William Lee, Author at Author feast

Ukraine Aid Bill Delayed as Border Talks Drag On

20

Dec

New miscellaneous

Ukraine Aid Bill Delayed as Border Talks Drag On

The prospects for passing legislation to speed military aid to Ukraine this year are fading, as Republicans balk at striking a quick deal on immigration policy changes they have demanded in exchange for allowing the bill to move forward.After a weekend of intensive bipartisan border talks yielded progress but no breakthrough, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, acknowledged on Monday that negotiators were still far from completing a deal.“It’s going to take some more time to get it done,” he said on the Senate floor on Monday afternoon, laying out plans for the week that…

New Hope — and an Old Hurdle — for a Terrible Disease With Terrible Treatments

20

Dec

By William Lee

Health

New Hope — and an Old Hurdle — for a Terrible Disease With Terrible Treatments

Three years ago, Jesús Tilano went to a hospital in a thickly forested valley in Colombia with large open lesions on his nose, right arm and left hand. He was diagnosed with leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that is spread in the bite of a female sand fly and which plagues poor people who work in fields or forests across developing countries.He was prescribed a drug that required three injections a day for 20 days, each one agonizingly painful. Mr. Tilano, 85, had to make repeated expensive bus trips to town to get them. Then his kidneys started to fail, which…

Sean Payton’s flare-up at Russell Wilson puts coach-QB relationship back in spotlight

20

Dec

By William Lee

Sports

Sean Payton’s flare-up at Russell Wilson puts coach-QB relationship back in spotlight

(Editor’s note: This is excerpted from Mike Sando’s Pick Six of Dec. 18, 2023.)Sean Payton blasting quarterback Russell Wilson on the sideline, then suggesting he was merely upset about officiating, invited all sorts of speculation.It’s hard to fault Payton for losing his cool when officials wiped out a Broncos touchdown with an offensive offside call that seemed indefensible. As one former head coach put it, officials have “lost their minds” searching for penalties associated with Philadelphia’s tush-push plays.It’s just difficult to understand why Payton would funnel any of that rage toward his quarterback.GO DEEPERSean Payton downplays sideline flare up with Russell WilsonThe…

NASA Streams Cat Video From Deep, Deep Space

20

Dec

By William Lee

Technology

NASA Streams Cat Video From Deep, Deep Space

On Dec. 11, NASA engineers anxiously gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to view a cat video, wondering if it would be in the pristine high definition for which they had hoped.To their relief, it was. For the first time, high-definition video — this one of a lab employee’s cat named Taters — was streamed from 18.6 million miles away, or roughly 80 times the distance from the Earth to the moon, the farthest ever.The demonstration was part of NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, aimed at improving the infrastructure for communication beyond the Earth’s orbit. As…

Figma’s CEO, Dylan Field, Laments Demise of His Billion Adobe Deal

20

Dec

By William Lee

Business

Figma’s CEO, Dylan Field, Laments Demise of His $20 Billion Adobe Deal

Among the several deals that have fallen apart recently, Adobe’s $20 billion takeover of Figma, an upstart design software maker, is among the most instructive.The companies had promised it was a way to “usher in a new era of collaborative creativity,” but regulators in three jurisdictions saw it as an unacceptable effort by a software giant to buy a promising future rival. To Dylan Field, Figma’s chief executive, that contrast underscored a fundamental divide between how businesses and regulators think of competition.“It’s frustrating and sad that we’re not able to complete this,” Mr. Field said in his first interview since…

Israel Shares More Details of Hostage Deaths as Pressure to Curb War Grows: Live Updates

18

Dec

By William Lee

New miscellaneous

Israel Shares More Details of Hostage Deaths as Pressure to Curb War Grows: Live Updates

Roman Catholic church officials said an Israeli military sniper shot and killed a mother and daughter on Saturday inside a church compound in northern Gaza where many Palestinian Christian families have taken refuge.The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said that “one was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety” in the compound of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. Seven more people were shot and wounded while trying to protect others there, the patriarchate said in a statement on Saturday.“No warning was given, no notification was provided,” the patriarchate said. “They were shot in cold blood inside…