KnightViral

After suffering through a slump in the US through much of 2017, Nike is now growing again on its home field—its most important source of sales and the world’s biggest sneaker market. The company announced yesterday (June 28) that quarterly sales in North America grew about 3% versus the same period last year. It’s a modest increase, but given that the region makes up about 40% of Nike’s business, it was an important one. Combined with Nike’s continued strength overseas, especially in China , and its thriving direct-to-consumer business , the growth helped lift Nike’s total sales 13% for the quarter. A few factors boosted Nike in North America, including its strong digital business and healthy sales of apparel. But Nike is, of course, foremost a sneaker business, and as CEO Mark Parker pointed out on the company’s call with investors , its newest sneaker styles are playing a part in the company’s return to growth. Smartly, Nike has been sure to push the newcomers as lifestyle sneak...

Donald Trump’s escalating trade war has managed to hit at least one of its intended victims—China. The nation’s stocks just suffered their worst month of losses since January 2016, when a bout of turmoil triggered a global market rout. This month, China’s main stock exchange dropped 8%. Earlier this week, it entered into the common definition of a bear market, falling by 20% from its peak earlier in the year. This was despite index company MSCI adding some 230 China-listed shares to its benchmark emerging markets index at the start of the month, which was expected to attract inflows into Chinese stocks. Fears of global trade war, centered on a battle between the US and China, are mounting . Earlier this month, the Trump administration settled on a list of about 800 Chinese products to place tariffs on, amounting to about $50 billion, which begin to go into effect in July. China responded with its own list of US products targeted for tariffs worth $50 billion. Trump hit back by as...

Drawing attention to the prevalence of a sexually transmitted disease (STD) probably doesn’t feature on any tourist board’s game plan. The Norwegian tourist board is therefore, unsurprisingly, battling with convenience store chain 7-Eleven over its “Welcome to Norway! The Land of Chlamydia” campaign . Book your flights today pic.twitter.com/shdayIIx51 — Thomas Hegghammer (@Hegghammer) June 20, 2018 A TV ad and posters show a young Norwegian couple in front of the country’s famous scenery of mountains and fjords—but the message is a warning to use protection to avoid spreading STDs. It also greets tourists as they arrive at Oslo’s central station. Calling it a “disaster” and “not a good advert for Norway,” Stein Ove Rolland from Visit Norway told Dagbladet (link in Norwegian) that the message “makes Norwegians seem like uncouth, lewd, sex-mad people.” But sexual health NGO Sex og samfunn said chlamydia was rife in Norway—over 26,000 cases of chlamydia were diagnosed in 2016...

Pilots and cabin crew from South African Airways will be loaned to other airlines, as the debt-ridden national carrier tries to save itself. The airline’s CEO Vuyani Jarana told news agency AFP this week that it was part of his cost-cutting scheme to save South African Airways. Jarana hopes that South Africa’s underused pilots can take advantage of the global pilot shortage , instead of having to lay off staff. A South African pilot who has since been contracted out to Japan Air was offered a lucrative salary in US dollars and a business class flight home every three weeks. The South African Airlines pilots association , however, said it was “dismayed” that its members would have to be contracted to airlines like Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Cathay Pacific “as a result of extremely poor fiscal control and mismanagement.” “It is unsettling to talk about job losses in a country that is battling high levels of unemployment. We would like to see a sustainable SAA,” said Werner Huma...

There are more than 170 countries where United States citizens can travel to without a visa. But if they would rather work in a country rather than just visit, in most countries, the process then becomes difficult—especially if their way of working does not fall in the traditional work-from-office framework. Many people who are working abroad remotely are doing so, often unwittingly, illegally. Others find themselves stymied by bureaucratic processes that were created for a pre-digital world. Ireland, for instance, allows entrepreneurs to work in the country after applying for a one-year residency, but the visa is not guaranteed. If you’re not looking to start your own business, but are instead interested in working in Ireland, the actual visa process is more arduous, requiring the applicant to possess a special skill set or provide proof that additional labor is needed in that specific field. For “digital nomads”—people who use technology to live and work all over the world—these ...

To wean Nigeria off its dependency on oil export revenue, Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has often suggested turning attention to agriculture. Young Nigerians have been urged to take up farming and investors have been urged to back them. It’s a sound plan on paper: large-scale agriculture, or rather agribusiness, could reverse spiking unemployment and possibly boost exports and foreign exchange earnings. But, as the government continues to fail to deal with a lingering deadly conflict between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria’s middle belt—the “food basket” of the nation, even the best laid plans are unlikely to deliver on their promise. Despite several high-profile attacks followed by presidential promises to find and jail perpetrators, the violence has continued seemingly unabated. The latest attack on Saturday (June 23) left more than 200 dead in Plateau, a state in the middle belt. Back in January, similar attacks left 73 people dead in Benue, another middle belt state....

In a Reddit post today (June 29), Epic Games announced that it’s replacing Fortnite Battle Royal ‘s Final Fight limited-time mode (LTM) with the tried-and-tested 50v50 LTM. The Final Fight game mode forced teams to travel to a third and final circle, where the storm was halted and a countdown clock began. Whichever team had the most players alive at the end of the countdown won the round. Final Fight has been the subject of serious criticism since its launch on June 19th. Fortnite players have scorned the vast distance between the second and third circles, which made Final Fight more of a race than a battle for players unlucky enough to be on the other side of the map. They’ve also pushed back against the LTM’s victory condition, which stands at stark contrast to the winner-take-all survival victory inherent to the battle royale genre. The new 50v50 LTM The 50v50 LTM that’s replacing Final Fight will have some new guidelines compared to previous 50v50 game modes. Epic Games ap...

There aren’t enough Ob-GYNs in America, and soon there will be even fewer. Half the counties in the US don’t have any practicing OB-GYNs. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) puts the current shortage at 6,000 to 9,000 OB-GYNs countrywide, a number it’s expecting to balloon to 22,000 by 2050. The problem doesn’t only affect rural areas, which have traditionally been underserved . It extends to some of the country’s biggest metro areas. Las Vegas is the metro at the highest risk of long-term shortages, followed by Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, and Riverside, California, according to new data from Doximity , a US physician and health workers network with more than a million members. America’s busiest OB-GYNs The study analyzed the profiles of 43,000 OB-GYNs in the US’s 50 biggest metropolitan areas. It found the most overworked doctors today are in Saint Louis, Missouri. There, the average OB-GYN handles an average of 247 births a year. Here’s the list of me...

It’s hard to imagine a time when people were not stress-literate, so to speak. These days, we routinely recognize the red flags of chronic stress on the body—the fatigue, the low moods, the headaches, and frequent illnesses—if not in ourselves than in others. We remind friends or family or colleagues who appear to be marching toward a tipping point, at which stress unravels into long-term burnout, that shouldering too much can have physiological consequences. But the biological concept of stress, or the stress response, was not popularized until the 1950s, although its quiet medical debut occurred in 1936, in the science journal Nature, under a different name, “ A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents. ” Hans Selye, the late Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist and so-called “father of stress,” described in Nature his work with lab rats in Montreal, where he had determined that any stimulant, or stress, would trigger the same chain reaction. Disease didn’t kill the rats, he foun...

The average life expectancy in South Dakota’s Oglala Lakota County is 66.8 years (pdf). That’s far lower than the average US lifespan of 79 years—and lower than the average in Rwanda, Sudan, and Iraq, too. Despite spending more money per capita on healthcare than any other country, the United States still struggles with dramatic health inequality. So to raise life expectancy in very poor areas like Oglala Lakota County, some researchers are looking at developing countries for advice: At Mount Sinai Health System in New York, a research group from the Icahn School of Medicine is studying countries like Rwanda, which has added more than 30 years to citizens’ average life expectancy since 1990. “People systematically don’t look at low- and middle-income countries” as models of public health policy, acknowledges Prabhjot Singh, chair of the school’s Task Force for Global Advantage . “But not every [poor] country has been able to make the same breakthrough.” This, he says, suggests tha...

This post has been updated The search for a new leader at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is normally a predictable affair. Bar one Dutchman, over the past 50 years all of the UN organization’s other directors have been Americans . The director general of the IOM oversees more than 10,000 staff all over the world, with an annual budget of more than $1 billion. The institution provides critical services, such as assisting newly settled refugees and voluntary repatriation, to both governments and migrants. In recent years, Europe’s migrant crisis and the influx of refugees at the US-Mexico border has thrust the work the organization does into the spotlight. This year’s election of a new director general, who serves a five-year term, did not follow the usual script. Instead of going with an American, the UN migration agency’s member states elected Antonio Vitorino, a Portuguese former EU commissioner, to lead the IOM instead. Donald Trump nominated Ken Isaacs, vic...

In 1999, a trio of researchers in the UK published a cost-benefit analysis on charity skydives, fundraisers in which regular people with zero skydiving experience collect pledges in exchange for the promise that they’ll hurl themselves from an airplane. For every £1 raised, researchers found, the well-intentioned skydivers in their sample actually cost the National Health Service £13.75 in parachute-related injuries—particularly ironic, given that 70% of the jumps studied were for NHS-related charities. But people still jump from planes, run marathons, and do other laborious stunts that do not, in themselves, further the worthwhile cause they’re meant to be supporting. Behavioral economist Christopher Olivola termed this preference for effort in charitable giving the “ martyrdom effect .” In the right context, it can be valuable—people do donate more money to fundraisers requiring some kind of arduous task. But confusing effort for efficacy can also work against one’s ultimate obje...

There's no limit to longevity, says study that revives human lifespan debate 155 by mrfusion | 81 comments on Hacker News.

Debugging data flows in reactive programs 5 by nuriaion | 0 comments on Hacker News.

Breaking LTE on Layer Two 129 by pedro84 | 20 comments on Hacker News.

Show HN: A raytracer to shade topographic maps in R, Part 2 39 by tylermw | 2 comments on Hacker News.

Reverse Engineering for Beginners 164 by jacquesm | 11 comments on Hacker News.

Ask HN: What's the best way to handle internal tech support? 3 by underyx | 3 comments on Hacker News. My company has around 1000 CS reps and 200 engineers. The CS reps very often need to ask the engineers questions, report bugs heard about from customers, etc. Us engineers also get bug reports about the internal tools we've developed for CS. Currently, all this is handled via a simple Slack channel. This is actually great, since there's no bureaucratic cost to getting in touch, unlike with a proper ticketing system, and having actual public conversations is the fastest way to resolve issues. But of course, we started seeing inefficiencies in other aspects. The same questions keep being asked over and over again. There's an FAQ linked in the channel topic and it's automatically posted in the channel every 12 hours, but it's still not enough, we still get tons of questions that could be self-solved without engineers' intervention. So, that made me curious,...

The Life and Death of Teletext 45 by isostatic | 6 comments on Hacker News.

How to Steal 50M Bees 96 by siberianbear | 41 comments on Hacker News.

A newly discovered film shows Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had polio, walking 56 by wilsonfiifi | 19 comments on Hacker News.

Show HN: Build dApp front-ends using GraphQL 59 by alexkern | 7 comments on Hacker News.

Below the Surface: archaeological finds from metro line excavations in Amsterdam 3 by prawn | 0 comments on Hacker News.

Because Trump is an idiot, check out today's end-of-day links: James Dolan might sell the Knicks, Fluff Challenge, rat catchers of NYC, the lost city of Trump, star-studded 'Little Women' film, fried rice syndrome, and doggo escapes the workweek. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2MzFrY5

The murder of a 15-year-old outside a Bronx bodega at the hands of eight apparent gang members is now prompting an internal NYPD investigation. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2Ki7bn6

Putting up with noisy neighbors in New York is nothing new, nor is the hand-wringing about what do to about it. Some research suggests that gentrifiers are more likely to call 311 about quality of life issues than long time locals, which can lead to more encounters with the police. A 2015 working paper found that in NYC neighborhoods that are more racially diverse, people call 311 instead of talking to their neighbors. One of the paper's authors, the social scientists Joscha Legewie, told CityLab , “Instead of going to your neighbor and asking them to turn the music down, you’re reaching out to an external authority to intervene...Probably because you don’t feel comfortable knocking on their door.” [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2NcELZx

After the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Virginia turned away Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week because of Sanders's role in propagating the Trump administration's anti-gay agenda, it set off a nationwide debate about civility . Should restaurant workers push their ethics aside to serve people who support agendas that endanger their lives? Does the comfort of some diners outweigh other diners' ability to feel safe? When is it appropriate—when is it necessary—for people to speak up in the face of intolerance and ignorance? [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2MwTuxy

The MTA's forthcoming contactless turnstile system will support a custom smartphone app and cards with NFC technology. The app and interface are being designed by Cubic , which was awarded a $573 million contract to roll out the program last November. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2KCsGi9

With at least 2,047 migrant children still separated from their parents, and a federal judge's order requiring them to be reunited with their families in 30 days, there's a major effort underway to bring them back together, despite formidable challenges . While only a handful have been brought back together so far, one New York immigration attorney is a step closer to making a reunion happen—Attorney Jose Xavier Orochena just posted bond for his client, a mother of three from Guatemala who has been detained in Arizona since May. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2yUjCQH

  The Public Art Fund is diving into a new medium—the sea. This summer, the arts non-profit is presenting the historic Fireboat John J. Harvey with "dazzle camouflage" by Tauba Auerbach , and you can ride it for free! [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2ySjEZm

A former Cayuga Center employee who earlier this week leaked video from inside the East Harlem facility is now speaking publicly, highlighting what she says is the center's inability to care for hundreds of immigrant children who remain separated from their families. On Friday, Pamela Baez appeared on "CBS This Morning" alongside attorney Michael Avenatti to discuss her experiences at the facility, and the "injustice" that pushed her to blow the whistle. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2IHrDZe

On Tuesday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made history by unseating 10-term Congressman Joe Crowley in New York's 14th Congressional District. Despite the polls leading up to the primary showing a near-certain victory for Crowley, the 28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez defeated him by a shocking 15 percent of the vote. Overnight, she became a media sensation, with profiles in The New York Times , appearances on CNN and MSNBC , and even a guest spot on Late Show with Stephen Colbert . [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2MAK6ZL

It can be an epic poem getting anywhere on the weekends via the city's spirit-breaking mass transit system. If your Monday through Friday commute didn't crush you, then test your mettle as a New Yorker on Saturday and Sunday by trying to get anywhere . This weekend, the 1 2 3 4 5 6 A B C D E F G J L M N Q R S W lines will have some challenges for you. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2lH2xjV

    In one of New York City's rapidly disappearing industrial corners, where polluted waterways and faded shipping yards merge in the overgrowth, a busted 10-car train of M3 model Long Island Rail Road cars awaits its fate. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2z1gcvw

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday joined the growing list of Democrats who've publicly signaled their support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calling the agency a "punitive, negative tool for division" that is "no longer acceptable." [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2IDFDmC

While New York may have its fair share of niche museums , a new museum that honors the classic art of barbering is now open on the Upper West Side. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2tLGJak

C train riders were subjected to extensive delays during this morning's commute after a straphanger reportedly pulled out a gun. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2MAgpYF

Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the City should "reassess" the 108-year-old court decision that gives Gramercy Park a special tax-free status as a private front lawn. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2KhyCh0

Because Jon Stewart has some things to say to Trump, check out today's midday links: new Drake, NYC quality-of-life complaints, perfecting the french fry, migrant family reunited, smart speakers, and dog licks. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2tFO3oI

  Five protesters, including City Councilmember Brad Lander, were arrested for blocking the street outside State Senator Marty Golden's office on Friday morning during a 24-hour vigil led by Families for Safe Streets founder Amy Cohen, and other parents who have lost children to reckless drivers. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2yTy23D

Two days after cars were officially banned from Central Park, a cyclist was injured in an early-morning collision with a garbage truck driver. A witness took the above photo from the scene this morning around 6 a.m., showing the truck stopped on West Drive. A bicycle can be seen in the trunk of an NYPD cruiser. [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2KxXPTM

When Colbert asked her what Democratic socialism means, the 28-year-old explained, "I believe that in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live." [ more › ] from Gothamist https://ift.tt/2z4yxrZ

General Motors warned the Trump administration that tariffs on vehicle imports would hurt its competitiveness, cost U.S. jobs and result in “a smaller GM.” from WSJ.com: What's News US https://ift.tt/2KyWPeR

The smart software will help media groups debunk fake news and respond to reports of violence. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2N9tWrr

The ball-shaped robot that can move around in zero gravity blasts off to the International Space Station. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KBqDed

Ryde Technologies says 2,000 "phantom bookings" have cost its drivers thousands of dollars. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IAYoXC

The retailer is testing whether shoppers can buy products using an app, rather than visiting a till. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ySumz1

The US law is hitting the people it was supposed to protect, argue digital rights campaigners. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KxBrKe

Digital bank Monzo claims it warned Ticketmaster that data had been compromised three months ago. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ICBBuC

Technology entrepreneur engages in a fresh Twitter argument over pottery of a mythical animal. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ySaDje

The new mode, called Playground, let players practise their skills in the popular video game Fortnite. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Kth6lV

Consumer watchdog the Norwegian Consumer Council says the firms give users "an illusion of control". from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IzLCZP

Shares in healthcare companies slide as the online retail giant expands into the sector. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ySWK4m

The clip of baby Holden, now aged 12, has been viewed more than 1.9 million times. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2lGwQHi

The Royal College of General Practitioners disputes the abilities of Babylon's software. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IwVEL5

The search firm says its smart speakers and Chromecast TV dongles are experiencing technical issues. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2yNqFLj

Swann Security acknowledges it sent clips from inside a family's home to the wrong person's app. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2tHAlkr

The rapper and his business partner Jimmy Iovine lose a case over headphone royalties. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ICczMa

The two firms have reached a final settlement in a patent dispute that has been in court since 2011. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2tJypYS

Up to 40,000 UK customers may have had data stolen, the BBC understands. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2lF1alT

Hotel booking sites must review the way they rank and display rooms, a competition watchdog says. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KewHdb

Computing 1980s-style is to be shown off in BBC archive intended to inspire new generation of coders. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2yN7XDl

Millions of scam sites use characters that look like English letters, research into international domains reveals. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KqihCR

The firm is on probation after the regulator previously said it was not a "fit and proper" operator. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2N23NKY

Hearing-impaired users complain the streaming service is editing and censoring speech in captions. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2tzYkDc

A lapsed gamer is challenged to spend a fortnight playing Fortnite to understand its appeal. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Myy5nq

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mexican assets are poised to strengthen even if leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wins Sunday's presidential election, analysts say, on expectations he will govern from the center and as the uncertainty stemming from the race fades. from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2tGIbeU

YANGON/COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Rohingya refugees returning to Myanmar will have no explicit guarantees of citizenship or freedom of movement throughout the country, under a secret agreement between the government and the United Nations seen by Reuters. from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2tRmTui

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - A ceasefire has been agreed for southern Syria between the government and rebels, a Jordanian official source said on Friday, amid fears of a gathering humanitarian catastrophe in a region sensitive to neighbors Jordan and Israel. from Reuters: World News https://ift.tt/2lGOFpL