Gaming data usage on Verizon networks has skyrocketed since last week, when many began adopting isolation measures. An increase of 75 percent from March 8-15 suggests that gaming has been a popular way to whittle away the hours for many. Virtual private network (VPN) usage increased by 34 percent, while web traffic rose 20 percent and video bandwidth usage went up 12 percent. Social media figures surprisingly remained the same....

The research involved 48,026 people aged between 40 and 64 who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2016. Participants answered questions about their current and past body mass index (BMI) and weight, and whether and how they had tried to lose weight. Researchers also performed physical examinations on the volunteers. The nationally representative findings were published in the journal JAMA Network Open....

In any normally functioning political system, the mastermind of such a debacle would be compelled to answer some very uncomfortable questions. In the Russian Federation that Vladimir Putin has spent the last twenty-two years shaping, however, the head of state may yet succeed in evading even that minor punishment. Or he might be overthrown by a cabal of generals intent on stopping the carnage before Russia literally runs out of manpower....

During the game, the couple held up signs which read “Free Hong Kong” and “Free HK” in reference to the ongoing protests in the Chinese city. Sam Wachs, the man holding the sign, told WCAU that he lived in Hong Kong for two years and supports the current protests going on in China. The protests in Hong Kong began in June and were sparked by the proposal of an extradition law....

Locke, a 22-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by officers executing a “no-knock” warrant inside a Minneapolis apartment early Wednesday. “He was at a sleepover at his cousin’s place,” his mother, Karen Wells, told WFAA. Body camera footage released by police on Thursday shows an officer using a key to unlock the door of a downtown apartment and enter without knocking. “Police, search warrant!” officers are heard shooting before one kicks a sectional sofa....

Several Democratic senators, including Vermont’s Patrick Leahy and Virginia’s Tim Kaine, say Barrett—or any nominee expedited through the Senate before November 3— cannot possibly be viewed as impartial in potential legal challenges over the election. Law ethics groups say U.S. Circuit Court Judge Barrett, who Trump nominated Saturday evening, must recuse herself in order to “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties” of being on the Supreme Court....

“They say that hydroxychloroquine can lead to hallucinations,” Klobuchar posted on Twitter May 20, in response to a seemingly random tweet from the president about the Democratic primary several weeks after it had already ended with former Vice President Joe Biden as the presumptive nominee. But Klobuchar’s husband, John Bessler, is among patients who were prescribed hydroxychloroquine to treat severe symptoms after contracting COVID-19, she said in an April 7 interview with SiriusXM’s Michael Smerconish that’s received relatively little mainstream attention....

The McGrath is fighting a long-shot campaign against McConnell, who’s represented Kentucky in the Senate since 1985. The state hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide federal office since 1992. McGrath and McConnell had a debate on October 12 but no further debates are planned or expected. The Democrat, who is a veteran and retired marine combat pilot, took to Twitter on Wednesday to criticize McConnell. “Mitch refuses to answer to Kentuckians....

Steinfeld moved to Israel in 1948 after surviving roundups and massacres during the Holocaust. She was among 10 women, all in their 80s and 90s, who took part in the pageant in Jerusalem. “I have no words to express my happiness,” Steinfeld said after winning. She also said that she hoped “to lead the people of Israel to beauty and goodness.” According to AP, the participants “were treated by professional makeup artists, hairdressers and stylists throughout the day before the evening competition....

But keep reading: a burgeoning green revolution is already helping Africans adapt, enriching barren soil, training farmers and providing them with hardy hybrid seeds, and working with the private sector to help farmers enter the marketplace. And these programs are more effective and cheaper than previous efforts. Ethiopia has doubled its grain-food production in the last 12 years and may double it again. Last year Malawi, whose neighbors suffered food shortages, harvested twice the maize of the previous year....

Benitez is a representative victim of what many public-health experts believe will be the next great lifestyle-disease epidemic to afflict the United States: diabetes. (Technically, type-2 diabetes, which accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all cases.) At five feet one and 140 pounds, Benitez is overweight; 85 percent of all diabetes sufferers are overweight or obese. She was born and reared in Mexico; Hispanics and blacks are more likely to contract diabetes than Caucasians....

There will be plenty of opportunity to ponder the enigmatic Evans this spring, starting on Feb. 1, when the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art opens an enormous–and enormously illuminating–exhibit of 175 prints, the first retrospective drawn from Evans’s own archive. (This show will later move to San Francisco and Houston.) A concurrent exhibit at the Met showcases 50 photographs of African masks and sculpture that Evans made in the ’30s for the Museum of Modern Art....

His personal blog which spans from August 2002 to June 2007 covered a wide breadth of topics, including the military and politics. In a post from last February Olmsted writes he was, “blogging in violation of a Department of Defense directive that restricts how much political activity soldiers may be involved with.” He began writing for the Rocky Mountain News in May. Maj. Olmsted was killed along with another American officer named Capt....

There are a lot of reasons this not only makes sense, but could actually happen – or so I have deliriously persuaded myself in the aftermath of that New Hampshire debate. Foremost among them is the stepped-up rate of the campaign due to what is called front loading. This has to do with the way the primary and caucus dates have been bunched together and made so unusually early for this election....

The drivers are still making $700 to $1,000 a week. But to get these tax-free checks they have only to prove that their company had accounts near the World Trade Center and that they lost income as a result of the September 11 attacks. How much they’ve lost is not an issue. “Our guidelines,” says Cheryl Clark, a volunteer from Reno, Nev., “are that we don’t inquire into someone’s financial background… We don’t want to make it too hard....

Veteran director Lisa Smith sat in the front bench of the darkened control room. She signaled to her technical director, Ellen Welch, to open the show’s animation before counting down, directing the lights to be raised and the camera to begin its slow push in. “Have a good show, everyone,” Smith said, just as she has done before the start of every show of her career. Everything was the same, and yet it wasn’t — and now won’t be for a while....

The Comparison When former GOP congressman Bob Barr launched a Libertarian bid for the White House last week, politicos recalled another intervention by a third-party candidate with spoiler potential. In 2000, Ralph Nader seemed to nick enough Democratic votes to harm Al Gore’s campaign. Could Barr do the same to Republican John McCain? Why It Works Nader’s consumer-rights work and progressive platform attracted voters who saw Vice President Gore as a status quo Washington insider....

Niklas Sule and Corentin Tolisso struck in the first 19 minutes on their Bayern Bundesliga debuts to get the champions off to a flying start at the Allianz Arena. But while Robert Lewandowski added a third from the penalty spot, Admir Mehmedi thumped in a consolation as Bayern let slip control of the match in a scrappy second half played in incredibly wet conditions in Munich. “It was a tough game,” Ancelotti said after his side’s victory....

Kamil O. Kuraszkiewicz, an Egyptologist from the University of Warsaw, Poland, has been leading an excavation at the Pyramid of Djoser, which was built between 2667 and 2648 B.C., during the rule of the third dynasty pharaoh Djoser. In recent years, archaeologists have found a series of carved tombs that are hundreds of years younger than the connecting tunnels and pyramid itself. At the end of one horizontal corridor there was a room that appears to date to when the pyramid was first built....

Researchers from the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Spain, as part of a team of Chinese, Spanish, and French scientists, have just published the study on what is possibly the oldest known human fossil in the country. The researchers used X-ray micro-computed tomography techniques, geometric morphometry, and classical morphology to investigate the remains of the upper jaw and five skull teeth from the Chinese site of Gongwangling....