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Tax cuts for the rich at a time like this? It makes me despair The GuardianTo get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.
Happy Friday! We don’t know about you, but we are both ready for some R&R after ploughing through a wall of deep-cringe texts from the Musk/Twitter trial. We hope you get some, too, this weekend.
This afternoon, Tesla is running its second AI day. Last year’s was a hoot, and we have some predictions for what’s coming down the pipe today, too. — Christine and Haje
When insurtech company Metromile went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in February last year, it was valued at over $1 billion. A year and five months later, Lemonade acquired the company for less than $145 million. And yet, things aren’t as bleak as they might seem, Anna reports.
This year, 40% of the world’s population will play games, with total spending nearing $200 billion. The purveyors of web3 want a slice of this gargantuan market, Rita reports. She writes that criticisms of the first generation of crypto games have been well documented, so the question for developers now is what decentralized games should look like.
Let’s do a few more, shall we? Go on, then:
Image Credits: Warchi (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Some services are in such demand, it can insulate their providers against the vagaries of the market. During an economic downturn, consumers don’t cut back on pet food or toilet paper. Similarly, everyone needs some form of insurance.
Between 2016 and 2022, insurtech startups received around $43 billion in funding, and despite the downturn, most of the investors that reporter Anna Heim recently surveyed are still positive about the sector’s prospects:
“We are simply seeing a reality check happen,” said Wechsler. “Unfortunately, there are many companies that should not have raised as much as they did, or perhaps don’t have sustainable business models. These companies will struggle to survive.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
SoftBank has been doing some readjusting to company valuations lately, but the latest adjusting is happening with its own company. Kate reports that SoftBank’s Vision Fund is reportedly laying off 30% of its workforce even as it considers a third fund.
Here are five more for you:
As someone who has worked in Catholic media for years, David Naglieri was well aware of Mother Teresa’s story. But compared to what he learned when he made a documentary about her to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the saint’s death, his knowledge, he concluded, had been somewhat superficial.
By the time Mother Teresa: No Greater Love made its theatrical debut in mid-September, Naglieri had come to a deeper appreciation of St. Teresa of Kolkata in at least three significant ways.
One of those aspects has to do with the youngest generations, who are certainly not hurting materially, even though the world will remember Mother Teresa as an aged woman with deep facial wrinkles, whose focus was on the poorest of the poor.
“I think that when you look, for example, at [widespread use of] social media, and you look at people becoming more and more isolated — we’re seeing increased loneliness, increased rates of depression among our young — and I think often that’s a symptom of this spiritual poverty that Mother Teresa diagnosed,” Naglieri said in an interview. “She would often say that the greatest poverty was the spiritual – the loneliness that she would notice in the western countries that were materially rich.”
Mother Teresa: No Greater Love will be shown in theaters nationwide on Monday and Tuesday, October 3 and 4. It seeks to introduce the saint to a new generation, said Naglieri, who wrote and directed the film. The one-hour-55-minute documentary, a media project of the Knights of Columbus, intersperses dramatized bits of Mother Teresa’s biography with visits to various locations of the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns, brothers and priests that she started. As the order works worldwide, the documentary had to cover a lot of territory.
“We were in Tijuana, Mexico, filming their work with migrants and refugees,” said Naglieri, producer and media manager at the Knights of Columbus. “We traveled to Rio De Janeiro, and the work outside of Rio — Crackland, it’s called — where they work with crack addicts and drug addicts and drug dealers, in abject squalor, who live along these train tracks, not even allowed into the favelas, the slums of Rio De Janeiro. We had drone cameras following [the Missionaries of Charity nuns] as they took boats down in the Amazon River basin and would bring the Eucharist and catechize the children of these Indigenous tribes with no contact with the outside world. We were in Nairobi, Kenya, filming in the slums there, where they work with severely disabled children. These images show the ongoing work and mission of Mother Teresa reflected in the lives of the Missionaries of Charity.”
The other lessons Naglieri, an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, took away from working on the project also spoke to the experiences of Christians in the relatively affluent West, rather than the poorest of the poor. The divisions the Church is dealing with right now, he said, have to do with the tensions in attitudes towards justice and mercy. Mother Teresa set a good example from which Christians can benefit in that regard, he said.
“She’s a great witness for this generation, in the sense that she was this perfect blend and this perfect integration of justice and truth on one side and love and mercy on the other,” the filmmaker said. “I think a lot of the conflicts that exist within the Church, and also I think within the greater society, often come down to … where you stand on that line between justice and love, mercy and the truth.”
Mother Teresa was certainly not someone who shied away from speaking hard truths. The film shows parts of her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1979.
“The greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of the innocent unborn child. For if a mother can murder her own child in her own womb, what is left for you and for me to kill each other?” she said, as hundreds of influential and well-dressed people sat in the audience in Oslo. “To me the nations who have legalized abortion, they are the poorest nations.”
But, according to Naglieri, many of the people interviewed for his film said that Mother Teresa’s greatest virtue was mercy.
“She was completely nonjudgmental — not in a relativistic sense, but in the sense that she perfectly reflected the mercy and the love of God,” he said. “It’s that love that touched so many people’s lives. We have a lot of testimonials in the film, from people like Jim Wahlberg, the older brother of [actor Mark Wahlberg. Jim Wahlberg] served a six- to nine-year prison sentence for robbery, who was a drug addict, who was not a person of faith, and who had a perception of God as being out to get you — this negative perception of a scary God. And when he met Mother Teresa, when she spoke to the prisoners, he felt that he saw for the first time the face of a merciful God. Her words deeply touched him and led him to begin inquiring about Jesus, inquiring about the faith, and ultimately he comes back to the Catholic faith and goes on to become a Catholic evangelist and speaker.”
“So I think she’s very much a saint for our time in many ways,” Naglieri continued. “She really presented this perfect example of how we can uphold the Church’s truths, how we can be strong, how we can be courageous, but at the same time in a perfectly balanced fashion reflect God’s mercy and God’s love.”
Finally, her example — still carried out by the Missionaries of Charity in convents throughout the world — of Eucharistic devotion is one that speaks to the Church in the United States, now entering into a multi-year “Eucharistic Revival” project.
“Mother Teresa believed very strongly that the same Christ hidden in the Eucharist is the Christ hidden in the poor,” Naglieri said. “And the two were inextricably intertwined in her faith and spirituality.”
The film points out that Mother Teresa wanted her convents to be known as tabernacles — where Jesus Christ lives in the Eucharist and from where His love flows into the streets to heal the poor and broken.
Said Naglieri, “Mother Teresa is a saint for our times. I think her message of finding Jesus in your neighbor, of demonstrating the mercy of God to all you encounter, the commitment to serve the poorest of the poor, the humility and grace with which she served and followed her mission, all the aspects of her life are very applicable to our generation.”
Stocks were choppy Friday as traders looked to close out a terrible week that brought the S&P 500 to a new 2022 low.
The S&P 500 was up 0.55%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 52 points, or 0.18%, while the Nasdaq Composite was 1.02% higher.
An inflation report closely watched by the Federal Reserve released Friday showed that prices continued to increase at a rapid pace.
Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard on Friday underscored the need to bring down inflation, saying the central bank is "committed to avoiding pulling back prematurely" on restrictive monetary policy.
Nike shares fell sharply in its worst day since 2001 after the company reported that sales increased, but supply chain and inventory issues hampered the bottom line in its fiscal first quarter. The stock was last down 13%.
Stocks sold off Thursday, with the Dow losing more than 1%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each dropping more than 2%. Investors weighed concerns over future rate-hiking decisions from the Fed and the impact on the market.
Those losses put the major averages on pace for sharp weekly losses. The S&P 500 is off 1% for the week. The Dow is down 1.1% and the Nasdaq is 0.2% lower.
"The market stinks," said Jamie Cox, managing partner of Harris Financial Group. "But that's basically what the Fed wants: tighten financial conditions, and they believe that that will help bring down inflation to the levels that they find acceptable. And they're using the transmission mechanism of the market to make that happen."
Friday also marked the last day of the month and the third quarter. For September, the S&P 500 and Dow are down more than 7% each through Thursday's close. That would be the worst monthly performance for the Dow since March 2020 and the biggest one-month decline for the S&P 500 since June. The Nasdaq is headed for its biggest monthly loss since April, losing 9.1%.
Quarter to date, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are headed for their first three-quarter losing streak since 2009, losing 4% and 2.7%, respectively. The Dow is down 5.4% in the third quarter and is on pace to post a third-straight losing quarter for the first time since 2015.
On any given day, you might not be able to recognize Sophia Anne Caruso. Her hair may be a shaggy bleached blonde or sleek brunette. She may be dressed in vintage lingerie she’s reworked herself or some old men’s overalls, also probably vintage. When we meet over lunch at a vegan restaurant near Times Square on a recent afternoon, she’s a deep auburn redhead, dressed in a loose plum shirt dress. She almost wore vintage bloomers, she notes, but she’s in all day rehearsals and comfort is key for long days like this.
Caruso is something of a creative chameleon all around. A theater performer from an early age, the now 21-year-old got her big break in 2017 when she originated the role of Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice the musical, which saw her headlining Broadway for just under a year when she left the production to focus on other areas of her career. Currently, that includes painting, poetry, photography, a starring role in Netflix’s upcoming blockbuster, The School for Good and Evil, co-starring Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington, and also releasing solo music, just for good measure.
Today, she is dropping her latest single, “Thing Like That,” premiering exclusively on NYLON, a bubbly, nostalgic track that joins the multi-hyphenates steadily growing catalogue of songs that, like Caruso, defies easy categorization.
Here, she breaks down the song, talks entering Netflix’s new fantasy world, and what could possibly come next.
First of all, tell me about the song and it’s sound. It reminds me of a very specific, breezy time in indie, circa Chairlift and She & Him.
That's exactly what it is. My co-writer Nick Littlemore’s band [Empire of the Sun] was super popular during that time. It's different from other stuff that I've put out. And then I think it's a different vibe. It's meant to feel like more pop than the other stuff, but still not quite pop. It's been sitting in Dropbox for years now. I'll write stuff, and then it sits there until I'm ready to finish it. It'll be half finished, but not mix the master. I'll be like, "I’m just not ready to pull you out."
How do you eventually decide when a song is ready?
I wanted to put out another song And I want to tour. This is such a summery song, but I don't want to wait ‘til next summer to put this out. I was inspired to pull it out again because I had a similar situation to when I wrote it.
What type of situation is that, and how does it play into the song?
It's told from this perspective of a child, and that's why it has that shouting section. It feels like a temper tantrum. In a childlike sense, it's about shitty friends. And then, she says, "My heart is in your hands. And why'd you do a thing like that?"
It was really fun because I always want to scream sing, and in the music I don't really write that kind of stuff for myself. But in shows, I've done that, and I just was like, "I want to have a temper tantrum." And so we decided that there was just going to be a breakdown, and I sang it. It's 10, 15 takes layered on top of each other, SO it sounds like a bunch of kids yelling. But it's meant to be upbeat and happy too. It's not just a pouting song. I say that any song that you can punch the air to has the recipe of pop songs.
Is this song an indication of what an eventual album might sound like?
My thing with albums is that every song I have is so different. I have enough stuff to release an album or more, but it's just every song is so different, and I feel albums tell an overall story, to me, or a lot of really great songs on albums get lost in the mix. Whereas, just dropping stuff individually, we can linger for a while. Everything means something else, so it doesn't need to be clumped together.
Do you feel more of a pressure to define who you are, personally, as a musician, since you are known from musical theater?
A little bit. I don't like the idea of limiting myself to one style. I feel like a lot of pop singers all sound the same. All of it all sounds the same. They use the same recipe, or they take somebody else's song, and they just rearrange the lyrics. I can make pop music. I can make rock music. I can make any music. . I can sing pretty. I can sing ugly. If I wanted to label myself as one sound, I would drop an album, but now I'm just doing whatever I want.
What musicians do you find yourself returning to over and over again?
I have an infinite fascination with Bjork. There's also a band called Life Without Buildings that I love. They dropped one album from 2000, I think, and that's all you ever heard of them. They're a little bit obscure but so good. It's a punk girl band. Everything's spoken and weird. I love that. The Sugarcubes, I love. Tori Amos and Fiona Apple.
How are you managing both rehearsals and your own music, plus now promo for the new movie? Is that beginning to ramp up?
I actually just saw the billboard in Times Square. Somebody had mentioned to me there is going to be a Times Square thing, but I didn't know it was going to be now and that big.
When did you first audition and then film?
We filmed last year, for four and a half months in Ireland. It was amazing. All the young cast was in the same hotel, which is like a castle on a hill. It really felt like we were living in the world [of the film].
Before that, [director] Paul Fieg had seen me in my show on Broadway. He wanted to meet me, so my manager set up a sort of general meeting where we were going to talk about the kind of stuff we want to do and experience, whatever type of work I want to do. And I was like, "So what you got? Do you have anything that would be a good fit, that we can do together?" And he was like, “actually yeah.” So I made a tape. I actually originally auditioned for Agatha (played now by Sofia Wylie) and then obviously I ended up as Sophie.
How was then actually shooting with him?
Paul just knows how to talk to actors. I completely trusted him. There was never a moment where I was like, “Hmm, I’m not sure how this is going to turn out.” He always has a positive attitude — and in a three-piece suit. Even during night shoots, when we're in a swamp. He was wearing his three-piece suit and a Rolex and got in the water. And I was like, "Don't get it wet!” And he’s just like, "No, it's waterproof."
Meanwhile, you’re in a full corset.
A lot of corsets. So many that when I was watching the film I was like, “I don’t even remember wearing that one.” But I got to keep one of them.
Have you worn it since?
Oh, yeah. I also let my friend borrow it.Her top broke and we were going to the re-opening of Slave Play, and I was like, "Just wear my corset.
Okay, at least it wasn’t like... out to a dive bar.
Oh no. I treasure the corset. The corset's not going to a dive bar.
For your first major film, this movie is huge and you are one of the co-leads — did the experience live up to what you hoped for?
I love making films. It's my favorite. I love doing plays. I love to paint. I love poetry. I'm always up to something, but I love making movies. That's my main thing.
Damaged homes and debris are shown in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in Fort Myers, Fla. Associated Press/Wilfredo Lee
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit Florida, has been ripping through the state, leaving behind millions of dollars worth of damage and reports of fatalities. Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency briefed President Joe Biden on the storm’s impact.
“This could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history,” said Biden after the briefing. While no official death toll has been announced, according to Biden, commissioners and mayors are worried about the potential for massive loss of life. The federal government will be covering 100 percent of the costs to clear the debris and any efforts to save Floridian lives. Biden also said the federal government will also cover the majority of the costs to repair public buildings like schools and fire stations.
Brenda Brennan sits next to a boat that pushed against her apartment when Hurricane Ian passed through the area on September 29, 2022 in Fort Myers, Florida. Mrs. Brennan said the boat floated in around 7pm. The hurricane brought high winds, storm surge and rain to the area causing severe damage. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The government will also be providing individuals who have little or no insurance with $37,900 for home repairs, as well as another $37,900 for property loss.
After a conversation with Gov. Ron DeSantis, Biden declared an official disaster in Florida. DeSantis described the storm in a press conference as “historic” and a “500-year event”.
“We’ve never seen a flooding event like this,” said DeSantis during a press conference on Thursday.
Photos and footage of the storm’s damage are absolutely shocking, with many videos showing homes submerged under water and floodwaters pushing cars down the street. In Jacksonville, one video from First Coast News showed an entire shopping center sign crumbling to the ground right before a reporter was about to go on-air. A hospital in Port Charlotte had part of its roof ripped off by Hurricane Ian’s winds, forcing ICU patients to be moved to other floors.
More apocalyptic scenes emerging from southwestern Florida, courtesy of the @AP: pic.twitter.com/zD55itlFXK
— Sean Breslin (@Sean_Breslin) September 29, 2022
Currently, there are 1,300 first responders on the ground, as well as 300 ambulances. The Biden administration has also pre-staged 110,000 gallons of fuel, 18,000 gallons of propane, 3.7 million meals, and 3.5 million liters of potable water.
DeSantis thanked both FEMA and the Biden administration for their response to the crisis. On Tuesday, during an appearance on Fox News, DeSantis, normally a vocal Biden critic, said, “It’s my sense that the administration wants to help. They realize this is a very significant storm.”
A man looks on from a flooded street of a neighborhood in Fort Myers, Florida on September 29, 2022. The National Hurricane Center said the eye of the “extremely dangerous” hurricane made landfall just after 3:00 pm on the barrier island of Cayo Costa, west of the city of Fort Myers. (Photo by Ricardo Arduengo via Getty)
While there’s a lot of focus on Florida, Biden also attempted to make clear that the victims of Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico had not been forgotten. The president said that as soon as he’s able, he plans to travel to both Florida and Puerto Rico to thank first responders directly.
“As long as it takes, we’re going to be there,” said Biden. Hurricane Ian is still in Florida and is expected to make its way through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, with an anticipated 12 inches of rain in certain areas.
Boats are displaced in a marina in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in Fort Myers, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
ORLANDO, Fla. — The emergency call came from the nursing home shortly after 5 a.m.: Water was seeping into the low-slung, low-lying complex called Avante at Orlando and threatening its 106 residents, some of them too frail to walk.
By daybreak, dozens of rescue workers had descended on Avante, which bills itself as a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center. The water in the building was about a foot deep, but it was perhaps as high as three feet in the parking lot outside. Many of the patients, in their 80s or 90s, were wheeled out on cots, their white sheets billowing in the whipping winds trailing Hurricane Ian, their faces filled with fear and confusion.
Soon, however, they were safe — if shaken and wet — in vans and buses bound for shelters and hospitals.
As epic rain and high wind pounded much of central Florida on Thursday, a picture emerged of what the storm had wrought, from wrenching catastrophe to mere gale-force inconvenience. The battered landscape ranged from utter devastation on the southwestern coast to wearily familiar flooding in St. Augustine near the state’s northeastern edge.
Rescue teams worked feverishly to retrieve people from the barrier islands near Cape Coral, and wrecked boats and drifts of rotting debris piled up along the eviscerated beach in Fort Myers. In Arcadia, Fla., about an hour to the north, the quaint historic district was a ravaged display of broken glass and blown-out storefronts. Water had swallowed a swath of West Oak Street, on the east end of the bridge that spans Peace River, and a DeSoto County Sheriff’s deputy implored a line of drivers not to attempt to cross on Thursday.
“It’s at your own risk,” he said to car after car. “We’re not going to tow you or be able to get you out if you’re stuck. Do you understand?” Behind him, a small four-door car stalled.
Elsewhere, however, many inland survivors viewed the storm as a worst-case scenario averted.
“It’s a cliché, but we got lucky,” Paul Womble, the director of emergency management in Polk County in central Florida, said, noting that anticipated tornadoes had failed to materialize and that no injuries had been reported. Due east of Tampa Bay, the county had first braced for complete disaster, with the hurricane seemingly headed straight for it, and then for two feet of rain as the storm shifted south, as well as a massive surge in the already swollen Peace River.
But the hurricane had spent a good deal of its force by the time it hit the southern end of the county, and the damage, Mr. Womble said, was limited mostly to power outages and a carpet of debris, branches and snapped power poles. Cleanup would be substantial, he said, but Hurricane Irma in 2017 probably would turn out to have been more destructive.
In the small town of Bartow, Pete Miranda, a Polk County resident for half a century, was relieved but still shaken.
“Dude, it was bad,” said Mr. Miranda, who was raking up branches near his home at a battered-but-still-standing mobile home park. A former oil driller, he said he had stayed behind to watch for looters but the storm was far more violent than he had expected.
“It was whistling at me like it was a woman,” he said. “But don’t get me wrong — it was scary.”
Where Ian passed as a still powerful but somewhat diminished Category 3 storm, the landscape just inland from the Gulf Coast looked rattled but not ruined.
Giant oaks lay broken next to highways covered in thick carpets of leaves and Spanish moss, cow pastures were now small lakes, and the aluminum roof of one gas station plaza was slam-dunked into the ground.
Power crews were everywhere, and so was the work cut out for them, with utility poles snapped and dangling on their own sagging power lines. In towns and even small cities, traffic lights were mostly dark, and the cars and trucks waited hesitantly at each intersection. Gas stations were mostly out of service.
North of the storm’s track, while people were busy clearing huge mats of debris from roofs and porches, the homes themselves were mostly still standing. The low-lying areas of some towns — places that local officials said had routinely flooded in Charley and Irma and even some recent bad storms — had flooded again but not as severely as they had at times in the past.
But the closer one got to Fort Myers, the reports of damage became more dire. Large parts of Hardee County, a rural area that was devastated by Charley in 2004, were flooded on Thursday, and the sheriff’s department said in a Facebook post that the waters were still rising. “Search and rescue missions are still underway,” the post said. “It will be dark soon.”
In Orlando, the heart of the state’s tourist industry, the mayor of surrounding Orange County said about only half of the two feet of predicted rain had fallen, and Disney World said its theme parks would resume operation on Friday in a phased reopening.
Still, the Orlando neighborhood of Rio Pinar Estates had become a giant, impassible lake as the mayor briefed the public, and some 200,000 residents were without electricity. The houses, many of them broad, one-story ranches, had not gone under, although many had taken on water: In the street, it appeared to be three feet deep or more in places. Rescue crews had taken out some residents in boats.
At around 11 a.m., Ava King, who lives in the last house before the water started, was yelling at the driver of a pickup truck that was nosing into the water. “I wouldn’t do it,” she hollered.
The truck was in up to its headlights. It slowly backed up.
Inside her house, the power was out, and towels were all over the floor. A little water had seeped in, and a creek that runs behind the house was engorged and took up the entire backyard. Ms. King’s neighbor, Jessica Murphy, 39, was sprawled out on a sofa. She lived two doors down. She said she had to swim to Ms. King’s house.
“About midnight, I noticed that there was water coming in. By 3 a.m. it was to my knees,” Ms. Murphy said. She was alone; her three children were with her ex-husband. And she was worried about water in her power outlets. She struggled to figure out how to cut off the electricity. “I didn’t know if it was safest to stay or safest to go,” she said. She called Ms. King and said she was coming over.
“I tried to get out my front door. It wouldn’t open because there was so much water on the other side,” she said. “So I had to go out the boys’ room window in the front of the house.”
She didn’t know how long it would take to fix up her place and make it livable again. For now, she said, she was going to live with her father.
“He’s dry,” she said of his house. “He’s bone dry.”
Rick Rojas and Michael Majchrowicz contributed reporting.
A Japanese health ministry panel recommended that marijuana-derived medicines be treated the same as pharmaceuticals, reported Bloomberg.
The expert panel, convened on Thursday, recommended a revision of the country's policy on drugs to enable the import, manufacture and use of medicines derived from cannabis.
The committee said in a report that a policy change would synchronize Japan with international standards while meeting medical needs of the growing nation.
The revision would amend the country's law to include cannabis products that already proved safe and efficient under provisions governing pharmaceuticals and medical devices, such as the cannabis-derived epilepsy drug Epidiolex, subject to clinical trials in Japan.
Epidiolex is the first FDA-authorized CBD medicine for treating children with severe forms of epilepsy. The medicine was first approved for treating seizures connected to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet's syndrome. In July, the FDA also approved Epidiolex for managing seizures related to tuberous sclerosis complex.
Britain's cannabinoid drug company GW Pharmaceuticals plc, which was acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc JAZZ last year, earlier reported on results of its positive Phase 3 clinical trial of Epidiolex oral solution in seizures related to tuberous sclerosis complex were published in JAMA Neurology.
The results showed that patients receiving Epidiolex as a treatment had considerably fewer TCS-associated seizures (48.6%) versus placebo (26.5%). This trial was the basis for the July 2020 FDA approval of Epidiolex for TSC-related seizures.
In March, Jazz Pharmaceuticals began constructing its new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Kent Science Park (KSP) in Sittingbourne, UK, with an investment of over $100 million. The new facility is designed to support the company's two regulatory-approved cannabis-based medicines, such as Epidiolex, and to support future capacity for developing new drugs.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, the country's health ministry held a meeting to negotiate the revision of the Cannabis Control Law from 1948 to streamline the legalization of cannabis for medical use. However, lawmakers also considered adding a provision to criminalize its consumption for recreational purposes.
Photo: Courtesy of Ramdlon, ganjaspliffstoreuk by Pixabay
Yesli Vega, the Republican challenging Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, acknowledged that some people may not want to vote until Election Day but encouraged people to vote and to continue to spread the word about her campaign.
“I want to take a little bit of time to talk about the importance of your vote, whether it be early voting, whether it be on Election Day,” she said. “We have patriots, pioneers that shed blood so that you and I can have that important right to cast our votes.”
Similarly, Spanberger told volunteers who gathered in Stafford County, Va., on Saturday that they can tell people about early voting as they talk to potential voters.
“Knocking on doors and talking to volunteers, or talking to people at their homes, is such an important way for people to know what is coming up with this election, to know that early voting started yesterday, and so they can actually go cast their ballot, and making sure that people know why it is that I continue to want to serve in this way,” she said.
In other key states, mail-in ballots are already being returned. That list includes Pennsylvania, where more than 1,200 people had already returned their ballots as of Wednesday, according to data compiled by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald of the United States Election Project.
At CNBC's Delivering Alpha Investor Summit in New York City Wednesday, several big names in the investor community indicated they see no signs inflation is waning.
David Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-chairman of Carlyle Group, said while "we've been used to 2% inflation for the last 25 years, we have to get used to the fact that inflation is not going to be 2% anytime soon," adding that "it takes a long time as Paul Volcker said to get it out of the system."
"This inflation is here to stay," said JPMorgan Asset & Wealth Management CEO Mary Callahan Erdoes.
The view that inflation has not yet peaked is one shared by many chief financial officers at top companies, according to the results of the latest CNBC CFO Council quarterly survey.
A majority of CFOs (57%) said that they do not think inflation has peaked. More than a quarter of the CFOs say inflation is the biggest external risk factor facing their businesses. That is down from 40% who cited inflation last quarter, as concerns about consumer demand in the softening economy rise among CFOs, and more now cite it as their No. 1 risk.
The CNBC CFO Council survey is a sample of the current outlook among top financial officers. It was conducted among 21 chief financial officers at major organizations between September 12-27. Council membership includes 44% of CFOs from Fortune 500 firms, and of that cohort, half from Fortune 100 firms.
Executives from companies across the economy have added to this view of inflation in recent weeks. Costco CEO Craig Jelinek told CNBC's Jim Cramer on September 13, "I think you're going to see maybe another six months to a year, things will start to come down."
Unilever CEO Alan Jope said on CNBC's "Closing Bell" on September 6, "We're not seeing an easing off in our landed costs. So, any early optimism that inflation has peaked is misplaced."
At a press conference on September 21 following the Federal Reserve raising benchmark interest rates by another three-quarters of a percentage point, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that while the Fed's "expectation has been that we would begin to see inflation come down … inflation has not really come down."
With persistent inflation, CFOs have shifted their view regarding the timing of a recession as a result of the Fed's rate hikes.
Nearly half (48%) of CFOs polled said they expect a recession in the first half of 2023, down from the previous quarter's survey when 68% cited the first two quarters of next year as the most likely start of a recession, as more CFOs move recession expectations closer in time. Nineteen percent of CFOs now say they expect a recession in the fourth quarter of this year, up from 13% in Q2. Furthermore, another 19% of the CFOs said that the U.S. economy is in a recession now.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told CNBC's Ylan Mui at Delivering Alpha that the Biden administration is doing everything it can to combat inflation in order to avoid a recession.
"Consumer confidence is still high. Consumer and corporate balance sheets are healthy. We have a great deal of momentum in the labor market in which we get more than 300,000 jobs over the last three months on average," he said.
The CNBC survey finds companies still in hiring mode, with 57% of CFOs saying they expect to add to headcount in the next year. Less than 10% expect to reduce staffing levels.
Overall, the CFOs polled in the CNBC CFO Council survey support the Fed policy moves to get inflation under control, with more than half (52%) saying its efforts have been fair, while 19% said they have been good. Approximately 29% said those efforts have been poor.
"We have always understood that restoring price stability while achieving a relatively modest decline, or rather increase, in unemployment and a soft landing would be very challenging and we don't know, no one knows whether this process will lead to a recession or if so, how significant that recession would be," Powell said at his most recent post-Fed meeting press conference. "That's going to depend on how quickly wage and price inflation pressures come down, whether expectations remain anchored, and whether also, do we get more labor supply, which would help as well."
Throughout Florida, many airports have closed and some hotels have begun preparing to accept evacuees instead of tourists. As of Wednesday afternoon, Hurricane Ian had already contributed to the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights, most within Florida, according to Kathleen Bangs, a spokeswoman for FlightAware, a flight-tracking company.
The effects on air travel, in Florida and beyond, are likely to continue through the weekend. Here’s what to know if your travel plans are affected by Hurricane Ian.
Extreme weather events are outside airlines’ control, so you cannot automatically expect a full refund if your flight is canceled or significantly delayed. But some airlines, including American, Frontier and JetBlue, are offering full refunds anyway.
Other airlines are offering credit to those who opt not to rebook, or waiving change fees for those who do — but read the details carefully because there are many restrictions.
Here are what some major airlines are doing:
American: Travelers affected by Hurricane Ian can obtain a full refund for canceled flights or rebook without a change fee, provided travel is rescheduled by Oct. 8 and completed within one year of the original ticket, according to an airline spokeswoman.
Delta: Travelers flying from, to or through affected Florida airports can avoid change fees so long as they complete travel within a year of the original ticket, according to Delta’s website. Fare differences will only be waived for flights rebooked by Oct. 3. Travelers who do not rebook can obtain a credit.
Frontier: Frontier is among the hardest-hit airlines, canceling a larger percentage of flights Wednesday than any other carrier. Customers can rebook for free, even if they change departure and arrival cities, as long as travel occurs by Oct. 10. Those who do not rebook canceled flights can obtain a full refund.
JetBlue: Travelers going to, from or through affected cities in Florida can rebook for free as long as all rescheduled travel occurs by Oct. 6. Travelers with canceled flights may request a full refund.
Southwest: Travelers scheduled to fly out of, into, or through Tampa, Orlando and nine other airports in Florida can rebook to other airports within Florida without a fee, according to the company’s site. Travelers flying in or out of Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., can also rebook for a later date without a charge. Travel must occur within 14 days of the originally scheduled flight. Full refunds will be offered for canceled flights.
Several airlines are also making accommodations for dogs and cats. Southwest is waiving the $95 pet fare for customers traveling to or from affected cities, and American is lifting the limit on the number of carry-on pets allowed.
If you are planning to travel to Florida in the coming days, you should check to see if your hotel is still accepting guests. Travelers planning to check in at Disney Resort Hotels on Thursday, for example, were asked to wait until Friday.
If you are planning to cancel your trip you’ll need to talk to your hotel about specifics. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts is waiving cancellation fees for any hotels in mandatory evacuation zones, a spokesman said in a statement.
Hilton customers who have not paid before check-in can cancel with a refund. Those who paid in advance may be able to obtain a full refund if their plans were affected by Hurricane Ian, according to a spokeswoman.
Both companies appear to be leaving that decision to the host. If your host cancels first, then you should get a refund or credit.
VRBO and Airbnb are both trying to facilitate that by waiving host penalties associated with cancellation in areas affected by the storm, according to company representatives.
It gets more complicated if your host doesn’t cancel.
Airbnb offers refunds for a number of “events beyond your control,” including natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions. But tropical hurricanes and storms affecting Florida between June and November are not covered because the company considers them foreseeable.
VRBO has a similar policy. “Natural disasters, such as hurricanes or wildfires, do not override the cancellation policy set by the host and agreed to by the guest when they book,” a spokeswoman said.
One tip: Moving your date to something in the distant future can often buy you time to figure out your plans without incurring a fee.
Several cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, said they had to reroute their ships to avoid the storm, forcing some passengers to spend an extra night at sea. Ships can generally navigate around severe weather, making cancellations rare, said Anne Madison, a spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association.
MSC Cruises: The company rerouted two of its ships, the MSC Seashore and the MSC Divina, farther east and promised refunds to passengers who booked excursions at their original destinations.
Norwegian Cruise Line: An eight-day voyage that departed Miami on Sunday was shifted from the Western Caribbean to the Eastern Caribbean, the company said. The cruise line also said it canceled a 10-day Caribbean voyage that was scheduled to depart on Thursday from Orlando.
The theme park will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday. Disney said tickets purchased for this week could be used through Sept. 30, 2023, and that it was working with any guests who required refunds.
Two summers ago, Maya DeConge was living at home and feeling alone.
COVID-19 cases were surging, and the nation was in unrest after the killing of George Floyd. DeConge, a Texas A&M University public health senior, was experiencing emotions similar to many people at the time.
“I had the urge to put myself in a place where I could help,” she said. “I wanted to be part of something where I could help with the unknowns and the fears and the anxieties that were going on.”
The following January after returning to College Station, DeConge signed up to be a volunteer for HelpLine, the after-hours mental health service staffed by students and supervised by Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS). When Aggies call the HelpLine number (979-845-2700), waiting on the other end of the line is a fellow student who can provide support.
HelpLine is a confidential and non-judgmental service, DeConge said, and students don’t have to be in an immediate crisis to dial-in. Anxiety, stress, or just a desire to vent are all good reasons to pick up the phone. The line is open weekdays from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. and 24 hours a day on weekends when classes are in session.
“You can pretty much call about anything – whether you’re really stressed out, or you just really need to talk with someone who will just listen to you, we listen and provide peer support,” DeConge said.
Volunteers complete 55 hours of training before they start taking calls, DeConge said, and have been educated on a variety of issues students may need help with. DeConge and other volunteers pick up about four shifts per month. No two days working the line look the same, she said.
Shifts range from four to six hours, depending on the duration of the conversations. There’s no time limit on calls – volunteers will stay on the line for as long as someone wants to talk.
“It depends on the evening – sometimes we’ll get four to six calls in a shift, and other times just one or two,” DeConge said. “It’s very rare that we get none. Calls can range from anywhere from a few minutes for general referrals on how to access services and programs at CAPS, or they can last an hour or more.”
On average, HelpLine receives about 1,000 calls per year. There are 42 volunteers who work the line this semester, said Susan M. Vavra, HelpLine’s director.
“I have one of the most rewarding positions on the CAPS staff because I remain honored to work alongside some of the best Aggies our campus has ever seen,” Vavra said. “Those who answer the HelpLine provide callers with a nonjudgmental, safe space to talk out anything. That is a beautiful thing to give to another person. We need more kindness and compassion in our world, and having an opportunity to witness firsthand the fierce desire to help others in need that HelpLine volunteers genuinely possess gives me great hope for our future.”
Most of the calls made to HelpLine are related to common problems among college students: things like relationship issues, stress, depression and imposter syndrome.
“It’s like you’re having a conversation you would have with a friend,” DeConge said. “You’re just sitting down and really listening. A lot of times just offering a listening ear is all that someone needs. You barely have to say any words, and they feel better. They just needed to get whatever it is off of their chest.”
DeConge stresses the importance of offering this kind of listening space.
“We have friends who call worried about a particular person and want to know how to help them. We also have people who call who are having feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness,” she said. “We get to talk to them about whatever they want to share with us. As we talk about suicide awareness, a lot of times people who may have these feelings don’t open up about it. I think HelpLine is a really important space for this.”
When it comes to personal struggles, DeConge said, there’s no hierarchy. No matter what someone is going through, their feelings are valid.
“We should all have that space to have someone really listen to us,” she said.
To learn more about HelpLine and how to volunteer, visit the CAPS website.
A reader develops fresh reservations about his mother-in-law’s plan to build her “forever home” in their backyard after she asks him to sign an unusual document.
My wife and I own a small house with a large backyard. My mother-in-law, 63, asked if she could use her small nest egg to build her forever home on it. (We can’t subdivide our lot, but we can build a guesthouse.) We agreed. She’s a terrific grandmother to our toddler, and the move would take financial pressure off her. She spent $5,000 on approvals and plans. Just before the excavators came, she asked me to sign a document giving the total value of the guesthouse to my wife if we divorce. She never mentioned this before! I understand her concern, but I don’t want a contract with my mother-in-law about my marriage. Now I’m getting concerned about her living so close. My wife sees both sides. What do you think?
HUSBAND
I don’t doubt that everyone means well here, but divorce is only one of the issues you should hash out before you reschedule the excavators. What if you and your wife have more children and want to leave your “small house”? What if one of you gets a terrific job offer in another city? And how would you even value a guesthouse that’s built on land owned by you and your wife?
Multigenerational living is great if it works for every generation. Here, I worry for your mother-in-law: No one should invest her life savings without a written agreement. I also respect your (newfound) concerns about your mother-in-law living in your backyard. I worry, too, about your wife’s seeming reticence. Most of us would have strong opinions about our mothers moving within spitting distance of us, but your wife seems oddly blasé.
Here’s the thing: This family compound may be a triumph, but I would pump the brakes on it until you’ve explored all the issues with a lawyer and made an agreement in writing. If you aren’t willing to do that, scrap this plan.
I graduated from college at the height of the pandemic. I’m proud of how I managed things: I moved to a new city for work, found a place to live and created a safe social life, all while supporting myself. My biggest challenge has been some weight gain. My new size makes me sad and socially anxious, but my doctor and I are not overly concerned: I’m active, eat well and fall within a normal weight range. After my last visit home, my mother called me to express urgent concern about my weight and the portions I ate (which were no bigger than anyone else’s). My father made a similar call. How can I let them know I’m hurt by their criticism and interference with my autonomy?
DAUGHTER
Your parents’ extreme reaction to your (fairly common) pandemic weight gain makes me think this is not their first time policing your diet and appearance — even if they did so before by praising you. It’s more important, I think, to better understand your feelings than to write a script for dressing down your parents.
Talk to a counselor about the sources and meaning of your sadness and anxiety. When you understand them more fully, you will probably have a better road map for navigating your relationship with your parents, including subjects that will be off-limits to them — and why.
I bought a bedside table at a used-furniture store. When I was cleaning it out, I discovered $700 of Treasury bonds from the 1970s in a drawer. I was able to track down the registered owner, which took considerable time. I called to verify her identity and get her current address, and I mailed the bonds the next day. A week later, I received a stock thank-you card. She signed her name but didn’t bother to write a message. I think she owed me a personalized note, and a finder’s fee wouldn’t have hurt. Is it fair to feel slighted?
E.
You are always entitled to feel your feelings. You were a good Samaritan and an impressive sleuth, and the owner of the bonds thanked you with a greeting card. I see this as a happy story. But you don’t. So, before you undertake your next (voluntary) good deed, consider that you may not feel properly acknowledged or compensated for it.
My sister quietly got engaged a few months ago. She and her fiancé have been married before, and they both have kids. She is not planning a big wedding; she thinks it would be weird for my nieces. Yesterday, she called to say they had picked a date for their small wedding (which is less than two months away). The problem: The date conflicts with a big trip my parents had planned. Still, my mother is thinking of skipping their vacation to attend the wedding. She worries that missing it would make my sister’s daughters feel bad. I say they shouldn’t cancel their vacation. You?
BROTHER
I get feeling protective of your parents. But if two adults want to reschedule their vacation (and possibly not even tell their daughter about the conflict), what business is it of yours? I would stay out of this.
For help with your awkward situation, send a question to SocialQ@nytimes.com, to Philip Galanes on Facebook or @SocialQPhilip on Twitter.
TOMALES, Calif. — At a friend’s rustic home in a tiny village about an hour north of San Francisco, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was trying to decide what to eat for breakfast. But he couldn’t resist telling a story.
“Some of the best oatmeal I ever had was in the L.A. County Jail,” the singer said from beneath an old felt cowboy hat, a blue bandanna tied around his neck. In 1955, while living in Topanga Canyon, he was pulled over on the Pacific Coast Highway because the taillight on his Ford Model A was broken. “They told me I could pay a $25 fine or spend six days in the clink.”
He was interested in religion at the time, and thought he’d finally have the chance to read the Bible, but his cellmates were too noisy. “I was extremely bored, and the police needed the space for more bona fide criminals, so they kicked me out on the second day,” he said. “They even gave me bus fare to get home.”
In his decades as a wayfaring folk singer, Elliott, who turned 91 in August, has amassed volumes of such tales, stories that blur the line between reality and fantasy, and translate as a particular, increasingly endangered strain of American folklore. He’s released nearly two dozen albums since 1956, alone and with the banjo player Derroll Adams (who died in 2000), but wasn’t recognized with a Grammy until 1995.
He’s known as an interpreter rather than a writer, singing beloved versions of “If I Were a Carpenter” by Tim Hardin, “San Francisco Bay Blues” by Jesse Fuller and the traditional “South Coast.” Though he hasn’t put out an album since “A Stranger Here” in 2009, he continues to perform live. His gigs this fall included a show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Sept. 24; a short run of concerts in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina start this week, followed by a tribute to John Prine and stops in California.
It’s a welcome return to the road. Elliott played 44 concerts in 2019 before the pandemic forced a 15-month pause, the longest he’s ever gone without stepping onstage. In August, he rescheduled two shows after contracting the coronavirus, though he described his case as “mild” after taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid.
Born Elliot Charles Adnopoz to middle class, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, he became so enamored with our nation’s iconography — the rodeo, merchant vessels, boxcar-hopping folkies, Peterbilt trucks — that he transformed himself into a peripatetic cowboy, a maritime enthusiast and a troubadour chasing the wind.
Today, he’s one of the last of the ’50s era folk music revivalists and beatniks who eschewed their parents’ conventions. He studied with Woody Guthrie, inspired Bob Dylan and hung out with Jack Kerouac. He was recorded by Alan Lomax, and has performed with Phil Ochs, Nico and Prine. He has covered, befriended and worked alongside American folk icons for so long that he’s become one.
“He wears the cloak and scepter of the American minstrel; he’s that guy,” said Bob Weir, a founding member of the Grateful Dead and Elliott’s longtime friend. The pair met in the ’60s when Elliott was opening for Lightnin’ Hopkins at a club in Berkley, and Weir, who was 16 at the time, crashed into the dressing room through a skylight to avoid being carded. “He dropped me into a conversation that we’ve been having for incarnations; he pretty much had me nailed to the wall,” he said. “I became acutely aware of who he was and why they call him Ramblin’ Jack.”
As the legend goes, Elliott’s nickname originated with the folk singer Odetta’s mother. “I knocked, and the door opened a crack, and I heard her say, ‘Odetta, Ramblin’ Jack is here,’” Elliott said. “I adopted it right away.”
Since then, Elliott has spent much of his life traveling between the East and West Coasts, with a little Texas in between. He finally settled in a modest rental in rural West Marin, an arresting stretch along coastal Highway 1. In these parts, Elliott’s become a sort of mythological figure, recognized because of his career but also, more generally, for his vibe, a kind soul in Western wear who cares just as much about the local postman as he does about his days on the Rolling Thunder Review.
“He doesn’t distinguish between the Joan Baezes and the Bob Dylans, and the person who’s driving the bus or the truck,” his daughter Aiyana Elliott said in an interview in nearby Marshall, Calif. “He loves working people, but also all people who he comes in contact with.”
In 2000, Aiyana made a documentary about her father, “The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack,” that explored the real-life costs of building a mythic artistic persona and finds Aiyana grappling with Elliott’s unrelenting restlessness. In a moment of frustration, she begs for alone time with him, which he never grants. That plotline, she revealed, was more loaded than it seemed. “If there was anything keeping me from my father,” she explained, “it was that he had abominably bad taste in women for decades.”
At the behest of his daughter, Elliott has been recording his tales for posterity at the home of his friend Peter Coyote, the actor, author and ’60s era counter cultural activist. “They trusted I could keep him on track,” Coyote said in an interview at his home. “He comes over here with a really good sound man, and people like Bobby Weir, Peter Rowan and all these other musicians he’s known drop in.”
Weir emphasized the importance of capturing Elliott’s history: “I’m a big proponent of making some space for him in the Smithsonian,” he said, “because an enormous part of America’s musical heritage lives in that body.”
Known for his storytelling and larger-than-life stage presence, Elliott’s greatest superpower may be his way with the guitar. “The way he attacks it, I only hear that in him,” Weir said. Elliott’s mighty flatpicking is also what made Frank Hamilton take notice amid the American folk music revival, when the two musicians were drawn to Washington Square Park. The former Weavers member and a founder of the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, called Elliott a “folk guitarist par excellence” and a “very good raconteur.” “He and I, and a lot of other young men at the time, were imbued with a romanticism of the open road,” he said in a phone interview.
Though Elliott has written few songs, a road trip with Hamilton spurred his most famous original, “912 Greens,” inspired by the house of a folk singer they crashed with in New Orleans. “That’s a talkin’ song,” Elliott said, meaning that he’s telling a story over acoustic guitar. “Guy Clark told me he stole the guitar part I’m playing for one of his songs, and I was honored.” Another conversational composition, “Cup of Coffee” was covered by Johnny Cash on his 1966 album of novelty songs “Everybody Loves a Nut.”
Recalling his earliest encounter with Dylan, Elliott described him as “a nifty little kid with peach fuzz, he couldn’t shave yet.” (The future Nobel Prize winner was then a teenager visiting Guthrie at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey.) Elliott wrote “Bleeker Street Blues” for Dylan in 1997, after the singer-songwriter was hospitalized with severe chest pains from histoplasmosis, a fungal infection. “Later on, we’ll join Woody and Jerry and Townes/But right now we all need you, so stick around,” Elliott speak-sings over acoustic guitar.
The pair grew close when they were neighbors in the Hotel Earle in Greenwich Village, where they bonded over a shared love of Guthrie, and other music of the burgeoning folk revival. Since then, fans have accused Dylan of aping Elliott’s style in his early days, particularly his nasally delivery, but that doesn’t bother the elder. “I helped him get into the musician’s union,” he said. Today, the pair aren’t in regular contact, but when they do cross paths, it’s with a great deal of warmth. “Love you Jack,” Elliot recalled Dylan saying after a gig in Oakland in 2014. “I thought, ‘Wow, you’ve never told me that before,’” Elliott said.
Unlike Dylan, and many of his other peers, Elliott hasn’t seen much commercial success — partly because he deals in niche genres, but also because “he’s not been great at managing his career, per se,” according to Aiyana. Because he hasn’t written many songs, he receives far fewer royalties on album sales and streams. The bulk of his income comes from touring, which has its own risks. More than anything, Elliott has sought freedom, and human connection. “He lives quite modestly, a lot of people don’t realize just how modestly,” Aiyana said. “But I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone so rich in friends.”
After decades of touring, the nonagenarian is resilient. He’s recovered from triple bypass surgery and two “little strokes” that left him unable to play the guitar for about a week. His hearing is assisted by small aids, but his mobility and stamina befit a much younger man. He moves with swagger in his carefully chosen outfits.
After a breakfast of oatmeal with berries and chopped pecans, and a plethora of stories about schooner ships, James Dean, big rigs, Leon Russell and other subjects between, Elliott loaded into his Volvo station wagon to wind through the cypress-lined roads overlooking the inlet Tomales Bay. He passed through his friend Nancy’s lavender field, and by the dunes at Dillon Beach where he and his friend Venta hike. In a vulnerable moment, he recalled his wife, Jan, the last of five, who died from alcoholism in 2001. “I was very devastated when she left us,” he said.
In 1995, the pair were living in a motor home in Point Reyes while she worked for Ridgetop Music, owned by Jesse Colin Young of the Youngbloods. One day, they decided to head north to sight see. “I was driving and admiring the bay on the left, and she was in the passenger seat and saw a sign on the right,” he said. “We pulled in and rented the house on the spot.” He’s lived in it ever since.
During the hourlong drive, Elliott’s profile set against the bucolic pastures rolling by and magnificent views of the ocean, he recalled other friends and acquaintances he’s known over the years, some who’ve moved away or died. Pointing to a run-down farmhouse, he wondered what happened to its owner: “I haven’t seen him in years, and I hope he’s OK.” Though Elliott lives in one of the most beautiful places in America, it’s clear that, for him, the landscapes are an added benefit. It’s the people here that truly nourish him.
Later, at Nick’s Cove, a local restaurant with a pier that stretches over the bay, Elliott chatted with a woman who had bellied up to the bar to watch a baseball game. “She runs a big dairy,” he explained as he headed toward a table facing the night’s performer. “Hey, I know that guy!” He lit up at the sight of Danny Montana, a fellow cowboy folk singer dressed in a hat and boots. On this September night, he covered many of Elliott’s friends, like John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker and Guy Clark, and Elliott hummed along in between bites of a hamburger. When he finished his set, Elliott invited Montana to sit at our table, and then complimented his “rig” as he packed up his gear to leave.
In just a few weeks, Elliott’s own show would be hitting the road once again. He was particularly excited about his travel companion, a former Navy pilot who also loves horses. “He just got a brand-new, red, Ford F-350 diesel pickup truck, and he’s going to be my driver,” he said with a grin. “He’s a good driver and a great guy.”
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