Monthly Archives: May 2022

History of tornadoes in New England – WWLP.com

Posted: May 21, 2022 at 6:58 pm

CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) When thunderstorms become severe they are capable of producing tornadoes. On average 4 to 5 tornadoes touch down in Massachusetts each year.

In the summer of 2020, a weak tornado touched down in Sandisfield and moved through Tolland and Blandford. It knocked down numerous trees in the area of Belden Road in Tolland and caused minor damage to some homes. While most of the tornadoes we get tend to be on the weak side, there have been a number of very destructive and even deadly tornadoes that have affected us here in western Massachusetts.

The biggest in recent memory of course being the June 1st tornado which touched down in 2011. That tornado was an EF-3 with winds estimated at 160 mph. It left a path of destruction 38 miles long from Westfield to Charlton. Three people died as a direct result of the tornado and 200 people were injured.

Back in 1995 on May 29th, Memorial Day, another deadly tornado touched down in the Berkshires. The Great Barrington tornado was an F-4 with winds estimated at 260 mph. It leveled the Great Barrington Fairgrounds and killed 3 people, two students and a faculty member from the Eagleton School.

While its more common for severe weather and tornadoes to occur during the spring and summer months, some powerful tornadoes have also occurred in the fall and fairly recently, even in winter. On October 3, 1979, of one of the most memorable tornadoes touched down in northern Connecticut and western Massachusetts.

The enormous task of cleaning up after a killer tornado is facing thousands of people in the Windsor Locks, Connecticut area, said 22News Anchor Norm Peters during a 1979 newscast.

The Windsor Locks tornado was also an F-4 with winds in excess of 200 mph. It touched down in the town of Windsor, Connecticut and moved up along Route 75 into Feeding Hills. The tornado all but wiped out the Bradley Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Twenty-five planes were destroyed and the roof was ripped off a hangar. Sixty-five homes were destroyed in the tornados 11 mile path of destruction.

In Feeding Hills, the Granger Elementary School was shut down for weeks due to water and structural damage. In all, three people lost their lives and 500 people were injured.

In 2017 we actually had the first ever recorded tornado in the month of February in Massachusetts. The Conway tornado, which first touched down in Goshen, occurred on February 26th. It was an EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 110 miles per hour. It caused significant damage and even destroyed some homes. The United Congregational Church on Whately Road was damaged so badly it had to be demolished.

When conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form, a Tornado Watch is issued. You should pay close attention to the weather and be prepared to take action. When a tornado is spotted or indicated on radar a Tornado Warning is issued. You should then take immediate action and head to the basement or the lowest floor of your home and away from any windows.

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Buffalo Sabres: Who is the biggest draft day steal in team history? – Sabre Noise

Posted: at 6:58 pm

The Buffalo Sabres have enjoyed numerous draft day steals throughout their history. But one name stands out more than the others.

In the second half of the 2021-22 season, Victor Olofsson worked some magic for the Buffalo Sabres. And perhaps no other player enjoyed so much post-All-Star break success. Rasmus Dahlin and Tage Thompson might have given him a run, but Olofsson played like a top player from February 15th to April 29th.

Olofsson, the 181st overall pick of the 2014 NHL Draft, could be considered one of the best steals in team history if he continues his high-octane ways.But when you look back into the Sabres past, one name stands head and shoulders above all when it comes to draft day steals. That player is none other than Ryan Miller, the 138th pick of the 1999 NHL Draft.

Miller, who logged 391 wins during his NHL career, leads all American goaltenders in the category. He also holds the NHL record for the most shootout wins by a goaltender in a single season with ten.

He donned a Sabres uniform during that 2006-07 season, posting a 40-16-6 record with a 0.911 save percentage and a GAA of 2.73. Despite the legendary season, Millers best year with the Sabres did not occur until 2009-10. He received NHL All-Star Team honors that season, and he also took home the Vezina Trophy.

Stats-wise, Miller finished the year 41-18-8, posting an astounding GAA of 2.22. He also logged a career-high save percentage of 0.929.

The Sabres made the playoffs just one more season after his career year. But despite the teams struggles, Miller continued to produce well. Between 2011-12 and his final season in Buffalo, Miller never allowed over 2.72 goals per game and his save percentage never dipped below 0.910.

Ryan Miller may receive some competition in the future from the likes of Olofsson, up-and-comer Lukas Rousek, or even someone that may come completely out of the blue. But for any of the above to surpass him, it would take a borderline Hall of Fame career.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)

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Roger Angell was the personification of baseball history: Adler – The Athletic

Posted: at 6:58 pm

Last summer, Roger Angell greeted me at the door of his Manhattan apartment and asked the question on everyones mind: Hi Lindsey, the legendary writer and editor, who died Friday at the age of 101, said in June 2021. What the hell is going on with the New York Yankees?

It was my first time meeting Angell, my hero and the writer who first opened my eyes to the potential beauty that can be found in baseball writing. I became a baseball writer too late to run into Roger in the press box, as many of my peers had done routinely for years before my arrival, but not too late to spend an afternoon talking about ballplayers and the inconsistent offense of the team I cover.

Angell covered baseball like no one else. He came to it late in life at age 42 and was unconventional in his literary approach to chronicling the game hed loved since he was young. He had luxuries that most writers never get. He wrote for The New Yorker, which gave him space, time, and freedom to explore topics that moved him, rather than being beholden to the day-to-day issues and performances that drove most baseball writing then and now. Angell recognized that his position was cushier than that of a newspaper beat writer, but the reality is that it wasnt the time and expansive word limits that created the conditions for Angell to do unique work. It was his humility, curiosity, and creativity in his perspective of the game and approach to reporting that ultimately set his prose apart.

I went to Angells home last summer hoping to write a profile of the writer whose work had inspired me most as a developing writer, but never found a way to do justice to the experience of hearing his stories and having him ask mine. My idea going into the afternoon was to ask Roger how he would write about Roger at this state of his life; I found quickly that he was much more interested in the way each of us perceived and covered our subjects instead of making him one himself.

That afternoon, I sat on Angells couch and petted his dog, Andy, named for Angells stepfather E.B. White, as we exchanged stories about reporting and the quirks of the ballplayers we each had known. At 100 years old, Angells tales had long been codified. As a passionate reader of his work and the interviews hes given over the years, very few of them were new to me.

Angell was the personification of baseball history to me. I was born in 1990; Babe Ruth might as well have been the subject of a parable given the respective eras in which we lived. It was meaningful to me that Angell had seen Ruth play, and had run into him on the street once as a child. There was, as long as Angell was around, someone I knew of to whom Ruth was a very real person and player.

There were only a few things that Angell and I had in common. He was Harvard educated and deeply reverent to his family, especially his mother, Katharine Sergeant Angell White. I have no college education, no important family ties. We were both dog owners, New Yorkers (him of the born-and-raised variety, me of the passionate transplant type), and big fans of Ron Darling as a person as much as a player. He wrote about baseball largely in an era that was long gone before I even gained an appreciation for the sport.

That afternoon last June, I found our biggest commonalities were that we were each baffled wed ever become baseball writers, and that we were endlessly fascinated by the things that make ballplayers tick.

Angell saw the creative brilliance of ballplayers, and gravitated toward the ones who couldnt help but stand out. His eyes lit up as he talked about his time writing about the late Royals pitcher Dan Quisenberry. He won over Bob Gibson, he wrote a whole book about the complicated but endearing David Cone, he took on the mysterious case of Steve Blass and the yips. Toward the end of his life, his eyesight was going, as was his hearing, but he tuned into SNY regularly to hear Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen exchange quips with Darling.

Proximity to professional baseball and its players can lead to quick disillusionment with what seems like relative magic when observed from the stands. Angell saw players as complicated but fascinating, and it was a relief to both of us to learn that the players he wrote about and the ones I cover now still fundamentally operate in the same way. These are professional athletes, people who are treated by society as near-deities, and whose personalities adapt in kind. But they are also uniquely talented, and contort their emotional impulses and physical attributes to compete at the games highest level, usually chasing the emotional highs and validations of success.

What makes baseball players difficult and frustrating is what makes them compelling. Angell was typically amused by their quirks rather than turned off by them.

Angell never lost a sense of wonder for their talents and the complexities of a game that often looks quite simple, even as the sport itself became unrecognizable to him in recent years. It is incomprehensible to me to think of the game as it evolved throughout the course of Angells lifetime. He was born at the start of the live ball era, he was 26 years old when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, he was alive for all 27 Yankees World Series championships and was old enough to remember 26 of them. He watched Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Roberto Clemente, and told me last year that Jacob deGrom reminded him of Gibson.

He was once described as baseballs poet laureate, but I considered him something else. He was baseballs living history, its institutional memory, and one of its all-time greatest ambassadors for the magic of the game.

What was intended to be an interview for a story turned into two people gossiping about baseball and the process of writing about it, a 100-year-old and a 31-year-old with the same obsession. It was clear to me that Angell did not see himself the way I did: As compelling and talented as the baseball players who had fascinated him for his entire life.

He was the insiders outsider, the man who sat in the press box doodling in his notebook while those around him raced to meet deadlines. He was cognizant of his privilege in upbringing and in his assignments for The New Yorker, but many people have had less success with more opportunities.

I left that day without a story, covered in dog fur and feeling a bit closer to the legacy of the sport that has given me a passion and a career. I took a photo with Angell to send to Ron Darling and David Cone, and then got on the subway to go write about the Yankees drama of the day.

Angell approached his reporting with humility and curiosity. He wanted to understand and in turn, furthered the understanding of his readers. The game of baseball and the industry that covers it have both changed to the point of near-unrecognizability in the nearly 60 years since Angell got his first assignment to write about baseball, but his work and his legacy were never left behind.

Angells work is unreplicable, but his values are not.

(Photo of Angell in 2006: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

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Taliban chief bans polygamy, calls it unnecessary and an expensive affair – ThePrint

Posted: at 6:57 pm

New Delhi:Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has issued an order banning polygamy among members of the group terming it unnecessary and costly, Kabul-basedBakhtar News Agency reported on Saturday.

The country, which is an Islamic emirate governed under Sharia laws, allows for men to have up to four wives. Polygamy is widely practiced in Afghanistan. The absence of offspring from the first marriage isbelievedto be the primary reason Afghan men take multiple wives.

However, Akhundzada has emphasisedhow Taliban members should avoid second, third and fourth marriages as its an expensive affair.The order further instructed the Amr-ul-Maruf Ministry (Ministry of Enforcement of Virtue and Suppression of Vice) to identify violators and report to the leadership.

In January 2021, a similar decree was issued by the Taliban when it was still in midst of peace negotiations with the Afghan government regarding the countrys future. The leadership wasconcernedabout rampant corruption among members who were looking to raise money to either pay the bride price (dowry paid by the groom to the brides family) or sustain their many households.

The Taliban leadership also believed that spending a huge amount of money on wedding ceremonies could lead to criticism from their enemies/opponents or from within the group.

Polygamy is common among the Taliban and most senior members have more than one wife. Even the groups founder Mullah Mohammad Omar reportedlyhad at least three wives. One of those was Osama Bin Ladens daughter that had secured an alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda before the events of 9/11.

(Edited by: Manoj Ramachandran)

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A look at the legacy of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the father of Modern Indian Renaissance – The Indian Express

Posted: at 6:57 pm

One of the most influential social and religious reformers of the 19th century, Ram Mohan Roy, born on May 22, 1772 in what was then Bengal Presidencys Radhanagar in Hooghly district, would have turned 250 years today. As India grapples increasingly with changing social and religious circumstances, Roys work in the sphere of womens emancipation, modernising education and seeking changes to religious orthodoxy finds new relevance in this time.

In Makers of Modern India (Penguin Books, 2010), a book that profiles the work and words of the men and women who argued the Republic of India into existence, its editor, historian Ramachandra Guha, writes, Roy was unquestionably the first person on the subcontinent to seriously engage with the challenges posed by modernity to traditional social structures and ways of being. He was also one of the first Indians whose thought and practice were not circumscribed by the constraints of kin, caste and religion.

Early Life

Born into a prosperous upper-caste Brahmin family, Roy grew up within the framework of orthodox caste practices of his time: child-marriage, polygamy and dowry were prevalent among the higher castes and he had himself been married more than once in his childhood. The familys affluence had also made the best in education accessible to him.

A polyglot, Roy knew Bengali and Persian, but also Arabic, Sanskrit, and later, English. His exposure to the literature and culture of each of these languages bred in him a scepticism towards religious dogmas and social strictures. In particular, he chafed at practices such as Sati, that compelled widows to be immolated on their husbands funeral pyre. Roys sister-in-law had been one such victim after his elder brothers death, and it was a wound that stayed with him.

The waning of the Mughals and the ascendancy of the East India Company in Bengal towards the end of the 18th century was also the time when Roy was slowly coming into his own. His education had whetted his appetite for philosophy and theology, and he spent considerable time studying the Vedas and the Upanishads, but also religious texts of Islam and Christianity. He was particularly intrigued by the Unitarian faction of Christianity and was drawn by the precepts of monotheism that, he believed, lay at the core of all religious texts.

He wrote extensive tracts on various matters of theology, polity and human rights, and translated and made accessible Sanskrit texts into Bengali. Rammohun did not quite make a distinction between the religious and the secular. He believed religion to be the site of all fundamental changes. What he fought was not religion but what he believed to be its perversion (Rabindranath) Tagore called him a Bharatpathik by which he meant to say that Rammohun combined in his person the underlying spirit of Indic civilisation, its spirit of pluralism, tolerance and a cosmic respect for all forms of life, says historian Amiya P Sen, Sivadasani Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford, UK, whose Rammohun Roy: A Critical Biography (Penguin, Viking, 2012), remains a definitive work on the man who was a key figure in Indias journey into modernism.

Roy, the first among liberals

Even though British consolidation of power was still at a nascent stage in India at the time, Roy could sense that change was afoot. Confident about the strength of his heritage and open to imbibing from other cultures what he believed were ameliorative practices, Roy was among Indias first liberals. In the introduction to his biography of Roy, Sen writes, his mind also reveals a wide range of interests, rarely paralleled in the history of Indian thought. He was simultaneously interested in religion, politics, law and jurisprudence, commerce and agrarian enterprise, Constitutions and civic rights, the unjust treatment of women and the appalling condition of the Indian poor And he studied matters not in the abstract or in academic solitude but with the practical objective of securing human happiness and freedom. That made him a modern man.

In 1814, he started the Atmiya Sabha (Society of Friends), to nurture philosophical discussions on the idea of monotheism in Vedanta and to campaign against idolatry, casteism, child marriage and other social ills. The Atmiya Sabha would make way for the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, set up with Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagores father.

Abolition of Sati, educational and religious reforms

During the course of his time in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), a period of about 15 years, Roy became a prominent public intellectual. He campaigned for the modernisation of education, in particular the introduction of a Western curriculum, and started several educational institutions in the city.

In 1817, he collaborated with Scottish philanthropist David Hare to set up the Hindu College (now, Presidency University). He followed it up with the Anglo-Hindu School in 1822 and, in 1830, assisted Alexander Duff to set up the General Assemblys Institution, which later became the Scottish Church College.

It was his relentless advocacy alongside contemporaries such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar that finally led to the abolition of Sati under the governor generalship of William Bentinck in 1829. Roy argued for the property rights of women, and petitioned the British for freedom of the press (in 1829 and 1830).

His Brahmo Sabha, that later became the Brahmo Samaj, evolved as a reaction against the upper-caste stranglehold on social customs and rituals. During the Bengal Renaissance, it ushered in sweeping social changes and birthed the Brahmo religion, a reformed spiritual Hinduism that believes in monotheism and the uniformity of all men, irrespective of caste, class or creed.

Perils of non-conformism

As many modern liberals discover to their peril, non-conformism brings with it its own share of infamy. Roy, who was given the title of Raja by the Mughal emperor Akbar II, was no exception to this. Among the first Indians to gain recognition in the UK and in America for his radical thoughts, in his lifetime, Roy was also often attacked by his own countrymen who felt threatened by his reformist agenda, and by British reformers and functionaries, whose views differed from his.

Would Roys reformist agenda have met with equal if not more resistance in contemporary India? After all, in 2019, actor Payal Rohatgi had launched an offensive against Roy on Twitter, accusing him of being a British stooge who was used to defame Sati. Sen says Roys legacy has not been celebrated enough for many historic reasons, of which partisan reading by the Hindu right is one, but His life and message stands vastly apart from the spirit of contemporary Hindutva or exclusionary, political Hinduism.

Celebrations

Roys 250th birth anniversary will see year-long celebrations in different parts of the country. In West Bengal, the unveiling of a statue at Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation, Salt Lake, by GK Reddy, Minister of Culture; Tourism; and Development of North Eastern Region, will mark the inauguration of the Centres celebration plans. The West Bengal state government has overseen repairs of Roys ancestral house in Radhanagar, and is set to confer heritage status to it. The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in Kolkata has organised a three-day inaugural programme from May 22 to May 24 that will see musical tributes and talks by Rajya Sabha MP and retired diplomat Jawhar Sircar; eminent academics and historians such as Suranjan Das, vice-chancellor, Jadavpur University; Rudrangshu Mukherjee, chancellor, Ashoka University; professor Arun Bandyopadhyay of Calcutta University, among others.

A philatelic exhibition on the Bengali Renaissance has been organised by the Rammohun Library and Free Reading Room, set up in 1904. The organisation will also publish a commemorative volume.

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Libertarians, Democrats to hold joint town hall in New Albany – Evening News and Tribune

Posted: at 6:56 pm

NEW ALBANY On Wednesday, state and federal Democratic Party and Libertarian Party candidates will take part in a town hall in New Albany.

Democrats at the event will include Tom McDermott, mayor of Hammond and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate; Destiny Wells, a candidate for Indiana Secretary of State; Rita Fleming, an incumbent candidate for District 71 state representative, and Nick Marshall, a candidate for Indiana Senate District 45.

The Libertarian Party of Indiana is also expected to have candidates at the forum.

The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the 40/8 Hall at 1101 221 Albany St. in New Albany.

The Indiana Democratic Party in a news release stated that the states Libertarian and Republican parties were asked to take part in the town hall series, which includes stops across the state. Democrats said in the news release the Republican Party declined to participate.

There is no set theme for the town halls. Indiana Democrats have a plan to address the kitchen-table issues important to voters, and from issues like inflation and law enforcement funding to education and broadband, candidates and elected officials will answer as many questions as possible during a 90-minute conversation, the news release states.

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Letter to the editor: Libertarians are not naive – BayToday.ca

Posted: at 6:56 pm

People would be hired for their ability- not arbitrarily by race, colour, gender, and religion

Editor's note: Mr.Trusslerwrites in responsetoLetter to the editor:Freedom and Democracy.

-----

To the Editor

Trevor Schindeler has never given thought that our unparalleled standard of living is because of competition.

Without competition there is monopoly and un-accountability: monopolies made possible by trade and professional unions.

Unions should also have to compete for members.Why should anyone be forced to belong to a union to practice his or her trade and profession? This universal acceptance is one of the biggest curtailments of our freedom. (freedom to work)

Libertarians believe in competition. They would not replace education, health care, or any other sovereign monopoly with a private system but would allow the private sector to compete and hold all accountable.

People would be hired for their ability- not arbitrarily by race, colour, gender, and religion.

People who are able should help themselves and their families and those unable to do so receive non-political government help and assistance.

Everyone should be given the necessary assistance to survive and prosper, not just catering to the fittest or those who succeed on a level playing field.

Mr.Schindeler: Libertarians are not naive.

Paul TrusslerNorth Bay

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Election file: Lockdowns abused the rights of Sudburians, Libertarian candidate says – The Sudbury Star

Posted: at 6:56 pm

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'I have no other choice but to speak up in defence of the people of Sudbury'

By Adrien Berthier

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My name is Adrien Berthier and I am seeking election as Sudburys Libertarian candidate.

I live and work in Sudbury and owe so much of my personal growth to the people of Sudbury. I own salesacorn.ca and Jeesen. I love the fusion of urban and wilderness that Sudbury offers.

I am seeking election because of the loss of personal freedoms that we have been experiencing over the last couple of years. The knee-jerk reaction to lockdowns deprived people of the right to earn a living, to visit dying or severely ill family members and created an underclass of second-class citizens. It also discriminated against certain members of our society, forcing people to wear masks non-stop the entire day to participate in society despite the health concerns.

What we have lived through is a crime against humanity and our politicians, through lack of backbone, have failed us. Our politicians either kept silent during the human rights abuses occurring around them or worse, they were proudly complicit in the events through which we have lived.

Since our politicians are unwilling to defend the freedoms that our society has historically been built on, I have no other choice but to speak up in defence of the people of Sudbury. If we keep voting for the big three parties, nothing is going to change. Its time to make our votes count and either prevent the big three parties from gaining control or at least send them a message that citizens are not livestock on a farm, that politicians are meant to be our servants and serve the people they represent.

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My top priority would be to prevent the loss of freedom from ever happening again so that our children and youth can know what it is like to live in a free society without fear of what their own government might do to them next.

Our health-care system is completely broken. I say this from my own experiences with health care in this city. Our hospital is clearly too small for the needs of our community, but I do not believe that expanding it and pouring more and more resources into a broken system is going to help.

Its time that we look for creative solutions. We need to put our top minds together to brainstorm new ideas. We could look at freeing up all the health care tax dollars collected for each person and spending that money right here in Sudbury.

We could look at reducing the management burden of our hospital, we could look at adding more private clinics for many procedures, freeing up the burden on the system, but most of all, I would reach out to our nurses and doctors and ask them what needs to be done.

I believe that if Laurentian university is unable to figure out a way to restructure or be self-supporting, then maybe we should be looking toward other options. Paying professors more, reducing management and bureaucracy may help to save Laurentian. All options should be on the table to save the university and continue serving the people of Sudbury.

A French-language university in Sudbury would be great. If tuition can be raised to support such a venture, I would support it.

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The drug problem in Sudbury is heartbreaking and I have watched it grow worse year by year. Although I am not in support of spending taxpayer money on safe injection sites my heart goes out to the people afflicted with addictions.

If the safe injection sites could also be somehow combined with other programs, that would give people hope again and give them a clear plan to move forward with their lives and become productive citizens again. I would be supportive of anyone with addictions that really wants to overcome their situation and is willing to demonstrate their willingness with action.

I would be supportive of completing the widening of Highway 69. The important thing here is to have a plan and to steadily follow it through to the end.

To lower prices like gas prices and other goods, we need to produce more. That means more industry, more small business and more entrepreneurs. By producing more goods and services and supporting local solutions, we can drive inflation rates down.

Reducing the size of the government burden on the taxpayers shoulders and emphasizing private solutions can drive down inflation and increase employment. We need to lower taxes, reduce the number of people employed by government and reduce the amount of red tape and paperwork involved in running small businesses.

Reducing the cost of housing in Sudbury is a key issue that comes down to reducing government fees, and government controls over the housing market. We need landlord rights to protect small landlords rights over their own property. By making private property and investing in housing stock a more attractive option, we would quickly increase inventory and pull pricing down for everyday renters.

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Increasing the number of options for tenants would provide not only more choice but also better rates as more and more people compete to invest in housing. Making rents more affordable and bringing up the quality and standards of the rental inventory available would be a win for the poor.

Creating jobs in Sudbury could be done by teaching entrepreneurship to high school students and encouraging entrepreneurs as much as possible. Making Sudbury more self-reliant and innovative would reduce our reliance on government support and encourage more employment.

I would like to see the creation of a charitable foundation in Sudbury to restore the soil and waters of our forests and lakes. Restoring self-sustaining ecologies in Sudbury and bringing back our beautiful wild landscapes would be a good idea.

I am also offering to donate 25 per cent of my MPP salary to the Sudbury Food Bank and am challenging all the other candidates to do the same thing.

Adrien Berthier is the candidate for the Libertarian Party in Sudbury.

sud.editorial@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @SudburyStar

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Election file: Lockdowns abused the rights of Sudburians, Libertarian candidate says - The Sudbury Star

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Al Cross: As primary voters move GOP farther right, will others follow? – Courier Journal

Posted: at 6:56 pm

Al Cross| Opinion Contributor

Tuesdays primary elections in Kentucky reflected increasing polarization of the two political parties.

The Republican Party kept moving right, with the victories of several candidates who campaigned primarily on cultural issues and against government overreach.

The Democratic Party kept moving left, with the U.S. Senate primary victory of former state Rep. Charles Booker of Louisville, probably the most liberal nominee for major statewide office that Kentucky has ever produced.

Booker vowed on election night, Were gonna blow Rand Paul out, but defeat of the two-term libertarian Republican would be one of the greatest upsets in American political history, given the strong Republican trend in Kentucky.

For Subscribers: 5 takeaways from the 2022 Kentucky primary election. (Hint: The first one is 'money wins')

A more likely impact is that of the wins of seven or so Republican primary candidates who emphasized personal liberty (the major exception being a womans right to an abortion), showing that voters GOP primary voters, at least care less about the status and influence of their state legislators than the lawmakers would like to think.

That was obvious in Northern Kentucky, which saw three of its four-state House committee chairs defeated: Reps. Sal Santoro (Transportation), Ed Massey (Judiciary) and Adam Koenig (Business Organizations and Professions). Respectively, they lost to Marianne Proctor, Steve Rawlings and Steven Doan. One common theme was opposition to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshears pandemic restrictions.

In a region where legislative district lines cut across municipalities and even neighborhoods, the liberty candidates consistent cultural themes may have created a tide that lifted all their boats, former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson of Northern Kentucky said on KETs election-night show (where I was also a panelist).

Northern Kentucky also drove the result in an open state Senate race, in which former senator Gex (jay) Williams of Verona, endorsed by libertarian U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, defeated three more mainstream candidates: well-funded Phyllis Sparks, also of Boone County; and Calen Studler and Mike Templeman of Frankfort.

Williams, who gave up a Senate seat to run for Congress in 1998, is now in an interesting matchup with Teresa Barton of Frankfort, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. After serving as Franklin County judge-executive, Barton ran the state Office of Drug Control Policy for Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher and supported him for re-election, but didnt change parties. She may be Democrats only hope to pick up a state Senate seat, in a newly drawn district that is 5 to 4 Democratic in voter registration but seems clearly Republican in recent voter performance.

Several liberty candidates lost. The biggest failure was Andrew Cooperrider of Lexington, who led protests against Beshears restrictions and petitioned the legislature to impeach him. He lost to Sen. Donald Douglas of Nicholasville, who was propped up financially and legislatively by Republican leaders who didnt want another liberty fire-breather like Sen. Adrienne Southworth of Lawrenceburg in the Senate. Two other impeachment petitioners also lost, to Reps. Samara Heavrin of Leitchfield and Kim King of Harrodsburg.

Kentucky Republican leaders have tried to steer the state party away from the national partys growing fever swamps of conspiracy theories and misinformation; they know that the hundreds of thousands of Kentucky Democrats who joined the GOP officially or unofficially because of Donald Trump may not want to go as far as the liberty candidates and culture warriors would go. Perhaps the best example of that is how the Republican-controlled General Assembly soft-pedaled the pseudo-issue of critical race theory in the last legislative session, passing a bill that only alluded to it.

Still, candidates who campaigned against pandemic restrictions and other alleged government overreach had enough success Tuesday that they may lead Republican candidates for governor to double down on the issue as they run against Beshear next year, even though the governor built his strongly positive rating during the crisis period of the pandemic. The Williams-Barton race could be a strategic indicator of just how far right you can go and still win.

More: Rand Paul and Charles Booker nab US Senate primary wins and will face off in November

Republicans are beginning a crowded and potentially fractious primary for governor, in which the nuances of cultural issues could be decisive. Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles are running partly on their active opposition to Beshears pandemic mandates, and former U.N. ambassador Kelly Craft has indicated that she will do likewise if she runs, as expected. The liberty candidates success will surely encourage like-minded Rep. Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge to run.

As the GOP sorts itself out, opposition to Beshear will be the glue that holds the party together in Kentucky through 2023, Republican consultant and commentator Scott Jennings said on KETs primary coverage. (Jennings says hes neutral in the governors race.) But looking a year ahead, Beshears pandemic-driven approval ratings appear to be holding steady, and what works in Republican primaries will not necessarily work in general elections. Voters in November should give us a clearer picture.

Al Cross, a former Courier Journal political writer, is professor and director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. He writes this column for the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism. Reach him on Twitter @ruralj.

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Al Cross: As primary voters move GOP farther right, will others follow? - Courier Journal

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Can artificial intelligence overcome the challenges of the health care system? – MIT News

Posted: at 6:55 pm

Even as rapid improvements in artificial intelligence have led to speculation over significant changes in the health care landscape, the adoption of AI in health care has been minimal. A 2020 survey by Brookings, for example, found that less than 1 percent of job postings in health care required AI-related skills.

The Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (Jameel Clinic), a research center within the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, recently hosted the MITxMGB AI Cures Conference in an effort to accelerate the adoption of clinical AI tools by creating new opportunities for collaboration between researchers and physicians focused on improving care for diverse patient populations.

Once virtual, the AI Cures Conference returned to in-person attendance at MITs Samberg Conference Center on the morning of April 25, welcoming over 300 attendees primarily made up of researchers and physicians from MIT and Mass General Brigham (MGB).

MIT President L. Rafael Reif began the event by welcoming attendees and speaking to the transformative capacity of artificial intelligence and its ability to detect, in a dark river of swirling data, the brilliant patterns of meaning that we could never see otherwise. MGBs president and CEO Anne Klibanski followed up by lauding the joint partnership between the two institutions and noting that the collaboration could have a real impact on patients lives and help to eliminate some of the barriers to information-sharing.

Domestically, about $20 million in subcontract work currently takes place between MIT and MGB. MGBs chief academic officer and AI Cures co-chair Ravi Thadhani thinks that five times that amount would be necessary in order to do more transformative work. We could certainly be doing more, Thadhani said. The conference just scratched the surface of a relationship between a leading university and a leading health-care system.

MIT Professor and AI Cures Co-Chair Regina Barzilay echoed similar sentiments during the conference. If were going to take 30 years to take all the algorithms and translate them into patient care, well be losing patient lives, she said. I hope the main impact of this conference is finding a way to translate it into a clinical setting to benefit patients.

This years event featured 25 speakers and two panels, with many of the speakers addressing the obstacles facing the mainstream deployment of AI in clinical settings, from fairness and clinical validation to regulatory hurdles and translation issues using AI tools.

On the speaker list, of note was the appearance of Amir Khan, a senior fellow from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who fielded a number of questions from curious researchers and clinicians on the FDAs ongoing efforts and challenges in regulating AI in health care.

The conference also covered many of the impressive advancements AI made in the past several years: Lecia Sequist, a lung cancer oncologist from MGB, spoke about her collaborative work with MGB radiologist Florian Fintelmann and Barzilay to develop an AI algorithm that could detect lung cancer up to six years in advance. MIT Professor Dina Katabi presented with MGBs doctors Ipsit Vahia and Aleksandar Videnovic on an AI device that could detect the presence of Parkinsons disease simply by monitoring a persons breathing patterns while asleep. It is an honor to collaborate with Professor Katabi, Videnovic said during the presentation.

MIT Assistant Professor Marzyeh Ghassemi, whose presentation concerned designing machine learning processes for more equitable health systems, found the longer-range perspectives shared by the speakers during the first panel on AI changing clinical science compelling.

What I really liked about that panel was the emphasis on how relevant technology and AI has become in clinical science, Ghassemi says. You heard some panel members [Eliezer Van Allen, Najat Khan, Isaac Kohane, Peter Szolovits] say that they used to be the only person at a conference from their university that was focused on AI and ML [machine learning], and now were in a space where we have a miniature conference with posters just with people from MIT.

The 88 posters accepted to AI Cures were on display for attendees to peruse during the lunch break. The presented research spanned different areas of focus from clinical AI and AI for biology to AI-powered systems and others.

I was really impressed with the breadth of work going on in this space, Collin Stultz, a professor at MIT, says. Stultz also spoke at AI Cures, focusing primarily on the risks of interpretability and explainability when using AI tools in a clinical setting, using cardiovascular care as an example of showing how algorithms could potentially mislead clinicians with grave consequences for patients.

There are a growing number of failures in this space where companies or algorithms strive to be the most accurate, but do not take into consideration how the clinician views the algorithm and their likelihood of using it, Stultz said. This is about what the patient deserves and how the clinician is able to explain and justify their decision-making to the patient.

Phil Sharp, MIT Institute Professor and chair of the advisory board for Jameel Clinic, found the conference energizing and thought that the in-person interactions were crucial to gaining insight and motivation, unmatched by many conferences that are still being hosted virtually.

The broad participation by students and leaders and members of the community indicate that theres an awareness that this is a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous need, Sharp says. He pointed out that AI and machine learning are being used to predict the structures of almost everything from protein structures to drug efficacy. It says to young people, watch out, there might be a machine revolution coming.

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Can artificial intelligence overcome the challenges of the health care system? - MIT News

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