Post by mhbruin on Jun 2, 2022 9:02:34 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 585 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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If You Go To a Casino, Always Leave an Empty Seat for Elijah for the Ride Home. You Always Want to Leave with a Prophet.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
The Turkey Who Ruled Turkey, Now Rules Türkiye
Turkey will be known as Türkiye at the United Nations from now on, after it agreed to a formal request from Ankara.
Several international bodies will be asked to make the name change as part of a rebranding campaign launched by the Turkish president late last year.
"Türkiye is the best representation and expression of the Turkish people's culture, civilization, and values," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in December.
The UN says it made the change as soon as it received the request this week.
Most Turks already know their country as Türkiye. However the anglicised form Turkey is widely used, even within the country.
State broadcaster TRT was quick to make the change as soon as it was announced last year, explaining that among the reasons for the image rebrand was the association with the bird traditionally associated with Christmas, New Year or Thanksgiving.
It also pointed out the Cambridge English Dictionary's definition of one of the meanings of the word as "something that fails badly" or "a stupid or silly person".
As part of the re-branding, "Made in Türkiye" will feature on all exported products, and in January a tourism campaign was launched with the catch-phrase "Hello Türkiye".
The move has been met with a mixed reaction online. While government officials support it, others say it is an ineffective distraction as the president gears up for elections next year, amid an economic crisis.
These Turkeys Are Rebranding, Too
Ransomware hackers sanctioned by the United States have learned to rebrand themselves and their software, a strategy meant to sidestep the curbs and make it more likely that victims pay up.
It’s the most recent development in what has become a burgeoning chase between U.S. authorities and cybercriminals who have figured out ways to evade crackdowns and sustain their multibillion-dollar hacking industry.
A study published Thursday by the cybersecurity company Mandiant found that a notorious Russian cybercriminal gang changed its tactics almost immediately after a Department of Treasury advisory. The gang, called Evil Corp, was already under sanctions when the department announced it was responsible for a strain of ransomware software called WastedLocker.
Evil Corp quickly stopped using the WastedLocker software and quickly developed variants of it with different names and graphics, Mandiant’s analysis found. Those new strains of ransomware were among the most prevalent over the past two years, though it wasn’t always clear whether Evil Corp was behind them.
Kimberly Goody, Mandiant’s director of cybercrime analysis, said that pivot was clearly designed to keep the flow of money coming from American victims.
“They can kind of hide behind this very well-known public brand in order to receive payments from their victims, most of whom, quite frankly, are not going to have a clue this is tied to any sanctioned actor,” she said.
Criminal hackers use ransomware to extort victims by encrypting their computer networks and demanding payment for a digital key to make them usable again. They also often threaten to publish the files they’ve hacked if a victim doesn’t pay. The number of ransomware attacks rose sharply during the pandemic, with hackers extorting an estimated $14 billion in cryptocurrency last year.
Last fall, the White House declared Treasury Department sanctions against cybercriminals to be a key component of its fight against ransomware, hoping that if American victims are less likely to pay, hackers may be less inclined to attack them.
But ransomware victims rarely have any idea who has attacked them besides the nickname of the software that has infected their computers. If sanctioned criminals undergo a minor rebrand of their software, they can trick victims into thinking they’re not violating sanctions by paying.
The Turkey Who Runs Tesla Has Decided That COVID Is Over
Tesla boss Elon Musk has ordered staff to return to the office full-time, declaring that working remotely is no longer acceptable.
The new policy was shared in emails that were leaked to social media.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the messages, one of which appeared to be addressed to executives.
People who are unwilling to abide by the new rules can "pretend to work somewhere else" Mr Musk said on Twitter, when asked about the policy.
"Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," he wrote in one of the emails. "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."
When You Next Take a Plane and You Find You're In Pain, Blame Boeing. Then Try to Fly an Airbus
You might not know that the standard for today's airline seat sizing goes all the way back to 1954.
That's when Boeing first flew the prototype that would lead to the jet age's iconic 707.
The 707's seats, arranged with six in each row in "tourist" or "coach," as economy used to be called, were pretty good for 1954, but that was nearly 70 years ago.
You might not know a lot of people who were adults in 1954, but if you do, make the most of their impressive longevity and compare their general size and stature next to a strapping, well-nourished 18-year-old of today.
All things being equal, you'll probably note that people these days are quite a bit bigger -- taller, with wider shoulders and wider hips.
But the Boeing 737 -- which has a fuselage width of 148 inches (3.76 meters), just like the 707s -- still seats six people in every row.
No wonder planes seem more cramped today, even the slightly wider Airbus A320s, which tends to offer an 18" seat, or the A220 (designed by Bombardier as the C Series), which offers 19".
CNN Has a Poor Choice Of Words
The alleged gang-rape of a woman on a moving train has sparked anger in Pakistan, putting the spotlight on the South Asian nation’s poor record with women’s rights.
Three men – one of them a ticket checker – have been accused of raping the woman, a 25-year-old mother of two, as she traveled from the city of Karachi to Multan in Pakistan’s Punjab province last week, according to Pakistan’s Railway Ministry. It added the attack took place after the men asked her to move to a carriage with air conditioning.
The three men have been arrested on suspicion of rape, according to a police report seen by CNN.
Salman Sufi, the head of the Prime Minister’s Strategic Reforms Implementation Unit, told CNN Thursday that the government had ordered railway operators to improve the safety of women on trains, with measures including CCTV cameras in common areas, emergency buttons in cabins, and patrols by women police officers.
The incident has sparked anger in the democracy of 220 million, which has a poor track record in protecting women’s rights and where brutal acts of gender-based violence and sexual assault frequently make the headlines.
No Asylum For You! Next!
Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey is leading a group of federal lawmakers in urging a formal review into the Boston Asylum Office’s low asylum grant rate. They point to a March 2022 report showing an approval rate of only 15.5%, far below the national average of nearly 30%.
“We write to request that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) immediately open an investigation into the Boston Asylum Office to determine whether, and if so, why its grant rate is so low, and to take appropriate steps to ensure that the rights of those seeking asylum in the United States through the Boston Asylum Office are protected and enforced,” lawmakers say.
Lawmakers point to a March 2022 report revealing that the Boston Asylum Office is “dominated by a culture of suspicion and distrust toward asylum seekers, which is further exacerbated by internal pressures placed on asylum officers."
Victims of McBigotry
Workers at a McDonald's restaurant in Massachusetts deliberately put bacon on a fish sandwich that a Muslim woman had ordered for one of her children, a civil rights organization said Wednesday.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a discrimination complaint on the woman's behalf with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
"It is commonly known that Islam forbids Muslims from eating pork," the complaint says. "McDonald's employees willfully added bacon to the complainant's food in an effort to offend, humiliate, and cause distress to complainant and her young children."
"Religious discrimination at a place of public accommodation is not only illegal, but also morally reprehensible," she said in a statement. "You can't go much lower than tampering with the food of a young child," she said.
The experience prompted one of the children to ask, "Why did they do this? Do they hate us?" the complaint says.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
The Next Time a Dog Sniffs Your Butt, It Could Be Diagnosing You.
Questions about whether dogs can sniff out Covid — and how well — have intrigued researchers since early in the pandemic.
A study published Wednesday in the journal Plos One offers further evidence that dogs can indeed be trained to detect Covid. The dogs tested in the research accurately identified 97 percent of positive cases after sniffing human sweat samples. That made them more sensitive than some rapid antigen tests.
The samples were collected at community centers in Paris from a mix of symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, as well as healthy people without Covid. The researchers found the dogs to be especially good at detecting asymptomatic infections, with a sensitivity nearing 100 percent.
Previous studies have also highlighted this canine skill: Researchers in Florida last year found that that dogs could predict positive Covid tests with 73 to 93 percent accuracy after a month of training. In a U.K. study, dogs accurately pinpointed 82 to 94 percent of positive cases.
A New Class of Vaccine May Stop Metastatic Cancer from Escaping the Immune System
A study in Nature describes a new type of cancer vaccine that works by obstructing a tactic used by tumours to escape the immune system. The vaccine was effective in mouse models of aggressive cancer, was safe in non-human primates and is set to be tested in clinical trials.
Preventing shedding
The vaccine targets a conserved domain on two proteins produced by many types of cancer cells in response to DNA damage – MICA and MICB stress proteins. These proteins would normally act as a signal to invoke T cells and natural killer cells of the immune system. To prevent recognition by the immune system, cancer cells shed MICA/MICB proteins.
The vaccine increases the density of MICA/MICB proteins on the surface of tumour cells by inhibiting proteolytic shedding. Through this mechanism, the vaccine enhances the presentation of tumour antigens by dendritic cells to T cells and augments the cytotoxic function of natural killer cells. In this way, the tumour is attacked by both T cells and natural killer cells.
Mitigating tumours
Cancer recurrence caused by micrometastases is a challenging problem in oncology. So the researchers tested the vaccine in two models of spontaneous metastasis. The vaccine greatly reduced the number of lung metastases in models of melanoma and triple-negative breast cancer more than 1 month after the removal of the primary tumour.
The vaccine was also tested in immunotherapy-resistant tumours caused by inactivating mutations. Here, the vaccine was efficacious against tumours with mutations resulting in loss of MHC-I, MHC-II or the interferon-γ receptor. At a molecular level, the researchers showed that efficacy was mediated by T helper cells recruiting natural killer cells to the resistant tumours.
Better defending
The approach described in this study might be better than other cancer vaccine strategies because it overcomes the need to personalise cancer vaccines that target peptide antigens. And having a vaccine elicits a broad immune response reduces the risk of immune escape.
The authors note that a first-in-human clinical trial is planned, in which serum levels of shed MICA/MICB and tumour-cell expression of MICA/MICB will be used as a biomarker to select patients. The authors also note that the vaccine could be combined with local radiation therapy because DNA damage enhances MICA/MICB expression on cancer cells.
Is It Still a Turkish Manufacturer? Or Is It a Türkiyish Manufacturer? Yuk!
Inspired by an act of generosity by Lithuanians, a Turkish manufacturer is donating a drone that will go to the war-torn country of Ukraine, Lithuania's defense minister said Thursday.
Last week, Lithuanians raised 5.9 million euros in several days to buy a drone for Ukraine. Lithuanian officials had travelled to Turkey to sign a contract with the producer to acquire it.
But Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas wrote on Facebook that the Turkish manufacturer was so “impressed” by the Lithuanian people that it is “donating a drone Bayraktar TB2 to Lithuania.”
The Lithuanian government plans to send the drone to Ukraine later this month.
Some 1.5 million euros of the money raised by Lithuanians will be spent on drone munition, while the remaining 4.4 million would be earmarked for humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine, Anusauskas said.
Matching Donations
The U.K. is set to send multiple launch rocket systems to the Ukrainian military in a bid to help counter Russia’s brutal attacks.
According to a statement by the British Foreign Office, reports CNN, the U.K. will provide Ukraine with M270 launchers, which can strike targets over 49 miles away. The advanced medium-range rocket systems will offer “a significant boost in capability for the Ukrainian forces.”
Ukrainian soldiers will be trained in the U.K. on how to use the weapons system.
Ear! Ear!
In what the company is calling a "groundbreaking reconstructive procedure," 3DBio Therapeutics has transplanted a 3D-printed ear made of living cells. The reconstruction is the first in-human phase of the clinical trial for the implant, called AuriNovo, and appears to be the first 3D-printed implant made of living tissues.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 99
Fighting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 200,000 children are among the Ukrainians who have been forcefully taken to Russia and dispersed across the vast country, including children from orphanages, children taken with their parents, and those separated from their families.
A Russian missile hit rail lines in the western Lviv region, a key conduit for supplies of Western weapons and other supplies, wounding five people, Ukrainian officials said.
Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Haidai said 70 percent of Severodonetsk was held by Russian forces, 10-15 percent was a “grey zone”, and the rest was held by Ukraine.
Civilians are sheltering under a chemical plant in Severodonetsk as Russian forces advance on the key city in eastern Ukraine, Haidai said, raising concerns the facility may still have stocks of dangerous materials.
Haidai accused Russia of “simply destroying and plundering” the region, saying Moscow’s forces hit the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk on Wednesday, and damaged a hospital in Lysychansk.
Russian forces in the now-occupied Kherson region are scrambling to secure the vital ground line of communication threatened by Ukrainian forces, the Institute for the Study of War (SW) said.
Two monks and a nun have been killed in the shelling of a historic monastery in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said.
Ukraine’s Culture Ministry has documented 367 war crimes against Ukraine’s cultural heritage, including the destruction of 29 museums, 133 churches, 66 theatres and libraries, and a Jewish cemetery, the Kyiv Independent reported.
The White House said that any offensive cyber activity against Russia would not be a violation of US policy of avoiding direct military conflict with Russia.
Diplomacy
US President Joe Biden is expected to meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on Thursday, including to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Gulf Arab states would not participate in sanctions against Russia and Belarus after a meeting with members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – China’s CCTV reported.
Hungary was holding up the finalisation of the European Union’s latest sanctions package against Russia, insisting on the removal of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill from the list of sanctioned individuals, diplomats said.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed solidarity for Ukraine in what she described as a “barbaric war” with Russia, after months of silence prompted criticism of her own policy towards Russia.
Ireland’s Senate passed a resolution declaring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine an act of genocide, Chair of the Irish Senate Mark Daly said.
Denmark will join the European Union’s defence policy after a referendum amid the invasion of Ukraine, public broadcaster DR projected, as final results showed that almost 70 percent of voters were in favour of removing an opt-out to the EU’s so-called Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
Military Aid
US announced a new $700m aid package for Kyiv that includes High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
Germany said it will supply Ukraine with up-to-date anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems.
Russia criticised the US decision to supply advanced rocket systems and munitions to Ukraine, warning of an increased risk of direct confrontation with Washington.
The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia, the Reuters news agency reported.
Economy
Ukraine’s 2022 wheat harvest is likely to drop to 19.2 million tonnes from a record 33 million tonnes in 2021, Ukrainian grain traders’ union UGA said.
Poland stands to get an economic boost from agreements to help Ukraine, the prime minister said, as he opened temporary housing funded and built by Warsaw in a town that was largely destroyed during the war with Russia.
Football
Ukraine beat Scotland in the World Cup qualification playoff, and Ukraine coach Oleksandr Petrakov said a victory is for his compatriots who “fight with every last drop of their blood”. Ukraine will now face Wales on Sunday in Cardiff, with the winner taking a place at November’s finals in Qatar.
President Zelenskyy hailed the national team’s victory, saying it would bring joy to soldiers fighting against Russia.
Corruption Junction
Is the Kremlin Defaulty Towers?
Russia's failure to pay $1.9 million in accrued interest on a dollar bond will trigger payouts potentially worth billions of dollars, a panel of investors determined on Wednesday, as the country teeters on its first major external debt default in over a century. read more
Sanctions imposed by western countries and their allies on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, as well as counter measures by Moscow, have all but excluded the country from the global financial system. The lapse last month of a key U.S. license allowing Russia to make payments put the prospect of the country defaulting back into focus.
Bringing the Hellfire
The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia, three people familiar with the situation said.
The sale of the General Atomics-made drones could still be blocked by Congress, the sources said, adding that there is also a risk of a last minute policy reversal that could scuttle the plan, which has been under review at the Pentagon for several weeks.
Ukraine has been using several types of smaller shorter range unmanned aerial systems against Russian forces that invaded the country in late February. They include the AeroVironment (AVAV.O) RQ-20 Puma AE, and the Turkish Bayraktar-TB2.
But the Gray Eagle represents a leap in technology because it can fly up to 30 or more hours depending on its mission and can gather huge amounts of data for intelligence purposes. Gray Eagles, the Army's version of the more widely known Predator drone, can also carry up to eight powerful Hellfire missiles.
The sale is significant because it puts an advanced reusable U.S. system capable of multiple deep strikes on the battlefield against Russia for the first time.
What's He Going to Say When Roe is Overturned and Gun Deaths Go Up?
There’s a new contender for most absurd GOP scapegoat for gun violence.
Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) was asked during an interview with Missouri radio station The Eagle 93.9 on Wednesday whether there was any appetite among Republicans in Congress to pursue changes to gun laws. It came in the wake of a gunman’s massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.
Long, who is running for the U.S. Senate, said guns aren’t the issue. He criticized proponents of gun control for “trying to blame an inanimate object for all of these tragedies.”
He said there are a few solutions but that the problem can be traced back to when abortion became legal nationwide.
“When I was growing up in Springfield, you had one or two murders a year,” he said. “Now we have two, three, four a week in Springfield, Missouri.
“So something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was OK to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks.” (When he grew up, there were no cell phones. Do cell phones cause mass shootings? )
The data doesn’t support that claim. The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 established abortion rights in the U.S.
In 1970, 499 murders were reported in Missouri. in 1975, the figure was 505. And in 2019, 568 murders were reported in the state.
The data does show, however, that the gun problem in America is linked to the proliferation of guns and the ease at which people can obtain them. Other countries have had great success in curbing gun violence by tightening gun laws or banning guns and implementing gun buyback programs.
Semiautomatic assault rifles, the guns frequently used in mass shootings like the one last week in Uvalde, are also shown to be part of the problem. In 1994, sweeping legislation was passed that banned certain assault weapons. It expired in 2004. Mass shooting deaths were 70% less likely during the ban, one study found.
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Good News From Yemen - Or More Than Half Good News
A truce between the Yemeni government and the country’s Houthi rebels has been extended for two months, the United Nations has announced.
The initial two-month truce, the first since 2016, began on April 2 and was set to expire on Thursday. Still, after days of negotiations, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg announced that parties to the conflict had agreed to an extension.
As part of the truce deal that went into effect on April 2, the parties to the conflict had agreed to halt all military operations inside Yemen and across its borders, operate two commercial flights a week from Houthi-controlled Sanaa to Jordan and Egypt, allow 18 fuel vessels into the port of Houthi-controlled Hodeidah, and open the roads in Taiz and other governorates.
According to the NRC, the number of civilians killed and injured in Yemen dropped by more than 50 percent in the first month of the truce.
Another major success of the truce was the resumption of commercial flights from Sanaa Airport on April 16, the first in six years. A Saudi-led coalition blockade had banned commercial flights from using the airport.
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Good News From the US
Fewer Americans applied for jobless aid last week, with the number of Americans collecting unemployment at historically low levels.
Applications for unemployment benefits fell by 11,000 to 200,000 for the week ending May 28, the United States Department of Labor reported Thursday. First-time applications generally track the number of layoffs.
The four-week average for claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, dipped by 500 from the previous week to 206,500.
The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits for the week ending May 21 fell from the previous week, to 1,309,000, the fewest since December 27, 1969.
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Another Reason For Previous Guy to Worry About Georgia
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has begun testifying before a special grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Raffensperger arrived roughly half an hour before his scheduled testimony on Thursday, saying it would be “hopefully short” on his way into the courthouse.
The Republican is a central witness in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation, which kicked off after Raffensperger’s infamous January 2021 call with the former President came to light. During the call, Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win Georgia – a state Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.
Raffensperger, who faced a wave of death threats for upholding Georgia’s election results, later penned a book in which he noted that he had repeatedly felt threatened by Trump during the call.
Trump has said it was a “perfect call.”
In addition to Raffensperger’s testimony, investigators subpoenaed documents from the Georgia secretary of state’s office pertaining to the Trump-Raffensperger call, the 2020 election audit and hand count, a forensic audit of Dominion voting equipment and the transcript from a Georgia Senate election hearing that featured an appearance from former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Willis has also subpoenaed Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr as well as several other state election officials to appear as witnesses before the special grand jury.
While Willis has been investigating Trump’s efforts to upend Georgia’s election results for well over a year, a special grand jury was finally selected in May to begin issuing subpoenas and hearing evidence in the case. With Raffensperger seeking reelection, Willis held off on calling for him to testify until after Georgia’s GOP primary last month, where Raffensperger defeated his primary opponent Rep. Jody Hice.
Trump's obsession with 2020 weighs on his political power -- and his political future
Willis is investigating potential crimes, including the solicitation of election fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, making false statements to state and local government bodies and violence or threats related to election administration.
When the special grand jury completes its work, it will issue a report with a recommendation on whether Trump or any of his allies should face charges. If the panel recommends charges, Willis can go to one of the regularly impaneled grand juries in Fulton County to seek an indictment.
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Instant Massacre
A gunman who killed four people at a Tulsa hospital on Wednesday targeted a doctor who had treated him and bought the AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting on the day of the attack, police said.
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No Mo Ho Jo. Oh, No!
The last Howard Johnson’s Restaurant in America has closed.
The location in Lake George, New York, was for a number of years the final outpost in what was once one of the nation’s biggest restaurant chains, with a history going back to a single location in 1925. That one, in Quincy, Massachusetts, was described by the company as a “small, orange-roofed soda fountain.” Eventually, the look included the signature cupola with a Simple Simon and the Pieman weathervane on top.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| Jun 1 | 100,683 | 244 | |
| May 31 | 103,686 | 264 | 3,789 |
| May 30 | 94,260 | 301 | 3,833 |
| May 29 | 103,900 | 327 | 3,496 |
| May 28 | 106,931 | 331 | 3,628 |
| May 27 | 108,825 | 336 | 3,734 |
| May 26 | 109,643 | 315 | 3,722 |
| May 25 | 109,564 | 305 | 3,609 |
| May 24 | 104,399 | 288 | 3,614 |
| May 23 | 104,480 | 279 | 3,604 |
| May 22 | 102,940 | 281 | 3,531 |
| May 21 | 105,198 | 283 | 3,226 |
| May 20 | 105,713 | 284 | 3,369 |
| May 19 | 101,029 | 279 | 3,379 |
| May 18 | 101,130 | 280 | 3,332 |
| May 17 | 99,347 | 273 | 3,250 |
| May 16 | 94,199 | 274 | 3,136 |
| May 15 | 90,337 | 263 | 3,013 |
| May 14 | 88,187 | 265 | 2,698 |
| May 13 | 87,831 | 266 | 2,798 |
| May 12 | 87,382 | 272 | 2,731 |
| May 11 | 84,778 | 272 | 2,652 |
| May 10 | 78,236 | 326 | 2,629 |
| May 9 | 74,712 | 323 | 2,597 |
| May 8 | 66,564 | 323 | 2,510 |
| May 7 | 67,561 | 335 | 2,310 |
| May 6 | 68,807 | 340 | 2,396 |
| May 5 | 67,263 | 341 | 2.363 |
| May 4 | 64,780 | 334 | 2,267 |
| May 3 | 61,712 | 325 | 2,219 |
| May 2 | 60,410 | 318 | 2.214 |
| May 1 | 57,020 | 307 | 2,072 |
| Apr 30 | 56,581 | 310 | 1,882 |
| Apr 29 | 56,166 | 308 | 1,946 |
| Apr 28 | 54,696 | 311 | 1,955 |
| Apr 27 | 53,133 | 334 | 1,941 |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | 1,889 |
| Apr 25 | 47,407 | 330 | 1,840 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
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If You Go To a Casino, Always Leave an Empty Seat for Elijah for the Ride Home. You Always Want to Leave with a Prophet.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
The Turkey Who Ruled Turkey, Now Rules Türkiye
Turkey will be known as Türkiye at the United Nations from now on, after it agreed to a formal request from Ankara.
Several international bodies will be asked to make the name change as part of a rebranding campaign launched by the Turkish president late last year.
"Türkiye is the best representation and expression of the Turkish people's culture, civilization, and values," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in December.
The UN says it made the change as soon as it received the request this week.
Most Turks already know their country as Türkiye. However the anglicised form Turkey is widely used, even within the country.
State broadcaster TRT was quick to make the change as soon as it was announced last year, explaining that among the reasons for the image rebrand was the association with the bird traditionally associated with Christmas, New Year or Thanksgiving.
It also pointed out the Cambridge English Dictionary's definition of one of the meanings of the word as "something that fails badly" or "a stupid or silly person".
As part of the re-branding, "Made in Türkiye" will feature on all exported products, and in January a tourism campaign was launched with the catch-phrase "Hello Türkiye".
The move has been met with a mixed reaction online. While government officials support it, others say it is an ineffective distraction as the president gears up for elections next year, amid an economic crisis.
These Turkeys Are Rebranding, Too
Ransomware hackers sanctioned by the United States have learned to rebrand themselves and their software, a strategy meant to sidestep the curbs and make it more likely that victims pay up.
It’s the most recent development in what has become a burgeoning chase between U.S. authorities and cybercriminals who have figured out ways to evade crackdowns and sustain their multibillion-dollar hacking industry.
A study published Thursday by the cybersecurity company Mandiant found that a notorious Russian cybercriminal gang changed its tactics almost immediately after a Department of Treasury advisory. The gang, called Evil Corp, was already under sanctions when the department announced it was responsible for a strain of ransomware software called WastedLocker.
Evil Corp quickly stopped using the WastedLocker software and quickly developed variants of it with different names and graphics, Mandiant’s analysis found. Those new strains of ransomware were among the most prevalent over the past two years, though it wasn’t always clear whether Evil Corp was behind them.
Kimberly Goody, Mandiant’s director of cybercrime analysis, said that pivot was clearly designed to keep the flow of money coming from American victims.
“They can kind of hide behind this very well-known public brand in order to receive payments from their victims, most of whom, quite frankly, are not going to have a clue this is tied to any sanctioned actor,” she said.
Criminal hackers use ransomware to extort victims by encrypting their computer networks and demanding payment for a digital key to make them usable again. They also often threaten to publish the files they’ve hacked if a victim doesn’t pay. The number of ransomware attacks rose sharply during the pandemic, with hackers extorting an estimated $14 billion in cryptocurrency last year.
Last fall, the White House declared Treasury Department sanctions against cybercriminals to be a key component of its fight against ransomware, hoping that if American victims are less likely to pay, hackers may be less inclined to attack them.
But ransomware victims rarely have any idea who has attacked them besides the nickname of the software that has infected their computers. If sanctioned criminals undergo a minor rebrand of their software, they can trick victims into thinking they’re not violating sanctions by paying.
The Turkey Who Runs Tesla Has Decided That COVID Is Over
Tesla boss Elon Musk has ordered staff to return to the office full-time, declaring that working remotely is no longer acceptable.
The new policy was shared in emails that were leaked to social media.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the messages, one of which appeared to be addressed to executives.
People who are unwilling to abide by the new rules can "pretend to work somewhere else" Mr Musk said on Twitter, when asked about the policy.
"Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week," he wrote in one of the emails. "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."
When You Next Take a Plane and You Find You're In Pain, Blame Boeing. Then Try to Fly an Airbus
You might not know that the standard for today's airline seat sizing goes all the way back to 1954.
That's when Boeing first flew the prototype that would lead to the jet age's iconic 707.
The 707's seats, arranged with six in each row in "tourist" or "coach," as economy used to be called, were pretty good for 1954, but that was nearly 70 years ago.
You might not know a lot of people who were adults in 1954, but if you do, make the most of their impressive longevity and compare their general size and stature next to a strapping, well-nourished 18-year-old of today.
All things being equal, you'll probably note that people these days are quite a bit bigger -- taller, with wider shoulders and wider hips.
But the Boeing 737 -- which has a fuselage width of 148 inches (3.76 meters), just like the 707s -- still seats six people in every row.
No wonder planes seem more cramped today, even the slightly wider Airbus A320s, which tends to offer an 18" seat, or the A220 (designed by Bombardier as the C Series), which offers 19".
CNN Has a Poor Choice Of Words
The alleged gang-rape of a woman on a moving train has sparked anger in Pakistan, putting the spotlight on the South Asian nation’s poor record with women’s rights.
Three men – one of them a ticket checker – have been accused of raping the woman, a 25-year-old mother of two, as she traveled from the city of Karachi to Multan in Pakistan’s Punjab province last week, according to Pakistan’s Railway Ministry. It added the attack took place after the men asked her to move to a carriage with air conditioning.
The three men have been arrested on suspicion of rape, according to a police report seen by CNN.
Salman Sufi, the head of the Prime Minister’s Strategic Reforms Implementation Unit, told CNN Thursday that the government had ordered railway operators to improve the safety of women on trains, with measures including CCTV cameras in common areas, emergency buttons in cabins, and patrols by women police officers.
The incident has sparked anger in the democracy of 220 million, which has a poor track record in protecting women’s rights and where brutal acts of gender-based violence and sexual assault frequently make the headlines.
No Asylum For You! Next!
Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey is leading a group of federal lawmakers in urging a formal review into the Boston Asylum Office’s low asylum grant rate. They point to a March 2022 report showing an approval rate of only 15.5%, far below the national average of nearly 30%.
“We write to request that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) immediately open an investigation into the Boston Asylum Office to determine whether, and if so, why its grant rate is so low, and to take appropriate steps to ensure that the rights of those seeking asylum in the United States through the Boston Asylum Office are protected and enforced,” lawmakers say.
Lawmakers point to a March 2022 report revealing that the Boston Asylum Office is “dominated by a culture of suspicion and distrust toward asylum seekers, which is further exacerbated by internal pressures placed on asylum officers."
Victims of McBigotry
Workers at a McDonald's restaurant in Massachusetts deliberately put bacon on a fish sandwich that a Muslim woman had ordered for one of her children, a civil rights organization said Wednesday.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a discrimination complaint on the woman's behalf with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
"It is commonly known that Islam forbids Muslims from eating pork," the complaint says. "McDonald's employees willfully added bacon to the complainant's food in an effort to offend, humiliate, and cause distress to complainant and her young children."
"Religious discrimination at a place of public accommodation is not only illegal, but also morally reprehensible," she said in a statement. "You can't go much lower than tampering with the food of a young child," she said.
The experience prompted one of the children to ask, "Why did they do this? Do they hate us?" the complaint says.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
The Next Time a Dog Sniffs Your Butt, It Could Be Diagnosing You.
Questions about whether dogs can sniff out Covid — and how well — have intrigued researchers since early in the pandemic.
A study published Wednesday in the journal Plos One offers further evidence that dogs can indeed be trained to detect Covid. The dogs tested in the research accurately identified 97 percent of positive cases after sniffing human sweat samples. That made them more sensitive than some rapid antigen tests.
The samples were collected at community centers in Paris from a mix of symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, as well as healthy people without Covid. The researchers found the dogs to be especially good at detecting asymptomatic infections, with a sensitivity nearing 100 percent.
Previous studies have also highlighted this canine skill: Researchers in Florida last year found that that dogs could predict positive Covid tests with 73 to 93 percent accuracy after a month of training. In a U.K. study, dogs accurately pinpointed 82 to 94 percent of positive cases.
A New Class of Vaccine May Stop Metastatic Cancer from Escaping the Immune System
A study in Nature describes a new type of cancer vaccine that works by obstructing a tactic used by tumours to escape the immune system. The vaccine was effective in mouse models of aggressive cancer, was safe in non-human primates and is set to be tested in clinical trials.
Preventing shedding
The vaccine targets a conserved domain on two proteins produced by many types of cancer cells in response to DNA damage – MICA and MICB stress proteins. These proteins would normally act as a signal to invoke T cells and natural killer cells of the immune system. To prevent recognition by the immune system, cancer cells shed MICA/MICB proteins.
The vaccine increases the density of MICA/MICB proteins on the surface of tumour cells by inhibiting proteolytic shedding. Through this mechanism, the vaccine enhances the presentation of tumour antigens by dendritic cells to T cells and augments the cytotoxic function of natural killer cells. In this way, the tumour is attacked by both T cells and natural killer cells.
Mitigating tumours
Cancer recurrence caused by micrometastases is a challenging problem in oncology. So the researchers tested the vaccine in two models of spontaneous metastasis. The vaccine greatly reduced the number of lung metastases in models of melanoma and triple-negative breast cancer more than 1 month after the removal of the primary tumour.
The vaccine was also tested in immunotherapy-resistant tumours caused by inactivating mutations. Here, the vaccine was efficacious against tumours with mutations resulting in loss of MHC-I, MHC-II or the interferon-γ receptor. At a molecular level, the researchers showed that efficacy was mediated by T helper cells recruiting natural killer cells to the resistant tumours.
Better defending
The approach described in this study might be better than other cancer vaccine strategies because it overcomes the need to personalise cancer vaccines that target peptide antigens. And having a vaccine elicits a broad immune response reduces the risk of immune escape.
The authors note that a first-in-human clinical trial is planned, in which serum levels of shed MICA/MICB and tumour-cell expression of MICA/MICB will be used as a biomarker to select patients. The authors also note that the vaccine could be combined with local radiation therapy because DNA damage enhances MICA/MICB expression on cancer cells.
Is It Still a Turkish Manufacturer? Or Is It a Türkiyish Manufacturer? Yuk!
Inspired by an act of generosity by Lithuanians, a Turkish manufacturer is donating a drone that will go to the war-torn country of Ukraine, Lithuania's defense minister said Thursday.
Last week, Lithuanians raised 5.9 million euros in several days to buy a drone for Ukraine. Lithuanian officials had travelled to Turkey to sign a contract with the producer to acquire it.
But Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas wrote on Facebook that the Turkish manufacturer was so “impressed” by the Lithuanian people that it is “donating a drone Bayraktar TB2 to Lithuania.”
The Lithuanian government plans to send the drone to Ukraine later this month.
Some 1.5 million euros of the money raised by Lithuanians will be spent on drone munition, while the remaining 4.4 million would be earmarked for humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine, Anusauskas said.
Matching Donations
The U.K. is set to send multiple launch rocket systems to the Ukrainian military in a bid to help counter Russia’s brutal attacks.
According to a statement by the British Foreign Office, reports CNN, the U.K. will provide Ukraine with M270 launchers, which can strike targets over 49 miles away. The advanced medium-range rocket systems will offer “a significant boost in capability for the Ukrainian forces.”
Ukrainian soldiers will be trained in the U.K. on how to use the weapons system.
Ear! Ear!
In what the company is calling a "groundbreaking reconstructive procedure," 3DBio Therapeutics has transplanted a 3D-printed ear made of living cells. The reconstruction is the first in-human phase of the clinical trial for the implant, called AuriNovo, and appears to be the first 3D-printed implant made of living tissues.
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Invasions Have Consequences
Day 99
Fighting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 200,000 children are among the Ukrainians who have been forcefully taken to Russia and dispersed across the vast country, including children from orphanages, children taken with their parents, and those separated from their families.
A Russian missile hit rail lines in the western Lviv region, a key conduit for supplies of Western weapons and other supplies, wounding five people, Ukrainian officials said.
Luhansk regional Governor Serhiy Haidai said 70 percent of Severodonetsk was held by Russian forces, 10-15 percent was a “grey zone”, and the rest was held by Ukraine.
Civilians are sheltering under a chemical plant in Severodonetsk as Russian forces advance on the key city in eastern Ukraine, Haidai said, raising concerns the facility may still have stocks of dangerous materials.
Haidai accused Russia of “simply destroying and plundering” the region, saying Moscow’s forces hit the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk on Wednesday, and damaged a hospital in Lysychansk.
Russian forces in the now-occupied Kherson region are scrambling to secure the vital ground line of communication threatened by Ukrainian forces, the Institute for the Study of War (SW) said.
Two monks and a nun have been killed in the shelling of a historic monastery in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church said.
Ukraine’s Culture Ministry has documented 367 war crimes against Ukraine’s cultural heritage, including the destruction of 29 museums, 133 churches, 66 theatres and libraries, and a Jewish cemetery, the Kyiv Independent reported.
The White House said that any offensive cyber activity against Russia would not be a violation of US policy of avoiding direct military conflict with Russia.
Diplomacy
US President Joe Biden is expected to meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on Thursday, including to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Gulf Arab states would not participate in sanctions against Russia and Belarus after a meeting with members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – China’s CCTV reported.
Hungary was holding up the finalisation of the European Union’s latest sanctions package against Russia, insisting on the removal of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill from the list of sanctioned individuals, diplomats said.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed solidarity for Ukraine in what she described as a “barbaric war” with Russia, after months of silence prompted criticism of her own policy towards Russia.
Ireland’s Senate passed a resolution declaring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine an act of genocide, Chair of the Irish Senate Mark Daly said.
Denmark will join the European Union’s defence policy after a referendum amid the invasion of Ukraine, public broadcaster DR projected, as final results showed that almost 70 percent of voters were in favour of removing an opt-out to the EU’s so-called Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
Military Aid
US announced a new $700m aid package for Kyiv that includes High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
Germany said it will supply Ukraine with up-to-date anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems.
Russia criticised the US decision to supply advanced rocket systems and munitions to Ukraine, warning of an increased risk of direct confrontation with Washington.
The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia, the Reuters news agency reported.
Economy
Ukraine’s 2022 wheat harvest is likely to drop to 19.2 million tonnes from a record 33 million tonnes in 2021, Ukrainian grain traders’ union UGA said.
Poland stands to get an economic boost from agreements to help Ukraine, the prime minister said, as he opened temporary housing funded and built by Warsaw in a town that was largely destroyed during the war with Russia.
Football
Ukraine beat Scotland in the World Cup qualification playoff, and Ukraine coach Oleksandr Petrakov said a victory is for his compatriots who “fight with every last drop of their blood”. Ukraine will now face Wales on Sunday in Cardiff, with the winner taking a place at November’s finals in Qatar.
President Zelenskyy hailed the national team’s victory, saying it would bring joy to soldiers fighting against Russia.
Corruption Junction
Is the Kremlin Defaulty Towers?
Russia's failure to pay $1.9 million in accrued interest on a dollar bond will trigger payouts potentially worth billions of dollars, a panel of investors determined on Wednesday, as the country teeters on its first major external debt default in over a century. read more
Sanctions imposed by western countries and their allies on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, as well as counter measures by Moscow, have all but excluded the country from the global financial system. The lapse last month of a key U.S. license allowing Russia to make payments put the prospect of the country defaulting back into focus.
Bringing the Hellfire
The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia, three people familiar with the situation said.
The sale of the General Atomics-made drones could still be blocked by Congress, the sources said, adding that there is also a risk of a last minute policy reversal that could scuttle the plan, which has been under review at the Pentagon for several weeks.
Ukraine has been using several types of smaller shorter range unmanned aerial systems against Russian forces that invaded the country in late February. They include the AeroVironment (AVAV.O) RQ-20 Puma AE, and the Turkish Bayraktar-TB2.
But the Gray Eagle represents a leap in technology because it can fly up to 30 or more hours depending on its mission and can gather huge amounts of data for intelligence purposes. Gray Eagles, the Army's version of the more widely known Predator drone, can also carry up to eight powerful Hellfire missiles.
The sale is significant because it puts an advanced reusable U.S. system capable of multiple deep strikes on the battlefield against Russia for the first time.
What's He Going to Say When Roe is Overturned and Gun Deaths Go Up?
There’s a new contender for most absurd GOP scapegoat for gun violence.
Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) was asked during an interview with Missouri radio station The Eagle 93.9 on Wednesday whether there was any appetite among Republicans in Congress to pursue changes to gun laws. It came in the wake of a gunman’s massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.
Long, who is running for the U.S. Senate, said guns aren’t the issue. He criticized proponents of gun control for “trying to blame an inanimate object for all of these tragedies.”
He said there are a few solutions but that the problem can be traced back to when abortion became legal nationwide.
“When I was growing up in Springfield, you had one or two murders a year,” he said. “Now we have two, three, four a week in Springfield, Missouri.
“So something has happened to our society. I go back to abortion, when we decided it was OK to murder kids in their mothers’ wombs. Life has no value to a lot of these folks.” (When he grew up, there were no cell phones. Do cell phones cause mass shootings? )
The data doesn’t support that claim. The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 established abortion rights in the U.S.
In 1970, 499 murders were reported in Missouri. in 1975, the figure was 505. And in 2019, 568 murders were reported in the state.
The data does show, however, that the gun problem in America is linked to the proliferation of guns and the ease at which people can obtain them. Other countries have had great success in curbing gun violence by tightening gun laws or banning guns and implementing gun buyback programs.
Semiautomatic assault rifles, the guns frequently used in mass shootings like the one last week in Uvalde, are also shown to be part of the problem. In 1994, sweeping legislation was passed that banned certain assault weapons. It expired in 2004. Mass shooting deaths were 70% less likely during the ban, one study found.
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Good News From Yemen - Or More Than Half Good News
A truce between the Yemeni government and the country’s Houthi rebels has been extended for two months, the United Nations has announced.
The initial two-month truce, the first since 2016, began on April 2 and was set to expire on Thursday. Still, after days of negotiations, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg announced that parties to the conflict had agreed to an extension.
As part of the truce deal that went into effect on April 2, the parties to the conflict had agreed to halt all military operations inside Yemen and across its borders, operate two commercial flights a week from Houthi-controlled Sanaa to Jordan and Egypt, allow 18 fuel vessels into the port of Houthi-controlled Hodeidah, and open the roads in Taiz and other governorates.
According to the NRC, the number of civilians killed and injured in Yemen dropped by more than 50 percent in the first month of the truce.
Another major success of the truce was the resumption of commercial flights from Sanaa Airport on April 16, the first in six years. A Saudi-led coalition blockade had banned commercial flights from using the airport.
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Good News From the US
Fewer Americans applied for jobless aid last week, with the number of Americans collecting unemployment at historically low levels.
Applications for unemployment benefits fell by 11,000 to 200,000 for the week ending May 28, the United States Department of Labor reported Thursday. First-time applications generally track the number of layoffs.
The four-week average for claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, dipped by 500 from the previous week to 206,500.
The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits for the week ending May 21 fell from the previous week, to 1,309,000, the fewest since December 27, 1969.
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Another Reason For Previous Guy to Worry About Georgia
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has begun testifying before a special grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Raffensperger arrived roughly half an hour before his scheduled testimony on Thursday, saying it would be “hopefully short” on his way into the courthouse.
The Republican is a central witness in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation, which kicked off after Raffensperger’s infamous January 2021 call with the former President came to light. During the call, Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win Georgia – a state Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.
Raffensperger, who faced a wave of death threats for upholding Georgia’s election results, later penned a book in which he noted that he had repeatedly felt threatened by Trump during the call.
Trump has said it was a “perfect call.”
In addition to Raffensperger’s testimony, investigators subpoenaed documents from the Georgia secretary of state’s office pertaining to the Trump-Raffensperger call, the 2020 election audit and hand count, a forensic audit of Dominion voting equipment and the transcript from a Georgia Senate election hearing that featured an appearance from former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Willis has also subpoenaed Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr as well as several other state election officials to appear as witnesses before the special grand jury.
While Willis has been investigating Trump’s efforts to upend Georgia’s election results for well over a year, a special grand jury was finally selected in May to begin issuing subpoenas and hearing evidence in the case. With Raffensperger seeking reelection, Willis held off on calling for him to testify until after Georgia’s GOP primary last month, where Raffensperger defeated his primary opponent Rep. Jody Hice.
Trump's obsession with 2020 weighs on his political power -- and his political future
Willis is investigating potential crimes, including the solicitation of election fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, making false statements to state and local government bodies and violence or threats related to election administration.
When the special grand jury completes its work, it will issue a report with a recommendation on whether Trump or any of his allies should face charges. If the panel recommends charges, Willis can go to one of the regularly impaneled grand juries in Fulton County to seek an indictment.
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Instant Massacre
A gunman who killed four people at a Tulsa hospital on Wednesday targeted a doctor who had treated him and bought the AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting on the day of the attack, police said.
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No Mo Ho Jo. Oh, No!
The last Howard Johnson’s Restaurant in America has closed.
The location in Lake George, New York, was for a number of years the final outpost in what was once one of the nation’s biggest restaurant chains, with a history going back to a single location in 1925. That one, in Quincy, Massachusetts, was described by the company as a “small, orange-roofed soda fountain.” Eventually, the look included the signature cupola with a Simple Simon and the Pieman weathervane on top.
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