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Tag: Health

  • 3 Key Tips for Optimizing Your Physical Health as an Entrepreneur

    3 Key Tips for Optimizing Your Physical Health as an Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Entrepreneurs and business leaders are the backbone of a thriving economy. These high achievers spend their lives building and scaling successful enterprises. With such demanding day-to-day activities, many of these go-getters find themselves with a high-performing bank account at the expense of their physical health.

    Many would argue that the solution is simple: Get a trainer, go to the gym, and eat healthily. However, those who prescribe this type of game plan are forgetting that an entrepreneur’s lifestyle is not that of the average person. Like an athlete, business leaders and entrepreneurs have an intense and focused mindset. Their lifestyle is not the same as everyone else’s, and their health plan likely isn’t either. However, having a plan in place to protect personal health is necessary for an athlete or entrepreneur to meet their goals.

    The purpose of this article is to introduce three specific resources that allow business leaders to personally optimize their physical health. These three tools, or “The Three Bs,” are blood work, biomechanics and biofeedback:

    Related: Why Entrepreneurs Should Make Fitness A Priority

    Blood work

    An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This pearl of wisdom is widely used by those in both the medical and professional realms — and for good reason. Whether you are protecting your health or business, thinking ahead is critical to longevity. Prevention of possible threats also minimizes the impact of potential long-term repercussions.

    Blood work is one of the best means of prevention when it comes to health. Blood work is an effective hedge against potential diseases, health risks and the inevitable side effects of aging. Blood work clearly identifies vitamin-mineral deficiencies and the unique needs of your body as you age.

    When having blood work done, find an expert. Many doctors use blood work to look for life-threatening diseases alone. The blood work you need digs deeper. You need a doctor who will look at the whole picture instead of immediate concerns alone. The greater purpose of blood work is to understand your deficiencies and create an action plan to help you feel your best.

    Jonathan White is the founder of T3 Body, a coaching company that specializes in working with business leaders. While interviewing White, he stated that blood work is a crucial first step he utilizes to help his clients reach peak performance.

    “Blood work needs thorough attention,” said White. “We use blood work to identify exactly what our client’s body needs from a nutrition and supplement perspective. We do a biomechanics screening to assess their mobility, flexibility, range of motion, pre-injury history so that we can best customize a training solution and then the biofeedback is an ongoing weekly measurement of their sex drive, energy, mood, appetite and digestion to ensure all the work that we do upfront is working effectively.”

    Related: 6 Ways to Grow Your Business By Focusing on Personal Health

    Biomechanics

    Discovering and fixing your biomechanics is the key to giving your physical body longevity. Performance researcher, Duane Knudson, says, “Biomechanics provides key information on the most effective and safest movement patterns, equipment, and relevant exercises to improve human movement.”

    Understanding your personal biomechanics will give you the data needed to train safely and obtain the most optimal performance from your physical body. However, paying attention to your biomechanics does more than simply allow you to perform fully at the gym.

    In order to move fully, you must develop functional strength in your muscles. Functional strength differs from traditional strength training because it focuses on everyday movements and mobility. Proper knowledge of biomechanics, along with functional strength training, will help you build useful muscles that will let you move freely throughout life.

    Remember that your muscles are also metabolic currency. The stronger and healthier your muscles, the more effective your body is at managing carbohydrates and fat. Finding an expert to do a biomechanical screening is a great way to reveal weak links and lessens the risk of injury during workouts. Training safely is of paramount importance to a business leader or entrepreneur’s continual success.

    Related: 10 Ways to Stay Healthy While Running a Company

    Biofeedback

    The final “B” is biofeedback. Biofeedback involves using a subjective scale to survey your biomarkers. Biomarkers include mood, energy, libido, appetite and digestion. Tracking changes in these biomarkers will help you determine the effectiveness of the lifestyle and biomechanical adjustments you are making.

    “Through biofeedback training, a subject can be made aware of an otherwise unconscious physiologic function, such as his heart rate, and learn to alter it voluntarily,” says Herbert Benson, bestselling author and Harvard Medical School associate professor. “[A subject] uses a device that measures the function — heart rate, for example — and ‘feeds back’ to him information corresponding to each beat of his heart. He can then be rewarded (or reward himself) for increases or decreases in his heart rate and thus learn partial heart rate control.”

    To track your biofeedback, use a scale of 1 to 10 to measure your hunger, desires, libido, energy, fatigue level, sleep quality, stress and temperament swings. You may consider tracking your biofeedback with an app or professional. Both resources can help you identify patterns and suggest solutions.

    Listening to your biofeedback is also one of the best ways to maintain consistency in your health endeavors. It is always easier to quit or take longer than anticipated “breaks” when your body is working against you. However, biofeedback will help you track what your body is telling you. Using this internal data, you will find clarity on where you’re at and where you need to go to make adjustments. Monitoring your biofeedback over long periods of time is a motivating experience.

    Being fully aware of your overall health and identifying when professional help is needed, is an empowering step to becoming the healthiest version of you. Again, having a plan in place to protect personal health is necessary for entrepreneurs to meet their goals — and using “The Three Bs” as tools is a great place to start.

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    Andres Tovar

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  • Biden to get updated COVID booster on Tuesday; less than 10% of eligible Americans have had the shot so far

    Biden to get updated COVID booster on Tuesday; less than 10% of eligible Americans have had the shot so far

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    President Joe Biden will receive his updated COVID booster on Tuesday and will urge Americans to get the shot, which targets both the original virus and omicron variants that have been dominant in the U.S. and elsewhere this year.

    The news, first reported by NBC News, was confirmed by a tweet from White House assistant press secretary Kevin Munoz and by an emailed statement, in which the White House said, “The President will receive his updated COVID-19 vaccine and will deliver remarks on the ongoing fight against the virus.”

    Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in July, then did so again three days after he had been cleared from isolation in a rare rebound case after receiving the anti-viral drug Paxlovid. The president was fully vaccinated and boosted and suffered only mild symptoms. Health officials recommend that people who have contracted COVID wait at least three months after infection to get the booster.

    The bivalent booster has been available to adults and older children since early September, and its use was expanded to children as young as 5 in October. But data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show fewer than 20 million Americans have received it so far — less than 10% of those eligible.

    That’s a slow start given expectations for a wave of new cases in the winter months.

    As immunity from previous shots wanes and new variants spread, health officials are urging people, especially those over 65, to get the updated booster. A study earlier this month by the Commonwealth Fund concluded that a strong booster campaign this fall could save 90,000 American lives and prevent more than 936,000 COVID hospitalizations in the U.S.

    CDC data released Friday showed the two new COVID variants dubbed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 continued to gain traction in the U.S. in the latest week, accounting for 16.6% of all cases, up from 11.4% a week ago.

    The two variants are lineages of BA.5, the omicron subvariant that remains dominant but has shrunk to account for 62.2% of circulating variants, the agency said, down from 67.9% a week ago. The CDC had previously combined data about BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 with BA.5 cases, because the number of cases caused by the new variants was so small. BQ.1 was first identified by researchers in early September and has been found in the U.K. and Germany, among other places. The New York area, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, has the highest number of cases involving those variants, at 28.4%, the data show.

    U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where data are not being collected.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 37,741 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 7% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 1% to 26,798, while the daily average for deaths was down 6% to 361.

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • The head of the CDC has tested positive for COVID, the Associated Press reported. Rochelle Walensky, who is up to date on her vaccinations, tested positive Friday night and had mild symptoms, the CDC said in a statement. “Consistent with CDC guidelines, she is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually,” the agency said. Senior staff and close contacts have been informed of her positive test and are monitoring their health.

    • The pandemic caused historic learning setbacks for America’s children, erasing decades of academic progress and widening racial disparities, according to results of a national test that provide the sharpest look yet at the scale of the crisis, the AP reported separately. Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly 4 in 10 eighth-graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in average test scores, with some treading water at best. Those are the findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress — known as the “nation’s report card” — which tested hundreds of thousands of fourth- and eighth-graders across the country this year.

    The FDA has authorized modified COVID-19 boosters to target the latest versions of the omicron variant. But as WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez explains, a key part of the decision-making process was changed with these new shots. Photo: Laura Kammermann

    • The Chinese economy grew 3.9% over a year earlier in the third quarter, quickening from the 0.4% expansion recorded in the second quarter, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The reading topped the 3.5% economic growth expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. For the first nine months of the year, China’s GDP expanded 3.0% over a year earlier, well below the 5.5% annual growth target set by the government. Growth has been crimped all year by China’s zero-COVID policy, which has led to repeated lockdowns of commercial and residential areas.

    • The pandemic interrupted measles-vaccine campaigns globally in 2020 and 2021, leaving millions of children unprotected against one of the world’s most contagious diseases, whose complications include blindness, pneumonia and death, Reuters reported. After what health experts call the biggest backslide in a generation, 26 large or disruptive measles outbreaks have occurred worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. A devastating outbreak in Zimbabwe has killed more than 700 children this year, chiefly among religious sects that do not believe in vaccinations.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 627.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.57 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.2 million cases and 1,067,686 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 111.4 million have had a booster, equal to 49.1% of the vaccinated population, and 26.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 40.6% of those who received a first booster.

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  • 6 Ways to Cope with Your Narcissistic Parents This Holiday Season

    6 Ways to Cope with Your Narcissistic Parents This Holiday Season

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    If time and finances are available, take some time off before the holidays. Get a massage, a facial, or something else that relaxes you. Find relaxing activities to do before and after the day you see your parents. Adult coloring books, knitting, and crocheting are also great and cheap activities to soothe the mind and relax the body. This will help you cope with the holiday season and all the stress that comes with it. The more relaxed you are, the better you’ll be able to see the situation with your parents clearly. You may find you overreact more than necessary. By allowing your mind to replenish its stress hormones, you will find you will be able to cope with the holidays more easily. 

    6. Resolve Your Emotions

    Sometimes you are reacting to a present event with your parents. But sometimes you’re reacting to unresolved wounds and past hurts that have not been resolved. There are great resources available to help you deal with setting firm boundaries and resolving past hurts so that you can see present events with clarity. Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. Henry Townsend and Emotionally Healthy Spiritually by Pete Scazzero are two great resources to help you with this. There are also additional classes and courses you can take to help you deal specifically with your emotions regarding your parents. Do what you can to forgive past events before you see them. Unresolved emotional wounds can cloud your judgment and make you see things from a skewed perspective. You may never forget what has happened in the past, which you can choose to forgive. God calls us to forgive others of their sins so that we will be forgiven of our sins. 

    Take some time with the Lord and conduct an analysis of your parenting style. Do you find you do things similarly to your parents? As much as we dislike it, we sometimes become more like our parents than we realize. If you identify something you say or do that is similarly hurtful to your children as you have been hurt by your parents, understand that we’re all human. Our parents did the best they could with what they learned from the previous generation. Give them a break and give yourself a break as well. You may find you’re more like your parents than you previously thought.

    The holidays can be stressful regardless of who is around your dinner table. But it can be especially stressful when your parents choose to put themselves first instead of you. Strive to put their needs first, and you will find yourself less frustrated and restore your joy. You may find you have a better holiday than you anticipate when you choose to act the way Jesus wants us to act. 

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    Michelle S. Lazurek

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  • China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

    China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

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    BEIJING (AP) — China’s economic growth picked up in the latest quarter but still was among the weakest in decades as the ruling Communist Party tries to reverse a slump while enforcing anti-virus controls and a crackdown on debt in its vast real estate industry.

    The world’s second-largest economy grew by 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’s 0.4%, official data showed Monday.

    The announcement was planned for last week but postponed while the ruling Communist Party met to award President Xi Jinping a new term as leader.

    Xi, the most powerful leader in decades, wants a bigger party role in business and technology development. That has prompted warnings tighter control of entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth will depress growth that already was in long-term decline.

    The party gave Xi a free hand by installing a seven-member ruling Standing Committee made up of his allies. Supporters of free enterprise including Premier Li Keqiang, the party’s No. 2 until last week, were dropped from the leadership.

    Chinese stock markets closed lower Monday despite the unexpectedly strong data, suggesting investors still are uneasy about the country’s growth prospects.

    The country’s market benchmark, the Shanghai Composite Index, lost more than 2%. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong plunged by an unusually wide daily margin of 6.4%. Tokyo and other Asian markets gained.

    The International Monetary Fund and private sector forecasters say the economy will expand by as little as 3% this year. That would be the second weakest since the 1980s after 2020, when growth plunged to 2.4% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Investors and the public watched the congress for initiatives to stimulate the economy or reduce the impact of “Zero COVID” controls that shut down cities and disrupt business, but none were announced.

    The latest slide in growth that began in mid-2021 hurts China’s trading partners by depressing demand for imported oil, food and consumer goods.

    The improvement is “mainly a result of more flexible” anti-virus controls that isolate individual buildings or neighborhoods instead of cities, said Iris Pang of ING in a report. But she said more lockdowns are “still a big uncertainty.”

    “This uncertainty means the effectiveness of pro-growth policy would be undermined,” Pang said.

    Growth slid after controls on debt that regulators worry is dangerously high caused a slump in real estate sales and construction, one of China’s biggest economic engines. Economic growth fell to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter.

    Beijing has eased mortgage lending and local governments have taken over some unfinished projects to make sure buyers get apartments. But regulators are sticking to debt limits have forced small developers into bankruptcy and caused some bigger competitors to miss payments to bondholders.

    The ruling party is enforcing “Zero COVID” despite rising costs and public frustration after Shanghai and other industrial centers were temporarily shut down. That has boiled over into protests in some areas at a time when other countries are easing anti-virus controls.

    For the first nine months of 2022, growth was 3% over a year earlier, up from 2.5% in the first six months but barely half the ruling party’s official 5.5% target. Leaders have stopped talking about that goal but promised easier lending and other measures to boost growth.

    Growth is “highly uneven” and supported by government spending on building roads and other public works while consumer spending is weakening, said Larry Hu and Yuxiao Zhang of Macquarie in a report.

    In September, retail sales growth fell to 2.5% over a year earlier from the previous month’s 5.4%. Growth in factory output accelerated to 6.3% from 4.2%.

    Also Monday, trade data showed export growth declined to 5.7% compared with a year earlier in September from the previous month’s 7%. Imports crept up 0.3%.

    “Most of the economy lost momentum last month,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report. “The situation looks to have worsened in October.”

    Investment in infrastructure, mostly government money, rose 16% in September compared with the previous month’s 15%.

    Repeated shutdowns and uncertainty about business conditions have devastated entrepreneurs. Small retailers and restaurants have closed. Others say they are struggling to stay afloat.

    Beijing is using cautious, targeted stimulus instead of across-the-board spending, a strategy that will take longer to show results, economists say. Chinese leaders worry too much spending might push up politically sensitive housing costs or corporate debt.

    ___

    National Bureau of Statistics (in Chinese): www.stats.gov.cn

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  • China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

    China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

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    BEIJING — China’s economic growth picked up in the latest quarter but still was among the weakest in decades as the ruling Communist Party tries to reverse a slump while enforcing anti-virus controls and a crackdown on debt in its vast real estate industry.

    The world’s second-largest economy grew by 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’s 0.4%, official data showed Monday.

    The announcement was planned for last week but postponed while the ruling Communist Party met to award President Xi Jinping a new term as leader.

    Xi, the most powerful leader in decades, wants a bigger party role in business and technology development. That has prompted warnings tighter control of entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth will depress growth that already was in long-term decline.

    The party gave Xi a free hand by installing a seven-member ruling Standing Committee made up of his allies. Supporters of free enterprise including Premier Li Keqiang, the party’s No. 2 until last week, were dropped from the leadership.

    Chinese stock markets closed lower Monday despite the unexpectedly strong data, suggesting investors still are uneasy about the country’s growth prospects.

    The country’s market benchmark, the Shanghai Composite Index, lost more than 2%. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong plunged by an unusually wide daily margin of 6.4%. Tokyo and other Asian markets gained.

    The International Monetary Fund and private sector forecasters say the economy will expand by as little as 3% this year. That would be the second weakest since the 1980s after 2020, when growth plunged to 2.4% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Investors and the public watched the congress for initiatives to stimulate the economy or reduce the impact of “Zero COVID” controls that shut down cities and disrupt business, but none were announced.

    The latest slide in growth that began in mid-2021 hurts China’s trading partners by depressing demand for imported oil, food and consumer goods.

    The improvement is “mainly a result of more flexible” anti-virus controls that isolate individual buildings or neighborhoods instead of cities, said Iris Pang of ING in a report. But she said more lockdowns are “still a big uncertainty.”

    “This uncertainty means the effectiveness of pro-growth policy would be undermined,” Pang said.

    Growth slid after controls on debt that regulators worry is dangerously high caused a slump in real estate sales and construction, one of China’s biggest economic engines. Economic growth fell to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter.

    Beijing has eased mortgage lending and local governments have taken over some unfinished projects to make sure buyers get apartments. But regulators are sticking to debt limits have forced small developers into bankruptcy and caused some bigger competitors to miss payments to bondholders.

    The ruling party is enforcing “Zero COVID” despite rising costs and public frustration after Shanghai and other industrial centers were temporarily shut down. That has boiled over into protests in some areas at a time when other countries are easing anti-virus controls.

    For the first nine months of 2022, growth was 3% over a year earlier, up from 2.5% in the first six months but barely half the ruling party’s official 5.5% target. Leaders have stopped talking about that goal but promised easier lending and other measures to boost growth.

    Growth is “highly uneven” and supported by government spending on building roads and other public works while consumer spending is weakening, said Larry Hu and Yuxiao Zhang of Macquarie in a report.

    In September, retail sales growth fell to 2.5% over a year earlier from the previous month’s 5.4%. Growth in factory output accelerated to 6.3% from 4.2%.

    Also Monday, trade data showed export growth declined to 5.7% compared with a year earlier in September from the previous month’s 7%. Imports crept up 0.3%.

    “Most of the economy lost momentum last month,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report. “The situation looks to have worsened in October.”

    Investment in infrastructure, mostly government money, rose 16% in September compared with the previous month’s 15%.

    Repeated shutdowns and uncertainty about business conditions have devastated entrepreneurs. Small retailers and restaurants have closed. Others say they are struggling to stay afloat.

    Beijing is using cautious, targeted stimulus instead of across-the-board spending, a strategy that will take longer to show results, economists say. Chinese leaders worry too much spending might push up politically sensitive housing costs or corporate debt.

    ———

    National Bureau of Statistics (in Chinese): www.stats.gov.cn

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  • China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

    China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

    [ad_1]

    BEIJING — China’s economic growth picked up in the latest quarter but still was among the weakest in decades as the ruling Communist Party tries to reverse a slump while enforcing anti-virus controls and a crackdown on debt in its vast real estate industry.

    The world’s second-largest economy grew by 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’s 0.4%, official data showed Monday.

    The announcement was planned for last week but postponed while the ruling Communist Party met to award President Xi Jinping a new term as leader.

    Xi, the most powerful leader in decades, wants a bigger party role in business and technology development. That has prompted warnings tighter control of entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth will depress growth that already was in long-term decline.

    The party gave Xi a free hand by installing a seven-member ruling Standing Committee made up of his allies. Supporters of free enterprise including Premier Li Keqiang, the party’s No. 2 until last week, were dropped from the leadership.

    The International Monetary Fund and private sector forecasters say the economy will expand by as little as 3% this year. That would be the second weakest since the 1980s after 2020, when growth plunged to 2.4% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Investors and the public watched the congress for initiatives to stimulate the economy or reduce the impact of “Zero COVID” controls that shut down cities and disrupt business, but none were announced.

    The latest slide in growth that began in mid-2021 hurts China’s trading partners by depressing demand for imported oil, food and consumer goods.

    The improvement is “mainly a result of more flexible” anti-virus controls that isolate individual buildings or neighborhoods instead of cities, said Iris Pang of ING in a report. But she said more lockdowns are “still a big uncertainty.”

    “This uncertainty means the effectiveness of pro-growth policy would be undermined,” Pang said.

    Growth slid after controls on debt that regulators worry is dangerously high caused a slump in real estate sales and construction, one of China’s biggest economic engines. Economic growth fell to 4% over a year earlier in the final quarter.

    Beijing has eased mortgage lending and local governments have taken over some unfinished projects to make sure buyers get apartments. But regulators are sticking to debt limits have forced small developers into bankruptcy and caused some bigger competitors to miss payments to bondholders.

    The ruling party is enforcing “Zero COVID” despite rising costs and public frustration after Shanghai and other industrial centers were temporarily shut down. That has boiled over into protests in some areas at a time when other countries are easing anti-virus controls.

    For the first nine months of 2022, growth was 3% over a year earlier, up from 2.5% in the first six months but barely half the ruling party’s official 5.5% target. Leaders have stopped talking about that goal but promised easier lending and other measures to boost growth.

    Growth is “highly uneven” and supported by government spending on building roads and other public works while consumer spending is weakening, said Larry Hu and Yuxiao Zhang of Macquarie in a report.

    In September, retail sales growth fell to 2.5% over a year earlier from the previous month’s 5.4%. Growth in factory output accelerated to 6.3% from 4.2%.

    Also Monday, trade data showed export growth declined to 5.7% compared with a year earlier in September from the previous month’s 7%. Imports crept up 0.3%.

    “Most of the economy lost momentum last month,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report. “The situation looks to have worsened in October.”

    Investment in infrastructure, mostly government money, rose 16% in September compared with the previous month’s 15%.

    Repeated shutdowns and uncertainty about business conditions have devastated entrepreneurs. Small retailers and restaurants have closed. Others say they are struggling to stay afloat.

    Beijing is using cautious, targeted stimulus instead of across-the-board spending, a strategy that will take longer to show results, economists say. Chinese leaders worry too much spending might push up politically sensitive housing costs or corporate debt.

    ———

    National Bureau of Statistics (in Chinese): www.stats.gov.cn

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  • China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

    China’s economic growth accelerates but weak amid shutdowns

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    BEIJING — China’s economic growth accelerated in the latest quarter but still was among the slowest in decades as the country wrestled with repeated closures of cities to fight virus outbreaks.

    The world’s second-largest economy grew by 3.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’s 0.4%, official data showed Monday. For the first nine months of the year, growth was 3% over a year earlier.

    A news conference to announce the figures last week during a meeting of the ruling Communist Party was postponed without explanation. The National Statistics Bureau released the figures on its website without advance notice of the timing.

    No data were immediately released for growth compared with the previous quarter, the way data for other major economies are measured. The economy shrank by 2.6% in the quarter ending in June compared with the previous three-month period.

    The ruling party is trying to revive economic growth while enforcing its “Zero COVID” strategy that has temporarily shut down Shanghai and other industrial centers while other countries are lifting travel curbs and reviving trade.

    The slump hurts China’s trading partners by depressing demand for imported oil, food and consumer goods.

    Repeated shutdowns and uncertainty about business conditions have devastated entrepreneurs who generate China’s new wealth and jobs. Small retailers and restaurants have closed. Others say they are struggling to stay afloat.

    Other major economies report growth compared with the previous quarter, which makes their levels look lower than China’s. Beijing for decades reported only growth compared with the previous year, which hid short-term fluctuations, but it has started to release quarter-on-quarter figures.

    Forecasters say Beijing is using cautious, targeted stimulus instead of across-the-board spending, a strategy that will take longer to show results. Chinese leaders worry too much spending might push up politically sensitive housing costs or corporate debt they worry is dangerously high.

    Growth for the first half of the year was 2.5% over a year earlier, one of the weakest levels in the past three decades.

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  • Finding A More Optimistic Future With Bitcoin

    Finding A More Optimistic Future With Bitcoin

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    This is an opinion editorial by Leon Wankum, one of the first financial economics students to write a thesis about Bitcoin in 2015.

    Prologue

    This article is the second in a series in which I aim to explain some of the benefits of utilizing bitcoin as a “tool.” The possibilities are endless. I selected three areas where bitcoin has helped me. This article describes how bitcoin has made me more optimistic about the future because it allowed me to efficiently manage my money and build savings. I’ve developed a lower time preference, meaning I value the future more, which leads me to act more mindfully in the present. All of this has had a positive impact on my mental health.

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    Leon Wankum

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  • FACT FOCUS: States, not CDC, set school vaccine requirements

    FACT FOCUS: States, not CDC, set school vaccine requirements

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    A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on Thursday voted that the agency should update its recommended immunization schedules to add the COVID-19 vaccine, including to the schedule for children.

    But in the lead-up to the vote by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, false claims spread widely that it would mean the vaccine would be required to attend school.

    In reality, the CDC doesn’t have the authority to set school immunization requirements, and the vote doesn’t mandate the vaccine for schoolchildren. That’s a decision left to the states.

    Here are the facts.

    CLAIM: If the CDC adds the COVID-19 vaccine to the immunization schedule for children, the shots will be mandatory to attend school.

    THE FACTS: The false claim gained momentum after it was shared by Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week.

    “The CDC is about to add the Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule, which would make the vax mandatory for kids to attend school,” Carlson tweeted on Tuesday night. The tweet included a segment from his show in which he began by making the same claim.

    Another popular tweet similarly claimed the CDC committee’s vote would make the vaccine “mandatory for school registration.”

    But the public health agency doesn’t determine school vaccine requirements.

    “States have the authority to enact state laws requiring vaccination, not the CDC,” said Wendy Mariner, a professor emerita of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University. “ACIP has no authority to make law.”

    CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich told The Associated Press in an email that the agency “only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions.”

    Grusich explained that the action was meant to streamline clinical guidance for healthcare providers by adding COVID-19 vaccines to a single list of all currently licensed, authorized and routinely recommended vaccines.

    “It’s important to note that there are no changes in COVID-19 vaccine policy,” she said.

    The immunization practices advisory committee is a body of experts that makes recommendations to the CDC about vaccines. Its recommendation to update the schedules, which included other revisions, still needs to be formally adopted by the agency and the amended schedules wouldn’t take effect until 2023, Grusich said.

    Fox News referred the AP to a follow-up segment by Carlson on Wednesday night, in which he revisited the topic and claimed the CDC was “lying.” Carlson claimed that “more than a dozen states follow the CDC’s immunization schedule to set vaccination requirements — not suggestions, requirements — for children to be educated.”

    “For example, the Virginia Department of Health states that ‘vaccines must be administered in accordance with the CDC’s schedule,’” he stated. He cited Massachusetts as another example.

    But those states do not list every vaccine from the schedule in their school requirements.

    Virginia, for example, does not require the annual flu vaccine in order to attend school — even though the vaccine appears on the CDC’s schedule. Nor does Massachusetts.

    A Virginia Department of Health spokesperson, Maria Reppas, said in an email that there “is no direct, immediate impact on COVID-19 vaccine being added to the Immunization Schedule on school required vaccines in Virginia.” Reppas said changes to the school requirements would need legislative or regulatory action.

    Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine policy expert and professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he was not aware of any states that automatically require all vaccines on the schedule for school.

    “Those are recommendations that go to pediatricians and family doctors as they care for children,” Schaffner said. “They’re just recommendations, there are no automatic mandates that follow.”

    There has also been reluctance by many states to require the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine, even though it appears on the childhood schedule, Schaffner said.

    States can use legislation to require specific vaccines or can authorize a state agency or local health entity to require specific vaccines for certain age groups, Mariner said. She added that some states include private schools when establishing requirements, though in other cases, private schools may also voluntarily require vaccinations.

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • WHO: Ugandan Ebola outbreak ‘rapidly evolving’ after 1 month

    WHO: Ugandan Ebola outbreak ‘rapidly evolving’ after 1 month

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    KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s Ebola outbreak is “rapidly evolving” a month after the disease was reported in the East African country, a top World Health Organization official said Thursday, describing a difficult situation for health workers.

    “The Ministry of Health of Uganda has shown remarkable resilience and effectiveness and (is) constantly fine-tuning a response to what is a challenging situation,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the U.N. health agency’s regional director for Africa, told reporters. “A better understanding of the chains of transmission is helping those on the ground respond more effectively.”

    Uganda declared an outbreak of Ebola on Sept. 20, several days after the contagious disease began spreading in a rural farming community. Ebola has since infected 64 people and killed 24, although official figures do not include people who likely died of Ebola before the outbreak was confirmed.

    At least three of the confirmed patients traveled from the virus hot spot in central Uganda to the capital, Kampala, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) away, according to Moeti. Fears that Ebola could spread far from the outbreak’s epicenter caused authorities to impose a lockdown, including nighttime curfews, on two of the five districts reporting Ebola cases.

    Ebola “numbers that we are seeing do pose a risk for spread within the country and its neighbors,” Dr. Ahmed Ogwell, the acting head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a separate briefing Thursday.

    While the risk of cross-border contamination is there, “it’s a manageable risk,” Ogwell said, adding that the outbreak does not yet necessitate going into what he called “full emergency mode.”

    There is no proven vaccine for the Sudan strain of Ebola that’s circulating in Uganda. A WHO official in Uganda told the AP Wednesday that plans are underway to deploy two experimental vaccines in a study targeting health workers and contacts of Ebola patients.

    Ugandan officials have documented more than 1,800 Ebola contacts, 747 of whom have completed 21 days of monitoring for possible signs of the disease that manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever, Ogwell said.

    Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and, at times, internal and external bleeding.

    Scientists don’t know the natural reservoir of Ebola, but they suspect the first person infected in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat. Ugandan officials are still investigating the source of the current outbreak.

    Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed more than 200 people. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the disease’s largest death toll.

    Ebola was discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.

    —-

    Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal.

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  • Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

    Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

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    CAIRO — Two days of tribal fighting in Sudan’s south killed at least 220 people, a senior health official said Sunday, marking one the deadliest bouts of tribal violence in recent years. The unrest added to the woes of an African nation mired in civil conflict and political chaos.

    Fighting in Blue Nile province, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, reignited earlier this month over a land dispute. It pits the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people.

    The tensions escalated Wednesday and Thursday in the town of Wad el-Mahi on the border with Ethiopia, according to Fath Arrahman Bakheit, the director general of the Health Ministry in Blue Nile.

    He told The Associated Press that officials counted at least 220 dead as of Saturday night, adding the tally could be much higher since medical teams were not able to reach the epicenter of the fighting.

    Bakheit said the first humanitarian and medical convoy managed to reach Was el-Mahi late Saturday to try to assess the situation, including counting “this huge number of bodies,” and the dozens of injured.

    “In such clashes, everyone loses,” he said. “We hope it ends soon and never happens again. But we need strong political, security and civil interventions to achieve that goal.”

    Footage from the scene, which corresponded to the AP’s reporting, showed burned houses and charred bodies. Others showed women and children fleeing on foot.

    Many houses were burned down in the fighting, which displaced some 7,000 people to the city of Rusyaris. Others fled to neighboring provinces, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Overall, about 211,000 people have been displaced by tribal violence and other attacks across the country this year, it said.

    Authorities ordered a nighttime curfew in Wad el-Mahi and deployed troops to the area. They also established a fact-finding committee to investigate the clashes, according to the state-run SUNA news agency.

    The fighting between the two groups first erupted in mid-July, killing at least 149 people as of earlier October. It triggered violent protests and stoked tensions between the two tribes in Blue Nile and other provinces.

    The latest fighting comes at a critical time for Sudan, just a few days before the first anniversary of a military coup that further plunged the country into turmoil. The coup derailed the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of the repressive rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was removed in April 2019 by a popular uprising.

    In recent weeks the military and the pro-democracy movement have engaged in talks to find a way out of the ongoing situation. The generals agreed to allow civilians to appoint a prime minister to lead the country through elections within 24 months, the pro-democracy movement said last week.

    However, the violence in Blue Nile is likely to slow down such efforts. Protest groups, who reject the deal with the ruling generals, have been preparing for mass anti-military demonstrations called for Tuesday, the anniversary of the coup.

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  • Experts: Lake Mead brain-eating amoeba death among few in US

    Experts: Lake Mead brain-eating amoeba death among few in US

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    LAS VEGAS — The death of a Las Vegas-area teenager from a rare brain-eating amoeba that investigators think he was exposed to in warm waters at Lake Mead should prompt caution, not panic, among people at freshwater lakes, rivers and springs, experts said Friday.

    “It gets people’s attention because of the name,” former public health epidemiologist Brian Labus said of the naturally occurring organism officially called Naegleria fowleri but almost always dubbed the brain-eating amoeba. “But it is a very, very rare disease.”

    The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tallied just 154 cases of infection and death from the amoeba in the U.S. since 1962, said Labus, who teaches at the School of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Almost half those cases were in Texas and Florida. Only one was reported in Nevada before this week.

    “I wouldn’t say there’s an alarm to sound for this,” Labus said. “People need to be smart about it when they’re in places where this rare amoeba actually lives.” The organism is found in waters ranging from 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 Celsius) to 115 degrees (46 C), he said.

    The Southern Nevada Health District did not identify the teen who died, but said he may have been exposed to the microscopic organism during the weekend of Sept. 30 in the Kingman Wash area on the Arizona side of the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam. The district publicized the case on Wednesday, following confirmation of the cause from the CDC.

    The district and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which oversees the lake and the Colorado River, noted the amoeba only infects people by entering the nose and migrating to the brain. It is almost always fatal.

    “It cannot infect people if swallowed, and is not spread from person to person,” news releases from the two agencies said. Both advised people to avoid jumping or diving into bodies of warm water, especially during summer, and to keep the head above water in hot springs or other “untreated geothermal waters” that pool in pocket canyons in the vast recreation area.

    “It is 97% fatal but 99% preventable,” said Dennis Kyle, professor of infectious diseases and cellular biology and director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases at the University of Georgia. “You can protect yourself by not jumping into water that gets up your nose, or use nose plugs.”

    The amoeba causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection with symptoms resembling meningitis or encephalitis that initially include headache, fever, nausea or vomiting — then progress to stiff neck, seizures and coma that can lead to death.

    Symptoms can start one to 12 days after exposure, and death usually occurs within about five days.

    There is no known effective treatment, and Kyle said a diagnosis almost always comes too late.

    Kyle, who has studied the organism for decades, said data did not immediately suggest that waters warmed by climate change affected the amoeba. He said he knew of fewer than four cases nationwide.

    A survey of news reports found cases in Northern California, Nebraska and Iowa. A CDC map showed most cases during the last 60 years in Southern U.S. states, led by 39 cases in Texas and 37 in Florida.

    “I think this year is sort of an average year for cases,” Kyle said. “But this was a very warm summer. The key point is that warmer weather tends to generate more amoeba in the environment.”

    Not many labs regularly identify the organism, Kyle noted. He said that AdventHealth Central Florida recently joined the CDC with programs able to identify it.

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  • Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine will cost $110-$130 per dose

    Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine will cost $110-$130 per dose

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    Pfizer will charge $110 to $130 for a dose of its COVID-19 vaccine once the U.S. government stops buying the shots, but the drugmaker says it expects many people will continue receiving it for free.

    Pfizer executives said the commercial pricing for adult doses could start early next year, depending on when the government phases out its program of buying and distributing the shots.

    The drugmaker said it expects that people with private health insurance or coverage through public programs like Medicare or Medicaid will pay nothing. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover many recommended vaccines without charging any out-of-pocket expenses.

    A spokesman said the company also has an income-based assistance program that helps eligible U.S. residents with no insurance get the shots.

    The price would make the two-dose vaccine more expensive for cash-paying customers than annual flu shots. Those can range in price from around $50 to $95, depending on the type, according to CVS Health, which runs one of the nation’s biggest drugstore chains.

    A Pfizer executive said Thursday that the price reflects increased costs for switching to single-dose vials and commercial distribution. The executive, Angela Lukin, said the price was well below the thresholds “for what would be considered a highly effective vaccine.”

    The drugmaker said last year that it was charging the U.S. $19.50 per dose, and that it had three tiers of pricing globally, depending on each country’s financial situation. In June, the company said the U.S. government would buy an additional 105 million doses in a deal that amounted to roughly $30 per shot. The government has the option to purchase more doses after that.

    Pfizer’s two-shot vaccine debuted in late 2020 and has been the most common preventive shot used to fight COVID-19 in the U.S.

    More than 375 million doses of the original vaccine, which Pfizer developed with the German drugmaker BioNTech, have been distributed in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    That doesn’t count another 12 million doses of an updated booster that was approved earlier this year.

    The vaccine brought in $36.78 billion in revenue last year for Pfizer and was the drugmaker’s top-selling product.

    Analysts predict that it will rack up another $32 billion this year, according to FactSet. But they also expect sales to fall rapidly after that.

    More than 90% of the adult U.S. population has already received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. But only about half that population has also received a booster dose.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • CDC shoots down false claims it will mandate COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren, saying states make that decision

    CDC shoots down false claims it will mandate COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren, saying states make that decision

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    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has refuted claims that it’s planning to add the COVID-19 vaccine to immunization schedules for schoolchildren, saying that the authority for that decision lies with states and other local entities.

    The false claim spread after it was shared by Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a tweet this week, as the Associated Press reported. 

    Carlson tweeted that the agency would make the vaccine mandatory in order for children to attend school, a claim the CDC quickly shot down. While an advisory committee to the CDC voted to recommend that the vaccine be added to immunization schedules, the CDC “only makes recommendations for use of vaccines, while school-entry vaccination requirements are determined by state or local jurisdictions,” CDC spokeswoman Kate Grusich told the AP.

    Grusich explained that the action was meant to streamline clinical guidance for healthcare providers by adding COVID-19 vaccines to a single list of all currently licensed, authorized and routinely recommended vaccines.

    “It’s important to note that there are no changes in COVID-19 vaccine policy,” she said.

    The news comes as U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since mid-April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where data are not being collected.

    The daily average for new cases stood at 38,077 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker, down 8% from two weeks ago. Cases are currently rising in 14 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

    The daily average for hospitalizations was down 2% to 26,669, although hospitalizations are rising in almost all northeastern states as cold weather arrives. The daily average for deaths was down 7% to 360.

    Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

    Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

    • Pfizer
    PFE,
    +4.42%
    is planning to sell the COVID vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech
    BNTX,
    +9.88%
    for $110 -$130 a dose once the U.S. market for COVID-19 shots becomes commercial, likely in the first quarter of next year, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. Pfizer and BioNTech are currently paid $30.50 per vaccine dose by the U.S. government, which contracted with the companies, as well as with other vaccine makers like Moderna
    MRNA,
    +9.07%
    and Novavax
    NVAX,
    +11.35%    ,
    and then made the COVID-19 shots available at no cost to people in the U.S. during the public-health emergency. The emergency declaration in the U.S. isn’t expected to be renewed next year, which will lead to the formation of an official commercial market for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. 

    • Johnson & Johnson
    JNJ,
    +1.91%
    said the volume of surgical procedures is returning to prepandemic levels in many parts of the world, a trend that cheered Wall Street and could bode well for other medical-technology heavyweights like Stryker Corp.
    SYK,
    +0.57%
    and Zimmer Biomet Holdings
    ZBH,
    +0.18%    .
    J&J, which reported earnings this week, said its medical-technology business had a “strong September,” with U.S. sales of hip and knee implants and other surgical devices rising 7.7% to $3.3 billion in the third quarter of the year. “We are seeing procedures recovering,” Ashley McEvoy, worldwide chair of J&J’s MedTech business, told investors during this week’s earnings call. “In the U.S., we started to see surgical procedures tick up, predominantly at the latter part of the quarter.”

    The new bivalent vaccine might be the first step in developing annual COVID shots, which could follow a similar process to the one used to update flu vaccines every year. Here’s what that process looks like, and why applying it to COVID could be challenging. Illustration: Ryan Trefes

    • “As China’s ruling Communist Party holds a congress this week, many Beijing residents are focused on an issue not on the formal agenda: Will the end of the meeting bring an easing of China’s at times draconian ‘zero-COVID’ policies that are disrupting lives and the economy?” the AP reported. It appears to be wishful thinking. As the world moves to a postpandemic lifestyle, many across China have resigned themselves to lining up several times a week for COVID tests, restrictions on travel to other regions and the ever-present possibility of a community lockdown.

    • Fantasy Fest, a 10-day annual party, is kicking off in Key West, Fla., on Friday, with a full slate of events for the first time since the pandemic started, the AP reported. “Due to the COVID pandemic, this will be the first full Fantasy Fest since 2019,” the festival’s board chair, Steve Robbins, said. “So I know our guests and staff are excited about getting back to the real Fantasy Fest.” Dozens of themed events are set for the festival, including a nighttime parade Oct. 29 featuring floats and elaborately costumed marching groups. Participants are encouraged to draw costume ideas from the festival’s theme, “Cult Classics & Cartoon Chaos,” and to portray characters inspired by favorite cartoons and television or film productions with a cult following.

    Here’s what the numbers say:

    The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 626.9 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.57 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

    The U.S. leads the world with 97.2 million cases and 1,067,190 fatalities.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 226.5 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 111.4 million have had a booster, equal to 49.1% of the vaccinated population, and 26.8 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 40.6% of those who received a first booster.

    The CDC reports that some 19.4 million people have had a dose of the updated bivalent booster that targets omicron and its subvariants along with the original virus.

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  • Sitting Together in Hard Times

    Sitting Together in Hard Times

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    We will all experience challenging times in life. Jesus Himself told us that “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). We have all likely known someone helpful and comforting to have around when we go through those challenging times, and we have all likely known someone who makes the situation harder, despite their intentions. Praying is always good. Bringing a meal or helping with schedules are great tangible ways to care for others. But what about just sitting with someone in their time of need? How can we ensure that we are the type of person who helps others? Who doesn’t make things more difficult? Who provides true comfort and empathy rather than empty words? The way that we are to treat each other during hard times can be summed up in one Bible verse: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15).

    A Time for Everything

    Often, we want to just make things better, easier, and more understandable. We try to heal wounds that are too fresh to be healed and give explanations to events that may never be understood this side of heaven. We want to avoid the uncomfortable pain and lack of explanation. Platitudes such as “Everything happens for a reason” invoke eye-rolls because they gloss over the pain of being human. It is ok to hurt, to mourn, and to grieve. It’s ok to just say to someone, “I’m sorry you are experiencing this,” or “This is just so terrible.” Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: …a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,…a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,…a time to be silent and a time to speak….” Like Romans 12:15 says, when a friend is mourning, it is time for us to mourn with them.

    Job’s Friends

    The book of Job is often the first place we look when we want to discuss suffering. Job’s friends started on the right track to help him in his pain. “When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.  When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.  Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was” Job 2:11-13). What a beautiful friendship! They showed up and mourned together. They were hurt for their friend, and they loved him simply by being by his side. 

    But then they started talking. They gave lengthy speeches telling Job that he must have done something wrong, attempting to explain God’s actions. This provided no comfort at all to Job. In fact, it upset him even more. In Job 16:2-5, Job responds to his friends, “I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you! Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing? I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you. But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.” 

    Not only did their words cause more hurt to Job, but in trying to provide answers on behalf of God, they were just wrong. As the Lord said, in Job 42:7 “to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about Me, as my servant Job has.” We do not know the inner workings of the spiritual realm. We do not know why terrible things happen other than that we live in a fallen world. We don’t have to know it all because God does! “Of the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34). We should not offer words of explanation on God’s behalf because we are not capable of such knowledge. “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity” (Proverbs 21:23). 

    What to Do 

    When we do not know what to say to our friends or what to pray about their situation, we take comfort in the knowledge that these circumstances are not a surprise to God and not beyond His almighty power. Romans 8:26 guides us in how to pray, telling us that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Sitting quietly with someone provides more comfort than empty words. The power of silence and stillness are sprinkled throughout Scripture. “The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still” (Exodus 14:14). “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). “The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues” (Proverbs 17:27-28). The Lord appeared to Elijah in a gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13).

    While we do not need to fill the space with lengthy speeches or attempted explanations, or empty platitudes, we can rest in the truth that we are equipped to provide comfort. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-6). 

    The Good Samaritan 

    In Luke 10:25-37, we read the story of the good Samaritan. Jesus tells a story of a man walking along the road when he was robbed, beaten, and left for dead. A couple of people see him on the side of the road and just keep going about their business. Then a man from Samaria takes pity on him. “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him” (v. 34).

    This dramatic example of caring for someone supports what John writes in 1 John 3:18: “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but in action and in truth.” When the time comes for us to love others through their challenging times, may we be people who “carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). May we be people who love with fewer words and more actions. 

    Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Remi Walle

    Megan Moore is a military spouse and mom of 3 (through birth and adoption). A speech-language pathologist by training, she now spends her time moving around the country every couple of years. She is passionate about special needs, adoption, and ice cream.

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  • Pfizer sets new prices for its COVID-19 vaccines. The cost? $110 to $130 per dose

    Pfizer sets new prices for its COVID-19 vaccines. The cost? $110 to $130 per dose

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    Pfizer Inc.
    PFE,
    +4.17%
    said Thursday that it plans to sell the COVID-19 shot it developed with BioNTech SE
    BNTX,
    +7.14%
    for $110 to $130 per dose once the U.S. market for COVID-19 shots becomes commercial, likely in the first quarter of next year.

    Pfizer and BioNTech are currently paid $30.50 per vaccine dose by the U.S. government, which contracted with the companies (as well as other vaccine makers like Moderna Inc.
    MRNA,
    +6.57%
    and Novavax Inc.
    NVAX,
    +8.88%
    ) and then made the COVID-19 shots available at no cost to people in the U.S. during the public-health emergency.

    The emergency declaration in the U.S. isn’t expected to be renewed next year, which will lead to the formation of an official commercial market for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. That said, this change doesn’t mean most Americans will be on the hook to pay for their shots in 2023 and beyond.

    A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis said most people with private insurance won’t be expected to pay anything out of pocket for the vaccines, though the costs may eventually be baked into the price of health-insurance premiums, as is done with flu shots. People with Medicare will have their shots covered by Medicare Part B, while those with Medicaid should also have coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. It’s the uninsured who may find it difficult to find free vaccines and boosters in the future.

    Wall Street analysts cheered the news, saying Pfizer’s pricing plan came in above expectations. It also bodes well for Moderna’s stock. SVB Securities upgraded the company to market perform from underperform, though the company has not yet announced its pricing plans for its COVID-19 shots.

    “Presuming that MRNA prices as a rational duopolist, this substantially improves the company’s ability to meet 2023 revenue guidance,” SVB analyst Mani Foroohar told investors.

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  • Tory troubles: A brief timeline of UK political upheavals

    Tory troubles: A brief timeline of UK political upheavals

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    LONDON — It is a British cliché that a week is a long time in politics. Liz Truss proved it true on Thursday when she became the shortest-serving British prime minister in history. In a matter of days, her U-turn on economic plans that made global markets jittery and the resignations of key ministers prompted calls from within Truss’ party for her to step down. But the shakeup at the top is hardly an outlier in the recent history of Britain’s Conservatives, whose latest troubles have been years in the making.

    DAVID CAMERON’S DECISION

    Some observers date the current leadership crisis to Conservative Party infighting over the role of the European Union during Cameron’s 2010-2016 tenure Britain’s leader. The pro-EU prime minister decided to resolve the debate by calling for a nationwide referendum on Britain’s membership in the bloc. With almost 52% voting to leave and 48% to remain, the 2016 referendum resulted in a divisive Brexit. It also led Cameron to resign.

    MAY’S BREXIT MANDATE

    Theresa May succeeded Cameron as Conservative leader and prime minister on a mandate to “deliver Brexit.” She remained in the job for three years and 11 days, by which time the U.K.’s departure from the Europe Union was still pending. The House of Commons three times rejected the withdrawal agreement May’s government negotiated with the EU. It was a tumultuous time mired in frustration in Brussels and discord in Westminster. Following a string of Brexit-related resignations from her government and under pressure from within her party, May ended up resigning.

    BORIS JOHNSON’S TURN

    In July 2019, Leave campaigner Boris Johnson became Britain’s third prime minister in just over three years. Johnson made Brexit finally happen in January 2020 after four years of international squabbling. The emergence of the coronavirus pandemic weeks later threw the U.K. off course again. Johnson’s was accused of moving too slowly to limit travel, create an effective test-and-trace program and to project vulnerable older people. Though Johnson won praise for a swift rollout of a nationwide vaccination program, the tight restrictions on businesses, public events and private gatherings the government ultimately imposed would lay the groundwork for the end of his tenure.

    WHOSE PARTY IS THIS?

    Photos and witness accounts emerged indicating Johnson and government officials broke their own COVID-19 rules on social gatherings during the pandemic. In April of this year, Johnson received a fixed penalty notice for attending one such gathering. He was the first sitting U.K. prime minister to be punished for breaking the law. The scandal, dubbed “partygate” by the British press, triggered a wave of disgust across Britain, especially among those who were not permitted to attend the funerals of loved ones who died during the pandemic. Though Johnson survived a no-confidence vote over that, revelations in July that he appointed a deputy chief whip accused of misconduct led to a wave of ministerial resignations. It cost Johnson his job. He announced his resignation on July 7.

    TRUSS MAKES HISTORY

    Johnson ally and former Foreign Secretary Liz Truss swept past former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak in September to become Britain’s third female prime minister – and the last leader to meet with Queen Elizabeth II. However, Truss is likely to be remembered for her brevity. After resigning Thursday, she holds the record as the shortest-serving leader in modern British history, clocking up a mere 44 days in office. Her demise was swift. The pound plummeted after the announcement of her mini-budget, which included billions in unfunded tax cuts. To stymie the damage, Truss made U-turns on major tax policies and replaced her Treasury chief. But the resignation Wednesday of Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who left with pointed criticism of her boss, unleashed a torrent of Tory calls for Truss to resign, too.

    ———

    AP journalist Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to this story.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/british-politics

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  • Ex-UCLA gynecologist found guilty in LA sex abuse case

    Ex-UCLA gynecologist found guilty in LA sex abuse case

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    LOS ANGELES — A former gynecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles was found guilty Thursday of five counts of sexually abusing female patients, in a criminal case that came after the university system made nearly $700 million in lawsuit payouts.

    The Los Angeles jury found Dr. James Heaps, a longtime UCLA campus gynecologist, not guilty of seven of the 21 counts and were deadlocked on the remaining charges.

    In the wake of the scandal that erupted in 2019 following the doctor’s arrest, UCLA agreed to pay nearly $700 million in lawsuit settlements to hundreds of Heaps’ patients — a record amount by a public university amid a wave of sexual misconduct scandals by campus doctors in recent years.

    Heaps, 65, had pleaded not guilty to 21 felony counts in the sexual assaults of seven women between 2009 and 2018. He has denied wrongdoing.

    Heaps was indicted last year on multiple counts each of sexual battery by fraud, sexual exploitation of a patient and sexual penetration of an unconscious person by fraudulent representation.

    The jury delivered a guilty verdict on three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person. He was found not guilty of seven other counts of sexual battery and penetration, as well as one count of sexual exploitation. The jury was hung on the nine remaining counts, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial for those charges.

    It was not immediately clear whether the district attorney’s office plans to refile the case on the deadlocked counts.

    Heaps’ attorney and the district attorney’s office did not immediately return requests for comment Thursday.

    “The horrible abuse he perpetrated on cancer patients and others who trusted him as their doctor has been exposed and justice was done,” attorney John Manly, who represented more than 200 women in civil cases against Heaps and UCLA, said in a statement after the verdict.

    Sex abuse by doctors on college campuses has led to massive settlements at Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University.

    UCLA’s payouts exceed a $500 million settlement by Michigan State University in 2018 that was considered the largest by a public university. The University of Southern California, a private institution, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle thousands of cases against the school’s longtime gynecologist, who still faces a criminal trial in Los Angeles.

    UCLA patients said Heaps groped them, made suggestive comments or conducted unnecessarily invasive exams during his 35-year career. Women who brought the lawsuits said the university ignored their complaints and deliberately concealed abuse that happened for decades during examinations at the UCLA student health center, the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center or in Heaps’ campus office.

    UCLA acknowledged it received a sex abuse complaint against Heaps from a patient in December 2017 and it launched an investigation the following month that concluded she was sexually assaulted and harassed, attorneys said.

    Heaps, however, continued to practice until his retirement in June 2018. The university did not release its finding in the investigation until November 2019 — months after Heaps was arrested.

    “UCLA Health is grateful for the patients who came forward,” the university said in a statement after the verdict. “Sexual misconduct of any kind is reprehensible and intolerable. Our overriding priority is providing the highest quality care while ensuring that patients feel safe, protected and respected.”

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  • Concussion lawsuit against NCAA could be first to reach jury

    Concussion lawsuit against NCAA could be first to reach jury

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    LOS ANGELES — A lawsuit alleging the NCAA failed to protect a former University of South California player from repeated concussions is nearing trial in a Los Angeles court, with a jury seated Thursday in what could become a landmark case.

    The suit filed by Matthew Gee’s widow says the former USC linebacker died in 2018 from permanent brain damage caused by countless blows to the head he took while playing for the 1990 Rose Bowl winning team, whose roster also included future NFL star Junior Seau.

    Of the hundreds of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits brought by college players against the NCAA in the past decade, Gee’s is only the second to head toward trial and could be the first to reach a jury.

    The issue of concussions in sports, and in particular, has been front and center in recent years as research has discovered more about long-term effects of repeated head trauma in problems ranging from headaches to depression and, sometimes, early onset Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.

    “For years (the NCAA) has kept players like Matthew Gee and the public in the dark about an epidemic that was slowly killing college athletes,” Alana Gee’s lawsuit said. “Long after they played their last game, they are left with a series of neurological conditions that could slowly strangle their brains.”

    The NCAA, the governing body of college athletics, said it wasn’t responsible for Gee’s tragic death, which it blamed on heavy drinking, drugs and other ailments.

    “Mr. Gee used alcohol and drugs to cope with a traumatic childhood, to fill in the loss of identity he felt after his playing days ended, and to numb the chronic and increasing pain caused by numerous health issues,” NCAA lawyers wrote in a court filing.

    A 2018 trial in Texas led to a swift settlement after several days of testimony by witnesses for the plaintiff, the widow of Greg Ploetz, who played defense for Texas in the late 1960s.

    In 2016, the NCAA agreed to settle a class-action concussion lawsuit, paying $70 million to monitor the medical conditions of former college athletes, another $5 million toward medical research and payments up to $5,000 toward individual players claiming injuries.

    The NFL has been hit with similar suits and eventually agreed to a settlement covering 20,000 retired players providing up to $4 million for a death involving chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as CTE, a degenerative brain disease found in athletes and military veterans who suffered repetitive brain injuries.

    Lawyers said they expected NFL payouts to top $1.4 billion over 65 years for six qualifying conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

    Gee, 49, was one of five linebackers on the 1989 Trojans squad who died before turning 50. As with Seau, who killed himself in 2012, Gee’s brain was examined posthumously and found to have CTE.

    The defense has sought to exclude any testimony about Gee’s teammates, and the NCAA said there was no medical evidence Gee suffered from concussions at USC.

    Two ex-teammates, however, testified at depositions about blows they routinely took in an era when they were told to hit with their heads.

    Mike Salmon, who played defense at USC and went on to the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills, said he distinctly recalled Gee and other linebackers being “out of it” during hard-hitting practices.

    “Matt hit like a truck,” Salmon said. “I saw him quite a bit coming back to the huddle. You could tell … he wasn’t all there.”

    “It was our job to make helmet-to-helmet contact in the ’80s,” Gene Fruge, a former nose-tackle testified. “There was no question about it. That was your job, to explode the man in front of you.”

    The NCAA, which required schools in 2010 to have a concussion protocol, said it gave them “state-of-the-art” information about head injury risks known at the time Gee played. It said long-term effects of head injuries weren’t well understood then.

    Gee’s lawsuit said the debilitating effects of concussions and other traumatic brain impacts have been known for about a century, first from studies of “punch drunk” boxers and later from findings in football and other contact sports.

    “The NCAA knew of the harmful effects … on athletes for decades, they ignored these facts and failed to institute any meaningful methods of warning and/or protecting the athletes,” the lawsuit said. “For the NCAA, the continued expansion and operation of college football was simply too profitable to put at risk.”

    After graduating in 1992, Gee was cut by the Los Angeles Raiders in training camp. He married Alana, his college sweetheart, and they had three children as he ran his own insurance company in Southern California. For 20 years, he lived a “relatively normal” life, the suit said.

    But that began to change around 2013 when he began to lose control of his emotions, the lawsuit said. He became angry, confused and depressed. He drank heavily. He told a doctor days would go by without him being able to recall what happened.

    When he died on New Year’s Eve 2018, the preliminary cause of death was listed as the combined toxic effects of alcohol and cocaine with other significant conditions of cardiovascular disease, cirrhosis and obesity.

    Joseph Low, a Los Angeles lawyer for clients with traumatic brain injury who is not involved in the case, said drug and alcohol abuse can become a symptom of brain injuries as those suffering try to self-medicate, particularly as they deteriorate.

    Blaming Gee’s death on substance abuse will not shield the NCAA from evidence showing he had CTE, which is not caused by drugs and alcohol, Low said.

    “The whole discussion about drugs and alcohol isn’t going to get it done for them. That’s a distraction,” Low said. “It’s really a disgusting way to do character assassination. It’s what you call defense strategy 101.”

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  • Study: Cancer-causing gas leaking from CA stoves, pipes

    Study: Cancer-causing gas leaking from CA stoves, pipes

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    Gas stoves in California homes are leaking cancer-causing benzene, researchers found in a new study published on Thursday, though they say more research is needed to understand how many homes have leaks.

    In the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology on Thursday, researchers also estimated that over 4 tons of benzene per year are being leaked into the atmosphere from outdoor pipes that deliver the gas to buildings around California — the equivalent to the benzene emissions from nearly 60,000 vehicles. And those emissions are unaccounted for by the state.

    The researchers collected samples of gas from 159 homes in different regions of California and measured to see what types of gases were being emitted into homes when stoves were off. They found that all of the samples they tested had hazardous air pollutants, like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), all of which can have adverse health effects in humans with chronic exposure or acute exposure in larger amounts.

    Of most concern to the researchers was benzene, a known carcinogen that can lead to leukemia and other cancers and blood disorders, according to the National Cancer Institute.

    The finding could have major implications for indoor and outdoor air quality in California, which has the second highest level of residential natural gas use in the United States.

    “What our science shows is that people in California are exposed to potentially hazardous levels of benzene from the gas that is piped into their homes,” said Drew Michanowicz, a study co-author and senior scientist at PSE Healthy Energy, an energy research and policy institute. “We hope that policymakers will consider this data when they are making policy to ensure current and future policies are health-protective in light of this new research.”

    Homes in almost every region in the study — Greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento and Fresno — had benzene levels that far exceed the limit determined to be safe by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment. But the region with the highest benzene levels by far was the North San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

    This finding in particular didn’t surprise residents and health care workers in the region who spoke to The Associated Press about the study. That’s because many of them experienced the largest-known natural gas leak in the nation in Aliso Canyon in 2015.

    Back then, 100,000 tons of methane and other gases, including benzene, leaked from a failed well operated by Southern California Gas Co. It took nearly four months to get the leak under control and resulted in headaches, nausea and nose bleeds.

    Dr. Jeffrey Nordella was a physician at an urgent care in the region during this time and remembers being puzzled by the variety of symptoms patients were experiencing. “I didn’t have much to offer them,” except to help them try to detox from the exposures, he said.

    That was an acute exposure of a large amount of benzene, which is different from chronic exposure to smaller amounts, but “remember what the World Health Organization said: there’s no safe level of benzene,” he said.

    Kyoko Hibino was one of the residents exposed to toxic air pollution as a result of the Aliso Canyon gas leak. After the leak, she started having a persistent cough and nosebleeds and eventually was diagnosed with breast cancer, which has also been linked to benzene exposure. Her cats also started having nosebleeds and one recently passed away from leukemia.

    “I’d say let’s take this study really seriously and understand how bad (benzene exposure) is,” she said.

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    Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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