Researchers are finding heat-related illnesses can also contribute to heart disease and cognitive impairment
At a dialysis center in Atlanta, Lauren Kasper tended to patients resting in hospital beds, some too sick to be transferred to a chair. Many arrived in wheelchairs or walked with canes, their bodies weakened from kidney disease.
As she hooked them up to dialysis machines, Kasper, a nurse practitioner, was struck by how young many of her patients were.
Continue reading...International reaction muted over Russia’s warning about allowing Kyiv to strike it with western-made missiles
European leaders have dismissed Vladimir Putin’s warning that the west would be directly fighting Russia if it allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with western-made long-range missiles.
The US and UK are discussing, in conjunction with other allies, allowing Kyiv to strike military targets inside Russia with Storm Shadow missiles, which can hit targets up to 155 miles (250km) from their launch site.
Continue reading...Trump says he won’t debate Harris but claims he won the matchup; Harris tells North Carolina crowd that Americans should see another one
In an interview with the Financial Times, Leonard Leo, the conservative activist who was involved in the effort to build the current rightwing supermajority on the supreme court, says he will spend $1b to fight liberal cultural influence in the United States.
“We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious, so we’ll direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news and entertainment, where leftwing extremism is most evident,” Leo told the FT in a rare interview.
“Expect us to increase support for organisations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs, so that they have to pay a price for putting extreme leftwing ideology ahead of consumers.”
As the United States approaches a critical election, I can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump – perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation – eyes a return to the White House. For that reason, though I’m a Republican, I’ve decided to support Kamala Harris for president.
Trump failed to do his duty and exercise his presidential power to protect members of Congress, law enforcement and the Capitol from the attacks that day. He failed to deploy executive branch personnel to save lives and property and preserve democracy. He just watched on television and chose not to do anything because that would have been contrary to his interests. Trump still describes that day as beautiful. And as for those subsequently convicted of committing crimes, he describes them as hostages.
Any discussion about fidelity to the rule of law has to include Trump’s 34 state felony convictions, his state civil financial judgment of libel based on sexual abuse, as well as the pending federal elections interference case, not to mention the recently dismissed federal documents case that Special Counsel Jack Smith is continuing to pursue. Standing alone, these charges, convictions and judgments show that Trump is someone who fails to act, time and time again, in accordance with the rule of law.
To be fair, I have spoken with Trump only once. I do not really know him. It is telling, however, that several senior officials who worked for him in the White House now refuse to support him, including his vice president, chief of staff, defense secretary and national security adviser. Their unwillingness to endorse their former boss is an indictment of his character at a level equal to his many, many criminal indictments.
Continue reading...Residents were rattled by a 4.7 magnitude quake while firefighters are trying to put out blazes east of the city
Millions of residents in the Los Angeles area were rattled by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake that hit early on Thursday morning and came as the region continues to battle multiple wildfires that yet to be brought under control.
The quake’s epicenter was 4 miles north of Malibu, according to the US Geological Survey. The tremor unleashed boulders on to a Malibu road, visibly shook Santa Monica’s historic 1909 wooden pier and jolted people from bed. No injuries or damages were immediately reported.
Continue reading...Democratic nominee criticizes Republican rival and says ‘we owe it to the voters’ to have second TV debate
Kamala Harris held a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday, calling for another round of debate with Donald Trump, two days after her strong showing in Philadelphia against the former president.
“I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate,” she said to applause, “because this election and what is at stake could not be more important. On Tuesday night, I talked about issues that I know matter to families across America, like bringing down the cost of living … but that’s not what we heard from Donald Trump.”
Continue reading...Scientific research on pigeon missiles and dead trout also win at awards for amusing studies with serious implications
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses.
After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure.
Continue reading...City council approved proposals risking ire of Republicans threatening to withhold millions in state funding
A Tennessee judge has ruled that three gun control questions can go on the November ballot in Memphis, even as top Republican state leaders have threatened to withhold tens of millions of dollars in state funding should city leaders put the initiative before voters.
The Daily Memphian reports that Shelby county chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson sided with the Memphis city council, which sued the Shelby county election commission last month for refusing to put gun control measures on the ballot.
Continue reading...‘Strawberry’ models can break down complex problems into smaller logical steps, an area where other AIs stumble
OpenAI said on Thursday it was launching its “Strawberry” series of AI models designed to spend more time processing answers to queries in order to solve hard problems.
The models are capable of reasoning through complex tasks and can solve more challenging problems than previous models in science, coding and math, the AI firm said in a blog post.
Continue reading...UK PM responds to Putin’s threat that use of long-range British missiles inside Russia would put it at war with Nato
Keir Starmer has told Vladimir Putin that he started the war in Ukraine and could end it at any time after the Russian leader warned that any use of long-range British missiles into Russian territory would put Nato at war with his country.
The prime minister spoke en route to Washington to see US president Joe Biden as he sought to justify a western decision made behind closed doors that would allow Ukraine to attack inside Russia with partly British-made Storm Shadow missiles.
Continue reading...Protests in West Bank village had subsided half an hour before IDF shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, says report
Israeli security forces mischaracterised the events that led up to the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American protester in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed that their soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against settlements in the West Bank.
Continue reading...Comments come after Antony Blinken hints US will lift restrictions on Kyiv’s use of weapons inside Russia
Vladimir Putin has said that a western move to let Kyiv use longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow.
Putin spoke as US and UK top diplomats discussed easing rules on firing western weapons into Russia, which Kyiv has been pressing for, more than two and a half years into Moscow’s offensive.
Continue reading...Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was killed while protesting against West Bank settlements, though a witness says she posed no threat
For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and ospreys fish overhead.
On Wednesday night, hundreds of people gathered on the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her. Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers last Friday in the occupied West Bank, where she had gone to protest and bear witness to Palestinian suffering.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Michelin, Dunlop, Goodyear and Bridgestone products have found way to Russia via intermediaries
More than $30m (£23m) worth of aircraft tyres made by western manufacturers including the French firm Michelin and Britain’s Dunlop were imported into Russia last year via intermediaries despite attempts to ban the trade, according to a Ukrainian government agency.
Russian aviation is critically dependent on foreign-made tyres and, according to the available customs records, the vast majority imported into the country in 2023 were produced by companies headquartered in France, Britain, the US and Japan.
Continue reading...Andrew McCabe says Trump-Putin interactions ‘raise questions’, as Harris says Putin would eat Trump ‘for lunch’
Donald Trump can be seen as a Russian asset, though not in the traditional sense of an active agent or a recruited resource, an ex-FBI deputy director who worked under the former US president said.
Asked on a podcast if he thought it possible Trump was a Russian asset, Andrew McCabe, who Trump fired as FBI deputy director in 2018, said: “I do, I do.”
Continue reading...Lawyers for Christina Cardenas say she was sexually violated during search when she tried to visit husband
The wife of a California prisoner will receive $5.6m after being sexually violated during a strip-search when she tried to visit her husband in prison, her attorneys said Monday.
After traveling four hours to see her husband at a correctional facility in Tehachapi, California, on 6 September 2019, Christina Cardenas was subject to a strip-search by prison officials, drug and pregnancy tests, X-ray and CT scans at a hospital, and another strip-search by a male doctor who sexually violated her, a lawsuit said.
Continue reading...Several blazes ravage state after record-breaking heatwave last week with temperatures topping 100F
As least 13 people have been injured in three major southern California wildfires that broke out this week during a scorching heatwave. Firefighters battling the blazes, already stretched to the limits by a challenging summer, were among the injured.
The Bridge fire in the Angeles national forest, located north of Glendora, exploded from about 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) on Tuesday to 34,000 acres that evening, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Continue reading...Key advisers admit Trump unlikely to have persuaded undecided voters to back him after unconvincing display
Donald Trump’s campaign publicly claimed victory in the debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday night, but at least some of his aides privately conceded it was unlikely that he persuaded any undecided voters to break for him, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Will tonight benefit us? No, it will not,” one Trump aide said.
Continue reading...Officials warn of life-threatening storm surge and flooding as evacuation orders in place in some parishes
Francine made landfall in south Louisiana on Wednesday as a category 2 hurricane as officials warned of life-threatening storm surge, flooding and 100mph winds.
There were evacuation orders in some parishes, as communities braced.
Continue reading...Decision understood to have already been made in private as secretary of state says in Kyiv that US will continue to adapt policy
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private.
Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had “from day one” been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. “We will continue to do this,” he emphasised.
Continue reading...Cindy and Craig Corrie say they fear Eygi’s death at West Bank protest will go unpunished like their daughter’s
When Cindy and Craig Corrie heard about the death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the American-Turkish woman killed at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week, it reopened a 21-year-old wound. “You feel the ripping apart again of your own family when you know that’s happening to another family. There’s a hole there that’s never going to be filled for each of these families,” Craig Corrie said.
In 2003, their daughter Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer during a protest in Rafah against the demolitions of homes in Gaza. This week, the couple have joined a chorus of human rights advocates calling for an independent investigation into Eygi’s death, saying that they feared her case would go unpunished like their daughter’s.
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