April 28th, 2024 • 3h 16m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Israel vs Hamas
Green Hats at Palestine protests BOTG
I've been enjoying these Palestinian protests. There's so much to take in. Lately, I've been enamored with the green hats at many of the larger, more organized events.
These are representatives of the National Lawyers Guild, a Jewish organization that defended communists during the Mccarthy era.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lawyers_Guild](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lawyers_Guild)
And George Soros is helping to fund at least some of it, because of course he would.
[https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/george-soros-maoist-fund-columbias-anti-israel-tent-city/](https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/george-soros-maoist-fund-columbias-anti-israel-tent-city/)
He's got a shell organization called Students for Justice in Palestine.
[https://nationalsjp.org](https://nationalsjp.org)
Wait, what? Jews helping Palestinian protests against Jews?
What's going on here? Does communist blood run thicker than ethnic water? Or is the whole thing a gimmick to further divide America and justify support for Israel?
Remember, when dealing with commies, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always revolution.
-Greg
Season of Reveal
Ministry of Truthiness
Boots on the Ground from Australia (E Safety Commissioner)
Hi Adam and John,
I'd prefer to stay anonymous thanks.
I thought I'd send a note regarding John's clips from show 1655 on the Australian E Safety commissioner.
The E Safety Commission has been ticking along quietly in the background for a number of years. It's a component of a government department who's primary role has been dealing with email and phone scams as well as managing "legitimate" telemarketing company's practices and advertising legislation.
Something not mentioned in your discussion is that our E Safety Commissioner is also a former Twitter employee moving straight from Twitter to government in 2016.
The primary focus of the current discussion in the country is whether certain clips can be shared online, in this case specifically footage of a knife attack on an Assyrian Orthodox Priest in Sydney while he was holding a service. The community became very agitated after the attack and small scale public disturbances occurred, which the police and government blamed in the distribution of this clip on X.
It's unclear exactly how far the government's power extends in this case, though they're attempting to push it by ordering the content removed. In a strange twist, they've even directed people in other countries (Canada from memory) to also remove the clip from their X page. This has lead to the conversation in the clips you played regarding clarifying the legislation.
Historically, the government has had limited success with multiple nationals abiding by these directives. As a result, most legislation targets ISP's to do the heavy lifting. Examples of this include the banning of Zero Hedge (since made available again) and 8chan in the aftermath of the Christchurch shooting.
Elon Musk has been the public target as he has been vocal in opposition. Though this sort of thing isn't a new story here.
On last note, Adam has been mispronouncing the Prime Ministers, Anthony Albanese's, name. It's pronounced Alban-easy.
Keep up the good fight and thank you for your courage.
Climate Change
Replacement Migration
STORIES
Even With Gaza Under Siege, Some Are Imagining Its Reconstruction - The New York Times
Sun, 28 Apr 2024 16:51
live Updates April 28, 2024, 12:40 p.m. ET
Photos Graduating Into War Where Israel's Offensive Stands Roots of the Conflict U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic live Updates April 28, 2024, 12:40 p.m. ET
Photos Graduating Into War Where Israel's Offensive Stands Roots of the Conflict International development agencies have been meeting with Middle East business interests and urban planners to map out an economic future for the territory.
The plan for long-term economic development of Gaza is far removed from the dire reality confronting it today. Credit... Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images April 28, 2024 Updated 10:22 a.m. ET
On a December morning in central London, more than two dozen people drawn from influential institutions across the Middle East, Europe and the United States gathered in a conference room to pursue an aspiration that, at that moment, verged on preposterous. They were there to plan for the reconstruction and long-term economic development of Gaza.
Gaza was under relentless bombardment by Israeli military forces in response to terrorist attacks launched by Hamas in October. Communities throughout the territory were being reduced to rubble, and tens of thousands of people had been killed. Families confronted the immediacy of hunger, fear and grief.
Yet at the meeting in London, members of the international establishment discussed how to eventually transform Gaza from a place defined by isolation and poverty into a Mediterranean commercial hub centered on trade, tourism and innovation, yielding a middle class.
The group included senior officials from American and European economic development agencies, executives from Middle Eastern finance and construction companies and two partners from the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Officially, they were attending only as individuals, not as representatives of their institutions.
The plan they produced is far removed from the dire reality confronting Gaza today. Turning it into reality would require the end of a war that has left the territory devastated, to say nothing of tens of billions of dollars in investment. It would also demand resolution to the monumental and entirely uncertain political question of who eventually controls Gaza, and then the cooperation of that authority. All of that makes the plan well short of a blueprint for action.
Image The most pressing issue is the delivery of food, water, health care and emergency shelter to the residents of Gaza. Credit... Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images Yet participants maintain that the mere exercise of mapping out a more prosperous future holds value because it can prepare the way for projects once conditions are suitable '-- a notion that has propelled such planning in conflict zones like Kuwait after it was invaded by Iraq and Ukraine.
''We are proposing to connect Gaza to the world over the long term,'' said Chris Choa, founder and director of Outcomist, a London firm that designs large-scale urban development projects, and one of the initial conveners of the group, known as Palestine Emerging.
Among those involved are Hashim Shawa, chairman of the Bank of Palestine, a commercial bank; Samer Khoury, chief executive of Consolidated Contractors International, a construction company engaged in major projects across the Middle East; and Mohammed Abukhaizaran, a board member of the Arab Hospitals Group, a medical provider in the West Bank. All would potentially have a stake in the eventual work of rebuilding.
''As soon as the war started, my team and I started developing a plan to build a facility in Gaza as soon as the war ends,'' Mr. Abukhaizaran said in an interview.
The group is clear that the most pressing work is the delivery of food, water, health care and emergency shelter to the residents of Gaza, who are now contending with catastrophe. But the primary focus of their plan is on the rebuilding that would unfold over the following decades.
Image The enormous price tag of any rebuilding is a major impediment in the planning for Gaza's future. Credit... Yousef Masoud for The New York Times ''The Gaza war needs to end immediately, and there will be an incredible and immediate humanitarian effort,'' said Mr. Abukhaizaran. ''But we also need to think long term about building a better future for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.''
The initiative, one of several under discussion, has gained the interest and advice of major international funding organizations including the World Bank, said a senior agency official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. The bank views the plan as a useful contribution toward a strategy that could generate jobs in Gaza by integrating the territory into the global economy.
Representatives for United States government agencies have attended Palestine Emerging workshops and offered counsel on the details of the plan, a senior American official said, also speaking on condition that they not be named. American engagement with the initiative has been driven by the assumption that greater economic opportunity in Gaza is necessary to undercut popular support for Hamas, the official added.
The plan centers on a series of major projects, including a deepwater port, a desalination plant to provide drinking water, an online health care service and a transportation corridor connecting Gaza with the West Bank. A fund for reconstruction and development would oversee future undertakings.
Image The meeting in December by members of the international establishment came as Gaza was under bombardment by Israeli military forces. Credit... Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times The most forward-looking components, such as reducing customs barriers to trade and introducing a new currency in place of the Israeli shekel, assume the eventual establishment of Palestinian autonomy, a step that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to resist. He has also brushed aside the prospect that the future governance of Gaza could include a role for the Palestinian Authority, the most obvious potential partner for the reconstruction initiative.
The enormous price tag of any rebuilding is another impediment. The toll of the damage to Gaza's crucial infrastructure has reached $18.5 billion, according to a recent estimate by the World Bank and the United Nations. Half the population is on the verge of famine, and more than a million people lack homes.
Who might deliver such funding is among the largest variables. A previous development plan for the Palestinian territories advanced by the Trump administration in 2019 envisioned substantial investment from Persian Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The new initiative has yet to engage with the Gulf countries, Mr. Choa said.
The imperative for development in Gaza predates the current war. The unemployment rate in the territory was more than 45 percent in 2022, according to the World Bank. More than half the population was living in poverty, according to the International Monetary Fund.
While visions of modern transportation systems may now seem tangential to Gaza's essential needs, the plan is governed by the assumption that even temporary structures like emergency housing and health care facilities must be thoughtfully placed to avoid squandering future possibilities.
Image Displaced Palestinians waiting to receive food. Even before the war, more than half the population in Gaza was living in poverty, according to the International Monetary Fund. Credit... Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock ''Temporary tends to become permanent very quickly,'' Mr. Choa said. ''Someone says, 'We're going to put this big refugee camp right here,' but that could be exactly where you want to put a wastewater treatment plant or a transit line in the future. You then create an obstacle.''
Mr. Choa, 64, has spent much of his international architectural career wrestling with such details. After the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, he took part in a commission tasked with sketching out the future of Lower Manhattan. He later lived and worked in China, where he oversaw master plans in major urban areas. After moving to London in 2006, he continued such work in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.
He first grappled with a detailed plan for Gaza in 2015 through work commissioned by Palestinian business interests. He led several missions to Gaza, meeting with the Palestinian Authority and the arm of the Israeli Defense Forces that administered the territory. But the pandemic and Israeli concerns about security halted the effort.
In the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel in October, he sought to revive the project, joining forces with Baron Frankal, chief executive of the Portland Trust, a London-based organization that pursues economic opportunities for Palestinians.
Following the December meeting in London, an expanded group of 58 gathered in Washington in early March. A meeting was held recently in Ramallah, a city in the West Bank. Another meeting is planned for Tel Aviv in early June.
The group has briefed the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Mr. Frankal said. One member of the initiative, Wael Zakout, a former World Bank official, recently joined the cabinet of the incoming Palestinian government.
Image A tent camp housing displaced Palestinians. The economic plan is governed by the assumption that even temporary structures like emergency housing must be thoughtfully placed. Credit... Hatem Ali/Associated Press The group has not engaged Hamas, which had overseen Gaza since 2007 and is widely condemned as a terrorist organization.
''If Hamas are still players, people are not going to invest tens of billions of dollars,'' said Stephen Byers, a former British cabinet secretary in the government led by Tony Blair, who attended the London meeting.
The ideas that have emerged from the workshops extend into the next quarter-century. These include the erection of a cutting edge soccer stadium and the elevation of the existing soccer team to a more internationally competitive level, and the creation of a strategy to encourage a Palestinian film industry.
The deepwater port would be established on an artificial island built from the nearly 30 million tons of debris and rubble that are expected to cover the territory whenever the conflict is over, with removal anticipated to take as long as a decade.
The plan proposes the establishment of a degree-granting Technical University of Reconstruction in northern Gaza that would draw students from around the world. They would study strategies to dig out from disaster and spur development, using postwar Gaza as a living laboratory.
The destruction is so extensive that the usual means of administering aid and overseeing rebuilding will be inadequate, said the World Bank official.
American government agencies face legal restrictions on working directly with the Palestinian Authority. Other institutions are reluctant to transact with the Palestinian Authority given its reputation for corruption. All of this makes private companies critical elements of the plan, even as they too will grapple with the risks of investing in a highly uncertain climate.
Image Initiatives like those aimed at encouraging small businesses could begin as soon as military activities cease. Credit... Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock While the largest projects require clarity over the future political administration of Gaza, other initiatives, such as those aimed at encouraging small businesses, could begin as soon as military activities cease.
''I want to focus on how we open the bread store, how we get factories up and running,'' said Jim Pickup, chief executive of the Middle East Investment Initiative, a nonprofit that finances development projects. ''Every truck that is going to remove rubble is a small business itself, supporting a family.''
A correction was made onApril 28, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misstated the attendees at a meeting in December in London. While the managing director of the World Economic Forum had planned to attend, he did not because of a schedule conflict.
How we handle corrections
Peter S. Goodman is a reporter who covers the global economy. He writes about the intersection of economics and geopolitics, with particular emphasis on the consequences for people and their lives and livelihoods. More about Peter S. Goodman
What Happened to ''The Shining'' Actress Shelly Duvall, Who Vanished From Hollywood. - The New York Times
Sun, 28 Apr 2024 16:49
U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic On a winding back road of Texas Hill Country, Shelley Duvall pulled over and lit another cigarette.
''How did you like Egypt?'' she called out from the white Toyota 4Runner she spends most of her days in, and some nights, much to the chagrin of her partner, Dan Gilroy. The ''Egypt'' she referred to is an industrial site one passes on the way into the small town Ms. Duvall has called home for more than a decade, its piles of sand and gravel, glimpsed at speed, resembling the ancient pyramids.
She cracked a grin, revving the engine. ''Next stop: Santa Fe!'' she announced before vanishing down the road in a cloud of dust.
To follow Ms. Duvall, 74, on the road and in conversation, is to enter into powerfully imaginative realms. Stories that begin in a certain direction have a habit of taking the scenic route, and, occasionally, swerving excitingly off-piste. One minute she might be talking in depth about shooting the horror film ''The Shining'' or the high jinks from the cast on the ''Popeye'' set, and the next she's recalling lyrics from songs '-- all while retrieving crumpled headshots and cast photographs from a Ziploc bag she keeps in the SUV's glove compartment.
Because of health issues, including diabetes and an injured foot that has greatly impacted her mobility (''My left one, like that Daniel Day-Lewis movie,'' she joked), Ms. Duvall often stays in her 4Runner, some days driving to local nature spots, catching up with people in town and visiting drive-throughs. The driver's seat is the only open space, as the interior is cluttered with takeout cartons and empty coffee cups.
Image Ms. Duvall has not appeared in a movie since 2002, but she is making a comeback with a film scheduled to be released this spring. Credit... Katherine Squier for The New York Times For more than two decades, Ms. Duvall's career was at a standstill. Her last film role had come in 2002's ''Manna From Heaven,'' after which she retired for reasons that have remained a mystery from a varied and, by most counts, successful career as both an actor and producer. Among the most common questions that show up when you search her name these days: What happened to Shelley Duvall? and Why did Shelley Duvall disappear?
This enduring curiosity is unsurprising: The very act of fading into obscurity, be it voluntary or forced, is at the heart of the ''Hollywood recluse'' trope, which is used to tragic effect in classic movies such as ''Sunset Boulevard'' and ''Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'' and never ceases to intrigue.
It intrigues Shelley Duvall as well.
''I was a star; I had leading roles,'' she said, solemnly shaking her head. She had parked in the town square for a takeout lunch '-- chicken salad, quiche and sweetened iced coffee, finished off with a drag of a Parliament. She lowered her voice. ''People think it's just aging, but it's not. It's violence.''
Prompted to explain ''violence,'' Ms. Duvall responded with a question:
''How would you feel if people were really nice, and then, suddenly, on a dime'' '-- she snapped her fingers '-- ''they turn on you? You would never believe it unless it happens to you. That's why you get hurt, because you can't really believe it's true.''
''Everyone's always interested in downfall stories,'' said Mr. Gilroy, 76, her partner of more than 30 years, who helps her get in and out of her car and sometimes has to plead with her to come back into the house. His voice bore a tone of weariness in discussing the speculation and gossip that still surrounds Ms. Duvall, focusing not only on her mental health, but also her body.
''It's all over the internet: 'Look at her now' and 'You won't believe what she looks like now.' Every celebrity gets that treatment.''
He has reason to feel weary, of course: In 2016, Ms. Duvall was a guest on the daytime talk show ''Dr. Phil,'' with the rare television appearance proving to be personally disastrous. Still controversial eight years later, the episode, filmed at the local Best Western without Mr. Gilroy's knowledge '-- ''I found out days later from people in town that it had happened,'' Mr. Gilroy said '-- showed Ms. Duvall in a state of distress.
''I'm very sick. I need help,'' Ms. Duvall told Dr. Phil in one clip. He responded: ''Well, that's why I'm here.''
The episode was titled ''A Hollywood Star's Descent Into Mental Illness: Saving The Shining's Shelley Duvall.'' Wide-eyed, Ms. Duvall went on to utter a slew of bizarre statements, such as claiming to be receiving messages from a ''shapeshifting'' Robin Williams, who had died two years before, and talking about malevolent forces who were out to do her harm. While the show's stated aim was one of empowerment and destigmatizing mental illness, many, including Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian, publicly criticized the show for being exploitative and sensationalist.
Although the episode never aired in full, the damage was done. It led to questions regarding her mental state, and she withdrew further into herself.
''It did nothing for her,'' said Mr. Gilroy, of the show. ''It just put her on the map as an oddity.''
'The Female Buster Keaton'Ms. Duvall, born in Fort Worth in 1949 to Robert and Bobbie Duvall, who worked in law and real estate, had a performative streak. Growing up the oldest and only daughter of four children, Ms. Duvall had always been headstrong.
''I was in a choir once and the person next to me was singing really off key and I couldn't stand it. I had to ask to stand near someone else,'' she said with a smile.
While Ms. Duvall lacked formal training, or certain qualities you might expect of a traditional leading lady, her rawness worked to her advantage. For one thing, she didn't look or carry herself like a classic Hollywood starlet. She brought an energy to her roles that jarred with the studied naturalism that was the acting style at the time, her voice had a beguiling singsong quality to it, and she had a talent for improvisation.
While these days it is rare for actresses to show their age on or off screen, Ms. Duvall has aged naturally. With her fine gray hair coaxed into three bright scrunchies on top of her head, and, in a faded pink tracksuit, the Ms. Duvall of today cuts a strikingly different figure to the waif who bewitched filmgoers throughout the '70s and '80s.
But her smile is still expressive and kind, her wispy eyebrows often arching to emphasize certain points, to make the listener laugh and win them over. She has an almost cartoonish physicality, with doleful eyes and a goofy humor. This was the woman who once dated Paul Simon and Ringo Starr and worked with some of the era's most famous directors: Robert Altman, Terry Gilliam and Mr. Kubrick, among them. Her sharp fashion sense '-- miniskirts, winklepickers, spidery eyelashes '-- earned her the nickname ''Texas Twiggy.''
Image In 1970, Ms. Duvall made a stunning debut alongside Bud Cort in Robert Altman's ''Brewster McCloud.'' Credit... Everett Collection Image Ms. Duvall lived the life of a celebrity in the 1970s and 1980s, dating Paul Simon and going out on the town with actresses like Carrie Fisher. Credit... Mediapunch/Shutterstock What made her so captivating then (the film critic Pauline Kael called her the ''female Buster Keaton'') still exists: a raw honesty, an intuitive quality and a winsome Texas drawl.
''I remember, on 'Saturday Night Live,''' Mr. Gilroy said, ''they did a joke in which they were in some kind of room and you could hear the neighbors right through the wall, and one of the lines was, ''These walls are thinner than Shelley Duvall!''
Her disappearance wasn't, as it had been rumored, born of a protracted breakdown caused years before by her treatment on the set of ''The Shining.'' In fact, she continues to have only good things to say about that intense yearlong shoot in London and her admiration for Mr. Kubrick. Instead, the pause may be more accurately, though not definitively, attributed to the emotional impact of two events: the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which damaged her Los Angeles home, and the stressful toll of one of her brothers falling ill, which prompted her return to her native Texas three decades ago.
It could also equally be attributed to the curse of fame: It isn't enough to be famous; one must continuously stoke the fire. Leave it for too long, especially if you begin to ''age out'' as a woman in the industry, and a career will wane.
In 1982, two years after ''The Shining'' made her a household name, Ms. Duvall started her own production company, Platypus (and, later, another called Think Entertainment), creating television shows for children, most notably ''Faerie Tale Theatre.'' Each episode boasted an all-star cast: Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve, Carol Kane, Bud Cort, Bernadette Peters, and Mick Jagger among them. The overall effect was one of baroque fun, or as Time magazine proclaimed, it offered ''a hip, witty twist to storybook classics.''
''It's like being a captain of a ship '-- you have to steer it in the right direction,'' she said of producing. Her eyes lit up as she spoke about that fertile creative time, and the painstaking levels of research she undertook for each project.
''I had great people to work with, and of course I got Robert Altman to direct an episode,'' she said. ''He was always there for me.''
Never intending to become an actor, Ms. Duvall said she owed her career to Mr. Altman, the acclaimed director who cast her in her first role in his 1970 dark comedy ''Brewster McCloud,'' after she met two of his producers at a party when she was 20.
Image ''He was real fatherly,'' Ms. Duvall said of Robert Altman, the director who discovered her. Credit... Gilbert Tourte/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images ''He was real fatherly,'' she said of Mr. Altman. ''Sometimes too much so. He was like the old lady who lived in the shoe, who had too many children she didn't know what to do, you know?''
The pair became close friends and would go on to collaborate on seven movies including ''Nashville,'' ''Thieves Like Us'' (where, incidentally, Ms. Duvall picked up her smoking habit), ''McCabe & Mrs. Miller,'' ''Popeye'' and ''3 Women,'' for which Ms. Duvall won the 1977 Best Actress Award at Cannes.
''I thought: boy, if it's this easy, why doesn't everybody act?'' she said.
'I like the way you cry'After more than two decades, Ms. Duvall is set to make a return to movies this spring in ''The Forest Hills.''
Ms. Duvall plays Mama, the mother of Rico (Chiko Mendez), a man who, according to the film's logline, is ''tormented by nightmarish visions after enduring head trauma.'' The film also features Edward Furlong (''Terminator 2''), another actor who has spent a long time away from the spotlight.
Taking her restricted mobility into consideration, the crew traveled to Texas from their main location in upstate New York on three occasions, so that Ms. Duvall could perform her scenes from home. There was a lot of technical problem-solving. For instance, her wheelchair, which Ms. Duvall uses when she isn't in the car, became part of the story. When asked how she came to be involved in the project, Ms. Duvall shrugged: ''I wanted to act again. And then this guy kept calling, and so I wound up doing it.''
If the crew had any qualms working with Ms. Duvall, they were immediately soothed. ''She was able to bring her acting abilities to the table and deliver her lines and bring the character of Mama to life,'' the director Scott Goldberg, for whom this will be his third feature, said on a recent phone call. ''She was one hundred percent a natural. It was as if time never passed.''
Ms. Duvall mused: ''If you ever do a horror film, other horror films are going to come to you, no matter what you do.''
''The Shining,'' though, would become one of the most iconic in the genre. Mr. Kubrick was inspired to cast her in his film after seeing her in Mr. Altman's ''3 Women.''
''He said: 'I like the way you cry.'''
Though the shoot was grueling '-- Mr. Kubrick is known for demanding his actors do hundreds of takes for each scene '-- she has fond memories of the experience. Mr. Kubrick and Ms. Duvall would play chess during breaks, and the crew would sit around smoking cigarettes and eating Big Macs.
Image For many people, Ms. Duvall's career was defined by her highly emotional role in ''The Shining,'' in which she starred alongside Jack Nicholson. Credit... Moviestore/Shutterstock She recalled how shocked she was when she saw the final cut. ''There were scenes I didn't watch being filmed. You know that scene with the two little girls at the end of the hallway, and then they step apart? And you see what's behind them? That was scary, very scary.''
Critics at the time picked her performance apart, and she was nominated for a Razzie award for worst actress. But something in the authenticity of her reactions, her otherworldliness, resonated with audiences.
''You forget that she's acting,'' said Nathan Abrams, a professor of film studies at Bangor University and the co-author of a new biography on Mr. Kubrick. ''It's a fantastic performance. Shelley goes through a range of emotions: loving mother, doting wife, and then that scared partner. I think Kubrick clearly saw that ability in that range, and then coached that performance out of her.''
''When it comes to horror you really have to strip away everything, and give your soul and really be present,'' said the actress Felissa Rose, Ms. Duvall's co-star in ''The Forest Hills,'' who is best known for starring in the 1983 cult slasher classic ''Sleepaway Camp.''
Ms. Rose added: ''We're talking about people who are truly ready to unleash their truth, and those people are fun to watch '-- and that's exactly what she gave in 'The Shining.'''
When asked for her thoughts about Ms. Duvall's disappearance, Ms. Rose said, ''A lot of people in this industry put up walls, or say, 'You're Teflon!' or 'You have a thick skin!' you know, have a facade. And she walked in with authenticity and truth, and that's hard.''
This vulnerability and openness, perhaps even naivet(C), made her particularly susceptible to mistreatment. Into the '80s, the types of roles Ms. Duvall was getting shifted. No longer the young, willowy ing(C)nue, she was cast in more mature roles. In a sense she had moved on, by producing television shows, with built-in acting opportunities within those.
Following the success of her shows ''Faerie Tale Theatre'' and ''Bedtime Stories,'' she produced the 1990 Disney television musical ''Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme,'' where she met and fell in love with Mr. Gilroy, a musician and member of the group Breakfast Club, who composed and performed some of the soundtrack.
The couple has lived in a rustic one-story house surrounded by fields for over a decade. ''It's a little oasis for us,'' Mr. Gilroy said.
Indeed, it's an isolated but serene setup: Mr. Gilroy's paintings-in-progress stand on easels in the living room, while old framed photographs of Mr. Gilroy and Ms. Duvall smiling affectionately at each other glint on the mantle above the stone fireplace. Scattered around are piles of fan mail.
Image Far from Hollywood, Ms. Duvall now spends her time in a small Texas town. Credit... Katherine Squier for The New York Times Image Having been Ms. Duvall's partner for more than 30 years, Dan Gilroy has seen her life change a great deal. Credit... Katherine Squier for The New York Times Image Ms. Duvall enjoys telling tales of her past, including playing Olive Oyl to Robin Williams's Popeye. Credit... Katherine Squier for The New York Times ''It was great, all those years in L.A., really terrific,'' said Mr. Gilroy. ''And when we moved, after the earthquake, it was terrific in Texas. Things went downhill when she started becoming afraid of things, maybe didn't want to work. It's really hard to pin it on any one thing.''
Ms. Duvall, once praised for her great imagination, was now being haunted by it. ''She became paranoid and just kind of delusional, thinking she was being attacked,'' said Mr. Gilroy. ''She tried to make calls to the F.B.I., and asked our neighbor to protect us.''
''It was just shocking that, suddenly, from normal, it went south like that,'' he added.
'Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall'Despite her decades' long disappearance, Ms. Duvall's filmography has thrived. Instagram users regularly source new Shelley material from an apparently bottomless archival trove.
''Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall,'' a line Ms. Duvall would utter as she presented each episode of ''Faerie Tale Theatre,'' is sampled ad nauseam in posts. Yet there are no books, no documentaries, no star on the Walk of Fame. Seemingly dismissed and forgotten by the filmmaking establishment, she has become a cult figure for the quirky, the alternative and the misunderstood '-- and they seem to want to protect her, and her legacy, making their own podcasts and films.
''I think she's pretty relatable, like, she kind of came from nothing,'' said Sarah Lukowski, 23, an Austin-based copywriter who runs a popular Instagram account devoted to all things Shelley Duvall.
Ms. Lukowski became enthralled with Ms. Duvall after watching ''The Shining'' for the first time in 2016. ''It's her unique look: the big eyes and oversized teeth and her offbeat personality '-- she reminded me a lot of myself.''
Image Among the top moments of Ms. Duvall's career came in 1977 when she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the movie ''3 Women.'' Credit... Jean-Jacques Levy/Associated Press The pair now meet up every few months and Ms. Lukowski has become friends with fellow Shelley fans too.
''She was such an enigmatic force,'' Ms. Lukowski continued. ''I mean there are actors today like Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth who have similar features and acting styles, but there'll never be another Shelley, you know?''
This wave of new fans is something Ms. Duvall finds hard to fathom. She seems to straddle between disappointment and a sense of betrayal toward an industry to which she gave so much of herself and yet still misses her old life in Hollywood, when she and Mr. Gilroy hobnobbed with famous friends.
She relishes discussing her career highs, but does not elaborate when prompted to talk about the more troubled aspects of her past.
''That's so great, look at that,'' she said, pointing to a small dog being carted along the sidewalk in a baby stroller. ''Thank goodness for comic relief, right? Do you know that all nine dogs I brought down from L.A. died on that street over there?''
Pets have always been a big part of Ms. Duvall's life and she currently has three parrots, a few cats and a geriatric mutt called Puppy. Passing by a field of thin-looking donkeys on the way home, Ms. Duvall often stops to feed them a couple of slices of sandwich bread through the wire fence. Her innate connection to the natural world lends to a sense of wonderment.
As she drove home, Ms. Duvall's hand would occasionally trail out of the window, holding a smoldering cigarette, motioning over to roadkill or comically snapping like a beak.
Sometimes she disappeared from view entirely.
Image Ms. Duvall's comeback came together in a straightforward way. ''I wanted to act again,'' she said. ''And then this guy kept calling, and so I wound up doing it.'' Credit... Katherine Squier for The New York Times
Why Your Vet Bill Is So High - The Atlantic
Sun, 28 Apr 2024 16:48
Corporations and private-equity funds have been rolling up smaller chains and previously independent practices.
Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.Listen to this article
Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.
I n the pandemic winter of 2020, Katie, my family's 14-year-old miniature poodle, began coughing uncontrollably. After multiple vet visits, and more than $1,000 in bills, a veterinary cardiologist diagnosed her with heart failure. Our girl, a dog I loved so much that I wrote an essay about how I called her my ''daughter,'' would likely die within nine months.
Katie survived for almost two years. My younger son joked that Katie wasn't going to let advanced heart failure get in the way of her life goal of never leaving my side, but the truth was that I was the one who wouldn't let her go. Katie's extended life didn't come cheap. There were repeated scans, echocardiograms, and blood work, and several trips to veterinary emergency rooms. One drug alone cost $300 a month, and that was after I shopped aggressively for discounts online.
People like me have fueled the growth of what you might call Big Vet. As household pets have risen in status'--from mere animals to bona fide family members'--so, too, has owners' willingness to spend money to ensure their well-being. Big-money investors have noticed. According to data provided to me by PitchBook, private equity poured $51.6 billion into the veterinary sector from 2017 to 2023, and another $9.3 billion in the first four months of this year, seemingly convinced that it had discovered a foolproof investment. Industry cheerleaders pointed to surveys showing that people would go into debt to keep their four-legged friends healthy. The field was viewed as ''low-risk, high-reward,'' as a 2022 report issued by Capstone Partners put it, singling out the industry for its higher-than-average rate of return on investment.
From the December 2022 issue: How much would you pay to save your pet's life?
In the United States, corporations and private-equity funds have been rolling up smaller chains and previously independent practices. Mars Inc., of Skittles and Snickers fame, is, oddly, the largest owner of stand-alone veterinary clinics in the United States, operating more than 2,000 practices under the names Banfield, VCA, and BluePearl. JAB Holding Company, the owner of National Veterinary Associates' 1,000-plus hospitals (not to mention Panera and Espresso House), also holds multiple pet-insurance lines in its portfolio. Shore Capital Partners, which owns several human health-care companies, controls Mission Veterinary Partners and Southern Veterinary Partners.
As a result, your local vet may well be directed by a multinational shop that views caring for your fur baby as a healthy component of a diversified revenue stream. Veterinary-industry insiders now estimate that 25 to 30 percent of practices in the United States are under large corporate umbrellas, up from 8 percent a little more than a decade ago. For specialty clinics, the number is closer to three out of four.
And as this happened, veterinary prices began to rise'--a lot. Americans spent an estimated $38 billion on health care and related services for companion animals in 2023, up from about $29 billion in 2019. Even as overall inflation got back under control last year, the cost of veterinary care did not. In March 2024, the Consumer Price Index for urban consumers was up 3.5 percent year over year. The veterinary-services category was up 9.6 percent. If you have ever wondered why keeping your pet healthy has gotten so out-of-control expensive, Big Vet just might be your answer.
T o get a sense of what might happen when the profit-seeking dial gets turned up too high in veterinary medicine, we need look no further than human health care. An extensive body of research shows that when private equity takes over a hospital or physician practice, prices and the number of expensive procedures tend to go up. A study found serious medical errors occur more frequently after private equity buys the hospital. Another study found that costs to patients rise, too, sometimes substantially. And that's in a tougher regulatory environment. In veterinary medicine, there is no giant entity like Medicare capable of pushing back on prices. There is no requirement, in fact, to provide care at all, no matter how dire the animal's condition. Payment is due at the time of service or there is no service.
Whenever I told people I was working on this article, I was inundated with Big Vet complaints. Catherine Liu, a professor at UC Irvine, took her elderly pit-bull mix, Buster, to a local VCA when he became lethargic and began drooling excessively. More than $8,000 in charges later, there was still no diagnosis. ''Sonograms, endoscopy'--what about just a hypothesis of what the symptoms could be? Nothing like that at all was forthcoming,'' Liu told me. Shortly before Buster died, a vet in private practice diagnosed him with cancer. The disease, Liu said, had not once been mentioned by the vets at VCA. (Mars Petcare, VCA's parent company, declined to comment on the episode.)
I don't mean to single out VCA here'--in fact, I should note that a VCA vet's medical protocol was almost certainly responsible for my dog's longer-than-expected life. One reason Mars-owned chains attract outsized attention for their high costs and customer-service failures is that the company actually brands its acquisitions. That's unusual. A study conducted by the Arizona consumer advocate Todd Nemet found that fewer than 15 percent of corporate-owned practices in the state slap their own brand identity on their vets; most keep the original practice name, leaving customers with the illusion of local ownership. (When I asked Thrive Pet Healthcare, a chain majority-owned by TSG Consumer Partners, about why the company doesn't brand its clinics, a spokesperson replied, ''We realize the value of local hospital brands and are committed to preserving and supporting them.'')
Indeed, some pet owners told me that they realized that ownership of their vet had changed only after what they thought was a routine visit resulted in recommendations for mounds of tests, which turned out to have shot up in price. Paul Cerro, the CEO of Cedar Grove Capital, which invests in the pet industry, says this issue is frequent in online reviews. ''People will say, 'I've been coming here for four years, and all of a sudden I'm getting charged for things I've never been charged for,' and they give it one star.''
Read: The great veterinary shortage
Big Vet denies charging excessive prices. VCA Canada, for instance, recently told The Globe and Mail that prices can increase after an acquisition because ''the quality of the care, the quality of everything we offer to them, goes up as well.'' A spokesperson for Mars told me, ''We invest heavily in our associates, hospitals, state-of-the-art equipment, technology, and other resources.'' NVA, which is planning an initial public offering in 2025 or 2026, did not directly answer a question about why veterinary prices were rising so rapidly, instead sending me a statement saying, in part, ''Our vision is to build a community of hospitals that pet owners trust, are easy to access, and provide the best possible value for care.''
Do rising prices really just reflect higher-quality care? There may be some truth to this, but there is also evidence to the contrary. A study published last year in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, for example, found that vets working for large corporations reported more pressure to generate revenue, whereas veterinarians working for independent practices reported higher levels of satisfaction for such things as the ''ability to acquire new large equipment'' and the ''ability to get new/different drugs.'' Preliminary research by Emma Harris, the vice president of Vetster, a veterinary telehealth start-up, found significant differences in pricing between corporate and privately owned veterinary clinics in the same geographic region. Usually, she told me, the increases ''occurred immediately after the sale to a private-equity-owned group.''
All of this doesn't sit well with many in the sector. Vets tend to be idealistic, which makes sense given that many of them rack up six figures in student-loan debt to pursue a profession that pays significantly less than human medicine. One vet, who worked for an emergency-services practice that, they said, raised prices by 20 percent in 2022, told me, ''I almost got to the point where I was ashamed to tell people what the estimate was for things because it was so insanely high.'' (The vet asked for anonymity because they feared legal repercussions.) Others described mounting pressure to upsell customers following acquisition by private equity. ''You don't always need to take X-rays on an animal that's vomited just one time,'' Kathy Lewis, a veterinarian who formerly worked at a Tennessee practice purchased in 2021 by Mission Veterinary Partners, told me. ''But there was more of that going on.'' Prices increased rapidly as well, she said, leading to customer complaints. (Mission Veterinary Partners did not respond to requests for comment.)
The combination of wheeling-and-dealing and price increases in the veterinary sector is beginning to attract the government's attention. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission required, in a 2022 consent decree, that JAB seek prior approval before purchasing any emergency or specialty clinic within 25 miles of one it already owns in California and Texas for the next decade. In her written comments, FTC Chair Lina Khan said she feared these one-by-one purchases could lead to the development of a stealth monopoly. (JAB denied any wrongdoing.) And in the United Kingdom, where corporate ownership is higher than in the United States (even the practice originally owned by the author of the classic veterinary novel All Creatures Great and Small has been rolled up), government authorities are moving forward with an investigation into high prices and market concentration after an initial inquiry drew what regulators called an ''unprecedented'' response from the public.
P et owners used to have an easier time accepting the short lives of domestic animals. Few people were taking the barnyard cat or junkyard dog in for chemotherapy or ACL surgery, to say nothing of post-op aquatic physical therapy. ''When we started out over 20 years ago, you had to live near a veterinary teaching hospital to have access to something like an MRI,'' Karen Leslie, the executive director of the Pet Fund, a charity that aids people with vet bills, told me. ''Now it's the standard of care. It's available basically everywhere'--but that starts at $2,000.''
Big Vet, in Leslie's view, helped fuel an increase in expensive services. The same medical progress that's helped humans beat back once-fatal diseases is doing the same for cats and dogs, extending their life spans to record lengths. But only if you have the money to pay for it. Some pets'--my late Katie, Liu's late Buster'--receive one expensive test or treatment after another, sometimes helpful, sometimes not. Other equally loved pets may go without basic care altogether, or even fall victim to what the industry calls ''economic euthanasia,'' where they are put down because their owners can't afford their medical bills. (Pet insurance, widely promoted by the industry, is unlikely to help much. Uptake rates are in the low single digits, a result of relatively high costs and often-limited benefits.)
Watch: Volunteer veterinarians in Ukraine
The American Veterinary Medical Association's tracker shows that vet visits and purchases of heartworm and flea-and-tick medications are down compared with this month last year, even as practice revenues are up, suggesting that some owners are having trouble affording routine, preventative care. The market researcher Packaged Facts found that a full third of pet owners say that they would take their animal to the vet more often if it were less expensive. Shelter Animals Count, an animal-advocacy group, reports that the number of pets surrendered to shelters rose in the past two years. Carol Mithers, the author of the upcoming book Rethinking Rescue, told me that some people give up pets because they believe the shelter system will provide them with necessary medical treatment'--something that is, heartbreakingly, not true.
The veterinary past is easy to romanticize. The truth is that pets have never received all the needed care, and that wealthy pet owners have always had access to more care. But the emergence of Big Vet and the injection of cutthroat incentives into a traditionally idealistic, local industry threaten to make these problems far worse. It portends a future in which some pet owners get shaken down, their love for their pets exploited financially, while others must forego even basic care for their pets. I don't think Katie, who loved all animals, would approve. I certainly don't.
Support for this project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Helaine Olen is a writer living in New York . She is the author of Pound Foolish and the co-author of
The Index Card.
Bird flu detected in Colorado dairy herd for the first time
Sun, 28 Apr 2024 11:15
Original ReportingThis article contains firsthand information gathered by reporters. This includes directly interviewing sources and analyzing primary source documents.Colorado on Friday became the ninth state to confirm bird flu in dairy cattle, increasing evidence of a nationwide epidemic among dairy herds of the highly contagious '-- but still not yet threatening to humans '-- H5N1 avian influenza virus.
The state Department of Agriculture said in a news release that the outbreak involves a dairy herd in northeastern Colorado, but provided no more specific information on the herd's location or how many animals were believed to be infected.
The state veterinarian's office was notified Monday of a dairy herd ''demonstrating clinical signs consistent with (avian influenza) in cattle.'' These signs can include reduced appetite, lower milk production and production of milk that the department described as ''colostrum-like.''
''We continue to see this ongoing HPAI outbreak evolve and over the last month have seen transmission of the virus now move into dairy cattle,'' Dr. Maggie Baldwin, the state veterinarian, said in a statement, using the acronym for highly pathogenic avian influenza, another name by which the virus is known. ''While we don't yet completely understand the mechanism of transmission of this virus, we do know that it appears to be spreading from cow to cow and between herds.''
After first being detected in a dairy herd in Texas last month, reported bird flu infections in dairy cattle have grown rapidly. Prior to detection in Colorado, outbreaks were reported in two neighboring states, Kansas and New Mexico.
Samples taken from milk suggest a much bigger epidemic. Federal regulators found inactive fragments of bird flu virus in 20% of retail milk samples tested in one analysis, while other researchers have found viral fragments in more than one-third of samples.
These fragments are not live viruses, and they are not capable of sickening humans. Pasteurization '-- the process of heating milk to kill harmful pathogens '-- prevents live flu viruses from making it into milk sold at stores.
The same may not be true for raw milk. Concerns over bird flu making its way into raw milk helped kill a bill at the state Capitol this year that would have legalized sale of the unpasteurized product.
This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued an order requiring lactating dairy cows to be tested for bird flu before being moved across state lines, though subsequently issued guidance on how to carry out the order narrowed the requirement. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture told The Sun via email Thursday that the state is working to draft its own guidelines.
A female adult northern harrier feeds on one of at least five dead birds found on the ice at Stearns Lake near Broomfield on Jan. 4, 2023. It's not clear if these dead birds had avian flu, but scenes like these and the potential for spreading the devastating virus are playing out across Colorado, wildlife officials and raptor watchers warn. (Dana Bove, Front Range Eagle Studies, Special to the Colorado Sun)The current bird flu epidemic had been ongoing for at least two years, striking wild birds and domesticated poultry in Colorado before crossing over into mammals such as bears, mountain lions and skunks.
Bird flu is not currently seen as a risk to humans. There have been only two reported infections in humans in the United States. Neither resulted in serious illness, and one of those '-- in a Colorado man working on a commercial poultry farm in Montrose County '-- may have not even been a full infection. No person-to-person transmission has been observed.
But there is concern among public health leaders that, the longer the outbreak in mammals goes on, the more chances there are for the virus to evolve in ways that make it easily transmissible to and harmful to humans.
Type of Story: NewsBased on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
John Ingold is a co-founder of The Colorado Sun and a reporter currently specializing in health care coverage.Born and raised in Colorado Springs, John spent 18 years working at The Denver Post. Prior to that, he held internships at...More by John Ingold
Columbia U. Encampment Leader Says 'Be Grateful That I'm Not Just Going Out and Murdering Zionists'
Sat, 27 Apr 2024 17:09
''a junior and spokesperson of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group, has been the visible face of the protests that have garnered national attention''
Posted by Mike LaChance Friday, April 26, 2024 at 03:00pm 106 CommentsA Columbia student name Khymani James is reportedly a leader of the anti-Israel encampment on the school's campus right now. He was recently recorded making some rather shocking statements. It's difficult to imagine that law enforcement wouldn't look into this.
These protests were already radical but the students keep upping the ante.
The Daily Wire reports:
'Zionists Don't Deserve To Live': Meet The Leader Of Columbia University's Anti-Israel Encampment
One of the most vocal student activists leading the anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, Khymani James, openly stated in an live-stream of an official university inquiry in January that ''Zionists don't deserve to live.''
James, who states in the hearing that he goes by ''he/she/they'' pronouns, live-streamed his meeting with Columbia's Center for Student Success and Intervention, where he doubled down on an Instagram post that sparked the report. In the report, which he reads aloud at the start of the meeting, James warned Zionists who may want to ''meet up and fight'' and that he ''fights to kill.''
''Do you see why that's problematic in any way?'' a Columbia employee asked James during the hearing, to which he responded: ''No.''
James, a junior and spokesperson of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group, has been the visible face of the protests that have garnered national attention. He appears to still be a student at the university, and has been one of the key organizers of the encampment.
Take a look at the clips below:
''Be glad '-- be grateful '-- that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists. I've never murdered anyone in my life, and I *hope* to keep it that way.'' This is a top leader of @Columbia's encampment, with whom the school is ''negotiating,'' expanding on his thoughts about how Israel'... pic.twitter.com/ugodO4O7M5
'-- Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 25, 2024
Meet Khymani James, a student leader of Columbia University's anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment who openly states that "Zionists don't deserve to live"
He made the comments during a meeting with the school that he live-streamed.
We put together the highlights: pic.twitter.com/JFlxnRkNC2
'-- Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 25, 2024
On a related note, what's happening at Columbia and other schools is definitely being coordinated. To make matters worse, they're just getting started.
The Washington Examiner reports:
'First we take Columbia': Pro-Palestinian activists spread occupation guidebook to overrun schools
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and Yale University are circulating a guidebook to activists across the country encouraging more occupations and teaching them how to be successful.
The pamphlet, titled ''First We Take Columbia: Lessons from the April 1968 Occupations Movement,'' was anonymously written by protesters at the Columbia and Yale encampments and published in left-wing dissident magazine Ill Will on Saturday. It was distributed by hand at the Columbia encampment on Monday.
Since its distribution, occupations have popped up at a growing number of universities across the country, including most recently George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The pamphlet is available in English, French, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese.
''When you seize a town, a campus, get hold of the power stations, the water, the transportation, forget to negotiate, forget how to negotiate, don't wait for De Gaulle or Kirk to abdicate, they won't, you are not 'demonstrating' you are fighting a war, fight to win, don't wait for Johnson or Humphrey or Rockefeller, to agree to your terms take what you need, 'it's free because it's yours,''' the letter begins, quoting American poet Diane Di Prima's Revolutionary Letter #15.
This is all going to get so much worse if it isn't stopped soon.
James tried to walk back his comments.
You can't claim you ''misspoke'' in a video that's over 1.5 hours where you continually said the same unhinged things over and over.
I have the whole video. https://t.co/aMi3Inn9MS
'-- Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 26, 2024
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Canadian municipality now requires a QR code
Sat, 27 Apr 2024 17:04
Canadian municipality now requires a QR code
les-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has become the first municipality in Canada to officially require a QR code to enter and leave.
A Canadian town in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has become the first municipality in the country to officially require a QR code to enter and leave.
Canadian municipality now requires a QR codeOfficials say that the requirement of a QR code to enter or leave the archipelago les-de-la-Madeleine will only be for tourists, while residents will be required to show their driver's licence to enter or leave.
The decision to require a QR code and identification for the municipality's 12,000+ residents came after the municipal government announced they would begin charging all visitors who come to les-de-la-Madeleine $30, something which hasn't gone down well with the locals or their family members who visit them.
Of the many concerns, one that officials sought to address was ensuring that visitors had paid their fees before leaving, hence the introduction of a mandatory QR code to leave the islands. If you don't pay, you can't get the QR code and won't be able to leave.
This was initially intended for residents, too, but following an outpour of criticism, officials backed down and now say that residents only have to show their driver's licence.
ð¨ BREAKING NEWS ð¨ QR Codes coming to a remote Canadian island in the heart of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, le de la Madeleine! This is real, not a conspiracy theory ð"Time to stand united, rally behind our fellow Canadians. Let's strategize how to halt this trend and send a clear'... pic.twitter.com/6IlU6L6cF5
'-- Purdy Talks (@PurdyTalks) April 25, 2024Residents, however, aren't happy about this either, saying it's absolutely ludicrous to have to prove their identity whenever they want to leave their homes and go to other places within their own country.
Many have also stated that this is an attack on their Charter Rights, which officials have denied.
''This will be the first time in Canada that we will have to show a driver's license to leave a municipality,'' one woman said at a municipal council meeting, adding that this infringes on her freedom of movement.
Despite concerns, Antonin Valiquette, the mayor of les-de-la-Madeleine, says that the QR code and driver's license requirements are legal and that his biggest concern now is fighting ''disinformation''.
''Combating disinformation among the citizens for whom the members of the municipal council and I work is what is important,'' Valiquette said.
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MFJ ceases on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi | The SWLing Post
Sat, 27 Apr 2024 17:00
Many thanks to a number of readers who've sent me the following email announcement (that I unfortunately) also received today from Martin Jue at MFJ Enterprises:
Dear Fellow Hams and Friends,April 25, 2024Dear Fellow Hams and Friends,
It is with a sad heart as I write this letter.
As many of you have heard by now, MFJ is ceasing its on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi on May 17, 2024. This is also the same for our sister companies' Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft, Mirage and Vectronics.
Times have changed since I started this business 52 years ago. Our product line grew and grew and prospered. Covid changed everything in businesses including ours. It was the hardest hit that we have ever had and we never fully recovered.
I turned 80 this year. I had never really considered retirement but life is so short and my time with my family is so precious.
I want to thank all of our employees who have helped build this company with me over the years. We have many employees who have made MFJ their career for 10, 20, 30, 40 and more years.
We are going to continue to sell MFJ products past May 17, 2024. We have a lot of stock on hand. We will continue to offer repair service work for out-of-warranty and in-warranty units for the foreseeable future.
Finally, a special thanks to all of our customers and our dealers who have made MFJ a worldwide name and a profitable business for so many years. You all are so much appreciated.
Sincerely Yours, 73s
Martin F. Jue, K5FLU
Excessive use of words like 'commendable' and 'meticulous' suggests ChatGPT has been used in thousands of scientific studies | Science | EL PAS English
Sat, 27 Apr 2024 15:03
Librarian Andrew Gray has made a ''very surprising'' discovery. He analyzed five million scientific studies published last year and detected a sudden rise in the use of certain words, such as meticulously (up 137%), intricate (117%), commendable (83%) and meticulous (59%). The librarian from the University College London can only find one explanation for this rise: tens of thousands of researchers are using ChatGPT '-- or other similar Large Language Model tools with artificial intelligence '-- to write their studies or at least ''polish'' them.
There are blatant examples. A team of Chinese scientists published a study on lithium batteries on February 17. The work '-- published in a specialized magazine from the Elsevier publishing house '-- begins like this: ''Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic:Lithium-metal batteries are promising candidates for'....'' The authors apparently asked ChatGPT for an introduction and accidentally copied it as is. A separate article in a different Elsevier journal, published by Israeli researchers on March 8, includes the text: ''In summary, the management of bilateral iatrogenic I'm very sorry, but I don't have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model.'' And, a couple of months ago, three Chinese scientists published a crazy drawing of a rat with a kind of giant penis, an image generated with artificial intelligence for a study on sperm precursor cells.
Andrew Gray estimates that at least 60,000 scientific studies (more than 1% of those analyzed in 2023) were written with the help of ChatGPT '-- a tool launched at the end of 2022 '-- or similar. ''I think extreme cases of someone writing an entire study with ChatGPT are rare,'' says Gray, a 41-year-old Scottish librarian. In his opinion, in most cases artificial intelligence is used appropriately to ''polish'' the text '-- identify typos or facilitate translation into English '-- but there is a large gray area, in which some scientists take the assistance of ChatGPT even further, without verifying the results. ''Right now it is impossible to know how big this gray area is, because scientific journals do not require authors to declare the use of ChatGPT, there is very little transparency,'' he laments.
Artificial intelligence language models use certain words disproportionately, as demonstrated by James Zou's team at Stanford University. These tend to be terms with positive connotations, such as commendable, meticulous, intricate, innovative and versatile. Zou and his colleagues warned in March that the reviewers of scientific studies themselves are using these programs to write their evaluations, prior to the publication of the works. The Stanford group analyzed peer reviews of studies presented at two international artificial intelligence conferences and found that the probability of the word meticulous appearing had increased by 35-fold.
Librarian Andrew Gray, from University College London. University College de LondresZou's team, on the other hand, did not detect significant traces of ChatGPT in the corrections made in the prestigious journals of the Nature group. The use of ChatGPT was associated with lower quality peer reviews. ''I find it really worrying,'' explains Gray. ''If we know that using these tools to write reviews produces lower quality results, we must reflect on how they are being used to write studies and what that implies,'' says the librarian at University College London. A year after the launch of ChatGPT, one in three scientists acknowledged that they used the tool to write their studies, according to a survey in the journal Nature.
Gray's analysis shows that the word ''intricate'' appeared in 109,000 studies in 2023, more than double the average of 50,000 in previous years. The term ''meticulously'' went from appearing in about 12,300 studies in 2022 to more than 28,000 in 2023. While instances of ''commendable'' rose from 6,500 to almost 12,000. The researcher jokes that his colleagues have congratulated him on the meticulousness of his report, still a draft pending publication in a specialized journal.
Very few studies report if they have used artificial intelligence. Gray warns of the danger of ''a vicious circle,'' in which subsequent versions of ChatGPT are trained with scientific articles written by the old versions, giving rise to increasingly commendable, intricate, meticulous and, above all, insubstantial studies.
Documentation professor ngel Mara Delgado Vzquez highlights that the new analysis is focused on English-language studies. ''Researchers who do not speak native English are using ChatGPT a lot, as an aid to writing and to improve the English language,'' says Delgado Vzquez, a researcher from the Pablo de Olavide University, in Seville, Spain. ''In my environment, people are using ChatGPT mainly for a first translation, or even to keep that translation directly,'' he says. The Spanish professor says he would like to see an analysis on the origin of the authors who use the unusual terms.
Another one of AI's favorite words is ''delve.'' Researcher Jeremy Nguyen, from the Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), has calculated that ''delve'' appears in more than 0.5% of medical studies, where before ChatGPT it was less than 0.04 %. Thousands of researchers are suddenly delving.
Librarian Andrew Gray warns there is a risk of broader society becoming infected with this meticulously artificial new language. Nguyen himself admitted on the social network X that it happens to him: ''I actually find myself using ''delve'' lately in my own language'--probably because I spend so much time talking to GPT.'' On April 8, the official ChatGPT account on X chimed in: ''I just love delving what can I say?''
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAS USA Edition
About 1 in 4 US adults 50 and older who aren't yet retired expect to never retire, AARP study finds | AP News
Sat, 27 Apr 2024 13:20
WASHINGTON (AP) '-- About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.
About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.
Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.
The data will matter this election year as Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are trying to win support from older Americans, who traditionally turn out in high numbers, with their policy proposals.
AP correspondent Haya Panjwani reports on older adults who don't see themselves retiring, ever.
The AARP's study, based on interviews completed with more than 8,000 people in coordination with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, finds that one-third of older adults with credit card debt carry a balance of more than $10,000 and 12% have a balance of $20,000 or more. Additionally, 37% are worried about meeting basic living costs such as food and housing.
''Far too many people lack access to retirement savings options and this, coupled with higher prices, is making it increasingly hard for people to choose when to retire,'' said Indira Venkateswaran, AARP's senior vice president of research. ''Everyday expenses continue to be the top barrier to saving more for retirement, and some older Americans say that they never expect to retire.''
The share of people 50 and older who say they do not expect to retire has remained steady. It was 23% in January 2022 and 24% that July, according to the study, which is conducted twice a year
''We are seeing an expansion of older workers staying in the workforce,'' said David John, senior strategic policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute. He said this is in part because older workers ''don't have sufficient retirement savings. It's a problem and its likely to continue as we go forward.''
Based on the 2022 congressional elections, census data released Tuesday shows that voters 65 and older made up 30.4% of all voters, while Gen Z and millennials accounted for 11.7%.
Biden has tried to court older voters by regularly promoting a $35 price cap on insulin for people on Medicare. He trumpets Medicare's powers to negotiate directly with drugmakers on the cost of prescription medications.
Trump, in an interview with CNBC in March, indicated he would be open to cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The former president said ''there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.''
Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for Trump's campaign, said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that Trump ''will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.''
In the AARP survey, 33% of respondents 50 and older believe their finances will be better in a year.
A looming issue that will affect Americans' ability to retire is the financial health of Social Security and Medicare.
The latest annual report from the program's trustees says the financial safety nets for millions of older Americans will run short of money to pay full benefits within the next decade.
Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance that covers 65 million older and disabled people, will be unable to pay full benefits for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031, the report forecast. And just two years later, Social Security will not have enough cash on hand to pay out full benefits to its 66 million retirees.
An AP-NORC poll from March 2023 found that most U.S. adults are opposed to proposals that would cut into Medicare or Social Security benefits, and a majority support raising taxes on the nation's highest earners to keep Medicare running as is.
Hussein reports on the U.S. Treasury Department for The Associated Press. She covers tax policy, sanctions and any issue that relates to money.
Deepfake of Baltimore Principal Leads to Arrest of School Employee - The New York Times
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 16:23
U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic A high school athletic director in the Baltimore area was arrested after he used A.I., the police said, to make a racist and antisemitic audio clip.
Myriam Rogers, superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools, speaking about the arrest of Dazhon Darien, the athletic director of Pikesville High. Credit... Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun A high school athletic director in the Baltimore area was arrested on Thursday after he used artificial intelligence software, the police said, to manufacture a racist and antisemitic audio clip that impersonated the school's principal.
Dazhon Darien, the athletic director of Pikesville High School, fabricated the recording '-- including a tirade about ''ungrateful Black kids who can't test their way out of a paper bag'' '-- in an effort to smear the principal, Eric Eiswert, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.
The faked recording, which was posted on Instagram in mid-January, quickly spread, roiling Baltimore County Public Schools, which is the nation's 22nd-largest school district and serves more than 100,000 students. While the district investigated, Mr. Eiswert, who denied making the comments, was inundated with threats to his safety, the police said. He was also placed on administrative leave, the school district said.
Now Mr. Darien is facing charges including disrupting school operations and stalking the principal.
Mr. Eiswert referred a request for comment to a trade group for principals, the Council of Administrative and Supervisory Employees, which did not return a call from a reporter. Mr. Darien, who posted bond on Thursday, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Baltimore County case is the just the latest indication of an escalation of A.I. abuse in schools. Many cases include deepfakes, or digitally altered video, audio or images that can appear convincingly real.
Since last fall, schools across the United States have been scrambling to address troubling deepfake incidents in which male students used A.I. ''nudification'' apps to create fake unclothed images of their female classmates, some of them middle school students as young as 12. Now the Baltimore County deepfake voice incident points to another A.I. risk to schools nationwide '-- this time to veteran educators and district leaders.
Image Pikesville High School is part of the Baltimore County Public Schools, the 22nd-largest U.S. school district. Credit... Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun/TNS Deepfake revenge slander could happen in any workplace, but it is a particularly disturbing specter to school officials entrusted with safeguarding and educating children. One Baltimore County official warned on Thursday that the fast spread of new generative A.I. tools was outstripping school protections and state laws.
''We are also entering a new, deeply concerning frontier,'' Johnny Olszewski, the Baltimore County executive, said during public comments about the arrest on Thursday. He added that community leaders needed ''to take a broader look at how this technology can be used and abused to harm other people.''
The police account of the Baltimore County case shows how quickly pernicious deepfake disinformation can spread in schools, causing lasting damage to educators, students and families.
According to police documents, Mr. Darien developed a grievance against Mr. Eiswert in December after the principal began investigating him. Mr. Darien had authorized a district payment of $1,916 to his roommate, police said, ''under the pretense'' that the roommate was working as an assistant coach for the Pikesville girls' soccer team.
Soon after, police said, Mr. Darien used school district internet services to search for artificial intelligence tools, including from OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot, and Microsoft's Bing Chat.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, in December, for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems.)
In mid-January, Mr. Darien emailed a deepfake audio clip impersonating the principal to himself and two other employees at the high school, according to the police. The email, with the subject line ''Pikesville Principal '-- Disturbing Recording,'' was sent from a Gmail account that appeared to belong to an unknown third party but was tied to Mr. Darien's cellphone number, according to the police documents.
One of those school employees then sent the fabricated recording to news organizations and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, police documents say. She also forwarded it to a student who ''she knew would rapidly spread the message around various social media outlets and throughout the school,'' the documents say.
Soon, an Instagram account that follows local crime posted the racist fake audio, saying it was a ''rant about Black students'' and naming the principal as the speaker. The audio clip, which lasts less than a minute, was shared more than 27,000 times and generated more than 2,800 comments, many calling for the principal to be fired.
Police say the deepfake rant had ''profound repercussions,'' straining trust among families, teachers and administrators at Pikesville High.
Upset and angry parents and students flooded the school with calls. Some teachers, the police said, feared ''recording devices could have been planted in various places in the school.'' To address safety concerns, the Police Department increased its presence at the school.
The police also provided some safety monitoring for Mr. Eiswert, who received a barrage of harassing messages and phone calls, some threatening him and his family with violence.
In public comments during a school board meeting in January, William Burke, the executive director for the Council of Administrative and Supervisory Employees, which represents the principal, said social media and news media had allowed commentators to condemn Mr. Eiswert with ''no evidence and no accountability.''
''Please don't rush to judgment,'' Mr. Burke pleaded. ''Please make the investigation safe and fair.''
Two outside experts who later analyzed the recording for the Baltimore County Police Department concluded that the audio clip was manipulated. One expert said it contained ''traces of A.I.-generated content with human editing after the fact,'' police documents say.
Natasha Singer writes about technology, business and society. She is currently reporting on the far-reaching ways that tech companies and their tools are reshaping public schools, higher education and job opportunities. More about Natasha Singer
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Inside the failed White House coup against press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 16:01
WASHINGTON '-- Top aides to President Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall to replace White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre by recruiting outside allies to nudge her out the door, The Post has learned.
Jean-Pierre, who made history in May 2022 by becoming the first black and first openly gay person to hold the position, had developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings '-- offering what her superiors viewed as a less-than-compelling pitch for the 81-year-old Biden as he readied his re-election campaign.
De facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the wife of Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer, told colleagues she had decided to call in prominent Democrats to explain to Jean-Pierre, 49, that the time was ripe to move on, sources told The Post.
Top aides to President Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall to replace White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre by recruiting outside allies to nudge her out the door. Getty Images''There were a number of people she asked to engage Karine,'' said one source who heard of the strategy directly from Dunn, whose role as senior adviser has been filled during the past three presidencies by Jared Kushner (Donald Trump), Valerie Jarrett (Barack Obama) and Karl Rove (George W. Bush).
The source also told The Post that Dunn had claimed White House chief of staff Jeff Zients knew about and supported the cloak-and-dagger scheme to push Jean-Pierre out of the West Wing.
''There was an effort to have some outside folks who Karine knows and trusts talk to her about why leaving last fall would have made a lot of sense for her and her career,'' the source said, calling it an ''effort to encourage her to move along.''
Jean-Pierre, the person added, ''had been in the job for a year and a half at that point, which is a pretty standard tenure for a press secretary in what is admittedly a very demanding job [and] Jeff and Anita [tried] to have folks that she would listen to and trust talk to her about why it might be wise to do that.''
Jean-Pierre's predecessor, Jen Psaki, was press secretary for one week shy of 16 months before leaving to take a job as a host and analyst at MSNBC.
A second source told The Post that ''Jeff and Anita were trying to find Karine a graceful exit'' because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will.
Jean-Pierre, who made history in May 2022, becoming the first black and first openly gay person to hold the position, had developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings. REUTERS''There's a huge diversity issue and they're afraid of what folks are going to say,'' added this source, who said they learned of the effort from multiple people briefed by Dunn and confirmed at least one person from outside the administration did speak with Jean-Pierre.
The revelation of Dunn's plan is likely to make for awkward workplace dynamics, the first source said, but is unlikely to result in Jean-Pierre's departure.
''She has been pretty consistent in telling people from the minute she got the job that she was going to stay through the election,'' they said.
''I think Karine has decided to stay come hell or high water and that's that.''
While Jean-Pierre isn't going anywhere, the issues that brought about Dunn's failed machinations remain '-- with both sources saying the press secretary is too reliant on notes to provide the pushback and quick-thinking repartee needed to effectively champion Biden's cause.
''Karine doesn't have an understanding of the issues and she reads the book [binder] word-for-word,'' said the second source, adding that the situation is made worse by the fact that ''she thinks she's doing an amazing job.''
''She doesn't have a grasp of the issues and doesn't spend the time to learn,'' this person said.
''These issues are not second nature to people. Israel and Gaza is a perfect example. It's very nuanced. Jen would have calls with people to feel well-versed enough to go to the briefing.''
''There's an enormous amount of work that goes into getting ready,'' the first source said, ''and consistently she does not put in that level of work.''
In response, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told The Post: ''Not only are these claims wildly false, but the reality is the polar opposite. Karine was never approached by anyone with such a message. She spends four hours preparing every day. And neither Jeff nor Anita did any such thing; both have been unflinchingly supportive of her.''
Bates added Friday morning: ''Every press secretary uses the binder. Why is she being singled out?''
De facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the wife of Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer, told colleagues she decided to call in prominent Democrats to explain to Jean-Pierre, 49, that the time was ripe to move on. Getty ImagesIn December, not long after word of Dunn's plan circulated in the White House, Jean-Pierre received and rejected an unsolicited offer to become president of EMILYs List, a major Democratic group that raises money for female candidates who support expanded abortion rights.
When NBC News reported on the offer in February, the outlet said Jean-Pierre had emphatically told the group that she was ''committed to the president'' and ''I'm not going anywhere.''
Both the initial offer to Jean-Pierre from EMILYs List and its disclosure to NBC are topics of intrigue within the White House '-- with unsubstantiated theories suggesting the hand of Dunn behind the approach and Jean-Pierre behind its leak.
EMILYs List did not respond to a request for comment.
By December, Dunn appeared to have accepted that Jean-Pierre was secure in her post.
A West Wing official supportive of the press secretary provided The Post with text from an email written by Dunn ahead of Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi's Dec. 11 article that noted National Security Council spokesman John Kirby's increased profile as co-briefer alongside Jean-Pierre.
''I am happy to talk to [Farhi]. And tell him KJP isn't going anywhere so this is a ridiculous piece,'' Dunn wrote in the message.
The pro-Jean-Pierre official also told The Post that Dunn was among those who had backed the press secretary's promotion from being Psaki's deputy '-- with the comms chief even calling in a former White House official to request their help communicating to reporters that ''Karine is very strong and doing a very good job in the briefing room.''
In response, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told The Post: ''Not only are these claims wildly false, but the reality is the polar opposite.'' Getty Images''She is an incredibly quick study on a variety of policy issues that she has to be appraised of every single day,'' that ex-official said.
Those with less glowing reviews acknowledge Jean-Pierre is not short of confidence.
''I think everyone's resigned to the fact that she's not going anywhere on her own,'' said the second source who described Dunn's autumn conservations.
''She thinks she's doing a really good job and thinks the president wants her to stay.''
What Biden really wants was unclear to The Post's sources, with a third source familiar with administration dynamics and skeptical of Jean-Pierre's performance saying the president ''trusts his senior advisers to manage the team as needed.''
In December, not long after word of Dunn's plan circulated in the White House, Jean-Pierre received and rejected an unsolicited offer to become president of EMILYs List. REUTERS'Serious tension'
Kirby, who has two stints as Pentagon press secretary under his belt and also fronted State Department briefings in the final 20 months of the Obama administration, has shared the stage with Jean-Pierre at most White House briefings since Hamas terrorists massacred about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 '-- contributing to what one source called ''serious tension'' within the West Wing.
''Sometimes he talks to her and she acts as if he is not talking,'' said a fourth source familiar with the situation and critical of Jean-Pierre.
''She has been pretty aggressive about marking her territory,'' agreed the first source.
Kirby, who is widely respected by journalists as a valuable source of both information and soundbites, has requested to pick out who asks him questions at briefings, but Jean-Pierre has not agreed to allow him to do so.
Dunn has supported Kirby's ask, said the fourth source, but still Jean-Pierre has not relented, even after Kirby's desire was publicly reported in January by Axios.
When NBC News reported on the offer in February, the outlet said Jean-Pierre had emphatically told the group that she was ''committed to the president'' and ''I'm not going anywhere.'' Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/ShutterstockKirby, 60, and Jean-Pierre have sought to tamp down the perception of a power struggle.
In February, they ''issued a statement praising the other,'' the New York Times wrote in an article focused on the relationship.
Kirby told the Times, ''It's a privilege to be in her company, to watch her work and to learn from her.''
The Gray Lady did not publish Jean-Pierre's statement on Kirby, but it was provided to The Post and read: ''Admiral Kirby is an excellent colleague and I'm proud to work with him. I've enjoyed getting to know him and have great respect for his service to our country. His military experience and the work he has done as part of the national security team have been immensely helpful to the White House, particularly with two ongoing conflicts around the world.''
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While Kirby is the odds-on favorite to replace Jean-Pierre as press secretary should she depart the position, there are other contenders for the opening '-- including Brian Fallon, formerly Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign press secretary and currently Vice President Kamala Harris' re-election campaign communications director, who one source said has undergone an ''ego detoxing'' in his current post.
A number of Democrats both inside and close to the White House said they were unaware of Dunn's plot to replace Jean-Pierre, or claimed to only know about it through the rumor mill, but several said that the accounts by The Post's sources rang true.
One source close to Dunn and Zients insisted, to the contrary, that ''my experience over the last year is Dunn and Zients being supportive of Karine'' and added that ''I've never heard of any such plan.''
The Post spoke with almost a dozen prominent Democratic staffers for this article, including current and former White House officials, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters.
The sources agreed that Dunn does not appear to harbor any ill will toward Jean-Pierre, with many suggesting that the encouragement that the press secretary shift to an outside role was meant to be a long-term boost to Jean-Pierre that plays more to her strengths.
''I witnessed Jeff and Anita coming pretty hard to Karine's defense after [the January Axios report on Kirby wanting to call on reporters himself] and asking others to do the same,'' said one Democrat who supports the press secretary.
''They were like, 'This is palace intrigue bulls'-- that was dramatically sensationalized,''' that source said.
Thursday evening, Zients told The Post in a statement: ''The President and everyone in the White House deeply values Karine '-- she is an incredibly talented communicator and trusted advisor who keeps a cool head in any crisis and always has your back. We are lucky to have her on the core team advancing the President's historic agenda every day.''
Jean-Pierre does have important allies within the White House, including first lady Jill Biden's top adviser Anthony Bernal, who is widely considered to rival even Zients in power due to his closeness to the first family.
Multiple former colleagues of Bernal accused him to The Post last month of verbal sexual harassment, building on earlier reports of workplace bullying.
In a sign of Bernal's influence, Zients quickly affixed his name to a statement calling those allegations ''unfounded'' just hours after receiving a request for comment, without investigating them.
What you need to know about the 'Ozempic baby boom'
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 15:52
Could weight-loss drugs increase fertility?On social media, an increasing number of people, including those who have struggled with fertility in the past, are reporting unplanned pregnancies while on popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.
"I thought I couldn't have any more kids," said Torria Leggett, a 40-year-old woman who has been trying for another child since her first was born in 2018. Leggett initially took Ozempic in 2022 before switching to another weight-loss drug, Mounjaro. "The weight loss, that's likely what jump-started it. I couldn't believe it."
According to health experts, being overweight or obese can negatively impact periods, ovulation, and the implantation of immature eggs. "Women living with obesity are more likely to have problems in conceiving, to suffer miscarriage, and are less likely to deliver live infants," Nerys Astbury, a senior researcher in diet and obesity at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences, said.
As patients lose weight, they may experience changes to their hormonal and insulin levels that increase their fertility, making it easier for them to get pregnant.
"Many high BMI patients do not ovulate, some have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and many just don't ovulate regularly," said Jamie Grifo, program director at the NYU Langone Fertility Center and chief executive physician at Inception Fertility. "With the weight loss from these drugs, many women who are anovulatory start to have regular ovulation and menses, which takes them from a low fertility situation to a more normal fertile state."
Some health experts have also suggested that weight-loss drugs could impact the effectiveness of birth control. Because weight-loss drugs slow digestion, they can affect how food and medication are absorbed in the body.
"This causes oral birth control pills to not be absorbed consistently, especially each time the dose of GLP-1/ GIP+ GLP-1 agonists are stepped up," Neha Lalani, a board-certified endocrinologist with a private practice at Bluebonnet Diabetes & Endocrinology in Texas, said. "This is resulting in failure of oral birth control pills."
According to Lalani, she recommends people use alternative methods of birth control while on weight-loss medications.
More research is needed on how these drugs impact pregnancyAccording to the Washington Post, there is not much data on how Ozempic and other similar drugs affect people who are currently pregnant or want to become pregnant, since they were excluded from early clinical trials of the medications.
Currently, FDA recommends people stop taking Ozempic and Wegovy at least two months before getting pregnant due to risks of miscarriage and birth defects. Animal studies have shown that rats, rabbits, and monkeys who were treated with the drug had higher rates of miscarriage. Their offspring were also smaller and had more birth defects than what would normally be expected.
To better understand the potential side effects of weight-loss drugs, FDA asked Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic and Wegovy, to set up a registry to collect data on individuals who became pregnant while taking the drugs. Eli Lilly, which manufactures Mounjaro, said it plans to set up a similar registry.
In addition to the registry, FDA said Novo Nordisk is also required to do another pregnancy study using either insurance claims or electronic medical records.
So far, some people who originally got pregnant while on weight-loss drugs have reported experiencing intense side effects after stopping the medications. Some of these side effects include severe hunger pangs, weight gain, and blood sugar swings.
"I was a human garbage can. And I didn't want sweets or anything. I wanted real food, like meats, cheese, and other rich protein, which was completely different from my first pregnancy," said Amanda Brierley, a 42-year-old woman who initially took semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, to treat insulin resistance from PCOS. "I was like a caveman. I couldn't stop. It was crazy."
According to fertility and bariatric experts, it's not clear if pregnancy is worsening side effects of stopping a weight-loss drug or if hormonal changes associated with pregnancy are amplifying these symptoms.
"Do weight-loss medications suppress some pregnancy symptoms that then return more intensely when a person gets off of them? Or does pregnancy worsen withdrawal symptoms?" said Allison Rodgers, an ob/gyn and reproductive endocrinologist at Fertility Centers of Illinois. "It's really hard to tease out."
Manijeh Kamyar, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and ob/gyn in Las Vegas, Nevada, said that there's not enough information on how weight-loss drugs affect pregnant people and those of childbearing age.
"Research in this area needs to be expedited and physicians really need to do their due diligence in counseling patients that we do not have this data," Kamyar said.
"My recommendation is: While you're on this treatment '-- if your doctor has decided it's the best for you '-- you should definitely be on some type of birth control," she added. "Because if you accidentally get pregnant while on this, I don't know what that's going to mean for your pregnancy'... I cannot guarantee the safety of this medication in pregnancy."
Advisory Board's weight-related resources:To help you address the growing use of weight management drugs, Advisory Board offers several resources:
This expert insight outlines the five biggest questions about weight management drugs and their answers. Similarly, this expert insight addresses what headlines get wrong about weight management drugs and what healthcare leaders should know instead.
Radio Advisory's Rachel Woods has also covered GLP-1 drugs on the podcast, discussing the potential future of these drugs and how they could help '-- or hurt '-- health systems' finances. This expert insight on the five catalysts that will impact the future of obesity care and this research on three potential pathways for the future of obesity care are also useful resources.
Our weight management and obesity care resource library can also help leaders understand the current care landscape, manage innovations, and prepare for transformations in care. (Muller, Bloomberg, 4/18; Reed, Axios, 4/18; Camero, USA Today, 4/17; Schimelpfening, Healthline, 3/26; Klein, Washington Post, 4/5; Pawlowski, TODAY, 4/24; Hignett, Forbes, 4/24)
Speaker Mike Johnson recounts how his sons almost drowned near Palm Beach fundraiser
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:14
House Speaker Mike Johnson has opened up about how he nearly lost his two teenage sons to a rip current while on a Florida fundraising trip just weeks after he took the gavel this past fall.
In an interview with The Atlantic, Johnson, 52, recounted that he had trekked down to Palm Beach during the week of Thanksgiving to huddle with GOP donors and dine with former President Donald Trump.
The day after Johnson (R-La.), 18-year-old Jack, and 13-year-old Will broke bread with the 45th president, the new speaker was in a meeting at a beachside hotel when his security team informed him that the boys had been swept out to sea.
According to Johnson, a passing parasailer spotted Will's head barely poking above the water and alerted lifeguards, who rode out on jet skis to snag the brothers.
By the time Johnson arrived, he told the magazine, medical personnel were pumping his son's chests. Jack and Will ultimately spent four hours in the emergency room before being cleared to return home.
Donald Trump reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson soon after he heard the harrowing story. AP''President Trump heard about it somehow'--miraculously, this never made the news,'' said the Louisianan.
''He was just so moved by the idea that we almost lost them, and we talked about it at great length. And we talked about the faith aspect of that because he knows that I believe that, you know'--that God spared the lives of my sons.''
At one point in their talk, Johnson said that Trump ''repeated back to me and said, 'God'--God saved your sons' lives.'''
When contacted by The Post Tuesday, a spokesperson for Johnson confirmed the near-drowning incident but declined to give additional details.
Speaker Mike Johnson traveled down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump earlier this month. ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGAJohnson told the story in response to a question about whether Trump has ''moral guidance'' that ''you would hope that everybody in power would have.''
''You know, he talks about faith,'' the speaker said. ''He and I've talked about faith.''
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Trump, who was raised Presbyterian, considers himself non-denominational and attends Christmas and Eastern services at an Episcopal church near his Mar-a-Lago home, has diligently courted evangelical Christian voters throughout his successive presidential campaigns.
Last month, the former president began selling his own endorsed version of the Good Book '-- the ''God Bless the USA Bible.''
Speaker Mike Johnson defended the former president's moral convictions. AP Donald Trump has defended Mike Johnson amid talk of a mutiny from House Republican hardliners. Getty ImagesJohnson, an evangelical Southern Baptist, has enjoyed the support of Trump since he became speaker in October of last year, replacing the deposed Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
''Look, we have a majority of one, OK? It's not like he can go and do whatever he wants to do,'' Trump told radio host John Fredericks Monday night on Real America's Voice.
''I think he's a very good person,'' he added of Johnson. ''I think he's trying very hard.''
Euro reaches record low in SWIFT transactions | MENAFN.COM
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 04:22
(MENAFN) Recent data from the SWIFT messaging system has revealed a significant decline in the euro's share of global cross-border settlements, reaching an all-time low last month. According to transaction data compiled by the global financial service, the portion of transactions involving the European single currency stood at 21.93 percent in March, marking a notable decrease from previous levels.The decline in the euro's share of SWIFT transactions is evident in the context of a broader trend, with its portion of international payments nearly halving over the past year. In January 2023, settlements in euros accounted for 37.88 percent of transactions, compared to a steep drop to 22.41 percent by December 2023. The latest figures underscore a significant shift in global currency dynamics, with the euro losing ground to other major currencies.
Conversely, the US dollar has maintained its dominance in SWIFT transactions, with its share increasing to 47.37 percent in March, marking the highest level since December 2023. Other currencies, such as the British pound and the Chinese yuan, have also seen fluctuations in their share of SWIFT transactions.
The decline in the euro's global currency share can be attributed to various factors, including the rise of China as an economic powerhouse and efforts by emerging economies to attain financial independence. Additionally, the deterioration of ties between the European Union and Russia may have further contributed to the euro's diminished role in global transactions.
Overall, the data highlights the evolving landscape of global currency markets and the ongoing shifts in the relative importance of major currencies. As geopolitical and economic dynamics continue to evolve, market participants will closely monitor developments in global currency trends and their implications for international finance.
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Katherine Maher's Color Revolution | City Journal
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 04:06
The Color Revolution is restless. Beginning in the former Soviet republics in the early 2000s, it moved along the coast of North Africa with the so-called Arab Spring in the 2010s, and, into the current decade, has spread further.
The ostensible purpose of Color Revolutions'--named after the Rose Revolution, Orange Revolution, and Tulip Revolution in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively'--is to replace authoritarian regimes with Western liberal democracies. American and European intelligence services are often heavily involved in these revolutions, with ambitions not only to spread modern ideologies but also to undermine geopolitical opponents.
The West's favored methods of supporting Color Revolutions include fomenting dissent, organizing activists through social media, promoting student movements, and unleashing domestic unrest on the streets. Americans hold varying opinions on such efforts, but what many don't realize is that they occur not only overseas but also here in the United States. The summer of rioting following the death of George Floyd, which ushered in the new DEI regime, was in many ways a domestic Color Revolution, advanced by progressive NGOs, media entities, and political actors.
A minor figure in these movements, a woman named Katherine Maher, has recently come to greater prominence. Maher was involved in the wave of Color Revolutions that took place in North Africa in the 2010s, and she supported the post-George Floyd upheavals in the United States in the 2020s. She was also the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and was just recently named the new CEO of National Public Radio.
At NPR, Maher has already been embroiled in controversy. Longtime editor Uri Berliner, who has now resigned, accused her of left-wing bias and suppressing dissent. Following these accusations, I did extensive reporting demonstrating that Maher has a troubling history of arguing against the notion of objective truth and supporting censorship in the name of democracy.
Now I have gathered additional facts that raise new questions about Maher's role as a regime-change agent, both foreign and domestic. She has brought the Color Revolution home to America.
In the first part of her career, Maher seemed to follow the wave of U.S.-backed revolutions through the Middle East and North Africa.
She had the perfect background for this kind of work. She held a degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from New York University and had studied in Cairo and Damascus. And, at every step, she had managed to connect with powerful institutions, repeating their slogans and climbing their ranks. (Maher did not respond to request for comment.)
During the volatile Arab Spring period, under a constantly rotating series of NGO affiliations, Maher went to multiple countries that were undergoing U.S.-backed regime change. Beginning in 2011, for example, she traveled multiple times to Tunisia, working with regime-change activists and government officials. In 2012, she traveled to a strategic city on the Turkey-Syria border, which had become a base for Western-backed opposition to Bashar al-Assad. That same year, she traveled to Libya, where the U.S. had just overthrown strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
During much of 2011, Maher worked for the National Democratic Institute, a government-funded NGO with deep connections to U.S. intelligence and the Democratic Party's foreign policy machine. The organization was ''set up to do independently what CIA had done covertly worldwide,'' says national security analyst J. Michael Waller. While initially some distance supposedly existed between NDI and the intelligence services, that relationship has devolved back to ''the gray zone,'' per Waller, and it appears that they often work in concert. ''NDI is an instrument of Samantha Power and the global revolution elements of the Obama team,'' Waller explains. ''It has gone along with, and been significant parts of, color revolutions around the world. It is very much a regime-change actor.''
American adversaries such as China agree with this sentiment and have accused NDI of being a ''second CIA.'' Some nations, fearing American interference, have banned NDI from operating in their territories. In 2012, for example, Egypt accused NDI and other organizations of serving as unregistered foreign agents and working ''in coordination'' with U.S. intelligence to subvert the Egyptian state.
During her time at NDI, Katherine Maher was ''part of a revolutionary vanguard movement,'' says Waller.
I have obtained access to several now-deleted blog posts written by Maher during this period, which support Waller's thesis and shed additional light on her work at NDI. In August 2011, Maher wrote a post about NDI's work in Libya, which was then in the midst of its revolution: Gaddafi was still alive and U.S.-backed rebels had set up a headquarters in the city of Benghazi. During the conflict, Maher wrote, ''a member of the NDI Middle East team walked into our office and asked how difficult it would be to wire downtown Benghazi'' for Internet communications.
This was not mere democratic institution-building but a plan to provide communications to Libya's political and military opposition, in the middle of a civil war. Maher seemed to suggest that restoring connectivity was essential to overthrowing Gaddafi's government. (NDI did not end up executing the plan, according to Maher; Internet was restored through other means.)
The Internet, Maher learned, was a key asset on the new battlefield. The primary lesson of the Arab Spring was that Western technology'--social media, encrypted messaging, mobile connectivity'--had become a powerful tool of regime change. Twitter, in particular, was an asset for dissidents in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere.
Over time, however, some of those dissidents grew skeptical of Maher, who seemed to be using the same platforms to penetrate activist and opposition circles. In 2016, after Maher became the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation'--to the puzzlement of some observers'--one of her Tunisia contacts accused her of working with the CIA. ''Katherine Maher is probably a CIA agent,'' said Slim Amamou, a digital activist and cabinet minister in Tunisia's transition government, who had spent a significant amount of time with her. ''[S]he was constantly trying to get introduced in the activist social network.''
Maher responded defensively, shaming Amamou for supposedly turning against her, and denying the charge. ''I'm not any sort of agent,'' she said. ''Don't defame me.''
There is no way to discern whether Maher was an agent, asset, or otherwise connected with the CIA. But her official status, however interesting it may be to speculate about, is irrelevant. In practice, Maher was undoubtedly advancing the agenda of the national security apparatus and working to advance the agenda of the Color Revolution.
The promotion of ''democracy,'' however, does not stop overseas. A Color Revolution has now arrived on American shores, too.
Maher's r(C)sum(C) provides us with a map of modern power, connecting political revolutions overseas with the cultural revolution here at home. She has been affiliated with key foreign policy and intelligence institutions: the Atlantic Council, World Economic Forum, State Department, World Bank, and Council on Foreign Relations. More recently, she has obtained power at several key strategic assets for the flow of information within the United States: CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, CEO of National Public Radio, and chairman of the board of the encrypted-messaging application Signal.
When Maher was selected as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, many members of the Wikipedia community expressed surprise. But seen through the prism of the Color Revolution, the online encyclopedia is a key strategic way station. The site defines the terms, shapes the narrative, and launders mostly left-wing political ideologies into the discourse, under the guise of ''neutral knowledge.'' Additionally, in recent years, it has served as training data for artificial intelligence, which then incorporates Wikipedia's biases into its outputs.
Some suspect that intelligence services have used Wikipedia as a tool in the information war. ''The bias of Wikipedia, the fact that certain points of view have been systematically silenced, is nothing new,'' co-founder Larry Sanger told me in an interview. But he suspects more is at play, noting that research as far back as 2007 suggests that the CIA may be manipulating the site's entries. ''We know that there is a lot of backchannel communication and I think it has to be the case that the Wikimedia Foundation now, probably governments, probably the CIA, have accounts that they control, in which they actually exert their influence.''
Maher, for her part, was not shy about her political agenda. As I have reported, during her tenure as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, she advanced a policy of censorship under the pretense of fighting ''disinformation.'' I wrote:
In a speech to the Atlantic Council, an organization with extensive ties to U.S. intelligence services, she explained that she ''took a very active approach to disinformation,'' coordinated censorship ''through conversations with government,'' and suppressed dissenting opinions related to the pandemic and the 2020 election.
In that same speech, Maher said that, in relation to the fight against disinformation, the ''the number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States.'' These speech protections, Maher continued, make it ''a little bit tricky'' to suppress ''bad information'' and ''the influence peddlers who have made a real market economy around it.''
Maher's general policy at Wikipedia, she tweeted, was to support efforts to ''eliminate racist, misogynist, transphobic, and other forms of discriminatory content'''--which, under current left-wing definitions, could include almost anything to the right of Joe Biden.
Wikipedia is important because it shapes perception and closes the circle of information production. Wikipedia replicates left-wing news reporting, news reporting replicates left-wing Wikipedia entries, and artificial intelligence replicates both. It's a closed loop that operates surreptitiously, using its reputation for unbiased knowledge as a cover for its own disinformation.
How does NPR fit into what we might call the American Color Revolution? It is another key component in our domestic culture war. NPR has formative power in many culture-shaping institutions and increasingly represents the voice of blue elites. It is state radio, in the Soviet sense: it produces propaganda to advance its own cultural power and move the nation toward a desired end-state.
Maher understood the power of media'--and radio, in particular'--early in her career. In 2010, according to a now-deleted blog post that I have obtained, Maher speculated that seizing control of radio could be a way to ''Govern a Country.'' The specific context of the post was the U.S.-supported revolution in the African nation of Cote d'Ivoire, where the incumbent president had refused to concede to a Western-backed candidate, sparking a civil war. Eventually, the opposition prevailed, took control of communications, and rules the country to this day. ''Control over the flow of information in a closed society can be tantamount to control over the state,'' Maher wrote.
While Maher was more descriptive than prescriptive in this 2010 blog post, the implication of what she described seems clear enough: control the narrative, control the regime. The production of media works in Cote d'Ivoire as it does in America; the difference is only a matter of scale and complexity.
The same principles of Color Revolution apply to the encrypted-messaging application Signal, where Maher currently serves as chairman of the board. Signal was originally funded, in part, by the government-backed Open Technology Fund, where Maher sits on the advisory council and which has deep connections with technologies used for regime change. According to some analysts, Signal's purpose is to provide overseas activists with secure communications; it is, in the positive sense, a way to promote dissent and spread controversial political opinion.
On the surface, this appears to be a contradiction. Maher backed dissent abroad but suppressed it at home. She not only censored content at Wikipedia but also supported deplatforming then-President Donald Trump, who opposed the domestic revolution following the death of George Floyd. ''Must be satisfying to deplatform fascists,'' Maher wrote on Twitter, after Trump was effectively removed from social media. ''Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place.''
This is not hypocrisy; it is the politics of friend and enemy. For Maher, ''democracy'' means the advancement of left-wing race and gender ideology all over the world. This requires elevating progressive dissidents overseas, while suppressing conservative dissidents at home. For partisans of Color Revolution, dissent and censorship are not in contradiction'--they are two sides of the same coin.
It's easy to understand Katherine Maher as a curriculum vitae'--she has collected affiliations and positions, traversing the hierarchy of progressive culture'--but it is harder to understand her as a human being.
Public information offers a likely clue. Maher grew up in an affluent, nearly all-white Connecticut town. Her father worked at the most prestigious firms on Wall Street and, according to family lore, her grandfather had been a spy in Europe. Her mother is a Democratic state senator in Connecticut and dutifully follows the party line; she supported Hillary Clinton for president, stands with Planned Parenthood, and donates to the ACLU.
I spoke with some of the people in Maher's personal orbit, who have a further impression. Maher, in their telling, anyway, is immensely ambitious, calculating, and cold. She rose through the ranks of power and built a network of influential patrons, but never maintained close relationships, with some wondering whether she had any friends at all. She traveled constantly, built her Rolodex, and spoke alongside establishment players, such as former CIA director Michael Hayden, but her personal life was reportedly chaotic.
She had been through a series of relationships, apparently, and always disguised her ambition in the language of ideology'--a means to power, rather than an authentic commitment. ''That's Katherine in a nutshell: the privileged white girl with a savior complex,'' said one contact with knowledge of Maher's personal life.
For the better part of her thirties, Maher had her sights on powerful men in the tech sector'--a high-tech entrepreneur; an early Facebook employee'--but also considered finding someone lesser as she approached 40. ''I was advised by a more senior female exec that as a woman, I ought to seek a husband who wouldn't mind being supported,'' Maher wrote in 2020. ''An artist, perhaps. Someone with co-equal ambition would be a drag on my career, make me less competitive.''
When Maher did get married, to corporate lawyer Ashutosh Upreti in 2023, she earned coverage in the New York Times, but it was hardly flattering. She had mistaken her first date for a job interview. ''I thought he was more interested in being my general counsel than my date,'' Maher told the newspaper. She had refused to answer his proposal for five weeks, before relenting. They eventually settled down and adopted a designer dog.
Maher, in public and in private, then, appears to be a vessel for power, with few original thoughts. But she has a charismatic appeal and is willing to do what it takes to turn power into more power'--to the delight of the institutions that have orbited around her for the past 20 years. As Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger told me: ''It is getting to the point where you can't accuse people like Katherine Maher of hypocrisy anymore, because they're not being hypocritical. They're actually saying it out loud: 'We don't really believe in this freedom stuff anyway.'''
Sanger, perhaps, is being na¯ve. The American Color Revolution does not exist to advance principles but to accumulate power and entrench ideologies. Freedom is a tool: sometimes it is helpful to the cause; sometimes it is an impediment. The evidence certainly suggests that this is how Katherine Maher sees the world.
Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America's Cultural Revolution.
Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile for Web Summit Qatar via Getty Images
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Sun, 28 Apr 2024 11:25
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a new $6 billion weapons purchases for Ukraine on Friday that he said is the biggest so far and will purchase new weapons systems for Ukraine, including additional Patriot missiles it needs to counter Russian missile barrages on its cities.
"This is the largest security assistance package that we've committed to date," Austin said at a Pentagon news conference.
"It will include critical interceptors for Ukraine's Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems, more counter-drone systems and support equipment, significant amounts of artillery ammunition, and air to ground munitions and maintenance and sustainment support," he added.
The new aid package is the second time this week that the Pentagon has provided Ukraine with new aid from the $61 billion in aid passed earlier this week by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C. Q. Brown, Jr (R) answer questions during a press briefing at the Pentagon April 26, 2024 in Arlington.
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On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced a $1 billion aid package to immediately provide Ukraine with weapons and ammunitions from existing U.S. military stockpiles.
The $6 billion aid package announced Friday falls under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) that procures contracts with American companies to build weapons that will meet Ukraine's long-term security goals.
Even though the contracts are expedited, it will take some time for those weapons to get to Ukraine since they will be built from scratch.
Providing additional air defense systems for Ukraine has been a priority for the U.S. and was the focus of the monthly meeting earlier Friday of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the 50 nations providing weapons to Ukraine.
"We urgently need Patriot systems and missiles for them," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky told the group in a video message.
"This is what can and should save lives right now. At least seven Patriots are necessary for our cities to be safe. You have these systems and they truly can change the situation now change it for the better," he said.
"This year, Russian jets already used more than 9,000 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine and we need the ability to shoot down the air combat aircraft so that they do not approach our positions and borders," Zelenskiy said.
At his news conference, Austin repeatedly noted that the Patriot weapons systems should not be characterized as "a silver bullet" but that what was needed for Ukraine's air defense was an integrated air defense system made up of various weapons and capabilities.
Zelensky also said that the months-long delay in getting Congress to approve more U.S. military aid had given Russia the initiative on the battlefield.
"Although in a half a year while we were waiting for a decision on the American support, the Russian army managed to seize the initiative on the battlefield we can still now not only stabilize the front, but also move forward achieving our Ukrainian goals in the war," said Zelensky.
He said Ukrainian troops were at a 10-to-1 disadvantage in artillery ammunition. "You can imagine what our soldiers feel when they simply have nothing to respond to enemy fire," something he said "inspires Putin to fight on."
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VIDEO - WILD: Black athletic director arrested for using AI audio to frame white principal with racist rant. Here are the details. | Not the Bee
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 14:57
Jussie Smollett must be devastated that he didn't think of this first!
Listen to this audio recording:
[Warning: Language]
Sounds pretty bad, right? It prompted a wave of hatred for Pikesville High School Principal Eric Eiswert, like this:
BUT IT WAS ALL FAKE.Yeah, it turns out that a former athletic director, who is black, has been arrested for making this using a clip of the principal's voice that he uploaded to an AI audio platform, which then allowed him to make the recording with whatever words he put into a prompt.
From the Baltimore Banner:
Baltimore County Police arrested Pikesville High School's former athletic director Thursday morning and charged him with using artificial intelligence to impersonate Principal Eric Eiswert, leading the public to believe Eiswert made racist and antisemitic comments behind closed doors.
Dazhon Darien, 31, was apprehended as he attempted to board a flight to Houston at BWI Airport, Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. Darien was stopped for having a gun on him and airport officials saw there was a warrant for his arrest. Police said they did not know whether Darien was trying to flee.
Despite what the woke folks tell you, racism and hate comes in all shapes and sizes. This black guy made a vile rant against blacks and Jews and tried to pin it on a white guy to absolutely destroy his life!
"The audio clip ... had profound repercussions," police wrote in charging documents. "It not only led to Eiswert's temporary removal from the school but also triggered a wave of hate-filled messages on social media and numerous calls to the school. The recording also caused significant disruptions for the PHS staff and students."
Police say Darien made the recording in retaliation after Eiswert initiated an investigation into improper payments he made to a school athletics coach who was also his roommate, and Darien is also charged with theft and retaliating against a witness.
Darien was released on a $5,000 bond.
Meanwhile, Eiswert has not been working at Pikesville High since the recording was made. It is unclear if he was suspended with or without pay.
More from JMORE, a Jewish outlet in Baltimore:
Last March, AI experts told the Banner that the audio was mostly [sic] likely fake, citing its flat quality and lack of consistent breathing sounds.
"From the beginning of this incident, the recording seemed odd and suspicious," said Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council. He said this was why his agency held off on issuing any initial comment about the Eiswert case.
Glad someone had some common sense.WMAR 2 has more details on this criminal genius's attempt to commit cybercrime:
During an interview with detectives, Darien admitted to "having issues" with Eiswert since he was employed.
Darien also confessed to sending the recording from his work email to someone he "shouldn't have," but denied knowing a TJ Foust or having any further involvement in creating or disseminating the clip.
However, police found Darien's phone number listed as the recovery contact for the TJ Foust account.
School tech staff also noticed Darien used their network on three separate occasions to search the internet for OpenAl tools.
"Darien had used Large Language Models (LLMs), such as OpenAl and Bingchat before the recording was released," detectives wrote in charging documents.
We're gonna need some tough crackdowns in the Wild West of AI.The Baltimore Sun added this note:
Scott Shellenberger, Baltimore County's state's attorney, said this is the first time his office has prosecuted a case related to artificial intelligence, and it's likely the first criminal case in the country. State lawmakers will need to update criminal statutes to include the new technology next legislative session, he said.
My suggestion?
You use AI to destroy a man's life? Yours should be destroyed instead.Oh, PS, since Darien was accused of reimbursement fraud, this X user found that Darien got Covid relief funds in his name. Someone should probably look into that!
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