The apparent turning point comes just months after Victoria declared a "state of disaster" to stem an outbreak that saw as many as 725 people in a single day test positive for the virus in the southeastern state.
"The 1st national zero community transmission day since June 9," Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Twitter on Sunday.
"Thank you to all of our amazing health & public health workers & above all else the Australian people."
Meanwhile, Melbourne, the city at the epicenter of Australia's coronavirus epidemic, marked its second consecutive day without any locally transmitted cases.
Since ending its strict 112-day lockdown on Tuesday, the city of 5 million has registered only seven new local Covid-19 cases.
Though Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, accounts for at least 20,300 of Australia's more than 27,500 coronavirus cases, the number of active cases in the state has steadily declined in the past 30 days.
Prior to Sunday's announcement, the number of new infections in Victoria had been in single digits since October 13.
In early August, Victoria was recording hundreds of cases per day, leading state authorities to implement the type of strict anti-epidemic measures that governments in Western Europe and the United States have been hesitant to enact out of fear of damaging the economy. This included placing Melbourne residents under a strict seven-week lockdown and barring nearly all trips outdoors.
The federal government also closed the state's borders to non-essential travel.
Though the decision to lockdown Melbourne was unpopular with some people, by late September, cases had declined to low double-digits, allowing the government to begin lifting restrictions.
Authorities in the state have said they would consider lifting more restrictions if trends continue in the right direction.
By Jerry Hill Baylor Bear Insider
Trailing 27-0 less than 17 minutes into the game, Baylor football could have thrown in the towel.
Instead, the Bears clawed back within 10 of the TCU Horned Frogs and missed on a fourth-down try that could have made things even tighter.
Sparked by big plays, including a 67-yard punt return by Derius Davis, TCU (2-3) held on for a 33-23 victory Saturday afternoon in the Bears' first home game at McLane Stadium in 35 days.
Baylor (1-3) took some momentum into the locker room when the defense forced a turnover and the offense capitalized with a one-yard TD pass from Charlie Brewer to tight end Ben Sims, cutting the deficit to 30-7.
The Horned Frogs tacked on a 34-yard field goal by Griffin Kell early in the third quarter after Darwin Barlow broke off a 74-yard run.
But, the Bears' comeback started with a big fourth-down stop by Terrel Bernard and Brayden Utley. Sims, who had a career-high four receptions for 40 yards, grabbed a three-yard TD pass from Brewer that made it a 33-14 game.
Feeling a significant momentum switch, Baylor appeared to score another touchdown when Brewer found Trestan Ebner down the right sideline. But, Ebner stepped out at the 8-yard line, and the Bears had to settle for a 27-yard field goal by John Mayer.
When the defense forced another three-and-out, Baylor came up with a quick answer, with Craig "Sqwirl" Williams finishing off a five-play, 71-yard drive with a 32-yard touchdown, his third career TD. Brewer missed on the two-point conversion that would have made it a one-score game.
Driving from its own 9-yard line, Baylor marched into TCU territory, but safety Trevon Moehrig broke up a 4th-and-3 pass to Sims. The Horned Frogs were able to run out the last 6 ½ minutes and escape with the win.
After a slow start, Brewer was 17-of-37 for 203 yards and two touchdowns with one interception. Williams had a career-high 82 yards on nine carries, while Ebner had a game-high 204 all-purpose yards.
Baylor is on the road for its next two games, facing No. 23 Iowa State (4-2, 4-1) at 6 p.m. next Saturday, Nov. 6, in Ames. The Cyclones defeated Kansas, 52-22, in Lawrence, bouncing back from a 24-21 loss on the road at Oklahoma State.
PHILADELPHIA — Neither President Trump nor his Democratic rival Joe Biden has addressed one of the divisive questions of our time – be it standard or daylight saving: Should we stop messing with our clocks?
For the record, some prominent sleep-disorder specialists in the medical community have cast an emphatic “yes” vote, holding that the time-tinkering messes with our bodies.
The clocks went back an hour at 2 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time Sunday, at which time it will magically become 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, making Sunday a 25-hour day, a post-Halloween treat even in the time of COVID-19.
So, one might ask, who would care about an hour here or there in a year with 8,784 of them? It is not a trivial matter, argues Dr. Beth Malow, sleep specialist with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center neurology department.
The switching is a hostile act against the body’s circadian rhythms that regulate the sleep-wake cycle, she says. It’s not as though the Earth’s rotation speeds up when the clocks move up and slows down when they go back.
“From a circadian standpoint, you are out of sync for eight months,” she said Friday, adding she strongly favors year-round standard time.
Her arguments have strong support from the likes of Dr. Charles Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders in the Departments of Medicine and Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and his colleague Dr. Anthony Komaroff; the three major sleep-disorder professional organizations; and millions in Europe, where a movement has been building for years to scrap daylight saving time.
That happens to be where this all started.
According to the Congressional Research Service, daylight saving time began in Germany on May 1, 1916, as a war-conservation measure, according to the Congressional Research Service. The concept grew in popularity across Europe and arrived in the United States in 1918.
The American debut on March 31 was a fiasco. That happened to be Easter Sunday, and a whole lot of clergy and their congregations weren’t happy. Congress scrapped the plan but brought it back permanently in 1966.
DST has the obvious advantage of pushing back the night, allowing those languid summer evenings to linger longer.
Over time, its share of the year has grown, and these days standard time is confined to just about four months.
Some New England states have considered going on permanent Atlantic Standard Time, Czeisler noted, in effect opting for year-round daylight saving time, and in his view that’s a terrible idea.
Czeisler and Malow contend that daylight saving time would be particularly bad for the health of those who live at the western edge of a time zone. If light is lingering until 9:30 p.m. on a June night on the eastern edge of a time zone, it’s going to stick around until close to 10:30 p.m. on the west side.
That, they say, ultimately is disruptive to sleep patterns, which could have a variety of health impacts.
Malow says that the body should be getting less light later at night so that it can transition to the sleep it so desperately needs. We should be getting more light in the morning, she adds.
When the clocks go back, “People get frustrated because the sunsets are earlier,” says Czeisler. But the negative effects attributed to moving the clocks forward – increases in the incidence of heart attacks and traffic accidents – trend in the other direction.
Neither Hawaii, which is about half way to tomorrow from here, nor most of Arizona participates in the great national clock change.
Arizona test-drove daylight saving time in 1967, noted Arizona State University history professor Calvin Schermerhorn, but decided not to buy the car.
Energy consumption went off the charts because air conditioners had to run longer.
The entire country tried year-round DST in 1974 in an effort during an energy crisis. It went into effect on Jan. 3, and by the end of the month, the National School Boards Association called for an immediate end because school buses were plowing the darkness. The clocks were turned back in a month.
Beth Malow said that the timing of the clock change this year – and both she and Czeisler said this is their favorite weekend – is especially fortuitous since voters will be more alert on Election Day. Regardless of the eventual outcome, we’ll at least be more rested.
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Chris Rodriguez Jr. rushed for 108 yards and the Kentucky defense held No. 5 Georgia in check but the Bulldogs did just enough to beat the Cats 14-3 on Saturday at Kroger Field.
For Rodriguez, it was his second 100-yard rushing game this season and the fourth of his career. His 20 carries was the most he's ever had in a game as a Wildcat.
Other than Rodriguez's effort, the Wildcats struggled on offense. Kentucky managed just 229 yards of total offense, with 138 on the ground and 91 through the air.
Quarterback Joey Gatewood, making his first career start for Kentucky, was 15 of 25 through the air for 91 yards. Josh Ali was Gatewood's top target, catching five passes for 38 yards.
Kentucky (2-4, 2-4 SEC) got another big defensive effort from Jamin Davis, who led the Cats with 13 tackles in the game. Davis also blocked a field goal, forced a fumble and had a pass breakup for Kentucky.
The Cats took the opening kickoff and were able to get one first down before being forced to punt. Georgia took possession on its own 14 yard line and from there, the Bulldogs marched down the field, keeping the ball on the ground for the entire drive. Ultimately, Georgia would score on a two-yard touchdown rush by quarterback Stetson Bennett, ending a 12-play scoring drive. Jack Podlesny added the PAT and Georgia took a 7-0 lead with 6:07 to play in the first quarter.
On its second drive, Kentucky again got one first down before being forced to punt. Georgia took over at its own eight yard line with 2:06 left in the first quarter. The Bulldogs would lead 7-0 at the end of the first period.
Early in the second quarter, Georgia punted and Kentucky took over at its own seven yard line. The Cats held onto the ball for 10:28, using 19 plays to cover 77 yards and driving into the Georgia red zone. However, the drive stalled the UK settled for a 34-yard field goal from Matt Ruffolo, cutting the UGA lead to 7-3 with 2:44 left in the half.
Georgia (4-1, 4-1) would answer with a 46-yard pass from Bennett to James Cook to start its next drive. After just two plays, the Bulldogs were in the red zone. However, Phil Hoskins made an incredible play, tipping a Bennett pass into the air, then intercepting it, foiling the Georgia drive and giving the Cats the ball at their own 25 with 1:19 to play in the half.
Kentucky would punt and Georgia would take possession with 18 seconds left. The Bulldogs drove across midfield, but their field goal attempt as the half expire was blocked by Davis. Georgia held a 7-3 lead at the break.
Georgia took the second half kickoff and marched into Kentucky territory. But the Cats defense held and forced a fourth-and-one from the UK 22. The Bulldogs went for it, and it paid off as Zamir White ran up the middle for a touchdown. Podlesny added the PAT and Georgia led 14-3 with 11:38 left in the third quarter.
Kentucky took the next possession and drove into Georgia territory. However, on the seventh play of the drive, Gatewood fumbled at the UGA 34 and the Bulldogs recovered, taking over with 7:50 left in the third quarter.
Georgia drove into UK territory but was again foiled by the UK defense. This time, it was Kelvin Joseph picking off a Bennett pass, giving the Cats the ball at their own 18 and keeping Georgia from scoring one more time. The Bulldogs would lead 14-3 after three quarters.
In the fourth quarter, neither team scored and only Georgia really threatened to do so as the defenses took over.
Kentucky has next Saturday off before hosting Vanderbilt on Nov. 14 at Kroger Field. The time and television network for that game have not yet been announced.
Tesla’s Elon Musk has a way of cleverly roasting those who are not on board with his company’s mission. Whether car companies are refusing to adopt any sort of EV plans for future vehicles, or hedge fund managers pump massive amounts of money into shorting Tesla’s stock, Musk always seems to come out with a witty Tweet, or a bright pair of perfectly priced short shorts, just to rub salt in the wound for good measure.
A week after his company reported its biggest quarter yet, which came paired with extending Tesla’s profitable quarter streak to five, the magical short shorts appeared once again. Those who weren’t lucky enough to receive the hilariously “short” jab at Tesla’s non-believers with the first truckload of S3XY shorts received their fulfillment earlier this week.
Priced at $69.420, which relates to Musk’s life in several ways, the S3XY short shorts were first available just before Tesla reported its fourth consecutive profitable quarter in Q2 2020.
Credit: James Locke | Twitter
Credit: James Locke | Twitter
If you wondered how those two childishly-funny digits relate to the Tesla CEO, they’re his favorite numbers. And coincidentally, his birthday is 69 days after 4/20, a day notorious for cannabis culture.
Somehow, when all the chips were stacked against Tesla, the automaker was able to pull through. Despite plant closures during the first half of 2020 in the U.S. and China, Tesla still was profitable. The company beat Wall Street estimates handily, which was a perfect segway into Q3, which would ultimately be Tesla’s biggest quarter to date. However, while Q2 saw more adversity than Q3, the well-timed second appearance of the S3XY short shorts complements another quarter where people said Tesla can’t and won’t. It was the exclamation point on top of its biggest three-month span in company history.
Bigger than a pair of shorts
Tesla has always been a little company with a big disadvantage. When the company decided to manufacture its first vehicle, the 2008 Roadster, it was entering a slumping automotive market that was being affected by the worst economic period since the Great Depression. Even still, the U.S. was recovering, and automotive jobs were attempting to regain some momentum as some of the car business’s biggest names were receiving government help to keep their doors open.
In arguably the worst time to start a company, Tesla was just putting its plan into place. It was battling in the worst economic time in the 21st century and attempting to completely change the tide of what was the “norm” for a car. Everyone knew that previous attempts at EVs went unsuccessful. So what was going to be different here?
Fast forward 12 years. Tesla is the big man on campus, even though it’s the youngest company in terms of “large-scale production” carmakers. Petrol-powered car companies are following Tesla’s lead in a desperate attempt to appear relevant. In a span of eight years, from the introduction of the Tesla Model S, legacy automakers have gone from “we’re not worried” to “full-blown panic mode,” all because people realized its better to pay for a charge than it is to pay for a tank of gas. Not only is it better for the environment, but it’s better for the wallet, too.
Tesla is proving that it is the most dominant company in the world that makes a car, and if you doubt the potential of its products, you’ll become apart of the inspiration for those short, red satin, gold-trimmed shorts.
Investors and analysts who have doubted Tesla since Day 1 are being proven wrong on what seems to be a daily basis. U.S. demand crumbling? No. European companies dominating Tesla in their own backyard? Not quite. No demand in China? Guess again.
Whether those short-shorts just so happened to become available after the company had its biggest earnings call will forever be a mystery, but the timing seems too good to be true. Whatever the case may be, people are getting their S3XY short shorts, and investors and analysts who have doubted Tesla are once again being taken for a whirl by automotive’s funniest man: Elon Reeve Musk.
How Tesla and Elon Musk subtly roasted ‘short’ sellers after Q3 Earnings
This weekend brings us the best of times and the worst of times, when we gain an extra hour of sleep and darkness too, thanks to the end of daylight saving time.
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Computers do most of the adjusting automatically these days, but if you have any manual clocks or watches, don’t forget to dial them back an hour. The time officially reverts to standard at 2 a.m. Sunday.
The shifting back and forth between standard and daylight saving has become a subject for debate in recent years, both in the U.S. and abroad.
More than 30 states have considered legislation to maintain a single time (Arizona and Hawaii are the only states that don't observe daylight saving time, having broken ranks back in the 1960s.), and the European Union was poised to take action before more pressing issues like Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic tabled discussions.
The arguments against “springing forward” and then “falling back” tend to boil down to “What is even the point?” and complaints about how disruptive the changes are to humans’ natural circadian rhythms.
The question is, which time to make permanent: standard or daylight saving?
Arizona stuck with standard because people who live in the blistering hot state would rather have the sun set earlier, taking temperatures down with it. Hawaii took a pass on DST because it’s so flush with sunlight, “saving” it would be overkill. Meanwhile, in Chicago, where darkness descends at 4 p.m. in the depth of winter, standard time frequently triggers seasonal depression.
So where does that leave us? Another fall, another time change. Enjoy the extra hour this weekend hour, maybe use it to shop online for one of those light therapy boxes, and we’lll catch you on the flip side next March.
YUMA, Ariz. — It might be seen as a monument to the massive changes the Trump administration has brought to the country’s immigration system. Or it could be seen as a reason people are fighting fiercely to vote him out.
Four years ago, President Trump promised voters he would build a big, beautiful wall. Whether the 30-foot, dark brown, steel fence towering over the sandy borderlands here is considered new, or beautiful, depends on one’s perspective. But it certainly is big.
And it is a tangible example of how radically Mr. Trump has tried to make good on his promise to transform the immigration system, even if most of the changes have little to do with any physical barrier.
In 2016, immigration was among the most defining aspects of Mr. Trump’s campaign. The idea of a border wall and the hard-line policies against asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants that it represented, helped sweep Mr. Trump into the White House. Four years later, the issue has taken a back seat, not only to the pandemic, but to protests over racial equity. The “build the wall” chants that reliably fired up the crowds at Trump rallies in 2016 has been replaced in large measure by rhetoric about “law and order.”
A Biden-Harris banner is attached to a fence in front of the U.S.-Mexico Port of Entry in San Luis, Ariz. Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
An American flag waves in early morning light in Yuma.Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
Nayeli Jaramillo-Montes, 19, with Living United for Change in Arizona, which focuses on working class families, canvasses for Democratic candidates.Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
It’s not as if Mr. Trump has shunted the issue of immigration aside entirely. Department of Homeland Security officials recently stood under a stretch of the border barrier in McAllen, Texas to promote the near completion of 400 miles of border wall, most of it replacing or upgrading existing barriers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have held news conferences and purchased billboard advertisements to draw attention to what are typically routine arrests.
And Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the administration's immigration policies, recently outlined a second-term agenda that would include more limits on migrants seeking asylum and further expanding travel bans, blocking entry for citizens from some countries.
Immigration is, after all, the policy where the Trump administration has arguably had the most impact, and it has been an area that keeps his base committed. But, as indicated by his closing rallies — where immigration gets relatively little attention compared to policing and coronavirus restrictions — the issue may not be the strong motivating factor for Trump supporters as it was in 2016. In the key battleground state of Arizona, for example, the voters most focused on immigration are those who are terrified by the prospect of a second term for Mr. Trump.
“Everything has changed now,” said Regina Romero, the Democratic mayor of Tucson whose parents emigrated from Sonora, Mexico, with her older siblings. “But if anything, it has made the public sentiment shift in our favor. People here understand that we need people to come from Mexico to fuel our economy. People here understand more and more that this is about a strength, not a threat.”
Kassie Waters, a 33-year-old medic in Tucson, said that four years ago, immigration was close to the top of her list of most important political issues. But this year, the mother of three, whose husband works as a police officer, said she is more concerned about “rioters, looters and police officers being prosecuted for doing their jobs.”
“Four years ago, my concerns were totally different — immigration was a big one,” said Ms. Waters, who attended a recent book signing with Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County Sheriff who championed draconian immigration policies. Ms. Water, who voted for the president in 2016 and plans to do so again this year, said that Mr. Trump is still backing law enforcement by focusing on cities rather than the border and said she had no problem that “the issue of immigration has been put on the back burner.”
Many Latino families in Arizona have mixed immigration status — undocumented immigrant parents, for example, who raise children who have received DACA or who are U.S.-born citizens. Putting immigration on “the back burner” is not an option for them. In the southern part of the state, many families have for generations routinely gone back and forth over the border, living a kind of binational life.
And many young Latino voters formed their own political identity in the wake of anti-immigration sentiments in the early 2000s, and the issue remains resonant.
“This isn’t some abstract concept for us, some theoretical attack — this is something that impacts the way the world sees us, the way we are treated,” said Graciela Martinez, 34, who works in marketing in Phoenix. “We’ve had to fight for everything we have, and we have to keep fighting.”
Regina Romero, the mayor of Tucson, Ariz., outside City Hall on Tuesday. Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
For decades, immigration has undeniably shaped politics in Arizona.
It was here that a group of anti-immigration vigilantes formed the Minutemen militia along the border in the early 2000s. As the Maricopa County Sheriff, Mr. Arpaio implemented his own anti-immigration raids, which he claimed were designed to sweep up those living in the country illegally. And in 2010, the State Legislature passed Senate Bill 1070, which allowed local law enforcement to detain anyone suspected of living in the country illegally. Critics called the legislation sanctioned racial profiling and it was later struck down by the courts.
Since then, Americans’ attitudes have shifted significantly. In the years since Mr. Trump took office, voters have grown markedly more positive on immigration. In a June Pew Research Center poll, 28 percent of Americans said illegal immigration was a big problem, down from 43 percent last year. That included less than half of Republicans, compared to two-thirds the previous year. .
Pew survey data in recent years has also shown that ICE stands as the country’s least popular agency. Pew regularly asks Americans for their opinion on a range of federal agencies, and almost every one tends to get a positive rating. But in a poll this spring, for the third year in a row, ICE was the only exception: Americans were divided in their opinion, 46 percent favorable and 45 percent unfavorable.
And the partisan division is notable: Seventy-seven percent of Republicans gave ICE a positive rating, while just 28 percent of Democrats did. No other agency had nearly as stark a split.
Signs calling for the re-election of the Trump-Pence ticket on farmland in Yuma, Ariz. Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
Construction workers add a secondary wall to the United States-Mexico border near Gordon’s Well Imperial Sand Dunes park on Tuesday.Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
A Border Patrol Agent at the border wall near Gordon’s Well Imperial Sand Dunes Park in California on Tuesday.Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
On the left, the fight against “kids in cages” — referring to the Trump administration’s 2018 policy of separating migrant children from their parents — has been something of a rallying cry for critics. Activists believe the policy has changed the 2020 landscape.
“Family separation means that there was an issue everybody cared about, from a human rights perspective, and it gives us completely different political terrain, which is really significant,” said Jess Morales Rocketto, a Democratic activist and chair of We Belong Together, the National Domestic Workers Alliance immigration reform campaign. “We galvanized a ton of people. We have used people’s anger to make them understand that the way we treat our most vulnerable is related to who they elect.”
In Tucson, Mayor Romero knows immigration is a deeply personal issue for many voters here. At a rally with Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, in Tuscon this past week, Ms. Romero referred to the border barrier as “the wall of hate,” and has repeatedly criticized the environmental impact of the new construction and deaths along the border. Still, Ms. Romero is optimistic about Democrats’ chances in the state, where Latinos are expected to make up at least 25 percent of all voters for the first time.
For supporters of Mr. Trump, however, the administration’s immigration policies have created a kind of fierce loyalty. The union for the Customs and Border Protection gave Mr. Trump its first presidential endorsement in 2016 and did so again this year, convinced that the president has done what others have shied away from.
“The morale is higher, it is much higher because border patrol agents feel like they have an administration that actually cares,” said Brandon Judd, the president of the union and an ally of Mr. Miller. “At the end of the day, border patrol agents want to feel like they are productive; they want to feel like they’ve made a difference.”
Senator Kamala Harris concludes her speech during a drive-in rally at Pima Community College’s West campus in Tucson.Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
For the most part, Mr. Biden and other Democrats have defined their own policies by what they are not — promising an end to family separations, an end to draconian asylum policies, an end to the travel ban — rather than what they are.
After news broke earlier this month that several hundred migrant children who had been separated from their parents at the border had not been reunited with their parents, the topic of family separations surfaced during the last presidential debate. Mr. Biden has said he would end the practice and has vowed to work to reunite families.
But deportations also skyrocketed under the Obama administration, and immigration activists eventually dubbed the former president the “deporter in chief.” And while Mr. Biden has tried to distance himself from those policies, he is certain to face pressure to address the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the United States should he win the presidency.
“Frankly speaking, immigrants are not a priority for the Democrats,” said Pablo Alvarado, who has helped campaign for Mr. Biden in several battleground states and is the executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network “We’re more of a priority for the Republicans for the wrong reasons — to attack us, to stigmatize us, to persecute us.”
Still, he added: “This time around, we are not going to be so polite, because otherwise what happens is exactly what happened the last time — they decide to do many other things first. We’re going to have to be a little more aggressive this time. At this point, what other choice do we have?”
Giovanni Russonello and Hank Stephenson contributed reporting.
At the 60th Academy Awards, Connery noted it was only the second time he attended the ceremony. The previous time was 30 years prior. "Patience truly is a virtue," he quipped.
Connery then had the room rolling when he talked about his plans for the award.
"In winning this award, it creates a certain dilemma because I had decided that if I had the good fortune to win, that I would give it to my wife, who deserves it. But, this evening, I discovered backstage that they're worth $15,000 — now I am not so sure," he joked. "Micheline, I am only kidding. It's yours."
Connery added that if the award came with a wish, his would be for the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike to end, which it did on Aug. 7 of that year.
Neither President Donald J. Trump nor his Democratic rival Joe Biden have addressed one of the divisive questions of our time — be it standard or daylight saving: Should we stop messing with our clocks?
For the record, some prominent sleep-disorder specialists in the medical community have cast an emphatic “yes” vote, holding that the time-tinkering messes with our bodies.
The clocks will go back an hour at 2 a.m. Eastern daylight time Sunday, at which time it will magically become 1 a.m. Eastern standard time, making Sunday a 25-hour day, a post-Halloween treat even in the time of COVID-19.
So, one might ask, who would care about an hour here or there in a year with 8,784 of them? It is not a trivial matter, argues Dr. Beth Malow, sleep specialist with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center neurology department.
The switching is a hostile act against the body’s circadian rhythms that regulate the sleep-wake cycle, she says. It’s not as though the Earth’s rotation speeds up when the clocks move up and slows down when they go back.
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“From a circadian standpoint, you are out of sync for eight months,” she said Friday, adding she strongly favors year-round standard time.
Her arguments have strong support from the likes of Dr. Charles Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders in the Departments of Medicine and Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and his colleague Dr. Anthony Komaroff; the three major sleep-disorder professional organizations; and millions in Europe, where a movement has been building for years to scrap daylight saving time.
That happens to be where this all started.
Why daylight saving time?
According to the Congressional Research Service, daylight saving time began in Germany on May 1, 1916, as a war-conservation measure, according to the Congressional Research Service. The concept grew in popularity across Europe and arrived in the United States in 1918.
The American debut on March 31 was a fiasco. That happened to be Easter Sunday, and a whole lot of clergy and their congregations weren’t happy. Congress scrapped the plan but brought it back permanently in 1966.
DST has the obvious advantage of pushing back the night, allowing those languid summer evenings to linger longer.
Over time, its share of the year has grown, and these days standard time is confined to just about four months.
Some New England states have considered going on permanent Atlantic standard time, Czeisler noted, in effect opting for year-round daylight saving time, and in his view that’s a terrible idea.
What’s wrong with that?
Czeisler and Malow contend that daylight saving time would be particularly bad for the health of those who live at the western edge of a time zone. If light is lingering until 9:30 p.m. on a June night on the eastern edge of a time zone, it’s going to stick around until close to 10:30 p.m. on the west side.
That, they say, ultimately is disruptive to sleep patterns, which could have a variety of health impacts.
Malow says that the body should be getting less light later at night so that it can transition to the sleep it so desperately needs. We should be getting more light in the morning, she adds.
When the clocks go back, “People get frustrated because the sunsets are earlier,” says Czeisler. But the negative effects attributed to moving the clocks forward — increases in the incidence of heart attacks and traffic accidents — trend in the other direction.
Where the clock doesn’t change
Neither Hawaii, which is about half way to tomorrow from here, nor most of Arizona participate in the great national clock change.
Arizona test-drove daylight saving time in 1967, noted Arizona State University history professor Calvin Schermerhorn, but decided not to buy the car.
Energy consumption went off the charts because air conditioners had to run longer.
The entire country tried year-round DST in 1974 in an effort during an energy crisis. It went into effect on Jan. 3, and by the end of the month, the National School Boards Association called for an immediate end because school buses were plowing the darkness. The clocks were turned back in a month.
A final vote
Beth Malow said that the timing of the clock change this year — and both she and Czeisler said this is their favorite weekend — is especially fortuitous since voters will be more alert on Election Day. Regardless of the eventual outcome, we’ll at least be more rested.
"time" - Google News
October 31, 2020 at 06:06PM
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We change our clocks this weekend, but is it time for a change? Medical experts say yes - The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Coronavirus has changed just about everything in 2020 and Halloween is no different.
The Centers for Disease Control is recommending against traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating this year but has outlined some activities it deems are safer than others. One of the activities it lists as “moderate” in the safe category is “one-way-trick-or-treating” where individually wrapped goodie bags are lined up for families to grab and go while continuing to social distance, such as at the end of a driveway or at the edge of a yard.
People preparing goodie bags are advised to wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after preparing the bags.
What time is trick-or-treating where I live?
With that in mind, the traditional question remains: What time will trick or treating get started where I live?
Oct. 31 falls on a Saturday this year, meaning more people will likely get out early and stay out later. Sunset in Alabama on Saturday will be at 5:56 p.m. so you can look for more people to head out about that time. Trick-or-treating hours have traditionally been around 5-8 p.m. with a most everyone back home by 9 p.m.
Some cities may designate trick-or-treat hours, so check ahead.
A 2015 survey found 40 people of people said they leave for trick-or-treating at 6 p.m. with 27% done by 8 p.m. and 37% done by 9 p.m.
Halloween weather
Saturday night’s weather in Alabama is expected to be dry with temperatures in the 60s at sunset and low 50s later in the night.
One more thing to remember – the time change is 2 a.m. Sunday so get ready to “fall back” and move your clock back 1 hour before you go to bed Saturday night.
Daylight saving time officially ends 2 a.m. local time Sunday, Nov. 1. That means most people will opt to move their clocks back one hour before they go to bed on Halloween night, Saturday, Oct. 31. That’s not as hard a task as it used to be since most people’s smart phones and other devices handle “falling back” 1 hour without any help.
The move from DST takes place almost everywhere in the U.S. with the exception of Hawaii and most of Arizona, which don’t observe the change.
Clocks will move ahead an hour at 2 a.m. March 14, 2021 with the start of daylight saving time.
The history of daylight saving time in the U.S. dates back to World War I when the government instituted the change to extend daylight working hours in an effort to save fuel. The change was made official in March 1918 only to go away after the war. It returned during World War II but uniform across the country.
Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, establishing a schedule for DST: - clocks would be moved ahead one hour on the last Sunday in April and one hour back on the last Sunday in October.
The schedule was altered several times in the following decades, most recently by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which set the start of DST (springing forward) at the second Sunday in March and the ending of DST (fall back) on the first Sunday in November.
In general, most states have about 7.5 months of daylight saving time and 4.5 of standard time.
More than two decades after affirmative action was banned in California, voters will decide whether to restore the practice with a ballot measure supporters say would bring greater access to educational and job opportunities but that detractors warn would reintroduce discrimination.
If passed, Proposition 16 would repeal a 1996 measure that banned the consideration of race and gender in the public sector, including admissions to one of the country’s largest university systems.
Supporters of Prop. 16 include a who’s who of California heavy hitters: Sen. Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, the University of California Board of Regents, several major newspapers and dozens of state and local elected leaders.
Proponents argue that California’s public sector should mirror its diverse population and that affirmative action can help admissions teams and hiring managers weigh a candidate’s complete profile, including how race and gender might have shaped their experiences and opportunities.
A Los Angeles Police Department official videotapes a rally to protest the University of California regents' decision to scrap affirmative action policies, on Oct. 12, 1995, in Los Angeles.Chris Pizzello / AP file
“We need to correct a wrong,” said Monica Lazo, a statewide political organizer who is helping to lead the Yes on Prop. 16 outreach effort. “We need to get California back on the right side of history - 2020 is the time.”
But opponents liken the ballot measure to a Band-Aid. They say it would not root out the larger problem of systemic racism and instead create more inequities by excluding overrepresented groups from hiring and admissions practices and elevating under-qualified candidates to positions they are not prepared to tackle.
“Logically if one population increases, then the other has to decrease,” said Bethany Huang, a first-year student at the University of California Irvine. “It feels like Asian-American struggles are often overlooked. This only furthers that problem.”
Both positions are deeply rooted in the bigger issue of racial reckoning confronting the U.S., which has led to social unrest and calls to dismantle systemic racism.
Proposition 209, which Prop. 16 seeks to repeal, was passed in 1996 under Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. It was part of a larger, anti-immigration wave overtaking California at the time, which included a voter-approved law that would have denied health care, education and other services to people living in the U.S. without authorization. That law was eventually overturned in federal court.
When Prop. 209 initially passed, Wilson, who recently endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election, said the measure “sought to undo a terrible unfairness so that opportunity is offered not just to some Californians, but to all Californians,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 1996.
More than 20 years later, a new generation of voters and elected leaders say repealing the measure would correct years of missed opportunities for people who don’t have access to education and job training.
Students protest outside the meeting of the University of California's Board of Regents in favor of affirmative action in 1995.David Butow / Corbis via Getty Images
Nicole Anyanwu, a senior at the University of California Berkeley studying molecular environmental biology, said she immediately noticed being one of the few Black students on campus.
“It definitely had an impact on my experience navigating the university,” she said. “I knew about Berkeley being well known in the realm of academia, but one thing I didn’t know is that it was lacking in diversity and especially diversity in STEM.”
For Latino students, the gap is even larger. Latinos made up 22 percent of students enrolled in the UC system last year but 40 percent of the total state population. Meanwhile, Asian students are overrepresented across UC’s 10 campuses. They comprise 30 percent of the student population and 16 percent of California’s population.
Huang, a political science major who is running for a seat on the Irvine Board of Education, worries that Asian students like herself could face discrimination if Prop. 16 passes.
“I think that’s not a great consequence,” she said. “It’s not fair to Asian American students to decrease their numbers in the UC system. They’re also people of color.”
Since the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe, Huang said she and other Asian American friends in Southern California have endured racist comments and side glances. She blames the rhetoric coming out of the White House and said she doesn’t feel the same kind of support and camaraderie shared by people supporting racial justice movements.
Instead, Huang worries about being further stigmatized for being a high-achieving student.
“A lot of people will use Asian Americans to further divide people of color,” she said. “We are often isolated from people of color because we are seen as supposedly more successful or stereotypically smarter, which is not true. There are many Asian Americans who are struggling.”
The question of racial bias is central to recent lawsuits accusing Harvard and Yale universities of intentionally discriminating against Asian American students who apply to the Ivy League schools. Both lawsuits were backed by the U.S. Department of Justice and both schools denied discriminating against any group during the admissions process.
Vivrd Prasanna, a first-year student at UC Berkeley who plans to vote against Prop. 16, said an unintended consequence of Prop. 16 could be to further fuel racial stereotypes. There is an assumption, he said, that people of color are all low-income while all white people are affluent.
“We know that’s not true,” he said.
But for people who remember the passage of Prop. 209 in 1996, the racial overtones of rejecting affirmative action cannot be overlooked.
State Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, a Democrat representing portions of East Los Angeles, was still in college when the measure passed, creating a pivotal moment in his political awakening that inspired him to eventually seek elected office to try to undo some of the state’s most controversial policies.
Two decades later, “we’re still fighting the same fight,” he said. “You have to give us a shot at education. You just have to.”
Santiago grew up in the largely blue-collar Latino neighborhood he now represents. His parents were deported several times and finishing high school was a struggle for the young student who had to work while attending classes. His grades weren’t the best and his SAT scores weren’t the highest, but he eventually attended the University of California Los Angeles and graduated magma cum laude.
“We know today that situation is very similar among many young people,” he said. “They’re hardworking, they’re incredibly intelligent, they just have not had that opportunity.”
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