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Californians Brace for Major, Potentially Dangerous Storm

January 4, 2023 Published by

USA – Voice of America 

Weather forecasters say it is “all systems go” for a major storm to sweep over California on Wednesday and Thursday, with peak intensity occurring from midnight Wednesday to noon Thursday. 

Strong winds will add to impressive storm dynamics “setting the stage for a massive rainfall event” across Southern California’s south-facing coastal mountains, especially the Santa Ynez range in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, forecasters said. 

That could cause dangerous conditions. On January 9, 2018, the community of Montecito on the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains was ravaged by a massive debris flow that killed 23 people when a downpour fell on a fresh wildfire burn scar. 

Back-to-back-to-back powerful storms have left many Californians preparing for the worst. 

In San Francisco, crews were rushing to clear trash, leaves and silt that clogged some of the city’s 25,000 storm drains during Saturday’s downpour before the next storm. 

The National Weather Service is predicting up to 15 cm of rain in San Francisco with winds of speeds up to 48 kph with gusts of 96 kph. 

Mayor London Breed said city workers may not have enough time to clean all the storm drains before Wednesday and asked the public to prepare by getting sandbags to prevent flooding, avoiding unnecessary travel and only calling 911 in a life-or-death emergency. 

City officials had distributed 8,500 sandbags as of Tuesday, asking residents to only get them if they have experienced flooding in the past. 

Tink Troy, who lives in South San Francisco, picked up some sandbags from the city’s public works department on Tuesday. 

“They said (Saturday’s storm) was going to be bad, and it was really bad. Now they’re saying this one’s going to be worse. So I want to make sure I’m prepared and not having to do this when it’s pouring rain tomorrow,” she said. 

The storms have meant one good thing: The snowpack covering California’s mountains is off to one of its best starts in 40 years, officials said Tuesday. 

Roughly a third of California’s water each year comes from melted snow in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that covers the eastern part of the state. The state has built a complex system of canals and dams to capture that water and store it in huge reservoirs so it can be used the rest of the year when it doesn’t rain or snow. 

That is why officials closely monitor how deep the snow is in the mountains — and Tuesday was the first formal snow survey of the winter, a sort of Groundhog Day event where Californians get their first glimpse of how helpful the winter might be. 

Statewide, snowpack is at 174% of the historical average for this year, the third-best measurement in the past 40 years. Even more snow is expected later this week and over the weekend, giving officials hope for a wet winter the state so desperately needs. 

But a good start doesn’t guarantee a good finish. Last year, the statewide snowpack was at 160% of average at the first survey. What followed were the three driest months ever recorded in California. By April 1 — when the Sierra snowpack is supposed to be at its peak — the snow was just 38% of historic average. 

That history prompted muted optimism from state officials on Tuesday. 

“While we see a terrific snowpack — and that in and of itself may be an opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief — we are by no means out of the woods when it comes to drought,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said Tuesday after a ceremonial snow measurement in the community of Phillips, just west of Lake Tahoe. 

This winter’s promising start was aided by a spate of strong storms, most notably on New Year’s Eve, when much of the state was drenched in heavy rain causing floods that killed one person and damaged a levee system in Sacramento County. 

That storm was warmer, so it brought more rain than snow. Two more powerful storms are expected to hit the state this week, and these will be much colder. The National Weather Service says the mountains could get up to 1.52 meters of additional snow between the two storms. 

While the precipitation seemed out-of-character for the parched state, it reflects the type of rainfall the state would expect to see during a normal winter but that has been absent in recent drought-driven years. 

The storms in California are not enough to officially end the drought, now entering its fourth year. Most of the state’s reservoirs are still well below their capacity, with Lake Shasta 34% full and Lake Oroville just 38% full. It takes even longer for underground aquifers to refill, with groundwater providing about 38% of the state’s water supply each year.  

“We know that it’ll take quite a bit of time and water to recover this amount of storage, which is why we don’t say that the drought is over once it starts raining,” said Jeanine Jones, drought manager for the California Department of Water Resources. 

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Tesla Stock Tanks As JPMorgan Sees Margin Pressures Following Q4 Deliveries

January 4, 2023 Published by

Updated at 1:24 pm EST

Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Free Report shares moved sharply lower Tuesday, following on from their worst annual performance on record, after softer-than-expected fourth quarter delivery figures and a price target cut from analysts at JPMorgan.

JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman lowered his price target on Tesla by $25, to $125 per share, following his read on fourth quarter deliveries that indicated narrowing profit margins and potentially disappointing earnings later this month.


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Biden world both humored and terrified by McCarthy meltdown

January 4, 2023 Published by

Administration aides are confident that the president, by focusing on governing and working in a bipartisan manner, is delivering what the public wants — and that Republicans, as long as they’re continually bogged down by intra-party fights, are not.

“The Republican Party is almost non-functional right now,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). “They can’t even agree on who should lead them. It’s not just a matter for the Republicans in Congress. It affects the whole country, and we can’t even take a vote on anything else until they decide who the speaker is.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), who contemplated a Snickers bar dinner if voting ran into the late evening, marveled at the absurdity of it all as McCarthy failed to pick up more votes. He quipped that Republicans “should probably nominate Bill Murray at this point.”

“I think we’re kind of enjoying watching this. There’s something about it. It’s interesting,” he said.

While countless House Democrats spent much of the day reveling in the disarray across the aisle, the White House presented more of a straight face, at least publicly. But the administration is wasting no time focusing the country’s attention on this contrast, even if Biden is presenting it implicitly — not by hammering Republicans as extreme but by demonstrating his own ability to deliver on bipartisan legislation.

“Based on what is going on today, their ability to govern and pass legislation on their own, I think is tenuous at best,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.). “When you bend everything to an ideological position, as opposed to the work of Congress, this is what you end up with.”

Biden’s first big event of the year Wednesday, a trip to Kentucky to highlight a long-sought bridge repair alongside Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, will typify his approach over the year ahead: focusing on the increasingly tangible benefits from the bipartisan 2021 infrastructure overhaul and last year’s bills to boost semiconductor manufacturing, lower drug costs and hasten the transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy. Two border-state governors, Kentucky Democrat Andy Beshear and Ohio Republican Mike DeWine, will also attend the event, allowing Biden to underline the bipartisan nature of the law responsible for fixing the Brent Spence Bridge.

And on Friday, the president will mark the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection with a speech at the White House. The occasion will provide another chance to articulate a view about the sanctity of American democracy — while reminding the country which party was responsible.

Jean-Pierre wouldn’t say whether this week’s presidential events were orchestrated with an eye on the anticipated messy floor vote in the House, but her emphasis on the bipartisan nature of the work Biden and McConnell planned to highlight was not subtle.

“We can do big profound things for the country when we work together,” she said.

But behind the bromides, there was some bubbling concern about the chaos unfolding on the House floor.

Staffers who spoke more candidly, on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that bipartisan legislation will be more difficult with Republicans controlling the House, however narrow and fractious their majority. Debt ceiling fights become even trickier when there is no order at all.

That said, some aides remain cautiously optimistic that some GOP lawmakers from more competitive districts will be incentivized to work across the aisle. Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates wrote in a post-election bulletin to reporters that the House Republicans who voted for the president’s infrastructure law in 2021 all won reelection in November.

The president and his aides, in ways public and private, will continue to brand the GOP by highlighting the behavior of its more extreme voices — the “MAGA Republicans,” as Biden has labeled them — while still reaching out to Republicans who might work more constructively with Democrats, White House staffers said. Part of that effort, they noted, will include reminding Republicans of the popularity of Biden’s policy achievements.

If House Republicans follow through on promises to roll-back elements of the Inflation Reduction Act and weaken remaining abortion protections, the White House is confident that those efforts will benefit Democrats politically, not to mention be blocked by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), one of the hard-liners refusing to back McCarthy, dismissed such actions as “messaging bills” during a press conference Tuesday. And, in a comment sure to be clipped and saved by the White House press shop, belittled the coming GOP investigations of Hunter Biden and other matters as “theater pretending to be oversight.”

And there is no immediate threat of a government shutdown after last month’s passage of a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package, an achievement propelled in large part by Senate Republicans who foresaw the coming chaos of a GOP-controlled House. In fact, as McCarthy struggled to secure the speaker’s gavel Tuesday, some Senate Republicans expressed vindication about having passed the bipartisan legislation last year, spiking the football on House Republicans harder than anyone at the White House did.

“I’ve been told you shouldn’t vote for the $1.7 trillion spending bill because the House is Republican, they’ll make it better,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “I don’t think that theory is holding up too well.”


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Justice Department clears Postal Service to carry abortion drugs into red states

January 4, 2023 Published by

Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories 

The Justice Department has cleared the U.S. Postal Service to deliver abortion drugs to states that have strict limits on terminating pregnancy, and has offered limited assurances that a federal law addressing the issue won’t be used to prosecute people criminally over such mailings.

A legal opinion, from Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, concludes that a nearly 150-year-old statute aimed at fighting “vice” through the mail is not enforceable against mailings of abortion drugs as long as the sender does not know that the drugs will be used illegally.

“We conclude that [the statute] does not prohibit the mailing, or the delivery or receipt by mail, of mifepristone or misoprostol where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully,” OLC chief Christopher Schroeder wrote in the 21-page opinion posted online Tuesday.

“There are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may use these drugs, including to produce an abortion, without violating state law,” Schroeder added. “Therefore, the mere mailing of such drugs to a particular jurisdiction is an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.”

Just one week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June and eliminated the almost half-century-long federal guarantee of abortion rights, the Postal Service asked the Justice Department for legal guidance on how to respond to growing efforts to circumvent state abortion bans by sending abortion drugs to people seeking them in those states.

The newly issued opinion says those who send abortion drugs to states with strict abortion laws won’t “typically” have the degree of knowledge necessary to violate the federal law known as the Comstock Act, which carries criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for a first violation and up to 10 years behind bars for subsequent violations.

The opinion notes that state laws limiting abortion generally include or have been interpreted to include exceptions when the life of the mother is threatened. In addition, it would usually be difficult for someone sending the drugs to know at what stage in pregnancy they would be consumed or where someone would be when taking them, Schroeder wrote.

The Justice Department pronouncement is likely to be welcomed by abortion-rights advocates, although it is not a complete guarantee of legal immunity for those involved in sending or receiving abortion drugs in states that restrict them. The opinion does not preclude state or local prosecutors from using state laws to charge people criminally for such activities.

In addition, Schroeder said he was not addressing whether such conduct could violate federal laws other than the Comstock Act. However, he said his conclusions about that statute would also apply to efforts to ship abortion drugs by other carriers, like the United Parcel Service or FedEx.

The Justice Department memo is one of two actions the Biden administration took on Tuesday to protect and expand access to abortion pills — which recently became the most popular method of terminating a pregnancy within the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration also updated its rules for the medication to allow brick-and-mortar pharmacies to dispense them for the first time to patients with a prescription. Pharmacies in more than a dozen states that have near-total bans on abortion, however, will not be able to participate.

The two-pill regimen for inducing an abortion has been the subject of legal, political and regulatory battles since the drugs were first approved decades ago. Those fights only escalated after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, and mail delivery of the pills became one of the primary ways patients in GOP-controlled states were able to circumvent newly imposed bans.

Since then, progressive advocacy groups have pushed the Biden administration to take a range of actions to protect and expand access to the procedure and voiced frustration at the White House’s slow and cautious pace in the months following the fall of Roe. The groups, however, praised the new Justice Department memo and FDA rule, calling them “a step in the right direction” but stressing that more is needed.

“In a post-Roe world, patients need all available options to get the care they need, whether in-person, by mail or at the local pharmacy,” said Kirsten Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project. “Millions of people still live in states where abortion care is banned entirely. The kind of care you get shouldn’t depend on where you live, but that’s the reality anti-abortion politicians have created.”

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[World] Ghana fishing: Abuse, corruption and death on Chinese vessels

January 4, 2023 Published by

BBC News world 

Bright Tsai Kweku

Bright Tsai Kweku took this photo after working without sleep for three days
By George Wright & Thomas Naadi
BBC News in London & Accra

When it comes to abuse and corruption on Chinese fishing vessels in Ghana, Bright Tsai Kweku has seen it all.

He has seen Chinese crew treating local fishermen like “slaves”, he says.

“They beat them, they spit on them, they kick them,” Mr Kweku says. “I have been through that before.”

Mr Kweku works as a bosun – an officer in charge of equipment and the crew. He says he has been forced to work for three days without sleep, had food withheld from him and been forced to drink dirty water.

The fate of some of his fellow fishermen has been even worse, he says.

Mr Kweku says one of his colleagues fell sick with cholera on board a Chinese vessel but the crew refused to bring him back to shore for treatment. He didn’t make it back alive.

He saw another get badly burned on a vessel after a fire ignited onboard. Another colleague got caught by a propeller. Neither survived and the families have not received proper compensation, he says.

These are just a few examples of the alleged widespread abuse and neglect linked to Chinese fishing vessels operating off Ghanaian shores.

EJF

A substantial proportion of Chinese trawlers in Ghana have engaged in illegal practices, says the EJF

The UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) says at least 90% of the industrial trawlers operating in Ghana are owned by Chinese corporations, in contravention of Ghanaian laws on the ownership of vessels fishing under the local flag. A substantial proportion of these vessels have engaged in illegal practices, EJF says.

A recent EJF report investigates what it says are illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and human rights abuses by China’s Distant Water Fishing (DWF) fleet in Ghana. The ownership and operational control of China’s DWF fleet is complex and opaque, and is the largest in the world.

All 36 crew members interviewed by EJF had been forced to work more than 14 hours a day and received inadequate food.

94% had received inadequate medicine or witnessed verbal abuse86% reported inadequate living conditions81% had witnessed physical abuse 75% had seen serious injury at sea.

In response, China’s embassy says it is a “responsible fishing country”.

“We have always worked with other members of the international community to crack down on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and have done a lot in effectively combating illegal fishing,” its press office tells the BBC.

One of the worst disasters involving a Chinese vessel in Ghanaian waters took place eight months ago.

On 6 May, the MV Comforter 2 sank in stormy conditions. Fourteen crew were rescued, but 11 remain missing, presumed dead, including the state-appointed observer. The body of the Chinese captain was found.

One of the survivors, who requested anonymity and we will call Michael, recalls the horrors that unfolded that day.

Despite storms getting increasingly worse, he says the Chinese crew told the fishermen to pull in an excessive haul in one go. The boat already had a lot of fish on board, and it lost control, capsizing under the weight of the haul and the choppy waters.

Michael hasn’t recovered physically or mentally from the MV Comforter 2 disaster

Michael and nine others managed to grab hold of a floating oil drum for almost 24 hours, before a fisherman found them.

“It was a terrifying night,” he says. “We didn’t know whether we would make it or not.”

Michael hasn’t recovered physically or mentally from the disaster, and says the Ghanaian company officially in charge of the vessel, Boatacom, has not paid him any compensation.

“I’m not happy at all, the company keeps giving us excuses. Sometimes I feel pain all over my body. I need medical attention, but I don’t have money,” he says.

Kojo Ampratwum, managing director of Boatacom, tells the BBC the firm has submitted its reports to the insurance company and is waiting to hear back.

Tracing who owns the MV Comforter 2 and other vessels operating in Ghana is complicated.

Foreign ownership of industrial trawl vessels operating under the Ghanaian flag is illegal, but some Chinese firms get around this via Ghanaian front companies.

Through its research, EJF says the Chinese Dalian Mengxin Ocean Fishery Company is the ultimate owner of the MV Comforter 2 and that it is part of the Meng Xin fleet.

The Meng Xin fleet has also been linked to one of the most notorious cases on Ghanaian waters in recent times – the disappearance of fisheries observer Emmanuel Essien.

James Essien

Emmanuel Essien went missing at sea in 2019

Since 2018, Ghana has appointed fisheries observers on board all industrial trawlers operating under the Ghanaian flag. Their job is to collect data on fishing activities and report on illegal practices at sea.

Essien had earned a name as a dedicated and thorough observer, but this had led to problems. He got into a fight with a Chinese national who had stopped him from filming crew illegally discarding fish at sea, says his brother James Essien.

Emmanuel’s final report to the Fisheries Commission was on 24 June 2019. In the report – a copy of which was provided to the BBC – he outlines illegal fishing activities and states: “I humbly plead with the police to investigate further.”

On 5 July, Essien went missing from the Meng Xin 15 trawler.

James says that his brother had dinner with the rest of the crew before they headed back to their cubicle to sleep. The next morning he was nowhere to be seen.

More than three years on, the family still has no answers. A police investigation found “no signs of violence or anything incriminating”.

“I want the truth to come out,” James tells the BBC, in tears.

The Mengxin Ocean Fishery Company could not be reached for comment.

James Essien wants to know what happened to his brother

Essien’s disappearance is one of many factors that have had a chilling effect on Ghana’s fisheries observers.

Ghanaian observers who spoke to the BBC explain how a culture of fear, corruption and neglect are pushing them to take bribes to bury evidence of illegal fishing and abuse on Chinese vessels.

“Most of our colleagues are taking money,” says one observer, who requested anonymity and we will call Daniel.

“They are being bribed and taking money from the Chinese and submitting reports to the ministry that are not true.”

All the observers interviewed say their wages are poor and it often takes as long as five months to get paid, meaning kickbacks from Chinese and Ghanaian crew managers are necessary to feed their families.

“If you reject the bribe you go home hungry,” says another observer, who we will call Samuel.

“Most of those observers do take bribes. That’s what we do to take care of our families.”

Some feel too scared to report the truth.

“Sometimes what they do is throw the observer into the water – it has happened before,” Samuel says. “Because of the fear we normally don’t report issues like that.”

EJF

Ghanaian fishermen say they cannot compete with the Chinese trawlers

One former observer, who has since left Ghana, tells the BBC he was once called to the office of a high-ranking official within the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development after he reported illegal practices at sea.

He says the official asked him to present the evidence, and then proceeded to delete it from his phone. But he had the evidence backed up on a laptop and threatened to post it on social media.

Then he says he started receiving threats.

At one point he was so nervous that he would not sleep at his own house because people knew where he lived and he was worried about being attacked, or worse.

One day, when he was cycling near the fishing harbour in Tema, a port city east of the capital Accra, he says a Ghanaian official spotted him and tried ramming him with his vehicle.

“He was trying to hit me with his car at the fishing harbour. I saw him so I jumped to the gutter… this guy was mad,” he says.

He eventually decided to leave the industry after receiving death threats.

“I became miserable in life because when I’d go to the harbour, everyone was looking at me. I couldn’t find any work to do. I became like a stranger, like I’m a bad person. It was so hard for me.”

He now avoids the harbour when he’s back in Ghana.

“People try to threaten me. These guys are very serious,” he says.

EJF

EJF says the problems that come with Chinese-owned trawl fleets are particularly acute in Ghana

Steve Trent, founder and head of EJF, says the high concentration of Chinese ownership within trawl fleets is a problem across West Africa, accusing them of often flouting the law.

But in Ghana, the problem is “particularly acute”, he says.

“These Chinese owners have commonly put a Chinese captain in charge of the vessels to command the mainly Ghanaian crew and it is these Chinese captains that have driven the abuse,” Mr Trent says. He blames the abuse on the owners seeking to “maximise profits and minimise costs”.

EJF investigations have uncovered systemic corruption “at virtually every level and including fisheries officials, police and navy officers” tasked with enforcing regulations, he says.

While there has been some progress on illegal fishing in Ghana, Mr Trent says a lot more needs to be done.

“We need to see the loopholes and deceit by which illegal foreign ownership, now concentrated with the Chinese, are eliminated,” he says.

The Ghanaian government did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

EJF

A mixture of abuse, disappearances and poor pay at sea has taken a toll on many in Ghana

Mr Kweku wants the government to allow fishermen to properly unionise, and says a system must be put in place so people are under contract before being sent out to work at sea.

A mixture of abuse, disappearances and poor pay has taken a lasting toll on his mental health, and that of many others.

“We lost a lot of fishermen at sea but nothing is done about that. Two or three observers are missing,” he says.

“We are all afraid of going to sea but there is no work on land, so you must force yourself to go.”

 

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Walter Cunningham, last surviving NASA Apollo 7 astronaut, dies at 90: 'true hero'

January 4, 2023 Published by

Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston. He was 90.

NASA confirmed Cunningham’s death on Twitter. 

“Today we mourn the passing of Walt Cunningham: U.S. Marine, patriot, and Apollo astronaut. Cunningham spent 11 days in low-Earth orbit during Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo flight, and was instrumental to our Moon landing‘s program success,” the space agency wrote. 

2022 SPACE STORIES THAT ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD

Astronaut Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 lunar module pilot, is photographed during the Apollo 7 mission. On Tuesday, NASA announced Cunningham had died in Houston.

Astronaut Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 lunar module pilot, is photographed during the Apollo 7 mission. On Tuesday, NASA announced Cunningham had died in Houston.
(Reuters)

Cunningham was one of three astronauts aboard the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, an 11-day spaceflight that beamed live television broadcasts as they orbited Earth, paving the way for the moon landing less than a year later.

“All I remember is just kind of keeping my nose to the grindstone and wanting to do the best I could as — I didn’t realize at the time, but that was because I always wanted to be better prepared for the next step,” Cunningham said during a 1999 interview with NASA’s Oral History Office in which he looked back on his career. “I’ve always been looking to the future.”

He was one of the earlier members of the spaceflight program. He was selected in 1963 as part of NASA’s third astronaut class, the agency said. Prior to that, he had been slated as part of the Apollo 2 crew until it was canceled, according to his official biography.

The Apollo 7 prime crew, from left to right, are astronauts Donn F. Eisele, command module pilot, Walter M. Schirra Jr., commander; and Walter Cunningham, lunar module pilot.

The Apollo 7 prime crew, from left to right, are astronauts Donn F. Eisele, command module pilot, Walter M. Schirra Jr., commander; and Walter Cunningham, lunar module pilot.
(NASA)

“We would like to express our immense pride in the life that he lived, and our deep gratitude for the man that he was – a patriot, an explorer, pilot, astronaut, husband, brother, and father,” the Cunningham family said in a statement shared by NASA. “The world has lost another true hero, and we will miss him dearly.”

At the time of the 1968 mission, Cunningham, a lunar module pilot, crewed the mission with Navy Capt. Walter M. Schirra and Donn F. Eisele, an Air Force major.

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“Walt Cunningham was a fighter pilot, physicist, and an entrepreneur – but, above all, he was an explorer. On Apollo 7, the first launch of a crewed Apollo mission, Walt and his crewmates made history, paving the way for the Artemis Generation we see today,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA will always remember his contributions to our nation’s space program and sends our condolences to the Cunningham family.”

Cunningham served in the Navy and Marine Corps, where he flew 54 missions as a fighter pilot in Korea before retiring as a colonel. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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[World] Damar Hamlin: NFL player in critical condition after cardiac arrest

January 4, 2023 Published by
Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo BillsGetty Images
By Sam Cabral
BBC News

American football star Damar Hamlin is in a critical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest during a primetime US National Football League game.

The Buffalo Bills player, 24, fell to the ground after colliding with an opponent during the first quarter of a match against the Cincinnati Bengals.

He received on-field medical attention for more than 30 minutes before being taken to a local hospital.

The NFL suspended the game for the night about an hour after the incident.

His team, the Buffalo Bills later confirmed the cardiac arrest in a statement and said that his heartbeat was restored on the field.

In a tweet early on Tuesday, the team said Hamlin is undergoing further testing and treatment and is currently sedated.

The emergency sparked an outpouring of support for Hamlin and brought attention back to the dangerous nature of America’s most popular sport as the NFL season approaches its climactic play-off stages.

Hamlin was tackling Bengals receiver Tee Higgins in the stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, when Higgins’ helmet appeared to hit Hamlin in the chest. After initially getting to his feet, he fell on his back.

Players from both teams gathered around Hamlin as emergency medical staff gave CPR and oxygen. Several were seen visibly distressed, with many kneeling to pray and some in tears.

Television coverage repeatedly broke away from the scene on the field, while the crowd in Cincinnati remained silent during the ordeal.

Jordon Rooney, Hamlin’s representative, wrote on Twitter: “His vitals are back to normal and they have put him to sleep to put a breathing tube down his throat. They are currently running tests. We will provide updates as we have them.”

NFL games are rarely suspended because of injury. Commentators said the fact that gameplay had stalled was a sign of the shocking and severe nature of the emergency.

The two teams are among the top Super Bowl contenders this year, with their head-to-head coming in the primetime Monday night slot in the penultimate week of the NFL’s regular season.

The league’s players’ association wrote in a statement: “We have been in touch with Bills and Bengals players and with the NFL. The only thing that matters at this moment is Damar’s health and well-being.”

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Watch: LeBron James reacts to Damar Hamlin incident

Hamlin, a native of McKees Rock, Pennsylvania, was drafted from the University of Pittsburgh by the Bills in 2021.

He has drawn praise for hosting annual Christmas toy drives in his hometown since before he was a paid athlete.

An online GoFundMe page for the toy drive was reshared after Hamlin collapsed on Monday and has raised nearly $3m (£2.5m).

Buildings across Cincinnati were lit up in blue on Monday evening, including Paycor Stadium where the incident occurred.

The safety of American football has been much debated in recent years but usually over concussion rather than cardiac risks.

Many former NFL players have the the degenerative brain condition CTE which research has linked to repeated hits to the head.

The Buffalo Bills gather as an ambulance parks on the field while CPR is administered to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin (3) after a play in the first quarter of the NFL Week 17 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills at Paycor Stadium in Downtown Cincinnati. The game was suspended with suspended in the first quarter after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin (3) was taken away in an ambulance following a play. Mandatory Credit: Sam Greene-USA TODAY SportsUSA Today Sports/Reuters

The game was suspended in the first quarter

Blunt trauma is common in contact sports, but it’s rare that it causes heart issues like this.

A direct hit to the chest can result in cardiac arrest. That’s when the heart stops beating properly and is unable to do its job of pumping blood around the body.

It’s different to a heart attack, which happens when blood supply to the heart muscle is cut off.

In Hamlin’s case, medics were able to quickly get his heart beating again. It’s not yet known what internal injuries he may have sustained from the incident and whether there has been any significant damage to his heart.

Good wishes for the stricken player have poured in.

Basketball star LeBron James said: “It was a terrible thing to see and I wish nothing but the best for that kid.”

Arizona Cardinals defensive end JJ Watt wrote on Twitter: “Please be ok man. Please be ok”, while retired Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark told ESPN’s SportsCenter show: “This isn’t about a football player, this is about a human.”

Bruce Sharpe, a Bills fan who was in the stadium when it happened, said it was “devastating”.

“Everything got dead silent. Even the Bengals fans, you know, you don’t want to see anything like that,” he said. “We’re just praying that everything’s okay.”

Additional reporting by Michelle Roberts of BBC’s health team

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Trump won't say if he's sticking by McCarthy after failed Speakership votes

January 4, 2023 Published by

Former President Trump on Tuesday declined to say whether he will stick by House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) as his bid to become Speaker appeared to hit a wall.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump told NBC News in a phone conversation when asked if he stands by his endorsement of McCarthy.

“I got everybody calling me wanting my support,” Trump told NBC. “But let’s see what happens and we’ll go — I got everybody calling, wanting my support. That’s all I can say. But we’ll see what happens. We’ll see how it all works out.”

Trump’s comments came after the House had adjourned for the day without electing a Speaker. Republicans hold 222 of the 434 seats that are filled in the House, but no lawmaker was able to hit the 218-vote threshold needed to become Speaker after three ballots.

The former president, who is an influential figure with many House Republicans, had previously urged those in the House unsure about McCarthy to rally behind the California Republican or risk ending up with a worse alternative.

But Trump’s sudden noncommittal stance could further imperil McCarthy’s chances as Republicans seek a way forward.

McCarthy lost 19 GOP votes on the first two ballots and 20 on the third ballot, leaving the conference in a stalemate. It marks the first time in a century that the House has gone to multiple ballots for Speaker. In 1923, the Speaker election took nine ballots over three days.

McCarthy’s opponents coalesced around Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a staunch Trump ally, but Jordan has said he is not interested in becoming Speaker.

McCarthy, who remained stoic on the floor during the long voting process even as it became obvious he would lose, remains adamant he will eventually win the gavel.

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Some guts get more energy from the same food

January 4, 2023 Published by

New findings are a step towards understanding why some people gain more weight than others, even when they eat the same diet.

The research indicates that some Danish people have a composition of gut microbes that, on average, extracts more energy from food than do the microbes in the guts of their fellow Danes. Part of the explanation could be related to the composition of their gut microbes.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s department of nutrition, exercise, and sports studied the residual energy in the feces of 85 Danes to estimate how effective their gut microbes are at extracting energy from food. At the same time, they mapped the composition of gut microbes for each participant.

The results show that roughly 40% of the participants belong to a group that, on average, extracts more energy from food compared to the other 60%. The researchers also observed that those who extracted the most energy from food also weighed 10% more on average, amounting to an extra nine kilograms (about 20 pounds).

“We may have found a key to understanding why some people gain more weight than others, even when they don’t eat more or any differently. But this needs to be investigated further,” says associate professor Henrik Roager.

The results indicate that being overweight might not be related to how healthily a person eats or the amount of exercise they get. It may also have something to do with the composition of their gut microbes.

As reported in the journal Microbiome, participants were divided into three groups, based on the composition of their gut microbes. The so-called B-type composition (dominated by Bacteroides bacteria) is more effective at extracting nutrients from food and was observed in 40% of the participants.

Following the study, the researchers suspect that having gut bacteria that are more effective at extracting energy may result in more calories being available for the human host from the same amount of food.

“The fact that our gut bacteria are great at extracting energy from food is basically a good thing, as the bacteria’s metabolism of food provides extra energy in the form of, for example, short-chain fatty acids, which are molecules that our body can use as energy-supplying fuel. But if we consume more than we burn, the extra energy provided by the intestinal bacteria may increase the risk of obesity over time,” says Roager.

From mouth to esophagus, stomach, duodenum, and small intestine, large intestine, and finally to rectum, the food we eat takes a 12-to-36-hour journey, passing several stations along the way, before the body has extracted all the food’s nutrients.

The researchers also studied the length of this journey for each participant, all of whom had similar dietary patterns. Here, the researchers hypothesized that those with long digestive travel times would be the ones who harvested the most nutrition from their food. But the study found the exact opposite.

“We thought that there would be a long digestive travel time would allow more energy to be extracted. But here, we see that participants with the B-type gut bacteria that extract the most energy, also have the fastest passage through the gastrointestinal system, which has given us something to think about,” says Roager.

The new study in humans confirms earlier studies in mice. In these studies, researchers found that germ-free mice that received gut microbes from obese donors gained more weight compared to mice that received gut microbes from lean donors, despite being fed the same diet.

Even then, the researchers proposed that the differences in weight gain could be attributable to the fact that the gut bacteria from obese people were more efficient at extracting energy from food. The new research confirms this theory.

“It is very interesting that the group of people who have less energy left in their stool also weigh more on average. However, this study doesn’t provide proof that the two factors are directly related. We hope to explore this more in the future,” says Roager.

Source: University of Copenhagen

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'Avatar' Strong at the Box Office. Can It Lift Disney Stock?

January 4, 2023 Published by

Disney  (DIS) – Get Free Report is trying to buck the early selling pressure on the first trading day of 2023.

Some other big names are taking it on the chin. Apple  (AAPL) – Get Free Report shares are down more than 3.5% and making a new 52-week low, while Tesla TSLA is down 13%.

For Disney’s part the shares were up 1.6% at last check. The rally comes on reports of strong box-office results for “Avatar: The Way of Water.”


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