Heavy screen time appears to impact childrens’ brains: study
Researchers have found “different patterns” in brain scans among children who record heavy smart device and video game use, according to initial data from a major ongoing US study.
The first wave of information from the $300 million National Institute of Health (NIH) study is showing that those nine and 10-year-old kids spending more than seven hours a day using such devices show signs of premature thinning of the cortex, the brain’s outermost layer that processes sensory information.
“We don’t know if it’s being caused by the screen time. We don’t know yet if it’s a bad thing,” said Gaya Dowling, an NIH doctor working on the project, explaining the preliminary findings in an interview with the CBS news program 60 Minutes.
“What we can say is that this is what the brains look like of kids who spend a lot of time on screens. And it’s not just one pattern,” Dowling said.
The NIH data reported on CBS also showed that kids who spend more than two hours a day on screens score worse on language and reasoning tests.
The study—which involves scanning the brains of 4,500 children—eventually aims to show whether screen time is addictive, but researchers need several years to understand such long-term outcomes.
“In many ways, the concern that investigators like I have is, that we’re sort of in the midst of a natural kind of uncontrolled experiment on the next generation of children,” Dimitri Christakis, a lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ most recent guidelines on screen time, told 60 Minutes.
Initial data from the study will begin to be released in early 2019.
The academy now recommends parents “avoid digital media use—except video chatting—in children younger than 18 to 24 months.”
Article via MedicalXpress
Spiritual ‘healer’ featured on Oprah accused of sexual abuse
RIO DE JANEIRO — Ten women in Brazil have accused a self-styled spiritual healer of sexually abusing them at a clinic in the central-western state of Goias.
The accusations against Joao Teixeira de Faria, known as John of God, were made Saturday night on the Globo TV network.
It was not immediately clear if Farias was being investigated by prosecutors.
In a statement to the G1 news portal, Faria’s press office said: “John of God vehemently denies having committed any inappropriate behavior during his treatments.”
Faria’s faith-based healing skills drew the attention of TV host Oprah Winfrey, who said on her website that she interviewed him at his clinic in 2013 and saw him performing psychic surgeries.
Faria’s website says he has treated former President Bill Clinton and Brazil’s ex-President Luiz Inacio da Silva.
Article via NYPost
Ty Dolla Sign Indicted on Felony Drug Charges
Cocaine and marijuana charges could reportedly lead to up to 15 years in prison
Ty Dolla Sign has been indicted on felony charges of cocaine and marijuana possession, TMZ reports and documents viewed by Pitchfork confirm. The charges could lead to a prison sentence of up to 15 years, according to TMZ. The indictment includes two felony charges—possession of a Schedule 1 controlled substance and possession of cocaine—and one misdemeanor charge, for possession of less than one ounce of marijuana.
Ty Dolla was arrested and detained in September in Atlanta after officers searched his vehicle, claiming they smelled marijuana. Skrillex and several others were also in the vehicle, but police pressed charges only against Ty, TMZ reports. Pitchfork has reached out to Ty’s reps for comment.
Article via Pitchfork
China slams Canada’s ‘inhumane’ treatment of Huawei CFO
China says Canada has violated her human rights by not allowing Meng proper medical care while in detainment.
China has criticised Canada over its treatment of Huawei Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada last week.
The Chinese government said Canada has not allowed Meng proper medical care while in detainment and has called for her immediate release on medical grounds.
“We believe this is inhumane and violates her human rights,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kan said ahead of Monday’s bail hearing for Meng.
Meng has argued that she should be released on bail while awaiting an extradition hearing, citing fears for her health while jailed in Canada, claiming she is not a flight risk because she has several family members in Canada.
The senior Huawei executive said she was taken to a hospital for treatment for hypertension after being arrested. She cited hypertension as a factor in a bail application seeking her release pending an extradition hearing.
She also said she has long-standing ties to Vancouver dating back at least 15 years, as well as significant property holdings in the city.
US-China trade war
The 46-year-old faces US accusations that she misled multinational banks about Huawei’s control of a company operating in Iran.
This deception put the banks at risk of violating Washington’s sanctions and incurring severe penalties, the court documents said.
The arrest has infuriated Beijing, which demanded Meng’s immediate release, and stoked tensions during the trade war truce between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies.
On Sunday, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad a day after he called in Canadian envoy John McCallum to voice China’s displeasure.
“Le Yucheng pointed out that the US side has seriously violated the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens, and the nature of the violation is extremely bad,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The Chinese side firmly opposes this and strongly urges the United States to attach great importance to China’s solemn and just position,” it said.
US sanctions
Companies are barred from using the US financial system to funnel goods and services to sanctioned entities such as Iran and North Korea.
In Canadian court documents released on Sunday, Huawei said its Iran operations were “in strict compliance with applicable laws, regulations and sanctions” of the United Nations, US and the European Union.
In a company presentation from 2013 that was released with the Canadian court documents, Huawei said it communicated with the US government agencies on a “day-to-day” basis to obtain what it called “professional guidance” on trade compliance.
Article via AlJazeera
‘We’re Fighting For Our Lives’ — Patients Protest Sky-High Insulin Prices
Angela Lautner knew her thirst was unusual, even for someone directing airplanes, outside in the Memphis summer heat.
“We had coolers of Gatorade and water for people to always have access to,” Lautner remembers of her job as a ground services agent. “But the amount of thirst that I felt was just incredible.”
She had no appetite and she lost an unusual amount of weight. Then after a trip to the emergency room, Lautner, who was 22, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The diagnosis was life changing.
To start,it meant for the rest of her life she would require insulin injections every day to keep her alive. Unlike Type 2 diabetes, which can sometimes be controlled by diet, people with Type 1 diabetes need daily insulin injections to regulate their blood sugar.
Lautner’s diagnosis also meant she was no longer allowed to become a commercial airline pilot in the U.S. — a lifelong dream that she was training for in flight school at the time.
“I cried harder over losing my dream to fly than I did at the diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes,” Lautner says.
But after 18 years living with diabetes, Lautner now says the hardest thing about the diagnosis is accessing insulin — the expensive drug she needs to keep her alive. She’s had to borrow money from her parents to pay for insurance; she’s spent hours on the phone with drug companies; she’s switched brands of insulin to save costs; and she even moved to a new state, Kentucky, with a more generous Medicaid plan.
Last year, Lautner noticed other people with Type 1 diabetes tweeting similar stories under the hashtag #Insulin4All. She read the stories of Shane Patrick Boyle and Alec Raeshawn Smith, two men who died because they could not afford their insulin. It was an epiphany.
“I thought, ‘My goodness, there’s more people than me. I’m not the only one out here,’ ” she says.
Since then Lautner has joined a group of consumer activists, people who need insulin to live and are angry about the sky-high prices. They are putting pressure on the three main companies that make insulin: Sanofi of France, Novo Nordisk of Denmark, and Eli Lilly and Company in the U.S.
Taking on the drugmakers
The cost of insulin nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013 and has doubled again since then. The list price is over $300 for a single vial of medicine, and most people with Type 1 diabetes need multiple vials every month to live. That cost is typically lower with insurance or with discount programs. Still, for some people the price is unmanageable.
There’s been some action by lawmakers on the issue. In October Minnesota’s attorney general sued insulin manufacturers alleging price gouging, and a bipartisan caucus in the U.S. Congress issued a report in November urging action to bring insulin prices down.
But prices are still going up, so consumer activists like Lautner are taking things into their own hands.
Nonprofit group T1International, which advocates for Type 1 diabetes around the world, with a particular focus on insulin prices has started holding rallies outside the Indianapolis headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company. (Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have provided financial support to NPR.)
Lautner joined more than 70 people who came together to demonstrate there in September. They were asking for three things: transparency about how much it costs to make a vial of insulin and how much profit comes from each vial, and a commitment from the company to lower the list price of insulin.
There were protesters from at least 12 states, mainly Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, but also from as far away as New York. Lautner, who now lives outside Cincinnati, rented a school bus with a dozen others to make the 112-mile trip.
“Insulin is kind of the face of the drug pricing crisis in America,” says Elizabeth Pfiester, founder of T1International who has Type 1 diabetes herself. “We literally die without it,” she says. “We’re fighting for our lives.”
This was the third time the group had protested at Eli Lilly headquarters. Last fall, when the group held its first protest there, Pfiester says, as it was “the first time where people living with Type 1 were able to physically stand and show that people are angry enough to come out.”
Eli Lilly declined NPR’s request for an interview, but in statement a spokesperson said, “we understand why people are making their voices heard.”
Protesting is one arm of their advocacy efforts; the group is also lobbying at the state and national level, and conducting online awareness-raising campaigns under the hashtag #Insulin4All.
Article via NPR
Shakira to be ‘formally accused by prosecutors of defrauding Spanish taxman out of nearly 15MILLION euros’
Pop star Shakira will formally be accused by Spanish state prosecutors of a multi-million pound tax fraud in the next few days.
The Colombian, 41, will have to defend herself against claims she defrauded the Spanish taxman out of nearly 15million euros over three years, respected daily El Pais reported.
State prosecutors have spent the past year probing Shakira and have now concluded 14.5million euros is the amount they believe she defrauded between 2012 and 2014.
The publication said the formal criminal complaint against the mother-of-two – accusing her of three counts of tax fraud for each of the three tax years – would be lodged with a judge in the next few days.
Lawyers acting for the singer are expected to seek the closure of the criminal case before deciding whether to try to reach a pre-trial settlement if the request is rejected.
Shakira, previously tax resident in the Bahamas, only registered as a full tax resident in Spain in 2015.
Prosecutors are said to have reached the conclusion that the performer pretended to live in the Bahamas as part of a plan to deliberately avoid meeting her tax obligations after starting a relationship with Barcelona star Gerard Pique in 2011 and moving to the Catalan capital.
Official residents in Spain pay Spanish taxes on their worldwide income, while people who spent more than 183 days in a given calendar year in the country are considered Spanish residents for tax purposes.
Tax inspectors spent more than a year checking up on Shakira, even visiting her favourite hairdressers in Barcelona and checking her social media to try to show she spent most of the three years in dispute in Spain.
Spanish media said the report prosecutors would submit along with their criminal complaint offered no proof Shakira had spent enough time in the country to be considered a tax resident.
But it said the rest of the time she spent out of Spain were ‘sporadic absences’ resulting from work commitments, an argument the singer’s defence lawyers disagree with and are set to fight.
A spokesman for the singer said she did not owe the Spanish taxman any money and insisted she had followed the advice of her financial advisors.
He insisted she was ready to co-operate to ‘resolve the differences in criteria.’
Shakira was named in the recent Paradise Papers scandal after it was revealed late last year she transferred £30million in musical rights to an offshore firm in Malta.
Her lawyer Ezequiel Camerini told Spanish news website El Confidencial the singer lived in Barcelona – but quoted him as justifying her links to a tax haven on the basis that ‘as an international artist, she had lived in several places in the course of her professional life, acting in total accordance with the laws of all the jurisdictions she resides in.’
Shakira, full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, separated from former Argentinian president’s son Antonio de la Rua in August 2010 before starting a relationship with Gerard Pique in 2011.
They have two children Milan, five, and Sasha, four.
Article via DailyMail
