Israel-Hamas War: Top Israeli Official Set for Talks in Washington
27Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
World

Israel-Hamas War: Top Israeli Official Set for Talks in Washington

Before Oct. 7, Hana Cooper downloaded everything from daily news reports to rabbinic blog posts, saving them for posterity in the Israeli National Library’s archive of the Israeli internet and the broader Jewish online world.But within days of the Hamas-led attacks, Ms. Cooper began spending her time archiving violent images of the assault, many of them posted by the attackers themselves on digital platforms like Telegram.“It was surreal,” Ms. Cooper said in an interview. “I was working with the same tools, but in a completely different world. The war became everything that I did.”Israel’s cultural sector had to reconstitute itself on Oct. 7, as the nation grieved the roughly 1,200 people killed that day and the military called up hundreds of thousands of citizens.With rockets from Gaza fl...
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Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals
27Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Health

Serious Medical Errors Rose After Private Equity Firms Bought Hospitals

The rate of serious medical complications increased in hospitals after they were purchased by private equity investment firms, according to a major study of the effects of such acquisitions on patient care in recent years.The study, published in JAMA on Tuesday, found that, in the three years after a private equity fund bought a hospital, adverse events including surgical infections and bed sores rose by 25 percent among Medicare patients when compared with similar hospitals that were not bought by such investors. The researchers reported a nearly 38 percent increase in central line infections, a dangerous kind of infection that medical authorities say should never happen, and a 27 percent increase in falls by patients while staying in the hospital.“We were not surprised there was a signal...
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NFL playoff picture after Week 16: Ravens close in on AFC’s top seed; NFC up for grabs
27Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Sports

NFL playoff picture after Week 16: Ravens close in on AFC’s top seed; NFC up for grabs

The Baltimore Ravens scored their most impressive victory of the season Monday night, defeating the San Francisco 49ers 33-19. Along with making them look like worthy Super Bowl contenders, the victory puts them in a fantastic position in the AFC. At 12-3, they’re a game ahead of Miami and have a chance to clinch the top spot next week in a game against those very Dolphins.Meanwhile, the 49ers’ loss sends them to 11-4 and a three-way tie atop the NFC with the Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions. The 49ers own the tiebreaker over both, but with two games to go, there’s still time for the Eagles or Lions to make a move.As for the rest of the NFL, Week 16 saw plenty of movement in the playoff picture. Let’s take a look at where things stand as we enter Week 17.Listed odds to make the playof...
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Tesla Strike in Sweden Highlights a Culture Clash
27Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Technology

Tesla Strike in Sweden Highlights a Culture Clash

The Tesla technicians who walked off their jobs in Sweden say they still support the mission of the American company and its headline-grabbing chief executive. But they also want Tesla to accept the Swedish way of doing business.They call it the Swedish Model, a way of life that has defined the country’s economy for decades. At its heart is cooperation between employers and employees to ensure that both sides benefit from a company’s profit.Instead, four technicians who walked off their jobs on Oct. 27 said, they have been subjected to what they described as a “typical U.S. model”: six-day workweeks, unavoidable overtime and an unclear evaluation system for promotion.“Just work, work, work,” said Janis Kuzma, one of the technicians on strike.The union representing the Tesla workers, IF Met...
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Holiday Spending Increased, Defying Fears of a Decline
27Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Business

Holiday Spending Increased, Defying Fears of a Decline

Despite lingering inflation, Americans increased their spending this holiday season, early data shows. That comes as a big relief for retailers that had spent much of the year fearing the economy would soon weaken and consumer spending would fall.Retail sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 increased 3.1 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. The numbers, released Tuesday, are not adjusted for inflation.Spending increased across many categories, with restaurants experiencing one of the largest jumps, 7.8 percent. Apparel increased 2.4 percent, and groceries also had gains.The holiday sales figures, driven by a healthy labor market and wage gains, suggest that the economy remains stron...
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Monica Bertagnolli, NIH’s New Leader, Wants to Broaden Participation in Medical Research
25Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Health

Monica Bertagnolli, NIH’s New Leader, Wants to Broaden Participation in Medical Research

When Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli moved into the director’s suite at the National Institutes of Health, she brought with her a single piece of art, a lithograph created by the granddaughter of a cancer patient she once treated. It depicts an abstract geometric female figure and the organs she lost to cancer. Its title: “We Are Not What You Have Taken: A Response to Cancer.”The image speaks to Dr. Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon who previously led the National Cancer Institute and is a breast-cancer survivor herself.After being nominated by President Biden in the spring and winning Senate confirmation last month, she became the 17th director of the N.I.H., which has a budget of more than $47 billion and occupies a sprawling campus in Bethesda, Md. She is only the second woman to lead the biomedi...
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Golf with a purpose: How The Park dared to be different
25Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Sports

Golf with a purpose: How The Park dared to be different

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It’s lunchtime on a mid-November Saturday afternoon and the word of the day is eclectic. I’ve just finished my morning round at The Park with a three-putt for par on the forgiving 18th hole, and I saddle up at the cabana, the bar/small bites stand strategically located at the front of the property.A foursome that was a few holes ahead of me is heading off to their vehicles — while allowing for their anonymity, let’s just say they can be members anywhere they want to be in the golf-rich West Palm Beach/Jupiter area. Making the turn to the back nine are the bros wanting to chase down their transfusions with High Noons. Though they represent very different ends of the Saturday golfer spectrum, you recognize both groups as what a golfer “looks” like.But the cabana occup...
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This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million Crypto Mine. His Secret Is Out.
25Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Technology

This N.Y.U. Student Owns a $6 Million Crypto Mine. His Secret Is Out.

Jerry Yu has the trappings of what the Chinese call second-generation rich. He boasts a Connecticut prep-school education. He lives in a Manhattan condominium bought for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former General Electric chief executive. And he is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas, acquired last year for more than $6 million.Mr. Yu, a 23-year-old student at New York University, has also become — quite unintentionally — a case study in how Chinese nationals can move money from China to the United States without drawing the attention of authorities in either country.The Texas facility, a large computing center, was not purchased with dollars. Instead, it was bought with cryptocurrency, which offers anonymity, with the transaction routed through an offshore exchange, p...
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On QVC, Shawn Killinger Can Help You Sell Yourself
25Dec Avatar photoBy Liam WalkerNo Comments
Business

On QVC, Shawn Killinger Can Help You Sell Yourself

Killinger is from Grosse Pointe, Mich., a Detroit suburb, but spent a chunk of her childhood in Mexico City, where her father, who worked for Ford Motors, moved the family when she was 11. She was bullied there for looking different and bullied again back in America when she pulled up to Grosse Pointe South High School — preppy Izod city — looking “like a combo platter of Debbie Gibson, big bangs, shellacking hair spray, blow dryer to keep them up, white frost lip gloss.”In 1995, she graduated from Penn State with a marketing degree and later worked in television, including on air in local news in Albany, N.Y., and Orlando, Fla. In 2006, Martha Stewart fired her from “The Apprentice.”A self-proclaimed homebody, she likes to spend her free time with her husband, Joe Carretta, and adopted da...
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