Hasta La Gadget!

LONDON (AP) — In the past decade, billions of dollars have been spent trying to save the lives of mothers in developing countries using strategies — usually inexpensive drugs — deemed essential by the U.N. health agency.

Yet two large analyses of maternal health programs— including one conducted by the U.N. itself — report that the efforts appeared almost useless, raising troubling questions about why all that money was spent.

While critics are calling for the pricey global initiatives to be significantly overhauled, the programs are still being implemented despite little proof they work. The practices mainly involve things like ensuring women giving birth get cheap drugs such as magnesium sulphate to treat labor complications or pre-emptive antibiotics for those getting a cesarean section.

Even public health officials acknowledge they were taken aback by the studies.

“Nobody could have been more surprised than I was when we got the results,” said Dr. Omrana Pasha of Aga Khan University in Pakistan, who led a study of maternal health interventions in six countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

“In clinical medicine, we would not prescribe a drug unless multiple trials show that it works,” she added. “The FDA won’t allow a drug to be marketed without that evidence. But things are different in public health.”

At an international meeting of U.N. partners starting Monday in South Africa, health officials are getting ready to ask donors for even more money to pour into maternal health programs. Since 2009, the U.S. has invested more than $13 billion in maternal and child survival, hoping to save lives by supporting “high-impact” health interventions.

According to the research papers, including one done in 30 countries that tracked more than 300,000 women, scientists found no link between the supposedly life-saving interventions and the death rates of women giving birth. Areas that used the interventions didn’t have better survival rates for mothers than areas that didn’t.

The two papers published last year are the biggest to assess the effectiveness of maternal health strategies, although smaller studies have previously suggested the methods help. But they gained little traction, perhaps because there doesn’t appear to be an easy fix.

Experts, meanwhile, are largely stumped as to why their methods failed to prevent deaths.

“We assume that if women get these things, they will be saved. But it’s too simple to say one plus one equals two,” said Dr. Marleen Temmerman, director of WHO’s maternal health department.

She isn’t convinced the interventions don’t work. She suspects there were problems implementing the strategies.

“Maybe the health facility has the medicine, but the man who has the key to the cupboard is gone,” she suggested.

Temmerman also said it would be dangerous if donors abruptly slashed their support for maternal health initiatives.

“The message is not to stop investing, it’s to invest money more wisely,” she said.

Some experts said existing plans should be adjusted.

“These essential interventions are important but they are not enough,” said Sandrine Simon, a public health adviser at Doctors of the World charity. “This is about more than buying the right medicines.”

But others said major changes were required to save more women.

“We need to be more honest and serious about past failures otherwise we will keep making the same mistakes,” said Bill Easterly, an economist at New York University. “It’s not just the fault of countries receiving aid who aren’t implementing the technology properly, it’s the fault of Western aid agencies and donors who are not trying hard enough to get it right.”

By Ken Jennings, CNTraveler.com

Manufacturing the world’s longest town name sure put the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales on the map–if there are any maps that actually have room for a 58-letter town. But what about the world’s shortest place name? It’s hard to get much shorter than the Norwegian town of Å.

See Å on a Map

The Lofoten islands of Nordland are among the most scenic places on earth. Vertical spires of glacially carved granite rise from the Norwegian Sea 100 miles north of the Arctic Sea–but the weather is surprisingly mild, due to the Gulf Stream. Tourists flock to Lofoten every summer to scale its mountains, admire its quaint red fishing villages, and enjoy its 24 hours of sunshine. To visit the Lofoten Stockfish Museum–and who wouldn’t want to see that?–you’d have to travel to the southern tip of the archipelago, to a village of 150 people called Å (pronounced “aw”).

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It’s an Old Norse Word
Å didn’t get its very brief name as a publicity stunt; its name is the Old Norse word for “small river.” As a result, there are at least seven villages in Norway called Å, though the one in the Lofoten islands is the most popular with tourists. The “Å” road sign was stolen so often by pranksters that the town replaced it with one that said “Å i Lofoten,” but after local complaints, the original one-letter sign was replaced.

Traveling from Å to B
In 2004, a British writer-comedian named Paul Parry decided he would take the ultimate cycling trip: from Point A to Point B. That is, he would bike from Å, Norway to Bee, Nebraska. (Technically, this also included an ocean voyage from Southampton to New York. Parry didn’t ride a stationary bike the whole time, but he says he did run full marathons on the deck of the Queen Mary 2.) When he finally arrived in Nebraska more than three months later, the Mayor of Omaha officially proclaimed it “A to B Day,” and a flurry of media attention greeted the weary traveler as he arrived at the tiny town of Bee, Nebraska.

I’d Like to Buy a Vowel
I’d like to one-up Parry by doing a full itinerary of vowels: from Å to E (a river in Scotland) to I (a town in Fujian, China) to Ø (an island in Denmark) to U (a municipality in Micronesia) and maybe sometimes Y (a commune in northern France). In fact, it’s possible to see lots of the world while avoiding consonants entirely. There’s Eiao (an island in the Marquesas), Aiea (the town near Honolulu where Bette Midler grew up) and a stream in Roraima, Brazil called Aauaua. It might be a lousy Scrabble rack, but it’s apparently a very pretty stream.

More from Condé Nast Traveler:

Everywhere you look, the Buckeye State is overrun with Johnny Football fever. The Akron Rubberducks, a local Double-A affiliate of the Indians, introduced the “Johnny Footlong” to its ballpark menu on Friday — a massive hot dog topped with Texas Jack chili, shredded pepper jack cheese and Sriracha sauce.

“We’re always looking to incorporate the sporting trends of northeastern Ohio into our menu,” Brian Manning, the team’s Director of Food & Beverage, told Fox 8 in Cleveland. “This is a great way to mix the excitement in the region with a fun, delicious and quality product.”

Since Manziel was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, he has had a burger, a beer and now a hot dog named after him.

The NBA offseason arrived with a flurry of perfectly manicured — and not so perfectly manicured — draft night suits in what was perhaps the most anticipated draft crop to enter the league since the one containing two guys, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, way back in 2003. All they’ve done since is combine for 17 All-Star teams and play for two different franchises each. LeBron has amassed four MVPs and two rings, while Carmelo has a scoring title to his name but has advanced out of the first round just two times in his career. James is 29 years old, Anthony is 30 and both want to win, perhaps now more than ever.

Let’s take a look at the best fits for the two free agents, both of whom have recently opted out of their contracts.

LeBron James

Miami Heat

Under the halo of team president Pat Riley, James has achieved tremendous success with the Heat, making it to four consecutive Finals while becoming the undisputed best player on the planet. With the news of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh also opting out, along with veteran forward Udonis Haslem, the Heat have an NBA-record $55 million in salary cap room. That means that Riley could go after Luol Deng, or feasibly sign Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry, whom the team has been rumored to like, or even pursue a talented young forward like Houston Rockets restricted free agent Chandler Parsons. Riley, in a typically shrewd move, acquired former Connecticut point guard Shabazz Napier (the 24th pick) from Charlotte on draft night, a guy LeBron deemed as his favorite player in the entire draft. If James wants max money from the Heat (five years, $130 million), as a recent report noted, Riley is seemingly setting himself up quite nicely. For James, who met with six teams during the summer of 2010, going elsewhere would mean taking a significant pay cut, up to $38 million. Staying with the Heat might just be the best long-term solution for LeBron’s legacy and for his wallet.

Chicago Bulls

The Bulls can potentially offer an elite point guard in Derrick Rose (above), depending on his return. They can also offer one of the game’s most respected coaches in Tom Thibodeau and a premier center in Joakim Noah. Acquiring James would be tricky for the Bulls to pull off — they’d have to amnesty forward Carlos Boozer and trade a future first-round draft pick — but Chicago represents a real opportunity to win both now and in the future.

Houston Rockets

You can never count out general manager Daryl Morey, who did the nearly impossible by acquiring two superstars before their prime in James Harden and Dwight Howard. Morey already dealt reserve center Omer Asik and would have to deal Jeremy Lin as well. James clearly loves the idea of a Big Three, and with him, Harden and Howard, it wouldn’t be entirely dissimilar to the Miami format, with another elite perimeter scorer and an All-Star big man.

Carmelo Anthony

New York Knicks

Anthony’s tenure in New York has yielded middling success, but to be fair, he’s never been surrounded with a championship caliber roster, at least not the way James has in Miami. The Knicks now have a savant at the helm in 11-time world champion coach Phil Jackson (serving as team president), though it remains to be seen how much power disheveled owner James Dolan will afford him. Still, the Knicks, who will have cap room in 2015, can offer a staggering five-year deal worth $129 million while Jackson has been hard at work to repair a severed roster. In a busy 36-hour period last week, Jackson packed off salary albatrosses Raymond Felton and Tyson Chandler to Dallas, picked up a true pass-first lead guard in Jose Calderon and got the Knicks back into the draft to nab a gifted small forward in Cleanthony Early. And the news of Jackson’s interest in Los Angeles Lakers free agent center Pau Gasol is highly intriguing because Gasol would give Anthony a wonderful big to run pick-and-roll with. The triangle offense would seemingly benefit Melo’s skill set as well, requiring him to handle the ball a bit less. If Carmelo were to win a title under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden, he would cement his legacy, giving the Knicks their first championship in over four decades.

Chicago Bulls

This may be the ideal fit for Anthony, and from what I’m hearing, this is where he’s likely to end up. Thibodeau (above) would find a way to make him a better defender, while also hiding his deficiencies alongside Joakim Noah. Plus, Rose’s dynamic playmaking ability would instantly take the pressure off of Anthony, and don’t forget about scorer extraordinaire Doug McDermott, whom the Bulls acquired on draft night. Chicago has not been the same since dealing Luol Deng to Cleveland, and creating their own Big Three would make sense for Anthony. For this to happen, Anthony would have to take a pay cut, but then again, he would have to take a pay cut with Houston or Dallas as well.

Dallas Mavericks

We can expect Dirk Nowitzki to take less money and give owner Mark Cuban more cap space. And yet, Cuban says his team will not be offering a max deal this summer. Melo and Dirk both need the ball to be effective, and this move seems unlikely, but it is certainly a possibility. The Mavs, who have about $26 million in cap room, offer a decent chance to win, but the long-term upside for Anthony simply isn’t there.

Houston Rockets

Houston offers Howard and Harden and no state income tax (like Dallas), but the rugged Western Conference is full of minefields (also like Dallas, actually). Morey, the Rockets’ GM, has been rumored to have a deal lined up for Lin, but the Rockets are a terrific offensive team already, ranking first in the league in scoring. How badly does Anthony want to win and how badly does he want to score 25-plus a night?

Email me at jordan.schultz@huffingtonpost.com or ask me questions about anything sports-related at @Schultz_Report and follow me on Instagram @Schultz_Report. Also, be sure to catch my NBC Sports Radio show “Kup and Schultz,” which airs Sunday mornings from 9 to 12 EST, right here.

From the moment that he set foot in the White House in January, 2009 President Obama has had to hear the silly charge that he has miserably failed blacks. He’s repeatedly heard it for two reasons. The first is obvious. He’s black, but more than that he actually practiced civil rights law and worked as a community organizer in poor communities on Chicago’s South Side. Therefore he’s supposed to have an even greater sensitivity to the plight of the black poor. And because of that he has a duty, obligation and even mission to use the power and prestige of the office to do and say more for blacks.

The other reason is pragmatic. Blacks backed him in record numbers in his 2008 and 2012 election campaigns. Despite the relentless beating he’s taken from the GOP, the legions of bloggers, websites, talk show jocks, tea party leaders and followers and assorted racist and fringe hate groups for six years, blacks have remained his staunchest supporters even when they privately grumble that he should do more for them especially since he no longer has to seek reelection.

But what is more? Obama has on occasion had to remind the black critics that he’s not the black president but the American president. This has always gotten much ink, and ignited public and private criticism that he’s not doing enough. But he’s also reminded that he has proposed, backed, implemented, enacted and increased funding for initiatives and legislation and signed executive orders that have boosted blacks in education and business. He’s made the first real White House effort in decades to take some action to bring some modicum of fairness to the horribly race-tinged sentencing and incarceration pipeline for legions of blacks.

The number of low-income blacks that have enrolled in the insurance exchanges with subsidies more than bear out that his signature Affordable Care Act gave them first time access to affordable health care. This has been given thousands of blacks who faced life threatening illnesses a new lease of life. This and his other initiatives have mostly flown low under the radar scope, been ignored, deliberately minimized or distorted by Obama’s black critics.

Obama has refused to say that any of his initiatives and programs were aimed at blacks. The absence of this frank statement and the longing of many blacks to hear him say that fuels the perception and frustration that he isn’t doing enough, or even anything.

Meanwhile, the GOP’s black attack surrogates delight in lashing Obama with alleged figures that show that blacks have supposedly fallen further down the economic ladder during his administration than under Bush. This is crass and a cynical cherry picking of stats to make a trumped up case that Obama is no friend of blacks and therefore they should be no friend of his. The facts are different. Studies that measure how blacks have fared under GOP versus Democratic presidential administrations presidents including the first two years of Obama’s show that blacks have increased their annual average income, including black family income, employment and decreased their poverty rate under Democratic presidents. At the same time, arrest rates have decline significantly faster under Democrats than Republicans.

The gains blacks have made under Obama have been even more remarkable given the other historic cross that he has had to bear. For a quarter century before Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992, Democrats were regarded and reviled by conservatives as the party that tilted to and pandered to minorities. The backlash was swift and devastating. Blue collar and rural white males deserted the Democrats in droves. Their sprint to the GOP became the reliable trump card for Reagan, Bush Sr. and George W. Bush’s White House wins.

Clinton slightly broke the Democrat’s slide among whites, particularly white males. But he had to reverse gears and touted a strong defense, the war against terrorism, tax reform for the middle class, pro-business solutions to joblessness and, most importantly, tip toe around civil rights and poverty issues. Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry followed the Clinton blueprint to the letter during their campaigns. If either had won, the likelihood is they would not have made these problems priority items in their White House tenure.

Yet Obama has made jobs, health care and sentencing reform priority items even while having to maintain his presidency as race-neutral. This approach has angered some blacks, but it has not given the Obama baiters anywhere to go with the issue of race. The end game is not what appearance Obama has had to show to the public but what tangible gains blacks have made. On this, Obama can claim much has been done even as he continues to hear the silly charge that he has failed blacks.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent political commentator on MSNBC and a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson. Report on KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.

Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter.