Latest news with #Jeff
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Mikaela Shiffrin says in essay she feels ‘like myself again' after recovering from ski racing crash, PTSD
Shiffrin was leading after the first run of the GS that day in Killington. With the finish line in sight on her final run, she lost an edge and slid into a gate, flipping over her skis. The all-time winningest Alpine World Cup ski racer then slammed into another gate before coming to a stop in the protective fencing. To this day, she doesn't know what led to the puncture wound, only that it was 'a millimeter from pretty catastrophic,' she told The Associated Press. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Shiffrin wrote in The Players' Tribune it was 'difficult to explain what the pain felt like. But the closest I can get would probably be, it was like … not only was there a knife stabbing me, but the knife was actually still inside of me.' Advertisement In late January, Shiffrin returned to the World Cup circuit. The giant slalom, though, remained a cause of anxiety and she skipped the event at world championships. Advertisement Ever so steadily, she's working on overcoming the mental trauma surrounding the GS as she gears up for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games. She won an Olympic gold medal in the discipline at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She's been working with a psychologist to conquer her mental obstacles. 'I can admit that there were some extremely low moments,' recounted Shiffrin, who won her 'On particularly bad days, I'd question my motivation, or whether I still wanted to do this anymore. In my head, I'd be saying to myself: You know what, I kind of couldn't care less if I ever race again.' She and the therapist began looking at her recovery through the prism of PTSD. 'With me, I also think it's possible that the crash I had at the beginning of 2024 in Cortina, and then Killington happening … that those two crashes maybe built on one another,' Shiffrin said. 'I talked with my therapist about that, and she let me know that past trauma, or a history of traumatic events, can sometimes affect your reaction to new traumatic events.' She lost her dad, Jeff, five years ago in a home accident. Her fiancé and fellow ski racer Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway is still recovering from a serious ski crash on Jan. 13, 2024. Advertisement 'Maybe when I crashed and got that puncture wound, maybe that was kind of a perfect-storm situation for PTSD to take hold,' Shiffrin wrote. Shiffrin said one thing that's helped is 'getting back to a place of joy.' She closed her essay with: 'All I can do is smile with appreciation. Because, finally … I feel like myself again.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
‘A quiet hero': Mass. department mourning unexpected death of active-duty firefighter
A fire department in the Bay State's Merrimack Valley is mourning the unexpected death of an active-duty firefighter. Firefighter Jeffrey Deschenes died this week at a local hospital after experiencing a medical emergency, North Andover Fire Chief John Weir and Deputy Chief Graham Rowe announced Friday. He was 54. Deschenes was named North Andover's first EMS Coordinator in 2019 and is credited with bringing the fire department to the forefront of pre-hospital care. 'Jeff Deschenes brought the North Andover Fire Department into the modern era of emergency medicine and treatment, and his life's work undoubtedly saved and improved the lives of countless people,' Chief Weir said in a statement. 'He was a quiet hero in our community and a true brother in the fire service. He will be missed. I speak on behalf of all the men and women of the North Andover Fire Department in extending my heartfelt sympathies to Jeff's wife, children, and his entire family. We mourn this loss with you.' Deschenes was also named a Firefighter of the Year by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2019 for his response to the 2018 Merrimack Valley natural gas disaster, in addition to earning an array of other accolades. 'Jeff's impact reached far beyond his firefighting duties, touching the lives of many in the Merrimack Valley and the region,' Deputy Chief Rowe said in a statement. 'He was always willing to lend a helping hand in any way possible, looking out for his fellow firefighters, friends, family, and the community.' Deschenes began his career with the Lawrence Fire Department in 2000 and served 12 years there before transferring to North Andover in 2012. Town Manager Melissa Rodrigues added, 'The Town of North Andover mourns the loss of a good and dedicated firefighter, friend, and a true professional. Our community offers its unwavering support to his family at home and his family in the firehouse during their time of need.' Deschenes is survived by his wife and two children. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
New Statesman
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Mountainhead is a tech-bro horror show
Sky Here in my TV critic's penthouse, with its giant bags of snacks, hand-knitted throws and wraparound 24/7 flatscreens, Jesse 'Succession' Armstrong has at last chucked me some more red meat to chew on in the form of Mountainhead, a film he has both written and directed. Obviously, I couldn't be more pleased. The stomach has been rumbling for a while now. I still miss his last lot of monsters; part of me will always mourn Tom Wambsgans. But it has to be said that the new bunch are too unambiguously cold – yes, even by the standards of the Roys – for maximum enjoyment. Also, for those of a nervous disposition, I would just quietly note that it's not beyond the bounds of possibility the dystopian future it so terrifyingly depicts could arrive in – checks smart watch, ignoring its advice to 'take a moment' – ooh, about six hours' time. It goes like this. Four tech bros, some of the richest men in the world, are weekending at Mountainhead, a rebarbative looking architect-designed house in deepest snowy Utah (it's named for Ayn Rand, as I'm sure you've guessed); their host is its owner, the the poorest of them (yet to make his first billion), Hugo Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman), whose brainchild is a wellness app called Slowzo. The gathering is a reunion: these men-children, who once masturbated together on a biscuit, call themselves the Brewsters; they like bragging, banter, poker and working themselves up into a frenzy about transhumanism and freedom of speech. But behind the group hug, tension crackles like an old dial-up connection. The oldest, Randall (Steve Carell), is pretending his cancer is cured. His one-time protégé, Venis (Cory Michael Smith), is twitchily trying to ignore the fact that the launch of an AI feature on his social network, Traam, has broadcast so much disinformation that the world is rapidly descending into violence and chaos. Venis, in turn, is desperate to make up with Jeff (Ramy Youssef), whose own AI business is able to tell audiences what's real, and what's not. He's desperate to buy it. But alas, they fell out when they appeared on, yes, a podcast. As 'genocide-adjacent' events occur everywhere from India to Uzbekistan, and Argentina and Italy default on their debts, Jeff's stock is rising rapidly, even as his conscience is vaguely pricked (to locate such a conscience involves much scrolling). He's not selling. The dialogue is sharper than a premium Japanese knife, and often very funny. Jeff asks Hugo, aka Soups (a nickname that's short for soup kitchen, because they think he's such a failure), if his antiseptic house was 'designed by Ayn Bland'. Venis tells Randall, who wants to know if his company has a timeline for uploading human consciousness and if so, can he be first up, that, yes, 'Daddy' can be number one 'on the grid', but only after it has been tested on 'a mouse, a pig, and ten morons'. The attention to detail, rich-living-wise, is unimpeachable. Hugo's staff have a whole turbot ready for 'picking' – picking fish are all the rage – as well as about 8,000 sliders, and every kind of olive, fruit, artisan ham and cheese you can think of. The house (obvs) has a full-size bowling alley, a cinema and – most important of all – water pressure that gives you bruises when you shower. But, it almost goes without saying, no one's happy. The anhedonia of the rich, of which I'm lately only half-convinced, is made explicit when the four of them don matching orange ski suits as if they were prisoners. And, as my granny used to say, much shall have more, of course. The first half of Mountainhead is better than the second, when greed and Musk-like excess takes over, and it all gets a bit Lord of Flies, only with cigars, saunas and the possibility of a pre-pardon from the US president. Still, I stuck with it, and you will, too. Partly, it's the transfixing amorality, an abyss you detect in Bezos, Zuckerberg and all the others who are suddenly so pumped and obeisant to Trump. But the performances are magnetically pitch perfect as well: Carell in his knitwear, Michael Smith with his waxy, Jared Kushner face. It's a 90-minute horror show. All I'd say is: best not to watch it just before bedtime. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Mountainhead Sky Atlantic [See also: 'The Bombing of Pan Am 103' is poignant and fascinating] Related
E&E News
a day ago
- Business
- E&E News
Inside EPA's backdoor bid to stop regulating climate pollution
EPA is expected to soon argue that the U.S. power sector doesn't contribute 'significantly' to climate change — a bid that could give the agency cover to not regulate planet-warming emissions from a wide range of sources. EPA included the argument in its draft repeal of Biden-era rules to limit pollution from power plants, according to two people briefed by EPA personnel and granted anonymity to discuss those conversations. The agency bolsters its argument by stating in the draft sent to the White House that U.S. fossil fuel power plants account for 3 percent of global emissions, The New York Times reported last week. The assertion would take advantage of a section of the Clean Air Act that instructs the EPA administrator to decide whether a category of sources contributes enough harmful pollution to warrant regulation. That could offer a backdoor avenue for EPA to stop regulating most climate pollution — one where the agency has to clear a lower legal bar than overturning the so-called endangerment finding that underpins all Clean Air Act climate regulations. Advertisement Industry attorneys who have expressed skepticism about the Trump administration's broader assault on climate science see some merit in a more targeted approach under Section 111. 'We've been telling folks for a while that we thought it was easier for them to make a run at the power sector or the oil and gas sector than the vehicle sector, just because of the word 'significantly' in the statute,' said Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA air chief under former President George W. Bush. But if EPA's bid to label power plants as insignificant contributors to harmful pollution survives the inevitable legal challenges, it could absolve the agency from regulating a wide range of stationary emissions sources under Section 111. That's because the U.S. power sector is a major source of climate pollution. Declaring that it doesn't contribute 'significantly' to pollution could rule out regulation of any source category that emits less pollution — which would be nearly all of them. 'If the courts agree that greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector do not 'significantly contribute' to air pollution that endangers public health or welfare, then this would prevent EPA from regulating greenhouse emissions from any industrial sector,' said Holmstead. Transportation would be a notable exception. It emits more and is regulated under a different section of the law, so the move wouldn't affect tailpipe emissions rules. If the courts agree with EPA's proposed threshold for what constitutes a 'significant' contribution, that could also create hurdles for future administrations, experts said. 'They may well get a judicial decision on what it means to contribute significantly under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act,' said Jonathan Adler, a conservative legal scholar and founding director of Case Western Reserve University's environmental law center. 'That would potentially lock that in place. Not just for power plants, but arguably for other stationary source categories.' Coal- and gas-fired power plants released 31 percent of domestic CO2 emissions from fossil fuels combustion in 2023, according to EPA's own emissions inventory, which the Environmental Defense Fund released this month after obtaining it via a Freedom of Information Act request. That's more than any other source category except transportation. EPA's inventory showed that industrial energy use collectively accounted for 26.3 percent of CO2 from fossil fuels combustion in 2023 — a significant share of emissions but less than the power sector. The 3% problem Section 111 of the Clean Air Act doesn't set a threshold above which sectors are deemed to contribute 'significantly' to climate pollution. The New York Times' reporting hints that EPA may be preparing to propose '3 percent of global emissions' as that threshold, but experts agree that the agency would need to give a strong justification for choosing that as the cutoff. Only six economies emit more than 3 percent of global emissions, comprising China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia and Brazil. In other words, the U.S. power sector is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the national emissions of most countries. EPA also has the challenge of seeking to introduce this threshold — for the first time in the Clean Air Act's 50-year history — a year after the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision to sharply limit the degree of deference courts afford to agencies in interpreting vaguely worded statutes. The Loper Bright v. Raimondo decision upended a decades-old legal precedent known as the Chevron doctrine that directed courts to give agencies the benefit of the doubt in their 'reasonable' interpretations of laws when Congress' intent was unclear. 'This is a matter of statutory interpretation,' said Joe Goffman, who served as EPA air chief in the Biden administration. 'I think at least in passing, they will regret the demise of Chevron deference.' Holmstead noted that EPA would benefit from statutory language that instructs the EPA administrator to decide 'in his judgment' whether a source category contributes significantly to harmful pollution. Robert Sussman, who served as senior policy counsel at EPA during the Obama administration, said that EPA would also need to explain a rule from Trump's first term — which was never implemented — that sought to make 3 percent of domestic greenhouse gas emissions the threshold for a finding of significant contribution under Section 111. That's a much lower bar than 3 percent of global emissions, and EPA said explicitly at the time that the power sector qualified as contributing significantly. 'They would need to demonstrate why the rule that they themselves promulgated in the first term no longer represents their thinking,' Sussman said. The Trump EPA's strategy on endangerment shows it trying to avoid a frontal assault on climate science, relying instead on 'a fairly narrow legal formulation that they can apply without much effort,' said Sussman. The administration hasn't devoted any time to building an alternative scientific record to support its bid to overturn the foundational scientific finding — as it considered doing during Trump's first term. Less than a month after inauguration day, EPA sent the White House recommendations for upending the agency's 2009 endangerment finding, which declared that greenhouse gas emissions endangered public health and welfare. The power plant repeal proposal followed a couple of months later. But Sussman said the agency would need to provide analysis based on science for the criteria it proposes for sources that 'contribute significantly.' 'They will actually have to, I think, get into the science of climate change here in order to have an intelligent position on what is a 'significant contribution,'' he said. 'If you just pick a number out of the air — like 3 percent — how can that number be meaningful without regard to the context of the pollution problem that you're trying to address?' Environmental lawyers see another statutory problem. EPA has always considered all the pollution from a source category — like power plants or oil refineries — when interpreting Section 111. That means the agency might have to argue that U.S. power plants don't contribute significantly to any harmful pollution, not just planet-warming emissions, to undo its 1971 decision to list fossil fuel power plants under Section 111. 'Administratively, this is a through line of EPA's interpretation,' said Patrick A. Parenteau, a senior fellow of climate policy in the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School. The Biden EPA did discuss the greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants as part of the carbon rule it finalized last year. It stated the sector was responsible for 4 percent of global heat-trapping emissions, based on 2021 data. But Goffman said that information was included at EPA's discretion, not because Section 111 required a separate significant contribution finding for power plant carbon emissions. But Holmstead said courts have never weighed in on whether that EPA interpretation is the best reading of the statute. And he said he thought the Trump administration was right to argue — as it likely will — that the statute requires a dedicated finding for each pollutant, not just for source categories. 'It doesn't make any sense to say that EPA can regulate any pollutant that it wants, even if there's no sense in regulating it,' he said. 'I don't always agree with the legal positions of this administration, but I think they're right on this one.'
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘Mountainhead,' billionaire tech bros watch the world burn
At the beginning of 'Mountainhead,' written and directed by Jesse Armstrong of 'Succession' fame and premiering Saturday on HBO, three multibillionaire tech bros make their way by private plane, helicopter and SUV caravan to join a fourth in a big modernist house on an isolated, snowy mountaintop for a weekend of poker and drugs — 'no deals, no meals, no high heels.' One might wish for an avalanche, were there anything higher to fall on them. Venis (Cory Michael Smith), the world's richest man — imagine Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg put in a blender, as perhaps you have — commands a social media site with, wait for it, four billion subscribers, and has just released new 'content tools' that allow for super high-res 'unfalsifiable deep fakes.' As a result, the sectarian world is going up in flames. Jeff (Ramy Youssef), a rival who had poached members of Venis' team, has an AI algorithm capable of filtering out the bad information which Venis, closing the digital barn door after the cow is out, wants to acquire; but Jeff, for reasons of profit, power and/or ego, is not going to let it go. Randall (Steve Carell), their gray-haired guru — they call him 'Papa Bear,' though Jeff also dubs him 'Dark Money Gandalf' — controls a lot of international infrastructure, including military. Preoccupied with his mortality — told by his latest oncologist that his cancer is incurable, he responds, 'You are not a very intelligent person' — he's hoping to upload his consciousness to the grid, a possibility Venis assures him is only five years off as long as he can get his hands on Jeff's AI. The relatively inoffensive Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), whose house it is, hopes to expand the meditation app he created, into a lifestyle super app — offering 'posture correction, therapy and a brand new color' — with his friends' investment of 'a b-nut,' i.e., a billion dollars. They call him 'Souper,' for 'soup kitchen,' because he is worth only $521 million. He's the runt of the litter, and the comedy relief. For no given reason, they call themselves the Brewsters — perhaps just so they can crow 'cock-a-doodle-brew.' They are full of themselves — 'The great thing about me,' says Randall, 'is that I know everyone and do everything' — and basically insecure. They rewrite their fundamental nihilism into the belief that their business is good for mankind, whatever the actual human cost. 'You're always going to get some people dead,' Randall says. 'Nothing means anything,' Venis says, 'and everything's funny and cool.' (But he does miss his mother and, in a particularly creepy interlude, his baby is brought up the mountain for an uncomfortable minute.) In the only scene to take them out of the house, the four travel to the crest of a mountain, where Hugo writes each man's net worth in lipstick on his chest, they don hierarchical headgear and shout, 'Mountain god accelerator legacy manifestation!' into the valley below, each adding a wish. It is, seemingly, something they have done before. Randall name-checks philosophers — Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Plato, Marcus Aurelius — he misunderstands to his advantage and drops references to the Catiline Conspiracy and the Battle of Actium to make base actions sound important and dignified. He calls the president a 'simpleton' — one assumes Armstrong is reflecting on the current one — but for all their power, money and influence, they all lack wisdom. And if recent years have taught us anything, it's that these things are not mutually exclusive. Venis thinks the violence engulfing the globe, which cannot touch him, may prove cathartic; Randall is 'excited about these atrocities.' They discuss taking over 'failing nations' to 'show them how it's done.' (In perhaps the film's funniest line, Hugo, who has been working on his house, muses, 'I don't know if I want to run Argentina on my own — not on the back of a major construction project.') They trade in gobbledygook phrases like 'AI dooming and decelerationist alarmism,' 'compound distillation effect' and 'bootstrap to a corporate monarchy, cyber-state it to the singularity, eat the chaos,' which for all I know is just Armstrong quoting things people of this sort have actually said. It seems possible. As the only one with a sense of humor and a semblance of perspective, Jeff is the most sympathetic of this toxic crew. He tracks the worsening world situation with some empathetic concern, but even though he holds the key to end the madness, he does not seem in a hurry to turn it. (Mostly he is concerned with his girlfriend, who is in Mexico, not so much because of the unrest, but because he fears she's having sex.) Still, he stands a little apart, to his peril. The first half of the film proceeds essentially as a play for four characters. Apart from Hugo's asking for 'help with the cold cuts' or inquiring whether everyone's cool with reusing plates, there is a scarcely a line in which people talk like people; it is all theatrical declaration. To some extent it fits the coldness of the quartet — they hug and hoot and occasionally express a droplet of emotion, but the friendship on which they insist is competitive, transactional and illusory. They are not good company, but for those of us less than impressed by the whole 'move fast and break things' thing, or not willing to bow down before ChatGPT and OpenAI or the actual tech billionaires deforming the world, there is some fun in watching them fall apart. In some ways, 'Mountainhead' (rhymes with 'Fountainhead') feels as much a public service as an entertainment. So thanks for that, Jesse Armstrong. When, in the farcical, action-oriented second half, some attempt to execute a … plot, they bumble and argue and push each other to the front. It is an old kind of movie comedy, and works pretty much as intended.
