Nepal’s tourism board is defending the number of permits it issued to climb Mount Everest for this season in which 11 people have died. And the country says it has no plans to restrict the number of permits issued next year, but rather that it hopes to attract still more tourists and climbers.

“There has been concern about the number of climbers on Mount Everest but it is not because of the traffic jam that there were casualties,” Mohan Krishna Sapkota, secretary at the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, told the Associated Press. He instead pointed to weather conditions, insufficient oxygen supplies and equipment.

“In the next season we will work to have double rope in the area below the summit so there is better management of the flow of climbers,” he told the news service.

The image of a crowded Everest linked to the death toll was spurred by a viral photo last week that showed climbers in their neon gear, packed in a tight, unforgiving queue to the highest point on Earth.

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A long queue of mountain climbers line a path on Mount Everest on May 22. Nepal’s tourist board says weather conditions and other factors, not crowds, were to blame for eight deaths on the peak in two days last week.

Nirmal Purja/AP

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Nirmal Purja/AP

“You essentially have something that looks like people are waiting in line for concert tickets to a sold-out show, only instead of trying to get in to see their favorite artist, they’re trying to reach the top of the world and are running into traffic,” Outside magazine editor at large Grayson Schaffer told NPR’s Weekend Edition.

It’s a traffic jam that can turn fatal. “The danger there is that, at that altitude, the body just can’t survive,” Schaffer said. “They’re breathing bottled oxygen. And when that oxygen runs out because you’re waiting in line, you are at much higher risk for developing high-altitude edemas and altitude sickness — and dying of those illnesses while you’re still trying to reach the summit.”

Everest’s very highest reaches are known as the death zone. And once a climber reaches it, all bets are off.

“Once you get above about 25,000 feet, your body just can’t metabolize the oxygen,” said Schaffer, who has been to Everest but not the death zone. “Your muscles start to break down. You start to have fluid that builds up around your lungs and your brain. Your brain starts to swell. You start to lose cognition. Your decision making starts to become slow. And you start to make bad decisions.”

And that breakdown in cognition is happening to people who have often flown hundreds or thousands of miles and paid significant sums of money to achieve their dream of reaching the top.

“The reason that people try to climb Mount Everest is because it grabs a hold of them and they feel like they just have to make the summit,” Schaffer said. “And so you’ll have some people in distress and not necessarily getting help from the people who are around them. It’s this kind of bizarre thing to be surrounded by hundreds of people, and yet totally alone at the top of the world.”

Nepal’s government doesn’t put a specific limit on permits. This year 381 people were permitted to climb – a number the AP says is the highest ever. Foreign climbers must pay a fee of $11,000 for a spring summit of Everest, and provide a doctor’s note attesting to their fitness.

A few reasons made last week on Everest such a crowded one, in which eight people died in two days. One factor is that China has limited the permits for the Tibetan side of the mountain, driving more people to the Nepalese side.

Another factor is weather. Alan Arnette, a four-time Everest climber, told CNN that bad weather left just five days ideal for reaching the summit. “So you have 800 people trying to squeeze through a very small window,” he said.

Hence the traffic. “There were more people on Everest than there should be,” Kul Bahadur Gurung, general secretary of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, a group comprising all expedition operators in Nepal, told the AP.

Now Nepal’s tourist board finds itself working to counter the narrative of that viral photo. On Tuesday, the tourism board’s social media accounts shared a tweet by Nepali climber Karma Tenzing.

“Everest unfairly trashed via viral image of ‘traffic jam’ on May 22 2019,” he wrote. “Below are REAL photos of my climb to Summit on May 15. Devoid of jams & I spent an HOUR at summit. With only a 3-4 day weather window & ~300 Everest Summiteer annually, jams will exist. Spread the truth!”

In a statement Monday, the tourism board expressed condolences to the bereaved family and friends of those who died, and added that it takes the matter seriously and was “disturbed” by the news.

“Nepal recognises the need to work closely with expedition companies and teams to control safety of climber flows in the face of climatic risks and sensitivities,” it said.

But it also pushed back on the idea that it was to blame. It said it had limited the number of permits and had issued them under stringent rules.

“As is known, climbing Everest is a hardcore adventure activity, a daunting experience even for the most trained and professional climbers,” it said in the statement. And the tourist board said it had a request for the travel industry, the media, and potential future climbers: “be aware of all the risk factors included in climbing peaks above 8,000 m. Intense training, precautions and attention to every minor detail, are of extreme importance for climbing the Himalayan peaks.”

In other words: no one ever said climbing Everest was safe.

This year has been the deadliest on Everest since 2015. An avalanche in 2014 killed of 16 Sherpas. And the mountain’s most famous tragedy happened in 1996, when eight climbers died in one day, a harrowing event recounted by Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air.

Since then, little has changed, Schaffer says – except “it’s gotten exponentially worse.”

“In that incident, there was actually a storm that came. And that’s why you had eight people die in that tragedy. Now what we’re seeing and what we will probably see every year forward is eight to 10 people dying just in a routine manner, just because of the sheer number of people trying to fit onto the route.”

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Being remembered for a mistake is hard. Being the living symbol of 86 years of futility is just about impossible.

But that’s exactly what Bill Buckner was to Boston Red Sox fans for nearly 20 years.

Buckner, an All-Star and Gold Glove baseball player who played in the major leagues for 22 years, died Monday. He was 69.

“After battling the disease of Lewy Body Dementia, Bill Buckner passed away early the morning of May 27th surrounded by his family,” according to a statement from his family shared by the Red Sox. “Bill fought with courage and grit as he did all things in life. Our hearts are broken but we are at peace knowing he is in the arms of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Buckner built up an impressive record as a player, with more than 1,000 runs scored during his career. He was an All-Star in 1981 while playing for the Chicago Cubs. But Buckner found it hard to shake a mistake he made during game six of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets.

The Sox had a two-run lead, and were one strike away from winning their first World Series championship since 1918. But the Mets clawed back from the brink to tie the game in the 10th inning. With a runner on second base, a base hit would give the Mets the win and force a game seven.

It turns out they only needed the most famous error in baseball history.

Mets player Mookie Wilson hit a grounder toward first base — as the announcer called it, “a little roller up along first.” Buckner ran toward the ball, took a wide stance, reached down to scoop it up — and the ball rolled right between his legs.

“It gets through Buckner!” the announcer says, shocked, as a Met crosses home plate. “The Mets win it!”

The error forced a game seven, which the Mets won. And the error turned Bill Buckner into New England’s scapegoat.

“People always ask me what I thought about when I missed the ground ball,” he told NPR in 2011. “My first thought was, ‘Wow, we get to play in the seventh game of the World Series … We’ll get ’em tomorrow.’ “

Buckner played for a few more years, retiring in 1990 and moving his family to Meridian, Idaho — where most people hadn’t heard of him, or his World Series gaffe. It wasn’t until 2004 that Buckner finally found redemption, once the Red Sox finally won their first World Series in 86 years.

Time and winning heal all sports wounds — and the fans and media were no longer so angry at Buckner. When Buckner returned to Fenway Park for the 2008 Red Sox home opener, he was greeted with open arms — and a two-minute ovation.

“It was awesome,” Buckner told NPR. “The real cool thing about it was the fans … were sincere,” he said. “I think they understood all the crap I went through, and they were always good to me.”

Perhaps the fans’ sentiment was best summed up by the the next day’s cover headline in the Boston Herald: “All is Forgiven.”

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Super Bowl III, 1969: The New York Jets were playing the mighty Baltimore Colts. Nobody predicted the Jets would win. Well, except for Jets quarterback Joe Namath, who did more than predict a victory. “I guarantee it,” he said before the game.

Fifty years later, his legacy is still tied up in those three words.

“I think that particular game, even though we’re talking 50 years ago, man, anyone that was around then or checks out the history says, ‘Hey wait, we can do it. You know, we can overcome these odds. I can do this,’ ” Namath says. “I’m respectful of that because I know, like life, it’s not a one-man show. Life is a team effort. Having failure or having success — if you didn’t have someone to share either one with, or those different emotions we have, where would we be? I like private time, but I don’t want to feel alone.”

Namath, who turns 76 at the end of the month, writes about the ups and downs of his life in a new book called All the Way: My Life in Four Quarters. In an interview, he talks about the Suzy Kolber incident, football’s health risks and entering his fourth quarter in life.

Interview Highlights

On the 2003 sideline interview where, when inebriated, he told ESPN’s Suzy Kolber: “I want to kiss you”

I went through the process many times of reflecting on not just that moment, but how I got there. We drank, I drank, and at that time I was addicted to it. I have to admit that it’s an addiction. I wouldn’t be alive today had that incident not occurred, possibly. But Suzy was a beautiful girl in my eyes, and sometimes when you’re under the influence of alcohol — maybe some other things I’m not sure about — then your inhibitions kind of wan and you say what’s on your mind. …

I can remember driving under the influence of alcohol, and by the grace of God, man, damn good luck, I didn’t hurt somebody. I can remember times I was behind the wheel and I was trying to get between Commercial and Oakland Park Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale — and I was in Miami. They call it a blackout. And here I was driving a car. …

Whenever I found out about [the sideline incident], which wasn’t until the next day, Suzy was the first person that I called and talked with. Boy. And then I went and got help.

On if he would play football knowing what he knows now about concussions and traumatic brain injury

I don’t know. It’s a question that I can’t answer, but I’ve been asked … if I had children, and I do have grandchildren, but: “If I had a child that wants to play football, would you let him?” Yeah, I’d let him to some extent. But football definitely is a sport that the body’s not designed for, whether it be your knees, your ankles, your shoulders, your neck, your spine. Not everybody can play football. …

I don’t believe putting limitations on anybody is the right route to take. You could be a ballerina and your feet could be hurting you so many days of the year for the rest of your 30, 40, 50 years, man. You do that much dancing on those feet, and your back, you’re going to come up with something down the road. Do you tell her not to be a ballerina? Do you tell her not to dance because her back is going to be bothering her 20 years from now? If they have a passion, and they’re willing to pay the price to excel and make their dreams come true, it’s — I’d have to be there, man, before I could say, “No, you can’t do that.” I wouldn’t dare say that, and I couldn’t see myself doing that.

On structuring his memoirs in four quarters, like a football game

I remember when I was getting ready to turn 50, a buddy had came up, or was busting my chops. He said, “Man, you going to be 50! You’re old!” And I started thinking, “Damn, old?” I didn’t feel old. And I started to think about my people, and how long my mother was living, and how long my dad lasted, and I decided to make a plan at 50. I plan to live to 100. Now, it might not work. …

Fifty was halftime, man. And you’ve seen — I’ve seen a lot of games won and lost in the third and fourth quarter. I don’t want to go out on a bad note. I want to keep growing, being productive, keep learning and keep loving, man. I want to be a positive dude the rest of the way.

Danny Hajek and Jessica Smith produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Patrick Jarenwattananon adapted it for the Web.

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President Trump’s account on the U.S. Golf Association system has been hacked in an apparent attempt to make him look like a bad golfer with four fake scores.

The awful scores of 101, 100, 108 and 102 were posted to Trump’s USGA-administered Golf Handicap and Information Network [GHIN] handicap system on Friday, according to Golfweek. A handicap is a measure of a golfer’s ability – a lower handicap indicates a better golf game.

“We have become aware of reports in the media questioning recent scores posted on President Trump’s GHIN account,” Craig Annis, the managing director of communications for the USGA, told Golfweek. “As we dug into the data it appears someone has erroneously posted a number of scores on behalf of the GHIN user.”

USGA is removing the scores and says it is investigating to determine how they appeared, Annis said.

Trump flew from New York to Washington, D.C., on Friday morning and delivered a speech to the National Association of REALTORs convention in the afternoon. He did play golf on Saturday afternoon at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. According to a site that tracks Trump’s golf habits, the president has played more than 170 rounds since taking office.

The fabricated scores were from games at Trump National in New York, Trump International in West Palm Beach, Fla., and the Cochise Course at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Ariz., Golfweek reported. Another suspicious score of 68 was recorded on April 19.

Par in a round of golf is typically around 72 strokes. According to Trump’s account, his scores usually fall in the 70s and 80s, but many are skeptical that the president has always truthfully recorded his scores. Trump has vehemently denied accusations that he has bent the rules.

“I’ve played a lot, and I’ve played well,” Trump said, according to a Washington Post investigation in 2015. “There’s very few people that can beat me in golf.”

Golf insiders don’t dispute that Trump is a fine golfer – he might just not play as well as he says he does.

In 2012, Forbes reported that Trump is a 4 handicap, despite the fact that he has yet “to produce a real signed scorecard.”

Rick Reilly, the sportswriter who penned the 2004 book “Who’s Your Caddy?” told the Post that one afternoon Trump recorded scores that he didn’t actually earn. The Post investigation also revealed that caddies would allegedly help Trump cheat.

“When it comes to cheating, he’s an 11 on a scale of one to 10,” Reilly said.

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For nearly two decades, a doctor at The Ohio State University sexually abused at least 177 male students, according to an exhaustive independent investigation commissioned by the university. Most of the doctor’s abuse happened under the auspices of providing the students with medical treatment.

Richard Strauss worked at OSU from September 1978 through March 1998, primarily as a doctor with the Athletic Department and the Student Health Center. The investigation found that university personnel became aware of Strauss’ abuse as early as 1979.

However, “despite the persistence, seriousness, and regularity of such complaints, no meaningful action was taken by the University to investigate such concerns until January 1996,” when they were first elevated to officials beyond Student Health or the Athletics Department, the report reads.

As a result, Strauss was suspended from working as a treating physician at OSU. The school eventually removed him from his departments, but it kept him on as a tenured faculty member. He voluntarily retired in 1998 with “emeritus” status from the university. Strauss took his own life in 2005.

“The findings are shocking and painful to comprehend,” current OSU President Michael Drake said in a message emailed to the OSU community.

“On behalf of the university, we offer our profound regret and sincere apologies to each person who endured Strauss’ abuse,” said Drake, who became the school’s president in 2014. “Our institution’s fundamental failure at the time to prevent this abuse was unacceptable — as were the inadequate efforts to thoroughly investigate complaints raised by students and staff members.”

Drake added that the university has started the process of revoking Strauss’ emeritus status and “will take additional action as appropriate.”

“Dreams were broken, relationships with loved ones were damaged, and the harm now carries over to our children as many of us have become so overprotective that it strains the relationship with our kids,” Kent Kilgore, a survivor of Strauss’ abuse, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

OSU said it launched the independent investigation last April, after a former student came forward with allegations of abuse and “indicated … that there may have been others who experienced sexual misconduct by Strauss.”

The investigation carried out by the law firm Perkins Coie was led by a former federal prosecutor and a former federal government ethics attorney. Both had experience in investigations involving male sexual abuse survivors.

They interviewed 520 people, among them the 177 men who said they had been abused by Strauss.

The report, which runs more than 230 pages, contains a litany of painful stories of abuse from former students who went to Strauss for medical care.

The instances of abuse often involved inappropriate touching of a students’ genitals during exams in ways that weren’t medically useful. A number of students said Strauss “would routinely touch their genitals at every visit, regardless of the medical ailment presented, including for a sore throat,” the report states.

The report also states that members of 15 university athletic teams were abused. Strauss most frequently targeted wrestlers — 48 of them, according to the report. And the abuse often became more explicit over multiple visits.

“We observed that, in many cases, a student’s most egregious experience of abuse did not occur during the student’s first encounter with Strauss; rather, the abuse escalated over time, in a series of examinations with the student,” the report states.

Other students reported that Strauss would frequently shower with teams, appearing to loiter and gawp at students as they were naked in locker rooms and making them uncomfortable.

A former soccer player told investigators that Strauss would sometimes run a single lap just as the team was finishing up practice. “The student noted that it was a commonly-held perception among the players that Strauss was exercising as a pretext to shower with the team, and the student-athletes would try to shower as quickly as possible,” the report reads.

Dozens of people who worked as coaches or athletic trainers told investigators that they had been aware of rumors and complaints against Strauss. The abuse was so widely known that it left some students with the idea that it was simply accepted by other university personnel.

“Many of the students felt that Strauss’ behavior was an ‘open secret,’ as it appeared to them that their coaches, trainers, and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it,” the report states. Students, it adds, said they had the impression the abuse was a form of hazing or a rite of passage.

The university took disciplinary action against Strauss only after a series of student complaints in the mid-1990s. Even after that, he opened an off-campus private men’s health clinic near the university — where he continued to abuse patients — and kept his title as a tenured faculty professor.

As Gabe Rosenberg and Adora Namigadde of member station WOSU reported:

“At least 50 students have filed lawsuits against Ohio State, arguing the university knew about and declined to act in response to complaints about Strauss. Their case is headed to mediation.

” ‘It’s what we’ve been saying—they’ve failed to act—investigate or act, and now we have validation,’ said Brian Garrett, one of the lead plaintiffs, in an interview Friday.

“The university has referred the report to Columbus Police, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.”

The investigators and the university’s president thanked the survivors for coming forward to share their stories.

“This independent investigation was completed because of the strength and courage of survivors,” Drake said.

Read the investigative report here:

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