The timing of the withdrawal is particularly notable, coming just days after a high-profile defection by the Iranian women’s team.

1. The Women’s Team Precedent

Earlier this week, during the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia, several members of the Iranian women’s national team sought asylum.

• Defection: Five players, including captain Zahra Ghanbari, were granted humanitarian visas by Australia after slipping away from their hotel under police protection.
• Anthem Protest: The players had been labeled “wartime traitors” by Iranian state media after refusing to sing the national anthem before a match against South Korea.
• Security Pressure: Reports indicated that IRGC security officials were embedded with the team to prevent such an incident, yet the players still managed to escape.

2. Heightened Risk for the Men’s Team

Iranian officials have explicitly questioned the safety of sending a team to a “hostile” environment.

• Host Location: The men’s team was scheduled to play in Los Angeles and Seattle, cities with large Iranian diaspora populations.
• Direct Accusations: Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Federation, recently accused the U.S. and Australia of “taking players hostage” and coercing them into defecting.
• Lack of Control: The Iranian government likely fears that in the U.S., they would have even less control over preventing players from following the women’s example, especially given President Trump’s public encouragement of those seeking asylum.

3. Financial and Security Barriers

To prevent such defections, the Ministry of Sports typically requires athletes to submit substantial financial guarantees (up to $67,000 or property deeds) before traveling abroad. The failure of these measures in Australia suggests that even extreme financial and personal pressure may no longer be enough to ensure the team’s return.

By withdrawing, the Iranian regime avoids the potential embarrassment of a mass defection on the world stage, which would be a significant blow to its domestic image of stability.

via AI

Exercise to bolster your health and reduce susceptibility to disease.
“The No. 1 lifestyle factor that emerged was physical activity,” Those who exercised five or more days per week were 43 percent less likely to be sick with an upper respiratory tract infection than those who exercised for less than one day per week. But even those who did a little bit of exercise — at least 20 minutes of moderate exercise (as simple as a brisk walk) at least one day per week — were better off than those who did none.
Walking, dancing or “vigorous yard work” is enough to experience a boost in your health.

If you’re suddenly feeling unwell or constantly tired, or if previously easy workouts are feeling hard, it might be a signal that you need to slow down.

Research has shown that not getting enough sleep, or sleep of good quality, can reduce your body’s capability for fighting off infections. General guidance for adults is six to eight hours each night.

Good sleep can help regulate stress. Chronic stress can reduce body’s response to vaccines and infections and can increase inflammation, “all of which can increase our susceptibility to infection as well as other kinds of chronic diseases.” Even day-to-day stressors — from your job, your commute or your care-taking responsibilities, for example — can weaken the immune system.

Reduce stress via mindfulness exercises like meditation or yoga or even just “finding time to do pleasurable activities.”

Follow a healthy diet; it’s one of the most important lifestyle choices that can influence your immune health.

A variety of brightly colored fruits and vegetables — berries, citrus fruits, red cabbage and kale, are great sources of flavonoids, chemical compounds found in plants that can help the body fight inflammation and illness. Tea, coffee, dark chocolate and certain grains, like buckwheat, are also good sources of flavonoids. Adults who ate at least three servings of fruit per day had fewer upper respiratory tract infections than those who did not.

Research has shown that exposure to cigarette smoke and drinking of alcohol in excess — more than two drinks a day for men or one drink a day for women — can suppress your immune system. Minimizing your alcohol consumption (or at least keeping within the dietary guidelines) or quitting smoking can help reduce your risk of infections.

There’s not much data to support the use of most supplements to prevent illness or to boost your immunity.

“The most important thing you can do is to get both up-to-date Covid booster shots and flu vaccines ASAP.”

Continuing to wear masks in public indoor spaces will help protect you against all sorts of viruses. This is especially true if you have a weaker immune system. Using rapid Covid tests before gatherings or when you have symptoms, and asking others to do so as well, can also minimize everyone’s risk of infection.

“Washing hands, keeping your distance when you have a cold — those kinds of things are highly effective for keeping people healthy.”

Good hygiene includes staying home when you have symptoms of any type of infection. Stay home and give yourself time to rest.

One possibility is that the body is still fighting remnants of the coronavirus. Researchers found that the virus spreads widely during an initial infection, and that viral genetic material can remain embedded in tissues — in the intestines, lymph nodes and elsewhere — for many months.

Hadley Palmer’s lawyer sought to have her case sealed.

Hadley Palmer pleaded guilty to secretly recording videos of minors in intimate situations. All three victims were under 18, and at least one was 15 or younger, according to cops.

A Connecticut Superior Court judge granted Palmer’s request for secrecy, a move supported by lawyers seeking to protect her victims. The AP opposed this, with a reporter telling the judge it had created the impression of a second, privileged tier of justice.

A Greenwich psychologist has also been arrested on the charge he had failed to report, as required by Connecticut’s child welfare laws.

New exhibition at the British Museum: “The World of Stonehenge,” runs through July 17. The show strives to lessen the mystery around the monument.

“Stonehenge was an important place that people went to, to be together as a community,” said Neil Wilkin, the exhibition’s lead curator. He described the site as a mix between a town hall and a cathedral, where people mingled for both religious and social reasons.

…bananas and grapes are particularly high in fructose given the amount of fiber they contain, so they give us a faster sugar spike. Dr. Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls grapes “little bags of sugar.” Enjoy bananas and grapes sparingly and opt for a variety of fruits.

trend: eye-safe glitter shadows

worst trend: non-eye-safe glitters IN “eye-shadow” palettes

palette: Nars Studio 54 Inferno (Best concept: tarte Spicy Betch)

worst palette: e.l.f. baked California

most unique: Tom Ford Extreme Lip Spark

Best Collab: Karl x L’oreal

Worst Collab: JS x Morphe

Best Drugstore: Rebel Rose x Wet ‘n’ Wild

high-end: marc jacobs See-quin shadows

indie: Dawn multichrome shadows

brand: tarte. they’re killin it.

worst: tati – due to no returns policy. stand behind your product

best product: tarte magnetic mosaic palette. gorge.

worst product: jaclyn. oy.

always curious about Brenda Couture’s hauls…

Source: The VIA Classification of Character Strengths

“Your brain needs fuel to function,’ says registered dietitian, Elisa Bremner, campus nutritionist at Westchester’s Pleasantville Cottage School.

Complex carbs are best choice for quick fuel needed by your noggin. But the brain too requires specific nutrients in building and long-term maintenance.

Bringing us to the “incredible-edible-egg” (bawk-bAWk!) Egg yolks are the most concentrated source of choline in the American diet. Bremner say: “Choline, is essential to the brain’s sending the right messages to the rest of the body, which is, in turn, essential to a feeling of well-being.”

Real women eat quiche

MORE…from Readers Digest

@powellnyt writes in the Times re Catholic school closings:

There are few more pleasurable ways to pass an hour than to talk with veteran teachers who burn with a passion for their chosen work — lighting bonfires in the minds of children.

I sat last week in a hilly playground off University Avenue in the Bronx with Eloise Pescador Martinez, 58, and Richard DeZonie, 61. They have taught for three decades each at Holy Spirit School, down the street. “Long ago I came to the realization,” Mr. DeZonie said, “that I love that look in a child’s eye when you’ve reached him.”

Ms. Martinez nodded, emphatic. “I love it!” she said. “We’re family, generation after generation of family.”

Their family is being torn asunder. In a few weeks, the Archdiocese of New York will shutter their school, 1 of 25 to close this year. Their children will be dispersed. A few veteran teachers will find toeholds in a shrinking Roman Catholic system. Many will be cut adrift, middle-aged wayfarers in a bad market. For their decades of modestly paid work, … teachers can choose a $5,000 severance check or six months of health coverage. Not both.

So which will it be? Ms. Martinez’s daughter has asthma — she’ll opt for insurance. Mr. DeZonie’s wife teaches at Holy Spirit as well; he’ll take the insurance and she’ll take the money. “Man, it’s not much after three decades, no it really isn’t,” he said.

…

Church attendance and school enrollment has tumbled for decades.

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Some of the financial problems are owing to the church’s own lies and omissions around the sexual abuse scandals involving priests.

Cardinal Dolan and his school superintendent [Timothy J. McNiff] … twice cut the system close to the bone in recent years, eliminating nearly 60 schools.

… You wonder what becomes of those who have turned to the beacon that has been Holy Spirit, an elementary school that sits atop the bony spine of the Morris Heights neighborhood. Generational waves of immigrants, Italians and Irish, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, Mexicans and Ghanaians, have come through its doors.

The tuition at Holy Spirit is a pittance compared with a Dalton or a Brearley. And the archdiocese deserves credit for subsidizing these costs.

…

A parochial school veteran with 20 years of service and a master’s degree makes $60,000.

…

Ms. Martinez, who first spoke to me one evening after choir practice, talked easily of their mission. But this is a city grown more expensive by the week, and the gap between the wealthy few and the middle-class many who scrape by gets wider.

Ms. Martinez is divorced and has twice dipped into her small retirement savings for her daughter’s tuition. She sprints paycheck to paycheck. “I always said I didn’t get into this for the money,” she said. “I guess I was right.”

…

“I’ve told my landlord I’m facing a layoff,” Ms. Martinez said. “I want to know: Where’s that Catholic mission we have lived with all of our lives?”

We walked back down University Boulevard toward the Romanesque tower of the school. We passed children, who smiled, waved and shouted out her name. “I try to separate my faith from the institution,” she said slowly. “My faith now? It’s those children.”

It’s a particularly bad flu season this year, so don’t forget to get your flu shot.

If you fit into one of these categories, it’s especially important that you get vaccinated:

·         Pregnant women;

·         Children younger than 5 years, especially those under 2;

·         People 50 and older, especially those 65 and older;

·         People with certain chronic health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, lung disease (including asthma), heart disease, sickle cell anemia, weakened immune system (such as from HIV or cancer treatment), and any nerve or muscle disorder that can cause breathing problems; 

·         People who live in nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities;

·         People who care for infants less than 6 months old; and 

·         Health care workers. 

Lord knows I can be the Procrastinator de tutti Procrastinators, but this is one thing I didn’t put off. The flu can be dangerous, and even when it isn’t life-threatening, it can really knock you on your ass and put you out of commission for a couple of weeks.

Photograph of John Yoo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

John Yoo, law professor at UC Berkeley and former Justice Department lawyer, had a few things to say on Friday, regarding the constitutionality of the White House decision to defer enforcement of immigration law:



Obama has pursued a dangerous change in the powers of his office that disregards the Constitution’s careful separation of power between the branches of the federal government. The Constitution imposes on the president two clear duties – to protect the national security and to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Obama is the first chief executive since Richard Nixon to ignore a duly-enacted law simply because he disagrees with it, in clear defiance of his constitutional duty.

I took the view that the White House could refuse to carry out an unconstitutional law that infringed on the president’s commander-in-chief authority to manage war and defend the national security. … But the president cannot refuse to enforce a law simply because he disagrees with it.

Worried about Hispanic support for his re-election, however, Obama simply decided to unilaterally enact his own legislation. But under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the president has the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

…

There is a world of difference between putting aside laws that interfere with an executive response to an attack on the country, as in Sept. 11, 2001, and ignoring laws to appeal to a constituency vital to re-election.

Is Obama’s end-run around the Constitution (and the Congress), an effort to do what he thinks is right?  Or as Yoo suggests, is it simply pandering presidential politics?

Link to a study Yoo co-authored about the constitutionality of the deferment

info from huffpo.com

saw an item re why many of us have trouble getting to bed, and getting out of bed, in USA Weekend
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“If you frequently have difficulty falling asleep, then find yourself tired and not wanting to get up, you likely have a longer internal clock” says nyc author Michael Terman, in his new book, Chronotherapy: Resetting Your Inner Clock to Boost Mood, Alertness, and Quality Sleep

Terman goes on to say, “The first step if you are sleep-challenged is to keep your bedroom absolutely dark. Even the smallest amount of light pollution is sending signals to your brain that shifts your internal clock.”
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Donate your nightlights to the Salvation Army.
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