China Intensifies Espionage Crackdown Targeting Alleged Spies for the CIA

China is intensifying a crackdown on alleged spies for the U.S., saying it found another case of an individual informing the Central Intelligence Agency, adding to a series of espionage accusations between the two nations.

The Chinese Ministry of State Security said Monday it is investigating a 39-year-old ministry official identified by his surname Hao for providing information to the CIA in exchange for money. This follows another case earlier this month involving an employee of a military industrial group.

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The latest claims come weeks after CIA director William Burns said his agency has made progress in rebuilding its network in China following setbacks in the country. Tensions between China and the U.S. have risen after a series of incidents in recent months, including an alleged spy balloon and military encounters in the South China Sea.

Read More: Amid Rising Joblessness, China Stops Publishing Its Youth Unemployment Rate

China’s MSS provided rare details of how the people came to inform the CIA. The ministry said Hao was approached by a U.S. embassy staff known as Ted during his study in Japan. Ted introduced Hao to his colleague Li Jun, who worked for the CIA’s Tokyo office. Li asked Hao to work in a “core” unit upon his return to China, the ministry said in a statement.

Hao allegedly signed an espionage agreement with the U.S. and received training. When he returned to China, he worked for a Chinese ministry — the statement didn’t specify which one — and met with CIA personnel several times, providing intelligence and receiving money in return, the ministry said.

The other case involved a suspect with the surname Zeng, who developed a close relationship with Seth, an official of the U.S. embassy in Italy, according to MSS. Seth, who turned out to be working for the CIA in Rome, asked Zeng to provide sensitive military information and he agreed. Zeng provided a large amount of “core information” and received payment, MSS said.

China’s powerful spy agency is usually secretive about its work but has taken a more public profile recently. Beijing has ratcheted up efforts to crack down on spying and adopted a new counter-espionage law that came into effect last month. That legislation expands the list of activities that could be considered spying, intensifying the risks for foreign firms.

source https://time.com/6306709/china-spy-crackdown-cia/

Guatemalans Overwhelmingly Vote for Change With Progressive Candidate Bernardo Arévalo

GUATEMALA CITY — Outsider Bernardo Arévalo appeared to be the “virtual winner” of Sunday’s election to be Guatemala’s next president after voters angry at widespread corruption and leaders’ failure to tackle it made a decisive choice for change.

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A potential victory by the progressive candidate is almost certainly distressing politicians who have been enjoying impunity for corruption, along with some members of the monied elite and their allies in organized crime.

With more than 99% of the votes counted, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported that the son of former president Juan José Arévalo, representing the Seed Movement, led former first lady Sandra Torres by 58% to 37%.

Supreme Electoral Tribunal Magistrate Blanca Alfaro called Arévalo the “virtual winner” and called for an immediate national dialogue to begin to reconcile the country’s deep political divides.

“We are going to make a government that is for all Guatemalans, a government that takes care of all people, despite differences,” Arévalo said. “All of us share a love for Guatemala. That’s what we have been working for and we will continue tirelessly to build a new spring.”

Arévalo said he had received calls from outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador congratulating him.

He said Giammattei invited him to begin an orderly transition the day after the results are certified.

Some of Arévalo’s supporters gathered at a plaza downtown in the capital waving flags and blowing horns.

Jhamy Lucas, 27, cried tears of joy in the Obelisk plaza. “I am so happy because I am going to be able to live in my country,” she said. “I’m not going to have to migrate to survive.”

Arévalo posted a brief message to X, saying “Long live Guatemala!”

Read More: Guatemala Rethinks the Economics of Migration

The results are unlikely to be the last word: It took more than two weeks for the results of the first round of voting in June to be certified. Losing parties got the courts to intervene and order a review of precinct vote tallies.

When electoral authorities were finally ready to certify, the Attorney General’s Office announced an investigation into signatures that the Seed Movement had gathered to register years earlier as a party. That investigation continues, and prosecutors appear to be on a path to stripping Arévalo of his party.

Arévalo made it into the runoff with only about 654,000 votes or 11% of the total in the first round in June. On Sunday, he received more than 2.4 million.

The two candidates offered starkly different paths forward. Torres became an ally of the outgoing, deeply unpopular Giammattei in her third bid for the presidency. Arévalo, with the progressive Seed Movement, rode a wave of popular resentment toward politics to his surprise spot in the runoff.

But moves to drag the electoral process into the courts after the first round of voting in June led many Guatemalans to wonder what was to come between Sunday’s results and the transfer of power Jan. 14.

Central America’s most populous country and the region’s largest economy continues to struggle with poverty and violence that have driven hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans to migrate to the U.S.

Voting appeared to have been peaceful. The Attorney General’s Office, which sought unsuccessfully to suspend Arévalo’s party before the vote, announced several arrests for interference with the process, but they appeared to be minor.

Political analyst Renzo Rosal noted the heavier than usual presence of uniformed agents from the Attorney General’s Office at voting centers across the country “could be taken as a form of intimidation.” The Associated Press saw such agents at several voting centers.

Antonio González voted late Sunday, shortly before polls closed, at a teachers’ school in the capital.

The 42-year-old tractor-trailer driver said he hoped Guatemala’s powerful would respect the will of the voters. He wants someone to tackle corruption and improve education and the economy. Without those things, Guatemalans will continue to migrate to the U.S. like two of his co-workers recently had.

Thinking of the future of his children, he said, “We hope that they improve the economy, that there’s work.”

Poll workers at each voting table immediately began tallying ballots. One person would unfold each ballot, show it to the party observers at the table and announce which party received the vote.

Earlier Sunday, Roxana Abigail González voted for Arévalo, hoping that he would make a difference for her future. “I think he could be a good president,” she said.

The 25-year-old student lives in Villa Nueva, a gritty hillside suburb above the capital. Thieves and gangs that extort businesses and kill those who don’t pay roam its cratered streets. González said she has had the possessions she carried stolen multiple times, making her nervous to venture out alone.

Among her hopes for Guatemala’s next government are more security, jobs for the poor families whose children she sees begging in the streets and more hospitals.

González wants to continue on to college and study business administration. She loves to cook and dreams of having her own restaurant one day, but the threat of extortion is so great that she’s unsure if it’s possible. “People can’t keep a business,” she said.

At the school where she voted, the election coordinator estimated that by late morning the flow of voters was only about half of what they had for the first round of voting in June. Turnout was considerably lower at about 45% compared to 60% in June, according to electoral authorities.

The first round of voting on June 25 went relatively smoothly until Arévalo landed in the runoff. The fact that the preliminary results were dragged into Guatemala’s co-opted justice system has raised anxiety among many Guatemalans that voters will not have the final word Sunday.

Torres, in her closing campaign event Friday, suggested she would not accept a result that didn’t go her way. “We’re going to defend vote by vote because today democracy is at risk (and) because they want to steal the elections,” she said.

Torres has painted her opponent as a radical leftist who threatens Guatemalans’ conservative values on issues including sexual identity and abortion.

“We’re not going to let them influence our children with strange and foreign ideologies,” she said Friday.

Having run largely populist campaigns, capitalizing on her oversight of the government’s social programs during the presidency of her then-husband Álvaro Colom, Torres drifted sharply rightward this time, abandoning the social democratic history of her National Unity of Hope party and launching unsubstantiated attacks at Arévalo that she herself suffered during earlier failed campaigns.

Delmi Espino, a 46-year-old teacher, came to vote in Guatemala City with her mother. “It’s incredible how we managed to get to this point after everything that has happened in the electoral process,” she said. “How’s it possible that now there’s an investigation of one of the two parties?”

“It doesn’t matter that we need security, education or health, if you don’t fight corruption,” she said. “We want a president who cares about the country.”

source https://time.com/6306700/bernardo-arevalo-guatemala-elections-president/

More Elderly While Population Growth Slows to Put Australian Budget Under Pressure

Australia’s facing a major demographic shift in the coming four decades, with the number of elderly citizens predicted to swell, while overall population growth slows.

Australia’s population is expected to grow to more than 40 million people by the early 2060s, according to data from the government’s latest intergenerational report released on Sunday. Population growth is tipped to slow to 1.1% over the next 40 years, down from 1.4% over the past 40 years, according to the data. The full report, designed to guide lawmakers’ long-term policy, will be released Thursday.

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The country’s residents are also expected to live longer, with the number of people over the age of 85 predicted to triple over coming decades, while the over-65 population is set to double. As a result, the country’s aged-care economy could almost double to as much as 15% of gross domestic product by the 2060s.

Read More: Why China Needs to Learn to Live With Its Low Fertility Rate

Separate intergenerational report data released earlier on Sunday showed Australia’s aging population and the cost of servicing debt was expected to blow out government spending by about A$140 billion ($90 billion) over the next 40 years.

With Australia’s demographic outlook worsening, the report said three of the five fastest-growing spending pressures in the decades ahead were expected to be health, aged care and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The report showed that growth in the care economy was set to be one of the most prominent shifts in coming decades, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in an emailed statement.

“What the Intergenerational Report reveals is after this year, the pressure on the budget intensifies,” he said.

—With assistance from Amy Bainbridge.

source https://time.com/6306685/australia-population-aging/

What We’ll Remember About This Year’s World Cup

This story first appeared in Extra Time, our pop-up newsletter about the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Get it in your inbox by subscribing here.

Thanks for the memories

After Spain’s convincing 1-0 win over England in the World Cup final—soccer may be the only sport where a 1-0 victory can count as dominant—a few reflections on what we’ve witnessed over the past month in Australia and New Zealand: 

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European Aggression. For the first time at a women’s World Cup, three European countries placed 1-2-3: Spain, England, and Sweden. For years, we’ve been hearing about how the rest of the world is closing the talent gap with the United States, a singular force in women’s soccer for decades. This World Cup makes it more than official. 

Spain did not offer a domestic professional league until 2021. Spain now also holds the under-17, under-20, and senior World Cup titles at the same time. More European countries are sure to follow the Spanish—and for that matter, English—blueprint, and have top club teams pour academy and other resources into developing women’s soccer talent. The women’s soccer landscape has changed forever.    

New Kids On The Block. We enjoyed watching the breakout players and teams shine. Colombia’s Linda Caicedo, 18, has already overcome ovarian cancer to thrive on the World Cup stage: just watch her amazing shot, again, against Germany. Salma Paralluelo, 19, of Spain will be a force for the next decade (more on her later). England’s Lauren James, 21, was embroiled in an unfortunate controversy for stepping on a Nigerian player in the round of 16. But her bad behavior in that moment shouldn’t overshadow her promise as a player. 

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Some surprise teams made noise too. South Africa, making just its second World Cup appearance, made the round of 16. World Cup title contenders Germany and Canada did not even survive the group stage. The Colombia-Jamaica round of 16 game ensured that one team of those teams would make its first-ever quarterfinal appearance: Jamaica, who due to lack of federation and government funding resorted to online fundraising to get the Reggae Girlz down under, was playing in just the second World Cup in its nation’s history. (Colombia won 1-0). Morocco made history on multiple fronts. The Atlas Lionesses, making their first-ever World Cup appearance, became the first Arab or North African nation to advance to the knockout stage in women’s World Cup history. Morocco’s Nouhaila Benzinaalso became the first Muslim woman to wear a hijab at the World Cup. 

Hosts With The Most. Three cheers for Australia. The co-host nation captured the imagination of not only the home fans, but the world: Fox Sports analyst Aly Wagnernamed Sam Kerr’s goal against England in the semifinal as her favorite moment of the tournament, and I’d have to agree with her. I, for one, shouted when she marched downfield and converted the long attempt to tie the game in the second half. Sure, England went on to win 3-1. But when a superstar makes such a superstar play in such a huge moment, you don’t forget it. 

Australia and New Zealand hosted the best-attended tournament in women’s World Cup history. The next host, which will be named in 2024, has a tough act to follow. 

American Crash. America’s near-disastrous performance in the group stage and inability to finish off a game it should have won against Sweden caused considerable consternation back home. “The player of that match was that post,” Carl Lloyd memorably said after Portugal nearly scored late in its final group stage game against the U.S., which would have eliminated the U.S. women’s national team (USWNT) very, very early.

Lloyd pinned the struggles of the U.S. team on off-field distractions, especially the pursuit of endorsements and commercial success. As the tournament wore on, it became more and more apparent that Lloyd’s analysis might have been off. It’s not that the rest of the world has closed the talent gap with the United States; it’s that teams like Spain have exceeded the U.S. in talent. “I don’t even think we have two of the top 25 players in the world,” Wagner tells Extra Time. 

The USWNT needs to get to work. Fast.

Awards season

Your Winner of the Golden Ball … as the tournament’s best player, is Spain’s Aitana Bonmatí, who in the World Cup final won possession back nine times, made two interceptions and won both of her tackles. Against Switzerland in the round of 16, Bonmatí scored twice in Spain’s 5-1 win. She also had two assists in the match, accounting for four of Spain’s five goals. Bonmatí is winning everything in sight this year: with Barcelona last season, she won Liga F, the Women’s Champions League and the Spanish Super Cup.

Your Winner of the Golden Boot … as the tournament’s leading goal scorer, is Japan’s Hinata Miyazawa. Japan got knocked out in the quarters, but Miyazawa still led the field with 5 goals. She scored 2 of the in the group stage, in Japan’s dominant 4-0 trouncing off .. Spain, the eventual World Cup champs. 

Your Winner of the Golden Glove … as the tournament’s top goalkeeper, is Mary Earps, of England. Extra Time contributor and friend Yasmeen Serhan tipped me off to her nickname: “Mary Queen of Stops.” Her penalty shot save against Spain gave England flailing hope in the second half of the final; Earps recorded three clean sheets at this World Cup, and conceded just four goals in seven games.

Rookie of the year

Spain’s Salma Paralluelo was named Young Player of the Tournament: she scored key goals against the Netherlands and Sweden in the quarters and semis, respectively, and earned a start in the final. Although Paralluelo did not score a goal against England, she was a positive presence in the championship game. Up until recently, Paralluelo split her attention among two different sports, track and field and soccer. As a kid, she won a prestigious Barcelona road race, the Jean Bouin , five straight times. She ran the 400-m and 400-m hurdles, and at 15, Paralluelo was the youngest runner on the Spanish team at the European championships. 

Until further notice, Paralluelo is now just sticking to soccer. That’s pretty scary for the rest of the world.

Recommended reading/viewing

Women’s soccer is exploding. The 2023 World Cup proved why. (Front Office Sports)

In case you missed it: highlights of the Spain-England final. (Fox Sports)

Spain celebrates back home after a score. (Guardian)

Parting thought

To all who subscribed to and read Extra Time throughout the tournament: thank you so much. Writing this newsletter was so much fun. In a World Cup filled with so many important and breakthrough moments, there was so much to discuss in each edition. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, even those who strenuously objected to my “Let Lauren James Play” take, and told me so in very direct terms. All feedback was appreciated. Special shoutout to Rose Stepnick, a reader whose careful observations helped inform what we were doing here.  

I hope you found Extra Time informative and entertaining during this World Cup summer. Until next time.

source https://time.com/6306666/spain-world-cup-women-next-time/

The Story Behind HBO’s Telemarketers—and How It Exposes a Billion-Dollar Scam

In 2001, Sam Lipman-Stern was a teenage high school dropout working at Civic Development Group (CDG), a telemarketing company that operated out of central New Jersey. He’d developed a love for film after being gifted a camcorder by a family friend and decided to document his workplace—a peculiar establishment that, he would discover, pocketed millions of dollars of donations via phone calls made by former inmates calling on behalf of charitable organizations. This all happened amid an office filled with drug use, partying, and impromptu tattooing.

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“It was like a dysfunctional family,” Lipman-Stern tells TIME. “You’d have a murderer on your right hand side and a bank robber on your left. You just couldn’t write these characters up.” Among the all-too real characters was Lipman-Stern’s former colleague Pat Pespas, who agreed to participate in the project to document the absurdity of their job. 

Nearly two decades later, their recordings have become HBO’s latest documentary series Telemarketers, directed and produced by Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie, Danny McBride, and David Gordon Green. The series is first of its kind—a deep dive into the world of telemarketing and how CDG, which at its height was the biggest telemarketing fundraising company, has inspired telemarketing copycats even after its downfall.

Read More: Telemarketers Is a Wild Scammer Epic—and One of the Most Exciting Docuseries in Years

The first episode of the three part series that premiered on Aug. 13 uncovered what it was like to work at CDG and how the company influenced the telemarketing industry. Episode 2, out Sunday, explores how CDG worked through loopholes to further their scheme, and the role that the charities they were calling on behalf of played. The finale will wrap the story on Aug. 27, spinning forward to see where these scams stand now and examining the key players that keep the system afloat.

The history of telemarketing 

Well before smartphones came with warnings about spam calls with the “Scam Likely” label, companies like CDG pioneered the advertising tactic of having employees solicit donations from citizens over the phone to make millions of dollars of profit.

CDG, which was founded in the early 1990’s, ran on a simple model: the telemarketing company made calls on behalf of nonprofits and charities, another loosely regulated industry. Telemarketers reveals how the company’s leaders, David Keezer, Marc Keezer, Brian Pasch, Glenn Pasch, and Steve Pasch, came up with the scheme and scripts, and pushed to franchise their call centers. The workers in these offices, or “hopeless places,” were merely middlemen, former CDG telemarketer Billy Fedor says in episode 1.

CDG’s callers, who were expected to meet quotas, made pitches to local civilians to convince them to donate to charitable causes, including helping police, veterans, and cancer research. Of the money from those who donated, only about 10% of the contribution went to the intended charity (the rest was pocketed by CDG), according to Telemarketers. In exchange, they received sticker decals from police unions, like the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the world’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers.

CDG employees would read from a script that prepared them with rebuttals for any potential reason someone wouldn’t want or be able to donate. Lipman-Stern says the telemarketers largely consisted of  “people living on the edge,” those who had dropped out of school or were formerly incarcerated and unable to find work elsewhere. They became key to making CDG run. 

“The model seems to hire ex-convicts and drug addicts because they’re great hustlers,” said Lipman-Stern. “They know how to get money out of people and they’re not going to say anything about suspicious activities.”

But Telemarketers aims to humanize the individuals making the phone calls. Lipman-Stern interviews several of his former colleagues, bringing out their perspective from working these minimum wage, under-regulated jobs. “We never wanted to demonize the callers. These were people who couldn’t get another job and that were in the prison pipeline,” he says.

Telemarketers’ success depended largely on how they sounded on the phone—a diction that required balancing warmth and assertiveness to secure a deal. A CDG employee calling someone on behalf of the FOP would try to sound like a caricature of an officer. “I remember people asking me: Are you a police officer?” says Lipman-Stern. “I’m like ‘No, I’m 14 and I kind of dropped out of school,’ while continuing in the cop voice.”

What happened to CDG? 

In 1998 CDG was sued by the Federal Trade Commision for falsely advertising their use of donations. In 2007, the Department of Justice doubled down, alleging CDG had not changed their ways, and instead changed its business model by saying they were calling as “consultants” on behalf of groups like the FOP, instead of as telemarketers. They’d even go as far to say that 100% of donations were going to the organizations—which was far from the truth. 

In 2010 the FTC ordered CDG to pay $19 million in fines and get out of the fundraising business. But no criminal charges were filed against the Keezer and Pasch brothers and its shutdown was temporary—as episode 2 of Telemarketers details, the company returned with a new tactic and prompted copycat companies along with them. 

“I’ll tell you the secret about CDG. They don’t ever change,” said Pespas in the documentary. “It’s ‘Where’s the next little loophole we can get through?’”

The story isn’t just about CDG’s owners, the telemarketers, and the donors on the other end of their phone calls. As revealed in episode 2, the charities and organizations that CDG called on behalf of (like the FOP) are just as directly involved in this telemarketing phenomenon. 

How Telemarketers’ expose of a billion dollar scam came to HBO

Before Telemarketers deep dive, the public’s knowledge on how the scheme operated was limited. Lipmam-Stern, Pespas and other former telemarketers were perfectly positioned to expose the behind-the-scenes of an industry that had long gone under the radar due to lack of accountability and political action.  

“Pat and I were like, ‘We got to tell his story to the world,” he says. “We’re the only people that can because we work in this and we’re from this.” 

In the decades since Lipman-Stern worked in telemarketing, the industry hasn’t slowed down. “Everyone would always tell me that they got the call from telemarketers,” he says. It made his choice to film the OG-telemarketing work environment—a decision originally encouraged by his prior CDG manager “Big Ed” Hilger—more relevant than ever before because the schemes have only gotten more aggressive and plentiful.

And the telling of CDG’s story wouldn’t be possible without Pespas, one of CDG’s best salesmen whose charismatic personality and demeanor brings true comedy to Telemarketers. “We got to take them down from the inside,” he says in episode 1, in which he’s seen calling out injustices and social causes he cared about including global warming, and flagging his skepticism of the work CDG was performing.

At one point Lipman-Stern and Pespas discussed the ideal scenario of this work potentially getting to the masses. “There’s old footage of Pat and I that never was released saying one day maybe we’ll get this on HBO,” he recalls. “That was actually our dream. We never really thought it was tangible or would happen back then.” 

The opportunity was made possible after Lipman-Stern connected with his family member Adam Bhala Lough, who is a film director, and bridged a connection with the Safdie brothers and actor and producer Danny McBride, who helped build the decades old footage into a documentary. Bhala Lough co-directed Telemarketers with Lipman-Stern.

To Lipman-Stern, the story isn’t all bad. “The best thing about this industry was the jobs that it provided to people that were unemployable, from a 14-year-old high school dropout graffiti writer with an anxiety disorder to Pat,” he says, adding that the story also reflects the generosity of the millions whose intent was to give money to charitable causes. “The nonprofit space is incredible. It just wasn’t the ones we were calling for.”

source https://time.com/6306418/telemarketers-hbo-true-story/

How COVID-19 Changes the Immune System

If the COVID-19 pandemic has done one thing, it’s made us all more familiar with some of the important players in the immune system. Antibodies, B cells, and T cells are among the best known parts of the body’s response to a virus like SARS-CoV-2, but they don’t act alone.

In a paper published on August 18 in the journal Cell, scientists report that innate immune cells—a critical part of the immune system activated to battle COVID-19—remain altered for at least a year after infection. The finding suggests that these cells may play a role in some of the lingering symptoms associated with Long COVID, although more studies are needed to confirm that connection.

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The innate immune system is the body’s first line of defense, made up of general pathogen-fighting cells that are designed to recognize and fight off all kinds of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites in a non-specific way. (B cells and T cells, in contrast, are more customized to remember and recognize specific pathogens, and only those pathogens.) Steven Josefowicz, an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and his colleagues found, however, that even innate immune cells retain some memory of fighting SARS-CoV-2 after a severe infection. This recall, and the response it generates, can last for at least a year after infection.

The new paper has important implications for understanding how the immune system—even the less bespoke parts that aren’t targeting specific bacteria or viruses—is changed by infections. Understanding these alterations could also shed light on why some people continue to experience long-term symptoms after encountering SARS-CoV-2, says Josefowicz.

He and his team focused on the parent cells of innate immune cells—stem cells in the bone marrow that continuously replenish the supply of these immune cells. Since most of these stem cells reside in the bone marrow, the easiest way to access them is through a bone marrow aspiration, a painful and invasive procedure in which doctors puncture a portion of the hip bone to reach the marrow. A small number of these stem cells, however, circulate in the blood, and Josefowicz conducted studies to not only extract and enrich their numbers from blood samples, but to confirm that they represent the same stem cells found in the marrow. That allowed him to study these cells from patients who were admitted to the ICU with severe COVID-19 infections by collecting their blood, rather than obtaining bone marrow biopsies.

Read More: Scientists Are Just Beginning to Understand COVID-19’s Effect On the Brain

By analyzing those stem cells, “what’s clear is that the immune system is fundamentally changed after a severe infection like COVID-19,” he says. These cells contain genetic changes that alter which genes they express, skewing them toward generating more inflammatory factors. The change lasts for at least a year following a severe COVID-19 infection, which is how long Josefowicz studied cells from a few dozen patients. Since these stem cells are responsible for producing more copies of innate immune cells, the changes in the genes they express are carried over to the new generations of cells they make. When he studied the cells in a dish, Josefowicz found that they’re capable of producing higher levels of inflammatory factors and are more likely to migrate—which, in a human body, means they can spread their inflammatory effects to other tissues. In animal models, these hyper responsive cells preferentially gravitate toward the lungs, brain, and heart, some of the organs most heavily affected by Long COVID.

The higher levels of inflammatory factors may be a response to the intense effect of a severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. “Severe COVID-19 could look to the immune system like the beginning of a chronic infection,” says Josefowicz, “and since the immune system is having trouble clearing this particular pathogen, it’s pulling out all the stops to give itself a better chance of dealing with the virus.”

Whether this memory of COVID-19 is contributing to Long COVID isn’t clear yet, but the research could inspire additional studies to better understand how viruses like SARS-CoV-2 affect the immune system, both in the short and long term. “This is the beginning of a very long story that will hopefully open up our understanding of how viral infections, and in particular COVID-19, are different from a cold,” says Dr. Lindsay Lief, director of the medical ICU and post ICU recovery clinic at Weill Cornell New York Presbyterian Hospital and one of the co-authors of the paper. “We need to understand how infections change the immune system to impact not just what symptoms you experience, but how you respond to your next infection or your next vaccination.”

The pandemic provided the scientists with a unique opportunity to study how the immune system changes in response to a virus, since so many people were infected at the same time, and there were no vaccines to confound the immune response. All of the blood samples came from participants who were admitted to the ICU in the spring of 2020 with severe COVID-19 infections, before vaccines were available.

Read More: COVID-19 Cases Are Rising. Should You Get a Booster Shot?

Because the participants’ health records during their ICU stay were available, the researchers could look at any treatments they were given, and they found a potentially useful clue about one intervention that could mitigate how much the immune system was altered. People who received drugs to block IL6, which causes inflammation and increases in response to an infection, seemed to show lower levels of innate immune cells that were prone to producing inflammatory factors. While the drug did not have much effect in improving people’s severe COVID-19 symptoms while in the ICU, the study suggests it might have suppressed some of the gene expression changes in the innate immune stem cells. That in turn could reduce the chances of Long COVID-like symptoms from developing in these people, although more studies are needed to confirm that theory.

 “What we hope now is that others will use our approaches to link these types of changes to different clinical outcomes and disease states,” says Josefowicz. “Since these blood cells are more plastic than most people presumed they would be, it offers the therapeutic possibility of returning them toward a more healthy state [after an infection].”

source https://time.com/6306361/covid-19-immune-system/

These Are the 19 People Charged in the Georgia Election Interference Case

Former President Donald Trump and 18 others were indicted by a grand jury in Georgia this week in connection with their alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

The indictment marks the fourth criminal case to be leveled against Trump this year and follows a lengthy investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat who has been looking into the former President’s efforts to interfere with the election results for more than two years.

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A total of 41 charges were filed against 19 individuals, including Trump’s former White House chief of staff, a handful of his former lawyers, and several so-called false electors who have been accused of helping Trump seek to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia. They collectively face a gamut of different charges but are all being prosecuted under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law for conspiring to nullify the election. Willis has set a deadline of noon on Aug. 25 for each of the 19 people charged to turn themselves in.

Here is a look at the 19 defendants charged in the indictment.

Donald Trump

The former President faces 13 criminal charges in the Georgia election meddling case, including violating state racketeering laws and soliciting a public official to violate his oath of office, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiring to file false documents, and making false statements. Willis, the lead prosecutor in the case, accused Trump of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn the 2020 election, refusing to accept his loss and making unfounded assertions of widespread election fraud in Georgia. The indictment also alleges that he pressured top state officials, including Gov. Brian Kemp, to find a way to reverse his loss. In a recorded Jan. 2, 2021 phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump asked the state’s top election official to “find” 11,780 votes—one more than the number he lost by in the decisive swing state. Trump has described the phone call as “perfect” and denied he did anything wrong.

Rudy Giuliani

The former mayor of New York City, who first made his name as a federal prosecutor known for using racketeering charges to pursue organized crime, now finds himself facing a racketeering charge of his own—among several other charges—for his alleged role in the plot to keep Trump in power. As Trump’s personal attorney, Giuliani oversaw Trump’s effort to lobby state legislatures to reverse the outcome of the election. In Georgia, he repeatedly claimed that there was ballot fraud in the state, even though officials had counted the votes three times, won multiple lawsuits over the outcome, and debunked extravagant fraud claims. Yet Giuliani visited the Georgia Capitol in December 2020 to repeat those claims and urge state legislators to use powers they didn’t have to appoint Georgia’s electors and hand the state’s election to Trump. Prosecutors have said that Giuliani was involved in the false electors scheme in a total of seven states that Trump lost. Earlier this year, public information suggests that he could be the unnamed “Co-conspirator 1” in Trump’s federal indictment over election interference brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.

In total, Giuliani faces 13 counts in the Georgia case—the same number as Trump—including violating the state’s racketeering laws, three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, three counts of false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit impersonation of a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

John Eastman

As one of Trump’s lawyers, Eastman was a key legal architect of the effort to keep Trump in power using false electors in swing states that he lost. The indictment alleges that he pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to try to subvert the election during a joint session of Congress where electoral votes would be counted, which Pence refused to do, and helped develop the scheme to put in place a slate of “alternate” electors in seven battleground states who would falsely certify that Trump had won their states. Eastman was likely “Co-conspirator 2” in the earlier federal indictment over election interference.

Read More: Here’s What We Know About the Alleged Trump Co-Conspirators in the Jan. 6 Indictment

He has been charged with nine counts in Georgia, including violating the state’s racketeering laws, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit filing false documents, and filing false documents.

Mark Meadows

The former White House chief of staff was allegedly deeply involved in the efforts to keep Trump in power, organizing phone calls with Georgia state officials and communicating with Trump allies as they pushed election conspiracy theories, according to the indictment. Meadows was particularly interested in Georgia, making a surprise December 2020 visit to a ballot-counting center outside Atlanta and putting Trump on the phone with a top state elections investigator. He faces two charges in the case: violating Georgia’s racketeering laws and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.

Sidney Powell

The lawyer on Trump’s team who memorably vowed to “release the Kraken” faces seven charges in the Georgia indictment for her alleged involvement in the scheme to overturn the election results. Prosecutors said that she advanced false claims of voter fraud and pushed Trump to assert federal authority to seize voting machines that she falsely claimed had been rigged for Biden. Powell also spread a baseless conspiracy theory that Georgia’s Republican governor and secretary of state were taking payoffs to help Biden win—a claim that several Trump allies repudiated and likely led to her exit from Trump’s post-election legal team.

The indictment also alleges that Powell coordinated with local GOP officials and hired a forensics data firm to illegally access sensitive voting data, equipment and software stored on Dominion voting systems in Coffee County, Ga., Michigan and elsewhere. She has been charged with violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state.

Kenneth Chesebro

Prosecutors alleged that Chesebro, an attorney, was the first to suggest the false electors strategy, drafting memos on the topic and marshaling Trump supporters to pose as electors in states won by Biden in order to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. He faces seven felony charges, including conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to file false documents, as well as violation of an anti-racketeering act originally aimed at dismantling organized crime groups.

Chesebro also played a role in the effort to pressure Pence to unilaterally overturn the election, drafting a “President of the Senate” strategy memo that largely laid the groundwork for Trump and Eastman’s last-ditch bid to upend the election. He is likely “Co-conspirator 5” in the earlier federal indictment.

Jeffrey Clark

A former high-ranking lawyer in the Justice Department, Clark had drafted a letter he wanted to send to Georgia officials demanding the state legislature call a special session to examine votes in the presidential election and consider appointing pro-Trump electors, the indictment alleged. In the letter, he falsely wrote that the Justice Department “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.” Trump considered installing Clark as acting attorney general after the Justice Department refused to send the letter. He is likely “Co-conspirator 4” in the earlier federal indictment and faces two charges in Georgia: violating the state’s racketeering laws and a criminal attempt to create false statements and writings.

Jenna Ellis

A right-wing attorney who represented Trump, Ellis planned the hearings before Georgia lawmakers in which Trump allies pushed baseless fraud claims, according to the indictment. She also allegedly wrote at least two legal memos to Trump advising that Pence should block Biden’s victory from being certified by Congress on January 6. Ellis has been charged with violating Georgia’s racketeering laws and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.

Ray Smith

An attorney for Trump’s 2020 campaign in Georgia, Smith filed one of Trump’s election challenges in state court and participated in a Georgia senate hearing in which he falsely alleged widespread fraud and voting irregularities took place in the state’s election, according to the indictment. Prosecutors also said he made false statements about illegal voting by felons and dead people, and attended the meeting of Trump’s electors in Atlanta on Dec. 14, 2020. He faces a total of 12 charges in the Georgia case, including violating the state’s racketeering laws, three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public office, three counts of false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery.

Robert Cheeley

A Georgia-based trial attorney, Cheeley has been charged with 10 crimes after making false assertions at a legislative hearing in Georgia where he claimed election workers were double- and triple-counting votes. At the hearing, he showed video clips of election workers handing ballots at the State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta that he falsely claimed contained evidence of vote-rigging. Cheeley said their actions “should shock the conscience of every red blooded Georgian” and compared it to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, even though there is no evidence that election workers were miscounting votes. His charges include violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery, two counts conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit filing false documents, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, false statements and writings, and perjury.

Michael Roman

A senior Trump campaign staffer, Roman was involved in the unsuccessful plot to use slates of fake GOP electors to block the certification of Biden’s victory, working with other Trump allies including Chesebro to distribute forms and handle logistics of their meetings, the indictment alleged. Emails that he sent about the elector plan were published by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors also said that he promoted baseless claims of massive voter fraud. Roman faces seven charges in Georgia, including violating the state’s racketeering laws, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery, two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, and conspiracy to commit filing false documents.

David Shafer

One of Trump’s false electors in Georgia, Shafer portrayed himself as the “chairperson” of the Electoral College of Georgia and filed 16 fake electoral votes for Trump. He helped organize the meeting of Trump’s electors on Dec. 14, 2020 in which they signed a certificate illegitimately declaring themselves as the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors and falsely claiming that Trump had won. Shafer is the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and previously served in the Georgia state senate. He faces eight criminal charges in the case: violating the state’s racketeering laws, impersonating a public officer, two counts of first-degree forgery, three counts of false statements and writings, and criminal attempt to commit filing false documents.

Shawn Still

A Georgia state senator since January 2023, Still was one of the false electors in Georgia who sought to keep Trump in power after his election defeat. According to the indictment, he signed paperwork illegitimately declaring himself as one of the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors and falsely claimed that Trump had won the state. In an interview with the House Jan. 6 select committee, Still said the fake electors were told by the Trump campaign that their vote was being cast “as a contingency in the event of an overturn.” He faces seven charges in the case: violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, impersonating a public officer, two counts of first-degree forgery, three counts of false statements and writings, and a criminal attempt to commit filing false documents.

Stephen Cliffgard Lee

A pastor from Illinois, Lee is among those implicated in efforts to intimidate Atlanta election workers. Prosecutors said he tried to pressure Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots out of a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, prompting her to call the police three times. He told officers that he was “working with some folks to help Ruby out” and “get some truth.” Lee now faces five charges in the case: violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, two counts of criminal attempt to commit influencing witnesses, conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, and influencing witnesses.

Harrison William Prescott Floyd

Floyd, a Maryland resident and former leader of Black Voices for Trump, was also implicated in the effort to intimidate Freeman, the Georgia election worker. Prosecutors said he arranged a meeting between Freeman and Trevian Kutti, a publicist, who allegedly pressured and threatened her during the meeting, which was videotaped by police. Floyd has been charged with violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, and influencing witnesses.

Trevian C. Kutti

Prosecutors charged Kutti for taking part in a plot to pressure Freeman, the Georgia election worker, into falsely admitting to committing fraud on election day. A former publicist for musicians R. Kelly and Kanye West, Kutti allegedly told Freeman in a videotaped Jan. 4, 2021 meeting that an “armed squad” of federal officers would approach Freeman and her family within 48 hours and that she was there to offer help by connecting her to “very high-profile people that can make particular things happen…in order to defend yourself and your family.” Kutti also allegedly warned Freeman that if she refused, her “freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members” would be disrupted, according to court filings citing police body-camera video. Kutti denied any wrongdoing in an Instagram post, claiming that Freeman “told a chaplain she wanted to provide evidence in exchange for immunity for her and her daughter, but didn’t trust a white man to help her.” Freeman has denied seeking immunity and has been cleared of the baseless election fraud claims.

Kutti faces three charges: violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, and influencing witnesses.

Cathay Latham

Latham was one of the 16 Republicans who served as fake electors in Georgia. She signed paperwork illegitimately declaring herself as one of the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors and falsely claimed that Trump had won the state. The former head of the Republican Party in Coffee County, Ga., Latham was also cited in the indictment for her involvement in an alleged scheme to help grant pro-Trump activists unauthorized access to voting equipment to copy sensitive election data and software in January 2021. She can be seen in surveillance video escorting Trump supporters into restricted areas of the Coffee County election office, where prosecutors allege voter data was breached. 

She faces 11 charges in the case: violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, impersonating a public officer, first-degree forgery, false statements and writings, criminal attempt to commit filing false documents, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state.

Scott Graham Hall

A Trump supporter from the Atlanta area, Hall was allegedly involved in a plan to access election equipment in Coffee County, Ga. Surveillance footage shows he spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office when voting systems were breached in January 2021. In testimony before the grand jury in the Fulton County case, he acknowledged that he gained access to a voting machine. Hall faces seven charges in the case, including  violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state.

Misty Hampton

A former election supervisor for Coffee County, Ga., Hampton allegedly helped Trump supporters access the county’s voting equipment after the 2020 election. She was present in the county election office on Jan. 7, 2021 when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the election equipment and allegedly allowed two other men to access the elections office later that month. The indictment also alleges that she tampered with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines.

She faces seven charges in the case: violating Georgia’s racketeering laws, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state.

source https://time.com/6306031/trump-georgia-indictment-co-conspirators/