Boar’s Head Recalls More Deli Meat Due to Listeria Outbreak

The popular deli meat company Boar’s Head is recalling an additional 7 million pounds of ready-to-eat products made at a Virginia plant as an investigation into a deadly outbreak of listeria food poisoning continues, U.S. Agriculture Department officials said Tuesday.

The new recall includes 71 products made between May 10 and July 29 under the Boar’s Head and Old Country brand names. It follows an earlier recall of more than 200,000 pounds of sliced deli poultry and meat. The new items include meat intended to be sliced at delis as well as some packaged meat and poultry products sold in stores.

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They include liverwurst, ham, beef salami, bologna, and other products made at the firm’s Jarratt, Virginia, plant.

The recalls are tied to an ongoing outbreak of listeria poisoning that has killed two people and sickened nearly three dozen in 13 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly all of those who fell ill have been hospitalized. Illnesses were reported between late May and mid-July.

The problem was discovered when a liverwurst sample collected by health officials in Maryland tested positive for listeria. Further testing showed that the type of bacteria was the same strain causing illnesses in people.

Read More: Are Dates Actually That Good for You?

“Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to immediately and voluntarily expand our recall to include all items produced at the Jarratt facility,” the company said on its website. It has also halted production of ready-to-eat foods at the plant.

The meat was distributed to stores nationwide, as well as to the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Panama, Agriculture Department officials said.

Consumers who have the recalled products in their homes should not eat them and should discard them or return them to stores for a refund, company officials said. Health officials said refrigerators should be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized to prevent contamination of other foods.

An estimated 1,600 people get listeria food poisoning each year and about 260 die, according to the CDC.

Listeria infections typically cause fever, muscle aches, and tiredness and may cause stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, and convulsions. Symptoms can occur quickly or to up to 10 weeks after eating contaminated food. The infections are especially dangerous for people older than 65, those with weakened immune systems, and during pregnancy.

source https://time.com/7005893/boars-head-listeria-outbreak/

Boeing Names New CEO as it Posts Loss of More Than $1.4 Billion in Second Quarter

Boeing named a longtime aerospace industry veteran on Wednesday as its next chief executive, who will take over a company that has been rocked by legal, regulatory and production problems.

Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, a former CEO at aerospace supplier Rockwell Collins, will succeed David Calhoun, 67, as CEO and president effective Aug. 8, the company said. Calhoun announced in March that he would retire at the end of the year.

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Boeing named its new CEO as it reported a loss of more than $1.4 billion on falling revenue during the second quarter. The loss was wider and revenue lower than Wall Street expected, as both Boeing’s commercial-airplanes business and defense unit lost money.

The disappointing results come at a tumultuous time for Boeing. The company agreed to plead guilty this month to a federal fraud charge in connection with its 737 Max jetliner and two crashes that killed 346 people. The Federal Aviation Administration increased its oversight of the company after the blowout of a panel on an Alaska Airlines jet raised manufacturing quality concerns.

Boeing Chairman Steven Mollenkopf said Ortberg was chosen after a “thorough and extensive search process” and “has the right skills and experience to lead Boeing in its next chapter.” Ortberg has earned a reputation for running complex engineering and manufacturing companies, Mollenkopf said.

The company waived the mandatory retirement age of 65 for Ortberg, a spokesperson said. Boeing did the same for Calhoun days after he turned 64 in 2021.

Ortberg emerged as a leading candidate only recently. Others who were reportedly considered for the job included Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive and now CEO of its most important supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, and another longtime Boeing executive, Stephanie Pope, who recently took over the commercial airplanes division.

Like Calhoun, who took over as CEO in the wake of the two Max crashes, Ortberg will be inheriting the leadership of a company facing ongoing crises and criticism from both outside and internally. It is pushing back against whistleblower allegations of manufacturing shortcuts that crimp on safety.

The company, based in Arlington, Virginia, also is dealing with supply-chain problems that are hindering production, which it hopes to fix in part by re-acquiring Spirit AeroSystems, a key contractor. It is still trying to persuade regulators to approve two new models of the Max and a bigger version of its two-aisle 777 jetliner. And it faces a multi-billion-dollar decision on when to design a new single-aisle plane to replace the Max.

The quarterly earnings reported Wednesday reflect the significant challenges at Boeing. The company reported a loss of $1.44 billion for the second quarter, compared with a loss of $149 million a year earlier.

Excluding special items, the loss worked out to $2.90 per share. Analysts expected a loss of $1.90 per share, according to a FactSet survey.

Revenue dropped 15%, to $16.87 billion, falling short of Wall Street’s average forecast of $17.35 billion.

The commercial-airplanes division had an operating loss of $715 million and revenue plunged 32% as Boeing delivered fewer passenger jets to airlines — 92 planes, compared with 136 a year earlier.

The FAA has limited Boeing’s production of Max jetliners since shortly after the Alaska Airlines incident, but Boeing hasn’t even hit the FAA limits as it seeks to fix its manufacturing process. The company said Wednesday that it is sticking with its plans to boost production of the Max to 38 per month by year end.

Boeing took a charge of $244 million to cover a fine that it would pay as part of an agreement with the Justice Department to plead guilty to fraud in connection with development of the Max. A federal judge in Texas will soon consider whether to approve the deal, which is opposed by many families of those who died in the two Max crashes.

Boeing’s defense and space unit lost $913 million because of $1 billion in setbacks to four fixed-price government contracts, including a deal to build two new Air Force One presidential jets. The smaller services business earned $870 million.

Boeing shares added 2% in premarket trading.

source https://time.com/7005877/boeing-new-ceo-ortberg/

The Uneasy Alliance Between Kamala Harris and Volodymyr Zelensky

In the middle of February 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris flew to Europe for a critical mission on the world stage. Nearly 200,000 Russian troops stood at the borders of Ukraine, and their invasion would mark one of the greatest challenges in decades to the U.S.-led international order. The Biden administration sent Harris to help the Europeans deal with it.

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Like every aspect of Harris’s record, her forays into international affairs have faced renewed scrutiny since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. No threat to U.S. interests in the world has been more immediate during her tenure in the Biden Administration than the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Harris has occasionally played a visible role in the U.S. response.

Her trip to Germany in 2022, less than a week before the invasion began, took Harris to an annual gathering of European leaders in Munich. One of her tasks was to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and convey to him how the U.S. intended to react to the invasion—and how it would not. She also would deliver the latest U.S. intelligence assessments and explain the “preparations needed to succeed on the battlefield,” according to a White House official.

The message she delivered was not entirely welcome, and the impression she made on the Ukrainians was mixed. “Kamala Harris said the attack was unavoidable,” recalls Oleksiy Reznikov, who attended the meeting in his role as Ukraine’s defense minister at the time. “What President Zelensky said to that was: I get it. Our intelligence also sees this information.” But he and Harris could not agree on the appropriate response.

Zelensky urged the U.S. to impose preemptive sanctions against Russia, arguing that would force Vladimir Putin to rethink his decision to invade. If the attack was indeed unavoidable, Zelensky argued, the U.S. should flood weapons into Ukraine, including the anti-aircraft systems, fighter jets and heavy artillery needed to prevent Russian forces from overrunning the country.

Harris rejected both suggestions, according to the Ukrainian officials in the room. The U.S. could not impose preemptive sanctions against Russia, they were told, because the punishment could only come after the crime. Instead of promising to send advanced weapons, Reznikov says the Americans pressured Zelensky to say publicly that the invasion was imminent. “Zelensky clearly asked Kamala Harris: ‘You want me to admit this, but what will that give you? If I admit it here in this conversation, will you impose sanctions?’ And he did not get an answer.”

The U.S. position at the time, set by President Biden in consultation with his national security aides, was that the threat of sanctions was a greater deterrent to Russia than their imposition, and that providing advanced weaponry to Kyiv would likely strengthen Putin’s conviction that Ukraine was becoming a client state of NATO. “Vice President Harris has been a strong proponent of enduring U.S. support for Ukraine and has repeatedly expressed an unwavering commitment to support the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia’s brutal aggression,” the White House official says.

Harris’s other main role at the conference was to rally European leaders for a united response if the invasion came, and to lay out the U.S. position in a speech. “She met with European leaders to coordinate responses in anticipation of Russia’s invasion,” the White House official tells TIME, and in her speech to the conference, “she foreshadowed Russia’s playbook and outlined steps the United States and Europe would take together.”

Still, the message she delivered to Zelensky in Munich added to his frustration with his allies ahead of the Russian invasion, and it set the tone for a relationship with Harris that has never been particularly warm. While President Biden and other senior officials in the administration visited Kyiv to show resolve and solidarity with the Ukrainians, Harris has not traveled to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion started. At her meetings with Ukrainian officials in recent years, she did show sympathy for their plight, one of them said, “but I would call it formal sympathy, following protocol.”

Asked about this, the White House official noted that Vice President Harris traveled extensively in her efforts to rally European allies and support the Ukrainians in their war against Russia. Soon after the invasion started, she visited Poland and Romania to meet with European leaders and U.S. military personnel on NATO’s eastern flank “to reinforce our deterrence and defense posture,” the official said.

In dealing with the Zelensky administration, President Biden tended to take the lead, in part because of his history of direct engagement with Ukraine. After Russia first attacked Ukraine and seized parts of its territory in 2014, Biden took charge of the U.S. response on behalf of the Obama administration, traveling to Kyiv in 2015 to deliver a landmark speech before the Ukrainian parliament. Since the full-scale war began in 2022, the key U.S. officials involved in the U.S. response have been Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, William Burns, the CIA director, Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense—all of whom have made multiple trips to Kyiv during the invasion.

In that crowded field, Vice President Harris has tended to play a supporting role, attending summits and other important gatherings related to the war when Biden was unable to make it. At the Munich Security Conference in 2023, Harris focused on the war crimes Russian troops had committed in Ukraine. “As a former prosecutor, the Vice President was an important credible messenger and rallied the world to hold Russia accountable for its atrocities in Ukraine,” the White House official says.

Early this summer, Harris also attended the peace summit Ukraine organized in Switzerland. Zelensky’s hope at that gathering was to rally as many world leaders as possible to support his plan for ending the war. Biden declined to attend, citing a fundraiser he needed to headline that week in Hollywood, and Zelensky responded to the snub by criticizing the U.S. President in public: Putin, he said, would “applaud” Biden’s decision not to come.

When Harris arrived in his place, her meeting with Zelensky was marked by some of the same formality as their previous engagements. The two leaders sat directly across from each other at a negotiating table as reporters were led into their meeting room inside an Alpine resort. Zelensky read stiffly from a set of prepared remarks, thanking President Biden and the U.S. Congress for their support. “Putin is trying to expand the war and make it more bloody,” he said. “But together with America and all of our partners we protect the lives of our people.”

In her response, Harris noted that it would be her sixth meeting with Ukraine’s president since the start of the full-scale war. “Not the last,” Zelensky shot back with a smile. “And hopefully in better times,” Harris said.

source https://time.com/7005282/kamala-harris-ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-alliance/

The U.S. Men’s Gymnastics All-Around Final Will See Close Friends Competing

To understand the relationship between Frederick Richard and Paul Juda, the latter likes to tell the following story: when the two went to compete at the world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, last year, Juda remarked about how cool it was to be at the competition, and to be competing for the U.S. Richard’s response? What about the cooler thing—winning a medal.

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They both earned a bronze medal in the team event, and Richard also took home a bronze in the all-around competition—even cooler.

Juda followed Richard’s lead in Paris at their first Olympics and maybe even upstaged him a bit. After Brody Malone, widely expected to compete in the all-around competition on July 31 along with Richard, fell off high bars twice and stumbled in his floor routine during the qualification round, it was Juda and Richard who had scored enough points to qualify and move on to the all-around final. “Today would have been one of those things where I got to say I did an all-around at the Olympics,” Juda said of competing on all six events in men’s gymnastics during the qualification round. “But to be making an all-around final, I think that’s the cooler thing.”

Read More: What Are ‘the Twisties’ in Gymnastics?

The training and teammates helped the U.S. men earn bronze in the team event at the Bercy Arena on July 29, the first time the U.S. men have made the podium in that event in nearly 20 years. Both are at University of Michigan; Richard will be a junior in the fall and Juda is a graduate student and co-captain of the men’s gymnastics team. In Paris, the two are rooming together but they will compete against one another in the men’s all-around event.

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But it’s a friendly rivalry. “It means a lot,” Richard said of competing with his training mate. “We were both in the gym, pushing each other, grinding, and it shows. It’s going to be really fun, because we get to have another teammate competition, and to have my closest teammate next to me is just exciting.”

Richard is a world medalist in the all-around, and Juda knows that his difficulty scores may not not be high enough to bring him to the podium in Paris, which will likely be dominated by Chinese and Japanese gymnasts. But the opportunity to compete in the event is one of the items Juda listed on his whiteboard of bucket list goals. “A couple of months ago, maybe even a couple of years ago, I don’t think I would have been able to do that,” Juda said of his solid performances in the pressure-packed environment of the qualification round. He’s been working on the mental side of competing, which gave him the confidence to be the first member of the U.S. team on most of the apparatus in the sessions in Paris so far. He maintained that steadfastness in the team event, and earned his first Olympic medal.

Juda and Richard feed off of their different personalities—where Richard is bolder and outwardly confident, Juda is more introspective. But they shared an early propensity for the difficult skills and fearlessness needed for gymnastics. Richard was doing flips and handstands in his crib. “[His sister] used to call me to tell me what Frederick was doing when he was flipping in his crib: ‘Mommy come see what Frederick is doing,‘” says Richard’s mother Anne-Marie. Juda was similarly active as a boy, enough to make his parents apologize to his early coaches when he fidgeted so much before a competition. “I see my Paul is under the chair and over the chair and next to the chair, and moving his body everywhere,” says Ewa Bacher.

Both Juda and Richard started gymnastics classes when they were young; Richard was probably too young because he wanted to run under all of the apparatus and his first coach, Tom Fontecchio, asked his parents to bring him back when he was a little older and could follow directions better. But for the two boys, gymnastics was the perfect fit, with its challenging skills and discipline. And they were equally dedicated to the long hours in the gym required to reach the highest level in the sport.

“People ask me what encouragement I was giving to him; I didn’t need to,” says Bacher. She recalls once seeing her youngest son so tired juggling school and gymnastics that she gently suggested he could skip a practice or two. “He said ‘What are you talking about, I’m okay, I have so many things to do,’” she says of his reaction. “I learned my lesson.”

Richard stayed behind during family vacations so he wouldn’t miss training, bunking with his coach or neighbors. “He would give up anything for gymnastics,” says his sister Alexandra.

Read More: How to See 4 Sports and 5 Gold Medals in 8 Hours at the Paris Olympics

Richard is balancing classes and becoming a growing social media star and a budding entrepreneur; he started an apparel company, Frederick Flips, whose logo is a silhouette of him in a backflip. He’s created a signature series of videos that test his abilities with those of other elite athletes on a number of different skills, such as who can jump the highest, or longest, and who has better dexterity. Juda is already establishing a reputation as a coach, working with young gymnasts to continue to grow the sport and advocate for maintaining men’s gymnastics programs at the collegiate level at a time when many universities are getting rid of them.

“It’s a great chemistry, it’s always good to have a teammate with you, it helps them to push each other to achieve [a] particular goal,” says Richard’s father, Carl.

Richard is also committed to growing men’s gymnastics, and in providing more opportunities for people of color in the sport. And he agrees with Juda that maintaining the collegiate system is a big part of accomplishing that. “I feel I’ve become a better man and a better person” by participating in collegiate gymnastics, he said. “The character building I’ve gone through in the last two years in NCAA at University of Michigan has been huge.”

It’s the first Olympic experience for both Juda and Richard, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t earn a second medal. What matters is that they got to do the next cool thing.

source https://time.com/7005822/us-mens-gymnastics-all-around-olympics-frederick-richard-paul-juda/

There’s Now an FDA-Approved Blood Test for Colon Cancer

WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators on Monday approved a first-of-its-kind blood test for colon cancer, offering a new way of screening for a leading cause of cancer deaths.

Test manufacturer Guardant said the Food and Drug Administration approved its Shield test for screening in adults 45 and older who have an average risk of colon cancer. The test isn’t a replacement for colonoscopies, but provides a noninvasive approach to screening.

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Doctors can already order Shield for patients as a laboratory test with an out-of-pocket price of $895. But FDA approval is expected to increase coverage by private and government insurance.

The test looks for DNA fragments shed by tumor cells and precancerous growths. In a study published in March, the test caught 83% of the cancers but very few of the precancerous growths found by colonoscopy, the gold standard for colon cancer screening. The test missed 17% of cancers, performance that is on par with stool-based tests.

Besides spotting tumors, colonoscopies can prevent the disease by removing precancerous growths called polyps.

Read More: Why Are So Many Young People Getting Cancer? It’s Complicated

But some people avoid the exam because of the hassle of getting time off work or the day-ahead preparation that involves drinking a strong laxative to empty the bowels. In the U.S., screening is recommended for healthy adults ages 45 to 75 at average risk for colon cancer.

Physicians will be able to run the Shield test after taking a simple blood draw, Guardant said in a statement. The company plans to launch its product “in the near future.”

The annual rate of U.S. colon cancer screening is nearly 60%, well short of the 80% of age-eligible adults goal set by the American Cancer Society and other groups.

source https://time.com/7005432/blood-test-colon-cancer-fda-approval/

The Truth About Iran’s Efforts to Promote Gaza Protests

When U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned on July 9 that “Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts,” the spymaster’s rare public statement included a caveat asserting that Americans protesting the Gaza conflict are doing so “in good faith.”

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered no such qualifier in his address to Congress two weeks later, dismissing the Gaza protestors as “Iran’s useful idiots.” Yet in asserting that Iran was financing some anti-Israel activism in America, Netanyahu likely spoke out of personal knowledge of how Tehran has sought to inflame social tensions within Israel itself.

The truth is, the Islamic Republic has multiple nodes of influence that it uses to interfere in Western democratic policy debates. Iran’s Foreign Ministry cultivates relationships with media outlets and think tanks in the United States and Europe, to influence policymaking in directions that serve its interests. It mostly does this through promises of engagement and offering access to individuals and entities it assesses as well-placed to echo its narratives.

Tehran has also been actively engaged in, at the minimum, encouraging American and European protest activity after the October 7 massacre—both physically and online. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry (MOIS) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization dominate this space. Months before Haines’ statement, this could be seen in reports from the United Kingdom that counterterrorism police had identified individuals linked to Iran’s regime present on the fringes of anti-Israel rallies there. In advance of demonstrations, a memo allegedly written by an IRGC intelligence official, urged “significant support measures for April 15 and other rallies with the aim to achieve [Israel’s] political isolation.”

Like Russia, Iran has a long track record of attempting to create societal fissures in its adversaries. Many of these efforts are clumsy—and easily thwarted by the security services—but can be lethal. In July, three Israeli citizens were arrested on suspicion of operating on behalf of Iranian intelligence in exchange for money. The paid missions ranged from storing cash in different locales to directives to commit arson and murder. In one particularly disturbing incident, an Iranian handler urged an Israeli to deliver packages, one containing the severed head of an animal, to private homes inside Israel. The Iranian handlers camouflaged their identities to make it appear they were Israelis themselves; payment was made in cryptocurrency.

In the U.S., the Iranian leadership long has courted groups which share a similar anti-Israel ideological mindset. One such group is Neturei Karta, a fringe ultraorthodox Jewish sect, whose leaders have been regularly hosted by Tehran. This author has spotted members of Neturei Karta at multiple anti-Israel demonstrations in the United States, especially in New York. One member of Neturei Karta was interviewed by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on a City University of New York (CUNY) campus at a student encampment in April. The United States has sanctioned IRIB and has revealed its links to Iranian intelligence. There is likewise a history of Iranian intelligence using Neturei Karta members for espionage—for example in Israel.

Iran has also built an extensive online disinformation apparatus that is used to both amplify content promoting its anti-American and anti-Israel worldview and aggravate political and social tensions in democratic societies. MOIS and the IRGC are the key implementers of these online influence campaigns. They have employed sockpuppet accounts which are fake online personas. For example, the IRGC cyber group Cotton Sandstorm (which is operated by under Emennet Pasargad, a company sanctioned for attempting to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election), ran an X account branded as “Jewish Peace Advocate,” according to Microsoft Threat Intelligence. MOIS also runs a series of cyberwarfare teams in support of Hamas.

During the campus encampments, a pro-IRGC Telegram channel called “Resistance News Network” regularly shared posts from channels linked to U.S. college campus demonstrations. In turn, some of those accounts promoted content from the Resistance News Network. American social media influencers have at times raised eyebrows by pumping out messaging glorifying the Islamic Republic.

Washington has demonstrated that it is aware of Iranian influence gambits. But the messaging from the U.S. intelligence community has only focused on informing and warning the American public of such malign activity. Absent from the discussion is what the Biden administration and its allies are doing to deter the Iranian regime from such behavior. These influence campaigns not only serve to create dissension in America; they also risk inciting intimidation and lethal antisemitic attacks.  If these countries are truly committed to defending democracy, the Islamic Republic needs to pay a price.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, for his part, clearly sees an opportunity to exploit protests in the West, dubbing them in July “a unique phenomenon in contemporary history.”  As the campus protests peaked in May, Khamenei welcomed American students into the Axis of Resistance, saying in an open letter that they have formed a new branch alongside Hezbollah and other terrorist groups whose flags have appeared in major cities.

The standards of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—all Iran-backed and U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations—were placed, for instance, outside a New York City commemoration for the victims of the Nova Music Festival massacre. It is not known that Iran had any hand in the flags’ appearance, though one of the requests the handler in Tehran made to the recruit in Israel was to place anti-Israel posters in Tel Aviv. This, like everything Iran is doing to exploit the Gaza protests, deserves further scrutiny from policymakers and the public.

source https://time.com/7005190/iran-gaza-protests-nuanced-reality/

These Are the Supreme Court Reforms Biden Wants

President Joe Biden called for major reforms to the Supreme Court, including a constitutional amendment that bars presidential immunity. 

The President said the nation’s highest court is in a “crisis of ethics” in an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Monday. Along with the immunity amendment, Biden is also calling for term limits for Justices and an enforceable code of conduct. 

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The move is an evolution for Biden, who had previously spoken out against other forms of reform such as expanding the number of Justices on the court. And it’s highly unlikely that any of these proposed measures will come to pass; House Speaker Mike Johnson has already said in a statement on X that Biden’s proposal would “delegitimize the Supreme Court” and is “dead on arrival in the House.” 

Still, it’s significant that Biden backed the measures. “When the President speaks on something like this, we take it seriously,” says Michael Gerhardt, constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Law. It “doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll prevail, but when you put the presidential seal of approval on it, that tends to increase its importance.”

Read More: Breaking Down the Supreme Court’s Ethics Rules as Justices Come Under Fire

Biden, who recently announced he will not run for reelection this year, is set to speak about the reforms in a speech Monday afternoon as works to cement his legacy while Vice President Kamala Harris runs in his stead. Harris backed Biden’s proposals in a statement Monday. “These popular reforms will help restore confidence in the Court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law,” Harris said. 

Biden’s op-ed references numerous Supreme Court scandals in recent months related to undisclosed gifts and certain Justices’ failure to recuse themselves from cases where there is an apparent conflict of interest. Biden also highlighted controversial opinions, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and a 2024 case that granted Presidents significant immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted in office.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in mid-July, though that measure never advanced. Legislators have also previously introduced legislation to regulate Justices actions and disclosures.  

Read More: How Impeaching a Supreme Court Justice Works

Here are the Supreme Court reforms that Biden supports.

Constitutional amendment on immunity

Biden’s proposed constitutional amendment, which he calls “No One is Above the Law,” would specify that presidents do not have immunity from any federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing for crimes they commit while in office. 

“I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators,” Biden wrote.

In a major decision in June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that Presidents and former Presidents are largely immune from prosecution for official acts they conduct while in office, but not actions they took that aren’t part of their core job responsibilities. The case arose from a criminal case brought by the Justice Department against Donald Trump for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the final weeks of his presidency.

Passing a new constitutional amendment requires clearing a very high bar; even to propose one requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress or a request by two thirds of the states. The last amendment was ratified more than 30 years ago, in 1992. 

Term limits 

The President also called for Congress to enact term limits for Justices, who are permitted to serve on the court for their lifetime. Biden is specifically supporting a system that would allow Presidents to appoint a Justice every two years, and allow each Justice to serve for 18 years on the Supreme Court. 

Justices currently serve an average of 16 years, though the longest-serving Justice served more than 30 years, according to the Supreme Court. In recent years, both Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg died while on the bench, which contributed to fraught and political confirmation processes to replace them.

Term limits, the White House said in a press release, would make nominations for the Court “more predictable and less arbitrary,” while also preventing a singular President from having “undue influence” over the court. 

Code of conduct 

Federal judges outside of the Supreme Court have abided by enforceable code of conduct rules since 1973. The Supreme Court adopted their first-ever code of conduct last November, though those guidelines were voluntary and unenforceable.  

Biden is now calling on Congress to pass binding ethics rules that would mandate Justices to disclose gifts, avoid political activity, and recuse themselves from cases where they or their spouses have conflicts of interests. 

Legal scholars have previously questioned the power Congress has to impose ethics rules and disciplinary actions on the Supreme Court. Legislators have sought to better regulate the actions of the Justices through the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act, which was introduced in February 2023. The bill has not passed. 

There is a law that applies to Supreme Court Justices and other judges outlining when they must recuse themselves from cases. But “the problem with that current law is the enforcement mechanism for it is the Court decides for itself whether or not anybody should step aside,” Gerhardt says. And if Congress tries to go further, “it would be those provisions that could possibly be found [to go] beyond the Constitution.”

source https://time.com/7005019/joe-biden-supreme-court-reforms/

The Personal Check Is Disappearing. Here’s What Comes Next

One of the first checks ever recorded was written in the 11th century, in a marketplace in Basra, in present-day Iraq. There, a merchant issued a sakk: written instructions to his bank to make a payment from his account. 

A thousand years later, this form of payment is finally disappearing. Target said it would stop accepting checks as of July 15; other retailers, including Whole Foods and Old Navy, have already stopped accepting them. It’s just the latest sign that the form of payment is nearing obsolescence: The average American writes just one check a year, down from 3 in 2016, according to a Federal Reserve survey. 

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“I absolutely think that we are moving to a world of ‘check zero,’” says Scott Anchin, vice president at the Independent Community Bankers of America. “As we see new payment methods come to the fore, we see new opportunities for consumers and businesses to move away from check usage.” 

From a security perspective, this is a positive. Checks are not particularly safe ways to send money. They have your account and routing numbers on them, sensitive information that criminals could use. They can be stolen in the mail and changed to be made out to different people or for different amounts. For instance, in April 2023, a U.S. Postal Service employee stole $24 million in checks from the mail and sold them through Telegram, a popular messaging app, according to a federal indictment in the Western District of North Carolina. 

Read More: Why Mail Theft Is On the Rise

Flawed as checks are, though, they haven’t gone away entirely because many people still depend on them, especially to pay rent and utility bills. But experts say a new kind of payment may finally change that. 

Instant Payments Come to the Fore

The newest type of payment— the first to be introduced in the U.S. since the ACH network in the 1970s—is called instant payments, in which money moves from your account to another account immediately. You may think you already use instant payments with services like Venmo, but you don’t—behind the scenes, the money can take some time to move, and it’s not coming directly from your bank account but from a Venmo account, for instance.

Here’s how instant payments work: Different types of payments—wire transfers, checks, ACH—all happen over what are called rails. A rail is essentially the system that gets your money from one place to another. Think of a pile of cash in a briefcase. You could move that briefcase from one place to another in a car, or a bus, or a train, or an airplane; those transportation methods are like the rails that move your money. Instant payments are a new kind of payment rail, but there still needs to be a user interface to allow consumers to access them. Some payments on Zelle already happen on an instant payment rail, says Bridget Hall of ACI Worldwide. 

One year ago, the Federal Reserve launched FedNow, an instant payment rail that allows for people to send money to each other if they’re enrolled in participating institutions. Another payment rail, RTP, short for Real Time Payments, was launched in 2017 by The Clearing House, a private payment-system infrastructure owned by large commercial banks. But it has fewer participants than FedNow, which boasts about 900 participating banks and credit unions.

Instant payments are different from anything that exists now, including wire transfers, ACH payments, and debit cards. Wire transfers can take 24 hours to reach customer accounts, and they’re not available 24/7; ACH payments are processed in batches and can only happen during banking hours; debit-card purchases don’t settle in accounts immediately. But instant payments happen in real-time, at any hour of any day, and don’t cost anything for the sender. 

Real-time payments accounted for just 1.5% of total payments in 2023, which is about 3.5 billion transactions, according to ACI Worldwide, which sells software facilitating real-time payments. Experts expect that number to grow to 14 billion real-time transactions by 2028.

Instant payments are already extremely popular in other parts of the world. In India, real-time payments were launched in 2010 and now make up 84% of the share of all electronic payments—that’s 129 billion transactions. Brazil had 37 billion real-time payment transactions in 2023, and Thailand had 20 billion, according to ACI Worldwide. 

But the two rails for instant payments in the U.S.—FedNow and RTP—are relatively new. It’s taken this long for the U.S. to adopt real-time payments because there were intermediaries like PayPal that allowed people to feel like they were paying someone else instantly, says Hall. 

There are some big advantages to instant payments. Say you have to fund a lunch account at your kids’ school: You can provide a credit card (and be charged a transaction fee), or write a check, which takes days to get processed and may mean your kid has to skip a few days of tater tots. The velocity of instant payments is a good thing for businesses too; instead of waiting for a check to arrive, and then cashing it to find out there’s no money in the user’s account, an electricity company can get paid instantly.

“If we start looking at the payment methods used to complete a transaction today,” Hall says, “we have many use cases where the options either aren’t great or aren’t good enough.”

Some people might already be using instant payments and not realizing it—a share of transactions on Zelle, a digital payments network run by big banks, run over instant payment rails. Your payment may go over the instant payment rails if both parties in the transaction are part of member banks that use RTP or FedNow. 

There are downsides to real-time payments. People without mobile phones or computer access, or who aren’t comfortable with technology, may have a hard time switching to real-time payments. And real-time payments are irrevocable, meaning once you send them, you can’t get them back—a potential problem in a world that is increasingly plagued with scams that involve one person sending money to another. 

Read More: Defrauded? Banks May Not Give Your Money Back. 

But most forms of payment have some kind of downside. Consider the check, for example. Long after its medieval origins, checks slowly became popular around the world, booming in the U.S. between 1938 and 1952, when the number of checks written annually reached 8 billion, according to a history by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 

Banks had to process all of these checks, usually manually, meaning they had to be handled by employees who notated all the information on them as they were passed from one bank to another. Then credit cards started gaining in popularity, and consumers moved onto what was more convenient, which was a big cost savings for banks. That move towards convenience—and cost savings—is now happening once again.

source https://time.com/7005015/check-zero-instant-payments/

Tongue Tie May Be Overdiagnosed in Babies

NEW YORK — Tongue-tie—a condition in infants that can affect breastfeeding—may be overdiagnosed in the U.S. and too often treated with unnecessary surgery, a prominent doctors’ group said Monday.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is the latest, and largest, medical society to sound an alarm about the increasing use of scissors or lasers to cut away some infants’ tongue tissue when breastfeeding is difficult.

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“It’s almost an epidemic,” said Dr. Maya Bunik, a Colorado-based co-author of the report.

Experts say there isn’t a good count of how many infants each year are being treated for tongue-tie with surgery, though Bunik believes the annual tally may exceed 100,000. Research suggests many of those treatments are not necessary, she added.

The academy’s new report encourages pediatricians and other medical professionals to consider nonsurgical options to address breastfeeding problems. The report cites a study that suggests less than half of the kids with the characteristics of tongue-tie actually have difficulty breastfeeding.

Read More: To Address the Teen Mental Health Crisis, Look to School Nurses

Ankyloglossia, or “tongue-tie,” occurs when an infant is born with a tight or short band of tissue that tethers the bottom of the tongue’s tip to the floor of the mouth. The condition can make it hard for the infant to extend and lift their tongue to grasp a nipple and draw milk—which in turn can be painful for the mother.

Doctors say it’s critical to get breastfeeding on track in the first three to four weeks, and surveys indicate most parents want to breastfeed, so it’s natural that they want a quick solution to a problem, Bunik said.

Ankyloglossia diagnoses have been increasing worldwide, though there is no uniform diagnostic criteria for this condition and no consensus on how to treat it. One common approach is to cut the tissue with scissors, but dentists increasingly are using lasers to vaporize the tissue—some charging $800 or more.

But the procedures can cause pain and sore mouths, potentially deterring babies from trying to breastfeed, Bunik said.

“The practice (of treating tongue-tie) got to be very common without a lot of good data,” said Wisconsin pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Thomas, who also co-authored the report.

The report also recommends lactation experts, pediatricians, and surgeons and other medical professionals work with parents to evaluate possible reasons for breastfeeding challenges and make the best treatment decision.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which has 67,000 members who specialize in treating children, started working on the report in 2015 after some pediatricians began to notice that an increasing number of patients were going to dentists to get treatment for tongue-tie, Thomas said. Pediatricians were finding out after the surgeries.

Read More: Healthy Activities Save Kids’ Lives. Why Are They So Hard to Find?

At least two other medical groups have issued statements about tongue-tie. In 2020, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery issued a consensus statement in which member physicians said they believe tongue-tie is being overdiagnosed in some places and that there isn’t sufficient evidence to support claims that using lasers is superior to other techniques.

A year later, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, an international group, issued a position called for more research into tongue-tie treatment and stressed that decisions “require a high level of clinical skill, judgment, and discernment.”

The American Dental Association didn’t directly respond to The Associated Press’ questions about the new report. It sent a statement saying the organization agrees with a 2022 policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, which noted not all children with ankyloglossia need surgical intervention and that a team-based approach with other specialists can aid in treatment planning.

Haley Brown saw a lactation consultant two years ago after her son Shiloh, who was born prematurely, had trouble nursing. But as months passed and the situation didn’t improve, Brown turned to a Denver dentist she heard about on social media The dentist diagnosed Shiloh with tongue-tie and also lip-tie, in which the tissue inside the upper lip is too tight. Shiloh underwent a short laser procedure that cost $750.

Breastfeeding improved immediately. “Things just seemed a little easier for him,” said Brown, 33, of Englewood, Colorado.

Brown later had another baby, and another lactation consultant told her that a scissors snip could have been less involved and just as effective. Brown said the laser treatment worked for Shiloh, but added: “I probably should have consulted with my pediatrician before I went straight to the dentist.”

source https://time.com/7005001/infant-tongue-tie-surgery/

Blood Tests for Alzheimer’s May Be Coming to Your Doctor’s Office

WASHINGTON — New blood tests could help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s disease faster and more accurately, researchers reported Sunday—but some appear to work far better than others.

It’s tricky to tell if memory problems are caused by Alzheimer’s. That requires confirming one of the disease’s hallmark signs—buildup of a sticky protein called beta-amyloid—with a hard-to-get brain scan or uncomfortable spinal tap. Many patients instead are diagnosed based on symptoms and cognitive exams.

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Labs have begun offering a variety of tests that can detect certain signs of Alzheimer’s in blood. Scientists are excited by their potential but the tests aren’t widely used yet because there’s little data to guide doctors about which kind to order and when. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t formally approved any of them and there’s little insurance coverage.

“What tests can we trust?” asked Dr. Suzanne Schindler, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis who’s part of a research project examining that. While some are very accurate, “other tests are not much better than a flip of a coin.”

Demand for earlier Alzheimer’s diagnosis is increasing

More than 6 million people in the United States and millions more around the world have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. Its telltale “biomarkers” are brain-clogging amyloid plaques and abnormal tau protein that leads to neuron-killing tangles.

New drugs, Leqembi and Kisunla, can modestly slow worsening symptoms by removing gunky amyloid from the brain. But they only work in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s and proving patients qualify in time can be difficult. Measuring amyloid in spinal fluid is invasive. A special PET scan to spot plaques is costly and getting an appointment can take months.

Read More: A New Alzheimer’s Drug May Be the Most Effective One Yet

Even specialists can struggle to tell if Alzheimer’s or something else is to blame for a patient’s symptoms.

“I have patients not infrequently who I am convinced have Alzheimer’s disease and I do testing and it’s negative,” Schindler said.

New study suggests blood tests for Alzheimer’s can be simpler and faster

Blood tests so far have been used mostly in carefully controlled research settings. But a new study of about 1,200 patients in Sweden shows they also can work in the real-world bustle of doctors’ offices—especially primary care doctors who see far more people with memory problems than specialists but have fewer tools to evaluate them.

In the study, patients who visited either a primary care doctor or a specialist for memory complaints got an initial diagnosis using traditional exams, gave blood for testing and were sent for a confirmatory spinal tap or brain scan.

Blood testing was far more accurate, Lund University researchers reported Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia. The primary care doctors’ initial diagnosis was 61% accurate and the specialists’ 73%—but the blood test was 91% accurate, according to the findings, which also were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Which blood tests for Alzheimer’s work best?

There’s almost “a wild West” in the variety being offered, said Dr. John Hsiao of the National Institute on Aging. They measure different biomarkers, in different ways.

Doctors and researchers should only use blood tests proven to have a greater than 90% accuracy rate, said Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo.

Read More: Changing Your Diet and Lifestyle May Slow Down Alzheimer’s

Today’s tests most likely to meet that benchmark measure what’s called p-tau217, Carrillo and Hsiao agreed. Schindler helped lead an unusual direct comparison of several kinds of blood tests, funded by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, that came to the same conclusion.

That type of test measures a form of tau that correlates with how much plaque buildup someone has, Schindler explained. A high level signals a strong likelihood the person has Alzheimer’s while a low level indicates that’s probably not the cause of memory loss.

Several companies are developing p-tau217 tests including ALZpath Inc., Roche, Eli Lilly and C2N Diagnostics, which supplied the version used in the Swedish study.

Who should use blood tests for Alzheimer’s?

Only doctors can order them from labs. The Alzheimer’s Association is working on guidelines and several companies plan to seek FDA approval, which would clarify proper use.

For now, Carrillo said doctors should use blood testing only in people with memory problems, after checking the accuracy of the type they order.

Especially for primary care physicians, “it really has great potential to help them in sorting out who to give a reassuring message and who to send on to memory specialists,” said Dr. Sebastian Palmqvist of Lund University, who led the Swedish study with Lund’s Dr. Oskar Hansson.

The tests aren’t yet for people who don’t have symptoms but worry about Alzheimer’s in the family—unless it’s part of enrollment in research studies, Schindler stressed.

That’s partly because amyloid buildup can begin two decades before the first sign of memory problems, and so far there are no preventive steps other than basic advice to eat healthy, exercise and get enough sleep. But there are studies underway testing possible therapies for people at high risk of Alzheimer’s, and some include blood testing.

source https://time.com/7004905/blood-tests-for-alzheimers/

Why Robert Downey Jr.’s Surprise Return to Marvel Could Work—and Why It Might Not

A floundering Marvel Studios made a major bid to earn back its fans’ affections at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday. The panel started by celebrating the box office success of Deadpool & Wolverine, which is already well on its way to becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige then announced that Anthony and Joe Russo, who helmed the smash hits Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, would return to direct the next two Avengers movies. But Feige wasn’t done yet.

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Robert Downey Jr. is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not as Iron Man. He’ll play the supervillain Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

The announcement played like gangbusters inside Hall H, the storied space where the most influential studios make major announcements about their blockbuster properties at Comic-Con every year. The stage was filled with masked, cloaked bodies so it was anyone’s guess who was playing Doom, the historic enemy of the Fantastic Four. Then one of the masked men stepped forward and theatrically pulled off his mask—it was Downey Jr. He held his arms aloft, consciously imitating a famous shot from the original Iron Man film when Tony Stark shows off his company’s bombs, a bridge to Marvel’s hugely successful cinematic launch (and Tony’s darker side).

Read More: How Iron Man Changed Everything for Marvel

The audience lost their minds. There has been a lot of chatter lately about Downey Jr. returning to the MCU but as a resurrected Iron Man, not another character. This was a major twist.

And yet, in some ways, Downey Jr.’s return feels inevitable. Marvel is sure to be compensating him handsomely, but the actor has earned so much money from the Marvel movies now that I suspect he’s coming back to the property either because he misses it—or he believes that they’re ruining the thing he helped built and, like Iron Man, he must return to save it.

Here’s why Marvel’s biggest twist may work—and why it may not.

Read More: Every Movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ranked

Marvel desperately needed a new big bad

It’s no secret that Marvel Studios has been struggling. Both Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels underperformed at the box office last year. Jonathan Majors, who was supposed to play the Thanos-level big bad Kang the Conqueror in the next two Avengers movies was found guilty of two misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment and dropped by Marvel and Disney. Kang was originally supposed to star in an Avengers movie called Kang Dynasty, which would have served as the linchpin for the crucial next phase.

Shang-Chi filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton, who was set to film that Avengers movie, stepped away. Meanwhile major next generation stars like Beef’s Steven Yeun and The Bear‘s Ayo Edibiri dropped out of the Marvel roles they’d been cast in, a sign that donning a superhero’s cape was no longer the coveted indicator of Hollywood success that it once was.

Read More: How Marvel Lost Its Way

Meanwhile, Marvel churned out endless mediocre TV content on Disney+. Fans complained that they could not keep up with the onslaught. The shows weren’t compelling enough to watch, and the sheer volume rendered the story too complicated to follow. The character of Deadpool himself alludes to this fact in his new movie, telling Wolverine, “Welcome to the MCU. You’re joining at kind of a low point.”

Marvel had to scramble, and has completely retooled the direction of its storytelling.

The Doom-Iron Man connection makes sense

Marvel was searching for a new villain, and Doom is about the best choice they could have made. He is a major antagonist of the Fantastic Four, having been their friend before he became their enemy. But he has also battled the Avengers and the X-Men.

Doom is a compelling bad guy for the same reasons Iron Man is a compelling character: Victor Von Doom is a brilliant but arrogant man—just like Tony Stark. Doom could have been one of Marvel’s greatest heroes if he had not succumbed to his crippling sense of inferiority. Who could play that better than RDJ?

The question of how Downey Jr. will play a different character is one of semantics: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multiverse full of parallel timelines. Perhaps the Victor Von Doom of another universe happens to look like our universe’s Iron Man. Or perhaps the Tony Stark of another universe turns evil because he has no Pepper Potts to ground him and becomes Doom.

Hilariously, Pepper Potts actor Gwyneth Paltrow posted in response to Downey Jr.’s Instagram post about playing Doom, “I don’t get it, are you a baddie now?” We can only hope Paltrow will return to the MCU just to throw shade at Downey Jr.’s new character.

Focusing on the Fantastic Four could be a brilliant move or a major misstep

Centering Doom means that the Fantastic Four are going to play a major role in the upcoming movies. That could be great news considering the upcoming Fantastic Four film has one of the most compelling casts Marvel has announced in awhile.

The Fantastic Four follows a group of friends who receive powers from a zap of cosmic radiation during a trip to space. The Bear‘s Emmy-winning Ebon Moss-Bachrach is playing The Thing. Stranger Things breakout Joseph Quinn will play Johnny Storm after he wraps up shooting his role as the villain of the new Gladiator film. The Crown‘s Vanessa Kirby, who has proved her action chops in the Mission: Impossible movies, will play Sue Storm. And Pedro Pascal, who is having a historic Hollywood run with his roles on Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian, and The Last of Us, is Mr. Fantastic.

Pascal battling Downey Jr.? Talk about a charismatic pairing. We can’t even begin to imagine the quips!

Still, historically speaking, filmmakers have struggled with the Fantastic Four films. Past attempts to bring Marvel’s First Family to the big screen have resulted in either forgettable movies or outright disasters. And though Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame are two of the best superhero movies ever made, the Russo brothers’ recent track record—including critical bombs The Gray Man and Cherry—does not exactly inspire confidence.

Big names don’t always mean big bucks

A-list casting announcements are no guarantee of success. Attaching Oscar winner Mahershala Ali to the Blade movie hasn’t saved the once-promising reboot being stuck in production hell for five years with two different directors signing up for and then departing the project. The Eternals was chock-full of A-list names like Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek, buzzy Game of Thrones stars Richard Madden and Kit Harington, and cinematic darlings like Barry Keoghan, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kumail Nanjiani—and it still faltered at the box office.

True, Downey Jr. is a proven star specifically in the context of Marvel films. But the morning after the announcement, some fans online were already complaining that Marvel has been reduced to nostalgic cash grabs rather than exercising its creativity and finding ways to make new actors and characters compelling.

Everything old is new again—for better or worse

In all likelihood, it will work. RDJ is one of the most charming actors alive. He somehow made an arms dealer lovable in those original Iron Man movies. And who doesn’t love a comeback story? The Russo brothers know how to juggle the dozens of superheroes that make up an Avengers movie better than anyone else alive—Endgame is not only the highest-grossing but arguably the best superhero movie of all time.

But in the fresh light of morning, Marvel’s decision to return to the now 59-year-old actor who not only kicked off the MCU but appeared in a staggering 10 Marvel movies does pose serious questions about the direction of Marvel and Hollywood in general. The original Marvel movies worked because they featured (even then) veteran Downey Jr. but also relative newcomers Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth and respected actors like Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson. Marvel is now leaning hard on not only Downey Jr. but 82-year-old Harrison Ford, who is set to appear in two upcoming Marvel movies.

Marvel returning to Downey Jr. is just the latest example of studios capitalizing on nostalgia, and audiences’ total inability to move on from what they loved in their youths—with mixed results. True, sequels have always been major money makers at the box office, but some of this year’s biggest and most-anticipated movies have been based on concepts dredged up from the distant past: Twisters, Gladiator II, heck even Inside Out 2 is a followup to a movie that came out a whole decade ago. The children who watched the original are teens now. But Hollywood is rushing to resurrect every old property they can think of: The Crow, Wolf Man, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Chronicles of Narnia, even Harry Potter—are all getting reboots.

When what’s old is new again, innovation can die. The old formula can be reliable but also tired. Let’s hope that that the Russo brothers and Downey Jr. are at least willing to engage in some experimentation with Doctor Doom.

source https://time.com/7004591/robert-downey-jr-surprise-marvel-return-doctor-doom-pros-cons/

Simone Biles Overcomes Injury as Team USA Advances in Women’s Gymnastics at Olympics

Call it the redemption tour. Four of the women’s gymnasts who competed in Tokyo and earned silver in the team event are back in Paris and looking for gold. With the qualification round behind them, they’re one step closer to making that goal, but it’s been a shaky start.

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Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, is back at her third Olympics and hoping to compete this time, after deciding to withdraw from the Tokyo Games following a case of the twisties. At the Bercy arena in Paris, Biles appeared to walk with a hitch in her step after her floor routine and seemed to be shaking off her leg, immediately raising speculation and concern about her ability to continue competing. During warmup for the next event, vault, she crawled beside the vault runway on all fours—smiling a bit but not helping journalists and gymnastics fans who were beside themselves on the internet about what was wrong.

“It’s not appropriate to say out loud what I was thinking,” Chellsie Memmel, the U.S. women’s team technical lead, said after seeing Biles on all fours. Biles’ coach Cécile Canqueteau-Landi downplayed it, saying “It’s Simone.”

Landi, said Biles felt some pain in her calf after her floor routine, so it was taped before she competed on vault. It was something that occurred “a couple of weeks ago, but it stopped and it was just a little bit again today,” she said. She said she wasn’t concerned about Biles’ ability to continue competing in the team, all-around, and potentially individual events next week. And that by the last of the four events on which she competed, Biles was “feeling better.”

Given what happened in Tokyo, when Biles abruptly pulled out of the team event after experiencing the twisties, a condition that made it dangerous for her to flip and tumble, all eyes were on the greatest gymnast of all time, so her odd gait prompted the online community to erupt in speculation and concern that wasn’t helped when she crawled along the vault runway. That’s because a lot is riding on the qualification. Making an Olympic gymnastics team is just the start. To actually compete in the first event—the team final, scheduled for July 30 in the Bercy arena in Paris—gymnasts have to move forward as one of the top eight teams during the qualification round, which took place on July 28.

In Paris, 79 gymnasts competed in three subdivisions throughout the day to move on to the team competition. The U.S. women—Biles, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee and Hezly Rivera—were assigned to the second subdivision with China in the morning and after a shaky start, got the job done and qualified. Because the U.S. women finished at the top of the two subdivisions, with only seven more teams to go, it was clear they would be among the top eight scoring squads to compete in the team final.

With three more subdivisions yet to go, the U.S. team qualified with a score of 172.296. Four gymnasts can compete from each country, and for the team event, only the eight highest-scoring teams, calculated by adding the three top scores from each country, will qualify. Gymnasts’ individual scores on each event from the qualification round also count—the top 24 scorers are eligible to compete in the all-around competition, and the top eight in the individual events.

Qualification is only the second time that gymnasts can compete in the actual competition space, in this case the Bercy arena, and use the equipment. Two days before the qualification, they participate in podium training, which gives them their first experience of competing in the arena. “That’s the first and only time they get to be in the arena [before competition starts]” says Aly Raisman, 2016 Olympic silver medalist in the all-around who competed with Simone Biles. “The lights are bright, They only get a short amount of time on the equipment. I don’t think people realize that every piece of equipment, even if it’s from the same brand, feels very different. The beam could be a little slippery or a little bit harder; the vault runway may not be as broken in, or the floor can be a little slipper like a carpet. So it really does have an impact and can make a very big difference. So I don’t think it’s right that [podium training] is the only time they get to be in the arena [before competition].”

The session started with the U.S. on beam, always a challenge as nerves, pressure, and expectations converge on a thin 4 in. piece of equipment raised 4 ft. off the floor. Chiles kicked off the session, and fought through several wobbles that betrayed her nerves. Those balance corrections continued throughout newcomer and first time Olympian Rivera’s routine, as well as that of reigning all-around champion Lee. Biles hopped on the beam and helped the team shake off those nerves with a solid routine that brought visible relief to the entire squad. The last time the gymnasts competed these programs was on the second day of Olympic Trials at the end of June, where all of them pushed through an uncharacteristic number of mistakes. With that legacy, starting on beam in the qualification round at the Olympics couldn’t have been ideal. “Starting on beam is definitely not easy,” Landi said. “But at the same time, when it’s over, you feel a lot better.” Biles certainly helped with that, but the pressure was truly on—the arena announcer hyped up the crowd in introducing her, and the audience responded with a deafening cheer, and then fell nearly silent as she mounted the beam and completed her routine. Normally, there is music and cheering for other gymnasts, but all of the other athletes had finished their rotation by the time Biles competed. All eyes were on her, following her every move.

After a small bit of relief following Biles impressive performance on beam, the tension continued to build for the U.S. women as Carey, the reigning Olympic gold medalist on floor, stepped out of bounds three times and had almost an entire point deducted from her score. Although her score was dropped from the overall team tally, it would have helped to boost the U.S.’s overall total had she not had the deductions. “We told her to remind herself that she is capable of doing it, that she’s got this and it’s okay,” said Landi. Carey rallied to perform two strong vaults in the next rotation, which will likely earn her a spot in the vault event final if the average score from her two vaults is among the top 8.

Once qualification is over, the gymnasts start with a fresh slate in the upcoming team, all-around, and individual event finals. The U.S. women will be competing next on July 30 to win the team gold that eluded them in Tokyo.

source https://time.com/7004551/simone-biles-injury-us-women-gymnastics-advance-olympics/

3 Members of Family Gospel Quartet The Nelons Killed in Wyoming Plane Crash

Three members of the Nelons, a Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame quartet and the chairman of the board overseeing the Georgia Department of Corrections, were among seven people killed in a plane crash in Wyoming, according to a statement by a group member who was not aboard the aircraft.

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The Nelons co-founder, Kelly Nelon Clark, her husband Jason Clark, and their daughter, Amber Nelon Kistler died in the crash Friday afternoon, according to a statement from another daughter, Autumn Nelon Streetman. She is the fourth member of the Georgia-based quartet.

“Thank you for the prayers that have been extended already to me, my husband, Jamie, and our soon-to-be-born baby boy, as well as Jason’s parents, Dan and Linda Clark,” Nelon Streetman said. “We appreciate your continued prayers, love and support as we navigate the coming days.”

Also killed in the crash were Nelon Kistler’s husband, Nathan Kistler, family friend Melodi Hodges, and Larry and Melissa Haynie, according to Nelon Streetman.

There were no survivors.

Larry Haynie was chairman of the Georgia Board of Corrections and was remembered for “a career of valued public service,” according to a statement from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

“Our entire family is asking everyone to join us in praying for those who have been lost, for their loved ones and communities, and for those throughout the gospel music community who have lost dear friends in this heartbreaking accident,” Kemp said.

The group was traveling to join the Gaither Homecoming Cruise to Alaska, according to a statement from Gaither Music Group, the sponsor of the cruise that features numerous gospel singers and groups.

Gaither Music said Hodges was an assistant for the band and that Larry Haynie was pilot of the aircraft and Melissa Haynie was his wife. The aircraft was identified as a single engine turboprop Pilatus PC-12/47E.

The crash occurred about 1 p.m. in Campbell County, Wyoming, north of Gillette and about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of Cheyenne, according to a statement from Campbell County spokesperson Leslie Perkins.

Campbell County Fire Department Jeff Bender said in a statement Saturday that a fire caused by the crash has been contained to less than one square mile and that firefighters would remain on the scene throughout the day.

The National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson Keith Holloway said Saturday that preliminary information indicated the plane crashed following an “auto pilot issue during flight” and a team of investigators was headed to the site.

“The aircraft is in a remote location and once they gain access, they will begin documenting the scene, examining the aircraft,” Holloway said. “The aircraft will then be recovered and taken to a secure facility for further evaluation.”

A preliminary report on the crash is expected in about 30 days while a final report with the probable cause of the crash could take up to two years to complete, Holloway said.

The Nelons were inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016 and were winners of 10 GMA Dove Awards, including multiple song of the year and album of the year awards.

source https://time.com/7004406/family-gospel-group-the-nelons-three-killed-wyoming-plane-crash/

Day One of the Paris Olympics Sees a Twist in the U.S. Men’s Gymnastics

A total of 96 gymnasts tackled six events in men’s gymnastics on day one of the Paris Olympics, and there were surprises for the U.S., which competed in the first of three subdivisions of the qualification round.

Results from qualification determines the lineup for the remainder of the competition, since the top eight teams, determined by adding the highest three scores from each team, move on to the team final, and the top 24 scorers compete in the all-around, with a maximum of two gymnasts from each country. The eight athletes with the highest scores in each event from the qualification round also compete in the individual event finals.

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For the U.S., there was an unexpected change in the leader board. Frederick Richard, the world all-around bronze medalist, earned the highest scores on the U.S. team, followed by Paul Juda, his training partner at the University of Michigan. Brody Malone, the only returning Olympian on the squad, who was expected to be a contender for the all-around event, earned the lowest scores on three of the six events. Only gymnasts with the top 24 scores from the entire qualification round after three subdivisions are completed, can compete in the all-around final. After just one of three subdivisions, that’s likely to be Richard and Juda for the US.

“It was a great day,” Juda said. “To hopefully make an all-around final, that’s the cooler thing.”

“It means a lot,” Richard said of potentially being in the all-around final with Juda. “To have my closest teammate next to me is just exciting.”

Juda’s mother, Ewa Bacher, wasn’t even aware of the strong chance her son has of competing in the Olympic all-around final. “Really?” she said just after the U.S men finished. “I don’t know much about gymnastics; we don’t talk about gymnastics that much. I am just so happy for this kid. He has achieved so much but he’s still my kid, just my kid.”

The U.S. men began on one of their weaker events, the pommel horse, and it was a rough start for the only returning Olympian on the squad, Brody Malone, who came off the horse and had to restart his routine. Malone is the U.S. national champion, and was expected to make the all-around final in Paris. Malone quickly made up for the mistake on the next event, rings, with the second highest score among the American men behind teammate Asher Hong. But he continued to struggle throughout the session, coming off twice from the high bars, the event in which the won the world championship in 2022, and stumbling in his floor routine. The two-time national champion had a devastating knee injury during a competition in March 2023, and has only just recovered enough to start training for a spot on the Olympic team.

The team also didn’t have strong landings on vault, with three of the four members competing on that event earning deductions for stepping out of bounds; only Juda successfully stayed within the bounds.

The British team, which are likely the U.S.’s closest competition in the team event for a medal, finished the qualification just ahead of the U.S. by more than two points, with the other medal favorites, China and Japan, competing in the qualification round later in the day.

source https://time.com/7004329/us-men-gymnastics-paris-olympics-2024/