Study identifies surprising culprit behind the poor performance of some NFL teams: ‘The evidence is piling up’
Laurelle Stelle – August 26, 2023
The amount of air pollution in an athlete’s city has a measurable effect on their performance, according to a new study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Researchers from two Louisiana universities recently collected data on two high-level team sports: Major League Baseball (MLB) and the NFL. They then compared those stats to the air quality index for each team’s home city.
Their analysis, published in January, shows that baseball teams commit an extra 0.000993 errors per game for every additional air quality index point, while quarterbacks can expect a 0.23-point dip in their QB rating, an all-around stat for measuring on-field performance.
This study is the latest in a series of recent papers examining the effects of air quality on athletics. Another study published this year found that air pollution impacts running speed, while one conducted in 2017 linked air quality to the number of passes that soccer players made.
In this case, researchers accounted for other factors that might affect performance, like the team’s budget.
Francis Pope, a University of Birmingham professor of atmospheric studies, told The Daily Beast that this data is about more than just the heart and lungs — pollution also affects the brain. Unlike a sport like track in which the athlete is constantly moving, baseball and football are played in short bursts, so errors can easily occur due to failures in judgment.
“Certainly the evidence is piling up,” he told the outlet, “that pollution does appear to have an effect on the cognitive impacts of people, both in the short term and, via increased rates of diseases like Alzheimer’s, the long term.”
Study co-author Jeremy Foreman stressed to the Daily Beast that air quality isn’t the only factor that can affect an athlete’s performance.
“It doesn’t mean that a high-performing quarterback is going to all of a sudden be awful because he’s playing in a certain city,” he said. “But how much better could you be if there was better air?”
Heavy smog covers the skylines of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York on June 7, 2023 (Ed JONES)
From Quebec to British Columbia to Hawaii, North America is facing an extraordinary wildfire season — and regions both near and far have found themselves increasingly blighted by smoke exposure.
Here’s what you should know about air pollution from these blazes.
– What we know –
One of the defining aspects of smoke from wildfires is “particulate matter” — toxins that, in their numbers, can make smoke visible.
Particulate matter of 2.5 micron diameter, PM2.5, is “particularly dangerous for human health and emitted in really large quantities,” Rebecca Hornbrook, an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who flies in planes through smoke for her research, told AFP.
“Typically if you are downwind of a wildfire, that’s the thing that’s causing the majority of the darkening of the sky and the lack of visibility,” she said, such as the shrouded skies seen in New York as a result of fires hundreds of miles away in Quebec earlier this year.
PM2.5 penetrates deep inside the lungs and potentially even the bloodstream.
The average American had already been exposed to 450 micrograms of smoke per cubic meter by early July, worse that the entirety of the years from 2006-2022, economist Marshall Burke at Stanford posted on X recently, citing calculations made by the university’s Environmental Change and Human Outcomes Lab.
Also of concern are invisible substances known as volatile organic compounds such as butane and benzene. These cause eye and throat irritation, while some are known carcinogens.
When VOCs mix with nitrogen oxides — which are produced by wildfires but also are abundant in urban areas from burning fossil fuels — they help form ozone which can exacerbate coughing, asthma, sore throat and difficulty breathing.
– What we don’t know –
Automobile ownership exploded after World War II, and in the decades since scientists have gained insights on how it impacts humans — from the onset of asthma in childhood to increased risk of heart attacks and even dementia later on in life.
That breadth of knowledge is lacking for wildfire smoke, explained Christopher Carlsten, director of the Air Pollution Exposure Laboratory at the University of British Columbia.
Based on the two dozen studies published “there seems to be a greater proportion of respiratory versus cardiovascular effects of smoke as compared to traffic pollution,” he told AFP.
The reason might be that nitric oxides are more prominent in traffic pollution.
Carlsten’s lab has begun conducting human experiments with wood smoke to gain more clarity.
Medical interventions exist, said Carlsten, who is also a physician, including inhaled steroids, non-steroid inflammatories, and air filters — but research is urgently needed to know how best to use them.
– Will it spur action? –
The warming planet also impacts our psychological wellbeing in myriad ways, Joshua Wortzel, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s committee on climate change in mental health, told AFP.
One response is distress, “anger, grief, anxiety, in the face of the natural disasters they expect to come,” with these rates far higher in younger people than older.
Another is mental “acclimatization,” a byproduct of evolution that helps us cope with new stressors, but if we’re not careful can inure us to dangers, much like the proverbial frog in boiling water.
For Hornbrook, who is based in Colorado, what eastern North America experienced in 2023 is what the western side of the continent has already been dealing with for many years — and the global picture is only set to worsen given humanity’s appetite for burning fossil fuels.
While historic pollution regulations helped rein in emissions from cars and industry, climate action will be needed to tackle the wildfire scourge, she said.
“It gets frustrating knowing that we’ve been ringing the warning bell for years and years, and we’re now seeing what we’ve been warning about,” she said, but added there was still hope. “Maybe now people are actually starting to notice and we’ll see some change.”
Most fish oil supplements make unsupported heart health claims, finds new study. Here’s why experts say most people can skip them.
Korin Miller – August 23, 2023
A new study finds that many fish oil supplements make health claims that aren’t backed up by research. (Getty Images)
For years, fish oil supplements were promoted as an important way to boost health and particularly heart health. But recent research has shown mixed results on their impact, despite some supplement companies continuing to promote their products as having a big influence on health.
Still, nearly 10% of U.S. adults take fish oil supplements. Now, a new study finds that many fish oil companies make claims that are untested, and that a wide variety of amounts of omega-3 fatty acids — the core healthy fats in fish oil — are in their supplements.
What the study says
The study finds that the majority of fish oil supplements on the market make health claims that aren’t backed up by clinical trial data.
What are the key findings?
For the study, researchers analyzed the labels of more than 2,800 fish oil supplements and found that 2,082 (or nearly 74%) made at least one health claim. Of those, only 399 (19.2%) used a qualified health claim that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (A qualified health claim means that the statements are supported by scientific evidence.)
But nearly 81% of those supplements made claims about the structure or function of what the supplements could do, such as saying that they “promote heart health,” with cardiovascular claims being the most common.
The researchers also found “substantial variability” in the supplements’ daily dose of omega-3s EPA and DHA — two major compoundsin fish oil.
The researchers noted in the study’s conclusion that most fish oil supplement labels make health claims “that imply a health benefit across a variety of organ systems, despite a lack of trial data showing efficacy.” There is also “significant” diversity and quality in the daily dose of EPA and DHA in supplements, “leading to potential variability in safety and efficacy” between them.
Joanna Assadourian, lead study author and a fourth-year medical student at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, tells Yahoo Life that “based on what I’ve seen personally in the grocery store and pharmacy, I was not surprised to find such high rates of health claims on fish oil supplements. What was surprising, though, was just how broad the types of claims being made was — from heart and brain health to joint health, eye health and immune function.”
The study’s co-author, Dr. Ann Marie Navar, associate professor of medicine at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, tells Yahoo Life that “as a preventive cardiologist, I see patients in clinic all the time taking fish oil with the belief it is helping their heart. They are often surprised when I tell them that randomized trials have shown no benefit for fish oil supplements on heart attacks or strokes.”
Navar adds: “And we’ve all been in the supplement aisles of the grocery store or pharmacy and seen the massive number of products all claiming different types of potential health benefits. We wanted to better characterize what types of claims are being made on fish oil supplement labels.”
What experts think
It’s worth noting that supplements are a largely unregulated industry in the U.S. Companies can put new supplements on the market without FDA approval — they’re just expected to adhere to FDA guidelines about safety and labeling. The agency also monitors reports of adverse events after products are up for sale.
“This is an important reminder that supplements are not FDA regulated, and you may not truly know what is in the bottle, despite what the label says,” Dr. Ali Haider, an interventional cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, tells Yahoo Life. “This also highlights that the ‘health benefits’ touted by many supplement manufacturers are often not based on real evidence and are misleading. Patients need to be aware and educated before spending money on unhelpful products.”
This is an issue with all supplements, Dr. Cheng-Han Chen, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Disease Program at MemorialCare Saddleback medical center in Laguna Hills, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. “I always tell patients to be cautious with supplements because any manufacturer can put anything they want in a pill and say whatever they want about it,” he says. “Fish oil is no different.”
Why do so many people continue to take fish oil supplements despite this? “Many people take fish oil because of longstanding beliefs about its potential health benefits, particularly for heart health,” registered dietitian Scott Keatley, co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy, tells Yahoo Life. “The supplement industry, anecdotal evidence and earlier studies have often promoted these benefits. Once a narrative becomes deeply embedded in popular culture, it can be difficult to change, even when new evidence emerges.”
When doctors use DHA and EPA in clinical practice, “it’s generally at doses of 2 to 4 grams a day to help lower triglyceride levels in patient with high triglycerides,” Haider says. (Triglycerides are levels of fat in the blood.) But, she adds, “studies have not shown that fish oil supplements reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke.”
Navar admits that the messaging around fish oil supplements is “confusing,” chalking it up to evolving science and slow administrative processes. “Epidemiologists first found that people who eat more fish and who have higher levels of EPA and DHA in their blood have less heart disease,” she explains. “This led people to think there could be a benefit to fish oil. In fact, this type of data is what led the FDA in 2003 to approve a qualified health claim for fish oil that it may lower the risk of coronary heart disease.”
But several large, high-quality, placebo-controlled randomized trials since then haven’t shown any benefit for the general population to take fish oil to prevent heart disease. “Despite these two trials showing no benefit, many people still believe fish oil has some benefit,” Navar says. “The landscape here is really confusing — even though large clinical trials show no benefit for prevention of heart disease, the 2003 FDA qualified health claim is still active.” As a result, manufacturers of fish oil supplements can legally make claims like “promotes heart health,” even though recent data doesn’t support that, she says.
Why it matters
There are two FDA-approved fish oil-based drugs, “but they’re for very specific indications, like people with high triglycerides,” Chen says. For everyone else, fish oils aren’t really recommended.
“There is potential harm in taking fish oil supplements,” Chen says. “They may have additives and fillers, and we don’t know what they are.” Fish oil can also raise the risk of bleeding and atrial fibrillation, he says.
“I tell my patients that large, placebo-controlled trials have failed to show any benefit for prevention of heart attacks and strokes, so if they are taking it to try to lower their risk of those, they can stop,” Navar says. “There are far more effective pills to lower the risk of heart attack and stroke — and fish oil supplements aren’t usually covered by insurance, so they can get expensive.”
Chen recommends speaking to your doctor before taking a fish oil supplement. “Initially, we thought that fish oil was better for treating heart disease than it turned out to be,” he says.
Assadourian agrees, saying: “Supplement labels can be confusing even for the most savvy of consumers. Patients should talk to their doctor about what supplements they are taking and why they are taking them — they may be surprised to learn that they are not getting the health benefits they think they are.”
Anyone who has spent a summer evening swatting away mosquitoes, or a summer day scratching mosquito bites, can agree: Mosquitoes stink. But the smells produced by humans are an important part of what draws mosquitoes to us.
In a scientific report published in May, scientists helped pinpoint the different chemicals in body odor that attract these insects by building an ice-rink size testing arena and pumping in the scents of different people.
Mosquitoes are part of the fly family, and most of the time, they feed on nectar. However, females preparing to produce eggs need a meal with extra protein: blood.
Best-case scenario, getting bitten will just leave you with an itchy red bump. But mosquito bites often turn deadly, thanks to parasites and viruses the insects transmit. One of the most dangerous of these diseases is malaria.
Malaria is a blood-borne disease caused by microscopic parasites that take up residence in red blood cells. When a mosquito bites a person infected with malaria, it sucks up the parasite along with the blood. After developing in the mosquito’s stomach, the parasite “will migrate to the salivary glands and then be spat back out into the skin of another human host when the mosquito blood-feeds again,” said Dr. Conor McMeniman, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute in Baltimore.
Malaria has been eradicated in the United States in the past century thanks to window screens, air-conditioning and improvements to drainage systems where mosquitoes’ aquatic larvae can grow, but the disease remains a danger to much of the world.
“Malaria still accounts for more than 600,000 deaths per year, mostly in children under the age of 5 years, and also pregnant women,” said McMeniman, senior author of the study published in the journal Current Biology.
“It inflicts a lot of suffering around the world, and part of the motivation for this study was to try and really understand how mosquitoes that transmit malaria are finding humans.”
McMeniman, along with Bloomberg postdoctoral researchers and the study’s first authors, Drs. Diego Giraldo and Stephanie Rankin-Turner, focused on Anopheles gambiae, a species of mosquito found in sub-Saharan Africa. They partnered with Zambia’s Macha Research Trust, led by scientific director Dr. Edgar Simulundu.
“We were really motivated to try and develop a system where we could study the behavior of the African malaria mosquito in a naturalistic habitat, reflective of its native home in Africa,” McMeniman said. The researchers also wanted to compare the mosquitoes’ smell preferences across different humans, to observe the insects’ ability to track scents across distances of 66 feet (20 meters), and to study them during their most active hours, between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Researchers set up a screened facility the size of skating rink to help understand how mosquitoes that transmit malaria find humans. – Julien Adam/Macha Research Trust/Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute
To tick all these boxes, the researchers created a screened facility the size of a skating rink. Dotting the perimeter of the facility were six screened tents where study participants would sleep. Air from their tents, carrying the participants’ unique breath and body odor scents, was pumped through long tubes to the main facility onto absorbent pads, warmed and baited with carbon dioxide to mimic a sleeping human.
Hundreds of mosquitoes in the main 20-by-20-meter facility were then treated to a buffet of the sleeping subjects’ scents. Infrared cameras tracked the mosquitoes’ movement to the different samples. (The mosquitoes used in the study were not infected with malaria, and they couldn’t reach the sleeping humans.)
The researchers found what many who have been on a picnic would attest to: Some people attract more mosquitoes than others. What’s more, chemical analyses of air from the tents revealed the odor-causing substances behind the mosquitoes’ attraction, or lack thereof.
The mosquitoes were most attracted to airborne carboxylic acids, including butyric acid, a compound present in “stinky” cheeses such as Limburger. These carboxylic acids are produced by bacteria on human skin and tend not to be noticeable to us.
While carboxylic acids attracted the mosquitoes, the insects seemed to be deterred by another chemical called eucalyptol, which is present in plants. The researchers suspected that one sample with a high eucalyptol concentration might have been related to the diet of one of the participants.
Simulundu said that finding a correlation between the chemicals present in different people’s body odor and the mosquitoes’ attraction to those scents was “very interesting and exciting.”
“This finding opens up approaches for developing lures or repellents that can be used in traps to disrupt the host-seeking behavior of mosquitoes, thereby controlling malaria vectors in regions where the disease is endemic,” said Simulundu, a coauthor of the study.
Dr. Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist and vice president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute who was not involved with the study, was similarly enthusiastic. “I think it’s a super exciting study,” she said. “It’s the first time that an experiment of this type has been done at this scale outside the lab.”
Vosshall researches another mosquito species that spreads dengue fever, Zika and chikungunya. In a study published in 2022 in the journal Cell, she and her colleagues found that this mosquito species also seeks out the scent of carboxylic acids produced by bacteria on human skin. The fact that these two different species respond to similar chemical cues is a good thing, she said, because that could make it easier to create repellents or traps for mosquitoes across the board.
The research might not have any immediate implications for avoiding bug bites at your next barbecue. (Vosshall said that even scrubbing with unscented soap doesn’t get rid of the natural scents that attract mosquitoes.) However, she noted that the new paper “gives us some really good clues about what mosquitoes are using to hunt us, and understanding what that is, is essential for us to come up with the next steps.”
Kate Golembiewski is a freelance science writer based in Chicago who geeks out about zoology, thermodynamics and death. She hosts the comedy talk show “A Scientist Walks Into a Bar.”
Chemical treatment to be deployed against invasive fish in Colorado River: Humpback Chub Protection
Associated Press – August 18, 2023
This undated photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a humpback chub in the Colorado River basin in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. The National Park Service will renew efforts to rid an area of the Colorado River in northern Arizona of invasive fish by killing them with a chemical treatment, the agency said Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. It’s the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle to keep non-native smallmouth bass and green sunfish at bay below the Glen Canyon Dam and to protect a threatened native fish, the humpback chub. (Travis Francis/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP, File)Juvenile smallmouth bass sit at a National Park Service laboratory near Page, Ariz., July 1, 2022. The National Park Service will renew efforts to rid an area of the Colorado River in northern Arizona of invasive fish by killing them with a chemical treatment, the agency said Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. It’s the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle to keep non-native smallmouth bass and green sunfish at bay below the Glen Canyon Dam and to protect a threatened native fish, the humpback chub. (Jeff Arnold/National Park Service via AP, File)
PAGE, Ariz. (AP) — The National Park Service will renew efforts to rid an area of the Colorado River in northern Arizona of invasive fish by killing them with a chemical treatment, the agency said Friday.
A substance lethal to fish but approved by federal environmental regulators called rotenone will be disseminated starting Aug. 26. It’s the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle to keep non-native smallmouth bass and green sunfish at bay below the Glen Canyon Dam and to protect a threatened native fish, the humpback chub.
The treatment will require a weekend closure of the Colorado River slough, a cobble bar area surrounding the backwater where the smallmouth bass were found and a short stretch up and downstream. Chemical substances were also utilized last year.
The effort will “be carefully planned and conducted to minimize exposure” to humans as well as “desirable fish species,” according to the National Park Service. An “impermeable fabric barrier” will be erected at the mouth of the slough to prevent crossover of water with the river.
Once the treatment is complete, another chemical will be released to dilute the rotenone, the park service said.
In the past, smallmouth bass were sequestered in Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam, which had served as a barrier to them for years. But last summer, they were found in the river below the dam.
Due to climate change and drought, Lake Powell, a key Colorado River reservoir, dropped to historically low levels last year, making it no longer as much of an obstacle to the smallmouth bass. The predatory fish were able to approach the Grand Canyon, where the largest groups of the ancient and rare humpback chub remain.
Environmentalists have accused the federal government of failing to act swiftly. The Center for Biological Diversity pointed to data from the National Park Service released Wednesday showing the smallmouth bass population more than doubled in the past year. The group also said there still have been no timelines given on modifying the area below the dam.
“I’m afraid this bass population boom portends an entirely avoidable extinction event in the Grand Canyon,” said Taylor McKinnon, the Center’s Southwest director. “Losing the humpback chub’s core population puts the entire species at risk.”
Conservation groups also continue to criticize the 2021 decision to downgrade the humpback chub from endangered to threatened. At the time, federal authorities said the fish, which gets its name from a fleshy bump behind its head, had been brought back from the brink of extinction after decades of protections.
Gulf Coast officials are scrambling to prepare for two weather disasters to combine in deadly fashion
Rachel Ramirez, CNN – August 19, 2023
It’s been a sweltering summer for much of the US, with temperatures reaching new highs seemingly every day. And along the Gulf Coast, officials are now grappling with how to handle two potentially deadly disasters set to compound: a hurricane and extreme heat.
In New Orleans, this summer was the first time officials were forced to tap into their “rainy day” fund, which is typically meant for hurricane emergency response, to address heat emergencies.
“It’s really a new frontier for us,” Anna Nguyen, public information officer for New Orleans Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness, told CNN.
Last week, the city issued an emergency declaration for extreme heat, underscoring rising concerns about widespread power outages ahead of peak hurricane season. Without air conditioning and sufficient shelter capacity, the cascading effects of these dual disasters could be deadly for the most vulnerable people.
Hazards indirectly related to storms, like exposure to heat, kill nearly as many people as the storm itself, NOAA data shows. Nearly 22% of those so-called indirect deaths were caused by heat and generator misuse from 2013 to 2022. Experts have also said that extreme heat is a silent killer and can be a major contributing factor in the overall hurricane death toll.
Emergency response officials in major urban areas like Miami-Dade County, New Orleans and Houston — places that have endured blistering temperatures this summer — told CNN that they’ve had to rethink extreme weather.
“Climate change is functioning as a threat multiplier, and we’re seeing more and more often dual threats happening at once,” Christopher Dalbom, assistant director at the Tulane Center for Environmental Law, told CNN. “Anybody who’s been without power during hurricane season in the Gulf knows that even without an official emergency declaration for excessive heat, it gets pretty excessive.”
Cascading effects
Extreme heat has baked the Gulf Coast for weeks this summer. – Christiana Botic/The New York Times/Redux
The Gulf Coast is no stranger to hurricanes, but consecutive days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit are a new experience for many.
An intense hurricane and extreme heat could be a deadly combination because storm destruction and widespread power outages would leave people exposed and vulnerable to heat, said Nikisha Williams, managing director of collective impact at The Miami Foundation.
“If Miami experienced extreme heat at the same time, portions of our community would have no relief for what could be days or weeks,” Williams told CNN. “This is extremely dangerous for the most vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly.”
Texas is no different. Over the past few years, Houston has endured devastating hurricanes, a deadly winter freeze, drought, forest fires and now oppressive heat. Officials there are still navigating how to properly prepare for the rapidly changing extreme weather to avoid mass casualties.
“Climate change has really been a huge eye-opener for us,” Thomas Muñoz, emergency management coordinator for Houston’s Office of Emergency Management, told CNN. “It’s so unpredictable now, I can say that. We’ve never seen record-breaking days like this.”
With dozens of record-high temperatures being set across Florida since the start of June, coupled with brutal humidity that has made the heat even more dangerous, Miami-Dade County officials have been scrambling to prepare for the day that extreme heat might combine with a landfalling hurricane.
Pete Gomez, director of emergency management in Miami-Dade County, said the county has been ramping up emergency management and disaster recovery efforts, especially when it comes to addressing both storm threats and extreme heat.
Residents gather at recreation center after Hurricane Ida in New Orleans on Sept. 3, 2021. – Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images
In 2021, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava appointed the nation’s first ever chief heat officer with the goal of raising the public’s awareness about the dangers of extreme heat to the same level as hurricanes.
Since then, she has expanded initiatives to prepare for a dual-disaster scenario. The county was able to secure funding to install air conditioning units in some affordable housing that did not have any. Gomez said all shelters have backup generator systems to keep residents cool, and they’ve also established relationships with the county’s homeless trust and nonprofit groups, including The Miami Foundation.
“That’s the revision we need so we can meet the needs of the community,” Gomez said. “Part of that need is preparedness, getting the message out, and making sure that everything is done to try to minimize the impact of these events as much as possible.”
But Williams, who was born and raised in Miami, said the county is still not fully prepared due to rapidly changing demographics and the need for more widespread messaging and education on living in a region prone to climate disasters.
“I feel like I’m betraying my city, but the reality is we’re not prepared,” she said. “Every storm brings something incredibly different if I’m being honest. There’s always something new that we didn’t think of. And so, even in the best of situations, we probably will not be 100% prepared.”
“But I think we are more prepared today than we were before,” Williams added.
Lessons learned
Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust representatives distribute bottles of water and shelter information during a heat wave in Miami, Florida, on July 25, 2023. – Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Emergency management officials from New Orleans and Houston say they are well-equipped and prepared for both disasters to happen, despite the unprecedented nature of how climate change has recently been taking shape.
In Houston, Muñoz said they have expanded their outreach, including revising messaging about resources available in the event of a disaster. They are not only deploying more languages like American sign language to accommodate the city’s diverse population, but they are also fostering partnerships with nonprofit groups and grassroots organizations.
“The best thing for us that I’ve learned is just that constant communication with people throughout the year and then when we start the process of seeing something, we do a lot of calling like what do y’all need? What I do we have issues?” Muñoz said. “It’s like we are constantly looking at the what ifs and then we work towards that, and of course, we capture the lessons learned and how we can do better.”
For New Orleans, Nguyen said that they’re continuously taking what they have learned from previous storms and are translating it to heat emergencies. Since Hurricane Katrina, she said officials have built robust relationships with the community in order to work toward preparedness and quick recovery.
“New Orleans has been battle-tested,” Nguyen said. “There’s always going to be room for improvement, that’s the nature of this work — you can always do things better, but it’s how do we take lessons learned and apply it to what’s in front of us now.”
This is the best exercise to lower blood pressure, study finds
A. Pawlowski – August 18, 2023
High blood pressure is known as the “silent killer” because it often comes with no symptoms and puts people at a higher risk of heart disease.
Exercise can lower blood pressure without medication, so experts have been urging doctors to prescribe it for people with hypertension, which is defined at or above 130/80 mmHg.
But what kind of exercise is best?
A recent review of studies suggests it’s isometric exercise, particularly the wall squat.
Two people doing wall sits together. (FilippoBacci / Getty Images)
Unlike walking or running, which is all about movement, isometric exercise involves contracting muscles and holding that position for a few minutes without moving. It’s static, but very intense. Think of a plank.
The paper, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found all types of physical activity — including aerobic exercise, resistance training and high-intensity interval training — were “significantly effective” in reducing resting blood pressure.
But isometric exercise was the most effective. It reduced systolic blood pressure (the upper number of the reading) by 8 points and diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) by 4 points, the authors write.
The findings are based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of 270 randomized controlled trials that involved more than 15,000 participants and looked at the effects of various modes of exercise on resting blood pressure.
It’s not clear why isometric exercises are so effective, but it appears to be linked to the unique physiological response to a static muscle contraction, says Jamie Edwards, the lead study author.
“When holding this contraction, the local blood vessels in the surrounding area become mechanically compressed by the contracting muscles,” Edwards, a researcher and instructor at Canterbury Christ Church University in England, tells TODAY.com.
“On release of this contraction — for example, when you stand up from a squatting position — there is a reactive rush of blood flow to the vessels, which causes the release of molecules that (widen) your vessels.”
How to do a wall squat:
The wall squat was the most effective individual exercise in the isometric category, Edwards and his colleagues found.
It’s simple, but incredibly intense. Stephanie Mansour, a certified personal trainer, instructs people to lean against a wall with feet hip-width apart and slide down into a squat. Feet should be far enough from the wall so that the knee joints can form a 90-degree angle, with thighs parallel to the floor.
Edwards suggested doing four wall squats lasting 2 minutes each, separated by rest intervals of 1 to 4 minutes. This should be done three times per week. Keep breathing normally throughout an isometric contraction, he advises.
It’s likely that repeating this pattern over several weeks results in sustained reductions in blood pressure, Edwards notes.
Cardiologist’s take
Dr. Luke Laffin, co-director of the Center for Blood Pressure Disorders at the Cleveland Clinic, says there’s no question people need to exercise to manage their blood pressure.
But the ultimate goal is to reduce the risk for strokes and heart attacks, and study after study has shown aerobic physical activity — like walking, cycling or running — is better than isometric exercise when it comes to lowering cardiovascular risk, he notes.
“Aerobic exercise training should be promoted above all else,” Laffin tells TODAY.com.
He recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic physical activity per week, split most any way people want. Studies show “weekend warriors” who squeeze all their exercise into two days get similar health benefits as people who do more frequent shorter workouts.
Moderate intensity activity means you can carry on a conversation while you’re doing it, Laffin says.
Different types of exercise can offer different benefits, so a combination of cardio, resistance training and high-intensity interval training can be best, with isometric exercise considered complimentary to those workouts, both Laffin and Edwards say.
Who should avoid isometric exercise?
People with aortic aneurysms or history of aortic dissection should avoid it, Laffin says. Women make up most cases of spontaneous coronary artery dissection — a tear or a bleed within the layers of a heart artery wall.
Isometric exercise produces a sudden acute load on the aorta, which can lead to further damage, Laffin warns.
How long does it take to lower blood pressure with exercise?
Exercise has been associated with “immediate significant reductions” in systolic blood pressure (the upper number of the reading), which can last for almost 24 hours, studies have found. This is known as post-exercise hypotension.
The body releases nitric oxide, which causes blood vessels to open wider for improved blood flow, Laffin says.
A sustained change would take about three months of regular exercise, Bethany Barone Gibbs, a vascular researcher who studies the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic disease, previously told TODAY.com.
Some of the ways extreme heat will change life as we know it
Julia Jacobo – August 10, 2023
Some of the ways extreme heat will change life as we know it
Life as we know it could soon change if extreme, dangerous heat continues to inundate regions for longer stretches of time and at higher temperatures, according to experts.
A large part of the U.S., including much of the southern portion stretching from the West Coast, across Texas and to the Southeast, has been experiencing triple-digit temperatures and heat indexes for weeks on end.
Record-breaking temperatures have been the norm in several cities in recent weeks, including Phoenix, which has now seen more than 40 consecutive days at about 110 degrees.
Hotter-than-ever temperatures, and longer periods of time when they occur, will become the norm unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically curbed, mitigating further global warming, according to climate scientists. Americans could see an average of 53 more days of extreme heat by 2050, if emissions aren’t reduced, according to climate modeling data released by the ICF Climate Center in June.
The increased heat is guaranteed to alter how society operates, experts told ABC News.
Summer is synonymous with time spent outdoors for school-aged children all over the world.
But parents may be cautious about letting their kids spend prolonged periods of time outdoors when temperatures are nearing triple digits, especially if air quality is poor or UV indexes high, experts told ABC News.
“The great outdoors go from being a magical place of exploration to a threatening place, full of fear,” Lise Van Susteren, a general and forensic psychiatrist who has researched how climate change has affected the psychological health of young people, told ABC News.
PHOTO: A World Youth Day volunteer uses a small fan to cool off from the intense heat, just outside Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, 2023. (Armando Franca/AP)
Less time outdoors could also be detrimental for children’s development. Research shows outdoor time is linked with improved motor development and lower obesity rates and nearsightedness in children. Outdoor play also promotes curiosity, creativity and critical thinking and is linked with behavior displaying less anger and aggression, studies have shown.
Few things could be more injurious to a child’s development than to be cooped up inside year-round, Van Susteren said, adding that humans have evolved to find the sounds and sights of nature meaningful and necessary for a healthy outlook.
“Yeah, you could always build something artificial. But don’t expect it to do for us mentally, which includes our ability to empathize and be generous, and to feel a sense of adventure,” she said.
Evidence that being holed up indoors is detrimental to kids’ mental health surmounted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which added more to the preexisting psychological distress among young people, according to the U.S. Surgeon General.
Athletes of all ages and levels will likely need to alter their training to stay safe during extreme heat, but those training for intense competitions that take place in a scorching climate need to be especially careful, said Brian Maiorano, coach liason for Core, a wearable tech that allows athletes to measure their core body temperature on the go.
Those training for competitions and races will need to adapt to the higher temperatures in order to participate safely, said Maiorano, who has coached athletes for running competitions and triathlons for 15 years.
“The human body is extremely adaptable, if given the right training,” he said.
Rather than training indoors in a climate-controlled setting, athletes will need to train outside and get their core body temperature to a level that will cause physiological adaptions, Maiorano said. Otherwise, athletes will suffer on race day.
Temperatures in the 90s are considered extreme for endurance athletes, while temperatures in the 80s would be considered extreme for those training for an event with even more difficulty and physical exertion, like the Ironman Triathlon, Maiorano said. About 80% of the heat in the body is generated by the power in the muscles, he said.
“It’s like literally having a space heater inside of you,” he said.
PHOTO: Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews gets relief from the heat next to a water mister during the team’s NFL football training camp, July 29, 2023, in Baltimore. (Nick Wass/AP)
Up until a few years ago, heat training was an “imprecise practice,” Maiorano said.
People training for events in warm climates — like the Hawaii Ironman and the Western States Endurance Run, which is a 100-mile race through the desert in California — were likely told by their coaches to go out during the hottest part of the day while wearing multiple layers of clothes.
“Cook yourself, but don’t overcook yourself, which is some really vague guidance,” Maiorano said. “It’s guidance you can give to a top athlete and hope that they don’t cause themselves heatstroke, but it’s not something that you can tell an age group athlete to do.”
Extreme heat will affect travel decisions people make in the summer, the peak travel season while kids are out of school, Erika Richter, spokesperson for the American Society of Travel Advisers, told ABC News.
“The climate crisis will impact where we go, when we go, and, in some cases, if we go,” Richter said.
The travel industry is already seeing shifts for travel to Greece, France and Spain, Richter said. While the peak tourist season is typically around July, Europe has been reaching record temperatures in recent years during that time. Combined with wildfires, the climate is causing people to travel to those destinations in the spring or early summer instead, Richter said.
People are also starting to choose cooler places for the summer travel season, such as Northern Europe, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, Richter said.
PHOTO: Tourists refresh with water near the Parthenon temple at the Acropolis hill during a heat wave on July 20, 2023 in Athens, Greece. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)
Extreme heat is also heavily affecting air travel.
It is difficult for planes to take off in hot temperatures because as the air warms, it expands, so the number of molecules available to push the plane up is reduced. In June, Richter experienced a six-hour delay on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Portland because the plane could not take off with the number of passengers, she said.
While some passengers took the $1,000 credit offered to give up their seat, the originally nonstop flight had to stop in Missouri to refuel, because the plane could not handle the fuel load needed for the transcontinental flight, Richter said.
Extreme heat can also increase the amount of turbulence passengers experience. A 2017 study found that climate change may cause nearly three times as much clear-air turbulence as current conditions by the period between 2050 and 2080. Clear-air turbulence, which occurs without a visual warning like clouds or thunderstorms and is usually at high altitudes, is currently on the rise worldwide and at varying altitudes, the study found.
There have been several reports of heavy turbulence this summer, including a Hawaiian airlines flight in July that injured several flight attendants and passengers.
The wildfires in Canada, which have been so severe this season in part due to higher temperatures and drought, have impacted travel in the U.S., Richter said.
With more heat and humidity comes the possibility of thunderstorms grounding flights, as well, Richter said.
“We’re used to the thunderstorms for summer travel season,” she said. “But they are becoming much more violent, and they are grounding many more flights.”
As climate change continues to worsen, regions that traditionally did not need air conditioning may need to brace for more heat waves by installing equipment to keep their homes cool.
In places like the Pacific Northwest and the San Francisco Bay Area, the majority of households are not equipped with central air conditioning. In 2021, when a historic heat wave struck the region, window and portable air conditioners were flying off the shelves, Jennifer Amann, senior fellow of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s building program, told ABC News.
Incorporating efficient cooling methods, like using the same pumps that heat homes to cool them, as well, and using efficient window air-conditioning units, will help households keep temperatures bearable in their homes, Amann said,
PHOTO: Ben Gallegos sits on the porch of his family’s home with his dog as the daytime high temperature soars toward triple digits, July 27, 2023, in north Denver. (David Zalubowski/AP)
Heat is the No.1 weather-related killer, with more than 600 people dying from heat-related illnesses every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When temperatures do not cool down overnight, it exacerbates the risk to human health.
Buying an air conditioner is the short-term solution, but people will also need to adapt their homes to better deal with extreme heat, and builders will need to design new homes with more passive mechanisms to navigate the changing climate, Amann said.
MORE: Dangerous temperatures have been recorded in the US for weeks. Is the extreme heat coming to an end soon?
Countries in Europe like France, Italy, Spain, Romania and Germany have been the most affected by climate-related disasters over the past 20 years, an analysis by the Centre for Economic Policy Research found.
Domestically, Texas loses an average of $30 billion a year due to its climate and the large number of people working outdoors, according to a 2021 report by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
PHOTO: A tour guide fans herself while working in Times Square as temperatures rise, July 27, 2023, in New York City. (John Minchillo/AP)
The cumulative global economic loss between 1992 and 2013 reached between $5 trillion and $29.3 trillion due to the impact of human-caused heat waves, according to a study published in 2022 in Science Advances.
The poorest countries in the hottest climates suffered the most, researchers found.
Heat also affects people’s moods, which is essentially survival mode kicking in, Van Susteren said.
“If we’re in a bad mood, we’re not buying,” she said.
Clarence Thomas’s $267,230 R.V. and the Friend Who Financed It
By Jo Becker and Julie Tate – August 5, 2023
The vehicle is a key part of the justice’s just-folks persona. It’s also a luxury motor coach that was funded by someone else’s money.
Justice Clarence Thomas, circa 2000, with his great-nephew and his Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon motor coach.
Justice Clarence Thomas met the recreational vehicle of his dreams in Phoenix, on a November Friday in 1999.
With some time to kill before an event that night, he headed to a dealership just west of the airport. There sat a used Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon, eight years old and 40 feet long, with orange flames licking down the sides. In the words of one of his biographers, “he kicked the tires and climbed aboard,” then quickly negotiated a handshake deal. A few weeks later, Justice Thomas drove his new motor coach off the lot and into his everyman, up-by-the-bootstraps self-mythology.
There he is behind the wheel during a rare 2007 interview with “60 Minutes,” talking about how the steel-clad converted bus allows him to escape the “meanness that you see in Washington.” He regularly slips into his speeches his love of driving it through the American heartland — “the part we fly over.” And in a documentary financed by conservative admirers, Justice Thomas, who was born into poverty in Georgia, waxes rhapsodic about the familiarity of spending time with the regular folks he meets along the way in R.V. parks and Walmart parking lots.
“I don’t have any problem with going to Europe, but I prefer the United States, and I prefer seeing the regular parts of the United States,” he told the filmmakers, adding: “There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer being around that.”
But there is an untold, and far more complex, back story to Justice Thomas’s R.V. — one that not only undercuts the mythology but also leaves unanswered a host of questions about whether the justice received, and failed to disclose, a lavish gift from a wealthy friend.
His Prevost Marathon cost $267,230, according to title history records obtained by The New York Times. And Justice Thomas, who in the ensuing years would tell friends how he had scrimped and saved to afford the motor coach, did not buy it on his own. In fact, the purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters, a close friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.
A circa 1991 advertisement for Marathon coaches. Credit…Marathon
He provided Justice Thomas with financing that experts said a bank would have been unlikely to extend — not only because Justice Thomas was already carrying a lot of debt, but because the Marathon brand’s high level of customization makes its used motor coaches difficult to value.
In an email to The Times, Mr. Welters wrote: “Here is what I can share. Twenty-five years ago, I loaned a friend money, as I have other friends and family. We’ve all been on one side or the other of that equation. He used it to buy a recreational vehicle, which is a passion of his.” Roughly nine years later, “the loan was satisfied,” Mr. Welters added. He subsequently sent The Times a photograph of the original title bearing his signature and a handwritten “lien release” date of Nov. 22, 2008.
But despite repeated requests over nearly two weeks, Mr. Welters did not answer further questions essential to understanding his arrangement with Justice Thomas.
He would not say how much he had lent Justice Thomas, how much the justice had repaid and whether any of the debt had been forgiven or otherwise discharged. He declined to provide The Times with a copy of a loan agreement — or even say if one existed. Nor would he share the basic terms of the loan, such as what, if any, interest rate had been charged or whether Justice Thomas had adhered to an agreed-upon repayment schedule. And when asked to elaborate on what he had meant when he said the loan had been “satisfied,” he did not respond.
“‘Satisfied’ doesn’t necessarily mean someone paid the loan back,” said Michael Hamersley, a tax lawyer and expert who has testified before Congress. “‘Satisfied’ could also mean the lender formally forgave the debt, or otherwise just stopped pursuing repayment.”
Justice Thomas, for his part, did not respond to detailed questions about the loan, sent to him through the Supreme Court’s spokeswoman.
The two men’s silence serves to obscure whether Justice Thomas had an obligation to report the arrangement under a federal ethics law that requires justices to disclose certain gifts, liabilities and other financial dealings that could pose conflicts of interest.
Vehicle loans are generally exempt from those reporting requirements, as long as they are secured by the vehicle and the loan amount doesn’t exceed its purchase price. But private loans like the one between Mr. Welters and Justice Thomas can be deemed gifts or income to the borrower under the federal tax code if they don’t hew to certain criteria: Essentially, experts said, the loan must have well-documented, commercially reasonable terms along the lines of what a bank would offer, and the borrower must adhere to those terms and pay back the principal and interest in full.
Richard W. Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, said that when it comes to questions of disclosure, the ethics treatment of gifts and income often parallels the tax treatment. But those intricacies aside, he said, “justices just should not be accepting private loans from wealthy individuals outside their family.” If they do, he added, “you have to ask, why is a justice going to this private individual and not to a commercial lender, unless the justice is getting something he or she otherwise could not get.”
The Times’s unearthing of the loan arrangement is the latest in a series of revelations showing how wealthy benefactors have bestowed an array of benefits on Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas: helping to pay for his great-nephew’s tuition, steering business to Mrs. Thomas’s consulting firm, buying and renovating the house where his mother lives and inviting the Thomases on trips both domestic and foreign that included travel aboard private jets and a yacht.
Ethical Issues Inside the Supreme Court
A Crisis of Ethics: A debate over ethical standards for Supreme Court justices has intensified after a series of revelations about lavish gifts and financial largess. Our reporter explains the allegations of misconduct and the growing calls for tighter rules.
Scalia Law: George Mason University’s law school cultivated ties to some of the court’s conservative justices with generous pay and unusual perks. In turn, the school gained prestige, donations and influence.
Justice Thomas has pointed to interpretations of the disclosure rules to defend his failure to report much of the largess he has received. He has said he was advised that the trips fell under an exemption for gifts involving “personal hospitality” from close friends, for instance, and a lawyer close to the Thomases contended in a statement that the justice did not need to disclose the tuition because it was a gift to his great-nephew, over whom he had legal custody, rather than to him.
The Thomases’ known benefactors include wealthy men like the Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, the conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo and several members of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, which honors people who succeed despite adversity. Among them: the longtime Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga, who flew the justice around on his jet.
Mr. Welters, while also a Horatio Alger member, stands apart. For one thing, the two men’s friendship predates Justice Thomas’s time on the federal bench. They met around 1980, when both were members of a small, informal club of Black congressional aides to Republican lawmakers — Mr. Welters worked for Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York and Justice Thomas for Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri.
Anthony Welters, shown with his wife Beatrice in 2016, was a close friend of Justice Thomas’s from their time working as congressional aides. Credit…Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for NYU Langone Medical Center
“It wasn’t exactly fashionable to be a Black person working for a Republican, and it was comforting to meet others in the same boat,” the justice wrote in his autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son.”
They had much in common. Like Justice Thomas, Mr. Welters was raised in poverty, sharing a cramped tenement in Harlem with his parents and three brothers and, after his mother’s death when he was 8, shining shoes under an elevated subway to help make ends meet.
As both men climbed the ladder as political appointees in the Reagan administration, their friendship grew. They stayed close after Justice Thomas joined the federal appeals court in Washington in 1990 and Mr. Welters left government to found AmeriChoice, a Medicaid services provider that he sold to UnitedHealthcare for $530 million in stock in 2002 and continued to lead until retiring in 2016. Mr. Welters and his wife, Beatrice, named Justice Thomas the godfather of one of their two boys, according to The Village Voice.
When Justice Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court nomination ran into trouble after a former subordinate, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual harassment, Mr. Welters stood by his friend, providing behind-the-scenes advice, according to a book on the hearings written by Mr. Danforth.
And in 1998, the year before the motor coach purchase, Justice Thomas returned the favor. That is when Mr. Welters and his wife, through their foundation, started the AnBryce scholarship program, which gives underprivileged students a full ride to New York University’s law school, along with networking opportunities and career support. Justice Thomas lent his considerable imprimatur to the program, interviewing applicants in his Supreme Court chambers, mentoring scholars and later hiring one graduate as a clerk.
By that point, the justice had become fixated on owning an R.V., and not just any R.V., but the Rolls-Royce of motor coaches: a custom Prevost Marathon, or as he once put it, a “condo on wheels.”
A Toy for the Rich
Justice Thomas was turned on to the luxury brand by Bernie Little, a fellow Horatio Alger member and the flamboyantly wealthy owner of the Miss Budweiser hydroplane racing boat. Mr. Little had owned 20 to 25 custom motor coaches over the years, Mr. Thomas told C-SPAN in 2001.
Back in those days, a basic Prevost Marathon sold for about a million dollars, and could fetch far more depending on the bells and whistles. It was a rich man’s toy, and the company marketed it that way.
“You drive through a neighborhood in South Florida and you see these $10 million homes,” Bob Phebus, Marathon’s vice president, told The South Florida Business Journal in 2006. “You condense that down, put it on wheels and that’s what we have. It’s the same guy that will have a 100-foot yacht and a private aircraft. They’re accustomed to the finer things in life.”Got a news tip about the courts?If you have information to share about the Supreme Court or other federal courts, please send us a secure tip at nytimes.com/tips.
At the time, the Thomases’ primary source of income was the justice’s salary, then $167,900. He had yet to sell his autobiography, and property and other records show that the couple had significant debt: They had purchased their house in 1992 for $552,000 with 5 percent down, then refinanced it two years later, taking out a 15-year mortgage of $496,000. Plus, they had at least one line of credit of between $15,000 and $50,000.
So, in Justice Thomas’s telling, he began searching for a used Prevost at Mr. Little’s suggestion, one with enough miles on it to depreciate the value. “The depreciation curve — it’s very steep,” he made a point of saying in the 2001 C-SPAN interview.
All these years later, he still hasn’t told some of his closest friends how he was really able to swing the purchase.
“He told me he saved up all his money to buy it,” said Armstrong Williams, a longtime friend who worked closely with Justice Thomas in the Reagan administration.
The title history documents reviewed by The Times show that when the motor coach was sold for $267,230 to the Thomases in 1999, it had only 93,618 miles on it, relatively few for a vehicle that experts say can easily log a million miles in its lifetime. It came equipped with plush leather seating, a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom in the back. In addition to its orange flame motif, it had a large Pegasus painted on the back, according to Jason Mang, the step-grandson of the previous owner, Bonnie Owenby.
“It was superluxury, really bougie,” he recalled.
On Nov. 19, 1999, after spotting the motor coach on the lot of Desert West Coach in Phoenix and putting a hold on it, Justice Thomas attended a dinner at the conservative Goldwater Institute. In a speech that night, he said he had never yearned to be a federal judge. “Pure and simple, I wanted to be rich,” he said.
Wayne Mullis, the owner of the now-defunct Desert West, said in an interview that Justice Thomas never discussed obtaining traditional financing with him, and that “as far as I know, he paid for it.”
Indeed, Justice Thomas would have been hard-pressed to get a loan from a traditional lender. Banks, and even finance companies that specialize in R.V. loans, are particularly reluctant to lend money on used Prevost Marathons because the customized features are hard to value, according to three leading industry executives interviewed by The Times.
“As a rule, the majority of buyers are cash buyers — they don’t finance the Prevost, generally,” said Chad Stevens, owner of an Arizona-based dealership specializing in high-end motor coaches, whose clients include celebrities and politicians. “In 1999, you would need a very strong down payment and a strong financial portfolio to finance one. It is a luxury item.”
While the terms of Mr. Welters’s loan to Justice Thomas are unclear, rules governing loans of more than $10,000 between friends and family are not.
Loans can be reclassified as gifts or income to the borrower, either of which would have to be reported by the justice under court disclosure rules, if any portion of the debt is forgiven or discharged as uncollectable. But even if a lender does not take those steps, a loan can still be considered a reportable gift or income if it doesn’t meet certain standards.
Loan terms should be spelled out in a written agreement, with a clearly defined, regular repayment schedule, tax experts said. Lenders must charge at least the applicable federal interest rate, which was a little over 6 percent in December 1999, when the deal to buy the motor coach closed. And if a borrower is in arrears, lenders must make a good-faith effort to collect, even to the point of going to court.
“Absent that, it’s more of a gift,” said Rich Lahijani, tax director of Edelman Financial Engines, an independent wealth planning and investment advisory firm.
The title history records held by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles do not contain detailed information about the loan itself. What they show is that when the Thomases drove their motor coach back home to Virginia, they registered it in Prince William County, which does not charge personal property tax on R.V.s stored there, unlike Fairfax County, where they live.
Mr. Welters said he released the lien on the vehicle in 2008, and provided this photo of the original title to The Times as evidence. (Addresses and vehicle identification number have been redacted.) Credit…via Anthony Welters
And as of late last month, when The Times reviewed the records, they still listed Mr. Welters as the lien holder, notwithstanding the signed release he said he gave Justice Thomas in 2008 so he could obtain a new, clear title.
Mr. Welters said he could not explain why he was still listed as the holder of the lien. After he gave Justice Thomas the paperwork, he said, “I don’t know what process the borrower should have followed.” (To clear the title, the paperwork should have been brought to the D.M.V., where the lien release would have been recorded and a replacement title issued.) As for Justice Thomas, that was among the matters he declined to discuss with The Times.
‘A Warm, Safe Place’
As details about Justice and Mrs. Thomas’s subsidized trips to vacation homes and resorts have become public in recent months, his professed preference for traveling by motor coach has become something of a “yeah, right” punchline.
But by all accounts, he loves the anonymity, the freedom and the community it affords. He has hosted at least one event at the Supreme Court for a Marathon owners’ club.
Members of the Marathon Coach Club International on the steps of the Supreme Court.Credit…via Marathon Coach
When he hits the road, he often goes unrecognized, which at times has allowed him to travel without a U.S. Marshals’ security detail. Chris Weaver, who worked at Desert West Coach, said the justice had frequently gotten his motor coach serviced there before it closed. “Nine out of 10 times, he was just wearing sweats and a T-shirt,” he said.
Traveling largely through red-state America has also meant that when he is recognized, more often than not it is by fans. Juan Williams, a Fox News commentator who has known Justice Thomas since the Reagan administration, said the motor coach was both the fulfillment of a boyish fantasy and a metaphorical “womb.”
“He talked about the R.V. a lot,” he said. “It was a warm, safe place where he didn’t have to be attacked by liberals and Blacks on the left. What he liked about it was not being pilloried.”
In a 2007 interview, Justice Thomas told Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” that the motor coach enabled him to escape the “meanness that you see in Washington.” Credit…CBS News
In a 2019 Q. and A. at the court, Justice Thomas said he had made it to nearly two dozen states, and declared himself the proud owner of a KOA campground discount card.
But the Thomases’ road trips have hardly been limited to sleeping at campsites and Walmart parking lots.
In a 2009 call-in to a morning radio talk show, for instance, Mrs. Thomas said they were driving their motor coach through the Adirondacks, on their way to “meet some families from Texas.” ProPublica has reported that the Thomases have spent part of nearly every summer for the past two decades in the Adirondacks as a guest of Mr. Crow, who owns a lakeside resort there with more than 25 fireplaces, three boathouses and a painting of the justice, his host and other guests smoking cigars.
The boathouse at Harlan Crow’s Adirondack resort, where Justice Thomas and his wife have vacationed. Credit…Nancie Battaglia for The New York Times
When the Thomases aren’t houseguests, they have stayed at upscale Marathon-endorsed destinations like the Mountain Falls Luxury Motorcoach Resort in Lake Toxaway, N.C.
There, the justice met Larry Fields, who owns a motor-coach-cleaning business. Mr. Fields said that for several days he had had no idea who Justice Thomas was, telling him he would have to wait in line to have his Prevost washed, which he patiently did.
“He was a great guy,” Mr. Fields recalled. “I think we talked about how great Reagan was. He was low-key. It was just him and his wife and a dog.”
Justice and Mrs. Thomas have traveled to Mountain Falls, a luxury motor coach resort in North Carolina. Credit…Greg Eastman
Upkeep on a motor coach like the justice’s is an expensive constant, and other friends have chipped in to help. While he did not disclose Mr. Welters’s assistance in buying the motor coach, he did report that some former clerks got together and bought him deep-cycle batteries for $1,200 the year after he acquired it. He also reported that in 2002, Greg Werner, who ran a large, family-owned, Nebraska-based trucking company, gave him tires worth $1,200.
And over time, Justice Thomas made the motor coach his own. In a photo The Times obtained that appears to date back to the early 2000s, picturing his great-nephew as a child, the motor coach no longer sported the sizzling orange flames and Pegasus logo. Instead, it was painted in an elegant black-and-gold geometric pattern.
But if the custom coach changed, the justice’s friendship with Mr. Welters endured.
While Mr. Welters was an executive at UnitedHealthcare, Justice Thomas twice recused himself from cases involving the company, in 2003 and 2005. As is the general custom of the court, he did not explain why.
In 2010, Justice Thomas traveled to the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain, at the invitation of the Welterses. By then, the couple had become major Democratic fund-raisers and President Obama had named Ms. Welters ambassador to the island nation. Local newspapers captured the justice and Mr. Welters talking to students at a school.
Justice Thomas at a school in Trinidad and Tobago in 2010 with Mr. Welters, left, whose wife was the ambassador. Flight records show that the Welterses’ private plane flew to and from Dulles Airport on the days Justice Thomas traveled. Credit…U.S. Embassy Trinidad and Tobago
In disclosures, Justice Thomas wrote that the “U.S. Embassy Port of Spain” had paid for his flight. But flight records obtained through the plane-tracking services of MyRadar show that the Welterses’ private Gulfstream G-6 flew from Washington Dulles International Airport and back on the days that Justice Thomas arrived on and departed the Caribbean island.
And Matthew Cassetta, a retired embassy official who helped arrange the visit, said Ms. Welters customarily “offered the plane to people who came down,” always at her own expense to save the taxpayers money.
(Ms. Welters declined to comment on the flights or the loan, except to say, “I just want to tell you that friendships come and go, and that’s what I want to say.”)
The same year, in a speech accepting an award from the Horatio Alger Association, Justice Thomas singled out Mr. Welters as one of his “friends for the whole journey.”
“And for Tony, a special thank you, who understood relationships and who was always there as a friend in the worst times of my life,” he said. “It is a friendship I will treasure forever.”
Reporting was contributed by Steve Eder, Riley Mellen, Robin Stein and Abbie VanSickle.
Jo Becker is a reporter in the investigative unit and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. She is the author of “Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality.” More about Jo Becker
New Science Suggests That Just 4 Minutes Per Day of This Kind of Exercise May Lower Cancer Risk
Karla Walsh – August 1, 2023
Turns out, you could slash your risk for certain cancers in the time it takes to listen to your favorite pop song or power walk across the parking lot.
Getty Images
Reviewed by Dietitian Annie Nguyen, M.A., RD
We’ve been told for decades that walking 10,000 steps per day—or racking up 150 minutes of physical activity per week, no matter what method you choose—should be our goal. But a growing body of scientific evidence is shining a spotlight on the fact that you’ll start to accrue some serious gains at levels far lower than that. (For example, we learned last September that walking for 2 minutes after meals can help lower blood sugar.)
If you feel daunted by going from couch to 10,000 steps or 150 minutes, listen up: A new study published July 27, 2023 in the journal JAMA Oncologysuggests that just 4 to 5 minutes of “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” is enough to significantly lower cancer risk.
Read on to learn more about how they landed at this conclusion. Then we’ll explain some of the best workout styles to incorporate into your day to put this study into practice.
Related: Adding Just 10 Minutes of Exercise Per Day Can Improve Health and Slow Aging, According to Science
What This Exercise Study Found
Researchers at University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre in Australia noticed that previous studies suggested that adults who don’t exercise appear to be at higher risk for developing 13 kinds of cancers (breast, endometrial, colorectal, liver, kidney, lung and more), but noticed that there was a knowledge gap about how much exercise might move the needle.
Since we know that about six in 10 American adults don’t meet the recommended activity guidelines (those aforementioned 150 minutes of aerobic exercise, plus 2 full-body strength workouts per week)—and 25% of adults aren’t active at all, according to the latest estimates from the CDC—the researchers involved in this study wanted to try to determine the impact of small bursts of movement.
They decided to call these bursts vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity, (VILPA), and place everything from vigorous housework and carrying a heavy basket around the supermarket to quick power walking to get the mail or playing active games with kiddos under this umbrella.
“VILPA is a bit like applying the principles of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to your everyday life,” Emmanuel Stamatakis, Ph.D., lead author of this study, as well as a professor of physical activity, lifestyle and population health at the School of Health Sciences at The University of Sydney in Australia, adds in the news release.
Related: HIIT vs LISS: Which Exercise Is Right for You?
Bouts as short as 1 minute “count” Dr. Stamatakis and his team confirm. (By the way, yes, lower-intensity activities like yoga and walking can be effective enough to qualify as exercise, too. But you have to invest more time than you would for VILPA to score health benefits.)
Using data from 22,398 people enrolled in the UK Biobank, a database of biomedical information from more than 500,000 UK residents often used for research purposes, the researchers dove into details gathered from wrist accelerometers for 7 days. Then, they compared these activity rates to the health outcomes noted in clinical health records for 7 years. The pool of participants had an average age of 62, and they did not normally exercise or take leisurely walks during their free time. The researchers excluded individuals who had received a previous cancer diagnosis, or who had been diagnosed during the first year (since that was likely not enough time for any VILPA to make a difference on health outcomes). They also controlled for age, smoking status, sleep habits, genetics, diet and body size.
During the 7-year follow-up, the study authors found that 2,356 cancer cases had been diagnosed, and about 1,084 cases were cancers that they think may be less likely if more physical activity was present. About 92% of VILPA bouts lasted about 1 minute, and those who racked up 3 ½ minutes of VILPA per day appeared to be at 18% lower risk for cancer (compared to their peers who did none). Just 4 ½ minutes of VILPA daily was linked to 32% lower risk for physical activity-related cancers, the researchers note. The benefits continue to build with more activity, but that’s a significant shift in a timespan that’s equivalent to a couple commercial breaks or one pop song.
The study authors admit that, as of now, they’re still unsure of exactly why this occurs. However, they believe VILPA relationship to lower cancer risk may be related to better cardio-respiratory fitness, changes in insulin sensitivity and lower levels of chronic inflammation.
The Bottom Line
A new Australian study found that cobbling together 4 minutes of vigorous activity per day—anything from power walking across a parking lot to lifting bags of groceries to chasing a dog or kids will do—is enough to lower your risk for some cancers.
Since the exercise tracking was only done for one week, and considering the study was observational and cannot prove cause and effect, more deep-dives are needed to verify these results.
“We need to further investigate this link through robust trials, but it appears that VILPA may be a promising cost-free recommendation for lowering cancer risk in people who find structured exercise difficult or unappealing,” says Dr. Stamatakis.
