Special report: Maddy Cusack – why her family want a new investigation into her death
11Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Sports

Special report: Maddy Cusack – why her family want a new investigation into her death

It is the heartbreaking story of a talented and popular footballer, her tragic death and the investigation into a family’s complaints about what they believe caused her emotional anguish.Maddy Cusack’s death in September sent shockwaves throughout the sport and plunged Sheffield United into a state of mourning for their longest-serving player. As her parents, David and Deborah, tried to get through their first Christmas without their eldest daughter, fans launched a petition to retire her No 8 shirt as a permanent tribute.“She fell in love with Sheffield United, the fans and the city of Sheffield,” Deborah told a memorial service in October. “Maddy became Miss Sheffield United and adored every minute of it. This was her home, the place she envisioned she would hang up her boots one day.”Cu...
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Billion of New Bitcoin Funds Change Hands in First Trading Day
11Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Technology

$3 Billion of New Bitcoin Funds Change Hands in First Trading Day

More than $3 billion of a newly approved investment product tied to Bitcoin changed hands in the first few hours of trading on Thursday, as cryptocurrency enthusiasts celebrated a watershed moment for the industry.Eleven of the products, known as exchange-traded funds, or E.T.F.s, started trading on popular platforms such as the Nasdaq a day after federal regulators authorized them, creating a simpler way for investors to bet on the cryptocurrency markets. Major financial firms, including asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity, are offering the E.T.F.s.It may take months to gauge the impact on the cryptocurrency industry, which is still reeling from a recent series of market crashes and high-profile corporate bankruptcies. Initial trading data did not show how much new investment flowe...
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F.A.A. Is Investigating Boeing Over 737 Max 9 Incident
11Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Business

F.A.A. Is Investigating Boeing Over 737 Max 9 Incident

The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday announced it had opened an investigation into whether Boeing failed to ensure that its 737 Max 9 plane was safe and conformed to the design approved by the agency.The F.A.A. said the investigation stemmed from an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane’s loss of a fuselage panel on Friday shortly after it took off from Portland, Ore., leaving a hole in the side of the passenger cabin. The plane returned to Portland to make an emergency landing.“This incident should have never happened and it cannot happen again,” the agency said.This is a developing story. Check back for updates. More information
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How a Show Forced Britain’s Devastating Post Office Scandal Into the Light
10Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
World

How a Show Forced Britain’s Devastating Post Office Scandal Into the Light

More than 700 people convicted of a crime they didn’t commit. At least four suicides. A woman sent to jail while pregnant. Bankruptcies. Marriages broken, lives ruined.The shocking details of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history have been reported for years yet somehow stayed below the radar for most of the public, despite intense efforts by campaigners and investigative journalists.Until last week. A gripping ITV drama series, “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” which began airing on Jan. 1, achieved something that eluded politicians for a decade, cutting through a morass of bureaucratic and legal delays and forcing government action.The show dramatizes the fate of hundreds of people who ran branches of the Post Office across Britain, and who were wrongly accused of th...
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We Are in a Big Covid Wave. But Just How Big?
10Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Health

We Are in a Big Covid Wave. But Just How Big?

The curves on some Covid graphs are looking quite steep, again.Reported levels of the virus in U.S. wastewater are higher than they have been since the first Omicron wave, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though severe outcomes still remain rarer than in earlier pandemic winters.“We are seeing rates are going up across the country,” said Amy Kirby, program lead for the C.D.C.’s National Wastewater Surveillance System. The program now categorizes every state with available data at “high” or “very high” viral activity.The surge might reach its peak this week or soon after, modelers predict, with high levels of transmission expected for at least another month beyond that.Hospitalizations and deaths have remained far lower than in previous years. There wer...
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Michigan stymies Michael Penix Jr., Washington to claim first national championship since 1997 season
10Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Sports

Michigan stymies Michael Penix Jr., Washington to claim first national championship since 1997 season

By Lauren Merola, Max Olson, Austin Meek, Jim Trotter and Nicole AuerbachIt’s been 26 years, but finally, no one has it better than Michigan.The Wolverines rushed for 303 yards and held flame-throwing Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. in check to emerge as the College Football Playoff national champion with a 34-13 defeat of the Huskies on Monday night at NRG Stadium in Houston. The win marked Michigan’s first national title since 1997 and the completion of a long-anticipated return to the top of college football under head coach Jim Harbaugh.The Wolverines, who entered the night ranked second in the FBS in passing yards allowed per game, held the Heisman Trophy runner-up Penix to 255 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions on 27-of-51 passing, well below the usual output from th...
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SEC’s X Account Hacked, Causing Frenzy Over Bitcoin ETF
10Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Technology

SEC’s X Account Hacked, Causing Frenzy Over Bitcoin ETF

For 15 minutes, the cryptocurrency industry was euphoric.At 4:11 p.m. on Tuesday, the official X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that regulators had approved a new investment product tracking the price of Bitcoin, an apparent victory for the embattled crypto industry. Coinbase, a giant crypto exchange, posted a celebratory banner. Crypto fans hailed it as a historic day for the industry. Bitcoin’s price spiked.Then at 4:26 p.m., Gary Gensler, the chair of the S.E.C., posted that the agency’s account had been compromised, resulting in an “unauthorized tweet.” An S.E.C. spokeswoman confirmed the hack in an emailed statement.The security breach was the latest twist in the crypto industry’s yearslong pursuit of an investment vehicle known as an exchange traded fund ...
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World Bank Warns of Energy Price Surge if Mideast War Spreads
10Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Business

World Bank Warns of Energy Price Surge if Mideast War Spreads

The global economy is at risk of a “wasted” decade and the weakest stretch of growth in 30 years, the World Bank warned on Tuesday, saying a sluggish recovery from the pandemic and crippling wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are expected to weigh heavily on output.In its semiannual Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank projected that the growth in world output will slow further in 2024, declining to 2.4 percent from 2.6 percent. Although the global economy has been surprisingly resilient, the report warned that its forecasts were subject to heightened uncertainty because of the two wars, a diminished Chinese economy and the increasing risks of natural disasters caused by global warming.The converging crises in recent years have put the world economy on track for the weakest ha...
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Quebec Still Longs for Its Lost Hockey Team, a Nationalist Symbol
9Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
World

Quebec Still Longs for Its Lost Hockey Team, a Nationalist Symbol

When the Nordiques left Quebec nearly 30 years ago, the hockey team’s departure fueled the kind of mythologizing and nostalgia familiar to fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers.The Nordiques’ stint in Quebec, playing there in the N.H.L. from 1979 to 1995, overlapped with the French-speaking province’s two failed attempts to secede from the rest of Canada, and the team’s identity melded with that of their fans: a linguistic minority struggling to assert itself in a part of the world dominated by English speakers.The Nordiques wore their politics on their sleeves, literally, putting the Quebec flag’s fleur-de-lis on their uniforms. They also sang Canada’s national anthem only in French.The team’s exit “left a hole in Quebec City and Quebec regional politics, and a hole in Francophone identity, as wel...
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Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.
8Jan Avatar photoBy Harrison Jordan LewisNo Comments
Health

Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It.

As Covid rises again, killing about 1,500 Americans each week, medical researchers are trying to understand why so few people are taking Paxlovid, a medicine that is stunningly effective in preventing severe illness and death from the disease.A study of a million high-risk people with Covid found that only about 15 percent who were eligible for the drug took it. If instead half of the eligible patients in the United States had gotten Paxlovid during the time period of the research, 48,000 deaths could have been prevented, the authors of the study, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, concluded.It’s not because people don’t know about the drug — most do — but the reluctance seems to come from doctors worried about interactions with other drugs and people wary of a possible reboun...
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