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Krugman: Why people in GOP-leaning states have shorter life expectancies

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

Last Friday the Medicare trustees released their latest report on the system’s finances, and it contained some unexpected good news: Expenditures are running below projections, and the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund won’t be exhausted as soon as previously predicted.But one important reason for this financial improvement was grisly: COVID-19 killed a substantial number of Medicare beneficiaries. And the victims were disproportionately seniors already suffering from severe — and expensive — health problems. “As a result, the surviving population had spending that was lower than average.”America’s dismal COVID performance was part of a larger story. I don’t know how many Americans are aware that over the past four decades, our life expectancy has been lagging ever further than that of other advanced nations — even nations whose economic performance has been poor by conventional measures. Italy, for example, has experienced a generation of economic stagnation, with basically no growth i...

Opinion: As mass shootings multiply, judges are erasing gun safety laws

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

Once again a mass shooting is in the headlines — this time in Nashville, with three children among the six victims. This latest horrific tragedy is prompting renewed calls for gun reform, but what most Americans don’t know is that a different kind of gun revolution is already underway.Over the past few months, the federal courts have waged an unprecedented attack on U.S. gun safety laws. Spurred by the Supreme Court, judges have declared dozens of mainstream, widely accepted restrictions on firearms unconstitutional.Even a partial list of the laws struck down or enjoined is startling: bans on possession of firearms by domestic abusers; bans on guns in churches, hospitals and bars; prohibitions on firearms in the hands of people charged with felonies; restrictions on 18-to-20-year-olds carrying weapons; prohibitions on loaded guns in vehicles; and bans on guns with obliterated serial numbers.This tidal wave of rulings began with a decision by the Supreme Court last year. The justices...

April’s full pink moon will rise this week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

By Taylor Nicioli and Ashley Strickland | CNNApril’s full moon will not shine pink tonight, despite its name, but the bright golden orb could still offer a sight to behold.Moon observers can begin to see the lunar event starting Wednesday night, and it will peak early Thursday morning at 12:34 a.m. ET.“The April full Moon, at first glance, will look like other full Moons,” said Dr. Noah Petro, chief of NASA’s planetary geology, geophysics and geochemistry lab, in an email. Each one, however, “presents a special opportunity to see a beautiful Moon and start looking at the Moon as it goes through its phases.“I encourage people to dust off their binoculars or telescopes to look closely at the Moon, try to see the different colors (the light and dark regions), and recognize that those differences reflect different compositions of rock.”Full moons are visible to those in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, as they are considered to be in the f...

Elon Musk’s month pushing Twitter Blue failed to win many subscribers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

By Aisha Counts | BloombergTwitter Inc. is struggling to sell users on its new subscription product, Twitter Blue, according to a new report.Only 116,000 people signed up for the service of 2.6 million people who visited the Twitter Blue sales page on the web in March, according to estimates by SimiliarWeb, which analyzes internet traffic.Twitter owner Elon Musk had said that starting this month, only subscribers to Twitter Blue would be eligible for verification check marks, previously reserved for public figures. In March, when a person who got a check through the old system logged onto Twitter, they sometimes received a message encouraging them to sign up to pay for Twitter Blue in order to keep their status.The change in rules was expected to cause an uptick in subscriptions. Recently, Musk decided to give some verified users more time to decide whether to pay him.TRelated ArticlesBusiness | A new group of Twitter vendors is suing the company for alleged unpaid bills ...

More court dates for parolee accused of stabbing 80-years-old man at Bay Area Burger King

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

A  trial date remains pending for a 36-year-old parolee charged with stabbing an elderly man in a Fairfield fast food restaurant in 2018.Solano County Superior Court records show that Dale James Chordorowski, who  appeared Tuesday Department 11, was scheduled for a trial setting, but Judge William J. Pendergast reset it for 8:30 a.m. May 4 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.At the the newly scheduled setting, Pendergast also will consider a Romero motion submitted by the Public Defender’s Office, which represents Chordorowski. It is a motion by a defense attorney to remove a prior strike conviction from consideration during sentencing. If a judge grants the motion, it can significantly reduce the length of a state prison sentence should a defendant be convicted.After a 2021 preliminary hearing, as previously reported, Pendergast declared there was enough evidence to hold Chordorowski for trial.During a previous court proceeding, Chordorowski also faced a restoration-of-mental-compet...

Veteran Spanish actress says surrogate baby is granddaughter

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

MADRID (AP) — A heated debate in Spain triggered by a 68-year-old celebrity who was reported to have used a surrogate mother in Miami to have a baby took a twist Wednesday when the woman announced in socialite magazine ¡Hola! that the baby is actually the daughter of her son who died of cancer in 2020.Actress and presenter Ana Obregón told ¡Hola! that doctors had encouraged her son, Aless Lequio García, to preserve samples of sperm before he began treatment and that he expressed a desire just before dying to have a child. The samples, she said, were stored in New York.Surrogate pregnancies are banned in Spain, although children from such pregnancies in other countries can be registered.“This girl is not my daughter, but rather my granddaughter” Obregón told the magazine. “It was Aless’ last wish to bring a child into the world.”Initial reports about the baby grabbed the attention of the Spanish media and the country’s political parties, sparking criticism from the leftist coalition ...

Macron in China urges ‘shared responsibility for peace’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday he wants to “engage China toward a shared responsibility for peace” in Ukraine when he meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week.French officials said earlier Macron planned to urge Xi in talks Thursday to use Beijing’s influence with Russian President Vladimir Putin but didn’t expect a big shift in the Chinese position.Macron is accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a show of European unity in dealings with Beijing.Xi and Putin declared their governments had a “no limits friendship” before Moscow’s February 2022 attack on Ukraine. Beijing has refused to criticize the Kremlin but has tried to appear neutral and has called for a cease-fire and peace talks.In a speech to French residents of China, Macron said he would “try to build, and somehow engage China toward a shared responsibility for peace and stability on international issues” including Ukraine, Iran and North...

Fuerzas israelíes asaltan mezquita de al-Aqsa en Jerusalén y arrestan a más de 350 personas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

(CNN) — La policía de Israel irrumpió en la mezquita al-Aqsa en la Ciudad Vieja de Jerusalén este miércoles temprano y arrestó más de 350 personas, pocos días después de que un palestino fuera asesinado fuera del lugar sagrado.Escenas violentas dentro de la mezquita compartidas en las redes sociales muestran a las fuerzas israelíes agitando linternas y aparentemente golpeando con porras a personas que gritaban dentro del edificio a oscuras. Testigos oculares le dijeron a CNN que la policía rompió puertas y ventanas y disparó granadas de aturdimiento y balas de goma.Un video compartido por la policía de Israel muestra a agentes ingresando a la mezquita por la fuerza con sus escudos antidisturbios mientras se les lanzan fuegos artificiales que rebotan en las paredes.La policía israelí ingresa a la mezquita al-Aqsa en Jerusalén el 4 de abril de 2023. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Agencia Anadolu/Getty Images)En un comunicado, la policía israelí dijo que sus fuerzas ingresaron a la mezquita ...

Real Madrid earns most UEFA prize money with $146M in 2022

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Champions League winner Real Madrid earned the most prize money from a European club competition last season with 133.7 million euros ($146.4 million), UEFA said Wednesday.Madrid’s total included a basic payment for entering the group stage, results bonuses, a share of Spanish broadcasting rights and an extra payment based on clubs’ historical records in UEFA competitions.Liverpool lost the final to Madrid and was second in the “prize money table” with a total of 120 million euros ($131.4 million) from UEFA’s total Champions League prize fund of more than 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion).Only two other clubs earned nine-figure sums: Bayern Munich got nearly 110 million euros ($120.4 million) and Manchester City was paid nearly 109 million euros ($119 million).Paris Saint-Germain’s loss to Madrid in the round of 16 meant it was paid just 92 million euros ($100.7 million) by UEFA.UEFA said the 32 group-stage clubs were paid an average of 61.8 million euros ($67.7 million) ...

‘This is our second crypto winter as a company:’ RoundlyX explains how it expects to grow in 2023

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:28 GMT

RoundlyX may reside in a fickle cryptocurrency space, but it survived that industry’s 2018 downturn, and isn’t looking to change directions now. Instead, it expects to triple revenue and significantly grow its user base.“This is our second crypto winter as a company,” founder Andrew Elliot said. “We are not questioning what we do. We know it works like this. It’s very cyclical. Everything in the financial market has only validated Bitcoin.”Founded in 2017 by Elliot and partner Will Trible, RoundlyX Inc. allows cryptocurrency investors to round their daily purchases to the nearest dollar and apply the amount to their cryptocurrency investments. The Richmond company, formerly known as Coin Savage, has built partnerships with Coinbase, Giving Block and other companies in the cryptocurrency sector.Cryptocurrency is still an emerging asset class, Elliot said, one that grew tremendously in 2020 and 2021 before declining in 2022. So far, cryptocurrency is up in 2023, but…Read the full stor...