NEWS AROUND US: April 2020

Thursday, 30 April 2020

Michigan Governor Reinstates State of Emergency as Protests Ramp Up

By BY JACEY FORTIN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2zN1ysQ

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims Stuck at Sea in Refugee Crisis With ‘Zero Hope’

By BY HANNAH BEECH from NYT World https://ift.tt/2KOOhlN

Will New N.C.A.A. Rules Really Keep Agents and Boosters at Bay?

By BY BILLY WITZ from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3d70Vse

Anderson Cooper Announces Birth of His First Child

By BY NEIL VIGDOR from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2WiE1HR

Your Friday Briefing

By BY VICTORIA SHANNON from NYT Briefing https://ift.tt/35kd36I

Coronavirus Live Updates: In China, Loosened Restrictions Lead to Travel Rush

By Unknown Author from NYT World https://ift.tt/2yfrQDD

Investors’ Confidence Lifts U.S. Stocks to Best Month Since 1987: Live Updates

By Unknown Author from NYT Business https://ift.tt/3aUKkXa

Making Space in Marriage, Even as the Walls Close In

By BY DEBRA JO IMMERGUT from NYT Style https://ift.tt/3fhRZm2

Quotation of the Day: Billions Slide Down Ladder That Took Decades to Climb

By Unknown Author from NYT Today’s Paper https://ift.tt/2KPQrSk

Corrections: May 1, 2020

By Unknown Author from NYT Corrections https://ift.tt/2zH7mUA

While You Sleep, What Is Your Cat Doing?

A guy sets up a webcam to determine what his cat does while he "sleeps"?

That's a heavy sleeper.

Open thread below...

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Labs Across U.S. Join Federal Initiative to Study Coronavirus Genome

By BY SHERI FINK from NYT Science https://ift.tt/2KPYRc8

Closing Number of a Musical

By BY DEB AMLEN from NYT Crosswords & Games https://ift.tt/3aSya11

WHOOPS! Trump Administration Accidentally Insured Extra 200,000 Through Obamacare

Coleman Drake, University of Pittsburgh and David Anderson, Duke University

With an eye on replacing the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration took one particularly critical action in October 2017. It discontinued cost-sharing reduction subsidy payments to health insurers participating in the ACA marketplaces.

But the response to those cuts was likely not what President Trump expected. State insurance commissioners and insurers used them to make marketplace health plans more affordable.

Premium decreases were large – so large that 4.2 million potential enrollees had the option to purchase a marketplace plan for free in 2019.

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Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

By BY PATRICK J. LYONS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2xrrh9q

In Place of Pomp and Circumstance: Oprah

By BY NEIL VIGDOR from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2z3DKjR

Fiona Ex Machina

By BY WESLEY MORRIS AND JENNA WORTHAM from NYT Podcasts https://ift.tt/3f6bY75

The ‘PuffPacket’ could help researchers learn when, how and why people vape

Vaping is a controversial habit: it certainly has its downsides, but anecdotally it’s a fantastic smoking cessation aid. The thing is, until behavioral scientists know a bit more about who does it, when, how much and other details, its use will continue to be something of a mystery. That’s where the PuffPacket comes in.

Designed by Cornell engineers, the PuffPacket is a small device that attaches to e-cigarettes (or vape pens, or whatever you call yours) and precisely measures their use, sharing that information with a smartphone app for the user, and potentially researchers, to review later.

Some vaping devices are already set up with something like this, to tell a user when the cartridge is running low or a certain limit has been reached. But generally when vaping habits are studied, they rely on self-report data, not proprietary apps.

How companies are working around Apple’s ban on vaping apps

“The lack of continuous and objective understanding of vaping behaviors led us to develop PuffPacket to enable proper measurement, monitoring, tracking and recording of e-cigarette use, as opposed to inferring it from location and activity data, or self-reports,” said PhD student Alexander Adams, who led the creation of the device, in a Cornell news release.

The device fits a number of e-cigarette types, fitting between the mouthpiece and the heating element. It sits idle until the user breathes in, which activates the e-cigarette’s circuits, and the PuffPacket’s as well. By paying attention to the voltage, it can tell how much liquid is being vaporized, as well as simpler measurements like the duration and timing of the inhalation.

An example using real data of how location and activity could be correlated with vaping

This data is sent to the smartphone app via Bluetooth, where it is cross-referenced with other information, like location, motion and other metadata. This may lead to identifiable patterns, like that someone vapes frequently when they walk in the morning but not the afternoon, or after coffee but not meals, or far more at the bar than at home — that sort of thing. Perhaps even (with the proper permissions) it could track use of certain apps — Instagram and vape? Post-game puff?

Some of these might be obvious, others not so much — but either way, it helps to have them backed up by real data rather than asking a person to estimate their own usage. They may not know, understand or wish to admit their own habits.

“Getting these correlations between time of day, place and activity is important for understanding addiction. Research has shown that if you can keep people away from the paths of their normal habits, it can disrupt them,” said Adams.

No one is expecting people to voluntarily stick these things on their vape pens and share their info, but the design — which is being released as open source — could be used by researchers performing more formal studies. You can read the paper describing PuffPacket here.

from TechCrunch
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Two Arrested in Killings of Transgender Women in Puerto Rico

By BY MICHAEL LEVENSON AND SANDRA E. GARCIA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2YnU3CH

Peter Hunt, Who Directed the Broadway Hit ‘1776,’ Dies at 81

By BY NEIL GENZLINGER from NYT Theater https://ift.tt/2VR35Xb

Scrambling the Political Divide: ‘No Normal Recession’

By BY LISA LERER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2VQ3U2w

In a Crisis, True Leaders Stand Out

By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2Wc5wTr

Amazon Sells More, but Warns of Much Higher Costs Ahead

By BY KAREN WEISE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2xrY3Hw

Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Your Thursday Briefing

By BY VICTORIA SHANNON from NYT Briefing https://ift.tt/3bT8jaO

The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in May

By BY NOEL MURRAY from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/35h1gpL

Coronavirus Live Updates: Pandemic Sends World’s Poor Scrambling

By Unknown Author from NYT World https://ift.tt/2SiXvL8

Flynn Lawyers Seize on Newly Released F.B.I. Documents

By BY ADAM GOLDMAN AND KATIE BENNER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2yc7wmC

Markets in Asia Rise After Wall Street Rally: Live Updates

By Unknown Author from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2YgSkiI

Emissions Declines Will Set Records This Year. But It’s Not Good News.

By BY BRAD PLUMER from NYT Climate https://ift.tt/35m5RH9

Getting Outside during Coronavirus

By Unknown Author from NYT Home Page https://ift.tt/3d1jmyF

21-Year-Old Man Arrested in Fatal Shooting of Indianapolis Postal Worker

By BY MARIEL PADILLA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2yTuP4z

Cartoon: The Trump Coronavirus Blame Game

Open thread below...

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Tomi Lahren: Stay-At-Home Orders ‘Like Willful Slavery’

On April 23, the Fox Nation host called the shutdowns a “trial of communism.”

It’s time for this trial of communism to expire. #ReopenAmerica

— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) April 24, 2020

On Monday, she called it “willful slavery” until, for some unexplained reason, she deleted the tweet. But not before The Daily Beast grabbed it:

The Daily Beast also caught her whining about the left “now shaming and demonizing Americans who simply want to reopen their businesses and get back to work.” As if shaming and demonizing is not Lahren’s entire schtick.

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