1582: Balconazi

Please keep anonymous if mentioning

Hi John and Adam,

I am the Montessori teacher from Washington that wrote in last month about Montessori education being the solution for young children. I heard in a recent show that Adam thinks homeschooling is the answer. Although I agree with Adam to some extent, I am disappointed that homeschooling was all that was discussed. Montessori education, introduced at an early age, instills children with a lifelong love of learning, intrinsic motivation, and respect for living things. These are aspects of the personality that are formed during the crucial first six years of life. Montessori is most widely available to 3-6 year olds, and time spent in these classrooms has given many children the opportunity to enjoy and seek out their own interests while building their personalities in the safety of a well planned out environment with their own peers. These children learn more from each other and the environment than any teacher could ever teach. Homeschooling cannot meet these requirements. A good school will have at least 20-30 kids and 2-3 teachers (aka guides). Homeschooling is a great option for older children who do not have access to Montessori elementary or good private schools. I strongly urge parents to spend the time and money getting their children off to a great start with Montessori until first grade, then go from there. We have all seen the results of what mass home schooling would be like in our country. Look what happened when public schools went online. Even with the help of the school district, many parents couldn’t handle it. The result is unsocialized children who do not have a deep love of learning and respect for other living things. Adam, will you please do some research on early childhood education before you suggest homeschooling for children in the future? And John, will you please jump in if you have any opinions on the matter? There are some great lectures that Montessori gave about peace education that I would be happy to send you if you are interested. Thank you for your time, I appreciate everything you all do to keep the show going! I will be returning to work this fall and will be signing up for the sustaining donation once I start getting paid again. I apologize again for the free loading, thanks for making your show available to anyone who wants to listen!

It’s not how her sixth grader would typically behave. But that day Madison hadn’t taken his Adderall — the medication that, in his words, helps his brain slow down, “from 100 miles per hour — like a car — to 70 miles per hour.”

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Ms. Robinson said Adderall worked better for her son than the other medications they had used to treat his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. With Adderall, he was calmer and better able to focus.

“He actually had a taste for what relief could look like,” Ms. Robinson said.

But for nearly a year now the medication — Madison takes the generic version — has been difficult to find. He has had to skip doses, sometimes for up to two weeks, because nearby pharmacies have been out of stock.

The family is rationing his pills this summer so that Madison, who recently turned 12, will have them during the school year.

“We try to manage with a couple of caffeine drinks during the day and soccer in the afternoons,” Ms. Robinson said, strategies that she said have helped her son regulate his emotions.

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It’s not how her sixth grader would typically behave. But that day Madison hadn’t taken his Adderall — the medication that, in his words, helps his brain slow down, “from 100 miles per hour — like a car — to 70 miles per hour.”

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Ms. Robinson said Adderall worked better for her son than the other medications they had used to treat his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. With Adderall, he was calmer and better able to focus.

“He actually had a taste for what relief could look like,” Ms. Robinson said.

But for nearly a year now the medication — Madison takes the generic version — has been difficult to find. He has had to skip doses, sometimes for up to two weeks, because nearby pharmacies have been out of stock.

The family is rationing his pills this summer so that Madison, who recently turned 12, will have them during the school year.

“We try to manage with a couple of caffeine drinks during the day and soccer in the afternoons,” Ms. Robinson said, strategies that she said have helped her son regulate his emotions.

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ITM Adam,

While listening to episode 1582 you asked a question about what a fortune 500 company would use AI for.

I'm a team manager in customer service for one of the 10 biggest banks in the U.S.

In a recent roundtable meeting the topic of A.I was discussed. They let us know the company is looking into implementing A.I into our customer service knowledge base which houses all of our processes and procedures. These procedures are to be searched for and used by the front line staff during each customer interaction to ensure any and all disclosures and other steps are followed to address any customer concerns.

The thought is A.I will help reduce human error in locating the correct process or procedure which would theoretically speed up the time of resolution and reduce cost. Also it may help update or create new documents.

No idea if this will really become a reality, or even if it would be helpful but this was the thinking I was provided. Hope this helps.

Thank you and John for a great show.

ITM Adam and John,

I'm writing in response to Dr. Sailesh Rao’s (Climate Healers) bologna claim of “there’s more protein in broccoli per calorie than there is in beef.”

A little background – our second son was born with the metabolic disorder PKU. Basically, his liver doesn’t produce the enzyme needed to break down protein, specifically, one of the nine essential amino acids - Phenylalanine (known as Phe in the PKU world). There is no cure, but there is a low-protein diet that he must adhere to, as well as a medical formula (Abbott Labs is one provider, yes the one that was shut down for over a year) he must take daily that includes the eight essential amino acids all humans must consume to be healthy, plus a little bit of Phe. It’s a balance – too much, he will develop neurological and cognitive issues, not enough, he won’t grow.

We’ve been on this journey for seventeen plus years, so you can imagine my reaction to hearing Rao’s statement. I consulted the book of PKU knowledge – our resource for protein and Phe amounts in pretty much everything.

1 oz of Steak (depends on the cut/fat level) but on average = 8.7g protein, 43 calories, 315mg of Phe

1 oz of broccoli = .6g protein, 10 calories, 32mg of Phe

My son eats broccoli every day.

He will never be able to eat a steak.

Note the Phe amounts. As I mentioned above, Phe is key for good neurological health. It is the building block of dopamine and norepinephrine, which among a whole bunch other things, helps regulate mood (hello SSRIs). There’s a reason why you feel good on a meat-heavy diet. Protein sources aren’t made the same, nor should they be treated as interchangeable.

I’m no doc. I’m just a mom who became a “dietitian” out of necessity. But leafy greens isn’t a realistic source of enough protein for anyone. I love how RuBisCO is sourced from alfalfa though. Horse medicine isn’t good enough for humans, but their feed is?

Keep up the good work. You might be nutjobs, but you’re my nutjobs.

Much love and prayers, Ash in Texas

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo[c] (born 9 July 1977), formerly Sarah Cirillo and Sarah Ashton, is an American former journalist serving as a spokesperson for Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, in which she is a junior sergeant. A self-described "recovering political operative"[9] from Las Vegas, Nevada, she was active in Nevada politics from 2020 to 2021, including an abortive run for Las Vegas City Council. She arrived in Ukraine in March 2022, shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion, and has variously served as a war correspondent, a representative in aid negotiations, a civilian analyst with the Ministry of Defense, and a combat medic.

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The Biden administration has changed its messaging on jobs from saying they “created” more than 13 million jobs to they “helped create” them. That’s because the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes it clear that Biden only created 4 million jobs and recovered 9.4 million jobs.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:42

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:40

Oprah Winfrey and her camera crew were turned away from a shelter for survivors of the Hawaii wildfires - as officials confirmed at least 96 people are now dead.

The TV personality, who has spent recent days helping with aid efforts during a visit to the state, was accompanied by a CBS News crew when she was denied entry to the War Memorial Complex in Wailuku.

Officials said that while they appreciated Oprah's work, "out of respect for those who have come to seek safety and shelter at emergency shelters, our policy remains that no media are given access".

The County of Maui later clarified that Oprah was welcomed into the facility after she instructed the camera crew to remain outside.

"We welcome Oprah to continue to uplift our community's spirit and give her aloha to victims of the tragic disaster," a Facebook post said. "Her visit inside of the shelter today was truly heartwarming."

She has been pictured this week on social media visiting at least one shelter, helping to hand out supplies and giving comfort to victims.

Instagram This content is provided by Instagram , which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Instagram cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Instagram cookies. To view this content you can use the button below to allow Instagram cookies for this session only. This is the deadliest wildfire that the US has seen in the past century - surpassing the 85 who died in California's Camp Fire in 2018.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green says it is the largest natural disaster the US state had ever faced.

Workers are using axes and dogs to search through charred remains of properties on Lahaina on the island of Maui.

Instagram This content is provided by Instagram , which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Instagram cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Instagram cookies. To view this content you can use the button below to allow Instagram cookies for this session only. Ruined homes are being marked with an orange X for an initial search and HR if human remains have been found.

Authorities are urging people with missing family members to give DNA samples to help authorities identify victims.

Image: Emergency workers are searching through the ruins of Lahaina Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

3:23 The aftermath of Hawaii's wildfiresMaui police chief John Pelletier became emotional when he told reporters the fire had melted metal, making remains extremely hard to identify.

"We know we've got to go quick [to identify victims] but we've got to do it right," he said.

He also conceded the number of victims would inevitably rise again as "none of us really know the size of it yet".

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1:21 All victims are 'Jane and John Does'Lahaina was worst hit by Tuesday's fires and now resembles a war zone, with more than 1,000 buildings burned to the ground.

Survivors have spoken about how quick the blaze spread - the situation made worse by high winds and parched ground - and say emergency sirens failed to give any warning.

The five deadliest wildfires in US history

1871: Peshtigo, Wisconsin - 1,152

1918: Cloquet, Minnesota - 453

1894: Hinckley, Minnesota - 418

1881: Thumb, Michigan - 282

2023: Maui, Hawaii - 93 (final toll yet to be confirmed)

Source: National Fire Protection Association

Mobile phone alerts were also hampered by power and signal outages.

Some people were forced to jump in the sea and wait for rescue as cars exploded around them and escape routes were blocked.

Image: It will cost billions to rebuild the resort town Geoff Bogar described how he and his friend, Franklin Trejos, had tried to help others before being forced to flee in their own cars as the flames approached.

His friend was unable to escape.

Mr Bogar said he found his remains on the back seat of his car the next day - lying on top of his golden retriever that he was trying to protect.

"God took a really good man," he said.

Read more:'Everything we know is gone' - on the ground in devastated town

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1:20 Lahaina neighbourhoods burned to the groundResidents have been warned that Lahaina is a "hazardous area" and there could be dangerous fumes and contaminated water.

The town is a no-go zone for the time being, with many people whose properties have been destroyed taking refuge in shelters.

At least two other fires are still burning on Maui but no fatalities have been reported so far.

More than 150 died in a tsunami in Hawaii in 1946, but this week's disaster could surpass that given authorities' grim prediction of more bodies.

In terms of the worst US wildfires, hundreds were killed in Minnesota in 1918 when a fire tore through rural communities.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:39

Arizona water controversy during drought

Saudi company draws unlimited Arizona ground water for crop illegal to grow in Saudi Arabia 06:04 Farms in western Arizona are growing alfalfa '' one of the most water-intensive crops '' in an area where there's a shortage of water. Some farms are foreign-owned and are shipping the crop to Saudi Arabia, where it's illegal to grow because it takes too much water.

It's a growing controversy that could lead to a reckoning over scarce water supplies. Amid a backlash, the state legislature is considering a ban on most foreign-owned farms.

"Pumps are pumping water out of the ground that belongs to the State of Arizona, and essentially it's being exported to Saudi Arabia," said Kris Mayes, Arizona's newly elected attorney general.

Fondomonte, which is owned by one of the largest dairy companies in Saudi Arabia, bought vast tracts of desert in western Arizona on top of a massive groundwater aquifer in part because there are no regulations on how much water can be pumped out of the ground. Anyone who buys or leases land there can put in a well and draw water.

It's a challenge for the state. As climate change fuels devastating droughts, Arizona and its rapidly growing cities are facing drastic cuts to their surface water supply from the critically low Colorado River system.

"We cannot afford to give our water away frankly to anyone, let alone the Saudis, for free," said Mayes.

La Paz County supervisor Holly Irwin, who has been sounding the alarm about foreign-owned farms since they began operating there in 2015, said Fondomonte is growing alfalfa in the Arizona desert "because they've depleted their natural resource" back home.

Fondomonte trucks haul dried alfalfa off the property it uses and ships it back to the Middle East to feed cattle. According to Mayes, cows in Saudi Arabia are essentially drinking Arizona water.

Fondomonte declined CBS News' request for an interview or statement. But what it's doing in Arizona is not illegal. In fact, the state rents some land to Fondomonte for $25 an acre. The company can then pump unlimited amounts of groundwater for essentially no cost.

"There's nothing to say except, that's insane," said Mayes.

For some, the question is: how did this happen?

CBS News obtained copies of several land leases dating back to 2014 that give Fondomonte rights to more than 6,000 acres of state-owned land and the groundwater that comes with it. The leases are signed by Arizona's State Land Department.

CBS News asked the department why it granted the leases, but it did not respond to our multiple requests for comment. Most state officials in charge when the leases were signed are no longer in office.

"It is a scandal that the State of Arizona allowed this to happen," said Mayes, a Democrat, who made canceling these leases a centerpiece of her recent campaign.

She said canceling the leases is an urgent concern because groundwater in the valley is supposed to be the state's emergency water supply during a water crisis. The state doesn't even know exactly how much water the foreign farms are using.

"We are on the cusp of a potential water disaster in the state of Arizona," Mayes said.

Just outside of a western Arizona town called Hope, cattle rancher Brad Mead is finding it hard not to lose his. He claims his neighbors, Fondomonte, used so much water that his well went dry.

He said that when he looks onto his neighbor's property, he sees money leaving America.

"I see water getting depleted," he said.

More from CBS News

In: Arizona Saudi Arabia Ben Tracy Ben Tracy is a CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent based in Los Angeles.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:36

KAHULUI, Hawaii '' Tammy Kaililaau's home of 20 years burned to the ground. People she knows burned in the fire, too.

Less than a week later, she said, she got a Facebook message from someone in real estate. Residents have been warning one another on social media that developers may try to buy their land, so Kaililaau ignored it.

"Why are they doing that? You know, people burned in the fire," she said Monday.

"It's hard. It's rough, really rough."

Many Maui residents are mourning the loss of their homes and pledging to stay put after the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in more than a century destroyed neighborhoods across the island. They said they are worried that if insurance payouts and government assistance don't come fast enough, survivors may lose hope and sell to people who will drastically change their beloved but rapidly gentrifying community. In the days since the fires struck, developers have reached out about acquiring the land islanders and their families have lived on for years, if not generations.

Will some property sales in Hawaii be banned after fires?John Dimuro, who has lived on the island for more than 40 years and works for Marriott in West Maui, said locals don't want big companies or wealthy people buying up land and developing it.

"The government should just say 'No, you're not allowed to develop,'" he said. "Say no, just flat-out no."

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said he has reached out to the state's attorney general to explore the possibility of imposing a moratorium on sales of damaged or destroyed properties. Green said the fires destroyed more than 2,200 structures, 86% of which are residential.

''Moreover, I would caution people that it's going to be a very long time before any growth or housing will be built," he said. "You will be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here."

The governor's words don't seem to have deterred developers, locals say.

Mark Stefl, 67, said he, too, has been approached by developers, and the offer felt like being kicked while he was down. On Monday, Stefl had just tried and failed to get a document from the county that would let him pass the roadblocks and return to Lahaina, the centuries-old former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The town of about 13,000 people was largely destroyed by flames last week.

"I don't know what the hell's going on. Our government is so inept right now," he said. "I'm so pissed off."

He and his wife have lost their jobs, and he worries that he'll still have to make mortgage payments on the destroyed property and that he won't get federal assistance because he has insurance. Still, he said, he has to rebuild. In the 24 years he has lived in the area, he has had two other homes burn, including once during a hurricane. Each time he has rebuilt.

"I'm not going to sell it. I'm going to stay here," he said. "I love it here, as messed up as it is."

How much does it cost to live in Maui?Even before the blazes wiped out hundreds of homes in Maui, Hawaii was going through an affordable housing crisis fueled by international demand from people buying second and third homes to vacation in or use for short-term rentals, said Sterling Higa, executive director of Housing Hawaii's Future, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the workforce housing shortage in the state.

Higa said it's incredibly expensive and difficult to develop new housing in Hawaii, which drives up the prices beyond the budgets of local families, many of whom work low-paying service jobs in the hospitality or tourism industry.

The median price of a Maui home has soared to roughly $1.2 million, and the median condo price is $850,000. The area, where about 65% of residents are people of color, has a median annual household income of about $88,000, according to U.S. census figures.

Some residents who have insurance will be able to receive compensation. But Higa said many of the homes in Lahaina were old and not up to code, which made them "difficult to impossible to insure."

Higa said some residents will be eligible for assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, "but that process is not perfect, and it's possible that some people may fall through the cracks."

"The real danger is all of this compensation to rebuild, if it comes at a later time, doesn't necessarily cover the interim cost of rent," he said. "And Maui already was an island where rents were sky-high, so for families who are waiting to rebuild, they have a tough time ahead."

Kaililaau, 65, who lost her home of 20 years, was stuck in Lahaina for two days without food after the fires swept through. Now she can't get back and has been living in a three-bedroom house with 10 other people, including her daughter and granddaughter. She said they've been able to get some supplies and are grateful for the influx of donations, "but the point is, we're homeless. We have no place to go."

'This is not for sale'Higa said government, grassroots and nonprofit organizations must come together to ensure displaced families can find affordable housing and aren't intimidated by the process of accessing government aid. He said he hopes there is enough assistance and housing that people won't feel the pressure to sell.

"Many of us are concerned that in the immediate wake of a disaster, people are not always in the right state of mind to make such a consequential decision," he said.

Jonah Lion, 45, said that if residents do sell their property, a "whole different type of rebuilding" would likely happen on prime beachfront properties. Lion, who operates an ecocultural tourism company, said that in the five years he has lived in Maui, he has witnessed the tension tourism can cause between visitors and locals.

Lion, who is now volunteering at a supply depot run out of an abandoned restaurant near Maalaea Harbor, said developers have been offering people money to move for years. Ultimately, he believes, those in multigenerational homes will have the strength to stay.

"It doesn't matter how much money you offer," he said. "No. We're not selling. This is not for sale."

Contributing: The Associated Press

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Archived Version

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:25

Germany will provide Ukraine with $5.5 billion in annual military aid, Forbes Ukraine reported on Monday, citing German Finance Minister Christian Lindner.

During his first official visit to Kiev since the start of the military conflict, the official revealed that Berlin will bankroll '‚¬5 billion ($5.45 billion) per year to the country until at least 2027, the outlet said.

Sealing the funding program, Ukraine's Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko and Lindner signed a memorandum of cooperation between Kiev and Berlin, aimed at boosting the Ukrainian budget in the next few years.

The decision has yet to be approved by the German Parliament, Lindner said, during a joint press conference with Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko.

Under the agreement, Germany is also expected to provide advisory assistance to Kiev in customs policy, financial-market monitoring, state investment management, and the privatization of state enterprises.

Berlin will support Kiev ''as much as needed,'' the politician affirmed, adding that his country has already injected '‚¬22 billion ($24 billion) in financial backing into Ukraine, including '‚¬12 billion worth of military aid.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:10

CNN '--

Certain kinds of cancer are being diagnosed more often in younger adults in the US, a new study shows, and the increases seem to be driven by cancers in women and adults in their 30s.

A government-funded study of 17 National Cancer Institute registries, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, looked at more than 500,000 cases of early-onset cancer, or cancers diagnosed in patients under age 50, between 2010 and 2019. The study found that overall, early-onset cancers increased over that decade, by an average of 0.28% each year.

The change seemed to be driven by rates of cancer in younger women, which went up an average of 0.67% each year; at the same time, rates decreased in men by 0.37% each year.

There were 34,233 early-onset cancer cases in women in 2010 and 35,721 in 2019, an increase of 4.35%, the study says. Among men, cases fell 4.91%, from 21,818 in 2010 to 20,747 in 2019.

The rate of cancer diagnosis increased in adults in their 30s over the decade but remained stable in other under-50 age groups, the study found. At the same time, the rate of cancers in adults 50 and older is going down.

When the researchers looked at cancer trends for younger adults by race, they found that early-onset cancers were going up fastest among people who identify as American Indian or Alaska Natives, Asians and Hispanics. On average, the growth rates of early-onset cancers remained stable in White people and decreased in Black people between 2010 and 2019.

Cancers with the highest numbers of early-onset cases­ diagnosed in 2019 were breast (12,649 cases), thyroid (5,869) and colorectal cancers (4,097).

The biggest increases in early-onset cases were in cancers of the appendix, which went up 252%; cancers of the bile duct, which went up 142%; and uterine cancer, which increased 76%.

Incidence rates of early-onset cancers of the gastrointestinal tract grew the fastest from 2010 to 2019, increasing nearly 15%. Previous research has shown a rise in cancers of the digestive system, particularly colorectal cancers, among adults younger than 55 since the 1990s.

These increases are not confined to the US, studies say. A review of cancer registry records in 44 countries, published last year, found that the incidence of early-onset cancers is rising rapidly for 14 types of cancer, many of which affect the digestive system.

The authors of that review said the upswing is happening in part because of more sensitive screening tests as well as other causes that need investigation.

Dr. Otis Brawley, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Oncology and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, has some theories about what's behind the rising rates.

''The largest cause of cancer in the United States right now is smoking, but smoking rates [have been] going down since the 1960s,'' he said. ''It's in the next couple of years that the biggest cause of cancer in the United States is going to be not obesity but obesity, consumption of too many calories and not enough exercise. '... My gut suspicion is that a large part of this trend is lifestyle, or it's driven by increased caloric consumption, increased obesity and not enough exercise.''

Another possible cause is alcohol use, he said. ''There's been a rise in alcohol-related cancers over the last few years. We now think about 6% or so of cancers in the United States are due to alcohol consumption, especially binge drinking.''

To lower your overall cancer risk, Brawley recommends ''very basic principles'': ''Try to maintain a healthy weight. Try to exercise. Try to maintain a good diet with five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day, preferably fresh fruits. Try to decrease the amount of processed foods in the diet.''

CNN's John Bonifield contributed to this report.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:34

Removing Paywall

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 13:47

As the United States withdrew from Afghanistan last August, images of Taliban soldiers decked out in American kit frequently recurred on global media. Social and news media fretted that the Taliban had become the only terrorist group with an air force. Much of the ado might be about nothing. The complex and exquisite platforms that provoked the most concern (i.e., Black Hawks and light attack airplanes outfitted with Hellfire missiles), require capacity to train, field, and maintain that is probably beyond the Taliban.

The large volume of small arms and light weapons the United States left behind is more mundane yet more meaningful. Based on the 2017 Government Accountability Office and 2020 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reports, the cache exceeds 650,000 pieces ranging from rifles to rocket-propelled weapons. Unlike Black Hawks, they require little training and no expertise to use. Even fresh Taliban foot soldiers know how to fire an AK-47. Beyond that, their qualities, combined with state weakness, have led to weapons diffusion into the surrounding region, sparking and inflaming more violence. In short, the enormous stockpiles left behind have generated a ''regional arms bazaar'' for terrorists, criminal elements, and insurgents.

This has happened elsewhere before and will again. The risk that weapons deployed in the Russo-Ukrainian War, whenever and however it ends, will disperse across Eastern Europe and Central Asia is particularly disquieting.

Weakly governed states '-- whether weakened by corruption, conflict, or collapse '-- have looser arsenal integrity, making them more subject to opportunistic substate groups. Their weakness allows apertures into the black market, the size and reach of each being a function of how well-armed the state and how weak its stockpile security. On the smaller end, corrupt nations control a more trickling leakage of arms into the black market to a shortlist of proxies and clients, usually with conditionality. Depending on the scale, actors, and victors, post-conflict scenarios can range from a few loose arms to largescale diffusion.

On the extreme end of the state weakness spectrum, collapse generates the most pointed proliferation events, especially if the nation was well-armed. We focus on these moments as sudden, immense shifts in black market volumes and movement. Following collapse, stockpile security folds along with the government's legitimacy, institutions, and services. In addition to the usual black-market tradesmen ready to plunder national arms depots, many regular citizens join out of desperation as a new anarchy takes hold. In fact, weak governance becomes a simultaneous cause and consequence of weapons looting since the state can neither provide security for citizens nor secure stockpiles from citizens. These reinforcing conditions '-- elevated demand, vulnerable supply '-- intensify the siphon of weapons from the state to the local black market.

The larger the stockpile and the more suddenly it devolves to nonstate actors, the more intensely it tends to diffuse into the surrounding region. Local actors arm themselves and warlords offer provincial security, but weapons are also a lucrative commodity. In insecure environments, sales might purchase safety, basic goods and services, or escape. They might buy loyalty and solidify substate alliances. With a sated national market, would-be customers having plundered their own caches to surplus, illicit entrepreneurs look abroad for markets of higher profit and demand.

And there is demand. Considering the case of Libya in 2011, for example, demand might come from rebels (Darfur fighters), insurgents (Seleka in Central African Republic), militias (Azawad factions), terrorists (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), criminals (Tibesti gold rushers), gangs (Nigerian ''bandits''), or even civilians seeking self-defense. Although not sufficient for violence without motive, arms are a necessary precondition for violent campaigns of any kind.

We point specifically to small arms and light weapons. They are distinctly suitable for sale, in contrast to heavier systems (recall the missile-laden light attack planes in Afghanistan, for instance). The capacity requisites for complex weapons render that market significantly smaller and more specialized. Many ragtag looters lack access or would not risk exposure to such in-groups. Selling nations also maintain end-use monitoring on conventional platforms, making it even riskier. Small arms and light weapons, however, are financially and technically approachable even for foot soldiers. Existing monitoring mechanisms for the latter are also fragmented and ineffective, dramatically reducing the risk of being caught.

The qualities of small arms and light weapons also make them distinctly amenable for trafficking. Also unlike heavy weapons, they are small and modular enough to be hidden at checkpoints and among ''ant-trade'' transports. (Ant-trade is a term of art for the most common form of illicit weapons trafficking: Imagine ants following their routes, spaced out with one load at a time. Traffickers mimic this to avoid riskier, costlier interceptions.) They are more durable, needing minimal upkeep and maintaining value across exchanges and time. They are also more serviceable, requiring minimal cost for replaceable parts and ammunition.

The combination of weak governance, local incentives, and the attributes of small arms and light weapons ejects them into the surrounding region following collapse. This influx of weapons '-- larger and more diverse than the usual sources that illicit actors tap '-- augments substate forces and their fighting capacity. Since more than 90 percent of contemporary armed conflicts are now internal, and since small arms and light weapons are the currency of substate violence and its spread, these massive proliferation moments are grim.

Depending on the destination, dispersion could mean a number of things. We return to the Afghanistan case to demonstrate a few of them. Dispersion might simply exacerbate instability in weak zones, like it has in Afghanistan itself and certainly pockets around it in Pakistan, Iran, and India. Weapons diffusion might revitalize insurgent efforts, such as that of the separatists in Baluchistan, or strengthen existing terrorist organizations, like the Islamic State affiliate in the region and al-Qaeda. It might create political space, full of arms and anarchy, for new terrorist groups and rebellions to arise. For instance, Afghan tribal groups are coalescing in opposition to the Taliban. Perhaps worst, it can incite or bolster civil war. Factions within the Taliban are vying for dominance, and it is unclear how far the internecine struggle will escalate. We also find it feasible that Western arms abandoned in Afghanistan could be trafficked to existing conflict zones in Iraq, Syria, or Yemen, especially with Iran's support. The upshot is that the supply of small arms and light weapons interacts with the demand dynamics at trafficking terminuses, yielding a spectrum of potential outcomes.

To summarize, weak governance exposes military stockpiles to eager nonstate actors who sell the surplus of what they can (small arms and light weapons) where they can (often elsewhere) to whom they can (violent nonstate actors of all stripes). On average, the surge of diffusion correlates with a swell in violence at trafficking terminuses. Of course, this is one process among others that can take place amid state weakness, and only one means of weapons dispersion among others. Nonetheless, it is a likely and consequential one on the heels of dire conflict or collapse. It is also an empirically precedented one, playing out in the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and the 2011 crumbling of Libya.

The collapse of the Soviet Union is a prime example of the dispersion consequences from a state armed to the teeth. The dismantling of Soviet arsenals sourced many illicit weapon bazaars and sprawling proliferation. Scholars emphasize that disaffected and desperate nonstate actors ransacked, trafficked, and sold billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of tons of small arms and light weapons across the region '-- Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine. Kaliningrad in particular, geographically and politically distanced from the Soviet Union, became an immense illicit arms marketplace. Many of these locations became seedbeds of instability.

Commensurate with stockpile sizes, the breakdown of Libya followed a similar trajectory on a smaller (though still alarming) scale. In a recent study, we plot the illicit small arms and light weapons trafficking routes after Libya's 2011 collapse. Libya had one of the largest arsenals in Africa, and its looting led to a profound episode of proliferation. Like the Soviet case, small arms and light weapons quickly crossed borders and fueled conflicts in the region.

Figure 1. Conflict events, scaled by lethality, after Libya's collapse overlaid with illicit small arms and light weapons trafficking routes, from Oct. 20, 2011 '' 2017. (Graphic by the authors)

We traced four major overland routes across 11 countries in the surrounding Sahara-Sahel and one air and maritime route into the Middle East. Violence clustered and significantly intensified at their terminuses, visible in Figure 1. In particular, newly armed Malian rebels seized several major cities and declared the Azawad independent within eight months of Libya's collapse. Boko Haram became a key consumer of Libyan weaponry. The struggle over South Sudan escalated with the influx of weapons. Violence in the Sinai surged including the appearance of new armed groups. Libyan arms also ended up in Syria, the site of a vicious civil war.

These cases show the importance and implications of loose stockpiles. The same processes are afoot in Afghanistan and will persist. Turning to speculation, we see potential for a similar danger down the line in Ukraine, which bears some features of a weak state (especially its eastern regions). Defined as a diminished ability to exercise sovereignty in a territory, the sustained presence of Russian forces in the country and the failure to provide basic services and rule of law in areas that Ukraine still holds indicate some degree of weakness. A 2021 Small Arms Survey report determined that there were already large quantities of loose weapons and ammunition in Ukraine. Since the war began, nations have rapidly poured more basic and advanced small arms and light weapons and other weapon systems into Ukraine to reinforce fighters. Intentionally '-- Ukrainian resistance is a patchwork of diverse fighters '-- many systems are high-end yet simple to use. For example, the Javelin anti-tank missile and the Switchblade anti-tank portable drone both require less than an hour of training to use.

What will happen to all the dispensed armaments when the fighting stops? The Russo-Ukrainian War remains hot, so imagining its aftermath is more uncertain, but many might be illicitly dispersed. Whether Ukraine collapses, attains a decisive victory, or negotiates a settlement, the future of its arsenal is still worth consideration. The saturation of small arms as a national defense strategy will be difficult to undo, especially for a relatively weak state. Officials will attempt to monitor and secure the increasingly massive military arsenals. The states that sold the arms and domestic Russian and Ukrainian authorities will devote initial and primary efforts toward conventional, sophisticated platforms: aircraft, tanks, and heavy weapons, for example. In the meantime, the largest risks of proliferation lie with small arms and light weapons on hand to civilians, foreign fighters, and soldiers who might behave opportunistically as the smoke clears.

On humanitarian, geopolitical, and financial fronts, this is and should be of grave concern to states, practitioners, and scholars. As one conflict ends, the last thing stakeholders and communities need is for more to emerge in the same unstable vicinity. Thus, understanding this hydra model of war is critical to head off the diffusion of violence. This is especially true in the wake of state collapse, a rare but immense phenomenon that spills over borders more powerfully.

We offer three prescriptions to structure efforts to stem the spread of illicit small arms and light weapons during peak proliferation events. First, remember that illicit markets are regionalized. The neighboring nations that will receive the brunt of repercussions have incentives to step up to secure loose stockpiles. Other weak states have urgent reasons but weaker capacity to contain spillover, while strong states less likely to see direct negative effects ideally will contribute stockpile-security efforts in order to uphold norms and regional stability. If capacity is short or efforts are fragmented, neighbors should activate their alliance and institutional networks to help curb potential spillover. Finally, major powers with strategic or economic interests in the region might be motivated to help arrest these bursts of weapons dispersion that can have long legacies.

Second, these periods of explosive trafficking appear to be short-lived. Eventually, even vast stockpiles dry up. National dynamics shift. In Libya, local groups consolidated by 2014, leading to an increase in internal demand and consequent decrease in illicit arms outflows as territorial clashes escalated. In the loose interim, though, small arms and light weapons enabled footholds and forward movement for manifold nonstate actors. This temporal trait implies that mitigation programs should be implemented as soon as possible as stockpile insecurity mounts (insofar as shards of sovereignty allow) and certainly in the immediate aftermath of collapse or war. A boon to the domestic politics of participants, leaders can pronounce short-term commitments to high-value intervention.

Third, mediating factors determine the severity of small arms and light weapons spillover. To use an epidemiology analogy, some have greater resistance to a spreading phenomenon whether by genetics, exposure, or baseline health. Pockets of regional demand, rebel group (dis)unity, foreign fighter movements, regional capacity and coordination, the strength of interdiction techniques, the presence of external peacekeeping forces '-- each of these scale and structure the regional impact. These spatial traits imply that mitigation programs should be targeted based on knowledge of native inoculations along likely trafficking routes. For instance, paths to and terminuses rife with instability should be reinforced while well-governed zones can be deemphasized. Long, porous borders present a particular challenge of coverage and coordination while manageable, impassable, or intelligence-rich ones can stand alone. Stakeholders can use preexisting trafficking routes as a template, tribal travel routes and folkways as further clues, and the distribution and dynamics of regional militants as hinge points.

Altogether, given the high impact of small arms and light weapons set against scarce security resources following conflict or collapse, regional powers and their partners should amplify stockpile security in the immediate short-term in gaps of greatest weakness. This might entail targeted contingents of boots on the ground to fortify stockpiles or bombing campaigns to eradicate them. It will cost regional and global powers to safeguard insecure arsenals, but in the end it will cost far less than letting them loose to ignite violence anew.

Kerry Chvez, Ph.D., is an instructor in the political science department at Texas Tech University. Her research focusing on the domestic politics, strategies, and technologies of conflict and security has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Defence Studies, among others. With practitioner and law enforcement experience as well as working group collaborations, she produces rigorous, engaged scholarship.

Ori Swed, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the sociology department and director of the Peace, War, & Social Conflict Laboratory at Texas Tech University. His scholarship on nonstate actors in conflict settings and technology and society has been featured in multiple peer-reviewed journals and his own edited volume. He also gained 12 years of field experience with the Israel Defense Force as a special forces operative and reserve captain, and as a private security contractor.

Image: U.S. Navy

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 13:31

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) '-- Argentina has never had a Jewish president. But that concept could move a step closer to reality after a general election in October.

That's because on Sunday, the leading vote-getter in national primary elections was Javier Milei, a libertarian who wants to convert Argentina's currency to the US dollar and has made headlines for controversial comments on hot-button topics ranging from climate change to sex education.

He also wants to convert to Judaism.

In an interview with Spain's El Pais last month, Milei said he is considering conversion. One of the obstacles getting in the way: observing Shabbat.

''If I'm president and it's Shabbat, what do I do? Am I going to disconnect from the country from Friday to Saturday? There are some issues that would make [the religion] incompatible. The rabbi who helps me study says that I should read the Torah from the point of view of economic analysis,'' he said.

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termsMilei, a 52-year-old economist who was raised Catholic and who leads the two-year-old La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) party, studies Jewish topics regularly with Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish, who heads ACILBA, an Argentine-Moroccan Jewish community based in Buenos Aires.

Argentine congressman and presidential pre-candidate for La Libertad Avanza Alliance Javier Milei delivers a speech during the closing of his campaign for the August 13 primary elections, at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires on August 7, 2023. (Photo by Luis ROBAYO / AFP)

''He is a person I love very much, whom I consult regularly,'' Milei said in an interview with Radio Jai, a Jewish radio station that broadcasts from Buenos Aires. ''These are discussions that suddenly can take two or three hours and that for me are very gratifying and help me grow a lot and understand situations in a much deeper way.''

There is little unsurprising about Milei's persona, policy principles and electoral success. The bushy-headed politician with long sideburns received 30% of the primary vote, after polls predicted he would earn 15-20%, defeating both the ruling left-wing Peronist party and the main conservative opposition bloc.

Primary voting is mandatory for most adults in Argentina, so primary elections are seen as an accurate bellwether of subsequent general elections.

Milei is often referred to as ''far right,'' ''libertarian'' and ''anarcho-capitalist.'' He blames the establishment for the country's poverty levels and soaring inflation rates, and he points to their issues with corruption. If elected, he says he would dismantle Argentina's central bank and sharply cut public spending.

El Ohel de todos'... pic.twitter.com/qrGSUfrC4p

'-- Rafi Tawil (@TawilRafi) July 15, 2023

Beyond economics, he has called climate change a ''socialist lie,'' has said that the free market should dictate organ donations and believes sex education is a ploy to destroy family values. (He is also a former tantric sex coach.)

In public appearances, Milei often quotes Torah passages. He walked out on stage for a campaign event at an arena in Buenos Aires earlier this month to a recording of a shofar, the ram's horn blown on Rosh Hashanah.

He has visited the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum and last July traveled to New York, where visited the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the influential former spiritual leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Milei and his vice presidential candidate, Victoria Villaruel, were the only two Argentine lawmakers to vote against a bill that would make July 18, the date of the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing, a national day of mourning. A group of families of victims of the attack shouted at Milei at this year's commemoration ceremony for the incident that killed 85 people.

SUENA EL SHOFAR pic.twitter.com/cggV3tjgbS

'-- Santiago Or­a (@Santiago_Oria) August 8, 2023

After sharp criticism, Milei tried to change his vote, but his request was denied by the president of the Chamber of Deputies.

Milei is staunchly pro-Israel and has said that his ''two great allies are the United States and Israel.'' If elected, he has vowed to move the Argentine embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem '-- and make his first foreign trip as president to Israel, where he said he would ''delve deeper into his studies of the Torah, Talmud, and other Jewish scriptures,'' according to local news outlet La Nacion.

Milei also has several mastiff dogs, at least two of them named for Jewish economists: Milton, for Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, and Murray, for Murray Rothbard '-- who is often called the father of anarcho-capitalism, which advocates for stateless societies.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:06

U.S. | Maui Fires Come at a Moment of Turmoil for the Insurance Industry https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/us/insurance-wildfires-maui-hawaii.htmlHawaii has the nation's lowest rates for homeowner coverage because it has not suffered many natural disasters. That may change.

A burned mailbox in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Thursday. The wildfires may make insurers in the state reconsider rates and availability of homeowner policies. Credit... Philip Cheung for The New York Times The devastating wildfires in Hawaii have come at a time of upheaval for the insurance industry, in a place that had not been considered very risky by underwriters.

The state's residents have generally paid low home insurance rates '-- the cheapest in the country, according to Bankrate, a consumer financial services company '-- because there are relatively few natural disasters in Hawaii, with the private sector on stronger footing than in states like Florida and California. In recent years, both states have been more prone to extreme weather events than Hawaii.

But the deadly fires in Maui this week, which destroyed thousands of homes and will take what the state's governor said would be billions of dollars to rebuild from, may make insurance companies reconsider policy rates and coverage, as they have in more disaster-prone areas.

Insurance rates are set on a state level, with varying degrees of government regulation and intervention. Typically, states like Hawaii that have strong private insurance markets have not needed forceful state involvement on rates.

After Hurricane Iniki hit Hawaii in 1992, the Legislature created a fund to provide hurricane insurance to homeowners. But that fund ceased operations in 2002 because the private market had returned to full strength.

More broadly across the United States, some private insurers have begun retreating as natural disasters have mounted, leaving the overall market in peril.

State Farm, the largest homeowner insurance provider in California, announced in May that it would no longer sell coverage there. In Florida, homeowners have struggled to find storm coverage as insurers have pulled out because of the risks arising from climate change.

For Hawaii's relatively robust private insurance market, there's reason to think things could become more precarious moving forward, although companies will need time to consider new data in estimating their future losses.

''I think insurers are going to start factoring in the increased frequency and severity of wildfires,'' said David Marlett, a professor of risk management at Appalachian State University. ''You've already seen that in California.''

Adding to the complexities, there is also uncertainty in the global reinsurance market, a crucial backstop for private insurers.

Reinsurance companies, which are essentially the insurers for insurance companies, have been in turmoil as risks and costs have mounted. Prices for reinsurance have soared in 2023, leading insurers to cut coverage in various areas and stop covering some types of damage.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:01

In the wake of the Maui fires that started last week on August 8, several conspiracy theories have emerged on the internet about the causes behind it. Initially, government agencies and several media outlets such as the BBC and The Guardian reported that the blazes were caused by dry, drought-like conditions worsened by strong winds brought forth by Category 4 Hurricane Dora.

However, as the week passed by, the social media users conducted their own investigation and spun many alternative theories behind the flames.

One group believes that the Maui fires were the result of an energy weapon or a laser beam launched by government agencies that caused an explosion on the island. Others speculate that Maui was artificially set on fire by the elites and real estate companies and investors to grab lands from the natives, who otherwise refuse to sell them, and turn the island into a ''smart city'' or sell them to celebrities for millions of dollars.

Amidst such conspiracy theories, the latest one circulating on the internet is a book titled Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change written by a certain Dr. Miles Stones. The book was published on August 10 on Amazon, only two days after the Maui fires began, and its topic has left the internet baffled. The non-fiction talks about the Maui fires at large '' their causes, impacts, and relation to climate change.

Netizens found it rather unsettling that the book got printed and even became available on Amazon while the fires were still ongoing. They are now speculating that the author may have known about the fires long before it happened and was thus able to publish a book so fast on the topic. In this regard, several X users have commented under @RisingStone's tweet on the same.

A netizen says the book is a script for the wildfires. (Image via X/Gordon Lyon)Netizens left bewildered over conspiracy surrounding the Maui firesDr. Miles Stones' non-fiction book, which is now available on Amazon was published on August 10, even before the Maui fires were put out. As per Amazon, Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change, is 44 pages long, written in English, and is available on both Kindle (free) and paperback (paid, depending on locations) editions.

It is currently listed as a ''bestseller'' in the environmental ecology category of books.

Amazon describes the book as ''a gripping and eye-opening account of one of the most devastating wildfires in Hawaii's history'' and mentions that the non-fiction reveals the urgency with which the global climate crisis should be addressed. The e-commerce giant also depicts the book as a chronicle of the events of August 8-11 and says that the devastating fires on the island of Maui were fueled by drought, heat, and hurricane winds.

The book supposedly also gives detailed and harrowing accounts of the natives, and tourists who survived the fires, alongside highlighting the heroic efforts of the the firefighters and rescuers who tried to battle the blazes.

Amazon's description of the book says that it closely examines the causes and effects of the fires on a local and global scale, especially its relation to climate change:

''The book draws on scientific research, eyewitness accounts, official reports, and media coverage to provide a comprehensive and compelling narrative of the Maui fire and its implications for climate change.''In addition, the book is also said to offer real-world solutions on how to prevent and prepare for future wildfires and gives advice on how to adapt to the climate crisis. As per the synopsis, the book is a ''must-read for anyone who cares about the environment, the future of humanity, and the fate of our beautiful planet.''

As soon as Dr. Miles Stones' book became a topic of interest in the wake of the Maui fires on the internet, netizens took to the internet to discuss this supposed conspiracy. While some believe it is a script that was written way before the fires even started, others believe the author knew about the fires beforehand.

Most are curious about the identity of the writer, with some calling him a scammer. Many also seem to think the content was generated by ChatGPT.

A netizen calls the book's premise suspicious. (Image via X/Paul Truther)A netizen shares her suspicion about the author's name. (Image via X/Jacqui Deevoy)A netizen wonders how Dr. Stones already wrote a book on Maui fires. (Image via X/Mindy Robinson)While not much is known about Dr. Miles Stones himself other than the fact that his books are mainly biographies, this is not the first controversial book that he has penned. He seems to have written a few other books, including the biographies of Hunter Biden and Billy Walters, namely The Life Story of Hunter Biden: The President's Son '' A Life of Tragedy, Drama, Addiction, and Scandal and The Life Story Books of Billy Walters: A Gambler, Entrepreneur, Criminal respectively.

Some of his other works include Jocko Willink Life Story: From SEAL to CEO '' A Biography of Jocko Willink, Drago: The Unbreakable Navy Seal Who Escaped Communism and Fought for Freedom, and The Life Story Book of Ruth Blau: A Woman who Lived Many Lives As A Spy, Hero, And Kidnapper, among other nearly two dozens of books.

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:50

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) '-- The company behind a disastrous change to a Kentucky city's school bus routes that resulted in more than a week of canceled classes had similar problems in two cities in neighboring Ohio last year.

Touting its connections to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bus-routing vendor AlphaRoute pitched its mathematical models and machine-learning technology as a way of saving money and smoothing out complex bus routes in Louisville, Kentucky, and school districts across the U.S.

But real-world problems often got in the way.

Columbus began running new routes planned by AlphaRoute in fall 2022 after entering into a three-year, $1.6 million contract. But there were problems from the beginning. Most importantly, the district was not able to make adjustments quickly with the company's software. It decided to pivot mid-year to the software it was previously using from another company, Versatrans, said district spokesperson Jacqueline Bryant.

Cincinnati Public Schools told The Associated Press in an email that it was under contract with AlphaRoute for less than one year, beginning in April 2022 at a cost of $150,000.

''AlphaRoute provided route analysis and made efficiency recommendations. CPS was not satisfied with the results and had to reroute and physically evaluate each stop,'' according to the statement.

Several other districts listed as partners on the company's website said they either no longer worked with AlphaRoute or never were its customers. The school district in Providence, Rhode Island, a listed partner, said it considered the company's proposal in 2021 but ''went in another direction.''

AlphaRoute said in a Tuesday night written statement that it recognized the Kentucky school cancellations have been ''terribly disruptive'' and that it has had a team in Louisville helping to address them since Saturday.

''We at AlphaRoute have been working alongside the district to fix as many issues as possible as fast as possible, so that service is greatly improved when schools reopen on Friday,'' it said.

In Louisville, the transportation changes recommended by AlphaRoute for Jefferson County Public Schools proved disastrous on the first day of school. Some students were not picked up in the morning while others did not arrive home until nearly 10 p.m.

The fiasco resulted in hungry and tired children, angry parents and exasperated politicians. Schools had to be closed to reevaluate the transportation plan, and students will have missed more than a week of school when they begin returning on Friday as part of a staggered reopening. The fallout has included a call from some state lawmakers to explore splitting up the state's largest school district.

Like other districts, Jefferson County turned to AlphaRoute for ways to increase efficiency and cut the number of bus routes after a nationwide driver shortage left them scrambling for solutions to transport students. The company, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, uses computer algorithms to map out bus routes and stops.

In a March 2021 letter to Jefferson County seeking to justify its use as a single contractor, company co-founder and CEO John Hanlon outlined how his firm could solve some of the ''daunting challenges'' of a busing system he described as inefficient and one of the most complex in the country, with 65,000 daily bus riders.

Hanlon touted AlphaRoute as the only company capable of both rerouting buses and planning staggered school start times. Superintendent Marty Pollio championed the idea, saying the combination would allow for more efficient use of buses and let teenagers sleep longer so they could be more alert in school.

A researcher who studies automation bias '-- in which people are prone to overly trusting the abilities of automated systems, from factory robots to ChatGPT '-- said what happened in Louisville fits into a broader problem with the use of artificial intelligence technology .

Students having to walk long distances to bus stops early in the morning might have been ''algorithmically correct'' because it satisfied the objectives and constraints of the algorithm under Kentucky law, ''but in reality parents would not want their kids walking that far at 6 a.m.,'' said Aaron Schecter, a professor of information management systems at the University of Georgia.

Similarly, an algorithm might satisfy its goal of minimizing total routes, to lessen the number of drivers, at the expense of another criterion such as the time it takes to transport students. Schecter said machine-learning algorithms such as AlphaRoute's are typically trying to optimize an objective and can overlook ''worst case'' harms even if the average result is satisfactory.

''The underlying principle here is that people were wooed by something that seemed sophisticated, and they trusted that AI would be a magic fix,'' said Schecter, who hadn't evaluated the specific technology used.

AlphaRoute's Hanlon is the former chief operating officer of Boston Public Schools and has emphasized the company's origins as a partnership between MIT researchers and the school district.

In a 2019 scientific paper, a team lead by Dimitris Bertsimas, an MIT professor who is also a co-founder of AlphaRoute and its parent company, Dynamic Ideas LLC, said that using an algorithm for selecting the best school start times would empower Boston leaders ''to make decisions based not on the political whims of special interest groups but on an objective standard agreed on by the community.''

News articles at the time said the researchers helped Boston cut 50 buses for a savings of $5 million, although transportation officials did have to vet and tweak the routes before they were used.

However, Boston only ever used routing software in a limited capacity and has no relationship with AlphaRoute today, district spokesperson Max Baker said.

In a follow-up paper in 2020, Bertsimas and his team acknowledged that Boston didn't follow its recommendations for changed bell times and elaborated on a number of routing challenges, from the city's meandering topography to the equity-minded policies tracing back to racial desegregation efforts of the 1970s. But it said the experiment led it to develop a new software system that it was showing to nearly 30 school districts across 17 states.

Nearly 500,000 school buses nationwide transport 25 million students, said Molly McGee-Hewitt, executive director with the National Association for Pupil Transportation. The driver shortage is a real problem, she said, but one that can be solved by offering competitive pay and benefits and reducing bureaucratic barriers to entry.

''You can't have world-class schools without world-class infrastructure, and that includes transportation,'' she said.

Routing can be complicated, especially in districts that are transporting children across town to magnet schools, charter schools, special needs schools and even private schools, McGee-Hewitt said. Various software vendors have been successfully helping schools manage that challenge for years.

In a news conference Monday, Jefferson County Public School Superintendent Pollio said one significant deficiency was that the recommended routes weren't accounting for the latest information. He said AlphaRoute gave the district the new routes earlier in the summer, but since then thousands of stops had been added as new students enrolled ahead of opening day or parents requested a different bus stop.

''When stops are added to routes, we did not properly add the time that was needed for a bus driver to complete that,'' he said, explaining that those extra minutes were adding up.

''We had some room for error in our former schedule. We do not have room for error now,'' he said.

In assessing fault for the opening day fiasco, Pollio has said he's ''not going to put it on the company. ... I said it from the very beginning, I take responsibility for it myself.''

_____Loller reported from Nashville, Tenn. AP Technology Writer O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

Technology writer covering artificial intelligence

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:29

American journalist, activist & soldier (born 1977)

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo[c] (born 9 July 1977), formerly Sarah Cirillo and Sarah Ashton, is an American former journalist serving as a spokesperson for Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, in which she is a junior sergeant. A self-described "recovering political operative" from Las Vegas, Nevada, she was active in Nevada politics from 2020 to 2021, including an abortive run for Las Vegas City Council. She arrived in Ukraine in March 2022, shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion, and has variously served as a war correspondent, a representative in aid negotiations, a civilian analyst with the Ministry of Defense, and a combat medic.

Ashton-Cirillo drew national media attention in 2021 when she released records of conversations from her time working with Republican candidates, documenting efforts to recruit members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, for a planned "Brooks Brothers Riot" (alluding to the 2000 demonstration) as part of efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 United States presidential election. In 2022, she leaked a text exchange with the Republican nominee for Nevada Attorney General, which became a key controversy in that election.

Starting in March 2022, Ashton-Cirillo reported on the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Kharkiv, Ukraine, primarily for LGBTQ Nation, often writing about the war's effect on LGBTQ people. A trans woman, she is thought to have been the first openly transgender war correspondent and the only transgender journalist covering the invasion. In Kharkiv, she worked closely with the Ukrainian military and police, and was appointed by the mayor of Zolochiv, Kharkiv Oblast, as a representative to advocate with aid groups.[b] After witnessing and reporting on the October 2022 Kyiv missile strikes'--including posting a controversial widely shared video that showed a dead body'--she resigned from LGBTQ Nation to become a combat medic in Ukraine's Noman ‡elebicihan Battalion, a Crimean Tatar unit. In February 2023, she was wounded by Russian shelling while serving on the front lines in the Donbas with the 209th Battalion of the 113th Kharkiv Defense Brigade [uk; it] . She was subsequently assigned to the Territorial Defense Forces, and became one of its English-langage spokespeople in August 2023.

Early life, Syrian refugee crisis, and gender transition (1977''2019) Ashton-Cirillo was born on 9 July 1977 in North Florida; she previously had the surname Cirillo. According to her byline with The Nevada Independent, she has lived in Las Vegas since 2004; according to the Nevada Current she "established residency [there] in 2016 to be closer to" her ex-wife and child. In this phase of her life, she worked as a real estate analyst, a poker player, and the communications director at a healthcare company.

In 2015, before her gender transition, Ashton-Cirillo went to Syrian refugee camps in Turkey to report on the refugee crisis, having been afraid to enter Syria itself. She wrote a book about the experience, Along the Tracks of Tears, but was unhappy with its quality, having been preoccupied with concerns about whether the people she traveled with would have accepted her if they knew she was a trans woman.[20]

Ashton-Cirillo started taking feminizing hormones "on and off" in 2018, before deciding to transition in May 2019 after what she described as a "35-year wait to embrace myself". She later said that she would have died if she had not transitioned.[22] Her transition has included gender-affirming surgery and hair regrowth.[23] She was writing Fair. Right. Just. as she was coming to terms with her gender identity, and rushed to finish it for fear that she would kill herself.[24] After beginning her transition, she removed both the novel and Along the Tracks of Tears from circulation, explaining:

I realized in hindsight that I hated myself and wasn't true to myself as a writer. A lot of what was going through my mind, especially in the refugee book, was, "What would these people say if I was trans? What would they do?" I felt like a liar because I wasn't living authentically.

Nevada politics Ashton-Cirillo described herself as a progressive activist and leftist libertarian when she was active in Nevada politics, and has since referred to herself as a "recovering political operative"; she has been described in The Washington Post and The Nevada Independent as a liberal activist and in the Las Vegas Review-Journal as "unapologetically left-leaning". She was a registered member of the Democratic Party as of February 2022[update].

Nevada Republican Party and Proud Boys (2020''2021) In September 2020, Ashton-Cirillo began working as an opposition research operative with Republican candidates in Nevada under the name Sarah Cirillo. She later told the Post and Nevada Current that her initial purpose in switching parties was to conduct research for her book on extremism and help her friend, Nadia Krall, get elected to a local judgeship as a Republican. According to The Daily Beast, Ashton-Cirillo convinced Krall to change her party affiliation from Democratic to Republican in order to pick up endorsements from Ashton-Cirillo's high-profile Republican contacts. Taking on a hard-right, Trumpist persona, Ashton-Cirillo developed ties with Nevada Republicans by attending and hosting rallies organized by prominent party figures. She commented to the Post that her record as a liberal activist was available on the internet, and told the Beast that "these guys were too stupid to look into my progressive politics, because they were so eager to tokenize me". She was open about her transgender status. Some were indifferent to it, while Republican attorney Sigal Chattah saw it as a positive and referred to Ashton-Cirillo as a "unicorn".

Following the 2020 presidential election, Ashton-Cirillo became involved with efforts to bring members of the Proud Boys'--a far-right, men-only group that would later play a role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol'--to a rally in front of the Clark County election department, part of nationwide efforts to overturn Joe Biden's victory. The day after the election, Ashton-Cirillo received a message from the vice president of McShane LLC, a firm hired by the Republican Party to investigate electoral fraud. In the message, given to the Post in 2021, the McShane vice president said that Republican Congressman Paul Gosar was planning a "Brooks Brothers Riot" in Arizona'--referencing the 2000 demonstration by Republican staffers that contributed to George W. Bush's victory'--and that Ashton-Cirillo should start planning something similar in Nevada; the McShane vice president said that they should "get the Proud Boys out". This led Ashton-Cirillo to contact a group of far-right activists, at least one of whom was a member of the Proud Boys. The proportion of those wearing Proud Boy colors in the crowd was relatively small, and the protest remained peaceful. Gosar denies having discussed any protests with the McShane vice president.

The Clark County Republican Party subsequently banned seven people from participating in Republican county affairs, citing racist and anti-Semitic texts disclosed to them by Ashton-Cirillo. One of those banned was a Proud Boy who Ashton-Cirillo had contacted when recruiting for the Clark County rally.

Blundo defense and Las Vegas City Council run (2021) Ashton-Cirillo in October 2021In early 2021, Ashton-Cirillo worked to coordinate the defense of Leo Blundo, a Republican Nye County official accused of unlawfully voting to give his own business CARES Act funds. Blundo denounced the accusations as "deep state, swamp behavior" and Ashton-Cirillo hailed him at a press conference as "an innocent man", to applause from the crowd. The Nevada attorney general's office declined to bring charges against Blundo.

By the spring of 2021, Ashton-Cirillo decided to run for Las Vegas City Council as a Democrat under the name Sarah Ashton (having changed her name to Sarah Ashton-Cirillo that March). She initially intended to run in the second ward against the Republican incumbent, Victoria Seaman. In June, she switched her candidacy to the sixth ward, challenging Michele Fiore, also a Republican. Ashton-Cirillo told the Current that she had provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with "copious amounts" of correspondence between her and Fiore, as part of an ongoing FBI probe into Fiore's campaign finance spending.

Ashton-Cirillo withdrew from the race in October, saying she wished to focus on a political news portal she had created, Political.tips.

Political.tips and Chattah texts controversy (2022) Chattah: Do you know that Aaron ford opposed ESA and converting schools in low income areas to charter schoolsAshton-Cirillo: Yes imaginary issues for an imaginary administrationChattah: This guy should be hanging from a fucking craneAshton-Cirillo: And fictional mediaChattah:

He doesn't give a fuck about advancing opportunities in underserved communities.He's a bigger piece of shit than I imaginedIt's so shamefulHe's like the leader of Hamas'--making tons of money while the People in Gaza are starvingAshton-Cirillo, "As Nevada LEO Hack Exposes 'Pretty' Eric Garner Killing; Chattah Text Calls for Ford Hanging. More"

Through Political.tips, Ashton-Cirillo reported on Nevada-related aspects of BlueLeaks, a set of law enforcement data released by Distributed Denial of Secrets in June 2020. In an article related to BlueLeaks, Ashton-Cirillo leaked texts with her former friend, Sigal Chattah, then a Republican candidate for Nevada Attorney General. In the leaked exchange, Chattah compared incumbent Aaron D. Ford to the leader of Hamas and said he "should be hanging from a fucking crane".[37] Ford is Black, and some saw the remark as racist; Ford refused to debate Chattah, saying "she doesn't respect my dignity as a human". Ashton-Cirillo said that she does not think Chattah is racist nor intended to allude to Ford's race, and that her goal in releasing the texts had been to criticize Chattah's temperament. Ford ultimately won re-election; HuffPost highlighted the leaked texts as a major controversy in the race.

Invasion of Ukraine Ashton-Cirillo has said that she began to "hate Russia"[40] after visiting museums in the Baltic States while she was writing a novel, Fair. Right. Just., which she self-published in 2017.[41] When Russia invaded Ukraine in full in February 2022, she traveled to Ukraine with plans to write a book on both the resulting refugee crisis and her previous experience with the Syrian refugee crisis.

Journalism and activism (March''August 2022) Ashton-Cirillo arrived in Ukraine through Poland on 4 March 2022. Having transitioned since her time in Syria, she was initially hesitant to enter the country based on things she had heard about LGBT rights in Ukraine. Ukrainian border authorities made her remove her wig when they reviewed her travel documents. While her Nevada driver's license reflects her changed name and gender identity as a woman, her U.S. passport does not, and as a result, she was issued a press credential that refers to her primarily by her current name but notes her former name as well. Ashton-Cirillo has said she understands both decisions; regarding the latter, she told the Washington Blade, "I was okay with it because I couldn't believe they credentialed me anyway with the situation being the way it was." After entering the country she went to Lviv, and from there, wanting to be closer to the front lines, to Ivano-Frankivsk. There, two men invited her to come to Kharkiv, saying other journalists were fleeing the city because it was too dangerous. At the time she did not have a combat helmet, chest protector, or plates to indicate herself as a member of the press.

Ashton-Cirillo settled in Kharkiv, renting an apartment in North Saltivka'--one of the more heavily bombed parts of the city. This differed from the practice of most foreign journalists, who made trips in and out of the region, some staying at Ashton-Cirillo's apartment. Starting shortly after she arrived in Kharkiv, Ashton-Cirillo reported for LGBTQ Nation on the impact of the war on LGBTQ people,[44] initially as a freelancer. Her work included interviews with gay men fighting in Ukraine,[46] reporting on the challenges faced by LGBTQ Ukrainians trying to leave the country after men of fighting age were prohibited from leaving,[47] and documentation of Russian war crimes against LGBTQ people.[48] She also reported on the war on Twitter and in a serialized book titled Trans at the Front, published over Substack.[49] She appeared on the BBC's Ukrainecast in June to discuss the Russian army's use of castration to terrorize Ukraine's population.

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo Twitter @SarahAshtonLV Incredible news from Kharkiv!

Reports are that Chilean Russian spy @realGonzaloLira has been captured in #Kharkiv (Kharkov).

He is (allegedly) a Russian saboteur posing as a "journalist", to destroy #Ukraine¸.

Congrats to Ukrainian security services.

#StandWithUkraine¸

April 18, 2022

In this same time period, Ashton-Cirillo developed close ties with the Ukrainian army and police, sometimes bringing them food and delivering weapons to checkpoints. After she reported the detention of pro-Russian commentator Gonzalo Lira by Ukrainian security forces, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) falsely accused her of being allied with Nazis and celebrating Lira's supposed murder; Lira was released unharmed the next day. MFA spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted that Ashton-Cirillo is transgender and referenced "liberal queers and 'honest' Western journalists".[52] In the aftermath of this, Ashton-Cirillo began working at Kharkiv Media Hub,[a] part of Media Center Ukraine, and helped Jos(C) Andr(C)s's World Central Kitchen operate in areas retaken from Russia. After she visited the Russian-speaking Ukrainian settlement of Zolochiv, Kharkiv Oblast (15 miles (24 km) from the Russian border), to report on relief efforts, the settlement's mayor made her its official representative so that she could advocate on its behalf with aid groups.[b]

Ashton-Cirillo experienced significant harassment on Twitter from supporters of Russia as a result of Zakharova's post, including threats of kidnapping, torture, and death. She sued an American conservative commentator for defamation after he repeated conspiracy theories that she had had Lira murdered; her lawyer was later ordered to rewrite the suit because it contained "politically-charged declarations and personal attacks". InfoWars, misgendering Ashton-Cirillo, accused her of "palling around with the neo-Nazi Azov battalion members", in what Adam Zivo'--who had previously profiled Ashton-Cirillo for Xtra Magazine'--described in an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner as "a hit piece ... that parroted Russia's discredited claims".

Transition toward military role (August''October 2022) Ashton-Cirillo began to reassess her place in the conflict during the summer of 2022 after witnessing a Russian artillery strike on a building across the street from her in Zolochiv. In his Examiner opinion piece, Zivo said that Ashton-Cirillo had first sought to enlist in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU or UAF) in July, but had delayed her plans in order to support other foreign journalists during the September Ukrainian counteroffensive. She became a civilian employee of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine in August, in addition to her role representing Zolochiv. That same month, she stopped reporting for LGBTQ Nation due to her conflict of interest with the AFU. Her work for the Ukrainian government included writing policy papers and analyses.

Ashton-Cirillo was the first journalist on the scene of the Russian strike on Kyiv on 10 October 2022, which occurred 700 feet (210 m) from where she was staying. Her footage of the aftermath, which showed a dead body in the street, was widely shared on social media subsequently, stoking controversy.[57] She later told Tatiana Vorozhko of Voice of America that she did not expect the controversy, as dead bodies had become routine in East Ukraine.

Military career (October 2022 '' present) Ashton-Cirillo was already prepared to enlist in the AFU by the time of the missile strike on Kyiv, and sought enlistment at a recruitment station shortly thereafter; on 12 October 2022 she announced by tweet that she had entered the AFU as a senior combat medic.[59] She then resigned as a correspondent at LGBTQ Nation. She has said that, "as a country girl from the [American] South" she "know[s] how to shoot", and that she had previous training in medicine. Her colonel determined that her transgender status was not an issue, and she passed the standard physical exam. She completed her combat medic training on 27 October. She was initially assigned to the Noman ‡elebicihan Battalion. According to Ashton-Cirillo and journalist Ayder Muzhdabaev (the latter writing in a blog post with Ukrainska Pravda), the Crimean Tatar unit is led by Lenur Islyamov [uk; ru] .

Ashton-Cirillo does not speak Ukrainian, but communicates with fellow soldiers in English, Spanish, or German, or through Google Translate. In an interview with Croatian TV channel N1 two and a half weeks into her enlistment, she proclaimed, as she had before, that "Ukraine has already won" and called for a return to the 1991 borders. She said that she has been issued an AK-74 in addition to her equipment as a medic and that she would use it to suppress enemy fire. She told the Blade that she had won praise in her unit after Russian state media featured footage of her firing a machine gun and vowing to retake Crimea.

Voice of America interview with Ashton-Cirillo during her December 2022 trip to D.C.In mid''December 2022 Ashton-Cirillo met with members of the United States Congress, including Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), as well as lawmakers' aides, activists, non-governmental organization employees, and members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Invoking her background as an analyst, she argued on behalf of Ukraine that continued military aid to the country would have a high return on investment. She further invited members of the government to come to Ukraine and see the weapons in action.

The name patch on Ashton-Cirillo's uniform (photographed November 2022) reads "Blonde".In February 2023, Ashton-Cirillo, then with the 209th Battalion of the 113th Kharkiv Defense Brigade [uk; it] , advanced toward the front in the Donbas.[64] On 22 February, she was wounded in action by Russian shelling and could not be evacuated for seven hours. She lost some mobility in her right hand and was left with two small scars on her face. According to Ashton-Cirillo, her unit inflicted "tremendous casualties" in the battle in which she was wounded. In a video taken while another soldier bandaged her hand, she said, "They can't kill us. They can't hurt us. Victory is ours. It doesn't fucking matter. Why? Because we're Ukraine".[67] In a subsequent tweet, she said she had been hospitalized. After Ashton-Cirillo was wounded, Russian forces placed a bounty on her, as they have with other high-profile soldiers, causing the Ukrainian Army to cease using her recognizable nickname Blonde over the radio.

A recovered Ashton-Cirillo returned to Washington, D.C., in May, having been promoted to junior sergeant in early April. She met with three members of the House of Representatives and aides for several others, as well as Jos(C) Andr(C)s, whose World Central Kitchen she worked with in Kharkiv. In June, Ashton-Cirillo was assigned to work on English-language media for the Army's Territorial Defense Forces (TDF), and in August she was appointed as one of the TDF's English-language spokespeople. Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister, Hanna Maliar, cited Ashton-Cirillo's reach on Twitter of 28.3 million users over a one-month span and praised her work "debunk[ing] Russian fakes and propaganda".

Impact During her time as a war correspondent, Ashton-Cirillo was thought to have been the only transgender journalist covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine; a 2023 profile by Cady Stanton in USA Today described her as "the world's first openly transgender war correspondent". According to Ashton-Cirillo, many local Ukrainians do not realize that she is transgender. She has said that the other soldiers in her unit do know, and that "some people are completely great with it"; some have asked questions that she says come from places of "genuine curiosity". She has favorably contrasted her experience as a trans person in Ukraine to her experience in the United States:

In the United States, people want to objectify trans folks, and the entire LGBTQ+ community, as a wedge issue. And in Ukraine? If Sarah is willing to fucking go to Russia, we don't care that she's trans because there's nobody else here. She's come on missions with us where we've been shelled. Or she kept on filming as a rocket hit behind her. That's what matters to them.

She has likewise favorably contrasted her experience as a journalist in both countries, telling Vorozhko, "I had more freedom as a reporter in Ukraine, under martial law, than I would trying to even film the police in the United States".

Ashton-Cirillo's mixture of journalism and activism, a controversial practice among journalists, have made her popular among Ukrainians. El Pa­s has described her as "one of the most significant voices for Ukrainian propaganda" and "the most famous soldier in the Ukrainian military". Malcolm Nance, an American media pundit who joined the International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine, praised Ashton-Cirillo's commitment and said, "Artillery shells don't give two fucks about your gender identity. A bullet does not care what pronouns you use. Cold starving people don't care. They just know good humanity when they see it, and that's what I feel she embodies." According to Nance, villagers call Ashton-Cirillo Saravchka, 'our little Sarah'. Zivo has characterized Ashton-Cirillo's popularity among Ukrainians and "the near-total absence of transphobia she has experienced" as emblematic of a larger shift in Ukrainian attitudes toward LGBT people.[75] Ashton-Cirillo has said that the media is "sensationalizing the fact that there is a trans soldier here". According to her, there is at least one other trans woman'--a Ukrainian'--fighting for Ukraine.

Zivo's piece about Ashton-Cirillo in the Examiner, which is often perceived as hostile to trans people, led Evan Urquhart in Slate to remark on the piece's uncharacteristically positive tone. Zivo countered in the National Post that Ashton-Cirillo, as a "conservative-friendly ... patriotic, brave and non-identitarian" trans person, presented an opportunity "to show that human decency can transcend the culture wars", even if "she considers some of [the Examiner 's ] content to be hateful". Ashton-Cirillo has said that her transition does not define her, and "is just an added aspect of who I happen to be". J. K. Rowling, an author known for her controversial views on transgender rights, retweeted Ashton-Cirillo's post about being wounded, which drew the attention of Times Radio and El Pa­s. Ashton-Cirillo told the former that she thanked Rowling for her support of Ukraine and deferred commentary on identity politics. She stressed the importance of freedom of speech, telling El Pa­s "We're willing to die so that people like Rowling have the right to express themselves freely."

Notes ^ a b Ashton-Cirillo began to work at the Kharkiv Media Hub in the aftermath of Maria Zakharova's comments of 21 April 2022 (see § Impact) , but coverage in the Washington Blade does not clarify the exact date, nor when she stopped working there.[1] ^ a b c Ashton-Cirillo became Zolochiv's representative in aid negotiations at some point before 20 July 2022. Her contract was renewed for a year in August. She retained her position after becoming a civilian employee of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense that same month; coverage in the Washington Blade and USA Today does not clarify whether she remained Zolochiv's representative after joining the Armed Forces of Ukraine in October. ^ sÉ-RIL-oh. Her name is cyrillized as ÐаÑа ЕÑтон-ÐіÑіÐ>>Ð>>о [Ësɑrɐ ˌeʃton-siËrilo] in Ukrainian media sources, although her press pass uses -КіÑіÐ>>Ð>>о . References Citations ^ Lavers 2022, referencing Zakharova 2022. ^ Lavers 2022. " 'Some of it had to do with being trans,' she said. 'I had been traveling with Muslims, with different groups, and they were accepting me, but I would always have in the back of my mind, would they have talked to me if they knew I was trans or a female. ' " ^ Zivo 2022d. "[Ashton-Cirillo] revealed that she had struggled with suicidal thoughts prior to her transition and said that, had she not transitioned, she would not be alive right now." ^ Ashton-Cirillo 2022c. "Oh, and after significant surgery and almost three years of hormones and hair regrowth, the photos don't match up either." ^ Zivo 2022a. Lavers 2022, referencing Ashton-Cirillo 2017. ^ Golonka 2022, citing Ashton-Cirillo 2022a ^ Lavers 2022. "Ashton-Cirillo told the Blade that she learned about what Russia had done to them through mid-winter visits to museums. 'That led me to hate Russia, because I'm reading about things that ended up being pertinent today: Filtration camps, the language issues, they were trying to erase culture, the genocide, the torture of political prisoners, everything that we're living now, the folks in the Baltics lived 80 or 90 years ago, as do the Ukrainians, but I hadn't been to Ukraine yet. ' " ^ Lavers 2022, referencing Ashton-Cirillo 2017. ^ Owen 2022, citing Ashton-Cirillo 2022b. ^ Passoth 2022, citing Ashton-Cirillo 2022d. ^ Lavers 2022, citing Ashton-Cirillo 2022f. ^ Owen 2022, citing Ashton-Cirillo 2022i. ^ Zivo 2022a, citing @SarahAshtonLV and Trans at the Front. ^ Young 2022, citing Ashton-Cirillo 2022e and Zakharova 2022. ^ Vorozhko 2022a. O'Brien 2022, 0:46, excerpting audio from Ashton-Cirillo 2022l. ^ Owen 2022, quoting Ashton-Cirillo 2022m. ^ CBS 2023, Lavers 2023a, and Lavers 2023b do not say precisely where Ashton-Cirillo was fighting at the time. 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"An American journalist who joined the AFU was wounded on the front lines" АмеÑиканську жуÑнаÐ>>істку, яка ÐÑиÑ--днаÐ>>ася до ЗÐУ, ÐоÑаниÐ>>и на ÐеÑедовій (in Ukrainian). Ukrinform. 23 February 2023 . Retrieved 24 February 2023 . Urquhart, Evan (25 October 2022). "The Washington Examiner Really Seems to Loathe Trans People. Why Did It Run This Story?". Slate. Archived from the original on 16 November 2022 . Retrieved 15 November 2022 . Vorozhko, Tatiana (17 December 2022a). " 'Whoever you were, if you fight for freedom, Ukraine welcomes you.' American transgender woman, journalist, medic about her war experience" Ким ти не був, якщо ти боÑеÑся за свободу, УкÑаїна вітаÑ-- тебе>>. АмеÑиканська тÑансÐ"ендеÑка, жуÑнаÐ>>істка, медикиня '' ÐÑо свій досвід війни. Voice of America (Article and video) (in Ukrainian). Archived from the original on 23 December 2022 . Retrieved 19 December 2022 . Excerpted in English as: Vorozhko, Tatiana (29 December 2022b). "Former US Journalist Joins Ukraine's Military Medic Unit". Voice of America . Retrieved 24 February 2023 . Wingerter, Justin (1 February 2023). "Denver Lawyer Suspended 30 Months for Sex with Clients, Misplaced Money" . The Denver Post. BusinessDen . Retrieved 24 February 2023 . Young, Cathy (29 April 2022). "The Redpill Grifter Who Became an Anti-Ukraine Propagandist". The Bulwark. Archived from the original on 26 July 2022 . Retrieved 26 July 2022 . Zakharova, Maria (21 April 2022). "Ð' ХаÑькове ÐÑоÐаÐ>> - не выходит на связь с 15 аÐÑеÐ>>я - известный ÑежиссёÑ, ÐисатеÐ>>ь и видеобÐ>>оÐ"ÐµÑ Ð'онсаÐ>>о ЛиÑа" (in Russian). Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original on 10 June 2022 . Retrieved 17 November 2022 '' via Telegram. Translation screenshot linked from Young 2022: "Gonzalo Lira, a video blogger, author, and famous film director and a citizen of the United States and Chile, has not been in contact since April 15 after he went missing in Kharkov". 28 April 2022. Archived from the original on 22 September 2022 . Retrieved 17 November 2022 '' via Imgur. Zivo, Adam (21 July 2022a). "Meet the Trans War Correspondent at Ukraine's Frontlines". Xtra Magazine. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022 . Retrieved 15 September 2022 . Zivo, Adam (17 October 2022b). "Meet the Transgender War Correspondent Breaking Stereotypes in Ukraine". Opinion. Washington Examiner. Archived from the original on 11 November 2022 . Retrieved 15 November 2022 . Zivo, Adam (1 November 2022c). "LGBTQ Activists Need to Tone Down the Anger". NP Comment. National Post . Retrieved 15 November 2022 . Zivo, Adam (6 December 2022d). "Ukraine's Only Transgender Correspondent Has Become a Local Legend". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 24 December 2022 . Retrieved 12 December 2022 . Zivo, Adam (23 December 2022e). "A Ukrainian Victory Is Crucial for Global LGBTQ+ Rights". Commentary. LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022 . Retrieved 24 December 2022 . By Ashton-Cirillo "Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, Author at LGBTQ Nation". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 15 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 . "Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (@SarahAshtonLV)". Twitter (Profile). Archived from the original on 16 November 2022 . Retrieved 16 November 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah. "Sarah Ashton-Cirillo's Trans at the Front Newsletter". Archived from the original on 9 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 '' via Substack. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (2017). Fair. Right. Just.: The Path from a Parochial Education to a Carnal Life. Self-published. ISBN 9781546650461. "Sarah Ashton-Cirillo Withdraws from the Race for Office; Opts to Focus on Newly Launched Portal Political.tips". Political.tips (Press release). 27 October 2021. Archived from the original on 5 September 2022 . Retrieved 5 September 2022 '' via PR Newswire. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (10 December 2021). "Expelled! Will Las Vegas DSA make things right?". The Nevada Independent. Archived from the original on 24 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (17 January 2022a). "As Nevada LEO Hack Exposes 'Pretty' Eric Garner Killing; Chattah Text Calls for Ford Hanging. More". Political.tips. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022 . Retrieved 26 December 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (17 March 2022b). "I'm a Transgender Journalist Covering the War in Ukraine". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 16 November 2022 . Retrieved 25 December 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (22 March 2022c). "This Is What Getting Media Credentials in Ukraine Is Like as a Transgender Journalist with Funky ID". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 25 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (28 March 2022d). "Meet the Gay Ukrainian Men Willing to Go to War for Their Country". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 25 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (18 April 2022). "Incredible news from Kharkiv! Reports are that Chilean Russian spy @realGonzaloLira has been captured in #Kharkiv (Kharkov)" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 20 July 2022 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (18 May 2022f). "Meet the Woman Helping Some LGBTQ Ukrainians Flee the Country as Others Stay to Fight". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 25 December 2022 . Retrieved 25 December 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (20 May 2022g). "For the LGBTQ Community and Other Minorities, War Is Fought Every Day". Gay Sonoma. Archived from the original on 24 September 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (20 June 2022h). "Chapter One: Death came later for me". Trans at the Front (Serialized book). Archived from the original on 11 September 2022 . Retrieved 11 September 2022 '' via Substack. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah (21 June 2022i). "War Crimes Against LGBTQ People in Ukraine Are 'Worse than People Can Imagine' ". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on 25 July 2022 . Retrieved 25 July 2022 . Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (9 July 2022). "And my birthday will end with air raid sirens in the city and artillery battles in the outskirts" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 10 July 2022 . Retrieved 24 January 2023 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (21 August 2022). "Incredible news: The district of Zolochiv territory in northern Kharkiv oblast has extended my contract with the government there for one year" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 26 December 2022 . Retrieved 26 December 2022 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (10 October 2022). "My first report from the Russian attack on Kyiv" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 24 October 2022 . Retrieved 16 November 2022 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (12 October 2022). "Today I was enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Slava Ukraini 🇺ðŸ‡..." (Tweet). Archived from the original on 15 October 2022 . Retrieved 17 November 2022 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (23 February 2023). "I was hit this morning" (Tweet) . Retrieved 23 February 2022 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (23 February 2023). "IThank you for the words. I'm being admitted to a hospital" (Tweet) . Retrieved 24 February 2022 '' via Twitter. Ashton-Cirillo, Sarah [@SarahAshtonLV] (19 June 2023). "I have been assigned to the Headquarters of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine where I undertake English language media projects for TDF units across the country" (Tweet) '' via Twitter. External links Sarah Ashton-Cirillo on the Muck Rack journalist listing siteSarah Ashton-Cirillo on TwitterSarah Ashton-Cirillo's articles for LGBTQ Nation

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Archived Version

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:20

A Las Vegas police captain was named on Tuesday as the new chief of the Maui Police Department in Hawaii after a unanimous vote from the Maui Police Commission.

Capt. John Pelletier, a 22-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, was one of five finalists interviewed for the position on Friday by the commission.

Maui Mayor Michael Victorino congratulated Pelletier in a statement posted to the County of Maui's Facebook page on Wednesday.

''We look forward to welcoming him to Maui County from the ninth island of Las Vegas,'' Victorino said in the statement, adding that all five finalists for the position were qualified and willing to serve. ''The people of Maui County are fortunate to have this level of commitment to this community.''

A common theme throughout Friday's meeting, which was emphasized by the commission's decision to livestream the interviews, was a push for openness and transparency within the Maui Police Department, commission Chair Frank De Rego said.

Pelletier told the commission that during his time with Metro he has run the K-9 and SWAT sections, been a detective sergeant in the gang unit, been in internal affairs and been an instructor in the police academy, among other positions. He said he sees the new job as an opportunity to use his experience to ''reboot the entire department.''

When asked why he would be the right fit, Pelletier capitalized on his experience heading an area command in one of the largest tourist destinations in the world.

''I understand tourist-based policing and community-based policing at the highest level,'' Pelletier said. ''I understand that the citizens of Maui County deserve to have the best police service possible in order to move forward, and it's my job, my desire, my wish to come here and help take this agency, which is good, and make it great.''

Pelletier reflected on the four-year anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting during his interview and described leading the area command that covers the Strip that night as his greatest professional achievement. He said he was at home when he got a call alerting him about an active shooter in his area command.

He recalled the ''incredible loss of life'' Las Vegas saw that day, including the death of one police officer, and said he believes his experience leading a team of officers that day has prepared him to handle any situation going forward.

''It took years to build that response. It took years to get that right, but we got that right, and we got our hands around it, and we did something incredible,'' he said of Metro's response after the mass shooting. ''We took the biggest crime scene, second only to 9/11, and we did everything to mitigate that. We brought a community together. We did something really, really great.''

Pelletier will not be the first police chief in Hawaii from Las Vegas.

Kauai Police Chief Todd Raybuck took over the department in 2019 after a 27-year career in the Metropolitan Police Department, but he recently has found himself in the middle of controversy.

Last month, a police captain on the island of Kauai filed suit against Raybuck, alleging that the chief discriminated against him for being Japanese American.

The police commission suspended Raybuck in April and said he would be required to complete Equal Employment Opportunity anti-discrimination training and cultural sensitivity training.

When asked how he would address cultural, racial and ethnic issues in Hawaii, Pelletier acknowledged the ''painful and serious'' history within the state's multi-cultural community and emphasized the importance of diversity.

''Our diversity is our strength, make no mistake about that,'' Pelletier said, promising to ensure adequate training for all officers.

''Don't be afraid to do a critical assessment of yourself and ask what's going right, what's going wrong and how we can get better and talk. And guess what? We will break those barriers down,'' Pelletier said. ''I'll tell you this: When I raise my hand and I swear my oath as the chief of police, it will be to protect all the people in Hawaii and make sure that everybody feels that they have equal protection under the law, so help me God.''

He also swore to introduce two community policing practices currently used by Metro to the Maui Police Department: a multicultural advisory council to meet with the chief once a month, and First Tuesday gatherings led by each district commander monthly to allow community members to make their voices heard.

Contact Alexis Ford at aford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexisdford on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:58

by Paul Alexander

August 9, 2023

the unvaccinated person can now shed to another unvaccinated person & so on! its like when you sleep with someone, you are sleeping with all of their partners; this mRNA vaccine has huge implicationsthe implications long-term will unfold in time, and it can be catastrophic for children of parents who took the vaccine, and I and others warned them not to!

we begged them not to!

no one in my orbit have taken the shots on account of me, and rode through COVID, kids, not one was harmed, nothing!

The 10 Horsemen must be examined, all and punished once wrong is shown in legal settings, including death penalty! If a judge and jury calls for it! Their actions killed and it is time the Freedom Fighter media like EPOCH do their damn jobs and stop misdirecting the public with bull shit fluff pieces'...do real journalism, examine the Horsemen. You know where and who they are.

Sadly, many good people, misled, will die in the future due to taking the shot (s). We warned them. Many good police, military. The best among us.

Key now is to detox, to dissolve the spike protein (from virus) from the vaccine. Critical is the vaccine induced spike, more load and deadlier. 24/7 production by your cellular machinary. We are hoping it works as good as in the preliminary research studies and have no reason to think not.

Dr. Peter McCullough's presentation here is riveting and really links the Spike Recovery with NATTOKINASE as a possible support solution to handle the ravages of the spike protein:

SOURCE:

https://rumble.com/v2i7r9u-hearts-destroyed-by-myocarditis-this-spike-protein-is-a-killer.html

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Archived Version

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 23:12

CNN '--

Certain kinds of cancer are being diagnosed more often in younger adults in the US, a new study shows, and the increases seem to be driven by cancers in women and adults in their 30s.

A government-funded study of 17 National Cancer Institute registries, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, looked at more than 500,000 cases of early-onset cancer, or cancers diagnosed in patients under age 50, between 2010 and 2019. The study found that overall, early-onset cancers increased over that decade, by an average of 0.28% each year.

The change seemed to be driven by rates of cancer in younger women, which went up an average of 0.67% each year; at the same time, rates decreased in men by 0.37% each year.

There were 34,233 early-onset cancer cases in women in 2010 and 35,721 in 2019, an increase of 4.35%, the study says. Among men, cases fell 4.91%, from 21,818 in 2010 to 20,747 in 2019.

The rate of cancer diagnosis increased in adults in their 30s over the decade but remained stable in other under-50 age groups, the study found. At the same time, the rate of cancers in adults 50 and older is going down.

When the researchers looked at cancer trends for younger adults by race, they found that early-onset cancers were going up fastest among people who identify as American Indian or Alaska Natives, Asians and Hispanics. On average, the growth rates of early-onset cancers remained stable in White people and decreased in Black people between 2010 and 2019.

Cancers with the highest numbers of early-onset cases­ diagnosed in 2019 were breast (12,649 cases), thyroid (5,869) and colorectal cancers (4,097).

The biggest increases in early-onset cases were in cancers of the appendix, which went up 252%; cancers of the bile duct, which went up 142%; and uterine cancer, which increased 76%.

Incidence rates of early-onset cancers of the gastrointestinal tract grew the fastest from 2010 to 2019, increasing nearly 15%. Previous research has shown a rise in cancers of the digestive system, particularly colorectal cancers, among adults younger than 55 since the 1990s.

These increases are not confined to the US, studies say. A review of cancer registry records in 44 countries, published last year, found that the incidence of early-onset cancers is rising rapidly for 14 types of cancer, many of which affect the digestive system.

The authors of that review said the upswing is happening in part because of more sensitive screening tests as well as other causes that need investigation.

Dr. Otis Brawley, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Oncology and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, has some theories about what's behind the rising rates.

''The largest cause of cancer in the United States right now is smoking, but smoking rates [have been] going down since the 1960s,'' he said. ''It's in the next couple of years that the biggest cause of cancer in the United States is going to be not obesity but obesity, consumption of too many calories and not enough exercise. '... My gut suspicion is that a large part of this trend is lifestyle, or it's driven by increased caloric consumption, increased obesity and not enough exercise.''

Another possible cause is alcohol use, he said. ''There's been a rise in alcohol-related cancers over the last few years. We now think about 6% or so of cancers in the United States are due to alcohol consumption, especially binge drinking.''

To lower your overall cancer risk, Brawley recommends ''very basic principles'': ''Try to maintain a healthy weight. Try to exercise. Try to maintain a good diet with five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day, preferably fresh fruits. Try to decrease the amount of processed foods in the diet.''

CNN's John Bonifield contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 07:26

Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) is a profile that describes those whose main characteristic is to avoid everyday demands and expectations to an extreme extent. We explain the'¯history of PDA,'¯what a PDA profile is, the'¯assessment process'¯and what'¯current research'¯tells us. We also highlight some'¯personal and professional'¯insights.

History of PDA Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) was a term first used by Professor Elizabeth Newson in the 1980s, to describe the profile of a group of children she had seen for assessment.

PDA first appeared in a'¯journal article in 2003.

Elizabeth Newson described PDA as sitting under the umbrella of'¯Pervasive Developmental Disorder.The diagnostic criteria for autism are continually reviewed and developed. Currently the categories of '¯Pervasive Developmental Disorders are now being replaced by autism spectrum disorders.Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) is increasingly, but not universally, accepted as a profile that is seen in some autistic people.The term Extreme Demand Avoidance emerged as an alternative term'¯to Pathological Demand Avoidance as some feel extreme is a more acceptable term than pathological.'¯ What is PDA?'¯ The existence of PDA as a 'diagnostic term' and how it fits within the autism spectrum is widely debated. With limited evidence-based research there is no conclusive and agreed upon definition of PDA. What is generally agreed upon is what is often referred to as a PDA profile. Here we will detail what is meant by this profile.'¯'¯

People with a PDA profile are driven to avoid everyday demands and expectations to an extreme extent. This demand avoidance is often (but according to some PDA adults, not always) accompanied by high levels of anxiety.

Although there is no prevalence study as yet, the demand avoidant profile is thought to be '¯relatively uncommon. However, it's important to recognise and understand this distinct profile as it has implications for the way a person is best supported.

Demand avoidance isn't just seen in those with a PDA profile so would need to be seen with a number of other features, as described below.

Features of a PDA profile Autism is dimensional, meaning individual profiles can vary considerably depending on the combination of a person's strengths and difficulties across two key dimensions:

how someone relates sociallythe need for sameness, often resulting in repetitive or rigid thoughts and behaviours. People with a PDA profile can appear to have better social understanding and communication skills than some other autistic people, and are often able to use this to their advantage. However, these apparent social abilities can often mask difficulty with processing and understanding communication and social situations.'¯

The distinctive features of a demand avoidant profile include:

resists and avoids the ordinary demands of lifeuses social strategies as part of avoidance, for example, distracting, giving excusesappears sociable, but lacks some understandingexperiences excessive mood swings and impulsivityappears comfortable in role play and pretencedisplays obsessive behaviour that is often focused on other people. People with this profile can appear excessively controlling and dominating, especially when they feel anxious. However, they can also be confident and engaging when they feel secure and in control. It's important to acknowledge that these people have a hidden disability.

People with a PDA profile are likely to need a lot of support. The earlier the recognition of PDA, the sooner appropriate support can be put in place.

PDA and assessment An autism assessment is important as it gives an accurate diagnostic label and identifies what specific support and interventions a person may require. International and American diagnostic manuals do not currently recognise PDA as a separate diagnosis or a subgroup within the autism spectrum. There hasn't been enough research for PDA to be used as a diagnostic term, but some clinical diagnostic teams do describe it as a profile that they recognise within the autism spectrum. This recognition of need has been found to be helpful when signposting to other professionals for support.

From an autism assessment It should be possible to get a detailed profile of your strengths and needs, regardless of whether or not they recognise the term PDA.

A PDA profile is usually identified following a diagnostic assessment for autism.

To begin the assessment process, ask your GP for a referral to the local adult autism diagnosis service.

Getting a formal diagnosis can mean access to support, but having a specific profile of your strengths and differences is key to getting the right support. With a detailed profile, support can be tailored to all aspects of life '' home, leisure, work '' and should be regularly reviewed as your needs change over time. As PDA is not currently recognised as a standalone diagnosis, it is even more important that you have a clear description of needs and strengths so that support and strategies meet your needs at that time of life.

What the research says about PDA The last five years have seen an increase in the number of research papers written about PDA or EDA. However, the research remains extremely limited.'¯ Within the research there is some consensus that:'¯

the term PDA may be a useful term to flag up a range of co-occurring difficulties for many people, with or without an autism diagnosisany approach should be personalised to the needs of the individual.However, there is generally no consensus on:

whether PDA is a separate, clinically diagnosable conditionwhether PDA is or is not a specific subtype of autismthe best way to support people with a PDA profile. There is a need for more research in this area as the existing research is very limited.

Personal and professional insights Sally Cat:'¯graphic memes about PDA'¯and a'¯blog about adult PDA

Riko Ryuki:'¯Blog about Riko's PDA journey'¯

Further information and support PDA SocietyElisabeth Newson Centre Lorna Wing Centre Autism Associates'¯

Useful research references Egan et al (2018) The Measurement of Adult Pathological Demand Avoidance TraitsEaton and Banting (2012) Adult diagnosis of pathological demand avoidance '' subsequent care planning Gillberg et al (2015) Extreme (''pathological'') demand avoidance in autism: a general population study in the Faroe Islands Green et al (2018) Pathological demand avoidance: symptoms but not a syndromeNewson et al (2003) Pathological demand avoidance syndrome: a necessary distinction within the pervasive developmental disorders'¯ O'Nions et al (2014) Pathological demand avoidance: exploring the behavioural profile O'Nions et al (2014) Development of the 'Extreme Demand Avoidance Questionnaire' (EDA'Q): preliminary observations on a trait measure for Pathological Demand Avoidance O'Nions et al (2016) Identifying features of 'pathological demand avoidance' using the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders (DISCO) O'Nions et al (2018) Demand avoidance is not necessarily defiance.

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Archived Version

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 21:57

Simpson33 | Istock | Getty Images

The decline of traditional TV continues, even as the prices of streaming services rise.

Total traditional TV usage, comprised of broadcast and pay TV, dropped below 50% in July for the first time ever, according to Nielsen's monthly streaming report, The Gauge.

Usage among pay-TV customers fell to 29.6% of TV, while broadcast dropped to a 20% share during the month. Streaming made up nearly 39% of usage in July, the largest share reported since Nielsen's first time reporting the monthly numbers in The Gauge in June 2021.

Pay TV has steadily declined as consumers cut traditional bundles and opt for streaming. The rate of that drop-off has only accelerated since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when streaming usage surged.

Major pay-TV providers, such as Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications , often report quarterly drops in customers. Comcast and Charter lost 543,000 and 200,000 pay-TV subscribers during the second quarter, respectively.

"We think the metrics for linear TV are all bad," Tim Nollen, a Macquarie senior media tech analyst, said in a recent report.

Pay-TV operators reported a weighted average 9.6% decline in subscribers year over year '-- losses that amount to about 4.4 million households '-- and pricing "does not drive upside," according to Macquarie's report.

The overall number of pay-TV households has steadily declined. There were 41 million pay-TV households during the second quarter, down from 50 million and 45 million in the same periods in 2021 and 2022, respectively, according to Macquarie.

Year-over-year, pay-TV viewership was down 12.5%, while broadcast was down 5.4%, according to Nielsen.

The rise of streaming services, from Netflix to Disney 's Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ to Warner Bros. Discovery 's Max often take the blame. But many of these operators, including Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast, are fighting to gain share and bring in profits from streaming while their pay-TV channels and businesses deteriorate.

Although viewers are turning more to streaming, subscriber growth for those platforms has slowed, especially for larger services such as Netflix and Disney+. Fledgling apps such as Paramount 's Paramount+ and Comcast's Peacock have seen more member growth but have smaller subscriber bases.

Streaming companies have turned from using subscriber growth as a measure of success, and instead are pushing to reach profitability in the segment as the traditional TV business shrinks.

Many consumers left the traditional TV bundle due to its steep prices. Now, streamers are also raising prices across the board '-- including Disney for ad-free Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions '-- in a bid to boost revenue.

Lackluster streaming subscriber growth hasn't helped much in their bid for profitability, Macquarie noted in its report.

Patrick J. Adams as Mike Ross on "Suits."

Shane Mahood | USA Network | NBC Universal | Getty Images

Advertising is playing a bigger role in driving revenue and companies are looking to crack down on password sharing. Cutting content expenses, especially for original programming, has also been a big part of the cost-cutting strategy.

The move away from originals comes as licensed programming, especially from traditional outlets, is often some of the most-watched content.

For Netflix, a recent hit has been "Suits," the series that originally aired on NBCUniversal's cable channel USA Network. The show that co-stars Meghan Markle was previously only streaming on Peacock. The series looks to have driven streaming viewership on Netflix, as well as Peacock, accounting for 18 billion viewing minutes in July, according to Nielsen.

Netflix viewership rose 4.2% during the month, bringing streamers to 8.5% of total TV usage. Behind it followed Hulu, Amazon's Prime Video and Disney+, which likely got a boost from the kids cartoon, "Bluey," another licensed program rather than an original.

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Archived Version

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 19:17

The number of men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction has soared in recent years amid what some have described as a 'silent epidemic'.

Viagra - the 'little blue pill' - is normally associated with old people but the most recent figures suggest an estimated 30 million American men now live with erectile dysfunction - nearly twice as many in the early 2000s.

Around a quarter of under-40s are though to struggle to get it up in bed, which has been linked to a rise in obesity rates, poor mental health, and an overconsumption of pornography.

Northeastern states like Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire have relatively high median ages. ED is typically more common in older men

States where ED meds are most commonHawaii

Massachusetts

Connecticut

Vermont

New York

Minnesota

Rhode Island

California

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

States where ED meds are least common Utah

Idaho

Arkansas

South Dakota

Wyoming

Mississippi

Oklahoma

Tennessee

Kansas

North Carolina

Pill prescribing rates vary by state, but research shows the ones that lean left politically tend to have more little blue pills in circulation which, men's health experts say, could translate to more open dialogue between patients and doctors about sexual health issues that are taboo in many conservative states.

Dr Helen Bernie, Director of Sexual and Reproductive Medicine at Indiana University said: 'What you see from that top 10 list, those are your more progressive states, right? New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Nevada.

'Those are typically more progressive states where they have better reproductive rights so you would assume that maybe people talk about sex a little bit more, maybe it's a little bit more ok to prescribe these medicines.'

Overall, Southern states had far fewer pill bottles in circulation, with the exception of Florida, where ED prescriptions made up 0.25 percent of the total filled there.

'Then you look at the alternative. Down south, the strong Bible Belt, there's a lot strong religious tie and, just in general, people don't talk about sex, we can only talk about abstinence or pregnancy.

'And so perhaps doctors aren't asking their patients about sexual activities so they're not prescribing as much of the medication. It's taboo.'

It is for this reason that Dr Bernie said that the true number of men with erectile dysfunction is likely much higher than the estimated 30 million.

If a doctor living in a conservative-leaning area where sex is not freely discussed does not bring up a taboo subject in the safety of the exam room, the patient likely won't either.

Erectile dysfunction is often a biomarker for a man's overall health. An inability to get or maintain erection could be a result of undiagnosed high cholesterol or blood pressure or even a warning sign of cardiovascular disease.

Dr Bernie added: 'I mean, that's the most simple question you're going to have to ask: Do you have any problems achieving or maintaining an erection? And by asking that simple question, you will get an answer and it will open up the dialogue between the patients to be able to actually ask questions and seek treatment options for preventative health.'

Erectile dysfunction is most often considered in older men because of the many age-related changes the body undergoes such as naturally declining testosterone levels, weakened pelvic muscles, and a loss of the necessary nerve function that helps the brain communicate with other systems in the body that leads to an erection.

But in younger men, the source of the problem is often psychological. Performance anxiety and high levels of stress can affect the delicate balance of hormones in the body and functioning of the nervous system.

Testosterone levels typically peak at around the age of 20 followed by a slow descent throughout the rest of adulthood. At their highest, testosterone levels should be anywhere between 300 and 1,200 ng/dL. Once men hit their mid-thirties, testosterone levels begin declining by at least one percent per year.

Pornography use and overuse can also contribute to ED. Constant exposure to explicit images and videos desensitizes the viewer, making the brain less responsive to sexual stimuli such as your partner standing in front of you naked.

And repeat exposure to porn can lead to the same disruptions in the brain as do hard drugs.

The brain's reward system releases dopamine when something that feels good happens, whether it's finding food in the middle of a desert, snorting cocaine, or watching hardcore porn.

Over time, the brain becomes used to the images and videos and does not get the same heavy hit of dopamine when the person presses play. This hinders the brain's reward system and makes it more difficult for the brain to get excited for the real thing.

But people's penchant for porn likely won't change any time soon. Internet viewing has ticked up consistently over the past two decades, suggesting that the pool of young men with ED will expand.

And as the US population gets grayer by the year, the prevalence of erectile issues could potentially increase still further, translating to even bigger profit margins for the companies behind blockbuster drugs like Viagra and Cialis.

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Tue, 15 Aug 2023 07:35

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen attends an event on the Inflation Reduction Act after visiting the site of a new paperless processing initiative in McLean, Virginia, on August 2, 2023.

Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

WASHINGTON '-- Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday said the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 law that spurred major investments in infrastructure, manufacturing and climate goals, has propelled the U.S. economic recovery.

"Over the past year, our task has been to transition the economy from rapid recovery to stable growth," Yellen said. "Our path so far shows that we are on the right track, even as we remain vigilant about potential challenges and uncertainties."

The Treasury chief touted the historic creation of over 13 million new jobs since President Joe Biden took office, recovery from record inflation and an unemployment rate comparable to the lowest in 54 years, as she spoke before the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 357 Training Center in Las Vegas.

She partly attributed the progress to "Bidenomics," the term used to describe President Joe Biden's economic growth strategy that includes the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the IRA, which was signed a year ago this week.

The term emerged on the political landscape in the past year, first used by Republicans to describe high inflation and the interest rate hikes that were meant to cure it.

But as economic indicators improved this spring on both fronts, Democrats saw an opening to flip the GOP attack line and embrace "Bidenomics," much like former President Barack Obama did with Obamacare.

In her remarks Monday, Yellen touted steadying headline inflation numbers, which were up 3.2% in July from a year prior, compared to a 9.1% yoy peak in June 2022 and average hourly earnings growth as evidence that "workers are better off than they were last year."

"The continued strength of our labor market is particularly impressive given our fight against inflation," she said. "We know that progress rarely moves in a straight line. But I still believe that there is a path to continue reducing inflation while maintaining a healthy labor market."

Yellen noted that U.S. companies have committed to more than $500 billion in manufacturing and clean energy investments since January 2021.

"The explosion in U.S. factory construction is a uniquely American story: one that we do not see replicated in other peer countries," Yellen said.

Nearly 80 clean energy manufacturing facilities or expansions have been announced in the past year, an amount exceeding the prior eight years combined, per the American Clean Power Association. Dozens of companies have also declared plans to invest in manufacturing facilities in more than 20 states, according to Senate Democrats.

Despite the strong economic numbers, Republicans have continued to pressure the administration on the economy, with Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., pointing to continued high prices for goods and services following the July jobs report.

"'Bidenomics' fueled a spike in the price of everything from gas to groceries to homes, and fighting it with interest rates, by design, puts the brakes on the economy, including the job market," the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee said.

Brian Deese, former director of the National Economic Council under Biden, said last week that it is up to Democrats to sell the economic impact of the IRA to voters in the leadup to the 2024 election.

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Mon, 14 Aug 2023 23:26

The Great Read

In the pandemic emergency, Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive freely lent out digital scans of its library. Publishers sued. Owning a book means something different now.

The Internet Archive's lending program has long involved scanning books and offering them to readers under a practice called controlled digital lending. Credit... Ann Johansson for The New York Times By David Streitfeld

David Streitfeld has been writing about books and technology for 25 years.

Published Aug. 13, 2023 Updated Aug. 14, 2023, 2:34 p.m. ET

Information wants to be free. That observation, first made in 1984, anticipated the internet and the world to come. It cost nothing to digitally reproduce data and words, and so we have them in numbing abundance.

Information also wants to be expensive. The right information at the right time can save a life, make a fortune, topple a government. Good information takes time and effort and money to produce.

Before it turned brutally divisive, before it alarmed librarians, even before the lawyers were unleashed, the latest battle between free and expensive information started with a charitable gesture.

Brewster Kahle runs the Internet Archive, a venerable tech nonprofit. In that miserable, frightening first month of the Covid pandemic, he had the notion to try to help students, researchers and general readers. He unveiled the National Emergency Library, a vast trove of digital books mostly unavailable elsewhere, and made access to it a breeze.

This good deed backfired spectacularly. Four publishers claimed ''willful mass copyright infringement'' and sued. They won. On Friday, the publishers said through their trade association that they had negotiated a deal with the archive that would remove all their copyright books from the site.

''The proposed judgment is an appropriately serious bookend to the court's decisive finding of liability,'' said Maria Pallante, chief executive of the Association of American Publishers. ''We feel very good about it.''

The archive had a muted response, saying that it expected there would be changes to its lending program but that their full scope was unknown. There is also an undisclosed financial payment if the archive loses on appeal.

The case has generated a great deal of bitterness, and the deal, which was immediately approved by the judge, is likely to generate more. Each side accuses the other of bad faith, and calls its opponents well-funded zealots who won't listen to reason and want to destroy the culture.

In the middle of this mess are writers, whose job is to produce the books that contain much of the world's best information. Despite that central role, they are largely powerless '-- a familiar position for most writers. Emotions are running high.

Six thousand writers signed a petition supporting the lawsuit, and a thousand names are on a petition denouncing it. The Romance Writers of America and the Western Writers of America joined a brief in favor of the publishers, while Authors Alliance, a group of 2,300 academics whose mission is to serve the public good by widely sharing their creations, submitted a brief for the archive.

It's rarely this nasty, but free vs. expensive is a struggle that plays out continuously against all forms of media and entertainment. Neither side has the upper hand forever, even if it sometimes seems it might.

''The more information is free, the more opportunities for it to be collected, refined, packaged and made expensive,'' said Stewart Brand, the technology visionary who first developed the formulation. ''The more it is expensive, the more workarounds to make it free. It's a paradox. Each side makes the other true.''

A Cultural Tug of War Image Mr. Kahle at the Internet Archive in San Francisco. Credit... Cayce Clifford for The New York Times Universal access to all knowledge was a dream of the early internet. It's an idea that Mr. Kahle (pronounced ''kale'') has long championed. As the United States lurched to a halt in March 2020, he saw an opportunity. The Internet Archive would be a temporary bridge between beleaguered readers and the volumes shut away in libraries and schools.

It didn't turn out that way, not a bit '-- the emergency library shut down in June 2020 '-- and three years later Mr. Kahle remained angry and frustrated. There was one bright spot. The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, the capital of Silicon Valley, had just passed a resolution in support of digital libraries and the Internet Archive.

The resolution was largely symbolic, but the message was exactly the one that Mr. Kahle had been trying to get across without much success, particularly in court. It championed ''the essential rights of all libraries to own, preserve and lend both digital and print books.''

''Libraries came before publishers,'' the 62-year-old librarian said in a recent interview in the former Christian Science church in western San Francisco that houses the archive. ''We came before copyright. But publishers now think of libraries as customer service departments for their database products.''

Librarians are custodians. Mr. Kahle has spent his career working in tech, but he wants the future to behave a little more like the past.

''If I pay you for an e-book, I should own that book,'' he said. ''Companies used to sell things. Media companies now rent them instead. It's like they have tentacles. You pull the book off the shelf and say, 'I think I'll keep this,' and then the tentacle yanks it back.''

Some necessary background: When a physical book is sold, the ''first sale'' provision of copyright law says the author and publisher have no control over that volume's fate in the world. It can be resold, and they don't get a cut. It can be lent out as many times as readers demand. The information in the text flows freely through society without leaving a trace. Religions and revolutions have been built on this.

Thanks to their digital nature, e-books are treated much differently. They can't be resold or given away. A library that wants to lend e-books must buy a license from the copyright holder. These subscriptions can be limited to a number of reads, or by periods of a year or two. Everything is tracked. Libraries own nothing.

Image The Internet Archive is housed inside a former Christian Science church in western San Francisco. Credit... Cayce Clifford for The New York Times Image The archive defended making its own e-books by citing fair use, a legal reason for quoting and excerpting copyrighted material, and the ''first sale'' doctrine. Credit... Cayce Clifford for The New York Times Image Flags outside the archive's headquarters. Universal access to all knowledge is a dream of the early internet that Mr. Kahle has long championed with the archive. Credit... Cayce Clifford for The New York Times The Internet Archive's lending program, developed long before the pandemic, involved scanning physical books and offering them to readers in its Open Library, a practice called controlled digital lending.

One reader at a time could borrow each scanned book. If the library or one of its partners had two copies, two readers at a time could borrow it. The archive defended making its own e-books by citing fair use, a broad legal concept that permits copyrighted material to be quoted and excerpted, and the first-sale doctrine: It could do what it wanted with its own books.

No dice, wrote Judge John G. Koeltl of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. His decision granting summary judgment for the publishers in March went far beyond the pandemic library. Any benefit for research and cultural participation, he said, was outweighed by harm to the publishers' bottom line.

The Internet Archive lost its court battle at a moment of rising concern about whether tech, entertainment and media companies are up to the job of maintaining the public's access to a wide-ranging culture. Warner Bros. Discovery, for example, wanted to scale back its Turner Classic Movies cable channel, a citadel of cinema history and art. It was stopped by an uproar.

New technology means culture is delivered on demand, but not all culture. When Netflix shipped DVDs to customers, there were about 100,000 to choose from. Streaming, which has a different economics, has reduced that to about 6,600 U.S. titles. Most are contemporary. Only a handful of movies on Netflix were made between 1940 and 1970.

Libraries have traditionally been sanctuaries for culture that could not afford to pay its own way, or that was lost or buried or didn't fit current tastes. But that is at risk now.

''The permanence of library collections may become a thing of the past,'' said Jason Schultz, director of New York University's Technology Law & Policy Clinic. ''If the platforms decide not to offer the e-books or publishers decide to pull them off the shelves, the reader loses out. This is similar to when songs you look for on Spotify are blanked out because the record company ended the license or when movies or television shows cycle off Netflix or Amazon.''

The triumphant publishers '-- HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette and John Wiley & Sons '-- declined to comment through the Association of American Publishers. In its ''reflections'' on the case, the publishers' group said it was simply protecting the rights of writers.

''In the world of publishing, authors are our heroes,'' it said.

The publishers association said the archive was unrepentant and impossible to negotiate with: It ''refused to halt or engage in discussions, and after being sued, it chose to accelerate its activities.''

Mr. Kahle denied refusing to negotiate. ''They never approached us '-- they just sued,'' he said.

The Authors Guild, which submitted a brief on behalf of the publishers, said Mr. Kahle and his supporters needed to recognize that rights available to owners of physical books simply did not make sense in the digital era.

''Digital is different than print because it is infinitely copyable and unprotectable,'' said Mary Rasenberger, the chief executive of the guild and a copyright lawyer. ''If anyone could call themselves a library, set up a website and do the exact same thing the archive did, writers would have absolutely no control over their work anymore.''

Traditional libraries promote discovery, but publishers perennially worry that they cost sales.

''Most publishers are not purely profit-driven,'' Ms. Rasenberger said. ''If one were, you could imagine it might not allow libraries to have e-books at all.''

Writers Caught in the Middle Image Recently arrived books that the Internet Archive had yet to catalogue. Credit... Lianne Milton for The New York Times Image The archive also catalogues film and video among its wide variety of media. Credit... Lianne Milton for The New York Times The Internet Archive is best known for the Wayback Machine, which allows access to web pages of the past. Mr. Kahle is a longtime fixture in digital information circles, an enthusiast whose zeal is palpable.

He was an entrepreneur of information in the 1990s, culminating in a search and web analysis engine called Alexa, after the Library of Alexandria. Amazon bought Alexa in 1999 for $250 million, years before it introduced a personal assistant with the same name. Mr. Kahle turned his full attention to the archive, which he founded in 1996 and which now employs about a hundred people. It is supported by donations, grants and the scanning it does for other libraries.

In 2021, when the archive celebrated its 25th anniversary, Mr. Kahle talked about the fate of the internet in an era of megacorporations: ''Will this be our medium or will it be theirs? Will it be for a small controlling set of organizations or will it be a common good, a public resource?''

The archive had been lending book scans for years. Publishers did not like it but did not sue. What made the pandemic emergency library different was that the brakes were removed. If 10 people, or 100 people, wanted to read a particular book, they could all do so at once.

The emergency library ''was as limited as a small city library's circulation level,'' Mr. Kahle insisted. ''This was always under control.''

But it did not appear that way to the writers who took to Twitter to point out that the books in the library were written by human beings who were often poorly paid and not benefiting from this free information at all.

Margaret Owen, an author of popular books for young adults, wrote in a 23-post broadside on Twitter that offering up free books to an audience that could afford to pay for them was, ''at this point in history, cutting into our money for hospital and/or funeral bills.''

The publishers sued over 127 titles, many by well-known writers, including J.D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, James Patterson, John Grisham and Malcolm Gladwell. They asked damages of $150,000 a book.

Some writers had second thoughts. N.K. Jemisin and Colson Whitehead deleted their critical tweets. Ms. Owen, asked last month by The New York Times if she stood by her tweets, responded by making her account private. Chuck Wendig, a science fiction writer, tweeted in the heat of the moment that the emergency library was ''piracy.'' He was quoted in news reports and criticized by archive fans, and now has a post expressing regrets.

Mr. Wendig says he had no part in the lawsuit and does not support it. Three of the plaintiffs are his publishers, but they have ''very little regard for me and do not listen to me at all,'' he wrote in a blog post.

Some writers '-- ones who generally do not depend on their writing to make a living '-- were always against the suit.

''Authors of all types fight constantly against the risk of digital obscurity; for many readers, especially younger readers, if a book is not online, it effectively does not exist to them,'' wrote Authors Alliance, which is based in Berkeley, Calif., in its brief in support of the archive. (Mr. Kahle is on the alliance's 25-member advisory board but played no part in the brief.)

A third group of writers have continued and even deepened their opposition to the archive.

Douglas Preston, a best-selling thriller writer, pretty much single-handedly led a wing of the writing community in opposition to Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, when the bookseller was embroiled in a dispute with Hachette several years ago. Mr. Preston, a former president of the Authors Guild, now sees Mr. Kahle and his philosophy as more of a threat than Mr. Bezos.

''Capitalists may be obnoxious and selfish and in firm need of restraint, but the truly dangerous people in this world are the true believers who want to impose their utopian vision on everyone else,'' Mr. Preston said.

Writers, he added, ''are subjected to disparagement and online abuse whenever we defend copyright or push back on the 'information wants to be free' movement. On tech websites we're told we're selfish, we're Luddites, we're elitists.''

Information Wants to Be Easy Image Mr. Kahle, in a warehouse in 2012, has spent years digitizing information. Credit... Lianne Milton for The New York Times Among the many points on which the two sides disagree is how many libraries across the country were lending scans of copyrighted material. Only a few, say the publishers, who paint the Internet Archive as an outlier; many, says the archive, which argues this is a broad trend.

Karl Stutzman is the director of library services at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind. He recently had a request from a faculty member for excerpts from a 30-year-old theology text to use in a class in Ethiopia, where the seminary has students. No e-book was available, and a query to the publisher went nowhere.

In the past, the library would have cited fair use and provided scans to the students via secure software, but after the March court ruling, Mr. Stutzman said, it's unclear what is allowed. One chapter? Two? How many students can see a scan? Fifty? Five?

''I'm caught between enforcing the current legal paradigms around copyright and allowing my colleagues to have academic freedom in what they assign students to read,'' Mr. Stutzman said. He plans to tell teachers that they need to choose material that is easy to license, even if it is not necessarily the best, until there is more legal clarity.

That clarity would come from an appeal, which Mr. Kahle said he intended to mount. In the meantime, it's business as usual at the archive. The National Emergency Library may be history, but the Open Library division still offers scans of many books under copyright. Loans are for one hour or for two weeks ''if the book is fully borrowable,'' a term that is not defined.

Some of that is likely to change soon.

The publishers said the agreement filed on Friday went far beyond dropping the 127 titles from the archive to also removing their ''full book catalogs.'' But the judge immediately ruled that this should be interpreted narrowly. If the publishers do not have an e-book edition of a book available, he said, the archive's scanning is not relevant. This case is not over.

A separate deal between the publishers association and the archive will provide an incentive for the archive to take down works by any publisher that is a member of the trade group. The incentive: not getting sued again.

In the wake of the publishers' success, other parts of the Internet Archive have become a tempting target. Universal, Sony, Arista and other music companies sued the archive in New York on Friday, saying it ''unabashedly seeks to provide free and unlimited access to music for everyone, regardless of copyright.'' The plaintiffs cite 2,749 violations, all recorded with an antiquated format used before 1959, for which they are asking $150,000 each.

''Now the Washington lawyers want to destroy a digital collection of scratchy 78 r.p.m. records, 70 to 120 years old, built by dedicated preservationists in 2006,'' Mr. Kahle said. ''Who benefits?''

In a 1996 book available through the Internet Archive, David Bunnell, an early chronicler of the personal computer revolution, said Mr. Kahle was ''brilliant'' but ''very introspective and unsure of himself.''

''If he had Bill Gates's confidence, he would change the world,'' Mr. Bunnell said.

Mr. Kahle is more sure of himself now, and quite determined to change the world.

Asked if he had made any mistakes, he ignored the question and returned to the attack: ''I wish the publishers had not sued, but it demonstrates how important it is that libraries stand firm on buying, preserving and lending the treasures that are books.''

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Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:48

The Facts Inside Our Reporter's NotebookOn Monday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen appeared on CNN where she responded to poor economic approval ratings, saying Americans are nonetheless optimistic on a personal level.

''What do you say, Secretary Yellen, to the clear majority of Americans who simply do not believe that the administration is helping them?'' asked CNN host Erin Burnett.

Yellen replied that ''it is important to recognize that when they're asked how are they personally doing, over 70% of Americans say that they're very comfortable with their financial situation. So, they seem to perceive the economy as a whole as doing less well than they are personally.''

''But most Americans feel good about their own economic situation,'' she concluded.

The poll in discussion was commissioned by CNN and as of the end of July 2023, 75% of the nation feels the economy overall is in ''poor'' shape.

Also on Monday, US gasoline prices reached an almost 10-month higher of $3.85 per gallon, according to AAA.

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