El CEO de Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, brindó una charla en North Carolina A&T State University donde habló sobre la importancia de construir comunidad. Los alumnos de esta casa de estudios realizaron varias preguntas al fundador de la red social sobre este y más temas.
“Necesitamos construir diferentes cosas que haga que la gente se una para trabajar junta (…) y así resolver juntos en comunidad diferentes problemas que nos aquejan” señaló Zuckerberg en una trasmisión en vivo desde su cuenta de Facebook. Así se refirió a problemas globales como el cambio climático y otras dificultades, que a su juicio, pueden ser resueltas en colectivo.
Entre las preguntas que los alumnos de la universidad estadounidense formularon, se habló de las noticias falsas. Zuckerberg aceptó la responsabilidad de la red social frente a este contenido e incluso aceptó que la empresa, muchas veces, es engañada por este tipo de noticias. Se trata de un trabajo constante de Facebook y un problema con el que aún está lidiando.
“Estamos realmente en contra de las noticias falsas y la falta de información, hay algunas acusaciones que dicen que realmente queremos este tipo de contenidos y servicios. Pero eso no es cierto. Nadie en nuestra comunidad quiere información falsa. Lo que todo el mundo quiere es información real. Si alguien tiene una mala experiencia en Facebook, ya no confiará en este ni en sus contenidos y eso no es bueno para nosotros”, dijo.
Dentro de este debate, Zuckerberg enfatizó la importancia que tiene la veracidad de un contenido ante la posibilidad de que se trate en realidad de un desacuerdo de opiniones. “Así que antes de retirar algún contenido tenemos que estar seguros de que se trata de falsedad y no de una opinión que hiere los sentimientos de algunas personas y por ello es catalogado como tal”, señaló. Cabe mencionar que para este tipo de situaciones Facebook maneja otro tipo de mecanismos.
Zuckerberg también habló en esta reunión sobre algunas anécdotas como padre de familia y lo feliz que se encuentra de recibir a su próxima hija. Según el CEO de Facebook, la experiencia de cambiar pañales le dio una nueva perspectiva del mundo.
El fundador de la red social más grande e importante del mundo hizo un especial énfasis en la importancia que hay en tener más ingenieros y profesionales creativos que logren conectar con el mundo. “Creo que este es un tiempo único en la historia de la humanidad (…) podemos ir juntos a construir y dar herramientas suficientes para empoderar”.
A esta asamblea de 50 minutos asistieron 200 alumnos de dicha casa de estudios. Zuckerberg instó a los jóvenes a finalizar sus estudios superiores. Como se recuerda, hace algunos días anunció que volvería a Harvard. “Estoy seguro que esto se será lo que hará a mis padres los seres más orgullosos del mundo. Sé que no soy el mejor mensajero para esto, pero: sigan en la universidad”, señaló el CEO de Facebook.
The group sat inside a stolen Chevrolet pickup when they spotted musician Kyle Yorlets outside his home in Nashville.
They approached Yorlets, 24, and he gave up his wallet, authorities said. They also wanted his keys. Yorlets refused and was fatally shot, a Nashville Police Department investigation has found.
Authorities are seeking to try the group as adults. The attorney for the youngest — a 12-year-old girl — said her client has cooperated and did not belong in an adult court, the Tennessean reported.
Assistant District Attorney Stacy Miller disagreed in a juvenile court hearing Friday.
“She didn’t run from there, and she didn’t call the police,” Miller said, according to the Tennessean. “She’s as guilty as they are.”
Police recovered two stolen, loaded pistols after tracking the juveniles to a Walmart. Their involvement in the case started Thursday, as they searched for the 12-year-old, who had run away from home, police spokesman Don Aaron said.
Investigators found Snapchat photos of the girl in a car with other young people and guns, Aaron said, according to the Tennessean.
Yorlets was one of four children raised on a farm in Pennsylvania. His mother, Deb Yorlets, told PennLive that Kyle began singing at a young age.
“He was extremely passionate about music. Everyone who met him was amazed and loved him,” she said. “It’s just so senseless what has happened.”
News of Yorlets’s death spread quickly in the tightknit music community in Nashville, said John Ferguson, the father of a bandmate. Many young upstart musicians work in the food industry, and owners there have reached out to provide food for family gatherings. A memorial service is planned for Monday, Ferguson told The Post on Saturday.
Carverton had released a single and a music video. Their debut album, “Chasing Sounds,” is scheduled for release in late March.
A single, “Try To,” will be played at the memorial service. It is an autobiographical song by Yorlets, said Ferguson, who started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Yorlets’s family.
The band was growing its local presence and was looking forward to the album’s release, he said.
“I told the band, ‘The album shows songwriting maturity,’ ” Ferguson said, thanks in large part to Yorlets.
WASHINGTON — The Green New Deal has always been a plan to make a plan.
It sets an ambitious goal to move the economy toward net-zero emissions by 2030, but as supporters in Congress eagerly work to build out those plans into real legislation, they’re going to face stiff competition from politicians, activists and think tanks working on their own proposals from a different set of assumptions.
Even among backers of the nonbinding resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., its broad strokes could sow disputes about what the Green New Deal means in practice. Ocasio-Cortez herself described the resolution as a “request for proposals” designed to elicit legislation from multiple lawmakers.
“This is the first chapter of the book,” said Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president of political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Where you start out on these proposals is not where you end up.”
Potential for conflict
One area where the Green New Deal activists could clash with other environmental groups, lawmakers and other officials are their demands for a suite of “economic justice” policies, which include items like single-payer health care, along with guaranteed jobs and housing.
The Green New Deal resolution mentions these issues in passing, but there’s no party consensus around them and health care is already shaping up as a defining debate in the 2020 Democratic primaries.
“My own view is these energy investments and clean energy investments are going to be considered separately when they get to real legislation,” John Podesta, founder and director of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning advocacy group, told NBC News.
This could lead to confusion down the line. While many Democrats see the Green New Deal economic proposals as general goals, backers on the left see them as a critical component that they say will aid workers affected by the transition away from fossil fuels.
“It isn’t a section of the Green New Deal, it is the Green New Deal,” said Demond Drummer, executive director of New Consensus, a nonprofit that’s advised Ocasio-Cortez and is crafting proposals within the Green New Deal framework that could serve as a basis for legislation.
Many players, many plans
For Ocasio-Cortez and the activists who put the Green New Deal on the top of Democrats’ agenda, the race is on to define the maximalist approach and hold lawmakers to it.
Drummer said that the group’s plan is to produce regular policy proposals through 2019, with a goal of assembling a collection that lines up with all of the Green New Deal’s goals by January 2020.
“It’s not like there’s going to be this magnum opus that’s released in 2020,” he said. “There are some things ready to go now and some things that need to be worked on and revised.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is working on a “comprehensive” climate proposal that “builds on the (Green New Deal) resolution that was introduced and fleshes out a lot of those details,” communications director Josh Miller-Lewis said.
On the activist front, the Sunrise Movement is planning a national tour to promote the Green New Deal. They’ll also keep watch over the politicians working on related proposals, which includes the announced and potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, several of whom are co-sponsors of the resolution and are also likely to roll out their own climate plans on the campaign trail. In particular, they hope to maintain the plan’s strict 10-year path toward a clean economy, a goal some allies see as unrealistic.
“If proposals don’t close in on a timeline to get to net-zero emissions in the time the science demands, they’re not the Green New Deal,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, communications director for Sunrise Movement.
Uncertain allies
Democratic leaders have generally praised the Green New Deal’s ambition, but they’re staying neutral on where their congressional members go next on climate legislation.
The resolution has 68 co-sponsors in the House and 11 in the Senate, still well short of a majority of Democrats in either chamber.
“My view is that when there are issues subject to robust debate within the many members of the House Democratic caucus, that it’s best that I don’t weigh in until I have an opportunity to evaluate the particular legislative proposals and have a discussion with all of the interested parties,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., a member of the House leadership team, told reporters last week.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., created a new Select Committee on climate change, but resisted Ocasio-Cortez’s demands to task it with producing a plan for achieving the Green New Deal’s goals. The committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., has said only that the panel will operate “in the spirit of the Green New Deal.”
That leaves it to individual lawmakers and committees to take the lead and Green New Deal advocates may have some allies. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., chair of the powerful Rules Committee, is a co-sponsor of Ocasio-Cortez’s resolution, as is Transportation and Infrastructure chairman Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. His committee could potentially incorporate elements of the Green New Deal into legislation.
“I think you’ll see a different kind of infrastructure bill than you saw in the past,” Podesta said. “There will be more emphasis and reliance on clean energy, more electrification of the transportation sector, more investment in energy efficient buildings.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a prominent policy voice in the progressive caucus, said he expected to see “lots of creative initiatives” under the Green New Deal banner, rather than one major bill. He’s working on legislation designed to boost tax credits for electric cars, an issue he’s pursued in prior legislative sessions.
However, the chair of Energy and Commerce, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., is not a resolution co-sponsor and has sounded some skeptical notes on Ocasio-Cortez’s approach.
In the Senate, Republicans are in control, making movement on major legislation unlikely. But key Democrats are also less warm to the Green New Deal, most notably coal-friendly Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Rival approaches
There’s a fundamental legislative debate shaping up over how to tax pollution, an area where the Green New Deal may represent a more drastic break from prior Democratic plans.
For decades, Democrats across the ideological spectrum have sought to put a price on carbon emissions in order to encourage companies and consumers to adopt more energy-efficient practices.
Markey, the Green New Deal resolution co-sponsor, led a failed 2009 effort to enact cap-and-trade legislation that would set a total limit on pollution and then allow companies to buy and sell emissions allowances between them. It passed the House, but was never voted on in the Senate.
The Green New Deal resolution stays quiet on the topic of carbon taxes, but supporters have often framed their proposal as a rival framework to that approach.
Ocasio-Cortez has said cap-and-trade or carbon taxes could be part of an overall solution, but are “inadequate as the whole answer.” A coalition of environmental groups backing the Green New Deal are explicitly against the concept, with critics on the left arguing carbon taxes will raise prices for consumers and spark a political backlash. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is weighing a Democratic presidential run, unsuccessfully tried to pass a carbon tax in his state last year and has since urged national Democrats to consider other approaches.
But many economists and environmental groups still back putting a price on emissions and some Democrats see it as an easier bridge to bipartisan support. Versions of a carbon tax enjoy backing from at least some Republicans and major corporations, including oil companies like ExxonMobil and BP, which see it as a way to avoid more intrusive government intervention.
In the House, Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., is co-sponsoring a bill with Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., and a group of moderate Democrats to impose a $15-per-ton fee on carbon that rises over time and then pay out the collected revenue to Americans as a dividend.
“We have to create a disincentive,” Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who has not signed onto the Green New Deal, told NBC News. “I favor a carbon fee and dividend, returning the dollars generated right back to taxpayers.”
Another carbon fee bill sponsored by a more progressive coalition of Democrats, Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Reps. David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, would start the price at $50-per-ton.
Schatz, who is considered an influential policy figure among progressives, has showered praise on the Green New Deal, but did not sign onto the resolution and has said he is working on his own proposals.
For now, the first legislative action on the Green New Deal will come from the Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is planning a vote on the resolution in an apparent bid to highlight divisions among Democrats, including the 2020 candidates, and lay the groundwork for future GOP attacks.
Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called McConnell’s move a “political stunt” in a speech on the Senate floor and challenged Republicans to release their own climate bills. Schumer has not signed onto the Green New Deal, however.
Benjy Sarlin is a political reporter for NBC News.
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La corbeta rusa Mirazh cruza por Estambul en su ruta hacia Siria.
Quienes se dedican a observar barcos en Estambul se han convertido en una fuente clave de valiosa información geopolítica para diplomáticos y expertos en inteligencia al alertar al mundo sobre las dimensiones que ha tomado la campaña de Rusia en Siria.
Es casi medianoche. Apenas acabo de irme a dormir al final de un largo viaje a esta ciudad, cuando el sonido de mi teléfono celular anuncia que tengo un mensaje.
“Noticias ligeramente malas”, dice.
“Alexander Tkachenko entrará en el Bósforo a las 4:20 am. Muy inconveniente. No hay ninguna garantía de que veamos nada en absoluto”, agrega.
El Alexander Tkachenko es un enorme ferry ruso de pasajeros y vehículos que ha cruzado el Bósforo en muchas ocasiones anteriores, transportando de forma visible en su cubierta camiones militares y otros equipos destinados a Siria.
Puede que esta vez su carga no pueda verse. En todo caso, en esta época del año a las 4:20 am aún falta mucho para que amanezca en Turquía. Aún estará oscuro.
Pero eso no detendrá a Yoruk Isik, quien me envió el mensaje, antes de levantarse de la cama para ir buscar un buen lugar de observación a las orillas del Bósforo, en el corazón de Estambul, con sus binoculares y una cámara con un teleobjetivo.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Monica Whitlock
Image caption
Yoruk Isik se dedica a observar y fotografiar los barcos que cruzan el Bósforo.
Estará así preparado para tuitear las noticias sobre el tránsito del barco a muchos de sus ávidos seguidores, entre los cuales ahora se incluyen diplomáticos y analistas de inteligencia alrededor del mundo.
Y me está invitando a acompañarle, aunque advierte: “Me sentiré muy culpable si no hay nada a bordo.
Por supuesto que yo también me levanto. Para eso he venido hasta acá.
Observación de barcos
Bienvenidos al extravagante -pero políticamente cada vez más importante- mundo de la observación de barcos.
Se trata de una altamente colaborativa fraternidad internacional. La mayor parte, aunque no todos, son hombres e Isik es uno de sus miembros más entusiastas y enérgicos.
Es un hombre grande en todos los sentidos de la palabra: parece un oso, es generoso y divertido.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Monica Whitlock
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Yoruk Isik (a la derecha) con su amigo Devrim Yaylali, quien también se dedica a observar barcos.
Y se mantiene en pie tomando tazas de café bien fuerte, que es el tercer amor de su vida después de su esposa y de los barcos, porque no duerme mucho.
“Muchas veces me levanto a las dos, tres o cuatro de la mañana para ver cosas”, dice.
“Sí, es muy doloroso. Destruyo muchos días como este”, agrega riendo.
Es fácil entender cómo comenzó su adicción. En parte se deriva de vivir en Estambul.
El Bósforo, la puerta hacia el Mar Negro para los barcos que vienen del Mediterráneo, no es la única vía en el mundo congestionada con el tráfico de barcos procedentes de muchos países del mundo.
Pero ninguno de estos canales atraviesa el corazón de una ciudad enorme.
Así, los 15 millones de habitantes de Estambul pueden ver una gran cantidad de barcos de guerra, cruceros o cargueros mercantespasar frente a sus narices.
Puntos de observación
Con apenas 700 metros de ancho en su punto más angosto, el Bósforo es tan transitado que para evitar accidentes las autoridades turcas usan un sistema de una sola dirección, cambiando regularmente el sentido de la navegación de acuerdo con la demanda. Los barcos que van hacia el otro lado deben esperar ante sus entradas al norte o al sur.
Isik tiene sus puntos de observación favoritos, la mayor parte de ellos en una de las muchas curvas del estrecho, pero con frecuencia se limita a mirar desde el balcón de su casa.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Yoruk Isik
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El barco USS Porter durante su tránsito por el Bósforo.
“La observación de barcos es un espejo de las relaciones internacionales, de la política, de lo que está ocurriendo ahora“, dice.
“Las guerras comerciales entre Rusia y Turquía, la presencia de Estados Unidos en el Mar Negro dando apoyo a sus aliados de la OTAN o los intentos de Moscú para reinsertarse en Medio Oriente, todo está ocurriendo en mitad de esta ciudad”, agrega.
Isik, quien se gana la vida como consultor en relaciones internacionales, registra el tránsito de barcos de todo tipo.
Uno de los que esperó recientemente en un café junto a la orilla fue el barco de construcción más grande del mundo, el Pioneering Spirit, cuyo tamaño equivale al de seis aviones jumbo, para verlo cruzar el Bósforo en su ruta para ayudar a ensamblar el gasoducto Turkstream frente a las costas rusas.
Derechos de autor de la imagen @YorukIsik
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Isik informó en Twitter sobre el tránsito del Pioneering Spirit, cuyo tamaño equivale al de seis aviones jumbo.
Es tan grande que el estrecho tuvo que ser cerrado a los demás barcos mientras hacía su travesía.
Pero son los barcos de guerra los que más fascinan a Isik y a su amigo Devrim Yaylali, quien también se dedica a observar barcos y es editor de la web Bosphorus Naval News (Noticias Navales del Bósforo).
Ocupados
Yaylali es economista y ha estado mirando los barcos incluso desde antes de que Isik comenzara a hacerlo, dado que él tenía que cruzar el estrecho para ir al colegio cuando era adolescente, durante la Guerra Fría.
Tenía tanta curiosidad sobre los barcos de guerra soviéticos que un día incluso llegó a faltar a un examen para fotografiar el portaviones Almirante Kuznetsov, que ahora es el buque insignia de la Armada rusa, durante su primer cruce a través de Estambul.
En la actualidad Isik y Yaylali se mantienen cada vez más ocupados, debido al incremento del tráfico marítimo por el Bósforo desde que Rusia se anexionó la península de Crimea, en el lado norte del mar Negro.
Derechos de autor de la imagen @YorukIsik
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Isik ha informado sobre el tránsito de los barcos rusos en dirección a Siria.
El Kremlin ha estado reforzando sus defensas militares en Crimea y modernizando su flota en el Mar Negro, cuya base está en esa península en el puerto de Sebastopol.
“Rusia ya compró tres nuevos submarinos Clase Kilo y un cuarto está por llegar“, dice Isik.
“Eso demuestra su interés en afianzar su influencia sobre el Mar Negro”, apunta.
Pero la OTAN dijo que responderá con un aumento de su presencia naval en la región.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Yoruk Isik
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Desde la cubierta del barco ruso Filchenkov, alguien también fotografió a Yoruk Isik.
“Más alarmante”
En abril, Isil avistó el destructor británico HMS Daring en su paso por Estambul, un inusual despliegue operacional de la Armada británica en el Mar Negro.
“Para mí, la situación actual es más alarmante que durante la Guerra Fría. Existe la posibilidad de más confrontaciones militares”, afirma.
Pero, por ahora, el mayor riesgo de un enfrentamiento se relaciona con Siria y, desde que Rusia comenzó a implicarse en esa guerra hace casi dos años, Isik y el resto de sus colegas que observan barcos han jugado un papel clave al alertar al mundo sobre la dimensión del compromiso militar ruso allí.
Todos los barcos de Rusia que viajan a Siria desde Sebastopol o desde la otra base rusa en el mar Negro en Novorosíisk deben cruzar a través del Bósforo.
Derechos de autor de la imagen @YorukIsik
Image caption
Isik también informó sobre el paso del destructor británico HMS Daring a través del Bósforo.
En ocasiones, asegura Isik, Rusia parece querer alardear sobre su controversial campaña.
Su imagen más famosa, tomada en diciembre de 2015 y retuiteada alrededor del mundo, era la de un soldado ruso de pie en la cubierta de una lancha de desembarco cargando un lanzamisiles portátil Igla, mientras la embarcación cruzaba por el centro de Estambul.
Los barcos de guerra de Rusia, al igual que los de otras naciones con costas en el Mar Negro, tienen plenos derechos para cruzar el Bósforo en tiempos de paz. El resto de países tienen derechos más limitados.
Pero la imagen, captada poco después de que Turquía derribara un cazabombardero ruso que supuestamente había violado su espacio aéreo, fue considerada como una provocación al punto que Ankara envió a Moscú una nota diplomática de protesta.
“Yo ni siquiera vi el cohete a simple vista, sólo cuando descargué la foto”, dice Isik.
“Al final, no sabría decir si fue algo hecho por orden de Moscú o si solo fue una iniciativa del soldado o del capitán del barco”, añade.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Yoruk Isik
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Un soldado ruso de pie en la cubierta de una lancha de desembarco cargando un lanzamisiles portátil Igla, mientras la embarcación cruzaba por el centro de Estambul.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Yorik Isik
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Al ver la imagen de cerca se podía ver a un soldado ruso de pie en la cubierta cargando un lanzamisiles portátil Igla
Secreto
En cuanto al Aleksandr Tkachenko, la embarcación por la que ambos renunciamos a dormir, finalmente emergió como se esperaba de la niebla matinal cuando transitaba por una curva del Bósforo, cargado con numerosas hileras de verdes camiones militares Kamaz.
“Estoy bastante emocionado porque el gobierno de Rusia hizo un contrato con este barco hace año y medio. Era secreto, ellos no lo anunciaron y esto muestra su acercamiento a la guerra. Los barcos de la OTAN son más fuertes que la Armada rusa, pero con lo que tienen Moscú lanzó una campaña exitosa a 1.600 kilómetros de Sebastopol”, afirma.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Yoruk Isik
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El Aleksandr Tkachenko, justo al amanecer, transportando camiones militares en su ruta hacia Siria.
“Fui el primero en darse cuenta de que Rusia estaba transportando vehículos militares en embarcaciones civiles y esto mostró, aún más, que están profundizando su compromiso con la guerra”.
Luego pregunta: “¿Entonces, Tim, ahora sientes la emoción de quienes observamos los barcos?”.
“Yo amo el misterio. Cuando vemos un barco cargando cosas del punto A al punto B es como un rompecabezas y, con la ayuda de otras personas que avistan embarcaciones, puedes solucionarlo”, se responde.
Faced with significant pressure to prevent the expiration of the unemployment insurance benefit, Republicans worked feverishly to coalesce around a stopgap bill that could extend it, though most proposals unveiled this week would slash the aid and present overwhelmed state systems with a difficult switch that experts say is likely to disadvantage lower-wage workers.
One such proposal, which Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Braun of Indiana tried to push across the Senate floor on Thursday, would have continued the extra jobless aid payments through the end of the year, but slashed the payments to $200 a week from $600 or allow the benefit to replace two-thirds of a worker’s prior income.
Mr. Meadows said President Trump would support a flat, one-week extension of the $600 benefit in order to buy lawmakers time to negotiate a longer agreement. But Democrats rejected an attempt by Senator Martha McSally, Republican of Arizona, to win approval of such an extension, with Mr. Schumer dismissing the effort as “a stunt” on the Senate floor.
“This is disappointing and a political stunt and a game,” Ms. McSally, who is badly trailing her Democratic opponent in Arizona’s Senate race, shot back. “It’s the minority leader who is against this on his path to try to become the majority leader, and that’s unfortunate.”
It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you’re thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.
What is school going to look like in September?
It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
Is the coronavirus airborne?
The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
Mr. Schumer, his flip phone ringing in his pocket, spent a portion of his day on the Senate floor, swatting last-ditch attempts by Republicans to push through short extensions of the jobless aid and to try to pin the blame on Democrats for blocking them. He responded with a futile and politically loaded tactic of his own: an attempt to win approval of the $3 trillion stimulus package House Democrats passed in May. Republicans blocked that as well, with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, deriding it as “a totally unserious proposal.”
“The House speaker moves the goal posts while the Democratic leader hides the football,” said Mr. McConnell, accusing Democrats of blocking discussions among rank-and-file lawmakers. “They won’t engage when the administration tries to discuss our comprehensive plan. They won’t engage when the administration floats a narrower proposal. They basically won’t engage, period.”
Comparing negotiations with Republicans to “trying to nail Jell-O to the wall,” Mr. Schumer noted that Mr. McConnell, whose conference remained divided over another relief package, was notably absent from the daily negotiations with administration officials in Ms. Pelosi’s Capitol Hill suite. The time crunch, he said, came because Republicans had “dithered for months” and still had yet to reach agreement on the $1 trillion proposal they had put forward on Monday.
Perfiles de Opinión, encuestadora dirigida por Paulina Recalde, presentó ayer los resultados de su último estudio, realizado el 11 de marzo pasado, que analizó la intención de voto de cara a la segunda vuelta.
Según la encuesta, el candidato Lenín Moreno superaría por 15,4 puntos a Guillermo Lasso (51,02% a 35,53%).
Moreno vencería en la Costa por 53,40% a 33,68%. Mientras, en la Sierra, el postulante de Alianza PAIS alcanzaría el 48,71% de los votos sobre el 37,06% que obtiene el presidenciable por SUMA-CREO.
En la Amazonía, Lasso aventajaría a Moreno por un estrecho margen: 43,89% a 43,76%.
La firma aseguró que el 86,7% de los ecuatorianos ya habría decidido por quién votar y que el sufragio blanco llegaría a 7,24% y el nulo a 6,21%. (I)
Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane resisted the suggestion that Sullivan was losing his post because of his representation of Weinstein, saying the decision “was informed by a number of considerations.”
She noted that the climate review revealed serious concerns about Sullivan’s leadership, but also pointed to complaints about his leadership from fellow staffers that predated the Weinstein controversy and were outlined in a Harvard Crimson story on Friday.
“We’ve partnered with the house on interventions in the past but those measures haven’t really proved sufficient,” she said.
In recent weeks, the angry rift over Sullivan’s dueling behind-the-scenes roles has exploded into public view.
A married couple who works for Sullivan in Winthrop House filed a defamation lawsuit.against the faculty dean of another house over e-mails and texts she sent about them. The lawyer handling the defamation case, George J. Leontire, is a friend of Sullivan’s who worked side-by-side with him on the legal team that got former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez acquitted of double murder charges.
In the defamation case, Leontire has subpoenaed five Harvard faculty members or students, including a reporter for the student newspaper from whom he has demanded all communications regarding Sullivan.
Leontire did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Tension continued to rise as faculty members intervened for and against student protestors and students staged an occupation of Winthrop House to “reclaim it as a safe space” for survivors of sexual assault.
On Friday, the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, published a story detailing Winthrop House staffers’ complaints about Sullivan’s leadership dating back several years that described a toxic and hostile environment.
Sullivan and his wife issued a statement saying they would “take some time to process Harvard’s actions and consider our options. “
“We are surprised and dismayed by the action Harvard announced today. We believed the discussions we were having with high level University representatives were progressing in a positive manner, but Harvard unilaterally ended those talks,” they wrote.
“We are sorry that Harvard’s actions and the controversy surrounding us has contributed to the stress on Winthrop students at this already stressful time,” they added.
Finals begin at Harvard on Monday.
Danu A.K. Mudannayake, the student who launched the opposition to Sullivan’s role, said she was gratified that the administration had heard students’ concerns.
“Living in the time of the #MeToo movement and seeing people discredit that and also the [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh trials, I think that’s why this win — even if it is localized to our campus — means a lot for a lot of other people,” Mudannayake said. “It empowers voices that constantly are criticized and pushed down and don’t get given the kind of rights to be heard.”
Since February, students have demonstrated against Sullivan, saying that the role as a high-profile defender of the the leading villain of the #MeToo movement was incompatible with his duties as a faculty adviser who lives and works among undergraduates and sets the tone for their college experience.
Sullivan defenders pushed back, saying that with their sensitivity to an of-the-moment controversy, students were forsaking the principles of the American justice system.
Leontire recently told the Globe that students were unfairly tagging Weinstein’s attorney for Weinstein’s alleged crimes. He likened the current climate to the “Salem witch trials,” saying that anyone associated with #MeToo allegations would be punished, “no matter how they’re connected.”
Mudannayake called such an interpretation “idiocy.”
“Both Sullivan and Leontire do a very good job of making people like myself . . . look like the kind of snowflake-y liberals who want every man to be put in jail for no good reason,” she said.
She said the lawyers were missing her point — that Sullivan is not only a well-known law professor at Harvard, but a resident adviser to students who may have experienced sexual assault.
She noted that she is not protesting against Alan Dershowitz — the Harvard Law professor emeritus now under fire for his role negotiating a plea deal that allowed Florida billionaire Jeffrey Epstein to escape federal sex trafficking charges.
“I don’t have any right to tell a law school professor what they can and cannot do,” Mudannayake said. “There’s just such a huge difference when it comes to being a faculty dean and the roles and responsibilities.”
Mudannayake pointed to the escalating controversy in recent weeks and what she called “open retaliation” for her efforts.
The resident tutors who filed a defamation suit also filed a police report against her for alleged harassment during a dispute in the Winthrop dining hall in which Mudannayake believed one of the tutors was videotaping her. Leontire threatened to file a harassment complaint against her under Title IX, the federal law that guards against sexual and gender discrimination in education, for undetermined reasons.
“Across the country, across the globe we’re experiencing a moment in which there is a lot of momentum on sexual assault and a willingness to speak up,” Mudannayake said. “But there is a lot of resistance too. We just didn’t need that coming from within our homes.”
As faculty deans, Sullivan and his wife supervise a team of other adult staffers in overseeing the undergraduate residential complex where students spend much of their time. Some of the staffers who report to them had raised complaints about Sullivan well before the Weinstein controversy, according to the Friday Crimson story. Those staffers faulted Harvard administrators, including Khurana, for failing to adequately address a toxic climate in the Winthrop House, where they alleged management problems and alleged retaliation against those insufficiently supportive of Sullivan.
More than half of the Winthrop resident tutor staff made a pact to leave the House in protest in 2016, though they ultimately stayed, the Crimson wrote.
The Crimson story also described a January meeting with Winthrop House staff on the Weinstein controversy back in which Sullivan had allegedly berated a Winthrop tutor and accused her of organizing students against him and his wife.
Khurana called his decision to not keep Sullivan and Robinson on as faculty deans “a regrettable situation and a very hard decision to make. I have long admired your Faculty Deans’ commitment to justice and civic engagement, as well as the good work they have done in support of diversity in their House community.”
Sullivan and his wife were the first African-American appointed faculty deans in 2009; another African-American couple has been named since that time.
Sullivan told the New Yorker in March that he believes that some of the attacks against him may be racially motivated.
In that interview, he also resisted criticizing students for their activism against him, instead faulting the administration for responding to it.
“It’s in the nature of students to protest,” he told the New Yorker. “The adults in the room, however, do not have to react in the way that they have.”
Un delfín amaneció ayer muerto en la playa de la comuna San Pablo, en el norte de la península de Santa Elena.
Versiones de los pescadores indican que el espécimen llegó a la orilla muerto con un corte en su aleta caudal también conocida como cola.
Al sitio del varamiento llegaron técnicos del Ministerio del Ambiente, quienes recopilaron evidencias a fin de conocer la causa de la muerte.
La Dirección Provincial no descarta la realización de una campaña de concienciación. En las últimas semanas, en esa provincia se varó una ballena y aparecieron lobos marinos en Santa Rosa y Chanduy. (I)
Father Ivan, an elderly priest who runs Catholic schools in Colombo, told CNN’s Ivan Watson that he hasn’t seen a mass funeral like the one at St. Sebastian’s Church since 1984, shortly after the outbreak of the country’s bloody civil war.
More than 100 people died during Easter services at the church, which sits at the heart of a close-knit Catholic community near the city of Negombo, one of few areas in the country where Christians are a majority. Everyone in the community knew at least one person killed or injured, witnesses told CNN’s James Griffiths.
CCTV footage provided to CNN of the moments before the attack showed a packed service, with people both inside and outside the church doors listening in. A priest said that the whole church was covered in dust and debris by the blast, which left a scene like a “disaster zone” after it cleared.
Several people interviewed by CNN said the attack seemed to come from nowhere, without any rise in inter-communal tensions or threats against Catholics. The Sri Lankan government has admitted to failing to act on multiple intelligence warnings, however.
Following the blast at the church on Sunday, much of the interior was heavily damaged, as was the church’s red tile roof. Shards of glass could be seen scattered around the church grounds, as workers carried out pews stained with the blood of parishioners and piled up clothes and shoes of the wounded and dead.
It was one of the most dramatic cases of potential obstruction of justice laid out by federal investigators: President Trump directing the top White House lawyer to seek the removal of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — and then later pushing him to deny the episode.
But Attorney General William P. Barr on Wednesday played down evidence that Trump sought to fire the head of the investigation bearing down on him, emphasizing in testimony before a Senate committee that the president may have had valid reasons for his actions.
It was a surprise recasting of the account of then-White House counsel Donald McGahn, who told investigators that Trump called him twice in June 2017 at home, pressuring him to intervene with the Justice Department to try to get Mueller removed. McGahn told federal investigators that he planned to resign rather than comply. And he said he later refused a demand by Trump that he write a letter denying news accounts of the episode.
In Barr’s telling, however, Trump may have merely been trying to correct media reports he believed were inaccurate. He cited the president’s public explanations of his behavior — even though the president refused to provide testimony about it under oath. And he discounted as weak the case that Trump’s actions were part of a criminal effort to thwart a federal investigation — despite the fact that Mueller said in his report that “substantial evidence” indicated the president was acting to prevent scrutiny of his conduct in the obstruction inquiry.
“It would be difficult for the government to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt,” Barr said of the idea that Trump was trying to get McGahn to create a fraudulent record to fend off prosecutors. “There are very plausible alternative explanations.”
In a day of sometimes prickly testimony, the focus on Barr’s view of the McGahn episode provided the most revealing look yet at Barr’s rationale for determining there was not sufficient evidence to charge Trump with trying to thwart the probe.
Over and over again, the attorney general expressed skepticism about the evidence laid out in the special counsel report, which detailed 10 episodes of possible obstruction by the president. In four cases, Mueller cited “substantial” evidence to support charges.
The special counsel declined to offer an assessment of whether Trump’s actions amounted to a crime. But at the end of his 448-page report, Mueller pointedly wrote, “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”
Mueller had conservatively hewed to a Justice Department opinion that says a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, determining that such a decision meant he also could not accuse Trump of criminal conduct. But legal experts said that the evidence detailed in the special counsel report would normally warrant bringing charges.
Jessica Levinson, professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said Barr’s dismissal of strong evidence of obstruction in the McGahn episodes “strains common sense” and raises concerns that he is acting in bad faith.
“For the attorney general to say, ‘There’s no there there,’ is entirely consistent with what he’s been saying, but it is against the explicit findings of the Mueller report,” Levinson said.
McGahn’s lawyer, William Burck, declined to comment.
The attorney general also repeatedly emphasized evidence and legal theories that put the president in the best light.
He suggested that Trump had not actually directed McGahn to seek Mueller’s removal when the president urged him to call Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and tell him the special counsel had conflicts of interest that should prevent him from serving. McGahn told investigators that he recalled the president saying at one point, “Mueller has to go,” and “Call me back when you do it.”
But Barr said Trump might have been merely passing along a concern.
“The president later said that what he meant was that the conflict of interest should be raised with Rosenstein, but the decision should be left with Rosenstein,” Barr said.
And even if Trump had wanted Mueller removed because of conflicts, Barr said, that wasn’t criminal. It would have led to naming a new special counsel, not the end of the investigation.
Democratic senators reacted incredulously.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) complained that Barr was trying to stage some complicated “Kabuki dance” to distract from the copious evidence that Trump’s instructions to McGahn rose to the level of criminal conduct.
“I think the president’s intent was very clear. He wanted this to end,” Durbin said of the Russia investigation. “Over and over again, this president was very explicit.”
Mueller’s report notes that Trump’s calls to McGahn in June 2017 were part of an ongoing effort to get rid of the special counsel.
“McGahn spoke with the President twice and understood the directive the same way both times, making it unlikely that he misheard or misinterpreted the President’s request,” the special counsel wrote, describing the former White House counsel as a credible witness with no motive to lie.
After the New York Times published a story in February 2018 saying Trump ordered McGahn to fire Mueller, the president told McGahn he needed to write a letter denying the stories, according to the report.
In a tense Oval Office meeting, McGahn stood his ground.
“Did I say the word ‘fire?’ ” Trump asked McGahn, according to the report.
“What you said is, ‘Call Rod [Rosenstein], tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can’t be the Special Counsel,’ ” McGahn responded.
“I never said that,” Trump said.
Barr told the Senate panel Wednesday that “it could also have been the case that . . . he was primarily concerned about press reports and making it clear that he never outright directed the firing of Mueller.” He said that Trump may have had a valid reason to press about Mueller’s potential conflicts of interest.
But the special counsel’s report noted that very concern had been shared days earlier with Justice Department officials by the president’s personal attorney.
Levinson, the law professor, said McGahn’s account, told to investigators under penalty of false statements, is the one to credit.
“This is not a he-said, he-said between equal narrators,” she said.
Barr did not mention another factor that the Mueller team believed negated the theory that Trump was only worried about the bad press. The president persisted in trying to get McGahn to create a written record but was not making an effort to seek a correction in the Times story, the report said.
“The evidence . . . indicates the President was not focused solely on a press strategy, but instead likely contemplated the ongoing investigation and any proceedings arising from it,” the report said.
Barr also sought to give Trump the benefit of the doubt in his request that McGahn deny he sought Mueller’s removal, saying the president may have genuinely believed the account was false.
“I think it would be plausible that the purpose of McGahn memorializing what the president was asking was to make the record that the president never directed him to fire [Mueller]” Barr said.
The attorney general cited another potential explanation for the president’s actions: Trump, he said, had been “falsely accused” of conspiring with Russia through his campaign. It wouldn’t be a crime to seek to replace an independent counsel if Trump “felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents and was hampering his ability to govern.”
An S&S spokesman declined to make an official statement amid blowback from President Trump, saying only that there is “no change” in the publication date for “The Room Where It Happened.”
Trump has called for his former national security adviser’s memoir to be blocked, claiming it contains classified material.
The yet-to-be-published manuscript played a central role in Senate impeachment discussions this week after the New York Times late Sunday reported Bolton’s claims that Trump told him in August 2019 that the president was withholding $391 million in aid to Ukraine until he had a promise that the powers that be there would launch investigations into Joe Biden, whose son had ties to Ukraine.
Trump on Monday denied he said it. “If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book,” he said.
Bolton lawyer Charles Cooper said he does not believe “The Room Where It Happened” contains classified material but is pushing for an expeditious decision from the National Security Council on its content — even as it remains possible for Bolton to be called to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.
A man was fatally shot Saturday evening near E. 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the Minneapolis intersection known as George Floyd Square, where Floyd died in police custody last May.
According to police spokesman John Elder, police got a ShotSpotter notification about 5:45 p.m., and 911 callers reported that two people had been shot and were being brought to the barricades at the area’s entrance. When officers arrived, the victim was already gone.
Police later learned that the victim, a man believed to be in his 30s with a gunshot wound, had been taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he died. No second victim appeared, Elder said.
“Officers were met with some interference” when they arrived at the square to investigate, Elder said, without giving further details. He said that officers’ body cameras may provide more information.
Investigators’ initial findings are that the victim and a suspect had a verbal disagreement and the suspect shot the victim before fleeing the area, heading north in a cream or light-colored Suburban with gunshot damage.
“This appeared to be a very directed attack or assault. And we’re unaware of this being a threat to the community,” said Elder. “They had an argument. And so, it appears that there may have been some previous knowledge of one another.”
“China sought stability in its relationship with the United States, did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk getting caught meddling,” the report said.
Beijing “assessed its traditional influence tools—primarily targeted economic measures and lobbying—would be sufficient to meet its goal of shaping U.S.- China policy regardless of the winner.”
However, one expert — the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber — assessed that China “did take some steps to try to undermine former President Trump’s reelection.”
Those assessments, each of which were delivered with “high confidence,” came in a declassified report released through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The investigation was carried out by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA.
The report also found that, unlike in the previous presidential election cycle, there were no indications that foreign actors attempted to alter voter registration, ballots or vote tabulation in the 2020 U.S. elections.
“We assess that it would be difficult for a foreign actor to manipulate election processes at scale without detection by intelligence collection on the actors themselves, through physical and cybersecurity monitoring around voting systems across the country, or in post-election audits,” the authors of the intelligence report wrote.
In a statement, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., stressed that the report shows Russia remains the biggest threat to U.S. elections.
While China and Iran also “took specific steps related to U.S. elections,” Schiff said, they were at “a far less significant or systematic level than those undertaken by Russia.”
“We must be clear and direct with the American people that different countries have differing intents and capabilities, and are not equal threats to our free and fair elections,” Schiff said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said that while the U.S. has strengthened its defenses against foreign interference,“the problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away and, given the current partisan divides in this country, may find fertile ground in which to grow in the future.”
In addition to Iran and Russia, the investigation found that Cuba, Venezuela and LebaneseHezbollah also worked to influence the election, though on a smaller scale.
The unclassified assessment published on Tuesday builds on the analysis that the intelligence community provided to policymakers throughout the 2020 election cycle.
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