Alibaba’s Jack Ma Retires Early as Chinese Communists Intervene in Ventures

(p. B1) HONG KONG — Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, said he planned to step down from the Chinese e-commerce giant on Monday to pursue philanthropy in education, a changing of the guard for the $420 billion internet company.
A former English teacher, Mr. Ma started Alibaba in 1999 and built it into one of the world’s most consequential e-commerce and digital payments companies, transforming how Chinese people shop and pay for things. That fueled his net worth to more than $40 billion, making him China’s richest man. He is revered by many Chinese, some of whom have put his portrait in their homes to worship in the same way that they worship the God of Wealth.
Mr. Ma is retiring as China’s business environment has soured, with Beijing and state-owned enterprises increasingly playing more interventionist roles with companies. Under President Xi Jinping, China’s internet industry has grown and become more important, prompting the government to tighten its leash. The Chinese economy is also facing slowing growth and increasing debt, and the country is embroiled in an escalating trade war with the United States.
“He’s a symbol of the health of China’s private sector and how high they can fly whether he likes it or not,” Duncan Clark, author of the book “Alibaba: The House Jack Ma Built,” said of Mr. Ma. “His retirement will be interpreted as frustration or concern whether he likes it or not.”
In an interview, Mr. Ma said his retirement is not the end of an era but “the beginning of an era.” He said he would be spending more of his time and fortune focused on education. “I love education,” he said.
Mr. Ma will remain on Alibaba’s board of directors and continue to mentor the company’s management. Mr. Ma turns 54 on Monday, which is also a holiday in China known as Teacher’s Day.
The retirement makes Mr. Ma one of the first founders among a generation of prominent Chinese internet entrepreneurs to step down from their companies. Firms including Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com have flourished in recent years, growing to nearly rival American internet behemoths like Amazon and Google in their size, scope and ambition. For Chinese tycoons to step aside in their 50s is rare; they usually remain at the top of their organizations for many years.

For the full story, see:

Li Yuan. “Founder Sees A ‘Beginning’ As He Retires From Alibaba.” The New York Times (Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018): B1 & B3.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 7, 2018, and has the title “Alibaba’s Jack Ma, China’s Richest Man, to Retire From Company He Co-Founded.”)

The book by Duncan Clark, that is mentioned above, is:
Clark, Duncan. Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built. New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, 2016.

Dog Research on Muscular Dystrophy Can Lead to Cures for Both Dogs and Humans

(p. A13) Researchers used a gene-editing tool to repair a gene mutation in dogs with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, an important step in efforts to someday use the tool to edit DNA in people with the same fatal disease.
In a study published Thursday [Aug. 30, 2018] in the journal Science, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and the Royal Veterinary College in London reported that they used the Crispr gene-editing system in four dogs to restore production of dystrophin, a protein crucial for healthy muscle function.
. . .
“It’s like putting a good spare tire on a car. It’s not as good as the original, but it gets you where you want to go,” said Eric Olson, director of UT Southwestern’s Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine and senior author of the paper.
Dr. Olson, who is also founder and chief scientific adviser of Exonics Therapeutics Inc., which licensed the technology from UT Southwestern and helped fund the dog studies, said next steps involve testing Crispr in more dogs and observing them for a year or more. If the approach works in the dogs, he said researchers hope to try Crispr in a clinical trial with people with Duchenne.

For the full commentary, see:
Amy Dockser Marcus. “Gene Editing Shows Promise for Muscular Dystrophy.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, Aug. 31, 2018): A13.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 30, 2018, and has the title “Crispr Used to Repair Gene Mutation in Dogs With Muscular Dystrophy.”)

The study in Science, that is mentioned above, is:
Amoasii, Leonela, John C. W. Hildyard, Hui Li, Efrain Sanchez-Ortiz, Alex Mireault, Daniel Caballero, Rachel Harron, Thaleia-Rengina Stathopoulou, Claire Massey, John M. Shelton, Rhonda Bassel-Duby, Richard J. Piercy, and Eric N. Olson. “Gene Editing Restores Dystrophin Expression in a Canine Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.” Science (Aug. 30, 2018), DOI: 10.1126/science.aau1549. [Epub ahead of print]

Billions of Public Dollars “Siphoned Off” by A.N.C. Leaders in South Africa

(p. A1) VREDE, South Africa — With loudspeakers blaring, city officials drove across the black township’s dirt roads in a pickup truck, summoning residents to the town hall. The main guest was a local figure who had soared up the ranks of the governing African National Congress and come back with an enticing offer.
Over the next few hours, the visiting political boss, Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane, sold them on his latest deal: a government-backed dairy farm that they, as landless black farmers, would control. They would get an ownership stake in the business, just by signing up. They would go to India for training, all expenses paid. To hear him tell it, the dairy would bring jobs to the impoverished, help build a clinic and fix the roads.
“He said he wanted to change our lives,” said Ephraim Dhlamini, who, despite suspicions that the offer was too good to be true, signed up to become a “beneficiary” of the project. “This thing is coming from the government, free of charge. You can’t say you don’t like this thing. You must take it.”
But, sure enough, his instincts were right.
The dairy farm turned out to be a classic South African fraud, prosecutors say: Millions of dollars from state coffers, meant to uplift the poor, vanished in a web of bank accounts controlled by politically connected companies and individuals.
The money from an array of state contracts like this one helped pay for a lavish wedding that a top executive at KPMG, the international accounting firm, described as “an event of the millennium,” according to leaked emails. And Mr. Zwane, continuing his meteoric rise, soon leaped to the national stage to become South Africa’s minister of mineral resources.
Almost nothing trickled down to the township or the scores of would-be beneficiaries after that first meeting in 2012. The only local residents to get a free trip to India were members of a church choir headed by Mr. Zwane.
In the generation since apartheid ended in 1994, tens of billions of dollars in public funds — intended to develop the economy and improve the lives of black South Africans — have been siphoned off by leaders of the A.N.C., the very organization that had promised them a new, equal and just nation.

For the full story, see:
NORIMITSU ONISHI and SELAM GEBREKIDAN. “‘They Eat Money’: How Graft Enriches Mandela’s Political Heirs.” The New York Times (Monday, APRIL 16, 2018): A1 & A8-A9.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date APRIL 16 [sic], 2018, and has the title “‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption.”)

Affordable Methods for Countering CO2 in Atmosphere

(p. A13) A new study partly funded by Bill Gates has dramatically cut the estimated cost of removing CO2 directly from the air to as little as $100 a ton. According to the study, much of this expense could be recaptured by converting the CO2 into low-carbon motor fuel.
Assume California recovered 80% of its costs. For $500 billion a year, or 20% of state gross domestic product, California could solve the alleged problem for the whole world, reducing global emissions by half and meeting the widely touted goal of holding warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius according to prevailing climate models.
Too speculative? Too expensive? Many classic studies suggest that, at a cost as low as $2 billion a year, any highly motivated actor, even one with pockets less deep than California’s, could offset the entire warming effect of excess CO2 by distributing enough high-altitude sulfates or other aerosol particles to limit by 1% the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface. Indeed, experts quietly acknowledge that, by reducing such particulates, our clean-air efforts have actually made our climate problem worse.

For the full commentary, see:
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. “If California Was Serious About Climate; Its pockets are deep enough to cool the planet if politicians believe their doom-mongering.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Sept. 1, 2018): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 31, 2018.)

The study, partly funded by Bill Gates, that is mentioned above, is:

Keith, David W., Geoffrey Holmes, David St. Angelo, and Kenton Heidel. “A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere.” Joule 2, no. 8 (Aug. 15, 2018): 1573-94.

Cancer Cure Progress Has Been “Painfully Incremental”

(p. A15) Hopes were high in 1971 when President Richard M. Nixon called for a War on Cancer. The disease was as pernicious as it was mysterious, claiming more American lives each year in the 1960s than had perished in combat during all of World War II. Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine medical experts coming up with a cure. After all, hadn’t the country just put a man on the moon?
Almost 50 years later, the war rages on. Decades of hard work and grand promises have yielded more disappointments than breakthroughs. Reliable treatments remain elusive, and researchers still aren’t sure why some people get the disease and others don’t, why some die while others survive. In “Cancerland: A Medical Memoir,” David Scadden offers a personal account of the inspiring but often exasperating hunt for solutions to the profound problem of cancer.
. . .
. . . moving science forward “to create better clinical approaches,” Dr. Scadden writes, “is an almost painfully incremental affair.” This puts physicians in the awkward position of having to explain the slow pace of research to dying patients, many of whom hope that a miraculous new drug or therapy awaits them if they can just hold on for another year or two. This is not a crazy idea. Dr. Scadden’s own mother, who died of colon cancer in 1985, might have survived if certain studies were completed five years sooner. But most clinical trials come to nothing, particularly in cancer. Many patients are stuck with the same interventions that have been around for decades: surgery, radiation and toxic chemotherapy. The miserable side effects can sometimes make life only marginally better than death.

For the full review, see:
Emily Bobrow. “BOOKSHELF; Reason to Hope.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 1, 2018, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘Cancerland’ Review: Reason to Hope.”)

The book under review, is:
Scadden, David, and Michael D’Antonio. Cancerland: A Medical Memoir. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2018.

Carl Reiner Says Having a Project Motivates Vibrant Longevity

(p. 6B) LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ask 12-time Emmy Award winner Carl Reiner how it feels to be nominated again, and he fires back a wisecrack.
. . .
Reiner is nominated as host-narrator of “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” a documentary about how perennial high achievers, including Mel Brooks and Tony Bennett, both 92, stay vibrant.
. . .
Reiner, the oldest-ever Emmy nominee, is willing to look in the rearview mirror, but only to fuel new work.
“When I finish anything, I have to start a new project or I have no reason to get up. Most people are that way — if they have something to do, they hang around,” said Reiner.

For the full story, see:
LYNN ELBER for the Associated Press. “Comedy Legend Carl Reiner Turns His Emmy Shot into a Punchline.” Omaha World-Herald (Monday, Aug. 27, 201): 6B.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Self-Driving Cars Would Give Amazing Autonomy to the Blind

Self-driving car YouTube video mentioned in the article quoted below.

(p. 1A) In 2012, Steve Mahan, who is blind, climbed into the driver’s seat of a self-driving car and rolled up to the drive-thru of a Taco Bell in a video that’s been viewed more than 8 million times online.
The piece, produced by Google, captured the potential of autonomous-car technology to change the lives of the visually impaired.
“It was my first time behind the steering wheel in seven years and was absolutely amazing,” Mahan said.
Self-driving-car advocates say that in addition to helping the disabled, the vehicles will allow people to do other tasks while driving and make roadways safer by removing human error.

For the full story, see:
JASON DEAREN for the Associated Press. “Driverless Cars Give Hope to Blind, but Are Automakers Onboard Yet?” Omaha World-Herald (Monday, Apr. 16, 2018): 8A.

“I’d Rather Be Optimistic and Wrong than Pessimistic and Right”

(p. A17) There is no question that Tesla’s culture is different from that of conventional automakers or even other Silicon Valley companies — . . . . That is largely by Mr. Musk’s design, and certainly reflects his outsize presence. His web appearance late Thursday [Sept. 6, 2018] was the latest evidence.
He was the guest of the comedian Joe Rogan, an advocate for legalizing marijuana, and the repartee included an exchange over what Mr. Musk was smoking.
“Is that a joint, or is it a cigar?” Mr. Musk asked after his host took out a large joint and lit it up.
“It’s marijuana inside of tobacco,” Mr. Rogan replied, and he asked if Mr. Musk had ever had it.
“Yeah, I think I tried one once,” he replied, laughing.
The comedian then asked if smoking on air would cause issues with stockholders, to which Mr. Musk responded, “It’s legal, right?” He then proceeded to take a puff. Marijuana is legal for medical and recreational use in California, where the interview was recorded.
After Mr. Musk announced on Aug. 7 that he intended to take Tesla private at $420 a share, there was speculation that the figure was chosen because “420” is a code for marijuana in the drug subculture.
In an interview with The New York Times while the gambit was still in play, Mr. Musk didn’t deny a connection. But he did try to clarify his state of mind in hatching the plan — and the shortcomings of mind-altering.
“It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419,” he said. “But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned.’ You just sit there like a stone on weed.”
. . .
If he is feeling any insecurity, it was not reflected in his webcast with Mr. Rogan. He appeared at ease, sipping whiskey, and spoke, at one point, about artificial intelligence and how it could not be controlled.
“You kind of have to be optimistic about the future,” Mr. Musk said. “There’s no point in being pessimistic. I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.”

For the full story, see:
Neal E. Boudette. “‘Tesla Stock Dips As Musk Puffs On … What?” The New York Times (Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018): A1 & A17.
(Note: ellipses in quotes, and bracketed date, added; ellipsis in title, in original.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 7, 2018, and has the title “‘Tesla Shaken by a Departure and What Elon Musk Was Smoking.”)

Uncredentialed Entrepreneur Innovated to Save Babies

(p. 1A) He showed up in Omaha 120 summers ago, another unknown showman hoping to make a name for himself at this city’s biggest-ever event, its world’s fair.

He gave his name as Martin Couney, or sometimes Martin Coney. It wasn’t, at least not yet.
He said he was a doctor, a European doctor, a protégé of the world’s finest doctors. He was none of these things.
And yet in Omaha, Dr. Couney set up shop in a little white building on the east midway, not far from the Wild West Show, the Middle Eastern dancers, the roaming fortune tellers and the Indian Congress starring a Native American chief named Geronimo.
The fair, officially known as the Trans-Mississippi and International (p. 2A) Exposition, showcased all manner of things seen as strange, exotic and otherworldly to the 2 million Nebraskans and visitors paying the 50-cent admission to have their minds blown in the summer of 1898.
Couney thought he had just the thing to blow their minds.

“Infant Incubators with Living Infants” read the sign above the entrance.

“A Wonderful Invention … Live Babies” said another.
. . .
Usually the experts are right. That’s why they are experts,” says Dawn Raffel, author of the “The Strange Case of Dr. Couney,” a new biography seeking to save this once-famed faux doctor from history’s trash bin. “But occasionally you get an outlier like this. Someone who is extraordinarily inventive. Who brings us something incredible.”
What Dr. Couney gave us, through decades of work and tireless promotion, was an understanding that we could save babies that since the beginning of time had died before they crawled. We could save them using a piece of equipment designed by a French engineer who realized that if an egg could be nurtured in an incubator, then so could a newborn.
. . .
Newspapers, including The World-Herald, largely ignored the exhibit, Raffel says. The public didn’t seem particularly bothered that a “doctor” had decided to house anonymous newborns on the fairgrounds and put them on public display.
They also didn’t seem particularly interested, either.
. . .
Raffel estimates that Couney and his doctors and nurses saved between 6,500 and 7,000 premature babies all on their own during decades of midway work. But they saved countless thousands more by raising the profile of premature babies. By raising the hope that they could grow into healthy, happy adults.
. . .
“I find him fascinating because he was such a complicated man,” Raffel says. “He deserves more credit.”

For the full story, see:
Hansen, Matthew. “Tech Costs Force Honda To Let Go of Engineering Legacy.” Omaha World-Herald (Friday, Aug. 3, 2018): 1A-2A.
(Note: ellipses between paragraphs, added; ellipsis internal to sentence, in original.)

The Raffel book on which the passages quoted are partially based, is:
Raffel, Dawn. The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies. New York: Blue Rider Press, 2018.

Women, the Elderly, and Poor Blacks Benefit Most from Carrying Guns

(p. A17) A new report from the Crime Prevention Research Center shows that there are now more than 16.3 million concealed handgun permits in the U.S., up 1.83 million since last July. Far more people carry guns today than in 2007, when there were only 4.6 million permits.
. . .
Women are largely fueling the increase. Among the eight states that had data from 2012-16, permits for men grew by 22% and permits for women soared by 93%.
. . .
My research has demonstrated that the two groups that benefit the most from carrying guns are the likeliest victims of crime (poor blacks in high-crime urban areas) and people who are physically weaker (women and the elderly). Dozens of published peer-reviewed studies find similar results.

For the full commentary, see:
John R. Lott Jr. “Women and Minorities Bear Arms.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, July 20, 2017): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 19, 2017.)

Soichiro Honda Rushed Prototype Car “in Defiance of a Planned Japanese Law”

(p. A10) For many Japanese, Honda reflected the originality and self-confidence that turned the country into an industrial powerhouse after World War II.
. . .
The company was founded in 1946 by Soichiro Honda, a tinkerer who loved to battle the giants with his own innovations. He and a dozen workers took engines intended for small electric generators and attached them to bicycles, the first Honda product. Within 15 years, a Honda motorcycle was beating European rivals at the Isle of Man motorcycle race.
Around that time, Mr. Honda rushed out a prototype automobile despite having almost no experience in building them, in defiance of a planned Japanese law that would have restricted entry in the market.

For the full story, see:
Sean McLain. “Tech Costs Force Honda To Let Go of Engineering Legacy.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Aug. 6, 2018): A1 & A10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 5, 2018, and has the title “Honda Took Pride in Doing Everything Itself. The Cost of Technology Made That Impossible.”)