Month: March 2021

Categories
Entertainment

Iceland Volcano Erupts After Weeks of Earthquakes

Iceland Volcano Erupts After Weeks of Earthquakes

A volcano erupted in Iceland on Friday, turning the night sky into a real lava lamp.

No injuries were reported. Just joy – and the strange traffic jam.

The outbreak occurred on Friday evening near Mount Fagradalsfjall, about 20 miles southwest of the capital Reykjavik, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said on Twitter. The agency said the lava fountains were small by volcanic standards and that seismometers didn’t record much turbulence.

The event on Friday was nothing more than the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland 11 years ago, which spat out so much ash that it caused flights through parts of Europe for weeks.

Even so, it was the first eruption in southwest Iceland in about 800 years, and the lava was breathtaking. So a lot of people were excited.

“Yeah !!, outbreak !!” the Icelandic singer Björk wrote on Facebook and Instagram, noting that she once made a music video on the website.

“We’re so excited in Iceland !!!” She added. “We still have it !!! Feeling of relief when nature expresses itself !!! “

The eruption has completed an unusually busy period of seismic activity in southwest Iceland that began around December 2019. Tens of thousands of quakes have rocked the area in the past few weeks, leading scientists to believe that an eruption may be imminent.

Iceland has a long history of volcanic activity. The land spans two tectonic plates that are themselves separated by an underwater mountain range from which molten hot rock or magma seeps. Quakes occur when the magma pushes through the plates.

However, it rarely happens that quakes occur in the greater Reykjavik area, where most of the country’s 368,000 residents live.

Scientists said for weeks that they did not expect any activity on the scale of the 2010 earthquake at Eyjafjallajokull volcano and that the impending eruption would likely erupt without much explosive force.

“People in Reykjavik wake up to an earthquake, others fall asleep to an earthquake,” Thorvaldur Thordarson, professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, said in an interview earlier this month. “There are a lot of them and that worries people, but there is nothing to worry about, the world is not going to collapse.”

He was right.

The eruption near Mount Fagradalsfjall on Friday came with some inconveniences, including traffic jams and concerns about possible volcanic pollution in the Reykjavik area. Authorities warned people not to approach the lava and stay inside with the windows closed.

But the breakout, which enthusiasts around the world had been eagerly anticipating for weeks, was largely cause for celebration.

“It began!!!!” Joël Ruch, a volcanologist at the University of Geneva, wrote on Twitter as the lava slowly began to flow south-west away from Reykjavik.

“First photo of the outbreak! Impressive! “Wrote Sigridur Kristjansdottir, a seismologist in Iceland. Non-specialists were also excited online.

The colors in the sky were spectacular indeed. Imagine the northern lights, but in blood orange instead of the usual electric green. Or the glowing spheres of an early Mark Rothko canvas.

Or Björk’s orange hair, around 2011, a few years before she shot her music video near Mount Fagradalsfjall.

Elian Peltier contributed to the reporting.

Categories
Politics

Biden urges Congress to cross hate crime laws over violence in opposition to Asian Individuals

Biden urges Congress to pass hate crime legislation over violence against Asian Americans

CNBC policy

Read more about CNBC’s political coverage:

“Although we don’t yet understand the motive, as I said last week, we strongly condemn the ongoing crisis of gender-based and anti-Asian violence that has long plagued our nation,” Biden said in a statement.

It was also approved the day after a Congressional hearing on violence against Asian Americans, the first in 34 years.

Biden and several lawmakers and activists at Thursday’s hearing urged Congress to pass the hate crime law introduced earlier this month by Rep. Grace Meng, DN.Y., and Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii.

Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, is seen during the Senate Justice Committee confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland, who has been appointed Attorney General, on Monday, February 22, 2021.

Tom Williams | CQ Appeal, Inc. | Getty Images

A study by the Stop AAPI Hate advocacy group published on Tuesday recorded 3,795 reports of hate incidents against Asian Americans and islanders in the Pacific between March 19, 2020 and February 28, 2021.

Incidents include verbal abuse, physical assault, workplace discrimination, and online harassment, among others. Many of the incidents were reported retrospectively from 2020.

The group stresses that the record represents only a fraction of the number of hate incidents Asian Americans have experienced across the country.

Some political leaders and supporters noted during the congressional hearing that hate crime legislation does not necessarily affect all forms of hatred that Asian Americans experience.

At a press conference in Atlanta Thursday morning, Georgian MP Bee Nguyen said: “Laws against hate crimes are not preventive. They will subsequently be used as a law enforcement tool.”

Prosecuting hate crimes requires law enforcement to find evidence that incidents are racially motivated.

“While many of the recent anti-Asian incidents may not fit the legal definition of a hate crime, these attacks nonetheless create an unacceptable environment of fear and terror in Asian American communities,” said Rep Steve Cohen, D-Tenn House Hearing.

Categories
Health

The Pandemic and the Limits of Science

The Pandemic and the Limits of Science

Most striking, however, are the key lessons he has learned from his pandemic, which apply all too well to ours. First, respiratory diseases are highly contagious, and even the most common ones require attention. Second, the burden of preventing their spread rests heavily on the individual. These three create the overriding challenge: “Public indifference,” wrote Soper. “People don’t appreciate the risks they are taking.”

After more than a hundred years of medical advancement, the same obstacle remains. It is the duty of leadership, not science, to protect its citizens from indifference. Of course, indifference doesn’t quite capture the reality of why we found it so difficult not to gather inside or without a mask. This pandemic may also have revealed the power of our species’ desire for communication. We need each other, even against common sense and well-founded advice in the field of public health.

A week before “Lessons” appeared in 1919, Soper published another article in the New York Medical Journal in which he spoke out in favor of an international health commission. “It should not be left to the vagaries of chance to encourage or sustain the progression of these forms of diseases that are neglected and become pestilence,” he argued. He envisioned a supranational agency tasked with investigating and reporting the progress of dangerous diseases – “a vibrant, efficient, energetic institution with real powers and capable of doing great things.”

He got his wish. Soper modeled his vision on the model of the International Bureau of Public Health, which was founded in Paris in 1908 and later, just two months before his death, became part of the United Nations World Health Organization, which was founded in April 1948. But the WHO couldn’t contain Covid-19 either. Preventing the next pandemic requires far more coordination and planning within and between governments than it did this time, let alone a century ago.

“Let’s hope the nations recognize the need” and “begin the work that so urgently needs to be done,” wrote Soper in 1919. Let’s hope that before the next pandemic we have done more than just hope.

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Business

Kim Scott and Jake Rosenfeld Have Concepts About Making Pay Extra Equitable

Kim Scott and Jake Rosenfeld Have Ideas About Making Pay More Equitable

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Walmart announced last month that it was raising wages for some of its low-wage workers. Investors responded by beating up their stocks, sending them down more than 6 percent that day.

That wasn’t quite as bad as in 2015, when the retailer’s shares fell 10 percent after it was announced that a wage hike would hurt profits.

Walmart wasn’t fancy. Half of Walmart’s hourly employees, or about 730,000 employees, are still making less than $ 15 an hour after the last increase went into effect last week. The retail giant made $ 13.5 billion in profits last fiscal year.

In recent years, managing directors have publicly expressed their commitment to “stakeholder capitalism” and “doing good by doing good”. However, when it comes to paying workers wages that can support their families, investors send a clear message to executives: raise wages at your own risk.

That’s a problem. The share of employee compensation in our national production has declined sharply for decades, and in particular since 2000. Low-wage workers at companies like Amazon, McDonald’s and Walmart rely on public support like grocery stamps to make ends meet from the Government Accountability Office, according to an October report. A shocking 30 percent of Americans couldn’t easily come up with $ 400 on their own in an emergency, and women and people of color generally earn less than their peers.

However, two new books highlight good ideas for a fairer distribution of wages, some of which are new and some of which are no longer used. You may even be able to help investors accept this reallocation.

Kim Scott is concerned about how bias affects employee pay. In her new book, Just Work, Ms. Scott, a former executive at Apple and Google, challenges managers to assess the gender, racial and ethnic pay gap. “Unless you believe that white men are superior to others and are paid more because of it, it is impossible to believe that bias is not a factor,” she writes. American women, for example, only earn about 85 percent of the earnings of men.

Ms. Scott’s recommendations are not common practice in most organizations, but they make sense. The first is to ensure that no person has unilateral power over the compensation. Companies should have fixed salaries or salary ranges for each role. People hired for the same job should have similar, if not identical, letters of offer. Job candidates can haggle for signing bonuses if necessary, but even then only within a scope that the company determines and discloses.

Another strategy for a fairer wage distribution that Ms. Scott advocates is compensation transparency, in which companies publish the compensation for a specific position. This is common with Buffer, a social media tools company, and many government agencies as well. “More and more companies are realizing that the easiest way to close wage differentials is to solve the puzzle,” Ms. Scott writes.

Ms. Scott also urges company executives to examine the gap between executive pay and that of their worst paid employees. Research shows that increasing compensation for low-wage workers is one of the most effective ways to narrow the persistent racist pay gap. “If you are responsible for the compensation, you can pay people who are paid less and less,” Ms. Scott writes. “I’m not talking about communism. I am speaking of general human decency. “

Some companies think similarly. Costco recently increased its starting wage from $ 15 to $ 16 an hour. The retailer has long been a case study of how higher wages can be a good business strategy to reduce employee turnover and theft and improve customer service. Best Buy and Target raised the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour last year. According to Amazon, Amazon benefited from higher work ethic and retention, as well as a significant increase in applications, after the starting salary for all U.S. employees was raised to $ 15 an hour in 2018.

PayPal for the past few years has focused on employee financial health, including a metric known as net disposable income, or what employees have left after taxes and necessary living expenses. It increased the company’s salaries and health insurance contributions for its worst-paid workers, resulting in greater employee satisfaction and retention.

Jake Rosenfeld takes up the myths about how companies give compensation in “You get paid for what you’re worth”. One of the biggest myths is that what we get paid reflects our performance, argues Rosenfeld, professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis.

In theory, workers should be paid based on how much money a company is making from their work, and this may be clear to some rainmakers. But that is often not the case. Mr. Rosenfeld blames several structural factors for undermining the bond between the value workers who contribute to their employer’s income and their compensation, including non-compete agreements, opacity about salaries, company performance, and market concentration.

In addition, Mr. Rosenfeld makes the provocative claim that measuring the performance of most individual workers is unsuccessful. “For many jobs today, the entire effort to measure marginal productivity is wrong – not because the right tools were not developed, but because there is no way to separate the productivity of one worker from that of others in the organization,” he said.

He argues that even if it is possible to link individual performance to sales, as is the case with salespeople and lawyers, performance-based payment has deep shortcomings, such as: B. the creation of cutthroat competition between colleagues.

What is the alternative when performance-based pay is so problematic? One way is to link pay to performance across the company. Profit-sharing programs, where companies give their employees a percentage of their income, were common in the US before the 1980s, but have largely disappeared since then.

Mr. Rosenfeld also suggests an approach where younger workers are unlikely to find fans: pay is based on seniority. It robs managers of their ability to play favorites, reduces the effects of bias, and rewards the experience. “The seniority-based compensation ensures that we are paid for our improvement,” argues Rosenfeld.

American political leaders play a role here. The federal minimum wage proposal of $ 15 did not make it under the latest economic legislation. But democratic leaders have vowed to pass it sooner or later. (President Biden has also committed to strengthening unions, the decline of which since the 1980s has helped weaken workers’ leverage over compensation.)

A significant majority of American voters have historically supported raising the minimum wage to $ 15. And even this level is not enough to provide workers with an income sufficient to cover basic costs in many parts of the country.

As Walmart was very clearly reminded, investors are not necessarily on the same page as the general public when it comes to better wages. This is myopic. Researchers like Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, have shown that businesses can be just as profitable by paying higher wages thanks to benefits like higher quality goods and services and lower turnover. When workers struggle to make ends meet, it holds the economy back because they consume less.

In addition, fair pay is an important basis for a fair society. Now is a good time to reset assumptions about why we get paid, what we get paid, and how compensation is determined. There are new approaches for those who are open to them.

What do you think? How can fairer pay be made? And can it ever really be associated with performance? Let us know: dealbook@nytimes.com.

Categories
Business

The bond market is dictating inventory buying and selling

The bond market is dictating stock trading

Tech stocks climbed to end the week at high levels on Friday, but CNBC’s Jim Cramer expects more downward moves in the tech cohort as investors continue to turn away from high-growth names.

“Like it or not, stocks are currently on the hip with the bond market,” said the Mad Money host.

As bond rates rise amid the first signs of economic recovery, investors are fleeing riskier to cyclical growth stocks, particularly banking and industrials that have underperformed, Cramer said.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has fallen in recent weeks and is still 7% below its high about a month ago. However, the rotation from technology to value stocks won’t last forever, Cramer said.

“Either tech stocks are getting too low … or long-term interest rates are getting too high. Until that happens, the rotation will just continue,” he said. “We’re not there yet, but I’m confident we’ll be there sometime because that’s what always ends these vicious rotations.”

Cramer revealed what was circled on his calendar for the coming week. Company performance forecasts are based on FactSet estimates:

Tuesday: GameStop, Adobe

GameStop

  • Publication of results for the fourth quarter: after market entry; Conference call: 5 p.m.
  • Projected earnings per share: $ 1.35
  • Estimated Revenue: $ 2.21 billion

“The cops hope to find out more about this from this call [Ryan] Cohen’s plan, if the company reports, and if those results are any good, I expect a lot of shopping the next day, ”Cramer said.

Adobe

  • Earnings publication for the first quarter of 2021: after market start; Conference call: 5 p.m.
  • Projected earnings per share: $ 2.79
  • Estimated Revenue: $ 3.76 billion

“Unfortunately, the results are less important than the state of the Wall Street fashion show,” he said. “If Adobe has a great quarter and rates go up that day and the return approaches 2% for 10 years, the bottom line doesn’t matter at all.”

Wednesday: RH, GrowGeneration, General Mills

RH

  • Publication of results for the fourth quarter: after market entry; Conference call: 5 p.m.
  • Projected earnings per share: $ 4.73
  • Estimated Revenue: $ 797 million

GrowGeneration

  • Publication of results for the fourth quarter: after market entry; Conference call: Thursday, 9 a.m.
  • Projected EPS: 7 cents
  • Estimated Revenue: $ 61.5 million

“You rarely hear these two in the same sentence, but they represent the most exciting parts of the retail industry right now,” Cramer said of RH and GrowGeneration.

“I suspect they will both report excellent quarters,” he said. “Home furnishings are the most popular part of retail shopping right now, as we’ve seen from the incredible neighborhood Williams-Sonoma just delivered and cannabis culture … [has] was an unstoppable force as state after state advocates legalization. “

General Mills

  • Q3 2021 Results to be published: before the market; Conference call: 9 a.m.
  • Projected EPS: 84 cents
  • Estimated Revenue: $ 4.45 billion

“I like this to take the temperature of the pantries,” said the host. “I think the reaction will be lukewarm, but then again, Smucker is pleasantly surprised and I really like Hormel. So let’s listen.”

Thursday: Darden restaurants

Darden restaurants

  • Q3 2021 Results to be published: before the market; Conference call: 8:30 a.m.
  • Projected EPS: 68 cents
  • Estimated Revenue: $ 1.61 billion

“You know, we have 150,000 [restaurants] that have closed? It means the survivors should be in an incredible position, which is why I expect them to crush numbers, “Cramer said of Darden.” The stock has had a big run up, but I think the scarcity value of the stock and the last man’s standout thesis makes it compelling. “

Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable foundation owns shares in Facebook, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, JPM Chase Organ, and Wells Fargo.

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Categories
Health

Fauci says variant from U.Okay. doubtless accounts for as much as 30% of U.S. infections

Fauci says variant from U.K. likely accounts for up to 30% of U.S. infections

The highly contagious variant, first identified in the UK, is likely to account for up to 30% of Covid-19 infections in the US, said White House chief medical officer Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Friday.

The variant, named B.1.1.7, has been reported in at least 94 countries and discovered in 50 US jurisdictions, Fauci said during a White House press conference about the pandemic, adding that the numbers are likely to rise.

The UK first identified strain B.1.1.7 last fall, which appears to be spreading more easily and faster than other variants. It has since spread around the world, including the United States, Fauci said. US researchers had identified 5,567 cases through genetic sequencing by Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. US health officials say the variant could become the dominant strain in the US by the end of this month or early April.

New variants are particularly a problem for public health officials as they could become more resistant to antibody treatments and vaccines. High-level health officials, including Fauci, have urged Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible. They say that if the virus cannot infect hosts and cannot replicate, the virus cannot mutate.

Public health officials and Americans can counter the variant by doing two things, Fauci said. “Get as many people to be vaccinated as quickly and as quickly as possible with a vaccine that we know will work against this variant and, ultimately, to implement the public health measures we have been talking about all this time have … masking, physical distancing and avoidance of congregational attitudes, especially indoors. “

A study recently published in the British Medical Journal found the variant was associated with a 64% higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than previous strains. Researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Bristol analyzed data from more than 100,000 patients in the UK between October 1 and January 28.

“We’re in a position right now where we have a plateau of around 53,000 cases a day,” said Fauci. “The concern is that there are a number of states, cities, and regions across the country that are withdrawing some of the mitigation methods we talked about: withdrawing mask mandates, withdrawing from essentially non-public health interventions.”

Fauci’s comments on B.1.1.7 come a day after he argued over masks at a hearing with Republican Senator Rand Paul.

Paul claimed people shouldn’t wear masks after vaccination as the chance of getting Covid-19 is “practically 0%”. “Isn’t it just theater?” The Kentucky junior senator, an ophthalmologist, asked during a hearing on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

In response, Fauci said the emergence of new, highly contagious variants poses a threat to people with antibodies. “I can only say that masks are no theater,” said Fauci. “I totally disagree with you.”

Categories
World News

Highlights from the heated assembly in Alaska

Highlights from the heated meeting in Alaska

Talks between the US and China got off to a bad start on Thursday. Both sides rebuked and rebuked each other in an unusual public area of ​​tension.

The meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, was the first high-level meeting between the two countries under the administration of President Joe Biden and took place in more than two years of rocky relations between the two countries.

What was originally intended as a four-minute photo shoot lasted over an hour as both sides traded barbs on U.S.-China relations for concerns from Washington’s allies. Reporters were told not to leave as both sides wanted to add their rebuttals.

At the head of the US delegation were Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi and Yang Jiechi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China, led the Chinese delegation.

Here are some excerpts and highlights of the meeting:

On the relationship between the United States and China

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken:
I said that US relations with China will be competitive where it should be, cooperative where it can be, controversial where it has to be. I suspect our discussions here in Alaska will set the tone. Our intention is to speak directly about our concerns and priorities with the aim of a clearer relationship between our countries in the future.

… In my short time as Foreign Minister, I have to tell you that I have spoken to almost a hundred colleagues from all over the world. And I’ve just made my first trip to Japan and South Korea as I noticed. I have to tell you what I hear is very different from what you described. I hear deep satisfaction that the United States is back, that we are reconnecting with our allies and partners. I also hear deep concern about some of the actions your government is taking.

China urges the US side to completely abandon the hegemonic practice of deliberately interfering in China’s internal affairs. This is a longstanding problem and should be changed.

Wang Yi

Foreign Minister, China

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi:
China has certainly not accepted the unjustified allegations made by the US in the past and will not accept them in the future either. In recent years, China’s legitimate rights and interests have been completely suppressed, plunging China-US relations into a period of unprecedented difficulty.

… China urges the US side to completely abandon the hegemonic practice of deliberately interfering in China’s internal affairs. This is a longstanding problem and should be changed. It’s time for it to change.

The Chinese Director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, Yang Jiechi
China and the United States are both important countries and both show important responsibilities. We must both contribute to world peace, stability and development in areas such as Covid-19, restore economic activity in the world and respond to climate change.

There are many things we can do together and where our interests converge. So we need to give up the Cold War mentality and the zero-sum game approach.

… Let me say here that the United States, on the Chinese side, does not have the qualifications to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The US side wasn’t even qualified to say such things 20 or 30 years ago because that is not the way to deal with the Chinese people. If the United States is to deal properly with the Chinese side, then we will follow the necessary protocols and do things right.

The cooperation benefits both sides. This is especially the expectation of the people of the world. Well, the American people are certainly a great people, but so are the Chinese people.

Yang Jiechi (right), director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission for China, and Wang Yi (left), China’s foreign minister, meet for a meeting with US colleagues at the opening session of the US-China talks at Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. Alaska on March 18, 2021.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

At the concerns of the US and its allies

Flash:
We will also discuss our deep concerns about actions taken by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States, and economic coercion on our allies. Each of these actions threatens the rules-based order that maintains global stability.

Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor:
State Secretary Blinken has set out many areas, from economic and military coercion to the attack on core values, which we will discuss with you today and in the days ahead.

… We have heard each of these concerns from around the world, from our allies and partners, and the wider international community during the intensive consultations we have conducted over the past two months. We will make it clear today that our overriding priority on the United States’ side is to ensure that our global approach and approach to China benefits the American people and protects the interests of our allies and partners.

We do not seek conflict, but we welcome fierce competition and will always stand up for our principles for our people and for our friends.

I remember well when President Biden was Vice President and we were visiting China … and Vice President Biden said at the time that it was never a good bet to bet against America and that is still the case today.

Antony Blink

US Secretary of State

The:
It is also important that we all come together to build a new kind of international relationship that involves fairness, justice and mutual respect. And on some regional issues, I think the problem is that the United States has had a long history of jurisdiction and repression and has overstretched itself.

… The United States itself does not represent international public opinion or the Western world. Whether judged by population scale or by world trends, the Western world does not represent global public opinion. So we hope that when the US side talks about universal values ​​or US international public opinion, it will consider whether it feels reassured to say these things because the US does not represent the world. It only represents the United States government.

About values ​​and democracy

Sullivan:
Secretary Blinken and I are proud of the story we can tell about America here, about a country that, under the leadership of President Biden, has made great strides to control the pandemic, save our economy, and gain strength and resilience our democracy to be affirmed. We are especially proud of the work we have done to reinvigorate our alliances and partnerships, the foundation of our foreign policy.

The:
And the United States has its style, a United States-style democracy. And China has Chinese style democracy. It is not only for the American people but also for the people of the world to judge how the United States has advanced its own democracy. In China, after decades of reform and opening up in various areas, we have come a long way.

… We believe it is important for the United States to change its own image and not advance its own democracy in the rest of the world. Indeed, many people in the United States have little faith in United States democracy and have different views about the United States government in China.

flash::

One of the hallmarks of our leadership and our commitment in the world are our alliances and partnerships, which were built on a voluntary basis. And President Biden is committed to revitalizing and strengthening it. And there is another hallmark of our leadership here at home and that is an ongoing effort, as we say, to create a more perfect Union.

And that search, by definition, acknowledges our imperfections, that we are not perfect. We make mistakes. We have reversals, we step backwards. But what we have done throughout our history is to meet these challenges openly, publicly and transparently. I’m not trying to ignore it. I’m not trying to pretend they don’t exist. I’m not trying to sweep them under the rug. And sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s ugly. But every time we have become stronger, better and more united as a country.

I remember well when President Biden was Vice President and we were visiting China … and Vice President Biden said at the time that it was never a good bet to bet against America and that is still the case today.

Categories
Business

How Anti-Asian Exercise On-line Set the Stage for Actual-World Violence

How Anti-Asian Activity Online Set the Stage for Real-World Violence

Negative Asian American tropics have long existed online, but increased in March last year when parts of the United States were locked down due to the coronavirus. This month, politicians like Republican Paul Gosar of Arizona and Republican Kevin McCarthy of California used the terms “Wuhan virus” and “Chinese coronavirus” to refer to Covid-19 in their tweets.

Then, according to a study by the University of California at Berkeley, those terms started trending online. On the day Mr. Gosar posted his tweet, the use of the term “Chinese virus” on Twitter increased 650 percent. A day later, consumption in conservative news articles rose 800 percent, the study found.

Mr. Trump posted eight times on Twitter in March last year about the “Chinese virus,” which is causing life-threatening reactions. In the response area of ​​one of his posts, a Trump supporter replied, “U caused the virus” and forwarded the comment to an Asian Twitter user who had quoted the US death statistics for Covid-19. The Trump fan added an arc about Asians.

In a study by the University of California at San Francisco this week, researchers who examined 700,000 tweets before and after Trump’s March 2020 posts found that people who posted the hashtag #chinesevirus were more likely to use racist hashtags, including #bateatingchinese.

“There has been a lot of discussion that the Chinese virus is not racist and can be used,” said Yulin Hswen, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California at San Francisco who conducted the research. But the term, she said, has evolved into a “rallying call to rally and motivate people who have these feelings and to normalize racist beliefs”.

Representatives from Mr. Trump, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment.

The misinformation linking the coronavirus to anti-Asian beliefs has also increased over the past year. According to Zignal Labs, a media literacy company, nearly eight million speeches against Asia have been published online since March last year, many of which are false.

Increasing attacks against Americans from Asia

    • Eight people, including six women of Asian origin, were killed in the gunfight at the Atlanta massage parlor. The suspect’s motives are being investigated, but Asian communities in the United States are on high alert as attacks against Asian-American citizens have increased over the past year.
    • In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, a stream of hatred and violence against Americans from Asia began in the United States last spring. Community leaders say the bigotry was fueled by the rhetoric of former President Trump, who called the coronavirus the “China virus”.
    • A wave of xenophobia and violence in New York has been compounded by the economic fallout from the pandemic that dealt a severe blow to the Asian-American communities in New York. Many community leaders say racist abuse is overlooked by the authorities.
    • In January, an 84-year-old man from Thailand was violently beaten to the ground in San Francisco, leading to his death in a hospital two days later. The videotaped attack has turned into a rally.

In one example, an April article by Fox News that went viral for no reason indicated that the coronavirus was created and deliberately released in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan, China. The article was liked and shared more than a million times on Facebook and retweeted 78,800 times on Twitter. This is based on data from Zignal and CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool for analyzing social media.

Categories
Politics

Louisiana Particular Election Units Up a Democratic Showdown

Louisiana Special Election Sets Up a Democratic Showdown

However, Ms. Peterson’s best applause could also reflect her best chance of prevailing.

“There has never been an African American woman in Washington in the history of Louisiana in the federal delegation,” she said. “When women aren’t at the table, we’re usually on the menu.”

At a moment when black women want to see more of their peers in positions of power – a view that makes up a large part of the democratic base when black women run in high profile elections in places like New York City, Virginia and Ohio this year – this is it Message clearly in response.

“I’m all for women now, we just need a representation,” said Angela Steib, a Donaldsonville resident who attended the meeting.

For his part, Mr. Carter is quick to point out his support from a number of local women leaders, including the Helena Moreno, President of the New Orleans City Council – and to say that he would be more effective in Washington than Ms. Peterson because she acknowledges she is persistent.

“We have a completely different style,” he said.

Philosophically, the two weren’t that far apart in the past. But Ms. Peterson has tried to outstrip Mr. Carter on the left in this race by portraying herself as an insurgent, despite her service as former state chairman and her list of endorsements, which include support from Stacey Abrams and Emily’s List , trumpets, the group that supports women who are for abortion rights.

When asked to describe her political style, she avoided an ideological label and instead called herself “responsive” and “honest”. Mr. Carter said, “I’m center left.”

In a sleepy spring special election, however, the winner can be determined by which of the two top candidates has a stronger organization. Both have long histories in the local office, both have sought this seat in the past and have been financially competitive despite Emily’s ruse given Ms. Peterson third party help that Mr. Carter lacks on the radio waves.

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John Magufuli, Tanzania Chief Who Performed Down Covid, Dies at 61

John Magufuli, Tanzania Leader Who Played Down Covid, Dies at 61

NAIROBI, Kenya – President John Magufuli of Tanzania, a populist leader who downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and diverted his country from democratic ideals, died on Wednesday in the port city of Dar es Salaam. He was 61 years old.

Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan said in a short televised address that Mr Magufuli died of heart complications while being treated at Mzena Hospital. The announcement followed more than a week of intense speculation that Mr Magufuli was seriously ill with Covid-19 – reports that senior government officials had repeatedly denied.

Ms. Hassan did not disclose Mr. Magufuli’s underlying condition, but said he had suffered from chronic atrial fibrillation for more than a decade. She announced 14 days of national mourning and said flags would be flown nationwide on half employees.

Under the Tanzanian Constitution, Ms. Hassan will be sworn in as President to serve the remainder of the five-year term that Mr. Magufuli began when he won re-election last October. The move will make her the first female leader in Tanzania.

Mr. Magufuli, a trained chemist, was first elected on an anti-corruption platform in October 2015. He was initially praised for his efforts to strengthen the economy, curb wasteful spending, and improve Tanzania’s infrastructure.

But the Führer, popularly known as “the Bulldozer”, was soon accused of silencing dissent, suppressing freedom of expression and association, and enforcing laws that strengthened his Party of Revolution’s influence in power.

This was a sharp departure from the policies of its two immediate predecessors, who had promoted their East African nation as a peaceful, business-friendly democracy.

During his first term in office, Mr Magufuli’s government banned opposition rallies, revoked licenses from non-governmental organizations, and introduced laws that critics said suppressed independent reporting. He also said that pregnant girls are not allowed to go to school.

Right-wing groups accused his government of failing to conduct a credible investigation into the murders, kidnappings and persecution of journalists criticizing the government and opposition officials.

When Mr Magufuli was seeking a second term last fall, the authorities made it difficult for the opposition parties to campaign, froze the bank accounts of civil society groups, refused accreditation to election observers and journalists and refused to allow opposition representatives to polling stations.

Updated

March 19, 2021, 8:12 p.m. ET

At least 10 people were killed on election day when violence broke out in the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar after citizens said they saw soldiers casting marked ballots.

Mr Magufuli won this election with 84 percent of the vote on charges of widespread fraud and irregularities. Tundu Lissu, the main opposition candidate who ran against him, was accused of trying to overthrow the government and had to leave the country. He remains in exile in Belgium.

Last year, Mr Magufuli was heavily criticized at home and abroad for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He railed against masks and social distancing, promoted unproven remedies as cures, and said God helped the country eradicate the virus.

Tanzania has not disclosed any data on the coronavirus to the World Health Organization since April, reporting only 509 cases and 21 deaths, numbers that have been widely viewed with skepticism.

When the global introduction of vaccines began, Mr Magufuli stopped the Ministry of Health from securing doses for Tanzania.

“Vaccines don’t work,” he said in a speech to a maskless crowd in late January. “If the white man could develop vaccinations, vaccines against AIDS would have been brought. Vaccines against tuberculosis would have made it a thing of the past. Vaccines against malaria would have been found. Cancer vaccines would have been found. “

Such statements have been condemned by both the World Health Organization and the Roman Catholic Church in Tanzania. Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, urged the Tanzanian government to prepare the infrastructure for the distribution of the cans, and wrote on Twitter: “Science shows that #VaccinesWork.”

In February, the US Embassy in Tanzania warned of a “significant increase in the number of Covid-19 cases”, saying that “limited hospital capacity across Tanzania could lead to life-threatening delays in emergency medical care”.

Mr Magufuli’s death came just days after speculation that he was sick with the virus. Rumors began to swirl after the opposition person in exile, Mr Lissu, said the president had Covid-19 and was being treated at a hospital in neighboring Kenya.

Mr Lissu asked the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the president, who had not been seen publicly for almost two weeks. Mr. Magufuli did not attend a virtual summit for leaders of the East African regional bloc on February 27.

Tanzanian officials rejected the speculation, saying that Mr. Magufuli was working as usual.

After the death of Mr Magufuli was announced on Wednesday, the leader of the opposition party, Act Wazalendo, urged Tanzanians to show “patience and understanding” as the country undergoes a critical transition period.

“This is an unprecedented moment,” said opposition party leader Zitto Kabwe in a statement, “one that will undoubtedly move us all in a very personal way.”

John Pombe Joseph Magufuli was born on October 29, 1959 in the Chato district in what is now northwestern Tanzania and was then known as Tanganyika. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Dar es Salaam and a PhD in chemistry from the same university in 2009, as stated on the website of the President’s Office.

Before he became president, he was a member of the Tanzanian parliament and held a number of cabinet positions. He developed a reputation for fighting corruption while serving in cabinet positions including Minister for Land, Fisheries and Public Works.

Mr. Magufuli is survived by his wife, Janet, an elementary school teacher; and two children.