Given a document, find the main entity about whom the author is writing. Write the full name if mentioned in the text. Note that URLs in the text have been replaced with [Link].

Input: Consider Input: * * * France isn’t the first killjoy to quit the smartphone party. In 2015  the Canadian artist Garnet Hertz invented a cheeky device called “Phonesafe ” a masochistic lockbox designed to incarcerate smartphones for a set period of time. Hertz meant Phonesafe as a provocation  but the same idea quickly became a product. Today  you can buy similar  but mass-produced  containers on Amazon  and multi-phone lockers have become a mainstay in corporate offices and schools around the world. A McDonald’s in Singapore has even installed a locker designed to promote “family togetherness” and face-to-face conversation. If you attend a Guns n’ Roses concert or a comedy performance by Dave Chappelle  ushers will require you to lock your device in a neoprene pouch and take it into the show in that state.  The phone-locking pouch  made by a San Francisco company called Yondr   has a wide opening at the short end for inserting a smartphone. A magnetic locking mechanism  similar to those on anti-theft tags in retail stores  engages to hold it closed. After the show  this clasp is swiped across a counter-magnet  which releases the lock.  Yondr  is a surefire way to cut down on bootleg YouTube videos. In Wired  Alice Gregory recently took a tough look at the device. Gregory recounts her experience at a Chris Rock performance  where audience members waiting in the lobby had to forgo smartphone usage. The affair reduced them to “a roomful of jonesing fiends ” as she puts it. Ultimately  Gregory connects  Yondr  to a thorny question about civil liberties: the right of the people to keep and bear smartphones.
It’s an ironic conclusion  because  Yondr  is sold as a tool to provide freedom  rather than to take it away. To “Be Here Now ” as the company’s tagline puts it. It’s a promise to deliver presence—a tricky calling  to say the least. Presence has a long history in religion and philosophy  from Buddhist practices to the metaphysics of the 20th-century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Today  presence is most common in the various mindfulness trends that have overtaken individual and corporate life  in Silicon Valley in particular—collectively the critic R. John Williams has called them “technê-zen.” Cutting through the history and the rhetoric  it’s productive to think about presence in terms of attention. You’re present where you focus your attention—and you only have so much attention to pay. In the case of Chris Rock  he wants attention directed toward him  live on stage. Rock’s show might involve awkward improvisation or new material that he doesn't want circulated online. Teachers are less concerned about copyright than comedians are  but they still demand attention. I have tested Yondr’s effects on mind-wandering in classroom experiments with Dan Smilek of the University of Waterloo Vision and Attention Lab. Our research is based in part on the assumption that instructors want students to focus on the course materials  and not on Instagram  Facebook  or other distractions.  Yondr  can be a remarkably effective tool for enforcing digital abstinence in these contexts  thanks primarily to  its  portability. Rather than locking away devices inside lockers  or even inside a disused Catholic tabernacle  as I have done in a performance piece   Yondr  buffers the anxiety of being isolated from your device.
Given that the mere presence of one’s smartphone can reduce cognitive capacity   Yondr  offers a way to surf between the waves of a device’s presence and absence. You can hold it  but you can’t use it. This might be an especially important balance in classroom situations  where students see a teacher’s “phone shoebox” as an unwelcome imposition of authority. * * * Needless to say   Yondr  is still an imposition. And controlling attention requires more than just locking a device in a binge-breaking neoprene pouch. Joelle Renstrom has reported the results of her own  Yondr  experiment in a class at Boston University  where she had her 30 students lock away their devices over the course of a semester. At first  37 percent of the students found the policy annoying  but by the end of the term that figure had dropped to 14 percent. Those are promising  if tentative  results  but Renstrom’s anecdotal comments about the experiment may be more instructive than the data she collected. Renstrom describes her students’ initial experience of Yondr as “akin to caging a pet  a clear denial of freedom.” Moreover  she observes that some students left their cases unlocked as a sign of rebellion  even though they didn’t remove the phones from them. Rather than becoming “active resistors to technology ” as the scholars Christine Satchell and Paul Dourish call people who choose to ignore their devices   Yondr  users are ultimately the victims of technological disenfranchisement. When implemented as a mandatory smartphone prophylactic   Yondr  becomes a means of control  not of choice  let alone of presence.
Such top-down tactics might be enforced easily at live performances  as one of my research assistants observed firsthand at a Chris Rock show in Niagara Falls. However  as a daily ritual for high-school students  all-or-nothing digital abstinence enforced by an authority figure seems destined to backfire  possibly leading to rejection—or even worse  a legal complaint. In an attempt to tackle this disciplinary problem  I have been offering workshops to schoolteachers that riff on and revise the design Yondr originated. In the workshops  I provide a kit that allows students to make their own digital abstinence case  but with an obnoxiously loud Velcro enclosure rather than a silent  magnetic clasp. This semipermeable design—the Resistor Case  I call it—is intended to promote self-regulation  not authoritarian control. The Velcro acts as a gateway to conscience: It provides just enough resistance and noise to make its owner think twice before opening it. Michael I. Norton  Daniel Mochon  and Dan Ariely coined the “IKEA effect” to name the increase in value people assign to self-made products. With the Resistor Case  I’m counting on a similar effect  that students who fist construct and then choose to make use of their DIY phone lockers might be more compelled to use them. Of course  the kit will only work if the teacher provides a context for it that includes a discussion of responsible smartphone use. (The kit provides a series of cards to prompt this conversation.)

Output: Yondr


Input: Consider Input: Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri  arrived back in Lebanon two weeks after  he  announced  his  surprise resignation while in Saudi Arabia. Within hours of landing at Beirut International Airport  Hariri shocked the country by announcing he had put his resignation "on hold" while talks with Hezb'allah and other political factions are underway.
Al Jazeera's Zein Khodr  reporting from Beirut  said that Hariri's tone has shifted since he gave his resignation speech two weeks ago. "He [Hariri] didn't even mention Hezbollah or Iran[.] ... He even said that he's looking forward to a partnership with all political parties in the country "What is clear is that there has been intensive discussions behind closed doors " she said. "The resignation was an attempt by Saudi Arabia to curb Hezbollah's influence[.] ... That attempt backfired[.] ...  Hariri  was conciliatory in  his  message."
What is going on? Whatever influence Saudi Arabia was exercising over  Hariri  has weakened since  he  left the kingdom. Before returning to Lebanon   Hariri  had meetings with several leaders  including Macron of France and el-Sisi of Egypt. France has a keen interest in what happens in Lebanon  since the tiny nation is a former French colony. And as a Sunni regional power  Egypt is on the front lines of resisting the spread of Iran's influence.
Those "intense discussions" almost certainly included Hezb'allah. Given that  Hariri  cited threats against  his  life by pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian factions in Lebanon as a primary reason for  his  resignation  it is possible that some sort of backroom deal with the terrorists was struck that gives certain assurances to  Hariri  regarding  his  personal safety. For Hezb'allah  part of that deal could have included  Hariri  promising to back away from Saudi Arabia.

Output: Saad Hariri


Input: Consider Input: The Washington Post this morning piggybacks off a FOIA investigation by the AP ( nice job !) about why “ getting into prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology   a magnet school that routinely sends graduates to the most competitive colleges  ” can be extremely difficult   unless of course you can afford to file appeals   “ armed with private exams costing more than $ 500   to persuade bureaucrats their child is deserving ” of admission to the top regional school nicknamed “ TJ .” The problem ? ( bolding added by me for emphasis ) … This system exacerbates a problem plaguing gifted - and - talented programs across the nation : Black and Hispanic students almost never file the appeals that can secure their admission . Using the Virginia Freedom of Information Act to obtain 10 years of county records   The Associated Press found that fewer than 50 black and Hispanic second - graders have filed successful appeals . That ’ s less than 3 percent of the 1   737 second - graders admitted through the appeals process   further skewing a program already heavily weighted toward whites and Asians . Fairfax County has the nation ’ s 10th largest public school system   with more than 188   000 students . Of those   25 percent are Hispanic and 10 percent are African - American . But over the last 10 years   blacks and Hispanics have constituted only 12 percent of the students deemed eligible for Level IV   the most advanced academic program . There are just a few dozen black students at Thomas Jefferson   where sophomore  Alina Ampeh  is surrounded by whites and Asians — a situation  she  ’ s lived with since elementary school .  She  ’ s grateful that all those years of advanced classes prepared  her  for TJ ’ s rigorous academics   but says that doesn ’ t necessarily make  her  special :  She  thinks many of  her  classmates simply have parents who worked the system . So yeah   this situation is unacceptable and in dire need of immediate correction . But not according to commenters on the Washington Post article   who respond with a torrent of racist idiocy that   among other things   clearly violates the Post ’ s own “ standards ” for commenting . For instance   check out the top - rated (!) comments like the following   all of which are racist and / or ignorant and / or just plain nasty . “ Just a shot in the dark – People from either 1 ) a non - English speaking background   or 2 ) a culture where achievement and effort is equated with being a “ sellout ” or an “ Oreo cookie ”  will probably always be “ underrepresented ” in any gifted program .” “ Racial bias ? Blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in gifted programs in northern Virginia   and in fact   nation - wide   because   on average   they are not as academically - inclined / interested as white or Asian students . And no amount of public monies spent on special racially - targeted programs just for them is going to materially impact that fact . Of course   until the percentage of Blacks and Hispanics in gifted programs matches their percentage of the total student body the SJWs at the WAPO will continue to dissemble and lie about the reasons for the disparity because that ’ s what they do .” “ Could it be that some culture are underrepresented because they lack sufficient households that emphasize a strict and intense work ethic ?” “ Any chance they aren ’ t as gifted as other students ? Nah   it couldn ’ t be that .” “ Probably for the same reasons whites and asians are underrepresented in the NBA .” It goes on and on like this   with no sign of a ( Com ) Post moderator in sight to enforce the “ standards ” of Jeff Bezos ’ fine newspaper . Just for comparison purposes   racist comments would be immediately deleted here at Blue Virginia and the commenters banned . Of course   then again   we also follow other principles of journalistic ethics – like linking to original sources   giving credit / attribution   etc . – that the corporate media rarely seems to care about in its race for eyeballs / clicks / etc . By the way   Sen . Scott Surovell ( D - Fairfax / Prince William County ) has been a leader on this issue ( thank you ! )  for instance with his SB787 that would have required – if it hadn ’ t been defeated in committee – Thomas Jefferson H . S . “ to accept for enrollment ( i ) a sufficient number of students eligible to receive free or reduced price meals such that the total of such students is at least 50 percent of the weighted average of the participating divisions ’ percentage of such students in the previous school year and ( ii ) at least five students but no more than 15 students from each middle school in each school division eligible to matriculate students to such Governor ’ s school who have completed at least two full years at such middle school .” Here ’ s what Sen . Surovell had to say about the WaPo article on “ TJ ” this morning . Last week   5 letters to the editor attacking my TJ admissions bill arguing that TJ is all about “ merit ” and that we just need to do a better job educating Black and Latino kids : Most of the time Merit = Wealth and having the time and ability to work your child to the right spot in the system – e . g . parents working the “ gifted and talented ” appeal process for their second graders as the AP just confirmed . Why can ’ t more leaders be honest about the shortfalls in our system ? Great question ; any answers ? More to the point   what is Fairfax County – or the Virginia General Assembly – planning to do about this situation ?


Output: Alina Ampeh