Because Arizona. Trying to become Florida of the Southwest
Approximately 21 anti-maskers carrying signs (“MASKS = 666”, “Saving Face/Love Your Smile”, “Fear of Freedom”, “This is not China”, and “End the Mask Mandate”) staged a loud protest march through a Target store in Phoenix, Arizona’s Christown Spectrum Mall over the weekend.
“They look scary,” said one observer on a clip shared to social media.
In the true spirit of GOP service, Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, showed his support for vaccinating Florida’s most vulnerable residents by scoring one of those vaccinations in short supply himself. “I know I looked away from the needle And yes, I know I need a tan But I am so confident that the #Covid19 vaccine is safe & effective that I decided to take it myself,” he said in a tweet Saturday.
Thankfully, Twitter users saw through the senator’s selfless display. Daniel Uhlfelder, the Florida lawyer who protested the state reopening beaches by wearing a Grim Reaper costume, advocated for the safety of Floridians in the face of Rubio’s tweet pretending to. "Florida has a population of 21,480,000 largely made up of people over 65 with large nursing home population,” he tweeted. “According to Florida Dept. of Health only 32,000 people have been vaccinated. One of them is Marco Rubio, a 49 year healthy corrupt, career politician @marcorubio”
Florida has a population of 21,480,000 largely made up of people over 65 with large nursing home population. According to Florida Dept. of Health only 32,000 people have been vaccinated. One of them is Marco Rubio, a 49 year healthy corrupt, career politician @marcorubiopic.twitter.com/38RmYijI2S
Author Don Winslow tweeted: ". @marcorubio is the guy from Titanic who grabs a baby just so he can jump ahead of the line for a lifeboat. ‘I have a child! I have a child!’" Democratic strategist Kaivan Shroff tweeted: "Every janitor in every COVID wing of every hospital should have gotten the vaccine before feckless Marco Rubio. It’s absurd." Political strategist Ana Navarro-Cárdenas tweeted: "Young, healthy Senator, who spoke at rallies packed w/thousands w/o masks, who supports Trump -who’s down-played COVID & mocked those who wear masks, is 1st to get vaccine while most medical workers, elderly & infirm Americans, wait. Congratulations on ur privilege, @marcorubio."
As a Puerto Rican, Marco Rubio is a complete disgrace to Hispanic/Latin people and to humanity itself. He uses our culture to pretend he isn’t the same as Moscow Mitch or Rand Paul.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with lawmakers, nurses, and other politicians getting vaccinated in the hopes of inspiring the general public to do so. But when the very politicians fighting expert-recommended advice to reduce the virus’ spread and keeping much-needed coronavirus relief funds tied up in political red tape start shouting me first with regards to vaccines, I find it a bit gag-worthy.
Rubio, of course, isn’t the only Republican putting his needs before his constituents. Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made sure to get vaccinated too. Mary Trump, author and niece of President Donald Trump, tweeted Saturday: "Mitch McConnell is a traitor to this country. That he got the vaccine after willfully failing to protect us from Covid-19 is obscene. That he's continuing to block aid to Americans that would help them survive the catastrophes his party created is unconscionable."
Ever notice all the Republicans stepping in front of our healthcare workers to be first in line for the vaccine even though the @GOP insisted the virus was a hoax? Just like false virtue and bible quotes, hypocrisy is a major conservative trait. https://t.co/qthpW6pks5
An anonymous reader writes:
The U.S. military's Space Force branch celebrated its one-year anniversary Friday by announcing that its members would now be known as "guardians". But the name was not universally greeted with respect and appreciation. Gizmodo announced the news with a headline which read "Space Force Personnel Will Be Called 'Guardians' Because Sure, Whatever," in an article which jokingly asks how this will affect the other ranks of this branch of the military. "Does someone get promoted from Guardian to Sentinel to Space Paladin to Tython, The Secessionist King Of Mars or something?" (Their article also suggests other names the U.S. military could have considered — like "moon buddies" or "rocketeers" — even at one point proposing "starship troopers".)
Forbes wrote that "The mockery arrived instantly and in great rivers..." But there was an interesting observation from a British newspaper (which is in fact, named The Guardian). "As the Associated Press put it, delicately: 'President-elect Joe Biden has yet to reveal his plans for the space force in the next administration.'" In fact, New York magazine called the new name for members of Space Force the "strongest case yet for its demise," in an article headlined "Abolish the Space Force." ("Maybe 'stormtrooper' was too obvious...")
In an apparent bid to be taken more seriously, on Friday the Space Force also shared an official anniversary greeting they'd received from Lee Majors, the actor who'd played a cybernetically-enhanced Air Force colonel in the 1970s action series The Six Million Dollar Man (who, in later seasons, befriended Bigfoot and the alien community who'd brought him to earth).
But Mashable added sympathetically that "It's been a long year, though. If people want to draw some nerdy joy from a U.S. military branch inadvertently referencing comic books and video games, let them have their fun."
The chief operating officer of the government’s vaccine accelerator on Saturday took responsibility for overstating the number of Pfizer coronavirus shots that states would have available to them.
Operation Warp Speed originally estimated up to7.3 million doses could be available in the second week of vaccine distribution. Instead, about 4.3 million shots are ready — a discrepancy that has left governors scrambling to revise their vaccination plans.
“It was a planning error, and I am responsible,” Army Gen. Gustave Perna said. “We’re learning from it. We’re trying to get better.”
His acknowledgment put an end to over 48 hours of confusion among state officials about the vaccine, which is administered in two doses 21 days apart. The government is sending out about half of the shots that are ready, with the remainder being kept in reserve for the second inoculations.
Perna said millions of the doses he originally identified were not ready to be shipped out, adding the vaccine must be “releasable in accordance with the FDA.”
An FDA spokesperson pointed to language in the letter authorizing Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use, which states that the company must submit a certificate of analysis for each product at least 48 hours before the vaccine is distributed. The agency does not have to sign off on the paperwork before the company can ship the vaccine.
“The mistake I made is not understanding with exactness — again, my responsibility —on all the steps that have to occur to make sure the vaccine is releasable,” Perna said.
Pfizer, in a statement, said it has millions of doses ready to ship once it gets the next instructions from Operation Warp Speed. "We remain confident in our ability to deliver up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion next year," the company said.
Officials in Maine, which is anticipating 40 percent fewer doses than they expected next week, have said they will push back vaccinating residents and staff at assisted living and some residential care facilities.
Large states, like California, are receiving over 100,000 less doses than expected. The state was originally projected to receive around 393,000 shots next week. That estimate has now decreased to 233,000.
The last time the price of bitcoin hit $20,000 was December of 2017. But Matt Luongo, the CEO of a crypto venture builder, points out to NBC News that this time the market is seeing "significant, high-conviction plays from [a few] large funds and even CEOs of publicly traded companies."
"Names like Guggenheim Partners, [hedge fund managers] Paul Tudor Jones and Stan Druckenmiller, and the recent support from Michael Saylor at Microstrategies and Jack Dorsey at Square and Twitter are telling," he said. S&P Dow Jones also announced this month that it will launch cryptocurrency indices in 2021, paving the way for cryptocurrencies to become more mainstream investments.
Beyond the swing of high-profile supporters, there isn't a way to tell who is buying bitcoin. However, the number of new bitcoin addresses, the unique identifiers where the assets are sent, recently hit a record of 25,000 per hour for the first time since January 2018, according to data intelligence firm Glassnode.
Luongo ultimately argues to NBC that "This growth represents real adoption, and it won't disappear when the next bubble bursts."
To get a counter-balancing second opinion, NBC also spoke to the creator of the YouTube channel "Crypto Bobby," who also notes that PayPal (as well as the stock-trading app Robinhood) have also added support for bitcoin.
Sometimes NBC refers to the two men as "crypto enthusiasts" — but other times they're just referred to as "experts."
Back in May, a long list of right-wing groups signed a Conservative Action Project letter opposing “federally funded bailouts for states and local governments.” At least eight of those groups were just fine with federally funded bailouts for their own bank accounts, though: They collectively took more than $2.25 million in CARES Act aid, with three taking money both from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.) (But Kos Media wasn’t a giant hypocrite about it.)
Overall, at least 75 conservative organizations took COVID-19-related aid, most of it from the PPP, but with at least 14 organizations also getting EIDL money, for a combined amount of more than $18 million. Not all of them had specifically spoken out against the CARES Act or other coronavirus-related relief, but for instance, in March Liberty Counsel complained that “the $2 trillion-dollar spending bill is still being written as members of Congress are being pressured to pass it. Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Chuck Schumer have inserted funding totally unrelated to the virus.” The organization then went on to get a $428,100 PPP loan, followed by another one for $10,000.
Just as the Trump and Kushner family businesses got PPP loans, so too did a lot of right-wing groups with deep Trump ties. Like Jay Sekulow’s group, the American Center for Law and Justice, which provided some of Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers and has been paid more than $250,000 by the Republican National Committee in recent years—it got $1.23 million. The Remembrance Project, which specializes in providing Trump events with victims of crimes committed by immigrants, got $75,000 from the EIDL and $15,600 from the PPP.
American Majority and American Majority Action trained legions of tea partiers to rail against government aid, back in the tea party era. In the COVID-19 era they took a combined $130,000 in government aid.
“It’s always fascinating to see people who’ve made careers out of bashing what they see as ‘big government’ being among the first in line for a taxpayer handout during a crisis,” said Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Accountable.US, the nonpartisan government watchdog that put together the COVID Bailout Tracker. “They wave their finger at federal relief spending for local governments and working families, but don’t seem to mind when it benefits them. But this goes way beyond hypocrisy. These groups join the long list of rich and well-connected supporters of Donald Trump who were allowed to take millions from a program intended for struggling small businesses. It’s an insult to all the mom-and-pops in communities of color that couldn’t access a penny from the PPP under the Trump administration’s poor design and management.”
An unpublished report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general has found that nearly a dozen immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were held in solitary confinement, which is considered to be torture, for periods of over two months, BuzzFeed News reports. According to the report, two of those people were kept in solitary for more 300 days.
The draft report said that officials at the privately operated Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California, further lied about the one hour of free time immigrants held in solitary are supposed to get. “Our examination of segregation records showed the facility inaccurately reported to ICE that detainees were receiving recreation time when, in fact, they were not,” inspectors wrote according to the report.
“Detainees can request protective custody at any time,” BuzzFeed News reported. “ICE also allows detainees to be placed in solitary confinement, called ‘administrative segregation’ for those isolated for nonpunitive reasons, if their presence would pose a threat to the lives of other detainees or themselves.” But human rights advocates have slammed solitary as torture—and especially in the kinds of conditions described by the inspector general’s report.
“Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles,” UN Special Rapporteur on torture said in 2011 according to UN News. “The practice should be used only in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, he stressed,” UN News continued at the time.
Yet ICE already has a history of using solitary confinement for punishing immigrants, punishing detained people for speaking out against abuse, and using it to threaten others for daring to ask for medical care. In a horrific report earlier this year, the House Oversight Committee said that an officer at another privately operated immigration camp also falsified records for one man who had been thrown into solitary confinement and then later died after the officer failed to properly check on him.
“CoreCivic detention staff were supposed to check on [Huy Chi Tran] every 15 minutes, but the detention officer on duty left Mr. Tran unsupervised for 51 minutes just before Mr. Tran’s cardiac arrest that led to his death,” the committee said an internal ICE report found. Tran had been a U.S. resident for over 30 years. “Investigators found that the officer falsified observation logs to hide the fact that he had failed to conduct welfare checks over that 51-minute period.”
Other abuses uncovered in the inspector general’s report were piles of spoiled food intended for detainees. This has also been an ongoing abuse in detention camps. “The inspectors reported finding expired frozen tortillas, turkey bologna, and moldy zucchini in the food preparation and storage area,” BuzzFeed News continued. “The facility’s officials said that they had not marked frozen food and produce packages with expiration dates.”
ICE’s abusive treatment of detained people is the norm and not a one-off by a bad apple, so excuse me if I skip the excuses claimed by the out-of-control agency and private prison profiteer Management & Training Corporation (but you’re certainly welcome to go check them out yourself). They do it because they get away with it, especially during the past four years. Yet Congress keeps throwing billions at them.
"I sent a letter to the ACLU and @GavinNewsom in protest. In response, ICE sent in officers in riot gear. They took me out of my cell and put me in solitary for a month," - A Hotline call we received from Imperial, the location of this investigation.https://t.co/yv3iaTePmT
“Since the creation of DHS in 2003, ICE spending has nearly tripled, from $3.3 billion to $8.4 billion today,” American Immigration Council said this year. “Much of this funding has gone to increasing the agency’s ability to hold immigrants in detention in locations around the country.” In conditions like what the inspector general’s report describes.
Fighting hard for the "biggest shithead of the Senate" award
Sen. Ron Johnson is rolling out a bold platform as he weighs whether to run for reelection: He's the guy who twice shut down $1,200 stimulus checks that would have gone to hundreds of thousands of his constituents.
Johnson (R-Wis.) defended his objection to the pandemic-related proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Friday afternoon, citing concerns about the federal deficit, and accused the Vermont independent of lying about the GOP position on coronavirus relief.
“He ... said something that’s incorrect,” Johnson said. “You might call it a lie. He said Republicans have done nothing. That’s not true.”
While Democrats support stimulus checks, the issue has divided Republicans.
Johnson, in a Friday floor speech, cited a coronavirus relief proposal the GOP released early this fall that included money for unemployment benefits, another round of money for the Paycheck Protection Program and liability reform. Democrats, however, dismissed it as a partisan bill and said it was woefully inadequate.
“We did not take for an answer the Republican bill which did not have a nickel for unemployment benefits,” Sanders shot back. “We did not take yes for an answer for a bill that did not have a nickel for direct payments.’
The push for direct payments comes as Democratic and Republican leaders are racing to finalize a coronavirus relief package as well as avert a government shutdown. While there’s general agreement around providing about $600 in direct payments, Sanders and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) are pushing for more. Earlier Friday, Johnson also blocked a proposal from Hawley for about $1,200 in stimulus checks. The direct payments are a priority for the White House.
Johnson argued that the federal deficit was the reason he ran for office and suggested that the money in previous stimulus packages went unspent.
“When I first got here, I ran because we were mortgaging our kids’ future,” hen said. “I’m not heartless. I want to help people. I voted to help people. I voted for the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, but I also am concerned about our children’s future.”
Johnson has yet to say whether he’ll run for reelection, but Democrats view him as a top target in their fight for the Senate majority in 2022. While Trump won Wisconsin in 2016, President-elect Joe Biden won the state by less than a percentage point.
After his speech, Johnson said his concerns are purely about the deficit and not about 2022.
“I’ve said I’d never vote with my reelection in mind,” he told reporters.
Enlarge / Microsoft has so far neither confirmed nor denied Bloomberg's claims regarding in-house CPU designs. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Grid Engine)
This afternoon, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft is in the process of developing its own ARM CPU designs, following in the footsteps of Apple's M1 mobile CPU and Amazon's Graviton datacenter CPU.
Bloomberg cites off-record conversations with Microsoft employees who didn't want to be named. These sources said that Microsoft is currently developing an ARM processor for data center use and exploring the possibility of another for its Surface line of mobile PCs.
Bloomberg's sources paint the data center part as "more likely" and a Surface part as "possible." This seems plausible, given that Microsoft's chip design unit reports to the Azure cloud VP, with no direct reporting ties to the Surface division. Microsoft declined to comment on any specific plans, saying only that it "[continues] to invest in our own capabilities in areas like design, manufacturing and tools, while also fostering and strengthening partnerships with a wide range of chip providers."
Usama Jawad writes via Neowin: has been a proponent of passwordless technology for quite some time, saying that it wants traditional and unsafe passwords to die. To that end, it has invested in various solutions over the past few years such as Windows Hello, Microsoft Authenticator, FIDO2 security keys, and a palm vein authentication system, among other things. Now, the company has highlighted the strides it made to kill off passwords in 2020, and has stated that it plans to make them a thing of the past for all its customers in 2021.
Microsoft noted that almost 80% of all cyberattacks target passwords, and one in 250 corporate accounts get compromised each month due to this. That said, the company is making an effort to transition people to passwordless solutions. In November 2019, 100 million people were using Microsoft's passwordless sign-in. This number grew to 150 million by May 2020, which goes to show how millions of people are ready to ditch passwords due to the inconvenience of remembering them, coupled with how insecure they can be. [...] 2021 is the year in which Microsoft plans to make passwords obsolete for all its customers. It is currently developing new APIs and a UX for managing FIDO2 security keys, and is also aiming to deliver a "converged registration portal," where customers can manage their passwordless credentials. While it hopes that 2021 marks a return to the "old normal," the company has emphasized that going passwordless will make online lives significantly easier.
America's newest branch of the military is about to celebrate the end of its first year, and now members of the Space Force will have something to call each other.
Vice President Mike Pence announced on Friday that members will be called "guardians."
“It is my honor on behalf of the president of the United States to announce that henceforth the men and women of the United States Space Force will be known as guardians,” Pence told an audience at the White House. “Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians will be defending our nation for generations to come.”
The name was chosen from suggestions made by members of the Space Force, who have been colloquially known as “space professionals” since the service was established on Dec. 20, 2019.
In choosing a name, Gen. Jay Raymond, the chief of space operations, previously shot down suggestions of something like “airman,” saying that it was important to choose a gender-neutral name for a service that’s being established in 2020.
Some on Twitter immediately connected the name to the “Guardians of the Galaxy" films.
Excellent news. She should help a great deal. Get out the vote en masse
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is heading to Georgia less than a week after President-elect Joe Biden visited the state to rally support for the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the Senate runoffs elections there. Harris will campaign in Suwanee and Columbus on Monday.
Early voting for the January 5 elections began on December 14, and already more than a million votes have been cast.
Harris’ visit following so soon after Biden’s reflects the importance of the runoff elections, which will determine control of the Senate, with Democrats needing to win both to have a tied Senate with Harris breaking ties on votes. At stake is whether Mitch McConnell will, as majority leader, be able to block literally every Democratic priority and every Biden nominee.
Harris campaigned in Georgia twice in the weeks before the general election, which she and Biden won narrowly, reflecting years of work by activists and organizers in this traditionally red state. Her Monday visit will be aimed at increasing turnout among Black voters.
A Friday briefing on the Russian hack into “SolarWinds” networking software on government sites left members of Congress frustrated as officials shared less information than what was already available from public sources. Meanwhile Donald Trump has finally mentioned Russia on Twitter, except it wasn’t to admit to Russia’s massive hack into federal systems, or even to finally condemn Russia’s paying bounties for the murder of American soldiers. Nope. Trump mentioned Russia just so he could expand on past lies about the Mueller investigation. Because that’s still what he considers the most important issue.
On Thursday, it became clear that Russia’s hacking extended into areas of the Energy Department that have custody of America’s nuclear arsenal, as well as critical information about the energy grid. And though the flaw that Russia exploited to gain access to systems guarding some of America’s most highly classified information has supposedly been plugged, it’s very difficult to be sure that Russian agents didn’t leave behind time bombs that can alter critical data. Or back doors that would let them in for more destructive action.
Meanwhile, Trump is standing by to veto a defense bill that contains funding and directives to guard against exactly the sort of cyber threat Russia is currently creating.
Despite it being regarded as “must pass legislation” which is required to keep America’s military operations up and running, Trump has repeatedly threatened to veto the latest defense spending authorization. Trump’s reason? Twitter. Specially, he doesn’t like the way that Twitter has been slapping warnings on his destructive lies that, in the mildest terms possible, inform readers that what he is saying is kind of, sort of, just maybe BS.
As The New York Times reports, that bill doesn’t just contain money that supports the boots on the ground around the world, it features two-dozen anti-hacking proposals approved by a bipartisan commission. Among other things, it would expand the power of the federal government hunt down foreign hackers intruding into U.S. government systems, and it would establish the role of a ”cyberdirector” to coordinate online defenses.
If those tools already existed, the government might be much more effective in clearing out Russian hackers and closing the door firmly behind them. If the rules were already in place, the hacking might not have happened in the first place.
As it stands, Russian intrusions into government systems remained undetected, and unsuspected, until a private firm pointed out a vulnerability that exists in several systems, including that of Texas-based SolarWinds. That firm located the problem after they were hacked by state actors that were also likely Russian intelligence. In the process, Russia stole tools that “white hat” hackers use in protecting systems from their shadier namesakes. That theft is likely to give Russia an advantage in avoiding traps in the future.
At the moment, Trump hasn’t vetoed the defense bill, but that doesn’t mean he’s feeling any more supportive. Instead, Trump is waiting until the last second to affix a big “Nyet” to his Sharpie-scrawl. That makes it far more inconvenient on Congress to override Trump’s veto, because it would mean cutting short a Christmas recess.
As Fareed Zakaria notes at The Washington Post, Russia’s cyber attack was more than just a little poking around. it was “massive, unprecedented and crippling.” Even determining which systems were violated could take years, and even that doesn’t mean those systems are now secure. This isn’t espionage, it’s “hybrid warfare” in which Russia has deliberately invaded and damaged systems in charge of critical infrastructure as well as military assets.
On this subject Trump … remains remarkably silent.
U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged a China-based executive at Zoom Video Communications with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown at the request of the Chinese government. From a report: Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his company's systems to censor speech, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Zoom was not named in court papers, but its identity was confirmed by a person close to the matter. Papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn said Jin's employer is based in San Jose, California, where Zoom is headquartered. Prosecutors said Jin, a software engineer and his employer's main liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence, helped terminate at least four video meetings in May and June, including some involving dissidents who survived the June 4, 1989, student protests. Jin allegedly fabricated violations of Zoom's terms of service to justify his actions to his superiors.
Business Insider is reporting that Donald Trump's son-in-law and chief adviser Jared Kushner approved creation of a shell company that "secretly paid" Trump's family members and "spent almost half of the campaign's $1.26 billion war chest."
That would amount to a cool $617 million in cash supposedly meant for Trump's reelection campaign that essentially disappeared without a trace. The shell company appears to have served as a pass-through entity with the added benefit of shielding all of its transactions from public view.
But no worries, the company, created in April 2018, was headed by Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump as president and Mike Pence's nephew John Pence as its vice president, so they surely kept things on the up and up. Additionally, the Trump campaign's CFO, Sean Dollman, became the shell company's treasurer—and we all know what a tight ship Dollman ran at Trump's broke campaign.
Business Insider appears to have had one key anonymous source but adds, "Insider independently verified details of this person's account with other sources close to the Trump campaign."
The real genius of the shell company, called American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC (AMMC), was that it evaded federally mandated disclosures that would have provided insights into where Trump's campaign cash was being funneled. Even some of Trump's top advisors and campaign staff—who were aware of the company—say they knew next to nothing about its operations. Campaign finance records reveal that more than $600 million was spent through AMMC, but it's unclear exactly where that money went.
Oh, and this is fun: "Trump's campaign leaders even launched an internal audit of the shell company and operations under former campaign manager Brad Parscale but never reported the results of that review," writes Business Insider. But most of AMMC's money, some $415 million, was actually spent after Parscale was ousted as campaign manager in July. The final few months of the race is also when the Trump campaign became glaringly strapped for cash.
Shockingly, Kushner, Dollman, and Parscale all declined to comment for the story. But Lara Trump and John Pence appeared keen to wash their hands of AMMC.
"Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities, however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place. John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members," Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Business Insider Friday.
The Federal Elections Commission has the power to issue fines if it concludes campaign finance laws were breached. But the Department of Justice could also open a criminal investigation if federal prosecutors believe a "knowing and willful" violation of election law took place.
A former Republican chair of the FEC, Trevor Potter, filed a civil complaint in July charging that the Trump campaign was "disguising" some $170 million in spending "by laundering the funds" through AMMC.
Interesting. Can't say I'd ever consider Wisconsin for any reason, but maybe SF folks feel differently ;)
There's a narrative that the tech industry's future lies in Texas and Florida. That tech workers and executives -- sick of California's oppressive policies and sky-high real estate costs -- are moving en masse to Miami and Austin this year. That these cities are building dominant talent foundations that will persist for years due to the pandemic. That narrative is wrong. From a report: The story crumbles when placed next to new LinkedIn data showing where tech workers are actually moving in 2020. The key beneficiaries of this year's tech migration are less buzzy cities like Madison, Wisconsin; Richmond, Virginia; and Sacramento, California. These places don't get much play in the news, but they're attracting tech talent at significantly higher rates than they were last year. Austin, conversely, is gaining tech workers more slowly. The new LinkedIn data, which Big Technology is first publishing here, examines several hundred thousand tech workers in the U.S. It breaks down the ratio at which they're moving into a city vs. moving out, something LinkedIn calls the inflow/outflow ratio. The data ranges from April to October, comparing 2020 with 2019. It encompasses the core months people left their cities due to the pandemic.
The country's biggest tech migration increase took place in Madison. The city was gaining 1.02 tech workers for each one that left last year, and it's now gaining 1.77, a 74% jump. Sacramento and Richmond, meanwhile, were losing tech workers before the pandemic and have turned it around. Sacramento was adding a fraction of a tech worker -- 0.87 -- for each one that left last year, and now it's adding 1.02. Richmond was adding 0.95 last year, and it's adding 1.06 this year. Other Midwest cities, including Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Cleveland, Ohio, have significantly reduced the rate at which tech workers were leaving their cities.
That sounds like peak flawed female protagonist ;)
Kaley Cuoco in The Flight Attendant. | HBO Max
HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, starring Kaley Cuoco, finds the joy in watching someone who’s acutely bad at crime.
To love The Flight Attendant is to hate its protagonist. Each episode is equal parts pleasure and taunt, as 30-something Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco) triggers a cascading sequence of awful decisions — usually within the first five minutes. Watching Cassie is like watching the hero of a horror movie run up the stairs where the killer is instead of out the door to safety. But in Cassie’s horror movie, there are multiple exits and signs that say “Do not enter, you will get murdered if you go this way.” It’s just not in the cards for Cassie to ever heed those calls.
And here’s the dark magic of The Flight Attendant: I still want to see this fantastically inept person succeed.
The show, based on the 2018 novel by Chris Bohjalian, is one of the newest treasures in HBO Max’s growing chest of exclusive programming. It is a pulpy, brazen whodunnit murder mystery with hard-drinking, horny flight attendant Cassie at its core.
In this case, everyone is a suspect — except for Cassie. But the FBI thinks she’s acting fishy, and the people who actually did the murdering want to murder her too. Cassie seems to not fully grasp the magnitude of the situation she’s in, driving the show’s central tension. At the same time, Cassie’s friends (like a fellow flight attendant, Megan, played by Rosie Perez) and family are either tired of cleaning up her messes or not as close confidants as she believes them to be.
Watching Cassie try to untangle herself from this sticky web of homicide and suspicion is gripping television, akin to kinetic Shondaland dramas like How to Get Away With Murder or Scandal. But The Flight Attendant comes with an empirical difference: Cassie is nowhere near as proficient, savvy, or smart as the heroines of those soapy series.
Cassie might hold herself back, but not the series. The Flight Attendant ascends to the same level of must-see, absorbing urgency of those great shows. It demands that you put down the little screen in your hand and watch the big screen in front of you. And it’s uniquely clever, sometimes deliciously absurd, in so many ways that matter.
The Flight Attendant’s secret weapon: Cassie’s bad decisions
Cassie Bowden’s bad luck begins during a one-night stand from hell. On a flight to Bangkok, she meets a tall, dark, and handsome man sitting in seat 3C named Alex Sokolov. They hit it off, and she decides to meet him for a date once they land. Alex is played by Michiel Huisman, a man with hair so majestic and looks so blazingly good that no one cared when he replaced the original, less hot Daario on Game of Thrones. Alex and Cassie seem like a well-matched pair, even if just for a night: Cassie, too, has great hair and is down for drinking and good sex.
Then we find Cassie the next morning. She awakes not in an afterglow of ecstasy and expensive hair products, but in a pool of Alex’s blood and no recollection of anything that happened the night before.
From there, Cassie commits an avalanche of errors. Determined to not become Thailand’s own Amanda Knox, she cleans up the crime scene and accidentally cuts herself in the process. She’s photographed by hotel surveillance leaving the room. She returns to work, flying back home to the US, where she tries to flee from the FBI. During an interview with the feds, she kinda-sorta lies. A lot. While she’s hiding the truth and giving the FBI lots of incriminating information, she also tends to leave out key developments — like how her New York City apartment was broken into, as it seems that whoever killed Alex nowwants Cassie dead too.
And though she knows that the FBI might consider her the prime suspect, Cassie does super-suspicious things, like commit mild espionage when she decides to visit Alex’s office and attending his memorial service.
While she didn’t kill Alex, Cassie seems determined to get caught for it, for some reason. I’m not sure how many people fantasize about being at the center of a glamorous homicide, but The Flight Attendant sparks the thought of what you would do that if you were in Cassie’s shoes. Every time I ask myself this, I repeat to myself: I’d probably think of many different ways not to be seen as a killer. That is, I’d probably do the exact opposite of what Cassie is doing.
This mind game is The Flight Attendant’s superpower.
The show’s writers force us to confront how we think we would act if we woke up covered in someone else’s blood in a luxury Bangkok hotel, and then prod us with Cassie doing the blatant opposite. The Flight Attendant somehow takes this outlandish crime scenario and transforms it into something of a shared experience — one that we can giddily judge and rejoice that we aren’t actually having ourselves. We enjoy this haughty power fantasy, convinced that if we were in Cassie’s shoes, we’d be different, and smarter, and more resourceful. Maybe we’d have one less drink during it all, too.
Cuoco, as Cassie, is who makes this complicated premise all work. She locks into the parts that make Cassie frustrating — her selfishness, her stubbornness, her self-righteousness, her absolute lack of filter — while understanding that this person is exhausting, not just to herself but also to others caught in her orbit. To that end, she also plays Cassie with enough vulnerability and fragility that we never write her off. She’s winsome, if in flashes; at some points, she even serves slapstick physical comedy. But everything is grounded by Cassie’s emotional ruin.
Cassie remains fixated on Alex, contributing to her disintegrating emotional state. While Alex is very dead, he’s very much alive in Cassie’s head. After his murder, he becomes part of her subconscious, as she replays their one-night stand over and over in her head. Of course, who she is remembering is not really Alex, but just a projection of who Cassie thought Alex was. And as the show proceeds, it cleverly unfurls how crooked, maybe even desperate Cassie’s projection is and all the damage that’s caused it.
Cassie’s only ally is her best friend Annie, played by Zosia Mamet, who is, fortunately for Cassie, alive and a high-powered, savvy lawyer. Mamet slinks away with the entire show, as she manages to deliver the chill and severity of an attorney looking out for her friend while never seeming soulless. Annie is all brains and Cassie is all emotion, but as we get to know them, we understand that these two are best-suited to each other, making their friendship meaningful.
This week, HBO Max released The Flight Attendant’s season finale — a satisfying landing for the show that, thankfully, leaves the door open for its second season (HBO Max announced the renewal on Friday). I’m not sure how a second chapter will play out, as several more hours of Cassie making bad decisions seem like they could get a little exhausting. But I’ll definitely be watching it anyway.
Yes, I fully recognize that a sudsy frustration thriller with hot dead dudes and Zosia Mamet in attorney drag might not be everyone’s thing. But The Flight Attendant moves me to scream, “No, no, no,” and, “Ohmygod, why?!” in my living room every time I watch an episode. That’s a little rattling for someone who considers himself to be smarter, savvier, and much more together than Cassie. But I have fallen in love with the shake-up.
The Flight Attendantis streaming on HBO Max. All eight episodes of season one are now available.
Yeah these numbers are insane. For a 9/11 a day, things are awfully quiet about the insane body count.
On Thursday, the United States racked up over 231,000 new cases of COVID-19. Over 3,200 people died. These are hideous numbers, not at all made better by the fact that Wednesday was worse. Right now across the country, the 7-day moving average puts the number of new cases at 220,000. That’s 40,000 cases a day higher than it was on the day before Thanksgiving. The 7-day average for deaths is 2,600. That’s 900 more each day than on the day before Thanksgiving.
And still, there are people pointing at the fall in reported cases in several states over that period and somehow breathing a sigh of relief. Sure, cases are up in places like Texas, California, and Florida. But smaller states like Iowa and South Dakota—both loaded down with COVID-19 right before the holiday—have actually seen case counts falling steadily for almost a month. Where is that Thanksgiving surge that concerned so many?
The answer is that it’s right here, on Johns Hopkins test tracking site. In 47 out of 50 states, testing declined, not just last week, but the last two weeks straight. The CDC suggests that an adequate level of testing includes a rate of positive returns less than 3%. By that measure, the states that are currently testing at a level sufficient to describe what’s happening in their boundaries are: Vermont and Hawaii. That’s it. Every other state is operating in the dark about what’s really happening.
For some of them, like the supposedly improving South Dakota, week over week declines in testing rates have the state at 41% positive test rates. The actual rate of hospitalization in South Dakota, as reported by The Covid Tracking Project, remains above that of either California or Texas. As their nationwide data shows, the U.S. has seen an overall slight rise in testing since Thanksgiving (which can be spotted by the sharp recent dip on most of the charts below). While the peak on the daily new cases may appear to be somewhat blunted, the peak on hospitalizations and deaths is not. This is because the nation is once again test constrained. Many states are back to reporting numbers of COVID-19 cases that are roughly equivalent to those self-reporting illness.
The COVID-19 Tracking Project averages, updated through Dec. 17
The word for what the data is showing is a very high order of “bad.” And it’s not just that the current numbers are awful, they are also foreboding. Because when it comes to the numbers on the two charts to the right—hospitalizations and deaths—we are far from through seeing what Thanksgiving delivered. For everyone who picked up COVID-19 in that period following November 27, the first symptoms should have appeared by now. Median onset of first symptoms would have had those people getting sick last week. But severe illness typically comes later. From first symptoms to severe respiratory distress typically take 3 to 10 days (moving from onset to severe faster than a week is a bad sign when it comes to eventual outcome). Those people who were hospitalized for severe symptoms usually had a hospital stay of 10 days to two weeks. It’s around that same point—a total of 20 days after first symptoms—that patients either recover … or don’t.
The people who are dying today got infected before Thanksgiving. The price to be paid for those turkey dinners isn’t yet known. But it will be. Soon.
What is clear is that case counts and deaths are still at the highest levels they have been at any point since the pandemic began. Do not be fooled by a declining number of cases in specific locations, or reports of an improving “trend.” As the matching hooks in the testing and cases above indicate, the only sure trend is that less testing generates lower numbers.
Right now, hospitalization rates in particular are a huge concern. Not only are there numerous states where capacity is being strained, this is happening after states have put in place both formal and informal standards that mean many of those who might have been hospitalized a month ago are being sent home. Vaccines for healthcare workers are great, and absolutely necessary, but they will not generate more healthcare workers, or alleviate the exhaustion generated from unbroken weeks of overwork.
This next week could bring a happy surprise, with cases genuinely beginning to drop. However, there is very little cause to think this is true. What is more likely is that the toll from Thanksgiving will become apparent, just in time for it to be compounded by Christmas. Joe Biden could easily walk into a situation in January in which Americans are dying at a rate of 5,000 or more each day. That may sound horrific, but what’s happening now would have sounded horrific to anyone a month ago. And what was happening then would have been horrific to anyone from a month before that.
We’re at a situation now where it can be assumed that every social situation involves exposure to the coronavirus. There is no such thing as a safe gathering. People who have been “pretty good” through this whole affair are not being good enough. Routines that have been good enough to protect most people to this point are no longer good enough.
The time to take extreme caution was weeks ago. But if you haven’t started, start now.
More so than at any time since the initial surge, the numbers being seen in the United States are being shaped not by the true level of infection, but by the availability of tests.
The high level of positive returns shows that, despite increasing tests in a few states, the level of testing has not been this inadequate since tests since tests became widely available.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered all Pentagon departments to stop cooperating with the incoming Biden administration’s transition team on Thursday night.
Axios reports: “A top Biden official was unaware of the directive. Administration officials left open the possibility cooperation would resume after a holiday pause. The officials were unsure what prompted Miller’s action, or whether President Trump approved. Miller’s move, which stunned officials throughout the Pentagon, was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration.”
Blocking the transition could have slowed down vaccine rollout. But they didn't care.
Pausing Pentagon cooperation with the transition could put people in danger. But they don't care. https://t.co/22fVUKzypR
"Acting Secretary Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across DOD…" This could just be petty idiocy. Or it could be dangerous. Perhaps Congress should say or do something?https://t.co/DWCkH12aM6
The nation's system for distributing coronavirus vaccines lacks safeguards to ensure the next wave of doses reaches the most critical workers and at-risk patients rather than star athletes or the well-connected.
There’s little chance for anyone to jump the line right now while an extremely limited supply of the vaccine is being distributed only in hospitals and nursing homes. But as soon as more doses become available to wider categories of people, much of the immunization program will rely on the honor system, and states will leave it to pharmacies, community health centers and individual employers to verify if someone requesting a shot falls into a priority category.
“I haven't seen anything that's going to say, ‘We're going to stop people from gaming the system,’” said Jen Kates, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who said the state vaccination plans she’s reviewed have had no language on requiring patients to provide proof of residency, which would prevent people from hopping to another state with more available vaccine to try and get a shot.
The loose controls threaten to continue the pattern of inequities seen throughout the pandemic. In the spring and summer, many waited in line for hours to have their noses swabbed while professional athletes were getting tested multiple times a week and concierge medical practices were supplying tests to celebrities.
For now, vaccines are reserved for front-line health workers and senior citizens in nursing home residents and other communal settings. A panel of Centers for Disease Control advisers on Sunday will recommend the next tiers of recipients, which could include teachers, first responders and other essential workers outside of health care, as well as people with chronic health conditions and people over 65.
But the final decision on who to prioritize rests with states. Some, like Alabama, plan to give some large employers in essential sectors allotments of vaccines, trusting the company to vaccinate its more vulnerable public-facing workers before the CEO.
Hospitals, clinics and pharmacies will play major roles as well. And while they can check electronic health records for their existing patients, and must collect people’s contact information in order to follow up with them for the second dose of the vaccine, people’s medical history can’t always be verified at the point where the vaccination is given.
“If a person presents at one of our health departments and says they have diabetes, we won’t ask for a note from their doctor or a list of their medications,” said Dr. Karen Landers, a medical officer at the Alabama Department of Public Health. “They have a reason for being there, and it’s a matter of trying to get a vaccine out in the most efficient way possible.”
Yet Landers and many other public health officials say that with thousands of people dying each day from the virus, it’s better to have a few line jumpers than to impose restrictions that slow down the vaccination process.
“Right now our biggest concern is having people confident to take the vaccine,” said Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “If we have people trying to jump the line, in some ways that would be a good problem to have.”
Unlike coronavirus tests, which the wealthy could purchase direct from an array of companies, Covid vaccines are scarce and tightly controlled.
Hospitals are receiving shipments now and vaccinating their own staffs while the federal government has contracted with major pharmacy chains to send teams of workers into elder care facilities to administer the shots.
“They’re all bought, paid for, and distributed by the federal government,” said Eric Toner, a senior scientist at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Health Security. “Not only do they want to make sure it’s not wasted or diverted, they need to know exactly who got the first dose so they can follow up with them for the second dose, which requires collecting their identity and contact information.”
The question is what could happen in the coming months, amid uncontrolled spread of the virus. When an FDA expert panel voted Thursday to recommend the agency back a second Covid vaccine from Moderna, one NIH scientist abstained from the vote, saying he wanted federal guidelines to ensure it was “more targeted to people at high risk of more threatening illness and disease." He also added he was “very uncomfortable” with a blanket authorization that allows states to decide who should get the shots in what order.
Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's vaccine accelerator, didn't respond by deadline to questions about whether any measures have been put in place to prevent line-jumping or if the issue has been discussed with states, The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the lack of clear federal or state guardrails, there are some mechanisms in place to prevent people from claiming a medical condition they do not have in order to move up in the line.
Community health centers that serve nearly 30 million of the nation’s most vulnerable patients say they plan to use their electronic health record to run reports of which of their existing patients meet certain metrics, like whether they have chronic conditions or are older.
“I think we've come from the standpoint that we're trusting our patients, that the ones that need it, we will know who they are,” said Ron Yee, the chief medical officer for the National Association of Community Health Centers. But he acknowledged it will be more difficult to verify that new patients meet the criteria.
Andie Pivarunas, the director of public affairs at the National Community Pharmacists Association said that her members will be relying on “health records and prescription history” whenever possible when determining who qualifies for early vaccine access, and their “professional judgement” when those records aren’t available.
Officials in many states argue that while this system won’t be perfect, delegating these difficult decisions to health care providers beats any alternative.
“This is a medical operation, not a political operation,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. “If you remember with the Covid testing there was a lot of back and forth, who got it first, and was there favoritism, etcetera. Medical professionals are going to administer Phase 2 [of the vaccine] by state guidelines, but it's going to be done by medical professionals.”
While rich and famous individuals may not have an obvious advantage, rich and powerful corporations certainly will. As officials continue to hammer out their vaccine distribution plans for essential workers, lobbyists from a swath of industries are pressuring federal and state entities to give groups from pesticide manufacturers to zookeepers priority.
“It’s ultimately about who and what as a society do we value,” said former CDC Director Tom Frieden. “The key is to be completely transparent about the decision-making progress, because you aren’t going to maintain the public’s trust if it looks like people are jumping the line. When you’re in a situation of shortage like we’re in right now, you want to make sure that you don’t create even the appearance of impropriety.”
Others worry that if states define “essential workers” too broadly, it could mean months of delays for other priority groups, such as people with diabetes and other comorbidities.
“You risk not getting to people with bad health outcomes for a very long time,” Toner warned. “A lot of people with high risk could die while we’re vaccinating people who are lower risk.”
theodp writes: Q. How many AP Computer Science Principles 'exam takers' would you have if you cancelled the AP CSP exam due to the coronavirus? A. More than 116,000! That's according to the math behind a new College Board press release, which boasts, "In 2020, more than 116,000 students took the AP CSP Exam -- more than double the number of exam takers in the course's first year, and a 21% increase over the previous year. In 2020, 39,570 women took the AP CSP exam, nearly three times the number who tested in 2017." Which is somewhat confusing, since the College Board actually cancelled the 2020 AP CSP Exam last spring, explaining to students, "This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles [the exam was to have counted for 60% of students' scores] -- your AP score will be computed from the Create and Explore performance tasks only." Still, Sunday's Washington Post reported the good PR news, as did tech-bankrolled College Board partner Code.org, which exclaimed, "Young women set records in computer science exams, again!" In 2018, Code.org lamented that many students enrolled in AP CSP wouldn't get college credit for the course "because they don't take the exam", so perhaps an increase in AP CSP scores awarded -- if not AP CSP exams taken -- should be added to the list of silver linings of the pandemic.
Cases of the novel coronavirus are increasing at a rapid rate across the U.S. and health officials worry this trend will only increase as the holiday season continues. Despite recommendations that large gatherings should not take place amid the coronavirus pandemic, some continue to host public events.
The risk of spread as a result of these gatherings is not only high but extremely likely. Weddings and holiday gatherings have proven to be superspreader events across the country, yet some local counties still refuse to cancel them. A Georgia Christmas parade may have been an attempt at spreading the holiday spirit, but an opportunity for children to take Christmas photos with Mr. and Mrs. Claus may also have exposed nearly 50 children to COVID-19.
The annual parade took place in Ludowici, Georgia, and was hosted by the Long County Chamber of Commerce. As part of the festivities, children were allowed to sit in Santa’s lap for a photo. At least 50 children posed for photos Thursday, two days before Mr. and Mrs. Claus both tested positive for COVID-19. The confirmed tests were shared in a notice posted on the Long County Board of Commissioners website on Monday, claiming that both Santa and his spouse did not show any symptoms at the event. The announcement was also shared on the chamber’s Facebook page.
"While this is cause for concern, I feel that it is important to note that exposures happen every day as we go about our day to day lives, often without any knowledge. Children are in close contact with both other children and adults daily at school, rec functions, and church,” Robert D. Parker, chair of Long County Board of Commissioners, wrote. “Proper CDC exposure guidelines should be followed if your child was exposed, however I do not feel this incident is cause for panic.” Despite the risk the event entailed and the number of rising cases in Georgia, Parker made no apologies, noting that his children also took photos with Santa.
“It was well attended by our public officials and I believe I speak for the majority of them in saying that we still stand by the decision … to move forward with these holiday traditions, and to bring some sense of normalcy to these trying times.” According to Parker, such holiday traditions are essential because of the “countless underprivileged children who would never have experienced the joy of meeting Santa Claus."
But while one might commend Parker for looking out for children who might not otherwise have their dream of meeting Santa Claus come true, the risk presented by this event cannot be ignored. Exposures may happen every day and might not be intended, but hosting an event of this sort without taking the proper precautions is irresponsible. Not only are cases increasing nationwide, but symptoms may not be noticeable in children for days, causing not only a chance of exposure between families but also fellow students, peers, and staff who may have come in contact with the children since. In the announcement, Parker claimed that the event and school present the “same risk of exposure”; however, voluntarily hosting a holiday event despite public health official recommendations is different than attending school, as education is mandatory.
Additionally, while it is unclear how many children wore masks and how many did not, pictures posted on social media clearly show that both Mr. and Mrs. Claus failed to wear masks. Children may not show symptoms as severely as adults but that does not mean they are not impacted by or cannot be infected by the virus.
State demographics show that Long County has a population of approximately 20,000 people. According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, at least 16 new cases of the virus were reported in the country in the last week. As of this report, more than 534,000 people have been infected with and at least 9,856 have died as a result of COVID-19 in Georgia, according to data compiled by The New York Times. While a vaccine is currently being distributed to health officials and vulnerable populations nationwide, following safety precautions and other regulations in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 is essential.
The University of California San Francisco issued this glowing announcement of some new research:
Just a few doses of an experimental drug can reverse age-related declines in memory and mental flexibility in mice, according to a new study by UC San Francisco scientists. The drug, called ISRIB, has already been shown in laboratory studies to restore memory function months after traumatic brain injury, reverse cognitive impairments in Down Syndrome, prevent noise-related hearing loss, fight certain types of prostate cancer, and even enhance cognition in healthy animals.
In the new study, published Dec. 1, 2020, in the open-access journal eLife, researchers showed rapid restoration of youthful cognitive abilities in aged mice, accompanied by a rejuvenation of brain and immune cells that could help explain improvements in brain function.
"ISRIB's extremely rapid effects show for the first time that a significant component of age-related cognitive losses may be caused by a kind of reversible physiological "blockage" rather than more permanent degradation," said Susanna Rosi, PhD, Lewis and Ruth Cozen Chair II and professor in the departments of Neurological Surgery and of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science.
"The data suggest that the aged brain has not permanently lost essential cognitive capacities, as was commonly assumed, but rather that these cognitive resources are still there but have been somehow blocked, trapped by a vicious cycle of cellular stress," added Peter Walter, PhD, a professor in the UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "Our work with ISRIB demonstrates a way to break that cycle and restore cognitive abilities that had become walled off over time...."
"We've seen how ISRIB restores cognition in animals with traumatic brain injury, which in many ways is like a sped-up version of age-related cognitive decline," said Rosi, who is director of neurocognitive research in the UCSF Brain and Spinal Injury Center and a member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. "It may seem like a crazy idea, but asking whether the drug could reverse symptoms of aging itself was just a logical next step."
Forbes also reports that "In all studies, the researchers have observed no serious side effects."
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