Tag: control

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World News

Three extra main cities are underneath Taliban management, as the federal government’s forces close to collapse.

Three more major cities are under Taliban control, as the government’s forces near collapse.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Three large cities in western and southern Afghanistan were confirmed to have fallen to the Taliban as the insurgent race for control of the country accelerated.

The Taliban captured Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, on Friday morning after a week-long battle that left parts of the city to rubble, hospitals full of wounded and dying, and residents asking what would come next under their new rulers. Hours earlier, the insurgents had captured Herat, a cultural center in the west, and Kandahar, the country’s second largest city, where the Taliban first proclaimed their so-called emirate in the 1990s.

The speed of urban collapse, combined with the announcement by American officials Thursday that they would evacuate most of the U.S. embassy, ​​has compounded panic across the country as thousands attempt to flee the Taliban’s advance.

Only three large Afghan cities – including the capital Kabul – remain under state control, one is besieged by the Taliban. With the collapse of Lashkar Gah and Kandahar, the Taliban now effectively control southern Afghanistan, a powerful symbol of their resurrection, just weeks before the United States will withdraw completely from the country.

Last week, the Taliban took over Afghan cities in a swift offensive, placing them well-positioned to attack Kabul. The government’s armed forces appear to be on the verge of complete collapse. Some American officials fear that the Afghan government will not hold out for another month.

Helmand Province is an unstable area that has been largely controlled by the Taliban since 2015. In recent months, the Afghan government has struggled to hold its own there, and recent air strikes by the United States and the Afghan Air Forces in the region have failed to halt the Taliban’s offensive.

Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, has been on the brink of disaster for more than a decade. Helmand has long been the home of the Taliban, which after the rise of the group in neighboring Kandahar in 1994 spread into the province and earned millions there from the illegal sale of opium poppies.

The fall of Lashkar Gah is a sad coda for the American and British military missions to Helmand, which together lasted over a decade. Both countries focused much of their efforts on securing the province, losing hundreds of troops there to roadside bombs and brutal shootings.

Kandahar in particular is a huge asset to the Taliban. It is the economic center of southern Afghanistan, and it was the birthplace of the uprisings in the 1990s and served as the militant capital for part of their five-year rule. By conquering the city, the Taliban can effectively proclaim a return to power, if not complete control.

On Friday, officials from Uruzgan and Zabul, two provinces long believed to be the Taliban’s heartland, said local elders in both are negotiating a full surrender of the territory to the insurgent group.

Taimoor Shah in Kandahar contributed to the coverage.

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Health

Biden to Nominate Rahul Gupta to Run Nationwide Workplace of Drug Management Coverage

Biden to Nominate Rahul Gupta to Run National Office of Drug Control Policy

Charleston’s program was nationally recognized, but it was criticized by the city’s mayor when Dr. Gupta was the health commissioner. Dr. Gupta’s department issued an audit that found fault with the program, including shoddy record keeping, which led to the program’s decertification after the city had already shut it down.

Public health experts said its closure had a chilling effect on other programs, and kept some from getting off the ground.

As a state health official, Dr. Gupta had no authority to stop the closure. In a 2018 interview with West Virginia Public Broadcasting shortly before he left the health commissioner’s job, Dr. Gupta said that the closure was “not in the best interest of the community” and that needle exchange programs like Charleston’s should not be shut down “reactively.”

But critics faulted him for not using his platform forcefully enough to defend the program.

Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University and a longtime AIDS activist, on Tuesday called Dr. Gupta a “terrible choice” who “represents a return to the old ways of thinking about drug use in America, and is not the forward-thinking leader we need right now.”

Other experts said that Dr. Gupta was caught in a difficult situation with the battle over the syringe exchange. Mr. Raymond, while describing the closure of the Charleston program as “a tragedy,” called Dr. Gupta an “excellent choice.” That assessment was echoed by Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a public health expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who worked with Dr. Gupta to address the opioid crisis in West Virginia.

“He knows the value of syringe service programs, he understands the evidence on harm reduction and he is very supportive,” Dr. Sharfstein said. “West Virginia is a very difficult environment for discussion of these topics, and he had to navigate under those constraints.”

The White House announced the selection of Dr. Gupta in a statement on Tuesday, along with 10 other nominations, including that of Jeff Flake, the former Republican senator from Arizona, to be the ambassador to Turkey and that of the writer Atul Gawande to a post at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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Entertainment

Britney Spears’s Father Requires Inquiry Into Singer’s Management Claims

Britney Spears’s Father Calls for Inquiry Into Singer’s Control Claims

James P. Spears, the father of Britney Spears and the man who has long played a leading role in overseeing his daughter’s affairs, on Tuesday called for an investigation into the singer’s allegations last week that she was molested under her supervision, including convicting them to carry out and take medication against their will.

The court records on behalf of Mr. Spears followed the singer’s first full public statement in 13 years about the complex legal regime that oversees her personal welfare and finances, calling for her to quit conservatory without undergoing a mental evaluation .

In her remarks at the June 23 hearing, broadcast in the courtroom and streamed online, Ms. Spears blamed her management team, janitors and family for their treatment, and made explicit mention of her father.

Now, Mr. Spears’ attorneys have requested an evidence hearing and challenged the actions of Ms. Spears’ current personal guardian and court appointed attorney, saying that “It is crucial that the court confirm that Ms. Spears’ testimony was correct or not “carefully to determine what corrective action, if any, needs to be taken.”

The filings, filed late Tuesday in Los Angeles and received by the New York Times, continued: “It is also imperative that all parties are given a full and fair opportunity to function properly in the Conservatory trial before this court Responding to allegations and claims. “Asserted against them.”

The twin-pronged conservatory, which manages Ms. Spears ‘personal life and estate, was first cleared by a probate court in Los Angeles in 2008 when Ms. Spears’ father moved for control of the singer’s business and welfare amid concerns regarding their mental health and their potential for substance abuse. The arrangement is usually reserved for people who cannot fend for themselves, although Ms. Spears continued to work and perform in the years that followed.

Mr. Spears is currently overseeing the singer’s finances, along with a corporate trustee whom Ms. Spears asked last year to join the arrangement. Her personal curator, Jodi Montgomery, temporarily took over from her father in September 2019 after Mr Spears resigned due to health issues.

But Ms. Spears’ recent statement, along with confidential court records obtained from the New York Times, revealed that in private Ms. Spears had consistently urged quitting conservatories, calling it “too, too much,” according to the Reported by a court investigator in 2016, adding that she was tired of being exploited.

In court last week, Ms. Spears called the setup abusive, likened it to sex trafficking, and described that in 2019 she was forced to tour, undergo psychiatric exams and take medication before her father gave up his role as her personal conservator.

She also said she could not remove her contraceptive even though she wanted to get married and have more children. Ms. Spears referred to her father as “the one who approved of everything”.

In a second filing on Tuesday, Mr. Spears’ attorneys denied the characterization that he was in command, arguing that Ms. Montgomery “has been fully responsible for the daily personal care and medical treatment of Ms. Spears” as of September 2019. , despite some allegations made by Ms. Spears prior to Ms. Montgomery’s appointment.

“Mr. Spears just is not involved in decisions related to Ms. Spears’ personal care or medical or reproductive problems,” his attorneys wrote. Spears cannot hear his daughter’s concerns and address them directly because he has been cut off from communicating with her. “

They added that Mr Spears had no intention of returning as his daughter’s personal curator, but said he was “concerned about the management and care of his daughter”.

Lauriann Wright, an attorney for Ms. Montgomery, said in a statement Wednesday that Ms. Montgomery, as a personal conservator, has been “a tireless advocate for Britney and her well-being” with “one primary goal – to support and encourage”. Britney on her way to no longer needing the person’s care. “

Ms. Wright pointed to Ms. Montgomery’s role as a “neutral decision maker in complex family dynamics” and said that Ms. Spears’ “decision to get married and have a family was never influenced by the Conservatory while Ms. Montgomery” was the Conservatory of the person. “

She added that Ms. Montgomery was looking forward to “finding a way to end the Conservatory.”

Mr. Spears attorneys also raised concerns about the role of Mrs. Spears’s court-appointed attorney, Samuel D. Ingham III, who was hired on the case in 2008 when the singer was deemed unable to choose her own representation.

In the documents, Mr. Spears’ attorneys asked if an earlier move to make the role of Ms. Montgomery permanent was what the singer wanted or even aware of, and found that “Ms. Spears has neither signed nor reviewed the petition to appoint her personal curator, “which was instead signed by Mr. Ingham.

Citing Mr. Ingham’s earlier claim that Ms. Spears was found to be unable to consent to medical treatment in 2014, they stated, “There has been no such finding and there is no such order.” This, too, requires an investigation in a subsequent hearing, the lawyers wrote.

When requesting an investigation, Mr. Spears’ attorneys said, “Either the allegations will turn out to be true and corrective action must be taken in this case, or they will be proven false, in which case the conservatory can continue.” It is unacceptable for restorers or the court to respond to Ms. Spears’ testimony. “

Previously, Ms. Spears had raised concerns about her father’s control over her, according to the investigator’s 2016 report. She cited her inability to make friends or to date without her father’s approval; the limits of her weekly allowance of $ 2,000, despite her success as a performer; and the fear and “very harsh” consequences she said are linked to conservatory violations, the investigator said.

At the time, the estate investigator concluded that the Conservatory was in Ms. Spears’ best interests because of her complex finances, vulnerability to outside influences, and “intermittent” drug problems, the report said. But it also called for “a path to independence and the eventual termination of the conservatory”.

Ms. Spears said in court last week that she did not know she could move to terminate the conservatories. “I’m sorry for my ignorance, but honestly I didn’t know,” she said.

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

Nepal’s second Covid wave is now below management: Prime minister

Nepal's second Covid wave is now under control: Prime minister

Nepal’s second wave of Covid infections is subsiding – but the country needs more vaccines to deal with the pandemic, Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli told CNBC.

“The wave is under control and is going back,” he told Street Signs Asia on Monday. He said there had been a 75% decrease in cases.

Nepal reported 2,049 infections on Monday, up from a record of more than 9,000 new cases per day in mid-May.

“It was like a crisis, a very serious crisis … when the wave started,” Oli said, noting that infections and deaths increased and Nepal faced a shortage of hospital beds, medical equipment and facilities. He described the rise as “highly contagious and deadly”.

I think we can tentatively complete the vaccination process within this year.

Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli

Prime Minister, Nepal

Nepalese billionaire Binod Chaudhary told CNBC in May that the country had underestimated the intensity of the second wave of coronavirus.

“Little by little, we have taken very serious measures and taken serious steps to contain and control the pandemic,” said the Prime Minister.

Nepal has also received generous support from vaccine manufacturers, philanthropic organizations and other governments, he added.

Vaccination campaign

Oli said Nepal hopes to vaccinate its entire population by the end of 2021 if there are enough vaccines.

“Our population is only 30 million and of them we (some people) have already vaccinated,” he said.

Just over 8% of people in the country have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to Our World in Data. Nepal has received vaccines donated by India, China and Covax, a global alliance dedicated to delivering vaccines to poorer countries.

The prime minister said Nepal is also trying to secure millions of cans from countries like the US, UK and China.

“We speak very seriously with China and hope that we can get more vaccines,” said Oli. “Within this year, I think we can tentatively complete the vaccination process.”

Categories
Entertainment

Assessment: Kyle Abraham’s Calm Management of Our bodies and House

Review: Kyle Abraham’s Calm Control of Bodies and Space

Not only does snow fall, but snow falls on a calm sea. In its first moments, When We Fell, Kyle Abraham’s new dance film for the New York City Ballet, sets its tone: muted, tuned to melting subtleties.

In interviews, Abraham said that for this film – which will be available on the company’s website and YouTube channel until April 22 – he was aware of the more flamboyant aspects of The Runaway, his 2018 hit for City Ballet , has avoided. He has said that he was instead influenced by the environment in which the new work was done: during a February “bubble” residence in the Hudson Valley, where the silence of the quarantine was heightened by snow.

All of this is evident in the 16-minute work, which includes piano pieces by Morton Feldman and Nico Muhly as replacements for Jason Moran. But because this dance had to be a movie, Abraham’s most important decision may have been to choose a co-director, cinematographer Ryan Marie Helfant. “When We Fell”, shot in 16 mm black and white, is one of the most beautiful dance films of the pandemic.

After the snow and the sea, it positions the dancers in the lobby of the home theater of the City Ballet in Lincoln Center, making use of the clarity and elegance of the place, the geometric floor designs and the balcony work. Unlike many recent dance films, this body establishes and maintains in relation to the space around it. When it comes to a different point of view, the processing is calm, musical and coherent. Even shifts as ostentatious and potentially disoriented as switching between side and top views are absorbed into the calm rhythm of the film.

The most noticeable moment is a transition, a quick assembly of architectural details. This is significant as Abraham’s choreography is also focused on details. As in “The Runaway”, Abraham skillfully combines ballet with other influences, from Merce Cunningham to club dance. But the mixing here is more relaxed, less proving something. Elements that could be rich in contrast, arabesques or body scrolls, are all delivered on the same plane without emphasis – each snowflake registers itself before it merges with the water.

This also applies to the diversity of the eight-person cast: a racial mixture that still cannot be accepted in this or any other ballet company is obvious, but is not emphasized, as is the lack of ballet hierarchies. The main dancers Lauren Lovette and Taylor Stanley (Abraham’s city ballet muse, star of “The Runaway” and the short film “Ces noms que nous portons”) get the final pas de deux, in which some ballet gender conventions are neglected with beautiful certainty . But the soloist Claire Kretzschmar and the corps members India Bradley and Christopher Grant shine equally.

Even one apprentice, KJ Takahashi, stands out in a number of twists that are typical of this work: there is bravado without breaking the contemplative surface, and the tension holds the dullness in check. This is when the dancers have moved onto the stage of the theater and the music – Moran’s “All Hammers and Chains” – is at its wildest. Glissandi chains bubble over low hammer blows. Even so, the dance remains calm.

“When we fell”

Until April 22nd, nycballet.com.

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Business

Amazon’s Clashes With Labor: Days of Battle and Management

Amazon’s Clashes With Labor: Days of Conflict and Control

In the past few weeks, there has been a heated discussion on Twitter about whether Amazon employees have to urinate in bottles because they don’t have time to go to the bathroom – a level of control few modern companies would dare to practice.

“Amazon is reorganizing the nature of retail work – something that is traditionally physically undemanding and has a large amount of downtime – into something that resembles a factory that never wears off,” said Spencer Cox, a former Amazon employee who writes his Ph .D. Thesis at the University of Minnesota on how the company is transforming work. “For Amazon, it’s not about money. This is about controlling the workers’ bodies and every possible moment of their time. “

Amazon had no comment on this story.

Signs that Amazon is putting more pressure on its control are mounting. In February, Lovenia Scott, a former warehouse worker for the Vacaville, Calif., Company accused Amazon in a lawsuit of “doing such an immense amount of work” that she and her colleagues were given no breaks. Ms. Scott is seeking class action status. Amazon didn’t respond to a request for comment on the suit.

Last month, the California labor officer said 718 delivery drivers who worked for Green Messengers, a Southern California contractor for Amazon, owed $ 5 million in wages that never made it to their wallets. Drivers were paid for 10-hour days, the labor commissioner said, but the volume of parcels was so large that they often had to work 11 or more hours and through breaks.

Amazon said it no longer works with Green Messengers and would appeal the decision. Green messengers could not be reached for comment.

An Amazon warehouse in the Canadian province of Ontario showed a rapid spread of Covid-19 in March. “Our investigation found that a shutdown was needed to break the chain of transmission,” said Dr. Lawrence Loh, the regional medical officer. “We gave Amazon our recommendation.” The company, he said, “didn’t answer.” Health officials ordered workers to self-isolate and close the facility for two weeks. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment on the situation.

And five US senators wrote a letter to the company last month asking for more information on why it fitted its vans with surveillance cameras that constantly monitor the driver. The technology, the senators said, “raises important questions about privacy and worker surveillance that Amazon needs to answer.”

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Business

Covid in Brazil ‘fully uncontrolled,’ says Sao Paulo-based reporter

Covid in Brazil ‘completely out of control,' says Sao Paulo-based reporter

Brazil has just reached a grim milestone for Covid-19, and a Sao Paulo-based reporter sees no improvement in the situation anytime soon.

“We have people dying of oxygen starvation, people are literally suffocating,” Patricia Campos Mello, a reporter from Folha de Sao Paulo told CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith on Tuesday. “There are no intubation drugs, there are no intensive care beds. It’s a combination of a lack of planning and simply denying the severity of the disease.”

“The situation is completely out of control,” added Campos Mello.

Campos Mello comments came after Brazil registered a record daily number of Covid deaths on Tuesday, which saw more than 3,700 deaths, according to the Brazilian Ministry of Health. According to the Johns Hopkins University, Brazil has the second most common Covid death in the world, followed by the US. In addition, less than 2% of the Brazilian population has received at least one dose of vaccine.

However, President Jair Bolsonaro has consistently attacked security measures related to Covid. Earlier this month, he told people to stop “whining” about the deaths and just move on. Campos Mello noted that the world can learn from the mistakes made in Brazil.

“I think the main lesson is that when you have a president or leader who is spreading disinformation and saying that people shouldn’t worry about not having to do social distancing, it is very, very serious, and it’s us I see the results now with all the deaths, “said Campos Mello.

Bolsonaro also replaced some of his senior military officials on Tuesday after sacking a defense minister as part of a major cabinet reshuffle on Monday. Campos Mello told CNBC’s Shepard Smith the political chaos was the result of Bolsonaro’s response to widespread pressure from the country’s mismanagement of the pandemic.

“President Bolsonaro’s approval ratings are falling, so he fired some ministers and today the chiefs of the armed forces resigned because they were pressured by Bolsonaro to curfew or take extreme measures that were almost excessive,” she said.

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World News

Glynn S. Lunney Dies at 84; Oversaw NASA Flights From Mission Management

Glynn S. Lunney Dies at 84; Oversaw NASA Flights From Mission Control

Glynn S. Lunney, NASA’s flight director, who played an important role in the American space program and was hailed for his leadership role in the rescue of three Apollo 13 astronauts when their spacecraft was rocked by an explosion on its way to the moon in 1970, died on March 19 at his home in Clear Lake, Texas. He was 84 years old.

The cause was stomach cancer, said his son Shawn.

Mr. Lunney (rhymes with “sunny”), who joined NASA in 1958 and became its chief flight director in 1968, worked outside of mission control in Houston developing the sophisticated procedures for the flight of Apollo 11 and sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on their groundbreaking flight Journey to the moon in July 1969.

He led the mission in July 1975, during which an Apollo spacecraft with three astronauts docked with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with two men. Each vehicle carried equipment that would one day allow another connection if an international rescue mission were needed. The Americans and Russians conducted joint experiments and exchanged commemorative gifts, which became a step towards cooperation between nations in space aboard the International Space Station.

But Mr. Lunney was particularly remembered for his takeover efforts in the dramatic rescue of Apollo 13 astronauts James L. Lovell Jr., Fred W. Haise Jr., and John L. Swigert Jr.

Together with three other flight directors and numerous NASA scientists and astronauts in the command center, he worked out the complex plan that would enable them to return to Earth.

Mr. Lunney looked back on the effort as “the best job I ever did or could hope for”.

“We’ve built a quarter of a million-mile highway, paved by decision, choice, and innovation after another, and repeated for nearly four days to get the crew home safely,” he recalled in an Oral NASA history interview.

“This space highway led the crippled ship back to planet Earth, where people from every continent came together in support of these three endangered explorers. It was an inspiring and emotional feeling that reminded us again of our common humanity. “

Since the astronauts’ command module had been crippled by the explosion, mission control instructed them to use their undamaged lunar lander as a lifeboat to carry them home.

The lander was originally designed to descend from the orbiting Apollo 13 ship to the moon with Mr. Swigert on board, and then return to the mothership with Mr. Lovell and Mr. Haise to travel home. But the Houston ground team, working under heavy time pressure and with no blueprint for this kind of exertion, improvised a way for them to get a safe impact in the Pacific huddled in the lunar lander.

Mr. Lunney was among the NASA officials who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Richard M. Nixon to the rescue. In the 1995 film “Apollo 13”, Marc McClure played Mr. Lunney.

Glynn Stephen Lunney was born on November 27, 1936 in Old Forge, Pennsylvania to William Lunney, a miner and welder, and Helen Glynn Lunney.

As a teenager, Glynn was fascinated by flight and filled his room with model airplanes. He graduated from the University of Detroit (now the University of Detroit Mercy) with a degree in aerospace engineering after serving on a collaborative program in which he spent the time between his studies and working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the Forerunner of NASA, split.

He became a protégé of Christopher C. Kraft Jr., NASA’s first chief flight director.

Mr. Lunney was the space agency’s fourth flight director. In this role, he was responsible for leading teams of air traffic controllers, research and engineering professionals, and support professionals around the world who make decisions during spaceflight.

Among the numerous successes of his NASA career, Mr. Lunney was senior flight director for Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo flight, and Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for the first moon landing.

He retired from NASA in 1985 as manager of the space shuttle program, but continued to lead human space operations through senior positions in private industry.

In addition to his son Shawn, Mr. Lunney survived his wife, Marilyn Jean (Kurtz) Lunney, who was a nurse at a forerunner NASA research center. two other sons, Glynn Jr. and Bryan; his daughter Jenifer Brayley; his brothers Bill and Gerry; his sister Carol; and 12 grandchildren.

Astronaut Ken Mattingly, who was supposed to fly on the Apollo 13 mission but was removed from it after being exposed to German measles, was one of the many space agency figures working on the plan to rescue the Apollo 13 astronauts.

He remembered how, immediately after the explosion, “nobody knew what the hell was going on”.

“And Glynn came in, took over this mess,” he recalled in “Voices From the Moon” (2009), an astronaut oral history followed by Andrew Chaikin and Victoria Kohl.

“And he just calmed the situation down,” Mattingly said. “I’ve never seen such an exceptional example of leadership in my entire career. Absolutely great.

“No wartime general or admiral could ever be more splendid than Glynn that night,” he added. “He and he alone brought all the scared people together.”

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Politics

White Home Weighs Govt Orders on Gun Management

White House Weighs Executive Orders on Gun Control

WASHINGTON – With Congress unlikely to move quickly on guns legislation, the White House is pushing forward plans for a series of executive orders that President Biden is expected to put in place in the coming weeks to keep pressure on the issue.

A day after Mr Biden urged the Senate to pass a ban on assault weapons and step up background checks in response to two mass shootings last week that killed 18 people, White House officials said on Wednesday that the legislation was being passed Gun safety remained a goal; it would take time, given the vehement opposition from the Republicans.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said laws were needed to make permanent changes. But she also suggested that the executive measures under consideration could be a realistic starting point.

“There is of course a lot of leverage that you can use as president and vice president,” she said.

At the moment, administrative officials have reached out to Senate Democrats to discuss three executive actions. One would classify so-called ghost guns as firearms – kits with which a weapon can be assembled from parts. Another would fund community violence intervention programs, and the third would strengthen the background control system, according to congressional assistants familiar with the talks.

The White House attorney’s office was aware that any executive action against guns will come with legal challenges and has also reviewed those actions to ensure they stand up to judicial review.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the upcoming actions. But Mr Biden is under pressure from weapons security groups to act as quickly as possible.

“If there’s one thing we’ve been into over the past year, inaction costs lives,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization dedicated to preventing gun violence. “It’s not about next week, it’s not about next month, it has to be about today. It has to be right now. “

During his campaign, Mr. Biden, a prominent proponent of the 10-year offensive weapons ban in 1994, promised to enact a general background check law banning all online firearms sales, and the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and magazines to ban high capacity.

But Mr Biden has acknowledged that he doesn’t know what legislation might be possible, even after the recent Atlanta and Boulder shootings. “I haven’t counted yet,” he said Tuesday when asked if he had the political capital to advance gun security measures.

With the National Rifle Association, once the most powerful lobby group in the country, which went bankrupt and spent more money on legal fees than fighting the White House or Congress, Mr Biden could have more room for maneuver.

Colorado shooting

Updated

March 24, 2021, 6:58 p.m. ET

Since the transition, officials in the Biden administration have met regularly with Mr. Feinblatt and other gun control advocates to discuss what actions are possible that do not require the cooperation of Congress.

Ideas they discussed include the Federal Trade Commission, which evaluates gun reports for false or misleading safety claims, the Education Department, which promotes measures to prevent students from gaining access to firearms, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Gunshot wounds must ensure reliable data tracking.

They also discussed whether to make gun violence a public health emergency – a move that would free up more funds that could be used to support community gun violence programs and enforce applicable laws.

“The Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau has funds to inspect the average arms dealer every five years,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a nonprofit group. “We have more arms dealers than Starbucks and McDonald’s.”

Designating gun violence as a public health crisis, Ms. Brown said, would allocate more money to allow for more regular inspections. This is a proposal that has been shared with the Biden transition teams.

What to Know About Gun Laws and Shootings in the United States

“We also talked about what can be done by agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services to motivate the health community to focus on preventive measures that can stop gun violence before it starts,” Ms. Brown said .

At the moment, one of the government’s greatest efforts has been to classify “ghost rifles” as firearms. Such a classification would require that they be serialized and subjected to background checks.

The government has also spoken to Democratic senators about its upcoming plans to fund community-based violence intervention programs. How much money is still up for debate?

During the campaign, Mr. Biden pledged to launch an eight-year $ 900 million initiative to fund evidence-based interventions in 40 cities across the country.

“There are programs in this country that do a proven job,” Ms. Brown said. “But they are drastically underfunded. We want a $ 5 billion investment in such violence intervention programs across the country. “

White House officials described a “robust interagency process” but said the proposed executive action was still ongoing.

While there are no plans for impending legislative pressure on guns from a White House dealing with crises on multiple fronts, Mr Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris continued to call legislative action imperative.

“I am not ready to give up what we must do to speak to the hearts and minds and cause of the members of the United States Senate,” Ms. Harris said in an interview with CBS This Morning on Wednesday.

“It is time for Congress to act and stop making wrong decisions,” she said. “This is not about getting rid of the second amendment. The point is simply to say that we need adequate gun safety laws. There is no reason why we have assault weapons on the streets of a civil society. They are weapons of war. They are supposed to kill a lot of people quickly. “