Latest news with #Bikram
Time of India
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
NE natives in Israel on tenterhooks as Iran rains missiles
G uwahati: As tensions rise between Israel and Iran, people of Assam and the northeast residing in Israel are contemplating returning to India if the conflict escalates further. On Thursday, the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv reached out to its nationals, including those from Assam and the northeast, to gauge their interest in evacuation flights from Jordan and Egypt. Preetam Regon, a researcher at the Volcani Institute in Rishon LeZion, said, "The Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv has started sending emails to Indian citizens to know if we are interested to leave Israel. We believe if the war continues to escalate, many Indians will leave." Rishon LeZion near Tel Aviv has seen numerous missile strikes from Iran. While daily life continues with supermarkets and public transport operating at reduced capacity, the targeting of schools and hospitals has heightened anxiety among residents like Preetam. His family in Jonai, Assam, has left the decision to return in his hands. "Shelter to protect ourselves is there in the institute or the place where we are staying. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch xu hướng AUD/USD? IC Markets Đăng ký Undo Nevertheless, I may decide to return home if my supervisor allows. At this moment, no one knows to what extent this war will go," Preetam said. He recounted a close call with a missile landing just a kilometer away, despite Israel's efforts to intercept such threats. Preetam added that some of his friends in Jerusalem might also opt to return soon. Bikram Basnet, employed as a caregiver with a local family in Jerusalem, said while missile strikes were taking place at some distance on Thursday morning, significant tremors could be felt in the nearby areas. "It is far bigger than the attack of Hamas. Even as missiles are intercepted in the sky, glass widows and household utensils shake and walls vibrate," said Bikram, who hails from the Kalapahar area in Manipur's Kangpokpi district. Bikram said he is in contact with the Indian Embassy and does not intend to leave Israel immediately. However, he added that the inclination to leave is likely to be stronger among students, researchers, and construction workers due to disruptions in their work and studies. "There are many caregivers like us from India. We work indoors and that's why we are in comparatively safer zones. But the construction workers can not work during war time and students and researchers too are facing frequent closure of their institutions. So, they might return," he added. The Indian Embassy has assured its nationals that once they confirm their intent to leave, details about flights and transport will be provided. The MHA is organizing chartered flights from Jordan and Egypt to facilitate the return of those wishing to leave Israel. The embassy will coordinate transport from Tel Aviv to the borders and onward to the airports. As of now, there have been no reports of Indian nationals from Assam returning from Iran. However, state officials are closely monitoring the situation and the MEA's evacuation plans.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
‘We were powerless': inside the devastating Ohio State sexual abuse scandal
Ohio State sets the standard in intercollegiate sports. The university's athletics department, a statewide source of pride that includes 36 varsity sports teams (from pistol shooting to college football's reigning national champion), rivals some Fortune 500 companies for scale. In 2024 Ohio State spent $292.8m on its sports programs, more than every school in the well-heeled Big Ten conference and every college in the country besides the University of Texas, while hoovering in more than $1.2bn in revenue over the past seven years. The Ohio State brand – flaunted through scarlet red block-O logos and buckeye tree iconography – is so synonymous with flush times inside and outside the lines that even now few really associate the university with one of most shocking and widespread sex abuse scandals in US history. Eva Orner – the Australian documentary director behind Netflix's Bikram and the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side – got an up-close view years ago on her first flight from Los Angeles to Columbus, home of the Buckeyes and the Ohio State campus. 'We stopped somewhere,' she recalls. 'There wasn't a direct flight, and it was a game day weekend. When I got on to the connecting flight, everyone was in Buckeyes paraphernalia. I walked around the city, and everything was Buckeyes. I went to the game and watched the tailgating. It's like a fever or a cult. It's an incredible thing and a positive thing – but then when a story like this comes out, it can be very challenging.' Her latest documentary, Surviving Ohio State – which premiered at Tribeca and releases on HBO – unpicks one of the most overlooked scandals in sports: It trains a harsh, unflinching light on Richard Strauss, the once-respected physician who abused at least 177 male students while working in Ohio State's athletics department and student health center from 1978 to 1998. According to Ohio State's own campus crime data released in 2021, the school logged more than 2,800 instances of alleged sexual misconduct by Strauss – including more than 170 total allegations of rape. Many of the survivors were violated during routine checkups in a pattern of abuse that spanned at least 15 sports – from football to fencing. (Male student-athletes nicknamed Strauss 'Jellypaws' and would warn one another to 'watch your nuts' before exams.) An independent investigation concluded the university had been aware of complaints about Strauss's conduct as early as 1979 – when the women's fencing coach raised the issue. But the university didn't take meaningful action against the doctor until 1996; that year, Strauss was finally suspended from clinical duties, but remained a tenured faculty member until his retirement in 1998 – at which point he was still given emeritus status. That would seem to make Strauss an even bigger scourge than Larry Nassar – the former Michigan State University and US women's gymnastics team physician serving a de facto life sentence for sexually assaulting at least 265 young women and girls under his treatment from 1996 to 2014. But where Rachael Denhollander, Maggie Nichols and the other elite gymnasts who blew the whistle on Nassar were celebrated as heroes, the men who came forward with their allegations against Strauss were greeted with skepticism and ridicule. 'I don't think we're used to seeing men come out publicly about abuse,' says Orner, who spent 31/2-years on the documentary – or more than twice the time she typically dedicates to her projects. 'When the OSU survivors came out, they were challenged by the university legally. It's been going on for seven years. That's had devastating effects on them all.' Orner's film puts viewers in front of those survivors and challenges them to maintain their cynicism after hearing their experiences in explicit detail. Most prominent are Buckeyes such as Mike DiSabato (the Strauss whistleblower) and Mark Coleman (a former college champion turned mixed martial arts star) who fueled the success of Ohio State's wrestling program and were held up as exemplars of a particular strain of flinty, midwestern toughness. Al Novakowski, a standout hockey player who left his native Canada to play for the Buckeyes, tells a horrifying story about one Strauss assault in which he alleges the doctor drugged and raped him after he went to see him about a muscle spasm. 'I kept thinking, Who am I gonna tell?' he recalled. It's one of many scenes that hammers home the disparity between Strauss – a former Navy officer who edited medical journals and issued early warnings about the dangers of steroid use – and the tough-guy students, who could lose their scholarship if he failed them on their physicals. Says Coleman: 'We were powerless.' Strauss's death by suicide in 2005, before the allegations against him came to light, robbed his survivors of their day in court. ('Most of the survivors didn't know he had killed himself until 2018,' Orner says.) But that's not to say there still isn't guilt to go around. Russ Hellickson, the Buckeyes hall of fame wrestling coach, has conspicuously not supported his former students even as they allege he knew about Strauss's perversions and didn't stop them. The coach didn't even object to the doctor having a locker in his team's sacred space or showering next to his athletes. 'What you'll come to learn,' former Buckeyes wrestler Dan Ritchie says in the film, 'is that this isn't just happening with the wrestlers…' Significantly, Hellickson's lead assistant during much of Strauss's tenure was Jim Jordan – the two-time NCAA wrestling champion turned Freedom Caucus congressman and Donald Trump bootlick. While Jordan would register his share of on-the-record denials at the time, a number of former wrestlers say in the film that Jordan reached out to them privately and pushed them to change their stories in hopes of making the scandal, and the growing scrutiny on him, go away. The story bookends a shocking testimonial from Frederick Feeney, a respected wrestling referee who alleges that Strauss pleasured himself as the ref was showering after officiating a meet decades ago. 'The next thing I know, I'm feeling his hand on my butt,' Feeney says to camera, choking back the emotion. 'It affected me so bad that I didn't even respond to him, when I should've knocked him on his ass at that point. But I didn't. As I'm walking out [of the locker room], Russ Hellickson and Jim Jordan were both standing there. I looked at both of them and said, Strauss was in there masturbating beside me in the shower. Jim Jordan looked at me straight in my face and said, 'It's Strauss. You know what he does.'' But where Michigan State went above and beyond most institutions while taking responsibility for the Nassar affair, agreeing to an historic $500m settlement that notably doesn't further silence survivors under NDAs, Ohio State has only paid $60m and refused to own any legal liability. All the while the university, despite issuing a formal apology and revoking Strauss's emeritus status, continues to reject the implication – derived from the independent investigation that it called for and funded – that it covered up Strauss's misconduct. Strauss's son releasing a statement on behalf of his family endorsing the independent investigation only makes the school look worse in the final analysis. 'I had one off-the-record conversation with his son that I'm not allowed to disclose,' says Orner, the rare journalist who has spoken with the Strauss family. 'And I think it's OK to say that this was a complete shock to them when [the news] came out.' Given that this is the fourth sex abuse case to break out at a Big Ten school in the past 14 years, you have to wonder how many more college sports colossuses are sitting on similar scandals – or if there could ever be a case extreme enough to prompt any intervention from the NCAA, which I understand is charged with (checks notes) regulating college athletics. Ultimately, the film, affecting as it is, only gives Ohio State survivors an outlet to release their emotional trauma, raise awareness and remind the world how strong they always were. 'It's a lot of responsibility,' Orner says, recalling the anxiety she felt while screening the film for them for the first time at Tribeca. 'There were a lot of tears, but it turned out to be a really cathartic thing for them, where they were sort of transformed after the screening and felt really proud and banded together as brothers.' It would be a nice ending if Ohio State didn't still owe them and the remaining Strauss survivors a just one. Surviving Ohio State premieres on HBO on 17 June with a UK date to be announced
New York Times
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Triple-Digit Heat, and Scolded for a Sip of Water
After nearly 20 minutes of intense yoga in a 105-degree room, the influencer had grown thirsty. She dropped her pose, leaned down to pick up her Fiji water bottle and took a sip. She didn't think it would be a problem. She certainly didn't think that within days, hundreds of thousands of people would have seen a video about her impromptu water break. But that small decision, to take a drink of water partway through a 90-minute hot yoga session at Bode NYC, touched off a series of events — and one widely seen TikTok video — that resulted in an instructor losing her job. And as with so many other moments of consumer outrage, broadcast by indignant shoppers or travelers (or yogis) to the riled-up masses on social media, this one also found a large and often sympathetic audience. How could drinking water be a problem? In a yoga class? The video in question contained several potent accelerants known to stoke outrage: sweaty vulnerability; the indignity, in an age of obsessive hydration, of being told you can't drink; relatively low stakes. ('Denying hydration in ANY workout class is a huge red flag,' one TikTok user thundered in a comment.) Those chiming in from the sidelines missed some nuance, as they often do. But surprisingly, this modern moral tale finds its ostensible antagonist in a surprising place at the end: back on a yoga mat, at the same studio where all the unpleasantness began. The firestorm began on Jan. 26, when Roma Abdesselam settled in for a 6 p.m. yoga session on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The class was billed as Bikram style, meaning that practitioners would be expected to move through a carefully prescribed sequence of 26 yoga postures, directed by an instructor. While working through the sequence, which was developed by the yoga guru Bikram Choudhury, who fled the United States amid a hail of sexual assault accusations in the 2010s, practitioners are often encouraged to refrain from drinking water until about half an hour in, usually once they reach eagle pose. (Instructors sometimes call this 'party time.') Although her class hadn't yet reached eagle pose, Ms. Abdesselam, 29, exercised her free will and took a sip anyway. The instructor, a longtime Bikram practitioner named Irena, took notice and reminded the students not to drink water until they were cued to do so. Ms. Abdesselam, who said she did not remember that rule being explained at the start of the session, became frustrated and left early with her fiancé, who was also in attendance. They didn't say a word to Irena. 'I was a little taken aback because, like I said, I've taken the class before, and I never had an instructor say that to me at all,' Ms. Abdesselam recalled in a phone interview. Moments later, walking through the January night, she recorded a video for TikTok. Clutching her black yoga mat, the infamous water bottle sloshing in the corner of the frame, she stormed down a Manhattan sidewalk with all the fervor of a woman who had sought the meditative calm of a yoga session but got the opposite. In the 42-second post, Ms. Abdesselam vented her frustration. 'And the instructor bullies me — calls me out in front of everyone — and is like, 'It's not time to drink water, I'll let you know when you can drink water, you drink water when I want you to drink water,'' she says in the TikTok video, which has since been viewed by nearly two million users. Some commenters described similar experiences at the studio. Some faulted her for airing her grievances publicly. And others expressed skepticism that the incident had happened at all. The instructor in question is also skeptical. At least, she recalls the day differently. Irena, 56, who requested to be identified by only her given name, maintains that she did explain the instructions at the start of class, contrary to Ms. Abdesselam's recollection. She also said she didn't 'command' her pupil not to drink water but instead asked to 'please try to refrain' until the appointed time — the idea being that selectively forgoing water can strengthen discipline and improve flexibility, among other health benefits. 'I thought it was innocently said,' she said in an interview. 'It was my invitation — not an order, not a royal command.' 'It Just Felt Targeted at Me' The day after Ms. Abdesselam filmed herself, red-faced and fuming, the studio posted a lighthearted response on its own TikTok account saying that 'not only is drinking water allowed it is encouraged!!' In the caption, the studio added that 'while we try to hold off until after eagle pose in original hot yoga, please drink water whenever you feel your body needs it.' Then Jen Lobo Plamondon, who founded Bode NYC in 1999 with Donna Rubin, released a video statement in which she said that the situation 'does not align' with the studio's standards. At Bode NYC, one of the first studios in New York City to offer Bikram yoga, teachers are instructed to 'encourage clients to drink water in between postures when they need it' and not to 'micromanage when or how much water people drink,' according to Ms. Lobo Plamondon. 'We were the only hot yoga studio in town for six or seven years,' Ms. Lobo Plamondon said. 'You knew when you were going to hot yoga, you were going to a Bikram yoga class. But now, every studio is hot. So when they come in and we ask if you've done hot yoga before, they say yes, but then they come into a Bikram-style class and it's very different.' For Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a history professor at the New School and the author of a book about America's exercise obsession, the problem stems from the 'slightly awkward way' that Bikram-style yoga fits into today's group fitness universe, butting up against faddish and social-media-friendly studios like CorePower or Y7. Bikram fans might find value in the discipline baked into the practice. But in an era in which many think of yoga as rooted chiefly in 'self-care,' modern exercisers may find it abrasive. In a phone interview a few days after the incident, Ms. Lobo Plamondon said that she held an all-staff video meeting to go over the company's policies and to emphasize to teachers that external reviews are taken seriously. She also said that the studio and Irena had parted ways. 'One-off reviews are not going to jeopardize your job,' Ms. Lobo Plamondon said. 'But when it spirals like this and we see that other people had a similar experience, it's not going to be tolerated.' But despite Ms. Lobo Plamondon's efforts, it has proved difficult to reconcile the tenets of the practice with students' expectations. Another Bode student, Monica Carbone, 28, said that she had an experience similar to Ms. Abdesselam's during a 75-minute hot yoga class last month. About 25 minutes in, while holding a pose with one leg up and her foot clasped in her hand, Ms. Carbone began to feel lightheaded and took a sip from her water bottle. The instructor then asked the class to wait until after the pose was completed to take a water break. 'It just felt targeted at me,' Ms. Carbone recalled in a phone interview. 'I was sitting in the front row, and whether or not that was the case, it definitely made me feel a little bit uncomfortable.' Later, when Ms. Carbone got up to leave the room after starting to feel thirsty again, the instructor stopped her and offered to refill her bottle for her. She declined, then went to the front desk to explain to a manager what had happened. 'He said something which made me even more taken aback,' Ms. Carbone said. 'He was like, Yeah, I think she's one of the more traditional teachers. And traditionally you only leave Bikram classes when you have to do one of the three P's: puke, pee or pass out.' The Teacher Becomes the Student Irena has been practicing this style of yoga for 13 years and did teacher training with Bode in 2022. She said she understood that adaptation was necessary for any business to thrive — even ones rooted in tradition. Still, she stressed the importance of adhering to the principles of Bikram-style yoga whenever possible. 'You are seeing in this new era, young people are having a very hard time to be told what to do,' she said. Reflecting on the fallout from her video, Ms. Abdesselam said she never wished for Irena to lose her job, just 'for her to be talked to.' 'Just because it's always how something's been done doesn't mean that it needs to continue being done,' she added. Her onetime instructor might disagree. The same week she lost her job, Irena turned up for a class at Bode NYC's Flatiron location, where she remains a student. She loves the instructors and the community, she said, and has no plans to leave the studio. 'Yoga is bigger than you or I,' she said. 'Yoga is bigger than any teacher or any studio owner. Yoga is a culture, it's life, it's a discipline. The practice of yoga is my medicine.'
