Month: January 2021

Categories
Entertainment

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas Cut up After 1 Yr Collectively

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas Split After 1 Year Together

Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck reportedly split up after almost a year. People approved. “Ben is no longer dating Ana,” a source told the publication. “She broke it off. Their relationship was complicated. Ana doesn’t want to live in Los Angeles and Ben obviously has to because his kids live in Los Angeles.”

“This is something that was mutual and something that is completely consensual.”

Ben and Ana were first hooked up in the spring of 2020, around the same time that Hilarie Burton was posting her memoir, in which she shared about Ben groping her during an episode of MTVs TRL. Ben previously publicly apologized to Hilarie in a tweet, writing: “I have acted inappropriately to Ms. Burton and apologized sincerely.”

After their first meeting while filming the upcoming thriller Deep water In New Orleans, Ana and Ben went on a trip to Cuba and Costa Rica. Shortly after Ana confirmed their relationship on Instagram in August, she moved into Ben’s LA home. There, Ana spent a lot of time with Ben’s children from his previous marriage to Jennifer Garner, 14-year-old Violet, 11-year-old Seraphina, and 8-year-old Samuel.

Another source close to the couple added that Ben and Ana are happy with their lives and do not have harsh feelings for each other. “This is something that was mutual and something that is completely consensual,” the source said. “They are at different points in their life. There is deep love and respect there. Ben wants to keep working on himself. He has three jobs in a row and is a solid father at home. Both are happy with where they are Your life. “

Categories
Health

Children and Covid Exams: What You Have to Know

Kids and Covid Tests: What You Need to Know

If you’re still not sure if your child needs a test, call the pediatrician, said Dr. Kristin Moffitt, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital. You can also use the CDC’s clinical assessment tool, which can be used for any family member, including children.

Virus tests for children are largely the same as for adults. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the emergency use of two basic categories of diagnostic tests. The most sensitive are those molecular PCR teststhat detect the genetic material of the virus and take days to produce results (some sites offer results in just a day). The second type of test that Antigen test, hunts for fragments of proteins that are on or within the coronavirus. Antigen tests usually give results quickly within 15 minutes, but can be less sensitive than molecular tests.

The way your provider collects your sample may vary. Whether you get a PCR test or an antigen test, the collection method can be one of the following: nasopharyngeal swab (the long swab with a brush on the end that goes up to the nose towards the throat) ;; a shorter swab that is inserted about an inch into the nostrils; a long swab of tonsils in the throat; or a short swab on the gums and cheeks. The new saliva tests, which are still under review, involve drooling into a sterilized container, which can be tricky for young children.

FastMed Urgent Care, which has a network of more than 100 clinics in Arizona, North Carolina, and Texas, currently uses a long swab for the rapid antigen test and a short swab for the PCR test, said Dr. Lane Tassin. one of the company’s chief medical officers. However, MedExpress, another emergency group with clinics in 16 states, tests all patients with the shorter nasal swab when they run either PCR or antigen tests at their nearly 200 emergency centers, said Jane Trombetta, the company’s chief clinical officer.

Updated

Jan. 18, 2021, 11:23 p.m. ET

The type of test your child will get depends largely on what is available in your area, how long it takes for the results to come back, and why the child needs them, according to the experts.

Some daycare and schools only accept PCR results so they can return to school. So it is best to check their rules in advance.

The long-swab molecular test is considered the “gold standard”, but other less invasive test methods are also reliable. For routine testing, Dr. Jay K. Varma, senior public health advisor for the New York City Mayor’s office, that the shorter swab “works basically as well as the longer, deeper swab. This applies to both adults and children. In fact, he added, New York City public test sites began to switch from long swabs to short swabs in the summer.

Categories
Politics

Trump’s 1776 Fee Critiques Liberalism in Report Derided by Historians

Trump’s 1776 Commission Critiques Liberalism in Report Derided by Historians

WASHINGTON – The White House released the President’s Commission Report of 1776 Monday, a sweeping attack on liberal thinking and activism calling for a “patriotic upbringing.” He defends America’s founding against allegations of slavery and compares progressivism with fascism.

In the heat of his September re-election campaign, President Trump formed the 18-person commission, made up of a range of conservative activists, politicians and intellectuals rather than professional historians, as he defended American traditional heritage against “radical liberals. Previously not known for his interest in American history or education, Mr. Trump insisted that the nation’s schools had been infiltrated by anti-American thinking and required a new “pro-American” curriculum.

The commission was part of Mr. Trump’s larger response to the anti-racism protests, some of which were violent, that followed the murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a white policeman in Minneapolis in June.

In his remarks in the National Archives, in which the formation of the commission was announced, Trump said: “The unrest and chaos of the left are the direct result of decades of indoctrination of the left in our schools.”

The Commission’s report is quick to ridicule many mainstream historians for indoctrinating Americans with false criticism of the nation’s founding and identity, including the role of slavery in its history.

“Historical revisionism, which tramples on honest scholarship and historical truth, puts Americans to shame by only highlighting the sins of their ancestors, and teaches claims of systemic racism that can only be eradicated through more discrimination, is an ideology that manipulates opinions more than should educate the mind. ” the report says.

The report was heavily criticized by historians, some of whom noted that the commission, although made up of conservative educators, did not include a single professional historian from the United States.

James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, said the report was not a work of history but “cynical politics”.

“This report skillfully interweaves myths, biases, deliberate silence, and misinterpretations of evidence, both overt and subtle, to produce a narrative and argument that few respected professional historians would find plausible, whether or not even on a wide range of interpretations convince or not. ” he said.

“They use what they call history to foment culture wars,” he said.

The commission’s report shows a nation where liberals seething with hatred of their own country, and whose divisions over its history and importance are a reminder of those who led to the American Revolution and Civil War.

It depicts an America whose institutions have been infiltrated by radical leftists whose views match those of recent totalitarian movements, and argues that progressives have created an unchecked “fourth branch” or “shadow government” in the so-called administrative state.

And American universities, the report says, “are often hotbeds of anti-Americanism, slander, and censorship that arouse at least contempt and, at worst, total hatred of the country among students and the wider culture.”

The report compares the progressive American movement of the early 20th century to the fascism of leaders like Benito Mussolini, who “sought to centralize power under the guidance of so-called experts”.

“The biggest statement in the 1776 report is that he includes ‘progressivism’ along with ‘slavery’ and ‘fascism’ in his list of ‘Challenges to America’s Principles’,” wrote Thomas Sugrue, a historian at New York University, on Twitter . “Time to rewrite my lectures to say that ending child labor and regulating meat packaging = Hitlerism.”

The report, published on Martin Luther King’s birthday, even targets the legacy of the civil rights movement, stating that it was “almost immediately focused on programs that ran counter to the high ideals of the founders.”

Some of the strongest criticisms related to the report’s treatment of slavery, which the report said was an unfortunate reality around the world that was swept away in America by the forces sparked by the American Revolution that it called “a dramatic change in the sea.” becomes moral sensitivity. “

The report’s authors condemn the allegation that the American founders were hypocrites who preached equality, despite the fact that they codified this in the constitution and kept slaves themselves.

“This accusation is false and has caused enormous damage, especially in recent years, with devastating effects on our civil unity and our social fabric,” they write. Men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, while owning hundreds of enslaved people, abhorred slavery, the report said.

“The White House report of 1776 seems to consider it worse for the country to label the founders as hypocritical of slavery than actual slavery,” wrote Seth Masket, professor of political science at the University of Denver, on Twitter.

And on a line that has been particularly ignited by historians, the report names John C. Calhoun “perhaps the leading precursor” of identity politics.

“Like today’s proponents of identity politics,” she claims, “Calhoun believed that it was impossible to achieve unity through rational considerations and political compromises. Majority groups only use the political process to suppress minority groups.”

The commission is chaired by Larry Arnn, an ally of Trump and president of the conservative Hillsdale College. Its co-chair is Carol Swain, a prominent black conservative and former law professor at Vanderbilt University. Other members include former Republican Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant; the conservative activist Ned Ryan; Mr. Trump’s former domestic policy adviser Brooke Rollins; and Charles Kesler, editor of the influential conservative publication The Claremont Review of Books.

The commission and its report are in part a rebuke for the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 project to refresh American history of the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans. The report denounces the project, as does Mr Trump in his September speech announcing the commission.

“This project is rewriting American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom,” Trump said at the time.

Mr Trump’s commission submitted its report just four months after it was drawn up and less than a month after Mr Trump publicly announced its members. In contrast, a Race Commission appointed by President Bill Clinton in June 1997 published its first report 15 months later.

Although the report was billed as “final” by the White House, it did not contain any scientific footnotes or citations, nor was it clear who its main authors were.

Categories
Business

How Full Employment Turned Washington’s Creed

How Full Employment Became Washington’s Creed

As President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. prepares to take office this week, his administration and the Federal Reserve point out a unique economic goal: to get the labor market back to where it was before the pandemic.

The buzzing work environment that existed eleven months ago – with 3.5 percent unemployment, stable or rising labor force participation, and steadily rising wages – proved to be a recipe for raising all boats, creating economic opportunities for long-disenfranchised groups and reducing poverty rates. And the price gains remained manageable and even a little low. This contrasts with efforts to push the boundaries of the labor market in the 1960s, widely blamed for laying the foundations for runaway inflation.

Then the pandemic shortened the test run, and efforts to contain the virus resulted in unemployment rising to levels not seen since the Great Depression. The recovery has since been interrupted by additional waves of contagion, withdrawing millions of workers and recurring job losses.

Policy makers across government agree that a return to this hot labor market should be a key objective, a remarkable shift from recent economic expansion and one that could help shape the economic recovery.

Mr Biden has made it clear that his administration will be focused on workers and has selected top officials with a focus on the labor market. He has selected Janet L. Yellen, a labor economist and former Fed chair, as his Treasury Secretary and Marty Walsh, a former union leader, as his labor secretary.

In the past, lawmakers and Fed officials have tended to preach allegiance to full employment – the lowest unemployment rate an economy can sustain without fueling high inflation or other instabilities – while withdrawing fiscal and monetary support before they did achieved this goal because they feared that they would be more patient approach would cause price spikes and other problems.

That shyness seems less likely to raise its head this time.

Mr Biden will take office as the Democrats control the House and Senate, and at a time when many politicians are less concerned about the government taking on debt due to historically low borrowing costs. And the Fed, which has been shown to raise interest rates when unemployment falls and Congress spends more than taxes, has pledged to be more patient this time around.

“Economic research confirms that in conditions like today’s crisis, especially with such low interest rates, immediate action – including deficit financing – will help the economy in the long term and in the short term,” Biden said at a January 8 press conference that highlighted that acting quickly would “reduce scars on the workforce”.

Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Fed, said Thursday that his institution is focusing heavily on restoring the lowest unemployment rates.

“This is really what we focus on the most – getting back to a strong job market fast enough that people’s lives can get back to where they want to be,” said Powell. “We were in a good place in February 2020 and we think we can get back there much sooner than we feared.”

The conditions are in place for a macroeconomic experiment to see if large government spending packages and growth-friendly central bank policies can work together to promote a rapid recovery that spans a wide range of Americans without causing harmful side effects.

“The thing about the Fed is that it really is the tide that raises all boats,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, that the work-oriented central bank can lay the foundation for robust growth. “Fiscal policy can appeal to certain communities in ways that the Fed cannot.”

The government has willingly spent to prop up the economy in the face of the pandemic and analysts expect more help is on the way. The Biden government has proposed an ambitious spending package of $ 1.9 trillion.

While this is unlikely to happen in full, at least some more household spending seems likely. Goldman Sachs economists believe that Congress will actually pass another $ 1.1 trillion in relief in the first quarter of 2021. This complements the $ 2 trillion pandemic aid package passed in March and $ 900 billion in additional aid in December.

This would contribute to a faster recovery this year. Goldman economists estimate the spending could help bring the unemployment rate down to 4.5 percent by the end of 2021. Unemployment stood at 6.7 percent in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said earlier this month.

Such a government-sponsored recovery would be in stark contrast to what happened during the 2007-2009 recession. Back then, the largest package in Congress to counter the effects of the downturn was the US $ 800 billion Reconstruction and Reinvestment Act, passed in 2009. It was exhausted long before the unemployment rate finally fell below 5 percent in early 2016.

At the time, deficit concerns helped contain more aggressive fiscal responses. And concerns about economic overheating led the Fed to raise interest rates, albeit very slowly, in late 2015. As the unemployment rate fell, central bankers feared that wage and price inflation might wait around the corner and were keen to bring policies back up to a “normal” setting.

But economic thinking has changed fundamentally since then. Tax authorities have become more confident about boosting public debt at a time when interest rates are very low, when it is not so costly.

Fed officials are much more modest now about whether or not the economy has “full employment”. After the 2008 crisis, they believed that unemployment was testing its healthy limits, but unemployment continued to decline sharply without price hikes spiraling out of control.

In August 2020, Powell said he and his colleagues will now focus on “deficits” in full employment rather than “deviations”. Unless inflation actually picks up or the financial risks are great, falling unemployment is seen as a welcome development and not a risk to be averted.

That means interest rates are likely to stay near zero for years. Senior Fed officials have also signaled that they expect to continue buying huge sums of government bonds, around $ 120 billion a month, over the coming months.

Fed support could help boost government spending to boost demand. Households are expected to amass large reserves of savings when they receive economic reviews in early 2021 and then deplete them as vaccines spread and normal economic life resumes. Low interest rates could make large investments – like houses – more attractive.

However, some analysts warn that today’s policies could lead to problems in the future, such as: B. Inflation spiraling out of control, taking financial market risk or a harmful debt overhang.

In the mid to late 1960s, Fed officials focused heavily on the hunt for full employment. When testing how far they could push the labor market, they made no attempt to stave off inflation as it crept in and saw higher prices as a compromise for lower unemployment. When America broke its final steps from the gold standard in the early 1970s and an oil price shock struck, price gains spiked – and it took a massive Fed tightening of the money belt and years of serious economic pain to tame.

There are reasons to believe that this time is different. Inflation has been low for decades and remains limited worldwide. The relationship between unemployment and wages and wages and prices was weaker than in previous decades. From Japan to Europe, the problem of the era is weak price gains that keep economies stuck in cycles of stagnation by undermining the scope for rate cuts in tough times rather than excessively rapid inflation.

And economists are increasingly saying that while costs can arise from long periods of growth-friendly fiscal and monetary policy, there are also costs from being too cautious. If labor market expansion is slowed down earlier than necessary, workers who would have received a boost from a strong labor market can stand on the sidelines.

The pre-pandemic era has shown what overly cautious policies are at risk of lacking. By 2020, black and Hispanic unemployment had fallen to record lows. The participation of prime-age workers who were expected to remain depressed on a persistent basis had actually increased somewhat. Wages rose the fastest for the low-paid.

It’s not clear if 3.5 percent unemployment will be exactly the level America will return to. What is clear is that many policymakers want to test what the economy is capable of rather than guessing a magic number beforehand.

“There is a danger of taking a number and saying we’re there,” said Mary C. Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, at an event earlier this month. “We’re going to learn these things experimentally, and that’s the right risk management attitude for me.”

Categories
World News

Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Instances

Your Tuesday Briefing - The New York Times

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Good Morning.

We cover something A Biden presidency means for Europe, As Leaders around the world failed their citizens and why thieves continue to prefer a 17th century Dutch painting.

After four years of a sometimes turbulent transatlantic relationship, the European Union is striving to achieve “political climate change” and cooperation under President-elect Joe Biden. But if the new president, as European leaders suspect, is consumed by domestic problems, the continent will not put its own agenda on hold.

Governments and public health organizations around the world were slow and ineffective in responding to the coronavirus outbreak. This emerges from an interim report by a panel of the World Health Organization, which is to be published today.

Faulty assumptions, ineffective planning, and sluggish responses all contributed to a pandemic that killed more than two million people and infected more than 95 million. Time and again, the report says, those responsible for protecting and guiding have often failed to do both.

Investigators said they failed to understand why WHO had waited until January 30 to declare an international health emergency and why these clear warning signs were often ignored.

Quote: “We have failed in our collective ability to come together in solidarity to create a safety net for human security,” wrote the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

A video showing the chaos in a Covid ward at a hospital in El Husseineya, Egypt went viral on social media this month and has sparked outrage across the country. Footage of Ahmed Nafei, a relative of one of the four patients who died in a single night, appeared to show the hospital had run out of oxygen. The government rushed to deny the episode.

Through talking to witnesses and analyzing the footage, our investigators discovered that the lack of oxygen was the result of an avalanche of problems in the hospital. By the time the patients suffocated in the intensive care unit, an ordered oxygen release was hours too late and a backup oxygen system had failed.

Quote: “The whole world can admit that there is a problem, but not us,” said a doctor at the hospital.

In August the painting “Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer”, a 17th-century painting by Frans Hals, disappeared for the third time since 1988. The conservatively valued work, valued at more than 10 million US dollars, is usually located in a tiny Dutch museum has become a magnet for burglars.

Does the brushwork contain a hint of a hidden treasure or a secret code? Could it be coveted by a cult that adores the throat, or maybe beer? Experts say the answer is more likely for pedestrians: “They know they can make money from someone,” said the founder of Art Recovery International.

Aleksei Navalny: A judge ordered the Russian opposition leader to be detained for 30 days pending trial. Mr Navalny was arrested from Germany late Sunday after arriving in Moscow, where he was recovering from a nerve agent attack.

China: With most nations around the world grappling with new lockdowns and layoffs during the pandemic, China’s economy has recovered after the country got most of the coronavirus under control.

Snapshot: Former climbing master Lai Chi-wai climbed a skyscraper in Hong Kong on Saturday. Within 10 hours, Mr. Lai climbed 800 feet up the glass facade of the 1,050 foot Nina Tower and raised $ 735,000 to fund research on a robotic exoskeleton for patients with spinal cord injuries.

NASCAR goes virtual: When the pandemic brought motorsport to a standstill, the industry turned to simulated racing. Ten months later, the gambling seems to be paying off.

Judicial drama: Black artists and activists in Birmingham, England, say the city’s largest playhouse, the Birmingham Repertory Theater, is sold out by renting out its auditoriums to the criminal justice system.

What we read: That long reading from the Financial Times about how lockdown caused a creativity crisis. It’s a powerful reminder of the value of serendipity and spontaneity.

Cook: Loosely inspired by spanakopita, the classic Greek spinach and feta cake, this comfortably baked pasta is possibly the most delicious way to eat your greens.

Listen: Take a trip back in time with rapper MF Doom’s 1999 debut album “Operation: Doomsday”. Our reviewer calls it “one of the most idiosyncratic hip-hop albums of the 90s”.

Interference suppression: Embrace the immediate, exhilarating relief of the annoying bag. Give up trash that gets on your nerves, then throw it in the trash.

Do not lose heart. At Home offers a comprehensive collection of ideas on what to read, cook, see, and do while staying safe at home.

How do you mark the key events when the news is already so relentlessly remarkable? One way with the New York Times is to get the headlines very big.

A banner headline usually spans the front page or website of a newspaper. It uses jumbo letters and bold face type to convey the size of a message and get other articles out of the way.

The Times front pages made headlines this winter – far more than usual, according to Tom Jolly, the newspaper’s print editor.

“It’s remarkable,” he said. “It is definitely a reflection of our world and all of the major news events that made 2020 so memorable – and will make 2021 unforgettable too.”

An “event headline” is even bolder than a banner. The only word that appeared in the print paper on Jan. 14 – “Impeached” – was discussed by several of the Times’ top editors in late-night conversations, Tom said.

While such headlines are usually reserved for presidential election results, this is an extraordinary time. This ultra-dramatic layout has been used three times in the past three months. And rising.

Here are some of the big headlines:

When former Vice President Joe Biden took the lead in Pennsylvania, the fog of a too-close election began to lift.

After President Trump falsely claimed that widespread electoral fraud stole his victory, the Times called election officials in every state.

And two days after Mr. Trump’s siege at the Capitol, the Democrats laid the groundwork to indict the president for the second time.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow with the latest update from The Times.

– Natasha

Many Thanks
Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh took the break from the news. You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

PS
• There is no new episode of “The Daily” as we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. Instead, we recommend The Sunday Read about how a group of climate activists decided to fight global warming by doing whatever it takes.
• Here is our mini crossword puzzle and a hint: “Later!” (Five letters). You can find all of our puzzles here.
• The word “legend” – here referring to figure skating champion Dick Button – appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday, according to the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said.

Categories
Business

Why ultra-low price service Spirit Airways is falling behind

Why ultra-low cost carrier Spirit Airlines is falling behind

Spirit Airlines, the low-cost airline known for bright yellow planes, sassy style and cheap fares, helped revolutionize the way we pay for travel. To balance the tariffs, the carrier charges everything from hand luggage to bottles of water.

As of 2019, Spirit Airlines has been profitable for 13 consecutive years. However, since then the airline has gotten into tough times.

With the coronavirus pandemic that crashed passenger traffic, Spirit announced total revenue of $ 402 million in the third quarter, a 60% year-over-year decrease.

To keep passengers safe and on board, Spirit requires face coverings for passengers and crew, disinfects the aircraft with fog machines, and waives some change fees. But is it enough? And will Spirit Airlines be able to recover from the economic fallout from the aviation industry?

See more:

Why GNC filed for bankruptcy protection despite the boom in vitamin sales
Why rural hospitals go bankrupt

Categories
Health

Biden Covid advisor challenges Cuomo’s letter to purchase vaccine instantly

Biden Covid advisor challenges Cuomo's letter to buy vaccine directly

Dr. Coveline Gounder, a member of the Covid Advisory Board of President-elect Joe Biden, slammed the Trump administration’s piecemeal Covid response as some states in the US struggled to get the vaccine doses they needed.

“I think we have already received too many patchwork reactions in the states,” said Gounder in an interview on Monday evening for “The News with Shepard Smith”.

In a briefing on the coronavirus on Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the federal government was sending his state 50,000 less doses of vaccine than the week before. The state received fewer doses when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded immunization rights to people over 65 years of age on Jan.

On Monday, Cuomo sent a letter to Pfizer asking if New York State could buy vaccines directly from the company. Last week, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer made a similar request to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.

Gounder told host Shepard Smith that this approach could cause more problems than it could solve.

“I think Governor Cuomo himself had already said in the spring that the ventilator situation was essentially ‘one big Ebay’ with all states bidding against each other for ventilators, and I think this is one approach to vaccine allocation In all honesty, this will lead to the same situation that he himself criticized last spring, “said Gounder.

Data from the CDC shows that the US gets an average of 900,000 vaccinations per day. During an interview with Fox News, Azar quoted the CDC number and criticized the Biden government’s goal of “100 million gun shots in the first 100 days.”

“We’ll have 250 million doses of vaccine distributed by the end of April,” said Azar. “If by then they have only had 100 million vaccinations, it will be a tragic waste of the opportunity we gave them.”

Gounder, an epidemiologist at NYU, qualified Azar’s testimony, noting that the distribution did not mean actual injections of the vaccine.

“We saw, however, that the distribution is very different from shooting in the arms, that the last mile of delivery is really the hardest part here,” explained Gounder. “Second, we have to confirm that this number of doses, the 250 million figure he cites there, will really be down.”

Cuomo beat him up in a separate letter to Azar for “confusing” the public about vaccine supplies. Azar admitted on Friday that there are currently no supplies.

Biden consultant Dr. Michael Osterholm warned that the worst of the Covid pandemic is yet to come and the data supports his dire prediction. The U.S. is rapidly approaching 400,000 deaths in the pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That is roughly one in 822 Americans. According to the Covid Tracking Project, at least 23,000 people were in intensive care units in the United States for 19 consecutive days due to Covid. The HHS reported that nearly 80% of ICU beds nationwide are occupied.

Gounder said the US is “at our fifth peak right now” and that the next few months will be all about “shift protection” to avoid another.

“We really need to focus on things like masking and social distancing, outside instead of inside, well-ventilated spaces,” warned Gounder. “If we do these things it may be our final climax, but it really depends on each of us doing what needs to be done to get back to normal life.”

Categories
Business

China Expands Grad Colleges because the Younger Search Jobs

China Expands Grad Schools as the Young Seek Jobs

Graduation was getting closer, but Yang Xiaomin, a 21-year-old student in northeast China, skipped her university’s job fair. Nor did she look for positions alone. She didn’t think she had a chance of landing one.

“Some jobs won’t even take resumes from people with bachelor’s degrees,” said Ms. Yang, who passed the national graduate school entrance exam along with a record 3.77 million of her colleagues last month. “Going to graduate school won’t necessarily help me find a better job, but at least it gives me more options.”

China’s economy has largely recovered from the coronavirus pandemic. The data released on Monday shows it may be the only major economy that has grown over the past year. Yet one area is sorely lacking: the supply of desirable, well-paid jobs for the rapidly growing number of university graduates in the country. Most of the recovery was driven by labor sectors such as manufacturing, which the Chinese economy remains heavily reliant on.

With government encouragement, many students are turning to a stopgap solution: stay in school. The Chinese Ministry of Education announced at the height of the outbreak that it would order universities to increase the number of master’s candidates by 189,000, an increase of nearly 25 percent, in an attempt to reduce unemployment. Undergraduate slots would also increase by more than 300,000.

Almost four million hopefuls took the graduate entrance exam last month. This corresponds to an increase of almost 11 percent compared to the previous year and more than double the figure compared to 2016.

Schools are a common landing site in times of economic uncertainty, but in China the urge to expand enrollment has been a long-term problem. Even before the pandemic, the country’s graduates complained that there were not enough suitable jobs. Official employment figures are unreliable, but authorities said in 2014 that the unemployment rate among college graduates was up to 30 percent in some areas two months after graduation.

As a result, many Chinese have feared that expanding college graduate slots will increase already fierce competition for jobs, dilute the value of advanced degrees, or postpone an unemployment crisis. “Are graduate students under siege?” read the headline of a government-controlled publication.

In recent years, the Communist Party has often linked the prosperity of college graduates not only to economic development but also to “social stability”, and fears that they could be a source of political unrest if their economic fortunes were to falter .

However, to keep unemployment among these workers low, the government must also be careful not to raise its hopes, said Joshua Mok, a professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong who studies China’s education policy. “It can create a false expectation for these highly skilled people,” said Professor Mok. “The Chinese government must pay attention to how these expectations can be dealt with.”

The government’s expansion push is part of a broader, decade-long effort to increase university enrollment. According to official statistics, China had fewer than 3.5 million undergraduate and graduate students in 1997. In 2019 there were more than 33 million excluding online schools and adult higher education institutions.

The number of university degrees per capita is still behind that of the industrialized countries. According to government statistics, there are around two doctoral students for every 1,000 Chinese, and around nine in the United States. Still, China’s economy has not kept pace with the rapid expansion of higher education, with each round of new graduates competing for a small pool of jobs.

The pandemic has exacerbated these concerns. A report from Zhaopin, China’s largest job-recruiting platform, found that 26.3 percent of college graduates were unemployed in 2020 last June. According to the report, jobs for recent college graduates decreased 7 percent from the same period last year, while the number of applicants rose nearly 63 percent.

“What the current Chinese economy needs is more people with technical qualifications than just general degrees from universities,” said Professor Mok. “There is a skill mismatch.”

The competition has made many students feel that an advanced degree is practically mandatory. Ms. Yang, who studies land resource management, said she had known for a long time that she would attend graduate school because her bachelor’s degree alone was “too inferior.”

She knew that competition for approval would increase after the outbreak. “If you choose to take the master’s exam, you can’t be afraid that there will be lots of other people,” she said.

Others accepted less. On Weibo, where the hashtag is “What do you think of the excitement for final exams?” has been viewed more than 240 million times, many feared that if enrollment skyrocketed, the quality of teaching or the value of their degree would decline.

Others have asked if the government is just postponing rising unemployment for a few years. Some feared that companies would raise their application standards. Still others wondered if there would be enough dorms to accommodate all of the students.

“Enrollment expansion is not just a matter of arithmetic,” wrote one person. “We need to think about how this will affect the general development of education and society.”

Concern reached such a high point that it sparked a government response. Hong Dayong, an Education Department official, admitted at a press conference last month that some universities were facing teacher shortages with increasing graduate programs. However, she said officials would put in place stricter quality control measures and that the government would encourage universities to offer more professionally oriented masters degrees to help graduates find jobs.

The government has also ordered state-owned companies to hire newer graduates and subsidized companies that hire them.

Some advice was blunt. Chu Chaohui, a researcher at China’s National Institute of Education, told the state-run tabloid Global Times that graduates should lower their sight. In doing so, they would find jobs in sectors like grocery or parcel delivery, he said.

Indeed, excessive expectations can increase competition for jobs. According to Zhaopin, the recruiting website, college graduates have around 1.4 vacancies for each applicant, even after the epidemic. But many graduates only look to the largest cities or expect high salaries, said Professor Mok.

Still, some students said that encouraging the government to pursue higher education would only bolster those expectations.

“Everyone has their own ambitions, even a little arrogance,” said Bai Jingting, a business student in eastern Anhui Province. Ms. Bai, 20, said she attended her college’s job fair in the fall but couldn’t find any jobs that seemed exciting enough. “Since I applied for a graduate school, I will of course think about how it should be easier to find a job afterwards and find a job that I want.”

Another incentive for the competition is the fact that many students who wanted to study or work abroad no longer have this option.

Prior to the pandemic, Fan Ledi, a graduate of western Qinghai Province, had planned to move to Ireland for a one-year master’s degree in human resource management. After that, he wanted to work there, excited about the prospect of learning about a new culture.

But he has ditched that plan and will be looking for jobs at home when he finishes his program, which he completes online due to travel restrictions.

“The Irish are struggling to find work, let alone foreigners,” Fan said. He added that he was concerned about discrimination as anti-China sentiment rises in many western countries. “I think it is decidedly impossible to go abroad to find work now.”

He’s already attending job fairs, but won’t finish school until November. Recruiters tell him he’s early but he asks them to take his resume anyway.

Faced with the jostling for jobs and college graduate positions, Ms. Bai shrugged when the government increased the number of masters’ seats in Anhui. Her major in business was one of the most popular, she said, and competition would always be fierce.

“How Much Can Enrollment Expand?” She said. “It’s just a drop in the ocean.”

Albee Zhang and Liu Yi contributed to the research.

Categories
Politics

Pence calls Kamala Harris to supply help forward of inauguration

Pence calls Kamala Harris to offer assistance ahead of inauguration

Vice President Mike Pence listens to a briefing about the upcoming inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris on January 14, 2021 at FEMA headquarters in Washington.

Alex Brandon | Reuters

Vice President Mike Pence called his soon-to-be-replaced Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to congratulate her and offer his support before she and President-elect Joe Biden are sworn in next Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter said.

The Thursday call between Pence and Harris was their first discussion since their public debate last fall during the vicious presidential campaign.

President Donald Trump, who has spent weeks furiously denying Biden his election loss while falsely claiming widespread fraud, has not called the new president.

Trump has acknowledged that the Biden administration will soon take command but has vowed never to allow the election and did not do so publicly.

Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence plan to attend Biden’s inauguration, which compared to previous ceremonies in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and deadly uprising by Trump’s supporters at the U.S. Capitol last week, which officials led to a massive increase in security encouraged, will be significantly reduced.

Trump has said he will not attend Biden’s inauguration. He is expected to leave the White House for his Florida home before Biden takes the oath of office, NBC News reported earlier Friday.

The New York Times first reported on the call, which it described as amiable and pleasant.

Categories
Health

It’s Not Your Dad and mom’ Hip Alternative Surgical procedure

It’s Not Your Parents’ Hip Replacement Surgery

Enter the robot. The robotic equipment software uses the information generated by the scan to create a personalized preoperative plan for the operation. With the surgical plan, the surgeon uses the robotic arm to insert each end of the artificial hip joint exactly where it belongs to maximize anatomical function. The robot moves within a predefined area, minimizing the possibility of surgical deviations from the preprogrammed plan, while allowing the surgeon to make adjustments during the operation if necessary.

“As soon as the robot comes into the field, it acts as a navigator and copilot,” said Dr. Seas. “The surgeon is still in command, but has less tissue to expose and is safer because the robot knows exactly where the cutting instruments are and where the limits of the safe cutting zones are.”

If the surgeon drifts out of the safety zone, the robot issues an alarm that is comparable to the lane departure warning in modern cars and switches off. In this way, Dr. Seas: “The robot minimizes the risk of accidental damage to the bone or the surrounding tissue.” It also relieves the surgeon when dealing with complex cases.

A key factor in a successful hip replacement is making sure the leg attached to the new hip matches the length of the other leg. It is reported that robotic surgery is five times more accurate than conventional surgery in adjusting leg length. It is also better to insert the new hip joint at the correct angle.

Before the surgical wound is closed, the surgeon can determine that the joint is properly aligned and the leg lengths are even, resulting in a more stable joint.

Robotic surgery “is where things go,” said Dr. Douglas B. Unis, orthopedic surgeon at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. “It reconstructs the patient’s anatomy more precisely and leads to better mechanical function. Standard implants and the carpentry tools used for bone preparation are not good business or clinical models. It will be more economical and practical to design bespoke implants, ”he said, than adapting the patient’s bones to an existing implant.

Not only the surgical techniques for hip replacements have been improved. This also applies to anesthesia, which today is typically based on a combination of treatments like a regional spinal block and a peripheral nerve block, as well as a pain relief cocktail that is injected directly into the local wound, said Dr. Seas.