Wimbledon is behind the times when it comes to gender parity with a distinct lack of progress on affording women equal time on the championships’ main show courts over the past 25 years, it has been claimed.The novelist, campaigner and tennis fan Mark Leyland found that in every year from 1993 to 2017 more men’s than women’s matches were scheduled on Centre and No 1 courts with an average of 61% men’s and 39% women’s matches. Taking into account that men’s matches are longer than women’s, it suggests that two-and-a-half times more men’s than women’s play has been seen on these courts during the period covered, he says – and the discrepancy shows little sign of narrowing. Leyland calculated last year’s split as 58% to 32% in favour of men. He had released research before the tournament showing an overwhelming gender bias in 2015 and 2016.His latest research, shared exclusively with the Guardian, examines the imbalance over a longer period. To illustrate the lack of progress, Leyland highlights the case of the women’s No 4 seed, Elina Svitolina, who played four matches without ever being scheduled on a main show court last year, while the men’s eighth seed, Dominic Thiem, played his first three matches on No 1 Court.He said: “The 2017 movie Battle of the Sexes portrays representatives of the 1970s world tennis authorities trying to justify vastly different levels of prize money by claiming that men’s play was more exciting and better to watch. The authorities at Wimbledon make no such claims to justify their own inequitable system, insisting that they value fairness and do not intentionally favour the men. “They persist in blaming the imbalance on the complexities of a system which has long since achieved equality at the other grand slam tournaments, an argument which defies all logic. But it may be felt that their actions, in scheduling more men’s than women’s matches on their main show courts every year for more than a quarter of a century, speak louder than their words.”After Leyland’s analysis was published before last year’s tournament, there was more controversy when, on the second Monday, all four men’s matches were scheduled for the main show courts but only two of four women’s matches. That prompted Andy Murray to join those calling for an equal split. The latest statistics have been published as Serena Williams, winner of 23 grand slam singles titles, prepares to return to the tournament, which starts on Monday 2 July, for the first time since giving birth.Williams and her sister, Venus, winner of seven grand slam titles, have complained in the past of being relegated to smaller courts and Leyland’s analysis suggests they were right to be disgruntled. He found that in the decade from 2007 to 2016, over the first four rounds, Roger Federer played 31 times on Centre Court (84% of his matches), six times on No 1 Court (16%) and never anywhere else. By contrast, Serena Williams played 18 times (55%) on Centre, seven times (21%) on No 1, and on eight occasions (24%) on the much smaller Courts 2 or 3.Since first winning the tournament in 2003, Federer has never had any match scheduled anywhere but the main show courts, while Serena Williams, who first won in 2002, has often been scheduled elsewhere, he said.On only two occasions since 1995 have either the men’s No 1 or No 2 been scheduled to play elsewhere than on a main show court – Goran Ivanisevic and Andy Roddick in 1997 and 2004 respectively, both years that were severely affected by rain, Leyland found. By contrast, there was only one occasion (2000) when the top two women’s seeds played all their six first-week matches on the main courts.A spokeswoman for the All England Lawn Tennis Club said it had not seen the latest analysis in detail but claimed previous analyses had offered an incomplete representation of scheduling.She added: “It is fair to say that the expectation of the public has tended to be one of the most important considerations when scheduling matches, particularly regarding Centre and No 1 Courts, and this has been exacerbated in a current golden era of men’s tennis. “However, these expectations are changing as the eras of tennis change. The scheduling at the championships will reflect this over time, and there will be variations from year to year depending on the way the draw falls.” Topics Wimbledon Tennis Gender Men Women Serena Williams Roger Federer news

Christine Blasey Ford is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today as part of US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s extended confirmation hearings. In the process, the professor is teaching us just how hard it can be to do the right thing.Blasey Ford has repeatedly said that she wanted to tell her story before Kavanaugh became Trump’s nominee for the high court. She felt it was her civic duty to let the White House and congresspeople know that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school in 1982. Blasey Ford explained that her concerns weren’t political; she simply assumed there were other, more qualified people on Trump’s list. When asked if her disclosure was partisan, Blasey Ford strongly asserted, “I am no one’s pawn.”However, her sense of civic duty was thwarted by practical realities. Blasey Ford said that she sought the advice of friends and acquaintances—people who weren’t experts—on how to disclose the information. All had suggestions. People advised she get a lawyer, and they suggested she contact the Washington Post and New York Times, but no one told her how she might reach the appropriate government representatives.“I was panicking because I knew the timeline was short for the decision,” she testified. “People were giving me advice on the beach, people who didn’t know the processes.” On July 6, as her sense of urgency about Trump’s imminent pick was heightened, Blasey Ford called the office of her congressperson, Anna Eshoo, and contacted the Washington Post anonymously.When asked why she didn’t also contact the New York Times, as some had advised, the professor replied that she didn’t want to go “the media route” and preferred to speak to a congressperson, so reaching out to one publication seemed sufficient. Questioned on whether she tried to reach the White House before she contacted her congressperson , she replied, “I did not. I did not know how to do that.”Blasey Ford spoke to a receptionist in Eshoo’s office about her experience with Kavanaugh and concerns about the prospective Supreme Court nominee on July 6. On July 9, the day Kavanaugh was named Trump’s pick, Eshoo’s office contacted Blasey Ford. She spoke to staff about her allegations on July 18 and to Eshoo shortly thereafter. Then, Eshoo advised Blasey Ford to write a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Feinstein received on July 30.Because Kavanaugh’s confirmation was widely lauded by Republicans, and because people spoke as if he’d certainly be confirmed, Blasey Ford said that she felt that exposing her experience publicly would be like “getting in front of a moving train.” She asked for anonymity and Feinstein respected the request.She also hired a lawyer, although not right away. “I didn’t understand why I would need lawyers,” Blasey Ford told senators today on several occasions.When reporters earlier this month discovered the existence of the letter to Feinstein, they started camping on Blasey Ford’s lawn, talking to her dog through the windows of her house, attending her classes, and reaching out to her colleagues. She relented. Blasey Ford said she knew she would not be able to remain anonymous and decided that if her story would be told, she would be the one to tell it.Now, countless people have heard her testimony. Within it is a lesson on just how taxing it can be to perform certain crucial civic duties.

China will of course propose a centrally controlled block chain. That's not special to bitcoing, One would expect that any country would require this since otherwise you can't 1. controll the money supply (monetary poliicy) 2. prevent export of currency 3. detect illegal transactions 4. audit income for taxation. 5. prevent money laundering.While many people see at least one of those as virtues, the simple fact is the most people don't as they like the way the system works now,That said, and regardless of which side you are on, the central system will always be able to beat bitcoin, even without crimminalizing it. THe reason for this is inescapable. Bit coin is by neccessity expensive to transact. proof of work is requires. Bit coin requires as something inseperable from it's design that the cost of the proof of work scale directly with the magnitude of the transaction size. Or very roughly with the size of the capitalization. But a centralized system had no such requirement. THerefore it will ALWAYS be cheaper to scale a central system. ALWAYS.Now there is one escape clause. A central system is not quite as secure. if the central keys leak it's possible, depending on the design for 100% of the captialization to be stolen. Hopefully they have a way to segment that risk so that it's really hard for all the keys to be stolen at once. But it could be a staggering disaster. It may be there is some zerotrust protocol that assures that can't happen but i'm ignorant on that point. But if it's not designed that way and the eventuallity does happen then everyone will lose faith, and bitcoin will dominate.But the central system has a second advantage. Tethering. The country can make and destroy the coin to counter inflation or deflation. It's value can be assuredly redeemed if they want to set up that. so why would anyone buy an untethered coin that costs more to transact? It will be a legitimate store of wealth not a transaction vehicle. You can loan it and get interest on it.Bit coin is doomed. it will however continue to exist since a large sector of china is a grey market and people do need to move money out of the country and hide it. Which is why people are speculating the value may rise. THe govt will certainly make it illegal if a central coin exists. And courts will be told to stop recognizing it's value making it unprotected by law.Note: when ever I note that bitcoin's transaction cost has to scale with the transaction size someone always misunderstants me and lectures me that the cost of hashing is independent of the transaction size. Yes. But to avoid the 51% attack it MUST be the case that the cost of getting 51% is more than what could be gained by reversing a transaction. And that scales with (not equal to) the transaction size.

A state case for showing that Google is guilty of monopolization will have to establish that Google has “monopoly power in the relevant market,” and that it willfully acquired or maintained that power “as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident,” under the precedent established by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Grinnell Corp. in 1966.A market analysis produced by Plum Consulting, in the U.K., that’s largely critical of Google argues that defining the relevant market for online advertising is difficult for several reasons. First, these markets are multisided: Is the relevant market the market for advertisers, or is it the market for publishers that stand on the other side of Google’s intermediation? Second, there are lots of different market segments, and they all overlap. Third, and most important, the market structure itself is changing at rapid speed.Google has achieved astonishing success in both the web-browser and search-engine sectors. The firm controls well over 90 percent of global search-engine traffic, with much of the rest divided between Microsoft’s Bing and Verizon’s Yahoo. But nothing guarantees that Google will be able to maintain this position indefinitely, or even for very long. Already in the U.S., Amazon, with its treasure trove of high-quality data, has overtaken both Microsoft and Verizon in online advertising, and could rapidly become a compelling alternative to Google.Has Google engaged in anticompetitive practices to achieve or maintain its monopoly position? It could theoretically do so in several ways, according to the Plum report, including by using network effects, economies of scale and scope, vertical integration, and data access to exclude competitors. But in each of these cases, as the Plum report concedes, the potential for abuse exists alongside enormous benefits to the public. For example, the public prefers a network with more advertisers and publishers on it, an example of a clearly beneficial network effect. Meanwhile publishers and advertisers are able to reach their target markets more easily and accurately, which means much greater bang for the buck. And paradoxically, the reduced transmission of raw data among different firms means that privacy and security may be more easily and accountably maintained by a Google than by multiple firms in a more fractured market.As the famous antitrust cases against IBM and AT&T demonstrated, investigations of the dreaded monopoly power take little account of the technology industry’s actual history, which in the modern era has been one of relentless disruptive innovation. The answer to Microsoft’s supposedly fearsome “tying arrangement” of Internet Explorer to Windows was not antitrust litigation, but rather a disruptive innovation in the combination of search and browser, as Google soon showed. Netscape must be kicking itself.

Since its inception, the #MeToo movement has received copious backlash: Survivors brave enough to speak up face harassment and doxing, while the media speculates about how being outed as an abuser will impact men’s careers. But until a few days ago, #MeToo hadn’t inspired a full-on hashtag-slinging countermovement.Now there’s #HimToo. The hashtag and its associated memes are #MeToo’s first major inversion, popularized during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. It’s become the #AllLivesMatter of sexual assault: The hashtag identifies accused men as victims, using the same power-in-numbers technique that made #MeToo a force to recast the movement as a widespread feminist witch hunt, forcing men to walk on eggshells.The memes read like fear-mongering PSAs targeted at moms: “Mothers of sons should be scared. It is terrifying that at any time, any girl can make up any story about any boy that can neither be proved or disproved, and ruin any boy’s life.” Now the hashtag and its line of argument have spread, popping up on accounts that appear to be concerned mothers and Trump-supporting provocateurs, like Diamond and Silk. (They of the Facebook content moderation scandal.)HimToo has become the #AllLivesMatter of sexual assault, using the same tools as #MeToo to portray accused men as victimsReality check: False sexual assault claims are exceedingly rare, and sexual assault is chronically underreported. Turning victim-blaming into a meme is a very 2018 sort of problem—it’s easy for extreme arguments to find a foothold within extreme partisanship, where it’s more important to win than to be kind, or even right.But, as a hashtag, #HimToo says a great deal about how people communicate and organize online. #HimToo has meant many things over the past three years, means several things now, and will probably mean other things in the future. Flexibility is crucial to a hashtag’s success: A tiny string of words must both mark individual thoughts and experiences and integrate them to a larger whole. That elasticity is especially important for online activism like #MeToo, where a hashtag ties together a disparate group of stories into a horrifying display of the scale of America’s sexual assault problem.Hashtags are destined to be repurposed and expanded and, sometimes, co-opted by the ideological opposition. And maybe that’s to be expected: In periods of animosity, any two words attempting to sum up a painful and contentious human experience are going to be fraught with contradiction, and perhaps be an active battleground.HimToo emerged innocent and unpolitical. In 2015 and earlier, #HimToo might have referred to any male who was also doing something. (For example: If you went to go get froyo with your boyfriend, you might tweet “I love Pinkberry. #HimToo.” Wholesome.) But soon, it was being used to signal your political allegiances. In the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, tweetersusedthe hashtag to show support for Tim Kaine—#I’mWithHer #HimToo.During the first few months of the Trump administration, Trump supporters flipped its meaning once again to attack Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and others in conjunction with Hillary Clinton—#LockHerUp #HimToo.Flexibility is crucial to a hashtag’s success: A tiny, string of words must both mark individual thoughts and experiences and integrate them to a larger whole.That was before October 15, 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano began encouraging her followers to spread the #MeToo hashtag, a movement founded by activist Tarana Burke as a tool for survivors to share stories of sexual violence. #HimToo became part of that tweet frenzy immediately, as a reminder that there are male victims of sexual assault who face similar stigmas and also suffer privately.This #HimToo movement inspired New York Times op-eds and dedicated accounts for male victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Critics would argue that #MeToo has always been gender neutral, and high-profile men like Terry Crews are a crucial part of the movement. But reports of Italian actress Asia Argento (and erstwhile #MeToo leader) paying off a young male accuser reinforced the need for a separate, male-focused movement.“When Asia Argento was accused, it made the rounds for a day, then disappeared. Then the founder of #MeToo claimed her movement was for men also,” says Keith P, the man behind the HeToo Twitter account. “I went to her website to look at her old tweets, and not once did she mention male victims. People don’t realize sexual assault is a two-way street.”Out in the mainstream, by October 16, #HimToo made its first jump over the victim-victimizer divide, becoming a counterpoint to #MeToo rather than a complement. #HimToo became a way for participants in #MeToo to name and shame men, to draw up lists of abusers, and to reckon with the endless deluge of accusations and apologies.

Four women joined a major pay gap case against the Walt Disney Company, accusing the entertainment giant of gender discrimination at its Hollywood Records music label, its world-famous theme parks and other divisions.The complaint filed in Los Angeles on Friday, alleges that Disney routinely compensates women less than men, denies women promotions, and classifies female employees in lower job titles that don’t match their responsibilities. The claims have widened a class-action suit filed in April, intensifying pressure on the media and entertainment industry in California to confront longstanding pay disparities.The four plaintiffs who filed on Friday allege discrimination at Disney’s music label, which has signed pop singers such as Demi Lovato, Zendaya and Miley Cyrus; Walt Disney Imagineering, a division that does projects for the company’s theme parks, resorts, cruises and venues; Disney Music Publishing, a recording arm of the company; and a business division responsible for ESPN and Hulu streaming services. The allegations expand a class-action suit filed in April to the corporation’s Hollywood Records music label, its world-famous theme parks and other divisions.“The unequal pay infects the entirety of Disney,” attorney Lori Andrus told the Guardian. “It’s not just an isolated incident … The gap is pretty dramatic.”Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment , but previously said the corporation has “robust pay equity practices and policies” supported by a “specialized team of compensation professionals and lawyers”.Enny Joo, one of the new plaintiffs, has worked for Disney since 1998 and was promoted to a creative director role in 2000. She has not received a formal promotion since then, the complaint said, even though she was asked to oversee the marketing department’s creative campaigns for the entire roster of Hollywood Records’ artists in 2017.Disney has refused to promote her to vice-president – the job classification of the man previously in Joo’s role, the suit says. And yet Joo has received “exemplary performance reviews”, in which Joo was described as a “real leader” who is “working at the top of her game” and manages to “juggle a very heavy, often very taxing workload with grace and intelligence”.Ginia Eady-Marshall, another plaintiff, is a senior manager for Disney Music Publishing and has been at the company for 15 years. In 2013, she was promoted to a manager role, responsible for overseeing music research, and although the man who previously had the job was classified as a director, Eady-Marshall was not given that title or salary, the suit says.She also later learned that she was earning $25,000 less than some men with her same title, according to the complaint.Becky Train, a media producer in the theme parks division, said she recently learned of at least one other male media producer earning more than $10,000 more than her, despite them doing the same job.The fourth plaintiff, Amy Hutchins, has worked for Disney’s direct-to-consumer business division for 14 years, and as a production supervisor for more than 10 years. Although her boss acknowledged she was doing manager-level work, she has been unfairly passed over for promotions, the complaint alleges.“It is totally crazy that someone who has been with the company for 15 years can be making tens of thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts,” said Andrus.Some of the women only learned of their unequal salaries because they had male friends at the company who disclosed their wages, the attorney said.“Men are more frequently judged on their potential and not on their performance,” Andrus added. “The woman is told, ‘Well you just need to prove yourself,’ even though she’s already been there for 20-something years.”Four of the six named plaintiffs in the case are women of color, though the attorneys have not alleged racial discrimination. The lawyers have now proposed a class-action case that would cover all women employed full-time by the company in California since April 2015.“I love my job,” Eady-Marshall said in a statement. “But when Disney refuses to reward the hard work of its female employees, and when Disney allows unconscious bias to hold us back, I cannot stand by and do nothing.”The complaint follows high-profile pay gap litigation at Silicon Valley corporations such as Google and Oracle and comes as the Time’s Up movement has increased scrutiny of discrimination in Hollywood.In the UK, Disney revealed earlier this year that it has paid men 22% more on average than women.Disney has also faced growing pressure over its pay of low-wage workers at its Disneyland resort. Earlier this year, Abigail Disney, the great-niece of Walt Disney, publicly criticized the company’s chief executive, Bob Iger, for his $65.6m salary, saying it “deepened wealth inequality” and was “insane”. Topics Walt Disney Company California Law (US) Equal pay Women Discrimination at work news

To a remarkable extent, it worked. In 1992, Perot won 19 percent of the vote, the highest for any third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Perot’s supporters were disproportionately young, white, male, and secular. On culture-war issues, according to a study by FiveThirtyEight, they were all over the map: pro-choice, pro–death penalty, anti–gun control, and anti–affirmative action. What distinguished them was the intensity of their views about “economic nationalism, reform, and the budget.”Almost three decades later, Yang is assembling a similar coalition with an updated version of Perot’s message. For the Texas billionaire, the root cause of America’s ills was debt. For Yang, it’s robots. “The reason Donald Trump was elected was that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,” Yang told The New York Times last year. “If you look at the voter data, it shows that the higher the level of concentration of manufacturing robots in a district, the more that district voted for Trump.” For Yang, Trump is only the first big calamity that automation will bring. In the coming years, self-driving cars will replace truckers, then similar technology will dispense with “retail workers, call-center workers, fast-food workers, insurance companies, accounting firms.” In The War on Normal People, Yang predicts riots, if not revolution. “We have five to 10 years before truckers lose their jobs,” he told the Times, “and [then] all hell breaks loose.”Yang’s answer is a “Freedom Dividend” that would give every American adult $1,000 a month to cushion the blow and help launch new careers, which he’d pay for with a value-added tax of the kind that is common in Europe. Both conservatives (who claim the Freedom Dividend is too expensive and would disincentivize work) and liberals (who say the VAT would disproportionately burden the poor) have criticized Yang’s proposal. But he’s identified an enormously important problem: McKinsey has predicted that automation could destroy one-third of American jobs by 2030.Few politicians grasp how disruptive this will be. By making automation the foundation of his campaign, Yang is building a populist movement that resembles not Trump’s or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, but Perot’s. It’s a movement of people alienated from political elites not because they disagree with them on abortion, immigration, and guns, but because they think elites use abortion, immigration, and guns to distract from the economic dangers that matter most.Yang espouses conventionally liberal positions on noneconomic issues. But he shows little interest in them. Asked to explain his cultural views in an early interview, he replied, “I believe what you probably think I believe,” and, according to the interviewer, “admitted that he hadn’t fully developed all his positions.” In The War on Normal People, Yang says nothing about abortion, gun control, LGBTQ rights, or voter suppression.

The success of Andrew Yang has been one of the unexpected sub-plots of the 2020 presidential race. And his fan base is surely one of the most devoted.What's the opposite of Donald Trump? The answer, says 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is himself - "an Asian guy who's good at math".With a $1,000-a-month universal basic income proposal, a pessimistic outlook of economic havoc and a self-deprecating humour, Yang has mounted a surprising surge. Politically unknown when he started the campaign, he now enjoys a devoted internet following known as the "Yang Gang" and the honourable title of "meme king" among the Democratic presidential candidates.The 44-year-old tech entrepreneur centres his campaign on "Freedom Dividend", a proposal to provide every American over the age of 18 $1,000 every month with no strings attached. Yang warns that automation and artificial intelligence could take away nearly half of American jobs in the next three decades, and he believes that universal basic income can help ease the pain and solve various social problems. His ambitious plan may sound too good to be true, drawing laughs from his fellow candidates on the debate stage, but Yang says that he has "looked at the numbers". His support in national polls hovers around 3%, which places him behind the top tier of candidates but above vastly experienced senators like Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar.Yang is fulfilling his "Make America Think Harder" campaign slogan by stoking a national conversation about the threat artificial intelligence poses to American jobs.At a Yang rally in Washington DC, hundreds of supporters passionately shouted out his name and held up "MATH" signs, abbreviation of his campaign line. The crowd were mostly white and Asian, slightly more male and very young. "One state has adopted a dividend. Everyone in that state gets one or two thousand dollars a year. Which state is that?" Yang asked, pointing at the crowd."Alaska!" A large portion of the crowd yelled back. It was still relatively early in the presidential race, but Yang's loyal supporters had memorised his lines."And how did they fund it?""Oil!" Since 1982, Alaska has paid an annual dividend to every person living in Alaska from the state-owned investment fund funded by oil revenue."And what's the oil of the 21st century?" Yang cued his supporters again."Technology!"With a satisfied smile, Yang said what Alaska did with oil money can be done nationwide through his universal basic income plan with "technology money", a value-added tax on the big tech companies.The key issues for 2020 DemocratsAmong the crowd in the rally were 19-year-old Jalen Adams and 18-year-old Emily Synoski, who travelled three hours from Delaware for the event. Ms Synoski tells BBC News that she and many of her generation support Yang because he focuses on the future, in which young people have the most at stake. "We will be the ones working in this country when automation becomes big."Support from this social media-savvy generation has also boosted Yang's online popularity. Since the first Democratic primary debate, Yang has gained more Twitter followers than any other candidates. "I make sure every one of my friends would hear about Andrew Yang," says Mr Adams. Some of the online support is not the kind that Yang is happy to gain. His warning about mass unemployment caused by automation resonates with the far right, who see him as sympathetic to the plight of blue-collar white Americans. What's different for Sanders this time around? Can Warren go all the way to the White House? Will Biden last the distance as frontrunner? Memes of Yang were trending on online forums known for racist and sexist comments. Several prominent white nationalists have praised his policies, which Yang has denounced: "They're antithetical to everything I stand for." Portraying himself as a political outsider who recognises the most urging problem of America's future, Yang has successfully won support from both progressives and conservatives, from former supporters of Bernie Sanders to people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Yang appeals to Silicon Valley tech workers, including Tesla's Elon Musk who has endorsed him on Twitter, arguing that Yang appears to understand technology's societal implications and proposes data-driven approaches to solve them. Yang has also mobilised Asian-American voters, who generally tend to be less politically active. A son of Taiwanese immigrants, he is one of the first and most recognisable East Asian-Americans in history to run for president.Chinese immigrant Allison Qiu brought her six-year-old daughter to a Yang rally, the first political rally for both of them. "I want my daughter to see that a person who looks like us can run for president in this country," Qiu tells BBC News. Yingchao Zhang, a Chinese-American community leader in New Jersey and a supporter of Yang, believes his campaign will encourage more young Asian-Americans to participate in politics. "They will no longer think they are perpetual foreigners."However, some of Yang's signature self-deprecating jokes could be seen as reinforcing Asian stereotypes. His campaign character is built upon "an Asian man who is good at maths". "I'm Asian, so I know a lot of doctors," he claimed during the nationally-televised Democratic presidential primary debate in Houston. Yang soon found himself at the centre of a national debate of racism.When stand-up comedian Shane Gillis came under fire for having mimicked Chinese accents and an instance of using a racial slur to refer to Yang, Yang advocated for forgiveness rather than punishment, which triggered a blowback from the Asian-American community. He also received criticism for appearing to draw a comparison between how American society reacts to anti-Asian racism and anti-black racism.The Taiwanese-American candidate may as well have to navigate the international political dynamics under added scrutiny. In the Democrats' first primary debate, one of the only two questions Yang got was about the trade war with China, which he believes will end up hurting Americans' wallets. During the latest debate, Yang stated his father grew up in "a peanut farm in Asia," without specifically mentioning Taiwan, a practically independent island considered by most Chinese as a rebel region of China. Some view his vague statement as an attempt to refrain from potential controversy that could alienate him and his Chinese American supporters. Even though Yang said his Mandarin is only "shoddy", Chinese-language media have covered his candidacy with great curiosity and high expectation. One of the most popular news websites in China, The Paper, has defined his campaign as a "supernova-to-be" fighting "the underdog's fight".Whether Yang can surge higher remains to be seen. Meanwhile, he certainly appears to be having the most fun on the campaign trail, often posting videos of him dancing, playing basketball and crowd-surfing. His crowd-surfing video got 35,000 likes on Twitter, winning praise for his authenticity. A Twitter user comments: "It's really refreshing to see a politician having fun and enjoying his supporters." Meet the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination

Several recent books have provided good background briefings for what a U.B.I. could be, including those by the labor leader Andy Stern, the Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and the Belgian academics Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght. To these offerings, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur, adds his own, somewhat breathless version in “The War on Normal People.” Annie Lowrey, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, provides a similarly upbeat, although more measured, assessment in “Give People Money.” Both are useful primers on the case for a U.B.I.The two books cover so much of the same terrain that I’m tempted to wonder whether they were written by the same robot, programmed for slightly different levels of giddy enthusiasm. Both cite Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman as early supporters of a U.B.I. Both urge that a U.B.I. be set at $1,000 a month for every American. Both point out that with poverty currently defined as an income for a single adult of less than $12,000 a year, such a U.B.I. would, by definition, eliminate poverty for the 41 million Americans now living below the poverty line. It would also improve the bargaining power of millions of low-wage workers — forcing employers to increase wages, add benefits and improve conditions in order to retain them. If a U.B.I. replaced specific programs for the poor, it would also reduce government bureaucracy, minimize government interference in citizens’ lives and allow people to avoid the stigma that often accompanies government assistance. By virtue of being available to all, a U.B.I. would not only guarantee the material existence of everyone in a society; it would establish a baseline for what membership in that society means.U.B.I.’s critics understandably worry that it would spur millions to drop out of the labor force, induce laziness or at least rob people of the structure and meaning work provides. Both Yang and Lowrey muster substantial research to rebut these claims. I’m not sure they need it. After all, $12,000 a year doesn’t deliver a comfortable life even in the lowest-cost precincts of America, so there would still be plenty of incentive to work. Most of today’s jobs provide very little by way of fulfillment or creativity anyway.ImageA U.B.I. might give recipients a bit more time to pursue socially beneficial activities, like helping the elderly or attending to kids with special needs or perhaps even starting a new business. Yang suggests it would spur a system of “social credits” in which people trade their spare time by performing various helpful tasks for one another. (I.R.S. be warned.) Surely a U.B.I. would help compensate many people — especially women — for the unpaid labor they already contribute. As Lowrey points out, some 40 million family caregivers in America provide half a trillion dollars of unpaid adult care annually. Child care has become so expensive that one of every three stay-at-home mothers today lives below the poverty line (compared with 14 percent in 1970).But how could America possibly afford a U.B.I.? A $1,000-a-month grant to every American would cost about $3.9 trillion a year. That’s about $1.3 trillion on top of existing welfare programs — roughly the equivalent of the entire federal budget, or about a fifth of the entire United States economy. Both Yang and Lowrey come up with laundry lists of potential funding sources — from soaking the rich (raising the top tax bracket to 55 percent, enlarging the estate tax and implementing new taxes on wealth, financial transactions and perhaps even the owners of the robots and related devices that are displacing jobs), to instituting a carbon tax or a value-added tax.Whatever the source of funds, it seems a safe bet that increased automation will allow the economy to continue to grow, making a U.B.I. more affordable. A U.B.I. would itself generate more consumer spending, stimulating additional economic activity. And less poverty would mean less crime, incarceration and other social costs associated with deprivation. “You know what’s really expensive?” Yang asks. “Dysfunction. Revolution.”

Donald Trump has made it clear that whatever the outcome of the inquiry into the disappearance of the journalist from the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, the US will not forgo lucrative arms deals with Riyadh. The president says the possibility of Saudi Arabia sourcing its arms from Russia or China instead is unacceptable • Trump announces Khashoggi investigation but says he will not halt Saudi arms sales

Some people think bitcoin’s spectacular price rise last year was manipulated by a cryptotoken called Tether that’s supposed to be pegged to the US dollar. Now, an anonymous report answers the question: What would bitcoin be worth without Tether? The answer: around $4,500, based on the current bitcoin price of about $7,600.Tether is a crypto token, or coin, that’s supposed to be pegged to the dollar and backed by real dollar reserves in a bank account somewhere. Tether’s coins are often used for dollars on cryptocurrency exchanges because of the reserve claim. Traders use Tether’s coins to cash in and out of bitcoin quickly, avoiding the lengthy process of converting the sums in and out of fiat currency. However, Tether hasn’t provided audits to prove its reserves exist.The uncertainty surrounding Tether has made crypto investors uneasy, an unease that became alarm when Bloomberg reported that Tether was subpoenaed by the US commodities trading regulator in December. Bitcoin’s price has fallen about 25% since that news broke.A group of investors called the 1000X Group, who look for the next big crypto hit, recently commissioned a report to determine Tether’s influence on the bitcoin price. Based on publicly available information, the report found that bitcoin’s price rose about 40% in the two-hour windows after each batch of newly issued Tether coins arrived at the exchange Bitfinex’s digital wallet, between last April and this January. The author claims anonymity because of fear of “backlash” from expressing an “unpopular opinion.”Crypto market investors think the report’s analysis is credible. “It’s a great report—awesome data analysis,” says Alex Sunnarborg, who runs a crypto hedge fund called Tetras Capital. ” I think it shows that a huge piece of bitcoin’s price movement has directly followed Tether issuances very well.”The price of bitcoin stood at $15,000 at the end of the period analyzed by the report, which is Jan. 4. If 40% of that price was directly attributed to Tether issuance, then the price of bitcoin without those new Tethers would have been about $9,000.The price of bitcoin at press-time is just over $7,600; applying the 40% Tether discount gives us a price of $4,500. But analysts caution that some of the news around Tether, including the subpoena from US regulators, could already be accounted for in the current bitcoin price, meaning the discount shouldn’t be as deep.The report’s author paints an even more bearish outlook in some scenarios. If the bitcoin price was propped up by Tethers that were just magically created each time the price fell, as the author’s analysis suggests, then the subsequent rallies potentially wouldn’t have been as powerful over the last year. All told, the author believes the price of bitcoin could be just 30% of the price quoted on exchanges during the study period. That means instead of $15,000 in early January, the price of bitcoin should have been $4,500.There’s one more analysis that suggests the bitcoin price should be even lower. The author extrapolates a linear trend-line for the price starting last April, when Tethers began to be issued in earnest. That trend-line puts the price of bitcoin at just $2,000 instead of $15,000.“It is highly unlikely that Tether is growing through any organic business process, rather that they are printing in response to market conditions,” the author writes in summary.The author’s recommendation? An audit showing that every Tether token is backed by a dollar. There’s just one problem: The auditor Tether hired for this purpose, a New Jersey firm called Friedman LLP, is no longer working with the crypto issuer. Quartz contacted Friedman for clarification but did not receive a response. Tether said last week (Jan. 27) that the relationship was “dissolved” when questioned by the industry news source CoinDesk.While the mystery around Tether deepens, a prolonged bear market might be a chance to clear things up.

Today, however, a strange myopia has seized judges and antitrust enforcers. As a result, the law has turned a blind eye to harmful conduct. And now, in a final irony, it is threatening to condemn responsible corporate citizenship.President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has reportedly launched an antitrust investigation into four automakers—Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen. Their supposed offense? Agreeing with one another, and with the state of California, to develop vehicles that are more fuel-efficient and have lower emissions than federal standards require. This is a noble goal. As any introductory economics textbook explains, pollution is a classic example of market failure. The problem arises from a negative externality: When cars emit carbon, all of us—not just buyers and sellers of cars—bear the costs.The automakers’ agreement, which seeks to reduce that externality, is the exact opposite of selfish behavior: It is likely to increase the automakers’ own costs, rather than their profits. In short, this is a very strange choice of target for an antitrust-enforcement agency. But the Trump administration is keen on lowering federal environmental standards—apparently even to the point of targeting companies that are willing to hold themselves to higher ones. While some companies are at risk of being punished for fighting pollution, others are getting a pass despite creating a negative externality. The conservative wing of the Supreme Court recently did just that in Ohio v. American Express. The genesis of the case was an Obama-administration lawsuit against American Express targeting certain rules in the credit-card giant’s contracts with business owners. Under those rules, businesses cannot tell their customers how big a cut Amex takes from each purchase, nor can they offer a discount to shoppers who use less expensive cards. The rules obviously harm merchants, especially small businesses.But one of their most pernicious effects stems from a negative externality. Because businesses cannot signal to their customers which payment options are more expensive, they are forced to raise prices across the board to make up for Amex’s high fees. Those fees partially pad Amex’s bottom line, but they also help fund lavish reward-points programs for its cardholders—a relatively wealthy group. As a result, everyday consumers who buy necessities with cash or food stamps end up subsidizing free first-class flights and four-star hotel stays for Amex cardholders. The Supreme Court’s conservative justices decided this scheme is actually good because it helps Amex attract cardholders—and they simply ignored the harmful spillover effects on the rest of society.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats on Sunday criticized the Trump administration for refusing to release thousands of documents on Brett Kavanaugh ahead of this week’s upcoming Senate hearings on his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, nominated by President Donald Trump, worked in the White House under former President George W. Bush, whose lawyers combed through documents from that time and decided that 27,000 of them were protected under “constitutional privilege.” The White House directed them not to hand them over to the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of Bush’s lawyers said in a letter to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will host the hearings scheduled to start on Tuesday. Another 102,000 pages of documents related to Kavanaugh’s record were not turned over for other reasons. The committee has had access to more than 415,000 pages on Kavanaugh’s background, the lawyer said in the letter. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said in an interview aired on “Fox News Sunday” that the White House’s citation of privilege on the documents was the first time that had occurred. “There has been more concealment of documents that are concerning his public service and his position on issues than ever in the history of the United States ... If he’s so proud of his conservative credentials, show us the record,” Durbin said. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Judiciary Committee member, echoed Durbin’s concerns in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, saying, “This is not normal.” Republicans have dismissed Democrats’ concerns over lack of access to portions of the record on Kavanaugh’s background, arguing their criticism is politically motivated. Slideshow (2 Images)“Democrats have more than enough information to understand that this is a highly qualified jurist that should be the next Supreme Court justice,” Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” Trump nominated Kavanaugh to be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9. Kavanaugh must win a majority of the 100-seat Senate to approve his nomination. Most Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the chamber, are expected to back him. Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Kevin DrawbaughOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Facebook's latest foes: nearly every U.S. state. A state-level antitrust investigation into the social networking giant now has the backing of a bipartisan group of 47 attorneys general, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday. The Democrat launched the probe last month with seven other states and the District of Columbia. It focuses on whether Facebook's dominance is stifling competition, limiting choice for consumers and costing advertisers more money. "Big Tech must account for its actions," Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, said in a statement. The group of attorneys general also worries about Facebook's handling of customer data, James said. That drew scrutiny after firms were able to harvest information in attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Facebook didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The group backing the state-level probe by the seven states and Washington now includes 21 Democratic attorneys general, 18 Republicans and an independent from 39 states and Guam. The list also includes several states that cannot confirm their participation in pending investigations, James said. Facebook and other tech giants have also been feeling the heat from federal regulators. The Federal Trade Commission recently fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations, but consumer advocates and some public officials criticized that as too lenient. A separate investigation, led by Texas and supported by attorneys general from 48 states, Puerto Rico and Washington is looking at whether Google is engaging in monopolistic behavior with its dominant online search and advertising business. District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine, a Democrat involved in both investigations, said in a statement that he wants to ensure Facebook is "giving a fair shake" to the American people. "No company gets a pass if it throttles competitors and exploits consumers," Racine said.

These hearings were also a devastating blow to intellectual humility. At the heart of this case is a mystery: What happened at that party 36 years ago? There is no corroborating evidence either way. So the crucial questions are: How do we sit with this uncertainty? How do we weigh the two contradictory testimonies? How do we measure these testimonies when all of cognitive science tells us that human beings are really bad at spotting falsehood? Should a person’s adult life be defined by something he did in high school?Commentators and others may have acknowledged uncertainty on these questions for about 2.5 seconds, but then they took sides. If they couldn’t take sides based on the original evidence, they found new reasons to confirm their previous positions. Kavanaugh is too angry and dishonest. He drank beer and threw ice while in college. With tribal warfare all around, uncertainty is the one state you are not permitted to be in.This, of course, led to an upsurge in base mobilization. Persuasion is no longer an important part of public conversation. Public statements are meant to mobilize your mob. Senator Cory Booker can’t just sort through the evidence. He has to get Spartacus-like histrionic in order to whip Democrats toward his presidential candidacy. Kavanaugh can’t just dispassionately try to disprove the allegations made against him. Instead, he gets furious and stokes up culture war rage in order to fire up the Republican base.This leads to an epidemic of bigotry. Bigotry involves creating a stereotype about a disfavored group and then applying that stereotype to an individual you’ve never met. It was bigotry against Jews that got Alfred Dreyfus convicted in 1894. It was bigotry against young black males that got the Central Park Five convicted in 1990. It was bigotry against preppy lacrosse players that led to the bogus Duke lacrosse scandal.This past month we’ve seen thousands of people convinced that they know how Kavanaugh behaved because they know how “privileged” people behave. We’ve seen thousands of people lining up behind Kavanaugh because they know that there’s this vicious thing called “the Left,” which hates them.

There’s steady chatter in Washington about placing some regulatory guardrails around Big Tech companies, which many lawmakers (and their constituents) believe have become too big, too powerful, and too often unwilling or unable to self-regulate. There’s lots of discussion about new data privacy legislation, antitrust actions to break up big tech companies, and the removal of special legal protections for tech.But it’s all very likely to add up to a big zero in this Congressional session, based on my conversations with Democratic and Republican insiders.PrivacyThe passage in 2018 of California’s aggressive privacy bill, which goes into effect January 1, 2020, started a time clock for the passage of a federal privacy bill. If the California law goes into effect, companies holding customers’ personal data would have to comply with two different regulatory regimes, California’s and the rest of the country’s. Other states may pass their own privacy bills, making things even more complicated. And many U.S. companies are already working to comply with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.A number of privacy bills have been introduced during the current session (there’s a neat rundown here), a number of others have been circulated, while others are in the works. But none has even reached the committee markup stage in either the House or the Senate. Many Democratic lawmakers agree on the need for a federal law, but right now it’s almost impossible to write one that’s politically palatable for all stakeholders, one Congressional staffer told me.Democratic bill authors want the support of privacy rights groups like the ACLU and the EFF, but those groups will support only bills that provide a “private right of action” (the right of an individual to directly sue companies for mishandling or misusing their personal data), and that do not preempt state privacy bills. Meanwhile, many Republicans (who are pro-business and prefer “light touch” regulation) refuse to get behind a bill that includes a private right of action and does not preempt state privacy laws.While Republicans talk about the need for a federal privacy law, there are signs that it’s not high on Republicans’ agenda in the House. One Republican source pointed me to a recent New York Times op-ed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called “Don’t Count on the Government to Protect Your Privacy.” In it, McCarthy argued that consumers should look to “blockchain and other innovations” to ensure their own privacy. In other words, let the market provide the answer. At any rate, McCarthy’s take suggests that Republicans aren’t ready to work with Democrats on legislation. The source added that it may take another major privacy breach –another Cambridge Analytica–to get Congress moving on a privacy law.Of course, distractions abound, and the August break is just around the corner.AntitrustThe second prong of the policy discussion around tech is antitrust–the idea that in order to put a check on Big Tech’s power they must be broken into smaller pieces. The desire to break up Big Tech is a politically expedient thing to say for both Democrats and Republicans, and for most it plays well with the folks back home.But it may make for a better political sound bite than the beginning of a serious policy discussion. While some high-profile people like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have spoken out in favor of breaking up tech companies, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are suspicious of such proposals, my Congressional staffer told me. Many Republican members, per my source, have ties to the Chamber of Commerce, and might risk straining that relationship by supporting efforts to break up big U.S. corporations.The Republican lobbyist told me antitrust sentiment is far away from becoming actual legislation. He said the most likely legislative path is to take away Section 230 protections for Big Tech, which shield companies from lawsuits related to harmful content posted by users at their platforms. But even there, he says, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are “skeptical” of removing that protection.Right now the main actions on antitrust include an active investigation of tech antitrust by the House Judiciary Committee, an antitrust investigation of Google and Apple at the FTC, and another antitrust investigation focused on Facebook and Amazon at the Justice Department.My Republican source says the main effect of the antitrust discussion in Congress may be to focus pressure on FTC and DOJ to apply closer scrutiny to future tech mergers, and more aggressively investigate allegations of anti-competitive conduct.The antitrust discussion was pushed into the open in March when Warren began talking about a plan to break up Big Tech during her stump speeches. Her plan would prohibit large tech companies (like Amazon and Apple) from operating large marketplaces and from selling products in those marketplaces. Amazon’s own products, for example, could not compete with those of third-party sellers on Amazon. Apple’s own apps could not sell side-by-side with third-party apps in the App Store. The rule would apply only to tech companies with $25 billion or more in revenue.People have grown mistrustful of big, rich tech companies. Imposing new regulations on them is something that people in both parties can get behind without much political risk. Some in Congress may use the “let’s regulate tech” talking points to project a consumer champion image. Others may use the issue as a means of rallying the political base against big, rich, coastal elites who work at tech companies.We won’t see any real policy action until and unless this posturing stage passes. That may take a long time, and it might take a regime change.

Wildfires in California, protests in Basra and Barcelona and the Day of the Dead – the past seven days, as captured by the world’s best photojournalists

At the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin was on a tear. At one point in December, it rose to within a hair of $20,000, and though it moderated some after that, hopes remained high that its climb would continue through 2018.It hasn’t. Today (Dec. 23), bitcoin’s value sits at about $4,025 as of this writing, a plunge of more than 70% since the start of 2018 for the cryptocurrency, and one many crypto-forecasters failed to see coming.According to Bloomberg (paywall), Wall Street’s “most prominent” bitcoin forecaster, Tom Lee, cofounder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, began the year expecting the cryptocurrency to reach $20,000 by mid-year and $25,000 by year-end. He has since cut his “fair value” range to between $13,800 and $14,800.Now he won’t even predict when his targets might come about. “Because of the inherent volatility in crypto, we will cease to provide any timeframes for the realization of fair value,” he wrote in a Dec. 13 research report.Kay Van-Petersen, an analyst at Saxo Bank, forecast in January that bitcoin could hit $100,000 before the end of the year.Even as the price fell, hope held on. In July, Arthur Hayes, the cofounder and CEO of BitMEX, told CNBC that bitcoin could rebound up to $50,000 by the end of 2018 under the right conditions.But then bitcoin has long been notoriously volatile, and with each passing year it becomes a little harder to argue that it can serve as a financial safe haven, like gold. This year looked particularly rough.It’s just as hard to accurately forecast a price drop as a rise, of course. Benjamin Quinlan, CEO and managing partner at Quinlan & Associates, did predict the price of bitcoin would tank in 2018, but his prognostication was that it would fall to $1,800 by Dec. 31. It’s not quite that low, either—though there is still time left in the year, and nobody really seems to know what’s going to happen. Many forecasters are undoubtedly hoping their predictions for 2019 go a little better.

US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian forces have launched a final push to defeat the Islamic State group in the last tiny pocket the extremists hold in eastern Syria.The Syrian Democratic Forces spokesman Mustafa Bali tweeted the offensive began on Saturday after more than 20,000 civilians were evacuated from the Isis-held area in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor. An SDF statement said the offensive was focused on the village of Baghuz.The SDF, backed by US air power, has driven Isis from large swaths of territory it once controlled in northern and eastern Syria, confining the extremists to a small pocket of land near the border with Iraq.Scores of Isis fighters are now besieged in two villages, or less than 1% of the self-styled caliphate that once sprawled across large parts of Syria and Iraq. In recent weeks, thousands of civilians, including families of Isis fighters, left the area controlled by the extremists.“The decisive battle began tonight to finish what remains of Daesh terrorists,” Bali said, using an Arabic name for Isis.“The battle is very fierce,” he later told the Associated Press. “Those remaining inside are the most experienced who are defending their last stronghold. According to this you can imagine the ferocity and size of the fighting.”Bali did not say how long they expecte the battle to last.The Britain-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said SDF fighters were advancing “cautiously” due to mines planted by Isis gunmen. It said US-led coalition’s warplanes are giving cover to advancing SDF fighters.The US president, Donald Trump, predicted on Wednesday that Isis will have lost all of its territory by next week.“It should be formally announced some time, probably next week, that we will have 100% of the caliphate,” Trump told representatives of the 79-member coalition fighting Isis.US officials have said in recent weeks that Isis has lost 99.5% of its territory and is holding on to fewer than 5 square kilometres in Syria, or less than 2 square miles, where the bulk of the fighters are concentrated. But activists and residents say Isis still has sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq, and is laying the groundwork for an insurgency. The US military has warned the group could stage a comeback if the military and counterterrorism pressure on it is eased.Earlier on Saturday, Isis militants attacked SDF fighters near an oil field in the country’s east, triggering airstrikes by the US-led coalition. Topics Syria Islamic State Middle East and North Africa

Gene Bishop said his father, a life-long Republican, is "turning over in his grave right now" over his steadfast support of a Democratic presidential candidate. Diane Kendall, herself a longtime Republican, said she's "never been so excited" for a candidate as she is now for a Democrat.Bishop, 81, a New Hampshire retiree, and Kendall, 54, a New Hampshire administrator, have fallen for the same contender — Andrew Yang. An entrepreneur and son of Taiwanese immigrants, Yang, 44, began his presidential campaign in 2017 to little fanfare but made a name for himself by promising to give every American adult $1,000 a month."He’s an intellectual," Bishop told NBC News. "He’s not a politician. He has fantastic insight into how to solve today and tomorrow’s problems. He’s the best out there to me, hands down."Yang is one of the top six polling candidates in the Democratic primary field heading into Thursday's ABC debate, behind former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Kamala Harris of California, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg South Bend, Indiana.One of the lesser-known candidates, Yang still faces long odds. His fortunes changed drastically over the past few months, though. He began the year being left out of some Democratic primary polls and is now regularly polling ahead of sitting senators, congressman and governors."The crowds are bigger. The energy is higher," Yang told NBC News in a recent interview over Twitter. "The questions are more about what you would do as president. The growth makes everything on the trail feel more vital and exuberant. These recent days have been the best yet, and we are continuing to grow."Yang has locked himself into not only Thursday's debate, but October's as well, after meeting both polling and fundraising requirements. While Yang only narrowly leads former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey in the polls, his candidacy has outpaced both of theirs. O'Rourke entered the race with much fanfare, only to see his numbers evaporate, and Booker has struggled to take off.Though he opposes President Donald Trump, Yang credits the president for tapping into the economic insecurity that ripples through the country. Yang's worldview can be described as dystopian, one in which the country is past the point of no return on issues like climate change and automation. This darker view calls for dealing with the issues existing in this dystopia rather than offering policies in hope of averting them.Yang has cultivated a rabid online fan base and his events are flooded with supporters clad in "MATH" hats and signs (standing for "Make America Think Harder.") He cracks jokes both to his online following through his ever-frequent tweeting and at his events. This is a candidate who went viral this week for crowdsurfing, and last month for doing the Cupid Shuffle."I think things like Andrew Yang not wearing a tie to the debate had some people start noticing him. I think when he talks like a real person, he gets people to notice him," Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist, told NBC News. "Especially when he's on the stage with nine other politicians and he talks in real people terms, I think that resonates with folks."Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.For Yang, the question now isn't how he can keep the likes of O'Rourke and Booker at bay. It's how he can undertake the much more monumental task of breaking into the seemingly unmovable upper-ranks of the primary race. And if he's willing to adapt or make changes needed to do so.Katz said to keep progressing in the field, where he currently trails Buttigieg and Harris by a handful of percentage points, Yang "needs to keep creating moments that separate him from the field.""Andrew Yang's challenge is to do things that make him seem reasonable without seeming like a politician," she said. "And that's how he gets noticed."Steve Marchand, a senior adviser to the Yang campaign, said he's seen Yang grow into his candidacy as the primary contest has dragged along. Every day is a lesson for someone who has never run for public office before, Marchand added, pointing to Yang's improvement from the June debate to his July effort, which the campaign credits with a boost in enthusiasm and support. As Yang told NBC News, "I've learned a lot" on the trail."I’ve found that the more I lean into what makes me human, the more people respond," he said. "This campaign has been on some level an exploration of my own humanity."As one New Hampshire supporter, Sam Hayden, told NBC News last month, seeing how Yang "interacts with crowds and how genuine he seems to be as an individual has absolutely motivated me to come out and support as much as I can."Marchand said that observers can expect to see the campaign mature more in the months ahead. Though Yang gained notice for posting dozens upon dozens of obscure policies on his website in the early stages of his campaign, his most recent policy roll-out⁠ was more traditional. Last month, Yang presented his climate plan in front of a picturesque, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, background with media and supporters present."It was the first time that we had rolled out a plan on a policy point like that," Marchand said, adding, "What you're going to find in the weeks to come is that we're going to be consolidating some of these ideas, some of these policies that are thematically similar: economics, health care, education, climate, and so forth, foreign policy, and consolidating them and expanding upon them so as to make them more thematically pure.""So, that will look different, but it'll be deeper, and will probably be more cohesive in terms of how all these policies fits together," he continued.Yang and his followers frequently lament the lack of media attention his candidacy has received with the candidate often highlighting cable news packages involving the Democratic primary field that exclude him.But with more media attention comes a higher level of scrutiny — both of his ideas and his business background. As a curiosity candidate, Yang "didn't face much scrutiny," Katz said. But, she said, that's about to change."He could just kind of skate around on the edges," she said. "But now, he's making it onto the big debate stage. He's making it over many more qualified elected officials. And now it's his time to answer some of the hard questions."With regard to Yang's career before politics, reports have highlighted how the nonprofit Yang founded and led for much of the past decade has fallen short of its goals. Within the past month, Yang also faced scrutiny over paid speeches he made while a presidential candidate.Yang's plan to provide a universal basic income, which he would pay for by creating what amounts to a tax on the gains of automation, has received a healthy dose of skepticism. And the environmental group Greenpeace gave his climate change platform, which includes a section titled "Move to Higher Ground," the lowest score of the 13 candidates it graded."They just need to flesh out his issues more," Katz said. "I think, from what I can tell, his position on climate is terrible. We're all going to die, so let's move to higher land. I think some of these ideas that might have gotten a laugh, or gotten folks a little bit intrigued, will now get some tougher pushback."Yang says he's prepared for pushback."I ran a nonprofit for seven years that helped create thousands of jobs and had to file its numbers every year," he said. "I live a pretty boring life. I would be thrilled for more attention to be paid to my ideas because people would see how positive an impact they would have on our day-to-day lives. That is the point of this campaign."His supporters are even more sure."He can take it," Jay Delarosa, 22, a student from New York City, told NBC News. "Bring it on. We would love it. He is bulletproof. You can’t stump the guy."Yang's appearance in Thursday's third debate is his best opportunity yet to break through as for the first time, he shares a stage with each of the candidates he is trying to chase down. Yang called it "a great opportunity to give more Americans a sense of my campaign and how we can improve our own lives.""It’s also a great chance to convey a sense of how I compare to the top contenders since we will all be on stage," he added. "I think that my vision for the country compares favorably to that of other candidates."