At 14 weeks pregnant in November, Marlise Muñoz, 33, suffered what doctors believe was a pulmonary embolism. She was nearly dead when her husband, paramedic Erick Muñoz, found her collapsed in their home. Although Erick Muñoz and Marlise Muñoz's family wanted to honor her desire not to be placed on life support, more than a month later, doctors are still keeping her alive at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. The hospital can detect a fetal heartbeat, but the health and viability of the fetus are unknown.
“The law says you cannot withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient — period,” said J.R. Labbe, a spokeswoman for the hospital. “We believe the course of action we’re doing is the correct one.”
Three years after Egypt's revolution, a sweeping crackdown on dissent →
Twitter is a great way for following events in Egypt today. Search for #Egypt #Jan25.
Can Europe protect the Euromaidan? →
Events in Ukraine have taken a dramatic change for the worse. Five people were killed on Wednesday, some beaten to death, and further confrontation is likely this Sunday. NGOs have issued an emotive “last plea for help”, saying “the international community remains silent, upholding European values on paper only”, while “people are dying for them in Ukraine”.
THE CULT OF OVERWORK →
...But, as David Solomon, the global co-head of investment banking at Goldman, told me, “Today, technology means that we’re all available 24/7. And, because everyone demands instant gratification and instant connectivity, there are no boundaries, no breaks.”
Cry me a river, you might say. But what happened on Wall Street is just an extreme version of what’s happened to so-called knowledge workers in general. Thirty years ago, the best-paid workers in the U.S. were much less likely to work long days than low-paid workers were. By 2006, the best paid were twice as likely to work long hours as the poorly paid, and the trend seems to be accelerating.
...The perplexing thing about the cult of overwork is that, as we’ve known for a while, long hours diminish both productivity and quality.
Someone Just Said Something About The Japan-China Conflict That Scared The Crap Out Of Everyone →
During the dinner, the hosts passed a microphone around the table and asked guests to speak briefly about something that they thought would interest the group.
One of the guests, an influential Chinese professional, talked about the simmering conflict between China and Japan over a group of tiny islands in the Pacific.
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The Chinese professional at dinner last night did not seem so much worried about a military conflict as convinced that one was inevitable. And not because of any strategic value of the islands themselves (they're basically worthless), but because China and Japan increasingly hate each other.
Consumer Manipulation →
One of my worries about our modern market system is that the manipulators have gotten too good. We need better security -- either technical defenses or legal prohibitions -- against this manipulation.
Taiwan To Slash Armed Forces By Up To 20% →
Taiwan has said it plans to slash its armed forces by up to 20 percent from 215,000 over the next five years, in the latest sign of warming ties with former rival China.
Woman Chosen to Lead Central African Republic Out of Mayhem →
Cheers broke out in the National Assembly building here on Monday as representatives chose the mayor of this beleaguered capital to serve as the interim president of the Central African Republic, a country in the grip of a sectarian civil war.
Catherine Samba-Panza, 58, will be the first woman to lead the nation, and she will probably serve for a little over a year, with the goal of leading it to national elections. Her appointment came from an unusual assortment of unelected rebel sympathizers, politicians, artists and others who have filled in as a substitute parliament for a nation so fractured that it has suffered a total breakdown of the state in recent months.
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Ms. Samba-Panza defeated seven other candidates, including the sons of two former presidents and a man whose claim to hold degrees that no other Central Africans possess drew hoots of derision in the assembly chamber on Monday. She was elected in a five-hour process involving two separate hand counts and the double reading-out of all 120-odd members of the assembly.
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Ms. Samba-Panza, an insurance broker who led state-sponsored reconciliation efforts after a previous civil war, was said by supporters to be untainted by the nine-month reign of terror unleashed under the man she replaced, Michel Djotodia.