Kanye West meets with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, October 11, 2018.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Kanye West's presidential campaign is suing the states of Ohio and Wisconsin after they denied him access to their November ballots.
The Wisconsin Election Commission on August 20 said in a 5-1 decision that West missed the deadline to file as a candidate for president by 14 seconds.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on August 21 said that West did not meet the requirements to file as a candidate in the state.
Lawyers for the rapper and fashion designer argue West didn't miss the deadline in Wisconsin, and that the Ohio secretary of state must accept West's application.
West has been booted from the ballot in several states and had already missed several deadlines before he announced his controversial longshot bid for the Oval Office.
Rapper-turned-presidential-candidate Kanye West is suing the states of Wisconsin and Ohio after election officials earlier in August denied his applications to appear as a candidate on their November ballots.
On August 20, the Wisconsin Elections Commission ruled in a 5-1 decision that West had missed the state deadline to file as an independent candidate for president, NBC 15 reported. In submitting his paperwork at 5:00:14, the WEC said West missed the state's deadline by 14 seconds. In suing the WEC on Friday, lawyers for the "Jesus Is King" argued that he should be allowed to appear because he submitted his name before 5:01 p.m., which they argue meets the state's deadline, according to the report.
On Wednesday, West's campaign sued Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, after he on August 21 said West failed to meet the minimum requirements necessary of an independent presidential candidate. The West campaign in its lawsuit argued LaRose must accept any independent candidate petition so long as it doesn't violate Ohio law and there is no protest filed against it, according to Fox 8.
The longshot candidate will appear on the ballot in at least eight states: Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Vermont, Idaho, Minnesota, and Tennessee, according to Forbes.
Rothfield started doing phone sex work at the age of 18, when she was broke, couch-surfing, and struggling to support herself.
Now, 15 years later, she lives on a seven-acre farm with her wife and kids and takes calls from her car just three nights a week, making on average $300 to $400 a night for four hours of work.
This is her story, as told to freelance writer Jenny Powers.
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, I take calls from inside my car parked in our driveway starting around 10 p.m.
My car is an old teal green Mercury Mariner filled with notebooks and pens and chargers. It's even got its own hotspot. I spend about four hours out there in the driveway taking calls. I'm usually wearing yoga pants and some nasty old t-shirt. My rate is $1.99 a minute, and my average call lasts half an hour. On a slow night, I might bring in $100; on a great night, I've been known to earn $2,000 — but most nights I earn between $300 and $400. I had a regular once send me a $2,000 Amazon gift card as a 'tribute,' which is the industry's term for a tip.
I keep meticulous spreadsheets on all my callers. My wife used to work in military intelligence, so she helps me. Maybe it's my Aspergers, but I'm obsessed with numbers because they tell me where to put my time and energy. I track the sales cycles of my guys — everything from what days they call, to how often they call, to how much they spend. This way I can be proactive, and send a note or special offer if they haven't called in a while and bring them back over to the dark side.
My personal life hasn't changed much because I'm a homebody — but business has been poppin' lately.
During the pandemic, it feels like my customers are all at home spending their unemployment money on me.
Rothfield takes calls from her car usually between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Amberly Rothfield
My numbers have nearly doubled since COVID-19 started. I also offer model consultations and teach women how to increase their bottom line, and I've been booked solid most days.
Lately, there's a lot more sadness from my callers. I'm very attuned to it. Even my happy, peppy people, like my superfans, the ones who usually make me feel like a rock star, even they're pretty down. They'll tell me their grandma died or their dad's got COVID. My job is to give them some relief. I'll ask if anything good has happened to them and try to get them to talk about that. You know, like they're doing me a favor by sharing some good news with me. I know it sounds like the common trope of Captain Save-a-Ho, but I love my job.
I started doing phone sex in 2005 when I was 18 and broke.
I was couch-surfing and surviving on the generosity of my friends. I had been a straight-A student, but my parents wouldn't sign for financial aid, so college wasn't an option. When I saw an ad in the local Penny Saver seeking adult voice actors, I jumped on it. I thought I could impress them with my weird impersonations and accents. When I found out it was phone sex, I still took the job. I figured I could either make $5 an hour bagging groceries or $15 doing phone sex. You do the math.
First, I did it from an office. Then I started forwarding calls to my friend's houses, and we'd be like MacGyver dangling the landline out the window and I'd take calls from their yard. Eventually, I wound up on Niteflirt, where I still am today. On Niteflirt, you're the boss. You set your own schedule and rates, and you can pretty much work from anywhere as long as you've got an internet connection.
In addition to this work, I've served as a YouTube and Twitter marketing consultant for adult entertainment companies as well as a few vanilla ones since 2007. I'll work with them on their overall ideation process, help develop their social media posts, and determine how best to utilize influencers.
Although I'm best known for my work as a phone sex operator, my primary revenue stream actually comes from recording and selling audio Mp3s. I sell them for between $5 and $20 each, and demand is through the roof. I also regularly sell video clips, do webcam by appointment, and offer model consults. During my most successful year to date, I earned $258,000 on Niteflirt alone.
Two years ago, my wife and I and our three young sons moved from Las Vegas to a seven-acre farm 90 minutes outside of Pittsburgh.
I've never been a city girl, but I'm not a farmer either. I don't get up to the sound of roosters crowing. I usually get up around 8 a.m. just as my wife takes the bacon out of the pan for breakfast.
These days our boys, who are all under the age of 10, are home doing remote school because of the pandemic. For fun, we run around outdoors and play Jenga and Pop the Pig. At night, we eat together as a family.
My whole life my dream was to squirrel away enough money to buy a house and chill in the middle of nowhere, and thanks to my job as a phone sex operator, I'm doing it. What's better than that?
Tunde Wey cooking for an event in Pittsburgh in 2016.
Dixie D. Vereen/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Chef and writer Tunde Wey is selling white people $100 salt through his new venture, A Lot of Salt.
Wey is known for charging white people higher prices for food to draw attention to systemic racial inequalities.
"White folks set the terms of what value is, they extract value from Black and brown folks, and leave them with a f---ed up paradigm," Wey told Business Insider.
Wey said that his goal is to sell a million boxes of salt and redistribute those profits to Black people around the world.
How much are white people willing to pay for reparations?
That's the question celebrity chef, writer, and provocateur Tunde Wey asks with his new venture launched August 14, A Lot of Salt, which sells premium salt to white people for $100 a box.
"Now, you're prolly thinking: "$100 for salt? that is outrageous!" Lot's website reads. That's exactly the point.
Wey is famous for his food, but also for the way he turns his culinary skills into political performance art. His projects use food to bring awareness to systemic racial inequities in the communities he works in.
"The folks who interpret value are the folks who have money," Wey told Business Insider in a phone interview. "The question isn't, "Is that too expensive?" The question is: do people value reparations? Do people value Black lives?"
Wey was born in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to Detroit, Michigan at age 16 to complete his education. He intended to become a lawyer before realizing that cooking was his true passion. Wey's restaurant pop-ups in New Orleans, Detroit, and Nashville, which charge white customers "reparations" prices for food, have been written about in the New York Times, Time Magazine, GQ, and more.
By paying outrageous prices for his salt, white people can put their money where their mouths are and prove they're really dedicated to shifting the balance of equality, Wey says. The question of reparations is a global one, Wey says, because systemic inequality against Black people is universal around the world.
"More money leaves the so-called 'Global South' than comes to it," Wey said. "And it leads to mostly white, wealthy countries. White folks set the terms of what value is, they extract value from Black and brown folks, and leave them with a f--ed up paradigm. They say, this is what the global economy looks like. And the only way you can play is if you lose every time."
Lot salt boxes feature a Salt Bae-like figure sprinkling salt on a scale and saying, "Had to regulate."
Courtesy of Tunde Wey
That's the ethos driving Lot — a name that Wey says contains many references, including the obvious biblical one and the idiom "a little is a lot." The most important reference is to a Bini saying his mother often repeats to him: "Rich people don't put a lot of salt in their soup just because they're rich. You only need a little bit of salt no matter how rich you are." The Bini or Edo people are an ethnic group in southern Nigeria.
In that way, salt is kind of like a great equalizer, Wey said. So it's only appropriate that he's asking white people to pay reparation prices for his salt.
According to the Lot website, "Every time you add a dash of our delicious sea salt to your under seasoned dishes, we hope you contemplate your many privileges and the disparities they create."
When asked if he'd consider Lot an act of performance art, Wey said no. "People are buying the salt and people are going to use it," Wey said. Instead, Wey thinks of it as a brand that does outrageous things — something he says is common for large, white-owned corporations.
"My sh-- can be called performance art to the extent that a Bentley can be called performance art," Wey said. "Nobody needs $100 worth of salt, but nobody needs $5,000 worth of shoes."
In May, as most high-profile chefs were pleading for aid to save the sinking restaurant industry, Wey wrote an essay, titled "Let it Die," making the opposite case. "It" refers to the restaurant industry in its pre-pandemic form — an industry that Wey says is rife with inequality and largely segregated along race lines when it comes to rank and income. It's also an industry that is emblematic of American capitalism in the way that it values profit over lives, Wey said.
His goal with Lot is simply to sell as much outrageously-priced salt as possible and redistribute the profits to Black people around the world. Eventually, Wey plans to expand Lot to include other pantry staples like sugar and oil.
"I'm not in the business of convincing anybody to part with their money," Wey said. "What I'm trying to say is that we need to value reparation, and reparation is going to cost something."
A video that aired at the Republican National Convention used stock footage from an October 2019 protest in Spain when alluding to US protests.
Donald Trump/YouTube
At the Republican National Convention earlier this week, a video shown used footage from a 2019 protest in Spain in a montage that alluded to the ongoing protests against racism in the US, NBC News reported.
In the video, which aired Monday and has since been posted on President Trump's YouTube channel, two women talk about their conservative values and allude to recent protests, bemoaning "rioting" and "crime."
Anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests have continued across the US, and while they've mostly been peaceful, destructive and sometimes violent moments have dominated headlines.
The Republican National Convention, which took place in a mostly-virtual format Monday through Thursday, used stock video footage of an October 2019 protest in Barcelona, Spain, while the video's narrators alluded to ongoing anti-racism protests in the United States.
As NBC News reported, the video that aired Monday and has since been uploaded to President Donald Trump's YouTube channel featured Catalina and Madeline Lauf, a pair of conservative sisters, who spoke about their beliefs and support of President Trump.
The clip appears four minutes into the video and shows a bright fire as a person runs across the screen holding a baton. But, as NBC News reported, the footage came from stock video and the image service Shutterstock.
"This is a taste of Biden's America," one of the video's narrators said, as several photos and videos of various protests flash on screen. "The rioting, the crime. Freedom is at stake now and this is going to be the most important election of our lifetime."
As NBC News reported, the original Shutterstock video — titled "Young rebel riot revolutionary anarchist" — did not contain information about where and when the footage was taken. However, corresponding imagery from Getty Images showed that the firey clip was not filmed this year in the US, but was recorded last year in Barcelona, according to the report.
The Republican National Committee did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment,
Anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests erupted across the US toward the end of May following the police killing of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Floyd, a Black man, died after an officer held his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes while Floyd called for his mother and said he couldn't breathe.
A B-52H Stratofortress from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, prepares to land, Aug. 26, 2020, at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.
U.S. Air Force photo by Airman First Class Jan K. Valle
The US Air Force said Saturday that Russian fighter jets of executing an 'unsafe and unprofessional" intercept of a US B-52 Stratofortress bomber over the Black Sea Friday.
The service said that two Russian Su-27 Flankers crossed within 100 feet of the nose of the aircraft more than once while in afterburner, causing turbulence and negatively affecting the bomber's ability to maneuver.
On Friday, NORAD F-22 fighters intercepted six Russian patrol aircraft approaching Alaska, something Russian military aircraft are doing with increased frequency.
A pair of Russian fighters conducted an "unsafe and unprofessional" intercept of a US B-52 Stratofortress bomber over the Black Sea Friday, the US Air Force said in a statement Saturday.
The service said that two Russian Su-27 Flankers "flew in an unsafe and unprofessional manner while crossing within 100 feet of the nose of the B-52 multiple times at co-altitude and while in afterburner causing turbulence and restricting the B-52's ability to maneuver."
Gen. Jeff Harrigian, the US Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander, said in a statement that "actions like these increase the potential for midair collisions, are unnecessary, and inconsistent with good airmanship and international flight rules."
He added that the Russian aircraft "jeopardized the safety of flight of the aircraft involved."
Russia regularly executes intercepts that are considered "unsafe and unprofessional." Earlier this year, for instance, the US Navy accused Russia of doing so at least three times in just two months, with Russian fighters closing to dangerous distances or carrying out risky maneuvers while intercepting US P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft.
In one instance, a Russian fighter conducted a high-speed inverted maneuver just 25 feet in front of the US aircraft, a move seemingly pulled straight from the movie "Top Gun."
In another close call, two tactical aircraft closed in on both sides of the P-8, restricting its ability to safely maneuver.
A Russian Su-35 'unsafely' intercepting a US Navy P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft.
US Navy
The unsafe intercept of a bomber was not the only intercept Friday.
North American Aerospace Defense Command F-22 stealth fighters intercepted three groups of two Tu-142 Russian maritime patrol aircraft in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone. The Russian aircraft came within about 50 nautical miles of Alaskan shores, NORAD said in a statement Friday.
Russian long-range air patrol flights near the US appear to be occurring more frequently.
"This year, we've conducted more than a dozen intercepts, the most in recent years," NORAD commander Gen. Glen VanHerck said in a statement. "The importance of our continued efforts to project air defense operations in and through the north has never been more apparent."
The NORAD intercepts of the Russian patrol aircraft came one day after US Northern Command said that it was "closely monitoring the Russian submarine that surfaced near Alaska today." The submarine is believed to have been participating in a large scale Russian naval exercise.
"We closely track vessels of interest, including foreign military naval vessels, in our area of responsibility," NORTHCOM said.
Three New York City public housing tenants who appeared in a video shown at the Republican National Convention told The New York Times didn't know their interview would be used to endorse President Donald Trump.
Claudia Perez, Carmen Quiñones, and Manny Martinez said the interview was a chance to air their frustrations with the city's housing authority and Mayor Bill de Blasio, but they don't support Trump.
Lynne Patton, head of the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, hit back at the Times' report, insisting in a tweet that participants said the video was "'amazing' and 'wholly accurate.'"
New York City public housing tenants who were featured in a video for the Republican National Convention told The New York Times they didn't know their interview would be used to endorse President Donald Trump.
Claudia Perez, Carmen Quiñones, and Manny Martinez were three of four featured tenants in the video, which was an interview with Lynne Patton, head of the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The fourth participant told The Times when reached for comment that she did support Trump and knew the purpose of the video.
Quiñones, however, told The Times that the interview was focused on airing frustrations with problems in the housing agency, and the tenants' edited comments offer harsh criticisms of Mayor Bill de Blasio. Despite their frustrations with the Democratic mayor, they told The Times they had no intention of supporting Trump.
"I am not a Trump supporter," Perez told The Times. "I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back."
Patton hit back at the story and Times reporter Matthew Haag on Twitter, where she said "each resident is on unused tape thanking @POTUS for the "RNC platform" to highlight inhumane conditions & improvements made under this Admin," she wrote.
She said in a subsequent tweet that said "every resident" of New York City Housing Authority "knows that I would never allow the @GOPconvention to air anything with which they felt uncomfortable & showed the draft video - in full - to the resident organizer PRIOR to its airing and was told by them that it was 'amazing' and 'wholly accurate.'"
Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said on Twitter that the ceremony was "so obviously, blatantly, insultingly a Hatch Act violation that it's starting to seem like the Trump administration is going out of its way to find new ways to violate the law."
In a conversation with President Donald Trump's sister Maryanne Trump Barry recorded by Mary Trump and published by The Washington Post, Barry said Trump got into the University of Pennsylvania because he "had somebody take the exams."
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Penn's Wharton School, Trump's alma mater, once again requested the provost launch an investigation into Trump's admission to the institution.
A professor at the University of Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump's alma mater, has once again requested that the university launch an investigation into Trump's admission to the university after audio of the president's sister claimed he had someone else take exams for him, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Trump's sister Maryanne Trump Barry claimed that Trump "got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams," according to secretly recorded audio by the president's niece Mary Trump that was published by The Washington Post.
Eric W. Orts, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, requested to Provost Wendell Pritchett that the university launches an investigation into Trump's admission after the audio provided "new evidence," according to the Inquirer.
This was not his first request for an investigation. Last month, Otis was one of six faculty members who had asked the provost to launch an investigation after Mary Trump's book claimed he paid someone to take the SAT for him. The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn's campus newspaper, reported that the provost rejected the request, citing that "we have determined that this situation occurred too far in the past to make a useful or probative factual inquiry possible."
The provost responded to the faculty members last month that "if new evidence surfaces to substantiate the claim in the future, we will continue to be open to investigating it," according to the campus newspaper.
Pritchett did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
After he initially enrolled at Fordham University, Trump transferred to Penn's Wharton School of Finance in his junior year. Trump has repeatedly touted his Wharton degree, referring to his education as "the hardest school to get into, the best school in the world" and "super genius stuff," the Inquirer noted.
Narrator: Erratic blind corners, limited run-off areas, speeds upwards of 200 mph. These are just a few of the features that make Japan's legendary Suzuka Circuit the country's most dangerous race track. In its 58-year history, the 3.6-mile track has claimed the lives of 17 professional racers. But competitors continue flocking there, for some of the world's biggest motor sport events. Between the track's overly complicated design, famously high risk corners and unpredictable weather, Suzuka can make for some terrifying races.
The first thing race car drivers and motorcyclists notice about the track is its design. Take a bird's-eye view of the track and you'll notice its hard-to-follow figure 8 layout. Compared to the simple ovals and basic road courses most racers are used to, Suzuka's design is one of utter chaos. Complicating the track further are a total of 18 different corners. Most of which are blind.
Alex Lowes: It's a figure-of-8 track, but when you ride it, it's so complicated and technical, it doesn't feel like just a nice and simple figure-of-8 track, so it's really hard to get your bearings. The first, maybe two, three, four days that I was riding there, I couldn't really work out where I was. I couldn't work it out, cause there just seemed to be corners everywhere.
Narrator: The corners vary in speeds from as slow as 40 mph to as fast as 190. They cause the track to change at a moment's notice. Like the intense Degner Curves, that include a sudden 90 degree right-hander at Turn 9. Or the abrupt chicane following the fastest section of the track that racers frequently prepare for too late. These intense corners lead to drivers encountering a high level of lateral g-forces on their body, the highest being up to 3.5 at the notorious 130 R turn.
Lateral g-force, is the gravitational force applied to a vehicle as it rounds a curve. It's the push you feel while turning, that tries to force you off the road. But Suzuka also has a total elevation change of over 40 meters, forcing racers to struggle with both lateral and vertical g-forces pressing on their bodies throughout. On a course with a limited number of tarmac runoff areas, this means one wrong move with your car or bike can send you sliding into a patch of gravel or worse, a wall.
Niccolò Canepa: I'm inside of the FIM safety board. This is one of the most dangerous in the championship. It's kind of a roller coaster. When I ride there, I have huge respect for the track and sometimes some extra attention. Some corners you feel like the walls are really close because of the speed. You go so fast in some corners, I don't wanna think about what can happen, you know.
Narrator: Suzuka was originally built as a Honda test track back in 1962, which explains its harrowing layout that most likely couldn't pass today's standards. And because it's older, the pavement is, well old, making it rougher than more refined modern tracks. This can lead to quicker degradation and overheating of the tires.
Alex: So, it's obviously fantastic cause you got a lot of grip, and you can really push the bike. The problem is if you have to do a lot of laps, the tires wear a lot, and then you start to slide, and the bike starts to move and becomes difficult to ride.
Narrator: Suzuka also has some incredibly tight sections, some of the tightest being only 10 meters wide. On par with Belgium's Spa-Francorpchamps, and Germany's Nürburgring, these tight stretches make it tough for one driver to pass another.
Niccolò: If you want to fight for the victory, if you want to fight for the top five, you have to overtake all the time somebody. Every lap you have to overtake somebody, and sometimes it's really challenging because the track is narrow and it's not so easy. So, you have to take some bigger risks sometimes.
Narrator: But while the track's overall design causes enough problems for racers, Suzuka is most famous for the previously mentioned 130 R corner. Originally named for it's 130-meter radius, the infamous turn takes place on the bridge that overlaps the course. Racers take this intense left corner as fast as 190 mph. Statistics like that have placed it amongst racing's most intimidating corners. And if you're racing in the annual eight hours of Suzuka superbike race, you're encountering that corner over and over and over again.
Niccolò: That corner is an amazing corner, and it's really difficult to find actually a good braking point at 300 kph. So it's really something that you hold your breath during that corner, at every lap for eight hours.
Narrator: Over the years, the turn has been forced to undergo a number of changes to its layout. After Formula 1 driver Allan McNish's violent crash in 2002 at the turn's approaching bump, 130 R was redesigned as a double-apex, one with an 85-meter radius and a second featuring a 340-meter radius. However, this led to 130 R's following Casio triangle chicane, being closer. This closer chicane would be the site of motorcycle rider Daijiro Kato's fatal accident in 2003, at the Casio's more sudden braking zone. Since then, the MotoGP racing series has not returned to Suzuka.
As intense as 130 R is though, Suzuka is a roller coaster from the start, as the track's first turn leads directly into a section known as the Snake curves, a series of back-to-back winding corners that makes up Turns 3 to 6, and allowing racers to reach speeds as much as 130 mph while twisting through. But it's the technical racing required for this section that is most challenging. Just last year, it was the scene of a very embarrassing crash for racer Tetsuta Nagashima during only a warmup lap.
The section calls for four perfectly rhythmic turns, one after the other. Too much speed or failing to stay on line going into your first turn, and you destroy your following three, either losing significant lap time or flying of the track.
Niccolò: With the Formula 1 car, they almost go flat out around there, but with a motorcycle it's really really difficult and you have to be really precise.
Jonathan Rea: It's physically demanding because you need your bike to be quick turning. Physically you have to manhandle the bike from your left to right to left to right. It just goes past in the blink of an eye because you're just focused on apex to apex.
Alex: After Turn 1 all the way to Turn 6, you need to be really patient if you're behind somebody cause it's pretty much one line. So, if you're gonna try and pass there, you need to make sure you're really aggressive. Probably wouldn't recommend it.
Narrator: One of Suzuka's biggest dangers though, is the weather. The track is in the Mie Prefecture, located on Japan's southeast coastline, well known for seeing unpredictable heavy rain. Just last year, the Japanese Grand Prix was nearly canceled due to Typhoon Hagibis, the largest tropical storm of the year. But even when a torrential downpour leads to red flags and postponements of a race, the asphalt is still left slick wet. On a fast track, it makes for a bad combination.
Niccolò: We have to be really careful in case of rain because the track is different from any other track. It's really fast and it's so grippy that we can touch our elbows in some corners with rain tires. But of course, when you crash in the rain, it's like, you start sliding and you never stop. So, the feeling is not amazing.
Alex: The mental concentration you need, because every little movement you do on the bike in the rain is transferred to the tires and it could cause the bike to slip and slide.
Narrator: Summers is Suzuka can be scorching hot as well, with temperatures frequently reaching a high of at least 90 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. For a superbike race like the Suzuka eight hours that takes place in July, this is especially brutal due to the intense heat motorcycle racers already experience.
Alex: It's not just the temperature outside. When you're on a bike down the straight, you got all the engine temperature, all the temperature of the brakes and everything. So, just imagine being in a sauna and you getting uncomfortable and your eyes start to get salty sweat going in your eyes. Imagine putting a helmet on. During your hour stint you could use maybe two and a half kilos or three kilos of fluid from your body.
Narrator: Between a confusingly tangled design, its infamously challenging corners and frequently unbearable weather, Suzuka remains Japan's most difficult and hazardous track. And despite numerous safety changes, including added barriers, additional tarmac runoff areas, and adjustments to the notorious 130 R corner, Suzuka is an old-school track that will always rank among the world's most dangerous. But it's the thrill ride it provides that encourages competitors to continue flocking in groves, and makes Suzuka a favorite amongst professionals.
Jonathan: Honestly, it's one of the best tracks in the world. It's got so many cool elements as a track, and when you string them together and do a good lap time, there's no better buzz. There's no atmosphere like Suzuka when you come out of that last chicane and the grandstand from the chicane to Turn 1 is completely full.
Aj Caldwell: Hey, I'm AJ. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed that episode of Turn by Turn, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss the next installment of Turn by Turn. And let us know what race track you want us to cover next in the comments below.
President Donald Trump stands on stage after speaking during the first day of the Republican National Committee convention Monday, Aug. 24, 2020, in Charlotte.
Evan Vucci/AP Photo
About 50,000 people in Iowa will need to submit another request for an absentee ballot, a judge ruled this week, siding with the Trump administration, who challenged a local county's decision to pre-fill portions of the ballots.
The Trump administration filed three lawsuits against Linn, Woodbury, and Johnson counties in Iowa over their decisions to send absentee ballot request forms that had pre-filled information, including a person's voter identification number.
President Donald Trump has been a vocal opponent of mail-in-voting and state efforts to expand it, though has himself voted by mail as recently as March 2020.
Thousands of people in Iowa will need to request another absentee ballot after a judge sided with the Trump administration as part of a lawsuit filed over an Iowa county's decision to pre-fill portions of the absentee ballot request form.
In July, Linn County Auditor Joel Miller decided to send absentee ballot request forms to approximately 140,000 Lin county voters. The request forms had been pre-printed with voters' personal information, including their voter identification number, according to the Associated Press.
Linn County voters had to review the request, sign it, and return it to receive their absentee ballot by mail beginning in October. Miller said he wanted to make it easier for country residents to vote during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the report.
About 50,000 of the forms were returned requesting an absentee ballot, according to the report. But on Thursday, Judge Ian Thornhill issued a temporary injunction requiring Miller to contact the thousands who submitted the requests to inform them they will need to submit another request if they wish to vote by mail.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Linn county and two other Iowa counties — Woodbury and Johnson — over their decisions to pre-fill personal information, citing a state policy that absentee ballot request forms be delivered to voters blank, The Hill reported.
Since the temporary injunction prohibits Linn county from processing the applications, voters will either need to request another absentee ballot or will need to vote in person on November 3.
SpaceX is aiming to launch three rockets on Sunday, including two back-to-back Falcon 9 launches in Florida and a Starship test flight in Texas, if weather permits.
The aerospace company said it intends to launch its twelfth Starlink mission at 10:12 a.m. EST from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending 60 Starlinks into orbit.
The second Falcon 9 launch is scheduled to occur nine hours and six minutes later, taking off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:18 p.m. and sending a SAOCOM 1B spacecraft into orbit.
Separately, SpaceX is also reportedly aiming to launch the Starship SN6 from Boca Chica, Texas, for a low-altitude test flight. Earlier in August, SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted that the company is planning to do "several short hops to smooth out launch process, then go high altitude with body flaps."
Though it's unclear what time the Texas launch — if it goes forward — will occur, Cameron County in Texas has announced highway closures between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. CST "due to anticipated test launch activities for SpaceX."
On Friday, Musk acknowledged the efforts for the multiple launches on Twitter, saying there was a "good chance something will slip, but, yeah, Sunday is intense."
Palestinians take part in a protest against the United Arab Emirates' deal with Israel to normalise relations, in Gaza City August 14, 2020.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
A secret Israeli plan to resettle 60,000 Palestinians in South America has been discovered in a declassified state archive.
In 1969 Israel struck a deal with Paraguay, 7,000 miles away, to accept Palestinians from Gaza who wanted to emigrate.
After the Six-Day War, when millions of Palestinians came under Israel's control, Israel has explored a series of outlandish plans to alter the demographic balance.
The plan was approved in the same year the Mossad decided to stop hunting Nazi fugitives and architects of the Holocaust, many of whom had found sanctuary in Paraguay.
A secret Israeli plan to re-settle 60,000 Palestinians living in Gaza to Paraguay has been discovered in a state archive of government papers.
Eran Mor-Cicurel, a senior reporter with KAN (IPBC) — Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation — said he discovered the lost chapter of Israeli history in "a pile of old documents" while trawling through declassified cabinet minutes from 1969.
" The extent, the numbers and the methodology was quite amazing, through the eyes of someone who lives in the 21st century," he told Business Insider.
A map of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Business Insider/Google Maps
In 1967, Israel captured Gaza, an enclave beside the Mediterranean on its southern border, from Egypt in the Six-Day War. It also occupied Egypt's Sinai peninsula, the Golan Heights that had been part of Syria, and the West Bank, controlled by Jordan.
Today, Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US government. The area is the constant conflict flashpoint between Israel and the Palestinians.
For Mor-Cicurel, in 1969, the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Golda Meir, had an inkling of the conflicts that would follow. However, at the time, relations between Israel and Gazans could not have been more different than the enmity that exists today.
"The Palestinian population (in Gaza) was very peaceful at the time. Israel was a welcome occupier. Israelis were going to Gaza and shopping, sitting on the beach, and talking about how people were friendly. Relations were basically very good at the beginning," he said.
But the Paraguay transfer plan emerged because, "the Israel government identified the problem in advance," he said.
"After the '67 war, the Gazan economy was disconnected from the Egyptian economy. There was very high unemployment. In Golda Meir's view, it was a humanistic attempt to solve a difficult problem — it seemed reasonable."
One idea that never got off the ground, Mor-Cicurel said, was to establish agricultural settlements in northern Sinai for 50,000 Palestinians. But in reality, there was no local solution, so Israel's leaders, advised by its spy agency, Mossad, began to look further afield.
"Paraguay was basically a dictatorship. You had a strongman there who you could reach an agreement with," said Mor-Cicurel.
Paraguay was ruled by Alfredo Stroessner, who took power in a military coup in 1954 and ruled until his overthrow in 1989. The period was marked by sustained human rights abuses of opponents.
The Mossad brokered a secret agreement with the Paraguayan regime.
According to the archived cabinet minutes, the head of the Mossad, Major General Zvi Zamir, said: "The proposal in question is the consent of the Paraguayan government, through the Paraguayan Institute of Agriculture and Immigration, to absorb for a minimum period of four years — although it can continue longer if things develop — 60,000 Arab Muslim people, Who by definition are not communists. She is willing to absorb them into the country, When the Government of Israel fulfills certain conditions."
The plan guaranteed Israel would cover the emigrants' travel expenses. It said they would be paid $100 each, plus $33 per person would go to the Paraguay government. On arrival, the Palestinians would receive residency rights, and citizenship after five years.
"According to the Israeli state papers, a down payment of $350,000 was made for the first 10,000 emigrants. The total bill for the 60,000 resettled Palestinians was estimated at $33 million.
"The idea was to seduce people to leave Gaza," said Mor-Circurel.
To facilitate the movement of the Palestinians, Israel set up a travel agency in Gaza to entice people and provide them with the relevant documentation.
Golda Meir, Israel's first and only female prime minister from 1969 and 1974.
AP Photo/Charles Bennett, File
Wishful thinking
Through the human rights lens of 2020, the plan may appear shocking, said Mor-Circurel, but the Israeli leadership perspective in the late 1960s was formed from their own historical experience.
"Transferring populations from one place to another was common to these people. All of them were basically immigrants. Most of the policymakers came from other countries to the State of Israel," he said.
"In the eyes of today, the idea of transferring the population is quite strange. But 1968 was not so far away from the division of Pakistan and India and the transfer of populations. It wasn't considered human rights abuse."
The secret Paraguay plan also mingles with the history of the Holocaust. Mor-Circurel points it formed as Israel wound down its hunt for fugitive Nazi war criminals.
Paraguay was a safe haven for many notorious fugitives from Hitler's Third Reich. Josef Mengele, the so-called "the angel of death," who carried out horrific medical experiments on Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz, was gifted Paraguayan citizenship under his real name in 1959.
Mor-Circurel believes that Israel made a realpolitik decision that it was better to develop relations with South American countries than continue efforts to hunt down Nazis.
"The head of Mossad said it was too expensive to continue the Nazi-hunting operation and it should concentrate on security threats not 'ghosts from the past'," said Mor-Circurel.
Only 30 Palestinians ever made the 7,000 thousand-mile journey before the project came to a shuddering halt.
Mor-Circurel says his research suggests that the motive was more likely they were disgruntled with life in their new South American home. "It was convenient to claim they were terrorists," he said.
It created a scandal around the Paraguayan resettlement plan, and Stroessner, fearing the Arab world's wrath, aborted the project.
"This is an unusual story," Professor Colin Shindler of the University of London (SOAS), told Business Insider, by email
"It was soon after the Six-Day War and there were no negotiations with the Arab states — a stalemate. It also coincided with the rise of Palestinian nationalism, Arafat and the PLO," he said.
"Perhaps they believed that exporting 60,000 Palestinians would help to mitigate the problem. However, 60,000 is such a small number in the context of the population of the West Bank and Gaza that it would have made no difference.
"It sounds more like a temporary flight of fancy than a thought through idea. More wishful thinking than confronting the political reality," he said.
Argan oil can cost as much as $300 per liter, making it the world's most expensive edible oil. Just 20 years ago, however, the production of argan oil was isolated to local villages in Morocco, with international sales virtually nonexistent. But since then, the formation of women-run cooperatives has transformed the production into a billion-dollar industry.
So, why has argan oil suddenly gained such popularity? And what makes it so expensive?
Argan oil is predominantly used in high-end cosmetic products and Moroccan cuisine. The oil comes from the seed of the argan tree, native only to the narrow strip of semi-desert between Morocco's Atlantic coast and the Atlas Mountains. The Amazigh people of North Africa have been using the argan seeds for centuries, and the methods for creating this costly oil haven't changed in years.
Khadija Heeda: The first stage of production is the collection. We collect the fruits of the argan. We collect them when they are mature. The young fruit is this color, green. We can't collect it by striking the tree with sticks or picking it from the tree. We wait for it to mature and drop to the ground, and its color turns to brown.
Narrator: Once collected, the argan fruits are sun-dried before being peeled and de-pulped by hand to remove the fleshy outer layers. The leftover argan nut then needs to be cracked to retrieve the oil-rich kernel inside.
Khadija Heeda: This is a difficult stage. Not just anybody can crack this nut, because you need to know the technique to crack it correctly to maintain the structure of the nut and not grind it. To obtain a liter of argan oil, we need 40 kilograms of the fruit, or about 20 kilograms of the nuts, to obtain one liter.
Narrator: The next stage is grinding, which is often also done by hand.
Khadija Heeda: We grind the argan kernels in this traditional method that we learned from our ancestors and that is known in our Moroccan heritage. This is a time-consuming method. To obtain one liter, this method takes two hours. That is why we developed, and now we are able, when we have a large order, to use the machine. The machine — it takes little time. In five minutes, it can produce one or two liters.
Argan oil is not like other oils. The best quality is known as "red gold" because it is very expensive. Argan oil requires a lot of effort to produce. For one woman to produce one liter of argan oil, it would take her approximately 24 hours.
Narrator: The leftover pulp removed from the fruit is sold as animal feed, particularly for goats, who are intrinsically linked to the argan tree. In some areas, it's tradition to allow goats to climb the trees to freely feed on the fruits. Argan kernels are then collected from their excrement, saving the laborious work of cracking open the nuts manually. But nowadays, in most argan forestries, this peculiar sight is mainly used as a tourist attraction.
Khadija Heeda: When oil produced that way was studied, it was found to be unfit for consumption. If the goat has any problem, it becomes harmful. Goats are a part of this region — tourists enjoy seeing the goats in the argan trees, and they like to take pictures with them.
Narrator: Traditionally, Amazigh women, who until 1956 required the man's permission to leave their homes, made argan oil primarily for culinary purposes using methods passed down through generations. This artisanal oil was occasionally sold on the roadside in recycled bottles for as little as $3 per liter.
Zoubida Charrouf: We found out that the women who prepared this oil in a traditional way had very soft skin and no wrinkles at all. But we had no scientific proof.
Narrator: Zoubida Charrouf first studied the argan tree for her PhD in the late 1980s, when the species was in dangerous decline. After conducting scientific research to support the moisturizing benefits of argan oil on hair and skin, Charrouf planned to transform the environmental problem into an economic solution.
Zoubida Charrouf: The objective was not to keep these results in the drawers at the university, but to go out into the field and organize the sector. These women were not organized at all, who produced argan oil in the traditional way at home. It was very difficult. It was something new. They didn't know what a cooperative was. Then, they never left their homes. But we started with 16 women, and as soon as the others saw how this first cooperative turned out, a lot of women came to see us who also wanted to organize themselves into cooperatives and benefit from the marketing of Argan oil.
Narrator: Sure enough, the rapid rise in popularity of argan oil not only brought profit to the region, but also revitalized an entire ecosystem. The newfound respect for the value of argan trees ensured stability for the species, and in turn, the surrounding wildlife and community reaped the benefits. The argan tree, known locally as "the tree of life," provides food, shelter, and protection from desertification, and its deep roots prevent soil erosion, allowing vegetated grass to grow for grazing livestock. It's estimated that up to 90% of the economy in this region is owed to the argan tree.
Zoubida Charrouf: There are almost 3 million people who subsist on the argan tree because it provides a lot of working days for the local population. The extraction of the oil alone provides almost 1 million working days. But the most important role is the environmental role. The argan tree is really the last green curtain on the desert.
Narrator: In just one generation, the international market for argan oil has risen from just 200 liters to 4,000 metric tons in 2019. By 2025, the state's ambition is to sell over 10,000 metric tons. To facilitate this increase, the area for producing the oil has expanded more than 100 miles south of Essaouira and is due to expand north.
As with any costly ingredient, argan oil products are often adulterated. Both cosmetic and culinary argan oil is often labeled as "pure" despite the undisclosed percentage of Argania kernel oil being mixed with a host of chemical compounds.
And cheaper, mechanically extracted oil has begun to appear on the market for as little as $22 a liter, threatening the stability of the local cooperatives. However, some cosmetic giants, such as L'Oréal, have committed to fair-trade programs to help ensure the stability of their argan oil and the preservation of the forest's biodiversity.
With the help of the cooperatives, the traditional skills held by the Amazigh women have created a booming industry. But even though this income has granted some financial independence in a male-dominated society, the women normally make less than $220 a month - below Morocco's recommended national minimum wage.
With the argan oil industry predicted to continue its growth, the prosperity of the Amazigh women remains to be seen.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Santiago Felipe/Getty Images
Filmmaker Michael Moore has warned that history may be repeating itself, and as in 2016 complacent progressives are ignoring the huge and fervent support President Trump has in battleground states.
"I'm warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump's base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much," wrote Moore on Facebook.
Moore cited a series of polls showing Biden and Trump tied, or the race narrowing, in swing states that helped propel Trump to a shock victory in 2016.
Moore, a supporter of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, was one of few to predict that "Rust Belt" voters would abandon Democrats and propel Trump to victory in 2016.
Filmmaker Michael Moore has warned that enthusiasm for President Donald Trump is "off the charts" in key battleground states, and complacent Democrats risk the same shock they suffered in the 2016 election when many wrote off Trump's chances.
Moore, who comes from Flint, Michigan, has spent his career documenting the plight of working-class Americans in the "Rust Belt," whose decision to flip from Democrat to Republican was key to Trump's shock victory four years ago.
He was one of few political observers to successfully predict in 2016 that Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton, as Trump's America First message resonated in states where traditional industries have been decimated.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, he warned progressives against complacency as national polls continue to show Democratic candidate Joe Biden with a lead over Trump.
"Are you ready for a Trump victory? Are you mentally prepared to be outsmarted by Trump again? Do you find comfort in your certainty that there is no way Trump can win? Are you content with the trust you've placed in the DNC to pull this off?" he wrote.
"I'm warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump's base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much," warned Moore. "Don't leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!" wrote Moore.
He went on to claim that recent polling shows the race tightening in swing states.
In the post, Moore claimed that "when CNN polled registered voters in August in just the swing states, Biden and Trump were in a virtual tie."
The most recent battleground state poll, released by CNBC-Change Research on Wednesday, found that Biden currently leads Trump by 3 points in six battleground states, and his lead is narrowing.
Back in October 2016, as polls showed Clinton with a commanding lead over Trump and many pundits were writing off his chances, Moore warned that "Trump's election is going to be the biggest 'f*** you' ever recorded in human history."
"Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he's saying the things to people who are hurting, and that's why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump," Moore said at the time.
Law enforcement officers block a street as women attend a demonstration against police brutality following recent protests to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, on August 29, 2020.
BelaPAN via Reuters
Female protesters broke through a riot police cordon in Minsk, Belarus on Saturday as anti-government demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko and his government intensify.
In a dramatic video, a group of women can be seen pushing back police officers who had their linked arms to create a barrier, while chanting "this is our city."
The protest marks the latest anti-government demonstrations calling on authoritarian President Lukashenko to step down after a much-disputed election earlier this month.
Authorities in Belarus have launched a press crackdown and withdrawn the accreditation of many Belarusian reporters covering the large anti-government protests.
A phalanx of female protesters broke through a riot police cordon during a protest in Minsk, Belarus, on Saturday, in a dramatic moment captured on video.
The incident happened during a so-called "march of solidarity," the latest of a series of anti-government protests that have rocked the country since the disputed presidential election.
In the video, a group of women push through a line of police officers who had their linked arms to create a barrier. As the police struggle to stick together, the protesters appear to successfully break through the cordon while chanting, "this is our city."
Later in the video, another powerful moment ensued when female protesters rushed to hug and protect a man who had been approached by a police officer.
Lukashenko denies opposition accusations that he rigged the August 9 election to prolong his 26-year rule and claims that the protests — which have brought hundreds and thousands of people to the streets — are funded by the West.
Many of the protesters were wearing a national dress and were waving flowers and flags, ignoring the calls by police not to disturb public order. Streets along the protest route had been cordoned off and blocked with vans.
While no mass arrests took place during the march, US state-run Radio Free Europe claimed that the police detained two of its reporters.
Authorities in Belarus have withdrawn the accreditation of many journalists reporting on the post-election protest, including two journalists with the BBC's Russian service.
President Donald Trump hands an autograph over at a Lake Charles fire station during a visit to survey Hurricane Laura damage, in this video still.
Project Lincoln/Twitter
President Donald Trump has suggested that his autograph could sell for as much as $10,000 during a visit to hurricane-hit Louisiana.
The president was at Lake Charles fire station for a briefing on Hurricane Laura's impact, which has killed 14 people and left vast numbers of people without electricity.
Signing pieces of paper for autograph seekers, he said: "Here, sell this tonight on eBay, you'll get 10,000."
President Donald Trump said that his autograph could sell for $10,000 on eBay in remarks made during a visit to Louisiana to survey hurricane damage.
In footage circulated on social media, the president signed autographs for officials at a Lake Charles fire station, where he was briefed about conditions in the city following Hurricane Laura.
"Here, sell this tonight on eBay, you'll get 10,000," he said, handing an autograph to a police officer. He elaborated on his signatures' value, telling another autograph-seeker: "If I put your name down, it loses a lot of value. So just sell it tonight on eBay," to laughter from some onlookers.
Trump has previously bragged about the value of his signature, telling eBay's interim CEO in January that even "senators and congressmen" put his autograph up for sale.
Numerous items purportedly signed by the president end up on sale on eBay, though few sell for much more than $1,000 at the time of writing.
Recovered COVID-19 patient Emiliano Pescarolo, 42, get his last cardio-respiratory measurement at the end of his rehabilitation at the Department of Rehabilitative Cardiology in Genoa, Italy, on July 22, 2020.
Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
More than 300 coronavirus patients have joined a COVID-19 "bootcamp" to address their lingering symptoms.
The virtual program involves physical activities like breathing exercises and cardio, as well as lectures, meditations, and motivational talks.
Marissa Oliver, a 36-year-old who's had symptoms for more than five months, said the program has improved her psyche and reduced tightness in her diaphragm.
Eventually, it could feed into a long-term treatment plan.
Each day, Marissa Oliver logs onto her computer after work and sees the familiar face of Dr. Noah Greenspan, a physical therapist with colorful tattoos on both arms. He offers Oliver — and many other coronavirus patients with long-lasting symptoms — a daily motivation: They are not their illness. Things will get better.
Before the pandemic, Dr. Greenspan worked with elderly patients diagnosed with cardiovascular and pulmonary disease in New York City. But as the coronavirus spread, he began to hear more and more from COVID-19 patients who said they hadn't recovered. That's the case for Oliver: The 36-year-old has had difficulty breathing since March 11.
So Greenspan decided to see how these COVID-19 "long-haulers" would respond to some of the same exercises he often gave his elderly patients, even though many, like Oliver, are much younger than the people Greenspan previously treated. His initial program turned out to be too rigorous, so Greenspan launched a specialized, virtual "COVID-19 bootcamp," on August 2.
More than 300 patients have signed up, he said, and their progress is offering clues about how to treat the disease's long-term effects.
"Each week, we are seeing patients, throwing a little pebble, letting the pool ripple, seeing how things go," he said. "We're starting to be able to map out a consistent treatment plan and a consistent rehabilitation plan that will likely work for the majority of people, as long as we do it the right way."
The daily program starts with a meditation or inspirational lecture, then moves on to breathing exercises, strength training, and cardio. It's donation-based, so patients have the option to sign up for free.
"Since I started, I've actually noticed a lessening of the diaphragm tightness, which was a symptom I've had nonstop for four and a half months," Oliver, who manages an arts organization, said. "It's these exercises that I tie directly to helping relieve my pain naturally."
Greenspan said limited hospital capacity earlier in the pandemic meant that many COVID-19 long-haulers had to deal with severe cases on their own at home — some had pneumonia, blood clots, or high fevers.
"If this were any other time in the history of the world, a huge number of the patients would have been admitted to the hospital," Greenspan said. "For all we know, had they been admitted right off the bat, maybe they wouldn't be long-haulers or maybe the severity of their symptoms would have been a lot less."
Other long-haulers never developed life-threatening symptoms, and their brain scans, chest X-rays, and blood work have since come back normal — yet they've continued to experience heart palpitations, dizziness, fatigue, and difficulty breathing for months. Some doctors suggested to these patients that their symptoms might be psychological.
"We know for sure now that that's not true," Greenspan said.
He believes there's a way for many of these patients to fully recover.
The six-week bootcamp involves recorded, virtual daily sessions — patients can tune in from anywhere at any time. The short-term goal of the lessons and exercises in the sessions is to improve patients' flexibility and balance, and to teach them how to regain control of their breath when they start to feel winded.
Sessions last around 30 minutes to start, but patients have the option to break up the exercises throughout the day or tack on more time as they grow stronger. The exercises vary each day.
At the start of the bootcamp, each patient fills out a quality-of-life survey. Greenspan said it's too early to administer a second survey to anyone, but he plans to track patients' progress once they've finished.
Fitness coach Gabrielle Friscira gives a lesson by video conference in Saint-Remy-l'Honore, France, on April 15, 2020.
Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images
The bootcamp is the US's first online rehab program for COVID-19 patients.
But it's not the first to treat long-haulers using physical therapy: The Detroit Medical Center began offering an in-person rehab program for COVID-19 patients in June. A rehabilitation clinic in Genoa, Italy, is also walking long-haulers through light, in-person exercises. And a clinic at St. Luke's Hospital in Bradford, England, has enlisted a dietitian, psychologist, and chronic-fatigue specialist to care for long-haul patients.
Greenspan's bootcamp has adopted a similarly holistic approach.
Patients do tai chi, yoga, and meditation as part of the program. They listen to relaxing music while walking in place, while gazing at serene footage from around the world on the screen. They also watch lectures from top physicians, pulmonologists, cardiologists, and neurologists, and can submit questions about their health.
"At first I thought, 'Oh, it's kind of cheesy,' but honestly, I can tell that it's improving my psyche," Oliver said, adding, "the emotional and mental impacts of the virus have been just as severe as the physical ones."
The breathing exercises are what she finds most useful, Oliver added. They often involve deep inhales through the nose and long, extended exhales through pursed lips.
In May, Oliver was diagnosed with pleurisy, or inflammation in her lung tissue. Right around the time that she started the bootcamp, her pulmonologist prescribed a steroid, which she said made her feel "really weird." Greenspan's program has made her feel like she can manage her symptoms without the steroid, she said.
Too much activity can push patients 'over the edge'
Oliver has nicknamed her lasting, fluctuating symptoms "the COVID coaster." Her health is hard to predict, she said, and it's often hard to know which types of activity will exacerbate her illness.
"One of the things about COVID is it's definitely not orderly," Greenspan said. "It's completely chaotic. There's no rhyme or reason to it."
That might be because an aggressive inflammatory response to the virus can impair the autonomic nervous system, he said, which regulates blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature. This would explain why some patients feel dizzy or experience a racing heart after merely sitting up or walking across a room. Breathing, he said, is the portal to helping the nervous system heal and improve.
"You're only going to heal as quickly as your slowest system, and unfortunately the neurological system is one of the slower systems to heal," Greenspan said. "Until that inflammation goes away, you may not see the change."
"You have to go extremely slow with COVID patients because sometimes they can feel perfectly fine during a treatment, or they can feel perfectly fine during an activity, but if you go that one step over the edge, then they could be knocked out for a week after that or they can have a flare in their symptoms," Greenspan said.
He encourages patients to go slower than they might think is necessary. The ultimate goal, he added, is to help them manage their recovery on their own and eventually resume normal activities.
"It's like if you were all of a sudden in a pitch-black room," Greenspan said. "Until you adjust to that darkness, you're going to tip toe around, taking slow steps, feeling things out. Eventually, as you gain confidence with that, we can start to move at a quicker pace."
A man who identified himself only as Jonathan wears a Guy Fawkes mask during a rally in support of President Trump on August 29, 2020 in Clackamas, Oregon.
Nathan Howard/Getty Images
President Donald Trump shared a message from far-right news network One America News (OAN ) Saturday, branding ongoing anti-racism protests an attempted coup.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has accused Trump of rooting for violence at ongoing demonstrations, which have resulted in deadly clashes between rival protesters in recent days.
Republicans though, have accused Democrats of ignoring violent unrest at protests.
On Saturday, a man was shot and killed in Portland, Oregon, after clashes between pro-Trump and Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
President Donald Trump shared a message Saturday from far-right news network One America News branding ongoing anti-racism protests a "coup" aimed at unseating him.
For weeks, the president has been seeking to portray protests that swept America following the killing of George Floyd as the work of extremists and agitators.
The Trump campaign has seized on images of violence and looting at some protests to promote the president as a champion of law and order, with the theme at the center of last week's GOP convention.
Trump shared a message on August 29 from conservative news station OANN, branding ongoing anti-racism protests a "coup."
Twitter
On Saturday, Trump doubled down on the argument, sharing a message by OAN featuring a program on the network seeking to expose the protests as part of an anarchist coup.
"According to the mainstream media, the riots & extreme violence are completely unorganized. However, it appears this coup attempt is led by a well funded network of anarchists trying to take down the President," reads the message shared by the president.
The ADL has previously labeled attempts to portray the protests as mainly the work of extremists as disinformation. It pointed to the role of far-right media in spreading the claim. It pointed to the role of far-right media in spreading the claim.
The tweet comes amid growing concern about violence between pro-Trump and Black Lives Matter demonstrators at protests, and concerns the president's incendiary rhetoric helps instigate the unrest.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told CNN last week that he believes Trump is hoping for violence at the demonstrations, because it enables him to detract from his failed response to the coronavirus.
A 17-year old Trump supporter is accused of shooting dead two BLM demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Wednesday. In Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, one man was shot dead following clashes between rival demonstrators. According to initial reports, the man killed was wearing a hat emblazoned with insignia of the far-right Patriot Prayer group.
Off Highway Van created the Doc Holiday, a customizable Mercedes-Benz Sprinter camper van.
The van can accommodate up to six people, making it a good camper van for families with children, according to Off Highway Van's co-founder Seth Riddle.
The Doc Holiday has skyrocketed in popularity amid the pandemic as more families started opting for road trips instead of international travels.
Off Highway Van created the Doc Holiday, a customizable family-friendly Mercedes-Benz Sprinter camper van that has seen skyrocketing interest from families since the start of the pandemic.
Doc Holiday can accommodate up to five to six people, which is done by having two separate sleeping spaces.
The first is a foldable, three-panel bed that is topped with a four-inch foam mattress. This accompanies the second sleeping space, which doubles as a seatbelt-equipped bench seat during the day. At night, this four-seater bench can unfold into a 68-inch by 73-inch bed at night.
According to Off Highway Van's co-owner Seth Riddle, this five to six-person capacity is one of Doc Holiday's biggest selling points, therefore securing its place as a family-friendly camper van and the second most popular build that the company offers.
When a listing of the Doc Holiday was posted by Off Highway Van amid the pandemic, the company started receiving three to four calls a day from interested customers, amounting to 75% of its inquiries.
A 144-inch Doc Holiday van with upgrades.
"The van sold in a heartbeat," Riddle told Business Insider. "All these families are like, 'Oh, you know what? We've been planning to do this down the road, but we've got all this time now, [so] let's commit to it.'"
An 144-inch Doc Holiday van with optional add-ons.
Beyond the Doc Holiday, inquiries for builds by Off Highway Van has been so high, the company is now struggling to meet demands and has a six-month waiting list as a result.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
"[The uptick in demand] opened our eyes," Riddle said. "There's this huge market for the family that has been ignored by the market for years, and upfitters are starting to come around to it."
A 144-inch Doc Holiday van with upgrades.
There is a wide variety of possible camper van bases, but the Utah-based company went with the ever-popular Mercedes-Benz Sprinter.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
According to Riddle, the Sprinter is in high demand because of its appearance, diesel engine, torque, and four-wheel-drive capabilities.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
The van can either come as a 144-inch or 170-inch, the latter providing a larger kitchen and living area.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday van with optional add-ons.
Despite this option for a longer interior, the 144-inch — which was built more for weekend vacations or short bi-annual trips — is the more popular choice.
A 144-inch Doc Holiday van with upgrades.
"A lot of people love the 144...because of its versatility," Riddle said. "Some people are like, 'it's gotta be compact, fit it in a parking spot, and I want this to be the soccer mom car,' but then on the weekends, they're hitting the trails...and getting lost."
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
For example, a 170-inch Doc Holiday build is currently being used by a customer who once lived in New York, but decided to move to Wyoming amid the pandemic.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
This Doc Holiday owner is now using the van as a "satellite home base" for trips in conjunction with a friends' home and personal property.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
The cabinets and walls are made by Off Highway Van's team using light aluminum and wood-less composite materials, creating a waterproof and strong structure, according to its makers.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
The van, which comes insulated, has a roof fan and several windows, such as awning windows with screens by both sides of the bed.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
Its interior is powered in part by its 2,000-watt inverter charger, 200-watt solar panels, and a 224-amp hour battery system.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
For family meals on the road, the kitchen has a 22-inch by 20-inch butcher block countertop, refrigerator, and freezer ...
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
The main bed platform sits 37 inches above the floor, making room for accessories, such as mountain bikes, in the cargo area.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday with add-ons.
Other amenities, such as an exterior shower, air conditioner, and roof rack, come at additional costs.
An 144-inch Doc Holiday van with optional add-ons.
Car search engine and automotive research firm iSeeCars.com has compiled a list of the 10 fastest-selling used cars amid the pandemic.
On average, used cars sold in 68.9 days during the pandemic. However, the 10 cars iSeeCars identified for its study have all sold 1.3 times faster than this over a two-month time frame.
This includes the Tesla Model 3, which tops the list with its average of 29.3 days on the used car market before being sold.
The slowest-selling vehicle on the top-10 list also happens to be another Tesla: the Model S, which averages at around 59.7 days. The third Tesla included in iSeeCars' list is the Model X, sitting in sixth place with an average of 47.6 days on the market.
Other than these three electric vehicles, iSeeCars' list is occupied by a BMW, a Subaru, an Infiniti, and two Toyotas and Hondas.
iSeeCars analyzed over 4.8 million car sales for the study, which includes new and used vehicles. For the used segment, iSeeCars pulled data from vehicles in the 2015 to 2019 model year that were sold between March to June 2020. However, heavy-duty and low volume cars — as well as vehicles taken off the production line before the 2020 model year — were excluded from the study.
Keep scrolling to see which cars made the cut:
10. Tesla Model S — 50.7 days on average
A 2015 Tesla Model S P85D.
Courtesy of RM Sotheby's
According to iSeeCars, the Model S' price — which averages $53,776 used — started dropping when the Model 3 arrived on the market.
Used Teslas dominant this list because the vehicles still remain popular in the used car market due to the automaker's over-the-air software updates, according to the study.
9. Toyota Corolla Hatchback — 50.2 days on average
A 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback.
The hatchback iteration of the Corolla arrived on the market last year, accounting for its low inventory in the used segment. Despite this low inventory, the vehicle has an average used price of $18,602, making it the third less expensive car on the list.
8. Honda Accord — 50 days on average
A 2019 Honda Accord.
"The sporty two-door coupe is known for its powerful engine, and is likely popular for buyers who want to enter the luxury sports car segment," iSeeCars CEO Phong Ly said in a statement.
The Q60 has an average used price tag of $30,726.
6. Tesla Model X — 47.6 days on average
A Tesla Model X at a Santa Monica, California showroom on Aug. 8, 2018.
According to iSeeCar's study, the Model X isn't as frequently spotted in the used car market since it was unveiled in 2015. It's also the most expensive used car on the list with an average price of $68,380.
5. Honda Civic — 47.4 days on average
A 2016 Honda Civic.
Honda
The Civic has an average used cost of $16,725, securing its position as the second least expensive car on this list.
4. Toyota Yaris — 44.8 days on average
A 2018 Toyota Yaris.
Toyota
According to iSeeCars, the Yaris is popular because it has Toyota's reliability at a lower price: $14,118, on average, for a used version.
The Yaris is the least expensive vehicle in this compilation.
3. Subaru BRZ — 44.5 days on average
A 2018 Subaru BRZ.
According to the study, the BRZ — with its average used price of $20,276 — doesn't heavily populate the used car market since it has a more "niche audience."
According to iSeeCars, the BMW X6 is one of the quickest depreciating SUVS, giving it a big discount (an average used price of $40,235) in the used car market.
1. Tesla Model 3 — 29.3 days to sell on average
A Tesla Model 3 in 2018.
"The Tesla Model 3, which was the automaker's least expensive vehicle, had the highest number of preorders of any car ever produced, and the long wait time helped further drive the high demand for the vehicle which has been sustained in the secondary marketplace," Ly said.
A used Model 3 has an average price tag of $53,776 and a low inventory in the used car market because the electric vehicle was first introduced in 2018, according to iSeeCars.
The Deliver-e is Bollinger Motors's latest all-electric delivery van concept.
Bollinger Motors is the company behind the all-electric and Tesla Cybertruck-challenging B1 and B2.
The Deliver-e is still just a concept for now, but CEO Robert Bollinger told Business Insider that the company has "accepted custom specs from several prospective customers."
The Deliver-e uses a front-wheel-drive platform. Bollinger Motors has plans to engineer it to meet Class 2B, 3, 4, and 5 truck classifications. The company says that the total cost of ownership for each class is "significantly lower than gas and diesel versions on the road today," according to an emailed press release.
The Deliver-e concept follows Amazon's announcement in February that it had ordered 100,000 custom delivery vehicles from Rivian, another EV startup. Additionally, Business Insider reported on Friday that Amazon has also just ordered 1,800 electric delivery vans from Mercedes-Benz for European deliveries.
All-electric delivery vehicles are a nice idea. They would cut down on neighborhood noise and pollution levels if successfully implemented.
Keep reading to learn more about the Deliver-e concept.
The Deliver-e is an all-electric delivery van concept from Bollinger Motors, the company responsible for the Cybertruck-challenging B1 and B2.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
The Deliver-e will be front-wheel drive and designed to meet Class 2B, 3, 4, and 5 truck classifications.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
Bollinger says 70, 105, 140, 175, and 210 kWh battery packs will be available, as well as variable lengths in the wheelbase.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
With a floor height of 18 inches, loading cargo in the Deliver-e should be a breeze.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
The production version of the delivery van will have a high-strength steel frame with a 10-year durability target.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
CEO Robert Bollinger told Business Insider, “We’ve already accepted custom specs from several prospective customers, and are in the process of developing proposals for how the Deliver-e can be built to their needs.”
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
Bollinger says it’s working with a manufacturing partner to build the Deliver-e in the US.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.
Bollinger Motors
Deliver-e production is scheduled for 2022. No pricing was announced at this time.
Bollinger Motors Deliver-e.