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2016-03-16 03:30:52

2016

3.0

16

Andrew Prokop

Here's the math for Bernie Sanders going forward. It doesn't look good.

Bernie Sanders fell so far behind Hillary Clinton Tuesday night that it's all but impossible for him to catch her, barring some sudden and seismic change in the race. Last week, I wrote a post laying out what would have to happen for Bernie Sanders to pull off an improbable comeback victory. And in Tuesday's elections, he didn't even come close to those targets. The votes are still being counted in some states, and Sanders was leading Missouri at press time. But Democratic proportional delegate allocation rules mean that if a race in a state is close, the identity of the winner barely matters — both candidates will get a comparable amount of delegates. The states that matter the most for the delegate count are, instead, the landslides. Before Tuesday, Clinton had already built up a lead of 215 pledged delegates over Sanders due mainly to her landslide victories across the South. And the landslides tonight all went in Clinton's favor. At press time, she was: So since Illinois and Missouri are close races where the delegates will be split pretty much evenly, Clinton's pledged delegate lead will expand substantially as a result of these blowout wins — from 215 to around 315. And of course, that's not even to mention Clinton's enormous superdelegate lead. Here's how rough the math is for Sanders going forward: To win a majority in pledged delegates, he needs to win 58 percent of those remaining. That might not sound so bad. But because all the Democratic contests allot their delegates proportionally, it's actually punishingly difficult. It means Sanders has to beat Clinton by around 58 percent to 42 percent pretty much constantly. And that's just incredibly implausible given what's happened so far, and especially given what's happened tonight. Even unexpected wins for Sanders in big states like California, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — already unlikely — wouldn't be enough. Sanders has to win those states by enormous margins. And there are still a great deal of delegates left in states and territories with large nonwhite populations — states with demographics similar to those that have favored Clinton so far. These include Maryland, Arizona, New Mexico, and even Puerto Rico (which Clinton won in a blowout in 2008). Plus, any further Clinton victory just makes the targets Sanders has to hit even more absurd. At this point, the only thing Sanders can really hope for is that some scandal emerges that tanks Clinton's numbers everywhere. Other than that, she's well on track for an easy victory.

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11243398/bernie-sanders-election-results-2016-winning

Vox

2018-05-16 00:00:00

2018

5.0

16

Phil Stewart

For Pentagon, South Korea drills became a crucial but quiet endeavor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Before North Korea’s condemnation of U.S.-South Korea military drills, even U.S. policy wonks who follow every twist and turn of events on the Korean peninsula probably did not know much about them. That was no accident. The Pentagon made a point of keeping the annual exercises off the front pages, even as U.S. military leaders including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis saw them as critical to the U.S.-South Korean alliance. Mattis set an explicit policy of going quiet on North Korea, including on the drills, two months ago, just after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled his willingness to hold an unprecedented meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “I do not want to talk about Korea at all,” Mattis told a small group of reporters on March 10 as he flew from Washington, D.C., to the Gulf state of Oman. On Tuesday, North Korea threw into question the summit between Trump and Kim scheduled for next month, angrily blaming the drills and calling them “an intentional military provocation,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. The North Korean announcement upended Mattis’ goal of carrying out the drills without intense media coverage. But it also appeared to affirm his concerns about drawing too much attention now to U.S. military activity on the Korean peninsula, which has long vexed Pyongyang. Pyongyang has viewed the U.S.-South Korean drills as rehearsals for invasion. In early March, South Korea’s National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong said after meeting with Kim that the North Korean leader understood that “routine” joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States would continue in spite of improving relations. This was widely seen as a major concession by North Korea as the United States seeks its denuclearization, though Pyongyang never publicly withdrew its long-standing demand for an end to the drills. Mattis made no secret that he feared that talking about exercises could somehow complicate the work of diplomats, something that appears now to have happened regardless of the Pentagon’s go-quiet approach. “What I want you to understand is that right now every word is going to be nuanced and parsed apart across different cultures, at different times of the day, in different contexts,” he told reporters in March when asked about the drills. He said U.S. officials directly involved in the diplomatic effort should be the ones talking about North Korea. So, the Pentagon kicked off one of its biggest annual air combat exercises, Max Thunder, with South Korea on May 14 without even issuing a statement. It was only when North Korea appeared to throw next month’s summit into question because of the drills that the Pentagon started pulling together information for the media about them. Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said, “It snuck up on me.” Pollack said he only became aware of the Max Thunder drills when the KCNA statement was issued, adding, “They (the Pentagon) have been very low key about everything.” Max Thunder, one of two exercises being conducted, is an annual air combat drill at Gwangju air base involving more than 1,000 forces from South Korea and the United States. Although KCNA described the drills as the “largest-ever,” the Pentagon said they were similar in size to previous years. “During Max Thunder, U.S. and (South Korean) aircrews have the ability to fly missions in realistic scenarios. This type of training is integral to our ability to safeguard the Korean Peninsula together,” a Pentagon spokesman said. Max Thunder is scheduled to end on May 25 and the other exercise, Foal Eagle, is expected to run until the end of May. The summit between Trump and Kim is scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. Kim’s latest move could be aimed at testing Trump’s willingness to make concessions ahead of the summit, which is due to be preceded by a visit to Washington next week by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Bonnie Glaser of Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said Kim may be being influenced by Chinese President Xi Jinping after two recent meetings with him. The Chinese leader has advocated a freeze in North Korea’s nuclear program in return for a freeze in U.S.-South Korean drills. That concession was previously ruled out by U.S. and South Korean officials. “The fact this issue is back on the table suggests Xi Jinping may have raised it with Kim, and that Kim is carrying Xi’s water,” she said. Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Toni Reinhold

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-drills/for-pentagon-south-korea-drills-became-a-crucial-but-quiet-endeavor-idUSKCN1IH0B6

World News

Reuters

2019-06-18 00:00:00

2019

6.0

18

BRIEF-Edisun Power Europe Decides On Capital Increase

June 18 (Reuters) - EDISUN POWER EUROPE AG: * CAPITAL INCREASE THROUGH CONTRIBUTION IN KIND OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC PROJECT * DECIDES TO INCREASE SHARE CAPITAL BY CHF 2,423,460.00 BY ISSUING 80’782 SHARES * LISTING OF NEWLY ISSUED SHARES ON THE SIX SWISS EXCHANGE IS DEFERRED UNTIL DECEMBER 31, 2019 AT THE LATEST Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

https://www.reuters.com/article/brief-edisun-power-europe-decides-on-cap/brief-edisun-power-europe-decides-on-capital-increase-idUSFWN23P0FU

Switzerland Market Report

Reuters

2018-12-27 00:00:00

2018

12.0

27

Alex Lubben

Government workers are sharing their #shutdownstories on social media. They’re grim.

President Donald Trump took another swing at his opponents Thursday morning, claiming that the majority of civil servants suffering under the current government shutdown are mostly Democrats. “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?,” Trump tweeted, without providing any proof for his assertion. But for these federal employees, the shutdown isn’t just a matter of political brinkmanship. The gridlock in Washington over border wall funding is hurting their livelihoods and their ability to pay for basic necessities. And now they’re taking to social media, using the hashtag #shutdownstories, to air their complaints about the shutdown, letting the public and lawmakers know that not getting paid isn’t easy for working families — especially during the holidays. A mother worried about paying for her diabetic son’s insulin treatments. Another mother voiced concern about making rent without pay on meager savings. Yet another government worker said he would have to choose between healthcare and rent if the shutdown persists. One man, in a now-deleted tweet, said the shutdown left him homeless. President Donald Trump took another swing at his opponents Thursday morning, claiming that the majority of civil servants suffering under the current government shutdown are mostly Democrats. “Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?,” Trump tweeted, without providing any proof for his assertion. But for these federal employees, the shutdown isn’t just a matter of political brinkmanship. The gridlock in Washington over border wall funding is hurting their livelihoods and their ability to pay for basic necessities. And now they’re taking to social media, using the hashtag #shutdownstories, to air their complaints about the shutdown, letting the public and lawmakers know that not getting paid isn’t easy for working families — especially during the holidays. A mother worried about paying for her diabetic son’s insulin treatments. Another mother voiced concern about making rent without pay on meager savings. Yet another government worker said he would have to choose between healthcare and rent if the shutdown persists. One man, in a now-deleted tweet, said the shutdown left him homeless. The shutdown is estimated to affect 800,000 workers, 380,000 of whom are furloughed, at home without pay, according to estimates from the Senate Appropriations Committee. The other 420,000 federal workers are deemed “essential,” and will have to keep working without pay through the shutdown. Most government employees expect to eventually get back pay when the spending bill is passed and the government reopens. But government contractors aren’t so lucky: they're essentially jobless until then. In the meantime, many of these federal and contracted workers are taking to social media to share their strife, using the hashtag #shutdownstories. The Trump administration isn’t giving workers much hope that the impasse will end anytime soon either. No votes are scheduled in Congress this week, and Trump has shown little appetite for a compromise, vowing to keep the government shuttered for as long as it takes. And if that doesn't work, he's made it clear he's more than happy to blame Democrats. But the voting public, doesn’t seem to agree with the president, and his approval rating is dipping as the shutdown drags on, according to a new poll. Cover image: The U.S. Capitol is seen as a shutdown affecting parts of the federal government appeared no closer to ending, with President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats locked in a hardening standoff over border wall money, in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/yw793y/government-workers-are-sharing-their-shutdownstories-on-social-media-theyre-grim

Vice News

2017-03-02 17:00:00

2017

3.0

2

Alex Robert Ross

David Bazan Tells a Perfect Story in 174 Words on New Single "The Ballad of Pedro y Blanco"

David Bazan is playing in people's living rooms again. He does this a lot. He picks up and drives around a few hundred square miles of the US, stopping off in his fans' apartments as he goes, playing delicate acoustic shows to the couple dozen people who sit on the carpets at his feet. You'd be forgiven for thinking that there's a parallel between Bazan's upbringing in the church and his current touring format; it's all very New Testament. But beyond that disciple instinct, the former Pedro the Lion auteur is also uniquely cut out for all this as a performer. His new single, "The Ballad of Pedro y Blanco," is a clear example. Like the rest of his forthcoming fifth solo album Care, it's entirely synth-driven, all glitches bright arpeggiated sparkles. But Bazan's baritone is steady, so close to the front of the mix that you forget about the backdrop entirely. He could have played the track on an acoustic guitar, an 808, a grand piano, or a set of tuned garbage cans; you'd still be fixed on Bazan's narrative arc and stoic, soft delivery. Lyrically, Bazan is at his sharpest, telling a two peoples' life stories over five verses: "Pair off with the one you like the best," "Look out here come two little ones," "in love and the money's alright." He doesn't shirk from the tragedy at the end, either. It's sweet and succinct with nothing left in without purpose. We asked Bazan about the track and he responded with this quote from the Coen Brothers' 1987 movie Raising Arizona, starring Nicholas Cage. Listen to "The Ballad of Pedro y Blanco" below. Lead photo by Ryan Russel via PR. Follow Noisey on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykzjz/david-bazan-tells-a-perfect-story-in-174-words-on-new-single-the-ballad-of-pedro-y-blanco

Noisey

Vice

2017-10-04 00:00:00

2017

10.0

4

Tess Owen

Facebook tried to sell me a bump stock like the Vegas gunman used

The “bump stock” — an obscure accessory that transforms a semi-automatic assault rifle into a rapid-fire machine gun — has been widely available for purchase online and in gun stores across the country for years. And then it was used in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. On Tuesday, the devices — commonly sold under the “Slide Fires” brand — were listed online by Walmart and hunting equipment giant Cabela’s at prices ranging from about $90 to $300. But by Wednesday, Slide Fires had vanished from both companies’ websites. Cabela’s and Walmart did not respond to multiple requests for comment from VICE News. Their disappearance coincides with the news that gunman Stephen Paddock was equipped with 12 bump stocks for the 23 firearms he had on hand when he mowed down revelers at a country music festival in Las Vegas from his 32nd-floor hotel room on Sunday night. At least 58 people were killed and more than 500 injured. Bump stocks allow shooters to unleash a hail of bullets by harnessing the gun’s recoil to rapidly pull the trigger and mimic automatic fire. The devices made it possible for Paddock to fire approximately 90 rounds every 10 seconds, according to audio analysis of the gunfire. The “bump stock” — an obscure accessory that transforms a semi-automatic assault rifle into a rapid-fire machine gun — has been widely available for purchase online and in gun stores across the country for years. And then it was used in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. On Tuesday, the devices — commonly sold under the “Slide Fires” brand — were listed online by Walmart and hunting equipment giant Cabela’s at prices ranging from about $90 to $300. But by Wednesday, Slide Fires had vanished from both companies’ websites. Cabela’s and Walmart did not respond to multiple requests for comment from VICE News. Their disappearance coincides with the news that gunman Stephen Paddock was equipped with 12 bump stocks for the 23 firearms he had on hand when he mowed down revelers at a country music festival in Las Vegas from his 32nd-floor hotel room on Sunday night. At least 58 people were killed and more than 500 injured. Bump stocks allow shooters to unleash a hail of bullets by harnessing the gun’s recoil to rapidly pull the trigger and mimic automatic fire. The devices made it possible for Paddock to fire approximately 90 rounds every 10 seconds, according to audio analysis of the gunfire. Earlier this week, bump stocks were still being marketed aggressively by online retailers and through ads on Facebook. Like many Americans, I’d never heard of a bump stock until the aftermath of Sunday’s mass shooting, but soon after I started perusing listings for bump stocks, Cabela’s targeted me with an ad for one in my Facebook feed. The particular bump stock that appeared on my feed was the popular “Slide Fire” — the Mercedes Benz of bump stocks — sold at Cabela’s for just $169.99. “Safe, fun and legal,” Cabela’s website said. “Unleash freedom.” Facebook did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment. There’s no legal reason not to aggressively market bump stocks. In 2012, in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, led an effort to outlaw the devices, but her bill died in the Senate. The Las Vegas massacre has prompted renewed concern among other lawmakers besides Feinstein, who reintroduced the bill. “I don’t know anybody who goes deer hunting that needs to retrofit a gun to fire hundreds of rounds per minute,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo, told NBC News. “It’s to slaughter people.” Even some Republicans weighed in, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Dean Heller of Nevada. Just like guns tend to sell well after mass shootings, it’s possible bump stocks are flying off the shelves post-Vegas. Half of the “Slide Fires” for AR-15s (the priciest ones, at that) on Slide Fire Solutions’ website are currently out of stock. On Tuesday, I called around various Cabela’s locations to inquire about their in-store supply of bump stocks. At a Hudson, Massachusetts, location, they didn’t have any devices left in-store, but the shop assistant told me I could purchase one online and I wouldn’t need any ID, because it’s not an actual firearm. At a Cabela’s location in Henrico, Virginia, they had only one Slide Fire left, priced at $279.99. The assistant there told me that I would need to show proof of age to purchase in-store, but nothing else. At another in Fort Mill, South Carolina, they also had one Slide Fire left, a cheaper model priced at $199.88. There weren’t many reviews for “Slide Fires” on Cabela’s website, but most of them were positive. “A fun way to waste ammunition,” one customer wrote last month, and gave it four stars. “Loads of FUN,” wrote Mike from West Virginia. “If you enjoy shooting your AR, this makes it a blast. You can empty a 30-round map in seconds and smile like crazy spending $$$$ at the same time.” “Most fun you can have with your clothes on,” wrote another satisfied customer. Slide Fire Solutions is based out of Moran, Texas. Their website credits the invention of the bump stock to Jeremiah Cottle, a U.S. Army veteran who served during the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts, as well as in the Middle East during Operation Enduring Freedom. “The honor, commitment, and perseverance that is practiced in our U.S. Military is carried over to the core beliefs and practices of our company,” the company’s website states. Their products are manufactured to accommodate both right- and left-handed users.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/mb9xap/facebook-tried-to-sell-me-a-bump-stock-like-the-vegas-gunman-used

Vice News

2018-08-29 10:16:27

2018

8.0

29

Ryan Tarinelli

Ex-Texas cop found guilty of murdering black teen faces 99 years

Jurors are now deciding the fate of a former Texas police officer who was convicted of murder for fatally shooting a black, unarmed teenager last year in suburban Dallas.15-year-old Jordan Edwards was killed when Oliver, a police officer in Balch Springs at the time, fired into a car full of black teenagers as it drove away from a house party.Oliver faces between five and 99 years in prison, according to an Edwards family attorney. DALLAS (AP) — Jurors are now deciding the fate of a former Texas police officer who was convicted of murder for fatally shooting a black, unarmed teenager last year in suburban Dallas. Wednesday marks the second day of the sentencing phase in the trial of Roy Oliver, who was convicted Tuesday for the 2017 slaying of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. Edwards was killed when Oliver, a police officer in Balch Springs at the time, fired into a car full of black teenagers as it drove away from a house party. In a rare guilty verdict in a police shooting case, the Dallas County jurors were not swayed by Oliver's claim that he feared for his partner's life when he fired into the vehicle. His partner told jurors he didn't fear for his life. Gasps echoed around the courtroom as the verdict was read. Edwards' relatives sobbed and hugged prosecutors, waved their hands in the air and proclaimed "Thank you, Jesus!" after the jury left. His father, Odell Edwards, briefly spoke outside the courtroom before heading back in to begin listening to the sentencing phase of the trial. He said he was thankful for the decision of the jury — which featured two black members out of 12 jurors and two alternates — and felt like jumping for joy. "I just want to say I'm happy, very happy," he said, adding that it's "been a long time" since he felt that way. Jurors later heard from Edwards' father when he testified during the sentencing phase of the trial. He told them his son always had a smile on his face and dreamed of playing football at Alabama. Oliver faces between five and 99 years in prison, according to an Edwards family attorney. Oliver and his partner were responding to a report of underage drinking at the house party. Police initially said the vehicle backed up toward officers "in an aggressive manner," but later said that bodycam video showed the vehicle was moving forward as officers approached. Oliver was fired just days after the shooting. Experts say it's extremely rare for police officers to be tried and convicted of murder for shootings that occurred while they were on duty. Only six non-federal police officers have now been convicted of murder in such cases — and four of those were overturned — since 2005, according to data compiled by criminologist and Bowling Green State University professor Phil Stinson. Stinson, who tracks such cases nationwide , told The Associated Press on Tuesday that to secure a murder conviction, the facts of a case have to be "so over the top and bizarre" that the officer's actions can't be rationally explained. Experts also say that securing a conviction against an officer is often a challenge because jurors are inclined to believe police testimony and criminal culpability in such cases is subjective. Oliver was found not guilty on two lesser charges of aggravated assault stemming from the shooting. Jurors deliberated for two days before reaching the verdicts. The sentencing phase stretched into the evening Tuesday before jurors recessed for the day. "This was a long fought battle," said Daryl Washington, an attorney representing Odell Edwards in a civil lawsuit filed in the death. "We are just happy ... that Roy Oliver is gonna have to do his time for taking Jordan's life. What he did on that night should have never happened." Washington said black children and teenagers across the country can now walk around a little safer because officers know they will be held accountable. In closing arguments, defense attorneys told jurors they needed to evaluate the circumstances from Oliver's viewpoint and from what the former officer knew at the time. But prosecutors described Oliver as out of control and looking for a reason to kill. They argued that his firing into the car wasn't reasonable. The shooting came after Oliver and his partner, Tyler Gross, had broken up the party. Both officers were inside the residence when they heard gunfire outside and responded. Authorities later determined the shots were fired near a nursing home in the area. Oliver retrieved his rifle and went toward Gross, who was ordering the car carrying Edwards to stop. Oliver testified that he saw the car back up and stop for a second before moving forward and going toward Gross. Oliver told the jury the car was about to hit his partner. Oliver said he felt he had no other option but to fire. Gross, however, testified that he did not fear for his life and never felt the need to fire his weapon. He also said he didn't feel like the vehicle was trying to hit him. Prosecutors said Oliver fired after the vehicle passed Gross. Investigators also said no guns were found in the teens' vehicle.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-texas-cop-found-guilty-of-murdering-black-teen-faces-99-years-2018-8

Business Insider

2017-11-09 21:24:00

2017

11.0

9

Sarah Emerson

Twitter Verification Has Always Been a Mess

Twitter wants to fix its long-broken verification process, according to the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey. The means by which users obtain “a blue checkmark” are nebulous and seemingly biased, and the system’s flaws were exposed after Jason Kessler, organizer of the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was verified this week. Kessler’s new credential caused many to fault Twitter for tacitly endorsing the ideals he espouses—essentially, white supremacy. The verification process, according to Twitter, is supposed to authenticate a person’s identity. But, instead, it’s created a hierarchy of “Very Important Tweeters,” or “VITs,” as they are referred to internally by staff. What does it mean when VITs include racists and bigots? While Twitter’s verification steps are now automated, at one point, users could only snag a blue checkmark by knowing someone within the company. According to a former Twitter employee, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, the process was once very difficult. (A few years ago, there wasn’t even a form to apply for a verification.) And while the process was never explicitly preferential, it engendered the belief that “it was a big deal for us to get a famous person verified, as if it validated that Twitter continued to be important,” they said. Twitter’s own rules say that accounts of public interest may qualify for verification. Users must submit several ID types to receive a badge. That can include a government-issued ID, like a passport, and summary of why you deserve to be verified. Submissions are largely vetted by Twitter Support, which dumps applicants into various buckets: celebrity, journalist, athlete, business, politician, etc. But some people claim the Twitter verification process hasn’t worked that way for them. Rebecca Watson, a popular science podcaster and founder of Skepchick, who has been prominent enough for years to reasonably be considered an “account of public interest,” claims she submitted multiple forms of ID to verify herself after people created fake accounts impersonating her. Still, at the time, Twitter refused to verify her. Kessler, meanwhile, describes himself as a “freelance journalist” for far-right publications: “I must be the only working class white advocate [to be verified],” he tweeted. The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, convened white supremacist and neo-Nazi demonstrators, and caused the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, when 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. While Twitter’s official line has always been that verification isn’t a value judgment by the company, in practice that hasn’t been the case. For example, verified users can sort their mentions to only include tweets from other verified users. While Twitter claims that verification exists only as a means of identification, verified users are widely perceived to be more important or valued than unverified ones. The former employee told me that the issue of problematic users asking for verification was regularly raised on Falquora, an internal forum where employees can pose questions to management. “Leadership claimed that verification was working as intended. Every time it became a big issue, [the verification of white supremacist Richard Spencer, for example,] it would come up on Falquora as a thing,” the former Twitter employee said. The issue of controversial users being verified would “get upvoted, and either Jack [Dorsey], Vijaya [Gadde, Twitter's general counsel], or other leaders would get up on stage and give us a speech about how verification is only about confirming that a person is who they say they are.” A spokesperson for Twitter emphasized that verification has been a known problem, and directed me to Dorsey’s tweet on the matter. Despite Dorsey’s claim, however, former Twitter staff insist that one fix was suggested repeatedly. If tiers of verified users were assigned colored badges—still reserving the blue checkmark for influential people—this would allow regular users to authenticate themselves without the onus, or implications, of being a “VIT.” “The colored verification badges have been brought up internally SO MANY TIMES. I don't know why that hadn't been implemented yet,” another former Twitter employee, who also spoke to me on the condition of anonymity because of a non disclosure agreement, told me. “Everything there is so process heavy that it takes forever, and too many approvals need to happen before anything ever gets done.” “I know people that deserve to be verified that definitely had a very hard time getting it, and some never did,” they added. Twitter leadership allegedly dismissed the colored badge solution, favoring a larger platform revamp. But when management was challenged on how that revamp would happen or help, exactly, staff were never given a satisfactory answer. Regarding the existing verification process, some Twitter employees have taken steps toward transparency. Twitter’s GM of consumer product and engineering, Ed Ho, questioned whether the company should even dole out a credential as authoritative as the checkmark. This week’s incident reiterates how unwilling Twitter is to discuss problems inherent to its platform—until it’s forced to. Less than a week ago, a customer service contractor briefly disabled President Trump’s Twitter account, compelling the company to acknowledge flaws with its admin privileges. A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment on how the company plans to improve the verification process.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmzgkx/twitter-verification-always-broken-white-supremacists

Tech by VICE

Vice

2016-03-18 00:00:00

2016

3.0

18

Tamara Khandaker

A Canadian City Might Fine Students for Gossiping and Name-Calling

Name-calling, taunting, mocking, and excluding another person could become illegal in Saskatoon if a sweeping anti-bullying bylaw is passed by city council on Monday — a possibility critics say is extremely troubling. The bylaw, which defines bullying as "unprovoked, repeated and inappropriate comment or conduct" that could cause "harm, fear of physical distress," would target an extensive list of offenses. It hasn't even passed yet, but concerns are already being raised. "[The bylaw] has the potential to catch a lot of expression that isn't necessarily harmful or that may be offensive to individuals but actually has a valuable purpose," Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association told VICE News. "We think we've done our homework here and we're confident we've come up with a good product." Name-calling, taunting, mocking, and excluding another person could become illegal in Saskatoon if a sweeping anti-bullying bylaw is passed by city council on Monday — a possibility critics say is extremely troubling. The bylaw, which defines bullying as "unprovoked, repeated and inappropriate comment or conduct" that could cause "harm, fear of physical distress," would target an extensive list of offenses. It hasn't even passed yet, but concerns are already being raised. "[The bylaw] has the potential to catch a lot of expression that isn't necessarily harmful or that may be offensive to individuals but actually has a valuable purpose," Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association told VICE News. "We think we've done our homework here and we're confident we've come up with a good product." Aside from physical acts like kicking, pushing, hair pulling, or pinching, the bylaw would punish anyone over the age of 12 for "shunning, ostracizing, excluding another person and gossiping and rumour mongering," as well as taunting, tormenting, name calling, ridiculing, insulting, mocking and directing slurs towards another person. A first-time offender could be fined up to $300, while subsequent offences could land one with a fine of up to $2,500. But the bylaw does leaves room for the conflict to be resolved through mediation if both parties agree to take part. City solicitor Patricia Warwick told the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix that legal staff were "careful" to take issues the right to freedom of expression into account when writing the law. "We think we've done our homework here and we're confident we've come up with a good product," she said. But Zwibel believes the language is too broad and "potentially vague," citing the possibility of the bylaw being used to justify, for example, kicking out members of the public from meetings when they are critical of officials. "I don't think it's the appropriate role of municipal bylaw to deal with these kinds of issues," she said. "It's imperfect, but we do rely on social customs and one another to check each other." Related: Rehtaeh Parsons' Death Inspired a Cyberbullying Law in Canada — But Does It Hurt Free Speech? Councillor Ann Iwanchuk, who requested that the bylaw be drafted in the first place, told VICE News that while the law is generally well-drafted, certain elements, like the definition of bullying itself, need clarification. Iwanchuk requested that a bylaw be drafted in February 2014 after being particularly moved by a Saskatoon resident who spoke to city council about her daughter's struggles with bullying. "Her daughter attempted suicide...and that brought home to me how serious this is," she said. "When this girl awoke from a coma two weeks later and actually was disappointed that she wasn't successful in her suicide, so it wasn't even a wake up call. "There's going to be wording that'll change, and there will be defense lawyers that will rip this thing apart." "If we can curb that behaviour so that they don't bring it into adulthood, into our workforce, I think we're doing a positive thing for our city," she said. She is concerned, however, as drafted, the bylaw could entice "frivolous complaints." "What is the trigger to a complaint? Is it that somebody didn't look at you correctly? You need to make sure it's for serious, repeated, and abusive behaviour," she continued. Iwanchuk also questioned why the proposed bylaw includes private establishments. "I don't see how prolonged bullying could take place in a private establishment," she said. "If you're at a nightclub, you could leave. You'd probably have other options." Retired Saskatoon police Sgt. Brian Trainor told VICE News the bylaw, which doesn't make the offences criminal, could be helpful to police. "I think a bylaw is necessary because it gives police a soft tool to use in cases of bullying," he said, but added that he wonders if the wording of the bylaw could be "misapplied." "When it's talking about what is bullying — taunting and all those things — that gets to be fairly vague." He adds, however, that the bylaw is a starting point that will most likely change. "There's going to be wording that'll change, and there will be defense lawyers that will rip this thing apart," he said. Two versions of the bylaw, which could come into effect just in time for the new school year in September, are to be considered by city council — one which would apply to school property during school hours, and another one that doesn't. The report notes that school boards have "expressed that they already have sufficient tools and safeguards in place to address bullying behaviour in schools." It would be up to the Saskatoon Police Service to figure out how the bylaw would be enforced. Follow Tamara Khandaker on Twitter: @anima_tk

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vb8x74/a-canadian-city-might-fine-students-for-gossiping-and-name-calling

Vice News

2019-02-11 00:00:00

2019

2.0

11

Zachary Fagenson

For Parkland survivors, a year of political gains and unresolved pain

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) - A year after the deadliest high-school shooting in U.S. history, students from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School look back with pride on the network they have built to stem the country’s epidemic of gun violence through the ballot box. Even so, it has been difficult for many to come to terms with the trauma of Feb. 14, 2018, when a former Stoneman student with an assault gun massacred 17 people at the Parkland, Florida campus. “There’s definitely not a day that goes by where I’m not thinking about it, and I know for a fact that everyone that has to walk through those campus gates is thinking about it,” said junior Caitlynn Tibbetts. The student campaign in support of gun control, which featured a massive march on Washington and in other cities around the country, resulted in the formation of a sprawling national network called March for Our Lives. With some 500 chapters, it has linked tens of thousands of student activists in pushing for political candidates who support their goals of new measures to reduce gun violence. “We have to replace these terrible actors who are comfortable putting our lives at risk for a check from the NRA,” said Matt Deitsch, the group’s chief strategist, referring to the National Rifle Association, which opposes what it considers any retreat on gun rights. Deitsch, along with Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Delaney Tarr and Jaclyn Corin, is among the most prominent Stoneman students who have toured the nation to encourage young people to register and vote for pro-gun control candidates. By “terrible actors,” Deitsch was referring to political incumbents who oppose the group’s goals, which include a ban on assault weapons. It also backs funding for gun violence research and supports universal background checks, disarming domestic abusers and enacting laws to staunch gun trafficking.  “The fact that gun violence is a top issue for the first time ever is something that should scare the people arrayed against us,” Deitsch, 21, said with evident pride. Having put together a multimillion-dollar war chest, with the help of A-list celebrities like George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, the network aims to expand to thousands of high schools and colleges by the end of 2019, giving it even more clout going into the 2020 election. On Monday, activists were to launch a petition campaign to put an assault weapons ban on Florida’s ballot in the 2020 election. March For Our Lives leader Hogg, among the first Stoneman students to call for greater gun control in the hours after the shooting, was expected to attend the campaign kickoff, along with parents of some of the victims. The petition needs 800,000 signatures.  Success has come at a cost for the student activists. Since last year’s shooting, many have not had enough time to grieve or properly process the tragedy. In a series of recent Twitter messages, Tarr, a March for Our Lives co-founder, reflected on having to put on a composed “performance” over the past year as a public figure on social media. “I can’t sit back and let you think that I’m always fine, that I’m always ready to go. That’s not realistic,” she wrote. “I’m a human being and god damn if all of this work and pain isn’t hard.” The past year has brought more U.S. gun violence, complicating the task of recovery. In a shooting with echoes of Parkland, a gunman at Santa Fe High School in Texas killed 10 and wounded 14 on May 18. Months later, an anti-Semitic attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh left 11 dead and six injured. By the end the year, that pair of shootings, combined with hundreds of others, left a total of 387 dead, according to the Gun Violence Archive. “We carry a heavy weight, and every single day there’s another mass shooting in America, and we see ourselves as vessels amplifying what’s going on this country,” Deitsch said. For many students, sharing their experiences, both broadly and with those who have gone through something similar, has been therapeutic, however. Not long after the shooting, a publisher contacted Sarah Lerner, a journalism and English teacher at Stoneman, about publishing a book filled with reflections of that day and its aftermath. “Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories” was released late last month and includes 43 accounts of the shooting and what followed, including two pieces by Tibbetts, the junior. “This book gave us the opportunity to look past politics and look at the heart of it,” Tibbetts said. “And the heart of it is that we’re struggling to move past it, but we’re trying.” Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; Editing by Frank McGurty and Tom Brown

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-anniversary-students/for-parkland-survivors-a-year-of-political-gains-and-unresolved-pain-idUSKCN1Q0136

U.S.

Reuters

2018-09-28 00:00:00

2018

9.0

28

Martyn Herman

Finau fires first shot as 42nd Ryder Cup gets underway

PARIS (Reuters) - American rookie Tony Finau got the first Ryder Cup staged in France under way on Friday as thousands of fans descended on the Le Golf National for the biennial clash of the continents. The peace of the countryside near to historic Versaille was shattered as fans streamed in to find vantage points around the pristine Albatros course for the eagerly-awaited 42nd edition of one of sport’s most compelling team events. Looming behind the first tee, the Ryder Cup’s biggest ever grandstand was packed to its near 7,000-capacity long before the players emerged across a footbridge to start their rounds at just past 8 a.m. local time. Deafening chants of “Europe, Europe” echoed down the first fairway as Justin Rose and Spanish rookie Jon Rahm reached the tee to take on Finau and three-times major winner Brooks Koepka. Defending champions United States are looking to win on European soil for the first time for 25 years and have resurgent 14-times major winner Tiger Woods to spearhead their challenge. While the support was overwhelmingly in favor of the hosts, there was plenty of loud backing for the Americans too, with many of their countryman sporting stars and stripes outfits. The atmosphere was more akin to a soccer match as the day’s fourballs began with a smattering of partisan pantomime boos greeting the announcement of the American team. The banter was generally good-natured, however. “It’s fantastic, so much energy so early in the morning,” Josh Hunking from Texas, watching his first Ryder Cup in Europe, said. “I’ve never heard Europeans make so much noise.” It all proved too much for Finau, whose iron off the tee went way left, just avoiding water — Europe’s fans showing no mercy as they reveled in his understandably nervy start. Koepka steadied the ship with a straighter drive but the day’s first hole went to Europe with Rose sinking a birdie to thunderous roars from the stacked crowds around the first green. Finau, U.S. captain Jim Furyk’s final pick, joined the party with a chip-in eagle at the sixth to level match one. The day’s second match featured Danish newcomer Thorbjorn Olesen playing alongside Rory McIlroy against world number one Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler. World number 45 Olesen, the lowest ranked of the 24 players taking part, looked dry-mouthed as he addressed his ball on the first tee and sent a nervy drive into water. Whichever colors they were wearing, the arrival of Woods for his first Ryder Cup shot for six years, was the moment many had arrived so early to witness. The 42-year-old responded with a drive that landed safely on the first fairway. Woods, playing with self-styled “Captain America” Patrick Reed, was up against British Open champion Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood, one of five rookies in the Europe team. Following the quartet of morning fourballs, the afternoon will see four foursomes matches, in which team mates play alternate shots using the same ball. The U.S. need a minimum of 14 points from the weekend’s matches to retain the trophy. Around a quarter of a million tickets have been sold for the week with around 70,000 expected to follow the action on Friday. The spectacular 7,234-yard layout offers superb viewing for fans with grassy banks flanking the fairways and most greens set in natural amphitheatres. There are also 18 huge jumbotrons around the grounds to keep fans up-to-date with all the day’s twists and turns. Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by John O'Brien

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-golf-rydercup/finau-fires-first-shot-as-42nd-ryder-cup-gets-underway-idUSKCN1M80QP

Sports News

Reuters

2016-06-01 01:44:58

2016

6.0

1

Ina Fried

The Gates Foundation is trying to stop Zika by giving mosquitos a sexually transmitted disease

Ordinarily the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is in the business of stopping diseases rather than spreading them. When it comes to mosquitoes, though, the foundation is funding an approach that aims to spread a disease among mosquitoes that would prevent those bugs from spreading Zika and other diseases. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann showed off a kit at Code Conference on Tuesday that looks like a Chinese food take-out box that contains female mosquito eggs that have been infected with a bacteria. When these insects are born, they will produce offspring that is unable to transmit a variety of diseases, including Zika. Part of the reason the foundation is focused on this approach is that Zika itself wasn't on anyone's radar as far as serious disease threats. Past outbreaks caused only flu-like symptoms and not the birth defects and other serious issues that the current Zika outbreak is causing. "Zika wasn’t on anyone’s list," Desmond-Hellman said. By contrast, Ebola was seen as a potential bioterrorism risk so the global health community was at least a "tiny bit" prepared for the 2014 outbreak. Even Ebola had in the past been limited to just 2,000 cases. The Gates Foundation has been funding the Australian researchers behind the STD approach for more than eight years, originally to halt the threat of Dengue fever, though the same approach should also help fight the spread of Zika, as well as Chikungunya, another serious mosquito-borne disease. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/31/11825676/gates-foundation-chief-code-conference-

Vox

2016-11-09 18:42:54

2016

11.0

9

Ina Fried

Former Microsoft executive Doug Burgum is North Dakota’s next governor

Another businessman-turned-politician was elected Tuesday, though with significantly less controversy. Former Microsoft executive Doug Burgum won his bid to become the governor of North Dakota, fueled by a socially moderate, fiscally conservative campaign. Burgum, who sold his Great Plains Software business to Microsoft in 2002 for $1.1 billion, laid out his plans in a January email interview with Recode. “The role of governor is the closest thing to a CEO job in government,” Burgum said. “I have spent my working life attracting capital and talent to North Dakota.” Here’s an edited transcript of that interview. Recode: What made you want to run for governor? Doug Burgum: The private sector, free markets and technology are all huge positive forces that have literally helped change the world. I am grateful to have been able to spend my life as an entrepreneur in the global software industry. The role of governor is the closest thing to a CEO job in government. I have spent my working life attracting capital and talent to North Dakota. I am interested in working where I can have the biggest impact on my home state, and the role of the governor in North Dakota, among other duties, is to be the lead ambassador and cheerleader for attracting human and financial capital to the state. I have no desire to be a politician. I do want to be an elected leader. Are there lessons from your career as an entrepreneur that you feel guide your political philosophy? Yes. Competition drives innovation, lowers cost, speeds delivery and more. Most government services are monopolies, or near monopolies, and therefore have lacked the market forces that produce better solutions. And most government agencies are lagging behind private industry in technology adoption. There are big opportunities to re-invent government service delivery at all levels. Which is hardest, running your own business, working for Steve Ballmer or running for office? Each of these represent unique joys and challenges! I ran Great Plains for 18 years, worked with Steve for six and a half years, and have been running for office for 16 days. The biggest change across all three of these over the last 30 years is the nonstop, 24-hour role that social media plays in building brand, driving opinion and engaging with customers (voters). What do you make of the Republican presidential race? It has been great for TV ratings and for people who own media outlets in Iowa and New Hampshire. It remains to be seen if the process produces a viable national candidate who will be competitive in the fall. Today’s campaigns and candidates are a product of a convoluted, legacy, state-by-state primary process that would possibly not exist if one was tasked to start from scratch to invent a new process for identifying and vetting the very best individuals to serve as president of the United States. How can technology help solve some of the issues facing North Dakota? Every industry in North Dakota (and everywhere else) is facing accelerating change. Moore’s law, super-cheap storage, increasing bandwidth infrastructure and a proliferation of super low-cost, highly accurate automatic data sensors are transforming every process and workflow. There has been a truism in the tech world that “every company needs to become a software company, or be disrupted by one.” I believe this is absolutely true. We have a global oil surplus today because of the rapid advancements in technology. This stands in stark contrast to a multi-decade narrative that we were “running out of oil.” In energy exploration, some of these technologic advances that have contributed to the unforeseen abundance, such as deep horizontal drilling, were pioneered in the Bakken formation in North Dakota. Technology ranging from self-driving tractors with GPS precision, real-time soil analysis (to reduce fertilizer needs) and continued advances in hybrid seed technology are reshaping production agriculture. Health care delivery markets and systems have been completely distorted by government regulation and mandates, making our health care system less productive. These productivity losses will be compounded by demographics: We have more caregivers (doctors and nurses retiring) and more patients aging, so this will put additional pressures on our health care systems. The only way out of this productivity inversion for health care is to streamline operational workflows with automatically generated data. And our North Dakota education system, which needs to serve a significant rural as well as increasing urban population, will need to accelerate its efforts to raise outcomes to ensure students of all ages have the skills they need to be competitive in a global economy. What role is technology playing in your campaign? Our campaign team is like a lean tech startup today. We are into rapid prototyping and continuous improvement and building community. There are so many low-cost amazing tools, solutions and platforms — from social media, to fundraising, to building websites, to CRM, to accounting and more — to help us share our messages. Anything else that you want to make sure people know? I am running as a moderate on social issues and as a fiscal conservative in a state that is socially conservative but has seen government spending rise more rapidly than even our fast-growing economy (fueled by the oil boom and billions of dollars of revenue surpluses at the state level). This race will be decided on the June 14th primary. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13575938/microsoft-doug-burgum-dakota-governor

Vox

2016-01-23 00:13:00

2016

1.0

23

Seth Partnow

Free Throw Follies: Andre Drummond Doesn't Need to Get Better from the Line

"How can you be a professional basketball player and miss over half your free throws?" As the "hack-a" strategy becomes more widely adopted in the NBA, that question gets asked more and more often. The answer is surprisingly simple: because they can be. The scene is as familiar as it is numbing. An opponent of the Rockets, the Clippers, or the Pistons decides that they'd rather simply send Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, or Andre Drummond, respectively, to the free-throw line than defend straight up. For the next several minutes of game time—and seemingly hours of real time—the action slows to a crawl as the targeted big man takes painful free throw after painful free throw. This practice reached its apotheosis (or, more accurately, its nadir) during the Rockets-Pistons game Wednesday night. After losing Howard to an ankle injury in the first minute of play, Houston sent Drummond to the line 36 times, where he missed 23 free throws, a single-game record. The Rockets even started the second half with little-used reserve K.J. McDaniels, who immediately committed five fouls in nine seconds to force Drummond to the line, and ultimately to the bench. According to ESPN's Kevin Pelton, who has been extensively tracking and discussing the issue, through January 20 there have already been 223 intentional, off-ball fouls this season, compared to 164 in all of the 2014-15 campaign. Without re-entering the intertwined debates about whether this is good strategy (in most circumstances, it's not) and what, if anything, is to be done about the practice (it's complicated, not least because imposing severe penalties for intentional fouling almost certainly means replay reviews, and all of a sudden, there goes the time saved by not fouling), it is important to address the issue that makes this strategy viable in the first place: Just how is it that someone with such an extreme deficit in the fundamental basketball skill of hitting an uncontested, (largely) untimed 15-footer can make it this far? It comes down to specialization, demographics, and how the two interrelate in today's NBA. Modern NBA basketball relies on a division of labor amongst the five players on the court. In other words, there are positions. Though many of these roles have become more elastic during the "positional revolution" of the past decade, teams and lineups still need a mix of several discrete skills to be successful. Ball-handling and creation. Rebounding. Outside shotmaking ability, and so on. One of these bundles of skills has come to be known as rim protection, which is based on the premise that layups are the easiest shots in basketball but become much harder if attempted in the vicinity of a very tall (even by NBA standards) man. Certainly, a good rim protector will possess other abilities in addition to great height and/or wingspan—anticipation, vision, lateral and vertical quickness, discipline—but the importance and impact of just being big is, for lack of a better term, huge. Here is where demographics come into play. Extremely tall people are such a small segment of the population that precise estimates are hard to find, but according to this calculator (which is based on Centers for Disease Control data), a 20-year-old male standing 6'10" or taller is in the 99.9997th percentile of height for men his age. That's about three rim-protector-sized young men for every million. Meanwhile, someone 6'5'' or taller—roughly the minimum height for a NBA wing—is in the 99.5339th percentile. That might not appear to be much of gap, but it's the difference between choosing from hundreds of potential players and hundreds of thousands. Lower the height requirement to 5'10'' and suddenly you're choosing from 45 percent of the population, a pool of tens of millions. While the set of "potential NBA players" is far smaller than that, there are still vastly more candidates at guard size than there are for centers. While not a perfect comparison to those demographic breakdowns—both because official league heights are often slightly fictional (as in "6-foot-13" Kevin Garnett, who didn't want to be seven feet tall and thus forced to play center) and because people often grow somewhat taller even after age twenty—the height distribution of NBA players is telling. According to NBA.com, 124 of the 447 players who have appeared thus far this season are listed at 6'10'' or taller. By comparison, 212 players are between 6'5'' and 6'10'', leaving just 111 under 6'5''. Those numbers change year to year, but generally speaking the NBA as a whole will give jobs to a higher proportion of 6'10'' players than 6'1'' prospects, in large part because of the importance of skills like rim protection and rebounding, and due to the advantages sheer size gives in accomplishing those tasks. So while a 6'1'' point guard or even a 6'7'' small forward who can't hit free throws is unlikely to clear the many hurdles a player needs to leap to reach the NBA, a taller player is far more likely to get some leeway. A seven-footer needs to be an extreme outlier in terms of explosiveness and coordination to a degree far lower than that of his shorter peers—he's already an outlier by virtue of his size. Smaller players don't tend to be quicker, or better shooters, or more skillful because of their size. Rather, the relatively smaller players in the NBA are those things because they had to be in order to stand out sufficiently. Does this mean many taller players advance up the ladder from high school and AAU to big time college to the NBA without honing their skills and understanding of the game to the same degree as their peers? It certainly does. Through that process, bad habits develop, habits that are hard to undo by the time players reach the NBA level. Rajon Rondo has been little more successful improving as a shooter than have Drummond, Jordan, or Howard. Furthermore, there being so few players of sufficient rim-protecting size and agility allows these players to stay in the league despite whatever skill deficiencies they may have. Perhaps the most surprising part of Hassan Whiteside's rise to prominence over the past year or so is the fact that he was out of the league to begin with—players of his physical stature tend to find a spot somewhere, as demonstrated by the likes of Kendrick Perkins, JaVale McGee, and Ryan Hollins finding spots year after year. Perimeter players seem to improve as shooters as their basketball careers go on. Some of this indeed represents the players' own efforts; some of it is due to the fact that, aside from the top stars—Rondo with his playmaking, Dwyane Wade with his athleticism and shotmaking—players who do not become competent shooters tend to find themselves on the outside looking in (creating an effect known as survivorship bias). That competitive pressure does not apply to the professionally very, very, very tall to quite the same degree. To bring it back to specialization of skills: the rim protection, rebounding, and physical presence provided by those few players who happen to both be enormously tall and prodigiously athletic moves things like free-throw shooting from the "required" to the "preferred but not necessary" section of the job description. So when it comes to hack-a-big-man, NBA fans have two choices: stop complaining about players missing foul shots, or start complaining about there not being more seven-footers in the world.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4xzy7n/free-throw-follies-andre-drummond-doesnt-need-to-get-better-from-the-line

Sports

Vice

2019-07-04 00:00:00

2019

7.0

4

S.Korean stocks snap 4-day losing streak as U.S. rate cut bets rise

* KOSPI index climbs, foreigners net buyers * Korean won strengthens versus U.S. dollar * South Korea benchmark bond yield falls * For the midday report, please click SEOUL, July 4 (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial markets: ** South Korean stocks snapped a four-session losing streak to end higher on Thursday, boosted by rising hopes of a rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve, in a choppy session due to caution ahead of Samsung Electronic’s second-quarter results. The won strengthened, while the benchmark bond yield fell. ** Recent data from multiple sectors pointed to slowing economic growth in the United States, bolstering the prospect of rate cuts by the Fed. ** The KOSPI benchmark index closed up 12.71 points, or 0.61%, at 2,108.73, snapping a four-session losing streak. ** The KOSPI index closed higher tracking solid global markets, after Wall Street closed at record highs on expectations of a rate cut by the Fed, said Lee Young-gon, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment. South Korean market had been choppy on worries over Japan’s export curbs and ahead of Samsung’s second-quarter profit announcement, Lee added. ** Samsung Electronics is likely to say second-quarter profit more than halved when it reports preliminary earnings on Friday, as a drop in memory chip shipments to China’s embattled Huawei exacerbated a price-squeezing supply glut. ** The pharmaceutical sub-index was the biggest percentage loser by falling 3%, dragged down by Hanmi Pharm and Hanmi Science that fell more than 27% each. ** Shares of Air Busan, Asiana Airlines’ low-budget carrier, closed up 15%, rising for a fourth straight session on expectations of a sale of the company separately from Asiana. ** South Korea’s economic policy chief said he would not rule out direct countermeasures against Japan if Tokyo keeps restrictions on exports of high-tech materials to South Korean companies for a long time. ** Foreigners were net buyers of 40.0 billion won ($34.23 million) worth of shares on the main board. ** The won was quoted at 1,168.6 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.23% higher than its previous close at 1,171.3. ** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,168.6 per U.S. dollar, up 0.1% from the previous day, while in non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,167.8 per dollar. ** MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.30%, after U.S. stocks closed at record highs. Japanese stocks rose 0.30%. ** The KOSPI has risen 3.32% so far this year, and gained 1.7% in the previous 30 trading sessions. ** The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28% and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won. ** The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 440.23 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 894, the number of advancing shares was 360. ** The won has lost 4.5% against the U.S dollar so far this year. ** In money and debt markets, September futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.04 points to 110.57, while the 3-month Certificate of Deposit rate was quoted at 1.78%. ** The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield fell by 0.4 basis points to 1.425%, while the benchmark 10-year yield fell by 0.3 basis points to 1.531%. ($1 = 1,168.5100 won) (Reporting by Hayoung Choi; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

https://www.reuters.com/article/southkorea-markets-close/skorean-stocks-snap-4-day-losing-streak-as-us-rate-cut-bets-rise-idUSZZN2YMB00

Asia

Reuters

2018-03-06 15:00:00

2018

3.0

6

Matthew Gault

Steam Is Filled With Groups That Celebrate School Shooters

Most people use the giant online video game platform Steam to buy games and move on, but others build communities. As we've previously reported, Valve, the company that operates Steam, does very little moderating. So the platform is full of hate groups. As the nonprofit news organization The Center for Investigative Reporting first reported on Friday, it appears Steam is also full of groups that venerate school shooters. Valve is a multi billion-dollar game company with at least 125 million users. Its code of conduct specifically prohibits racism and “threats of violence or harassment, even as a joke.” That fact that some of these groups have been allowed on a platform for years is yet another example of how Valve not only fails to enforce its own policies, but normalizes extremist thinking. “Plan to shoot up Forest Lake state school,” a user named School Shooter 66 wrote in the Steam group School Shooting Squad group in March 2017. “I plan to bring an M16 , 3 mags, suicide pills and an axe." The user goes on to detail his plan of attack, and clarifies in all caps that "THIS IS NOT A JOKE." Other user-created Steam groups talk about school shootings, take their names from prominent school shooters, and celebrate mass killers such as Elliot Rodger, who shot six people to death near the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014. One group, “Future School Shooter Material,” has 106 members and bills itself as “a group dedicated to the bright young minds who are tortured by bullies. Join if you want to be a future school shooter.” Another group called “School Shoot Gang” used a picture of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold as its avatar. “Remember Columbine High?” It asked. “That was just a warmup. For Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.” There are groups dedicated to Elliot Rodger, George Zimmerman, and Charles Manson. As of this writing, searching Steam’s groups for “school shooter” returns 248 results. Some of the groups have just a few members, while others have more than a hundred. Many of the messages are not just violent, but also racist. “Whos in charge of shooting the ni**ers and sp**s?” A user asked in one of the Steam groups. “I thought I was but I’m not sure.” In a group that called California murderer Elliot Rodger an American hero, one user made a vague threat to repeat Rodger’s massacre. “I am like Elliot Rodger,” the user said. “Don't you worry guys, I will prove it soon!” We know for a fact that at least one school shooter shared his worldview on Steam before carrying out an actual shooting. William Edward Atchison posted racist ramblings and calls to violence on Steam and other online communities for years before killing two students and himself at Aztec High School in New Mexico on December 7, 2017. A Steam group named after the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi organization associated with several recent murders, regularly posted to YouTube and Steam. Valve did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. It has not responded to Motherboard's repeated requests for comment on this subject since October 2017.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3w9ea/steam-is-filled-with-groups-that-celebrate-school-shooters

Tech by VICE

Vice

2016-10-14 00:00:00

2016

10.0

14

Benjamin Sutton

The History of Gowanus Cemented in Sculpture

A collaboration between artist Christina Kelly and author Amy Sohn pairs cast concrete objects with true stories about long-ago Gowanus residents. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Sometimes, to make historical objects speak to contemporary viewers, you have to give them actual voices. Artist Christina Kelly and author Amy Sohn did just that with Gowanus Underworld, their collaborative project currently on view at Trestle Projects, which pairs cast concrete sculptures with monologues that narrate true stories about the neighborhood’s historic residents. An old porthole prompts the story of three Manhattan women who, in the summer of 1936, bought an old welding barge for $160 at auction and turned it into their private, floating cottage on the Gowanus Canal. A bent bulkhead nail — nearly a foot long — cues the story of Joseph Zappula, a longshoreman who, in 1950, was on the end of the human chain that pulled little Diana Svet from the Gowanus Bay. “Christina selected these objects to cast from the collection of Proteus Gowanus, and then we dove into the photos from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle archives in the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection,” Sohn told Hyperallergic.”It was a matter of creating an emotional life for these real-life characters so that people can have a connection to these objects.” As part of curator Melissa Staiger‘s group show Falling In, an array of four concrete sculptures by Kelly is paired with four portable speakers, each playing one of Sohn’s accompanying monologues. Most the stories are narrated by actors and last less than two minutes, just long enough to prompt an imaginative journey in the viewer. They lend the concrete sculptures a quasi-archaeological aura, filling out the details surrounding these fragments of yesteryear’s everyday. Under a tiny cast of a gas valve, a recording tells the story of a single mother who tried to kill herself and her children to get back at their father, who’d run off with another woman. A cast chunk of the historical Coignet Building is paired with the story of Dr. John C. Goodridge, Jr., the artificial stone enthusiast who constructed the building in 1873 to both house the offices of and demonstrate the capabilities of his business, the New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company. The company filed for bankruptcy the same year the building was completed. “We were interested in the theme of failure, which is an overarching theme related to Gowanus — the failure of industry; the failure of the environment; the failure, until recently, to redevelop the neighborhood,” Sohn said. “We all have this image of what Gowanus is becoming — this idyllic image of family life — so we were also looking for stories about families and failed families.” The final monologue, which has no corresponding sculpture, guides the viewer out of Trestle Projects and onto 6th Street. Cued up on smartphones via a QR code, the story focuses on Detective Bernard Grottano, who, in April 1915, investigated a gruesome murder at the lumber yard at 167 6th Street — an address that, as luck would have it, is still home to a lumber yard (not all Gowanus industry has failed). “You could do a whole series on murders, drownings, and suicides,” said Sohn, who hopes to expand the project with additional stories. “I’m also interested in uncovering the stories of the women who worked here. There’s a long history of women working in Gowanus, especially in the textile mills, and yet it is thought of as a very masculine area.” Or, as a policeman told the three young women in 1936 as they searched for their new barge: “That’s on the Gowanus Canal, and it’s no place for ladies!” Christina Kelly and Amy Sohn’s “Gowanus Underworld” project is part of Falling In at Trestle Projects (400 3rd Avenue, 2nd floor, Gowanus, Brooklyn) through October 22. The gallery will have special hours, 12–6pm, during Gowanus Open Studios (October 15 and 16).

https://hyperallergic.com/329644/history-gowanus-cemented-sculpture/

Hyperallergic

2018-07-24 12:26:00

2018

7.0

24

Julia Belluz

Dementia prevention: 9 behaviors could cut your risk by 35 percent

Dementia has long been thought of as an inevitable part of aging, but researchers are increasingly learning that’s not quite true. About a third of dementia cases might actually be avoided by living a lifestyle that better protects your brain. Dementia is how we describe symptoms that impact memory and lead to a decline in cognitive performance, often in ways that disrupt daily living. There are different brain disorders that cause dementia, but Alzheimer's is the most common, followed by cerebrovascular disease and Lewy bodies disease. Around the world, some 47 million people are currently living with dementia — including more than 5 million Americans. The burden of Alzheimer’s alone on families and the health system is difficult to overstate: It’s the most expensive disease in America, costing up to $215 billion per year (more than double that of cancer or heart disease), and it can take a terrible toll on patient’s loved ones. The number of people with dementia is also expected to triple worldwide by 2050 as populations age. But there’s some good news: You might be able to modify some of your risk of developing dementia. A major Lancet report, by 24 leading dementia researchers from around the world, zeroed in on nine of the best-known lifestyle factors that contribute to the illness and account for more than a third of dementia cases. The takeaway: Addressing these factors might be able to cut our dementia risk by up to 35 percent. Another bit of good news is that the prevalence rate of dementia has declined in some countries, including in the US. And researchers think it may in part be due to increases in levels of education, which seems to protect people from getting dementia. For a disease many of us fear, the message is hopeful: Dementia is not necessarily an inevitability. Dementia symptoms typically show up in old age, but the brain changes that cause it are thought to develop years earlier. These are things that might help stave off those changes: 1) Check your hearing and get a hearing aid if you need one It’s not yet clear why, but there’s a strong correlation between even mild hearing loss and an increased risk in cognitive decline and dementia (and the dementia risk goes up with more severe hearing loss). Hearing may be important to dementia because of what study lead author, University College London professor Gill Livingston, called “the use it or lose it model.” “We get a lot of intellectual stimulation through hearing,” she told Vox after the study was published in 2017. So when a person can’t hear as well their brain may begin to shrink. Researchers think hearing aids could help reduce that risk, but they need better evidence to know that for sure. 2) Keep learning Less education is also associated with an increased risk of dementia because of something researchers call “cognitive reserve,” or a person’s resistance to assaults on the brain. “Low educational level is thought to result in vulnerability to cognitive decline because it results in less cognitive reserve,” they wrote, “which enables people to maintain function despite brain pathology.” 3) Stop smoking Smoking is bad for the brain because it degrades cardiovascular health (and interferes the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to the brain). Tobacco also contains neurotoxins, which damage the brain. 4) Seek out treatment for depression It’s still not entirely clear whether depression contributes to dementia, or whether dementia puts people at an increased risk of depression. But the researchers concluded that it’s “biologically plausible” depression boosts a person’s dementia risk because it “affects stress hormones, neuronal growth factors, and hippocampal [brain] volume.” Making sure people are treated for depression could mitigate a person’s dementia risk, and the researchers said antidepressants might also help, but called for better evidence to understand the effects of the medications. 5) Exercise Exercise is believed to protect the brain by reducing cortisol levels in the body, cutting vascular risk, and increasing the growth of nerve cells that are related to memory. So people who are inactive are at a greater risk of dementia because they don’t get the extra protection exercise confers. 6) Manage high blood pressure Stress on the circulatory system increases the risk of neurodegeneration, which also contributes to dementia. 7) Be social Like depression, it’s unclear whether social isolation is a symptom or cause of dementia. “However, evidence is growing that social isolation is a risk factor for dementia and it increases the risk of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and depression,” the researchers wrote. The theory is that social isolation is similar to not being able to hear, Livingston explained. “You need a cognitively enriched environment to keep the brain in good health, and if don’t see people or can’t hear them, you get less of that stimulation.” 8) Maintain a healthy body weight Researchers believe obesity causes brain damage because it’s linked with reduced blood flow to the brain and it increases oxidative stress, which is also bad for the brain. 9) Keep your blood sugar in check People with diabetes are more likely to have dementia. One reason why: Having diabetes means you can no longer control your blood sugars. And having more sugar in your blood stream means more sugar in your organs, including the brain. So just as diabetes can damage other organs in the body, it also damages the brain. This list of nine contributors is only the beginning. The scientific community is already learning about other potential contributors to dementia, such as exposure to pollution and lack of sleep. “So we don’t think this [list of nine things] is everything but this is what we have evidence on now,” said Livingston in 2017. There are other caveats to note about this research. Some of the factors — such as hearing loss, or social isolation — are again associated with dementia, but whether they cause dementia isn’t yet clear, and researchers are working to better understand dementia’s causes. What’s more, not all cases of dementia are preventable; about 7 percent are linked with genetics and can’t be modified with lifestyle changes. And, the researchers wrote, “age, the greatest risk factor for dementia overall, is unmodifiable.” Even so, Livingston added, people should think about finding ways to cut their dementia risk, and policymakers should think about creating environments that promote health. For example, some communities aren’t walkable, or lack strong tobacco control policies. Making exercise more accessible, and helping people quit their smoking habit, could reduce the dementia burden. Considering what a costly and devastating problem dementia is, we can’t wait for better evidence. And, it seems, even small steps toward living a healthier and more active lifestyle not only boost your overall health, but the health of your brain, too.

https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/7/31/16049300/dementia-alzheimers-prevention

Vox

2016-06-17 18:40:02

2016

6.0

17

Emily Crockett

After the killing of a British MP, it’s time to admit violence has a misogyny problem

The United Kingdom is reeling from the news that Jo Cox, a Labour Party member of Parliament, was fatally shot and stabbed on Thursday. It’s a horrific act of violence in an already-horrific week of violence following the Orlando shooting in the US. In the wake of the killing, this tweet clearly struck a nerve and was widely shared: Female MPs get daily death and rape threats: "It's just online, why can't you ignore it?". Female MP is murdered: "An unexpected tragedy." We don’t yet know the assassin’s motivation. Suspect Thomas Mair has been linked to a US-based Neo-Nazi group, the National Alliance. There are unconfirmed reports that Mair shouted "Britain first!" before attacking Cox, a reference to the hotly debated "Brexit" referendum on whether Great Britain should leave the European Union, which Cox vocally opposed. Cox was also a strong supporter of helping Syrian refugees. Officials are also investigating National Action, a white supremacist group that has campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union. "It’s an attack on democracy, what happened yesterday; it’s the well of hatred that killed her," said Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. But whatever the killer’s specific motivations, Beth Murray’s tweet resonated with people who take online harassment of women seriously and are frustrated that many, including law enforcement agencies, often do not. Her words also speak to the powerful role that male hatred and misogyny plays in varying degrees for women in power. Several women in Parliament have been subjected to vicious misogynistic attacks on Twitter — including one MP, Jess Phillips, who received 600 rape threats in one night. The incidents have fueled criticism that Twitter isn’t doing enough to protect users from harassment. Cox herself had experienced such harassment, and her security was reportedly increased after a three-month campaign of harassing messages against her. One man was cautioned by police for sending her "malicious communications of a sexual nature," but he wasn’t the suspect. Police also said that there was no known link between the harassing messages and the attack on Cox. While police determine the killer’s possible political motivations for the attack, we shouldn’t ignore the likely role of pure hatred in it, and the role that hateful misogyny too often plays in attacks like these. In 2011, US Congress member Gabrielle Giffords was shot and nearly killed by Jared Loughner, who reportedly had sexist views and believed that women shouldn’t be in power. Giffords was Loughner’s local representative, as Cox was Mair’s. Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear, and numerous other men who committed lethal high-profile mass shootings were also reported to have private histories of brutal domestic violence and sexual assault. And as I reported for Vox this week, most "mass shootings" as typically defined by news outlets are actually domestic violence attacks, often against women or children. Every high-profile shooting has unique circumstances, and every killer has different motivations. But extreme misogyny is such a common thread in so many of them that we can no longer ignore its role in public violence. Correction: The original headline of this article referred to Cox as a British "PM." She was a member of Parliament, or MP — not PM, which stands for Prime Minister. We regret the error.

https://www.vox.com/2016/6/17/11962932/jo-cox-british-mp-assassination-murder-misogyny-violence

Vox

2017-09-08 20:00:00

2017

9.0

8

Hilary Pollack

Emergency Services Rush to Save Expensive Wine from Hurricane Irma

As Hurricane Irma draws closer to the Florida coast after devastating the Caribbean, where it affected more than 1.2 million people and led to at least 20 deaths, residents of the Southeastern coast of the US are frantically trying to prepare for the destruction it might bring, from leveling homes to knocking out power to thousands upon thousands of people and businesses. But with panicked efforts underway to save families, pets, and homes, some emergency responders in Florida and Louisiana are also committed to saving an asset that some fear is particularly susceptible to damage during the storm: expensive wines. According to Newsweek, collectors and wine suppliers are rushing to move valuable stockpiles of valuable wines out of the path of Irma, which was downgraded from Category 5 to Category 4 as of Friday afternoon and is expected to make landfall tomorrow morning. The gravest concerns for collectors are flooding, which could destroy labels and degrade corks, and power outages that could shut off fridges. Changes in temperature can even cause bottles of wine to explode under some circumstances. Adam Gungle, the chief executive officer of a wine transportation service called Xpeditr, which specializes in protecting wine investments during natural disasters, told Reuters, "The wrath of a hurricane can ruin delicate pieces of liquid history... Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Sandy ruined tens of millions of dollars worth of fine wine. A lot of these bottles survived World War I, World War II." Some of the collections being relocated are worth millions of dollars and include bottles that are more than a century old. Gungle also noted that some of the bottles are being aged by collectors to be donated to charity. Xpeditr founded its Emergency Response Team after Superstorm Sandy destroyed millions of dollars worth of wine when it struck the East Coast in 2012. English billionaire and Virgin founder Richard Branson revealed today that when he found that his 74-acre private island were in the path of Hurricane Irma, he survived by holing up in his wine cellar. As he braced for Irma's arrival last night, Branson wrote on his blog on Virgin's website, "Knowing our wonderful team as I do, I suspect there will be little wine left in the cellar when we all emerge." Thankfully, he, his team, and the wine all made it through the storm. "We took shelter from the strongest hurricane ever inside the concrete cellar on Necker and very, very fortunately it held firm," he wrote in a follow-up blog post today. "I have never seen anything like this hurricane. Necker and the whole area have been completely and utterly devastated... For those who are still in the path of Hurricane Irma, and Hurricane Jose to come, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to put safety first and prepare as strongly as possible. Having seen first-hand the power of this storm, please ensure you stay inside, ideally in organized shelters or other solid concrete structures with water, supplies and emergency contact plans." And it wouldn't hurt to have some wine in your bunker, too. For continued coverage of Hurricane Irma, follow VICE News.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwwnkw/emergency-services-rush-to-save-expensive-wine-from-hurricane-irma

Food by VICE

Vice

2017-06-05 00:00:00

2017

6.0

5

Devon Van Houten Maldonado

An Artist Serves Up Food for Thought About Excessive Consumption

Raúl Ortega Ayala’s new exhibition at Proyectos Monclova includes a buffet based on a historical image of the restaurant atop the World Trade Center and a model of the Tower of Babel sculpted out of lard. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads MEXICO CITY — A scene from a grotesque flesh ritual is acted out in the main gallery of Raúl Ortega Ayala’s Food for Thought, a show revealing humanity’s incredible capacity to consume. It might ruin your appetite, but beneath the drama there are layers of subtlety and nuance in the video works and installation. The works, which span the top floor and the basement galleries of Proyectos Monclova, are part of the same series but comprise distinct projects dealing with consumption and food in two different ways. The artist connects consumption habits to ceremony, debauchery, and the decline of society. The video works on the top floor deal directly with food culture through a style of artistic-anthropological study, which marks the culmination of three years of research for Ortega Ayala. Three videos are accompanied by two small paintings tucked into the corners of the installation, leaving the main gallery mostly dark. Amid the darkness, three warm floodlights illuminate “Babel Fat Tower” (2010), a contemporary nod to Pieter Bruegel’s masterpiece. An actual tower of lard, the sculpture emits a subtle stench as the lights heat the glistening pile, which is intended to melt down over the course of the exhibition. The metaphor isn’t exactly subtle, but the stinking pile loans a meaty materiality to the cold video installation nearby. Alongside the large video projections, the small paintings don’t call attention to themselves. They are inspired by foie gras and stuffed pig, except that the overfed animals in these images are represented by human hands making shadow puppets, and they allude to another motif that echoes throughout the show — the performance of food. They also reveal the painter in Ortega Ayala. This painterliness reemerges in the videos, where the artist frames human figures in compositions reminiscent of a Rembrandt, emphasizing the fleshy body and packing the frame with a tangle of limbs and saturated colors. The pair of projections in the main gallery space make up the two-channel video work, “Tomatina-Tim” (2016). On one screen, Ortega Ayala films the annual La Tomatina festival in Buñol, Spain from above, its many participants dissolving into a sweaty mass of bodies covered in blood-red tomato juice and flesh. Despite the festive atmosphere and the zealous roar of a thousand drunken bros, the drama turns dark and sad when the tomatoes run out and the crowd disperses, leaving people strewn about, sitting or lying in the wet trash. The noise of the crowd dies down and a woman’s scream is identifiable amid the din. Then we see her on the screen, surrounded by a throng of shirtless men trying to rip her shirt off — apparently part of the tradition of the festival, as seen during the peak of the tomato mashing madness, but the assault and the woman’s desperation are palpable. On the opposite screen, a hotdog-eating champion and professional gurgitator named Tim sits down casually to a pile of a few dozen hotdogs at the famous restaurant Nathan’s, smashing them into his mouth two at a time and soaking the buns in water so that they slide down his throat more easily. This training routine of excess epitomizes something pathological in our culture of consumption, where satiation is never possible. Part of Ortega Ayala’s intention is to underline the ridiculous pointlessness of these ceremonies, whose only purposes are indulging gluttony and celebrating excess — how appropriately and sickeningly poignant. The festival of debauchery and wasted food in Spain bears the markings of an ancient pagan fertility ritual, but there is no higher meaning here, as Kim Córdova points out in the exhibition text. Are there traditions of excess, or does gluttony itself fill the void left by a lack of tradition? Another video on view, “Untitled (Cheese Rolling)” (2017), documents the flailing, tumbling, tangled participants of the now world-famous festival in Gloucestershire, England, where participants race down a steep hill in pursuit of a tumbling wheel of cheese, resulting in a variety of totally avoidable blunt trauma injuries. The slow motion video shows the martyrdom of the townspeople willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of decontextualized tradition. There is a deeper metaphor about ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ suggested by Ortega Ayala’s work downstairs. In the main gallery, a very strange scene awaits. A feast has been prepared, based on a vintage image of a buffet at the Windows on the World restaurant, which served clients atop the North Tower of the original World Trade Center. This powerful evocation of September 11 gave way to a shared meal during the exhibition opening, the spread surrounded by vitrines of images and newspaper clippings documenting the cleanup of the collapsed skyscrapers. The meal’s moldy leftovers remain on display in the gallery. In the vitrines, Ortega Ayala traces the material of the felled towers to companies in India and China, which purchased the twisted metal as scrap steel in order to make new buildings, housewares, or maybe even weapons. The common practice of recycling scrap steel is suddenly complicated by tragedy and the enormous, all-encompassing cycle of destruction and construction. In Food for Thought, Ortega Ayala attempts to connect modern practices of gluttony with their possible origins in tradition or ritual, but the result is an expression of some primitive desire of the flesh to get drunk and dirty. The image of the mythical tower turned into an homage to lard alludes to our corrupted best intentions to reach toward the heavens. The artist portrays modernity, through the recycling of an unimaginably destructive tragedy, as the evolution of our attempts to clean up the mess from the trial and error of building (and rebuilding) civilization. Raul Ortega Ayala: Food for Thought continues at Proyectos Monclova (Colima 55, Roma Norte, Mexico City) through June 10.

https://hyperallergic.com/383073/an-artist-serves-up-food-for-thought-about-excessive-consumption/

Hyperallergic

2019-03-22 00:00:00

2019

3.0

22

Jasmine Weber

Guggenheim Museum "Does Not Plan to Accept Any Gifts" from the Sackler Family

The announcement follows a similar decision by Tate, announced yesterday, that the institution will no longer accept funds from the Sacklers, owners of Purdue Pharma. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Today, Hyperallergic confirmed that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York “does not plan to accept any gifts” from the Sackler family, the controversial owners of Purdue Pharma. The family and drug manufacturer have been accused of misleading medical professionals on the gravity of the drug OxyContin, and are currently the targets of lawsuits on behalf of the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Yesterday, Tate’s board of trustees announced that the museum will no longer accept funds from the Sackler family. In the New York Times’s coverage of the unprecedented decision, the Guggenheim was cited saying that “no contributions from the Sackler family have been received since 2015 and no additional gifts are planned.” Today, the Guggenheim confirmed with Hyperallergic: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum received a total of $7 million in gifts from members of the Mortimer D. Sackler family initiated in 1995 and paid out through 2006 to establish and support the Sackler Center for Arts Education, which serves approximately 300,000 youth, adults, and families each year. An additional $2 million was received between 1999 and 2015 to support the museum. No contributions from the Sackler family have been received since 2015. No additional gifts are planned, and the Guggenheim does not plan to accept any gifts. Earlier this week, London’s National Portrait Gallery decided to not accept a donation of £1 million (~$1.3 million) from the Sackler Trust. This morning, The Art Newspaper revealed that last year a South London Gallery returned a £125,000 (~$165,000) donation from the Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation, gifted to build an education center in 2014. These institutional changes follow widespread protests from drug policy advocates including photographer Nan Goldin, best known for her series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.  In 2017, Goldin founded PAIN Sackler, a drug advocacy organization that demands “all museums, universities, and educational institutions worldwide remove Sackler signage and publicly refuse future funding from the Sacklers.” In February, PAIN Sackler held a die-in at the Guggenheim and then marched to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a large protest of the Sacklers’s major influence as art philanthropists. In January 2019, Daniel H. Weiss, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum said the institution “is currently engaging in a further review of our detailed gift acceptance policies, and we will have more to report in due course.” Today, the museum informed Hyperallergic that the institution does not yet have an updated statement regarding this review. Editors note 3/25/19: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has sent Hyperallergic an updated statement on behalf of Daniel Weiss, stating: The issue of Sackler funding reflects a complexity that is common in this area. The Sacklers began supporting The Met over 50 years ago – decades before the invention of opioids and the public health crisis that has later ensued. The contemporary Sackler family is large and there are varying relationships among these branches with Purdue Pharma (some have had no relationship with the company for decades). Incidentally, the Museum has not received gifts from the Sackler family over the past two years. All of this demonstrates the need for the Museum’s leadership team to be highly deliberative. We will continue our review of the Museum’s gift acceptance policies, will adjust wherever necessary, and will be transparent in our process and conclusions.

https://hyperallergic.com/491320/guggenheim-museum-does-not-plan-to-accept-any-gifts-from-the-sackler-family/

Hyperallergic

2016-08-26 16:43:00

2016

8.0

26

UK Sports Staff

Never Mind The Polloks: Vice Sports Goals of the Week

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK. It's that time of the week again, when we feast upon a veritable banquet of goals. We have fasted for hours on end in preparation, and we're now ready to gorge ourselves on the most exquisite delicacies that the last few days have to offer. When it comes to excellent finishing, we are vile gluttons, happy to stuff our bellies full of goals until we are groaning and swollen, acutely nauseous with the indulgence of it all. We want goals filling our stomachs, goals dancing across our taste buds, goals running out of the corner of our mouths and down our quivering, multiple chins. Here are the tastiest goals from the past week, then. Gobble them down, like the sickening gourmands you are. Hanlon's goals come at 0:05, 1:15 and 2:25 In all our time writing this column, we have never featured a team from the West of Scotland Super League Premier Division. That's because, generally speaking, football at that level is absolute shite. Once in a while, however, even a Scottish non-league side can produce a moment of sheer brilliance. In this case, there have been three in one game, all coming from a lad named Tam Hanlon. Playing for Glaswegian side FC Pollok in their Sectional League Cup match against Neilston, Hanlon managed to score a sublime hat-trick from the right-back position. First, he fired in a sweet free kick with his left foot. Then, he thumped a long-range howitzer into the top corner. While that was probably the pick of the bunch, he went on to complete his three-goal haul with another free kick, this time tucking home with his right. To repeat: FC Pollok play in the West of Scotland Super League Premier Division. This was a fucking miracle, quite frankly. Now, we know what you're going to say here. You're going to say that the assist for this goal wasn't deliberate, and that the whole thing was a comedy of errors precipitated by a capricious breeze. In the absence of definitive proof, however, we're going to give Thamesmead Town the benefit of the doubt. That being the case, we maintain that this is one of the greatest build-ups to a goal we've ever seen. With Thamesmead taking on Guernsey in the preliminary rounds of the FA Cup, Scott Kinch completely fucked up a shot played a sublime, curving ball into the box. We have never seen a pass get caught up in a gust of wind defy the laws of physics in quite such a miraculous fashion, having been mishit so badly hit with such finesse that it bent back in on itself and landed right in the middle of the box. From there, Thamesmead's Jack Mahoney managed an excellent improvised finish, using complete dumb luck magnificent skill to bundle home lob the keeper from close range. This was not a goal, this was art. In the late nineteenth century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn were a group of mystics and occultists. They studied all things paranormal, and tried to explain phenomena which conventional wisdom could not explain. Even they would have struggled to get their heads around this goal from Shaun Williams, because it's absolutely twatting magical. Devoted to the study of this magnificent goal, we now inaugurate the Hermetic Order of the Golden Shaun.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgnaxz/never-mind-the-polloks-vice-sports-goals-of-the-week

Sports

Vice

2017-03-06 21:06:04

2017

3.0

6

Kurt Wagner

Snap stock took a beating Monday and fell more than 12 percent

Welcome to the public markets, Snapchat. Stock for Snap, the company behind Snapchat, fell more than 12 percent Monday, just its third full day of trading. Snap stock finished the day at $23.77 per share, below the $24 opening price it garnered on IPO day last week. The dip appears to be tied to a number of poor analyst ratings, including five “sell” ratings, which is an unusually high number. The biggest concern around Snapchat appears to be tied to user growth. Snap has 158 million daily users but added just five million new users in Q4, a hefty decline from earlier in the year. Of course, Snap is far from doomed just three days into trading — the stock is simply settling after a crazy IPO rush. On IPO day last Thursday, the stock finished the day up 44 percent. It was up another 10 percent Friday, before dipping 12 percent Monday. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2017/3/6/14835178/snap-stock-down-ipo

Vox

2016-01-27 00:00:00

2016

1.0

27

Amber Rose to Kanye West: No More Ass Play for You After Wiz Attack

Wiz Khalifa might have gone silent in his war with Kanye West, but Amber Rose is firing back with a shot ... right up the ole wazoo. Amber clearly watched the Twitter war erupt, then decided to clap back at Yeezy -- "are u mad I'm not around to play in ur a**hole anymore? #FingersInTheBootyAssBitch" Her coup de grace ... the index finger emoji. Awesome. Kanye's since scrubbed the nastiest of his shots at Wiz, and Amber noticed -- "Now you wanna delete your tweets cuz Muva has arrived? #TwitterFingers#UrGettingBodiedByAStripperN***a" We'll say this, Kanye got personal first, by dragging Wiz and Amber's son into the beef. Amber just made it way more personal ... and revealing.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/01/27/amber-rose-kanye-west-wiz-khalifa-feud/

TMZ

2017-08-08 00:00:00

2017

8.0

8

Jim Kelly Chugs Fan's Beer at Football Hall of Fame

Jim Kelly -- legend -- does what he wants, when he wants ... and that includes drinking your beer. The Buffalo Bills legend was signing autographs at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio over the weekend when he got thirsty. Kelly saw a fan with an ice-cold beer mug and decided to make his move. The fan tells TMZ Sports he was stoked about the encounter and happy to help out. Fun Fact: The beer and mug combo ran about $10 ... by our count, Kelly owes the guy $3.

https://www.tmz.com/2017/08/08/jim-kelly-chugs-beer-at-hall-of-fame/

TMZ

2016-07-16 00:00:03

2016

7.0

16

Dara Lind

Vox Sentences: There’s a coup underway in Turkey

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind. Add your email to receive a daily newsletter from Vox breaking down the top stories of the day. .newsletter-li { margin: 20px 0; font-size: 1.1em !important; } .newsletter-li:before { background: #808285 !important; border-radius: 50% !important; width: 5px !important; height: 5px !important; top: 7px !important } .newsletter-ul { margin: 0 0 0 30px !important; padding: 0 !important; } .newsletter-p { font-size: 1.2em; margin: .3em 0 !important; } .newsletter-h3{ color: #363636; font-weight: 800 !important; } .newsletter-sponsored { font-size: 70%; vertical-align: middle; text-transform: uppercase; margin-right: 10px; } .newsletter-sponsored__image img { display: inline; vertical-align: middle; } .newsletter-logo { text-align: center; } .newsletter-logo img { max-width: 400px; width: 100%; } .newsletter-source { font-size: .9em; } .newsletter-signup-container { border-top: #e0dedf solid 2px; margin: 3em 0; padding-top: 2em; } .newsletter-signup { margin-top: 1em; text-align: center; max-width: 400px; margin: 0 auto; } .newsletter-signup h2 { font-family: "HarrietDisplayBlack","Harriet display",Harriet,serif; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; } .newsletter-intro { font-size: 1.4em; margin: .3em 0 !important; } .newsletter-section { background-color: #fff200; display: inline-block; font-weight: 700; margin: 0; padding: 0; }

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/15/12204130/vox-sentences-turkey-coup

Vox

2019-06-21 00:00:00

2019

6.0

21

Huawei says shipped 100 million smartphones this year as of end-May

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies said on Friday it has shipped 100 million smartphones this year as of May 30. Huawei consumer business group’s smartphone product line president He Gang revealed the numbers at a launch event in Wuhan, China for its new Nova 5 phone. The phone is powered by Huawei’s new 7-nanometer chipset Kirin 810. Huawei has been hit by devastating curbs ordered by Washington, which threatens to cripple its supply chain. Founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei said on Monday the ban could cost the company $30 billion in revenue this year, and that smartphone sales outside China already dropped 40 percent in the past month. Reporting by Sijia Jiang; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman

https://www.reuters.com/article/huawei-tech-mobile/huawei-says-shipped-100-mln-smartphones-this-year-as-of-end-may-idUSP8N23M00A

Business News

Reuters

2017-11-27 16:20:02

2017

11.0

27

Julia Azari

Depicting Nazis as ordinary gives them power

This post is part of Mischiefs of Faction, an independent political science blog featuring reflections on the party system. A New York Times profile of a cat-loving Nazi and his wife has awoken the anger of the internet. It’s not that this is difficult to do, and the danger of responding to problematic viral articles is that it’s easy to pick apart what’s wrong with such pieces, and often much harder to assess the context in which the idea came about in the first place. There’s been some effort at this in the Twitter conversation, especially with a focus on the lack of racial diversity in newsrooms. Aspects of the news business certainly have something to do with misfires like fluff profiles of violent racists — at the very least, they create an environment where this kind of thing is possible. But the news media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. How to deal with the presence of terrible and destructive ideas in a modern and open society is an ongoing question, and it’s an especially pressing one right now. The place to start with this dilemma is how we think about free speech and the marketplace of ideas — necessities for a free society that pose a real dilemma when it comes to dealing with anti-democratic ideas. People often learn to understand the broad scope of free speech in the US through examples like Larry Flynt, the notorious editor of Hustler magazine, or Nazis marching through Skokie, Illinois, defended in court by the American Civil Liberties Union. These cases, especially when paired with everyone’s favorite decontextualized Voltaire quote, suggest that freedom of speech is primarily about offense and tolerance. But when we think of it primarily in terms of unpopular groups — Nazis, atheists, communists — and in terms of the offense it might cause people, we remove speech, expression, and the associated freedoms protected by the First Amendment from their historical context. Freedom of expression is not just about pushing the boundaries of social acceptability. It is about the ability to challenge power — most literally, to criticize the government without fear of legal consequences. Obviously, ideas about free expression — including the right to hold and express hideous views — have evolved a great deal. These ideas were developed in a world in which political speech was costly. In the United States, we now practice them in a world in which political speech is cheap. This state of affairs makes it easy to obscure the power dynamics involved in some forms of offensive or challenging speech. Our highly limited discourse on the topic means that Nazis and white supremacists are put in the same category with sacrilegious art exhibits and provocateurs like Flynt. Using this framework limits how we can think about what to do with ideas like white supremacy and white nationalism. Thinking about these ideas as merely offensive and marginal ignores a simple and uncomfortable truth. One of the reasons we draw bright boundaries around racist thinking is not because it’s odious and beyond the pale, but because it’s odious and has proven over again to be incredibly potent in the right circumstances. In the US, a history of overt discrimination is still built into many of our institutions. People who fought actual Nazis in Europe are still alive. While Americans mostly use social sanctioning and norms, some societies have responded to these kinds of threats by enacting legal bans on certain types of speech. (Like many Americans, I would oppose legal measures. But I support your right to favor them.) The offending Times profile comes out of a few related developments. The marginalization of violent racism may have become a victim of its own success; as with other surprising political developments of the past few years, it tends to be treated as fundamentally unserious, an approach whose lack of viability is immediately obvious. This makes extremists like the ones profiled in the Times piece seem like curiosities, like people who have weird hobbies. Such thinking no longer makes sense. We now know that the belief in such natural boundaries is a delusion. At the same time, American society seems to be experiencing a moment in which there is a serious debate about who does and does not have power. An entire genre of books and articles about the white working class chronicles its powerlessness in a culture that (at least superficially) prizes education and diversity. The election of the first black president unsettled centuries of racial hierarchy. In other words, there’s a potent and omnipresent cultural narrative of — for lack of a less blunt phrase — white victimhood. When we take complaints about “PC culture” or “identity politics” at face value, we open up space for grievances about “white interests,” whether we want to or not. For years, fringe groups have embraced these victimhood ideas, and now those ideas are part of the mainstream discourse — despite the many documented disadvantages experienced by women and racial minorities. At the intersection of novelty and victimhood, we find stories of Nazis going to Panera, their ideas largely stripped of history and context. Much has been said about the “normalization” of such ideas — that by portraying Nazis as average, even sympathetic, people, journalists run the risk of helping to integrate violent ideologies into the mainstream. The thing is that violent, racist ideologies have spent lots of time in the mainstream. They’ve proven very destructive. The imperative of the moment is not just to debate about how to keep them at the margins, but to remember out loud why they belong there. The danger, then, in an everyday portrait of the white supremacist next door isn’t in the normalization but in the populist ideology that’s buried deep in the narrative. Depictions of ordinary, small, powerless American life have proven an immensely useful political tool at times. These depictions have provided a packaging for executive power, a way to delegitimize war protests, and, of course, a justification for racism. Reducing a white supremacist to the features of his harmless life obscures the horror his ideas can unleash.

https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2017/11/27/16703106/new-york-times-nazis-free-speech

Vox

2016-03-11 00:00:00

2016

3.0

11

Tiernan Morgan

Art Movements

Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world. Tate Modern will stage an exhibition of work from Elton John‘s photography collection in November. The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection will include over 150 works by artists including Man Ray, André Kertész, Berenice Abbott, and Alexandr Rodchenko. Police are investigating gunshot damage inflicted on the exterior of the Schwules Museum*, an institution in Berlin dedicated to LGBT culture and history. French police seized a painting attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder from the Caumont Centre d’Art in Aix-en-Provence after doubts were raised regarding its authenticity. According to the Financial Times, as many as 240 staff members at Qatar Museums were laid off as part of a series of budget cuts implemented by the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Christie’s will sell two early paintings by Tony O’Malley, which, when turned over and placed side by side, reveal an unfinished nude by Francis Bacon. The two artists were neighbors in St. Ives in the late 1950s. O’Malley cut the board that Bacon had used in half in order to produce “Currach, Clare Island” and “Evening Landscape Tehidy Hospital.” The paintings are estimated to fetch between £20,000–30,000 (~$) at Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art sale on March 17. Cambridge University will consider repatriating a sculpture of a bronze cockerel after the Jesus College student union voted to return the work to Nigeria. “Okukor” was one of almost 1,000 bronzes plundered by British troops during the 1897 Benin Expedition. According to Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the State Hermitage Museum, the British Museum purposely avoided shipping its recent loan of one of the Parthenon sculptures through Europe. “Greece believe that it belongs to them and they could have attempted to seize it at some airport en route,” Piotrovsky told The Art Newspaper. The Walker Art Center will no longer host its wildly popular Internet Cat Video Festival. The museum will donate memorabilia from the festival’s four iterations to the Minnesota Historical Society. A Brief Flowering, an exhibition of works by Welsh artist John Cyrlas Williams (1902–65), will open at the Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw on March 20. In 2004, over 150 of Williams’ works were discovered in the attic of his family home in Porthcawl. Art historian Peter Lord told the BBC that the trove of artworks narrowly avoided destruction. “It turns out that the auctioneers had been clearing the house prior to sale, and that they were about to throw the whole lot on a bonfire in the back garden,” Lord told the BBC. Aegean Airlines will sponsor Documenta 14, which is being co-hosted by Kassel and Athens, and operate flights between the two host cities. The Morgan Library and Museum will offer free admission from 7pm on April 15 through closing time on April 17 to mark the 10th anniversary of its expansion. The Freeman family sold its controlling interest in the auction house Freeman’s, which will be transferred to three of the company’s senior managers — Hanna Dougher, Alasdair Nichol, and Paul Roberts. Retired BBC Radio 4 writer Tim Sayer bequeathed his art collection to the Hepworth Wakefield. Sayer’s collection includes works by Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, and Gerhard Richter. The Mauritshuis acquired Roelant Savery’s “Vase of Flowers in a Stone Niche” (1615). Developer John Madden donated 120 art works to the University of Denver. The gift includes works by Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert Rauschenberg. Tom Finkelpearl returned to his post as commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs following his battle with lymphoma. Martha Tedeschi was appointed director of the Harvard Art Museums. Krist Gruijthuijsen was appointed director of the KW Institute. Marc-Olivier Wahler was appointed director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum at Michigan State University. Gabriel Ritter was appointed curator of contemporary art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Robin Reisenfeld was appointed curator of works on paper at the Toledo Museum of Art. Guy Cogeval will serve as the director of the Musée d’Orsay for another year. In January, six of the museum’s curators anonymously criticized Cogeval’s leadership in an article published in Le Monde. Susanne Gänsicke was appointed senior conservator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Diane Chisholm was appointed chief advancement officer at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Dennis Freedman, Roelfien Kuijpers, and Benoit P. Bosc were elected to SculptureCenter’s board of trustees. Adrian Cheng joined the Public Art Fund’s board of directors. Bonhams appointed Edward Wilkinson as executive director, Asia, and Ingrid Dudek as head of modern and contemporary art Asia. A new research center dedicated to the work of Lucian Freud will open at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in September. Both Gagosian and the John Berggruen Gallery will open new spaces side by side opposite the new entrance of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Team Gallery will close its space at 47 Wooster Street following a rent increase. Art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin plans to open an “office showroom” in Seoul. New Cities, Future Ruins, a curatorial initiative spearheaded by curator Gavin Kroeber, was awarded the annual Meadows Prize. The Canada Council for the arts announced the recipients of its Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Stan Douglas was awarded the 2016 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. Lynne Woods Turner received the 25th annual Bonnie Bronson Fellowship Award. [via press release] Henry Kondracki was awarded the 2016 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize for his painting “The Cowgate.” The National Endowment for the Humanities put out a call for projects related to the protection of cultural heritage. The New York Foundation for the Arts is offering one-on-one feedback appointments for Mandarin-speaking artists. Ken Adam (1921–2016), production designer. Best known for his work on the Bond series and Dr. Strangelove (1964). Sunny Balzano (1934–2016), artist and proprietor of Sunny’s. Jim Clark (1931–2016), film editor. Pirro Cuniberti (1923–2016), designer. Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929–2016), conductor. Patrick Hodgkinson (1930–2016), architect. Designed London’s Brunswick Centre. Fred Holland (1951–2016), artist. Aaron Huffman (1972–2016), musician. Art director of The Stranger. George Martin (1926–2016), record producer. Honorifically known as the “fifth Beatle.” Jean Rabier (1927–2016), cinematographer. Robert Redbird (1939–2016), artist. Tamuna Sirbiladze (1971–2016), painter. Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016), art historian. Author of the widely read textbook, Art History (1995). Panayiotis Tetsis (1925–2016), artist and academic. Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016), computer programmer. Credited as the inventor of email. Michael White (1936–2016), impresario.

https://hyperallergic.com/281502/art-movements-142/

Hyperallergic

2018-12-17 14:00:06

2018

12.0

17

Ezra Klein

Medicare-for-all will be shaped by these 3 questions

If you haven’t read Sarah Kliff and Dylan Scott’s rundown of the various Democratic plans for expanding health care, most of which build on either Medicare or Medicaid, you should. I’ll wait. The policy questions here are profound, but a lesson of past health care reform efforts is that the policy is shaped by the politics. Three political questions, in particular, will shape both the design and the viability of whatever Democrats come up with. Those three questions are: This doesn’t get mentioned much, but it’s perhaps the most important question Democrats will face. The central lesson of both Obamacare and the efforts to repeal it is that getting 60 votes for health care reform is almost impossible. In Obamacare’s case, the filibuster meant Democrats needed to win every single one of their 60 members, which meant every single Senate Democrat held a veto on the bill. Absent the filibuster, the Affordable Care Act could’ve been substantially more generous, and substantially more ambitious. Sen. Joe Lieberman, for instance, vowed to kill the bill unless both the public option and a proposal to open Medicare to 55-year-olds were axed. If Democrats could’ve passed the bill with 51 votes, they could’ve told Lieberman to take a hike. “The big challenge that we faced was the filibuster,” Barack Obama said in 2018. “And it’s a weird thing because it’s not something that the average American spends a lot of time thinking about.” In the GOP repeal effort’s case, it meant that the plans had to run through the narrow budget reconciliation process, a loophole meant to speed budget fixes past the filibuster, but that requires every single provision to directly change spending or taxes. As a result, the GOP’s plans were poorly constructed and often didn’t go nearly as far as Republicans wanted. President Donald Trump isn’t exactly a master of parliamentary procedure, but he quickly realized that the filibuster was the key obstacle. “The Senate must go to a 51 vote majority instead of current 60 votes,” he tweeted. “Even parts of full Repeal need 60. 8 Dems control Senate. Crazy!” A bare majority in the Senate will be hard even if Democrats pull a good hand in 2020. But there’s no path to a 60-vote Democratic supermajority. And while it’s possible to imagine a Medicare-for-more bill making it through budget reconciliation, if Democrats want to do something as complex as reconstructing the American health care system, they’re going to need to be able to write legislation in a simple, straightforward way. That means that Democrats either need to get rid of the filibuster, which they can do with 51 votes, or they need to repeatedly overrule parliamentary challenges to their reconciliation bill, which is pretty much the same thing. Either strategy will be a tough sell: Senate Democrats have rediscovered their affection for the filibuster in the Trump era; even Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he regrets weakening the rule in 2013. The upside of replacing private insurance with a single-payer system, as both Bernie Sanders’s and the House Progressives’ plans do, is that the system becomes a lot simpler and a lot cheaper, as the government can use its monopsony buying power to force down prices. The downside is most people like the insurance they have, and being told that their insurance will be canceled and replaced with a government plan could unleash a backlash that annihilates the entire plan. Remember the fiasco around President Obama’s “if you like your health insurance, you can keep it”? That was more than roughly 3 million plan cancellations, and most of the plans were cut because of how sparse their coverage was. A true single-payer system, one that replaced the existing system, would mean canceling more than 150 million insurance plans, including many high-quality employer-based plans that people love. In that respect, the more ambitious Medicare-for-all proposals go quite a bit further than the current Medicare program, where about a third of enrollees are actually on private insurance. Vox’s Scott gets at the political dangers here in his piece on the difficulties the employer-based health system poses for reformers: When Vox conducted focus groups on single-payer, led by opinion researcher Michael Perry, one recurring concern we heard was from people who mostly like the insurance they have and were worried about losing it under Medicare-for-all. “I wouldn’t like that,” Richard M., a federal official who gets his insurance through his work, said when told he would have to give up his insurance. “I like having an option. And I mean at this stage, I’m working full time, I should have an option.” The polling bears out this sentiment: 83 percent of people with employer-sponsored insurance said in March 2016 that they thought their health insurance was excellent or good, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic White House convincing vulnerable House and Senate members to reap that whirlwind. But if they don’t do it, it’s harder — though not impossible — to get to both true universality and deep cost savings. From the beginning, the Obama administration insisted the Affordable Care Act pay for itself with tax increases and Medicare cuts. This was partly principle — the White House’s concerns about long-term debt ran deep, and Peter Orszag, the budget director, was one of the law’s key architects — and partly politics: Budget neutrality was a condition of support for many of the conservative Democrats the legislation needed to win over in Congress. That decision limited the bill’s generosity and opened up devastating lines of attack that Republicans used, cynically but effectively, to portray themselves as defenders of Medicare in 2010. A lot of liberals look back on this as Obamacare’s original sin — and after watching Republicans pass tax cuts that, once again, added trillions to the national debt, they feel like suckers for dutifully balancing Obamacare’s books. The big question Democrats face next time is less how to pay for their health care plans than whether to pay for them. If they decide to fully pay for their plans, then their plans will have to be a lot less generous and there’ll be a lot more losers from the necessary tax hikes and spending cuts. As of now, the early signs are that Democrats want to hold to their old standards: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has said Democrats will abide by the PAYGO rule, which requires both spending cuts and tax increases to be paid for, in the House. I wrote on Friday about how the continued Republican assault on Obamacare has ensured health care remains a central issue for Democrats, and how the nature of the legal assault on Obamacare has pushed Democrats toward Medicare-for-all as an answer. But there’s a reason that, prior to Obama, president after president failed to pass health care reform. To overhaul something as important to people’s lives as the health care system, you need the trust of the public; the votes in Congress; and, if you’re paying for the plan, a whole lot of money. It’s easy to look back on the places Obamacare fell short and imagine how the law could have been more ambitious or more generous, but the compromises written into the Affordable Care Act were written for a reason: The politics of health care reform are hellish, and the modal outcome is failure. Right now, Democrats are in the minority, and so their policy proposals can exist in a pure state. But when they get power, the policy choices they actually make will depend on the political framework they choose. As such, while “Would you get rid of the filibuster?” and “Will you keep PAYGO?” may not sound like health policy questions, they very much are. Indeed, they may be the most important health policy questions.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/17/18141464/medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders-house-democrats-filibuster-taxes

Vox

2016-03-02 18:30:03

2016

3.0

2

Jeff Stein

Bernie Sanders’s path to the nomination is getting very narrow

The Democratic nomination is now Hillary Clinton's to lose. Bernie Sanders still has time to mount an improbable comeback. But, barring any political earthquakes, Clinton's sizable delegate lead and broad coalition make it difficult to imagine how Sanders can pull off an upset, according to close trackers of the race. "Clinton has been the huge favorite this whole time and continues to be," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "I don't see how Sanders catches up to her." On Super Tuesday, Clinton surged ahead of Sanders by the metric that matters most: delegates. She racked up 505 delegates in winning seven of 11 states, compared with the 334 delegates Sanders took in winning four states, according to an analysis by Richard Berg-Andersson, a researcher who tracks Democratic delegate math at the Green Papers. (Some districts remained too close to call as of Wednesday morning.) "Clinton had the night she needed to have," Berg-Andersson said. "She's now well on her way to winning the nomination." <!-- new pym.Parent('presidential-primaries-delegate-tracker-2016__graphic-dem-delegate-tracker', 'http://www.vox.com/a/presidential-primary-delegate-tracker/dem-delegate-tracker-index', {xdomain: '.*\.vox\.com'}); // --> Clinton now leads Sanders by around 200 pledged delegates — in large part because of her big wins across many Southern states on Tuesday. It's tough to see how Sanders closes that gap, even if he runs more or less evenly with her the rest of the race. That's in part because the Democratic Party awards delegates proportionally, meaning candidates need to win the popular vote by big margins to make up a delegate deficit. Beyond the delegate math, Super Tuesday provided several other reasons to doubt that Sanders could seriously threaten Clinton for the nomination. Perhaps the biggest reason is that Clinton has continued to clobber Sanders among African-American voters, and not just in the Deep South. She won a massive 93 percent of the black vote in Alabama, for instance, but also won black voters in Oklahoma, Virginia, Texas, and Tennessee by huge margins. There had been some speculation that Sanders had closed the gap with Hispanic voters in Nevada. But as FiveThirtyEight's Harry Enten notes, Clinton won Hispanic voters by around 42 points in Texas — suggesting Florida and New Mexico will also be favorable terrain for the former secretary of state. Then there was also evidence that Sanders's appeal is limited even among white voters. Sanders lost Massachusetts, even though white people made up 86 percent of the electorate; he also lost the white vote in Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, and Virginia, according to NBC News's exit polls. The problem for Sanders isn't just that Clinton swept the Southern states. It's also that she's likely run well ahead of him in primaries with big Democratic establishments that loom large on the calendar. "I think Massachusetts was the most telling win of the night," said Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow and director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. "In a place that's in Bernie Sanders's backyard and known for its liberalism, she still won." Clinton's strength in Massachusetts, which she won narrowly, probably reflects her strength in states with strong Democratic institutions. And that suggests she'll have a huge advantage when the contest reaches delegate-rich states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and New York. "Those are areas with large African-American populations and an established Democratic Party organization that will be very Hillary-friendly," Berg-Andersson said. "Sanders is not going to get delegate boosts from those states." By contrast, the kinds of states where Sanders has done well don't tend to have that many delegates. A big piece of Sanders's coalition has been downscale white voters, who helped him win Oklahoma by 10 points on Tuesday. But while there are many states that fit this demographic makeup, most of them just aren't very big and don't have that many delegates. (Added up, the Sanders-friendly states like Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, Wyoming, and Oregon have around the same number of delegates as Clinton-friendly Illinois.) None of this is to say that Sanders is certainly done. Sanders's campaign argued on Wednesday that Sanders has a viable path to the nomination that runs through industrial Midwestern states battered by the recession, according to the Washington Post. That strategy would make the March 8 primary in Michigan, which has 147 delegates, a crucial battleground for Sanders. "We still think we have a winning hand in this game, and we’re going to continue to play it," said Tad Devine, a Sanders aide, according to the Washington Post. But with Clinton leading by double digits in several recent national polls, Sanders will have to change something — and do it fast — to alter the fundamentals of the race. "[Clinton] has a substantial lead, a substantial delegate lead, and a great deal of momentum," Kamarck said. "I suspect she's going to win. But it's not impossible for him to come back."

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/2/11146946/bernie-sanders-clinton

Vox

2019-06-21 00:00:00

2019

6.0

21

Pete Schroeder

U.S. banks clear first hurdle of Federal Reserve's annual stress test

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The 18 largest banks operating in the United States took the first step toward doling out capital on dividends, share buybacks and other investments on Friday, after clearing the first stage of their yearly health checks with the U.S. Federal Reserve that assess their ability to weather a major economic downturn. The central bank said lenders, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp, would face losses of $410 billion under its most severe recession scenario ever, but levels of high-quality capital would still be well above regulatory minimums. “The nation’s largest banks are significantly stronger than before the crisis and would be well-positioned to support the economy even after a severe shock,” Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles said in a statement. The Fed said hypothetical losses were broadly comparable to results from prior years, with the most significant loan losses seen in credit cards, followed by commercial and industrial loans. Friday’s results, the first of the two-part annual “stress test,” showed the country’s biggest lenders could meet minimum Fed standards based on information they submitted to the regulator. But banks could still stumble next Thursday, when the Fed announces whether it will permit banks to dish out dividends and buy back shares. That second test is more rigorous, assessing whether it is safe for banks to implement their capital plans. It also reviews operational controls and risk management. All eyes are on Deutsche Bank, which is bracing for potentially its fourth flunking in five years amid ongoing turmoil in its U.S. operations, Reuters reported on Thursday. Last year, the Fed failed the bank, citing “material weaknesses” in its data capabilities and capital planning. The Fed created the stress tests during the 2007-2009 financial crisis to ensure banks are strong enough to continue lending through a severe economic downturn. This year’s tests are more streamlined following a Fed review of the process, which has long been hated by the industry. Roughly half as many banks were tested this year compared to 2018 after the Fed earlier this year moved several smaller firms onto a two-year testing cycle. The 18 banks tested this year hold roughly 70 percent of all U.S. bank assets, according to the Fed. In addition, most banks can no longer fail on “qualitative” grounds. Previously, banks that had sufficient capital could still be flunked if the Fed identified risk management and operational problems. In March, the Fed said it was dropping this qualitative objection for domestic U.S. banks. Only the U.S. subsidiaries of five foreign lenders — Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse Group AG, UBS Group AG, Barclays Plc and TD Bank — must clear that hurdle this year. Since the first test in 2009, banks have seen losses shrink, loan portfolios improve and profits grow. The largest banks have also strengthened their balance sheets by adding more than $680 billion in top-tier capital, the Fed said. This year’s recession scenario included a jump to 10 percent unemployment, as well as elevated stress in corporate loan markets and falling real estate prices. However, the Fed also this year gave banks more information about the testing models, after years of industry gripes that the process is too opaque. Reporting by Pete Schroeder; editing by Leslie Adler and Michelle Price

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-fed-stresstest/update-1-us-banks-clear-first-hurdle-of-federal-reserves-annual-stress-test-idUSL2N23S1DA

Business News

Reuters

2016-12-17 14:00:02

2016

12.0

17

April Glaser

Watch: This drone can detect humans and follow you around

Since the Federal Aviation Administration opened its drone registry at the end of last year, sales of small unmanned aircraft have skyrocketed. In December 2015, sales grew five and a half times from the previous year, according to NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, and in March the FAA released predictions that drone sales would reach 2.5 million annually by the end of 2016. One of the most anticipated drones this year, the foldable Mavic Pro from industry leader DJI, was in such high demand the China-based company has been struggling to get its drones out the door by its expected shipping dates. DJI chalked the setback up to a problem with one of the parts in the manufacturing process; the Mavic has been shipping preorders, albeit slower than anticipated. Now, if you want a Mavic Pro you can order one, but according to the company website, you’re unlikely to get it until mid-January, so not in time for holiday gift giving. DJI did manage to get one to Recode, though. The Mavic is branded as a kind of personal drone that’s good for beginners. It’s small enough to fit in a backpack (it folds into the size of a water bottle) and can actually follow you (or a dog or your friend) around thanks to its onboard artifical intellegence. We flew the Mavic Pro at the SF Drone School on Treasure Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. At $999 it’s not cheap, but it is fun to fly, even if you have little to no experience with drones. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/12/17/13974490/drone-detect-humans-mavic-pro-dji

Vox

2019-07-03 00:00:00

2019

7.0

3

Ex-German SPD chief suggests quitting coalition over EU top jobs deal

BERLIN (Reuters) - A former leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) has suggested the party could quit Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition over the nomination of Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission chief. “If Merkel names von der Leyen without a cabinet decision, that is a clear violation of the rules of the federal government - and a reason to leave the government,” Sigmar Gabriel told German magazine Der Spiegel. Merkel said on Tuesday she abstained in a vote of EU leaders on von der Leyen’s nomination - the only leader not to back her - as the coalition government was at odds on the question. Gabriel described von der Leyen’s nomination as an “unprecedented act of political trickery.” Writing by Paul Carrel, editing by Thomas Escritt

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-summit-germany-spd/ex-german-spd-chief-suggests-quitting-coalition-over-eu-top-jobs-deal-idUSKCN1TY10F

World News

Reuters

2019-03-24 00:00:00

2019

3.0

24

Lewis Krauskopf

U.S. Treasury yields hit lowest since late 2017, global stocks fall

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Benchmark U.S. Treasury debt yields fell to their lowest since late 2017 on Monday and a gauge of world stocks dropped for a second straight session on persistent concerns over global economic growth. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield fell below 2.4 percent for the first time since December 2017. Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond yield slid back into negative territory. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.46 percent, after it posted on Friday its biggest one-day drop in about three months. Wall Street’s main indexes ended little changed during a choppy session after falling sharply on Friday. Investors were still digesting weak U.S. factory data last week that prompted an inversion of the U.S. Treasury yield curve, which is widely seen as an indicator of an economic recession. “The big story is bond yields,” said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird in Milwaukee. “You are at a point now where a drop in yields isn’t being perceived as being a good thing for stocks... The thinking is, yields are dropping because the economy is weakening and that’s not a good thing for stocks,” Delwiche said. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 14.51 points, or 0.06 percent, to 25,516.83, the S&P 500 lost 2.35 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,798.36 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.13 points, or 0.07 percent, to 7,637.54. Apple shares fell 1.2 percent, weighing on indexes, as the company unveiled a streaming video service. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.45 percent, its fourth straight drop. In one economic bright spot, a survey showed German business morale improved unexpectedly in March after six consecutive drops. Benchmark U.S. 10-year notes last rose 12/32 in price to yield 2.414 percent, from 2.455 percent late on Friday. The yield fell as low as 2.377 percent. On Friday, the spread between yields on three-month Treasury bills and 10-year notes fell below zero for the first time since 2007. Such an inversion is a warning sign about the economy. Investors were evaluating last week’s dovish pivot by the U.S. Federal Reserve, in which the central bank stunned investors by abandoning projections for any interest rate hikes this year. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.12 percent, with the euro down 0.01 percent to $1.1311. U.S. crude settled down 0.4 percent at $58.82 a barrel, while Brent settled at $67.21, up 0.3 percent on the day. Gold prices rose to a more than three-week high, helped by a weaker dollar and as worries over global economic growth pushed investors into safe-haven assets. Spot gold added 0.7 percent to $1,322.21 an ounce. Additional reporting by Karen Brettell in New York and Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Chris Reese

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/u-s-treasury-yields-hit-lowest-since-late-2017-global-stocks-fall-idUSKCN1R50Z4

Business News

Reuters

2016-02-15 18:50:15

2016

2.0

15

Arik Hesseldahl

Global Chip Industry Readies for a Future Beyond Moore's Law

It hasn’t even been a year since the world’s technology elite paused to observe the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, and the long knives are already out in force to deny it a 51st. Next month the global semiconductor industry will release its latest biennial assessment of the technological road ahead for making computer chips. As reported by the journal Nature, for the first time, the look ahead will be crafted without the key assumption of the “law,” central in all previous reports: That chipmaking technology will improve sufficiently that companies at the forefront of the business will be able to shrink the size of transistors every two years or so at a more-or-less predictable pace. The new forecast, called the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, is an evolution of what has since 1998 been called the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. For the first time, its outlook will be based less on the view that applications will inevitably follow improvements in raw computing speed and power, but instead that chip advances will be developed with applications in mind: Smartphones, wearable devices and machines running in data centers and so on. Moore’s Law will no longer be considered central to the roadmap. Moore’s Law isn’t really a law of science, but rather an informal observation made about the apparent progress of what was in 1965 a very young chip industry. That year Gordon Moore — who later co-founded Intel — wrote up his thoughts in a paper for the April 1965 edition of Electronics Magazine. He proved remarkably prescient, suggesting that by 1975 a single chip could contain a then-unimaginable 75,000 transistors. The transistor counts of today’s mainstream chips number in the billions. Practically every form of computing and electronics has derived a direct benefit from the unremitting efforts of semiconductor engineers who have repeatedly scaled seemingly impassable barriers in the electrical and materials sciences. The advances have had a monumental long-term effect on society’s ability to process information and to make it faster and easier to access: Every new generation of chip is smaller than and at least as powerful a computing engine as the one that came before it, but less expensive to make. Until now, practically every time doubting wags, including myself, have argued that the time had come for Moore and his law to ride off into the sunset, the engineers in bunny suits have figured out new ways to maintain control of the electrons flowing on a chip. This time is different. As I argued in an essay for Re/code last year, the chip industry is running up against some truly fundamental limits that are causing a lot of people who know a lot more about this than I do to conclude that the time has come to reconsider how we think about improvements in computing. It comes down to this: You can only shrink a chip so much before the physics fails. The most advanced chip currently turned out by Intel is built on a 14-nanometer process technology. A nanometer is a billionth a meter, and the period at the end of this sentence, were it printed on paper, would be about one million nanometers. At 14 nanometers, the individual parts that make up that chip are smaller than a typical virus particle and similar in size to the outer cell wall of an individual germ. It has gotten so expensive and complicated to manufacture at this scale that only four companies are considered to be on today’s leading edge, down from 18 a decade ago: Intel, Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. and GlobalFoundries. The next logical steps in the semiconductor roadmap take us to 10 nanometers, which, depending on whom you ask, may appear in commercial chips this year. Beyond that lies seven nanometers — due about 2018 or 2019. Intel can see ahead about that far. TSMC says it will reach seven nanometers sometime next year and is now working to get to five. Generally speaking it’s at the five-nanometer juncture — due maybe in 2021, give or take — that the outlook has tended to get incomprehensibly fuzzy. At that size, elements on the chip would be about twice the size of a strand of DNA. Smaller than that, the design features on a chip become no bigger than 10 individual atoms. At that scale, electrons start to behave unreliably: The laws of classical physics give way to the infamously uncertain rules of the quantum scale. Remember Heisenberg (and I don’t mean the one from “Breaking Bad”)? This is his territory. You might be able to make chips at that size, but there’s no guarantee they’d work. So what’s it all mean? Potentially a much more complex view of the progress of chip technology as we head into the future. As Daniel Reed, a computer scientist at the University of Iowa who was quoted in the Nature essay, says, today’s Boeing 787 doesn’t fly much faster than a Boeing 707 did in the 1970s, but a lot of other innovation has come in aircraft since then, including improved fuel efficiency, lighter airframes and electronic navigation systems. The road ahead will diverge from one into many with different destinations and different milestones along the way. Some indeed may lead nowhere, but others will lead into unexpected territory that we haven’t foreseen. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems kind of cool. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/2/15/11587866/global-chip-industry-readies-for-a-future-beyond-moores-law

Vox

2017-04-10 19:01:00

2017

4.0

10

Dara Lind

How the outdated, nonsensical Passover rules taught me what Judaism is really about

Off and on growing up, I attempted to keep "kosher for Passover" — something my purely secular Jewish family didn't do. In a neighborhood where my claims to being Jewish were inherently suspect because I didn't attend a synagogue anyone recognized or go to youth group conventions and summer camps, it was something Jewish that I could actually do on my own. Or so I thought. All I knew of Passover was what I picked up from the Seder dinner we'd go to on one of the first nights of the eight-day holiday, and in attempting to deepen my observance I simply tried to logic my way out from there. Matzah is part of Passover because, in the Passover story, the Hebrew slaves fleeing Egypt didn't have time to let bread rise; so keeping kosher for Passover meant no leavened bread (or baked goods generally), I figured. I did not know the half of it. As I gradually figured out, somehow, over the course of several abashed rounds of Googling over several years, the actual rules for keeping kosher for Passover aren't about leavening (yeast). They restrict any use of the "five grains" — wheat, spelt (whatever spelt is), barley, oats and rye — that start to "rise" (i.e., ferment) on their own when put in contact with water. The chemistry, and logic, are beside the point. For Ashkenazi Jews — the Jews of Eastern Europe, the heritage of my father and that of many American Jews — the rules have historically gone further. Ashkenazi Jews have traditionally had to avoid corn, rice, peas, beans, peanuts, soybeans, chickpeas — all categorized under the catchall term of kitniyot. But the rules of kitniyot are falling out of fashion. In 2015, the Conservative Movement — the institution regulating the second-most-observant of Judaism's three main branches — issued a ruling to conservative Jews saying they could eat kitniyot during Passover if they wanted to. This Passover, many of them will — not to mention less-observant Ashkenazi Jews who didn't need a group of conservative rabbis to tell them not to follow rules that didn't make sense to them. I'm not exactly in the habit of listening to the Conservative Movement's rabbis myself. My Jewish practice is eclectic. Keeping kosher for Passover — no grains, and yes, no kitniyot either — is the most Jewish thing I do. Judaism is a religion of commandments. There are, famously, 613 commandments in the Torah alone (at least as counted by one of the authors of the Talmud, one of the major books of Jewish law). How Pope Francis brought me back to the Catholic Church In Hebrew, these are the mitzvot — the plural of mitzvah, which is one of those Hebrew words that's crossed into English via Yiddish. In English-via-Yiddish, a mitzvah sounds like a favor: "It would be a mitzvah if you did the dishes after Seder." That's because Yiddish is an irony-heavy language and American Jews are masters of the guilt trip. A mitzvah is really a commandment, just like tzedakah — often translated as "charity" — is really an obligation to give. My father, an atheist who taught Torah to third-graders in Sunday school, was in the habit of explaining the commandments within the context of the civilization where they'd been developed: the Fertile Crescent of thousands of years ago. Kosher dietary restrictions — the year-round kind, not the Passover kind — forbid the eating of shellfish? Think about it — shellfish can often make you sick in hot climates, especially at certain times of the year, and it was probably safer to avoid them. Judaism forbids graven images? Think about it — the earliest Jews lived among polytheistic tribes with idols for everything; worshiping only one god, a god too powerful to have a face, was certainly one way to set themselves apart. Later, as an anthropology student in college, I'd learn that this sort of thinking was called structural functionalism — the determination to see a culture as an organism, evolving in response to its environment to keep its members alive and its community cohesive — and that there were other ways to make meaning out of society. But it worked as far as it went. The problem is that some rules simply cannot be logicked. You cannot logic your way into the rules of kitniyot. Judaism is also a religion of jurisprudence. Often, that's a fancy word for arguing — one of the stories in the Haggadah, the script for the Passover Seder, ends with the so-called "punchline" of four rabbis being interrupted in a heated discussion by their students telling them the sun has risen and it's time for breakfast. (The real punchline is that subsequent Jewish scholars have tried to explain away the unfunniness of this joke by dissecting its symbolism in the margins of the Haggadah.) Remember, though, that the default state of Jews is diaspora: the dispersion of Jewish peoples throughout the world, and the term used for any Jew living outside of Israel (which described every Jew until the modern Israeli state was created in the late 1940s, and describes most of us today). Diaspora gave rise to the Askhenazi tradition of Eastern Europe and Russia, and the Sephardi tradition of the Mediterranean — distinctions of culture that nonetheless gave rise to certain differences of interpretation. In diaspora, jurisprudence is a crucial tool: a way for rabbis to try to make sense of new experiences and edge cases that the five books of Torah didn't cover or anticipate. Kitniyot is one of these diasporic improvisations. It's a catchall term for other foods that are prohibited during Passover according to Ashkenazi custom. This includes grains that hadn't been native to the Jews of Egypt or their descendants, like corn and rice (though quinoa, a more recent discovery, may or may not count), and any products derived from those. It also includes legumes — beans, peas, soy, peanuts, chickpeas — and the products made from those as well. (The inappropriateness of eating either peanut butter or hummus on matzah is one of the classic gripes of Passover, and is almost a reason to eat matzah the rest of the year — but not quite.) There are, in theory, reasons for this. Maybe the rabbis worried that forbidden grains would be mixed into sacks of peas or corn without anyone noticing. Maybe they were confused by the fact that beans swell when water is added to them, even though they're not fermenting. But fundamentally, trying to justify kitniyot is a fool's errand. It makes sense only as a diaspora kludge. As far as I can tell, there are four basic responses a Jew can have to an arbitrary rule. We can abide by it unquestioningly, for the simple reason that if it was good enough for our ancestors it is good enough for us. (You might be familiar with the song "Tradition" from the musical Fiddler on the Roof, but you might have forgotten that this too is ironic — "Why do we do these things?" narrator Tevye asks the audience. "Nobody knows.") We can try to carve out exception upon exception to rule upon rule, using the law against itself. (Faced with the difficulty that multi-story apartment buildings posed to the rules against operating machines on the Sabbath, the rabbis and the engineers devised a solution: Pressing an elevator button was forbidden, but riding in an elevator programmed to stop on every floor would work.) We can kvetch about it. (Moses hears a voice from the heavens: "Thou shalt not boil the kid in its mother's milk." "Aha," says Moses, "you mean we can't mix milk and meat during meals!" The voice repeats: "Thou shalt not boil the kid in its mother's milk." "Aha," says Moses, "we have to use separate dishes for meat and milk and wait six hours between the two!" Etc. Finally, the voice sighs thunderously: "Fine. Have it your way...") Or we can simply ignore it. Among Conservative Jews (and those of us less observant still), the question is simply how many of the rules we ignore. It can be hard to grasp that the distinctions among various sects of Judaism (not to mention the wide and growing variety of Jewish practices outside established synagogues) aren't about theology but about observance: how many, and which, rules are followed. The technical term for this is orthopraxy — correct actions, as opposed to orthodoxy (correct thoughts). It's a key distinction between Judaism (and Islam, for that matter) and Christianity. Everything you need to know about Passover I grew up in Cincinnati, the home of Reform Judaism — the most relaxed of the three main branches, theologically speaking. If that seems like a welcoming place for a family who identified as Jewish (well, ish — my mother's Episcopalian) but was wholly secular, though, it wasn't quite. Our synagogue was too secular even for the Reform rabbis. I couldn't join the youth groups my classmates participated in; I didn't know things they considered preschooler-level Judaism. (I didn't know the first line of the most basic Jewish prayer until I was in middle school.) My Judaism was seen as, at best, suspect, and at worst wholly illegitimate. It wasn't until I got to college that I met a critical mass of people who identified as "culturally Jewish," and felt free to do so myself without having to prove my bona fides. And it wasn't until after I graduated that I realized I didn't have to keep the "culturally" qualifier in front of it — that I had the power to practice Judaism actively without feeling like a fraud for not having attended the right synagogue or learned the right prayers. I owe my Judaism, as I practice it today, to a pair of dear friends I met in college. One was my roommate after graduation and lit the candles with me over Hanukkah; the other took me to High Holidays services and helped me follow along with the Hebrew. Between them, I got an adult crash course in much of what I didn't learn at secularist Sunday school. They teased me, lectured me, and always respected my choices and ideas. I love them dearly. I'm not naming them in this essay because I don't want to offend them if I've mischaracterized them in the following anecdote, but the way I remember it is too good to fact-check: I remember the two of them at a party, side by side, a Jewish two-headed monster. At the end of the day, they explained, one of them probably didn't believe in God. The other one probably did. But of all the differences in their Jewish practice, that was, they agreed, among the least important ones — because the point of their Judaism wasn't what they believed but what they did. To orthodox Jews, this is monstrous: a sickness of modernity. They can't abide the idea of Jews going through the motions to serve a deity in whom they may not believe; to them, this is precisely how Judaism gets reduced from a religion to a culture. And to many Jews who grew up being told to follow at least some of the commandments without any way of reconciling those actions with their beliefs — Jews like my father and the parents of the kids he taught at Sunday school, Jews like many of my peers — it's pointless. They find no meaning in the rituals themselves, and "because your ancestors did it" doesn't carry much more weight than "because I said so." To them, this is the religion they abandon, even if they acknowledge at least some of Jewish culture — the food, the kvetching, the Yiddish — as their own. But few people are introspective enough to know the precise origins of every trait they've inherited from their parents or been raised with in their homes. People can't always judge what, in their upbringing, was Jewish and what was not. When people slough off orthopraxy as meaningless ritual, they're putting practices and customs in a mental attic, in a box labeled "Judaism" — and leaving it at that. They're cutting off an alternative mode of inquiry: thinking about what they have inherited because of Judaism. The education, deliberation, and questioning inherent in the tradition of Jewish arguing and jurisprudence — these are unquestionably Jewish values. So is the commitment to social justice inherent in the obligation of tzedakah. No one would argue that these values are unique to Judaism. But their expression within Judaism is a big part of why they're so important in so many Jewish homes — and to many people who grow up in those homes. I love Pope Francis as much as the next nice Jewish girl. But I get frustrated when people who identify as cultural or secular Jews praise Pope Francis's every ambiguous, possibly-poorly-translated offhand comment to the heavens. I get frustrated when progressives with roots in Judaism spend more time litigating whether attention to poverty is a "Christian value" as important as preserving the 20th-century family than they do considering whether they really want progressive "Christian values," or something else. I get frustrated when people label the parts of religion they find ill-fitting or antiquated as "religion," and the parts of religion they're comfortable with — the economic moralizing or commitment to family — as "values." I get frustrated when people think of Judaism only as what's in the mental attic, rather than what's in their hearts. Look, I can't blame the Conservative Movement rabbis. I can't blame my peers who started eating kitniyot years ago, or who stop observing Passover entirely after the Seder ends. I certainly cannot throw stones here; again, I'm far more Jewish during Passover than I am during any other time of year. The reasons for getting rid of the kitniyot ban are weak. But there is no good reason to keep it. Judaism isn't ancestor-worship: It cannot be justified simply as an act of following in the footsteps of ghosts. And the fearful rush to protect Ashkenazi culture, fixating on the mortal wound it was dealt by the Nazis, runs the risk of treating it as a culture already dead and just finishing the job. But I can't help it: I worry about making Passover too easy. Maybe it's just that "kvetching about it" is my preferred way of responding to this particular set of illogical rules: I've managed to learn how to follow them, how hard can it be? What I suspect, though, is that I'm worried about maintaining the upside of orthopraxy: the way an action forces your attention to a thought, or a value. As a child, Passover didn't feel like freedom. It felt difficult, and self-flagellating. Freedom — I was a child — was the freedom to do whatever I liked. The Seder, of course, anticipates this. There's a point in the Passover legend where the escaped slaves, wandering in the desert, start kvetching about the food: They miss the "fish and cucumbers" they were fed in Egypt. The story kind of straw-mans the Hebrew slaves, but it's also a joke for present-day Jews: Slavery sucked, but it's nothing compared to eating nothing but matzah. Now I get it, though. The point of matzah isn't that eating it makes you feel free. It's asceticism and privation. It's virtue-feeling and forced humility. It's a pain in the ass; it's also a profoundly spiritual experience. I’ve spent 30 years counseling priests who fall in love. Here’s what I learned. In the context of the Seder, the attention to current injustice can be hippieish and overwhelming (not to mention hunger-dulled). But while there are only traditionally Seders for two nights, Passover lasts eight whole days. As long as you're keeping kosher for Passover — and inconvenienced enough to notice it — it's impossible to have a meal without being reminded that Passover is still going on. There are worse things than a thrice-daily reminder to be glad for freedom, and to meditate on where people still haven't been freed. People do this sort of thing all the time! We get the concept that physical actions can promote particular mental states when it's called yoga or breathing exercises. We appreciate the small reminder to be moral when it's a Fitbit or a policy "nudge." It is hardly as if, in an age of ethical sourcing and carbon impact, there is something alien about connecting food choices to morality. This sounds like trivializing Judaism, the faith of my ancestors, a culture that has sustained my people for thousands of years. I'd argue that even if it were trivializing, it wouldn't be any worse than simply foregoing the practice entirely and dooming it to die. But it isn't trivialization. It's orthopraxy. Judaism roots its values in obligations. You must give tzedakah. You must honor the Sabbath as a day of rest and study. You must be present in the temple on the High Holidays to seek forgiveness for the misdoings of the past year. You must, for eight days, eat matzah — "the bread of affliction" that is also the bread of freedom. And sure, you can put peanut butter on it. You can spend eight days eating quinoa and rice. As for me, I'd need a better reason to abandon the stricter rules about kitniyot than that following them is hard. Dara Lind is a Vox staff writer. First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/22/11477118/passover-kitniyot

Vox

2019-07-03 00:00:00

2019

7.0

3

Josh Smith, Hyonhee Shin

South Korea sacks army commander over North Korea defector boat

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Wednesday it sacked an army commander and rebuked other senior officers after a North Korean fishing boat piloted by defectors went undetected in South Korean waters for more than two days last month. The incident has raised concerns about potential lapses in South Korea’s security during fragile talks to end a technical state of war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. The small wooden boat spent more than two days in waters south of the Northern Limit Line, which separates areas controlled by the two Koreas, before docking at the port of Samcheok. The ship’s arrival on June 15 was spotted by closed-circuit television cameras, but authorities failed to identify the vessel as North Korean, said Choi Byung-hwan, vice minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination. The four fishermen waited, expecting to face South Korean security forces who never came. One man approached a South Korean resident and asked to use a telephone, Choi said, and police were alerted. The commander of the South Korean Army’s 8th Corps, which oversees the area in eastern South Korea where the boat docked, was removed from his command, the defense ministry said. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff received a warning, and two other senior military commanders were referred to a disciplinary committee, the ministry said. “Our analysis found that there was a failure in our security operation,” Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo told reporters in the capital Seoul. “This failure was a grave error that cannot be acceptable in any case,” he added. Two of the fishermen said they wanted to stay in South Korea, officials said, and the other two asked to go home. At least 546 North Koreans defected to South Korea in the first six months of this year, up from 487 in the same period last year, South Korea’s unification ministry said on Tuesday, according to Yonhap news agency. Most North Korean escapees make their way through China and Southeast Asia, rather than attempting to cross the heavily guarded border between North and South Korea. Reporting by Josh Smith and Hyonhee Shin; editing by Darren Schuettler

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-defectors/south-korea-sacks-army-commander-over-north-korea-defector-boat-idUSKCN1TY168

World News

Reuters

2018-08-21 14:40:01

2018

8.0

21

Jane Coaston

Bruce Ohr, explained

President Trump has found a new favorite Twitter target. His name is Bruce Ohr, he works in the criminal division of the Justice Department, and though you may never have heard his name, the president has tweeted about him nine times since August 11. Before Trump started tweeting, Ohr, a former associate deputy attorney general (until December 2017), was largely anonymous to the general public. But within some conservative circles, his purported involvement in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign and possible Russian interference in the 2016 election has been the stuff of a great deal of theorizing over the past few months. That theorizing has now reached Trump himself: Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions “Justice” Department? A total joke! Now Ohr might lose his security clearance. He is facing a congressional hearing into what he knew about Christopher Steele and the dossier Steele helped to create. And Trump is repeatedly focusing attention on an employee within his own administration. So who exactly is Bruce Ohr, and why are he and his wife, Nellie, at the center of a firestorm that began in conservative media and has exploded onto the president’s Twitter feed? The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele’s many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary & the DNC.... Bruce Ohr is a longtime Department of Justice employee. Until December 2017, in fact, he had two jobs within the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, serving under Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF). But in December, he was demoted from associate deputy attorney general. The Justice Department didn’t detail the reasoning for the demotion, telling Fox News, “It is unusual for anyone to wear two hats as he has done recently,” but observers on the right assumed the real reason had to do with Ohr’s purported connections to the Steele dossier. The Steele dossier is a document that alleged Trump was under the influence of Russian intelligence services, who had also compiled blackmail material on him. Steele was working for a company called Fusion GPS, founded by a former Wall Street Journal journalist named Glenn Simpson. And though the FBI began to examine ties between Trump and Russia after George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide, told an Australian diplomat that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, many on the right believe the dossier was responsible for the launch of the Russia investigation. Ohr met and emailed multiple times with Steele, who had been on the FBI payroll in the past as a source. According to emails revealed by the Hill earlier this month, contact between Ohr and Steele went on for more than a decade, from 2002 to 2017 — including after the FBI suspended its relationship with Steele because he shared information with the media. Also, Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr, a Russian history expert, worked as a contractor for Fusion GPS on Russia-related matters in mid-2016 — a fact that Bruce Ohr didn’t share on federal disclosure forms. Most of this has been public knowledge since late last year, after Simpson, the Fusion GPS founder, testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017 about the creation of the Steele dossier and how much involvement Simpson and Fusion GPS had in the FBI’s investigation of the Trump presidential campaign’s potential Russia ties. In his testimony, Simpson said he met with Ohr after the election to provide information about how the dossier was made. However, as the Weekly Standard’s Eric Felten pointed out, his testimony took place before news broke about Nellie Ohr’s work with Fusion GPS, and Simpson didn’t mention the connection. Ohr was also mentioned in Rep. Devin Nunes’s heavily hyped memo, which alleged that the FBI abused its power in surveilling Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. The memo details how Steele told Ohr that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” Among many on the right, the implication is clear: Ohr’s involvement, whether via his meetings with Steele or through his wife’s work for Fusion GPS, casts aspersions on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, and taints the investigation itself. But according to Rosenstein, Ohr has never worked on the Mueller investigation or the 2016 surveillance of Carter Page, the Trump foreign policy adviser. Even the Nunes memo doesn’t imply that Ohr knew anything about surveillance applications or any of the other fine-grain pieces of the investigation itself. As my colleague Andrew Prokop wrote in February: The memo reveals that Steele was in contact with Ohr and that in September 2016, Steele shared some of his negative opinions on Trump. ... Yet note what the memo does not claim: that Ohr had anything to do with the surveillance application on Carter Page. Yes, it tries to imply that, by saying Ohr “worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein,” who were previously mentioned as approving the wiretap. ... But Yates and then Rosenstein were top justice officials overseeing basically everything in the department. Ohr was a subordinate of theirs, but his actual job was as the “Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Director.” If he was involved in the Page wiretap specifically, Nunes sure doesn’t provide the evidence to show that. The reason, then, that the Ohr story has persisted in conservative media and finally made its way to Trump’s attention isn’t because conservatives know anything definitive about Ohr — what he did or didn’t know about the Russia investigation or Fusion GPS, or what he knew about his wife’s work with the firm. It’s because of optics. Ohr has helped back up a conservative case that the Russia investigation as a whole is an example of the unequal application of the rule of law. As Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal wrote on August 16, the Ohr case “smells of ... impropriety.” It feeds a narrative on the right that the Mueller investigation is ignoring actions performed by the Clinton campaign or the Obama administration that, they argue, might be just as bad, or worse. By not disclosing his wife’s job in federal disclosure forms and continuing to meet with Steele even after the FBI stopped working with him, Ohr has, in effect, made the DOJ and the Mueller probe look bad, said Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a contributor to National Review who has written extensively on Ohr. “Ohr has done nothing to clear up the impression that while initially the fourth-ranking official in the Trump DOJ, he was communicating with an apparently discredited FBI informant to traffic in or add to the contents of the dossier well after the campaign,” Hanson said. “The lack of transparency on the part of a DOJ official in areas outside his normal purview is disturbing.” Hanson argued that Ohr’s lack of professional involvement with the Russia investigation makes the situation worse, not better: “He was meeting with a disgraced FBI informant on matters that did not seem to have anything to do with his assigned tasks at DOJ,” he said. After being demoted from deputy assistant attorney general, Ohr was demoted again in January, losing his title of head of the OCDETF. And he’s stayed quiet — he hasn’t commented on Trump’s tweets, or the constant barrage of criticism from the White House, including being among the officials mentioned by press secretary Sarah Sanders as at risk of losing their security clearances. But others haven’t. As the administration has threatened former government employees with having their clearances revoked (and already has revoked the clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan), retired military and intelligence officials have widely criticized the revocations, which they view as being politically motivated. After serving the nation most use security clearances (and their trustworthiness) to contribute to national defense or to help US industries maintain an advantage. This isn’t really that hard to understand, except to those who only think about financial gain. https://t.co/SntNvhHeaw For Ohr, who is a current DOJ employee, losing his clearance wouldn’t just be detrimental to his reputation but (even though he does have some job protections as a civil servant) would most likely result in the loss of his job entirely — raising the stakes of Trump’s tweets. And it’s worth mentioning that much of the criticism Trump has aimed at Ohr has really been intended for Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice overall, stemming from Trump’s continue ire that Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation and a belief that the DOJ — the one manned by Trump’s own appointees — is being deeply unfair to him and should be focused on “Crooked Hillary.” As he tweeted on August 14, “If we had a real Attorney General, this Witch Hunt” — meaning the Mueller investigation — “would never have been started!” “They were all in on it, clear Hillary Clinton and FRAME Donald Trump for things he didn’t do.” Gregg Jarrett on @foxandfriends If we had a real Attorney General, this Witch Hunt would never have been started! Looking at the wrong people. Fired FBI Agent Peter Strzok is a fraud, as is the rigged investigation he started. There was no Collusion or Obstruction with Russia, and everybody, including the Democrats, know it. The only Collusion and Obstruction was by Crooked Hillary, the Democrats and the DNC!

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/21/17704326/bruce-ohr-nellie-ohr-trump-mueller-russia-fusion-gps

Vox

2017-05-18 00:00:00

2017

5.0

18

Devon Van Houten Maldonado

“In Mexico, Time Is Not Money”: A Residency Pushes Artists to Confront Difference and Colonialism

Arquetopia, which has locations in Puebla, Oaxaca, and, soon, the Peruvian city of Cusco, encourages resident artists to ask tough questions about colonialism, exoticism, and ethics. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads PUEBLA, Mexico — In the baroque capital of Puebla, an artist-run residency is attempting to challenge preconceived notions about tradition and context through a program focused on encounters and process, rather than production. Puebla was a hub for international trade and a seat of power, equal to or greater than Mexico City in riches during the 16th and 17th centuries, becoming what’s known today as ‘the city of churches,’ Mexico’s capital of baroque architecture. Here, Arquetopia instructs artists on the history of colonialism through programs combining traditional processes and academic readings. The residency’s Puebla headquarters hosts up to 12 artists at any given time, offering studio space, a natural pigments laboratory, a library, and a stocked kitchen. To date, artists from about 60 countries have made their way through the residency program, where local artists are also included in various projects as part of the mission of the founding directors. As Arquetopia’s residency and academic offerings have grown in popularity since its founding in 2009, the program has expanded from its headquarters in Puebla to a second space near the state capital of Oaxaca. A third space will open soon in Cusco, Peru, expanding the scope of the organization’s regional dialogue about history and decolonialism. At Arquetopia, artists are pushed to ask tough ethical questions about the nature of hybridity, exoticism, and their own ways of seeing. At a time when artists are grasping for forms of resistance beyond traditional protests, the thinkers working with Arquetopia offer an alternative pedagogy. I recently sat down with co-executive director Francisco Guevara at Arquetopia in Puebla (where, full disclosure, I was a writer in residence in June and July of 2016), to talk about what makes the program unique as a residency invested in shared responsibility and resistance to power. *  *  * Devon Van Houten Maldonado: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” — I’ve heard you say this a million times. How is this statement by Audre Lorde central to Arquetopia’s program and mission? Francisco Guevara: Although we use different scholars and different readings with different focuses, most of them are used to understand a complex history and how that plays a role when you’re in a residency program. That specific reading is the one that usually strikes the artists and really changes them, in a positive way or in a negative way. It’s racially charged, of course, also in terms of gender and other things. Basically, what we share with Lorde is that, no matter what you do, you have to be aware of the structure. You can’t just romanticize the margins, or you can’t just think about the center as the enemy, because there is no center. We create these structures. I always mention and summarize it, in terms of artistic practice, as a shadow, and as long as you keep the shadow visible then you will be able to tackle the problem. DVHM: You touched a little bit on artists’ emotional reactions to the residency; what makes this such a charged experience for many of them? FG: Our residency isn’t about just producing but about actually stepping back and looking at the process, and the process is loaded with things you might not know or aren’t aware that you’re carrying with you. So it’s very emotional because it’s not just me dictating what it should be, but also a series of authors that are in dialogue and it becomes very emotional because it taps into deep problems. One of the things that I always try to get artists to step away from is this idea about how we share these same experiences. We don’t. Something very important is the integrity of differences. We can eventually cross paths in terms of the struggle and the problems, but we come with different perspectives. DVHM: What is Arquetopia’s pedagogy, beyond the traditional model of offering space, time, and critique? FG: The most important aspect of our residency is the encounters. Mexico has traditionally been the tropical paradise where anything is possible and everything is exotic. To this day, every famous Mexican artist who sells work outside of Mexico explores and uses these ideas that have historically been built around Mexico. We read Emmanuel Levinas’s theory of encounters and empathy — understanding empathy as a process that’s so complex, but tries to erase differences, and hinders the possibility of change. The difference in our program is precisely the encounters. We’ve had artists from Israel and Palestine here at the same time, or from the north and south of the United States, and they don’t share any of the same problems. However, we find a space where encounters can be renegotiated in terms of race, class, and gender. DVHM: Is it about creating empathy between artists, or between artists and the spaces they are working in? FG: It’s actually about destroying empathy because empathy has masqueraded the problems. When we talk about humanism — we’re all the same, and we share the same experiences — that’s false. We have to acknowledge the integrity of differences, and we need to preserve that integrity. Historically, those differences have been erased to enslave people, to conquer people, and to expand the empire. Now that capitalism is so prevalent and it’s organizing everything, we’ve learned that empathy is the possibility of understanding differences by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. That’s not only impossible, but you’re actually crushing the other by trying to be in his shoes and understand a reality that is impossible for you to understand. It doesn’t mean that you can’t connect and you can’t negotiate. DVHM: Thinking about residencies, especially in Mexico or other “exotic” locations, there is the idea of going somewhere to produce work and live among the natives. So considering the residency as a sort of “exotic” location, the production of contemporary art in centers, and the Eurocentric production of academic knowledge, what’s the discussion happening here within Arquetopia about the centers and margins of art? FG: It’s very relevant to what’s happening now because there is nostalgia. Even “make America great again,” it really captures the feeling of the world. It’s not only in the United States. It’s happening in Europe. It’s happening in Latin America. It’s happening everywhere, this idea of going back to pre-globalization spaces. Interestingly enough, it’s also going back to how the empires expanded to be able to enjoy disfrutar, meaning taking the fruit from something, taking everything. That idea has seeped into the contemporary art market. That’s why Mexico is a hot spot. Everything that shouldn’t be accessible and available or even comprehensible in other spaces is available in Mexico. It is very colorful. It is very attractive. It also really feeds into the imagination of someone who has never been exposed to different epistemologies. One of the things I say to artists when they get here — because they usually come from a tradition where time is money — is that in Mexico, time is not money. That epistemological understanding or concept of time really changes everything. When you don’t think of money and time as being the same, it allows for something completely different. DVHM: What about the specific context of Arquetopia in Puebla? FG: Puebla has never been on the map, except during the colonial period. However, it makes for a very interesting space for a residency program because we’re not in the capital of the empire, Mexico City. We aren’t in the dominant structure that connects with the gallery circuits. We’re in a different space with complexities that are very different. But that has allowed us to connect with local structures and inform the rest of the country in terms of material culture. It’s about process, not necessarily the market. It’s a program that has always operated based on reciprocity, innovation, shared responsibility, and local networks. DVHM: How about the context of your residency space in Oaxaca and the next space, which you will be opening in Cusco, Peru. FG: Going into Oaxaca was very complex. It’s a different language and way of operating. We decided to move the residency program to the mountains; it’s 30 minutes away from the city and this had a profound impact on the way artists are producing. To understand the traditions of Oaxaca you have to understand the environment, you have to be rooted in a community that isn’t just tourism. Peru was an eye-opening experience because it really completes the picture. Many of the techniques that we have in Puebla are similar, however with a very different language. Peru has a whole different set of challenges about how Europeans had a presence in Cusco. Some of the techniques there are in dialogue with Puebla and with Oaxaca. Many of the scholars whose work we use to understand these complexities and encounters have studied Peru as well. So completing this picture of the 300 years of history that Peru and Mexico share will allow us to have a dialogue regionally. DVHM: Your residency is unique in that you offer programs specific to certain traditional crafts, techniques, and materials. What’s the role of material and tradition in Arquetopia and the dialogue happening here? FG: These traditions were rooted in different possibilities that allowed many communities to survive through time and created infrastructure and elements of performativity that are important to identity. Sharon P. Holland describes it as how the West controls time, and how every speech about progress is about moving through time, and technology moving forward. Any other speech that isn’t about the West is about tradition. It’s about how we have the responsibility to preserve tradition, meaning we’re stuck in space. Being stuck in space allows those who control time to move forward and occupy our space. So that’s the challenge we face when we use techniques: To precisely challenge the idea that tradition is something that’s stuck in time, and it goes back to the encounter.

https://hyperallergic.com/368070/in-mexico-time-is-not-money-a-residency-pushes-artists-to-confront-difference-and-colonialism/

Hyperallergic

2017-02-10 15:09:00

2017

2.0

10

Noisey Staff

Let These Grime Instrumentals Wash Over You Like a Synthy Tide

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.  There's a certain feeling that ripples through your body when you hear a song that, to put it simply, slaps. It can be a swinging lurch in your belly, a goosebumps-creating shudder or the sense that someone's grabbed you by the shoulders and won't stop shaking you repeatedly—but, you know, in a good way. As an instrument, the human voice makes a light flicker on in our minds—its the recognition of empathy, the comfort of now-woolly memories of your parents speaking to you when you were a baby, the bristling discomfort of a raised voice or one choked with panic. But it's something else entirely to be able to do that with instrumentals alone. We've already written about the grime instrumental and its legacy in a genre that's come to be defined by the spitting, cajoling, winking voices of its most-respected MCs and rappers. Then you have someone like Shredda, a producer who's been quietly layering the beats over which the likes of Jammer, Shorty, P Money, and Footsie have rhymed in recent years. Shredda was responsible for the beats on both "A Fun One" and "Bags Under My Eyes", off P Money's 2015 album Money Over Everyone 2, and they're among the five songs he's putting out on his forthcoming Horrific Injustice EP. You can have a listen to it here now, before it's due to drop on Sunday 12 February. "Listening to grime beats is something I enjoy doing," he tells us, "but unlike house music and dubstep, instrumental grime doesn't get as much attention—although it's the most diverse genre. This is something I want to change." And here's the way he plans to do it, with strings samples, beats that jump like popping candy and synths colliding over one another. Listen to the Horrific Injustice EP below: (Lead image courtesy of Shredda)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vvx4m4/let-these-grime-instrumentals-wash-over-you-like-a-synthy-tide

Noisey

Vice

2018-02-16 00:00:00

2018

2.0

16

Backflipping Figure Skater Surya Bonaly 'Memba Her?!

French figure skater Surya Bonaly is best known for busting out her signature backflips during competitions including the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan (photographed above) which landed her in 10th place overall. Guess what she looks like now!

https://www.tmz.com/2018/02/16/surya-bonaly-backflip-figure-skater-now-photos/

TMZ

2017-03-19 00:00:00

2017

3.0

19

Ryan McCarthy, Alex Lubben

Paul Ryan says Obamacare replacement bill should actually help older Americans more

Paul Ryan says Obamacare replacement bill should actually help older Americans more Paul Ryan says Obamacare replacement bill should actually help older Americans more House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday that he’s looking to change the current version of the GOP replacement for Obamacare because the bill needs to do more to address the healthcare needs of older Americans. “We believe we should have even more assistance — and that’s one of the things we’re looking at — for that person in their 50s and 60s because they experience higher healthcare costs,” Ryan told host Chris Wallace during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” Ryan said that lawmakers are changing the bill to provide better tax credits for older Americans — and added that they’re also considering whether to allow states to institute a work requirement for Medicaid. Ryan’s appearance came in the midst of mounting skepticism about the plan among rank-and-file Republicans. According to Reuters, a senior Republican lawmaker claims there are currently 40 “No” votes in the House. Assuming no Democrat is going to vote in favor, Republicans could afford only 21 dissentions if the bill is to pass and move on to the Senate, where it also faces considerable opposition. North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said the bill would “absolutely not” pass in its current form. More moderate Republicans also have issues with the bill. Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said in a Facebook post Saturday night that while he believes the Affordable Care Act is “broken,” he wouldn’t vote for the Republican bill in its current form, citing its impact on the “single most important issue plaguing” his constituents, “opioid abuse prevention, treatment and recovery.” House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday that he’s looking to change the current version of the GOP replacement for Obamacare because the bill needs to do more to address the healthcare needs of older Americans. “We believe we should have even more assistance — and that’s one of the things we’re looking at — for that person in their 50s and 60s because they experience higher healthcare costs,” Ryan told host Chris Wallace during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” Ryan said that lawmakers are changing the bill to provide better tax credits for older Americans — and added that they’re also considering whether to allow states to institute a work requirement for Medicaid. Ryan’s appearance came in the midst of mounting skepticism about the plan among rank-and-file Republicans. According to Reuters, a senior Republican lawmaker claims there are currently 40 “No” votes in the House. Assuming no Democrat is going to vote in favor, Republicans could afford only 21 dissentions if the bill is to pass and move on to the Senate, where it also faces considerable opposition. North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said the bill would “absolutely not” pass in its current form. More moderate Republicans also have issues with the bill. Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said in a Facebook post Saturday night that while he believes the Affordable Care Act is “broken,” he wouldn’t vote for the Republican bill in its current form, citing its impact on the “single most important issue plaguing” his constituents, “opioid abuse prevention, treatment and recovery.” The bill is still scheduled to be brought to the floor for a vote on March 23.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/ywn7dm/paul-ryan-says-obamacare-replacement-bill-should-help-older-americans-more

Vice News

2018-12-04 15:20:08

2018

12.0

4

Nadra Nittle

The way K-pop stars like BTS dress is shaping fashion trends worldwide

To understand how influential K-pop is worldwide, look no further than social media. The 26th birthday of Jin, the singer-songwriter of Korea’s pop supergroup BTS, was by far the top Twitter trend globally Monday, garnering more than a million tweets. The Melon Music Awards, which honor Korea’s most popular musical acts, took place Saturday, and they too dominated Twitter as fans of groups like BTS, Blackpink, Mamamoo, and iKon gushed about the show. With roots in the 1990s, K-pop — a mix of pop, rap, electronica, and other genres with a South Korean twist — is affecting far more than social media trends and billboard charts. Fans of the music are taking up charitable causes, and according to the global fashion search engine Lyst, they are also wearing the same designers as their beloved K-pop idols. In its “Year in Fashion” report, which tracked more than 100 million searches from 80 million shoppers across the globe in 2018, Lyst identified K-pop stars as “major global fashion influencers.” It credits these performers with spiking searches related to brands like Moschino and Chrome Hearts after wearing them this year. 181201 Melon Music Award [HQ]Mon coco , Mon soleilI love all of you Taehyung.#뷔 #태형 #V #BTS⁠ ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ ⁠ #방탄소년단@BTS_twt pic.twitter.com/4e8jaN4MnM The omnipresence of K-pop fans on social media around the world is fueling the trend as well as the importance of visuals in the genre. Bright colors and bold prints are the norm when it comes to K-pop acts, who have made fads of the most mundane (and unexpected) pieces of clothing. A campaign T-shirt from Rev. Jesse Jackson’s failed 1988 presidential run became a must-have in South Korea this year after rapper Moonbyul of Mamamoo wore it. And the introduction of makeup lines for men is largely due to K-pop, since many members of the boy bands use “guyliner,” lip tints, and brow fillers; it’s no coincidence that South Korea reportedly makes up 20 percent of the global men’s cosmetics market. As K-pop’s influence spreads, it has shaped fashion trends in a way music hasn’t seen since the genesis of American hip-hop, when brands like Adidas, Kangol, and Jordans became must-haves for listeners. Designers, according to Lyst, would be wise to embrace K-pop’s impact on fashion, an almost certainly lucrative move. Most followed K-Pop Girl Groups on Instagram:1. #BLACKPINK - 13.657M2. Twice - 7.156M3. Red Velvet - 6.436M4. Gfriend - 2.066M5. (G)I-dle - 1.693M6. Momoland - 1.461M7. Exid - 989k8. Mamamoo - 846k9. Izone - 640k10. Pristin - 611k pic.twitter.com/M42QrnhNfY K-pop stars’ fashion sensibilities haven’t been lost on American publications like Vogue: The magazine named Sehun of the group EXO the “best-dressed man” at Louis Vuitton Resort’s 2019 show in May. It was the second consecutive year that Sehun received the shoutout from the magazine, which highlighted his “fuzzy mohair sweater with bold stripes” and the “red and white woven into each detail” of his outfit. The mix of textures and bold colors in Sehun’s outfit is representative of the K-pop look, in which artists lean toward vivid hues, sensual fabrics, and showy patterns. Lyst also mentioned Sehun’s appearance at Louis Vuitton in its “Year in Fashion.” Camilla Clarkson, the communications manager for the platform, told me fans’ social media activity plays a role in why the public has become so interested in what K-pop stars wear. “K-pop’s influence on fashion has been growing rapidly over the years alongside the rise of social media,” Clarkson said. “ No part of their life is too small for fans to tweet, vlog, or ’gram about. As a result, we’ve seen more global searches and sales this year than ever before, with fans desperate to get as close to the stars as possible.” Since fans can’t actually get to know the K-pop acts they idolize, buying the same items they buy is a way for them to feel connected to these stars. “Many of them aspire to imitate their favorite K-pop idols by dressing like them, so they use fashion search engines … to buy or seek inspiration from the exact pieces their idols are wearing,” Shelley Li of the K-Style Files, a database of K-pop fashions, told me. Lyst found that K-pop’s influence has spread across both women’s and men’s fashion, with boy bands like BTS and EXO and women K-pop stars like CL and Park Bom all driving fashion trends. And a group like BTS can inspire both men and women to dress like them. When rapper Suga from the group wore a checked shirt designed by Virgil Abloh, searches for it increased 120 percent, according to Lyst. The same occurred when RM, another BTS rapper, wore a pink Adidas number; searches for pink T-shirts rose by 97 percent. Li credits the globalization of K-pop music with its growing influence on fashion trends. As K-pop fans have spread from South Korea to countries such as South Africa, the Philippines, and the United States, the fashions its stars wear have more eyes on them and, thus, more copycats. But Li and Clarkson say the specific visuals associated with the music also play a role. “K-pop comes in a visually stimulating package — high-production music videos and performances with vibrant sets, lighting, and, of course, fashion,” Li said. Clarkson describes K-pop music videos as pushing boundaries and said that each artist is expected to have a distinct fashion sense. “K-pop music videos are a fantastic, slick operation,” she said. “They push boundaries and highlight that too much is never enough — from bright, colorful hair and makeup to trend-defying fashion. Each star, or ‘idol,’ as they’re known in Korea, has a unique personality and style.” While K-pop stars have received plenty of praise for their style, their sartorial choices have sometimes sparked controversy. In November, BTS drew criticism for wearing hats bearing Nazi symbols during a photo shoot. Three years ago, the group faced a similar controversy after taking part in a photo shoot at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The Simon Wiesenthal Center also pointed out that BTS has performed onstage waving large flags that looked similar to the Nazi swastika. Just last month, a scheduled TV appearance featuring BTS was canceled because one member reportedly wore a shirt that included an image of the atomic bomb dropping on Japan. The Simon Wiesenthal Center subsequently declared that BTS owed both the Japanese people and victims of Nazism an apology. “It is clear that those designing and promoting this group’s career are too comfortable with denigrating the memory of the past,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, director of Global Social Action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in a statement. “The result is that young generations in Korea and around the world are more likely to identify bigotry and intolerance as being ‘cool’ and help erase the lessons of history.” It’s unclear how much BTS knows about what the imagery on their clothes symbolizes, or if the group members dress themselves. After the controversies over the group’s clothing in November, Big Hit Entertainment, the agency representing them, issued an apology, stating it “had no intention of causing distress or pain” to those affected by the atomic bomb or by Nazism: The incident was in no way intentional, and although all apparel and accessories used during the photoshoot had been provided by the publication conducting the shoot, we would like to offer our sincere apologies for inadvertently inflicting pain and distress to anyone affected by totalitarian regimes in the past by failing to strictly review the clothing and accessories that our members were made to wear, as well as to anyone who may have experienced distress and discomfort by witnessing an association of our artists with imagery reminiscent of political extremism. Clearly, with international fame comes even more responsibility for a supergroup like BTS to dress in a way that takes into account how certain imagery may be read by a wide range of audiences. Still, the fact that BTS has dominated worldwide trends on Twitter during the first few days of December indicates that the controversies related to their clothing certainly haven’t curbed the zeal that surrounds the group. Camilla Clarkson predicts that K-pop and its stars will continue to dominate fashion trends next year. That means more male makeup, unconventional T-shirt choices, brightly colored hair, and bold prints — from stripes to zigzags to polka dots — and clothes featuring cartoon or video game characters. Given this, Clarkson argues that Western fashion designers in particular would be wise to capitalize on the trend. It took mid- and high-end brands years to embrace hip-hop after rappers stepped out in brands like Coach, Gucci, and Cartier. Gucci specifically has fans in rap artists like Lil Pump and in BTS alike. Predictably, it has seen more sales thanks to a boom in Generation Z and young millennial shoppers, likely influenced by these artists. For luxury fashion brands to wait as long to welcome K-pop as they did hip-hop would be a mistake, at least financially. “Western designers would do well to see [K-pop] not just as a place for inspiration,” Clarkson said, “but an area to involve themselves in to help bolster sales.” Want more stories from The Goods by Vox? Sign up for our newsletter here.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18124626/k-pop-bts-fashion-melon-music-awards-jin-birthday

Vox

2019-03-27 00:00:00

2019

3.0

27

U.S. current account deficit hits 10-year high; firms bring back more foreign profits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. current account deficit increased more than expected in the fourth quarter amid declining exports, pushing the overall shortfall in 2018 to its highest level in 10 years, and U.S. companies repatriated a record amount of foreign earnings last year following the Republican tax overhaul. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday the current account deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, rose 6.1 percent to $134.4 billion. The quarterly current account gap was the largest since the fourth quarter of 2008. Data for the third quarter was revised to show the deficit rising to $126.6 billion from the previously reported $124.8 billion. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the current account deficit rising to $130.0 billion in the fourth quarter. The current account gap represented 2.6 percent of gross domestic product in the fourth quarter, the largest share since the second quarter of 2012. It was up from 2.5 percent in the July-September period. The deficit increased 8.8 percent in 2018 to $488.5 billion, the highest level since 2008. For all of 2018, the current account deficit averaged 2.4 percent of GDP, the biggest share since 2012, from 2.3 percent in 2017. The deficit on the current account has shrunk from a peak of 6.2 percent of GDP in the fourth quarter of 2005, in part because of a significant increase in the volume of oil exports. In the fourth quarter, exports of goods fell 0.9 percent to $416.1 billion, while imports were unchanged at $649.1 billion. Meanwhile, the flow of foreign profits repatriated by U.S. companies slowed to $85.9 billion in the fourth quarter from an upwardly revised $100.7 billion in the prior period, reflecting a diminishing impact from corporate tax overhaul that went into effect last January. Earnings repatriation peaked at $294.7 billion in the first quarter immediately after the law took effect but has tailed off each quarter since. Even so, it remains well above pre-tax cut levels. For the full year, foreign profits brought back to U.S. shores by American companies surged to a record $664.9 billion, more than four times the $155.1 billion logged in 2017 and more than twice the previous record in 2005. Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Dan Burns

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-currentaccount/u-s-current-account-deficit-hits-10-year-high-firms-bring-back-more-foreign-profits-idUSKCN1R81R5

Business News

Reuters

2017-03-01 00:00:00

2017

3.0

1

Ex-NFL Star Will Allen Gets SERIOUS PRISON TIME ... In Ponzi Scheme Case

Ex-NFL player Will Allen just got HAMMERED by the judge in his Ponzi scheme case -- he'll do 6 YEARS in federal prison ... officials say. Prosecutors were gunning for a 78 month sentence ... and they just about got what they asked for. Allen will do 72 months instead. Damn. Prosecutors say the 38-year-old cornerback -- a 1st round draft pick in 2001 -- was a key part of a $37 MILLION scheme that screwed investors out of a ton of money. Several of Allen's victims were pro athletes. Allen was locked up immediately following Wednesday's hearing -- see you in 2023.

https://www.tmz.com/2017/03/01/will-allen-prison-sentence-ponzi-scheme/

TMZ

2017-10-22 00:00:00

2017

10.0

22

Christian Shepherd

For some Chinese dissidents, party congress means a paid 'vacation'

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hu Jia, a well-known Chinese dissident who lives in Beijing, says he had hoped to go to the southeastern city of Xiamen for his government-sponsored holiday, but state security officials said no. “They told me I had to go to a more isolated place this time,” he told Reuters by phone from Yunnan province in far southwestern China, a popular destination renowned for its scenery and the culture of its ethnic minority groups. Rights groups say that Hu is one dozens of activists and dissidents detained, placed under tighter monitoring or “vacationed” by authorities,  during the week-long congress of the ruling Communist Party which began on Wednesday in Beijing. President Xi Jinping is expected to tighten his grip on power at the gathering, which is only held once every five years. For his enforced holiday, Hu and his two government minders jointly decided on the destinations. Hu suggested the ancient town of Dali in Yunnan for the first stop, and the public security agents accompanying him chose the second and third stops in the southwest region, Guiyang — the capital of the mountainous province of Guizhou, and the coastal city of Beihai in Guangxi province. Hu estimated the whole trip for the three of them will cost close to 10,000 yuan ($1,510), all paid for by the authorities. He said that his minders tried to save money by choosing basic hotels and traveling between the three cities by bus. He will fly back to Beijing on Oct 28, just after the congress ends. “You can go see the sights, but state security goes with you everywhere,” Hu said. Reuters was unable to independently verify the accounts of Hu and other dissidents interviewed for this story. China’s public security ministry did not respond to a faxed request for comment on the detention of activists, and the use of “vacations.” China rarely explains its treatment of dissidents other than to say that those charged are criminals who harmed social stability and that all people in China are treated equally before the law. It is not unusual for Chinese authorities to heighten monitoring and detention of dissidents before important political events, especially people with high profiles who are known to speak out against the party and state. In addition to the enforced vacations, some activists have also been detained, placed under supervision at home, or warned about posting critical messages online in the weeks ahead of congress, according to the Hong Kong-based group Chinese Human Rights Defenders.  The group also said it had documented 14 cases of detention of activists in recent weeks. In one case, Wu Kemu, a truck driver from Xuancheng city in the central province of Anhui, was called in by the police for a talk on October 11 and has not been released since, his wife Fang Liangxiang told Reuters by phone on Sunday. “They will not say when he will be released. They just told me to wait at home for him,” she said, adding that she expected the detention was related to critical things Wu had said about the government on the popular instant messaging platform WeChat. No one answered the phone on Saturday at the Xuancheng city detention center where Fang says Wu is being held. It is unclear if the total number of detentions, arrests or “vacations” this year is greater than at the time of previous major events or how many of the cases are directly related to the congress. Some activists say that the authorities prefer enforced vacations rather than detentions as they can make dissidents both inactive and inaccessible to foreign journalists over sensitive periods. Locking people up can attract more attention. Hu, a pro-democracy activist and campaigner for those with HIV/AIDS, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for subversion in 2008, and said he has been under regular state surveillance since his release. “The first thing I did was go for a run up in the mountains by Dali, because I knew the state security agents could not run with me,” he said, adding that the agents were “not the running type.” “It felt like being briefly free from prison,” he said. Hu said that state security agents had shown him a list of people who would not be allowed to stay in Beijing over the 19th Party Congress, including Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.     Liu Xia has been under effective house arrest in Beijing since her husband won the Nobel Prize in 2010. After his death in July, even the sporadic communications she’s had with friends have been nearly entirely severed, two of them told Reuters. The public security ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Liu Xia’s situation. Some activists make their own travel plans to avoid the authorities. Wu Lihong, an activist from Wuxi city in Jiangsu province who for over a decade has been protesting pollution in Lake Tai in eastern China, told Reuters that Chinese state security had called him last week saying they were coming to take him for a forced vacation. Wu, though, had already gone to visit a friend in Zhejiang province, on the east coast and far away from Beijing, to avoid them. “At the 16th, 17th and 18th Congresses I was vacationed, imprisoned, held at home and forbidden to speak,” Wu said. “This time, I chose to go on holiday without them,” he said. He said that state security officials had asked him to return to Wuxi so they could take him on “vacation” themselves, but he declined saying he would stay with his friend till after the congress ends. He is now avoiding their calls. Reuters could not independently confirm Wu’s comments. Chinese state security does not have a public phone number, fax number or website.    Xi has overseen a sweeping crackdown on rights lawyers and activists since coming to power in 2012, jailing dozens, in what rights groups say is a coordinated attempt to quash dissent in China. New internet measures include rules that hold users accountable for critical posts even in private group chats and a renewed crackdown on technologies to circumvent restrictions. Kit Chan, director of the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, said that some recent detentions of activists represent a new direction in the crackdown as it shows the authorities are targeting smaller groups that draw attention to specific rights issues as much as their traditional focus on pro-democracy activists. Zhen Jianghua, for example, the founder of Human Rights Campaign in China, a grassroots organization based in the southern province of Guangzhou, was detained on Sept 1 in Zhuhai, a source close to Zhen who declined to be named told Reuters. The ministry of public security did not respond to a faxed request for comment about the targeting of grassroots organizations. A person who answered the phone at the Zhuhai public security bureau said she was not aware of Zhen’s case. Reporting by Christian Shepherd in BEIJING and Venus Wu in HONG KONG; Editing by Tony Munroe and Martin Howell

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-rights-insight/for-some-chinese-dissidents-party-congress-means-a-paid-vacation-idUSKBN1CR01T

World News

Reuters

2018-09-28 00:00:00

2018

9.0

28

Senate Judiciary Committee Recommends Brett Kavanaugh to Supreme Court

2:30 PM PT -- POTUS has authorized the FBI to begin the Kavanaugh investigation that Sen. Flake called for right before the Judiciary Committee voted to recommend confirmation. Several other Senators demanded such an investigation during Thursday's testimony, and Flake suggested the investigation should only delay the full Senate vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation by a week. President Trump is one huge step closer to getting his guy, Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court -- the Senate Judiciary Committee just voted 11-10 to recommend he be confirmed. The Committee has 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats, so the tally comes as no shock -- even after Thursday's emotional day of testimony from Kavanaugh and his sexual assault accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The next step for Kavanaugh is the confirmation vote before the full Senate. Before he cast his vote recommending confirmation, Sen. Jeff Flake came face-to-face with two sexual assault victims who confronted and cornered him in an elevator on Capitol Hill. The incident might have had some impact -- before the Committee voted, Sen. Flake requested the Senate vote be delayed for one week to let the FBI conduct an investigation. However, the Committee voted to recommend confirmation ... and did NOT insist on the one-week delay. Emotions have been running high since Thursday's nearly 9 hours of testimony. Two other women -- Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick -- also levied allegations but were not allowed to testify. Ford recounted Kavanaugh's alleged attack on her at a house party when they were in high school. Kavanaugh followed, and vehemently denied the allegations ... seemingly coming unhinged at times. The Senate is expected to vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation next week. If, as expected, he's confirmed, he'll become Trump's second Supreme Court appointee... joining Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed last year for the high court.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/09/28/brett-kavanaugh-senate-judiciary-committee-votes-recommendation-supreme-court/

TMZ

2016-09-24 00:00:00

2016

9.0

24

Tom Brady & Gisele Jet to Italy

Tom Brady might wanna extend his NFL suspension -- his Patriots keep winning, and he's free to fly off to Italy on a whim with his supermodel wife ... the ultimate win-win. TMZ Sports got these photos of Gisele and TB enjoying a romantic dinner Friday night on the island of Capri. The couple got all cozy at a restaurant called Aurora -- we're told he had pasta, she had a salad (typical model). The Pats' future QB fought this 4-game suspension for Deflategate for more than a year, but check the pics -- Tom doesn't look too pissed about his newfound free time. It's back to the salt mines in less than 2 weeks, but for now Brady's 100% the GOAT ... at being exiled. #ThanksGoodell

https://www.tmz.com/2016/09/24/tom-brady-gisele-capri-vacation-nfl-suspension/

TMZ

2016-03-09 00:00:00

2016

3.0

9

Tess Owen

Edward Snowden Calls 'Bullshit' on FBI's Claim That It Can't Unlock iPhone

The FBI maintains that it can't access San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone 5c without Apple breaching its own security protocols, which the company has resisted. People familiar with Apple software and encryption keys say that the FBI actually already knows exactly how to get into the phone.  Now Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the extent of the National Security Agency's mass surveillance program, has joined the debate — and (surprise, surprise) he's not buying the FBI's line. "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone," Snowden said in a video call from Moscow, where he has been living after fleeing the US, during the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference. "Respectfully," he added, "that's bullshit." In February, the FBI's legal team convinced a federal judge that Apple would need to produce a piece of code to bypass its own security standards and the phone's auto-erase function. The auto-erase function is an Apple feature designed to protect a customer's data and privacy — an iPhone is automatically wiped clean following 10 failed passcode attempts. Judge Sheri Pym said the Silicon Valley giant would need to provide "reasonable technical assistance" to the FBI in the investigation of Farook, which includes overwriting the auto-erase function. The FBI maintains that it can't access San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone 5c without Apple breaching its own security protocols, which the company has resisted. People familiar with Apple software and encryption keys say that the FBI actually already knows exactly how to get into the phone.  Now Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the extent of the National Security Agency's mass surveillance program, has joined the debate — and (surprise, surprise) he's not buying the FBI's line. "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone," Snowden said in a video call from Moscow, where he has been living after fleeing the US, during the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference. "Respectfully," he added, "that's bullshit." In February, the FBI's legal team convinced a federal judge that Apple would need to produce a piece of code to bypass its own security standards and the phone's auto-erase function. The auto-erase function is an Apple feature designed to protect a customer's data and privacy — an iPhone is automatically wiped clean following 10 failed passcode attempts. Judge Sheri Pym said the Silicon Valley giant would need to provide "reasonable technical assistance" to the FBI in the investigation of Farook, which includes overwriting the auto-erase function. Related: FBI Approved Hack That Complicated Access to San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone Data Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in an act of terrorism at a holiday gathering in Southern California in December. The two shooters were killed by police in the aftermath. Apple is fighting the order, citing concerns about the precedent that this would set in future cases in the United States and elsewhere. The FBI responded by slamming Apple's lack of cooperation as a cheap marketing ploy. The global technological consensus is against the FBI. Why? Here's one example: — Edward Snowden (@Snowden)March 8, 2016 Snowden referred to a blog post on the American Civil Liberties Union website to support his view. The post, written by Daniel Kahn Gillmor, a technology fellow at the ACLU, says: "The truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn't need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the 'Effaceable Storage') before attempting to guess the passcode." He explains that the auto-erase function doesn't actually wipe the phone of its content. Instead, it deletes the "file system key" that is kept in the iPhone's effaceable storage, which is basically a flash memory file. "The FBI wants us to think that this case is about a single phone, used by a terrorist," Gillmor writes. "But it's a power grab: law enforcement has dozens of other cases where they would love to be able to compel software and hardware providers to build, provide and vouch for deliberately weakened code." Meanwhile, it looks like the relationship between the FBI and the NSA — two intelligence agencies that are meant to operate mostly independent from one another — has gotten a lot cozier without anyone noticing. Related: Bill Gates Says the FBI Only Wants to Unlock One iPhone — But There Are 12 Other Cases FBI privacy and surveillance rules are subject to reevaluation and certification each year. In 2014, according to an annual report published by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Group (PLCOB), the FBI was, very quietly, given direct and mostly unlimited access to NSA files containing enormous collections of metadata — international emails, texts and phone calls — many of which had an American citizen on one end of the phone or computer. The watchdog group was established by President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the Snowden leaks to assuage public concern about mass surveillance. US officials confirmed this to the Guardian this week. Those rules reportedly meant FBI officials were at liberty to scroll through the data for "routine" queries that have nothing to do with national security, and did not require authorities to disclose or make a record of who and what they were searching.  Because identifiable information in the NSA data set isn't redacted, the FBI effectively had access to information that it would otherwise have needed sa a warrant for.  The PCLOB annual report has repeatedly expressed concerns over the FBI's apparently unlimited access to American's private communications. In the latest report, the PLCOB noted that some of that power had been reined in in response to concerns about "many" FBI agents who had access to NSA data. In the most recent PCLOB report, the secret court that governs surveillance had reportedly submitted "revised FBI minimization procedures" in response to the watchdog's concerns. "Changes have been implemented based on PCLOB recommendations, but we cannot comment further due to classification," Christopher Allen, a spokesman for the FBI, told the Guardian. Details of the changes made to FBI access of NSA information haven't been released. Timothy Barrett, a spokesman for the office of the director of national intelligence, said the changes will be released eventually but said they couldn't provide a date just yet. Follow Tess Owen on Twitter: @misstessowenPhoto via Flickr

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/59ekjz/edward-snowden-calls-bullshit-on-fbis-claim-that-it-cant-unlock-iphone

Vice News

2018-06-01 00:00:00

2018

6.0

1

Lena Dunham Says She Wasn't Serious About Writing a 'Roseanne' Spin-off

Lena Dunham was apparently yanking our chain when she said she'd be down to write a new show for the remaining characters on "Roseanne." Joke's on us. We got the "Girls" creator -- who acted in and wrote for the HBO show -- at LAX Thursday, where we asked if she was serious about her Twitter offer to "do the spin off of your show starring Darlene's cool kids." I will do the spin off of your show starring Darlene’s cool kids https://t.co/5A2129BTl0 Lena had retweeted Mindy Kaling, who offered to "write things" for John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf -- just a couple of the many folks who are now out of a job after ABC pulled the plug. As you might've heard, Roseanne's racist tweet completely tanked the show. Welp ... turns out Lena is NOT actually interested at the moment. She tells our photog, on a scale of 0-10 as far as seriousness ... it's at the very bottom. False alarm, everyone. Carry on.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/06/01/lena-dunham-not-serious-writing-roseanne-spin-off-kids-cast/

TMZ

2017-12-11 00:00:00

2017

12.0

11

LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball: 'It's Not About the Money' in Lithuania

LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball are breaking their silence about their new venture -- signing with a Lithuanian pro basketball team -- and they insist the money has nothing to do with it. The Big Baller Brand tweeted photos Monday of LiAngelo and Lamelo signing contracts, saying "It's not about the money for the Ball Brothers." BBB goes on to say ... "They have a passion to play Basketball and to experience playing as pros was the Goal. They have accomplished this mission and are excited to be playing on the same team to top it off. The Big Baller way!" LiAngleo and LaMelo each signed a 1-year contract with a first division Lithuanian team. According to reports, they're not expected to make more than $500 a game. LaVar has previously said the ultimate goal is getting the boys to the NBA ... and he's hoping Lithuania is the right path. The Balls are expected to report to camp in Janaury.

https://www.tmz.com/2017/12/11/liangelo-lamelo-ball-not-about-money-lithuanian-contracts/

TMZ

2019-06-14 00:00:00

2019

6.0

14

BUZZ-Scisys: Jumps after CGI offers to buy co for 254.15p/share

** IT services developer Scisys’ up 21.1% at 250p after Canadian IT and consultancy company CGI Inc makes all cash offer of 254.15p/share for SSY ** CGI’s offer, valued at 78.9 mln pounds ($99.97 mln), is a premium of 24.6% to SSY’s closing price of 204p on Thursday ** SSY’s board unanimously recommends the deal; SSY directors, who hold ~25% of its total shares outstanding, will vote in favor of the deal ** YTD, SSY has gained ~37.4% as of Thursday’s close ($1 = 0.7892 pounds) (Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru)

https://www.reuters.com/article/buzz-scisys-jumps-after-cgi-offers-to-bu/buzz-scisys-jumps-after-cgi-offers-to-buy-co-for-25415p-share-idUSL4N23L1W8

Hot Stocks

Reuters

2019-04-09 00:00:00

2019

4.0

9

Hong Kong 'Occupy' protest leaders found guilty for role in mass rallies

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong court on Tuesday found three leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy “Occupy” civil disobedience movement guilty of conspiracy to commit public nuisance for their role in mass protests that brought parts of the Chinese-ruled city to a standstill. Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and retired pastor Chu Yiu-ming were all found guilty following a trial that comes as the financial centre’s civil liberties come under mounting pressure. Reporting By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-politics-occupy/hong-kong-occupy-protest-leaders-found-guilty-for-role-in-mass-rallies-idUSKCN1RL095

World News

Reuters

2017-04-11 15:30:00

2017

4.0

11

VICE Staff

United Airlines' CEO Said Ejected Passenger Was Being 'Belligerent' and 'Disruptive'

In case you missed it, aviation security officers forcibly removed a man from an overbooked flight on Sunday while other passengers filmed the shocking altercation. The man—who has since been identified as doctor David Dao—was dragged from his seat on a United Airlines flight headed to Louisville, Kentucky, from Chicago, and appeared to have been knocked out, his mouth full of blood. The security officers proceeded to pull his body down the length of the aircraft's walkway and off the flight.  United's CEO Oscar Munoz responded by sending a letter to his employees that was leaked to the media. While Munoz said he was "upset to see and hear about what happened," he added that the passenger was "disruptive and belligerent." Ultimately, Munoz stood behind his employees, saying that the passenger refused to voluntarily leave the plane, with staff "left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight." The airline earlier said that it was investigating what happened after videos of the incident provoked an angry response on social media.  One of the passengers, Jayse D. Anspach, who posted a video of the incident to Twitter, has defended Dao. "#United overbooked and wanted four of us to volunteer to give up our seats for personnel that needed to be at work the next day," Anspach tweeted. "No one volunteered, so United decided to choose for us. They chose an Asian doctor and his wife. The doctor needed to work at the hospital the next day, so he refused to volunteer. Ten minutes later, the doctor runs back into the plane with a bloody face, clings to a post in the back, chanting, 'I need to go home.'" Ironically, the trade magazine PRWeek named Munoz 2017's "US Communicator of the Year" last March.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x9ggw/united-airlines-ceo-said-ejected-passenger-was-being-belligerent-and-disruptive

The VICE Guide to Right Now

Vice

2016-01-14 00:00:00

2016

1.0

14

Michael Blum

The Virtual-Reality Future Is Here

Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Many expect 2016 to be the year that virtual reality (VR) finally takes off. And indeed, recent developments signal that, this year, VR will finally go from being a buggy, vertigo-inducing prototype — an exhilarating idea executed poorly, and most accessible to industry insiders — to a viable platform, and a soon-to-be widely available one at that. Last week Oculus, a trailblazer in VR technology, opened preorders for the consumer version of its Rift display system, shocking many with its high initial price point of $600. The Facebook-owned company is not without competition — HTC, Playstation, and Microsoft are rolling out consumer models of their own, and Google’s VR project is firmly under development. Prices for these latter models are as of yet unknown, while Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has already responded to criticism of his system’s prohibitive cost, promising that it will eventually drop. Although these VR systems are being marketed primarily to the gaming community, developers are already exploring possibilities beyond blowing virtual holes in living room walls. For instance, the Oculus Rift will ship packaged with “Medium,” a toolkit for sandbox experimentation with forms, allowing users to manipulate shape, color, light, and texture à la MS Paint updated to 3D (the HTC Vive will run a similar software called “Tilt Brush”). The prospects presented by a new medium in its infancy are surely as daunting as they are appealing — their technical capabilities seemingly unbounded, their formal possibilities unexplored, and their aesthetic criteria undetermined. Third-party developers and artists have already begun tapping into this potential in a number of ways, by building aesthetic sensoria with rigorous 3D modeling, rendering animated worlds that users can engage with far more viscerally than in an ordinary video game, and by adapting cinema’s moving images from the 2D screen to the 360° arena, thrusting the spectator into the very movement of a documentary or fiction. Without a doubt, VR’s repercussions for older, more familiar notions of cinematic realism are astounding. The mortality of cinema is a topic that has been endlessly ruminated on; the advent of VR makes clear that it’s not cinema’s death that is demanding of reflection, but rather its afterlife in new and different media. Sensory Stories, an exhibition mounted last year at the Museum of the Moving Image, presented several Oculus-powered works, hinting at some of the paths moving-image artists may pursue as they increasingly turn their attention to the new frontier of VR. Herders (2014), by Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael, is a VR documentary that unobtrusively observes the daily lives of several Mongolian nomads. The work, owing to the technology it makes use of, grants the viewer the ability to scan hilly vistas in any direction, and the sheer act of being able to look over your shoulder while remaining within the frame of the seamless panorama breeds an intense, vertiginous wonder. VR works are multifocal by default, and Herders is no exception — at any given moment you can gaze at the horizon, eye a musical performance, or spy an old man eating in the corner of a tent. Works like these urge the viewer to decide for themselves what is worth focusing on, often resulting in an intensely voyeuristic viewing experience. What at times is bewitchingly, subtly real in Herders can also acquire a pronounced social aspect. As the viewer is enclosed in the movement of the work — as though truly present, for example, at the herders’ family dinner — empathetic identification with the subjects is heightened to a degree only graspable if experienced firsthand. This displacement of the viewer’s own perspective, coinciding with the adoption of that of another, is a function of VR that will no doubt be used and abused, and will likely spark a heady revival of debates — aesthetic and otherwise — about the politics of spectatorship. Indeed, it doesn’t take a great deal of cynicism to see this technology being gobbled up wholesale by the entertainment-military complex and being catered, for example, to the arms and defense sector, providing immersive, photorealistic combat training programs to militaries the world over. Nonetheless, VR is an astounding technology, and its being made available to the consumer public — as well as to artists, teachers, and other prospective developers and users — will be a groundbreaking event in the unfolding procession of new media.

https://hyperallergic.com/268442/the-virtual-reality-future-is-here/

Hyperallergic

2018-03-06 00:00:00

2018

3.0

6

Pam Anderson Takes Ride-hail Apps to Task with 'Terms & Conditions'

Pam Anderson says ride-hail apps shirk their responsibility and shift blame to their users ... and that's why she implores you to read the fine print. Pamela is back with a new PSA -- obtained in advance by TMZ -- and takes ride-hail apps to task for making its users assume all the risk with the long and dreaded terms and conditions ... which, btw, is the title for her third PSA. She first went after ride-hail apps, like Uber or Lyft, back in November for not properly vetting its drivers. She went after them again in January and tied them to the #MeToo movement. In the new PSA, Pamela's driver reads out loud the terms and conditions for the ride-hail app, Via. Might not have heard of it. It's only available in 3 cities. But point made ... ride-hail apps cram responsibility with a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo. And you should be aware.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/03/06/pam-anderson-fine-print-psa-ride-hail-app/

TMZ

2016-10-31 17:32:40

2016

10.0

31

Kurt Wagner

Here are all the things Peter Thiel said about Donald Trump and Gawker on Monday

Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel is a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump; he is also the man who helped bankrupt Gawker media. In the tech and media worlds, that essentially makes him Public Enemy No. 1. On Monday Thiel set out to defend himself. At an hour-long press event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Thiel answered a bunch of questions about everything from his million dollar donation to Trump’s campaign to his multi-million dollar donation to Hulk Hogan’s lawyers. Thiel said a lot, so we’ve pulled out some of his more interesting quotes here. We’re still sifting through everything, and will add more as we go. On whether or not his support of Trump has hurt his business: “Not in any meaningful way. ... It certainly has generated a tremendous amount of discussion. I’ve gotten a lot of pushback from people, to say the least. But I think my friendships, close working business relationships, I think all those are very well intact.” On Silicon Valley’s disconnect with the rest of the country: “The story people in Silicon Valley always want to tell is the one in which their specific success as individuals and as companies gets conflated with a story of general success and general progress in the United States. ‘So we’re doing well, therefore our whole civilization is doing well, everybody’s doing well, the whole country’s taken to the next level.’ That’s the narrative people love to tell — specific success linked to general success. I think the truth has been one of more specific success, but more general failure.” On his $1.25 million donation to Donald Trump, which came shortly after Trump faced backlash for a tape in which he admitted to grabbing women inappropriately: “I think the tape was in extremely poor taste, extremely inappropriate. I didn’t even think as much about the donation as I should have. My general perspective on this year was that money actually didn’t matter that much. The candidates who raised the most money on the presidential level did incredibly badly. I didn’t even think that Trump needed my money. He hadn’t raised that much money, they didn’t ask me for money, I hadn’t donated. So when they asked me I wasn’t sure they needed it, but I thought I’d go ahead and write them a check. But I didn’t think that much of this connection. Of course, I didn’t think anybody would think that you would donate to a candidate because of the worst thing they’ve done. You support candidates normally because of the things you like about them, not the things you dislike.” On whether or not Trump would try and repeal LGBT rights if elected President: “I have not had conversations with Mr. Trump on that specific subject. I do think he represents a sea change from the Republican party of [George W.] Bush. You just look at the way Bush was speaking about gay marriage at every single campaign event in the 2004 election. Everything [Trump’s] indicated is that he’d be quite expansive on gay rights.” On whether Thiel supports a ban on Muslims coming to the U.S., a stance Trump has campaigned on: “I don’t support a religious test. I certainly don’t support the specific language Trump has used in every instance. I think one thing that should be distinguished here is that the media always is taking Trump literally. It never takes him seriously, but it always takes him literally. I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally. So when they hear things like the Muslim comment, or the wall comment, or things like that, the question is not, ‘are we going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China?’ or ‘How exactly are you going to enforce these tests?’ What they hear is ‘we’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.’” On why he funded Hulk Hogan’s sex tape lawsuit against Gawker, and why he kept it private: “I got involved over a number of years and it was one of these things once you got involved, you started to believe in the justice of the case more and more because there were so many different people you interacted with who had been destroyed, in most cases it was not super prominent people, or super wealthy people. It was people who could not afford to do anything. And one of the striking things was that if you’re middle class, if you’re upper middle class, if you’re a single digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system. It costs too much. This was the modus operandi of Gawker in large part, to go after people who had no chance of fighting back. ... My judgement was Mr. Hogan deserved to have his day in court.” On whether or not he set a dangerous precedent by suing Gawker media into bankruptcy: “I don’t think so. Let’s start with the facts of the case. It involved a sex tape. If you make a sex tape of someone with their permission, you are a pornographer. If you make a sex tape without their permission, we were told now, you are a journalist. I would submit that as an insult to all journalists. This is not about the First Amendment, it is about the most egregious violation of privacy imaginable.” On whether or not wealthy, powerful people should be able to sue a media organization for a story they disagree with: “Wealthy people shouldn’t do that. I think if they try they won’t succeed. Gawker was a pretty flimsy business. It was a bad business, it didn’t make that much money. They could have withstood all the lawsuits. They lost because of the enormous verdict that came in against them. That’s why they lost at the end of the day ... I was very careful in the Hulk Hogan litigation in picking a lawsuit where the fight was over privacy. We did not even bring a libel action because that was sort of the way I wanted to make clear in the Hogan case that it was not about the media more generally.” On whether or not he’s currently suing any other media organizations: “I’ve been involved in the Gawker case and nothing else.” This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/10/31/13478494/peter-thiel-donald-trump-gawker-quotes

Vox

2018-12-11 18:38:00

2018

12.0

11

Rob Gillies

Former Canadian diplomat detained in China, source says

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig has been detained while visiting Beijing.Kovrig was detained Monday night during one of his regular visits to the city, according to a source.The detention comes after China warned Canada of consequences for its recent arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.It's unclear if there's any link between the two cases. TORONTO (AP) — A former Canadian diplomat has been detained while visiting Beijing, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. Michael Kovrig was detained Monday night in Beijing during one of his regular visits to the city, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak publicly on the matter. The detention comes after China warned Canada of consequences for its recent arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at Vancouver's airport. It's unclear if there's any link between the cases. The Globe and Mail in Toronto and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. had earlier reported Kovrig's detention, also citing unnamed sources. The International Crisis Group said earlier Tuesday it was aware of the reports that its North East Asia senior adviser had been detained. The Hong Kong-based Kovrig had served as the political lead for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's trip to that city in 2016. The Brussels-based non-governmental organization said in a statement that it was doing everything possible to obtain additional information about Kovrig's whereabouts and that it will work to ensure his prompt release. The International Crisis Group said Kovrig has been one of its full-time experts since February 2017.The organization's website says Kovrig previously worked as a Canadian diplomat in Beijing and Hong Kong and at the United Nations. Canada's Global Affairs department didn't immediately respond with comment. Former Canadian Liberal leader Bob Rae said it's clear why he's been detained. "It's called repression and retaliation," Rae tweeted. Kovrig wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he had served as the political lead on a visit Trudeau made to Hong Kong in September 2016. He worked in Canada's consulate-general in Hong Kong at the time. Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau, said that Chinese "retaliation against Canadian interests or Canadians would be unacceptable and pointless." "It would have zero impact on judicial proceedings in Canada," Paris tweeted. "Beijing should already know this from previous experience. Let cooler heads prevail." Read more: What you need to know about Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese tech founder's daughter whose arrest could set fire to US-China relations Jorge Guajardo, Mexico's former ambassador to China, said Canada needs to take dramatic action. "I'd be summoning the entire Canadian consular Corp in China home for training. If that means they can't issue visas in the meantime, certainly the Chinese would understand. These are special times," he tweeted. Hu Xijin, editor in chief of China's state-run newspaper Global Times, wrote on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo that there isn't any evidence that Kovrig's detention was government retaliation for Meng's arrest, though he added that the current situation was "highly sensitive" because of a "American-Canadian conspiracy" to arrest Meng. "If people in the rest of the world make this association, it's because Meng Wanzhou's arrest was really way over the line. Naturally, people would think that China would take revenge," Hu said.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-former-canadian-diplomat-detained-in-china-source-says-2018-12

Business Insider

2017-10-06 00:00:00

2017

10.0

6

White House chief of staff's personal cellphone compromised: Politico

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House officials believe Chief of Staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, raising concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on the phone, Politico reported on Thursday. The suspected breach could have happened as long ago as December, Politico reported, citing three U.S. government officials. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, joined the Trump administration in January as secretary of Homeland Security. He became White House chief of staff in July. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Politico reported that the suspected breach was discovered after Kelly turned his phone over to White House tech support this summer complaining that it was not working or properly updating software. It was unclear what, if any, data may have been accessed, Politico reported. Politico reported that a White House official said that Kelly had not used the personal phone often since joining the administration, instead relying on his government-issued phone for most communications. Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Toni Reinhold

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-kelly/white-house-chief-of-staffs-personal-cellphone-compromised-politico-idUSKBN1CB030

Politics

Reuters

2019-06-26 00:00:00

2019

6.0

26

Nellie Peyton

Cocoa-growing Ivory Coast draws up new plan to stop child labor

DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Ivory Coast has launched a new strategy to end child labor in cocoa farming and other sectors by raising women’s incomes and building schools, the government said on Wednesday. The plan is more wide-reaching than previous ones and aims to tackle household poverty as the root cause of child labor, said Patricia Sylvie Yao, executive secretary of the national committee for the fight against child labor and trafficking. “Today we have decided to expand our actions,” said Yao. “What we plan to do is help empower women, because experience shows that when a woman has an income-generating activity, it reinforces the wellbeing of the family,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, launched its first national action plan against child labor in 2012, but the problem remains widespread in poor farming communities. An estimated 890,000 children work in the cocoa sector, some for their parents and some trafficked from abroad, according to a 2018 report by anti-slavery organization Walk Free Foundation. Thousands of children also work in mines or as domestic servants, said Yao. The new action plan, the country’s third, will run from 2019-2021 at a cost of 76 billion CFA Francs ($132 million). A cocoa industry representative said it goes further than previous strategies by tackling issues such as supply chain traceability and illegal plantations in protected forests. “This one I think does a more intensive job of looking across the Ivorian government and taking into account what the whole of government is doing,” said Tim McCoy, vice president for country relations at the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF). Measures such as empowering women and investing in education may not seem directly linked to child labor, but do have an impact, he said. Ivory Coast has rescued 8,000 victims of child labor since 2012, but more needs to be done to strengthen police capacity, said First Lady Dominique Ouattara at a launch event on Tuesday. Last year it improved efforts to eliminate human trafficking but fell short of the minimum standards, particularly regarding law enforcement, according to the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Government officials were complicit in trafficking and police did not have enough resources to investigate cases, said the report, released last week. Reporting by Nellie Peyton, Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit news.trust.org

https://www.reuters.com/article/ivorycoast-cocoa-childlabour/cocoa-growing-ivory-coast-draws-up-new-plan-to-stop-child-labour-idUSL8N23X3W9

Big Story 10

Reuters

2019-06-07 00:00:00

2019

6.0

7

Andrey Ostroukh, Katya Golubkova

Putin stands by China, criticizes U.S., in trade, Huawei disputes

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Aggressive U.S. tactics such as a campaign against Chinese telecoms firm Huawei will lead to trade wars - and possibly real wars - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, in a show of solidarity with China alongside its leader Xi Jinping. In some of his strongest words on the subject, Putin accused Washington of “unbridled economic egoism”. He singled out U.S. efforts to thwart a Russian gas pipeline to Europe and a U.S. campaign to persuade countries to bar Huawei, the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker, from supplying network gear. His broadside, at an economic forum in St Petersburg on the same platform as Xi, was a clear show of unity with China at a time when Beijing is locked in a trade war with Washington and Moscow’s own ties with the West are at a post-Cold War low. “States which previously promoted free trade with honest and open competition have started speaking the language of trade wars and sanctions, of open economic raiding using arm-twisting and scare tactics, of eliminating competitors using so-called non-market methods,” said Putin. “Look for example at the situation around Huawei which they are trying not to just squeeze out, but to unceremoniously push out of the global market. It’s already being called the first technological war of the emerging digital era in some circles.” The world risked slipping into an era when “general international rules will be exchanged for the laws of administrative and legal mechanisms ... which is how the United States is unfortunately behaving, spreading its jurisdiction over the whole world,” added Putin. “...It’s a path to endless conflicts, trade wars and maybe not just trade wars. Figuratively speaking, it’s a path to battles without rules that pit everyone against everyone else.” Putin also complained about the U.S. dollar, calling it an instrument of pressure whose role in the financial system should be reconsidered. China’s Xi struck a more conciliatory tone, calling for world powers to protect the global multilateral trade system. Speaking through an interpreter, he said it was “hard to imagine a complete break” between the United States and China. “We are not interested in this, and our American partners are not interested in this. President Trump is my friend and I am convinced he is also not interested in this,” Xi said. Russia has long complained about Western sanctions imposed on it over disputes including its behavior in Ukraine. Moscow casts the restrictions as an attempt to contain its growth. Washington has asked countries to reject Huawei technology in the development of new mobile phone networks, arguing that it could be vulnerable to Chinese eavesdropping. Huawei denies its equipment is a security risk. Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Anastasia Lyrchikova, Tom Balmforth, Polina Ivanova, Olesya Astakhova, Daria Korsunskaya; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Peter Graff

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-forum-putin/putin-stands-by-china-criticizes-u-s-in-trade-huawei-disputes-idUSKCN1T819W

World News

Reuters

2017-06-21 14:20:00

2017

6.0

21

Bryson Masse

Google Maps Will Now Display More Than 3,000 Indigenous Lands in Canada

In a move to better support the more than 3,000 Indigenous communities in Canada, Google has announced the addition of data reflecting band and reserve territory into the Google Maps and Google Earth software platforms. GIF: Google Canada The news comes on National Aboriginal Day, which recognizes and celebrates the culture of Indigenous peoples. (As of next year, it will be renamed National Indigenous Peoples Day.) About 1.4 million people in Canada self-identify as Inuit, Métis, or First Nations. With the change, Indigenous people who search for their homes and territories will be able to see borders and overlays of the large parts of the country which are Indigenously administered. There are a bunch of compelling reasons why these places should be represented in the cold, hard data of maps. "Colonial understandings of land quite often come down to relationships to maps," said David Gaertner, who teaches topics like Indigenous new media at the University of British Columbia, and was not affiliated with Google's project. These changes come during Canada 150, a controversial celebration of the country's 150th anniversary, one that many Indigenous peoples have been resisting as marking 150 years of colonialism. Indigenous Lands in Google Maps: Canada "In the wake of Canada 150, the nationalism is just rampant," said Gaertner. "I think it has a way of getting in the way of these conversations. We've seen some pretty tough stuff come up recently around the cultural appropriation debates. And I think, in a lot of ways, a lot of settler Canadians have proven themselves not to be ready for these conversations." Read More: This Augmented Reality App Tells Indigenous Stories in Canadian Cities According to a Google blog authored by Tara Rush, Kanien'kehá:ka from Akwesasne, the update came after seven years of collaboration with Indigenous communities in Canada. Google partnered with The Firelight Group's Steve DeRoy, a cartographer and part of Ebb and Flow First Nation in Manitoba. "It's important to me because there are so many Indigenous groups across the country and to not see them as an important fabric of a base map, just to not be recognized, it's insulting," he told the CBC. In Google's blog, DeRoy explained that Indigenous peoples felt underrepresented in their mapping software after participating in Indigenous Mapping Workshops. There are certain cartographic elements still missing. A future update with details like the unceded Algonquin lands in Ontario (on which Ottawa, the nation's capital, sits) could be an important way to acknowledge the historical nature of Canada's geographic relationship with Indigenous peoples. There are other Indigenous-led efforts to preserve and share history through cartography. For example, Adrian Duke has created an augmented reality app which uses location data to tell the histories and stories of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ev4w5j/google-maps-earth-canada-indigenous-lands-territories

Tech by VICE

Vice

2017-03-16 00:00:00

2017

3.0

16

Jillian Steinhauer

Video Art Meets Psychotherapy at EFA Project Space

A program on March 18–19 will look at how video art and psychotherapy both bred narcissism in the 1970s. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Have you ever considered the points of intersection between early video art and psychotherapy? No? Well, why not start this weekend, with a program exploring the topic at EFA Project Space. “Surrounded by Me” looks at the adoption of video in the 1970s in both artistic and clinical psychotherapy practices. As the event’s organizers, artist Tyler Coburn and art historian Robin Simpson, write: “Where Nancy Holt utters, ‘I am surrounded by me’ in Boomerang (1974), as she negotiates the echoes of her voice fed back through a headset, so a colleague of [psychotherapist Milton M.] Berger’s, facing a fleet of cameras and monitors, remarks, ‘I feel surrounded by myself.’” The primary connection there, Coburn and Simpson argue, is narcissism, and the way it played out in these fields and across our larger society. In an attempt to investigate this overlap, and perhaps others, the pair has planned an evening and an afternoon of presentations and screenings at EFA. On Saturday, pediatrician Felix Rietmann, cultural historian Judith Rodenbeck, and Simpson himself will speak. On Sunday, video psychotherapy training tapes from the 1970s will share a lineup with artworks by Richard Serra and Nancy Holt, Howardena Pindell, Sadie Benning, Coburn, and others. The potential for cross-disciplinary conversation and discovery here is rich and intriguing. When: Saturday, March 18, 5–7pm; Sunday, March 19, 2–6pm Where: EFA Project Space (323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor, Garment District, Manhattan) More info here.

https://hyperallergic.com/365852/video-art-meets-psychotherapy-at-efa-project-space/

Hyperallergic

2017-12-26 00:00:00

2017

12.0

26

Marco Aquino

Peru's Fujimori asks for forgiveness, thanks Kuczynski for pardon

LIMA (Reuters) - Former authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori sought forgiveness from Peruvians “from the bottom of my heart” on Tuesday for shortcomings during his rule, and thanked President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for granting him a Christmas pardon. In a video on Facebook, Fujimori, 79, vowed that as a free man, he would support Kuczynski’s call for reconciliation, hinting that he would not return to politics. “I’m aware the results of my government were well received by some, but I acknowledge I also disappointed other compatriots,” the ailing Fujimori said, reading from notes while connected to tubes in a hospital bed. “And to them, I ask for forgiveness from the bottom of my heart.” The remarks were Fujimori’s first explicit apology to the Andean nation that he governed with an iron fist from 1990-2000. They came after two days of unrest as protesters slammed the pardon as an insult to victims and part of a political deal to help Kuczynski survive a scandal. The pardon cleared Fujimori’s convictions for graft and human rights crimes during his leadership of the rightwing government. Late on Monday, Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, appealed to Peruvians opposed to the pardon to “turn the page” and defended his decision as justified clemency for a sick man whose government helped the country progress. “I cannot keep from expressing my profound gratitude for the complex step that the president took, which commits me in this new stage of my life to decidedly support his call for reconciliation,” Fujimori said. Writing and additional reporting by Mitra Taj; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Bernadette Baum

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-fujimori/perus-fujimori-asks-for-forgiveness-thanks-kuczynski-for-pardon-idUSKBN1EK0WV

World News

Reuters

2017-10-29 14:40:02

2017

10.0

29

Dylan Scott

Trump is still trying to deflect blame for Obamacare rate hikes

Obamacare open enrollment starts on November 1, and President Trump is using Twitter to blame Democrats for premium increases, and promising yet again to repeal the health care law. As usual, the ObamaCare premiums will be up (the Dems own it), but we will Repeal & Replace and have great Healthcare soon after Tax Cuts! Do Democrats “own” the rising rates, though? Not if you ask the health insurers and policy experts who have set and study those premiums. As Vox documented in great detail, premiums on the law’s marketplaces were expected to stabilize this year, as insurers finally adjusted to the customers who were buying coverage. Single-digit rate increases, on average, were anticipated. It wasn’t perfect, but the law was reaching an equilibrium. But then Trump intervened. He sowed uncertainty about whether the law’s individual mandate would be enforced. He cut funding for advertising and enrollment outreach. Then the president stopped key cost-sharing payments to health insurers, which compensate companies for offering discounts on out-of-pocket costs to their lower-income customers. Insurers had warned they would hike rates as a result. As Vox reported earlier, health plans and actuaries say Trump’s actions have raised premiums by at least 25 percent and as much as 45 percent from what they otherwise would have been. Millions of Americans who receive federal assistance to buy insurance will be insulated from the rising rates. But the law’s middle-class customers who make too much money to receive that aid — many of them Republicans — will be on the hook. No matter what Trump tweets.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/29/16566628/trump-tweet-obamacare-premiums

Vox

2019-06-28 00:00:00

2019

6.0

28

Gold miner Avocet proposes voluntary liquidation

June 28 (Reuters) - Struggling gold miner Avocet Mining Plc on Friday said its board has proposed voluntary liquidation of the company and that remaining cash be used to pay creditors. (Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr)

https://www.reuters.com/article/avocet-mining-liquidation/gold-miner-avocet-proposes-voluntary-liquidation-idUSL4N23Z1OZ

Bankruptcy News

Reuters

2019-06-11 00:00:00

2019

6.0

11

Kate Kelland

Mental illness affects a fifth of people living in war zones

LONDON (Reuters) - One in five people in war zones has depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, with many suffering severe forms of these mental illnesses. The findings highlight the long-term impact of war-induced crises in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, the UN’s health agency said, and the numbers are significantly higher than in peacetime populations, where around one in 14 people has a mental illness. “Given the large numbers of people in need and the humanitarian imperative to reduce suffering, there is an urgent need to implement scalable mental health interventions to address this burden,” the research team said. Mark van Ommeren, a mental health specialist at the WHO who worked on the team, said the findings “add yet more weight to the argument for immediate and sustained investment, so that mental and psychosocial support is made available to all people in need living through conflict and its aftermath”. In 2016, the number of ongoing armed conflicts reached an all-time high of 53 in 37 countries and 12% of the world’s people are living in an active war zone, according to United Nations figures. Since World War Two, almost 69 million people globally have been forced to flee war and violence. The WHO’s conflict mental health study, published in The Lancet medical journal, was carried out by a team of researchers from the WHO, Australia’s Queensland University, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and Harvard University in the United States. It analyzed research from 129 studies and data from 39 countries published between 1980 and August 2017. Regions that have seen conflict in the last 10 years were included and mental illnesses were categorized as either mild, moderate or severe. Natural disasters and public health emergencies, such as Ebola, were not included. Overall in war zones, the average prevalence was highest for mild mental health conditions, at 13%. Around 4% of people living amid armed conflict had moderate mental health illness, and for severe conditions the prevalence was 5%. The study also found that rates of depression and anxiety in conflict settings appeared to increase with age, and depression was more common among women than men. The study was funded by the WHO, the Queensland Department of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Ed Osmond

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-mental-conflict/mental-illness-affects-a-fifth-of-people-living-in-war-zones-idUSKCN1TC2U4

World News

Reuters

2018-10-04 22:00:00

2018

10.0

4

Annabel Gat

Daily Horoscopes: October 5, 2018

The moon in Leo connects with Mercury this morning at 7:20 AM, creating a talkative mood—but watch out for exaggerations as the moon squares off with Jupiter at 7:34 AM. Venus retrograde begins in Scorpio at 3:05 PM—the next few weeks bring major insight and change! Expect things concerning cash and money to get way more intense. It’s time to figure out what’s really important to you, and leave the rest behind. The moon enters Virgo at 7:19 PM, finding us in a helpful, thoughtful mood. We’ll be up to some unexpected things this evening as the moon connects with wildcard Uranus at 9:26 PM. All times EST. Your ruling planet Venus begins its retrograde this afternoon in water sign Scorpio! The next few weeks will be major around cash and self-worth. The moon enters Virgo this evening, encouraging you to slow down. Venus retrograde begins in your sign this afternoon, Scorpio! You are the sign of death and rebirth, and indeed, this Venus retrograde will find you undergoing a brilliant, if intense, transformation. Venus retrograde begins in Scorpio this afternoon, Sagittarius! Pay close attention to the message that arrive in your dreams, and don't be surprised if you find yourself craving more time alone—or even wanting to indulge in a secret affair! Venus begins its retrograde in Scorpio this afternoon, Capricorn, which will find you rethinking your social life over the next few weeks. The moon enters Virgo tonight, inspiring you to take a trip. Venus begins its retrograde in water sign Scorpio this afternoon, and you’re finding yourself reevaluating what’s important to you when it comes to popularity and success. The moon in Virgo brings your attention to intimacy. Venus retrograde begins in fellow water sign Scorpio today, asking you to reconsider your beliefs around Venusian themes like love, beauty, and money. The moon enters Virgo today, shifting your focus to relationships. Venus retrograde begins this afternoon in Scorpio, activating a very intense sector of your chart—this Venus retrograde is all about sex, death, and cash for you, Aries. The moon enters Virgo today, reminding you to get your chores done. Your planetary ruler, Venus, begins its retrograde in your opposite sign Scorpio this afternoon, turning up the intensity in your one-on-one relationships. It’s time to reevaluate what’s really important to you. Venus retrograde begins in Scorpio this afternoon, Gemini, and accountability is going to be a major theme for you over the next few weeks. The moon enters Virgo today, illuminating the home and family sector of your chart. Venus begins its retrograde in fellow water sign Scorpio this afternoon! Venus retrograde means business—when it comes to dating and your creative projects, it’s time to dive deeply into what you really want, and to let go of the past. Important shifts take place in your private life and concerning your home and family today, as Venus begins its retrograde in water sign Scorpio. The moon enters Virgo, asking you to be smart about your budget. The moon enters your sign today, Virgo, so make time to pamper yourself! Just don’t head to the salon to make any permanent changes—Venus, the planet of beauty (and love, money, and values) begins its retrograde in Scorpio today! What's in the stars for you in October? Read your monthly horoscope here. Want these horoscopes sent straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for the newsletter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kzjn4n/daily-horoscopes-october-5-2018

Astro Guide

Vice

2019-06-25 00:00:00

2019

6.0

25

UPS will not join FedEx lawsuit against U.S. government

(Reuters) - United Parcel Service Inc said on Tuesday it would not join a lawsuit FedEx Corp filed against the U.S. government that argues FedEx should not be held liable if it inadvertently shipped products in violation of an export ban. FedEx’s announcement of its suit on Monday came shortly after the U.S. parcel delivery firm reignited Chinese ire over its business practices. A package containing a Huawei phone sent to the United States was returned last week to its sender in Britain, in what FedEx said was an “operational error.” Chinese telecoms company Huawei Technologies Co in May was added to a blacklist of people and companies the U.S. government said posed a security risk, barring it from buying, without special approval, U.S. technology upon which it was heavily reliant. A number of other Chinese firms have also been banned from buying sensitive U.S. technology. In its lawsuit, FedEx said it should not be expected to enforce the export ban, and could not reasonably be held liable for shipping products that it did not know about. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the regulation stated that carriers must not knowingly ship items in contravention of the rules. “It does not require a common carrier to be a policeman or to know what’s in every package,” he said. UPS said in Tuesday’s statement it would continue to follow government directives across the markets where it operates. Last month, China said it would launch an investigation after two parcels sent via FedEx destined for Huawei addresses in Asia were diverted to the United States. FedEx said the packages were “misrouted in error.” In the latest incident, technology news outlet PCMag said that its writer in Britain had attempted to send a Huawei P30 handset to a colleague in the United States. FedEx returned the phone and told the sender that it could not deliver the package because of a “U.S. government issue” with Huawei and the Chinese government, PCMag reported. FedEx’s lawsuit and Chinese anger over the deliveries come against a backdrop of increasing tension between the world’s two biggest economies. Eric Hirschhorn, a former U.S. undersecretary of Commerce, said the lawsuit suggests “the company is caught in the middle between China and the U.S. They’re being squeezed by two governments that are annoyed at each other and they’re trying to do their business.” Reporting by Rachit Vats in Bengaluru, Chris Sanders in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Maju Samuel and Rosalba O'Brien

https://www.reuters.com/article/huawei-tech-ups-fedex/update-1-ups-will-not-join-fedex-lawsuit-against-us-government-idUSL4N23W4DZ

Business News

Reuters

2019-04-01 00:00:00

2019

4.0

1

Rex Santus

Mussolini’s granddaughter would like everyone, including Jim Carrey, to be nice about her fascist grandpa

Want the best from VICE News in your inbox? Sign up here. So it’s the sort of Monday when we have to explain why Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter is feuding with Jim Carrey. The infamous dictator’s granddaughter Alessandra took offense to a political sketch by the actor, known for his roles in “Ace Ventura” and “Dumb and Dumber.” The drawing, tweeted by Carrey on Saturday, depicts Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta, hanging upside down after their executions in 1945. Mussolini was the founder of Italian fascism, the autocratic ruler of Italy during World War II, and a principal ally of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Alessandra, a far-right Italian politician, was incensed. She came to her fascist grandfather’s defense a day later and called Carrey a “bastard.” Alessandra then went on a Twitter diatribe in an apparent effort to highlight various dark points in U.S. history, such as slavery, the genocide of native people, and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Want the best from VICE News in your inbox? Sign up here. So it’s the sort of Monday when we have to explain why Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter is feuding with Jim Carrey. The infamous dictator’s granddaughter Alessandra took offense to a political sketch by the actor, known for his roles in “Ace Ventura” and “Dumb and Dumber.” The drawing, tweeted by Carrey on Saturday, depicts Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta, hanging upside down after their executions in 1945. Mussolini was the founder of Italian fascism, the autocratic ruler of Italy during World War II, and a principal ally of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Alessandra, a far-right Italian politician, was incensed. She came to her fascist grandfather’s defense a day later and called Carrey a “bastard.” Alessandra then went on a Twitter diatribe in an apparent effort to highlight various dark points in U.S. history, such as slavery, the genocide of native people, and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Hi @JimCarrey do you know the history of #RosaPark [sic]?” Mussolini tweeted, with an image of the civil rights movement icon. Carrey has yet to respond to Alessandra, though she has continued to spar with his defenders and other critics of fascism on Twitter. Alessandra is already quite famous in Italy, where she’s been a politician for years. Her sympathies for (and even dabblings in) fascism are well-documented. She once abruptly left an Italian political party because its leader denounced fascism as the “absolute evil.” She was also a prominent face of Italy’s 1990 neo-fascist movement. There’s also the time in 2006 when she responded to a transgender critic who called her a fascist by saying: “Meglio fascista che frocio,” which roughly translates to “Better fascist than faggot.” Alessandra also appears to be a fan of President Donald Trump. She frequently retweets Trump and defended him against Carrey’s numerous political cartoons that target the president. Carrey even recently held an exhibit in New York depicting his work. Cover image: Jim Carrey arrives at the 2018 BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Friday, Oct. 26, 2018 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbwwpm/mussolinis-granddaughter-would-like-everyone-including-jim-carrey-to-be-nice-about-her-fascist-grandpa

Vice News

2018-08-31 00:00:00

2018

8.0

31

Stephen Culp

Wall Street mixed as U.S.-Canada trade talks end

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended flat while the Dow edged down and the Nasdaq closed higher in light trading on Friday as Canada and the United States concluded trade talks without resolution ahead of the Labor Day weekend. Capping a low-volume, late-summer week marked by tariff-related volatility, all three major U.S. indexes posted net gains for the period. The indexes were also up for the month of August, with the Nasdaq posting its largest monthly gain since January. Talks between Canada the United States to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ended on a sour note as the two sides were unable to reach a deal, according to the Wall Street Journal. In recent days trade jitters abated as Mexico and the United States reached a bilateral deal, but re-emerged later in the week following a report that U.S. President Donald Trump is prepared to impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports as soon as next week. “We may not have a replacement for NAFTA as quickly as we thought,” said John Toohey, head of equities at USAA in San Antonio. “That initial optimism that existed at the beginning of the week, that good news scenario is off the table.” Amazon.com’s shares (AMZN.O) continued to inch upward, rising 0.5 percent as investors watch the company close in on its $1 trillion market share milestone. Apple Inc AAPL. closed up 1.2 percent, reaching a new closing high for the fifth straight session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 22.1 points, or 0.09 percent, to 25,964.82, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 0.39 points, or 0.01 percent, to 2,901.52 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 21.17 points, or 0.26 percent, to 8,109.54. Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, five closed lower. Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) agreed to buy the coffee chain Costa from Britain’s Whitbread PLC (WTB.L) for $5.1 billion.. Its shares dipped 0.8 percent. Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) had a fifth consecutive decline following news that fund manager BlackRock voted in favor of replacing Elon Musk with an independent chairman. Gun maker American Outdoor Brands (AOBC.O) was the top percentage gainer on the Nasdaq. The stock soared 43.6 percent after its upbeat earnings report. Peer Sturm Ruger & Co (RGR.N) shares jumped 7.3 percent. Chipotle Mexican Grill CNG.N shares extended their loss, dipping 1.8 percent after William Ackman’s Pershing Square cut its stake in the burrito chain. Ford Motor Co (F.N) dropped 2.3 percent after scrapping a plan to sell a Chinese-made small vehicle in the United States due to tariff concerns. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.16-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.60-to-1 ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 34 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 121 new highs and 29 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 5.77 billion shares, compared with the 6.08 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. Reporting by Stephen Culp; Editing by Dan Grebler

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks/wall-street-mixed-as-u-s-canada-trade-talks-end-idUSKCN1LG1IU

Business News

Reuters

2016-10-10 19:29:00

2016

10.0

10

Kevin Trahan

Your Week 7 College Football Bowl Game Projections

We're another week into October, which means we have another week's worth of information to use to start projecting what the 2016-17 college football bowl lineup will look like. The top four teams go to the Playoff, regardless of conference, and the remaining New Year's Six bowls are filled out with conference tie-ins and at-large bids. All bowls have conference tie-ins, but those are broken when conferences can't fill all of their slots. Here's a good look at the tie-in and selection process. Teams have to be at least 6-6 to make a bowl, but if there aren't enough 6-6 teams to fill all of the slots, 5-7 teams are selected based on their Academic Progress Rate. The projected Playoff—Alabama vs. Washington and Ohio State vs. Clemson—and national championship—Alabama vs. Ohio State— are the same as Week 6 and should still produce an incredible set of games. Other intriguing matchups: Texas A&M vs. Oklahoma, Florida State vs. Tennessee, Nebraska vs. Arkansas and, somehow, a Rose Bowl with Washington State.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d7m9q7/your-week-7-college-football-bowl-game-projections

Sports

Vice

2019-07-08 00:00:00

2019

7.0

8

Makiko Yamazaki, Heekyong Yang, Ju-min Park

The high-tech trade dispute rooted in Japan's wartime history

TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Japan has tightened curbs on exports of high-tech materials used in smartphone displays and chips to South Korea, upping the ante in a decades-old dispute with Seoul over South Koreans forced to work for Japanese firms during World War Two. The export curbs highlight how Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, continues to hold sway over a vital corner of the global supply chain. It remains a major player in specialized chip components, even though it was overtaken as a chipmaker years ago by South Korea. Below are some details about the materials targeted, the companies involved, the outlook for further curbs and the row itself: The tighter export curbs target three materials: fluorinated polyimides, used in smartphone displays; photoresists, used to transfer circuit patterns on to semiconductor wafers; and hydrogen fluoride, used as an etching gas when making chips. Japan produces about 90% of fluorinated polyimides and about 70% of etching gas worldwide, Japanese media have said. It produces around 90% of photoresists, according to a government report. That makes it difficult for South Korean chipmakers to find alternative sources of supply. South Korea imported $144 million of the three materials from Japan in the first five months of this year, accounting for 94% of its fluorinated polyimides, 44% of its etching glass and 92% of its photoresist, Korean industry data showed. A source at one of South Korea’s top memory chipmakers said chipmakers would have to try to build stockpiles. South Korean tech giants such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and LG Display are all expected to be hit. Japanese suppliers include JSR, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Shin-Etsu Chemical and Stella Chemifa. Other suppliers include Showa Denko KK and Kanto Denka Kogyo, analysts say. South Korean chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rely on Japan for most of the materials, although they source some hydrogen fluoride from China. They have up to four months of stockpiles for some of the materials, according to experts. “The materials are hard to build stockpiles of because photoresists, for example, can deteriorate over time,” said Nomura analyst Shigeki Okazaki. Likewise, etching gas is hard to store in high volumes, he said. Japan is stopping preferential treatment for shipments of these three materials to South Korea and will require exporters to seek permission each time they want to ship, which takes around 90 days, a government official said. South Korean chipmakers are now seeking to buy more from elsewhere, such as China or Taiwan, where Japanese jurisdiction can’t reach, according to Park Jea-gun, a semiconductor engineering expert who heads the Korean Society of Semiconductor & Display Technology. Japan also plans another round of export curbs for South Korea that could target a broader range of items applicable to weapons production, including machine tools, the government says. Specifically, it plans to remove South Korea from a “white” list of countries with minimum trade restrictions, requiring Japanese exporters to go through a lengthy permit application process each time they want to export restricted items to South Korea, it said. On Japan’s white list are 27 countries, from Germany to the United Kingdom and the United States. South Korea, which was added in 2004, would be the first country to be removed. Tokyo has been frustrated by what it calls a lack of action by Seoul over issues stemming from a top South Korean court ruling last October that ordered another Japanese company, Nippon Steel, to compensate former forced laborers. The neighbors share a bitter history dating to the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, including forced use of labor by Japanese companies and the use of comfort women, a euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels. Japan says the issue of forced labor was fully settled in 1965 when the two countries restored diplomatic ties. South Korea has denounced Japan’s moves as a violation of World Trade Organization rules, saying it would take the necessary countermeasures, including filing a complaint. Japan has said the moves are not in violation of WTO rules. Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Nick Macfie

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan-laborers-explainer/the-high-tech-trade-dispute-rooted-in-japans-wartime-history-idUSKCN1U31D1

Japan

Reuters

2019-01-19 00:00:00

2019

1.0

19

Jibran Ahmad

Afghan Taliban reject talks with U.S. in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban rejected reports in the Pakistani media that they were prepared to resume meetings with U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Islamabad and repeated their refusal to deal directly with the Afghan government. Pakistani newspapers and television stations reported that a meeting in Islamabad was in prospect following discussions between Khalilzad and Pakistani officials including Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday. Senior Taliban leaders said that regional powers including Pakistan had approached them and wanted them to meet the U.S. delegation in Islamabad and also include the Afghan government in the peace process but that the approaches had been rejected. “We wanted to make it clear that we will not hold any meeting with Zalmay Khalilzad in Islamabad,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid in a statement. Talks between the two sides have stalled after the Taliban accused Khalilzad of straying from the agreed agenda and there is no clarity on when they may resume. “We have made it clear again and again that we would never hold any meeting with the Afghan government as we know that they are not capable of addressing our demands,” said one senior Taliban leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The United States says any settlement in Afghanistan must be between the internationally recognized Afghan government and the Taliban, who have so far refused to talk to an administration they describe as an illegitimate puppet regime. The Taliban leader said peace talks with the U.S. delegation could resume if they were assured that only three issues would be discussed - a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, an exchange of prisoners and lifting a ban on the movement of Taliban leaders. Khalilzad arrived in Islamabad on Thursday and met Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan as well as the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and other officials. “The two sides reviewed developments post Abu Dhabi, in order to take the Afghan peace process forward,” a foreign office statement said. An Afghan Taliban delegation had a round of talks last month with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi. The statement didn’t give any further details on the talks, but several local TV channels reported that Pakistan agreed to host the next round of talks between the Afghan Taliban and the United States in Islamabad. Khalilzad, an Afghan-born veteran U.S. diplomat who served as George W. Bush’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations, was named by the Trump administration four months ago as a special envoy to negotiate peace. Washington has long been pushing Islamabad to lean on Taliban leaders, who it says are based in Pakistan, to bring them to the negotiating table. It often accuses the south Asian nation of covertly sheltering Taliban leaders, an accusation Islamabad vehemently denies. The United States, which had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at its peak during the first term of former President Barack Obama, withdrew most of them in 2014 but still keeps around 14,000 there. Additional reporting by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Michael Perry

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-usa-afghanistan/afghan-taliban-reject-talks-with-u-s-in-pakistan-idUSKCN1PD05V

World News

Reuters

2016-10-02 17:24:00

2016

10.0

2

Emily Todd VanDerWerff

Westworld starts with a bang, then devolves into an HBO rip-off of Lost

HBO doesn’t have as much riding on its new sci-fi drama Westworld as reports of the show’s calamitous production (which was suspended at one point and ultimately spanned more than a year, where most TV shows finish a season in a few months) might have you believe. Rating But, boy, it would be nice for the network if the show took off. HBO hasn’t launched a new drama hit since Game of Thrones in 2011, and its recent summer success story, The Night Of, was technically a miniseries, with nobody involved being in a rush to make a new installment. And there’s something even bigger at stake here. Now that The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have proved that adaptations of much-loved horror and fantasy material could blow up into mega-hits, it’s only been natural to assume the same might be true of science fiction. If HBO can turn Westworld — based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 movie about a futuristic theme park that recreates the Wild West, then populates it with humanoid robots, some of whom go rogue — into the sci-fi Game of Thrones, the network will have lots of freedom in the years to come. That’s probably why it tried so very hard to get this one right. And with Jonathan Nolan — creator of CBS’s ingenious Person of Interest — and J.J. Abrams, who likely needs no introduction, involved behind the scenes, Westworld has all the advantages it needs. But the show is also indicative of just how much trouble HBO finds itself in in 2016. Here are five ways Westworld exemplifies HBO’s biggest strengths and problems. The Westworld pilot is good, good stuff. It builds nicely. It introduces some cool characters. It has some neat twists and turns. And it even takes a story you already know (the aforementioned 1970s film about a theme park full of killer robots) and tells it from a new perspective. In this case, the robots take center stage, where the theme park visitors were the heroes of the original. But with every new episode (of which I’ve seen four), Westworld loses a little bit more steam. There are still plenty of interesting things going on around the edges of the frame, but the series slowly but surely develops a severe identity crisis. Is it a story about oppressed people (the robots) rising up against those who oppress them (their creators)? Is it a revisionist Western? Is it a workplace drama about running a theme park in the future? Is it just a weird rip-off of Lost, with endless mysteries to solve? That it’s all of these things and more, without ever really committing to one of them, is the series’ chief failing. HBO increasingly creates shows that combine more and more and more things, in hopes they’ll hit on the magic formula that’s made Game of Thrones so successful. But Game of Thrones has two extremely compelling ideas at its center: 1) everybody wants to sit on the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, and 2) the White Walkers are coming to kill everybody. Westworld doesn’t have those sorts of extremely compelling ideas. It has maaaaybe the suggestion that the robots will become sentient at some point down the line, and possibly the idea that the theme park employees are stand-ins for modern entertainment creators (more on that in a moment). But everything else is covered in layers of mystery and obfuscation that don’t help convey a story beyond "Things are happening." Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Dolores, one of the theme park’s "Hosts" (the artificial beings who populate the park), is giving one of the best performances on television, full stop. TV fans have known Wood was a tremendous actress since her work as a young teenager on the family drama Once and Again, which aired between 1999 and 2002 and where she found exactly the right emotional tug for every single scene she played. But Hollywood has struggled to find a project worthy of her talents since then. On Westworld, however, she’s mesmerizing. She modulates layers of emotion and levels of awareness and a slowly dawning sentience without ever once making you believe she’s anything other than an artificial intelligence. It’s magnificent work and the best reason to watch the show. The rest of Westworld’s cast is similarly stacked. There’s Anthony Hopkins as one of the men who created the Hosts. There’s Jeffrey Wright as another theme park employee, and Ed Harris as a mysterious gunslinger who roams Westworld’s wilderness and has a fixation on Dolores. Even the smaller roles are played by tremendous performers, as when the terrific Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen turns up in rather a minor supporting part. And because the series is an HBO project, its technical aspects are as good as TV gets. A directing team that includes Nolan, Neil Marshall (who’s helmed many of Game of Thrones’ most epic hours), and Vincenzo Natali (one of Hannibal’s chief directors) joins with top-notch cinematography that always highlights the alienness of Westworld to create something special. This is a fun show to look at, if nothing else. The Westworld pilot — without spoiling anything — backs the show into a corner it can’t really get out of. So instead of dealing with the episode’s most vital and interesting themes (particularly as pertains to the Hosts’ intelligence), the show instead spins out a bunch of pointlessly busy plot lines that feel like second-rate rip-offs of Lost. There are hidden clues and ominous portents and everything. And because Westworld insists on wrapping it all in the aforementioned layers of mystery, the show is constantly cutting between a bunch of storylines where it’s not immediately clear why anybody is doing anything, other than that the plot needs them to do certain things at certain times. One of HBO’s biggest problems in recent years is that it seems afraid of having any genuine protagonists. Instead, it creates massive, sprawling ensembles that feature lots and lots of potential protagonists. And when all of those potential protagonists have interesting things to do and compelling goals to pursue (as in Game of Thrones or The Leftovers), that approach can work. But in many cases, that much sprawl leads to a series that’s constantly leaping all over the place, without rhyme or reason. Westworld has a few noteworthy storylines, but it has even more that are hard to care about, simply because they seem to exist just to pad out the running time. Dolores is by far the most intriguing character on Westworld, but the show seems reticent to build a show around her, even though her character arc — robot slowly waking up to the horrors of her own existence — is an instantly compelling one. That’s not to say Westworld doesn’t contain anything to chew on. When it can get out of its own way, the series boasts a nicely heady mix of big ideas and sci-fi concepts. I was particularly struck by how much of the story is about the faith the characters have in learning the "answers" of Westworld. Even those who know this realm has been created by humans are certain there’s something more to find, some deeper revelation about the mysteries of consciousness. And for the Hosts, who spend their days executing preprogrammed routines, the slow realization of what reality truly is has even more to say about the relationship between creation and creator. There’s also a sly commentary in here on HBO itself. For the most part, the stories with the theme park employees are extraneous and unnecessary. (It’s not difficult to imagine an even more powerful story where Dolores or others discovered their "makers" late in season one.) But there’s frequent discussion of how visitors to the theme park want stories where every piece fits together in a satisfying fashion, or how everybody wants a little sex and violence in their entertainment. Thus these sections allow for an analysis of what we really want from our popular fiction — or what HBO thinks we want. We want things to make sense, but not be too satisfying. And we always respond best when characters are in pain. In recent years, HBO has struggled to select the point in the story where its big, serialized epics should begin. (To be fair, this is a common crisis in scripted TV.) Start too early, and you risk spending a lot of time on repetitive blandness. Start too late, and you run out of plot really quickly. As a movie that about robots waking up to their reality (in contrast to the human-centric focus of the original film), this new version of Westworld might have packed a punch. It would have been sort of a more serious, live-action version of the genre-hopping madness of The Lego Movie, with Evan Rachel Wood playing the role of the hero. But as a TV show, Westworld isn’t quite at a place where its story is moving forward, and the show knows it. The argument for Westworld’s story starting too late is in the attention it pays to its various theme park employees. As the employees learn that their robot creations are starting to understand that they are essentially slave labor, it’s easy to imagine this storyline as the end of a far longer narrative about humanity inventing its AI-driven successors, the beings that will replace it on the planet. But it’s also possible that Westworld opens way too early, at a point that should be buried in the back-story of a tale about the Host uprising, when the show presumably catches up to the killer robot shenanigans of the movie. Instead, we’re caught in a neither-here-nor-there scenario, and the show spends a lot of its time just laying everything out, hoping we’ll tag along because it’s on HBO, and we have brand loyalty to HBO. And to be honest, I do. I’ll keep watching for a little while. But even though it’s sleek, frequently thoughtful, and always cool, Westworld’s scattered self never coheres into anything. It’s a sci-fi Game of Thrones in that its many characters are spread all over the map, chasing after something grand, but it misses what made Game of Thrones work. Here, "something grand" is incredibly nebulous, a figment of someone’s imagination that might not even exist. We’re supposed to take on faith that the journey will be worth it. And while HBO still commands that amount of faith from most, it’s time to stop testing our patience. Westworld debuts Sunday October 2 at 9 pm Eastern on HBO.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/9/30/13117110/westworld-review-hbo

Vox

2019-06-30 00:00:00

2019

6.0

30

Martyn Herman

Teenager Gauff set for 'dream' debut against idol Venus

LONDON (Reuters) - Of all the matches spread across the All England Club when Wimbledon begins on Monday none is more intriguing than the one scheduled for late afternoon on Court One between five-times champion Venus Williams and Cori Gauff. Williams, at 39, is the oldest woman in the singles while fellow American Gauff, at 15, is the youngest ever to come through the qualifying tournament. Gauff describes the draw as “a dream” and she might well wake up on Monday morning pinching herself, as this time last week she had no idea she would receive a wildcard into the qualifying tournament and was preoccupied with schoolwork. After winning her third qualifying match to book her place in the draw, she revealed that her first memory of watching tennis on television was of Serena and Venus Williams who had won 10 Grand Slam titles before she was born. Now ‘Coco’ as she is known will play against her idol in front of a packed showcourt crowd in a clash of the generations. The level-headed teenager was taking it all in her stride though and if there were nerves as she practised at the weekend, she was hiding them well. “I kind of felt like I was going to play one of them,” Gauff said. “Many people have been like ‘do you like your draw?’ — I love my draw. Playing one of the greatest players of all time is a dream — I’m excited to see how I do.” Even 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena, who usually gets too nervous watching sister Venus, is intrigued. “She’s so cool. She’s a great girl. I love her dad. They’re just really cool people,” Williams said on Saturday. “It’s a great moment for her and for Venus. She’s playing against a player that actually reminds me of Venus. I think I might, might watch. I always get nervous watching Venus.” Swiss great Roger Federer, whose management company Team 8 also looks after Gauff, is excited. “I’m super happy for her. I saw the last couple of games when she qualified. Obviously everybody was waiting to see what the draw was going to be like. I think that’s fascinating, that she plays Venus now,” he said. “It’s a great story. Coco is a nice girl, works really hard. I think she’s got a wonderful future ahead of her.” Gauff, who won the French Open junior title aged 14, is coached by her father Corey who once played college basketball for Georgia State. Her mother Candi was a college gymnast. “I feel blessed because my parents never put limitations on my goals,” Gauff said at Roehampton this week. “My parents always told me to shoot as high as I wanted to.” Venus could be excused for feeling her age a little as she walks out to face a player 24 years her junior but Gauff does not regard her as old. “I don’t think of Venus as old — she’s still killing the game right now,” she said. Reporting by Martyn Herman; editing by Clare Fallon

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tennis-wimbledon-gauff/teenager-gauff-set-for-dream-debut-against-idol-venus-idUSKCN1TV0NQ

Sports News

Reuters

2019-05-03 00:00:00

2019

5.0

3

Greg Walters

How Bill Barr Can Stop the Investigations Mueller Didn't Finish

WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller might’ve wrapped up his two-year investigation into President Trump, but he’s left a dozen investigations running in his wake, at least one of which could pose serious problems for the president. Or maybe not. All are now in the hands of Attorney General William Barr — the man Democrats accuse of acting as President Trump’s defense attorney instead of the country’s top law enforcement official. That dynamic has left Democrats clamoring for Barr to recuse himself from those probes, a call Barr has flatly refused — raising questions about whether Barr could play a role in diverting any investigation spawned from Mueller’s work that veers too close to Trump. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin voiced this concern after Barr’s fiery testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday. But there's little in the regulations that suggest Barr must recuse himself, or is even supposed to consider doing so, former prosecutors and legal experts told VICE News. WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller might’ve wrapped up his two-year investigation into President Trump, but he’s left a dozen investigations running in his wake, at least one of which could pose serious problems for the president. Or maybe not. All are now in the hands of Attorney General William Barr — the man Democrats accuse of acting as President Trump’s defense attorney instead of the country’s top law enforcement official. That dynamic has left Democrats clamoring for Barr to recuse himself from those probes, a call Barr has flatly refused — raising questions about whether Barr could play a role in diverting any investigation spawned from Mueller’s work that veers too close to Trump. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin voiced this concern after Barr’s fiery testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday. But there's little in the regulations that suggest Barr must recuse himself, or is even supposed to consider doing so, former prosecutors and legal experts told VICE News. READ more: Barr's defense of Trump is still baffling “Barr could put his foot on the brake for these Mueller referrals, and there doesn’t seem to be much Congress could do about it,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law who specializes in the federal judicial system. Barr’s track record of running interference for presidents under investigation — both now and 30 years ago — raises yet more questions about his impartiality in handling these additional cases. “Barr could put his foot on the brake for these Mueller referrals, and there doesn’t seem to be much Congress could do about it.” “Given what he’s said about the Mueller investigation, I think you really have to wonder about that possibility,” Tobias said. Mueller’s probe looked specifically into Trump’s links to Russia and obstruction of justice. But his final report revealed that Mueller’s team uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing in 14 matters outside that scope that he referred to other officials. Of the other matters Mueller raised the alarm on, 12 remain completely secret, having been turned over to other prosecutors or the FBI. But one appears to directly implicate Trump: The case against Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, who violated campaign finance law on Trump’s behalf by setting up hush-money payments to women who claimed they’d had sex with Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in jail for actions taken “at the direction of” Trump, according to both Cohen himself and written filings by federal prosecutors based in New York. That matter is now under the supervision of Barr, who could, in theory, block any further investigative steps meant to expose Trump’s role in the payments. The other investigation that’s public concerns Greg Craig, who served as former President Obama’s White House counsel and was charged this spring with lying to officials about work he did on behalf of the government of Ukraine. And Barr has the power to oversee other politically charged investigations beyond Mueller’s referrals — including the Southern District of New York’s investigation into whether any foreigners improperly donated to Trump’s inaugural fund. Then there’s Erik Prince, founder of the private militia group Blackwater and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Prince was referred to the DOJ for possible perjury charges by the House Intelligence Committee in April after the committee announced it had uncovered six places where Prince’s testimony to Congress appeared to diverge from the findings of the Mueller report. Barr could put his thumb on any of these, legal analysts say. And there doesn’t seem to be much that could technically stop him. Yet if Barr weighs in too heavily on any of these investigations, he might spark a backlash from line prosecutors and others further down in the DOJ’s ranks, according former prosecutors like Gene Rossi, who spent 30 years as a DOJ employee in the Eastern District of Virginia. “Bill Barr has the authority, as the attorney general, to snuff out and stifle any investigation,” Rossi said. “But if he takes action seen as a gross abuse of power, you’ll see career prosecutors raise holy hell. They would not hesitate to leak, and tell the public that the big con is in.” That goes double for the Southern District of New York, which has a notable reputation for independence, Rossi said. “If the attorney general tries to snuff out that [campaign finance] investigation, you’d probably see a revolt in Manhattan,” Rossi said. When Barr appeared before the Senate on Wednesday, Sen. Kamala Harris of California pushed him to recuse himself from these cases based on what she called his conflict of interest. “I think the American public has seen quite well you are biased in this situation and not objective, and that is the conflict of interest,” Harris said. “Barr is fully within his rights not to recuse himself from the various investigations that spun off as a result of the Mueller probe.” Unfortunately for Harris, career prosecutors and legal experts said that’s not actually much of an argument. “I can understand why people might feel that Barr has compromised his independence and ability to be fair in those cases based on the misleading nature of his letter, press conference and testimony before the Senate,” said Barbara McQuade, the former U.S. Attorney for Detroit. “But the standard that DOJ uses for recusal is whether the prosecutor has a financial, personal or political relationship with the subject of the investigation.” And there’s no indication Barr has any such relationship with any of these mystery investigations. Some argue Democrats’ calls for Barr to recuse from these matters are primarily political theater. “Barr is fully within his rights not to recuse himself from the various investigations that spun off as a result of the Mueller probe,” said Joseph Moreno, a former federal prosecutor. “Not only is there nothing to indicate any actual conflict of interest, but it is a stretch to argue there is even a perceived conflict involving these various cases each of which have their own facts, targets, and timelines.” Cover: Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 1, 2019, on the Mueller report. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvn5b/bill-barr-can-snuff-out-the-investigations-mueller-never-completed

Vice News

2016-10-15 00:00:00

2016

10.0

15

Jasmin Cadavid Beauty And The Beach

Model and recording artist Jasmin Cadavid doesn't mind getting a little wet in the Pacific. We got some pics of Cadavid at the beach in L.A. Friday ... and she looks amazing. Surfs' up.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/10/15/jasmine-cadavid-model-beach/

TMZ

2016-07-06 18:15:03

2016

7.0

6

Noah Kulwin

The U.S. government is recalling half a million hoverboards, citing explosions and fires

Hoverboards were the gadget trend of holiday season 2015, with an exciting and unexpected penchant for exploding and starting fires at inconvenient times. Today, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall for more than 500,000 hoverboards (a.k.a. self-balancing scooters) from 10 different brands, citing their abovementioned habit. The hoverboards recalled include the Swagway X1 (267,000 units), Powerboard (70,000 units) and all devices sold on Overstock.com (4,300 units). Earlier this year, the government said it was looking into a bunch of different hoverboard makers regarding the safety of their products. As BuzzFeed News’ Joe Bernstein observed last fall when he went to Shenzhen, the global manufacturing hub in China, a lot of corners get cut to make sure that the demand for hoverboards gets met. An estimated 400,000 hoverboards were shipped out of Shenzhen in 2015 alone. Before you go find your teenage son and pry his recalled Swagway from his cold, millennial hands, enjoy this clip of Mike Tyson falling off his hoverboard: This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12108426/government-recalls-hoverboards

Vox

2018-10-05 17:00:03

2018

10.0

5

Matthew Yglesias

Family structure matters, but can we do anything about it?

Family structure matters. Murphy Brown is coming back on the air, and in the time since Dan Quayle lit into her, the evidence has become fairly overwhelming that kids raised in stable two-parent households do better than those raised by solo parents. Even more strikingly, a series of research projects led by Raj Chetty and his collaborators culminating in the Opportunity Atlas shows that this happens on a community level. Poor kids have a better chance of being upwardly mobile if they grow up in a low-poverty neighborhood. They have a worse chance of being upwardly mobile if they grow up in a racially segregated environment with no white people around. And they have a better chance of being upwardly mobile — regardless of their own family situation — if they grow up in a neighborhood with a lot of two-parent households. This impact is a lot stronger for boys than for girls, which makes me think it’s probably the same role model effect that the same team found for inventors: Girls are more likely to grow up to be successful innovators if they live in a city that has a disproportionately large number of women innovators. Except instead of girls benefitting from having adult women innovators ambiently present in their lived experience, boys benefit from having responsible, married dads ambiently around in their lived experience. It’s an interesting finding. David Leonhardt chides liberals for being reluctant to talk about it. I’m not totally averse to talking about it (after all, I am talking about it now) but I’m not really sure there’s a lot to be said about it. To me, the problem with the family structure conversation is it doesn’t seem to have a clear upshot. Research tells us that lead in soil and old paint hurts kids’ chances for upward mobility in life, and so the solution is to invest in lead abatement. Research tells us that kids do better when their parents get earned income tax credit money (EITC) and so the upshot is we should invest more in EITC. High-quality preschool and highly effective K-12 teachers help kids, so we should try to do more of that. One can go blah, blah, blah down the line and come up with a policy agenda that would do a lot to help America’s kids by bolstering their families’ incomes, improving the healthfulness of their ambient environment, and putting in the work to surround them with effective educational institutions. None of this is easy exactly, but some of it is at least logistically easy. (The hard part is politics.) And even the stuff that’s logistically hard, like building high-quality preschools, is at least clearly possible. On family structure ... I dunno. When I hear conservatives talk about the importance of family structure, what I mostly hear them doing isn’t articulating a policy agenda, but articulating opposition to a policy agenda. “No, let’s not bother with that lead abatement program or EITC expansion, the real problem is absent fathers.” On Twitter, Megan McArdle suggested to me that the fix for the family structure problem is for Hollywood to become moralistic and scoldy about unmarried parents and to valorize bourgeois conventionality. Maybe that would work, maybe it wouldn’t, but either way it’s not a policy agenda. It’s a kind of anti-agenda — very typical of contemporary American conservatism — that wants to fill the political arena not with policy ideas but with vague cultural grievances. To me that doesn’t work. The problems of poverty and economic growth are important enough that we should focus energy and attention on ideas that we have a strong reason to believe will work. When someone comes to me with a policy idea that stands a shot at meaningfully altering family structure, I’ll be happy to talk about it. But until then, I don’t think abstract talk does much good. As a last word, though, I did see some liberals Thursday afternoon doing the “correlation isn’t causation” routine on this finding of the study. We really do have a lot of studies on this subject, though, and they very much suggest a causal effect. What’s more, the causal mechanism is one liberals embrace in most contexts: representation matters. That’s why dads’ presence matters more for boys than it does for girls, and that’s why it matters on a community level and not just an individual one. This is an abbreviated web version of The Weeds newsletter, a limited-run newsletter through Election Day, that dissects what’s really at stake in the 2018 midterms. Sign up to get the full Weeds newsletter from Matt Yglesias, plus more charts, tweets, and email-only content.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17941456/family-structure-policy

Vox

2018-08-27 00:00:00

2018

8.0

27

U.S. government to pay $4.7 billion in tariff-related aid to farmers

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Monday its farm aid package would include $4.7 billion in direct payments to farmers to help offset losses from retaliatory tariffs on American exports this season. The bulk of the payments, $3.6 billion, would be made to soybean farmers. That amounts to $1.65 per bushel multiplied by 50 percent of expected production, Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Bill Northey said on a conference call. China has traditionally bought about 60 percent of U.S. soybean exports. But it has been largely out of the market since implementing tariffs on U.S. imports in retaliation for the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods. “An announcement about further payments will be made in the coming months if warranted,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said. The aid package, announced at $12 billion in July, will also include payments for sorghum of 86 cents per bushel multiplied by 50 percent of production, 1 cent per bushel of corn, 14 cents per bushel of wheat, and 6 cents per pound of cotton. Payments for hog farmers will be $8 per pig multiplied by 50 percent of Aug. 1 production, while dairy farmers will receive 12 cents per hundred weight of production, Northey said. Sign-up for the program will begin on Sept. 4, to coincide with the 2018 harvest, and end in January. Farmers will need to present production evidence to collect payments and payments are capped at $125,000 per person. The program will also include $1.2 billion in purchases of commodities, including pork and dairy products, to be spread out over several months, Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Greg Ibach said. “The specific commodities to be purchased are those that have been impacted by the unfair tariffs that have been imposed by other nations,” he said. The program will also include some $200 million for a trade promotion program to develop new markets. The package has been seen as a temporary boost to farmers as the United States and China negotiate trade issues. It has divided Republicans, some of whom favor free trade and were troubled by what they viewed as the kind of welfare programs their party has traditionally opposed. It has also faced skepticism from some farmers, a key Trump constituency. “Short-term aid does not create long-term market stability,” said Doug Schroeder, Illinois Soybean Growers vice chairman, in a statement after the announcement. “Producers need trade, not aid.” Reporting by Michael Hirtzer, Caroline Stauffer and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Paul Simao

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-farmers/u-s-government-to-pay-4-7-billion-in-tariff-related-aid-to-farmers-idUSKCN1LC23X

Business News

Reuters

2016-05-25 14:00:00

2016

5.0

25

Sharonne Cohen

How RAM's Combination of Vodou Culture and Politics Became the Soundtrack to Haiti's Modern History

All photos by Daniel Morel It's an interesting moment in the life of Richard Morse, a Haitian-American musician/proprietor/vodou priest living in Port-au-Prince. Haïti is still embroiled in election turmoil and ongoing social and political unrest, while his legendary band—RAM—just released its new album, fusing ceremonial Vodou rhythms with Haitian street music and electric guitars. I'm in Port-au-Prince, late January. The occasional whiff of smoke drifts up to my hotel balcony. Like all foreigners, I've been advised not to venture out for the next couple of days due to intermittent riots, burning tires, and unforeseeable chaos. The people are upset. And they're rising up. An undecided first round of elections last October, alleged to be fraudulent, set the political scene aflame. The term of President Michel Martelly—a.k.a. konpa singer Sweet Micky—ends on February 7, and Haïti, the first Caribbean nation to revolt against its colonizers, gaining independence in 1804, is expected to elect a new president. This is all very personal to Morse, quite literally; he is not only invested in the wellbeing of the nation and his people; he is also the estranged first cousin of and former advisor to Martelly, and a vocal critic of the powers that be, both within Haïti and abroad. Richard Auguste Morse was born in Puerto Rico in 1957 to a Haitian mother, then teaching and performing dance, and an American father, who was founding the Caribbean Studies program at the University of Puerto Rico at the time. Several years later the family moved to Woodbridge, Connecticut (both parents were Yale professors, in Drama and Latin American studies, respectively). Growing up mixed race was not easy. "It took time for me to realize that I came from a mixed family," Morse muses. "I didn't know. I asked my dad if it was true. It became more of an issue when I was a teenager in boarding school; I had heard rumors that I was of mixed race, because that's when you have to choose social camps." Morse's next stop was Princeton, where he joined a Caribbean-style punk-rock band called Groceries. The band lived in Belle Mead, New Jersey (right outside Princeton), in a farmhouse converted into a rehearsal/living space after graduation. "My musical education took place at CBGB's, Max's Kansas City, and a great new age/punk/rock club in Trenton, New York, called King Tut's City Gardens, where we became a house band, and played with UK bands like the Thompson Twins and Flock of Seagulls," he recalls. "Removed" from the band in 1984 for being "an uncompromising artist," Morse moved to New York City, where he began working with Steve Rubell, of Studio 54 fame. "I learned things from Steve Rubell... Most importantly, to infuse all that you do with art, business, and music," recalls Morse. In 1985, after a period of bohemian New York living, mingling with the likes of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Morse wanted to get back into making music. Morse is actually a third-generation Haitian musician; Candio, his maternal grandfather, was a twoubadou (Kreyòl for troubadour, a singer-composer), and his mother, Emerante de Pradines, is an established singer, recording several albums of Haitian roots music in the 1950s (now 97, she is in the process of opening a music and arts school in Port-au-Prince). "My mother sang the same songs we perform with RAM, but with an operatic voice and an acoustic guitar," says Morse. He'd always been fascinated with the music and culture of his motherland, and so at 28, he picked up and moved to Port-au-Prince, intending to explore the rhythms of Haitian roots music as a source of inspiration. Smitten with the music, the land, and its people—his people—Morse has been there ever since. Once in Haïti, Morse "didn't know where to start." Soon after arriving, the country went into political upheaval, and ruthless dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier fled. "The military took over, and there were a lot of shootings, things I'd never experienced before." While immersing himself in Haitian culture and rhythms, "an ongoing process that continues to this day," he had a dream: "Someone came up to me and gave me a crazy message. I tried to investigate the dream once I woke up, and went to Jacmel [an old port town], where I met Madame Nerva, a renowned vodou priestess, who insisted I spend time with her." The process of his initiation into vodou began, culminating in his ordination as a priest circa 2001. Back in 1987, Morse took over the lease for the legendary Oloffson, an enchanting but dilapidated hotel. His restoration efforts included staging art shows and hiring local traditional dance groups, finally choosing the one that would eventually become RAM. Morse fell in love with one of the singers, Lunise Exume; they married, had two children, and together still run the hotel, which has hosted numerous celebrities over the years, including Mick Jagger, Graham Greene, and Jackie Kennedy Onassis. The Oloffson is not only their home but the venue for RAM's electrifying Thursday night performances. With the official creation of RAM (Richard's initials) in 1990, Morse became the songwriter and Lunise began leading the female vocalists. Conceived as a roots band, influenced by the "mizikrasin" (roots music) movement that became popular in Haïti following Duvalier's exile, RAM combined ancient African rhythms, ceremonial vodou, and traditional folk music with rock 'n' roll. Incorporating traditional vodou lyrics and instruments (rara horns, petwo drums), and singing in Kreyòl, French, and English, it was a perfect combination. In its 26 years of existence, RAM has toured throughout Haïti and North America (including a concert with Arcade Fire). In 1993 RAM contributed to the Philadelphia soundtrack. "Jonathan Demme was collecting Haitian art and doing Haitian documentaries at the time, did a Haitian compilation album. We had just completed our first recording, and I sent him a cassette. That's how it was in those days: cassette tapes. He loved the music and put it on the soundtrack," Morse explained. The fourth generation, Morse's son, William, recently joined the band. "He grew up with RAM, and used to come on tour with us." It was a natural progression for the young guitarist. Morse is politically outspoken, critical of Haitian, American and international powers, expressing his views openly on Twitter and other platforms. He resigned from his post as advisor to the President in December 2012, realizing Martelly was "not on board," more interested in personal gain than in the recovery and well-being of his country. "Do you ever feel you're in danger?" I ask. "I always get into trouble," he replies. "I have political opinions. That can sometimes be a tipping point. But I try not to think about personal safety." And there's the music itself. Some songs carry implicit political messages, such as "Ambago" (off RAM 1: Ayibobo), addressing the US embargo. "Our songs are metaphors, not intrinsically political," explains Morse. "People interpret the metaphors to be political. The first song that had political ramifications was ‘Fèy,’” recalls Morse. RAM added the instrumentation to the ceremonial lyrics and melody, and "once it was released, it went from being a ceremonial song to a political song." I ask if it was the people who made that leap. "Yes," he says. "And we suspected that they might." The lyrics, paraphrased: I'm a leaf on a branch.A bad storm came and knocked me off the branch.The day I fall is not the day I die.And when they need me, where are they going to find me?. . .Papa, My Good Lord and Saint Nicholas,I only have one son, and they made him leave the country "The people interpreted the bad storm as the military coup, and the leaf as [Haiti's first democratically elected president] Jean-Bertrand Aristide," explains Morse. "There's no actual politics in the lyrics themselves, but when you put the words within the context of a coup d'état and throwing out a person beloved by the people... the connection was made." Morse and the band paid a price for expressing political dissent, even if only implied. "We received a lot of persecution and intimidation when that song became popular; there were rumors that I was machine-gunned to death, that my wife had been kidnapped. Military and police came into the hotel, and there were physical threats, coming in many different ways," he recalls. RAM just released its sixth and strongest studio recording, RAM 6: Manman m se Ginen. It's the first in ten years, mixed by Grammy-winning record producer Andrew Weiss. When I ask about the album's subtitle, Morse explains that "in Haitian vodou, the heritage gets handed down from generation to generation, and the person it gets handed down to is a Ginen. My mother is a Ginen—an inheritor of this tradition." And so is Morse. RAM 6 draws on the African culture and traditions that live on in Haïti; this diverse, compelling set features ancient texts ("Koulou Koulou" is part of the traditional Haitian prayer "La Priye Djô"), deities (the black top hat-wearing cemetery keeper and lord of death, healing and procreation on "Mon Konpe Gede"), driving rhythms, traditional percussion and the distinctive sound of rara horns (check the opening "Papa Loko (Se Van)", celebrating the patron of healers and plants); but it also draws from other forms of popular Haitian music, mashing it up with a rock sensibility and electric guitars. Tradition is honored, preserved, and innovated all at the same time, uplifting the people during these troubled times. There's a long line of people waiting to get into the Oloffson and catch RAM live. I'm lucky enough to be in Port-au-Prince on a Thursday night and catch this sizzling 14-piece band in action. The night begins with a traditional vodou ceremony. Ten dancers dance to the same ceremonial rhythms that RAM will later make music to, presented as dance choreographies, without eclectic accompaniment. "My mom did it throughout my childhood, singing and dancing to these rhythms" recalls Morse. "And now my wife does it, and I do it"—and so the tradition continues. Before the dancers begin, the ground is "dusted" with cornmeal, creating Veves—the spirits' "coat of arms." The ceremony has an entertainment aspect to it, "but it's also educational," explains Morse. "The more people know about the traditions, the more they enjoy the music. The more you find out about it, the deeper it gets." Around midnight, the show begins. Morse's ponytail is let loose, his white mane unleashed, as are the spirits in the room. The music and palpable, infectious energy build, the rum flows, and the dance floor fills with sweaty, dancing, gyrating bodies, elated faces. RAM's shows draw not only hotel guests, but a wide spectrum of the country's political and racial groups, all sharing in this one-of-a-kind experience—hypnotic drums, transfixing horns, shredding guitars, riveting dancers. Spirits are soaring. Weeks later, back in North America, I catch up with Morse by phone. He is excited about the new RAM recording and its enthusiastic reception, and cautiously hopeful about the prospects of true Haitian democracy. There’s an interim government in place, working on forming an electoral council to organize the elections. “Martelly and the US State department want a second round to the first, but the population wants election verification, which might change the results. They're investigating all kinds of drug deals and irregularities, making Martelly and the US nervous," reports Morse. “This government appears to have good intentions, in spite of how it came into being.” And RAM is in the thick of it. “We've been around a long time. We're kind of the soundtrack for historical moments.” Cop RAM 6 here, and if you happen to be in Port-au-Prince on a Thursday night, you know where you need to be. Sharonne Cohen is a writer based in Montreal. You can read her past work here.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/rkqv3z/ram-richard-morse-haiti-interview-2016

Noisey

Vice

2019-06-27 00:00:00

2019

6.0

27

Dave Graham

Mexico's president defiant in row with Canada over pipeline contracts

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pushed backed on Thursday against Canadian concerns that gas pipeline contracts awarded under his predecessor might not be honored, saying the terms of the agreements were “abusive” toward the state. Mexican state power utility CFE [COMFEL.UL] said this week it would negotiate a “fairer” resolution to contractual disputes over several pipelines being built by companies including Mexico’s IEnova (IENOVA.MX) and Canada’s TC Energy Corp (TRP.TO). The Canadian ambassador to Mexico, Pierre Alarie, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the Mexican government appears “not to wish to respect natural gas pipeline contracts,” and said he was deeply concerned about the signal being sent. Lopez Obrador, who in February vowed the contracts would be honored, said it was natural for Alarie to defend Canada’s interests but took a defiant stance when asked about the dispute during his regular morning press conference. “Here it was stated that those contracts were abusive. I called them unfair contracts because they were handed over with all the benefits for the companies,” Lopez Obrador said, arguing that their terms would lead to the ruin of the CFE. “A deal will be reached because we too have to defend the assets and the interests of the Mexican people,” he added. The row has revived concerns that Lopez Obrador’s government could put in jeopardy contracts signed under previous administrations, the last six of which the president has characterized as part of a corrupt “neo-liberal” era. He has been highly critical of the government of predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto, who sought to lift economic growth by opening up the energy sector to private capital, an approach that Lopez Obrador has so far roundly rejected. IEnova, a unit of U.S.-based Sempra Energy, says the CFE is seeking arbitration over a contract it signed in partnership with TC Energy to build a $2.5 billion pipeline from Texas to the Mexican Gulf coast port of Tuxpan. News of the arbitration request dragged down IEnova’s shares more than 4% on Wednesday. The company’s stock at one point slumped by over 8% on Thursday. Shares in Sempra were down 1.1%, while stock of TC Energy was up slightly. Paty Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Sempra, said the company was analyzing the content of the arbitration request and its legal basis, reaffirming it was ready to talk to the CFE. “The arbitration notice should not interfere with the existing contractual conditions,” she said. A CFE source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the utility had notified Fermaca, a Mexican infrastructure company building another pipeline, that it was seeking arbitration. Fermaca could not immediately be reached for comment. Separately, Mexico’s Grupo Carso, an infrastructure firm controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim that also is involved in the pipeline disputes, said in a statement it would analyze an arbitration request it had received from the CFE. Shares in Carso fell by 2.25%. Lopez Obrador rejected the suggestion that the spat could interfere with ratification of United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a new North American trade deal the Mexican Senate approved earlier this month. Canada and the United States must still ratify USMCA. Lopez Obrador, who took office in December, alarmed investors by canceling a partly built $13 billion Mexico City airport, arguing that it was riddled with corruption. Reporting by Dave Graham; additional reporting by Diego Ore and Miguel Angel Gutierrez and Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City and Scott DiSavino in New York; editing by Paul Simao, Bill Trott and Lisa Shumaker

https://www.reuters.com/article/mexico-ienova-canada/update-3-mexicos-president-defiant-in-row-with-canada-over-pipeline-contracts-idUSL2N23Y0IN

World News

Reuters

2016-03-03 22:39:32

2016

3.0

3

Kurt Wagner

Snapchat Raises $175 Million From Fidelity at Flat $16 Billion Valuation

Snapchat has raised $175 million in new venture funding from Fidelity at the same $16 billion valuation it raised at back in May, according to a source familiar with the deal. That means Snapchat has now raised around $1.4 billion in total. The Wall Street Journal first reported the new funding. A flat valuation isn’t usually a great sign, but the raise comes at a time when lots of tech companies — including Jawbone and Foursquare — are raising down rounds, or taking money at a lower valuation than their last fundraising. In that vein, this investment doesn’t look bad. A Snapchat spokesperson did not immediately respond to our request for comment. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/3/11586692/snapchat-raises-175-million-from-fidelity-at-same-16-billion-valuation

Vox

2019-01-12 00:00:00

2019

1.0

12

Congo forces surround presidential runner-up's residence

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Republican Guard soldiers and police officers surrounded the residence of the runner-up in Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential election on Saturday before he could leave to file a fraud complaint in court, witnesses said.     Dozens of supporters of Martin Fayulu, who had gathered outside his Kinshasa hotel and residence and were chanting slogans against outgoing President Joseph Kabila and President-elect Felix Tshisekedi, fled inside the building when the security forces arrived, a Reuters witness said. Reporting By Stanis Bujakera; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Mark Heinrich

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-election-military/congo-forces-surround-presidential-runner-ups-residence-idUSKCN1P60AY

World News

Reuters

2016-07-29 00:00:00

2016

7.0

29

Nayland Blake

Sun Ra Had It Right

Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads

https://hyperallergic.com/314667/sun-ra-had-it-right/

Hyperallergic

2018-06-11 00:00:00

2018

6.0

11

G7 summit 'commotion' has brought EU closer together: German economy minister

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Events at the Group of Seven summit have brought the European Union closer together, Germany’s economy minister said on Monday. Having left the meeting in Canada early, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was backing out of the group’s joint declaration, sinking what appeared to be a fragile consensus on the trade dispute between Washington and its top allies. “The commotion at the G7 summit in Canada has brought the European Union closer together. It is important we show unity at all levels,” Peter Altmaier said on arrival at a meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg. Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by John Stonestreet

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-germany-altmaier/g7-summit-commotion-has-brought-eu-closer-together-german-economy-minister-idUSKBN1J70PB

World News

Reuters

2017-03-24 00:00:00

2017

3.0

24

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Cracked Kobe Joke at Shaq Statue Unveiling

Everyone's a comedian ... even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! The Lakers legend was one of the speakers at Shaq's big Lakers statue unveiling at Staples Center on Friday ... and made a reference to the fact Kobe Bryant was on hand for the event! "Some people thought the odds of Kobe Bryant showing up today were the same as Shaq sinking a free throw." The ceremony was great. The statue looks awesome. Congrats Big Fella.

https://www.tmz.com/2017/03/24/kareem-abdul-jabbar-cracked-kobe-joke-at-shaq-statue-unveiling/

TMZ

2016-08-23 00:00:00

2016

8.0

23

Elisa Wouk Almino

ArtRx NYC

Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads This week, create your own fanzine, check out presidential campaign ephemera at the New-York Historical Society, journey to the Colombian Amazon at Socrates Sculpture Park’s summer screening series, and more. When: Tuesday, August 23, 7pm (RVSP Required) Where: Swiss In situ (102 Franklin Street, Tribeca, Manhattan) Artist Susan Cianciolo will lead a free fanzine workshop as part of the Nieves and Innen Zine Library exhibition at Swiss In Situ (the temporary name for the Swiss Institute’s temporary space). Providing materials from her own studio, Cianciolo will demonstrate a “basic formula” for creating a collage fanzine. Create a scrappy paean to your favorite artist, start your own comic strip, or go all out and fantasize about creating your own publication. —TM When: Wednesday, August 24, 7pm Where: Socrates Sculpture Park (32-01 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City, Queens) For the final film of its superb summer screening series (programmed by the fine folks at Film Forum), Socrates Sculpture Park takes us to the Colombian Amazon by way of the based-on-a-true-story drama Embrace of the Serpent (2015). Drawn from the diaries of two Westerners who traveled throughout the region in the 1900s and the 1930s, it follows the journey of a pair of botanical bounty hunters who are guided through the dense jungle by an intrepid shaman. As ever, the cinematic menu is accompanied by edibles from a regionally related restaurant (La Carreta Paisa) and a set by an aurally appropriate band (BullA en el Barrio). —BS When: Thursday, August 25, 8pm–12am Where: MoMA PS1 (22–25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens) MoMA PS1 is up late this Thursday, with its Night at the Museum program, giving visitors a chance to celebrate in the fading light (and thankfully fading heat) of summer with food, drinks, music, and special programming organized by artist Meriem Bennani, who has her own show, FLY, on display. Visitors also get a chance to look at the summer exhibitions that will close quite soon, including work by Vito Acconci, Deng Tai, FORTY, Papo Colo, Cao Fei, and Rodney McMillian. When: Opens Friday, August 26 Where: New-York Historical Society (170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan) Besides your usual ad or poster, presidential campaigns have also produced cowboy hats, paper dresses, board games, and many other toys and decorative objects. Over 210 examples of these, housed in the Museum of Democracy/Wright Family Collections, will go on view in Campaigning for the Presidency, 1960–1972, tracing John F. Kennedy v. Richard Nixon to Richard Nixon v. George McGovern. I expect the ’60s ephemera will be less repulsive than a nude sculpture of Trump. When: Sunday, August 28, 3:50–6pm Where: St George’s Church (135–32 38th Avenue, Flushing, Queens) Often when I walk in New York City, I move from point A to point B, rarely allowing myself the time to meander. The Nonstop Metropolis Walking Tour could help change that habit. The tour, one of six events associated with Rebecca Solnit’s Nonstop Metropolis at the Queens Museum, sets us up for Solnit’s and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s forthcoming title New York City Atlas, which will explore the diverse languages and cultures of Queens. Led by the editor-at-large of the book, Garnette Cadogan, the tour will ask us to pause and pay attention to the historically tolerant and dynamic neighborhood of Flushing. —SR When: Sunday, August 28, 6:30pm Where: Totah (183 Stanton Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) Totah gallery is presenting a work by the stalwart video artist Bill Viola as part of its 8’19” moving-image exhibition organized by Laurence Kardish, former senior curator of film at the Museum of Modern Art, and independent curator Sarah Lehat. The entire series pays tribute to light, incorporating documentary and narrative, as well as abstract and experimental work. Bill Viola’s contribution consists of two historic single-channel videos recorded in foreign provinces: “Chott el-Djerid (A Portrait in Light and Heat)” (1979), made in Tunisia, and “Hatsu-Yume (First Dream)” (1981), shot in Japan. —SR *   *   * With contributions by Elisa Wouk Almino, Tiernan Morgan, Seph Rodney, and Benjamin Sutton

https://hyperallergic.com/318529/artrx-nyc-107/

Hyperallergic

2016-11-14 17:15:00

2016

11.0

14

Catherine Chapman

What Does a Terrorist Look Like? This Controversial Sculpture Challenges Your Inner Bias

In a year that felt explosive, due to in no small part to violent attacks in a public spaces and further increases to surveillance technologies, Beijing-based artist Li Wei created Secure for Now, a sculpture that questions current global perceptions of safety. Composed of fiberglass and oil paint, the statue emulates a blonde-haired, blue-eyed child with his arms hidden behind him and a little white dog by his side. Viewed from the front, the boy looks calm but vacant, tricking viewers who fail to peek behind the sculpture and find the grenade cradled in his hands. “From certain points of view, crisis is caused by humans,” Wei tells The Creators Project. “Personal crisis is a crisis, too, and it is often from [personal crises] that a public crisis actually originates. When personal turns into public, I think that is when the real crisis happens. It is in the many details of our human lives that the sparks of crisis lie hidden, but unfortunately most people cannot or do not want to see them.” Following the attacks of September 11, Wei became a documentarian of similar catastrophes, from a fire in a Shanghai high rise in 2010, to the massacre at Paris' Bataclan last year. The parallels between these disasters, for Wei, whom The Creators Project profiled back in 2012, is the chaotic flow of information and its use as a springboard for paranoia, often manifested as adversity towards the Other. Wei plays with this notion in Secure for Now, arguing that a small boy and his dog are the least likely sources of threat, according to mainstream narratives. Within the work, the artist strives to change perceptions of disasters and their perpetrators. “A crisis doesn’t care about borders, and it doesn’t care whether they are regarded as big or small,” Wei says. “It is hard to imagine that the relevance of a crisis should be measured simply by the number of casualties caused.” Another mode of measuring calamity, Wei notes, is through Facebook Safety Check, which the social media giant controversially rolled out during the 2015 Paris attacks, despite the service's intention to serve as a check-in during natural disasters. “Users could confirm the location of themselves and other nearby users on Facebook, informing relatives and friends of their safety, at that time,” Wei says. “My cellphone was fiercely hot, like a freshly cooked pancake, informing me that a great number of people were 'secure for now.'" In line with Facebook's decision to expand Safety Check to include acts of terror in its definition of emergency situations, as disasters of all kinds have occurred, public opinion of safety decreases, while the need to place blame increases each time. Check out The Creators Project's documentary on Li Wei below:  Li Wei's first European exhibition took place at the Paris Asian Art Fair, which ran October 20–23. Secure for Now was also shown at the Artissima Art Fair in Torino, Italy from November 4–6. To see more of Wei's work, click here. Related: Here's That All Flags Profile Pic Converter You Wanted Iranian-American Tackles Big Brother with Performance Art On Art-Making After Tragedy

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkwyy7/grenade-toting-blonde-child-sculpture

Tech by VICE

Vice

2019-04-19 22:50:00

2019

4.0

19

Patrick Klepek

It's 2012 All Over Again: We've Got 'Dragon's Dogma' Fever

Even though Austin and Natalie have been playing a bunch of Dragon’s Dogma, Patrick and Cado somehow restrain them from spending an entire episode talking about a game from 2012 and also discuss the early details Sony revealed about the PlayStation 5, the rise of GamerGate politicians, the addition of Persona 5’s Joker to Smash, names.com, and more. You can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. If you're using something else, this RSS link should let you add the podcast to whatever platform you'd like. If you'd like to directly download the podcast, click here. Please take a moment and review the podcast, especially on iTunes. It really helps. Have thoughts? Swing by Waypoint's forums to share them!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mb8awa/its-2012-all-over-again-weve-got-dragons-dogma-fever

Games

Vice

2017-02-21 19:30:01

2017

2.0

21

Andrew Prokop

Today in Obamacare: why Republicans have a much tougher task than Obama did

Members of Congress meeting constituents in their district this week are likely to encounter an unusual dynamic: Obamacare supporters who suddenly seem to outnumber the law’s opponents. The New York Times’s Jonathan Martin wrote this weekend about a new reality dawning on congressional Republicans: Constituents who dislike Obamacare are no longer anywhere near as vocal as they used to be, while the health law’s supporters are suddenly more energized than ever. Many have remarked on how this seems to be a mirror image of 2009, when the Tea Party became far more mobilized in opposition to Democrats’ health reform legislation than supporters were. And it’s also, of course, worth remembering that Democrats forged onward with health reform regardless of these prominent protests. But there’s also a crucially important difference between the two situations: The 2009 Democratic proposal planned to give out new benefits, while GOP proposals for Obamacare repeal today would instead put existing benefits at risk. In practice, the politics of those respective scenarios have tended to play out very differently. Yes, a new law giving people stuff — in the form of either new benefits or tax cuts — can be controversial and difficult to pass. Messing with the stuff people are already getting has tended to be exponentially more controversial, though, because it’s more actively harmful. Simply put, politicians of all stripes are more eager to go out on a limb to help their voters rather than to support something they believe will harm them. For a reminder of how this has worked, just think back to the last time Republicans had control of both the White House and Congress — from 2003 to 2006, under George W. Bush. Though GOP rhetoric has often focused on the need to cut spending, Bush had his greatest domestic legislative successes in his first term, when he focused on giving people stuff. Namely, he enacted two big rounds of tax cuts and the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. None of those victories came easy — Republicans were forced to scale back their second round of tax cuts, and the final House vote on Medicare in 2003 was famously controversial. Still, all of them ended up passing in the end. But fresh off his reelection to a second term, Bush decided to make a bold proposal to overhaul the existing Social Security program by partially privatizing it. This did not end well for him. I recapped this story at greater length in an article back in January. Overall, though the defeat of Social Security reform had many elements — administration missteps, a unified Democratic opposition, and so on — the most important one is that the proposal, at its core, was about messing with the benefits people were already getting. Politicians looked for feedback from their constituents on Bush’s plan, and what they heard was so negative that even moderate red-state Democrats temperamentally inclined toward bipartisanship, like then-Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, decided the plan was a loser. By early February, New York Times reporter Robin Toner could report on “a general anxiety attack in the Republican center over Social Security.” Eventually, all the major players became convinced it couldn’t pass, and the centerpiece of Bush’s second-term domestic agenda was never even brought to a vote. Obamacare’s situation now isn’t a perfect parallel here. It’s a much younger program than Social Security, and there’s a stronger case that the exchanges may be in some trouble and in need of an imminent overhaul. Plus, Obamacare repeal has been the centerpiece of Republican messaging for years, whereas Social Security privatization was never more than a minor issue during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Still, as Martin’s story suggests, this GOP base enthusiasm may have ebbed, and it’s worth keeping the fate of Social Security reform in mind.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/21/14684934/obamacare-republicans-town-halls

Vox

2018-01-10 00:00:00

2018

1.0

10

Carter Sherman

Trump randomly agrees to a “clean DACA” bill

President Donald Trump’s attempt to convince people that he’s a “stable genius” is off to a rough start. On Tuesday, Trump spontaneously invited reporters to sit in on a 55-minute meeting on immigration with congressional lawmakers from both parties. In the wake of Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by March, legislators have been scrambling to find a way to allow child immigrants who entered the U.S. without authorization — known as “Dreamers" — to stay in the country. The only problem? Trump apparently can’t stick to his own talking points. “What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive reform procedure?” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the president. A “clean DACA bill” would protect Dreamers’ ability to stay in the country, without Republican-supported provisions such as increased border enforcement or money for Trump’s wall. “Would you be agreeable to that?” the veteran Democratic senator pressed. President Donald Trump’s attempt to convince people that he’s a “stable genius” is off to a rough start. On Tuesday, Trump spontaneously invited reporters to sit in on a 55-minute meeting on immigration with congressional lawmakers from both parties. In the wake of Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by March, legislators have been scrambling to find a way to allow child immigrants who entered the U.S. without authorization — known as “Dreamers" — to stay in the country. The only problem? Trump apparently can’t stick to his own talking points. “What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive reform procedure?” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the president. A “clean DACA bill” would protect Dreamers’ ability to stay in the country, without Republican-supported provisions such as increased border enforcement or money for Trump’s wall. “Would you be agreeable to that?” the veteran Democratic senator pressed. Trump replied, “Yeah, I would like — I would like to do that.” That prospect immediately alarmed Republicans in the room. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy leapt in to ask Trump “to be clear though” and remind him that “we have to have security.” It also, apparently, alarmed the White House, which released a transcript of the meeting — sans Trump's comment, as the Washington Post noted. A White House official told the Post that the oversight, which has since been corrected in the official transcript, was unintentional. According to CNN, the meeting’s stenographer missed the line because too many people were talking at once. This is not, however, the first time a White House transcript — which reporters and historians frequently consult — has been altered. During Anthony Scaramucci’s 11-day tenure as White House communications director, he said that Trump was capable of sinking “3-foot putts.” But in the transcript, New York Magazine pointed out, Scaramucci was quoted as saying that Trump can perform “30-foot putts.”

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/ne4qq7/trump-randomly-agrees-to-a-clean-daca-bill

Vice News

2018-03-24 00:00:00

2018

3.0

24

Perry Bard

The Places Rex Tillerson Didn’t Go

Trump’s Secretary of State, ex-CEO of ExxonMobil, takes the exit ramp. In his brief tenure as Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson traveled to Brussels, Vienna, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Da Nang, and Manila, but he never made it to Norway or Haiti…

https://hyperallergic.com/433978/perry-bard-the-places-rex-tillerson-didnt-go/

Hyperallergic

2016-12-03 00:00:00

2016

12.0

3

White House: no change to 'one China' policy after Trump call with Taiwan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday said there was “no change” to the United States’ longstanding “one China” policy after President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. “We remain firmly committed to our ‘one China’ policy,” said Ned Price, a national security spokesman for President Barack Obama. “Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations.” Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Sandra Maler

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-taiwan-obama/white-house-no-change-to-one-china-policy-after-trump-call-with-taiwan-idUSKBN13S013

World News

Reuters

2018-03-18 00:00:00

2018

3.0

18

Putin says 'nonsense' to think Russia would poison spy in Britain

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday it was nonsense to think that Moscow would have poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who are critically ill in a British hospital. Britain has said that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by the Soviet-era ‘Novichok’ nerve agent, and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Sunday that Russia has been stockpiling it and investigating how such weapons could be used in assassinations. But Putin, in his first detailed comments on the poisoning, said Russia had been falsely accused. “As for the tragedy that you mentioned, I found out about it from the media. The first thing that entered my head was that if it had been a military-grade nerve agent, the people would have died on the spot,” Putin told reporters. “Secondly, Russia does not have such (nerve) agents. We destroyed all our chemical weapons under the supervision of international organizations, and we did it first, unlike some of our partners who promised to do it, but unfortunately did not keep their promises,” Putin said. Despite the tensions, Putin said Moscow was ready to cooperate with London. “... We are ready to cooperate, we said that straight away, we are ready to take part in the necessary investigations, but for that there needs be a desire from the other side, and we don’t see that yet. But we are not taking it off the agenda, joint efforts are possible.” “As a whole, of course, I think any sensible person would understand that it would be rubbish, drivel, nonsense, for Russia to embark on such an escapade on the eve of a presidential election. It’s just unthinkable.” Putin was speaking after winning a new term in a presidential election. British officials have said Moscow was culpable for the poisoning and expelled 23 Russian diplomats based in London. Moscow retaliated on Saturday by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, shuttering the British consulate in Russia’s second city of St Petersburg and closing down the Russian activities of the British Council, which promoted British culture overseas. Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Osborn

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-putin/putin-says-nonsense-to-think-russia-would-poison-spy-in-britain-idUSKBN1GU0Z8

World News

Reuters

2019-06-25 00:00:00

2019

6.0

25

Melissa Fares

Wayfair employee walkout called over alleged furniture sales to U.S. migrant camp

(Reuters) - Wayfair Inc came under pressure on Tuesday after hundreds of employees were reported to be planning a walkout over the retailer’s alleged sale of more than $200,000 in bedroom furniture for a Texas detention facility for migrant children. Shares of the company fell 5.3% to $144.40 on the New York Stock Exchange. A Twitter account under the handle @wayfairwalkout, created this month with a following of more than 13,000 including high-profile Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called for the work stop on Wednesday. Wayfair, headquartered in Boston, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The @wayfairwalkout account referred Reuters to the company and Reuters was not able to confirm it was created by Wayfair employees. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Twitter: “I stand with hundreds of @Wayfair employees who are planning to stage a walkout at their Boston headquarters tomorrow. The safety and well-being of immigrant children is always worth fighting for.” An image of a letter to Wayfair leaders from employees said that an order for more than $200,000 of bedroom furniture was destined for a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas that would house migrant children seeking asylum. Criticism has mounted this week over the detention of migrant children in overcrowded, squalid conditions. “In response to a recent letter signed by 547 employees, our CEO said that the company would not cease doing business with contractors furnishing border camps,” @wayfairwalkout tweeted. It demanded that Wayfair stop selling to migrant detention camps and that it give profits, which they claim amount to $86,000, to a Texas-based non-profit agency offering legal services to immigrants. Screenshots on Twitter of a letter to employees that said it was from the retailer’s “leadership team” read, “...We believe it is our business to sell to any customer who is acting within the laws of the countries within which we operate.” The walkout, scheduled to take place on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. ET in Boston’s Copley Square, is the latest example of employees protesting workplace social issues. In June 2018, Alphabet Inc’s Google faced internal upheaval over a contract to help the U.S. military analyze aerial drone imagery. The hashtag “#wayfairwalkout” was top trending in the United State on Twitter as of Tuesday evening. “Wayfair workers couldn’t stomach they were making beds to cage children,” tweeted Ocasio-Cortez. “They asked the company to stop. CEO said no. Tomorrow, they’re walking out.” Reporting by Melissa Fares in New York, editing by Peter Henderson and Cynthia Osterman

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-wayfair/wayfair-employee-walkout-called-over-alleged-furniture-sales-to-us-migrant-camp-idUSKCN1TQ33C

U.S.

Reuters

2018-04-16 19:20:01

2018

4.0

16

Dylan Scott

3 red states could put Medicaid expansion on the ballot this year

Medicaid expansion is back on the ballot. Organizers in Utah submitted signatures on Monday to put an initiative expanding Medicaid on the state’s ballot in November. They got 165,000 signatures, or about 50,000 more than they needed. State legislators are actually pushing a limited form of Medicaid expansion, but, as we covered before, the Trump administration seems unlikely to greenlight that proposal. The ballot initiative being submitted today would be a clean version of expansion. Medicaid expansion would cover about 150,000 low-income people in Utah, one of 18 mostly Republican-led states to refuse to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. A recent poll by the Salt Lake Tribune and the University of Utah found 62 percent of Utah voters support the ballot initiative. ”People want more health care — not less,” Jonathan Schleifer, executive director of the Fairness Project, a left-leaning economic justice group that is helping support the initiative, said in a statement. “They are done with politicians who are not addressing their top concerns, and they are taking action to do something about it.” Last year, Maine became the first state to approve Medicaid expansion by ballot initiative, though its Republican governor is doing what he can to stop it. Utah could be the next — and signatures are being gathered in several other red states to try to finally push through Medicaid expansion. Organizers are also hoping to put initiatives on the ballot in Idaho and Nebraska. It has been a slow grind to push the holdout states to expand Medicaid — some 4 million Americans have been left without insurance as a result — but this fall, voters will have a chance to make significant strides toward the nationwide expansion that the ACA originally envisioned. In Idaho, organizers have an April 30 deadline to submit about 56,000 signatures. The Fairness Project told me they “will significantly exceed that number.” Medicaid expansion would cover about 62,000 people in the Potato State; a 2017 survey found that 70 percent of Idahoans said they supported closing the state’s coverage gap, though it didn’t ask about the Medicaid expansion explicitly. (Here’s a good piece from BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Petersen about the health care politics there.) In Nebraska, the deadline for submitting signatures for a ballot initiative is July 6; organizers said that the campaign was “on track” to gain the 85,000 signatures that they need. Medicaid expansion would cover nearly 90,000 people in the state. (The Fairness Project is also helping to support a signature drive in Montana. The state has already expanded Medicaid, but the expansion would end in 2019 unless it is reauthorized. It has covered about 90,000 people in the state.) The prize turkeys for Medicaid expansion will always be Texas and Florida, where serious ballot initiative campaigns have yet to be mounted. And, as we have seen in Maine, voters approving Medicaid expansion doesn’t mean things will go smoothly if there are intransigent state officials. Still, Medicaid notched some big wins at the polls last year — in Maine and in Virginia, where Democrats won huge victories campaigning on the issue and may soon approve expansion as a result — and it will get another shot in a few months. This story appears in VoxCare, a newsletter from Vox on the latest twists and turns in America’s health care debate. Sign up to get VoxCare in your inbox along with more health care stats and news.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/16/17244108/medicaid-expansion-ballot-red-states

Vox