It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
GREAT GOTH CONCERT
Within Temptation - Black Symphony (FULL CONCERT)
It was filmed on February 7, 2008 at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam and this special concert features the band accompanied by The Metropole Orchestra, the Pa'dam Choir, and special guests including George Oosthoek (ex-Orphanage), Anneke van Giersbergen of Agua de Annique and Keith Caputo of Life of Agony.
TRACKLIST:
1 - "Overture"
2 - "Jillian (I'd Give My Heart)"
3 - "The Howling"
4 - "Stand My Ground"
5 - "The Cross"
6 - "What Have You Done" (with Keith Caputo)
7 - "Hand of Sorrow"
8 - "The Heart of Everything"
9 - "Forgiven"
10 - "Somewhere" (with Anneke van Giersbergen)
11 - "The Swan Song"
12 - "Memories"
13 - "Our Solemn Hour"
14 - "The Other Half (Of Me)" (with George Oosthoek)
15 - "Frozen"
16 - "The Promise"
17 - "Angels"
18 - "Mother Earth"
19 - "The Truth Beneath the Rose"
20 - "Deceiver of Fools"
21 - "All I Need"
22 - "Ice Queen"
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
TikTok and other social media trends are thrusting performance crimes into the US spotlight
Mon, May 22, 2023
NEW YORK (AP) — Jonnifer Neal's Kia was stolen twice in one day — first from in front of her Chicago home and later from outside the mechanic shop where she took it to get fixed.
But Neal’s ordeal didn’t end there. After her car was recovered a month later, she was stopped by police twice coming home from work because a police error caused the Optima to remain listed as stolen. The same error resulted in officers waking her up at 3 a.m. another night. On yet another occasion, a swarm of officers pulled her over as she was traveling to Mississippi, handcuffing and placing her in the back of a cruiser for more than an hour.
The Kia now sits in her garage.
“It’s been a few months, but honestly I’m still nervous,” Neal said. “I drive that car maybe once in a blue moon and I loved that car.”
Neal’s story is one of thousands from Kia and Hyundai owners across the country whose cars were stolen or damaged in the past two years.
The sharp uptick has been linked to viral videos, posted to TikTok and other social media platforms, teaching people how to start the cars with USB cables and exploit a security vulnerability in some models sold in the U.S. without engine immobilizers, a standard feature on most cars since the 1990s preventing the engine from starting unless the key is present.
But unlike some social media-driven trends that seemingly disappear just as police get a handle on them, the car thefts have continued. Hyundai has tried to work with TikTok and other platforms to remove the videos, but as new ones surface fresh waves of thefts occur, illustrating the lingering effects of dangerous content that gains traction with teens looking for ways to go viral.
It’s a phenomenon known as performance crime. Police departments in a dozen cities have said it factors into an increase they’ve seen in juveniles arrested or charged with car thefts. Still, criminology experts caution that the role teens are playing in the theft increases — which began during the pandemic and aren't limited to Kia and Hyundai — may be artificially inflated because teenagers inexperienced at crime are more likely to be caught.
Attorneys general from 17 states have called on federal regulators to issue a mandatory recall, arguing the voluntary software fixes issued by the companies aren't enough. Multiple cities including Baltimore, Milwaukee and New York have filed or announced plans to join legal action against the automakers, which also are facing class-action and civil lawsuits from consumers like Neal. One such lawsuit was settled for roughly $200 million last week.
The National Highway and Safety Administration blames the trend for at least 14 crashes and eight fatalities, but lawyers suing the carmakers say the number is likely much higher.
Morgan Kornfeind was driving to a yoga class in Portland, Oregon, at the end of March when a man in a stolen Kia barreled into her as he drove the wrong way while fleeing police. The 25-year-old suffered lacerations, broken bones and extensive injuries to her leg. She needed surgery and attends multiple medical appointments every week.
“I’m unable to work my job that I love dearly. I’m unable to practice yoga or walk my dogs. I’ve missed planned trips with friends because of my ongoing rehab. The idea of ever driving again causes me great distress,” she wrote in a statement.
Earlier this month in Milwaukee, a stolen Kia collided with a school bus, leaving a 15-year-old who was hanging out the window in critical condition. Police later arrested four 14-year-olds, one of whom allegedly was driving.
Many of the calls for accountability have been directed at the automakers. MLG Attorneys at Law, a California law firm specializing in automotive defect lawsuits, has received more than 4,000 inquiries from victims like Kornfeind.
“And the amazing thing is it’s not slowing down,” said Randy Shrewsberry, MLG chief strategy officer.
But some police departments, victims and the automakers also point the finger at social media platforms. Videos posted on YouTube in recent weeks show people breaking into various cars or using a USB cable to hotwire cars. The company removed the videos when notified by The Associated Press.
YouTube removed videos depicting what's known as the “Kia Challenge” in recent months, spokesperson Elena Hernandez said in a statement, while stressing the company considers context when making those decisions.
“We might allow some videos if they’re meant to be educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic,” Hernandez wrote.
In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson pushed back on assertions that many of the dangerous challenges mentioned in news reports had reached mass popularity on the platform.
“There is no evidence any of these challenges ever ‘trended’ on TikTok, and there is a clear documented history that many challenges falsely associated with TikTok pre-date the platform entirely,” TikTok spokesperson Ben Rathe said.
Hany Farid, who stepped down in January from TikTok’s U.S. content advisory council because he felt unable to affect change, said TikTok tends to be defensive when criticized for its content moderation practices. He acknowledged the challenge of knowing where some trends originate because content moves quickly between platforms.
“It’s very much a Whack-A-Mole problem,” said Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “Because these platforms were not designed to be safe for kids, or for anybody."
TikTok's enforcement report from the last three months of 2022 showed 5% of the videos the company removed were due to dangerous acts and challenges, with 82% removed within 24 hours.
Like many social platforms, TikTok screens content with a combination of artificial intelligence and human moderators who try to catch whatever AI might miss. A spokesperson said it's easier for technology to spot certain violations, like nudity, than things like teens breaking into cars. The human moderators are a second level of screening when content is questionable.
Users also sometimes subvert the platform's controls by misspelling or changing words in hashtags. Some see that as a loophole deserving attention. TikTok says it monitors misspellings and touted the content being forced away from mainstream hashtags as a success.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not reply to a request for comment on how it screens for similar videos.
While the Kia Challenge is the social media crime trend of the moment, it's not the first. And, experts say, it's not indicative of social media creating a paradigm shift in criminal activity.
In LaGrange, Georgia, a city of about 31,000 people close to the Alabama border, before the Kia Challenge the police dealt with fallout from the “Orbeez Challenge,” which directed people to use toy or airsoft guns to shoot small, gel-filled balls called Orbeez at strangers or friends. Lt. Mark Cavender said officers were alarmed when they saw middle schoolers using toy guns painted black to look like real weapons, immediately putting out warnings to stop.
Michael Scott, director of the Problem-Oriented Policing Center at Arizona State University, said social media hasn't completely changed crime.
“Social media seems to be a radically new thing, but the only new things are the speed and the breadth,” Scott said.
There are also plenty of examples of trends in criminal activity spreading before social media existed as it does now. Before there were “rob mobs” there was “wilding” in the 1980s, in which groups of people gathered in public to cause chaos, vandalize or steal property. And before the Kia Challenge, there were groups of teens in the 1990s who figured out they could steal General Motors vehicles using a screwdriver.
Scott, who was an officer in the St. Louis Police Department at the time, said the carmaker was slow to act when officers noticed the uptick in their cars being stolen.
“Even without social media, that technique spread around the country,” he said. “What social media changed, was it sped up the process. Before, you had to know or meet someone who had figured out that all you needed was a screwdriver.”
___
Lauer reported from Philadelphia.
Claudia Lauer And Haleluya Hadero, The Associated Press
American woman’s ‘tone deaf’ video about returning her Filipino nanny back home after 30 years raises questions about treatment of overseas Filipino workers
Neia Balao Mon, May 22, 2023
A woman is getting backlash from creators of color after posting what’s been described as a “tone deaf” video about her childhood nanny.
On May 11, Lexie Jayy (@lexie_jayy), a 29-year-old model and content creator based in Los Angeles, California, posted a controversial video on TikTok, in which she reveals that she’s “moving” her childhood nanny back to the Philippines.
In the video, which has since gone viral on the digital platform with more than 4 million views and 563,600 likes, Lexie gives the backstory about her longtime nanny, Elena, who lived with her family for around 30 years. “It had been over 30 years since nanny had last been to the Philippines. She sacrificed raising her son and daughter to get a job in America and send every dollar she could back home to her family.”
“Taking her back to the Philippines is something I could not have wanted to do more,” Lexie explains, while noting that Elena was there for her during the most formative of experiences during her life.
In what was likely an effort to post a heartwarming story about Elena, some viewers took issue with certain aspects of Lexie’s video. Questions inevitably arose, including why Lexie’s family allegedly failed to pay for Elena to visit her loved ones in the Philippines earlier than now or how, after three decades in the country, she was unable to become an American citizen.
“All sorts of things were going through my head at this point: Will nanny’s family take care of her? Will they resent me? How will she fit in? Will she be homesick for America?” Lexie asks.
In the final three seconds of the video, a clip is shown of Elena hugging her daughter “for the first time.”
While some commenters haven’t had a problem with Lexie’s video about Elena, others, particularly people of color, are pointing out how privileged it comes off to the general public.
“her never hugging her own daughter in her life to raise you..” @himerdos wrote.
“… why didn’t you ever fly her home before this,” @perfectisntsexy asked.
“Is she a dual citizen and gained American citizenship? Because she lived with your family for thirty years, which is more than enough for her to gain,” @elouise4921 replied.
Lex (@lexifyign), a Filipino American TikTok user, posted a video in response to Lexie’s, calling for the acknowledgment of the plight of overseas Filipino workers.
“Now, this is a very specific situation. There is a lot I don’t know about that situation, but what I can talk about is the fact that domestic servants are not protected in America,” Lex reveals in her May 19 video. “Because we all know the typical story of an immigrant moving to America and becoming a maid or a servant or a caregiver to the elderly because there are no other options.”
“Although the total number of Filipinas working as nannies is unknown, advocacy groups estimate that Filipinos make up 15% — or as many as 300,000 — of the approximately 2 million domestic workers in the United States,” Ashley Westerman of NPR reported in 2013.
In 2021, women accounted for 60.2 percent or 1.10 million of overseas Filipino workers. Men, on the other hand, accounted for 39.8 percent or 0.73 million of Filipino migrant workers, per findings from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
The blatant “feminization of Philippine migration” is further exemplified by the many OFWs who’ve taken on employment as nannies or domestic workers over time.
Lex notes that sometimes an overseas Filipino worker is overqualified, normally qualified or they “just have a degree that is not honored in America.” In an effort to educate audiences on the experience of migrant workers, Lex also references a story published in the Atlantic in 2017 entitled “My Family’s Slave” by Alex Tizon.
“This is relevant and topical, but I am not alleging that this is what Lexie’s family did to their maid,” Lex disclaims about Tizon’s story. “There are a lot of us, and a lot of immigrants who did get lucky. A lot of immigrant children who have benefitted from these people’s extremely hard work, and we should confront that.”
“What’s crazy is she exploited her again by making a tiktok like that for her own benefit. Like she thought that video would gain HER more followers,” @summerofrae replied.
“The level of her lack of awareness and glaring privilege in that video was concerning to say the least,” @ashleybulletjournals wrote. “It was so sad.”
“She is limping, her body is clearly broken down. They used her for half her life and are discarding her now,” @burneraccountboi commented.
On May 21, in light of the criticism she’s received, Lexie posted a follow up video on TikTok with the caption, “talking about Elena,” during which she acknowledges her “inappropriate” tone and claims to have filmed “a lengthy video going into the details of her immigration process” and “employment.” Elena, however, allegedly requested Lexie keep this information to herself.
“Her word to me, is the most important thing. And I will honor that,” Lexie says. “She reminded me that she and I know the truth of our relationship, that that is what matters most and that hateful people are not interested in understanding.”
“I want to make it clear that I agree with how broken the immigration process is. Separately, I’d like to make it clear that Elena received a competitive wage for her work,” she adds. “She has been in my life since I was three weeks old. It is very painful to unpack why someone would end up as an undocumented citizen, but reducing her life and story to nothing but pain and sadness is untrue and disrespectful.”
Lexie then apologizes for coming off as insensitive.
“I am deeply sorry for the ripple effect of her hurt that my videos caused,” she says. “The spreading of false narratives on the internet can be extremely hurtful and dangerous to all involved.”
In just one day of posting, Lexie’s video has more than 600 comments, the majority of which seem to suggest Lexie is being disingenuous. TikTok users are accusing Lexie of having an impressive public relations representative.
“As someone who works in pr… who did you hire?! That apology ateeeee” @rangersrompsandstomps wrote.
“let’s go PR-approved pre-written script,” @readwithcindy commented.
That same day, Stefannie, who goes by the TikTok username @chiefnosybystander, shared her thoughts regarding Lexie’s apology video.
“OK, for reference, I don’t think the audience is asking about the nature of your relationship,” Stefannie says in response to Lexie defending her relationship with Elena. “I think they were asking about the nature of her relationship with her employers, not the relationship of the child who didn’t pay her.”
Stefannie also points out the inconsistencies with Lexie claiming that Elena’s immigration lawyers “advised her” not to visit her children back home or have them visit her in the United States.
“So it’s a bit confusing to find out now that she was actually undocumented,” she says, also in response to Lexie previously blaming the American immigration system for Elena’s inability to stay in the country.
“Her rich parents could’ve sponsored and moved her family out here. Elena was robbed of her own motherhood,” @heyhayhay86 commented on Stefannie’s video.
“If someone was this important to me, I’d move heaven & hell to get them documented and get their family here,” @noangel815 also replied.
“Its giving my parents attorney wrote this and I’m reading it so I don’t get financially cut off but I still have no idea why ppl are upset,” @theindianajanes criticized.
“Unable to earn enough money at home, an estimated 2.2 million Filipinos worked overseas last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. The majority were women, many hoping to give their child a better future,” Jessie Yeung and Xyza Cruz Bacani wrote for CNN in 2020. “They work as nurses, hospitality staff, nannies and cleaners. Last year, they sent $33.5 billion back to the Philippines in personal remittances — a record high, according to the country’s central bank. But their income comes at a high personal cost. Mothers can miss out on entire childhoods. Sometimes their relationship with their children remains damaged and distant, years after they return.”
While Lexie did not intend to come off as insensitive or disingenuous, her videos about Elena generated a conversation about the often unjust treatment of Filipino migrants and domestic workers, who, after dedicating large portions of their lives to the families they’re aiding, are discarded or shipped back home when no longer of use. Whether or not that’s the case with Lexie’s family remains unclear, but the story about a Filipino overseas worker who, for whatever reason, fails to gain citizenship in the country she sacrificed so much to work in isn’t an anomaly.
‘I believe in Rishi’, says billionaire behind Tories’ biggest donation in over 20 years
Charles Hymas Sun, May 21, 2023 Mohamed Mansour Man Capital Egypt businessman Conservative Party largest donation funding politics - Paul Grover for The Telegraph
The Tories have received their largest donation for more than 20 years from a businessman who said he believes that Rishi Sunak can grow the economy.
Mohamed Mansour, an Egyptian-born billionaire, has given £5 million to the Conservative Party, equal to the donation by Sir Paul Getty in 2001.
This reversed a dip in donations to the Tories after Boris Johnson’s exit, and followed the defection to Labour of former Conservative donors, such as Gareth Quarry, a recruitment millionaire who accused the Tories of being “riven with arrogance and complacency”.
Figures released by the Electoral Commission last December revealed that Tory donations between July and September were overtaken by Labour for the first time in more than a year – £3 million to the opposition’s £5.4 million.
Writing for The Telegraph, below, Mr Mansour said that Mr Sunak had shown himself to be “very capable”, citing him as “one who understands how growth is generated in the modern economy”.
Mr Mansour recalled how his “life changed overnight” when Gamel Abdel Nasser, the former Egyptian president, seized his family’s land, homes and assets because he did not believe property rights should stand in the way of his socialist creed.
He was already at university in the US which meant, without his family’s support, he had to trade in his car, work as a waiter and “go hungry” as he struggled to pay for food and utilities.
“This experience left me with a lifelong belief in the importance of political stability, property rights and the rule of law,” he said.
This, he added, was why he chose to come to the UK, as “a place where the rule of law is paramount, property rights are respected and with an enviable record of political stability”.
His £5 million is the second biggest individual donation after Lord Sainsbury of Turville gave £8 million to the Liberal Democrats in 2019.
Mr Mansour’s donation contributed to the Tories’ most successful first quarter of donations for five years. The figure is set to be confirmed by the Electoral Commission in early June.
Since 2016, he has given the Tories £600,000 through his firm Unatrac and last December, the Prime Minister announced he had been made one of the party’s senior fundraisers in the run-up to the next general election.
In February, Mr Mansour agreed to a multimillion-pound tax settlement following an investigation into Unatrac by HM Revenue and Customs. This was part of a wider review by the tax office into multiple companies’ so-called “Google tax diversion schemes”. It found no evidence of diverted tax or avoidance.
Last year, he was given a role on the Government’s advisory investment council, as founder of his family-owned investment firm Man Capital, which he established in London in 2010 after moving from Egypt.
Mr Mansour is also the chairman of the Mansour Group, the family conglomerate which employs 60,000 people.
With his two brothers, the company has built close ties as distributors for US companies including Caterpillar, Chevrolet and General Motors. Some of his other interests include Metro, Egypt’s largest supermarket chain, and McDonald’s franchises in his homeland.
Outside of business, he served as a transport minister from 2006 to 2009 under Hosni Mubarak, the late Egyptian president who quit office during the 2011 Arab Spring.
Mubarak was considered a military autocrat who ruled Egypt for 30 years, maintaining his grip on office through a crackdown on political opposition, routinely running for re-election unopposed and stifling free speech. He died in 2020. Why I donated £5m to the Tories – and believe in Rishi Sunak
By Mohamed Mansour, the founder and chairman of Man Capital LLP
When I was a teenager, my family’s assets were confiscated by the state. Egypt’s president Gamel Abdel Nasser, under the influence of his Soviet mentors, nationalised the cotton industry, taking my father’s business from him.
But he did not stop there. Nasser was convinced that private property rights should not stand in the way of his socialist creed and took my family’s land, homes and other assets.
My life changed overnight. I was already at university in the United States. But from this moment on, my family could not support me. I had to trade in my car, knuckle down and work as a waiter to pay my way through college. I came to know what it is like to go hungry and to struggle to pay for food and utilities. Back in Egypt, my father was left trying to support the family on a meagre salary.
This experience left me with a lifelong belief in the importance of political stability, property rights and the rule of law.
My father was not a man to be knocked down. He set up a cotton business in Sudan, only for that to be nationalised too.
But undeterred, when Anwar Sadat came to office, he returned to Egypt and began the job of rebuilding the family business. I was honoured to continue that work with my brothers.
We diversified the business away from commodities and started to work with firms such as General Motors and Caterpillar. Today, our family business employs 60,000 people around the world.
With that success came responsibility. I created a not-for-profit to offer financial support to businesswomen in Egypt, and we have given more than four million loans. In 2005, I stepped back from my business to serve in the Egyptian government and spent nearly four years trying to modernise the country’s transport infrastructure.
But when I had finished that period of service, I knew there was one country where I wanted to base my business. A place where the rule of law is paramount, property rights are respected and with an enviable record of political stability. This country: the United Kingdom.
I believe that this country has a very capable Prime Minister. One who understands how growth is generated in the modern economy. He gets the importance of technology and innovation. He can make the modern economy work for all UK citizens.
My confidence in the Prime Minister is why I was proud to become a senior treasurer of the Conservative Party last December. I want to give him the best chance of having a full five-year term and so have donated £5 million to the party’s election fighting fund. I look at what he has achieved in his first months in office and think what he could do in five years.
I love and respect this country, which has welcomed my family and me so warmly. It has a proud history and noble traditions. I believe that it has great days ahead of it. I want to do what I can to help this country – the place where I am watching my grandchildren grow up – achieve its great potential.
Former minister under ex-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak donates £5m to Tory war chest Sky News Mon, May 22, 2023
An ex-minister to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has donated £5m to the Conservatives to help them fight the next election.
Mohamed Mansour, who served as transport minister under the late Mubarak - who was deposed during a popular revolution - became the party's treasurer last December.
Mr Mansour said he had donated the amount - reported by the Daily Telegraph as the largest the Tories have received for more than 20 years - because of his "confidence" in Rishi Sunak.
Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Mansour said: "I believe that this country has a very capable prime minister. One who understands how growth is generated in the modern economy. He gets the importance of technology and innovation. He can make the modern economy work for all UK citizens.
"My confidence in the prime minister is why I was proud to become a senior treasurer of the Conservative Party last December.
"I want to give him the best chance of having a full five-year term and so have donated £5m to the party's election fighting fund. I look at what he has achieved in his first months in office and think what he could do in five years."
Sky News' Westminster Accounts project, in conjunction with Tortoise Media, collated all the information on donations that is available through Parliament's register of interest for the first time in one database, with total sums and details of which MPs are receiving how much money and from whom.
It revealed that Mr Sunak received the highest number of donations of any Conservative MP with £546,043 - but he came behind Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who amassed £752,809 given to him by 67 companies and individuals.
This latest donation to Mr Sunak will not show up on the Electoral Commission's register until next month, meaning it won't yet be available on the Westminster Accounts tool.
The development will be a welcome boost for Mr Sunak, who presided over a punishing set of local elections that saw the Tories lose more than 1,000 seats.
Asked whether he would still be PM after the next general election, Mr Sunak replied: "Yes. I'm working really hard to deliver for the British people.
"That's my priority, that's what I am thinking about. I'm confident we can deliver for people. I know that things are tough right now, but I think we have made good progress in the six months that I've been in the job. I'll just keep at it."
According to Forbes, Mr Mansour oversees family conglomerate Mansour Group, which was founded by his father Loutfy in 1952 and has 60,000 employees.
Mubarak, known by his nickname as the modern-day "pharaoh", ruled Egypt as an autocrat for three decades from 1981, and was jailed for years after the revolution that ended his rule.
He was given a life sentence for the deaths of anti-government protesters at the heart of the uprising and was convicted in 2015 alongside his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, of embezzling millions of pounds from the state.
Mubarak eventually walked free in 2017 after being acquitted of the majority of the charges against him in a move that shocked Egyptians.
Tim Scott's biggest financial backer is Larry Ellison, a tech billionaire who owns the sixth-largest island in Hawaii and has poured $35 million into the senator's super PAC
Bryan Metzger Mon, May 22, 2023 Sen. Tim Scott, the Hawaiian island of Lana'i, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images; Phillip Faraone/Getty Images.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina officially entered the GOP presidential primary on Monday.
His biggest financial backer is Larry Ellison, a tech billionaire who owns an entire Hawaiian island.
Ellison has pumped $35 million into Scott's super PAC, and could legally give him millions more.
Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina officially launched his presidential campaign on Monday, joining a fast-growing crop of GOP candidates challenging former President Donald Trump for the party's 2024 nomination.
Scott stands out from the field in a number of ways. He's the only senator expected to run for president this year, a significant shift from previous election cycles. He's a Black Republican, a relative rarity that offers him a unique vantage point from which to discuss race in America.
One other way Scott stands out: the tens of millions of dollars he's received from Larry Ellison, a tech billionaire who owns 98% of Lana'i, the sixth-largest Hawaiian Island.
Ellison, the co-founder of the Oracle Corporation, has poured $35 million into Opportunity Matters Fund, the South Carolina senator's super PAC — making him by far the single biggest donor to the group.
On Monday, Ellison attended Scott's campaign launch in North Charleston, where Scott described him as one of his mentors.
Representatives for Scott and Ellison did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Who is Larry Ellison? Ellison founded Oracle, a tech company that specializes in software, in 1977. He's since amassed a nearly $127 billion net worth, according to Forbes, making him the 4th richest person in the world.
When it comes to politics, Ellison has had a winding journey.
He declared in 2000 that we "should have amended the Constitution to elect [President] Bill Clinton to a third term" and he played golf with President Barack Obama in 2014.
But he later backed Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential campaign, pouring $5 million into a super PAC backing the Florida Republican's 2016 bid, before becoming a prominent support President Donald Trump. He later took part in a call about contesting Trump's election loss in November 2020.
Ellison began contributing heavily to Scott in 2020, giving $5 million to his super PAC in October of that year before following it with another $30 million over the course of 2021 and 2022.
Douglas Peebles/Corbis via Getty Images Ellison bought Lana'i — a relatively small Hawaiian island off the coast of Maui home to just over 3,000 people — in 2012 from David Murdock, a fruit and vegetable magnate. The island has been privately-owned since the 1800s.
According to Bloomberg, Ellison has mostly lived on Lana'i since the COVID-19 pandemic, and acts as a landlord or boss to almost everyone on the island.
'Super PACs are just a fact of life'
All told, Ellison's largesse accounts for more than 75% of the roughly $45 million sum that Scott's super PAC has raised in the last few years.
And while federal campaign finance law limits Ellison to contributing just a few thousand dollars to Scott's official campaign account, the Oracle co-founder could theoretically pour millions more dollars into Scott's super PAC.
During the 2022 midterm elections, Scott used Opportunity Matters to back GOP candidates across the country, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads supporting Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina.
Now, with Scott seeking the nation's highest office himself, Opportunity Matters could soon play a key role in backing his campaign. In recent months, he's hired former Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner and other high-profile Republican consultants to staff the organization, according to Axios. That makes Scott just the latest current or potential candidate to have a super PAC helping them out. Trump's political operation includes the "MAGA, Inc" super PAC, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has enjoyed the support of the "Never Back Down" super PAC.
Even President Joe Biden benefits from the help of a super PAC called "Build Back Together."
That's despite super PACs being nominally independent of the campaigns they're supporting — a boundary that's grown increasingly blurry in recent years.
"This election is going to present a lot of challenges to this notion that super PACs are, in fact, independent," said Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, adding that we're in an "era in which super PACs are just a fact of life."
Scott's campaign isn't the first time a Republican presidential candidate has heavily relied on a single megadonor. In 2012, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had the backing of Sheldon Adelson, while former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign enjoyed the support of billionaire Foster Friess.
But in a race that so far appears likely to be defined by a horse race between Trump and DeSantis, Ellison's money immediately makes a candidate like Scott a serious competitor.
And for campaign finance experts, that raises the specter of undue influence, especially given the singular role that Ellison could play in boosting Scott's candidacy.
"It's the problem of the candidate saying, 'I wouldn't be where I am today without his support,'" said Ghosh.
THE T62 AKA THE STALIN TANK
Russia's aging, obsolete tanks are actually doing some serious damage in Ukraine, report says
Mia Jankowicz Mon, May 22, 2023 A Russian T62 tank crosses the empty highway linking Tbilisi and western Georgia, August 21, 2008.MARCO LONGARI/AFP via Getty Images
Russia's tanks are still a formidable force in Ukraine, a new report has claimed, despite their age.
Though they aren't breaking through at the front line, they play significant support roles, it said.
There are three main ways Russian armor has adapted in the conflict, the report said.
Much has been made of Russia's need to bring decades-old tanks out of storage to send to Ukraine, amid major battlefield losses. But a new report describes how Russia is making effective use of its aging tanks and armor, even as the vehicles are barely able to push forward at the front line in Ukraine.
The report, based on multiple interviews with Ukrainian officers in the field, outlined areas where Russia has adapted after its bungled initial invasion last year.
Ever since their humiliating losses earlier in the war, Russian forces have stopped trying to use armor to break through Ukraine's ranks directly, the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) wrote in a report released Friday. Instead, Russian tanks nowadays effectively provide backup for artillery, long-range firepower, and quick raids.
"The Russian use of of armor has evolved significantly during the conflict," the authors wrote, adding: "While the introduction of older tanks such as the T62 and T55 to the field has been mocked online, these vehicles are largely being used in the role of the fire support function offered by BMPs and other infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs)."
Being able to fire from more than a mile away, when in places where anti-tank guided weapons are thin, the tanks "pose a serious battlefield threat," the authors said.
And although an "inefficient form of artillery," they write, tanks are notably less vulnerable, so can be used in a supplemental way where air defense is poor.
Russia has also been using its tanks — primarily its T80BV — for nighttime raids during Ukrainian troop rotations, the report said, with the aim "to rapidly approach the target sector, fire as many rounds as possible within a short space of time and withdraw."
And some Russian modifications and tactics have also made it harder to detect and hit Russian armor with anti-tank guided missiles, the authors wrote. Anti-thermal materials are now being used, as well as engaging in attacks at dusk and dawn — a moment known as "thermal crossover" — when the tank is at a temperature nearest to the ambient temperature, the report explained.
In recent months much has been written about Russia's military weaknesses, which exposed deadly gaps in a previously much-feared force. The Washington, DC, think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies said in February that Russia had likely lost more than 2,000 tanks since the start of the war, while its air force is hampered by strong Ukrainian air defenses, and morale in its army is legendarily poor.
But the RUSI report sounds a note of caution over other areas — such as bridge-building, engineering and electronic warfare — where Russia's army has shown high competence, and warned about areas, like tank wafare, where Russia's military has shown itself able to adapt.
A top Ukrainian commander fighting around Bakhmut says military experts who portray Russian soldiers as only 'stupid and miserable' are wrong
Bethany Dawson Sun, May 21, 2023 Ukrainian artillery teams fire toward Russian positions in Bakhmut.Madeleine Kelly/Getty Images
A Ukrainian commander has contradicted suggestions of the poor state of Russian troops.
Andriy Biletsky, of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, said Russian soldiers were not "stupid."
The comments come as President Zelenskyy said that Bakhmut was completely destroyed.
The commander of a Ukrainian brigade fighting on the frontlines in Bakhmut has dismissed the notion that Russian soldiers are ill-equipped and unhappy.
In a video posted on Telegram, Andriy Biletsky, a commander with Ukraine's 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, said recent victories had not come at "an easy price."
The enemy is not as stupid and miserable as some experts show him to be," said Biletsky.
He added that "The enemy is stubborn and cruel. But we are moving forward. We gnaw out every meter of Ukrainian land. Slava Ukraini!"
Biletsky's comments contradict a lot of previous analysis on Russia's military, which has tended to suggest that troops are poorly equipped, lack training, and suffer from low morale.
The Telegram video comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded that Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine where Russian and Ukrainian forces have been waging a particularly brutal battle, had been completely destroyed.
"They've destroyed everything. There are no buildings. It's a pity. It's tragedy," Zelenskyy said during a Sunday meeting with President Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Hiroshima.
"For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts," he added.
Zelenskyy's office later made it clear that he had not meant that the city had fallen to Russian troops, the BBC reported.
Ukraine's 3rd Separate Assault Brigade in action
Helmet camera footage of Ukrainian fighters on the frontlines.
@11Knuk123 Twitter screenshot
Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had made advances on the flanks around Bakhmut, where Biletsky's 3rd Separate Assault Brigade has seen action.
Insider's Isobel Van Hagen reports the video depicts Ukrainian soldiers throwing grenades, firing their weapons, and advancing toward Russian positions.
In his video, Biletsky described battles earlier this week against Russia's 72nd Brigade and the so-called "Storm Z. " He called it "an analogue" of the Wagner Group units made up of released convicts, operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
He described hard-won victories that left "more than 50" Russians dead and the capture of "a lot of trophies: equipment, weapons, and prisoners."
The British Ministry of Defence announced additional Russian troops had likely been deployed to Bakhmut to fight against Kyiv's advances.
The intelligence briefing stated that Russia's leadership will "likely continue to see capturing Bakhmut as the key immediate war aim," which will "allow them to claim some degree of success in the conflict."
Uncovering the secret masks behind algae growth in the south-to-north water diversion project using advanced AI
IMAGE: FIGURE 1 SKETCH MAP OF SAMPLING STATIONS DISTRIBUTION IN THE MIDDLE SECTION OF THE SOUTH-NORTH WATER DIVERSION PROJECT AND DRIVING FACTORS OF ALGAL GROWTH BASED ON BLOOMFORMER-1 MODELLINGview more
CREDIT: JING QIAN, KARLSRUHE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (KIT), GERMANY, AND INSTITUTE OF HYDROBIOLOGY (IHB), CHINA
Identifying the factors contributing to algal growth accurately and reliably is vital for sustainable use and scientific management of freshwater resources. As scientific research evolves from using small data sets to larger ones, the shortcomings of traditional machine learning become clearer, and deep learning which is adept at processing large amounts of data, is getting more attention. Although it has been used occasionally for forecasting chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) time series, deep learning has hardly been employed to identify important factors concerning algal growth.
To address this gap, a cross-national team of researchers from China, Germany and The Netherland developed a deep learning-based Transformer model, Bloomformer-1, designed for end-to-end identification of algal growth driving factors.
“Deep learning models have lower operational transparency compared to traditional machine learning, but they exhibit significant advantages in performance,” said Jing Qian, the first author of the paper. “The development of Bloomformer-1 aims to create a win-win situation in terms of interpretability and performance, enabling the driving factors of algal growth to be identified transparently and accurately.”
Qian, a doctoral student from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, conducted this research as a jointly-cultivated doctoral student at the Institute of Hydrobiology in China.
The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MRP), a national large-scale project in China, was selected as the study site to demonstrate the superior performance of Bloomformer-1. It was compared to four widely used traditional machine learning models—extra trees regression (ETR), gradient boosting regression tree (GBRT), support vector regression (SVR), and multiple linear regression (MLR)—with the highest R2 (0.80 to 0.94) and lowest RMSE (0.22 to 0.43 μg/L).
"Bloomformer-1 employs the multi-head-self-attention mechanism, which compares each token in the input sequence with other tokens to collect and learn dynamic contextual information, thus enabling a thorough understanding of all the field sampling data. This is one of the reasons for its superior performance," said co-author Stefan Norra from the University of Potsdam.
The results of study, published in the KeAi journal Water Biology & Security, revealed that total phosphorus (TP) was the most significant factor affecting the MRP, especially in the Henan section, while total nitrogen (TN) had the most substantial impact on algal growth in the Hebei section.
“Controlling and reducing phosphorus is an important strategy for controlling algal growth and maintaining stable MRP water quality, while nitrogen control in the Hebei region is also worth paying attention to," said Yonghong Bi from the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is the corresponding author of the study. "Furthermore, the promotion and application of Bloomformer-1 in other water bodies will be an important task going forward.”
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Contact the author: Jing Qian, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, and Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB), China, jing.qian@partner.kit.edu
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Washington, DC – A compound called honokiol, which is found in the bark of multiple species of magnolia tree, inhibits replication of SARS-CoV-2 virus in several types of cells, according to a team of researchers in the Netherlands. The research is published in Microbiology Spectrum, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.
The researchers found that Honokiol inhibits replication of SARS-CoV-2 in several cell types, causing production of infectious SARS-CoV-2 particles in treated cells to fall to around 1,000th of the previous level.
The compound also inhibited replication of other highly pathogenic human coronaviruses, including MERS- and SARS-CoV. “This suggests that it has a broad spectrum of activity and would likely also inhibit novel coronaviruses that might emerge in the future,” said Martijn J. van Hemert, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
The motivation for the research was the lack of vaccines and treatments early in the pandemic, and the desire to be prepared for the next new coronavirus. To this end, van Hemert emphasized that his group, as well as others from around the world, responded to COVID-19 by testing many compounds for antiviral effects.
“If honokiol can be developed into a drug, possibly in combination with other compounds, stockpiling it would help us to increase our preparedness for the emergence of the next coronavirus,” said van Hemert. “Broad-spectrum drugs could then be used to treat early patients and prevent spread, or they could be used prophylactically among healthcare workers, and in high-risk groups, such as among nursing home residents.”
Honokiol also has anti-inflammatory properties, van Hemert noted. That, he said, could be helpful in cases where patients wait until a relatively late stage of the disease to obtain medical treatment—a frequent occurrence—by which time the body’s own inflammatory responses to the infection are causing symptoms. “At that point, inhibition of virus replication might no longer be helpful, but honokiol’s anti-inflammatory response might mitigate the illness,” van Hemert explained.
Honokiol inhibits a later step of the viral replication cycle—one that takes place after the virus has entered the cell. The investigators suspect that honokiol does so by triggering processes in the host cell that impede replication of the virus. It did so in the case of the original SARS-CoV-2 variants, and also in that of the more recent omicron variants.
At this early stage in the research, “Our study merely provides the basis for further research into potential therapeutic applications,” said van Hemert. “It is important to mention that it is too early to claim that honokiol might be used in SARS-CoV-2 patients. This requires much more research and—if successful—properly conducted clinical trials.”
Van Hemert learned about honokiol from Jack Arbiser, M.D., Ph.D., of Emory School of Medicine, during the early stages of the pandemic. Arbiser had been researching honokiol’s anticancer properties, and he told van Hemert he thought that the effects of the compound on the host cell might be beneficial for treatment of COVID-19 patients as well.
Clarisse Salgado-Benvindo, a Ph.D. student in van Hemert’s group, performed most of the experiments, using cultured cells that the researchers infected with SARS-CoV-2, or the highly pathogenic coronaviruses SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Experimenters worked inside a BSL-3 lab, which is a special high containment lab, while wearing protective suits with full-face masks to prevent infection.
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The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of 30,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.
ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, educational opportunities and advocacy efforts. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to diverse audiences.
JOURNAL
Microbiology Spectrum
Effective capital markets are needed to protect the climate
POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH (PIK)
A new study investigates the role of effective capital markets for climate protection and the energy transition. Banks collect savings and make them available as loans and the greater the difference between savings and loan interest rates, the more it costs to invest. This affects, for example, investments in fossil-free steel plants, power generation, or heating systems. The analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) has now been published in the renowned Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (JAERE).
The study shows that the effect on climate protection is striking: the current difference between savings and lending rates, 5.1 percentage points on average globally, results in additional global heating of 0.2 degrees Celsius, when compared with a frictionless economy with zero interest spread. To calculate this in its model-based analysis, the research team assumes a climate policy according to the cost-benefit principle. This implies: the government would know the exact level of climate damage that increases over time, rendering CO2 emissions more expensive in accordance with the damage caused by them, and would thus achieve a cost-optimal time path for accelerated carbon pricing. Alternatively, if the policy is oriented on a fixed temperature target, the current interest spread means that a 27 percent higher carbon price would be needed than in a world without the credit cost premium.
The study's key message for policymakers is summarised by its PIK lead author, Kai Lessmann, as follows: “Governments need to take a close look at whether the higher interest rate for loans merely reflects the actual intermediation costs or whether it is also a result of too little banking competition, for which there is some evidence. If the market structure is indeed the reason for the spread, and cannot be modified in the medium term, then policymakers can effectively counteract it in the short term by subsidising investment.” In this context, the study shows that if the government decides to provide economy-wide investment support, this is better for the climate and the economy than if eco-projects alone are subsidised. “The structural change toward fossil-free technologies then occurs automatically,” Lessmann points out. “These are generally more capital-intensive and thus benefit to a greater extent from reduced credit costs. Also, the carbon price, which increases over time, exerts its steering effect."
For the study, the research team has developed a sophisticated computational model, and has fed it with empirical data. “We identify eight different channels through which the credit cost premium ultimately affects climate gas emissions,” explains Co-author Matthias Kalkuhl of MCC. “To be sure, there are also restraining effects – for example, high interest rates reduce the growth of economic output and thus also of energy consumption. But the climate-damaging impact predominates. For example, the credit cost premium increases the abatement costs per tonne of CO2, so that when oriented to the cost-benefit calculation, less climate protection is then practiced as a result.”
The adverse impact of high borrowing costs on climate protection, which is now illustrated more sharply than before, is a major issue primarily in the Global South. In many countries, it is not uncommon for the annual costs of capital as a percentage of the investment sum to be in double digits. While many solar or wind power parks would be more profitable than gas or coal-fired power plants in the long term, they are not being built there, because the initial capital required per megawatt of installed capacity is greater. Governments often lack the money to react, so they rely on help from the rich north.
JOURNAL
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
About The Study: The results of this cross-sectional study suggest that trends in mental health diagnoses among children and adolescents in the U.S. differed greatly by age and sex over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Female youth, especially female adolescents, represented the most vulnerable population with regard to marked increases in the prevalence of mental health diagnoses during the pandemic, the most pronounced being the prevalence of eating disorders.
Authors: Loreen Straub, M.D., M.S., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, is the corresponding author.
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.
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About JAMA Network Open:JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.
