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Technology

Razer Book 13 review: stop gaming, and get to work

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For years, Razer has made some of the best gaming laptops on the market. They’re not uniquely famous for their high performance (Blades are powerful machines but not the fastest out there) or their prices (which are high). They’re famous for their high-quality build and their premium design. In short, Razer makes the best-looking gaming laptops on the market.

Razer has decided this year that this aesthetic shouldn’t be limited to gaming laptops. In its first notebook designed for productivity instead of gaming, Razer has combined its signature look and feel with a 60Hz 16:10 touchscreen and a lower-power processor with integrated graphics. The Razer Book aims to be a Razer Blade on the outside and a Dell XPS 13 on the inside — and it mostly succeeds. Razer has made an excellent laptop with performance rivaling that of the top Windows clamshells on the market. That said, it’s pricey for what it offers, and it has a few drawbacks that mean it won’t be the right choice for everyone.

There are 16.8 million colors in this keyboard, according to Razer.

On the outside, the Razer Book 13 borrows many of the Blade Stealth 13’s signature features. Razer’s three-headed snake adorns the lid. You may also recognize the customizable per-key RGB keyboard with speaker grilles on each side. (Unlike what you’ll see on some more garish gaming rigs, the lighting on these keys looks professional and adds to the sophisticated vibe.) The chassis is CNC-machined aluminum, with a smooth metallic finish. This is a fancy way of saying it’s quite nice; the MacBook Pro is made of the same material, as are many of the best Windows laptops including the XPS 13 and HP’s Spectre x360 14.

But some subtle differences make clear that this laptop is for the office, not for gaming. It’s slightly lighter than the Blade Stealth, at 0.6 inches thick and 3.09 pounds. The port selection is also better than that of the Stealth: there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, one microSD slot, and one combo audio jack. This is also a big advantage the Razer Book has over the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro, both of which have comparably limited selections.

The biggest change, though, is the 16:10 touch display. This makes the screen taller than the 16:9 panels you’ll find on the Blade (and on almost all dedicated gaming laptops). It lends you plenty of extra room for multitasking, with less scrolling and zooming necessary to see everything you need to. Aspect ratio aside, the 1920 x 1200 display on our review unit was quite bright, maxing out at 494 nits in my testing. It’s quite vibrant as well, with sharp and bright colors. While the panel has a glossy texture, it kicks back little to no glare in bright settings.

USB-C, USB-A, headphone jack on the left.

HDMI, USB-C, microSD on the right.

Miscellaneous laptop stuff: the glass touchpad is roomy and quite smooth — definitely one of my recent favorites. The speakers sound great, with strong percussion, though I did hear some distortion at higher volumes. And I almost never get to say this, but the webcam isn’t that bad; it delivers a decent and fairly accurate picture, though there’s no privacy shutter or kill switch.

In a vacuum, I have very few complaints about the Razer Book’s chassis. I will point out that I find it slightly worse than the XPS 13 in a few (subjective) areas. Not only is it thicker and heavier than Dell’s flagship, but it just looks and feels clunkier, lacking the XPS’s sleek portability. And while Razer’s keyboard and touchpad are both fine, they’re not as exceptional as either on the XPS; Dell’s keyboard has more travel and a more satisfying click, and its touchpad is a bit more comfortable. Most frustratingly to me, Razer provides less storage for the price. You only get 256GB of storage in the base and midrange models and can only get 512GB in the top-end $1,999 configuration — 512GB XPS models come as low as $1,399, and the $1,599 XPS has 512GB of storage while the $1,599 Razer Book has just 256GB (their specs are identical otherwise).

There’s one area where the Razer Book solidly beats the XPS, and that’s performance. All Razer Book models are Evo-verified, meaning Intel vouches for them as top performers. And our test model includes a high-clocked (up to 28W) version of one of the chipmaker’s top ultrabook processors, Intel’s Core i7-1165G7.

Evo is the 11th Gen version of Intel’s Project Athena program.

This system flew through the demanding tasks we threw at it. It took nine minutes and 21 seconds to complete our Premiere Pro media test, which involves exporting a 5-minute, 33-second 4K video. That’s the fastest time I’ve ever gotten from a system with the quad-core 1165G7 (which powers many of the best ultraportables on the market). The XPS 13 took 10 minutes and 43 seconds to complete the same task; the more powerful XPS 13 2-in-1 took 10 minutes and five seconds.

Razer still hasn’t quite caught Apple’s M1 systems, though. The most recent MacBook Pro finished the test in seven minutes and 39 seconds. And of course, integrated graphics can’t hold a candle to a midrange GPU, even in a thin and light chassis. The Blade Stealth 13 with a GTX 1650 Ti knocked out the export in just five minutes and 50 seconds.

The Razer Book’s processor is powered up to 28W, with turbo boost speeds up to 4.7 GHz.

In real-world performance, the Razer Book also shines. The laptop handled my fairly demanding load of Chrome tabs, Zoom calls, and other apps with no issue. It boots up from standby almost instantly and very quickly from the powered-off state as well. Of course, the XPS 13 is also quite good in these scenarios.

While the Book 13 is decidedly not a gaming laptop, it is a Razer-branded product, so some might wonder how it games. The answer is it delivers some of the best integrated graphics performance I’ve seen from a Windows clamshell. It solidly beats the XPS 13 clamshell and is about on par with the more powerful 2-in-1. In practice, it’s most suitable for lighter gaming and heavier titles at lower settings.

The Razer Book averaged 142fps on Rocket League’s maximum setting without dipping below 125; the XPS put up 111fps with a minimum of 100. Razer also wins on League of Legends, averaging 219fps to the Dell’s 205fps. Of course, since both machines have a 60Hz screen, you won’t observe a difference in the quality of these games — but these numbers should give you a sense of the Razer Book’s power.

Graphic performance will make something of a difference on heavier titles. The Razer Book beat the XPS on the more demanding Overwatch at Ultra settings, averaging 65fps to the XPS’s 48fps. It also averaged 32fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider at its lowest settings, where the XPS averaged 22fps. That’s significant because it means you could feasibly play Tomb Raider in 1080p on the Razer Book, which would be unpleasant to do on the XPS.

The color is called “mercury.”

That result also makes clear that — to reiterate — despite aesthetic similarity, this laptop is not a Blade. The Stealth 13 averaged 45fps on Tomb Raider’s highest settings. If you want to game with this form factor, buy the Blade. You’ll also get way more storage for the price.

When it comes to cooling, the Razer Book has chops. It did a significantly better job of keeping its CPU cool than the XPS did in my testing. During the Adobe export, the 1165G7 stayed comfortably in the mid-60s to mid-70s (Celsius) with occasional spikes as high as the low 90s. It largely remained in the high 50s during the Tomb Raider benchmark, with spikes up to the mid-70s. All in all, I didn’t see any throttling or slowdown, and the keyboard never got uncomfortably hot under load.

But you’re making a trade-off for all this power: battery life. It’s not terrible, but it’s nothing to write home about. I got an average of six hours and 45 minutes while using the Book 13 for standard office work with occasional Zoom calls and streaming at 200 nits of brightness. (This was in the Battery Saver profile, which you can toggle in Razer’s Synapse software.) That means I can’t go a full day without charging, though your mileage will vary based on your tasks and settings. I’ve gotten over nine hours putting plenty of machines through that same workload, including the XPS 13.

The Razer Book 13 has a lot of things going for it, especially for Razer fans. It’s certainly one of the best ultraportable laptops you can buy — but whether it’s the best is a complicated question to answer.


In some areas (keyboard, touchpad, portability), the Razer Book is slightly worse than the XPS 13. In others (display quality and build quality) it’s about on par. And it brings a few nifty features (the port selection and the RGB keyboard) that Dell’s clamshell doesn’t have — but I doubt those are making or breaking the purchasing decision for most people. On net, I think Razer comes out slightly worse on the chassis front.

But that’s not where the Razer Book makes its case. That category is performance. Compared to other Windows clamshells I’ve tested in the past year, the Razer Book is top of the class. It stands out in productivity and media work as well as gaming. On the other hand, you’re making some sacrifices for that power, in addition to the hefty price tag it carries. You can get a few hours more battery life from a number of laptops in the Razer Book’s class (including the XPS 13) and significantly more storage as well. For folks in the Book’s intended audience (users looking for a portable work or entertainment driver) those trade-offs are probably worth considering.

Ultimately, the Razer Book 13 is an impressive new laptop from Razer with a lot to like, and I’m sure many customers will be happy with it. But those trade-offs mean I can’t quite call it the best product for most people.

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US

Asian hate incidents surge amid COVID-19. They say, ‘Stop killing us.’

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CLOSE

Asian Americans have been victims of increased violence and harassment since the coronavirus pandemic began, but recent attacks have prompted some to “hunker down” again.

USA TODAY

A series of violent crimes against Asians and Asian Americans has prompted activists and experts to warn that racist rhetoric about the coronavirus pandemic may be fueling a rise in hate incidents.

Police in Oakland, California, announced this week that they arrested a suspect in connection with a brutal attack of a 91-year-old man in Chinatown that was caught on camera. In less than a week, a Thai man was attacked and killed in San Francisco, a Vietnamese woman was assaulted and robbed of $1,000 in San Jose, and a Filipino man was attacked with a box cutter on the subway in New York City.

It’s unclear whether the crimes were racially motivated, but advocates calling for more to be done to address violence against Asian Americans say racist crimes against the community are historically underreported for a variety of reasons.

Meanwhile, police departments across the country are warning residents of increased crime around Lunar New Year, in part because of the threat of robberies during the multi-day celebrations that begin Friday. Cash is a customary gift.

Lunar New Year 2021: What does the ox symbolize, and how will it be celebrated during COVID-19 pandemic?

Violence against Asian Americans sharply increased in March as COVID-19 began spreading across the country, and some politicians, including former President Donald Trump, blamed China for the pandemic, said Russell Jeung, who created a tool that tracks hate incidents against Asian American Pacific Islander communities called the Stop AAPI Hate tracker. 

“When President Trump began and insisted on using the term ‘China virus,’ we saw that hate speech really led to hate violence,” said Jeung, chair of the Asian American studies department at San Francisco State University. “That sort of political rhetoric and that sort of anti-Asian climate has continued to this day.”

Acts of racist violence lead to increased anxiety and fear in a population that already has higher rates of anxiety and depression related to COVID-19 than other racial groups, Jeung said. 

Stop AAPI Hate, Jeung’s website, which includes a self-reporting tool for harassment, discrimination and violent attacks, recorded 2,808 incidents of anti-Asian discrimination across the U.S. from its inception on March 19 to Dec. 31, 2020. Another organization, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, recorded more than 3,000 hate incidents in their self-reporting system since late April 2020 – by far the highest number in the tool’s four-year history. 

The FBI collects national hate crime data, but data for 2020 and 2021 has not yet been released. Two hundred sixteen anti-Asian hate crimes were reported in 2019, according to the latest data available. 

That number may be just a fraction of the true total given that fewer than half of the victims of a hate crime ever report it to the police, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Jeung said the increase in hate incidents is a particular concern in urban areas. In New York City, police data shows there were 24 anti-Asian hate crimes related to the coronavirus between Jan. 1 and Nov. 29, 2020, compared with just three anti-Asian hate crimes in the same period in 2019. 

‘We just want to be safe’: Hate crimes, harassment of Asian Americans rise amid coronavirus pandemic

“This increase was cultivated due to the anti-Asian rhetoric about the virus that was publicized, and individuals began to attack Asian New Yorkers, either verbal attack or physical assault,” Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison told reporters in August. 

The spike in hate crimes led the NYPD to create an Asian Hate Crimes Task Force.

Activists including Amanda Nguyễn, co-founder of Rise, a sexual assault survivor advocacy organization, are raising awareness of the Oakland case and the other violent incidents involving Asian Americans. Nguyễn said she created an Instagram video about the attacks, which has since gone viral, because she was angered not only by the violence but by the lack of media attention the cases received.

“When I made that video I was tired of living in fear and I wanted to scream,” she told USA TODAY. “It’s so absurd that I have to say ‘Stop killing us.’ … We are literally fearing for our lives as we walk out of our door, and your silence, your silence rings through our heads.”

In the Oakland assault, the district attorney’s office is investigating whether there is enough evidence to support hate crime charges, Alameda County District Attorney  Nancy O’Malley said in a statement to USA TODAY.

The suspect in the Oakland assault, Yahya Muslim, was charged with three counts of assault, inflicting great bodily injury and committing a crime against an elderly person, O’Malley announced at a news conference Monday.

Police said Muslim is believed to have attacked a 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman the same day of the Chinatown attack.

Meanwhile, actors Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case and are donating that money to community organizations like Stop AAPI Hate.

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“The skyrocketing number of hate crimes against Asian Americans continues to grow, despite our repeated pleas for help,” they said on Twitter. “The crimes ignored and even excused.” 

On Jan. 28, Vicha Ratanapakdee was attacked and later died in San Francisco. Eric Lawson, his son-in-law, told USA TODAYhe believes the 84-year-old was targeted because he was Asian. Lawson adde that his wife, who is Thai, was verbally assaulted twice and told to “go back to China” before the attack.

“Everyone is dancing around the issue, and no one’s addressing it,” he said.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed murder and elder abuse charges against Antoine Watson, but her office has “no evidence of what motivated this senseless attack,” spokesperson Rachel Marshall told USA TODAY.

In San Jose, a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman was assaulted last Wednesday and robbed of $1,000 in cash she had withdrawn for the holiday. No arrest has been made, and there is no indication the robbery was race-related, said public information officer Sgt. Christian Camarillo.

That same day in New York, 61-year-old Noel Quintana, who is of reportedly Filipino descent, was slashed in the face with a box cutter on the subway. Spokesperson Detective Sophia Mason told USA TODAY police were investigating but did not answer questions about whether the incident may have been motivated by race.

Christian Hall: Ben Crump to represent family of Asian American teen killed by police while having ‘mental health crisis’

Although it’s unclear whether the particular cases are racially motivated, they are certainly “related” and “horrific,” Jeung said.

“What makes it worse is we see our elderly and youth also targeted,” he said. “It seems like people are attacking vulnerable populations.”

CLOSE

As coronavirus spreads across the U.S., Asian Americans share how racism and microaggressions have, too.

USA TODAY

John C. Yang, president and CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said his organization has been tracking anti-Asian hate incidents and crimes for nearly 30 years and has received hundreds more hate incident reports in 2020 than in previous years. He said polls by IPSOS and Pew Research Center indicate that the true scope of hate Asian Americans are experiencing is probably much larger, and better data is needed.

“Although these reports are clearly incomplete, clearly just the tip of the iceberg that shows us that there is this dramatic increase in hate incidents,” he said, noting that it’s too soon to tell if that increase is continuing in 2021.

There are several reasons victims of a hate crime may not report it to the police, according to Yang.

Yang said victims may not be aware of the resources available for them, and there may be language barriers to accessing those resources for older Asian Americans in particular. He said there may be cultural barriers to reporting as well, including shame around being perceived as a victim. Some victims may also be concerned about interacting with law enforcement because of their immigration status.

Yang added that not all hate incidents rise to the level of crime, but they still “clearly inflict a level of mental trauma.” He estimated that only about 10% of the incidents reported to his organization could be considered crimes.

‘They look at me and think I’m some kind of virus’: What it’s like to be Asian during the coronavirus pandemic

Jeung, of Stop AAPI Hate, said that in addition to crimes such as physical violence, Asian Americans have reported experiencing violations of their civil rights including being denied service by businesses or rideshares, being verbally harassed with racial slurs and facing vandalism and property damage.

He said his wife was deliberately coughed on while jogging, noting the similarities to a New Jersey incident where a man was charged with making a terroristic threat after coughing on a supermarket employee and saying he had the coronavirus.

“There is such a climate of hate and anger that we need to again lower the temperature and remind people to treat others with respect,” he said.

President Joe Biden signed a memorandum in late January denouncing xenophobia and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Yang said the the Biden administration’s words have made a difference, but the recent violence has caused the community to “hunker down again” during a normally celebratory time.

He said more needs to be done to ensure victims have support systems and to educate bystanders about safe intervention. He warned against relying too heavily on law enforcement.

Despite the horrific crimes, Jeung was excited to see the Oakland community organizing efforts to reduce crime in the neighborhood.

“What I’m really heartened by is the Asian American community is really standing up,” he said. “I want people to know we’re not simply victims of discrimination, but we’re advocating for racial justice for everyone in the United States and we’ll continue to do so.”

Follow N’dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg

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World

9-year-old boy begs Biden administration to stop his father’s deportation to Guatemala

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At just 9 years old, Fernando Ochoa is fighting to stop his father’s deportation over fears that he may be separated from him a third time even though President Joe Biden has ordered a 100-day moratorium on deportations and created a family reunification task force.

On Wednesday morning, just outside an immigration court, Fernando gave his attorney a letter he wrote to Biden asking him in Spanish “from my heart that you let my dad go free.”

Fernando and his father, Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez, fled Guatemala over two years ago to seek asylum in the U.S. Instead, Fernando, who was 6 years old at the time, was separated from his dad by immigration authorities. He was one of at least 2,800 migrant children who were separated from their parents in 2018 as part of President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, implemented to deter migrants from seeking asylum.

Two months later, Fernando and his father were reunited.

Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez and his 9-year-old son, Fernando.Courtesy RAICES Texas

“During the first 35 days of those two months, Ubaldo couldn’t even contact Fernando. So those 35 days of zero contact, not knowing what was going on, were very traumatic for both of them,” Andani Alcantara, their attorney, said in a news conference Wednesday.

Once they were together, Ochoa Lopez and his son resumed their legal efforts to get asylum, but they were separated for a second time in October, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detained Ochoa Lopez a month after he was convicted of driving while intoxicated, Alcantara said.

“It was only a Class B misdemeanor, but ICE has treated it as a huge crime, and it has decided that it is enough reason not to allow Ubaldo to be with his child, who doesn’t have another parent in the U.S.,” she said.

‘Punished twice’

Ochoa Lopez has been in the Pearsall Detention Center in Texas for four months.

The Texas immigrant rights advocacy group RAICES has been helping Fernando with his asylum case while urging ICE to reunite him with his father, Erika Andiola, the organization’s chief of advocacy, said during the news conference.

Andiola said it’s important to note that Ochoa Lopez “went through the criminal justice system” when he was charged and convicted last year.

“If it was someone else, someone who was born in this country, if he was another person, perhaps he would be back with his son, but he’s not. He’s being punished twice for something that already happened — even after what we, as a country, did to take away his child,” Andiola said.

Fernando wrote in his letter to Biden: “I feel very sad for my dad who is not with me. During Christmas, I was sad for my dad who was not with me. It makes me very sad to see other parents playing with their children because I can’t play with my dad nor receive a hug from my dad.”

Alcantara said she has completed multiple requests to ICE calling for Ochoa Lopez’s release, most recently on Monday after the Biden administration announced new guidelines about immigration enforcement priorities. The public safety guidelines say to prioritize those “who have been convicted of an ‘aggravated felony.'”

“The reality is that ICE always has the discretion to let anybody out of detention, and they are choosing not to,” she said. “That’s harming his child, who’s 9 years old and cries on the phone with Ubaldo because he hasn’t seen his dad in so long.

“They’re choosing to keep a parent and child separated that they had already separated before and traumatized,” she added.

ICE has not responded to an email seeking comment.

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Biden went into his presidency carrying the weight of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, as well as criticism for the record number of deportations under former President Barack Obama, when he was vice president.

There’s been an urgent push by progressive supporters and immigration advocates to do things differently.

An early Biden executive order placing a 100-day moratorium on deportations pending an enforcement review was suspended by a federal judge in response to a Texas lawsuit. But the ruling did not require ICE to schedule the deportations, and the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has deported at least 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras in recent days.

More deportation flights are scheduled this week to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cameroon and Honduras, in addition to last week’s deportation to Mexico of a woman who witnessed the 2019 anti-Latino mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas.

‘”If Ubaldo is sent back to Guatemala, Fernando is left here without any parent, which is harmful enough in itself, but given his history of prior forceful separations by the government, it would be really harmful for him,” Alcantara said, adding that he would be left “to fight his asylum case on his own.”

A group of 120 law professors and legal experts called on the Biden administration to hold ICE officers accountable to executive orders and other directives that reflect “the president’s intention to rebuild the immigration system in a way that respects human rights and due process,” the group said in a news release Tuesday.

They sent a letter to newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urging the agency to “use all the tools of prosecutorial discretion at its disposal to comply with the Biden administration’s interior enforcement immigration policies and stop ongoing deportations of asylum seekers and families.”

They warned that continued practices “will inevitably result in the continuation of enforcement practices that send asylum seekers back to their persecutors and destabilize families and communities.”

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Health

How to stop food rewards for fitness motivation

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Positive reinforcement, such as rewarding yourself with a treat, plays an important role in maintaining motivation and perseverance when it comes to reaching your ultimate goals. These small wins can help you stay on track, research has shown. By dividing one large goal into various smaller ones, each step becomes an achievement.

However, it’s easy to go overboard with rewards that can undermine our goals. Let’s face it, we all want to give into our junk food cravings, and what better a time to indulge than after you’ve just accomplished something healthy? You don’t have to cut out junk food entirely, but knowing how to reward yourself in a way that aligns with your health goals can completely change your approach.

There are plenty of nonfood rewards that will get you pumped about achieving that next step in your plan. So the next time you find yourself leaning toward sugary or salty cravings, consider celebrating with these healthy rewards instead.

When was the last time you’ve set aside time for a quick power nap? Because it can be tricky prioritizing a nap in a busy schedule, try making this a reward for your next achievement.

Brief naps have been shown to improve cognitive performance in some cases. So by giving in to sleep, you may actually be benefiting your work life. Allowing yourself to feel refreshed and energized after a workout aligns with health-related goals, unlike giving into sugary or fatty foods.

Buy a piece of workout gear

Have you been eyeing a certain pair of workout leggings? How about a new workout-style fanny pack? Set an attainable goal for yourself and preselect an affordable piece of gear, and once you reach your target, hit the internet to shop.

Having that new item on your mind while working out may help you stay motivated longer.

Looking good for your next workout also can help you feel better about yourself as you work toward your ultimate goal. Knowing that you’ve earned that piece of clothing or equipment that you’re using will only help you strive for more, taking you one step closer to your next milestone. This reward is a win-win.

Light a candle and read a book

Lighting a candle is a simple act, yet it can be super relaxing and rewarding. After a long day of work and exercise, letting yourself simply sit down with a book and a candle by your side could be just what you need to unwind.

“Me time” usually isn’t prioritized, but it’s a great way to reenergize our minds and bodies.

Mindfulness, which is usually improved during times of relaxation, has been shown to reduce stress and improve quality of life. As part of this reward, try ridding yourself of any negative thoughts and focus only on relaxing. You’ve earned it. (Just be sure to fully extinguish the candle when you’re done.)

Give yourself a free pass to say no

Put yourself first. Is there a chore, errand or social engagement that you’ve been dreading? Allow yourself to say no if you’re truly not feeling up to it. So many of us end up giving into plans due to guilt rather than actual desire. Instead, commit to using this time to exercise.

Get some bath salts and relax

What better way to reward a healthy accomplishment than with a relaxing bath?

There is a strong link between physical and mental health, studies have suggested. Physical activity produces those feel-good chemicals in our brains called endorphins that in turn could help you develop a positive mindset. Regular workouts strengthen that mind-body connection. So by promoting one, it’s likely that you’re promoting the other.

Mental health rewards can motivate you to get in a workout because you’ll be able to relax afterward — which is well needed after a strenuous workout. Rest is essential in helping your body recover from strength training and cardiovascular exercises and can even help future performance.

Incorporating these five rewards can help you ease away from a food-based reward system. Allowing yourself to indulge in too many processed foods can hurt your progress, leaving you more unmotivated than before.

Instead, celebrate your wins with rewards that help strengthen your mind, body or both.

Stephanie Mansour, host of “Step It Up With Steph” on PBS, is a health and wellness journalist and a consultant and weight loss coach for women.

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Sports

LeBron James heckled by fans during Lakers game, refs briefly stop play

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There were a limited number of fans in Atlanta, Ga., Monday night due to the coronavirus pandemic, but that didn’t appear to stop Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James from getting in a heated argument with some along the sidelines. 

Hecklers appeared to jaw with James during the fourth quarter of the contest between the Lakers and the Atlanta Hawks, which led to referees stopping play and security getting involved, according to a video of the incident posted on Twitter.

The fans in question were allegedly two women who were escorted from State Farm Arena. One of them gave the middle finger on her way out, according to The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner.

LEBRON JAMES REACTS TO TOM BRADY’S 10TH SUPER BOWL APPEARANCE: ‘AT OUR AGE, WE CAN STILL DOMINATE OUR SPORT’

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) is restrained by an official as he reacts to a fan in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Atlanta Hawks, Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

James appeared to shake off the incident, scoring 21 points, as the Lakers defeated the Hawks 107-99.

“At the end of the day, I’m happy fans are back in the building,” James said after the game. “I miss that interaction … We as players need that interaction.”

Last week, a Cleveland Cavaliers executive celebrated a missed shot from James at the end of the 3rd quarter during a game between the Lakers and Cavs. James would explode in the 4th quarter leading his team to a 115-108 victory in the contest. 

NBA FAN’S ‘LEBRON JAMES IS A RACIST’ SHIRT, INCIDENT WITH SECURITY LEADS TO REMOVAL DURING GAME: REPORT

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He remarked after the game that the unidentified person in question last week “got a little bit too excited.”



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World

US coronavirus: Fauci urges vaccinations to stop new virus strains

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“You need to get vaccinated when it becomes available as quickly and as expeditiously as possible throughout the country,” Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said in a virtual news briefing with the White House Covid-19 response team. “And the reason for that is … viruses cannot mutate if they don’t replicate. And if you stop their replication by vaccinating widely and not giving the virus an open playing field to continue to respond to the pressures that you put on it, you will not get mutations.”

Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer later Monday, Fauci said even if someone has had coronavirus, there’s a “very high rate” of being reinfected with the new variants if they become dominant.

“If it becomes dominant, the experience of our colleagues in South Africa indicate that even if you’ve been infected with the original virus that there is a very high rate of reinfection to the point where previous infection does not seem to protect you against reinfection,” Fauci said on CNN.

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said the possibility of reinfection by one of the variants is another reason why people should get vaccinated.

“A lot of people say, ‘Look, I had it, I’m good to go, I don’t need to get vaccinated,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “Not the case. You still need to vaccinated and this is precisely why.”

Fauci emphasized the importance of getting vaccinated to prevent severe and potentially fatal illness that may require hospitalization.

“Even though there is a diminished protection against the variants, there’s enough protection to prevent you from getting serious disease, including hospitalization and deaths,” Fauci said. “So, vaccination is critical.”

Another health expert said the United States should waste no time vaccinating Americans before those variants that are more transmissible overwhelm the country.

“Right now we are in an absolute race against time with these variants, with trying to get people vaccinated before they spread too much across our country, said emergency physician Dr. Megan Ranney, director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health in Rhode Island. “It means that just going to the grocery store, to school or to work could become more dangerous. We have an already overtaxed and exhausted health care system.”
The US just suffered its deadliest month of the entire pandemic, with more than 95,300 Covid-19 deaths in January. That’s an average of more than 3,070 deaths a day.
The better news: New Covid-19 case numbers are decreasing in most states. And for the first time in almost two months, Covid-19 hospitalizations finally dipped below 100,000 after a catastrophic post-holiday surge.

Despite the falling numbers, Ranney said now is not the time to let up on the basic precautions such as wearing masks, avoiding unmasked gatherings indoors, hand washing and social distancing.

“We have a little breathing room right now,” she said. “But if these new variants become dominant in our country, we are going to be right back where we were in November and December — and perhaps even worse.”

US efforts to ramp up coronavirus sequencing to identify concerning strains have jumped in recent weeks, but still aren’t at the level they need to be, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Speaking at a news briefing Monday, Walensky said the United States is on track to sequence at least 7,000 samples weekly. Experts have previously told CNN that the United States should aim to sequence 5% to 10% of cases. Based on cases from the past seven days, this would amount to roughly 52,000 to 104,000 sequences a week.

“The recent rise in number of variants detected in the United States is likely due at least in part to our expanded ability to sequence virus samples,” Walensky noted.

Mask mandate on public transportation set for Monday night

A new order by the CDC requiring people to wear masks while riding any kind of public transportation will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Monday.

Airlines and airports will be required to report passengers who disobey the new federal mask mandate to federal authorities, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The directive says failure to comply with the mask rules at an airport “may result in the removal and denial of re-entry” of violators.

The CDC said public transportation operators must use best efforts to enforce the mandate, such as allowing only those wearing masks to board and disembarking passengers who refuse to comply.

The order was signed by Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.

People can take their masks off briefly to eat, drink or take medication; verify their identity to law enforcement or transportation officials; communicate with hearing impaired people; don an oxygen mask on an aircraft; or during a medical emergency, the CDC said.

Children younger than 2 or people with a disability who cannot wear a mask are exempt.

The debate over how to vaccinate

About 26 million people have received at least one dose of their two-dose vaccines, according to the CDC. About 6 million people have been fully vaccinated with both doses. That’s 1.7% of the US population.

The storm that is dumping snow across the Northeast is delaying vaccinations there. State-run mass vaccination sites in New York and New Jersey are set to be closed Tuesday due to the winter storm. In Massachusetts, the state Department of Transportation is coordinating with several Covid-19 vaccination sites to “keep them as accessible as possible for as long as possible,” Gov. Charlie Baker said.

But with new variants spreading, some health experts say the US should go ahead and give first doses to as many people as possible — even if that might delay second doses for some.

“We still want to get two doses in everyone,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told NBC on Sunday.

“But I think right now, in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can to reduce serious illness and deaths that are going to occur over the next weeks ahead.”

Osterholm said he’s worried about a potential surge caused by the highly contagious B.1.1.7 strain, first identified in the UK. That strain has now spread to at least 32 states, according to the CDC.

“The surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks,” Osterholm said. “And if we see that happen … we are going to see something like we have not yet seen in this country.”

But some health experts are concerned second doses could be delayed. Recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are supposed to get their second doses 21 days after the first dose, and Moderna vaccine doses are supposed to be spaced 28 days apart.

The World Health Organization, Pfizer and Moderna have all said people can wait as long as six weeks between doses. But Pfizer and Moderna said they don’t have any data on how long people can wait between doses and still get good protection.
While Osterholm’s idea is “admirable, trying to give at least some protection to as many people as possible,” it also has drawbacks, said William Haseltine, president of ACCESS Health International.

“First, they may not get fully protected, and that might accelerate the rate of variants taking over and causing us much more trouble in the future,” said Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School. “Secondly, we really don’t know if delaying the second dose for a long time is going to give you the same degree of protection.”

Ideally, people should stick to the recommended interval of either three weeks or four weeks, said Fauci, also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“But if someone who, for one reason or another, is a bit late by a couple of weeks … there is some wiggle room,” Fauci said. “It’s not the end of the world if you delay a little bit. If you want to delay it by six months, that’s different.”

States should not be holding back doses to give people their second shot, Fauci said.

“The first priority will always be to get the people who have gotten their first doses to get their second doses,” Fauci said.

But “a dose that’s available is going to go into someone’s arm. If a person is ready for their second dose, that person will be prioritized.”

Ranney said she hopes increased production can help ensure people can get their second doses in a timely manner.

“We should count on Pfizer and Moderna and hopefully soon Johnson & Johnson as well to help fill that gap,” she said.

“Give everyone the doses that you can right now and count on that increased production so that you can get people adequately protected.”

Racial disparities in vaccinations

New York officials acknowledged Monday there’s a clear racial disparity among the people who have received vaccine doses to date and the city needs to redouble its efforts to address inequitable access.
A new CDC report released Monday highlighted that issue. People in the United States who have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine were most likely to be female, non-Hispanic White and at least 50 years old, according to the report.

The CDC collected demographic data from states and other jurisdictions on people who began the vaccination process between December 14 and January 14.

Age and gender were identified for nearly all 12.5 million individuals who received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine in the first month of distribution. Of those, about 63% were female and about 55% were at least 50 years old.

Race and ethnicity, however, were unknown for about half of the individuals vaccinated. Six jurisdictions did not report any race or ethnicity data.

But of those for whom race and ethnicity were identified, about 60% were non-Hispanic White. About 11.5% were Hispanic or Latino, 6% Asian, 5.4% Black, 2% American Indian or Alaskan Native, and less than 1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

The demographic data of those vaccinated against Covid-19 likely reflects the demographics of the people in the Phase 1a priority group, including health care personnel and long-term care facility residents, according to the CDC.

Black and Hispanic people have been found to have more severe outcomes from Covid-19, according to CDC, and “more complete reporting of race and ethnicity data” is needed to detect and respond to potential disparities in Covid-19 vaccination.

Johnson & Johnson may have millions of doses soon

Many Americans hope Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine will get emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration this month.

That vaccine has been shown to be 66% effective in preventing moderate and severe disease in a global Phase 3 trial and 85% effective against severe disease, the company announced Friday. The vaccine was 72% effective against moderate and severe disease in the US.

There are two key advantages to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It requires only one dose, and it can be kept at normal refrigeration temperatures.

If the vaccine gets a green light from the FDA in the coming weeks, Johnson & Johnson said it would have fewer than 10 million vaccine doses available, a federal health official told CNN.

The number of doses available would be in the single-digit millions and that number would ramp up to 20 or 30 million doses by April, the official said. CNN has reached out to Johnson & Johnson for comment.

The US government is working with the Australian company Ellume to provide more of its fully at-home Covid-19 tests to the United States, the Biden administration said Monday.

The company has been ramping up manufacturing and will ship 100,000 test kits per month to the US from February through July, said Andy Slavitt, senior White House adviser for Covid-19 response.

With a new $230 million contract, Ellume will “be able to scale their production to manufacture more than 19 million test kits per month by the end of this year, 8.5 million of which are guaranteed to the US government,” Slavitt said.

The Ellume test can detect Covid-19 with 95% accuracy in about 15 minutes, he said.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Andrea Diaz, Maggie Fox, Deidre McPhillips, Michael Nedelman, Ganesh Setty, Naomi Thomas and Greg Wallace contributed to this report.

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US

McCarthy tells GOP to stop attacking each other: ‘Cut that crap out’

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“Cut that crap out,” McCarthy told his members, according to two sources on the call. McCarthy said he’s had personal discussions with individual members and warned that a continued GOP vs. GOP battle will only benefit Democrats as his party aims to recapture the majority in next year’s midterms.

“No more attacks to one another,” he said, including over Twitter.

One GOP lawmaker, who asked not to be named, said that McCarthy’s message overall was upbeat and hopeful. “He said the only thing that can stop us from taking the majority is us.”

The internecine attacks have been relentless in recent days as much of the conference has sided with Trump while others have split from the former President, including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican, and nine of her colleagues who voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection that led to the deadly Capitol riot on January 6. Trump’s defenders in the conference are trying to oust Cheney from her leadership position, while Cheney’s backers are confident they can beat back that effort, though the topic did not surface on Wednesday’s call, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The call, which was hosted by the National Republican Congressional Committee, was aimed at ensuring that members ponied up money to help win back the majority, with GOP members pledging more than $2 million to the party campaign committee.

And on the call, sources said, Republicans committed to filling the NRCC’s coffers, including controversial freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Georgia Republican promised to pay her dues and transfer $175,000 to the NRCC, which prompted the committee’s chairman, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, to thank her during the call, the sources said.

Greene herself has been engaged in a Twitter war with one fellow House Republican, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who has warned his party not to follow her brand of politics. CNN reported Tuesday that Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress, which has drawn backlash from lawmakers including Kinzinger.

But McCarthy is eager to keep those disputes private. A spokesman for the GOP leader did not respond to a request for comment.

During the call, lawmakers also discussed other matters — including the decision by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to install metal detectors just off the House floor, something that has enraged many Republicans. North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson urged his colleagues to not create scenes off the floor and in the presence of reporters — and to instead channel their objections internally so they can work to modify the system, the sources said.

McCarthy is scheduled to meet with Trump on Thursday, CNN confirmed. That meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.

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Science

A Physicist Has Worked Out The Math That Makes ‘Paradox-Free’ Time Travel Plausible

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No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.

 

As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time and stop your parents from meeting, for instance, how can you possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?

It’s a monumental head-scratcher known as the ‘grandfather paradox’, but in September last year a physics student Germain Tobar, from the University of Queensland in Australia, said he has worked out how to “square the numbers” to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.

“Classical dynamics says if you know the state of a system at a particular time, this can tell us the entire history of the system,” said Tobar back in September 2020.

“However, Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts the existence of time loops or time travel – where an event can be both in the past and future of itself – theoretically turning the study of dynamics on its head.”

What the calculations show is that space-time can potentially adapt itself to avoid paradoxes.

 

To use a topical example, imagine a time traveller journeying into the past to stop a disease from spreading – if the mission was successful, the time traveller would have no disease to go back in time to defeat.

Tobar’s work suggests that the disease would still escape some other way, through a different route or by a different method, removing the paradox. Whatever the time traveller did, the disease wouldn’t be stopped.

Tobar’s work isn’t easy for non-mathematicians to dig into, but it looks at the influence of deterministic processes (without any randomness) on an arbitrary number of regions in the space-time continuum, and demonstrates how both closed timelike curves (as predicted by Einstein) can fit in with the rules of free will and classical physics.

“The maths checks out – and the results are the stuff of science fiction,” said physicist Fabio Costa from the University of Queensland, who supervised the research.

Fabio Costa (left) and Germain Tobar (right). (Ho Vu)

The new research smooths out the problem with another hypothesis, that time travel is possible but that time travellers would be restricted in what they did, to stop them creating a paradox. In this model, time travellers have the freedom to do whatever they want, but paradoxes are not possible.

While the numbers might work out, actually bending space and time to get into the past remains elusive – the time machines that scientists have devised so far are so high-concept that for they currently only exist as calculations on a page.

 

We might get there one day – Stephen Hawking certainly thought it was possible – and if we do then this new research suggests we would be free to do whatever we wanted to the world in the past: it would readjust itself accordingly.

“Try as you might to create a paradox, the events will always adjust themselves, to avoid any inconsistency,” says Costa. “The range of mathematical processes we discovered show that time travel with free will is logically possible in our universe without any paradox.”

The research has been published in Classical and Quantum Gravity.

A version of this article was first published in September 2020.

 

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World

Keller to Pay $200K to Man Pepper Sprayed by Police After He Videotaped Son’s Traffic Stop, Lawyer Says – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

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The city of Keller has agreed to pay $200,000 to a man who was pepper-sprayed and arrested after he videotaped a police officer who pulled over his son for making a wide right turn, according to the father’s attorney.

Marco Puente filed a lawsuit in federal court in Fort Worth last month against two Keller police officers alleging excessive force and illegal arrest in the Aug. 15 incident.

According to the officers’ body camera footage, Marco Puente’s son Dillon was pulled over by Sgt. Blake Shimanek for making a wide right turn.

Dillon Puente’s father soon appeared at the scene in a separate vehicle and started to videotape what was going on from across the street.

That’s when Shimanek ordered another officer, Ankit Tomer, to arrest the father and pepper spray him. Tomer was also named in the lawsuit.

Both the father and son were taken to jail but police supervisors quickly dropped the charges after they reviewed the case and Shimanek was demoted to officer.

The Keller City Council has scheduled a special meeting Tuesday to discuss a controversial police traffic stop and complaints of excessive force that resulted in a federal lawsuit.

Scott Palmer, attorney for the Puentes, said Sunday both sides agreed to settle the lawsuit during a mediation session on Friday when the city agreed to pay $200,000.

“The Puente family is pleased to have this unfortunate and needless situation behind them,” Palmer and attorney James Roberts said in a statement. “This settlement will justly compensate both Dillon and Marco.”

The statement credited police chief Brad Fortune with acting quickly in “addressing the issues” in the case, but added, “it is disappointing that these officers are still employed at the Keller Police Department.”

Keller Mayor Armin Mizani on Sunday confirmed that the mediation took place but said he was waiting for the agreement to be signed by both sides.

The mayor declined to confirm the settlement amount was $200,000 but said the city itself would be limited to paying a $5,000 deductible. The Texas Municipal League, which insures cities, will pay the rest, he said.

“The city plans to share details once all is finalized,” Mizani said.

A city spokeswoman also noted the deal hasn’t been finalized but said, “The city is pleased that a mediated settlement agreement has been achieved.”

The lawsuit claimed the sergeant targeted the younger Puente because he was Hispanic and wrongfully believed he had drugs in his car.



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