Purdue asks Supreme Court not to block opioid settlement during US appeal

2023/08/04


By Dietrich Knauth

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the U.S. Department of Justice's request to delay its multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits against it over the opioid epidemic.

The department's bankruptcy watchdog last week asked the Supreme Court to pause the settlement, which would shield the company's Sackler family owners from opioid lawsuits in exchange for a $6 billion contribution to a broader settlement with states, local governments and victims of addiction.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the high court to put the deal on hold after a federal appeals court rejected a proposed delay.

Purdue on Friday argued a delay would be destructive, imperiling a settlement that has the support of all major stakeholders, including state attorneys general and people affected by the opioid crisis.

The DOJ's position would "take billions of dollars out of opioid abatement programs that are sorely needed" and potentially "deprive victims of any meaningful recovery" if the deal falls apart, Purdue's lawyers wrote.

That position was echoed by a group representing 60,000 people who have filed personal injury opioid claims in Purdue's bankruptcy.

Purdue's plan would pay up to $750 million to individuals affected by the opioid crisis, and any delay of those funds would have "real consequences" for the many opioid claimants who "live on the edge of poverty" and face risk of eviction or repossession of their cars, according to the personal injury claimants' filing.

The Justice Department has argued the settlement abuses legal protections meant for debtors in "financial distress," not for wealthy corporate owners like the Sacklers, who did not file for bankruptcy themselves.

Purdue has sought to use bankruptcy to resolve thousands of lawsuits, many filed by state and local governments, that said OxyContin helped kickstart an opioid epidemic that caused more than 500,000 U.S. overdose deaths over two decades.

Similar lawsuits related to the U.S. opioid crisis have resulted in more than $50 billion in settlements with manufacturers, drug distributors and pharmacy chains.

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; editing by Grant McCool)

© Reuters

PARASITES IN THE NEWS

Prince Harry's Silicon Valley startup to lay off workers as he and Meghan try to 'reinvent' themselves: reports

2023/08/04

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, arrive at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award Gala at the Hilton Midtown in New York on Dec. 6, 2022.

 - Angela Weiss/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Over the last week, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, have returned to the spotlight in an effort to reportedly "reinvent themselves" and prove to the world that they're not "grifters" who need to exploit their fraught connections to the British family to keep people's attention and maintain their wealthy, A-list lifestyle.

But they hit a possible snag with the news Thursday that one of Harry's projects, the San Francisco-based mental health startup, BetterUp, "missed its financial targets" last year and needs to lay off 16% of its workforce, or some 100 employees. The Daily Beast cited multiple sources within the company to report Thursday that the company, which provides "mental fitness" services to corporate clients, has been dealing with "internal tumult" for many months, including "a revolt" in 2022 by its army of coaches over pay cuts and other professional issues.

It appears that Harry still has his lucrative job with BetterUp as its "chief impact officer," and is still listed at the top of BetterUp's leadership team. The company has never offered details about what the Duke of Sussex does in his role, how much he is paid or how much time he puts in. He has given interviews for BetterUp on the importance of maintaining mental health and appeared in March with CEO Alexi Robichaux at the company's Uplift summit. In interviews, Robichaux has vaguely said that Harry's role is to expand BetterUp's "global community reach," while the duke has said his job involves "driving advocacy and awareness for mental fitness."

The Daily Beast said BetterUp, and a spokesperson for Harry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the layoffs. BetterUp has yet to respond to requests for comment from this news organization. The company, which has offices in San Francisco, Austin, Texas, Washington DC, London and Amsterdam, has not filed WARN notices with California's Employment Development Department, a spokesperson for the agency said.

It's likely Harry has been paid quite a bit for his "advocacy" for BetterUp, given that the company raised $300 million at a $4.7 billion valuation in 2021, the Daily Beast reported last year. But the lack of clarity around Harry's job description irked some of BetterUp's coaches, who questioned whether his job was simply marketing "smoke and mirrors," the Daily Beast also reported.

Unfortunately for Harry, his role with BetterUp has fit the narrative that he's cashed in on high-profile partnerships without working too hard. This narrative spun into overdrive with the collapse of Harry and Meghan's $20 million deal with Spotify, which laid off 6% of its workforce earlier in the year. In June, Spotify and the Sussexes revealed that they were parting ways, with reports saying that the streaming service was frustrated over the couple's failure to produce much content in nearly three years. Some podcasters, who turn out multiple podcasts monthly or even weekly, were particularly incensed that the Montecito millionaires only managed to produce 12 episodes of Meghan's Archetypes podcast since late 2020.

One of those podcasters was Spotify executive and veteran sports writer Bill Simmons, who called them "(expletive) grifters." The New York Post also labeled the Sussexes "Their Royal Laziness." Critics pointed out that they were paid a reported $100 million by Netflix, but have thus far only launched their popular six-part documentary series about themselves, in which the couple complained about royal life and dished about Harry's famous relatives. This week, the Sussexes tried to push back against the "grifters" and "laziness" labels, with a "source" close to their Archewell production company suggesting to People magazine that they were poorly onboarded by Spotify, saying, "They were given no formal lay of the land to kick things off, so they were already on unsteady footing even before the ink was dry."

The sympathetic People story also made it clear that they are hoping to "banish memories of the lengthy pity party they held after leaving the royal family — and fight their way back into the hearts of the American public," the Daily Beast's royal correspondent Tom Sykes reported on Friday.

Branding and public relations experts have said the couple need to shift away from emphasizing their royal connections and instead remind people of their aim to be social activists, which may explain the release of an Archewell Foundation video in which the Sussexes make phone calls to young people to tell them that they are recipients of The Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund. The video marked the first time that Harry and Meghan had been seen together since May, when they were accused of exaggerating the dangers of being followed by paparazzi in New York City to garner global headlines and sympathy.

Page Six said the couple probably wore coordinating camel outfits in the video to dispel rumors that their marriage is in trouble. In any case, the video showed the Sussexes sitting together on a bench in an elegant California garden — perhaps their own — as they made those phone calls and congratulated recipients for their "groundbreaking approach" to making the online world "more inclusive, equitable and accountable." It's notable that the video wrapped with the recipients clapping and looking giddy about receiving calls from Harry and Meghan.

Archewell Foundation, founded by Prince Harry & Meghan, The Duke & Duchess of Sussex, continues to drive it's mission

Their three main pillars of focus are to build a better world online, to restore trust in information, and above all, to uplift communities.

The Daily Beast's Sykes said that Harry would try to shift perceptions of himself by finally releasing his Netflix documentary series, "Heart of Invictus," about the groundbreaking Paralympic style event for wounded veterans that he founded a decade ago. It's not known yet when the series will air, but Harry is due to headline at the Invictus Games, which kick off in Dusseldorf on Sept. 9. Meghan also might be there.

For Harry, a lot is "riding" on this Netflix series, Sykes said. "If it is a hit, it will banish forever the accusation that the couple are only of interest when spilling tea on Harry's family," Sykes said. It could also give Harry a chance to "highlight the empathy, charm and sincerity which people who have actually worked with Harry often cite."

"If, however, it's a worthy but dull documentary, it could spell big trouble for the couple's oft-stated goal of making a change in the world through the power of compassion, which, let's face it, has always been a somewhat nebulous proposition," Sykes wrote. The couple's attempts to champion compassion also has been "seriously undermined by their attacks on the royal family," especially as the attacks came when Harry's grandparents, the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, were dying, Sykes said.

Nonetheless, a kinder, gentler approach to Harry's family and an effort to promote projects that market "inspiration, compassion and hope" could be one way for the couple to reinvent themselves, according to Sykes. Harry could pitch in by continuing to promote the importance of mental health through his work with BetterUp. But, Sykes also said: "The critical test will be whether the public are interested in buying their more wholesome wares."

© The Mercury News

Opinion  The GOP’s race problem goes well beyond DeSantis

Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
August 4, 2023 

What caught my eye

Republicans insist they are misunderstood on race. Sure, they extol Confederate generals, abhor affirmative action, feature neo-Nazis on social media, make excuses for slavery and think White people are the real victims of discrimination but, gosh darn it, stop calling them racists! Well, these days, they hardly bother to disguise their real views on race.

In Alabama, we’re back to the massive resistance, the movement in Southern states post-Brown v. Board of Education to delay or outright defy the Supreme Court’s order to desegregate. The court, you’ll recall, in June ordered Alabama to redo its congressional districts to provide a second majority-Black congressional district. The state defied the court’s plain instruction.

Democracy Docket reported: “The plan, which clearly lacks a second district that would allow Black voters to have the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice, plainly violates the district court’s 2022 order stating that ‘any remedial plan will need to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it.’” (Even more egregiously: “The passage of this plan comes after Republicans advanced two other plans that similarly lacked a second majority-Black district and voted against alternatives that would have ensured two majority-Black districts.”) The case will wind up back in district court, where the court likely will redraw the map itself. (Frankly, it should also hold the GOP-majority legislature and the governor in contempt.)

Here we have yet another example, contrary to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s assertion in Shelby County v. Holder (striking down the preclearance provision in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act), that voting discrimination is very much alive in states that previously had to get Justice Department approval for voting changes. Now, Republicans openly flaunt their determination to subvert Black voting power. And if you thought this was an isolated event, remember that Republicans across the country have passed and are still dreaming up hundreds of bills to suppress minority turnout.

Meanwhile, many Black Republicans are appalled at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s defense of a state history curriculum that finds a silver lining in slavery. Politico reported that, following the admonishment from African American Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and DeSantis’s nasty retort, some Black conservatives “fear the issue will play into Democrats’ characterization of Republicans as favoring a whitewashing of American history.” Gosh this “unforced error,” they think, came just when they imagine “they’ve been making significant strides within the party.” Two Black GOP presidential candidates — former Texas congressman Will Hurd and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) — criticized DeSantis but evidenced no animosity toward a party determined to reduce Black voting strength.

Hurd, Scott and other GOP apologists are in denial: Editing racial history, minimizing the impact of slavery, exaggerating White victimhood, venerating the Confederacy and minimizing Black voting power are central to the current GOP’s identity. DeSantis is not the problem; he’s an example of a party deformed and debased by white nationalism. Perhaps this incident (or the Alabama Republicans’ resistance) will open their eyes to the party’s true character. But don’t count on it.

Distinguished persons of the week

In an era in which truth is under systematic attack from MAGA cultists and right-wing pundits who should know better, we are delighted to see two judges — in separate cases, one state and one federal — engage in some unbridled, untempered truth-telling.

First, kudos to Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who slapped down former president Donald Trump’s ridiculous attempt to quash a Georgia state indictment (not yet delivered) and to disqualify District Attorney Fani T. Willis. As to the latter, McBurney said derisively, “The drumbeat from the District Attorney has been neither partisan (in the political sense) nor personal, in marked and refreshing contrast to the stream of personal invective flowing from one of the movants.” McBurney added: “Put differently, the District Attorney’s Office has been doing a fairly routine — and legally unobjectionable — job of public relations in a case that is anything but routine.” One senses that the state courts are fed up with Trump’s antics.

Then, in a civil case, U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal dismissed Trump’s frivolous defamation case against CNN. Trump took umbrage at the term “big lie” to describe, er, his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Singhal, a Trump appointee, recalls that the term was once used by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Singhal declared, “CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people.” CNN might want to consider asking the court for sanctions against Trump for bringing such a ludicrous claim.

If judges up and down the system, in civil and criminal matters, are losing patience with Trump’s antics and his lies — big and small — we might yet see justice done. It’s about time.

Something different

Amid the actors’ and writers’ strikes, the rise and fall of streaming services and the anxiety over artificial intelligence, two blockbuster movies — “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — sent hundreds of thousands of us back into movie theaters. Actual theaters with other people! During the coronavirus pandemic, many people discovered the joys and cost savings in simply watching movies at home, undisturbed by others and able to pause at one’s pleasure. It was easy for you to convince yourself that this experience was every bit as good if not better than putting on shoes, driving to a theater, plunking down $15 or so, sitting through commercials and putting up with the guy whispering behind you.

But this was an illusion, you realize, when you go back to the real theaters. You realize you cannot duplicate at home the experience of being utterly absorbed in another world, laughing or gasping with others. The enormity of the screen blocks out the world, something you rarely achieve on your living room couch. Moviegoing is an entirely different, wonderful and communal experience made even more wonderful by the utter genius behind these two extraordinary films.

After watching the inventiveness and whimsy, eye candy and the unbridled feminism of “Barbie” viewed from a sea of fellow pink-garbed audience members (because — why not? — it’s Barbie!) or the awe-inspiring, breathtaking visuals and stomach-turning history laid out in “Oppenheimer,” you’re reminded how much we need communal joy and shared enlightenment.

If nothing else, you’ll soon conclude that the creative people who make this art are worth their weight in gold. The bean-counting suits in studio offices should realize who provides the value in their industry.

From my weekly Q&A

Every Wednesday at noon, I host a live Q&A with readers. Read a transcript of this week’s Q&A, or submit a question for the next one.

Guest: Doesn’t Trump’s willful ignorance matter? Some commentators state that prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the ex-president knew there was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election. Isn’t there such a thing as willful ignorance? Isn’t that equally damning?

Jennifer Rubin: That is absolutely incorrect. Thinking he won doesn’t excuse criminal activity to reclaim what he thought was unfairly taken from him. Could he have broken Mike Pence’s leg to prevent the certification of electoral votes? Bribed congressmen? Of course not.


Opinion by Jennifer Rubin

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin's "Green Room." Twitter

SHE IS A RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE OF THE WILLIAM F BUCKLEY SCHOOL

How 'race realist' conservative who used pen name for years rose to 'alt-right' stardom: report

Maya Boddie, Alternet
August 4, 2023, 

An alt-right protester holds a sign in favor of unity between Trump supporters and alt-right members (image via Wikimedia Commons).

In an exclusive report published by HuffPost Friday, the news outlet details the rise of right-wing writer, Richard Hanania, who wrote under the pen name "Richard Hoste" for years before gaining support from prominent Republicans and billionaires to become the widely sought after conservative "national mainstream media" personality he is today.

HuffPost found the "alt-right" writer, more than a decade ago, had work published in "antisemitic outlets like The Occidental Observer, a site that once argued Jews are trying to exterminate white Americans," and "was among the first writers to be recruited for AlternativeRight.com, a new webzine spearheaded and edited by Richard Spencer, the white supremacist leader who later organized the deadly 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia."

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times published "Richard Hoste's" work, according to the news outlet.

As a blogger in 2009, Hanania made assertions like "Fat people not only are disgusting to look at; their obesity reflects some ugly personality traits," and "Women simply didn't evolve to be the decision makers in society. Women's liberation = the end of human civilization."

Furthermore, the far-right writer, describing himself as a "race realist," focused much of his work on Black people, as "he lamented what he saw as the growing preponderance of 'miscegenation,' or white and Black people dating each other," writing, "For the white gene pool to be created millions had to die. Race mixing is like destroying a unique species or piece of art. It's shameful."

HuffPost reports, "For Hoste, white people were 'naturally smarter and less criminal' than Black people; white women's 'fear of black men' was 'very far from irrational'; whites had better 'modes of moral reasoning'; and Black people had 'low intelligence and impulse control.'"

HuffPost reports:

HuffPost connected Hanania to his 'Richard Hoste' persona by analyzing leaked data from an online comment-hosting service that showed him using three of his email addresses to create usernames on white supremacist sites. A racist blog maintained by Hoste was also registered to an address in Hanania's hometown. And HuffPost found biographical information shared by Hoste that aligned with Hanania's own life.

The right-winger, who U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has considered a "friend" and "really interesting thinker," has since become a prominent podcaster and leader of the think tank, Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, which according to journalist Jonathan Katz, "describes itself as 'interested in funding scholars studying woke attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.'"

HuffPost notes:


Richard Hanania's story may hint at a concerning shift in mainstream American conservatism. A little over a decade ago, he felt compelled to hide his racist views behind a pseudonym. In 2023, Hanania is a right-wing star, championed by some of the country's wealthiest men, even as he's sounding more and more like his former white supremacist nom de plume: Richard Hoste.

The news outlet reports "Marc Andreessen — the powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalist and billionaire, and a buddy of Elon Musk — has appeared on CSPI's podcast, hosted by Hanania, three times," as well as "Amy Wax, the University of Pennsylvania professor facing disciplinary proceedings for, among other alleged offenses, inviting a white supremacist to speak to her class and making racist remarks such as that 'our country will be better off with more whites and fewer minorities.'"

HuffPost emphasizes:


Hanania's rise into mainstream conservative and even more centrist circles did not necessarily occur because he abandoned some of the noxious arguments he made under the pseudonym 'Richard Hoste.' Although he's moderated his words to some extent, Hanania still makes explicitly racist statements under his real name. He maintains a creepy obsession with so-called race science, arguing that Black people are inherently more prone to violent crime than white people. He often writes in support of a well-known racist and a Holocaust denier. And he once said that if he owned Twitter — the platform that catapulted him to some celebrity — he wouldn't let 'feminists, trans activists or socialists' post there. 'Why would I?' he asked. 'They're wrong about everything and bad for society.'

The news outlet notes one of Hanania's "first viral pieces on Substack — a 2021 article titled 'Why Is Everything Liberal?' — was cited by columnists at The Washington Post and The New York Times," leading "to his first invitation to appear on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' America's most-watched cable news show at the time."

Furthermore, though The Washington Post did not comment on the conservative's previously published work, HuffPost reports "a New York Times spokesperson said that 'Hanania didn’t inform our editors or anyone at The Times, nor were we aware' of any writing he'd done under a pseudonym before the paper published one of his essays."

California to launch civil rights investigation over transgender policy in Chino school district

2023/08/04

California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks during a news conference on April 28, 2022, in Playa Del Rey, California.

 - Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Attorney General Rob Bonta is opening a civil rights investigation into the Chino Valley Unified School District after it adopted a controversial policy that requires the school to notify parents if their child is transgender.

The “Parental Notification Policy” requires teachers and school staff to inform parents if a student requests to use different pronouns or a different name than that on official records, or if the student uses bathrooms or joins programs that do not align with their sex assigned at birth. It also requires parents to be notified if their child is involved in violence or expresses suicidal thoughts.

The school board voted 4-1 on July 20 to enact the policy. That same day, Bonta sent a letter to the superintendent and board expressing “serious concern” about the legality of the new rules, given that they could violate California’s antidiscrimination and privacy laws.

School board president Sonja Shaw defended the measure Friday.

“This (investigation) is a ploy to try to scare all the other boards across California from adopting the policy,” Shaw said in an email to The Sacramento Bee. “They are making dangerous assumptions when they say parents are dangerous to their children. They are overstepping their boundaries.”

Chino Valley Superintendent Norm Enfield and the school district were notified of the investigation moments before the public announcement. Andi Johnston, a spokeswoman for the district, said they are still reviewing the correspondence.

The California Department of Education says “disclosing that a student is transgender without the student’s permission may violate California’s antidiscrimination law by increasing the student’s vulnerability to harassment and may violate the student’s right to privacy.” It advises that schools consult with students about who can or should be informed of the student’s gender identity.

In 2005, a federal court ruled in C.N. v. Wolf that a California school district violated a student’s right to privacy by disclosing her sexual orientation to her parents. Federal courts have also recognized gender identity as protected under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

Last month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Chico Unified School District’s policy of protecting the gender identities of students from their parents.

U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez said that the privacy interests of the school district and the student overrode parental rights. In doing so, Mendez also kept intact guidance by California school officials.

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, who attended the July 20 school board meeting in Chino to oppose the policy before the board’s vote — and was led out by security guards to shouts of “kick him out.”

Thurmond and LGBT advocates oppose policies like the one the school board passed because they can endanger transgender students whose families may not accept them.

“The policy that you consider tonight not only may fall outside the laws that respect privacy and safety of students, but may put our students at risk because they may not be in homes where they can be safe,” Thurmond said.

Those in favor of the policy argued that parents should know about their childrens’ identities at school.

“Parents have a fundamental right to direct the care, the custody and control of their children, and that right does not get taken away unless the parent is ruled unfit,” said board president Shaw.

Chino Valley has been involved in culture war legal disputes before. In 2018, a federal court ruled that the board violated the Constitution for its practice of starting every school board meeting with religious prayer.

Icon Grandmaster Flash leads the Bronx in 70s-style hip-hop jam

2023/08/05
Grandmaster Flash performs during his

New York (AFP) - As a teenager Grandmaster Flash began pioneering the turntable-as-instrument, playing the now iconic Bronx block parties that gave birth to hip-hop and revolutionized music.

On Friday, he was back home, commemorating 50 years of the genre with a performance that had New Yorkers born in the mid-20th century reliving their youth -- and hip-hop's.

"This is not a concert -- this is a jam!" Flash, now in his 60s, shouted from the stage, as hundreds of fans roared in applause in the South Bronx's Crotona Park.

The audience swayed with their hands in the air as Flash threw it back to the jams of the early 1970s, which ushered in the genre that's profoundly impacted music as well as fashion, dance and the culture at large.

The community parties offered teens and families a lifeline in an era of financial crisis that left much of the borough in crippling poverty.

"It was the music that really resonated at the time in New York," said Quentin Morgan, 54, who rolled into the park on his bike to catch the event that's part of a series of festivities commemorating hip-hop's birth.

"It was gritty in New York -- barely any laws," he said with a chuckle. "It was a different era."

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in 1982 released "The Message," delivering a raw portrait of urban life and bringing a socially conscious element to the genre on a grand scale.

On Friday night, the air was electric as Flash brought MCs Melle Mel and Scorpio onstage where they delivered a rendition of the iconic hit.

That preceded a fierce appearance from MC Sha-Rock, widely considered the first woman to MC during hip-hop's nascent years.

And KRS-One, who also hails from the South Bronx, freestyled to a chorus of cheers as Flash scratched and transformed, manipulating the vinyl, using now standard techniques he pioneered half a century ago.

Earlier in the evening as opening acts warmed up the crowd, Coke La Rock -- who on August 11, 1973 joined DJ Kool Herc at the party many musicologists consider hip-hop's official conception -- told AFP that for him, hip-hop and the Bronx are one and the same.

"I can't see no division of it," the 68-year-old said, calling offshoots of the genre across the United States and even the world "my kids."

"They all my kids, if I'm the patent, they the product."
'Biggest music on earth'

Speaking to AFP backstage, Flash said Friday's event was meant to emulate the jams of his youth.

"It was recreation -- moms said go outside and play," he said. "Never... did I think it would become part of the biggest music on earth."

Organizers also relayed a message from the mayor of New York, as the city officially declared August 4 "Grandmaster Flash Day."

Keisha Harmon joined the event with her partner of 27 years -- "my Teenage Love," she said, quoting the rap classic by Slick Rick.

She'll be 50 in October: she was born in the Bronx just months after the genre she grew up on.

"I have chills, look, goosebumps," she told AFP.

"All the songs that are playing -- I'm a mother of seven and I'm a grandmother of eight -- and they take me back to No Kids."

She described how the hip-hop jams of her childhood spread by word of mouth: "Hey, DJ-such-and-such is in the park, and we would have parties and sing, and it was just fun."

"And this reminds me of that," Harmon added, motioning to the park crowded with partygoers on a humid August evening.

The celebration "shows our talent" as citizens of the Bronx, she added.

"It shows what we contributed to the arts," Harmon said. "Hip-hop has a substance."

"The artists were storytellers."

"South South Bronx, South Bronx!" the audience shouted throughout the evening, singing the song by Boogie Down Productions produced by KRS-One and DJ Scott La Rock.

According to city organizers, Friday night was Grandmaster Flash's first time playing the Bronx in two decades.

Along with fellow hip-hop pioneers, he was joined by a troupe of breakdancers who wowed the audience with a throwdown.

"Where's my old-schoolers at?" Flash asked the joyous crowd. "I wanna keep it in the 70s."

"Somebody say Bronx!"

© Agence France-Presse

Running for the White House behind bars? It's been done before

Agence France-Presse
August 5, 2023, 


Could Donald Trump run his presidential re-election campaign from jail? It may sound like a far-fetched scenario for the former leader of the free world, who is facing a slew of serious court cases, but it would not be the first time in US history.

In fact, it has happened twice before, in the cases of presidential hopefuls Eugene V. Debs and Lyndon LaRouche.

Potentially following in their footsteps, Trump -- who appeared before a judge in Washington on Thursday on charges of trying to subvert the last US election -- said that even if he is convicted, he will not end his campaign.

According to experts, nothing in the Constitution prevents it. Here are the stories of the trade union leader and the far-right polemicist who campaigned from their prison cells.




- Debs the anti-capitalist -

His name may not mean much to the general public these days, but in his day Eugene V. Debs, born in 1855, was a famous political figure whose deeds frequently made headlines.

And he remains a defining figure for American left-wing activists. Senator Bernie Sanders, one of his admirers, even made a documentary in 1979 on the ardent anti-capitalist and union leader who crisscrossed the country to defend the rights of workers.

Debs was five times the Socialist presidential candidate and it was as such that he ran in 1920 from a cell in Atlanta. He had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, accused of having called, in the summer of 1918, for Americans to resist conscription to WWI.

"I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war," he told the jury during his trial.

Prisoner Number 9653 ended up winning more than 900,000 votes that year.


His sentence was commuted in 1921 and he was released, but Debs died five years later.

- LaRouche the conspiracy theorist -

Lyndon LaRouche campaigned for the White House no less than eight times, running in every election from 1976 to 2004.

A far-right polemicist and follower of conspiracy theories who was born in 1922, he began his political career after WWII on the far left before founding the US Labor Party, on whose ticket he ran in 1976.

Later, LaRouche, who died in 2019 at age 96, ran as a Democrat -- to the annoyance of the party -- and as an independent.

During his life, he evolved toward far-right leanings and was often accused of anti-Semitism, which he denied.

A climate change skeptic, he defended many conspiracy theories, such as that Britain's Queen Elizabeth was involved in drug trafficking or that Henry Kissinger was an "agent of influence" for the Soviets.

In the late 1980s, LaRouche was sentenced to 15 years in prison for tax evasion. This did not stop him from running in the 1992 election from federal prison.

He recorded messages on topics like the economy and education, which were broadcast while he was in his cell. He got just over 26,000 votes in the ballot.


Roger Stone, a close associate of Trump, has in the past called LaRouche a "good man" and said he was "very familiar with the extraordinary and prophetic thinking of Lyndon LaRouche."

CRYPTID/CRYPTOZOOLGY

A 140-year-old Tassie tiger brain sample survived two world wars and made it to our lab. Here’s what we found

The Conversation
August 3, 2023

Model of a thylacine at the Australian Museum. Shutterstock

Researchers often think how and when their results will be published. However, many research projects don’t see the light until decades (or even centuries) later, if at all.

This is the case of a high-resolution atlas of the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine brain. Carefully processed over 140 years ago, it is finally published today in the journal PNAS.
Similar, but not wolves

Thylacines were dingo-sized carnivorous marsupials that roamed through Australia and New Guinea prior to human occupation. They became confined to Tasmania around 3,000 years ago.

The arrival of European colonists and the introduction of farming, diseases and hunting bounties quickly led to their extinction. The last known individual died on September 7 1936 at Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo. As a commemoration, September 7 became the National Threatened Species Day to raise conservation awareness in Australia.


Thylacine family at Beaumaris Zoo in 1910.

Wikimedia

Thylacines looked remarkably similar to wolves and dogs (that is, canids). This is a textbook example of a process known as evolutionary convergence: when the body shapes of animals are really similar, despite them coming from different lineages.

However, whether thylacine brains are also similar to wolves has been very hard to find out, due to a lack of material available for microscopic studies. In the newly published study, my colleagues and I uploaded high-resolution images to a public repository, and studied brain sections prepared for microscopy from a thylacine that died in the Berlin Zoo in 1880.




A screen capture showing a selection of the thylacine brain scans the team uploaded to a public image repository. BrainMaps.org

Kept safe by researchers

Unfortunately, very little information about this specimen was available (for example, its sex and body weight was missing). Details were likely lost during both world wars. But the samples were kept safe by researchers who understood their biological relevance.


Initial custodians likely included German scientists Oskar and Cecile Vogt, whose large privately owned brain sample collection was incorporated into the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in 1914. Vogt – who also studied Lenin’s brain – was the founding director of the institute, prior to the couple escaping the Nazis in 1937.

The institute later became the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and moved to Frankfurt in 1962. There, late neurobiologist Heinz Stephan handed the thylacine material to John Nelson from Monash University (co-author of this study) in 1973, to be returned to Australia.

The original samples are currently held by CSIRO’s Australian National Wildlife Collection in Canberra.


The last known thylacine was captured in Tasmania, and kept at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart. Wikimedia
Brain features reveal a family


So, what did we discover after analysing the samples? Overall, the thylacine brain resembles that of its carnivorous marsupial relatives (dasyurids, like dunnarts, quolls and Tasmanian devils) more than that of wolves or other canids.


Thylacines are related to other Australian carnivorous marsupials, pictured here: Tasmanian tiger, Tasmanian devil, tiger quoll, numbat, yellow-footed antiechinus, fat-tailed dunnart. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

The brain region known as the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for planning actions and sensing the environment, is larger than in other dasyurids. Brain regions involved in processing smells also suggest that scavenging and hunting behaviors were important in this species.

These findings show that despite body resemblance, brain features better show the evolutionary relatedness between species.

Making this material openly available allows for anyone to study the thylacine brain and gain a clearer picture of this long-gone species. Our ongoing research using dunnarts is also providing new insights about the development and evolution of the mammalian brain.

Rodrigo Suarez, Senior Lecturer- School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

X marks the unknown in algebra – but X’s origins are a math mystery

The Conversation
August 3, 2023

The use of the letter x as a mathematical unknown is a relatively modern convention. Algebra has been around for a lot longer.

Daryl Benson/Stockbyte via Getty Images

Even though x is one of the least-used letters in the English alphabet, it appears throughout American culture – from Stan Lee’s X-Men superheroes to “The X-Files” TV series. The letter x often symbolizes something unknown, with an air of mystery that can be appealing – just look at Elon Musk with SpaceX, Tesla’s Model X, and now X as a new name for Twitter.

You might be most familiar with x from math class. Many algebra problems use x as a variable, to stand in for an unknown quantity. But why is x the letter chosen for this role? When and where did this convention begin?

There are a few different explanations that math enthusiasts have put forward – some citing translation, others pointing to a more typographic origin. Each theory has some merit, but historians of mathematics, like me, know that it’s difficult to say for sure how x got its role in modern algebra.

Ancient unknowns

Algebra today is a branch of math in which abstract symbols are manipulated, using arithmetic, to solve different kinds of equations. But many ancient societies had well-developed mathematical systems and knowledge with no symbolic notation.

All ancient algebra was rhetorical. Mathematical problems and solutions were completely written out in words as part of a little story, much like the word problems you might see in elementary school.


A portion of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, dated circa 1650 B.C.E. 

The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA

Ancient Egyptian mathematicians, who are perhaps best known for their geometric advances, were skilled in solving simple algebraic problems. In the Rhind papyrus, the scribe Ahmes uses the hieroglyphics referred to as “aha” to denote the unknown quantity in his algebraic problems. For example, problem 24 asks for the value of aha if aha plus one-seventh of aha equals 19. “Aha” means something like “mass” or “heap.”

The ancient Babylonians of Mesopotamia used many different words for unknowns in their algebraic system – typically words meaning length, width, area or volume, even if the problem itself was not geometric in nature. One ancient problem involved two unknowns termed the “first silver thing” and the “second silver thing.”

Mathematical know-how developed somewhat independently in many lands and in many languages. Limitations in communication prevented any immediate standardization of notation. However, over time some abbreviations crept in.

In a transitional syncopated phase, authors used some symbolic notation, but algebraic ideas were still presented mainly rhetorically. Diophantus of Alexandria used a syncopated algebra in his great work Arithmetica. He called the unknown “arithmos” and used an archaic Greek letter similar to s for the unknown.

Indian mathematicians made additional algebraic discoveries and developed what are essentially the modern symbols for each of the decimal digits. One especially influential Indian mathematician was Brahmagupta, whose algebraic techniques could handle any quadratic equation. Brahmagupta’s name for the unknown variable was yãvattâvat. When additional variables were required, he instead used the initial syllable of color names, like kâ from kâlaka (black), ya from yavat tava (yellow), ni from nilaka (blue), and so on.


In the treatise Al-jabr wa'l muqabalah, the words al-jabr and muqabalah roughly mean ‘restoration’ and ‘reduction,’ respectively

. Al-Khwarizmi via Wikimedia Commons

Islamic scholars translated and preserved a great deal of both Greek and Indian scholarship that has contributed immensely to the world’s mathematical, scientific and technical knowledge. The most famous Islamic mathematician was al-Khowarizmi, whose foundational book Al-jabr wa’l muqabalah is at the root of the modern word “algebra.”

So what about x?

One theory of the genesis of x as the unknown in modern algebra points to these Islamic roots. The theory contends that the Arabic word used for the quantity being sought was al-shayun, meaning “something,” which was shortened to the symbol for its first “sh” sound. When Spanish scholars translated the Arabic mathematical treatises, they lacked a letter for the “sh” sound and instead chose the “k” sound. They represented this sound by the Greek letter χ, which later became the Latin x.

It’s not unusual for a mathematical expression to come about through convoluted translations – the trigonometric word “sine” started as a Hindu word for a half-chord but, through a series of translations, ended up coming from the Latin word “sinus,” meaning bay. However, there is some evidence that casts doubt upon the theory that using x as an unknown is an artifact of Spanish translation.

The Spanish alphabet includes the letter x, and early Catalonian involved several pronunciations of it depending on context, including a pronunciation akin to the modern sh. Although the sound changed pronunciation over time, there are still vestiges of the sh sound for x in Portuguese, as well as in Mexican Spanish and its use in native place names. By this reasoning, Spanish translators conceivably could have used x without needing to resort first to the Greek χ and then to the Latin x.

Moreover, although the letter x may have been used in mathematics during the Middle Ages sporadically, there is no consistent use of it dating back that far. Western mathematical texts over the next several centuries still used a variety of words, abbreviations and letters to represent the unknown.

For instance, a typical problem in the algebra book “Sumario Compendioso of Juan Diez,” published in Mexico in 1556, uses the word “cosa” – meaning “stuff” or “thing” – to stand in for the unknown.


The French mathematician, scientist and philosopher René Descartes.

Painting by Frans Hals via Wikimedia Commons

I think that the most plausible explanation is to credit the influential French scholar René Descartes for the modern use of x. In an appendix to his major work “Discourse” in the 17th century, Descartes introduced a version of analytic geometry – in which algebra is used to solve geometric problems. For unspecified constants he chose the first few letters of the alphabet, and for variables he chose the last letters in reverse order.

Although scholars may never know for sure, some theorize that Descartes may have chosen the letter x to appear often since the printer had a large cache of x’s because of its scarcity in the French language. Whatever his reasons for choosing x, Descartes greatly influenced the development of mathematics, and his mathematical writings were widely circulated.

Xtending beyond algebra

Even if the origins of x in algebra are uncertain, there are some instances in which historians do know why x is used. The X in Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas definitely does come from the Greek letter χ. The Greek word for Christ is Christos, written χριστοσ and meaning “anointed.” The χ monogram was used as a shorthand for Christ in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox writings dating back as far as the 16th century.

There are also some contexts in which x was chosen specifically to indicate something unknown or extra, such as when the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgenaccidentally discovered X-rays in 1895 while experimenting with cathode rays and glass.

But there are other cases in which scholars can only guess about the origins of x’s role, such as the phrase “X marks the spot.” And there are other contexts – such as Elon Musk’s affinity for the letter – that may just be a matter of personal taste.

Peter Schumer, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Middlebury

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Before developing the atomic bomb, 

J. Robert Oppenheimer’s early work revolutionized the field of quantum chemistry – and his theory is still used today

The Conversation
August 4, 2023, 

US nuclear physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos atomic laboratory, testifying before the Special Senate Committee on Atomic Energy. - Keystone/Getty Images North America/TNS

The release of the film “Oppenheimer,” in July 2023, has renewed interest in the enigmatic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life. While Oppenheimer will always be recognized as the father of the atomic bomb, his early contributions to quantum mechanics form the bedrock of modern quantum chemistry. His work still informs how scientists think about the structure of molecules today.

Early on in the film, preeminent scientific figures of the time, including Nobel laureates Werner Heisenberg and Ernest Lawrence, compliment the young Oppenheimer on his groundbreaking work on molecules. As a physical chemist, Oppenheimer’s work on molecular quantum mechanics plays a major role in both my teaching and my research.
The Born-Oppenheimer approximation

In 1927, Oppenheimer published a paper called “On the Quantum Theory of Molecules” with his research adviser Max Born. This paper outlined what is commonly referred to as the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. While the name credits both Oppenheimer and his adviser, most historians recognize that the theory is mostly Oppenheimer’s work.


J. Robert Oppenheimer, on the right, in 1947, speaking to mathematician Oswald Veblen at the Princeton Institute for Advance Study. AP/Anonymous

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation offers a way to simplify the complex problem of describing molecules at the atomic level.

Imagine you want to calculate the optimum molecular structure, chemical bonding patterns and physical properties of a molecule using quantum mechanics. You would start by defining the position and motion of all the atomic nuclei and electrons and calculating the important charge attractions and repulsions occurring between these particles in the molecule.

Calculating the properties of molecules gets even more complicated at the quantum level, where particles have wavelike properties and scientists can’t pinpoint their exact position. Instead, particles like electrons must be described by a wave function. A wave function describes the electron’s probability of being in a certain region of space. Determining this wave function and the corresponding energies of the molecule is what is known as solving the molecular Schrödinger equation.



Solving the Schrödinger equation lets scientists calculate the properties of a molecule.

Unfortunately, this equation cannot be solved exactly for even the simplest possible molecule, H₂⁺, which consists of three particles: two hydrogen nuclei (or protons) and one electron.

Oppenheimer’s approach provided a means to obtain an approximate solution. He observed that atomic nuclei are significantly heavier than electrons, with a single proton being nearly 2,000 times more massive than an electron. This means nuclei move much slower than electrons, so scientists can think of them as stationary objects while solving the Schrödinger equation solely for the electrons.

This method reduces the complexity of the calculation and enables scientists to determine the molecule’s wave function with relative ease.

This approximation may seem like a minor adjustment, but the Born-Oppenheimer approximation goes far beyond just simplifying quantum mechanics calculations on molecules. It actually shapes how chemists view molecules and chemical reactions.

When scientists visualize molecules, we usually think of them as a set of fixed nuclei with shared electrons that move between nuclei. In chemistry class, students typically build “ball-and-stick” models consisting of rigid nuclei (balls) sharing electrons through a bonding framework (sticks). These models are a direct consequence of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.




The ball-and-stick model shows nuclei represented by spheres – or balls – with shared electron bonds represented by sticks. This image shows the structure of a benzene molecule. Aaron Harrison

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation also influenced how scientists think about chemical reactions. During a chemical reaction, atomic nuclei are not stationary; they rearrange and move. Electron interactions guide the nuclei’s movements by forming an energy surface, which the nuclei can move on throughout the reaction. In this way, electrons drive the molecule’s progression through a chemical reaction. Oppenheimer demonstrated that the way electrons behave is the essence of chemistry as a science.




Molecules can change structure during a chemical reaction. 

Chem540grp1f08/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Computational quantum chemistry

In the century since the publication of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, scientists have vastly improved their ability to calculate the chemical structure and reactivity of molecules.

This field, known as computational quantum chemistry, has grown exponentially with the widespread availability of faster, more powerful high-end computational resources. Currently, chemists use computational quantum chemistry for various applications ranging from discovering novel pharmaceuticals to designing better photovoltaics before ever trying to produce them in the lab. At the core of much of this field of research is the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

Despite its many uses, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation isn’t perfect. For example, the approximation often breaks down in light-driven chemical reactions, such as in the chemical reaction that allows animals to see light. Chemists are investigating workarounds for these cases. Nevertheless, the application of quantum chemistry made possible by the Born-Oppenheimer approximation will continue to expand and improve.

In the future, a new era of quantum computers could make computational quantum chemistry even more robust by performing faster computations on increasingly large molecular systems.

Aaron W. Harrison, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Austin College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.