Trump Built His Brand Bashing Obamacare. Now it’s More Popular Than He Is.

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A decade and a half ago, the Affordable Care Act set the stage for Donald Trump’s White House victory. The conservative backlash to Democrats’ massive and agenda-setting health care proposal was so strong that it gave rise to a newly empowered far-right faction in Congress, inspired a whole generation of angry political neophytes, and almost made Barack Obama a one-term President. Now, a solid 14 years later, those same rabble rousers seem to have convinced Trump, who spent years raging against the law informally known as Obamacare, that it might be good politics, if not also good policy.

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It may be hard to remember now but Trump built his 2016 campaign on the twin cornerstones of the false and racist claims that Obama was not born in the United States and an unflinching scorn for Obamacare. He rarely passed up an opportunity to decry the law as a “disaster” or proclaim that it “sucks,” and repeatedly said a new effort was just “two weeks” away. As recently as a few months ago, he was vowing to destroy it if granted a second term. “We should never give up!” he declared in a Truth Social post in November.

A funny thing has happened in the last few years, though. Obamacare’s popularity has grown as more and more Americans interact with a health care system fundamentally rebooted in bite-sized pieces, and the potency of the hatred toward the Obamas has faded. (Some ugly comments, however, continue to crop up.) The result is the jabs against the 44th President’s legacy-worthy legislation no longer land with the same thwack, crackling barely as a thud.

Now, in 2024, it seems Obamacare will not be detonating, but maybe even stand to be firmed up if Trump wins a return to the White House. In a new series of messages, the former President is telling voters… Well, here is one of his social media musings in all of its glory:

I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME, I’m running to CLOSE THE BORDER, STOP INFLATION, MAKE OUR ECONOMY GREAT, STRENGTHEN OUR MILITARY, AND MAKE THE ACA, or OBAMACARE, AS IT IS KNOWN, MUCH BETTER, STRONGER, AND FAR LESS EXPENSIVE. IN OTHER WORDS, MAKE THE ACA MUCH, MUCH, MUCH BETTER FOR FAR LESS MONEY (OR COST) TO OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS, WHO HAVE BEEN DECIMATED BY BIDEN, HIS RECORD INFLATION, BAD ECONOMY, AFGHANISTAN CATASTROPHE, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE. CROOKED JOE BIDEN IS, BY FAR, THE WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES! MAGA2024

This typo-laden turnaround—if that’s what it in fact is—was not always guaranteed. When the law was still taking shape, opponents convinced true believers that it would yield a rationing of health care services and perhaps even “death panels” that would do a cost-benefit analysis of treatments. Ultimately, after months of legislative hoop-jumping, the bill cleared Congress without a single Republican vote in support in March of 2010, and 34 House Democrats were against its final passage.

Polling immediately found the overall package to be an electoral clunker. A plurality 44% of voters held an unfavorable opinion of it in May of 2010, and those numbers didn’t really move all the way through Election Day that November, when Democrats suffered a seven-seat net loss in the Senate and dropped 63 seats in the House—the biggest wave since 1948. The unfavorable view of Obamacare was shared by 85% of Republicans that May, according to Kaiser Family Foundation polling. Months of Democratic explaining only shaved that number to 79% as voters headed toward the ballot box,

Put plainly: Obamacare might have been good policy, but it was lousy politics. The 14-month slog to pass the law left even its defenders with a bit of a chip on their shoulders. It wasn’t until fall of 2013 that people were able to sign up for private health insurance through the federal portal that was mired in glitches and bad P.R. For a long stretch there, Obamacare only brought ailments and not ointment. That’s where Trump picked up his initial instincts to seize on an often overlooked portion of the GOP’s base and feed the distrust. 

And that tactic worked, at least until the upsides of the law kicked in. Over time, the polling got better. Parents of young adults realized their children could stay on their health plans as they got their careers going. The price tag for health care hasn’t exactly shrunk; the numbers tell the opposite story, actually. But the patient experience has gotten better even as medical bankruptcies and debts remain high. Still, there has not been a harsh rationing of care, and killing a regime that touches 45 million people—or roughly two-thirds of the size of all Social Security programs—is not a political winner.

That wasn’t necessarily the understanding when Trump and his nominal allies took over Washington in early 2017. Then, nixing Obamacare was atop their agenda. Trump unfurled executive actions—that later were rejected by the Supreme Court—and cajoled allies at the Capitol to move on his demands. But a revolt among moderates and GOP lawmakers in at-risk seats put that sect of the party on a collision course with the conservative ideologues. Party leaders pulled down the whole effort. Trump vowed revenge on those in the party who viewed as traitors.  

“Obamacare unfortunately will explode,” Trump said in March 2017, trying his best to put shine on a loss. “It’s going to have a very bad year.”

Trump’s predictions of collapse proved faulty and now he’s hoping a national amnesia that has excused so many of his reversals carries into this realm. By this point, most Americans are numb to his flip flops; no one was truly surprised when Trump voiced support for TikTok not long after trying to ban it as President. But a TikTok ban was not integral to Trump’s political brand. For years, opposition to Obamacare was, almost as much as his support for a border wall.

It seems Trump has finally wised up to the fact that the health care law—while far from perfect—is doing good work for millions of Americans, perhaps becoming as sacrosanct as Social Security. The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected efforts to scrap the law. Kaiser’s polling has 59% of Americans holding a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, including 33% of Republicans. One report, released March 22, shows 45 million Americans benefiting from some aspect of the law. The days of “repeal and replace” seem to have faded as Trump finally realizes that even the law’s loudest critics lack a backfill program.

Republicans have quietly been positioning their most vulnerable members in this way, telling them that ending a program that has so quickly become enmeshed with day-to-day lives is a losing promise. Forty states, including some Republican-led ones, and the District of Columbia are participating in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion programs. Even weeks ago, as Trump was again thumping his ideas for canceling his loathed predecessor’s legacy law, Republican lawmakers were telling Trump he was on his own with no pals to “walk the plank” with him.

Biden seems eager to goad Trump to either defend his longstanding position or cop to a monumental flip-flop. In his State of the Union speech, the current President poked the former with plenty of pluck: “My predecessor, and many in this chamber, want to take those prescription drugs away by repealing the Affordable Care Act. I’m not going to let that happen. We stopped you 50 times before, and we’ll stop you again.”

For his part, Trump seems to finally realize the 51st time could be the most consequential to him yet: his own campaign this fall. So strong is his desire to reclaim power (and perhaps shut down some federal prosecutions against him), he will set aside more than a decade of anti-Obamacare language with barely a blink.

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source https://time.com/6962662/donald-trump-obama-health-care/

Side Hustle or Scam? What to Know About Data Annotation Work

On TikTok, Reddit, and elsewhere, posts are popping up from users claiming they’re making $20 per hour—or more—completing small tasks in their spare time on sites such as DataAnnotation.tech, Taskup.ai, Remotasks, and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

As companies have rushed to build AI models, the demand for “data annotation” and “data labeling” work has increased. Workers complete tasks such as writing and coding, which tech companies then use to develop artificial intelligence systems, which are trained using large numbers of example data points. Some models require all of their input data to be labeled by humans, a technique referred to as “supervised learning.” And while “unsupervised learning,” in which AI models are fed unlabeled data, is becoming increasingly popular, AI systems trained using unsupervised learning still often require a final step involving data labeled by humans.

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There are no precise estimates of how many people engage in data annotation work. A 2022 Google Research paper approximates the number to be in the millions, and that in future that could grow to be billions. A 2021 study estimated that 163 million people have made profiles on online labor platforms, 14 million of whom have obtained work through the platform at least once, and 3.3 million of whom have completed at least 10 projects or earned at least $1,000. (Though this number is likely to be an overestimate for data annotation, because not all work carried out on online labor platforms is data annotation work.)

Data annotation sites, often subsidiaries of larger companies, can offer legitimate avenues for earning money. As the AI industry continues to grow, demand for human labellers has grown with it. But potential users should be aware that the data labeling industry is poorly regulated, and because the industry is opaque, it can be difficult to navigate. Here’s what to know.

How does someone get started in data annotation?

To qualify for the programs, workers must begin by completing an assessment. The duration of the initial assessment can vary, but users commonly report times as short as an hour and as long as three hours. If a user passes the assessment, they should start to receive invitations for paid work through the site. If the user isn’t accepted into the program, they typically don’t hear anything after completion of the assessment. 

Tasks on the assessment can vary in nature. There is a trend towards more highly-skilled data annotation work, says Sonam Jindal, who leads the AI, Labor and the Economy program at the Partnership on AI, a nonprofit. “We’re going to start seeing that as you have a need to have higher quality AI models, you also need higher quality data,” she says. “We can figure out if something is a cat or a dog, that’s great. Moving on to more advanced tasks—to have more advanced AI that is useful in more specialized real world scenarios—you will need more specialized skill sets for that.”

How much money does the work pay? 

In the U.S., sites often offer around $20 per hour for tasks such as labeling photos and completing writing exercises. More specialized data annotation work can provide higher pay. For example, DataAnnotation.tech offers $40 for coding tasks, and Outlier.ai offers $60 per hour for chemistry tasks.

Outside of the U.S., data labellers are typically paid a lot less, says Jindal. But despite the higher price tag, there are reasons companies may prefer U.S.-based workers, such as tasks that require specific cultural knowledge or skills that are prevalent in the U.S. 

What have people’s experiences been like? 

On online discussion boards, users report a wide range of experiences with data annotation work. Many describe positive experiences—straightforward onboarding processes, an ample supply of tasks, and good pay.

“I have been working at [DataAnnotation.Tech] for almost 2 years,” one user writes. “You make money by the task or by the hour, depending on the project. They pay via PayPal. I have only worked very part-time in the past couple of years and am nearing the $3k mark. In all honesty, I quit for quite a while during my full-time job, but am back at it. I am currently working on two projects, one for $20 per hour and one for $25 per hour. I am making about $400-$500 a week. This is not permanent, as tasks come and go, but it is a great side income to work on if you needed extra work from a laptop or computer.”

Read More: The Workers Behind AI Rarely See Its Rewards. This Indian Startup Wants to Fix That

But some report less positive experiences, such as being told they had passed the assessment, but then never being offered any tasks. More worryingly, some users report their accounts being deactivated with large amounts of earnings yet to be paid out. One user writes that their account was deactivated with $2,869 worth of work unpaid, and that they emailed the companies’ support contacts, but did not hear back.

Data annotation sites often use algorithmic management to keep their costs low, which can result in the poor treatment that many workers experience, says Milagros Miceli, who leads the Data, Algorithmic Systems, and Ethics research group at Weizenbaum-Institut in Berlin. And because the data annotation industry is poorly regulated, companies rarely face consequences for substandard treatment of workers, she says.

What is the data used for?

Some companies, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and Upwork, operate in a relatively transparent manner, with the same brand for both purchasers of data labeling labor and for workers. But others don’t. Remotasks is the worker-facing subsidiary of data labeling provider Scale AI, a multi-billion dollar San Francisco-based business with clients including OpenAI, Meta, and the U.S. military. Similarly, Taskup.ai, DataAnnotation.tech, and Gethybrid.io are reportedly subsidiaries of Surge AI, another data labeling provider that serves clients including Anthropic and Microsoft.

Companies say that this secrecy is required to protect sensitive commercial information, such as new product development plans, from leaking, says Miceli. But they also prefer secrecy because it reduces the chances that they will be linked to potentially exploitative conditions, such as low wages and exposure to traumatic content.

A Scale AI spokesperson directed TIME to a blog post that says that Remotasks was established as separate to Scale AI to protect customer confidentiality and cites examples of steps Scale AI has taken to ensure workers are treated fairly. The spokesperson also said that “Remotasks does not engage in projects that require exposure to sensitive images / videos, and in the event such content appears in a dataset it can be reported and removed from the workstream.”

Surge AI, Taskup.ai, DataAnnotation.tech, and Gethybrid.io did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Data work is fundamentally undervalued, argues Jindal, suggesting that data workers could be paid royalties on the products that they help create. 

“Their knowledge and information is being captured in data and used to train these AI models that are called artificial intelligence,” she says. “It’s actually their human intelligence—our collective human intelligence—that’s being embedded in these models.”

source https://time.com/6962608/data-annotation-legit-tech-jobs-ai/

Fire at Istanbul Nightclub Kills at Least 29 People

(ISTANBUL) — A fire at an Istanbul nightclub during renovations on Tuesday killed at least 29 people, officials and reports said. Several people, including managers of the club, were detained for questioning.

At least one person was being treated at a hospital, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.

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The Masquerade nightclub, which was closed for renovations, was on the ground and basement floors of a 16-story residential building in the Besiktas district on the European side of the city bisected by the Bosphorus. The fire was extinguished.

Gov. Davut Gul told reporters at the scene that the cause of the fire was under investigation and the victims were believed to be involved in the renovation work.

Some of the victims died in hospitals where they were rushed in ambulances, private NTV television reported.

Authorities detained six people for questioning, including managers of the club and one person in charge of the renovations, Gul’s office said.

The nightclub was closed for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and its owners were trying to complete the renovation work in time for next week’s Eid holiday, which follows the month of fasting, NTV reported.

Police sealed off the area while power and natural gas to the neighborhood was cut off as a safety precaution.

Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said authorities were inspecting the entire building to assess its safety.

Several firefighting and medical teams were dispatched to the scene, he said.

The nightclub had not obtained the necessary permit to undertake construction and renovations, the mayor said.

source https://time.com/6962617/istanbul-nightclub-fire-deaths/

Are Muscle-Building Supplements a Good Idea?

Want to put on muscle? Who wouldn’t: It keeps you strong enough to do the things you love now, and it’s a great investment for later, since muscle improves bone mineral density and mobility as you age. People with more muscle mass have better outcomes when they’re sick, and quicker recoveries.

It’s hard not to be tempted by the powders, protein bars, and shakes promising to help. Whey, creatine, and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are among the most popular of these. But what do they actually do, and who (if anyone) should take them? 

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Start with exercise

The first thing to know about muscle-building supplements is that they should not be your top priority. Resistance-training workouts should. These challenge your muscles, which is how to grow them. 

“[You need] a stimulus greater than you’re used to…a load you aren’t used to carrying,” says Abbie Smith-Ryan, director of the applied physiology lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Most of us could stand to do more of it: only about a third of Americans do the recommended amount of muscle-strengthening exercise, according to the latest federal data.

For people who already do strength training, challenging your muscles might look like lifting heavier weights, shortening rest periods, or increasing the number of reps. The key is to “push your muscles to the edge,” says Elisabeth Barton, a muscle physiologist at the University of Florida. “Go to your limits.” This resistance challenge causes slight damage to your muscle, triggering a process called “regeneration,” in which cells activate and help grow new muscle fibers. As they repair the muscle, these cells multiply and fuse, increasing the overall size of the muscle. Resistance exercise also stimulates a cascade of growth signals that prompt muscle fibers to reinforce themselves, capillaries to expand the muscle’s blood supply, and DNA to make more proteins.

Read More: Why Walking Isn’t Enough When it Comes to Exercise

As long as you’re getting enough calories, this process works to increase your muscles. However, if you’re underfueling yourself, these muscle-challenging workouts can actually lead to muscle loss. When your body is forced to choose between growing your muscles and, say, feeding your brain, bigger muscles will always take the backseat. But for most people, the limiting factor for muscle growth is their workout, not a lack of nutrition, Smith-Ryan says.

Assess your diet 

Foods can help you increase muscle mass, says Smith-Ryan. People who are exercising need between 1.4 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight each day (that’s 95 to 136 grams of protein for a person weighing 150 pounds). The majority of that will come from protein-rich foods like chicken breast, turkey, Greek yogurt, milk, and chickpeas. 

However, “it is difficult to get enough macronutrients and the calories we need from whole foods,” since they can be time-consuming to prepare, Smith-Ryan says. “You are what you eat consistently.” And if a supplement helps you fuel your body consistently while you live your life, it might be a good option. 

Whey

Whey can make up for some of what we miss in our diets. It’s considered a high-quality protein because it is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream and contains all nine essential amino acids—so named because the body doesn’t make them, so they must be consumed. (People can get all of the essential amino acids through a well-rounded diet.) It’s useful to have plenty of amino acids on hand—a kind of reservoir—when you train to support the regeneration process, Barton says.

Read More: Magnesium Supplements Are a Buzzy New Sleep and Anxiety Aid. Do They Work?

Using a whey product also boosts your protein without a lot of calories in the form of carbs and fats, Smith-Ryan says. Whey is fast and easy to eat on the go in the form of a smoothie or shake, making it a good option for busy people trying to get enough macronutrients. It might also be useful for people struggling to eat within the recommended window around a workout—15 to 60 minutes prior or 30 to 60 minutes after, Smith-Ryan says.  Before or after a tough workout, a shake might be more appetizing than a chicken breast. 

Creatine

Creatine doesn’t directly influence muscle growth, but it may still offer a little help. In the body, creatine is formed from amino acids and replenishes phosphocreatine, an important energy source for muscle cells. 

“What it does benefit is the length of time you can train,” Barton says. Consuming it before a workout can help you train just a bit longer and eke out a few more reps. Since stimulus is the number-one muscle grower, creatine may help you put in more effective training sessions.

If you’re eating animal protein, you’re already making creatine. A teaspoon of the supplement creatine monohydrate contains the same amount of creatine as one pound of ground beef, Smith-Ryan says. 

Vegetarians may have an even better response to creatine supplementation than omnivores since they tend to have lower creatine levels. One clinical trial found that vegetarians taking creatine showed a bigger increase in creatine stores, lean tissue, and exercise performance compared to non-vegetarians who took creatine. 

However, if you don’t have a resistance training regimen just yet, creatine isn’t for you. “It doesn’t do anything for muscles without the added exercise,” Barton says. 

Similarly, if you’re just starting out an exercise regimen, pass on creatine. This supplement is most useful for people who are already training consistently and looking for incremental improvement. If that’s not you, stick to the basics. Challenging workouts and proper fueling will be your best muscle builders.

BCAAs

BCAAs contain three essential amino acids: leucine, isoleucine, and valine. Unlike the other six essential amino acids, which are broken down in the liver, BCAAs are metabolized in the muscle. “When you see them in higher [amounts] in the blood, it’s a clear indication that muscles are breaking down,” Barton says.

Read More: What the Science Says About the Health Benefits of Vitamins and Supplements

Ads for these supplements suggest that taking them will replenish the muscle and prevent muscle loss, but there isn’t much data to support BCAAs in muscle growth. In fact, a 2017 review of the evidence called these claims “unwarranted.”  “Ten years ago, the science seemed to show you needed BCAAs to build muscle, but what science shows now is you really need all the amino acids, not just BCAAS,” Smith-Ryan says. 

Today, she recommends against a BCAA supplement. Instead, she advises, take a whey supplement for muscle growth or an essential amino acid (EAA) supplement, which contains all nine amino acids you need to get from food. EAAs are a good option if you don’t respond well to dairy and prefer to avoid whey protein. Some people like the taste of fruity EAA drinks over thicker whey protein shakes, Smith-Ryan says. It comes down to personal tastes.

How to take supplements

If you decide to incorporate supplements into your diet, it’s best to choose a product that’s been tested by a third-party organization like NSF, Banned Substances Control Group, or Informed Sport, Smith-Ryan says. She says that whey, creatine, BCAAs, and EAAs have “minimal cause for concern.” However, that’s not universally true for all supplements (which aren’t regulated by the FDA as strictly as drugs) that promise to boost muscle growth. And taking too much of anything can be problematic. 

For instance, consuming large amounts of protein powder can cause digestive problems. This may be caused by a sensitivity to an ingredient in the powder, like dairy, soy, or gluten. It may take a few tries to find the protein powder that works best for you. Symptoms like diarrhea and bloating may also be a result of over-consuming sugar alcohols, a low-calorie sweetener used in many protein powders.

There have been some concerns that creatine causes dehydration, potentially by increasing the water content of muscle cells and thereby increasing the body’s water needs. However, this theory has not been supported in the research literature. Multiple studies have found that creatine actually improves hydration and reduces cramps. Still, multiple creatine brands advise customers to increase their water intake with creatine use. It’s always a good idea to read up on the product and take it as directed, Smith-Ryan says. 

If you’re considering multiple supplements, remember that whey and EAA powders do the same thing, so you’ll only need one. But both can be safely taken alongside creatine, according to Smith-Ryan. 

source https://time.com/6961645/muscle-building-supplements-whey-creatine-bcaas/

Alex Murdaugh Gets 40 Years in Federal Prison for Stealing from Clients and Law Firm

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — For maybe the last time, Alex Murdaugh, in a prison jumpsuit instead of the suit he used to wear, shuffled into a courtroom Monday in South Carolina and was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison.

Murdaugh was punished — this time in federal court — for stealing from clients and his law firm. The 55-year-old disbarred attorney is already serving a life sentence without parole in a state prison for killing his wife and son.

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A report by federal agents recommended a prison sentence between 17 1/2 and just under 22 years.

The 40-year sentence will be insurance on top of insurance. Along with the life sentence, Murdaugh pleaded guilty and was ordered to spend 27 years in prison in state court on financial crime charges. The federal sentence will run at the same time as his state prison term and he likely will have to serve all 40 years if his murder convictions are overturned on appeal.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said he sentenced Murdaugh to a harsher punishment than suggested because Murdaugh stole from “the most needy, vulnerable people” like a client who became a quadriplegic after a crash, a state trooper who was injured on the job, and a trust fund meant for children whose parents were killed in a wreck.

“They placed all their problems and all their hopes on Mr. Murdaugh and it is from those people he abused and stole. It is a difficult set of actions to understand,” Gergel said.

Read More: Alex Murdaugh and the Evolutionary Reason We’re Drawn to Violent Crime

The 22 federal counts are the final charges outstanding for Murdaugh, who three years ago was an established lawyer negotiating multimillion-dollar settlements in tiny Hampton County, where members of his family served as elected prosecutors and ran the area’s premier law firm for nearly a century.

Murdaugh will also have to pay nearly $9 million in restitution.

Prosecutors are asking to give Murdaugh a harsher sentence because FBI agents think he is not telling the whole truth about what happened to $6 million he stole and whether a so-far unnamed attorney helped his criminal schemes.

Murdaugh’s largest scheme involved the sons of his longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in a fall at the family home. Murdaugh promised to take care of Satterfield’s family, then worked with a lawyer friend who pleaded guilty on a scheme to steal $4 million in a wrongful death settlement with the family’s insurer.

In all, Murdaugh took settlement money from or inflated fees or expenses for more than two dozen clients. Prosecutors said the FBI found 11 more victims than the state investigation found and that Murdaugh stole nearly $1.3 million from them.

Murdaugh again apologized to his victims at his sentencing Monday, saying he felt “guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation.”

Just like at his state sentencing, Murdaugh offered to meet with his victims so they can say what they want to say and “more closely inspect my sincerity.”

“There’s not enough time and I don’t possess a sufficient vocabulary to adequately portray to you in words the magnitude of how I feel about the things I did,” Murdaugh said.

Murdaugh blamed nearly two decades of addiction to opioids for his crimes and said he was proud is has been clean for 937 days.

Gergel scoffed at him blaming drugs.

“No truly impaired person could pull off these complex transactions,” the judge said of the maze of fake accounts, juggled checks and money passed from one place to another to hide the thefts for nearly 20 years.

Murdaugh was convicted a year ago of killing his younger son Paul with a shotgun and his wife, Maggie, with a rifle. While he has pleaded guilty to dozens of financial crimes, he adamantly denies he killed them and testified in his own defense. There will be years of appeals in the murder cases.

The case has captivated true crime fans, spawning dozens of podcast episodes and thousands of social media posts. It continued its odd twists in the days before Monday’s sentencing hearing.

Lawyers for Murdaugh said an FBI agent who conducted a polygraph test asked Murdaugh if he could keep a secret, then confided he had just examined notorious Dutch killer Joran van der Sloot.

Murdaugh flunked that polygraph test, according to prosecutors who want a harsher sentence. Each of the 22 counts Murdaugh pleaded guilty to in federal court carried a minimum of 20 years in prison. Some carry a 30-year maximum.

The defense said the alleged odd behavior and unusual questions from a FBI agent caused Murdaugh to fail the test.

Prosecutors want to keep many of the FBI statements secret, saying they are still investigating the missing money and who might have helped Murdaugh to steal it. They say making the information public would jeopardize an ongoing grand jury investigation.

source https://time.com/6962375/alex-murdaugh-prison-stealing-clients-law/

Powerball Jackpot Nears $1 Billion

DES MOINES, Iowa — A nearly $1 billion Powerball jackpot will tempt lottery players Monday night who think they just might hit it rich after three months without a big winner.

No one has won Powerball’s $975 million jackpot since New Year’s Day, a stretch of 38 consecutive drawings without anyone matching the game’s six numbers. If no one wins the jackpot Monday or Wednesday night, the game will match its record number of 41 consecutive drawings on Saturday night.

The reason for the jackpot drought is simple: The odds of winning the top prize are miserable, at 1 in 292.2 million. It’s those odds that create the large jackpots that are designed to attract attention and drive up sales.

The $975 million prize is for a sole winner who makes the rare decision to be paid over 30 years through an annuity. Nearly all winners instead take the cash option, which for Monday night’s drawing would be $471.7 million.

Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

source https://time.com/6962348/powerball-jackpot-1-billion/

What It Means if You Have Borderline High Cholesterol—And What to Do About It

Almost 25 million adults in the U.S. have high cholesterol, which puts them at a higher risk for a heart attack or stroke in the next decade. But a much bigger portion have what’s called borderline high cholesterol, an in-between place that’s not quite high, but not quite within a normal range.

Here’s what to know about borderline cholesterol.

What is borderline cholesterol? 

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High cholesterol is defined as having a total cholesterol number of 240 mg/dL or above. Someone has borderline cholesterol, meanwhile, when their total cholesterol is in the 200 to 239 range.

“We create these thresholds—which are admittedly somewhat artificial—to classify people so we can understand if we need to do further analysis or assessment to understand their risk for cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, past president of the American Heart Association and a professor of cardiology and the chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. There’s some flexibility: Some people may be completely healthy with a total cholesterol level of 235, while others could be at risk at 205. It depends on a person’s other risk factors. But broadly speaking, these thresholds help doctors make decisions about patient care.

People with total cholesterol levels below 200 tend to have a lower risk of developing heart disease, while those over 240 have a higher risk. Those who land from 200 to 239 are somewhere in the middle, Lloyd-Jones says.

Read More: How Stress Affects Your Heart Health

Cholesterol levels in this middle category aren’t automatically dangerous, but they do put you at a greater risk of developing high cholesterol, says Dr. Daron Gersch, a family physician with CentraCare Hospital in Long Prairie, Minn. And if you spend enough time in the borderline category, the effects can add up. People who had borderline high cholesterol for 11 to 20 years had twice as high a risk of developing heart disease compared with people who had high cholesterol for 10 years, according to research published in 2015 in Circulation.

“The analogy that I use is we are marinating our arteries in these cholesterol particles for our entire lifespan,” Lloyd-Jones says. “The more we marinate, the greater the chance that we form plaques. People who have very high levels for a short period of time are at risk of forming plaques, but even people who have modest levels for a long period of time can form plaques.” Those plaques build up and get inflamed over time, leading to heart attacks and strokes.

The type of cholesterol matters

Total cholesterol levels don’t paint the whole picture. What’s most concerning are your levels of low-density lipoprotein or LDL cholesterol, sometimes called “bad” cholesterol, says Dr. Ann Marie Navar, associate professor of cardiology at UT Southwestern Medical School and co-author of the Circulation study. That’s because LDL is the type of cholesterol that builds up in the arteries. A healthy LDL level is less than 100.

High-density lipoprotein or HDL cholesterol, on the other hand, is sometimes called “good” cholesterol because it removes fats from your blood, Gersch says. A healthy HDL level is 60 or higher.

Read More: 7 Myths About Cholesterol, Debunked

“If your total cholesterol is elevated because of the HDL, then you might not be at higher risk and actually might be somewhat protected,” Gersch says, “so it’s very important to not only get your total cholesterol levels, but to make sure it’s broken down into the good and bad cholesterol.”

That’s why it may be more accurate to look at borderline high LDL cholesterol only, Navar says. LDL cholesterol that’s 160 or higher is considered high, while LDL cholesterol from 130 to 159 is borderline, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.

This is a rough categorization and not a guarantee of heart problems to come. “LDL-related cholesterol risk is on a continuum—there isn’t a magic number above which you’re at risk and below which you are not,” Navar says. “The higher your LDL is and the longer your LDL is elevated, the more risk you accumulate over time.”

How to lower borderline high cholesterol

After reviewing your blood test results in the context of your medical history, your doctor will recommend the best course of action to get your cholesterol levels into a healthy range for you.

If you have borderline high cholesterol but you’re otherwise healthy and younger than 60, your doctor may recommend lifestyle modifications that can help lower your overall risk of developing heart disease. These might include getting to and maintaining a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet (and scaling back on starches, alcohol, and high-fat foods), quitting smoking, and getting regular exercise.

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But if you have borderline high cholesterol—and two or more other risk factors for heart disease—your doctor will likely recommend cholesterol-lowering medications to keep your heart safe as long as possible, Gersch says. Those risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, being 60 or older, having a family history of heart disease, being sedentary, or carrying extra weight.

When to get your cholesterol tested

If those risk factors sound familiar, you should start getting your cholesterol tested around age 20. Men without heart disease risk factors can typically wait until 35, and women without these risk factors can wait until 45 to start regular cholesterol testing, Gersch says.

You’ll be retested every four to six years if your test results show your cholesterol is in the healthy range. But you can expect to have bloodwork done more regularly, and as often as annually, if your levels land you in the borderline or high categories or you have other heart disease risk factors.

Having borderline high cholesterol may mean it’s time to start some preventive measures, but it doesn’t mean a heart attack or stroke is inevitable—and your overall health and risk factors for future heart disease matter more than one specific number in your cholesterol panel.

“Is there really a difference between 199 and 201? No, there’s not,” Lloyd-Jones says. Rather, this is a generalized, population-wide relationship between cholesterol and heart disease risk that’s only one piece of the puzzle on the individual level. “These are kind of arbitrary barriers, but they help initially determine how aggressive and intensive you want to be.”

source https://time.com/6962299/borderline-high-cholesterol-what-to-do/