Christopher Mele

The soldiers were in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that was involved in an early-morning accident at the base, Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield, the official, Maj. Gen. Tony Aguto, commanding general of the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement.

Three soldiers were pronounced dead at the scene and three others were taken to Winn Army Community Hospital. They were part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.

The specifics of the accident and the conditions of the injured soldiers were not immediately available.

“Today is a heartbreaking day for the 3rd Infantry Division, and the entire Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield community,” the general said. “We are extremely saddened by the loss of three Dogface Soldiers, and injuries to three more. Our hearts and prayers go out to all the families affected by this tragedy.”

Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield, which is in Hinesville, Georgia, about 40 miles southwest of Savannah, describes itself as being responsible for training, equipping and deploying active and reserve component Army units.

The expansive facility includes 288,000 acres and features multiple tank and armored fighting vehicle gunnery, helicopter gunnery and small arms ranges.

This article originally appeared in

3 Soldiers Killed in Training Accident at Fort Stewart in Georgia, Official Says

Three soldiers were killed and three others injured in a training accident at an Army base in Georgia on Sunday, an official said.

But if you regularly take them off because you’re worried about harmful bacteria from the outside getting inside and making you sick, relax.

Those concerns are overblown, according to experts, who added that more pressing health risks are often overlooked.

What’s on your soles?

Charles P. Gerba, a professor and microbiologist at the University of Arizona, studied how many and which kinds of bacteria linger on the bottom of shoes.

In 2008, researchers tracked new shoes worn by 10 participants for two weeks and found that coliform bacteria like E. coli were extremely common on the outside of the shoes. E. coli is known to cause intestinal and urinary tract infections as well as meningitis, among other illnesses.

“Our study also indicated that bacteria can be tracked by shoes over a long distance into your home or personal space,” Gerba said in a statement.

(The study was not published in a peer-reviewed journal, involved a limited number of participants and was supported by the shoe company Rockport, which was testing machine-washable shoes.)

Gerba said in an interview this month that the study’s findings had made him change even some of his own behaviors: “It kept me from putting my feet on my desk.”

Contaminated shoes are unlikely to make you sick

It’s possible to transmit germs from your footwear if you touch your shoes and then your face or mouth, for instance, or if you eat food that’s been dropped on the floor.

But in the hierarchy of potential health hazards at home, bacteria-caked shoes rank comparatively low, according to Donald W. Schaffner, a food microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

He said there are more important considerations. Is anyone in the house sick? Are there frogs, turtles or snakes nearby, which can carry salmonella? Is food being stored and prepared properly?

Sponges, which retain water and food particles, are a “cesspool” of bacteria, said Dr. Aaron E. Carroll, professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

Outside the home, there are objects and surfaces that are frequently touched but seldom, if ever, washed, such as money, ATM buttons and gas station pump handles, he said, adding, “Focusing on people’s shoes feels like focusing on the wrong vector.”

Overall, experts emphasized that washing your hands with soap and water remained the most important health practice.

Lisa A. Cuchara, professor of biomedical sciences at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, said that fecal bacteria were certainly transferred from your shoes to your floor at home but that “for most healthy adults, this level of contamination is more of a gross reaction than a health threat.”

Putting the threat in perspective, she noted that the floor in a public restroom has around 2 million bacteria per square inch. A toilet seat, on the other hand, has an average of about 50 million per square inch.

“Think about that the next time you place your purse or knapsack on the bathroom floor and then bring it home and put it on the kitchen table or counter,” she said.

Consider what the dog drags in

If you are concerned about what two-legged residents track in, then what about your dogs?

“We don’t wash the dog’s paws every time he comes in the house, and I don’t want to think about where he’s been walking,” said Carroll, who has a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Loki.

Andrea Kaufmann of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, said she changed out of her shoes into slippers to keep dirt off the floors, but added that she has two Labrador retrievers.

“I could sweep and vacuum three times a day and still have dirt on the floors from the dogs,” she said. “They can’t take their shoes off.”

Dirt can be healthy. Really.

Considering the benefits of modern-day sanitation, vaccinations and health care, the likelihood of getting sick from our shoes is “infinitesimally small as to almost be unwarranted,” said Jack A. Gilbert, a professor in the department of pediatrics and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Gilbert, an author of the book “Dirt Is Good,” said there were theories suggesting that bringing elements of the outdoors indoors could help stimulate autoimmune systems, particularly in children.

In the first year of life, physical interaction with a dog can reduce a child’s likelihood of developing asthma by 13%, while interactions in a barn or farm can reduce it by 50%, he said.

Emily Ledgerwood, an assistant professor of biological and environmental sciences at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, said her 3-year-old daughter had recently helped her crack eggs to make breakfast. When they were done, Ledgerwood made sure they both washed their hands to prevent any possible cross-contamination with salmonella.

Later, her daughter helped weed the garden and pick vegetables. Though she had been working in dirt, Ledgerwood let her have lunch without first washing her hands.

“When we find out about all the microbes in our environment, we can get a bit squeamish, but we’re not getting sick all the time,” she said.

When should you take off your shoes?

It’s best to take your shoes off if you have young children crawling on floors or people in the home who have allergies, because pollen can be transferred to floors, especially to carpets.

“In cases where your immune system is compromised — people who have cancer, have undergone an organ transplant, have an infection — then there is much more of a reason to take your shoes off when you come home,” Cuchara said.

If the person you are visiting prefers that you take your shoes off, it’s sound etiquette to abide by their wishes, said April Masini, who writes about relationships and etiquette for her website, Ask April.

“Even if you don’t see shoes at the entrance, you can always ask if your host would like you to take off your shoes upon entering,” she said.

It is also a common practice observed in Asian and Middle Eastern countries, said Benjamin Hiramatsu Ireland, an assistant professor of modern language studies at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

“Removing one’s shoes upon entering a home stems from the respectful observance of religious practices that have been integrated within the cultural fabric and expected ‘to-dos’ of each of these countries and, of course, for reasons pertaining to hygiene,” he said.

Maybe you kick off your shoes at home because you don’t want to track dirt across clean carpets or floors, or maybe it’s just a relief to shed them.

Should You Take Your Shoes Off at Home?

A. Flash your headlights to alert the driver?

B. Momentarily look down and to the right at the white line on the road to avoid being blinded?

(For purposes of this quiz, we’ll rule out swearing as an option.)

If you answered B, go to the head of driver’s ed class. If you answered A or C, think again.

Why Shouldn’t I Flash Them?

Drivers once commonly flashed their headlights at oncoming cars that had their high beams on. But according to William E. Van Tassel, the manager of driver training programs at AAA’s headquarters in Heathrow, Florida, “We really have gotten away from that.”

The driver with the blinding high beams might be impaired by alcohol. Flashing your own high beams, particularly at night, could make that person’s vision, possibly already diminished by drinking and darkness, even worse, Van Tassel said.

He also advised against flashing your lights because of the dangers of the so-called moth effect, which occurs when drivers are mesmerized by bright or flashing lights and head in the direction they are looking. Flashing your lights could also be interpreted as an act of aggression.

Universal Agreement Is Hard to Come By

Laws about using headlights to communicate — if they exist at all — can vary from state to state, said Brett Robinson, executive director of the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

As for how some of these practices became part of driving folklore, it’s a case of “your father did it, and his father did it,” he said.

Robinson recommended against using headlights to communicate, emphasizing that no universally accepted, consistent standards exist.

“It means something different to everybody,” he said.

To add to the confusion, “lots of different regional norms” exist, said Staff Sgt. Terence J. McDonnell of the Traffic Services Section of the New York State Police. A commonly accepted signal in one part of the country might mean something entirely different somewhere else.

Does Flashing Your Headlights Mean ‘Go Ahead’?

Sometimes drivers at a four-way stop flash their lights to signal others to go ahead. That leaves room for miscommunication, Robinson said, especially if a driver intends the signal to mean that others should stay put.

Robert K. Gillmer, president of the Driving School Association of the Americas in North Wales, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, said that if the other person is slow to respond to the signal, the one yielding might then decide to go.

“If that person doesn’t react fast enough, they could change their mind,” Gillmer said. “To play it 1,000 percent safe,” he recommended against using headlights to signal other drivers. “By you doing no action, it’s better that you don’t have somebody misinterpret what you are saying,” he said.

In other cases, drivers might use their lights to indicate that it’s safe to pull into traffic or make a turn.

“Flashing your head beams to say ‘It’s OK to come out’” when the other driver cannot see oncoming traffic is fairly common, McDonnell said. But he cautioned drivers to do so at their own peril, “because you are putting your safety in the hands of that other driver’s courtesy.”

What Are Other Headlight No-Nos?

Experts advised against using headlights to warn drivers about a speed trap.

Van Tassel said that AAA does not encourage that kind of behavior and that motorists should drive within the speed limit. He noted that the effects of a crash at 65 mph are much worse than one at 55 mph.

Some suggested that using headlights in this way could be interpreted by authorities as obstructing governmental administration, although McDonnell said he didn’t know if he would go that far.

As for drivers who flash their lights to get you to move over because you’re not going fast enough, Van Tassel said not to take it personally.

“Just get out of the way,” he said.

When Should You Flash Your Lights?

A “universal courtesy across the country on interstates” is to flash your lights to signal to truck drivers that it’s clear for them to switch lanes, McDonnell said. The truckers will often thank you by briefly turning on their hazards, he said.

Experts recommended using your headlights to signal drivers to slow down because of a hazard ahead — a crash, some kind of wildlife, debris on the road or a disabled vehicle.

At night in those cases, it’s better to switch from low beams to off instead of low to high, Van Tassel said.

“This way you’re less likely to blind an oncoming driver with brighter lights, but still get a very obvious signal to them that something is going on directly ahead of them, and that they should approach with an abundance of caution,” he said.

Don’t Fear Using Your Headlights

Experts recommend keeping your headlights on low — even during the day — to improve your visibility to other drivers.

What about those urban legends about headlights and gang initiation rituals?

The stories vary slightly: One version purports that if you flash your lights at a car without its lights on, you are targeted for violence. The other version suggests that drivers flash their headlights to get you to pull over and that when you do, you are killed as part of a gang’s initiation.

Snopes.com, the myth-debunking website, has repeatedly found those stories to be false.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/automobiles/headlights-flashing-etiquette.html" id="c6aff1d2-b330-33d3-abb4-bad71cdfd638">The New York Times</a>.

You’re driving on a winding, rural road at night and a car in the opposite lane has its high beams on.

Flashing Your Headlights? You're Probably Sending the Wrong Signals

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority attributed the disruption to a “network communications” issue, and said on Twitter just before 6 p.m. that the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 lines and the Times Square shuttle were all affected.

About 90 minutes later, it was reporting that service was slowly being restored. But by that point, passengers and politicians alike had been fuming over the abrupt interruption in service during the evening rush.

The failure, critics said, underscored the problems affecting an aging, troubled mass transit system. The widespread disruption was the second major infrastructure failure in the city in a week. A blackout last Saturday had cut power to the subways, forcing passengers to be evacuated.

At a news conference on Friday night, Andy Byford, president of New York City Transit, an arm of the MTA that runs the subway and buses, said the root cause of the failure was not immediately clear.

“Our rail control center could not see where trains were on the numbered lines,” he said. “It was the servers that had failed such that the signals could not be seen.”

New York City officials were calling for answers.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter: “This kind of meltdown during a heat wave is UNACCEPTABLE. The MTA owes every single New Yorker an explanation for this. We’ve known about this dangerous weather for DAYS. There’s no excuse for why they aren’t prepared.”

“This is completely unacceptable @MTA. Service is suspended and platforms are boiling. New York cannot function like this,” the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, said on Twitter.

Byford did not respond publicly to the criticism.

“I’m frustrated as well,” he said. “This could not have happened at a worse time. It was the height of the evening peak.”

Tim Minton, the MTA’s communications director, said in a statement that “for safety reasons, trains were required to maintain their positions at the time of the interruption, and some of those trains were in between stations when that occurred.”

He said service was starting to be restored at 7:16 p.m., with substantial residual delays. Power for lighting and air-conditioning remained on during the disruption, Minton said. Officials said they did not believe the failure was heat- or power-related.

Danny Pearlstein, director of policy and communications for the Riders Alliance, said in a statement that breakdowns like the one Friday would become more common until a modern signal system was installed.

“Tonight, the subway’s 1930s-era signals melted down as hundreds of thousands of transit riders waited in dangerous, sweltering heat,” the statement said. “The MTA has made critical strides by speeding up trains to cut delays but only modern signals will deliver the reliable subway system New Yorkers need.”

On social media and in interviews, passengers described oppressively hot conditions while waiting for trains on platforms.

Maxine Wally, 29, a journalist for Women’s Wear Daily, said it took 2 1/2 hours to go from Grand Central Station to her sister’s house in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn.

She said she waited 40 minutes for a No. 5 train at Borough Hall that was stuck inside the station before switching to a crowded bus.

“One guy got onto the bus and he was saying he was going to pass out from the heat,” Wally said. “He was cursing at people to move in. A fight almost broke out on the bus. It was madness — a real New York moment.”

Trevona Brown and her friend paused in a busy area at the 14th Street-Union Square station where the police had blocked off stairs to the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 trains with yellow tape.

A harried MTA worker wearing an orange vest and a white towel around his neck raised his hands, trying to direct people to alternate options, but Brown was looking for suggestions from her phone instead.

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on,” she said, explaining that she was trying to get to SoHo. “I don’t really take the train much,” she said. “This is why.”

At Times Square, an MTA employee in an orange vest guarded the 1-2-3 line and stopped passengers from taking the stairs. “No train, no train,” she shouted.

Kirk Polius, 28, was trying to get to his home in the Bronx from the Upper East Side neighborhood. He ended up at Times Square.

“I moved here almost two years ago from Houston and this is the most frustrating part of living here,” he said of the disruptions. “The transportation is never reliable. You either get stuck somewhere and have to transfer or you’re just sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting without any idea of what’s going on.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/nyregion/subway-service-suspended-mta.html" id="1af623ee-70a7-34be-af96-91826357c824">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — Subway passengers were left stranded and broiling on train platforms for more than an hour Friday night on the first day of a heat wave as several lines in New York City were suspended in both directions.

Subway Service Is Suspended on Several Lines, MTA Says

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority attributed the disruption to a “network communications” issue and said on Twitter around 6 p.m. that the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 lines and the Times Square shuttle were all affected.

About 90 minutes later, it was reporting that service was slowly being restored.

Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said on Twitter: “Servers are back up. Trains beginning to move. Those at back of queue will still take a while to move. River tunnels confirmed clear. MTA is prioritizing express tracks.”

The abrupt interruption in service during the evening rush left passengers and city politicians alike fuming. It also underscored problems affected the aging, troubled mass transit system.

The disruption Friday was the second major infrastructure failure in the city in a week. A blackout last Saturday cut power to the subways and caused passengers to be evacuated.

Tim Minton, the MTA’s communications director, said in a statement that a “total stoppage” happened at 5:50 p.m. because of “a failure in the computer system that powers our signals in the A Division.”

The statement continued: “For safety reasons, trains were required to maintain their positions at the time of the interruption, and some of those trains were in between stations when that occurred. We worked to progressively move trains into stations while, simultaneously, technicians were successfully able to reboot the servers.”

He said service started to be restored at 7:16 p.m., with substantial residual delays. Power for lighting and air-conditioning remained on during the disruption, he said.

“Investigation of the root cause of this system failure is underway,” he said. “Service on lettered lines (B division) was not impacted.” He added that there were no indications that the failure was “heat or power related, but investigations are underway.”

Maxine Wally, 29, a journalist for Women’s Wear Daily, said it took 2.5 hours to go from Grand Central Terminal to her sister’s house in Brooklyn.

She said she waited 40 minutes on a 5-train at Borough Hall that was stuck inside the station before switching to the B41 bus that was packed.

Trevona Brown and a friend paused in a busy area at the 14th Street-Union Square station where the police had blocked off stairs to the 4, 5 and 6 trains with yellow tape. A harried MTA worker in an orange vest and with a white towel around his neck raised his hands, trying to direct people to alternate options, but Brown was looking for suggestions from her phone instead.

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on,” she said, explaining that she was trying to get to the SoHo neighborhood. “I don’t really take the train much,” she said. “This is why.”

A.J. McHugh, 42, of Manhattan, said he was waiting for a No. 6 train at the 33rd Street station for about 15 minutes. He said he could see a stranded train in the tunnel but decided to leave and take a bus to 77th Street.

“People had been sitting there, you could tell,” he said. “It was roasting hot.”

Wilberto Roman, 39, was at the Times Square station trying to take the No. 2 train uptown, with plans to switch to the No. 4 to get to his home in the Bronx, when he was diverted.

“So I’ve got to take the A train all the way past and then take a cab home,” he said, wiping his brow and lamenting the heat. “We were sightseeing,” he said. “Now we can’t go back home.”

Kirk Polius, 28, was trying to get to his in the Bronx from the Upper East Side. He ended up at Times Square.

“I moved here almost two years ago from Houston and this is the most frustrating part of living here,” he said of the subway disruptions. “The transportation is never reliable. You either get stuck somewhere and have to transfer or you’re just sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting without any idea of what’s going on.”

And New York City officials were calling for answers:

— Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter: “This kind of meltdown during a heat wave is UNACCEPTABLE. The MTA owes every single New Yorker an explanation for this. We’ve known about this dangerous weather for DAYS. There’s no excuse for why they aren’t prepared.”

— Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said on Twitter that the city’s Office Emergency Management was en route to the MTA’s rail control center.

— “This is completely unacceptable @MTA. Service is suspended and platforms are boiling. New York cannot function like this,” the city comptroller, Scott Stringer, said on Twitter.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/nyregion/subway-service-is-suspended-on-six-lines-mta-says.html" id="01bc9961-d129-344d-a012-da2c94e84abe">The New York Times</a>.

Subway Service Suspended on Several Lines, MTA Says

The Poway Station of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said on Twitter that the shooting happened around 11:30 a.m. local time at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California, about 25 miles north of San Diego. It said that there were injuries but that no additional details were immediately available.

Derryl Acosta, a spokesman at Palomar Medical Center, said that the hospital’s trauma center in Escondido, California, was expecting at least one patient and that one to four additional patients might be on the way.

Walter Vandivort, who lives in the neighborhood of the synagogue, said he heard gunshots while he was indoors. He said he was unsure how many he heard.

He described the neighborhood as a “peaceful, middle-class” area that had never seen this kind of violence in the decades he had lived there.

“I see the Orthodox Jews walking to their synagogue and we’ve never had a problem,” he said.

In October 2018, a man shouting anti-Semitic slurs opened fire inside a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing at least 11 congregants and wounding four police officers.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez said on Twitter: “Another tragedy in a place of worship … Another instance in America where people went to pray and find peace, only to be met with violence and bloodshed ... My heart goes out to the victims of the Chabad of Poway shooting today.”

Rep. Mike Levin said in a tweet that he was closely monitoring the situation. “We must do more to address the hate behind this attack and end the epidemic of gun violence in this country,” he wrote.

The Chabad of Poway was established in 1986. It approaches the Torah in a “modern, relevant context,” according to its website.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/poway-synagogue-shooting.html" id="4678d715-a73e-33e7-ae1b-5eae3dd44238">The New York Times</a>.

A man has been taken into custody in connection with a shooting at a synagogue in California on Saturday afternoon that resulted in injuries, authorities said.

Man in Custody in Synagogue Shooting in California, Officials Say

Derryl Acosta, a spokesman at Palomar Medical Center, said the hospital’s trauma center in Escondido, California, was expecting at least one patient and that one to four additional patients might also be on the way.

He described the neighborhood as a “peaceful, middle-class” area that had never seen this kind of violence in the decades he has lived there.

Uncle Larry, more formally known as Larry Kimura, an associate professor of Hawaiian language and studies at the University of Hawaii, listened to her describe the system as something meant to help detect cold dark things in the universe and light imperceptible to the human eye.

On the spot, he came up with the suggestion of “namakanui,” naming it after big-eyed fish that swim in Hawaiian waters at night.

Six months later, Kimura’s insights would draw much wider attention as officials credited him with giving a name to the first-ever picture of a black hole.

Dempsey and other researchers described the image to him two weeks ago, and she said she watched his face “just light up.” In a moment that she described as “astonishing” and “mind-bending,” he came up with one Hawaiian word for the black hole that took scientists six research papers to capture: powehi.

The word is derived from the Kumulipo, a centuries-old Hawaiian creation chant of 2,102 lines, and it means “the adorned fathomless dark creation.” It stems from “po,” which means powerful, unfathomable and ceaseless creation, and “wehi,” an honorific befitting someone who would wear a crown, Kimura said in an interview on Friday.

“Powehi as a name is so powerful because it provides real truths about the image of the black hole that we see,” Dempsey said in a video posted by the university.

Kimura, who has been studying the chant for years, said the naming “all just fell into place.”

He said he regarded the attention it was receiving as “a great happening for science and Hawaiian language and identity revitalization.” He said it would help promote the preservation of the Hawaiian indigenous language, which had been endangered.

Kimura’s involvement stems from the use of two of the world’s most powerful telescopes atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii island — the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and Submillimeter Array — that were part of the Event Horizon Telescope project that captured the image of the black hole.

Geoffrey C. Bower, chief scientist of the Hawaii operations at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, said the naming came in part from a suggestion to get a news release about the black hole image translated into Hawaiian.

Kimura was the natural expert to consult, Bower said, adding that it was suggested he also might come up with a name for the black hole but no one quite knew what to expect.

“It was remarkable in the simplicity of the language and how it resonated in the astrophysical concept of what we saw,” he said.

So far, powehi has been adopted as the official Hawaiian name of the black hole. Gov. David Y. Ige of Hawaii issued a proclamation declaring April 10 “Powehi Day.”

A more formal approval for the name would have to come from the International Astronomical Union, Bower said. A submission to the union would come only if the consortium of more than 200 scientists and 13 funding institutions involved in the project agreed to support it, he said.

Dempsey noted that Kimura helped give the Hawaiian name Oumuamua to an asteroid discovered in 2017.

NASA described the asteroid, which was formally known as 1I/2017 U1, as “the first confirmed object from another star to visit our solar system” and an “interstellar interloper.”

Kimura said the name Oumuamua was an old Hawaiian word that meant “scout” or “being out there in the front.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/science/powehi-black-hole.html" id="55edd6c4-22af-3eaf-ac87-aa3c706b4909">The New York Times</a>.

When Jessica Dempsey, deputy director of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, wanted help last year naming an upgrade to a deep-space detection system, she turned to Uncle Larry.

That Black Hole Is Now Called Powehi, at Least in Hawaii

“Powehi as a name is so powerful because it provides real truths about the image of the black hole that we see,” Dempsey said.

A more formal approval for the name would have to come from the International Astronomical Union, said Geoffrey C. Bower of the Hawai’i operations at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics. A submission to the union would come only if the consortium of more than 200 scientists and 13 funding institutions involved in the project agreed to support it, he said.

The allegations against Boren, 77, who was once the state’s governor and a U.S. senator, surfaced in November, and the university sought the help of the Atlanta law firm Jones Day to investigate, a university spokeswoman said.

Separately, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was asked Thursday by the university police to help in the investigation of Boren and James Hall, a former vice president for development at the university, a bureau spokeswoman said Friday.

Boren could not be reached for comment Friday night. His lawyer said he denied the allegations. Hall could not be reached on Friday night; he has denied any wrongdoing.

The website nondoc on Tuesday reported extensively on the allegations involving the student, Jess Eddy, who was in his early 20s at the time of the episodes.

Eddy told the website he was subjected to harassment and unwanted sexual advances by Boren, who was then 69. The website also reported that Eddy said Hall engaged in one instance of inappropriate touching.

One of the episodes with Boren happened during a trip to Houston in 2010 while Eddy and the university president had drinks in a hotel room after meeting with alumni and potential donors, Eddy told the website.

The lawyer for Boren, Clark Brewster, said Friday that Eddy worked as a student assistant to the university president and also answered calls to a university complaint hotline. Boren advised Eddy when he sought guidance about entering politics and also wrote a letter on his behalf to a judge when Eddy faced vandalism charges, Brewster said. But he added that Boren did not have a close working relationship with the student.

“He would know him but not very well,” Brewster said.

In an interview with lawyers from Jones Day, Eddy said Boren had not engaged in any misbehavior, Brewster said, adding that when he learned about that interview, he asked Eddy to memorialize his comments in a letter, which he did in a letter dated March 14.

The letter signed by Eddy and provided by Brewster on Friday night said: “This is in connection with information you shared with me regarding allegations that have been made against David Boren. To the extent that any of these allegations are attributed to me, I would like to make perfectly clear that they are not true.”

Neither Jones Day nor Eddy could be reached on Friday night.

Sara Bana, executive director of Civic Services Community Advocacy, an outreach and civil rights group in Oklahoma serving as a spokeswoman for Eddy, said he had been manipulated into writing the letter “in an moment of crisis.”

Three days after the letter, Eddy called Boren and asked for compensation for his “pain and suffering,” a call that Eddy said he regretted because it could change the public perception of his account, the nondoc website reported.

Brewster said Boren paid no money to Eddy and said of the allegations, “This is the kind of thing that causes you to be gut sick.”

Brewster said his client had “an exemplary public life.” Boren, who became university president in 1994 and retired last year, served as governor from 1974 to 1978 and was a U.S. senator from 1979 to 1994.

Bana said Eddy had been “very transparent and truthful” about his call to Boren seeking money. “I understand that Brewster thinks he has something big, but it’s one piece of a very complex and long situation,” she said.

For now, she said, supporters of Eddy were focused on creating a safe space to allow him to “cope and process.”

There was no clear timetable for when Jones Day would conclude its investigation, a university spokeswoman said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/david-boren-investigation-ou.html" id="bd2da44d-a236-3663-a495-6bf3877dc5b4">The New York Times</a>.

The former president of the University of Oklahoma, David L. Boren, is being investigated over allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward a student from 2010 through 2012, according to officials and a news report.

Ex-University of Oklahoma President Faces Sexual Misconduct Claims

The memo, known as a management alert and written by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, said the data of survivors of the 2017 California wildfires and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria were released to an unidentified contractor.

There were no indications that the data had been compromised, the agency said in a statement Friday night. The agency said it had worked with the contractor to scrub the unnecessary data from its computer networks.

The memo, which was dated March 15 but surfaced Friday, found that 20 data fields were unnecessarily shared with the contractor, including details about the victims’ financial institutions, electronic funds transfer numbers and bank transit numbers. Investigators estimated 2.3 million people helped by FEMA might have been affected.

The victims were enrolled in a program called Transitional Sheltering Assistance, which provides hotels to people displaced by disasters. The memo said previous iterations of the program did require the kind of sensitive personal data that was overshared to be provided to a contractor but that was no longer the case.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency unnecessarily shared sensitive personal data of more than 2 million disaster victims with a contractor, subjecting that information to potential identity theft and fraud, a government memo released Friday said.

Christopher Mele

Articles written by the author

3 Soldiers Killed in Training Accident at Fort Stewart in Georgia, Official Says

Should You Take Your Shoes Off at Home?

Flashing Your Headlights? You're Probably Sending the Wrong Signals

Subway Service Is Suspended on Several Lines, MTA Says

Subway Service Suspended on Several Lines, MTA Says

Man in Custody in Synagogue Shooting in California, Officials Say

Man in Custody in Synagogue Shooting in California, Officials Say

Man in Custody in Synagogue Shooting in California, Officials Say

That Black Hole Is Now Called Powehi, at Least in Hawaii

That Black Hole Is Now Called Powehi, at Least in Hawaii

Ex-University of Oklahoma President Faces Sexual Misconduct Claims

Personal Data of 2.3 Million Disaster Victims Was Released by FEMA, Report Says

Suspect Arrested in Shooting Death of California Police Officer

Man in custody in Synagogue shooting in California, officials say

More than 700 at 2 California universities under quarantine amid measles outbreak

Man charged in racist threats against three lawmakers

Sexual assault on flights: Experts recommend ways to stay safe and combat it

Wanted: the 'traveling bandit,' a bank robber who gets around