Month: June 2021

Categories
Health

Musical Chairs? Why Swapping Seats May Cut back Orchestra Aerosols.

Musical Chairs? Why Swapping Seats Could Reduce Orchestra Aerosols.

If musical instruments were people, trumpets would be super spreaders. When a trumpeter blows into the mouthpiece, tiny droplets of breath, so-called aerosols, come out of the musician’s mouth, whiz through the brass tube and spray into the air.

During a deadly pandemic, when a musician unknowingly exhales an infectious virus, it presents a potential problem for orchestras. And the trumpet isn’t the only musical health hazard.

“Wind instruments are like machines for aerosolizing breath droplets,” says Tony Saad, chemical engineer and expert in computational fluid dynamics at the University of Utah.

A simple but radical change – reorganizing the musicians – could significantly reduce aerosol formation on stage, reported Dr. Saad and his colleagues in a new study published in Science Advances on Wednesday.

Work began last summer when the Utah Symphony began to wonder if and how they could safely perform again.

“They were looking for people who could provide insights into mitigation strategies that people would believe in.” said James Sutherland, a chemical engineer at the University of Utah and co-author of the study.

Researchers created a detailed computer model of the symphony’s concert hall and noted the location of each vent and the rate of air flow through the HVAC system.

Then they mapped the typical position of every musician. The Utah Symphony, like most modern orchestras, positioned its musicians in a standard pattern, with the stringed instruments at the front of the stage, followed by several rows of wood and brass instruments – the flutes and oboes, then the bassoons and clarinets, and then the trumpets and French horns. The trombones and drums were positioned at the very back of the stage.

To model the spread of aerosols during a concert, they incorporated the latest research led by Jiarong Hong, a mechanical engineer at the University of Minnesota. Working with the Minnesota Orchestra, Dr. Hong and his colleagues measured the concentration and size of aerosol particles emitted by various wind instruments. (Among their findings, trumpet, bass trombone, and oboe posed the greatest risk.)

With these parameters, Dr. Saad and Dr. Sutherland ran computational fluid dynamics simulations to model how the air and aerosols would flow through the Utah concert hall if all the musicians were playing.

The simulation revealed complex air flow patterns. In general, the air flowed down from the air vents in the ceiling to the air return vents in the floor at the back of the stage. But two different eddies also formed, in front and in the back of the stage, they found. “You see these big regions circulating like a big tornado,” said Dr. Saad.

Aerosols can get caught in these eddies, swirl around the stage, and build up over time.

Updated

June 24, 2021, 4:02 p.m. ET

The trumpets, which emitted large, concentrated clouds of aerosol, posed a particular problem. When the aerosol plumes from the instruments wandered to the ventilation slots in the back of the stage, they passed directly through the drummers’ breathing zone.

“We saw that and said, ‘Okay, this is a big problem, we have to fix it,'” said Dr. Sutherland. “And given the insight we had about how the river was moving, we said, ‘Well, let’s move some of these instruments.'”

They knew the idea could be controversial; For decades, orchestras have generally been arranged in the same way, for both acoustic and traditional reasons. “We asked them at the beginning of the project: ‘What restrictions do we have to work with? Can we move people? ‘”Said Dr. Sutherland. “And they said, ‘You are doing everything you think possible to reduce the risk.'”

They moved the trumpets all the way back to the stage, right next to the air return ducts. Then they relocated the other wind instruments from the center of the stage and moved them either closer to the rear vents or to the stage doors they suggested opening.

These movements, the team hoped, would allow the aerosols to flow straight out of the concert hall without passing through other musicians’ breathing zones or getting caught in a vortex on the stage. “You want the smoker to sit close to the window,” said Dr. Saad. “That’s exactly what we did here.”

Finally, they moved the instruments that don’t create aerosols at all – the piano and percussion section – into the center of the stage. Together, these optimizations reduced the average aerosol concentration in the musicians’ breathing zones by a factor of 100, the researchers calculated.

Although the exact airflow patterns will be different at each venue, the general principles should apply everywhere, the team said. Orchestras can reduce the risk of aerosol spread by placing the most risky instruments near open doors and air return ports. (Orchestras that can’t do their own computer modeling could put a fog machine on stage and watch the fog flow, the researchers suggested.)

Dr. Hong, who was not involved in the Utah study, praised the modeling work. “It’s not easy to simulate the flow in an orchestra hall,” he said. “You did a great job when it comes to characterizing the river.”

But he wondered if moving musicians was really a viable solution. “We work closely with musicians and they don’t like being rearranged,” he said. (He noted, however, that “I think that’s perfectly fine for a student band.”)

Instead, he suggested a different, albeit equally unconventional, solution: masks for the instruments. In a recent study, he found that covering the bell of a trumpet with a single layer of acoustic fabric can reduce particulate emissions by around 60 percent without compromising sound quality.

The Utah Symphony, on the other hand, was open to rethinking the seating. And when it took the stage last fall, it did so with the stage doors open and the wind instruments in the stern.

“That was a big challenge for the musicians,” said Steven Brosvik, President and CEO of the Utah Symphony and the Utah Opera. “But they all got into it and said, ‘Come on, let’s try.'”

It took the musicians a few weeks to familiarize themselves with the new arrangement, and they plan to revert to their traditional seating configuration in the fall, Brosvik said. But the simulations gave the musicians security and enabled them to get back on stage, he said: “For us it changed our lives.”

The researchers were pleased with the willingness of the musicians to embrace an unusual solution, although their findings may have hit some instrumentalists harder than others. Like Dr. Sutherland said, “We had to apologize to the trumpets in advance.”

Categories
World News

TikTok insiders say Chinese language mother or father ByteDance is in management

TikTok insiders say Chinese parent ByteDance is in control

ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok app is displayed in the App Store on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday, Aug. 3, 2020.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A former TikTok recruiter remembers that her hours were supposed to be from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., but more often than not, she found herself working double shifts. That’s because the company’s Beijing-based ByteDance executives were heavily involved in TikTok’s decision-making, she said, and expected the company’s California employees to be available at all hours of the day. TikTok employees, she said, were expected to restart their day and work during Chinese business hours to answer their ByteDance counterparts’ questions.

This recruiter, along with four other former employees, told CNBC they’re concerned about the popular social media app’s Chinese parent company, which they say has access to American user data and is actively involved in the Los Angeles company’s decision-making and product development. These people asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the company.

TikTok launched internationally in September 2017. Its parent company, ByteDance, purchased Musical.ly, a social app that was growing in popularity in the U.S., for $1 billion in November 2017, and the two were merged in August 2018. In just a few years, it has quickly amassed a user base of nearly 92 million in the U.S. In particular, the app has found a niche among teens and young adults — TikTok has surpassed Instagram as U.S. teenagers’ second-favorite social media app, after Snapchat, according to an October 2020 report by Piper Sandler.

Last year, then-President Donald Trump sought to ban TikTok in the U.S. or force a merger with a U.S. company. The Trump administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, expressed national security concerns over the popular social media app’s Chinese ownership, with Pompeo saying at one point that TikTok might be “feeding data directly to the Chinese Communist Party.” TikTok has consistently denied those claims, telling CNBC, “We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.” In the company’s last four semi-annual transparency reports, it does not report a single request from the Chinese government for user data.

Earlier in June, TikTok caught a break when President Joe Biden signed an executive order that revoked Trump’s order to ban the app unless it found a U.S. buyer. Biden’s order, however, sets criteria for the government to evaluate the risk of apps connected to foreign adversaries.

ByteDance’s control

The former employees who spoke to CNBC said the boundaries between TikTok and ByteDance were so blurry as to be almost non-existent.

Most notably, one employee said that ByteDance employees are able to access U.S. user data. This was highlighted in a situation where an American employee working on TikTok needed to get a list of global users, including Americans, who searched for or interacted with a specific type of content — that means users who searched for a specific term or hashtag or liked a particular category of videos. This employee had to reach out to a data team in China in order to access that information. The data the employee received included users’ specific IDs, and they could pull up whatever information TikTok had about those users. This type of situation was confirmed as a common occurrence by a second employee. 

A look at TikTok’s privacy policy states that the company can share the data it collects with its corporate group, which includes ByteDance.

“We may share all of the information we collect with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group,” the privacy policy reads. 

TikTok downplayed the importance of this access. “We employ rigorous access controls and a strict approval process overseen by our U.S.-based leadership team, including technologies like encryption and security monitoring to safeguard sensitive user data,” a TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement.

But one cybersecurity expert said it could expose users to information requests by the Chinese government. “If the legal authorities in China or their parent company demands the data, users have already given them the legal right to turn it over,” said Bryan Cunningham, executive director of the Cybersecurity Policy & Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine.

As CNBC reported in 2019, China’s National Intelligence Law requires Chinese organizations and citizens to “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work.” Another rule in China, the 2014 Counter-Espionage law, has similar mandates.

The close ties between TikTok and its parent company go far beyond user data, the former employees said.

Direction and approvals for all kinds of decision-making, whether it be minor contracts or key strategies, come from ByteDance’s leadership, which is based in China. This results in employees working late hours after long days so they can join meetings with their Beijing counterparts.

TikTok’s dependence on ByteDance extends to its technology. Former employees said that nearly 100% of TikTok’s product development is led by Chinese ByteDance employees. 

The lines are so indistinct that multiple employees described having email addresses for both companies. One employee said that recruiters often find themselves looking for candidates for roles at both companies. 

TikTok acknowledged that employees might have multiple aliases, but said it relies on Google’s enterprise-level Gmail service for its corporate email and their emails are stored on Google servers, where they are logged and monitored for unauthorized access.

In comments to CNBC, TikTok downplayed the importance of its transnational structure. “Like many global technology companies, we have product development and engineering teams all over the world collaborating cross-functionally to build the best product experience for our community, including in the U.S., U.K. and Singapore,” a TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement.

On the personnel side, ByteDance in April appointed Singaporean national Shouzi Chew to the role of TikTok CEO. Prior to Chew’s appointment, TikTok was led in interim by former YouTube executive Vanessa Pappas, who was vaulted into the role after former Disney streaming executive Kevin Mayer resigned in August 2020 after just three months in the role.

Chew already served as ByteDance’s chief financial officer and will continue to hold that position in addition to his new role as TikTok CEO. 

Again, TikTok downplayed the connection. “Since May 2020, TikTok management has reported into the CEO based in the U.S., and now Singapore, who is responsible for all long-term and strategic day-to-day decisions for the business,” a TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement.

The risks of Chinese ties

Cybersecurity experts who spoke with CNBC said there are a number of risks that come with TikTok being so interwoven with its parent company. 

One set of risks is how the Chinese government could spread propaganda or influence the thinking of the Americans who use TikTok each month. This could be done through short-length videos that the Chinese government may want to show to Americans, whether it be factual content or misinformation. The company could also choose to censor certain types of content.

This has already happened in a few instances. For example, the company instructed moderators to censor videos that mentioned Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence or the religious group Falun Gong, according to a September 2019 report by The Guardian. Following the report, TikTok said it no longer practiced that censorship and said it recognized that it was wrong.

“Today we take localized approaches, including local moderators, local content and moderation policies, local refinement of global policies, and more,” the company said in a statement at the time.

In November 2020, TikTok’s U.K. Director of Public Policy Elizabeth Kanter admitted during a parliamentary committee hearing that the app had previously censored content that was critical of the Chinese government in regard to forced labor of Uyghur Muslims in China. Afterward, Kanter said she misspoke during the hearing.

“Anytime [the Chinese government has] control over a platform like TikTok that has billions of users and is only getting more popular, it gives them power to feed our mind what we should think about, what we consider truth and what is false,” said Ambuj Kumar, CEO of Fortanix, an encryption-based cybersecurity company. Kumar is an expert on end-to-end encryption, including dealing with China’s special conditions for data encryption.

A bigger and much less discussed concern is the data TikTok collects from its users and how that data could be exploited by the Chinese government. 

TikTok’s privacy policy explains that the app collects all kinds of data. This includes profile data, such as users’ names and profile images, as well as any data users might add through surveys, sweepstakes and contests, such as their gender, age and preferences. 

The app also collects users’ locations, messages sent within the app and information about how people use the app, including their likes, what content they view and how often they use the app. Notably, the app also collects data on users’ interests inferred by the app based on the content that users view. 

Most importantly, TikTok also collects data in the form of the content that users generate on the app or upload to it. This would include the videos that users make. 

Some experts said they’re concerned that content created by a teenager now and uploaded to TikTok, even as an unpublished draft, could come back to haunt that same person if they later land a high-level job at a notable American company or start working within the U.S. government. 

“I’d be shocked if they are not storing all the videos being posted by teenagers,” Kumar said. “Twenty years from now, 30 years from now, 50 years from now when we want to nominate our next justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, at that time they will go back and find everything they can and then they’ll decide what to do with it.”

TikTok is not unique in collecting American user data. American consumer tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter also possess vast troves of information they’ve collected on their users. The difference, according to experts on Sino-U.S. relations and Chinese espionage, is that American companies have many tools at their disposal to protect their users when the U.S. government seeks data, while Chinese companies have to comply with the Chinese government.

“ByteDance is a Chinese company, and they’re subject to Chinese national law, which says that whenever the government asks for the data a company is holding for whatever reason, the company must turn it over. They have no right to appeal,” said Jim Lewis, senior vice president and director, strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a foreign affairs think tank. Lewis previously worked for various agencies in the U.S. government, including on Chinese espionage.

“If the Chinese government wants to look at the data that ByteDance is collecting, they can do so, and no one can say anything about it,” Lewis said.

The Chinese government’s track record when it comes to human rights and widespread surveillance is reason for concern.

“Given the Chinese government’s authoritarian bent and attitudes, that’s where people are really concerned with what they might do,” said Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank.

In particular, these experts cite the 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel Management, in which intruders stole more than 22 million records of U.S. government employees and their friends and family. The hackers behind the breach were believed to have been working for the Chinese government.

“They’ve collected ten of millions of pieces of data on Americans,” said Lewis. “This is big data. In the U.S. they use it for advertising … in China, the state uses it for intelligence purposes.”

Americans who decide to use TikTok should do so with the understanding that they are likely handing their data over to a Chinese company subject to the Chinese government, said Bill Evanina, CEO of Evanina Group, which provides companies with consultation for risk-based decisions regarding complex geopolitics.

“When you’re going to download TikTok … and you click on that ‘I agree to terms’ — what’s in that is critical,” Evanina said.

Not all experts, however, are concerned that TikTok is a threat. 

Graham Webster, editor in chief of the Stanford-New America DigiChina Project at the Stanford University Cyber Policy Center, notes that most of the data that TikTok collects could just as easily be gathered by the Chinese government through other services. China doesn’t need its own consumer app to exploit Americans’ data, he said. 

“I find it to be a very low-probability threat model for actual national security concerns,” Webster said. 

What TikTok could do to calm fears

As TikTok waits to see how the Biden administration decides to proceed, the company could take a number of steps to provide the new president and the American public with assurances that their data won’t be misused. 

A first step would be for TikTok to be more transparent about what its data collection process is. For cybersecurity experts, specific details would go a long way toward gaining it credibility.

Jason Crabtree, CEO of cybersecurity company Qomplex, formerly served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Army Cyber Command during the Obama administration. He said TikTok should be clear on what it collects, where it is stored, how long it is stored for, and which employees of which companies have access to the data.

A TikTok information sheet states that the company stores U.S. user data in Virginia with a backup in Singapore and strict controls on employee access. The company does not specify which user data it collects, saying “the TikTok app is not unique in the amount of information it collects, compared to other mobile apps.” The company says it stores data “for as long as it is necessary to provide you with the service” or “as long as we have a legitimate business purpose in keeping such data or where we are subject to a legal obligation to retain the data.” The company also says any user may submit a request to access or delete their information and TikTok will respond to the request consistent with applicable law.

“If all those things are documented and attested to, you have a much better shot at explaining to the U.S. public, to regulators and other interested parties why this is no issue to consumers,” Crabtree said. “If you don’t or are unwilling to provide real clarity then that’s something people should rightfully be really concerned about.”

Another tactic would be for ByteDance to proceed with the plan it had outlined toward the end of the Trump presidency and sell TikTok to a U.S. company that Americans already trust. After Trump signed the order that could have potentially banned TikTok, the company entered talks with Microsoft but didn’t reach a deal. At one point, there was an agreement in place to sell minority stakes to Walmart and Oracle, although the sale was never finalized. For some cybersecurity experts, anything short of this would not be enough to evoke trust in TikTok’s handling of American data. 

“As long as TikTok is a subsidiary of ByteDance, I certainly will not be satisfied with any purported technological fixes,” Cunningham said. 

Rather than focusing specifically on TikTok or Chinese apps, the U.S. should make stronger privacy regulations to protect Americans from all tech companies, including those with ties to adversary nations, Webster said.

“The solution ought to be comprehensive privacy protection for everyone, protecting you from American companies and Chinese companies,” Webster said.

Categories
Health

CDC says greater than 4,100 individuals have been hospitalized or died after vaccination

CDC says more than 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died after vaccination

U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Allyson Black (R), a registered nurse, cares for COVID-19 patients in a makeshift ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center on January 21, 2021 in Torrance, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

More than 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died with Covid-19 in the U.S. even though they’ve been fully vaccinated, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, at least 750 fully vaccinated people have died after contracting Covid, but the CDC noted that 142 of those fatalities were asymptomatic or unrelated to Covid-19, according to data as of Monday that was released Friday.

The CDC received 3,907 reports of people who have been hospitalized with breakthrough Covid infections, despite being fully vaccinated. Of those, more than 1,000 of those patients were asymptomatic or their hospitalizations weren’t related to Covid-19, the CDC said.

“To be expected,” Dr. Paul Offit, a top advisor to the Food and Drug Administration on children’s vaccines told CNBC. “The vaccines aren’t 100% effective, even against severe disease. Very small percentage of the 600,000 deaths.”

Breakthrough cases are Covid-19 infections that bypass vaccine protection. They are very rare and many are asymptomatic. The vaccines are highly effective but don’t block every infection. Pfizer and Moderna’s phase three clinical studies found that their two-dose regimens were 95% and 94% effective at blocking Covid-19, respectively, while Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine was found to be 66% effective in its studies. All three, however, have been found to be extremely effective in preventing people from getting severely sick from Covid.

The CDC doesn’t count every breakthrough case. It stopped counting all breakthrough cases May 1 and now only tallies those that lead to hospitalization or death, a move the agency was criticized for by health experts.

Most Americans have received at least one shot of the two currently authorized mRNA vaccines. The U.S. has administered 178.3 million shots and fully vaccinated 46% of its population.

“You are just as likely to be killed by a meteorite as die from Covid after a vaccine,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California San Francisco, told CNBC. “In the big scheme of things, the vaccines are tremendously powerful.”

Efficacy rates decrease slightly for variants like alpha and delta, with studies indicating 88% efficacy against the delta strain after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. It was unclear if any of the reported breakthrough cases were caused by variants.

In Israel and the United Kingdom, concerns about the delta variant are rising after growing reports of breakthrough infections.

Even with 80% of adults vaccinated, Chezy Levy, director-general of Israel’s Health Ministry, said the delta variant is responsible for 70% of new infections in the country. Levy also said that one-third of those new infections were in vaccinated individuals.

In the U.K., Public Health England released a report that found 26 out of 73 deaths caused by the delta variant occurred in fully vaccinated people from June 8 to June 14. Most of the deaths occurred in unvaccinated individuals.

“Determination of whether hospitalizations and deaths are more represented in immunocompromised patients and the type of vaccine received will be important for future guidance,” Chin-Hong said.

On June 7, the CDC received reports of 3,459 breakthrough cases that led to hospitalization or death. On June 18, that number was updated to 3,729, an increase of 270 cases. Today, the number stands at 4,115.

An overwhelming majority, 76%, of the hospitalizations and deaths from breakthrough cases occurred in people over the age of 65.

“We do not have the years and years of data we have for vaccines against other airborne pathogens — and therefore it is really essential that the CDC provides up to date reporting on breakthrough cases,” David Edwards, aerosol scientist and Harvard University professor, told CNBC.

The CDC says its numbers are “likely an undercount” of all Covid infections in vaccinated people because the data relies on passive and voluntary reporting.

— CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Categories
Politics

Trump Aides Prepped Rebel Act Order Amid Protests

Trump Aides Prepped Insurrection Act Order Amid Protests

But invoking the Insurrection Act, an underutilized authority that allows presidents to use active military personnel for law enforcement purposes, would have escalated dramatically. The act has only been alleged twice in the past 40 years – once to quell the unrest following Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and once during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

“We look weak,” said Trump, according to one of the officials. He complained about being taken to the bunker below the White House on the night of May 29 when the barricade outside the Treasury Department was broken. The New York Times had reported the bunker visit the day before, which made Trump angry.

But all three officers resisted the idea of ​​invoking the Insurrection Act. Mr Barr, who was Mr Trump’s attorney general for a year and a half and increasingly clashing with the president, told Mr Trump that civil law enforcement had enough manpower to handle the situation and that a drastic move like invoking the insurrection Act could lead to more protests and violence. Mr. Esper agreed with the two former officers.

Mr Trump’s meeting with Mr Barr, Mr Esper and Mr Milley was marked by his anger over the embarrassment on the world stage, according to two officials.

Reluctantly, Trump agreed to her advice not to use troops on active duty, officials said. Immediately after the meeting, Mr. Trump joined a call with governors across the country, some of whom saw protests surge in their states. Mr Trump urged them to “dominate” the protesters as he said the Minnesota National Guard did.

Mr Esper told his staff that he was so concerned about Mr Trump sending troops on active duty that he repeated the need to take control of their states in the hopes that he could encourage governors to deploy the National Guard to fend off federal measures. Using the Pentagon terminology he later shared with his staff that he regretted, Mr. Esper told governors “to dominate the battlefield,” a sentiment stemming from concerns about Mr. Trump’s intentions.

One background to the drafting of the Insurrection Act proclamation, however, was that discussions between the White House and city officials about how to contain the protests remained contentious throughout the day. At some point, White House officials suggested taking over the city’s police force to help contain the riot and restore order. The idea baffled Washington city officials.

Categories
Health

How one can Make Summer season Final (Nearly) Ceaselessly

How to Make Summer Last (Almost) Forever

Summer in the Northern Hemisphere officially began on June 20, the day of the year with the most hours of sunlight, when Earth’s axis is at its maximum tilt — 23.5 degrees — toward our local star.

And yet already it feels as if it’s slipping away. “Dad,” a teenage son said, staring down the list of get-the-heck-out-of-the-house plans we’d plotted for him, “I feel like the summer’s going to fly by.” A friend notes on Twitter: “July?? Someone should find out how this happened.”

Well, I’ll tell you — and I have some improvements to suggest.

First, be aware that summer, as currently defined, is a scam; the brevity and disappointment are baked in. Tradition holds that the June solstice marks the first day of summer — but then what? It’s all denouement from there; every day that follows is darker than the last, until the solstice in late December. That’s not uplifting. That’s not cheery and invigorating. That’s not the “start” of anything except a slow descent into frigid darkness and death. That’s the start of fall, not summer.

Really, for dramatic narrative purposes, the summer solstice should mark the end of summer, or at least the middle of it. Which, in fact, it basically does.

Silly me, I had always assumed that “midsummer” was, you know, halfway between “the start of summer” and “the start of autumn” — July 25, plus or minus. But clearly I haven’t been spending enough time on Wikipedia, where just yesterday I learned that, for large segments of the world, “midsummer” is synonymous with the birthday of Saint John the Baptist, exactly six months before Christmas. Pretty much today.

Yes, you heard that right: Midsummer occurs just a few days after the official start of summer. If it feels as if summer is already half over, that’s because it is.

Clearly, then, the simplest way to make summer longer, if maybe not eternal, is to change the start date. How about early May, formerly known (to nobody) as mid-spring? Or push it all the way back to the vernal equinox, when the minutes of daylight begin — you know, start — to outnumber the minutes of night? Naturally, that would mean starting spring on the December solstice, which to be honest would address several problems I have with winter.

Another option, less simple: Live elsewhere. Deadhorse, Alaska, maybe. Svalbard, in Norway. Or anywhere north of the Arctic Circle, where the sun rises in mid-May and doesn’t set again until late July; the “longest day of the year” lasts for weeks.

Or there’s HD 131399Ab, an extrasolar planet 320 light-years away. The planet orbits a star (once every 550 Earth years) that is also orbited by two other stars, and for a period of about 140 Earth years one sun or another is always overhead, providing constant daylight. Summer would last a lifetime and more. (Avoid the lifelong winter, though.)

A third, more challenging but ultimately more satisfying way to make summer last longer: Adjust your outlook. Bear with me here for the logic.

To state the obvious, summer flies because we enjoy it. To be precise, in any situation, time “flies” precisely because you aren’t thinking about it. You’re busy with work, lost in a book, deep in conversation, planning the killer Scrabble move — you’re immersed, engaged. You look up: Whoa, where’d the time go? You lost track of it.

Note the vital corollaries. One, dwelling on the time — tracking it — makes it move slowly. (Think: endless dinner party.) Two, you can lose track of time, but by definition you don’t notice until afterward. Time doesn’t fly in the present tense; it only ever has flown.

And three: All things told, the experience that “time flew by” is a positive one. It’s an indication of time well spent, or at least fully occupied, of mental health and, hopefully, satisfaction. What’s the joy in life if not in forgetting what time it is? Did we not all just spend the past year going nowhere, seeing no one, crawling through the hours and days while wondering when the sentence might finally end? How pleasant was that?

So embrace it. Summer has started? It’s already half over? Let it fly, secure in knowing that you can reflect fondly on the flight afterward. That’s the point of winter, as far as I can tell.

SYRACUSE — The “evil eye” of ancient superstition has been found by scientific experiment to have a definite basis in fact, it was reported here today during the closing sessions of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by Dr. Otto Rahn, Professor of Bacteriology at Cornell University. He told of investigations conducted by him recently on “the influence of human radiation on micro-organisms.”

The human eye, Dr. Rahn declared he found only a few days ago, emanates a form of radiation similar in its action to that of ultraviolet rays and strong enough to kill yeast cells if held sufficiently close.

Categories
Entertainment

‘God Exists, Her Identify Is Petrunya’ Evaluate: Her Cross to Bear

‘God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya’ Review: Her Cross to Bear

In another world, the rebellious title character from “God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya” could have been a satisfied free spirit in a John Waters film. But Petrunya lives in the conservative town of Stip in Macedonia and seems to be stalled by patriarchal rules and maternal interference. That begins to change when she crashes an all-male Orthodox ceremony – every year a priest throws a cross into a river and men try to grab it – and accepts the award.

Many city dwellers have a stip attack over Petrunya’s performance, and at the behest of indignant priests, the police pursue and arrest them. Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva, with flashing frustration on the verge of escapades) confronts the situation by defying intimidation and condescension. It wasn’t always like this: she starts the film firmly in bed, an unemployed historian around 30 who lives with her mother.

The director Teona Strugar Mitevska takes up current events for this cheerful occupation and resistance story. The independent streak was clearly present in Petrunya: we saw her fend off a shabby boss of a clothing factory and walk away with a mannequin that she lugged around, which felt like a natural punk. Mitevska and camerawoman Virginie Saint Martin give Petrunya’s outside world even more unusual flair and eye-catching patterns.

But the stalemate with the authorities dawdles and languishes, and a side plot with a TV journalist (Labina Mitevska) feels unanimous. Still, we should all be excited to see what Petrunya will do next.

God exists, her name is Petrunya
Not rated. In Macedonian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters and virtual cinemas.

Categories
Politics

Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years in jail George Floyd homicide

Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years in prison George Floyd murder

George Floyd’s 7-year-old daughter Gianna testifies via a cell phone video before the sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of her father George Floyd during a sentencing hearing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. June 25, 2021 in a still image from video.

Pool via Reuters

A judge sentenced former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin on Friday to 22-and-a-half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.

The sentencing began Friday afternoon with emotional victim impact statements from the victim’s relatives, and Chauvin himself offering “my condolences to the Floyd family.”

Hours before, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill denied a request for a new trial for Chauvin, whose brutal killing of Floyd, a Black man, whose videotaped death on May 25, 2020, sparked demands for reform of U.S. police departments.

“I ask about him all the time,” Floyd’s 7-year-old daughter Gianna said in a video shown at the beginning of the sentencing.

Asked what she would tell her father if she could see him, Gianna said on the video, “I miss you and I love you.”

Chauvin held his knee on or near Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, as the 46-year-old was prone on the ground while detaining him on suspicion of using a counterfeit bill for a purchase, as three other Minneapolis cops stood by.

“He’s telling Mr. Chauvin, ‘I can’t breathe, I’m dying,’ ” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank said at the sentencing. “This is 9-and-a-half minutes of cruelty to a man who was begging for his life.”

Floyd’s brother Terrence Floyd addressed Chauvin, after asking the judge to impose a maximum sentence of 40 years, saying he wanted to ask him “why?”

“What were you thinking? What was in your thoughts that day, when you had your knee on my brother’s neck?” asked Terrence Floyd, who at times paused to regain his composure.

“When you knew that he posted no threat anymore. When he was handcuffed? Why didn’t you at least get up? Why did you stay there?”

Chauvin, in a very brief statement during the sentencing, said, “I am not able to give a full statement at this time, but very briefly, I want to give my condolences to the Floyd family.”

“There is going to be some other information in the future that will be of interest and I hope things will give you some peace of mind,” Chauvin said.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin addresses his sentencing hearing and the judge as he awaits his sentence after being convicted of murder in the death of Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. June 25, 2021 in a still image from video.

Pool via Reuters

Prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence Chauvin to 30 years in prison.

That is a decade less than the maximum possible sentence he faces on the charge of second-degree murder, the most serious of the three counts on which he was convicted by a jury on April 20 after trial.

Jurors also convicted Chauvin of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Chauvin’s lawyer is asking the judge to sentence the 45-year-old white ex-police officer to probation, with time served in jail since last year.

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The presumptive sentence for Chauvin under Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines is 12½ years.

Chauvin’s mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, said “It’s been difficult for me to hear and read what the media, public and prosecution team believe Derek to be an aggressive, heartless and uncaring person. I can tell you that is far from the truth.”

“My son’s identity has also been reduced to that as a racist. I want this court to know that none of these things are true, and that my son is a good man,” Pawlenty said.

The shocking video of Floyd’s death, which was widely disseminated by news media and on social media, led to a wave of large protests across the nation against police brutality and systemic racism.

The three other now-ex cops involved in Floyd’s arrest, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Keung and Thomas Lane, were originally due to stand trial in August on charges of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death. That trial is now scheduled for next March.

In this image taken from video, Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, becomes emotional during victim impact statements as Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill presides over sentencing, Friday, June 25, 2021, at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis, in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted in the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd.

Court TV via AP | Pool

Cahill postponed that trial in light of a federal criminal indictment issued in May against the three officers and Chauvin for violating Floyd’s civil rights. The judge said he wanted the federal case to be handled first and also wanted to put some time between Chauvin’s state trial and that of the three other cops.

On Friday, in his order denying a request for a new trial for Chauvin, Cahill wrote that Chauvin’s lawyer Eric Nelson had failed to show that the judge committed errors that deprived Chauvin of a fair trial or that prosecutors engaged in misconduct.

Cahill also rejected a request by the defense for a hearing on possible misconduct by jurors, saying Chauvin’s lawyer failed to establish that a juror gave false testimony during jury selection.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.

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Health

WHO urges absolutely vaccinated individuals to proceed to put on masks as variant spreads

Biden administration set to relax outdoor mask guidance

People wear face masks in Central Park on April 10, 2021 in New York City.

Noam Galai | Getty Images

The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe.

“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.

“Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Simao added. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”

The health organization’s comments come as some countries, including the United States, have largely done away with masks and pandemic-related restrictions as the Covid vaccines have helped drive down the number of new infections and deaths.

The number of new infections in the U.S. has held steady over the last week at an average of 11,659 new cases per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Still, new infections have been plummeting over the last several months.

WHO officials said they are asking fully vaccinated people to continue to “play it safe” because a large portion of the world remains unvaccinated and highly contagious variants, like delta, are spreading in many countries, spurring outbreaks.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about half of adults infected in an outbreak of the delta variant in Israel were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, prompting the government there to reimpose an indoor mask requirement and other measures.

“Yes, you can reduce some measures and different countries have different recommendations in that regard. But there’s still the need for caution,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor to the WHO’s director-general, said at the briefing. “As we are seeing, there are new variants emerging.”

The WHO said last week that delta is becoming the dominant variant of the disease worldwide.

WHO officials have said the variant, first found in India but now in at least 92 countries, is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will “pick off” the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low Covid vaccination rates.

They said there were reports that the delta variant also causes more severe symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm those conclusions. Still, there are signs the delta strain could provoke different symptoms than other variants.

It has the potential “to be more lethal because it’s more efficient in the way it transmits between humans and it will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill, have to be hospitalized and potentially die,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said Monday.

In the U.S., President Joe Biden said Covid deaths nationwide will continue to rise due to the spread of the “dangerous” delta variant, calling it a “serious concern.”

He warned that Americans who are still unvaccinated are especially at risk.

“Six hundred thousand-plus Americans have died, and with this delta variant you know there’s going to be others as well. You know it’s going to happen. We’ve got to get young people vaccinated,” Biden said Thursday at a community center in Raleigh, North Carolina

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World News

A Tradition Struggle Between Hungary and Europe Escalates Over L.G.B.T. Invoice

A Culture War Between Hungary and Europe Escalates Over L.G.B.T. Bill

BRUSSELS – A culture war between Hungary and the European Union escalated on Wednesday after a senior bloc official said she would use all her resources to thwart a new Hungarian law that critics say will target the LGBT community.

The law banning the representation or promotion of homosexuality in persons under the age of 18, an addition to the laws against pedophiles, was passed by the Hungarian parliament but has yet to be approved by the country’s president.

The law was sharply criticized on Wednesday by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

“This Hungarian bill is a shame,” Ms. von der Leyen said in a statement. “This law clearly discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation. It contradicts the basic values ​​of the European Union: human dignity, equality and respect for human rights. “

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who defended the law, will come under pressure to withdraw it at a meeting of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday. It is the most recent confrontation between the European Union and Mr Orban, who describes himself as an advocate of an “illiberal democracy” that can sometimes run counter to the democratic values ​​of the bloc.

Ms von der Leyen described the European Union as a place “where you can be free who you are and love whoever you want” and added: “I will use all the powers of the Commission to protect the rights of all EU citizens are guaranteed. Whoever they are and wherever they live in the European Union. “

European ambassadors denounced the law on Wednesday in background information before the summit and said it violated the treaties of the European Union and crossed red lines. They expressed the hope that Mr Orban would withdraw from challenging Brussels in the way he has sometimes done in the past.

There is no quick fix if Hungary enforces the law, said the diplomats. But the Commission, which is officially the guardian of compliance with the Treaties, could refer Hungary to the European Court of Justice for a violation. The court could act relatively quickly if it wanted to, and Hungary has respected its decisions in the past.

The proposed law prohibits the distribution of homosexuality or gender affirmative surgery content to anyone under the age of 18 in school sex education programs, films, or advertisements. The government says it aims to protect children, but critics of the law say it combines homosexuality with pedophilia.

In a response on Wednesday, the Hungarian government issued a statement saying that Ms. von der Leyen’s statements were “based on false allegations” and reflected “a biased political opinion without a prior, impartial investigation”.

The statement continues: “The recently passed Hungarian law protects the rights of children, guarantees the rights of parents and does not apply to the rights of those over 18 with regard to sexual orientation, so it does not contain any discriminatory elements.”

Mr. Orban has portrayed himself as a defender of traditional Christian and national values ​​which he believes are being undermined by new concepts of sexual identity and behavior. His government is also under pressure for its performance, particularly its response to the coronavirus. As a result, Mr Orban has used such cultural issues to strengthen his conservative base ahead of next year’s elections.

A European Union official said Ms. von der Leyen wanted to send a political message to Hungarians and planned to speak privately with Mr. Orban about the issue.

On Tuesday, when European ministers met in Luxembourg, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the law is only aimed at pedophiles and does not restrict adult sexual freedom. “The law protects children in such a way that it is the exclusive right of parents to educate their children about sexual orientation up to the age of 18,” he said. “This law says nothing about the sexual orientation of adults.”

Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands issued a joint statement condemning the law as a violation of the right to freedom of expression and as a “blatant form of discrimination based on sexual orientation”.

Ireland’s European Minister Thomas Byrne said: “I am very concerned – it is wrong what happened there.” Mr Byrne called it “a very, very dangerous moment for Hungary and also for the EU”.

Germany’s European Minister Michael Roth spoke of concerns that both Hungary and Poland are violating the rule of law by restricting the freedoms of the courts, academics and the media, as well as the rights of women, migrants and minorities.

“The European Union is not primarily a single market or a monetary union,” said Roth. “We are a community of values, these values ​​bind us all,” he said. “There must be no doubt that minorities, including sexual minorities, must be treated with respect.”

In an effort to get a public response, the city of Munich promised to light up its stadium in the rainbow colors of the Pride flag when Germany meets Hungary at the European Football Championship on Wednesday evening, but was refused by the game’s board. UEFA, who said the game must be kept free of politics.

The passionate soccer fan Orban has decided to cancel a visit to the Bavarian capital Munich for the game and instead to travel directly to Brussels, according to the German press agency dpa. The Hungarian government said it had never commented on Mr Orban’s “private program”.

Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder said Germans should “stand up against exclusion and discrimination,” while the Munich gay community said rainbow flags would be distributed to fans outside the stadium. A number of other stadiums in Germany should shine in rainbow colors.

Monika Pronzcuk contributed to the reporting.

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Health

Delta Plus, a New Variant, Raises Considerations in India

Delta Plus, a New Variant, Raises Concerns in India

As India reopens after a devastating second wave of coronavirus infections, virologists worry that another, potentially more virulent version of the virus could accelerate the onset of a third wave within a few months.

The version known locally as Delta Plus is described by scientists as a sub-line of the highly contagious Delta variant, which has quickly spread to India, the UK, the US, and other countries. The new variant carries a spike protein mutation, which can also be found in the beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa, although it is unclear how this common mutation could affect the function of the variant.

Reports suggest that cases of Delta Plus have been found in nearly a dozen countries, including the United States. In India, Delta Plus was first detected in April in the western state of Maharashtra. Authorities in India this week declared it a new “worrying variant” in the country after finding more than 40 cases in three states: Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.

The Indian Ministry of Health announced this week that Delta Plus has shown increased portability. States where the variant was found have been asked to step up testing, improve surveillance, and speed up contact tracing to try to prevent it from spreading.

Due to its recent discovery, studies of this particular variant have not yet been carried out, so scientists have limited information. However, they have begun to speculate about their ability to spread.

“It is most likely able to evade immunities,” said Shahid Jameel, virologist and director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India. “That’s because it carries all of the symptoms of the original Delta variant as well as its partner beta variant.”

Indian Health Ministry officials stressed that both Covid vaccines that are widely used in the country – the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India and the Covaxin vaccine made by Indian company Bharat Biotech – are likely to be effective against variants, including Delta are pluses.

Understand the Covid crisis in India

India’s vaccination campaign picked up pace this week, with more than 6.7 million people vaccinated across the country on Thursday, according to official figures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has stated that the syringes should be offered free to all adults in support of vaccination efforts that have been hampered by mismanagement and lack of care. About 5.5 percent of the population are fully vaccinated, and 18 percent have received at least one vaccination.

In Maharashtra, one of the hardest hit states, officials said Delta Plus was becoming a significant problem and warned that if cases increased, they would reintroduce restrictions.

“We are at the end of a second wave and will be careful how we unlock,” said Rajesh Tope, the country’s health minister. “The lessons we learned from dealing with the second wave are used to stop the spread of any new variant.”

Delta Plus was also identified this month by UK health officials calling it Delta-AY.1. They wrote in a June 11 report that they had discovered 36 cases, the first five of which were contacts from people who had recently traveled through Nepal and Turkey. Half of the 36 cases occurred in people who were not vaccinated and none of the cases resulted in death, but the report warned that “limited epidemiological information” was available about the variant.