Daily Archives: September 11, 2022

10 Wednesday AM Reads – The Big Picture – Barry Ritholtz

Posted: September 11, 2022 at 2:10 pm

My mid-week morning train WFH reads:

Interest Rates vs. Inflation The average yields savers earned in the 1980s were higher than inflation, including education, healthcare and housing prices. Average yields remained above healing CPI numbers throughout the 1990s and 2000s. (A Wealth of Common Sense) see also Your guide to good news is bad news and bad news is good news High inflation has made for unusual times. (TKer)

The Obscure Economist Silicon Valley Billionaires Should Dump Ayn Rand For: He lived almost 200 years ago, but Henry Georges theories might have something to offer people who want to put their money to good use today. (Vanity Fair)

The ESG Crown Is Slipping, and Its Mostly the Fund Industrys Own Fault: Plain-vanilla stock and bond funds are doing better than the socially responsible ones. (Businessweek)

Classic Car Experts on What to Expect From the Market This Fall:If you want an affordable old Chevy or mid-level Jaguar you may be in luckthey havent been selling. In August alone, overall sell-through rates were 16.3% lower than in August 2021, according to data from Classic.com. (Bloomberg) but see also Americans Snap Up Teslas, Bentleys, Lamborghinis as the Luxury-Auto Market Booms The share of premium vehicles sold has risen, lifted by cash-rich buyers, growing affluence. (Wall Street Journal)

Mark Cuban says pharma villain Martin Shkreli inspired him: The Shark Tank investor and Dallas Mavericks owner takes inspiration where he can get it. (Recode)

Schools Are Back and Confronting Devastating Learning Losses: States direct billions to tutoring and other efforts to reverse pandemic declines in reading scores but have little sense of what works. (Wall Street Journal)

One Data Point Can Beat Big Data: Complex algorithms work best in well-defined, stable situations where large amounts of data are available. Human intelligence has evolved to deal with uncertainty, independent of whether big or small data are available. (Behavioral Scientist)

Three reasons why Taiwanese people are increasingly opposed to reunification with China: Surveys show people in Taiwan are worried about what China might do to their democracy and liberal social values.(Grid)

Sheep Are the Solar Industrys Lawn Mowers of Choice The laborious job of clearing weeds in solar-panel fields has triggered a welcome boom for American shepherds and their flocks. (Wall Street Journal)

Stephen Curry Said Davidson Changed His Life. He Changed Davidson. Curry, the N.B.A. superstar, returned to Davidson College, where he first showed how great he could be. The college, and its community, still feel his impact over a decade later. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out ourMasters in Businessinterviewthis weekend withLynn Martin,President of the NYSE, which is part of the Intercontinental Exchange.NYSEis the worlds largest stock exchange, with 2,400 listed companies and a combined market cap of ~$36 trillion dollars. She began her career at IBM in its Global Services.

Is the S&P 490 cheap?Source: @Callum_Thomas

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10 Wednesday AM Reads - The Big Picture - Barry Ritholtz

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Opinion: Renewables are great and all, but who’ll pay when they fail? – Houston Chronicle

Posted: at 2:10 pm

Regarding Tomlinson: Texas electric grid recommendations are just more crony capitalism costing consumers, (Sept. 7): I have a simple question for Mr. Tomlinson and the others pushing for more adoption of wind and solar generation capacity. Who will fund and invest the necessary capital in fossil fuel plants that will have to sit idly by until needed on days when the renewable sources cant produce their base-load average?

On average, wind accounts for about 20 to 25 percent of power generation in Texas, but some days, it drops well below 10 percent, which means you need at least 15 percent of on-demand generation capacity at the ready. How will this necessary reserve capacity be maintained and funded? Should renewable sources be required to pay fees when they fall below their average? Should home solar users pay a higher rate when they need to draw power from the grid? This is not unlike the issues with electric vehicles and gasoline taxes used to maintain roads. As more and more EVs take to the road, fewer and fewer gas taxes will be collected to maintain the roads.

Renewables are great and all, but how much are we going to have to pay to ensure the power stays on?

Tim Graney, Katy

Texas has enough solar to power the world two times over, Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech, said in a TED talk. Texas can lead the way to a better future.

Alas, our State Energy Plan was written by Gov. Abbott, Lt. Gov. Patrick and House Speaker Phelans appointees. They are like folks driving a car while looking into the rearview mirror. Hayhoe says that will work as long as the road is straight, but when we hit a curve oops.

Texas grid is heading for curves. Because of global warming, air conditioner load will grow and we may have another bad freeze. Were hard at work exporting our natural gas to Europe. Electric vehicle sales in Texas are up 55 percent from last year.

Please vote against Abbott.

Nan Hildreth, Houston

Chris Tomlinson comments acutely on the crony capitalism of the Texas oil industry. What he identifies is endemic to the so-called free market.

Once an industry becomes entrenched, it loses its creative impulses and instead builds defenses around itself. It is not above using political, or state, mechanisms to protect its interests. No entity is more anti-competition than a monopoly or near monopoly. The market winners become anti-free market in reality while retaining rugged individualism in theory.

A hypocrisy develops. There grows a kind of socialism for the (upper) classes and rugged individualism for the masses, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once put it.

The Ayn Rand individualists seem to believe that unleashed capitalism can exist without interference by or with the political system. That is unrealistic. Once wealth has been accumulated, it will be protected by lobbyists, political alliances and ideological friends. This is human nature, something the market absolutists like to remind us over on the port side about.

In the mounting human disaster that results from radical climate change, the reaction of fossil fuel businesses holds back the development of solutions. We need rapid public and private investment in solar, wind and geothermal energy, as well as ecology-friendly energy storage in order to adapt, and to save life on this planet. The old-time religion is not going to get us there. We need a new system of checks and balances for a new, challenging time in history.

As the old Iroquois philosophy teaches, What you do, do for the next seven generations.

Paul L. Rowe, Houston

Regarding With climate legislation complete, Biden looks to presidential power to boost clean energy, (Sept. 6): The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and potential executive action will clean up the air at home, but we still need to fix the problem not yet addressed while we reduce pollution in the U.S., other countries continue to release heat-trapping gases into the air which warms the planet for all of us.

One way to increase responsibility elsewhere is to impose a fee on imported products from nations, such as China, that release more pollution in their manufacturing processes. The EU is rapidly moving forward with a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will force countries trading with it to produce products with a lower carbon footprint or pay a fee. We too can level the playing field by placing a CBAM on foreign manufacturers undercutting our U.S. businesses with their cheaper, higher carbon-intensive goods.

Now it may fall to Republicans to hold other countries accountable. As the new Congress approaches, we urge Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and Houston area Representatives Dan Crenshaw, Troy Nehls, Michael McCaul, Kevin Brady, Brian Babin and Randy Weber to support federal policy that does just that.

We can send a firm message to high-polluting countries if you dont follow our lead, youll pay to do business.

Drew Eyerly and Waqar Qureshi, conservative outreach director and volunteer, Citizens Climate Lobby

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Opinion: Renewables are great and all, but who'll pay when they fail? - Houston Chronicle

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Mothers of the movement: Leadership by alt-right women paves the way for violence – The Conversation

Posted: at 2:08 pm

Only 14 per cent of Capitol riots arrestees to date have been women, and yet women played key leadership roles that are important in understanding alt-right movements. Playing into gendered assumptions, researchers of the alt-right tend to characterize womens participation as passive, with the demographics of Capitol riots arrestees revealing the predominance of white, middle-aged, middle-class men.

However, in our research on digital media and disinformation related to the Capitol riots, we have found that women served key leadership functions in the organization and performance of the riots. They planned events, provided a gentler face for the alt-right, nurtured social cohesion among participants and shaped the direction of the riots.

One commonality between men and women in the Capitol riots was that the vast majority were white. Yet, white women straddle two intersectional identities, one dominant (whiteness) and one oppressed (female).

This allows them to choose when and how to enact each identity. Far-right movements tend to rely on traditional gender roles, contributing in this instance to womens adoption of the labels classic woman or tradwife roles based on sex-realism.

Read more: Tradwives: the women looking for a simpler past but grounded in the neoliberal present

Sex-realism is the notion that women are biologically different from men and thus cannot be equal; while not considered subordinate, traditional roles for women are prescribed. Included in this alt-right form of feminism are race-based pressures to reproduce white children, associated with the racist rhetoric of Make America Great Again.

Women who participated in the Capitol riots performed traditional gender roles intersecting with racist rhetoric and actions. Our study of womens participation at the Capitol riots identified four key groups: mobilizers, QAMoms (female QAnon conspiracy adherents), militias, and martyrs.

Women played key roles in the organization of the Jan. 6 protest, with Women for America First (W4AF) serving as key mobilizers of the march-turned-riot.

In the weeks before the Capitol riots, W4AF held a 20-city bus tour with Bob Cavanaugh, a county commissioner in North Carolina saying, allegedly jokingly: Wed solve every problem in this country if on the 4th of July every conservative went and shot one liberal.

Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also served as an instigator of the riot, posting on the far-right social network Parler and inciting protesters to interfere with the peaceful transition of power. She posted she needed a grassroots army, in a promoted parley that garnered 39 million views, 240,000 upvotes and 12,000 comments.

Mobilizers such as W4AF and Greene are typically well-known, well-funded women who operate behind-the-scenes, exercising a great deal of agency or social power.

Women characterized as QAMoms, may be actual mothers and/or they may act as mothers of the movement. They have been introduced to conspiracy theories like QAnon, which exploit the nostalgia of an idealized past, through hashtags like #SaveTheChildren.

On the surface, this hashtag represents a movement against child sex trafficking, but it has been repurposed by QAnon and QAMoms to promote the far-fetched conspiracy that deep-state Democrats are a cabal of sex-trafficking satanists.

Women drawn to the alt-right through conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns were seen at the Capitol riots leading prayers, providing first aid, organizing food and assuming stereotypical mothering roles. While playing into traditional gendered roles, these forms of mothering are also displays of leadership and social agency.

Alt-right women also, perhaps surprisingly, organize and participate in militias. Jessica Watkins, who served in the U.S. army in Afghanistan, was arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy for her alleged leadership role in the Capitol riots.

Watkins is transgender, and has been subjected to transphobic inhumane treatment in prison, up to and including being housed naked in a brightly lit cell for several days.

She is alleged to have actively recruited members from the Ohio State Regular Militia that she had founded, and to have planned a military style takeover of the Capitol. Watkins was seen during the riots dressed in military garb and moving with militia members in military stack formation.

Shaped by military training, women who participate in and lead militias performed skilled leadership activities in the riots, such as directing and leading others to attack police lines or scale walls, in their alleged attempt to overthrow the state.

At the Capitol riots, some participants dressed up and performed the roles of famous patriotic women. Others like Watkins were at the forefront of the incursion into the Capitol building.

One of the most dramatic deaths of the day was such a woman. Ashli Babbitt, a business owner and self-styled QAMom, was shot attempting to climb through a window to gain access to lawmakers in the House lobby.

Babbitt was immediately claimed as a martyr by far-right groups, barely moments after her death and against the wishes of her family. The outgoing POTUS Trump himself characterized her as having died at the hands of a corrupt government despite the fact that he himself was President at the time of her death.

It may seem nonsensical for women to work against their own interests in supporting Trump, a man accused of sexual assault and misogyny. An explanation is contained within sex-realism, a particular worldview that many QAMoms hold. Instead of pointing to structures of patriarchy as oppressive, sex-realism is used by alt-right women to scapegoat immigrants and people of colour those below them in societys constructed racial hierarchies.

For tradwives, it may be easier to blame outsiders than to confront the fact that oppressive structures and behaviours may be enacted within their very families.

Yet, with the rise of global populism, we should not risk overlooking the contained agency of women participating in alt-right movements, where they mobilize disinformation, reinforce the traditional gender binary, promote conspiracies and enact racism.

The leadership of alt-right women ultimately paves the way for the escalating racist violence of male counterparts within the groups they lead, nurture and mother.

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A Case of Rhabdomyolysis in a Young, Morbidly Obese, Asthmatic Woman With COVID-19 – Cureus

Posted: at 2:08 pm

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that has been shown to have extrapulmonary manifestations. One association with COVID-19 is rhabdomyolysis, which is defined as the breakdown of skeletal muscles. There have been increasing reports of rhabdomyolysis in obese, middle-aged male COVID-19 patients, but limited published cases affecting young adult females. This case discusses the early presentation of rhabdomyolysis in a young, morbidly obese, asthmatic woman with COVID-19.

A 28-year-old, unvaccinated, African American female with past medical history of asthma, tobacco abuse, and a BMI of 46 initially presented to the emergency department with a complaint of fever, cough, and shortness of breath for two days. She was initially diagnosed with an asthma exacerbation and was treated symptomatically, but her symptoms persisted despite treatment. She began to experience myalgias the next day, followed by bilateral lower extremity weakness and dark urine two days later. Urinalysis revealed gross hematuria, 2-4 red blood cells per high-power field, 100 mg/dL protein, >8.0 mg/dL urobilinogen, and 0-2 hyaline casts. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and creatine kinase (CK) levels were noted to be elevated. Her subsequent COVID-19 test was positive, and both blood and respiratory cultures were negative. She was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis which was likely secondary to COVID-19. Her CK, ALT, and AST levels normalized after two weeks with the resolution of rhabdomyolysis, but she continued to have persistent COVID-19 infection and deteriorating respiratory status. She eventually required mechanical ventilation on day 20 and passed away on day 59 of hospitalization.

Rhabdomyolysis is an infrequent finding that can be associated with COVID-19. It has been increasingly reported in middle-aged obese male patients but is far less common in younger females. The presence of elevated CK has been associated with higher mortality among COVID-19 patients, but current literature demonstrates that the majority of these patients are older males. It is imperative to recognize and treat rhabdomyolysis in all patients, particularly younger females, to help mitigate the comorbidities of COVID-19.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus that has resulted in a global pandemic and millions of deaths in the past two and a half years. Initially detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the primary reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 are bats and it is transmitted human to human via respiratory droplets [1]. The pathophysiology of COVID-19 involves the spike glycoprotein (S) of SARS-CoV-2 attaching to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor of host type 2 pneumocytes, followed by cleavage and activation of the ACE2 receptor via type 2 transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2), allowing fusion of SARS-CoV-2 with respiratory epithelial cells [2]. The resulting release of proinflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-, can lead to pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and multi-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) [2]. Although the main target of SARS-CoV-2 is the respiratory system, it has been associated with a myriad of extrapulmonary symptoms including cardiovascular, hematologic, neurologic, and renal systems [3]. Notably, infrequent cases of rhabdomyolysis associated with COVID-19 have been emerging since the onset of the global pandemic [4-9]. A systematic review of case reports over the past two years showed an estimated incidence of rhabdomyolysis between 0.2 and 2.2% among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, in which the median age was 50 years old and 77% comprised males [9]. Among these patients, 36% required mechanical ventilation and 30% died. A 2021 meta-analysis of observational studies reviewing 2471 patients reported an incidence of elevated creatine kinase (CK) of 17%, and it was found that an elevated CK level is associated with a 49% probability of having severe COVID-19 infection or death compared to 24% probability in patients who had a normal CK level [10]. Rhabdomyolysis, which is defined as skeletal muscle breakdown resulting in the release of intracellular components and myoglobin, can have a variety of causes. The most common etiologies of rhabdomyolysis include trauma secondary to crush injury, immobilization, overexertion, and exogenous toxins such as ethanol, illicit drugs, and prescribed medications (particularly statin drugs) [11]. Viruses have also been reported as causative agents, including influenza A & B, enteroviruses, and the original SARS-CoV that was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003 [7,11-13]. Potential mechanisms for viral rhabdomyolysis include direct viral invasion of muscles, cytokine storm within muscle tissue, and destruction of the muscle cell membrane due to circulating toxins [14]. However, the exact mechanism of rhabdomyolysis induced by SARS-CoV-2 is still unknown [14]. COVID-associated rhabdomyolysis may have an initial or late presentation in the disease course [7,8,13,15]. Diagnosis of rhabdomyolysis is made if the serum CK, an enzyme used as an indicator for muscle damage, is elevated above 1000 U/L [6]. Severe rhabdomyolysis is noted if serum CK is above 5000 U/L [6]. Serum myoglobin is not routinely tested in the setting of rhabdomyolysis due to its short half-life of two to three hours, and it is rapidly excreted and metabolized to bilirubin [16,17]. A small amount of bilirubin is excreted as urobilinogen, which can be detected by urinalysis [16,17]. Myoglobin can be detected in the urine if the serum concentration exceeds 1.5 mg/dL, and visible changes in the urine can be seen when urine myoglobin levels reach 100 to 300 mg/dL [16,17]. In this case report, we will explore the clinical course of a young, morbidly obese, asthmatic woman, who contracted COVID-19 and was noted to have rhabdomyolysis as an initial presentation.

A 28-year-old, unvaccinated, African American female with a past medical history of asthma, tobacco abuse, and a BMI of 46 initially presented to the emergency department in September 2021 with a complaint of fever, cough, and shortness of breath for two days. Her initial COVID-19 test was negative, and her symptoms were attributed to asthma which was treated with albuterol. Of note, her last documented asthma exacerbation was one month prior to her current presentation. She continued to have a fever with a peak of 104F along with myalgias and arthralgias which prompted her to return to the ED the following day. Her SpO2 was 98%, and chest X-ray showed signs of lobar pneumonia (Figure 1). She was empirically treated as an outpatient with amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. Her symptoms worsened despite treatment, so she returned to the ED two days later with an additional complaint of dark urine and bilateral lower extremity muscle weakness. She was found to have SpO2 of 93% with desaturation to 80% when walking, which required treatment with supplemental oxygen at 2 L/min via nasal cannula. Urinalysis revealed gross hematuria, 2-4 red blood cells per high-power field, 100 mg/dL protein, >8.0 mg/dL urobilinogen, and 0-2 hyaline casts; urine hemoglobin and urine myoglobin were not part of the urinalysis test. She was retested for COVID-19 which came back positive, but other viral testing was not performed to rule out alternate viral etiologies. She did meet sepsis criteria at that time for possible superimposed bacterial pneumonia (fever, elevated leukocyte count, tachycardia, elevated respiratory rate, and elevated lactic acid > 2.0), thus necessitating hospital admission. She was empirically treated with a course of levofloxacin and ceftriaxone for pneumonia while respiratory and blood culture results were pending; however, both culture results came back negative a few days later. Antibiotics were discontinued after receiving the negative culture results, and she was started on corticosteroids to address acute respiratory distress. Chest CT on day 1 of hospitalization revealed consolidation in the right middle and right lower lobes, but it was negative for pulmonary embolism (Figure 2). CT pulmonary angiogram on day 2 revealed worsening consolidation and pulmonary infiltrates that had become bilateral, and ground-glass type opacities predominant in the central lungs concerning for COVID-19 pneumonia (Figure 3). Meanwhile, her ALT and AST levels increased exponentially over the duration of 12 hours since admission, with a peak on day 5 (Figure 4). Her CK level was also elevated at > 40,000 U/L during the first six days of hospitalization (Figure 5). The following liver enzymes were within normal limits:ALP (75 U/L) and gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) (45 U/L). Total bilirubin (1.6 mg/dL)and international normalized ratio (INR) (0.95) were also within the normal range. Urine culture was negative and repeat testing four days later remained negative. A comprehensive metabolic panel showed creatinine levels between 1.08 and 1.32 mg/dL and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) between 48 and 59 mL/min/1.73 m2 corresponding with the timeframe of the transaminitis. Blood ethanol and acetaminophen levels were within normal limits. Urine Legionella antigen, urine drug screen, and hepatitis panel were negative. Her liver ultrasound revealed a normal biliary tract without evidence of fibrosis. Gastroenterology was consulted, and transaminitis was attributed secondary to rhabdomyolysis likely associated with COVID-19. It was suggested that transaminitis would improve once CK level normalized, so conservative management of rhabdomyolysis with intravenous fluids was advised. She was initially unable to receive remdesivir treatment for COVID-19 due to transaminitis, and an IL-6 inhibitor was contraindicated given her underlying sepsis. She did receive corticosteroids and supplemental oxygen for the treatment of COVID-19. After day 8, her CK, ALT, and AST levels started to decrease, but her respiratory status continued to deteriorate despite previous treatment with corticosteroids. Her supplemental oxygen requirement steadily increased from 2 L/min on admission to 30 L/min via high-flow nasal cannula the following week and up to 60 L/min two weeks after admission. She was retested for COVID-19 on day 16 which came back positive. Her respiratory and blood cultures were repeated at the same time, and they remained negative. Given her negative respiratory and blood cultures, her worsening respiratory status was attributed to COVID-19. She was started on remdesivir treatment after resolution of rhabdomyolysis and transaminitis; this was the only available option during her hospitalization in September 2021 given the supply shortages at that time. Maximal medical therapy was reached without improvement of her respiratory status, and she eventually required intubation and mechanical ventilation on day 20. She received propofol, cisatracurium, and epoprostenol while being mechanically ventilated, and she required upwards of 15 cm H2O of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). Attempted ventilator weaning trials were unsuccessful as she rapidly desaturated each time. She developed tongue ulceration after prolonged intubation on day 44, followed by sepsis.CT angiogram of the chest on day 57 revealed diffuse pulmonary fibrosis with associated ground-glass attenuation, bilateral centrilobular consolidations, and traction bronchiectasis (Figure 6). These findings were attributed to the sequelae of severe COVID-19 pneumonia. Her family decided to switch to comfort care, and the patient passed away on day 59.

This case describes how rhabdomyolysis associated with COVID-19 can be an initial transient presentation in a young adult female, in contrast to several reported cases involving middle-aged male patients [6,7,9,14,15]. Although there is one reported case of a 19-year-old female with an initial presentation of rhabdomyolysis, she had a daily strength training routine which likely contributed to muscle damage, whereas our patient did not have any preceding history of crush injury or strenuous exercise prior to rhabdomyolysis [5]. Our patient did eventually require sedation and immobilization on day 20 for mechanical ventilation; however, this would not explain her elevated CK levels on admission. If immobilization was the cause of rhabdomyolysis, then CK level would have risen after she was placed on mechanical ventilation. Furthermore, her negative urine drug screen, normal blood ethanol level, and negative medication history exclude exogenous toxins as the etiology of rhabdomyolysis. Her initial elevated CK of >40,000 U/L on admission is notable since this could have been a prognostic indicator for her poor outcome. According to two systematic reviews of case reports, an elevated CK level with or without overt rhabdomyolysis was associated with higher severity of COVID-19 infection and death [9,10]. Although there is no causal relationship between elevated CK level and poor prognosis, perhaps it could have been used as a sign to initiate more aggressive treatments early on to help mitigate further complications.

Her urinalysis findings are also pertinent in the setting of rhabdomyolysis. Although urine hemoglobin and urine myoglobin were not measured, the presence of elevated urinary protein and urobilinogen may indicate urinary excretion of myoglobin metabolites. As a brief review, myoglobin is metabolized into bilirubin, which is converted to urobilinogen by gut bacteria [16,17]. Proteinuria can be attributed to the myoglobin release and degradation of other proteins from myocytes [16]. In the setting of elevated CK level in our patient, she was likely releasing large amounts of myoglobin that was degraded into bilirubin, which likely contributed to the presence of elevated urobilinogen in the urine. Despite the lack of urine hemoglobin and myoglobin, the presence of proteinuria and urobilinogen can serve as a proxy for determining myoglobinuria.

One study has suggested that pre-existing asthma is not a significant risk factor for contracting COVID-19 but having an acute exacerbation within the past year is associated with higher mortality [18]. Review of the patients chart reveals that she had an acute asthma exacerbation just one month prior to contracting COVID-19. Studies have suggested that ACE2 expression is reduced in asthmatics due to the Th2-mediated inflammation of epithelial cells, which could decrease susceptibility to COVID-19 [18]. However, poor asthma control and exacerbation place the patient in a proinflammatory state that could lead to a cytokine storm, thus increasing the risk of mortality from COVID-19 [18].

There is one clear predisposing factor for our patient, which is morbid obesity. The state of chronic inflammation seen in obese patients predisposes them to cytokine storm seen in severe COVID-19 infection [19]. Furthermore, obese patients are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 due to the higher expression of the ACE2 enzyme in adipose tissue [19]. Intriguingly, our patient is both morbidly obese and asthmatic, so it is difficult to determine whether her ACE2 expression is higher or lower than average. Regardless, her morbid obesity and recent asthma exacerbation likely had synergistic effects that increased the disease severity and poor outcome.

One limitation of this case report is the lack of urine myoglobin level in our patient. As discussed above, the presence of elevated urinary protein and urobilinogen can be used to determine myoglobinuria in the setting of myalgias and elevated CK. Alternatively, we could directly check urine myoglobin levels in patients who present with myalgias, but this may be impractical due to additional financial burden. Another limitation is the lack of a formal workup for a possible underlying autoimmune disease. Given that our patient is a young African American female, she fits the demographic that has a higher probability of having an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder which could have contributed to her robust inflammatory response to COVID-19. Since rhabdomyolysis can have a vague initial presentation, it may be prudent to check serum CK levels in patients that test positive for COVID-19, particularly in obese patients. If serum CK level exceeds >1000 U/L and rhabdomyolysis is diagnosed, then conservative treatment with intravenous fluids can prevent the development of acute kidney injury and help reduce the disease burden. Current literature suggests that elevated CK with or without overt rhabdomyolysis is associated with increased mortality among COVID-19 patients, but the limited sample size leaves room for more investigation [9,10]. As a scientific community, it is our responsibility to determine which patients are at a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 complications. It may be reasonable to include the serum CK level in the initial workup of COVID-19, and if this level is high, then it could alert for more aggressive measures to help prevent future comorbidities.

Rhabdomyolysis is a rare finding associated with COVID-19 that can have an early or late presentation. It is predominantly seen in middle-aged obese males, but it can be seen in younger females as well. The presence of elevated CK has been associated with higher mortality among COVID-19 patients, but current literature demonstrates that the majority of these patients are older males. There is no causal relationship between rhabdomyolysis and poor prognosis for COVID-19. However, it is still imperative to recognize and treat rhabdomyolysis in all patients, particularly younger females, to help mitigate the comorbidities of COVID-19.

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A Case of Rhabdomyolysis in a Young, Morbidly Obese, Asthmatic Woman With COVID-19 - Cureus

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Chess cheating drama: What are the different ways to cheat in chess? – The Indian Express

Posted: at 2:06 pm

The chess world was recently rocked when five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen decided to quit the $500,000 Sinquefield Cup after losing a game to 19-year-old American Hans Niemann. While Carlsen himself refused to divulge details of the reason he quit, only sharing a cryptic post on Twitter a video of Jose Mourinho saying, If I speak I am in big trouble. Big, big trouble other top players suggested that he quit because he suspected Niemann of cheating.

Niemann gave an explosive interview on Tuesday saying hes prepared to play naked in order to prove his innocence while also admitting he has cheated in the past as a 12-year-old and 16-year-old.

Players speaking out against Niemann without any real proof saw him being uninvited from Chess.coms global chess championship and also being removed from their website.

While Niemanns case will take some time to die down, cheating/colluding has never been alien to chess. The sport has a long history of it and it kind of amplified with the advent of online chess.

Cheating over-the-board

Before tournaments came up with stringent rules to counter cheating in over-the-board chess tournaments, an effective method of cheating was to hide a device on ones person. Whether it was hiding chess engines in ones shoes or other apparel, it was done.

One of the easiest methods of cheating is to receive visible assistance. Whether its a coach, someone from the family, or a friend, the person stands behind different boards to communicate moves through non-verbal cues.

Its also possible to develop an inconspicuous code to transmit moves.

A very creative way of cheating was used by a former mayor of the northern town of Buccinasco, near Milan. Loris Cereda was subsequently banned for allegedly using dark glasses that had been fitted with a hidden micro camera at three tournament games. The glasses sent live images of his opponents moves to a powerful chess software programme that then dictated through a secret earpiece the correct counter-move to make.

Another issue is players using bathroom breaks in between moves. While bathroom breaks cannot be limited, there have been instances of players receiving assistance while on these breaks.

In over-the-board games, though cheating does occur, the fact that players sit face to face makes it much easier for an arbiter to detect any sort of hanky-panky.

Collusion, a form of cheating

Over the years, there have been many accusations of collusion, either of players deliberately losing, or of players agreeing to draws to help both players in a tournament.

During the Cold War, Soviet players were accused of colluding with each other by setting up easy draws with each other so that they could focus their attention and preparation on matches against non-Soviet players, or outright resignations if a favored player played a lesser player. The most famous alleged instance was at the 1962 Candidates Tournament for the 1963 World Chess Championship, where the three top-finishing Soviet players finished with draws in all their matches against each other.

Cheating in online chess

The most common way of cheating while playing online is using a chess engine. Programmes, which power chess engines, can help a player play accurately and quickly.

What can also happen is that players can also get a prompt from others on an electronic device. Its tough to detect cheating online as the game is being played over a screen.

Ways of countering cheating in online chess

Since cheating in online chess is becoming a real menace, different tournaments have come up with effective ways of countering it. Players are asked to go into screen sharing mode during play, which would be viewed by the chief arbiter. Tournaments also mandate that webcam have to be focused on each player and additional recording cameras at different angles were to be operational. Players arent allowed to keep any other software open on the computer.

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Chess cheating drama: What are the different ways to cheat in chess? - The Indian Express

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Formula 1 2022: How to Watch the Italian Grand Prix Today – CNET

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Max Verstappen appears unstoppable. The Red Bull superstar won last week's Dutch GP and has now won four consecutive races and is well on his way to his second consecutive championship. His dominance has taken the wind out of the sails of his competitors: He now holds a commanding 109-point lead in the Drivers' Championship standings over both Sergio Perez, his Red Bull teammate, and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who are tied on points. Red Bull also leads Ferrari and Mercedes in theConstructors' Championshipas F1 heads to Monza for Ferrari's home race, the 2022 Italian Grand Prix.

Meanwhile, F1 megastar Lewis Hamilton placed fourth last week, while George Russell, his Mercedes teammate, placed second. Hamilton remains in sixth place in the overall standings, while Russell has moved up to fourth.

Can Leclerc grab some wins to push Verstappen at the top of the standings? Will Hamilton be able to help Mercedes overtake Ferrari for second place in the Constructors' Championship?

The Italian Grand Prix airs today, Sept. 11, at 8:55 a.m. ET (5:55 a.m. PT) on ESPN 2.

Those looking to follow all the drama will need access to ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPNews to catch every second of the action all season long. The entire race weekend, including practice sessions and qualifying, will be shown in the US on ESPN's family of television networks.

No single provider has exclusive rights to the network, so there are plenty of ways to get ESPN and watch the races without cable. We've broken down everything you need to know in order to stream today's race, and all the other F1 races this season.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen looks to take a stranglehold on the Drivers' Championship.

What is F1 and how is it different from IndyCar?

Both IndyCar and F1 are open-wheeled, single-seater racing formats. This means that the cars can only fit one person and have uncovered wheels that protrude from the body of the vehicle. Despite their basic similarities, F1 and IndyCar offer very different experiences.

In F1, there are only 10 teams, with two drivers apiece for a total of 20 drivers. Most races must go for 305 km, which is about 190 miles. Each driver needs to use two different tires in the race, so a pit stop is mandatory, though cars are not allowed to refuel. Races average around two hours in length and are held at venues all over the world.

Teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year developing their cars. All cars must have certain elements -- for example, gearboxes must have eight gears plus a reverse and last for six consecutive races -- but teams have leeway to tweak and change some parts of their car, including their engines, in the pursuit of speed.

In contrast, the cars featured in IndyCar are more standardized. They all have the same aerodynamic kit and chassis and can only be powered by one of two engines -- either a Honda or a Chevrolet. That said, teams are allowed to develop some of their own parts, like dampers and some of their suspensions.

IndyCar races occur on a wide range of tracks, from fast ovals to road and street courses. The length of the races also varies, with some, like the Indianapolis 500, lasting 500 laps and taking over three hours to complete. Not surprisingly, refueling during pit stops is a big part of the strategy during IndyCar races. Teams can field more than two cars, meaning that the amount of drivers on the grid fluctuates from race to race.

IndyCar is mostly considered an American sport and does not have the same level of money and glamour associated with it compared to the globe-hopping F1 circuit.

Why should I care about F1?

F1 races might best be described as a sort of action-packed chess match that takes place while drivers are throttling around a track at close to 200 mph. Teams need both strategy and skill to compete against some of the best minds in motorsports.

F1 is also full of strong personalities. The Netflix documentary series F1: Drive to Survivefollows many of the teams and drivers over the course of a year and has helped raise the profile of the sport in the US. Released in March, season four of the series chronicles last year's tight championship race between rivals Verstappen and Hamilton. It also focuses on the internal battles between drivers on the same team, while giving viewers a peek into the tense, pressurized world of elite racing.

Does F1 stream on ESPN Plus?

ESPN does not air any F1 coverage on its ESPN Plus streaming service. If you want to watch the practices or races you will need a television provider of some kind or to pay for F1's $80 per season TV Pro subscription.

Races are held on Sunday and are usually spaced two weeks apart. Here's the entire schedule, all times ET:

Race weekends normally start on Friday with multiple practice runs and continue on Saturday with qualifying. The races themselves take place Sunday. ESPN typically airs practices and qualifying on a mix of ESPN 2 and ESPNews, while the races tend to air on ESPN. F1 events in North America often land on ABC.

Here are some of the best ways to catch the entire race weekend without cable.

You can catch the entire race weekend with a subscription to YouTube TV. ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPNews are all included in the package, which means you'll have all the channels you need in order to watch every second of the action.

Read our YouTube TV review.

Hulu Plus Live TV is a little more expensive than YouTube TV, but it also offers all the channels you need to watch every second of race weekend. As an added bonus, Hulu Plus Live TV comes with the rest of the Disney Bundle, which includes a subscription to Disney Plus, as well as ESPN Plus. F1 races don't air on ESPN Plus, but the service offers a ton of other content for die-hard sports fans.

Read our Hulu Plus Live TV review.

Sling TV's $35 Orange plan might be a good choice for F1 fans who are primarily looking to just watch the races on Sundays. This plan is one of the cheapest ways to get access to ESPN and ESPN 2. Those looking for ESPNews will have to opt for the $11 Sports Extra ad-on. Sling TV lacks ABC, which could be a problem for fans hoping to catch the F1 races in North America.

Read our Sling TV review.

FuboTV costs $70 per month and includes ABC, ESPN and ESPN 2. The base package lacks ESPNews, but you can add it for an extra $8 a month with the Fubo Extra Package or pay for the $80-a-month Elite streaming tier that includes Fubo Extra. Check out whichlocal networks FuboTV offers here.

Read our FuboTV review.

DirecTV Stream is the most expensive live TV streaming service. Its cheapest, $70-a-month Plus package includes ESPN, ESPN 2 and ABC, but you'll need to move up to the $90-a-month Choice plan to get ESPNews. You can use itschannel lookup toolto see which local channels are available in your area.

Read our DirecTV Stream review.

For gearheads looking to get every angle on the action, F1 offers its own streaming service. F1 TV Pro costs $80 per season and gives fans access to all races from F1, F2, F3 and Porsche Supercup. You'll be able to livestream every track session from all F1 grand prix and have access to all driver onboard cameras and team radios. You'll also be able to watch full on-demand races, replays and highlights, along with F1's historic race archive.

F1 also offers a TV Access Plan for $27 per year, which only gives you on-demand access to races once they have been completed. Users will still be able to view all F1 onboard cameras, along with full replays of F1, F2, F3 and Porsche Supercup. It also includes the historic race archive.

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The Machines That Made 500 Years of Circumnavigation Possible – Popular Mechanics

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On September 6, 1522, a Spanish carrack named Nao Victoria arrived in the coastal waters of Sanlcar de Barrameda, Spain. Although carracks were a common sight on the Atlantic, the Victoria was one-of-kind because it had done something no ship had ever achievedit had traveled the entire globe.

Of the original five ships that set out from Spain three years earlier under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, only the Victoria survived the journey. Even Magellan, who originally set out to find western sea routes to Indonesia, didnt live to see his home country again. It was the Basque navigator Juan Sebastin de Elcano who finished what Magellan had started.

The daring adventures and harrowing dangers of the Magellan-Elcano expedition were just a prologue for the next 500 years of exploration, as humans dreamed up new ways to traverse the entire planet, whether by land, sea, air, or beyond. Although all these globe-trotting treks took place in different eras and circumstances, they all required the same three ingredients: bravery, willpower, and unbelievably impressive engineering.

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For a ship of legend, the Nao Victoria is of humble origins. Originally built as a maritime commerce ship traveling between England and Spain, the aging ship underwent a major retrofit for its globe-trotting journey. The Victoria was very old and patched up, a Portuguese consul said in the summer of 1519. I should be ill inclined to sail in them to the Canaries. However, the Victoria did have one thing going for itit was a carrack, one of the most important designs in shipbuilding history.

The multi-mast carrack derives from the single-mast cog that dominated European seafaring in the Middle Ages. The Victoria was built with a carvel-planking method (as opposed to the clinker method) wherein wood planks were laid side-by-side rather than overlapping to increase the ships strength. Because of this construction, as well as its larger size, the Victoria could haul men and cargo while remaining stable in the open ocean, a perfect combination for a globe-trotting vessel. Eventually, carracks evolved into the more nimble galleons of the 16th century. In fact, the next circumnavigation of the globe, nearly 60 years after Victorias journey, took place aboard Sir Francis Drakes English galleon named the Golden Hind.

[Extra Credit: America Once Experimented with Building Concrete Ships. Heres Why It Didnt Pan Out]

For 300 years, many more explorers, captains, and crew circumnavigated the globe under various flags, but all those voyages had one thing in common: they relied on the winds. That all changed with the Royal Navys HMS Driver, a 1,058-ton, 180-foot-long paddlewheel sloop that traveled the globe from 1842 to 1847. Inside the ships bowels was a 280-horsepower direct action steam engine named Gorgon (because it was first fitted to the HMS Gorgon in 1837) and boilers that were each fed by a mechanical stoking apparatus.

The HMS Driver was the first steamship to ever visit the Land Down Under, and when Australians first spotted the ship in December 1845, they thought it had caught fire due to its billowing smoke. The following year, during a trip to New Zealand, the local Mori gathered to watch the ship driven by fires sail against the wind and tide. The HMS Drivers biggest shortcoming wasnt its engine, but the coal needed to feed it because bunkering stations in the mid-19th century were few and far between. Due to its voracious diet of combustible rock, the HMS Driver arrived back in England on May 14, 1847, and the Age of Sail came to an end.

[Up Next: Why Herons Aeolipile Is One of History's Greatest Forgotten Machines]

Little more than two decades after Orville Wright flew the worlds first airplane some 180 feet, the U.S. Army Air Service wanted a plane to circumnavigate the globe. The winning design brought together two legends of aviation when industrialist Donald Douglas offered a modified version of his DT bomber with the help of aircraft designer Jack Northrop. Called the Douglas World Cruisers (DWC), the four floatplanes were outfitted with more everythingmore wingspan, more cooling capacity, and more fuel. For comparison, the original DT bomber held about 115 gallons of fuel, whereas the DWC could haul 644 gallons thanks to six fuel tanks stored in its wings and fuselage.

The Douglas World Cruisers took off on their historic, round-the-world flight on April 6, 1924, from Seattle, Washington. One of the planes crashed in the Alaskan mountains weeks later (thankfully the crew survived) and a second plane had to be swapped out in Nova Scotia. After flying 27,553 miles, the remaining three DWCs landed in Seattle on September 28 with the entire trip lasting 175 days with 74 stops in 28 countries.

[Blast From the Past: The Age of Aerial Monsters: PM Meets the DC-4 in 1938]

Only five years after the Douglas World Cruisers completed their trans-global flight, a completely different kind of aircraft attempted the same feat. Although the worlds longest airship (at 776 feet) when it was built and a demonstration of the amazing airships to come, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin wasnt optimally aerodynamic or structurally effective due to size limitations imposed by the physical dimensions of the hangar in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The airship was constructed with girders made from Duralumin (an early kind of aluminum alloy), 17 lifting gas cells, 12 fuel gas cells, and five 550-horsepower engines.

Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst sponsored the round-the-world trip, and the Graf Zeppelin began its historic journey on August 7, 1929. Beginning in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the zeppelin traveled to Friedrichshafen to Tokyo to Los Angeles and then finally back to Lakehurst. The entire journey lasted only 21 days.

[Read This Next: Why the Return of the Airship Makes More Sense Than Ever]

During the 1920s and 30s, airplanes and airships vied for aerial supremacy, but after World War II, the victor was clear: planes were the future of airpower. Four years after the Allied victory, the U.S. decided to show off to a rising Soviet Union that its aerial might could reach anywhere in the world, and what better way to do that than pulling off the worlds first nonstop circumnavigation? The plane selected for the job was a B-50 bomber named Global Queen, but after experiencing engine trouble, the understudyanother B-50 Superfortress named Lucky Lady IIwas tasked with making history.

After being outfitted with an extra fuel tank in its bomb bay, the B-50 set off from Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, on February 26, 1949. Its name, Lucky Lady, was prescient because in order for the mission to succeed, the B-50 needed to perform eight refueling operations (a procedure thats even dangerous today) at four separate locations. Each operation involved KB-29M Superfortresses stationed around the world to meet up with the Lucky Lady II to top off its fuel tanks. On March 2, after a 94-hour-and-1-minute flight, Lucky Lady II landed safe and sound at Carswell a full two minutes ahead of schedule.

[Nerd Out: The 30 Most Important Planes of All Time]

In 1950, adventurists Ben and Elinore Carlin set out to drive across the world. There were a few reasons why no one had ever attempted the herculean task, but the big one was that it was physically impossible as large stretches of water kept any vehicle from attempting the journey. But that didnt stop the Carlins, who in the late 1940s spent $900 to buy an amphibious vehicle nicknamed the Seep, which was a seaworthy version of the General Purpose Willysthe automotive workhorse behind the U.S. military in World War II. Carlin then outfitted the dash with aircraft navigational equipment, added a two-way radio, and hid auxiliary fuel tanks in the bow and rudder. The vehicle, appropriately named the Half-Safe, could now transport 220 gallons of fuel (instead of the usual 12 gallons) and weighed upward of three tonsall with only a puttering 60-horsepower engine.

The most harrowing leg of Carlins journey was crossing the Atlantic from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Azores off the coast of Portugal. After seven attempts, the Carlins finally made it and then continued eastward. Although Elinore bailed on the journey once they reached Australia, Carlin kept on, crept up to the Aleutian Island chain, and finally arrived in Montral in May 1958. The entire trip had lasted eight years, crossed 11,000 miles of sea, nearly 40,000 miles of land, and cost about $35,000. To this day, its still the only circumnavigation completed by an amphibious vehicle.

[Bonus: Watch This Badass Tribute to the Armys Legendary Humvee]

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet Union played a decades-long game of technological chess, and in the spring of 1960, the U.S. Navy scored a major point with the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. Much like Lucky Lady IIs nonstop flight, the USS Tritons trip to sea, known as Operation Sandblast, was also a demonstration of the U.S.s advanced military capabilities. However, the Triton had something the Lucky Lady didnt: two nuclear reactors. This twin nuclear propulsion plant gave the Triton a top speed of around 35 miles per hour when submerged and also meant that the sub didnt need refueling. At the time of its construction, the USS Triton was the longest and largest U.S. submarine ever built.

The Triton put out to sea on February 15, 1960, and sailors were only told that theyd likely be offshore for longer than usual. It wasnt until they reached Brazil that the crew was finally let in on the historic nature of their mission. From there, the Tritons path mostly followed the Magellan-Elcano expedition chartered four centuries earlier, but instead relied on nuclear fission rather than winds to get them home. On May 10, 1960, after 60 days and 21 hours at sea, the submarine reemerged near Groton, Connecticut, having completed the worlds first submerged circumnavigation.

[Dive Deeper: 60 Years Ago, a Submerged Submarine Circled the Globe for the First Time]

For centuries, circumnavigation was a completely terrestrial effort, but that all ended on April 12, 1961, when a derivative of the R-7 rocket launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Vostok 1 into Earths orbit. Vostok I had a near spherical cabin with three portholes and external radio antennas. The life-support system, instrumentation, and ejection seat were also located in the cabin, according to NASA. Attached to this cabin were chemical batteries as well as orientation rockets for when the spacecraft was safely in orbit. Unlike previous globe-spanning adventures, this journey required no actual navigation as ground crews controlled the spacecraft the entire flight.

After completing one orbit, Vostok 1 plummeted toward Kazakhstan, and when the spacecraft reached an altitude of 4.3 miles, Gagarin ejected and safely returned to Earth via parachute. What had once taken European explorers years to achieve, Vostok 1 and its R-7 rocket pulled off in just 1 hour and 48 minutes.

[Stay Up-to-Date: 50 Years Later, the Soviet Unions Luna Program Might Get a Reboot]

When it comes to human exploration, Apollo 11 receives a lot of attention. But eight months before Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind, Apollo 8 was the first mission to ferry humans beyond Earth orbit and complete the first circumnavigation of the Earth-Moon system. As a dress rehearsal for NASAs ultimate objective of placing a human on the moon, Apollo 8 crucially tested NASAs trans-lunar injection plan (the method for successfully entering orbit around the moon).

On December 21, 1968, the Apollo 8 crew, perched atop the powerful Saturn V rocket with its 7.6 million pounds of thrust, launched toward the moon and entered lunar orbit three days later. The astronauts orbited the moon ten times before setting course for home and splashing down in the Pacific on the morning of December 27 with all mission objectives achieved. Within just six days, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders traveled 234,474 miles, or roughly ten times the number of miles needed to circumnavigate the Earth.

[History Lesson: The Oral History of Apollo 11]

Helicopters are amazing machines, but theyre not exactly known for long-distance endurance. This fact didnt dissuade 23-year-old Ross Perot Jr., son of the famous third-party presidential candidate, from trying to pull off the feat. Perot opted for a Bell 206L LongRanger II helicopter, painted it in bright colors for extra visibility, removed all nonessential gear, and added safety and navigation equipment along with a 151-gallon auxiliary fuel tank. This extra fuel storage allowed the helicopter, named the Spirit of Texas, to fly roughly eight hours without refueling (though a C-130 cargo plane still trailed the helicopter with extra fuel and supplies).

On September 1, 1982, Perot and his co-pilot Jay Coburn lifted off from Fort Worth, Texas, and headed east. The flight went mostly according to plan, though Perot was forced to make a dice-y landing during a powerful storm on top of a container ship in the North Pacific. After 29 days, the chopper returned to Texas, having traveled 26,000 miles through 26 countries and refueling a total of 54 times. Today, the Spirit of Texas is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

[Extra Credit: The 15 Most Important Helicopters of All Time]

As technology progresses, circumnavigating the world seems less and less impressive. But try to do it without using fuel, and suddenly the spirit of exploration is born anew. The first foray into this new, green future belongs to the Solar Impulse 2, which in the summer of 2016 became the first solar-powered aircraft to travel across the globe. With a wingspan of 235 feet (thats wider than a Boeing 747), the Solar Impulse 2 packs 17,000 solar cells on its wings that charge its onboard batteries, which take up a quarter of the planes 5,511-pound weight. The aircraft can fly for six days without needing to land, cruising at 29,000 feet during the day before dropping to 5,000 feet at night to conserve energy. As for drawbacks? It only travels at around 45 miles per hour.

That middling speed is why it took pilot Betrand Piccard 505 days (23 days of actual flight time) to circumnavigate the Earth. But Piccards goal wasnt to make a feasible aircraft to replace gas-guzzling jumbo jets by tomorrow, but to display the possible power of solar and other renewable energies and to help propel humanity into a greener future. After all, in less than 500 years, humans went from storm-tossed wooden ships to spacecraft capable of traveling beyond the embrace of Earths gravitational pull.Who knows where the next 500 years might take us.

[Before You Go: This Solar Tower Can Transform Water, Sunlight, and Carbon Dioxide Into Jet Fuel]

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The Machines That Made 500 Years of Circumnavigation Possible - Popular Mechanics

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Donald Trump revives claims the FBI planted evidence in Mar-a-Lago raid …

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Former president Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a rally to support local candidates at the Mohegan Sun Arena on September 03, 2022 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Donald Trump has again claimed the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago.

It's a claim his lawyers have not made in court appearances.

Trump has offered shifting defences in response to the August 8 raid.

Donald Trump has made fresh claims that the FBI planted evidence in the August 8 search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida an argument notably absent in legal filings by his attorneys.

The former US president repeated the claim in a posting on his Truth Social network Thursday, after the Justice Department demanded that a federal judge reinstate access to hundreds on classified documents the FBI retrieved in its recent search of his Palm Beach residence.

The judge, Aileen Cannon, had on Monday suspended access to the documents until an independent official had reviewed them.

"They leak, lie, plant fake evidence, allow the spying on my campaign, deceive the FISA Court, RAID and Break-Into my home, lose documents, and then they ask me, as the 45th President of the United States, to trust them," wrote Trump.

He also referenced his longstanding, and unfounded, claim that hostile FBI officials had conspired to smear him over his ties to Russia during his presidency.

In an earlier message he praised Cannon, whom he appointed, as "brilliant and courageous."

Trump has previously claimed the FBI planted evidence in the immediate aftermath of the raid, though has not specified what they planted or offered evidence to back his claim.

He has repeatedly suggested the FBI is part of a political plot against him, describing the agency as "monsters" at a rally last Saturday.

But in response to a recent picture released by the DOJ taken during the raid, showing piles of folders with classified markings in Mar-a-Lago, Trump did not deny the folders were in his possession but said the photo had been set up to make him look bad.

The 45th president's defences are different to those his attorneys are offering in court, where false claims of law enforcement misconduct can attract penalties. His lawyers have focussed on claims that many of the documents taken by the FBI are protected under privilege rules, and were successful in arguing for an independent official to review them on this basis.

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They have also argued that many of the documents were declassified by Trump before leaving office, but no evidence has emerged to substantiate that claim.

The DOJ has requested that Abbott grant it access to the classified documents by September 15, or it will file an appeal.

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EXPLAINER: The intel review of documents at Trump’s estate – The Associated Press – en Espaol

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WASHINGTON (AP) The discovery of hundreds of classified records at Donald Trumps home has thrust U.S. intelligence agencies into a familiar and uncomfortable role as the foil of a former president who demanded they support his agenda and at times accused officers of treason.

While the FBI conducts a criminal investigation, the office that leads the intelligence community is also conducting a review currently on pause pending a court order of the damage that would result from disclosure of the documents found at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The investigation comes at a perilous time in American politics, with increasing threats to law enforcement and election workers and as a growing swath of officials assail the FBI and spread baseless theories of voter fraud. Theres already a wide range of speculation about what was in the documents, with some Democrats pointing to reporting about possible nuclear secrets while some Trump allies suggesting the case is a benign argument about storage.

So far, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has proceeded cautiously, issuing no public statements and declining to answer questions about the reviews structure or how long it will take.

A look at whats known and expected:

NOT A FORMAL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

According to the government, the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and papers the Republican former president had turned over previously included highly sensitive Special Access Program designations as well as markings for intelligence derived from secret human sources and electronic signals programs. Those forms of intelligence are often produced by the CIA or the National Security Agency, and the underlying sources can take years to develop.

The ODNI review will try to determine the possible damage if the secrets in those documents were to be exposed. It has not said if its investigating whether documents already have been exposed.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the review in a letter to the chairpersons of two House committees. Haines letter says the ODNI will lead a classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search. Experts say that could include non-classified papers with notes written on them that might reference classified information.

Haines letter also says her office will lead an assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.

Thats different from a formal damage assessment that intelligence agencies have carried out after high-profile breaches like the disclosures of programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Damage assessments have specific requirements under intelligence community guidelines published online, including an estimate of actual or potential damage to U.S. national security, the identification of specific weaknesses or vulnerabilities and detailed, actionable recommendations to prevent future occurrences.

Under those guidelines, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a subsidiary within the ODNI, would lead a damage assessment. The center is led by acting Director Michael Orlando as President Joe Biden has not yet nominated a chief counterintelligence executive.

Its unknown whether the intelligence review will include interviewing witnesses. Haines letter says the ODNI will coordinate with the Justice Department to ensure its assessment does not unduly interfere with the criminal investigation.

For now, the Justice Department has said the ODNI review is paused after a federal judge barred the use of records seized at Mar-a-Lago in a criminal investigation. Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Courts order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work, attorneys for the government said in a court filing.

THE ANSWERS COULD BE UNSATISFYING

The results may not come for weeks or months, and full findings will likely remain classified.

Lawmakers in both parties are calling for briefings from the intelligence community. None is known to have been scheduled.

Former officials note that its often difficult for agencies to diagnose specific damage from an actual or potential breach. Given the political climate and the unprecedented nature of evaluating a former president, the ODNI is widely expected to be limited and precise in what it says publicly and privately to Congress.

But reviews like the one underway often help top officials and lawmakers better understand vulnerabilities and how to manage risk going forward, said Timothy Bergreen, a former Democratic majority staff director for the House Intelligence Committee.

No healthy organization or society can exist without comprehensive review of its mistakes, Bergreen said. Thats always been a democracys big advantage over authoritarians.

AN OFFICE CREATED AFTER SEPT. 11

Lesser known than many of the agencies it oversees, the ODNI was created in the reorganization of the intelligence community after the Sept. 11 attacks. Amid revelations that the FBI and the CIA did not share critical information with each other, the ODNI was intended to oversee the 18-member intelligence community and integrate the different streams of collection and analysis produced by different agencies.

The ODNI supervises the drafting of the Presidents Daily Brief, the distillation of top American intelligence provided to Biden and top advisers daily. Haines is the presidents principal intelligence adviser and often briefs Biden in the Oval Office along with other national security leaders.

Trump went through three directors of national intelligence in his last year, part of his long-running battles with the intelligence community.

Some of his top officials were accused of selectively declassifying information for political purposes. And before, during and after his time in office, Trump has accused intelligence officials of selectively leaking material to undermine him or not being sufficiently loyal.

He was incensed by the long-running investigations into allegations of Russian influence on his 2016 campaign, calling them the greatest political CRIME in American History. And he excoriated the person who spoke to a whistleblower about his pressuring Ukraine for derogatory information, saying that person was close to a spy who could have committed treason.

Under Biden, Haines and other top officials have been involved in declassifying information about Russias war plans against Ukraine. They have also faced questioning about overly optimistic assessments of Afghanistan prior to the fall of Kabul.

Michael Allen, a former Republican majority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, said the ODNI is uniquely positioned to handle such a closely watched review.

This, I think, is one of the reasons why you have a DNI, to coordinate across the wide and disparate community of intelligence agencies, said Allen, author of Blinking Red, a history of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence reforms. This is their bread and butter.

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EXPLAINER: The intel review of documents at Trump's estate - The Associated Press - en Espaol

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Opinion | What the Truth Social Flop Says About Trump – POLITICO

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Trump deserves credit for marketing his Twitter account to its Everestian heights. Hes always known how to play to the crowds, titillate them and leave them wanting more. During his first campaign and presidency, even a garden-variety Trump tweet could convulse newsrooms. But that was a function of his front-runner status and later his place in the Oval Office. He drew an enormous audience not because he was Donald Trump tweeting but because he was the tweeting president. The power of the office endowed his tweets with muscle that could move financial markets, bury political careers, inspire death threats against his enemies and make the press snap to attention. But exiled to Mar-a-Lago and denied his social media accounts rendered him just another celebrity squeaking noises from a tiny soapbox. When his profile shrank, he became easier to ignore.

Even so, why didnt the tens of millions of the 89 million who followed him on Twitter or the 74 million who voted for him in 2020 make more of an effort to visit his new address? Blame it on the network effect. If you already have a Twitter account, it takes just a millisecond to click and add another persons feed to your account. But downloading a new app just to follow a single somebody takes mental energy, especially if there arent many other accounts on the app you wish to follow. Trump out of office proved to be as boring as Trump in office was disruptive. Everything were learning about Trumps inability to convene a large-scale audience on Truth Social we learned in miniature from the failure of his mid-2021 blog, which he killed after 29 days. Like most media figures, Trump needs the boost of the network effect provided by Twitter (or CNN or Fox News Channel) to build a mass audience. All by his lonesome, hes just a political carny on a lightly trafficked midway shouting invitations to his freak show.

Plenty of Trumps followers were either agnostic about his tweets or politically hostile to them. Many followed him just to stay in the know or for the hate clicks.

This is not to say you cant build a good business serving mostly Trumpians or mostly conservatives or mostly liberals. But such narrowcasting comes at the expense of winning the largest potential customer base. Twitter wisely places no political litmus tests, real or implied, between aspiring account-holders and an account as long as they promise not to spew bilge from their perch. Everybody is accepted. By appearing exclusionary, Truth Social resigned itself to marginal appeal.

Nothing about Truth Socials disastrous beginnings should surprise us. Donald Trump has proved himself again and again to be a wreck of an entrepreneur. Steaks, his university, water, an airline, casinos, the USFL, a mortgage company, vodka the list reads like a guide on how not to succeed in business. Associating Trump with a new venture has become a business death wish.

Trump is still the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and could well wind up in the White House (assuming hes not behind bars). But theres also evidence that Trump has simply exhausted the Trump meme he invented. Trumps deranged outrage style once contained real entertainment value which explains why moderates and liberals followed him on Twitter even if they wouldnt vote for him. But in his post-presidency and especially in the weeks following the Mar-a-Lago search and investigation, the show has gone stale. Vainly, he has sought to top himself by sharing QAnon-related material on Truth Social, denouncing the FBI like a madman trapped in a bunker, and calling for his reinstatement as the rightful winner of the 2020 election. Hes become a carnival geek biting the heads off of snakes, which can be a fabulous show the first couple of times you see it, but after that, meh. Could todays Trump devise enough fresh outrage to produce even a brief TikTok?

Are there any geek shows left? Send updates to [emailprotected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed has not yet been canceled. RSS is my sort of social media.

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Opinion | What the Truth Social Flop Says About Trump - POLITICO

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