Is today’s comic safe for work? I think it is but it’s the sort of comic I never run on a Friday because it’s definitely too hot to be up on a Sunday.

On March 11th the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic just as Turkey Ivory Coast Honduras and Bolivia announced their first cases. There were now 126214 confirmed cases worldwide 7266 new cases that day and a total of 4628 deaths thus f

Snuggling up inside the duvet it was hard to make the decision to wake up fully and rise . The sun was slowly rising above the trees . There was a hint of a chilly morning out of the sun . Walking early is a pleasure before the rest of the world has woken

Morning safari at Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game ReserveToday we had to wake up extra early and leave Bibs Backpackers by 430 am to get on the bus to arrive at Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Reserve for the morning safari. We had a packed breakfas

Rameshwaram is a holy town located on Pamban island and is separated from mainland India by the Pamban channel. It is just 40km from Mannar island Sri Lanka.

It was another amazing 3 hours flight over beautiful Indonesia. We spotted Mount Agung on Bali the crater lake of Mount Ijen and Mount Merapi on Java. There were no clouds no wind just sunshine when we touched down in Kuala Lumpur at 10 am. It was the 6t

What do we really know about US time zones History.com When you run a railroad you need to maintain a schedule and that works a whole lot better when everyone agrees on what time it is including stations in farflung locations and crucially other

While I was upset that I was unable to lockdown travel plans for the weeklong National Holiday...staying in Guilin has given me the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the city and the culture and a few other things as well.1. They save th

The overall 5th time I come to Italy yes but uncountable times I crossed the border since I camped on the border many years ago with a friend on the top of a mountain between swizerland and the aforementioned country I currently find myself in.Trag

Thank you for following my blog for the last year. It's been a pleasure for me to share my experiences and wonderful to hear your thoughts and stories in return. Two months ago I decided to leave Laos for a number of reasons and to pursue a cooking c

I had scheduled a meeting with a government official from the State Administration for Foreign Expert Affairs SAFEA. I've been working on obtaining permits since March so that I can introduce foreign teachers to Chinese schools. I had made a pretty goo

Onward we go to the last known city on our itnerary ParisWe boarded a train from Nice to Marseille and then Marseille to Paris. I have to say having been a feast for mosquitos the last dew nights I was kinda glad to be out of Nice that morning.

Facebook's emotion study reveals it is hopelessly disconnected from emotional reality: that people get upset when people they care about are unhappy

• Alex Hern: The final straw for Facebook?

This weekend we learned that Facebook had deliberately manipulated the emotional content of 689,003 users' news feeds as part of an experiment to see what kind of psychological impact it would have. For one week in January 2012, some users saw chiefly positive stories (kitten videos, brownie recipes and assorted LOLs), while others were force-fed despair (breakups, health woes and seal-clubbing holiday snaps). And guess what happened?

"The results show emotional contagion," decided the scientists.

Guest Post: High precision time measurements depend on using multiple clocks to ensure redundancy and stability.

We estimate valuations of time using detailed consumer choice data from a large European ride hail platform, where drivers bid on trips and consumers choose between a set of potential rides with different prices and waiting times. We estimate consumer demand as a function of prices and waiting times. While demand is responsive to both, price elasticities are on average four times higher than waiting-time elasticities. We show how these estimates can be mapped into values of time that vary by place, person, and time of day. Regarding variation within a day, the value of time during non-work hours is 16% lower than during work hours. Regarding the spatial dimension, our value of time measures are highly correlated both with real estate prices and urban GPS travel flows. A variance decomposition reveals that most of the substantial heterogeneity in the value of time is explained by individual differences as opposed to place or time of day. In contrast with other studies that focus on long run choices we do not find evidence of spatial sorting. We apply our measures to quantify the opportunity cost of traffic congestion in Prague, which we estimate at $483,000 per day.

Joe Castiglione saw his first baseball game in the Bronx.

How should the design of incentives vary with agent time preferences? We develop two predictions. First, “bundling” the payment function over time – specifically by making the payment for future effort increase in current effort – is more effective if individuals are impatient over effort. Second, increasing the frequency of payment is more effective if individuals are impatient over payment. We test the efficacy of time-bundling and payment frequency, and their interactions with impatience, using a randomized evaluation of an incentive program for exercise among diabetics in India. Consistent with our theoretical predictions, bundling payments over time meaningfully increases effort among the impatient relative to the patient. In contrast, increasing payment frequency has limited efficacy, suggesting limited impatience over payments. On average, incentives increase daily steps by 1,266 (13 minutes of brisk walking) and improve health.

The corona crisis has hit the German economy at full force. Already, 470,000 applications have been filed for a German government subsidy that prevents employees from getting laid off, 20 times more than the previous record during the 2009 financial crisis.

Glenn, a former boxer and owner of popular Times Square bar Jimmy's Corner, died of coronavirus early Thursday morning at 89.

The results from the city’s annual foster care census showed a precipitous decline from the 1990s, when there were 50,000 kids in foster care, and a continued improvement from 2010, when there were 17,000.

Connacht GAA president Gerry McGovern believes the risks of a return to playing action this year are too high and has instead urged the Association to focus completely on the 2021 All-Ireland Championships.

We develop a model of financial crises with both a financial amplification mechanism, via frictional intermediation, and a role for sentiment, via time-varying beliefs about an illiquidity state. We confront the model with data on credit spreads, equity prices, credit, and output across the financial crisis cycle. In particular, we ask the model to match data on the frothy pre-crisis behavior of asset markets and credit, the sharp transition to a crisis where asset values fall, disintermediation occurs and output falls, and the post-crisis period characterized by a slow recovery in output. We find that a pure amplification mechanism quantitatively matches the crisis and aftermath period but fails to match the pre-crisis evidence. Mixing sentiment and amplification allows the model to additionally match the pre-crisis evidence. We consider two versions of sentiment, a Bayesian belief updating process and one that overweighs recent observations. We find that both models match the crisis patterns qualitatively, generating froth pre-crisis, non-linear behavior in the crisis, and slow recovery. The non-Bayesian model improves quantitatively on the Bayesian model in matching the extent of the pre-crisis froth.

Shelter in place orders (SIPOs) require residents to remain home for all but essential activities such as purchasing food or medicine, caring for others, exercise, or traveling for employment deemed essential. Between March 19 and April 20, 2020, 40 states and the District of Columbia adopted SIPOs. This study explores the impact of SIPOs on health, with particular attention to heterogeneity in their impacts. First, using daily state-level social distancing data from SafeGraph and a difference-in-differences approach, we document that adoption of a SIPO was associated with a 5 to 10 percent increase in the rate at which state residents remained in their homes full-time. Then, using daily state-level coronavirus case data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we find that approximately three weeks following the adoption of a SIPO, cumulative COVID-19 cases fell by 44 percent. Event-study analyses confirm common COVID-19 case trends in the week prior to SIPO adoption and show that SIPO-induced case reductions grew larger over time. However, this average effect masks important heterogeneity across states — early adopters and high population density states appear to reap larger benefits from their SIPOs. Finally, we find that statewide SIPOs were associated with a reduction in coronavirus-related deaths, but estimated mortality effects were imprecisely estimated.

Researchers are developing robots that use AI to read emotions and social cues, making them better at interacting with humans. Are they a solution to labor shortages in fields like health care and education, a threat to human workers, or both?

Killing red tide cells en masse can unleash their potent toxin. That means researchers need to get creative.

Thousands of fossils from Colorado show how plants and animals evolved together after an asteroid devastated life on Earth.

We'll continuously update this story as more news comes in.
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The global pandemic is shifting timelines and expectations, as brands rush to fix disrupted supply chains and adjust their product offerings in response.
( Photos: 4, Comments: 58 )

If this coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we must prepare for the next one, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Wednesday.

With the U.S. now leading the world in COVID-19 infections, it's time for the nation to stay at home.

Positive initial feedback from the "NBA 2K" Players Tournament suggests it could be a viable alternative moving forward, organizers said.

I'm choosing to be hopeful in these dark days. And I'm starting with something simple: a sourdough starter.

I believed life's little moments were worthy of a great newspaper, not because they were happening to me, but because they were happening to everyone.

Many people quarantining at home as a result of the coronavirus crisis are noticing time passing a little more strangely than usual. For one thing, there are fewer signals differentiating a Sunday from a Monday.

Which school has the most No. 1 NFL draft picks of all-time? This is where the rivalry between USC and Notre Dame flares up once again.

If only such important decisions weren't in the hands of Trump, a president so obviously unprepared and ill-equipped to make them.

The days run together during the coronavirus quarantine, but a jigsaw puzzle and a brief family moment help define them.

Dancing at home during the shutdown is the coronavirus pandemic's bathtub gin.

Former first-round pick Dylan Bundy has battled injuries and declining velocity, but he's no longer in the AL East and the Angels hope his best years are ahead.

Angels manager Joe Maddon will not deny that he will try to give the versatile David Fletcher as much field time as possible.

Going to the beach is our birthright as native Californians — and our promise to newcomers. It's our gift from the Creator — a trade-off for all the quakes, wildfires, mudslides and smog.

A recent survey by the Women's Media Center found that about 75% of newspapers' election coverage this year had been written by men.

Staff in The Times' downtown Los Angeles office had a prime viewing spot as the space shuttle Endeavour flew over Southern California for the last time.