My precise view

https://ift.tt/30m1A8n Older adults without heart disease shouldn’t take daily low-dose aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke, an influential health guidelines group said in preliminary updated advice released Tuesday. Bleeding risks for adults in their 60s and up who haven’t had a heart attack or stroke outweigh any potential benefits from aspirin, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said in its draft guidance. For the first time, the panel said there may be a small benefit for adults in their 40s who have no bleeding risks. For those in their 50s, the panel softened advice and said evidence of benefit is less clear. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The recommendations are meant for people with high blood pressure , high cholesterol , obesity or other conditions that increase their chances for a heart attack or stroke. Regardless of age, adults should talk with their doctors about stopping or starting aspirin to make sure it’s the right choice for them,...

https://ift.tt/3FFZzUr (SEATTLE) — Amazon said Monday it will allow many tech and corporate workers to continue working remotely indefinitely, as long as they can commute to the office when necessary. The new policy was announced in a blog post and is a change from Amazon’s previous expectation that most employees would need to be in the office at least three days a week when offices reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic in January. The Seattle Times reported Monday’s message was signed by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and said company directors will have discretion to allow teams that they manage to continue working remotely. “We expect that there will be teams that continue working mostly remotely, others that will work some combination of remotely and in the office, and still others that will decide customers are best served having the team work mostly in the office,” Jassy wrote. Most of the online retail giant’s more than 1 million global employees cannot work remotely because t...

https://ift.tt/3oUqWUZ Kristalina Georgieva will remain as head of the International Monetary Fund after the lender’s board reviewed accusations that she improperly influenced a World Bank ranking of China’s business climate. The fate of Georgieva—a Bulgarian economist and the first person from an emerging-market nation to run the IMF—had been in limbo since Sept. 16. That’s when a report written by law firm WilmerHale and commissioned by the World Bank, her previous employer, asserted that she pressured subordinates to boost China’s position in the bank’s influential “Doing Business” report. “The executive board considered that the information presented in the course of its review did not conclusively demonstrate that the managing director played an improper role regarding the Doing Business 2018 Report when she was CEO of the World Bank,” the fund said in a statement following board deliberations Monday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Having looked at all the evidence...

https://ift.tt/3FFXXtZ From her Baltimore dining room, Susan Goodlaxson can see her neighbor gardening across the street. But while other neighbors stop to chat, Goodlaxson just watches from the window. She uses a wheelchair, and there isn’t a single curb ramp on her block. If the 66-year-old wanted to join, she’d have to jump her wheelchair down the 7.5-inch curb and risk a fall. Ditto if she wanted to wheel over to the library, a trip that would require riding in the street to avoid rampless curbs and broken sidewalks. “I don’t feel like it’s asking too much to be able to move your wheelchair around the city,” Goodlaxson says. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Federal law backs her up. Since 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has required government entities to provide people with disabilities access to programs and services enjoyed by their nondisabled peers. That includes sidewalks and curb ramps that make it possible to safely cross the street. In Baltimo...

https://ift.tt/3mNRYe8 A line-up of busts or paintings of the first twelve Roman emperors is one of the commonest decorations in up-market houses in Europe and the United States. Most are not actually ancient Roman, but modern versions created over the last few hundred years, attempting to capture the distinctive “look” of these famous, or infamous, dynasts, from Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to Domitian (assassinated 96 CE). They are so familiar that most of us walk straight past them in museums and galleries, without a second look. Not so with their wives. In the modern world we have been used to spotting female power-wielders or villains, as the power behind throne—whether Nancy Reagan whispering in Ronald’s ear, or Ivanka Trump in the ear of her father . But what of ancient Rome and Roman versions of female imperial power? What do we think of Roman “empresses” ? Is there a model for power among the women of the Roman hierarchy? Many of us thrilled to the wicked Liv...

https://ift.tt/3BMuXOI When John le Carré died last December, his obituarists struck a common theme: here was a master spy novelist who, despite selling millions of books and having his work adapted for television and film , never received the recognition he deserved as a literary giant. Over six decades, le Carré drew upon his brief career in British intelligence to chronicle the decline of the U.K. as a global power and critique what he saw as an arrogant and corrupt Western neo-imperialism, typically through the perspective of those in the “secret world” of spying. His archetypal heroes were not James Bonds or Jack Reachers but often disillusioned men driven by moral values they are not certain they still believe in. What compels people to serve their country, or betray it, was a consistent theme in his work. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But just as Graham Greene —another former spy turned novelist—divided his work into “entertainments” and serious fare, so can one...

https://ift.tt/3AyQUQ0 Indra Nooyi struggles to be heard over the sounds of outdoor dining, midtown traffic, and a fountain gushing down the wall. That’s clearly rare for the former PepsiCo CEO —so she beckons the restaurant’s owner and asks if he can shut off the water. He obliges, and Nooyi proceeds to regale us, a table of female journalists at the helm of various New York media, with anecdotes from her just-released book, My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future . The whole lunchtime interaction—assess problem, determine what’s in your control, improve outcome, go forth with grace—is signature Nooyi. Her book delves even further into this exacting style punctured by compassion, loyalty, and deep relationships that get results. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] I confess to having studied Nooyi for a long time now. I’ve watched her interviews, live and on YouTube, during my own career trajectory. A manager training I once attended spent hours dissecting Nooyi’s ab...

https://ift.tt/3DNqmNd Despite sharp criticism from top officials and allies within the Democratic Party , President Biden is continuing to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving at the United States-Mexico border, using a specialized public health order that allows officials to circumvent the normal trappings of immigration procedure, including asylum interviews. The Biden Administration defends the use of the order , called Title 42 , arguing that summary expulsions are “necessary,” due to “the ongoing risks of transmission and spread of COVID-19.” But a growing cacophony of top public health experts are calling foul. There’s no evidence that a policy allowing for mass expulsions prevents the spread of COVID-19, they argue. And it may, in fact, have the opposite effect: by rounding up and detaining hundreds of thousands of migrants in large groups, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), which does not offer COVID-19 testing for migrants, may actually be stoking the t...

https://ift.tt/3FERaRq UNITED NATIONS — Warning that Afghanistan is facing “a make-or-break moment,” the United Nations chief on Monday urged the world to prevent the country’s economy from collapsing. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also appealed to the Taliban to stop breaking its promises to allow women to work and girls to have access to all levels of education. Eighty percent of Afghanistan’s economy is informal, with women playing an overwhelming role, and “without them there is no way the Afghan economy and society will recover,” he said. He said the U.N. is urgently appealing to countries to inject cash into the Afghan economy, which before the Taliban takeover in August was dependent on international aid that accounted for 75% of state spending. The country is grappling with a liquidity crisis as assets remain frozen in the U.S. and other countries, and disbursements from international organizations have been put on hold. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Rig...

https://ift.tt/3lyZxGe TEL AVIV, Israel — Dozens of drones floated through the skies of Tel Aviv on Monday, ferrying cartons of ice cream and sushi across the city in an experiment that officials hope provided a glimpse of the not-too-distant future. Israel’s National Drone Initiative, a government program, carried out the drill to prepare for a world in which large quantities of commercial deliveries will be made by drones to take pressure off highly congested urban roads. The two-year program aims to apply the capabilities of Israeli drone companies to establish a nationwide network where customers can order goods and have them delivered to pick up spots. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The project, now in the third of eight stages, is still in its infancy and faces many questions about security and logistics. “We had 700 test flights at the start of this year and now we are close to 9,000 flights,” said Daniella Partem, from Israel Innovation Authority, a partner in th...

https://ift.tt/3ByxX1p Netflix Inc. co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos defended the company’s decision to air a controversial Dave Chappelle comedy special featuring trans jokes as “artistic freedom.” “We don’t allow titles [on] Netflix that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe ‘The Closer’ crosses that line,” he wrote in a memo last week obtained by Variety Monday. “Particularly in stand-up comedy, artistic freedom is obviously a very different standard of speech than we allow internally as the goals are different: entertaining people versus maintaining a respectful, productive workplace.” The company on Monday also suspended three employees who crashed an executive meeting last week, including Terra Field, a transgender worker who spoke out against the Chappelle special, according to a person familiar with the matter. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “What we object to is the harm that content like this does to the trans community (especial...

https://ift.tt/3DysfNh When Passing debuts on Netflix on Nov. 10, the film —starring Oscar nominee Ruth Negga ( Loving ) and Tessa Thompson—will draw new attention to Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel on which it is based. The story and its title most obviously raise questions about race in American society, with the tale of two light-skinned Black women, childhood friends Irene and Clare, navigating the phenomenon of passing as white. But Passing also shines a light on the often overlooked role of sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance. “Clare makes Irene uncomfortable in lots of ways…Might she be attracted to Clare herself?” TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote after the movie’s premiere at Sundance this year. “The dance these two perform with one another is entrancing and heady and a little mysterious—its steps not easily parsed but always captivating.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Questions about attraction between the protagonists in this novel have made it not o...

https://ift.tt/3iQDZmz Austria’s new Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg vowed to work closely with his predecessor and future party whip, Sebastian Kurz, who was reduced to a parliamentary role by a corruption scandal. The new premier, almost two decades older than Kurz, said he’ll continue to work along the lines of a coalition program signed with the Green Party in 2020. That includes a wide-ranging tax overhaul that puts a price on carbon-dioxide pollution, he said after his inauguration on Monday. Schallenberg, who has been serving as foreign minister, will need to pick up the pieces from the Kurz era and answer questions over whether it is really over. In his first comments after his appointment, the chancellor didn’t totally dispel the notion that the wily 35-year-old political survivor will be allowed to keep pulling the strings from the sidelines. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I will of course work work very closely with Sebastian Kurz” as head of the People’s ...