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Members of the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team listen at an orientation at the Alaska Native Medical Center on Friday morning, Oct. 1, 2021. The team of over 30 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and logistics managers, arrived the day before. (Lex Treinen/Alaska Public Media)

Nearly 500 emergency health workers are arriving in hospitals across Alaska this week as the state struggles to get the COVID-19 crisis under control.

Dozens of them arrived at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage this week, where COVID hospitalizations recently led the hospital to announce crisis standards of care.

Administrator Bob Onders said that the influx of new workers will hopefully give exhausted staff a break, but many staff will also be required to expand the current ICU capacity to care for an expected increase of COVID hospitalizations.

We have, you know, 600 to 700 nurses here, he said. So 40 nurses is a help, but as a proportional response it still is challenging.

In addition to about 50 workers contracted by the state, ANMC is also getting a federal emergency team of about 35.

On Friday, that group, the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, was sitting under the fluorescent lights of a conference room for orientation.

The team, which includes doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and logistics experts, heard they were being deployed to Alaska just two days earlier.

We landed last night, we started right away, said Gina Smith, the team leader.

As part of the group, Smith has been to disasters from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina. Since COVID hit, the team has been on the front lines of the pandemic.

We were in California when the cruise ships came in, she said.

Now, Alaska is on the front lines of the COVID crisis with five times the case national average case rate.

The team is learning about Alaskas medical system, ANMCs daily operations and will get an orientation on Alaska Native culture.

Nursing Director Sadie Anderson said that staff has been working extra shifts to keep up with the patients and the new staff will be a big relief.

A lot of the nurses have been having to work five and six shifts a week, she said, So were begging people to work extra. So this is going to help give those nurses a break.

She said it will also help decrease the nurse-to-patient ratio. She said COVID patients require more nurses per patient because of the complicated care they require.

This will really help us to be able to have a safer patient load for each nurse and to be able to provide better care for the patients, she said.

Most of the incoming staff are used to seeing disasters and trauma. Nursing assistant Tracy Williams, who is here as part of the state contract, said shes not burned out, even after a year and a half of traveling the country helping with COVID patients.

To me, its just like any other job: being a mom, you know, being a parent, period, said the mother of four. Thats not the only place I can say that Ive cared for people.

Williams, who is from Georgia, just got done with a stint in Michigan. Shes worked in Colorado, Maine, Montana and North Dakota, and already did a stint in Alaska while studying to become a physical therapist.

I was in Georgia for three days, well, four days, and I was here by Saturday, Sunday thats exhausting, she said, But its the motivation for what you love to do that gives you the push to say, Come on, girl, you can sleep on the plane, she said.

Despite her exhaustion, Williams said shes excited to help her fellow health workers in Alaska when they need it most.

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At a crucial time in the pandemic, dozens of emergency workers arrive at Anchorage hospital - Alaska Public Media News

After weeks of twists and turns -- and two major new documentaries --BritneySpears' highly public bid toendherfather's guardianship could reach its conclusion at a courthearingWednesday.

Britney'sfatherhas controlled her life for the past 13 years, under a controversial legal arrangement that the US pop singer has slammed as "abusive" and that herlawyershave demanded be scrapped.

Jamie Spears "must be suspended on September 29th; followed by the prompt termination of the conservatorship," her lawyer Mathew Rosengart wrote in a filing this week.

"Every day that goes by with him as conservator -- every day and every hour -- is one in which he causes his daughter anguish and pain,"the petition says.

Those claims were seemingly bolstered by a New York Times documentary released Friday that alleged Jamie Spears had surveillance devices secretly installed inBritney's bedroom to record her conversations.

"It really reminded me of somebody that was in prison," a former security firm employee told the "ControllingBritneySpears" filmmakers.

Britney'slawyersthis week said the Times' allegations about Jamie Spears showed "horrifying and unconscionable invasions of his adult daughter's privacy."

Jamie Spears denies any illegal surveillance took place.

Yet another new documentary -- Netflix's "Britneyvs Spears," released on Tuesday -- claimsBritneytwice tried to hire her own lawyer in the early years of the conservatorship, but was denied.

In July,Britneywas finally successful in appointing her own lawyer -- Rosengart -- and last month Jamie Spears himself filed a petition forBritney's conservatorship to be ended.

But while he acknowledged his daughter "believes that she can handle her own life," he remains in place.

Never fit to serve

In the petition this week,Britney'slawyersaccuse Jamie Spears of seeking to delay theendof the guardianship for his own financial benefit.

His efforts are "a subterfuge, designed to avoid the stigma of being suspended and its consequences, including the likelihood of disgorgement and rejection of outstanding legal fees," the petition alleges.

"Disgorgement" is a legal term meaning the repayment of ill-gotten gains.

Britney's representatives and fans have long accused herfatherof profiting from the guardianship, which was set up after a highly public 2007 breakdown when the shaven-headed star attacked a paparazzo's car at a gas station.

Meanwhile, Jamie Spears has objected toBritney's choice of a new temporary conservator to replace him, saying that certified public accountant John Zabel lacks the necessary experience, US media reported Monday.

In turn,Britney'slawyerssay herfatherwas "never fit to serve," citing in their petition allegations of Jamie Spears' "reported alcoholism" and "trauma he caused his daughter since her childhood."

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Britney Spears' lawyers push for end to father's control ahead of hearing - Moneycontrol.com

US lawmakers have left Facebook in no doubt this week that revelations about the impact of its Instagram app on teen mental health have further damaged the companys reputation.

The Democrat senator Richard Blumenthal said the social network was indefensibly delinquent in its behaviour and had chosen growth over childrens mental health, after the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Facebooks internal research had flagged concerns that its photo-sharing app was damaging the wellbeing of young users.

The pressure on Facebook is likely to increase on Sunday when a whistleblower appears on US TV to claim that the company is lying to the public and investors about the effectiveness of its attempts to remove hate, violence and misinformation from its platforms.

The whistleblower, who has submitted thousands of internal documents to the US financial regulator, will then appear at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The WSJ report and the whistleblowers appearance take place against a backdrop of active attempts to rein in the power of Facebook and other tech companies. Here are some of the proposals being considered for regulating Facebook.

The US competition watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission, has lodged a lawsuit demanding that Facebook sell off Instagram and its messaging app WhatsApp. After failing to compete with new innovators it illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat, said Holly Vedova, an FTC director.

An earlier lawsuit was dismissed by a US judge, but even if this one goes ahead it will be a years-long battle. If Facebook is forced to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp there is also the question of whether this will help reduce misinformation, hate speech or damage to wellbeing on those platforms.

One idea floated in the book Social Warming, by the former Guardian journalist Charles Arthur, is to split Facebook into discrete geographical entities, which would allow the new Facebook companies to concentrate on moderating smaller networks.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks founder and chief executive, has argued that only companies as large as Facebook have the resources to fight misinformation, election meddling and harmful content.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a US- and UK-based campaign group, argues that requiring more transparency from Facebook on several fronts, for instance on lobbying, enforcement of its own guidelines and its advertising system, will make a positive difference. Imran Ahmed, the CCDHs chief executive, argues that Facebook must also be more transparent about how its algorithms can spread misinformation and create discord.

If users knew for sure what the algorithm was doing, that there is transparency, and that governments, regulators and watchdogs can independently confirm whether Facebooks algorithms are pushing misinformation, social media firms would find it impossible to carry on doing business as they are, Ahmed said.

Asked about transparency at Thursdays hearing, Facebooks global head of safety, Antigone Davis, said the establishment of bodies such as the Facebook oversight board underlined the companys commitment to transparency.

In the UK, the online safety bill is a landmark piece of legislation that imposes a duty of care on social media companies to protect users from harmful content. Social media firms are also required under the draft bill to submit to Ofcom, the communications watchdog, a risk assessment of content that causes harm to users.

According to the Conservative chair of a Westminster committee scrutinising the bill, Damian Collins, failing to declare the Instagram research in a risk assessment would expose Facebook to substantial fines under the draft terms of the bill. The legislation also gives Ofcom the power to scrutinise algorithms, which tailor the content that a user consumes and are the subject of much debate among politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Facebook says it shares the UK governments objective of making the internet safer while maintaining the vast social and economic benefits it brings.

Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act is seen as a founding text for social media networks because, in broad terms, it means internet companies cannot be sued for what users publish on their platform but neither can they be sued if they decide to take something down. The Democrat senator Amy Klobuchar is attempting to amend section 230 so that social media companies are accountable for the publishing of health misinformation. Along with fellow Democrat senators Mark Warner and Mazie Hirono she is also backing wider proposals to amend the law (Donald Trump called for section 230 to be repealed altogether), and there are other proposals too. It is a vexed issue, even before you get to the first amendment.

Facebooks all-important advertising system relies on data from its users, and regulators are considering whether users should be given more control over that data. For instance, users could be given the power to withhold data if they do not think a service meets their standards, which could in turn make social media companies behave more responsibly.

Facebooks next big strategic push is the metaverse, where people lead their personal and professional lives online whether through virtual-reality headsets or Pokmon Go-style augmented reality (think a highly developed version of Facebooks recently launched glasses product). There are obvious privacy implications around living in a virtual world hosted by Facebook, Google or Apple Facebooks policy chief, Nick Clegg, talks about multiple metaverses meshed together that regulators will need to scrutinise, although Facebook says a fully fledged metaverse is many years away. Last month, Facebook launched a $50m (37m) fund to help find solutions to those concerns and said it would collaborate with policymakers and experts.

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As a whistleblower prepares to speak out, what can be done to rein in Facebook? - The Guardian

Perhaps the most prominent new feature of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 is Focus, an enhanced Do Not Disturb tool that makes it possible to schedule which type of notifications you receive depending on the time of day. It's just the latest in a series of features Apple has added to its products over the years to help users better concentrate, relax, and sleep.

Background Sounds is another wellness feature in iOS/iPadOS 15. As its name suggests, the tool provides sounds to help you relax. Use the feature on all of the best iPhones and best iPads. Here's more about it.

You'll find the new Background Sounds feature in the Accessibility section of iOS/iPadOS. To activate:

Scroll down, select Audio/Visual.

Choose Sound.

Change the ** Volume** using the slider as needed.

You can have the assigned Background Sound continue to play even with other audio. On the same Background Sounds page:

Toggle on Stop Sounds When Locked to stop the Background Sounds from playing automatically whenever the device is locked.

The easiest way to turn Background Sounds on/off is through Control Center. You must first add the Hearing tile to Control Center to do so:

Click the + in the front of Hearing under More Controls.

When Background Sounds are on, you can adjust the sound and the Volume from the same location.

Do you have any questions about Background Sounds and iOS/iPadOS 15? Let us know in the comments below.

See more here:
How to use Background Sounds on iPhone and iPad - iMore

This summer, Bahar Jalali watched anxiously as the United States withdrew its military from Afghanistan and the Taliban began to reassert control over the country. Women were told to stay home and to cover themselves an early indicator that other rights, protections and services for women would soon be eliminated, including, this week, the right to attend Kabul University.

Ms. Jalali, a visiting associate professor at Loyola University Maryland, is a member of the Afghan diaspora born in Kabul, raised in the United States, but connected still to her home country, where she returned in 2009 to teach at the American University of Afghanistan. She left again in 2016 after surviving a violent attack at the university by the Taliban.

When reports surfaced this summer that, with the Taliban takeover, Afghan women were shredding their education degrees and that safe houses for women were closing their doors, she was distraught.

Then, on Sept. 11, she saw images of hundreds of women in Kabul wearing all black in full veils and long robes in a pro-Taliban demonstration. (The timing of the demonstration on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks along with the presence of Taliban fighters and official Taliban statements released afterward suggest that the demonstration was organized by the Taliban.)

It confirmed my fears that our culture, our heritage is coming under attack, Ms. Jalali, 46, said in a phone interview. One of the biggest concerns that I have, now that the Taliban are back in power, is Afghan sovereignty, Afghan identity, Afghan culture, Afghan heritage. Even before the Taliban came to power, 43 years of war really transformed our culture to the point where very important aspects of it are lost.

Compelled to speak out, she tweeted a photo of herself from 2005, wearing an emerald green dress with delicate embroidery a traditional outfit that she wore for her first wedding. This is Afghan culture, she wrote in the caption.

The tweet went viral, and soon, women across the world started sharing photos of themselves in their own traditional Afghan clothing, often with the hashtag #DoNotTouchMyClothes.

Ms. Jalali shared another photo, of her as a teenager in the United States in the 1990s, wearing a blue-and-gold Afghan kuchi, a dress that the nomads of Afghanistan wore, she said. Kuchi women wear this dress on a daily basis. It is their everyday attire.

Ms. Jalali wasnt expecting her tweets to go viral, but she now hopes that the hashtag can teach the world more about Afghan culture. Im just hoping that the world will see through these dresses that the real Afghan culture is colorful and vibrant and alive and animated and really meant to celebrate life, she said.

Zarifa Ghafari, an activist who became one of Afghanistans first female mayors at age 26 in 2019 and had to flee the country in August, shared a photo on Twitter of the vibrant Afghan clothing she wore earlier this month for the Geneva PeaceTalks. With my traditional colorful dress and a powerful msg from every part of my country representing Afghanistan in particular Afghan women at #GenevaPeaceTalks, she wrote.

It is important to create awareness and to show the true colors of women in Afghanistan, Ms. Ghafari wrote later, in an emailed statement. Taliban are trying to erase womens presence erase them from the walls, from the streets, from schools, from work, from government.

We are so much more than a dress, an outfit, she wrote. But my mother, grand-mother and older generations have worn similar dresses with bright colors. This is our beautiful heritage, our rich culture, our joy of life.

Sophia Moruwat, 25, a dialogue coordinator in Norway who lived in Afghanistan until 2002, also participated. This is how Afghan women dress, she wrote in a tweet accompanying a photo of herself in a bright yellow Afghan kuchi and handmade jewelry, fashioned from melted glass and coins.

In an interview, Ms. Moruwat noted that the term for Afghan traditional clothing is gand.

My gand is my Afghan identity, she said. Its one thing among many that symbolizes being an Afghan. My gand is what has had me stay connected to my country and my culture the past 20 years weve been away from our homeland.

Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Heres more on their origin story and their record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These arethe top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be. One spokesman told The Timesthat the group wanted to forget its past, but that there would be some restrictions.

Ms. Moruwat said that her own memories, flashbacks and encounters with these terrorists is what made her want to take a stand, adding that her sister was forced into marriage at age 13 and couldnt pursue an education or a career. After years of struggle and oppression, Ms. Moruwats sister was finally able to pursue an education and get a university degree, Ms. Moruwat said.

Seeing the image of women covered from head to toe brought a fire to the already existing fear within me, Ms. Moruwat said. This was a step towards erasing women from society once again.

In the 1990s, during the first Taliban rule, Afghan womens access to education, work and health care were severely restricted. Burqa coverings were mandatory, women werent allowed to be seen in public without men, and almost all female education was banned.

Since the Taliban seized power in August, they have tried to appear more flexible. Still, while schools have reopened for male students, a date for the return of female students has not been announced. In addition to requiring that women wear a hijab in schools, female students will not be allowed to study alongside male students, the Talibans higher education minister, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, announced earlier this month.

Its alarming to me because I feel like women will no longer have a role in society, and wed lose all the progress weve made over the last 20 years since we took back control from the Taliban, said Marjan Yahia, 28, who was born in Kabul and moved to Canada when she was 6.

Ms. Yahia, now a part-time makeup artist and student in Virginia, also joined the social media campaign with an Instagram post that showed her wearing an ornate kuchi with coins and mirrors sewn into it.

It was a gift from her father, who bought it for her during a visit to Afghanistan, Ms. Yahia said. The dress is special to me because it symbolizes freedom, she said. Before the Taliban took rule in Afghanistan, women had the freedom to express themselves through clothing, and its sad to see the freedom be taken away from them.

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#DoNotTouchMyClothes: Afghan Women Protest Taliban Restrictions on Rights - The New York Times