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Executive summary

Steven Goldblatt, Leaf's Founder and CEO, reflects on the company's 20-year history. Born out of humble beginnings in Steven's garage in Bangor, Leaf has grown to become a leading IT Managed Service Provider in Northern Ireland, with operations across the Island of Ireland.

The company, which celebrated its 20th anniversary recently, has seen significant changes in the tech industry over the years. From no cloud services and only hardware-based storage to modern-day cybersecurity threats and disaster recovery concerns, Leaf has adapted to stay ahead. Today, the company provides cloud services and consultancy to clients across various sectors, including private companies and local government.

Steven highlights the importance of customer service in driving the business forward, stating that it's what Leaf is all about. The tech agenda for most organizations now centers around cybersecurity and disaster recovery, both posing significant threats with real fear factors. Leaf has worked to develop expertise in cybersecurity, winning a global award recognizing this expertise.

\n

Nowadays one of Northern Ireland’s leading IT Managed Service Providers, Leafwas born out of humble beginning, in common with many in the sector. “It all started in my garage in Bangor and it began as a hobby rather than a business,” says Steven Goldblatt, Leaf’s Founder and CEO.

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“20 years later and we’re right up there with the leading managed service providers in Northern Ireland, but also working in the Republic and GB.

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“We call ourselves an IOI operation these days – we’re growing this business all over the Island Of Ireland. But everything comes back to Belfast. This is very definitely our base.”

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Leaf, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a spectacular night for clients and friends at

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The MAC in Belfast, is based at Weavers Court in the centre of Belfast and has a current team of 30 employees, which Steven Goldblatt expects to rise above 35 in the coming year or so.

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“When I left the garage in Bangor and started to build this company, I took on three people fairly quickly,” he says. “What makes me particularly proud is that two of those three people are still working here and the other probably would be too if she hadn’t moved to live in Spain and got married.” Twenty years might not be long in the history of some larger organisations, and might not mean much in some sectors. But, in technology, it’s a very long time indeed. Steven Goldblatt reflects on just how much has changed since 2004. “There was no such thing as the cloud. The only clouds we knew were the ones above our heads. Back then, it we wanted to store data or anything else, we had to have big, lumpy pieces of hardware in our offices.”

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Nowadays, Leaf is a major provider of cloud services and consultancy to its varied client list which includes some of our leading private sector firms as well as some in the public sector, notably in local government.

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“We didn’t have iPhones back then and none of us would have thought of holding meetings by Zoom or Teams.”

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Steven Goldblatt is clear that its customer service that has been the lifeblood of the company over the past 20 years. “That’s what this business is all about,” he says. “We have an excellent support team here working day in, day out with our customers ranging from smaller firms with 10 users through to larger organisations with thousands of users. Our support staff sell Leaf and what we do better than anyone or anything.”

\n

Today’s tech agenda for most organisations, he says, is dominated by the issues of cybersecurity
\nand disaster recovery.

\n

“Both have as real fear factor built into them,” says Steven Goldblatt. “And both can impact on businesses of any size and in any sector.

\n

“When it comes the cybersecurity, it’s clear that there are all sorts of threats out there, and that the criminals are always moving, always developing, always trying to stay one step ahead of their victims.

\n

“The old idea that the perpetrators are young people hiding away in darkened bedrooms isn’t a reality any more. Cyber attacks are carried out by sophisticated organised

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crime gangs and they can work in a whole range of different ways.

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“Cyber attacks are about money, of course, but for a lot of companies out there, they are also about reputation and the damage to corporate reputation as the result of an incident,” he adds.

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“Here at Leaf, we’ve worked really hard to develop our expertise in cyber security over the years and we were delighted to win a global award recognising that expertise.”

\n

Leaf was one out of 44,000 global partners chosen by ConnectWise, a Florida-based provider of cybersecurity software solutions and support, as its Cybersecurity Partner of the Year for 2023. Leaf was the only company from the Island of Ireland to receive an award at the group’s annual awards held in Orlando.

\n

“The second threat with a real fear factor is disaster recovery, what happens after a major IT crash or something similar strikes your organisation. It can happen and it does happen,” says Steven Goldblatt.

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Most local organisations will already have IT partners and many will already have considered or bought insurance against cyber attack and major IT crashes. But Goldblatt warns that it isn’t always easy to secure insurance cover these days.

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“There is no doubt that the risk factors are huge,” he says. “The internet has revolutionised how we do everything. But the downside is that it comes with risks and threats.”

\n

Another issue rapidly impacting on many business is AI or artificial intelligence. “In the case of some businesses, AI can become a very useful and productive tool. But, on the other hand, it will impact on jobs and it will impact on people’s livelihoods. We all need to assess how best it can work for us, if at all.”

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Assuming that the next 20 years will deliver the same pace of change as they 20 just past, it’s hard to predict where we’ll be in terms of technology for both business and personal life.

\n

“I wouldn’t want to be the one doing the predicting,” says Steven Goldblatt. “But I’d like to think that Leaf will be around to continue to guide its customers through the maze.”

\n\n
","createdAt":"2024-07-28T14:50:20.305Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Steven Goldblatt, Leaf's Founder and CEO, reflects on the company's 20-year history. Born out of humble beginnings in Steven's garage in Bangor, Leaf has grown to become a leading IT Managed Service Provider in Northern Ireland, with operations across the Island of Ireland.The company, which celebrated its 20th anniversary recently, has seen significant changes in the tech industry over the years. From no cloud services and only hardware-based storage to modern-day cybersecurity threats and disaster recovery concerns, Leaf has adapted to stay ahead. Today, the company provides cloud services and consultancy to clients across various sectors, including private companies and local government.Steven highlights the importance of customer service in driving the business forward, stating that it's what Leaf is all about. The tech agenda for most organizations now centers around cybersecurity and disaster recovery, both posing significant threats with real fear factors. Leaf has worked to develop expertise in cybersecurity, winning a global award recognizing this expertise.","id":"articles:tmznwwy376q464jik0sb","keywords":["Leaf","Goldblatt","Steven","Service","years","business"],"lang":"en","lat":"54.5859836","length":6216,"lon":"-6.9591554","phrases":["Leaf","Steven Goldblatt","years","business","company"],"publishedTime":null,"siteName":"Steven Goldblatt & Leaf - A Pragmatic Approach To Tech - Leaf","title":"Steven Goldblatt & Leaf - A Pragmatic Approach To Tech - Leaf","updatedAt":"2024-07-28T14:50:20.305Z","url":"https://trendingcto.com/read?url=https://leaf-it.com/steven-goldblatt-leaf-pragmatic-approach-tech/"},{"byline":"Emma Joseph","content":"
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Can your content capture the audience’s attention in just 8 seconds? If not, then your business might be in trouble.

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But why only 8 seconds? Maintaining focus has become tough today, with endless information on sites and social media. Our attention span has decreased to just 8 seconds.

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As a content creator, you only have 8 seconds to hook your audience. Moreover, you also need to outperform your competitors who are in the same line for grabbing attention.

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Wondering how?

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Check out our blog post on the best 9 content marketing secrets to keep your audience hooked and increase your site’s traffic.

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Why is Content Marketing Crucial?

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Content marketing is more than just writing blogs and creating videos. It builds a solid and lasting connection with your audience with valuable, engaging content. Here are some reasons why it is crucial to have a content marketing strategy:

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\"Reasons

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Grow Brand Awareness: Creating content that addresses relevant, timely or significant subjects can increase brand recognition for your business. Your organization can familiarize target audiences with itself by participating in conversations already taking place on these issues through blog articles or creating content for social media.

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Create Demand: Content can also generate interest in your goods and services. Write long-form material, such as white papers, ebooks, or blog entries, on subjects that speak to your target consumers and generate a pressing need for your goods or services.

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Drive Organic Visitors: Create a content strategy for search engines to bring more natural traffic to your website. Conduct keyword research to find high-volume keywords relevant to your business and products. Then, carefully integrate these keywords into the pages on your website.

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Generate Sales Leads: One method of using content to create sales leads is to put insightful material behind a form on your website. You can gather data from extremely relevant prospects curious about your company’s viewpoint on significant issues.

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Build Trust: Creating a content strategy can help demonstrate your subject-matter competence. This sets you apart from your rivals and fosters trust among important audiences. Go in-depth on significant subjects via blog posts or other long-form content to showcase your expertise.

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Want Effective Content Marketing Guidance?

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Get in touch with us and experience top content marketing services.

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Capturing your audience’s attention and keeping them engaged is crucial for success. Here are some top content marketing secrets to hook your audience and drive engagement:

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\"9

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1. Build a Good Website

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Your website serves as your brand’s online storefront and is the initial point of contact with potential customers. They choose to click away or continue exploring and you only have a few seconds to grab their interest.

\n

So, how can one make a website that draws users in and keeps them interested? Consider it a friendly, educational, and eye-catching dialogue to captivate your audience. Here are some important factors to think about for creating digital marketing content:

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    \n
  • Catchy Titles
    • \n
  • High-quality Images
    • \n
  • Clear Call-to-Action
    • \n
  • Readable and Useful Content
    • \n
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Learn from well-performing websites such as Uber.

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\"Content

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The Uber USP is in the left corner box. The box contains pick-up and drop-off information with the CTA “See prices.” The image on the homepage aligns with the brand statement. The website has a lot of space, facilitating scrolling and increasing conversions.

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2. Actual Magic is in the Heading

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A compelling headline is essential for drawing readers in, regardless of the platform you are writing for. Effective headlines stimulate social media sharing, summarize the content and optimize for search engines.

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The headline of a blog article is what readers see right away. Traffic and engagement metrics, such as clicks and time on the page, determine the blogs’ success.

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A compelling title is one of the most effective content marketing service strategies to get a reader to pause and click. It also helps establish the tone of voice and is the foundation for creating a well-optimized blog post.

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Buffer is an excellent example of a business that creates captivating headlines that get a lot of clicks. This social media management platform provides tools for planning and evaluating social media content ideas. Articles about engagement tactics and social media marketing strategy are available on the Buffer’s website. Here is a blog post for your understanding:

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\"content

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Take note of how the headline grabs your interest by promising to provide first-hand knowledge for professionals. The reading material promises guidance and attracts the reader without giving too much away.

\n

3. Add Some Curiosity Marketing Lines

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Curiosity drives us to explore, to learn, to discover. Curiosity can be the key to keeping your audience hooked with content promotion services. Instead of simply stating facts, use intriguing language, questions or hints to grab their interest and make them want to keep reading. Think of it like a captivating story – you want to leave your readers wanting more.

\n

Imagine you’re writing a blog post about the benefits of using natural skincare products. Instead of a straightforward title like “The Benefits of Natural Skincare”, consider a more intriguing option like:

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“Is Your Skincare Routine Sabotaging Your Skin? Discover the Secrets of Natural Ingredients.”

\n

This title is far better than simply telling the benefits. How? Let’s find out:

\n
    \n
  • It challenges the reader’s current skincare routine and sparks curiosity about the benefits of natural ingredients.
    • \n
  • The phrase “discover the secrets” suggests there’s more to learn and a hidden world of knowledge to be uncovered.
    • \n
\n

You can incorporate curiosity in your writing by avoiding revealing everything upfront and leaving something to the audience’s imagination. Also, use some thought-provoking questions to engage readers and reflect on their beliefs.

\n

4. Throw a Powerful Emotions Trap

\n

A powerful emotional trap appeals to feelings above logic. It encourages people to follow their emotions rather than their heads. It evokes a powerful feeling in viewers, encouraging them to interact with the content more fully.

\n

You may be setting off a range of emotions in others, eliciting diverse reactions. They will share your material if it makes them happy, which helps raise your brand’s visibility.

\n

On the other hand, if it makes them angry or afraid, they will naturally search for something dependable, comfortable, and familiar, strengthening their loyalty to a product or brand. However, you will always produce experiences that stay in the minds of your viewers.

\n

For instance, many companies use tricky advertising techniques to reach their customers. Coke’s “Share A Coke—Share a feeling” and “Hug me” campaigns are prime examples of how soft drink companies play on their customers’ emotions.

\n

\"Content

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For years, companies like Coca-Cola have used tactics such as cartoons, characters, and many other things to appeal to children. These campaigns use the same concept, except they target a broader demographic: children, young adults, and adults.

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Also Read: A-Z of Digital Marketing

\n

5. Use Fear of Missing Out

\n

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a potent psychological trigger that can motivate people to take action. An uneasy feeling appears when we think we will miss something interesting or worthwhile.

\n

Using FOMO intelligently in digital marketing content can instill a sense of urgency in your audience and inspire them to act. The idea is to give them the impression that they have a finite window of time to act or risk missing it.

\n

For example, retail websites like Myntra, H&M, Nykka and others use fear of missing out on ongoing sales to encourage customers to act quickly.

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\"content

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Upgrade Your Content Marketing Strategy

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Contact us and grow your audience with our content marketing tips.

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\n
\n

6. Use Your Content to Tell a Story

\n

Storytelling is a useful method in content marketing trends that turns mundane facts into gripping tales that draw in and involve your audience. By narrating a story through your content marketing in digital marketing, you engage your audience emotionally and increase the relatability and retention of your message.

\n

For example, a brand that sells environmentally friendly goods may narrate a story about a customer who transitioned to its goods and witnessed favorable transformations in their way of life rather than just listing its features.

\n

The story may include images depicting the customer’s journey, from their early difficulties with conventional items to their discovery of eco-friendly alternatives and the advantages they enjoyed.

\n

7. Surprise Hook for Your Audience

\n

Surprising your audience helps keep them engaged and makes your content consulting and strategy more memorable. A surprise element can provide a thrilling or intriguing moment that distinguishes your material from the competition.

\n

It can be accomplished by surprising information, inventive storytelling techniques or original viewpoints on often-discussed subjects. It is also essential to ensure the surprise feels genuine and valuable rather than forced or gimmicky.

\n

Example –

\n

People love surprising, amazing facts. Here is an example of 75M companies that will be retiring by 2030 and you can plan to buy them. The image below shows the writer trying to hook readers quickly. They provided information in two sentences and included statistics as well.

\n

\"content

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8. Follow a Trend

\n

You can use a hot topic or viral trend to draw attention to your product, even if it’s not fully related to your business. You can draw visitors interested in the trending topic and start conversations on your website or social media pages by expressing your perspective. Using social media management tools and mastering marketing strategy to plan trending articles can help you grow your following and improve website traffic.

\n

The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example of how the crisis impacted every business worldwide. Even companies not directly in the healthcare industry were forced to modify their business ways and voice their opinions regarding the crisis.

\n

Similarly, brands like Nike encouraged people to work out at home, which promoted social alienation and isolation. They produced a motivational video emphasizing the benefits of isolation.

\n

\"content

\n

They created the “You Can’t Stop Us” ad, featuring pictures and videos of people exercising in various parts of their houses—kitchens, bathrooms, basements, and bedrooms. The ad includes lesser-known and unknown fitness enthusiasts and a few well-known personalities, such as basketball player LeBron James and volleyball player Sara Hughes.

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Also Read: Digital Marketing for Startups

\n

9. Add Value to Your Customer’s Experience

\n

If you want to keep your visitors’ interest, you need to provide excellent and engaging information. Provide them with something useful immediately, like a checklist, a blog post with instructions, a sample video, or a tutorial. It must be accessible to users without requiring them to register or create an account.

\n

As your audience’s needs develop and change, you may wish to update or replace your free material. Monitor consumer feedback across all communication channels to identify any changes in preferences early and take decisive action. If your audience chooses to do business with you, your free content should reassure them that you will fulfill your commitments.

\n

\"content

\n

Take a look at the main page of the calorie counter and healthy living software MyFitnessPal. You can review the nutritional facts of any food before you register and begin monitoring your caloric intake. That’s how you get access to MyFitnessPal’s food database.

\n
\n
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Transform Your Content Marketing Game!

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Partner with us to engage your audience with our content strategies.

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Final Words

\n

All in all, keeping your audience hooked is the ultimate goal of digital marketing services.

\n

By understanding your audience deeply, calculating performance marketing and analytics, crafting compelling narratives, leveraging multimedia, and staying consistent, you can transform passive readers into engaged followers.

\n

Remember, the key lies in delivering value and fostering genuine connections. Implement the above-mentioned content promotion services secrets and watch your content not just capture attention but also sustain it.

\n

Moreover, you can hire content writers and SMO experts to create lasting engagement and growth.

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Related Stories

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T12:43:22.446Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Discover 9 content marketing secrets that will keep your audience hooked and boost your engagement rates. Learn how to captivate your readers now!","id":"articles:opprc4tdxz4109zpxb51","keywords":["content","audience","website","blog","strategy"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"-31.7613365","length":12541,"lon":"-71.3187697","phrases":["content","audience","website","blog post","content strategy"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-22T05:04:02Z","siteName":"PixelCrayons","title":"9 Content Marketing Secrets to Keep Your Audience Engaged","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T12:43:22.446Z","url":"https://www.pixelcrayons.com/blog/digital-marketing/content-marketing-secrets-audience-engaged/"},{"byline":"Mahnoor Sheikh","content":"
\n \n \n

Every minute, 500+ hours of video hit YouTube. That’s a lot of content to compete with. But growing your YouTube channel isn’t just about creating great content—it’s about getting that content seen.

\n

While there are dozens of factors that affect your visibility on the platform, the most important one is the number of views you get on your videos and channel.

\n

In this article, we’ll explore proven tactics to grow your YouTube channel and maximize your viewership. Whether you’re just getting started or want to see your numbers tick further upward, these tips will help you achieve your YouTube marketing goals.

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Bonus: We created a template that will help you develop a channel and content strategy that drives engagement organically. Download it and start optimizing your YouTube strategy today.

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Get the template

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How to grow your YouTube channel in 2024

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Growing a YouTube channel today requires a shift in focus. While your subscriber count still matters, the real growth comes from the performance of your individual videos.

\n

When your videos consistently attract views and engagement, YouTube’s algorithm takes notice. It starts to see your content as valuable and pushes it to more viewers. This creates a powerful cycle: more views = more engagement = more visibility = channel growth.

\n

That’s why creating videos that people want to watch and interact with is the foundation of a successful YouTube strategy. Just as important is to promote your videos effectively so they get the love and attention they deserve.

\n

But before we get into the ways to drive more views on your videos, let’s clarify what counts as a view.

\n

What counts as a view on YouTube?

\n

Views refer to the total number of times your video or channel has been watched. Each time a viewer plays a video and watches it for at least 30 seconds, YouTube counts it as a view. If someone watches your video several times, each time is counted as a new view.

\n

This applies across all devices whether a person watches via smartphone or desktop. It also applies to embeds and videos shared on other social media platforms like Facebook.

\n

Additionally, when someone visits your YouTube channel, you receive a view. If you use YouTube Analytics, you can go to the Overview tab to see how many views your YouTube channel received over the last 28 days.

\n

Why are views important on YouTube?

\n

Views are critical to the growth of your YouTube channel. When your videos get more views, YouTube’s algorithm recommends your content to more people. This increased visibility often leads to more subscribers and faster channel growth.

\n

Views are also part of how you can make money on YouTube. More views mean more ad revenue and better opportunities for brand partnerships. And the more you earn on the platform, the more you’re able to reinvest in your channel and create even better content.

\n

Finally, views help expand your brand’s reach. In fact, each view is your chance to connect with a potential customer or fan. Over time, higher view counts can boost brand awareness and build brand affinity, helping you reach larger business goals in the long run.

\n

How to grow your YouTube channel: 18 tips and tricks

\n

This article covers 18 tips to grow your YouTube channel and attract more views. In the video below, Jamia walks through 10 ways to promote your YouTube channel for more views and subscribers.

\n

\n

1. Write engaging, must-see titles

\n

YouTube marketing is all about presentation.

\n

Titles are make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” or “meh?”

\n

The key to crafting killer titles is grabbing your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait headlines. People crave content that’s entertaining, and they likewise want to know what your video is about from the word “go.”

\n

For example, you can take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. Such videos often rely on listicles, question-based titles or hyperbole (“insane,” “…of all time”) to rack up views.

\n
\"Four
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Athlean X’s fitness-based videos are another good example. The channel’s content manages to sneak in relevant keywords in its titles while also coming across as conversational.

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\"Five
\n

“Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles are always a safe bet, too. Food channel Tasty uses click-worthy titles like this:

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\"Tasty
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The takeaway here is that you should definitely spend time mulling over engaging titles rather than sticking with the first idea that pops into your head.

\n

In terms of specifics, many have observed that the optimal YouTube video title length should be around 70 characters. Meanwhile, tools such as CoSchedule’s headline analyzer recommends 55 characters for an engaging headline. CoSchedule’s tool isn’t specifically meant for video titles but is awesome for brainstorming YouTube-friendly titles to help promote your YouTube channel.

\n

2. Optimize your videos for visibility

\n

Here’s some food for thought: YouTube videos show up in 70% of the top 100 Google search results.

\n

Heck, see for yourself. Any given product or “how-to” query on Google will return something from YouTube.

\n
\"Google
\n

In fact, YouTube results sometimes even pop up before traditional blog posts or websites. Listen: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. Just like people search for products and need problems solved via Google, the same rings true on YouTube.

\n

Think of your YouTube videos like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags and so on.

\n

In order to increase your chances of showing up, you’ll want to follow some of the best practices for YouTube SEO:

\n\n

Just like with SEO for your website, don’t keyword stuff. Use keywords when it makes sense, not just for the sake of having them.

\n

3. Figure out what your audience wants

\n

With any type of content you produce, you want to make sure it’s aligned with what your audience wants. Whether you’re writing a blog post or creating a video, start by getting to know your audience and what type of content they want to see from you.

\n

If you’re just starting to promote your YouTube channel, take a look at your competitors or other video creators in your industry. Look at which of their videos get the most views and engagement. This will give you an idea of what topics your audience wants to learn about and what style of videos they prefer.

\n

Use Sprout Social’s competitive analysis tools to keep an eye on your competitors. Track key YouTube metrics like views, engagement and followers, and set realistic benchmarks for your own performance. You can also use Sprout’s listening features to monitor keywords and mentions as well as track audience sentiment around specific topics and brands.

\n
\"Screenshot
\n

Another solution is to look at your YouTube Analytics if you’ve already uploaded videos. YouTube gives you detailed information on audience demographics, location, engagement and other helpful stats. You can also take your strategy a step further with YouTube reporting in Sprout Social and see how your content stacks up to other social videos you’ve produced.

\n
\"Sprout
\n

Want to better understand your YouTube metrics? Download our video metrics cheat sheet to learn the most important metrics to track and get ideas for video content tailored to your marketing goals.

\n

Download our Social Media Video Metrics Cheat Sheet

\n

4. Increase engagement by asking viewers to comment and like

\n

Sometimes simply asking for engagement is the best way to get your videos noticed, especially when you consider the immediacy and connection that video content can create.

\n

Not everyone who enjoys one of your videos is going to remember to drop a like or become your subscriber, so it’s common to put these reminders in the description or in the video itself.

\n

Especially if you’re an up-and-coming channel, there’s no shame in asking for some love directly. In fact, asking visitors a question to answer in the comments suggestion or to check out another video are perfect ways to keep the engagement rolling. You can likewise link to other videos or drop an external link to your site to serve as a sort of CTA.

\n

5. Schedule live streams for faster growth

\n

Live video is one of the biggest social media trends and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With apps like Facebook, Periscope and Instagram making it easier than ever to stream live video, more and more brands are getting on board.

\n

YouTube has been offering live videos for years but has only recently started picking up steam. You can take a look at some popular YouTube Live videos to get a sense of how other brands are using the platform.

\n
\"The
\n

Some examples of how you can use YouTube Live are:

\n\n

Don’t worry if your streams don’t go as smoothly as you’d like. Part of the fun (and risk) of live video is you never know what’s going to happen. The unpolished, organic nature of live video is exactly what makes it compelling. For more tips on how to get started with YouTube Live, check out Google’s introduction to live streaming.

\n

6. Maximize views with YouTube Shorts

\n

Shorts tap into that addictive, quick-hit vertical video format that’s dominating social media (think TikTok and Instagram Reels.) They’re perfect for capturing the attention of viewers who are used to scrolling through endless streams of videos on their phones.

\n

YouTube Shorts aren’t just a trend—they’re powerful tools for growing on the platform. Here’s how you can integrate Shorts into your brand’s content mix:

\n\n

Here’s how we do it at Sprout Social:

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\"An
\n

Source: YouTube

\n

You can also repurpose your longer videos into bite-sized Shorts content to increase reach and brand awareness. Add a CTA for viewers to watch the full video on your channel to drive more views there as well.

\n

7. Engage with the YouTube community

\n

Although you might not think of YouTube as a social network per se, the platform does represent a thriving community where users are engaging via content, profiles, “likes” and comments.

\n

Sounds pretty “social” if you ask us.

\n

As noted earlier, any sort of interaction with your viewers is seen as a positive signal to YouTube. If nothing else, engaging with your subscribers can help you foster a stronger connection with your audience. “Liking” comments only takes a few seconds, as does pinning a top comment as a sort of personal note to your subscribers.

\n

For example, music channel Artists Of Morality regularly likes and responds to comments on its recent uploads. The channel’s creator regularly engages with subscribers to show appreciation and answer questions, too. She even posts a call to action or challenges in her pinned comments like in the one below:

\n
\"Artists
\n

Just as you’d respond to comments and engage with your followers on any other social network, YouTube is no different.

\n

8. Customize your thumbnails

\n

One of the simplest yet effective tactics to promote your YouTube channel is creating custom thumbnails. Think of your title and thumbnail as a sort of one-two punch to grab a viewer’s attention.

\n

By default, YouTube snags a screenshot from any given video and uses it for the thumbnail. Unfortunately, sometimes the image it grabs will be a blurry shot of you adjusting the camera or a transition.

\n

Not a good look, right?

\n

Creating thumbnails yourself not only makes your videos look more appealing at a glance but also signals a certain sense of professionalism.

\n

Thumbnails don’t have to be rocket science, either. You can even create a template with a particular font and style to make it more consistent and on-brand. This is made especially easy with the help of image creation tools such as Canva. Here’s a good example from Binging with Babish:

\n
\"Five
\n

If you’re looking for simple social media templates to get started with Creator Studio, check out our free YouTube banners that you can download today!

\n

9. Cross-promote your own videos on YouTube

\n

Chances are you’re covering similar topics on YouTube that overlap with each other. To squeeze more out of your older content, make a point to cross-promote your videos when it makes sense.

\n

For example, you can put links in the description of a video and ask viewers to check them out as a kind of call-to-action. Some people might be disappointed that YouTube removed its annotation system. But linking in your description encourages viewers to watch your videos all the way throughout without clicking away.

\n
\"Sprout's
\n

10. Target Google search results

\n

As noted, YouTube is totally killing it when it comes to SEO.

\n

And while you shouldn’t totally create content for search engines versus people, you should promote your YouTube channel with SEO in mind.

\n

Specifically, product reviews, how-to’s and long-form (10+ minutes) videos covering keyword-specific topics tend to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you’re strapped for content ideas or want to capitalize on a trending buzzword in your industry, consider how you can do so through your YouTube channel marketing.

\n
\"Google
\n

11. Run a contest or giveaway

\n

If there’s one thing YouTube users love, it’s a giveaway. Host a YouTube contest or giveaway to encourage people to subscribe to your channel and engage.

\n

To keep your contests simple, have people like your video, leave a comment and subscribe to your channel to enter.

\n

Follow some of our best practices for running any social media contest:

\n\n

Be careful with hosting frequent YouTube contests, though. You want to make sure you’re getting results from your efforts: otherwise, you’ll end up wasting time, money and resources. After doing one contest, wait a while and look at your subscriber drop-off rate and engagement numbers. If you aren’t bringing in engaged subscribers, you could just be attracting people who want free prizes.

\n

12. Encourage viewers to follow your series

\n

A smart way to promote your YouTube channel is by creating a specific video series that covers a recurring theme or topic. For example, Sprout Social’s YouTube channel has a variety of different series that make up our YouTube presence, like our “Always On” videos.

\n
\"Sprout's
\n

Series are a win-win for creators and viewers alike. For creators, you hold yourself accountable for creating fresh YouTube content and don’t have to rack your brain for ideas. For your audience, they have something to look forward to and likewise a reason to keep returning to your channel.

\n

13. Embed your YouTube videos

\n

Some of the best places to promote your YouTube channel are beyond YouTube itself.

\n

Case in point, video content is proven to improve conversion rates and lower bounce rate on-site. If you want visitors to stick around a product page or blog post longer, embed a video (like we did below).

\n

\n

Remember: any opportunity you have to funnel your on site (or social!) traffic to YouTube is a plus.

\n

14. Create playlists to organize your YouTube content

\n

The more videos you create, the more difficult it becomes for people to navigate through your channel.

\n

That’s why playlists are so important. Not only do playlists allow you to group your videos into categories to organize your channel, but also appeal to your viewers’ desire to binge.

\n

For example, Beardbrand’s grooming channel has amassed hundreds of videos covering tons of topics. The channel’s various playlists help guide subscribers to relevant content without having to dig for it.

\n
\"15
\n

15. Collaborate with other creators and brands

\n

A tactic some of the biggest YouTube stars used to grow their following is collaborating with other users. Each collaboration gives you exposure to a new audience. And the best part is those new viewers are more likely to subscribe to your channel since you’re working with a content creator they already know, like and trust.

\n

The key to a successful YouTube collaboration is finding the right partner. You want to collaborate with content creators that share similar passions with your brand so your video comes off as authentic. This now-classic collaboration between BuzzFeed and Purina is a prime example of a thoughtful collaboration that doesn’t feel overly promotional.

\n

\n

Use a tool like Tagger to easily find top influencers in your niche. Its smart Affinity Engine digs deep into audience interests and behaviors, not just surface-level stats. This means you can pinpoint creators whose followers truly align with your brand’s vibe and campaign goals.

\n
\"A
\n

16. Run a paid YouTube ad campaign

\n

With marketing in general becoming more pay-to-play, you always have the option to get more visibility through paid YouTube ads. YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to choose from:

\n\n

For your ad creatives, you can either use an existing video or create something new for a specific campaign. The advantage of using an existing video is you can choose a clip you know has been effective in the past. If a video has already gotten a lot of views and engagement organically, running paid ads can amplify your results.

\n

On the flip side, creating a new video for your ads will allow you to create a more targeted piece of content that you have more control over. For instance, you can create an ad with a specific call-to-action at the end to direct viewers to a landing page or another video. You can learn more about YouTube’s video ad formats here.

\n

17. Regularly publish your YouTube content to social media

\n

It’s no secret that video content crushes it on social media in terms of engagement and performance.

\n

As a result, you should regularly promote your YouTube channel to your social followers to encourage them to become subscribers. As soon as a video goes live, make a point to let your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn know about it. You can likewise create snippets or previews for each social platform that also link to your latest production.

\n

With the help of Sprout Social, you can schedule your content and cross-promote it without having to jump from platform to platform. Features such as ViralPost® can also help ensure that your content goes live based on when your social audiences are engaged.

\n
\"Sprout
\n

18. Incorporate pre-production best practices

\n

Put your producer hat on and incorporate some pre-production best practices. There’s a lot that goes into creating video before the camera records, but using these methods will streamline your content production.

\n\n

Streamlining your content production means you’ll likely be able to produce more video because your process is a well-oiled machine versus one that is always in need of repair. Having a set process will also help ensure each video is striking the right cord because you’ve taken the time to think through important visual details and logistics that will add value to viewers.

\n

Since you’ll be able to create more relevant videos, you’ll get more views and grow your YouTube channel over time.

\n

4 resources for growing your YouTube channel

\n

In addition to the 17 tips above, make sure you’re up on all things YouTube. Maximize your efforts with these guides:

\n\n

And with that, we wrap up our guide to how to get more views on YouTube!

\n

How do you promote your YouTube channel?

\n

Growing a YouTube audience doesn’t happen by accident. And yes, it can certainly feel like a grind if your space is crowded with competition.

\n

That’s exactly why it pays to have a variety of promotional tactics in your back pocket. Although some of the tips above require more effort than others, each one can help you get more eyes on your channel and more subscribers as a result.

\n

If you’re ready to ramp up your YouTube presence and start seeing real business results, Sprout Social’s YouTube integration has capabilities to help you seamlessly schedule and publish content. Plus, with our integration, you can dive even deeper into analytics to improve your video strategy.

\n\n
","createdAt":"2024-07-26T10:56:16.060Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Want to learn how to get more views on YouTube? Our guide has 18 best practices to grow your YouTube channel and get more eyes on your video.","id":"articles:hzf7c4kpl0oqdr5lhai0","keywords":["video","YouTube","channel","content","views"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"55.0345019","length":22982,"lon":"-162.6050458","phrases":["video","YouTube","YouTube channel","views","content"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-24T14:00:34Z","siteName":"Sprout Social","title":"How to get more views on YouTube: 18 ways to promote your channel","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T10:56:16.060Z","url":"https://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-promote-your-youtube-channel/"},{"byline":"Dan Lohrmann","content":"

\n \n This first half of 2024 has been another record year for ransomware attack costs with mounting impacts globally to customers, services and the bottom line. For example, consider these headlines:

The HIPAA Journal — Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack Cost Predicted to Rise to at Least $2.3B in 2024: “UnitedHealth Group (UHG) has provided an update on the cost of its response to the February 2024 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare. The total cost of the response is now predicted to be between $2.3 billion and $2.45 billion this year, more than $1 billion more than previously reported. UHG has already paid almost $2 billion dealing with the response to the ransomware attack, which caused massive disruption to providers across the country due to prolonged outages.”

Spiceworks — CDK Global Outage Ended After Reportedly Paying $25 Million Ransom: “The cyberattack started on June 19, 2024, with a breach of CDK Global’s systems. This resulted in software outages that paralyzed automobile dealerships nationwide. CDK Global scrambled to restore its systems following the attack, which took around two weeks.


“Consequently, auto dealerships were forced to work with manual alternative processes, which resulted in major delays in sales and services, accounting for significant financial losses. According to research by the Anderson Economic Group, auto dealerships faced over a billion dollars in losses throughout the outage.”

Government Technology — Ransomware Attack Hits Florida Department of Health: “A cyber attack on the Florida Department of Health has reportedly disrupted the state’s ability to issue death and birth certificates, and it might also put sensitive patient data at risk. In a post on the dark web, ransomware group RansomHub claimed to have stolen 100 gigabytes of data, which it threatened to publish by Friday if not paid, the Tampa Bay Times reported. But Florida law prohibits state and local governments from paying ransomware extortion, and not all cyber criminals keep their promises when paid.”

HOT-OFF-THE-PRESS RANSOMWARE REPORTS

Sophos recently issued their annual report: The State of Ransomware in Critical Infrastructure 2024. It contains findings from an independent, vendor-agnostic survey of 5,000 leaders responsible for IT/cybersecurity across 14 countries, conducted in January and February 2024.

Here is their methodology and key findings:

I also found this excerpt to be very interesting: “86 energy, oil/gas and utilities respondents whose organizations paid the ransom shared the actual sum paid.

“Ransom payments vary considerably by industry. IT, technology and telecoms reported the lowest median ransom payment ($300,000), followed by distribution and transport ($440,000). At the other end of the scale, both lower education and central/federal government paid median ransoms of $6.6M.”

Meanwhile, BlackFog released their monthly ransomware report for June, with these highlights:

“In June we saw an easing of the overall threat numbers for the year with 45 total attacks. Historically still very high, it represents the second highest June on record. It demonstrates just how normalized these attacks have become. Despite the lower number of attacks for the month, the ratio of unreported attacks remains high at 774%, reflecting the sheer volume of attacks that still go unreported.

“Healthcare takes center stage this month with and increase of 25% from May, followed by government and technology with increases of 23% and 21% respectively. Unlike most months the education sector took a well earned break from the record books with only an 8% increase.

“In terms of variants, Play was the biggest mover this month with a 33% increase in attacks followed by Black Basta and Medusa with 14% and 13% respectively. This follows the large increase in unreported attacks from Medusa last month, typically a leading indicator of disclosed attacks in subsequent months. While Lockbit is still the leading variant by a significant margin, we only saw a modest gain of 3% this month.

“Finally, data exfiltration is now involved in 93% of all attacks with PowerShell the leading vector at 62%, an 11% gain from the previous month. China and Russia also continue to dominate as the leading destinations for exfiltrated data with 15% and 6% respectively.”

One more report to share. ReliaQuest issued this blog on Q2 2024 ransomware insights. Here are some highlights:

Here’s a 2024 RSA Conference session on the ransomware threat landscape with sources:

\n

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n

\n

In May, 2023, after a slower 2022 regarding ransomware, I wrote: “Are We Seeing Fewer Ransomware Attacks? Not Now!” Those trends seem to be continuing in 2024.

Also, as I travel the country and give presentations flowing from my book Cyber Mayday and the Day After, which contains true stories about ransomware through the eyes of C-Suite executives, the interest and even fascination with the topic continues to grow.

We need to keep going back to many of the same themes that I have written about in the past (that led to the book), because these cyber problems are continuing to accelerate, despite the best efforts of many. In some circumstances and fields, new staff are not familiar with the issues and solutions available.  

This article from Healthcare IT Today outlines suggestions for health-care organizations after the Ascension Healthcare ransomware attack.

I would also be remiss if I failed to mention the unprecedented global impact of the Crowdstrike software update issues, which are crippling businesses, airports and governments globally as I write this blog on Friday, July 19. While that situation is evolving rapidly, this incident is a reminder of the scale of what is at stake with technology — even if this was not a cyber attack. There will be many articles written on the topic, but regardless of your viewpoint, the world’s attention is once again directed at cybersecurity. (Even if, in this case, it is a cyber company trying to stop malware making a mistake.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Wired magazine recently covered this ransomware topic, and their headline kind of says it all: “Ransomware Is ‘More Brutal’ Than Ever in 2024.”\n \n

","createdAt":"2024-07-26T10:55:26.550Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Several recently released cyber industry reports show steady or growing ransomware numbers in 2024 so far, and impacts on business and government have never been greater.","id":"articles:y3ej5qzblcxipjkuc4lq","keywords":["ransomware","attack","Group","organizations","month"],"lang":"en","lat":"27.7567667","length":9268,"lon":"-81.4639835","phrases":["attack","Ransomware","month","increase","organizations"],"publishedTime":"July 21, 2024","siteName":"GovTech","title":"Ransomware Remains a ‘Brutal’ Threat in 2024","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T10:55:26.550Z","url":"https://www.govtech.com/blogs/lohrmann-on-cybersecurity/ransomware-remains-a-brutal-threat-in-2024"},{"byline":"Danny Goodwin","content":"

Search Engine Land » SEO » OpenAI starts testing SearchGPT prototype, here’s what it looks like

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OpenAI today announced SearchGPT, its long-awaited search product.

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • SearchGPT is a “temporary prototype” and limited to just 10,000 users and publishers at launch.
    • \n\n\n\n
  • OpenAI plans to integrate the “best” parts of the new search features directly within ChatGPT in the future.
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

How SearchGPT works. SearchGPT responds to queries using its AI models plus information pulled from the web. It will include links to relevant sources, OpenAI explained in a blog post.

\n\n\n\n

OpenAI is teasing SearchGPT like this:

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • “A prototype of new search features, using the strength of our AI models to give you fast answers with clear and relevant sources.”
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

What SearchGPT looks like. It looks fairly similar to what it has been doing since the arrival of GPT-4o – what is known as “browse mode.” OpenAI shared some videos of the “faster and easier” SearchGPT experience:

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • It starts with a search box asking you, “What are you searching for.”
    • \n\n\n\n
  • After entering your query, SearchGPT will provide an answer that includes links to sources within the text answers and shows sources beneath the answer.
    • \n\n\n\n
  • Additional results will be shown in a sidebar.
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

Here’s a search for [music festivals in Boone, NC in August 2024]:

\n\n\n
\n
\"SearchGPT
\n\n\n

Here’s a search for [best tomatoes to grow in Minnesota]:

\n\n\n\n
\"Searchgpt
\n\n\n\n
\"Searchgpt
\n\n\n\n

For publishers. OpenAI is “launching a way for publishers to manage how they appear in SearchGPT, so publishers have more choices. Importantly, SearchGPT is about search and is separate from training OpenAI’s generative AI foundation models. Sites can be surfaced in search results even if they opt out of generative AI training.”

\n\n\n\n

Coming soon. OpenAI said it plans to improve searches related to local information and commerce.

\n\n\n\n

Waitlist. You can join the SearchGPT waitlist here.

\n\n\n\n

The OpenAI search story so far. We first heard about OpenAI’s plan for a search product in February. Rumors heated up in May – but OpenAI didn’t launch its search product (GPT-4o launched instead). Then, earlier this month, The Atlantic CEO confirmed that OpenAI was “going to build a search product.”

\n\n\n\n

Why we care. The next Google won’t do what Google does, as ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt once said. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made it clear he has no interest in copying Google Search – but creating a new user-friendly search that combines LLMs and search without drowning you in advertising. While it’s too early to know whether ChatGPT will become a Google Search killer, this is clearly a story we’ll be watching closely over the coming months and years.

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About the author

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\"Danny

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\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDanny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo - SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.

Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.\t\t\t\t\t

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T09:40:20.071Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1501-01-01T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"SearchGPT is a temporary prototype. ChatGPT plans to integrate search features from SearchGPT into ChatGPT in the future.","id":"articles:yr2lz8xpipsb0galax80","keywords":["search","OpenAI","SearchGPT","Engine","Land","product","publishers","sources","answers","Google","Editor"],"lang":"en","lat":"55.0345019","length":3793,"lon":"-162.6050458","phrases":["search","SearchGPT","OpenAI","search product","Engine Land"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-25T18:42:29Z","siteName":"Search Engine Land","title":"OpenAI starts testing SearchGPT prototype, here's what it looks like","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T09:40:20.071Z","url":"https://searchengineland.com/searchgpt-launches-444399"},{"byline":"Danny Goodwin","content":"

Search Engine Land » SEO » OpenAI starts testing SearchGPT prototype, here’s what it looks like

\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n

OpenAI today announced SearchGPT, its long-awaited search product.

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • SearchGPT is a “temporary prototype” and limited to just 10,000 users and publishers at launch.
    • \n\n\n\n
  • OpenAI plans to integrate the “best” parts of the new search features directly within ChatGPT in the future.
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

How SearchGPT works. SearchGPT responds to queries using its AI models plus information pulled from the web. It will include links to relevant sources, OpenAI explained in a blog post.

\n\n\n\n

OpenAI is teasing SearchGPT like this:

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • “A prototype of new search features, using the strength of our AI models to give you fast answers with clear and relevant sources.”
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

What SearchGPT looks like. It looks fairly similar to what it has been doing since the arrival of GPT-4o – what is known as “browse mode.” OpenAI shared some videos of the “faster and easier” SearchGPT experience:

\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • It starts with a search box asking you, “What are you searching for.”
    • \n\n\n\n
  • After entering your query, SearchGPT will provide an answer that includes links to sources within the text answers and shows sources beneath the answer.
    • \n\n\n\n
  • Additional results will be shown in a sidebar.
    • \n
\n\n\n\n

Here’s a search for [music festivals in Boone, NC in August 2024]:

\n\n\n
\n
\"SearchGPT
\n\n\n

Here’s a search for [best tomatoes to grow in Minnesota]:

\n\n\n\n
\"Searchgpt
\n\n\n\n
\"Searchgpt
\n\n\n\n

For publishers. OpenAI is “launching a way for publishers to manage how they appear in SearchGPT, so publishers have more choices. Importantly, SearchGPT is about search and is separate from training OpenAI’s generative AI foundation models. Sites can be surfaced in search results even if they opt out of generative AI training.”

\n\n\n\n

Coming soon. OpenAI said it plans to improve searches related to local information and commerce.

\n\n\n\n

Waitlist. You can join the SearchGPT waitlist here.

\n\n\n\n

The OpenAI search story so far. We first heard about OpenAI’s plan for a search product in February. Rumors heated up in May – but OpenAI didn’t launch its search product (GPT-4o launched instead). Then, earlier this month, The Atlantic CEO confirmed that OpenAI was “going to build a search product.”

\n\n\n\n

Why we care. The next Google won’t do what Google does, as ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt once said. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made it clear he has no interest in copying Google Search – but creating a new user-friendly search that combines LLMs and search without drowning you in advertising. While it’s too early to know whether ChatGPT will become a Google Search killer, this is clearly a story we’ll be watching closely over the coming months and years.

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About the author

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\"Danny

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\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDanny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo - SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.

Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.\t\t\t\t\t

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T09:40:14.274Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1501-01-01T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"SearchGPT is a temporary prototype. ChatGPT plans to integrate search features from SearchGPT into ChatGPT in the future.","id":"articles:6pmks2qv2aqfwket6o1m","keywords":["search","OpenAI","SearchGPT","Engine","Land","product","publishers","sources","answers","Google","Editor"],"lang":"en","lat":"55.0345019","length":3793,"lon":"-162.6050458","phrases":["search","SearchGPT","OpenAI","search product","Engine Land"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-25T18:42:29Z","siteName":"Search Engine Land","title":"OpenAI starts testing SearchGPT prototype, here's what it looks like","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T09:40:14.274Z","url":"https://searchengineland.com/searchgpt-launches-444399"},{"byline":"Chandra DiGregorio","content":"
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\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\tWhen it comes to solving business problems, data scientists understand how crucial it is to formulate the right business question. While it’s easy to get sidetracked by intriguing data trails, the most effective questions are those that align closely with organizational priorities, provide actionable insights, and guide strategic decisions. Here are the key principles for crafting high-impact […]

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When it comes to solving business problems, data scientists understand how crucial it is to formulate the right business question. While it’s easy to get sidetracked by intriguing data trails, the most effective questions are those that align closely with organizational priorities, provide actionable insights, and guide strategic decisions. Here are the key principles for crafting high-impact business questions when planning your next research initiative or analytics project.

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Crafting a Great Business Question

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A great business question drives impactful and actionable insights by homing in on the right priorities. To achieve this, the question must be clearly linked to the company’s overarching objectives, ensuring that the initiative aligns with strategic goals and adds value. 

The question should be actionable, meaning that once an answer is obtained, it should lead to a defined and implementable course of action. Finally, feasibility is crucial; the question should be grounded in available data, technology, and resources, ensuring that the initiative is ambitious yet achievable. 

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Match Questions to the Right Data

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Once you have a well-defined question, the next step is to identify the data required to answer it. This involves understanding what data is available, where it is located, and how it can be accessed. For instance, if your question relates to customer retention, you may need data from customer surveys, purchase history, and engagement metrics. Ensure that the data you choose is relevant, high-quality, and up-to-date.

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Apply the Right Analytical Methods

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Applying the right analytical methods is also essential for deriving meaningful insights from your data. Different questions require different analytical approaches. For example, if you are looking to understand trends over time, a time series analysis might be appropriate. If you want to quantify the impact of some action that was taken, such as a change to your product, your options may range from ANCOVA to causal impact and beyond. Ensure that the methods you choose are suitable for the type of data you have and the question you are trying to answer.

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A Question That Leads to More Questions

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Your initial business question could uncover additional questions that delve deeper into underlying issues. After identifying the core problem, such as why are we losing households, dissect it further: Are specific customer groups contributing to this loss? Is this trend unique to certain regions or stores and does the issue lie in losing existing households or in acquiring new ones at a slower rate than anticipated? 

Conduct a thorough customer journey analysis to understand the broader impact. Once insights are gathered, take actionable steps, measure the impact of these actions and iterate the process to ensure continuous improvement.

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Concluding Thoughts

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Asking questions that lead to impactful and actionable insights is critical for driving growth and long-term success. By focusing on priority, actionability and feasibility, organizations can uncover valuable insights and implement actions, achieving strategic business objectives.

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T09:36:42.647Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Here are the key principles for crafting high-impact business questions when planning your next research initiative or data science project.","id":"articles:781vn7vtr09fdqy8236j","keywords":["question","data","business","insights","impactful"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"-34.730749200000005","length":3242,"lon":"138.65052257779783","phrases":["questions","data","insights","impact","action"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-26T07:35:00Z","siteName":"DATAVERSITY","title":"How to Ask Great Questions with a Data Science Lens - DATAVERSITY","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T09:36:42.647Z","url":"https://www.dataversity.net/how-to-ask-great-questions-with-a-data-science-lens/"},{"byline":null,"content":"
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Cardiff, UK – 13/02/2024.  SmallSpark Space Systems has announced it has been selected to present details of its upcoming AI-Powered Mission and Systems Design technology as part of its Mission Management Suite at one of the world’s largest AI Developer conferences, NVIDIA GTC. 

SmallSpark will showcase its new Mission Driven Design Automation technology at the event. This technology is a part of its Mission Management Suite, which incorporates artificial intelligence with human input to enhance the productivity of the engineers working in the aerospace sector. 

Mission Driven Design Automation is a technology developed by SmallSpark that is focused on automating and accelerating the processes taken to bring a spacecraft concept to reality, covering a range of areas from faster numerical modelling and automated design concept exploration to identifying the most financially efficient routes to bring technologies to market.  

SmallSpark will be launching its Mission Management Suite on the 8th of March 2024. Users can apply to join the BETA  and gain early access at Space-Comm 2024 where SmallSpark will be exhibiting at stand L10.  

","createdAt":"2024-07-26T07:53:59.640Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Cardiff, UK – 13/02/2024.  SmallSpark Space Systems has announced it has been selected to present details of its upcoming AI-Powered Mission and Systems Design technology as part of its Mission Management Suite at one of the world’s largest AI Developer conferences, NVIDIA GTC.","id":"articles:o9tgz4k7kq7llub2l1j4","keywords":["Mission","SmallSpark","technology","Design","Management","Suite"],"lang":"en-GB","lat":"6.3110548","length":1145,"lon":"20.5447525","phrases":["Mission Management Suite","SmallSpark","Mission","technology","Systems Design technology","Design Automation technology"],"publishedTime":null,"siteName":null,"title":"SmallSpark to present its AI-Powered Mission Planning and Design Automation technology at NVIDIA GTC – SMALLSPARK","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T07:53:59.640Z","url":"https://smallspark.space/smallspark-to-present-its-ai-powered-mission-planning-and-design-automation-technology-at-nvidia-gtc/"},{"byline":"Megan Crouse","content":"
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OpenAI is releasing a prototype search engine replacement to “a small group of users and publishers,” possibly competing with Google Search. SearchGPT will combine machine-generated content with up-to-date information pulled from the web, OpenAI announced in a blog post on July 25.

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Organizations interested in trying the SearchGPT prototype can join the waitlist.

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‘Visual answers’ and natural language differentiate SearchGPT from Google

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OpenAI differentiates SearchGPT from Google Search Generative Experience in a few ways.

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Users can ask follow-up questions about their search using casual language. In the example below, “the jones house one” refers to the festival venue the user originally referenced.

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This screenshot is from a video showing a consumer use case for SearchGPT: finding a nearby music festival. Image: OpenAI / screenshot by TechRepublic
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Also, users will be able to open a tab to see links directly to websites, or get “visual answers,” which are charts or videos. It’s unclear yet whether visual answers will be AI generated, pulled from the web or a mix of both.

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OpenAI has partnered with several media companies – among them The Atlantic and News Corp – and tried to reassure publishers that links to original content will be prominently displayed within SearchGPT results.

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Hover over an attribution to go to the article from which SearchGPT created its answer. Image: OpenAI
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Google dominates the competitive landscape for SearchGPT, but that could change

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Google may have been fixing what wasn’t broken for the past few years, optimizing Google Search to try to answer questions and to promote high-quality search results. The introduction of the AI-powered Search Generative Experience changed Google Search even more, adding bespoke replies to some queries. By the numbers, as of July 2023, Google holds 81.95% of worldwide search engine market share.

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Meanwhile, Microsoft added first Bing Chat and then a refined generative AI answer format to its search engine.

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The competition is over becoming a user’s first stop on the internet. If SearchGPT can grab market share as a front page, it could compete with the same search engines that have, over the last two years, added the generative AI that OpenAI is famous for.

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SEE: Meta recently announced its most powerful AI model yet with Llama 3.1.

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The nature of search engines are changing, too, from directories of internet content by topic to question-and-answer machines that happen to draw from the web.

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“This is potentially huge news in the search world,” said Damian Rollison, director of market insights at marketing firm SOCi, in an email to TechRepublic. “ChatGPT is probably best positioned amongst all competitors to upset Google’s dominance in search, and aspects of the new interface, such as ‘visual answers,’ appear to be innovative and potentially disruptive. However, of all areas for ChatGPT to compete with Google, search is the one where Google’s power as an incumbent with a 26-year head start is strongest.”

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The other major player in this space is Perplexity AI, which already positions itself as an “AI-powered answer engine.” Perplexity AI can be used on either a browser or in an app, and can draw from current information, unlike ChatGPT.

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T07:50:04.827Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"SearchGPT combines AI-generated content with human-written articles in a search engine format that can handle follow-up questions.","id":"articles:vswghcrfpoie2lpa9lhv","keywords":["search","Google","SearchGPT","answers","OpenAI"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"55.0345019","length":3263,"lon":"-162.6050458","phrases":["SearchGPT","Google","OpenAI","search engine","answers"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-25T21:59:07Z","siteName":"TechRepublic","title":"OpenAI Goes For Google With Search Engine Prototype","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T07:50:04.827Z","url":"https://www.techrepublic.com/article/openai-announces-search-engine-search-gpt/"},{"byline":null,"content":"
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Traditional locks, while familiar, can be limiting. Constantly searching for lost keys or granting access to trusted individuals can feel inconvenient and cumbersome. Investing in a smart home lock offers many benefits for families and can add to the security of people living alone. 

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These ingenious smart locks can be used to secure your home against intruders and let the right people in. But, it also informs you (even remotely) of who is accessing your home while you’re away.

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READ MORE: Best Budget-Friendly Smart Home Security System

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If you’ve already got smart home tools in place, you can easily integrate smart locks from Aqara into your home security system. These locks offer many ways to secure your home and are easy to install.

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Is A Smart Lock Worth The Money?

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Smart locks offer undeniable convenience, but is the upgrade worth the cost? Yes! Definitely.

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Quality smart locks offer many benefits if you prioritize home security and safety. You can:

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The best budget smart lock can be installed easily on almost any door and will provide you with security and the information you need to know who is in your home.

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What To Look For When Choosing The Best Budget Smart Lock

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You need a smart lock that offers several methods of access. You also need the best affordable smart lock that’s easy to program. Handing out keys was the only way to give others access to your home. 

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Now, you can create unique codes or a collection of fingerprints to make sure your home is only accessed by those you mean to invite in.

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Security

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The Aqara U100 offers many ways to open your smart lock. Smartphones and smartwatches can be connected to open them. Fingerprints and number codes can also be used to open your door. Anytime your smart lock is accessed or access to your home is attempted, you’ll get a notification.

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Installation Difficulty

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Smart locks are not hard to install, but they are installed differently than traditional locks. The first step is to ensure your door is well-balanced and centered in the frame. If you have to maneuver the door to get it to fully close so the deadbolt lines up, a smart lock may have a tough time closing effectively.

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Secondly, take a look at the shape and trim of the door. Smart locks have a large thumb plate; it’s the platform that houses all the electronics. If your door is heavily trimmed or carved, a smart lock may not be possible to install without the help of a chisel or a carpenter. But don’t fret! It’s still possible to install it DIY, but you would need appropriate tools for installation. 

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Smart Home Compatibility

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Many smart home locks must have Wi-Fi access to function. You can set up your Aqara U100 with a locally held passcode. Even if your home loses power and/or Wi-Fi, this Aqara smart door lock has a mechanical key and USB-C charging port so you can get back into your home safely. 

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Additional Features

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Your Aqara U100 can let you in with fingerprint sensor recognition and with its voice assistant integration. Having a fingerprint feature and voice assistant can make entries easier for you and harder for unwanted guests. 

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If your hands are full, the voice assistant recognition could make it much easier to get into your home. If you’re concerned that someone may be following you, the voice recognition feature could give you immediate access from a distance so you could get behind that locked door.

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Price

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Nobody should have to skip home security to protect their budget. You can get a terrific budget smart lock from the Aqara store and our accredited distributors near you.

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The Best Budget Smart Locks

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If you look for cheap smart locks, you’re likely going to come up with a wide array of products. Some may require wi-fi while others limit methods of access. To make sure that your family and home are safe, consider the Aqara U100. This smart lock offers many features that will increase your safety.

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You can add passwords that are held locally. If severe storms or other hazards threaten your area and your internet goes down, you can still get in your home quickly. If you’re concerned that someone might gain access to your passcode, you can create a jumble of numbers that holds your passcode inside the fake numbers.

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Once your Aqara hub is set up and connected, you can use your phone or your Apple watch to quickly enter your home. Whether you’re concerned about hazards behind you or just have your arms full of groceries, you can get inside your home with a proximity release feature.

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Homeowners can also program their Aqara smart lock for a specific entry. You can set up a one-time password for guests or contractors. Your housekeeper can have her code. Your children can also have their code and you can set up a notification to give you a heads-up when they’re home. If your children are on their own for a time after school, you can be confident that they’re safely settled into your home.

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These real-time reports can take a lot of pressure off of working parents. You’ll be able to monitor your child’s entrance to the space and get information about any other attempted access to the home.

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Finally, your Aqara U100 will work with other smart home platforms. You can lock or unlock your door with voice commands. If you have a door camera, you’ll get a notification when someone accesses, or attempts to access, your smart home lock.

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Where To Buy The Best Budget Smart Locks

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You can find the best affordable smart locks from Aqara both online and in-store. If you purchase your smart lock from our store, it’s also a good idea to check out other useful cost-effective security devices to keep your family and home as safe as possible.

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T07:34:23.817Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Traditional locks, while familiar, can be limiting. Constantly searching for lost keys or granting access to trusted individuals can feel inconvenient and","id":"articles:bshyts5hyp4xrw9qj6fv","keywords":["home","locks","access","Aqara","door"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"-0.8999695","length":6003,"lon":"11.6899699","phrases":["home","door","access","locks","Aqara U100"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-09T09:34:12Z","siteName":"Aqara","title":"The Best Budget Smart Locks - Aqara","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T07:34:23.817Z","url":"https://www.aqara.com/us/blog-us/the-best-budget-smart-locks/"},{"byline":"Soleil Su","content":"
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On January 31st, the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Cornell University hosted the first “Ignite Connect 2024: Accelerating Impact” virtual event, which presented the latest technologies, new ventures, and recent startups arising from the Cornell labs and recipients of Ignite gap funding awards. The conference convened more than 150 investors, entrepreneurs, industry partners, and Cornell alums, among others, interested in forging long-lasting partnerships. This gathering serves as a testament to Cornell’s collective support in technology development and new venture development and startup growth. The event was structured into three distinct sections: 

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“Today, we gather to forge new connections between these promising opportunities with a community as vibrant and diverse as our endeavors,” said Alice Li, executive director of CTL, during her welcome address. “A community of passionate investors, visionary entrepreneurs, collaborative industry partners, and our dedicated Cornell alumni reflected on the progress we’ve made.”  

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Li emphasized the importance of the program to bridge the gap and increase innovation. She expressed gratitude towards the committee members and technology advisors for their time, dedication, and expertise. These individuals, comprising industry and investment experts, played a pivotal role in reviewing, advising, and selecting the numerous applicants for the program series. “Your contributions are the backbone of our success, and I extend my deepest appreciation for your unwavering support,” Li concluded.  

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The forum transitioned to the opening remarks by Krystyn Van Vliet, Ph.D., VP for Research and Innovation at Cornell. “CTL is part of a larger team that’s extremely passionate about helping our students, staff, and faculty take their ideas, innovations, and ventures to impact,” she said. “And it takes so much more than a village to be able to do that.”  

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After a year as the leader of this ecosystem, Professor Van Vliet emphasized the importance of the gap funding and the programs that comprise the Ignite umbrella but also the importance of investing in people, their technologies, and new connections to make the most of Cornell’s focus on the Greatest Good.   

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Cornell’s diverse Research & Innovation ecosystem focuses on solving the most immediate to the most complex societal problems and moving them into translation to impact the market. “That’s what innovations are about,” Van Vliet emphasized. “Whether it is a new computational technology or a new process that reduces the environmental impact on things that we all need so that it will thrive on earth.”   

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Carbon to Stone’s journey to market impact  

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Following Professor Van Vliet’s welcoming remarks, Peggy Koenig ‘78, chair of Executive Committee Cornell Board of Trustees and chair emeritus of ABRY Partners, took the stage. She introduced Greeshma Gadikota, Ph.D., associate professor, Croll Sesquicentennial Fellow at the College of Engineering. Gadikota is also co-founder of Cornell startup Carbon to Stone (CTS), a venture that collaborates with various industries to transform CO2 and residual materials into usable resources. The conversation centered on the company, the support provided by Cornell for her intellectual property (IP) and her new venture, and the growth plans for CTS.  

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As a Cornell alum, Koenig has been a great supporter of the innovation initiatives at CTL. In fiscal year 2022, the Ignite available funding increased to $3 million thanks to financial support from the provost’s office and a $1 million gift from Koenig. Her donation has helped in awarding more lab application projects leading to insightful impact. Nearly 50% of the completed awarded Innovation Acceleration projects have led to a license agreement or a license option. 

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During their conversation, Dr. Gadikota shared her experience as a faculty-researcher turned innovator and entrepreneur. She emphasized the significance of CTL and the Ignite gap funding she received. “I wouldn’t be here without the support of Cornell Technology Licensing office,” she said.   

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Her intellectual property journey started when she disclosed her innovation to CTL. Dr. Gadikota speaks from experience and advises having a robust dialogue with the business development team, particularly when it comes to patenting—understanding the uniqueness of a patent, crafting claims effectively, and co-creating a strategy that benefits all parties involved. On the licensing front, choosing the right approach is equally important for mutual success.  

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Leveraging the resources provided by the Fellow for New Ventures program managed by CTL, Hassnain Asgar, a former postdoc from Dr. GadiKota’s lab, underwent training, de-risked the technology in the lab, and worked with Robert Scharf, incubator director at Praxis. 

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“Being granted this fellowship meant a substantial year-long funding boost,” she mentions. 

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Professor Gadikota and Asgar co-founded the company and began applying for SBIR grants. Upon graduating from the program, Asgar and the newly appointed CEO were able to operate the company. As a result, CTS secured half a million dollars through a carbon removal pre-purchase from Frontier Strike Climate. “Those are the two catalytic moments that really helped in advancing our technology,” she remarked. Moreover, the company received additional federal grants, including $256,500 from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2023.   

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Despite their current success, Dr. Gadikota’s initial doubts led the team to undertake comprehensive research, engaging in numerous interviews and drafting grants to gauge market interest. These efforts paved the way for industry recognition and fruitful partnerships.   

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“Balancing life between academia and entrepreneurship is challenging, but I approach it from an academic lens, with a perspective of learning,” Greeshma states. She further explains the dynamic interplay between her roles: “We might have a solution, but the question remains – how will it scale? Or, we have a scalable solution, yet we require deeper fundamental knowledge. I found that loop of knowledge creation to be particularly satisfying,” she notes, emphasizing that this cycle is a source of continuous learning. 

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Looking ahead, CTS’s growth plan falls in its distinctive strategy of enabling industrial decarbonization. The goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of key commodity products, integrating economic and environmental benefits across the supply chain, leveraging renewable energy, and considering emissions and materials management.  

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In her final remarks, Dr. Gadikota offered guidance to emerging faculty and student entrepreneurs on transforming research into marketable products. She urged them to seek the right fit with partners and customers rather than rushing into commitments. “The initial team is pivotal in determining a company’s direction and growth, underlining the significance of deliberate consideration in hiring to ensure alignment with the company’s vision and individual growth,” she concluded.  

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Pitching and connecting impactful innovations across disciplines  

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Furthering the event’s mission to catalyze impact, the forum branched out into five thematic breakout rooms, focusing on pitches from Ignite’s awardees from the Innovation Acceleration, Ignite Startup, and Fellow for New Ventures programs. A total of 26 presenters from an array of sectors such as Therapeutics and Vaccines, Diagnostics and Biotech Tools, MedTech and Digital Health, Materials and Energy, and High Tech and Hardware pitched their innovations or companies to potential funders and investors.    

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As the event concluded, attendees had the opportunity to network, connect, and nurture potential collaborations and partnerships. This segment led to 15 connections which will hopefully lead to meaningful outcomes.  

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CTL’s Business Development & Licensing team, the Bioventure elab at Weill Cornell, the Praxis Center for Venture Development, and the Cornell Tech Runway program held virtual booths garnering attendees’ interest while sharing the various support from the Cornell Innovation Ecosystem fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. 

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The Cornell community was left inspired and motivated, reflecting on the potential for greater achievements and impact through collaboration, innovation, and a shared vision from Professor Gadikota for a sustainable future. For more information about the Ignite program, visit CTL’s website here https://ctl.cornell.edu/ignite/.   

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Written by: Yingzi(Catherine) Lin  

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","createdAt":"2024-07-26T07:28:12.666Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"On January 31st, the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Cornell University hosted the first \"Ignite Connect 2024: Accelerating Impact\" virtual event","id":"articles:ua870ra9mjpclqf87at3","keywords":["innovation","Cornell","Impact","Technology","ventures","program"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"55.0345019","length":9004,"lon":"-162.6050458","phrases":["Innovation","Impact","CTL","support","Technology"],"publishedTime":"2024-04-09T13:43:38Z","siteName":"Center For Technology Licensing","title":"Ignite Connect 2024 Bridges Innovators with Investors and Industry Experts for Real-World Impact    - Center For Technology Licensing","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T07:28:12.666Z","url":"https://ctl.cornell.edu/ignite-connect-2024-bridges-innovators-with-investors-and-industry-experts-for-real-world-impact/"},{"byline":"Henry Martinez","content":"

As ChatGPT becomes a household topic and AI integrates into nearly every industry, organizations are looking to maximize the benefits of one of the greatest technological innovations of the millennium. They aim to avoid missing out on any benefits while mitigating risks and managing obstacles. Data is critical for AI models and applications but real-world data may not always be accessible, feasible, or prudent depending on the use case.

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Synthetic data has emerged as an attractive alternative, but in which applications does it make the most sense and what considerations should organizations look into before diving in?

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Synthetic Data in the World of AI

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Synthetic data refers to artificial data that is generated by using relational databases and generative machine learning models to generate an alternate or expanded set of data.  Its purpose is to mimic real-world data to be used in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in order to test or demonstrate the algorithms.  It’s often leveraged to avoid compromising personal, private data while still allowing for analysis and model training.

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The techniques used to generate synthetic data are challenging to reverse engineer. Each technique should be mindful of the ultimate desired business objective.  Some usage is tactical while other is strategic.  This makes synthetic data attractive to companies who want to reduce data costs for simple infrastructural tests or want to share their latest insights and developments without potentially exposing proprietary information or personal data.

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As privacy concerns around the data AI is trained on continue, we can expect to see the use of synthetic data grow, especially in fields such as healthcare and industries like finance.

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Use Cases and Scenarios Where Synthetic Data Makes Sense

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When might you want to experiment with synthetic data? Let’s say you want to performance test a large AI instance at full load. In this scenario, it would be wise to create synthetic data to support those tests at scale. The valid synthetic data supports testing without exposing real-world data to potential risks or incurring the costs of accessing other data assets.

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Likewise, a company could use synthetic data when validating a threat assessment monitor, watching real-world data for event detection. The synthetic data could provide the stimulus of a class of events that are part of the detection capabilities without waiting for an event to happen in the real world. Subject matter experts with knowledge of these types of threats, under the supervision of a data analyst, can help to validate the detection of a broad spectrum of specific violations.

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Ultimately, these tests are only as effective as the AI or human capacity to anticipate potential threats. Another use case would be the testing of data filters on data ingestion pipelines. Synthetic data could be leveraged to test the performance and effectiveness of validation filters, how quickly algorithms tune to, or track new phenomena.

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Synthetic data is also suitable for tuning and training AI models. The use case of tuning sensitivity is predicated on having experts in the Large Language Model domain or other underlying technology. Ultimately, you want to ensure the algorithm is listening to the new data. Alternately, in the case of training AI models, it is more than just listening; you are teaching them to react in the right way. This requires access to people who are knowledgeable of the data and how a human with the related domain expertise would respond so the model can be trained to mimic that response.

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You want deep domain knowledge to be possessed by both human and AI assets. It allows for a precise definition of what the AI are supposed to- and not supposed to- be trusted with and the limits of their decision-making powers. Stakeholders should also implement methods for monitoring data skew in their synthetic data augmentation plan. As important as the machine algorithms are – it is equally critical to provide regular training to the people who consume the outputs of the AI – so they are always giving the business the best of these decision support systems.

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Synthetic data can also be leveraged in scenarios where an organization wants to augment its data sets in size or diversity. Instead of procuring additional real-world data, synthetic data can provide greater volume and diversity for models to be trained upon. Likewise, organizations may want to generate synthetic data to research potential scenarios that are too costly or unfeasible to replicate with real, raw datasets.

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Risks and Considerations

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There are some other considerations to keep in mind when working with synthetic data. You can think of this type of data as similar to synthetic drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. In order to determine the safety and efficacy of these synthetic drugs, large, focused tests were performed first. The use of synthetic data requires the same kind of rigor. It won’t be effective if it isn’t reflective of the data it’s trying to mimic.

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It’s also important to consider the impact of synthetic data on your delivery horizon as it can both lengthen and shorten it. Having a clear understanding of what kind of outcomes the synthetic data supports (e.g., scale testing, filtering/validation, learning speed, model training) is the ideal starting place. Synthetic data coupled with human innovation can also identify new rhythms in the chaos or monetization opportunities for specific clusters of data for certain classes of clients. Having watchful new product developers involved with these innovation efforts is critical to find more ways to differentiate data refineries.

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Ultimately, synthetic data isn’t an end-all, be-all solution for mitigating AI privacy concerns and expanding access to data. When making the decision to leverage synthetic or real-world data, be sure to factor in the potential impact of generalization. In some cases, particularly where accuracy and variability matter most, real world data may be a better choice. Synthetic data can’t always accurately reflect the complexity and diversity found in real-world data sets. Furthermore, if you’re working in an industry where regulations come into play, research all legal implications related to synthetic data before using it.

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\"Risk

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A Strategic Way Forward with Synthetic Data

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You can tap into the power of AI while avoiding privacy risks through the strategic use of synthetic data with the help of 3Pillar. Our expertise lies in providing innovative digital solutions to the modern problems businesses are facing today.

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In the world of AI, we’ve worked with synthetic data to support healthcare providers in delivering high-quality treatment solutions. Our team created edge-case examples for medical imagery to check signal-to-noise specifications and set parameters for regulatory testing of the image analysis algorithms. These controlled efforts allowed the provider to simultaneously improve real-world patient outcomes via smarter treatment selection as well as expanding the boundaries of the predictive capabilities for their medical practitioners.

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Our team can help you assess whether synthetic data meets your organization’s needs and if so, provide a path forward to achieving your goals while meeting requirements and mitigating risks. Contact 3Pillar today to get started.

\n
","createdAt":"2024-07-26T07:22:00.342Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"As ChatGPT becomes a household topic and AI integrates into nearly every industry, organizations are looking to maximize the benefits of one of the greatest technological innovations of the millennium. They aim to avoid missing out on any benefits while mitigating risks and managing obstacles. Data is critical for AI models and applications but real-world data may not always be","id":"articles:6bgkwmvlhse1kqrj6o3z","keywords":["Data","Synthetic","models","use","test"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"26.0979519","length":7361,"lon":"85.3839357","phrases":["Data","Synthetic data","models","data sets","test"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-22T19:05:02Z","siteName":"3Pillar Global","title":"Balancing Privacy and Progress: Leveraging Synthetic Data for Business Success - 3Pillar Global","updatedAt":"2024-07-26T07:22:00.342Z","url":"https://www.3pillarglobal.com/insights/balancing-privacy-and-progress-leveraging-synthetic-data-for-business-success/"},{"byline":"Patrick Thibodeau","content":"
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Immigration attorneys warn clients to prepare for stricter H-1B visa policies if Trump wins the 2024 election, advising immediate action.

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As the 2024 U.S. presidential election looms, immigration attorneys are bracing for a potential second-term for former president Donald Trump, fearing swift and stringent actions that could impede employment-based immigration.

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Trump's first term in the White House, which ended in 2020, left H-1B visa critics disappointed because he did not deliver major reforms to the employment-based system. Instead, he significantly frustrated the H-1B process, particularly with an uptick in denials and added paperwork to support visa petitions. President Joe Biden, who took office in 2021, reversed some of these actions, making it easier to navigate the visa petition system.

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But now, Trump is running for president again, and the prospect of his victory in November is alarming to immigration attorneys. They believe that a new Trump administration will be better prepared and ready to take immediate action to curb immigration, including employment-based immigration.

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\"I expect things will probably get worse a lot more quickly than they did the first time around,\" said Sarah Schroeder, an immigration attorney at DiRaimondo & Schroeder in New York. She said increased barriers and delays in adjudicating high-skilled worker petitions could lead to more requests for evidence, slower processing times and even efforts to block pathways to legal immigration.

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To prepare for a possible Trump administration, Tahmina Watson of Watson Immigration Law in Seattle said she is \"advising all our clients that if you're eligible for something, file it now. Don't wait.\"

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Many people believe the Biden administration has created a more favorable climate for visa-sponsoring employers. Still, some this administration's actions might reopen political fractures over employment-based immigration that drove Trump's campaign in 2016.

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When sponsoring an employment-based green card, employers must make a good-faith effort to advertise for a U.S. worker before filling the position with a foreign worker. However, the Biden administration has proposed adding STEM occupations, possibly including computer engineering and software development, to the U.S. Department of Labor's Schedule A Shortage Occupation List. Jobs on this list are exempt from job advertising requirements.

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Labor objects to Biden plan

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The AFL-CIO, a federation of unions that represents more than 12.5 million workers, opposes expanding Schedule A. In a letter last week responding to a U.S. request for comments about the proposed expansion, the labor group cited AI-based disruptions to the tech workforce and tech layoffs as reasons for its opposition. It also said it \"has watched too many employers claim they cannot find qualified workers only to lay off their employees, including members of our unions, and require them to train their foreign replacements as a condition for their severance.\"

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\nIf you're eligible for something, file it now. Don't wait.\n
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\nTahmina WatsonImmigration attorney, Watson Immigration Law\n
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Despite Trump's effort as president to frustrate the H-1B system, some things have remained the same. According to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, major offshore outsourcing companies, including India-based Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services as well as U.S.-based Cognizant Technology Solutions, remain among the largest users of H-1B visas.

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Although the denial rate for initial H-1B visas reached a high of 24% in 2018, according to the American Immigration Council, a research group that supports immigration, it fell to 2% in 2022 during the Biden administration.

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The increased H-1B denial rate and scrutiny during the Trump administration had no effect on the annual visa cap of 85,000, which employers have filled every year.

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John Miano, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies who has represented tech workers in court over visa issues, said that Trump \"did two things in regard to H-1B that put him way ahead of his predecessors.\" First, he stopped the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally-owned electric utility company, from turning over 200 IT jobs to contractors; and second, \"he did not make things worse,\" Miano said.

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Tech industry plan on H-1B visas

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The tech industry is expected to continue pushing Congress to expand employment-based visa programs, including the H-1B work visa. It will cite the 2022 $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to revive domestic semiconductor production, as creating demand for workers.

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Observers expect critics of the industry's efforts to point to tech industry layoffs and the rising number of computer science graduates. In its spring data, the National Student Clearinghouse reported that computer and information science enrollment at four-year institutions reached 629,000 students -- nearly a 10% increase from the prior year on top of a steadily rising trend.

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When Trump took office in 2016, he slowed the visa system down but only brought about major reforms in the waning months of his administration. He proposed replacing the visa lottery's random distribution system with a salary ranking system, where employers are prioritized based on their salary offerings under the H-1B work visa cap. However, President Biden's administration never enacted the Trump plan.

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If Trump wins in November, there is reason to believe the administration will try again with a wage-based distribution system. Project 2025, an effort by a long list of conservative groups to set a blueprint for a Trump transition, recommends in its \"Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise\" that the H-1B program \"be transformed into an elite program\" to \"bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities.\"

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Marcela Bermudez, an immigration attorney at Greenspoon Marder LLP in New York, said the Trump wage-based plan would disadvantage some companies, especially startups and smaller firms. \"They're not necessarily going to start people at very high wages, but they are talent that we need that will grow,\" she said.

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Alison Hitz, an immigration attorney at Clark Hill PLC in San Francisco, said it's up to Congress to change the immigration system and that presidents are limited in the changes they can make. However, administrative changes can \"throw a wrench into the processing of cases,\" she said.

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For instance, premium processing for H-1B visas, which accelerated the handling of the visa, was suspended in 2017 by the Trump administration. In 2020, the Biden administration lifted the suspension.

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Hitz said a problem with suspending premium processing is that if someone outside the U.S. is waiting for visa approval for a job, an employer might decide that it can't wait six to nine months for the case to be processed and move on.

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Christopher Richardson, president and general counsel at BDV Solutions, which provides employers help with EB-3 unskilled visa green cards, said that if Trump wins, the visa approval process will \"become a lot harder and probably more expensive.\"

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\"But,\" he added, \"we've worked through the last Trump administration, and we'll survive and work through this one too.\"

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Patrick Thibodeau is an editor at large for TechTarget Editorial who covers HCM and ERP technologies. He's worked for more than two decades as an enterprise IT reporter.

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Next Steps

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Trump's liberal green card plan faces skepticism

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\n\n\n\n\n
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\nDig Deeper on Talent management

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","createdAt":"2024-07-18T13:39:56.303Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":"ltr","excerpt":"Immigration attorneys warn clients to prepare for stricter H-1B visa policies if Trump wins the 2024 election, advising immediate action.","id":"articles:fvpyyotxbfvw7mbsp938","keywords":["visa","Immigration","H-1B","Trump","administration"],"lang":"en","lat":"38.897699700000004","length":7865,"lon":"-77.03655315","phrases":["Immigration attorneys","Trump","Trump administration","H-1B visas","immigration"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-23T14:28Z","siteName":"TechTarget","title":"Trump's return could shake up H-1B visa system","updatedAt":"2024-07-18T13:39:56.303Z","url":"https://www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/news/366586313/Trumps-return-could-shake-up-H-1B-visa-system"},{"byline":"Amala Balakrishner","content":"

","createdAt":"2024-07-16T03:55:08.699Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"These stocks are expected to \"narrow [their] performance gap with the Magnificent 7 and outperform the rest of Asia over the next 12 months,\" UBS says.","id":"articles:w98g8uuzlyfvjyc5g18n","keywords":["Mon","Jul","PM","EDT"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.2086975","length":37,"lon":"89.2343748","phrases":["PM EDT"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-15T23:26:35+0000","siteName":"CNBC","title":"Forget the Magnificent 7: UBS just refreshed its 'Super 8' list of global stock picks","updatedAt":"2024-07-16T03:55:08.699Z","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/16/magnificent-7-alternative-stocks-ubs-has-updated-its-super-8-list.html"},{"byline":"Karen Yourish, Charlie Smart, David A. Fahrenthold","content":"
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The ornate ballrooms and manicured lawns of Mar-a-Lago have hosted a variety of affairs for the wealthy and connected in the resort’s nearly 100-year history: philanthropic galas, lavish banquets, society lunches. During the presidency of Donald J. Trump, who has owned the property since 1985, the club drew a paying clientele of establishment Republicans and others currying favor from the president.

But since Mr. Trump left office in 2021, Mar-a-Lago has transformed into a White House in exile and the nerve center for some of the most extreme elements of the party’s MAGA wing. This includes a nearly steady stream of promoters of conspiracy theories that include lies that the 2020 election was stolen and that the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was a federal setup.

This portrait of the company Mr. Trump keeps was assembled from a New York Times analysis of people and groups that have spent significant time and money at the resort, which has been his primary residence since his presidency ended.

The analysis, built on a review of videos, photos and other evidence of attendance at Mar-a-Lago, found that events hosted by ultra-right organizations and political fundraisers now dominate Mar-a-Lago’s calendar, and even officially non-political events can feel like rallies. In this gilded echo chamber, Mr. Trump enjoys unwavering devotion — and collects the staggering price of admission.

A compilation of date-stamped video clips filmed at Mar-a-Lago shows the following: Matt Gaetz, in Jan. 2023, saying “Mar-a-Lago is the touchstone, it is the bedrock of the America-first populist movement”; Sebastian Gorka, in Dec. 2023, saying “The headquarters for patriots, right here”; Donald J. Trump, in May 2022, saying “This group of people right here, these are the true patriots”; a crowd chanting “U.S.A.,” “U.S.A.,” as Mr. Trump greets members of a crowd; Forgiato Blow, in March 2024, singing “Party for Donald Trump, U.S.A.”; and Ryan Garcia, in April 2024, saying “Donald Trump 2024.”

At Mar-a-Lago, conspiracy theories and fearmongering take the ballroom stage. There, the “Pizzagate” hoax, centering on outlandish claims of a pedophilia ring among prominent Democrats, is real. The 2024 presidential election is more than a political contest — it is a struggle between good and evil.

A compilation of date-stamped video clips filmed at Mar-a-Lago shows the following: Glenn Beck, in Dec. 2022, saying “We are in a battle of good vs. evil”; Roger Stone, in March 2024, saying “Good and evil”; Liz Crokin, in March 2024, saying, “Pizza, indeed, is a pedophile code word”; and Michael T. Flynn, in May 2022, saying, “We are gonna fight. We’re gonna take them to the gates of hell.”

A vast majority of gala events held at the club since January 2021 have been sponsored by individuals and organizations aligned with Mr. Trump’s style of politics, The Times found. And those who oppose MAGA conservatism — and its pervasive insistence that the 2020 election was stolen — are excoriated.

A compilation of date-stamped video clips filmed during speeches at Mar-a-Lago shows the following: Vivek Ramaswamy, in April 2024, saying “A fringe minority who hates this country”; Matthew DePerno, in March 2022, saying “Bringing Communism to our shores”; Frank Pavone, in March 2023, saying “They destroy life and freedom and family”; Roger Stone, in March 2024, saying “Radical atheist Marxists”; Donald Trump, in April 2023, saying “These radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections”; Kari Lake, in Nov. 2022, saying “They think they can continue to steal elections”; Joe Kent, in Feb. 2022, saying “The election that we all knew was stolen”; and Michael T. Flynn, in Dec. 2023, saying “If we don’t have a fair election, we don’t have a country.”

“If there’s anyone who doesn’t support Trump, I don’t see it,” Cameron Moore, a Mar-a-Lago member, said last month on a podcast hosted by Alex Stone. Mr. Stone describes himself as an “adopted nephew” of Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime political operative and a regular at Mar-a-Lago.

A compilation of date-stamped video clips filmed at Mar-a-Lago shows the following: Donald Trump; Roseanne Barr saying from a podium in April 2024, “He’s the only hope we have in our country. That’s what I think, don’t you agree?” Mr. Trump holding a microphone while a crowd shouts “We love you!”; and Roger Stone speaking in March 2024, saying “The greatest president since Abraham Lincoln, Donald J. Trump.”

It wasn’t always this way.

From Black Tie to Red Hats

Before Mr. Trump became president, Mar-a-Lago was a magnet for Palm Beach society, hosting opulent galas from fall through spring that raised funds for some of the nation’s most prestigious charities.

Political events were rare. During the 2014-15 season — the last before Mr. Trump officially entered politics — The Times counted 52 fund-raiser events at Mar-a-Lago. Of them, just one was political: the Republican Party of Palm Beach County’s annual Lincoln Day dinner.

Winter gala seasons at Mar-a-Lago leading up to Trump’s presidency

Non-political events\n\t\tPolitical events

“Lady in Red” Gala

Red Cross Gala

This past winter, The Times found only six of those events were still being held at Mar-a-Lago — including the G.O.P.’s Lincoln Day event. Traditional charities began peeling away from the club in August 2017, after then-President Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a violent rally to save a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va. Of the groups that departed, 10 moved their events to Mar-a-Lago’s chief rival in the Palm Beach banquet business: The Breakers resort.

Groups aligned with Mr. Trump’s politics have taken their place.

Turning Point USA, a right-wing student organization, began hosting an annual gala at Mar-a-Lago in 2018. America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit set up in 2021 by former Trump administration officials, has thrown an “America First Gala” at Mar-a-Lago every year since its founding. America’s Future Inc. — a group led by Michael T. Flynn that has amplified the false conspiracy theory that a global cabal of pedophiles controls the media and politics — has held two events, as has Border911, founded by Thomas D. Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration.

Winter gala seasons at Mar-a-Lago since Trump left office

Non-political events\n\t\tPolitical events

“2000 Mules” Premiere

America First Policy Institute

Border911 Gala

“This is where we come to recharge our batteries and to know we will retake our nation,” Sebastian Gorka, a former White House aide for Mr. Trump, said from the Mar-a-Lago stage in December. Mr. Gorka is the host of a radio show that describes itself as “the new front lines in the ongoing Culture War against the Left.”

The “Founding Fathers Award” presented to Mr. Trump by the group Moms for America in December.

Event organizers, speakers and attendees use their proximity to display loyalty to and admiration for Mr. Trump. They say he is the “greatest president” (in “modern history,” “the history of America” or “since Abraham Lincoln”). They give him awards (“American Defender of Zion,” “Founding Fathers” and “America’s Champion for Children”). They tell him they love him and sing songs in his honor.

All Campaign Trails Lead to Palm Beach

The presidential race is not the only one rooted at Mar-a-Lago. A visit to the resort has become an essential rite for Republican candidates. Since 2021, more than 60 Republicans in or running for Congress or state office have spent money at Mar-a-Lago, most on fund-raisers. Their ultimate objective: securing an endorsement or a surprise appearance from Mr. Trump.

According to federal and state campaign finance filings through the first quarter of 2024, more than $4.7 million has been spent on the property by candidates and political committees since Mr. Trump left the White House and made Mar-a-Lago his permanent residence. Mr. Trump’s campaign, and super PACs supporting it, make up about a quarter of that total.

Campaign and other political spending at Mar-a-Lago has exploded in the past three years

Publicly, Mr. Trump has downplayed the idea that his club is a central political destination.

“We don’t do too many of these things at Mar-a-Lago,” Mr. Trump said in March 2022 at a Mar-a-Lago fund-raiser for Vernon Jones, who was running for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 10th congressional district.

“I don’t want to make it a totally political place,” Mr. Trump added. But in reality, that’s largely what Mar-a-Lago had become. More than two dozen midterm candidates had already held fund-raisers on the property when Mr. Trump made that statement.

The Political Is Profitable

As Mar-a-Lago’s owner, Mr. Trump is the beneficiary of its profits — and the club’s evolution seems to have been good for his bottom line.

The Trump Organization is a private business, and, for years, very little was known publicly about the financial health of its clubs, including Mar-a-Lago. But that changed when Letitia James, the New York attorney general, sued Mr. Trump for exaggerating the value of his properties. Detailed records of the club’s finances were made public as evidence.

Those records show that Mar-a-Lago actually lost money in 2012, but then its profits began to climb as Mr. Trump entered politics. They hit a peak in 2017, as the club added new customers — including the U.S. government, which paid for bedrooms used by Secret Service agents and liquor drunk by Mr. Trump’s aides — without losing its existing ones, like the charities that rented out the club’s ballrooms for fund-raiser galas.

\"A

A bill showing more than $1,000 in charges for liquor, paid by the U.S. Department of State.

But many of those charity customers began to flee Mar-a-Lago during Mr. Trump’s presidency, with operating profits bottoming out at $4.2 million in the Covid-stunted year of 2020, according to an analysis by Laurence Hirsh, a consultant hired by Ms. James.

Since Mr. Trump left office, however, Mar-a-Lago’s profits have shot up again — even as the club has been in the headlines for its role in both the New York civil case and one of several criminal cases against Mr. Trump. (According to federal prosecutors, Mr. Trump used Mar-a-Lago to store classified documents — often in close proximity to partygoers — that he had illegally removed from the White House. Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to these charges.)

Records entered into evidence in the New York fraud case by an analyst for the Trump Organization, Greg Christovich, showed that Mar-a-Lago had a net profit of $22 million in 2022. The analysis showed that profits at Mr. Trump’s 11 other U.S. clubs — most of them golf clubs he visits far less often than Mar-a-Lago — had also rebounded since their lows in 2020. But Mar-a-Lago still stands out: Its profits were more than double those of any other Trump club, according to Mr. Christovich’s analysis.

Net profit by year at Donald J. Trump’s clubs

Source: Analysis by Greg Christovich entered into evidence in New York civil fraud case

One major reason for that increase: Mr. Christovich said that Mar-a-Lago had raised its membership initiation fee to $600,000, the highest it had ever been. The fee, which entitles the club’s roughly 500 members to use its dining rooms, beach club, tennis courts and other facilities, had been just $100,000 when Mr. Trump won the 2016 election. The club’s new members paid $12 million in initiation fees in 2022, Mr. Christovich’s records showed — money that was effectively all profit for the club.

Another reason for the club’s surge: Mar-a-Lago reported $11 million in profits from its food and beverage operations, which appeared to include both the club’s member dining areas and its catering business. Mar-a-Lago has two large ballrooms that host banquets, weddings and private parties. The Trump Organization did not respond to questions about whether the club had raised its rates for banquets, and the turnover among its customers makes it hard to compare the cost of the same events from year to year. But one of the club’s steadiest customers, the Republican Party of Palm Beach County, reported paying more: its Lincoln Day dinner in 2023 cost $318,000, up from $158,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars seven years earlier, campaign finance records show.

“I believe there was an increase in the cost, steadily, over the years,” said Michael Barnett, who was the chairman of the county G.O.P. until 2023, and who is now an elected county commissioner. But Mr. Barnett said the cost increase had not deterred the party: “You can’t ask for a better venue,” he said. “We would never consider going anywhere else.”

Frank Vain, a consultant who advises private clubs, said that other clubs in Florida, with no connection to politics, had also seen huge increases in profits over the same period. “We’re calling this a bit of a golden age for private clubs,” he said.

A recent study by the firm RSM, which serves as a consultant to golf clubs, found that private clubs in the same area as Mar-a-Lago had also sharply raised their initiation fees, though their average fee was still far lower than Mar-a-Lago’s. The average initiation fee in the area increased to $176,000 in 2023 from about $126,000, adjusted for inflation, in 2021.

A MAGA Oasis

Of course, a key distinction sets Mar-a-Lago apart from other clubs a wealthy Palm Beach resident might consider joining. A motivation beyond luxury or privacy motivates the true believers who have flocked to South Ocean Boulevard: MAGA is a movement, and Mar-a-Lago is its epicenter.

Fred Rustmann, a former member of the club who supports Mr. Trump’s policies, said he canceled his membership in 2021 because the clientele had “started to change to people who were kissing his butt all the time,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump. And, unlike when Mr. Trump was president, “he was there a lot,” Mr. Rustmann said. “There was a lot of hand-shaking, and applause, and everybody stands up, and wow-wow-wow. It just wasn’t my kind of thing anymore.”

Since Mr. Trump left office, and as he has increasingly aligned with the extreme fringe of the Republican Party, photos posted on social media of people and events at Mar-a-Lago reflect that right-wing personalities have become more woven into the tapestry of the club. These are a few of them.

More than two dozen speakers from the ReAwaken America Tour, a far-right, Christian nationalist roadshow led in part by Mr. Flynn, have visited Mar-a-Lago since Mr. Trump left office. Many have been seen there more than once.

An assortment of five photographs shows pairs or small groups of people dressed in formalwear. Most are outlined in white and appear brightly, while several are not highlighted and appear darker in the background. A caption below the photos lists those highlighted, from left to right: Liz Crokin, Lara Logan, Greg Locke, Sean Feucht, Donald J. Trump and Shannon Kroner.

Dinesh D’Souza, a right-wing commentator turned filmmaker, has held premieres for at least two movies at Mar-a-Lago: “2000 Mules,” which promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and “Police State,” which alleged high-level weaponization of the justice system against conservatives.

Two photos show Dinesh D’Souza in formalwear, outlined in white and appearing brightly. In one of the photos, Donald Trump is also highlighted. In each photo, a woman is not highlighted and appears darker in the background.

Siggy Flicker, a former Real Housewife of New Jersey and a current spokesperson for the right-wing Jewish organization JEXIT (“Jews Exiting the Democrat Party”), joined the club last year and has become a frequent presence.

Three photos show Siggy Flicker, outlined in white and highlighted. In one, she appears alone; in another, with a crowd in the background; and in a third, with Donald Trump, who is also highlighted.

Jack Posobiec, a hard-right podcaster who has promoted disinformation, has had dinner with Mr. Trump and attended multiple galas.

Two photos show Jack Posobiec in formalwear, highlighted and outlined in white. In one, he appears with Donald Trump, who is also highlighted. In the other, he is with a woman who is not highlighted.

At an April fund-raiser for Kari Lake, Mr. Trump praised Laura Loomer, a provocateur who twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress and who has said she supports white nationalism.

Four photos show Laura Loomer in cocktail attire, outlined in white and highlighted. Across the photos, she is seen with Michael T. Flynn, Donald Trump and Roger Stone, as well as two other people who are not highlighted.

The Times identified more than 130 people who have attended events at Mar-a-Lago three or more times since Mr. Trump left office. Some are members of the club, while others are frequent visitors.

The photos transition into a grid of many small headshots of individual people.

They come from all sorts of backgrounds. 15 are professional athletes or entertainers. Hover or tap to see their names.

The photo grid transitions to highlight 15 of the headshots.

38 are prominent figures in conservative media or social media.

The photo grid transitions to highlight a different group of 38 people.

Dozens of politicians have made the pilgrimage. These 44 are current members of Congress or state officials, or candidates who ran or are running for those positions in 2022 or 2024.

The grid transitions to highlight a different group of 44 people.

34 of them received endorsements from Trump.

The grid transitions to reduce the 44 highlighted people to 34.

Some were at the rallies in Washington in support of Mr. Trump on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, that preceded the riot at the Capitol.

The grid transitions to highlight a different group of 21 people.

Many more have spread misinformation about the events of Jan. 6 — including characterizing it as an F.B.I. plot — or played down the seriousness of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The grid transitions to highlight a different group of 56 people.

And the proportion who have questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election, or said it was rigged or stolen, is larger still.

The grid transitions to highlight a different group of 107 people.

These are some of the people who are spending time in Mr. Trump’s home as this year’s election looms. For so many in the Mar-a-Lago universe, Mr. Trump has been the rightful president since 2017 — and the 2024 result is a foregone conclusion.

The grid zooms back out to show the entire gallery of small headshots.

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","createdAt":"2024-07-10T16:13:28.494Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"President Donald J. Trump’s residence and private club has become an oasis for the MAGA wing of the Republican party, according to a Times analysis — and its transformation has been tremendously profitable for Mr. Trump.","id":"articles:kl46m399brp3vn624scq","keywords":["Trump","Mr","Mar-a-Lago","club","events"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":18681,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["Mr","Trump","Mar-a-Lago","club","Donald Trump"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-10T09:04:06Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"How Mar-a-Lago Became a Hub for Hard-Right Republicans","updatedAt":"2024-07-10T16:13:28.494Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/10/us/politics/mar-a-lago-republicans-trump.html"},{"byline":"Will Daniel","content":"

There’s no avoiding the hype surrounding AI these days. Promises of new developments like personal robot assistants and miracle cancer cures are ubiquitous as executives take every opportunity to emphasize their AI chops to enthusiastic investors—and slightly less enthusiastic consumers.

Not everyone has been blown away by the AI fanfare, however. James Ferguson, founding partner of the UK-based macroeconomic research firm MacroStrategy Partnership, fears investors’ AI exuberance has created a concentrated market bubble that’s reminiscent of the dot-com era.

“These historically end badly,” Ferguson told Bloomberg's Merryn Somerset Webb in the latest episode of the Merryn Talks Money podcast. “So anyone who's sort of a bit long in the tooth and has seen this sort of thing before is tempted to believe it'll end badly.”

The veteran analyst argued that hallucinations—large language models’ (LLMs) tendency to invent facts, sources, and more—may prove a more intractable problem than initially anticipated, leading AI to have far fewer viable applications.

“AI still remains, I would argue, completely unproven. And fake it till you make it may work in Silicon Valley, but for the rest of us, I think once bitten twice shy may be more appropriate for AI,” he said. “If AI cannot be trusted…then AI is effectively, in my mind, useless.”

Ferguson also noted AI may end up being too “energy hungry” to be a cost effective tool for many businesses. To his point, a recent study from the Amsterdam School of Business and Economics found that AI applications alone could use as much power as the Netherlands by 2027.

“Forget Nvidia charging more and more and more for its chips, you also have to pay more and more and more to run those chips on your servers. And therefore you end up with something that is very expensive and has yet to prove anywhere really, outside of some narrow applications, that it’s paying for this,” he said.

For investors, particularly those leaning into the AI enthusiasm, Ferguson warned that the excessive tech hype based on questionable promises is very similar to the period before the dot-com crash. He noted that during both of these periods, market returns were concentrated in tech stocks that traded based on Wall Street’s sky-high earnings growth estimates.

But despite those lofty forecasts, the dominant hardware giants of the dot-com era, Cisco and Intel, have largely disappointed investors ever since. Ferguson argued today’s AI hardware hero, Nvidia, might experience a similar fate, particularly given its elevated valuation.

“What multiple of sales is Nvidia a good deal on if you think that it might only have—no matter how stratospheric the growth rate at the moment—if you think that it's probably not going to be a player in a decade's time?” he asked, implying Nvidia might not be worth the current price tag of nearly 40 times sales investors are paying.

Despite his argument that AI-linked tech stocks like Nvidia are highly overvalued, Ferguson admitted that no one can predict when a bubble will end. This dynamic leads many bearish investors to feel “compelled to play” in the markets even when stocks look pricey, according to the analyst—and that’s a great way to get hurt.

“I mean, it's certainly what was happening in the dotcom [bubble], for example, where almost anybody who wasn't a retail punter was looking at these things and saying, 'well, it can't last, but having said that, if it lasts one more quarter and I'm not playing, I'll lose my job,'” he explained.

The good news, according to Ferguson, is that because the current stock market bubble is so concentrated in AI-linked stocks, there is still value out there.

Of course, there will be widespread pain for investors if the AI bubble bursts. But after that, Ferguson recommended looking at the currently unloved U.S. small-cap stocks, which may benefit from interest rate cuts and aren’t highly valued.

“There's a lot of value to be found in the U.S. The trouble is that that value is to be found in good old fashioned ways, trawling through small caps and looking for businesses that are growing in a good old fashioned, steady way,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

","createdAt":"2024-07-10T08:02:52.035Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":"ltr","excerpt":"\"Fake it till you make it may work in Silicon Valley, but for the rest of us, I think once bitten twice shy may be more appropriate for AI,\" MacroStrategy...","id":"articles:58k42sy923yreyj94nfo","keywords":["Ferguson","investors","stocks","bubble","end","Nvidia"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"51.161750850000004","length":4203,"lon":"-3.0753867062227487","phrases":["Ferguson","investors","Nvidia","end","stocks"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-08T19:40:08Z","siteName":"Yahoo Finance","title":"AI is effectively ‘useless’—and it’s created a ‘fake it till you make it’ bubble that could end in disaster, veteran market watcher warns","updatedAt":"2024-07-10T08:02:52.035Z","url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-effectively-useless-created-fake-194008129.html"},{"byline":"Seymour Hersh","content":"
\"\"
President Joe Biden checks his watch as he steps out onto the balcony of the White House to view the fireworks over the National Mall during a 4th of July event last Thursday. / Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images.

I was admonished early in my reporting career by William Shawn, the famed editor of the New Yorker for thirty-six years, to “use words” instead of cliches, and always try to do so. But it is time to talk about the foreign policy elephants in the room in the current crisis over Joe Biden’s political future, which is also the immediate future of the fractious Democratic Party.

And they are the current disasters in Ukraine, where a reviled Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is winning, and in Gaza, where Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is losing a murderous war with Hamas and the respect of much of the world. Joe Biden’s policies in both instances have been both a political and a humanitarian disaster.

Biden and his foreign policy gaggle, led by Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, helped to provoke a war in Ukraine and have supported Netanyahu with words and a lot of American bombs and other weaponry in his decision to respond to the Hamas assault last fall with an all-out war against Hamas that has devastated the innocent civilian population of Gaza.

Yes, Putin initiated the war in Ukraine, but there are many in the foreign policy world here and in Europe who believed that he might not have done so had the White House earlier authorized Blinken to assure Putin that Ukraine would not become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO begins a seventy-fifth anniversary meeting today in Washington and, according to a predictable announcement to the press, it “will focus on ways to reassure Ukraine of NATO’s enduring support.”

Despite some early losses, Russia, with its advantage in air and ground forces, is now dominating the war and, despite scant interest in Washington, there are serious peace talks going on. A senior American official told me that Putin “has what he wants” in Ukraine and delayed an all-out assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, while a possible settlement is being negotiated, with no known direct involvement of the crisis-ridden White House. 

It also is not clear what the future holds for Volodymyr Zelensky, the reportedly dispirited president of Ukraine. “No one knows what is going to happen to Zelensky,” the official told me. “The chain for him is getting shorter by the day.” Constant Russian attacks on power stations have left urban areas throughout the country, including Kiev, with only a few hours of power a day—not enough to prevent refrigerated food from going sour. Russia began targeting energy facilities throughout Ukraine in March, according to Reuters; the projected cost of repair and replacement is, as of late June, more than $16 billion. Russia escalated its missile attacks yesterday on cities across Ukraine, with one missile striking a major children’s hospital in Kiev, killing at least thirty-six people and injuring 140 others. It was not immediately known how many victims were children.

The political situation in Israel is equally grim, as the Israeli government—still being supplied daily by the Biden administration with American 2,000-pound bombs—continues to pound away in its more and more unsuccessful war against Hamas. The IDF was unable on October 7 to prevent Hamas from seizing hundreds of hostages. The mood of anxiety and fear has darkened, increasing Netanyahu’s political hold on many with his insistence that Israel will stay in Gaza until victory over Hamas is achieved. 

","createdAt":"2024-07-09T21:35:57.915Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"His presidency has been a disaster for the world—would another Democratic candidate do better?","id":"articles:n7pmy1a0lrxj0de0at46","keywords":["Ukraine","war","Hamas","policy","Putin"],"lang":"en","lat":"38.897699700000004","length":3677,"lon":"-77.03655315","phrases":["Ukraine","war","Hamas","Putin","White House"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-09T17:45:12Z","siteName":"Seymour Hersh","title":"THE FOREIGN POLICY BIDEN IS PUTTING ON THE BALLOT","updatedAt":"2024-07-09T21:35:57.915Z","url":"https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-foreign-policy-biden-is-putting?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1377040&post_id=146434533&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1qfwhc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email"},{"byline":"Seymour Hersh","content":"
\"\"
President Donald Trump walks with Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley, and others from the White House to visit St. John's Church after the area was cleared of people protesting the death of George Floyd on June 1, 2020. / Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images.

It is no fun to criticize a four-star Army general who served his country for forty-three years, the last four as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the end—Mark Milley retired last week—he was a hero to many in the public and the press for his avowed support of the Constitution, but not to all of the colleagues and subordinates who worked closely with him in 2020, while he was serving under Donald Trump.

","createdAt":"2024-07-09T21:34:31.148Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The former JCS chairman has complained to the press that he was duped by the president during the protests of 2020, but insiders tell a different story","id":"articles:xc1by58jotcriqbo4ygt","keywords":["Mark","Donald","Trump","Chairman","Joint","Chiefs","Staff","Milley"],"lang":"en","lat":"38.897699700000004","length":771,"lon":"-77.03655315","phrases":["Joint Chiefs","President Donald Trump","Staff Mark","Mark Milley","Chairman"],"publishedTime":"2023-10-05T11:00:18Z","siteName":"Seymour Hersh","title":"MILLEY ALWAYS TOLD TRUMP WHAT HE WANTED TO HEAR","updatedAt":"2024-07-09T21:34:31.148Z","url":"https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/milley-always-told-trump-what-he"},{"byline":"Rajesh Aggarwal","content":"

\"WhyIndia’s active participation in the WTO discussions is crucial, even for successful bilateral engagement subsequently with major markets.

India’s resistance to the expansion of the World Trade Organisation’s negotiation agenda, especially in domains such as e-commerce, trade, climate change, and investment facilitation, has consistently ignited fervent debate. The country’s stance is primarily rooted in preserving policy flexibility for its economic development strategies. While this approach suits traditional sectors like agriculture and fisheries, it may hinder seizing new opportunities in emerging fields such as the digital economy and high-tech manufacturing, which are the signature strategies of its Vikas Bharat vision. The vision 2047 seeks to outline a comprehensive roadmap for the country’s development. It envisions India as a technology-driven economy, with an ambitious goal of catapulting into a developed economy within the next 25 years.

\n

The rules of global economic governance are being reshaped in a world moulded by geoeconomics and emerging technologies, resilient global value chains and environmental sustainability. India, as a rising economy, has substantial stakes in this new paradigm. Achieving a new equilibrium of global rules will not be frictionless, yet India’s rising global stature demands that it plays a constructive role and projects its distinct personality in managing differences amidst changing dynamics.

India’s evolving domestic policy reforms are designed to promote its global integration by aiming to foster technology-driven and environmentally sustainable economic growth. The country is a favoured choice for global investors. It secured the third position in attracting FDI in 2022, after the US and China. It aims to boost goods exports to $1 trillion by 2030, positioning itself as a manufacturing powerhouse. Simultaneously, its e-commerce market is set to surge to an astounding $350 billion by 2030. However, the current e-commerce routed exports of $3.0-3.5 billion constitute only 1 per cent of total exports. Globally, e-commerce routed exports are predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2030, offering India a substantial opportunity for export growth.

\n

The desire to seize the opportunity presented by e-commerce has played a pivotal role in driving regulatory reforms in India by promoting digitisation, transparency, and operational efficiency within the business landscape. These initiatives have led to reforms in critical areas such as data protection, consumer rights, competition and taxation, fostering a more conducive ecosystem for e-commerce enterprises to thrive. India’s data protection regulations aim to align with global standards. The country, aiming for a low-carbon, resilient, and equitable transition, has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2070, and has made significant achievements in improving energy access and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

\n

In India’s evolving export-led economic growth model, the emphasis laid on maintaining unrestricted right to pursue domestic policies should yield to a pursuit of policy predictability in key destination markets like the US, the European Union, Japan, and other emerging economies, especially in high technology sectors. The country must shed its hesitancy and actively participate in negotiations concerning e-commerce, trade, climate change, and investment facilitation within the WTO.

\"Festive

The historical context that initially shaped this strategy differs significantly from today’s landscape. The policy reforms taken in the wake of the 1991 economic crisis broke down trade barriers, attracted foreign investments, and fuelled economic expansion.

\n

In the present context, India must adeptly manage its growth trajectory, emphasising digitisation, sustainable development, and resilient value chains to bolster its manufacturing sector. Seeking international consensus on rules and disciplines related to emerging economic issues and navigating the evolving geo-economic landscape is in the country’s best interest.

\n

India’s active participation in the WTO discussions is crucial, even for successful bilateral engagement subsequently with major markets. Participation in these discussions will also allow India to build a leadership position in the Global South. The country’s lack of engagement, in any case, has not deterred other interested nations from forging a consensus among major economies regarding new regulations in the realm of disruptive technologies or formulating unilateral carbon border adjustment measures inimical to Indian business interests.

\n

Going forward, it is time India breaks away from its traditionally held defensive positions. Between 2000 and 2007, India’s trade-to-GDP ratio surged from 12 per cent to 23 per cent, stabilising at this level. To achieve the ambitious export targets and accelerate GDP growth, the country aims for a higher trade-to-GDP ratio (ideally 30-35 per cent). India’s forward-looking approach to shaping multilateral disciplines in trade and investment matters has been demonstrated vividly through its active participation in G20 forums and bilateral trade and investment negotiations with economically advanced nations. A similar proactive engagement strategy should also be extended to WTO negotiations. It will be pivotal to achieving its national economic development objectives.

\n

The writer is visiting professor, ICRIER

\n
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","createdAt":"2024-07-09T04:57:01.075Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"India’s forward-looking approach to shaping multilateral disciplines in trade and investment matters has been demonstrated through its active participation in G20 forums and bilateral trade and investment negotiations with economically advanced nations. A similar proactive engagement strategy should also be extended to WTO negotiations.","id":"articles:bzhvelipfeoq88dglqj0","keywords":["India’s","e-commerce","India","Trade","economy","exports"],"lang":"en","lat":"22.3511148","length":5442,"lon":"78.6677428","phrases":["India","India’s","e-commerce","economy","trade"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-09T01:36:22Z","siteName":"The Indian Express","title":"Why India needs to reset its trade policy","updatedAt":"2024-07-09T04:57:01.075Z","url":"https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-india-needs-to-reset-its-trade-policy-9441271/"},{"byline":"Rodrigo Salem","content":"
\"\"

Nesta edição:

Parece que foi ontem que publiquei a lista dos melhores de 2023. E já estamos seis meses dentro de 2024.

Onde foi parar o tempo?

Possivelmente na frente da televisão.

Apesar do ano não ter entregue nenhuma série ou minissérie com potencial para revolucionar o gênero, tivemos algumas novidades espetaculares nesta primeira metade do ano.

A lista inicial tinha quinze lançamentos de destaque. O que não é tanto, considerando que não tem nenhuma série retornando, como “The Bear” ou “A Casa do Dragão”.

Vamos lá.

\"\"

O retorno de Sam Spade, um dos detetives mais famosos da cultura pop, parecia uma ideia fadada ao fracasso. Mas os criadores da série, Scott Frank (“O Gambito da Rainha”) e Tom Fontana (“Oz”), conseguiram continuar a história do personagem célebre na interpretação de Humphrey Bogart. Agora, o durão Spade ganha o rosto de Clive Owen, está mais velho, vive no sul da França, descobre que tem câncer e precisa desvendar um mistério sinistro que envolve uma enteada, freiras brutalmente assassinadas e colonização da África. Tudo embalado com classe, reverência e um roteiro enxutíssimo. Boa surpresa. Publiquei uma entrevista reveladora com Owen sobre a série da AMC em janeiro e você pode ler AQUI.

","createdAt":"2024-07-07T23:17:05.995Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Os primeiros seis meses do ano trouxeram crimes reais e ficcionais, fenômenos de audiência, remakes e muito mais.","id":"articles:s92wzgbtols2kiykzoqu","keywords":["da","e","não","série","ou","com","uma"],"lang":"en","lat":"44.9391565","length":1482,"lon":"-123.033121","phrases":["freiras brutalmente assassinadas e colonização da África","ano não ter entregue nenhuma série ou minissérie com","Mas os criadores da série","Robert Zemeckis ganha trailer e gera","série da AMC"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-05T10:03:19Z","siteName":"Desafiador do Desconhecido","title":"As 10 melhores novas séries de 2024... até agora!","updatedAt":"2024-07-07T23:17:05.995Z","url":"https://desafiador.substack.com/p/as-10-melhores-novas-series-de-2024"},{"byline":null,"content":"

\"Labour

Labour-Chef Starmer darf jubeln.Bild: keystone

Grossbritannien erlebt einen Regierungswechsel. Die Oppositionspartei Labour und ihr Parteichef Keir Starmer haben die Parlamentswahl deutlich gewonnen. Der 61-Jährige wird damit neuer Premierminister und soll heute von König Charles III. mit der Regierungsbildung beauftragt werden.

Landesweit eroberten seine Sozialdemokraten zahlreiche Wahlkreise von den Konservativen des bisherigen Regierungschefs Rishi Sunak.

Den Tories droht nun ein Richtungsstreit. Sie kommen auf ein historisch schlechtes Ergebnis. Für den 44-jährigen Sunak ist es eine schwere Niederlage. «Die Labour-Partei hat diese Parlamentswahl gewonnen, und ich habe Sir Keir Starmer angerufen, um ihm zu seinem Sieg zu gratulieren», sagte Sunak sichtlich niedergeschlagen. Er deutete seinen Rückzug von der Parteispitze an.

Briten wählen viele Regierungsmitglieder ab

Labour kommt nach Auszählung fast aller Wahlkreise auf mindestens 410 von 650 Sitzen im Unterhaus (House of Commons). Bei der Wahl 2019 hatte die Partei bloss 202 Mandate geholt. Die Konservativen brechen nach bisherigem Stand von bisher 365 auf etwa 120 Sitze ein. Dabei wurden so viele Kabinettsmitglieder abgewählt wie nie, auch die frühere Regierungschefin Liz Truss verliert ihr Mandat.

Etliche Stimmen gehen an die rechtspopulistische Partei Reform UK. Deren Vorsitzender Nigel Farage, der einst den Brexit massgeblich vorangetrieben hatte, schafft es im achten Anlauf erstmals ins Unterhaus. Seine Partei dürfte die Tories weiter unter Druck setzen.

Starmer verspricht Veränderungen

Die Konservativen regierten seit 14 Jahren im Vereinigten Königreich. Starmer wird nun der erste Labour-Premierminister seit Gordon Brown und Tony Blair. «Die Menschen haben gesprochen, sie sind bereit für den Wandel. Sie haben abgestimmt und es ist an der Zeit, dass wir liefern», sagte er. Starmer, der seine bodenständige Herkunft betont, war früher Chef der Anklagebehörde Crown Prosecution Service, und hat zwei Kinder im Teenageralter.

Starmer siegte in seinem Londoner Wahlkreis Holborn and St Pancras deutlich. Allerdings verlor er im Vergleich zu 2019 rund 17 Prozentpunkte. Das lag vor allem an der hohen Zustimmung für einen unabhängigen Kandidaten, der sich deutlich gegen das israelische Vorgehen im Gazastreifen aussprach. Labour-Spitzenpolitiker Jonathan Ashworth verlor sogar überraschend seinen Wahlkreis an einen propalästinensischen Bewerber.

Wie ein Wahlforscher den Vorsprung erklärt

Meinungsforscher sahen den deutlichen Sieg der Sozialdemokraten lange kommen. Verantwortlich für den klaren Ausgang der Wahl ist nach Ansicht des renommierten Meinungsforschers John Curtice von der Universität Strathclyde in Glasgow nicht in erster Linie Begeisterung für Labour, sondern Verdruss über die bisherige Regierungspartei.

Sunak war bereits der dritte Regierungschef seiner Partei in der vergangenen Legislaturperiode, die von wirtschaftlicher Stagnation und stark steigenden Lebenshaltungskosten geprägt war. Übernommen hatte er im Oktober 2022 von Truss, die nach nur 49 Tagen im Amt zurückgetreten war. Im Wahlkampf kämpfte Sunaks Partei mit Pannen und einem Skandal um illegale Wetten auf den mutmasslichen Wahltermin.

«Wir haben eine grundlegende Regel der Politik vergessen»

Für Sunaks Konservative gleicht die Wahl einem Alptraum. «Erdrutsch» und «Massaker» lauten einige Schlagzeilen der britischen Presse nach Bekanntwerden des Desasters. Mehrere Kabinettsmitglieder verloren ihre Sitze, darunter Verteidigungsminister Grant Shapps, Bildungsministerin Gillian Keegan sowie Penny Mordaunt – die Ministerin für Parlamentsfragen galt bisher als Favoritin auf Sunaks Nachfolge.

«Für mich ist klar, dass Labour die Wahl heute Abend nicht gewonnen hat, sondern dass die Tories sie verloren haben», sagte Shapps. «Wir haben eine grundlegende Regel der Politik vergessen. Die Leute wählen keine gespaltenen Parteien.» Kommentatoren erwarten nun einen regelrechten «Bürgerkrieg» unter den Tories.

Rechtspopulist Farage macht Kampfansage

Mandate verloren haben die Konservativen wohl nicht nur an Labour. Auch die Liberaldemokraten scheinen erhebliche Zugewinne auf Kosten der Tories verbuchen zu können. Für die schottische Unabhängigkeitspartei SNP dagegen sieht es nach einer verheerenden Niederlage aus.

Als Sieger fühlen sich hingegen die Rechtspopulisten um Farage, auch wenn sie nur wenige Mandate erhalten. Denn im britischen Mehrheitswahlrecht gewinnt die Kandidatin oder der Kandidat mit den meisten Stimmen den Wahlkreis – alle anderen Stimmen haben keine Auswirkung. Farage schrieb auf der Plattform X, vergangene Nacht markiere «das Ende der Konservativen Partei, wie wir sie kennen».

Wofür steht Keir Starmer?

Starmer führte Labour wieder in die politische Mitte, nachdem die Partei unter seinem Vorgänger Jeremy Corbyn – dem nun als Unabhängigen die Wiederwahl gelang – weit nach links gerückt war. Zudem ging er entschieden gegen antisemitische Tendenzen in den eigenen Reihen vor.

Was politische Inhalte angeht, blieb der bisherige Oppositionschef in vielen Bereichen eher vage. Manche Kommentatoren vergleichen seine behutsame Art deshalb mit dem Tragen einer Porzellanvase aus der chinesischen Ming-Dynastie. (saw/sda/dpa)

Mehr zum Thema:

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Diebischer Otte bringt englisches Luxushotel um über 100'000 Franken

Video: watson

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\n

Sowohl Russland als auch die Ukraine erleiden im Ukraine-Krieg schwere Verluste. Zahlreiche Soldaten müssen für die Gefechte ihr Leben lassen, teils für geringe Landgewinne. Russland nutzt bei seinen Angriffen oft seinen grössten Vorteil: die zahlenmässige Überlegenheit. So werden bei «Wellenangriffen» zahlreiche Soldaten auf ukrainische Stellungen angesetzt. Bei Kämpfen in der Stadt Chasiv Yar soll sich zuletzt das ukrainische Militär aus dem Kanal-Distrikt zurückgezogen haben.

","createdAt":"2024-07-07T21:33:58.005Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-02T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Rishi Sunaks Tories fahren eine historische Wahlschlappe ein. Die Labour Partei erobern zahlreiche Wahlkreise von den Konservativen.","id":"articles:s465cweflbw81rboah02","keywords":["Der","den","Für","im","haben"],"lang":"de","lat":"39.8606676","length":5849,"lon":"-104.68536732610298","phrases":["grundlegende Regel der Politik vergessen","Kandidatin oder der Kandidat mit den meisten Stimmen den Wahlkreis","Wahlforscher den Vorsprung erklärtMeinungsforscher sahen den deutlichen Sieg der Sozialdemokraten","der Stadt Chasiv Yar soll sich zuletzt das ukrainische Militär aus dem Kanal-Distrikt zurückgezogen haben","Verantwortlich für den klaren Ausgang der Wahl"],"publishedTime":null,"siteName":"watson.ch","title":"«Massaker» für Premier Sunak – Labour-Chef Starmer auf Kurs","updatedAt":"2024-07-07T21:33:58.005Z","url":"https://www.watson.ch/international/grossbritannien/271651600-massaker-fuer-premier-sunak-labour-chef-starmer-auf-kurs"},{"byline":"James Julian","content":"

\"James

\"Pure

People have been predicting doom and gloom for the United States economy for so long now that it’s hard not to be desensitized to it.

To be sure, America has been trucking along as though inflation isn’t out of control, interest rates aren’t totally oppressive, and there isn’t war breaking out on multiple fronts around the world.

All this while peers like Canada and the Eurozone have shown plenty of signs of economic stress.

But is it possible that real cracks are finally starting to show in the mighty American machine?

It’s starting to look that way.

Let’s talk about what’s happening at McDonalds restaurants around the country right now.

Is fast food spending the canary is the coalmine for the US economy? (Licensed by the author under the Unsplash+ License)

Are American consumers finally starting to fold?

One thing I like to keep an eye on as a bellwether for the wider economy is stock market earnings — especially those of companies that cater to consumers.

And this week, fast food giant McDonald’s reported troubling earnings indeed.

Economists have long pointed to the strength of the American consumer as the main reason the country might escape recession and bring the economy in for that soft landing that Federal Reserve…

","createdAt":"2024-07-07T21:23:22.822Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"People have been predicting doom and gloom for the United States economy for so long now that it’s hard not to be desensitized to it. To be sure, America has been trucking along as though inflation…","id":"articles:6ipaj8zcywz2bsrobtdd","keywords":["economy","American","isn’t","country","food","consumers","earnings"],"lang":"en","lat":"39.7837304","length":1233,"lon":"-100.445882","phrases":["economy","American consumers","States economy","American machine?It’s","food giant McDonald’s","stock market earnings"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-08T18:11:42.530Z","siteName":"Pure Dividends","title":"Is the U.S. economy about to crash? McDonald’s offers a clue","updatedAt":"2024-07-07T21:23:22.822Z","url":"https://medium.com/pure-dividends/is-the-economy-about-to-crash-mcdonalds-offers-a-clue-a097aa62a850?source=email-4c6ce64acbc6-1720345228682-digest.reader-d835c5cc176f-a097aa62a850----0-99------------------95fbf7d0_8925_4a78_84a6_6446a3bb314c-1"},{"byline":"The Economist","content":"

So far the technology has had almost no economic impact

|San Francisco

Move to San Francisco and it is hard not to be swept up by mania over artificial intelligence (AI). Advertisements tell you how the tech will revolutionise your workplace. In bars people speculate about when the world will “get AGI”, or when machines will become more advanced than humans. The five big tech firms—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, all of which have either headquarters or outposts nearby—are investing vast sums. This year they are budgeting an estimated $400bn for capital expenditures, mostly on AI-related hardware, and for research and development.

In the world’s tech capital it is taken as read that AI will transform the global economy. But for ai to fulfil its potential, firms everywhere need to buy the technology, shape it to their needs and become more productive as a result. Investors have added more than $2trn to the market value of the five big tech firms in the past year—in effect projecting an extra $300bn-400bn in annual revenues according to our rough estimates, about the same as another Apple’s worth of sales. For now, though, the tech titans are miles from such results. Even bullish analysts think Microsoft will make only about $10bn from generative-AI-related sales this year. Beyond America’s west coast, there is little sign AI is having much of an effect on anything.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “A sequence of zeroes”

\"No

From the July 6th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

","createdAt":"2024-07-07T12:34:57.176Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1843-10-01T03:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"So far the technology has had almost no economic impact","id":"articles:glroheqagzvs656d160c","keywords":["tech","firms","year","technology","San","five","Microsoft","result","effect","sales","section","edition"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.5074456","length":1680,"lon":"-0.1277653","phrases":["tech firms","year","world’s tech","tech titans","technology","tech","five","Microsoft","result","effect","sales"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-02T18:30:07.697Z","siteName":"The Economist","title":"What happened to the artificial-intelligence revolution?","updatedAt":"2024-07-07T12:34:57.176Z","url":"https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/07/02/what-happened-to-the-artificial-intelligence-revolution","votes":1},{"byline":"Rachel Metz","content":"

Stability AI, the closely watched artificial intelligence startup, has lost at least two top executives in recent weeks, including its head of research and chief operating officer.

David Ha, head of research for the London-based startup, resigned this month. Chief Operating Officer Ren Ito was “let go,” according to Chief Executive Officer Emad Mostaque. Ito didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

","createdAt":"2024-07-07T09:03:57.713Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"At least two high-profile people have left the artificial intelligence company in recent weeks.","id":"articles:j73ijr58wn4ilzoesc8r","keywords":["officer","startup","executives","head","research","Chief","Ito"],"lang":"en","lat":"-31.7613365","length":412,"lon":"-71.3187697","phrases":["Chief Executive Officer Emad Mostaque","Officer Ren Ito","head","research","intelligence startup","London-based startup","officer","Ito didn’t"],"publishedTime":"2023-06-26T22:22:27.550Z","siteName":"Bloomberg","title":"Stability AI Head of Research Resigns From Startup","updatedAt":"2024-07-07T09:03:57.713Z","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-26/stability-ai-head-of-research-resigns-from-startup?leadSource=uverify%20wall"},{"byline":"Jack Phillips","content":"

The California Supreme Court issued a 7–0 ruling on policing in the state.

The California Supreme Court issued a 7–0 ruling that police or sheriff’s deputies cannot detain people on the street just because they are trying to avoid contact with them.

Last week, the state’s high court wrote that the fact that a person appears to be concealing him- or herself or acting nervously cannot be the only reason for an officer to detain the person. Those actions can be “relevant context,” but there still needs to be “reasonable suspicion of criminal activity,” Justice Carol Corrigan wrote in the court’s unanimous ruling.

Law enforcement officials, she added in the opinion, “may consider what they see in plain view,” and they can “approach people in public, engage them in consensual conversation, and take note of their appearance and behavior.“ However, there needs to be probable cause because the individual is ”constitutionally protected and empowered to go on his or her way,” Justice Corrigan wrote.

The case involved Marlon Flores, who was arrested by Los Angeles Police Department officers in 2019 when he was standing on a street that was described as a gang area, according to court papers. Mr. Flores saw the officers driving before he walked around a vehicle and hid behind it.

“One fair interpretation of the facts is that Flores initially tried to avoid being seen by the officers. Thereafter, and somewhat inconsistently, he stood and was in view for several seconds. He then failed to acknowledge the officers’ approach, and sought to avoid interacting with them,” Justice Corrigan added in the opinion.

However, she wrote: “Flores’s presence in a high crime area at night ... did not provide a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that Flores was doing something illegal. It is settled that a person may decline to engage in a consensual encounter with police.”

Related Stories

\"Man
\"Gun,

“I agree with today’s opinion that the detention of defendant Marlon Flores was unlawful,“ Justice Kelli Evans wrote in a concurring opinion. ”In bending over with his hands by his shoe and refraining from acknowledging the officers’ presence, Flores indicated he was either going about his business or attempting to avoid engaging with the police, both of which were within his rights to do.”

Mr. Flores was ultimately convicted of carrying a loaded and unregistered handgun in violation of state law, court papers show. The California Court of Appeal upheld his conviction in 2021.

The lower court noted that Mr. Flores ducked down behind a car and later “continually moved his hands, keeping them out of sight of the police” as officers approached him. According to the ruling, an officer testified that Mr. Flores “acted ’suspicious(ly)‘ by ’attempting to conceal himself from the police‘ and then ’pretend(ing) to tie his shoe.'”

The lower court found that the officer would have “valid suspicions” if the individual picked an unlikely moment for the task, in the dark, just after seeing police, and just after ducking once already, and if the person took an unusually long time at it. The trial court found that Mr. Flores was in a crouching position for a suspiciously long time, warranting police officers’ decision to apprehend him.

It’s not clear whether the California Supreme Court ruling will be appealed. In the landmark 1968 ruling in Terry v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that police can use the “stop and frisk” procedure under the U.S. Constitution.

That established the concept of a “Terry stop,” which allows police to briefly detain a person based on a reasonable suspicion they are engaging in criminal activity.

The California Appeals Court ruling noted that prosecutors were not able to determine whether Mr. Flores was engaging in illegal drug activity but that the trial court was “right that together the facts justified this Terry stop.”

“In combination with the other factors, a reasonable officer had a reasonable basis for investigating further to resolve this ambiguity, because nervous and evasive behavior is a pertinent factor in determining whether suspicion is reasonable,” the court found.

After the state Supreme Court’s ruling last week, multiple police groups and unions released statements saying that it will lead to more crime.

The Epoch Times contacted the Los Angeles Police Protective League, a Los Angeles Police Department union, for comment but received none by press time.

","createdAt":"2024-07-07T04:05:55.725Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The California Supreme Court issued a 7–0 ruling on policing in the state.","id":"articles:zoa865zq7spsjihqs44j","keywords":["Court","police","officer","Flores","Mr"],"lang":"en","lat":"36.7014631","length":4424,"lon":"-118.755997","phrases":["officer","Flores","police","court","California Supreme Court"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-06T15:56:37Z","siteName":"The Epoch Times","title":"California Supreme Court Rules People Can’t Be Detained Just for Trying to Avoid Police","updatedAt":"2024-07-07T04:05:55.725Z","url":"https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/california-supreme-court-rules-people-cant-be-detained-just-for-trying-to-avoid-police-5644562?twclid=24mtabxecvolhko7gjofv2a4eq&utm_source=tw_news_oc_carlos&utm_medium=TwitterAd&utm_campaign=reg_news_oc_carlos&utm_content=ca_court_0513&utm_term=reg_email"},{"byline":null,"content":"

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Der Zahn der Zeit nagt an allem: Felle verlieren ihre Haare, Pflanzen verwittern zu Humus, Felsen zerfallen zu Steinen, und die zerbröseln zu Sand. So ist es seit Jahrmillionen. Vor einem erdgeschichtlichen Wimpernschlag tauchte dann ein neuer Stoff auf: Plastik.

Der Menschen hat es erfunden, um seinen Alltag einfacher, sicherer, billiger – und auch gesünder zu machen, etwa wenn Kunststofffolien Essen vor Keimen schützen. Heute ist Kunststoff allgegenwärtig, ob als Verpackung, Bauteil, Autoreifen oder Kleidung.

Und auch am Kunststoff nagt der Zahn der Zeit: Er wird zerbrochen, zerrieben, zermahlen. Jeder Plastikbecher am Wegesrand wird spröde, wenn die Weichmacher entwichen sind. Dann beginnt der mechanische Zerfall. Am Ende bleiben kleine Kunststoffpartikel, die man gerade so noch sieht, bis hin zu kleinsten Teilen, die so winzig sind, dass sie auch durch Zellmembranen dringen.

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\n\t\t\t

Mircea Geoană ar fi plagiat prin traducere, fără vreun fel de atribuire și fără ghilimele, zeci de pagini din rapoartele anuale prezentate Congresului SUA de președinții americani Bill Clinton și George W. Bush, se arată într-o investigație semnată de Emilia Șercan în PressOne.

\n\n

În 2005, după 12 ani de studii doctorale, Mircea Geoană – în prezent secretar general adjunct al NATO și potențial candidat la prezidențialele din toamnă – a susținut la ASE o teză de doctorat despre integrarea României în structurile euro-atlantice în care subiectul central este comprimat în 1,4% din totalul lucrării.

\n\n

Deși posesor al unei experiențe valoroase, nemijlocite, privind tema pe care și-a ales-o, Geoană – care a fost ambasador al României la Washington și apoi ministru de externe al României – nu menționează în teză nici măcar momentele-cheie, de manual, din etapele de aderare la NATO și UE, mai arată PressOne.

\n

Acesta dedică zeci și zeci de pagini, în schimb, evoluției economiei americane, incluzând în teza sa considerații detaliate despre politicile monetare ale Rezervei Federale, despre felul în care autoritățile au gestionat fuziuni de corporații care ar fi pus în pericol libera competiție, dar și despre evoluția NASDAQ, a inflației sau a deficitului bugetar al SUA.

\n

Într-o amplă discuție cu PressOne, Mircea Geoană a negat nu foarte convingător că ar fi plagiat în teza sa: “Nu știu, eu vă spun că ceea ce am făcut eu cu teza mea de doctorat a fost făcut absolut onest și nu mă simt cu absolut nimic în afară a regulilor din vremea respectivă. Acum…dacă s-au schimbat regulile între timp, e altceva”.

\n\n

Citește investigația integrală pe PressOne.

\n\t\t\t
\n

Urmărește mai jos producțiile video ale G4Media:

\n
\n\t\t
","createdAt":"2024-07-01T12:35:29.842Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Mircea Geoană ar fi plagiat prin traducere, fără vreun fel de atribuire și fără ghilimele, zeci de pagini din rapoartele anuale prezentate Congresului SUA","id":"articles:2ddnjaa0rd1h4l6ky24z","keywords":["în","și","din","Geoană","despre","care"],"lang":"ro-RO","lat":"55.0345019","length":2031,"lon":"-162.6050458","phrases":["Mircea Geoană","doctorat despre integrarea României în structurile euro-atlantice în care subiectul","fost făcut absolut onest și nu mă simt cu absolut nimic în afară","negat nu foarte convingător că ar fi plagiat în teza sa","și"],"publishedTime":"2024-07-01T06:26:11Z","siteName":"G4Media.ro","title":"PressOne: Mircea Geoană a plagiat din doi președinți americani - Bill Clinton și George W. Bush / Reacția secretarului general adjunct al NATO","updatedAt":"2024-07-01T12:35:29.842Z","url":"https://www.g4media.ro/pressone-mircea-geoana-a-plagiat-din-doi-presedinti-americani-bill-clinton-si-george-w-bush-reactia-secretarului-general-adjunct-al-nato.html"},{"byline":"Karen Hao","content":"

Almost everything you hear about artificial intelligence today is thanks to deep learning. This category of algorithms works by using statistics to find patterns in data, and it has proved immensely powerful in mimicking human skills such as our ability to see and hear. To a very narrow extent, it can even emulate our ability to reason. These capabilities power Google’s search, Facebook’s news feed, and Netflix’s recommendation engine—and are transforming industries like health care and education.

But though deep learning has singlehandedly thrust AI into the public eye, it represents just a small blip in the history of humanity’s quest to replicate our own intelligence. It’s been at the forefront of that effort for less than 10 years. When you zoom out on the whole history of the field, it’s easy to realize that it could soon be on its way out.

“If somebody had written in 2011 that this was going to be on the front page of newspapers and magazines in a few years, we would’ve been like, ‘Wow, you’re smoking something really strong,’” says Pedro Domingos, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington and author of The Master Algorithm.

The sudden rise and fall of different techniques has characterized AI research for a long time, he says. Every decade has seen a heated competition between different ideas. Then, once in a while, a switch flips, and everyone in the community converges on a specific one.

\n

At MIT Technology Review, we wanted to visualize these fits and starts. So we turned to one of the largest open-source databases of scientific papers, known as the arXiv (pronounced “archive”). We downloaded the abstracts of all 16,625 papers available in the “artificial intelligence” section through November 18, 2018, and tracked the words mentioned through the years to see how the field has evolved.   

Through our analysis, we found three major trends: a shift toward machine learning during the late 1990s and early 2000s, a rise in the popularity of neural networks beginning in the early 2010s, and growth in reinforcement learning in the past few years.

\n

There are a couple of caveats. First, the arXiv’s AI section goes back only to 1993, while the term “artificial intelligence” dates to the 1950s, so the database represents just the latest chapters of the field’s history. Second, the papers added to the database each year represent a fraction of the work being done in the field at that moment. Nonetheless, the arXiv offers a great resource for gleaning some of the larger research trends and for seeing the push and pull of different ideas.

A machine-learning paradigm

The biggest shift we found was a transition away from knowledge-based systems by the early 2000s. These computer programs are based on the idea that you can use rules to encode all human knowledge. In their place, researchers turned to machine learning—the parent category of algorithms that includes deep learning.

Among the top 100 words mentioned, those related to knowledge-based systems—like “logic,” “constraint,” and “rule”—saw the greatest decline. Those related to machine learning—like “data,” “network,” and “performance”—saw the highest growth.

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The reason for this sea change is rather simple. In the ’80s, knowledge-based systems amassed a popular following thanks to the excitement surrounding ambitious projects that were attempting to re-create common sense within machines. But as those projects unfolded, researchers hit a major problem: there were simply too many rules that needed to be encoded for a system to do anything useful. This jacked up costs and significantly slowed ongoing efforts.

Machine learning became an answer to that problem. Instead of requiring people to manually encode hundreds of thousands of rules, this approach programs machines to extract those rules automatically from a pile of data. Just like that, the field abandoned knowledge-based systems and turned to refining machine learning.

The neural-network boom

Under the new machine-learning paradigm, the shift to deep learning didn’t happen immediately. Instead, as our analysis of key terms shows, researchers tested a variety of methods in addition to neural networks, the core machinery of deep learning. Some of the other popular techniques included Bayesian networks, support vector machines, and evolutionary algorithms, all of which take different approaches to finding patterns in data.

\n\n

Through the 1990s and 2000s, there was steady competition between all of these methods. Then, in 2012, a pivotal breakthrough led to another sea change. During the annual ImageNet competition, intended to spur progress in computer vision, a researcher named Geoffrey Hinton, along with his colleagues at the University of Toronto, achieved the best accuracy in image recognition by an astonishing margin of more than 10 percentage points.

The technique he used, deep learning, sparked a wave of new research—first within the vision community and then beyond. As more and more researchers began using it to achieve impressive results, its popularity—along with that of neural networks—exploded.

The rise of reinforcement learning

In the few years since the rise of deep learning, our analysis reveals, a third and final shift has taken place in AI research.

As well as the different techniques in machine learning, there are three different types: supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Supervised learning, which involves feeding a machine labeled data, is the most commonly used and also has the most practical applications by far. In the last few years, however, reinforcement learning, which mimics the process of training animals through punishments and rewards, has seen a rapid uptick of mentions in paper abstracts.

The idea isn’t new, but for many decades it didn’t really work. “The supervised-learning people would make fun of the reinforcement-learning people,” Domingos says. But, just as with deep learning, one pivotal moment suddenly placed it on the map.

That moment came in October 2015, when DeepMind’s AlphaGo, trained with reinforcement learning, defeated the world champion in the ancient game of Go. The effect on the research community was immediate. 

The next decade

\n

Our analysis provides only the most recent snapshot of the competition among ideas that characterizes AI research. But it illustrates the fickleness of the quest to duplicate intelligence. “The key thing to realize is that nobody knows how to solve this problem,” Domingos says.

Many of the techniques used in the last 25 years originated at around the same time, in the 1950s, and have fallen in and out of favor with the challenges and successes of each decade. Neural networks, for example, peaked in the ’60s and briefly in the ’80s but nearly died before regaining their current popularity through deep learning.

\n

Every decade, in other words, has essentially seen the reign of a different technique: neural networks in the late ’50s and ’60s, various symbolic approaches in the ’70s, knowledge-based systems in the ’80s, Bayesian networks in the ’90s, support vector machines in the ’00s, and neural networks again in the ’10s.

The 2020s should be no different, says Domingos, meaning the era of deep learning may soon come to an end. But characteristically, the research community has competing ideas about what will come next—whether an older technique will regain favor or whether the field will create an entirely new paradigm.

“If you answer that question,” Domingos says, “I want to patent the answer.”

","createdAt":"2024-07-01T11:49:22.245Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1900-01-01T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Our study of 25 years of artificial-intelligence research suggests the era of deep learning may come to an end.","id":"articles:30wpqf1xkto18b16cr9i","keywords":["research","machine","networks","years","techniques"],"lang":"en","lat":"42.3788774","length":7527,"lon":"-72.032366","phrases":["research","years","machine","techniques","networks"],"publishedTime":"2019-01-25T14:45:00Z","siteName":"MIT Technology Review","title":"We analyzed 16,625 papers to figure out where AI is headed next","updatedAt":"2024-07-01T11:49:22.245Z","url":"https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/01/25/1436/we-analyzed-16625-papers-to-figure-out-where-ai-is-headed-next/"},{"byline":"Ryan Gould","content":"

CB Insights, a provider of market intelligence on venture capital firms and startups, is exploring a potential sale, according to people familiar with the matter.

The New York-based company, officially called CB Information Services Inc., has been interviewing investment banks to work with on a sales process, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public.

","createdAt":"2024-07-01T10:36:46.735Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"CB Insights, a provider of market intelligence on venture capital firms and startups, is exploring a potential sale, according to people familiar with the matter.","id":"articles:88wf8nnk9hoe1qkrc9vv","keywords":["CB","sale","people","Insights","provider","market","intelligence","venture","firms","startups","New","York-based","company","Information","Services","investment","banks","work","process","matter","isn’t"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.5074456","length":390,"lon":"-0.1277653","phrases":["people","CB Information Services","CB Insights","sales process","New York-based company"],"publishedTime":"2023-09-08T17:13:13.359Z","siteName":"Bloomberg","title":"VC Intel Provider CB Insights Said to Weigh $800 Million Sale","updatedAt":"2024-07-01T10:36:46.735Z","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-08/vc-intel-provider-cb-insights-said-to-weigh-800-million-sale"},{"byline":"Tess Owen","content":"

Armed with rhetoric about the “deep state”, a conservative-backed group is planning to publicly name and shame career government employees that they consider hostile to Donald Trump.

This “blacklist” of civil servants, which will be published online, is intended to advance Trump’s broader goals, which, if elected, include weeding out government employees and replacing them with loyalists.

The group behind the list is the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), which was founded in 2020 and describes its mission as “working non-stop to expose the left’s secrets and hold Biden accountable”. A 2022 New Yorker profile described AAF as a “conservative dark-money group” and “slime machine”.

In recent years, AAF has focused its efforts on derailing Biden’s political appointments. Now, according to a press release, the AAF is getting to work on a new mission: “Project Sovereignty 2025”.

Backed with a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing thinktank, AAF will compile information, including social media posts, about civil servants they suspect will “obstruct and sabotage a future conservative president”. They plan to publish dossiers on those non-public facing individuals, starting with the Department of Homeland Security, and expose them to scrutiny.

“WE ARE DECLARING WAR ON THE DEEP STATE,” AAF wrote in a post on Twitter/X earlier this week.

News of the project has reportedly sent alarm bells ringing among the civil service community, and it’s the latest sign that Trump and his allies are seeking to wrest control of Washington DC, which they believe has been overrun by their opponents.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union (and has endorsed Joe Biden), described Project Sovereignty 2025 as “an intimidation tactic to try to menace federal workers and sow fear”.

“Civil servants are required to take an oath to the Constitution,” they wrote on X. “Not a loyalty test to a president.”

Project Sovereignty 2025 has also drawn comparisons to the anti-communist blacklisting techniques employed during the McCarthy era.

Donald Moynihan, a political scientist and the McCourt chair of Georgetown University’s McCourt school of public policy says those comparisons are valid, and that AAF’s plans reveal a “deep animus towards state actors who are seen as disloyal to the party and party ideology, and a desire to punish those actors”.

During the first Trump administration, Trump and his allies made no secret of their animosity towards non-political government workers who they believed were working internally to impede his policies, particularly on immigration. Those suspicions have been increasingly rolled into nebulous conspiracies about the “deep state” – a cabal of government officials with a sinister agenda.

“Trump used to talk about ‘The Swamp’, and that rhetoric has become sharper and more negative since it’s merged with discussion about ‘the deep state’,” said Moynihan. “This is also because he views the state as a threat to him personally.”

Moynihan says it’s also important to consider Project Sovereignty 2025 in the context of broader patterns of intimidation against individuals across institutions, and across all levels of government.

“Librarians, teachers, professors, public health officials, election officials, who were previously anonymous, and left to do their jobs, now have to worry about being doxxed, being accused of being disloyal and being part of the deep state,” said Moynihan. “I think that is really quite new.”

“Project Sovereignty” would lay the groundwork for Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025”, a 900-page blueprint for Trump to follow if he’s elected. Project 2025, which explicitly makes “Christian nationalism” a priority for Trump, also seeks to reorganize the federal government. Critics have labeled it “authoritarian” in nature.

One of Project 2025’s top priorities is the implementation of “Schedule F”, which would reclassify tens of thousands of career civil servants as political appointees. This move would allow Trump to conduct mass dismissals and replace those employees with his supporters.

Trump introduced Schedule F via executive order in October 2020, which was later rescinded by Biden. Earlier this year, the Biden administration ushered in additional protections to “safeguard federal employees from political firings”. Trump has vowed to reimplement Schedule F on his first day in office, “I will shatter the Deep State,” he said in a statement last year.

On the surface, it would be easy to perhaps dismiss AAF as some fringe outfit steeped in “deep state” conspiracies. But that’s not the case. AAF is run by Tom Jones, former legislative director to Republican Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson. Jones also ran opposition research for Senator Ted Cruz’s unsuccessful bid for president in 2016.

“This isn’t just some crank in his basement,” said Moynihan. “This is someone funded by the Heritage Foundation, who has worked with Republican senators, and is part of the broader Republican mainstream operation.”

Jones and AAF have not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment.

Some of AAF’s tactics in recent years offer some insight into what Project Sovereignty 2025 could look like. For example, they haven’t just targeted Biden’s high-profile nominees for cabinet and court seats. They’ve also gone after lesser-known political appointees, whose relative obscurity leaves them particularly vulnerable to smears, which are then published to the website bidennoms.com along with their photos.

The AAF also has a track record of disproportionately targeting women and people of color. According to the New Yorker in 2022, more than a third of the 29 candidates they’d singled out were people of color, and nearly 60% were women.

“Those sorts of lists create more intimidation,” said Moynihan, “More fear, and more consequences when these actors have access to power to potentially fire people, in addition to intimidating them.”

","createdAt":"2024-06-30T13:46:09.328Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"AAF to publish dossiers of employees they consider hostile to ex-president, with goal of ultimately replacing them","id":"articles:i5vjpwo915p0iq299vgp","keywords":["AAF","Project","state","Trump","government"],"lang":"en","lat":"33.7489924","length":5976,"lon":"-84.3902644","phrases":["AAF","Project Sovereignty","Trump","state","Moynihan"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-30T12:17:41Z","siteName":"the Guardian","title":"Trump loyalists plan to name and shame ‘blacklist’ of federal workers","updatedAt":"2024-06-30T13:46:09.329Z","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/30/trump-loyalists-deep-state-blacklist-american-accountability-foundation?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other"},{"byline":"Peter Baker","content":"

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\"\"
A raspy-voiced President Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter former President Donald J. Trump during the debate on Thursday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

news analysis

President Biden’s shaky, halting debate performance has Democrats talking about replacing him on the ticket.

A raspy-voiced President Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter former President Donald J. Trump during the debate on Thursday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Peter Baker

Peter Baker has covered the past five presidents, including Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr.

President Biden hoped to build fresh momentum for his re-election bid by agreeing to debate nearly two months before he is to be formally nominated. Instead, his halting and disjointed performance on Thursday night prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all.

Over the course of 90 minutes, a raspy-voiced Mr. Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter a sharp though deeply dishonest former President Donald J. Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president’s ability to wage a vigorous and competitive campaign four months before the election. Rather than dispel concerns about his age, Mr. Biden, 81, made it the central issue.

Democrats who have defended the president for months against his doubters — including members of his own administration — traded frenzied phone calls and text messages within minutes of the start of the debate as it became clear that Mr. Biden was not at his sharpest. Practically in despair, some took to social media to express shock, while others privately discussed among themselves whether it was too late to persuade the president to bow out in favor of a younger candidate.

“Biden is about to face a crescendo of calls to step aside,” said a veteran Democratic strategist who has staunchly backed Mr. Biden publicly. “Joe had a deep well of affection among Democrats. It has run dry.”

“Parties exist to win,” this Democrat continued. “The man on the stage with Trump cannot win. The fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now that same fear is going to fuel calls for him to step down.”

A group of House Democrats said they were watching the debate together, and one, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that it was a “disaster” for Mr. Biden. The person said the group was discussing the need for a new presidential nominee.

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","createdAt":"2024-06-29T14:23:10.191Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"President Biden’s shaky, halting debate performance has Democrats talking about replacing him on the ticket.","id":"articles:dxa8siml13289l9rpeg4","keywords":["Biden","President","Trump","debate","Democrats"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":2941,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["Biden","Trump","debate","Mr","President Donald"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-28T03:09:30Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"Biden’s Shaky Debate Performance Has Democrats Panicking","updatedAt":"2024-06-29T14:23:10.191Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/us/politics/biden-debate-democrats.html"},{"byline":"Alexander Spier","content":"
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Bei 30 Grad und mehr in der Wohnung lässt sich weder sinnvoll arbeiten noch schlafen. Doch was tun, wenn es draußen und drinnen wochenlang heiß ist und die dringend notwendige Abkühlung ausbleibt? Eine echte Klimaanlage verspricht zwar Abhilfe, fest installieren darf die aber nur ein Fachmann. Für die meisten Mieter ist der notwendige Wanddurchbruch schlicht unmöglich.

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Mobile Klimageräte lassen sich auch ohne bauliche Veränderungen betreiben. Zudem ist solch eine Anlage flexibler einsetzbar, arbeitet idealerweise also immer dort, wo man es gerade kühl braucht: beispielsweise tagsüber im Arbeits- und abends im Schlafzimmer. Die Flexibilität der Geräte kommt zwar mit einigen Nachteilen daher, doch die nimmt man gerne in Kauf, wenn die tropische Hitze im Zimmer nachlässt.

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Wir wollten wissen, was die mobilen Klimaanlagen wirklich leisten. Liefern sie die notwendige Abkühlung, wie laut sind sie, wie viel Strom schlucken sie eigentlich und wie brauchbar sind die Apps? Dafür haben wir uns exemplarisch drei Modelle ins Büro geholt: das AEG AXP26U339CW Comfort 6000 für rund 360 Euro, das Medion Life X960HS für 380 Euro und das Premium-Gerät DeLonghi Pinguino PAC EX130 CST WIFI für rund 1000 Euro. Die Anlage von AEG ist eine der günstigsten Geräte mit App-Anbindung, das Medion-Gerät bietet sogar eine Heizfunktion und das DeLonghi-Modell verspricht viel Komfort über individuelle Einstellmöglichkeiten. Als besonders starkes Gerät muss es exemplarisch aufzeigen, welche Unterschiede bei Lautstärke und Kühlvermögen zu erwarten sind.

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","createdAt":"2024-06-27T13:21:49.128Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":"ltr","excerpt":"Wenn es in der Wohnung unerträglich heiß wird, versprechen mobile Klimaanlagen rasche Abhilfe. Wir haben uns drei Geräte genauer angesehen.","id":"articles:ffxdie94y6wm2lmfiobm","keywords":["das","im","für","der","sie"],"lang":"de","lat":"39.8606676","length":2941,"lon":"-104.68536732610298","phrases":["Drei Kühl-Geräte im Praxistest","Klimaanlagen leisten","das Premium-Gerät DeLonghi Pinguino PAC EX130 CST WIFI für rund","Die Flexibilität der Geräte kommt zwar mit einigen Nachteilen daher","Euro"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-07T18:17:00Z","siteName":"heise online","title":"Was mobile Klimaanlagen leisten: Drei Kühl-Geräte im Praxistest​","updatedAt":"2024-06-27T13:21:49.128Z","url":"https://www.heise.de/tests/Was-mobile-Klimaanlagen-leisten-Drei-Kuehl-Geraete-im-Praxistest-9749900.html"},{"byline":"Katie Roof, Eric Johnson","content":"

SpaceX will sell insider shares at $112 apiece in a tender offer, a higher-than-expected price that boosts the value of Elon Musk’s space and satellite company closer to $210 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company was last valued at $180 billion in a transaction in December, Bloomberg News reported.

","createdAt":"2024-06-27T03:56:46.017Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"SpaceX will sell insider shares at $112 apiece in a tender offer, a higher-than-expected price that boosts the value of Elon Musk’s space and satellite company closer to $210 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.","id":"articles:5bkl5hl5eb2pmx7c1236","keywords":["company","billion","SpaceX","insider","shares","tender","offer","price","boosts","value","Elon","Musk’s","space","satellite","people","transaction","December","Bloomberg","News"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.4893335","length":328,"lon":"-0.14405508452768728","phrases":["billion","Elon Musk’s space","satellite company","insider shares","tender offer","company","Bloomberg News"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-27T03:32:28.575Z","siteName":"Bloomberg","title":"SpaceX Tender Offer Said to Value Company at Record $210 Billion","updatedAt":"2024-06-27T03:56:46.017Z","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-27/spacex-tender-offer-said-to-value-company-at-record-210-billion"},{"byline":"Elouise Fowler, Brad Thompson","content":"

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Fortescue Metals Group had “stolen” and “destroyed” Yindjibarndi land, a visibly upset traditional owner told the Federal Court during an on-country hearing in a landmark compensation case.

Under the full sun in north-west Western Australia on Monday, Yindjibarndi elder Stanley Warrie cried as he pointed Federal Court judge Stephen Burley to observe red land adorned with Fortescue’s large metal pipes on the outskirts of its iron ore pit.

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-20T20:46:03.347Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The native title owners are seeking upwards of $1 billion in royalties and compensation for damage to cultural sites at the mining giant’s Solomon iron ore operations.","id":"articles:5tt4q0o8v51g4s3ld7og","keywords":["gift","articleGift","articles","anyone","month","nowAlready","subscriber","Yindjibarndi","land","Federal","Court","companies"],"lang":"en","lat":"-32.1067652","length":910,"lon":"115.827632","phrases":["Federal Court judge Stephen Burley","gift","articleGift","articles","anyone","month","nowAlready","subscriber","companies"],"publishedTime":"2023-08-14T06:00:19Z","siteName":"Australian Financial Review","title":"FMG: Fortescue Metals Group ‘destroyed’ land, Yindjibarndi elder Stanley Warrie tells Federal Court","updatedAt":"2024-06-20T20:46:03.347Z","url":"https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/fortescue-has-stolen-and-destroyed-yindjibarndi-land-elder-20230814-p5dwbi"},{"byline":"Laura Pullman","content":"

    Joe Alwyn has a spring in his step. He’s freshly back from the Cannes Film Festival and looks every inch the off-duty, discreet movie star in his Loewe trousers and Bottega Veneta rubber trainers. “I feel like I could go rock climbing in these,” he says of his £710 shoes, adding that they were part of his Cannes wardrobe and crediting his stylist. “She helps with things like that because I’m incapable.”

    Interviewing the Kent-born, London-raised actor is a tricky gig. He’s friendly, engaging and seems an all-round decent bloke who calls his mum and gives up his seat on the bus, but he’s also guarded and appears nervous to say anything that could be construed as even the slightest bit controversial. Clearly being the

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-16T08:01:09.486Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The actor’s latest film, Kinds of Kindness, is winning rave reviews — but will he ever escape his role as Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriend?","id":"articles:3r37n6n0tgzxlqefi8fh","keywords":["He’s","Cannes","Joe","Alwyn","step","Film","Festival","inch","movie","star","Loewe","trousers","Bottega","Veneta","rubber","trainers","rock","shoes","part","wardrobe","stylist","things","I’m","Kent-born","actor","gig","bloke","seat","bus","bit"],"lang":"en","lat":"56.7861112","length":723,"lon":"-4.1140518","phrases":["He’s","Cannes Film Festival","Bottega Veneta rubber trainers","Cannes wardrobe","Joe Alwyn","movie star","Loewe trousers"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-15T13:35:19Z","siteName":"The Sunday Times","title":"Joe Alwyn: ‘The end of a long relationship is a hard thing to navigate’","updatedAt":"2024-06-16T08:01:09.486Z","url":"https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/joe-alwyn-interview-end-relationship-taylor-swift-fzb3k5ffj"},{"byline":null,"content":"
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    Not long ago I was waiting for a domestic flight in a departure lounge at one of the crumbling midcentury sheds that pass for an American airport these days. There were delays, as we’ve all come to expect, and then the delays turned into something more ominous. The airplane I was waiting for had a serious maintenance issue, beyond the ability of a man in an orange vest to address. The entire airplane would have to be taken away for servicing and another brought to the gate in its place. This would take a while. Those of us in the departure lounge settled in for what we suspected might be hours. From the window I watched the ground crew unload the bags from the original airplane. When the new one arrived, the crew pumped the fuel, loaded the bags, and stocked the galley. It was a scene I’d witnessed countless times. Soon we would board and be on the way to our destinations.

    As for the first airplane, the one with the maintenance problem—what was its destination going to be? When you have time on your hands, you begin to wonder about things like this. My own assumption, as yours might have been, was that the aircraft would be towed to a nearby hangar for a stopgap repair and then flown to a central maintenance facility run by the airline somewhere in the U.S. Or maybe there was one right here at the airport. In any case, if it needed a major overhaul, presumably it would be performed by the airline’s staff of trained professionals. If Apple feels it needs a “Genius Bar” at its stores to deal with hardware and software that cost a few hundred dollars, an airline must have something equivalent to safeguard an airplane worth a few hundred million.

    About this I would be wrong—as wrong as it is possible to be. Over the past decade, nearly all large U.S. airlines have shifted heavy maintenance work on their airplanes to repair shops thousands of miles away, in developing countries, where the mechanics who take the planes apart (completely) and put them back together (or almost) may not even be able to read or speak English. US Airways and Southwest fly planes to a maintenance facility in El Salvador. Delta sends planes to Mexico. United uses a shop in China. American still does much of its most intensive maintenance in-house in the U.S., but that is likely to change in the aftermath of the company’s merger with US Airways.

    The airlines are shipping this maintenance work offshore for the reason you’d expect: to cut labor costs. Mechanics in El Salvador, Mexico, China, and elsewhere earn a fraction of what mechanics in the U.S. do. In part because of this offshoring, the number of maintenance jobs at U.S. carriers has plummeted, from 72,000 in the year 2000 to fewer than 50,000 today. But the issue isn’t just jobs. A century ago, Upton Sinclair wrote his novel The Jungle to call attention to the plight of workers in the slaughterhouses, but what really got people upset was learning how unsafe their meat was. Safety is an issue here, too. The Federal Aviation Administration is supposed to be inspecting all the overseas facilities that do maintenance for airlines—just as it is supposed to inspect those in America. But the F.A.A. no longer has the money or the manpower to do this.

    One of the fastest-growing of the offshore repair sites is on the perimeter of El Salvador’s Monseñor Óscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport. Named for the archbishop who was assassinated during Mass in 1980, the airport has become a busy hub, owing largely to a steady influx of foreign jetliners needing maintenance and repair. Jets flying the insignia of US Airways, Southwest, Jet Blue, and many smaller American carriers are a common sight as they touch down and taxi to the Aeroman complex at the edge of the field.

    Aeroman was once the repair base for El Salvador’s modest national airline. It has mushroomed into a complex of five hangars, 18 production lines, and numerous specialty shops that perform virtually all phases of aircraft overhaul. The company has picked up the familiar multi-national technobabble, describing itself as a “world leader in providing aircraft-maintenance solutions.” About 2,000 mechanics and other employees work in the company’s tightly guarded airport compound, encircled by a fence and barbed wire.

    The airplanes that U.S. carriers send to Aeroman undergo what’s known in the industry as “heavy maintenance,” which often involves a complete teardown of the aircraft. Every plate and panel on the wings, tail, flaps, and rudder are unscrewed, and all the parts within—cables, brackets, bearings, and bolts—are removed for inspection. The landing gear is disassembled and checked for cracks, hydraulic leaks, and corrosion. The engines are removed and inspected for wear. Inside, the passenger seats, tray tables, overhead bins, carpeting, and side panels are removed until the cabin has been stripped down to bare metal. Then everything is put back exactly where it was, at least in theory.

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-15T09:46:12.042Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1945-01-01T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"In the last decade, most of the big U.S. airlines have shifted major maintenance work to places like El Salvador, Mexico, and China, where few mechanics are F.A.A. certified and inspections have no teeth.","id":"articles:tqc3wbw3jurh2xp006i3","keywords":["maintenance","airplane","airline","airport","repair"],"lang":"en-US","lat":"24.44129225","length":4956,"lon":"-100.87608726076067","phrases":["airplane","airline","maintenance","maintenance facility","maintenance work"],"publishedTime":"2015-11-09T13:00:00Z","siteName":"Vanity Fair","title":"The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today","updatedAt":"2024-06-15T09:46:12.042Z","url":"https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth"},{"byline":"Taimur Ijlal","content":"

    The new version of ChatGPT is mind-blowing for both good and bad reasons

    \"Taimur

    \"AWS

    5 min read

    May 17, 2024

    --

    Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

    The AI world is buzzing again thanks to the new OpenAI update

    The new model GPT-4o is already drawing comparisons to the AI in the movie “Her” based on its lifelike responses

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-13T17:17:05.041Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"ChatGPT-4o Is A Game-Changer In CyberSecurity... For All The Wrong Reasons. The new version of ChatGPT is mind-blowing for both good and bad reasons.","id":"articles:9yljecwe50e6en4pnfiv","keywords":["version","ChatGPT","both","reasonsTaimur","inAWS","Plain","English5","min","readMay","Photo","Solen","Feyissa","UnsplashThe","world","thanks","OpenAI","updateThe","model","GPT-4o","comparisons","AI","movie","responses"],"lang":"en","lat":"32.3293809","length":353,"lon":"-83.1137366","phrases":["Plain English5 min readMay","Solen Feyissa","OpenAI updateThe","model GPT-4o"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-17T05:15:04.237Z","siteName":"AWS in Plain English","title":"ChatGPT-4o Is A Game-Changer In CyberSecurity... For All The Wrong Reasons","updatedAt":"2024-06-13T17:17:05.041Z","url":"https://medium.com/aws-in-plain-english/chatgpt-4o-is-a-game-changer-in-cybersecurity-for-all-the-wrong-reasons-d132b9623e4f","votes":-1},{"byline":"Parni Ray","content":"

    An aerial view of the Central Vista masterplan, developed by architect and urban planner Bimal Patel. COURTESY HCP DESIGN, PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT PVT LTD

    {ONE}

    EARLY ON 28 MAY last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at Sansad Marg to inaugurate India’s new parliament. Built on a triangular plot adjacent to the old parliament, it was a formidable looking- structure of red and white sandstone, a composite of sharp geometric shapes. The prime minister was dressed in the dhoti attire that he reserves for temple rituals and, after a puja, laid prostrate on the ground to seek the blessings of a row of saffron-clad Hindu priests, who showered him with flowers. With a golden sceptre in hand and the priests following him, Modi entered the building. Vedic chants resounded as he slowly walked through the lotus-themed Lok Sabha chamber up to the speaker’s chair, where the Sengol was then installed. The inauguration was laced with Hindutva rhetoric—it was taking place on the birth anniversary of the Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar, and adorning the walls of the new parliament was a mural depicting “Akhand Bharat,” or “undivided India,” a mythical unified Hindu civilisation spanning the Indian subcontinent.

    In a forty-minute celebratory speech, Modi termed the construction of a new parliament a “golden moment” for the country. “This new Parliament House will not only beckon India’s development but also echo the call for global progress,” he said. “This new building will witness the realisation of the aspirations of a developed India.” Modi used the moment to make claims about his party’s achievements. “If I am proud of the new parliament, then I am also satisfied that I could deliver more than four crore houses to the poor,” he said. “If I am proud of the new parliament today, then I am also satisfied that more than 11 crore toilets were built for women in the last nine years.”

    Days earlier, 19 opposition parties had announced that they would be boycotting the inauguration. Their joint statement cited, among other reasons, “constitutional impropriety”—President Draupadi Murmu had not been invited. Besides, the statement said, there was no value in a new building when the “soul of democracy has been sucked out from the Parliament.”

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-07T14:04:32.082Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Bimal Patel is materialising Narendra Modi’s “New India,” one project at a time. But what do his most significant national projects stand for, besides being a platform for the man who commissioned them?","id":"articles:jjh1my9sz3ji5mml47i0","keywords":["parliament","Modi","inaugurate","year","Minister","India’s","Hindu","priests","Hindutva","India","moment","House","crore","statement"],"lang":"en","lat":"22.3511148","length":2270,"lon":"78.6677428","phrases":["parliament","Modi","Parliament House","inauguration","parliament today"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-01T02:13:30.082Z","siteName":"The Caravan","title":"The hostile architecture of Bimal Patel","updatedAt":"2024-06-07T14:04:32.082Z","url":"https://caravanmagazine.in/government/bimal-patel-modi-builder-hostile-architecture-central-vista"},{"byline":"Tara Parker-Pope","content":"

    Hi, I’m Tara-Parker Pope, Well+Being editor for The Washington Post. I hope you’ll join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time, when I’ll be answering your questions about whatever is on your mind. Whether it’s food, fitness, aging, healthy relationships, sleep or mental health, I’ll be here with science-based information to help you live well every day.

    This week, we talked about the new diabetes and weight-loss drugs. You can read the transcript of the chat below. Questions may be edited for accuracy and clarity.

    Alexandra Pannoni, newsroom talent and community editor, produced this live chat.

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-07T02:53:04.286Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"In her weekly chat, Tara Parker-Pope talked about the new diabetes and weight-loss drugs.","id":"articles:o3bps003wce52n5popeb","keywords":["editor","I’ll","questions","chat","I’m","Tara-Parker","Pope","Washington","Post","hope","you’ll","Thursday","Eastern","time","mind","it’s","food","fitness","relationships","health","information","week","diabetes","weight-loss","drugs","transcript","accuracy","Pannoni","newsroom","talent","community","live"],"lang":"en","lat":"38.8950368","length":602,"lon":"-77.0365427","phrases":["I’ll","questions","I’m Tara-Parker Pope","community editor","live chat"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-30T21:03:39.629Z","siteName":"The Washington Post","title":"Do you have to take drugs like Ozempic forever? Your questions, answered.","updatedAt":"2024-06-07T02:53:04.286Z","url":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/06/06/ara-parker-pope-advice-ozempic-live-chat/"},{"byline":"Alina Chan","content":"
    \t\n\t\t\t\n\t

    Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

    This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

    On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

    For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

    Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

    Here’s what we now know:

    1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

    • At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.

    • Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live roughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

    A map showing the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in a mine in the Yunnan province of China and in a cave in northern Laos.

    A map showing the hundreds of large cities in China and the surrounding region.

    A map showing the 950 miles between Yunnan and Wuhan, and the 1,190 miles between Laos and Wuhan. There are many cities in between.

    • Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019, that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare.

    • When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory, saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.

    • The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire. Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

    2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

    • Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals, as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.

    • The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious: Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.

    • By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started, when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.

    • In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse, which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.

    • Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. The Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States. However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

    The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn how SARS-like viruses might infect humans. Their research started by collecting SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

    Next, they would identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

    Then they would create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

    Finally, they would infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

    • While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.

    • Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.

    • When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.

    • Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.

    • Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him. Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.

    • In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military. In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

    3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

    • Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions.

    In the U.S., virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols, which involves using personal respirators and biosafety cabinets in combination to avoid inhaling an airborne virus, as well as wearing gloves and wraparound gowns to prevent direct contact.

    The Wuhan lab was regularly working with SARS-like viruses at Biosafety Level 2, which involves work done in the open air and doesn’t require masks, allowing for inhalation of viral particles, and much less protective equipment worn on the body that allows for direct skin contact.

    • Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping. Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels, and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.

    • An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak: “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”

    • SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.

    • One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019. One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick.

    4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

    • In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.

    • Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

    An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

    The viruses that infected people linked to the market fall partway down this tree, suggesting that they were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that seeded the pandemic.

    • Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

    5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

    In the SARS and MERS epidemics, scientists were able to find key pieces of evidence that demonstrated a natural origin of the virus. They found infected animals, the earliest human cases were exposed to animals, there was antibody evidence in animal traders, ancestral variants were found in animals, and there was documented trade of host animals.

    For SARS-CoV-2, all of these pieces of evidence are missing.

    • Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.

    • Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade. For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.

    • With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species. Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals. The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

    The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

    While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

    Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

    Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them. Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

    A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

    A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

    Alina Chan (@ayjchan) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

    \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\t\t
    ","createdAt":"2024-06-04T01:21:40.789Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.","id":"articles:5nefrj1kyom3imefaame","keywords":["Wuhan","viruses","virus","scientists","pandemic","research"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":19158,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["viruses","pandemic","virus","Wuhan","scientists"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-03T09:04:18Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"Opinion | The Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab. These 5 Key Points Explain Why.","updatedAt":"2024-06-04T01:21:40.789Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opinion/covid-lab-leak.html"},{"byline":"Alina Chan","content":"
    \t\n\t\t\t\n\t

    Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

    This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

    On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

    For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

    Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

    Here’s what we now know:

    1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

    • At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.

    • Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live roughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

    A map showing the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in a mine in the Yunnan province of China and in a cave in northern Laos.

    A map showing the hundreds of large cities in China and the surrounding region.

    A map showing the 950 miles between Yunnan and Wuhan, and the 1,190 miles between Laos and Wuhan. There are many cities in between.

    • Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019, that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare.

    • When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory, saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.

    • The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire. Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

    2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

    • Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals, as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.

    • The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious: Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.

    • By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started, when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.

    • In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse, which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.

    • Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. The Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States. However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

    The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn how SARS-like viruses might infect humans. Their research started by collecting SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

    Next, they would identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

    Then they would create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

    Finally, they would infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

    • While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.

    • Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.

    • When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.

    • Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.

    • Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him. Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.

    • In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military. In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

    3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

    • Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions.

    In the U.S., virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols, which involves using personal respirators and biosafety cabinets in combination to avoid inhaling an airborne virus, as well as wearing gloves and wraparound gowns to prevent direct contact.

    The Wuhan lab was regularly working with SARS-like viruses at Biosafety Level 2, which involves work done in the open air and doesn’t require masks, allowing for inhalation of viral particles, and much less protective equipment worn on the body that allows for direct skin contact.

    • Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping. Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels, and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.

    • An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak: “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”

    • SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.

    • One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019. One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick.

    4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

    • In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.

    • Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

    An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

    The viruses that infected people linked to the market fall partway down this tree, suggesting that they were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that seeded the pandemic.

    • Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

    5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

    In the SARS and MERS epidemics, scientists were able to find key pieces of evidence that demonstrated a natural origin of the virus. They found infected animals, the earliest human cases were exposed to animals, there was antibody evidence in animal traders, ancestral variants were found in animals, and there was documented trade of host animals.

    For SARS-CoV-2, all of these pieces of evidence are missing.

    • Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.

    • Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade. For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.

    • With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species. Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals. The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

    The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

    While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

    Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

    Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them. Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

    A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

    A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

    Alina Chan (@ayjchan) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

    \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\t\t
    ","createdAt":"2024-06-04T01:21:31.072Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.","id":"articles:oechpyysva5yduqi1y32","keywords":["Wuhan","viruses","virus","scientists","pandemic","research"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":19158,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["viruses","pandemic","virus","Wuhan","scientists"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-03T09:04:18Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"Opinion | The Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab. These 5 Key Points Explain Why.","updatedAt":"2024-06-04T01:21:31.072Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opinion/covid-lab-leak.html"},{"byline":"Alina Chan","content":"
    \t\n\t\t\t\n\t

    Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

    This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

    On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

    For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

    Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

    Here’s what we now know:

    1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

    • At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.

    • Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live roughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

    A map showing the closest known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in a mine in the Yunnan province of China and in a cave in northern Laos.

    A map showing the hundreds of large cities in China and the surrounding region.

    A map showing the 950 miles between Yunnan and Wuhan, and the 1,190 miles between Laos and Wuhan. There are many cities in between.

    • Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019, that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare.

    • When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory, saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.

    • The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire. Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

    2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

    • Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals, as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.

    • The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious: Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.

    • By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started, when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.

    • In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse, which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.

    • Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. The Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States. However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

    The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn how SARS-like viruses might infect humans. Their research started by collecting SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

    Next, they would identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

    Then they would create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

    Finally, they would infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

    • While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.

    • Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.

    • When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.

    • Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.

    • Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him. Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.

    • In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military. In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

    3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

    • Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions.

    In the U.S., virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols, which involves using personal respirators and biosafety cabinets in combination to avoid inhaling an airborne virus, as well as wearing gloves and wraparound gowns to prevent direct contact.

    The Wuhan lab was regularly working with SARS-like viruses at Biosafety Level 2, which involves work done in the open air and doesn’t require masks, allowing for inhalation of viral particles, and much less protective equipment worn on the body that allows for direct skin contact.

    • Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping. Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels, and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.

    • An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak: “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”

    • SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.

    • One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019. One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick.

    4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

    • In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.

    • Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

    An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

    The viruses that infected people linked to the market fall partway down this tree, suggesting that they were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that seeded the pandemic.

    • Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

    5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

    In the SARS and MERS epidemics, scientists were able to find key pieces of evidence that demonstrated a natural origin of the virus. They found infected animals, the earliest human cases were exposed to animals, there was antibody evidence in animal traders, ancestral variants were found in animals, and there was documented trade of host animals.

    For SARS-CoV-2, all of these pieces of evidence are missing.

    • Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.

    • Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade. For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.

    • With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species. Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals. The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

    The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

    While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

    Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

    Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them. Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

    A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

    A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

    Alina Chan (@ayjchan) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-04T01:21:21.419Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.","id":"articles:m4r3dxfux5rsysyjfnrj","keywords":["Wuhan","viruses","virus","scientists","pandemic","research"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":19158,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["viruses","pandemic","virus","Wuhan","scientists"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-03T09:04:18Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"Opinion | The Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab. These 5 Key Points Explain Why.","updatedAt":"2024-06-04T01:21:21.419Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opinion/covid-lab-leak.html"},{"byline":"Aaron Boxerman","content":"

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    The timing of the remarks seemed to rebuff the president’s hopes for a speedy end to the war. But some analysts said the prime minister was aiming at domestic supporters, not the White House.

    \"Groups
    Residents returning to Jabaliya in northern Gaza on Friday found the destruction so thorough that it was virtually impossible for vehicles, including ambulances, to get through the streets.Credit...Omar Al-Qattaa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

    A day after President Biden called on Israel and Hamas to reach a truce, declaring that it was “time for this war to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday reiterated that Israel would not agree to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza as long as Hamas still retains governing and military power.

    In his statement, Mr. Netanyahu did not explicitly endorse or reject a proposed cease-fire plan that Mr. Biden had laid out in an unusually detailed address on Friday. Two Israeli officials confirmed that Mr. Biden’s proposal matched an Israeli cease-fire proposal that had been greenlit by Israel’s war cabinet. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

    But the timing of Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks, coming first thing the next morning, seemed to put the brakes on Mr. Biden’s hopes for a speedy resolution to the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

    “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in the statement released on Saturday morning.

    Biden administration officials and some Israeli analysts said they believed that Israel still supported the proposal Mr. Biden described on Friday, and that Mr. Netanyahu’s statement on Saturday was more tailored to his domestic audience and meant to manage his far-right cabinet members, rather than to push back against the White House. Mr. Biden is eager for the war to end, with the American presidential election just five months away.

    But Mr. Netanyahu’s domestic political worries could prove paramount. On Saturday night, two of Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners — Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — threatened to quit his government should he move forward with the proposal. Mr. Ben-Gvir labeled the terms of the agreement a “total defeat” and a “victory for terrorism.” If both of their parties left his coalition, it could mark the end of Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-02T10:24:23.666Z","createdBy":null,"date":[],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The timing of the remarks seemed to rebuff the president’s hopes for a speedy end to the war. But some analysts said the prime minister was aiming at domestic supporters, not the White House.","id":"articles:il98qbu8wh0n0g3sw7xt","keywords":["Mr","war","Netanyahu’s","Biden","end","Gaza","Israel","Saturday"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":3046,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["Mr","war","end","Israel","Netanyahu’s"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-01T20:03:22Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"After Biden’s Push for Truce, Netanyahu Calls Israel’s War Plans Unchanged","updatedAt":"2024-06-02T10:24:23.666Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/01/world/middleeast/netanyahu-biden-israel-gaza-cease-fire.html","votes":1},{"byline":null,"content":"

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-02T10:23:52.282Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Discover the value of independent Times journalism today.","id":"articles:rnxf24fwnixe2rg74vlt","keywords":["York","Times","New","journalism","power","reader’s","life","society","AccessFAQsContact","UsGift","SubscriptionDownload","AppOther","SubscriptionsGroup","SubscriptionsHome","Delivery","CompanyTerms","SalePrivacy","PolicyAn","error"],"lang":null,"lat":"40.7127281","length":376,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["New York Times CompanyTerms","New York Times","AccessFAQsContact UsGift SubscriptionDownload AppOther SubscriptionsGroup SubscriptionsHome Delivery","York Times","SalePrivacy PolicyAn error"],"publishedTime":null,"siteName":null,"title":"The New York Times: Digital and Home Delivery Subscriptions","updatedAt":"2024-06-02T10:23:52.282Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/all-access?campaignId=8RFHK&o=ae666bd5-aa06-11ec-84c9-227543ace765"},{"byline":"Wong, Carissa","content":"
    \n

    Researchers have mapped a tiny piece of the human brain in astonishing detail. The resulting cell atlas, which was described today in Science1 and is available online, reveals new patterns of connections between brain cells called neurons, as well as cells that wrap around themselves to form knots, and pairs of neurons that are almost mirror images of each other.

    The 3D map covers a volume of about one cubic millimetre, one-millionth of a whole brain, and contains roughly 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses — the connections between neurons. It incorporates a colossal 1.4 petabytes of data. “It’s a little bit humbling,” says Viren Jain, a neuroscientist at Google in Mountain View, California, and a co-author of the paper. “How are we ever going to really come to terms with all this complexity?”

    Slivers of brain

    The brain fragment was taken from a 45-year-old woman when she underwent surgery to treat her epilepsy. It came from the cortex, a part of the brain involved in learning, problem-solving and processing sensory signals. The sample was immersed in preservatives and stained with heavy metals to make the cells easier to see. Neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues then cut the sample into around 5,000 slices — each just 34 nanometres thick — that could be imaged using electron microscopes.

    Jain’s team then built artificial-intelligence models that were able to stitch the microscope images together to reconstruct the whole sample in 3D. “I remember this moment, going into the map and looking at one individual synapse from this woman’s brain, and then zooming out into these other millions of pixels,” says Jain. “It felt sort of spiritual.”

    \n \n \n \"Rendering\n
    \n

    A single neuron (white) shown with 5,600 of the axons (blue) that connect to it. The synapses that make these connections are shown in green.Credit: Google Research & Lichtman Lab (Harvard University). Renderings by D. Berger (Harvard University)

    \n
    \n     \n

    When examining the model in detail, the researchers discovered unconventional neurons, including some that made up to 50 connections with each other. “In general, you would find a couple of connections at most between two neurons,” says Jain. Elsewhere, the model showed neurons with tendrils that formed knots around themselves. “Nobody had seen anything like this before,” Jain adds.

    The team also found pairs of neurons that were near-perfect mirror images of each other. “We found two groups that would send their dendrites in two different directions, and sometimes there was a kind of mirror symmetry,” Jain says. It is unclear what role these features have in the brain.

    Proofreaders needed

    The map is so large that most of it has yet to be manually checked, and it could still contain errors created by the process of stitching so many images together. “Hundreds of cells have been ‘proofread’, but that’s obviously a few per cent of the 50,000 cells in there,” says Jain. He hopes that others will help to proofread parts of the map they are interested in. The team plans to produce similar maps of brain samples from other people — but a map of the entire brain is unlikely in the next few decades, he says.

    “This paper is really the tour de force creation of a human cortex data set,” says Hongkui Zeng, director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. The vast amount of data that has been made freely accessible will “allow the community to look deeper into the micro-circuitry in the human cortex”, she adds.

    Gaining a deeper understanding of how the cortex works could offer clues about how to treat some psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. “This map provides unprecedented details that can unveil new rules of neural connections and help to decipher the inner working of the human brain,” says Yongsoo Kim, a neuroscientist at Pennsylvania State University in Hershey.

    \n
    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T22:32:19.398Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Google scientists have modelled a fragment of the human brain at nanoscale resolution, revealing cells with previously undiscovered features. Google scientists have modelled a fragment of the human brain at nanoscale resolution, revealing cells with previously undiscovered features.","id":"articles:r7iwowa2e9kbmzbwyqgv","keywords":["brain","neurons","cell","map","connections","Jain"],"lang":"en","lat":"37.3893889","length":3930,"lon":"-122.0832101","phrases":["neurons","brain","map","connections","cells"],"publishedTime":null,"siteName":null,"title":"Cubic millimetre of brain mapped in spectacular detail","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T22:32:19.398Z","url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01387-9","votes":1},{"byline":"Megan Kimble","content":"

    You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

    Headway

    The state has made it harder to widen highways, and transportation officials are turning their eyes to transit.

    Credit...Elliot Ross for The New York Times

    When Interstate 25 was constructed through Denver, highway engineers moved a river.

    It was the 1950s, and nothing was going to get in the way of building a national highway system. Colorado’s governor and other dignitaries, including the chief engineer of the state highway department, acknowledged the moment by posing for a photo standing on bulldozer tracks, next to the trench that would become Interstate 25.

    Today, state highway departments have rebranded as transportation agencies, but building, fixing and expanding highways is still mostly what they do.

    So it was notable when, in 2022, the head of Colorado’s Department of Transportation called off a long planned widening of Interstate 25. The decision to do nothing was arguably more consequential than the alternative. By not expanding the highway, the agency offered a new vision for the future of transportation planning.

    In Colorado, that new vision was catalyzed by climate change. In 2019, Gov. Jared Polis signed a law that required the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent within 30 years. As the state tried to figure out how it would get there, it zeroed in on drivers. Transportation is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of the total; 60 percent of that comes from cars and trucks. To reduce emissions, Coloradans would have to drive less.

    An effective bit of bureaucracy drove that message home. After sustained lobbying from climate and environmental justice activists, the Transportation Commission of Colorado adopted a formal rule that makes the state transportation agency, along with Colorado’s five metropolitan planning organizations, demonstrate how new projects, including highways, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If they don’t, they could lose funding.

    Image

    \"Eight
    A wall in the lobby at the Colorado Department of Transportation’s headquarters displays past executive directors. Shoshana Lew, bottom right, is the first woman to lead the agency.Credit...Elliot Ross for The New York Times

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T21:37:12.769Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The state has made it harder to widen highways, and transportation officials are turning their eyes to transit.","id":"articles:91uq2gv0j3wn4jllynxw","keywords":["Highways","state","transportation","department","emissions"],"lang":"en","lat":"38.7251776","length":2812,"lon":"-105.607716","phrases":["Highways","greenhouse gas emissions","state highway department","state","Transportation"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-31T09:00:29Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"In Colorado, an Ambitious New Highway Policy Is Not Building Them","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T21:37:12.769Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/headway/highways-colorado-transportation.html"},{"byline":"Lautaro Domínguez","content":"
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  1. \"Wyleex\"
    2. ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T18:39:26.805Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Los Andes | Periodismo de verdad.","id":"articles:3mtc3yujr7p9aprryh8s","keywords":["Los","y","el","La","para"],"lang":"es","lat":"-4.7493933","length":17271,"lon":"-52.8973006","phrases":["cuáles son los requisitos y cómo aplicar","vivoRedacción Los Andes","Los Andes","familias golpeadas por consumos problemáticosIgnacio De La RosaTodos los secretos del vino y los tips para tomarlo","Estuvimos y actuamos equivocados durante"],"publishedTime":null,"siteName":"Los Andes","title":"Los Andes | Periodismo de verdad.","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T18:39:26.805Z","url":"https://www.losandes.com.ar/"},{"byline":"Marc Santora, Liubov Sholudko, Tyler Hicks","content":"

    You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

    “If only everything would stop,” said Lidiia Lomikovska, who walked to safety after her town was attacked. But for civilians in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, it is not stopping.

    Lidiia Lomikovska in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in May.Credit...

    When a Russian soldier appeared outside 98-year-old Lidiia Lomikovska’s shattered home in eastern Ukraine in late April, the first thing he did was shoot and kill the family dog.

    “What have you done?” her daughter-in-law, Olha, 66, shouted at the Russian. “He was protecting me.”

    “Now, I will protect you,” he told her, Olha recalled in an interview.

    Ms. Lomikovska — who lived through a famine orchestrated by Stalin that killed millions in the 1930s and the German occupation of her town, Ocheretyne, during World War II — said she did not know why her life has been bracketed by sorrow.

    But when war once again arrived at her doorstep, she knew she did not want to live under the “protection” of Russia.

    As shells exploded around the town, she became separated from her family in the chaos. So she set off on foot alone. For hours, wearing a pair of slippers and without food or water, she walked past the bodies of dead soldiers, stumbling over bomb craters, unsure if her next step would be her last.

    “I was walking the whole way and there was nobody anywhere, just gunshots, and I was wondering if they were shooting at me,” she said in an interview. “I walked, crossed myself, and thought, if only this war would end, if only everything would stop.”

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T15:24:22.639Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1942-01-01T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"“If only everything would stop,” said Lidiia Lomikovska, who walked to safety after her town was attacked. But for civilians in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, it is not stopping.","id":"articles:jvk0zpobx974td9wmxet","keywords":["access","Lomikovska","town","War","article","Lidiia","Donetsk","region","Ukraine","Russian","soldier","Olha","patience","log","Times"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":1944,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["access","town","Lomikovska","war","Lidiia Lomikovska","Ukraine’s Donetsk region","Ukraine","Olha","World War II","patience","log"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-01T09:03:13Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"She’s 98, and Walked Past Corpses to Escape Russian Attacks","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T15:24:22.639Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/01/world/europe/ukraine-donetsk-civilians.html"},{"byline":"Marc Santora, Liubov Sholudko, Tyler Hicks","content":"

    You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

    “If only everything would stop,” said Lidiia Lomikovska, who walked to safety after her town was attacked. But for civilians in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, it is not stopping.

    Lidiia Lomikovska in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in May.Credit...

    When a Russian soldier appeared outside 98-year-old Lidiia Lomikovska’s shattered home in eastern Ukraine in late April, the first thing he did was shoot and kill the family dog.

    “What have you done?” her daughter-in-law, Olha, 66, shouted at the Russian. “He was protecting me.”

    “Now, I will protect you,” he told her, Olha recalled in an interview.

    Ms. Lomikovska — who lived through a famine orchestrated by Stalin that killed millions in the 1930s and the German occupation of her town, Ocheretyne, during World War II — said she did not know why her life has been bracketed by sorrow.

    But when war once again arrived at her doorstep, she knew she did not want to live under the “protection” of Russia.

    As shells exploded around the town, she became separated from her family in the chaos. So she set off on foot alone. For hours, wearing a pair of slippers and without food or water, she walked past the bodies of dead soldiers, stumbling over bomb craters, unsure if her next step would be her last.

    “I was walking the whole way and there was nobody anywhere, just gunshots, and I was wondering if they were shooting at me,” she said in an interview. “I walked, crossed myself, and thought, if only this war would end, if only everything would stop.”

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    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T15:24:21.612Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1942-01-01T04:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"“If only everything would stop,” said Lidiia Lomikovska, who walked to safety after her town was attacked. But for civilians in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, it is not stopping.","id":"articles:y8ecv5acr4jl4du9ozx0","keywords":["access","Lomikovska","town","War","article","Lidiia","Donetsk","region","Ukraine","Russian","soldier","Olha","patience","log","Times"],"lang":"en","lat":"40.7127281","length":1944,"lon":"-74.0060152","phrases":["access","town","Lomikovska","war","Lidiia Lomikovska","Ukraine’s Donetsk region","Ukraine","Olha","World War II","patience","log"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-01T09:03:13Z","siteName":"The New York Times","title":"She’s 98, and Walked Past Corpses to Escape Russian Attacks","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T15:24:21.612Z","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/01/world/europe/ukraine-donetsk-civilians.html"},{"byline":"The Economist","content":"

    Watch professionals play poker, and one of the first things to strike you is how often they fold when the game has barely begun. Rounds of Texas Hold’em, a popular variant, start with each player being dealt two cards and then deciding whether to bet on them. Amateurs are more likely to proceed than not, while pros fold immediately up to 85% of the time. Naturally this does not mean that high-stakes casinos are frequented by the timid. It is simply that most hands are too likely to lose to be worth betting on, and the pros are better at judging when this is the case.

    Investors usually dislike gambling comparisons. Yet at a recent conference held by Norges Bank Investment Management, which oversees Norway’s oil fund of $1.6trn, a packed hall sought to learn from a former poker pro. Annie Duke was there to talk about quitting decisions, a topic on which she wrote the book (“Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away”). Ms Duke argued that many factors stack the deck against people considering quitting, pushing them to act irrationally. That applies to poker players wondering whether or not to fold—and also to investors considering whether to exit a position.

    This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Exit wounds”

    Finance & economics June 1st 2024

    \"Meet

    From the June 1st 2024 edition

    Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

    Explore the edition

    Reuse this content

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T14:40:15.990Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1843-10-01T03:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Poker provides investors with helpful guidance","id":"articles:3a5vwtz633s9p4f13c8n","keywords":["poker","player","pros","Duke","investors","exit","Finance","economics","section","June"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.5074456","length":1805,"lon":"-0.1277653","phrases":["poker","poker players","pros","Finance","Norges Bank Investment Management","economics section","economics June"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-30T10:11:26.465Z","siteName":"The Economist","title":"When to sell your stocks","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T14:40:15.990Z","url":"https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/05/30/when-to-sell-your-stocks"},{"byline":"The Economist","content":"

    Watch professionals play poker, and one of the first things to strike you is how often they fold when the game has barely begun. Rounds of Texas Hold’em, a popular variant, start with each player being dealt two cards and then deciding whether to bet on them. Amateurs are more likely to proceed than not, while pros fold immediately up to 85% of the time. Naturally this does not mean that high-stakes casinos are frequented by the timid. It is simply that most hands are too likely to lose to be worth betting on, and the pros are better at judging when this is the case.

    Investors usually dislike gambling comparisons. Yet at a recent conference held by Norges Bank Investment Management, which oversees Norway’s oil fund of $1.6trn, a packed hall sought to learn from a former poker pro. Annie Duke was there to talk about quitting decisions, a topic on which she wrote the book (“Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away”). Ms Duke argued that many factors stack the deck against people considering quitting, pushing them to act irrationally. That applies to poker players wondering whether or not to fold—and also to investors considering whether to exit a position.

    This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Exit wounds”

    Finance & economics June 1st 2024

    \"Meet

    From the June 1st 2024 edition

    Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

    Explore the edition

    Reuse this content

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T14:40:13.235Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1843-10-01T03:59:59.999Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"Poker provides investors with helpful guidance","id":"articles:oq6ji63adncuyp0ksazw","keywords":["poker","player","pros","Duke","investors","exit","Finance","economics","section","June"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.5074456","length":1805,"lon":"-0.1277653","phrases":["poker","poker players","pros","Finance","Norges Bank Investment Management","economics section","economics June"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-30T10:11:26.465Z","siteName":"The Economist","title":"When to sell your stocks","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T14:40:13.235Z","url":"https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/05/30/when-to-sell-your-stocks"},{"byline":"Marissa Newman, Ott Tammik","content":"

    In a cave and tunnel under ancient Jerusalem’s City of David, two machines the size of dressers have spent months tracking subatomic particles as they fall from space and penetrate deep underground. These fleeting particles, known as muons, travel at almost the speed of light and exist for fractions of a second. Observing them during their short life can help map areas that aren’t visible to the bare eye—in this case, an underground area near the site known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, a place whose religious significance means archaeologists try to avoid any unnecessary digging.

    While most of the physicists working at the site are academics, several work for Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., one of Israel’s state-owned defense contractors, which has an additional agenda: refining the technology to help map the network of tunnels Hamas has built under the Gaza Strip. Rafael began talking with physicists at Tel Aviv University about using the technology at least a decade ago, says Erez Etzion, an experimental particle physicist and professor at the university. “Obviously the security needs of Israel triggered us to move in that direction,” he says.

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T14:18:16.041Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"The country’s archeologists and its military are trying to take advantage of muography to map underground areas.","id":"articles:6t2fwt24r4u84jk87bps","keywords":["particles","physicists","tunnel","map","areas","site","Rafael","Defense","technology","University"],"lang":"en","lat":"51.5074456","length":1198,"lon":"-0.1277653","phrases":["particles","physicists","particle physicist","site","Rafael","technology"],"publishedTime":"2024-05-31T08:00:20.858Z","siteName":"Bloomberg","title":"Israel Seeks Underground Secrets by Tracking Cosmic Particles","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T14:18:16.041Z","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-31/israel-seeks-underground-secrets-by-tracking-cosmic-particles"},{"byline":"Weiler Vilmos","content":"

    Egy év alatt másfélszeresére növelte a forgalmát, és több mint kétszeresére a nyereségét Mészáros Lőrinc vasútépítéssel foglalkozó cége, a V-Híd. A vállalkozás többek között olyan állami projekteken dolgozik, mint a Budapest-Belgrád-vasútvonal, vagy a Szeged-Szabadka-vonal építése.

    A V-Híd tavaly 168 milliárd forintos árbevételből 56,7 milliárd forint adózás előtti eredményt ért el. Ha levonjuk az adófizetési kötelezettséget, az jön ki, még mindig marad Mészárosnak 50,9 milliárd forint nyereség. A cég elmúlt hat éves eredményeit itt mutatjuk be:

    A cég üzemi eredménye egyébként 44 milliárd forint volt, tehát ha a pénzügyi műveleteket kivesszük a képből, és csak a cég saját munkáival foglalkozunk, ennyi pluszt hoztak össze egy év alatt. Ez azt jelenti, hogy a vállalat több mint 25 százalékos profitrátával dolgozik – jellemzően az állami megrendeléseken.

    Mészáros Lőrinc másik vasútépítő cége, az R-Kord tavaly 43 milliárd forintos forgalommal 8,5 milliárd forint adózott eredményt ért el. Az R-Kord egyik megbízása kapcsán egyébként hűtlen kezelés miatt nyomoz a BRFK, mivel felmerült, hogy még 2021-ben egy félkész munkát vett át tőlük és fizetett ki nekik az állam.

    ","createdAt":"2024-06-01T14:15:28.281Z","createdBy":null,"date":["1970-01-01T00:00:00Z"],"dir":null,"excerpt":"25 százaléknál magasabb nyereségrátával dolgoznak az állami megrendeléseken.","id":"articles:wi1ni46e955d8rml06xi","keywords":["milliárd","az","forint","Egy","és","mint","cég"],"lang":"hu","lat":"47.48138955","length":1174,"lon":"19.14609412691246","phrases":["egy félkész munkát vett át tőlük és fizetett ki nekik az állam","milliárd forint adózás előtti eredményt ért el","milliárd forint adózott eredményt ért el","Az R-Kord egyik megbízása kapcsán egyébként hűtlen kezelés miatt nyomoz","cég elmúlt hat éves eredményeit itt mutatjuk be:A cég üzemi eredménye egyébként"],"publishedTime":"2024-06-01T09:47:27Z","siteName":"Telex","title":"50 milliárd forint tiszta profitot vehetett ki tavaly Mészáros Lőrinc a legnagyobb vasútépítő cégéből","updatedAt":"2024-06-01T14:15:28.281Z","url":"https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2024/06/01/meszaros-lorinc-nyereseg-v-hid-r-kord"},{"byline":"Kristen Everson · CBC News · Posted: Jun 01, 2024 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago","content":"

    Two and a half years after Norman Tate's son was killed in a car accident, he's still struggling to come to terms with how the justice system handled the aftermath.

    \"If you step forward inside that place, you're flipping a coin — whether you're going to get justice that day or not,\" he said on April 30, standing outside the Ontario Court of Justice in Brantford, Ont.

    Norman Tate Junior was killed in a head-on collision a week before Christmas in 2021. The driver in the other car eventually was charged with impaired driving causing death and bodily harm. But the case crawled through the court system and was stayed after it breached the time limits for trials set in a 2016 Supreme Court decision.

    That decision in R. v. Jordan established that criminal cases that go beyond those time limits — 18 months for provincial courts and 30 months for superior courts — can be stayed for unreasonable delay.

    \"\"

    The House30:51Waiting for justice

    The House’s Kristen Everson takes an in-depth look at why delays in the justice system go beyond just a shortage of judges, and what the ramifications are. Then, Justice Minister Arif Virani sits down with Catherine Cullen to discuss what the federal government is doing to speed up the justice system.

    Tate said seeing the case involving his son's death tossed out broke his heart.

    \"Nobody ever ever explained to me or told me that the trial had to be over within 18 months,\" he said. \"They threw the charges out on him and the guy walked away … He never even spent five minutes in jail.\"

    Cases are being stayed for unreasonable delays across the country. Judicial vacancies tend to get blamed for the delays, but they're not the only factor.

    \"Currently, working conditions are just … things just kind of get worse and worse,\" said Shara Munn, a Crown prosecutor and the president of the New Brunswick Crown Prosecutors Association.

    Staffing shortages, complex cases and the sheer amount of evidence being presented are contributing to unmanageable working conditions, she said.

    The union representing prosecutors in New Brunswick said that in some parts of the province, half of the Crown prosecutor positions are vacant. That means junior prosecutors are sometimes left to tackle serious cases without the guidance of a more experienced mentor.

    \"A

    Shara Munn, a Crown prosecutor in New Brunswick, says a high workload is forcing prosecutors to decide which cases go forward and which don’t. (Submitted by Shara Munn)

    Munn said that could end up undermining public confidence in the system.

    \"Imagine you go to the hospital, you are supposed to have heart surgery and you get there and they tell you, 'Well, we don't have a heart specialist right now, but we have a doctor who's training and teaching himself the procedures,'\" she said.

    \"Would you let them operate on you? I would hope that your answer is no, but that's kind of what's happening within our prosecution service.\"

    More complex cases, more delays

    CBC News spoke to seven Crown prosecutors from across the country, most of whom were not in a position to go on the record because of their positions. They all pointed to the increasing complexity of cases as a factor contributing to delays. They said the sheer amount of disclosure required — the material the Crown is responsible for reviewing and sharing with the defence before a trial begins — has increased substantially and requires additional time commitments.

    One prosecutor said they had 10 terabytes worth of video to go through for a single case.

    In an interview with CBC News, retired Supreme Court justice Richard Chartier said complicated cases can slow down judges as well.

    \"The bottom line is that because cases are more complex, the judges need more time to write the decision. And because the judge needs more time to write the decision, they are not in court as often as I would like them to be, because they've fallen behind in their written decisions,\" he said.

    Chartier said because lawyers have the ability to access so much more information about past decisions and cases than in the past, judges are being presented with more complex arguments and need time to consider all the information.

    CBC News reached out to all provinces to ask how many cases are being stayed for unreasonable delay. Data collection on case delays varies from province to province.

    Alberta is the only province that proactively discloses the number of cases stayed for going over Jordan timelines. Between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023, 37 Jordan applications for stays were filed in Alberta courts; two were granted and eight cases were proactively stayed by the Crown.

    WATCH | Federal government must speed up system, court says 

    \"\"

    Federal court slams government for judicial vacancies, delays

    A scathing Federal Court decision said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal justice minister have failed Canadians seeking timely justice by letting the number of judicial vacancies reach a state of crisis and urged Ottawa to fix the problem as soon as possible.

    Between the Ontario Court of Justice and the Superior Court of Justice, 124 charges were stayed in 2022, according to internal reporting by Crown attorneys. In 2023, 177 charges were stayed in Ontario over unreasonable delays.

    In Manitoba in 2022, 33 Jordan applications were filed and two cases were stayed. In 2023, 27 applications were filed in thr province and three cases were stayed for unreasonable delays.

    In B.C., 19 cases were stayed in 2023 for unreasonable delays. Eight cases were stayed in B.C. in 2022.

    In Quebec, 18 cases were stayed in 2022 for unreasonable delays and 96 were stayed in 2023, according to the Quebec Ministry of Justice.

    In 2022, 27 Jordan applications were filed for cases handled by the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution service and 13 of those cases were stayed. In 2023, 28 applications were filed in the province, 14 cases were stayed and three cases were proactively stayed by the Crown over delays; two cases are still awaiting a decision.

    In New Brunswick, the public prosecution service saw eight cases stayed in 2022 over delays and four cases stayed in the first quarter of 2023.

    Saskatchewan courts don't collect data on Jordan applications. Newfoundland's data wasn't readily available. P.E.I. did not immediately respond to a request for comment by CBC News.

    Provinces need to step up: justice minister

    \"The system could work better and faster, there's no doubt,\" Justice Minister Arif Virani said in an interview with CBC Radio's The House.

    \"I see a justice system that still renders accountability, still brings criminals to justice … I know that work needs to be done. I know that systems are getting jammed up. I know that there's a lot of work that needs to be done to speed up the process.\"

    Virani pointed out the administration of the justice system is largely a provincial responsibility. In a recent letter to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Virani said he was \"proud\" of the number of judicial appointments the government has made; Ottawa has named 113 new judges since he was made justice minister last July.

    In his interview with The House, Virani also cited increased federal funding for legal aid and said he expects provinces to step up — because people who can't afford lawyers tend to slow things down.

    \"A

    Justice Minister Arif Virani says provinces must also do their part to speed up court proceedings. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

    \"We know unrepresented litigants tend to take a much longer time in courts and proceed to trial, which takes much more time,\" he said. \"That slows down the system, and it's really critical that we're speeding up the system, not slowing it down.\"

    Delays often force Crown prosecutors to decide which cases go forward and which don't.

    \"I think you'd see ... a real struggle if you were sort of at the desk of a prosecutor in having us decide ... what's more serious, what's not,\" Munn said.  

    \"For example, I work within the Internet child exploitation field. All of my cases are serious …. All of them are violent offences against our most vulnerable children. So there is really no prioritizing to be done.\"

    \"A

    Lawyer Ivanna Iwasykiw represents victims of sexual abuse and says delays are causing people to lose faith in the justice system. (Kristen Everson/CBC)

    Delays can hurt accused too, lawyer says

    The large number of cases that collapse due to long delays is causing people to lose faith in the justice system, said Ivanna Iwasykiw, a lawyer who represents victims of sexual assault and abuse.

    \"It's really impairing not only people's faith in the justice system, but people's faith in their own ability to feel safe in their communities, to make sure that if they're injured or if they're hurt or if a crime is committed, somebody's going to do something about it,\" she said.

    Michael Spratt, a criminal defence lawyer in Ottawa, said delays might affect whether a person pleads guilty or not, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

    \"One of the really insidious parts about delay is it sort of undercuts someone's right to be presumed innocent and their right to trial,\" he said.

    \"A

    Criminal defence lawyer Michael Spratt says delays can lead an innocent accused to plead guilty. (Jean Delisle/CBC)

    Conditions are so bad in some jails, Spratt said, that innocent people may plead guilty to avoid spending months in pre-trial detention.

    \"It's saddening how many people would … plead guilty to things that they're not guilty of,\" he said. 

    Provinces are trying to address the delays in various ways. Ontario has a new directive that states all criminal trials must be scheduled to start on a date that will allow them to end no later than 15 months after charges were laid.

    Alberta is switching to a pre-screening charge process, similar to one in B.C., to weed out more charges before they get into the court system. Nova Scotia and Manitoba are hiring more prosecutors and support staff.

    It's all happening too late for Tate and his family.

    \"I just want everybody's eyes to be open that the justice system's got to be changed,\" he said. 

    \"And I can tell you this much — it failed. Like, miserably, as far as I see. Because my son is — hate to put it point blank — but he's pushing up daisies while this guy is out walking around like nothing happened.

    \"Justice was not served.\"

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