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Columbia Won’t Participate in the Next U.S. News Rankings

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Columbia University will not participate in the next U.S. News & World Report rankings of colleges across the country, after a Columbia math professor questioned the accuracy of the data that secured its No. 2 spot in the influential rankings, the university announced on Thursday night.

The deadline to submit data for the rankings is Friday, and a university spokesman said officials needed more time to analyze the data and address the criticisms raised by the professor, Michael Thaddeus.

In a 21-page stinging critique Dr. Thaddeus posted on his website in February, he not only challenged the data behind the rating but added fuel to the debate over whether college rankings — used by millions of prospective college students and their parents — are valuable or even accurate.

“Columbia leaders take these questions seriously, and we immediately embarked on a review of our data collection and submissions process,” Columbia’s provost, Mary C. Boyce, said in the announcement.

At the time, Columbia stood by its data, but Dr. Boyce said the university was “now closely reviewing our processes in light of the questions raised.”

“The ongoing review is a matter of integrity,” she continued. “We will take no shortcuts in getting it right.”

A spokesman for Columbia, Ben Chang, said he did not want to speculate about when Columbia would again participate in the rankings.

For an Ivy League school like Columbia to withdraw from the rankings, even temporarily, is a blow to their reputation and could spur other universities to reconsider their participation as well. Many college presidents complain that the rankings force them to emphasize statistics that oversimplify what it takes to find a good match between a student and a school.

Dr. Thaddeus said on Thursday night that the move raised a host of questions that Columbia had not yet answered.

“Is the university expressing its disapproval of the U.S. News rankings themselves?” he wrote in an email. “Will it withdraw in future years as well? Why can’t the work be completed? What was it about the questions I raised that, apparently, derailed the process?”

The university had not made “any substantive responses to the concrete issues I brought up,” he added.

In Dr. Thaddeus’s critique, he cited evidence he gathered that suggested Columbia had made its undergraduate classes look smaller, its instruction spending look greater and its professors look more highly educated.

The next edition of the rankings is scheduled to come out in September, officials said. To help prospective students navigate without it, Dr. Boyce said Columbia planned in the fall to publish a Common Data Set, a loosely standardized set of statistics used by higher educational institutions. She said it would include much of the same information that is included in the U.S. News profiles.

Dr. Thaddeus said he understood that Columbia had prepared such data sets in the past for its own internal use but did not make them public.

“The point is that they have documents that would shed light on their past submissions to U.S. News — and might even reveal whether their misrepresentations were intentional or unintentional — but they refuse to make them public, even after an overwhelming majority of the faculty who voted asked them to do so,” he said.

Mr. Chang, the spokesman, declined to comment on Dr. Thaddeus’s remarks about the Common Data Set but noted Columbia’s pledge to publish a data set this fall. “The university has long conducted what it believed to be a thorough process,” he said. “Our goal is maximum accuracy and transparency.”

Critics have said that the U.S. News formula tends to reward schools based on wealth and reputation.

In his analysis, Dr. Thaddeus, who specializes in algebraic geometry, found that key supporting data submitted by Columbia was “inaccurate, dubious or highly misleading.”

This year, Columbia rose one spot in the rankings to No. 2; the university was surpassed only by Princeton and tied with Harvard and M.I.T.

Dr. Thaddeus noted that Columbia was ranked 18th in 1988, a rise that he suggested was remarkable. “Why have Columbia’s fortunes improved so dramatically?” he asked in his analysis.

Columbia is not the first university to have its rankings data questioned.

This year the University of Southern California pulled its education school out of the U.S. News rankings because of inaccuracies in data that went back five years. And a former dean of Temple University’s business school was found guilty last year of using fraudulent data between 2014 and 2018 to improve the school’s national rankings and increase revenue. The school’s online M.B.A. program was ranked best in the country by U.S. News & World Report in the years that he falsified data.

Over the years, other schools like Iona College, Claremont McKenna College and Emory University have been found to have falsified or manipulated data.

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Filed Under: US

US shoppers cut back as rising prices hit growth | Business

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American consumer spending rose less than expected in May as motor vehicles remained scarce while higher prices forced cutbacks on purchases of other goods, in a sign that the rebound in economic growth early in the second quarter was losing steam.

The core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, which the Federal Reserve’s policymakers monitor closely, rose at an annual pace of 4.7 per cent on the year.

This index, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, has been rising on a monthly basis by 0.3 per cent since February.

While its annual reading is more than double the Fed’s target of 2 per cent, it marks a deceleration from 4.9 per cent in April and a peak of 5.3 per cent in February.

Wall

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Real estate transactions are FinCEN targets: far-reaching impact of two proposed rules

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It is likely that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will put forth new regulations this year addressing real estate transactions. A look at the proposals in its recent advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) – which bolster the anti-money laundering (AML) regulations in real estate transactions (Real Estate ANPRM) and the separate Notice of Proposed Rule Making (Beneficial Ownership NPRM)[1] – is a reminder of this Administration’s commitment to the fight against corruption and illicit finance in the US real estate market, as well as other key industries.

In this article, we highlight some of the factors that could shape any final rule and discuss what these rules could mean for real estate market participants.[2]

THE REAL ESTATE ANPRM

The existing real estate framework

The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (BSA) and its amending legislation[3] require financial institutions to establish and implement AML/CFT programs to detect and report suspicious transactions to combat money laundering, terrorism financing, and other illicit financing. This current framework covers about 80 percent of US real estate transactions: specifically financed residential and commercial transactions[4] and all-cash residential real-estate transactions over $300,000 in certain US cities.[5] FinCEN seeks to expand the requirements to the remaining 20 percent of real estate transactions currently exempt from reporting requirements.

The proposed rules may extend to virtually all real estate transactions

FinCEN seeks to ensure consistent reporting nationwide and curb illicit financial activities involving non-financed real estate transactions. The proposed rule would extend the BSA’s reporting requirements to virtually all real estate transactions due to its broad definition of “non financed” transaction[6] and nation-wide coverage.[7] If the rules are adopted, any non-financed real estate transactions, regardless of geographic location or value, would be covered under the BSA’s reporting requirements.

Comments submitted by the US office of Transparency International (TI-US) propose that FinCEN extend the rules even further.[8] Specifically, TI-US recommends eliminating dollar thresholds, including commercial real estate transactions, covering trusts, and expanding the information collected to include the source of the funds, among other additions.[9]

Conversely, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) suggests limited AML reporting requirements that would cover only non-financed residential real estate transactions and for which title insurance companies should be exclusively responsible.[10] NAR strongly opposes FinCEN’s alternative proposal to mandate full AML/CFT program requirements, which it views as overly burdensome, given that most of NAR’s members are independent contractors or small businesses.

The proposed rules could expand reporting to all service providers

To combat illicit real estate transactions, the proposed rules would also broaden the categories of service providers subject to recordkeeping and reporting requirements for non-financed real estate transactions. This could cover real estate brokers, attorneys, title insurance companies, appraisers, inspectors, shell companies, trusts, and natural persons.

The proposed rules would also broaden the categories of service providers subject to its recordkeeping and reporting requirements, potentially affecting real estate brokers, attorneys, title insurance companies, appraisers, inspectors, shell companies, trusts, and natural persons.

Comments submitted by the American Bar Association (ABA) strongly oppose any rules that would require lawyers who represent a client in these transactions to disclose the identity and beneficial ownership of their clients or to report information about their clients’ transactions.[11] The ABA highlights the importance of preserving lawyer-client confidentiality and objects to regulating lawyers as financial institutions.

Conversely, the American Land Title Association (ALTA) notes that FinCEN should place reporting obligations on the party most likely to possess or collect the data or be in the most direct contractual relationship with the customer, such as title agents or attorneys.[12]

Separately, comments submitted by the Financial and International Business Association (FIBA) urge FinCEN to codify any new rules with clear definitions, limitations, qualifications and exemptions, to permit compliance departments to understand effectively and efficiently whether a transaction is subject to FinCEN reporting requirements.[13]

THE BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP NPRM

The proposed rules laid out in the Beneficial Ownership NPRM are designed to implement several key disclosure requirements of the CTA and to prevent anonymous shell companies from helping to transfer illicit money in the US.[14]

Entities subject to Beneficial Ownership reporting requirements

The Beneficial Ownership NPRM identifies two types of reporting companies: domestic companies and foreign companies registered to do business in the US.

The NPRM proposes exempting 23 categories of entities from the new reporting requirements, largely because they are already subject to similar existing requirements.[15] Exemption from reporting will extend to all subsidiaries wholly owned by a parent company subject to an exemption – but, conversely, will not extend to entities whose ownership interests include even a minority interest held by an entity required to report. Comments from interested stakeholders, such as the Private Investor Coalition, urged FinCEN to also exempt single-family offices from the new reporting requirements, due to privacy and national security risks.

These new proposed reporting requirements are particularly significant to real estate market participants because they apply primarily to large market participants, leaving non-exempt market participants subject to the new reporting and recordkeeping requirements. The final rule could impose a significant burden on non-exempt real estate market participants, such as independent contractors, small businesses and sole proprietors that may not have the means to implement these new requirements.

Beneficial Ownership information to report

The Beneficial Ownership NPRM would require the “company applicant” of non-exempt companies to file a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) report with FinCEN, which must identify and certify each beneficial owner and the “company applicant.”

Beneficial owners include all individuals who either exercise substantial control over the entity or who own or control at least 25 percent of the ownership interest of the entity.[16] A company applicant is the individual who files the document that forms the entity for a domestic entity or who files the document that first registers the entity to do business in the US for a foreign entity.

The US Small Business Administration expressed concerns about the economic burden that these new reporting requirements would create on small businesses and encouraged FinCEN to review this timeline for compliance and to grant non-exempt entities up to two years to comply.

At the close of the comment period earlier this year, more than 240 comments had piled up from stakeholders seeking clarity or expressing concern regarding burdens imposed by the rules. While FinCEN said it would consider requests, it noted that subsequent proposals will address many of the concerns raised in comments. FinCEN has not disclosed the timing surrounding the issuance of the final rule.

The NPRM comes after longstanding international criticism that the US lacks appropriate measures to ensure corporate transparency. While it will help combat corruption and strengthen the AML framework, the rule will likely impose new reporting burdens on companies who were not previously subject to AML disclosures.

Key takeaways

  • Real estate market participants should expect greater FinCEN scrutiny and potentially significant new burdens imposed on those currently exempt from reporting obligations.
  • A broader range of real estate service providers may soon be subject to AML/CFT requirements and have to report about virtually every real estate transaction to participate in the US real estate market.
  • Expanded recordkeeping and disclosure requirements may necessitate an evaluation of internal resources to ensure compliance.

As the proposed rules evolve, market participants should consider their ability to respond and comply.

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A 30,000-Foot View of the Abortion Ruling’s Political Fallout

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The Supreme Court’s ruling last week overturning Roe v. Wade has roiled the country and shifted the main struggle over abortion rights from the courtroom to the political arena.

To get a broader understanding of what’s going on, I spoke with Kate Zernike, a national correspondent for The New York Times who focuses on the debate over abortion. Her new book, “The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, M.I.T. and the Fight for Women in Science,” will be published by Scribner in February.

Here’s our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length:

This abortion ruling by the Supreme Court was long expected after Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation in the fall of 2020 cemented the conservatives’ majority. Has anything surprised you, though?

As much as I knew this decision would be earth-shattering, especially for abortion rights supporters, I was still struck by how much it rocked them, by how widespread and sustained the anger has been over the last week.

Not because I didn’t think people cared about abortion rights. But I’ve been watching this issue for a long time, and it’s always been true that the anti-abortion side has been much more motivated and passionate than the abortion rights side.

I think about something a provider in Missouri said to me: People think about abortion when they’re asked about it and when they need one. They weren’t necessarily going to vote on the issue, or fight to keep the right to an abortion. It now looks like there may be more of a fight than I expected.

In November, a senior official in President Biden’s administration confessed a fear to me. This person was worried almost as much about the possibility of violence from a radicalized left as from a radicalized right. From your reporting, what sorts of trends and dynamics do people in positions of authority worry about?

I saw most of the concern about violence coming from Republicans. Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia warned about it, especially threats to the justices, and Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa demanded that the F.B.I. and Attorney General Merrick Garland investigate threats of riots and violence.

In fact, reports of violence have been very isolated. Among Democrats and leaders of abortion rights groups, the debate is about how to best talk about abortion.

Younger leaders in particular are upset about what they see as too much compromising from Democrats on abortion. They want to talk about an absolute, inviolable right to abortion: You have to trust women to make their own decisions, they say, and any infringement takes away from women’s autonomy and equal rights.

Commentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s decision to end ​​the constitutional right to abortion.

But the anti-abortion side has skillfully played that to accuse Democrats of wanting “abortion on demand” — anytime, in any circumstance, right up until birth.

There’s little evidence that women are so blasé about abortion, or that abortions frequently happen late in pregnancy. Most abortions happen in the first trimester. But it’s an effective slogan, and it goes against what polls show Americans want, which is for abortion to be available, with some restrictions.

Many on the left, including some Democratic attorneys general, are showing a growing willingness to reject the court’s legitimacy across a range of issues, including abortion. How widespread do you think such sentiments are in the top ranks of the Democratic Party, and where might this all be heading?

I know there are people saying, Expand the court. But I’ve heard very little of this from abortion rights groups in the days since the court’s decision. Some of them were maybe hoping that the court would not overturn Roe entirely, and would stick to Chief Justice John Roberts’s position of upholding only Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.

But these groups pivoted very quickly to a new strategy of fighting abortion laws based on state constitutions, and campaigning for or against ballot initiatives in Michigan, in Kansas and elsewhere that would enshrine or strip away state constitutional protections for abortion. The groups are focused on what they can do immediately to make sure that women can still get abortions.

One major bit of fallout from the ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is the cascade of so-called trigger laws that have snapped into place in several states, including Missouri. What should we know about the battles over those laws?

Starting over the weekend after the Dobbs decision, we saw a series of lawsuits challenging abortion bans in state courts, saying the bans violated state constitutions. That’s the first line of defense, and it’s had at least temporary success in places like Florida and Louisiana.

Abortion rights groups feel confident that many state constitutions offer even more protection for abortion than the federal Constitution does, which was the backstop during the half-century that Roe was in place.

That’s not true in all states. In Louisiana, for example, the state’s Constitution says there is no right to an abortion. So the lawsuit against the trigger ban there is about buying time, to keep clinics open as long as possible.

There’s been a lot of debate over how the abortion issue might affect the midterm elections, and I wonder if some of the reporting and commentary has underestimated the angry response we are seeing now from abortion-rights supporters. What is your sense of how that anger is being channeled toward productive political ends, from the perspective of Democrats?

How this affects the midterms is the most critical political question. I go back to what that provider in Missouri said to me and wonder, Will people think about this issue now?

As I reported last weekend, in the late Roe era, the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America polled women about what it would take for them to come out to support Roe, and they always said, “If it were overturned.”

We’re now at that moment. Polls show that the majority of Americans, and women in particular, disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision.

Are they upset enough to do anything about it? In addition to the lawsuits and the ballot initiatives that I mentioned, there are Democratic-aligned groups like Vote Pro Choice and the States Project that are saying, Democrats have failed to recognize that state and local elections matter, because they’ve been too focused on Congress and the White House.

These groups are trying to flip state legislatures the way that Republicans did in 2010, and elect judges and commissioners who will have a role in determining whether these state bans are upheld in court and then enforced. In many cases, winning the legislature is an uphill climb, but in states like Michigan the groups are confident that they can take power by flipping just a few seats.

Thanks for reading.

— Blake

Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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The secret to good health later in life? Researchers think it could be banking your poop now

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A group of researchers has some counterintuitive advice: Saving your poop now could save your life someday.

In an opinion paper published Thursday in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine, the researchers make the case for autologous fecal microbiota transplantation, or FMT — using your own poop to restore your health later in life. 

They theorized that the secret to being healthy in the future could be the complex ecosystem living inside the human body now. 

“Considering the massive (and possibly permanent) loss of our microbial diversity due to industrial advances, the creation of a global ‘microbial Noah’s ark’ is warranted to protect the long-term health of humanity,” the researchers wrote. 

“However, considering the highly personalized gut microbial compositions and the donor–recipient compatibility issue, creating a personal microbial Noah’s ark using stool banks for future personal use might also be a worthwhile option,” they continued.

Heterologous FMT is when the feces from a healthy donor is transplanted into another person to restore the gut microbiome and boost health. For now, FMT is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but the agency permits its use when a patient with Clostridioides difficile — one of the most common hospital-acquired infections — is not responsive to standard antibiotic therapy. 

The gastrointestinal tract is home to around 100 trillion microorganisms — bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. Collectively they are the gut microbiome. Mounting evidence shows that the gut microbiome plays an important role in health and disease, capable of influencing both physical and mental states.

When a stool sample is transferred, it brings with it all these microorganisms. The hope is that the traveling microbiota will repopulate in their new home, bringing balance and health. For example, the cure rate of Clostridioides difficile with heterologous FMT is up to 90 percent. 

While a considerable amount of research is still needed to determine exactly how autologous FMT could help people, the paper’s authors say it could potentially be useful in combating inflammatory bowel disease, obesity and unhealthy aging, and in rebuilding a patient’s gut microbiome after chemotherapy and heavy use of antibiotics. 

Christine Kee Liu, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University who was not involved in the paper, said she thinks a future with autologous FMT is possible and likened it to storage practices already in place, like egg freezing and cord blood banking. 

“I think there are significant hurdles, both logical and scientific,” Liu said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a viable treatment in the next couple of decades. Science and medicine have achieved ‘the impossible’ before — look at the Covid-19 vaccines.” 

In practice, it would look something like this: When a person is young and healthy, likely between the ages of 18 and 35, their stool would be collected and stored to be used later in life. After the stool is processed and stored, it can be delivered in several ways: ingested in capsules, rectally by enema or given during colonoscopy. 

It’s possible that autologous FMT can act as a treatment for certain conditions, like Clostridioides difficile, and as preventative medicine. 

“For example, in the case of aging, we expect that autologous FMT may be a more powerful therapeutic approach to promote healthy aging of the host than heterologous FMT,” the paper’s senior author, Yang-Yu Liu, said. Liu (no relation to Christine Kee Liu) is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

Just like biodiversity helps a rainforest thrive, a gut is healthier when it is home to a diverse array of microbiota. In a 2022 study, patients with less biodiversity in their gut were more likely to experience heart failure. Although guts undergo accelerated changes when a person reaches late adulthood, older people with more diverse guts tend to be healthier and live longer. 

Over the past decade, research on the gut has grown, with many scientists hopeful that a better understanding of its complex relationship to the brain and the body will revolutionize how many illnesses are treated. The FDA is especially interested in developing microbiome-based products to prevent, treat and cure diseases. For example, the FDA may soon fully approve a microbiome drug for treating Clostridioides difficile infections that’s an alternative to FMT. It may be available by the first half of 2023. 

In addition, some research links Westernization and urbanization to an overall loss of microbial diversity, claiming elements like high-fat diets and wide use of antibiotics influence the gut in a way that drives disease. Other studies support this idea, finding that people living in urban areas have less diverse guts than people living in remote traditional communities. 

Autologous FMT could also circumnavigate more general donor-recipient compatibility issues, while widening the eligibility group. 

At OpenBiome, a nonprofit organization and the first public stool bank to open in the United States, the pass rate for the screening process for donors is just 3%. This conservative approach is to ensure nothing unwanted is passed along with the stool, but it does mean fewer samples overall. Donating when a person is young and healthy and then using their own stool might be the solution, Yang-Yu Liu and colleagues wrote. 

Still, this therapy is just one potential tool in the toolbox for improving gut health. For some people, good gut health can be maintained through exercise, diet, reducing stress and getting enough sleep. 

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Declining Stock and Decent Financials: Is The Market Wrong About Rayonier Inc. (NYSE:RYN)?

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It is hard to get excited after looking at Rayonier’s (NYSE:RYN) recent performance, when its stock has declined 11% over the past month. However, stock prices are usually driven by a company’s financials over the long term, which in this case look pretty respectable. Specifically, we decided to study Rayonier’s ROE in this article.

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors’ money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder’s equity.

See our latest analysis for Rayonier

How Is ROE Calculated?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders’ Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Rayonier is:

11% = US$226m ÷ US$2.0b (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2022).

The ‘return’ is the yearly profit. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders’ capital it has, the company made $0.11 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we’ve learned that ROE is a measure of a company’s profitability. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or “retains” for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

Rayonier’s Earnings Growth And 11% ROE

To start with, Rayonier’s ROE looks acceptable. Especially when compared to the industry average of 6.5% the company’s ROE looks pretty impressive. Needless to say, we are quite surprised to see that Rayonier’s net income shrunk at a rate of 15% over the past five years. Therefore, there might be some other aspects that could explain this. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

That being said, we compared Rayonier’s performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 11% in the same period.

NYSE:RYN Past Earnings Growth June 30th 2022

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is RYN worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether RYN is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Rayonier Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

Rayonier has a very high three-year median payout ratio of 52%, implying that it retains only 48% of its profits. However, it’s not unusual to see a REIT with such a high payout ratio mainly due to statutory requirements. So this probably explains the company’s shrinking earnings.

Additionally, Rayonier has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company’s management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Looking at the current analyst consensus data, we can see that the company’s future payout ratio is expected to rise to 166% over the next three years. Consequently, the higher expected payout ratio explains the decline in the company’s expected ROE (to 5.4%) over the same period.

Conclusion

In total, it does look like Rayonier has some positive aspects to its business. Although, we are disappointed to see a lack of growth in earnings even in spite of a high ROE. Bear in mind, the company reinvests a small portion of its profits, which means that investors aren’t reaping the benefits of the high rate of return. Additionally, the latest industry analyst forecasts show that analysts expect the company’s earnings to continue to shrink in the future. To know more about the company’s future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Is Hong Kong still a financial hub after 25 years of Chinese rule?

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Lawyer Michael Vidler arrived in Hong Kong in 1992 and stayed on because he caught the travel bug. Since Hong Kong follows British common law, he was able to practice criminal law there without retraining.

Vidler said the display of wealth in Hong Kong back then was extraordinary.

“You would see street cleaners with pagers, if not slightly large mobile phones, which was inconceivable,” Vidler said. “It was something that I had not experienced [coming] from London.”

As the territory marks 25 years since the United Kingdom transferred control to China on Friday, people are having conversations about who will leave the financial hub next.

The handover

Hong Kong has been the go-between for the outside world and mainland China, which was still pretty closed off in the 1980s and ’90s. People who were in Hong Kong then described it as exciting, vibrant, a trendsetter. Local pop star Anita Mui was referred to as the Madonna of the East.

Many doubted that Hong Kong’s openness would remain intact once it returned to Chinese rule. In the years leading up to the handover in 1997, Chinese media estimated that 600,000 people emigrated from Hong Kong, including some of my relatives.

On June 30, 1997, when Britain’s national anthem played for the last time in Hong Kong, American businessman Benjamin Schwall was among those at the handover ceremony. He was not sad to see British rule end. Instead, Schwall and his business friends got matching dragon tattoos to celebrate the transition.

Benjamin Schwall, an American, hiking in Dongguan, China, where he has an office. (Courtesy Schwall)

“We were young. We spoke Chinese. We had a client base that was growing. We were comfortable in China and in Hong Kong,” he said. “The handover, to us, was symbolic of the China Century, and Hong Kong was the epicenter of it.”

After China’s flag was raised, Schwall said his lighting business spanning Taiwan, mainland China and the U.S. continued as usual. Hong Kong remained his transport, banking and social hub in Asia.

“We had almost two decades of real success, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without Hong Kong,” Schwall said. “But then it began to fade a little bit.”

Part of the reason for his success was mainland China becoming more open. Schwall now has an office in southern Dongguan city and can export directly from nearby ports.

At the same time, Hong Kong is becoming more closed.

2019 protests

During the anti-government protests in 2019, big businesses like the Cathay Pacific airline received heavy criticism from the Hong Kong government and pro-Beijing media when some employees showed sympathy toward protesters.

“That was, in my case, one of the turning points — because it is not business as usual,” said a partner in a U.S. law firm who recently relocated his family to America. He doesn’t want his name published for fear that his firm could lose mainland Chinese clients.

Then, Beijing pushed through a national security law in mid-2020 that targeted dissenters in Hong Kong. Hong Kong officials said it restored stability to the financial center.

“From that moment, there was a realization for me, certainly, that my time in Hong Kong was numbered,” said Vidler, the lawyer from London.

Over the last three decades, he has taken on some of the highest-profile human rights cases in Hong Kong, including ones that involved transgender rights and the recognition of same-sex marriages from abroad — which he argued also helps companies attract a wider pool of overseas talent.

Then, in April of this year, Vidler’s name appeared in Beijing-friendly newspapers, which alleged that he is a lawyer for protesters and anti-China groups. He denies the accusations. The papers used the fact that Vidler’s firm was listed as the company secretary for the U.S. National Democratic Institute to suggest he was backed by Americans. Subsequent Chinese articles said NDI had links to the Central Intelligence Agency. Vidler said his office merely provided a local address for official correspondence. 

The new business district in Dongguan. As mainland China opened up, Ben Schwall had less reason to go through Hong Kong to reach the Chinese market. (Courtesy Benjamin Schwall)

“I saw that I was going to be the focus of investigation or arrest for doing nothing more than my job, which is to be a public-interest lawyer,” Vidler said.

Within 48 hours of those news articles coming out, he left Hong Kong for good.

On top of the political situation, Hong Kong has for the past two years enacted very tough pandemic restrictions that are similar to mainland China’s — including isolating infected children from parents who do not have COVID.

Inbound travelers are still required to be in hotel quarantine for seven days, which has been reduced from the previous 21 or 14 days, but is still far longer than other financial hubs that are removing COVID restrictions.

Between June 2020 and June 2021, nearly 90,000 of the 7 million residents left Hong Kong, according to official statistics. It’s not clear how many of them were emigrating. 

The outflow may have much to do with travel restrictions to contain the pandemic, according to Rocky Tung, director and head of policy research at the Financial Services Development Council, a government advisory body. It worries him.

“Business travels and the success of Hong Kong as an international financial center has always been highly correlated,” he said.

Michael Vidler at the Hong Kong airport in April 2022 surrounded by reporters, some from pro-Beijing media, grilling him about why he's leaving Hong Kong in such a hurry. (Courtesy Michael Vidler)Michael Vidler at the Hong Kong airport in April surrounded by reporters, some from pro-Beijing media. They questioned him about his departure from the city. (Courtesy Vidler)

Tung said he knows businesses that relocated senior executives to places like Singapore, but he thinks it may be temporary.

He said Hong Kong is still an attractive financial hub, especially for U.S. firms focused on the Chinese market. As of 2021, there were 1,267 U.S. firms with regional or local offices in Hong Kong.

British lawyer Michael Vidler relaxing in an undisclosed location in Europe. He is still processing how his life in Hong Kong ended abruptly after 30 years. (Courtesy Michael Vidler)British lawyer Michael Vidler in Europe. He is still processing how his life in Hong Kong ended abruptly after 30 years. (Courtesy Vidler)

Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong has no capital controls. It is an arbitration hub, the internet is still open, it has low taxes and an English-speaking culture. Tung added that Hong Kong is the only market in China that allows investment vehicles such as special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, which can raise money in the public markets and buy or merge with another company. 

The national security law does not affect any of that, according to Tung.

“So long as businesses are not carrying out anything that is disrupting national security, then they will be able to run their business just like the previous 23 or 25 years,” he said.

Hong Kong’s last British governor, Chris Patten, is not convinced. So far, the national security law has mainly targeted activists, Hong Kong politicians like Martin Lee and local media mogul Jimmy Lai.

“Businessmen should understand that ultimately, the law for Martin Lee or for Jimmy Lai is sooner or later the law for them as well,” Patten told reporters this week.

In 1990, China’s de factor leader, Deng Xiaoping, met with Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing and promised him that life in the territory would not change after the handover. “Hong Kong will remain the same for 50 years,” Deng said.

This year is the halfway mark.

For the lawyer who recently relocated his family to the U.S., Hong Kong was a great place for him to kick-start his international career a decade ago.

“I wouldn’t advise any young professional from anywhere in the world with ambition to consider working in Hong Kong,” he said.

Additional research by Charles Zhang.

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Home Price Growth Slows as Inventories Jump, a Sign of Cooling in the Housing Market

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U.S. home prices rose 20.4 percent nationwide in April compared with the same month in 2021, according to the S&P Dow Jones Industrial’s  CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index report on June 28 (pdf).

This, compared with a 20.6 percent rise in March, appears to be a sign of a cooldown in price rises. The last deceleration in prices was in November 2021.

The data released for April 2022 showed that home prices continued to increase across the United States.

“April 2022 showed initial (though inconsistent) signs of a deceleration in the growth rate of U.S. home prices,” said Craig Lazzara, Managing Director at S&P DJI.

“We continue to observe very broad strength in the housing market, as all 20 [metropolitan area] cities notched double-digit price increases for the 12 months ended in April.”

“April’s price increase ranked in the top quintile of historical experience for every city, and in the top decile for 19 of them,” he continued.

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city Composite Home Price Index measures the value of residential real estate in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.

Only nine of the American cities at the end of April reported prices rising faster in contrast to the March report, which saw most of the 20 cities seeing month-to-month price increases for five consecutive months.

Metropolitan areas in the South—such as Charlotte, Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami—saw the strongest monthly gains.

“Tampa (+35.8 percent) was the fastest growing city for the second consecutive month, with Miami (+33.3 percent) and long-time leader Phoenix (+31.3 percent) in second and third positions,” said Lazzara.

The cities with the smallest gains, but still reporting double digits, were Minneapolis, Washington D.C., and Chicago.

The 10-city composite annual increase was 19.7 percent, up from 19.5 percent in March, while the 20-city composite posted a 21.2 percent annual gain, up from 21.1 percent the previous month.

The U.S. National Index posted a month-over-month increase after seasonal adjustment, of 1.5 percent, and the 10-city and 20-city composites both posted increases of 1.8 percent.

All 20 cities listed in the survey reported increases before and after seasonal adjustments were made for April.

“Despite the deceleration of the National Composite and the modest acceleration for the 10- and 20-city composites, these growth rates are extremely strong by historical standards—at or above the 99th percentile in all three cases,” said Lazzara.

As the Federal Reserve begins to aggressively hike interest rates, banks are becoming less willing to issue mortgage assistance to buyers, leading to a cooldown in the market.

“We noted last month that mortgage financing has become more expensive as the Federal Reserve ratchets up interest rates, a process that had only just begun when April data were gathered,” said Lazzara.

A more challenging macroeconomic environment may not support extraordinary home price growth for much longer.”

In April, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage crossed the 5 percent mark after moving up from around 3 percent in January, and by June, it had crossed 6 percent.

The rate hikes, combined with rising home prices, have pushed the average monthly mortgage payment to $1,897 in May—up $513, or 37.1 percent—in the first five months of the year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“The ongoing affordability hit of higher home prices and fast-rising mortgage rates led to a slowdown in purchase applications in May,” said Edward Seiler, Associate Vice President of Housing Economics at the MBA, in a June 23 statement.

“Inflationary pressures and rates above 5 percent are both headwinds for the housing market in the coming months.”

The housing market is already showing signs of cooling, with slower sales and price cuts by some sellers, with sales of existing homes in May dropping 3.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 5.41 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“I do anticipate a further decline in home sales,” said Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors, “the impact of higher mortgage rates are not yet fully reflected in the data.”

Sales figures are reporting the weakest readings since June 2020, during the early months of the pandemic; and the lowest since January 2020, after adjustments.

Meanwhile, the market cooldown has allowed the stock of available inventory for sale to gradually recover from the two-year housing shortage.

“Available inventory of homes on the market skyrocket 6.2 percent again this week. 444,000 single family homes now on the market. More inventory now than any time last year. Still 50-70 percent fewer than normal,” Mike Simonsen Co-founder CEO Altos Research, a real estate data site, wrote on Twitter.

More listings have come on the market, with many properties on it sitting idle for longer, while last week, active inventory was reportedly 21 percent higher than it had been the same week one year ago, according to Realtor.com.

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Bryan S. Jung is a native and resident of New York City with a background in politics and the legal industry. He graduated from Binghamton University.

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Testimony Paints Mark Meadows as Unwilling to Act as Jan. 6 Unfolded

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It was about 2 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. Mark Meadows sat on a couch in his West Wing office, alone, scrolling through his cellphone. Across Washington from the White House, supporters of President Donald J. Trump were approaching the Capitol, protesting the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory.

“Are you watching the TV, chief?” Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Mr. Meadows, the White House chief of staff, recalled asking him. “The rioters are getting really close. Have you talked to the president?”

No, Mr. Meadows replied, his eyes fixed on his phone. Mr. Trump, he went on, “wants to be alone right now.”

Ms. Hutchinson’s account of a chief of staff who was at best disengaged and at worst overwhelmed by the events around him was a key part of her public appearance on Tuesday at a hastily scheduled hearing by the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, and what led to it.

Another aide to Mr. Meadows, Ben Williamson, provided a different assessment, saying in testimony to the House committee that Mr. Meadows was responsive when Mr. Williamson said there was a problem. “Any suggestion he didn’t care is ludicrous,” Mr. Williamson said in a statement on Wednesday.

Lawyers for Ms. Hutchinson said on Wednesday that she stood by her testimony. Yet even without Ms. Hutchinson’s recollections, a number of Mr. Meadows’s former colleagues and people who were interacting with him as the riot unfolded painted a portrait of an ineffective chief of staff as a violent scene developed at the Capitol.

When he hired Mr. Meadows in March 2020, Mr. Trump gleefully told allies that he had found his James A. Baker III, a White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan and the person many successors have tried to emulate as the gold standard for running a West Wing.

Yet within months, as the coronavirus pandemic raged and the economy that Mr. Trump prided himself on cratered, Mr. Meadows became known among many of his colleagues as someone who spoke out of both sides of his mouth. He encouraged Mr. Trump’s disgust with calling for increased mandates for masks, mocked the scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, according to former colleagues, waged petty fights internally with aides he believed were not following his authority.

But instead of playing the role of gatekeeper and bringing order to a chaotic West Wing, Mr. Meadows was often criticized by associates as terrified of Mr. Trump’s temper and eager to please him.

After the election, Mr. Meadows played a key role in encouraging House Republicans to look at ways to subvert Mr. Biden’s victory.

Mr. Meadows called or texted Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, 18 times to arrange a call with Mr. Trump, and he made a trip to the state to look at the inspection of voting machines up close. He was in frequent contact with Trump supporters urging him to fight the outcome, including Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.

Over the course of his tenure, Mr. Meadows helped create a rift between Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, according to a handful of former White House officials, by inserting himself into tasks that the vice president would historically perform.

“I think that Mark would often say to me that he was working to try and get the president to concede and accept the results of the election,” Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s former chief of staff, told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” recently.

“And at the same time, it was clear he was bringing in lots of other people into the White House that were feeding the president different conspiracy theories,” Mr. Short said. “I think that Mark was telling different audiences all sorts of different stories.”

On election night, as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, wanted to encourage the president to declare victory long before all the votes had been counted, Mr. Meadows and three other aides rejected the idea as stupid. But within days, Mr. Meadows began exchanging messages with his former House colleagues.

“I love it,” Mr. Meadows replied to a suggestion from Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, on Nov. 5, 2020, about a plan to push legislatures in key states that Mr. Trump had lost to appoint so-called alternate electors to send to Congress.

Within weeks of that text exchange, Mr. Meadows reassured Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, that, despite his repeated public statements that the election was stolen from him, Mr. Trump would eventually concede the election.

At the same time, Mr. Meadows continued to allow people into the White House who were encouraging Mr. Trump to take actions that could undermine the results of the election. And he forwarded conspiracy theories about the election to senior administration officials to check out.

Yet on Dec. 18, 2020, Mr. Meadows was among the Trump advisers who opposed a band of outside Trump supporters — including Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser — who urged Mr. Trump to authorize the government seizure of voting machines to search for election fraud.

Finally, Mr. Meadows continued to look to Jan. 6, 2021, as the last option for Mr. Trump. Yet as the events of that day unfolded, his colleagues said at the time, Mr. Meadows seemed completely overwhelmed, at times to the point of paralysis. He reached out to Ivanka Trump to come downstairs from her office to try to implore her father to ask the rioters to stop, which she did, but it took hours for her to succeed in getting him to do so.

Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 Hearings

Ms. Hutchinson described Mr. Meadows as aware that the situation that day — as Mr. Trump planned for a rally that he tweeted would be “wild” — could get “bad,” among the most damning pieces of her testimony about her former boss.

She also said Mr. Meadows had sought a pardon for himself at one point, something that a current aide to Mr. Meadows denied.

At another point during her appearance on Capitol Hill, Ms. Hutchinson described a moment that seemed to capture Mr. Meadows’s willingness to give in to Mr. Trump’s wishes. She recalled picking up Mr. Meadows’s ringing phone on Jan. 6 after Mr. Meadows had left his office and gone to see Mr. Trump.

It was Representative Jim Jordan calling, and she brought the phone with her to connect the Ohio Republican to Mr. Meadows, she recounted. He took it, then joined her back at his office with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, and possibly another lawyer, Eric Herschmann.

“I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, Mark, we need to do something more,” she said, noting that the crowd was chanting for Mr. Pence to be hanged.

Mr. Meadows, she said, responded to the effect of, “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it,” referring to Mr. Trump’s feelings about Mr. Pence. “He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

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Bad news for Paxlovid? Coronavirus can find multiple ways to evade COVID-19 drug | Science

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Prescriptions for Pfizer’s blockbuster drug Paxlovid have skyrocketed in recent weeks. That’s good news for many COVID-19 patients, as the pill has been proven to reduce severe disease from SARS-CoV-2 infections. But a bevy of new lab studies shows the coronavirus can mutate in ways that make it less susceptible to the drug, by far the most widely used of the two oral antiviral drugs authorized to treat COVID-19 in the United States. Researchers have found some of those mutations in variants already circulating in infected people, raising fresh concerns that physicians could soon lose one of their best therapies for fighting COVID-19.

Taken together, the studies show that “when you put pressure on the virus it escapes,” says David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University who was among the first to document drug resistance mutations in HIV some 3 decades ago. Ho was not involved with the new studies but is conducting similar work on SARS-CoV-2. Although the newly identified mutations have yet to become widespread, Ho and many other scientists think it’s only a matter of time. “Given the amount of infections out there, it’s going to come,” Ho says.

The resistance studies come on the heels of other recent concerns about Paxlovid, which in the United States remains restricted to use in people with risk factors making them more likely to develop severe COVID-19. Confirming anecdotal reports widely reported by media, several studies have found a small percentage of infected people who receive the normal 5-day course initially feel better, only to have their symptoms rebound. And questions have grown about whether Paxlovid helps those who aren’t at high risk of serious disease—Pfizer earlier this month halted a large trial of the drug in standard risk COVID-19 patients because it was failing to show statistically significant protection against death or hospitalization.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization for Paxlovid in December 2021. The drug consists of nirmatrelvir, the active antiviral, and ritonavir, a compound that slows the breakdown of nirmatrelvir in the body. Because of bottlenecks in manufacturing nirmatrelvir, Paxlovid’s rollout was slow—doctors in the United States issued only 40,000 or fewer prescriptions per week through mid-April. Since then, prescriptions have surged to more than 160,000 per week, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That rise creates selective pressure on the virus, favoring mutations that help it survive in the presence of the drug. And because each infected person makes trillions of copies of SARS-CoV-2, the virus has plenty of opportunities to test out different mutations as it replicates.  

So far, those mutations don’t seem to have interfered with Paxlovid’s effectiveness. Nirmatrelvir prevents SARS-CoV-2’s main protease (MPRO) from cutting a long precursor molecule made by the virus into shorter active proteins, an essential step in SARS-CoV-2’s reproduction. In February, Pfizer researchers reported in JBC Accelerated Communications that nirmatrelvir remained effective in halting the activity of MPRO in multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, Lambda, and Omicron, as well as the original strain.

However, the recent studies suggest the virus is poised to develop resistance—a fate that befalls many antiviral drugs. Two preprints posted on bioRxiv on 7 June, for example, show that SARS-coV-2 grown in the lab quickly gains the ability to avoid nirmatrelvir’s attack. Two research groups independently cultured the coronavirus with low levels of nirmatrelvir, killing some but not all of the virus. Such tests are meant to simulate what might happen in an infected person who doesn’t take the whole regimen of the drug or an immunocompromised patient who has trouble clearing the virus.

One of those studies, led by Dirk Jochmans, a virologist at KU Leuven in Belgium, found that after 12 rounds of nirmatrelvir treatment, SARS-CoV-2 accumulated three mutations—at positions 50, 166, and 167 in the string of amino acids that make up MPRO–that reduced the virus’ susceptibility to nirmatrelvir 20-fold, as determined by the dose of drug required to kill half the virus in a sample. The other study, led by Judith Margarete Gottwein, an immunologist at the University of Copenhagen, also spotted potential resistance-conferring mutations at positions 50 and 166 in MPRO . When those mutations occurred together, the virus was 80 times less susceptible to nirmatrelvir. “This tells us what mutations we should be looking for [in patients],” Gottwein says.

Indeed, some of these mutations are already in coronavirus-infected people, according to work by Adam Godzik, a bioinformatics expert at the University of California, Riverside. Godzik and his colleagues scoured the GISAID database, a catalog of more than 10 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced from viruses isolated from infected individuals, searching for amino acid changes at positions in MPRO near where nirmatrelvir binds. In a bioRxiv preprint posted on 30 May, they reported that mutations to amino acids 166 and 167—two of the resistance mutations flagged by the Belgian group—were already in viruses circulating in people. Because these mutations occurred before widespread use of Paxlovid, they likely occurred randomly, Godzik says. However, he adds, they reveal the enzyme has some flexibility at these positions that could help the virus work around the drug.

And the list of potential resistance mutations keeps growing. In a paper posted yesterday on bioRxiv, Jun Wang, a medicinal chemist at Rutgers University and colleagues report 66 common mutations to MPRO near the nirmatrelvir binding site. Like Godzik’s team, they scanned the GISAID database to find altered versions of the protease, but then went a step further. Adding the gene for each of these variants of MPRO to Escherichia coli bacteria, they created supplies of the enzymes for additional tests: first to determine whether each variant still carried out the essential duties of cutting viral proteins, and second to determine whether the mutations allowed MPRO to resist nirmatrelvir. Eleven of the 66 variants retained the protease’s function (the others impaired it), and five of the 11 were resistant to nirmatrelvir, requiring at least a 10-fold increase in the drug to kill half the virus in the sample. One of those variants had a previously seen resistance mutation, at position 166, but the other four had novel workarounds at positions 144, 165, 172, and 192. The bottom line from all this work, Wang says: “It’s just a matter of time before we see resistance emerge.”

So, why hasn’t it happened already? One possibility is that not enough people have taken Paxlovid yet to force the virus to mutate. Another explanation, Wang says, is that it may take multiple mutations in MPRO for the virus to get around Paxlovid while remaining both fully functional and easily transmissible. Thus far, adds Aditya Shah, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic, studies show that patients who have rebound of symptoms, which happens in just 2% or fewer of those who take the drug, the rebound does not seem to be due to resistance mutations. “It’s reassuring,” Shah says, but not proof the virus won’t eventually find its way around the drug.

Pfizer says its Paxlovid regimen may forestall resistance. Patients only take the drug for a short period and typically get a dose “manyfold higher” than that required to prevent the virus from replicating in cells, thereby minimizing the opportunities for the virus to mutate, says Kit Longley, a company spokesperson.

Giving patients multiple antivirals could help prevent resistance by making it harder for the virus to evolve its way around different compounds at the same time, a strategy that has proved highly effective in treating other viruses, including HIV and hepatitis C, Ho says. Two other SARS-CoV-2 antivirals are authorized in the United States, but they have drawbacks. The other oral drug, molnupiravir, has proven considerably less effective than Paxlovid, and has raised safety concerns because it induces random genetic mutations in the virus—that typically stops it from replicating but could also spawn dangerous new variants, some scientists caution. And remdesivir, which interferes with the ability of the virus to copy its genome, is only authorized for hospitalized patients and must be delivered intravenously. A preprint posted on bioRxiv yesterday suggests combining molnupiravir and nirmatrelvir is more effective in combating SARS-CoV-2 infections than either antiviral given alone, at least in mice. But the strategy has yet to be widely embraced by doctors.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are racing to complete clinical trials on additional SARS-CoV-2 antivirals, some targeting MPRO at different sites. But those aren’t available yet. And numerous researchers, including representatives of the nonprofit Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, have complained that Pfizer has not made Paxlovid easily available for trials of combination therapies. The company has said it was planning on doing those studies itself, although some are skeptical.

Until more antiviral drugs become available, Paxlovid will remain essentially alone, raising fears that sooner or later it will lose its punch. When pressed by a single antiviral, viruses usually find a way around the drug, Gottwein says. “If it can happen it will happen.” And at least according to the latest lab results, it can happen.

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