Day: October 9, 2020

Hall of Fame Yankees Pitcher Ford Dies at 91

During an era when the Yankees won the World Series so routinely it was joked that rooting for them was like rooting for General Motors, their ace pitcher owned the most fitting nickname: “The Chairman of the Board.”Whitey Ford, the street-smart New Yorker who had the best winning percentage of any pitcher in the 20th century and helped the Yankees become baseball’s perennial champions in the 1950s and ’60s, died Thursday night. He was 91.The team said Friday that the Hall of Famer died at his Long Island home in Lake Success, New York, while watching the Yankees in a playoff game. His wife of 69 years, Joan, and family members were with him.Ford had suffered from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease in recent years. His death was the latest this year of a number of baseball greats — Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock and Bob Gibson.On a franchise long defined by power hitters, Ford was considered its greatest starting pitcher. Not big and not overpowering, the wily left-hander played in the majors from 1950 to 1967, all with the Yankees, and teamed with the likes of Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra to win six championships.”If you were a betting man, and if he was out there pitching for you, you’d figure it was your day,” former teammate and World Series MVP Bobby Richardson told The Associated Press on Friday.Machinelike efficiencyFord won 236 games and lost just 106, a winning percentage of .690. He would help symbolize the almost machinelike efficiency of the Yankees in the mid-20th century, when only twice between Ford’s rookie year and 1964 did they fail to make the World Series.Edward Charles Ford was born on the East Side of Manhattan, about 100 blocks south of Yankee Stadium. He was nicknamed “Whitey” while still in the minor leagues, and quickly reached the mound at Yankee Stadium.The World Series record book is crowded with Ford’s accomplishments. His string of 33 consecutive scoreless innings from 1960 to 1962 broke a record of 29 2/3 innings set by Babe Ruth. Ford still holds records for World Series games and starts (22), innings pitched (146), wins (10) and strikeouts (94).Ford was in his mid-20s when he became the go-to guy in manager Casey Stengel’s rotation, the pitcher Stengel said he would always turn to if he absolutely needed to win one game. Ford was Stengel’s choice to pitch World Series openers eight times, another record.FILE – Whitey Ford of the New York Yankees as he pitched a five-hitter against the Chicago White Sox for his 13th victory of the year, July 4, 1963, in the first game of a doubleheader, in New York.Ford’s best seasons came in 1961 and 1963, amid a stretch of five straight American League pennants for the Yankees, when new manager Ralph Houk began using a four-man rotation instead of five. Ford led the league in victories with 25 in 1961, won the Cy Young Award and starred in the World Series. In 1963, he went 24-7, again leading the league in wins. Eight of his victories that season came in June.He also led the AL in earned-run average in 1956 (2.47) and 1958 (2.01) and was an All-Star in eight seasons.Ford was 10-8 with a 2.71 ERA overall in the World Series. His final appearance there came in the 1964 opener when he lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, who went on take the title behind Gibson.Ford was not a power pitcher. Instead he depended on guile and guts, rarely giving hitters the same look on consecutive pitches. He’d throw overhand sometimes, three-quarters other times, mixing curves and sliders in with his fastball and change-up.A few tricksFord would also acknowledge using some special methods to add movement to his pitches, including saliva, mud and dirt and cutting the ball with a ring.”If there are some pitchers doing it and getting away with it, that’s fine by me,” Ford told sportswriter Phil Pepe in 1987. “If it were me and I needed to cheat to be able to throw the good stuff that would keep me in the major leagues at a salary of about $800,000 a year, I’d do whatever I had to do.”After his retirement, Ford briefly worked as a broadcaster and opened a restaurant in Garden City, “Whitey Ford’s Cafe,” that closed within a year.Ford’s death leaves Bobby Brown, who won four Series titles with the Yankees in the 1940s and ’50s, as the last living link to prominent Yankees who played with both DiMaggio and Ford. Brown is 95.  In addition to his wife and son Eddie, Ford is survived by a daughter, Sally Ann; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Ford’s other son, Thomas, died in 1999.

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Twitter Imposes Restrictions, More Warning Labels Ahead of US Election

Twitter Inc. said Friday that it would remove tweets calling for people to interfere with the U.S. election process or implementation of election results, including through violence, as the company also announced more restrictions to slow the spread of misinformation.Twitter said in a blog post that, from next week, users will get a prompt pointing them to credible information before they can retweet content that has been labeled as misleading.It said it would add more warnings and restrictions on tweets with misleading information labels from U.S. political figures like candidates and campaigns, as well as U.S.-based accounts with more than 100,000 followers or that get “significant engagement.”Twitter, which recently told Reuters it was testing how to make its labeling more obvious and direct, said people will have to tap through warnings to see these tweets. Users can also only “quote tweet” this content; likes, retweets and replies will be turned off.Twitter says it has labeled thousands of misleading posts, though most attention has been on the labels applied to tweets by U.S. President Donald Trump. Twitter also said it would label tweets that falsely claim a win for any candidate.Temporary stepsThe company announced several temporary steps to slow amplification of content. For example, from Oct. 20 to at least the end of the U.S. election week, global users pressing “retweet” will be directed first to the “quote tweet” button to encourage people to add their own commentary.It will also stop surfacing trending topics without added context and will stop people seeing “liked by” recommendations from people they do not know in their timeline.Twitter’s decision to hit the brakes on automated recommendations contrasts with the approach at Facebook Inc., which is amping up promotion of its groups product despite concerns about extremism in those spaces.Social media companies are under pressure to combat election-related misinformation and prepare for the possibility of violence or polling place intimidation around the Nov. 3 vote.Reuters has reported that Republicans are mobilizing thousands of volunteers to watch early voting sites and ballot drop boxes to try to find evidence to back up Trump’s unsubstantiated complaints about widespread voter fraud.On Wednesday, Facebook said it would ban calls for poll watching using “militarized language.”

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New Museum Exhibit in Washington Highlights Girlhood in America

A new exhibition at the recently reopened National Museum of American History shows the challenges young woman face growing up in the United States. “Girlhood (It’s complicated)” showcases the lives of American girls who advocated for social change and shaped the country’s history. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
Camera: David Gogokhia, Mike Maisuradze  
 

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Spread of Alien Plant, Animal Species Predicted to Rise Globally by 2050

Asian kudzu vines smothering the southern United States. Pacific lionfish devouring Caribbean sealife. South American cane toads killing their way across Australia.  
 
As bad as invasive species are today, a study says they will get worse.    
 Researchers predict that non-native—or alien—species introductions will increase globally by around 36 percent during the first half of the 21st century.
 
The researchers call for better monitoring and regulations to contain the spread of alien species.
 The movement of plants and animals around the planet soared over the last century as human trade and travel opened new global pathways.
 
Not all alien species are problematic, but invasive alien species—like kudzu—wreak environmental or economic havoc in their new homes.  
 
“Together with climate change and land use change, invasive alien species are posing one of the greatest threats to biodiversity,” said Hanno Seebens, ecologist at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and lead author on the study.  
 
From devouring crops to clogging water pipes, invasive species cost the United States alone around $120 billion each year. Some species are intentionally introduced to new regions by humans. Others arrive accidentally as stowaways in goods shipped by planes, trucks and ships or as hitchhikers on luggage. 
“A species can only arrive in a new region when you connect different [regions],”  Seebens explained. “When we extended our trade networks, we connected more and more [regions], which allowed more and more species to come.”  
However, the number of possible species could taper off in the future. “We may just run out of species to be transported, because at some point, all species may have been transported already.”
 
To forecast alien species introductions for each continent between 2005 and 2050, the researchers used past records of alien species introductions and estimates of the number of possible species that could be introduced.
 
Alien species introductions will increase on every continent, they predict.FILE – An Asian hornet chases a bee near a beehive in Loue, northwestern France, Sept. 14, 2019.The largest increase is expected in Europe, with a 64 percent rise in alien species introductions totaling more than 2,500 species. In Australia and New Zealand, they predict just a 16 percent increase or about 1,286 new alien species.
 
“We know that a certain proportion of alien species will be problematic, so the more of them that there are, the higher the likelihood that we’ll have problems,” said Cascade Sorte, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California Irvine, who did not contribute to the research.  
 
“In some ways it’s shocking to think that, with all of the impacts that we’ve already seen [from alien species], there’s even a possibility that things can get worse,” she added.
 
On all continents, the study predicted the greatest increase in introductions for insects and their relatives. One reason is that these tiny animals can easily escape detection and be accidentally transported to new regions.
 
The researchers predict just small increases in alien mammal introductions, ranging from just 0 to 16 percent—or up to 12 species. According to Seebens that is because the number of possible mammal species is limited.
 
“Mammals are often very big. And so they are not easily transported to other areas. And the small ones, mice or rats for example, have already been transported all over the world,” said Seebens.
 
“We could, if we chose to as a global society, do something about [alien species],” said Bethany Bradley, professor of spatial ecology and biogeography at the University of Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study. “It requires more inspections; it requires more regulation. It’s definitely costly.”
 
“But on the other side of things,” she added, “there are estimates of hundreds of billions of dollars being spent every year on managing invasive species. I think we have the solutions to the problem that this paper lays out; we just haven’t implemented them.”
 
One reason for fewer alien species introductions in Australasia is the strict border regulations that Australia and New Zealand have in place, says Seebens. The isolation of those countries also means there’s less opportunity for species to cross borders.
 
The study predicts alien species introductions in a “business as usual” future, providing a baseline for comparing different future scenarios. For example, increased trade and transport or accelerated climate change would likely boost alien species introductions. On the other hand, adoption of new regulations could slow introductions.
 
“Our recommendations would be to have stricter regulations and stricter border controls,” said Seebens. People should also be aware of alien plants in their gardens and avoid releasing non-native pets into the environment, he added. 

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Spain Declares COVID-19 State of Emergency in Madrid

Spain’s government declared a state of emergency in Madrid Friday, taking control of efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19 from local authorities after a regional court struck down restrictions as the region faces one of the most significant outbreaks in Europe.
 
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government took the step at a special cabinet meeting as he imposed his authority on regional officials, who have resisted his calls for restrictions on travel in the region.
 
The move gives Sanchez extraordinary powers to order new constraints on life in the capital, where efforts to control a surge in infections have been complicated by the standoff. The step forced Madrid authorities to restore restrictions they had ignored following the court ruling.
 
At a news conference Friday, Health Minister Salvador Illa said the measures, which prohibit residents from leaving the area, including nine nearby towns, without a valid reason, among other measures, would be effective immediately and remain in place for 15 days.
 
The Madrid region’s 14-day infection rate of more than 560 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents is more than twice Spain’s national average of 256 and five times the European average rate of 113 for the week ending September 27.
 
The Interior Ministry said an extra 7,000 policemen and security personnel would be deployed for enforcement of the measures “at various exit and access points of the region under state of emergency.”  
 
The partial lockdown comes as the nation begins a three-day holiday weekend, and initial reports from Madrid said cars continued to pour out of the city and its neighboring towns on Friday. 

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Pakistan Blocks TikTok, Citing ‘Immoral’ Content

Pakistan has blocked online short-video sharing platform TikTok on the grounds of “immoral/indecent” content for viewing in the majority-Muslim nation.The state regulator said Friday that it had repeatedly instructed the platform to tighten its content monitoring to block access to the “unlawful” material.”However, the application failed to fully comply with the instructions, therefore, directions were issued for blocking of TikTok application in the country,” said the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, PTA.The regulator defended the decision, saying the PTA, in a formal warning, had given “considerable time” to the online platform to respond and comply with the instructions.FILE – A man opens social media app TikTok on his cellphone, in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 21, 2020.”TikTok has been informed that the authority is open for engagement and will review its decision subject to a satisfactory mechanism by TikTok to moderate unlawful content,” according to the PTA.There was no immediate reaction from the popular online platform to the blocking of its service by Pakistani authorities.Amnesty International slammed the ban on TikTok, saying that in the name of a campaign against vulgarity, people are being denied the right to express themselves online.”The #TikTokBan comes against a backdrop where voices are muted on television, columns vanish from newspapers, websites are blocked and television ads banned,” Amnesty said in a statement posted on Twitter.TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, is also under pressure globally due to security and privacy concerns.Neighboring India has already blocked access to the social media outlet, along with dozens of other apps developed by Chinese companies, citing cybersecurity concerns.TikTok is also under scrutiny in other countries, including the United States, the biggest market by revenue for the company.Dating apps banLast month, Pakistan blocked access to five dating apps for their delivery of “immoral/indecent content” in violation of the country’s laws.The platforms include Tinder, Grindr, Tagged, Skout and SayHi.The PTA, without elaborating on the sweeping ban, said that all five companies had failed to respond to its directive within the stipulated time, though it did not specify the timeframe.Tinder is globally popular and owned by Match Group.Grindr, which has a large following in the U.S., describes itself as a social network “for gay, bi, trans, and queer people.”Homosexuality and extra-marital relationships are outlawed in Pakistan. 
 

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China Joins WHO Initiative to Distribute COVID Vaccine to Developing Countries

China said Friday it is joining a World Health Organization international initiative to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to the developing world.  China, Russia and the U.S. had said they were not joining the alliance to help two-thirds of world’s population receive the vaccines by 2022.China’s reversal makes it the largest country to participate in what is known as the COVAX deal.  “We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support Covax,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement. Over 36 million infections
More than 36.5 million people have been infected with the coronavirus as it snakes it way around the world, according to statistics from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 
 
The U.S., India and Brazil lead in the number of cases and deaths from COVID-19 — the disease caused by the virus. India’s health ministry reported more than 70,000 new cases in the past 24-hour period.  
 
The U.S. has more than 7.6 million infections and upwards of 212,000 deaths. India has nearly 7 million COVID cases, with more than 106,000 deaths, while Brazil has over 5 million cases and a death tally close to 149,000.
Russia reported a new record for coronavirus cases Monday – 12,126, bringing its total of confirmed cases to 1,272,238.  The previous daily high was in May.  Some officials there say new restrictions may have to be imposed. Ukraine reported a record 5,804 new cases Friday.  Authorities are expected to extend the Eastern European country’s lockdown until the end of October. Australia said Friday it has experienced two straight days without any COVID-19 deaths, the longest amount of time it has not had any COVID deaths in three months. White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah puts on her mask after speaking to reporters about U.S. President Donald Trump’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19), outside the White House in Washington, Oct. 8, 2020.White House outbreak
Various health departments in the U.S. capital, Washington, and the states of Maryland and Virginia sent letters Thursday to individuals who worked at the White House in the past two weeks or attended an event Sept. 26 in the Rose Garden for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, urging them “to contact their local health department for further guidance/questions regarding their potential need to quarantine.”   
 
The White House seemingly has become the source for several COVID-19 cases, including the infection of U.S. President Donald Trump, several lawmakers and the president of Notre Dame University.  
 
Photos of the Barrett event showed the mostly maskless crowd not observing social distancing protocols, including sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in chairs placed on the lawn.  The Expanding Number of COVID-19 Cases Linked to the White HouseAn increasing number of people with connections to the White House – including the President and First Lady – contracted COVID-19 recently        

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