Tropical Storm Idalia Swoops Through Carolinas, Leaves a Trail of Destruction in Florida and Georgia

PERRY, Fla. — Tropical Storm Idalia descended on the Carolinas on its way out to the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction in the Southeast stretching back to Florida, where it first roared ashore as a major hurricane.

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Rescue and repair efforts continued in Florida’s remote Big Bend area where Idalia made landfall Wednesday. Thus far, authorities have only confirmed only one death, that of a man hit by a falling tree in Georgia.

The storm’s ferocious winds left as many as a half-million customers without power in Florida and other states as it ripped down power poles and lines.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he planned to tour the area with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Thursday. He noted that Idalia was far less destructive than feared, providing only glancing blows to Tampa Bay and other more populated areas as it came ashore with 125 mph (201 kph) winds in rural Florida. In contrast, Hurricane Ian last year hit the heavily populated Fort Myers area, leaving 149 dead in the state.

Ian “came in basically at a Category 5 … in a much more populated area, so more opportunity I think to have destruction, whereas I think this one, there was definitely a lot of destruction but it was so much debris and so much woods and that’s just going to require a lot to clean all that up,” he said.

Idalia was still blowing with winds up to 60 mph (96 kph) when it reached coastal North Carolina on Thursday morning. Tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 185 miles (295 kilometers). Idalia was expected to travel just off the North Carolina coast Thursday without losing much of its strength and gradually weaken as it rolls off into the Atlantic Ocean through the weekend. Swells were expected to affect the southeastern coast, likely causing life-threatening surf and rip current conditions into the Labor Day weekend.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who declared a statewide emergency earlier this week as Idalia approached, had warned residents in coastal and eastern inland counties to prepare for heavy rainfall and localized flooding and urged them to stay off roads covered by water.

In South Carolina, the storm coupled with king tides to send seawater flowing over sand dunes and spilling onto beachfront streets. In Charleston, a surge from Idalia topped the seawall that protects the downtown, sending ankle-deep ocean water into the streets and neighborhoods where horse-drawn carriages pass million-dollar homes and the famous open-air market.

Preliminary data showed the Wednesday evening high tide reached just over 9.2 feet (2.8 meters), more than 3 feet (0.9 meters) above normal and the fifth-highest reading in Charleston Harbor since records were first kept in 1899.

Bands from Idalia also brought short-lived tornadoes. One flipped a car in suburban Goose Creek, South Carolina, causing minor injuries, authorities said. No major damage was reported.

After traveling across the Gulf of Mexico, Idalia came ashore Wednesday morning near Keaton Beach, pummeling Florida’s remote and lightly populated Big Bend region with powerful winds.

The area, where the Florida Panhandle curves into the peninsula, saw streets turned into rivers that submerged cars and homes, while the howling winds tore off roofs, snapped tall trees, sent sheet metal flying and shredded homes.

“All hell broke loose,” said Belond Thomas of Perry, a mill town located just inland from the Big Bend region. Thomas fled with her family and some friends to a motel, thinking it would be safer than riding out the storm at home but the roof was torn away and debris showered onto her pregnant daughter, who fortunately wasn’t injured, Thomas said.

No hurricane-related deaths were officially confirmed in Florida, but the state’s highway patrol reported two people killed in separate weather-related crashes just hours before Idalia made landfall.

Even so, Idalia appeared to be far less destructive than first feared. It avoided large urban regions, striking only glancing blows to Tampa Bay and other more populated areas while focusing its fury on the rural Big Bend section.

However, damage there was likely to be extensive.

At Horseshoe Beach in central Big Bend, Jewell Baggett picked through the wreckage and debris of her mother’s destroyed home, finding a few pictures and her mother’s pots and pans.

Her grandfather built the home decades ago and it had survived four previous storms, she said.

“And now it’s gone,” she said. “Nothing left. A few little trinkets here and there.”

Baggett, whose mother had left before the storm hit, said at least five or six other homes also were destroyed.

In Tallahassee, the power went out well before the center of the storm arrived, but the city avoided a direct hit. A giant oak tree next to the governor’s mansion split in half, covering the yard with debris.

State officials, 5,500 National Guardsman and rescue crews went into search-and-recovery mode, inspecting bridges, clearing toppled trees and looking for anyone in distress. More than 30,000 utility workers gathered to repair downed power lines and poles.

In Georgia, a man in Valdosta died when a tree fell on him as he tried to clear another tree out of the road, Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk said. Two others, including a sheriff’s deputy, were hurt, he said.

Officials in Bermuda warned that Idalia could hit the island early next week as a tropical storm. Bermuda on Wednesday was being lashed by the outer bands of Hurricane Franklin, a Category 2 storm that was on track to pass near the island in the north Atlantic Ocean.

President Joe Biden called the governors of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina on Wednesday and told them their states had his administration’s full support, the White House said.

source https://time.com/6310080/tropical-storm-idalia-carolinas-florida-georgia-destruction/

Supermoon Could Team Up With Hurricane Idalia to Raise Tides Higher

A rare blue supermoon could raise tides above normal just as Hurricane Idalia lashes Florida’s west coast, exacerbating flooding from the storm.

The moon was closest to the Earth on Wednesday, the same day Idalia made landfall as a high-end Category 3 hurricane near Keaton Beach in Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph (200 kph).

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While a supermoon can make for a spectacular backdrop in photos of landmarks around the world, its intensified gravitational pull also makes tides higher.

“I would say the timing is pretty bad for this one,” said Brian Haines, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Charleston, South Carolina.

It’s expected to make tidal flooding worse not only in Florida, but in states such as Georgia and South Carolina, where Haines’ office has been warning residents that parts of Charleston could be under water by Wednesday night.

When the moon is full, the sun and the moon are pulling in the same direction, which has the effect of increasing tides above normal ranges, said Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The moon’s gravitational pulls are even stronger when it’s closer to Earth, so the tides are even higher.

The storm surge is often the greatest killer when hurricanes strike. The ocean water pouring onto land could be up to 15 feet (4.6 meters) along parts of Florida’s west coast, the National Hurricane Center projected in its latest briefings Tuesday. Farther south, up to 7 feet (2.1 meters) of storm surge is expected in the Tampa Bay area.

Storm surge that can be taller than a person is a concern with any major hurricane. The tides and the influence of a supermoon can increase that somewhat.

“There’s a saying that you hide from the wind and run from the water, and hopefully people are heeding that advice,” said Brian Tang, associate professor of atmospheric science at University at Albany in New York.

The part of northwest Florida where Idalia made landfall Wednesday is especially vulnerable to storm surge because of the region’s geography. The continental shelf extends so far out from the coast and has a gradual slope, allowing the ocean to grow higher as hurricane winds drive the water onto land, Tang said. The shape of the coast in that region – known as Florida’s Big Bend area – is also curved inward, which can focus the storm surge to make it even more dangerous, he said.

In South Carolina, there’s concern that Idalia’s path will take it near the historic city of Charleston and the surrounding area known as the Low Country. That would add water to the high tide that’s in the forecast, Haines said.

“Wednesday evening looks really nasty for coastal flooding here,” he said.

The weather service is forecasting an 8.2-foot (2.5 meter) tide in Charleston Wednesday evening, which could produce widespread flooding in downtown Charleston, Haines said. Even with a 7.5 foot tide (2.3 meters), some roads in the city flood and become impassible, he said.

source https://time.com/6309756/supermoon-hurricane-idalia/

FBI and European Partners Seize Major Malware Network in Blow to Global Cybercrime

LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. officials said Tuesday that the FBI and its European partners infiltrated and seized control of a major global malware network used for more than 15 years to commit a gamut of online crimes including crippling ransomware attacks.

They then remotely removed the malicious software agent—known as Qakbot—from thousands of infected computers.

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Cybersecurity experts said they were impressed by the deft dismantling of the network but cautioned that any setback to cybercrime would likely be temporary.

“Nearly ever sector of the economy has been victimized by Qakbot,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said Tuesday in announcing the takedown. He said the criminal network had facilitated about 40 ransomware attacks alone over 18 months that investigators said netted Qakbot administrators about $58 million.

Qakbot’s ransomware victims included an Illinois-based engineering firm, financial services organizations in Alabama and Kansas, along with a Maryland defense manufacturer and a Southern California food distribution company, Estrada said.

Officials said $8.6 million in cybercurrency was seized or frozen but no arrests were announced.

Estrada said the investigation is ongoing. He would not say where administrators of the malware, which marshaled infected machines into a botnet of zombie computers, were located. Cybersecurity researchers say they are believed to be in Russia and/or other former Soviet states.

Officials estimated the so-called malware loader, a digital Swiss knife for cybercrooks also known as Pinkslipbot and Qbot, was leveraged to cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage since first appearing in 2008 as an information-stealing bank trojan. They said millions of people in nearly every country in the world have been affected.

Typically delivered via phishing email infections, Qakbot gave criminal hackers initial access to violated computers. They could then deploy additional payloads including ransomware, steal sensitive information or gather intelligence on victims to facilitate financial fraud and crimes such as tech support and romance scams.

The Qakbot network was “literally feeding the global cybercrime supply chain,” said Donald Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, calling it “one of the most devastating cybercriminal tools in history.” The most commonly detected malware in the first half of 2023, Qakbot impacted one in 10 corporate networks and accounted for about 30% of attacks globally, a pair of cybersecurity firms found. Such “initial access” tools allow extortionist ransomware gangs to skip the initial step of penetrating computer networks, making them major facilitators for the far-flung, mostly Russian-speaking criminals who have wreaked havoc by stealing data and disrupting schools, hospitals, local governments and businesses worldwide.

Beginning Friday in an operation officials dubbed “Duck Hunt,” the FBI along with Europol and law enforcement and justice partners in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Latvia seized more than 50 Qakbot servers and identified more than 700,000 infected computers, more than 200,000 of them in the U.S. — effectively cutting off criminals from their quarry.

The FBI then used the seized Qakbot infrastructure to remotely dispatch updates that deleted the malware from thousands of infected computers. A senior FBI official, briefing reporters on condition he not be further identified, called that number “fluid” and cautioned that other malware may have remained on machines liberated from Qakbot.

It was the FBI’s biggest success against cybercrooks since it “hacked the hackers” with the January takedown of the prolific Hive ransomware gang.

“It is an impressive takedown. Qakbot was the largest botnet” in number of victims, said Alex Holden, founder of Milwaukee-based Hold Security. But he said it may have been a casualty of its own success in its staggering growth over the past few years. “Large botnets today tend to implode as too many threat actors are mining this data for various types of abuse.”

Cybersecurity expert Chester Wisniewski at Sophos agreed that while there could be a temporary drop in ransomware attacks, the criminals can be expected to either revive infrastructure elsewhere or move to other botnets.

“This will cause a lot of disruption to some gangs in the short term, but it will do nothing from it being rebooted,” he said. “Albeit it takes a long time to recruit 700,000 PCs.”

—Bajak reported from Boston.

source https://time.com/6309689/qakbot-cybercrime-fbi/

Long COVID Recovery Remains Rare. Doctors Are Struggling to Understand Why

Since August 2020, David Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, has helped treat more than 3,000 people with Long COVID. These patients, in his experience, fit into one of three groups.

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A small number, no more than 10%, have stubborn symptoms that don’t get better, no matter what Putrino and his team try. A big chunk see some improvement, but remain sick. And about 15% to 20% report full recovery—an elusive benchmark that Putrino greets with cautious optimism.

“I call it ‘fully recovered for now,’” Putrino says, since lots of people’s symptoms eventually come back, sometimes if they catch COVID-19 again, which can land them back at square one.

Putrino’s outlook isn’t purposely gloomy; it’s one informed by the difficult realities of treating Long COVID, a condition with no known cure and is defined by long-lasting symptoms following a case of COVID-19. More than 200 symptoms are associated with Long COVID, commonly including fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, intolerance to exercise, chronic pain, and more. Millions of people around the world have developed Long COVID, and an uncertain number have completely recovered.

“It’s really hard to tell” exactly how many people get over their symptoms entirely, says Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who researches Long COVID. “But anecdotally, from clinical experience, the majority unfortunately don’t.”

Who gets better?

Zeroing in on the Long COVID recovery rate is a work in progress, but two recent reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest remission is possible.

One, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, found that roughly 6% of U.S. adults currently have Long COVID, down from about 7.5% in the summer of 2022. The other found that many people’s symptoms disappear over time. A year post-infection, people who’d had COVID-19 were roughly as likely to have lingering symptoms as people who’d had other respiratory illnesses, the researchers found. That tracks with a January 2023 study in the BMJ, which found people who develop Long COVID after mild initial illnesses can expect most symptoms to improve within a year.

Other researchers, however, have come to less optimistic conclusions. In an August study published in Nature Medicine, Al-Aly and his team found people who’d had mild COVID-19 remained at increased risk of more than 20 Long COVID symptoms—including fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, and pulmonary issues—two years later. People whose COVID-19 was severe enough that they were hospitalized were at increased risk of more than 50 health problems two years later.

The findings reflect “the arduous, protracted road to recovery” for some people who catch COVID-19, Al-Aly says—a road that many people with Long COVID are still on, according to research posted online in July as a not-yet-peer-reviewed preprint. In a group of 341 people with Long COVID, only about 8% had fully recovered after two years of follow-up, co-author Dr. Lourdes Mateu and her colleagues found.

Read More: Studies for Long COVID Treatments Are Finally Getting Underway

How can multiple studies on the same topic reach such different conclusions? The way they’re designed can make a difference, Putrino says. Some Long COVID research uses data drawn from patients’ health records. In these studies, Putrino says, researchers sometimes assume symptoms have resolved if someone stops coming in for care. But there are lots of other reasons someone might stop seeing their doctor: financial constraints, frustration that treatments aren’t working, health declining to the point that leaving home becomes difficult, and so on.

“Recovery” can also be defined differently. Is it a complete resolution of symptoms, or improving enough that someone can function despite their ill health? Once researchers start splitting those hairs, Al-Aly says, they often find that someone “didn’t really recover; they adjusted to a new baseline.”

For that reason, research that takes into account patients’ own perceptions of their symptoms and recovery is important. That’s what Mateu and her team did. For two years, they tracked Long COVID patients who’d sought care at a hospital in Badalona, Spain, periodically asking about their symptoms during face-to-face visits and performing secondary diagnostic tests when necessary. With that level of scrutiny, Mateu says, the vast majority of patients did not meet their definition of recovery: the resolution of all persistent symptoms for at least three consecutive months.

Granted, the patients in Mateu’s study were a specific group. Most were infected before vaccines (which have been shown to be somewhat, though not entirely, protective against Long COVID) were available and they were all sick enough to seek care at a hospital-based Long COVID clinic. Counterintuitively, however, the people in the study who were originally sickest—those who were admitted to the ICU when they had acute COVID-19—were more likely to recover within two years than people with milder initial illnesses, Mateu says.

In some cases, Mateu says, people with severe COVID-19 are left with issues that are significant but have better prognoses than Long COVID, such as post-intensive care syndrome. People who develop Long COVID after mild illnesses, by contrast, can be more vexing. Their test results may come back pristine yet their health remains poor, making it difficult for doctors to determine what to treat and how.

NIH is studying possible treatments

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched clinical trials focused on potential treatments, but it’s not yet clear if any will succeed and less likely any will work for all Long COVID patients, since the condition’s symptoms can look different from person to person. The NIH will test various therapies in patients with specific symptom clusters—offering brain training for those with cognitive dysfunction, for example, and wakefulness drugs for those with sleep issues—rather than across the board.

As of now, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment for Long COVID, nor any treatment guaranteed to work at all. Each time a new patient enters their clinic, Putrino and his team start from the ground up, doing a comprehensive analysis of the individual’s health in hopes of finding a problem that may respond to drugs, supplements, nerve stimulation, or other tools.

Sometimes this approach works better than others; sometimes it doesn’t work at all. The rarity of complete recovery, Putrino says, underscores how desperately Long COVID sufferers need more extensive treatment trials, and fast.

“I feel time pressure with these patients,” Putrino says. “Every second that we’re not testing something new or trying something that’s a moonshot for these patients, they’re getting worse.”

source https://time.com/6309054/long-covid-recovery-rare/

How Australian Doctors Found a 3-Inch-Long Live Worm in a Woman’s Brain

CANBERRA, Australia — A neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital says she plucked a wriggling worm from the patient’s brain.

Surgeon Hari Priya Bandi was performing a biopsy through a hole in the 64-year-old patient’s skull at Canberra Hospital last year when she used forceps to pull out the parasite, which measured 8 centimeters, or 3 inches.

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“I just thought: ‘What is that? It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s alive and moving,’” Bandi was quoted Tuesday in The Canberra Times newspaper.

“It continued to move with vigor. We all felt a bit sick,” Bandi added of her operating team.

Read More: Therapy Isn’t Fixing America’s Mental Health Crisis

The creature was the larva of an Australian native roundworm not previously known to be a human parasite, named Ophidascaris robertsi. The worms are commonly found in carpet pythons.

Bandi and Canberra infectious diseases physician Sanjaya Senanayake are authors of an article about the extraordinary medical case published in the latest edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Senanayake said he was on duty at the hospital in June last year when the worm was found.

“I got a call saying: ‘We’ve got a patient with an infection problem. We’ve just removed a live worm from this patient’s brain,’” Senanayake told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The woman had been admitted to the hospital after experiencing forgetfulness and worsening depression over three months. Scans showed changes in her brain.

A year earlier, she had been admitted to her local hospital in southeast New South Wales state with symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhea, a dry cough and night sweats.

Senanayake said the brain biopsy was expected to reveal a cancer or an abscess.

“This patient had been treated … for what was a mystery illness that we thought ultimately was a immunological condition because we hadn’t been able to find a parasite before and then out of nowhere, this big lump appeared in the frontal part of her brain,” Senanayake said.

“Suddenly, with her (Bandi’s) forceps, she’s picking up this thing that’s wriggling. She and everyone in that operating theater were absolutely stunned,” Senanayake added.

The worms’ eggs are commonly shed in snake droppings which are eaten by small mammals. The life cycle continues as other snakes eat the mammals.

The woman lives near a carpet python habitat and forages for native vegetation called warrigal greens to cook.

While she had no direct contact with snakes, scientists hypothesize that she consumed the eggs from the vegetation or her contaminated hands.

source https://time.com/6309307/australia-parasite-worm-brain/

Foxconn Founder Terry Gou Announces Run for Taiwan Presidency

Foxconn Technology Group founder Terry Gou announced his intention to run in Taiwan’s presidential election as an independent, deepening competition among the opposition contenders for the job. 

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Gou declared his candidacy for the vote in January 2024 at a briefing in Taipei on Monday. For his bid to become official, he will need to secure the signatures of around 290,000 voters.

“Over the past seven years, I’ve witnessed Taiwan go from being prosperous to being on the brink of falling off a cliff in many aspects, including the economy, national defense and foreign affairs,” he said. “If we don’t pull back now, it will be too late to save Taiwan from falling. We have to take down the Democratic Progressive Party.”

Having teased a potential bid for weeks, Gou’s announcement puts him in direct competition with Hou Yu-ih of the opposition Kuomintang for votes from Taiwanese who support closer ties between Taiwan and China. He will also face Vice President Lai Ching-te, the ruling DPP candidate who champions Taiwan’s status as an independent country.

Read More: Why China Won’t Invade Taiwan Anytime Soon

Gou is a former member of the KMT so by joining the race he is likely hurting the chances of Hou, whose campaign has got off to a slow start. Just 15.2% of respondents would vote for Gou in a July poll by Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, a private think tank. That trailed Lai, with a support rating of 33.9%, Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party with 20.5% support and Hou’s 18%.

“Out of concern for Taiwan’s geopolitical and economic situation, and strong belief in Taiwan’s democracy, I’ve been attempting to bring all the opposition parties together over the past few months,” he said at Monday’s event, noting however that his efforts had made “zero progress” so far because the other parties have their own considerations.

He also pledged to lift Taiwan’s per capita GDP above Singapore’s.

Gou has tried for the presidency before. In 2019, the tycoon handed over Foxconn’s day-to-day operations to new management to run an ultimately unsuccessful bid.

Gou criticized the DPP in an opinion piece in the Washington Post in July for causing tensions with Beijing, and called for Taiwan and China to resume direct talks under the one-China framework, a reference to the notion that Taiwan is a part of China. The DPP rejects the claim, viewing the island as an already de facto independent nation.

Read More: To Prevent a War Over Taiwan, a Bolder Strategy Is Needed

Gou has amassed the bulk of his roughly $7 billion fortune from having his Foxconn make various gadgets for the likes of Apple Inc. and Sony Group Corp. in China since the late 1980s. The majority of Apple’s iconic handsets are still assembled in Foxconn’s main manufacturing hub in central China, a massive campus that’s dubbed “iPhone city.” 

As the largest shareholder in Foxconn, Gou dismissed concern the company’s large footprint in China would make him susceptible to pressure from Beijing. 

“If the Chinese Communist regime threatens to confiscate the company’s property in China, I will say, ‘Yes! Please do it!’,” he said. “I can sacrifice my personal wealth in exchange for peace for Taiwan.”

—With assistance from Betty Hou.

source https://time.com/6308865/foxconn-terry-gou-taiwan-presidential-campaign/

China’s Worsening Economic Slowdown Is Rippling Across the Globe

China’s economy was meant to drive a third of global economic growth this year, so its dramatic slowdown in recent months is sounding alarm bells across the world. 

Policymakers are bracing for a hit to their economies as China’s imports of everything from construction materials to electronics slide. Caterpillar Inc. says Chinese demand for machines used on building sites is worse than previously thought. U.S. President Joe Biden called the economic problems a “ticking time bomb.”

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Global investors have already pulled more than $10 billion from China’s stock markets, with most of the selling in blue chips. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have cut their targets for Chinese equities, with the former also warning of spillover risks to the rest of the region.

Read More: China Says Its Focus for 2023 Is the Economy. But It’s Not Clear Politics Can Be Put Aside

Asian economies are taking the biggest hit to their trade so far, along with countries in Africa. Japan reported its first drop in exports in more than two years in July after China cut back on purchases of cars and chips. Central bankers from South Korea and Thailand last week cited China’s weak recovery for downgrades to their growth forecasts.

It’s not all doom-and-gloom, though. China’s slowdown will drag down global oil prices, and deflation in the country means the prices of goods being shipped around the world are falling. That’s a benefit to countries like the U.S. and U.K. still battling high inflation.

Some emerging markets like India also see opportunities, hoping to attract the foreign investment that may be leaving China’s shores.

Read More: China Appears to Choose National Security Over Foreign Investment

But as the world’s second-largest economy, a prolonged slowdown in China will hurt, rather than help, the rest of the world. An analysis from the International Monetary Fund shows how much is at stake: when China’s growth rate rises by 1 percentage point, global expansion is boosted by about 0.3 percentage points.

China’s deflation “isn’t such a bad thing” for the global economy, Peter Berezin, chief global strategist BCA Research Inc., said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “But, if the rest of the world, the U.S. and Europe, falls into recession, if China remains weak, then that would be a problem — not just for China but for the whole global economy.”

Here’s a look at how China’s slowdown is rippling across economies and financial markets.

Trade slump

Many countries, especially those in Asia, count China as their biggest export market for everything from electronic parts and food to metals and energy.

The value of Chinese imports has fallen for nine of the last 10 months as demand retreats from the record highs set during the pandemic. The value of shipments from Africa, Asia and North America were all lower in July than they were a year ago.

Africa and Asia have been the hardest hit, with the value of imports down more than 14% in the first seven months this year. Part of that is due to a drop in demand for electronics parts from South Korea and Taiwan, while falling prices of commodities such as fossil fuels are also hitting the value of goods shipped to China.

Read More: How China’s Faltering Growth Threatens Global Commodities Markets

So far, the actual volume of commodities such as iron or copper ore sent to China has held up. But if the slowdown continues, shipments could be impacted, which would affect miners in Australia, South America and elsewhere around the world.

Deflation pressure

Producer prices in China have contracted for the past 10 months, meaning the cost of goods being shipped from the country is falling. That’s welcome news for people around the globe still struggling with high inflation.

The price of Chinese goods at U.S. docks has fallen every month this year and that is likely to continue until factory prices in China return to positive territory. Economists at Wells Fargo & Co. estimate that a ‘hard landing’ in China — which they define as a 12.5% divergence from its trend growth — would cut the baseline forecast for US consumer inflation in 2025 by 0.7 percentage points to 1.4%.

Slow tourism rebound

Chinese consumers are spending more on services, like travel and tourism, than on goods — but they’re not yet venturing overseas in large numbers. Until recently the government had banned group tours to many countries and there is still a lack of flights, meaning it’s much more expensive to travel than it was before the pandemic.

Read More: China’s Tourists Can Travel Again. Here’s Why the World Is Still Waiting for the Rebound

The pandemic and weak economy have curbed incomes in China, while the years-long housing market slump means homeowners feel less wealthy than before. That suggests it may take a long time for overseas travel to rebound to the levels they were at before the pandemic, hitting tourism-dependent nations in Southeast Asia such as Thailand.

Currency impact

China’s economic woes have pushed the currency down more than 5% against the dollar this year, with the yuan close to breaching the 7.3 mark this month. The central bank has escalated its defense of the yuan through various measures including its daily currency fixings.

The depreciation in the offshore yuan is having a greater impact on its peers in Asia, Latin America and the Central and Eastern Europe bloc, Bloomberg data show, with the correlation of the Chinese currency to some others rising.

Read More: How China Is Trying to Lift Its Slumping Economy

The weak sentiment spillover may weigh on currencies like the Singapore dollar, Thai baht, and Mexican peso as correlations rise, according to Barclays Bank Plc.

“With the weaker China economy it’s very difficult to be optimistic on the Asian economies and currencies and we’re more concerned about the metal-exposed currencies,” said Magdalena Polan, head of emerging market macro research at PGIM Ltd. Weakness in the construction sector may see currencies of commodity-led economies, such as the Chilean peso and South African rand, suffer, she said.

The Australian dollar, which often trades as a proxy for China, has lost more than 3% this quarter, the worst performer in the Group-of-10 basket.

Bonds lose appeal

China’s interest rate cuts this year have reduced the appeal of its bonds to foreign investors, who have cut their exposure to the market and are looking for alternatives in the rest of the region. 

Overseas holdings of Chinese sovereign notes are at the lowest share of the total market since 2019, according to Bloomberg calculations. Global funds had turned more bullish on the local currency bonds of South Korea and Indonesia as central banks there near the end of their interest-rate hiking cycles.

Luxury stocks

Companies from Nike Inc. to Caterpillar have reported a hit to their earnings from China’s slowdown. An MSCI index that tracks global companies with the biggest exposure to China has retreated 9.3% this month, nearly double the decline in the broader gauge of world stocks.

Read More: China’s Solution to Inequality? Cracking Down on Displays of Wealth and Poverty

A gauge of European luxury goods and Thailand travel and leisure also track losses to China’s onshore equity benchmark. The sectors are “accurate reflections of how global investors may take indirect exposure to China and the outlook as China’s economy continues to weigh,” said Redmond Wong, a market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets in Hong Kong. 

Luxury goods firms such as Louis Vuitton bags-maker LVMH, Gucci-owner Kering SA and Hermes International are particularly vulnerable to any wobbles in Chinese demand.

—With assistance from Marcus Wong and Ernest Tsang.

source https://time.com/6308850/china-economy-slowdown-global-effects/

Simone Biles Wins Record 8th U.S. Gymnastics Title

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A decade later, Simone Biles is still on top.

The gymnastics star won her record eighth U.S. Championship on Sunday night, 10 years after she first ascended to the top of her sport as a teenage prodigy.

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Biles, now a 26-year-old newlywed considered perhaps the greatest of all time, posted an all-around two-day total of 118.40, four points clear of runner-up Shilese Jones. Florida junior Leanne Wong claimed third, bolstering her chances of making a third straight world championship team.

Biles is all but assured of returning to the gym where she captured her first world title in 2013. Over the course of two electric nights at the SAP Center, she served notice that even after a two-year break following the Tokyo Olympics, in gymnastics there is the one referred to as the GOAT and there is everyone else.

Biles became the oldest woman to win a national title since USA Gymnastics began organizing the event in 1963. Her eight crowns moved her past Alfred Jochim, who won seven between 1925-33 when the Amateur Athletics Union ran the championships and the events in men’s competition included rope climbing.

Yes, really.

“I don’t think about numbers,” Biles said. “I think about my performance. And I think overall, I hit 8 for 8. I guess it’s a lucky number this year.”

The sport has come a long way over the last century. No one has spent more time at the far end of the Bell curve than Biles, who has spent 10 years using her singular talents to push boundaries in more ways than one.

Peaks aren’t supposed to last this long. Most elite gymnasts at 26 — at least the ones who haven’t retired — are simply hoping to hold on to what they have.

Biles isn’t interested in that. Never has been. She finds repetition boring. She insists this time she’s doing it “for herself” and her markedly different approach to her job offers tangible proof she’s not lying.

Rather than let the world in to her journey as she eyes a third Olympics, she’s kept most of her training under wraps, more interested in sharing glimpses of her life far away from the gym.

“I like to keep (my goals) personal, just so that I know what I’m aiming for,” Biles said. “I think it’s better that way. I’m trying to move a little bit differently this year than I have in the past. I think it’s working so far, so I’m going to keep it secretive.”

There appears to be more balance in her life, leaning into the “it’s just gymnastics” mantra that helped fuel her rise.

Age hasn’t caught up to her yet, though she played it relatively safe — by her standards — on Sunday. She tweaked her right ankle in training on Saturday, leading her to opt out of doing the Yurchenko double pike vault that she nailed almost flawlessly during the opening night of the competition on Friday.

The 14.850 she received for her Cheng vault was still the highest of the night on the event. So was the 14.8 she earned on beam. The 15.400 that drew a standing ovation when she finished too.

Next stop is Antwerp in late September, where Biles will try to add to the 25 medals — 18 of them gold — she’s captured so far in her unparalleled career.

Jones figures to be on the plane too. The 21-year-old is a marvel on bars, where she thrives despite being tall (5-foot-6ish) for someone who opts to do this for a living. The crowd erupted when she nailed her dismount, her 15.000 score was tops in the meet on the event and put 10 months filled with injuries that have slowed her training firmly behind her.

Who joins Jones and Biles at worlds remains very much up in the air.

Reigning Olympic champion Sunisa Lee, who has spent most of the year battling a kidney issue her doctors are still trying to get a handle on, could have a chance as a specialist after putting together a solid balance beam routine.

Wong, one of several athletes trying to compete at the NCAA and elite levels at the same time, put together two stellar nights that included an elegant bars routine and a floor exercise that makes up for in precision what it lacks in power.

Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, teammates of Biles’ at the 2020 Olympics, who have also spent the last two years splitting time between college and elite, weren’t quite as sharp. Chiles fell off both the bars and beam. Carey finished in the top 10 on just one event — vault — where the Americans figure to be loaded.

source https://time.com/6308845/simone-biles-wins-us-gymnastics-championship-2023/

Gunman Kills 3 in ‘Racially Motivated’ Shooting in Jacksonville. Here’s What to Know

A white gunman shot and killed three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday, in an act that officials say was “racially motivated.” 

The shooter, who has not been publicly identified, texted his father to “check his computer” before the shooting which took place before 2 p.m., revealing dark manifestos detailing the suspect’s racism, according to authorities. The shooter’s father called police and sent the writings to authorities, but the gunman had already fatally shot three victims before killing himself.  

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“He hated Black people,” said Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters during a press conference Saturday.

The tragedy is the latest among a slew of high-profile racially motivated shootings over the years, in cities ranging from Buffalo, New York in 2022—where 10 people died and another 3 were injured—to Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, where a gunman opened fire in the basement of a church.

“This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history. There is no place for hate in this community,” Waters said. “I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology.”

The FBI will help the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office with the ongoing investigation and said they will investigate the shooting as a hate crime.

Here’s what to know.

What happened? 

Shortly before 2 p.m. on Saturday, a masked gunman wearing a tactical vest and carrying an AR-15 style rifle and a handgun opened fire outside of a Dollar General in Jacksonville and then entered into the store and continued shooting, leaving three people dead before killing himself.

Before the shooting, officials say the gunman was at a nearby historically Black university, Edward Waters University. A security guard spotted the shooter and asked him to identify himself, but he refused and then was asked to leave, according to a statement from the school. He then donned his tactical gear and mask, walked to his car and left the campus, according to authorities. 

It’s unclear if the gunman’s original intent was to carry out an attack at the school. “I can’t tell you what his mindset was while he was there, but he did go there,” Waters said. Students were on lockdown for hours after the shooting. 

Penny Jones, a previous Dollar General employee, told the Associated Press that she is feeling scared. “I’m just waiting to hear about my co-workers that I used to work with,” Jones said to the AP. “I don’t know if it’s safe to move about the neighborhood.”

Swastikas were painted in white on one of the guns the suspect was carrying, and officials say he barricaded himself after the shooting. Waters also said that evidence in the gunman’s manifesto has led investigators to believe that the date of the shooting is tied to a separate Jacksonville, Fla. shooting, that occurred exactly five years ago. The gunman in that circumstance opened fire at a video game tournament in Jacksonville before killing himself. 

“This is a community that has suffered again and again. So many times this is where we end up,” Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said during a press conference. “This is something that should not and must not continue to happen in our community.” 

The shooting also occurred the day after the anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, when the Ku Klux Klan attacked Black protestors that were conducting a sit-in with baseball bats and ax handles in 1960. 

Who are the victims? 

Authorities have not yet revealed the names of the victims. However, they have confirmed that the three victims—two men and one woman—were Black. 

source https://time.com/6308797/jacksonville-dollar-general-shooting-hate-crime-investigation/

New Crew for the Space Station Launches with 4 Astronauts From 4 Countries

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Four astronauts from four countries rocketed toward the International Space Station on Saturday.

They should reach the orbiting lab in their SpaceX capsule Sunday, replacing four astronauts living up there since March.

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A NASA astronaut was joined on the predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center by fliers from Denmark, Japan and Russia. They clasped one another’s gloved hands upon reaching orbit.

It was the first U.S. launch where every spacecraft seat was occupied by a different country — until now, NASA had always included two or three of its own on its SpaceX taxi flights. A fluke in timing led to the assignments, officials said.

“We’re a united team with a common mission,” NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli radioed from orbit. Added NASA’s Ken Bowersox, space operations mission chief: “Boy, what a beautiful launch … and with four international crew members, really an exciting thing to see.”

Moghbeli, a Marine pilot serving as commander, is joined on the six-month mission by the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.

“To explore space, we need to do it together,” the European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said minutes before liftoff. “Space is really global, and international cooperation is key.”

The astronauts’ paths to space couldn’t be more different.

Moghbeli’s parents fled Iran during the 1979 revolution. Born in Germany and raised on New York’s Long Island, she joined the Marines and flew attack helicopters in Afghanistan. The first-time space traveler hopes to show Iranian girls that they, too, can aim high. “Belief in yourself is something really powerful,” she said before the flight.

Mogensen worked on oil rigs off the West African coast after getting an engineering degree. He told people puzzled by his job choice that “in the future we would need drillers in space” like Bruce Willis’ character in the killer asteroid film “Armageddon.” He’s convinced the rig experience led to his selection as Denmark’s first astronaut.

Furukawa spent a decade as a surgeon before making Japan’s astronaut cut. Like Mogensen, he’s visited the station before.

Borisov, a space rookie, turned to engineering after studying business. He runs a freediving school in Moscow and judges the sport, in which divers shun oxygen tanks and hold their breath underwater.

One of the perks of an international crew, they noted, is the food. Among the delicacies soaring: Persian herbed stew, Danish chocolate and Japanese mackerel.

SpaceX’s first-stage booster returned to Cape Canaveral several minutes after liftoff, an extra treat for the thousands of spectators gathered in the early-morning darkness.

Liftoff was delayed a day for additional data reviews of valves in the capsule’s life-support system. The countdown almost was halted again Saturday after a tiny fuel leak cropped up in the capsule’s thruster system. SpaceX engineers managed to verify the leak would pose no threat with barely two minutes remaining on the clock, said Benji Reed, the company’s senior director for human spaceflight.

Another NASA astronaut will launch to the station from Kazakhstan in mid-September under a barter agreement, along with two Russians.

SpaceX has now launched eight crews for NASA. Boeing was hired at the same time nearly a decade ago, but has yet to fly astronauts. Its crew capsule is grounded until 2024 by parachute and other issues.

source https://time.com/6308723/international-space-station-launch-space-x/

Speaking Out with a Shared Voice Against Hate

On August 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech to more than 250,000 supporters gathered on the National Mall.

That day, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a survivor of Nazi Germany, spoke just before Dr. King, and he reminded the audience that “the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.”

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In the early 20^th Century, despite their vastly different American experiences, Jewish and Black communities both faced identity-based violence, discrimination, ostracization and stereotypes. Racism and antisemitism were rampant.

In April 1958, 54 sticks of dynamite were placed outside of Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Alabama in a failed bombing attempt, just a few years before the 16^th Street Baptist Church bombing in that same city took the lives of four young girls. In 1964, Jewish and African American volunteers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

While there’s been tremendous progress since those days, as civil rights and voting rights measures have since been signed into law and non-discrimination protections have been expanded, recent events have threatened to turn back the clock on that progress.

We have witnessed racism and antisemitism unleashed at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, white supremacist violence targeting the African American community in a racially motivated attack in Buffalo, and hate-motivated shootings at churches and synagogues, from the murder of nine worshippers inside the Mother Emanual AME Church in Charleston to the slaughter of 11 Jews inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. There’s also the scourge of police violence and brutality against Black people—from George Floyd to Breonna Taylor to Daunte Wright.

The FBI’s annual hate crime data report consistently finds that anti-Black hate crimes make up the majority of race-based hate crime incidents—and the largest single portion of hate crimes overall—and anti-Jewish hate crimes make up well over half of all religion-based hate crimes despite the fact that American Jews represent a meager two percent of the entire U.S. population.

Since our founding in 1913, ADL long has believed that you can’t fight antisemitism without countering racism and hate against other groups. None of our communities will be safe until we are all safe. No one will be free unless all of us are free.

As prominent African American and civil rights leaders once again convene in Washington D.C. to mark the 60th anniversary of that march. As the CEO of ADL, I’m deeply honored to co-chair this important event. As a Jewish man whose family fled persecution in Europe and the Middle East, I couldn’t be prouder to address this gathering from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a symbol of the longstanding and continued struggle for freedom here in America. Indeed, this event is not intended as a commemoration of prior events; rather, it is a continuation of Dr. King’s work and the ongoing pursuit of his dream.

The Jewish community will be there in solidarity with our African American allies and partners. Not just for reasons of history—but for the common struggle we face together in today’s increasingly divided America. We will consecrate Shabbat by davening in the morning and then marching in the afternoon, essentially praying with our legs and locking arms as one throughout the day.

The Jewish and Black communities have had our differences over the years, but we have clear common ground in the fight against white supremacy, racism, and antisemitism. We have different histories but unmistakable traumas. There may be different stories but shared values. And African American Jews experience the intersection of those histories and stories. The March on Washington offers an opportunity to expand awareness of the incredible diversity within our communities, to highlight the common values we share, and to discuss the impact that antisemitism and other forms of bias continue to have on us all.

Together, we will call for a bold agenda for justice and for bringing an end to bigotry of all forms that includes stronger policies to combat, reduce and address hate crimes; protection of voting rights to ensure all have access to our basic tools of our democracy; and policies that ensure that the promise of economic prosperity and the American dream can be attained by all.

We will show the entire country that silence is not an option. Powerful, transformative change can happen when our communities come together. And, to invoke Dr. King on that historic day, ”Now is the time to make real the promises of our democracy… Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” Now is the time to realize Dr. King’s dream. 

Jonathan Greenblatt is CEO and National Director of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League).

source https://time.com/6308580/march-on-washington-anniversary/

How the Afghan Girls’ Soccer Team Started Life Anew

Ayenda, co-produced by TIME Studios and executive produced by Trevor Noah, debuts on Sunday, 8/27 at 10pm ET on MSNBC and streaming on Peacock.

Sadaf Shrifzada would have much rather been at home. Instead, she and her teammates on Afghanistan’s under-18 girls soccer team were at practice, in front of a crowd of curious onlookers—photographers, journalists, and news crews—in Lisbon, Portugal of all places.

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I’d heard about the girls’ story a few days before they touched down in Portugal, and as a lifelong soccer player and documentary filmmaker, I was compelled to learn more—I quickly hurried across the Atlantic to meet them upon their arrival. A team of young footballers who’d never left home, suddenly in a place where they didn’t know the language, didn’t know the culture, and couldn’t know what the future had in store for them. So you can understand, I’m sure, why Sadaf would have preferred to be at home in Kabul—a place she describes as breathtakingly beautiful, where the people are respectful, generous and kind. A place she never would have left if she didn’t have to.

Her journey had begun a month earlier, when after 20 years of American occupation, the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, and the Taliban overtook the capital city of Kabul with breathtaking and unsettling efficiency.

Terrified of life under Taliban rule, Afghans flocked by the thousands to the airport, desperate to leave a country that no longer felt like it belonged to them. Among the most vulnerable Afghans in Kabul were a group of young women who’d long epitomized a fragile vision of hope in their country, and now symbolized everything the Taliban stood against: the Afghan girls national soccer team. 

Sadaf is the captain of the team, who’ve named themselves Ayenda FC—ayenda is the Farsi word for future—since their arrival to Portugal. She’s a natural-born leader with a contagious laugh and a penchant for poetic prose. Sadaf and her teammates knew that under the new regime, they’d likely never go to school again, forget about playing soccer. The Afghan Football Federation desperately made calls around the world on the girls’ behalf, pleading for help to get them out. And in the United States, a group of people who knew all too well how the Taliban’s rule would affect the young women, committed to help. 

Robert McReary is a former Green Beret, and Claire Russo, a former Marine. They’d committed much of their careers to promoting democracy in Afghanistan, only to watch those efforts crumble in a matter of days. With the help of former C.I.A. Agent Nic McKinley, Robert and Claire had started leading evacuation efforts earlier that summer. Instead of working through the U.S. government, they operated on their own, through a complicated and murky set of both diplomatic and private channels.

To pull it off, they assembled an all-star team of veterans and special operations experts like them: an Afghan-Canadian soccer player in Toronto named Farkhunda Muhtaj who served as their communications conduit to the girls and private, wealthy donors who funded the operation. After a month-long odyssey through Afghanistan, a number of false starts, and some harrowing near-misses, the girls were finally put on a flight to Portugal. The Portuguese government agreed to give them asylum—and an opportunity to start new lives.

—

I met Sadaf and the rest of the team on that fall day when they were practicing for the first time in their new home. I explained to the girls and their families who I was, and that I had hopes of making a documentary film about their journey out of Afghanistan. Many of them expressed excitement for their story to be told in a film, but none were quite as animated as Sadaf. She marched up to me and proclaimed, ‘I’m Sadaf, I’m 15 years old, and I want to be a filmmaker.’ Delighted by her enthusiasm, I invited her along to a shoot, where our crew showed her how the equipment worked and she asked me questions about being a producer. I was taken with Sadaf’s intellect, optimism and honesty, and she soon became the main character of the film. And then, inevitably, she became my friend.

Over the year and a half that followed, I spent almost every waking minute I had thinking about Sadaf’s story, and how I might portray the harrowing tale of her escape and the complicated joy she’d found as she began her new life. We spoke regularly throughout the making of my short film, Ayenda, and still do. There were moments of inspiration and hope, but also overwhelming uncertainty. Sadaf worried constantly about her mother and younger brother, who were still in Afghanistan. The government transition program in Portugal would only last so long. She struggled not knowing the language or the culture. And even when her mom and brother did eventually make it Portugal, it was a bittersweet reunion. After all, they’d all left behind a life they loved and would never get back.

Meanwhile, Claire and Robert have both struggled with the circumstances of the United States’ withdrawal and the idea that the very reason for their service in Afghanistan—to promote democracy, peace, and equality—was ultimately what put girls like Sadaf in positions of danger under this latest Taliban regime.

Claire and Robert aren’t alone in their questioning of the 20 years of bloodshed and struggle endured by Americans and Afghans alike. In the wake of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, many have wondered: was it all worth it? 

A year and a half later, sitting across from Sadaf at her new home in Portugal, it’s impossible to conclude there’s any correct answer besides this one: of course it was worth it. 

Listening to her talk about her hopes and dreams for herself and her country, it’s clear that the very existence of young girls like Sadaf is a victory too immense to measure. When she tells me that she hopes to return to Afghanistan someday when it’s peaceful, she has tears in her eyes. But her dismay quickly turns to determination, and she promises to return home with “education, knowledge and big achievements…with my hands full with gifts. I hope to be able to help my country and make it proud.”

I’m so, so sure that she will. 

source https://time.com/6307476/ayenda/

And Just Like That Needs to Let Go of Carrie Bradshaw’s ‘Two Great Loves’

Spoiler alert: This article discusses details of And Just Like That‘s Season 2 finale

The Season 2 finale of And Just Like That was all about letting go. If that much wasn’t already apparent from the unwieldy title—“The Last Supper Part Two: Entrée”—indefatigable writer, director, and showrunner Michael Patrick King made it obvious when the show’s massive cast of characters gathered in Carrie Bradshaw’s iconic apartment for the last time. One by one, the hostess calls on her friends to name something they were ready to let go of: fear for Lisette, control for Anthony, guilt for Miranda and LTW. For herself, Carrie chooses expectations.

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What that means, ultimately—after one literally phoned-in, whole-lotta-nothing Samantha cameo and ample discussion of Anthony’s “ass virginity”—is leaving her future with Aidan to fate. He wants five years in Virginia to shepherd his shroom-popping, truck-stealing son, Wyatt, into adulthood. She’s open to seeing what happens. This ambiguity over whether Aidan is the endgame of a 25-year love triangle is simply a copout from a show whose obsession with its protagonist’s past is now actively undermining its ability to tell a compelling story in the present.

Credit where it’s due: AJLT has improved vastly over its gloomy first outing. This season has given us some fun plots, from Miranda’s post-Che adventures as the world’s most overqualified legal intern to Charlotte’s ongoing struggle to redefine herself now that her teenage children no longer require her hovering attention. The hilariously awful first dates and hot one-night stands that made the original Sex and the City a taxonomy of New York singles have returned with relish. But this franchise can’t truly thrive unless it’s serving up surprising and captivating story lines for Carrie. And in that respect, it’s stuck in a pretty unfortunate rut.

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“Everyone knows you only get two great loves in your life,” Charlotte famously announced in SATC’s fifth season premiere. Despite the dubious context—she’d read the tidbit in a magazine that Miranda joked must have been titled Convenient Theories for You Monthly—that belief has aged into an article of faith within the legend of Carrie Bradshaw. Big and Aidan were it for her; when one died, it was time to bring back the other. Once she’s gotten a few all-too-brief rebound dalliances out of the way, Aidan’s sudden reemergence is served up as a fait accompli of the most fan-service-y sort. (Did we really have to watch him throw rocks at her window again?)

The couple’s not-quite-breakup in “The Last Supper” feels like King’s attempt to move forward with AJLT, which announced a third-season renewal on Tuesday, without having to sacrifice that two great loves mythology. If Carrie and Aidan had moved into her beautiful new home together, they’d be on a path to marriage, or at least to permanence, that would soon leave her love life stagnant. Especially with the libidinous Samantha exiled to London, the show can only support one domestic-bliss story line of York-Goldenblatt proportions. Which, in retrospect, explains why Big had to die for AJLT to live. But if Aidan had broken it off without dangling that five-year plan, the show would’ve had to dream up a different happily-ever-after for Carrie when the time came.

King arrived at a compromise that is good for the franchise, as a business. Now it has five years, which translates to at least a few more seasons, to let Carrie bob around in the New York dating pool. Maybe she’ll try to keep her hookups casual at first, but inevitably she’ll fall for someone and have to make another choice. Of course, the two great loves theory dictates that she must pick Aidan. Maybe their golden-years nuptials will be fodder for yet another SATC movie.

Unfortunately, as has been the case since Baryshnikov appeared to make Big look like a softie by comparison in the final season of the original series, what’s good for the franchise is not always good for the story. The show had already made it clear, with not one but two breakups, that Aidan and Carrie simply aren’t compatible. More importantly, his continued presence on her far-off horizon threatens to rob AJLT of the spontaneity that a show about the search for love needs. It wouldn’t be easy to sever the Aidan-Big binary by inventing a third great, archetypal love for Carrie Bradshaw. But a show about starting over in middle age, about how being single in your 50s can be kind of exhilarating, should have the courage to break the rules it’s outgrown.

source https://time.com/6308059/iand-just-like-that-season-2-finale-carrie-aidan/

California is Out of Its Epic Drought—For Now

There are at least two silver linings to be found from Tropical Storm Hilary—the first such  storm to hit Southern California in more than 80 years. The first is that, though there were floods, high winds, and dangerous mudslides, no U.S. residents were killed (though one person died in Mexico, where the storm earlier made landfall, according to Mexican authorities). The second is that the torrential rains may have just about stamped out the state’s yearslong drought.

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Last year, virtually all of California was experiencing “severe drought,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. But the share of California contending with drought conditions has been whittled down to a comparatively small swath of land in Southern California’s interior over the past year, thanks to a series of atmospheric rivers beginning this winter, which piped rainfall across the state and dropped more moisture in the form of gargantuan snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada mountains. A cool spring, meanwhile, meant that that mountain snowpack melted only a little at a time, allowing the state’s water managers to capture runoff in reservoirs. As for that little patch of drought in interior SoCal? It just got walloped by rain from Tropical Storm Hilary. 

The main challenge now for California is no longer about getting enough precipitation; it’s about finding somewhere to store all that water, so farmers and urban-dwellers can use it in the likely dry spells to come. The state’s reservoirs are for the most part filled up, and water managers have to be careful about topping them up completely, since those artificial lakes are intended both to store water for later, and to buffer cities and cropland from flooding should a big storm send torrents of water rushing toward the ocean. “California has always suffered from weather whiplash,” says Buzz Thompson, a professor of natural resources law at Stanford Law School. “We have to figure out how to manage that type of whiplash in order to get through those droughts, and avoid serious flooding during the wet periods.”

Right now, the full reservoirs have left the state with enough water to make it through one dry year (though if the wet spell ends, many residents in California’s poorer interior areas could be in trouble sooner than that, since they often rely on groundwater wells that could quickly go dry). The most recent drought, however, lasted for not one, but three grueling years. The state has been trying to store some of the excess water underground, diverting flows into fields or shallow ponds, from which water can trickle down and soak the state’s parched underground aquifers. When a dry spell returns, farmers and urban centers can tap those subterranean lakes and pull up the water stashed there. 

While the state is out of immediate water crisis for now, the overall trends are not looking good. “As a result of climate change, we’re going to have more severe droughts, and more severe rainy periods,” says Thompson. “So we’re likely to get more years like this year, where we have an abnormally high number of atmospheric rivers…but we’re also gonna get a lot of periods like the prior three years, which was the driest three year period in the history of California.” 

Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Davis and vice director of the school’s center for watershed sciences, says that the water storage efforts likely won’t be enough. Even with this year’s moves to recharge California aquifers, the state is still overdrawing from its underground water supply, particularly due to agricultural irrigation, with deeper and deeper wells diminishing limited underground water. That means that despite plentiful rains this year, California is still in a long-term water crisis, which likely will require pursuing the politically and economically fraught policy of reducing water-intensive agriculture. “It’s good to recharge [aquifers] as much as you can,” Lund says. “But it’s not a silver bullet by any means.”

A similar story holds for the broader region—Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and the other arid southwest states. Both farmers and urban residents there, as well as in parts of California, are reliant on the Colorado River for water. Last year, that region was facing what looked to be a catastrophic shortfall, with a desperate political squabble between states over the diminishing water supply. Now things are looking slightly less dire, with many of the same storms that saturated California also swelling the flows of the Colorado. 

Whereas California doesn’t have enough space to put its water, there’s plenty of storage in the massive Colorado River reservoirs. Lake Powell and Lake Mead, when full, can hold enough water to last the region for multiple dry years. The problem there, though, is in actually filling those reserves as states continue to draw more water than the system as a whole can handle. Lake Mead and Lake Powell were both hovering around a quarter of the way full last summer—now they’ve inched up to around a third. 

“The last 20 years has been this long, almost unprecedented drought…We might need a couple more years like this year [to come out of it],” says Ben Livneh, an assistant professor of hydrology at the University of Colorado Boulder and director of the Western Water Assessment research program. “I don’t think we’re going to get a repeat.”

Most climate models show the U.S. Southwest region will continue to get progressively drier due to climate change, though there’s some chance that changes in atmospheric circulation caused by warming could bring more moisture, like what the area saw this year. Still, even if more precipitation arrives, it won’t necessarily mean more water for farmers and city-dwellers in the Southwest, since hotter temperatures will also mean more evaporation from rivers and reservoirs. “Nobody can tell you which of these two forces is going to win,” says Julien Emile-Geay, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California Dornsife. “My money would be on the drying force.”

That all means that despite one wet year, there are still difficult choices ahead for California and the U.S. Southwest, which will have to decide how to allocate a shrinking pool of water among populations, industries, and political interest groups. Needless to say, it would be a terrible idea for local authorities to let up on water conservation efforts, Lund says. “It’s a little bit like saying, ‘Oh, it’s been raining this week. We should lay off the fire department.”

source https://time.com/6308005/california-drought-hilary-storm/

6 Red Flags About the Mental-Health Content You’re Being Bombarded With on Social Media

The classic vision of therapy revolved around a person on a couch, supine, tapping into their deepest and darkest hopes and fears. A modern-day remix might look like this: a person still on a couch, but at home, scrolling through a constantly refreshing selection of mental-health content on social-media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Though it may feel therapeutic, experts advise proceeding with caution. As an increasing number of psychologists step into the role of mental-health influencer, opening the door to fame and financial incentives, their posts—on attachment styles or unresolved trauma or whatever else might be the disorder du jour—are reaching millions of people. 

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There are certainly benefits: “We’re coming out of a time when mental health was very highly stigmatized, and it kept people from seeking treatment,” says Evelyn Hunter, a counseling psychologist in Auburn, Ala. “Social media has removed that in some ways, and normalized the fact that sometimes we struggle.”

It can be difficult, however, to suss out which so-called experts are credible and whether their information is trustworthy—which can lead to misinformation and harmful misunderstandings. “The way information is so rapidly spread on social media can make it difficult to figure out what’s accurate, what’s professional, and what’s expertise-driven,” Hunter says. She stresses that mental-health professionals who are active on social media should demonstrate three qualities: competence, good-faith interpretation of evidence, and integrity.

With that in mind, if your algorithm is feeding you mental-health content, keep an eye out for these red flags.

1. The person running the account doesn’t share their credentials.

Most credible mental-health influencers will be transparent about their training, licensure, and areas of expertise. The American Psychological Association (APA) Guidelines for the Optimal Use of Social Media in Professional Psychological Practice encourage psychologists to routinely update their personal and professional websites, and to monitor the information others have posted about them online and verify its accuracy.

For those of us looking to vet professionals, Victoria Riordan, an Ohio-based licensed professional clinical counselor with the counseling practice Thriveworks, suggests starting by checking the account’s bio. That’s where many practitioners specify whether they are, for example, a psychiatrist, social worker, or something else that perhaps doesn’t require specific training or regulation, like a life coach. They’ll also likely include their area of expertise and link to a place where you can read more about them.

If you’re not seeing much information, search the person’s name online. If they’re legitimate, “they’re going to come up on Psychology Today, LinkedIn, or their own private practice website,” Riordan says. “You’re going to find them via several different sources, not just social media.” You can also check to see if they’re currently licensed, which is a vote of confidence in support of their education, experience, and ethical standards. Start with state licensing board websites or a resource like the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards.

2. They’re trying to sell you something.

It’s natural for psychologists to utilize their social-media platforms to promote things like online courses and books they’ve written, notes Genesis Games, a psychotherapist in Miami. “But if all their content leads you back to their storefront, that means they’re more concerned about making you their customer than providing quality education,” she says. “There’s a difference between saying, ‘These things are resources,’” and posting exclusively to hawk products.

The APA Ethics Code stresses that psychologists must avoid conflicts of interest. But these can still pop up online when people promote products—say, a supplement that allegedly alleviates anxiety—without disclosing a business relationship. If something feels off to you, trust your gut and do additional research, like Googling the person’s name and the product and seeing what that search yields, Games suggests. Another telltale sign of a business relationship is if the company is routinely tagging the expert in its own social media posts.

In these situations, it’s ultimately up to each consumer to do what feels best, Games says. As a first step, she recommends asking for clarification about the person’s connection to a product, or simply unfollowing them. But maybe you’ve stumbled upon an unfathomable claim or something that really bothers you. “If you think it’s ill-intended or is putting others in severe danger,” you could report the practitioner to the licensing board or college in the state where they practice, she says.

3. Posts are jargon-heavy.

Therapy speak is infiltrating everyday language. Talk about boundaries, repression, inner-child work, attachment styles, trauma, triggers—and much more—is tossed around frequently and casually. This overuse is concerning for a number of reasons, experts say. For one, people who don’t fully understand the terms but see them on their social media feeds might be more likely to weaponize them in relationships to create a power dynamic. For another, in some cases latching onto and incorrectly using certain words “dilutes their meaning,” says Mollie Spiesman, a licensed clinical social worker in New York.

She cautions social media users to keep an eye out for accounts that turn these types of therapy terms into buzzwords. Trust-worthy practitioners “typically aren’t using therapy terms and therapy jargon, because they want to make therapy and mental health more approachable and digestible,” she says. “If someone is trying to seem smarter than they are, or they’re using all these terms that you don’t understand, that’s a red flag.” 

4. Practitioners promote self-diagnosis or labels.

A rule of thumb: Never diagnose yourself or others, Spiesman cautions. Social media is often fixated on labels: If you do these five things, you’re depressed—or you’re a narcissist or have ADHD or are on the autism spectrum. That can run counter to the APA’s social media guidelines, which recommend psychologists avoid offering diagnoses, giving advice, “or otherwise behaving as if they were conducting treatment.”

“What I notice with clients and friends is that people internalize these messages so deeply, and they do diagnose themselves,” Spiesman says. “They’ll see something on TikTok and be like, ‘Oh, I have this issue, or my partner has that.’” She now spends time in sessions asking clients to take a step back and reflect on why a specific post resonated with them so much. 

5. They interact with clients on social media.

When Jeff Guenther, a licensed professional counselor based in Oregon, started to crave a creative outlet during the pandemic, he launched a TikTok account. Now, about two years later, he’s perhaps best known as his online alter ego—Therapy Jeff—and has accumulated nearly 3 million followers on TikTok and more than 850,000 on Instagram.

Guenther describes social media as the Wild West. He navigates it as carefully as possible by setting rules for himself—like not responding to existing clients who comment on his posts. Doing so could break confidentiality and blur the boundaries of the professional relationship, as the APA points out in its guidelines. “You have to tell your clients that you will ignore them, just like you would if you ran into them at the grocery store,” he says. So if you see a practitioner engaging with someone they’ve clearly worked with? Unfollow—it’s a red flag.

6. They tout one modality as superior to all others.

Therapists are typically trained in a number of different modalities, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), gestalt therapy, somatic therapy, and art therapy. They might specialize in and even prefer one, but they shouldn’t be touting it online as the end-all, be-all, Games says. “Not one single therapeutic modality works for everyone,” she stresses. “It’s not one-size-fits-all.”

Games sometimes notices newer practitioners, in particular, emphasizing a certain treatment as though it’s a panacea. “Let’s say I keep getting content around EMDR, and I think, ‘I need to go find an EMDR therapist,’” she says. “So I try it, and it doesn’t feel good to me. Instead of thinking it’s just not the right treatment for me, I might think I’m the problem, and there’s something wrong with me, because it’s supposed to work and it’s not working.” 

That drives home one of practitioners’ primary points about mental-health content on social media: Not every piece of information will apply to every person, so take it with a grain of salt. Therapists on social media are just that: therapists. They’re not your therapist.

source https://time.com/6307996/mental-health-content-red-flags-social-media/