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2016-11-08 00:00:00

2016

11.0

8

Monica Lewinsky Flees America for Election Day

Don't expect to see Monica Lewinsky at the polls -- 'cause she's halfway across the world teaching Swedes how to stand up against bullies ... which may or may not be a reference to the Clintons. Monica was set to publicly speak in Stockholm, Sweden Tuesday as a guest lecturer for an event called Hjärntillskott (a mouthful, for sure) Executive Day 2016. Monica's anti-bullying campaign has made her a hot ticket on the lecture circuit. The timing of this gig shouldn't be too surprising though. She made it clear last month she didn't want any part of the political convo ... especially after Donald Trump dragged old Bill Clinton allegations into the campaign season. We're guessing she voted absentee ... for her local candidates and measures, if nothing else.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/11/08/monica-lewinsky-lecturing-skips-election-day/

TMZ

2017-01-24 18:10:01

2017

1.0

24

Sarah Frostenson

A crowd scientist says Trump’s inauguration attendance was pretty average

This Saturday very likely marked the largest day of demonstrations in American history. But Friday’s inauguration had, well, pretty average turnout for a presidential inauguration. And the new administration had a problem with that, as we saw with an alarming series of false statements from President Donald Trump and his press secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday. To try to settle the question of how many people attended the inauguration ceremony on the National Mall in Washington, DC, we reached out to Keith Still, a professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. (He analyzed aerial shots of the crowds of both President Obama’s 2009 inaugural address and President Trump’s for the New York Times.) His conclusion is that the crowd on the Mall on Friday was roughly one-third the size of President Obama’s. If Still is right, and Trump’s inauguration attracted a third of the 2009 crowd, then there were anywhere from 300,000 to 600,000 people on the Mall on Friday. President Obama’s historic 2009 inaugural address drew 1.8 million people, which officials consider the largest gathering on the Mall ever. But as Still told Vox, not all 1.8 million were on the Mall — crowds extended behind the Washington Monument and outside the view of the aerial photos used in analysis. As you can see in the chart above, presidential inauguration attendance isn’t very consistent. In recent years, the first inauguration has been better attended than the second for a two-term president. But this wasn’t true for President George W. Bush — his second inauguration purportedly drew a larger crowd than the first. The inaugural attendance numbers above largely come from various news outlets that arrived at these estimates through interviews and on-the-ground reporting with inauguration planners to assess crowd size. The National Park Service and the Office of the DC Mayor told me they won’t be releasing estimates of Friday’s event. (NPS was banned from releasing official crowd estimates after an especially controversial count involving attendance at the Million Man March in 1995. In 2009 it broke tradition and provided the 1.8 million estimate for Obama’s inauguration attendance.) As you can see in this tweet from Matt Viser at the Boston Globe, President Trump might have perceived a large crowd from the podium, but as you move farther down the Mall, the crowd is less tightly packed. How does a vantage point matter? These photos were both taken at about noon. One is what Sean Spicer now has on display in WH briefing room. pic.twitter.com/5MYIClNhp8 “When you are barely above the head level of a crowd that extends back several hundred yards, it does look an unbroken sea of humanity,” said Steve Doig, a professor at Arizona State University with experience in estimating large crowds. “But people’s ability to estimate numbers bigger than what they can count on their fingers is not something we do well.” This is a satellite image taken from space that helped analysts measure crowd attendance at Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Charles Seife, a mathematician and professor of journalism at New York University, has written about the perils of counting crowds. He told me that using satellite imagery is one of the best ways to measure the size of a crowd if it’s not a strictly ticketed event, but warned it’s not a perfect tool. But unfortunately, given Friday’s inclement weather we’re unlikely to get comparable images with such clear resolution for the recent gatherings on the Mall. Doig said that for future events, organizers and journalists should work to get real-time estimates that don’t rely on aerial photos, especially for large events in DC, as DC falls under a no-fly zone, making it difficult to get aerial shots to begin with. Doig said one thing you could do to get reliable real-time estimates is to have a team of 20 or so people scattered throughout a large event, and have them measure by square feet how closely people are standing next to each other. “I’d assign random locations for people to stand, and the key thing they’d have to report is how dense the crowd is, measuring it by square feet,” he said. “Then we’d use those estimates on a grid [of the Mall’s area] to average across and total up what we might think is an overall reasonable count.” Doig thinks a methodology like this could be implemented relatively easily and only take 30 minutes or so to provide reasonably accurate estimates. As Vox’s Ezra Klein writes, what is truly frightening in how the Trump administration has responded to media stories covering the size of the crowd present at the inauguration is its apparent utter disregard for facts. Among Spicer’s slew of falsehoods on Saturday was this: “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, both in person and around the globe.” This simply isn’t true. Metro ridership did not surpass 2009 levels, and television ratings indicate not as many people tuned in as they did in 2009 either. And as Doig told me, “[Spicer] offered no reason for us to believe they have attempted to do a reality-based estimate of the crowd, other than quoting President Trump saying it looked like a million and a half [people].” As my colleague Alvin Chang illustrates, the consequences of the Trump administration repudiating numbers it simply doesn’t agree with could have dangerous repercussions when it comes to government data sets we rely on for accuracy and the health of democracy.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/24/14354036/crowds-presidential-inaugurations-trump-average

Vox

2017-11-16 00:00:00

2017

11.0

16

Ruby Brunton

A New Biography of Paula Modersohn-Becker Reveals an Artist Committed to Painting Women

Though Paula Modersohn-Becker’s name rarely appears alongside famous men in the annals of art history, she deserves her own biography, and Marie Darrieussecq has written it. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads In the basement of the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany, home to one of the most famous collections of 19th- and 20th-century European painting, are the paintings of women subjects, and the paintings of women artists. In the low-ceilinged, dimly-lit room, amongst the images of mothers and children, goddesses and nymphs, situated slightly out of sight behind a television monitor, hung a self-portrait of a young woman with almond eyes and a red smile holding a branch pulled from a camellia tree. She stares out at us, determinedly, with a look of concentration on her face. The absence of her second hand suggests she is in fact in the process of painting herself. But, who is she? And why do we even need to ask? When I Google search “Paula M. Becker,” almost every entry insists she was one of the most important figures in early Expressionism, a contemporary of men we are on last-name basis with: Picasso, Gauguin, Matisse, Munch. In her native Germany, her works adorn postcards, magnets, and posters. She has been heralded as the first Western woman artist to paint herself naked. She has been claimed as the first Western woman artist to paint herself pregnant. She traveled often to Paris and developed close friendships with the painter Heinrich Vogeler and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. She began a series of correspondence based around a mutual admiration for the other’s art with Otto Modersohn, which lead to their marriage in 1901. And yet, her name barely appears alongside these men in the annals of art history. She deserves her own biography. Luckily, Marie Darrieussecq has written it. The fascination with these lost characters of history, often encountered as a footnote or brief chapter in someone else’s story, can lead a writer on an incredible journey. When Darrieussecq encountered Becker’s work, used as an illustration on a flyer for a psychoanalysis symposium on motherhood, she recognized the painting but not the painter. So began her nearly five-year journey into discovering who Becker was, how she lived and what made her “be” besides her painting. Of course, there is always more to the story than just the work itself for those whose work resonates throughout decades, but often these details are locked away by more traditional biographers who have little time for details of the character’s personal lives. Darrieussecq, so taken with Becker and her celebrity-studded social circle, and wanting to understand who she was and how she came to paint the way she did, leaves no stone unturned in her quest for information on Becker. The slight, 140-odd-page biography, Being Here is Everything: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker, sparkles with details of Becker’s close friendships and artistic training. Darrieussecq, whose first novel Pig Tales was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt in 1996, brings a penchant for beautiful details nestled amongst bare sentences that provide them necessary context. Describing Becker’s daily life for example, Darrieussecq devotes her attention not to how she spent her days but what she plants in her garden, “In the garden, around the house, she has planted rose bushes, tulips, carnations, anemones.” Evoking the flurry of time passing at parties she describes their free time: “Boating parties, swimming in the rivers, Isadora Duncan-style dancing; Otto plays the flute. And nudism.” It’s the perfect use of language paired with Becker’s own economy of color and background, and attention to fine details, such as a branch or a necklace, or the three perfectly balanced flowers atop her head in her 1906 self portrait. Becker, by Darrieussecq’s account, comes across as a resolute, bright, and curious young woman who is as diligent about her craft as she is devoted to her friends. She was sent to England to study at St John’s Wood School of Art, but at age 18, after returning to Germany and completing teacher training, while also taking painting classes in Bremen, she shunned a traditional life as a teacher. After two years at the traditional School for Women Artists in Berlin, she threw herself into the artistic community at Worpswede under the tutelage of Fritz Mackensen. It feels that it would’ve required this level of determination to push her way into the artistic circles of a group of men who would go on to be remembered in the art historical canon. “So you died the way women used to die in the old days … the death of women in childbirth who want to close themselves up and are no longer able to.” Rilke writes in “Requiem” after Becker’s death. A greater tragedy than us not knowing her name is that, at age 31, she was snatched away from those who did. She had married the painter Otto Modersohn 6 years earlier, after many years of artistic companionship while he was with his first wife, and died, as she had, in childbirth. The first woman to paint herself pregnant did not live long enough to see the fruits of her labor. A traditional marriage was too confining for Becker, and she would often leave Modersohn for long periods to paint. At age 27, she moved alone to Paris, dividing her time between art classes, spending time with her friends, and visiting museums such as the Louvre — where, at the time, only four paintings by women artists were on display. The year of Becker’s death, Rilke writes to the sculptor Clara Westhoff of a wall at the Autumn Salon devoted to a woman artist who died young and in childbirth: Manet’s student Eva Gonzalès. Becker certainly had a profound affect on Rilke; she was a “courageous and combative” woman, he writes to her mother after Becker’s death. And, “Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something … that makes one think not of any complement or limit, but only of life and reality.” He tells Franz Xaver Krappus, the young poet. Becker’s freedom of expression and desire to live a non-conventional life, which were reflected in her work, were not always considered ground-breaking. In 1935, two of her nudes were pointed out by the Nazis as examples of degenerate art, and the museum devoted to her limited collection was denounced as promoting vulgarity. Darrieussecq views Becker’s approach to her subjects instead as liberatory: a woman painting real women, her depictions free from the desire to possess or dominate. In the writer’s view Becker is a woman painting other women as she sees them, a woman painting herself as she wants us to see her. Is it vulgar to want to depict another view of womanhood? The debate rages on today as we analyze the values applied to selfie art. How would Becker have felt about these new modes of artistic self-representation? It’s a pity we can’t ask. Months before her death, she fears her lack of artistic success is a disappointment to those around her. “It may still be a long time before I am somebody,” She wrote to Rilke. A long time indeed, this biography has been a long time coming. “Schade” was her last living word — a shame. And indeed it was, but at least she’s here now. A year after Marie Darrieussecq ventured to the Museum Folkwang to meet with Michel Vincent, the director of the Franco-German Cultural Center of Essen, he informed her that Becker’s painting has been moved upstairs to take its place amongst the museum’s permanent collection. Like any writer who strives to resurrect the work of forgotten women geniuses, I hope this was due to Darrieussecq’s fervent interest in her subject and insistence on the importance of her work. What a delightful ray of hope, if this is so.

https://hyperallergic.com/411938/a-new-biography-of-paula-modersohn-becker-reveals-an-artist-committed-to-painting-women/

Hyperallergic

2017-08-27 19:55:00

2017

8.0

27

Sean T. Collins

'Game of Thrones' best battles ranked

It's hard to believe now, in a season where chaos and carnage come fast and furious, but it took "Game of Thrones" nearlytwo years to build to its first major onscreen battle. When the smoke cleared from "Blackwater," season two's landmark episode-long conflict, television's depiction of mass violence would never be the same. The tooth-and-claw struggle for survival between Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and the Night King's army of the dead in " Beyond the Wall" is just the latest in a long series of big "Game of Thrones" battles. Each has its own unique styles and strengths, yet for all their excitement, the underlying message that war is hell burns like dragonfire. From Blackwater to Hardhome and beyond, we've ranked the top battles in "Game of Thrones"history. Cry havoc and let slip the dragons of war. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 10. The Battle of the Whispering Wood, "Baelor" (Season 1, Episode 9) Ah, who could forget the decisive battle at the start of the War of the Five Kings, when Robb Stark's forces ambushed and destroyed the army led by Jaime Lannister, taking the Kingslayer captive? Well, most people could forget it, honestly. Back in season one, budgetary and logistical issues prevented the series from actually depicting massive battles, leading to some … interesting workarounds. (Remember Tyrion preparing to lead a charge of hill-tribe barbarians against the Northmen, only to get knocked out cold and miss the fight entirely?) That said, the offscreen depiction of the Battle of the Whispering Wood tracked closely with how author George R.R. Martin wrote it in his book: A nervous Catelyn Stark stands on a hillside above the forest where the fighting takes place, waiting and wondering if her beloved son will survive his first brush with war. Watch the battle here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 9. The Greyjoys’ naval battle, “Stormborn” (Season 7, Episode 2) Among the many challenges faced by Game of Thrones short seventh season, there's the Euron situation. A character we've barely seen or heard of, who's part of a family pushed to the margins of the narrative for years, is suddenly a major villain and a contender for Queen Cersei's hand? How do you sell that? By turning the newly crowned King of the Iron Islands into the cockiest, craziest Greyjoy of the bunch, which is saying something. Actor Pilou Asbæk can smile and swagger like the Red Viper, then run headlong into the heat of battle like a mad pirate — in this case, by boarding the lead ship in his niece Yara Greyjoy's fleet after his forces set it on fire. The swiftness and devastation of his navy's attack on their rivals, plus his devil-may-care abandon in single-handedly capturing, killing, or scattering Daenerys Targaryen's allies in two of the Seven Kingdoms — Yara and Theon for the Iron Islands, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes for Dorne — make his prowess plainly clear. This is the best of the short and not-so-sweet battles GOT has pulled off, from the fights with the Night's Watch mutineers at Craster's Keep to the rebellions and insurgencies between slaves and masters in Meereen. Watch the battle here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 8. Daenerys and the dragons versus the slavers, “Battle of the Bastards” (Season 6, Episode 9) A few thousand dead Lannisters and incinerated zombies later, the damage inflicted by the dragons on the fleet amassed by an alliance of slave states against Daenerys Targaryen's free city of Meereen may not seem as impressive as it once did. What's more, the assault itself was overshadowed by the all-out carnage of the titular Battle of the Bastards later in the same episode. But the surprise attack by Daenerys and her three children against the Slavers' ships (complemented as always by her Dothraki and Unsullied soldiers) was so devastating that it changed geopolitical history in the region, breaking the power of the slave trade over Meereen once and for all. Hearing hundreds of sailors scream as they burn to death will do that. Watch it here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 7. Dany’s guards versus the Sons of the Harpy, “The Dance of Dragons” (Season 5, Episode 9) Another surprise dragon attack — noticing a pattern yet? — dominates the rumble between soldiers loyal to Daenerys Targaryen and the pro-slavery Sons of the Harpy in this season five highlight. Sort of Meereen's answer to the KKK, the Sons of the Harpy had Dany and friends surrounded — until Drogon, the black dragon who'd fled previous attempts to contain him, suddenly returned to toast his mother's assailants. This first glimpse of a dragon in serious action was shocking, conveyed amid the carnage through the eyes of our audience-identification character, Tyrion Lannister. When Dany hopped aboard her flying weapon to escape the fray, the game had clearly changed. Watch the scene her e. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 6. Daenerys and the dragons versus the White Walkers, “Beyond the Wall” (Season 7, Episode 6) Unlike the other battles on this list, this one was more like a brawl, at least in numerical terms. The Night King and his White Walkers had untold thousands of zombies on their side; the only enemies they faced were Jon Snow, Tormund Giantsbane, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Jorah Mormont, Gendry, and Sandor "the Hound" Clegane (plus a bunch of redshirts, killable at your convenience). It wasn't until Dany and her children swooped in to save the day — and the Night King hurled his magic spear to take one of them down— that this truly became an illustration of what all-out, dragon-on-demon combat might look like in the Great War to come. The battle had its wonky logistical issues, for sure, but it made up for them in sheer epic spectacle. Watch the scene here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 5. The Wildlings versus the Night’s Watch, “The Watchers on the Wall” (Season 4, Episode 9) As meticulously choreographed a battle as television has ever seen, the fight for the Wall that ended season four — in which the badly outmanned Night's Watch, led by rival brothers in black Jon Snow and Ser Alliser Thorne, held off Wildling forces attacking from both North and South — played like one long highlight reel. Giants riding mammoths and wielding battering rams! Gigantic ice scythes released from the Wall to splatter attackers right off its surface! An unbroken 360-degree shot within Castle Black as duels between all the major characters raged! The death of Ygritte, Jon Snow's star-crossed wildling lover, in his arms! Even if it took Stannis Baratheon's sneak attack to defeat the Wildlings for good in the following episode — a fate he'd suffer in turn when Ramsay and Roose Bolton overran his demoralized forces outside Winterfell the following season — this was a fight worth remembering. Watch part of it here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 4. Daenerys, Drogon, and the Dothraki versus the Lannisters, “The Spoils of War” (Season 7, Episode 4) No one saw this battle coming. Instead, they heard it. Following the Lannisters' victory over House Tyrell at Highgarden — a battle they'd cleverly abandoned their own stronghold of Casterly Rock to conduct, leaving Dany's conquering Unsullied forces confused and stranded inside — the army led by Jaime Lannister, his comrade Bronn, and their new allies Randyll and Dickon Tarly caravanned its way up the Goldroad to King's Landing, delivering the cash and crops they'd looted during the campaign. That's when a Dothraki cavalry charge so large that its hoofbeats shook the ground descended upon them, with Daenerys and her black dragon Drogon conducting air support. The result was an all-out slaughter— and that's without the death from above delivered by Drogon, which now boasts the size and the power of a modern-day bomber. Individual face-offs between Bronn and Drogon and Jaime and Dany, not to mention the Lannister commanders' terrified faces, kept the action rooted in personal moments. Watch it here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 3. Battle of the Blackwater, “Blackwater” (Season 2, Episode 9) The show's first major battle, and the centerpiece of what remains its best episode to date, set the standard for pretty much everything to come. The amphibious assault on King's Landing by the forces of would-be King Stannis Baratheon divided our sympathies: Are Stannis and Melisandre worse than Joffrey and Cersei? Is Davos better than Tyrion? You'd better choose in a hurry! The battle also featured a lynchpin spectacle, with the dazzling green explosion of wildfire that sunk a large part of the Baratheon fleet before they could make land. The cost of war was emphasized in the screams of the burning soldiers and the terror faced by noncombatants like Cersei and Sansa — to say nothing of the way that PTSD-afflicted Sandor "the Hound" Clegane simply quit fighting and stormed off. The Battle of the Blackwater even featured the now-standard last-minute surprise attack that turned the tide, this time led by Tywin Lannister and Loras Tyrell as the first act in the two great families' alliance. Textbook work from start to finish. Watch the battle here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 2. Battle of the Bastards, “Battle of the Bastards” (Season 6, Episode 9) Ramsay Bolton got his comeuppance, Rickon Stark's short life came to an end, Wun Wun the giant went out in a blaze of glory, Sansa Stark pulled Jon's ass from the fire, House Stark recaptured Winterfell after years in the wilderness: You know all the details about season six's climactic confrontation. But it's the visual component of the Battle of the Bastards that makes it so memorable. At one point, the fighting between Jon and Ramsay's forces was so horrific that the dead bodies piled up into a literal pile — a physical obstacle that the fighters had to climb above or drown beneath. Every speech Jon or Davos ever made about the folly of fighting each other was made real in this moment, which turned the mass murder of warfare into an actual geographical feature of the battle. It was a moment of macabre beauty, power, and tragedy. Watch it here. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. 1. The Wildlings and the Night’s Watch versus the White Walkers, “Hardhome” (Season 5, Episode 8) When all's said and done, the massacre at Hardhome will be battle we remember. It's the fulcrum upon which "GOT"'s depiction of warfare pivoted from human conflicts to the fight against death itself. In this battle — filmed as chaotically as possible and breaking from George R.R. Martin's source material so completely that even the most devoted fan was left as shocked as the characters themselves — the Night King and his army of the dead descended upon a remote fishing village, where Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane had come to broker a truce with the wildlings in order to move everyone to safety south of the Wall. The White Walkers had other plans, however, and they unleashed their undead hordes with seismic fury. Like the Dothraki, you could hear them coming before you saw them. Like the Battle of the Bastards, the dead became part of the battle's topography, in this case taking the form of a literal avalanche of corpses as the wights plunged over a cliff to enter the fray. Like the death of Dany's dragon Viserion at the point of the Night King's spear, the way the demonic monarch brought everyone he'd just slain back to life merely by raising his hands illustrated the sheer magical power and total disregard for life of humanity's true opponents. And as in every battle, moments of individual heroism, sacrifice, and tragedy leavened the spectacle with ground-level emotion. Hardhome had it all. Watch the battle here. Read the original article on Vulture. Copyright 2019. Follow Vulture on Twitter.

https://www.businessinsider.com/game-of-thrones-best-battles-2017-8

Business Insider

2018-04-20 21:44:00

2018

4.0

20

Juli Fraga

This Is the Difference Between Normal Fighting and Verbal Abuse

As a psychologist, I often hear stories about fighting. After all, conflict is a normal part of any relationship and, during heated conversations, feelings of anger and frustration can swell, causing us to snap at our partners. However, when I hear about people who make threats, resort to name-calling, and yell whenever they get riled up, I get concerned. It’s normal to lose one's cool occasionally if you’re arguing with your partner about something, but if these verbal slingshots happen regularly, it may be a sign of emotional abuse. Because the signs may be subtle, discerning between a heated argument and verbal abuse can be tricky. I’ve seen many people who didn’t realize they were being abused until they began therapy. Oftentimes, they unknowingly minimize or justify their partner’s actions, by telling themselves things, like: “He’s just stressed out from work; once we get away for a vacation, things will get better,” or “He has trouble coping with anger. I know he didn’t mean the cruel things he said to me.” When caustic words like “I wouldn’t get angry if you weren’t so sensitive,” or “You brought the conflict on yourself. I’m not apologizing,” become the norm, not a rare exception, it may be time to re-examine the well-being of your relationship. It might sound surprising, but nearly 50 percent of women and men have experienced at least one psychologically unsafe encounter with a partner. While it's difficult to ignore the damage inflicted by physical violence—like black eyes and bruises—the psychological wounds left by verbal punches aren't nearly as noticeable. But that doesn't mean they aren't just as damaging to one’s self-esteem and mental health as physical violence. And while there’s often a thin line between fighting and verbal abuse, there are a few tell-tale signs that could indicate you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship. Abusers typically feel very powerless which causes them to grasp for power and control by blaming and shaming others. One way they do this is by resorting to name-calling and (non-constructive) criticism whenever differences arise. If your partner drops f-bombs, or continuously magnifies your shortcomings in a way that attacks your character, it may be a sign they're trying to disempower you. Throwing out insults, like “You never know what you’re talking about,” or “I’m not in the wrong, you’re just too dumb to grasp what I’m talking about,” could signify that your partner needs to garner all the power in the partnership by trying to cut you down. Abusers don't always yell and swear whenever things go awry. Sometimes they resort to guilt-inducing tactics as a way to make you feel badly. For example, someone might say, "If you really cared about me, you wouldn't have rescheduled our date for tonight," or "I thought we had a special bond, but I must have been mistaken because if we were really close, you wouldn't act this way." These types of accusations may cause you to second-guess your decisions. You may even begin to take responsibility for the conflict, even when it's not your fault. Watch More from VICE: “I never called you a bitch; I said you were bitchy. It’s not my fault you can’t tell the difference.” Verbal abusers often deny your reality by invalidating your feelings. Also, known as “gaslighting,” this form of manipulation can cause you to feel like you’re losing their mind. People who gaslight might also distort the truth and when you point out the discrepancy, they insist that you misunderstood. Over time, this pattern erodes a person's sense of confidence. The abuser may even use this tactic to foster dependency—that is, getting you to rely on their suggestions because you doubt your own perception of things. A client once told me: “After our worst fights, my boyfriend always makes it up to me. He’s sweet and buys me flowers. He tells me how sad he’d be if I ever left him.” After a verbal attack, even though the abuser may not fully take responsibility for his or her behavior, they often shower you with praise, gifts, or affection. When abuse is subtle, this type of behavior can mask the dangers of repeated verbal attacks. However, if there’s a cycle to the way you argue and you dread fighting, it might be a sign that you’re caught in the cycle of violence. After a night out with friends, abusive partners may accuse you of not paying attention to them, or insist that you have a thing for a friend or a co-worker. When you deny these accusations, they may demand that you prove it to them by asking to read your texts and emails. Deep down, abusers often feel like they do not matter, but instead of disclosing their fears, they project them onto others. "I don't know why you think your job is such a big deal; it's not like you went to an Ivy League school." Trying to strip you of your power, verbal abusers often devalue your accomplishments and your appearance. At the same time, they often inflate their sense of importance and success. They may even insult you in public, and if you speak up about your hurt feelings, they're quick to insist that you misunderstood the comment. The pain of verbal abuse can chip away at your psychological well-being. If you suspect you might be in an emotionally unsafe situation, talk to a trusted friend or family member and seek professional counseling. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of Tonic delivered to your inbox weekly.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmg7x9/this-is-the-difference-between-normal-fighting-and-verbal-abuse

Health

Vice

2019-06-17 00:00:00

2019

6.0

17

Alibaba proposes one-to-eight stock split ahead of up to $20 billion HK listing

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Alibaba Group Holding has proposed a one-to-eight stock split ahead of a listing in Hong Kong later this year that is expected to raise up to $20 billion. The split, to be presented to shareholders for a vote at an annual general meeting in Hong Kong on July 15, will increase flexibility in the firm’s capital raising activities, including the issuance of new shares, the e-commerce giant said. The firm’s board recommends shareholders to vote in favor of the proposal, it added in its statement dated Friday but published on the company’s website on Monday. “The ... subdivision will increase the number of shares available for issuance at a lower per share price,” it added. Alibaba has filed confidentially for a Hong Kong listing, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month. Alibaba has also proposed to change the ratio of ordinary shares to American Depositary Shares (ADS) to eight ordinary shares representing one ADS to neutralize the impact of share split on its ADS listed in the U.S. market. Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Himani Sarkar

https://www.reuters.com/article/alibaba-stock-split/update-1-alibaba-proposes-one-to-eight-stock-split-ahead-of-up-to-20-bln-hk-listing-idUSL4N23O1B5

Business News

Reuters

2018-06-14 18:06:53

2018

6.0

14

Andrew Prokop

Read: inspector general report on Comey, FBI, Clinton, and 2016 campaign

A long-awaited report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on the FBI’s actions during the 2016 campaign has now been released. The report reviews then-FBI Director James Comey’s key decisions about the Hillary Clinton email investigation, as well as the actions of other Justice Department officials. (It does not focus on the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, which is still ongoing.) Horowitz was appointed to his post by President Obama back in 2012 and has a reputation for nonpartisanship. Inspectors general traditionally operate with a measure of independence from government higher-ups. Furthermore, Horowitz began this review before Trump even took office. So it would be a mistake to view Horowitz’s report as designed to serve President Trump’s ends. Still, it will be released in a political context dominated by special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and Trump’s attacks on his own Justice Department. Indeed, Trump has been eagerly anticipating this report, since it was expected to criticize Comey and he is trying to undermine Comey’s credibility. Read the full report below, or at this link.

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/14/17455544/read-inspector-general-report-comey-clinton

Vox

2016-02-23 13:30:02

2016

2.0

23

Clayton Aldern

Meet the scientist connecting the dots between air pollution and dementia

Originally published as part of Grist's "Climate on the Mind" series. At first blush, you might not think air quality is related to brain health. But what if the two are connected? Air pollution continues to worsen in the developing world, especially in rapidly developing countries like China and India; at the same time, our global population is aging, and dementia rates are expected to rise accordingly. Increasingly, research suggests a link between air pollution exposure and the risk of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. How might this relationship be possible, and what might it mean for what the world is — or isn’t — prepared to handle in the coming decades? Aaron Reuben is a science writer, recovering policy wonk, and neuropsychologist in training who’s exploring just these questions. He's a PhD student at Duke, and his journalistic endeavors include an eye-opening feature for Mother Jones (cross-posted at Grist) that draws attention to the connection between dementia and dirty air. Driving Reuben’s work is the notion that the countries that will see the most aging in the coming years are the same countries that are going to have the most polluted air — and the same places that have some of the least developed infrastructure for diagnosing and treating brain disease. I caught up with Reuben to chat about the state of the science, the justice issues at stake, and the difficulties of communicating the invisible. Clayton Aldern: What do we know about the links between air pollution and dementia? Aaron Reuben: There are two branches of relevant science here. The first body of research studies people in older age brackets and maps their health outcomes onto possible air pollution exposures generated from regional pollution-monitoring data. When you do that, you find that people who are exposed to more air pollution, particularly fine particles, show an increased risk for dementia and pre-dementia, called mild cognitive impairment. A study that came out of Taiwan, for example, drew on a cohort of nearly 100,000 people and showed that for every unit increase in exposure to particle pollution, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s went up by more than 100 percent. Of course, before we can say that one causes the other, one of the things that needs to happen is for data to arrive from longitudinal studies in which you follow people from day one, categorize their exposures, follow their outcomes, and control for things you’d like to control for, like exposures to other toxins like lead. But every month and every year, more and more studies are coming out, and the fact that they’re all finding the same thing is very compelling. The other kinds of studies that are contributing to the evidence base are animal studies. You can’t sit someone down and expose them to air pollution and watch their brains degenerate in real time. But you can do that in mice. There are a lot of studies coming out now on changes in cell dynamics and epigenetics in mice exposed to air pollution, and you see that many of the changes are in the direction of Alzheimer’s disease and heavily related to dementia outcomes. Something that’s really sexy that hasn’t been published yet is studies using transgenic mice that have been engineered to develop Alzheimer’s-type pathology. If you expose generations of these mice to air pollution and that changes the development of pathology, then you can make a call that in this particular animal, the exposure to fine particles fostered the disease. So far the mouse studies are pointing in the same direction as the cohort studies. CA: So are we at "smoking causes lung cancer" levels of evidence? AR: No, we’re not there yet. But when people ask me this, I also ask them how long it took to get there for lung cancer. How long did we think cigarettes caused cancer before we were finally willing to say we know? It took decades. I don’t think anyone thinks the evidence is going to start weighing against this trend. It’s a matter of how long new research needs to pile up before people are willing to make a bold statement. CA: And what do we know about how pollution might contribute to dementia? AR: There are a couple ways we think it works. One is by nature of the fact that some of the particles are very small. Your sense of smell is a very potent sense, and there is a direct connection from the nose to the brain via the nasal nerve. That means that once you get something in your nose, if it’s small enough, it can pass into the nerve and make its way all the way to the brain. Keep in mind that pollution particles typically bring in a host of other nasty things with them, including heavy metals — things that can directly kill neurons. The end result is a disruption of the brain’s homegrown immune system. Microglia cells — which clear waste, trim away dead neurons, improve synaptic connections, and clear pathogens — end up performing an unsuccessful process. They continue to release oxidative chemicals that are designed to kill pathogens, but instead of killing anything, the chemicals just accumulate and disrupt neural activity. The damage this causes looks a lot like what you see in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients. Another mechanism comes via the lungs. When pollution particles are inhaled into the lungs, they tend to be small enough to make it past the body’s defenses and end up in the deepest tissue, where they then pass into the bloodstream. When they do that, they trigger an immune reaction that circulates molecules related to inflammation, cytokines, in the bloodstream — the kind of thing that seems to cause chronic low-level inflammation wherever the particles go. We’re not sure if the particles can enter the brain through the blood directly or if the chemicals they trigger actually reach the brain, but there’s evidence that they interact with the blood-brain barrier and damage it somehow. It’s all about low-level inflammation that turns into long-term damage. Particles that enter through the nose will cause neuroinflammation directly, and particles that enter through the lungs will also cause neuroinflammation indirectly. CA: You’ve suggested we’re past the tipping point at which this theory is going to be wholly refuted, but you’ve also cited overly cautious scientists who are wary of overstating the evidence. Why do you think this hesitance exists? AR: I think in all of science there’s a tendency to be as precise as possible. It’s never unusual for scientists to hedge their bets. But the other thing I think is going on here is that there’s been a sort of history of jumping the gun on Alzheimer’s. We’ve been talking about one cause, but there are many ways to brain disease. The brain is uniquely susceptible to damage. Air pollution isn’t causing all the dementia we see around us. There’s pesticide exposure, there are concussions — there’s not just one way to get this disease. And it’s also a function of your cumulative exposures and your genetic predisposition. There’s a lot to fear when it comes to dementia. It comes out of nowhere, there’s no cure, it erases everything about you. If you can point to something that’s causing it, people are going to take you seriously. That’s what happened with the aluminum scare in the 1980s, which led to sensationalist headlines and people worrying about their pans and the things they were drinking. The studies that found unusually large aluminum deposits in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients were real, but that didn’t mean that your personal exposure to aluminum actually influenced your dementia risk. The field of gerontology remembers this and is going to be slow to embrace air pollution. Especially because it’s something that everyone is exposed to, unlike, say, a concussion. CA: I’m interested in what you just said about air pollution being something everyone is exposed to. There are obviously inherent justice questions at stake here given the inequities of air pollution exposure. How does environmental justice enter the conversation for you? AR: I think there are two things going on, and neither of them are good. The same communities that are reliably exposed to the most air pollution are the same communities that have the fewest resources to defend themselves or compensate for the effects. Something you see time and again is that high-income, high-resourced individuals not only can buffer themselves against exposure to air pollution — they live in the nice parts of town, they don’t live by busy roads, they live by a lot of greenery, which we know can reduce pollution levels — but they also have the resources to respond to the kinds of cognitive impairments that we’re predicting. Researchers at the University of Southern California have found that air pollution levels are linked to developmental disorders. We know that if your child has a developmental disorder, there are plenty of services and activities to improve their cognitive abilities. These are the kinds of things that aren’t always available to low-income communities, who are also at greater risk. Another thing that people are talking about are the synergistic stressors at play. It’s not just that you’re living in a neighborhood that has higher levels of air pollution, it’s that there might also be more violence in your social environment. You might have an incarcerated family member. These are many forms of adversity that, on their own, modify the way the brain develops and modify a slew of risk factors. When you put them all together, these effects may be magnified. CA: What if I buy your story about air pollution and dementia but can’t move out of my heavily polluted neighborhood? What are my options? AR: Something we used to study in my old lab was called cognitive reserve. The basic idea is that there are some things you can do that appear to make you more resilient against showing symptoms of disease or brain injury. It’s based on old evidence of people who had died and, once an autopsy of their brain was done, appeared to have had Alzheimer’s-like pathology — but there was no evidence they had Alzheimer’s when they were alive. And it seems to be the case that they were compensating somehow for the brain damage. There are certain things we know lead to good cognitive reserve. Yes, a lot of them are associated with your socioeconomic status, but some of them aren’t. If you have a higher IQ, it seems you’re buffered a bit against insults to your brain. For every year of education you get, your risk of presenting Alzheimer’s goes down — not because you’re immune to the disease, but because if you start to get early damage, you’re more able to deal with the damage in a way that maintains your cognitive function. More physical activity is another one. With respect to age, young people and old people are the most vulnerable. Young people’s brains are still developing; old people have brains that are less likely to bounce back and repair themselves after injury. As a society, we can choose to design better communities around some of this knowledge. In California, there’s a law that says you can’t put an elementary school on a busy road. But we can’t all move. In Beijing, if you wanted to move, you’d have to change your whole life. You can’t escape the pollution. CA: I feel like there’s a certain paradox here when you mention a place like Beijing. We’re building these factories in the name of progress, but for whom? If people’s brains are atrophying because of exposure to air pollution, there’s a pretty abysmal vicious circle going on. AR: It’s not just that we’re going to die younger or age more poorly. There’s lots of evidence that you’re stopping people at the start of their lives. Studies have found that kids drop IQ points for every unit of air pollution exposure. Or look at what’s happening in Flint [Michigan]. There’s a whole generation of kids getting set at a disadvantage from day one. We’re doing the damage to ourselves. CA: Something like climate change is already so slow and abstract. Something like air quality isn’t always something you can see. When you combine these kinds of things with mental health or brain health — which are already siloed off from the rest of the health spectrum — there’s a lot of abstraction going on in one place. That must make these effects particularly difficult to communicate. Does this ever leave you frustrated? AR: This actually reminds me of something I’m working on now, which is trying to look at the long-term effects of exposure to positive things like parks and green spaces — improved environments. I think of it as the flip side of these stressors. Almost everyone you talk to can speak at a personal level to the benefit of green spaces. Trying to find that effect in data and trying to make that data compelling is hard. There are a lot of things that are going to contribute to how well or how poorly you live. Something like your environment is just one of them. Trying to pull out the influence of that one factor is really hard, both scientifically and with respect to communication. But we do know the places where people are getting older. In a lot of those places, we can reliably say there are going to be greater rates of dementia than there should be. A lot of those places don’t have infrastructure yet for diagnosing or treating these things, and I think it’s time we started thinking about the resources that need to be put into place in the areas where the air is bad. At some point we’re going to have to start paving the way to dealing with the brain health crisis that’s coming. Of course it’d be great to clean up the air in these places, and we know how to clean up the air, but we’re not going to be able to do it right away. In the meantime, we know who the people are at risk, and we know pretty well what’s going to happen. Can we start getting ready for that in a real way? Grist is a nonprofit news site that uses humor to shine a light on big green issues. Get their email newsletter here, and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

https://www.vox.com/2016/2/23/11094686/air-pollution-dementia

Vox

2018-11-05 00:00:00

2018

11.0

5

Eni to look at sanctions measures to see if it can use Iranian crudes

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian oil major Eni will look at the Iran sanctions measures to see if it can use Iranian crudes to allow it greater flexibility in procuring supplies, a spokesman said on Monday. “Eni is examining the ... provisions to see if the decision allows it to consider the use of Iranian crudes for further flexibility in its crude supply system,” the spokesman said. But the company added it would fully respect international community decisions on rules and sanctions in regard to Iran. The United States on Monday restored sanctions targeting Iran’s oil, banking and transport sectors. However, the United States gave temporary exceptions to eight importers - China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea - allowing them to keep buying from Iran. Eni said it was not present in Iran and that the overall impact of the waiver granted Italy was marginal for its business. Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Adrian Croft

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-sanctions-eni/eni-to-look-at-sanctions-measures-to-see-if-it-can-use-iranian-crudes-idUSKCN1NA2JR

World News

Reuters

2016-08-02 14:24:58

2016

8.0

2

Pamela Engel

Trump fires seasoned GOP strategist who helped organize RNC

Donald Trump's campaign has fired two high-level aides in what sources told Politico is a "shake-up" in the operation. Ed Brookover, a veteran Republican strategist who helped organize the Republican National Convention two weeks ago, and Jimmy Stracner, who was the campaign's Western regional political director, have been let go. Both had worked for Ben Carson's campaign before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump. A source familiar with the firings told Politico that two other senior campaign aides, William McGinley and Mike McSherry, would take on elevated roles. The Trump campaign confirmed Brookover's departure in a statement but did not mention Stracner. "The campaign has parted ways with Ed, but we are thankful to him for his many contributions and appreciate his continued support," the statement from spokeswoman Hope Hicks said. Trump's challenger, Hillary Clinton, received a bump in the polls after last week's Democratic National Convention and is now beating Trump nationally. Trump received a similar bump after the Republican convention, but polls after Clinton's speech showed voters responding more favorably to her than they did to Trump.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-fires-ed-brookover-2016-8

Business Insider

2019-03-23 00:00:00

2019

3.0

23

Paul D'AgostinoThomas Micchelli

A Frankenstein for the Forever Wars

Depraved, a soulful indie take on Frankenstein, proves the perennial relevance of Mary Shelley’s monstrous creation. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads I wrote the following capsule review of Depraved, a new film by Larry Fessenden, just after viewing it, in part to spur on ideas for a fuller review: Immediately ensnaring and narratively circuitous on levels literal, mesmerizingly visual, and metaphorical alike, Depraved is not a mashup, rather a pastiche of essentially all you might hope for it to layer, paste, stick, piece, and yes, oh yes, stitch together — from film and literary references to production values, chronologies, political critiques, and philosophies. Its enigmas run deep. Its puzzles are many. And especially with its setting in Brooklyn, it’s also a holistic embodiment of multiple forms and histories of DIY ‘life.’ But then something different took shape instead. My colleague, Hyperallergic Weekend editor Thomas Micchelli, viewed the film as well. In a brief exchange we had right afterwards, he said that he also found Depraved compelling, and that he had some thoughts about it. So I sent him my initial thoughts in my capsule, and he then had more thoughts. So then what we thought was this: Given that the film itself is all layers and multiplicities of disciplines, inputs, and chronologies, it could be more interesting to present a layered, multiple-voiced exchange between the two of us — a kind of review-qua-pastiche or pastiche-qua-review, not unlike the pastiche that is this film. Below is an edited version of our exchange. — Paul D’Agostino Paul D’Agostino: It seems you too were flooded with thoughts after watching Depraved. Were you also flooded with thoughts as you watched it? I was, and I had so many and jotted them down so sloppily while watching, eyes wide open, in the dark, that at one point I actually turned a low light on my notes to make sure I’d be able to reread them later. I saw already that would be a challenge. Anyway, you too? And what were your initial thoughts, i.e. before I sent you the capsule? And after you read the capsule? Thomas Micchelli: No, I never take notes. I just let my responses pile up, with the hope that the better ones will stick. My reaction to the first frame usually presages my opinion of the entire film, and the first frame of Depraved — the overhead shot of a vinyl LP spinning on a turntable — seemed to be ushering in a movie that would be fatally arch and not terribly original. But this was one of the rare times that the first-frame test failed, maybe because it belonged to a different movie, the five minutes of rom-com tease that you mentioned when we talked on the phone. I did think, though, that the way the overhead shot continued across the half-finished meal and ended in the voyeuristic glimpse through the bedroom doors had a refreshing earthiness to it. We will be getting into the specifics of the movie’s pastiche of every Frankenstein imagining and then some in a little bit, but overall, the film that it evoked most strongly for me was Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), with the first part mesmerizing and inexplicable, and the second part surrendering to the demands of plot. The first half-hour was especially persuasive — the sound design was brilliant in its ability to communicate the monster’s disorientation in his new world. The use of his point of view, including the deficiencies in his eyesight, was a device that I think could have been used more and explored further. PD: Well, I don’t always take notes either when watching films to review, but I do at least try to jot down quotes that strike me as piquant, revealing, maybe meaningful for what might follow. Or if they’re particularly stupid. Anyway, I like your description of the first-frame test. I should try that. I do something that’s less of a test than a search for an entry into a bit of writing, again if I’m watching something I might review: I look for how much the director has attempted to pull me in, all the way into the visuals and the narrative, in the first few minutes. It’s less of a gauge of the film’s entirety than your method, but useful for me for reviews. At any rate, Fessenden does more in those first five or so minutes than I was prepared for. But I was excited by it. It was a true jolt. As you brought up, the film opens in such completely mundane, maybe rom-com-cum-drama ways, that you’re hardly ready for what’s next. It goes from that slowish pan over some unfinished meals in a living room, into a bedroom where the couple has retreated to burn off dinner with the dessert of coitus, to a moment of happy, maybe post-coitally enlivened chatter in the living room, only to then quickly transition into an argument out of nowhere, punctuated by a claim of, “You keep setting me up to be a disappointment,” barked by Alex, whose identity won’t remain exactly that for very long. All that’s in the first few minutes, after which a brutal murder comes almost out of nowhere, and it is extreme in its immediacy and intensity — i.e. already a different genre of film, in a sense — before then transitioning into some of the near-campy, classic sci-fi-ish, a bit flashy but also not overwrought digital overlays suggestive of electrical pulses and cerebral flashes, and so on. It’s so fast, and so suggestive already of the film’s many layers yet to come. It’s already a pastiche, and it would become much more of one — much like we already know the ‘monster’ is as a ‘thing’ pieced together into ‘life.’ Early on I began thinking of films like Memento (2000) and Primer (2004) as kindred works. Further on I thought a lot about Matthew Barney’s films and art. We can come back to some of that, but I’m interested in what you say about the monster’s eyesight. True, that did come up a lot. Similar in import, and that we can infer as elaborated throughout, was the refrain, “Gravity is your friend,” which were essentially Adam’s — at this point the monster’s name is Adam — first words, to the great astonishment of Henry, Adam’s ‘Dr. Frankenstein.’ TM: I’d like to return to your initial take on the film, its stylistic use of pastiche as a mirroring of Adam’s bodily pastiche. As opposed to a movie by Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino, in which the film-geek references are subsumed into the cinematic flow, a pastiche lets its edges show, like the scars on Adam’s body. The citations pull you out of the moment and divert your attention to themselves. The references in Depraved seem out of the blue, such as the twisting camera angle when Adam breaks loose and roams the streets, which brought to mind The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1921), or the close-up of Polidori’s mouth eating a piece of steak, a reference that’s eluding me but I know I’ve seen. (Caligari, which revolves around a carnival barker and an unnaturally tall somnambulist, seems as much of a touchstone as James Whale’s or Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein films, especially given the number of times Henry tells Adam how important it is for him to sleep.) There were a number of narrative holes, some that bothered me (there was no setup for Adam’s discovery of his backstory, making it feel rushed and contrived), and others that I found fascinating, such as why Adam has been created out of multiple parts in the first place. If the idea, as we find out later, was to find a way to bring the freshly killed back to life, there seems to have been no need for Henry to sew together an Übermensch, other than to satisfy the director’s desire to make a 21st-century Frankenstein movie. And in that light, the monster’s pastiche of dead parts seems like a critique of the enterprise. Still, I wonder why we are talking about this movie in particular. What makes it compelling enough to single out for discussion? I can’t quite articulate it. PD: Great point. Great points. On the latter one, I suppose we’re discussing it because it offers itself as the direct product of the piecing together, rather than blending, of genres, styles, references, and angles of social critique. It’s true that we could just leave it at: ‘Hey folks, this movie is really good, even fun, and it’ll make you think!’ But then, yes, so do many other films out there to see. But it does make sense, given its internal multiplicity of points of view, its interdisciplinarity, to address the qualities of Depraved from multiple points of view. The film festival presenting it [WHAT THE FEST!? at the IFC Center in Manhattan] seems like it could feature a number of other pictures that have similar efficacy. I can say that it was that latter aspect that initially got me intrigued. Fessender brings quite a mix of experience in filmmaking to the table and has worked alongside many of the greats in indy film, so I was curious to see how an art-horror director whose work is shown at MoMA, and who has worked on projects with Steve Buscemi, Jim Jarmusch and Guillermo Del Toro, to name a few, might handle Mary Shelley’s classic text. There’s also of course a very circumstantial aspect to my interest: I happened to see It’s Alive, the Frankenstein exhibition at the Morgan late last year, and it was exhilarating in so many ways. I could go on, or probably we could both go on for a while about how great it was, but that’s a different review. For now it’s worth noting that I particularly enjoyed the ways the exhibit conveyed the interdisciplinarity of Shelley’s brilliance, and the prodigious wealth of creative enterprise and expression her story has continued to generate. Moreover, one part of It’s Alive! that I found hardest to budge from, in addition to that jaw-dropping suite of paintings by Henry Fuseli, including “The Nightmare” (1781) and “Three Witches” (1783) — and it seems that Fuseli and Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, according to the exhibition notes, had some manner of amorous rapport (what a detail!) — was the section detailing the impact of Shelley’s novel on the history of cinema. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a story that can seem destined to be envisioned and reimagined in so many ways, through so many mediums and genres. In itself it’s everything from allegory to Bildungsroman to gothic horror delving into sci-fi, and so much more. So those are just some of the things that got me intrigued in this movie in the first place, which then got me watching those first five minutes that had me all-in, electrifyingly so. For certain, one thing that’s worth noting before turning to your Übermensch point is that Depraved had me constantly marveling at Shelley’s prescience in telling her story. By way of one of the most effective and broadly transmittable media of her time, she told a kind of pastiche of a tale that could be enjoyed just as well at any single level of its narrative or critique, or at all of them at once, and remain just as cogent, just as potent. To watch Depraved is also to be consistently reminded of the monstrous critical importance of Shelley’s creation. This brings me right to your point about the Übermensch, and maybe also about the critique of the enterprise: PTSD and the wars of the day are regularly dropped into all kinds of films and streaming series these days, not often necessarily or effectively, other than as constant reminders of just how long certain wars, particularly US-led or ‘fed’ campaigns, have gone on. Here, the references to the wars become relevant to the story in ways that make sense — from the variably stilted, jarred, dazed cognitive states displayed by the film’s protagonists and graphic effects alike, to the intuitable critique of the military-industrial complex, so interested in the successful creation of this monster. TM: When Henry says to Adam, “I want you to be safe,” he’s trying to make amends for those on the battlefield he couldn’t save, but he had to deal in death to do it. PD: Yes, he’s working through his own mental trauma. Meanwhile, instigator Polidori seems to simply regard it all as a game, another puzzle for Henry to give Adam to solve in some kind of venture-capitalist-funded experiment in “extreme sports biology,” a telling claim. Also telling is that moments after Henry says to Adam, “I want you to be safe,” we see him tucking Adam into bed by covering him in a blanket that looks a lot like a quilt, which at that early point in the film is also what Adam’s body already looks like — a stitched-together quilt of flesh, limbs, materials, memories, traumas. On that note, I think we’ve covered things well enough. Let’s put this critical monster to bed, and maybe awaken it some other time for some other film or whatever else. In the meantime, let’s test our prescience. Brooklyn DIY trend of the future, ‘artisanal A.I.’? I can see it already: “How to Make Your Own Person at Home in Seven Easy Steps.” And forget the references to the doctor. The conceptual origin and possible prototype should just be called ‘Mary’s Monster.’ Depraved, written and directed by Larry Fessenden; produced by Larry Fessenden, Chadd Harbold and Jenn Wexler; Executive Producers: Joe Swanberg, Edwin Linker, Peter Gilbert; Co-Executive producers: Andrew Mer, Sig De Miguel, Stephen Vincent; presented by Glass Eye Pix and Forager Film Company; starring: David Call, Joshua Leonard, Alex Breaux, Ana Kayne, Maria Dizzia, Chloë Levine, Owen Campbell, and Addison Timlin

https://hyperallergic.com/491156/depraved-larry-fessenden/

Hyperallergic

2018-10-12 17:20:00

2018

10.0

12

Liam Daniel Pierce

GOP Candidate Threatens PA Gov. with Bizarre Golf/Baseball Violence

Politicians are notoriously shitty with sports metaphors. Say, when Reince Priebus compared passing the ACHA bill to a touchback and the time that Sean Spicer really went out of his way to bring up the New England Patriots in a pretty irrelevant and unhelpful metaphor about elections. But this one that Scott Wagner cooked up? It's just fucking weird. Wagner is the now broke GOP candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, running up against current governor Tom Wolf (with the debate moderated by a very booed Alex Trebek). But it seems it's not just Wagner's campaign videos that are getting pretty budget, but so too are his sports metaphors. If you can even call this is a "metaphor." Just take a look at a man in a sweater vest, angrily Kavanaugh-pointing into oblivion next to a director's chair full of napkins at a construction site: It's really pretty impossible to tell how Wagner cooked up this scenario, but let's try to dissect it for a moment. Wagner wants the standing governor to put on a catcher's mask (baseball), so that he can wear golf spikes (golf) to walk all over his face with? Alright, so there's not really anything to dissect here. This is just pure mumbo jumbo. The weirdest part is that it's such a confusing setup that it doesn't feel like a metaphor. It just sounds like an actual threat at this point. Wagner, who has been painting his competitor as a liberal elitist, seems to have been trying to connect with your Average Joe: "sports, amirite?!" But he's so filled with hollow bluster that his baseball/golf metaphor/threat just kind of amounts to a gigantic nothing. Because nothing says sports-ball quite like masked-face spike stomping? What in the holy hell is wrong with these people?

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yw9kk5/gop-candidate-threatens-pa-gov-with-bizarre-golfbaseball-violence

Sports

Vice

2018-05-07 21:30:02

2018

5.0

7

Emily Heller

Jim and Deborah Fallows’s book recommendations from The Ezra Klein Show

Jim and Deborah Fallows honeymooned at a work camp in Ghana (though they wouldn’t recommend it) and have been traveling the world ever since. The Fallowses discuss what they’ve learned from the places their work has taken them — she’s a linguist and he’s a journalist — on this week’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. During the course of the conversation, Ezra brings up “The Fallows Question,” posed by David Brooks in the New York Times in reference to the globetrotting couple: “If you could move to the place on earth where history is most importantly being made right now, where would you go?” Apparently, in this moment, that place is America. More specifically, American small towns. The Fallowses have spent the past five years visiting towns all over America and speaking to citizens about their lives, what matters to them, and the changes they’re making on a local level to improve their communities — without asking about political identities. A book chronicling their journey called Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America will be released May 8. Buy Our Towns here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble Ezra usually asks guests for three book recommendations, but because there are two of them, he asks the Fallowses for two books each — they both give three anyway. Deborah Fallows says, “I tend to like to read books that are ... of the place or of the moment where we currently are.” When they lived in Malaysia, she read about colonial life; in China, she read about ancient Chinese culture. While traversing the United States, she read “early, lesser-known adventure stories of Mark Twain,” the journals of Lewis and Clark, and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. While she admits that Lewis and Clark’s journals aren’t very fun to read, through these accounts of early American life, she found that they were “covering the same territory and seeing the same places” as the travelers she was reading about. Tocqueville particularly resonated with her in his depictions of “how Americans just were at heart.” Fallows doesn’t specify which Twain stories she read, but his travelogue Roughing It, in which he documents a stagecoach journey through the American West, thematically fits. “Just seeing the continuity from those old, kind of dusty writers through to now,” she says, “I found very educational.” Buy The Journals of Lewis and Clark here: Amazon | Barnes & NobleBuy Democracy in America here: Amazon | Barnes & NobleBuy Roughing It here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble Jim Fallows realizes that Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant will be familiar to Ezra Klein Show listeners, but he found it particularly relevant to their exploration of American life. In addition to being a nuanced portrait of an easily dismissed American political figure, the book depicts struggles the United States have gone through which “have great resonances from that era to now.” Buy Grant here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble Of author Theodore Dreiser, Jim Fallows says, “It’s remarkable that somebody who is as terrible a writer as he is sentence by sentence can be arguably the great powerful American novelist of just portraying the reality of American life in its aspirations and its humiliations and its pathos.” The two Dreiser novels Fallows recommends are Sister Carrie, “which could have been plucked from [today’s] headlines,” and An American Tragedy, which “remains the central American novel of class, of ambition, of idealism, of deception, of punishment, law and order, of the role of religion, and of the role of migration.” Buy Sister Carrie here: Amazon | Barnes & NobleBuy An American Tragedy here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble You can listen to the full conversation with Jim and Deborah Fallows on The Ezra Klein Show by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or by streaming the episode here:

https://www.vox.com/2018/5/7/17328114/the-ezra-klein-show-book-recommendations-james-fallows-deborah-fallows

Vox

2017-05-04 13:25:01

2017

5.0

4

Dylan Scott

Republicans patched together a health care bill. Now it contradicts their own arguments.

In their rush to patch together a health care bill with enough support to pass the House, Republicans have created a plan with bizarre incentives that undermine the arguments they have used to deflect criticism of the legislation. The final tweak to the American Health Care Act, an amendment offered by Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, directly contradicts the defenses that Republicans have deployed for the earlier MacArthur amendment. That amendment allowed states to waive Obamacare’s rule prohibiting insurers from charging sick people more than healthy people — with some conditions. It won over many conservatives but spooked moderates who were worried about rolling back a popular Obamacare protection. The Upton amendment, which adds an additional $8 billion to defray the higher costs people with preexisting medical conditions could face under the AHCA waivers, seems to have been enough to convince wavering centrist Republicans to back the bill and get it through the House. But in doing so, it undermines two arguments Republicans have made in favor of the MacArthur amendment, which created the waivers in the first place: that it would encourage people to stay covered and that few states would really want a waiver anyway. One wrinkle in the MacArthur amendment was that people in a state that received a waiver could not be charged a higher premium based on their health unless they had a lapse in coverage. Some conservatives have argued that this strengthens the incentive for people to maintain coverage, because they would otherwise risk facing higher premiums. Which might have been true, before the Upton amendment was added to the bill. As Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in National Review Online: One advantage of this system over Obamacare is that it would strengthen the incentive for healthy people to buy insurance (since buying coverage would mean also buying the ability to renew that insurance at nondiscriminatory rates). But this new money from the Upton amendment undercuts that incentive. It is specifically designated for people who live in states with AHCA waivers and who face higher insurance costs because they had a lapse in coverage. The new money helps to bring those costs down. People who go without health coverage and then sign up later aren’t going to feel the penalty as harshly or at all. Here’s how Nicholas Bagley, a health law professor at the University of Michigan, put it: If you believe in the MacArthur amendment—if you believe in it so much that that’s what it took to secure your support for the AHCA—the last thing you’d want to do is dilute the penalty for going without coverage. But that’s exactly what the Upton amendment does. “The Upton incentive dulls the incentive that an AHCA waiver would otherwise create to stay continuously covered,” Bagley told me. Other health experts agreed with his interpretation when I asked them about it. “Absolutely,” Tim Jost, a health law professor at Washington and Lee University, said in a brief email. The other argument some Republicans used in favor of the MacArthur amendment is that most states wouldn’t actually pursue a waiver from the Obamacare rule anyway. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) told me this week that maybe zero states, maybe only a couple, would request waivers. Upton made a similar point on Wednesday, noting that the Republican governor of Michigan had told Upton that his state would not want a waiver. There might be political reasons for that — House Republicans have seen for themselves the blowback you can face for waiving those protections. But as a matter of pure policy, the Upton amendment actually incentivizes states to seek a waiver. The $8 billion in extra funding is only made available to states that have a waiver from the Obamacare rule. So to get that money, you need to get a waiver. “By dangling money, the amendment encourages states to sign up for waivers,” Bagley wrote. If more states took that offer and sought a waiver, it would then make the funding problem worse. Many experts believe that the funding available under AHCA already isn’t enough to make sure people don’t fall through the cracks. The more states that adopt the waiver, the more the $8 billion in the Upton amendment must be spread around, the less money for individual people to help lower their insurance costs. If very few states waive community rating, $8 billion could go quite far. If most states do, it's a drop in the bucket.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/4/15541948/republican-health-care-bill-upton-amendment-incentives

Vox

2018-09-07 00:00:00

2018

9.0

7

Burt Reynolds Look-Alikes to Compete For Best 'Bandit' Costume

Hundreds of Burt Reynolds look-alikes will flood the streets of Long Island this month for a car show honoring the late actor ... and the best impersonator wins a big ass trophy!!! We're told Burt was invited to the Motor Mania Long Island Auto Expo, but he couldn't travel because of his health. After the actor passed away Thursday of a heart attack, the auto show organizers decided they'll honor Burt with a theme and costume contest. Butch Yamali, the owner of the expo, tells us he saw Burt in May at a Florida auction for the Trans Am from Burt's personal collection, and that's when he extended the invite. Burt initially said yes. Now, the car show has its first ever theme and costume contest in honor of Burt. Cowboy hats, mustaches, red shirts and Trans Ams will be out in full force as event organizers search for the best Reynolds impersonator from his role in "Smokey and the Bandit." There's another trophy for the car that's closest to the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am from the film. We're told the car show is reaching out to Burt's family and living 'Bandit' castmembers for personal invites. The annual show, which usually draws 10k-15k people, is set for September 29-30.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/09/07/burt-reynolds-trans-am-look-alike-car-show-long-island-smokey-bandit/

TMZ

2018-12-27 00:00:00

2018

12.0

27

David Gilbert

Why you should be worried about getting hacked in 2019

If you've stayed in a Starwood hotel in the past few years, there’s a decent chance that hackers stole your personal data. That's because the personal records of roughly 500 million Starwood guests were compromised in a security breach that lasted from 2014 to this year. The majority of people affected saw their personal information like names, physical and email addresses, and passport numbers compromised. For some unlucky guests, the breach included their credit card information. Marriott, the parent company of Starwood, revealed the hack on November 30th. It was the third-biggest data breach of all time — Yahoo owns the top two spots — and made 2018 another landmark year in the history of cybersecurity and identity theft. But Marriott was far from the only major corporation to have security issues this year. Facebook pulled most of the headlines for its incredible ability to outdo itself with one controversy after another. But pretty much every major tech company fell afoul of hackers — or their own incompetence — in 2018, including Apple, Google, and Amazon. That’s only the high-profile ones. Did you hear about ed tech company Chegg losing 40 million records? Or DNA-testing service MyHeritage exposing 92 million records? What about a hacker compromising 27 million accounts at TicketFly? If you've stayed in a Starwood hotel in the past few years, there’s a decent chance that hackers stole your personal data. That's because the personal records of roughly 500 million Starwood guests were compromised in a security breach that lasted from 2014 to this year. The majority of people affected saw their personal information like names, physical and email addresses, and passport numbers compromised. For some unlucky guests, the breach included their credit card information. Marriott, the parent company of Starwood, revealed the hack on November 30th. It was the third-biggest data breach of all time — Yahoo owns the top two spots — and made 2018 another landmark year in the history of cybersecurity and identity theft. But Marriott was far from the only major corporation to have security issues this year. Facebook pulled most of the headlines for its incredible ability to outdo itself with one controversy after another. But pretty much every major tech company fell afoul of hackers — or their own incompetence — in 2018, including Apple, Google, and Amazon. That’s only the high-profile ones. Did you hear about ed tech company Chegg losing 40 million records? Or DNA-testing service MyHeritage exposing 92 million records? What about a hacker compromising 27 million accounts at TicketFly? The situation isn't likely to improve anytime soon either, cybersecurity experts told VICE News. User data has become one of the more sought-after commodities among criminals, and that means breaches of the scale and magnitude we saw in 2018 will continue in 2019. “Data is more valuable than ever, and trading it is so profitable that it makes companies take enormous risks when handling data of the users on their platforms,” said Laura Kankaala, a security researcher at F-Secure, a cybersecurity company based in Helsinki, Finland. Here are some of biggest data breaches of the year. We’ve already gone through the seemingly endless list of crises the company created and/or weathered in 2018, but its cybersecurity issues warrant greater scrutiny. Outrage over the Cambridge Analytica scandal — where weak enforcement of Facebook's own policies meant the personal details of 87 million users were misused — might have died down since the story first broke in March. But Cambridge Analytica remains among the most problematic fails for Facebook and could leave the social media giant exposed to a number of lawsuits in 2019. The company followed that up in October, when it announced that hackers had accessed the most sensitive information from 30 million of its users — including what they searched, their location, and their relationship status. To close out the year in style, the company announced this month that it may have exposed the private photos of 6.8 million of its users to third-party apps. To make matters worse, Cher has announced she's quitting Facebook. In a word: no. Tech trends have given criminals — even the rubbish ones — a leg up in the game of cat and mouse with government organizations and global corporations that house your data, experts said. “Ever more sophisticated tools and techniques for hacking are available for downloading from the web. This means that the number of unsophisticated hackers able to break into systems will rise,” said Suzanne Spaulding, who served as under-secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the Obama era. Naturally, while hacking gets easier, securing data is only getting harder. And we’re already starting to see that reality, experts said, especially as companies cope with a shortage in available cybersecurity professionals. “Businesses sorely need cybersecurity companies, because they can't hire full teams themselves, but even the dedicated service providers have issues in scaling to meet demand,” Sean Sullivan, an independent security researcher, told VICE News. The companies who can afford fully staffed, dedicated teams of cybersecurity personnel, Sullivan says, are the likes of Google and Facebook, and as we’ve seen, they’re struggling too. Cover image: (GDA via AP Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/8xpbyg/why-you-should-be-worried-about-getting-hacked-in-2019

Vice News

2017-04-07 18:01:00

2017

4.0

7

Maya-Roisin Slater

A Tour of Paris’ Next-Generation Club Scene, Where Inclusivity Reigns Supreme

Photos by the author unless otherwise stated "Of course we are feminists, because we are girls and want to be respected. But we don't want [others] use it as, 'Oh they're girls it's so trendy,'" says Pauline Ferrandiz, looking up from her plate of fried pork and sticky rice cakes. It's an afternoon in late March, and I'm in Paris' Belleville neighborhood, scarfing down lunch in a Chinese restaurant called Mian Guan with Paris-based female DJ collective These Girls Are on Fiyah (TGAF). Ferrandiz, better known by her stage name DJ Ouai, is a member of the group, along with Aurore Dexmier (AKA Miley Serious), Nina Orliange (AKA Carin Kelly), and Marylou Mayniel (AKA Oklou). The Chinese restaurant is one of TGAF's haunts; they affectionately renamed "#46" after their favorite dish to eat between sessions at their studio in an artist squat a few blocks away. Though TGAF is now a force in Paris' next-generation club scene—playing shows all over the city, broadcasting their weekly show on local radio, and debuting mixes on stations like BBC—the collective's beginning was nearly accidental. In 2015, Mayniel was invited to do a Sunday guest spot on French internet radio station PIIAF, and told she could invite friends. Mayniel brought Dexmier, Orliange, and Ferrandiz, who were merely acquaintances at the time. While they came to provide moral support, the other girls ended up hopping behind the decks as co-performers for the hour. The group's chemistry and diverse musical tastes were infectious, and they were soon offered their own show. Now happening weekly, TGAF's Sunday hour on PIIAF is an eclectic mix of pop, experimental music, and house. TGAF's rise over the past few years is happening in tandem with the next evolution of Paris' underground party scene, where the inclusive, DIY spirit of the 90s is making a comeback after years of restrictive legislation and stuffy club culture. "The parties that represent the best of this spirit [of inclusion] are mostly organized by LGBTQ. That's a fact," says Mayniel. TGAF cites parties like PARKINGSTONE and I've Seen the Future as prime examples of events that are creating spaces that are both accepting and musically divergent. Paris nightlife has taken many shapes. During the Belle Époque, the city made its name as a center of free expression in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war. In the 90s, it birthed the distinct French house sound with acts like Daft Punk, and nurtured a vibrant scene of underground raves and clubs like Le Palace and Rex. But in the early 2000s, the scene slipped into a stupor due to noise restrictions, limited opening hours, and gentrification—earning titles like "European capital of sleep" from its frustrated club community. It all came to a head in the late-2000s, when a group of promoters, DJs, and club owners started to call for the re-evaluation of restrictive legislation suffocating local club culture. Working with the local government, they established The Council of the Night, which meets to ensure the city's nightlife policies are keeping things both safe and fun. Today, local nightlife is graduating from the dress-shirt-required clubs of the recent past. A more musically and culturally diverse scene is cropping up throughout the city, centered around roving parties where partygoers in sneakers dance to experimental tracks culled from around the world. "We like clubs that mix several kinds of music. It can be dancehall, RnB, house, techno, different kinds of African rhythms. That's richest thing we can find," says Mayniel of what TGAF looks for in a night out. While no scene is perfect, venues are also becoming safer places for POC, women, and the LGBTQ community, with the TGAF crew crediting online communities that allow people to discuss harassment and discrimination without relying on the often unreliable systems set up by clubs and promoters for these problems. The newfound diversity of the city's after-dark scene affords TGAF a certain amount of freedom—to start a DJ collective nearly by accident, be passionate about both top 40 hits and obscure producers, and focus on the music they make instead of the pronouns they use. Finishing the last bits of our fried pork, the TGAF crew and I head out into the busy Sunday streets for a tour of all the spots—from their studio in an abandoned high school to local radio stations—that are cornerstones for the next generation of Parisian party goers. Aurore Dexmier: It's cool because it's in an old building of Paris with kind of modern art stuff, like two staircases and these big windows. It's a big space, and it can get crowded. They have live shows before it turns into a club, and when you play there, the bass is really nice because it's kind of space-y. Musically, it's very open minded. You have techno house stuff— Nina Orliange: But you can also go to Latino parties [at the club] to dance flamenco. Actually it's weird because you can find this club in guide books, so there's a lot of different people. I never understand the audience. Pauline Ferrandiz: Sometimes people come because they like the party. Sometimes they're in the neighbourhood and saw the club. It's cheap and it's a good mood. You can chill on the couch or go and dance, and you can get in with sneakers, or drunk. Marylou Mayniel: We follow DJs and parties, not venues. We discovered the club because the Bye Bye Oceans [a seminal new-gen party] is thrown over there. But it's different from other clubs because La Java already has an established reputation and it's a downtown club that has been there for so many years. So it's a bit harder to gain the owner's trust. Dexmier: PIAFF is an internet radio like Rinse or something. They are private so they really work to get their slots good, and they have really good intentions. They're a part of a different scene than we are, they listen to different music, which is why they're interested in our show. Ferrandiz: It's really eclectic and there are lots of talk shows, which is different from a lot of the other online radio stations I listen to like NTS, Rinse, and Radar. You also have writers and journalists doing shows. It's not only a music radio, they are trying to offer lots of stuff. Dexmier: Piaff likes us for how relaxed we are. It's like listening to your friends on the radio, because sometimes we just talk about what happened last night when we were partying. We're almost gossiping sometimes. It's like a slumber party on the radio. We don't hide that our first crush in life was pop music. Everybody was talking about the show we did on Justin Bieber. Just because we're four girls in this kind of [underground] scene doesn't mean we can't talk about how he's a genius. Orliange: We want to discover things from others. It's about sharing everything.  Ferrandiz: We don't want to be inaccessible. Yes we know things, but we don't know everything, and we don't want people to think we know everything. Like, we aren't music historians. Orliange: But we try to do our best, we're not just chilling like, "ah I like this," and making no sense. We try to do our best to reflect on the music and what it represents. Marylou Mayniel: The building is actually an old abandoned high school, so it's huge and there are many rooms. It was discovered two years ago by some guys who are like some kind of squat masters [ laughs]. They created an association named DOC, and started to look for artists and crews to start flooding the place. Me and two friends applied to create a music space. We got the basement, which is perfect to make noise. For [TGAF], it's a secured place where we can practice DJing whenever we want, or just meet and make music. Mayniel: This venue is cheap to rent for people who want to organize parties with small budgets. The owner of the bar must be quite open-minded, and that's so cool because it's a place where you can find salsa, and the day after, you have some very dark experimental night, and the night after, you have a gay party where everyone is dressed up. Montreuil is a cheap neighbourhood. It's very popular, it's very simple, it's dirty. And the owners are not trying to pimp the place or whatever, but it's big inside. Ferrandiz: [La Chinois] is important to the Paris scene because it doesn't work as a typical club and requires a certain open-mindedness. It helps to understand that having fun on a Saturday night is not necessarily listening to 135 BPM songs all night. You can also be carried by the atmosphere and the emotion. The music here is always complemented by other artistic dimensions like performance, projection, and scenography. Dexmier: Unlike the other spots we've been talking about, Rinse is not a place where you can go and play whatever you want, because you have to be invited by Rinse. It's one of the biggest electronic radios in France, so I think for everybody [here] it's the first one to push another side of the club scene in Paris. Ferrandiz: It's like the reference for club music in Paris. I think the people that run Rinse France are more into house and techno, so the people listening to Rinse France are more interested in house and techno. I like Betty's show because she's into [our] scene and she invites really cool people like DJ Deeon. She was in Girls Girls Girls before. Aurore has a residency now on Rinse, and she was part of the Women's Day thing recently where they had some lectures and live sets [on air]. Dexmier: [Rinse] give attention to small people in Paris trying to do their things, and on my show I get to invite whoever I want. For the Women's Day [program], I was representing TGAF. It was important to connect all the female musicians in Paris. Upcoming TGAF dates: April 20 : TGAF @ Salo for ORLAN April 28 : TGAF @ Le Klub July 8 : TGAF @ The Peacock Society

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kbjmzx/a-tour-of-paris-next-generation-club-scene-where-inclusivity-reigns-supreme

Noisey

Vice

2019-01-22 17:12:22

2019

1.0

22

Andrew J. Hoffman, Ellen Hughes-Cromwick

The shutdown proves that government is necessary in business

Instead of a debate over the right balance for government, American politicians and others have denigrated government as "the problem" or, more recently, "the swamp." But as the government shutdown enters its fifth week, Americans are getting a taste of life without government.According to business and public policy professors, it is in the buildup of trash at national parks, longer lines at airport security checkpoints, and the inability to get small business loans, among other effects, that the impact of these services are seen. As the United States endures the longest shutdown in its history, Americans are getting a taste of life without government. The absence of some services are clearly visible, such as a buildup of trash at national parks or longer lines at airport security checkpoints. Others, like those felt primarily by businesses, are less noticeable but arguably more important, such as an inability to get a small business loan or limited service from the IRS, Securities and Exchange Commission, and other key agencies. Collectively they show that government matters. But once the shutdown ends and the memories of the pain and discomfort it caused begin to fade, the visceral reminder Americans got of this message may fade with it. As scholars of business and policy, we believe it's essential that Americans not forget. In fact, the shutdown provides a good opportunity to reflect on the government's vital role in the free market and find a better balance between regulation and business. How the shutdown is affecting business The partial shutdown, in its fifth week, has left about 800,000 government employees either furloughed or working without pay, affecting more than 10 agencies. This has resulted in the slowing or halting of a great deal of activity, including food safety inspections, initial public offerings on the stock market, and the approval of new craft beers. And these costs are felt by citizens as the risks grow to their food, the environment, and other things. Economists warn that long-term impacts could also undermine confidence as businesses, consumers, and investors lose faith in political leaders' ability to make constructive policies. Read more: The warnings are getting starker: Trump's government shutdown is becoming catastrophic for the economy The White House's own economists estimate that every week of shutdown reduces growth by 0.13 percentage point, meaning the economy has already taken a hit of half a percent. If it goes for another week, total costs could exceed US$6 billion, which is more than what the president is demanding for his border wall. And yet Americans won't even know the actual impact because many of the government workers whose job it is to collect and measure economic activity have been sent home. Hamilton and public goods While the shutdown crystallizes what the absence of government feels like, the debate over its proper role in business is as old as the American Republic. For example, Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury secretary, wrote eloquently about the need for the government to get involved in markets, specifically through the establishment of a national bank. He called it a key public institution that "facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state." Beyond a central bank, "public goods" often require the protection of a set of laws. Examples include the environment, national defense, national parks, consumer protection, and advanced research that helps seed inventions and create the industries of our future. Author Michael Lewis, in his book " The Fifth Risk," details many of the important yet little-noticed functions that government agencies handle better than private industry, such as the protection of food safety or the oversight of spent nuclear resources. Further, he shows how a functioning economy depends on civil servants using the best data and science available to provide vital services to all Americans. Read more: The government shutdown is now the longest on record and the fight between Trump and Democrats is only getting uglier. Here's everything you missed. To offer just one example of the federal government's positive role in fostering innovation, its creation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1957 gave us the internet, GPS, stealth aircraft, and countless other technologies used in non-defense sectors today. On the flip side, the absence of proper regulation can lead to serious economic and personal damage, as we saw during the global financial crisis a decade ago. And only government — through regulatory agencies and smartly designed laws — is in a position to prevent another crisis. Indeed, fears are growing that another one may be on the horizon as a result of Wall Street excesses or financial bubbles in housing or debt. The point is that in all these cases, the question is not about "no government" but about how much, what kind, and which level (state or federal). Americans' evolving views It's good news in our opinion that Americans seem to be increasingly abandoning the view that government should stay out of business and the market. And more are embracing an expanded role. In 2011, half of Americans polled by Gallup said there's "too much" regulation. The latest survey, taken in late 2018, found that just 39% felt that way — the lowest in a decade — with a growing share saying that the balance is "just right." This comes at a time when the Trump administration is boasting about the number of regulations it has eliminated. Yet these surveys suggest Americans don't simply want fewer regulations, they want better ones. Even more encouraging in our view is a Cato survey from 2017 that found that large majorities of Americans "believe regulations, at least in the past, have produced positive benefits" and that "regulations can help make businesses more responsive to people's needs." One area where people see a value in government regulation is the financial sector, which is seen as rapacious and in need of more monitoring. And 1 in 4 Americans surveyed by Gallup said there's "too little" regulation, a figure that hasn't changed much in recent years. This suggests that a notable number of Americans don't trust the private sector and think that government is necessary to curb market excess and other problems. Toward a better balance But instead of a debate over the right balance for government, American politicians and others have denigrated government as " the problem" or, more recently, " the swamp." The terms are meant to say that government is alternatively inept, obstructive, or corrupt. They do this to take advantage of the still too widespread view that government has no role in markets and that regulation represents an unwarranted intrusion on business. This is a misperception that dismays both of us, motivating the very article you are reading. While there certainly are problems with special interest influence in government and bureaucratic inefficiency, the enterprise as a whole remains central to the operation of capitalism and the markets. After all, capitalism is a set of institutions designed by government in concert with business and civil society. As National Affairs editor Yuval Levin points out, even Adam Smith, the Scottish economist who wrote the foundational texts on capitalism, argued that "the rules of the market are not self-legislating or naturally obvious." Rather, Smith said, the market is a public institution that requires rules imposed on it. So we believe it is time to return to the basics and launch a new effort at reinventing government to improve how the various branches and levels interact with each other and the market. At the same time, it's important to provide more public education on what government does, and why, and solicit feedback from citizens on how to do it better — including at the ballot box. Andrew J. Hoffman is a professor at the Ross School of Business and School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of MichiganEllen Hughes-Cromwick is a senior economist and associate director of Social Science and Policy at the University of Michigan Energy Institute, University of Michigan.

https://www.businessinsider.com/shutdown-reminder-that-government-is-necessary-in-business-2019-1

Business Insider

2016-04-15 18:03:00

2016

4.0

15

Peter Carroll

Irish MMA’s Road to Regulation

The tragic passing of Portuguese MMA fighter Joao Carvalho in Dublin on Monday has led to a massive outcry for the regulation of mixed martial arts in Ireland. On Wednesday, Ireland's Minster of State Tourism and Sport Michael Ring made a pledge to regulate MMA in Ireland and today IMMAF have released a call to action, which they hope will bring about the recognition of the sport on the Emerald Isle. Currently, there is no governing body for professional MMA in Ireland, but the Irish Amateur Pankration Association (IAPA) oversees the amateur sport in the country. To gain the IAPA's approval, events must have a full medical staff and an on-site trauma room to cater for any medical issues with competitors. To add to that, IAPA registered fighters get full medicals and blood work done to safeguard amateur participants in the sport. In terms of the professional sport, gaining SAFE MMA approval is encouraged for both promoters and fighters. However, due to the absence of any governing body, there is nothing in place to stop any events that have no gained such verification. At present, the Irish Sports Council does not recognize mixed martial arts, which forced the IAPA to use the term 'Pankration' in their association title. Constituted under the IAWA (Irish Wrestling Association), IAPA have absolutely no authority when it comes to professional bouts. Sport Ireland released a statement on Wednesday, which outlined the criteria for establishing a governing body. Without going into huge detail the applicant should be able to demonstrate that it is a functioning corporate body (M & As, audited accounts, functioning board etc), is affiliated with a relevant international organization, is operating as the governing authority with rules etc and has clubs and memberships around the country. Speaking today, IMMAF President Kerrith Brown claimed that he believes IAPA meet all of the criteria. "They meet those criteria and more", said Brown. "The biggest sports star in the country is Conor McGregor. IAPA are members of IMMAF. They do have high standards when it comes to medical support and care of the athletes. "They are supported by Professor Dan Healy and he has helped to set the bar very high. The bar is set a lot higher there than in the majority of other places where MMA events are taking place. They are ticking the majority of the boxes." As Brown also pointed out, the trouble that some governments have with establishing a governing body comes down IMMAF affiliations, or lack there of. "The problem they are having, and it's a problem that a lot of our federations have, is when they are asked which international body they belong to they say IMMAF. We are still fighting to get recognition from IOC, from SportAccord and we are trying to become signatories to the WADA code. We tick all the boxes too, but there is still a reluctance to engage with the sport at every level." The professional sport is now at a crossroads on the Emerald Isle. Without a proper governing body established there is no way of safeguarding professional fighters in the country. Despite the death of Carvalho on Monday night, another MMA event is taking place tonight in the Irish capital. Like TEF 1, the event that Carvalho competed in last Saturday, the event is not SAFE MMA approved nor does it have the backing of the IAPA. In terms of creating a government body, IMMAF CEO Densign White believes that the Irish government can recognize and regulate mixed martial arts "in an instant". "It's up to the politicians and it's up to the government," said White. "They can make this happen in an instant. All they have to do is make the decision to recognize the IAPA and the job is done. They can pass a law that doesn't allow MMA to take place outside of IAPA's jurisdiction. That will include professionals too, not just amateur events. "The Sports Council can allow IAPA to become a sanctioning body. For example, when UFC go to Sweden, the Swedish federation sanctions their events. The same would apply to UFC coming to Ireland if the Sports Council makes the IAPA the sanctioning body." Due to the gravity of the situation, and Minister Ring's admission that he is "not a fan of the sport", Irish MMA might still be a long way from gaining recognition and a establishing a governing body. To establish such a body can take a number of years in Ireland. The lack of regulation is not unique to Ireland, but given Carvalho's death, there is a massive spotlight on the national sport. As rare as the incident involving Carvalho is to MMA, to allow the sport to continue in the same vein is allowing for the same kind of situation to occur again. The scene desperately needs safeguards to established for the professional sport, but for now, Irish MMA remains in limbo.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bmqzn5/irish-mmas-road-to-regulation

Sports

Vice

2017-03-09 00:00:00

2017

3.0

9

Magic Castle Suicide 911 Call ... Is it a Person or a Dummy?

Paramedics who rushed to the Magic Castle last month after getting a suicide call weren't sure if the figure hanging from a cord was a human or a dummy. TMZ obtained the 911 call in which you hear the confusion over what Magic Castle workers found. Daryl Easton was hanging with a plastic bag over his head and an electrical cord around his neck. The dispatcher asked the workers if the cord was charged. Contrary to reports, the Coroner ruled the death a suicide.

https://www.tmz.com/2017/03/09/magic-castle-magician-dead-911-call/

TMZ

2017-06-29 20:58:00

2017

6.0

29

Kim Renfro

'Despicable Me 3' cast and voice actors

The iconic Minions are back for the new "Despicable Me 3" movie, premiering on June 30. Gru and his new wife Lucy, along with their three adopted girls, will have to face off with villain Balthazar Blatt while also dealing with Gru's twin brother Dru. Though you may know Steve Carell as the voice of Gru, other famous actors and actresses have lent their talents to the newest installment in the "Despicable Me" franchise. Here's a look at the cast of "Despicable Me 3." Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Everyone's favorite bad-guy-turned-great-dad, Gru, is back for the third installment. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Comedian extraordinaire Steve Carell is back to voice the role of Gru, but this time there's a twist. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Gru has a twin brother, named Dru! Carell also voices Dru, keeping the brothers truly identical. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Gru's new wife, Lucy, is the ultimate partner-in-crime. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Lucy is played by "Saturday Night Live" alum Kristen Wiig, whose comedic chops pair perfectly with Carell's talent. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. In the movie, Gru and Lucy are the adopted parents to three adorable little girls. Margo is the oldest (seen below with Lucy). Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Actress Miranda Cosgrove has voiced Margo for all three films. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. The middle sister, Edith, is always helping her two sisters get in to trouble. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Edith is voiced by Dana Gaier, who has also been starring in the "Despicable Me" movies for the whole franchise history. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. And of course, everyone knows the incredibly cute baby of the family — Agnes. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Young actress Nev Scharrel is voicing Agnes for the first time. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Gru's mom is back for the third movie in the "Despicable Me" trilogy. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Gru's mom is played by none other than actress Julie Andrews. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Gru's new arch-enemy is the 80s-obsessed Balthazar Bratt. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Balthazar is voiced by Trey Parker — the co-creator of "South Park" and the Broadway hit musical "Book of Mormon." Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Of course, it wouldn't be a "Despicable Me" movie without lots of Minions. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Though there are many minions, each one is played by Pierre Coffin. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Valerie Da Vinci is the director of the Anti-Villain League, where Gru and Lucy are working at the start of the movie. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. She's played by Jenny Slate, who starred in other animated features like "Zootopia" (as Bellweather the sheep) and "The Lego Batman Movie" (as Harley Quinn). Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Silas Ramsbottom is another leader of the Anti-Villain League. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. He's voiced by British actor Steve Coogan, who is also playing another character. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Coogan plays Fritz as well, the butler of Gru's twin Dru. Read the original article on INSIDER. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Copyright 2019. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

https://www.businessinsider.com/despicable-me-3-cast-2017-6

Business Insider

2019-06-20 00:00:00

2019

6.0

20

U.S. fed funds futures hit record volume at 1.29 mln - CME

NEW YORK, June 20 (Reuters) - U.S. federal funds futures reached record one-day volume, totaling 1.29 million contracts, on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve signaled it was prepared to lower interest rates later this year, exchange operator CME Group said on Thursday. Prices on fed funds futures, which gauges traders’ view on Fed policy, rose on Wednesday, as traders bet on multiple rate cuts in the next 12 months from the U.S. central bank in a bid to counter slowing economic growth and uncertainty from global trade tensions. (Reporting by Richard Leong)

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-moneymarkets-futures-volume/us-fed-funds-futures-hit-record-volume-at-129-mln-cme-idUSL2N23R0Q1

Bonds News

Reuters

2016-06-29 00:00:00

2016

6.0

29

Fashion Designer Jeremy Scott Snags James Bond House

Jeremy Scott, the creative director of the Moschino fashion line who's made a good living designing colorful getups for Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and other celebs, is about to become the proud owner of the house featured in an epic James Bond flick ... TMZ has confirmed. The Palm Springs house is pretty spectacular ... a 60' circular living room with an indoor/outdoor pool. It's nearly 9,000 square feet and right next door to Leo DiCaprio's pad. We're told Scott's in escrow for around $8 mil and there's no reason at this point the sale won't go through. The house was listed by uber P.S. realtors John Nelson and Cat Moe from Coldwell Banker. Variety first broke the story that Scott's the buyer. As for the movie ... the epic scene was shot in the living room, where Bond was attacked by Thumper and Bambi.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/06/29/james-bond-house-jeremy-scott-katy-perry-designer-palm-springs/

TMZ

2018-04-25 00:00:00

2018

4.0

25

Karen Freifeld, Eric Auchard

U.S. probing Huawei for possible Iran sanctions violations: sources

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors in New York have been investigating whether Chinese tech company Huawei [HWT.UL] violated U.S. sanctions in relation to Iran, according to sources familiar with the situation. Since at least 2016, U.S. authorities have been probing Huawei’s alleged shipping of U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws, two of the sources said. News of the Justice Department probe follows a series of U.S. actions aimed at stopping or reducing access by Huawei and Chinese smartphone maker ZTE Corp to the U.S. economy amid allegations the companies could be using their technology to spy on Americans. The Justice Department probe is being run out of the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, the sources said. John Marzulli, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the investigation. The probe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications network equipment and the No. 3 smartphone supplier, said it complies with “all applicable laws and regulations where it operates, including the applicable export control and sanction laws and regulations of the UN, US and EU.” The probe of Huawei is similar to one that China’s ZTE Corp says is now threatening its survival.The United States last week banned American firms from selling parts and software to ZTE for seven years. Washington accused ZTE of violating an agreement on punishing employees after the company illegally shipped U.S. goods to Iran. ZTE, which sells smartphones in the United States, paid $890 million in fines and penalties, with an additional penalty of $300 million that could be imposed. U.S. authorities have subpoenaed Huawei seeking information related to possible export and sanctions violations, two sources said. The New York Times last April reported the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control subpoena, issued in December 2016, following a Commerce Department subpoena that summer. Both companies also have been under scrutiny by U.S. lawmakers over cybersecurity concerns. In Beijing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China opposed countries imposing their own laws on others, when asked whether Huawei violated U.S. sanctions related to Iran. “China’s position opposing nations using their own domestic laws to impose unilateral sanctions is consistent and clear,” she told a daily news briefing. “We hope that the United States will not take actions that further harm investors’ mood towards the business situation there.” In February, Senator Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, cited concerns about the spread of Chinese technologies in the United States, which he called “counterintelligence and information security risks that come prepackaged with the goods and services of certain overseas vendors.” Huawei and ZTE have denied these allegations. Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton have introduced legislation that would block the U.S. government from buying or leasing telecommunications equipment from Huawei or ZTE, citing concern that the Chinese companies would use their access to spy on U.S. officials. In 2016, the Commerce Department made documents public that showed ZTE’s misconduct and also revealed how a second company, identified only as F7, had successfully evaded U.S. export controls. In a 2016 letter to the Commerce Department, 10 U.S. lawmakers said F7 was believed to be Huawei, citing media reports. In April 2017, lawmakers sent another letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross asking for F7 to be publicly identified and fully investigated. The U.S. government’s investigation into sanctions violations by ZTE followed reports by Reuters (reut.rs/2H3p0Vl) in 2012 that the company had signed contracts to ship millions of dollars’ worth of hardware and software from some of the best known U.S. technology companies to Iran’s largest telecoms carrier. Reuters also previously reported on suspicious activity related to Huawei. In January 2013, Reuters reported (here) that a Hong Kong-based firm that attempted to sell embargoed Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran's largest mobile-phone operator has much closer ties to China's Huawei Technologies than was previously known. Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru, Karen Freifeld in New York, Eric Auchard in London; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by Paul Simao, Leslie Adler and Clarence Fernandez

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-doj/u-s-probing-huawei-for-possible-iran-sanctions-violations-sources-idUSKBN1HW1YG

World News

Reuters

2018-09-28 11:56:45

2018

9.0

28

Ezra Klein

The Ford-Kavanaugh sexual assault hearings, explained

If you want to know why women don’t come forward with allegations of sexual assault, Thursday’s Senate hearings offered a clue. In the morning, an all-male panel of Republican senators hired an outside prosecutor to try to pick apart Christine Blasey Ford’s credibility live on national television. They refused to subpoena Mark Judge, the key witness, or launch the FBI investigation Ford asked for. And after hearing her testimony, and judging it credible, they simply ignored it. In the afternoon, those same senators feted Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the man Ford accused of attacking her. They cut off the prosecutor they hired in order to give speech after speech lamenting the way he and his family have suffered. They said they didn’t question that Ford’s assault was real, but perhaps her memory was flawed; whoever had assaulted her, could she really be trusted to say it was Kavanaugh? But Kavanaugh’s memory was beyond reproach. After calling in professional help to cross-examine Ford, they cut her off when she began to question Kavanaugh, and repeatedly apologized for troubling him and his family with all this mess. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, delivered an unforgettable performance. He was silent during Ford’s testimony, freely yielding his time to prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. During Kavanaugh’s testimony, however, Graham buoyed the witness and ripped into the Democrats. “This is hell,” he told Kavanaugh. The hearings were “the most unethical sham” he’d seen in his decades-long political career. “To my Republican colleagues,” Graham spat, “if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.” But the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings played out in a larger context. Since the dawn of the #MeToo movement, the question has been when the backlash would come, and what form it would take. You could feel it building earlier in the week. The media was reverberating after Ian Buruma, the editor of the New York Review of Books, was fired for overruling his staff and publishing a Jian Ghomeshi essay about how dozens of allegations of sexual assault and harassment against him had unfairly derailed his career. Harper’s published a similar essay at around the same time, and was also pounded for it. The terror that women’s accusations were unjustly ending men’s careers — and that there was nothing men could do about it — was boiling over. But someone needed to take a stand, and be backed up by enough power to survive that stand. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that President Donald Trump would be the one who would provide the playbook. After all, he’s been the great scourge of the #MeToo moment, the one whose misdeeds have never hurt him. On Wednesday, Trump gave a press conference where he took direct aim at #MeToo. “When you are guilty until proven innocent, it’s just not supposed to be that way,” he said. “That’s a very dangerous standard for the country.” That night, CNN reported that a concerned Trump had told Kavanaugh that the time for calm denials was over; he needed to go on offense. So he did. It was the moment the #MeToo backlash truly took shape. If Ford and her husband had never remodeled their house, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination would have sailed through the Senate. According to Ford’s testimony, she had never told anyone of her sexual assault in detail. That changed in 2012, when she and her husband were redoing their home and she insisted on having a second front door — a second way out of the house. Her husband couldn’t understand; the request seemed ridiculous. Why does a house need two ways out? During a session with their couples therapist, Ford explained, it all spilled out. She had been assaulted as a teenager. She was pushed into a room and nearly raped. Her attacker, whom she recalled then and now as Kavanaugh, clapped his hand across her mouth when she screamed, pushing down so tightly she couldn’t breathe, so tightly she thought he might kill her by accident. He was laughing. His friend Mark Judge was laughing. That’s what she remembers most of all, she says — the laughter. At some point, they tumbled off the bed and she fled the room, locking herself in a bathroom until she heard them go back downstairs and their voices receded. Then she ran from the house, terrified she’d run into them on the way out and the attack would begin again. That’s why she needed a second door in her house, she explained. Because in a moment of trauma, she had needed another way out, and 30 years later, there was still a part of her that couldn’t be comfortable, that couldn’t feel safe, without another way out. That’s why there’s a record from 2012, when her therapist wrote down what Ford said; when her husband first heard Kavanaugh’s name. That’s why her allegation was taken seriously. That’s the story, through tears, that Ford told the Senate and the country on Thursday. “I am here today not because I want to be,” she said. “I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me with Brett.” Ford’s testimony was — by wide acclaim — powerful, specific, and gutting. She was a friendly witness, trying to answer questions, asking repeatedly for an investigation to help clear the holes in her own memory, thanking the committee for the consideration they gave her. Her expertise as a professor of clinical psychology kept shining through as she offered clear, powerful explanations of how trauma worked on the brain, how it had worked on her brain. Mitchell, the prosecutor, largely abandoned the task of questioning the core of Ford’s account. She ended up harassing Ford on points that even Republicans thought minor, like why her fear of flying hadn’t prevented her from taking past vacations, and who paid for a $200 polygraph test. Ford was such a strong witness, in fact, that the fear was she had set an unreachable standard. “Through no fault of her own, she has also reinforced the incredibly high bar of believability,” wrote BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Petersen: Ford is white, upper-middle class, married, and highly educated. She is calm but demure. She is visibly shaken yet steady. She could afford the therapy that helped document her psychological past. She has a support system and the means to hire a lawyer. Imagine if you lack even one of these qualities. Imagine if your behavior, or your voice, or your face, or the life you’ve lived doesn’t perfectly match what is demanded of the ideal victim. Would you be believed? “Were men out there brought to tears or shaking visceral response by that?” asked New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister. “Because the messages I have from women, and what’s happening in my own apartment, suggest that many many women were.” Even Fox News was impressed. “This is a disaster for the Republicans,” said Fox News’s Chris Wallace. And then it was Kavanaugh’s turn. If Ford did everything — and more — that could be asked of a witness, Kavanaugh did something near the opposite. He entered the hearing with his jaw set and his face flushed. His voice a near shout, he read a long, angry, unflinching, and notably Trumpish statement. “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit,” he raged, “fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus.” Kavanaugh’s anger worked. Just as Ford fit society’s expectations for a victim, Kavanaugh looked like a man falsely accused: furious, fearful, tearing up when he mentioned his parents or his daughters. He laced into his tormentors, determined to clear his name. He gave no ground. He badgered and interrupted the Democrats questioning him. And in his pain, his outrage, the assembled Republican senators found their voice. Initially, they left their questioning — as they had with Ford — to Mitchell, the outside prosecutor. But after Graham refused to yield his time, choosing instead to apologize to Kavanaugh and cut into the Democrats, so too did every Republican after him. And one after the other, they apologized to Kavanaugh. “Judge, I can’t think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United States Senate since the McCarthy hearings,” said Sen. John Cornyn. The Democrats “have brought us to our worst in our politics,” apologized Sen. Orrin Hatch. “It’s certainly brought us no closer to the truth.” “This could have been handled in such a way that didn’t turn this into a circus, one that has turned your life update down and your family and the life of Dr. Ford upside down,” said Sen. Mike Lee. “I consider this most unfortunate.” But it was Sen. John Kennedy, the final questioner, who truly laid everything bare. “I’m sorry, Judge, for what you and your family have been through, and I’m sorry for what Dr. Ford and her family have been through,” he said. “It could have been avoided.” And then he asked: “Do you believe in God?” Kavanaugh said that he did. “I’m going to give you a last opportunity right here, right in front of God and country,” Kennedy said. “I want you to look me in the eye. Are Dr. Ford’s allegations true?” Kavanaugh looked him in the eye. “They’re not accurate as to me. I have not questioned that she might have been sexually assaulted at some point in her life by someone someplace. But as to me, I’ve never done this.” “None of these allegations are true?” Kennedy asked. “Correct,” Kavanaugh said. “No doubt in your mind?” “Zero. 100 percent certain.” “Not even a scintilla?” “Not a scintilla. 100 percent certain, Senator.” “Do you swear to God?” “I swear to God.” “That’s all I have, Judge,” Kennedy said. And, with that, the hearing was over. The day played out like a set piece. In the morning, Ford showed how high the bar was to even have a chance of being believed. Her story is specific, credible, serious. She’s told it to multiple people over the years. She tried to tell it to Congress before Kavanaugh was nominated. She places Kavanaugh in the town he lived, at the house of a person he knew, in a room with one of his best friends. She tried her best to be polite to the senators, to avoid offense, to show gratitude to the committee for listening to her. She took a polygraph, begged for an FBI investigation. She says she’s 100 percent sure it was Kavanaugh who attacked her. In the afternoon, Kavanaugh simply denied all charges. He denied ever being blackout drunk. He denied ever forgetting anything of importance. He denied the possibility he was wrong, that it might be useful for his alleged accomplice Mark Judge to testify or for the FBI to investigate. He said Ford’s memory had failed her but was incredulous at the idea that his recall could deliver a similar error. And he fought back. He slammed his accusers; he made clear his pain, his rage. If Ford was grateful for the opportunity to be heard, Kavanaugh was incredulous that she was being given that opportunity, that it was taking this long, that it could possibly take longer. Asked why the committee couldn’t take another week to investigate the claims more thoroughly, he shot back, “Every day has been a lifetime.” His suffering was immense, unfair, unforgivable. “I’m never going to get my reputation back,” he said. “My life is totally and permanently altered.” The suffering of his accusers, women who say they’ve been living with the trauma of what he did for decades? They were mistaken, and their claims could be, should be, for the good of the county had to be, dismissed. “This grotesque character assassination will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country,” he said. The feminist philosopher Kate Manne coined the term “himpathy” to describe the “tendency to dismiss the female perspective altogether, to empathize with the powerful man over his less powerful alleged female victim.” What Kavanaugh did today was activate the Republican Party’s powerful sense of himpathy: His suffering was the question, and Ford’s suffering, to say nothing of any further search for the truth, slipped soundlessly beneath the water. We ended the day in much the same place we started: his word against hers. But even as everyone agreed Ford’s word was credible, it didn’t matter. There was still Kavanaugh’s word. And it appeared, for Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, that that was enough. She was 100 percent sure and he was 100 percent sure, but it was his 100 percent sure that mattered. On this, Trump was right. What Kavanaugh had needed to do was go on the offensive. He needed to remind the all-male Republican panel that he was the victim here, that any of them could be victims, that moving his nomination forward would be a show of strength, a message sent to the Democrats and their allies, a statement that these tactics end here and they end now. This is how you fight #MeToo: by focusing on the pain it’s causing men, by centering their suffering. All of this was, perhaps, predictable. On Wednesday, a new NPR/Marist poll found that while large majorities of Democrats and independents believed Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination should be rejected if Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations are true, a majority of Republicans believed Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if Ford’s allegations are true. If Thursday’s hearing didn’t ultimately seem to be about the truth at all, well, perhaps that’s why: The truth was never really what Senate Republicans were after. By the end of the day, Trump was thrilled. “Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him,” he tweeted shortly after the hearing ended. “The Senate must vote!”

https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/9/27/17909782/brett-kavanaugh-christine-ford-supreme-court-senate-sexual-assault-testimony

Vox

2018-11-20 00:00:00

2018

11.0

20

Beijing pioneering citizens' 'points' system critics brand 'Orwellian'

(This story corrects year to 2020 from 2021 in first, third paragraphs) BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing’s municipal government will assign citizens and firms “personal trustworthiness points” by 2020, state media reported on Tuesday, pioneering China’s controversial plan for a “social credit” system to monitor citizens and businesses. The system’s rollout has attracted international headlines, sparking comparisons to George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, with critics saying it could massively heighten the Chinese Communist Party’s already strict control over society. In a roadmap plan released in 2014, China said it would by 2020 create a “social credit system” to reward or punish individuals and corporations using technology to record various measures of financial credit, personal behavior and corporate misdeeds. But it had not made any mention of using points, as proposed by Beijing’s municipal government in a new plan released on Monday to improve the city’s business environment. Lists of data, actions and measures will by used to create a trial system of “personal trustworthiness points” for residents and companies in the capital. The term used can also be translated as “creditworthiness” or “integrity”. The plan did not include details of how the point system would work. But, it said, information from the system could impact market access, public services, travel, employment and the ability to start businesses, with trustworthy individuals being provided a “green channel” and those who are blacklisted being “unable to move a step”. “This is an important novel approach by Beijing to assess individuals’ credit and tie it to their whole life,” an unnamed official from the municipal state planner said, according to the Xinhua news agency. The plan should serve as an example to the rest of the nation for how to improve the behavior of individuals and businesses, Xinhua said. A second system will also be set up to assess the trustworthiness of government officials and departments by measuring whether contracts and promises are honored, the results of which will be included in performance assessments. The social credit system, which is being built on the principle of “once untrustworthy, always restricted”, will encourage government bodies to share more information about individual and business misdeeds in order to coordinate punishments and rewards. Some experts say that the system remains nascent and could help tackle social problems like fraud or food security, as well as noting that punishments are mostly restricted to industry specific blacklists rather than a holistic score. A system for penalizing individuals blacklisted for such offences as failing to pay court-mandated fines was extended in March. The penalties include banning offenders from making luxury purchases, such as tickets for flights or high-speed rail, for up to a year. Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-society-points/beijing-pioneering-citizens-points-system-critics-brand-orwellian-idUSKCN1NP0FT

World News

Reuters

2019-07-09 00:00:00

2019

7.0

9

Tom Daly, Shivani Singh

China's top two smelters sign copper concentrate deals with Antofagasta

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s top two copper producers have signed concentrate supply deals with Chilean miner Antofagasta for the first half of 2020, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Jiangxi Copper Co and Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group signed the contracts earlier than usual because of concerns about the future supply of copper concentrate, the sources said. Concentrate is partially processed copper ore that is the feedstock used to make refined metal. Contracts for annual supply are typically not agreed until around the time of the Asia Copper Week conference in Shanghai in November. These early contracts underscore the smelters’ desire to secure concentrate supply as competition for ore increases. The volume stipulated in the deals is unclear. “I think early negotiation would be a common way because of the tightness of the (concentrates) market,” one of the sources said. That supply tightness has pushed treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs), the amount miners pay to smelters to process copper concentrates into refined metal, lower since the start of 2019. One of the sources put the TC/RCs that Jiangxi and Tongling agreed with Antofagasta under the contracts at $64 a tonne and 6.4 cents a pound, while the second source gave a range of $64 to $70 a tonne and 6.4 to 7 cents a pound. A Jiangxi Copper spokesman said he was unable to confirm the deal, while Tongling Nonferrous did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Antofagasta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of normal working hours. Both of the sources said the agreed rates were not a TC/RC benchmark for 2020, without elaborating. Discussions on the 2020 benchmark are likely to start at the LME Week event in London in October ahead of a potential settlement at the Shanghai conference. The 2019 TC/RC benchmark was agreed last November by Jiangxi Copper and Antofagasta at $80.80 a tonne and 8.08 cents a pound, although spot rates have recently plunged to as low as $57 a tonne, the lowest since November 2012, amid rising smelting capacity and disruptions to mine supply. Reporting by Tom Daly and Shivani Singh; editing by Christian Schmollinger

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-copper-refining/update-1-chinas-top-two-smelters-sign-copper-concentrate-deals-with-antofagasta-idUSL4N24A0VC

Commodities

Reuters

2018-05-26 00:00:00

2018

5.0

26

David Gilbert

Ireland has voted to legalize abortion by a landslide

CORK, Ireland — Ireland is on course to to legalize abortion for the first time in the country’s history, with two exit polls suggesting that almost 70 percent of people have voted Yes. Polls by state broadcaster RTE and newspaper the Irish Times indicated that 69.4 percent and 68 percent respectively had voted in favor of repealing the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution which enacts some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the developed world. Early results from the counting of votes on Saturday backed up the exit polls, with the huge margin of victory for the pro-choice campaign, a major surprise for both sides of the debate. The final tally is expected to be completed Saturday night. The seismic result would be a complete reversal of the outcome of the 1983 referendum that introduced some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the developed world. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who campaigned for a Yes vote, hailed the result as “the culmination of a quiet revolution that’s taken place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years.” CORK, Ireland — Ireland is on course to to legalize abortion for the first time in the country’s history, with two exit polls suggesting that almost 70 percent of people have voted Yes. Polls by state broadcaster RTE and newspaper the Irish Times indicated that 69.4 percent and 68 percent respectively had voted in favor of repealing the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution which enacts some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the developed world. Early results from the counting of votes on Saturday backed up the exit polls, with the huge margin of victory for the pro-choice campaign, a major surprise for both sides of the debate. The final tally is expected to be completed Saturday night. The seismic result would be a complete reversal of the outcome of the 1983 referendum that introduced some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the developed world. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who campaigned for a Yes vote, hailed the result as “the culmination of a quiet revolution that’s taken place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years.” “We are a nation that is not divided, we are united and ready to make this change,” he said. Read: Facebook has not stopped dark ads from undermining Ireland's abortion vote The result would pave the way for Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution to be repealed and be replaced by proposed legislation which will allow for abortion on request up to 12 weeks. Minister for Health Simon Harris said Saturday that he hopes a bill legalizing abortion would be published by the end of July, and introduced in the fall. “Under the 8th the only thing we could say to women was to take a boat or a flight, now we are saying take our hand,” said Harris. The turnout was also higher than expected and is predicted to top 2 million people (out of 3.3. million registered voters) for the first time in the nation’s history. The turnout was bolstered by the thousands of people who traveled home to vote from all corners of the globe — many of whom raised money for plane tickets by crowdfunding on Facebook. Throughout the campaign there was concern that online disinformation campaigns and dark ads on Facebook would undermine the result, with many experts and lawmakers calling for more regulation for the online space. Under the proposed government legislation abortion on request will be available to women up to 12 weeks and will require sign-off by two medical practitioners, one of which needs to be an obstetrician. The legislation will also require a 72-hour cooling off period before doctors administer an abortion pill. A significant number of lawmakers who campaigned for a No vote have already indicated they are willing to now support the legislation as a result of the overwhelming nature of the result. Cover image: Members of the public hold yes placards on Fairview road as the country heads to polling stations on May 25, 2018 in Dublin, Ireland. Polling stations are open across the Ireland where voters will decide whether or not to abolish the 8th amendment which makes abortions illegal in the country, except for circumstances where the mother's life is at risk. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/nekex7/ireland-voted-to-legalize-abortion-by-a-landslide-according-to-exit-polls

Vice News

2018-05-31 00:00:00

2018

5.0

31

Julien Toyer

Socialist chief Pedro Sanchez set to become Spain's Prime Minister

MADRID (Reuters) - Pedro Sanchez was almost certain to become Spain’s new Prime Minister after his socialist party on Thursday secured enough votes to topple Mariano Rajoy in a confidence vote over a corruption case. Sanchez has received the backing of six parties totaling 180 votes in parliament to become prime minister, more than the absolute majority of 176 votes needed to take power immediately if the no-confidence vote is held on Friday as scheduled. Rajoy’s departure would trigger a second political crisis in southern Europe, further unnerving financial markets already wrongfooted by failed attempts to form a government in Italy three months after a national election. With most Spanish parties in favor of respecting EU fiscal rules, however, investors appeared to see less risk of an abrupt policy shift than in Italy, where parties have thrown doubt on the commitment to the euro single currency. Spain's blue-chip index Ibex .IBEX closed down 1 percent on Thursday but the news of Rajoy's likely downfall did not trigger a major sell-off and Spanish stocks were also hit by the trade war the U.S. started with Europe and other allies. Rajoy, who did not attend the afternoon session of the debate on Thursday, ruled out resigning before the vote in a move that would have slowed down the transition. Shortly before he secured the key support of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Sanchez had told Rajoy it was still time to leave and avoid the humiliation of becoming the first Spanish prime minister to lose a no-confidence vote. “Are you ready to resign? Resign today and leave by your own will,” Sanchez told Rajoy. “You are part of the past, of a chapter the country is about to close.” The Basque PNV had backed Rajoy’s budget as recently as last week but it decided to remove its support after dozens of people linked to the ruling People’s Party (PP) were sentenced to decades in prison in a long-running corruption trial. Sanchez said that if he took power he would stick to the budget approved by Rajoy, and would also seek to start a new dialogue with the restive region of Catalonia. Defending his record on Thursday, Rajoy told deputies his center-right PP has a wide majority of members who are “decent and honest”. “The Socialists have left us with a ruined country and we brought back growth and jobs,” he said, adding that Sanchez was trying to put together a “Frankenstein” government that would damage the economy. Two Catalan pro-independence parties as well as leftist Podemos, a relative newcomer, another small Basque group and a party from the Canary Islands have said they will back Sanchez. Jose Luis Abalos, the member of parliament in charge of formally presenting the motion on behalf of the Socialists, told PP deputies that the court ruling had triggered a wave of indignation across the country. “While families were suffering the crisis, you were becoming millionaires,” he told PP members in parliament. Rajoy, whose minority government has struggled after two inconclusive elections in 2015 and 2016 ushered in the most fragmented parliament since democracy returned to Spain in the 1970s, is also coming under fire for a perceived inability to solve a secession crisis in Catalonia. Reporting by Julien Toyer; additional reporting by the Madrid newsroom; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-politics/socialist-chief-pedro-sanchez-set-to-become-spains-prime-minister-idUSKCN1IW0TM

World News

Reuters

2019-02-11 00:00:00

2019

2.0

11

Rex Santus

What you need to know about the backlash against Rep. Ilhan Omar

When Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar quoted P. Diddy — ”it’s all about the Benjamins baby” — in a Sunday-night tweet that criticized pro-Israel lobbying, the accusations of anti-Semitism came quickly. Omar tweeted after House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy promised to “take action” against the congresswoman and her colleague, Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, for their criticism of Israel, which he equated with Iowa Rep. Steve King’s controversies over white supremacy. Both Omar’s critics and some members of her own party said her response to McCarthy invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jewish people and money. Her supporters, however, labeled the controversy an attempt to smear one of the only vocal critics of Israel in Congress. Since taking office in January, Omar and Tlaib — the first two Muslim women in Congress — have become the only two sitting members of Congress who openly support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel for human-rights abuses in occupied territories. In a follow-up tweet, Omar said that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most prominent and powerful Israel lobbying group in the U.S., used money to rally politicians’ support for Israel. When Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar quoted P. Diddy — ”it’s all about the Benjamins baby” — in a Sunday-night tweet that criticized pro-Israel lobbying, the accusations of anti-Semitism came quickly. Omar tweeted after House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy promised to “take action” against the congresswoman and her colleague, Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, for their criticism of Israel, which he equated with Iowa Rep. Steve King’s controversies over white supremacy. Both Omar’s critics and some members of her own party said her response to McCarthy invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jewish people and money. Her supporters, however, labeled the controversy an attempt to smear one of the only vocal critics of Israel in Congress. Since taking office in January, Omar and Tlaib — the first two Muslim women in Congress — have become the only two sitting members of Congress who openly support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel for human-rights abuses in occupied territories. In a follow-up tweet, Omar said that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most prominent and powerful Israel lobbying group in the U.S., used money to rally politicians’ support for Israel. Here’s what you need to know about Omar’s tweets and the fallout that ensued. Republicans and some Democrats — including some sitting members of Congress — asserted that Omar’s tweets implied Jewish people used money to control governments. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and more top Democrats in the House urged Omar to apologize. The group targeted by Omar, AIPAC, has 100,000 members and a host of prominent donors across the country. Former AIPAC official Steven Rosen once bragged to the New Yorker that he “could have the signatures of 70 senators on this napkin” in 24 hours. AIPAC spends a small amount of money on individual campaign donations, but the group spent $3.5 million on lobbying efforts, according to OpenSecrets. Up until the 116th Congress, Israel’s government enjoyed almost unadulterated support from Congress. But now, Omar and Tlaib’s open stance on the BDS movement has invited a steady stream of backlash for the two lawmakers. Just recently, the Senate voted to penalize businesses that support an Israel boycott. The bill, however, divided Democrats, who are facing pressure by their progressive voting base to be more critical Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. What are Omar’s supporters saying? Omar responded to the backlash by telling Politico that her tweets “speak for themselves.” Her supporters say that accusations of anti-Semitism are used to undermine legitimate criticisms of Israel and its influence over U.S. politicians. "I wouldn't take it as anti-Semitism,” Rep. Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, told CNN. “When it comes to issues around foreign policy or comes to issues specifically with Israel, there are a lot of interests, a lot of folks who make campaign contributions based on a person’s position on Israel.” “I know Congresswoman Omar,” he added. “I don’t believe that she would harbor those sorts of views as they’ve been characterized.” Other defenders of Omar — including members of progressive Jewish organizations and Arab American organizations as well as journalists — have said that there’s an Islamophobic undercurrent to attacks against Israel critics. Omar, Tlaib, and former Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, have all experienced numerous controversies related to alleged anti-Semitism. “It’s not controversial to say lobbies influence American politics,” Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of the Jewish Voice for Peace, a pro-BDS Jewish organization, told VICE News. In addition, McCarthy, has himself been accused of anti-Semitism. McCarthy once tweeted that billionaires George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg — all of whom come from Jewish families — sought to “buy elections.” Cover image: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, looks on during a press conference calling for an end to immigrant detentions along the Southern United States border held at the United States Capitol in Washington, DC on February 7, 2019. (Credit: Alex Edelman / CNP | usage worldwide Photo by: Alex Edelman/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbw7e9/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-backlash-against-rep-ilhan-omar

Vice News

2018-07-05 00:00:00

2018

7.0

5

Chris Brown Arrested for Felony Battery After Florida Concert

Chris Brown hopped off the stage and into a police cruiser after cops arrested him following a concert in Florida. Brown had a show at the Coral Sky Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach Thursday where several officers were waiting in the wings -- and when Chris wrapped -- he was arrested. Law enforcement sources tell us Brown was arrested for an outstanding felony arrest warrant in Tampa. The warrant was issued in connection with an alleged attack at a Tampa nightclub last year. Chris was in the DJ booth when he allegedly attacked a photographer. Chris bailed out a couple hours later for $2,000. Brown's been on the road since early last month and has been keeping a low profile. He recently celebrated his daughter Royalty's 4th birthday with baby mama Nia Guzman.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/07/05/chris-brown-arrested-warrant-after-florida-concert/

TMZ

2019-07-07 00:00:00

2019

7.0

7

Felix Tam, Farah Master

Hong Kong protesters march again, reaching out to Chinese visitors

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters marched through one of Hong Kong’s most popular tourist areas on Sunday, trying to gain support from mainland Chinese visitors for the city’s opposition to an extradition bill which has caused political turmoil. Protests against the now-suspended bill have drawn millions of people to the streets in the former British colony in recent weeks, posing the biggest challenge Beijing has faced to its rule in the territory since Hong Kong returned to Chinese control in 1997. The protests have received little coverage in mainland China, however, with censors blocking news of the largest demonstrations on Chinese soil since the bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. The bill, which would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party, has triggered outrage across broad sections of Hong Kong society amid concerns it threatens the much-cherished rule of law that underpins the city’s international financial status. Hong Kong has been governed under a “one country, two systems” formula since its return to Chinese rule, allowing freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, including the right to protest and an independent judiciary. China and Britain have engaged in a public spat over the bill but Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming told BBC TV on Sunday that China was “not interested in diplomatic war with the UK” and he had full confidence in Hong Kong’s ability to resolve the situation without China’s intervention. Protesters on Sunday braved intermittent rain and marched through streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, a popular shopping destination dotted with luxury shops, to try to deliver their message directly to mainland Chinese tourists in the hope of garnering sympathy. At times they shouted slogans in Mandarin, mainland China’s official tongue, as opposed to Hong Kong’s main language Cantonese. They also handed out flyers and sent messages by social media and Apple’s phone-to-phone AirDrop system written in the simplified form of Chinese characters used on the mainland. The short march finished at the city’s high-speed rail station that connects Hong Kong to the mainland, one of the main entry points for Chinese visitors but a sensitive spot after part of the facility came under Chinese jurisdiction last year. “It is hoped that Hong Kong people can spread how Hong Kong people can march peacefully and bring the protest information back to the mainland to mainland visitors,” Lau Wing-hong, one of the protest organizers, told Reuters. The march was the first major demonstration since Monday when protesters besieged and ransacked the legislative building in the heart of the city on the 22nd anniversary of the handover before being driven back by police firing tear gas. The authorities took no chances. Police and train staff guarded every exit of the station. Hong Kong’s MTR Corp Ltd, which runs the city’s metro, planned to shut all entrances to the West Kowloon station apart from a route for passengers. Food and beverage outlets were also closed.     Online train tickets between Hong Kong and Shenzhen on the mainland were displayed as sold out from 2:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m. (0630 GMT-1030 GMT), coinciding with the hours of the protest. Shanghai businessman Alan Zhang watched the procession near an Apple store on Canton Road. “Actually, I feel quite touched to see how Hong Kong people fight for their freedom,” said Zhang, 54, a frequent visitor to Hong Kong. “That’s something we can’t do in China. I think first-time travelers do not know what is happening right now... Indeed it let me see why Hong Kong is different from China. I received flyers and AirDrop - very smart act.” Hundreds of police lined the route, temporarily closing some roads and diverting public transport. The organizer said 230,000 people had attended the march, while police put the number at 56,000 at its peak. By 7:30pm (1130 GMT) most had left, but as the evening wore on several hundred regrouped and marched up a busy street toward the densely populated Mong Kok neighborhood, blocking traffic along the way. Lines of police with helmets and plastic shields stopped their advance, and worked to disperse the group by driving them back, mostly peacefully. Live TV footage appeared to show a handful of protesters being detained after being wrestled to the ground. Hong Kong’s Tourism Association said some travel agencies stayed away from Tsim Sha Tsui on Sunday. The extradition bill, which has left Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam clinging to her job, would cover Hong Kong residents and foreign and Chinese nationals living or traveling through the city. Protesters want the bill withdrawn altogether. Lawyers and rights groups say China’s justice system is marked by torture, forced confessions and arbitrary detention, claims that Beijing denies. Lam has offered closed-door talks to students from two universities but activists said they want the discussions to be open to the public and called for a halt to investigations of protesters. Police began arresting protesters this week. Additional reporting by Vimvam Tong, Twinnie Siu, Aleksander Solum, Twinnie Siu, Jessie Pang and Noah Sin; Writing by John Ruwitch; Editing by Paul Tait and Elaine Hardcastle

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-extradition/hong-kong-protesters-march-again-reaching-out-to-chinese-visitors-idUSKCN1U203Y

World News

Reuters

2018-12-17 00:00:00

2018

12.0

17

Zachary Small

Mexican Anti-Migrant Video Goes Viral, Before Artists Reveal It as Satire

Last year, a group of artists and activists developed a project satirizing Mexico’s mistreatment of the migrant “caravan” from Central America. When media outlets started broadcasting their satirical video, it triggered an outcry against what many cast as hypocritical racism and bigotry. Does it matter that the video was fake? Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Members of the Mexican anti-refugee group “Somos el Muro” (“We Are the Wall”) disagree with President Donald Trump about needing to build a stronger fortification between the United States and Mexico — though not for expected reasons. Instead, the group wants to prevent Central American asylum-seekers from entering Mexico in the first place. In January 2018, the group released a video condemning the migrant “caravan” and pledging to stop refugees in their tracks. Online, Somos el Muro advertises its desire to “end the abuse of our generous system of asylum and refuge” by the “hundreds of thousands of Central American illegals.” Millions have seen the organization’s video call-to-arms, which has been shared widely on social media and news outlets across Latin America. The twist? Somos el Muro is a complete hoax. What began as a New York University-led project commenting on the Central American migrant crisis quickly devolved into an international controversy riffing off of Mexican racism and xenophobia in the face of the 5,000 refugees fleeing gang violence and drug cartels in countries like Honduras. In 2017, NYU’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics brought over 30 artists and activists to Chiapas, Mexico for eight days to investigate how the region was dealing with its then-little publicized influx of refugees. Marlène Ramirez-Cancio is an associate director of arts and media at the institute who worked closely with researchers on the Chiapas trip. She tells Hyperallergic that participants worked on two satirical projects: one group created a telethon called “Migratón” while the other built the now-infamous anti-migrant group called Somos el Muro. Inspired by the Yes Men, a collective known for its large-scale political pranks against devious multinational companies, Ramirez-Cancio says that the project groups developed their work as a form of “laughtivisim,” meant to provoke public outrage and response by deploying provocative humor. For the project, NYU actually enlisted the help of Andy Bichlbaum, a Yes Men member who worked hard to co-create and appear in the Somos el Muro video. Accordingly, Somos el Muro endeavored to expose hypocrisy in Mexico. Its creators believed that Mexicans, while critical of President Trump’s anti-immigrant sentiments, also resented the Central American refugees entering their own country. After a delayed post-production schedule, the Somos el Muro video was released on social media in January 2018, but failed to gain much traction. However, the migrant caravan became topical again in autumn of this year when President Donald Trump began using it as a bogeyman to scare Republican voters to the November 2018 midterm election polls. Because of the reignited political chatter, Ramirez-Cancio decided to repost the video online, and subsequently found a captive audience for NYU’s satire. In just two days, she estimates that 1.2 million people watched the Somos el Muro video. In 10 days, that number spiked to almost 2.8 million viewers. Somos el Muro attracted considerably more outrage than most university projects typically garner. And it raised the question: Is a joke still funny even when its punchline gets lost in translation? For many Hondurans, the video was a painful reminder of how their neighboring countries discriminate against their nation. Television newscasters ripped footage offline and played it on the air. Newspapers, magazines, and digital publications across Latin America reported about Somos el Muro as if it were real, even if the group’s website has a very clear page outing itself as satire. La Tribuna, a Honduran newspaper owned by the country’s former president Carlos Roberto Flores, even highlights a counter-movement in the country called “Somos Honduras,” endeavoring to strengthen national identity in the face of discrimination. Mexico’s La Prensa also posted the video on its website before later including a message from Somos el Muro denoting itself as satire. “When we made the video, we didn’t think people would see it as real,” explains Ramirez-Cancio, who points to its sing-along ending that spoofs the 1985 Live Aid anthem, “We Are the World.” Maybe people didn’t watch all the way to the end, she suggests. Ramirez-Cancio is aware of the criticism the institute’s project has received over the last few months. Even if “the racism is real,” as she notes, others have felt that Somos el Muro has merely stoked tensions in the region without a clear indication of humor. Because nuance is dead in the digital age, some people also feared that real radicals in Mexico would take up the phony group’s cause. But Ramirez-Cancio is not convinced. “People say that the internet is so open that all radical positions exist, so satire is always believed as a true position,” she observes, “but I disagree.” “To say that artists should stay in their lane — we need it all. Satire is a way to reveal analysis. Satire is shareable. People will react against it.”

https://hyperallergic.com/475940/millions-believe-an-anti-migrant-video-from-mexico-was-real-until-artists-exposed-it-as-satire/

Hyperallergic

2019-07-03 00:00:00

2019

7.0

3

U.S. sells 2-month bills at high rate 2.155%

July 3 (Reuters) - For details of the U.S. Treasury’s auction of 2-month or 8-week bills, see: here Reporting by Richard Leong

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-debt-bills-2month/us-sells-2-month-bills-at-high-rate-2155-idUSL2N2440LJ

Bonds News

Reuters

2016-07-23 00:00:00

2016

7.0

23

Stedman Bailey's NOT Done With Football ... Eyes NFL Return Next Season

Stedman Bailey -- the ex-Rams WR who was shot in the head twice last year -- says he's NOT giving up his NFL dreams .... just because he's taken a job as a college assistant coach. 25-year-old Bailey was waived by the Rams last month because he hasn't been medically cleared to play football yet -- and was hired as a student assistant coach at West Virginia University. Many saw the move as a sign that Bailey was turning the page on his pro football career -- but his agent, Tony Fleming, tells TMZ Sports that just ain't the case. "Stedman’s definitely not giving up on playing football. He just wasn’t cleared to play. He still wanted to be productive, so WVU was a good opportunity for him." Fleming says doctors will reevaluate Bailey right after the 2016 season -- and he will continue training in the hopes he'll get an opportunity with a team for 2017.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/07/23/stedman-bailey-football-return/

TMZ

2018-07-25 00:00:00

2018

7.0

25

Damian Lillard Says He's The Best Rapper In The NBA

Sorry, Iman, Bron and Lonzo ... Damian Lillard says he's better than ALL OF YOU when it comes to best ballin' rappers in the NBA!! The Blazers superstar -- aka Dame D.O.L.L.A. behind the mic -- didn't mince words when we asked him at LAX ... telling TMZ Sports there's nobody with better bars in the Association. But, does this mean he would stiff Andre Drummond on the epic NBA collab the Detroit Piston wants to do?? Lillard didn't throw shade at the other spitters, telling us, "I don't [rap] to compete with other basketball players. It's just like an artist. I'm an artist." Either way, don't worry too much, Portland ... even if Dame D.O.L.L.A.'s rap career blows up -- he tells us hoops will always be his priority.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/07/25/damian-lillard-best-rapper-in-nba/

TMZ

2017-08-28 15:00:00

2017

8.0

28

Mike Piellucci

The Future of EA Sports Is Storytelling

Like many great strategies, EA Sports' plan to take sports games into the future was born of necessity. It was 2009 and Cam Weber was working on Fight Night Champion, the fifth installment of EA's boxing franchise. It was scheduled to arrive at a volatile time. The sport itself was stagnant, with the upstart mixed martial arts scene siphoning its audience and nothing beyond the faint and ever-receding flicker of a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao megafight for boxing to market as a mainstream draw. But the mythology of the sport remained strong. The next winter, David O. Russell's The Fighter would garner seven Academy Award nominations and two wins. Soon after, FX would premiere Lights Out, a critically acclaimed, albeit ultimately short-lived series about a fighter with pugilistic dementia. There were only the latest examples of the sweet science's resilience within popular culture. Weber decided that his team needed to pivot accordingly. "We were forced into this place where [we said], 'You know what? For the good of the Fight Night franchise, what we need to do is we need to build our own blockbuster Hollywood boxing movie and let you play through it,'" Weber says now. Fight Night Champion dropped in March 2011. Its centerpiece was the game's namesake, a first-of-its-kind story mode called "Champion" in which the player shepherds a fictional boxer named Andre Bishop out of prison and up the ranks as a heavyweight championship contender. Looking back, Weber calls it "fairly static," an almost rote interspersing of cut scenes and boxing matches. It was a start, though, and as the game earned critical praise, Weber began to see "Champion" as a blueprint for where the industry could go. "I was convinced this was the future of sports games," he says. Seven years later, Weber is a Senior Vice President in charge of overseeing development at EA Sports. His once-distant future of narrative gameplay in sports titles has become present-day reality for the largest sports video game company in the world. Last year, FIFA 17 debuted "The Journey," which chronicled the rise of Alex Hunter in the English Premier League. It was a hit: According to EA, FIFA 17 was the highest-selling console game in the world last year, and Alex Hunter is back for another run in this year's edition. Now, on August 25th, the company will reveal its greatest statement of intent yet. Madden NFL 18 hits shelves with the usual roster tweaks and gameplay adjustments expected of EA's flagship football title. The star of the show, however, is "Longshot", a multi-hour campaign mode about two football players from small-town Texas arriving at the NFL Draft Combine to chase pro football dreams. At first blush, it's exactly what you would imagine a story catering to a die-hard football audience to be about, right down to casting Scott Porter—best known Friday Night Lights' Jason Street—as Colt Cruise, a Wes Welker-esque slot receiver with a drawl. Meanwhile, both Weber and Madden's creative director, Mike Young, are not shy about the "Longshot" narrative also being a vehicle to deliver heavily demanded gameplay modes like the NFL Scouting Combine and 7-on-7 football into the series for the very first time. This is catnip to hardcore fans, in other words, a story that can be just as accessible as it needs, whether the audience truly wants to invest in the narrative or simply use as a means to an end. But "Longshot" is also the type of story that Young says was inspired by games like The Last of Us and Telltale's The Walking Dead series. When he gathers feedback from testers, Young says the two words he hears most often are "emotion" and "relatable." There are branching storylines and quick-time events and dynamic cutscenes. It is a Telltale game tucked inside the greatest football behemoth on earth, making this year's Madden the sort of gaming experience that many longtime devotees have never been exposed to. The endgame is a push and pull between familiarity and ingenuity—and, most crucially, the sports video game industry's best hope at escaping the Catch-22 it's battled since inception. No other genre is so handcuffed to the wider reality it tries to portray. Rosters must be note perfect, as well as constantly updatable. Gameplay needs to reflect exactly what takes place on the field or court or pitch each weekend. Franchise modes encompass every shred of salary cap minutiae. There is little room for innovation and even less margin for error. Sports fanatics will stand for nothing less. Nevertheless, scores of fans flit in and out each year, content to sit out an edition or two if they sense that a franchise has stagnated. EA is hardly naïve to that reality—"As developers we're always frustrated when fans say, 'Oh, this year's skippable. There's nothing really that great,'" Young says—but only so much could be done. There's a reason why NFL and NBA Street became their own franchises instead of a Madden or NBA Live subset: Creep too far outside the box in a simulation game, and things skew toward the inauthentic. Narrative gameplay like "Longshot" gives EA a shot at having its cake and eating it, too. The simulation gameplay isn't going anywhere; if anything, Weber says, the most common complaint coming out of "The Journey" was it leaned too much on action at the expense of the story. But as it continues to tweak the narrative formula, EA Sports can position itself to say, with a straight face, that every installment of every franchise is a must-own. "It's brand new content for people every single time," says Weber. "This new narrative that everyone knows is something new you can get in the game each year, I think that's very powerful for us." Then there's the crossover appeal. Here, Young harkens back to Porter's days on Friday Night Lights, a show that garnered admiration from football fans and novices alike. "My wife… grew up in Pittsburgh and somehow doesn't care about the Steelers," Young says, and yet she became an FNL fanatic thanks to the plotlines and relationships that orbited around the sport. "Longshot" was created with the same ethos in mind. As a game that tend to find its audience among—and be marketed to—young men, "Longshot" offers something to players that might be left cold by the call of "Madden Season." Already, Young is floored by the number of male gamers who have told him that they can't wait to dive in with their spouses—"and if you work in this industry and you work in a sports video, most people's wives could care less what you do." If nothing else, he reasons, it gives EA a new tool in their arsenal with which to sell Madden. "It's like a movie trailer," Young says. "'Oh man, I'm going to experience that this season?' If we can get there, it gives people that bigger emotional reason to come versus when you sell someone a new iPhone, you're listing a bunch of bullet points. That's not usually that emotional." Altogether, story modes present the sort of sales potential that makes EA's expenses along the way almost immaterial. It's why EA spent three years integrating its Frostbite 3 engine to power those narratives along, with the sort of speed that leads Young to claim that "Longshot" won't feature a single loading screen. It also explains "Longshot's" seven-figure budget, which supported a filming schedule spread across 45 sets and features a 45-person cast, including Porter, Academy Award-winner Mahershala Ali, and J.R. Lemon—a former Stanford running back and a current cast member on NBC's The Night Shift—playing Devin Wade, "Longshot's" protagonist. Seven years after Fight Night Champion and four since Young initially conceived of "Longshot," EA is no longer in the business of parroting sports movies. For all intents and purposes, they're now making their own.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kk7y8/the-future-of-ea-sports-is-storytelling

Games

Vice

2018-03-19 00:00:00

2018

3.0

19

Kevin Hart Mostly Fails at Dunking Off a Trampoline

Here's the latest edition of "Kevin Hart vs. Height" ... where the actor/comedian tries to slam dunk using a trampoline as his launchpad -- and it's a struggle. Kevin's attempted dunk sesh went down at one of the Sky Zones around L.A. over the weekend ... where it looks like the Hart fam was out celebrating the 13th birthday of his daughter, Heaven. The NBA super-fan didn't want the kiddos to have all the fun, so Hart stepped up to the glow-in-the-dark Sky Slam ... and repeatedly got knocked on his ass while his wife, Eniko, yucked it up. But, Kev didn't let the verticality shaming get him down ... and eventually got up for a 2-handed jam!! Hart of a champion.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/03/19/kevin-hart-trampoline-dunk-fail/

TMZ

2016-04-07 00:00:00

2016

4.0

7

Ted Cruz hit with 'New York values'; Trump gets Giuliani backing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is getting a taste of the “New York values” he derided in Iowa as Republicans turn to the next big U.S. presidential contest in the home state of front-runner Donald Trump. The New York billionaire lost the Wisconsin Republican primary on Tuesday to Cruz and is seeking to rebound in New York on April 19. He won the backing on Thursday of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was irked by Cruz’s values comments. “It’s New York City. We’re family. I can make fun of New York but you can’t,” Giuliani, who led the city through the trauma of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, told the New York Post. “I support Trump. I’m gonna vote for Trump,” he said. Ohio Governor John Kasich, running third in the Republican race, chimed in with an ad called “Values,” part of a seven-figure ad buy in New York and Pennsylvania, which votes on April 26. “New Yorkers aren’t stupid and they certainly won’t fall for Ted Cruz’s lame soliloquies and flattery after he slammed their values,” said Kasich spokeswoman Connie Wehrkamp. Trump canceled a Friday trip to California to focus on New York. He turned on Cruz Wednesday night during his first rally in the state since the double-digit loss in Wisconsin. “I’ve got this guy standing over there, looking at me, talking about New York values with scorn in his face, with hated, with hatred of New York,” Trump said, drawing a chorus of boos. Cruz credited his Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses victory in part to his attacks on Trump’s “New York values.” He told ABC on Thursday the phrase referred to the state’s liberal Democrats. Cruz took another hit in the Bronx, where a group of high school students protesting his stance on immigration threatened a walkout if their principal did not cancel his appearance. “Most of us are immigrants or come from immigrant backgrounds. Ted Cruz goes against everything our school stands for,” Destiny Domeneck, 16, told the New York Daily News. School authorities complied, the newspaper reported on Thursday. Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Megan Cassella; Editing by Bill Trott

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-republicans/ted-cruz-hit-with-new-york-values-trump-gets-giuliani-backing-idUSKCN0X42J7

Politics

Reuters

2018-06-01 00:00:00

2018

6.0

1

UK PM May 'deeply disappointed' at U.S. tariff move

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday she was deeply disappointed by the U.S. move to apply tariffs to EU steel and aluminum imports. “I am deeply disappointed at the unjustified decision,” she said in a statement. “The EU and UK should be permanently exempted from tariffs and we will continue to work together to protect and safeguard our workers and industries,” she added. Britain’s steel and aluminum industries were hugely important to the UK, she said, noting they also contribute to US industry including in defense projects which bolster US national security. The EU has taken the United States to the World Trade Organization to challenge the legality of the new tariffs and Brussels has lodged an eight-page list at the international trade body of goods it would hit with retaliatory measures. President Donald Trump, who is due to visit Britain next month, told Canada and the European Union on Friday to do more to bring down their trade surpluses with the United States. Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Alistair Smout

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-britain-may/uk-pm-may-deeply-disappointed-at-u-s-tariff-move-idUSKCN1IX5H6

Business News

Reuters

2017-11-26 15:00:00

2017

11.0

26

Vincent & Mikey Kha

How-To: Eat Pho

For a novice, a bowl of pho can be just as intimidating as it is delicious, what with all the different cuts of meat, condiments, and edible accoutrements that can come along with your meal. Thankfully, Vincent and Mikey Kha—the father and son duo who run Pho & Cafe Anh Hon in Upper Darby, PA—are here to teach us all about it. From what to look for when you taste the broth to proper sauce etiquette, you'll quickly learn everything you need to know from these pho experts. This first appeared on MUNCHIES in April 2015.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgx73k/how-to-pho

Food by VICE

Vice

2016-08-04 00:00:00

2016

8.0

4

Blake Griffin Banged A Stripper and Does Hilarious Stand-Up Routine

Blake Griffin is f****** hilarious ... and here's video proof. The L.A. Clippers superstar took the stage at the Just For Laughs event in Montreal last week and flexed his comedy skills for the crowd ... and we gotta say, he drew some pretty big laughs. Blake's no stranger to the funny business ... having taken classes at a UCB Theatre in L.A. ... but this time his material was WAYYYYY more Richard Pryor than usual, including a story about bangin' a stripper. Check out the video!!

https://www.tmz.com/2016/08/04/blake-griffin-stand-up-comedy-strip-club/

TMZ

2018-01-30 00:00:00

2018

1.0

30

Elena Goukassian

The Enterprising Illusionists of 19th-Century Spirit Photography

What does the continuing popularity of books about 1850s spiritualism and ghost photography say about us today? Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads In the mid-1800s, with Spiritualism at its height in the US, a photographer named William H. Mumler started creating spirit photographs, duping the people of Boston (and New York) into believing that the ghosts of their loved ones appeared standing next to them in studio portraits. At the height of the Civil War, with many losing family and friends on the battlefield, Mumler’s spirit photographs became a sensation, even at the wholly unreasonable price of $10 per siting (about $300 today). Peter Manseau’s The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost tells Mumler’s story along with the tangental and interconnected tales of a whole cast of characters, each more intriguing than the next — including a smattering of mediums, Mary Todd Lincoln, charlatan extraordinaire P.T. Barnum, Samuel Morse (inventor of Morse code), and fellow photographers and sometimes rivals Jeremiah Gurney, Mathew Brady, and Alexander Gardner. The book paints a compelling social landscape of what appears to have been a golden age of the swindler. Although the writing is at times self-indulgent — the narrative jumping back and forth in time with each dozen-page chapter and Mumler’s 1869 trial for fraud appearing in the form of a transcript fit for a movie — the extremely well-researched and fascinating stories that come out of it leave the reader wondering how people could have possibly been so easily tricked by what we now know to be double exposures and other very simple methods of photographic manipulation. Of course, photography itself was still in its infancy, and when you add grief and Spiritualism to the equation, there’s no telling just how far the human mind is willing to go to make some sort of sense out of the afterlife. Even 150 years later, we’re still dealing with some of these same issues, which perhaps is why there’s been such a resurgence in interest in spirit photography in the past several years. Like during the Civil War, we live in an age of new technologies transforming the means of communication, allowing for a malleability of truth at a time when politics are again dividing families into polar opposite factions. A need for a new kind of faith coupled with a skepticism of previously undebated scientific theories (medicine included) has opened up a renewed interest not only in the Spiritualist histories of the past, but in some cases, even created a kind of continuation of its practices. In an extreme example, when entrepreneur Eugenia Kuyda’s good friend, Roman Mazurenko, died suddenly in 2015, she felt an urge to keep talking to him, so she created a bot she could text with by programming in hundreds of text messages Mazurenko had sent to family and friends over the years. If this trope sounds familiar, it’s because Kudya took inspiration directly from an episode of the British TV show, Black Mirror, in which a widow communicates with a simulacrum of her recently deceased husband, taught to speak like him through uploads of all of his digital interactions (both public and private). As Kuyda’s endeavor proves, even when we intellectually know that we’re not actually communicating with the dead, there’s still something in us that keeps up the ruse. This may also explain the sudden rise in popularity of occult practices like aura photography, which is always noted with a “For entertainment purposes only” disclaimer. And going back to the 19th-century, when Mumler was acquitted for a lack of evidence in a trial accusing him of manipulating images, Manseau leads the reader to believe the victory was at least in part due to emotional client testimony that the photographer had truly helped people in a time of need. Sometimes, even when we know we’re taking sugar pills, the placebo effect is just enough to keep us going. The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost is out now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

https://hyperallergic.com/423907/peter-manseaus-the-apparitionists-a-tale-of-phantoms-fraud-photography-and-the-man-who-captured-lincolns-ghost/

Hyperallergic

2017-05-10 00:00:00

2017

5.0

10

Keegan Hamilton

North Korea learned how to test nukes from the U.S.

North Korea tests its nuclear bombs in a valley beneath a cluster of mountain peaks about 370 miles northeast of Pyongyang. And at least three times over the past month, teams of soldiers at the heavily secured compound have been spotted playing volleyball. The games, captured by commercial satellites passing high above, have generated headlines around the world — and more than a few “Top Gun” jokes. But the workers at the remote testing site have been busy with far more than just leisure activities. Satellite imagery of the site, which is named after the nearby village of Punggye-ri, has revealed signs of fresh tunneling, new equipment, and other activities known to have preceded North Korea’s five former nuclear tests, two of which occurred last year. President Donald Trump says he wants the tests stopped, but the Kim Jong Un regime appears to have no intention of letting up. And Jeffrey Lewis, who leads East Asia research at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, says there’s evidence that North Korea “will probably conduct one or two nuclear tests every year for the foreseeable future.” “They’ve started economizing and building basically underground test centers where they can do many, many tests,” Lewis said. “And that suggests something distressing about their aspirations. They’re in this for the long haul.” That forecast is based in part on the discovery that North Korea likely copied the design of its nuclear testing site from the United States. Lewis is one of a handful of open-source sleuths who use satellite imagery, seismological data, propaganda photos, and other publicly available information to study North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction. Last year, when mapping the precise locations of North Korea’s previous underground nuclear tests, he and his colleagues noticed something peculiar: The layout of the tunnels almost perfectly matches the configuration at the Nevada National Security Site, where the U.S. conducted many of its own nuclear tests. North Korea tests its nuclear bombs in a valley beneath a cluster of mountain peaks about 370 miles northeast of Pyongyang. And at least three times over the past month, teams of soldiers at the heavily secured compound have been spotted playing volleyball. The games, captured by commercial satellites passing high above, have generated headlines around the world — and more than a few “Top Gun” jokes. But the workers at the remote testing site have been busy with far more than just leisure activities. Satellite imagery of the site, which is named after the nearby village of Punggye-ri, has revealed signs of fresh tunneling, new equipment, and other activities known to have preceded North Korea’s five former nuclear tests, two of which occurred last year. President Donald Trump says he wants the tests stopped, but the Kim Jong Un regime appears to have no intention of letting up. And Jeffrey Lewis, who leads East Asia research at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, says there’s evidence that North Korea “will probably conduct one or two nuclear tests every year for the foreseeable future.” “They’ve started economizing and building basically underground test centers where they can do many, many tests,” Lewis said. “And that suggests something distressing about their aspirations. They’re in this for the long haul.” That forecast is based in part on the discovery that North Korea likely copied the design of its nuclear testing site from the United States. Lewis is one of a handful of open-source sleuths who use satellite imagery, seismological data, propaganda photos, and other publicly available information to study North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction. Last year, when mapping the precise locations of North Korea’s previous underground nuclear tests, he and his colleagues noticed something peculiar: The layout of the tunnels almost perfectly matches the configuration at the Nevada National Security Site, where the U.S. conducted many of its own nuclear tests. “I would be shocked if this was a coincidence,” Lewis said. “The U.S. has done more than a thousand nuclear tests, and very many of those were underground. That data is freely available. And my suspicion is the North Koreans make good use of that data.” The government has indeed declassified info about America’s old nuke tests; there are even books on Amazon that describe how the underground tunnels were designed and spaced to keep nuclear blasts safely contained. In North Korea, each test creates a small earthquake, and there are standard formulas to calculate the distance between underground explosions using seismic readings. Lewis and his team created interactive 3D maps of Punggye-ri’s tunnels [see below] and overlayed them with the U.S. setup in Nevada. “It turns out you could almost perfectly just drop it right on top,” he said. Kim Jong Un’s father began building the Punggye-ri site in the early 2000s, razing several small villages in the process. The site originally had just one tunnel, but now, Lewis says, it’s “basically a base camp surrounded by big mountains with three tunnels going into different mountains.” The test site is one of the most closely watched pieces of real estate in North Korea, with intelligence agencies and open-source researchers scrutinizing satellite photography on a near-daily basis for clues about the likelihood of another test. Some of the most influential observations come from 38 North, a website affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. When experts Joe Bermudez and Jack Liu wrote in April that the site appeared to be “primed and ready” for another test ahead of a major North Korean holiday, news outlets around the world, including VICE News, picked up the story, which turned out to be a false alarm. Bermudez, who is based in the Denver area, says crying wolf is “one of our biggest concerns.” He maintains that it appears “everything has been done should they want to conduct another test,” but it’s basically impossible to predict when that will happen. “That decision is in one person’s hands and one person’s alone: Kim Jong Un,” Bermudez said. “He has to sign a special order for the test to be conducted. He could wake up this morning and say ‘Go.’ He could wake up this morning and say ‘No, let’s wait until the U.S. tones down its rhetoric and the U.S. aircraft carrier leaves the area, and once they leave, we’ll pop the nuke.’” Bermudez used to work for the government in some capacity — he’s cagey about his exact role — and has studied North Korean defense and intelligence affairs for more than three decades. He was the one who noticed the recent volleyball matches. The sport, he pointed out, is popular across North Korea and not unprecedented at the testing site, with games observed there as far back as 2006, shortly after the first underground blast. In a Skype chat, Bermudez shared his computer screen with VICE News and spent 45 minutes using two high-resolution satellite photos to explain the layout of the testing site and point out some oddities that can be observed from space. For instance, there are several greenhouses inside the compound because workers are expected to grow some of their own food. “They’ve actually started planting for spring,” Bermudez said. He can’t see into the greenhouses, but he uses software that manipulates the image to highlight vegetation. After a few clicks, the opaque image of the greenhouse is full of little pink spots. “What we’re probably seeing in this pinkish shade is the beginning of seedlings that are being grown under the plastic,” he explained. Bermudez also noted a row of bright white dots near the volleyball courts he suspects are propaganda placards. He says there appears to be a fresh coat of paint on them, a sign that a test could come soon. “Before a major event or a visit by a senior official, they’ll have what we call a beautification program, and this is part of it,” he said. Other indications include the presence of machines that pump water out of the testing tunnels, and the accumulation of equipment piled up under tarps and canopies. The North Koreans know they’re being watched from space and frequently try to hide their work and confuse outside observers. Bermudez wrote that a recent day of bustling activity at the site — including plenty of volleyball — was likely a “deception and propaganda effort” to fuel curiosity and concern about the likelihood of another nuke test. If that was the true intent, it worked like a charm. After the frenzy of media coverage generated by Bermudez’s 38 North posts in April, Trump weighed in, saying he would “not be happy” if Kim orders another nuke test and wouldn’t rule out taking military action in response. Lewis doesn’t like predicting when the next test will occur. But based on his research, it appears North Korea has enough space underneath the mountains to dig more tunnels and conduct many more nuclear tests. So far, the explosions have been relatively small; the largest was estimated to be roughly the same size as the one generated by the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima — though Lewis suspects the depth of the blast may have concealed its true size. Based on the designs North Korea borrowed from the U.S., Lewis says it appears the regime has the capacity to detonate a weapon about 10 or 20 times more powerful than what they’ve done thus far. “It’s pretty clear,” Lewis said, “that they plan to do a lot of nuclear tests.” Ravi Somaiya and Amel Guettatfi contributed reporting.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/434mnm/north-korea-learned-how-to-test-nukes-from-the-u-s

Vice News

2016-09-25 12:00:00

2016

9.0

25

Andrew Nunes

Neon Plasticine Paintings Are a Wild Welcome to the Jungle

The innate psychedelia of the human subconscious meets a ritualistic exploration of nature in British artist Henry Hudson's Sun City Tanning, on view at S|2, Sotheby’s contemporary art gallery. The artist’s debut exhibition in New York consists of eight enormous, hallucinatory paintings of nature that border fact and fiction through their surreal hues and overabundance of minute, dream-like detail. The striking exoticism in these landscapes feel like a child’s imagining of what a jungle may be like, if said child had extraordinary painting talent and an incredible artistic vision. Made of plasticine, a malleable material somewhat similar to Play-Doh, the paintings have a tactility and three-dimensional quality that vastly departs from your typical flat wall work, adding a sensation of depth that tempts the viewer to enter the luscious landscape depicted. Although the use of plasticine in these paintings feels beyond appropriate, Hudson has worked with the material extensively throughout his career and it is perhaps more of a ‘signature technique’ than a specialized choice for this particular series, although the result is a harmonious synchrony either way. Regarding his fervent affair with plasticine, Hudson believes he is simply doing what any artist must do: “I really believe that artists are curious characters, and that if something is picked up, especially in the studio, it should be pushed, studied, explored, burnt, punched, pulled apart, had the elements thrown at it, smoothed, squashed and turned on its head until you’ve both had the most passionate marriage of love and hate,” Hudson explains to The Creators Project. “I'm still married too it it's a simple as that. When I'm done I doubt I'll divorce it. I'll probably just put it in a corner to collect dust.” Although the press release describes Hudson drawing inspiration from shamanistic rituals for this body of work, the artist himself has never had personal contact with shamans. Yet this isn’t necessarily a lack of authenticity; it’s a longstanding continuation of the myth of the artist: “I looked at Henri Rousseau’s work and became aware that he never went to the jungle, despite the myth that he had fought tigers there. Joseph Beuys never crashed his plane nor was wrapped in honey and cloth by natives (no evidence),” Hudson tells The Creators Project. “Does this change the way we look at their work? I’m interested in the myth and the experience the viewer has with or without this knowledge. Does it lessen our emotional response or heighten it?” Sun City Tanning will be on view at S|2 until October 14th, 2016. More of Henry Hudson’s plasticine works can be found here. Related: The Next Ansel Adams Could Have Taken One of These Photos These Uncommon Art Objects Will Make You Do a Double-Take Ghastly Characters Are Unleashed in a Solo Painting Show

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/78ey3d/neon-plasticine-jungle-paintings

Entertainment

Vice

2018-03-12 15:00:02

2018

3.0

12

Tara Golshan

Congress has until March 23 to fund the government

Without an appetite to actually legislate in the midterm election year, Congress still has a job to do: keep the government open. Lawmakers have to pass a spending bill by midnight March 23 or the government will run out of money and shut down — again. The government has already shut down twice this year. The first shutdown came in January and lasted for three days, during a standoff over the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Then in February, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) effectively shut down the government himself, this time only for a few hours overnight, in a stand against a deal negotiated by congressional leaders that would bust the government budget caps on domestic and military spending that have been in place since 2013. Now it’s government shutdown season again. Having kicked down any permanent solution to government spending since September 2017, and currently on their fifth short-term spending bill, Congress appears to be working toward a more permanent funding package to carry them through to the start of the new fiscal year on September 30. Already there’s been some head-butting between the parties. Republicans are trying to slip in conservative priorities — like defunding Planned Parenthood — and Democrats are pushing for a liberal spending agenda, prioritizing non-defense spending programs. While Democrats don’t have control of either chamber, they can block funding through a filibuster in the Senate. Republicans need at least nine Senate Democrats to sign on to their spending agenda for it to pass. Meanwhile, there’s still a big question mark over what the White House will sign on to. Over the weekend, President Trump called for the spending bill to defund “sanctuary cities,” which Democrats will almost certainly oppose. But the calls in Congress for another government shutdown have quieted. Democrats seem fine with leaving major policies, like immigration and gun control, out of the government spending deal. And for now it’s just a final sprint for lawmakers to hammer out a deal. In February lawmakers set themselves up to reach a more permanent spending agreement by the end of March. Congress agreed to massive increases to domestic and defense spending over the next two years, raising funding for domestic programs by $128 billion and hiking defense budgets by $160 billion. Since passing the budget deal, appropriators — the lawmakers in charge of the nation’s purse strings — have been negotiating how to actually allocate the money. Congress has three options before March 23: 1) Congress will have passed a long-term spending bill. This would come in the form of an omnibus, which jams together 12 individual appropriations bills into one massive funding package. Senate and House appropriators have been working to write the omnibus over the past several weeks, but there are still policy hang-ups. As Vox’s Dylan Scott explained, House Republicans are pushing to fully defund Planned Parenthood, which has long been attacked by conservatives for performing abortions at some of its clinics, by blocking Medicaid and several other federal funding sources from going toward the organization. This is a nonstarter for Democrats and will likely be a major point of contention as lawmakers continue to negotiate the specifics. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also cited concerns with some appropriations requests for Homeland Security but did not go into details. At a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, Trump also made a call to defund sanctuary cities in the funding bill — which would be a nonstarter for Democrats. How far that demand goes in Congress remains to be seen. 2) Congress could buy itself more time. Lawmakers also have the option to give themselves another extension on the government shutdown deadline. By passing a short-term bill — a continuing resolution — Congress would be keeping spending levels at the status quo. Already, rumblings among congressional staffers hint that negotiations could come down to another CR (It’s not clear how long a stopgap funding bill that could be). It would be the sixth stopgap spending bill this fiscal year — a reality that’s increasingly frustrated lawmakers, especially those with defense interests who say the military cannot properly plan its resources on short-term spending bills. 3) The government shuts down. Three government shutdowns in one year would certainly be historic. This would be the result of a complete failure in negotiations, or it could even come from the White House. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are likely much less eager go down that path, especially as we creep closer to midterm elections. But Trump has not shied away from threatening a government shutdown in the past, once even calling for one in order to get a win on his policy priorities. Behind both government shutdowns this year was a policy fight unrelated to government spending: immigration. In January, Senate Democrats, frustrated with Trump’s unwillingness to accept a bipartisan proposal to address the nearly 700,000 immigrants in legal limbo under DACA, orchestrated a shutdown with the support of some Republicans. The result was a failed and inconclusive Senate floor debate on the issue. Again in February, a conservative revolt over the budget deal meant that House Republicans, who have a big enough majority to pass legislation without Democratic support, suddenly needed votes from across the aisle. Rand Paul shut down the government, and House Democrats had to decide whether they would sign on to reopening it without any gains on immigration. Ultimately, House Democrats voted for the final bill. Now Democrats seem to have changed their tune and seem less interested in tying immigration, or any big policy priorities, like gun control, to the spending fight. Immigration “doesn’t have to be on the omnibus bill,” Pelosi said this week. “But the omnibus bill has other problems in it.” Trump has some immigration priorities of his own, however, calling on Congress to defund “sanctuary cities.” “Today I am calling on Congress to stop funding sanctuary cities so we can save American lives,” Trump said at a rally over the weekend. “The funding bill should not give precious and massive taxpayer grants to cities aiding and abetting criminals.” It’s not clear whether the White House will veto the spending bill over the measure, which will surely lose Democratic support. Ironically, some Senate Republicans, like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, said the omnibus could see a short-term legislative extension of DACA in addition to some border security. ”That’s probably the most likely thing — when we write the funding of the government bill, we’ll extend DACA legislatively, making it legal for a year or two and kind of punting it,” Graham told reporters. But the way things are going so far, even that might be too hopeful.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/12/17100660/congress-government-shutdown-spending

Vox

2019-04-21 00:00:00

2019

4.0

21

Timeline: Sri Lankan bomb attacks on hotels, churches - 20 minutes of carnage

(Reuters) - Bomb blasts ripped through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing 207 and injuring 450 people, in the first major attack on the Indian Ocean island since the end of a civil war 10 years ago. Here is a timeline of the explosions and subsequent events on Sunday. Many of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers, police said. 8.45 am – Explosion at Shangri La hotel in Colombo 8.45 am - Explosion at St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, Kotahena, Colombo 8.45 am – Explosion at St. Sebastian Catholic Church in Negambo  8.45 am – Explosion at Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo 8.50 am – Explosion at Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo 9.05 am – Explosion at Zion Roman Catholic Church in Batticaloa  11.30 am – Emergency Security Council meeting held by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe 11.40 am – Government declares closure of schools across the country for two days 12.15 pm – President Maithripala Sirisena appeals for people to keep calm 1.45 pm - Explosion at New Tropical Inn in Dehiwela, near the national zoo. This was the seventh explosion.  2.15 pm – Explosion at a house in Dematagoda, Colombo, during a police raid (the eighth explosion). Three police officers were killed. 2.20 pm – Officials close down the island nation’s zoo in Dehiwela. 2.30 pm – Government blocks major social media networks and messaging services, such as Facebook and WhatsApp. 2.45 pm – Government declares indefinite island wide curfew. 4.00 pm – All transport services stopped. 4.30 pm – Government declares closure of all state universities indefinitely. 5.00 pm – Special cabinet meeting held, headed by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. 5.20 pm – Police announce the death toll had risen to 207 with 450 injured. 7.00 pm – Police find a van used to transport explosives. 7.15 pm – Tourism chief says 32 foreigners killed and 30 injured. 8.50 pm – Prime Minister orders a probe into why intelligence services failed to act on a warning about the attacks. 9.30 pm – Police said 13 arrested, all Sri Lankans. 10.30 pm – A petrol bomb attack on a mosque and arson attacks on two shops owned by Muslims are reported in two different parts of the country, police said. Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Martin Howell and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-blasts-timeline/timeline-sri-lankan-bomb-attacks-on-hotels-churches-20-minutes-of-carnage-idUSKCN1RX0NS

World News

Reuters

2017-02-11 18:20:00

2017

2.0

11

Liam Daniel Pierce

Liverpool, Mané Storm Out the Gates With Two Lightning-Quick Goals Against Tottenham

Sadio Mané may as well be a one-man team right now, as he holds Liverpool's two tallies against second-place Tottenham. With a tight race to claim at least second place, those two goals might be all the difference in the world. Mané came off the blocks with a voracious appetite for the net, as he found an opening in the 16th minute—above—taking advantage of a beautiful pass laid right at his feet. He tore behind the Spurs' loose back line with pace, gave the keeper a feint, and managed to tuck his foot under the ball for a chip—before he fully fell to the ground. His second effort, below, was less of a solo act than a successful scrap after a team effort to drill Tottenham's Hugo Lloris. He found himself on the third shot, positioned for a clean volley, which he rocketed into the back of the net. Things are far from over—at the half—but Anfield are certainly fired up for this one.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mgzze8/liverpool-man-storm-out-the-gates-with-two-lightning-quick-goals-against-tottenham

Sports

Vice

2018-10-13 00:00:00

2018

10.0

13

Kanye West Returns to Twitter with Live Video Rant About 'Mind Control'

Kanye West took a break from family time in Africa to get in touch with the world via social media once again, and his purpose was to speak out against mind control ... and oddly, social media. Ye returned to Twitter Saturday afternoon after going dark last week, and live streamed himself from Africa, talking to the camera while constantly rubbing his forehead ... appearing to be deep in thought and focused on his words. Mind control https://t.co/YDYXQ45bDL But ... as he even admits ... he also seems sleep deprived. Kanye captioned his vid "Mind control," and started off by railing at social media and discussing how he's hurt by people trying to tell him what to do. He says it feels like they are trying to touch his brain ... and he hates it. He adds to his social media bashing by saying it told us all Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency, and claims social media falsely wants you to believe people don't like him when in fact ... "Everybody loves Ye!!" There's more -- a lot more -- including Kanye declaring "I am the best living recording artist," boasting about his IQ and assuring us all he's not crazy ... he just needs some sleep. Get some sleep, Kanye.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/10/13/kanye-west-returns-twitter-live-video-rant-mind-control/

TMZ

2016-03-31 00:00:00

2016

3.0

31

Jon Jones: No More Jail But Needs Permission to Drive

9:43 AM PT -- Jon's management team and legal counsel have issued a statement: "Jon is focused on the fight, and we are focused on the traffic charges that were brought against him. We are confident that those charges will be dismissed because they are baseless." "More importantly, however, Jon has done extremely well while he’s been under supervision. He has been sober for more than 6 months, and he has completed more than 100 hours of community service, working with those most at need in New Mexico: our youth." Jon Jones has been punished in his probation violation case -- and while the UFC star is finally being released from jail, he will NOT be able to drive without permission from his probation officer. The UFC superstar just appeared in court in Albuquerque, NM and admitted to violating his probation by failing to report police contact in a timely manner after his drag racing stop last week. Prosecutors wanted to impose a curfew on Jones -- requiring him to be in his home between the hours of 10 PM and 4 AM out of concern that all of JJ's issues have happened at night. But Jones argued that he NEEDS to be out at night because he trains in the evening hours -- and forcing him to stay in would impact his next fight at UFC 197. The judge agreed and struck down the curfew -- but said Jones may NOT drive without explicit permission from his probation officer. He must also complete a driver improvement course, anger management and 60 hours of community service in 3 months. The judge warned Jones to "take this seriously." During the hearing, Jones' attorney called his recent drag racing stop "bogus" -- and said Jones was "profiled" by the officer who pulled him over. "We intend to fight these traffic violations." Prosecutors warned the judge Jones was "starting to fail at probation" -- saying it's been a challenge for him. "This is his 3rd chance and we are concerned." Bottom line -- JJ's on very thin ice.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/03/31/jon-jones-showdown-in-court-in-orange-jail-uniform/

TMZ

2019-06-10 00:00:00

2019

6.0

10

UPDATE 1-Hong Kong vows to press ahead with extradition bill despite huge protest

* Clashes mar massive protest in central Hong Kong * Broad opposition to proposed to allow extradition to China * Organisers say more than a million people demonstrated * Police put crowd at 240,000 * Chinese paper says ‘foreign forces’ try to create chaos (Adds comments from chief executive Carrie Lam, paragraphs 6-8; adds bullet points) HONG KONG, June 10 (Reuters) - Riot police surrounded Hong Kong’s parliament on Monday after authorities said they would go ahead with a proposed extradition law, which would allow suspects to be sent to mainland China, despite protests from an estimated crowd of more than a million. What began as a peaceful protest through the centre of the global financial hub descended into violence early on Monday as several hundred protesters clashed with police, who responded with pepper spray before the standoff ended soon after. The protests plunged Hong Kong into a new political crisis, heaping pressure on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s administration and her official backers in Beijing. Veteran lawmakers have called on her to resign. The rendition bill has generated unusually broad opposition, from normally pro-establishment business people and lawyers to students, pro-democracy figures and religious groups. Sunday’s demonstration capped weeks of growing outrage in the business, diplomatic and legal communities, which fear corrosion of Hong Kong’s legal autonomy and the difficulty of ensuring basic judicial protections in mainland China. Lam sought to soothe public concerns and said her administration was creating additional amendments to the bill, including safeguarding human rights. “This bill is not about the mainland alone. This bill is not initiated by the central people’s government. I have not received any instruction or mandate from Beijing to do this bill,” she told reporters on Monday. She said the bill would have a second reading debate on Wednesday. Organisers put the size of Sunday’s crowd at more than a million, outstripping a demonstration in 2003 when 500,000 took to the streets to challenge government plans for tighter national security laws. Police put the figure at 240,000 at the march’s peak. Many thousands were still waiting to join the march from Victoria Park on Hong Kong island on Sunday as tens of thousands of others reached the Legislative Council building in the Admiralty business district. About 1,000 people joined a protest in Sydney and another protest was also reported in London. Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung said on Monday the government had improved the entire proposal to show it had been responding to social demands. “I hope that in the Legislative Council, everyone can continue the discussion in a frank, peaceful and rational way and continue to follow up on this matter,” Cheung said. U.S. and European officials have issued formal warnings, matching international business and human rights lobbies that fear the changes would dent Hong Kong’s rule of law. The former British colony was handed back to Chinese rule in 1997 amid guarantees of autonomy and various freedoms, including a separate legal system, which many diplomats and business leaders believe is the city’s strongest remaining asset. Guards removed damaged barricades from the front of the Legislative Council building during Monday’s morning rush hour and cleaning staff washed away protest debris. All but one protester had been cleared from the area, with residents back to work as normal. Hong Kong newspaper Mingpao said in an editorial the government should take the protesters seriously and that pushing the legislation forward would exacerbate tensions. The official China Daily newspaper said in an editorial on Monday “foreign forces” were trying to hurt China by creating chaos in Hong Kong. “Any fair-minded person would deem the amendment bill a legitimate, sensible and reasonable piece of legislation that would strengthen Hong Kong’s rule of law and deliver justice,” the mainland paper said. Amnesty International said the amended extradition law was a threat to human rights. “If enacted, this law would extend the ability of the mainland authorities to target critics, human rights activists, journalists, NGO workers and anyone else in Hong Kong, much in the same way they do at home,” it said in a statement. (Reporting by Vimvam Tong, Anne Marie Roantree, James Pomfret, Greg Torode, Clare Jim, Vimvam Tong, Sumeet Chatterjee, Jessie Pang, Shellin Li, Forina Fu, Donny Kwok, Aleksander Solum and Twinnie Siu Writing by Farah Master Editing by Paul Tait)

https://www.reuters.com/article/hongkong-extradition/update-1-hong-kong-vows-to-press-ahead-with-extradition-bill-despite-huge-protest-idUSL4N23H0XB

Cyclical Consumer Goods

Reuters

2018-11-14 18:56:15

2018

11.0

14

Tara Golshan

Kevin McCarthy has been elected as the new House minority leader

California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy is moving on up. House Republicans elected McCarthy, the current No. 2 House Republican majority leader, to lead the conference as the new minority leader, in a Republican-only vote on Wednesday. When House Speaker Paul Ryan announced his retirement in April, McCarthy was largely seen as his natural successor. With Democrats in the majority and no Republican speakership position to fill, McCarthy didn’t have much of a fight to get the top post. Only one other Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a conservative firebrand who co-founded the House Freedom Caucus, made a bid for the spot, but he couldn’t amass enough support to wage a real challenge. McCarthy’s ascension is a sign that Republicans remain comfortable with the establishment — despite the fact that Democrats flipped the House by campaigning on the failures of the Republican agenda, which McCarthy helped establish. With Democrats in control of the House, McCarthy now faces a clear choice: He will either have to find middle ground with his colleagues across the aisle, or accept that the Republican agenda will be put on pause until they regain the majority. McCarthy is an established name in Washington. He has held a seat in the House since 2007. Before that, he served as the minority leader of the California State Assembly, a position he was elected to as a freshman state lawmaker. Unlike Ryan, McCarthy is not someone known to lead a policy debate, but on Capitol Hill, he’s well-liked and persuasive. He’s a strong fundraiser, and as someone who always said Republicans would stay in control of the House in 2019, he managed to convince his fellow Republicans that sticking with the party’s agenda was a winning strategy — to his own undoing, ironically. His ambitions to lead House Republicans have been clear since 2015, when he ran to replace the embattled retiring Speaker John Boehner. But his campaign was short-lived; rumors of an affair with a colleague, overtly bragging about how Benghazi investigations tanked Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers, and an arch-conservative revolt from the House Freedom Caucus pushed McCarthy to step behind Paul Ryan instead. At the time, a cohort of conservatives, then led by Jordan, found McCarthy too close to Republican leadership and didn’t trust him to include hardline Republicans in the party’s legislative process. But the factors that once made McCarthy’s leadership dreams untenable have largely washed away. He’s both close to leadership as the majority leader and a friend of Trump’s, who reportedly calls him “my Kevin,” an alliance even the most Trump-loving House conservatives have had a tough time ignoring. Democrats made significant gains in the 2018 midterms, winning 34 GOP-held seats for a net gain of 32 seats to win the House majority. When all is said and done, it’s possible Democrats could win up to 40 seats this year. But Democrats still fell short in the Senate — and Trump remains in the White House. House Republicans, with McCarthy at the helm, will have to make a choice: Do they work with the Democrats in the House, or resign themselves to playing politics until the 2020 election cycle? One factor may play a big role in McCarthy’s decision: The slimmed-down Republican conference is also significantly more conservative — and more Trumpy — than the current Congress. In the runup to the 2018 midterms, many of the most moderate Republicans in the House announced their retirement. On Election Day, Democrats were most successful in ousting the remaining ones, many of whom sat in suburban, anti-Trump districts. The most vulnerable Republicans in 2018 proved to be the “Republicans who sit in blueish districts, who support Trump uneasily, criticize him occasionally, and draw at least some lines he can’t cross,” as Vox’s Ezra Klein put it. Those who remain are the most bullish on the president. In many ways, that’s a good fit for McCarthy, who has worked to ingratiate himself with conservatives in the House and has always been more of a strong political messenger than a policy mastermind. But it does mean that securing actual tangible policy wins for Trump in the runup to the 2020 election will mean combating an increasingly polarized House.

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/14/18091966/kevin-mccarthy-minority-leader-house-jim-jordan

Vox

2016-10-06 01:53:50

2016

10.0

6

Peter Kafka

Disney isn’t going to bid for Twitter, either

Cross another potential Twitter buyer off the list: Disney isn’t pursuing a bid for the social platform, either. Sources familiar with Disney, which was mulling a possible Twitter purchase last week, say the media giant has decided not to move forward. Earlier today Recode reported that Google, a logical buyer for Twitter who had also hired a banker to kick the company’s tires, was not going to bid; Apple is also unlikely. Twitter shares dropped 9 percent in after-hours trading. For now, that leaves Salesforce as the only potential buyer for Twitter, though the company has never confirmed publicly that it wants to make a deal. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appeared on CNBC today and refused to comment directly on any interest in Twitter. Industry observers have thought that Disney and Twitter might make sense as a pairing. One reason is because Disney CEO Bob Iger is friendly with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who sits on Disney’s board. Another is that Disney is interested in finding new digital distribution outlets for its content, as its strength in TV begins to waver. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/10/5/13181704/disney-twitter-buy-iger-dorsey

Vox

2017-12-11 19:00:00

2017

12.0

11

Munchies Staff

Our Best Weed Stories of 2017

Despite the looming threat of a war on weed from the US attorney general, 2017 continued to build on the momentum gained by the marijuana industry in 2016. West Virginia joined the ranks with legalized medical marijuana, and Colorado’s weed sales reached $1 billion in just eight months. It’s all starting to feel a bit like a watershed moment for the industry. Weed turned the corner into the mainstream this year, becoming—dare we say it—basic. Here are some of our favorite stories from 2017 tracking weed’s transition from "cool kid who gives no fucks" to "yoga mom who just wants to unwind." Like so many artisanal food hawkers before her, Mina Carrillo left a high-powered, lucrative career in medical software engineering to launch a boutique food business, only with cannabis. After seeing the improvements to her daughter’s encephalopathy symptoms after a weed-infused meal, Carrillo became a convert. She created her Baron’s Confections line of products with medical uses in mind, but the macarons, eclairs and truffles look plenty tasty in their own right. Next up in Things We Didn’t Think Needed to Be Infused, a San Francisco Bay-area company introduced Entourage, a marijuana terpene-infused seltzer water. While not designed to actually get you high, the terpenes in the water act like an aromatherapy candle, and can affect the way your brain processes mood, appetite, and pain sensation. Following in the little-to-no buzz terpenes-based edible fashion, there was this doughnut that raised the question: is an edible still an edible if it doesn’t get you stoned? Lest you believe that 2017 was the year the unicorn frappe unseated the PSL as the most insidious Starbucks beverage, GOOD CO-OP was there to reassure you that the cinnamon-and-nutmeg hysteria was indeed still going strong. Their line of weed-infused pumpkin spice blondies reminded us that nothing is sacred in 2017. Like Mina Carillo, Yannick Crespo abandoned a lush salary to create a weed-infused artisanal food product that, as our writer said, “checks a lot of boxes for the millennial food aficionado.” Pot d’Huile is a scientifically formulated olive oil containing THC, designed for the foodie type who’s also looking for a little buzz. But as much as the weed landscape appears to have changed in 2017, some things stayed the same. We were here for you with our best recipes for quintessential stoner foods, from nachos, to ramen, to brownies. And then there was Alex Trebek, confessing in an interview that he’s made some rookie edibles mistakes just like the rest of us. While at a party in the ‘70s, Trebek unwittingly wolfed down half a dozen “hash brownies,” and ended up tripping so hard he couldn’t leave his friend’s house for two days. Finally, we leave you with our interview with the “global ambassador of ganja himself,” Mr. Snoop D-O-double-G. We kicked back with some gin and juice—recipe borrowed from his pal Martha Stewart—and talked rap, stoner snacks, and his philosophy of being respectful with your blunts. Even Snoop toned it down in 2017. At the end of this hell storm of a year, we, too, just want to be laid back (with our minds on our money and our money on our minds). And maybe a pumpkin spice blondie.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xmgax/our-best-weed-stories-of-2017

Food by VICE

Vice

2019-03-04 00:00:00

2019

3.0

4

U.S. allows lawsuits against Cuban entities but shields foreign firms for now

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration will allow lawsuits by U.S. citizens against Cuban companies and other entities on Washington’s blacklist but will maintain for now a ban against suing foreign firms doing business on the communist-ruled island, the State Department said on Monday. Lawsuits in U.S. courts against Cuban entities will be permitted beginning March 19 but the State Department will keep in place until at least April 17 a prohibition against legal action against foreign companies using property confiscated in the 1960s by the Cuban government, the State Department said. Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-lawsuits/u-s-allows-lawsuits-against-cuban-entities-but-shields-foreign-firms-for-now-idUSKCN1QL1SL

World News

Reuters

2018-09-07 00:00:00

2018

9.0

7

Sarah N. Lynch

Ex-Trump campaign aide Papadopoulos sentenced to 14 days in prison

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Papadopoulos, a former aide to then-Republican candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, was sentenced on Friday to 14 days in prison after pleading guilty last year to lying to federal agents investigating whether campaign members coordinated with Russia before the election. Prosecutors for Special Counsel Robert Mueller said Papadopoulos lied to agents about his contacts with Russians during the campaign “to minimize both his own role as a witness and the extent of the campaign’s knowledge of his contacts,” according to the government’s sentencing memorandum. Among those contacts were London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who told him the Russians had “dirt” on Trump’s Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos defended himself and contradicted White House officials in a CNN special program Saturday night, “The Mysterious case of George Papadopoulos.” In the interview with CNN reporter Jake Tapper, Papadopoulos said that he raised the prospect of Trump and his campaign officials meeting with the Russians. “The candidate (Trump) gave a nod, but did not commit either way,” he said. Trump has denied knowing anything about contact with Russians and his campaign. Russia has denied U.S. allegations that it interfered in the campaign and Trump denies campaign collusion. Prosecutors had asked Judge Randolph Moss in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to impose a prison sentence of up to six months, saying that Papadopoulos’ lies impeded their investigation and that he did not cooperate. “He didn’t come close to the standard of ‘substantial assistance,’” prosecutor Andrew Goldstein told the judge at the sentencing hearing. “It was at best, begrudging efforts to cooperate.” In addition to the prison time, Papadopoulos was sentenced to one year of supervised release and 200 hours of community service. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $9,500. Friday was his first public court appearance since he pleaded guilty in October 2017 to lying to the FBI while the case was still sealed. “I hope to have a second chance to redeem myself,” Papadopoulos told the judge. “I made a dreadful mistake but I am a good man.” He and his wife left the courthouse without speaking to the press. However, Papadopoulos’ mother Kiki told reporters she was satisfied he had received a fair sentence. “I am very happy with the judge. He was very fair,” Kiki Papadopoulos said. “I would have preferred less time in jail, but that’s OK. It will give him time to think things over.” The White House distanced itself from Papadopoulos, referring to his campaign role as nothing more than a low-level coffee boy, after his guilty plea. His mother said on Friday that she “still supports” Trump. The sentence that Papadopoulos received is about half the prison time given to Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who was also charged with lying to the FBI during the special counsel’s probe. Van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison. Moss said he wanted to impose some prison time because while he did not “remotely believe Mr Papadopoulos was seeking to assist the Russian government,” he was nevertheless troubled by Papadopoulos’ selfish motives to lie to the FBI so that he would not lose a shot at getting a possible job in the Trump administration. Ultimately, Moss said he felt Papadopoulos expressed genuine remorse. The judge who sentenced Van der Zwaan, by contrast, did not feel he was contrite about his crimes. During Friday’s hearing, Papadopoulos’ attorney Thomas Breen went out his way to praise the FBI, and he also criticized Trump for calling the Russia probe fake news and a witch hunt. “The president of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could,” Breen told the judge. He portrayed Papadopoulos as a naive young man who was “being worked by a pro,” a reference to Professor Mifsud, whom he later said he believes was working for Russia and trying to take advantage of his client. “No offense, but he was unsophisticated, he was naive and he was foolish,” Breen said in court. Breen told reporters after Friday’s hearing that Papadopoulos does not recall telling anyone in the Trump campaign about Mifsud’s comments about the Russians having dirt on Clinton. The lies Papadopoulos told in his voluntary interview with the FBI on Jan. 27, 2017, prosecutors said, “undermined investigators’ ability to challenge the professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States.” In addition, they said Papadopoulos did not provide “substantial assistance” and only came clean after he was confronted with his own emails, texts and other evidence. In December 2017, two months after his guilty plea, the FBI had plans for a follow-up meeting with Papadopoulos. The FBI canceled the meeting when it discovered that Papadopoulos had sat down for a media interview about the case. He and his wife later participated in more media interviews. Papadopoulos was pictured in March 2016 sitting at a table with Trump, then-campaign adviser Jeff Sessions who went on to become U.S. attorney general, and other foreign policy campaign advisers. At that meeting, Papadopoulos proposed brokering a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sessions has previously testified to Congress that he pushed back against the proposal, but the memo filed by Papadopoulos’s lawyers contradicts Sessions’ account, saying that both Trump and Sessions appeared receptive to the idea. But Papadopoulos, referring to Sessions, said to CNN, “I remember that he was enthusiastic about a potential meeting.” CNN’s Tapper noted that Session’s attorneys said that Sessions stands by his testimony, and denied encouraging a meeting with Russians. The court filing confirms reporting by Reuters in March about the difference between Sessions’ testimony and how others recounted his reaction to the proposal at the meeting. Papadopoulos told CNN that he hopes to return to politics in the future. “I made mistakes and I will pay for my mistakes,” he said, adding, “I don’t want to give up my goal of staying in politics.” Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Eric Beech and Rich McKay; Editing by Grant McCool, Robert Birsel

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-papadopoulos/ex-trump-campaign-aide-papadopoulos-sentenced-to-14-days-in-prison-idUSKCN1LN1OG

Politics

Reuters

2017-06-08 16:40:00

2017

6.0

8

Lia Kantrowitz, Rachel M. Cohen

Crooked Chicago Cops May Get Off the Hook Thanks to Trump

Ja'Mal Green has had an exhausting year. Last July, after a protest he helped organize in response to the police shootings that killed Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, Green was arrested for allegedly attacking Chicago police, put in jail with a $350,000 bail, and ultimately indicted on nine felony charges. Green and his friends and family denied the allegations, but after nine months of back-and-forth, he decided to take the prosecutors' deal: plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of resisting police in exchange for dropping all felony charges. Green, a 21-year-old activist in Chicago, says he wanted to alleviate his stress and move on with his life—but insists that even the misdemeanor charge was bogus. "As a black male coming up in Chicago, I mean we all had that experience of being racially profiled, and officers treating us like we're suspects and criminal," Green told VICE. "Even at protests, you go through so much crap, they yell out slurs, hit you for no reason. Getting arrested and charged showed me first-hand how corrupt the police [are]." Green's experience roughly coincided with a sweeping investigation of Chicago cops by the Justice Department under Barack Obama, which found evidence of routine civil rights violations and excessive use of force. After the scathing federal report came out in January, Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel, signed an "agreement in principle" to negotiate a consent decree, or a legal settlement between a city and the feds overseen by a federal judge. This wasn't unusual: The Obama administration routinely opened investigations into police departments, looking closely at 25 of them between 2009 and 2016, and entering into consent decrees with 14. But President Donald Trump's attorney general Jeff Sessions has expressed deep skepticism about consent decrees, once calling them "undemocratic" and "dangerous." In February, Sessions went so far as to dismiss his own department's 161-page report on Chicago cops, suggesting he hadn't read it, but that it seemed "pretty anecdotal." Now the question is whether Chicago will essentially use Donald Trump's presidency to avoid changing the way local cops do their jobs, and more broadly, whether other big-city mayors with relatively progressive political profiles might hide behind a pro-cop White House to avoid aggressively responding to legacies of police abuse. Check out our chat with Chicago gang members about violence and police in the city. Even as some cities like Baltimore commit to using consent decrees to overhaul police practices, Mayor Emanuel no longer feels a federal judge is necessary to ensure police reform actually happens in his city. Instead, the mayor wants Chicago to enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the feds, a tool cities like Washington, DC, and Cincinnati pursued to deal with their police problems. There are "many roads to reform, but they all hit the same destination," as Emanuel put it this week in a press conference. Prominent civil rights leaders and experts who worked on police reform under Barack Obama were quick to blast the mayor's retreat. "There are significant factual differences between what happened in Cincinnati and DC compared to Chicago, and you didn't have the same kind of corruption and cover-up," said Jonathan Smith, the executive director of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the former chief of special litigation in the DOJ's civil rights division who oversaw the federal probe of police in Ferguson, Missouri. The cover-up Smith is referring to is the case of Laquan McDonald, the 17-year-old who was (fatally) shot 16 times on a Chicago street in 2014. Dash-cam video of that incident was buried by city officials until late 2015, when a court order helped force it into the open. "History has demonstrated that [MOAs], which are not court-enforceable, are not robust enough to remedy longstanding problems," added Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and former head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department under Obama. "Given the size of the Chicago Police Department and the severity of the accountability and use of force problems that were thoroughly documented in the findings report, a [MOA] in this matter will become yet another set of recommendations for the Chicago Police Department that will have no teeth. Chicago has seen this pattern over and over again." The Department of Justice did not return a request for comment, but Adam Collins, Mayor Emanuel's communicators director, defended the move in part by suggesting the new regime in DC forced their hand. "Obviously there's a new administration and their opinions of consent decrees are very well documented," he told me. "For months the city and city attorneys have been in discussion with DOJ about a framework to guide future reforms, and the draft MOA that we submitted last week is a product of those discussions." Collins emphasized that over the last 18 months, Chicago has implemented a number of police reforms, including body cameras and new training oversight. And it's true that without a consent decree, Chicago has made some progress. Last month, the Chicago Police Department announced a package of new rules designed to restrict when officers use deadly force, and guide officers on how they should deescalate situations and aid wounded suspects. (Critics note that the changes were watered-down from reforms first proposed last fall.) William Calloway, another Chicago activist, thinks the new accountability measures were "a really monumental win" for reformers. While he was greatly disappointed to see his mayor back away from the consent decree, he wasn't exactly surprised. "Once you've been a resident for a while and you've seen the dealings of Rahm Emanuel and the way he plays politics, nothing too much shocks you," Calloway said. Green, for his part, expressed skepticism that even a consent decree would work in Chicago, emphasizing that real change has to come from inside the police force. "But I think if the Justice Department is going to step in, then they should actually start bringing justice and lock up people in power," he added. Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore cop and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told me that while there's a legitimate argument that consent decrees can force a city's hand, especially if reforms are being held up by police union contracts or other barriers, he worries they're becoming somewhat of a fad. "I don't know if Emanuel gives a damn about police misconduct," Moskos said. "But if he does, he could do something. The department is under his control." But citing police reform in Seattle and New Orleans, Smith, the former DOJ official, insisted consent decrees are effective tools, and especially necessary in the worst cases—Chicago among them. "The bad news is that this new DOJ is retreating from its commitment to enforcing the constitution," says Smith. "The good news is there's a lot of incredibly talented activists in Chicago who are not going to let this go. It may take a little longer, it may be a little harder to get there, but they're going to insist on change." Follow Rachel M. Cohen on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/newe9m/crooked-chicago-cops-may-get-off-the-hook-thanks-to-trump

cops

Vice

2018-07-30 00:00:00

2018

7.0

30

Cambodia's ruling party says it won all 125 parliamentary seats

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) said on Monday it had won all 125 parliamentary seats up for grabs in a general election that critics have called a sham. “The CPP won 77.5 percent of the votes and won all the parliamentary seats,” CPP spokesman Sok Eysan told Reuters by telephone. On Sunday the CPP said it had won “at least” 100 seats. The White House said it would consider steps, including an expansion of visa curbs on some Cambodian government members, in response to “flawed elections” in which Prime Minister Hun Sen faced no significant challenger. Reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-election-result/cambodias-ruling-party-says-it-won-all-125-parliamentary-seats-idUSKBN1KK0HN

World News

Reuters

2017-04-13 00:00:00

2017

4.0

13

Letitia Stein

At home, rebel Republican lawmakers pay no price for defying Trump

PALATKA, Fla. (Reuters) - At a town hall in his conservative Florida district this week, U.S. Representative Ted Yoho drew applause for defying his own Republican Party leaders to help derail a healthcare plan that was President Donald Trump’s first major legislative initiative. Far from paying a price back home, as Trump has threatened they would, Yoho and some of the other far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus appear to have support for standing their ground, based on their reception at several town halls during a two-week congressional recess. A handful of House Freedom Caucus lawmakers were facing constituents for the first time since last month’s defeat of Trump’s effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, which was also rejected by some Republican moderates. Many supporters made clear they expect them to work with Trump to make good on campaign promises to reform the nation’s health care system. “I want it done,” said Bob White, 74, after questioning Yoho on the issue during a town hall on Tuesday night in rural Putnam County, Florida. “Wield that big stick.” The rebellious faction of conservatives in the House of Representatives was instrumental in toppling a plan supported by Trump to rewrite Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. Trump has singled out the group for blame. Many caucus members refused to back the Republican leadership’s bill because they considered parts too similar to Obamacare and said it would not have done enough to reduce insurance premiums. At town hall meetings, constituents pressed them to keep working to address problems such as high healthcare costs. The reception for Yoho and other caucus members at home could shape their approach to the Republican president and leadership controlling both chambers of Congress, said Matthew Green, an associate professor of politics at Catholic University of America, who studies congressional parties and leaders. “The Freedom Caucus members are either going to become more recalcitrant because they will be hearing from their constituents ‘good job,’” he said. “Or if they don’t hear that, they might be more willing to compromise.” Michigan Representative Justin Amash landed in the crosshairs of the feud when a White House adviser called on Twitter for Trump supporters to defeat him in a primary. But in the farming and manufacturing area he represents in the southwestern state, home to cereal maker Kellogg Co, the four-term congressman heard cheers in a high school auditorium in Battle Creek, Michigan on Tuesday night, where he held a town hall with about 100 people attending. “If I had to choose between Justin and Trump, I’d go with Justin for sure,” said construction worker Eric Smith, 34, who voted for both, but so far has found Trump lacking conservative principles. “At this point, I’d give Donald Trump a D.” Retiree Cliff Ward, 72, told Amash that he was pleased with his role in the blocking the legislation, which polls showed to be unpopular and expected to end health coverage for millions. “Now we need you to work with Trump and the other Republicans to get this done,” he added. Living in Georgetown, Florida, a community so remote that cell phone service is a chief concern, Trump voter Melvin Shebester knew little about the House Freedom Caucus. The faction of small-government conservatives came together in 2015 and since then have been a thorn in the side of more mainstream Republican leadership in the House, including an attempt to push out former Republican House Speaker John Boehner. The 84-year-old Shebester was impressed that his congressman, Yoho, stood up to the president on a bill that he saw as rushed. “It takes a lot of guts to stand up against your party,” said Shebester, attending Yoho’s town hall on Tuesday night at a government center in Palatka, Florida with his son and grandson. “We can’t go up there and tell Trump he’s wrong,” added his son, Steven Shebester, 56, who lives nearby. Many Republicans have avoided public town halls, often open to anyone interested, since the meetings became a staging ground for liberal protests earlier this year. But Yoho, a veterinarian first elected in 2012, has held several. His event in Gainesville, a college town, on Monday was crowded by left-leaning activists who at times shouted him down. On Tuesday night in Palatka, a small town in Yoho’s sprawling district in north central Florida lined with oaks and Spanish moss, he took questions from about 100 constituents in a politically mixed crowd. He told reporters his office received some 3,500 calls in the days leading up to the healthcare plan showdown, with only about 215 in support. And a phone survey of constituents found the Republican plan was as unpopular as Obamacare itself. He said constituents gave him a clear message: “Stay the course.” (This version of the story has been refiled to fix dropped letter in seventh paragraph) Additional reporting by Steve Friess in Michigan and Lisa Maria Garza in Texas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-freedomcaucus/at-home-rebel-republican-lawmakers-pay-no-price-for-defying-trump-idUSKBN17F2JZ

Politics

Reuters

2017-12-25 00:00:00

2017

12.0

25

Iran confirms upholding death sentence for academic over spying

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence against a Sweden-based Iranian academic convicted of spying for Israel, the Tehran prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday, confirming reports by Amnesty International and his family. Ahmadreza Djalali, a medical doctor and lecturer at the Karolinska Institute, a Stockholm medical university, was accused of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate several senior nuclear scientists. Djalali was arrested in Iran in April 2016 and later convicted of espionage. He has denied the charges, Amnesty said. At least four scientists were killed between 2010 and 2012 in what Tehran said were assassinations meant to sabotage its efforts to develop nuclear energy. Western powers and Israel said Iran aimed to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran denied this. The Islamic Republic hanged a man in 2012 over the killings, saying he was an agent for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. On Monday, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the Supreme Court recently upheld the death sentence against Djalali, the news site of Iran’s judiciary, Mizan, reported. Dolatabadi said Djalali had confessed to meeting Mossad agents repeatedly to deliver information on Iran’s nuclear and defense plans and personnel, and helping to infect Defense Ministry computer systems with viruses, Mizan reported. London-based Amnesty International and Djalali’s wife said earlier this month that his lawyers were told that the Supreme Court had considered his case and upheld his death sentence. Iranian state television broadcast last week what it described as Djalali’s confessions. His wife said he had been forced by his interrogators to read the confession. Djalali was on a business trip to Iran when he was arrested and sent to Evin prison. He was held in solitary confinement for three months of his detention and tortured, Amnesty said.  It said Djalali wrote a letter inside prison in August stating he was being held for refusing to spy for Iran. Sweden condemned the sentence in October and said it had raised the matter with Iranian envoys. Seventy-five Nobel prize laureates petitioned Iranian authorities last month to release Djalali so he could “continue his scholarly work for the benefit of mankind”. Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Gareth Jones

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-court/iran-confirms-upholding-death-sentence-for-academic-over-spying-idUSKBN1EJ0LZ

World News

Reuters

2017-05-15 17:40:00

2017

5.0

15

Susan Rinkunas

A Bunch of People Got Sick from a Pesticide Trump’s EPA Didn't Ban

In late March, the Environmental Protection Agency went against its own advice and decided not to ban a pesticide called chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to learning disabilities in children and health problems among farm workers. Ten days ago, more than a dozen workers in California got sick from it. Chlorpyrifos, made by Dow Chemical, has been banned for residential use for about 15 years but is used at about 40,000 farms on about 50 different kinds of crops including citrus fruits, apples, almonds, corn, and soybeans. The EPA under the Obama administration had recommended that chlorpyrifos be banned, but current EPA chief (and longtime EPA critic) Scott Pruitt, decided to let farms keep using it in one of his first formal actions. More than dozen workers on a cabbage farm south of Bakersfield, California, got sick on May 5th: 12 people reported nausea and vomiting, one person fainted, and one worker was taken to the hospital. The farm supervisor told a local news station that a nearby citrus orchard was sprayed with a pesticide called Vulcan the night before; chlorpyrifos is the active ingredient in Vulcan. The Kern County Department of Agriculture and Measurement Standards is testing the chemicals involved to determine if chlorpyrifos was indeed present, but results aren't in yet. At least 50 workers were exposed but half of them left before medical personnel arrived. Mother Jones notes that Dow Chemical has multiple links to the Trump administration: The company donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee in December 2016 and Trump named its CEO Andrew Liveris to lead the American Manufacturing Council. Read This Next: All the Trump-Era Changes That Affect Your Health

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/53njgn/trumps-epa-didnt-ban-pesticide-chlorpyrifos-farm-workers-got-sick

Health

Vice

2018-09-16 00:00:00

2018

9.0

16

Shawne Merriman Down to Fight Greg Hardy After Bare Knuckle Fight Debut

Greg Hardy vs. Shawne Merriman ... in a fist fight?! Yeah, this could actually happen. Shawne -- the former NFL superstar -- is about to compete in his first bare knuckle boxing match ... and if he wins, "Lights Out" says he'd LOVE to get in the ring against Hardy. Of course, Hardy has been crushing everybody since transitioning from the NFL to MMA -- and has already earned a development contract with the UFC. Now, Merriman is following Hardy's lead ... sorta. The ex-Chargers Pro Bowl linebacker signed a deal with the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation to brawl on Nov. 9 against Mike Bourke -- a dude who once knocked out Ken Shamrock. If Merriman wins, he tells TMZ Sports ... a superfight with Hardy would be awesome. "I'll definitely be open to see what Greg Hardy got to offer." By the way, this isn't some fun experiment for Merriman -- he's been seriously training for years and believes, since he's only 34, he can have a real future in combat sports. It all starts with Mike Bourke -- and Shawne says he's already putting together his fight plan.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/09/16/shawne-merriman-greg-hardy-nfl-fight-bare-knuckle/

TMZ

2019-06-12 00:00:00

2019

6.0

12

Rajendra Jadhav, Promit Mukherjee

India evacuates hundreds of thousands as cyclone Vayu builds fury

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India evacuated hundreds of thousands of people to shelters along the coast in its western state of Gujarat as a cyclone gathering intensity over the Arabian Sea was expected to hit land on Thursday. Weather officials said Cyclone Vayu, with wind speeds equivalent to those of a Category 1 hurricane, is set to cross the coast with sustained wind speeds of 145 kph to 155 kph (90 mph to 96 mph), and could gust as high as 170 kph (106 mph). The state government said it had begun moving about 300,000 people from the most vulnerable areas into shelters. “We have started evacuation in coastal districts today morning,” a Gujarat disaster management official said on Wednesday. The state’s chief minister, Vijay Rupani, has asked India’s military and its National Disaster Response Force for help with rescue and relief efforts if the cyclone causes widespread damage and disruption. The federal home minister, Amit Shah, also urged officials to ensure swift restoration of utilities such as power, telecoms and drinking water if they are disrupted by the cyclone. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned the cyclone could hold up the progress of annual monsoon rains, as the storm drew rain clouds from over the sea. The monsoon was already about a week late in arriving at Kerala on the southern coast this year, and much of the country has broiled in a summer heatwave in recent weeks. Gujarat is also home to large refineries and sea ports near the storm’s path. India’s biggest oil refinery, owned by Reliance Industries, is in Gujarat, though a company official said the cyclone was expected to weaken by the time it reached the Jamnagar-based refinery. “But in case the course changes or intensifies, the refinery is ready for any contingency,” he added, declining to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media. Sikka Ports and Terminals Ltd, which handles crude oil and refined products for Reliance Industries Ltd, halted vessel berthing at a western port on Wednesday over a cyclone warning, according to a port notice. The company’s ports also handle oil and refined products cargo for Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd, a subsidiary of state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd is preparing to move employees at two ports it runs to safer areas, a spokesman said. “Our Mundra and Tuna ports will be closest to the path,” he added. “All the necessary precautions are being put in place.” Nayara Energy, owned by a consortium led by Russia’s Rosneft, said it was monitoring the situation and also taking precautionary measures at its Gujarat refinery. In May, Cyclone Fani, the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, killed at least 34 people on India’s eastern coast, destroying houses and ripping off roofs. Authorities had evacuated more than 1.2 million people in advance of the storm, after an even more powerful cyclone in 1999 killed about 10,000 people and caused damage running into billions of dollars. Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Clarence Fernandez

https://www.reuters.com/article/india-cyclone/update-1-india-evacuates-hundreds-of-thousands-as-cyclone-vayu-builds-fury-idUSL4N23J18B

Environment

Reuters

2017-02-10 18:39:41

2017

2.0

10

Akin Oyedele

Daniel Tarullo resigns from the Federal Reserve

Daniel Tarullo will resign from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors on or around April 5, according to a statement on Friday. He served as chairman of the Board's Committee on Supervision and Regulation, which was responsible for regulating Wall Street banks. "Dan led the Fed's work to craft a new framework for ensuring the safety and soundness of our financial system following the financial crisis and made invaluable contributions across the entire range of the Fed's responsibilities," Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in a statement. President Barack Obama appointed Tarullo in 2009 for a term that would have expired at the end of January 2022. "It has been a great privilege to work with former Chairman Bernanke and Chair Yellen during such a challenging period for the nation's economy and financial system," Tarullo said in his resignation letter. He was involved in implementing the Dodd-Frank reforms created after the 2008 financial crisis to prevent a repeat. The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, which tracks large financial companies including banks and insurers, rose 0.6% to an intraday high following news of Tarullo's resignation. Tarullo, 64, was a law professor at Georgetown University before joining the Fed.

https://www.businessinsider.com/daniel-tarullo-resigns-from-federal-reserve-2017-2

Business Insider

2019-06-11 00:00:00

2019

6.0

11

George Obulutsa

Power from Kenya's planned Lamu plant could cost 10 times more than estimated: study

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Electricity from a coal-fired power plant due to be built in Kenya by a Kenyan-Chinese consortium will cost consumers up to 10 times more than planned, a U.S. thinktank says, raising further doubts about the long-delayed project. Construction of the plant on the Kenyan mainland opposite the tourist island of Lamu was scheduled to begin in 2015 but has been repeatedly halted, due in part to opposition by environmentalists. Amu Power, a consortium comprising Kenya’s Gulf Energy and Centum Investment and a group of Chinese companies, is due to build the plant after winning the government contract. The plant’s backers say it would help tackle Kenya’s frequent blackouts by increasing generation capacity by nearly a third and generating power that would cost about half what consumers currently pay. But opponents say those costs are much higher than projected. Amu Power says electricity from the plant will cost 7.2 U.S. cents per KWh. But that is “highly optimistic,” the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said in an independent study, which is the most extensive so far on the plant’s cost. It said the 1000-MW coal-fired plant’s 25-year power purchasing agreement would cost consumers more than $9 billion, even if it does not generate any power. “The true costs of Lamu’s electricity during the years 2024 through 2037 could average as high as US 22 to US 75 cents per KWh — three to 10 times the company’s 2014 projection,” the study noted. “We believe Kenya should cancel the project.” The study said the plant’s backers had underpriced coal imports and rising operational and maintenance costs. Joseph Njoroge, principal secretary at the Ministry of Energy, said the plant was competitive but did not address specific concerns. “One condition of any competitively acquired project is to sustain the bid specifications to the end,” he said in a text message to Reuters. “The plant will be put up with (the) aim of producing electricity based on sound economic projections.” Francis Njogu, chief executive officer of Amu Power, did not respond to requests for comment. Kenya’s Energy Regulatory Commission, which sets tariffs, also did not respond to a request for comment. The plant’s location on the mainland in the coastal Lamu County region is about 14 km from Lamu island, a famous ancient Swahili settlement and UNESCO World heritage site and a top tourist destination. Environmentalists say the plant will pollute the air, destroying mangroves and breeding grounds for five endangered species of marine turtles, fish and other marine life. In 2018, a Kenyan court suspended the project for a second time, sending the dispute back to an environmental tribunal. It is expected to issue a decision later this month on whether the project can go ahead. Editing by Katharine Houreld and Susan Fenton

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-electricity/power-from-kenyas-planned-lamu-plant-could-cost-10-times-more-than-estimated-study-idUSKCN1TC1MP

Sustainable Business

Reuters

2017-03-11 00:00:00

2017

3.0

11

Natalie Haddad

Remembering Martin Kippenberger’s Self-Performance

His drunken antics and grand gestures amounted to a life that New York Times art critic Roberta Smith once called “an extended, alcohol-fueled performance piece.” Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads On March 7, 1997, German artist Martin Kippenberger died of liver cancer at the age of 43. His death marked the end of an extraordinary and prolific career that included painting, installations, music, books and ephemera, and even a brief foray into acting. But at the heart of it was Kippenberger himself. His drunken antics and grand gestures — mooning and heckling crowds; naming a gas station in Brazil after a Nazi official; opening a museum and a fake subway station on a Greek island — amounted to a life that New York Times art critic Roberta Smith once called “an extended, alcohol-fueled performance piece.” At the same time, he centered attention on himself with several artworks that featured his image — or that of the character “Kippenberger” — including exhibition posters, paintings, and postcards. What is often lost in posthumous accounts of Kippenberger’s life and persona is the intelligence and multilayered critique in his work: of himself; identity politics; and the ideological constructs of late capitalist subjectivity. In her 2001 performance piece “Art Must Hang,” artist Andrea Fraser both commemorated and critiqued the “performance piece” that was Martin Kippenberger, reenacting word-for-word a drunken speech Kippenberger gave in 1995. Fraser’s performance is predicated on the slippage between art and life— or lives — of both artists. That slippage is also a reminder of how deftly Kippenberger played Kippenberger Art critic Diedrich Diederichsen has described the artist as a “Selbstdarsteller,” literally, a self-performer. Kippenberger emerged at a moment in the mid-1970s when the concepts of subjectivity and identity in art were undergoing critical interrogation. For Kippenberger, however, the ideological construct of the “self” was less a point of interrogation than a point of departure. Throughout the 1970s, he produced several self-promotional posters, as well as a series of tourist-style photographs, in which he “performed” his own identity, constructing “Kippenberger” as, to use a phrase from Roland Barthes, an “artificial myth.” In his essay “Myth Today” (1957), Barthes proposes that, “the best weapon against myth is perhaps to mythify it in its turn, and to produce an artificial myth.” In works such as the series of “tourist” postcards; a sheet of stamps, “Twenty-One Years Among You, Kippenberger 1953-1974” (1974); and a poster, “A Quarter Century of Kippenberger as One of You, Among You, With You” (1978), Kippenberger performs an identity founded in myth (i.e., the myth of the artist, or the myth of the transcendent subject). For the postcard series, Kippenberger poses as the consummate tourist in tourist havens around the United States. The postcards show him mugging for the camera with a Disney actor in a Goofy costume; donning a cowboy outfit; mimicking his “escape” from a prison cell through its bent bars; and poised on a hill top with a suitcase. The series demonstrates the fluidity of Kippenberger’s self-performance. The images parody the trope of the tourist by theatricalizing the artist’s absorption into the role, while simultaneously performing the role of Martin Kippenberger. By posing as a “servant of tourism,” in Kippenberger’s words (Knechte des Tourismus in German), he positions himself as a trope, “the tourist.” Kippenberger’s self-performance conflates the persona with the person. This doubling, of himself as himself, is multiplied by the reproductive capacity of his media. The myth of a transcendent (white male) artist is undone by his deliberate and hyperbolic visibility as a performer; by replicating his representation, he not only objectifies himself, but also objectifies the transcendent subject as another replicable sign to be passively consumed in the system of commodity exchange. “Twenty-One Years Among You, Kippenberger 1953-1974” and “A Quarter Century of Kippenberger as One of You, Among You, With You,” which promote his 21st and 25th birthdays, respectively, further conflate the performed persona and the actual person. The image on the poster for “A Quarter Century” pairs Kippenberger with an elderly man in a restaurant. While the artist sits, his companion stands, wrapping one arm around Kippenberger’s shoulder and shaking his hand with the other arm. The German text, “1/4 Jhdt. Kippenberger als einer von Euch, unter Euch, mit Euch,” is printed on the bottom corner, and descriptive adjectives encircle Kippenberger’s smiling face. “Twenty-One Years Among You,” by contrast, is a set of forty-eight stamps printed in pink and white, all but one, a blank, bearing a portrait photo of Kippenberger at a different age. In all these works, Kippenberger the artist replicates Kippenberger the subject in a process that loosely parallels Andy Warhol’s self-portraits. The artwork has no essential, shrouded meaning; all that it means is inscribed on the surface. Yet where Warhol attempted to empty the sign of meaning, producing pure surface, Kippenberger attempts the opposite. He exaggerates his visibility, but presents it as an overdetermined subjectivity, again, what Barthes identifies as “mythifying” the myth. Kippenberger thus forms his narrative through what Craig Owens identifies as the rhetoric of the pose, or the “Medusa Effect.” Owens writes, “[T]o strike a pose is to present oneself to the gaze of the other as if one were already frozen, immobilized – that is, already a picture.”  Kippenberger performs himself through the pose — in Owens’s words, as “already a picture.” The narrative performed in the images (the poster, the stamps) reproduces Kippenberger as “Kippenberger.” The system of subjectivity perpetually defers subjectivity itself. In “Twenty-One Years Among You,” Kippenberger is identified as “among you,” while in “A Quarter Century,” he is “one of you, among you, with you.” In both works, the title harnesses the image to two identities, “Kippenberger” and an unspecified “you,” which is dispersed among all that is not Kippenberger: the old man in “Quarter Century”; the artist’s peers; and his viewers. In this way, the “you” is addressed to an anonymous, unfixed, and replicable body. The relationship between Kippenberger and the audience (“you”) thus forms an invisible ideological network premised on a utopian — and inevitably impossible — system of collectivity and inclusiveness. Yet as the artist plays the one as the many, the egalitarianism of the title is betrayed by the repetition of Kippenberger’s image: the “one” is Kippenberger, but the many, paradoxically, is an absence to be filled in by the one’s presence. The result is that Kippenberger is not made one of the people; the people are made into “Kippenberger.” Kippenberger is therefore constructed in rhetoric, but the construction is his own, and the rhetoric is deliberately deployed — marked as fake, as parody. Kippenberger’s German heritage is an ineluctable presence in works like “A Quarter Century” — the proclamation “one of you, among you” can be perceived as a parody of Nazi propaganda (“Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer”), but it can also be read as an adoption of its strategies, a charge his critics leveled against him. (And that continued to dog him, encouraged by such projects as his 1986 “Martin Bormann Gas Station,” named after the Nazi official.) Kippenberger responded sardonically, with the 1984 abstract painting “Ich kann beim besten Willen kein Hakenkreuz erkennen” (“To the Best of My Ability, I Can See No Swastika”). The irony of identifying Kippenberger with nationalism or Nazi propaganda is that, as his works undermine the myth of the artist as a sovereign subject, they also illuminate the performative nature of identity. At their best, his works project the instability of the “self” onto the viewer by asserting the subject “Kippenberger,” but failing to finalize what Kippenberger stands for, who he is. Twenty years after his death, Kippenberger’s art continues his self-performance, questioning preconceptions of the artist and opening into new selves.

https://hyperallergic.com/363632/remembering-martin-kippenbergers-self-performance/

Hyperallergic

2018-06-19 15:30:00

2018

6.0

19

Katherine Keating

An Introduction to VICE Impact's Partnership With evian

VICE’s reporting has taken our audience from offshore oil rigs to anti-fracking rallies to flood lands left behind after Hurricane Harvey. We tell these stories because we believe that information empowers people and that we can all contribute to enacting change. To that end, we have built partnerships with foundations, nonprofits, advocacy groups and brands seeking to drive social progress on issues important to us all. In this context, we’re announcing a new partnership with evian to address plastic waste and the role of businesses in environmental protection. Bottled water and products made of plastic are widely regarded as agents of carbon emissions and ocean pollution. But what role should the private sector play in solving this global problem? We need to recognize when companies are taking the necessary steps to curb their emissions and reduce their plastic waste. The world-leading French bottled water company might seem at odds with an initiative to encourage climate action, but evian is willing to prove otherwise. They have recently announced a series of bold commitments: an aim to offset pollution caused by transporting evian water by 2020, and a pledge for full circularity by 2025, meaning that all their bottles will be made from 100% recycled plastic. Here is a company recognizing its responsibility in a global problem, assuming a leadership role in solving it, and working to offset its contributions. That is why we chose to partner with evian, to tell the story of their shift to a circular business model. How will they do it? In short: with a lot of money and a lot of effort. evian will offset their carbon emissions by funding research into ocean clean up programs and new systems that produce energy from natural biogasses. They will be fully transparent about their efforts, and in the process, hope to set a new industry standard to hold other water brands accountable. And finally, they will work hard to influence consumer behavior through initiatives that encourage reuse and recycling. Like VICE Impact, they want to empower people to make their own change. VICE Impact will document evian’s innovative efforts through films and editorial. We will not shy away from asking them challenging questions: What is circularity and can it really improve their operations and carbon output? What material difference can a bottled water company make when it comes to fighting marine waste? And how can each of us get involved in curbing our environmental footprint? Plans like these, coming from a global company like evian, have the power to make a significant contribution to curbing carbon emissions and plastic waste, a mission that has never been more urgent. As it stands today, global plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years and quadruple to 318 million tonnes by 2050, at which point the ocean will contain more plastic than fish by weight. Wary of the pace at which this is happening, we are confident in our decision to track evian’s commitments and journey along the way, and see how they plan to make circularity a reality.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwmpnz/an-introduction-to-vice-impacts-partnership-with-evian

Livable Planet

Vice

2016-07-05 00:00:00

2016

7.0

5

Ciara: I'm Worried Future Will Murder Russell Wilson

Russell Wilson is in real danger of being murdered by Future ... so claims Russell's fiancee, Ciara. Ciara just filed legal docs in her defamation lawsuit against baby daddy Future, in which she lays out various threats Future has made. In particular, she notes the football emojis with guns pointing in their direction ... which Future posted a while back. She also makes mention of the song he dropped last month, in which he says, "Tryna f*** my baby mama, dog what's up with you? You gon' make me get that heat, I'm pulling up on you." The singer calls Future's conduct, "frightening" and "socially irresponsible ... where there has been a recent rash of gun violence." Ciara believes the threat is real, but she doesn't explain what this has to do with her defamation case.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/07/05/ciara-russell-wilson-future-threat-violence/

TMZ

2016-04-12 14:25:00

2016

4.0

12

David Garber

UK Dubstep Crew Chord Marauders Are Back With More of That 'Groove Booty'

While some dance fans in the post-EDM era lack complete understanding of dubstep, others have found ways to latch on to some of the core components of the genre—adding their own unique flair to the genre's austere, spaced-out sound. The UK crew and record label, Chord Marauders are an example of the sorts of visionaries pushing the genre into new territories. The beats they make don't sound like dubstep in the Burial sort of way—or early Skream—but more along the lines if the two spent a night in a jazz bar, smoked a blunt, and threw on some sort of velvet jumper. The group's first vinyl-only release—and the fourth installment of their Groove Booty series—drops May 1, and is set to feature new tracks from label mainstays like Geode, Jafu, Congi, B9 (as well as affiliates like K-LONE and Circula), in addition to two-discs of succulent cuts from their back catalogue. Sticking to the vibe that many of their fans have come to know and love, the album flows vibrantly with a spread of jazzified, low-end bass melodies, often unfolding into lanes of grooving 2-step and abstract instrumentation that's hits your pleasure points in all the right places. Along with a stream of one of the comp's hottest tunes—Australia-based B9's head-down gem "Bip Bap Bop"—we caught up with labelhead Geode for a chat about the label's current milestone, getting to finally connect IRL with some of their long time contributing producers, as well as where the world's current dubstep scene is going. THUMP: What have been some of the biggest moments for the Chord Marauders crew since the last album release? Geode: Finally linking up with James (Jafu) and Travis (B9) were both big moments. I met James at Shambhala Festival, set in the pristine wilderness of BC, Canada, where we were both booked to play. Not only getting to meet James, but to hear an hour of his music on a Funktion-One sound system was a real privilege, and definitely felt like a validation of everything we are doing with Chord Marauders. I met Travis in London when he was traveling through Europe with some of his crew. We only spent a day together but it was great to just hang and make some music in the real world. Describe the vibe of the new release a bit, and how it marks an evolution from the last LP.There have been some subtle changes, like featuring Circula for the first time. His track, "For Esbjorn" is a bit of departure from our usual - slowed down at 130BPM, with these dusty piano loops. The track falls on Side B, alongside tracks by Ago & B9, which overall has a more earthy feel to our usual stuff. This is contrasted against Side A, which provides the pushier, synthier vibe for which we're better known- and Sides C&D, comprised of 6 favorites from the back catalogue that we wanted to commemorate on vinyl. What's your take on the dubstep scene currently in the UK? Anyone you'd like to shout out?The traditional dubstep sound, and the scene that surrounded it, has undoubtedly become a lot smaller in the UK. In many ways, that needed to happen because that mono-tonal, faux-aggressive, big snare sound was getting quite tired. Despite all this, a handful of producers & labels like Innamind, Deep Medi, Artikal, and Deep Heads have been able to maintain prominence, thanks, in a big way, to promoters in North America, Canada and Europe. And, whereas many of those successful innovators have combined dubstep with grime, techno and half time jungle influences, we've steered in a more vibe-oriented direction - standing on the shoulders of giants such as Silkie, Martyn and 2562. This side of 140 is simmering nicely, with a whole a raft of producers such as Mercy, Ago & K-LONE all coming into their prime, and many more on the rise. What's also exciting is seeing that minor-7th aesthetic growing in popularity amongst more established producers, across the genre spectrum, evident in tracks such as Sorrow - "Iscariot", Ivy Lab - "Gomeisa" and Flava D - "Tell Me". Vibe and groove oriented music is undoubtedly growing, and I like to think we're a small part of that. Any plans to take the label to America?Maybe next year if circumstances permit. Come holler at us. Pre-order Groove Booty Vol. 4 here.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ae88ek/chord-marauders-groove-booty-volume-4-b9-stream

Noisey

Vice

2016-09-19 15:37:00

2016

9.0

19

Andrew Prokop

Do terrorist attacks make a Trump win more likely? Here’s what the research suggests.

For some time, political observers have wondered — or feared — whether a major terror attack on American soil could sweep Donald Trump into the White House. The topic came up after the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando back in June. And in the wake of a new series of bombings and attempted bombings in New York City and New Jersey, and a stabbing attack in Minnesota, the question of what effect terror could have on the presidential campaign once again seems urgent. Both candidates have wasted little time speaking out on the matter. Trump quickly blamed what he characterized as the Obama administration's weakness and immigration policies for the attacks, saying in a Fox News appearance Monday, "We've been weak, our country's been weak, we're letting people in by the thousands, the tens of thousands. I've been saying we've gotta stop it." And he added that in addition to the refugees President Obama has allowed into the country so far, "Hillary Clinton wants to increase what he's let in." Clinton, meanwhile, emphasized her foreign policy experience and tried to characterize Trump's extreme language as counterproductive in combating terrorism. "I'm the only candidate in this race who's been part of the hard decisions to take terrorists off the battlefield," Clinton said in a press conference Monday. She added, "The kinds of rhetoric and language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries." Yet commentators have tended to disagree about how the aftermath of an attack is likely to play out. On the one hand, political scientist Norm Ornstein suggested to me that attacks could greatly improve Trump's poor prospects of winning, and Politico’s Blake Hounshell tweeted in March that "America may be one major terrorist attack away from Donald Trump as president." On the other, Trump is an erratic celebrity with no foreign policy experience, and the public could well instead turn to Hillary Clinton, as Jamelle Bouie, Greg Sargent, and Ross Douthat have argued. So earlier this year, I spoke with several top political scientists who have done research on this question, and reviewed their work to see what implications heightened fears of terror tend to have on voters. And according to Jennifer Merolla, a political scientist at UC Riverside who has long studied how terrorism impacts voters, her research suggests there's more reason to believe Trump would benefit than that Clinton would. "On average, our findings suggest Trump may be advantaged," Merolla told me back in April. (Though she hastened to add that, due to the experience discrepancy, "Hillary Clinton may not be as disadvantaged as other Democrats.") Trump’s biggest strengths on the terror issue are that he is a member of the more hawkish party, he uses more aggressive rhetoric, and he may be perceived as a "stronger leader." Plus, sadly enough, some research indicates that even his gender could be an advantage over Clinton when voters’ fear of terror is high. So in a vacuum, there are many reasons to expect Trump to benefit. "Whenever terrorism is in the news, one way people cope with their anxiety and anger is to look for a leader to protect them — and, in a crisis context, to rescue them," Merolla said. Still, in many ways Trump of course isn’t a typical Republican candidate, and that he might not benefit to the same degree that ordinary Republicans might. In July, political scientists Bethany Albertson and Shana Kushner Gadarian made the case in Vox that Trump's lack of expertise and his generally unpopular policy proposals on terrorism would give the advantage on the issue to Clinton. Their experimental research found that voters are more likely to be convinced by politicians that offer solutions rather than politicians who mainly hype threats. (Of course, it is also possible that voters may become persuaded that Trump's proposed ban on Muslim immigration is a "solution.") Trump is also far more likely to use intemperate and extreme rhetoric than the typical candidate, which could turn off voters. For instance, after the Orlando shootings, Trump conspiratorially implied that President Obama may sympathize with the attackers. "The problem is that Trump is kinda this animal that doesn’t behave how people running for president usually behave," Michael Koch, a political scientist at Texas A&M University, told me in April. Of course, every terror incident has its own specific circumstances, and we can’t know whether any particular one will strike a chord with the public in any particular way. It's also hard to disentangle effects any one event might have on the polls — Clinton's lead over Trump did drop by a few points in the weeks after the Orlando shooting, but other topics were in the news too, like the FBI's announcement on its investigation into her emails and Bernie Sanders's then-refusal to endorse Clinton. "It depends on the details, and on how these things are spun," Koch, speaking when the question was still hypothetical, said. "But especially if you could spin it as a Democratic failure, or link it to failures of the Obama administration, it might advantage Trump." And that’s just what Trump is trying to do. Perhaps the biggest reason to expect that Trump's support would rise after a terror attack is, simply, the party he belongs to. Polls consistently show that more Americans trust the Republican Party to effectively deal with terrorism than the Democrats. For instance, a Pew poll earlier last month gave Republicans a 9-point advantage on the question of which party would more effectively deal with "the terrorist threat at home." (Forty-six percent of respondents thought the GOP would do a better job, and just 37 percent thought Democrats would.) Furthermore, both experimental and real-world studies have tended to show that in the US and abroad, the major party with a more hawkish reputation usually benefits when international terror becomes a major concern. For instance, Koch, Laron Williams, and Jason Smith studied how quickly various parliamentary governments lost their majority coalitions after transnational terrorist attacks in a 2012 paper. What they found was that right-leaning governments had an easier time holding on to power than left-leaning governments did. It seems the left gets more blame for terrorist attacks that occur under its watch. Then there's evidence from Israel that indicates that terror helps the right at the ballot box. Claude Berrebi and Esteban Klor found that a terror attack in an Israeli locality shortly before the election causes, on average, "an increase of 1.35 percentage points on that locality’s support for the right bloc of political parties." And Anna Getmansky and Thomas Zeitzoff found that after rockets are fired into areas of Israel, even if there are no casualties, support for right-wing parties spikes in those areas by 2 to 6 percent. Finally, you might think the "rally 'round the flag effect" — the idea that public approval of the incumbent shoots up when terror becomes a major issue, as occurred for George W. Bush after 9/11 — could benefit Democrats, since they're the party that holds power right now. Yet Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister have found evidence suggesting that Democrats, as the more dovish party, wouldn't necessarily get that boost. In a 2013 paper, they looked at both survey data comparing times when terror fears are high with times when they aren't, and findings from a lab experiment "priming" only some subjects with the topic of terror. "We find consistent evidence that evaluations of President Obama’s job performance at worst suffer, and at best are unaffected, when people are worried about terrorism," they concluded. Now, there are occasional examples that cut the other way. The Spanish elections of 2004, three days after the Madrid train bombings, seem to have hurt the right and swept a left-wing challenger party to power. These do appear to be the exception, though. Though Donald Trump has closed in on Hillary Clinton in polls lately, he remains extremely unpopular among the public — he's the most unpopular major party presidential nominee in decades of polling. Still, Trump's outspokenness and bluster do appear to have accomplished something important — they've convinced many voters that he's "tough." Two polls earlier this year, for instance — from CBS/New York Times, and ABC/the Washington Post — show Trump and Clinton essentially tied on the question of which would be a stronger leader. A third, from Fox News, found Trump heavily advantaged on the question compared with Clinton — 59 percent of respondents in that poll thought he was a "strong leader," compared with just 38 percent who thought he wasn't. (Clinton's split was 49 to 50.) Merolla and her colleagues have found that when a terror threat looms, this question of "leadership" becomes paramount. In three experimental studies involving three different elections between 2004 and 2008, they found that when undergraduate subjects were primed to think about the threat of terrorism (by either viewing a short video or reading an article), they were more likely to say they'd vote for the candidate they viewed as a better "leader." "Crisis situations evoke feelings of distress, anxiety, and hopelessness, which draw citizens to leaders who promise to deliver better times," Merolla and her co-authors have written. "Charismatic leaders surface in times of crisis because they are seen as saviors and are perceived to have a unique ability to improve a critical situation." Furthermore, in a 2004 study, psychologist Florette Cohen and several co-authors found that if subjects were spurred to think of their own mortality, they then said they'd be more likely to support a hypothetical politician with a charismatic leadership style — one who stresses the importance of bold risk-taking as well as "vision" and "identity of the group." Sound familiar? In Cohen’s study, this "charismatic" leader is contrasted with a hypothetical "task-oriented leader" whose strengths are about effectively achieving goals, and a "relationship-oriented" leader whose strengths are "treating followers compassionately and respectfully" — both of which have often been used to characterize Hillary Clinton’s style of leadership. When people are thinking about their own deaths, they apparently have little time for such niceties. When fears of terrorism and death come into people's minds, all sorts of primal feelings can come with them. And Merolla says gender stereotypes might be among them. "We’ve done some work on what effect terrorism has on evaluations of female candidates," Merolla told me. "And in some of that work, we’ve found that Democratic female candidates are particularly disadvantaged when terrorism is in the news. Because of party stereotypes and gender stereotypes, they're perceived as being weaker." In a study conducted in 2005, Merolla and two co-authors again primed terror fears for certain groups of undergraduates. They asked whether their subjects believed that "[m]en make better political leaders than women do," and found that those who viewed a brief presentation about terrorism were more likely to say they did. The researchers went on to ask respondents what they thought of various political figures — but the results didn't show a simple sexist swing. On the Republican side, both George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice were viewed more favorably when terrorism was primed. Yet on the Democratic side, views of John Kerry didn't change all that much — but views of Hillary Clinton became sharply worse. But the news isn't all bad for Clinton here. Keep in mind that this was before she served as secretary of state — so it's possible that it was mainly her relative lack of experience, not sexism, that explains the different effects for her and Kerry here. (Kerry had, after all, served in the military and had been his party's presidential nominee.) Indeed, Merolla told me that she and her colleagues conducted a similar follow-up study in 2012, after Clinton had gained foreign policy experience. "We have not published this result yet, but we do not find the same negative effect on Clinton as we did in our earlier study," she says. (She did, however, find a negative effect on views of Nancy Pelosi.) Still, perceptions of Clinton didn't significantly improve, either — Clinton didn't get the same boost that Bush or Rice did in the earlier study. Now, there are limitations to studies like Merolla's — they take place in an artificial lab setting instead of the far more complex real world, and the usual subjects (undergraduates) aren’t representative of the electorate as a whole. Still, they are bolstered by that real-world evidence that terrorism often benefits the right politically, like the studies of Israel and parliamentary governments. Furthermore, if merely bringing up the possibility of terrorist attacks is enough to produce these effects in a lab among liberal-leaning undergraduates, the response to an actual attack in the country could well be even more pronounced. The bigger drawback is, unavoidably, that Trump’s uniqueness as a candidate gives us very little precedent for evaluating how his singular features — his erraticism, his penchant for conspiracy theories, and the fact that he's never held political office — could help or hurt him. Still, to be confident that Trump wouldn't be helped by a terror attack, you basically have to assume he's not an ordinary Republican candidate and that the electorate won't view him as such. Even though, since he’s clinched the nomination, the polls have gotten closer and the vast majority of GOP voters have fallen behind him. And keep in mind Michael Koch's comments that "if you could spin it as a Democratic failure, or link it to failures of the Obama administration, it might advantage Trump." That’s just what Trump is trying to do, painting President Obama’s failure to condemn "radical Islam" as emblematic of a deeper refusal to be "tough" enough to protect Americans. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough Again, no one can say for sure how the politics of the New York attack, or any possible future attack, will play out. Perhaps the simplistic solution of an immigration crackdown that Trump is peddling will in fact prove popular. Or perhaps the public will be repelled by Trump's conspiratorial rumblings that Obama might be sympathetic to the terrorists. Still, the underlying research here suggests it certainly could have the potential to be a perilous moment for the Clinton campaign — if Trump’s own shortcomings don't hold him back. This article was originally published in June. It has been updated to reflect recent events.

https://www.vox.com/2016/6/14/11380320/donald-trump-terrorism-election-political-science

Vox

2016-12-05 15:32:00

2016

12.0

5

Dave Brown

​Seahawks' Earl Thomas Breaks Leg, Ponders Retirement

After sustaining a broken leg Sunday night in a mid-air collision with teammate Kam Chancellor, Seattle Seahawks safety Earl Thomas did not wait for the end of the game to let the world know how he was feeling: like his career was over: In a freak moment of happenstance, Thomas crashed into Chancellor's leg in the second quarter of Seattle's 40-7 demolition of Carolina. Thomas, a five-time Pro Bowler who has been one of the best players in a frequently dominant unit, has a break in his left tibia, and probably will miss the rest of the season. The enormity of the moment understandably got to Thomas, and he fired off a tweet from the locker room implying retirement. He's just 27 and such a move seems rash, but pro football is a rough game and more and more players are retiring earlier than expected, including Thomas's former teammate Marshawn Lynch, who happened to be on the Seattle sideline last night. So he very well could have meant what he said, and he could stick to it. He also wants his teammate to pick him up some dinner now, too: Gallows humor is the best humor. Also: The NFL, the Bill Lumbergh of professional sports leagues, probably will obnoxiously fine Thomas. Since 2009, the league has banned in-game tweets.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkyq95/seahawks-earl-thomas-breaks-leg-ponders-retirement

Sports

Vice

2016-08-02 12:40:04

2016

8.0

2

Alvin Chang

We can't fix policing without talking about race. This cartoon explains why.

Black and white Americans experience law enforcement in fundamentally different ways. We know this because of data. Police hassle and question black people more frequently. Police use force against black people more frequently . And police are disproportionately likely to kill a black person than a white person. Some Americans are uncomfortable talking about police reform in the context of race, and have urged reform so that policing can be better for everyone. But the problem is that, throughout American history, law enforcement has always been unfair to an underclass of people — and today that divide is most pronounced along racial lines. And it’s caused this split in how black and white Americans feel about police: These feelings are important because, in order for police to do their job, a community has to comply with them. And they will only willingly comply if they approve of police actions. This is what is called "legitimacy," and it's what gives modern police their authority in a democratic society. But as the data shows, police are more likely to treat blacks poorly and, in turn, blacks are more likely have a legitimacy problem with police. Meanwhile, white Americans tend to be treated much better, so in turn they give more legitimacy to police. So that's what this comic is about: The gap between how black and white Americans view police — how there has always been a group of Americans who believe the police to be a legitimate and rightful institution; how there has always been a group who have painful anecdotes to reject that notion; and how we can fix it. If police need legitimacy to do their jobs, then they need to figure out how to earn it. But what does it take to earn it? In 2008, Yale law professor Tracey Meares conducted an experiment to find out. She led a group of researchers who took about 1,400 people and showed them videos of police encounters. But before each video, they split participants into three groups and gave them different information to frame the police actions as either lawful, unlawful, or ambiguous. The participants weren't necessarily told if the situations were legal or not, but it was enough that most lawyers would agree whether or not it was constitutional. After researchers primed the participants with this information, they showed the three videos: Afterward, the participants were asked various questions, including whether or not they wanted to punish the police officers in the video. The goal was to figure out what people considered rightful policing. The researchers also asked about things that didn't have to do with legalities, like how fair, transparent, and respectful the officers were during the encounters — something called "procedural justice." In short, this is the part of policing that isn’t in the law books. Rather, it’s about how police officers interact with people. Then the researchers adjusted for a participant’s previous interaction with police, so it wouldn’t skew the results. It turns out that participants didn’t care that much about what is technically legal when deciding to punish an officer. Rather, they cared about procedural justice — or lack thereof. "Even when the public says that they care about legality, and they do say that, our research suggests that the way they construct legality actually has nothing or very little to do with how lawyers think about that," said Meares, the Yale researcher who also recently served on President Obama's police task force. To model this point, she often includes this diagram in her work: In another study, Yale and Columbia University researchers surveyed about 1,300 men between the ages of 18 to 26 from diverse neighborhoods in New York. They asked them about their history with police, including how often they were stopped by cops. And then they asked them to rate how legitimate they perceived police to be. What they found was, after adjusting the responses for a respondent’s criminal history, people gave less legitimacy to police when they had been stopped by police more often. This hints that when police hassle people excessively, they lose legitimacy. In addition, their research backed up Meares’s study in finding that the most important factor for legitimacy was procedural justice — and that both black people and white people valued it greatly. Meanwhile, the thing that hurt legitimacy most was if a stop was intrusive, which is an example of low procedural justice. The policing Americans want isn’t necessarily the kind that is written in law. Rather, it’s about the way people are treated during the encounters — and we generally agree what this "rightful" policing looks like. But as shown at the top of this story, black people are far less likely to experience rightful policing. They are more likely to be stopped, pushed into a wall, and even killed. That’s why the president's police task force, as well as activist groups like Campaign Zero, have tried to frame police reform around ways to encourage procedural justice. While this doesn't give us an exact roadmap, it does show us what is broken about the everyday encounters between police and their communities — and how fixing that goes a long way toward building trust. If the job of police is to keep communities safe, then it only makes sense to judge their performance on crime data. And in the last 25 years, violent crime has been cut in half. There are many theories as to why, but a Brennan Center study found that more police officers, paired with data-driven technology like CompStat, was the biggest factor. It allowed for more efficient and more focused policing. But policing wasn’t always efficient, and it wasn’t always this professionalized. This era came about after generations of rich and powerful people used police for their own gain. In the early 1900s, police chiefs were appointed by politicians, and police officers often took payoffs. The institution was widely corrupt. But in the 1950s, police leaders pushed back and implemented strategies that gave us the institution we know today. This is what's called the "professionalization" of police, which brought about military efficiency and organization of local police, as well as preventative tactics to reduce crime. However, it turns out the point of policing isn’t just to reduce crime numbers. Meares, the Yale law professor, says that while these policing tactic may have reduced crime numbers, it also encouraged aggressive policing — and that destroyed the trust between communities and police, a trust that allows police to do their jobs. "Research is clear that how people are treated is central to how they view police and other legal authorities — even more than whether police are effective at reducing crime," Meares wrote in the Washington Post. "That’s because people do not simply experience police interactions; they also learn from them." We had inklings this was true a long time ago, which is partially why "community policing" exists. It encourages police to be a part of the neighborhoods they protect in order to rebuild that trust, instead of swooping in to enforce minor violations. But despite huge investments from the federal government, a recent review found that many departments treated community policing as a "buzzword." And at police academies in the US, community policing strategies continue to be a small part of the curriculum. When you ask Americans about specific police reforms — like putting body cameras on officers — most support the proposals. But if you ask them about Black Lives Matter, only 14 percent of white people strongly support it, versus 41 percent of black people — even though this movement pushes for many of the same proposals Americans widely support. The difference, however, is that it urges police reform in the context of race. Some Americans are trying to decouple the issues of policing and race, often retorting by saying "All Lives Matter." But as the data shows, these two things are linked in such a way that it's silly to talk about police reform while ignoring race. Meanwhile, some Americans believe this movement is a sharp critique of police officers themselves, and not the institution. But Ron Davis, who was director of President Obama’s police task force and served 28 years as an officer, says these are two separate things. "Even if you have great cops, if the systems are bad, they're still going to have terrible outcomes," he said. It's tempting to think that we just need to restore the justice that existed before police brutality came to the limelight. And it was especially tempting after the recent spate of police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota — and the subsequent targeting of police officers. It felt like this problem was spinning out of control. It's a common sentiment, and one that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has embraced. "We have to give power back to the police because crime is rampant," Trump told NBC. But what's crucial to understand is that we've never had this justice before. In fact, the very early days of policing were founded on targeting immigrants, minorities, and the poor. In many cities, early police were often used to rein in labor strikes as work conditions deteriorated. In the South, the root of early law enforcement was slave patrol, responsible for quelling revolts, pursuing runaway slaves, and disciplining slaves who broke plantation rules. Later on, after slavery was outlawed, police enforced Jim Crow laws. In short, law enforcement as an institution has always favored the rich and powerful — and it has always given less value to the lives of the marginalized. Throughout American history, this treatment has created an underclass of people who are criminalized, isolated, and labeled as inherently dangerous, says criminologist Gary Potter. And while overt expressions of racism and classism have mostly faded, there are still enough unspoken hints that create this underclass. Meares writes, "On the streets, the hidden curriculum of policing can be seen in how people are treated in interactions with law enforcement. Too often this hidden curriculum sends certain citizens signals that they are members of a special, dangerous, and undesirable class." So when we talk about police reform, what we're trying to figure out is how fair and just law enforcement can exist in America, and how it can be a legitimate institution for everyone, and not a source of fear — all for the very first time.

https://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12316922/police-legitimacy-cartoon

Vox

2018-05-24 15:05:17

2018

5.0

24

David Roberts

Meet the microgrid, the technology poised to transform electricity

If we want a livable climate for future generations, we need to slow, stop, and reverse the rise in global temperatures. To do that, we need to stop burning fossil fuels for energy. To do that, we need to generate lots of carbon-free electricity and get as many of our energy uses as possible (including transportation and industry) hooked up to the electricity grid. Electrify everything! We need a greener grid. But that’s not all. The highly digital modern world also demands a more reliable grid, capable of providing high-quality power to facilities like hospitals or data centers, where even brief brownouts can cost money or lives. The renewable energy sources with the most potential — wind and solar — are variable, which means that they come and go on nature’s schedule, not ours. They ramp up and down with the weather, so integrating them into the grid while maintaining (and improving) reliability means finding clever ways to balance out their swings. Finally, recent blackouts in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria highlight the need for a more resilient grid — one that can get back up and running quickly (at least for essential sites) after a disaster or attack. It’s a triple challenge: We need, all at once, a greener, more reliable, more resilient electricity grid. But hark! Lo! There is a technology, or a set of technologies, that promises one day to be a triple solution — to address all three of the grid’s needs at once. We speak of the humble microgrid. Technically, a grid is any combination of power sources, power users, wires to connect them, and some sort of control system to operate it all. Microgrid just means a small, freestanding grid. It can consist of several buildings, one small building (sometimes called a “nanogrid”), or even one person (a “picogrid”) with a backpack solar panel, an iPhone, and some headphones. The research firm GTM counts “1,900 basic and advanced, operational and planned microgrids” in the US, with the market expected to grow quickly. Most microgrids today are basic, one-generator affairs, but more complex microgrids are popping up all over — there’s a cool one in Brooklyn, a cool one on Alcatraz Island, and the coolest one of all in Sonoma, California. Microgrids also play a big role in plans to rebuild Puerto Rico’s grid. Let’s take a quick tour of microgrids and their potential. Some microgrids stand on their own, apart from any larger grid, often in remote rural areas. These off-grid microgrids are a relatively cheap and quick way to secure some access to power for people who now lack it, often more quickly than large, centralized grids can be extended. Most microgrids, especially in wealthier nations, are grid-connected — they are embedded inside a bigger grid, like any other utility customer. All the examples cited above fit this bill. What makes a microgrid a microgrid is that it can flip a switch (or switches) and “island” itself from its parent grid in the event of a blackout. This enables it to provide those connected to it with (at least temporary) backup power. Again, most actually existing microgrids are extremely basic — think of a hospital with a diesel generator in the basement, or a big industrial facility with a combined-heat-and-power (CHP) facility on site that can provide some heat and power during a blackout. Microgrids won’t be a core part of the clean-energy transition until they serve all three grid needs — greener, more reliable, more resilient. Right now, most microgrids around the world rely on diesel generators, which are polluting and loud, so they’re not very green. (In the US, the primary sources are CHP and natural gas.) They only turn on once the grid is down, so they don’t help with day-to-day reliability. Of the three grid needs, most serve only resilience, and only for those lucky enough to be connected to one. As basic as most of them are today, microgrids hold great promise for the future. Technology is rapidly expanding the possibilities. Smart design and software can create microgrids specifically designed to integrate distributed renewable energy, or microgrids designed to provide “six nines” (99.9999 percent) reliability, or microgrids designed for maximum resilience. There are even “nested” microgrids within microgrids. Smarter microgrids can communicate on an ongoing basis with their parent grids, forming a beautiful friendship. By aggregating together distributed, small-scale resources (solar panels, batteries, fuel cells, smart appliances and HVAC systems, etc.), a microgrid can present to the larger grid as a single entity — a kind of Voltron composed of distributed energy technologies. This makes things easier on grid operators. They don’t necessarily relish the idea of communicating directly with millions (or billions) of discrete generators, buildings, and devices. It’s an overwhelming amount of data to assimilate. Microgrids can gather those smaller resources together into discrete, more manageable and predictable chunks. Grid operators can put these chunks to good use. A smart microgrid can provide “grid services” — storing energy when it’s cheap, providing energy when it’s expensive, serving as backup capacity, or smoothing out frequency and voltage fluctuations. [*see footnote] A single smart microgrid, aggregating diverse, distributed low-carbon resources, can provide cheap, clean, reliable power to those within it. It can also provide grid services to the larger grid around it. What really tickles the imagination is a grid that contains dozens or hundreds of networked microgrids — even a grid that is someday composed of networked microgrids. This kind of “modular architecture,” with multiple semi-autonomous nodes operating in parallel, is more secure and efficient than a centralized system with a few, large points of failure. Microgrids may never eliminate the need for large utilities, power plants, and transmission lines, but moving more power generation, management, and consumption under local control makes everyone less dependent on them. And it makes the grid greener, more reliable, and resilient — a three’fer. There are other ways of aggregating small-scale distributed energy resources that do not involve a physical switch that can island them off from the grid. These “virtual” aggregations can gather together multiple small resources (batteries, solar panels, whatever) and treat the result as a single unit that participates in grid-services markets. “Virtual power plants” offer lots of benefits, to participants and to the grid, but they do not offer the core microgrid value proposition: resilience, i.e., independence from the larger grid in times of need. One of us [Dave waves] will be writing more about microgrids soon. In the meantime, there are a gazillion reports floating around. A selection:

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/15/16714146/greener-more-reliable-more-resilient-grid-microgrids

Vox

2017-10-11 00:00:00

2017

10.0

11

David Gilbert

The world will have more obese kids than underweight kids by 2022

A bombshell report by the World Health Organization warns of the alarming rate of obesity in young people around the world: It has increased tenfold over the past four decades, with obese children set to exceed the number of underweight children by 2022. Some 124 million young people aged between 5 and 19 are now obese, the research claims. Another 213 million are overweight but fall short of the obesity threshold. The WHO defines obesity on the basis of body mass index — calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters. For example, a 19-year old with a BMI of 25 is said to be overweight, while someone with a BMI of 30 is deemed obese. Conducted by the WHO in conjunction with Imperial College London and published Wednesday in the Lancet, the study looked at more than 130 million people aged over 5 — the largest number of participants ever involved in an epidemiological study. While obesity levels in some wealthy European countries have stabilized, in the developing world the crisis is “ballooning.” China and India have seen huge spikes in childhood obesity in recent years, alongside countries in the Middle East and North Africa. A bombshell report by the World Health Organization warns of the alarming rate of obesity in young people around the world: It has increased tenfold over the past four decades, with obese children set to exceed the number of underweight children by 2022. Some 124 million young people aged between 5 and 19 are now obese, the research claims. Another 213 million are overweight but fall short of the obesity threshold. The WHO defines obesity on the basis of body mass index — calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters. For example, a 19-year old with a BMI of 25 is said to be overweight, while someone with a BMI of 30 is deemed obese. Conducted by the WHO in conjunction with Imperial College London and published Wednesday in the Lancet, the study looked at more than 130 million people aged over 5 — the largest number of participants ever involved in an epidemiological study. While obesity levels in some wealthy European countries have stabilized, in the developing world the crisis is “ballooning.” China and India have seen huge spikes in childhood obesity in recent years, alongside countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Polynesia and Micronesia recorded the highest rate of childhood obesity, with a quarter of its young population classed as obese. However, high-income English-speaking countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the U.K., also registered crisis levels of obesity. In a bid to tackle this crisis, some of the countries have introduced a “sugar tax” to increase the piece of high-sugar foods and drinks. Girls in the U.S. had the 15th highest obesity rate in the world. American boys registered 12th. The global cost of treating health issues linked to obesity — including type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some forms of cancer — would surpass $1.2 trillion every year from 2025, the World Obesity Federation warned Tuesday. Imperial’s Professor Majid Ezzati, lead author of the report, blamed the endemic on the availability of cheap, high-calorie food. “These worrying trends reflect the impact of food marketing and policies across the globe, with healthy nutritious foods too expensive for poor families and communities,” Ezzati said.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/pazqmn/the-world-will-have-more-obese-kids-than-underweight-kids-by-2022

Vice News

2018-09-27 00:00:00

2018

9.0

27

Rex Santus

GOP-appointed prosecutor attempts to discredit Christine Blasey Ford by proving she’s been on a plane

The prosecutor Republicans hired to question Christine Blasey Ford is trying to discredit her by proving she’s been on a plane before. In an unusual move, the 11 male Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee appointed sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Ford at the Thursday hearing about her allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Mitchell, in an apparent attempt to poke holes in Ford’s credibility, pointed to press reports that Ford had expressed a fear of flying as one of her reasons for not immediately coming to Washington, D.C., to testify before the committee. She then pointed to numerous vacations and work trips that Ford had taken in the past as evidence that Ford had been on a plane before. Read: Christine Blasey Ford, a memory expert, says she remembers who attacked her just fine Republican pundits have pointed to Ford’s fear of planes as evidence that she may be trying to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation, apparently unaware that people with a fear of flying can still get on a plane. The prosecutor Republicans hired to question Christine Blasey Ford is trying to discredit her by proving she’s been on a plane before. In an unusual move, the 11 male Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee appointed sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Ford at the Thursday hearing about her allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Mitchell, in an apparent attempt to poke holes in Ford’s credibility, pointed to press reports that Ford had expressed a fear of flying as one of her reasons for not immediately coming to Washington, D.C., to testify before the committee. She then pointed to numerous vacations and work trips that Ford had taken in the past as evidence that Ford had been on a plane before. Read: Christine Blasey Ford, a memory expert, says she remembers who attacked her just fine Republican pundits have pointed to Ford’s fear of planes as evidence that she may be trying to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation, apparently unaware that people with a fear of flying can still get on a plane. Ford responded by calling flights “anxiety-inducing” but noted that a plane taking you to a vacation is less nerve-wracking than one taking you to testify about assault allegations on television. "I was able to get up the gumption with the help of some friends and get on the plane," Ford said. Mitchell also asked a series of questions about the Senate Republican's offer to send staff to interview her in California — presumably so she wouldn't have to fly. Ford said that she didn't completely understand the offer but would have gladly hosted Senate staff to her home. Read: Why an FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh almost certainly won't happen The questioning was in line with the Republicans' strategy of asking Ford about all kinds of details around the alleged attempted rape in 1982 and not the incident itself. The president's son approved. Democrats have criticized the Republican appointment of a prosecutor to question Ford, who is not on trial. When Anita Hill, for example, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, GOP senators asked questions themselves. Cover: Christine Blasey Ford at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. A professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Ford has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz53zw/gop-appointed-prosecutor-attempts-to-discredit-christine-blasey-ford-by-proving-shes-been-on-a-plane

Vice News

2019-07-01 00:00:00

2019

7.0

1

S.Korean trade official says Japan's export curbs violate WTO rules

SEOUL, July 1 (Reuters) - Japan’s decision to tighten curbs on tech material exports to South Korea violates World Trade Organization rules and Seoul would respond firmly, a senior official at South Korea’s trade ministry said on Monday. “This export control measure by Japan is a measure that is banned in principle according to WTO agreements,” Park Tae-sung, a senior South Korean trade ministry official, told reporters. “We find such measure by the Japanese government regrettable,” Park said. (Reporting by Ju-min Park and Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Sam Holmes)

https://www.reuters.com/article/southkorea-japan-labourers-trade/skorean-trade-official-says-japans-export-curbs-violate-wto-rules-idUSS6N21D00H

Industrials

Reuters

2018-03-23 17:00:00

2018

3.0

23

Steven Blum

Shortages of Injectable Estrogen Are Screwing Over Trans Women

When Mel Cohen first began injecting estrogen, the benefits were immediate. “It was like night and day,” she says. “I went from being suicidal to having so much energy and a clear head for the first time in a long time.” Hormone therapy, along with facial feminization and gender confirmation surgery, goes a long way towards making male-to-female trans people feel at home in their bodies. Whether injected, swallowed, or applied as a transdermal patch, the medication increases breast tissue, decreases sperm production, thins body hair, and softens skin. Like other trans women, Mel found that injecting estrogen, rather than taking it in its pill form, resulted in a more dramatic physical transformation in a shorter period of time. “I was starting to see a lot of changes in my body—my hips were finally appearing, and I had some significant breast growth,” she says. “It felt like I was finally having a breakthrough.” But over the past few months, Cohen has been unable to refill her prescription for the drug that’s saved her psyche. She spends her days calling local pharmacies in her newly adopted neighborhood in Pittsburgh as well as in her hometown of Detroit. No pharmacy has injectable estrogen in stock. Cohen isn’t alone. Across the country, trans people say that their lives have been upended by the sporadic availability of a drug that alleviates their gender dysphoria (or the persistent feeling that their bodies don’t belong to them). While a shortage of the active ingredients used by one brand of injectable estrogen was resolved in 2016, trans people say the broader supply of estrogen still remains frustratingly out of reach in different parts of the country. “There was a three month period where I could not hear of anyone finding injectable estrogen in the 20/dl dosage,” says Olivia Danforth, a trans primary care physician in Oregon specializing in trans health. “Now, it’s more like scattered, unpredictable scarcity with even less explanation.” The World Professional Association for Transgender Health says hormone therapy is a medical necessity for those with “persistent, well-documented gender dysphoria,” and it can be especially helpful for those who don’t feel comfortable presenting as non-binary. After four months on injections, Lauren Walker says she was starting to feel more like herself. “I finally had thinner body hair and the fat on my face was redistributing,” she says. But when she ran out and was unable to refill her prescription, it felt like a slide back into stasis. “It’s frustrating,” she says. “It’s another setback after years and years of feeling like I have had to compromise my transition due to forces outside my control.” Those who can’t find injectable estrogen in their zip code are more likely to turn to the black market for DIY injections, relying on dark web marketplaces like Valhalla to refill their medications. Even on Amazon and eBay, you can find “feminizing supplements” for men. One, called “Ova-Glan” promises to help buyers “achieve maximum feminine results.” On Reddit, trans people also look for vials in far-flung cities. “Am I just screwed and need to just go back to tablets?” one comment reads. “Or is there something I'm missing here? Or a prominent pharmacy that I haven't thought of?” In response to inquiries like these, users trade tips on Sam’s Clubs or Rite Aids that haven’t run out of stock yet, discuss how to ration the medications they’ve already secured and share advice on compounding pharmacies, which can produce estrogen injections in-house, but have spotty records with regard to sterility. The market for estrogen injections is dominated by two manufacturers. Delestrogen, the brand name-version of the drug, is manufactured by Par Pharmaceuticals, while Estradiol Valerate, a generic, is made by Perrigo. In larger cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Delestrogen seems to be widely available, but it can be prohibitively expensive. Estradiol Valerate, in comparison, is significantly less expensive but seems to be almost completely unavailable. (The FDA’s website lists the drug as “currently in shortage” but provides no further information about when the shortage might be resolved.) More from VICE: Anthony Fortenberry, the chief nursing officer at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, says his clinic is out of generic injectable estrogen and that the patients he serves are having to pay for the brand name version out-of-pocket. “The populations we serve tend to be more disenfranchised and don’t necessarily have the resources to pay out-of-pocket,” he adds. “This is also increases the risk that patients will purchase medications on the street or share with friends and that increases the dangers for many reasons.” Fortenberry believes distributors favor higher-utilizing markets like New York and that’s why the city hasn’t run out of the brand name version of the drug. “But what that means is that a rural area in Pennsylvania might see a shortage [of both drugs] sooner.” In response to an inquiry from Tonic, a representative for Delestrogen said that the company has “plenty of supply to support the market” while Perrigo, the makers of Estradiol Valerate, said they had “no comment” on claims of a shortage. But in one Reddit post, a user wrote that he received an official response from Perrigo saying that the company had “temporarily discontinued” producing generic estrogen. Advocacy groups believe pushing the FDA towards approving injectable estrogen for use in feminization therapy would go a long way towards ending these shortages for good. So far, due to lack of funding and interest, there’s a dearth of studies even looking at the benefits of injections over pills. (By contrast, there are over 17 estrogen medications with approval from the FDA for cisgender menopausal women.) Because of the lack of studies, doctors and patients are forced to rely on anecdotal evidence when deciding between treatments. “You can put two different people on medications and they’ll have radically different timelines and experiences,” Fortenbery says. “Someone might have facial changes, someone might have muscle changes, and someone might not get the results they’re looking for. It’s very specific to the individual.” Rahne Alexander, an artist in Baltimore, has been taking injectable estrogen off-and-on for the past twenty years. “It goes through ebbs and flows, but in recent years we’ve been seeing more of these shortages happening. They come with no real notice—I’ll go to refill my prescription and I just can’t.” She believes injectable estrogen is easier on her liver, “but the lack of stability is a really hard thing. I know I’m not the only one who’s struggling to manage her own stability and mental health throughout this. You know, often it just feels like a very isolating sort of circumstance.” Alexander says the burden is entirely on trans people to lobby and advocate for themselves, a process she calls “exhausting.” Roughly a third of all trans people say they’ve faced discrimination in a doctor’s office, and half say they’ve had to educate their own doctors about hormone replacement therapy. Those in rural areas are often at the greatest disadvantage. In the past, when she’s run out of meds, Alexander says she’s felt despondent, “like everything was moving slower. It was harder just to connect with people and do the things I needed to do in any given day.” “I’m in an apocalyptic headspace these days,” she adds. “I wonder what will happen when the few companies making these injections just stop. Because we’re such a small population, if a company decided they didn’t want to support us anymore, they could just do that. And what do we do then? If they’re not being regulated or compelled to serve us with this thing we need, what are we going to do?” Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of Tonic delivered to your inbox weekly.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbxe3x/shortages-of-injectable-estrogen-are-screwing-over-trans-women

Health

Vice

2017-09-28 00:00:00

2017

9.0

28

Reuters Staff

Health Secretary Price believes has president's confidence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said on Thursday he believed he still had President Trump’s confidence, a day after the president said he was not happy with Price over reports he had used private planes for official travel. “I think we’ve still got the confidence of the president,” Price told reporters who asked whether he expected to be fired over the matter. “We’re going to work through this,” he said, following a public event in Washington about the flu season. Price has taken at least two dozen private charter flights since May at a cost to taxpayers of about $300,000, according to Politico, which first reported the travel. Trump said on Wednesday he was looking into the matter, as is a U.S. House of Representatives committee. HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said on Wednesday that Price has “heard the criticism and concerns” over his travel, adding, “he takes that very seriously and has taken it to heart.” She added that Price has initiated an internal departmental review of travel procedures. The HHS inspector general has also announced a review of Price’s travel on chartered aircraft. Two other senior U.S. officials also face scrutiny over their travels. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General is reviewing the circumstances of Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s use of a government plane to fly to Kentucky in August for a visit to Louisville and Fort Knox. Mnuchin and his wife viewed the solar eclipse during the trip. Mnuchin was asked Thursday on the “CBS This Morning” program if he would promise to ride commercial airlines for the rest of his tenure as Treasury secretary. “I can promise the American taxpayer the only time that I will be using (military) air is when there are issues either for national security or where we have to get various different things (and) there’s no other means,” he said. The frequent travels of Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to Oklahoma are being investigated by that agency’s inspector general. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Pruitt is said to have taken at least four noncommercial and military flights since mid-February, costing taxpayers more than $58,000.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-price/health-secretary-price-believes-has-presidents-confidence-idUSKCN1C325C

Politics

Reuters

2017-06-07 12:50:02

2017

6.0

7

Rebecca Tan

One of the London attackers was in a British documentary on Islamic extremism

A 2016 British documentary about Islamist extremism in the UK is roaring back into the news for a surprising and profoundly depressing reason: Two militants featured in the film, including one responsible for Saturday’s lethal assault in central London, have now gone on to carry out terror attacks in the name of Islamic extremism. Khuram Shazad Butt, now known to be “a heavyweight figure” in the UK-based extremist group al-Muhajiroun, was the leader of the three terrorists who rammed into pedestrians on London Bridge with a van on Saturday. He appears briefly in a Channel 4 documentary titled — believe it or not — The Jihadis Next Door. This film is chilling even without knowing that you’re watching two people who are now known terrorists. Figures in the film who are identified as bus drivers, waiters, and business owners exchange blows with British police and give ominous warnings to the public that “things have to change.” Butt appears at 14:49 in the documentary. He’s shown following an extremist Muslim preacher known as Abu Haleema into Regent’s Park and asking out loud if “anyone’s got a smartphone” so the group can use the compass to determine the direction for prayer. Later, Butt helps set up a black flag (a common symbol for Islamic militancy and now notoriously co-opted by the Islamic State) on top of a speaker before lining up in a row with six other men to participate in a prayer ritual led by Haleema, who chants, “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is the greatest”) out loud. Let’s just take a moment to digest this: Butt was not only living in the UK but was literally in the public eye, openly advocating extremist views. More than 1.2 million people watched this documentary when it was released, which raises a disturbing question: How did the British police miss this? This question is even more baffling considering this isn’t even the first time that people from The Jihadis Next Door have gone on to commit acts of terror. Abu Rumaysah, one of the film’s central characters, was named by an official source to the BBC as an ISIS executioner in January 2016. In an ISIS propaganda video released last year, a masked man holding a gun mocks former British Prime Minister David Cameron before shooting five supposed “British spies” in the back of the head. According to Rumaysah’s sister, the audio from the clip resembles him, reported the BBC. So to recap: Two would-be terrorists appear in a 2016 British documentary openly declaring their support for Islamic extremism. One of them (Rumaysah) was arrested for spreading terrorism and then released on bail. He wasn’t supposed to have his passport, but managed to flee to Syria anyway, becoming an executioner for ISIS and leaving the British police to pick up the pieces. And after all this, it doesn’t seem that the British police paid any more attention to the documentary or the people in it. Haleema, the preacher from the film, was still active on his YouTube channel as of 11 months ago. And now Butt, as we know, has gone on to commit an unthinkable act of terror, killing 8 people and injuring over 40. It’s terrifying to think about who else might have slipped under the radar of the British police, but now, as before, the people leading the UK’s anti-terrorism efforts don’t seem willing to take accountability for this. After Rumaysah was reported as an ISIS executioner, people wondered how he was even able to leave the UK when he was still on bail, let alone join ISIS in Syria. David Anderson QC, a lawyer appointed by the government to provide independent reviews of the UK’s anti-terrorism law to Parliament, said to the BBC in 2016, "There are thousands of people who are subjects of interest. I don't know how high up the list this person was — I suspect not very near the top.” On Monday, Mark Rowley, the UK’s top counterterrorism officer, said almost exactly the same thing about Butt. Even though MI5 had been aware of the Pakistan-born terrorist, opened an investigation into him in 2015, and received multiple calls from the public about his extremism, it decided to move Butt into the “lower echelons” of counterterrorism investigations, Rowley said. He added, “I have seen nothing yet that a poor decision was made.” The UK police seemed to have missed clear red flags on both Butt and Rumaysah, but this doesn’t mean there is a simple answer for what lies ahead. Small-scale and relatively isolated terrorist attacks like the one on Saturday are very hard to stop. Their perpetrators are more volatile and tend to pull together attack plots quickly, leaving the police with less time to uncover them. This is only made more difficult by funding cuts. In March, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, an independent watchdog group for the UK police, said funding cuts have left the police in a “potentially perilous state.” This came up again on Monday when Prime Minister Theresa May dodged questions on whether the police are receiving the resources they need. Given these new constraints and challenges, it’s worth noting that the British police have done a relatively good job of weeding out terrorists: Police have reportedly disrupted five domestic terrorist plots since March. But this latest attack shows how much more the police still have to do to confront the threat. Watching this documentary — and finding out how they let it slip past them — might be a good place to start.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/7/15746186/terrorism-london-jihadists-next-door-british-police

Vox

2017-01-02 05:30:00

2017

1.0

2

DJ Pangburn

Supernatural Monsters Haunt in a Floating World

The landscape of Japanese myth is populated with all manner of ghosts, demons, the dead, and odd creatures, much of it detailed in several centuries worth of Ukiyo-e art. In Ronin Gallery’s latest exhibition, Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre, dozens of woodblock prints and paintings by Japanese artists, including masters Kuniyoshi and Yoshitosi, explore the more fantastical realms of the imaginative art form known as Ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world”. As Ronin Gallery’s David Taro Libertson tells The Creators Project, Ukiyo-e typically featured landscapes, beautiful women, nature, and famous fictional or historical figures, but these pictures of the floating world also included Yokai or ghosts, which were among the art form’s most common subjects. “The term Yokai comes from the Japanese symbols for weird or strange and are a class of supernatural monsters prevalent in Japanese folklore,” Libertson says. “While Yokai are depicted as having the capacity to bring good fortune and act as nightmarish omens, they are almost universally depicted as mischievous bordering on comical.” “More often than not they appear as something vaguely humanoid with animal traits,” he adds. “However, there are many Yokai that look like household objects and even some that have no tangible appearance at all.” Ukiyo-e, as Libertson explains, originated in China. The woodblock printmaking arrived in Japan alongside Buddhism during the 6th century. Though the technique was used to communicate Buddhist scripture, by the 17th century printmaking served as a medium in the country’s artistic renaissance. This coincided with the ruling power lying in Edo (modern day Tokyo) during the Tokugawa Shogunate, which was based in Kyoto. Merchants and consumers flowed into Edo at this time. And since they were barred from entering Japan’s samurai culture, the townspeople (chonin), developed their own culture—the “floating world”—which revolved around kabuki theaters and Yoshiwra, Edo’s legalized prostitution district. Ukiyo-e, or pictures of the floating world, emerged around 1660 in the form of monochrome prints, and tended to have erotic themes. Libertson says this primitive period, with masters like Moronubu and Masanobu, were known for elegant and vital lines. By 1700, the first color prints emerged, which were hand-colored with vegetable-based pigments. A costly process, these pigments were replaced in 1765 by full color prints, and by 1810 artists were depicting actors as individuals rather than roles. Because the Tenpo Reforms forbid depictions of Edo’s brightest stars in the mid-19th century, Libertson says that famous place pictures (Meisho-e) filled the gap. Around the same time, easing of travel restrictions and the ubiquity of landscape prints—like those by Hokusai and Hiroshige, both of whom appear in the exhibition—fueled what Libertson calls a national wanderlust. “Alongside Meisho-e, Yokai (legendary prints of ghosts, spirits, magic, etc) and Musha-e (warrior prints) sidestepped the Tenpo restrictions,” Libertson says. “As the Tokugawa Shogunate weakened, anti-authoritarian legends gained popularity. After the fall of the shogunate and the rise of the Meiji Emperor in the early 20th century, woodblock printmaking became a medium of politicization and propaganda. Western clothing and inventions spoke to the rapid modernization avidly encouraged by the emperor.” One of the undisputed masters of Ukiyo-e is Kuniyoshi Utagawa, and several of his works appear in Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre. Born in Edo to a silk dyer, Kuniyoshi first studied art under Shunei, then began studying woodblock printing under Toyokuni I at age 14. Three years later he left Toyokuni’s studio to work as an independent artist. In 1827, Kuniyoshi released his dramatic series 108 Heroes of the Suikoden, which depicted famous samurai and other legendary heroes of Japan. The public loved the work, so Kuniyoshi began championing the fierce and fantastical in his brand of Ukiyo-e. “He had a ravenous imagination and the full scope of his work reveals an aesthetic sensibility capable of assimilating almost any experience,” says Libertson. “No doubt, however, his particular genius felt most at home in the world of martial glory, where epic battles decided the fate of empires and fierce warriors clashed to the death. His imagery was so popular in his time that he received requests for tattoo designs.” Yoshitoshi Tsukioka lived a more tumultuous life. One of the last great masters of Ukiyo-e, he studied under Yosai, and suffered several mental breakdowns, one of which resulted in a stay at the Sugamo Asylum. Yoshitoshi’s breakthrough came in 1885 with 100 Aspects of the Moon, a series of 100 beautifully rendered prints that explored Japanese and Chinese legend with old and new techniques as Japan was rapidly modernizing. “Yoshitoshi’s work is known for its eerie and imaginative component,” Libertson says. “His considerable imagination and originality imbued his prints with a sensitivity and honesty rarely seen in Ukiyo-e of this time period. From ghost stories to folktales, graphic violence to the gentle glow of the moon, Yoshitoshi not only offers compositional and technical brilliance, but also unfettered passion.” The imagination and technical ability included in Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre is often stunning, as is the range of the works’ subject matter. Horiyoshi III’s Namakubi in Winter will gross viewers out with its depiction of a decapitated head hung from a tree. But the next minute they will be astounded by something like the spectral beauty of Yūshin’s double exposure-esque Ghost Lanterns. Whatever the reaction, viewers will enjoy this look back at Japan’s rich artistic history. Click here fore more information on the works in Ronin Gallery’s Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre exhibition. Related: Rarely-Seen Samurai Weaponry Finally Goes on Display Takashi Murakami Floods Paris with Effervescent Neo-Pop Art [Premiere] How a 'Scream' of Post-War Japanese Art Pioneered Modernism

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vvy9k3/supernatural-monsters-haunt-in-a-floating-world

Entertainment

Vice

2016-06-03 00:00:00

2016

6.0

3

Gigi Hadid -- Screw Zayn ... I'm Hangin' with Kendall (VIDEO)

Gigi Hadid got back on the horse Thursday night after her breakup with Zayn Malik ... hoofing it with Kendall Jenner. The girls hit up The Nice Guy in WeHo and displayed their trademark "no-emotion" look as they left together. BTW ... Lakers star Jordan Clarkson was also at the club ... He used to hang with Kendall and there was buzz they were dating. He left separately.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/06/03/gigi-hadid-kendall-jenner-zayn-malik-breakup-video/

TMZ

2016-09-07 15:30:07

2016

9.0

7

German Lopez

Want to end mass incarceration? This poll should worry you.

Do Americans really want to end mass incarceration? Or do they simply want to cut prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders? These are two different questions: Although much of the focus on prison reform over the past few years has gone to nonviolent drug offenders, the rapid growth of the US prison population since the 1960s — which put America above even Russia and China in incarceration — was actually driven by longer sentences for violent crime. A new poll by Morning Consult and Vox gives some insight: Americans agree there are too many people in prison — but they’re only willing to cut sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, not violent criminals. The survey of more than 2,000 registered voters posed several questions regarding mass incarceration. Some tested understanding: “To the best of your knowledge are each of the following statements true or false? Since 1990, 60 percent of the growth in state prison populations has come from violent offenders.” (This is true.) Other questions gauged general views: “Do you support or oppose reducing prison time for … people who committed a violent crime and have a low risk of committing another crime?” The answers revealed not just Americans’ attitudes toward incarceration but also what they don’t understand about the prison system. For example, voters overestimate how many people are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses while underestimating — or at least not knowing — that most of the growth in state prisons was driven by sentences for violent crime. And that has seemingly influenced their attitudes to focus on cutting incarceration only when it comes to drugs and other nonviolent offenses. The findings suggest that Americans are willing to cut back on some incarceration — just not the level that reformers have put forward with #Cut50, the bipartisan goal to reduce the overall prison population by 50 percent over the next 10 years. This has huge implications for policy: If US politicians move to dethrone the US as the world’s leader in incarceration (with only the small African nation of Seychelles boasting a higher imprisonment rate), they could face very stiff opposition from the public. America leads the world in incarceration. It holds the largest prison population in the world at more than 2.2 million, above China and Russia’s reported numbers. It also has the highest imprisonment rate among major countries: 693 prisoners for every 100,000 people. In comparison, Russia is at 451, China is at 118, the United Kingdom is below 150, Canada is at 114, France is at 103, and Germany is at 76. These statistics are why the #Cut50 goal exists: To get anywhere close to other major countries’ levels, the US would really need to cut its prison population by 50 percent. The Vox/Morning Consult poll found Americans are vaguely aware of their country’s high incarceration rates. About 47 percent said it’s true that “22 percent of the world’s prisoners are in the United States,” and 51 percent said there are too many people in prison in the US. About 52 percent also said that the following statement comes closer to their view: “One out of every 100 American adults is in prison. That’s too many, and it costs too much. There are more effective, less expensive alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders and expanding those alternatives is the best way to reduce the crime rate.” Things get a little murkier, however, when American voters are asked about specifics. For starters, 61 percent of respondents said that nearly half of all prisoners in the US are incarcerated for drug offenses. Self-identified liberals, who are more likely to back prison sentencing reform, were more likely than self-identified conservatives to hold this view by a 6-point margin. That 61 percent is wrong: Drug offenses are indeed a significant contributor, making up about 21 percent of the jail and prison population. But the most common offenses are violent crimes (like murder, assault, and robbery), which nearly 40 percent of the prison population is in for. The remaining are property crimes, public order offenses, and other low-level violations. Seemingly putting all of these beliefs together, the great majority of voters said they support reducing prison time for nonviolent criminal offenders: 78 percent said that “people who committed a nonviolent crime and have a low risk of committing another crime” should be let out of prison earlier. Only 32 percent said the same of nonviolent criminals who had “a high risk of committing another crime.” Again, liberals were more likely to support letting nonviolent criminals out of prison early: 86 percent of liberals said that they support letting nonviolent criminals with a low risk of reoffending out of prison earlier, compared with 75 percent of conservatives. And 43 percent of liberals supported letting nonviolent criminals with a high risk of reoffending out of prison early, compared with 26 percent of conservatives. These are fairly high levels of support, especially among liberals, for reducing prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses — perhaps as a result of the belief that those in prison for these crimes are driving too much incarceration. But the story looks very different when violent crimes — again, the major cause of mass incarceration — are up for question. Most Americans don’t know that the growing number of people locked up for violent offenses drove 60 percent of the growth since 1990 in state prisons, where 86 percent of US prison inmates reside. Asked about this, 29 percent of voters wrongly said it was false, and 37 percent said they didn’t know or offered no opinion. Combined with most Americans agreeing that nearly half of the US prison population is nonviolent drug offenders, the poll suggests that most Americans don’t know that the major cause of mass incarceration is harsher sentencing for violent offenses. Possibly because of this, Americans are very unwilling to let violent offenders out of prison early. Only 29 percent said they support reducing prison time for “people who committed a violent crime and have a low risk of committing another crime.” And 27 percent said they support reducing prison time for violent offenders who “have a high risk of committing another crime.” Majorities rejected the idea of reducing sentences for both types of violent offenders. To put these numbers in context, there’s more support (32 percent) for reducing the prison sentence of nonviolent criminals with a high risk of reoffending than there is for cutting the sentence of violent criminals with a low risk of reoffending. Even the majority of liberals oppose reducing prison sentences for violent criminals with a low risk of reoffending: 55 percent oppose it, versus 42 percent who support. Conservatives are overwhelmingly against the idea: 68 percent oppose it, versus 23 percent who support. In fact, no majority of any group — whether divided by race, religion, ideology, political party, employment, or any other category evaluated by Morning Consult — supported reducing prison sentences for violent criminals with a low risk of committing another crime. Similarly, while 55 percent said they support reducing sentences for drug offenses, only 24 percent said the same for crimes in general. One potential reason: About 55 percent of voters said that one acceptable reason to reduce sentences for nonviolent drug offenders is “to keep room for violent offenders in prisons.” In other words, cutting back on the incarceration of drug offenders is seen as good partly because it lets the government lock up more violent offenders. Part of this may be driven by voters’ unawareness that violent crime has dramatically dropped over the past couple of decades. Asked if the national rate of violent crime has decreased by 49 percent since 1991, 25 percent said it’s true, while 41 percent said it’s false, and 33 percent didn’t know or offered no opinion. (Gallup reports similar findings every year.) Whatever the reason, the general point is clear: Americans are simply not interested in cutting prison sentences for violent offenders. To anyone who wants to truly end mass incarceration, all of these numbers should be concerning. As this great interactive from the Marshall Project shows, it’s not possible to halve the state prison population — the bulk of the US prison system — without releasing some violent criminals, even if you choose to release everyone for lower-level crimes like drug dealing and theft (an unrealistic goal, to say the least): This reflects the reality of how mass incarceration happened. From the 1960s through ’90s, crime in America was unusually high: The murder rate peaked at 10.2 in 1980, compared with 4.5 in 2013 and 2014. Unsurprisingly, Americans back then were much more likely, based on Gallup’s surveys, to say crime was “the most important problem.” Lawmakers reacted with mass incarceration, vastly increasing the prison sentences for nearly every type of crime. This policy prescription wasn’t very effective. There is no historical correlation between higher incarceration rates and dropping crime rates — incarceration rose steeply for two decades before crime began to fall, as scholar William Stuntz documented in The Collapse of American Criminal Justice. And a 2015 review of the research by the Brennan Center for Justice estimated that more incarceration explained 0 to 7 percent of the crime drop since the 1990s, while other researchers estimate it drove 10 to 25 percent of the crime drop since the ’90s. (There are many other theories for why violent crime fell by roughly half in this time period.) At the same time, incarceration costs the US about $80 billion each year, according to the Hamilton Project. At the same time, mass incarceration has ravaged certain communities. Black people are nearly six times as likely to be locked up as their white peers (with about 61 to 80 percent of that explained by higher crime rates in black communities). As a result, for every 100 black women out of prison, there are just 83 black men — what a New York Times analysis described as “1.5 million missing black men,” who could be fathers or workers for their communities but instead are behind bars. So America locks up more people up than any other country in the world — even though there’s no evidence it’s an effective policy to fight crime and there’s evidence that it’s destroying some communities. Yet based on the views of respondents to Vox and Morning Consult’s poll, it looks likely to remain that way — because Americans are okay with it. Morning Consult polled 2,001 registered voters on September 1 and 2, 2016. The interviews were conducted using large, established online survey vendors and were weighted to approximate a target sample of registered voters based on age, race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, region, annual household income, home ownership status, and marital status. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points. Topline results are available here, and cross-tabulation results are available here.

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/7/12814504/mass-incarceration-poll

Vox

2017-04-26 00:00:00

2017

4.0

26

David Gilbert

Erdoğan is still arresting his opponents in massive purge that has surpassed 113,000 people

The Turkish government continued its crackdown on people it suspects of conspiring to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a failed coup attempt last July. On Wednesday the country’s interior minister announced the arrests of over 1,000 members of the country’s police force and accused them of being “secret imams” loyal to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. The early-morning raids came just 10 days after Erdoğan narrowly won a controversial referendum that critics in Turkey and abroad warn could transform the Turkish government into an outright autocracy. Besides the 1,009 arrests made on Wednesday, Turkish authorities issued another 2,215 arrest warrants for suspected supporters of Gülen who are hiding among what they believe to be a secret network inside the police force. Suspects are located in all 81 Turkish provinces, with 390 of them in Istanbul alone. Prior to Wednesday’s arrests, figures from the Turkish Interior Ministry showed that 113,260 people in total had been arrested or detained since the failed coup nine months ago, which left 248 people dead. Of that number, almost 47,000 have been arrested on specific charges. Those arrested include members of the police, military,and judiciary, as well as civil servants and journalists. Erdoğan’s crackdown also extends to the media, with 179 outlets being shuttered in 2016 alone. Dubbed the Gulenist Terrorist Organisation, or FETO, by the Turkish government, supporters of Gülen have borne the blame for July’s failed coup. And Erdoğan is now pledging to “cleanse” them from all sections of society. The Turkish government continued its crackdown on people it suspects of conspiring to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a failed coup attempt last July. On Wednesday the country’s interior minister announced the arrests of over 1,000 members of the country’s police force and accused them of being “secret imams” loyal to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. The early-morning raids came just 10 days after Erdoğan narrowly won a controversial referendum that critics in Turkey and abroad warn could transform the Turkish government into an outright autocracy. Besides the 1,009 arrests made on Wednesday, Turkish authorities issued another 2,215 arrest warrants for suspected supporters of Gülen who are hiding among what they believe to be a secret network inside the police force. Suspects are located in all 81 Turkish provinces, with 390 of them in Istanbul alone. Prior to Wednesday’s arrests, figures from the Turkish Interior Ministry showed that 113,260 people in total had been arrested or detained since the failed coup nine months ago, which left 248 people dead. Of that number, almost 47,000 have been arrested on specific charges. Those arrested include members of the police, military,and judiciary, as well as civil servants and journalists. Erdoğan’s crackdown also extends to the media, with 179 outlets being shuttered in 2016 alone. Dubbed the Gulenist Terrorist Organisation, or FETO, by the Turkish government, supporters of Gülen have borne the blame for July’s failed coup. And Erdoğan is now pledging to “cleanse” them from all sections of society. “We are trying to cleanse members of FETO inside the armed forces, inside the judiciary, and inside the police,” Erdoğan said just before the raids on Wednesday, Reuters reported. “We are going to keep up the fight in terms of democracy, fundamental rights, and liberties, but at the same time we are going to keep up the fight against PKK, FETO, and other terrorist organizations such as Daesh [the Islamic State group]. We will continue down this path in a very committed fashion.” Fethullah Gulen, who now resides in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, was once a staunch ally of Erdoğan, but that relationship soured in 2013 when Erdoğan accused Gülen of being behind corruption investigations. He’s currently on Turkey’s most-wanted-terrorist list and the government is demanding his extradition from the U.S. Gülen denies any part in the coup, instead suggesting the entire incident was carried out by Erdoğan himself in order to cement his own position. “What other explanation is there for arrest warrants for thousands of judges, prosecutors, and police officers being ready within hours of a coup attempt?” Gülen said at the time. Despite consistent requests by the Turkish government to extradite Gülen, the U.S. government has asked for evidence to back up the arrest warrant — something the Turkish government has so far failed to provide. Erdoğan’s referendum victory is still being contested by opposition forces, who allege vote-rigging, while independent observers have slammed the election’s lack of transparency. One member of an EU delegation sent to observe the vote called it “unfair and unfree.” On Wednesday, a leading member of the EU Parliament, responsible for dealings with Ankara, said the constitutional changes provided by the referendum are cause for the formal suspension of talks on Turkey’s membership of the group. “As Turkey with such a constitution cannot become a member of the EU, it also doesn’t make sense to continue the discussion on integration with the current government,” Kati Piri, a Dutch lawmaker, said. “The EU should officially suspend the accession talks if the constitutional changes are implemented unchanged.”

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/9kdvx7/erdogan-is-still-arresting-his-opponents-in-massive-purge-that-has-surpassed-113000-people

Vice News

2019-06-27 00:00:00

2019

6.0

27

Facebook CEO says delay in flagging fake Pelosi video was 'execution mistake'

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday said his social media company took too long to flag as false an altered video of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that appeared to show the Democratic Representative slurring and tripping through a speech. Zuckerberg, speaking at a conference in Aspen, Colorado, said the slow response was “an execution mistake on our side.” The video, a type of realistic alteration known as a “deepfake,” was slowed to make Pelosi’s speech seem slurred and edited to make it appear that she repeatedly stumbled over her words. After the video surfaced last month, it was widely shared on Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc’s YouTube. YouTube took down the video, citing policy violations, but Facebook did not remove the clip, only limiting its distribution and telling users trying to share it that it might be misleading. “It took a while for our system to flag the video and for our fact checkers to rate it as false... and during that time it got more distribution than our policies should have allowed,” Zuckerberg said. Pelosi criticized Facebook’s refusal to remove the video and said the incident had convinced her the company knowingly enabled Russian election interference. Misinformation through altered videos is a rising concern in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, especially as artificial intelligence (AI) is now being used to produce clips that look genuine and realistically appear to show people saying words they have not spoken. The term “deepfake” is a combination of “deep learning” and “fake.” After the Pelosi video, Zuckerberg himself was portrayed in a spoof deepfake video on Instagram in which he appears to say “whoever controls the data, controls the future.” Facebook, which owns Instagram, did not to take down the video. Zuckerberg said Facebook is considering developing a specific policy on deepfakes. “This is a little bit of sausage making here because we are going through the policy process of thinking through what the deepfake policy should be,” he said. “This is certainly an important area as the AI technology gets better.” Reporting by Uday Sampath and Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru, Katie Paul in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Rigby

https://www.reuters.com/article/facebook-deepfake/facebook-ceo-says-delay-in-flagging-fake-pelosi-video-was-execution-mistake-idUSL4N23X4QF

Business News

Reuters

2018-09-21 00:00:00

2018

9.0

21

Deena ElGenaidi

The View from the NY Art Book Fair Zine Tent: 8 Zines You Want to Know About

This year’s zinesters brought some of the most playful, provocative, and interesting items on display, and here are some notable picks. Upon entering Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair at the Museum of Modern Art Ps1 for the first time, I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer size of the event, with room after room of books, publishers, and artworks. The program alone, with its long list exhibitors, was enough to make my head spin. But after doing a quick walk-through of the space and learning a bit about the different rooms in this old public school building, I ventured towards the domed, white tents outside. Having arrived somewhat early, I witnessed the bustling energy of people setting up their tables and preparing for the night ahead. If you do end up at the NY Art Book Fair this weekend, I highly recommend checking out the following tables and their incredible zines. The Press Press table is off in its own room, right across from the Dome, where some of the other zines are located. I was immediately compelled by the independent publisher’s story because of their dedication to working with immigrant communities. Founded by Kimi Hanauer in 2014, Press Press’s mission is to give a voice to those who have been suppressed or misrepresented, focusing primarily on immigration. The project began when Hanauer started to volunteer at the Refugee Youth Project (RYP) in Baltimore, teaching ESL creative writing workshops. The four core members of Press Press — Hanauer, Bomin Jeon (whom I spoke with), Valentina Cabezas, and Bilphena Yahwon — continue to work with the RYP, along with refugee and immigrant communities in their home base of Baltimore, primarily. Contributors to their zines include those immigrant communities, friends, and “random people [who] hit us up,” said Jeon. Jeon described their publishing process as “very collaborative.” The work that Press Press is doing seems particularly important at this moment in time. Over in the zine tent is a group called the Mujeristas Collective. Founded by Stephanie P. Aliaga in January 2017, the Collective’s mission is to provide a platform for Latinx women to share their art. I spoke with Denisse Juliana Jimenez and Yovanna Roa-Reyes, who told me that as a group, they feel strongly about feminism and inclusivity for women of color, and through their zines, they hope to feature the voices of women of color, particularly Latinx women, who are their main consumers. Right next to the Mujeristas Collective table is a table for The Oxnard Plain Press, a small press of zines and artist books founded by Jaime Bailon five years ago. Bailon got started by printing his own artist book and found that the process was “easy and cheap,” so he bought a Xerox printer and began to publish both his own zines and the zines of other artists. “There was no real way to show my work that I felt satisfied with,” said Bailon. “I also realized there wasn’t a way for other people to.” From there, Bailon created a collective with his studio partner, Brian Paumier, and they began to offer mentorships and community critiques. Also at the table with Bailon was artist Jack Adams, who was selling his first-ever zine thanks to Oxnard Plain. #BLKGRLSWURLD describes itself as “a music zine for women who rock.” Founded by Christina Long and her younger sister Courtney Long, #BLKGRLSWURLD came into being, according to Christina, because “people are always telling us there are no women of color interested in metal.” The zine aims to expose the world to the fact that heavy metal music is diverse, said Christina. The press is based in Harlem, and their zine reports primarily on the New York City metal scene, though Christina says some of the best underground music can be found in the suburbs and on Long Island. I was initially drawn to the Ink Cap Press table by their offer of free basil with every zine purchase. Ink Cap Press, however, is much more than free basil. They are a group of activists (Kimberly Enjoli, Essye Klempner, Thompson Harris, and Babbie Dunnington) who came together to make protest art and print that art in zines. They are Black Lives Matter activists, anti-capitalists, and so much more. “Equality is at the heart of our activism,” said Dunnington. They’ve been printing art for two years, but the zine is new, and according to Harris, they’re an “ad-hoc mixture of radical activism hybridized with art.” I purchased a zine of migration poems by Abby Rojas, but their zines were varying and multifaceted, covering a large scope of issues. Continuing in the vein of political activism is Cassandra Press, a zine publisher rooted in the origin story of Cassandra, the Greek mythological figure whose prophecies were never believed. I spoke with Taylor Doran, one of the founding members of Cassandra Press, who told me that the group, which consists of herself, Jordan Nassar, and Kandis Williams, “wanted to have a space for lo-fi political activism.” They are based in New York and Los Angeles, and their zines are by all different artists. They also publish what they call “Readers,” which Doran told me is “like a college reader” on topics such as misogynoir and PTSD. A press that immediately drew me to their table, covered in pink and purple with Rihanna pins and fanny packs that read “DESTROY ALL MEN WHO ABUSE THEIR POWER,” was The Bettys. When I first arrived at the table, the founder, Aurora Diaz, had stepped away, but something told me to come back, as this was a collective that seemed worth talking to. And sure enough, it was. Diaz founded The Bettys six years ago as an art collective for “non-male artists.” Five years ago, Diaz published her first zine and realized that she was looking for a platform for underrepresented artists, so she decided to create her own. The Bettys are based in northern New Jersey, and the artists they publish all come to the collective through invitation or pitches, and more importantly, the Bettys pay an honorarium to the artists, funded through the sale of merch. Each zine has a specific theme, with the most recent one being “Fruit.” Others include “Roses,” “Space Bar,” “Girl Paradise,” and “Feeling Myself.” The Bettys is definitely a table worth checking out. Finally, as a cat person myself, I couldn’t help but stop at the table covered in cat art. Homocats started in 2010 as a series of political cat memes. “It’s all my own drawings,” said founder J. Morrison. When I asked why cats, Morrison responded, “I’m like a crazy cat lady,” at which point I showed him my own cat tattoo. Homocats publishes an annual zine filled with art and commentary such as, “We are disgusted with American ideals,” and “We are tired of homophobia.” Morrison said he has found that “animal lovers tend to be more political because they care more.” Homocats will be at the NY Art Book Fair all weekend and at DragCon next weekend, so be sure to check them out.

https://hyperallergic.com/461690/zines-nyabf-2018/

Hyperallergic

2018-07-07 00:00:00

2018

7.0

7

Pompeo 'very firm' on complete denuclearization of North Korea: spokeswoman

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is “very firm” on complete denuclearization of North Korea as he began a second day of talks in Pyongyang on Saturday, according to a pool report from reporters traveling with him. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said there has been no softening in Washington’ position towards the North’s denuclearization. She said Pompeo is being “very firm” in seeking three basic goals - complete denuclearization of North Korea, security assurances, and the repatriation of the remains of U.S. service members from the 1950-53 Korean War, according to the report. Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Paul Tait

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-pompeo/pompeo-very-firm-on-complete-denuclearization-of-north-korea-spokeswoman-idUSKBN1JX04M

World News

Reuters

2016-02-10 01:01:05

2016

2.0

10

Andrew Prokop

Bernie Sanders just easily won the New Hampshire primary. It's a remarkable achievement.

The political revolution has arrived in New Hampshire, as Bernie Sanders easily defeated Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's Democratic primary, according to calls by multiple networks. Sanders's victory — which would have been all but unimaginable a year ago — is a truly remarkable achievement for a "democratic socialist" who began the campaign as a mere blip in the polls, little-known nationally and lacking any party establishment support whatsoever. The Vermont senator's triumph is a testament to the power of his economics-focused message, to his supporters' enthusiasm and organization, and to his wild popularity among young voters. It's also a stinging rejection of the Democratic establishment and Hillary Clinton by primary voters in the Granite State. And it's a strong follow-up to Sanders's tie with Clinton in last week's Iowa caucuses. Some will argue that Sanders's win isn't that big a deal, since he's from the neighboring state of Vermont, and it's long been known that Sanders does well among the white Democrats overrepresented in New Hampshire. Yet it's worth remembering that when 2015 began, Sanders trailed Clinton by around 40 points in the Granite State. And though tonight's votes are still being counted, the early calls in Sanders favor suggest that it isn't even close. Still, all this doesn't mean Sanders is favored to win the Democratic nomination. To pull that off, there's one big thing he still needs to do: hugely improve his numbers among the nonwhite voters who are so crucial to the party's coalition nationally. In the coming days, we'll see whether he can make that happen. Back in September 2014, I watched Sanders hold a town hall at Waterloo, Iowa, and candidly discuss his misgivings about the presidential campaign he was considering. "I have to be realistic," he told the crowd. "I don't want to run and make a fool of myself, or, most importantly, do a disservice to all of the ideas that are needed. Believe me, if I ran with this program in a campaign and did very poorly, it would be a disservice to those ideas." He continued: "So if you do it, you've got to do it well and do it to win. That's tough stuff! That is very, very tough stuff." By now it's safe to say that Sanders's worst fears weren't vindicated. Far from it — instead, his campaign has done wildly better than practically any political observer predicted, and is helping shape the future of the Democratic Party. A longtime independent and "democratic socialist," Sanders is calling for the Democratic Party to move to the left on economic and domestic policy issues — embracing single-payer health care, funding college tuition for all Americans, and hiking government spending on infrastructure and Social Security benefits. And he's argued that because recent Democratic leaders have been too centrist and too reliant on fundraising from business interests, the American public has lost faith that the party will fight for them. If his campaign's success is any indication, a lot of the party's voters find this critique really convincing. Sanders has proved popular enough to raise massive amounts of money from small donors, enough to let him go toe to toe with Clinton, who's backed by the entire Democratic establishment. And his supporters showed up to New Hampshire polls in droves on Tuesday. Over the past few months, I've interviewed dozens of Sanders supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire. And when I asked them why they supported Sanders, several common themes came up. First, there was a belief that something is very wrong with America, and that serious change is required to fix it. The underwhelming economy, growing wealth inequality, and the disproportionate power of corporations and the superrich came up again and again. "I'm supporting Bernie because of his commitment to changing the dynamic in Washington, dealing with this wealth inequality, and helping people at the bottom," said Fran Berman of Exeter, New Hampshire. Secondly, they argued that Sanders's campaign and his call for a political revolution presented the possibility of major change. "The status quo will only make changes that benefit the people in power," Bob Moore of East Kingston, New Hampshire, told me. "We either do this or we become more oligarchic, so I don't think our democracy has any other choice," said Ron Yarnell of Johnston, Iowa. And finally, many said they simply trusted Sanders more than Clinton and the Democratic establishment. "This guy believes in what he says. And he speaks from his heart, and you can believe in what he says," said David Lancaster of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. "All you can think of with Hillary is, she’s going, 'What are the polls and what are my political advisers telling me I should be saying?'" Yet Sanders still hasn't answered the biggest question of his campaign: Can he broaden his appeal beyond white Democrats? As Dylan Matthews has written, the populations of Iowa and New Hampshire are both more than 87 percent white — and the United States as a whole is just 62 percent white. Furthermore, nonwhite voters make up an even larger share of the Democratic coalition, since so many more of them lean Democrat than Republican. And Clinton has been clobbering Sanders among nonwhite Democrats. In a recent NBC News/SurveyMonkey national poll, Sanders beat Clinton by 2 points among white Democrats, but trailed her by 43 points among black Democrats and by 34 points among Hispanics. The question, then, is whether these numbers will change. Shortly before the Iowa caucuses, I spoke to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), an African American member of Congress who has endorsed Sanders, and he made the case that the senator's class-focused message will indeed appeal to black and Hispanic voters. "Think about it," Ellison said. "Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is going to help mostly women, people of color, and low-income people. When you look at who’s on student debt, clearly a lot of white students have it, but proportionately a lot of black and brown voters have more." He continued: "The truth is that in America we have race and we have class, but they’re separate things that overlap a lot." Sanders's main problem, Ellison believed, was just that he needed more "exposure." He went on: "The black community and brown community have known Hillary Clinton since the ‘90s. So she has quite an advantage in this area. Her husband was fairly popular among African Americans and other people, so she has a built-in advantage. I think Bernie is going to be able to solve his exposure problem by continuing to do the things that he’s doing." The Vermont senator's tie in Iowa and win in New Hampshire will ensure he'll get a tremendous amount of that exposure in the coming days and weeks. His real first tests among nonwhite Democrats will be the Nevada caucuses, on February 20, and the South Carolina primary, on February 27. And if he manages to do well in those, it will be clear that Hillary Clinton's campaign is in very deep trouble.

https://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10955298/new-hampshire-primary-results-bernie-sanders-wins

Vox

2016-12-15 00:00:00

2016

12.0

15

Chuck Liddell Nervous about Betting on Rousey

Anyone betting on Ronda Rousey to beat Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 should be shakin' in their boots ... so says former UFC star Chuck Liddell. TMZ Sports got the Iceman at LAX Wednesday and he painted a worrisome pic of Rousey -- who hasn't fought in more than a year. UFC 207 goes down December 30th in Vegas.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/12/15/chuck-liddell-ronda-rousey-ufc-207/

TMZ

2016-05-04 00:00:00

2016

5.0

4

Ciara O'Rourke

The World's Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund Says ExxonMobil and Chevron Must Do More About Climate Change

The world's largest sovereign wealth fund announced Tuesday that it would back shareholder resolutions requiring Chevron and ExxonMobil to report on how climate change could threaten assets during extreme weather events or put revenues at risk due to government efforts to transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources. The company that manages Norway's $872 billion fund said the boards of directors for the oil giants should better anticipate those risks — as well as any upsides — and report on them to shareholders. "We believe that boards should recognize the necessity of integrating climate change related challenges and opportunities in the investment planning and risk management, and ensure that responsibility is clearly defined within the organization," Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) said in a statement. The bank said that at the end of 2015 it held a 0.78 percent stake in Exxon, valued at $2.54 billion, and a 0.85 percent stake in Chevron, which it valued at $1.45 billion. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is financed by the proceeds of the country's petroleum industry. Related: The World's Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund Will No Longer Invest in Coal Companies The world's largest sovereign wealth fund announced Tuesday that it would back shareholder resolutions requiring Chevron and ExxonMobil to report on how climate change could threaten assets during extreme weather events or put revenues at risk due to government efforts to transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources. The company that manages Norway's $872 billion fund said the boards of directors for the oil giants should better anticipate those risks — as well as any upsides — and report on them to shareholders. "We believe that boards should recognize the necessity of integrating climate change related challenges and opportunities in the investment planning and risk management, and ensure that responsibility is clearly defined within the organization," Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) said in a statement. The bank said that at the end of 2015 it held a 0.78 percent stake in Exxon, valued at $2.54 billion, and a 0.85 percent stake in Chevron, which it valued at $1.45 billion. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is financed by the proceeds of the country's petroleum industry. Related: The World's Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund Will No Longer Invest in Coal Companies Both ExxonMobil and Chevron are urging shareholders to vote against the resolution. Chevron's board said in a statement notifying shareholders of its annual meeting on May 25 that the company shares concerns about climate change and recognizes that fossil fuel burning contributes to increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But, the board added, the proposal is based on "the flawed premise that a global agreement to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius requires each individual fossil fuel producer to curtail development of resources proportionately." Over 170 nations have agreed to a UN climate change pact that aims to keep global temperature rise to within 2C (3.4 Fahrenheit) compared to the mid-19th century by committing to rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and ramping up cleaner forms of energy production. Exxon's board also opposes the shareholder resolution and, in an April statement to shareholders, the company said it "is confident that the Company's robust planning and investment processes adequately contemplate and address climate change related risks." Exxon had initially refused to even allow a vote on the resolution, which was submitted by the $180 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund — the third largest public pension fund in the United States. But the US Securities and Exchange Commission ruled in March that the company was obliged to put the resolution to a shareholder vote. Neither Chevron nor Exxon responded to a request for comment. Related: ExxonMobil Is Increasingly Being Singled Out for Its Role in Climate Change Deceit Matthew Sweeney, a spokesman for New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who oversees New York's pension fund, said there was broad support among investors. "Companies that fail to address global warming, and the worldwide effort to curb it, put their bottom line at risk," he said. Yngve Slyngstad, NBIM's chief executive officer, told a Norwegian parliamentary committee on Friday that the bank has worked to address climate change since 2006. The fund, he said, has sought to divest from companies that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation and to measure the carbon footprint of its investment portfolio. Norway's fund is among a growing number of entities taking aim at ExxonMobil. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have come out in support of a US congressional push for the Department of Justice to investigate the company for potentially misleading the public about when — and what — it new about global warming. The attorneys general for California and New York, as well as those in more than a dozen other states, are also looking into potential fraud. The Rockefeller Family Fund announced in March that it would divest its holdings in the fossil fuel industry, including Exxon. And in April, Standard & Poor's downgraded Exxon's credit rating for the first time since the Great Depression. Slyngstad has declined to speculate publicly on how Exxon and Chevron shareholders will vote later this month. But even if the resolutions fail, Norway's support of them indicates that corporations will increasingly be called upon to incorporate climate change in their business plans, said Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University. Brulle said he was glad Norway and other "progressive" stockholders are trying to force corporations like ExxonMobil and Chevron to change their practices. And, he said, it's safe to say that pressure will keep coming. "This is just common sense," he said. "All companies usually try to take into account changing factors that are going on around them. Not taking into account climate change is almost willful ignorance on the part of corporations." Related: Huge 'Dead Zones' Could Appear in the World's Oceans by 2030 Because of Climate Change Follow Ciara O'Rourke on Twitter: @ciaraorourke Watch Who Cares About Climate Change?

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/9kjm57/the-worlds-largest-sovereign-wealth-fund-says-exxonmobil-and-chevron-must-do-more-about-climate-change

Vice News

2017-05-23 11:00:00

2017

5.0

23

Meaghan Beatley

When Death Becomes Social Media Spectacle

Facebook's moderation guidelines—the infamous Facebook Files leaked this weekend by The Guardian—have journalists, media ethics scholars, mental health experts and most breathing organisms scratching their heads over the dubious nature of many of the social media platform's policies regulating issues such as pornography, racism and terrorism. Chief among the controversial guidelines set forth by the leaked internal manual is one that allows users to livestream suicides and other attempts at self harm. According to the documents, Facebook "doesn't want to censor or punish people in distress who are attempting suicide" and hopes that by leaving such content up for a certain period of time, other users may be able to intervene. However, many media professionals are concerned by what they see as a hasty and misguided approach. "Facebook has no obligation to give a platform to someone who wants to kill themself any more than the keepers of the Golden Gate Bridge have no obligation to make it easier to jump to your death," Emmy Award-winning journalist Al Tompkins, currently a senior faculty at the Poynter Institute, told Motherboard. "Allowing death to become a social spectacle does nothing to further thoughtful conversation about suicide or to point to alternative solutions to life problems," he said. On his end, Aidan White, director of the Ethical Journalism Network, called Facebook's policy "utterly self serving." "People who are disturbed and self-harming need support and help, and promoting their distress helps no one," he told Motherboard. "Facebook are besotted by a business model that makes no distinction between the quality of information or the nature of the content that is uploaded." Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social media giant would be adding 3,000 people to a moderation task force in charge of regulating sensitive content. The decision was largely fueled by outrage over a series of viral videos showcasing users harming themselves or others. Susan McGregor, assistant director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, told Motherboard the diffusion of violent content, including self harm footage, is nothing new to the media industry. Images of immolating Buddhist monks were mass distributed in the '60s, for example. But social media platforms don't enjoy the same help and training, developed over decades, that traditional media does, McGregor says. "All of a sudden these Facebook moderators, who have a couple of weeks of training and who are supposed to spend most of their time reviewing a lot of very disturbing content, have to make judgment calls about [content] and there's no indication they have the training or expertise to do so or the support to deal with it," she said. Ultimately, McGregor says it will be a matter of time before we see how livestreaming self harm impacts users. "The only way to go about this responsibly is to go slowly and make sure you understand what the ramifications of these new possibilities may be," she says. "But no one in the tech world wants to hear, 'Go slowly.'" Subscribe to Science Solved It, Motherboard's new show about the greatest mysteries that were solved by science.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8x47ab/when-death-becomes-social-media-spectacle

Tech by VICE

Vice

2017-03-27 19:40:00

2017

3.0

27

Olga Oksman

Should Short Kids Take Growth Hormones?

Five men stand behind a two-way mirror, police lineup style. They're about the same age, all casually but neatly dressed. One of the men, Stu, is five feet tall. All of the other men, who vary in height, are taller. Stu has thick black hair and smiles warmly as he stands in the lineup. On the other side of the mirror are several women, average but pleasant-looking, like the men. They are each asked by a host which of the men they would want to date. The contest is rigged to give Stu a perceived leg up on the other men: Stu, they are told, is highly successful, a millionaire. But no one picks him. When asked why, all the women point to his height as the reason. What would it take for Stu to win the lineup, the host asks? "Maybe the only thing you could say is maybe the other four are murders," one of the women says quietly, arms crossed. The idea that height is important for finding love and earning money, to succeeding in life and being taken seriously, has been hammered into many of us since we were kids. Arbitrary height requirements show up all the time in Western society. Many sperm banks have a robust height requirement for donors of 5'11", despite an average male height in the US of 5'9". To become a fashion model, a woman must be at minimum 5'8", with most models clocking in around 5'10", when the average American woman is a more modest 5'4". Much like the experiment above, done for the show 20/20 back in 1996, dating profiles allow anyone searching for a potential mate to create an arbitrary height cut off. Adding fuel to the fire, studies linking height to greater earning potential regularly make headlines. Being short, especially for men, comes with a price, it seems. Now imagine you are the parent of a short child and your pediatrician tells you that your son or daughter will always be drastically shorter than the other kids and eventually, shorter than the other adults. What if they told you that there was a way to game the system, at least a little, and give your child a couple of extra inches? The long-term health effects of the treatment are not known, and it will require your child to inject themselves regularly. Would you take the gamble? In 2003, the FDA approved the use of synthetic growth hormone for idiopathic short stature. Before that, growth hormone was only prescribed for children with a demonstrated deficiency, who were not thriving. Since 2003, growth hormone can be prescribed for any child that is simply very short—to be exact, over-two-standard-deviations-below-the-mean short, or about a projected adult height of 5'3" for a boy and 4'11" for a girl. Since being short for no medical reason is not a disease, use of synthetic growth hormone for children with idiopathic short stature is not always covered by insurance, so extra height can come at a very high cost, around $52,000 an inch. Because short kids with no growth hormone deficiency are genetically predisposed to be short, synthetic growth hormone can usually only add around one to three inches to their adult height. Some kids don't respond to it at all. Even with the best medicine, you can't completely win a fight with genetics. That has not stopped parents from asking for treatment for their children. A review of US growth hormone registries in 2012 showed that 18 percent of patients were being treated for idiopathic short stature—for simply being very short. The ability to treat a physical characteristic in children with no underlying pathology has created controversy in the medical community. "Does a poorly defined, unpredictable benefit suffice to warrant subjecting a healthy child to years of nightly injections with a medication that may carry risk of adverse effects, albeit small? Now factor in the high cost of growth hormone treatment, and the controversy moves from the individual to the societal level," says Adda Grimberg, scientific director of the Diagnostic and Research Growth Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and chair of the task force that recently updated physician guidelines for the use of growth hormone treatment. In the absence of physical health issues, the psychological distress associated with being very short is used as one reason to justify treatment. "Parents are frequently concerned about the psychological implications of being shorter than average," says David Sandberg, director of the Division of Pediatric Psychology at the University of Michigan Medical School. Taller height is used as a proxy for quality of life, he says. But he argues that while short kids may experience bullying, how parents frame that bullying can send an important message to children about height. If a child gets off the school bus crying because someone called him 'shorty,' says Sandberg, and the parent gets very upset, starts crying and vows to speak to the teacher, "that says to the child that being short is the end of the world," he explains. "Parents need to understand the downside of communicating that something is wrong because of a physical characteristic," he adds. The motivation for the bullying may not be a child's height, explains Sandberg, and the bully simply uses height as an easy way to insult the child. It is difficult to tease out how often the decision to seek treatment is motivated by distress experienced by a child or by parental concerns. "We are not privy to the conversations in the home before a family decides to seek medical care," Grimberg says. "Even observations at the clinic visit are ambiguous. Commonly, the children say they're cool with their height, they have friends, etc, but then their parents will jump in to remind them of that time they complained they couldn't go on the amusement park ride or were teased in school. It's hard to tease out if the child is too shy to bring up their concerns at the doctor's office or if the parents are pushing them to get treatment." Most of us will never be models for many reasons and don't have any interest in becoming sperm donors. While childhood bullies may target smaller kids who are less physically intimidating, emotional and social outcomes for shorter kids are no different from those for their average-height peers. In a hypothetical world where we could all be in the top quartiles for height, another arbitrary physical characteristic would simply replace height for bullies and picky daters. As for the studies correlating height and earning potential, subsequent studies have found cognitive ability to be the mediating factor predicting success. Discrepancies in maternal and childhood health and nutrition impact both cognitive abilities and adult height. Whether or not Stu from 20/20 ever found dating success is a question lost to time, but other markedly short men who are over two standard deviations from the norm have fared well, including 4'11" former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration, Robert Reich, whose wife was 9" taller. Or take beloved 4'10' or 5' (depending on who you ask) actor Danny DeVito, who has been married for over forty years, or the 5'2" tall ladies' man Prince. All three fall under the height guidelines that would make them eligible for treatment for idiopathic short stature. Being 4'11" never stopped Veronica Lake from being a sex symbol in the 1940s, or Lil'Kim from being a rap revolutionary, though it too would have made both of them eligible for growth hormone. Society may continue to favor taller height, especially for men, but that does not mean short stature should be pathologized. While there is discretion for doctors when to suggest treatment, Grimberg recommends it in cases where an underlying growth problem is suspected but "diagnostic tests are unable to capture that problem." For physicians, abnormal growth patterns imply health issues, while height is a variable physical characteristic. When two short parents bring in a healthy, well-adjusted short child on the other hand, "my job is not to treat someone who is fine with themselves just because the FDA picked a line on the growth chart."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vvkyyy/should-short-kids-take-growth-hormones

Health

Vice

2017-03-20 18:20:01

2017

3.0

20

Sarah Wildman

India's prime minister just selected an anti-Muslim firebrand to lead its largest state

The head of the world’s biggest democracy just appointed to a top government post a person who once publicly supported killing Muslims. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday appointed Yogi Adityanath, a five-term member of India’s parliament who’s been called the “hate spewing ‘yogi,’” as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Uttar Pradesh is home to 220 million people — one-fifth of whom are Muslim. Three years ago, communal violence in Uttar Pradesh killed more than 60 people. In recent years, Adityanath has faced criminal charges of attempted murder, defiling a place of worship, and inciting riots in Uttar Pradesh — the state he has now been tasked with running. Adityanath is a hard-line advocate of Hindutva — an ideology that advocates for Hindu hegemony over India. Always photographed in saffron robes, his head shaved, Adityanath is known for his devout Hinduism (he is a Hindu priest) and avid practice of yoga — and equally well-known for his incitement against Muslims. He publicly supported President Donald Trump’s ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations, stating, “Similar action is needed to contain terror activities in this country.” In 2015, he said, "If given a chance, we will install statues of Goddess Gauri, Ganesh and Nandi” — Hindu deities — “in every mosque." He also once said, “If one Hindu girl marries a Muslim man, then we will take 100 Muslim girls in return … If they [Muslims] kill one Hindu man, then we will kill 100 Muslim men.” "Adityanath has been one of Uttar Pradesh's most polarising politicians, given to hateful rhetoric that incites discrimination and hostility against minority groups, particularly Muslims,” Aakar Patel, executive director of Amnesty International India, said in a statement. Adityanath’s deputy, Keshav Prasad Maurya, told the Indian Express newspaper that Muslims in Uttar Pradesh “have no reason to worry.” “We consider all of UP population as one and we don’t distinguish it as Hindu and Muslim,” Maurya said. But that statement, as Time magazine writer Nikhil Kumar notes, runs directly against Adityanath’s public statements over the past decade. In 2005, Kumar notes, the new minister of Uttar Pradesh said he would “not stop” until he turned Uttar Pradesh “and India into a Hindu rastra (nation).” Adityanath’s words are particularly dangerous in a region known for communal violence. A Hindustan Times report on riots in the region noted most violence there began with “mundane arguments that turn violent.” Indeed, the newspaper Indian Express called the selection of Adityanath a “tragic letdown.” “The BJP’s fig leaf was that hate talk was a speech bubble of the marginal and the fringe. That fringe is now in charge of India’s most populous and politically crucial state.” Adityanath was sworn in promising to uphold Modi’s idea of development for all. His fellow politicians remain dubious that a man known for divisiveness can serve all the people in his populous state. Manish Tewari, a former information and broadcast minister of India, tweeted it was a “harbinger to greater polarization.”

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/20/14982146/modi-india-muslim-yogi-adityanath-incitement

Vox

2017-12-06 21:30:00

2017

12.0

6

Louise Matsakis

This Entrepreneur Is Growing Organic Leather Without the Cows

If you visit the Modern Museum of Art (MoMa) in New York City this winter, you’ll see a unique graphic t-shirt on display at the new Is Fashion Modern? exhibit. It’s not made from cotton, or a synthetic fabric like polyester. The material, dubbed Zoa, is “biofabricated,” and meant to resemble something like leather. Developed by a company called Modern Meadow, the t-shirt is derived from organic materials, but doesn’t utilize skin from cows or any other animal. “Leather is one of our most ancient and beautiful materials, we love it. But we believe there’s a whole realm of innovation to be explored,” Andras Forgacs, the founder and CEO of Modern Meadow, told me on a phone call. “And to do it in a way that’s sustainable, that doesn’t harm animals.” Modern Meadow is aiming to radically alter the leather economy, which has an estimated global trade value of around $100 billion per year. Forgacs and his team want to replace one of humankind’s most ancient materials with something not only new, but also sustainable. Leather is ultimately a byproduct of the food industry, but if people begin widely eating so-called clean meat, it might become more scarce. “We’re on the cusp of biology and technology coming together to build a whole new engine of innovation for everything,” Forgacs said. “We have natural materials and we have synthetic materials. There’s going to be a third category made from the same building blocks of nature.” Forgacs called me at the start of a busy day in December. That night, he was headed to London for the Business of Fashion’s annual VOICES conference, where he was going to present about Zoa and what we might wear in the future. “I’m hardly one to speak about fashion as an authority,” Forgacs said when I asked about the conference. I pointed out that it must be hard to build a company focused on sustainability in a business known for excess and extravagance. He mostly shrugged the idea off. “Fashion is an incredibly self-conscious industry,” he argued. As consumers grow more conscious about what they wear, the industry will change with them, he said. Forgacs and his company are ultimately betting that fashion brands and their customers will want to wear clothes made from biofabricated materials like Zoa. Last year, Modern Meadow convinced investors that the idea was viable. It raised $40 million, bringing the company’s total funding to over $50 million. Now, it’s full speed ahead. The goal next year is to debut several pieces of clothing developed in collaboration with different fashion brands. Forgacs doesn’t have a scientific background, but he has been working in the field for over a decade. After stints in finance and consulting, he and his father, Gabor Forgacs—an accomplished scientist— launched Organovo in 2007. Now a publicly-traded company, Organovo grows real human tissue in the lab for medical and pharmaceutical research. “A lot of conversations began to come up about where we could take this technology,” Forgacs said. “Like If you could make skin, could you make leather? I was really intrigued by this idea: Could we take biofabrication beyond medicine?” To grow Zoa, Forgacs’ team begins with a strain of yeast that’s genetically engineered to produce a protein identical to that of cattle collagen—the protein found in cow’s skin. Collagen is the main structuctural protein in all animals; it’s what makes skin strong and elastic. Modern Meadow isn’t the first company to utilize genetic engineering to create a luxury good. Similar techniques have been used to create new varieties of materials like silk, for example “The way we make our collagen is we brew it. We developed a type of yeast that eats sugar and produces collagen,” Forgacs told me. The company’s lab “looks very much like a brewery.” Modern Meadow’s chief creative officer Suzanne Lee has experimented with making clothes from kombucha in the past. What’s ultimately created is a customizable sheet of raw “leather,” that can be dyed, tanned, and finished in any way a designer pleases. Zoa comes out polished; free from the blemishes characteristic of cowhide. In the future, designers could even tinker with the genetic properties of Zoa, in order to optimize for one feature over another, like thinness or sturdiness. Forgacs stressed to me that Zoa ultimately isn’t intended to try and imitate leather; it’s meant to be a new material entirely. But it certainly reminds you of the material. “Some of the most exciting innovation is not when it’s about imitating the past,” Forgacs said. “It’s when it’s familiar enough that I understand where it came from, but then it’s also provoking me with something new.” Humans of the Year is a series about the people building a better future for everyone. Follow along here.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gydqyb/this-entrepreneur-is-growing-organic-leather-without-the-cows

Tech by VICE

Vice

2016-01-26 16:35:00

2016

1.0

26

Sean Newell

Report: Blake Griffin Out "Weeks" After Hitting Equipment Staffer and Fracturing Hand

Blake Griffin has been out of the Clippers lineup since December 26th with a torn quadriceps muscle, though he has been traveling with the team. He unexpectedly left the team last night during a five-game road trip, however, and according to a report from ESPN last night, it was due to an "undisclosed team-related incident" that left him with a potential fractured hand. This morning, ESPN's Michael Eaves reported that Griffin left the team because he fractured his hand after striking a member of the equipment staff. That is ... not good. The staffer actually left the restaurant after the initial confrontation and Griffin followed him outside and hit him again. The staffer had to go to the hospital to treat injuries to his face. Griffin had been expected back soon—he had hoped to return to the lineup during the current road trip—but now the fractured hand is expected to delay his return "a matter of weeks, as opposed to days." He might miss even more time, assuming the team or the league (or the police!) looks into this incident. Update: Clippers ownership has released a statement, confirming Griffin injured his hand throwing a punch. [ESPN]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xybkaj/report-blake-griffin-out-weeks-after-hitting-equipment-staffer-and-fracturing-hand

Sports

Vice

2019-01-26 00:00:00

2019

1.0

26

Emma Ockerman, Rex Santus

The longest shutdown in modern American history was also the least productive

President Trump threw up his hands on the 35-day partial government shutdown Friday, giving Democrats exactly what they wanted and pointedly not getting what he shut the government down for in the first place: $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall. Shuttered government agencies are set to reopen for the next three weeks as Congress hammers out a broader border security deal, which may or may not include wall funding. If the president doesn’t like the deal he’s offered on Feb. 15, he can shut the government down again. "As Democrats have said all along, the solution to this impasse was separate funding for the government and then go over our disagreements on border security," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a Friday press conference where he agreed to Trump’s three-week proposal. This shutdown was notable for being the longest in modern American history but now also for how little it achieved. Past shutdowns have been over fights on deficits, spending, abortion, and — most recently — Obamacare. Here’s what they accomplished: President: Barack Obama President Trump threw up his hands on the 35-day partial government shutdown Friday, giving Democrats exactly what they wanted and pointedly not getting what he shut the government down for in the first place: $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall. Shuttered government agencies are set to reopen for the next three weeks as Congress hammers out a broader border security deal, which may or may not include wall funding. If the president doesn’t like the deal he’s offered on Feb. 15, he can shut the government down again. "As Democrats have said all along, the solution to this impasse was separate funding for the government and then go over our disagreements on border security," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a Friday press conference where he agreed to Trump’s three-week proposal. This shutdown was notable for being the longest in modern American history but now also for how little it achieved. Past shutdowns have been over fights on deficits, spending, abortion, and — most recently — Obamacare. Here’s what they accomplished: President: Barack Obama Duration: Oct. 1 to Oct. 17: 16 days. Reason: Obamacare A Republican-controlled House was attempting to disrupt the Affordable Care Act, which became law in 2010. So, amid budget negotiations, tea party factions tacked provisions onto spending bills that would’ve either depleted the healthcare law of any funding or delayed the law’s full implementation. The Senate, which was controlled by Democrats, refused to pass those bills, triggering a shutdown that lasted for 16 days. Unlike Trump, Obama was ready to pass a spending bill agreed upon by Congress, so long as it didn’t come with any strings attached regarding the existing healthcare program. (Republicans had already failed to repeal the law or sue it out of existence.) But, he was up against an incredibly persistent freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, who read “Green Eggs and Ham” during a 21-hour Senate filibuster on how much he hated the healthcare law. What they said: “We’ve been locked in a fight over here, trying to bring government down to size, trying to do our best to stop Obamacare. We fought the good fight. We just didn’t win,” then-House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, told a Cincinnati radio station when the shutdown ended. What it accomplished: The GOP’s popularity suffered during the shutdown, so then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell caved and passed the spending bill Obama and Democrats asked for in the first place. Republicans continued to attack Obamacare, though, and have since tried to get rid of the law through more repeals and lawsuits. President: Bill Clinton Duration: Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996: 21 days Reason: The deficit At 21 days, the second government shutdown under Bill Clinton was — at the time — the longest shutdown in U.S. government history. The feud between Republicans and Clinton was over balancing the federal budget, with Clinton saying Congressional Budget Office forecasts were too pessimistic. Clinton had resolved an earlier shutdown by agreeing to balance the budget in seven years. The president eventually proposed a CBO-approved plan to balance the budget, and the government reopened. About 284,000 workers were temporarily furloughed. What they said: House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged his actions during the shutdown were at least partially motivated by a personal slight after he was seated near the back of Air Force One. “This is petty,” he said. “You’ve been on the plane for 25 hours and nobody has talked to you, and they ask you to get off the plane by the back ramp … You just wonder, Where is their sense of manners? Where is their sense of courtesy?” What it accomplished: The incident is largely viewed as having damaged Newt Gingrich’s reputation as speaker of the House, with critics accusing him of fighting for a government shutdown over a personal vendetta against Clinton. The New York Daily News, for example, published a cartoon that depicted Gingrich as a baby throwing a tantrum. President: Bill Clinton Duration: Nov. 13 to Nov. 19: 6 days Reasons: Medicare, environmental regulations, and the budget The GOP-controlled Congress sent a spending bill to President Clinton’s desk that included increased Medicare premiums and cuts to environmental regulations, according to Vox. The bill, which Clinton vetoed, also stipulated that the budget had to be balanced in seven years. After five days, an agreement was reached to reopen the government and continue negotiations. Clinton agreed to the requirement of balancing the budget in the coming years. This shutdown resulted in 800,000 workers being furloughed. What they said: Clinton said Republicans “failed to pass the straightforward legislation necessary to keep the government running without imposing sharp hikes in Medicare premiums and deep cuts in education and the environment.” What it accomplished: Clinton agreed to a timeline for balancing the budget but the standoff largely hurt Republicans politically, with a Gallup poll saying 46 percent of people blamed the GOP for the shutdown while just 27 percent blamed Clinton. President: Jimmy Carter Duration: Sept. 30 to Oct. 12: 11 days Reasons: Abortion, raises for government workers Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House. But they disagreed on a pay raise for government workers and whether federal funds could be spent on some abortion services. The House was on the side of raising pay for certain civil servants by 5.5 percent and curtailing federal dollars for abortion in almost all circumstances. The Senate disagreed with the pay raise, and wanted to keep federal funding for abortions in cases where the pregnant woman had been raped, subject to incest, or had a dangerous health condition during pregnancy. Eventually, the two chambers agreed to keep the pay raises and also allow abortion funding in cases of rape, incest, or certain death — but not dangerous health conditions. What they said: Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, a Republican from Tennessee, was against the pay increases for civil servants: “I'm against a pay increase, but I don't want to see the Government grind to a halt.” What it accomplished: The Senate succeeded in keeping government funding for abortions in extreme circumstances, maintaining the option for sick and abused low-income women. President: Jimmy Carter Duration: Sept. 30 to Oct. 18: 18 days Reasons: “Wasteful” government spending and abortion Jimmy Carter prevailed in an 18-day shutdown after he vetoed a defense spending bill that included money for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Carter also vetoed a public works appropriations bill because he wasn’t a fan of water projects that he deemed wasteful government spending. But that’s not all: There was also a feud over funding for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (which later split into the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education) because Congress still couldn’t agree on whether and how Medicaid should cover abortion care. What they said: “I am going to be very persistent in my own role as president in holding down unwarranted spending in individual bills that come to me from the Congress,” President Carter said days before he vetoed the bills. What it accomplished: Carter pretty much won this fight, with defense spending and public works spending bills passed without the two provisions to which he objected. Congress again agreed on the abortion funding. President: Jimmy Carter Duration: Nov. 30 to Dec. 9: 8 days Oct. 31 to Nov. 9: 8 days Sept. 30 to Oct. 13: 12 days Reason: Abortion The government went into a shutdown three separate times in 1977, all because Congress (controlled by Democrats) couldn’t agree on abortion. The Senate wanted Medicaid funding for abortions resulting from cases of rape, incest, and if the mother’s health was in danger. At the time, that money was only available if the mother’s life was in peril. On Oct. 13, Congress temporarily postponed the debate and reopened the government until Oct. 31. An agreement wasn’t reached, so it closed again until Nov. 9 when the government was once again temporarily reopened until Nov. 30. The final shutdown lasted until Dec. 9 when Congress came to an agreement. What they said: Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, publicly worried that the Senate would be blamed for the shutdown. What it accomplished: The funding was extended for cases of rape, incest, and danger to health, although Ronald Reagan later rolled these provisions back. President: Gerald Ford Duration: Sept. 30 to Oct. 11: 10 days Reason: The president vetoed a spending bill he thought was bloated A Democrat-controlled Congress sent a spending bill up to President Ford, which he vetoed because he thought it allocated too much money to the Departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare. Congress quickly overruled that veto, but the shutdown still created a funding gap that wasn’t resolved until Congress passed another resolution to fund the rest of the government on Oct. 11. What they said: “The partisan political purpose of this bill is patently clear,” Ford said after he refused to pass the first spending bill. What it accomplished: This was the first shutdown since the government revised its budget-making process, and politicians figured out how to use government shutdowns for political purposes. (It wasn’t until 1980 that the government had to totally cease operations during a shutdown, though, so the political fallout wasn’t as great and it was more of a funding lapse than an actual shutdown.) Also, Democrats got the money they wanted. Cover: President Donald Trump makes a statement announcing that a deal has been reached to reopen the government through Feb. 15 during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House January 25, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3bdm5/the-longest-shutdown-in-modern-american-history-was-also-the-least-productive

Vice News

2017-11-27 20:29:31

2017

11.0

27

Tony Romm

Uber is going to have to explain to Congress why it hid the 2016 data breach that affected 57 million users

Uber is facing fresh questions from the U.S. Congress after it initially suppressed details about a data breach that affected more than 57 million of its drivers and riders in 2016. In a series of letters sent to the ride-hailing company on Monday, Democrats and Republicans alike pressed Uber to detail why it hadn’t informed customers sooner, whether it has spoken with law enforcement agencies about the matter and what exactly it’s doing to help drivers whose sensitive data was stolen. To all of the lawmakers that wrote Uber, though, the incident also amounted to just the latest misstep by a tech giant that’s repeatedly faced a litany of government probes for its controversial business practices. It’s not just that the company “concealed the breach without notifying affected drivers and consumers,” began a group of four Republicans, led by Sen. John Thune, in their note to the company Monday. It’s that “prior privacy concerns at Uber” make it “a serious incident that merits further scrutiny.” Asked about the letter, an Uber spokesman said the company has “been in contact with members of Congress and the relevant committees to inform them of the situation,” adding: “We are working to respond to their inquiries and address their concerns." The barrage of criticism Monday came days after Uber revealed that the company — at the time under the leadership of Travis Kalanick — fell victim to a major security breach in 2016 and paid the hackers a $100,000 ransom to transfer the stolen data back. The information taken included names, phone numbers, email addresses, and in the case of 600,000 of its drivers, their license data, too. In sharing those findings last week — perhaps hoping to do so under the cover of the Thanksgiving holiday — new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that the company’s chief security officer had been fired. Uber also added new security aides to help it further investigate the breach. Still, Khosrowshahi’s apology hasn’t satisfied federal regulators, including Thune and three other Senate Republicans, who lead key committees that oversee tech, telecom, finance and data security. In their letter, sent Monday, the lawmakers demanded that Uber detail a full timeline as to what it discovered about the breach, as well as which state and federal law enforcement or regulatory agencies the company informed about the incident. They also asked Uber to assure that riders’ and drivers’ other critical, sensitive information had not been stolen. Among lawmakers’ additional concerns: Federal officials use Uber, so Senate Republicans are trying to “identify and mitigate potential consumer harm and identity-theft-related fraud against federal programs,” they wrote. Uber’s replies could carry serious political and legal repercussions. Forty-eight states have laws on their books that require companies to inform consumers promptly whenever their information has been stolen — and in many cases, the theft of Uber drivers’ license numbers would have required the ride-hailing company to make the breach public. To that end, at least five states’ attorneys general are investigating Uber on related grounds, Recode first reported last week. Meanwhile, the four Republicans asked Uber if it had disclosed details of the breach to the Federal Trade Commission. The agency had been investigating Uber at the time of the incident in 2016 for another, unrelated privacy and security mishap. If Uber did not inform the FTC, it could face additional penalties. Echoing some of those same concerns was Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who sent his own letter to Uber on Monday. In asking for more information about why it hadn’t disclosed the breach sooner, he also pressed Uber to explain why it didn’t have a more secure system to handle payments. Warner further demanded that Uber share how it managed to find the hackers in the first place. While he acknowledged that the company could have discovered the criminals using forensics, Warner said that Uber’s “past pattern of conduct” still causes him to wonder if the ride-hailing app essentially tried to “hack back” its hackers. That’s illegal under federal law, Warner reminded. Once Uber found the hackers, though, it paid them a $100,000 ransom and required them to sign a nondisclosure agreement. To Warner, that “thwarts law enforcement’s ability to bring criminal hackers to justice.” This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/27/16706400/congress-democrats-republicans-uber-2016-data-breach

Vox

2018-10-02 00:00:00

2018

10.0

2

Donald Trump Mocks Christine Blasey Ford at Rally in Mississippi

Donald Trump was bitching about due process Tuesday, but just hours later made a mockery of his FBI investigation by essentially calling Dr. Christine Blasey Ford a fraud. POTUS mocked Dr. Ford at a rally in Mississippi Tuesday night, before intimating she belongs to a group of "really evil people" set out to destroy other people's lives ... like Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Trump was egged on by his Mississippi supporters, as he repeatedly made fun of Ford's testimony about being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh ... specifically her claim that she only had one beer at the party where it allegedly took place. Trump's point -- we think -- is Ford's claims aren't credible because she can't remember many details about the alleged incident. Earlier in the day, Trump bemoaned what he says has become the marching orders in the #MeToo movement -- guilty until proven innocent. He apparently believes it's okay to short-circuit the legal process -- in this case the FBI investigation he authorized -- and just jump to the conclusion Ford must be a liar.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/10/02/donald-trump-mocks-christine-blasey-ford-mississippi-rally-brett-kavanaugh/

TMZ

2017-12-13 14:00:05

2017

12.0

13

Kurt Wagner

Facebook is paying WWE to stream some professional wrestling

WWE is coming to Facebook. The pro wrestling company signed a deal with Facebook to stream a new “single-elimination mixed tag-team tournament” directly on the social network. That means WWE will feature tag-team matches — one male and one female wrestler per team — for 12 straight weeks. These are not the highly touted pay-per-view matches that WWE is known for, but the company is still rolling out some well-known wrestlers, like Jimmy Uso and Natalya. (Uso has more than four million Facebook followers, for example.) Facebook is paying WWE for a dozen 20-minute episodes, but a company spokesperson declined to share financial terms of the deal. As with the other professional content Facebook has acquired, these WWE matches will exist inside Facebook Watch, the company’s new video tab. Facebook has been paying publishers to create exclusive shows for the service, and has also been paying for streaming rights for sporting events, like college basketball games. The hope is that Facebook becomes a video destination, not just a place people stumble across video while looking at their friends’ vacation photos. The WWE deal is interesting for a few reasons, though: The first episode is set to air on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/13/16770118/facebook-wwe-pro-wrestling-show-facebook-watch

Vox

2018-08-27 00:00:00

2018

8.0

27

China says ride-hailing firms that compromise passenger safety are not needed

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s transport ministry said on Monday that the country’s ride-hailing sector had many firms and that companies that did not provide its passengers with effective safety precautions were not needed. The ministry’s remarks were made in a commentary published on its website after a Didi Chuxing passenger was raped and murdered by her driver, sparking social media outrage and forcing the firm to suspend its carpool service. “If a company is not compliant and self-disciplined, and takes its passengers’ lives as a game, the public will vote with their feet and the government will not just stand by,” it said. Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-didi-transport-ministry/china-says-ride-hailing-firms-that-compromise-passenger-safety-are-not-needed-idUSKCN1LC0DV

Technology News

Reuters

2019-06-28 00:00:00

2019

6.0

28

Bulgaria acts to void citizenship of 3 Russians and Kazakh over irregularities

SOFIA, June 28 (Reuters) - Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor said on Friday he had asked the government to withdraw Bulgarian passports held by three Russians and a Kazakh national over irregularities that would have disqualified them from citizenship. The request came as the government plans to halt a scheme that allows rich foreigners to buy citizenship with a minimum 1-million-lev ($582,000) investment, on grounds it had failed to bring any significant economic benefit to the EU country. The European Union’s executive commission is concerned that such schemes could help foreign organised crime groups infiltrate the 28-member bloc. Bulgaria is ranked as the EU state most prone to corruption and organised crime. Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov said Sergey Druzhinin, a Russian, and Kazakh Kahir Rahimov, who obtained Bulgarian passports in 2011, had concealed information that would have ruled them out for Bulgarian citizenship. Two other Russians, Vladislav Levitskiy and Galina Ulyutina, had not fulfilled a requirement for investment by foreigners within a two-year period, Tsatsarov said in a statement. Ulyutina is the wife of Yuri Soloviev, First Deputy Chairman of VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest state-owned banks. “The prosecutor’s office received indications from the national security agency that violations were committed during the procedure for acquisition of citizenship as well as for non-fulfillment of obligations ...(for) investment,” he said. None of the three Russians and the Kazakh named by Tsatsarov could be reached for comment. Tsatsarov sent his request to the Justice Ministry which is expected to forward it to Bulgaria’s president for a final ruling. Tsatsarov’s office said other cases of violations of the citizenship law uncovered by the security agency were under investigation. Obtaining a Bulgarian passport opens the door for the holder to most EU countries. ($1 = 1.7165 leva) (Reporting by Angel Krasimirov Editing by Mark Heinrich)

https://www.reuters.com/article/bulgaria-russia-citizenship/bulgaria-acts-to-void-citizenship-of-3-russians-and-kazakh-over-irregularities-idUSL8N23Z2RL

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Reuters