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Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market Business Analysis 2019 by CAGR, Share, Revenue and Prominent Key Players to 2025 – News Times

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Danzig

Dataintelo.com, has added the latest research on AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market, which offers a concise outline of the market valuation, industry size, SWOT analysis, revenue approximation, and the regional outlook of this business vertical. The report precisely features the key opportunities and challenges faced by contenders of this industry and presents the existing competitive setting and corporate strategies enforced by the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market players.

As per the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market report, this industry is predicted to grow substantial returns by the end of the forecast duration, recording a profitable yearly growth in the upcoming years. Shedding light on brief of this industry, the report offers considerable details concerning complete valuation of the market as well as detailed analysis of the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market along with existing growth opportunities in the business vertical.

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Concepts and ideas in the report:Analysis of the region- based segment in the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market: As per the report, in terms of provincial scope, the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market is divided into USA, Europe, Japan, China, India and South East Asia. It also includes particulars related to the products usage throughout the geographical landscape. Data related to the evaluations held by all the zones mentioned as well as the market share registered by each region is included in the report. Sum of all the product consumption growth rate across the applicable regions as well as consumption market share is described in the report. The report speaks about consumption rate of all regions, based on product types and applications.

Brief of the market segmentation: As per the product type, the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market is categorized intoAyurvedic MedicinesHerbal MedicinesAroma TherapyHomeopathyReflexologyOthers

Furthermore, the market share of each product along with the project valuation is mentioned in the report. The report consists of facts related to every single products sale price, revenue, growth rate over the estimation time period.

The AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market, according to the application spectrum, is categorized intoWomenMenKids

Data pertaining the market share of each product application as well as estimated revenue that each application registers for is slated in the report.

Propelling factors & challenges: The report provides data concerning the forces influencing the commercialization scale of the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market and their effect on the revenue graph of this business vertical. Data pertaining to latest trends driving the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market along with the challenges this industry is about to experience in the upcoming years is mentioned in the report.

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Implementing marketing tactics: Ideas about numerous marketing strategies implemented by the renowned shareholders with respect to product marketing is present in the report. Information related to the sales channels that companies select is also included in the report. Along with the dealers of these products, it also presents the summary of the top customers for the same.

Analysis of the major competitors in the market:An outline of the manufacturers active in the AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market, consisting ofBaidyanathHimalya HerbalsGanga PharmaceuticalsPatanjaliHamdardalong with the distribution limits and sales area is reported. Particulars of each competitor including company profile, overview, as well as their range of products is inculcated in the report. The report also gives importance to product sales, price models, gross margins, and revenue generations. The AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market report consists of details such as estimation of the geographical landscape, study related to the market concentration rate as well as concentration ratio over the estimated time period.

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Some of the Major Highlights of TOC covers:AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Regional Market Analysis AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Production by Regions Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Production by Regions Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Revenue by Regions AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Consumption by Regions

AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Segment Market Analysis (by Type) Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Production by Type Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Revenue by Type AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Price by Type

AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Consumption by Application Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Consumption Market Share by Application (2014-2019)

AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Major Manufacturers Analysis AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Production Sites and Area Served Product Introduction, Application and Specification AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Production, Revenue, Ex-factory Price and Gross Margin (2014-2019) Main Business and Markets Served

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Global AYUSH and Alternative Medicine Market Business Analysis 2019 by CAGR, Share, Revenue and Prominent Key Players to 2025 - News Times

Empower Clinics Subsidiary Sun Valley Health to Lead Sponsor the Arizona Cannabis Expo and Empower Board Member Andrejs Bunkse to Speak at Cannabis…

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Danzig

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 12, 2020 / EMPOWER CLINICS INC. (CBDT.CN)(EPWCF)(8EC.F) ("Empower" or the "Company"), a vertically integrated and growth-oriented CBD life sciences company is pleased to announce that its Sun Valley Health division will be a lead sponsor at the Arizona Cannabis Industrial Market Place expo February 13th & 14th, 2020 at the Phoenix Convention Center. In addition, the Company will run an onsite Sun Valley Health POP-UP medical clinic, offering cannabis consultations, certifications and services by Sun Valley Health doctors.

"Our Sun Valley Franchising team has toured the U.S. over the past six months sharing our Scientific Approach to Alternative Medicine," said Dustin Klein, SVP Business Development and Director. "Being the title sponsor for the Cannabis Industrial Market Place national tour has brought us tremendous opportunities from around the globe. The upcoming Arizona CIMP Expo gives us the opportunity to share our growth and recent success with our dedicated community of patients, advocates, and business partners."

The Company is also pleased to announce that Andrejs Bunkse, a Company Director, will be participating as an expert panelist in the "Growing Your Business in the Cannabis Industry" - Fireside Chat hosted by Rebel Rock Accounting of Phoenix Arizona.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/growing-your-business-in-the-cannabis-industry-fireside-chat-registration-89899753583

"Being an active participant in our industry is imperative to our growth, it provides us greater connections to patients, plus early access to trends and new developments that allow us to be progressive thought leaders," said Steven McAuley, Chairman & CEO.

"We are delighted to host this event, bringing together many of Arizona's successful cannabis operators," said Melissa Diaz, CFO & Co-Founder of Rebel Rock. "Our women owned business is at the forefront in helping the cannabis industry become more mainstream and appealing to women consumers and entrepreneurs."

ABOUT EMPOWER

Empower is a vertically-integrated health & wellness brand with it's first hemp-derived CBD extraction facility under development, the Company produces its proprietary line of cannabidiol (CBD) based products and distributes products through company owned and franchised clinics, with wholesale partnerships, online channels and with new retail opportunities nationwide in the U.S. The company is a leading multi-state operator of a network of physician-staffed wellness clinics, focused on helping patients improve and protect their health, through innovative physician recommended treatment options. The company has commenced activity on how to connect its significant data, to the potential of the efficacy of alternative treatment options related to hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) therapies.

ABOUT REBEL ROCK

Rebel Rock was founded in 2019 by three accomplished female entrepreneurs to fill a clear and vast void in the cannabis industry. Rebel Rock puts confidence in cannabis, by helping emerging cannabis companies manage all their accounting, tax and operational efficiency needs. The Company offers customized cloud accounting solutions and business system implementations that provide peace of mind, streamlined operations and improved profitability.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Steven McAuleyChief Executive Officer

CONTACTS:

Investors: Steven McAuleyCEOs.mcauley@empowerclinics.com604-789-2146

Investors: Dustin KleinSVP, Business Developmentdustin@svmmjcc.com720-352-1398

For French inquiries: Remy Scalabrini, Maricom Inc., E: rs@maricom.ca, T: (888) 585-MARI

DISCLAIMER FOR FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively "forward looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release.Forward-looking statements can frequently be identified by words such as "plans", "continues", "expects", "projects", "intends", "believes", "anticipates", "estimates", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or information that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements in this news release include statements regarding; the Company's intention to open a hemp-based CBD extraction facility, the expected benefits to the Company and its shareholders as a result of the proposed acquisitions and partnerships; the effectiveness of the extraction technology; the expected benefits for Empower's patient base and customers; the benefits of CBD based products; the effect of the approval of the Farm Bill; the growth of the Company's patient list and that the Company will be positioned to be a market-leading service provider for complex patient requirements in 2019 and beyond. Such statements are only projections, are based on assumptions known to management at this time, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including; that the Company may not open a hemp-based CBD extraction facility; that legislative changes may have an adverse effect on the Company's business and product development; that the Company may not be able to obtain adequate financing to pursue its business plan; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; failure to obtain any necessary approvals in connection with the proposed acquisitions and partnerships; and other factors beyond the Company's control. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits the Company will obtain from them. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements in this release, which are qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements in this release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable laws.

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Empower Clinics Subsidiary Sun Valley Health to Lead Sponsor the Arizona Cannabis Expo and Empower Board Member Andrejs Bunkse to Speak at Cannabis...

How People in Pain Cope When They Cant Use THC at Work – Greatist

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Danzig

One morning in fall 2018, I collapsed from pain. It felt like I was getting stabbed in my right side, right in the ovary. I dragged myself across the floor to get myself into bed, but I couldnt. My roommate wanted to know if she should get me some Advil. Advil is not going to fix this, I remember thinking.

So I waited until the pain reduced to a level I could handle and made an appointment at a gynecologists office for the next morning.

In her office, we discussed my history with period pain and birth control. She suggested I might have endometriosis. Upon doing an ultrasound, she found an endometrioma, or cyst, on my right ovary, confirming her diagnosis. The pain, she said, and my horrible periods were because of endo.

I immediately asked what we could do about the pain. Apart from hormonal birth control and invasive surgery, she said, pain management options were few and far between. She suggested Epsom salt baths and pelvic floor therapy. I could afford the salt baths, but not the therapy.

She recommended a lot of foods that might reduce inflammation and told me to order a good heating pad. Finally, she asked if I smoked weed. I did.

Im lucky to live in Washington, D.C., where both medical and recreational marijuana use are legal. In the evenings and on weekends, I can feel some actual relief by using THC as medicine. But I also work a full-time job and cant and dont want to get high at work.

If Im having a serious pain flare during the day, I have to work through it until I can get home and smoke. Working through the feelings of nausea and the fear of a cyst rupturing usually involves a combination of ibuprofen, acetaminophen, a heating pad, peppermint tea, herbal remedies like cramp bark, and, sometimes, tears.

Being in this much pain, with no absolute solution, is a common problem among chronically ill people for whom THC brings the most relief.

Erin Cotter Cartwright is a 29-year-old woman living with migraine, endometriosis, and a connective tissue disorder. She says vaping THC concentrates has caused a huge and swift change in [her] daily pain. While it remains the most effective pain relief, at work, she sticks to over-the-counter (OTC) Excedrin or a low dose of oxycodone.

Cannabis is legal where she lives, in Massachusetts, but Erin still worries about losing access. Without THC, she says, her mobility would be lessened, [her] diet would probably suffer, and [her] mood would be severely impacted.

Leah lives in Seattle and has access to medicinal and recreational cannabis. She uses both CBD and THC to manage her pain caused by Ehlers-Danlos syndrome but worries about how it might affect her job. When pain comes on during a shift, she just [has] to deal with it.

If she could, she says, she would step outside to smoke, but even in a state where recreational and medicinal use is widely accepted, the workplace is still a place where cannabis is considered drugs.

Leahs fear illustrates one of the biggest problems with cannabis use, even in states where its legal. Cannabis is considered a Schedule I substance and remains illegal federally. This complicates peoples ability to use it even medicinally without fear of retribution.

The answer, unfortunately, is that there isnt a perfect solution yet. And the verdict on whether CBD is as effective for chronic pain is a mixed bag.

Marissa lives in Arkansas, where THC is not very accessible. Even though medical marijuana is legal, she says the initial cost is too high for it to be the right option for her. She found that acupuncture and pelvic floor therapy helped her pain caused by endometriosis, adenomyosis, and interstitial cystitis, but they were also far too expensive to keep up with the frequent appointments required to see results.

For now, Marissa uses heat and CBD to manage her symptoms. [CBD helps] to an extent, she says. It enables her to have sex, which she finds is usually too painful.

Ive not had the same success with CBD. After taking it orally several times, I found no change whatsoever in my pain and have kept using THC whenever possible.

Erin points out that its hard to find alternative medicine options because Americans think its either Western medicine or its quackery. To her mind, this limits our ability to explore alternative avenues that may bring widespread relief.

Shes right. Doctors fail to listen to patients lived experiences, and many patients find their success stories dismissed without any attempt to validate or explore their healing or comfort.

This dismissal, rooted in ableism, accessibility, legality, or stigma, creates additional challenges for chronic pain patients. We deserve to have legal, affordable, and reliable options that mitigate our pain while allowing us to live full lives.

Im lucky to have a gynecologist who is willing to try every possible solution with me. I use tinctures of motherwort and cramp bark. I take turmeric supplements. She never dismisses these options as quack medicine, and she listens to her other patients with similar conditions and suggests things based on their successes and failures.

Not every alternative pain management solution is going to be the right fit, but especially for conditions where pain management is the only course, doctors should educate themselves on serving their patients, even if it means accepting the limits of Western medicine. At this point, the healthcare industry is already failing us. The least doctors can do is believe our pain and help us find good solutions for it.

Reina Sultan (she/her) is a Lebanese-American Muslim woman working on gender and conflict issues at her nine-to-five. Her work can also be found in Huffington Post, Rewire.News, Wear Your Voice Mag, and Rantt. Follow @SultanReina on Twitter for endless hot takes and photos of her extremely cute cats.

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How People in Pain Cope When They Cant Use THC at Work - Greatist

Ayush And Alternative Medicine Market (2020 To 2027) is booming worldwide | Baidyanath, Himalya Herbals, Ganga Pharmaceuticals, Patanjali – Chronicle…

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Danzig

Contrive Datum Insights added global Ayush And Alternative Medicine Market report to offer a comprehensive analysis of the global market over the forecast period. This global research report spread across worldwide informative data. This global study considers various business and financial aspects of the global market. This analytical research report offers an overview of the global market, market shares, trends, market size, products, key companies, and regional outlook. Additionally, an expert team of researchers talks about key drivers and restraints that are influencing on the global market growth. Additionally, it offers detailed elaboration on risks, threats, and challenges faced by industries as well as various stakeholders.

Get a sample of Ayush And Alternative Medicine Market 2020 @: http://www.contrivedatuminsights.com/Home/RequestaSample/9944

The report is a comprehensive research study of the global Ayush And Alternative Medicine market, taking into account growth factors, recent trends, developments, opportunities and the competitive landscape. Market analysts and researchers performed an in-depth analysis of the Ayush And Alternative Medicine global market using research methodologies such as PESTLE and Porters Five Forces analysis. They provided precise and reliable data on the market and useful recommendations in order to help the actors to better understand the global scenario of the present and future market. The report includes an in-depth study of potential segments, including product type, application and end user, as well as their contribution to the overall size of the market.

The Top Key Players include: Baidyanath, Himalya Herbals, Ganga Pharmaceuticals, Patanjali, Hamdard

Drivers & Constraints: The global Ayush And Alternative Medicine market is the professional and accurate study of various business perspectives such as major key players, key geographies, divers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges. This global research report has been aggregated on the basis of various market segments and sub-segments associated with the global market.

Global Ayush And Alternative Medicine Market Key Segments:

For product type segment, this report listed main product type of Ayush And Alternative Medicine market in gloabal and china: Product Type I, Product Type II, Product Type III

For end use/application segment, this report focuses on the status and outlook for key applications. End users sre also listed: Women, Men, Kids

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Scope of the report: this market has been inspected across various regions such as North America, Latin America, Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Europe on the basis of productivity and manufacturing base. Some significant key players have been profiled in this research report to get an overview and strategies carried out by them. Degree of competition has been given by analyzing the global Ayush And Alternative Medicine market at domestic as well as a global platform. This global Ayush And Alternative Medicine market has been examined through industry analysis techniques such as SWOT and Porters five techniques.

The study objectives of global market research report:

The major key questions addressed through this innovative research report:

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Ayush And Alternative Medicine Market (2020 To 2027) is booming worldwide | Baidyanath, Himalya Herbals, Ganga Pharmaceuticals, Patanjali - Chronicle...

Medical Wellness Market Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin, Industry Analysis & Forecast by 2026: Massage Envy, Steiner Leisure…

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Research report on global Medical Wellness market 2020 with industry primary research, secondary research, product research, size, trends and Forecast.

The report offers highly detailed competitive analysis of the Global Medical Wellness industry, where the business and industry growth of leading companies are thoroughly evaluated on the basis of production, product portfolio, recent developments, technology, geographical footprint, and various other factors. The authors of the report have also provided information on future changes in the competitive landscape and the expected nature of competition in the global Medical Wellness industry. This will help players to prepare themselves well for any unforeseen situations in the industry competition and give a tough competition to other players in the global Medical Wellness industry.

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As part of geographic analysis of the global Medical Wellness market, the report digs deep into the growth of key regions and countries, including but not limited to North America, the US, Europe, the UK, Germany, France, Asia Pacific, China, and the MEA. All of the geographies are comprehensively studied on the basis of share, consumption, production, future growth potential, CAGR, and many other parameters.

The following players are covered in this report:Massage EnvySteiner Leisure LimitedWorld GymFitness WorldUniversal CompaniesBeauty FarmVLCC Wellness CenterNanjing ZhaohuiEdge Systems LLCHEALING HOTELS OF THE WORLDGolds Gym InternationalBon VitalKaya Skin ClinicThe Body HolidayKayco VividArashiyu Japanese Foot SpaEnrich Hair & SkinWTS InternationalBiologique RechercheGuardian LifecareHealthkartMedical Wellness Breakdown Data by TypeComplementary and Alternative MedicineBeauty Care and Anti-AgingPreventative & Personalized Medicine and Public HealthHealthy Eating, Nutrition & Weight LossRejuvenationOtherMedical Wellness Breakdown Data by ApplicationFranchiseCompany Owned Outlets

Regions Covered in the Global Medical Wellness Market:

The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt) North America (the United States, Mexico, and Canada) South America (Brazil etc.) Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia UK, Italy, France, etc.) Asia-Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)

Highlights of the Report Accurate market size and CAGR forecasts for the period 2020-2025 Identification and in-depth assessment of growth opportunities in key segments and regions Detailed company profiling of top players of the global Medical Wellness market Exhaustive research on innovation and other trends of the global Medical Wellness market Reliable industry value chain and supply chain analysis Comprehensive analysis of important growth drivers, restraints, challenges, and growth prospects

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Table of Contents

Report Overview:It includes six chapters, viz. research scope, major manufacturers covered, market segments by type, Medical Wellness market segments by application, study objectives, and years considered.

Global Growth Trends:There are three chapters included in this section, i.e. industry trends, the growth rate of key producers, and production analysis.

Medical Wellness Market Share by Manufacturer:Here, production, revenue, and price analysis by the manufacturer are included along with other chapters such as expansion plans and merger and acquisition, products offered by key manufacturers, and areas served and headquarters distribution.

Market Size by Type:It includes analysis of price, production value market share, and production market share by type.

Market Size by Application:This section includes Medical Wellness market consumption analysis by application.

Profiles of Manufacturers:Here, leading players of the global Medical Wellness market are studied based on sales area, key products, gross margin, revenue, price, and production.

Medical Wellness Market Value Chain and Sales Channel Analysis:It includes customer, distributor, Medical Wellness market value chain, and sales channel analysis.

Market Forecast Production Side: In this part of the report, the authors have focused on production and production value forecast, key producers forecast, and production and production value forecast by type.

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Health: Is this company onto an alternative to stem cell therapy? – Stockhead

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Many regenerative medicine companies on the ASX specialise in stem-cell therapies but Exopharm (ASX:EX1) is pursuing exosomes instead.

Exosomes, also known as Extra-corporeal Vesicles, are microscopic cellular couriers. These shift proteins and genetic information between cells and this can promote regeneration and healing of damaged cells.

In other words, they can tell cells they are a healthier, younger version of themselves successfully.

The challenge is that there are plenty of products on the black market but clinical research has been limited. But the research that has been done has shown exosomes can be lower risk, have higher scalability and even a superior therapeutic capacity.

This morning Exopharm announced BioMAP testing results of both its exosome products Plexaris and Cevaris.

These were compared with 4,500 experimental and sold medicines across a penal of 12 human primary cell-based systems.

Both products were deemed safe and had notable biological activity in tissue remodelling, inflammation and immune-modulatory related activities.

The results also showed that both products were not cytotoxic and did not cause anti-proliferative effects.

CEO Dr Ian Dixon declared the results were very positive.

The testing showed that both Plexaris and Cevaris had different and distinct activities to comparison drugs, he said.

This confirms our belief that exosomes are a distinct and potentially new class of medicine, different from existing medicines.

Exopharm recently began a phase one human clinical trial in Plexaris in a wound healing context. The company also has a technology (LEAP) that purifies exosomes for clinical purposes a necessary step to separate them from other biological fluids like serum.

Exopharm listed in December 2018 and rallied for a few months before a retreat in the second half of last year. But it is still above its IPO price and climbed 11.5 per cent this morning.

READ MORE:IPO Watch: Exopharm wants to raise $7m to help you live longer

National Veterinary Care (ASX:NVL) is about to be acquired but that hasnt stopped it adding four more vet clinics to its portfolio. Upon settlement of the deals, expected next month, it will own 107 clinics.

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Health: Is this company onto an alternative to stem cell therapy? - Stockhead

Perceptions of daily cannabis use during pregnancy – Medical News Bulletin

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

As more and more states legalize marijuana, more and more people are using it. Use in pregnant women and women who breastfeed is also on the rise. This can be concerning since studies have demonstrated daily cannabis use during pregnancy can be harmful. For example, studies have established a low birth weight with use. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive component of cannabis. THC is able to cross the placenta during pregnancy as well as pass through breast milk during feeding.

A study published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine evaluated the perceptions of cannabis use in pregnancy and breastfeeding. This study was the first to evaluate perceptions from the patients perspectives as well as being conducted in a state with legal recreational cannabis use. The investigators interviewed 19 women in Washington state, 14 were pregnant and five were postpartum. All 19 women used cannabis on a daily basis or occasionally.

The researchers found five common themes among the women interviewed. First, some women stated they used cannabis to control other conditions such as anxiety, nausea, pain, and stress. For example, one woman stated it allowed her to keep food down during pregnancy. Women also expressed concern for their baby.

Second, women were evaluating the need for cannabis throughout their stages of pregnancy and believed it was safer than alternative prescription drugs.

Third, women were receiving mixed messages from their providers. Some providers told them to stop, some asked them to cut back on use, while others didnt address the topic at all when it was brought up by the patient.

Fourth, women wanted more information regarding the safety and concerns of daily cannabis use during pregnancy.

Fifth, some women were concerned about being drug tested and potential consequences from child protective services.

This study is unique in that it gives insight to patients perspectives, which is vital when providers evaluate patients needs and concerns. The researchers recommend a harm reduction approach, which suggests cutting back on cannabis use compared to the cold turkey alternative. It is also important that national guidelines are followed by providers, which state that risks of cannabis use during pregnancy and postpartum should be explained to patients. It is important to engage in shared decision-making while decreasing stigma.

Written by Kayla Dillon, BS

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Image byBoris GonzalezfromPixabay

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Perceptions of daily cannabis use during pregnancy - Medical News Bulletin

New clues in the search for the universes oldest galaxies – EarthSky

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

An enhanced image of galaxy clusters. Image via NASA/ Shutterstock.

By Jon Willis, University of Victoria

A galaxy cluster can be likened to a great city of galaxies, a galactic conurbation where each galaxy represents an individual, twinkling structure. Just as an archaeologist might seek evidence of the oldest cities on Earth, astronomers have long sought to discover the oldest galaxy clusters in the universe each the cosmic equivalent of an ancient civilization like Jericho or Ur.

I have been fortunate to lead a team of astronomers in discovering just such an example of an old galaxy cluster. How old? The light from the galaxy cluster, named XLSSC 122 has taken 10.4 billion years to travel across the universe to us.

A composite image of the galaxy cluster XLSSC 122 using images from the Hubble Space Telescope and European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope. The white contours reveal strong X-ray emission captured by the European Space Agencys X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite. Image via Jon Willis.

A youthful universe

Astronomers believe that the universe itself is 13.7 billion years old, so a little maths tells us that we are observing XLSSC 122 when the universe was a mere 3.3 billion years old. Imagine our surprise then, when each new view of this galaxy cluster revealed a physical structure seemingly every bit as mature and developed as galaxy clusters in our present-day universe a situation rather like looking at a photo from your youth in which you appear much older than you were.

XLSSC 122 is a remarkably precocious presence in a youthful universe, a clue perhaps that the universe at least the densest parts of it can form stars, accumulate into galaxies and eventually be drawn into galaxy clusters with surprising rapidity. Given that computer simulations of the assembly of galaxy clusters indicate more gradual growth, the discovery of XLSSC 122 suggests that our current ideas of how structure forms in the universe may be incomplete.

Discovering galaxy clusters

When I first saw it, XLSSC 122 appeared as an unassuming collection of photons on an X-ray image of the sky taken by the European Space Agencys X-ray Multi-Mirror space observatory. Though viewed at great distance, we knew we were potentially observing a hot halo of gas at 10 million Kelvin (9.9 million Celsius or 18 million Fahrenheit) confined within the gravitational field of a massive cluster of galaxies.

However, visible light images taken with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope revealed no galaxies associated with the X-ray source. This was an interesting clue that we may have discovered a distant galaxy cluster where the expansion of the universe had shifted the visible light emitted by the cluster galaxies into the infrared.

From this realization, we proceeded to obtain an image of our candidate cluster using the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope. This image, taken with an infrared camera, revealed the telltale presence of faint red objects distant galaxies; but exactly how distant remained a mystery.

Hubble Space Telescope brings ultimate clarity

Having compiled a strong case that XLSSC 122 was a distant galaxy cluster, perhaps the most distant, we were awarded observing time with the Hubble Space Telescope. Given that only one out of every 10 Hubble proposals is successful, this represented an achievement in itself.

Although the Hubble telescope is nearly 30 years old, it remains a preeminent astronomical facility. Our images of XLSSC 122 appeared sharp and clear compared to the fuzzy images obtained from ground-based observatories. Although I have been a professional astronomer for 20 years, seeing the Hubble images of our cluster represented a near-unique discovery moment. It was immediately clear from the galaxy colors and spectra that XLSSC 122 was supremely distant: it lay at a redshift of two, meaning that the light from XLSSC 122 had taken 10.4 billion years to reach Earth.

Simulating galaxies

How does a cluster such as XLSSC 122 fit into our wider picture of how the universe is structured? Computer simulations allow astronomers to recreate the uneven distribution of matter in the early universe and then to follow the force of gravity as it draws the more dense regions into massive clusters while less dense regions become ever more sparse.

One can identify clusters in these simulations that have the same properties as XLSSC 122. As a simulation is similar to a movie of the universe, we can fast forward to the present. When we did this for XLSSC 122 we realized that it would become one of the most massive clusters in the universe comparable to the great cluster in Coma, our closest collection of galaxies. The same simulations indicate that XLSSC 122 might only have existed as a cluster of galaxies for perhaps a billion years before the moment we observed it.

Herein lies the mystery. Our study of the starlight from the galaxies that make up XLSSC 122 tells us they are more than 1 billion years old, perhaps as much as 3 billion years old. Moreover, they all appeared to start forming stars at almost the same time. But as all of this happened long before these galaxies ever clumped together to form XLSSC 122, we are left with the question as to what caused them to start forming stars in such a synchronized manner in the early universe?

Fortunately, we have a pretty good idea of where to look next. NASA plans to launch the James Webb Space Telescope in March 2021, and we are already planning ahead to target XLSSC 122. The Webb telescope will collect approximately six times more light than Hubble and will analyze that light with a number of sensitive instruments. Our aim is to use high-resolution infrared spectroscopy to greatly improve our knowledge of the stellar ages of the galaxies that make up XLSSC 122 and pin down the early life story of this remarkable cluster of galaxies.

Jon Willis, Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: A team of astronomers have discovered a galaxy cluster so old its light has taken 10.4 billion years to travel across the universe to us.

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New clues in the search for the universes oldest galaxies - EarthSky

Galaxy S20 Ultra: Our 5 favorite camera features, and one is Space Zoom – CNET

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra (left) with the S20 and S20 Plus.

Samsung finally took the wraps off its latest flagship phones, the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus and the S20 Ultra. The Ultra is the hero of the bunch, with boosted specs and features that are not found on the others. Its cameras, in particular, contain some of the biggest upgrades and it's not being subtle about it -- the Ultra's square camera bump is absolutely immense. And, weird though it might look, it does have some cool tricks up its sleeve.

Much like its predecessor, there are three main cameras on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, a standard zoom lens, an ultra wide-angle lens, and a telephoto zoom lens. It's that last zoom lens that has been seriously beefed up here. It sits at the bottom of the camera module next to the text "space zoom."

When you look closely, the lens looks weird because it has new optics that give it a huge amount of zoom. With those optics and its 48-megapixel resolution, it can zoom in up to 100x. That's an absolutely astonishing level of zoom that, as far as I'm concerned, makes this phone the lovechild of a Galaxy S10 and the Hubble telescope.

I was able to zoom in on a bottle all the way across the room and could just about read the label -- pretty impressive considering that with my naked eye, I couldn't even see there was a bottle in the first place. But don't expect pin-sharp clarity; while I could somewhat make out the bottle's logo, there was a huge amount of image noise and other artifacts. This meant the image wouldn't end up printed and framed on a gallery wall. At 30x zoom, the quality looked a lot better.

Note that I was handling an early sample unit though and I was testing the zoom in a dim corner of our demo area. I'm keen to see how the zoom performs once Samsung's optimized it a bit more and I'm using it outdoors in daylight.

The 100x zoom is a feature reserved only for the S20 Ultra. If you don't feel the need to get up close on distant details then the regular S20 or S20 Plus may be your better options.

The main camera sensor has an astonishing 108-megapixel resolution, but it's not just for needlessly-detailed images. It can combine nine pixels into one single pixel that, according to Samsung, captures a lot more light. The result is a 12-megapixel image that even in dark conditions should come out well-exposed.

It's important to note that we haven't been able to put this to the test yet. Night-time shooting skills have been a focus of various recent phones, and handsets like the iPhone 11 and Pixel 4take amazing shots in really dark scenarios. With these new Galaxy specs, it's going to be interesting to see how Samsung's new technology can compete.

If you're not into this pixel combining feature, you can always go into Settings and shoot at the full 108 megapixels if you want bigger, more detailed images. Having extra resolution gives you more scope for cropping into the image later on, although exactly how well these high-resolution images can look from a tiny phone camera sensor remains to be seen until we put this thing through its paces.

Single Capture is a new mode that shoots a 10-seconds video and then presents you with a whole variety of photos and smaller video clips, all shot with different zoom levels and some with different effects like black and white already applied.

The idea is that you shoot a little scene in front of you -- say, someone blowing out candles on a cake -- and instead of having to decide in advance to just take one image, Single Capture takes a whole bunch of different shots for you to choose from all at one go.

You can then select the shots you want to save as they are, or use the software to automatically combine them into a little highlight reel you can instantly share with your friends or family.

I wouldn't say this is a killer feature, but it's pretty fun and I can see it appealing to people with young families who want to quickly share the fun things their kids have been doing without having to fuss around with the different camera settings.

Video skills have been a particular focus on the new phone. Just when we were all getting to grips with our phones shooting 4K, Samsung ups the numbers to a whopping 8K.

Why so many Ks? You can of course just shoot in the maximum resolution for bragging rights if you want. Though the display on the phone itself isn't sharp enough to show the video off, you can upload it to YouTube, which supports 8K, and you can play it back on 8K TVs, if you happen to have spent the small fortune that they cost.

The other benefit is that you can take crop into your footage or take 33-megapixel still images from your video footage. The downside is that those 8K videos will quickly take up space on your phone. A 20-second 8K video came in at almost 200MB while a 20-second clip in full HD taken on the Samsung Galaxy Fold was less than a quarter of the size at only 42MB. If you're planning to go this max res route, it's best to go for the higher 512GB storage option.

Not just for still photos anymore, Samsung added a pro mode for video that gives you manual control over settings like ISO, shutter speed, focus and white balance. It does have a niche appeal, but if you want to create more cinematic-looking footage for your YouTube channel, you'll get some use out of this mode. But bear in mind you can't use the max 8K resolution in pro mode.

Samsung also boosted video stabilization with improved hardware and software. It seemed to do a decent job during my brief time with it, but it's another feature I'm really looking forward to putting to the test in our full in-depth review.

In addition to all these rear camera features, the Galaxy S20 Ultra has a 40-megapixel front-facing camera (tucked into a little cut-out hole on the front), a whopping 6.9-inch display, up to 16GB of RAM and 5G connectivity for superfast data speeds. This, of course, will come in handy for uploading those massive 8K video files.

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Galaxy S20 Ultra: Our 5 favorite camera features, and one is Space Zoom - CNET

On St. Teresa, Olms and Betelgeuse – Intermountain Catholic

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Friday, Feb. 14, 2020

Intermountain Catholic

The soul is so beautiful, so splendid, that words cannot describe it, St. Teresa of Avila tells us in The Interior Castle. This guide for spiritual development was written in 1577 at the behest of her superiors. Thinking her audience was only her sisters in the Discalced Carmelite order, and hoping to solve their difficulties with prayer, St. Teresa composed what today is considered a classic on spiritual life.

Our intellects will never be able to comprehend the great beauty and capabilities of a soul, but still we benefit from reflecting upon the gifts our souls possess, St. Teresa writes.

She describes the soul as a castle created from a single diamond, comprised of many rooms, each more beautiful than the last. Yet, despite this magnificence, many people live only in the courtyard of their soul, either unwilling or incapable of venturing farther inside, she says.

To me these people are like the blind salamander referenced by Father Paul Gabor, S.J., the astrophysicist and vice director for the Vatican Observatory Research Group who gave the Aquinas Lecture last week. As part of his lecture, he showed a slide of an olm, an aquatic creature that lives in caves in Bosnia-Herzegovina and moves very little one specimen that scientists had under observation didnt move at all for seven years even though it was still alive. Olms can live up to 100 years underwater in complete darkness and may eat only once a decade.

With the best of care, my body may survive a century. On the other hand, I have treated my immortal soul very much as though it were an olm, leaving it shrouded in darkness and feeding it only incidental morsels that floated past in the course of my everyday life.

People tend to do little to preserve the beauty of the soul, St. Teresa observed, and so it was with me until recently, when I became emboldened to seek the wonders of the soul just as astronomers explore the wonders of the universe.

During his lecture, Fr. Gabor showed an animation from PBS of what it might look like to go past the heavenly bodies in the night sky, out into the Milky Way galaxy with its 200 billion stars, and beyond it to the Andromeda galaxy and farther still into the Virgo supercluster, seeing stellar nurseries, stellar remnants and other wonders.

Stare at a small patch of sky with the Hubble telescope for a month and youll see an absolutely fabulous image of galaxies, he said, but because of the limitations of the camera not all of the 10,000 galaxies will be visible.

Stare at your soul long enough and, even given the limitations of your spiritual perception, what will be revealed?

St. Teresa says to know God we must first know ourselves, and self-knowledge is acquired by examining the soul. Such self-inquiry might reveal, for example, that our soul is undergoing a crisis equivalent to that of Betelgeuse, the star in the constellation Orion that now shines at less than half of its usual intensity. Scientists speculate that it may supernova.

Averting such a catastrophe of the soul certainly would be beneficial, but there is more to prayer than self-scrutiny. We shall advance more by contemplating the Divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves, St. Teresa says. With sufficient prayer and grace, we can venture farther into the castle, where the treasures and joys are impossible to depict.

We may not have the vocabulary to describe the wonders of the soul, but God himself wills that we come to understand him as well as our limited minds are able, just as over the centuries we have, through science, expanded our knowledge of the mysteries of the universe, as Fr. Gabor explained.

The truths expounded by the 16th-century saint and the modern astrophysicist are the same. Both speak of theology at its most basic: faith seeking understanding, as St. Anselm wrote. The wonders of the universe are no more or less marvelous than the wonders of the soul, but to understand either we must pursue knowledge of the Almighty, who teaches us of himself to us through science as well as revelation.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. She can be reached at marie@icatholic.org.

On St. Teresa, Olms and Betelgeuse - Intermountain Catholic

New clues in the search for the oldest galaxies in the universe – Down To Earth Magazine

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

A youthful universe

Discovering galaxy clusters

When I first saw it, XLSSC 122 appeared as an unassuming collection of photons on an X-ray image of the sky taken by the European Space Agencys X-ray Multi-Mirror space observatory. Though viewed at great distance, we knew we were potentially observing a hot halo of gas at 10 million Kelvin confined within the gravitational field of a massive cluster of galaxies.

Hubble Space Telescope brings ultimate clarity

Although the Hubble telescope is nearly 30 years old, it remains a pre-eminent astronomical facility. Our images of XLSSC 122 appeared sharp and clear compared to the fuzzy images obtained from ground-based observatories. Although I have been a professional astronomer for 20 years, seeing the Hubble images of our cluster represented a near-unique discovery moment. It was immediately clear from the galaxy colours and spectra that XLSSC 122 was supremely distant: it lay at a redshift of two, meaning that the light from XLSSC 122 had taken 10.4 billion years to reach Earth.

Simulating galaxies

Herein lies the mystery. Our study of the starlight from the galaxies that make up XLSSC 122 tells us they are more than one billion years old, perhaps as much as three billion years old. Moreover, they all appeared to start forming stars at almost the same time. But as all of this happened long before these galaxies ever clumped together to form XLSSC 122, we are left with the question as to what caused them to start forming stars in such a synchronized manner in the early universe?

Jon Willis, Associate professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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First Gallery Walk of 2020 is Friday | Arts | mtexpress.com – Idaho Mountain Express and Guide

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Valentines Day is just two days away. For many, the holiday comes as a joyous celebration of romantic love. For others, a time to appreciate self-love. For a large number of visitors to and residents of the greater Ketchum area, Friday night will be a time to celebrate a different kind of lovea love of art.

Between 5 and 8 p.m. on Friday, the Sun Valley Gallery Association will host its premiere Gallery Walk of 2020. The first iteration of the organizations primary offering will see, as usual, numerous galleries around town open their doors, modestly portion out complimentary wine and welcome art-lovers to view their wares at leisure.

The attached map exhibits a fairly comprehensive catalogue of the participating galleries. Keep reading to learn about the offerings of a select few featured galleries in Ketchum.

Learn more about Gallery Walk, the Sun Valley Gallery Association and its members at svgalleries.org.

Sun Valley Museum of Art transcends standards

Walden (Surface/depth) by Spencer Finch, rope, cloth, twine and watercolors, at Sun Valley Museum of Art

There may be a new name, a new logo and a slight reshuffling of future objectives at the former Sun Valley Center for the Arts, but little else has changed at the valleys premier arts nonprofit, including the current exhibition.

Part of a Big Idea project of the same name that launched last month, The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit zeroes in on the philosophies and writings of 19th-century American transcendentalists, such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller.

Aggregating the works of six contemporary artists, Bottomlessness of a Pond seeks to illuminate the enduring legacy of transcendentalist thinking on American art and philosophy, and consider the lessons one might learn by studying these luminaries and their ideas.

Visitors to the museum will enjoy a widely diverse exhibition of artworks, both in terms of creative style and media.

The Big Idea project displays sculptures, paintings, photography, collages, film and more. Some artists take a deep dive into Thoreaus famed Walden Pond; others consider poetry of contemporaneous authors who flirted with transcendentalism before rejecting it. One aims its lens at the potential to pervert such values, as Ted Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber) did.

All these different artists and works displayed alongside each other inspire critical thought and conversation elaborated upon in the museums ongoing Big Idea programming through March 11.

The Sun Valley Museum of Art is located at 191 Fifth St. E. in Ketchum. Visit svmoa.org to learn about what has changed and what has remained the same at the former Center.

Gail Severn Gallery sets its sights due west

Over the course of a year, an art lover can find a little bit of just about everything hanging on the walls at Gail Severn Gallery. Traditional landscapes, nightmarish sculptures, postmodern abstractionsit all gets its turn at Gail Severn, sometimes simultaneously.

That is not to imply that the curators at this popular Ketchum arts hub lack focus, but rather that their definition of quality holds no stylistic biases. Simply put, good is good, no matter the medium, the artist or the genre.

Last year saw a delightfully diverse array of works on display at Gail Severn. From polar bears with octopus hats to a wall of snouts to recycled books to vibrantly eye-catching, shapeless blasts of color, the gallery hosted pretty much everything.

The first Gallery Walk of 2020 will see a solo exhibition by Michael Gregory. His series True West consists of photorealistic paintings depicting iconic Western American scenes.

With horizon lines often placed below the halfway point on the canvas, these images use the vastness of the sky to imply the enormity of the landscape in a manner evocative of John Fords influential cinematography.

In other works, mountains tower high, dwarfing ramshackle farmsteads. All this serves as an important reminder of humanitys place in the grand scheme of nature.

Remarkably, considering how strikingly realistic his paintings are, Gregory generally works from memory and imagination, not from photographs. The casual onlooker, certainly one only glancing or catching a glimpse, could easily mistake any of his paintings for photographs.

Gregorys works will remain on display through March 10. On Saturday, Feb. 15, at 10 a.m.the morning after Gallery WalkGail Severn will host an artist chat event with Gregory for anyone hoping to speak with the artist about his works and process.

Gail Severn Galley is located at 400 First Ave. N. in Ketchum. Visit gailseverngalley.com to learn more.

Gilman Contemporary journeys from the celestial to the intimately human

Ventura by John Westmark, mixed media and vintage sewing patterns on canvas, at Gilman Contemporary

A typical Gallery Walk features the old and the new of art, plus everything in between. A handy cross-section of the past and present, with glimpses toward the future, descends upon Ketchum for three hours on Friday night every so often throughout the year.

As far as the cutting-edge present and misty future are concerned, few galleries can match the clear-eyed view provided by Gilman Contemporary Gallery.

True to the second word in its name, Gilman keeps up to date with all the innovations, trends and ideas sweeping the current art world.

Kicking off 2020 with Gilman is British photographer Ellie Davies. England is, perhaps, not commonly considered a heavily forested area of the world, but Davies work dives headlong into the woods. She captures dark, misty, uncanny and almost magical visions of British forests that strike the beholder as scenes from a haunting fairy tale or ghost story.

Gilman will exhibit Davies Stars series, in which the artist merges photographs of woodlands with images from the Hubble Telescope. The result is a strangely ethereal series of photos, capturing a place halfway between earth and space.

In considerable aesthetic contrast to Davies works are those by American artist John Westmark.

Combining a wide array of materials, Westmark creates layered, textured mixed-media paintings embodying the strength and struggle inherent to feminist philosophy. The gallery will exhibit a collection of striking representations of powerful female figures, composed of vintage sewing patterns on canvas.

Gilman Contemporary Gallery is located out toward the eastern edge of town, at 661 Sun Valley Road, Ketchum. Visit gilmancontemporary.com to learn more about the space, its owner, artists and creative philosophies.

Kneeland Gallery likes to keep things fairly local

Gathering Storm by Steven Lee Adams, oil on canvas, at Kneeland Gallery.

Wandering around town during a typical Gallery Walk, one is likely to encounter pieces of art from all over the world and depicting all manner of subjects. While some galleries look far afield, others know that its difficult to find anything more beautiful than the natural landscape of the American West.

The Kneeland Gallery is one such establishment. Specializing in American impressionism and plein air, Kneeland often displays works that capture the beauty of the environment and wildlife.

During this Gallery Walk, Kneeland will exhibit works of Hailey native Caleb Meyer. From cityscapes and intimate cafes to sweeping landscapes, Meyer approaches all subject matters with the same deftness and aplomb.

Another artist, Silas Thompson, is among the youngest Kneeland has featured. Like Meyer, Thompsons love of the Western landscape knows no boundaries.

Thompsons images showcase his unique flair for the colors and personalities of the iconic natural landmarks that pepper the Western states. His innovative selections of subject and perspectives evoke a nostalgic sense of reminiscence and wonder.

Kneeland will also welcome back recurring client Steven Adams, whose haunting images focus on the more typically unseen minutia of life. Rather than capturing the sublimity of a towering mountain or the vast expanse of a mighty river, Adams directs the viewers attention to inherent memories embodied by a broken fence or the potential of a half-dug ditch.

These artists will run concurrently with works of Utah artist Shanna Kunz and Idahoan Carl Rowe, the Idaho Conservation Leagues 2019 artist-in-residence.

The Kneeland Gallery is at 271 First Ave. N. in Ketchum. To learn more about the gallery, its artists and its displays, visit kneelandgallery.com.

Frederic Boloix Fine Arts is a hotspot for international art

Owned and operated by multilingual renaissance man Frederic Boloix, the namesake gallery has cemented its position in Ketchum as a premier spot for fine artscontemporary and from throughout the past.

Boloix himself has had a presence in Sun Valley for 25 years, following years as a gallery director in San Francisco and, before that, more than a decade as a professional classical musician in Vienna and Munich.

His artistically rich and varied background has a heavy influence on the kinds of art that go on display at the gallery. From still-working postmodern innovators to 20th-century masters like Picasso and Matisse, the Frederic Boloix Fine Arts gallery works only with the best.

For this Gallery Walk, Boloix will feature a group exhibition of works by artists from Germany, Austria, Italy and Cuba.

Boloix likes to display classics alongside new pieces, but the work of contemporary Austrian artist Martin Herbst bridges the gaps between them. He explores paintings on various shapes, including convex mirrors.

In Renaissance Mirror, for instance, Herbst reimagines a Raphael masterpiece on a convex mirror, literally offering new perspectives on an iconic painting.

Lovers of fine art and rare pieces should make Boloix a priority stop along Fridays Gallery Walk. These eye-catching pieces are just a few from a vast collection of works on display.

Frederic Boloix Fine Arts is at 351 Leadville Ave. N. in Ketchum. To learn more about the gallery, its art and artists, visit boloix.com.

The above-listed galleries are but a smattering of all those opening their doors and taking part in Fridays Gallery Walk. Those hoping to squeeze in a little arts appreciation this Valentines Day can drop in at any time from 5-8 p.m., enjoy a small glass of something and a polite nibble of something else, and bask in some of Ketchums myriad visual artistic offerings.

Visit svgalleries.org for information on future Gallery Walks and to learn more about the Sun Valley Gallery Association and its nine members.

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First Gallery Walk of 2020 is Friday | Arts | mtexpress.com - Idaho Mountain Express and Guide

Judy Shelton and the – New York Sun

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

The way we think about the confirmation hearing tomorrow for economist Judy Shelton to be a governor of the Federal Reserve is as a test less of her than of the Republican Party. Is it going to make good on the platform on which President Trump stood for the presidency in 2016? That platform called for a more transparent and accountable Federal Reserve and a monetary commission to start looking at ways to improve our system.

Those campaign promises didnt just erupt out of the blue. They were born of the realization that the Federal Reserve bears a share of the responsibility for the Great Recession that started in 2007 and hobbled our recovery for much of the Obama era. Those were years in which the House of Representatives, in a bipartisan vote of 333 to 92, passed Congressman Ron Pauls Audit the Fed bill.

Dr. Pauls bill was only one of a number of measures designed to give Congress better tools to oversee monetary policy. After all, 100% of the monetary powers that the Constitution grants to the government are granted to Congress. Audit the Fed and other measures were finally sent, in late 2015, to the Senate, where, with the election coming up, the solons froze. They did so even though Mr. Trump campaigned for monetary reform.

Once elected, Mr. Trump seemed to change his tune. No longer did he talk about a false economy. Instead he plumped for easy money. Advocates of monetary reform wondered whether Mr. Trump had completely forgotten about his promises. His nomination of Ms. Shelton who has written, on the Wall Street Journals op ed pages, a body of brilliant commentary on monetary matters signals that he hasnt forgotten.

This, of course, has agitated the Democrats and other opponents of reform. In one of their most amazing dodges, they have been criticizing Ms. Shelton for seeming to endorse Mr. Trumps call for the ultra-low interest rates that the Democrats themselves favor as if to say, dont confirm her, she agrees with us. Tomorrows Wall Street Journal carries an important editorial sorting all that out.

Our own focus throughout this long debate has been less on what interest rates the Fed ought to set or other details of Fed policy. We dont feel qualified on that head. We are more focused on the strategic failures of the Fed; even its erstwhile chairman, Paul Volcker, argued before his death that the absence of an official, rules-based, cooperatively managed monetary system has not been a great success.

Meantime, we are reminded in the latest issue of Grants Interest Rate Observer, that the CBO is now calculating that the federal budget deficit between 2021 and 2030 will average $1.3 trillion and climb to 5.4% of GDP. Grants calls these unheard-of figures except in times of national mobilization for war. Our own view is that monetary reform is one of the ways Congress can start to put the brakes on the borrowing this will require.

We comprehend that it is not the job of a Federal Reserve governor to reform the monetary system. That is the part of Congress. Whenever during the Obama years congressmen asked about reform, though, they were met with truculence from Chairmen Beranke and Yellen. How refreshing it would be to have some members of the Fed board who arent so defensive about new ideas. Ms. Shelton seems made for the part, and her confirmation hearing will be as important as that of, say, a Supreme Court justice.

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Judy Shelton and the - New York Sun

Big Swinging Brains and fashy trolls: how the world fell into a clickbait death spiral – The Guardian

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

In 2012, a small group of young men, former supporters of the libertarian Republican congressman Ron Paul, started a blog called The Right Stuff. They soon began calling themselves post-libertarians, although they werent yet sure what would come next. By 2014, theyd started to self-identify as alt-right. They developed a countercultural tone arch, antic, floridly offensive that appealed to a growing cohort of disaffected young men, searching for meaning and addicted to the internet. These young men often referred to The Right Stuff, approvingly, as a key part of a libertarian-to-far-right pipeline, a path by which normies could advance, through a series of epiphanies, toward full radicalisation. As with everything the alt-right said, it was hard to tell whether they were joking, half-joking or not joking at all.

The Right Stuff s founders came up with talking points narratives, they called them that their followers then disseminated through various social networks. On Facebook, they posted Photoshopped images, or parody songs, or countersignal memes sardonic line drawings designed to spark just enough cognitive dissonance to shock normies out of their complacency. On Twitter, the alt-right trolled and harassed mainstream journalists, hoping to work the referees of the national discourse while capturing the attention of the wider public. On Reddit and 4chan and 8chan, where the content moderation was so lax as to be almost non-existent, the memes were more overtly vile. Many alt-right trolls started calling themselves fashy, or fash-ist. They referred to all liberals and traditional conservatives as communists, or degenerates; they posted pro-Pinochet propaganda; they baited normies into arguments by insisting that Hitler did nothing wrong.

When I first saw luridly ugly memes like this, in 2014 and 2015, I wasnt sure how seriously to take them. Everyone knows the most basic rule of the internet: dont feed the trolls, and dont take tricksters at their word. The trolls of the alt-right called themselves provocateurs, or shitposters, or edgelords. And what could be edgier than joking about Hitler? For a little while, I was able to avoid reaching the conclusion that would soon become obvious: maybe they meant what they said.

I spent about three years immersing myself in two worlds: the world of these edgelords meta-media insurgents who arrayed themselves in opposition to almost all forms of traditional gatekeeping and the world of the new gatekeepers of Silicon Valley, who, whether intentionally or not, afforded the gatecrashers their unprecedented power.

The left won by seizing control of media and academia, a blogger on The Right Stuff, using the pseudonym Meow Blitz, wrote in 2015. With the internet, they lost control of the narrative. By the left, he meant the whole standard range of American culture and politics everyone who preferred democracy to autocracy, everyone who resisted the alt-rights vision of a white American ethnostate.

For decades, Meow Blitz argued, this pluralistic worldview the mainstream worldview had gone effectively unchallenged, but now, by promoting their agenda on social media, he and his fellow propagandists could push the US in a more fascist-friendly direction. Isis became the most powerful terrorist group in the world because of flashy internet videos, he wrote. If youre alive in the year 2015 and you dont understand the power of the interwebz youre an idiot.

To the posts intended audience, this was supposed to be invigorating. To me, it was more like a faint whiff of sulphur that may or may not turn out to be a gas leak. The post was called Right Wing Trolls Can Win. Would the neofascists win? I had a hard time imagining it. Could they win? That was a different question. The culture war is being fought daily from your smartphone, the post continued. On this one point, at least, I had to agree with Meow Blitz. To change how we talk is to change who we are.

During the long 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump seemed to draw on pools of dark energy not previously observed within the universe of the American electorate. The mainstream media used the catchall term alt-right, which appealed to newspaper editors and TV-news producers who hoped to connote frisson and novelty without passing explicit judgment. Instead of denouncing the alt-right, reporters often described it as divisive or racially charged. They tried to present both sides neutrally, as journalistic convention seemed to require.

The definition of alt-right continued to expand. By the summer of 2016, it was such a big tent that it included any conservative or reactionary who was active online and too belligerently anti-establishment to feel at home in the Republican party a category that included the Republican nominee for president. This was an oddly broad definition for what was supposed to be a fringe movement, and yet no one seemed eager to clear up the semantic confusion. The Clinton campaign played up the alt-rights size and influence, while the alt-right was all too glad to be perceived as vast and menacing. There was no way to measure precisely how many Americans were alt-right, and there never would be. Estimates ranged from a few hundred to a few million. Still, what mattered was not the movements headcount, but its collective impact on the national vocabulary.

Were the platform for the alt-right, Steve Bannon said in July 2016, when he was running the pro-Trump web tabloid Breitbart. Later that year, after leading the Trump campaign to victory and being tapped to serve as chief White House strategist, Bannon claimed that hed only meant to align himself with an insurgent brand of civic nationalism, not with ethno-nationalism. Yet a core within the movement still insisted on a narrower definition of alt-right, one based on explicit antisemitism and white supremacy. This core had always existed; no one who was versed in the far-right blogosphere could have missed it.

Mainstream journalists, or at least the ones who were paying attention, were daunted by the fiscal precarity of their industry, the plummeting cultural authority of their institutions, and the unpredictable dynamics of social media outrage. The more these threats loomed, the more journalists clung to one of the few professional axioms that still seemed beyond dispute: in all matters of political opinion, a reporter should strive to remain neutral. This is true enough, for certain kinds of journalists, when applied to certain prosaic debates about tariffs and treaties. When it comes to core matters of principle, though, its not always possible to be both even-handed and honest. The plain fact was that the alt-right was a racist movement full of creeps and liars. If a newspapers house style didnt allow its reporters to say so, at least by implication, then the house style was preventing its reporters from telling the truth.

Neutrality has never been a universal good, even in the simplest of times. In unusual times say, when the press has been drafted, without its consent or comprehension, into a dirty culture war neutrality might not always be possible. Some questions arent really questions at all. Should Muslim Americans be treated as real Americans? Should women be welcome in the workplace? To treat these as legitimate topics of debate is to be not neutral, but complicit. Sometimes, even for a journalist, there is no such thing as not picking a side.

In April 2014, looking for new story ideas, I attended a tech conference in a stylish hotel in Lower Manhattan. The conference was called F.ounders, a word that no one, including the founders of F.ounders, could decide how to pronounce. Half of us stammered over the stray full stop. The other half ignored it. It stood for nothing, apparently, except for the general concept of innovation.

At this point, Google owned almost 40% of the online advertising market, and Facebook owned another 10%. Some analysts were already warning that they might comprise a duopoly. Both companies business models, especially Facebooks, were built around microtargeting. Filter bubbles, in other words, were not a temporary bug but a central feature of social media. It was hard to see how the latter could flourish without the former. If filter bubbles were bad for democracy, then, were Google and Facebook also bad for democracy?

It was a fair question, almost an obvious one, and yet the cultural vocabulary of the time did not allow most people to hold it in their heads for long. The Arab spring of 2011 had been organised, in part, via social media, and was often called the Twitter revolution. Mark Zuckerberg had been named Times person of the year in 2010; in the hagiographic cover photo, his eyes were oceanic and farseeing, dreaming up ingenious new ways to forge human bonds. If some movies and books portrayed him as shifty, even a bit ruthless, it was still possible to imagine that ruthlessness, in the tradition of Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs, was merely the cost of doing business. Zuckerbergs motto, Move fast and break things, was generally treated as a sign of youthful insouciance, not of galling rapacity. Facebooks users more than a billion of them seemed happy. Its investors were delighted. If social media wasnt a good product, then why was it so successful?

At the time, it was still considered divisive (at swanky New York tech conferences, anyway) to wonder whether the be-hoodied young innovators of Silicon Valley might turn out to be robber barons. It was far more socially acceptable to extol the gleaming vehicle of technology to gaze in amoral awe at its speed and vigour than to ask precisely where it was headed, or whether it might one day hurtle off a cliff. Such questions had come to seem fusty and antidemocratic; people who spent too much time worrying about them were often dismissed as cranks or luddites. To a techno-optimist, there was only one way the vehicle could possibly be going: forward.

When it was founded in 2004, Facebook billed itself as an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges. Within a few years, this self-description had morphed into a far more grandiose mission statement: Facebook gives people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Mark Zuckerberg was careful not to call himself a gatekeeper. On the contrary, he portrayed himself as a Robin Hood figure, snatching power from the gatekeepers and redistributing it to the people, who could presumably be trusted to do the right thing.

The traditional gatekeeper media that held sway in the US in the middle of the 20th century was, inarguably, a deeply flawed system. The nations most prominent journalists, from celebrity newscasters to unheralded assignment editors, were, by and large, upper-middle-class white men in grey suits. Many were blinkered coastal elites, either too circumspect or too myopic to risk departing meaningfully from the socially acceptable narrative, even when elements of that narrative were misleading or flat-out false. But what if the fourth estate turned out to be, like democracy, the worst system except for all the others? If history was an arc bending inexorably toward justice, then there was no need to worry about any of this technological disruption could only lead the world more efficiently in the right direction. If history was contingent, however, then removing the gatekeepers, without any clear notion of what might replace them, could throw the whole information ecosystem into chaos.

At a F.ounders dinner, the seating algorithm placed me next to Emerson Spartz, a 27-year-old with the saucer eyes and cuspidate chin of a cartoon fawn. His bio described him as a middle-school dropout, a New York Times bestselling author and the founder and CEO of Spartz Inc, based in Chicago. I asked what his company made, or did, or was. Im passionate about virality, he responded. I must have looked confused, because he said: Let me bring that down from the 30,000-foot level. The appetiser course had not yet arrived. He checked the time on his cell phone, then cleared his throat.

Every day, when I was a kid, my parents made me read four short biographies of very successful people, he said. I decided that I wanted to change the world, and I wanted to do it on a massive scale. This was the beginning of what I would come to recognize as his standard pitch for Spartz, both the person and the company. Although he had an audience of one, he spoke in a distant and deliberate tone, using studied pauses and facial expressions, as if I were a conference hall or a camera lens.

I looked at patterns, he said. I realised that if you could make ideas go viral, you could tip elections, start movements, revolutionise industries. He told me that Spartz Inc specialised in fun stuff entertainment, not hard news. He called it a media company, but it sounded more like an aggregator and distributor of pre-existing content. The ability to spread a meme to millions of people, he continued, was the closest you can come to a human superpower.

As far as I could tell, Emerson Spartz wasnt using his memetic superpower either for good or for evil, exactly. He was using it mainly to monetise cat gifs. He told me that his company oversaw about 30 active sites, each serving up procrastination fodder for adolescents of all ages: Memestache (All the Funny Memes), OMGFacts (The Worlds #1 Fact Source), GivesMeHope (Chicken Soup for the Soul the 21st-century, Twitter-style version). The content was mostly user-generated and unvetted, and it just kept rolling in.

Even though Im one of the most avid readers I know, I dont usually read straight news, he told me. Its conveyed in a very boring way, and you tend to see the same patterns repeated again and again.

Still, he was happy to offer advice. Glancing down at my laminated badge for the first time, Spartz noticed that I worked at the New Yorker. For instance, heres how I would improve your product, he said. Way more images. Thats number one. Who has ever looked at a big long block of text and gone, Ooh, exciting? I tell my employees all the time: Every paragraph they write should be super-short, no more than three sentences. And I mean short sentences. Periods are better than commas. Boredom is the enemy.

I couldnt deny that this sounded like an effective recipe for a certain kind of success. And yet, I sputtered, if maximising clicks was the only goal, why would any magazine or newspaper need to employ fact-checkers or reporters, for that matter? Why not simply recycle press releases, rewriting the boring quotes to make them snappier? Why not replace all Syria coverage with Kardashian coverage? Why not forget about words altogether and go into something more remunerative, like video, or mobile gaming, or strip mining?

Spartz cocked his head and waited for me to finish my rant. Clearly, in his eyes, I was revealing myself to be a luddite. Its always possible to make a slippery-slope argument, he said. Those arguments dont interest me. Im interested in impact. Art without an audience was mere solipsism, he said. The ultimate barometer of quality is: if it gets shared, its quality. If someone wants to toil in obscurity, if that makes them happy, thats fine. Not everybody has to change the world.

Spartz, in his speeches, sometimes referred to himself as a growth hacker. In practice, though, he was more like a day trader, investing in memes that appeared to have momentum. Exactly where we find our source material took a lot of experimentation to get right, he said. But the core of it is simple: taking stuff thats already going viral and repackaging it. His proprietary algorithm scoured the internet for images and stories that seemed to be generating a lot of activating emotion (at least, according to the relevant metrics). The content producers then acted as arbitrageurs, adapting those images and stories into lists on Dose, his flagship site. Sometimes this required a bit of reassembly; other times, it was as simple as copying the source material in full, without bothering to rearrange any images or correct any typos, and then reposting it on Dose under a catchier headline.

In 2014, there were governmental regulations, imperfect though they may have been, preventing pharmaceutical companies from filling their gelcaps with sawdust, or public-school teachers from filling their lesson plans with Holocaust denialism. Media was different. For many good reasons, starting with the first amendment, the information market was relatively unregulated. And yet everyone knew the bromides, no less true for being trite, about how a democracy cant function without a well-informed electorate. In the near future, what was to prevent large swaths of the internet including the parts of the internet that used to be called newspapers and magazines from looking more and more like Dose? What was insulating the American press from a full-speed race to the bottom? Nothing, as far as I could tell, other than tradition and inertia and the capricious whims of the market.

Spartz was proud to make a living on the internet, he said, because it was the closest humanity had yet come to creating a pure meritocracy. At the 30,000-foot level, the internet is a giant machine that gives people what they want, Spartz said. How can you do better than that? It exposes people to the best stuff in the world.

I made the obvious rejoinder: it also exposes people to the worst stuff in the world.

Well, that would be your subjective judgment, he said, pique rising in his voice. Thats you paternalistically deciding whats bad for people. Besides, businesses exist to serve the market. You can have whatever personal values you want, but businesses that dont provide what the customers want dont remain businesses. Literally, never.

Once, Spartz told me, The future of media is an ever-increasing degree of personalisation. My CNN wont look like your CNN. So we want Dose eventually to be tailored to each user. On a whiteboard behind him were the phrases old media, Tribune and $100 M. He continued: You shouldnt have to choose what you want, because we will be able to get enough data to know what you want better than you do.

In Liars Poker, his 1989 Wall Street memoir, Michael Lewis described a newly ascendant, egregiously conceited type of alpha-male bond broker. This type had a name: they called each other Big Swinging Dicks. Everyone wanted to be a Big Swinging Dick, Lewis wrote, even the women.

A quarter of a century later, the A-list entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley occupied an analogous place in the American power structure, but their self-presentation was less aggressive. Instead of Greed is good, their aspirational bromides were Think different and Dont be evil. Instead of Dionysian feats of consumption Porsches and cocaine binges and morning cheeseburgers they drove electric cars and subsisted on seaweed and Soylent. They didnt deny themselves the pleasures of good old-fashioned capital, but they were equally covetous of social and intellectual capital. Their fondest wish was to be considered luminaries, Renaissance men, the smartest guys in the room. They were Big Swinging Brains.

There is much to discover on the Facebook, the online community for college students, a Washington Post reporter wrote in the papers Style section in late 2004. She did warn, however, that its all a little fake the friends; the profiles that can be tailored to what others find appealing; the groups that exist only in cyberspace. A few weeks later, Mark Zuckerberg, looking for investors, visited the office of the Washington Post and met with Donald Graham, the papers publisher and CEO. They agreed on a verbal deal: the Post would pay $6m for 10% of the company. Zuckerberg later called Graham in tears a Silicon Valley venture-capital firm had offered a more generous investment, and he was tempted to take it. Graham, impressed by the young mans display of rectitude, gave him his blessing to renege on the deal. Three years later, Graham joined Facebooks board of directors. Facebook has completely transformed how people interact, he said in a press release. Marks sense of what Facebook can do is quite remarkable.

In 2007, a Washington Post columnist lamented the rapid ascent of Amazon.com, which was so smart in the way they cater to human weakness, bad judgment, poor taste. In 2008, another Washington Post columnist wrote: I loathe Amazon even though I know it is the future and will prevail. In 2013, with revenue in decline, Donald Graham sold the Washington Post, which his family had owned and overseen for 80 years, to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, soon to be the richest person in the world.

By that time, it no longer made sense to think of business and tech and media as separate entities. Business was tech, and tech was taking over everything: movies, TV, travel, journalism. Whether the nerd princelings of Silicon Valley understood themselves to be gatekeepers or not, it was becoming increasingly clear that their smallest impromptu decisions were having enormous downstream effects on how billions of people spoke and thought and, ultimately, acted in the world. To change how we talk is to change who we are.

I wondered whether they found this power burdensome, and if so, whether they found the burden humbling, or overwhelming the way I would feel over-whelmed if I woke up to discover that I had somehow been put in charge of the energy grid, or some other key piece of infrastructure that I didnt fully understand. Maybe Big Swinging Brains were constitutionally incapable of feeling overwhelmed. In any case, there was no law that said you had to understand a piece of social infrastructure in order to own it, or to break it.

Business was tech and tech was media. Content was content was content, and coders controlled the sluices through which all content flowed. The luminaries of Silicon Valley didnt hesitate to offer their bold opinions on almost every subject; and yet, when it came to basic questions about the future of media, their rhetoric turned fuzzy. Businesses should give customers what they want. Media companies should meet audiences where they are. Journalism should be objective and thorough. These truisms seemed unobjectionable enough until they came into conflict with one another, which happened all the time. What if your customers claimed to want rigorous, dispassionate journalism, but their browsing habits revealed that they actually wanted hot takes and salacious hate-reads? What if, in order to meet customers where they were, you had to bowdlerise your writing, or give up on writing altogether and pivot to video? What if quality and popularity were sometimes correlated negatively, or not at all?

In early 2016, I was invited to a lunch discussion in an executive boardroom. At the head of the table, a Big Swinging Brain one of the Biggest talked for more than an hour without touching his sandwich. He dilated on a wide array of topics (state healthcare exchanges, the future of the trucking industry, the financial panic of 1873), displaying uncanny recall and mental acuity. He acknowledged dilemmas and contradictions in his thinking; he even pointed out awkward conflicts between what he found preferable economically and what might be preferable civically, even morally. I began to wonder whether Id underestimated the BSBs. Maybe I should learn to stop worrying and love my overlords.

Then I asked him a question about the importance of good journalism and good art, the corrosive effects of bad journalism and bad art, and the best way to forestall the Spartzification of the internet. It seemed clear not just to me, but to anyone who was paying attention that things were drifting in an unnerving direction. How would humanity avoid a clickbait death spiral?

I dont think theres an answer to that, he said, his tone suddenly turning flinty. Apparently I had revealed myself to be a luddite. If I were in the media business, I would focus on making a product that people actually want. Because thats how business works.

I couldnt imagine him being so flippantly fatalistic about any other civilisational hazard that the free market had failed to address. The Renaissance men of Silicon Valley were known for spending an unusual amount of time and money addressing thorny problems, such as the achievement gap in American public schools and the excess of carbon in the atmosphere. They even invested millions of dollars in problems that hadnt come into existence yet, such as hostile AI. In 2016, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the nonprofit founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced its intention to help cure, prevent, and manage all disease in our childrens lifetime; several well-capitalised bioengineering start-ups, including a $1.5bn initiative at Google, went even further, resolving to cure death. But somehow the BSBs balked at the problem of addictive, low-quality clickbait. They had taken control of the media industry, then moved fast and broken it; now they claimed no responsibility for fixing it.

The techno-utopians of Silicon Valley assumed that all would be for the best in a post-gatekeeper world. This was possible, of course, but there was no way to be certain. Already, social media-optimised content mills were outcompeting sober policy journals and threadbare alt-weeklies. Pulitzer prize-winning reporters, unable to earn a living wage, kept fleeing journalism for jobs in PR or social media marketing. Even an alarmist like myself didnt presume that the Spartzification of the entire media ecosystem would happen overnight. Could it happen within five years? Fifteen? I tried telling myself that I was indulging in slippery-slope thinking, but this did nothing to allay my fear that we were already slipping.

This is an edited extract from Antisocial: How Online Extremists Broke America, by Andrew Marantz, published by Picador on 20 Feb and available at guardianbookshop.co.uk

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Big Swinging Brains and fashy trolls: how the world fell into a clickbait death spiral - The Guardian

Unbuilt Portland: 4 big projects that never happened… yet – Pamplin Media Group

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

A handful of high-profile projects deserve attention for never making it off the drawing board, at least for now.

Portland and the metro area have a lot to crow about when it comes to development accomplishments during the past decade. But a handful of high-profile projects also deserve attention for never making it off the drawing board.

Centennial Mills: Despite repeated attempts to redevelop Centennial Mills, the 4-acre former flour mill ended the decade as a ghost of its old structural self.

Since purchasing the property for $7.7 million in 2002, the city and Prosper Portland have been unable to unload the property, despite interest from three developers.

A California company planning to develop the site into a food hall ended up walking away at the beginning of the decade.

A few years later, Portland developer Jordan Schnitzer pitched a $116 million plan with a request for $35 million in public funding. Prosper Portland turned him down.

The majority of the buildings then were lost to the wrecking ball after it was determined they were a structural loss.

More recently, in April 2019, a San Antonio-based developer stepped away from its plans for the site after determining that costs to redevelop the site didn't pencil out.

Framework: A 12-story mass timber tower, Framework made international headlines when it became one of two projects selected as winners in the Tall Woods Building competition. With a design by Lever Architecture, the 12-story building's extensive use of cross-laminated timber had it on track to become the tallest timber building in North America.

The project never even broke ground in its planned Pearl District location, however. In 2018, the project team announced it was indefinitely shelving the project due to challenges raising enough money to construct the building.

Even without being built, Framework left a legacy. The $1.5 million prize the project received from winning the Tall Woods competition was used for research, development and testing. The result of that testing has since provided data that has allowed mass timber and CLT design and construction to be highlighted in projects in Portland and beyond.

Columbia River Crossing: A plan to widen and modernize the Interstate Bridge didn't just span states, it spanned decades.

Since 1917, the northbound span of the two-span, through-truss bridge has served as the connection between Oregon and Washington state (the southbound span was added in 1958). By 2005, however, leaders on both sides of the Columbia River agreed that capacity and seismic issues related to the structure needed to be addressed.

Talks about the project as a joint effort between federal and state agencies, the cities of Vancouver and Portland, and local and regional transit agencies began in 2005. Federal money kicked off environmental studies. However, initial discussions about feasible solutions and designs soon led to debates about incorporating light-rail into the project and how the cost for the project should be divided up.

In 2013, opposition by Republicans in the Washington State Senate killed that state's participation. Oregon considered trying to move forward with the project alone, but that plan failed to gain an in-state promise of financial support.

The project hasn't completely disappeared from public view with leaders in Oregon and Washington recently reviving talks about re-examining the project during the next decade.

James Beard Market: Plans for a public market to rival Pike's Place in Seattle may not be dead, but they do appear to be in limbo.

The idea of a public market for Portland was first floated in the 2000s by Ron Paul. The project appeared to gain ground in 2011 when it was identified as the sweetheart tenant of a 17-story tower that developer Melvin Mark planned to build at the west end of the Morrison Bridge. In the end, though, that idea ended up not panning out.

Market supporters spent the rest of the decade looking for a location, including eyeing Central Eastside Industrial property owned by the Museum of Science and Industry and Zidell family-owned waterfront property in Portland's South Waterfront District. The decade closed out, however, without an announcement about what the next decade may hold in store for the James Beard Public Market.

From 2013 to 2019, the Portland metro area's population grew by 35,000 people, reaching 2.35 million, with about 50% of those new residents coming from outside Oregon, and then continued to rise, according to U.S. Census data.

Construction companies in the Portland metro area say they've seen work slow down slightly during the past year and expect another small dip in 2020. Overall, companies are mostly upbeat as they head into a new decade at least for another year or two.

While hotel activity has slowed, there are projects still underway, including BPM Real Estate Group's 35-story, five-star Ritz-Carlton hotel project that broke ground in 2019 on the site of the former Alder Street Food Cart pod. Meanwhile, the flurry of multifamily projects that flooded Portland with units has slowed to a trickle since the city put in place inclusionary housing requirements that call for projects with 20 or more units to set aside a portion for affordable housing. Developers, however, aren't giving up on multifamily housing and have instead shifted their efforts to suburban areas such as Beaverton and Hillsboro.

The state's role as a leader in the world of mass timber, which took a giant step forward in 2019 with the opening of the A.A. "Red" Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory on the OSU campus in Corvallis as the decade ended, is expected to continue into the next decade. Tennessee-based Sauter Timber has announced plans to open a CLT prefabrication plant in Estacada in 2020, while OSU will prepare for the completion of Peavy Hall, which will be a showcase of mass-timber and technology.

School construction is expected to continue to keep some contractors and their crews busy for the next couple of years. Portland Public Schools, for example, plans to start construction on a remodel for Lincoln High School in early 2020, while also looking at approaching voters for yet another construction bond in the next year or two.

And a statewide $5.3 billion, 10-year transportation bill has started to spin out projects that are expected to continue through most the next decade. Among the efforts is a pilot program to examine the feasibility of applying congestion pricing to major roads in the Portland metro area. In addition, the debate over at least one of the projects included in the bill, a plan to add capacity to Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter, promises a lively start to the next decade.

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Unbuilt Portland: 4 big projects that never happened... yet - Pamplin Media Group

Iowa and New Hampshire have no business leading the nomination process – The Dallas Morning News

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

If nothing else, the recent election-night fiasco in Iowa should drive a stake in the heart of whats become known as the All-Important Iowa Caucus. And not just because of Democrats inability to produce timely results. This issue goes way beyond an app failure.

The parties have allowed this small, non-representative state to have far too much electoral weight for far too long. By the same token, New Hampshires oversized role in the nominations process also needs to be scrapped.

In the last 40 years, only Bill Clinton has bucked tradition by getting the nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire. Why do these two states deserve to always winnow the field?

New Hampshire has voted first for 100 years because the first primary was staged there in 1920. Then Jimmy Carter discovered, in 1976, that Iowa had a caucus before New Hampshire and upstaged other candidates by organizing there and gaining media attention.

Because these states have always been first and have taken their job seriously is not good enough reason for the parties to continue to defend this tradition.

Neither state reflects the diversity of the nation. Iowa is a small, rural state, at least 90% white. On the Republican side, Iowans have tended in the past to reward religious or social conservatives. New Hampshire is 93% white, older, better educated, more progressive than other states. New Hampshires population is 1.3 million (think Dallas), and its largest city is 100,000.

Democratic candidates who reflected a more racially or ethnically diverse field and more populous states Kamala Harris (California), Cory Booker (New Jersey) and Julin Castro (Texas) all dropped out of the race before Iowa and New Hampshire.

Then theres the messiness of the Iowa process. Its complicated, as the first in a four-step convention process that ultimately chooses national convention delegates.

This year Iowa became even more complicated when party officials wanted additional data reported.

Each precinct was asked to tabulate not just the traditional share of delegates won but also the first choice of those attending (which would reflect votes for candidates who didnt reach viability and therefore didnt get delegates). That actually muddies the question of who won, because if a candidate doesnt get 15% in the precinct, his or her voters must go with a second choice or uncommitted.

Tabulation, done by the party, not the state, has often been tricky. In the 2012 Republican caucus, Mitt Romney was initially declared the winner. Two weeks later, it was changed to Rick Santorum. And the candidate who finished third on caucus night, Ron Paul, eventually controlled the national convention delegation.

Why not just have a primary? Let people vote. Then apportion delegates according to that vote.

Every state can determine by law when to have its primary or caucus. But the parties set the rules that produce the nominating conventions. They can establish calendar rules and deny seats at the national convention to states that dont comply. And candidates can refuse to campaign in those states.

With recent years has come incremental change. South Carolina and Nevada were allowed to go after Iowa and New Hampshire to insert more diverse states earlier in the process, before the floodgates of Super Tuesday. This year, that will be 14 states voting on March 3, including Texas and California.

More wholesale changes have been considered in recent years. Some ideas include rotating early primaries among states that are more representative according to race, age, education and income. Or the country could be divided into a few sections, with the sections rotating in presidential years.

A one-day national primary has failed to gain support because advocates of the current system tout the retail politics of the two smaller states, and say a one-day national primary would reward big spenders. But a rotating system could still allow for some face-to-face between candidates and voters, as well as a fairer winnowing process.

What rearranging the calendar would do is eliminate the media hype of Iowa and New Hampshire. George H.W. Bush recognized it when he won Iowa in 1980. As he said, its all about creating Big Mo, i.e. big momentum.

Iowa and New Hampshire, of course, will fight any change. Millions are spent by candidate organizations and the media, chasing candidates from town halls to diners. TV has made a production night out of events like caucus night in Iowa, which backfired when there were no results to announce just wasted air time and debatable Big Mo.

The people in other states deserve the right to have more say in the process, but they will have to demand it of their elected officials and party leaders. Simply said, its time to rethink the attention given to these two small states and their impact on the rest of the nation.

Carolyn Barta is a retired journalism professor at Southern Methodist University and former political writer for The Dallas Morning News.

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Iowa and New Hampshire have no business leading the nomination process - The Dallas Morning News

Andrew Yang makes his stand in New Hampshire – POLITICO

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

"We're not going anywhere. The Yang Gang is not going anywhere, and we're just going to keep pushing until we accomplish our goals," Yang told reporters Sunday.

Yang has bet big on New Hampshire, visiting 26 times and doing 132 events, based on his campaigns tally. He has spent more than $3.5 million on TV ads here, according to Advertising Analytics.

And he has a history in the state, reminding voters at every stop that he attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy. I didnt really enjoy my time at the exclusive boarding school, Yang jokes, a one-liner that crowds eat up.

New Hampshire has a reputation of rejecting Iowas choice in favor of an underdog, as if voters just want to keep things interesting: Bernie Sanders in 2016, Hillary Clinton and John McCain in 2008, and McCain in 2000.

When there's a really interesting new voice, we like to give every opportunity to give that voice a chance for the rest of the country to hear, said Steve Marchand, a senior adviser to Yang, who was the former mayor of Portsmouth, N.H.

But Yang, despite his work here, has failed to gain the kind of traction that other long-shot candidates like Amy Klobuchar, who is surging in the final days of the race, have.

The final count in Iowa was terrible for Yang, and New Hampshire is not looking much better. Days before the primary, some advisers speak as if the campaign is just ramping up. Marchand, a New Hampshire native, said the campaign just needs to get Yang in front of as many people as possible, and holds out hope in the fact that many voters are just now making up their minds.

"The job is when they get a chance to meet Andrew, can we move Andrew from on [their] list to the top of the list? he said.

Speeding through the back streets of New Hampshire in a Ford Expedition, Yang, whom few people had even heard of nine months ago, seems unbothered by his predicament. He and his staff recognize how daunting their odds are, but after beating out a host of senators, governors and congressmen there's a hopefulness that doesnt feel phony.

The campaign is leaning into New Hampshires semi-open primary and working to pull support from independents and libertarians who are open to his out-of-the box ideas.

He's not ideological. He's really running to solve the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place, Yangs campaign manager Zach Graumann said. So talking about it that way instead of Donald Trump [is] bad, appeals to a lot of people that don't identify with a particular party.

At the center of that push for independents and libertarians is his universal basic income plan. Yang's stump references Milton Friedman, the legendary libertarian economist who endorsed a form of UBI in the 1960s.

The plan is part bigger government and part get government out of the way and let people choose how to spend their money.

But Jesse Benton, campaign chair of libertarian Ron Paul's 2012 campaign, said Yang's idea won't fly with most true libertarians. Paul surprised with a second-place finish in the 2012 New Hampshire primary.

I definitely understand where [Yang's] coming from: Wouldn't it be cool if there were a way we could ensure that an entrepreneur could feel a little safer starting a business or an artist [could] take a sabbatical to focus on their art or their music?" Benton said in an interview. But "I have trouble seeing how any kind of broad swath of libertarians are going to find [UBI] very appealing.

But the Yang campaign is undeterred. Graumann says the lack of bureaucracy in the proposal (everyone would get the money when they turn 18) is their biggest selling point.

Claire Mei, who saw Yang in Littleton, N.H. on Sunday night, was buying it. Shes a liberterian who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and said Yang won her over.

UBI "doesn't tell people how to control their lives. It gives them the money and ... the freedom of choice to do what they want with it, Mei said while waiting in the Yang selfie line.

Independents like Phil Harrell said he was Yang-curious when he arrived at the Claremont Opera House to see him on Sunday.

"He says what's on his mind and speaks plainly and I really like that and he has new and fresh ideas," Harrell said, adding that he hasnt committed to voting for Yang or anyone else but that the entrepreneur has moved up to No. 2 on his list.

Yang is his own best salesman, and people often come away after seeing him surprised by how much they like him. But is it enough to give him any momentum after New Hampshire?

I guess the answer is well find out on Tuesday, Graumann said with a laugh.

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Andrew Yang makes his stand in New Hampshire - POLITICO

12 Wild Hours With Andrew Yang – POLITICO

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Speaking of winging shit, Yangs pep talk in Grinnell isnt quite the stuff of General Patton.

Its freakin caucus day! he cries, giving a slight shimmy of the hips (like a young Elvis) as the room of volunteers erupts with applause. Explaining the value of each and every caucusgoer, Yang says all the good vibes and well-wishes mean nothing without turnout on the ground.

My phones blowing up, everyones like, Good luck, Andrew, good luck! And you know what Im sending back to them? Shut up and call somebody. The crowd laughs. Dont text me. Text an Iowan, dumbass. Louder, rolling laughter. Thats what Im saying to them all.

My phones blowing up, everyones like, good luck, Andrew, good luck! And you know what Im sending back to them? Shut up and call somebody. Dont text me. Text an Iowan, dumbass.

- Andrew Yang

Yang tries to turn serious. You all know where the rubber hits the road. You know this is where the action is. Every call, every door-knock, every face-to-face convo, every little old lady you help to the caucus site He starts to crack up. Every shuttle brought in He cant stop giggling. I was going to make another joke. Spurred on, he says, Every unwilling person you knock unconscious and drag to the caucus site. He struggles against the heaving of his chest. If you prop them up, and make them seem like theyre conscioushe can barely finisheach one of those people

His staff is laughing, too, but theyre also a tad mystified, trading looks. Theyve never seen such a goofy side in public. Do we need to go? Graumann shouts from the back of the room.

After regaining his composure and giving a few parting words of inspiration, Yang says hell stick around for selfies and autographs. After all the work these people have done on his behalf, the candidate wants to reward them. As the room envelops him, Yang is bouncing on the soles of his black shoes, Eye of the Tiger banging from a stereo.

Yang is a positive person. He has a stillness about him, a composure that makes him both easy to admire and hard to analyze. Its clear that he tries to see the good in people and situations, guarding against the tilting of his equilibrium. Whats unclear is whether theres anything hes holding onto, regrets or grievances that he refuses to let show. Its impossible to run for president and not walk away with scars; I want to know where his wounds are and how he came by them.

As we talk, cruising eastbound on Interstate 80, it becomes evident there is one injury nagging at Yang: the medias treatment of his campaign.

The slights have been large and small, significant and symbolic. Most recently there was CNBCs egregious error, straight out of a sketch comedy skit, of showing a random Asian mans photo on a graphic explaining the candidates fundraising numbers. I laughed, he says with a shrug, thinking itd be good for us, because it was so dumb we might get a news cycle out of it.

He snorts, shoveling a fingerload of Cheez-Its into his mouth. As the days have gotten longer, and the sleep has gotten scarcer, and the germs have gotten nastier, the weary candidate finds himself constantly in need of two things: snacks and hand sanitizer.

Turning back to the CNBC screw-up, he rolls his eyes. That one I chalk up to incompetence. Others have been more deliberate in their bias.

There was the time he gave a major policy speech that went completely uncovered. The time MSNBC referred to him as John Yang. The time he was congratulated by other campaigns for outshining his opponents at a cattle call, only to get zero mention in the national write-ups. The countless times he was omitted from fundraising charts on cable news despite having outperformed some of the candidates displayed.

And dont get him started on the debates. Stats dont lie: Yang has notched the least amount of speaking time in nearly every one of the televised events in which hes participated.

Thats the thing that really got to me, Yang explains. I think POLITICO was fair in giving me an even number of questions. But in a lot of themthose two MSNBC hostedit felt like they were trying to marginalize me. Im standing up there and I just cant shake the feeling that theyre trying to ignore me. I would see the cameras panning toward me, because theyre supposed to ask me a question, and the moderator audibles and redirects it to someone else. Its like, What did I do to these people?

Evelyn has a theory. She has spent much of the morning buried in a book, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive. Its about the working poor, she says, and how they have no power or political influence. Its the same thing, she says. Andrews plans are all designed to help the poor and the working poor, but we dont talk about those plans, because those people arent a constituency for CNN or MSNBC.

Her husband agrees. Its easy to dismiss himthe futuristic Asian man, he jokesbecause its easy to dismiss his trademark proposal: Universal Basic Income, a.k.a. Yang Bucks.

By giving every adult citizen $1,000 per month, Yang believes, the U.S. government could eradicate poverty and close the income-inequality gap that has come to define the Democratic Partys modern mission. The problem is, such a gimmick-sounding plan is unprecedented in the sweep of American presidential campaigning, and thus goes ignored or poorly covered by a media apparatus that has little patience for policies that are alien and unconventional.

As frustrating as this has been for Yang, he can already see the upside. Just as Medicare for All was considered kooky less than a decade ago, only to become mainstream in 2020, he believes Universal Basic Income will soon be standard fare in platforms across the political spectrum. The proof is in the numbers, he says. The last poll I saw showed 53 percent of Iowans support the idea. At my last count, five other candidates have expressed openness to it. Its most popular among young people, who obviously arent going anywhere. And even on a lot of people on the right are conceptually open to it, because conservatives arent afraid of putting money in peoples hands; theyre afraid of big bureaucracies spending that money for them.

As with any big idea, Yang understands its first great advance might be sacrificial in nature. I know that even if I dont win, he says, this idea is going to win.

Some of them didnt know what MATH stands for, Evelyn Yang tells her husband, a grin tugging at her lips.

Theres a lot of people who still dont know, Andrew responds. Kinda funny.

It is funny. The acronym plastered all over Yangs shirts and hats and campaign signs MATH stands for Make America Think Harder. Its a clever take on the presidents signature catchphrase, but in a twist of predictable irony, many people, including Yangs own supporters, think the candidate is simply promoting academics, or perhaps even humble-bragging that his success in life owed to a talent for arithmetic.

Back on the campaign bus after a boisterous get-out-the-vote event in Iowa City, the Yangs dive into disposable boxes of Mediterranean food: chicken kabobs, falafel patties, grilled vegetables and fluffy pita bread. Humored as they are by the MATH stories, its easy to understand the confusion for some observers of his candidacy. Between Yang and his virtual gang, there are so many slogans and memes and catchphrases its hard to keep up. Hes got signs that say, Not Left. Not Right. Forward. His campaign offices are adorned in wall-sized $1,000 bills bearing his likeness. Theres that title of his book, which has become a rallying cry all its own. His favorite linethe opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes mathis the stuff of marketing genius.

And then theres his most provocative motto: Humanity First. Its another play off Trumpthis one jabbing the presidents refrain of America Firstand has caught on because of its layered implications. Yang preaches a brothers-keeper mantra that defies ideological definition, encouraging community and availability and interpersonal learning. He also clearly believes that all politics, and all government by extension, is negligent if it is failing to address the crisis of poverty, both at home and abroad.

What makes the message resonate is Yangs own humanity. He tells the story of his father growing up on a peanut farm with dirt floors in a way designed not to send electoral chills up your spine, but rather to remind everyone of Americas promise. His wife, Evelyn, came forward with a devastating story of being sexually assaulted not to engender support for her husbands candidacy but to use the platform shed been given to raise awareness and practice solidarity.

As we sit in the back of the bus, finishing lunch and talking about Yangs recent endorsement from God (@TheTweetOfGod) on social media, the candidate closes his eyes and falls into a deep slumber. Its not what anyone would expect from a candidate for president, riding along with a reporter on the biggest day of their political career, but it suits Yang just fine. Hes barely slept in the last month, crawling across Iowa mile by mile, shaking hands and snapping selfies and wishing he were with his kids. A little nap is long overdue. Hes human, after all.

Head against the interior wall of the bus, right leg crossed over his left, the candidates sleep is interrupted only by a string of raspy coughs, the remnant of a cold hes been fighting for weeks.

Aw, man, Yang mutters, eyes fixed on his iPhone.

What? Graumann asks.

Some guy says he voted for us at a satellite caucus, but we werent viable.

After two years spent on the road, sleeping in hotel beds and Facetiming with his young kids, Yang is beginning to feel the weight of caucus day bearing down on him. Weve just departed another pep rally with volunteers, this one in Davenport, and Yang is glued to his device, scrolling through Twitter for mentions of his campaign from analysts and caucus-goers. He says hes still not feeling any nerves, but the length of the day is agonizing. Too much time to wait. Too much time to wonder. Too much time to reflect.

It hit me the other day, Yang says, describing when he got teary-eyed on stage in Dubuque. All the conversations in Iowa, all the time Ive put in here, all the time my family has spent here, I realized that Monday is the last day Ill spend here.

In retrospect, its a small miracle he even made it to Monday.

Some of the early days when nobody was responding to me, when we wouldnt get a single donation from someone that I didnt personally know, that was hard, he recalls. But Im not someone to set out on this road, taking even a little bit of money from friends, and then stop what I started. There was never a thought of quitting.

Yang says this in the past tense. But now, hours from the first votes being tallied and delegates being assigned, quittingor, more delicately, bowing out gracefullyis a thought that cannot be ignored. Nobody has been discussing it out loud. There is no desire to speak a grim fate into existence. But the truth is, everyone knows Yang is not going to win the presidency in 2020. Not with five candidates polling in front of him. Not with Iowas strange set of rules, which mandate a 15 percent threshold for viability, making it harder to pull off an upset at the ballot box. And not even with the contest coming up in independent-minded New Hampshire, which Yang often touts as a better fit for his unorthodox candidacy.

But none of this means hes ready to quit. After escaping to write his caucus-night speech, Yang returns to the couch with a satisfied mien. Did he just construct a rhetorical masterpiece?

Nah, he grins. Its actually pretty lame. I wrote it to cover all scenarios.

Yang turns to his staff. Should I write one to give if I

If you shock the world? Graumann asks.

Yeah.

You wont need a speech if you shock the world, his campaign manager says. I want you to go up there and give us Yang Unchained.

Graumann pauses. Just no swearing. This is Iowa.

Yang is running on empty.

Its his fourth stop of the day, in Oskaloosa, and the candidates cough has gotten worse. Crowding into a small campaign office with some 50 volunteers, Yang launches into a version of the motivational speech hes been giving all day. Its slower, somewhat less edgy, if every bit as earnest.

People learn from, and are inspired by, other people, he says. People are not inspired by television commercials. If they were, Mike Bloomberg would be doing a lot better than he is.

After some chuckling, Yang continues, People are inspired when you knock on the door, when you pick up the phone, when you have a face-to-face conversation. Because thats the way were built as human beings. We see another human being that wants to share something important with us, and we cant help but listen.

Yang cant help but listen a few minutes later when Thomas Wu, a 27-year-old volunteer, explains how he wound up in his wheelchair. The 27-year-old Wu lives in Louisiana but relocated to Iowa a month ago to help Yangs efforts. While completing a marathon canvassing session just the day before, Wu slipped and fell on ice, shattering his kneecap.

Upon hearing this, the candidate looks equal parts dismayed and impressed. That is a battlefield injury, Yang says, slapping the youngsters back.

Yang gives a thumbs-up while posing for a photo with Thomas Wu. | Tim Alberta/POLITICO

When Wu declares that hell still be fulfilling his duties as a precinct captain tonight, Yang looks as though hes just heard a symphony.

Whether its the emotion or the sickness or the fatiguemost likely a combinationYang needs another break. Once aboard the bus, he collapses onto the couch. Baby needs a nap, he says to nobody in particular, pulling a blanket up to his chin and coughing himself to sleep.

Yang is awake but barely functional, his eyes open but trained on nothing in particular. After spending much of the day on his iPhone, monitoring social media for signs of whats to come tonight, he now appears immobilized. Its only when Graumann announces a FiveThirtyEight story that Yang snaps to attention: The nixed Des Moines Register poll from Saturday night, Graumann announces, showed Biden at just 14 percent.

Wait, what? Yang asks, sounding part-shocked and part-groggy.

Graumann and a few other staffers explain the reporting and its implications for Biden. Their candidate listens silently, then stands up, stretches, and heads to the bathroom. Several minutes later, having emerged and grabbed a fresh bag of fruit snacks, Yang sits back down and sighs.

It would make me really sad if Joe has a rough night, he says.

Why?

Yang shrugs. I like Joe.

The bus is rumbling into West Des Moines, where Yang will partake in the charming tradition of speaking to Iowans at an actual caucus site, making the case for his candidacy just as hundreds of surrogates are doing the same at locations around the state. But the preliminary reports Yang is getting from inside the high school gymnasium is discouraging: There are few uncommitted Iowans by his teams count, and his presence looks significantly smaller than those of rival campaigns.

Yang digests the information. Then he admits that his mind has begun to wander, contemplating all that might or might not unfold in the coming hours. Ive thought about the worst-case scenario and what it would mean; I think Im prepared for that, he says. And Ive thought about the best-case scenario and what it would mean. I think Im prepared for that, too.

Yang asks his team if there are additional updates. Told that no, not yet, he tells Graumann: Lets hear the song.

Moments later, the bus is ringing with Winds of Change by the Scorpions. Yang closes his eyes and leans back, head nodding along to the rhythm.

The world is closing in Did you ever think That we could be so close, like brothers The future's in the air I can feel it everywhere Blowing with the wind of change

Graumann walks past Yang and squeezes his candidate on the shoulder.

Proud of you, man.

The gym is packed with caucusgoers, but Yang is stuck on the bus. Hes not allowed inside until the doors are locked, at 7 p.m. These will be the longest seven minutes of his day.

Tossing a meatball in his direction, I ask Yang what hell tell his kids about running for president in America circa 2020. He turns deadly serious. You seem to be suggesting that things will be better by the time theyre older.

Wont they?

Im not optimistic at all, he shakes his head.

The question is, Yang continues, How will this society fare in an environment of unprecedented change, with a polarized government that is hopelessly behind the curve and unable to adapt in ways necessary to help them?

Yang has never been viewed as an ideologue, certainly not in the vein of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. But hes gotten this far by hammering home a message that is just as unwavering as either of theirs: that software and automation are eliminating American jobs at a devastating rate, and that Washington lacks the competence and the leadership to respond.

It occurs to me, as he paints this grim picture of the future, that Yang is a true believer if ever there was one. He isnt peddling a far-flung theory for the sake of fame or Twitter followers; he feels convinced of every word hes saying, certain that hes a lone voice of sanity in a world gone mad. The thing about people like thisthe true believersis that they dont go away. Its easy to envision someone more prominent building on Yangs success in elections yet to come. But what about Yang himself? Is this campaign the end, or only just the beginning?

I certainly wouldnt rule it out, Yang says of another run. Weve got a list of millions of people. Weve got hundreds of thousands of donors. If I ran again, the probability of my success would be that much higher. So, why wouldnt I?

I certainly wouldnt rule it out, he says of another run. Weve got a list of millions of people. Weve got hundreds of thousands of donors. Plus, the national press would have to have us seriously next time. And the truth is, I like Iowa, I like New Hampshire. I like Americans. The prospect of doing this again is something Im very comfortable with. Id prefer to win now and start solving problems. The reason I ran was because I want to eradicate poverty. If I ran again, the probability of my success would be that much higher. So, why wouldnt I?

As Graumann cuts him off, advising on a strategic approach to conversations with caucusgoers inside the gymnasium, Yang looks back at me.

Im only 45, you know.

For the first time all day, Yang appears downcast.

He had wrung every last ounce of energy from himself inside the gymslapping hands, leading chants, running up the bleacher steps like Rocky Balboa. He had swaggered his way to the microphone, saluting the crowd with one arm raised, and given a solid speech, emphasizing the need to unite the party and the country around a forward-thinking agenda. He received a nice ovation, including from lots of Iowans wearing shirts and stickers with his opponents names.

Outside, hiking briskly with his small entourage through a barely lit parking lot, Yang sounds like a man whacked over the head with reality.

I wish we would have picked a location with more supporters. It was a liiiiiittle lonely in there, he says. I hope well be a lot of peoples second choices. But even then, how many people showed up here undecided about that? Probably a fraction of that crowd. I dont know.

Inside the bus, Yangs aides glue their eyes to CNN. Entrance poll numbers are rolling in, but still no results. The staffers banter about various statistics and what they might foretell, but the candidate barely seems to be paying attention. Hes looking toward the television, but not directly at it.

After a minute, Graumann shows Yang a tweet that should cheer him up: Hed finished ahead of Biden in one Des Moines precinct. Thats good, the candidate replied, gazing back off.

Getting back onto his iPhone after a few minutes of peace, Yang looks up. Thats not good, he tells the crew. I only got 7 percent in Grinnell. That means were not viable.

With voting underway, Yang and Chapman are glued to their phones. | Tim Alberta/POLITICO

Graumann and Chapman warn their boss not to read too much into any one result, any one report from any one precinct. But its too late. Yang is submerged into the dark world of Election Night Twitter, and soon so are they. The bus rolls along silently toward the Iowa Events Center in downtown Des Moines, the site of Yangs caucus celebration party. Many minutes go by before someone finally chirps up from the front of the bus: Can you turn the volume on?

The smartphone addicts in the back oblige, and we all listen to Wolf Blitzer trying to make sense of the situation on the ground in Iowa. Precincts across the state are well into their voting rituals, but thus far no official results are being reported. Its confusing to everyone, especially the novice politician and first-time presidential contender, who furrows his brow and turns back to his iPhone.

At last, something compelling on the television: Andrew Yang is on the cusp of viability, CNNs Jeff Zeleny reports from a Des Moines caucus site.

The candidate is intrigued, but its time to go. The bus is parked in the staging area behind the convention center and his staff have loaded up their computers and personal affects, preparing for a long night inside. The candidate takes his time ambling down the center aisle toward the front of the bus, giving fist-bumps to each member of his team. He walks down the stairs and inhales the icy February air, breathing heavily as he heads into the bowels of the building.

Directed to a steel-doored freight elevator, Yang steps inside and climbs two stories. His staff leads him to a medium-sized staging room, brightly lit and empty but for a table full of platters: fruits, vegetables, crackers, cheese. Mmm, he says.

Next door is the war room, where Yangs team is setting up a hub of laptops and television monitors. Hell get there eventually. For now, he needs time alone, time to rest and think. Before longan hour, maybe 90 minuteshell need to come into the main ballroom and greet his supporters with a caucus night speech. Whether its declaring victory or conceding defeat, Yang doesnt know. And he doesnt seem terribly concerned. Just tired.

I feel comfortable with a whole range of outcomes, he says, sidling up to the food trays, seeming concerned more with the selection of cheeses than with the returns being processed next door.

I can only laugh. Nothing more human, after 10 hours on the campaign trail, than being hungry. He laughs, too.

I remain hopeful that my relative normalcy is our key competitive advantage, Yang says.

Andrew and Evelyn Yang dance their way onto the stage, Return of the Mack blaring through the ballroom, a few hundred supporters cheering and clapping and dancing along with them.

It has been a most baffling nightfor Yang, for his team, for everyone else here and across Iowa. The states Democratic Party has experienced a staggering failure of its results-reporting system, which means none of the campaigns have any concrete idea of how they performed statewide.

Ive gotta say, Im a numbers guy. Were still waiting on numbers from tonight. Were all looking around, like, Whats the math? Whats the math? Yang joked with his audience.

No math means no winners, no losers, no narratives. Just spinninglots and lots of spinning, each candidate given carte blanche to define the night before the media could do it for them.

Yang is ideally suited to the task. Although its not clear yet, there are indications that his campaign underperformed expectations; and sure enough, within a few days, he'll learn that he won 5 percent of raw votes in the first allocation and just 1 percent of raw votes in the final allocation statewide, the very definition of the bad sixth place he feared on Monday morning.

Not that it matters right now. The #YangGang came to celebrate, and their leader isnt about to let them down. Describing how a field of 20 candidates has withered to seven who will be on the debate stage in New Hampshire on Friday (not counting his pal, Mike Bloomberg, of course), Yang declares that his campaign will move onward to New Hampshire and beyond.

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12 Wild Hours With Andrew Yang - POLITICO

Dwayne Haskins is ‘All For Competition’ To Be The Redskins Starting Quarterback – Redskins.com

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Haskins was named the full-time starter in Week 9 of his rookie season and went 2-5 before spraining his ankle against the New York Giants in Week 16, forcing him to miss the season finale against the Dallas Cowboys. His play was sporadic for much of the 2019 season, including two games in which he played in relief for Case Keenum, but it looked like Haskins was starting come into his own before his injury. In his final six quarters, Haskins completed 72% of his passes for 394 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions.

Still, Rivera wants to see more out the second-year quarterback he inherited from the previous coaching staff. He wants Haskins to "step up and be a leader," which is expected of all great quarterbacks regardless of their experience. The work starts in the offseason, and Rivera wants to see Haskins put in the work now to earn a starting role in September.

"You've got to step up, you've got to be where you need to be, you've got to do things you're supposed to do," Rivera said. "That's all going to start with your offseason, how you prepare yourself, how do you get yourself ready?"

Haskins has already shown his teammates that he wants to be their leader. Many of them were impressed with how he handled himself in his first-career start against the Buffalo Bills and the way he maintained constant communication with every position group to see how he could help them.

"They guy's only 22 years old," Paul Richardson said after the game. "I liked that. You can tell he has really good leadership qualities. He's just finding his voice."

Adrian Peterson said he saw confidence in Haskins' eyes even though his performance in Buffalo wasn't all perfect. He completed 15 of 22 passes for 144 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions.

However, it isn't the players Haskins needs to impress; it's Rivera, offensive coordinator Scott Turner and the rest of the new coaching staff -- many of whom were coaching with the Panthers when he was coming out of Ohio State. They liked Haskins in their pre-draft interviews with him, but they still want to see him prove he is ready to be the quarterback of the future.

Doug Williams, who was recently promoted to senior vice president of player development, said Haskins was "ascending" before he suffered the injury. He still has a long way to go, Williams added, while also trying to prove something to the new coaches that are "not married to him."

"He has to look at it from that standpoint," Williams said. "It's about what he does, and he has all the ability to do what any coach wants him to do."

Greek migrant crisis: 6000 child refugees fend for themselves – The Times

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Among the most vulnerable of those crammed into Greeces squalid refugee camps are the unaccompanied minors.

When the Taliban ramped up their attacks in Afghanistans Jaghori district last year, Abdullahs mother told him to flee to Europe. He was nine and his journey was brutal, but now, trekking through Moria, a squalid and overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, Abdullah is concerned about his fate.

Can I go to England? he asks, adjusting his blue-and-white striped football jersey. I want to become a famous football player.

There are more than 1,000 unaccompanied minors in the Moria camp

GETTY IMAGES

The 10-year-old Afghan boy is among a growing number of unaccompanied minors left to fend for themselves because European Union member states have dragged their heels on resettling them. The number of cases in Greece has

Greek migrant crisis: 6000 child refugees fend for themselves - The Times

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