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Study finds slightly higher risk of autism diagnosis in…

3 April 2023
by admin

CNN
—

A new study found a moderately higher risk of autism spectrum disorder in children born to pregnant people exposed to tap water with higher levels of lithium, but experts caution that this association does not show a direct link between the two.

About 1 in 36 children in the US is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) each year, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Scientists still don’t know the exact cause of autism, a developmental disorder. Genetics may be a factor, but some have been looking at potential environmental causes, too.

Cases may be on the rise, but that is also unclear. One study published this year on cases in the New York-New Jersey area found that autism diagnosis rates tripled among certain age groups between 2000 and 2016. A 2021 report found similar increases in cases, but the CDC says the increased number of cases is most likely linked to more doctors screening for the condition.

Lithium is an alkali metal that can be found naturally in some food and ground water. It’s used in batteries, grease and air conditioners, as well as in the treatment of bipolar disorder and some blood disorders. Its levels in US drinking water are not regulated, according to the US Geological Survey.

A new study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, found a small association between lithium and autism diagnosis in Denmark, where the researchers say the level of lithium in drinking water is similar to that in American water systems.

The researchers checked a database of people with psychiatric disorders for children born between 2000 and 2013 to find information on 8,842 cases of ASD and 43,864 participants who did not have ASD. They then measured the concentration of lithium in 151 public waterworks that served more than half of the Danish population and mapped out where pregnant people lived in relation.

As lithium levels in water increased, there was a modest increased risk of an ASD diagnosis. Specifically, compared with people at the lowest exposure level, those who had the second and third highest exposure during pregnancy had a 24% to 26% higher risk of ASD diagnosed in children. The group with the highest exposure had a 46% higher risk than those at the lowest level of exposure.

The researchers could not tell how much water the pregnant people drank, but they picked Denmark in part because residents there consume some of the lowest amounts of bottled water in Europe.

Experts say it’s important to note that the research can’t show that lithium exposure leads directly to an autism diagnosis.

Further study is required, said study co-author Dr. Beate Ritz, a professor of neurology in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“Any drinking water contaminants that may affect the developing human brain deserve intense scrutiny,” Ritz said in a news release. She added that the research would need to be replicated in other countries to look for a similar connection.

The implications of the findings are complex as far as public health policy is concerned, according to an editorial published alongside the study. Lithium levels in water, at concentrations that the study associated with a potential ASD risk, have also been linked with health benefits such as lower rates of hospitalization for psychiatric disorders and suicide.

“If all these of associations are valid, the wisdom of Solomon will be required to develop guidelines for lithium in drinking water that are maximally protective of the entire population,” wrote Dr. David C. Bellinger, a professor of neurology and psychology at Harvard Medical School. “Until the basic biology of ASD is better understood, it will be difficult to distinguish causal from spurious associations.”

Dr. Max Wiznitzer, director of the Rainbow Autism Center at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, points to other research on the effects of lithium on pregnant people who take it for mental health disorders. Those studies – which look at people exposed to much higher levels than are found in drinking water – do not show a connection with autism spectrum disorder.

“It’s an interesting association, but causation is definitely not proven,” said Wiznitzer, who was not involved in the new research. “We have to see if there’s a viable and biologically plausible mechanism by which a small amount of lithium in the water supply can somehow do this, yet pharmacologic dosing of lithium in women with bipolar disorder has not been reported to be causing increased risk of ASD.”

Other studies have also suggested connections between ASD and environmental exposures to things like pesticides, air pollution and phthalates. But none of them points to any of these factors as a direct cause of the disorder.

A link between environmental exposure and ASD is hard to prove, Wiznitzer said. With research showing that increased exposure to air pollution raises the risk of giving birth to a child with ASD, for example, he often wonders whether pollution is the determining factor or if it’s just the populations who live in more polluted areas.

“There’s a lot of speculation about about environmental factors, but how many of them are truly causally associated?” Wiznitzer said. “We are bombarded with a variety of environmental stressors in our everyday lives. We have to figure out how to basically safely navigate them, and this is probably not one that’s high on our list.”

Science & Environment

This boiled bag of offal is banned in the…

3 April 2023
by admin

CNN
—

Anthony Bourdain loved haggis. But even the late, great American chef, writer and television host recognized that Scotland’s national dish, with its “sinister sheep parts” wrapped in a shroud of mystery and half-invented history, could be a hard sell.

“Don’t let them tell you otherwise, that’s really one of life’s great pleasures,” Bourdain said on one of his gastro-curious pilgrimages to Glasgow. “There is no more unfairly reviled food on Earth than the haggis.”

A mash-up of diced lung, liver and heart mixed with oatmeal, beef suet, onion and assorted spices, haggis was traditionally made by stuffing these raw ingredients into the stomach of a recently slain sheep and boiling the lot to a state of palatability.

Instagrammable is not the word that immediately comes to mind. In our 21st-century world, where “clean” eating and processed pap overlap, haggis can seem like an “Outlander”-style outlier from another age.

Yet, by some alchemy, once cooked to its required “warm-reekin’ (steaming)” state, it adds up to much more than the sum of its modest parts. It’s offaly charm has kept nose-to-tail eating alive among a younger generation of Scots that has largely turned its back on the tripe, liver and kidneys their predecessors enjoyed (or endured).

Carefully prepared, haggis tastes both oaty and meaty; it is dark and crumbly, a little crispy at the edges but still moist; earthy but also savory and spicy; deep-tasting and profoundly warming, the perfect foil for its traditional garnish of floury mashed potatoes and orange bashed turnip.

“It’s like a cuddle for the stomach,” says Nicola Turner, a 35-year-old office administrator from Helensburgh, a town on western Scotland’s Firth of Clyde.

Spice and texture

Haggis is traditionally served with turnips.

For children of the 1960s and ’70s, like crime novelist Ian Rankin, haggis meals were a choice between the classic meat-and-two-veg plate and the battered and deep-fried, chip-shop iteration loved by both his friend Bourdain and his quintessentially Scottish detective character, Inspector John Rebus.

Now myriad other treatments have blossomed.

“I’m pretty sure the first time I dined with AB in Edinburgh we had haggis in filo pastry with a jam-style – maybe blackcurrant – sauce,” Rankin recalled. “He was a big fan of haggis and of chip shops. Rebus will have enjoyed the occasional haggis supper from his local chip shop. He was definitely a fan, as am I.”

“It is all about the spicing and the texture,” says the Scottish food writer, novelist and cook Sue Lawrence, a champion of haggis’ adaptability for use in other dishes. “If you didn’t know what was in it, you wouldn’t think ‘oh that tastes of liver or whatever.’ It is all nicely chopped up and the oatmeal gives it a lovely texture. It could easily be a nice, big mince dish.”

Lawrence uses haggis as an alternative to beef and pork ragù in lasagna and in her pastilla, a version of the North African dish in which a hand-made haggis from the Isle of Mull substitutes for the traditional poultry or seafood filling. The filo pastry savory is flavored with the spice blend ras el hanout, apricots, chile, orange zest and almonds before being sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar.

Such cultural crossovers serve as a reminder that haggis could easily be a dish with nothing specifically Scottish about it at all. Records of similar quick and portable preparations of the fast-perishing innards of sheep and other animals date back to ancient Rome and Greece.

Haggis-like combinations of offal and grains are part of the culinary history of several countries. Spain has chireta, Romania drob and Sweden polsa, while chaudin, or ponce, is a rice and meat-stuffed pig stomach that is a staple of Cajun cooking.

Deep-fried haggis is often a staple of Scottish fish and chip shops.

In neighboring England, recipes for “hagese,” “hagws of a schepe,” “haggas” or “haggus” pop up in recipe books published between the 15th and 17th centuries, probably preceding written records north of the border.

Etymological evidence points to the term “haggis” having its roots in Old Norse, suggesting an early version of an oat-and-offal sausage might have arrived in Britain and Ireland on a Viking longboat.

But ever since it was first optioned by the poet Robert Burns in the late 1700s, the haggis backstory has been monopolized by Scotland and the Scots, sometimes mischievously.

It is, according to the kind of lore that Burns engendered, the dish a doughty Highlander would carry with him as he drove cattle through the glens to the markets of the central belt or the perfect picnic for a whisky smuggler plying his illicit trade by moonlight.

Imports of Scottish haggis are banned from the United States.

From such romantic notions it was a short step to turning the haggis into a wee wild beastie, one with longer legs on one side that was thus condemned to run round and round whichever hill it lived on. In 2003, a poll of American tourists in Scotland found that one in three of them believed they might encounter such a confused creature on a Caledonian vacation.

Bourdain, a native New Yorker, may have qualified as haggis’ biggest admirer since Burns, but his compatriots at the US Department of Agriculture remain unconverted to offal-filled paunch. Haggis imports into the United States were prohibited in 1971 as part of a ban on the consumption of all livestock lungs. Authentic versions of old school haggis remain culinary contraband in the US, as hard to lay your hands on as Cuban cigars.

Across the rest of the world, it’s a different story. According to leading producer Simon Howie, haggis is more widely appreciated and consumed now than it has been since Burns improvised his “Address to a Haggis” for the entertainment of well-to-do Edinburgh acquaintances.

The haggis is toasted on Burns Night, held every year in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns.

Firmly tongue-in-cheek, the poem lauds the “Great chieftain o’ the pudding race,” as exactly the kind of unpretentious, hearty fare required to nourish a nation of braveheart warriors.

In comparison to the enfeebling foreign muck enjoyed by the capital’s claret-quaffing elites of the time – the olio, fricassée or ragoût that would “sicken a sow” – Burns urges his readers to wonder at the magical impact of haggis on his fellow sons of Scotland’s soil.

As the English translation of the original Scots language version puts it:

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed/

The trembling earth resounds his tread/

Clap in his ample fist a blade/

He’ll make it whistle/

And legs and arms and heads will cut/

Off like the heads of thistles

ac anthony bourdain anderson cooper scotland_00000728.jpg

Anthony Bourdain and Anderson Cooper talk Scottish food

These days synthetic casings have largely replaced stomach but ovine and porcine innards remain at the core of most of the haggis produced in its homeland, said Howie, who estimates that his company Simon Howie Butchers, accounts for around 60% of the roughly two million haggises produced every year.

For Howie, versatility, value for money and convenience explain why this staple of the Scottish larder is thriving. Typically haggis retails in Scotland, which accounts for half of global consumption by volume, for around £6, or $7.70 per kilogram ($3.36/pound). That’s around half the price of less expensive cuts of beef or a third of the price of Scotch lamb while enjoying a fairly similar nutritional and calorific profile.

“You can give your kids a meal that is not full of things you don’t want to feed them – for a few pounds you can feed three strapping lads,” Howie said.

“From a kitchen perspective, it is very simple because when it leaves our factory it is already cooked. So when you or a restaurant owner gets it into the kitchen all you have to do is heat it up to be piping hot. It couldn’t be more basic: a student with no cooking skills or a Michelin-starred chef do exactly the same thing to put it out on the plate.”

Haggis can often be found on fine dining menus.

Its texture means haggis can also be usefully deployed in fine dining alongside leaner meat like venison or as a stuffing for poultry and game birds. Its spicy intensity means it is also finding uses in canapés and as a crouton-borne garnish for soups.

Buoyant sales are also underpinned by the increasing consumption of haggis in forms inspired by Scotland’s ethnic minorities.

Glasgow’s Sikh community pioneered haggis pakora in the 1990s and samosas, spring rolls and quesadillas have followed in its wake, often using a vegetarian version of the protein in which the offal is replaced by a mix of vegetables, pulses and mushrooms.

Such dishes are more than culinary twists. They are badges of belonging, and an indication that, two centuries after Burns grabbed it for the nation, haggis is as intimately entwined with Scots identity as ever.

Just ask Ross O’Cinneide, a promising 14-year-old fly-half in the junior section of Stirling County rugby club.

“Most of my friends and I like haggis,” he says. “Mum makes it for us sometimes after rugby and it’s got a very nice warming feeling. And it’s nice because it’s purely Scottish.”

Science & Environment

HSBC’s top execs face tense shareholders calling for a…

3 April 2023
by admin

Hong Kong
CNN
—

HSBC’s top brass defended their strategy Monday to frustrated shareholders in the lender’s largest market, as Europe’s biggest bank continued to face calls to be split up.

At an informal shareholder meeting in Hong Kong, Chairman Mark Tucker and CEO Noel Quinn took questions from investors on issues ranging from how the bank was approaching demands for an overhaul of its business to its purchase of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK arm.

In prepared remarks, Tucker and Quinn each reiterated the board’s recommendation that shareholders vote against a resolution on the docket for its annual general meeting in May that would force the bank to come up with a plan to spin off or reorganize its Asian business — the lender’s main source of profits.

Tucker said the board was unanimous in its opposition to the resolution, stating plainly: “It would not be in your interest to split the bank.”

He said the board had previously reviewed a range of options for restructuring the bank, and concluded that such alternatives would “materially destroy value for shareholders,” including dividends.

“Our strategy is working,” Tucker told the room of more than 1,000 shareholders. “Our current strategy is moving dividends up.”

HSBC has been facing calls to separate its Asian business from the rest of the bank over the past year.

Shareholders in Hong Kong — where HSBC is a mainstay of many retail investors’ portfolios — contend that the London-based lender’s performance has been dragged down by its businesses in other regions.

Quinn addressed those complaints head-on Monday, saying “our profits in Hong Kong and the UK are no longer being dragged down by underperformance elsewhere. The group is performing well as a whole.”

Pressed later by a shareholder on the issue, Quinn said a breakup of the bank would result in “significant revenue loss” because much of its business relied on cross-border transactions.

Mark Tucker, chairman of HSBC, left, and Peter Wong, chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, departing following the bank's shareholders meeting in Hong Kong on Monday.

Investors have also been unhappy with HSBC scrapping its dividend in 2020, at the request of British regulators. They argue that if the lender cordoned off its activities in Asia, it would no longer have to expose Hong Kong shareholders to requests in other jurisdictions.

Christine Fong, a district council member in Hong Kong, said she represented about 500 small shareholders who had been affected by the dividend cancellation.

“Street hawkers, taxi drivers or teachers — they all relied on the dividend to pay for their regular expenses, like mortgage, insurance payments, school fees,” Fong told CNN.

“That’s why, three years ago, what HSBC did upset those small minority shareholders.”

Fong has now joined calls for shareholders to vote in favor of the proposal for the bank to spin off its Asian business, despite the lender bringing back its dividend in 2021, albeit at a lower level.

An HSBC bank branch in Hong Kong last July. HSBC is a mainstay of many retail investors' portfolios in the city, which is also its top market.

Ken Lui, an activist shareholder in Hong Kong who put the resolution together, doubled down on his call for support ahead of the meeting Monday.

The resolution will require 75% of votes to be passed in May, but “nothing is impossible,” he told reporters outside the meeting venue.

Lui, who said he personally held a stake worth 100 million Hong Kong dollars ($12.7 million), laid out plans for his team to focus on “targeted outreach to institutional shareholders to present our case and gain their support.”

His group will also canvass 18 districts of Hong Kong “to tell HSBC shareholders that they finally have a chance to speak for themselves and protect their rights through voting,” he added.

HSBC is also facing pressure from its largest shareholder.

Ping An

(PNGAY), China’s biggest insurer, holds an 8% stake in HSBC and has backed calls for the bank to rethink its structure.

In a series of remarks made public by the Chinese firm last November, Huang Yong, chairman of Ping An’s asset management arm, said “we will support any initiatives including a spinoff that are conducive to improve HSBC’s performance and value.”

Since then, the insurance giant’s views haven’t changed, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The source told CNN that Ping An has been calling for HSBC to explore a reorganization, with an eye on boosting its valuation and simplifying its regulatory obligations around the globe.

The insurer has not recommended a specific path forward but will support any initiatives, including a spinoff of its Asian business, that could boost its stock performance or value, the person added. Ping An did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how it planned to vote at the upcoming general meeting.

HSBC’s leaders were also asked Monfday why the bank had scooped up the British unit of SVB following the stunning collapse of its parent in the United States. The purchase was made for £1 ($1.20) last month, just days after SVB had folded.

Critics have questioned HSBC’s ability to perform adequate due diligence on SVB UK’s customers because of how quickly the deal came together.

“Did HSBC look into the clients of SVB in detail? Say, the financial statement — whether they can pay back the loan?” said Fong.

Quinn and Tucker defended the acquisition, calling it a good business opportunity that allowed the bank to gain hundreds of innovative startups as customers. They pushed back on the notion that management hadn’t had time to carry out proper due diligence.

Tucker also weighed in on recent tumult in the banking industry, saying he did not expect an “immediate impact” on HSBC.

“After the collapse of a number of smaller regional banks and the takeover of Credit Suisse, the share prices of all banks have been suppressed,” he noted.

But he said he did not believe such developments represented “a systemic risk” to the sector. “I do expect a period of uncertainty” before nerves settle, he added.

Science & Environment

French minister under fire for Playboy magazine cover |…

3 April 2023
by admin

CNN
—

French government minister Marlene Schiappa has come under fire from members of her own party after appearing on the front cover of Playboy magazine.

Schiappa, who has been a government minister since 2017, appeared on the cover of the magazine to accompany a 12-page interview she did on women’s and LGBT rights. Schiappa, who is the current Minister for the Social Economy and French Associations, was photographed for the cover wearing a white dress.

Schiappa has been a long-time advocate for women’s rights and was appointed as the country’s first ever Gender Equality Minister in 2017. In this role, she successfully spearheaded a new sexual harassment law which allows for on the spot fines to be issued to men who catcall, harass or follow women on the street.

Her appearance has drawn criticism from political colleagues including French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Borne pulled up Schiappa over the cover, telling her it “wasn’t appropriate, especially during this period,” CNN affiliate BFMTV reported Saturday, citing a source close to the prime minister.

France is currently in the throes of a political and social crisis triggered by French President Emmanuel Macron’s move to push ahead with controversial pension reforms despite widespread public opposition.

VIDEO THUMBNAIL France pension reform explainer 3

Trash is piling up on the streets of Paris. Here’s why

“We are in the middle of a social crisis, there is the issue of policing, there are people between life and death, and I have the impression of being behind a smoke screen,” Sandrine Rousseau, Green Party politician and fellow women’s rights activist, told BFMTV Friday.

French politician, Jean Luc Mélenchon who came third in the 2022 presidential elections criticized both Schiappa’s appearance and the decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to give an interview to children’s magazine, Pif Gadget, this week.

“In a country where the President expresses himself in Pif and his minister in Playboy, the problem would be the opposition. France is going off the rails,” Mélenchon tweeted Saturday.

Schiappa responded to her critics in a tweet on Saturday, saying: “Defending the right of women to have control of their bodies, that’s everywhere and all the time. In France, women are free. With all due respect to the detractors and hypocrites.”

French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin came to Schiappa’s defense during an interview with French news channel CNews on Sunday calling her a “woman of character.”

“I wanted to say that Marlene Schiappa is a courageous female politician who has her character and who has her style which is not mine, but I respect,” he remarked.

Science & Environment

China Renaissance suspends trading, delays results after founder’s disappearance…

3 April 2023
by admin

Hong Kong
CNN
—

China Renaissance, a top dealmaker in the country’s tech industry, said it would suspend trading of its shares and delay the release of its annual results because it still can’t get in touch with its founder.

Bao Fan, 52, started the boutique investment bank in 2005 and has been unreachable since the middle of February, according to the company. Shares in China Renaissance have plunged since Bao went missing, at one point dropping as much as 50%.

China Renaissance said in late February that it had learned Bao was “cooperating in an investigation” being carried out by certain authorities in the country. It gave no other details.

Chinese media have reported Bao might be assisting in an investigation related to a former executive at China Renaissance.

In a filing on Sunday, China Renaissance said auditors couldn’t complete their work or sign off on their report because of Bao’s absence. The board was also unable to give an estimate about when it would be able to approve its audited results for 2022 or dispatch its annual report by an April 30 deadline as required by Hong Kong’s listing rules.

Trading in the company’s shares was suspended from Monday as a result.

Bao is known as a veteran dealmaker who works closely with top technology companies in China. He helped broker the 2015 merger between two of the country’s leading food delivery services, Meituan and Dianping. Today, the combined company’s “super app” platform is ubiquitous in China.

His team has also invested in US-listed Chinese electric vehicle makers Nio

(NIO) and Li Auto and helped Chinese internet giants Baidu

(BIDU) and JD.com

(JD) complete their secondary listings in Hong Kong.

Over the weekend, China’s top anti-graft watchdog launched an investigation into Liu Liange, former party secretary and chairman of Bank of China, according to a statement by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission. The bank is state-owned and one of the country’s four biggest lenders.

Liu is suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law,” the statement said. He is among the most senior financial executives targeted in a broader financial crackdown by President Xi Jinping.

In January, Wang Bin, former party chief and chairman of China Life Insurance, was charged by national-level prosecutors with taking bribes and hiding overseas savings.

— Michelle Toh contributed reporting.

Science & Environment

Damar Hamlin discharged after spending more than a week…

11 January 2023
by admin

CNN
—

Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin has been discharged from a Buffalo medical center, his club said Wednesday, after more than a week of hospitalization due to a cardiac arrest he suffered during a “Monday Night Football” game this month.

The 24-year-old Bills safety had been showing signs of accelerated improvement in the days leading up to his release from Buffalo General Medical Center in New York, hospital officials had said.

“We have completed a series of tests and evaluations, and in consultation with the team physicians, we are confident that Damar can be safely discharged to continue his rehabilitation at home and with the Bills,” a physician leading Hamlin’s care in Buffalo, Dr. Jamie Nadler, said in a statement the Bills released Wednesday on Twitter.

Hamlin initially was hospitalized in Cincinnati when his heart suddenly stopped after a tackle during a game against the host Cincinnati Bengals on January 2, but was transferred to the Buffalo facility Monday after doctors determined his critical condition had improved enough for the move.

Doctors at the Buffalo hospital were trying to determine why Hamlin suffered the cardiac arrest, Kaleida Health, the group of hospitals that includes the Buffalo medical center, said before his discharge. That included whether pre-existing conditions played a role in the event, which shocked many around the country and prompted a huge outpouring of support for the second-year NFL player.

On Tuesday, Hamlin went through “a comprehensive medical evaluation as well as a series of cardiac, neurological and vascular testing,” the Bills said on Twitter.

No cause of Hamlin’s cardiac arrest has been publicly announced.

“Special thank-you to Buffalo General it’s been nothing but love since arrival! Keep me in y’all prayers please!” Hamlin tweeted Tuesday.

It will be up to Hamlin to decide when he will be around the team again while recovering, Bills coach Sean McDermott said Wednesday.

“Grateful first and foremost that he is home with his parents and his brother, which is great,” McDermott told reporters Wednesday, as the Bills prepared to host the Miami Dolphins for a playoff game Sunday. No timetable for Hamlin’s return to professional football has been announced.

“We’ll leave (when he’ll be around the team) up to him. His health is first and foremost in our mind as far as his situation goes and when he feels ready, we will welcome him back,” McDermott said.

While in critical condition in Cincinnati, Hamlin was sedated and on a ventilator for days. On Friday morning the breathing tube was removed, and Hamlin began walking with some help by that afternoon, his doctors said Monday.

The health care team focused on stabilizing Hamlin and upgraded his condition Monday because his organ systems were stable and he no longer needed intensive nursing or respiratory therapy, doctors said.

“He’s certainly on what we consider a very normal to even accelerated trajectory from the life-threatening event that he underwent,” Dr. Timothy Pritts, chief of surgery at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said earlier this week. “He’s making great progress.”

Normal recovery from a cardiac arrest can be measured in weeks to months, Pritts said Monday. Hamlin had been beating that timeline at each stage and is neurologically intact.

When Hamlin collapsed seconds after an open-field tackle against a Bengals wide receiver, medical personnel rushed onto the field and administered CPR quickly – which helped save his life.

Hamlin’s heart had stopped, and medical responders revived it twice before putting him into an ambulance and taking him to the hospital. The immediate actions of medical personnel were vital to “not just saving his life, but his neurological function,” said Pritts.

The horrifying scene of Hamlin suddenly falling on his back after standing up following the tackle unsettled his teammates, the other players and millions of watching fans.

The game was initially postponed and later cancelled by the NFL – a decision several former football players said was a sign of a shift in prioritizing players’ mental and physical health.

Now, the Bills organization is encouraging people to learn the critical, life-saving skill of administering CPR.

The team has pledged support for resources including CPR certifications, automated external defibrillator units and guidance for developing cardiac emergency response plans within the Buffalo community, according to the statement. “We encourage all our fans to continue showing your support and take the next step by obtaining CPR certification,” the Bills said.

Science & Environment

Why Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia means so…

6 January 2023
by admin

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
—

It’s a partnership that’s been hailed as “history in the making.”

One of the world’s most famous soccer stars landed in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday, where Cristiano Ronaldo was received in an extravagant ceremony, with excited children sporting his new club’s yellow and blue jerseys.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia’s success in luring the five-time Ballon d’Or winner on a two-year contract with the kingdom’s Al Nassr FC is the Gulf monarchy’s latest step in realizing its sporting ambitions – seemingly at any cost.

According to Saudi state-owned media, Ronaldo will earn an estimated $200 million a year with Al Nassr, making him the world’s highest-paid soccer player.

Shortly after the 37-year-old’s signing with Al Nassr, the club’s Instagram page gained over 5.3 million new followers. Its official website was inaccessible after exceeding its bandwidth limit due to the sudden surge in traffic, and the hashtag #HalaRonaldo – Hello, Ronaldo in Arabic – was trending for days across the Middle East on Twitter.

Analysts say that his recruitment in Saudi Arabia is part of a wider effort by the kingdom to diversify its sources of revenue and become a serious player in the international sporting scene.

It is also seen as a move by the kingdom to shore up its image after it was tarnished by the 2018 dismemberment and killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents, and a devastating war it started in Yemen in 2015.

Critics have decried the kingdom for “sportswashing,” an attempt to burnish one’s reputation through sport.

“I think Saudi Arabia has recognized a couple of years ago that to be a powerful nation internationally, you cannot just rely on hard power,” Danyel Reiche, a visiting research fellow and associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar, told CNN.

“You also need to invest in soft power, and the case of Qatar shows that this can work pretty well,” he said, adding that Saudi Arabia is following in the Qatari approach with sport, but with a delay of around 25 years.

Neighboring Qatar has also faced immense criticism since it won the bid to hosting last year’s FIFA World Cup in 2010.

Despite the smaller Gulf state facing similar accusations of “sportswashing,” the tournament has largely been viewed as a success, not least in exposing the world to a different view of the Middle East, thanks in part to Morocco’s success in reaching the semifinals and Saudi Arabia beating eventual World Cup champion Argentina in their opening group game.

Gulf nations engage in fierce competition to become the region’s premier entertainment and sporting hubs. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, in close proximity to each other, each have their own Formula One racing event. But their competition hasn’t been confined to the region. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also bought trophy European soccer teams.

Riyadh is playing catchup with neighbors who have long realized the importance of investing in sports, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at SKEMA Business School in Lille, France, especially as its main source of income – oil – is being gradually shunned.

“This is part of an ongoing attempt to create more resilient economies that are more broadly based upon industries other than those that are derived from oil and gas,” Chadwick told CNN.

Ronaldo’s new club Al Nassr is backed by Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC), a subsidiary of the kingdom’s wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has played a pivotal role in Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans.

“It is also a sign of interconnectedness, of globalization and of opening up to the rest of the world,” said Georgetown University’s Reiche.

The move is part of “several recent high profile moves in the sports world, including hosting the Andy Ruiz Jr. and Anthony Joshua world heavywight boxing championship bout in 2019, and launching the LIV Golf championship,” said Omar Al-Ubaydli, director of research at the Bahrain-based Derasat think tank. “It is a significant piece of a large puzzle that represents their economic restructuring.”

The kingdom has been on a path to not only diversify its economy, but also shift its image amid a barrage of criticism over its human rights record and treatment of women. Saudi Arabia is today hosting everything from desert raves to teaming up with renowned soccer players. Argentina’s Lionel Messi last year signed a lucrative promotional deal with the kingdom.

Hailed as the world’s greatest player, 35-year-old Messi ended this year’s World Cup tournament in Qatar with his team’s win over France, making his ambassadorship of even greater value to the kingdom.

The acquisition of such key global figures will also help combat the monarchy’s decades-long reputation of being “secretive” and “ultra-conservative,” James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and an expert on soccer in the Middle East, told CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Wednesday.

Al-Ubaydli said that the kingdom wants to use high profile international sports “as a vehicle for advertising to the world its openness.”

Saudi Arabia bought the English Premier league club Newcastle United in 2021 through a three-party consortium, with PIF being the largest stakeholder. The move proved controversial, as Amnesty International and other human rights defenders worried it would overshadow the kingdom’s human rights violations.

Ronaldo’s work with Saudi Arabia is already being criticized by rights groups who are urging the soccer player to “draw attention to human rights issues” in Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia has an image problem,” especially since Khashoggi’s killing, says Reiche. But the kingdom’s recent investments in sports and entertainment are “not about sportswashing but about developing the country, social change and opening up to the world.”

Saudi Arabia is reportedly weighing a 2030 World Cup bid with Egypt and Greece, but the kingdom’s tourism ministry noted in November that it has not yet submitted an official bid. Chadwick believes that Ronaldo’s deal with Al Nassr, however, may help boost the kingdom’s bid should it choose it pursue it.

Another way Saudi Arabia may benefit from Ronaldo’s acquisition is that it will be able to improve commercial performance, says Chadwick, especially if this collaboration attracts further international talent.

“It is important to see Ronaldo not just as a geopolitical instrument,” said Chadwick, “There is still a commercial component to him and to the purpose he is expected to serve in Saudi Arabia.”

What Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia shows is that the kingdom aspires “to be seen as being the best” and that it wants to be perceived as a “contender and a legitimate member of the international football community,” said Chadwick.

UAE FM meets Syria’s Assad in Damascus in further sign of thawing ties

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received the United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus on Wednesday in the latest sign of thawing relations between Assad and the Gulf state. The meeting addressed developments in Syria and the wider Middle East, according to UAE state news agency WAM.

Background: It was Abdullah bin Zayed’s first visit since a November 2021 meeting with Assad that led to the resumption of relations. Months later, in March 2022, Assad visited the UAE, his first visit to an Arab state since the start of Syria’s civil war.
Why it matters: A number of Assad’s former foes have been trying to mend fences with his regime. Last week, talks between the Syrian and Turkish defense ministers were held in Moscow in the highest-level encounter reported between the estranged sides since the war in Syria began. The regional rapprochement is yet to improve the lives of average Syrians. Syria is still under Western sanctions.

Turkish President Erdogan says he could meet with Assad

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech on Thursday that he could meet the Syrian leader “to establish peace.”

Background: Erdogan’s comments came after the Moscow talks between the two nations’ defense ministers and intelligence chiefs. “Following this meeting… we will bring our foreign ministers together. And after that, as leaders, we will come together,” Erdogan said on Thursday.
Why it matters: The meeting would mark a dramatic shift in Turkey’s decade-long stance on Syria, where Ankara was the prime supporter of political and armed factions fighting to topple Assad. The Turkish military maintains a presence across the Syrian border and within northern Syria, where it backs Syrian opposition forces. Erdogan has also pledged to launch yet another incursion into northern Syria, aiming at creating a 30-km (20-mile) deep “safe zone” that would be emptied of Kurdish fighters.

Iran shuts down French cultural center over Charlie Hebdo’s Khamenei cartoons

Iran announced on Thursday it had ended the activities of a Tehran-based French research institute, in reaction to cartoons mocking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and fellow Shia Muslim clerics published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this week.

Background: Iran summoned the French ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday to protest cartoons published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. More than 30 cartoons poking fun at Iran’s supreme leader were published by the magazine on Wednesday, in a show of support for the Iranian people who have been protesting the Islamic Republic’s government and its policies.
Why it matters: French-Iranian relations have deteriorated significantly since protests broke out in Iran late last year. Paris has publicly supported the protests and spoken out against Iran’s response to them. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna criticized Iran’s freedom of press and judicial independence on Thursday, saying “press freedom exists, contrary to what is going on in Iran and… it is exercised under the supervision of a judge in an independent judiciary – and there too it’s something that Iran knows little of.”

Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum performing onstage at the Olympia, in Paris on November 14, 1967.

The prized legacy of iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum re-emerged this year when Rolling Stone magazine featured her in its “200 Greatest Singers of All Time.”

Ranking 61st, Umm Kulthum was the only Arab artist to make it to the list, with the magazine saying that she “has no real equivalent among singers in the West.”

Born in a small village northeast of the Egyptian capital Cairo, Umm Kulthum rose to unmatched fame as she came to represent “the soul of the pan-Arab world,” the music magazine said.

“Her potent contralto, which could blur gender in its lower register, conveyed breathtaking emotional range in complex songs that, across theme and wildly-ornamented variations, could easily last an hour, as she worked crowds like a fiery preacher,” it wrote.

Nicknamed “the lady of Arab singing,” her music featured both classical Arabic poetry as well as colloquial songs still adored by younger generations. Her most famous pieces include “Inta Uumri” (you are my life), “Alf Leila Weileila” (a thousand and one nights), “Amal Hayati” (hope of my life) and “Daret al-Ayyam” (the days have come around). Some of her songs have been remixed to modern beats that have made their way to Middle Eastern nightclubs.

The singer remains an unmatched voice across the Arab World and her music can still be heard in many traditional coffee shops in Old Cairo’s neighborhoods and other parts of the Arab world.

Umm Kulthum’s death in 1975 brought millions of mourners to the streets of Cairo.

By Nadeen Ebrahim

Women athletes aim their air rifles while competing in a local shooting championship in Yemen's Houthi rebel-held capital Sanaa on January 3.

Science & Environment

Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Mickey 17’ gets trailer and release…

6 December 2022
by admin

A first look at “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho’s new movie is here.

Science & Environment

Inside Christine McVie’s and Stevie Nicks’ decades-long friendship |…

1 December 2022
by admin

CNN
—

Throughout the various personal turmoils for which the members of Fleetwood Mac are known, one relationship buoyed the band for decades: the friendship between its two frontwomen, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.

McVie joined the band in 1970 during one of its early lineup changes and for years was its only woman. When Nicks was added to the lineup in 1975, the two became fast friends.

Theirs was not a competitive relationship, but a sisterly one – both women were gifted songwriters responsible for crafting many of the band’s best-known tunes. Though the two grew apart in the 1980s amid Nicks’ worsening drug addiction and the band’s growing internal tension, they came back together when McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac in 2014.

At a concert in London, shortly before McVie officially rejoined the band, Nicks dedicated the song “Landslide” to her “mentor. Big sister. Best friend.” And at the show’s end, McVie was there, accompanying her bandmates for “Don’t Stop.”

“I never want her to ever go out of my life again, and that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with her and I as friends,” Nicks told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

On Wednesday, McVie, the band’s “songbird,” died after a brief illness at age 79. Below, revisit McVie’s and Nicks’ years-long relationship as bandmates, best friends and “sisters.”

McVie and Nicks hit it off from the start

The story of Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac is legend now: Band founder and drummer Mick Fleetwood wanted to recruit guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who stipulated that he would only join if his girlfriend and musician Nicks could join, too. McVie cast the deciding vote, and the rest is history.

“It was critical that I got on with her because I’d never played with another girl,” McVie told the Guardian in 2013. “But I liked her instantly. She was funny and nice but also there was no competition. We were completely different on the stage to each other and we wrote differently too.”

Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks were fast friends when Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, protecting each other in a male-dominated industry.

Throughout the band’s many personal complications – McVie married and divorced Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie and had an affair with the band’s lighting director, while Nicks had rollercoaster romances with Buckingham and Fleetwood – they were each other’s center.

“To be in a band with another girl who was this amazing musician – (McVie) kind of instantly became my best friend,” Nicks told the New Yorker earlier this year. “Christine was a whole other ballgame. She liked hanging out with the guys. She was just more comfortable with men than I had ever been.”

The two protected each other, Nicks said, in a male-dominated industry: “We made a pact, in the very beginning, that we would never be treated with disrespect by all the male musicians in the community.

“I would say to her, ‘Together, we are a serious force of nature, and it will give us the strength to maneuver the waters that are ahead of us,’” Nicks told the New Yorker.

The band succeeds but McVie and Nicks grow distant

“Rumours” was the band’s greatest success to date when it was released in 1977. But the band’s relationships with each other were deteriorating, save for the one between McVie and Nicks. While the pair were enduring breakups with their significant others, Nicks and McVie spent their time offstage together.

The Guardian asked McVie if she was trying to offset the band’s tumult with her songs on “Rumours,” including the lighthearted “You Make Lovin’ Fun” and optimistic “Don’t Stop.” She said she likely had been.

As multiple members’ drug use intensified, the band’s dynamic grew tense. McVie distanced herself from the group in 1984 amid her bandmates’ addictions, telling the Guardian she was “just sick of it.” Nicks, meanwhile, was becoming dependent on cocaine.

After Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, Christine McVie (third from left) quit the band.

McVie told Rolling Stone that year that she’d grown apart from Nicks: “She seems to have developed her own fantasy world, somehow, which I’m not part of. We don’t socialize much.”

In 1986, Nicks checked into the Betty Ford Center to treat her addiction, though she later became addicted to Klonopin, which she said claimed years of her life. She quit the prescription drug in the 1990s.

After recording some solo works, McVie returned to Fleetwood Mac for their 1987 album “Tango in the Night,” and two of her songs on that record – “Little Lies” and “Everywhere” – became major hits. But Nicks departed the band soon after, and the band’s best-known lineup wouldn’t officially reunite until 1997 for “The Dance” tour and subsequent live album.

The reunion was short-lived: After the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, McVie officially quit Fleetwood Mac, citing a fear of flying and exhaustion of life on the road.

McVie returns to Fleetwood Mac – and to Nicks’ side

In the 2010s, after more than a decade of retirement, McVie toyed with returning to performing. She officially rejoined Fleetwood Mac after calling Fleetwood himself and gauging what her return would mean for the group.

“Fortunately Stevie was dying for me to come back, as were the rest of the band,” she told the Arts Desk.

In 2015, a year after she’d rejoined Fleetwood Mac, McVie hit the road with her bandmates. Touring with the group was tiring but fun, the first time they’d performed together in years.

“I’m only here for Stevie,” she told the New Yorker that year.

Christine McVie (left) and Stevie Nicks perform together at Radio City Music Hall in 2018.

Nicks concurred: “When we went on the road, I realized what an amazing friend she’d been of mine that I had lost and didn’t realize the whole consequences of it till now,” she told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.

During that tour, McVie wore a silver chain that Nicks had given her – a “metaphor,” McVie told the New Yorker, “that the chain of the band will never be broken. Not by me, anyways. Not again by me.”

McVie told the Arts Desk in 2016 that she and Nicks were “better friends now than (they) were 16 years ago.”

Touring with Buckingham and Fleetwood could quickly get tumultuous for Nicks, McVie said, due to their shared history. “But with me in there, it gave Stevie the chance to get her breath back and not have this constant thing going on with Lindsey: her sister was back,” she said.

Their mutual praise continued: In 2019, McVie said Nicks was “just unbelievable” onstage: “The more I see her perform on stage the better I think she is. She holds the fort.”

When their 2018-2019 tour ended, though – without Buckingham, who was fired – the band “kind of broke up,” McVie told Rolling Stone earlier this year. She added that she didn’t speak with Nicks as often as she did when they toured together.

As for a reunion, McVie told Rolling Stone that while it wasn’t off the table, she wasn’t feeling “physically up for it.”

“I’m getting a bit long in the teeth here,” she said. “I’m quite happy being at home. I don’t know if I ever want to tour again. It’s bloody hard work.”

News of McVie’s death rattled Nicks, who wrote that she had only found out McVie was sick days earlier. She called McVie her “best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975.”

On her social media accounts, Nicks shared a handwritten note containing lyrics from the Haim song “Hallelujah,” some of which discusses grief and the loss of a best friend.

“See you on the other side, my love,” Nicks wrote. “Don’t forget me – Always, Stevie.”

Science & Environment

‘Love Actually’ director feels ‘a bit stupid’ about movie’s…

1 December 2022
by admin

CNN
—

Every year, as the days grow colder and Christmas draws nearer, “Love Actually” quickly becomes a festive favorite on people’s television screens.

But nearly 20 years on from the release of the 2003 romantic comedy, the movie has faced scrutiny over its story lines and lack of diversity.

“There were things you’d change but thank god society is changing. So my film is bound, in some moments, to feel, you know, out of date,” the movie’s writer and director Richard Curtis said earlier this week.

He was speaking to Diane Sawyer as part of a documentary on ABC News titled: “The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later.”

“Love Actually” features interweaving story lines, following several romantic relationships. However, most of the leading cast is White and all the relationships depicted are heterosexual.

Asked about any moments that might make him “wince,” Curtis said: “The lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid.” He added: “I think there are three plots that have bosses and people who work for them.”

The movie features an impressive number of big names from the entertainment industry, with Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Martin Freeman, Laura Linney, Martine McCutcheon, Rowan Atkinson and Thomas Brodie-Sangster all appearing at some point.

Hugh Grant plays the British prime minister who falls in love with his assistant, played by Martine McCutcheon.

Nearly 20 years on, “Love Actually” remains popular, becoming a staple of the holiday season.

“It’s amazing the way it’s entered the language,” Nighy said in the ABC News documentary.

“I’ve had people coming up to me saying ‘it got me through my chemotherapy,’ or ‘it got me through my divorce,’ or ‘I watch it whenever I’m alone.’ And people do, and people have ‘Love Actually’ parties.”

When asked if she understood why “Love Actually” had remained popular, Thompson replied: “I so do.”

“Because I think that we forget, time and time again we forget, that love is all that matters.”

Curtis has written several other popular romantic comedies, including “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

“Four Weddings and a Funeral” was released in 1994 and notably portrayed a same-sex relationship between Matthew, played by John Hannah, and Gareth, played by Simon Callow.

Writing in the Guardian 14 years later, Callow said: “It almost defies belief, but in the months after the release of the film, I received a number of letters from apparently intelligent, articulate members of the public saying that they had never realised, until seeing the film, that gay people had emotions like normal people.”