In a cave south of Rome, archaeologists recently found the remains of nine Neanderthals, an "extraordinary discovery that will be the talk of the world," Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said.

Archaeologists began excavating the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo in 2019, 80 years after a Neanderthal skull was found inside. Because of either an earthquake or landslide, the cave was closed off, and the inside is preserved as it was 50,000 years ago, NPR reports. The archaeologists found skulls, skull and bone fragments, and teeth, with the oldest remains from 90,000 to 100,000 years ago; the rest likely date back 50,000 to 68,000 years, the Italian Cultural Ministry said on Saturday.

The ministry described the cave as "one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals," and said archaeologists also uncovered the fossilized remains of elephants, hyenas, rhinoceros, and giant deer.

More than 30,000 delegates around Virginia voted Sunday to pick the Republican nominees for statewide office, and by Monday night, two of three nominations were settled. Glenn Youngkin, the former CEO of the Carlyle Group private equity firm who campaigned as a "conservative Christian outsider," beat six other candidates to win the gubernatorial nomination, and Del. Jason Miyares narrowly won the attorney general race Sunday. The lieutenant governor ballots are still being counted.

Republicans have not won statewide office in Virginia since 2009. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) is barred by state law from seeking a second consecutive term, and Democrats will pick their nominees in a June 8 primary. Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is considered the frontrunner.

Youngkin, like all the other GOP gubernatorial candidates, embraced the politics of former President Donald Trump, though he was more nuanced than some of his rivals. He made "election integrity" a centerpiece of his campaign. Election security was certainly an issue among the GOP candidates; Youngkin hired his own private security guards to stand outside the room with the ballots, until hotel security escorted them out.

State Sen. Amanda Chase (R), a far-right candidate more closely aligned with Trump, was the second-to-last candidate standing in the GOP's ranked-choice voting system. "She has suggested she might run as an independent if she feels like the nomination process was unfair," The Washington Post reports. The hard-right runner up in the attorney general race, Chuck Smith, demanded a recount.

Youngkin's own "enthusiasm for Trump is a tightrope walk in a state where the former president remains popular with the GOP base but not with the electorate as a whole, having lost elections here by more than 5 points in 2016 and 10 points last year," The Associated Press notes. Republicans are hopeful that Youngkin, who has already loaned more than $5 million to his campaign, does better in the suburbs.

"It seems to me that Youngkin, who has the most minimal record but is clearly a very good retail politician and has almost unlimited resources, will be able to run the most effective campaign of the Republican candidates," veteran Virginia political analyst Bob Holsworth told AP.

RepurposedMaterials gives new life to commercial waste that is otherwise bound for the landfill.

The Denver company estimates that every year, it keeps 3 million pounds of refuse out of dumps across the United States. Its founder, Damon Carson, accepts all kinds of industrial waste — think hundreds of pounds of rope, used fire hoses, and street-sweeper bristles — and connects these castoff items to new owners.

The bristles, for example, can be put out in a field so livestock can use them as backscratchers, and the fire hoses can be used as bumpers to protect boat docks. Recycling takes energy, while repurposing does not, so RepurposedMaterials makes sure the items stay in their original forms. "Why grind something up," Carson asked Popular Science, "why melt something down, if it still has value?"

On average, about once a week Carson will receive an item he's never had before — recently, it was ceramic paper — and he gets to work learning about the product and then finding the right new owner. Carson got the idea to start RepurposedMaterials while working in the trash business, and saw up close how wasteful people can be, throwing away perfectly good items like windows still wrapped in factory plastic. Since then, he has found that even if it doesn't seem like it, every discarded item that comes his way has value. Read more at Popular Science.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced Monday that California surprisingly amassed a $75.7 billion budget surplus last year, and he will propose using some of that windfall for direct payments to state residents earning up to $75,000 a year. Last year, California officials warned about facing a budget deficit of up to $50 billion, but a combination of federal pandemic aid and capital gains taxes from wealthy California stock market investors filled state coffers.

Newsom's proposal requires approval from the state Legislature, but the chairs of the budget committees in the Democratic-controlled state Senate and Assembly joined Newsom for his announcement, suggesting the Legislature is on board. The governor's plan would send $600 to anybody earning up to $75,000 who did not get a check in an earlier round of state stimulus payments aimed at people earning up to $30,000 a year. Newsom also proposed an additional $500 for $75,000-and-under households with children and $500 for undocumented immigrants.

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for California's Department of Finance, said the state is required to give some money back to taxpayers under a 1979 constitutional amendment, California is $16 billion above the threshold, and Newsom could delay the payments but has decided to do the rebates now to hasten the post-pandemic recovery. Half that surplus, or $8.1 billion, will go toward the rebates, while the other half, per law, will go to public schools.

A handful of Republicans trying to unseat Newsom in a likely recall election accused him of trying to curry favor with voters. Newsom's GOP critics generally favored the rebate policy, though.

The tax rebates are part of $100 billion in stimulus spending Newsom is proposing this week. He also wants to spend $5.2 billion to help with unpaid rent from the past year — a proposal supported by landlords — and $2 billion for past-due utility bills. Separately, the U.S. Treasury Department said Monday that California will receive $27 billion from the federal coronavirus spending package.

The World Health Organization on Monday announced that B.1.617, the coronavirus variant first identified in India, is of global concern.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of WHO's coronavirus response, said that there is "some available information to suggest some increased transmissibility of B.1.617," and more research is needed to determine whether COVID-19 vaccines are as effective against this variant. There are three other variants of global concern: the strains first detected in Britain, South Africa, and Brazil.

B.1.617 was first detected in India in October. The country is now experiencing a devastating COVID-19 outbreak, with hundreds of thousands of new cases reported every day. On Saturday, India recorded 4,187 deaths — the highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic. Many believe that the actual number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths is much higher than what has been reported.

OSIRIS-REx made history last fall when it touched down on the asteroid Bennu, and now, the NASA spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with some souvenirs from the trip.

OSIRIS-REx started the two-year journey back home on Monday, carrying rubble it collected from the surface of Bennu, an asteroid believed to be as tall as the Empire State Building and 4.5 billion years old. This was NASA's first mission to try to get a piece of an asteroid, and principal scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona told The Associated Press it is estimated that OSIRIS-REx is holding between half a pound and a pound of rubble — much more than the goal of two ounces.

The spacecraft was launched in September 2016, and orbited Bennu for two years, sending back "new and exciting images and data," Lauretta said. The samples are set to arrive in a capsule dropping in Utah on Sept. 24, 2023, and the rubble could help scientists better understand how planets were formed and life began on Earth.

In a letter sent to his Republican colleagues on Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that after having conversations with "so many of you in recent days," it's clear there needs to be a "change" in GOP leadership, and "as such, you should anticipate a vote on recalling the conference chair this Wednesday."

The position is now held by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), but over the last few weeks, there has been an internal push to vote her out and replace her with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). Stefanik's voting record is more moderate than Cheney's, but she is a supporter of former President Donald Trump, while Cheney is not.

It's Cheney's criticism of Trump, his false claims of election fraud, and his incitement of a mob ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that has led many Republicans to want her removed from the conference chair role, making it ironic that McCarthy wrote in his letter that the GOP is a "big tent party," and "unlike the left, we embrace free thought and debate."

McCarthy, who confirmed during an interview with Fox News on Sunday that he supports Stefanik as the new conference chair, said he wants Republicans to gain control of the House in 2022, and "if we are to succeed in stopping the radical Democrat agenda from destroying our country, these internal conflicts need to be resolved so as to not detract from the efforts of our collective team."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday authorized the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents age 12 to 15.

Pfizer has said clinical trials show its COVID-19 vaccine to be 100 percent effective in this age group. The vaccine already has been approved for people age 16 and up.

The approval sets the stage for many middle schoolers and young high school students to be vaccinated before the next school year. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must also approve the authorization before vaccinations for the age group can begin.

If Los Angeles County continues to administer 400,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots a week, it will likely reach herd immunity among adults and older teenagers by mid- to late-July, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said on Monday.

"The focus from here on in for us is to make it as easy as possible for eligible residents to get vaccinated," Ferrer told reporters during a news conference.

To reach herd immunity, a community must have enough people who have either been inoculated or have natural immunity to protect the rest of the population against the coronavirus. In Los Angeles County, more than 3 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 84 percent getting a second dose on schedule, 7 percent getting a second dose late, and 9 percent still waiting to get their second dose, the Los Angeles Times reports.

If 2 million more get their first doses, 80 percent of all residents 16 and older will have received at least one shot. Ferrer stressed that for the county to reach herd immunity in mid- to late-July, vaccine rates must stay steady. There are 750 vaccination sites across Los Angeles County, and mobile vaccination teams are visiting communities where people have mobility issues or there is a lack of health care facilities.

California has recovered from the surge in cases over the fall and winter, with the state now seeing its lowest hospitalization rate since the beginning of the pandemic.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has written the perfect song for that surely very large group of people who equally love space, old-timey sea shanties, and internet trends.

The heliophysics and solar wind sea shanty, set to the tune of "Soon May the Wellerman Come," takes the original lyrics and makes some galaxy-themed edits. For example, instead of traditional lines "Soon may the Wellerman come / To bring us sugar and tea and rum," the researchers chant in unison, "Soon may the solar wind come / To bring us plasma and magnetism."

The research laboratory's catchy jam "illuminates one of the primary connections between the Sun and the Earth, the solar wind," NASA writes. "The solar wind is a constant outflow of magnetized material released by the Sun and causes a cascade of effects on space and Earth. The most visible of these from our planet is the aurora borealis, displays of colorful light in the sky that provide a stunning example of the Sun-Earth connection."

Typically performed by fishermen, merchant sailors, and whalers, sea shanties were a type of folk song sung on ships to pass time. After a recent resurgence on TikTok (thanks to a viral video from aspiring Scottish musician Nathan Evans), even Andrew Lloyd Webber has found himself playing along. Perhaps NASA can recruit him to help write its next hit single.

Amid escalating violence in Jerusalem on Monday, at leat 20 Palestinians, including nine children, have been killed after Israel launched air raids on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian health ministry told Al Jazeera.

Jerusalem has been the site of unrest for the last several days as Palestinians protested against potential evictions in East Jerusalem, and Israeli police met the demonstrations, which took place at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, with force. Earlier Monday, Hamas fired several rockets at Israel after the group demanded Israel withdraw its security forces from Al-Aqsa; clashes inside the complex have left 300 Palestinians and 21 officers injured, The Guardian reports. In response to the rockets, Israel carried out the deadly airstrikes.

Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said both Hamas' and Israel's actions were "war crimes" that endangered civilian lives. Read more at Al Jazeera and The Guardian.

His mission was to no longer accept his Golden Globe Awards.

Tom Cruise has returned his three Golden Globes to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in protest of the embattled organization, Deadline reports.

This was the latest blow to the group that puts on the Golden Globes after NBC announced Monday afternoon it would not air the awards show in 2022. The HFPA drew heavy criticism ahead of this year's ceremony after it was revealed that its voting body doesn't consist of a single Black member. The HFPA recently announced planned changes to address a number of issues including the group's lack of diversity, but major studios called the reforms out for not going far enough, and NBC on Monday officially pulled the plug on next year's ceremony.

"This is a new tack," Deadline writes of Cruise's move, "but I wouldn’t be surprised if others follow his lead and that the reception area of the HFPA could be crammed with golden trophies." Cruise twice won a Best Actor Golden Globe for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, and he also won Best Supporting Actor for Magnolia.

The news was just another example of the major crisis the Golden Globes group is facing amid questions over whether the ceremony will even return to NBC at all. Even though NBC said Monday it hopes to "be in a position to air the show in January 2023," Variety writes dropping it in 2022 "could very well serve as a permanent break between the Globes and NBC." Clearly, it hasn't been a golden afternoon for the HFPA.

Like Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) doesn't think Republicans should stop talking about the 2020 presidential elections — just not for the same reason.

Stefanik, an ally of former President Donald Trump, is widely expected to replace Cheney as the GOP conference chair, the No. 3 Republican position in the House, this week. While she's said she's focused on winning the 2022 midterms and "going on offense" against the Biden administration's policies, she told The Washington Examiner she doesn't think Trump's continued focus on his election loss, which he falsely claims was the result of widespread voter fraud, is out of step with that strategy.

"I think the president is right to focus on the election integrity and election security issues," Stefanik told the Examiner without explicitly stating whether she believes President Biden was elected legitimately. "If you go to any Republican Lincoln Day dinner, any town meeting across the country, it is one of the top concerns of voters."

Stefanik explained that, in her view, continuing to discuss 2020 will help "rebuild the American people's trust in our elections" and is "very much in line" with the GOP's push against the Democrats' H.R. 1 voting rights bill, which she called a "federal takeover" of elections.

Cheney, on the other hand, thinks Republicans ought to emphasize 2020 to prove that Trump should no longer be involved with the party going forward. Read Stefanik's full interview at The Washington Examiner.

Now we're not recommending that you text your ex, but 17 years after Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck broke up, they reportedly reunited for a week-long vacation in Montana. A source "close to Jennifer" told E! News that "the chemistry is unreal" between the pair, and that "they picked up where they last left off and are enjoying each other's company right now." TMZ additionally has photographic proof that the couple stayed at Big Sky Resort, near Yellowstone National Park, and "were driving around together." It seems safe to confirm it now: Bennifer is back, baby! [E! News, TMZ]

2.

Tom Cruise revealed to Empire that he performed the "single most dangerous" stunt of his career while shooting Mission: Impossible 7: riding a motorcycle off a cliff. "If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp," Cruise recalled. "The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn't want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone." As the actor put it, he had "about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don't want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that's not going to end well." Still, the life-or-death brush hasn't put Cruise off doing his own stunts. Next stop? Outer space. [Empire, The Week]

3.

The Grammy-winning rapper J. Cole is expected to play for the Rwanda Patriots BBC in the newly-formed Basketball Africa League, ESPN reports. Cole, 36, starred for his high school team in North Carolina before walking on at St. John's University. He never appeared in a game, instead focusing his energy on a career in music. Last year, Master P — another rapper who once harbored hopes of playing professional basketball — claimed that Cole was training to play in the NBA: "I said [to Cole] … you're gonna have to go somewhere where the team really believe[s] in you and the players believe in you." That place, apparently, is Africa. The BAL will feature 12 teams from across the continent, with the new season beginning on May 16 — two days after the release of Cole's latest album, The Off-Season. [ESPN, The Week]

4.

Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry are following up their bombshell interview with The Me You Can't See, a cheesily-named but important-sounding multi-part documentary set to debut on Apple TV+ on May 21. In it, Harry and Oprah will "guide honest discussions about mental health and emotional well-being while opening up about their mental health journeys and struggles," Apple said. The documentary is also set to feature celebrity guest participants, including Lady Gaga and Glenn Close. "The majority of us carry some form of unresolved trauma, loss, or grief, which feels — and is — very personal," Harry said. "Yet the last year has shown us that we are all in this together, and my hope is that this series will show there is power in vulnerability, connection in empathy, and strength in honesty." [Apple TV+, The Week]

5.

Elon Musk enjoys toying with critics who think he's a supervillain, having likened himself to Simpsons bad guy Hank Scorpio and given himself the definitely-not-evil title of Technoking of Tesla. But on Saturday Night Live this weekend, Musk took his pretend-villainy to a whole new level, in a sketch where Wario is on trial for murdering Mario. Musk, naturally, played Wario, who is "unfairly painted as a villain," according to his defense attorney (Mikey Day). Hmm, parallels much? But the sketch really got good when Musk's girlfriend Grimes appeared in a surprise cameo as Princess Peach. "I hate for it to come out like this, but Luigi was sleeping with Princess Peach, Mario's wife," Wario/Musk revealed. But Peach/Grimes insisted: "I never touch him under the overalls!" Watch the whole thing here. [Saturday Night Live, Vulture]

After a longer-than-expected pit stop as a minor league outfielder, Tim Tebow is reportedly continuing his unconventional professional sports career and will head back to the gridiron for the first time since 2015.

Tebow, a legendary Heisman Trophy- and national championship-winning quarterback for the University of Florida who couldn't quite cut it in the NFL, is close to inking a 1-year deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars, which would reunite him with his old college coach, Urban Meyer, the NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reports.

Tebow won't be lining up under center for his second go round in the NFL, though. This time, he'll be trying to make the roster as tight end, a positional move that a lot of analysts thought the 33-year-old should've made to prolong his career when he was younger.

Assuming nothing changes in the next few days and Tebow and the Jaguars complete their deal, there's no guarantee he'll make the final roster. But it looks like there's a chance the clock will strike "Tebow Time" once again.

NBC has canceled the 2022 Golden Globes.

The network announced Monday it will not air next year's Golden Globe Awards, per Variety. The decision comes after the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that puts on the annual awards show, faced heavy criticism for a number of issues, including the fact that its voting body doesn't have a single Black member.

"We continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reform," NBC said Monday. "However, change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right."

The HFPA's members recently approved a set of reforms that included the goal of increasing the group's membership by 50 percent over 18 months with a "specific focus on recruiting Black members." But Time's Up slammed the reforms as "sorely lacking," and WarnerMedia, Netflix, and Amazon Studios all announced they wouldn't participate in HFPA events until the group enacted more significant changes. WarnerMedia, in particular, took issue with the fact that the 18-month timeline "means the same voting body will be impacting the next two nomination and voting cycles."

Scarlett Johansson was among those who also recently called on Hollywood to "take a step back from the HFPA," calling out "sexist questions and remarks by certain HFPA members that bordered on sexual harassment." After NBC's decision, journalist Mark Harris wrote that the Globes are "effectively gone for 2022," predicting "no legit platform will touch them."

NBC hasn't ended its relationship with the Golden Globes permanently, though, saying Monday that "assuming the organization executes on its plan, we are hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023." Whether that happens remains to be seen. But after the end of an awards season like no other thanks to the pandemic, with a key stop on the way to the Oscars gone from NBC, get ready for another highly unusual season in 2022.

The Grammy-winning rapper J. Cole is expected to play for the Rwanda Patriots BBC in the newly-formed Basketball Africa League, ESPN reports.

Cole, 36, starred for his high school team in North Carolina before walking on at St. John's University. He never appeared in a game, instead focusing his energy on a career in music. In 2019, he showcased his passing skills at the highest level — tossing a seated alley-oop to the New York Knicks' Dennis Smith Jr. during the All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk Contest. Unfortunately, Cole followed that with his own less-than stellar dunk attempt.

Last year, Master P — another rapper who once harbored hopes of playing professional basketball — claimed that Cole was training to play in the NBA. "I said [to Cole] to get one of these NBA jerseys, it's not gonna be easy," he told TMZ. "So, you're gonna have to go somewhere where the team really believe[s] in you and the players believe in you." That place, apparently, is Africa. The BAL will feature 12 teams from across the continent, with the new season beginning on May 16 — two days after the release of Cole's latest album, The Off-Season.

The 2020 presidential election saw historic voter turnout, especially among communities of color, but "there are still major gains to be made in voter turnout writ large," the data firm Catalist concluded in an extensive report on the electorate published Monday.

The number of votes cast by Latinos, for example, shot up 31 percent since 2016. At the same time, there were still a high amount of non-voters in the demographic, especially in key states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Texas. In those states, Catalist estimates, non-voting Latino citizens actually outnumbered Latino citizens who did cast a ballot. And when factoring all eligible voters of color in those states, 13 million people voted compared to 11 million who did not, suggesting the electorate could shape up quite differently, or at least become harder to predict, if turnout continues to increase in the coming years. Read the full breakdown of Catalist's report here.

The Biden administration announced Monday the U.S. will once again ban health-care providers from discriminating against LGBTQ and transgender people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The move comes as a sharp rebuke of Trump-era policies that narrowed the scope of anti-discrimination provisions in the Affordable Care Act by defining "sex" to mean gender assigned at birth, reports PBS News. Biden's Department of Health and Human Services now restores the Obama-era definition — "one's internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female." The new interpretation applies to any healthcare organization that receives federal funding.

"It is the position of the Department of Health and Human Services that everyone — including L.G.B.T.Q. people — should be able to access health care, free from discrimination or interference, period," said Health Secretary Xavier Becerra in a statement, per The New York Times.

The new policy brings the Biden administration in line with last year's landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled to protect gay and transgender people against sex discrimination at work, and is the latest effort from President Biden to strengthen LGBTQ protections in areas like the military, housing and employment. In addition to sharing their support, some members of Congress have used the news as an opportunity to promote the Senate passage of the Equality Act.

The United States is "turning the corner" on COVID-19, Jeff Zients, President Biden's pandemic coordinator, said on CNN Sunday. Case and death rates are way down as vaccines become increasingly accessible. Rules are relaxing — but what about mask mandates?

As of this writing, 25 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and some cities and counties within the other 25 states still mandate public mask use. Many of those mandates are open-ended, but five states — Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia — have hit upon a metric that could be the political sweet spot.

That metric is 70 percent adult vaccination. It looks a little different in each state. In Michigan, the mask mandate will be lifted two weeks after 70 percent of residents age 16 and older are fully vaccinated. In Minnesota, the mandate ends at 70 percent of Minnesotans 16 and older or July 1, whichever comes first. (It will probably be the vaccination goal.) In Pennsylvania, it's 70 percent of residents 18 and up. In Vermont, it's at least one dose for 60 to 70 percent of all Vermonters and 70 to 85 percent of Vermonters 16 and up. And in West Virginia, it's partial vaccination for 70 percent of residents 16 and older.

This number is a little bit arbitrary from a public health perspective, because there's no firm scientific consensus on how much of the population needs to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity for COVID-19. However, 70 percent is about average for expert estimates on this, and of course it will be supplemented by natural immunity in the millions who already survived the virus.

But politically, the 70 percent metric (especially the single-dose version) is a great idea. It's not my first choice for an endgame, but it's good and should be acceptable even in more cautious blue states and cities. It should allay fears of recklessness while also encouraging vaccination among the casually vaccine hesitant. Polling recently reported by The New York Times showed the ability to go maskless is a strong incentive for vaccination for many Americans — and after last month's pause in distribution of the Johnson & Johnson shot apparently scared many fence-sitters away from vaccination, a strong incentive is what we need.

Medina Spirit is the latest victim of "cancel culture," the Kentucky Derby-winning horse's trainer argued Monday.

Churchill Downs, the site of the Derby, revealed Sunday that Medina Spirit had registered levels of an anti-inflammatory drug beyond Kentucky horse racing's legal limit in a post-race blood test. For now, Baffert, who holds the record for the most Derby wins in the sport's history, is suspended from entering horses at the track, and if the results are confirmed, he and Medina Spirit will be stripped of their victory.

Baffert thinks that would be unfair. During an interview on Fox News on Monday, he called Churchill Downs' statement "harsh," suggesting that they faced societal pressure to reach their decision. "We live in a different world now. This America is different ... it was like a cancel culture kind of a thing," Baffert said, without acknowledging that his horses have reportedly failed drug tests 29 other times over his four-decade career.

Is Tom Cruise trying to get himself horribly injured while making the Mission: Impossible franchise?

You'd be forgiven for wondering that as the actor continues to perform increasingly insane stunts for the action series, and he spoke with Empire about what the magazine described as "the single most dangerous thing he'd ever done": riding a motorcycle off a cliff for the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7.

"If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp,” Cruise told Empire. "The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn't want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn't know what was going to happen with the bike. I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don't want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that's not going to end well."

Cruise also told Empire he had a sense of relief to actually be filming the stunt after production on the movie had to be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"All those emotions were going through my mind," he said. "I was thinking about the people I work with, and my industry. And for the whole crew to know that we'd started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief. It was very emotional, I gotta tell you."

Dubbing this Cruise's most dangerous stunt ever is no small claim given this is the same series for which he filmed a heart-stopping sequence on the tallest building in the world. Based on Cruise's leaked rant about pandemic protocols, though, trying to keep the Mission: Impossible set free of COVID-19 cases may have been the actor's most impossible mission of all.

Numerous stories have been written recently about how low-wage service businesses are struggling to hire workers, with bosses often placing blame on enhanced unemployment benefits. The disappointing April jobs report released last week inspired many commentators to echo this analysis: The post-pandemic recovery is slowing down because government benefits are too generous.

The business class is right to be scared. But it's not because the recovery is slowing.

The coming months are set to turn into a time of reckoning for bad employers. The unique dynamic of the pandemic recovery could prove quickly unsurvivable for companies that are inefficient, as well as those that offer low pay, toxic work environments, or abusive bosses.

In the short term, the problem with the supply of workers is similar to the problem with almost every commodity during the pandemic, from toilet paper to lumber to chicken. A massive pandemic-induced drop in demand followed by a rapid, unpredictable increase in demand requires time for the whole system to adjust. Many young workers only just started being able to get vaccinated in April, so they're not fully protected yet. Meanwhile, schools and child care facilities still haven't returned to normal. In major cities like Portland and San Francisco, many schools only started reopening at the end of April. These support systems need to open and restaff before many parents can even start looking for work. The latest jobs report shows all the gains were effectively among men while 165,000 women dropped out of the workforce. Over the next few months, though, the dynamic will change.

Assuming the U.S. avoids the emergence of any new vaccine-resistant variants, the rapid rollout of the vaccines combined with the unusually aggressive government stimulus will likely create the first major recession which almost immediately transitions into full employment. Despite the pandemic causing massive job losses in the leisure and hospitality sector the average hourly earning in that sector is now back on trend to where it would have been without the pandemic. We could see a dynamic more like the end of WWII than the end of most recessions. Moody's is now projecting economic growth of 7 percent this year followed by 5 percent next year.

Reaching near full employment is normally not good for bad employers. Full employment normally causes businesses that are too inefficient to be able to raise pay, or those that have bad bosses, to eventually go under. They start slowly losing employees to other companies that can offer better pay or perks, and have trouble recruiting workers to fill those job vacancies. But in more normal times this is a relatively gradual process, thanks to status quo bias.

Most people are inherently reluctant to change things, even when it could be to their benefit. We see this dynamic everywhere. People rarely switch jobs, even though job switchers often end up making more money as a result. Studies have found millions don't refinance their mortgage, even though it would save them significant money with no downside. Similarly, people rarely switch health insurance even if it would be to their financial benefit. People often go with whatever treatment center their doctor refers them to, even if shopping around could save them hundreds.

The pandemic though has forced people to rethink their plans. Pew Research found two thirds of unemployed people are seriously considering changing the field they work in.

While status quo bias during past periods would potentially allow low-quality employers more time to adjust, that is not what we will see at this unique moment. The pandemic took the entire job market and gave it a big shake — the reshuffling that normally would take years is taking months or weeks. The rapid job and hour cuts, followed by rapid rehiring, has broken people out of old patterns and will force many to reexamine their options. Continuing to go to the same job day after day is very different psychologically than deciding to return to the same job after months of being away. We are watching examples in real time of low-wage companies realizing their only hope to stay in business is immediately becoming much better employers.

In addition, the government response to the pandemic has allowed many small inefficient businesses to continue to limp along. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was designed to save businesses, like theaters, which would have been forced to go out of business by government public health restrictions, but it also inevitably provided a lifeline to many poorly run businesses that may have gone out of business or lost workers over the last year under normal circumstances.

Doomsday could be coming for bad bosses, exploitative companies, and inefficient businesses, and it could be coming much faster than many realize. We just need to hope that policy-makers don't misinterpret a unique dynamic as inflation instead of growing productivity.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Monday that he tried and failed to warn his Republican colleagues about politically-inspired violence ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

A few days before Jan. 6, Kinzinger tweeted, he told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during a conference call that Republican rhetoric, including McCarthy's own, about the presidential election and former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of fraud would have violent consequences. But McCarthy, Kinzinger, said, quickly dismissed his concerns and rushed to the next question, acknowledging Kinzinger's words with only a simple, "ok, Adam."

Kinzinger has criticized his colleagues for not reckoning with the Capitol riot, and on Sunday likened the GOP to the Titanic.

Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry are following up their bombshell interview with a brand new streaming documentary.

Apple TV+ will debut "The Me You Can't See," a multi-part documentary produced by Winfrey and Harry, on May 21, the streamer announced Monday. The two will "guide honest discussions about mental health and emotional well-being while opening up about their mental health journeys and struggles," Apple said. The documentary is set to feature celebrity guest participants, including Lady Gaga and Glenn Close.

"The majority of us carry some form of unresolved trauma, loss or grief, which feels — and is — very personal," Harry said. "Yet the last year has shown us that we are all in this together, and my hope is that this series will show there is power in vulnerability, connection in empathy, and strength in honesty."

This documentary comes after Harry and his wife Meghan Markle sat down with Winfrey for a bombshell interview in March, during which the Duchess of Sussex opened up about her mental health struggles and revealed she had suicidal thoughts after joining the royal family. Later that month, Harry announced a new gig at the mental health startup BetterUp Inc. as its "chief impact officer." Harry said at the time, "I want us to move away from the idea that you have to feel broken before reaching out for help."

Live from Newsmax, it's ... a call-out!

David Litt, former speechwriter for former President Barack Obama, called out Newsmax on Monday for pushing false claims about the 2020 presidential election — while live on Newsmax. He unexpectedly got his dig in during a segment where he was asked to talk about Elon Musk hosting Saturday Night Live over the weekend.

"What happened on SNL this weekend was that people made stuff up and then said it on television like it's true," Litt said. "And that actually happens pretty frequently in American TV. For example, in 2020, Dominion Voting Systems sued Newsmax over its false claims about election fraud. Newsmax was lying to its own viewers, and Newsmax had to settle that lawsuit."

In April, Newsmax apologized to an employee of Dominion Voting Systems about its false claims about the 2020 presidential election and reportedly settled a defamation lawsuit.

"So actually, I just need to check in," Litt said on Newsmax. "Are you still telling that lie, or are you telling new lies?"

Newsmax host Rob Finnerty was clearly caught off-guard, asking Litt, "Do you want to talk about something completely non-related and try to catch me on a Monday morning totally off topic, or do you want to talk about Elon Musk?" The answer was evidently the former, as Litt continuously pivoted away from SNL to instead slam Newsmax, eventually getting dropped from the air after asking, "Did Dominion Voting Systems have any impact on the 2020 election?"

It's not often you see what's essentially a prank call via a live cable news guest, but check out the moment below.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is showing signs that he's willing to compromise — at least a little bit — on President Biden's infrastructure proposal.

During an interview that aired Sunday on Kentucky Educational Television, McConnell said most Republican senators think the "proper price tag" for an infrastructure bill is somewhere between $600 billion and $800 billion. That's still nowhere near Biden's $2.3 trillion plan, which McConnell maintains isn't focused on actual infrastructure development, but it is higher than the known $568 billion counteroffer from a group of GOP senators sent to the White House last month. And just last week McConnell suggested the $600 billion was the ceiling, rather than the floor, CBS News notes. So while the two sides remain far apart, the debate is still alive.

The U.S. halted use of Johnson & Johnson's one-dose COVID-19 vaccine on April 13 to study extremely rare cases of serious blood clots in a handful of vaccinated Americans, mostly women under 50, then lifted the stay 10 days later. The U.S. had built up to more than 3.3. million shots per day by April 13, but those numbers started dropping during the Johnson & Johnson pause for all three approved vaccines. The seven-day average is now 2.02 million shots a day, The Washington Post reports.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said on CNN Sunday that it was "not at all" a mistake for the Food and Drug Administration to suspend Johnson & Johnson vaccinations, and in fact it helped build confidence in oversight of the vaccines. "Doing the pause was the right thing," he argued.

While most of the world is struggling to get enough vaccine to meet demand, in the U.S., "states asked the federal government this week to withhold staggering amounts of COVID-19 vaccine amid plummeting demand for the shots, contributing to a growing U.S. stockpile of doses," The Associated Press reports. The slowing vaccination rate in the U.S., combined with more contagious variants, has led public health experts to conclude that vanquishing the coronavirus through herd immunity is now unlikely, in the U.S. — where vaccine hesitancy is high — or the world.

Popular vectors of vaccine misinformation may be feeding hesitancy in some groups, and, The Wall Street Journal notes, "more than four months into the vaccination campaign, many of the people willing to get vaccinated have done so." But there is anecdotal evidence that the Johnson & Johnson halt was "the straw that broke the camel's back" for people already leery of getting vaccinated, as Paul Shelton at health-tech company AdhereHealth told the Journal. On the other hand, some officials involved in the U.S. vaccination effort also say there are groups that will only agree to getting Johnson & Johnson's one-and-done shot.

And there are lots of people still on the fence. "We can sometimes underestimate how thoughtful people can be about their decisions and what can look reactionary can sometimes just be people taking their time and thinking," Kimberly Hood, assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Health's office of public health, told the Journal.

When it comes to Seth Rogen's working relationship with James Franco, this may be the end.

Rogen in an interview with The Sunday Times said he doesn't currently have plans to work with Franco, who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct.

"What I can say is that I despise abuse and harassment and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that," Rogen said, per Entertainment Weekly.

Rogen also expressed regret over a joke he told on Saturday Night Live in 2014 about pranking Franco by posing as a "way young" girl on Instagram, referencing a real incident, and he looked back at a 2018 interview where he said he would continue working with Franco despite the allegations. "The truth is that I have not and I do not plan to right now," Rogen said.

Franco was accused of inappropriate or sexually exploitative behavior by five women in the Los Angeles Times in 2018. In 2019, he was sued by two former students of the acting school he founded, who alleged he and his partners "engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students by sexualizing their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects." Franco has denied the allegations; the lawsuit was settled earlier this year.

Rogen and Franco have worked together on a number of films from 2008's Pineapple Express to 2017's The Disaster Artist. Asked in a 2018 interview with Vulture about the allegations, Rogen said he would still work with Franco, while adding, "The truth is that my perspective on this is the least relevant perspective. I'm friends with these people and I'm a dude. All that combined makes me the last person who should be talking about this." Rogen now tells the Sunday Times, though, that the allegations have "changed many things in our relationship and our dynamic."

Gasoline futures rose by 1.6 percent to $2.162 per gallon early Monday on concerns that the cyberattack that forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which carries nearly half of the East Coast's fuel from Texas, could disrupt supplies. Oil futures rose, too. Colonial said some systems were back up but its main line remained closed. Investigators believe the hack was the work of a Russian criminal gang called DarkSide that claims to steal from wealthy companies and give a portion to charities, two people close to the investigation told The Associated Press on Sunday. The pipeline remained closed for a third day on Sunday as the Biden administration said it was undertaking an "all-hands-on-deck" effort to reopen it. President Biden is preparing an executive order strengthening cybersecurity. [CNBC, The Associated Press]

2.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Sunday that Americans shouldn't "overreact" to Friday's April jobs report, which fell far short of expectations. The Labor Department recorded that U.S. employers added 266,000 jobs in April; economists had been expecting a gain of nearly 1 million as progress in coronavirus vaccinations helped more businesses fully reopen. Kashkari acknowledged the "bottom line" was that "we are still somewhere between 8 and 10 million jobs below where we were before" the coronavirus pandemic struck. "We still are in a deep hole," he told CBS News' John Dickerson on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation. "And we still need to do everything we can to put those folks back to work more quickly." [CBS News]

3.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure package passed with or without Republican votes. "The American people want results," Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told Axios on HBO during an interview that aired Sunday. "And frankly, when people got a ... $1,400 check or $5,600 check for their family, they didn't say, 'Oh, I can't cash this check because it was done without any Republican votes.'" White House aides told Axios that the broad infrastructure package is not an emergency measure, and should not be pushed through with a simple majority as the recent COVID-19 relief package was. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a moderate who Democrats need on board in the evenly split Senate, has praised the GOP's smaller infrastructure counterproposal. [Axios, CNBC]

4.

Dogecoin plunged on Sunday after Tesla CEO Elon Musk called the meme-based cryptocurrency a "hustle" during his appearance as guest host of Saturday Night Live. Dogecoin, which started out as a joke, has soared during the recent runup of cryptocurrencies. But after Musk, a big cryptocurrency booster, poked fun at dogecoin, it dropped by as much as 28 percent before edging back up a bit. Asked in a segment of the show what dogecoin is, Musk replied: "It's the future of currency. It's an unstoppable financial vehicle that's going to take over the world." SNL cast member Michael Che then said, "So, it's a hustle?" Musk replied: "Yeah, it's a hustle." [Reuters]

5.

U.S. stock index futures were mostly flat early Monday, remaining in record range after last week's highs. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up by 0.2 percent several hours before the opening bell. Futures tied to the S&P 500 gained less than 0.1 percent while those of the tech-heavy Nasdaq were down by nearly 0.3 percent. The Dow and the S&P ended last week at all-time highs despite an April jobs report that fell far short of expectations. The Dow ended the week up by 2.7 percent as falling COVID-19 cases raised hopes for a strong economic rebound. The S&P gained 1.2 percent on the week. The Nasdaq rose by 0.9 percent on Friday but finished the week down by 1.5 percent. [The Wall Street Journal, CNBC]

Biden administration officials said Sunday that the fight against the coronavirus is nearing a new phase in which vaccinated people will be able to return to an essentially normal life after a year of lockdowns and other extraordinary precautions. The changes could include an easing of mask-wearing recommendations, officials said. "I would say we are turning the corner," said Jeff Zients, President Biden's COVID-19 coordinator, on CNN's State of the Union. The administration last week said it was stepping up efforts to chip away at vaccine hesitancy, which has slowed the national vaccination campaign. The administration aims for 70 percent of American adults to have at least one vaccine dose by July 4. So far, about 58 percent of the U.S. adult population has received at least one dose, according to the CDC. [The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times]

2.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo he supported a push to make Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) GOP conference chair, the No. 3 ranking House Republican leadership position. It was the first time McCarthy publicly backed a push to replace Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), although he didn't mention her by name. Cheney survived a no-confidence vote three months ago as allies of former President Donald Trump tried to oust her from her leadership position because she voted to impeach Trump on charges that he incited the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. GOP opposition to Cheney intensified recently after she criticized Republicans and Trump for "spreading THE BIG LIE" that Trump only lost in November due to fraud. [The Washington Post]

3.

The death toll from a bombing outside a school in Afghanistan, initially reported at 50, rose to 68, officials in the capital city of Kabul said Sunday. Doctors continued to treat another 165 people injured in the attack. Most of those killed were schoolgirls. Desperate family members searched for missing children in hospitals. The neighborhood where several explosions were reported Saturday night is home to many Shiite Muslims who are members of the Hazara ethnic minority, which has been targeted by Sunni militants in the Islamic State militant group. Investigators said a car bomb blew up first outside the Sayed Al-Shuhada school, and two more bombs exploded as panicked students rushed out. [Reuters]

4.

The cyberattack that forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which carries fuel from Texas to New Jersey, was the work of a Russian criminal gang called DarkSide that claims to steal from wealthy companies and give a portion to charities, two people close to the investigation told The Associated Press on Sunday. The pipeline remained closed for a third day on Sunday as the Biden administration said it was undertaking an "all-hands-on-deck" effort to reopen it and prevent fuel-supply disruptions. Colonial Pipeline said it was working on restoring its computer systems. Colonial said it had been the victim of a ransomware attack, in which hackers lock IT systems by encrypting data and demand a ransom to restore the network. Colonial did not say whether it was paying a ransom. [The Associated Press, NBC News]

5.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Sunday that Americans shouldn't "overreact" to Friday's April jobs report, which fell far short of expectations. The Labor Department recorded that U.S. employers added 266,000 jobs in April; economists had been expecting a gain of nearly 1 million as progress in coronavirus vaccinations helped more businesses fully reopen. Kashkari acknowledged the "bottom line" was that "we are still somewhere between 8 and 10 million jobs below where we were before" the coronavirus pandemic struck. "We still are in a deep hole," he told CBS News' John Dickerson on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation. "And we still need to do everything we can to put those folks back to work more quickly." [CBS News]

6.

Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli police outside al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on Monday ahead of a planned march by Israeli nationalists to mark the anniversary of the country's capture of East Jerusalem and the walled Old City in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Protesters threw rocks, tear gas, and police fired stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets in the fourth day of violence leading up to annual Jerusalem Day celebrations. Medics said 153 Palestinians were hospitalized. The mosque is Islam's third holiest site. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and considered Judaism's holiest site. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the government "will not allow any extremists to destabilize the calm in Jerusalem. We will enforce law and order decisively and responsibly." [Reuters, The Associated Press]

7.

A gunman opened fire at a birthday party in Colorado Springs on Sunday, killing six people before apparently fatally shooting himself. Family members, including children, were gathered in a trailer in the Canterbury Mobile Home Park when the attack began shortly after midnight. Police said they believed the gunman to be the boyfriend of one of the victims. No children were injured. "From the officers who responded to the shooting to the investigators still on scene, we are all left incredibly shaken. This is something you hope never happens in your own community, in the place that you call home," Colorado Springs Police Chief Vince Niski said in a statement. [ABC7]

8.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure package passed with or without Republican votes. "The American people want results," Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told Axios on HBO during an interview that aired Sunday. "And frankly, when people got a ... $1,400 check or $5,600 check for their family, they didn't say, 'Oh, I can't cash this check because it was done without any Republican votes.'" White House aides told Axios that the broad infrastructure package is not an emergency measure, and should not be pushed through with a simple majority as the recent COVID-19 relief package was. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a moderate who Democrats need on board in the evenly split Senate, has praised the GOP's smaller infrastructure counterproposal. [Axios, CNBC]

9.

Former Delaware Gov. Pierre "Pete" du Pont IV, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, has died after a long illness, his former chief of staff, Bob Perkins, confirmed on Sunday. He was 86. Du Pont, who died at his Wilmington, Delaware, home on Saturday, was a member of the family that established the DuPont Co., but he passed up a career in the family chemical company to enter politics in the 1960s. "I was born with a well-known name and genuine opportunity. I hope I have lived up to both," he said when he announced his presidential bid in 1986. He won the endorsement of the largest newspaper in early-voting New Hampshire, but his campaign failed to take off. He dropped out after finishing next-to-last in Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary. [The Associated Press]

10.

Churchill Downs, the site of the Kentucky Derby, announced Sunday that Medina Spirit, the 2021 Derby winner, tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug betamethasone. The steroid isn't completely banned in Kentucky horse racing, but Medina Spirit's post-race blood sample reportedly was found to have double the legal threshold. In response, Churchill Downs has suspended trainer Bob Baffert from entering horses at the track, though it appears Medina Spirit will be tested again, so the win is still valid. If the findings are upheld, however, the horse will be stripped of his victory, and Mandaloun, the runner-up, will be crowned. Baffert, who for now has a record seven Kentucky Derby wins, denies involvement. "This shouldn't have happened," he said. "There's a problem somewhere. It didn't come from us." [Louisville Courier-Journal, CNN]

For the American economy to run properly, a certain portion of the working-age population must be poor and, preferably, a little bit desperate.

Or so you would think, given the hysterical reaction to last week's report showing the country's job growth lagged far behind expectations in April. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce bouyed this message with a response suggesting workers have grown too fat and sassy while collecting unemployment benefits made more generous by Congress during the pandemic.

Best to cut off those benefits, instead.

"The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," the organization said in a written statement. It added: "One step policymakers should take now is ending the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit."

A few GOP-led states — Arkansas, Montana, and South Carolina — jumped at the Chamber's suggestion, saying they will soon end their participation in the federal program that pays out the extra $300 a week to jobless workers. And Republicans in Congress said they would move quickly to phase out the benefit, which is already slated to end in September.

"What was intended to be a short-term financial assistance for the vulnerable and displaced during the height of the pandemic has turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incentivizing and paying workers to stay at home rather than encouraging them to return to the workplace," South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, said in a letter ordering the cutoff.

In normal times, South Carolina's unemployment benefits are on the stingy side, ranging from $42 to $326 a week before taxes, for a maximum of 20 weeks. Like most state programs, those benefits don't come close to covering a worker's basic expenses — the state's median monthly rent alone is $894. Without the federal supplement, unemployed workers in McMaster's state will be under added pressure to take low-paying jobs or be left behind entirely. Which, it seems, is precisely the point. If unemployed workers aren't already desperate for a new job, they will be soon.

This hostility toward the unemployed will come as no surprise to anybody who has been paying attention to the more predatory aspects of American capitalism, or who recoiled last year when Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) suggested that older COVID-vulnerable citizens should be willing to lay down their lives for the economy, or who noted that Republicans resisted supplementing unemployment benefits even at the beginning of the pandemic when the economy was contracting by millions of jobs and those who could keep working risked exposure to a dangerous and deadly new virus. Even then, GOP officials were fearful that workers would find it too easy to sit at home.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons an unemployed American might not be returning to work at the moment. The pandemic isn't over yet, and some individuals might be hesitant to risk their health. Childcare is still in short supply — job numbers for women were brutal in the April report, as they have been throughout the pandemic. (Of course, Republicans are also fighting President Biden's proposal to help parents pay for daycare.) Some people are simply reassessing what they want out of work, after COVID caused such a disruption to their lives and careers.

And yes, money is an issue, too.

One sector in which the worker shortage has been very evident is the restaurant industry. Story after story after story from across the nation has focused on the plight of restaurant owners who can't find enough staff to resume normal operations. But those jobs typically pay subsistence-level wages. Nationally, the median pay for food and beverage workers is $11.63 an hour, or just more than $24,000 a year. The federal poverty line for a family of three is just under $22,000. Some former restaurant workers are wondering whether it is time to find better-paying employment.

"If I can make $17 per hour at an Amazon warehouse but only $14 per hour as a line cook, a notoriously hot, stressful, intense job, why would I do that?" one restaurant executive told The Washington Post, describing the thinking of his former colleagues.

This is a good time to note that financial aid has worked. Thanks to the unemployment supplement, stimulus checks, and expanded food stamps, American hunger rates fell in March to their lowest level since the pandemic began — even though poverty spiked at its highest rate during the same period. Republicans have made a lot of loud noises lately about being the new "party of the working class," but their eagerness to dispense with unemployment benefits suggests that they aren't much interested in the economic well-being of their prospective voters.

In any case, it is not apparent that going jobless really is all that beneficial for those who aren't working: The Chamber of Commerce says its analysis shows that just one in four recipients of expanded unemployment benefits are taking home more now than when they were working. That means 75 percent of recipients are doing the same — or, more likely, worse — than they were before. Cutting off the federal supplement will make life even harder for those people. Is that what Republicans want? Maybe it is.

Alison Bechdel is the author of Fun Home, the graphic memoir that was adapted into a hit Broadway musical. Her new memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength, is an illustrated chronicle of her lifelong fascination with fitness crazes.

Every Body Yoga by Jessamyn Stanley (2017).

Growing up African American in a white suburb, Stanley hated her body and idolized the thin white cheerleaders. This is the story of how the Instagram star made a space in the world of yoga — another bastion of thinness and whiteness — for herself and everyone else who doesn't fit that template.

Long Distance by Bill McKibben (2000).

I've often fantasized about turning myself over to an athletic pursuit. McKibben actually did it. In his late 30s, the climate activist spent a year training seriously as a cross-country ski racer. This book documents his building endurance and reveling in arctic rigor, but it's also an elegy on our planet's dwindling winters.

Why We Run by Bernd Heinrich (2001).

Heinrich is a wild man: a biologist, a writer, and an ultramarathoner. His curious book veers between his research into migrating birds, his life in a forest as a young World War II refugee, and his training as an early ultrarunner, experimenting to find the best fuel for a 100K run — which turns out to be cranberry juice.

Bravey by Alexi Pappas (2021).

Pappas turned down a few MFA poetry programs in order to pursue her dream of becoming an Olympic runner, then became a filmmaker in her spare time. This book of essays goes deep, examining the pain behind her relentless drive and the depression that temporarily derailed her.

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd (1977).

Climbing a mountain pretty much always beats reading about climbing a mountain — except in the case of this breathtaking and strangely beautiful book. Shepherd rambles through the Scottish Cairngorms, tracing their water sources, walking into clouds, swimming in a loch so limpid she can see the bottom drop off dizzyingly below her.

The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren (1974).

This novel is dated and kind of corny, but reading it as a teenager in the 1970s fueled my love of running. It's a (definitely pre-#MeToo) gay love story about an Olympic athlete and his coach, but it's some of the best writing about running I've ever read, sensuous and technical at once. Warren herself was one of the first women to run the Boston Marathon.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

President Biden surprised the world when his administration came out in favor of an intellectual property waiver for coronavirus vaccines. The U.S. is now backing an effort from India and South Africa to get a Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO), with the intent of expanding global vaccine production.

But it isn't going to be that easy. Germany's Angela Merkel has already come out against a waiver (one of the key vaccine firms, BioNTech, is based there), which could doom the effort because the WTO requires consensus. Luckily, there are other steps that Biden could take to accelerate vaccine production and distribution, which as we see in the ongoing viral conflagration happening in India, is absolutely vital. If the international community can't get behind vaccinating the world, Biden should go it alone.

Despite the protestations of various Big Pharma lackeys, a TRIPS waiver will certainly help at least a little. There are reportedly factories in Bangladesh and Canada that are ready to go, if they can simply get permission. Pharma companies are scenting gigantic profits from future use of mRNA treatments, and they will for sure try to keep total control of the technology, no matter how many people get killed as a result.

Now, that doesn't mean Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and so on shouldn't make any money. They did after all put a lot of work and money into this vaccine research, and should be amply rewarded for it. But rather than letting them lock up a potentially revolutionary treatment paradigm for decades, it would be wiser to just buy out their patents for a handsome price, and put them into the public domain. As Joel Dodge writes at People's Policy Project, federal law stipulates that the "government has the power to use or manufacture any patented product, and must provide only 'reasonable' compensation to the patent holder." Innovation also happens faster when scientists around the world can collaborate with each other without fussing over who owns what.

However, there are other obstacles to massively ramping up vaccine production that are probably more important than patents. As James Krellenstein and Christian Urrutia write in a report for PrEP4All (a nonprofit that advocates for HIV treatment access), reaching full vaccine production potential will require technology transfers so that other companies and countries can get the knowledge and machinery they need to boost production, and more importantly, a large direct government investment.

As they argue, there is a general incentive problem with relying entirely on private sector vaccine capacity. Before the pandemic, vaccines were a relatively modest part of the pharmaceutical sector, largely because most of them are only taken once or twice — just 3.5 billion doses were produced per year of all vaccines combined. That problem was made worse by the just-in-time production model that has become standard across all business over the years, which meant companies have kept spare capacity as low as possible. Now that we need on the order of 15 billion doses as soon as possible, private companies are scrambling to meet the need. (Indeed, one reason Canada has been struggling with vaccination is that its government privatized its state-owned vaccine factory in the 1970s.)

There is every reason for the U.S. government to simply build and own a permanent, large vaccine factory — both for jacking up production immediately, and to keep on hand for the future. In the context of the staggering damage the pandemic has inflicted on the global economy, the cost would be microscopic, only about $4 billion. As Krellenstein and Urrutia explain, the Moderna vaccine is the best candidate for mass production, because it is easier to scale up, more temperature-stable, easier to adapt to variants, and the American government already owns some of the intellectual property rights. (Moderna could also be hired to operate the facility.) As they write, "For less than the U.S. government spends on the COVID-19 response daily, it can build a facility to produce enough mRNA vaccine manufacturing capacity to vaccinate the entire world in one year, with each dose costing only $2."

Building a huge vaccine factory would also be handy in that it could be started immediately. The WTO is a sluggish organization, and while the Biden administration may be able to pressure the Germans into agreeing to a TRIPS waiver, it could take months, and then months more for other countries to start ramping up afterwards. That is time the world does not have. The Indian health care system is buckling under the explosion of coronavirus variant cases, and other countries could be next.

As I have previously argued, this is a dire threat not only to humanity around the world, but to Americans as well. A new variant could emerge that gets around all the vaccines, and the U.S. would be back at square one with a new pandemic.

Now, it would take a while to build a new vaccine facility, but a crash wartime mobilization-scale effort could probably get one going in six months or so. After all, private production of mRNA vaccines went from nothing to about 3 billion doses in less than a year. Currently even optimistic forecasts have poorer countries being vaccinated by 2023 at the earliest. That is unacceptable. What's more, because existing vaccines do not work as well against the variants, booster shots have already been developed — Moderna has one that should work against the variants from Brazil and South Africa. That's great, but it will require yet more doses on top of the 15 billion figure mentioned above.

The coronavirus pandemic has been one of the greatest disasters in modern history. For the foreseeable future, it will be a vital priority to build and maintain a vast capacity for vaccine production — not just for humanitarian reasons, but to protect the health and safety of the American people.

Sunday was Mother's Day in the U.S., but Uzbekistan celebrated its annual Day of Remembrance and Honor, marking the former Soviet republic's contribution to the victory over fascism in World War II. In Sunday's commemorations, as the Russian news site that posted this video noted, "the military could not decide how to pay tribute to the country's anthem — to salute or put a hand to the heart. It looked comical."

Thomas Grove, at The Wall Street Journal's Moscow bureau, compared the clip to "a scene out of Death of Stalin," but it could just as easily be the Marx Brothers.

John Oliver spent most of Sunday's Last Week Tonight talking about Black hair. "And look, I realize I'm not the ideal person to talk about Black hair," he said, showing a ] cautionary tale of what can happen "when a white guy on TV starts confidently talking about Black hair, even with the best of intentions." On the whole, Oliver said, "white people don't really understand a lot about Black hair," and "that lack of understanding, and lack of interest in understanding, can have real consequences, from the personal to the professional."

"Black hair and hairstyles are frequently yet another pretext for discrimination," Oliver said. "So tonight, let's talk about it, and let's start by understanding why Black hair is so important." He had a short cultural history lesson and primer on hair-straightening techniques. "By the 1960s and '70s, though, the embrace of Black hair's natural texture and culturally significant styles had become a radical act of self-acceptance and political power," Oliver said. "But despite the natural hair movement, white people's discomfort and ignorance around Black hair has very much remained."

Because stores frequently keep Black hair products in locked cabinets, "it is already hard enough to get products to do your hair at home, but finding a qualified stylist can be even harder," Oliver said. And when Bo Derek or Miley Cyrus appropriate Black hairstyles for fun, it "isn't just infuriating, it can directly make it harder for Black people to fight discrimination concerning their hair," because "for decades, courts have found that hairstyles, even though they are deeply tied to racial identity, are not covered" by anti-discrimination laws.

"And look, if you're not a Black person, it's probably easy to hear these stories and think, 'Well, it's just hair,'" Oliver said. "But the thing is, it's not, it's not at all. Black people aren't getting hired or are getting fired, Black people are being teased, taunted, and removed from school, all because of their hair." CROWN Acts, passed already in several states, can make a real difference, he explained. "And while social stigma and unrealistic beauty standards aren't going to go away overnight, there are a few things that white viewers in particular might want to keep in mind going forward." Oliver outsourced this message to Uzo Aduba, Craig Robinson, and Leslie Jones. There is NSFW language, mostly from Jones. Watch below.

The Republican governors of Arkansas, Montana, and South Carolina have announced plans to cut expanded federal jobless benefits, arguing that the extra $300 a week is keeping people from returning to the workforce. "More states are expected to follow," Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Friday, after the Labor Department reported a smaller-than-expected 266,000 jobs added in April.

The Chamber of Commerce on Friday also urged Congress to end the benefits before they expire in September. Other GOP governors are reinstating requirements that benefit applicants prove they are looking for jobs. "We absolutely can put more people to work," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Wednesday.

The White House and Democrats argue the supplemental benefits are helping Americans and not measurably hurting the economy. In fact, there are a host of reasons for April's hiring slowdown, The Associated Press reports. "Nearly 3 million people are reluctant to look for work because they fear catching the virus, according to government surveys. More women also dropped out of the workforce last month, likely to care for children," and supply-chain problems have throttled the construction and manufacturing sectors.

But there is data suggesting businesses are right about a labor shortage, AP says. For example, "average hourly pay rose 0.7 percent in April to $30.17," a sign companies are having to offer better wages to attract workers. "Unemployment benefits have been like collective bargaining," a restaurant worker named Marie M. told AP. "They made a union out of all of us." She isn't alone in being more selective about job offers now.

The hospitality industry raised hourly pay by an average of $1 during the pandemic, Heather Long writes at The Washington Post. But "warehouses have hiked wages by more than a dollar and now pay $26 an hour on average."

Wall Street shrugged off Friday's jobs report "as an anomaly," Long notes. "But another way to look at this is there is a great reassessment going on in the U.S. economy," with "growing evidence — both anecdotal and in surveys — that a lot of people want to do something different with their lives than they did before the pandemic."

"And if the extended benefits mean some workers can take the time to find a job that's a better match for their skills, and pays them a better wage, that's a good thing, not a bad thing," Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, tells The Wall Street Journal.

His hard work paid off, and now, Joshua Nelson wants to give a boost to another deserving student.

Nelson, 18, is a senior at St. Charles West High School in St. Charles, Missouri. He was one of just a handful of students to receive the President's Scholarship at Southeast Missouri State University — a $43,000 award that will cover tuition and boarding for four years, as long as Nelson meets the criteria for renewal. He had saved $1,000 for college, and is now using that as the foundation for the Joshua Nelson Leaders in Action Scholarship, which will be given to a well-rounded student active in community service.

"I really thought it was important to give back to my community that poured in so much to me," Nelson, who will study biomedical sciences, told KSDK. "Honestly, it makes me feel on top of the world. The fact that I can just help somebody a little bit makes me feel great and I really want to see other people succeed."

Nelson has a history of giving back: he is president of his school's Multicultural Achievement Council, which aims to prepare historically under-represented students for college and careers, and also tutors at a local Boys and Girls Club. On top of that, he is a varsity basketball player and member of the National Honor Society and National Society of Black Engineers.

It is Nelson's hope that other individuals and businesses in the community will donate to the scholarship fund, so multiple awards can be distributed to students for years to come.

Laos has recorded its first COVID-19 death, CNN reports, more than a year after the coronavirus pandemic began.

The state-run Vientiane Times said the person who died was a 53-year-old Vietnamese woman who worked at a karaoke club in the capital Vientiane. The woman had diabetes and other medical conditions, the Vientiane Times said.

A landlocked country in Southeast Asia, Laos has experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases since the Lao New Year holiday in mid-April — of the 1,233 cases reported in Laos since May 2020, 1,184 were recorded in the last month, Johns Hopkins University data shows. About 7.28 million people live in Laos, and so far, the government has administered 184,387 COVID-19 vaccine doses, CNN reports.

When his mother called to tell him she had been fired from her job as a hotel housekeeper, Sian-Pierre Regis knew it was time for her to stop worrying about taking care of everyone else and start focusing on herself.

His mom, Rebecca Danigelis, was fired in 2016, at the age of 75. By that point, she had been working hard for decades, and Regis was concerned that without a job, she would feel adrift. "She worked her hands to the bone," Regis told CBS Evening News. "She deserved to feel joy. And that's what I wanted to give her."

Regis, a freelance journalist, had his mom share with him her bucket list — things she had always wanted to do, but couldn't because of work. Soon, they were on the road, doing everything from milking cows in Vermont to dancing in a hop-hop class to jumping out of an airplane. Regis filmed their adventures and turned the footage into a documentary called Duty Free, which is about their journey, ageism, and financial insecurity. The documentary is now in theaters and available to stream online.

There are nearly a dozen countries that have yet to receive a single COVID-19 vaccine dose, including Chad, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Eritrea, and Tanzania.

"Delays and shortages of vaccine supplies are driving African countries to slip further behind the rest of the world in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and the continent now accounts for only 1 percent of the vaccines administered worldwide," the World Health Organization said last week.

Chad, one of the world's least developed countries, has recorded 4,835 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 170 deaths. The government has expressed concerns over receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, over fears it won't protect as well against the coronavirus variant that first emerged in South Africa. The country routinely sees the temperature reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and could receive a shipment of Pfizer doses next month if the cold storage facilities necessary to hold the vials can be secured, The Associated Press reports.

Dr. Oumaima Djarma, an infectious disease doctor in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, told AP it is "unfair and unjust" that no one in the country — not even a single health care worker — has been able to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Djarma has been pleading for vaccines "to at least protect the health workers. Everyone dies from this disease, rich or poor. Everyone must have the opportunity, the chance to be vaccinated, especially those who are most exposed."

Burkina Faso was on track to receive vaccines from a manufacturer in India, but because that country is dealing with an overwhelming number of COVID-19 cases, production has been scaled back. Chivanot Afavi, a nurse in Burkina Faso, told AP that health care workers there want COVID-19 vaccines just as much as their "colleagues around the world. No one really knows what this disease will do to us in the future."

A gunman walked into a birthday party in Colorado Springs, Colorado, early Sunday and opened fire, killing six adults and then himself, police said. One of the victims was the gunman's girlfriend, police said. None of the children at the party were shot, but they were "crying hysterically" when police drove them away to be placed with relatives, Yenifer Reyes, a neighbor at the trailer park where the shooting occurred, told The Denver Post.

Freddy Marquez, who attended the birthday party but left early with his wife and children, told the Post that everyone at the party was extended family. The party was for his wife and her brother, Marquez said, and his wife's mom, two brothers, and three other extended family members were killed by the gunman, who he said he did not know well.

"It was Colorado's worst mass shooting since a gunman killed 10 people at a Boulder supermarket March 22," The Associated Press notes.

"My heart breaks for the families who have lost someone they love and for the children who have lost their parents," Colorado Springs Police Chief Vince Niski said in a statement. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said "the tragic shooting in Colorado Springs is devastating, especially as many of us are spending the day celebrating the women in our lives who have made us the people we are today."

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called his Israeli counterpart on Sunday to let him know the United States has "serious concerns" over the planned evictions of Palestinian families from homes in East Jerusalem, the White House said in a statement.

On Sunday night, clashes continued in Jerusalem between Palestinians and Israeli police, with the demonstrators, outraged over the evictions, throwing rocks and water bottles at officers, who responded with rubber bullets and stun grenades. Palestinian medics say hundreds of people have been injured in the violence.

During the call with Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, Sullivan "encouraged the Israeli government to pursue appropriate measures to ensure calm" amid Jerusalem Day, an Israeli national holiday marking Israel's capture of East Jerusalem in 1967.

Sullivan also made it clear that the Biden administration is committed to Israel's security and building peace and stability in the region, the White House said, with Sullivan and Ben-Shabbat both agreeing that "the launching of rocket attacks and incendiary balloons from Gaza towards Israel is unacceptable and must be condemned."

A relatively new Russian criminal organization known as DarkSide may be behind the recent ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News on Sunday.

Operated by the Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline Co., the Colonial Pipeline runs from Texas to New Jersey, transporting 45 percent of the East Coast's fuel supply. It was shut down on Friday after Colonial Pipeline learned it was the target of a ransomware attack, and on Sunday, the company said its main lines are still not operating and the full system will be "back online only when we believe it is safe to do so, and in full compliance with the approval of all federal regulations."

During an appearance on Sunday's Face the Nation, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the White House is assisting Colonial Pipeline as it works to restart its systems, and lamented that ransomware attacks are "unfortunately" becoming "more frequent. They're here to stay." A White House official told NBC News the Department of Energy is in charge of the government's response to the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, and different agencies are planning for scenarios where the United States' fuel supply is targeted.

Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cyber security firm CrowdStrike, told NBC News that if the cyberattack was plotted by a Russian group, "whether they work for the state or not is increasingly irrelevant, given Russia's obvious policy of harboring and tolerating cyber crime."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is ready to get President Biden's infrastructure package passed, and doesn't think the public cares whether Republicans are part of the process.

"The American people want results," Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told Axios on HBO during an interview that aired Sunday. "And frankly, when people got a ... $1,400 check or $5,600 check for their family, they didn't say, 'Oh, I can't cash this check because it was done without any Republican votes.'"

White House aides told Axios that the broad infrastructure package is different from the recent COVID-19 relief package because it is not labeled as an emergency measure, and as such, it shouldn't be pushed through in the same way. The goal would be to get Republicans to support a smaller plan focusing on roads, bridges, and ports — securing a bipartisan victory ahead of the 2022 midterm elections — and then passing a bill with just the Democrats that would enact tax increases on corporations and the country's wealthiest families. The tax hikes, popular with most of the public, would cover repairing infrastructure.

Sanders said because the Senate is "a very slow-moving process," he would start working on getting the infrastructure package passed "immediately. If Republicans want to come on board, seriously, great. If not, we're going to do it alone."

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) suggested he isn't pleased with the current state of the Republican Party on Sunday, telling NBC News' Chuck Todd that it "bothers me" that Republicans have to "swear fealty" to former President Donald Trump "or you get kicked out." The GOP, he said, has become a "circular firing squad where we're just attacking members of our party instead of focusing on solving problems" or debating the Biden administration on policy.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), another Republican who isn't afraid to criticize Trump, had a different analogy for his party: the Titanic. "We're ... in the middle of this slow sink," he told CBS News' John Dickerson, later arguing that many of his colleagues are trying to move on too quickly from reckoning with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari doesn't think people should "overreact" to the disappointing April jobs report, but he acknowledged the "bottom line" is that "we are still somewhere between 8 and 10 million jobs below where we were before" the coronavirus pandemic struck. "We still are in a deep hole," he told CBS News' John Dickerson on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation. "And we still need to do everything we can to put those folks back to work more quickly."

So how did economists' predictions miss by so much? Kashkari explained that the pandemic "is unlike any other shock in our lifetimes" because the economic recovery relies so heavily on individuals' assessments of personal safety. "It's very hard to model that out," Kashkari said, noting that people have spent so much time "conditioning" themselves to take precautions. Now, though, "we have to start to change what we've been telling people," he said, agreeing with an earlier point from former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. "People feeling safe about the virus" will ultimately drive the economic recovery, Kashkari said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made public the inevitable on Sunday, telling Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that he supports Rep. Elise Stefanik's (R-N.Y.) bid for GOP conference chair.

The No. 3 House position is currently held by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), but she appears to be on the way out after clashing with many of her colleagues over the future of the party, particularly regarding whether former President Donald Trump should play a role. Cheney is one of the most prominent Trump critics within the GOP, and while McCarthy maintained his support for her for a while, he has recently made it clear that he considers her stance to be a hindrance to party unity, which is why he's backing Stefanik, a Trump loyalist, albeit one with a much more mixed voting record than the consistently conservative Cheney.

Stefanik thanked McCarthy for his endorsement. The conference chair vote is expected to take place Wednesday.

What a difference a week makes.

Last Saturday, trainer Bob Baffert was celebrating his record-breaking seventh Kentucky Derby victory. Flash forward to Sunday, and he's been suspended from entering horses at Churchill Downs, which announced Sunday that Baffert's 2021 Derby-winning trainee, Medina Spirit, tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug betamethasone. The steroid isn't completely banned in Kentucky horse racing, but Medina Spirit's post-race blood sample reportedly was found to have double the legal threshold, which is why Baffert received the punishment.

It appears Medina Spirit will be tested again, so the win is still valid, but if the findings are upheld the horse and Baffert will be stripped of their victory, and Mandaloun, the runner-up, will be crowned.

Baffert has denied involvement and said he's not sure how Medina Spirit could have tested positive. "This shouldn't have happened," he said. "There's a problem somewhere. It didn't come from us."

It's not the first time one of Baffert's horses has registered a positive drug test, however. The New York Times reported that his horses have failed at least 29 tests in his 40-decade career, including two last year. Read more at The Courier-Journal and The Associated Press.

A bombing at a girls' school in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday killed at least 50 people, many of them students between 11 and 15 years old, The Associated Press reports. Tariq Arian, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, said more than 100 people were wounded in the attack, but cautioned that casualty figures could still rise.

The Taliban denied responsibility for and condemned the attack, which took place as the U.S. continues its withdrawal from Afghanistan, although Arian blamed the group. The bombing occurred in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, where many residents are of the ethnic Hazara minority, a mostly Shiite group that has been targeted by Islamic State loyalists in the past.

Frustrated by what they consider inadequate government protection, Hazara leaders from Dasht-e-Barchi met Sunday and decided to create their own protection force, which would be deployed outside schools, mosques, and public facilities, AP reports. The force would cooperate with the government. Read more at The Associated Press and The New York Times.