Duncan Laurence From The Netherlands Wins Eurovision 2019
Duncan Laurence of the Netherlands, the winner of Eurovision 2019, captured during the competition on Saturday in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Guy Prives/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Guy Prives/Getty Images
Singer Duncan Laurence from the Netherlands has emerged victorious at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. The finals were held Saturday night in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The 25-year-old Laurence won the international competition with a song called “Arcade,” which he co-wrote. The song is a sweet, emotional ballad that stands in contrast to Israeli singer Netta’s wacky “Toy,” which won in 2018.
Laurence, whose real name is Duncan de Moor, participated in the Dutch version of “The Voice” in 2014. He’s also been writing for other performers, including the K-pop band TVXQ.
Eurovision Song Contest
YouTube
In all, 41 countries started out in this year’s competition. The 26 finalists’ songs included a number of power ballads alongside Duncan’s, as well as perky, anodyne pop from artists like the Czech Republic’s Lake Malawi and Denmark’s Leonora; and aspiring club bangers from the artist Tamta, the singer representing Cyprus, and Belarus’ Zena, among many others.
But because this is Eurovision, where camp appeal often outweighs other factors, there was also Serhat — a dentist turned-television impresario-turned singer, who channels Leonard Cohen at the disco and represented tiny San Marino — and Iceland’s Hatari, which describes itself as an “anti-capitalist performance art group inspired by BDSM and anti-authoritarian dystopic aesthetics.”
Eurovision Song Contest
YouTube
Eurovision Song Contest
YouTube
Hatari reportedly “tested the patience” of the European Broadcasting Union, which mounts Eurovision, in the week leading up to the finals by repeatedly speaking out against the Israeli government.
More widely, this year’s event has been partly overshadowed by politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Tuesday, hackers interrupted the Israeli live webcast of the first semi-final to warn, falsely, that the city of Tel Aviv was under attack. Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, blamed Hamas for the hacking. Palestinian activists unsuccessfully urged performers to boycott Eurovision 2019.
Organizers said the Eurovision finals were being watched by 200 million people across the globe. However, the show was not broadcast in the United States this year after the Logo TV network, which carried the 2016 to 2018 editions, chose not to pick up this year’s contest.
Along with this year’s competitors, other performers at Eurovision 2019 included previous winners Netta from Israel, who won in 2018, and 2014’s winner, Conchita Wurst from Austria — as well Madonna, who performed “Like a Prayer,” as well as her new, reggae-flavored song “Future” with Migos’ Quavo.
From The Gridiron To Multigrid Algorithms In ‘Mind And Matter’
Here’s a puzzle: Do the qualities that allow a man to block 300lb bodies every day have anything to do with the qualities that allow the same person to solve three-body problems late into the night? Stumped? John Urschel can solve that puzzle for you.
Urschel is a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens who holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in mathematics from Penn State, and is currently pursuing a doctorate at MIT. And now he has written a memoir, Mind and Matter, about how his love of football and his love of math fit together. “When I was very little, I loved puzzles,” he says. “I loved solving problems. And that’s math, and I was fascinated with that sort of thing. And in high school, I started playing football and I fell in love with it. And then when I got to college and I started taking college math courses, then I really fell in love with math again, and that’s when I really discovered what mathematics is, and that I would be a mathematician.”
Interview Highlights
On why he decided to play pro football despite the risks
First of all, this wasn’t really a plan of mine. I have to say, when I was a kid, I loved watching college football, you know, football in the Big 10. [University of Michigan offensive tackle] Jake Long was my hero, and I wanted to be a Big 10 offensive lineman. And here I am, I’m a senior at Penn State, I am a Big 10 offensive lineman, and I’m living my dream. And I thought, okay, pro football seems available to me, people are talking about it, they have me on projection draft lists, and I said, you know what? Math can wait a little bit, and I’m going to go play football at the highest level, because I can come back to math later, but I can’t come back to try professional football.
On the possibility of brain injury
It was something that I had thought about at some point, and I recognized that there are those risks, and I was aware of them, but I was already aware of them, and I had already made my decision.
On getting a concussion in practice and being briefly unable to do complex math
When I had the concussion, as crazy as it seems, I was really frustrated, more than anything, that’s the right adjective, in that I love football, I love math, and I couldn’t do either of those things at that moment. And it really bothered me. But once I got better, and I was back to doing football and doing math, I thought, okay, if this happens again, I really need to think and reevaluate, but I like where I am right now, and I want to keep playing football and keep doing math, and I’m going to just keep doing both of those things and, I’m forget about this … and I did.
On what factored into his decision to retire
Things about mathematics, you know, looking at my career going forward, sort of thinking about — at that time, I was going to become a father, and so this is something I started thinking about, spending time with my daughter, being able to walk my daughter down the aisle. Being able to, when I’m 60 and 70, being able to run around, have my knees be okay, my shoulders okay, my back okay. Of course, you think about your head as well, but it’s a very holistic thing. The NFL can really do a number on your body, and a lot of people are focusing on people’s heads, but it’s sort of all over. And I’m blessed to have played three years in the NFL, and by NFL player standards, retired completely healthy. Not by normal people standards, but by NFL standards, I am as close to completely healthy as you can get.
On being an African American in math
I recognize that because I’m a mathematician at MIT and I play professional football, I’m in the spotlight. And I have a responsibility to use this platform to show people the beauty of mathematics. To show people playing in the NFL, this isn’t your way out. You can do something mathematics. You can do something in STEM, even if you don’t necessarily look like what the majority of people in that field look like.
And I have to say, okay, if you look at the field of mathematics, if you look at elite American mathematicians, there’s almost no African Americans. There aren’t many of us in PhD programs, there’s not many of us as undergrads, and what you’re sort of left with is the sad realization that there are brilliant young minds being born into this country that are somehow being lost — either because of the household they’re born into, or their socioeconomic situations, or sort of the social culture in their community. And this isn’t just a disservice to them, this is a disservice to us as a country.
This story was edited for radio by Elizabeth Baker and adapted for the Web by Petra Mayer.
Where’s Masculinity Headed? Men’s Groups And Therapists Are Talking
Leonardo Santamaria for NPR
Sean Jin is 31 and says he’d not washed a dish until he was in his sophomore year of college.
“Literally my mom and my grandma would … tell me to stop doing dishes because I’m a man and I shouldn’t be doing dishes.” It was a long time, he says, before he realized their advice and that sensibility were “not OK.”
Now, as part of the Masculinity Action Project, a group of men in Philadelphia who regularly meet to discuss and promote what they see as a healthier masculinity, Jin has been thinking a lot about what men are “supposed to” do and not do.
He joined the peer-led group, he says, because men face real issues like higher rates of suicide than women and much higher rates of incarceration.
“It’s important to have an understanding of these problems as rooted in an economic crisis and a cultural crisis in which there can be a progressive solution,” Jin says.
In supporting each other emotionally, Jin says, men need alternative solutions to those offered by the misogynist incel — “involuntary celibate” — community or other men’s rights activists who believe men are oppressed.
“Incels or the right wing provide a solution that’s really based on more control of women and more violence toward minorities,” Jin says.
Instead, he says, he and his friends seek the sort of answers “in which liberation for minorities and more freedom for women is actually empowering for men.”
Once a month, the Philadelphia men’s group meets to learn about the history of the feminist movement and share experiences — how they learned what “being a man” means and how some of those ideas can harm other people and even themselves. They talk about how best to support each other.
Once a month, a men’s group in Philadelphia meets to exchange ideas and share their experiences. With the support of the group, Jeremy Gillam (third from right), who coaches an after-school hockey league, teaches his team nonviolent responses to aggression on the ice.
Alan Yu for NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Alan Yu for NPR
This spring, part of one of the group’s meetings involved standing in a public park and giving a one-minute speech about any topic they chose. One man spoke of being mocked and spit upon for liking ballet as a 9-year-old boy; another spoke of his feelings about getting a divorce; a third man shared with the others what it was like to tell his father “I love you” for the first time at the age of 38.
The idea of such mentoring and support groups isn’t new, though today’s movement is trying to broaden its base. Paul Kivel, an activist and co-founder of a similar group that was active from the 1970s to the 1990s in Oakland, Calif., says men’s groups in those days were mostly white and middle-class.
Today, the global nonprofit ManKind Project says it has close to 10,000 members in 21 nations, is ethnically and socioeconomically diverse and aims to draw men of all ages.
“We strive to be increasingly inclusive and affirming of cultural differences, especially with respect to color, class, sexual orientation, faith, age, ability, ethnicity, and nationality,” the group’s website says.
Toby Fraser, a co-leader of the Philadelphia group that Jin attends, says its members range in age from 20 to 40; it’s a mix of heterosexual, queer and gay men.
Simply having a broad group of people who identify as masculine — whatever their age, race or sexual orientation — can serve as a helpful sounding board, Fraser says.
“Rather than just saying, ‘Hey, we’re a group of dudes bonding over how great it is to be dudes,’ ” Fraser says, “it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re a group of people who have been taught similar things that don’t work for us and we see not working or we hear not working for the people around us. How can we support each other to make it different?’ “
Participants are also expected to take those ideas outside the group and make a difference in their communities.
For example, Jeremy Gillam coaches ice hockey and life skills at an after-school hockey program for children in Philadelphia. He says he and his fellow coaches teach the kids in their program that even though the National Hockey League still allows fighting, they should not respond to violence with violence. He says he tells them, “The referee always sees the last violent act, and that’s what’s going to be penalized.”
That advice surprises some boys, Gillam says.
“One of the first things that we heard,” he says, “is, ‘Dad told me to stick up for myself. Dad’s not going to be happy with me if I just let this happen, so I’m going to push back.’ “
Vashti Bledsoe is the program director at Lutheran Settlement House, the Philadelphia nonprofit that organizes the monthly men’s group. She says men in the group have already started talking about how the #MeToo movement pertains to them — and that’s huge.
“These conversations are happening [in the community], whether they’re happening in a healthy or unhealthy way … but people don’t know how to frame it and name it,” Bledsoe says. “What these guys have done is to be very intentional about teaching people how to name [the way ideas about masculinity affect their own actions] and say, ‘It’s OK. It doesn’t make you less of a man to recognize that.’ “
Meanwhile, the American Psychological Association published guidelines this year suggesting that therapists consider masculine social norms when working with male clients. Some traditional ideas of masculinity, the group says, “can have negative consequences for the health of boys and men.”
The guidelines quickly became controversial. New York magazine writer Andrew Sullivan wrote that they “pathologize half of humanity,” and National Review writer David French wrote that the American Psychological Association “declares war on ‘traditional masculinity.’ “
Christopher Liang, an associate professor of counseling psychology at Lehigh University and a co-author of the APA guidelines, says they actually grew out of decades of research and clinical experience.
For example, he says, many of the male clients he treats were taught to suppress their feelings, growing up — to engage in violence or to drink, rather than talk. And when they do open up, he says, their range of emotions can be limited.
“Instead of saying, ‘I’m really upset’, they may say, ‘I’m feeling really angry,’ because anger is one of those emotions that men have been allowed to express,” Liang says.
He says he and his colleagues were surprised by the controversy around the guidelines, which were intended for use by psychologists. The APA advisory group is now working on a shorter version for the general public that they hope could be useful to teachers and parents.
Criticism of the APA guidelines focused on the potentially harmful aspects of masculinity, but the APA points to other masculine norms — such as valuing courage and leadership — as positive.
Aylin Kaya, a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at the University of Maryland, recently published research that gets at that wider range of masculine norms and stereotypes in a study of male college students.
Some norms, such as the need to be dominant in a relationship or the inability to express emotion, were associated with lower “psychological well-being,” she found. That’s a measure of whether students accepted themselves, had positive relationships with other people and felt “a sense of agency” in their lives, Kaya explains. But the traditional norm of “a drive to win and to succeed” contributed to higher well-being.
Kaya adds that even those findings should be teased apart. A drive to win or succeed could be good for society and for male or female identity if it emphasizes agency and mastery, but bad if people associate their self-worth with beating other people.
Kaya says one potential application of her research would be for psychologists — and men, in general — to separate helpful ideas of masculinity from harmful ones.
“As clinicians,” she says, “our job is to make the invisible visible … asking clients, ‘Where do you get these ideas of how you’re supposed to act? Where did you learn that?’ To help them kind of unpack — ‘I wasn’t born with this; it wasn’t my natural way of being. I was socialized into this; I learned it. And maybe I can start to unlearn it.’ “
For example, Kaya says, some male clients come to her looking for insight because they’ve been struggling with romantic relationships. It turns out, she says, the issue beneath the struggle is that they feel they cannot show emotion without being ridiculed or demeaned, which makes it hard for them to be intimate with their partners.
Given the findings from her study on perceptions of masculinity, Kaya says, she now might ask them to first think about why they feel like they can’t show emotion — whether that’s useful for them — and then work on ways to help them emotionally connect with people.
For One U.S. Bike-Maker, Tariffs Are A Mixed Bag
Zakary Pashak started Detroit Bikes when he moved to Detroit in 2011, at a time when the city was reeling.
Courtesy of Melany Hallgren
hide caption
toggle caption
Courtesy of Melany Hallgren
Zakary Pashak is a rare breed. His company, Detroit Bikes, is one of the very few American bicycle makers. Most bikes come from China.
At times, Pashak endured ridicule at trade shows. “I’d get kind of surly bike mechanics coming up and telling me that my products stunk. There’s definitely a fair bit of attitude in my industry,” he says.
But last September, the industry’s tune abruptly changed. The first round of U.S. tariffs, or import taxes, upped the cost of Chinese-made bikes by 10%, and companies saw Detroit Bikes as a potential partner.
“All of a sudden I felt like the belle of the ball or something,” Pashak says.
Now a new round of tariffs set at 25% is hitting imports from China. Like many other American companies, Detroit Bikes is poring over the 194-page list of imported Chinese goods subject to the levies. Companies like Detroit Bikes rely on those goods, and now they face choices that will ultimately determine the prices consumers will pay.
Pashak started the company when he moved to Detroit in 2011, at a time when the city was reeling.
“What drew me to Detroit was the history, the music, the manufacturing,” he says. “But it was also the state that the city was in at the time.”
The financial crisis slammed automakers, laid off thousands of workers, many of whom abandoned their homes. Pashak envisioned an urban revival. Using those idle factories and workers, he wanted to build an American-made bicycle, which is how Detroit Bikes was born.
This month, the Trump administration upped the taxes it charges on Chinese imports by an additional 15%. Now, several companies seeking to avoid those added costs are considering hiring Detroit Bikes to manufacture bikes for their brands.
“If these tariffs are still in place next year at this time, I would anticipate that would probably be quite good for my business,” he says.
But the tariffs aren’t all good for Detroit Bikes. In fact, Pashak says the effects are so convoluted, he’s not sure yet whether they will ultimately help or hurt.
For one thing, his company relies on imported parts — rims, spokes, tires, cranks — most of which come from China. Tariffs on those also increased 25% since last fall, driving up Detroit Bikes’ expenses. To counteract that, Pashak is painstakingly evaluating each part, to see whether cheaper alternatives are available elsewhere.
He’s looking at parts made in Taiwan, which aren’t subject to tariffs. Or Cambodia, which he says is “the new hot country … that everyone’s trying to rush into.”
Businesses like Detroit Bikes react to tariffs in many ways, and one of the most significant is in finding alternate sources of goods. If Pashak succeeds in finding cheaper substitute parts, he keeps costs down on his bikes, which range from about $400 to $1,250. That then blunts the overall price increase for his customers.
Economists call this “substitution,” and say it affects how much consumers pay for tariffs.
“The impacts of these wars depend heavily on the substitution effect,” says Amit Khandelwal, a professor of international business at Columbia University.
Some substitutes are relatively easy to find. When China slapped retaliatory tariffs on American soybeans and corn, for example, buyers quickly turned to suppliers in South America.
But finding replacements for things like bike chains or software chips is considerably harder; factories can’t just be ginned up on demand. “Generally, the more specialized products often take longer to substitute,” Khandelwal says.
And timing is a key factor. It’s unclear whether the tariffs will remain for a week, a month, or years. Businesses, from farmers to retailers, are reluctant to make big changes when they can’t plan for the long haul.
That limits options for companies like Brooklyn Bicycle Co., which is based in its namesake city. It sources all its parts from 40 Asian countries, which are then assembled in China, before being shipped to the U.S. Ryan Zagata, the company’s president, says it would take about a year to rethink his supply chain and find options outside of China. And “it would be incredibly costly,” he says.
Detroit Bikes’ Pashak says he’s already mapped out some ingenious — if complicated — workarounds, if the tariffs stay put.
“I can bring in Chinese parts to Canada at no tariff code, bring in a Cambodian frame to Canada. Or ship my American frames up to Canada, put the parts on them, and then import them into the country,” he says. Doing so would relieve his tariff burden, but would take months. In the meantime, he says, tariffs might go away next week.
So the easiest solution for many companies, in the short run, is to raise prices. Many of Detroit Bikes’ rivals that rely on imported Chinese bikes, say they’ll have no choice. But Pashak says he’s not sure if his company will follow suit.
“It might be better for me strategically just to let all my competitors raise their prices because they have to,” he says. In the meantime, he’ll continue exploring options to try to make the tariffs work to his advantage.
Saturday Sports: NBA, WNBA, Preakness, Ohio State
We have the latest on the NBA, the new commissioner leading the WNBA, and the investigation of an Ohio State University doctor’s sexual abuse of students.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it’s time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Fear the deer. The NBA finals almost set a new leader for the WNBA and sad news ahead of the Preakness. NPR’s Tom Goldman joins us. Good morning, Tom. How are you?
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Good morning (laughter). I feel like if you’re going to keep this fear the deer stuff up, I think I have to – into June, probably…
SIMON: Oh, sure.
GOLDMAN: I think I – I’ve got to have some response, maybe deer sound, like bleating or grunting or something. I’ll work on it.
SIMON: Yeah, yeah. I think you’d be good at deer grunting, if I’m not mistaken (laughter). I bet you would be. I’ll send you some of my old scripts. They’re all a bunch of deer grunts. In any event, the Bucks defeated the Toronto Raptors by 22 points last night. They take a 2-0 lead in the series, like the Warriors have over the Blazers, and they play tonight. Is it too early to ask if the deer can dethrone the team that is fleeing loyal Oakland?
GOLDMAN: Oh, yeah. No, it’s not. Milwaukee looks unbeatable with the normal caveats. As you mentioned, the Bucks only up 2-0. They’ve won two on their home court; same with Golden State. The playoff series, as you know, Scott, can flip in a game. Of course, I’m saying that as a Portland resident where Blazer fans are sure the script will start flipping tonight. But with those caveats out of the way, the Bucks – wow – playing so well on offense, defense, all other facets of the game, and they’re physically huge. Their starting lineup includes a guy 6’10”, 6’11”, 7 feet. The Warriors, during their run, have made small ball cool and very effective. But I don’t know how Golden State would deal with Milwaukee’s size if the two meet in the finals – if.
SIMON: The WNBA has a new commissioner, Cathy Engelbert. She is a business executive and a former college player. I’m very impressed by her.
GOLDMAN: Yeah. And the consensus is she’s a great choice. She has been the chief executive at Deloitte accounting firm – first woman to head the company. She’s also a good college basketball player, as you mentioned, at Lehigh under Muffet McGraw, now the legendary head coach at Notre Dame. Engelbert has had success in business, in sports. She understands both. She’s considered the perfect leader for the WNBA right now, which starts its 23rd season next week.
SIMON: And she’ll be commissioner, not president, right? That’s an important change.
GOLDMAN: You know, it’s significant they’re using that term. Up to now, it’s been president. The title has been president. But commissioner, you know, is a title with more heft, befitting a league that certainly wants to achieve more heft.
SIMON: Preakness this afternoon – terrible news from the track. Two great athletes died yesterday on racetracks – Congrats Gal at Pimlico, Commander Coil at Santa Anita, which courses had 24 deaths since December 26. I am a horse fan, if not always of horse racing. It’s just hard to root right now. What are these deaths doing to the sport?
GOLDMAN: Making it hard to root, as you say. I mean, you know, there’s still lots of people who show up at parks with money on their minds who explain away the deaths as, well, you know, that’s just part of horse racing, which, sadly, it is. But these deaths yesterday, on top of the cluster of 23 at Santa Anita before them and then the one at Pimlico, as you mentioned – the site of today’s Preakness, second leg of the Triple Crown – is just raising the criticism of the sport, increasing calls for reform. On top of that, Scott, you know, you’ve got the weird ending at the Kentucky Derby a couple of weeks ago where the winner was disqualified. Horse racing is a mess right now, I would say, which is what activists want it to be in order to trigger significant change.
SIMON: And let’s turn to what’s been happening at Ohio State. An investigation found former athletic department doctor Richard Strauss had sexually abused 177 male students. The university knew but took no real action for 15 years. Dr. Strauss took his own life in 2005. And the university says it is trying to revoke his emeritus professor status, even though, of course, he died a number of years ago. What’s that going to achieve?
GOLDMAN: Not clear beyond symbolism. This report confirms a very sordid and sad couple of decades at Ohio State. It should strengthen a number of pending lawsuits because as one plaintiff’s lawyer told The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State cannot deny the abuse, and it’s not. The university president called the findings shocking and painful to comprehend. So, you know, along with what’s happened at Michigan State with the Larry Nassar case, just another sad, sad case of this.
SIMON: Yeah. NPR’s Tom Goldman, thanks very much for being with us. Talk to you soon.
GOLDMAN: OK. Thanks, Scott.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Ohio State Doctor Sexually Abused At Least 177 Male Students, Investigation Finds
Richard Strauss was employed as a doctor at Ohio State University from 1978 until he retired in 1998.
AP
hide caption
toggle caption
AP
For nearly two decades, a doctor at The Ohio State University sexually abused at least 177 male students, according to an exhaustive independent investigation commissioned by the university. Most of the doctor’s abuse happened under the auspices of providing the students with medical treatment.
Richard Strauss worked at OSU from September 1978 through March 1998, primarily as a doctor with the Athletic Department and the Student Health Center. The investigation found that university personnel became aware of Strauss’ abuse as early as 1979.
However, “despite the persistence, seriousness, and regularity of such complaints, no meaningful action was taken by the University to investigate such concerns until January 1996,” when they were first elevated to officials beyond Student Health or the Athletics Department, the report reads.
As a result, Strauss was suspended from working as a treating physician at OSU. The school eventually removed him from his departments, but it kept him on as a tenured faculty member. He voluntarily retired in 1998 with “emeritus” status from the university. Strauss took his own life in 2005.
“The findings are shocking and painful to comprehend,” current OSU President Michael Drake said in a message emailed to the OSU community.
“On behalf of the university, we offer our profound regret and sincere apologies to each person who endured Strauss’ abuse,” said Drake, who became the school’s president in 2014. “Our institution’s fundamental failure at the time to prevent this abuse was unacceptable — as were the inadequate efforts to thoroughly investigate complaints raised by students and staff members.”
Drake added that the university has started the process of revoking Strauss’ emeritus status and “will take additional action as appropriate.”
“Dreams were broken, relationships with loved ones were damaged, and the harm now carries over to our children as many of us have become so overprotective that it strains the relationship with our kids,” Kent Kilgore, a survivor of Strauss’ abuse, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
OSU said it launched the independent investigation last April, after a former student came forward with allegations of abuse and “indicated … that there may have been others who experienced sexual misconduct by Strauss.”
The investigation carried out by the law firm Perkins Coie was led by a former federal prosecutor and a former federal government ethics attorney. Both had experience in investigations involving male sexual abuse survivors.
They interviewed 520 people, among them the 177 men who said they had been abused by Strauss.
The report, which runs more than 230 pages, contains a litany of painful stories of abuse from former students who went to Strauss for medical care.
The instances of abuse often involved inappropriate touching of a students’ genitals during exams in ways that weren’t medically useful. A number of students said Strauss “would routinely touch their genitals at every visit, regardless of the medical ailment presented, including for a sore throat,” the report states.
The report also states that members of 15 university athletic teams were abused. Strauss most frequently targeted wrestlers — 48 of them, according to the report. And the abuse often became more explicit over multiple visits.
“We observed that, in many cases, a student’s most egregious experience of abuse did not occur during the student’s first encounter with Strauss; rather, the abuse escalated over time, in a series of examinations with the student,” the report states.
Other students reported that Strauss would frequently shower with teams, appearing to loiter and gawp at students as they were naked in locker rooms and making them uncomfortable.
A former soccer player told investigators that Strauss would sometimes run a single lap just as the team was finishing up practice. “The student noted that it was a commonly-held perception among the players that Strauss was exercising as a pretext to shower with the team, and the student-athletes would try to shower as quickly as possible,” the report reads.
Dozens of people who worked as coaches or athletic trainers told investigators that they had been aware of rumors and complaints against Strauss. The abuse was so widely known that it left some students with the idea that it was simply accepted by other university personnel.
“Many of the students felt that Strauss’ behavior was an ‘open secret,’ as it appeared to them that their coaches, trainers, and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it,” the report states. Students, it adds, said they had the impression the abuse was a form of hazing or a rite of passage.
The university took disciplinary action against Strauss only after a series of student complaints in the mid-1990s. Even after that, he opened an off-campus private men’s health clinic near the university — where he continued to abuse patients — and kept his title as a tenured faculty professor.
As Gabe Rosenberg and Adora Namigadde of member station WOSU reported:
“At least 50 students have filed lawsuits against Ohio State, arguing the university knew about and declined to act in response to complaints about Strauss. Their case is headed to mediation.
” ‘It’s what we’ve been saying—they’ve failed to act—investigate or act, and now we have validation,’ said Brian Garrett, one of the lead plaintiffs, in an interview Friday.
“The university has referred the report to Columbus Police, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.”
The investigators and the university’s president thanked the survivors for coming forward to share their stories.
“This independent investigation was completed because of the strength and courage of survivors,” Drake said.
Read the investigative report here:
Highly Potent Weed Has Swept The Market, Raising Concerns About Health Risks
Studies have shown that the levels of THC, the main psychoactive compound in pot, have risen dramatically in the U.S. from 1995 to 2017.
David McNew/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
David McNew/Getty Images
As more states legalize marijuana, more people in the U.S. are buying and using weed — and the kind of weed they can buy has become much stronger.
That concerns scientists who study marijuana and its effects on the body, as well as emergency room doctors who say they’re starting to see more patients who come into the ER with weed-associated issues.
Some 26 million Americans ages 12 and older reported being current marijuana users in 2017, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. It’s not clear how many users have had serious health issues from strong weed, and there’s a lot that’s still unknown about the potential risks. But scientists are starting to learn more about some of them.
The potency of weed depends on the amount of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main compound responsible for the drug’s psychoactive effects. One study of pot products seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration found the potency increased from about 4% THC in 1995 to about 12% in 2014. By 2017, another study showed, the potency of illicit drug samples had gone up to 17.1% THC.
“That’s an increase of more than 300% from 1995 to about 2017,” says Staci Gruber, director of the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) program at the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. “I would say that’s a considerable increase.”
And some products with concentrated forms of cannabis, like hash and hash oil, can have as much as 80% to 90% THC, she adds.
“I think most people are aware of the phenomenon that ‘this is not your grand daddy’s weed,’ Gruber says. “I hear this all the time.”
But people might not be aware of the potential health risks of highly potent weed. “The negative effects of cannabis have primarily been isolated and localized to THC,” says Gruber. “So it stands to reason that higher levels of THC may in fact confer a greater risk for negative outcome.”
“In general, people think, ‘Oh, I don’t have to worry about marijuana. It’s a safe drug,’ ” says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The notion that it is completely safe drug is incorrect when you start to address the consequences of this very high content of 9THC.”
Pot’s paradoxical effects
THC can have opposite effects on our bodies at high and low doses, Volkow says. Take anxiety levels, for example.
“When someone takes marijuana at a low [THC] content to relax and to stone out, actually, it decreases your anxiety,” she says. But high concentrations can cause panic attacks, and if someone consumes high-enough levels of THC, “you become full-blown psychotic and paranoid.”
Weed can have a similar paradoxical effect on the vascular system. Volkow says: “If you take low-content THC it will increase your blood flow, but high content [THC] can produce massive vasoconstriction, it decreases the flow through the vessels.”
And at low concentrations, THC can be used to treat nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. But Volkow says that “patients that consume high content THC chronically came to the emergency department with a syndrome where they couldn’t stop vomiting and with intense abdominal pain.”
It’s a condition called cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.
“The typical patient uses [inhales] about 10 times per day … and they come in with really difficult to treat nausea and vomiting,” says Andrew Monte, an associate professor of emergency medicine and medical toxicology at the University of Colorado’s school of medicine. “Some people have died from this … syndrome, so that is concerning.”
Scientists don’t know exactly how high levels of THC can trigger the syndrome, but the only known treatment is stopping cannabis use.
While the number of people who’ve had the syndrome is small, Monte says he and his colleagues have documented a rise in the number of cases at emergency rooms in Colorado since marijuana was legalized there five years ago. A study by Monte and his team found that cyclical vomiting cases made up about 18% of inhaled cannabis-related cases at his ER.
They also found that statewide, the overall number of ER cases associated with cannabis use has gone up. And Monte says his ER has “seen an approximately a three-fold increase in emergency department visits just by frequency. It doesn’t mean we’re getting overwhelmed by these visits due to cannabis, it’s just that means that there are more patients overall.”
Most people show up at his emergency department because of “intoxication” from too much pot, either straight or mixed with other drugs, Monte says. The bulk of these cases are due to inhaled cannabis, though edibles are associated with more psychiatric visits.
“We’re seeing an increase in psychosis and hallucinations, as well as anxiety and even depression and suicidality,” Monte says.
He thinks the increased potency of marijuana plays a role in all these cases. “Whenever you have a higher dose of one of these types of drugs, the patient is at a higher risk of having an adverse drug event. If the concentration is so much higher … it’s much easier to overshoot the low-level high that they’re looking for.”
Not everyone is at equal risk, Monte adds. “Many many people use cannabis safely,” he says. “The vast majority don’t end up in our emergency department.”
Different risks for users
Some people are more vulnerable than others to the potential negative effects of high THC cannabis.
Adolescent and young adults who use recreationally are especially susceptible because their brains are still developing and are sensitive to drugs in general, says Gruber of the MIND program. In a recent review of existing studies, she found that marijuana use among adolescents affects cognition — especially memory and executive functions, which determine mental flexibility and ability to change our behavior.
Medical marijuana users can face unexpected and unwelcome effects from potent weed. “It’s very important for people to understand that they may not get the response they anticipated,” Gruber notes.
Studies done on the medical benefits of pot usually involve very low doses of THC, says Monte, who adds that those doses “are far lower than what people are getting in a dispensary right now.”
David Dooks, a 51-year-old based in the Boston area turned to marijuana after an ankle surgery last year. “I thought that medical marijuana might be a good alternative to opioids for pain management,” he says.
Based on the advice at a dispensary, David began using a variety of weed with 56.5% THC and says it only “exacerbated the nerve pain.” After experimenting with a few other strains, he says, what worked for him was one with low (0.9%) THC, which eased his nerve pain.
‘Start low, go slow’
Whether people are using recreationally or medically, patients should educate themselves as much as possible and be cautious while using, Monte says.
Avoiding higher THC products and using infrequently can also help reduce risk, Volkow adds. “Anyone who has had a bad experience, whether it’s psychological or biological, they should stay away from this drug,” she notes.
Ask for as much information as possible before buying. “You have to know what’s in your weed,” Gruber says. “Whether or not it’s conventional flower that you’re smoking or vaping, an edible or tincture, it’s very important to know what’s in it.”
And the old saying “start low, go slow,” is a good rule of thumb, she adds. “You can always add, but you can never take it away. Once it’s in, it’s in.”
Drugmaker Created To Reduce Shortages And Prices Unveils Its First Products
Pharmacy technician Peggy Gillespie fills a syringe with an antibiotic at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, in January.
Tony Dejak/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Tony Dejak/AP
On Wednesday, Civica Rx, a nonprofit drug company founded last year by a consortium of hospitals and foundations, said it had entered an agreement with a Danish drugmaker to make available injected forms of vancomycin and daptomycin, two antibiotics that are often in short supply.
Civica Rx has plans to become an alternative source of generic drugs for hospitals and provide a steady supply of critical medicines at reasonable prices .
The company’s initial plan is to make 14 drugs and offer them to member health systems. The antibiotics are the first two that Civica Rx has publicly announced.
“Vancomycin is kind of the typical shortage drug because it’s generic and it’s an injectable and it’s critically needed,” says Erin Fox, a pharmacist who studies drug shortages at University of Utah Health, one of Civica Rx’s members. “But we just haven’t had a very good routine supply of it for a while now,” she explains. She also recently joined Civica Rx’s advisory board.
When the heavy-duty antibiotic vancomycin is in short supply, Dr. James Augustine, an emergency physician at Mercy Health hospitals in Cincinnati, gets worried.
“Vancomycin has been our last-ditch antibiotic for quite a few years,” Augustine says. “It is our go-to antibiotic for very, very sick people and those with resistant infections.”
Augustine collects information on drug shortages and shares it with other health care professional across the country. Shortages of key drug are a big and persistent problem for hospitals, he says.
“We have experienced shortages of most every drug,” he says. “It’s getting hard to keep track,” Augustine says. In a survey last year of emergency physicians, 9 in 10 had experienced a shortage in the previous month.
Shortages of vancomycin are a particular problem because it’s a powerful medicine that doesn’t have a good alternative, he says.
It’s unclear why vancomycin, which has been a generic for many years, has experienced shortages, says University of Utah’s Fox.
“Sometimes it’s just some kind of a supply constraint, or one company discontinuing production,” she says. “But we don’t always know the reasons for shortages. The companies won’t won’t tell us. In fact, pharma companies, while they’re required to report a shortage to the [Food and Drug Administration] FDA, they’re actually not required to provide the reason for that shortage to the FDA.”
Neither vancomycin, whose name comes from the same root as vanquish, nor daptomycin drug is on the FDA’s list of drugs in short supply, but they both are on another drug shortage list that Fox helps manage, along with the reasons why, if available. Drug giant Pfizer, for example, lists shortages for both drugs because of “manufacturing delays.”
Civica Rx won’t be making these drugs itself. Instead it has contracted with Danish drugmaker Xellia to make them with a Civica Rx label. Civica Rx’s member health systems currently include 800 hospitals across the country.
Fox says the real innovation here is a new kind of contract between drugmakers and hospitals.
“You can pretty much predict how much product you’re going to need at your hospital, and you can say, ‘Yep, I will purchase, say, 500 packages of this in a year,” she explains. “You would have to sign up for that and say, ‘I’m going to buy that,’ and if you don’t, the company still gets the money.”
That “guaranteed volume” for Civica Rx is supposed to help with the periodic shortages.
How much will the Civica Rx drugs cost? “Pricing will vary based on product,”company spokesperson Debbi Ford said in an email. She declined to provide specific prices.
Vancomycin “right now is a fairly reasonable price,” says Martin VanTrieste, Civica’s president and CEO. “However daptomycin is one of those high-priced drugs, and we’ll be able to bring [it at] a significantly lower price.”
VanTrieste says Civica’s pricing will be based on manufacturing costs, plus a “fair margin” for the drugmaker — in this case, Xellia. “Once we negotiate that price, we go back to our members and say, ‘I have vancomycin 1-gram vials I’m offering to you at “X” price. You want to opt in to purchase that product or opt out?’ “
Dr. James Augustine’s health system, Mercy Health, isn’t a Civica Rx member, although membership is open. It costs $300 per hospital bed to join, according to VanTrieste.
Augustine is encouraged by what Civica Rx is trying to do. “It’s a fabulous idea,” he says.
But the company’s existence underscores for him that up until now, generic drugmakers have failed patients and providers. “They have decided not to make a reliable source of these medicines available and where possible to jack up the prices to to incredible levels,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
“We always support additional competition to the market,” said Rachel Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Association for Accessible Medicines, a trade group for generic drugmakers, in an email.
Civica Rx’s VanTrieste expects to be able to offer the two antibiotics to member health systems this summer.
That’s when the experiment to prevent drug shortages and bring down prices will be put to a real-world test.
Facing Homelessness And Crushing Medical Debt, A Renowned Jazz Guitarist Reaches Out
Jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell, in an undated photo.
Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
hide caption
toggle caption
Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
One of the jazz world’s most enduring artists, the influential 87-year-old guitarist and composer Kenny Burrell, is facing financial ruin and homelessness.
His plight became public after his wife, Katherine Burrell, launched a GoFundMe page on May 9, in which she chronicled a number of overwhelming circumstances that the couple is currently navigating. In her telling, the couple has faced a cataclysmic series of misfortunes — including substantial ongoing medical expenses after a 2016 accident, identity theft and ongoing litigation involving the home owners association group in their community — that has brought them to the brink.
“We are facing possible foreclosure and homelessness,” Katherine Burrell wrote, adding: “It saddens and embarrasses me to desperately need and request help, but it is necessary at this point.” The page’s initial fundraising goal was $100,000; as of Tuesday morning, donations totaled almost $145,000.
Burrell, who was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2005, made his first professional recording in 1951 with Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Percy Heath and Milt Jackson. Since then, he has recorded hundreds of albums, including nearly one hundred as a bandleader in a discography that spans across the Blue Note, Prestige, Savoy, Columbia, Verve, Fantasy and Concord labels, among others.
Burrell first taught at UCLA in 1978 and in 1996, became the first director of the university’s jazz studies program, which he led for 20 years; the program’s graduates include the likes of saxophonist Kamasi Washington (who has since recorded with Burrell) and vocalist Gretchen Parlato. But in 2016, Burrell suffered an accident following a performance at UCLA’s Royce Hall that, according to his wife, necessitated a two-year recovery and partly triggered the couple’s misfortunes.
But as the Burrells’ dire stated needs became public last week, questions quickly arose in the jazz community about the veracity of the GoFundMe effort. On Friday, the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA) — a national nonprofit that exists in part to provide emergency funding to jazz, blues and roots artists struggling with housing or medical care — felt compelled to issue a statement regarding Katherine Burrell’s campaign.
“We would like to assure anyone concerned about Kenny that this campaign was indeed created by Katherine on his behalf,” the JFA wrote. “The Jazz Foundation has been in contact with Katherine for months. … Kenny and Katherine had been dealing with this situation alone for several years, because, as always, musicians are proud and self-reliant and do things on their own. They did not even contact us to ask for help but were referred by friends. The Jazz Foundation assessed the case, conferred with other helping organizations, and reviewed documents attesting to the financial need described in the GoFundMe post. We couldn’t possibly cover the full scope of the need, and other sources of funding were explored, including a GoFundMe campaign, given how successful and lifesaving they have proven for fellow musicians. As we can see in this outpouring of love for Kenny and Katherine, it has worked.”
The JFA also linked the Burrells’ situation to those being faced by other elder artists. “This is a painful but inspiring example of what we see every day at the Jazz Foundation,” the JFA wrote. “Many of our legends do not have a partner at home to help them. … This is why the organization exists, and we handle 30 emergency cases every day.”
Last September, UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music announced that it had received a gift of $1.2 million to create a Kenny Burrell Chair in Jazz Studies, which was funded by a group of over 150 donors. The timing was meant to celebrate Burrell’s 85th birthday, as well as his 20-year tenure as director of UCLA’s jazz studies program.
UCLA has issued a statement to NPR, saying: “UCLA was unaware of Katherine Burrell’s crowdfunding activity on behalf of herself and husband, Kenny. UCLA is concerned and is looking into the circumstances of this matter. Kenny Burrell is a Distinguished Professor of Music and Global Jazz Studies at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music. Professor Burrell is currently on sabbatical, and is scheduled to return to UCLA for the Spring Quarter in March 2020. He remains a full-time faculty member with related compensation and health benefits.”
The Thistle & Shamrock: New Spring Sounds
Dervish
Collin Gillen/Courtesy of the artist
hide caption
toggle caption
Collin Gillen/Courtesy of the artist
Step into springtime by tuning into some of the fresh new music that recently arrived at The Thistle & Shamrock offices in the U.S. and Scotland. We feature exciting new recordings form Dervish, Liz Carroll and Flook.