I want to be the first to welcome you to Silicon Carbide Valley, because this is the future.Local boosterism aside, silicon will continue to dominate the half-trillion-dollar semiconductor industry, including the essential processor and memory-chip markets, for the foreseeable future. But in the niche of power electronics, which has sales of around $20 billion per year, silicon carbide is making significant inroads. Yole Dveloppement projects that the automotive market for silicon carbide will increase to $5 billion in 2027 from its current total of a little over $1 billion.We wouldnt have had such a boom of electric vehicles without silicon carbide, said STMicroeletronics executive Edoardo Merli.Better building blocksImageCredit...James King-Holmes/Alamy Silicon and silicon carbide are useful in electronics because they are semiconductors: They can switch between being electrical conductors, as metals are, and insulators, as most plastics are. This ability makes semiconductors the key materials in transistors the fundamental building blocks of modern electronics.Silicon carbide differs from silicon in that it has a wide bandgap, meaning that it requires more energy to switch between the two states. Wide bandgap, or WBG, semiconductors are advantageous in power electronics because they can move more power more efficiently.Silicon carbide is the senior citizen of WBGs, having been under development as a transistor material for decades. In that time, engineers have started using younger upstart WBG materials, like gallium nitride, or GaN. In the 1980s, researchers used gallium nitride to create the worlds first bright blue LEDs. Blue light comprises high-energy photons; gallium nitride, with its wide bandgap, was the first semiconductor that could practically produce photons with the sufficient energy. In 2014, three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for that innovation, which became ubiquitous in devices like TV screens and light bulbs.Lately, researchers have started using gallium nitride to improve power electronics. The material reached commercial fruition over the past few years in adapters for charging phones and computers. These adapters are smaller, lighter, faster-charging and more efficient than traditional ones that use silicon transistors.A typical charger that you buy for your computer is 90 percent efficient, said Jim Witham, chief executive of GaN Systems, a Canadian company that supplied the transistors in Apples gallium-nitride laptop chargers, which were released last fall. Gallium nitride is 98 percent efficient. You can cut power losses by four times.Yole Dveloppement estimates that the gallium-nitride market will grow to $2 billion in 2027 from its total of about $200 million this year.Wide-bandgap materials are making their way into other applications as well. Data centers, large facilities filled with computer servers that run the online services we all depend on, are notorious users of electricity. Compuware, a supplier of high-end power supplies to data centers, says its gallium-nitride-based power supplies reduce wasted electricity by about 25 percent and take up 20 percent less space than conventional devices, allowing customers to run more servers in the same racks. The company also says that its gallium-nitride power supplies are being used in data centers run by major companies around the world.Engineers are also working on using WBG materials to better take advantage of renewable energy sources. Solar cells and wind turbines rely on inverters to feed electricity into a home or into the grid, and many companies expect gallium nitride to do that job better than silicon. Enphase, a supplier of inverters for solar-powered installments, is currently testing gallium-nitride-based inverters to make sure they can hold up to harsh rooftop weather conditions for decades. In one test, Enphase submerges inverters underwater inside a pressure cooker, puts the pressure cooker inside a sealed chamber and oscillates the temperature between 185 degrees and minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of 21 days. If gallium-nitride devices survive the challenges, Enphases co-founder Raghu Belur plans to make a fast shift to the new material. Its absolutely headed in that direction, he said.In an investors meeting last year, a senior Enphase engineer gave a more conclusive prediction, saying, Its the end of the road for silicon.Companies that produce WBG components have largely dodged the chip crunch thats jamming tight silicon supply chains. Before the pandemic upended global trade, silicon carbide and gallium nitride were ramping up fast, and companies interested in the materials signed supply deals with producers, which moved along smoothly. The crisis has actually helped some makers of WBG semiconductors: Chip-buyers frustrated with the current silicon crisis have signed long-term agreements to avoid similar problems with other materials in the future.The cycle of life cyclesImageCredit...Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesEven as companies upgrade to silicon carbide and gallium nitride, researchers are developing new WBG materials that could further improve power electronics. In 2012, Masataka Higashiwaki, a researcher at Japans National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, announced a promising transistor made from gallium oxide, a material with a bandgap significantly higher than those of silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Components made from gallium oxide can provide much lower loss than those made from silicon, silicon carbide and gallium nitride resulting in higher efficiency, Dr. Higashiwaki said. Scientists have made quick progress in developing the material. Dr. Higashiwaki expects that, over the next decade, it will start showing up in products like improved traction inverters in electric cars.But innovation being what it is, theres already something even better sparkling on the horizon. Diamond is the ultimate ultrawide-bandgap material, said Ms. Troadec, though it will be quite a while before anyone manages to turn that exceptionally precious gemstone into an exceptionally precious semiconductor.

science

Floyd Mayweather King For A Day ... In Oklahoma City? 1/22/2018 File this under: we weren't sure either. Floyd Mayweather keeps racking up the accolades, this time getting his very own day in a major American city ... that doesn't seem to have anything to do with Floyd. It went down back on January 17 when Floyd was honored in Oklahoma City, where the brass in town officially declared the date Floyd Mayweather Day. There were festivities aplenty ... including a dinner, followed by a meet-and-greet hosted by industry mover and shaker Karen Civil. This was no joke people, Floyd received official documents from the state -- making the whole thing as official as a referee with a whistle. All of this is great, but what we can't figure out is WHY OKLAHOMA CITY!!??? We couldn't find any connection between Money and OKC ... and it's got us pretty bewildered. This has gotta hurt Kevin Durant a little ... just a little.

Entertainment

Science|How to Kill Germs in the Laundryhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/science/how-to-kill-germs-in-the-laundry.htmlQ&ACredit...Victoria RobertsMarch 13, 2017Q. How hot does the water have to be to get germs out of domestic laundry?A. It is hard to find standard guidelines on water temperatures for domestic laundry, said Dr. Alexandra Sowa, an internist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides only a vague recommendation: Hot water washing is not necessary for all household laundry. Read and follow the clothing and soap or detergent label instructions. Wash and dry clothing in the warmest temperature listed on the clothing label.But some studies suggest that water does not have to be as hot as often thought to get clothes acceptably clean, Dr. Sowa said. One study, done in Britain and published 12 years ago, showed that washing the very dirty clothes of hospital staff members at approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a home washing machine was just as effective at killing one type of bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus) as washing it at a much higher temperature.Dr. Sowa pointed out that the study also found that washing the clothes resulted in contamination with new environmental bacteria, very likely from the washing machine itself.To rid the clothes of any pathogens picked up in the wash cycle, the clothes just had to be tumble-dried for 30 minutes or ironed, she said. The heat from a low dry cycle or an iron was sufficient to get the clothes free of the studied bacteria.Dr. Sowa recommended that washing machines be periodically cleansed of their considerable load of bacteria by running them for a regular cycle with bleach and water but without clothing.She said she would err on the side of caution when it came to washing certain items, like dish towels, the clothes of family members with infections and hospital scrubs, by using water heated to 140 degrees. [email protected]

science

Credit...Sara Farid for The New York TimesMarch 15, 2017KARACHI, Pakistan For decades, the sight of Abdul Sattar Edhi pleading for donations was enough to press even the most tightfisted of Pakistanis into reaching for their wallets.Such was the impact of Mr. Edhi, a humanitarian icon in Pakistan who died last summer after a prolonged illness. In a country where many citizens have given up on the government, Mr. Edhis expansive philanthropic network acts as a benefactor, providing everything from emergency assistance to welfare services.Now his son Faisal Edhi is carrying on his legacy and trying to ensure the survival of the philanthropic foundation at a time when donors have grown tired of being asked to respond to a string of disasters and as competition from Islamic charities mounts.I would ask him how we would continue in his absence, Faisal Edhi said. He would say: I have put up the building. Now you have to paint and decorate it.It is a daunting prospect, particularly as support of the foundation in Pakistan has declined. Faisal Edhi has accused the government of impeding the import of vehicles for ambulances, and has reported a drop in donations since his fathers death.The word Edhi is akin to an SOS call for many Pakistanis. They trust the foundation with their donations and with performing last rites for the dead. The Edhi Foundation runs Pakistans largest free ambulance service and its network includes shelters, nursing homes, orphanages and morgues.ImageCredit...Sara Farid for The New York TimesEdhi volunteers appear at every disaster zone and crime scene, bearing stretchers and shrouds. It is hard to imagine Pakistans cities functioning without the Edhi Foundation. As the noted urban planner Arif Hasan put it in the 1990s, Without the Edhi Trust one does not know how Karachi would cope with its victims of violence.Carrying on the work of his father is a major task for Mr. Edhi, an affable, personable man with a dry sense of humor.He carries this huge responsibility on his shoulders, said Dr. Seemin Jamali, the head of emergency services at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center in Karachi, who has worked with the Edhi Foundation for 25 years. He is upbeat, and with a lot of public support, he can do it. The foundation has already been set, and now he needs to carry it forward.Mr. Edhi, 40, spent time as a teenager in Florida and New York. He has worked with the Edhi Foundation for half of his adult life, mostly handling administrative affairs, and slowly trying to raise the standard of services and digitize record keeping.The foundations systems are antiquated records and receipts are mostly on paper and the voluntary nature of the organization comes with its set of challenges.The staff is sometimes hesitant when they dont know how to use a computer, he said. Were trying to train them. Its a slow process.A revolution causes a lot of damage, he added with a laugh. So were trying to do this through evolution.ImageCredit...Sara Farid for The New York TimesAt the foundations offices in the historic Mithadar district of Karachi, where Abdul Sattar Edhi began work in the 1960s, a large painting of him cradling a baby is propped up in the reception area. A get well soon card is still affixed to the wall, along with a fading calendar that juxtaposes his image with that of Mother Teresa, and a framed commemorative stamp issued by the government after his death.In the later years of his life, he made headlines with politically charged statements, like calling for a military takeover of Pakistan, and declaring politicians corrupt, or sounding alarmist notes about the state of the country.At work, he would meet with the dozens of people who needed assistance with everything from adoptions to ambulances, or answer the phone himself, a rarity in a country where meeting anyone requires going through layers of middlemen and assistants.It is the part of the job with which Faisal Edhi is still struggling. Im stretched, he said.The foundation is managed by a trust that comprised its founder, his wife, Bilquis a philanthropist in her own right and their children, Faisal and Kubra, while managers from outside the family handle the daily operations.The children are all very hard-working and down to earth, and theyre always available, said Jameel Yusuf, the former head of Karachis Citizens-Police Liaison Committee. Its a tough job. Edhi covered everything from east to west, north to south; he didnt leave any stone unturned on all issues involving citizens and their plight.Faisal Edhis loss is double-edged: He lost a father and his backbone of support at work. Now Im alone, he said. I dont feel like leaving his room empty. I still sleep on a cot near his, because thats where Id slept for the last few years.He is excited about an ambitious new project to train midwives, nurses and paramedic staff at an Edhi-run hospital, just as he worries about the financial health of the organization.ImageCredit...Sara Farid for The New York TimesIslamic charities, he said, have undercut individual donations to Edhi by dividing people along sectarian lines, since Islamic charities are often closely linked to a particular sect.Religious pressures have long been a challenge for the foundation. Detractors of the elder Mr. Edhi accused him of apostasy and questioned why he would rescue and take in abandoned babies, or work for non-Muslims.Faisal Edhi recalled that people from the familys Bantva Memon ethnic community would even sometimes refuse to greet his father.But Mr. Edhi is adamant about upholding the policies set by his father, such as the foundations refusal to accept donations from donor agencies or any government. It has always been supported by ordinary Pakistanis, he said.Work at the foundation has not stopped for a day, he said, not even for his fathers state funeral in July.The government may have announced a three-day mourning period, he said. But we kept working.On a Monday morning, volunteers at the Edhi office in Mithadar fielded myriad queries from people stopping by and answered a near-constantly ringing phone. In another corner, a volunteer wrote out donation receipts worth $250 for Edhi to enact the ritual of animal sacrifices and meat distributions on their behalf before the Islamic holiday of Eid. Mr. Edhi occasionally popped out of his office to talk to staff members.The work of the foundation carries on.He wanted to make Pakistan a social welfare state without participating in politics, Mr. Edhi said of his father. That was his dream, and this will be my aim as well; to go from village to village, to make a parallel setup that can help improve peoples lives.He added that he believed the state was unwilling to help the people. In smaller districts, you can find advanced weaponry at local police stations, but when you go to the local hospitals, theres no advanced equipment, he said. Our ruling class is not ready to give services to the people.

World

The New Old AgeCredit...David PlunkertJune 12, 2017A few years hence, when youve finally tired of turning up the TV volume and making dinner reservations at 5:30 p.m. because any later and the place gets too loud, you may go shopping.Perhaps youll head to a local boutique called The Hear Better Store, or maybe Didja Ear That? (Reader nominees for kitschy names invited.) Maybe youll opt for a big-box retailer or a kiosk at your local pharmacy.If legislation now making its way through Congress succeeds, these places will all offer hearing aids. Youll try out various models theyll all meet newly established federal requirements to see what seems to work and feel best. Your choices might include products from big consumer electronics specialists like Apple, Samsung and Bose.If you want assistance, you might pay an audiologist to provide customized services, like adjusting frequencies or amplification levels. But you wont need to go through an audiologist-gatekeeper, as you do now, to buy hearing aids.The best part of this over-the-counter scenario: Instead of spending an average of $1,500 to $2,000 per device (and nearly everyone needs two), youll find that the price has plummeted. You might pay $300 per ear, maybe even less.So many people will be using these new over-the-counter hearing aids along with the hordes wearing earbuds for other reasons that you wont feel self-conscious. Youll blend right in.That, at least, represents the future envisioned by supporters of the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017, which would give the Food and Drug Administration three years to create a regulatory category for such devices and to establish standards for safety, effectiveness and labeling.The approach seems to appeal to both conservatives (by deregulating an industry that currently restricts hearing aid sales to audiology practices) and to liberals (by extending an aspect of health care to many more people).Just look at the odd-bedfellow sponsors: Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa. In the House, Representative Joseph Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee.Theyve attached the hearing aid provision to a bill reauthorizing the F.D.A. to collect fees from drug and device manufacturers, which Congress must pass before its August recess to keep the agency functioning.The bill won approval from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee last month and sailed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday.I dont think we could have had this conversation 20 years ago, or even 10, because the technology wasnt there, said Barbara Kelley, executive director of the Hearing Loss Association of America.In the last two years, though, both the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a National Academy of Sciences report called for the F.D.A. to establish an over-the-counter category.Decades back, when professionals had to manually adjust analogue hearing aids for each wearer, a process requiring repeated visits, it made sense to restrict sales to licensed audiologists, said Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.Now, users can program digital devices themselves. If the legislation passes, consumers will find more choices over the counter, instead of being limited to products from the six manufacturers who produce nearly all hearing aids sold in the United States. And new players (including start-ups) will enter a market theyve been excluded from.For any established consumer electronics company experienced with sound, this doesnt have to be a substantial research and development effort, Dr. Lin said.Just in time. Mild to moderate hearing loss becomes nearly ubiquitous at older ages, affecting more than 60 percent of those in their 70s and nearly 80 percent of those over age 80. Yet only one older person in five currently wears hearing aids.With Medicare coverage of hearing aids prohibited by law, cost represents a major reason. The number one complaint we get in phone calls every day is, I need help, I cant afford hearing aids, Ms. Kelley said.Can untrained consumers really choose devices that help them hear? Nobody could answer that question definitively until recently, when Indiana University researchers ran the first double-blind clinical trial.Working with 154 participants aged 55 to 79 who had mild to moderate hearing loss but had never worn hearing aids, the researchers compared the experiences of those randomly assigned to full-bore audiology services and those making over-the-counter selections.Audiologists fitted one group with a pair of high-quality behind-the-ear hearing aids (the ReSound Alera 9) that retailed for about $3,600 a pair at the time.A second group, after watching a short instructional video, chose its own aids from three ReSound Alera 9s programmed to address the most common hearing loss patterns.Audiologists fitted a placebo group with the same devices, programmed to provide no amplification.After six weeks, with participants encouraged to work up to six to eight hours daily use, the investigators compared their responses to a questionnaire assessing the hearing aids benefits and their results on a sentence-repetition test.The two non-placebo groups showed comparable, clinically significant improvement on both measures, said Larry Humes, distinguished professor of speech and hearing sciences and the lead author of the study, recently published in the American Journal of Audiology.It didnt matter whether the audiologist fitted them or the consumer made his own choice, Dr. Humes said. They both were effective, and they didnt differ.One disparity did crop up: When the researchers asked whether participants would consider buying their new hearing aids, more than 80 percent of the audiologist-fitted group said yes, and 55 percent of the self-selectors did (as did 36 percent of the placebo group).Some consumers feel more comfortable with professional guidance, apparently. If the proposed law passes, theyll retain that option.Dr. Humes sees the results as good news, nonetheless. O.T.C. is designed to meet the needs of the 80 percent who dont get hearing aids, he said. If half that group decides to buy them, thats a big improvement.More is at stake here than the ability to mingle at cocktail parties. Older adults with hearing loss report more falls, and more hospitalizations and periods of poor mental and physical health. Some experience an accelerated rate of cognitive decline.Dr. Lin is beginning a five-year study, with $16 million from the National Institutes of Health, to determine whether treating hearing loss effectively could delay the onset of cognitive decline and dementia.He points out that those who begin treatment early, before hearing loss has grown severe, have better results. More accessible and affordable hearing aids could encourage that.That effort could still falter, of course. The stigma against hearing aids could prove stronger than we think, depressing sales and stalling the innovation that proponents predict.Hearing aid makers and some audiologists groups want the bill to apply only to those with mild, not moderate, hearing loss.With more complex problems, do-it-yourself hearing care will not be as successful for you, said Carole Rogin, president of the Hearing Industries Association.Such efforts might dilute the bill. However the F.D.A. labels over-the-counter devices, anyone will be able to buy them.And even if the bill passes both chambers as written, theres been no word from the White House about whether the president will sign it. So it may be too early to fantasize about going to a store called Hear! Hear!But enthusiasts like Dr. Lin think over-the-counter sales could do more to make hearing aids broadly affordable than even Medicare coverage would.It fundamentally moves the needle, he said. It allows for a diversity of options for a diversity of people.

Health

VideotranscripttranscriptWhat the Travel Ban Ruling Means for Presidential PowerAdam Liptak, the Supreme Court correspondent for The Times, analyzes the 5-to-4 ruling in favor of the Trump administrations limits on travel from several mostly Muslim countries.The 5-to-4 decision upholding President Trumps travel ban basically did two things. The majority said that the president had been given vast authority over immigration and national security by Congress and that he acted consistent with that authority. The second thing it did was reject the claim that the travel ban was infected by religious discrimination. Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. The majority discounted the presidents statements and said the role of the courts was to look at the face of the presidential proclamation issued in September, and that proclamation, the court said, was lawful. The Supreme Court has occasionally looked at the scope of presidential power, and its gone both ways. It imposed some limits on President George W. Bushs ability to hold people in Guantnamo Bay. It rejected President Trumans attempt to seize the steel industry during the Korean War. And it forced President Nixon to turn over tapes concerning the Watergate scandal that led to his departure from office. The crux of the argument against the travel ban was based on President Trumps tweets and statements on the campaign trail and in office, in which he suggested that he was singling out Muslims for discriminatory treatment. In the lower courts and now at the Supreme Court, there was a strong partisan divide, with every Republican appointee voting to sustain the travel ban and every Democratic appointee in dissent. The majority opinion gave rise to a very striking dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who spoke at length in the Supreme Court courtroom about the terrible precedent the majority set and how it resonated with some of the darkest periods in American history, notably the internment of more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. The decision was a major statement on presidential power in the area of immigration and national security, but it didnt break new ground. The ruling had no particular practical impact because months ago, the Supreme Court allowed the travel ban to go into effect while it considered the case. What it did instead was decline to impose special legal rules on an idiosyncratic president who speaks in ways that are unfamiliar to American traditions and to say that it was considering the presidency and not President Trump in ruling on his travel ban.Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court correspondent for The Times, analyzes the 5-to-4 ruling in favor of the Trump administrations limits on travel from several mostly Muslim countries.CreditCredit...Leah Millis/ReutersJune 26, 2018WASHINGTON The Supreme Court upheld President Trumps ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, delivering to the president on Tuesday a political victory and an endorsement of his power to control immigration at a time of political upheaval about the treatment of migrants at the Mexican border.In a 5-to-4 vote, the courts conservatives said that the presidents power to secure the countrys borders, delegated by Congress over decades of immigration lawmaking, was not undermined by Mr. Trumps history of incendiary statements about the dangers he said Muslims pose to the United States.Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that Mr. Trump had ample statutory authority to make national security judgments in the realm of immigration. And the chief justice rejected a constitutional challenge to Mr. Trumps third executive order on the matter, issued in September as a proclamation.The courts liberals denounced the decision. In a passionate and searing dissent from the bench, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision was no better than Korematsu v. United States, the 1944 decision that endorsed the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II.She praised the court for officially overturning Korematsu in its decision on Tuesday. But by upholding the travel ban, Justice Sotomayor said, the court merely replaces one gravely wrong decision with another.The courts travel ban decision provides new political ammunition for the president and members of his party as they prepare to face the voters in the fall. Mr. Trump has already made clear his plans to use anti-immigrant messaging as he campaigns for Republicans, much the way he successfully deployed the issue to whip up the base of the party during the 2016 presidential campaign.Mr. Trump, who has battled court challenges to the travel ban since the first days of his administration, hailed the decision to uphold his third version as a tremendous victory and promised to continue using his office to defend the country against terrorism, crime and extremism.This ruling is also a moment of profound vindication following months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country, the president said in a statement issued by the White House soon after the decision was announced.The decision came even as Mr. Trump is facing controversy over his decision to impose zero tolerance for illegal immigration at the United States southwestern border, leading to politically damaging images of children being separated from their parents as families cross into the country without proper documentation.But as Mr. Trump celebrated his travel ban victory, a federal judge in California ordered the government to stop separating children from their parents at the border and to reunite families already separated.Late Tuesday night, the judge said that all families must be reunited within 30 days and that children under 5 must be returned to the custody of their parents within two weeks.The judges order came as the president faces a second legal challenge about the family separations. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court seeking to stop the practice.Mr. Trump and his advisers have long argued that presidents are given vast authority to reshape the way that the United States controls its borders. The presidents attempts to do that began with the travel ban and continues today with his demand for an end to the catch and release of unauthorized immigrants.In remarks on Tuesday in a meeting with lawmakers, Mr. Trump vowed to continue fighting for a wall across the southern border with Mexico his favorite physical manifestation of the legal powers that the court says he rightly wields.We have to be tough and we have to be safe and we have to be secure, he said, adding that construction of the wall stops the drugs.It stops people we dont want to have, the president said.Several hundred angry protesters gathered in Washington on the courts marble steps with signs that read, No Ban, No Wall, Resist Trumps Hate and Refugees Welcome!VideotranscripttranscriptReactions to the Supreme Court Travel Ban DecisionActivists and politicians publicly voiced their responses to the Supreme Court ruling to uphold President Trumps limits on travel from several predominantly Muslim nations.A tremendous success, a tremendous victory for the American people, and for our Constitution. I think the administration finally got it right. The Supreme Court agreed with that. When Muslims are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back. No court decides the parameters of our communitys humanity. We will continue to resist. We will continue to fight. Todays Supreme Court decision is extremely disappointing. Disappointing to Muslims and to all Americans and all people who believe in equal protection and equality. Today I am here to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court. And to say to the U.S. Supreme Court, This is a shameful moment in our nations history. No ban, no wall. No ban, no wall.Activists and politicians publicly voiced their responses to the Supreme Court ruling to uphold President Trumps limits on travel from several predominantly Muslim nations.CreditCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesIn New York City, about three dozen activists, government officials and concerned citizens declared at a midday news conference that the court was on the wrong side of history. Bitta Mostofi, the commissioner of immigrant affairs for the New York mayors office, called the ruling an institutionalization of Islamophobia and racism.Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, wrote that today is a sad day for American institutions, and for all religious minorities who have ever sought refuge in a land promising freedom. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty said in a statement that we are deeply disappointed by the Supreme Courts refusal to repudiate policy rooted in animus against Muslims.Mr. Trumps ban on travel had been in place since December, when the court denied a request from challengers to block it. Tuesdays ruling lifts the legal cloud over the policy.Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged that Mr. Trump had made many statements concerning his desire to impose a Muslim ban. He recounted the presidents call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, and he noted that the president has said that Islam hates us and has asserted that the United States was having problems with Muslims coming into the country.But the chief justice said the presidents comments must be balanced against the powers of the president to conduct the national security affairs of the nation.The issue before us is not whether to denounce the statements, Chief Justice Roberts wrote. It is instead the significance of those statements in reviewing a presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility.In doing so, he wrote, we must consider not only the statements of a particular president, but also the authority of the presidency itself.The chief justice repeatedly echoed Stephen Miller, Mr. Trumps top immigration adviser, in citing a provision of immigration law that gives presidents the power to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as they see necessary.The provision exudes deference to the president in every clause, the chief justice said.He concluded that Mr. Trumps proclamation, viewed in isolation, was neutral and justified by national security concerns. Chief Justice Roberts wrote it is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices.Even as it upheld the travel ban, the courts majority took a momentous step. It overruled the Korematsu case, officially reversing a wartime ruling that for decades has stood as an emblem of a morally repugnant response to fear.Chief Justice Roberts said Tuesdays decision was very different.The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of presidential authority, he wrote. But it is wholly inapt to liken that morally repugnant order to a facially neutral policy denying certain foreign nationals the privilege of admission.The entry suspension is an act that is well within executive authority and could have been taken by any other president the only question is evaluating the actions of this particular president in promulgating an otherwise valid proclamation, Chief Justice Roberts wrote.Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. also joined the majority opinion.In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor lashed out at Mr. Trump, also quoting many of the anti-Muslim statements. She noted that, on Twitter, he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos as president and tweeted that we need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries.Let the gravity of those statements sink in, Justice Sotomayor said. Most of these words were spoken or written by the current president of the United States.She dismissed the majoritys conclusion that the government succeeded in arguing that the travel ban was necessary for national security. She said that no matter how much the government tried to launder Mr. Trumps statements, all of the evidence points in one direction.Justice Sotomayor accused her colleagues in the majority of unquestioning acceptance of the presidents national security claims. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Justice Sotomayors dissent. Justice Sotomayor accused the court of inconsistency, noting that a stray remark from a state commissioner expressing hostility to religion was the basis of a ruling this month in favor of a Christian baker who refused to create a cake for a same-sex wedding.Those principles should apply equally here, she wrote. In both instances, the question is whether a government actor exhibited tolerance and neutrality in reaching a decision that affects individuals fundamental religious freedom.In a second, milder dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, questioned whether the Trump administration could be trusted to enforce what he called the proclamations elaborate system of exemptions and waivers.Justice Kennedy agreed that Mr. Trump should be allowed to carry out the travel ban, but he emphasized the need for religious tolerance.The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion and promises the free exercise of religion, he wrote. It is an urgent necessity that officials adhere to these constitutional guarantees and mandates in all their actions, even in the sphere of foreign affairs. An anxious world must know that our government remains committed always to the liberties the Constitution seeks to preserve and protect, so that freedom extends outward, and lasts.The courts decision, a major statement on presidential power, is the conclusion of a long-running dispute over Mr. Trumps authority to make good on his campaign promises to secure the United States borders.Only a week after he took office, Mr. Trump issued his first travel ban, causing chaos at the countrys airports and starting a cascade of lawsuits and appeals. The first ban, drafted in haste, was promptly blocked by courts around the United States.A second version, issued two months later, fared little better, although the Supreme Court allowed part of it go into effect last June when it agreed to hear the Trump administrations appeals from court decisions blocking it. But the Supreme Court dismissed those appeals in October after the second ban expired.In January, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Mr. Trumps third and most considered entry ban, the one issued as a presidential proclamation. It initially restricted travel from eight nations Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, Venezuela and North Korea six of them predominantly Muslim. Chad was later removed from the list.The restrictions varied in their details, but, for the most part, citizens of the countries were forbidden from emigrating to the United States, and many of them are barred from working, studying or vacationing here. In December, the Supreme Court allowed the ban to go into effect while legal challenges moved forward.The State of Hawaii, several individuals and a Muslim group challenged the latest bans limits on travel from the predominantly Muslim countries; they did not object to the portions concerning North Korea and Venezuela. They said the latest ban, like the earlier ones, was tainted by religious animus and not adequately justified by national security concerns.The challengers prevailed before a Federal District Court in Hawaii and in San Francisco before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.The appeals court ruled that Mr. Trump had exceeded the authority Congress had given him over immigration and had violated a part of the immigration laws barring discrimination in the issuance of visas. In a separate decision that was not directly before the justices, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., blocked the ban on a different ground, saying it violated the Constitutions prohibition of religious discrimination.

Politics

Credit...Greta Rybus for The New York TimesJune 22, 2018WASHINGTON The effects of President Trumps trade war are beginning to ripple through the United States economy as steel tariffs disrupt domestic supply chains and global trading partners retaliate against a wide variety of American products, such as peanut butter, whiskey and lobster.The cascade of tit-for-tat tariffs has spooked corporate executives, potentially slowing investment, and the Federal Reserve suggested this week that it might have to rethink its economic forecasts if the trade wars continue.On Friday, Mr. Trump only added fuel to the fire when he threatened in a tweet to impose a 20 percent tariff on all European cars coming into the United States if the European Union did not remove its auto tariffs. Build them here! the president wrote.Mr. Trump, who campaigned on a get-tough approach to trade, has said his tariffs would make trade pacts more fair and ultimately help American workers, farmers, manufacturers and other. But the situation could soon become politically perilous to Mr. Trump, whose trade policies are starting to inflict economic pain across the country, including in areas that are home to the voters who helped him win election.Business owners across the country are fearing the worst and wondering if Mr. Trump, who calls himself a master negotiator, will get the better end of the deal. Here are the ways several American products are being affected.NailsIn the 2016 presidential election, George Skarich, the vice president of sales for the Missouri-based Mid Continent Nail Corporation, voted for Mr. Trump and hoped that he would use his business acumen to supercharge the economy.The economy is booming, but Mr. Skarich said he was not reaping the benefits. Instead, as a result of Mr. Trumps trade policies, Mr. Skarich said his nail company may soon be out of business.Mid Continent, the largest American producer of nails, imports steel from Mexico to make its nails. That steel is now subject to the 25 percent tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on dozens of countries, forcing Mid Continent to raise its prices by nearly 20 percent.Orders have plummeted by 50 percent this month as the company tries to compete with cheaper foreign-made nails. Those foreign manufacturers are not facing higher steel costs, giving them an advantage over Mid Continent.The company, which employs about 500 workers, has already cut 60 jobs. It could potentially cut 200 more in the coming weeks.While Mr. Trump might propose that Mid Continent simply buy American-made steel, it might not be so simple: Mr. Skarich notes that the cost of American-made metal is much higher than what the company had been importing from Mexico, meaning it would still have to raise prices for its nails if it used domestic steel.Mr. Skarich, a Republican, has lobbied Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, for help.He ran on Make America Great Again, and the point was to defend and protect jobs in the United States, Mr. Skarich said. Now here is an action he decides to take that has the potential to cost 500 U.S. citizens their jobs.ImageCredit...Justin T. Gellerson for The New York TimesWhiskeyTo meet a global thirst for American whiskey in recent years, distilleries that make bourbon and rye and sell it around the world have sprung up across the country. But this week the European Union applied a 25 percent duty to American whiskey in response to Mr. Trumps steel tariffs, spiking the prices of the iconic American tipple on the Continent.For small distillers like Scott Harris, a founder of Catoctin Creek Distillery in Purcellville, Va., this has dampened happy hour.We are just launching into the European market now in a big way, and this could be the worst possible timing for us, Mr. Harris said. Were probably going to see all of our European sales now come to a screeching halt.Exports to Europe represent about a fourth of Catoctin Creeks annual sales, and the prospect of a 50 euro bottle of whiskey costing 25 percent more is troubling. Some bigger distillers shipped extra spirits to Europe before the tariffs were in place, but for small businesses, the shipping and warehousing costs are prohibitive.A self-described free-trade Republican, Mr. Harris is disappointed with the path that his party has taken on trade.I remember just two years ago we were talking about pushing hard for the Trans-Pacific Partnership so we could open markets in Asia, but all of that has just been turned upside down, Mr. Harris said. It really is quite puzzling.ImageCredit...Greta Rybus for The New York TimesLobsterThe European response is not the only one that has industries on edge. Next month, China is expected to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on American lobster as the sparring over trade continues and Mr. Trump threatens to impose tariffs on as much as $450 billion worth of Chinese goods.Annie Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers Association, said that Mr. Trumps policy was having the unintended effect of further helping Canadas lobster market, which doesnt face the same duties when selling to China. And Canadian sellers were already benefiting from a new trade agreement with the European Union that slashed tariffs for them.China buys about a fifth of American lobster exports, Ms. Tselikis said, and the value of those exports has nearly tripled in the last two years to $137 million.Id love see these tariffs not go through for the sake of our industry and the Maine economy, Ms. Tselikis said. At this point its really about American jobs.Kristan Porter, the president of the Maine Lobstermens Association, said that he supported Mr. Trumps efforts to renegotiate trade agreements to help American industry but hoped his was not harmed in the process.Im sure everybody is playing their hands and were caught in the middle of it, he said. Were hoping cooler heads prevail.ImageCredit...Narayan Mahon for The New York TimesCranberriesFor several years, the cranberry industry has been struggling with an oversupply problem that has been eased somewhat by exporting juice and berries to Europe and elsewhere.Now cranberry farmers are an unlikely victim of a trade war, in large part because Wisconsin is one of the worlds biggest cranberry producers and is the home state of Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House.Like most Republican lawmakers, Mr. Ryan opposes tariffs and wanted to avoid a trade war. But other countries have targeted his and other politically important states in an effort to exert pressure on lawmakers and Mr. Trump ahead of the midterm elections.As a result, the European Union has included cranberries among the items subject to new tariffs that took effect this week, and the industry is about to feel the pain.Tom Lochner, executive director of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association, said that the tariffs would hinder our ability to compete in international markets.According to the Cranberry Institute, a trade association, exports to Europe were about $127 million last year, and the additional costs of doing business there would most likely make a dent in that figure, putting family farmers at risk.Terry Humfeld, executive director of the institute, said while it was too soon to estimate the total market impact, the reason for singling out cranberries was obvious.From a political perspective, it makes sense to pick on those crops that would have the most significance politically, Mr. Humfeld said. The speaker of the house happens to live in Wisconsin.ImageCredit...Isabel Infantes, via Epa/ShutterstockPeanut ButterEuropean tariffs on peanut butter will be a blow for the makers of Peter Pan and Skippy spreads, but it is peanut farmers in Republican-leaning states like Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi who could struggle the most.If it affects the peanut butter market, it affects all of us, said Malcolm Broome, executive director of the Mississippi Peanut Growers Association. We definitely dont need to get into a trade war.The United States and China are the biggest peanut butter exporters in the world, according to the Department of Agriculture, and European tariffs would likely give China an edge in expanding its market share.Mr. Broome said that many of the peanut farmers in his state have been supportive of Mr. Trumps economic agenda, but that they will be watching carefully to see how he manages the trade negotiations.If this can give him some leverage to get a deal made, theyd be all for that, Mr. Broome said. If it doesnt work and hes miscalculated, then it could be a different story.

Politics

Credit...Mark Finkenstaedt/National Academy of Sciences, via Associated PressNov. 7, 2016Ralph J. Cicerone, who as a researcher and the president of the National Academy of Sciences issued an early warning about the grave potential risks of climate change, died on Saturday at his home in Short Hills, N.J. He was 73.His death was announced by the academy, which he headed from 2005 until last June. It did not provide the cause.In 2001, while he was the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Cicerone (pronounced SISS-er-own) headed an academy panel, commissioned by President George W. Bush, which concluded unequivocally that greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earths atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.The 11 leading scientists who composed the panel, including some who had been climate-change skeptics, were unanimous in reaffirming the mainstream scientific view on global warming just as Mr. Bush was preparing to join environmental talks with European leaders. They were outraged that he had recently rejected the global warming pact known as the Kyoto Protocol.The panels conclusion was based in part on research reported in 1974 by Dr. Cicerone and two colleagues from the University of Michigan. They were among the first to warn that the atmospheres ozone layer, which protects the planet from potentially lethal ultraviolet radiation, was being dissipated by chlorine gases.Their research was credited in the citation for the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina shared with Paul J. Crutzen for their discovery, also in 1974, that supposedly inert fluorocarbons like Freon, a propellant in products like aerosol spray cans and refrigerants, could deplete the ozone layer to dangerous levels.They found that a single chlorine atom could absorb more than 100,000 ozone molecules and linger in the stratosphere for up to a century.The clarity and startling nature of what Molina and Rowland came up with the notion that something you could hold in your hand could affect the entire global environment, not just the room in which you were standing was extraordinary, Dr. Cicerone told The New York Times in 2012.Such research led in 1987 to the Montreal Protocol, the global treaty banning chlorofluorocarbons and other chemicals that had been used as aerosol propellants and coolants.The academy, the nations leading independent scientific body, had been defending its positions on global climate change, stem-cell advances, genetic engineering and evolution when Dr. Cicerone took over. With a reputation for nonpartisan civility, he pursued the activist agenda that he had inherited even more aggressively, gaining the support of President Obama, who visited the academy twice, and working to rally public opinion behind scientific research.Under Dr. Cicerone, the academy issued reports that advocated reducing greenhouse gas emissions while identifying strategies for adapting to a changing climate. It also renovated its historic headquarters on the National Mall in Washington and established a $500 million Gulf Research Program after the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.Rush D. Holt, the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called Dr. Cicerone a champion of science who helped scientists understand their obligations to society and helped nonscientists understand the importance of science to their lives, especially with respect to human induced changes of Earths climate.Ralph John Cicerone was born on May 2, 1943, in New Castle, in rural western Pennsylvania, the grandson of Italian immigrants. His father, Salvatore, was an insurance salesman who left math problems for Ralph to solve on the evenings he was making house calls to clients. His mother was the former Louise Palus.The first in his family to attend college, Dr. Cicerone was inspired by the space race with the Soviet Union to pursue an engineering career. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1965 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he was captain of the baseball team, a sport he later restored to Irvine) and earned a masters degree and a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.He is survived by his wife, the former Carol Ogata; their daughter, Sara; two grandchildren; and two sisters, Sylvia Ferrare and Sally Golis.Dr. Cicerone was an atmospheric chemist on the faculty of the University of Michigan from 1971 to 1978. After conducting research at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, part of the University of California, San Diego, he was named senior scientist and director of the atmospheric chemistry division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.He became a professor at Irvine in 1989. There he founded the earth system science department, served as dean of physical sciences and was chancellor from 1998 to 2005.As president of the National Academy of Sciences, he lamented the partisanship in Congress over matters like climate change. Does it take a crisis to get people to go along a new path, he asked in 2007, or can they respond to a series of rational, incremental gains in knowledge?By this year, though, he seemed more sanguine. The general notion that humans are causing a global planetary problem is growing, especially among young people, he said, so Im optimistic.

science

Credit...Ko Sasaki for The New York TimesFeb. 4, 2014NAYORO, Japan The sound of cicadas and the smell of pine trees in the thick summer air were interrupted by the whoosh of ski jumpers in bodysuits hurling themselves off the 90-meter hill here in the northern reaches of Japan.Snowfall was months away, but several of Japans top ski jumpers were training for a chance to go to the Olympic Games in Sochi. The youngest of the group, and the only woman, Yuki Ito, had the best chance to make history, by taking part in the Olympic debut of the womens ski jump.Growing up, I was shocked to learn that it wasnt an Olympic sport, and I wanted to be the best in the world, said Ito, 19, who was born in a nearby town that has produced several male Olympian jumpers. It was my dream to go to the Olympics.Ito, Japans second-best female ski jumper, will realize her dream. Last month, she won a spot on Japans Olympic team, where she will be a kind of understudy to her teammate Sara Takanashi, the worlds top female jumper.Jumpers like Ito are the key to rebuilding Japans once-heralded ski jumping program, which had a burst of success in the 1990s, partly because the Japanese jumpers took advantage of their smaller size to fly farther. But the introduction of new equipment and rule changes a decade ago designed to prevent unhealthy weight loss in jumpers took away some of that edge. Japanese jumpers have started to adapt, and the addition of women to the Olympics should help the program because Takanashi and Ito have jumped well.ImageCredit...Ko Sasaki for The New York TimesTakanashi, 17, has the best chance of winning a medal in Sochi. But Ito has a shot, too. After a string of top-10 finishes this season, she is ranked fifth in the world. She finished 18th last year. A medal or two in Sochi would help promote ski jumping in Japan, one of the few countries with corporate teams, by attracting more sponsors and more financial aid from sports federations.Winning a medal is everything, said Munehiko Harada, a professor of sports management at Waseda University in Tokyo. If they get a medal, the Japanese Olympic Committee will support their training. So it depends how well they do.If they continue their success, the female ski jumpers in particular have a bright future in Japan, Harada said, because they are telegenic. Many Japanese women also have compact and light bodies that help them glide through the air, and like Japanese athletes in general, they take well to training that emphasizes repetition and form.The country has very good potential for ski jumpers, said Janne Vaatainen, the Finnish-born coach of the Tsuchiya Home Ski Team, the Japanese corporate sponsor that employs Ito. The body type of the Japanese and the system of professional teams in Japan, this is kind of unique.The Japanese have participated in all but two Winter Olympics, but it was not until they hosted the Games in 1972 in Sapporo that they won their first ski jump medals. All three of Japans medals that year came in the mens 70-meter event.The stadium where that event took place towers over the city and stands as a beacon for Japanese ski jumpers, many of whom come from near Sapporo and elsewhere on the northern island of Hokkaido. Over all, Japan has won nine Olympic ski jump medals, the fourth most, after Norway, Austria and Finland.Takanashi and Ito were raised about 90 minutes apart in towns in a mountainous region several hours north of Sapporo. The area is dotted with lumber mills and dairy farms, and children grow up skiing during the long winters more than playing soccer or baseball.Like Takanashi, Ito grew up surrounded by ski jumpers. She started jumping at 4 years old, and her father, who also jumped, was her coach. Her mother was an Alpine skier. Several other Olympians, including Noriaki Kasai, known as Kamikaze, who will be competing in Sochi in his seventh Winter Games, came from the same town, where Ito was often the only woman jumping.I didnt really think much about being the only girl, Ito said, adding, When I was young, there were no women role models, so I looked up to Kasai.Ito started jumping competitively in junior high school and soon made trips to Europe, where her horizons opened. Though her English is limited, she made an impression on other jumpers as friendly and hardworking.I go out running every day at 6 or 7 in the morning and think Im the first one out, but I end up seeing her, said Lindsey Van, the American jumper.Van recalled a news conference after an event she had won. Ito, who came in second, asked Van and the third-place finisher how they had handled the pressure.The pressure is on Takanashi, who has become a household name in Japan and helped promote Tokyos bid to host the 2020 Summer Games. Her publicity agent declined to make her available for an interview.ImageCredit...Ko Sasaki for The New York TimesWith the intense focus on Takanashi, Ito has blossomed. There is no pressure coming from outside, so she can concentrate on herself and just jump, said Stefan Diaz, the editor of Ladies-Skijumping.com. Sara is very, very shy.Diaz added: Yuki is different. Although she is also a quiet person, she talks openly to TV and press and seems to enjoy giving interviews. Yuki is in the comfortable position. She can enjoy being famous but does not feel the negative effects, such as pressure or public expectations. In a sport like ski jumping, where the mind plays a very big role, this can make a huge difference.The first woman on the Tsuchiya Home team, Ito goes about her business confidently but remains modest. After she won a gold medal on a mixed doubles team with Takanashi and two Japanese men, she cried because she felt she had let her teammates down.During the summer, Ito trained five days a week, jumping 10 times in the morning and 10 times in the afternoon. Before heading to the hill, she worked with a trainer, Yasutaka Nakanishi, by crouching on a crate and lunging forward into his arms to mimic her takeoff.Her 5-foot-4-inch frame seemed buried in her sky-blue bodysuit, and her seven-and-a-half-foot-long skis looked impossibly difficult to carry. But she made it up the ski lift and marched to the top of the hill with little trouble. There, she joked with several male jumpers, who appeared to treat her like a sister.She is very serious, said Kasai, who is also on the Tsuchiya Home team. But, he added, she is the kind of person who makes jokes.Ito yelled, Hai, to alert Vaatainen, who was halfway down the hill and holding an iPad to record her jump. He later reviewed the video with her, with a special focus on her form during takeoff.Technically, shes doing better than many guys, Vaatainen said. Of course, I can see shes not as strong. But the best ladies are really good jumpers, and shes a top-10 jumper.

Sports

Politics|Heres what we know about the ballots that are left to count in Georgia.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/heres-what-we-know-about-the-ballots-that-are-left-to-count-in-georgia.htmlCredit...Nicole Craine for The New York TimesJan. 6, 2021Georgia has about 60,000 votes left to count, the vast majority of them coming from heavily Democratic counties surrounding Atlanta and Savannah, according to Gabriel Sterling, the states voting systems implementation manager.Officials involved in the Georgia campaigns believe the counties will begin reporting the results from their outstanding ballots in the early afternoon.Once one or two of the large counties complete their count, the Democrat Jon Ossoff, who leads David Perdue, his Republican opponent, by more than 18,000 votes, is likely to exceed the margin needed to avoid a recount typically the trigger that leads major news organizations to declare a winner.Mr. Ossoffs margin right now is about 3,600 votes less than the 0.5 percent margin needed to avoid a recount under Georgia law.The biggest batch of uncounted ballots is in DeKalb County, which began counting the 17,902 that remain at 11:30 a.m. Mr. Ossoff has won 83 percent of the vote counted so far in the county. If he maintains that pace with the outstanding ballots Mr. Ossoff will pad his margin over Mr. Perdue by 11,922 votes.Other counties with large numbers of outstanding ballots are Henry County (9,078 votes, and Mr. Ossoff has won 61 percent so far), Cobb County (5,896 votes, and Mr. Ossoff has won 56 percent so far), Chatham County (5,318 votes, and Mr. Ossoff has won 59 percent so far), Fulton County (5,294 votes, and Mr. Ossoff has won 72 percent so far) and Gwinnett County (5,068 votes, and Mr. Ossoff has won 60 percent so far).The largest number of outstanding votes from a county Mr. Perdue carried are from Thomas County in South Georgia. Thomas County has 2,078 votes left to count; Mr. Perdue has won 60 percent of the countys vote so far.Mr. Sterling also said the state mailed about 14,000 outstanding overseas and military ballots that have yet to be returned. The number of votes to come from those ballots will be far smaller than 14,000, since many ballots will not be returned by a Friday deadline.

Politics

Credit...Matthias Schrader/Associated PressFeb. 11, 2014KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia It took 90 years for women to earn the right to ski jump in the Winter Games and just a day to crown their first Olympic champion.At the debut of the womens normal hill ski jump Tuesday, Carina Vogt of Germany won the gold medal, outscoring Daniela Iraschko-Stolz of Austria, who won the silver, and Coline Mattel of France, who finished third. Sara Takanashi of Japan, who dominated the World Cup circuit this year, finished fourth.Vogts victory came after a long battle that included a legal challenge that all but shamed the International Olympic Committee into allowing women into an event that has been part of the Winter Games since 1924.Even so, women are jumping in just one event, the normal hill, while the men jump in three events (the normal hill, the large hill and a team event). Only 30 women competed in the normal hill, less than half as many as the men.Yet the women who competed were happy finally to be competing on the biggest sports stage.It was amazing, Im here among 30 girls making history, said Line Jahr of Norway who finished ninth. We are a big family, we are good friends, everyone is jumping during the year. For me, it didnt matter who won.The first jump was by Sarah Hendrickson, 19, the American who was the world champion last year but badly injured her right knee in August and only started jumping again in January. Hendrickson, who jumped first because she had the lowest ranking and therefore wore bib No. 1, said that her knee was still shaky but she was glad to take part in history.When I was given the bib number, I didnt realize the significance of it, but I was the first, Hendrickson said. It was an honor to open up the competition.She said she planned to take the rest of the season off.I think having this injury has relieved some of the pressure for me because now Im the underdog, she said earlier this week. I dont want to use that as an excuse, but my goal was to make it to Sochi and Ive accomplished that.Hendrickson pumped her fists after her first jump of 94 meters for 112.4 points. She finished 21st over all.The top American finisher was Jessica Jerome in 10th place. Vogt jumped 103 meters for 126.8 points.I cant find the right words, Vogt said. Im just speechless because training yesterday was not so good. Stefan Diaz, who writes for Ladies-Skijumping.com, said: Next to Takanashi, she is simply the most consistent jumper of this winter. I dont think she saw herself as the winner ahead of the competition, and so of course had less pressure as her opponents.The event was held late in the evening, with the second jump not starting until 10:20 p.m. After the event, the 17-year old Takanashi said she was disappointed. Today, I have to say I realized my mental weakness, she said.Earlier in the week Takanashis hopes had been high. I really like jumping by night, she said, because there are lots of lights, everything is sparkling.Regardless of their finish, many of the women who competed said they felt like winners after so many years of fighting for the chance to compete in the Olympics.Im so excited the sport is in the Olympic Games now, and we have really, really competition, and everyone can see women can do really good ski jump, Iraschko-Stolz said.For years, the I.O.C. found reasons to keep women ski jumpers out of the Olympics even though more than two decades ago, the organization said that all future events must be open to both genders. At one point, the I.O.C. ruled that womens ski jumping did not have enough elite competitors.In 2005, Gian-Franco Kasper, the president of the International Ski Federation, told NPR that ski jumping seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.Several female ski jumpers filed a lawsuit to compete at the 2010 Vancouver Games, a case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to hear an appeal. In 2011, the I.O.C. determined that the level of competition had sufficiently improved and women jumpers were admitted.

Sports

Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via ShutterstockJune 6, 2018WASHINGTON President Trump has made a trademark of upending many of the diplomatic traditions that have defined American foreign policy for decades, angering a host of longtime allies. Now, a growing number of his ambassadors are doing the same.This week, Richard Grenell, the newly installed United States ambassador in Berlin, outraged some in Germany when he told Breitbart London that he wanted to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, a direct political threat to Chancellor Angela Merkels governing coalition. Germanys Foreign Ministry asked for a clarification.Last week, David M. Friedman, the ambassador to Israel, told an Israeli newspaper, Theres no question Republicans support Israel more than Democrats, making an explicitly partisan argument that is generally forbidden among ambassadors.And earlier this year, Peter Hoekstra, the ambassador to the Netherlands, refused to respond to a room full of Dutch journalists who asked him to clarify false statements he had made in 2015 that politicians and cars had been burned by Muslims in the country. He has apologized.There is nothing new about ambassadors making unfortunate remarks. But the growing list of top envoys who have provoked controversy even in posts of close allies, where diplomatic duties largely include party-giving and anodyne cheerleading, has been unusual and, for the Trump administration, potentially perilous.The administration is using its envoys, even in our closest allies, to advance a nationalist and very aggressive agenda rather than maintain cordial relations, said Nancy McEldowney, who had helped to train ambassadors for their posts as the former director of the Foreign Service Institute.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the midst of identifying candidates for 28 ambassadorships and 30 other top vacant positions in hopes of re-energizing a State Department that was left listless under his predecessor, Rex W. Tillerson.Because of the shrinking number of legislative days left in the year, nominations must be sent to the Senate within weeks for Mr. Pompeo to have any hope of getting most of them confirmed this year one reason Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, announced on Tuesday that he would cancel much of the August recess.Thats my mission set: to build that esprit and get that team on the field, Mr. Pompeo said on his first diplomatic trip overseas, a promise he has repeated.But there is a widely held perception even among Republicans in Congress that the Trump administration does little to vet or coach its diplomatic nominees, and has proposed some candidates with zero relevant experience, unexplored controversies and huge gaps in basic knowledge.Doug Manchester, nominated as the ambassador to the Bahamas, last year described the British Commonwealth realm as for all intents and purposes a protectorate of the United States, a description that was not well received on the islands. His nomination remains in limbo.And as Senate Democrats irritation grows with envoys who are ensconced abroad, an already slow confirmation process for new nominees could become even more sclerotic.If Ambassador Grenell is unwilling to refrain from political statements, he should be recalled immediately, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said on Monday. The United States does not accept foreign meddling in our elections, and we shouldnt have an ambassador attempting to intrude in another countrys political affairs.Mr. Friedmans comments on May 30, to The Times of Israel, led to a similar cascade of denunciations from Democrats. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, said Mr. Friedmans remarks were wrong, insensitive and demonstrate his ill-preparedness to be a suitable diplomat.In a briefing on Tuesday, Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said that ambassadors have a right to express their opinion.Theyre representatives of the White House, she said.To which Representative Eliot Engel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, responded that ambassadors should keep their personal opinions to themselves.If a foreign ambassador tried to get involved in American politics, Id want to see that person on the next flight home, he said.This is the second time in as many weeks that an American ambassador has gotten too involved in politics, he said. Its unacceptable. I hope Secretary Pompeo either convinces these officials to abide by the norms of diplomacy or finds replacements who will do so.Generally, about one-third of ambassadors are political appointees, including donors who are rewarded with cushy overseas posts. The State Department puts every envoy through training, but the frosty relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson led some political appointees to ignore guidance from veteran diplomats.As a group, theyve had far less contact with desk officers in the normal bureaucracy than any in recent memory, said Ronald Neumann, a former ambassador who now serves as the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy.He said statements that needlessly alienate foreign allies are discouraged in part because they make day-to-day diplomacy harder. Its the difference between being smart and being stupid, Mr. Neumann said.Mr. Trump has cast aside decades of diplomatic conventions himself, calling some Mexican immigrants rapists, disparaging Haiti and much of Africa, declining on his first tour of Europe as president to explicitly endorse NATOs mutual defense pledge, and imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on the United States closest allies.In rare cases, ambassadors stir controversy under instruction.While serving as ambassador to Moscow during the Obama administration, Michael A. McFaul used his social media accounts to needle the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia; he said in an interview that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked him to do so. The effort is widely seen as having been unsuccessful.But Moscow is different from American-friendly governments in Berlin, Jerusalem or The Hague, Mr. McFaul said.Sometimes you have to stand up to the government, but not when its an ally, he said. I dont see the strategic interest in doing what these guys are doing.Mr. Grenell has since tried to partially walk back his comments. The idea that Id endorse candidates/parties is ridiculous, he said in a Twitter post on Sunday.Mr. Friedman tweeted his own clarification. I firmly believe that American support for Israel needs to be bipartisan and I will continue to welcome any Democratic legislators who wish to visit Israel and I hope they do! he said last week. He has also benefited from the expressed and repeated support of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.And after his troubled start and an apology, Mr. Hoekstra has largely steered clear of controversy.Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, another veteran diplomat who retired recently, said the State Department could do only so much to curb ambassadors who have close ties to the president.The department can warn, admonish and recall for consultations, but if the envoy has the backing of the White House then any real penalty is unlikely, she said. If the host nation shuts you out, though, your ineffectiveness harms the nation.

Politics

BasicsCredit...GuycoJune 12, 2017To the Mesopotamians, the liver was the bodys premier organ, the seat of the human soul and emotions. The ancient Greeks linked the liver to pleasure: The words hepatic and hedonic are thought to share the same root.The Elizabethans referred to their monarch not as the head of state but as its liver, and woe to any people saddled with a lily-livered leader, whose bloodless cowardice would surely prove their undoing.Yet even the most ardent liverati of history may have underestimated the scope and complexity of the organ. Its powers are so profound that the old toss-away line, What am I, chopped liver? can be seen as a kind of humblebrag.After all, a healthy liver is the one organ in the adult body that, if chopped down to a fraction of its initial size, will rapidly regenerate and perform as if brand-new. Which is a lucky thing, for the livers to-do list is second only to that of the brain and numbers well over 300 items, including systematically reworking the food we eat into usable building blocks for our cells; neutralizing the many potentially harmful substances that we incidentally or deliberately ingest; generating a vast pharmacopoeia of hormones, enzymes, clotting factors and immune molecules; controlling blood chemistry; and really, were just getting started.We have mechanical ventilators to breathe for you if your lungs fail, dialysis machines if your kidneys fail, and the heart is mostly just a pump, so we have an artificial heart, said Dr. Anna Lok, president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and director of clinical hepatology at the University of Michigan.But if your liver fails, theres no machine to replace all its different functions, and the best you can hope for is a transplant.And while scientists admit it hardly seems possible, the closer they look, the longer the livers inventory of talents and tasks becomes.In one recent study, researchers were astonished to discover that the liver grows and shrinks by up to 40 percent every 24 hours, while the organs around it barely budge.Others have found that signals from the liver may help dictate our dietary choices, particularly our cravings for sweets, like a ripe peach or a tall glass of Newmans Own Virgin Limeade which our local supermarket chain has, to our personal devastation, suddenly stopped selling, so please, liver, get a grip.Scientists have also discovered that hepatocytes, the metabolically active cells that constitute 80 percent of the liver, possess traits not seen in any other normal cells of the body. For example, whereas most cells have two sets of chromosomes two sets of genetic instructions on how a cell should behave hepatocytes can enfold and deftly manipulate up to eight sets of chromosomes, and all without falling apart or turning cancerous.That sort of composed chromosomal excess, said Dr. Markus Grompe, who studies the phenomenon at Oregon Health and Science University, is superunique, and most likely helps account for the livers regenerative prowess.Scientists hope that the new insights into liver development and performance will yield novel therapies for the more than 100 disorders that afflict the organ, many of which are on the rise worldwide, in concert with soaring rates of obesity and diabetes.Its a funny thing, said Valerie Gouon-Evans, a liver specialist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The liver is not a very sexy organ. It doesnt look important. It just looks like a big blob.But it is quietly vital, the control tower of the body, and the hepatocytes that it is composed of are astonishing.The liver is our largest internal organ, weighing three and a half-pounds and measuring six inches long. The reddish-brown mass of four unevenly sized lobes sprawls like a beached sea lion across the upper right side of the abdominal cavity, beneath the diaphragm and atop the stomach.The organ is always flush with blood, holding about 13 percent of the bodys supply at any given time. Many of the livers unusual features are linked to its intimate association with blood.During fetal development, blood cells are born in the liver, and though that task later migrates to the bone marrow, the liver never loses its taste for the bodywide biochemical gossip that only the circulatory system can bring.Most organs have a single source of blood. The liver alone has two blood supplies, the hepatic artery conveying oxygen-rich blood from the heart, the hepatic portal vein dropping off blood drained from the intestines and spleen. That portal blood delivers semi-processed foodstuffs in need of hepatic massaging, conversion, detoxification, storage, secretion, elimination.Everything you put in your mouth must go through the liver before it does anything useful elsewhere in the body, Dr. Lok said.The liver likes its bloodlines leaky. In contrast to the well-sealed vessels that prevent direct contact between blood and most tissues of the body, the arteries and veins that snake through the liver are stippled with holes, which means they drizzle blood right onto the hepatocytes.The liver cells in turn are covered with microvilli fingerlike protrusions that massively enlarge the cell surface area in contact with blood, said Dr. Markus Heim, a liver researcher at the University of Basel.Hepatocytes are swimming in blood, he said. Thats what makes them so incredibly efficient at taking up substances from the blood.As the master sampler of circulating blood, the liver keeps track of the bodys moment-to-moment energy demands, releasing glucose as needed from its stash of stored glycogen, along with any vitamins, minerals, lipids, amino acids or other micronutrients that might be required.New research suggests the liver may take a proactive, as well as a reactive, role in the control of appetite and food choice.Humans are famously fond of sweets, for example, presumably a legacy of our fruit-eating primate ancestors. But to gorge on sugar-rich foods, even in the relatively healthy format of a bucketful of Rainier cherries, could mean neglecting other worthy menu items.Reporting in the journal Cell Metabolism, Matthew Gillum of the University of Copenhagen and his colleagues showed that after exposure to a high-sugar drink, the liver seeks to dampen further sugar indulgence by releasing a signaling hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21, or FGF21.The effort is not always successful. For reasons that remain unclear, the hormone comes in active and feeble varieties, and the researchers found that people with a mutant version of FGF21 confessed to a lifelong passion for sweets.The scientists are searching for other liver-borne hormones that might influence the hunger for protein or fat.It makes sense that the liver could be a nexus of metabolic control, Dr. Gillum said. At some level it knows more than the brain does about energy availability, and whether youre eating too many pears.The liver also keeps track of time. In a recent issue of the journal Cell, Ulrich Schibler of the University of Geneva and his colleagues described their studies of the oscillating liver, and how it swells and shrinks each day, depending on an animals normal circadian rhythms and feeding schedule.The researchers found that in mice, which normally eat at night and sleep during the day, the size of the liver expands by nearly half after dark and then retrenches come daylight. The scientists also determined the cause of the changing dimensions.We wanted to know, is it just extra water or glycogen? Dr. Schibler said. Because that would be boring.It wasnt boring. The total gemish, the total soup of the liver turns out to be different, he said. Protein production in mouse hepatocytes rises sharply at night, followed by equivalent protein destruction during the day.Evidence suggests that a similar extravaganza of protein creation and destruction occurs in the human liver, too, but the timing is flipped to match our largely diurnal pattern.The researchers do not yet know why the liver oscillates, but Dr. Schibler suggested its part of the organs fastidious maintenance program.The liver gets a lot of bad stuff coming through, he said. If you damage some of its components, you need to replace them. By having a rhythm to that replacement, he said, you keep the liver in a good state.Adding to the livers repair protocol, Dr. Grompe of Oregon Health and Science University said, is the extreme plasticity of hepatocytes.He and others have shown that, through their extraordinary ability to handle multiple sets of chromosomes and still perform and divide normally, liver cells become almost like immune cells genetically diverse enough to handle nearly any poison thrown at them.Our ancestors didnt have healthy refrigerated food, he said. They ate a lot of crap, probably literally, and the liver in prehistoric times was continuously bombarded with toxins. You need every mechanism there is to adapt to that.The liver rose to the evolutionary challenge. So yes, Im chopped liver and proud.

Health

Credit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesThe decline of bee populations is a looming crisis, but there is a dearth of scientific data. Hyperlocal researchers, with nets and notebooks, could be key.Max McCarthy, an ecologist and Ph.D. candidate, marked a rare species of bee, Andrena parnassiae, in northern New Jersey.Credit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesPublished Oct. 16, 2021Updated Oct. 18, 2021All through late summer and early fall, Max McCarthy, a graduate student at Rutgers University, walked around wetlands in northern New Jersey with a mesh net catching bees, which he marked with tiny colored pens. Three dots, each a different color, on the bees minuscule thoraxes before releasing them again. He wrote this information in his notebooks, counting up the insects one by one.These are not just any bees. Mr. McCarthy is hunting a rare bee called Andrena parnassiae. The species is only found near a flowering plant called grass of Parnassus, which, in the Northeast United States, only grows in alkaline wetlands, or fens.By tagging the bees, Mr. McCarthy, along with his adviser Rachael Winfree, an ecologist at Rutgers, is trying to see how easily these insects can move between habitat patches, and how far. As their ecosystem is disrupted by climate change, development and invasive species, how well will the insects adapt?The researchers hope their data about this little-known species will shed light on an urgent and complex issue: pollinator decline.Pollinators, which include bees, serve vital roles in natural ecosystems. Nearly 90 percent of flowering plants rely on animal pollinators to reproduce, and around 35 percent of the worlds crops are also dependent on pollinators. The economic value of bees is estimated to be tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars. Although domesticated pollinators like honeybees can be used as agricultural substitutes, they cannot completely fill the role of wild pollinators.ImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesDespite this gravity, the scale of pollinator decline is not well understood. What the scientific community does know comes from a small selection of local studies and anecdotal evidence from older naturalists.There are some strong indications that pollinator populations have declined dramatically, but were just beginning to understand how deep and how wide the problem is, said David Wilcove, a professor of conservation biology and public policy at Princeton University who is not involved in Mr. McCarthy and Dr. Winfrees research.Understanding which species are declining, why, and how they react to changing habitats could help scientists anticipate these sorts of environmental shifts. People dont like to count bugs, but the people who do count them can tell us things that no one else can, Dr. Wilcove added.Bees are the most robust pollinators in North America. But in the United States, the most extensive and longstanding research on bees has been on the genus Bombus, the bumblebee, and it is difficult to know whether these data are relevant to the hundreds of other groups of bees in the country. While scientists have ongoing projects to list native bee species in states like Pennsylvania and New York, little data exists for the vast majority of states.ImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesThere are technical reasons for this scarcity in bee population data. Bees are small, and identification is just wicked hard, Dr. Winfree said. In order to track their movement and count their population size, she explained, bees must be monitored individually.What can help researchers is narrowing where the bees could be. But bees that only pollinate specific plants, like blueberries, are also hard to track because the plants are generally too widespread.Mr. McCarthy, however, is able to know the location of every A. parnassiae population in northern Jersey because they will always be found around grass of Parnassus, which only grows in fens. There are lots of bees that are specialized, but fewer that are specialized on plants that are also specialized, he said.ImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesAlthough Mr. McCarthy is just in his second year of research, he probably knows more about A. parnassiaes behavior than any other scientist alive partly because the species is rare (its only been documented in a couple states), and partly because it pollinates in fens, which have little agricultural value. Dr. Winfree even pointed out, while standing next to a blooming Parnassus, that Mr. McCarthy was the first to spot the bee in the area. It hadnt been seen in New Jersey until last year.The duo had driven up to a small fen in late summer on the edge of White Lake, in Hardwick Township. Mr. McCarthy had walked around the area for 30 minutes, catching 10 bees with practiced flicks of his net. Sitting under a tree with one of the insects in hand, he peered through his glasses at its back, which was covered in pollen. Plucking a thorn from a nearby Japanese barberry bush, he scraped the yellow dust off, revealing three painted dots underneath. Blue, yellow and white. He had already marked this one. He wrote BYW in his notebook, and released the bee.Its tedious work, but Mr. McCarthy and Dr. Winfree hope their findings on the local population size, and whether the insects are moving between fens can serve as a data point in the global issue of pollinator decline. How resilient will the animals be to habitat destruction? How quickly are they dying off? To answer these questions, start with a single bee.ImageCredit...Jonno Rattman for The New York Times

science

June 5, 2017ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesBOKEO PROVINCE, Laos The tiger paced back and forth in its cage, groaning mournfully. A second big cat slept soundly in the corner, while a third stared blankly at the bars.Next to this cage was another containing three more tigers, and after that three more cages: a line of small pens, each holding at least one cat. Most likely, none had long to live.The tigers were property of the Kings Romans Group, which operates a casino here, along with hotels, a shooting range, a cockfighting and bullfighting ring, a Chinatown-themed shopping center, and this shabby zoo.Ten years ago, the Hong Kong-based company signed a lease with the Laotian government to develop this 12-square-mile plot in northwestern Bokeo Province, just across the Mekong River from Thailand. Its called the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.Most businesses in the duty-free complex are owned and staffed by Chinese citizens and patronized by a predominantly Chinese clientele. Many are drawn here by the promise of vices not as easily found back home, including products made from exotic animals like tigers.Conservationists maintain that this zoo is actually a farm raising animals for slaughter, and that it plays a significant role in perpetuating the illegal wildlife trade, swapping tigers with similar operations in Thailand and illegally butchering animals for their bones, meat and parts.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesTigers, bears, snakes and countless other species, many endangered, are held on farms throughout Southeast Asia. Operators illegally capture animals in the wild and then pass them off as captive-bred, or breed the animals on site and illegally sell them into the trade.These facilities are part of a contraband industry whose profitability by some estimates is surpassed only by the global trade in drugs and arms, and by human trafficking.Few tourists were present at Kings Romans during a recent visit. The ghost-town feel was reinforced by boarded-up shops, half-finished construction sites and posters advertising events that had long since come and gone.But restaurants at Kings Romans still offered expensive plates of bear paw, pangolin (an endangered scaly mammal) and sauted tiger meat, which can be paired with tiger wine, a grain-based concoction in which the cats penises, bones or entire skeletons are soaked for months.When a group of foreigners showed up at the God of Wealth, Kings Romans fanciest restaurant, the suspicious proprietor told their translator, You can eat here, but do not ask for the special jungle menu the menu offering wildlife options.Nevertheless, the staff offered tiger wine for $20 a shot glass, and served a bears paw to patrons at a nearby table. In May, a photographer for The New York Times who visited the restaurant was offered plates of tiger meat for $45.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesNearby, half a dozen jewelry and pharmaceutical shops displayed exorbitantly priced tiger teeth and claws, as well as rhino-horn carvings and shavings, elephant skin and ivory.The place is just a mess, said Debbie Banks, of the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency in London. Pretty much anything goes.In 2015, Ms. Banks and her colleagues, along with the nonprofit group Education for Nature-Vietnam, reported that meals, medicine and jewelry made from numerous protected species including tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses, bears and elephants were openly sold in the special economic zone.Their documentation spurred the Laotian government to raid some businesses here and to burn a few tiger skins on television. But Ms. Banks said little had changed since that cosmetic effort.Like the rest of the complex, the Kings Romans zoo was largely deserted save for animals kept in cages. A woman and her young daughter wandered in to look at the bears. Many showed signs of captivity-induced stress, including uncontrolled headbanging. Staff members were nowhere to be found.Approximately 700 tigers live on farms in Laos. Thousands more are believed to be kept throughout Southeast Asia, and an additional 5,000 to 6,000 are housed in over 200 breeding centers in China. Fewer than 4,000 of the big cats remain in the wild; farmed tigers now far outnumber total wild populations.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesAt an international conference on the endangered species trade last fall, Laotian government officials acknowledged a growing problem with wildlife farms and committed themselves to closing down the countrys tiger farms. So far, little has changed.One source who works closely with the government, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said that some Laotian politicians remained deeply involved in the farms and that the countrys forestry department lacked the authority to shut them down.Representative Ed Royce, Republican of California and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has singled out Laos as an international hub for illegal wildlife trafficking, saying in 2015 it was quite clear officials are profiting. Laotian government officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.Treaty Limits BreedingAccording to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, a treaty to which China and all Southeast Asian nations are signers, tigers are to be bred only for conservation not for their parts, and not on a commercial scale that does not benefit wild tigers.Farming tigers for trade confuses consumers and stimulates demand, said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The increased market demand for tiger parts also fuels poaching of tigers in the wild, because wildlife consumers prefer animals caught in the wild.In Laos and several other Asian countries, conservationists have compiled ample evidence that many zoos and farms serve as fronts for commercial breeding.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesIn 2016, Tiger Temple in Thailand made headlines when monks there were accused of abusing tigers and selling them into the illegal wildlife trade. Eventually, 40 dead cubs were discovered in a freezer, along with pelts and other wildlife products. Temple representatives said that the bodies and parts did not prove wrongdoing.Thailand has some 1,450 tigers in captivity, the majority of which are kept at popular attractions like Tiger Temple, where tourists pay to take photographs and play with cubs and young adults.When the tigers reach sexual maturity and can no longer be handled safely, they often disappear, sold on the black market for up to $50,000, according to Karl Ammann, a Kenya-based investigative filmmaker who is making a documentary about the tiger farming industry.Conservationists also have accused tiger farms in China two of which are supported by government investment of illegal activity.Chinese law permits some tiger skins to be traded legally, although tiger bone has been banned since 1993. But in 2013 Ms. Banks of the Environmental Investigation Agency and her colleagues found that farms were stockpiling tiger bones to make wine and that skins from wild tigers were sold as being from captive-bred tigers.After inquiries from The Times, Meng Xianlin, executive director-general of the Chinese Cites management authority, declined to be interviewed. Several other Chinese officials did not respond to repeated interview requests.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesPast violators often re-enter the wildlife farming business. Construction has already begun on a zoo next door to Tiger Temple. Officials in Vietnam recently granted permission for the wife of Pham Van Tuan, a twice-convicted tiger trafficker, to import 24 tigers from the Czech Republic for conservation purposes.Vuong Tien Manh, deputy director of Vietnams Cites management authority, said in an email that Vietnam had seized a number of frozen tigers and tiger bones over the past five years, most of which were suspected to have originated from Laos.He added that Vietnams policies did not permit commercial breeding of tigers, but the country has some 130 tigers in captivity. All tiger farms are strictly monitored, Mr. Manh said, no matter who the owners are.Bear Bile CollectedThough tigers are the most contentious of Asias farmed wildlife, they are by no means the only species caught up in the industry.An estimated 10,000 bears are legally kept on Chinese farms for their bile, an ingredient in traditional medicine that is collected through a tube permanently implanted in the animals gall bladders, or through a hole in their abdomens.Countless other species crocodiles, porcupines, pythons, deer and more are also farmed throughout China and Southeast Asia.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesSome proponents, including government officials, believe that such facilities should be legal and encouraged, arguing that they relieve pressure to hunt wild animals by satiating demand with captive-bred animals.Others say there is no evidence to back this assertion. I cant think of any species in Southeast Asia that benefits from commercial captive breeding, said Chris Shepherd, the Southeast Asia regional director for Traffic, a nonprofit wildlife trade-monitoring group.Scott Roberton, the director of counter-wildlife trafficking at the Wildlife Conservation Societys Asia program, added that the risks associated with legalizing trade in farmed tigers and other endangered species are the same as those associated for decades with the ivory trade.Legal trade stimulates demand, confuses law enforcement efforts, and opens a huge opportunity for laundering illegal products, which is why ivory markets are now being closed globally, he said.There just isnt the capacity within these countries to manage a legal trade in a watertight way, Dr. Roberton said.Laundering of animals as farmed that were actually caught in the wild is a frequent practice. In Chengdu, China, one-third of 285 bears rescued from bile farms and now living at a rehabilitation center run by Animals Asia, a nonprofit group, are missing limbs, a sign that they were caught in the wild by snares.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesA 2008 investigation by Vietnamese officials and the Wildlife Conservation Society found that about half of 78 wildlife farms surveyed regularly launder animals caught in the wild. In 2016, a study of 26 Vietnamese wildlife farms found that all engaged in laundering.The pet trade is also a problem. Indonesia annually exports over four million reptiles and small mammals labeled captive-bred including thousands shipped weekly to the United States. But virtually all are caught in the wild, according to Dr. Shepherd.Ive been to almost every reptile farm in Indonesia, and none have breeding facilities, he said. Wildlife dealers are running circles around everyone. Its a joke.Though modern wildlife farming emerged in the 1990s and has only grown in popularity, wild populations of farmed species have continued to plummet, Dr. Shepherd said.Tigers, for example, are effectively extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, while just seven to 50 remain in the wild in China.No matter how many tigers are farmed, we still have wild tigers getting killed, he said.What Becomes of the Tigers?Heeding these arguments, Laotian government representatives attending a major Cites meeting last September announced their intention to end tiger farming in their country.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesInternational nongovernmental organizations are advising Laotian authorities on how to carry through with that announcement, but there has been no progress to date.In April, Vietnamese reporters discovered a tiger farm in Laos on a main highway near the center of Lak Sao, a town near the border with Vietnam. Conservationists later confirmed that it might hold an additional 200 animals.There are some countries in Southeast Asia that are equipped to combat criminal networks, and some that are still struggling, said Giovanni Broussard, Southeast Asia regional coordinator for the Global Program for Combating Wildlife and Forest Crime of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime.Laos, he said, is in the category of those that are still struggling.Though most tiger farms in Laos do not allow visitors, conservationists fear that owners will simply shift to a model embraced in Thailand, in which petting zoos serve as a front for illegal trade.Even if the authorities move forward with shutting down the farms, what to do with the countrys 700-plus captive tigers is a challenge. Euthanizing them would bring unwanted media attention, but releasing them into the wild is not an option. Theres not much prey, and the tigers lack survival skills and have no fear of humans.Yet keeping them is a burden; it costs thousands of dollars a year to feed a single tiger, Ms. Banks said, and tigers can live up to 20 years.ImageCredit...Adam Dean for The New York TimesIn 2002, Vietnam faced a similar dilemma when it made bear farming and bile sales illegal. Fifteen years later, around 1,200 bears still live with their original owners.Many are kept in horrific conditions in cages scarcely larger than their bodies, suffering from rampant disease and lacking adequate food and water and their bile continues to be collected illegally.Animals Asia runs a rehabilitation center near Hanoi that houses 160 bears rescued from the trade, but the center has permission to keep only 200 animals. Even if that cap were eliminated, however, the group lacks the funds and space to care for all of Vietnams remaining captive bears.Obviously, we cant do this all ourselves, said Tuan Bendixsen, Animals Asias Vietnam director. The government must take responsibility for their wildlife.As Laos ponders how to responsibly close its tiger farms, China is moving in the opposite direction. Since 1992, it has been petitioning Cites to permit trade in farmed tiger products.When Chinese representatives lobbied for this change once again at the most recent Cites meeting, the proposal was turned down.Conservationists believe that international pressure may be crucial to persuading Asian governments to close tiger, bear and other wildlife farms, but that strategys effectiveness is compromised by an awkward fact: An estimated 5,000 tigers are held in backyards, petting zoos and even truck stops across the United States.While those animals are predominantly kept as pets, they compromise negotiations with other countries on this issue, said Leigh Henry, a senior policy adviser at the World Wildlife Fund.When fingers are pointed at China about their tiger farms, they tend to point the finger back at the U.S. and say, They have as many tigers as we have, why are you not criticizing them? she said.The priority is closing the tiger farms in Asia, Ms. Henry said, but the U.S. needs to set a strong standard, and that starts with cleaning up the situation in our own backyard.

science

Be it President Trumps decision to reinstate the June 12 meeting with North Korea or more tariffs for American allies, here are six of the biggest stories in politics this week. (And links if youd like to read further.)June 1, 2018Its on again: President Trump rescheduled the summit meeting with North Korea on June 12.VideotranscripttranscriptTrump Says Hell Meet Kim Jong-un After AllThe president, who canceled a planned summit meeting a week ago, made the announcement after meeting a top North Korean envoy and receiving a personal letter from Mr. Kim.Well be meeting on June 12 in Singapore. It went very well. Its really a get to know you kind of a situation. Mike [Pompeo] has spent two days doing this. Weve gotten to know their people very well. And we will you people are going to have to travel, because youll be in Singapore on June 12. And I think it will be a process. Its not I never said it goes in one meeting. I think its going to be a process. But the relationships are building and thats a very positive thing. Mr. President, whats your stance on what the North Koreans are willing to do on the issue of denuclearization? Are they looking at all I think they want to do that. I know they want to do that. They want other things along the line. They want to develop as a country. Thats going to happen. I have no doubt. Itll be a beginning. I dont say, and Ive never said, it happens in one meeting. Youre talking about years of hostility. Years of problems. Years of really hatred between so many different nations. But I think youre going to have a very positive result in the end.The president, who canceled a planned summit meeting a week ago, made the announcement after meeting a top North Korean envoy and receiving a personal letter from Mr. Kim.CreditCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesPresident Trump said on Friday that the summit meeting with North Korea on June 12 in Singapore had been rescheduled after a week of meetings and scrambling between American and Korean officials. The president made the announcement after a North Korean envoy, Kim Yong-chol, personally gave him a letter from Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. Mr. Trump said he had not yet opened the letter, but felt the meeting really a get-to-know-you kind of a situation, he said afterward went well. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Kim Yong-chol, one of the highest-ranking North Korean officials, on Thursday in New York and had expressed optimism this week about the potential talks. But that same day, Kim Jong-un met with a top Russian official, Sergey V. Lavrov, in North Korea. Mr. Lavrovs welcome in Pyongyang, the capital and the invitation he brought from President Vladimir V. Putin for Mr. Kim to visit Moscow was a reminder that competing powers could still upend efforts to hold the summit meeting. ImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesMr. Trump again attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, posting on Twitter that he wished he had selected another lawyer to lead the Justice Department. The attacks came after The New York Times reported how Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Sessions last year to reverse his recusal from the special counsels investigation.This week, Mr. Trump also pardoned Dinesh DSouza, a conservative author, commentator and filmmaker who pleaded guilty in 2014 to illegal campaign contributions. He said on Thursday he was contemplating leniency for former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, Democrat of Illinois, and Martha Stewart, the lifestyle mogul. In flexing his power to issue pardons, the president could potentially offer more clemency to people convicted of crimes that parallel charges that have been made or mentioned in connection with allies of Mr. Trump in recent weeks. He also bypassed the traditional Justice Department protocols for issuing pardons and clemency. ImageCredit...Lukas Schulze/Getty ImagesMr. Trump, stung by criticism that he had gone soft on China, said on Tuesday that the United States would proceed with tariffs and other punitive measures on the country. The tariffs, which include 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of imported Chinese goods, are to be imposed by the end of the month. Days later, the Trump administration announced that it would enforce heavy steel and aluminum tariffs on some of its closest allies. The European Union, Canada and Mexico, which now face 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, drew up retaliatory measures in part to target areas of the United States where Mr. Trump enjoys the strongest support. The decision came after months of uncertainty about exemptions and whether American officials would follow through with an aggressive trade tactic.Additional Reading:China Cuts Tariffs Ahead of U.S. Commerce Secretarys Visit to BeijingThe Upshot: The Economy Can Handle Steel and Aluminum Tariffs. The Real Risk Is Erratic Policy.Ivanka Trump Abruptly Leaves Call After Question About China TrademarksAfter Taunting Mexico, Trump Takes Action With Tariffs. But Do Mexicans Still Care?Despite concerns about tariff retaliations, the economy is still doing well. ImageCredit...Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsThe United States economy had its strongest job gains since February, according to numbers released on Friday by the Labor Department. In May, 223,000 jobs were added (higher than Wall Streets expectation of about 190,000) and the unemployment rate was 3.8 percent, down from 3.9 percent in April and the lowest since early 2000.Before the numbers were made public, Mr. Trump broke with protocol and posted on Twitter about the jobs report. The language in his Twitter post seemed to signal notable gains, and economists said they were stunned at the prospect of Mr. Trump offering hints about the reports content that could affect the markets and trading. ImageCredit...Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressRoseanne Barr, whose ABC sitcom had attracted high ratings and personal praise from Mr. Trump, had her show canceled Wednesday after she posted a racist remark on Twitter about Valerie Jarrett, a black woman who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama.But when Mr. Trump weighed in on the backlash, he focused instead on the apology that ABC officials made to Ms. Jarrett and did not condemn the tweet. It is not the first time the president has found equivalence or diverted attention when confronted with divisive events. A day later, Samantha Bee, a comedian on TBS, apologized for using a vulgar epithet to describe Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and senior adviser, on her show. But while TBS also offered an apology, the network did not take disciplinary action against Ms. Bee. The difference in consequences offered conservatives a new opportunity to criticize the news media for what they described as a liberal bias.Additional Reading:News Analysis: Disney Made Quick Work of Roseanne. Its Not Always So Easy.Roseanne Barr, Back on Twitter, Has More to SayRoseanne, the Reboot: A TimelineWith more primaries this month, Mr. Trump has begun to campaign more frequently for midterm elections. ImageCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesMr. Trump is planning to focus his midterm campaigning in conservative states with competitive Senate races where he has strong support and can take advantage of his star power. On Tuesday, that strategy was evident as he campaigned in Nashville on behalf of Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, who is running to succeed Senator Bob Corker.

Politics

A Covid Test as Easy as BreathingScientists have been dreaming of disease-detecting breathalyzers for years. Has the time for the technology finally come?Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesJuly 11, 2021In May, musicians from dozens of countries descended on Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for the Eurovision Song Contest. Over the course of the competition, the performers clad in sequined dresses, ornate crowns or, in one case, an enormous pair of angel wings belted and battled it out for their chance at the title.But before they were even allowed onstage, they had to pass another test: a breath test.When they arrived at the venue, the musicians were asked to exhale into a water-bottle-sized device called the SpiroNose, which analyzed the chemical compounds in their breath to detect signatures of a coronavirus infection. If the results came back negative, the performers were cleared to compete.The SpiroNose, made by the Dutch company Breathomix, is just one of many breath-based Covid-19 tests under development across the world. In May, Singapores health agency granted provisional authorization to two such tests, made by the domestic companies Breathonix and Silver Factory Technology. And researchers at Ohio State University say they have applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency authorization of their Covid-19 breathalyzer.Its clear now, I think, that you can detect this disease with a breath test, said Paul Thomas, a chemist at Loughborough University in England. This isnt science fiction.Scientists have long been interested in creating portable devices that can quickly and painlessly screen a person for disease simply by taking a whiff of their breath. But delivering on this dream has proved to be a challenge. Different diseases may cause similar breath changes. Diet can affect the chemicals someone exhales, as can smoking and alcohol consumption, potentially complicating disease detection.Still, scientists say, advances in sensor technology and machine learning, combined with new research and investment spurred by the pandemic, mean that the moment for disease-detecting breathalyzers may have finally arrived.Ive been working in the area of breath research for almost 20 years now, said Cristina Davis, an engineer at the University of California, Davis. And during that time, weve seen it progress from a nascent stage to really being something that I think is close to being deployed.The biology of breathImageCredit...Salgu Wissmath for The New York TimesHuman breath is complex. Whenever we exhale, we release hundreds of gases known as volatile organic compounds, or V.O.C.s., byproducts of respiration, digestion, cellular metabolism and other physiological processes. Disease can disrupt these processes, altering the mix of V.O.C.s that the body emits.People with diabetes, for instance, may have breath that smells fruity or sweet. The odor is caused by ketones, chemicals produced when the body begins to burn fat instead of glucose for energy, a metabolic state known as ketosis.The idea that exhaled breath could hold diagnostic potential has been around for some time, Dr. Davis said. There are reports in ancient Greek and also ancient Chinese medical training texts that reference a physicians use of smell as a way to help guide their clinical practice.Modern technologies can detect more subtle chemical changes, and machine learning algorithms can identify patterns in breath samples from people with certain diseases. In recent years, scientists have used these methods to identify unique breathprints for lung cancer, liver disease, tuberculosis, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions. (Dr. Davis and her colleagues have even used V.O.C. profiles to distinguish among cells that had been infected with different strains of flu.)Before Covid hit, Breathomix had been developing an electronic nose to detect several other respiratory diseases. We train our system, OK, this is how asthma smells, this how lung cancer smells, said Rianne de Vries, the companys chief technology and scientific officer. So its building a big database and finding patterns in big data.Last year, the company and many other researchers in the field pivoted and began trying to identify a breathprint for Covid-19. During the viruss initial surge in the spring of 2020, for instance, researchers in Britain and Germany collected breath samples from 98 people who showed up at hospitals with respiratory symptoms. (Participants were asked to exhale into a disposable tube; the researchers then used a syringe to extract a sample of their breath.)Thirty-one of the patients turned out to have Covid, while the remainder had a variety of diagnoses, including asthma, bacterial pneumonia or heart failure, the researchers reported. The breath samples from people with Covid-19 had higher levels of aldehydes, compounds produced when cells or tissues are damaged by inflammation, and ketones, which fits with research suggesting that the virus may damage the pancreas and cause ketosis.The Covid patients also had lower levels of methanol, which could be a sign that the virus had inflamed the gastrointestinal system or killed the methanol-producing bacteria that live there. Those breath changes combined give us a Covid-19 signal, said Dr. Thomas, a co-author of the study.Waiting to exhaleSeveral other studies have also detected unique chemical patterns in the breath of patients with Covid-19, and some devices claim impressive results. In one study of the SpiroNose, which included 4,510 participants, a team of Dutch researchers reported that the device correctly identified at least 98 percent of people who were infected with the virus, even in a group of asymptomatic participants. (The study, which included researchers from Breathomix, has not yet been peer-reviewed.)But the SpiroNose had a relatively high rate of false positives, the study found. Because of this problem, the device does not provide consumers with a definitive diagnosis; the results either come back negative or inconclusive, in which case a standard P.C.R. test is administered.Dozens of testing sites in the Netherlands are now using the machine, Ms. de Vries said, but there have been some hiccups. In May, Science reported that Amsterdams public health authorities suspended use of the SpiroNose after 25 false negatives. Officials later determined that user error was largely responsible, and SpiroNose screening has resumed, Ms. de Vries said.Other groups are working on their own breathalyzers. Researchers at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, who have identified a breathprint of Covid in children, are now trying to identify breath markers of a rare but dangerous complication of the disease, known as multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).The clinicians on the front line, theyre really struggling with which children we need to worry most about, said Dr. Audrey Odom John, an infectious disease specialist at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, who is leading the research.In addition to studying the V.O.C.s emitted by Covid patients, Dr. Davis and her colleagues are analyzing what is known as exhaled breath condensate, a concentrated solution of the tiny droplets of fluid, or aerosols, that are present in breath. These aerosols contain all sorts of complex biological molecules, including proteins, peptides, antibodies and inflammatory markers.They hope to find biomarkers to help doctors predict which Covid-19 patients are most likely to become severely ill. I think that that will be a part of a clinical arsenal, where clinicians cannot only do rapid diagnostics, but then they could try to understand whats the trajectory for that particular patient, she said.Other teams are working to create breath tests that look for the virus itself. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, for instance, are developing a biosensor that is coated in tiny antibody fragments, or nanobodies, that bind to SARS-CoV-2. If someone is exhaling viral particles, they should attach to the nanobodies, activating the sensor.Passing the smell testImageCredit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesInterest in the technology is fierce. Perena Gouma, a materials scientist at Ohio State who has applied for F.D.A. authorization for her Covid-19 breathalyzer, said she has already heard from colleges, theaters, sports leagues, travel authorities and others who want to get their hands on the device.I dont think that there has been anyone who has been affected by this pandemic that hasnt been excited about the prospect of having a breath test, she said.But the approach still needs to be validated in larger studies, and basic scientific questions remain unanswered.If we take a blood test for example, its well established that there is a normal range for, lets say, hemoglobin levels or white blood cell count, said Oliver Gould, an analytical chemist at the University of the West of England. So of course, then its very easy to see when something is abnormal. Those reference ranges dont yet exist for breath, he noted.Researchers said that they do not expect breath-based tests to completely replace other diagnostic tests. Do I think that a breathalyzer is going to be used in your pediatricians office? Probably not, said Dr. John. Where I really see breath testing being useful is where you need to screen a whole bunch of people quickly. Could you screen every child in a school on a Monday? Could you do it before people enter a mall or a bounce house?And once the technology has been developed and validated, it could theoretically be used to screen for a wide variety of different diseases. The thing about a breath test is, if you have the technology in place, you can learn the signal for a new disease very fast, Dr. Thomas said.So the research being done now could pay long-term dividends.Were developing the tools necessary to hopefully help us in the fight for the next disease, said Edward DeMauro, an engineer at Rutgers University who is working on a Covid breathalyzer. There is a very big value in, even if the pandemics over, not sitting back. Thats not the time to catch our breath.

Health

Mark Salling No Suicide Note ... Body Discovered by Dumb Luck 1/30/2018 Mark Salling did not leave a suicide note and cops have already combed his home, his car and the area where he hanged himself and nothing has turned up ... law enforcement sources tell TMZ. The question we've been asking for hours ... how did police find Salling's body in a remote area by a riverbed? We thought cops may have tracked the body through his cellphone or GPS on his car, but that wasn't the case. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... LAPD officers were in the area on an unrelated matter when they spotted Salling's car. As we first reported, a missing persons report had already been filed, so cops ran the plates, determined it was Salling's car, searched the area and found the body hanging from a tree. TMZ broke the story, Salling committed suicide by hanging ... he had been suicidal for months awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to child porn offenses.

Entertainment

Africa|Cameroon Students Have Been Released, Officials Sayhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/world/africa/cameroon-kidnapped-students-released.htmlCredit...Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesNov. 7, 2018DAKAR, Senegal Dozens of students kidnapped from a boarding school in a restive region of Cameroon were freed late Tuesday after being held hostage for about two days, according to local and military officials.The circumstances of the mass kidnapping were mired in confusion, but more than 70 teenage students were dropped off at the campus of their Presbyterian Secondary School by masked men around 11 p.m., said Samuel Fonki, a pastor in Bamenda who works with the school.He added that no ransom had been paid for the release of the children, who were taken sometime Sunday or Monday from their campus in Nkwen, a small village outside Bamenda, where separatists are waging a violent battle for independence from Cameroon.Mr. Fonki said the students all appeared healthy and were immediately taken to security forces for questioning. He said a teacher and a principal were still being held captive, but military officials indicated that all hostages were freed. It remains unclear who abducted the hostages, but the military said they had been abandoned by their captors after the area was sealed off by soldiers.The area where the kidnappings occurred is one of two English-speaking regions in the country where various factions of separatists want to form their own nation, Ambazonia. The decades-long quest for secession turned violent about a year ago, after government soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters.Separatists say they are fighting to overturn years of poor representation in the government, which is centered in the French-speaking capital. The dual official languages are a remnant of a complicated colonial past in which both France and Britain imposed their own cultures on the regions.President Paul Biya has been in power for 36 years, centralizing authority with loyalists in the capital, and he was sworn in for his seventh term in power on Tuesday.The militarys response to the separatists, a largely ragtag group of local fighters who use homemade guns and take orders from leaders living abroad, has been heavily criticized by human rights advocates.Soldiers have burned dozens of villages to the ground, and scores of innocent civilians have been caught in the violence. More than 400 people have been killed and tens of thousands of people have fled to neighboring Nigeria or into the forest.Even as news of the student kidnappings spread, it was unclear exactly how many students had been taken or who had abducted them. Parents complained that they were not certain if their children had been taken hostage because no official list of names was published, according to news reports.Separatists accused the government of orchestrating the kidnapping in an effort to turn people against them, a charge that government officials denied. At least one major faction of separatists condemned the kidnappings.Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group operating hundreds of miles to the north in border areas with Nigeria, has used mass kidnappings of students as a tactic to terrorize the population, but it is not suspected of being behind the Presbyterian school kidnappings in Cameroon.But kidnappings of local officials and regular citizens have occurred in recent months in the English-speaking regions conflict, with officials blaming separatists who target people not adhering to their declared boycotts of schools and shops. Separatists hoped those so-called ghost towns would put pressure on the government by curtailing economic activity in the area.The conflict has been particularly hard on students, many of whom have been kept out of school for two years because of the violence. Recently, several schools in the area had opened even as separatists issued more threats against them. The Presbyterian school was among those that had reopened.

World

Credit...Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesMarch 22, 2016The nations of the world agreed years ago to try to limit global warming to a level they hoped would prove somewhat tolerable. But leading climate scientists warned on Tuesday that permitting a warming of that magnitude would actually be quite dangerous.The likely consequences would include killer storms stronger than any in modern times, the disintegration of large parts of the polar ice sheets and a rise of the sea sufficient to begin drowning the worlds coastal cities before the end of this century, the scientists declared.Were in danger of handing young people a situation thats out of their control, said James E. Hansen, the retired NASA climate scientist who led the new research. The findings were released Tuesday morning by a European science journal, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.A draft version of the paper was released last year, and it provoked a roiling debate among climate scientists. The main conclusions have not changed, and that debate seems likely to be replayed in the coming weeks.The basic claim of the paper is that by burning fossil fuels at a prodigious pace and pouring heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, humanity is about to provoke an abrupt climate shift. Specifically, the authors believe that fresh water pouring into the oceans from melting land ice will set off a feedback loop that will cause parts of the great ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to disintegrate rapidly.That claim has intrigued some experts who say the paper may help explain puzzling episodes in Earths past when geological evidence suggests the climate underwent drastic shifts. Yet many other scientists are unconvinced by some of the specific assertions the authors are making.Some of the claims in this paper are indeed extraordinary, said Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. They conflict with the mainstream understanding of climate change to the point where the standard of proof is quite high.Despite any reservations they might have about the new paper, virtually all climate scientists agree with Dr. Hansens group that society is not moving fast enough to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, posing grave risks. An agreement reached late last year in Paris seeks to cut emissions, but it is not remotely ambitious enough to limit global warming to the degree Dr. Hansen regards as necessary.Among Dr. Hansens colleagues, some of the discomfiture about the new paper stems from his dual roles as a publishing climate scientist and, in recent years, as a political activist. He has been arrested at rallies, and he has joined with a group of young people who sued the federal government over what they said was its failure to limit global warming.Dr. Hansen argues that society is in such grave peril that he feels morally compelled to go beyond the normal role played by a scientist and to sound a clear warning. That stance has made him a hero to college students fighting climate change, but some fellow scientists fear he has opened himself to the charge that he is skewing his scientific research for political purposes.In 2009, nations agreed to try to limit the planetary warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level. The Earth has already warmed by about half that amount. The climate appears to be destabilizing, virtually all land ice on the planet has started to melt, and the oceans are rising at an accelerating pace.The paper, written by Dr. Hansen and 18 other authors, dwells on the last time Earth warmed naturally, about 120,000 years ago, when the temperature reached a level estimated to have been only slightly higher than today. Large chunksof the polar ice disintegrated then, and scientists have established that the sea level rose 20 to 30 feet. Climate scientists agree that humanity is about to cause an equal or greater rise in sea level, but they have tended to assume that such a large increase would take centuries, at least. The new paper argues that it could happen far more rapidly, with the worst case being several feet of sea-level rise over the next 50 years, followed by increases so precipitous that they would force humanity to beat a hasty retreat from the coasts.That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the worlds large cities and all their history, Dr. Hansen said in a video statement that accompanied the new paper.The paper identifies a specific mechanism that the scientists say they believe could help cause such an abrupt climate shift.Their idea is that the initial melting of the great ice sheets will put a cap of relatively fresh water on the ocean surfaces near Antarctica and Greenland. That, they think, will slow or even shut down the system of ocean currents that redistributes heat around the planet and allows some of it to escape into space. Warmth will then accumulate in the deeper parts of the ocean, the scientists think, speeding the melting of parts of the ice sheets that sit below sea level.In addition, a wider temperature difference between the tropics and the poles will encourage powerful storms, the researchers contend. The paper cites evidence, much of it contested, that immense storms happened during the warm period 120,000 years ago. For instance, the paper says such storms might have thrown giant boulders onto coastal ridges in the Bahamas, though other experts think a tsunami might have been responsible.The idea of a shutdown in the ocean circulation because of global warming was considered more than a decade ago, and while scientists concluded that a weakening of the currents was possible, they said a complete shutdown was unlikely to happen in this century. That did not stop a distorted version of the idea from becoming the premise of the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, released in 2004.The new paper may reopen that debate, requiring scientists to re-examine the idea with the more sophisticated computer models of the climate that are available today. It could take several years for the experts to come to a consensus, though.Dr. Hansen spent decades heading NASAs climate research unit in Manhattan, before retiring in 2013. He now heads a center created for him at Columbia University.He gained fame in 1988 when he warned Congress that global warming had already begun. He was ahead of the scientific consensus at the time, but it became clear in retrospect that Earth had been in the midst of a period of rapid global warming at the time he testified.Even scientists wary of the specific claims in the new paper point to Dr. Hansens history to argue that his ideas need to be taken seriously. I think we ignore James Hansen at our peril, Dr. Mann said.

science

DealBook|Avon Opts for New Playbook in Fight With Activist Investorhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/business/dealbook/avon-opts-for-new-playbook-in-fight-with-activist-investor.htmlBreakingviewsDec. 4, 2015Avons fading beauty is in the eyes of two different financial beholders.The struggling makeup company has come under fire from an aggressive investor and may call on a buyout shop for help. The growing role of private equity firms as white knights against activist investors suggests that target companies are not the only ones with troubles.It has been a swift decline for Avon Products, the 130-year-old American symbol of door-to-door perfume sales. After snubbing an $11 billion bid from rival Coty some three years ago, the companys sales and shares have tumbled, leaving it worth just $1.8 billion now. A hedge fund, Barington Capital, sees value in Avon, but only with a new board and management willing to slash costs and reinvest in its global brand.The current boss, Sheri McCoy, has other ideas. Avon is in talks to sell its North American business to Cerberus Capital Management, which would simultaneously make a minority investment in the public companys capital. Thats an increasingly popular playbook for companies under siege.In August, the walkie-talkie maker Motorola Solutions, in which Jeffrey W. Ubbens ValueAct Capital is both an investor and director, turned to the private equity firm Silver Lake for assistance. Silver Lake invested $1 billion in the form of convertible bonds that pay 2 percent, which helped Motorola buy back its stock. Silver Lake also put two managing partners on Motorolas board.NCR pulled the same trick a couple of months later. A failed sale process led to the Blackstone Group pumping $820 million into NCR using a preferred security that carries a 5.5 percent dividend, payable in kind for the first four years. The deal, which also partly paid for a share repurchase, led to the resignation of one activist, Richard McGuires Marcato Capital Management, from NCRs board and raised concerns from another of its investors, Peter Schoenfeld.These private investments in public equities, so-called PIPEs, may come with some attractive terms, but they undermine a primary objective of the buyout business model. Taking control and restructuring companies away from the uncomfortable glare of public markets has been a winning strategy. With so much dry powder stockpiled, however, private equity firms are getting more creative. The danger is that too much of this lipstick gets applied to a variety of pigs.

Business

Global SoccerFeb. 9, 2014LONDON Not since 1990 has Liverpools stadium been known as Fortress Anfield. The stadium has barely changed since then, and the 44,000 fans who feed off hope are still there every match day. But now, with a side too young to have witnessed the days and nights when Liverpool regularly stormed European soccer, there is reason to believe that the good times can come again. On Saturday, Liverpool knocked Arsenal off the top of the Premier League.It was a sacking rather than a mere victory. The Liverpool coach, Brendan Rodgers, had asked his side for intensity, great vigor and relentless attacking and not to let Arsenal settle into its own serene passing rhythm.The start was as overwhelming as the rains that keep battering England. Four times within the first 20 minutes, Liverpool had penetrated Arsenals defenses, and the eventual 5-1 final score was almost a reprieve for Arsenals overwhelmed defense.The key was youth and exuberance, aided and abetted by some woefully slow, surprisingly negligent Arsenal defending. The first two goals, following a free kick and a corner kick, were both scored by Martin Skrtel, the big, powerful Slovak who is built for defending. The next two, still within the opening 20 minutes, were finished off by fleet-footed English players, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge. And shortly after halftime, young Sterling outran the Arsenal central defense yet again to make it five goals.Arsenal was simply blown away. The attacks abated before the storm did, but that was more because Liverpool seemed satisfied with its own supremacy. Many on this Liverpool team along with many of the supporters in the stadium were not even born the last time the red tide was in such flow. Sterling is just 19, and Liverpools last English championship was in 1990.Philippe Coutinho, the architect of so many of Liverpools moves, is a 21-year-old from Rio de Janeiro whose slight built is outweighed by his sleight-of-foot passes.Yet, even in the English game, which is still more physical than most around the world, this young Brazilian stands out. He is barely 5-foot-7, but what does physical stature matter when the brain, the eye and the feet can turn midfield into a goal-scoring opportunity at a single stroke? Coutinhos pass for the Sturridge goal was struck no, caressed from the halfway line. It divided Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny, the big German and the swift Frenchman who have been quite effective this season in Arsenals defense.And Sturridge, a Chelsea reject, was so fleet of foot, and so sure of his finish with the left foot, that the Arsenal keeper Wojciech Szczesny might as well have stayed in London and not made the journey north for this encounter.Poor Szczesny. He is having his best season, and he pulled off a magnificent two-handed save to prevent a cunning free kick by Luis Surez from entering the top corner of his net. However, before Christmas, Arsenal conceded six goals in a loss to Manchester City, just down the road from Liverpool, and now it was giving up five.The consolation of a penalty goal for Arsenals Mikel Arteta came too late, and it was far too little to paper over the cracks for Arsenals nondefense.Congratulations to Liverpool, the Arsenal manager Arsne Wenger said in his televised postgame press conference. They played very well, but the performance from us was not acceptable.It raises some questions. We were caught many times, and we were a bit nave defensively. Every acceleration from Liverpool seemed deadly for us. We have to make sure it doesnt happen again. Indeed they must, because next Sunday the teams meet again in the fifth round of the F.A. Cup, at Arsenals Emirates Stadium.This is how February has become for the Gunners of North London. They have to work out how to counter Liverpools quicksilver counterattacks within a week, but before that Arsenal meets Manchester United in a league match on Wednesday. And a week after that, Arsenal hosts Bayern Munich, the European champion, in the Champions League.The defensive instability could not have come at a worse time, and Arsenals own stylish attacking game has been disrupted by injuries to Aaron Ramsey and Theo Walcott, and to a loss of form, an apparent tiring both mentally and physically, by Mesut Ozil.Ozils physical stamina was often questioned by Coach Jos Mourinho, who substituted the playmaker before most games ended last season when both were employed by Real Madrid. Both have moved on to England, Ozil to a faster and physically more demanding league, and Mourinho back to Chelsea. And it is Chelsea, despite Mourinhos insistence that it cannot win the Premier League this season, that is now in the top spot.After mastering Manchester City last Monday, Chelsea devoured Newcastle United 3-0 in London on Saturday. Eden Hazard, the Belgian who can do no wrong on a soccer field at the moment, scored all three and took home the match ball.Swift, superbly balanced, and single-minded, Hazard is one of the Belgians tipped by many to excel at the World Cup in Brazil.Right now, the tournament seems a world away. Hazard, just 23, is Chelseas star by a distance. He revives memories of the way that the Dutch winger, Arjen Robben, danced his way to match-defining performances during Mourinhos first spell in charge of Chelsea.Maybe Robben had more tricks. But when Hazard cuts in from his wing, his finish comes with such calm deadliness. The Belgian is, in short, everything that Mourinho wants a game winner who buys in to his work ethic.

Sports

Thunder 120, Nets 95Credit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesJan. 31, 2014Seconds before the opening tip on Friday night at Barclays Center, Kevin Durant skipped alone across the baseline his eyes partly closed, his head tilted backward and let out a prolonged scream. It was an aggressive posture that did not bode well for the Nets.Over the last few weeks, Durant has existed on his own elevated plane, making baskets like a man possessed. He came to Brooklyn on a torrid run, having scored 30 points or more in each of his previous 12 games, and as the Oklahoma City Thunder steamrollered the Nets before a capacity crowd, the only tension inside the arena centered on whether he would extend that streak.Durant did not, watching the entire fourth quarter from the bench as the Thunder cruised to a 120-95 win. But Durant could probably do without the individual accolades, anyway. He stressed during his recent scoring outburst that his sole aim on the court had been to serve his team. The Thunders 10-game winning streak, then, is most likely a stronger reflection of his brilliant play.Man, Im glad thats over with, said Durant, who finished with 26 points, 7 assists and 3 rebounds. He added, I hate taking the credit when our whole team is going out there and playing well.Durant mentioned the passes of Reggie Jackson, the screens set by Kendrick Perkins and the shooting of Serge Ibaka, who went 12 for 12 from the field to contribute 25 points. Durant said he liked staying under the radar, which sounded somewhat ridiculous given his transcendent play. What hes doing right now, its crazy, the Nets Deron Williams said. At the end of the year, its going to be hard to argue that hes not the M.V.P. of the league, with what hes doing right now.The Nets had been bracing for Durant all week. They knew what he had been up to. Durants 12-game streak of 30 or more points he averaged 38 a game during the run was the leagues longest since Tracy McGradys 14-game run in 2003. Durant has put the Thunder on his back, particularly since December, when Russell Westbrook had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.Ive been around him for seven years, and its not important to him, Thunder Coach Scott Brooks said, referring to the end of Durants streak. I guess you can say that in the last 12 or 13 games, Im the only one who can stop him from scoring 30.Durant went 10 for 12 from the field and got off to a hot start. He scored the games first points, shimmying up to the 3-point line, sizing up Shaun Livingston the unlucky player assigned to guard him and popping up for a deep jump shot. Durants next time down the court, he established a position 17 feet from the hoop and sank another jumper with Livingston all but smothering him.Durant can make shots with two people on him, Nets Coach Jason Kidd said.Livingston was active on offense, too, and he led the Nets with 16 points. With just under five minutes left in the first quarter, Livingston stripped Durant of the ball at midcourt, galloped down the floor and finished with a two-handed dunk, cutting the Thunders lead to 17-16.It was a fine play. It was also the point at which the game ceased to be competitive.The Thunder ended the first quarter on a 13-0 run. Their 14-point lead to start the second quarter grew a bit, to 17, while Durant spent an early chunk of the period on the bench. At halftime, the Nets were trailing, 63-35. Durant was wearing two shirts over his uniform as the game trickled to an end.The game was the Nets first since Monday, when their five-game winning streak was broken by Toronto, and they looked disjointed and languorous on Friday. The most glaring statistic after the game was the Nets 17 rebounds, a record low for an N.B.A. team.Well, they shot almost 70 percent, Kidd said of the Thunder, who finished at 63.6 percent from the field, so they didnt have too many misses.REBOUNDSAndrei Kirilenko, who sat out two practices during the week with a sore right calf, was not available to play Friday night. ... Andray Blatche left the game during the third quarter with a bruised left hip and did not return. ... Marquis Teague, acquired from the Chicago Bulls on Jan. 21, played his first minutes for the Nets during the fourth quarter.

Sports

Credit...The New York TimesOutrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcocks online reputation. When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.Guy Babcock discovered the power of a lone person to destroy countless reputations.Credit...The New York TimesPublished Jan. 30, 2021Updated Feb. 2, 2021Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.Guy Babcock vividly remembers the chilly Saturday evening when he discovered the stain on his family. It was September 2018. He, his wife and their young son had just returned to their home in Beckley, an English village outside of Oxford. Mr. Babcock still had his coat on when he got a frantic call from his father.I dont want to upset you, but there is some bad stuff on the internet, Mr. Babcock recalled his father saying. Someone, somewhere, had written terrible things online about Guy Babcock and his brother, and members of their 86-year-old fathers social club had alerted him.Mr. Babcock, a software engineer, got off the phone and Googled himself. The results were full of posts on strange sites accusing him of being a thief, a fraudster and a pedophile. The posts listed Mr. Babcocks contact details and employer.The images were the worst: photos taken from his LinkedIn and Facebook pages that had pedophile written across them in red type. Someone had posted the doctored images on Pinterest, and Googles algorithms apparently liked things from Pinterest, and so the pictures were positioned at the very top of the Google results for Guy Babcock.Mr. Babcock, 59, was not a thief, a fraudster or a pedophile. I remember being in complete shock, he said. Why would someone do this? Who could it possibly be? Who would be so angry?Then he Googled his brothers name. The results were just as bad.He tried his wife.His sister.His brother-in-law.His teenage nephew.His cousin.His aunt.They had all been hit. The men were branded as child molesters and pedophiles, the women as thieves and scammers. Only his 8-year-old son had been spared.Guy Babcock was about to discover the power of a lone person to destroy countless reputations, aided by platforms like Google that rarely intervene. He was shocked when he discovered the identity of the assailant, the number of other victims and the duration of the digital violence.Uncensored VengeancePublic smears have been around for centuries. But they are far more effective in the internet age, gliding across platforms that are loath to crack down, said Peter W. Singer, co-author of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media.The solution, he said, was to identify super-spreaders of slander, the people and the websites that wage the most vicious false attacks.The way to make the internet a less toxic place is setting limits on super-spreaders or even knocking them offline, Mr. Singer said. Instead of policing everyone, we should police those who affect the most people.The Babcock family had been targeted by a super-spreader, dragged into an internet cesspool where peoples reputations are held for ransom.Mr. Babcock was sure there was a way to have lies about him wiped from the internet. Many of the slanderous posts appeared on a website called Ripoff Report, which describes itself as a forum for exposing complaints, reviews, scams, lawsuits, frauds. (Its tagline: consumers educating consumers.)He started clicking around and eventually found a part of the site where Ripoff Report offered arbitration services, which cost up to $2,000, to get rid of substantially false information. That sounded like extortion; Mr. Babcock wasnt about to pay to have lies removed.Ripoff Report is one of hundreds of complaint sites others include Shes a Homewrecker, Cheaterbot and Deadbeats Exposed that let people anonymously expose an unreliable handyman, a cheating ex, a sexual predator.But there is no fact-checking. The sites often charge money to take down posts, even defamatory ones. And there is limited accountability. Ripoff Report, like the others, notes on its site that, thanks to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, it isnt responsible for what its users post.If someone posts false information about you on the Ripoff Report, the CDA prohibits you from holding us liable for the statements which others have written. You can always sue the author if you want, but you cant sue Ripoff Report just because we provide a forum for speech.With that impunity, Ripoff Report and its ilk are willing to host pure, uncensored vengeance.A Familiar PortraitGoogle results are often the first impression a person makes. They help people decide whom to date, to hire, to rent a home to. Mr. Babcock worried that his familys terrible Google search profiles could have serious repercussions, particularly for his 19-year-old nephew and his 27-year-old cousin, both just starting out in life.Two weeks after Mr. Babcock discovered the pedophile posts, a friend called: Hed heard about the accusations from another village resident. Someone had spotted them while Googling an ice-cream parlor the Babcock family owned. Mr. Babcock soon installed a home security system; hed read about vigilantes going after accused child molesters.He and members of his extended family reported the online harassment to police in England and Canada, where most of them lived. Only the British authorities appeared to take the report seriously; a 1988 law prohibits communications that intentionally cause distress. An officer with the local Thames Valley police told Mr. Babcock to gather the evidence, so he and his brother-in-law, Luc Groleau, who lives outside of Montreal, started cataloging the posts in a Google document. It grew to more than 100 pages.In October 2018, while scrolling through items deep in his Google results, Mr. Babcock came across a blog where a commenter falsely called him a former janitor who was masquerading as an IT consultant. It was similar to attacks elsewhere, but this one had an author photo attached: a woman with long, reddish hair, wearing a black blazer and chunky earrings.ImageCredit...The New York TimesMr. Babcock stared at the photo in shock. He hadnt seen it in decades, but he recognized it instantly. The womans name was Nadire Atas; this was her official work portrait from 1990, when she worked in a Re/Max real estate office the Babcock family owned outside Toronto. She had initially been a star employee, but her performance deteriorated, and in 1993 Mr. Babcocks father had fired her. Afterward, she had threatened his father, according to an affidavit filed in a Canadian court.Mr. Babcock felt lightheaded. A memory came back to him: When his mother died in 1999, the family had received vulgar, anonymous letters celebrating her death. A neighbor received a typed letter stating that Mr. Babcocks father has been seen roaming the neighbourhood late at night and masturbating behind the bushes. The Babcocks had suspected Ms. Atas, who was the only person who had ever threatened them. (Ms. Atas denied making threats or writing the letters.)Decades later, it appeared that she was still harboring her grudge and had updated her methods for the digital age.A Trail of CluesImageCredit...The New York TimesMr. Babcock searched Ms. Atass name online and found a blog written by a Canadian lawyer, Christina Wallis. It was the first in a trail of clues that would eventually reveal the breadth of Ms. Atass online campaign.A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes, wrote Ms. Wallis, borrowing a quote often attributed to Mark Twain. She described how Ms. Atas had waged an online campaign against her, her colleagues and her family, including branding them pedophiles.Mr. Babcock got goose bumps.His brother-in-law, Mr. Groleau, contacted Ms. Wallis. She had represented a bank that foreclosed on two properties Ms. Atas owned in the early 2000s. Dozens of people had come under online attack: employees of the bank, lawyers who represented the bank, lawyers who represented those lawyers, relatives of those people and on and on. The attacks seemed engineered to perform well in search engines, and they included the victims names, addresses, contact information and employers. (Ms. Atas denies being the author of many of these posts.)For years, Ms. Wallis and her colleagues had been pursuing lawsuits and contacting the sites and technology platforms that hosted the material. Nothing had worked. The smears remained public, and the consequences became real.A relative of one lawyer said she spent months applying for jobs in 2019 without getting any offers. The woman, who asked not to be named because she feared Ms. Atas, said her bills piled up. She worried she might lose her home.Then she decided to apply for jobs using her maiden name, under which she hadnt been attacked. She quickly lined up three interviews and two offers.These situations where one angry person targets a large group of perceived enemies are not uncommon. Maanit Zemel, a lawyer who specializes in online defamation, represents a group of 53 people who have filed a lawsuit saying they were attacked online by Tanvir Farid after he failed to get jobs at their companies. (Mr. Farids lawyer declined to comment.)For victims, these sorts of attacks can literally end their life and their career and everything, Ms. Zemel said.The victims in the Atas case live in Canada, Britain and the United States. In June 2020, Matthew Hefler, 32, the brother-in-law of a colleague of Ms. Wallis, became one of the latest targets. Mr. Hefler, who lives in Nova Scotia, is a historian who recently completed his Ph.D. in war studies. He is trying to find a teaching job. But anyone who searches for him online will encounter posts and images tarring him as a pedophile and pervert freak.Until recently, Mr. Hefler had never heard of Ms. Atas. He had no clue why she was attacking him. You discover that someone youve never met, across the country, is running a one-man troll farm against you, Mr. Hefler said. Its a nightmare scenario.The GunshotImageCredit...The New York TimesIn October 2018, Mr. Babcock and his family sued Ms. Atas for defamation in a Toronto court, detailing hundreds of posts falsely accusing them of pedophilia and other lurid acts.Ms. Atas claims that she didnt write those posts and that her enemies fabricated the case against her. But the evidence suggests otherwise. For example, most of the attacks were posted anonymously, but like Mr. Babcock, I discovered a paedophile accusation against him on an old WordPress blog where she was listed as the author. When I asked her about it, Ms. Atas denied writing it. A few days later, the years-old comment had been deleted.During multiple interviews in recent months, Ms. Atas refused to divulge much about herself. She told me she was worried about the impact of a New York Times article. Anyone who Googles my name, this will come up, and I dont want this to come up, she said.But a portrait emerges from legal filings and evidence submitted in court cases, newspaper articles and people who have known her over the years.Ms. Atas, 60, grew up near Toronto. By the 90s, she had become a successful real estate agent. A colleague in the Babcocks Re/Max office described her as a producer who thrived in what was then a male-dominated field.In 1991, she had done well enough that she was able to buy a duplex. She later bought a building in Toronto, with four apartments that she rented out.But her life was beginning to fall apart. In October 1992, her brother, then 23, called the police saying that their mother was involved in a devil-worshipping cult, according to an article in a local newspaper, The Spectator. Days later, Ms. Atass brother shot his mother in the hand. (A judge ruled that Ms. Atass brother was not guilty by reason of insanity, The Spectator reported. I couldnt reach him for comment.)Obviously, it would take a toll on anyone, Ms. Atas told me.A few months after the shooting, the Babcocks fired Ms. Atas. She told me she chose to leave on her own.A Waterfall of MaggotsMs. Atas vanished from the public record for the next nine years. But around 2001, according to Ontario court filings, she was arrested and charged with assault and resisting arrest. The charges were ultimately withdrawn, but a peace bond, Canadas equivalent of a restraining order, was issued against her.Ms. Atas moved into one of the apartments in her Toronto building, which was the subject of complaints from tenants. One, who moved in during 2008, found their new apartment filthy. When they opened the refrigerator, the tenant said in an interview, a waterfall of maggots poured out.Ms. Atas made the buildings residents feel unsafe. She has harassed us repeatedly, forcing us to finally call the police on her, according to an email from a tenant that was filed in court. Ms. Atas was charged with assaulting another tenant. She said in a court filing that at the time she was suffering from severe mental illness that manifested itself in erratic behaviour that resulted in criminal charges. The charges were ultimately dropped.Ms. Atas stopped making mortgage payments on the building. In March 2008, her lender, Peoples Trust, represented by Ms. Wallis, began proceedings to repossess the property. She was evicted the next year.Ms. Atas allegedly resorted to revenge. In 2009, Matt Cameron, a junior lawyer working with Ms. Wallis on the Atas case, started getting calls and emails at the office from men interested in meeting for sex. Someone impersonating him had responded by email to raunchy Craigslist ads and given his contact information. (Metadata from those emails, filed in court, pointed to Ms. Atass involvement.)A relative of Ms. Atas told me that family members had repeatedly tried and failed to get her help for mental health problems. I have periodically suffered from depression, Ms. Atas wrote to me in an email. I have had treatment. I am healthy and fine.I described Ms. Atas to Todd Essig, a psychologist who writes about technology and mental health. He said someone like Ms. Atas could be forced into mental health treatment if she posed a physical danger. But when someone is a threat to themselves or others online, theres no way for the mental health system to legally intervene, he said.I also see her as a victim here, Dr. Essig added. Tech companies have given her the power to do something that has really taken apart her life.Im FranticMany lawsuits sprang from the wreckage of Ms. Atass homeownership. This is the only part of her life that she wanted to talk about with me: her legal cases, which are numerous. She sued the lawyers who opposed her, and she sued those who represented her, and she sued those who represented those lawyers.And then, around 2015, she came across a new weapon. She started attacking her perceived enemies online on the Ripoff Report and elsewhere. She called Ms. Wallis and her colleagues incompetent, fraudsters and jackasses. (Ms. Atas acknowledged she was behind these posts.) Someone created multiple WordPress blogs to attack the lawyers.Ms. Wallis had no doubt it was Ms. Atas. She blames me clearly that I have cost her her livelihood and that I made everything in her life go wrong, Ms. Wallis said. I would like her to be banned from the internet for life. She doesnt know how to use the internet without abusing everyone.Ms. Wallis, other lawyers and Peoples Trust employees filed a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Atas in 2016. The judge told Ms. Atas to stop posting about the lawyers. So she began writing about their family members. That was also when the attacks on the Babcocks began.ImageCredit...The New York TimesGary M. Caplan is the lawyer for Ms. Wallis, Mr. Babcock and 43 others who have sued Ms. Atas for defamation. One of those plaintiffs is Mr. Caplans brother, who came under attack after Mr. Caplan got involved in the case. There are another 100 or so people who have been targeted but arent plaintiffs. Over the last two years, there have been more than 12,000 defamatory posts, according to software that Mr. Babcocks brother-in-law created to track new posts.Many of the victims have tried to get tech companies to remove the abusive posts. Mr. Caplan said they have run headlong into American laws that protect American websites.There is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It says that publishing platforms arent liable for what their users publish, even if they moderate some content. (Section 230 has become a touchstone in politicians fight against Big Tech. Conservatives argue it enables companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor them. Liberals argue it allows the companies to host harmful content with impunity.) And under U.S. law, a foreign court generally cant force an American website to remove content.The only site the victims had success with was Ripoff Report. It took a year of emails from their lawyer, but in December 2016, the site took down 14 posts.Ripoff Report believes in the First Amendment but is also cognizant of the fact that people can, and do, abuse online platforms, including ours, said Anette Beebe, Ripoff Reports general counsel. As resources allow, we certainly do try to address it if/when it comes to our attention.The next month, Ms. Atas began calling Ed Magedson, Ripoff Reports founder, who routinely records his calls.Im frantic right now. I had posted reports, Ms. Atas said in the first call. I just discovered that your company has removed some of the postings. Ripoff Report provided the victims lawyers with the recordings proof that she was behind the abuse.Aside from Ripoff Report, there were thousands of posts on more than 100 other complaint sites. Most of those sites dont reveal who runs them and dont respond to emails. Those posts remain online.Trailing Ms. AtasIn Toronto, the court battle in the defamation cases continued. In 2017, Judge David Corbett deemed Ms. Atas a vexatious litigant who was ungovernable and bent on a campaign of abuse and harassment, citing her digital assaults on lawyers. That meant Ms. Atas could no longer file lawsuits without the courts permission. At that point, her victims said, the attacks began increasing.The next year, Mr. Caplan hired a private investigator to trail Ms. Atas, because she refused to say where she lived or how she accessed the internet. Mr. Caplan wanted that information in order to obtain evidence for his lawsuit.One evening in June 2018, the investigator followed Ms. Atas as she left court, got on a subway and then boarded a bus.At 7:30 p.m., Ms. Atas entered a public library at the University of Toronto. She spent the next few hours at a computer, according to the investigators written report and photos that he took surreptitiously. Then she rode a bus to a homeless shelter. (Ms. Atas denied that she stayed in the shelter.)ImageCredit...The New York TimesIn response to subpoenas, Pinterest, Facebook and WordPress, the blogging site, had provided Mr. Caplan with metadata about the abusive posts. Some had originated from computers at the University of Toronto. Suddenly, that made sense.Early last year, Judge Corbett found Ms. Atas in contempt of court because she had written to another judge, violating the restrictions placed on her as a vexatious litigant. She was sentenced to 74 days in prison. While she was locked up, the online attacks slowed to a trickle. (The fact that they didnt cease altogether might have been because some complaint sites take content from one another, a pattern of mimicry that can keep attacks flowing.) When she was released in March, they resumed. Ms. Atas told me it wasnt her.During an interview with Ms. Atas in November, she grew angry that I planned to write this article. A week later, someone started writing posts about me and my husband on Cheaterbot, BadGirlReports and some of the other sites where Mr. Babcock and others had been targeted. The posts claimed that my husband was a drug addict and that I was a plagiarist who slept with my boss in order to get promoted. Ms. Atas said it wasnt her.Within a week, there were more than 100 posts about me.After Ms. Atas talked to my editor, posts appeared about her. Ms. Atas said she hadnt created those, either.In an email, she warned me, Any story in the New York Times will obviously bring out the trolls on the internet and could multiply the internet postings.Unlawful Acts of ReprisalOn Thursday, Judge Corbett issued a ruling in the defamation suits, finding that Ms. Atas was responsible for what he called unlawful acts of reprisal. Ms. Atas, he wrote, is apparently content to revel in ancient grievances, delighting in legal process and unending conflict because of the misery and expense it causes for her opponents. He ordered Ms. Atas to stop.But the judge left it up to the plaintiffs to try to get her slanderous posts taken down, even as he decried the free-for-all nature of online activity. A situation that allows someone like Atas to carry on as she has, effectively unchecked for years, shows a lack of effective regulation that imperils order and the marketplace of ideas, he wrote.For the last decade or so, cases like this have been written off as just what happens in the internet era. If you crossed paths with someone who tried to destroy you online, for whatever reason, you were deemed collateral damage of our modern age. People were told, basically, to shrug it off.Until recently, Google would remove a website from your results only if it could cause financial damage, such as by exposing your Social Security number. Now Google will remove other harmful content, including revenge porn and private medical information. At the end of 2019, it introduced a new category of information it will take out of your results: sites with exploitative removal practices. Google also started down-ranking some of the complaint sites, including Ripoff Report.For someone like me, with lots of pre-existing Google results, posts on sites like BadGirlReports barely show up. But for people with less of an online presence, like Mr. Babcock, the sites still dominate search results.Ms. Atass victims spent years begging Google, Pinterest and WordPress to take down the slanderous posts or at least make them harder to find. The companies rarely did so, until I contacted them to request comment for this article. Pinterest then removed photos linked to Ms. Atas. Automattic, which owns WordPress, deleted her blogs.Yet even that hasnt solved the problem. See for yourself: Do a Google search for Guy Babcock.

Tech

While the apps say they are saving them in the pandemic, many restaurateurs say the opposite.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesPublished June 9, 2020Updated Sept. 10, 2021Before the coronavirus lockdowns, Matt Majesky didnt take much notice of the fees that Grubhub and Uber Eats charged him every time they processed an order for his restaurant, Pierogi Mountain.But once the lockdowns began, the apps became essentially the only source of business for the barroom restaurant he ran with a partner, Charlie Greene, in Columbus, Ohio. That was when the fees to the delivery companies turned into the restaurants single largest cost more than what it paid for food or labor.Pierogi Mountains primary delivery company, Grubhub, took more than 40 percent from the average order, Mr. Majeskys Grubhub statements show. That flipped his restaurant from almost breaking even to plunging deeply into the red. In late April, Pierogi Mountain shut down.You have no choice but to sign up, but there is no negotiating, Mr. Majesky, who has applied for unemployment, said of the delivery apps. It almost turns into a hostage situation.Even as apps like Grubhub, Uber Eats and DoorDash have cast themselves as economic saviors for restaurants in the pandemic, their fees have become an increasing source of difficulty for the establishments. From Chicago, Pittsburgh and Tampa, Fla., to Boise, Albuquerque and Richardson, Texas, restaurant owners have taken to social media to express their unhappiness. Some restaurants have shut down, while others have cut off the apps and are looking for other ways to take orders.Complaints about the fees that the apps charge to both restaurants and consumers are longstanding, but the issue has become heightened as many restaurants have shut down in-room dining. Even as they begin reopening, delivery is likely to remain a bigger part of their business than before the pandemic.Several restaurants have also publicly worried that they will soon have even less power in pushing back against the fees. Thats because Uber has been in talks to acquire Grubhub, potentially creating a delivery app heavyweight.Peter Land, a spokesman for Grubhub, said Mr. Majesky paid higher fees than normal because he had chosen to take part in marketing programs that increased his restaurants visibility.We recognize this is a difficult time for independent restaurants, Mr. Land said. We have redoubled our efforts to support them.Mr. Majesky said that Grubhub had led him to believe the marketing program was one of the things it was paying for to help local restaurants, and that he had not realized he would have to foot the bill. Other restaurants have voiced similar complaints.Mr. Land and Uber declined to comment on their deal talks.ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesRestaurant owners are concerned about more than the apps fees. In 18 interviews with restaurant owners and industry consultants, plus in lawsuits and social media posts, many said the apps also engaged in deceptive practices like setting up websites with inaccurate information for the restaurants, all without asking permission.A Denver restaurant, Freshcraft, sued Grubhub last month, accusing it of creating websites for restaurants without their consent and then labeling them on those sites as closed or not taking online orders when they were open and taking online orders.The fact that they misrepresented my brand in these times, and pushed Grubhub clients toward other restaurants its deplorable, said Erik Riggs, who owns Freshcraft. He is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit.After The New York Times contacted Grubhub about the same issue at restaurants in Pittsburgh and Chicago, it took down the incorrect language. The company declined to comment on the lawsuit or the language on the sites.The gap between the success of the apps and the pain of the restaurants is striking. Spending at restaurants in recent weeks dropped about 35 percent from a year earlier, while revenue for the delivery services rose about 140 percent, according to data from M Science, a firm that analyzes transaction data.At the heart of the issues is some basic math. For the typical restaurant, fixed costs such as labor, food and rent eat up around 90 percent of the money coming in. That leaves little room for the base fees that the large delivery services charge small restaurants, which generally are 20 percent to 30 percent of what customers pay for each order.Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco have recently put into effect legislation or emergency rules to cap the apps fees until the lockdowns are over. But even with the caps, 62 percent of local restaurants in San Francisco said in a survey last month that they were losing money on delivery and takeout.The fees have taken on a particularly bitter taste as delivery apps have begun campaigns proclaiming they will help save local restaurants. One ad proclaimed: Grubhub believes that together, we can help save the restaurants we love.ImageCredit...Calla Kessler/The New York TimesGeorge Constantinou, who owns four restaurants in the New York area and uses DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub, said: Everyone is trying to help us our landlord, New York City, our customers. But these companies who are supposed to be our partners take more money than anyone else and try to get us on every charge they can.He said a Grubhub employee had recently called one of his restaurants, Bogota Latin Bistro, to check an order. When no one answered the phone, Grubhub canceled all 10 outstanding orders, charged Mr. Constantinou for the meals and their associated fees and declined to give the restaurant a refund even though some of the orders were already being delivered, according to records and an email exchange with Grubhub shared by Mr. Constantinou.After being contacted by The Times, Grubhub paid back Mr. Constantinou for the charges from that night and more recent instances when the same thing happened. The company did not have a comment beyond saying it had fixed the issues.One local delivery company in Texas, Favor, eliminated all commissions for independent restaurants at the beginning of the lockdowns. In contrast, the big delivery start-ups have advertised more limited steps they have taken to help smaller restaurants during the crisis.Matt Maloney, Grubhubs chief executive, promised at a news conference in March with the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, to contribute $100 million to reducing fees for local restaurants. But the fees were just deferred for a few months, after which the restaurants will have a few weeks to pay them back.ImageCredit...Calla Kessler/The New York TimesIn early April, Uber Eats cut the fees that restaurants pay if they dont use its drivers. It also set up a program to allow diners to contribute to restaurants. In the programs first two months, it generated an average of $37 for each restaurant, according to Ubers figures. DoorDash, which does most of its delivery business with big restaurant chains, said in April that it would cut its primary fees in half for all independent restaurants until the crisis passed.All the delivery services are now facing anger from smaller restaurants for giving priority in their apps to chain restaurants because of the volume the chains can bring, even though the chains generally pay the apps lower fees, according to restaurant consultants. In the apps, the chains often appear at the top of the list of restaurants in any area unless smaller restaurants pay additional fees to bolster their placement.They take care of their corporate partners first and then use us for advertising to try to create good will, said Scott Weiner, the head of the Fifty/50 Restaurant Group, which owns 20 restaurants in Chicago.Beverly Kim, the chef at the Michelin-starred Parachute in Chicago, signed up to offer delivery through the Caviar app in March after the lockdowns began. Caviar offered her a month of service without taking any commissions.But after a few days, Ms. Kim noticed that Caviar was charging the full fees of about 25 percent of an order. It took her staff days to get a response and eventually a refund from Caviar, she said.More recently, she noticed that on the website the service had created for her restaurant was a prominent orange label that said, Only on Caviar. That was wrong, Ms. Kim said, because she was also taking delivery orders through her own website, with few fees. Caviar, which is owned by DoorDash, took down the sticker after she complained at a Chicago City Council meeting last month.A spokeswoman for Caviar declined to comment.Once Caviar begins charging the full fees, Parachute will lose money on orders taken through the app, Ms. Kim said. She said she had recently told Caviar that she was canceling the service.

Tech

Kodak Black's Lawyer My Client's Arrest was Shady 1/26/2018 Kodak Black's legal eagle is ready to grill 3 officers to get to the bottom of what the rapper claims was a sketchy arrest. Sources tell us Kodak's lawyer, Bradford Cohen, has some tough questions he wants answered ... why was there no body cam footage of last week's arrest for grand theft of firearms, neglect of a child and weed possession? Cohen also wants to know why a gang task force effected the arrest. Cohen filed legal docs setting the gears in motion to take depositions of 3 officers involved in the arrest to determine if it was kosher. As we reported ... officers caught wind of Kodak's alleged illegal activity via an Instagram Live broadcast showing multiple men in a bathroom rolling joints and playing with a gun.

Entertainment

Credit...Kim Raff for The New York TimesHis wife said they were done with campaigns. But after two high-profile losses on the national stage, a Senate bid was too good to pass up, even if it means dealing with Donald Trump.Mitt Romney is running for Senate in Utah, the state his ancestors helped settle.Credit...Kim Raff for The New York TimesJune 10, 2018COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah Mitt Romney never could resist a race.Since dawn, half-marathoners had been whipping through a mountainside fog here, a short drive from the home he keeps, some 2,000 miles from the office he wants.Mr. Romney stood just beyond the finish line, bopping in his jeans-and-flannel finest, smiling back at the runners like a distant relative at a wedding, waiting to be greeted. Well done, well done, congratulations, he said, handing medals to participants who may not have won in the end but plainly tried their hardest.He clapped and shoulder-patted. He whiffed on a high-five. He studied the fingers of a woman unlocking her cellphone to take a picture with him, and guessed at the passcode. Seven-six-four-three-nine-nine! Mr. Romney shouted.He laughed. People seemed confused. The camera clicked. Mitt Romney was back.Six years after a presidential election defeat that loved ones expected to end his political career and nearly a quarter century (and four campaigns) after his wife, Ann, swore she would never abide another run Mr. Romney wants in again.By January, he will almost certainly be a United States senator, representing a state his ancestors helped settle. He will return to the grand political arena where he is happiest, friends say, after years in semi-exile. He will matter.The question is how.Will he be a vocal check on President Trump, a man he once labeled a phony and a fraud? Or a mostly deferential Republican in a capital full of them?So far, his campaign has leaned toward deference, disappointing some admirers (and even more Democrats) who hoped he would re-emerge chiefly as an unswerving Trump critic with gravitas at last banishing the reputation for equivocation that dogged his presidential bids.ImageCredit...Alex Goodlett for The New York TimesIt was only two years ago, as Mr. Trump neared the Republican nomination for president, that Mr. Romney stood behind a lectern some 10 miles north of here and said the kinds of things a politician cannot generally take back:Dishonesty is Donald Trumps hallmark.Hes playing the members of the American public for suckers.Very, very not smart.Mr. Romney said Mr. Trump must be stopped for the good of the party and the nation. He predicted recession and global tumult. He insisted that, as the Republican nominee for president in 2012, he would not have accepted Mr. Trumps endorsement had Mr. Trump behaved then the way he was behaving as a candidate.But about all that.Few would conclude that Mr. Trump has changed much rampaging, tweeting, inventing preferred realities, upending the G-7 economic world order. But for Mr. Romney, the circumstances have.As past Trump antagonists like Senator Ted Cruz and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan Mr. Romneys former running mate, leaving Washington just as Mr. Romney hopes to arrive seem to have concluded for themselves, admission to the head table of Republican politics in 2018 carries a membership fee: making peace with the president, however unpleasant.Mr. Romney, it seems, can live with that.Addressing donors and business leaders at his annual retreat on Thursday in Park City, Utah, Mr. Romney whom some allies hoped might challenge Mr. Trump in 2020 predicted that the president would be re-elected solidly.He has praised Mr. Trump on policy (were pretty much in the same place) and accepted the presidents endorsement without delay.Pressed on his past criticisms at a debate last month, Mr. Romney acknowledged no contradiction or reversal. Ive known the president for a long, long time and the president has endorsed me in this campaign, he said, which shows he respects people who call em like they see em.The evolution began with Mr. Trumps election. Shortly afterward, as Mr. Trump weighed options for his first secretary of state, he considered Mr. Romney, who made pilgrimage to Manhattan to dine on frog legs with Mr. Trump in a public show of harmony.ImageCredit...Kim Raff for The New York TimesWhether Mr. Romney genuinely views the president any differently now is not clear and not particularly relevant to his supporters. What matters, they say, is that he is back in the scrum.He doesnt feel quite as fulfilled as he did, said Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor and a close friend, when he was right in the middle of the mix.Mr. Romney has been known to speak unprompted of past presidential losers, and their free-fall to irrelevance, remarking that Michael Dukakis cant get a job mowing lawns, or borrowing a classic from George McGovern and Walter Mondale as his own: All my life I wanted to run for president in the worst way, Mr. Romney told a crowd recently. And thats just what I did.He has also recalled his late father, George Romney, in professional winter, when he struggled even to secure meetings after three terms as Michigan governor and a failed presidential run.This Romneys fate will be different. He is insisting on it, betting on a state that views him fondly as a Mormon leader and logistical hero of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.When we began in Iowa, Id have to say, Im Mitt Romney, Mr. Romney said in a brief interview at a festival. So, whos that? Im a little better known here.Makes it easier, Mrs. Romney said.But not that easy. In April, Mr. Romney fell short at a state party convention that could have given him the Republican nomination instantly, leaving him to fend off a challenge from a state legislator, Mike Kennedy, before the June 26 primary. Mr. Romney appears to be in little electoral danger, though, with high approval ratings and a healthy primary lead in a deep-red state.Less clear, through a spitting haze on a soggy Saturday morning, is exactly why the Romneys want any of this.ImageCredit...Kim Raff for The New York TimesHe is a career executive now 71, though he looks 55 on his worst day applying to sit in congressional gridlock. He is a statesman-patrician from a very different Republican era, poised to become a junior senator. He is a man with a beautiful home in a beautiful state with a beautiful family, angling for a return to the Mid-Atlantic at the expense of endless ski days and scream-cheering for his granddaughter at high school water polo.I sink, Mr. Romney said, explaining why the sport impresses him so.Some people cant float, said Mrs. Romney, his wife of 49 years. He cannot float.But neither can he fade, those close to him say, if he wants to live without regret a through-line in dozens of conversations with friends, relatives and former advisers. They cite no shortage of motivations for his candidacy: his Mormon faith and its emphasis on service; the memory of his father; his irrepressible ambition, coaxed by a family-wide conviction that he is a singular leader of his times, if only the voters could see it.Everyone is running out of a burning building. Mitts running in, Mrs. Romney said in an interview. This is Mitt, runs into burning buildings.That morning, Mrs. Romney had come along to see the runners, too, traveling shotgun in their 2002 black Chevy pickup and taking her place at the finish. A few feet away, her husband seemed exultant, chatting up a peer from Brigham Young Universitys Class of 1971, suggesting best practices for medal distribution to volunteers, spotting a gentleman in a hoodie from his former city.Red Sox! Mr. Romney called out, grinning and pointing. He was floating, or at least faking it well.Mrs. Romney looked over and smiled, her focus meandering as the athletes passed. She used to run 10Ks herself, she said. She always regretted it in the moment. While Im running, its like, Why did I do this? she said.Mrs. Romney laughed, and then stopped laughing. This seemed to remind her of something.Yeah.With his wifes (eventual) blessingIn 1994, Mr. Romney had set off on his first brilliant political gambit trying to beat a Kennedy in Massachusetts when an adviser handed the family a novel to read: The Last Hurrah, about a politician who hangs on too long.ImageCredit...Kim Raff for The New York TimesA couple days later I saw Ann and she said, I cant believe he lost in the end! That was so sad! the adviser, Charley Manning, recalled. Her belief in Mitt was just so total that she thought somehow in the end, he would win.He lost to Senator Ted Kennedy by 17 points that year. It is unclear if the book ever made it to the other side of the bed. Ann read it, Mr. Manning said. I dont know if Mitt ever did.Days before that election, with her husband dozing beside her on a campaign road trip, Mrs. Romney had told a Boston Globe reporter, You couldnt pay me to do this again.Eight years later, she was the first lady of Massachusetts.Then came 2008: I need to write myself some notes, she said at the end of it, after Mr. Romney lost the Republican nomination for president. Just to remind myself, If youre tempted, the answer is no.And 2012: Were done, she ruled, as her husband prepared a concession speech on election night. The family believed her this time.And yet here they are, hugging distance runners in a parking lot.Mr. Romney has told associates it was his wife who gave the nudge, comparing her view of politics to her efforts at childbirth.Every time after my mom had a baby, she was like, All right, thats it. No more. Never having another kid, said Josh Romney, one of their sons. And then a year would go by, and shed kind of forget about all the pain.They have five boys, one for each campaign.After the loss in 2012, the family settled in the Salt Lake Valley. Mrs. Romney wrote a memoir about her struggles with multiple sclerosis and helped to open a center for neurological diseases in Boston.ImageCredit...Alex Goodlett for The New York TimesMr. Romney appeared at peace in relative obscurity, friends say, though whenever he would inch back into the public consciousness, the megaphone he retained pleased him. He was surprised that he could still get on any TV show, Josh Romney said.He flirted briefly with a run for president in 2016, before reconsidering. The Senate opening, with Orrin G. Hatch stepping away after seven terms, made him think harder, with bipartisan encouragement.In fact, a funny thing had happened to Mr. Romney when he receded from view: People got to know him better. A documentary in 2014, Mitt, captured shades of character that his campaigns never could, for all the millions spent on messaging. He was warm, self-deprecating, cleareyed about his weaknesses. Mr. Romney had long been such a stylistic throwback a man whose idea of profanity was H-E-double-hockey-sticks, edging into a theater of insults that his earnestness qualified as refreshing. He does not swear. He does not drink. He does not age.People need to see the real Mitt, said Fraser Bullock, who worked with Mr. Romney at Bain Capital and as a top lieutenant for the 2002 Olympics. And the Senate campaign, friends believe, is a last chance to do it right.They do not fault him for de-emphasizing his past rejection of Mr. Trump, observing that he has not explicitly disavowed the remarks, either. Mr. Romney recently told NBC News that he does not consider Mr. Trump a role model for his grandchildren.Hes not running against Donald Trump. Hes running for Mitt Romney, said Thomas Rath, a former top aide on his presidential campaigns. I havent heard him say that he withdraws his previous reservations.A family thingLook at the ducks. Look at the ducks. Theres a duck! Theres a duck. Hello, ducks.His wife was freezing, damp babies were crying, and Mr. Romney was admiring farm animals.Hello, ducks, he said once more, as if a response was forthcoming, admiring the petting zoo at a festival in Vineyard, Utah.ImageCredit...Kim Raff for The New York TimesMrs. Romney was asked if it was fun to be on the trail again. Its part of it, she said. Its just she held for several beats part of it.The rhythms of a state-level race have long been more familiar to Mr. Romney, who in his youth watched not only his fathers runs but a Senate bid by his mother, Lenore, in 1970.While his wife looms largest in his life and decision-making, former aides and advisers say, Mr. Romneys aspiration to live the lessons of George Romney cannot be overstated. When he debated Barack Obama in 2012, Mr. Romney scribbled a single word atop his notes to anchor himself: Dad.His dads legacy weighs into every decision he makes, Josh Romney said.After George Romney left office in Michigan, his son recalled in 2014, he grew quite frustrated at his diminished relevance, saying that Washington was the fastest place to go from whos who to whos that?Mr. Romney plans to avoid a similar coda. He has already spoken in private about serving two terms. He hopes to join the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, among other assignments. And he has told supporters he wants to become a leading voice on fiscal discipline and immigration policy about which he has said he is more of a hawk than the president.Hes hesitant to even bring up his name, Josh Romney said. He doesnt want it to be about Donald Trump.Nor do the voters, in a state Mr. Trump lost decisively in the 2016 Republican caucus, seem especially inclined to make Mr. Romney talk about him. At the festival, Mr. Romney fell into conversation with firefighters, a sheriff, a former volunteer on his presidential race. Wish Id have won, Mr. Romney told the man. I apologize.After some 30 minutes, the Romneys returned to the parking lot. Mr. Romney was asked how the gathering compared to the Iowa State Fair, a summer mainstay of the national political calendar.This is colder, he said, looking at his wife. Mrs. Romney smiled. It was time to go.The pair hopped in the family pickup just the two of them and Mr. Romney steered them back into the fog.

Politics

Economic SceneCredit...Yannis Behrakis/ReutersDec. 22, 2015One of the great success stories of the 20th century was the decline in poverty among the elderly. That story, however, is starting to change.A typical American worker in the middle rung of the earnings ladder whose career pay averaged out at about $46,000 a year in todays money could retire this year at age 65 with a Social Security benefit worth 39 percent of the career average.But unless something is done to replenish Social Securitys shrinking trust funds, by 2035 the first pension check for such a worker might amount to as little as 27.5 percent of her career wage, according to calculations published last year by the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration.This is not merely an American trend. A preliminary analysis by economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the official research and policy arm of the worlds advanced industrial nations, suggests that the gross replacement rates of public pension systems in a number of European countries are likely to decline over the next half century or so.Though there are big differences among nations, according to Stefano Scarpetta, director of employment labor and social affairs at the O.E.C.D., in a majority of countries, the replacement rate probably will be lower than the one people have experienced so far.It is a consequence, of course, of a broad, inexorable trend: aging. That has raised the dependency rate across industrial societies. In 1950 there were 14 people aged 65 and over in O.E.C.D. countries for every 100 people of working age. Today there are 28. The trend is expected to continue for at least the next 50 years.On average, men and women are spending seven more years in retirement than they did in 1970.Much as this represents yet another great social achievement, it has also strained the finances of public pension systems, which largely rely on current taxes to pay for retirement benefits.Public spending on old-age pensions and survivors benefits in the O.E.C.D. rose from 6.2 to 7.9 percent of overall economic output, on average, between 1990 and 2011.As governments of most industrial nations try to restore long-term financial stability to their pension systems raising the retirement age, linking benefits more closely to workers contributions and the like there is a growing risk, as the O.E.C.D.s secretary general, Jos ngel Gurra, put it, that future pensions will not be sufficient.This is hardly a shock: Demographics, like ocean liners, move slowly and can be spotted from afar. On top of that, the lackluster growth and high unemployment experienced across much of the Western world in the last few years is going to make it much harder for young workers who expect to retire around midcentury from accumulating enough money to sustain a decent living standard in old age.That all raises a question that seems to be studiously avoided in polite policy conversations: Is old-age poverty going to pick up again?While the prescription may seem obvious policies that delay retirement and encourage working until later ages it is far from infallible. Indeed, it is hardly certain that elderly workers could stay longer in the work force even if they wanted to.The O.E.C.D. devised some estimates of what to expect from pension systems. The analysis underscores just how uncertain life may become for the old.A low-wage worker entering the job market today at age 20, earning half the average wage over her career, can expect a public pension equivalent to 53 percent of her wages upon retirement if, and this is a big if, she stays in the labor market uninterruptedly until the normal retirement age.That is (a) not a lot of money a quarter of the average wage and (b) somewhat unrealistic, given the odds of parenthood, unemployment and so many other things that might temporarily knock anyone out of a job.According to the analysis, it gets even worse if a worker enters the labor market at age 25 rather than 20. For the record, people in the O.E.C.D. today start working, on average, at 23.Fortunately, public pensions are not retirees only source of support. Social Security, for example, is still understood as one leg in a three-legged stool supported by a private pension and retirement savings, too. Adding up these other bits would lift the retirement income of a typical low-wage American retiree to 88 percent of her average lifetime wage, or 90 percent after accounting for her lower tax rate on retirement. This is a big improvement on the 44 percent of her lifetime wage, 54 percent after taxes, that she would get from Social Security alone.But today fewer than half of workers in the United States are covered by a private pension, and that is getting worse, too. A study by the Government Accountability Office estimated that fewer than one in five retirees among the bottom 20 percent had a defined benefit pension that pays a guaranteed monthly income and fewer than one in 10 have any retirement savings.What are the options to combat elderly poverty in the future? The challenge is particularly dire in the United States, despite a large young immigrant population, which reduces the demographic pressure: 21.5 percent of Americans 65 and older make less than half the nations median income, almost double the O.E.C.D. average.A plausible strategy would be to increase the resources of public pension systems. In the United States, in fact, modest increases in payroll taxes, targeted on higher-income workers, could prevent the depletion of Social Securitys trust funds.That poses challenges for most European countries, where taxes are relatively high, and seems politically dead on arrival in Washington even though the tax burden is much lower in the United States as long as tax-averse Republicans control Congress.The other alternative which most industrialized countries see as the key to overcome their demographic stress amounts to more work. While this is not an unreasonable proposition, it may not amount to the fix everyone is hoping for.There are two problems with the approach. One is distributional: Poorer workers in tough jobs may be unable to add years to their working life. They tend to die younger. Forcing them to shoulder the burden of increased longevity seems unfair and impractical.The other, potentially more complex problem, is that the job market has not adapted very well to this challenge.Consider a survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute cited in the G.A.O. study, which asked workers 55 and older when they planned to retire. Almost half said 66 or older. More than 1 in 10 said never.Their aspirations do not fit reality: While there has been an increase in work among older Americans, only 14 percent retired after 66. Workers, the G.A.O. pointed out, may have fewer years to work and save for retirement than they are planning.

Business

Dec. 16, 2015A panel of federal judges on Wednesday increased the royalty that free Internet radio services like Pandora will pay record companies for the next five years, a decision that has been closely watched in the music industry and on Wall Street.According to a summary of the decision posted by the panel, the Copyright Royalty Board, Pandora and other webcasters like it will have to pay record companies 17 cents for every 100 times they play a song when they stream music to listeners who do not pay for subscriptions. The current rate is 14 cents.The decision, which takes effect next year, means that Pandora the largest Internet radio service, and the music industrys primary antagonist over two years of litigation will pay millions more in royalties to record labels and performing artists to use their songs. Last year Pandora paid 44 percent of its revenue, more than $400 million, in royalties for recordings.But the rate set by the judges on Wednesday was also much lower than what the music industry wanted. In filings in the case, SoundExchange, a nonprofit licensing agency that represented the record companies, had asked the judges to set a rate of 25 cents per 100 plays.In a statement, Brian P. McAndrews, Pandora Medias chief executive, called the decision a balanced rate that we can work with and grow from.The new rate structure will enable continued investment by Pandora to drive forward a thriving and vibrant future for music, added Mr. McAndrews, who is also a director of The New York Times Company.Investors reacted positively to the news, which was announced after the close of the market. In after-hours trading, Pandoras stock rose more than 20 percent. Certainty is positive for any share price, said Laura Martin, an Internet and media analyst for Needham & Company. We now know what the costs of content are going to be for the next five years. That allows Pandora to run their business.SoundExchange expressed disappointment.Its only fair that artists and record labels receive a market price when their music is used, the groups statement said. We believe the rates set by the C.R.B. do not reflect a market price for music and will erode the value of music in our economy. We will review the decision closely and consider all of our options.The decision applies only to Internet radio services, which let people hear a set of songs tailored to their tastes, but not so-called on-demand services like Spotify, which let people choose exactly which song to listen to. The judges decision also does not cover songwriting rights, which are set separately.For years, Internet radio services have operated under two different rate systems: one for so-called pureplays like Pandora businesses that operate mainly on the Internet and another for traditional broadcasters like the radio giant iHeartMedia that also have web streams. As a result of a settlement with the music industry in 2009, the pureplay companies paid record labels a lower royalty rate for web streams than the broadcasters did.The rates announced by the copyright judges on Wednesday eliminate that distinction, aligning the web rates of companies like Pandora with those of commercial broadcasters. So while Pandoras rate for its free version which has advertising will increase to 17 cents from 14, for outlets like iHeartRadio, the rate will decline from 25 cents.For their paid subscriptions, webcasters will pay 22 cents per 100 performances, which is also down from the current rate of 25 cents.The judges full decision is still confidential while it is being reviewed by the parties in the case, and is expected to be released in full in the coming days.

Business

The data, released in a report Thursday, is a sign that medication abortion has become the most accessible and preferred method for terminating pregnancy.Credit...Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersFeb. 24, 2022More than half of recent abortions in the United States were carried out with abortion pills, according to preliminary data released on Thursday, a sign that medication abortion has increasingly become the most accessible and preferred method for terminating pregnancy.The report, issued by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, found that in 2020, medication abortion a two-pill method authorized in the United States for pregnancies up to 10 weeks gestation accounted for 54 percent of all abortions. The figure represents a substantial increase from the institutes previous report, which found that the method accounted for 39 percent of abortions in 2017.The increase in medication abortion is most likely the result of several factors. The method which is less expensive and less invasive than surgical abortions had already become increasingly common before the coronavirus pandemic, driven partly by restrictions from conservative states that imposed hurdles to surgical methods, especially later in pregnancy.As of 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which collects data by contacting every known abortion provider in the country, nearly a third of clinics offered only medication abortion. In 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did not include California, Maryland and New Hampshire, pills accounted for 42 percent of all abortions and 54 percent of abortions that were early enough to qualify for medication because they occurred before 10 weeks gestation.The pandemic fueled that trend, as medical groups filed a lawsuit asking the federal government to lift the Food and Drug Administrations requirement that the first of the two abortion pills, mifepristone, be dispensed to patients in person at a clinic or doctors office. Citing years of data showing that medication abortion is safe, the medical groups said that patients faced a greater risk of being infected with the coronavirus if they had to visit clinics to obtain mifepristone and pointed out that mifepristone was the only drug that the F.D.A. required patients to get in person from a medical provider but that patients were also allowed to take at home on their own without having the provider present.A judge granted the request that summer, allowing patients to see a physician by telemedicine and receive pills by mail, but, after a challenge by the Trump administration, the Supreme Court reinstated the restriction early last year.Under the Biden administration, however, the F.D.A. permanently lifted the in-person requirement in December and also said that pharmacies could begin dispensing mifepristone if they met certain qualifications. The F.D.A.s action means that medication abortion will become more available to women who find it difficult to travel to an abortion provider or prefer the privacy of being able to terminate a pregnancy in their homes.As a result, while the new report from the Guttmacher Institute is preliminary only reflecting information from 75 percent of the clinics and including only percentages, not raw data the proportion of abortions carried out with pills is expected to increase further.Nearly 80 percent of all abortions in the C.D.C.s 2019 data occurred before 10 weeks gestation, suggesting that there were many more women who might choose abortion pills over an in-clinic procedure if they could.At the same time, the growing interest in medication abortion has made it a focus of the highly polarized abortion debate.In 19 states, mostly in the South and the Midwest, telemedicine visits for medication abortion are banned, and so far in 2022, according to the Guttmacher Institute report, 16 state legislatures have introduced bills to ban or limit medication abortion.With the Supreme Court now considering whether to roll back abortion rights or even overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion, experts and advocates on all sides expect medication abortion to play an even more pivotal role in the divisive abortion debate.

Health

Corner OfficeVideotranscripttranscriptDiversifying the Tech BoomAileen Lee is Silicon Valley veteran and venture capitalist with Cowboy Ventures who argues that companies who are more diverse perform better.naAileen Lee is Silicon Valley veteran and venture capitalist with Cowboy Ventures who argues that companies who are more diverse perform better.CreditCredit...Robert Galbraith/ReutersDec. 3, 2015This interview with Aileen Lee, founder and partner of Cowboy Ventures, a venture capital firm, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.Q. What were some early influences for you?A. Im the firstborn child of parents who immigrated here from China. They came from pretty much nothing in terms of financial resources and education. My dad moved to the United States when he was in high school and was able to go to college and med school, even though he had only been learning English for a couple of years.Ive heard lots of stories of how many jobs everyone in my family had and how hard they worked. And so I always grew up feeling a lot of gratitude for all the sacrifices and all the hard work they had gone through so that I would not have to work so many jobs. I have a real sense of motivation from wanting to make sure that everything that they went through was worth it.When you were younger, what kind of things did you do outside of class?I grew up in New Jersey and played sports and rode my bike around. It was a really nice time kids didnt have cellphones then and you knew everyone in the town. From a pretty early age, I developed an interest in travel. I told my parents I wanted to live abroad, and they said, Well, you have to have money to do those things.I had some friends who had the same interest, so we started lots of little businesses to try to make money. We used to tie-dye T-shirts and sell them to classmates. We used to make egg rolls and sell them at street fairs. I worked at the mall. My parents probably spent more money on the gas driving me to different jobs than I made.Did you have an idea what you wanted to do for a career when you went to college?No. I did not grow up thinking that I wanted to be an engineer. I had read some articles about girls becoming increasingly scientifically illiterate and that girls lacked confidence in their capabilities when it came to quantitative skills. And I just thought that was kind of wrong.I was underprepared academically when I first went to M.I.T., though. It was definitely a rude awakening. But it had a big impact on my career because I realized I could swim with these really smart people. I wound up being president of my class for three years.And after college?I worked at Morgan Stanley as a financial analyst for two years in M.&A., and then I did a third year living in China, just teaching English and kind of riding around on a bicycle with a backpack and studying Chinese. I wanted to reconnect with my Asian roots, then I came back to the States for business school.After graduation, I worked for Gap. In my second year, I was chosen to become chief of staff for Mickey Drexler, the C.E.O. at the time, and just an amazing merchant.I was very fortunate because I was probably the only person at my age and at my level who had the exposure to board-level discussions. I got to understand how he spent his time and see his superpowers and the superpowers of his direct reports.You spent 13 years at Kleiner Perkins before starting your own venture capital firm. Im sure youve spent time with hundreds of founders, trying to assess whether to bet on them. What do you look for?Theres not a formula. Ive learned that you really cannot judge a book by its cover. You have to get under the hood and spend some quality time with someone to understand what theyre really good at. If you dont, then youre only going to back extrovert, Type A people who are really good at selling. And its not clear that thats a requirement for building a great company. You could be a creative genius or a product genius, or you might have an insight into a market that is really special but youre not that good at explaining it.Sometimes you just know in the first five minutes when you meet someone. Your heart is beating faster, you love the way theyre describing something, they really understand the market and have an insight and approach to solving a problem for customers that no one has thought of before. Thats a no-brainer, but that only happens a couple of times a year.The next category is the harder one where the founders, especially at the seed stage, havent figured everything out yet. The fun part is figuring out whether the C.E.O. has enough of the raw material for the long haul. And so I ask questions like, What do you think youre really good at and where do you have areas where you want to grow or where you might have blind spots? And have they even thought about those questions before?Other questions?I like to talk about how, in a group setting, people often take on different roles someones the curmudgeon, someones the class clown, someones the consensus builder. And then Ill ask what role they usually play in a group dynamic like that.What career and life advice do you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?First, I dont think starting a company should be a goal. It really has to come from a place of having an insight about a problem that you personally have a connection to, or a problem that you see customers are having where you feel like youve got a mousetrap thats much better, not marginally better, than whats out there already.Starting a company and being a founder is really hard, and most companies fail. You really have to have a deep commitment and belief in it and be willing to see it through many ups and downs.Im often skeptical of people who say, Ive decided to start something, and Ive spent the last year getting a lot of different ideas and Ive settled on this one. I just dont think thats the right formula.

Business

Credit...Michael Stravato for The New York TimesDec. 14, 2015HOUSTON Plummeting oil and natural gas prices have whipsawed the energy industry, forcing cancellations of billions of dollars of projects, late payments on loans, and over a quarter of a million layoffs worldwide.On Monday, with domestic gas prices hitting their lowest level since 2001, Cubic Energy, a company that produces natural gas and oil, became the latest of several dozen producers to file for bankruptcy protection this year. Even a company the size of Chesapeake Energy, one of the nations biggest producers, is struggling to reduce its $11.6 billion debt load.Over the weekend, Charif Souki, the chief executive of Cheniere Energy, was unceremoniously dismissed only weeks before the Louisiana natural gas export terminal he conceived and built would send its first shipment the first of its kind from the lower 48 states.At the heart of Mr. Soukis dismissal was a divergence of views between him and Carl Icahn, the activist investor, over the future of the global natural gas markets, many of which are linked to oil prices that have crashed by nearly two-thirds since the summer of 2014.In Mr. Soukis view, oil prices should rebound strongly over the next year or two, meaning that cheap American natural gas will have a big competitive advantage over producers from Australia, Qatar and elsewhere.But the board, which includes two of Mr. Icahns allies, saw it differently and decided that Mr. Soukis plan to continue expanding Cheniere terminals in Texas and Louisiana was a foolhardy crapshoot at a time when the dominant view is that oil prices will remain low for a long time.At the same time, the market has become so glutted that, many experts say, it is time to consolidate and roll back plans to expand export capacity.But not Mr. Souki, who has made a career as an iconoclast and remains convinced the natural gas market will expand for years to come.In my view this is a temporary thing, and you dont change the strategy of the company based on a temporary thing, Mr. Souki said on Monday in a telephone interview from Aspen, Colo., where he plans to spend the next three months skiing and mulling over his future. Their view is that is an incorrect assessment and its time to move on, be a lot more conservative, fold in the sails and wait for the storm to pass.Mr. Souki, whose peripatetic career has included stints in investment banking, restaurants and shallow Gulf of Mexico gas drilling, is no stranger to shifting markets. In his early days at Cheniere, he built liquefied natural gas import terminals. But demand for imported gas dried up when the shale gas revolution flooded the domestic market after 2008. With $2 billion in debt, he shifted gears to build export terminals.ImageCredit...Michael Stravato for The New York TimesChenieres sprawling, $20 billion terminal nearing completion in Sabine Pass, La., will eventually have the capacity to export 31.5 million tons of liquefied gas a year more than any country with the exception of Qatar and Australia.Mr. Souki, who has a taste for fancy double-breasted suits in Houstons informal business world, has often defied conventional wisdom, and this time is no different. Many experts say that the fortunes for exports of liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., have declined, and will not rebound anytime soon.Adding to the pressure on Cheniere is a surge of new export projects, representing nearly a 50 percent increase in global capacity, that is due to come on line over the next five years at a time when Indian demand is falling and Chinese demand is far softer than most experts expected a few years ago. In Europe, gas demand is squeezed by renewable energy like solar and wind that receive big public subsidies and cheap coal imported from the United States.There is a lot of supply coming to market in a very short time from Australia and the U.S., said Faisel Khan, a Citigroup managing director and energy expert, and that is causing an oversupply over the next three to five years that could extend further than that depending upon demand from China, which may or may not show up.Mr. Souki and other executives finance their projects by first lining up long-term supply commitments that guarantee revenue to pay off debts. But Mr. Souki was planning on making 20 percent of his terminal sales on the spot market, where arbitrage profits can be huge when world oil and gas prices are high and American gas prices are low. Other companies have similar approaches.But the arbitrage has shrunk sharply over the last year and a half as world gas prices, which differ by region, have declined with oil. Spot gas prices in Japan, for instance, have averaged about $8 per million British thermal units in recent months, half the price in early 2014. Around Western Europe, where there have been similar drops, United States liquefied natural gas will probably be bought early next year at nearly the same price as local gas once transportation and processing expenses are added to the lower American gas price.This was always an arbitrage game, said Nikos Tsafos, president and chief analyst at the consultancy Enalytica. Three or four years ago you didnt have to explain the numbers too much to show a slam dunk. Now, no one thinks U.S. gas is expensive gas but broadly speaking its not as attractive as people were hoping for.It is that kind of thinking that made investors think twice about Cheniere over the last year, as the stock price which has gyrated for more than a decade dropped in half from its high, along with many other energy companies. (It dropped again by nearly 3 percent on Monday.)As Mr. Icahn increased his stake in the company in recent months he made no secret of his concerns about Mr. Soukis high-flying ways, including his abundant pay package. This year, Mr. Souki sold $116 million in stock, reducing his holdings by a third, as he slashed his pay under pressure from the board.The board wished to move the company in a direction that differed greatly from the path Mr. Souki wanted, Mr. Icahn said in a statement that he also posted on Twitter on Monday. It is also telling that Mr. Souki sold a great deal of his stock, which made it somewhat easier for him to swing for the fences, making it a win-win for Mr. Souki but not necessarily for the shareholders.Neal Shear, an independent member of the board, will run the company on an interim basis. Mr. Souki expressed no bitterness about his downfall, and acknowledged that Mr. Icahn and his allies had a plausible point of view.I understand its time to consolidate and look at what we have, he said. If I were an independent board member I would ask myself: Is Charif the right person to run a quasi-utility? And the answer is no. I am constitutionally not well suited to run a utility.

Business

Oct. 13, 2020, 2:40 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 2:40 p.m. ETPrices of New iPhones Stay Largely PatSo what will these latest iPhones cost you?Many of us can breathe a sigh of relief. Apple stuck with a proven pricing model for the new devices, releasing the entry-level phones for $700 and up and higher-end phones starting at $1,000 both prices in line with previous years.What is different this year is that Apple will sell four iPhone models, up from its typical three in recent years.At the entry level, the iPhone 12 Mini will start at $700 and iPhone 12 at $800. Last year, the iPhone 11 started at $700, meaning the flagship iPhone 12 device will start at $100 more. People will still have a $700 option, but it will be smaller.On the higher end, the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max will start at $1,000 and $1,100, identical to last year.Apple might have been able to hold prices mostly steady this year by no longer including headphones and a power adapter. The company said it was an environmental decision but it also likely saved it money and will cause many customers to buy extra accessories from Apple.Analysts and investors have long anticipated the new iPhones as a boost to flagging sales of the companys main product. A larger than normal share of existing iPhone owners are due for an upgrade, and many have held out for a 5G iPhone, not wanting to invest in a device that didnt work with the faster wireless speeds.Whether Apple was able to capitalize on the swelling demand for a 5G iPhone was something of a question this year when the coronavirus disrupted its supply chain in China. But its Chinese manufacturing partners quickly rebounded and the iPhone event was delayed by only about a month past its usual September date.Most important for Apple, it will start shipping the new devices before the crucial holiday sales season.Oct. 13, 2020, 2:05 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 2:05 p.m. ETHello iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 ProThe iPhone 12, the successor to last years iPhone 11, has arrived with an improved screen and faster chip, among other improvements.Tim Cook, Apples chief executive, took the wraps off the new device on Tuesday and emphasized that it has the capability to run on 5G next-generation cellular networks, for much faster speeds.The new iPhone is also 11 percent thinner, 15 percent smaller and 16 percent lighter than its predecessor. It has smooth, flat edges, unlike the round corners of past models. The screen uses OLED, a brighter display technology that replaces the older LCD technology in the last entry-level iPhone. Apple said it also toughened the glass of the touch screen, making it four times more likely to survive a drop.The iPhone 12 will also come in two screen sizes: 5.4 inches and 6.1 inches. The smaller model, called iPhone 12 Mini, may appeal to people who prefer smaller phones.Apple also introduced upgrades for its iPhone Pro models, its more expensive smartphones. The premium models have an extra camera lens, and their processors are slightly more powerful for taking special photos with extra high-resolution, which Apple calls deep fusion. They also include a Lidar scanner, which is a depth sensor that uses lasers to scan 3-D objects, which could improve augmented-reality applications.Mr. Cook talked at length about the speed improvements of 5G, calling it super fast and offering a new level of performance for downloads and uploads. But notably, his description lacked specificity: He did not say how much faster 5G was than current 4G phones, which many would already consider to be super fast.Hans Vestberg, chief executive of Verizon, joined Apple to talk about 5G, highlighting its peak speeds. But those peak speeds will not be available in most of the nation. The current nationwide 5G coverage is only incrementally faster, if at all, than what we have with 4G.So heres the upshot: The design changes to the newest iPhones are, in the near term, more remarkable than the addition of 5G.Nonetheless, Apple, and other handset makers including Google and Samsung are working emphasizing 5G in their new phones to help carriers communicate the network shift to consumers.As an aside, Apple said it would stop including headphones and power chargers with its iPhones. It framed the move as an environmental decision, which also will likely save it money and spur people to spend more for those accessories. Apple said iPhones would instead come with a USB-C cable, which will enable faster charging.Oct. 13, 2020, 1:50 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 1:50 p.m. ETSo, Should You Buy a New Phone or Not?Tis the season for new gadgets of all kinds, including new smartphones. So how do you figure out if you really need one?There are three easy questions to ask yourself to figure out the answer.Can I still get software updates on my current phone?Is my device beyond repair?Am I unhappy with my phone?Oct. 13, 2020, 1:24 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 1:24 p.m. ETApple Unveils a Smaller HomePodFirst up from Apple in its new product lineup on Tuesday was a HomePod Mini, a smaller and cheaper version of its HomePod smart speaker, which hasnt been as successful as the products it emulated, the Amazon Echo and Google Home.To distinguish the HomePod, Apple has emphasized the speakers ability to fill a room with high-quality sound. The original device was not popular, largely because of its higher price tag of $350. In addition, Siri, Apples virtual assistant, is not as capable as Amazons Alexa and Google Assistant. In our tests, Siri on HomePod was dumber than Siri on other products, including the iPhone.Apple said on Tuesday that Siri was continuing to improve.Regardless, the HomePod has a long way to go. The company hasnt disclosed its sales, but the market-research firm Strategy Analytics estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2019, Apple had less than 5 percent of the global market share for smart speakers, well below the 28 percent share for Amazon and 25 percent share for Google.The HomePod Mini will be priced at $99, Apple said. That compares with Amazon Echo at $99 and the mini Echo Dot at $49. Google Home, which is now called Nest Audio, costs $99 and its mini version, Nest Mini, is priced at $49.Oct. 13, 2020, 12:00 p.m. ETOct. 13, 2020, 12:00 p.m. ETWhat You Need to Know About 5G SmartphonesImageCredit...Brooks Kraft/AppleMany of us are eagerly anticipating Apples new iPhones on Tuesday because they are expected to include a major new feature: 5G, for the fifth-generation cellular network.Phones with 5G capability have been positioned as far better than our current devices. Thats because carriers like AT&T and Verizon have hyped 5G as a life-changing technology capable of delivering data speeds so fast that you can download a feature-length movie in seconds.But tamp down your expectations, at least for now. In the near term, the new cellular technology probably wont be a big leap forward from its predecessor, 4G. Instead, in most cases, 5G will only be incrementally faster, if at all.Heres what you need to know:The much-hyped, ultrafast variant of 5G is known as millimeter wave. But its reach is limited right now. This flavor of 5G lets carriers transmit data at incredibly fast speeds. The catch? Its signals travel shorter distances, covering a park in New York but not a broad swath of the city, for example. It also has trouble penetrating obstacles like walls. So for now, the carriers are focusing its deployment in large spaces like sports stadiums and outdoor amphitheaters.Thats good news if you enjoy livestreaming concerts or games. But its unlikely we will be attending those types of events anytime soon in this pandemic.And because of the technical limitations, we are unlikely to see this ultrafast 5G deployed nationwide anytime soon, meaning we wont be getting its incredible speeds in the vast majority of places.Our cellular networks are broadly shifting to a version of 5G that is less exciting. Lets call this vanilla 5G. Vanilla 5G will have speeds that are only slightly faster (roughly 20 percent faster) than current 4G networks. Its main benefit is that it will reduce a lag known as latency. When you do a web search on your phone, for example, the results show up after a lag that can often last hundreds of milliseconds. In theory, 5G technology will shave latency down to a few milliseconds.That said, 5G networks are still in their early stages. So in some areas, it can be even slower than 4G to start.Thats not to say 5G is not exciting. Its expected to have a significant impact in the long term on how our technology works. The reduction in lag times could make virtual reality applications and online gaming work better. If all goes well, 5G could lay the groundwork for self-driving cars, which will need to be able to instantaneously talk to one another to avoid collisions.(The New York Times on Tuesday announced a tech partnership with Verizon to explore how 5G connections could aid its journalism; The Times maintains editorial control of its storytelling.)In the meantime, there may be improvements in Apples new iPhones that will affect you more than 5G. The devices are expected to be sped up with new processors and have a brand-new design and improved cameras. Those, along with the side benefit of 5G, would deliver a significant upgrade for people who have older 4G iPhones.

Tech

DealBook|Japanese Human Resources Company in Deal for Bigger European Presencehttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/business/dealbook/recruit-usg-people-acquisition.htmlDec. 22, 2015HONG KONG The Japanese human resources company Recruit said on Tuesday it would buy USG People, a Dutch competitor, for 1.61 billion euros in a move to get a firmer foothold in Europe.The companies agreed on an all-cash offer of 17.50 a share, making the deal worth about $1.75 billion. The price was a 31 percent premium over USGs closing price on Monday and its average over the previous three months.Alex Mulder, a founding shareholder of USG, has agreed to support the offer and tender his 19.8 percent stake in USG.Recruit has been growing through acquisitions in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.Recruits midterm vision is to become the world leader in human resources by around 2020, in terms of number of positions filled, Masumi Minegishi, Recruits chief executive, said in a news release. To achieve this, we are seeking to grow our business platforms in Japan and abroad organically and through acquisitions. The acquisition of USG People is perfectly aligned with this strategy.USG, with revenue of about 2.4 billion in 2014, will give Recruit a bigger presence in USGs core countries the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany as well as access to specialist staff, like finance workers.Rob Zandbergen, chief executive of USG, said that geographically, the companies are highly complementary, with no overlap with the current operations of Recruit in staffing activities.Once the companies merge, USG will delist from Euronext Amsterdam. The deal is still subject to approval from regulators and shareholders, but the companies expect it to close in the second quarter of 2016.

Business

Credit...Thomas Peter/ReutersMay 31, 2019SAN FRANCISCO When Silicon Valley looks west to China, it sees many things. More than a billion hungry consumers. A cheap source of labor. A competitor, partner, supplier and security risk.Now add this: A foe bent on retaliation.The Chinese government said Friday that it was putting together an unreliable entities list, a counterattack against the United States for denying important technology to Chinese companies. No companies were named or details given, but tech firms seemed all but assured of being a prime target.As the economic relationship between the two countries frays at warp speed, the much-anticipated tech cold war is escalating.If China continues to push back, and we continue to push back, there will soon be dual technology standards, said Rebecca Fannin, author of the coming book Tech Titans of China. Prices will probably rise for components, which companies will pass along to consumers. But both sides will strengthen their innovation edge, and that helps the global economy.Some Silicon Valley companies are more vulnerable than others. Because Facebook and Google are blocked by the Chinese government, social media and search might be kept out of the conflict. Apple, on the other hand, is heavily invested in China, which is both a major manufacturer of the iPhone and a major market for it.Tesla is building a plant in Shanghai that will produce 250,000 cars a year. Venture capitalists have poured in funding. Microsofts research lab in Beijing is its largest outside the United States, while many of the products in the Amazon shopping mall are made in the country. Amazon also just opened an A.I. lab in China.The consequences of the deteriorating relationship are already playing out with smaller tech companies.Two weeks ago, the Trump administration put Huawei, the giant Chinese maker of telecommunications gear, on an entity list that would force it to get permission to buy technology from American companies. Huawei relies on American-made parts for everything from its smartphones to its networking equipment. Although it received a 90-day waiver to allow time for negotiations, many companies based in the United States have already severed ties.That has had a knock-on effect. Lumentum, a Silicon Valley company that makes optical networking gear, said Huawei was generating about 15 percent of its revenue. Last week, it reduced its expectations for the current quarter by about $35 million to a maximum of $390 million.Qorvo, a semiconductor company in North Carolina, also said last week that it depended on Huawei for about 15 percent of its sales and projected that its revenue in the current quarter would drop by about $50 million to a maximum of $750 million.China is a big and fast-growing consumer of computer chips, used in an array of products that include smartphones, personal computers, communications equipment and server systems. Customers in the country accounted for about 34 percent of global sales in 2018, which totaled $468.8 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.ImageCredit...Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesChinas importance to American chip makers is magnified by the fact that many chips are sent to China to be assembled to make gadgets for customers elsewhere, such as the iPhones that Taiwan-based Foxconn makes for Apple in China. Roughly 60 percent of semiconductors sold are connected to the Chinese-based supply chain, the consulting firm KPMG said.Chip makers hope that the latest barbs between China and the United States are mainly aimed at gaining leverage in trade talks, not permanent changes in how the countries will have to do business.Each volley in the U.S.-China trade dispute causes semiconductor companies to wince and financial markets to wobble, while pushing us farther from a deal that would benefit both economies, the two largest in the world, John Neuffer, the Semiconductor Industry Associations president and chief executive, said Friday after news of Chinas unreliable entities list.We urge both sides to avoid further escalations, get back to the negotiating table and reach a high-standard, enforceable and sustainable agreement, Mr. Neuffer added.Apples exposure to China is broad. The company assembles most of its products there, and the region is its No. 3 market, after the United States and Europe. In its latest quarter, Apple earned $10.2 billion in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, or about 18 percent of its total revenue. Apple did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.The iPhone makers dependence on China was vividly demonstrated late last year when Chinese consumers began balking at buying the latest model of the smartphone. Total revenue for the region that includes China dropped 25 percent in the fourth quarter to $13.17 billion. One of Apples responses was to cut Chinese prices of its cheapest phone. The situation seems to have stabilized recently.Other tech behemoths have found little traction in China. Microsoft has generally tried to play along in China, censoring sensitive topics the government bans on its Bing search engine and teaming up with a state-run firm to produce a government-approved version of its Windows 10 software.Yet in January, government censors appeared to briefly block Bing, which, though little used, provides a rare portal in China to the global internet. And widespread problems with bootleg copies of Microsofts software have prevented China from becoming a major market for the company. Microsoft declined to comment.Piracy has been an epidemic for Microsoft in China, said Dan Ives, a managing director at Wedbush Securities. Investors had hoped that trade negotiations with China could resolve these longstanding intellectual property issues.You are talking about a company that tried to penetrate China from every angle, both from a demand and R & D perspective, Mr. Ives said. Now, with all the trouble they have had there, it actually becomes a benefit to Microsoft versus other tech players.Facebook, which needs all the friends and arguments it can get as it battles widespread calls for its breakup, has already seized on the China threat. It maintains it needs to be big to compete with the big Chinese companies.People are concerned with the size and power of tech companies, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks chief operating officer, recently said in a CNBC interview. Theres also a concern in the United States about the size and power of Chinese tech companies and the realization that those companies are not going to be broken up.

Tech

Branson Completes Virgin Galactic Flight, Aiming to Open Up Space TourismThe successful trip was the first in a series to the edge of space and beyond by billionaire entrepreneurs that seek to make human spaceflight more routine.VideotranscripttranscriptRichard Branson Launches Into Space on Virgin Galactic FlightThe 70-year-old British billionaire and crew members of Virgin Galactic launched the commercial space plane Unity from New Mexico, reached the edge of space and landed safely back at the spaceport on Sunday.[crowd cheers] We are armed for release. Twenty seconds. Five, three, two, one. Release, release, release. Clean release. Ignition. Good rocket motor burn. Theres Mach 1 trimming now. Trim complete. Unity is pointed directly up. And that is a full duration burn, folks. We are headed to space. To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream, looking up to the stars. Now, Im an adult in a spaceship, with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers, if we can do this, just imagine what you can do. Aye! Whew! Come on out, Richard. They just had the ride of their lives. We are so excited for them to land and party the rest of the day like astronauts. All right, we have three landing gear down and locked. Over the threshold. Main gear touchdown. Can see Sir already celebrating inside there. Nose gear touchdown.The 70-year-old British billionaire and crew members of Virgin Galactic launched the commercial space plane Unity from New Mexico, reached the edge of space and landed safely back at the spaceport on Sunday.CreditCredit...Virgin Galactic/ReutersPublished July 11, 2021Updated July 20, 2021SPACEPORT AMERICA, N.M. Soaring more than 50 miles into the hot, glaringly bright skies above New Mexico, Richard Branson at last fulfilled a dream that took decades to realize: He can now call himself an astronaut.On Sunday morning, a small rocket plane operated by Virgin Galactic, which Mr. Branson founded in 2004, carried him and five other people to the edge of space and back.More than an hour later, Mr. Branson took the stage to celebrate. The whole thing was magical, he said.Later, during a news conference, Mr. Branson was still giddy, saying I dont know whats going to come out of my mouth because I feel Im still in space.Mr. Bransons flight reinforces the hopes of space enthusiasts that routine travel to the final frontier may soon be available to private citizens, not just the professional astronauts of NASA and other space agencies. Another billionaire with his own rocket company Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon has plans to make a similar jaunt to the edge of space in nine days.In each case, billionaire entrepreneurs are risking injury or death to fulfill their childhood aspirations and advance the goal of making human spaceflight unexceptional.Theyre putting their money where their mouth is, and theyre putting their body where their money is, said Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures Limited, a company that charters launches to orbit. Thats impressive, frankly.At 8:40 a.m. Mountain time, a carrier aircraft, with the rocket plane, named V.S.S. Unity, tucked underneath, rose off the runway and headed to an altitude of about 45,000 feet. There, Unity was released, and a few moments later, its rocket motor ignited, accelerating the space plane on an upward arc.Although Unity had made three previous trips to space, this was its first launch that resembled a full commercial flight of the sort that Virgin Galactic has promised to offer the general public, with two pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci and four more crew members including Mr. Branson.This flight resembled a party for Virgin Galactic and the nascent space tourism business. Guests included Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX; Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico; and about 60 customers who have paid for future Virgin Galactic flights.Stephen Colbert of the CBS program The Late Show introduced segments of the webcast. After the landing, the R&B singer Khalid performed a new song.When the fuel was spent, Unity continued to coast upward to an altitude of 53.5 miles. The four people in back unbuckled and experienced about four minutes of floating before returning to their seats.Mr. Branson was accompanied in the cabin by Beth Moses, the companys chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research operations.Mr. Bennett said that he was busy with tasks during the first part of the flight and then he heard Ms. Moses shouting, Dont forget to look out the window.He did. Its very Zen, Mr. Bennett said of the view of Earth below. What jumped out at me were the colors and just how far away it looked. It felt like we were just so far up there, and I was just mesmerized.Ms. Bandlas role was to evaluate another market Virgin Galactic is targeting: scientists doing research that takes advantage of minutes of microgravity. She conducted an experiment from the University of Florida which looked at how plants react to the changing conditions particularly the swings in gravity during the flight, part of research that could aid growing food on future long-duration space missions.As the space plane re-entered the atmosphere, the downward pull of gravity resumed. Unity glided to a landing back at the spaceport.Michael Moses, president of Virgin Galactic, said the flight appeared to go flawlessly. The ship looks pristine, no issues whatsoever, Mr. Moses said.ImageCredit...Virgin Galactic/Via ReutersImageCredit...Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesFor well over a decade, Mr. Branson, the irreverent 70-year-old British billionaire who runs a galaxy of Virgin companies, has repeatedly said he believed that commercial flights would soon begin. So did the 600 or so customers of Virgin Galactic who have paid $200,000 or more for their tickets to space and are still waiting. So did the taxpayers of New Mexico who paid $220 million to build Spaceport America, a futuristic vision in the middle of the desert, in order to attract Mr. Bransons company.After years and years of unmet promises, Virgin Galactic may begin flying the first paying passengers next year after two more test flights. But with tickets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, this experience will, for now, remain out of financial reach for most people.Founding a space exploration company was perhaps an unsurprising step for Mr. Branson, who has made a career and a fortune estimated at $6 billion building flashy upstart businesses that he promotes with a showmans flair.What became his Virgin business empire began with a small record shop in central London in the 1970s before Mr. Branson parlayed it into Virgin Records, the home of acts like the Sex Pistols, Peter Gabriel and more. In 1984, he was a co-founder of what became Virgin Atlantic.The Virgin Group branched out into a mobile-phone service, a passenger railway and a line of hotels. Not all have performed flawlessly. Two of his airlines filed for insolvency during the pandemic last year, while few today remember his ventures into soft drinks, cosmetics or lingerie.The spaceflight company was of a piece with Mr. Bransons penchant for highflying pursuits like skydiving and hot-air ballooning.Virgin Galactic joined the New York Stock Exchange in 2019 after merging with a publicly traded investment fund, giving it a potent source of new funds to compete with deep-pocket competitors and publicity, with Mr. Branson marking its trading debut at the exchange in one of the companys flight suits.The Virgin Group retains a 24 percent stake in Virgin Galactic.Virgin Galactics space plane is a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the first reusable crewed spacecraft built by a nongovernmental organization to make it to space twice in two weeks.Mr. Branson initially predicted commercial flights would begin by 2007. But development of the larger craft, SpaceShipTwo, stretched out.ImageCredit...Henry A. Barrios/The Bakersfield Californian, via Associated PressImageCredit...Quinn Tucker/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesThe first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, V.S.S. Enterprise, crashed during a test flight in 2014, killing one of the pilots. Virgin Galactic was then grounded until Unity was completed a year and a half later.In 2019, Virgin Galactic came close to another catastrophe when a seal on a rear horizontal stabilizer ruptured because a new thermal protection film had been improperly installed.The mishap was revealed this year in the book Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut by Nicholas Schmidle, a staff writer at The New Yorker. The book quotes Todd Ericson, then the vice president for safety and test at Virgin Galactic, saying, I dont know how we didnt lose the vehicle and kill three people.Mr. Bezos flight is to take place about 200 miles to the southeast of Spaceport America in Van Horn, Texas, where his rocket company, Blue Origin, launches its New Shepard rocket and capsule.Although Blue Origin has yet to fly any people on New Shepard, 15 successful uncrewed tests of the fully automated system convinced the company it would be safe to put Mr. Bezos on the first flight with people aboard.He will be joined by his brother, Mark, and Mary Wallace Funk, an 82-year-old pilot. In the 1960s, she was among a group of women who passed the same rigorous criteria that NASA used for selecting astronauts, but the space agency at the time had no interest in selecting women as astronauts. A fourth unnamed passenger paid $28 million in an auction for one of the seats.Neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic flights go high enough or fast enough to enter orbit around Earth. Rather, these suborbital flights are more like giant roller coaster rides that allow passengers to float for a few minutes while admiring a view of Earth against the black backdrop of space.Mr. Bezos company emphasized the rivalry with Virgin Galactic for space tourism passengers in a tweet on Friday. Blue Origin highlighted differences between its New Shepard rocket and Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo including the fact that New Shepard flies higher, above the altitude of 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, that is often regarded as the boundary of space. However, the United States Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration set the boundary at 50 miles.The company also noted the size of the New Shepard capsules windows, and called Virgin Galactics Unity a high-altitude plane in contrast to New Shepards rocket.Mr. Bezos on Sunday congratulated Mr. Branson and his fellow crew on their flight. Cant wait to join the club! he said in an Instagram post.At the news conference, Mr. Branson said, It really wasnt a race. He added, We wish Jeff the absolute best.Blue Origin has not yet announced a ticket price, and Virgin Galactics earlier quoted fare of $250,000 will probably rise. But on Sunday after his trip, Mr. Branson announced a sweepstakes that will give away two seats on a future Virgin Galactic flight.Virgin Galactic is planning two more tests flight to conduct including one where scientists from the Italian Air Force will undertake science experiments before commencing commercial service.The era of nonprofessional astronauts regularly heading to orbit may also begin in the coming year. Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old billionaire, is essentially chartering a rocket and spacecraft from SpaceX for a three-day trip to orbit that is scheduled for September.ImageCredit...Mark Ralston/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesImageCredit...David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesIn December, Space Adventures has arranged for a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano, a production assistant, to launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket on a 12-day mission that will go to the International Space Station.Another company, Axiom Space in Houston, is arranging a separate trip to the space station that will launch as soon as January.The orbital trips are too expensive for anyone except the superwealthy Axioms three customers are paying $55 million each while suborbital flights might be affordable to those who are merely well off.But how many people are willing to spend as much as some houses cost for a few minutes of space travel?Carissa Christensen, founder and chief executive of Bryce Space and Technology, an aerospace consulting firm, thinks there will be plenty. Based on previous ticket sales, surveys and interviews, she said in an email, we see strong demand signals for multiple hundreds of passengers a year at current prices, with potential for thousands if prices drop significantly.Mr. Anderson of Space Adventures is less certain.Two decades ago, his company did sell suborbital flights including a ticket to Ms. Funk, who goes by Wally. Wally Funk was one of our first customers, Mr. Anderson said. That would have been like 1998.The ticket price then was $98,000.At one point, about 200 people signed up, but none of the suborbital rocket companies were able to get their promised spacecraft close to flight. Space Adventures returned the money to Ms. Funk and the others.Now this unproven suborbital market has whittled down to a battle of billionaires Mr. Branson and Mr. Bezos.If anybody can make money and make the market work for suborbital, its Branson and Bezos, Mr. Anderson said. They have the reach and the cachet.Michael J. de la Merced and Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.

science

New research shows scientists educated in China help American firms and schools dominate the cutting-edge field. Now industry leaders worry that worsening political tensions will blunt that edge. More of Chinas top A.I. talent ends up in the U.S. than anywhere else. Of 128 researchers with undergraduate degrees from Chinese universities whose papers were presented at the A.I. conference, more than half now work in the U.S. By Ella KoezeOriginal sample was made up of 671 authors of a random selection of 175 papers selected from the over 1,400 papers presented at NeurIPS 2019, a top A.I. conference. None of the 128 researchers represented here are current students. Post-graduate work countries are based on where the researcher lives, not where their company or institution is headquartered. Data is current as of the first quarter of 2020. | Source: MacroPolo Published June 9, 2020Updated April 13, 2021When the Defense Department launched Project Maven, an effort to remake American military technology through artificial intelligence, it leaned on a team of about a dozen engineers working at Google. Many of them, according to two people familiar with the arrangement, were Chinese citizens.The Pentagon was fine with that, they said, even amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. Classified data was not involved, the Pentagon reasoned, and the American military needed the most qualified minds for the job.The Trump administration is now moving to limit Chinese access to advanced American research, as relations between the United States and China reach their worst point in decades. That worries many of the companies and scientists in the heady realm of cutting-edge A.I., because much of the groundbreaking work coming out of the United States has been powered by Chinese brains.A new study from MacroPolo a think tank run by the Paulson Institute, which promotes constructive ties between the United States and China estimated that Chinese-educated researchers comprised nearly one-third of the authors of the papers accepted and promoted at a prestigious A.I. conference last year, more than from any other country. But it also found that most of them lived in the United States and worked for American companies and universities.The study shows they are helping to power American dominance over a strategically important field, one that can enable computers of the future to make decisions, identify faces, find criminals, pick military targets and drive vehicles.Many studied in the United States, grew comfortable living there and found work with American employers. They now worry that the flow of students and professionals will come to an end.Sacrificing international students is killing the goose that lays the golden egg, said Lisa Li, a Chinese engineer who recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University. It will eventually destroy the future competitiveness of America.China sees artificial intelligence as a field of strategic importance. It has thrown vast amounts of money at researchers with an aim of getting them to work for Chinese companies and institutions.The United States has noted Chinas technology ambitions with alarm. It has cracked down on espionage and bolstered enforcement of disclosure rules at American universities and institutions. Last month, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration planned to cancel the visas of Chinese researchers and graduate students who have direct ties to universities affiliated with Chinas military.Efforts that broadly block Chinese talent could undermine the American lead in A.I., said Matt Sheehan, an analyst with MacroPolo and a co-author of the study.These are some of the brightest minds in China, and theyre choosing to work for American research labs, teach American students and help build American companies, Mr. Sheehan said. If the U.S. no longer welcomed these top researchers, Beijing would welcome them back with open arms.MacroPolo looked at a sample of papers published last year at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. NeurIPS, as it is known, focuses on theoretical advances in neural networks and deep learning, which have anchored recent developments in A.I. It found that more than half of the papers were written by authors in the United States. Many top A.I. researchers start their academic careers in China, but they dont stay there. Below are the work and education backgrounds of 671 authors of 175 papers selected randomly from over 1,400 papers presented at NeurIPS 2019, a top A.I. conference. By Ella KoezeAuthors who are current undergraduate and graduate students are included in the totals for stages of their careers theyve reached but not later stages. Post-graduate work countries are based on where the researcher lives, not where their company or institution is headquartered. Data is current as of the first quarter of 2020. | Source: MacroPolo The think tank also looked at where the authors went to school. It found that nearly 30 percent of them pursued undergraduate degrees in China, more than any other country. But more than half went on to study, work and live in the United States.Chinese A.I. researchers may have more opportunities in the United States. MacroPolo found that the top homes of the authors included Google, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Microsoft Research. Tsinghua University and Peking University, two of Chinas best universities, were the only Chinese institutions among the top 25.Multiple studies indicate that Chinese nationals who studied A.I. in the United States were likely to remain. Through 2018, nine out of 10 who completed doctorate degrees stayed for at least five years after graduation, according to a study from Georgetown Universitys Center for Security and Emerging Technology.Those numbers showed no signs of decline, but some organizations say more recent tensions between the United States and China have already begun to affect talent flows.I am terrified by what the administration is doing, said Oren Etzioni, chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a high-profile research lab in Seattle, which has seen a significant decrease in the number of applications from Chinese researchers. How many times can you push people out the door and put obstacles in their way before they say, I am not going to try?Chinese-born researchers are a fixture of the American A.I. field. Li Deng, a former Microsoft researcher and now chief A.I. officer at the hedge fund Citadel, helped remake the speech recognition technologies used on smartphones and coffee-table digital assistants. Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor who worked for less than two years at Google, helped drive a revolution in computer vision, the science of getting software to recognize objects.At Google, Dr. Li helped oversee the Google team that worked on Project Maven, the Pentagon effort. Google declined to renew the Pentagon contract two years ago after some employees protested the companys involvement with the military. The Google team worked to build technology that could automatically identify vehicles, buildings and other objects in video footage captured by drones. In the spring of 2018, at least five of the roughly dozen researchers on the team were Chinese nationals, according to one of the people familiar with the arrangement.A certain amount of government restriction is natural. The Pentagon typically bars citizens of rival foreign powers from working on classified projects. China also has a long history of carrying out industrial espionage in the United States.A.I. is different, people in the industry argue. Researchers generally publish what they find, and anybody can use it. So what the industry is looking for is not intellectual property but the minds that conduct the research.For much of basic A.I. research, the key ingredient in progress is people rather than algorithms, said Jack Clark, policy director of OpenAI, a prominent lab in San Francisco, and a co-chair of the AI Index, an annual effort to track the progress of A.I. research, including the role of Chinese researchers.Theres a lot of open-source technology lying around for researchers to use, but relatively few researchers with the sorts of long-term idiosyncratic agendas that yield field-changing advances, he said.Peter Chen, a prominent Chinese-born researcher who is a legal U.S. resident, said further government crackdowns could hurt companies across the community, including his start-up, a robotics company called Covariant.AI in Berkeley, Calif. If this continues, there will be people we cant get, he said. It will definitely affect our ability to recruit talent.For many Chinese students, the decision to stay or go has been more personal than political. Robert Yan, a former Google employee, returned to China to work at an A.I. start-up. The Bay Area didnt suit him. He hated driving and missed Chinese food. A native of Shanghai, he thought he could advance more quickly in his home culture.Still, Mr. Yan said, only about one out of 10 of his Chinese colleagues in the United States chose to go home. For those looking to do high-end theoretical research, many Chinese companies still werent the best place, he said.Compared to Google I now have far less freedom, Mr. Yan said. At a start-up you need to have a reason to do each task. Were chasing efficiency. That does not facilitate doing things because youre curious.Ms. Li, the Johns Hopkins graduate, helped organize a petition supporting foreign student access to the United States. She prefers living in the United States in part because Chinas tech industry is riddled with sexism.Im big, and Im loud, Ms. Li said. Respect for female engineers is very important to me.Lin Qiqing contributed research.

Tech

Credit...John Minchillo/Associated PressJune 11, 2018WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohios aggressive efforts to purge its voting rolls, siding with Republicans in the latest partisan battle over how far states can go in imposing restrictions on voting.The court ruled that states may kick people off the rolls if they skip a few elections and fail to respond to a notice from election officials. The vote was 5 to 4, with the more conservative justices in the majority.On one level, the decision sought to make sense of tangled statutory language. But it was also a vivid reminder that measures placing obstacles between people seeking to vote and their ability to cast ballots including cutbacks on early voting, elimination of same-day registration and tough voter ID laws present dueling visions of democracy.Republicans have pushed for such restrictions, arguing without evidence that they are needed to combat what they say is widespread voter fraud. Democrats have pushed back, countering that the efforts are part of an attempt to suppress voting by Democratic constituencies, particularly minorities.The case concerned Larry Harmon, a software engineer and Navy veteran who lives near Akron, Ohio. He voted in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections but did not vote in 2012, saying he was unimpressed by the candidates. He also sat out the midterm elections in 2010 and 2014.But in 2015, Mr. Harmon did want to vote against a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and found that his name had been stricken from the voting rolls. State officials said that they had done so after sending Mr. Harmon a notice in 2011 asking him to confirm his eligibility to vote and that he did not respond. Mr. Harmon said he did not remember receiving a notice, but he was dropped from the voter rolls.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled in favor of Mr. Harmon in 2016, saying that Ohio had violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 by using the failure to vote as a trigger for sending the notices.The Supreme Court reversed that ruling, allowing the approach by Ohio, which is more aggressive than any other state in purging its voter rolls. After skipping a single federal election cycle, voters are sent a notice. If they fail to respond and do not vote in the next four years, their names are purged from the rolls.A few other states use similar approaches, but not one of them moves as fast.Ohio is the only state that commences such a process based on the failure to vote in a single federal election cycle, said a brief from the League of Women Voters and the Brennan Center for Justice. Literally every other state uses a different, and more voter-protective, practice.Federal laws prohibit states from removing people from voter rolls by reason of the persons failure to vote. But they allow election officials who suspect that a voter has moved to send a confirmation notice.Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said federal laws allowed such notices as part of a process to cull inaccuracies from the voting rolls. A key provision, he wrote, simply forbids the use of nonvoting as the sole criterion for removing a registrant, and Ohio does not use it that way.Instead, he wrote, Ohio removes registrants only if they have failed to vote and have failed to respond to a notice.Justice Alito wrote that Congress had good reason to urge states to clean up their voting rolls. Citing a 2012 report from the Pew Center on the States, he wrote that some 24 million voter registrations were estimated to be invalid or significantly inaccurate, and that 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state.In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that the goal of ensuring the accuracy of voting rolls did not justify erecting obstacles to prevent eligible voters from casting ballots. The purpose of our election process is not to test the fortitude and determination of the voter, but to discern the will of the majority, he wrote, quoting a Senate report.In 2012, Justice Breyer wrote, Ohio sent out 1.5 million notices, to roughly 20 percent of the states registered voters. But only 4 percent of Americans move outside their county each year, he wrote.Ohio only received back about 60,000 return cards (or 4 percent) which said, in effect: You are right, Ohio. I have, in fact, moved, Justice Breyer wrote. In addition, Ohio received back about 235,000 return cards which said, in effect, You are wrong, Ohio, I have not moved.In the end, however, there were more than one million notices the vast majority of notices sent to which Ohio received back no return card at all, he wrote.The upshot, Justice Breyer wrote, was that many voters who had not moved were removed from the rolls, thanks in large part to the human tendency not to send back cards received in the mail.Justice Alito said he was unimpressed by Justice Breyers cobbled-together statistics and a feature of human nature of which the dissent has apparently taken judicial notice.Federal law, Justice Alito wrote, plainly reflects Congresss judgment that the failure to send back the card, coupled with the failure to vote during the period covering the next two general federal elections, is significant evidence that the addressee has moved.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch joined the majority opinion.Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Justice Breyers dissent. In a separate dissent in which she wrote only for herself, Justice Sotomayor said Ohios program was of a piece with concerted state efforts to prevent minorities from voting and to undermine the efficacy of their votes that were an unfortunate feature of our countrys history.Justice Alito responded that the dissenters had focused on the wrong questions.The dissents have a policy disagreement, not just with Ohio, but with Congress, he wrote. But this case presents a question of statutory interpretation, not a question of policy. We have no authority to second-guess Congress or to decide whether Ohios notification program is the ideal method for keeping its voting rolls up to date.The only question before us is whether it violates federal law, Justice Alito wrote. It does not.Jon Husted, Ohios secretary of state, said other states may now follow Ohios lead.Todays decision is a victory for election integrity, Mr. Husted, a Republican, said in a statement, adding that this decision is validation of Ohios efforts to clean up the voter rolls and could serve as a model for other states to use.That would have a lopsided impact on Democratic voters, some analysts predicted.States can provide some rationale for sending notice cards to individuals for whatever reason, as long as its loosely tied to a change of address, and if voters fail to respond to that card, then basically they can be purged from the rolls, said Michael P. McDonald, a political scientist and director of the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.Thats the implication beyond Ohio, he said. I think Republican states are going to embrace this ruling.A Reuters study in 2016 found that at least 144,000 people were removed from the voting rolls in recent years in Ohios three largest counties, which are home to Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.Voters have been struck from the rolls in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at roughly twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods, the study found. Neighborhoods that have a high proportion of poor, African-American residents are hit the hardest.Voting-rights advocacy groups said they feared Mondays decision would lead to similar disparities. This decision will allow states to obstruct countless eligible voters from participating in our countrys electoral system, Vanita Gupta, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement. We should make it easier, not more difficult, for citizens to exercise their right to vote.Others suggested, however, that the impact of the ruling was likely to be more limited. It does give all 50 states the green light to do what Ohio did, said Edward B. Foley, an election-law scholar at Ohio State Universitys Moritz College of Law. But I think that green light is very specific with respect to voter purging and list maintenance.If youre a voter whos going to get purged as a result of this, he continued, it means you havent voted for at least six years, plus you havent responded to this notice. Genuine voter suppression is really horrific, but I dont think Ohio was being terribly irresponsible in what it was doing.The Justice Department for decades took the position that failing to vote should not lead to disenfranchisement. In the appeals court, the Obama administration filed a brief supporting Mr. Harmon.After the last presidential election, the department switched sides in the case, Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, No. 16-980.

Politics

Middle East|Pope Francis to Visit Egypt to Mend Ties With Muslimshttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/world/middleeast/pope-francis-egypt.htmlMarch 18, 2017VATICAN CITY Pope Francis will travel to Egypt next month, the Vatican said Saturday, giving him another opportunity to promote better relations between Catholics and Muslims.Francis has accepted an invitation to visit Cairo on April 28 and 29 from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Roman Catholic bishops, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox church of Alexandria and the grand imam of Al Azhar mosque, the Vatican said in a statement.Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, account for about 10 percent of Egypts population, which is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.Violence sometimes erupts over disputes related to the building of churches, religious conversions and interfaith relationships.Francis has put great emphasis on improving interfaith relations since he became pope in 2013, and a year ago he met the grand imam of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, in the Vatican.That meeting unfroze relations after Al Azhar, a 1,000-year-old mosque and university center, cut off contacts with the Vatican in 2011 over what it said were repeated insults toward Islam from Francis predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.Benedict had denounced what he called a strategy of violence that has Christians as a target after a bomb attack outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that killed 23 people.A bombing at Cairos largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 in December.Pope Francis has urged an end to what he called a genocide against Christians in the Middle East, but he has also said it is wrong to equate Islam with violence.

World

Magic Johnson On Mich St. Sexual Assaults Fire Everyone Who Didn't Take Action 1/29/2018 Magic Johnson is speaking out on the sexual assault scandal at his alma mater -- calling for Michigan State to fire every staffer who knew about the crimes, but stayed silent. In addition to the Larry Nassar scandal, officials say the NCAA was alerted in 2010 to dozens of reports of MSU athletes sexually assaulting women -- including at least 16 MSU football players. Instead of trying to change the culture and get to the root of the problem, Michigan State allegedly tried to keep the whole thing quiet. Now, Magic says anyone who knew about ANYTHING and didn't speak up should go. "If anyone was aware of the sexual assault happening to women on the MSU campus from the office of the President, Board of Trustees, athletic department, faculty & campus police, and didnt say or do anything about it, they should be fired." "Cookie and I stand in support of the victims and their families as they embark on the road to recovery; and I support the movement to hold everyone involved accountable." "The roles of the new President, Board of Trustees, athletic department, faculty, campus police and students will be to work together to create new policies and procedures to ensure this never happens again." "As a Spartan, I love MSU and want to work with Coach Izzo, the administration, and the students to be a part of the solution in any way that I can."

Entertainment

Credit...Evan Vucci/Associated PressMarch 31, 2016WASHINGTON President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China said Thursday that they would sign the Paris Agreement on climate change on April 22, the first day the United Nations accord will be open for government signatures.Officials cast the announcement as a statement of joint resolve by the worlds two largest greenhouse gas polluters, even though there are doubts about whether the United States can meet its obligations under the agreement. In February, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked an Obama administration regulation to curb greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, the centerpiece of Mr. Obamas climate change policy and the major way for the administration to meet its targets under the Paris accord.The two world leaders made the announcement on the sidelines of a nuclear security meeting in Washington.Our cooperation and our joint statements were critical in arriving at the Paris agreement, and our two countries have agreed that we will not only sign the agreement on the first day possible, but were committing to formally join it as soon as possible this year, Mr. Obama told reporters at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where he was meeting with Mr. Xi at the nuclear gathering.Mr. Obama, who spoke across a table from Mr. Xi, added, And we urge other countries to do the same.Mr. Xi, speaking through an interpreter, said, As the two biggest economies, China and the U.S. have a responsibility to work together.The Paris Agreement, reached in December, is the first global accord to commit nearly every nation to take domestic actions to tackle climate change. To promote the accord, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, planned the signing ceremony for April 22, Earth Day, although world leaders will have a year afterward to sign.The announcement by Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi is intended to push other countries to sign on, particularly since diplomats say the Supreme Court order has caused some countries to question American climate policy and might cause them to refuse or hesitate to sign the accord.The Paris Agreement will enter into legal force only when enough countries have signed on: Together they have to be responsible for causing 55 percent of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions.Because of the Supreme Court stay, the regulation curbing greenhouse gas emissions will not be put in place until legal challenges by 29 states and several business organizations have been resolved, which is unlikely to happen before next year. The regulation would help the United States cut greenhouse gas emissions between 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.Chinese energy experts said Chinas pledge to sign the accord was independent of the status of American climate policy. The understanding is that China is doing this for its own sake, said Ranping Song, an expert on Chinas climate change policies with the World Resources Institute, a Washington research organization. Its good for their environment; its good for their economy.Mr. Xis administration has endorsed an aggressive expansion of renewable energy sources in China. The countrys latest five-year economic plan calls for the country to generate 15 percent of its energy from nonfossil fuel sources by 2020.VideotranscripttranscriptObama and Xi Meet in WashingtonPresident Obama met on Thursday with President Xi Jinping of China to discuss carbon emissions, North Korea and other issues.As the largest developing country and the largest developed country, and also as the worlds top two economies, China and the United States have growing responsibilities for promoting world peace and maintaining stability and prosperity. In the meantime, as you have said, Mr. President, China and the United States have some disputes and disagreements in some areas. On the basis of respecting each others core interests and major concerns, we should actively seek solutions through dialogue and consultation.President Obama met on Thursday with President Xi Jinping of China to discuss carbon emissions, North Korea and other issues.CreditCredit...Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressCombined, the United States and China account for about 40 percent of global emissions.Mr. Ban has invited world leaders to come to New York for the April signing ceremony, which he hopes will represent the largest single joint signing of a major global accord in history.The most important thing is how many signatures we get on that day, said Laurence Tubiana, Frances chief climate change envoy to the United Nations and a key broker of the Paris deal. We need to show momentum because we know for some countries it may be difficult to sign.Todd Stern, the Obama administrations chief climate change envoy, said that the day after the Supreme Courts order, many of his counterparts in other countries expressed anxiety.I heard, Does this mean youre pulling out of Paris? he recalled in a recent interview. I said: No, no, no, no under any circumstances, were going to stay the course. One way or another, were not moving off our target.Mr. Stern, who has led climate change negotiations for the Obama administration since 2009, will step down from his post on Friday.The United States is not the only major polluting country that may have trouble following through on its Paris commitments. President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil committed to an ambitious plan to reduce her countrys emissions 43 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. The climate plan has been a signature of Ms. Rousseffs administration, but she now faces possible impeachment, which could throw the Brazilian plan into question.In the United States, enactment of Mr. Obamas climate change commitments under the Paris deal will ultimately fall to the next president. But that fact also worries some climate diplomats as they watch the 2016 presidential campaign from afar. Although the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, has pledged to enact and strengthen the Paris Agreement, on the Republican side both Donald J. Trump and Ted Cruz have questioned or denied the science of human-caused climate change. Mr. Trump has forcefully denounced the Paris agreement.Everyone who is looking at the election campaign from abroad is puzzled, Ms. Tubiana said. Donald Trump is a different type of person. Were thinking is this something that could really happen?

World

DealBook|Property Manager Deutsche Wohnen Urges Shareholders to Reject Vonovia Bidhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/business/dealbook/deutsche-wohnen-urges-shareholders-to-reject-vonovia-bid.htmlDec. 14, 2015LONDON Deutsche Wohnen urged its shareholders on Monday to reject a takeover bid from Vonovia, Germanys biggest residential real estate company.Vonovia offered to acquire its smaller rival in October, in a cash-and-share deal that values Deutsche Wohnen at 14 billion euros, or about $15.4 billion, including debt.The move eventually led Deutsche Wohnen to abandon a separate deal to acquire the residential property company LEG Immobilien. That transaction would have created a much stronger competitor to Vonovia.Deutsche Wohnen is focused primarily on managing and developing residential properties. As of Sept. 30, the company managed about 149,000 residential and commercial properties and about 2,000 nursing units.On Monday, Deutsche Wohnen said that its management and supervisory boards considered the structure and value of the Vonovia offer to be inadequate.The premium offered with the consideration on the stock price lies significantly below the premia paid for comparable transactions in the German residential real estate sector, Deutsche Wohnen said in a news release on Monday, and even signifies a discount against the median of analyst target share prices.Under the terms of Vonovias bid, Deutsche Wohnen investors would receive 83.14 in cash and seven shares of Vonovia for 11 Deutsche Wohnen shares.The Vonovia offer comes amid a push for consolidation in the German property sector.In April, Deutsche Wohnen failed in its bid to acquire enough shares from investors to take over Conwert Immobilien Invest, an Austrian real estate company.Last month, Deutsche Wohnen agreed to acquire a portfolio of about 13,600 apartments from the German real estate company Patrizia Immobilien for about 1.2 billion, including debt.Vonovia has said it expects to achieve about 84 million in pretax annual cost savings if the Deutsche Wohnen deal is completed.But Deutsche Wohnen said on Monday that its boards estimated that Vonovia could save only about 25 percent of that.Vonovia, based in Bochum, Germany, owns about 370,000 apartments across the country.

Business

Nicole Eggert Dr. Oz Sandbagged Me in New Interview 1/31/2018 TMZ.com There was a blowup at "The Dr. Oz Show" Tuesday when Nicole Eggert came back to shoot some additional footage for the show that will air Wednesday ... and TMZ has video of Nicole and her team confronting producers, claiming they were sandbagged. TMZ broke the story ... the show decided to air the episode, which was shot January 10 but later shelved because producers said they had issues with Nicole's timeline. They apparently had a change of heart, because after Nicole appeared on Megyn Kelly's show Tuesday they got a call from producers saying they would air the show, but wanted to ask some additional questions. Nicole showed up to Oz's studio Tuesday afternoon with her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, and her manager, David Weintraub, and they say Oz ambushed them, questioning whether Nicole really had sex with Scott Baio when she was 17. Oz revealed Nicole's friend, Christy, used her birthday as a marker in recalling a discussion she had with Nicole that made it appear Nicole was actually 18 when she had sex with Baio. TMZ.com You hear in the video Nicole, Lisa and David get extremely upset with producers, saying Christy's recollections were irrelevant and claiming Oz was trashing Nicole to save face for 86'ing the show earlier this month. The episode will air Wednesday.

Entertainment

Kristen Bell Good Genes or Good Docs? 1/21/2018 Kristen Bell's good looks are frozen in time! Here's a 24-year-old version of the "Veronica Mars" star at an event back in 2004 (left), and 13 years later ... the now 37-year-old mother of two looking like the Arendelle Princess at The Beverly Hilton last month (right). No SAG here. The question is ... Kristen Bell ... Share on Facebook TWEET This See also Kristen Bell Good Genes or Good Docs

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Asia Pacific|Calvin Trillins Poem on Chinese Food Proves Unpalatable for Somehttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/world/asia/calvin-trillin-chinese-food-poem.htmlSinosphereCredit...Christian Hansen for The New York TimesApril 7, 2016The writer Calvin Trillins poem in the April 4 issue of The New Yorker describes, in the voice of an exasperated American foodie, the varieties of Chinese cuisine now available. Some readers found it hard to swallow.Critics of the poem, Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?, said it was dismissive of Chinese culture.Mr. Trillin has written extensively about food, including Chinese cuisine in the United States. (A New Yorker article in 2010 profiled devotees of the chef Peter Chang.) And he has made a sideline of groan-inducing comic verse; one of his books is a compilation called Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist.But detractors argued online that his latest effort, which appeared in The New Yorkers food and travel issue, reflected fear and ignorance of China, depicting it as teeming with overwhelming numbers of people and places.The poem begins:Have they run out of provinces yet? If they havent, weve reason to fret.Long ago, there was just Cantonese.(Long ago, we were easy to please.)But then food from Szechuan came our way,Making Cantonese strictly pass.Szechuanese was the song that we sung,Though the ma po could burn through your tongue.Then when Shanghainese got in the loopWe slurped dumplings whose insides were soup.Then Hunan, the birth province of Mao,Came along with its own style of chow.So we thought we were finished, and thenA new province arrived: Fukien.The website Jezebel mocked Mr. Trillin and his poem from the perspective of a sixth-grader writing a book report: The protagonist of the poem is a man who really likes Chinese people but thinks there are too many of them. He also really likes to eat Chinese food but is scared by how many kinds there are.An article in The Stranger, an alternative weekly based in Seattle, said that Mr. Trillins talk of potentially endless provinces plays on the stereotype of the Chinese horde and stokes xenophobic fears.In an email to The Guardian, Mr. Trillin said that the poem was simply a way of making fun of food-obsessed bourgeoisie. He told the newspaper that his 2003 poem What Happened to Brie and Chablis? poked fun at similar trendiness in Western cuisine but was not meant as an insult to the French.That explanation did not mollify his critics on Twitter and elsewhere. Its satire! should not be used as a safety net for poorly conceived, poorly executed, or unwisely published pieces, the novelist Celeste Ng wrote.But others found such condemnation excessive. Kaiser Kuo, a Chinese-American writer based in Beijing, posted that he cant fathom why some Chinese-Americans take such affront at Calvin Trillins Chinese food poem.An update to The Strangers piece acknowledges the possibility that Mr. Trillin was being ironic. The writer quotes an English professor as telling him, in reference to Mr. Trillin, Hes been a food writer and poet of doggerel verse for a million years and Ive seen him riding his bike around Chinatown, where he loves to eat.

World

Science|Bezos thanks Amazon workers and customers for his vast wealth, prompting backlash.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/science/bezos-amazon.htmlBezos thanks Amazon workers and customers for his vast wealth, prompting backlash.Credit...Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesPublished July 20, 2021Updated Sept. 30, 2021From groceries and streaming subscriptions to web servers and Alexa, Amazon has become one of the most powerful economic forces in the world. And after Jeff Bezos returned from his brief flight to space on Tuesday in a rocket built by his private space company, Blue Origin, he made remarks that drew attention to the vast wealth the company had created for him.I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this, Mr. Bezos said during a news conference after his spaceflight.Mr. Bezos comment prompted swift critical reactions, including from a member of the House of Representatives who serves on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.Space travel isnt a tax-free holiday for the wealthy, said Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon. We pay taxes on plane tickets. Billionaires flying into space producing no scientific value should do the same, and then some!Mr. Blumenauer expressed concerns about the environmental effects of such space tourist flights. He said he had introduced legislation he called the Securing Protections Against Carbon Emissions (SPACE) Tax Act, aiming to make passengers on such flights pay a tax to offset their pollution impact.He wasnt alone in connecting Mr. Bezos spaceflight with concerns about how Amazons business practices have affected his companys employees as well as small businesses.While Jeff Bezos is all over the news for paying to go to space, lets not forget the reality he has created here on Earth, Representative Nydia Velazquez, Democrat of New York, said on Twitter. She added the hashtag #WealthTaxNow on Tuesday morning and included a link to an article about how much Amazons employees had been paid.While those congressional Democrats offered criticism, the message from the White House was more welcoming.This is a moment of American exceptionalism, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said when asked about the flight during a Tuesday news conference.

science

Students at Western Kentucky University, including participants in the Kelly Autism Program, gathered for a meal on campus. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times Have you or a family member received a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and attended college? If so, we would like to learn more about your experiences. Please fill out the form below. Some replies may be featured in a forthcoming feature on The Times's website. Sorry, but this form is no longer accepting submissions.

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Memo From the United NationsCredit...Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty ImagesMarch 2, 2017UNITED NATIONS Some of Europes most successful far-right politicians are women. There is Marine Le Pen of France, of course. But also Frauke Petry of Germany, Siv Jensen of Norway and Pia Kjaersgaard of Denmark, who is something of a pioneer in the new wave of anti-immigrant populism sweeping through Europe.They are leading, or have recently led, what were once fringe parties pushing their extremist views to the political mainstream and seeking to appeal to those who once eschewed their parties: female voters.Some of them are also eyeing their countrys highest office. Ms. Le Pen is vying to be president of France in elections scheduled to start in April, and if she wins an expected runoff in May (a long shot, admittedly) she could be the first far-right leader to be directly elected as a European head of state.Gender issues dont much get the attention of far-right parties, whether led by men or women. The parties dont support gender quotas in politics, as many centrist and left parties do, nor do they campaign on issues like equal pay. Abortion and gay rights are not lightning rod political issues for conservatives as they are in the United States, so they tend not to be ideological tinder in Europe.Gender is a useful wedge, though, when it comes to highlighting what has become one of their main planks: a critique of immigration, particularly from the Muslim world. The European far right has long seized on the hijab as a symbol of patriarchy; more recently it has said that attacks on gays and women in Muslim enclaves are evidence of the Islamic threat to European values.ImageCredit...Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesMs. Le Pen, in an opinion essay published in a French daily, LOpinion, used the mass sexual attacks in Cologne, Germany, on New Years Eve in 2015 to call for a referendum on immigration to France. I am scared that the migrant crisis signals the beginning of the end of womens rights, she wrote. Ms. Le Pen is also making a bid to woo gay voters, whom her father, the partys founder, once openly berated.Ruth Wodak, a professor at Lancaster University in Britain, called Ms. Le Pens appeals on gender issues opportunistic.They defend our women against harassment by foreigners strangers, migrants, Muslim men, says Ms. Wodak, the author of The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. However, they never spoke out against sexual harassment before.How unusual is it for a woman to lead a nativist party? About as unusual as it is for a woman to head any political party. While some are part of political dynasties, as in the case of Ms. Le Pen, others are self-made.Ms. Petry, a former chemist and businesswoman, ousted a former Europe-focused leader of the Alternative for Germany and turned it into a squarely nationalist party. Her platform for the national elections scheduled for this fall takes aim at foreigners and at the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for embracing them.ImageCredit...Arnold Jerocki/European Pressphoto AgencyMs. Kjaersgaard, one of the earliest forerunners of the European far right, established the Danish Peoples Party in 1995 and turned what were once considered fringe, racist ideas about restricting immigration into a potent political force.Her party has been crucial in supporting a minority government and has shaped policy as a result. Ms. Kjaersgaard is now the speaker of the Danish Parliament, though no longer the party leader.Ms. Jensen pushed her anti-immigrant Progress Party into a coalition government in Norway for the first time and snagged for herself an influential cabinet post as finance minister. She describes herself as a free-market conservative in the Thatcherite tradition. But she too has seized on fears of Islam, warning in a widely criticized 2009 speech about the sneaking Islamization of European society.Female leaders in Europe span the ideological spectrum. Two of the Continents most powerful leaders, Ms. Merkel of Germany and Theresa May of Britain, are on opposite sides of Britains plan to leave the European Union.Does the far right draw female voters? Not so much, but they are beginning to.One study, carried out across 17 countries by Swedish and Dutch scholars and published in late 2015 in an academic journal called Patterns of Prejudice, found women less likely than men to vote for what the study called the populist radical right but not because women were against the ideology.ImageCredit...Tariq Mikkel Khan/Polfoto, via Associated PressMen are neither more nativist nor authoritarian, compared with women, the study found, nor do women evince less discontent with their governments. Women by and large were deterred from voting for the radical right by other things, including the populist rights political style, occasional association with historic violence, stigmatization by parts of the elite and the general public in other words, their outlier-ness.That is where the gender of the leader can make a positive difference for the far right, said Cas Mudde, a Dutch scholar of the European far right.In the media, he argued, male leaders are often cast as power-hungry zealots. Female politicians are represented as softer, said Mr. Mudde, who teaches at the University of Georgia. For a radical right politician it can be actually very good.Sometimes, gender can make a difference in who wins. In Austria late last year, a larger share of women and a significantly larger share of young, educated women voted for the leftist party, helping to defeat the nativist candidate for president. Both parties candidates were men.Ms. Le Pens prospects in the French polls this spring will depend significantly on her ability to woo women, just as the success of far-right parties on the Continent more broadly will rest on their ability to bridge the gender gap.Consider Nonna Mayers research on the National Fronts record.In 2002, when it was headed by Ms. Le Pens firebrand, Holocaust-denying father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party won a far larger share of mens votes than womens. In 2012, by the time Ms. Le Pen took over the party, the gender gap had virtually vanished, only to return again in midterm polls since then.Ms. Mayer, a political scientist, said the gender gap for populist right wing parties could vary from one country to another and from one election to the next. For Ms. Le Pen, she said, the test will be the coming presidential election.

World

While e-cigarettes are still the most popular, teenagers are also smoking other items like cigarillos another worrisome sign for nicotine addiction, the C.D.C. says. Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesDec. 5, 2019Nearly one in three high school students has reported using a tobacco product recently, according to a new federal survey released on Thursday, evidence that concerns over nicotine addiction among teenagers are not limited to e-cigarettes. The data released today on youth tobacco product use are deeply troubling and indicate that past progress in reducing youth use of these products has been erased, said Brian King, the deputy director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These troubling rates of use are being driven by e-cigarettes, which have no redeeming aspects among youth.For the sixth year in a row, e-cigarettes dominated the students choice. Public health officials were concerned that despite wide-scale publicity intended to deter vaping, especially in the wake of recent vaping-related illnesses and even deaths, not only did the practice continue to surge, but students also did not seem to be particularly alarmed about e-cigarettes.And while e-cigarettes were by far the most popular product, researchers noted that one in three users, or an estimated 2.1 million middle and high school students, also used an additional tobacco product, such as cigars and cigarettes. Those students reported more symptoms of nicotine addiction than those who used one tobacco product.Indeed, such indications of nicotine dependence were worrisome, researchers said. Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the C.D.C., noted that nicotine could harm the developing brain.Youth use of any tobacco product, including e-cigarettes, is unsafe, he said in a statement. It is incumbent upon public health and health care professionals to educate Americans about the risks resulting from this epidemic among our youth.The year-over-year increases in teenage vaping as well as the vaping-related illnesses and deaths have intensified calls for a ban on flavored e-cigarette products that have been extremely popular among teenagers.On Thursday, the C.D.C. released its most recent numbers on the illnesses, saying that 48 deaths and 2,291 vaping-related hospital cases had been reported across the country. (The agency said it was now limiting its tabulation of cases to patients who needed to be hospitalized.) Most of the illnesses have been attributed to vaping THC products, not e-cigarettes alone. But an imminent ban seems unlikely. President Trump, who said in September that restrictions on flavors, including mint and menthol, would be imposed, has since backed away from that option. Late last month, he held a round table with vaping industry and public health advocates and warned that a ban would spawn counterfeit products. But according to an analysis of the data published last month in JAMA, high school students who use only e-cigarettes are increasingly turning to menthol or mint-flavored products. In 2016, 16 percent reported using those flavors, but in the latest survey, 57 percent said they used them. In contrast, sweet, candy-like flavors were becoming less popular, dropping to nearly 35 percent in 2019 from 54 percent in 2016.At a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Mitch Zeller, head of the tobacco control unit of the Food and Drug Administration, noted that new information from a separate federal survey should be considered when weighing which flavors should be removed from the market. That survey, by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that far more youths who used Juul flavor pods preferred mint than menthol. Compared to the use of e-cigarettes, the use of traditional cigarettes or cigars by teenagers remains relatively modest. But this was the first year that cigars were second in popularity behind e-cigarettes. More high school students reported smoking cigars, particularly cigarillos and also little, flavored cigars, than traditional cigarettes, 7.6 percent compared to 5.8 percent. Many students said they did not consider intermittent smoking of any product to be harmful. The National Youth Tobacco Survey found that despite widespread public health efforts to deter students from vaping or turning to any tobacco product, students still reported being steeped in environments that promote tobacco as alluring. Some nine out of 10 students said they were routinely exposed to tobacco advertising or promotion. And their interest is being piqued: Even among students who never used e-cigarettes, 39 percent said they were curious about using e-cigarettes and 37 percent were curious about traditional cigarettes.Students reported struggling to stop vaping or smoking: Nearly 58 percent reported having given serious thought to quitting, while nearly as many said they managed to do so for at least a day.The survey was administered by the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration from February through May of this year to 10,097 high school students and 8,837 middle school students, grades six through 12, which is considered a large representative national sample.[Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.]

Health

Credit...Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesMay 26, 2019BOSTON At 42, Zdeno Chara is 14 years older than the next oldest Bruins defenseman, Torey Krug.Of the four other blue liners who will take the ice for Boston against the St. Louis Blues in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals on Monday night, the next oldest is a second-year defenseman, Matt Grzelcyk, 25, and the youngest is Charas defensive partner, Charlie McAvoy, 21. McAvoy was born 32 days after Chara made his N.H.L. debut for the Islanders on Nov. 19, 1997.Chara was 29 when he signed with the Bruins as a free agent from Ottawa in 2006 and was immediately named captain. He won the Norris Trophy as the leagues best defenseman in 2009 he has been a finalist four other times and was a bulwark in 2011 when Boston won its first Stanley Cup in 39 years. Yet his greatest and most lasting contribution may be the knowledge he has imparted to the current crop of Bruins defensemen.Connor Clifton, 24, a rookie, spent most of this season with Bostons American Hockey League affiliate in Providence, R.I., but was called up when the veterans John Moore and Kevan Miller went out with injuries. Clifton played a key role in the sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals, and he credits Chara with showing him what is required to excel in the N.H.L.Hes the ultimate professional, said Clifton, a New Jersey native who played four years at Quinnipiac University. The way he takes care of himself, the way he carries himself, the way he leads the group he rubs off a little on everyone, especially the younger guys.As a 20-year-old rookie with the Islanders, Chara was mentored by a 25-year-old Scott Lachance. Chara, a Slovak, spoke little English at the time and was far from a finished product, but as his game and language skills developed, he began taking a larger role with players who needed the kind of help he had received.ImageCredit...Robert Laberge/Allsport, via Getty ImagesTwo years ago, as a 20-year-old rookie, Brandon Carlo was paired with Chara on Bostons top defensive unit.Coming into the N.H.L. isnt easy, said Carlo, who was the No. 37 overall pick in the 2015 draft. There are a lot of mind-set things you go through, like, Am I going to stay up here or get sent down? Just from the way he does things, on and off the ice, by watching him you can understand a lot more about the game.Carlo sustained a concussion in Bostons last regular-season game that season and missed the 2017 playoffs. That created an opportunity for McAvoy, then 19 and just a couple of weeks removed from playing for Boston University. Summoned from Providence, McAvoy was paired with Chara and made his Boston debut in the first-round series against Ottawa. Boston lost in six games, but McAvoy acquitted himself well, and gave credit to Chara.Hes a pretty easy guy to read off, and hes so defensively sound, and steady, McAvoy said. You get the opportunity to just play when youre with him.Goalie Tuukka Rask was traded to the Bruins from Toronto in 2006, the same year Chara arrived in Boston, and he has seen Chara paired with many teammates over the years. Chara has had the same effect on Carlo and McAvoy, Rask said, as he did on Dougie Hamilton, a former Bruin who was the ninth overall draft pick in 2011 and who played alongside Chara as a 19-year-old rookie in the 2012-13 season.Z has done that for every defenseman hes played with, Rask said. Hes both a solid defenseman and a leader.Carlo said Chara had successfully navigated the fine line between friendship and mentorship: Hell get on you if he needs to, or hell be your good friend, if you need that.ImageCredit...Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesEven a subtle gesture can have an impact. Clifton recalled what happened at practice the day before the series opener against Carolina.We were paired together that day, Clifton said, and I think it was a bad pass I made, or something like that, and he gave me a little tap on the back with his stick and said: Hey, lets go. Focus here. It was an awesome moment, and Ill probably look back on it someday and realize how much it helped me out.Claude Julien, the former Bruins coach, once described the 6-foot-9, 250-pound Chara as a freak of fitness. And after adopting a plant-based diet ahead of the 2017-18 season, Chara may be in better condition than he was a decade ago.Every day he comes to work, he doesnt seem tired, he doesnt seem groggy, Carlo said. He comes ready to battle.Chara is married with two children. Carlo marvels at his off-ice regimen.The way he eats, the way he trains, is amazing, he said. His focus 24/7 pretty much is on the hockey side of things. Why hes been in the league so long is because he is dedicated to that structure. Its pretty impressive to watch and learn from.The N.H.L.s longest-tenured captain, Chara signed a one-year contract extension in March, which will take him through his 43rd birthday, and he has indicated he hopes thats not the last one. McAvoy, hardly alone among his teammates, agrees.Everything he does is the perfect example for how everyone on our team should act, McAvoy said the day Chara re-upped with the Bruins. Hes helped me in so many ways on and off the ice. Im very lucky. I dont take it for granted to be able to play with a guy like that.

Sports

Health|Faces, Faces Everywherehttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/health/covid-psychology-distancing-faces.htmlIn this Covid-19 spring, a socially hungry person is inclined to see faces where there are none.Credit...May 5, 2020One of the mostly forgotten chestnuts of the newspaper racket was the photograph, always on the first snowy day of the year, of some frozen formation that resembled a human face. After seeing those pictures year after year, it was hard to shake the suspicion that news photographers were sculpting on the fly, and under deadline.But in this Covid-19 spring, with people confined in their homes and neighborhoods, the inanimate faces are back in irrepressible number. These visages peer outward with smiles or frowns, from standpipes and parking lots, rock piles and garbage found art as a witness to history and, in this circumstance, a reflection of shared human instinct.VideoCreditCredit...George Etheredge for The New York TimesIn a variety of experiments, social psychologists have found that when people are longing to socialize, they are more likely than usual to perceive humanlike traits in inanimate objects. The fridge is clearing its throat, impatiently; the yellow stain on the ceiling appears inflamed, hostile. The lava lamp, thank goodness, seems to glow with approval.As the psychologist William James wrote long ago, My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, said Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavior science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. When people are seeking social contact with other people, we would expect them to be thinking about other people and, hence, more likely to see signs of other people even where they might not exist, such as in everyday objects or scenes.After a month or more of social distancing, people may well be seeing more phantom faces than usual staring out from potholes, peeling tree bark and collapsed cakes, Dr. Epley said: Even New Yorkers need social contact in a big way now.VideoCreditCredit...George Etheredge for The New York Times

Health

Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via ShutterstockNov. 13, 2018ASHKELON, Israel The woman emerged dazed from the rubble, suffering from multiple injuries and barely able to speak. Her new husband, Mahmoud Abu Asaba, 48, had been pulled from beneath her amid the ruins of their fourth-story bedroom in an Ashkelon apartment building early Tuesday.Improbably, Mr. Abu Asaba was the only person killed in Israel in more than 24 hours of rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip, a staggering bombardment of at least 460 projectiles, many of which made it past Israels vaunted air defenses.Just as improbably, he was not an Israeli but a Palestinian, from Halhoul, near the West Bank city of Hebron.The randomness of his death put a fitting bookend on this latest paroxysm of violence in the bleak saga of Gaza-Israeli dysfunction, which began Monday afternoon and had run its course by Tuesday afternoon.The night-and-daylong attack by Hamas, which rules Gaza, and other militant factions terrorized residents in the bustling cities of Ashkelon and Sderot and in smaller communities across southern Israel. Israel responded with waves of airstrikes that pounded military targets and leveled several tall buildings used by Hamas, leaving a number of Palestinians homeless.But for all its intensity, the casualty toll could have been much higher. In Gaza, seven people were killed and 26 wounded. In Israel, Mr. Abu Asaba was killed and 18 people were wounded.Late Tuesday afternoon, Hamas leaders announced a cease-fire and Israel eventually followed suit. The abrupt and inconclusive outcome sparked celebrations in Gaza. It left Israels government, the most right-wing in the countrys history, contending with accusations of being soft on Hamas.ImageCredit...Hazem Bader/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesThat the battle began at all was unexpected. Neither Israel nor Hamas wanted a fight. Both had been taking steps, with Egypts mediation and Qatars financing, to cool tensions along their border and ease Gazas growing economic desperation.Israel had allowed fuel to reach Gazas underpowered electrical plant and cash to reach Hamass underpaid civil servants. Hamas had promised to curtail border protests and the use of incendiary balloons that had torched vast stretches of Israeli farmland. There was cautious optimism that further progress could be made.Then, Sunday night, came the kind of military mishap that Israel boasts almost never happens. An elite undercover squad on an intelligence mission in Khan Younis had its cover blown. It was the sort of foray undertaken frequently, albeit with great planning and precaution, to plant surveillance equipment or rendezvous with a Palestinian source.Fighting their way to safety with the help of heavy airstrikes, the Israelis lost a lieutenant colonel and killed seven Palestinian fighters.For Hamas, already reeling from domestic criticism that it had sold out the Palestinian cause for a pile of cash, the battle in Khan Younis was a public-relations bonanza. Its fighters were praised for valiantly defending their territory and heroically running off the Israeli invaders.But Hamas also accused Israel of deliberately sabotaging the nascent cease-fire. And it had seven dead fighters to avenge.Hamas, along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other armed Gaza factions, took its time in responding. At 4:30 p.m. Monday, the groups unleashed a well-coordinated rocket barrage on a scale not seen before, the Israeli military said.Shimrit Meir, an Israeli analyst of Palestinian politics, said the Gaza factions sensed that Israels eagerness to contain the fighting and avoid a full-blown ground conflict gave them unusually capacious room to maneuver.ImageCredit...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesThey controlled the timing of it, she said. They controlled the level of escalation. They controlled the flames.For example, the Palestinians fired an antitank missile at a civilian bus that had just dropped off about 50 Israeli soldiers. One soldier was seriously wounded and the bus was destroyed. But Hamas released a video showing that it had waited patiently for the bus to empty out before shooting.If they had hit that bus while it was full, guaranteed, wed be in a war right now, said Nathan Thrall, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.Israel ratcheted up its response, in a calibrated way, Mr. Thrall said. In the last Gaza war, in 2014, Israel waited until the conflicts final days to destroy tall buildings, and it deduced that doing so had a powerful effect on Hamas.So on Monday night, with rockets hitting Israeli neighborhoods, the army did not wait: It began leveling Gaza towers housing Hamass television and radio stations, military intelligence and other operations.To avoid civilian casualties, the army first warned the occupants to evacuate. And by Tuesday, Israeli social media was rife with mockery of the armys empty building strategy, Ms. Meir said.You have to admit, it looks ridiculous. I dont think thats whats going to make Hamas change its behavior.Meantime, Israel allowed its southern cities to be blasted from the sky and ordered its citizens to spend many hours in bomb shelters before venturing out tentatively on Tuesday.ImageCredit...Amir Cohen/ReutersTuesday night, as the cease-fire was backhandedly confirmed by the Israeli government when a right-wing member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition publicly denied that he had supported it fed-up residents of Sderot erupted. Shouting Disgrace! and Bibi go home! they set tires on fire, blocked off streets and railed against Mr. Netanyahu for allowing the conflict to end without a more decisive blow to the Palestinians. Opposition leaders accused Mr. Netanyahu of having no strategy for Gaza.The government does have a strategy, said Celine Touboul, a Gaza expert at Israels Economic Cooperation Foundation. But it is so replete with contradictions that it may be unworkable.Above all, the Israeli government wants quiet on the Gaza border, she said, but it is refusing to adopt measures that could achieve quiet, like allowing thousands of Gaza laborers to work in Israel.The government says it supports Egyptian efforts to broker a reconciliation between Hamas in Gaza and the more moderate Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank. But it has done little to encourage the Palestinian Authority to reconcile and return to control over Gaza.And while Israel refuses to consider a political deal with Hamas, Ms. Touboul said, it doesnt want to undermine their position to the extent that they cant enforce a cease-fire.In a way, then, Israel got at least part of what it wanted: Hamass position in Gaza has been strengthened enough for it to resume talks on a cooling-off at the border. Which brings the two sides more or less back where they were on Sunday morning.Except for the dead and wounded, and the dozens of civilians in Gaza and Israel whose homes were heavily damaged or destroyed.In Gaza City, Abu Hurayra al-Yazji, 34, said he was awakened from a sound sleep early Tuesday morning by banging on his apartment door. An Israeli soldier had telephoned his brother with a warning to roust his neighbors: The building was about to be bombed.ImageCredit...Gil Cohen-Magen/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesBefore he could get his wife and two children outside, Mr. Yazji said, the first missile struck one wing of the five-story building. From the street, they saw more missile strikes turn the rest of it to rubble.My kids were crying from horror, he said.Across the border in Ashkelon, apartment buildings were struck by missiles fitted with oversized explosive charges, Palestinian militants said.Mr. Abu Asada, the Palestinian who was killed in Israel, had trained to be a sea captain but had been working as a contractor in Israel for 15 years, according to an uncle, Emad Khalil Abu Asaba. About six months ago, he married his second wife his first wife and five children remained in Halhoul and moved with her into a dilapidated rental building. Their fellow tenants, including working-class Ethiopian, Russian and Moroccan Jews and Arabs, barely know each other by sight.All were left homeless. Tamasgen Melke, 28, a factory worker who lived on the first floor, said he saw a ball of fire and thought the apartment house would collapse.Before I even got out of bed the window blew out, he said.Mr. Abu Asadas body and his wife were not discovered until about 90 minutes after emergency workers had completed its search of the building.An urban renewal worker, Shlomi Lankri, who had driven across town to inspect the wreckage, climbed three flights out of sheer curiosity.He heard a faint sound, like scratching in the sand. Then, peering into the rubble by the light of his cellphone, long after rescue workers had moved on to another blast site, he saw something move. It was the hand of Mr. Abu Asadas wife, whose name has not been released.Mr. Abu Asadas family was to receive survivor benefits from the Jewish Agency, which has a fund for victims of terrorist attacks in Israel. Isaac Herzog, the agencys chairman, said it will be the first such award to a non-Israeli citizen.

World

Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesJune 20, 2017In the early days of his administration, President Trump did not hesitate to bash the drug industry. But a draft of an executive order on drug prices appears to give the pharmaceutical industry much of what it has asked for and no guarantee that costs to consumers will drop.The draft, which The New York Times obtained on Tuesday, is light on specifics but clear on philosophy: Easing regulatory hurdles for the drug industry is the best way to get prices down.The proposals identify some issues that have stoked public outrage such as the high out-of-pocket costs for medicines but it largely leaves the drug industry unscathed. In fact, the four-page document contains several proposals that have long been championed by the industry, including strengthening drugmakers monopoly power overseas and scaling back a federal program that requires pharmaceutical companies to give discounts to hospitals and clinics that serve low-income patients.Mr. Trump has often excoriated the drug industry for high prices, seizing on an issue that stirs the anger of Republicans and Democrats alike. He has accused the industry of getting away with murder, and said that he wanted to allow the federal government to negotiate directly with drug companies over the price of drugs covered by Medicare.But the proposed order does little to specifically call out the drug industry and instead focuses on rolling back regulations, a favorite target of the administration across many federal agencies.I do believe that the president wants to do something to lower drug prices for people, but this is a far cry from what he said on the campaign trail, said David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, a nonprofit that does not take money from the industry. I dont see anything there that addresses the drug companies getting away with murder, and it appears that is because Pharma has captured the process.With a new administration in place, the pharmaceutical and health products industry spent $78 million in lobbying in the first quarter, a 14 percent increase over last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.The draft executive order, obtained from an official with knowledge of the proposals, was prepared before last weeks meeting of cabinet members and other high-level administration officials. John Czwartacki, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said the session was the first of many meetings which will be held throughout the summer, adding that they will be working to identify both root causes and innovative solutions, leaving no stone unturned.Many of the people Mr. Trump has hired to work on drug policy have ties to the industry. Joe Grogan, the associate director of health programs in the budget office, worked as the head of federal affairs for Gilead, whose expensive hepatitis C drugs have helped fuel the debate over rising drug costs. Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, was a Republican congressman whose policies were seen as industry-friendly and who opposed measures like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. And the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, was a longtime consultant to the drug industry.Several of the proposals appear to reflect that industry influence. For example, the document directs the United States trade representative to conduct a study of price differences between the United States and other countries, and to review trade agreements that may need to be revised to promote greater intellectual property protection and competition in the global market.The pharmaceutical industry has said that Americans pay the highest prices to compensate for low prices in other countries. However, other countries pay lower prices for drugs in part because their governments control prices, said Allan Coukell, senior director of health programs at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Its unclear what ability the U.S. would have to change that.The draft order targets a program, 340B, that requires the drug industry to give discounts to hospitals and clinics that serve large numbers of low-income patients. The industry has complained that the program is being abused, while hospitals say they would have to cut services without it.Thats one that sticks out as a bit of a head scratcher, said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who was a top F.D.A. official under President Barack Obama. This is the executive order to lower drug prices why would you put in a provision that would raise drug prices?In recent weeks, the industry has shown signs it believes it is getting a fairer shake.In May, Joseph Jimenez, the chief executive of Novartis, told investors that he believed the administration would offer a solution that will preserve the business model of how we innovate and discover and develop and launch in the U.S., as opposed to some of the bigger and more draconian elements that were discussed earlier, according to Bloomberg.Dr. Sharfstein and others said they were intrigued by one proposal, known as value-based pricing, that appeals to the industry and policy wonks alike. The idea refers to paying drug companies for the value that a drug brings refunding money if a drug fails to prevent a costly health condition, for example.Some proposals appear to address alleviating the rising out-of-pocket costs that patients are being asked to pay. One calls on reducing burdens caused by regulatory or administrative actions that cause Medicare beneficiaries to pay the list price for drugs when the companies that run the drug plans known as pharmacy benefit managers get a lower price from drugmakers. Another would target regulations that inappropriately or unfairly contribute to higher prices or cost-sharing for medical products for American patients.Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health, a health advisory company whose clients include drug companies and insurers, said, All of our research shows that when a patient faces high cost-sharing for a drug, theyre more likely not to take it.Still, it was unclear how much issues could be addressed through administrative or regulatory changes. Indeed, many of Mr. Trumps most aggressive statements on the issue including allowing Medicare to directly negotiate the price of drugs would require legislative action.Congress has been consumed by negotiation over the replacement of the Affordable Care Act, and while several drug-pricing bills have been introduced, few have gained much traction so far.For its part, the F.D.A. is taking action that even Mr. Trumps critics say may well help drive down prices. Mr. Gottlieb is expected this week to announce a new plan to make sure the generic drug approval process isnt being gamed in ways that hamper competition.

Health

Grammys 2018 HC & Pals Skewer Trump In 'Fire and Fury' Spoken Word Album Auditions 1/28/2018 CBS A lot of award shows lately have mostly avoided the topic of Donald Trump, but the Grammys just went all in on the Prez with a notable cherry on top ... Hillary Clinton. Grammys host James Corden intro'd a skit Sunday to showcase fake auditions he held with a bunch of celebs to see who'd narrate Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury" for a potential nomination in next year's Best Spoken Word Album category ... and it's freaking hilarious. Some of the stars who took a crack at reading excerpts from the book included John Legend, Cher, Snoop Dogg, Cardi B, DJ Khaled and, last but not least, Hillary. Like we said, this thing is too damn funny for us to explain. Ya just gotta watch it.

Entertainment

Deondre Francois 911 Call 'She's Tearin' Up Everything' 1/25/2018 TMZSports.com FSU QB Deondre Francois was worried his ex-GF was going to wreck all his stuff -- including 2 flat screen TVs -- according to the 911 call obtained by TMZ Sports. Cops responded to an incident at Francois' apartment earlier this week. Francois claims his GF became enraged and started breaking things at his apartment before she tried to hit him. Francois' GF told a different story ... saying the FSU QB flew into a jealous rage, knocked down a door and threw her to the ground. In the 911 call made by DF, he tells Tallahassee PD that his girl is "tearin' up everything in my house." Francois tells the operator the girl threatened to call cops and say he physically hurt her ... "She's trying to say I was domestic violent. But my best friend is sitting right here. He just seen her trying to take everything down." "I just want someone to come get her please." As for the investigation, Tallahassee PD tells us Francois is in the clear ... which means Francois and his girlfriend will not face criminal charges from the incident.

Entertainment

Alex Rodriguez Private Jet Makes Emergency Landing 1/25/2018 Alex Rodriguez's private jet just made an emergency landing only minutes after leaving a runway in New Jersey. The multi-million dollar Gulfstream IV took off from Teterboro Airport Thursday morning, and the pilot declared an emergency shortly after. We're told he attempted to land the plane in Albany, but aborted, and headed back to Teterboro where he he was able to bring it down safely. A-Rod was not on board, and it appears the issue was mechanical. TMZ obtained air traffic control audio, and you can hear the pilot mention a problem with a flap. Air traffic control opened a runway for the emergency landing, which was successful. A source connected to A-Rod tells us the landing was made mostly as a precaution, and the pilot was making a test run. The FAA tells us it's investigating. As we reported, A-Rod just took delivery of the G4 last month.

Entertainment

VideotranscripttranscriptItaly Presses Egypt on Death of StudentForeign Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy said the authorities were pushing for full collaboration with Egyptian officials investigating the death of an Italian student in Cairo.Rome - 5 April 2016 // SOUNDBITE (Italian) Paolo Gentiloni, Italian Foreign Minister: I must say that the governments position during the talks with our counterparts and also here at the parliament, I said it at Question Time on February 24, in all public offices, it (the governments position) was suddenly very clear. I sum it up with the words of the Prime Minister (Matteo Renzi), when he said we will stop only when we will find the truth (behind the torture and death of an Italian graduate student in Cairo). The one that is true, not the one that is convenient. // SOUNDBITE (Italian) Paolo Gentiloni, Italian Foreign Minister: We will understand, I think, from the meeting on Thursday and Friday, with the five Egyptian delegates, magistrates and investigators, that well have in Rome, what we mean exactly when we say- we will succeed with our pressure to have full collaboration (in the investigation). What do we mean by that? We mean, for example, to acquire the missing documentation. We mean to avoid validating in any way twisted or convenient truths.Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy said the authorities were pushing for full collaboration with Egyptian officials investigating the death of an Italian student in Cairo.CreditCredit...Alessandro Bianchi/ReutersApril 5, 2016CAIRO The foreign minister of Italy said Tuesday that his government would take immediate and proportional measures against Egypt if it failed to help uncover the truth behind the death of an Italian graduate student in Cairo two months ago.We will stop only when we will find the truth, the real one, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told Parliament, adding that he would not accept any fabrication.The threat by Mr. Gentiloni came the day before a team of Egyptian investigators was scheduled to land in Rome for meetings on the case of the student, Giulio Regeni, 28, a doctoral candidate, whose brutalized body was discovered on a roadside in February in Cairo. A slow-moving investigation into the killing, hampered by troubled cooperation between the Italian and Egyptian police, has prompted Italian accusations of an Egyptian cover-up.Five Egyptian investigators and prosecutors were scheduled to meet with their Italian counterparts on Thursday in Rome. The Italians are demanding data from Mr. Regenis cellphone and footage from surveillance cameras in the Cairo neighborhood where he disappeared on Jan. 25.Mr. Regenis body was found nine days later bearing signs of torture, including cigarette burns, broken bones and head wounds that were consistent with forms of abuse associated with the Egyptian security forces.Egyptian officials claimed a breakthrough last month in the investigation of the death of Mr. Regeni after police officers shot dead five men they said were part of a gang that kidnapped foreigners.Officers later said they found Mr. Regenis passport and student card at an apartment linked to the slain suspects.The explanation elicited scorn and disbelief in Italy, where members of Mr. Regenis family and the Italian government suspected that the Egyptian government, already under fire for its poor human rights record, was seeking to divert attention from the possibility that Mr. Regeni had been killed by members of Egypts security forces. Last week Mr. Regenis mother, Paola, said that her sons body had been so disfigured that she could only recognize him by the tip of his nose. I wont tell you what they had done to him, Mrs. Regeni said. I saw all the evil of the world in that.Mrs. Regeni threatened to release graphic photographs of her sons body if his killers were not found.Although the Egyptian news media and some officials have for weeks floated lurid theories about how Mr. Regeni died, many Egyptians are becoming increasingly vocal about their alarm over the case.The mother of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian whose death at the hands of two police officers in 2010 was seen as a motivating factor in public protests that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in early 2011, released an emotional video addressing Mrs. Regeni. I feel for you and feel your pain, said the mother, Laila Marzouk. I will continue the journey of your son.On Sunday, the editor in chief of Al Ahram, Egypts top state newspaper, published an unusually sharp denunciation of the governments handling of Mr. Regenis case. The officials lack of understanding of the value of truth, to say nothing of the priority given to human rights in European societies, places the Egyptian state in an embarrassing and extremely grave predicament, said the editor, Mohammed Abdel-Hadi Allam, in a front-page article.Others raised questions about the theory that Mr. Regeni had been killed by a gang of kidnappers. Relatives of the five men killed by the police, apparently in a shootout at a checkpoint in a Cairo suburb, said they believed that they had in fact been executed. Moamen Tawfeeq said the body of his 21-year-old nephew, which he had identified in a morgue, had just one bullet wound to the head. He was killed in cold blood, Mr. Tawfeeq said.A police spokesman, Abu Bakr Abdel Karim, could not be reached for comment on the case.Egypts president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that the allegations of police brutality represent a broader trend. But in recent months, his government has imposed a harsh crackdown on journalists, human rights activists and aid groups that document torture, disappearances and other rights abuses.On Tuesday, officials moved to close down the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, the most prominent Egyptian organization tracking patterns of police abuse.The authorities had been threatening to close the organization for months, ostensibly for a health violation, in what was widely seen as part of a broader assault on independent associations that monitor government abuse.But health officials sent to close the building left after employees refused to leave, said Aida Seif al-Dawla, one of the groups founders.I dont know what will happen next, Ms. Seif al-Dawla said. I am expecting anything.

World

News AnalysisCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesJune 4, 2018WASHINGTON President Trump, ramping up his assertions of extraordinary powers, declared in a tweet on Monday that he had the absolute right to pardon himself for any crime.While no president has ever attempted to pardon himself, and it is not clear whether Mr. Trump could legitimately take such a step, the presidents claim was the latest in an aggressive series of moves to assert his control over federal law enforcement.Last month, Mr. Trump crossed a traditional line by ordering an investigation into the Russia investigators. And late last year he boasted he has an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.The president has had help in shaping his expansive view of his authority: For at least a year, his lawyers in the investigation into whether he tried to obstruct the Russia inquiry have been advising the president that he wields sweeping constitutional powers to impede investigations no matter his motive and despite obstruction-of-justice laws that everyone else must obey.He has unfettered authority to fire the F.B.I. director, which he did last year; to order a federal investigation opened or closed; and to pardon anyone, including felons or criminal suspects, his longtime personal lawyer Marc E. Kasowitz said in a confidential memo last June. The president cannot obstruct himself or subordinates acting on his behalf by simply exercising these inherent constitutional powers, he wrote.Many legal scholars have derided such claims as going too far, although no Supreme Court precedents offer definitive guideposts about whether Congress can make it illegal for a president to use his powers to supervise the Justice Department in a corrupt way.We overthrew control by a monarchy, and the Constitution signals in multiple places that the president is subject to law, said Peter Shane, an Ohio State University law professor and co-author of a separation-of-powers casebook.Mr. Kasowitz made his case in a letter to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and it was endorsed by two of the presidents other personal lawyers, John M. Dowd and Jay A. Sekulow, who incorporated his arguments in their own letter to Mr. Mueller in January. Both letters, published over the weekend by The New York Times, offered an array of factual and legal arguments for why Mr. Trump has not violated obstruction laws and need not answer questions from Mr. Mueller.But their striking constitutional claim that obstruction statutes cannot bind Mr. Trump stood apart from the rest of their case.The idea that presidents, by virtue of their unique constitutional powers, are above ordinary law has surfaced from the White House before. Defenders of the Reagan administration made the claim during the Iran-contra affair, and lawyers in the George W. Bush administration wrote memos blessing torture and warrantless wiretapping programs. As Richard M. Nixon claimed after the Watergate scandal: When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.But the Trump teams claim that obstruction-of-justice statutes do not apply to the president carries new twists.For one thing, such disputes have tended to arise in the context of a president, in his role as commander in chief, pushing legal limits to defend the country from foreign threats. Even the Nixon administration rationalized surveillance of domestic political opponents, including antiwar and civil rights leaders, by citing worries about potential covert Soviet subversion.Mr. Trumps lawyers, by contrast, are claiming that he is the chief law enforcement officer a description usually applied to the attorney general wielding absolute power to command the actions of every federal prosecutor or F.B.I. agent in a way no congressional statute can limit. And he is doing so in the context of an investigation aimed at uncovering the scope of a foreign powers covert meddling with American democracy and whether he personally obstructed that inquiry.VideotranscripttranscriptHow Trump Is Using the Power to PardonThe president has pardoned political allies and prominent figures who he said were treated unfairly by prosecutors. The Timess Supreme Court reporter, Adam Liptak, looks at how this compares with the actions of previous presidents.President Trump made news this week by pardoning a conservative commentator, Dinesh DSouza, and hinting that he may also pardon Martha Stewart, the lifestyle mogul, and Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois. In discussing these cases, President Trump often returns to a theme. He says these people have been treated unfairly by prosecutors, and that resonates with some of his thinking about his own case. Many presidents have thought themselves confined by constitutional norms. But theres really no question that the Constitution gives the president unlimited authority to pardon people convicted of federal crimes. Previous presidents have used much of their pardon authority on cases of more ordinary Americans who have served their entire sentence, expressed remorse, and after years applied for a pardon. Its not particularly unusual for presidents to pardon prominent people, including high-profile associates caught up in the criminal justice system, but they typically do it late in their terms. That doesnt mean there are no responses to pardons people might find inappropriate. Impeachment of course is a possibility, or political consequences. I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough. When President Gerald Ford pardoned President Nixon after Nixon resigned, it surely contributed to President Fords inability to gain election. President Trump has used his pardon authority really exclusively to focus on prominent people, often people closely aligned with him politically or caught up in investigations that he finds unfair because they mirror investigations of him and his associates. Many of the cases involve prosecutions brought by people that President Trump dislikes, notably the former director of the F.B.I. and the former United States attorney from the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, whom President Trump fired. To associates entangled in the Russia investigation, they might think that President Trumps willingness to issue these pardons suggests hes prepared to pardon them as well.The president has pardoned political allies and prominent figures who he said were treated unfairly by prosecutors. The Timess Supreme Court reporter, Adam Liptak, looks at how this compares with the actions of previous presidents.CreditCredit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesThe implications of Mr. Trumps claim also go beyond the context of his lawyers defending him in a criminal case. If obstruction statutes cannot stop Mr. Trump from shutting down an investigation even if he did so with a corrupt motive, then Justice Department procedures and regulations also cannot stop him from ordering an investigation into his political opponents for corrupt reasons.Those factors make the Trump lawyers claims different from assertions by previous presidents that the White House can lawfully bypass important statutes, said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department national security official during the Bush and Obama administrations who is a co-founder of the consulting firm Culper Partners.Trump is doing this not for national security reasons but to impede an investigation into himself and his associates, and hes staking a far more sweeping claim to power than even other presidents by saying he can use the Justice Department for whatever he wants, Mr. Kris said.He added: They are saying not just that the president is above the law, but in effect that he is the law that he is the personification of justice and cannot obstruct himself. That is very stark and not very persuasive.The constitutional theory Mr. Trumps team has put forward is not his first line of defense. They also have mustered factual claims, denying wrongdoing and arguing that as a technical matter, a particular obstruction statute did not apply to his actions. (The memo, however, appeared to be focused on the wrong statute, rendering the statutory arguments beside the point.)But the Trump team is invoking its aggressive constitutional theory to backstop its other arguments. Even though Congress has made it a crime to impede a pending or potential grand-jury investigation or trial with corrupt intentions, they said, that statute cannot be applied to Mr. Trump, no matter what the evidence shows about his actions and intentions.Both Nixon and President Bill Clinton were accused of obstruction of justice by lawmakers as part of impeachment proceedings, drawing on evidence brought to light by prosecutors who, rather than charging them with crimes, sent reports to the House Judiciary Committee for impeachment consideration. But the actions those presidents were accused of like witness tampering or suborning perjury were not an exercise of their official powers as president.The novel issue raised by the investigation into Mr. Trump assuming Mr. Mueller has not uncovered evidence of other obstructive actions that is not yet public is whether Congress can make it a crime for him to use his power over the law enforcement system with a corrupt purpose, even if it would otherwise be lawful for him to take such steps.Put simply, Mr. Kasowitz wrote last June, the Constitution leaves no question that the president has exclusive authority over the ultimate conduct and disposition of all criminal investigations and over those executive branch officials responsible for conducting those investigations.He added that while there are various political checks and balances that would inform the presidents exercise of this authority as a prudential matter, and various norms have developed over the years as a result of those checks and balances, none of these diminish the presidents ultimate constitutional authority over investigations and prosecutions.No Supreme Court precedent exists that directly addresses the questions of how far Mr. Trumps constitutional authority extends to supervise the Justice Department, or whether, if he did corruptly exercise that power, the statutes that make obstruction of justice a crime apply to him. Presidents and Congress routinely jostle over where to draw the line between their respective and often overlapping powers, but the Supreme Court rarely gets involved in adjudicating such questions.Still, the court has ruled that Congress can impose some restrictions on a presidents power to control the executive branch, including by upholding statutes that prevent him from firing certain officials, including certain prosecutors, without good cause. On the other hand, Congress clearly signaled that it intended for those statutes to apply to presidents, while the obstruction statute is a general law.While Britains kings traditionally wielded a prerogative power to suspend or dispense with laws, the framers of the Constitution required the American president to faithfully execute them, Mr. Shane noted. Though what that means can sometimes be blurry, he said, the Trump claim struck him as dubiously broad.The idea that the president could regardless of his motive just work his will on the investigation of civil or criminal offenses, that the Constitution frees him to act with corrupt motives, is just an affront to the idea of the president as a public trustee and subject to law.

Politics

Dolores O'Riordan Laid to Rest in Ireland 1/23/2018 Dolores O'Riordan's bandmates, family and friends gathered to lay her to rest Tuesday in the band's hometown. The surviving Cranberries -- Noel Hogan, Mike Hogan and Fergal Lawler -- were in Limerick for her funeral service at St. Ailbe's Church ... the church where she once played and sang in the choir. Her loved ones, as well as hundreds of fans, have been mourning for several days ... beginning with a memorial service on Sunday. Doloroes was found dead in a London hotel room last week. As for cause of death ... her reps and police will only say she died suddenly. She was 46. Irish radio stations simultaneously played the Cranberries '96 hit, "When You're Gone" shortly after noon.

Entertainment

Pence is said to oppose invoking 25th Amendment to strip Trump of his duties.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJan. 7, 2021Vice President Mike Pence is opposed to a call by Democrats in Congress and some Republicans to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip President Trump of his powers before his term ends, a person close to the vice president said.It is unclear when Mr. Pence will alert Congress of his position. But the decision by Mr. Pence is said to be supported by several Trump cabinet officials. Those officials, a senior Republican said, viewed the effort as likely to add to the current chaos in Washington rather than deter it.

Politics

Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesJune 28, 2018WASHINGTON President Trump singled him out for praise even while attacking other members of the Supreme Court. The White House nominated people close to him to important judicial posts. And members of the Trump family forged personal connections.Their goal was to assure Justice Anthony M. Kennedy that his judicial legacy would be in good hands should he step down at the end of the courts term this week, as he was rumored to be considering. Allies of the White House were more blunt, warning the 81-year-old justice that time was of the essence. There was no telling, they said, what would happen if Democrats gained control of the Senate after the November elections and had the power to block the presidents choice as his successor.There were no direct efforts to pressure or lobby Justice Kennedy to announce his resignation on Wednesday, and it was hardly the first time a president had done his best to create a court opening. In the past half-century, presidents have repeatedly been dying to take advantage of timely vacancies, said Laura Kalman, a historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.But in subtle and not so subtle ways, the White House waged a quiet campaign to ensure that Mr. Trump had a second opportunity in his administrations first 18 months to fulfill one of his most important campaign promises to his conservative followers that he would change the complexion and direction of the Supreme Court.When Mr. Trump took office last year, he already had a Supreme Court vacancy to fill, the one created by the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. But Mr. Trump dearly wanted a second vacancy, one that could transform the court for a generation or more. So he used the first opening to help create the second one. He picked Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who had served as a law clerk to Justice Kennedy, to fill Justice Scalias seat.And when Justice Gorsuch took the judicial oath in April 2017 at a Rose Garden ceremony, Justice Kennedy administered it after Mr. Trump first praised the older justice as a great man of outstanding accomplishment.Throughout his nearly 30 years on the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump said, Justice Kennedy has been praised by all for his dedicated and dignified service.That was an overstatement. Justice Kennedy is reviled by many of Mr. Trumps supporters for voting to uphold access to abortion, limit the death penalty and expand gay rights. Conservatives have called for his impeachment. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, once called Justice Kennedy the most dangerous man in America.Mr. Trump himself said he wanted to appoint justices who would overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Justice Kennedy has voted to reaffirm Roes core holding. And Mr. Trump has not hesitated to criticize far more conservative members of the Supreme Court, notably Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.Justice Roberts turned out to be an absolute disaster, he turned out to be an absolute disaster because he gave us Obamacare, Mr. Trump said in 2016, presumably referring to Chief Justice Robertss votes to sustain President Barack Obamas health care law.There is reason to think, then, that Mr. Trumps praise of Justice Kennedy was strategic.Then, after Justice Gorsuchs nomination was announced, a White House official singled out two candidates for the next Supreme Court vacancy: Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Raymond M. Kethledge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati.The two judges had something in common: They had both clerked for Justice Kennedy.In the meantime, as the White House turned to stocking the lower courts, it did not overlook Justice Kennedys clerks. Mr. Trump nominated three of them to federal appeals courts: Judges Stephanos Bibas and Michael Scudder, both of whom have been confirmed, and Eric Murphy, the Ohio solicitor general, whom Mr. Trump nominated to the Sixth Circuit this month.One person who knows both men remarked on the affinity between Mr. Trump and Justice Kennedy, which is not obvious at first glance. Justice Kennedy is bookish and abstract, while Mr. Trump is earthy and direct.VideotranscripttranscriptIs the Future of the Supreme Court in the Hands of These 2 Senators?Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, both moderate Republicans who favor abortion rights, are facing pressure from liberal activists to defend Roe v. Wade in the impending confirmation battle over President Trumps Supreme Court nominee.Justice Anthony Kennedys decision to retire from the Supreme Court is putting abortion rights back into the spotlight. President Trump has long vowed to nominate pro-life jurists. Under my administration, we will always defend the right to life. Democrats, as a minority party in the Senate, have almost no chance of blocking Trumps nominee on their own. So liberal activists have been quick to put pressure on two moderate female Republicans who openly favor abortion rights. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, you cannot vote for these nominees and claim you are pro-choice. Collins of Maine and Murkowski of Alaska could be pivotal swing votes in the coming Senate confirmation battle. Republicans need a simple majority. So if even one of these two breaks ranks, and every Democrat votes against it, the nominee wouldnt get through. Roe v. Wade has said that a woman has the right, that reproductive right, to choose. And I have supported that. Both senators have veered from the party line before: They were the only two Republicans to vote against all three Obamacare repeal propositions in 2017. My choice and vote really matter in Washington right now. Both women did vote for President Trumps conservative nominee, Neil Gorsuch, but now the stakes are higher with abortion rights on the line. Even if Collins and Murkowski both vote against the nominee, Democrats from red states, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, could still help push through Trumps pick.Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, both moderate Republicans who favor abortion rights, are facing pressure from liberal activists to defend Roe v. Wade in the impending confirmation battle over President Trumps Supreme Court nominee.CreditCredit...Tom Brenner/The New York TimesBut they had a connection, one Mr. Trump was quick to note in the moments after his first address to Congress in February 2017. As he made his way out of the chamber, Mr. Trump paused to chat with the justice.Say hello to your boy, Mr. Trump said. Special guy.Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Justice Kennedys son, Justin. The younger Mr. Kennedy spent more than a decade at Deutsche Bank, eventually rising to become the banks global head of real estate capital markets, and he worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people with knowledge of his role.During Mr. Kennedys tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trumps most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history.About a week before the presidential address, Ivanka Trump had paid a visit to the Supreme Court as a guest of Justice Kennedy. The two had met at a lunch after the inauguration, and Ms. Trump brought along her daughter, Arabella Kushner. Occupying seats reserved for special guests, they saw the justices announce several decisions and hear an oral argument.Ms. Trump tweeted about the visit and posted a photo. Arabella & me at the Supreme Court today, she wrote. Im grateful for the opportunity to teach her about the judicial system in our country firsthand.If the overtures to Justice Kennedy from the White House were subtle, the warnings from its allies were blunt. Last month, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, went on Hugh Hewitts radio program to issue an urgent plea.My message to any one of the nine Supreme Court justices, he said, was, If youre thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday.Mr. Grassley said speed was of the essence in light of the midterm elections in November. If we have a Democrat Senate, he said, youre never going to get the kind of people that are strict constructionists.Intermediaries pressed the point with Justice Kennedy privately, telling him that Donald F. McGahn II, Mr. Trumps White House counsel, would in all probability leave after the midterms. Mr. McGahn has been a key architect of Mr. Trumps successful efforts to appoint wave after wave of conservative judges, they said, and his absence would complicate a Supreme Court confirmation.There is nothing particularly unusual in urging older justices to retire for partisan reasons. During the Obama administration, prominent liberals called for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire so that Mr. Obama could name her successor.Justice Kennedy waited until the last day of the term to announce his retirement. The move disappointed liberals who had hoped that he would not want Mr. Trump to name his successor. But the justice, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, betrayed no hesitation.His departure is a triumph for Mr. Trump, who has taken particular satisfaction in his judicial appointments. Naming justices and judges is easier than forging legislative compromises, and Mr. Trump understands that his judicial appointments represent a legacy that will long outlast his presidency.Replacing Justice Scalia with another conservative did not alter the basic ideological balance of the court. But replacing Justice Kennedy, who for decades held the decisive vote in many of the courts closely divided cases, would give Mr. Trump the opportunity to move the court sharply to the right.Justice Kennedy visited the White House on Wednesday to tell Mr. Trump of his retirement and to deliver a letter setting out the details. Its warm opening words My dear Mr. President acknowledged a cordial relationship between the two men, as well as the success of the White Houses strategy.

Politics

Sports Briefing | Pro FootballFeb. 6, 2014The Jets filled the lone remaining vacancy on their coaching staff by hiring Thomas McGaughey as their special-teams coach. McGaughey, 40, spent the last three seasons as the special-teams coach at Louisiana State. McGaughey was the Giants assistant special-teams coordinator for four seasons and has also coached in the N.F.L. in Kansas City, Houston and Denver.

Sports

Credit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesMarch 22, 2017LUCKNOW, India In a glass-sided call center, police constables clicketyclack on computer keyboards, on the trail of a particularly Indian sort of criminal.The phone Romeo, as he is known here, calls numbers at random until he hears a womans voice, in the hope of striking up a romantic attachment. Among them are overeager suitors (Can I recharge your mobile?), tremulous supplicants (I am talking to you, madam, but my body is shaking) and the occasional heavy breather (I want to do the illegal things with you).Intentionally dialing wrong numbers is a labor-intensive way to find a girlfriend. But it is increasingly common in a range of countries Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh and India are examples where traditional gender segregation has collided head-on with a wave of cheap new technology.India is justly proud of its mobile-phone revolution. Call tariffs are among the worlds cheapest, and competition has sent the price of broadband plummeting. An estimated 680 million Indians use cellphones now, with three million new ones coming online every month. Indias leaders promote mobile platforms as a sign of social progress, a better way to distribute subsidies and obtain information about health care and agricultural conditions.An unintended consequence is that social barriers between men and women are collapsing. Reports of phone stalking have increased exponentially, leading to growing complaints of harassment. But an unknown number of such calls are successful, resulting in what an American anthropologist has labeled wrong-number relationships.Its a new thing, said Julia Q. Huang, a fellow in the anthropology department of the London School of Economics, who has written a scholarly paper on the practice among young women in Bangladesh. Its covert, its risky, its experimenting with that outside world which they dont have much access to.At the police call center in Lucknow, in northern India, roughly 700 calls come in every day, mostly from women complaining of persistent calls from strange men. The Hindustan Times recently reported that phone recharging outlets were selling the numbers of young women to interested men, charging 500 rupees, about $7.60, for a beautiful girl and 50 rupees for an ordinary one.Recently, a complaint came from Geetika Chakravarty, 24, a makeup artist who grew up traveling the world with her father, a diplomat. After she returned to India from Canada last year, she posted her phone number in the contact section of a salons Facebook page and received so many calls from unknown men that she blocked 200 separate numbers.ImageCredit...Atul Loke for The New York TimesI do not know what their mind-set is, she said. Sometimes they call and say, I love you. Sometimes they call and say, I want to talk to Sonia, and I would say, I am not Sonia, and they would say, O.K., can I talk to you?But the most persistent among them was from a man who would call three or four times a day, urging her to meet him somewhere. When she blocked his number, he would call from another. She began to worry that he would track her down in person.He sounded like a creepy Indian guy to me, Ms. Chakravarty said.When the police traced the number, the person they found at the end of it was Premsagar Tiwari, whose given name in Hindi translates as Sea of Love. Mr. Tiwari, 24, turned out to be a high-strung, pencil-necked man who grew up in two small rooms in the corner of the down-at-heel government school where his father worked as a night watchman.Outside his window, young women came and went in their crisp school uniforms. But the night watchmans son could not approach them.The way he was built, said Satyavir Sachan, the constable assigned to the case, it didnt seem he could talk to girls.Poring through Mr. Tiwaris call records, Mr. Sachan found that he was using eight SIM cards, some registered under false names, to contact more than 500 women. The activity occupied, by police estimates, two to three hours a day.Summoned to the police station, Mr. Tiwari confessed readily and with clasped hands he beseeched the police not to imprison him. His phone calls, he explained in an interview, should better be understood as part of his search for a soul mate.One person is enough to fulfill you, Mr. Tiwari said. I have nobody. The person you love will be somewhere, there, standing last in line. You have to reach them somehow. And when you find that someone, you stop looking.He said he had heard many stories of men and women meeting over social media and going on to marry.I may be a failed man, he said, but I am very passionate.The police were not impressed, and held him in custody for 15 days.An inverse story was unfolding in Bangalore, where Umakanti Padhan, a moon-faced 16-year-old garment factory worker, tried to call her sister-in-law. She misdialed and found herself accidentally conversing with Bulu, a railway worker eight years her senior.She hung up, alarmed. At home, beginning at puberty, she had been prohibited from speaking with any adult man, including her brothers and cousins.Ten minutes later, Bulu called back and told her that he liked the sound of her voice. When I hear your voice, it feels like someone of my own, he said. I feel like talking to you all the time.So she agreed. Every night, she slipped out to the roof of her Bangalore workers hostel, where she shares a room with 11 other young women, and spoke to Bulu about mundane things: how their shifts went and what they had eaten that day.Hes told me everything that ever happened to him from the time he was a kid, she said. I dont know whether it is good or bad, but I trust him. I know he will not betray me.Ms. Huang, the anthropologist, said the women she met in Bangladesh were often happy to engage in telephone courtships with anonymous strangers, and some maintained five or six at once. Phone contact, they told her, was safer because it presupposed physical distance. Also, it forced the men on the other end of the line to listen to them for long stretches.Its one of those boundary-expanding experiences that allow you to think about opportunities that were not previously available, she said. Young women, she said, described these relationships with kind of a fearful excitement.For the young men, she said, dialing random numbers is like playing the lottery and seeing what comes up. Often, she said, they approach it almost as a competitive sport, vying to see who is more skilled at keeping a woman on the phone for a long time.As for Ms. Padhan and her boyfriend, 11 months have passed and they still have not met in person.Her roommates roll their eyes at her navet.But when their shifts are finished, they, too, retire to stairwells and corners of the rooftop for the covert nightly call. From there, it is possible to look across the rooftops of other boardinghouses and see figures hunched over their cellphones, in all directions, a wide-angle shot of young India in pursuit of love.

World

Credit...Michael Reynolds/EPA, via ShutterstockJune 13, 2018WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signaled that two additional increases were on the way this year, as officials expressed confidence that the United States economy was strong enough for borrowing costs to rise without choking off economic growth.Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chairman, speaking in unusually blunt terms at a news conference on Wednesday, said the economy had strengthened significantly since the 2008 financial crisis and was approaching a normal level that could allow the Fed to soon step back and play less of a hands-on role in encouraging economic activity.The Feds optimism about the state of the economy is likely to translate into higher borrowing costs for cars, home mortgages and credit cards over the next year as the central bank raises interest rates more quickly than was anticipated.Wednesdays rate increase was the second this year and the seventh since the end of the Great Recession and brings the Feds benchmark rate to a range of 1.75 to 2 percent. The last time the rate topped 2 percent was in late summer 2008, when the economy was contracting and the Fed was cutting rates toward zero, where they would remain for years after the financial crisis.The decision you see today is another sign that the U.S. economy is in great shape, Mr. Powell said after the Feds two-day policy meeting. Most people who want to find jobs are finding them.[During a news conference, Mr. Powell said he wants to start with a plain English summary of how the economy is doing. He certainly did that.]The increases this year are part of a gradual series of steps to return rates to historically normal levels, and they reflect both the Feds confidence in Americas economic strength and its commitment to bring the inflation rate to its target of 2 percent.But the march toward higher interest rates comes as much of Americas work force continues to experience slow wage growth, despite a tight labor market that should, in theory, translate into higher wages as businesses compete for workers.The rise in consumer prices over the last year has effectively wiped out any wage increases for nonsupervisory workers, the latest Consumer Price Index data suggests.That is odd for an economy with a tight labor market, with unemployment running at a 3.8 percent. And some analysts say it is a reason for officials to slow their pace of rate increases, since the benefits of a hot economy have not yet translated into a significant wage increase for workers.At a comparable time of low unemployment, in 2000, wages were growing at near 4 percent year over year and the Feds preferred measure of inflation was 2.5 percent, both above todays levels, Tara Sinclair, a senior fellow at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said in a research note. Too many increases too quickly could choke the economy before we really see how good it could get.Mr. Powell played down concerns about slow wage growth, acknowledging it is a bit of a puzzle but suggesting that it would normalize as the economy continued to strengthen.The Fed chairman said growth was being lifted, at least in the short term, by tax cuts and government spending increases signed into law by President Trump last year. And he dismissed, for now, concerns that Mr. Trumps trade policies, including tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, were hurting growth, saying the Fed had yet to see any data indicating an impact.So right now, we dont see that in the numbers at all. The economy is very strong, the labor market is strong, growth is strong, he said, adding, I would put it down as more of a risk.In a statement released at the end of the two-day meeting, Fed officials noted that economic activity had been rising at a solid rate a change from their May statement, when they called the rate moderate. Fed officials now expect the economy to grow at a 2.8 percent rate this year, up from a 2.7 percent forecast in March. The unemployment rate is now projected to fall to 3.6 percent by years end, down from a forecast of 3.8 percent in March.The changes from the Fed today should not come as a surprise, given recent economic developments, but they nonetheless signal a more hawkish outlook for the next few quarters, Eric Winograd, a senior economist at AllianceBernstein, said in a research note.The Fed now faces a tricky balancing act as it tries to calibrate how to keep the economy chugging along. Raising rates too quickly could snuff out the economic recovery, which has finally begun to gain steam after years of sluggish growth. But not raising rates fast enough could allow inflation to spiral out of control, driving up prices and potentially plunging the economy back into a recession.A few Fed officials have raised concerns that the inflation trend could accelerate rapidly, forcing the Fed to raise rates faster than expected to keep the economy from overheating. They appeared to have won a convert in Wednesdays projections, which now show that a majority of officials expect rates to rise to a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent by the end of this year.Officials continue to project three additional increases in 2019, but reduced the number of forecast increases for 2020 from two to one.A faster pace of rate increases could slow economic growth, potentially frustrating Mr. Trump. But Fed officials signaled a willingness to allow inflation to remain slightly above their 2 percent target for several years which would be accommodative for growth.ImageCredit...Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesOfficials raised their headline inflation rate forecast for the year as well, to 2.1 percent from 1.9 percent. The Fed now predicts inflation will run slightly above its target rate of 2 percent through 2020, at 2.1 percent each year, a slight overshoot that Fed officials have roundly indicated they are comfortable with, in part because of slow wage growth.Financial markets had been widely expecting the Fed to raise the benchmark rate, and the reaction among investors was muted, even as the official monetary policy statement struck some as signaling growing confidence that rate increases would continue, and might even proceed at a faster pace.The stock market, which had been modestly positive for most of the day, turned slightly negative after the rate decision was announced at 2 p.m. Short-term Treasury bond yields, closely tied to monetary policy, rose faster than yields on longer-term bonds which take their cues from forecasts for economic growth and inflation, suggesting that investors in the bond market see economic growth continuing but not picking up sharply.It was the second news conference for Mr. Powell, who succeeded Janet L. Yellen in the job this year. But this was the meeting where Mr. Powell made several clear breaks from his predecessors, in a series of changes around process and communication that could ultimately have big implications for monetary policy and the economy.He began his session with the news media with what he called a plain English description of what the Fed had done and why, a contrast with the practice of Ms. Yellen and her predecessor, Ben S. Bernanke, both Ph.D. economists who prefaced their appearances with long prepared statement loaded with monetary policy jargon.And he stood before reporters, in contrast to Ms. Yellen and Mr. Bernanke, who both chose to sit at a desk for their post-meeting news conferences.Mr. Powell announced that he would begin holding a news conference after every Fed policy meeting starting in January; currently such a session is held only after four of eight annual meetings.While he insisted that this was not meant to signal any change in the direction of policy, it opens up more flexibility for the Fed as it sets interest rate policies. Financial markets currently expect interest rate increases only in meetings with a news conference; now the Fed will have the option of making more than four policy moves a year without unnecessarily surprising markets.The June communication really ushered in the Powell Fed, said Julia Coronado, an economist and president of MacroPolicy Perspectives. He stood at a lectern instead of sitting at a desk, he is moving toward more frequent communication, and the communication style from the statement to the press conference is direct and pragmatic.And the Federal Open Market Committee, which Mr. Powell leads, changed its statement describing its rate increase in a way that removed a mainstay of its monetary policy of recent years. Dating to the Bernanke era, the Fed has used forward guidance to signal the future direction of interest rates.For example, at the March policy meeting, the committee said its interest rate target was likely to remain, for some time, below levels that are expected to prevail in the longer run. That language was excised from the policy statement released on Wednesday, saying only that the timing and size of future rate increases will be determined by many factors.

Politics

Asia Pacific|Unrest Flares at Nepal-India Border After Fatal Shooting of Nepalihttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/asia/nepal-india-border-killing-protests.htmlCredit...Navesh Chitrakar/ReutersMarch 10, 2017KATHMANDU, Nepal Protests flared on Friday along the border between Nepal and India, a day after Indian security forces fatally shot a Nepali man who was protesting their presence on disputed territory.Indian troops had prevented the Nepalis from completing the construction of a culvert in the disputed area, setting off the protest.A day after the killing of the man, Govinda Gautam, 25, thousands of Nepali protesters gathered and chanted anti-Indian slogans, demanding that the construction of culvert be completed and that the land be returned to Nepals control.Indian border forces opened fire with tear gas shells and live ammunition as the protesters approached. Some of the protesters threw stones at the Indian forces.Nepals paramilitary forces and the police were also deployed in the disputed area. They used tear gas in an effort to prevent protesters from crossing the border. Witnesses said there were more than 10,000 protesters. Other demonstrators rallied outside the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, the capital.The area is tense, said Manohar Khanal, the chief district officer in Kanchanpur, which is by the border. We are trying to normalize the situation by calling an all-party meeting, but in vain.Nepals government on Friday described Mr. Gautam as a martyr. Mr. Gautam was a migrant worker and had recently returned from Qatar on leave when he became involved in the protest. He had been intending to return to Qatar in about two weeks. He had a wife and three daughters.Mr. Khanal said that the Nepali and Indian authorities had reached an agreement to allow the construction of a culvert about three weeks ago, but that Indian forces tried to stop the construction.Indian security personnel have complained that Nepali villagers were throwing stones at them. Several dozen Nepalis were said to have been injured in the violence.Nepalis have warned that their protests would continue unless they were allowed to complete the construction.We will not backtrack, said Prem Bahadur Basnet, from Punarbas in Kanchanpur district. He said the protests would continue on Saturday.Nepal and India often have minor disputes along their border, but gunfire from the Indian side is rare.

World

LisaRaye McCoy Hit in $160,000 Burglary 1/30/2018 LisaRaye McCoy now knows how Mariah Carey and Kyle Richards feel, and not in a good way -- she was hit in a huge burglary ... TMZ has learned. Law enforcement sources tell us the 'Players Club' star's San Fernando Valley crib was broken into over the weekend. We're told the crooks got through a side door, ransacked the pad and jacked $160k worth of jewelry and purses. LisaRaye was out of town, and a family member checking up on the house discovered the break-in. We're told cops are reviewing surveillance footage that could help ID suspects. As we've reported ... Kyle, Mariah, Jason DeRulo, David Spade, Yasiel Puig and many, many more have all been burglary victims.

Entertainment

Technology|Google Infringed on Patents Owned by Sonos, a Trade Judge Sayshttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/technology/google-sonos-patents.htmlGoogle Infringed on Patents Owned by Sonos, a Trade Judge SaysSonos is seeking to ban the import of several Google products that are made in China. The preliminary finding will now be reviewed by the full United States International Trade Commission.Credit...Dave Paresh/ReutersAug. 13, 2021OAKLAND, Calif. Google infringed on speaker-technology patents held by Sonos and should not be allowed to import products that violate Sonoss intellectual property, a judge said in a preliminary finding by the United States International Trade Commission that was released on Friday.In January 2020, Sonos sued Google in federal court and in front of the United States International Trade Commission, a quasi-judicial body that decides trade cases and can block the import of goods that violate patents. Google later filed a countersuit against Sonos, claiming that Sonos was infringing on its patents.Sonos had asked the commission to block imports of Google Home smart speakers, the companys Chromecast systems and its Pixel phones and computers. Those products are made in China and shipped to the United States.The brief ruling did not explain why the judge, Charles E. Bullock, believed Google had violated the Tariff Act of 1930, which aims to prevent unfair competition through actions such as the import of products that infringe on U.S. patents, trademarks or copyrights.The judges ruling is not the last word. The full commission has to consider whether to accept or reverse his decision for a final ruling, which is scheduled to take place on Dec. 13. If an import ban is imposed, it wouldnt take effect for 60 days well after the holiday shopping season.Jos Castaeda, a spokesman for Google, said the company does not use Sonoss technology. We disagree with this preliminary ruling and will continue to make our case in the upcoming review process, he said.On Wednesday, Eddie Lazarus, Sonoss chief legal officer, called Google a serial infringer of Sonos patents. On a conference call with analysts, he estimated that Google had infringed on more than 150 patents owned by Sonos, although it raised issues only with five patents to the commission. The case in front of the commission is just the tip of the iceberg, he said.On Friday, Mr. Lazarus said in a statement, This decision reaffirms the strength and breadth of our portfolio, marking a promising milestone in our long-term pursuit to defend our innovation against misappropriation by Big Tech monopolies.Sonos has said that Amazon is also violating its patents a charge that Amazon denies. Sonos executives have said it pursued legal action against only Google because it did not know if it could sue two tech giants at the same time.Sonos pioneered the market for home speakers that can be controlled by a smartphone and can synchronize music wirelessly between different speakers throughout the house. In recent years, Google, Amazon and Apple have pushed into the market for voice-controlled speakers. Sonos also offers speakers that use the Google Assistant software or Amazons similar Echo technology to control the device.Sonos and Google are also locked in legal disputes over patents in California and Texas as well as France, Germany and the Netherlands.Sonoss share price rose 6 percent in after-hours trading on Friday.

Tech

Tony Rock Hold Up, Mo'Nique ... What Have You Done Lately?! 1/21/2018 TMZ.com Tony Rock's calling out Mo'Nique for exercising extremely poor business etiquette in her beef with Netflix. We got Tony at LAX, and asked what he thinks about Mo accusing Netflix of discrimination. Remember, she feels insulted by a $500k offer from the streaming service -- especially because Tony's older bro, Chris Rock, got $22 million. 1/19/18 TMZ.com Tony's not buying what she's selling ... and points out she's been off the stand-up scene too long to be comparing herself to Chris or Dave Chappelle. He also says she's got no biz calling out other people's salaries. In his words ... "You get your weight up, you get your check to say what you want your check to say."

Entertainment

Kanye West Chicago Makes Me Smile!!! 1/20/2018 Kanye West is basking in the glow of naming his daughter. Kanye was all smiles Friday in Calabasas as he arrived at his design studio. As we reported, Kanye and Kim named their newborn Chicago, although they immediately decided she'd be known as Chi. Kanye and Kim didn't pick the name before their daughter was born, presumably because they wanted to eyeball her and see if her face triggered a name. Kanye was raised in Chicago and still has deep roots there, so it makes a lot of sense.

Entertainment

White House MemoCredit...Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesJune 24, 2018WASHINGTON Construction crews have yet to break ground on Barack Obamas presidential library, but the architects may have to add an extra wing just to handle all the books now coming out from people who once worked for the 44th president.Nearly a year and a half after Mr. Obama left office, his team is back in the arena, or at least in the bookstores, with a blitz of roughly two dozen memoirs of their time in the White House, telling tales, settling scores, justifying mistakes, selling nostalgia, setting the record straight, attacking successors and spinning history.Everyone who ever spent even a few minutes with Mr. Obama, it seems, has penned a volume of reminiscences, postcards from a less head-spinning era. The authors include his top foreign policy advisers, his communications gurus, his intelligence chief, his photographer and even the stenographer who recorded his every public utterance. All of that before the former president and first lady weigh in with their own well-compensated autobiographies.They are all different in their own ways, but the common thread is trying to make sense of a truly crazy and contradictory era in American politics, said Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obamas senior adviser. How was it that our first African-American president was succeeded by someone known for racially divisive statements? In our own way, each of us wants to reflect on what we saw, what it means and where do we go from here to finish the work started in 2008.Mr. Pfieffers book, Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump, published last week, mixes anecdotes from years at Mr. Obamas side with observations about how politics are changing and takedowns of Fox News and President Trump. Anyone who listens to Pod Save America, the podcast he and other former Obama advisers host, will recognize the perspective.Other new memoirs recount Mr. Obamas efforts to battle foreign threats (James R. Clapper Jr.s Facts and Fears), his rocky relations with Russia (Michael A. McFauls From Cold War to Hot Peace) and his negotiation of the nuclear agreement with Iran (Wendy R. Shermans Not for the Faint of Heart). Some are traditional and sober-minded, written with future historians in mind; others are funny and personal, written with future screenwriters in mind.Every presidency, of course, produces its share of memoirs. The first known memoir by someone other than a president was that of Paul Jennings, a slave whose recollections of President James Madisons White House were published in 1865.More recent years saw several archetypes. Donald T. Regan, a White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan, perfected the art of the revenge memoir as he got back at Nancy Reagan for orchestrating his firing by exposing her reliance on astrology.George Stephanopoulos, the war-room wunderkind who helped elect President Bill Clinton, produced the model diary of disillusionment as he described his evolution from idealistic and ambitious young aide to battered defender of a scandal-torn White House.The no-drama-Obama White House offered less intrigue, and the books emerging from it seem neither as momentous nor as dishy. Moreover, the authors face the challenge of making them feel relevant given the extraordinary, norm-shattering events playing out today on cable television.These books do have a saturation issue and they will increasingly have a hard time breaking through unless they connect to whats happening now, said Matt Latimer, who wrote a memoir of his time in President George W. Bushs White House and is now a founding partner at Javelin, a literary agency that generates Washington books.We are obviously in a 24-hour-a-day Trump vacuum and books that tend to do well on the left are those written in reaction to that, he said. Left-of-center readers have little time for nostalgia when they believe their country is collapsing beneath their feet.Some volumes have sold quite well. A picture book by Pete Souza, the White House photographer, crushed the best-seller list. Among the others making the list include two funny, human accounts, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? by Alyssa Mastromonaco, a deputy chief of staff, and Thanks, Obama, by David Litt, a speechwriter.James B. Comeys A Higher Loyalty covered not just his work as F.B.I. director under Mr. Obama but also, more sensationally, his encounters with Mr. Trump, who fired him. Jennifer Palmieri, Mr. Obamas communications director, likewise focused on her time on Hillary Clintons campaign in Dear Madam President. Jeremy Bernard, a White House social secretary, teamed up with a predecessor from Mr. Bushs era, Lea Berman, for Treating People Well, more handbook than tell-all.Many big names published their memoirs while Mr. Obama was still in office, including Mrs. Clinton, Robert M. Gates, Leon E. Panetta, Timothy F. Geithner and David Axelrod. But those who waited until Mr. Obama stepped down include former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who shared the story of his son Beaus death in Promise Me, Dad, and former Secretary of State John Kerry, whose Every Day Is Extra comes out in September. Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Arne Duncan and Eric H. Holder Jr. are all still working on theirs.Some of these books offer little insight into Mr. Obama but focus on the personal stories of those who surrounded him, the can-you-believe-Im-on-Air-Force-One volumes like West Winging It, by Pat Cunnane, a press wrangler turned senior writer, and From the Corner of the Oval, by Beck Dorey-Stein, a stenographer.Ms. Dorey-Stein managed what has to be a White House first by memorializing her time transcribing presidential speeches. Her breezy page turner is essentially Bridget Jones goes to the White House, offering stories of love affairs with Sam, who goes off to campaign in Missouri, and Jason, who refuses to leave his girlfriend, as well as cautionary tales about dating Secret Service agents. Ms. Dorey-Steins book was packaged with a movie option for a combined seven-figure deal.In The Last Palace, Norman L. Eisen, Mr. Obamas ethics czar and ambassador to the Czech Republic, focuses more on the compelling history of the ambassadors residence in Prague and his mothers flight from Holocaust-ravaged Europe than on the president he has known since law school.Those not writing their own memoirs could participate in a pair of recollection collections. Brian Abrams put together Obama: An Oral History, 2009-2017 from interviews with presidential aides and adversaries, while Gautam Raghavan edited a series of essays by advisers to Mr. Obama in West Wingers.While none of the books so far have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of Mr. Obama, there are moments that will resonate with any fan of The West Wing, like the time Mr. Pfeiffer split his pants in the Oval Office and had to escape the room without being noticed. Or the time Ms. Sherman smashed into a glass door rushing to answer a phone call from Mr. Kerry and broke her nose.In The World as It Is, by Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser, the reader hears Mr. Obama express frustration over the perception that he was insufficiently supportive of Israel. I came out of the Jewish community in Chicago, Mr. Obama kvetched. Im basically a liberal Jew.There is, as always, jabbing and revisionism. Mr. Rhodes writes that all but one of the aides in the room supported Mr. Obamas decision not to strike Syria when it crossed his red line by using chemical weapons on civilians and ask Congress for authorization instead, an account at odds with others from that time.And Mr. Rhodes offers this backhanded compliment with a poke in describing Mr. Gates, the defense secretary for Mr. Bush held over by Mr. Obama: Bob Gates was exactly the right mix of competent, diligent, calculating, and occasionally hypocritical to thrive in Washington for decades.Then again, perhaps it takes a certain mix of competence, calculation and occasional hypocrisy to write a White House memoir. After all, Mr. Gates, who served eight presidents, has written not one but two. Mr. Rhodes is still on his first.

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