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2018-12-04 00:00:00

2018

12.0

4

Former Red Robin CEO Michael J. Snyder Dead by Suicide

Michael J. Snyder -- known for being the first franchisee of the Red Robin restaurant chain, who later became CEO -- has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head ... TMZ has learned. Yakima County Chief Deputy Coroner Marshall Slight tells us ... Snyder committed suicide with a high-powered gun Sunday in Washington state. We're told he shot himself on a bench in the front yard of his home. Slight says police responded to a 911 call and found Snyder's body ... no suicide note was left behind. Michael and his brother became the first Red Robin franchisees in 1979 and went on to open 14 of the burger restaurants in Washington, Colorado and Idaho. Snyder merged his franchise company with the parent company in 2000 ... and took over as CEO and President. He was ousted in 2005, though, after an internal investigation discovered he had misused funds and charter planes. He reportedly remained the largest individual shareholder of the company. Snyder was 68.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/12/04/ex-red-robin-ceo-michael-j-snyder-suicide-shot-dead-dies/

TMZ

2018-05-15 00:00:00

2018

5.0

15

Tommy Wilkes, Guy Faulconbridge

Thomson Reuters to move forex derivatives to Dublin due to Brexit

LONDON (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters Corp said on Tuesday it would transfer its $300 billion-a-day foreign exchange derivatives trading business to Dublin from London ahead of Britain’s departure from the European Union next year. Major electronic bond and forex trading platforms have announced plans over the past year to shift their trading businesses out of London ahead of Brexit in March 2019, with most of Thomson Reuters’ rivals opting for Amsterdam. Thomson Reuters has applied to the Irish central bank to move its foreign exchange Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) to Dublin so that it can continue to sell into the EU’s single market, the company said in a statement. It intends to transfer all “existing client relationships of the Thomson Reuters MTF and Dealing, as well as Fixed Income Callouts and Auctions, from RTSL to our new Irish legal entity ahead of the Brexit date.” Neill Penney, the company’s co-head of trading, said there were no plans to move staff from London but that some new personnel would be hired in Dublin. He said Thomson Reuters had opted for Dublin over Amsterdam because it was the most cost-effective, would “minimize disruption for clients” and because Dublin’s growing role as a center for financial technology and research would “open a number of doors” should the company want to expand. “It doesn’t matter for our customers which European city we are in ... From a technology front, the technology is remaining where it is, which is in London and New York,” he said. All spot forex trading, where its volumes top $100 billion a day, would remain in London, as would its post-trade services. Thomson Reuters runs one of the world’s largest trading platforms in the $5 trillion-a-day global foreign exchange market. Even if only the legal entity, the departure of any part of a currencies trading business will be a blow to London. Foreign exchange trading remains the crown jewel of the city’s financial services industry with volumes traded in the city far surpassing its nearest rival. Big banks and trading platforms compete on speed when trading forex and invest heavily in cutting edge technology in London. While trading platforms - or even some of the dealers themselves - head elsewhere after Brexit most of the hardware is likely to remain in London because of the high-speed sub-Atlantic cables linking it to New York. Bloomberg, MarketAxess and Nex Group have chosen Amsterdam as their EU hub for their trading units, media have reported. Bonds platform Tradeweb, in which Thomson Reuters has a stake, also announced plans to move to Amsterdam, a city that hosts many of the fast-moving algorithmic trading businesses active in FX and fixed income markets. Thomson Reuters, controlled by Canada’s Thomson family, is the parent of Reuters News. Its forex business is part of the trading operations being bought by private equity giant Blackstone. Additional reporting by Pamela Barbaglia; Editing by Michael Holden and Janet Lawrence

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-thomsonreuters-ireland/thomson-reuters-to-move-forex-derivatives-to-dublin-due-to-brexit-idUSKCN1IG19L

Business News

Reuters

2017-07-18 00:00:00

2017

7.0

18

Allison Meier

A Browser Game Recreates the Tedium of a 1990s Office Job

Pippin Barr’s game It is as if you were doing work simulates the distractions and mundane tasks of the office, imagined for a future when work is replaced by machines. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads While attempting to type some inane email in It is as if you were doing work, pop-up windows proclaiming “Success is no accident” and “No one ever drowned in sweat” kept interrupting my text. Then there were the incessant buttons to click, documents to send, and other mildly irritating tasks, all as I worked towards the next promotion. The recently released game, created by Pippin Barr, is a simulation of office work using late ’90s Windows sound and visuals, set in a near future where robots have taken on the real labor. The game “poses as an application that humans who have been put out of work by robots and AI can play as a way to recapture the sense they once had of doing work and being productive,” Barr, an assistant professor in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montréal, writes in a release. “It’s a kind of semi-condescending service offered by this new world to those of us who can’t deal with it.” It’s also a sadly accurate simulation of many offices, where attempts to get work done are constantly derailed by work motivation, whether meetings, messages, emails, or just a particularly aggravating motivational poster. Barr often experiments with game structures for unconventional play, such as his digital take on Marina Abramović’s “The Artist Is Present,” and the v r 3 museum of rendered water launched earlier this year. Players begin It is as if you were doing work as a lowly “Screen Administrator,” before progressing through meaningless tasks and some enforced “breaks” to play Breakout, and being promoted to titles like “Big Data Administrator.” You’re rewarded with perky sound effects and pop-up windows, yet the job always stays the same. The only things you can change are your desktop backdrop (a cat and a photograph of a messy desk being options) and the looping MIDI music, including a “world” selection that has a grating pan flute accompaniment. It is, needless to say, rather depressing. Alice O’Connor, who shared the game on Rock Paper Shotgun, notes that it’s not too far from reality, as there are fake companies in France run as real offices for the unemployed to get workplace training. Other games have similarly pondered the office in an automated future, including Owlchemy Lab’s VR Job Simulator (Kotaku made a list of 10 games that simulate office jobs). And Barr’s creation evokes some of the irony in games such as the Sims, where the mechanics involve mundane life actions like microwaving a ramen cup or reading a newspaper’s “help wanted” ads. Increasingly, performative office communications like Slack basically turn the workspace into a large-scale RPG, or at least add more digital noise to the desktop. It’s possible to imagine a future where that element of distraction becomes the job itself. It is as if you were doing work by Pippin Barr is available to play online.

https://hyperallergic.com/390914/pippin-barr-it-is-as-if-you-were-doing-work-game/

Hyperallergic

2018-10-29 19:56:00

2018

10.0

29

Manisha Krishnan

Canada May Not Have Enough Legal Weed for a Year

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada. Dan Sutton is blunt about why he thinks licensed producers in Canada don’t have enough legal weed to supply demand right now. “Most of these guys they’ve been wearing pinstripe suits their whole career. They’ve never spent any time on a farm and they don’t know shit about agriculture,” Sutton, founder of British Columbia-based licensed producer [LP] Tantalus Labs, told VICE. While sales following legalization on October 17 were reportedly massive in some provinces—one chain in Alberta claimed it made $1.3 million [$1 million USD] in five days—weed’s popularity is a bit of a double-edged sword due to supply issues. Several stores have already run out of stock and are having difficulty ordering more cannabis; ditto for online sales on various provincial government websites, where many products are labeled “out of stock.” Even on the medical side of things, licensed producers such as industry giant Tilray and CannTrust, are low on flower for patients. Legalization has been years in the making in Canada, so why don’t we have enough weed? Sutton told VICE part of the problem is licensed producers are largely run by people who don’t have a background in farming or cannabis. He believes publicly traded LPs have hyped up their growing ability in the media to sell stocks, and that “analysts, regulators, bankers—everyone started drinking the Kool-Aid.” But he doesn’t think LPs are anywhere close to mastering how to mass produce decent quality cannabis. “Most licensed producers still have no idea how to cultivate cannabis in a repeatable way,” he said. He noted Tantalus Labs, which operates a 75,000 square-foot-grow, took two years to design its greenhouse and another two to build it. But he says others in the industry have set up facilities within months, which he doesn’t think is enough time to ensure they are running optimally. Sutton said there are two types of master growers in the industry: Those who came over from the black market and have a deep understanding of the cannabis plant but were likely running lots of smaller grows, and master growers who come from an industrial agriculture background not specific to cannabis. “The cannabis plant presents unique challenges in that it’s very susceptible to crop loss. Tomatoes wouldn’t have the same risk profile,” he said. Sutton said cannabis is a sensitive plant that’s difficult to control without pesticides—which is what Health Canada requires. Over or under irrigating, misusing nutrients, powdery mildew, root rot, and botrytis (bud rot) are all things that can ruin the crop. The institutional knowledge needed to reliably grow massive amounts of cannabis simply doesn’t exist, he said, and the industry won’t figure it out for a while. “We will not see anything close to equitable supply relative to demand in the next 18 months,” he said. “It will result in the collapse of some of these big companies on the stock market.” Jordan Sinclair, vice president of communications for Canopy, the largest legal weed producer in the world, told VICE he disagrees with that assessment. “I don’t think it’s fair at all to say that LPs aren’t set up to do it. Maybe that person’s LP isn’t set up to do it,” he said. Sinclair told VICE there are a number of factors contributing the supply issues, including larger than anticipated demand, logistical issues in getting product onto store shelves, and yields that are still a few months away from being harvested. Canopy has more than 2.4 million square feet of growing space. “The reality is we’ve been expanding over the last year, but some of the expansions will only be mature or producing at full capacity over the next few months,” Sinclair said, noting he thinks things will stabilize in the next month or so. Rosalie Wyonch, an analyst with C.D. Howe Institute, a non-profit research firm, told VICE that Canada’s legal weed supply is only likely to meet 30 to 60 percent of demand for at least a year. But Wyonch said a variety of factors are at play, and “no one is completely guilty and no one is completely innocent.” Wyonch said the federal government via Health Canada may not have approved enough LP licenses in time for legalization. Though they sped up that process more recently, it may have been too little too late, she said. Based on LP’s inventories and what they’d been selling historically, it was clear there would be a shortage, Wyonch told VICE. However, “if you took the LPs at their word of what their production could be in the future, it’s a massive oversupply.” Provinces are the wholesalers of weed across Canada, and Wyonch said they are responsible for securing enough weed, which they may not have done. Quebec, in particular, only secured half of what demand would be, she said. On Friday, Quebec announced its government-run stores will only be open four days a week due to a shortage of supply. But some LPs have also failed to deliver on what they’ve agreed to supply. Sutton told VICE that issue could explain why LPs are short on medical cannabis. “If you miss your obligations to your distributor, you’re in big trouble,” he said. “The truth is there’s a huge incentive for LPs to supply distributors before they supply medical patients and as a result, these medical patients are getting the short end of the stick.” Longtime cannabis advocate Tracy Curley told VICE the supply for patients has run dry. As of Wednesday last week, she said Tilray was only offering one strain of flower. “I took a look at eight LPs. I managed to find five strains of flower,” she said, noting some higher THC strains are being transferred from the medical supply to the rec market. While LPs can potentially make more money per gram selling to patients, Curley said strict advertising regulations mean LPs need to get their weed into provincial stores in order to gain brand recognition. Reached by VICE, Tilray, which had a market cap as high as $20 billion [$15.2 billion USD] in September but has seen its stock drop by about half since its record high, said it expects to have more flower and oil varieties available “soon.” “We have received an unusually high volume of orders on Tilray medical cannabis products this month. In anticipation of a potential stock-out of whole flower, we proactively informed patients of this temporary supply interruption which resulted in an additional high volume of orders on oil and capsule varieties, as well,” said Tilray spokeswoman Chrissy Roebuck. CannTrust, which was also out of flower for medical patients as of Friday, told VICE it is “working hard to fix this urgently” and had increased the number of third-party testing labs it works with in order to restock more quickly. Wyonch told VICE the supply shortage amounts to part of the growing pains of legalization. In the meantime, she said it will take years to eliminate the black market—one of the primary goals the government has cited for legalization cannabis. “LPs basically need to grow as much weed as possible,” and the government shouldn’t stand in their way, she said. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily. Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gye4v7/canada-may-not-have-enough-legal-weed-for-a-year

Drugs

Vice

2018-07-12 17:24:00

2018

7.0

12

Jordan Pearson

Canadian Telecoms Make the Most Money on Mobile Data in the World

Unfortunately for Canadians, the evidence just keeps piling up that compared to the rest of the world, they’re getting a raw deal on data. Canadians have some of the lowest mobile data usage in the world, and the slowest uptake for data usage—but telecoms in the country make the highest profits for data plans, according to a new report. Telecom analysis firm Tefficient looked at data usage per SIM card (i.e., per individual phone) across 36 countries in 2017 and found that people in just five countries use less data than Canadians: Greece, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. Canadians on average used just 1.3 GB of mobile data per month in 2017. Even worse, data usage in Canada grew just six percent last year—the lowest rate of growth in the world, according to Tefficient’s report. US operators also extract a high rate of profit per gigabyte used, but less than Canadian telecoms, according to the report. Americans also used more data per month: 3.3 GB on average. Countries where telecoms made less revenue per gigabyte of mobile data had more mobile data usage and higher uptake—telecoms in India, for example, made the lowest revenue per gigabyte and the country had a 300 percent growth in data usage last year. According to Tefficient, telecoms in Canada make 35 times more profit on data than Indian telecoms. A winning strategy for telecoms is to be more generous with data plans and accept a mid-range of revenue per gigabyte of data used, the report suggests. But that’s unlikely to happen. Canada’s telecom industry is notoriously moribund, with just three established players making up a kind of oligopoly that account for the vast majority of mobile subscriptions in the country—Rogers, Bell Canada, and Telus. It’s one of Canada’s many curious ironies that a company headquartered in Toronto runs a successful affordable mobile phone service in the US—Ting by Tucows—but has thus far been unable to operate in its home country. When reached for comment, spokespeople for Rogers and Bell Canada directed Motherboard to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Organization. "The report make comparisons using data from different sources that use different methodologies," said a CTWO spokesperson. "This calls into question its conclusions, which appear to understate data usage and overstate revenues per GB in Canada, but it is also important to note when speaking about revenues, according to the OECD, Canada leads among all G7 countries in investment as a percentage of revenue and is the fourth highest among all OECD nations." Spokespeople for Telus were not immediately available. It’s this lack of choice, and the high prices Canadians pay for data, that makes hating on telecoms a third national sport behind hockey and lacrosse. This story has been updated to include a comment from CTWO. Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xq934/canadian-telecoms-make-the-most-money-on-mobile-data-in-the-world

Tech by VICE

Vice

2017-10-17 22:23:55

2017

10.0

17

Kurt Wagner

Twitter’s new user rules crack down on nudity and ‘unwanted sexual advances’

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey promised on Friday that the company would soon implement sweeping changes to better protect users from abuse and harassment. We now know what some of those changes are. In an email sent to Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, the company outlined a few policy updates that will be “rolling out in the weeks ahead.” Among them: A tougher stance on “non-consensual nudity,” or images or videos shared without the subject’s permission. Twitter has issued a broader definition of “non-consensual nudity” — it now includes “upskirt imagery, “creep shots” and hidden camera content” — plus harsher penalties for those who share this content. Instead of a temporary account suspension, first-time offenders will be permanently suspended. Twitter is also making it easier for people to report what it calls “unwanted sexual advances.” Previously, an unwanted sexual advance had to be reported by users directly involved in the situation. Soon, Twitter bystanders will also be able to report this kind of behavior. There are still a lot of other issues Twitter needs to work out. Under categories like “hate symbols,” “violent groups” and “tweets that glorify violence,” Twitter just includes a simple sentence: “More details to come.” Twitter has been dealing with abuse on its platform for years. Many believe that it’s the company’s biggest issue. Dorsey’s pledge to revamp Twitter’s user guidelines came after some users boycotted Twitter for suspending actress Rose McGowan, who was speaking out against film producer and alleged sexual predator Harvey Weinstein. “Today we saw voices silencing themselves and voices speaking out because we’re *still* not doing enough,” Dorsey tweeted. “We decided to take a more aggressive stance in our rules and how we enforce them.” A Twitter rep said the company plans to unveil more details about the updated guidelines soon. The changes outlined in the email are not final and could still change, but Twitter is clearly cracking down. Here’s the email in full. It was first reported by Wired. Dear Trust & Safety Council members, I’d like to follow up on Jack’s Friday night Tweetstorm about upcoming policy and enforcement changes. Some of these have already been discussed with you via previous conversations about the Twitter Rules update. Others are the result of internal conversations that we had throughout last week. Here’s some more information about the policies Jack mentioned as well as a few other updates that we’ll be rolling out in the weeks ahead. Non-consensual nudity Current approach * We treat people who are the original, malicious posters of non-consensual nudity the same as we do people who may unknowingly Tweet the content. In both instances, people are required to delete the Tweet(s) in question and are temporarily locked out of their accounts. They are permanently suspended if they post non-consensual nudity again. Updated approach * We will immediately and permanently suspend any account we identify as the original poster/source of non-consensual nudity and/or if a user makes it clear they are intentionally posting said content to harass their target. * We will do a full account review whenever we receive a Tweet-level report about non-consensual nudity. If the account appears to be dedicated to posting non-consensual nudity then we will suspend the entire account immediately. * Our definition of “non-consensual nudity” is expanding to more broadly include content like upskirt imagery, “creep shots,” and hidden camera content. Given that people appearing in this content often do not know the material exists, we will not require a report from a target in order to remove it. While we recognize there’s an entire genre of pornography dedicated to this type of content, it’s nearly impossible for us to distinguish when this content may/may not have been produced and distributed consensually. We would rather error on the side of protecting victims and removing this type of content when we become aware of it. Unwanted sexual advances Current approach * Pornographic content is generally permitted on Twitter, and it’s challenging to know whether or not sexually charged conversations and/or the exchange of sexual media may be wanted. To help infer whether or not a conversation is consensual, we currently rely on and take enforcement action only if/when we receive a report from a participant in the conversation. Updated approach * We are going to update the Twitter Rules to make it clear that this type of behavior is unacceptable. We will continue taking enforcement action when we receive a report from someone directly involved in the conversation. Once our improvements to bystander reporting go live, we will also leverage past interaction signals (eg things like block, mute, etc) to help determine whether something may be unwanted and action the content accordingly. Hate symbols and imagery (new) * We are still defining the exact scope of what will be covered by this policy. At a high level, hateful imagery, hate symbols, etc will now be considered sensitive media (similar to how we handle and enforce adult content and graphic violence). * More details to come. Violent groups (new) * We are still defining the exact scope of what will be covered by this policy. At a high level, we will take enforcement action against organizations that use/have historically used violence as a means to advance their cause. * More details to come here as well (including insight into the factors we will consider to identify such groups). Tweets that glorify violence (new) * We already take enforcement action against direct violent threats (“I’m going to kill you”), vague violent threats (“Someone should kill you”) and wishes/hopes of serious physical harm, death, or disease (“I hope someone kills you”). Moving forward, we will also take action against content that glorifies (“Praise be to <terrorist name> for shooting up <event>. He’s a hero!”) and/or condones (“Murdering <x group of people> makes sense. That way they won’t be a drain on social services”). * More details to come. We realize that a more aggressive policy and enforcement approach will result in the removal of more content from our service. We are comfortable making this decision, assuming that we will only be removing abusive content that violates our Rules. To help ensure this is the case, our product and operational teams will be investing heavily in improving our appeals process and turnaround times for their reviews. In addition to launching new policies, updating enforcement processes and improving our appeals process, we have to do a better job explaining our policies and setting expectations for acceptable behavior on our service. In the coming weeks, we will be: * updating the Twitter Rules as we previously discussed (+ adding in these new policies) * updating the Twitter media policy to explain what we consider to be adult content, graphic violence, and hate symbols. * launching a standalone Help Center page to explain the factors we consider when making enforcement decisions and describe our range of enforcement options * launching new policy-specific Help Center pages to describe each policy in greater detail, provide examples of what crosses the line, and set expectations for enforcement consequences * Updating outbound language to people who violate our policies (what we say when accounts are locked, suspended, appealed, etc). We have a lot of work ahead of us and will definitely be turning to you all for guidance in the weeks ahead. We will do our best to keep you looped in on our progress. All the best, Head of Safety Policy This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2017/10/17/16492234/twitter-user-guidelines-update-nudity-harassment

Vox

2016-03-16 14:50:03

2016

3.0

16

Dara Lind

Trump delegates in Illinois with “Muslim-sounding” names didn’t do as well as white ones

Donald Trump won the Illinois primary last night. But he didn't get as many delegates as he could have — and it might be because his supporters were averse to voting for people with the last names Sadiq and Fakroddin. Raja Sadiq and Nabi Fakroddin both ran as delegates for Trump in Trump-friendly districts. And because of Illinois's strange voting rules, both their names were on the ballot as well as Trump's. But while Trump carried both districts Tuesday, both Sadiq and Fakroddin got many fewer votes than other delegates (with European-sounding names) running under the Trump banner. And in Fakroddin's case, at least, it kept him — and the Trump campaign — from winning a delegate slot. We don't know the exact reason for Sadiq and Fakroddin's underperformance, which was first noticed by elections analyst Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. And it's unlikely to alter the fate of the 2016 election — it looks like it only swayed the result in one race, keeping Fakroddin from winning a slot at the convention alongside the other two Trump delegates in his district. But if it's true that Trump voters allowed anti-Muslim sentiment to override their loyalty to the candidate, that's a bad sign for the Trump campaign — a sign that it still might not understand or be able to control the Islamophobia it's unleashed. To understand how this happened, you need to understand how the Illinois GOP primaries work. In most primaries, voters vote directly for a candidate. Then if the candidate receives enough votes, delegates who are pledged to that candidate are selected to go to the party convention. In Illinois, it's a little different. Fewer than a quarter of the state's delegates are assigned to whichever candidate gets the most statewide votes. For the rest, voters vote directly for delegates themselves. Each presidential campaign runs a slate of delegates pledged to that candidate in each congressional district. Each delegate is listed on the ballot alongside the name of the candidate he or she is pledged to, and voters pick a certain number of delegates from each district (usually three). So a voter yesterday who liked both Donald Trump and John Kasich could vote for two of Trump's delegates and one of Kasich's. As it turns out, plenty of congressional districts split their delegates. According to the Green Papers, Trump swept the delegate slots in nine districts (out of 18), and Ted Cruz and Kasich each swept 1. But in the other seven districts, voters selected two delegates from one campaign and one delegate from another. So split-ticket voting isn't that unusual. But there's still reason to believe something weird happened with the two Trump delegates with "Muslim-sounding" names. Here's why. Nabi Fakroddin has some history in Illinois state politics. He was appointed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner to the Illinois Human Rights Commission; he was also on the Regional Transit Authority but had to resign rather than serving on both commissions at once. He ran as a Trump delegate in Illinois's sixth congressional district, in the western suburbs of Chicago. But he only got about five votes for every six that the other two Trump-pledged delegates received. And that was enough to cost him the third delegate slot in the district: In the 13th congressional district, which includes Champaign, the split is a little less clear. Only one of Trump's delegates cracked the top three there; neither Raja Sadiq, who's a family physician and longtime Republican donor, nor fellow Trump delegate Toni Gauen made the cut. But the gap between Gauen, in fifth place, and Sadiq in sixth was as big as the gap between the first-place Trump delegate and Gauen. Sadiq only got 85 percent of the vote total Gauen got, and only 75 percent of the votes that leading Trump delegate Doug Hartmann got. We genuinely do not know why Sadiq and Fakroddin got fewer votes than their fellow Trump delegates. The only evidence we have that they were discriminated against because of their names is, well, the names themselves — and the vote totals. But in a primary where two-thirds of Republican voters said that Muslims should be banned from entering the US — a policy position first advanced by Donald Trump — Islamophobia is definitely running high. And there is at least a possibility that the fears of Muslims that Trump's campaign has helped stoke are powerful enough, at least in some fraction of Trump supporters, that even seeing the name "Trump" next to a name that sounds foreign isn't enough to win those voters' support.

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11244884/trump-delegates-muslim-fakroddin

Vox

2017-01-10 00:00:00

2017

1.0

10

Matt Stromberg

ArtRx LA

This week, a group show questions the concept of masculinity, a store selling thousands of copies of Jerry Maguire opens, Regen Projects hosts a conversation between artist Theaster Gates and curator Hamza Walker, and more. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads When: Opens Tuesday, January 10, 6–8pm Where: Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art (5885 Haven Ave, Rancho Cucamonga, California) Once considered strictly binary, more and more gender is being seen as a fluid spectrum that can be constructed from within instead of being imposed from without. The 12 artists included in Man Up! Masculinity in Question explore the relationship between masculinity and behavior, identity, sexuality, and biology. Curated by Roman Stollenwerk, the exhibition features Cassils, Marshall Astor, Pilar Gallego, Amy Elkins, and others. When: Thursday, January 12–Sunday, January 15 Where: The REEF/LA Mart (1933 Broadway, Downtown, Los Angeles) Photo LA returns to the REEF this week for the 26th edition of this annual photographic art fair. In addition to the 39 exhibitors showing a diverse range of photography, there will be installations that look back at the history of photography or highlight work that expands the boundaries of the medium. Tickets are between $20-$35 ($15-$20 for seniors and students), or $80-$100 for the opening night gala. When: Friday, January 13 & Saturday, January 14, 8pm nightly Where: Night Gallery (2276 East 16th Street, Downtown, Los Angeles) The name Rosé Porn might conjure images of soft-focus, softcore, afternoon erotica, but it is actually a multi-faceted performance “that exists somewhere at the interstices of dance, cinema, installation, merchandising, music, and environmental design.” A collaboration between Toronto-based choreographer Zoja Smutny and artist Victoria Cheong, the piece creates an environment where audience members can remain spectators, or interact on a more actively engaged level. When: Opens Friday, January 13, 7pm–midnight Where: Iam8bit (2147 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, Los Angeles) For the past eight years, the pop-culture obsessed members behind Everything is Terrible! have been amassing the world’s largest collection of Jerry Maguire VHS tapes, currently numbering about 14,000. Their dream is to build a pyramid in the desert to house this tribute to obsolete entertainment, but they need your help. This Friday, the Jerry Maguire Video Store begins a two-week run, offering nothing but JM tapes. They will also be hosting a series of performances to raise money for the project. The opening party featuring Rainbow Jail is free, but please register. When: Opens Saturday, January 14, 7–10pm Where: New Image Art Gallery (7920 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, California) Well before Coachella became synonymous with flower-crown wearing music festival attendees, local artistic group the Date Farmers were capturing the visual aesthetic of their desert hometown. Their layered artworks combined scavenged materials with a graphic street style, Catholic Mexican imagery, and hand-painted lettering, presenting a complex and fractured vision.  Complejo de Cristo y Vampiros, the first solo show from Carlos Ramirez, one half of this collaborative duo, opens on Saturday. When: Sunday, January 15, 2pm Where: Regen Projects (6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, Los Angeles) Theaster Gates’s upcoming solo exhibition, But to Be a Poor Race, takes its title from a passage in W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. In homage to the influential African-American sociologist and activist, Gates has created abstract, visual representations of Du Bois’s collections of data. A day after the exhibition opens, Regen Projects will be hosting a conversation between the Chicago-based artist and curator Hamza Walker, who was recently picked to be executive director of LAXArt after a long stint at Chicago’s Renaissance Society. RSVP is requested.

https://hyperallergic.com/350161/artrx-la-129/

Hyperallergic

2018-06-29 00:00:00

2018

6.0

29

Christine Murray, Stefanie Eschenbacher

Anti-corruption watchdogs wonder: 'Who is funding Mexico's presidential candidates?'

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s three leading presidential candidates have not declared a single peso in direct private financial contributions to their election campaigns, federal records show, raising concerns from corruption watchdogs about the potential influence of dark money in a pivotal contest. Candidates from Mexico’s three main political parties said they have relied almost exclusively on money from their parties, which is overwhelmingly public, to bankroll their campaigns, a total of more than 634 million pesos ($32.1 million). That is according to the most recent declarations they have filed with the National Electoral Institute, known as INE. Mexicans head to the polls on July 1 to elect their next president in what has been a highly anticipated and hard-fought contest. According to the candidates’ filings, not one of the country’s nearly 90 million registered voters made a monetary contribution directly to their campaigns, and just 70 people have given a total of around 1.4 million pesos ($70,897) of in-kind goods or services. By law, Mexican parties must rely on public funding for the majority of their financing. Private donations are tightly regulated and have never played an important role in modern campaigns – at least not the modest sums typically declared to federal election authorities. In reality, large, clandestine contributions and illegal vote buying have factored into Mexican elections for decades, corruption watchdogs say. The latest figures reported to INE strain credibility and underscore the difficulty of cleaning up Mexico’s campaign finance system, said Max Kaiser, an authority on anti-graft initiatives at the nonprofit Mexican Institute for Competitiveness. “Until we stop this cycle, we won’t be able to control corruption in Mexico,” Kaiser said. The presidential campaigns of Jose Antonio Meade, candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, and Ricardo Anaya of the National Action Party or PAN, both said their public funding was sufficient, so they did not need private money. Representatives for the two candidates said there has been no under-reporting of private donations or campaign spending. A representative for the frontrunner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, running for the MORENA Party, did not respond to a request for comment. (Meet Mexico's 2018 presidential candidates: tmsnrt.rs/2MVhfjA) The federal election agency INE regulates campaign finance. INE board member Ciro Murayama said he found nothing unusual in the candidates’ declarations that they have not taken any private money. “If someone doesn’t believe it, they have to demonstrate it,” Murayama said in an interview. “If someone thinks something, the burden of proof is on that person.” But Luis Carlos Ugalde, a former president of INE, acknowledged that Mexico’s strict limits on private donations are easily evaded by contributors seeking influence. “The campaign (spending) limits are not respected” Ugalde said. “Private donors prefer to give without reporting it to buy access.” In Mexico’s 2012 federal elections, less than three percent of campaign financing came from private donors, according to a document on INE’s website. In the current election cycle, presidential candidates affiliated with parties are allowed to spend up to 429.6 million pesos ($21.8 million) during the campaign. The government tightened campaign finance laws in 2007 following a contentious presidential race. A 2014 reform aimed to improve transparency and toughen penalties, including giving an electoral tribunal authority to annul the results of an election if the winner was found to have spent beyond the limits. Still, doubts abound over the agency’s capacity to monitor illegal money. For every one peso declared in campaign spending, at least 15 pesos more go unreported, nonprofit Mexicanos Contra la Corruption estimated earlier this year. In a poll released this week, more than a third of Mexicans surveyed said political parties had tried to buy their votes for a 2018 election, whether federal or local, according to the nonprofit Citizen’s Action Front Against Poverty. A businessman linked to a massive corruption scandal involving Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA testified in 2016 to Brazilian prosecutors that the construction giant had channeled millions of dollars to a senior campaign official of Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico’s current president and a member of the PRI. Pena Nieto has repeatedly denied the allegations. Under Mexican law he is limited to a single, six-year term. Mexico’s Attorney General said in 2017 that it would investigate the allegations. The probe is ongoing. INE recently sanctioned an independent presidential candidate, Jaime Rodriguez, for financing irregularities. Rodriguez, who was fined 739,000 pesos ($37,423), denied wrongdoing and said the fine was unjust. He has raised 8.1 million pesos ($410,984) for his campaign, all through private contributions. Marco Fernandez, a professor at the government school at the Tec de Monterrey university, said INE’s action showed it was becoming more sophisticated at rooting out campaign finance violations. But he said the generally small fines and lack of consequences for candidates with parties or their donors were not much of a deterrent. “Unfortunately, so far, electoral lies are still very cheap,” Fernandez said. (This version of the story corrects paragraph 17 to clarify that an electoral tribunal, not INE, has the power to annul elections.) Reporting by Christine Murray and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Additional reporting by Sheky Espejo and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Marla Dickerson

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-election-financing/anti-corruption-watchdogs-wonder-who-is-funding-mexicos-presidential-candidates-idUSKBN1JP0GG

World News

Reuters

2016-06-16 00:00:00

2016

6.0

16

VICE News and Reuters

Islamic State is committing genocide against Yazidis, UN investigation says – VICE News

Islamic State is attempting to destroy the Yazidi population in Syria and Iraq through killings, sexual slavery, and other crimes, acts that United Nations investigators say amount to the crime of genocide being committed by the militants against the ethno-religious group of 400,000 people. The genocide accusations were made in a UN report released on Thursday based on interviews with dozens of survivors. The report found that the Islamist militants had been systematically capturing Yazidis in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, seeking to "erase their identity" in a campaign that met the definition of the crime as defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention. "The genocide of the Yazidis is ongoing," the report said. Commission member Vitit Muntarbhorn said they had obtained "detailed information on places, violations and names of the perpetrators," and had begun sharing information with some national authorities who are prosecuting foreign fighters. Speaking at a news briefing on Thursday, Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the commission of inquiry called for more action. Islamic State is attempting to destroy the Yazidi population in Syria and Iraq through killings, sexual slavery, and other crimes, acts that United Nations investigators say amount to the crime of genocide being committed by the militants against the ethno-religious group of 400,000 people. The genocide accusations were made in a UN report released on Thursday based on interviews with dozens of survivors. The report found that the Islamist militants had been systematically capturing Yazidis in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, seeking to "erase their identity" in a campaign that met the definition of the crime as defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention. "The genocide of the Yazidis is ongoing," the report said. Commission member Vitit Muntarbhorn said they had obtained "detailed information on places, violations and names of the perpetrators," and had begun sharing information with some national authorities who are prosecuting foreign fighters. Speaking at a news briefing on Thursday, Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the commission of inquiry called for more action. "The crime of genocide must trigger much more assertive action at the political level, including at the Security Council," Pinheiro said. The four independent commissioners behind the investigation also urged major powers to rescue at least 3,200 women and children still held by Islamic State (ISIS) and to refer the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution. "ISIS made no secret of its intent to destroy the Yazidis of Sinjar, and that is one of the elements that allowed us to conclude their actions amount to genocide," said another investigator, Carla del Ponte. "Of course, we regard that as a road map for prosecution, for future prosecution." The Yazidis are a religious sect whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Islamic State, which aims to set up a theocratic caliphate in Syria and Iraq based on a radical interpretation of Sunni Islam, systematically killed, captured or enslaved thousands of Yazidis when it overran the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq in August 2014. Several mass graves have since been uncovered. The militant group tried to erase the Yazidis' identity by forcing men to choose between conversion to Islam and death, raping girls as young as nine, selling women at slave markets, and drafting boys to fight, the report said. "No other religious group present in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq has been subjected to the destruction that the Yazidis have suffered," the report said. "The scale of atrocities committed, their general nature, and the fact of deliberately and systematically targeting victims on account of their membership in a particular group, while excluding members of other groups, were other factors from which the Commission was able to infer genocidal intent." Follow VICE News on Twitter: @vicenews

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/3kwe3v/islamic-state-is-committing-genocide-against-yazidis-in-its-attempt-to-destroy-the-population-un-investigation-says

Vice News

2016-07-21 12:00:03

2016

7.0

21

Andrew Binns

The social soapbox: Democrats will embrace visual platforms at the 2016 Convention

In 2008, a relatively unknown young U.S. senator running for president fundamentally changed political campaigns in this country. Barack Obama’s election in 2008, as the first social media president, marked the moment at which political campaigning began the significant shift from the television to the digital age. Social media platforms have since become the modern-day soapbox, providing new channels through which candidates and parties engage with voters. For evidence of the digital revolution, just follow the money. In the 2012 election cycle, political campaigns spent $159 million on digital media. In 2016, that figure is expected to top $1 billion. However, campaigns still largely use social media like they use television — by talking to the voters rather than with them. The 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia will change that in a way that should make every party, candidate and campaign manager sit up and take notice. Barack Obama’s election in 2008, as the first social media president, marked the moment at which political campaigning began the significant shift from the television to the digital age. This year, the Democratic National Convention will bring supporters into the conversation and tell the story of this historic event through the eyes of the attendees. Understanding that communication in this digital age is becoming increasingly visual, the convention will take the images captured by attendees and connect those images to other relevant information that supporters may be on the lookout for. Layering in this information and making all of these images "intelligent" will transform each image into an opportunity to engage supporters beyond the convention hall and lead them to information and action like never before. What’s more, the convention will track the performance of each image, and use that data to guide decisions about messaging. To do this, the convention will partner with Curalate, a marketing technology company that works with leading brands, as the convention understands the power this technology can provide to its platform and audience. The most innovative consumer brands in the world understand that discovery of their products increasingly happens visually through images and videos. The same is becoming true of how voters consume information about political parties and campaigns as visual platforms begin to dominate social media. While it’s highly likely that the dominant digital platform in the 2020 presidential election is still in the wireframing stage, you can bet that it will be based on visual content. Instagram didn’t even exist when President Obama took office — now it has half a billion users, up more than 600 percent since 2012. Snapchat currently boasts 150 million daily users and 10 billion videos viewed every day. And while it’s highly likely that the dominant digital platform in the 2020 presidential election is still in the wireframing stage, you can bet that it’ll be based on visual content. In 2016, voters will discover information about candidates and parties online through imagery to a greater extent than ever before. By using the latest technology and data available to consumer brands, the Democratic National Convention will be the most digitally engaged political event in history, and will demonstrate its commitment to innovation and to creating more compelling experiences for supporters. By taking full advantage of technology partners like Curalate, the convention will reach more people with more compelling, relevant content, and will transform a fleeting moment of discovery — when a person sees an image — into an opportunity, offering them more information and engaging them, welcoming them to join the whole country in the biggest conversation of the year. Andrew Binns is the chief innovation officer of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, which will be held July 25-28 in Philadelphia. Reach him @binns. Apu Gupta is the co-founder and CEO of Curalate, a leading marketing technology company and official technology provider to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Reach him @apugupta. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12241128/the-social-soapbox-democrats-will-embrace-visual-platforms-at-the-2016-convention

Vox

2017-12-02 15:00:02

2017

12.0

2

Alex Ward

Michael Flynn’s plea deal leaves Trump with two bleak options

Michael Flynn’s plea deal with prosecutors in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is a watershed moment for President Donald Trump — one that leaves him with two choices, each with clear risks. Flynn, who was Trump’s national security adviser for 24 days and was also a top campaign adviser, has admitted to lying to the FBI about two of his conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016. But here’s the kicker: Flynn told investigators that “a very senior member” of Trump’s presidential transition team told him to make contact with Russian government officials — in other words, he’s now claiming he was just following orders when he went to talk to the Russians. Which means that Flynn’s plea deal and cooperation with the Mueller investigation could potentially implicate senior members of Trump’s inner circle, or even the president himself, in at the very least some questionable behavior. Indeed, reports have suggested that Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner may have been one of the senior officials of the transition team who directed Flynn to speak to the Russians. So at this point, Trump has two options for how to respond to all of this: try to make it all go away, or just try to minimize the potential damage. In other words: betray Flynn or fire Mueller. Betraying Flynn seems like the better option, even though it will lead to weeks of reports about the hypocrisy and outright lies of the Trump administration. But that seems far more preferable — and less risky — to firing Mueller, which could spark a massive political and constitutional crisis. Trump could try to downplay the significance of Flynn’s plea deal, saying that it still doesn’t implicate him or other members of his campaign. He could also try to downplay Flynn’s role in his campaign, making it seem like Flynn wasn’t an important figure during the election and that any interactions he had with Russians wouldn’t have come from the top. Early indications suggest that this may be the strategy the president’s lawyers are pursuing. Top White House lawyer Ty Cobb said in a statement shortly after the announcement of the plea deal that “[n]othing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn.” That may be true for now. But the fact that Flynn is cooperating with the investigation means he could potentially give Mueller’s team information that does implicate other people in the Trump orbit. And trying to downplay Flynn’s involvement in the campaign would be a hard sell. Flynn, a former three-star general and Obama administration intelligence official, joined the campaign in February 2016 and immediately became a prominent campaign surrogate, offering Trump some credibility on foreign policy and national security affairs — two areas where Trump had no prior experience. He led chants of “Lock her up!” during the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016, referring to Hillary Clinton and the probe into her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. And on November 17, 2016, just nine days after the election, Trump named Flynn as his national security adviser. That made Flynn one of the most powerful people in Washington, with responsibilities for overseeing and coordinating America’s wars, intelligence gathering, and diplomacy. (Flynn resigned in February after lying to Vice President Mike Pence about the content of his conversations with Kislyak in December — the same conversations Flynn now admits to having lied to the FBI about in January.) Even once Flynn was gone, Trump still went to bat for him — going as far as asking then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn entirely. An assertion that Flynn wasn’t an important figure in the Trump inner circle would beggar belief. To be fair, Trump has no problem lying in general — especially to the press — and he’s no stranger to negative press coverage and shouts of hypocrisy. So throwing Flynn under the bus may actually be the safer option for him. But there’s a bleaker choice for Trump — firing Mueller — which could lead to a lot more trouble. The second option would be to fire Mueller in an attempt to end the probe altogether and prevent Mueller from using Flynn’s cooperation to build a case against the president, his family, or other top aides. Trump has mused about firing Mueller before, but held off, in part because senior lawmakers from both parties have warned him of serious and immediate consequences if he chose to do so. To many establishment Republicans, the prospect that Trump would fire Mueller is unimaginable. “I cannot possibly imagine the president terminating Bob Mueller,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said in June. “It just cannot happen.” But now that Flynn is cooperating with the special counsel, Trump might decide it’s worth the risk to let Mueller go — which could lead to outcries on Capitol Hill, even from Republicans. There’s another potential problem for Trump, though: Getting rid of Mueller might not actually be as easy as it sounds. That’s because Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told Congress back in June that he interpreted the special counsel regulation to mean that he (Rosenstein) is the only person in government with the authority to fire Mueller — not the president. And he said that he would only fire Mueller for “good cause,” and would refuse to carry out an order from the president to fire Mueller if good cause were not established. It’s doubtful that Rosenstein would consider Trump not wanting himself, his family, or his close aides to potentially be indicted on criminal charges to be “good cause,” and would thus refuse to fire Mueller. Which means Trump would have to fire Rosenstein — and perhaps several more Justice Department officials — until he found one willing to carry out his order. That could get very, very messy — and potentially provoke a constitutional crisis. Here’s why: Throughout the entire process, Trump would purposely be trying to kill an investigation that could charge him, his family members, or his close associates with crimes. That would mean he was putting his personal interests above the law — and no president is above the law. It would be a blatant attempt at a cover-up. Senators on both sides of the aisle, including Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE), have proposed a bill to protect Mueller and avoid such a scenario. Explaining his proposed bill, Tillis told CNN in August, "The President would maintain the power to remove the special counsel, but we would just want to make sure that it had merit and have that back-end judicial process.” “And if there is a termination, we just want to make sure, through judicial review, that it was warranted,” he added. Congress has yet to pass that bill, though, which means that Trump could still fire Mueller and potentially provoke a showdown with the Justice Department. That’s why Coons seems adamant that he will continue to push his bill. “It’s now more important than ever that Special Counsel Mueller is able to continue his investigation without interference, and I am continuing to work on bipartisan legislation to protect the special counsel from being fired without cause,” Coons said in a statement on Friday.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/12/2/16724016/flynn-trump-fbi-mueller-russia-deal

Vox

2017-04-04 16:53:00

2017

4.0

4

Kyle Cantlon

NHLPA Blasts League Over Decision to Skip 2018 Olympics

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada. The NHL's polarizing decision to skip out on the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea on Monday has been met with disappointment and anger by many players across the league, including some of its biggest stars. In a statement released by the league's owners, with commissioner Gary Bettman calling the matter "officially closed" on Tuesday, the NHL essentially directed most of the blame toward the IOC and NHLPA for not offering concessions that would make it worthwhile for the league to shut down for 17 days in the middle of its season next February. In response, the Players Association released a statement of its own on Monday night, leading off with a line that read, "The players are extraordinarily disappointed and adamantly disagree with the NHL's shortsighted decision to not continue our participation in the Olympics." Here's the rest of the statement: Any sort of inconvenience the Olympics may cause to next season's schedule is a small price to pay compared to the opportunity to showcase our game and our greatest players on this enormous international stage. A unique opportunity lies ahead with the 2018 and 2022 Olympics in Asia. The NHL may believe it is penalizing the IOC or the players, or both, for not giving the owners some meaningful concessions in order to induce them to agree to go to PyeongChang. Instead this impedes the growth of our great game by walking away from an opportunity to reach sports fans worldwide. Moreover, it is doing so after the financial issues relating to insurance and transportation have been resolved with the IOC and IIHF. The League's efforts to blame others for its decision is as unfortunate as the decision itself. NHL players are patriotic and they do not take this lightly. A decent respect for the opinions of the players matters. This is the NHL's decision, and its alone. It is very unfortunate for the game, the players and millions of loyal hockey fans. Aside from the collective message from the NHLPA to the league, many coaches and players around the NHL commented individually on their disappointment in the NHL's decision to skip the premier international sporting event in the world during a time when the game is desperate to grow across the pond. Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock, who was Canada's bench boss for its last two consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2010 and 2014, said, ''I'm just going to tell you I'm disappointed.'' Future Hall of Fame goaltenders Carey Price, who backstopped Canada to a gold medal in 2014, and Henrik Lundqvist, who led Sweden to a gold in 2006, each chimed in to voice their disappointment with the league's choice to forgo the 2018 Games. ''It's beyond disappointing. It was one of the best experiences of my life and catapulted my career to the next level and things have been going pretty well since then,'' said Price. "I feel like we're short changing some of the younger players that haven't had that opportunity." Lundqvist, meanwhile, took to Twitter to voice his displeasure about the decision. Disappointing news, — Henrik Lundqvist (@HLundqvist30)April 3, 2017 Lundqvist's Swedish teammate, Henrik Zetterberg, commented on the matter in a postgame scrum after Monday's contest against Ottawa. "I haven't really seen the statement yet, but I'm not real surprised. They probably want something from us, as always," said Zetterberg. — Marc-Édouard Vlasic (@Vlasic44)April 3, 2017 Star Senators defenceman Erik Karlsson came swinging, too. .— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance)April 4, 2017 Team Canada and San Jose Sharks defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic simply tweeted out a cryptic photo (see above) of the OIympic rings right after the NHL's announcement, while eight-year NHL veteran Brandon Prust, who is now playing in the DEL in Germany, took a more direct approach and went right at the commissioner with his always-honest opinion. Way to ruin the sport of hockey even more Gary — Brandon Prust (@BrandonPrust8)April 3, 2017 The 2022 Games in China are likely still in play for the NHL. For fans of the game and some of its marquee players, though, that doesn't mean shit.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mgzmg3/nhlpa-blasts-league-over-decision-to-skip-2018-olympics

Sports

Vice

2016-02-23 19:10:02

2016

2.0

23

John Patty

The game theory behind Mitch McConnell's Supreme Court strategy

This post is part of Mischiefs of Faction, an independent political science blog featuring reflections on the party system. In the immediate wake of Justice Scalia's death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell very quickly announced that President Obama should not name Scalia's successor. A great deal of attention has been paid (including by the Onion) to the political posturing that has taken place in the hours and days since. Understandably, much of it focuses on what kind of nominee might actually be nominated and whether such a nominee would actually be confirmed. We're going to take a different tack and consider why McConnell so quickly tried to preempt a nominee in the first place. Formally, it is very easy for McConnell and his Republican colleagues to ensure that no Obama nominee would be confirmed (though the Democrats could make life difficult). Given this, then standard "gatekeeping'' logic (see here) implies that the GOP can only gain from at least seeing whom Obama would nominate: If Obama nominates an unacceptable nominee, the GOP senators can simply say no to whomever Obama nominates. Furthermore, withstanding the pressure to vote on an Obama nominee could help GOP incumbents signal their commitment to the conservative principles, such as gun rights, that Scalia stood for on the Court. This logic is laid out by one of us in "Signaling Through Obstruction" (ungated version). However, from a strategic standpoint, McConnell might fear that 14 or more of his colleagues would not be willing to obstruct a moderate and well-qualified nominee. In fact, some senators might actually be willing to vote for a relatively liberal nominee because they fear being perceived as too conservative by moderate voters. This logic lies at the heart of the reaction described by Tim Groseclose and Nolan McCarty. The possibility of incumbents fearing the blame game is unusually important for McConnell this year because the GOP has 24 Senate incumbents up for reelection this year, and of the 12 competitive Senate races this year, 10 are for seats currently held by Republicans. Naturally, most of those competitive seats are in states where the electorate is relatively more moderate — places like Illinois (Mark Kirk), Missouri (Roy Blunt), North Carolina (Richard Burr), New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte), and Ohio (Rob Portman). Such incumbents might worry that obstruction would be too costly in terms of alienating independent voters in the general election. Indeed, see Kirk's op-ed from Monday, in which he wrote: I recognize the right of the president, be it Republican or Democrat, to place before the Senate a nominee for the Supreme Court and I fully expect and look forward to President Barack Obama advancing a nominee for the Senate to consider. Putting the "Signaling Through Obstruction" and "Blame Game" logics together creates a rich set of scenarios for McConnell, who is undoubtedly uncertain not only about how the electoral environments facing his 24 colleagues will unfold, but also about how these colleagues will behave as the election progresses. Accordingly, he may have a strong incentive to avoid forcing his colleagues to go "on the record" with either a vote on a Supreme Court nominee, or with being seen as complicit in obstructing one, particularly one who will likely be widely perceived as extremely qualified and politically moderate. After all, if there is no nominee to vote for or obstruct, voters cannot infer much, if anything, about their incumbents' stances from their actions. As has been well documented by political science research (see here and here for examples), senators are sensitive to opinion among their political base when voting on Supreme Court nominees. At the same time, well-qualified, moderate nominees tend to be broadly politically popular. In other words, the problem for McConnell is that if President Obama selects a well-qualified, politically moderate nominee, Republicans will have to decide whether to go on the record voting against the nominee, revealing themselves to be ideological extremists, or to support a political moderate, nominated by President Obama, potentially upsetting their political bases. In the context of a competitive election, the choice is then between the base and independents, both of which are necessary to win reelection in closely divided states. In line with all of this, and as one of us has pointed out in another post, there may be a strong interest among Democrats in keeping the nomination debate going as part of the election, whereas Republicans might have a distinct interest in ending the discussion (or at least hiding it from public discussion until after the election). Many have speculated that McConnell's reluctance is due to his hope that a future Republican president might nominate Justice Scalia's replacement. However, our logic suggests a different rationale. Given President Obama's relatively constrained political capital and the GOP's control of the Senate, this seems like a good opportunity for the Republicans to press Obama for a moderate nominee. However, that might be exactly what McConnell fears! McConnell's desire to preempt any Obama nominee is motivated by the fear that, when confronted by a nominee, his GOP colleagues will confront a Catch-22 in which, regardless of what they say or do, the GOP's prospects for maintaining control of the Senate in 2017 will be worsened. Scalia's passing rocked the political scene, and left Mitch McConnell in a very hard place indeed.

https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2016/2/23/11099096/mcconnell-preemptively-obstruct

Vox

2019-06-06 00:00:00

2019

6.0

6

Corina Pons, Mayela Armas

Venezuela loses $1.4 billion of gold to banks for guarantees: sources

CARACAS (Reuters) - Citibank and Deutsche Bank have taken control of around $1.4 billion of Venezuelan government gold, which they received as guarantees for loans, as a result of U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan Central Bank, according to five sources. Between 2014 and 2016 the central bank (BCV) used a portion of its foreign gold reserves to guarantee financial operations with banks to boost liquidity, with the intention of repaying the loans to avoid losing the gold. Five sources with knowledge of the deals said the BCV had agreed with Citibank and Deutsche Bank to buy back the gold in 2020 and 2021, but since the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the BCV in April the banks had invoked a condition of the contracts to retain ownership of the bars. Both banks had resolved that an “event of default” had occurred due to the sanctions, as established in agreements underpinning the gold swap deals, the sources said. Citibank took control of gold for around $400 million BCV was supposed to repay in 2020. For a separate guarantee Deutsch Bank took $1 billion, the sources said. Citibank and Deutsche Bank declined to comment, and the BCV did not respond to a request to comment. Reuters has not been able to review the gold swap contracts the BCV signed with the banks and it is not clear if the central bank could initiate legal proceedings to seek to regain control of the gold. Since 2017, the BCV has partially recovered some gold bars it used to guarantee the loans, at the same time as it began to sell dozens of tonnes of gold to Turkey and other Middle Eastern allies to earn vital foreign currency, according to the sources and official data. The BCV in 2018 had paid $172 million to Citibank to recover part of the gold it had put up as guarantee in a swap operation. In March of this year, the BCV was unable to pay $1.1 billion to Citibank via a repurchase agreement to recover part of the gold it gave to Citibank for a $1.6 billion loan, sources told Reuters at the time. The BCV was supposed to pay another $400 million in 2020 to Citibank under the agreement, but Citibank has now taken the gold instead. Both banks can now sell the Venezuelan gold to recover the value of the loans, and any money left over would be returned to Venezuela, the sources said. But under U.S. sanctions banks are restricted from carrying out any transactions with the BCV. Opposition leader Juan Guaido’s team has approached Citibank and Deutsche Bank to ask the banks to deposit a portion of the gold in accounts that President Nicolas Maduro’s government can not access, three sources said. Guaido, head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, in January invoked the constitution to assume a rival interim presidency, denouncing Maduro as illegitimate after he secured re-election last year in a vote widely considered fraudulent. Most Western nations recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader, while Maduro calls Guaido a coup-mongering U.S. puppet. Reporting by Corina Pons and Mayela Armas; Writing by Angus Berwick; Editing by Phil Berlowitz

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-gold/venezuela-loses-14-billion-of-gold-to-banks-for-guarantees-sources-idUSKCN1T72LU

Business News

Reuters

2018-08-06 00:00:00

2018

8.0

6

Tim Hume

A crackdown is underway after Venezuela’s president was attacked with exploding drones

Six people were arrested Sunday over an apparent assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro using explosive-laden drones. Analysts warn the arrests are likely to be just the start of a brutal crackdown in response to the embarrassing security breach. The socialist leader, who is presiding over an escalating economic and humanitarian crisis, was giving a speech at a military event in the capital Caracas Saturday evening when two DJI M600 drones, each carrying a kilogram of C-4 explosive, flew near his podium. The military knocked one drone off-course electronically, and the other crashed into a nearby apartment building, Interior Minister Nestor Luis Reverol said Sunday, describing it as a terrorist attack. Pandemonium broke out as the devices exploded, with bodyguards scrambling to cover Maduro with shields. Hundreds of soldiers gathered for the event ran for cover. Maduro’s government has blamed the attack on an international plot involving local militants, supported by Colombia’s outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos, and dissident networks based in Miami. Reverol said one of the six arrested had an outstanding warrant for an alleged role in an August 2017 attack on a military base in Valencia. Another had been previously arrested during anti-government protests in 2014. Six people were arrested Sunday over an apparent assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro using explosive-laden drones. Analysts warn the arrests are likely to be just the start of a brutal crackdown in response to the embarrassing security breach. The socialist leader, who is presiding over an escalating economic and humanitarian crisis, was giving a speech at a military event in the capital Caracas Saturday evening when two DJI M600 drones, each carrying a kilogram of C-4 explosive, flew near his podium. The military knocked one drone off-course electronically, and the other crashed into a nearby apartment building, Interior Minister Nestor Luis Reverol said Sunday, describing it as a terrorist attack. Pandemonium broke out as the devices exploded, with bodyguards scrambling to cover Maduro with shields. Hundreds of soldiers gathered for the event ran for cover. Maduro’s government has blamed the attack on an international plot involving local militants, supported by Colombia’s outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos, and dissident networks based in Miami. Reverol said one of the six arrested had an outstanding warrant for an alleged role in an August 2017 attack on a military base in Valencia. Another had been previously arrested during anti-government protests in 2014. An obscure group called the “Soldiers in T-shirts” claimed responsibility for the attack on social media, saying the military had shot down its drones. “We demonstrated that they are vulnerable. We didn’t have success today, but it’s just a question of time,” the group said. Colombia has denied any involvement in the plot, while U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said Sunday that if Venezuela had any hard information on a U.S. link to the attempted assassination, it should hand it over. Diego Moya-Ocampos, senior analyst for the Americas at IHS Country Risk, said it was difficult to independently verify who was behind the attack. But the embarrassing optics of the incident, which had highlighted the vulnerability of the government’s security apparatus, meant a hardline response from Maduro’s government was very likely. “We saw soldiers breaking rank, fleeing the scene, terrorized,” he told VICE News. “The government is highly likely to respond with a purge within the security apparatus, and probably stage a crackdown against opposition and union groups which have been staging protests in the past month.” He said little was known about the “Soldiers in T-shirts,” a group which had first announced its existence on social media during anti-government protests in 2014, and had later expressed support for Oscar Perez, a rogue police officer who commandeered a helicopter to launch an attack on government buildings last year. Perez and several of his associates were later killed in a gun battle after more than six months on the run. If the assassination attempt was indeed the work of a radical Venezuelan militant group, Moya-Ocampos said, the attack would show an increased capability of such cells, and make further attacks more likely, raising the risk of a low-level insurgency. Maduro, a former bus driver who sees himself as continuing the socialist revolution of his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, has faced growing opposition as the country struggles with crippling hyperinflation, and dire food and medicine shortages. He won re-election for another six-year term in May in a deeply-flawed vote which the opposition, whose top candidates were barred from running, decried as a farce. READ: Venezuelans continue their exodus after Maduro’s re-election “The government is increasingly shutting down any means of a peaceful democratic solution,” said Moya-Ocampos. “Because it’s impossible to push for a political or negotiated solution, opposition groups are turning to political violence as the only way to force regime change.” Cover image: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro delivers a speech during a ceremony to celebrate the 81st anniversary of the National Guard in Caracas on August 4, 2018 day in which Venezuela's controversial Constituent Assembly marks its first anniversary.(JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/ne548k/maduro-attacked-drones-assassination-venezuela

Vice News

2017-02-02 00:00:00

2017

2.0

2

Kevin Urgiles

See the massive anti-corruption protests that overtook Romania’s streets

See the massive anti-corruption protests that overtook Romania’s streets See the massive anti-corruption protests that overtook Romania’s streets Romania’s move to weaken corruption laws has prompted massive protests, with at least 250,000 people demonstrating across 50 towns on Wednesday. It was the country’s largest display of defiance since the fall of Communism in 1989. The government’s decree decriminalizes corruption involving less than the equivalent of $48,000. Government plans could also free officials jailed for corruption, as well as prisoners with short jail sentences. Romanian officials said their plans are meant to reduce prison overcrowding and update the criminal code. But critics of the leftist government led by Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said officials are trying to release their allies who were charged with corruption. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said Thursday he had filed a court challenge to declare the decree unconstitutional.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbzwq8/see-the-massive-anti-corruption-protests-that-overtook-romanias-streets

Vice News

2016-03-30 20:50:03

2016

3.0

30

Ezra Klein

The Clinton campaign's excuse for not debating Sanders is ridiculous

The Clinton campaign is saying that they won't agree to a debate with Bernie Sanders in New York because they're offended by Sanders's recent "tone." This is plainly ridiculous. The reason Clinton's people don't want a debate before the New York primary is there's no upside for them in a debate before the New York primary. Their polling, as of now, shows Clinton winning the state's massive delegate haul, and a debate would simply be an opportunity to screw that up. The problem is that their reasoning, though tactically correct, would strike people as rather less than sporting. So the Clinton campaign has come up with the argument that Sanders has somehow crossed a line with his negative campaigning. "They’re talking about running harsher negatives now," Joel Benenson, Clinton's pollster, complained to CNN. This is flatly absurd. The Democratic primary — including the debates — has been substantive and respectful. Sanders has, at times, bent over backward to run a positive race, as when he refused to hound Clinton over her emails. If any candidate has ever proven himself a fair and courteous adversary, it's Sanders. The mockery Sanders's supporters are throwing at Clinton is entirely merited. This is the Clinton campaign at its worst. The argument isn't just false, it also insults the intelligence of voters. The message is that debates are something Clinton graciously concedes to rather than participates in as part of the democratic process. And the whole effort baits and annoys the Sanders supporters whom Clinton ultimately needs to win over. Politics ain't beanbag. If the Clinton campaign doesn't want another debate, no one can force them into it. But if they didn't want another debate, they should have just said so, and offered some anodyne excuse like they wanted to spend more time campaigning in New York and less time campaigning on television. Trying to place the blame on Sanders for the fact that they are refusing to debate is just dirty, and it cheapens the tone of this race far more than anything the Sanders campaign has done recently.

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/30/11333606/clinton-sanders-debate

Vox

2019-06-20 00:00:00

2019

6.0

20

U.S. efforts to cut off Iran oil revenue working: White House adviser

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Thursday that United States efforts to cut off Iran’s oil export revenues through sanctions are succeeding. “What we’re trying to do here, which is succeeding, is to cut off their export revenues. They sell oil, they sell petrochemiclas, they sell iron and steel,” Navarro said in an interview with Fox News. “It’s certainly working - it’s working beautifully.” Reporting by David Alexander and Susan Heavey; Writing by Doina Chiacu

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-navarro/us-efforts-to-cut-off-iran-oil-revenue-working-white-house-adviser-idUSKCN1TL1QE

World News

Reuters

2017-10-06 14:41:00

2017

10.0

6

Noisey Staff

Lil Uzi Vert and Zaytoven Teamed Up for New, Bouncy Anthem, "A Lot"

Yesterday, Atlanta superstar producer Zaytoven released his new Where Would the Game Be Without Me 2 mixtape with DJ Drama. The tape is an 11-song collection of tracks Zay's produced for some of rap's biggest stars, including eight new cuts and three previously released jams like Future's "Feds Did a Sweep," Quavo's "Stars in the Ceiling," and Big Bank's "Don't Worry." Lil Uzi Vert's has a new track called "A Lot" on the project as well. The song has an easygoing bounce, complimented by Zay's mellow key strikes, while Uzi raps about the usual cars, jewelry, and cash. Where Would the Game Be Without Me 2 also has appearances from Ty Dolla $ign, Lil Yachty, and Shy Glizzy. Listen to "A Lot" below. Follow Noisey on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zm37ve/lil-uzi-vert-and-zaytoven-teamed-up-for-new-bouncy-anthem-a-lot

Noisey

Vice

2017-02-20 12:00:00

2017

2.0

20

Guy Fieri

BBQ Brisket

Servings: 8Prep: 20 minutesTotal: 1 hour 30 minutes for the brisket rub:2 tablespoons paprika2 tablespoons granulated garlic1 tablespoon granulated onion1 tablespoon chili powder½ teaspoon cayenne pepper1 tablespoon kosher salt2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper4 pounds second-cut (deckle) beef brisket, cut into 3 equal pieces for the BBQ sauce:2 cups low-sodium beef broth1 cup BBQ sauce, preferably Guy Fieri Bourbon Brown Sugar BBQ sauce1/2 cup ketchup¼ cup yellow mustard2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar1 teaspoon liquid smoke¼ teaspoon chili flakes2 tablespoons canola oil1 large yellow onion, sliced ½-inch thick1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into and ½-inch slices1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into ½-inch slices1 (12-ounce) bottle lager beer1/4 cup thinly bias-sliced scallions (white and light green parts) for garnishkosher salt, for finishing meat to serve:4 tablespoons melted butter1 garlic clove, minced8 brioche buns, halvedun peu de coleslaw de brocoli 1. To prepare the brisket rub, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl. Rub into and all over the brisket pieces. Wrap with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator on a tray for at least 2 hours and up to overnight. 2. To make the BBQ sauce, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and whisk well to combine. Cover and set aside. 3. To cook the brisket, heat the oil in a pressure cooker over medium-high heat until hot. Add the brisket pieces and cook for 6 to 7 minutes on each side until well browned. Add the onion and bell peppers to the pot and cook, stirring, until browned, 1 to 2 minutes. 4. Pour in the reserved sauce and the beer. Add enough water to just come three quarters of the way up the beef in the pot. Bring to a simmer. 5. Cover with the pressure cooker lid, and securely lock into place according to your pressure cooker's directions. Increase the heat to high and bring the cooker to high pressure; you can tell it's there by the steam escaping from the valve or a high pitched whistling noise. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 45 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary to maintain a steady, consistent pressure. 6. Remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let the pressure come down for 15 minutes. Carefully release any remaining gentle pressure by releasing the valve and letting the pot sand for 3 to 4 minutes. Unlock and remove the lid. 7. Using tongs, transfer the brisket to a plate and set aside. Place the pot with the braising liquid over high heat and simmer the sauce until reduced and slightly thickened. 8. Slice the brisket against the grain and sprinkle with salt. 9. To serve, heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high. In a small bowl, mix the butter with the garlic and brush on the inside of the buns. Toast the buns, flipping once, until golden, about 1 minute per side. Pile the brisket high on the inside of the bottom bun and drizzle with a little of the reduced BBQ sauce. Pile high with broccoli slaw and top with the top half of the bun. Make a large platter for the family or for on game day. From How-To: Make Quick BBQ Brisket with Guy Fieri

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jpk384/bbq-brisket

Food by VICE

Vice

2019-05-06 00:00:00

2019

5.0

6

Frank Pingue

Horse racing: Appeal over Kentucky Derby disqualification denied

(Reuters) - An appeal filed by the owner of Maximum Security, the horse that finished first in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday but was later disqualified for interference, was denied by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Monday. The appeal was filed by an attorney for Gary West, whose horse became the first winner to be disqualified for an on-track infraction. The racing commission called the request “moot” because the decision to disqualify Maximum Security and install second-placed Country House as winner was not subject to appeal. “The stewards unanimously disqualified Maximum Security following two objections lodged immediately after the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby and after a thorough review of the race replay,” the commission wrote in a letter. “That determination is not subject to an appeal.” After a 20-minute video review, officials found that Maximum Security, who was 4-1 favorite to win the 1-1/4 mile race, was guilty of a contact foul when he appeared to take a wide turn and impede other horses in the home stretch. The disqualification ruling handed the win to Country House, which had been a 65-1 long shot. West told NBC’s “Today” earlier on Monday that the dramatic turn on events at Churchill Downs left him “stunned, shocked and in total disbelief” and that his bay colt would not be in the field for the May 18 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of U.S. thoroughbred horse racing’s Triple Crown. “It was literally like the old TV show, ‘The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat’, all within a 22-minute period of time,” said West, who owns Maximum Security with his wife. “Winning it was the most euphoric thing I have probably ever had in our lives and disappointment when they took the horse down for the first time in history, we were stunned, shocked and in total disbelief. It had never been done before.” The decision even caught the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump, who said on Twitter the disqualification of Maximum Security could only happen in “these days of political correctness”. West said he did see Maximum Security, who led from nearly start to finish, move over several lanes but felt such contact was inevitable given the number of horses allowed to race in the Kentucky Derby, which usually features 20 horses but this year had 19 year after a late scratch. “Churchill Downs, because they’re a greedy organization, has (20 horses) rather than 14 like you have in the Kentucky Oaks, the Breeders’ Cup, every other race in America,” said West. “Just because they can make more money, they’re willing to risk horses’ lives and peoples’ lives to do that. I’m not a fan of that. I think they ought to have 14 like every other race.,” said West. “Yes I saw the horse move out, but every Kentucky Derby, you could sit down two or three or four horses if you wanted to, because it’s like a rodeo out there.” When asked for comment, Churchill Downs Racetrack President Kevin Flanery said in an email to Reuters that the infraction by Maximum Security had nothing to do with the number of horses in the race and that there is no evidence to the contrary. West said there would be no rematch with Country House when Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course hosts the Preakness Stakes. “We are not going to run The Preakness,” said West. “There’s no Triple Crown on the line for us, and no reason to run a horse back in two weeks when you don’t have to.” Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Additional reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Bill Trott, Ed Osmond and Pritha Sarkar

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-horseracing-kentucky/horse-racing-appeal-over-kentucky-derby-disqualification-denied-idUSKCN1SC18E

Sports News

Reuters

2019-06-10 00:00:00

2019

6.0

10

John Miller

Roche's $4.3 billion Spark bid delayed again amid U.S., UK scrutiny

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche’s $4.3 billion takeover of U.S. gene therapy specialist Spark Therapeutics has been pushed back again, possibly beyond the first half, as regulators continue to scrutinize the deal for its effect on competition. Roche said on Monday that both companies received a request for more information from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in connection with the FTC’s review of the deal, sending Spark shares down nearly 15% at $93 in premarket trading on Monday. Roche also said that the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation. Roche wants to buy Spark to, among other things, get a hold of U.S. firm’s experimental gene therapy for hemophilia A as well as its platform to develop other treatments for genetic diseases. But Roche has been forced to push back completion repeatedly, this time giving itself to July 31, beyond its self-imposed first-half deadline, to wrap things up. “The parties remain committed to the transaction and are working cooperatively and expeditiously with the FTC in connection with its review,” Roche said in a statement. The FTC has said it does not comment on cases it is reviewing. The British regulator’s separate inquiry is aimed at determining whether the CMA considers it has jurisdiction over Roche’s acquisition, and if so, whether it could hurt competition in Britain. “Pending the outcome of its investigation, the CMA has issued an Interim Enforcement Order that would become effective upon closing of the transaction and would require Roche to hold separate the Spark business,” Roche said. “The parties are working cooperatively with the CMA and will continue to do so.” Reporting by John Miller; Additional reporting by Tamara Mathias; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Anil D'Silva

https://www.reuters.com/article/sparktherapeutics-ma-roche/update-1-roches-43-bln-spark-bid-delayed-again-amid-us-uk-scrutiny-idUSL8N23H2O3

Business News

Reuters

2019-03-20 00:00:00

2019

3.0

20

David Gilbert

The Christchurch gunman was stopped from attacking a third target, police say

New Zealand police revealed Wednesday that the gunman who shot and killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch last Friday planned to attack a third target. “We strongly believe we stopped him on the way to a further attack, so lives were saved,” Commissioner Mike Bush told reporters at a press conference in Christchurch. The suspect, who has been charged with murder, attacked the Masjid Al Noor mosque near the center of the city, killing dozens of people, then got in his car and drove a few miles to the Linwood Islamic Centre. He was arrested soon after, but authorities say he would have continued his attack had he not been stopped. Bush declined to give further details about the location of the third target, or whether it was another mosque, so as not to “traumatize others.” The revelation came as the first victims of the atrocity were buried Wednesday. Khalid Mustafa, 44, and his 15-year-old son, Hamza Mustafa, who had arrived in New Zealand from Syria last year, were the first to be buried. New Zealand police revealed Wednesday that the gunman who shot and killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch last Friday planned to attack a third target. “We strongly believe we stopped him on the way to a further attack, so lives were saved,” Commissioner Mike Bush told reporters at a press conference in Christchurch. The suspect, who has been charged with murder, attacked the Masjid Al Noor mosque near the center of the city, killing dozens of people, then got in his car and drove a few miles to the Linwood Islamic Centre. He was arrested soon after, but authorities say he would have continued his attack had he not been stopped. Bush declined to give further details about the location of the third target, or whether it was another mosque, so as not to “traumatize others.” The revelation came as the first victims of the atrocity were buried Wednesday. Khalid Mustafa, 44, and his 15-year-old son, Hamza Mustafa, who had arrived in New Zealand from Syria last year, were the first to be buried. A boy of 3, born in New Zealand to Somali refugee parents, was also buried. READ: No one reported the Christchurch massacre while it was being live streamed However, families of some of the victims have voiced frustration at the delay in releasing the bodies. Postmortems have been completed on all 50 victims, but just 30 bodies have been released so far. There are still 29 people in the hospital as a result of injuries suffered in the attacks, with eight of them in critical condition. Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern said Wednesday she understood the frustration of the families given that Islamic funerals typically take place as soon as possible after death, but she added that she had “seen those who are working on this process as well and I can also acknowledge that they are working incredibly hard too.” Ardern announced that the country would hold a two-minute time of silence Friday to honor those who died in the attacks, and that the Islamic call to prayer would be broadcast on public TV and radio stations as a show of support for the Muslim community. The Al Noor mosque announced it would hold Friday prayers this week, one week after the gunman killed 42 people there. “We are going to prayer here on Friday,” Imam Gamal Fouda, the mosque’s religious leader, told the New Zealand Herald. “The majority of people, including myself, we decided to come and prayer close to our site. We will never forsake it to please those people who actually attacked us.” As New Zealand continues to mourn the worst terrorist attack in its history, terrorist organizations are seeking to use the attack to their advantage. Islamic State spokesperson Abu Hassan Al Muhajir issued a 44-minute speech Tuesday calling on supporters to seek revenge. “The scenes of the massacres in the two mosques should wake up those who were fooled, and should incite the supporters of the caliphate to avenge their religion,” he said. This was the first statement in six months from Al Muhajir, a recluse so secretive that no one knows what he looks like, highlighting the significance of the speech. Cover image: Mourners attend a funeral for a victim of the two mosque attacks at the Memorial Park cemetery in Christchurch on March 20, 2019. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/gya9e9/christchurch-gunman-third-target-police-mosque-attack

Vice News

2018-12-03 00:00:00

2018

12.0

3

Kanye West Apologizes For Bad Audience Etiquette at 'Cher Show'

7:29 PM PT -- Kanye clearly got the message, replying on Twitter, "The dynamics of Cher and Sonny’s relationship made Kim and I grab each other’s hand and sing 'I got you babe' please pardon my lack of etiquette. We have so much appreciation for the energy you guys put into making this master piece." A source close to Kanye tells us ... Kanye loved the production and was taking notes on his phone. He thought the show was so beautiful that, even though he and Kim were scheduled to leave during intermission, they pushed their flight back so they could catch the end of the show. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had a date night Monday in NYC to see the new show about Cher's life on Broadway ... but it ain't going so well, according to one cast member. "The Cher Show" is currently in the middle of its opening night ... and tons of celebs including Kim, Kanye and Cher herself are in attendance. However, cast member Jarrod Spector -- who plays Sonny in the show -- wasn't too pleased with Kanye's audience etiquette. Spector just tweeted, "Hey @kanyewest so cool that you're here! If you look up from your cell phone you'll see we're doing a show up here. It's opening night. Kind of a big deal for us. Thanks so much." Kim and Kanye clearly have prime seats in the theater for Spector to be able to call him out like that ... unclear if Ye's got the message yet ... but his mentions are definitely blowing up. Originally Published -- 5:28 PM PST

https://www.tmz.com/2018/12/03/kanye-west-kim-kardashian-the-cher-show-actor-jarrod-spector-broadway-phone/

TMZ

2019-02-26 00:00:00

2019

2.0

26

Rouhani believes Iran has only one foreign policy and one foreign minister: chief of staff

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stands behind Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who resigned on Monday night, Rouhani’s chief of staff said on Tuesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Rouhani has not officially accepted Zarif’s resignation, which he announced in an Instagram post. “The words of the president today in praising his foreign minister are a clear sign of the satisfaction of the representative of the people of Iran about the wise and effective positions and work of Dr. Zarif and a tough response to some biased and incorrect analyses,” Mahmoud Vaezi wrote in an Instagram post that included a picture of Rouhani and Zarif together. “In the view of Dr. Rouhani, the Islamic Republic of Iran has only one foreign policy and one foreign minister.” Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Kevin Liffey

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-zarif-resignation-vaezi/rouhani-believes-iran-has-only-one-foreign-policy-and-one-foreign-minister-chief-of-staff-idUSKCN1QF1LE

World News

Reuters

2016-05-26 00:00:00

2016

5.0

26

Mississippi governor to join suit against Obama transgender policy

(Reuters) - Mississippi’s Republican governor said on Thursday he planned to join a lawsuit by officials from 11 states to overturn an Obama administration directive that tells schools to let transgender students use bathrooms matching their gender identity. The lawsuit led by Texas, the most significant legal challenge to this month’s directive, said the federal government and Obama administration officials overreached their authority by taking actions that should be left to Congress or individual states. “Our office has talked to the Texas attorney general’s office and I intend, as soon as possible, to join the lawsuit against this latest example of federal overreach,” Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said in a statement. As with some of the other states, Mississippi’s governor and attorney general disagree on the suit, which challenges the administration’s interpretation that federal civil rights laws against sex discrimination should apply to transgender people. Mississippi’s attorney general, Democrat Jim Hood, declined to participate in the lawsuit, according to Clay Chandler, a spokesman for the governor. Chandler said Bryant will work with an attorney in the governor’s office in joining the lawsuit. Hood’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Amid a national debate on transgender rights, President Barack Obama’s administration on May 13 told U.S. public schools that transgender students should be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, upsetting Republicans and paving the way for fights over federal funding and legal authority. Texas was joined by Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, plus Arizona’s Department of Education and Maine’s governor. The lawsuit said the administration “conspired to turn workplace and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.” Transgender rights advocates criticized the suit as a malicious attack, saying there have never been public safety incidents or invasions of privacy related to protections for transgender people. “While the department will review the complaint, the federal government has strong legal foundations to uphold the civil rights of transgender Americans,” the Justice Department said in a statement on Wednesday. Reporting by Letitia Stein; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Will Dunham

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt/mississippi-governor-to-join-suit-against-obama-transgender-policy-idUSKCN0YH2E3

Politics

Reuters

2018-10-18 00:00:00

2018

10.0

18

Alexis Clements

Liliana Porter Shows How Everything Familiar Must Be Magnified or Forgotten

An exhibition at El Museo del Barrio brings us to the thorny side of profound themes like martyrdom and labor. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads After nearly a year of renovations, El Museo del Barrio has opened with a show that couldn’t be better suited to this moment: Liliana Porter: Other Situations. A traveling exhibition from the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, curated by their own Humberto Moro, the show features only 32 works, but they span Porter’s decades-long career and highlight the wry wit and incisive perspective of this artist who deserves more prominence in the US. From drawing, to prints and photographs, to sculptures, installations, and films, Porter’s work, no matter its form, demands a kind of noticing, a paying attention that, in many ways, can only be done in the context of a museum or a gallery. Like the white void that she places her objects and ideas within, the act of isolation is crucial to the humor and the dark questions that permeate her work. Liliana Porter, “Martyr [Martir]” (2005), archival digital print, El Museo del Barrio, 2018Liliana Porter, “Mouse Pad Artwork [Arte de Mouse Pad]” (2004), archival digital print, El Museo del Barrio, 2018 In a bustling grocery store, stacked high with wares, packed with customers, and filled with the white noise of commerce, you might otherwise never notice a diminutive slice of soft cheese named after a nineteen year old woman who was burned at the stake. Plucked by the ever-vigilant Porter and placed on an open plain in a photograph, one is forced to confront the object on its own terms. What is the flavor of martyrdom? Of betrayal? Of a woman being burned at the stake? Does it pair best with a dark cracker or a crusty loaf? But it’s not just the cheese. Here, this work is laid out with two others in a triptych. Beside Joan of Arc sits Che Guevara, in this instance rendered by the manufacturer as a “Martyr Mousepad.” On the other side of Joan is a sugar Jesus wrapped in cellophane, paired with another Jesus flipped over to reveal the price and ingredients in this most unholy body of Christ. Seeing the works and their depicted objects together, a more complex set of meanings unfold, a strange alliance. And also a much thornier inquiry into martyrdom itself. As anti-Muslim sentiment continues to simmer and regularly boil over in the US, it’s virtually impossible in this context not to think of the particular way that news stories describe Muslim individuals being killed or committing suicidal acts of violence in the name of their religious and/or political views, whether in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, or here in the US. The West bends over backwards to paint those acts by Muslims as deeply other, foreign, and backward; as untenable in white, Judeo-Christian nations. Reminders of those moments certainly aren’t on offer in the box stores and supermarkets that line our streets, rendered in sugar, or cream, or foam. Rather than a cruel sneer or an act of distancing, the darker political and philosophical questions contained in some of Porter’s work draw the viewer in, inviting you to sift through your own trinkets and fallibility. An invitation offered by a child’s toy, or a cheap miniature that feels both familiar and enticing is quite a different thing than a pundit decrying the other side, whichever side it is. Would I have bought that slice of cheese and laughed about it over wine? I might have. How many people walk the streets in t-shirts or paper their walls with images of Che Guevara — a silhouette rendered so meaningless through mass consumerism that many who don his face have no idea who he is or what exactly he did after his youthful motorcycle journey. An Argentine who has lived in the US since 1964, Porter maintains her relationship with Argentina, and also maintains a steady popularity in Latin America. There, her work has been exhibited regularly since her first show at the age of seventeen, during a time when she was living in Mexico with her family. The rise and fall of so many socialist and revolutionary governments in Central and South America since her birth in 1941, including in Argentina, and the bloody involvement of the US in countless coups, assassinations, and armed conflicts there, is something that is almost entirely absent in US history courses, nor is it present in the consciousness of many in this country. Yet, hypocrisy and complicity are something that someone with feet in both the north and the south can’t help but take in. Perhaps the funniest work in this show to touch on the ideas above, is a large-scale photograph titled simply “Memorabilia” (2016). Again, against a blank, edgeless backdrop, Porter has arranged a group of figurines, ceramic objects, and other cheaply manufactured items, each featuring the image of political figures ranging from China’s Mao Zedong to France’s Napoleon Bonaparte to the US’s George Washington and John F. Kennedy to Argentina’s Eva Perón. For some in the US, they might jar at seeing Washington or Kennedy next to Mao or Napoleon. But again, it’s a matter of framing, of the narrative you spin. And though largely silent, Porter’s work is very much about the stories you spin while looking at it. Installation view Liliana Porter, “Man Painting [Hombre pintando]” (2018), mixed media, El Museo del Barrio, 2018Installation view Liliana Porter, “Trabajo Forzado (Mujer barriendo) [Forced Labor (Sweeping Woman)]” (2004-2018), mixed media, El Museo del Barrio, 2018Installation view Liliana Porter, “The Task (Black Piano) [La area (piano negro)” (2016), mixed media, El Museo del Barrio, 2018 Another theme that appears frequently in the works on display is that of labor, of tiny workers bent steadily into tasks, the enormity of which simultaneously dwarfs and enlarges each laborer. If you were to stitch together all the clothing sewn by a garment worker, or to lay out all the walls that a house painter has ever painted, as these works seem to invite us to do, you might be struck by the endlessness of those tasks. The janitor who returns each night to make clean what will only be made dirty tomorrow; the homemaker who cooks one meal, only to do it again in a few hours. I couldn’t help but think of Hannah Arendt’s brilliant writing in her book The Human Condition while looking at these works: “It is indeed the mark of all laboring that it leaves nothing behind, that the result of its effort is almost as quickly consumed as the effort is spent. And yet this effort, despite its futility, is born of a great urgency and motivated by a more powerful drive than anything else, because life itself depends upon it.” Feminist thinkers and labor observers have long noted the invisibility and complete lack or paltry nature of the payments that many laborers are given in our society. In the context of El Museo, it’s not a far leap to consider the ways in which Latin American labor, particularly Central American labor, has been exploited, manipulated, and discarded in this country. And this is just a taste of what this relatively concise but incredibly rich show can elicit. The two digital videos that are part of the exhibit, “Actualidades / Breaking News” (2016) and “Matinee” (2009), introduce new ideas, but also revisit figures and suggestions that appear elsewhere in Porter’s work. Moving imagery is a form that works incredibly well for her. A deft sense of selection and grouping, paired with timing and soundscapes, offers a novel approach that builds new meanings. There’s tremendous fodder for thoughtful consideration, ready laughter, and recognition in these works. By calling and holding our attention on things that can easily be taken for granted, Porter quietly and with a mischievous smile, nudges us to reconsider everything we see. Liliana Porter: Other Situations continues at El Museo del Barrio (1230 5th Ave, Manhattan) through January 27, 2019. This exhibition was curated by Humberto Moro.

https://hyperallergic.com/462913/liliana-porter-shows-how-everything-familiar-must-be-magnified-or-forgotten/

Hyperallergic

2017-02-13 15:49:00

2017

2.0

13

Chris Weller

School start times getting pushed back in response to sleep science

With a population of just over 11,000, Dobbs Ferry, New York is your typical sleepy town, except for one thing: When the first school bell rings, kids actually feel awake. Prior to the 2015-2016 school year, Dobbs Ferry middle schoolers started at 8:15 a.m. and high schoolers at 7:30 a.m. Under the new policy, both schools now start approximately 30 minutes later and end 15 minutes later. In making those changes, the Dobbs Ferry School District joined a small but growing group of middle and high schools around the US that have started pushing back their start times in an effort to combat grogginess. The changes are bolstered by a mountain of sleep science research that says pre-teens and teenagers are some of society's most sleep-deprived people and would actually do better in school with more rest. These forward-thinking schools are finally listening — and letting kids sleep in. What happens when you start later? A new study involving 30,000 high-school students across 29 schools in seven states found that graduation rates and attendance rates both went up in the two years after schools pushed start times to at least 8:30 a.m. Dobbs Ferry Superintendent Dr. Lisa Brady tells Business Insider that the schools there have experienced tremendous benefits. Following a survey issued at the end of the 2015-2016 school year (the first full year with later start times), Brady says "it was clear from both the parents and the kids, overwhelmingly, that the mornings were just less stressful." Many of the kids reported having more time to eat breakfast and get ready for school, while parents said they didn't have to drag kids out of bed or yell at them to hurry up. Once students got to school, they felt more alert. At night, they tended to reported going to bed at the same time, even though the new schedule freed up an extra 45 minutes. Other schools have seen similar benefits. In Seattle, 85% of middle and high schools in the 2016-2017 school year swapped start times with the elementary schools. Now the older kids start at 8:45 while the youngsters start at 7:55. Kira Hoffman, an eighth-grader at Jane Addams Middle School, told KUOW that she "no longer feels super-rushed or worried about how much I've slept, or when I'm going to get to school, or if I'm going to be late." In Pennsylvania, a new hope So far, hundreds of schools in 44 states have jumped on the late-start bandwagon, according to advocacy group Start School Later, which has been compiling a list of US schools and districts that have pushed back the first bell. One of those is Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where Director of Studies Rick Tony pushed for a robust set of changes to the school schedule. Kids at Solebury, a private boarding and day school, now start at 8:30 a.m most days, and 9:00 a.m. on Wednesdays. In years past, the first bell sounded promptly at 8. The school also moved from six 50-minute classes per day to four 80-minute classes. With fewer teachers to assign homework, Tony says, kids can still enjoy their nights even if they get home slightly later. "Every time we ask for feedback, the results come back 10 to 1, positive to negative," he tells Business Insider. Tony also teaches math, and says his students are already producing better work on a more consistent basis, even though the schedule is just six months old. Around campus, he says, kids seem more relaxed since they're not juggling as much work early in the day. "The freneticism is definitely reduced this year," he says, adding that he plans to follow up with teachers to get harder data about student achievement. The downsides of delaying start times Negative responses to later start times are rare, but they do happen. Lisa Brady says some parents in Dobbs Ferry have found it harder to complete the necessary morning rituals and still get to work on time. Meanwhile, Rick Tony says the issue at Solebury is finding enough buses for kids. In both cases, officials say parents have the option to drop their kids off at school before the first bell so they can eat breakfast, charge their devices, or just hang out. Brady has also found challenges with after-school athletics and clubs. In years prior, teams had no trouble getting to away games. Now they have less time to get there, and they have to deal with worse traffic. "The kids feel really rushed," she says. Many kids also say they have less time to do homework once they finally get home. Brady says the Dobbs Ferry schools are brainstorming potential changes to the school day similar to those made at Solebury. It takes a village In districts where schools have not started to take sleep science research into account, parents have begun to speak up. An op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times in September 2016 included voices from frustrated parents who were fed up with coaxing bleary-eyed adolescents to get dressed. "I have been saying for years that kids, especially high school students, should not be expected to be in their seats trying to learn anything in the early morning hours," a parent named Paula Del said. When asked why more schools have yet to take her district's lead, Brady speculated that it has something to do with generational pride. Even if the science is rock-solid, many administrators and parents simply don't pity the sleepy teen. Waking up is hard, but it's a part of life. "I get that years ago we all walked 100 miles in the snow to school," Brady says. "But we know better now about the adolescent brain, and we know about their natural sleep rhythms being different than adults'."

https://www.businessinsider.com/schools-starting-later-more-sleep-2017-2

Business Insider

2018-02-28 17:20:02

2018

2.0

28

Alexia Fernández Campbell

Gun stocks divestment: Parkland shooting has made gun stocks toxic assets on Wall Street

Pressure is mounting on Wall Street to do something about gun control. Investment firms are reexamining their portfolios, dropping gun stocks, and asking weapons manufacturers what they are doing to make sure their products don't end up in a mass shooting. This reevaluation comes as public anger over political inaction on gun control shifts toward the American companies that profit from gun sales. It started with social media calls for companies — like Hertz, MetLife, and Delta — to end their partnerships with the National Rifle Association. Many of the companies targeted did. Now Wall Street firms are coming under fire for investing retirement savings and pension funds in companies like American Outdoor Brands, which makes the AR-15 rifle used in the Parkland shooting. Last week, New Jersey lawmakers moved to restrict all state employee pension funds from investing in gun manufacturers. Joanne McCall, president of the Florida Education Association, is urging state lawmakers to do the same. Shareholders at American Outdoor Brands, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Sturm Ruger asked those companies to report on steps they’re taking to improve gun safety and mitigate gun violence. The requests were filed by religious groups linked to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which includes 300 institutional investors that manage $400 billion in assets, according to Bloomberg. (Dick’s Sporting Goods on Wednesday announced that it was ending sales of assault-style weapons at its stores.) Meanwhile, reports that major 401(k) index funds run by Vanguard and TIAA-CREF have ownership stakes in the big three gunmakers have also prompted a social-media backlash: Time to divest from the gun industry, @TIAA and @Vanguard_Group. #NeverAgain https://t.co/70qYEIk4NP Wall Street has noticed. The investment firm BlackRock, which owns the largest stake in American Outdoor Brands and Sturm Ruger, said it has reached out to gun industry executives to see what they plan to do about gun violence. Blackstone Group, another Wall Street investment firm, sent an email to fund managers over the weekend, asking them whether they have any stakes in the gun manufacturers. Other investment firms are renewing efforts to keep gun stocks out of their portfolio — efforts that have been building since the Sandy Hook massacre. The movement is the latest example of American voters channeling their frustration into consumer boycotts when political action fails. Pressure has been building in recent years for Wall Street firms to dump gun stocks — ever since the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting that killed 20 children in 2012. Put simply, divestment is when an organization or individual sells shares of stock in a given company or sector. Activists have been using divestment as a political strategy for decades — as far back as apartheid-era South Africa. Since then, divestment has become a grassroots movement to urge ordinary consumers to invest their retirement savings in ethical ways, and even to use them as vehicles for political change, such as with the divestment movement targeting fossil fuels. It was considered an effective strategy in apartheid South Africa. Opponents of the apartheid regime focused their ire on the companies that were directly invested in the country. They began urging institutional investors, including universities, to divest their assets from companies that did business with the regime. Archbishop Desmond Tutu credited the divestment campaign as a key tactic in bringing down apartheid. The concept of divesting became mainstream in the United States during the climate change debate. Frustration over what was viewed as weak UN climate agreements, plus the US Senate's failure to pass a climate bill in 2010, pushed foundations and nonprofit groups —such as Greenpeace — to ensure their investments were not going to big oil companies. Activist celebrities, like Leonardo DiCaprio, popularized the idea, encouraging Americans to make sure their retirement money was invested in renewable energy. In 2015, a group of foundations launched the DivestInvest initiative, which helps foundations, individuals and businesses divest from fossil fuels. In recent years, gun-control activists have turned to divestiture as a tactic. Rapper Snoop Dogg and angel investor Ron Conway joined the Campaign to Unload, launched in the wake of Sandy Hook and featuring the hashtag #UnloadYour401k. In 2016, two tech workers created Goodbye Gun Stocks, a web app that allowed users to see if their 401(k) savings were invested in gun stocks. One of the creators, Keywon Chung, said she was inspired to take the idea of fossil-fuel divestitures to the gun debate. Asset managers say that more and more Americans have been adamant about restricting firearms companies from these funds. And it’s having an impact. According to a 2016 US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment report, some $845 billion in assets were affected by divestment targeting military contractors and weapons makers. That's a jump of about 1,042 percent since the Sandy Hook school shooting in December 2012. (Only $74 billion in institutional investments restricted guns at the beginning of 2012.) Calls to divest from Remington, which made the AR-15 used in Sandy Hook, are one factor that pushed the company into bankruptcy. Cerberus, the investment firm that owned the largest stake in the company, told Bloomberg that it decided to sell the company "amid pressure from investors revolted by the carnage" in Sandy Hook. Business was bad for gun makers even before the latest mass shooting. Remington announced its bankruptcy on February 12 — two days before the massacre in Parkland. Stocks began to tumble for American Outdoor Brands the day after the Parkland shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, following reports that the weapon used in the shooting was an AR-15 made by the Massachusetts-based company, formerly known as Smith & Wesson. Since then, the company's stocks have dropped about 12.5 percent. Stock prices for the other two big gun makers have dropped too. Gun companies had been struggling ever since Trump won the presidential election. Gun sales normally spike when Democrats are in power, as gun owners’ fears of gun-control measures rise. With Trump in power, sales have fallen. Stock prices for gun manufacturers also tend to rise after mass shootings, likely because the debate over gun control heats up and rekindles fears from gun owners. For example, stock prices for American Outdoor Brands spiked in the week following the 2016 shooting that killed 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, and again after the October shooting that killed 58 people at a Las Vegas concert. Reaction to the Parkland shooting seems different. Renewed calls for gun control haven't had the effect of boosting gun stock prices. In fact, they continue to fall.

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/28/17058342/wall-street-gun-stocks-divestment

Vox

2016-09-27 18:30:03

2016

9.0

27

Jennifer Williams

The head of Hezbollah has found someone he hates even more than Israelis

If there were any doubt as to just how toxic sectarian politics has become in the Middle East, the latest statement from the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah should clear things right up. Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of a group that has been fighting Israel for decades, declared on Tuesday that “Wahhabism is more evil than Israel,” Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper reported. Wahhabism is the ultra-fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam that Saudi Arabia’s government promotes and that strongly influences the ideology of Sunni jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. In other words, things have gotten so bad that Hezbollah, Israel’s mortal enemy, now considers Wahhabis — that is, fellow Muslims — to be worse than Israel. Bear in mind, this is coming from the same man who has described Israel as “a cancerous entity and the root of all the crises and wars” and pledged that Israel’s destiny “is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.’” It’s also coming from a man at the helm of a group that has engaged in numerous conflicts with Israel, including a horrifically bloody all-out war in 2006 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,300 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 165 Israelis, 121 of whom were soldiers. Israeli security officials say the group now has the capacity to batter their country with more than 1,000 rockets a day. But despite how it may seem, Nasrallah’s statement is not, at its base, a conflict about religion. Though there are certainly strong religious disagreements between Sunni and Shia — and especially between extreme fundamentalist Sunnis and extreme fundamentalist Shia — the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia has little to do with dogma. It’s actually about something far less exotic: power and influence. Tehran’s Shia government and Riyadh’s Sunni one have spent years waging a Cold War–style proxy fight for dominance of the Middle East and the broader Muslim world. The two countries haven’t openly fought each other, but they back extremist groups around the Middle East who share their worldviews — and who are willing to fight, kill, and die on their behalf. This proxy war plays out in conflicts all over the Middle East. For instance, Saudi Arabia, with US military assistance, is engaged in a brutal air war against Iranian-backed Houthi fighters inside Yemen that has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country. The United Nations recently estimated that at least 10,000 civilians have died, and acknowledged that that number was almost certainly lower than the actual toll. Saudi Arabia’s proxy fight with Iran is also helping to fuel the bloodshed in Syria, where an estimated 400,000 people have been killed over the past five years while millions more have fled the country and sparked the biggest refugee crisis in decades. Hezbollah — the strongest and most influential of Iran’s various surrogate groups — has sent between 5,000 and 8,000 fighters to Syria on behalf of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Fighting against them are myriad secular and Islamist groups, including some more extreme Wahhabi-influenced groups that are being supported by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia wants its preferred groups to topple Assad in order to remove the pro-Iranian leader and install a more Saudi-friendly (preferably Sunni) regime. Iran, naturally, would very much like to prevent that from happening. In the past few weeks, the hottest front in the showdown between Saudi Arabia and Iran has taken place online, in the press, and on social media. The New York Times published a scathing op-ed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in which Tehran’s top diplomat argued that “the key driver of violence” in the Middle East has been Wahhabism, the “extremist ideology promoted by Saudi Arabia.” Saudi Arabia responded by publishing a series of tweets from its US embassy’s official Twitter account accusing Iran of having “supported violent extremist groups all over the world” and stating that “Iran or its proxies have been blamed for terrorist attacks around the world.” The new statement from Hezbollah’s secretary general may be the latest attack in this ongoing tit-for-tat war of words playing out across the internet, but it won’t be the last. The proxy war between the two countries, sadly, also shows no signs of coming to a peaceful end anytime soon.

https://www.vox.com/world/2016/9/27/13074560/hezbollah-israel-nasrallah-wahhabism-evil

Vox

2017-12-05 18:31:03

2017

12.0

5

Theodore Schleifer

Lyft gets an investment — from an Uber investor

A large Uber shareholder has made an investment in chief U.S. rival Lyft, part of the latest twist in the entangled web of ride-sharing deals. Lyft said on Tuesday that Fidelity, the giant mutual fund, would participate in an expanded financing round that now values the company at $11.5 billion. The round, led by Alphabet affiliate CapitalG, was previously only expected to collect $1 billion; it now stands to raise $1.5 billion. Shareholders typically try to avoid conflicts of interest in their investments, but when it comes to Uber and Lyft it seems like all’s fair. Alphabet, for example, is also invested in both Uber and Lyft. Fidelity declined to comment. Fidelity’s ownership position in Uber is almost certainly much larger than its position in Lyft — Fidelity led $1.2 billion Uber’s Series D financing round in 2014. Notably, Fidelity was a key investor that helped oust Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick this summer. Lyft and Uber are locked in a tightening battle for market share in the U.S. and are both stockpiling cash to win it. Lyft does not need the cash right now — but investments in frontier areas like autonomous vehicles demand a healthy war chest and Lyft is accepting the cash when it is on the table. Uber is itself preparing to take on at least $1 billion in new investment from the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. SoftBank has threatened to also invest in Lyft if it is unable to close its Uber investment. Axios earlier reported the expanded financing round. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/5/16738452/lyft-uber-investment-ride-sharing-fidelity

Vox

2017-12-07 00:00:00

2017

12.0

7

Richard Cowan, Jeff Mason

Congress averts government shutdown for now

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress moved rapidly on Thursday to send President Donald Trump a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown this weekend, leaving fights over budget priorities and a range of other controversial issues for the coming weeks. The House of Representatives, working against a Friday midnight deadline, approved legislation in a 235-193 vote to fund a wide range of federal programs through Dec. 22. The Senate followed up by approving the bill 81-14. The White House has said Trump will sign it into law. The measure creates more time for a reckoning between Republicans and Democrats about budget differences, which Trump discussed in a meeting with leading lawmakers at the White House earlier in the day. “We hope that we’re going to make some great progress for our country. I think that will happen,” Trump said. The White House said negotiations would resume on Friday. Leaders now have about two weeks to find common ground on a host of thorny issues for the next government funding bill in order to prevent a partial government shutdown on Dec. 23. Both sides want to avoid having parts of the government close, particularly during the holidays, for fear of a public backlash, and leaders from both parties have preemptively blamed the other for such a potential outcome. That political blame game is likely to continue in the next two weeks while, behind the scenes, leaders hammer out a compromise. Republicans mainly want a big increase in defense spending for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2018. But Democrats are insisting that any added Pentagon funding be accompanied by increases to other domestic programs. Democrats also want to enact into law protections for nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were children when they were brought into the United States. Republicans want a much wider series of immigration law changes to further clamp down on foreign arrivals, and they want immigration negotiations to be held on a separate track from the government funding bill. Democrats also want to shore up the Affordable Care Act, known as “Obamacare,” by reviving federal subsidies for low-income people in the program. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer joined Trump and Republican congressional leaders for the talks after canceling a similarly planned meeting last week when the president posted a note on Twitter attacking their policy positions. The two Democrats said in a statement that the meeting on Thursday was productive but nothing specific had been agreed. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis joined the group to discuss military matters. The White House foresees a compromise with lawmakers that will include increases in defense and non-defense spending, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told Reuters. He said the White House wants a deal that covers spending for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. Earlier on Thursday, Schumer said Trump seemed to be rooting for a shutdown and warned that, if one occurs, “it will fall on his shoulders.” “His party controls the Senate, the House and the presidency,” he said. “Nobody here wants to see a shutdown. We Democrats are not interested in one.” Pelosi said Democrats were not willing to shut down the government over the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) immigration program, but she also said “we will not leave here without a DACA fix.” Reporting by Richard Cowan and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney, Alistair Bell and Lisa Shumaker

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-shutdown/congress-averts-government-shutdown-for-now-idUSKBN1E11DU

Politics

Reuters

2019-05-22 17:20:00

2019

5.0

22

Aja Romano

Review: Disney’s live-action Aladdin is half charming, half dreadful

How do you solve a problem like Aladdin? Disney’s questionable live-action remake of its acclaimed 1992 animated film, which finally hits theaters May 24, has been dogged by controversy and skepticism since before production even began. Director Guy Ritchie, known for action comedies but not musicals, seemed an unlikely choice to direct the story, especially given the tricky cultural nuances involved. Casting Will Smith as an infrequently blue genie also raised plenty of eyebrows. But more crucially, the 1992 film Aladdin seemed a completely unsuitable candidate for Disney’s series of live-action remakes. There’s too much about the original film that’s lightning in a bottle, impossible to recreate. The 1992 film’s 2D animated effects, at the time sophisticated and dazzling, are now largely passé. (2D animation is a dying style, and the computer effects that looked thrillingly state-of-the-art 27 years ago now look sadly dated.) Its reliance on Robin Williams’s genius improvisational skills led to its whip-smart, slightly manic screenplay, which was completely overhauled and frenetically rewritten under tight time constraints, not unlike the notorious crunch times that video game developers often push through today. Then there’s the collaborative gifts of Disney’s musical auteurs, composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman. Ashman originally pitched the film to Disney, but died during its development; Menken contributed the score to the new film but only one new song, with lyrics by songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. 2019’s Aladdin tries its best to regenerate that magic, and to its credit, it finds some success. It is frequently quite charming, largely thanks to the efforts of Mena Massoud, who captures Aladdin’s irrepressible charisma every second he’s onscreen. Much of the new story material written for the film works, and it’s enjoyable, if pedestrian, family fare. But the terrible musical sequences, the lackluster CGI, and the strange creative and emotional restraint that permeates the film frequently flatten Disney’s original Aladdin into a cardboard version of itself. The result is a film that’s divided into two entirely different entities. One is pretty cute: a pleasantly bland rom-com, with Massoud’s Aladdin and Naomi Scott’s Jasmine as adorable kids in love. The other is a really crappy musical, presided over by a disappointingly hamstrung Will Smith. These two halves never fully cohere. It’s important to acknowledge going into the Aladdin remake that, for all the 1992 film was a delightful, hilarious animated musical masterpiece, it was also dripping in Orientalism and harmful racist depictions of Arab culture. In the original Aladdin, Jasmine is a repressed princess whose ultimate aim is to gain enough independence to marry for love rather than political expediency, which made her strikingly evolved for the time but seems hopelessly limiting now. Her father, the sultan, is a babbling, easily directed man-child. The citizens of Agrabah are frequently depicted as barbarous sword-wielders and sexualized belly dancers. The opening song, “Arabian Nights,” originally contained the ridiculously racist line “They cut off your ear if they don’t like your face / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” So it’s easy to see why Disney executives might feel that Aladdin is worth updating, if only to overwrite many of its problematic elements. But this particular remake fumbled from the start. Advocacy groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations were opposed to the film from its inception. Casting controversy threw further doubt on the whole project, as did a series of lifeless promotional photos and a recently released clip of a strangely sluggish musical performance from the film, featuring new genie Will Smith. None of this boded well for the film. Still, Ritchie and his fellow screenwriter, frequent Tim Burton collaborator John August, put in a decent effort to gloss over the previous film’s most glaring faults. On paper, Ritchie’s Aladdin offers several modern improvements: The script is especially good to Jasmine, who’s no longer the only woman in the movie and now has long-term political ambitions. The genie, who reads as culturally Arab, has a personal life and dreams of his own beyond escaping the lamp. Aladdin and Jasmine bond over growing up parentless. Hot Jafar (his official name, sorry, I don’t make the rules) doesn’t just want abstract power; he also wants to invade a few neighboring countries, because why not. These changes are clearly meant to give Aladdin additional depth; in execution, however, many of these details seem like superficial inserts. The sultan’s palace seems to be an amalgam of Muslim and South Asian cultures, probably because Scott is of South Asian descent; her dance sequences are explicitly Bollywood-flavored. This could have been an interesting opportunity for an explicit exploration of the way these two cultures interact, but the film rarely goes deeper than, uh, giving Jasmine a feminist power ballad. Throughout the first half hour or so of Aladdin, I started to think it might be able to pull out a win. The opening sequence, where we meet Aladdin as an impressively clean thief living on the streets of Agrabah, unfolds at a clip. While it can’t quite shake the vibe of a local community theater troupe hastily assembling on a soundstage, it’s still fun. We’re quickly introduced to the budding romance between Aladdin and a disguised Princess Jasmine, who bond over petty thievery and dead parents while zipping through streets and hopping across buildings as they evade capture by Agrabah street police. It’s the kind of colorful meet-cute that wouldn’t be out of place in a Netflix “summer of love” flick, and it worked for me. In fact, I would probably watch that rom-com multiple times and reblog a few Tumblr GIF sets of their love. At nearly all other times, however, the film suffers from an inexplicable sluggishness. Ritchie’s recent filmography, dating from 2009’s Sherlock Holmes, has emphasized zany foreground antics cosseted by rich background details and strong pacing. But Aladdin frequently moves slowly, almost as if Ritchie has chosen to take the film on a leisurely stroll in direct contrast to its predecessor’s high speed. This holds true not just for the musical numbers, which all seem to have been slowed down in tempo and energy, but also the big action sequences between Hot Jafar and everyone else. Watching the film, I frequently wondered, in fact, if Hot Jafar actor Marwan Kenzari were controlling the pace of the scenes through his refusal to turn his character into a campy, over-the-top villain. The original Jafar was the epitome of the noxious trope of the shrieking, fey, vaguely homophobic Disney villain; Kenzari’s Jafar is quiet, straightforward, and almost affectless, except for occasional moments when he lets his thirst for power seep through. This is a satisfying reinterpretation of Jafar, but his emotional restraint seems to be contagious. There are entire scenes, particularly near the end, where characters who should be fighting tooth and nail for what they want instead stand still and calmly reflect on what they each want to do next. It’s largely inexplicable behavior, and speaks to just how overly staid Ritchie’s direction is. CGI Abu (the monkey): Meh. CGI Magic Carpet: Perfect! 10/10, would ride. CGI visual backgrounds: Flat and unimpressive, particularly during the cave sequence and “A Whole New World.” CGI Rajah (the tiger): Delightful! 10/10, would pet. CGI Iago (the parrot): Disappointing, though more because the film mostly excised his wisecracking personality rather than because of how he looks. CGI “Friend Like Me”: Abysmal on a scale that must be seen to understand. But it’s the musical numbers in particular that seem completely deflated. It’s not just that they’re slow; it’s also that Smith’s voice doesn’t carry them like WIlliams’s did, and his lack of live stage experience really hurts him here — as does the lackluster CGI imagery overall, which makes his “phenomenal cosmic power” seem kinda drab. “Friend Like Me” especially seems uninspired visually and thematically, while “Prince Ali” has already been widely ridiculed on social media for its slow pacing and dearth of jubilance. The other songs also suffer from this weird malaise; “A Whole New World” passed by before I really even noticed it was happening. Smith, moreover, seems to be blocked creatively in his role as Genie, who comes across as a thin character despite the extra layers of characterization given to him in the new script. To be fair, it’s hard to conceive of anyone who could step into a role this iconic, played so brilliantly by Williams, and not be intimidated out of all self-expression, but Smith also quite understandably seems to present his character as spiritually worn down by his enslavement. Far from being a genie who projects phenomenal cosmic power, Smith’s interpretation is occasionally socially awkward, and human above all else. And that underscores the remake’s biggest single issue. Turning a blue cartoon into a flesh-and-blood human being imposes a sense of realism that the glib, fantastical storyline of Aladdin was never really meant to reckon with. The original “Aladdin” tale, after all, was most likely translated from a Syrian oral tradition relayed by an 18th-century French writer, who drenched his version in exoticism. The 1992 film, in turn, succeeded on the basis of its sheer disconnect from reality, which kept it fun and magical. The cartoon was divorced from its story’s real-life connections, something the live-action take can’t evade. It’s possible to imagine a new animated remake of Aladdin that confronts the Disney classic’s fraught past and manages to jettison much of its cultural baggage in a way that feels justified and transformative. Unfortunately, a live-action adaptation was never going to pull that off. I’m left mourning the infectious, charming, no-baggage, original rom-com Disney could have given us instead. Aladdin is in theaters on May 24.

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/22/18634316/disneys-aladdin-remake-review-rating

Vox

2018-04-01 00:00:00

2018

4.0

1

Ben Blanchard, Tony Munroe

China hits U.S. goods with tariffs as 'sparks' of trade war fly

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating a dispute between the world’s biggest economies in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel. The tariffs, which take effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday by China’s finance ministry and matched a list of possible tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23. Soon after the announcement, an editorial in the widely read Global Times newspaper warned that if the United States had thought China would not retaliate or would only take symbolic countermeasures, it could “say goodbye to that delusion”. “Even though China and the U.S. have not publicly said they are in a trade war, the sparks of such a war have already started to fly,” the newspaper said. The Ministry of Commerce said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 U.S. goods, including fruit and ethanol. The tariffs on those products will be raised by an extra 15 percent. Eight other products, including pork and scrap aluminum, would now be subject to additional tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective starting April 2. “China’s suspension of its tariff concessions is a legitimate action adopted under WTO rules to safeguard China’s interests,” the finance ministry said. China is moving swiftly with retaliatory action amid escalating trade tension with the United States, which has rocked global financial markets in the past week as investors fear a full-blown trade dispute between the two economic superpowers will damage world growth. In response to China’s move, Washington said Beijing’s subsidies and overcapacity were behind the action on steel. “Instead of targeting fairly traded U.S. exports, China needs to stop its unfair trading practices which are harming U.S national security and distorting global markets,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in a statement. U.S. President Donald Trump is separately preparing to impose tariffs of more than $50 billion on Chinese goods following an investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act. The U.S. administration says China has systematically misappropriated American intellectual property - allegations China denies. About the Section 301 investigation, China had “yet to unsheathe its sword,” the official Xinhua news agency said. Sometime this week, the Trump administration is expected to unveil a list of Chinese goods that could be subjected to new U.S. tariffs. U.S. technology industry officials said they expected the list to target products that benefit from Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program, which aims to upgrade the domestic manufacturing base with more advanced products. China has repeatedly promised to open its economy further, but many foreign companies complain of unfair treatment. China warned the United States on Thursday not to open a Pandora’s Box and spark a flurry of protectionist practices across the globe. “There are some people in the West who think that China looks tough for the sake of a domestic audience, and would easily make concessions,” the Global Times said. “But they are wrong.” The Global Times is run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, although its stance does not necessarily reflect government policy. Reaction to China’s measures varied on social media, with some saying Chinese customers would be the ones to ultimately pay for a trade war. “Why not directly target soybean and planes? The tariffs that China announced today don’t sound a lot to me,” said a user on the Weibo microblog platform. Aircraft and soybeans were China’s biggest U.S. imports by value last year. In a statement published on Monday morning, the commerce ministry said the United States had “seriously violated” the principles of nondiscrimination enshrined in World Trade Organization rules, and had also damaged China’s interests. “China’s suspension of some of its obligations to the United States is its legitimate right as a member of the World Trade Organization,” it said, adding that differences should be resolved through negotiation. Weibo prominently featured the list of U.S. goods that China is targeting among the day’s “hot” trending topics. “I will never buy fruit from the U.S.,” a Weibo user wrote. Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Tony Munroe; additional reporting by David Stanway in Shanghai and Stella Qiu and Lusha Zhang in Beijing; additional Writing by Ryan Woo; editing by Eric Meijer, Shri Navaratnam and Jonathan Oatis

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/china-hits-u-s-goods-with-tariffs-as-sparks-of-trade-war-fly-idUSKCN1H81J3

Business News

Reuters

2018-05-22 00:00:00

2018

5.0

22

Keegan Hamilton

Trump called immigrants “animals” and the White House isn’t backing down

Speaking to a group of California sheriffs last week about immigration, President Trump appeared to put his foot in his mouth by referring to people facing deportation as “animals.” But rather than apologize in the face of outrage from critics who slammed Trump for dehumanizing immigrants, the administration has doubled down. On Monday, the White House sent out a press release with the eye-popping subject line: “What You Need To Know About The Violent Animals Of MS-13.” The release detailed various crimes committed by alleged MS-13 gang members, and used the word “animals” nine times to describe members of the group. “President Trump’s entire Administration is working tirelessly to bring these violent animals to justice,” the message concluded. For those who've been following Trump’s rhetoric around MS-13, the comments came as no surprise. The president and members of his administration have turned the predominantly Central American gang into a boogeyman to justify immigration policies, and Trump himself has on multiple occasions appeared to revel in describing the grisly details of murders committed by alleged MS-13 members. He often refers to them as “animals.” Read: The migrant caravan is finding out claiming asylum under Trump is a total nightmare “They don’t like shooting people because it's too quick, it's too fast,” Trump said last July during a speech to Long Island police officers. “I was reading — one of these animals was caught — in explaining, they like to knife them and cut them, and let them die slowly because that way it's more painful, and they enjoy watching that much more. These are animals.” Speaking to a group of California sheriffs last week about immigration, President Trump appeared to put his foot in his mouth by referring to people facing deportation as “animals.” But rather than apologize in the face of outrage from critics who slammed Trump for dehumanizing immigrants, the administration has doubled down. On Monday, the White House sent out a press release with the eye-popping subject line: “What You Need To Know About The Violent Animals Of MS-13.” The release detailed various crimes committed by alleged MS-13 gang members, and used the word “animals” nine times to describe members of the group. “President Trump’s entire Administration is working tirelessly to bring these violent animals to justice,” the message concluded. For those who've been following Trump’s rhetoric around MS-13, the comments came as no surprise. The president and members of his administration have turned the predominantly Central American gang into a boogeyman to justify immigration policies, and Trump himself has on multiple occasions appeared to revel in describing the grisly details of murders committed by alleged MS-13 members. He often refers to them as “animals.” Read: The migrant caravan is finding out claiming asylum under Trump is a total nightmare “They don’t like shooting people because it's too quick, it's too fast,” Trump said last July during a speech to Long Island police officers. “I was reading — one of these animals was caught — in explaining, they like to knife them and cut them, and let them die slowly because that way it's more painful, and they enjoy watching that much more. These are animals.” The argument from the White House is that Trump wasn’t referring to all immigrants as “animals” last week — just criminals and gang members. It’s true that Trump’s comment last week was preceded by a sheriff mentioning MS-13, but Trump also phrased his remark in a way that left the meaning open to interpretation. “We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country,” Trump said. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It’s crazy.” Read: This is how Trump's attempt to kill DACA could help ICE deport thousands of Dreamers Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later insisted that Trump was referring to MS-13 and defended his comment. “I don’t think the term the president used was strong enough,” Sanders said. Then she referenced a killing by alleged MS-13 members and added, “It took an animal to stab a man 100 times and decapitate him and cut his heart out.” Trump is expected to return to Long Island on Wednesday to talk about immigration and MS-13. It’s a safe bet that the word “animals” will be used at least once in his speech. Cover image via Getty

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/435wzb/trump-called-immigrants-animals-and-the-white-house-isnt-backing-down

Vice News

2016-05-19 00:00:00

2016

5.0

19

Cheryl Tiegs: Now I See It, Ashley Graham IS Beautiful ... In the Face

Cheryl Tiegs has a strange way of defending her comments about plus size models, in general ... and Ashley Graham, specifically. We got the OG supermodel Thursday at LAX, and she told us the media misinterpreted her words when she said this year's S.I. Swimsuit cover girl Ashley's look was ... not healthy in the long run. So, check out the video -- Cheryl breaks down exactly what she really meant, and in the process says she prefers "the normal, fit athletic, Sports Illustrated girl." There's more, including her true feelings about Ashley's beauty ... though we're not sure how Ashley will take this. #Covergirlwars

https://www.tmz.com/2016/05/19/cheryl-tiegs-ashley-graham-plus-size-models/

TMZ

2016-06-07 17:17:00

2016

6.0

7

France unearths bones from 6,000-yr-old Neolithic massacre

Paris (AFP) - Archaeologists said Tuesday they had discovered the remains of victims from a 6,000-year-old massacre in Alsace in eastern France that was likely carried out by "furious ritualised warriors". Paris - Archaeologists said Tuesday they had discovered the remains of victims from a 6,000-year-old massacre in Alsace in eastern France that was likely carried out by "furious ritualized warriors". The corpses of 10 people were found outside Strasbourg in one of 300 ancient "silos" used to store grain and other food, a team from France's National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) told reporters. The Neolithic group appeared to have died violent deaths, with multiple injuries to their legs, hands and skulls. The way in which the bodies were piled on top of each other suggested they had been killed together and dumped in the silo. "They were very brutally executed and received violent blows, almost certainly from a stone axe," said Philippe Lefranc, an Inrap specialist on the period. The skeletons of five adults and one adolescent were found, as well as four arms from different individuals. The arms were likely "war trophies" like those found at a nearby burial site of Bergheim in 2012, said Lefranc. He said the mutilations indicated a society of "furious ritualized warriors", while the silos were stored within a defence wall that pointed towards "a troubled time, a period of insecurity". It is hoped that genetic testing on the bones will reveal more information about the killings, but Lefranc said one theory was that a local tribe had clashed with a new group arriving from the area around modern-day Paris. "It appears that a warrior raid by people from the Parisian basin went wrong for the assailants, and the Alsatians of the era massacred them," he said. However, in the long run, it was the "Parisians" who had the last laugh. The local tribe appear to have been supplanted by the newcomers around 4,200 BC, as demonstrated by new funeral rites, pottery and hamlets.

https://www.businessinsider.com/afp-france-unearths-bones-from-6000-yr-old-neolithic-massacre-2016-6

Business Insider

2017-04-01 19:03:00

2017

4.0

1

VICE Staff

Brits Don’t Want You to Come Any Closer Than Three Feet

(Top photo: Erica Zabowski via Flickr, Creative Commons) This article first appeared on VICE UK. Panicking and ordering something you don't like at dinner because you don't want to hold anyone up. Pretending to understand what someone says the second time because it'd be embarrassing to ask again. Silently working out the hygiene levels of everyone on the top deck of the bus before you sit down. As a people, being awkward defines the British more than "tea" or "queuing" or any of the twee stuff you'll find in listicles titled "23 British Quirks Every 'Sherlock' Fan Knows to Be True". A new study that was inexplicably commissioned to work out the ideal distances people from different countries would like you to stand away from them has gone one jot further to confirming this. The closest a Brit can stand next to a stranger without feeling uncomfortable, the study found, is three feet. Any closer and we begin to fret. Mind you, we're not the most awkward by any means, ranking 26th in a list of 42 countries for the ideal distance away we'd like to be from a conversational partner. Researchers at the University of Wroclaw in Poland, using the testimonies of 9,000 people, found that Romanians want the biggest gap, at 1.39 metres, while Argentines are the most relaxed, saying they can stand as close at 76.5cm away before feeling uncomfortable. The study said cultural differences could be behind the differences, but that other factors were probably at play. Generally, those in warmer countries were more likely to want to stand closer, while older generations and women prefer to stand further away.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bm4bj4/brits-dont-want-you-to-come-any-closer-than-three-feet

The VICE Guide to Right Now

Vice

2017-01-13 00:00:00

2017

1.0

13

Javier Cabral

LA's 'Spirit Guide' Will Lead You Through Your Favorite Poisons

"Just nose it. What food does it remind you of? Lemon cake? Brown sugar? This is a judgement-free zone, so let's all have at it." I am standing in front of Pedro Shanahan at Caña Rum Bar's patio in downtown Los Angeles. A group of about 35 men and women of various ages from all around the city have showed up to participate in one of his legendary Spirit Society tastings. Tonight's spirit is rum—specifically limited, private selections of aged rums from Panama, Barbados, and Guadeloupe bottled by Berry Bros & Rudd Rum that average well over $100 a bottle. As the small staff of the rum bar start to pass along small snifter glasses filled with an ounce of each rum, people start to shout out random flavor profiles: "Vanilla!" "Cinnamon!" "Tobacco!" Shanahan acknowledges each response and then continues with, "That's right! Remember, everyone's set of taste buds is different, and a lot of it revolves around your own heritage, so there are no wrong answer, let's all keep going!" All of Shanahan's public tastings have this sort of laidback vibe, whether he's sampling rare rums, Scotches, mezcals, tequilas, or more mainstream bourbons and whiskeys. This is because underneath his extremely chill demeanor lies 18 years of bartending experience, during which he worked with some of the most notable bartenders and establishments in Los Angeles. It was that same bartending career, however, that made him burn out and lead him down the road to become 213 Hospitality's "Spirit Guide" (actual job title). His resume includes OK'ing the 800 whiskeys for LA's iconic whiskey bar Seven Grand and overseeing the rest of the spirits used throughout the entire 213 Hospitality empire. (Thus, the first Spirit Society sessions were strictly about whiskey.) Now, the man's goal with weekly tastings is to create community within spirits and bring people together, and to take away the pretense that can come along with some liquors. When he is done with the rum tasting, I ask him a little more about his goal for these extravagant tastings, where they never shy away from pouring you a little bit extra if you ask nicely. "Some people might think that because our bars have leather booths and dark woods, that it is only a place for old, rich white people," he tells me. "But I'm really not from this world, nor do I want anyone to think that the world of spirits is exclusive in any way." He adds that the production and consumption of alcohol has historically helped to foster community throughout the world. His ethos toward alcohol is one up as a skater playing in punk rock bands in Eugene, Oregon."Our society has grown around alcohol and it has always brought humans together. I'm just trying to tear away at all of the elitist, classist, sexist marketing that booze has gone through." His strategy in making booze approachable to all is simple: Ask what people are tasting instead of telling them what they are supposed to be tasting. "Some people have never had some of the flavor profiles that are described on the back of labels. I just want people to know that whatever they are tasting is cool, too." This lofty goal is seemingly becoming a reality. During another tasting that showcased some special selections of Nikka Japanese whisky at Bar Jackalope, the crowd of 75 varied from downtown executives in expensive suits to 20-somethings with hoodies who drove all the way from south and east LA. In this tasting, there were seven whiskeys being generously poured, including a special, one-off bottle that the Nikka whisky presenter made by accumulating the ends of many different Nikka whiskies over the years. The excess in booze in this tasting resulted in an even more communal environment, with even more conversations between total strangers. "Booze has always been by the people and for the people. I just want to remind people of this fact. Whiskey is and will always be for everybody," he tells me later. Editor's note: To sign up for a Spirit Society tasting, check out his website and subscribe to the newsletter. (Take an Uber or Lyft, trust.)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d7kvnm/las-spirit-guide-will-lead-you-through-your-favorite-poisons

Food by VICE

Vice

2018-07-31 00:00:00

2018

7.0

31

Ahmad Sultan, Abdul Qadir Sediqi

At least 15 killed as gunmen attack Afghan government building

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least 15 people were killed on Tuesday in Afghanistan’s eastern city of Jalalabad when gunmen stormed a government building, trapping dozens inside after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance gate, officials and witnesses said. The attack underlines the country’s dire security situation after 17 years of war. Islamic State increasingly claims attacks on civilian targets even as pressure builds for peace talks between the Western-backed government and the Taliban. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though the Taliban issued a statement denying involvement. After several hours during which intermittent gunfire and explosions could be heard, provincial government spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said the incident appeared to be over with two gunmen killed and much of the building destroyed. He said at least 15 people had been killed and 15 wounded although the total may rise as rescue workers search the site. Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the local provincial council, said eight had been killed and as many as 30 wounded. The International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization working in Afghanistan, said one of its staff, a water and sanitation engineer, was among the dead. One witness, a passerby named Obaidullah, said the attack began when a black car with three occupants pulled up at the entrance to a building used by the department of refugee affairs and a gunman emerged, firing around him. One attacker blew himself up at the gate and two gunmen entered the building, in an area close to shops and government offices, he added. Minutes later, the car blew up, wounding people in the street, Obaidullah said. “We saw several people wounded and helped to carry them away,” he added. As security forces cordoned off the area, gunshots and what appeared to be hand grenade explosions could be heard as a cloud of black smoke drifted into the sky. Sohrab Qaderi, a member of the local provincial council, said about 40 people appeared to have been caught inside the building, which caught fire early in the attack. As the attack concluded, it was not immediately clear what had happened to them. Islamic State has claimed a number of recent attacks in the city. Khogyani said the attack happened during a meeting with NGOs working on refugee-related issues. The head of the department and several other people were taken to safety, he said. Although it is unclear whether there is any direct connection, Islamic State attacks have picked up as hopes for peace talks between the government and the Taliban have grown in the wake of last month’s three-day ceasefire. The attacks have been concentrated in Jalalabad, the main city of Nangarhar province, on the border with Pakistan where Islamic State fighters first appeared towards the end of 2014. The casualties add to a mounting toll in Afghanistan. In the western province of Farah, 11 people were killed when their bus was hit by a roadside bomb, officials said. Also on Tuesday, unknown attackers seized 22 people from vehicles on a highway linking Kabul and Gardez, a key city in the eastern province of Paktia. Additional reporting by Rafiq Shirzad; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack/at-least-15-killed-as-gunmen-attack-afghan-government-building-idUSKBN1KL0WE

World News

Reuters

2019-01-23 20:08:07

2019

1.0

23

Alex Abad-Santos

Bryan Singer sexual assault allegations: 4 men accuse the director of sexually assaulting underage boys

In a report published in the Atlantic, four men have accused director Bryan Singer of sexually assaulting them while they were underage. The alleged assaults took place in California between 1997 and 1999. Singer is the credited director of Bohemian Rhapsody and is known for directing films like X-Men, X2, and The Usual Suspects. The Atlantic’s report details the Hollywood circles Singer was reportedly part of during the late ’90s, the boys he met and parties he threw during that time period, the allegations of sexual assault of underage boys, and an alleged pattern of abuse that wrecked the accusers’ lives. It was written by Alex French and Maximillian Potter — a writer at large and editor at large for Esquire, respectively — who say they spent 12 months reporting the story and spoke to more than 50 sources about the allegations. Singer’s lawyer Andrew Brettler denied the allegations against his client, stating to French and Potter that Singer has never been arrested or convicted of any crime and that he categorically denies ever having sex with, or a preference for, underage men. Singer, through his lawyer, told Vox the story is a “homophobic smear piece [that] has been conveniently timed to take advantage of [Bohemian Rhapsody’s] success” and that it was written by “a homophobic journalist who has a bizarre obsession with me dating back to 1997.” French and Potter tell the stories of four men who had previously never spoken publicly about their allegations against Singer. One of those men is Victor Valdovinos, who told French and Potter that when he was 13, he worked as an extra on Singer’s 1998 film Apt Pupil. Valdovinos says that during a day of filming a locker room scene that required partial nudity, Singer molested him multiple times. Per the Atlantic: According to Valdovinos, Singer reached through the towel flaps and “grabbed my genitals and started masturbating it.” The director also “rubbed his front part on me,” Valdovinos alleges. “He did it all with this smile.” Valdovinos says that Singer told him, “You’re so good-looking … I really want to work with you … I have a nice Ferrari … I’m going to take care of you.” “I was frozen. Speechless,” Valdovinos continues. “He came back to where I was in the locker room throughout the day to molest me.” The other three men in the story were given pseudonyms for fear of retaliation. One of those men, identified as “Andy,” says he was 15 when he met Singer through Marc Collins-Rector, a purported friend of Singer’s and a convicted sex offender. Andy told French and Potter that he and Singer had sex the first night they met, and multiple times after: “I just remember how loud the moaning was. I remember thinking, God, there’s a big group of people downstairs hanging out in the living room, and they can probably hear him. That bothered me, so I stuck my hand over his mouth or in his mouth just to stop it. When we went downstairs, it was really awkward. I just acted like it was no big thing.” Another man, identified as “Ben,” told the writers he met Singer at one of Singer’s parties. Ben said he was 17 or 18 when Singer coerced him to perform oral sex on him. “He would stick his hands down your pants without your consent,” Ben told French and Potter. “He was predatory in that he would ply people with alcohol and drugs and then have sex with them.” Ben also said “it wasn’t a hold-you-down-and-rape-you situation.” The fourth man, identified as “Eric,” alleges that he and Singer had sex when Eric was 17, and that he witnessed a system in which young boys were brought to Singer and his friends to curry favor. “If you weren’t young and cute enough to be their boy, you could still ingratiate yourself by bringing boys to them,” Eric said. These are not the first allegations of sexual misconduct that have surfaced against Singer. In 2014, two men filed lawsuits against Singer accusing him of sexually assaulting them while they were underage. Those lawsuits were later dismissed. Then in 2017, Singer denied accusations by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, a 31-year-old man from Washington, who filed a lawsuit saying that Singer raped him when he was 17, on a yacht sailing from Lake Union to Lake Washington in Seattle. And in October 2018, Singer posted a message on Instagram warning of a “negative article” from Esquire about him and implied that it was a publicity-seeking opportunity timed to the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, which came out on November 2. A post shared by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Oct 15, 2018 at 2:06am PDT According to the Hollywood Reporter, Singer was fired from the project in December 2017, a few weeks before filming ended, after he clashed with star Rami Malek and disappeared from the set. Singer said his absence was due to wanting to care for a sick parent. Because of Directors Guild of America rules, only one director or team can be credited for directing a film, and Singer remains the sole credited director for Bohemian Rhapsody. It appears that Singer’s October Instagram post may have been referencing Potter and French, who are both named on Esquire’s masthead. Though Potter and French originally reported the story for Esquire, it was later brought to the Atlantic, where, according to a spokesperson for the magazine, it went through the publication’s legal vetting and fact-checking process. Singer, in a statement made through his lawyer, disparaged the piece, calling into question the credibility of the writers, accusers, and editors: The last time I posted about this subject, Esquire magazine was preparing to publish an article written by a homophobic journalist who has a bizarre obsession with me dating back to 1997. After careful fact-checking and, in consideration of the lack of credible sources, Esquire chose not to publish this piece of vendetta journalism. That didn’t stop this writer from selling it to The Atlantic. It’s sad that The Atlantic would stoop to this low standard of journalistic integrity. Again, I am forced to reiterate that this story rehashes claims from bogus lawsuits filed by a disreputable cast of individuals willing to lie for money or attention. And it is no surprise that, with Bohemian Rhapsody being an award-winning hit, this homophobic smear piece has been conveniently timed to take advantage of its success. The writers of the piece responded, and said that the piece was fact-checked at Esquire but then Hearst executives killed the article. The move then let them publish at The Atlantic: Statement from reporters Maximillian Potter and Alex French on investigation of Bryan Singer published in @TheAtlantic: pic.twitter.com/iouvNZGQtz Singer has not been involved in promoting Bohemian Rhapsody on the awards circuit. The movie was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture on January 22, and its star Malek was nominated for Best Actor. It previously won Best Drama at the Golden Globes. Also on January 22, Malek distanced himself from Singer, telling People that he “was not aware of” any allegations against Singer before working on Bohemian Rhapsody. Singer is still slated to direct an upcoming Red Sonja remake. You can read French and Potter’s full report on Singer at the Atlantic.

https://www.vox.com/latest-news/2019/1/23/18194224/bryan-singer-sexual-assault-underage-boys

Vox

2018-03-02 00:00:00

2018

3.0

2

Brazil farm exports may benefit from rising U.S.-China trade tensions: official

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian farm exports may benefit from rising trade tensions between the United States and China, an official from Mato Grosso state, Brazil’s largest grain growing region, said in an interview on Friday. “Signs of growing tensions between the United States and China may be a good opportunity for Brazil given our prowess to produce grains like soy and corn,” said Carlos Favaro, Mato Grosso vice governor. He added Brazil can expand commercial ties with China, noting such bonds have been steadily growing in recent years as China has invested heavily in Brazil’s agribusiness sector and infrastructure projects. Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-grains-china/brazil-farm-exports-may-benefit-from-rising-u-s-china-trade-tensions-official-idUSKCN1GE1ZC

Politics

Reuters

2018-10-08 00:00:00

2018

10.0

8

Google welcomes UK court block on claim over data collection

(Reuters) - Google welcomed a decision on Monday by London’s High Court to block an attempt to bring legal action over claims it had collected sensitive data from 4 million iPhone users in England and Wales. “The privacy and security of our users is extremely important to us. This claim is without merit, and we’re pleased the Court has dismissed it,” a Google spokesperson said in answer to a request for comment. Google is a unit of Alphabet (GOOGL.O), the U.S. tech company. Reporting by Douglas Busvine

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-google-court-reaction/google-welcomes-uk-court-block-on-claim-over-data-collection-idUSKCN1MI0XJ

Technology News

Reuters

2019-01-09 19:31:30

2019

1.0

9

Eric Johnson

Jon Lovett explains why Democrats in Congress probably won’t regulate Facebook

On the latest episode of Pivot, Recode’s Kara Swisher traded in Scott Galloway for a guest co-host: Crooked Media’s Jon Lovett, the co-host of Pod Save America and host of Lovett or Leave It. They talked about everything from Trump’s shutdown to Netflix’s Bird Box, and why the newly Democratic-controlled House of Representatives probably won’t make a move to regulate tech giants like Facebook. “I think if you were to ask a bunch of Democrats off the record, like do you think these companies should be regulated, they’d all say yes,” Lovett said. “How many of them want to make it happen? How many of them really want to devote their resources and attention to it? “You look at what animates Democratic voters, you look at what animates Democratic politicians, it’s health care, it’s increasingly climate. It is wages and economic issues, it’s issues around reproductive freedom and criminal justice reform and inequality,” he added. “But regulating Mark Zuckerberg, right now ... There’s a lot of press releases and hand-wringing but you don’t really hear a big coherent case.” You can listen to Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway wherever you get your podcasts — including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Overcast. Below, we’ve shared a full transcript of Kara’s conversation with Jon. Kara Swisher: Hi everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I’m Kara Swisher, welcome to Pivot 2019. This week, Scott Galloway is out and my friend Jon Lovett from Crooked Media is here. Hello, Jon. Jon Lovett: Hello, Kara. You’re stepping into the co-host chair. Jon hosts a number of his own fantastic podcasts including Pod Save America and ... Lovett or Leave It. Exactly. And we’re here at their headquarters in Los Angeles, at the Crooked Media headquarters, and I’m having a great time and I appreciate you doing this for me. Thanks for coming. Look, people clamor for ... You and I. For us to be together. Because we have such a spark, right? We have such a spark. It’s electric. It’s electric right now. You don’t know what’s going on in the studio right now. But, thank you for the ultimate podcast crossover episode. So, I sort of gave you an idea of what we do here on Pivot, but it’s just exactly talking about the big story shake-downs. Then we talk about predictions and wins and fails of the week and I just, you’re so opinionated. I think you can agree with me on that one. Sure. That you will have lots of opinions. There’s so much in the news now that you can discuss. We’re going to focus obviously on political stuff, but whatever you want to talk about. And so, let’s do first the big story breakdown. Obviously the government shutdown for you all, is that correct, and stuff like that. I want to pivot it towards tech legislation, because I think it’s never going to happen now because they can’t even decide on lunch in Washington. Yeah. So, talk about that big story. The Democrats taking over the house, Nancy Pelosi was elected speaker of the House again. Yes. Tell us where we are with this big story. So, let’s talk about the shutdown. Okay. You know, Donald Trump has, over the past two years, kind of had a pattern — whether it’s with DACA and the DREAMers, the Paris Climate Accords, the Iran deal, now this shutdown, several other issues — he knows instinctively that his comfort with cruelty, with damage, gives him leverage. He does know that. However, he doesn’t ever seem to have the discipline or follow-through to say, “Okay, I will threaten to deport children who did nothing wrong and were brought here by their parents.” Right. To get a deal. But then, when that deal is put on the table, when Democrats say, “You know what? If you’ll protect DREAMers and come to the table on immigration, we’ll give you money for border security.” He walks away. It’s never good enough. He talks about renegotiating deals. NAFTA, right? He threatens to pull out of NAFTA, they make some cosmetic changes to NAFTA. Now with this shutdown, he sits down in the Oval Office with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and says, “I’m going to shut the government down over border security.” Over the wall. Over the wall. Or steel slats or whatever. Over steel slats. “I’m the one that’s going to do it. You want open borders, I want the wall. Call me Mr. Shutdown. I’m king shutdown, shutdown man.” Government shuts down. Well, what’s the plan? Because you know, the Senate passed on a bipartisan basis by a voice vote, which basically means 100 percent of the Senators got behind a bipartisan deal that included much less funding for border security. He then makes this threat. Paul Ryan, in one of his last acts, perfect last act for him, goes along with it. Right. Twizzling Paul Ryan, goes along with this ... the word is fakakta. It’s a fakakta plan. And the government has been shut down. I am very glad that Paul Ryan left the government as a capitulating supplicant to Donald Trump while the government was shutdown, while the debt hit record levels, right? Every single thing Paul Ryan claimed to care about. And the stock market. And the stock market took a huge hit. Every single thing that Paul Ryan claims to have cared about and been a leader on was damaged by his time. Good-bye, Paul. Good-bye. Don’t let the door hit you. Right. You know what? Let it hit you ... on your way to the gym. Let the door hit you on the way out. We got that. Buns of steel, let the door hit you. Listen, for two years, in my mind I had just been waiting for the moment where Nancy Pelosi takes the gavel from Paul Ryan’s fucking hands and today, it happened. So, you look at Donald Trump ... Did he give it to her? No, because he’s not in Congress anymore. Kevin McCarthy handed it over, which is much less satisfying, let’s be honest about it. That guy. Look at what Donald Trump did in the intervening time between an old Congress and a new Congress. He shut the government down over border security. He had two years of unified Congress, couldn’t get this kind of thing through. Nancy Pelosi just took the gavel. Did it get easier to get your money? Of course not. Of course not, especially because we know that the Senate already passed a bipartisan bill that the House can now pass a version of. So, he basically does what he does. What Donald Trump does, he shoots the hostage, now the hostage is lying on the ground bleeding. He doesn’t have a plan for how to get his ransom. So, that’s where we are right now. I don’t think anyone really knows how it’s going to shake out. Donald Trump is dug in but ... So, what’s going to happen? What is from you guys, you guys talk about this a lot on Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It. What’s going to happen then? I don’t know. I don’t have a prediction. What has happened over the past few years is there’s a lot of bluster around shutdowns, about shutdowns going on forever and how you’ll be blamed and I won’t be blamed. But Donald Trump went into this shutdown taking the blame for it. In the end, they choose to give in in some way. Right. It’s a hard thing to know how this actually shakes out, what kind of fig leaf Donald Trump will claim in order to reopen the government. I don’t really know, but it certainly doesn’t end with Nancy Pelosi’s, one of her first acts as Democratic Speaker, giving Donald Trump his $5 billion unless there’s some new big deal on immigration — which, again, feels very unlikely because, again, that deal was killed by Donald Trump before. So, they can’t do anything. One of the things that we’ve been talking a lot about this year on Pivot is the idea of tech legislation, privacy legislation, any legislation making these giant platforms more accountable. That seems impossible at this point, right? I mean, yeah. Look, they can’t seem to agree on basic functioning of the government. There’s not a bipartisan basis for that legislation right now. Republicans control the Senate. Even Democratic Senators, if I’m being honest, there’s not many of them have taken up the mantel. You know, it’s something ... Senator Warner. Warner, of course, has been a leader about this and said interesting things about it. But even he has been, you know, he has taken his time in reaching the point of saying that these companies need more regulation. People like Brian Schatz who are really smart messengers and are really smart about thinking through what the next Democratic position should be has been talking about this more. But ultimately, the place that I’m interested in this debate taking place is the 2020 field and how this plays out amongst Democrats, because not only is a lot of this dependent on electing a Democratic president especially when we don’t have control of the Senate, that is also where a lot of the most important policy debates move forward, is in Democratic primaries. That’s what we saw in health care. I think that’s this time what we’ll see on tech, on monopoly, that I think ... Do you think that is going to be a big issue or has tech kind of gotten out of, gotten away from paying the price for this? Because Nancy, I had talked to Nancy Pelosi and she talked about this internet bill of rights and Democrats now are much tougher on tech, right? They’ve shifted. They were the best friends of tech and then they moved away from it. Yeah, I think it’s a really good question. I think this is one of those places where you see the cost of Democratic leadership, Congressional leadership, generally being older. They’re not as fluent in this conversation. I also think it’s taking time for this idea to kind of move through the system. I think if you were to ask a bunch of Democrats off the record, like do you think these companies should be regulated, they’d all say yes. How many of them want to make it happen? How many of them really want to devote their resources and attention to it? It’s not been ... When there’s so many other things. When there’s so many other things. I mean, you look at what animates Democratic voters, you look at what animates Democratic politicians, it’s health care, it’s increasingly climate. It is wages and economic issues, it’s issues around reproductive freedom and criminal justice reform and inequality. But regulating Mark Zuckerberg, right now, it does feel like a lot of the patter ... Regulating Mark Zuckerberg. That sounds terrible. Sound like the name of your book. Yes. There’s a lot of press releases and hand-wringing but you don’t really hear a big coherent case for here’s what the future of regulation on these issues ... Right, No. I agree. It’s going to happen in the states, like Gavin Newsom and California and places ... even if it does happen, because there’s so many other issues. Yeah, I also think it’s tied into a larger, much harder conversation about corporate power generally and corporate power inside of the Democratic party. And I think that’s partly why I’ve looked to the 2020 field as a place to have this debate, is I think the need to rein in Facebook, the need to rein in the monopolistic power that a lot of these companies have is going to be part of a larger conversation about the influence of money in politics, about the concentration of wealth, about corporate consolidation. And you know, Elizabeth Warren, that’s part of her ... Yeah, just announced. I was going to ask about that, enters the presidential race. Yeah. She enters the presidential race. You know, even Nancy Pelosi, her speech today taking the speakership talked about the concentration of wealth. So I think that’s going to be, I hope ... And guess where the wealth is. And I hope one of the big ... I think corporate power and corporate concentration, as it applies to tech companies, as it applies to Amazon, as it applies to banks, as it applies to telecom, as it applies to all these different industries, is to me the sleeper issue. It’s not that it’s not being talked about, but it is to me the place where Democrats can really say, “This is now not a part of our program, but a centerpiece of how we talk about ...” Will they turn on tech? I mean, they seem to be, Cory Booker does, you know, some of them are really starting to beyond ... Yeah, I don’t think it’s necessarily about turning on tech. I think it’s about saying, “Well, hold on a second.” You know, you guys have been ... the tech companies have been so unwilling to even define what they are, to avoid the conversation about where they fit and their power. They’re reluctant to talk about it, while at the same time exploiting it, building businesses off it, building great wealth off of it. So, I don’t think it’s about turning on tech. I think what you will see is what you always see around these issues. I think you will see some Democrats still adhere to a ’90s way of talking about these issues that everybody can win. Absolutely. Then, I think you will see some further to the left be more strident, or at least more zero sum in these conversations. Right. “Let’s get rid of these powers.” Yeah, we have to attack these, these have to be broken up. These should be heavily regulated. They’re greedy, they’re corrupting our democracy. All of which I think has a lot of truth to it. And then I think you will see what happens with Democratic politicians, you will see a more moderate center-left position that becomes the kind of cohesive position that says it’s not about ... you will see ... Amazon has done a lot of good for people, right? They’ll say that. This is what their message will be like. Consumer harm is the issue, right? Right. The harm in saying like, can we have a system in which these companies are able to innovate and thrive and lead the world right? As one of America’s most important and powerful sectors, while preventing some of the consequences of their worst behavior. And I think that is a very reasonable question. That to me is where the debate will ultimately lie. They also will have enormous power, Netflix taking down the episode about Saudi Arabia about journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi. Yeah. And these are some of the hardest ... They just did that. They just did it. But these are some of the hardest questions we face as a culture, right? Even dividing it into a tech conversation. You know, Netflix is going to take a lot of heat for this, but companies like Warner Bros. are deciding whether or not to include scenes in films based on what a Chinese censor would say. Well, okay. So, now Chinese censors are dictating what appears in America. Right. You know, this is a very specific example. There is a ... Martin Scorsese made a movie about Tibet. You can’t get it. Right. Because ... and that’s an old problem. We’ve been dealing with censorship around multimedia, about multinational companies and the content they create for a very long time. There’s just a new manifestation of it. And it’s more important now, in part because these companies are so much bigger, so much ... have so much control. Pervasive. They’re pervasive. So, it becomes a big conversation. But it’s a conversation we’ve had for a very long time. Right. But they are, well, you know ... Kundun. That’s the movie. Kundun. That’s right. But you know, they’ve weaponized and amplified in a way that is way beyond anything else. Well, they ... I think it’s very hard. I’ve watched you talk to Mark Zuckerberg and try desperately to get to him to lower the fucking shield that he’s built. Well, it’s hard to reprogram Data, but go ahead. It’s just, I mean ... just three inches of just solid concrete between him and you. But as you chip, chip, chip, I think the thing that is true is that they did not think enough about downside risk. No, never. Never. No. No, connecting people is good. Therefore, connecting people is good. And well, guess what? People are people. And some of them are fucking terrible. Yeah, I couldn’t get him to answer on the damages. No. You couldn’t even get him to talk about how he feels about it. No, I couldn’t. Six times. I did try to get him to fire himself. Here’s the thing. Upton Sinclair: You can’t convince somebody of something their livelihood depends on not believing. That was so high-minded, Jon. Pretty good. Upton Sinclair? Go ahead. Upton Sinclair. It’s one of my favorite lines because ... Okay. It’s a very good line. There are many conclusions Facebook can reach. The one conclusion it can’t reach is that it’s doing more harm than good. It’s not possible. Right. Right? Every technology company should have a red button somewhere in the headquarters where if they realize they’ve caused more societal harm than they expected and done more harm than good, they press the button and the company dissolves instantly. That’s it. Just a big, red button in the center of the headquarters. You need two keys to unlock it, maybe a code, maybe a two-factor. Maybe one of those Unikeys, right? Just to unlock the fucking thing. But then, push comes to shove, you know what? “Guys, it’s mostly Nazis now. Push the button.” Yeah, yeah. “It’s mostly Nazis.” “We looked, we crunched the numbers, and it’s robots and Nazis. Press the button.” It’s Nazis and ... That is a societal good! We’re getting to that. That’s a good. That is a good. You know, one of the things I’ve said is we have to like — I’ve said this recently a lot — is we have to ... they should imagine every product they make as an episode of Black Mirror. Sure. What’s the ... except not San Junipero, that one, because that’s a nice one, but all the bad ones. Absolutely. Then they shouldn’t make it if they can think of a really good episode. Right, because so far our track record is Black Mirror is just the news from four years from now. Exactly. All right. Jon, red button. I love this idea. We’re here with Jon Lovett. We’re at the headquarters of Crooked Media. And we’re loosening up. We’re loosening up. We’re starting to drink and stuff like that. We’re going to take a quick break, but stay with us. We’re going to go into wins and fails of the week when we get back with Jon Lovett. [ad] Now, back to the show. How did I read those, Jon? How did I? You did great. Did I do great? And was there anything that you’d emphasize more? QuickBooks! I think you could have brought a little more heart to it. Let’s just be honest. I don’t think you’re going to ... I don’t know if you saw Roma. I don’t think you’re going to ... I saw Roma. So I think she did a better job in her performance than you did. Oh, thank you, thank you. In yours. Thank you. But she was transcendent. She was transcendent. You were fine. Okay, thanks. I’m not up to your Roma standards? You’re not. Oh, man, that was a good movie, wasn’t it? Why didn’t they pick up the dog poop? Why didn’t they pick up the dog poop? Why didn’t they pick up the dog poop? Just pick it up. I mean, seriously. I was like, just pick it up. It’s so funny that that’s your takeaway from the film. I literally got obsessed with it. It was making me crazy. It was crazy. It was making me crazy. And then they drove over it, I’m like, “What are you doing?” Stepped in it, drove over it. Stepped in it, drove in it. It’s a metaphor, probably. I know, exactly. Anyway, in any case, let’s move on. So we have a segment that, we’re going to talk about some wins and fails of the week. And one of them, to me, was the women in India forming the 385-mile human chain for gender equality. And then there was a fail that I thought ... men accused of sexual harassment trying to make comebacks, like Louis CK and Kevin Spacey, making some creepy attempts to get behind the microphone. What do you think? Give me some of your wins and fails. I would say ... Look, I think Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House is one of the most important wins that we will have. Oh, of course, Nancy Pelosi. Go ahead. Yes, explain. Yeah. Not just because ... So look, before this election ... I’m a partisan, but I believe that Democrats winning the House was one of the most important steps we could take as a country to protect ourselves. Right. Mm-hmm. And the cost of losing, I think, would have been cataclysmic. So we avoided a truly horrific outcome in which people felt really dispirited. And we would have learned something quite horrific, which is, there wasn’t a price for Donald Trump’s terrible behavior or Paul Ryan’s capitulation to him. So that in and of itself was valuable. But Nancy Pelosi — I think the same thing about Elizabeth Warren — Nancy Pelosi, if she were a man, she would be considered one of the great leaders in modern political history. This is correct. I like how you’re knitting this together. Yeah, and I think she would be, and I think she will be. I think increasingly she is, in part because people are pointing this out, that saying that Paul Ryan was a young gun, intellectual leader, cover of magazines, even though it was mostly a fraud. Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, grinding away for decades, retakes the speakership. And by the way, one of the most successful speakers. I mean, those first two years of the Obama administration are one of the most productive legislative periods in modern history, right? Rivaling ... Not rival ... In the pantheon of periods of time of progress with FDR and Lyndon Johnson, have a lot of things getting done in a period of great crisis. Now, she retakes that gavel at a little time of incredible importance in which we need Democrats to stick together. We need a strong leader, and we have that. I think that’s really, really important. I would say one of the big fails of this week has been this conversation around likability around Elizabeth Warren. Right. Echoing the old Hillary Clinton one. Right. And as people have pointed out, a lot of people who are currently saying Elizabeth Warren is unlikable, said that she was the likable alternative to Hillary Clinton. Isn’t it amazing how unlikable a woman becomes once she decides to go for the big prize? Right. Right. But in the same way that Nancy Pelosi isn’t given the credit she’s due, to me, it’s easy to have a conversation about how the term “likability” is sexist. And it is. It’s easy to say, “That’s wrong.” But what’s harder to talk about is what’s missing. Right. And Elizabeth Warren, I watched her announcement video, and it is excellent. It is also what she has been talking about for her entire career. Forever. Mm-hmm. Before she was in the Senate, she was a professor. She is the one who came up with this idea for a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mm-hmm. That originally she was going to lead but couldn’t get confirmed for it. Right. Right. Mm-hmm. But she has been the ... She, I think, more than anyone else you could point to and say, this is the intellectual leader of democratic politics. And she doesn’t get called back. If she were a man, she would right now be the natural frontrunner, the unalloyed frontrunner in Democratic politics. She has been the intellectual leader. She is a charismatic politician. She’s incredibly smart in how she talks about issues. She has been a consistent ... She’s been ahead of the curve in terms of talking about things like corporate power, talking about what’s been happening to the middle class. It’s interesting. She’s sort of like that character on Homeland who was the president who became ... You know what I mean? She rubs people the wrong way. I don’t watch soap operas. Okay. It’s enjoyable. I like Claire Danes, and she can do anything she wants. In any case, what do you watch? I watch all kinds of things. What’s your favorite show right now? Listen, I enjoyed Homecoming. I’m watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Oh yes. It’s marvelous, isn’t it? It’s a delight. It’s delightful. It’s a delight. It’s a delight. All right, I’m going to get back to Elizabeth Warren. We had her at the Code Conference several years ago. And I have never gotten such negative feedback from men in my life. I have to tell you, it was fascinating. It was as if she went onstage and threw shit at them. It was amazing. It was sort of way out-sized, her appearance. And it was really interesting to me. What do you think that is? I’ve no idea, but it was remarkable. It was remarkable. I thought she was quite good, and very articulate about it. I don’t know if it was her shoes? I don’t know what bothered them. Something got under them and worked their last nerve with her. And it was sort of like, “Whoa,” that was fascinating. Yeah. I think she was a lady. Yeah. Also, she’s got opinions. She’s a lady with opinions. I think that’s really what it was. Unabashedly. And strong opinions. Unabashedly. And she tsk-tsked them, for sure, about wealth and power, the same thing as your corporate wealth and power, and rich people don’t like being told they’re awful, who think they’re great. Right. And they certainly don’t ... Coming from someone who’s not going to preface it by saying how sorry they are to have the opinion. Right, exactly. It was interesting. I was really like ... It was a real moment for me at the event. Yeah. I mean, look, this is ... I think a lot of the defenders of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy make this similar argument, which is, every time you say that she was uniquely ill-suited, you fail to account for the ways in which a sexist system has spent a very long time making her ill-suited in the way that you’re describing. Right. And I think that there is a lot of truth to that. You also see on the flip side, we just elected 89 women to serve in the Congress as Democrats. Right. I thought we only elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She gets a lot of attention. It was her and ... No, I know, I know that. 88 others. I know you know, I know you know. I like her squad. I like everything. Speaking of attacks. Oh man, she gets ... They are going through her yearbook and putting these things out there as if they are criticism. She danced in college. She went by a nickname. And also they were saying, oh, she didn’t go to school in the Bronx. She talks about how she took a long trip to go to a better school. Right. Right. And how she learned from her home in the Bronx to this nicer neighborhood. Right. The differences of wealth, she’s talked about it. Right. The sexist attacks on AOC are incredible. You know what’s astonishing? She’s really good at whacking them back. She is. She is. I literally have never seen someone as good at Twitter except for Trump, who I think is very good at Twitter, whether you like him or not. He’s good at it. I agree. She’s fantastic. Her chopping onions and talking about wealth was riveting. It’s also one thing, to your point, oh, I didn’t realize other women were elected. Right. Right? She is someone who has, because of her own charisma, because of conservative attacks, because of how she kind of surprised people by winning in this primary against a prominent Democrat, has been given a pretty out-sized platform. Yeah. And she’s going to use it. Right. And she’s using it really well. Yeah. And to champion things she cares about. It’s such a funny thing. It’s like, “Oh, why is AOC getting all this attention?” That’s not the question. She has it. And how is she using it? Right. She’s spending it really fucking well. Right, yeah. She’s holding people accountable on the green new deal, she’s advocating for things she cares about, she’s pushing back on right-wing attacks on her in a really sort of charming and classy way. Charming. Right, yeah. And an effective way. So, she didn’t decide to become someone who receives all this attention. A culture around her for reasons good and bad decided that. Mm-hmm. But good. Yeah. She’s using it. Yeah, she does use it really well. She’s really fascinating. It’s interesting, we’ll see how Nancy Pelosi uses the medium. She’s not real good on Twitter and stuff like that. She’s just not. Although, she did push back on the coat thing, which was a meme online. Her whole weird coat obsession, which I’m like, “It’s a coat.” And she did actually talk about it, but it was interesting how that became something. Yeah. Well, I’m glad she had that moment with Trump. Yeah. Oh no, the moment was great. Fantastic. The coat was ridiculous. The obsession of her coat she wore outside. That became the talking point. She looked good in the coat. She looked good in the coat, Jon. But really, it’s a coat. I’m not sitting here talking ... You’re the one bringing up the coat. She wore ... You can’t stop talking about it. I’m just saying. But I’m saying ... Why are you obsessed with Nancy Pelosi’s coat? Because they were discussing the coat versus what she did in there, more than what Schumer did in there. And she did the same thing. That’s my ... She’s better than Schumer. That’s right. She was quite good. And the coat became the meme, the online meme and all. So getting to that, and then I want to go to predictions, how do you look at social media and its impact in the next, going forward? Because obviously negative for the last one, and how they ... The Russian thing was a real bummer. So we crunched the numbers. Right. Bad. Bad. Bad. I don’t know. It’s a really hard question. I don’t really ... We’re out of the prediction business, but as individuals, we have to choose how we use these platforms. And I think that there’s two direct ... There’s offense and defense. On offense, I think we each choose the kind of person we are online. And I think there’s a lot of very good people who have chosen to be very ugly versions of themselves online. And I like to think that the more time we spend, the more we adapt, the more we learn, the better people will do. I think that’s wishful thinking. But I do think as individuals ... I think there’s a lot of people out there that would look back on their tweets and posts and conduct online since they started using Twitter and say ... Let’s say they took all of my tweets and made an artificially intelligent version of me. Right. Mm-hmm. Would I like that person? Right. Would I like the version of me? Do you? I like you. Listen, I think I’m the rare exception. I’m a Twitter delight. But I think for the most part we would say we are more strident, meaner, less vulnerable, less honest. We’re more narcissistic, we’re more like Trump. That’s why Trump’s good at Twitter. Right. We are ostensibly tough, but also quite weak when we’re on Twitter, right? That’s how we are. We’re extremely vulnerable to injury while projecting a kind of imperviousness. So I think that’s the offense. And there’s defense, which is how we each use it. And I take myself off now. I took myself off Twitter for this break. I occasionally went back on to search for my name. You’re very good. Just to do it, look at my mentions, because I’m human and there’s still blood in my veins. But these are tools. And I don’t think that they were developed maliciously. I think that there were truly good intentions behind Twitter. I think there are truly good intentions behind Facebook. However, these things have adapted to basically pornify our minds, right? Pornify. To reduce ideas. In the same way that McDonald’s is the porn of food, Twitter is the porn of information. Oh. It is bite-size. It gives you that little bit of feedback. Makes you feel bad, dirty. It’s that it feeds your immediate needs while over time making you feel less and less value. That is very wise thinking. Less and less whole. What about the impact on politics? How do you think politicians are looking at it for the next cycles? It’s sort of wobbly during the midterms. Yes. But it didn’t break anything. So I think there’s, again, the offensive/defensive. On offense, I would like to see more politicians just hold the phone themselves, use it the way Beto O’Rourke does. Use it the way, actually, Elizabeth Warren sometimes does, where you just kind of feel like you’re hearing from them. Use it the way AOC does. Mm-hmm. Use it the way Adam Schiff ... Adam Schiff is ... Chris Murphy and others do where you just feel like you’re hearing from them. Yeah. Honestly, Chuck Grassley at times. Mm-hmm. He’s good. He’s good. Just uses it. Chuck Grassley is good. It’s not a medium for your press releases. Conway’s good. Yeah. George Conway is fantastic on Twitter. Fantastic. Fantastic. I have a man crush on him on Twitter. I think that that’s a mistake. I know it is, but I can’t help myself. He’s very clever. Okay. All right. Okay. We’ll talk about that after. Okay. We’ll work through that. All right. Why is it a problem? You tell me right now. Because he’s the font of all evil on the planet and ... I think that having vaguely okay opinions while being married to Kellyanne Conway is not a badge of honor. I see. Right. Okay. Fair point. So, in terms of how they use it defensively, I think that there’s this big question. And the question is, how much does the Twitter conversation reflect the world? Mm-hmm. And we just don’t know. Right. You don’t know. That is a really good point. That is a really good point. It certainly is not analogous. Feels like it. And especially because all the reporters are on it and all the media is on it. Twitter definitely reflects the conversation reporters have. It definitely reflects the conversations politicians and democratic activists and the most devoted hard-core observers of politics, the right wing and left wing, center, all of it. That is a real conversation. Except, obviously, not as honest, not as open, not as vulnerable, not as fair, not as nice, fine. Which is by the way, you’re just saying that, that sucks, right? Mm-hmm. It’s just an uglier version of a real conversation. Now, how does it reflect what real people think? What their experience of politics are? People out in the world who aren’t devoted to politics 24/7? We just don’t know. We don’t know how angry most people who watch CNN are about various panels and how they behave. We don’t know what ... I can tell you, my kids don’t care. And he’s going to be voting in the next election too. It’s so funny too, because this is a moment of so much passion and activism and anger for good and for ill online. But to me, sometimes I think when we look back, if things get worse, if we look back at this moment, what we will actually realize was an omen was actually how little people care. The government shut down. There are 800,000 furloughed people, most of whom are not getting paid by the government. And yeah, there’s online outrage but we’ve kind of gotten to the point where we just sort of whistle past the graveyard. Yeah, I agree, I agree. So it’s this crazy thing where, on the one hand, there’s a frenetic, endless, angry, elevated ... You know what it is, it’s like on Twitter, it’s the movie Gravity, but in real life it’s Roma. You know, same director. Same director. Difference experience. Yeah, bad movie the first one. Okay. Okay, wait, you liked it? What are you talking about? She came down from space by a happenstance? Come on. That’s your summary of ... Yes. That’s your summary of Gravity. Came down from space by happenstance. What is your summary? The human spirit! Oh my god. Using ingenuity and zeal to triumph over ... You probably liked Bird Box, right? No, I do not like Bird Box. Okay. Bird Box is the greatest scam Netflix has ever ... 45 million people watched. 45 million people. Here’s a great example of why these companies are a bit too powerful. They’re in every house, all right, and they went into everybody’s algorithm and they said, “I don’t care what you like, I don’t care if you like baking, I don’t care if you like Bosch,” not Bosch, what’s that show, Kosh? Kosh, I don’t know. Kosh, Bosch? “I don’t care if you like old episodes of the Big Bang Theory or Frasier.” West Wing. “You are going to fucking watch Bird Box.” You sit there and you watch Bird Box. Hey, hey, did you open Netflix? Guess what? Bird Box. Then they brag about the fact that 45 million people ... They basically went into every American home and turned it on. Wow, you know what? I bet like other companies, why didn’t we think of that? Why didn’t HBO think to go into everybody’s house and turn on ... Why didn’t it go into everybody’s house and just turn on Game of Thrones? Well, yeah, a lot of people will fucking watch it. Unbelievable! Did you watch it? Did you watch it? Yeah, of course I watched it! Netflix made me watch it. I never heard of Bird Box. I’m sitting ... You live in Los Angeles! There’s a poster of Bird Box everywhere. Which is the equivalent of them turning it on in my car. Exactly. I’m sitting at home, minding my own business, living my life, it’s holiday break, I open up Netflix. And? And then Bird Box pops up and I think, “Sandra Bullock in a movie with a blindfold. It seems like action, I’m in!” I watched Bird Box before I ever even heard of the thing. That’s how they got me. That’s funny. So was it good? I didn’t watch it. It’s not good. It’s a very bad movie. It’s very bad? It’s a mess. Is it bad/good, good/bad? Whatever. It’s almost bad/good. It is a reminder that part of Netflix’s business model is traveling around Hollywood with a vacuum cleaner and just sucking up the things that hit the ground. Oh, okay. That’s another episode. Thank you for that piece ... Have you sold a show to them yet? Because everyone seems to have. I don’t know, I have to put some space between when this comes out and my next meeting over there. Over there. All right, so I’m going to ask for a prediction, Jon. Or your resolution for the year. I want a prediction. Is it Mitt Romney’s running for ... lost his mind or what? What is your prediction? I will make one. That was crazy online, Mitt Romney. Bird Box and Mitt. Yes, man, Mitt Romney. I think that ... He tries, right? They try, like George, vaguely trying to like ... Mitt Romney. There’s always what he says and there’s always why he’s saying it and it’s never the same. Okay, explain it to the people then. Well, I don’t know. Look, I don’t want to be, on the one hand, I am very sick of Republicans, even Republicans with some conscience, speaking out against Trump without using their power effectively to stop him. That’s what I think you can say about Ben Sasse, that’s what you could say about Jeff Flake, that’s what you could say about Bob Corker and many others. They were never willing to truly use their power as senators. It’s almost as if that ... I think one of the kind of surreal aspects of our current political environment is there is the sense that people are kind of afraid of power. Mm-hmm. As if they don’t really deserve it and don’t really have it when all you have to do ... That’s like Mark Zuckerberg. I talked about that with him, he pushes away power that he has. There’s this kind of sense that, “Oh, power’s for history, it’s not for me.” No, you’re in it, this is the fight, this is the moment. You have it, you’re in the fight, you either use it or you lose it. And they all chose not to use it. What Romney did that is distinct is he set down a marker before he took office in a way he did not have to. I think that there is value to that. Now, I’m very interested to see if he follows through with it. Yeah, or else he’s at dinner at the White House. Sure. And Mitt Romney’s track record is not one in which you find political courage on display. And keep in mind, he is part of the reason Donald Trump was elevated. He accepted his endorsement even though he was a birther, etc., etc., etc. I don’t begrudge him for meeting with him at that creepy Trump International dinner because ... Yeah, that was creepy. I think especially right then, it’s like ... Okay, a lot of people did. A lot of people did take a shot. I actually don’t begrudge him that. But his behavior before and since has not been that exemplary, he accepted Donald Trump’s endorsement, he’s played his cards I think very politically. But let’s see what he does. The thing that makes me least enthusiastic is he said that — a classic line, which is, “I will support Donald Trump’s policies when I agree with them and I will not support them when I don’t.” Like that’s the standard? Hold on a second. Well, look, I had a friend and sometimes he brought me dinner of food I like and sometimes he used my vacuum cleaner without permission, I don’t know, making up a scenario. I’d be like, “You know what? Thank you for bringing me the dinner, it bothers me that you use the vacuum cleaner but you’re still my friend. I will support you when you support me and we will go our different ways.” But if I had a friend who did nice things for me once in a while but then also randomly punched people on the street, or commit an act of violence or set cars on fire, I wouldn’t be this thing of, no, obviously I support my friend when he does nice things but I don’t support him when he ... No, hold on, you’re a fucking prick. Yeah, yeah, you gotta get rid of that. This is idea of like... They won’t make choices. Not making choices is what they won’t do. You have to put the things you care about on the line to stop Donald Trump. If you’re gonna go along with him when he supports the judges you like or policies you like and not when he doesn’t, you’re actually refusing to use the leverage you have. That’s what Bob Corker did, that’s what Flake did. You’re not using your leverage. So Mitt Romney, all right, use your leverage, let’s see what you do. All right, predictions, one prediction? Or your resolution? I will say this, I don’t know if you would call it a prediction. I’m trying to avoid predictions. But I will say, I am looking forward to the delta between what Bob Mueller knows and what we know getting smaller. Ah. I think that we have spent a very long time ... Wondering. Wondering. Postulating. Speculating. We’ve seen a lot of charges, this is a serious investigation that’s produced genuine criminal wrongdoing continuously for the past two years, and yet it always feels like we are trying to fill in the center of the painting. Right. Based on what we’re seeing around the edges. A real picture. All right, so your prediction is it will be interesting to see the Mueller thing. And what’s your resolution for the year? And then I’ll let you go, thank you so much for talking with me. I would say my main resolution is, in terms of politics, is about using social media better. But as part of that, I would like to ... You’re not going to do one of those essays about getting off of it, because those are tiresome. No. If you want to get off of Twitter, delete the app. If you’re writing an essay about it it’s because you want people on Twitter to see it, which means you’re still part of the problem. If you write an essay about how you’re getting off of Twitter, it is because you want “Likes” and retweets on Twitter, which means you have still not cured your disease. Yes, yes. But I would say as part of that, and using the social media better ... Okay, being nicer. I would like to be ... I would like my offline conversations and my on-microphone conversations to sound more similar. They are not that different. So you’re reconciling. I would like to be more honest about how I feel. No Jekyll and Hyde kind of ... No. I think it’s very easy to be in front of a microphone and criticize Republicans and praise Democrats and then save my ire that I hold for Democrats till the mics are off. And just get that out there and I would like to make sure that I’m being more honest about both my friends and my opponents. What’s your last message to Democrats? What’s your message, what should be their resolution? I would say, as we think about 2020, one test that I would have is, would you think about this person ... When you’re choosing your candidate, I would like people to think, this is not someone who I view as electable or unelectable, when you don’t know anything about them and I would not like you to think, this is the right person to take on Trump. To me, the right candidate is a candidate you would think would make a great president, even if Donald Trump never came along. Imagine choosing a Democratic candidate to be president of the United States if you didn’t think that they had to stand across from Donald Trump and debate Donald Trump. Don’t let Donald Trump in so much into your mind ... There’ll be time for that. I’m not saying we’re not gonna think about that, I’m not gonna say it’s not important. But don’t worry about electability and don’t worry about Donald Trump. Just think about what you believe. Who is that for you right now? It sounds like Warren. I think there’s a lot of good options. I sincerely, I’m not being coy, I honestly don’t know. I think that we’re gonna have a very strong field. I think we’re gonna have some ... I have concerns around kind of Washington-speak. That’s not about Warren, that’s just generally, I want to make sure we’re not in a kind of whatever, closed off, inside-DC conversation around policy and politics. I want to know that we’re talking in a way that reaches outside of that bubble. And I also think one thing about this too, on the opposite side of that, it’s not just about ignoring Trump as we try to figure out what’s best but also being honest. Yes Russian hacking. Yes there are unique circumstances. They didn’t hack, Jon. They didn’t hack. There are unique circumstances around why we lost in 2016 related to our candidate, related to the failures of the media, the Russians, failures of the media in covering Donald Trump effectively. All of that is true. However, it took genuine cultural and political rot to open the door for someone like Donald Trump. And if we do not have a candidate who recognizes and appreciates that rot, and is willing to say that things were not right, that our discourse wasn’t up to par, that Democratic policies weren’t up to par, that there was a huge opening that we made for someone like Donald Trump. Even if it had to be a black swan, even if a bunch of other things had to go wrong, you need to be willing to have that part of the conversation. You’re talking about reflection, self-reflection. Yeah, it’s January, that’s what January’s all about. Man, Jon. Wow, wow, I like this new Jon. This was always me. You know what, maybe you look inward and say why didn’t you see me before. Why is it you learning something new about me is a reflection on me and not you? Because I’m deeply in love with you, let’s just be honest with the situation here. It’s happening. it’s fine. “Dear diary, it’s finally happening.” Oh my god, we should start a rumor, it would be so funny. Crazier things have happened, in the podcast world. Okay, it’s not happening. Don’t even get into that. No, we’re not talking about that. I know just what you’re referring to. I don’t know what I’m referring to! I think you know what you’re referring to. Anyway, Jon ... Is this show over? I’m stopping you right now. Jon, thanks for ... Put your headphones back on. Thanks for taking Pivot with me today. Scott will be back next week. Jon, I appreciate it. I appreciate you. All right, I’ll talk to you soon. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2019/1/9/18175744/jon-lovett-crooked-media-facebook-zuckerberg-regulation-politics-pivot-kara-swisher-podcast

Vox

2016-02-02 06:15:12

2016

2.0

2

Kara Swisher

Marissa Mayer's Big Red Book: A Guide to What the Yahoo CEO Will Do Next

In the late fall, employees across Yahoo arrived at work to find a message from CEO Marissa Mayer on their desks. Delivered to everyone simultaneously, it was in the form of a book — the “big red book,” in fact, as it would soon be called across the Silicon Valley Internet giant — that she had created to explain Yahoo to, well, Yahoos. On the opening pages of the thick tome — with a hip design, much font action, a whole lot of bold colors and a vague tone of forced fun — its goal was explicitly stated: “This book is a guide.” I was happy to finally get my hands on one. “You don’t have the book?” joked one departed staffer to me. “You really need to see the book.” I really did. And so do you. Commissioned by Mayer in a project run by her chief of staff Andrew Schulte and produced by Addison Publishing, it cost about $1 million, said sources. Books like this are not uncommon in Silicon Valley, most often made to be given to new employees as part of the onboarding process at hiring. In this case, Mayer seems to have had a different goal, in what appears to be a splashy analog attempt to boost morale. But, more than anything, it is also an insight into her thinking, displaying a mix of stubborn defiance and aggressive cheeriness strewn with the kind of you-can-do-it bromides you might find at a Tony Robbins seminar. “Our hope is that it will give everyone a shared sense of the amazing company that we work for and the incredible opportunities within our reach,” read some text. “Let’s do this.” It also stars Mayer. “We take our work seriously,” read one page, atop a photo of a smiling exec at a computer (which you can see above), “but we don’t take ourselves seriously.” In another, there is a call for Yahoo to “kick ass again.” In still another, the book shows a selfie of Mayer on her first day at the company in July of 2012, with a reprint of her confidential memo about her new job. Such confidence is much needed by Mayer today; she finds herself in a very tough situation as she announces Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings. Aside from the actual results, investors are looking for her and CFO Ken Goldman to give some clear statement about the plans for a spinoff of its core assets and also details about cost cuts, largely via layoffs and closures of low-performing units. Most important of all, though, will be whether there are explicit signals from Mayer about whether the company is open to a sale. On Friday, Yahoo’s board met to discuss this critical issue, as potential suitors circle the company waiting for it to publicly declare itself interested in acquisition discussions. That has been pushed by activist shareholders like Starboard Value, which has been agitating for a sale of Yahoo’s core assets. If not, it is promising a proxy fight that will mire Yahoo in a yet another protracted public tussle. While there have been no substantive talks as yet, giant telcos like Verizon and AT&T are waiting for an opening to make possible bids. “No one can be seen in a hostile takeover mode,” said one person close to the situation. “Yahoo has to really show its cards for anything to start.” That might or might not happen today. According to sources, at the Friday meeting, Mayer laid out a plan for turnaround, appealing for more time from the board to fix Yahoo. But a number of directors have become convinced that she will not be able to deliver that, especially since she has been trying to do so for several years now with a variety of largely failed efforts at Yahoo. “They are emotionally supportive of Mayer and her desire to keep at it, but some of the board just wants to get the company sold for as much money as possible,” said one person close to the situation. “They’ve had enough.” Nonetheless, those directors may face a lot of resistance from Mayer, who is well known for an intense work ethic and an equally strong drive for perfection. Numerous sources close to her said she is determined to solider on; still others said that if there is a decision to sell, she will be the one to manage the process. Mayer will probably prevail in this, given that directors are loath to directly attack a sitting CEO, especially in the clubby and insular world of Silicon Valley. “To attack Mayer, the most high-profile woman leader in tech, is not for the faint of heart,” said one source. “She has more leverage and determination than you might imagine.” That’s all reflected in the big red book. In fact, it stresses what has been her main manifesto for a while — the idea of a virtuous cycle that Mayer has repeated many times at Yahoo. Reads one page: “Great people build great products. Innovative, forward-leaning products will drive increased traffic and engagement, leading to greater advertiser interest and demand. Ultimately, this translates to revenue.” And, for Yahoo today, that depends on your definition of “ultimately.” This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

https://www.vox.com/2016/2/2/11587472/marissa-mayers-big-red-book-a-guide-to-what-the-yahoo-ceo-will-do-next

Vox

2019-03-28 22:44:00

2019

3.0

28

Drew Schwartz

The Wild Story of How a 'GoT' Fan Found the Last Iron Throne on Earth

Early Thursday morning, HBO dropped the final clue in its scavenger hunt for seven Iron Thrones hidden in obscure, exotic locations around the world: an hour-long video of a giant, spiky-ass chair plunked down in the middle of what looked like a castle. This was a big one—the only Throne that had yet to be discovered—and, immediately, folks scrambled to try to track it down. Within minutes, fans figured out that it was in Fort Totten, New York, an old military compound-cum-public park in deep Queens. Anyone close enough to actually get to the thing—including yours truly—rushed to become the first to find it. But we were already too late. Melanie Joaquín saw the video of the Throne as soon as HBO published it, and the moment she laid her eyes on it, she knew where it was. She lives down the street, in an apartment building just outside the park. There was no mistaking that strange cavern, its large stone blocks, the eerie way the light drifted through its columns. The "Throne of the Crypt," she knew, was inside the old Battery at Fort Totten. She clambered out of her apartment, jumped on a bus to the park, and sprinted towards the Throne, only to find the gates to Fort Totten locked. (The producers and director who set up the Throne, tasked with unlocking the gates, had only just taken their video live. There was "no way," they told me, that anyone could figure out where it was that quickly, much less actually get to it.) But Joaquín was determined. She found a small, jagged hole in the fence, crawled through it, and ran headlong towards the old Battery, zigzagging through the park and racing down a long, dark tunnel that led to the Throne. There, waiting for her, were a pair of guards: two towering, bearded men in long fur-collared cloaks, leather boots, and 16th-century breastplates. After asking her a few staggeringly intense questions straight out of Game of Thrones itself—"What is your quest? Is it the Throne you seek?"—they guided her to it. And thus, at long last, this gem of a moment was born: Other aspirant throne-seekers would, in time, come to discover the All-Important Seat themselves, only to find that they had been beaten. Somehow, Joaquín had managed to claim her place atop it about ten minutes after HBO's video went up. "She got here so quickly. We were in shock," Aramique Krauthammer, the director of the Iron Throne project, told me. "We didn't even know where she came from. I'm still surprised, like—how is this possible?" Her quest complete, her Throne mounted, and her crown secured, Joaquín left Fort Totten and returned to her home in Queens—only now she bore a new title, bestowed upon her by Game of Thrones itself. Allow me to introduce you, mere mortals, to Melanie Joaquín: the Queen of Queens. Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzym3/last-iron-throne-who-found-it-new-york-game-of-thrones-how-vgtrn

Entertainment

Vice

2018-04-19 19:16:00

2018

4.0

19

Rachael McDaniel

Marlins P Jarlin Garcia May Not be an Ace, but He's Dealing and Easy to Root For

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports In late August of last year, well before Jarlin Garcia began his career as a Major League starter with a record-tying ten- and one-third hitless innings, hundreds of children—elementary-schoolers, members of youth baseball teams—gathered in the Dominican municipality of Pedro Brand, in the province of Santo Domingo. In front of them were tables stacked with brand-new backpacks, each of them filled with school supplies, and standing at the tables, ready to hand out a backpack to each child, were Garcia’s father and girlfriend. When an organizer asked the gathering if they knew who Jarlin Garcia was—“Malibu,” as he is known in Pedro Brand—a huge cheer went up. While Garcia almost certainly wasn’t a household name in North America, in Pedro Brand he was a star. Like the kids his foundation was providing school supplies for, he was born and raised there; like them, his family had often struggled to make ends meet. And now he was a pitcher in the major leagues, making enough money to provide an entire community of children with enough pencils, pens, erasers and paper to last them the school year. Jarlin Garcia wasn’t a star in the major leagues in 2017. He was a middle reliever with a low walk rate and a low-to-mid-90s fastball that could run a little flat at times. He had progressed slowly through the minor leagues after signing with the Marlins in 2010 as a 17-year-old. It took him three seasons in rookie and low-A ball before he moved up to playing full-season baseball. He wasn’t a highly-touted prospect; he never had the kind of numbers that dazzled, high velocity or overwhelming strikeout capability. The Marlins were disappointed enough with his slow progression that they left him off their 40-man roster in 2014. And while he fared well in 2015 and 2016—going to the Futures Game, earning an All-Star selection, and slowly moving into the top ten on Marlins prospect lists—he was never highly regarded. This was someone who, if all went well for him, would probably slot in as the Marlins’ fourth starter. Garcia’s first callup in 2016 was rather unceremonious: his manager in Double-A, where he had started the season, called him into his office and promptly told him that he was no longer wanted on the team and to “get the fuck out,” which Garcia understandably found confusing. The callup was more a move of necessity, a means of acquiring some backup for a bullpen that was stretched thin. Garcia didn’t end up pitching in Miami, only staying with the big league team for four days before getting sent back down. But he got $10,000 dollars out of the deal, and he got to say that he had made the major leagues. Both the money and the news were gifts that he could pass on to his parents back home. Last season Garcia pitched in 68 games with the Marlins, posting a rather pedestrian 4.73 ERA with peripherals that hovered around league average—not numbers really worth noting. His debut season went essentially unnoticed by most baseball fans who aren’t devoted followers of the Marlins. But it didn’t go unnoticed back home in Pedro Brand. Garcia’s success, moderate though it may have been, had an impact that reached beyond the confines of Marlins Park, even beyond the circle of himself, his family, and his friends. All the way over in France, a Dominican ex-pat singer named J Sugar, also a native of Santo Domingo province, released a song in Garcia’s honor. Returning to Pedro Brand after the season was over along with Reds pitcher Ariel Hernandez, the song blasted from loudspeakers, floating over the enthusiastic crowd assembled to greet them. Making it to the major leagues at all, regardless of how well you perform when you get there, is an impressive achievement, and it is in tight-knit communities where the gravity of this achievement is at its most visible. Garcia’s $40,000 signing bonus, while modest compared to some of the paydays earned by other young international amateurs and top draft picks, was life-changing money for his family. The league-minimum salary Garcia earned with the Marlins in 2017 was the kind of money that could change the lives of hundreds of families. And that is exactly how Garcia has used the platform and privilege that his career in baseball has afforded to him. Garcia was a latecomer to baseball; for most of his childhood, his only passion was soccer. On the urging of others, who saw potential in his athleticism, he took up baseball at 15. A year later, his baby sister Genesis Mabel died in an accident in their home while he was at baseball practice. He felt responsible for the accident—perhaps if he hadn’t been out of the house, spending time on his own pursuits, he would have been able to prevent the tragedy. “I felt like my family lost its happiness that day,” he told reporters in Miami. He promised his parents that he would use baseball to support them, to turn their lives around. He was going to be something big—a major leaguer. He was going to, in his words, “give them a reason to live.” Garcia says that he still thinks about Genesis Mabel every time he pitches. The foundation that delivers school supplies and support to children in Pedro Brand is named after her. And now he is not only a major leaguer, but has inscribed himself in major-league history. After two long-relief appearances—the first of them a masterful six shutout innings in extras against the Cubs—Garcia pitched six no-hit innings against the Mets, one of baseball’s hottest teams, in his first major-league start, before being controversially lifted after throwing only 77 pitches. On Tuesday he dominated the powerful Yankees lineup for another five innings, giving up only one hit. He has been an unexpected and welcome success for the Marlins, who could certainly use something to cheer for. Jarlin Garcia might never be an ace. Even through his four excellent appearances this season, he has struck out few and walked too many. But even though he is not a star, and even though he might never be one, Jarlin Garcia has taken the opportunity given to him as a major leaguer and made the most of it. That, however the rest of his career might unfold, seems like something worth celebrating.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d35jyw/marlins-p-jarlin-garcia-may-not-be-an-ace-but-hes-dealing-and-easy-to-root-for

Sports

Vice

2018-06-26 16:42:00

2018

6.0

26

B. David Zarley

How an Astrophysicist Used Math to Take the Math out of Darts

On a rainy early afternoon in Devon, in South West England, Steve Moore and Paul Barham dropped in on a pub and came across a group of darts players, something in and of itself not too unusual, except for the player's make up. As twenty-somethings, they were younger than the average pub player, and evenly split between men and women. Since the game's heyday in the 1970s and 80s, when it drew TV audiences and plenty of popular attention, darts had settled back down into pub entertainment, in the common conception mainly enjoyed by drunken older men. Seeing the fun this young group of players was having, Moore and Barham were inspired to bring darts back as a social experience, a night out for friends. Moore, who had spent a decade trading futures, quit his job and began workshopping a way to streamline the darts experience and make it more approachable for the uninitiated. Moore and Barham had their work cut out for them, though. The way they saw it, the complications of scoring—so often done by hand on a chalkboard—and knowing the rules were keeping young people away from darts. Introducing tech to the equation could solve this problem, but also presented new ones: the physical barriers of having the power and precision to stick the dart for an accurate score or to trigger a pressure board, and determining exactly where on a board the dart landed would be issues. They needed a technological framework that could solve these problems, with the most complicated being the tracking for automatic scoring. Similar systems already exist, most famously the Hawk-Eye, which tracks balls for tennis and soccer, among other sports. But tracking a ball was one thing; tracking darts was considered quite another. “The working assumption in the industry, or everywhere, was it just wasn't possible,” Moore said via phone. Computer vision systems utilize cameras and complex mathematical models to pinpoint where in three dimensional space an object is located. A ball is a fairly simple object, the same shape from the viewpoint of any camera looking at it; a goal line or baseline is a fairly simple demarcation. Darts, on the other hand, come at the board from a dizzying array of angles, any of which would cause the dart to appear as a different shape to a camera; furthering the confusion, players, especially elite ones, often cluster their shots together, practically on top of one another. “You have to do a lot of forecasting tools,” Moore said. “It's just so over-engineered; the mathematics behind it is pointlessly silly, but it's needed.” Moore put out a challenge to universities and PhD programs across the U.K. and Europe: under the guise of archery, design a forecasting system that could track missiles with the speed and accuracy an automatically scored dart board would need. Dr. Jason Dale, an astrophysicist with a computer vision PhD, answered the call. Dale had previously worked on projects for NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a division of the United States Department of Defense that designs experimental technologies, and his aerospace background made him uniquely suited to working out how to track arrows or darts. “I guess I worked in a similar industry in that it involved pointy things flying through the air,” Dale said by phone. The final, refined product, made with the help of countless product testing, relies on three high performance cameras mounted above a classic Unicorn dart board—their desire to keep the iconic board unchanged ruled out a more accurate pressure plate scoring system common in bars in the U.S.—operating Dale's mathematical model. The overlapping flight paths are the most difficult aspect to model. Darts in a specific shade of blue—they've chosen something close to ultramarine; any color would have worked—are tracked by the three cameras when thrown. The math relies on brute force to track the darts; it rapidly throws three virtual darts through millions of different orientations and angles until it finds what matches where the dart landed on the board. “It makes billions of operations,” Dale said. “Essentially, millions of different dart hits are attempted until it finds which one fits all three crossing darts on the image.” A simple touchscreen interface and video screens add the bells and whistles, and the whole thing—dubbed an “oche”—are the key element of Flight Club, the “social darts” bar and restaurant chain making its first inroads into the U.S. in Chicago. Players input names and photos, and the oche takes them through a variety of unique, Flight Club-specific darts games. Since its first jury-rigged setup in Moore's shed, when the oche system took 16 seconds to compute an incorrect result, Dale says they can now accurately track three darts with 99.6 percent accuracy, computing where they land on the board within 200 microns of accuracy and in less than half a second. The system seems simple and seamless while it is used, with no delay or obvious misses when VICE Sports tossed a few in Chicago. Adam Breeden, founder of ping pong bar AceBounce and the U.S. operator of Flight Club, considers the technology the most essential part of the game. “You're not playing darts,” Breeden said when reached by phone. “You're using a dart board, but you're actually playing something totally different.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbky5n/how-an-astrophysicist-used-math-to-take-the-math-out-of-darts

Sports

Vice

2019-06-27 00:00:00

2019

6.0

27

James Davey

UPDATE 3-Britain's Kingfisher turns to Carrefour veteran to revive fortunes

* Thierry Garnier named new Kingfisher CEO * Current CEO Véronique Laury to leave by end of Sept * Garnier in senior roles for 20 yrs at Carrefour, now Asia CEO * Shares rise as much as 3.4% (Adds detail, analyst comment, updates shares) By James Davey LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - British home improvement retailer Kingfisher has named Thierry Garnier as its new chief executive, hoping the Carrefour veteran can revive its fortunes, particularly its struggling French operation. Kingfisher, whose main businesses are B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France and elsewhere, is in the fourth year of what was originally a five-year programme to boost earnings. However, after profits fell in the 2018-19 year, the group said in March it was abandoning its 500-million-pound ($635 million) targeted profit improvement and would part company with Véronique Laury, CEO since 2014. Last month the group missed forecasts for sales growth in its first quarter, with sales continuing to fall in France - a market that contributed 37% of group revenue in 2018-19. Shares in Kingfisher, the world’s fourth largest home improvement retailer after Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Adeo, rose as much as 3.4% on Thursday, reducing year-on-year losses to about 29%. French national Garnier, 53, who has spent 20 years in senior roles at Carrefour and is currently head of its Asia operations, will join Kingfisher in the autumn, though the date is yet to be finalised. Laury will step down as CEO by the end of September. “Given the extremely challenged French execution of recent years, the appointment of a French CEO at Kingfisher’s helm was always a more likely outcome,” said analysts at Jefferies. “We presume Garnier will move rapidly to assess what went wrong (in France) and take corrective action.” Garnier is a member of the Carrefour group executive committee and has been CEO of Carrefour Asia since 2012, responsible for over 350 stores in China and Taiwan, with 55,000 employees, and gross sales of over 6 billion euros ($6.8 billion). On Monday Carrefour agreed to sell 80% of its Chinese operations to electronics retailer Suning.com for 620 million euros. Garnier also previously oversaw Carrefour France’s supermarkets and its international operations. In the 1990s he was a civil servant and an advisor at one point to Michel Barnier - currently the European Union’s Brexit negotiator. “Throughout his career he has led significant businesses through complex change programmes while operating in competitive and rapidly changing retail environments,” said Kingfisher chairman Andy Cosslett. Analysts highlighted Garnier’s extensive experience in optimising international scale in buying - a key tenet of Kingfisher’s strategy. Laury’s plan for the group, costing 800 million pounds over five years, involved unifying product ranges across brands, boosting e-commerce and seeking efficiency savings. Kingfisher said in March that it had reviewed Laury’s strategy and fully supported it, suggesting Garnier’s appointment will mean a review and development of the existing strategy’s execution rather than an overhaul. However, some analysts have argued the group should be broken up. While Kingfisher has struggled in France, progress in Britain has been hard won in a market where Australia’s Wesfarmers came unstuck after a disastrous investment in the Homebase chain. Kingfisher said Garnier’s remuneration package would be announced when his start date is finalised. $1 = 0.7877 pounds $1 = 0.8798 euros Reporting by James Davey; editing by Deepa Babington and Susan Fenton

https://www.reuters.com/article/kingfisher-moves/update-3-britains-kingfisher-turns-to-carrefour-veteran-to-revive-fortunes-idUSL8N23Y10O

Cyclical Consumer Goods

Reuters

2019-04-11 00:00:00

2019

4.0

11

Tess Owen

What we know about the man who allegedly burned three black churches in Louisiana

Louisiana officials are trying to learn what motivated a sheriff’s deputy’s son who allegedly burned three black churches in the state recently. At a press conference Thursday, officials said 21-year-old Holden Matthews, whose father is a sheriff’s deputy in St. Landry Parish, is facing arson charges for allegedly burning the churches in neighboring towns over a 10-day period. St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas, and the Mount Pleasant Baptist church, also in Opelousas, all have predominantly black congregations. Matthews would have carried out further attacks if he hadn’t been arrested, the officials added. In the search for a motive, the FBI will particularly be looking for evidence to support or dismiss the possibility of hate crime charges — namely, did Matthews, who is white, specifically target black churches due to racial bias? At the press conference, Louisiana Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning said investigators were looking into Matthews’ involvement in “a type of music called black metal and its associations with church burnings that has been documented in books and movies.” Keith Boutte, a singer, songwriter and artist from the St. Landry area, told VICE News that Matthews contacted him about six months ago, wanting to jam. “He liked my vocals and my music. I told him that black metal isn’t what I do. I like blues and aggressive music, but I don’t like black metal or death metal,” said Boutte, 39. Still, Boutte and Matthews stayed in touch and continued to talk about music. Louisiana officials are trying to learn what motivated a sheriff’s deputy’s son who allegedly burned three black churches in the state recently. At a press conference Thursday, officials said 21-year-old Holden Matthews, whose father is a sheriff’s deputy in St. Landry Parish, is facing arson charges for allegedly burning the churches in neighboring towns over a 10-day period. St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas, and the Mount Pleasant Baptist church, also in Opelousas, all have predominantly black congregations. Matthews would have carried out further attacks if he hadn’t been arrested, the officials added. In the search for a motive, the FBI will particularly be looking for evidence to support or dismiss the possibility of hate crime charges — namely, did Matthews, who is white, specifically target black churches due to racial bias? At the press conference, Louisiana Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning said investigators were looking into Matthews’ involvement in “a type of music called black metal and its associations with church burnings that has been documented in books and movies.” Keith Boutte, a singer, songwriter and artist from the St. Landry area, told VICE News that Matthews contacted him about six months ago, wanting to jam. “He liked my vocals and my music. I told him that black metal isn’t what I do. I like blues and aggressive music, but I don’t like black metal or death metal,” said Boutte, 39. Still, Boutte and Matthews stayed in touch and continued to talk about music. Boutte says he lives just down the road from where one of the churches burned, and was initially shocked to learn that Matthews was the alleged arsonist. “He just doesn’t seem like someone who would do a heinous act like that. Just a normal gung-ho kid goin’ around talking about music,” said Boutte. “But I hate to say it: It almost doesn’t surprise me, because he’s big into black metal.” But experts in metal music say that a person’s interest in black metal music alone doesn’t make them more or less likely to commit arson against churches. The metal music genre has lots of subgenres and nuances. There are strains of metal that cater to the far-right neo-Nazi crowd. There’s also a robust anti-fascist metal scene. In the early 1990s, the black metal scene was linked to dozens of church burnings in Norway, which was the subject of the 2018 film “Lords of Chaos.” “This scene was highly influential in developing black metal worldwide,” said Keith Kahn-Harris, author of ‘Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge.” “However, far-right activity is by no means the norm in black metal, and it would be wrong to say it was intrinsic to it.” There are subgenres even within black metal. Kahn-Harris said knowing which scene Matthews was buying into is important in this context. “It’s vital that we understand the role that black metal played in Holden Matthews' life in order to judge how far it inspired his actions,” said Kahn-Harris. “In particular, I'd like to know what sort of black metal he listened to. Did he listen to NSBM specifically?” (NSBM is National Socialist Black Metal, a subgenre of black metal that promotes Nazism.) According to the Daily Beast, Matthews commented on two memes about Varg Vikernes, a black metal musician who did time in prison for burning churches in Norway in the 1990s. Vikernes, who has been described as a sympathizer of Anders Breivik, the Norweigan neo-Nazi who murdered 77 people, was arrested in 2013 by French authorities on suspicion of plotting “a large terror attack.” He was found guilty the following year of inciting racial hatred for publishing racist screeds online attacking Muslims and Jews. In an interview with BuzzFeed, an associate of Matthews from the metal scene described him as someone who was impressionable and trying to fit in. Nygyl Brynn, who told BuzzFeed he’d known Matthews since 2014, said most people in the black metal scene were offended for how “Lords of Chaos” portrayed their culture by focusing on the church burnings. “But Holden liked it,” Brynn said. A Facebook page linked to Matthews, who describes himself as a singer and songwriter for a band called the “Vodka Vultures,” tells us little more about his specific inclinations, either politically or musically speaking. The artists and pages that he’d “liked’ are mostly local bands or musicians. It’s also not clear what Matthews did for a living beyond his aspirations to make it as a musician. Public records show that he was a registered Democrat. As for why Matthews allegedly singled out those churches, Boutte says churches are a dime a dozen in that part of Louisiana. “The community down here is hardcore Catholic. It’s the Bible Belt of Louisiana,” said Boutte. “Every corner, you see a church.” Cover: Eric J. Rommal, FBI New Orleans Field Office special agent in charge, speaks at a press conference on the arrest of suspect Holden Matthews for the arson of three churches in Opelousas, La., Thursday, April 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Lee Celano)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/597mnq/what-we-know-about-the-man-who-allegedly-burned-three-black-churches-in-louisiana

Vice News

2016-04-12 12:00:00

2016

4.0

12

Kaleigh Rogers

Should E-Cigarettes Even Be Allowed on Planes?

Vapers haven't been able to cloud chase in the middle of a cross-country flight for years, thanks to airline policies banning vaping on board. But if a new senate amendment is approved, vapers won't even be able to bring their devices onboard a plane in the first place. S.A. 3547 is an amendment to an amendment (isn't bureaucracy fun?) on the Federal Aviation Authority's reauthorization bill, which is currently being discussed by the US Senate. It includes a short provision that would ban vaping devices from being brought on board, even in carry-on luggage. Vaping devices were banned from being packed in checked luggage or charged onboard by the Department of Transportation last October, but this would extend the law to prevent vapers from flying with their gear at all. This has many in the vaping community alarmed. Unlike cigarettes (which are allowed in carry-on luggage), or even vape juice, one can't easily or cheaply pick up a new custom mod after touching down. Vaping devices are personal, reusable, and can be expensive—in some ways, they're often more like a cell phone than a pack of Marlboros. "I travelled [to Dallas] with five box mods, some tanks, some juice, and a box full of batteries," vape reviewer Jess Hawkins said in a vlog about the amendment. "In order for me to be down here for two weeks, continue vaping, and not go back to smoking, I've got to carry that stuff with me." But legislators have safety concerns about e-cigarettes on planes due to a growing number of reports of the devices exploding and catching fire. As of January 2016, there have been 11 recorded incidents of e-cigarettes either smoking, catching fire, or exploding on planes, according to a report by the FAA. That's out of a total of 171 incidents of any battery-powered objects catching fire or exploding on planes since 1991, and many of those incidents involved cell phones and laptops. E-cigarettes are also relatively new and not as ubiquitous as cell phones, so 11 cases isn't an insignificant number. But even the US Fire Administration notes that vaping devices catching fire or exploding is rare, usually not serious, and most often occurs when the device is charging or in use, not sitting in a bag. If other common electronics with lithium batteries—like laptops and cell phones—can catch fire occasionally, too, why single out e-cigarettes? Earlier this year, despite some theatrical arguments against it, Congress voted to make it illegal to vape on planes—catching up to the existing airline restrictions—so there's definitely an appetite to regulate these devices in the air. It's also worth noting that Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who introduced the amendment, hasn't exactly been pro-vape in the past. He was a big supporter of the recently passed airplane bans, has pushed for banning flavored e-liquids, and urged the FDA to hurry up with finalizing its e-cig regulations. Motherboard reached out to Sen. Blumenthal but he was not available for comment before deadline. It's still very early days for this amendment, which has yet to be formally introduced, and vaping advocacy groups have launched campaigns against it. But if it gains traction, it would mean the end of vapors being able to easily travel with their goods. "They've already prohibited these devices from being used, being charged, and being stored in checked bags, banning from possession goes too far," said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. "Any senator who votes for this is essentially declaring war on their ex-smoker constituents."

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nz7zkw/should-e-cigarettes-even-be-allowed-on-planes-vaping-congress-politics-law-air-travel-carry-on

Tech by VICE

Vice

2019-04-22 00:00:00

2019

4.0

22

Colts' Darius Leonard Helps Flat Tire Victim, 'Thank The Lord For Angels!'

Forget Rookie of the Year ... Darius Leonard is now Good Samaritan of the Year -- 'cause the Colts star linebacker pulled off on the side of the road to help a woman change her tire!! It all went down this past weekend ... when a woman clearly needed an assist with a busted wheel on her Buick. Enter 23-year-old Leonard -- the AFC's 6"2', 234-pound Rookie Of The Year -- who got down on his hands and knees to help the woman out!!! @Colts Darius Leonard continues to be an outstanding player on and off the field. So thankful to God that he stopped and helped me. Much love! pic.twitter.com/EKdmpCdYbH Leonard seemed to have no problem gettin' dirty ... he was crawling through some thick grass to make sure the tire was changed properly. As for the woman ... she was grateful for the awesome gesture, saying to the linebacker, "Thank the lord for angels!" It's just another good mark on Leonard's awesome resume ... the dude's done nothing but kill it since entering the NFL -- 'memba when he had 163 tackles and 7 sacks last season!!! #BEAST

https://www.tmz.com/2019/04/22/colts-darius-leonard-indianapolis-flat-tire-change/

TMZ

2018-09-05 00:00:00

2018

9.0

5

Anadarko returning workers to Gulf of Mexico platforms as Gordon weakens

(Reuters) - Anadarko Petroleum Corp said on Wednesday it had begun moving people back to its Horn Mountain oil platform and Marlin oil and natural gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico, as storm Gordon weakened while moving onshore. Other company-operated and producing facilities in the Gulf of were unaffected by the storm, Anadarko said in a statement on its website. The company had evacuated its workers from the two platforms, both southeast of Louisiana, ahead of the approach of Gordon. Reporting by Harshith Aranya in Bengaluru; Editing by Steve Orlofsky

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-gordon-anadarko/anadarko-returning-workers-to-gulf-of-mexico-platforms-as-gordon-weakens-idUSKCN1LL26V

Environment

Reuters

2017-01-17 00:00:00

2017

1.0

17

Ex-'Apprentice' Contestant Sues Donald Trump For Defamation

One of the women who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault has finally pulled the trigger on a lawsuit against the President-elect. Former 'Apprentice' contestant Summer Zervos filed a defamation suit in NYC Tuesday, claiming Trump defamed her when he publicly called her a liar, claimed the assault never happened and referred to her allegation as "totally made up nonsense." In the docs, obtained by TMZ, she also calls him out as a "sexual predator." The suit goes on to claim Trump used his platform as a presidential candidate to denigrate and verbally attack Zervos and other accusers. She's asking for a retraction and/or an apology, plus damages. Zervos and her attorney, Gloria Allred, announced the lawsuit with a news conference ... where she reiterated her claim Trump sexually assaulted her during a 2007 business meeting.

https://www.tmz.com/2017/01/17/donald-trump-sued-defamation-apprentice-accuser/

TMZ

2016-08-12 21:13:49

2016

8.0

12

David Choi

ISIS has kidnapped 2,000 civilians to use as 'human shields'

A report verified on Friday by US-backed forces and a separate human rights organization claimed that Islamic State militants in the city of Manbij, Syria had kidnapped around 2,000 civilians to use as "human shields." Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described that during ISIS' retreat from Manbij to Jarabulus, a city on the Turkish border, the militants took ahold of their hostages in hopes to slow the SDF's advances on what was once a major ISIS-held city. In order to accomplish taking such a large number of hostages, a report by the AFP suggests that ISIS took the residents' cars and forced civilians into them as they made their retreat — preventing the SDF from targeting them. After SDF forces began their offensive on May 31, they've so far liberated about 90% of Manbij and even rescued 2,500 captive civilians; however, dozens of ISIS fighters still remain and have put up a noticeable resistance. This wouldn't be the first time that ISIS has taken hostages during a retreat. More than 400 civilians, including women and children, were taken from eastern Syria in January. Although 270 of them were eventually released, the jihadists had also used hostages for booby-trapped cars and suicide bombings. Manbij has been a critical Syrian city for ISIS' supply routes to their main stronghold in Raqqa. After being assaulted not only by the SDF but US-led coalition forces, the militants here have been making numerous blunders during their operations — including having 83 oil tankers out in the open for an easy airstrike. However, liberating the city has taken a heavy toll as well. The UN has claimed that more than 78,000 people have been displaced since the assault began; and the Observatory suggested that at least 437 civilians, 105 of them children, were killed.

https://www.businessinsider.com/isis-human-shields-2016-8

Business Insider

2017-11-10 00:00:00

2017

11.0

10

Kremlin says possible Putin-Trump meeting being worked on

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump at the APEC summit in Vietnam is still being worked on, Russian news agencies cited Kremlin spokesman as saying on Friday. “Discussions continue. There is no clarity yet,” Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Interfax as saying. The White House said on Friday Trump will not have a separate meeting with his Russian counterpart. Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Polina Nikolskaya; Editing by Nick Macfie

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apec-summit-usa-russia-meet/kremlin-says-possible-putin-trump-meeting-being-worked-on-idUSKBN1DA0JC

World News

Reuters

2016-04-18 14:49:58

2016

4.0

18

Libby Nelson

Welch v. US: a surprise Supreme Court decision will let some federal prisoners out early

Some federal prisoners might qualify for shorter sentences, or even release, after a Supreme Court ruling today that held that a decision last year on a major criminal law case would be applied retroactively. On a vote of 7-1 in Welch v. United States, the Court ruled that its decision in Johnson v. United States, a case about federal sentencing law, would apply even to prisoners who have already been sentenced and whose cases are closed. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. Johnson v. United States dealt with the Armed Career Criminal Act, a federal version of "three strikes and you're out" laws that added five years to the sentences for criminals convicted of at least four "violent felonies" or serious drug crimes. But "violent felonies" isn't a legal term, and the catchall definition of federal law — "conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another" — was so vague that it was unconstitutional, the Court ruled last year. Before the Court heard the case, SCOTUSblog's Rory Little laid out in plain language what a decision to apply Johnson retroactively would mean: if Johnson applies retroactively, any defendant who has been sentenced to a lengthy federal term as a "fourtime loser," with one of his three prior convictions found to be "violent" only under the residual clause, could demand resentencing and a substantial reduction of his sentence – or even immediate release. The Court decided very quickly — it heard arguments March 30 and issued the opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, on a Monday, an unusual step. It's not yet clear how many prisoners will be affected. As Vox's Dara Lind wrote last year, about 7,000 federal prisoners are serving time under the Armed Career Criminal Act, but it's not clear how many were sentenced using the definition of "violent felony" the Court has found to be too vague.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11450368/supreme-court-sentencing-welch-us

Vox

2016-09-06 13:50:07

2016

9.0

6

Jeff Stein

The FBI report on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, explained

FBI Director James Comey stunned reporters back in July when he laced into Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. "There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said of Clinton and her team. The FBI cleared Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing in connection with its investigation, saying it couldn’t prove that she had knowingly exchanged classified information on her private email server. But on Friday, the FBI took the unusual step of releasing a 58-page report with the findings from its work on the case, including 11 pages of notes from its interview with Clinton herself. I read the report, and it goes a long way toward explaining why Comey considered Clinton’s behavior "extremely careless" — even if it also suggests there was likely little malice behind her worst missteps. The biggest concern the FBI report keeps coming back to is whether someone or some foreign government was able to hack into, and steal, the emails Clinton was sending with other members of the state department. While secretary of state, Clinton exclusively used a private email account hosted on a private email server installed at her family’s home in Westchester, New York. And at least 100 of the 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the state department have turned out to have contained classified information at the time they were sent or received; seven of her email chains had the "top secret" designation. Those two facts — that Clinton’s email server was unsecured and that she, knowingly or not, exchanged classified information — have long raised the possibility that Clinton gave hackers an opening to go after state secrets. The FBI report makes clear that many at least tried. The bureau produced several pages of evidence detailing its attempts to figure out if Clinton’s server was ultimately breached. They note a slew of reasons to be concerned: To be clear: The FBI expressly says that there’s no proof that any attempted hack on Hillary Clinton’s personal email account was successful. But the report also makes very clear that they found evidence that someone was trying to break into what was almost certainly a weaker defense than the government systems Clinton would have been using under the normal channels. But the absence of evidence doesn’t mean evidence of absence. As Vox’s Lee has noted, the FBI has no way of really knowing whether Clinton’s servers were compromised in any way. The hackers could simply steal the classified information and disappear without a trace. But potentially even worse, at least from Comey’s perspective, is that there’s no way of testing whether much of the equipment used by Clinton actually was hacked. That’s because the FBI doesn’t have it. This was one of the more surprising revelations in the FBI report, and the one most discussed in the subsequent coverage: A large number of devices used by Clinton at State have since gone missing and are beyond the FBI’s ability to recover. The digital body count of missing Clinton electronic devices includes: 11 of the 13 BlackBerrys she used as secretary of state (the other two were destroyed by hammer); three of the five iPads she used to send and receive emails (the two the FBI did recover showed no evidence of having been hacked); and one thumb drive and one laptop with the archives of all of Clinton’s email correspondence. These last two — the thumb drive and the laptop — were somehow lost in the mail by the private contractor responsible for maintaining Clinton’s private email account. (This was after they were also previously briefly lost for a period of time by a Clinton staffer during an office move.) Nobody seems to know where the missing phones are, either. (Or exactly why Clinton ran through phones so quickly — she seems to have repeatedly upgraded and downgraded her devices). Her aides seem to have been responsible for finding a new BlackBerry for Clinton when they malfunctioned, but what happened to the old ones isn’t clear. Most of us have probably discarded an old smartphone or two over the years, but most of us aren’t cabinet officials dealing with sensitive information and targeted by foreign intelligence agencies. So there may be quite a few phones and laptops floating about with classified information somewhere in them. That itself may be an ongoing security risk, but it also prevents the FBI from testing these devices to see if they were ever successfully hacked.In a statement, the Clinton campaign noted that the FBI had decided not to press charges. "While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the Justice Department believed there was no basis to move forward with the case," said campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon. Beyond questions of compliance with government rules and security best practices, there is the question of whether Clinton’s email security lapses actually represented a substantive risk to national security. Without knowing the contents of the emails, there’s no way to know if their possible disclosure to hackers was genuinely damaging. The US government is widely believed to routinely overclassify information (Congress even passed a Reducing Over-Classification Act in 2010 to try to get agencies to stop doing this) marking fairly trivial discussions "classified" or "confidential" when they don’t need to be. State Department personnel may have been willing to discuss "classified" matters with Clinton over email because in their judgment the information was not genuinely sensitive. Moreover, many of the emails were classified retroactively, so maybe Clinton really can’t be faulted for exchanging them in the first place. The difficulty is we simply don’t know what information was contained in the emails in question. There are two levels to this. One is simply that, by definition, the classified portions of the emails turned over to the FBI are classified. The FBI itself knows what these emails say, but the public does not. Wall Street Journal reporting indicates that some of them are related to drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the FBI report confirms that Clinton was asked about emails related to drone strikes. A separate issue is that the FBI does not have every email that was on Clinton’s server. Her server and her email account were used for both work and personal business. She instructed her legal team to hand all "work related" emails to the State Department, and then in December 2014, Cheryl Mills, one of her top aides, told the contractor holding Clinton’s email archive to delete the personal emails that had not been turned over. Many of those emails are now gone, and the FBI has been unable to recover them. If you trust Hillary Clinton, the FBI agents who investigated her, and the lawyers who were directed to segregate the work-related from personal emails, then there’s no clear evidence here of any serious harm. But if you don’t trust Clinton (and polls show most people don’t) — and especially if you think the FBI or Williams & Connolly are covering for her — then there’s certainly room to keep doubting. (It's also worth noting that the state department's servers may not have been that much better protected — in 2006, hackers stole sensitive US information from the state department's unclassified server.) Conservatives have been quick to jump on this controversy as revealing the breadth of her "dishonesty and deception," alleging that she lied to shield her decisions from scrutiny. Liberals have defended Clinton’s machinations as those of a shrewd political operator, rationally fearful of a Republican witch-hunt, simply stretching the bounds of open records law. But the truth is less conspiratorial. The evidence in the report suggests that Clinton’s undoing here was that she simply never took the time to really understand the details of email server management or how they related to the state department’s classification system. One section of the FBI report makes clear that the whole email enterprise was more or less an afterthought to her: (Clinton) stated there was a process in place at State before her tenure (for handling emails), and she relied on career foreign service professions to appropriately mark and handle classified information … Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She relied on state officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address. In her FBI interview, Clinton again and again suggests that she didn’t take questions around classification and email security seriously, saying she didn’t remember things like the proper use of a Special Access Program security briefing, which state department employees had their Gmail accounts hacked, or even whether the "c" meant "confidential" in departmental exchanges. (The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake runs down some of the more than 30 times in her FBI interview Clinton said she didn’t know something.) And that fits the impression left by Comey himself in July, in which he surprised congressional lawmakers by appearing to suggest he didn’t think Clinton had set up the alternative email account to circumvent open records laws, according to Vox’s Andrew Prokop. The Clinton stereotype makes her out to be a conniving politician who will do what it takes to obtain power. So when the FBI investigates her for email mismanagement, it’s our natural inclination to fit those new facts to the preexisting stereotype. But the FBI’s email investigation points to just the opposite conclusion. It suggests someone who didn’t recognize or understand the dangers of a "homebrew" server, and who didn’t sweat the details of what happened to her discarded BlackBerrys. (Understandably so! Clinton was tasked with running US foreign policy at the time and presumably also had other things to worry about.) Clinton, in other words, wasn’t a technocratic and savvy manipulator of State Department email protocol who gamed the system for her own good. She barely understood what the protocol was.

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/6/12774948/fbi-hillary-clinton-report

Vox

2018-09-21 00:00:00

2018

9.0

21

Political price of no-deal Brexit would be high: Sturgeon

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives would pay a high political price for a no-deal Brexit in Scotland, which voted to keep its EU membership, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said. The Conservatives are the second-largest party in Scotland’s devolved government behind Sturgeon’s Scottish Nationalists (SNP) and also send the second-biggest number of lawmakers to the British parliament, with 13 of the country’s 55 seats at Westminster. May has challenged the European Union to come up with a better solution than her so-called Chequers proposal for Brexit, rejected out of hand at a European summit on Thursday. “If (May’s) tactic now is to double down on the Chequers dead duck, and then blame EU for a no deal, she will do huge damage to all those she is supposed to serve,” Sturgeon said in a statement on Friday. “(Blaming the EU for a no-deal) would be an abdication of responsibility of huge and historic proportions and an approach for which Theresa May and the Tory party would pay a very heavy political price, especially in Scotland, which overwhelmingly rejected Brexit,” she added. Scotland, one of the United Kingdom’s four nations, voted by a large margin to remain in the EU in a June 2016 referendum although the UK as a whole voted to leave. Sturgeon, who supports independence for Scotland, accuses May’s party of consistently ignoring Scots’ wishes in the Brexit negotiations and has called on her to keep Britain in the EU single market. Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary; editing by Stephen Addison

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-sturgeon-reaction/political-price-of-no-deal-brexit-would-be-high-sturgeon-idUSKCN1M11SM

World News

Reuters

2019-07-01 00:00:00

2019

7.0

1

UPDATE 1-Dubai's DP World acquires Topaz Energy in $1 bln deal

(Adds details on deal and Topaz earnings) DUBAI, July 1 (Reuters) - DP World, one of the world’s largest port operators, on Monday said it had acquired Dubai-headquartered oil services and marine logistics company Topaz Energy and Marine in a deal worth $1.08 billion on an enterprise value basis. DP World, also based in Dubai, acquired the company from Oman-listed Renaissance Services and Standard Chartered Private Equity. Topaz, which operates in the Caspian Sea, the Middle East and West Africa, has a fleet of 117 vessels. It works with oil giants such as BP, Exxon Mobil and Saudi Aramco. “The transaction supports our objective of increasing the company’s presence in the global logistics and maritime services industry,” DP World said in a bourse statement. The acquisition would be from the first full year of consolidation and is expected to meet DP World’s return target, it said. Topaz reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $190 million for 2018 and had a contract backlog of $1.6 billion, as of March 31, DP World said. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

https://www.reuters.com/article/dp-wrld-topaz-ma/update-1-dubais-dp-world-acquires-topaz-energy-in-1-bln-deal-idUSL8N2420JH

Funds News

Reuters

2019-07-04 00:00:00

2019

7.0

4

EU energy chief says Europe must commit to carbon neutrality by 2050

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Reluctant European Union nations must be convinced to back the goal of zeroing out carbon emissions by 2050, the bloc’s energy chief told the European Parliament on Thursday, saying the fight against climate change topped the political agenda. “Europe must very clearly commit to a path of climate neutrality by 2050 ... a clean planet for all is in all our interests,” European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told the new EU assembly, as it gathered following May elections to assess a proposal for allocating the EU’s top jobs. Reporting by Robin Emmott; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel

https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-jobs-sefcovic/eu-energy-chief-says-europe-must-commit-to-carbon-neutrality-by-2050-idUSB5N22S00C

Environment

Reuters

2017-08-28 19:10:00

2017

8.0

28

Manisha Krishnan

Inside the Oceanside Commune Where Young People Live In 'Anarchy'

For inhabitants of Poole's Land, even taking a shit is an act of rebellion. The sprawling 17-acre property, located in a rainforest in the oceanside British Columbia community of Tofino, hasn't been connected to the area's septic system since it opened in 1988. Instead, the residents, of which there are roughly 100 right now, use composting toilets. That means they relieve themselves in toilets filled with cedar, which Poole's Land manager, Michael Goodliffe, 47, claims disinfects everything. When I ask what they do after the toilets on site fill up, he says, "Shovel." "Doesn't that gross you out?" I persist, to which he replies "what grosses me out is putting raw untreated sewage into (the ocean)"—a shot at the rest of the townsfolk. He goes on to tell an anecdote about how one of the campers added a bit of ceremony to the cleaning of the toilets, wearing a suit complete with a tie and top hat as he performed the grim task. Suffice to say, the people of Poole's Land buck convention. In fact, it feels as if they've tossed convention, capitalist ideals, and to a certain degree, hygiene, into one of their huge nightly bonfires, and they haven't looked back. By now you'll be wondering: What exactly is Poole's Land? I first heard about it when I came across a headline: "This commune in BC lets you live for free and pays you in drugs." The piece depicts Poole's Land as an eco-village where people can live in exchange for performing onsite labor, or get paid in magic mushrooms. I spent a day there last week trying to find out if that was truly the case, and in short, the answer depends on who you ask. Everyone I meet says residents no longer get paid in shrooms, which apparently disappoints a lot of newcomers who read the same article I did. At $10 a night, Poole's Land is a cheap place for travelers stopping through Tofino on a surf trip and for young people working a summer job in town. But there are others who've been living there for years and who truly view it as their home and the residents as family. It also tends to draw people who are outcasts, poor, or mentally ill. Folks like Goodliffe, who has lived at Poole's on and off for decades, resent the characterization of their secret slice of paradise as a "drug commune," though there's no doubt drugs are a part of the culture. Almost everyone is rolling a joint or hitting the bong. While I'm there, I take a tour through a small ganja garden and witness people do mushrooms and trip on LSD and MDMA. One French woman tells me she's about to try fire tossing—which seems risky at the best of times—and then casually mentions that she's just dropped acid. The vibes are reminiscent of a party hostel that just so happens to be situated in the woods. But there's more to it than that; it feels like people are here to free themselves of the monotony of living to work, settling down, having a full-time job, and buying property. As one of the residents, a 24-year-old former sous chef named Cheyanne, puts it: "It's not crazy hippies on drugs; it's a bunch of fucked-up people helping each other." They want to indulge, she adds, "not in drugs, but in life." Purchased in 1988 by Michael Poole, a bonafide hallucinogenic-loving hippie, for the absurdly low sum of $50,000, the thickly forested land itself is stunning. There are cedars, Douglas fir trees, ponds, and bears as well as cougars, I'm told, with dirt paths and boardwalks weaving in between. Wandering around, trying not to trip over roots or loose wood planks, I see makeshift shelters, including tents, trailers, tiny wood shacks, tree houses, and converted vans. The residents also share a kitchen, using veggies from their own garden to cook nightly meals. The kitchen is pretty much the only spot that has a decent cellphone signal. Despite the beautiful surroundings, I can't help but notice the campgrounds aren't exactly pristine. There's a fair amount of trash, recyclables, and cigarette butts lying around, and everyone smells… rather natural. I come across a towel hanging on a clothesline that's covered in brown stains. I'm told there's one hot shower that not many people use. "I haven't showered in two years—I just use the ocean," says Hubert, a chiseled 23-year-old surfer with white-blond dreads. Hubert moved to Poole's seven months ago but has been living out of a van for three years. He sleeps in a little wood cabin with his black lab and is currently in the process of making surfboards for sale, so Poole's is helping him set up a workshop. Without batting an eye, Hubert, Goodliffe, and a couple other men point to the brown pond beside us and tell me they drink from it and bathe in it. (The color is due to the dead cedars on the bottom.) "Apart from the look and the layer of slime, it's right as rain," says Josh Pawton, 23, a New Zealander who is relatively new to Poole's, while someone else chimes in, "We haven't had diarrhea yet." Matt, a brunette 20-something with an addictively cheerful personality, describes Poole's as "anarchy," which he seems to think might be it's best and worst quality. "It's a fine line between everything is allowed and (having) some sense of direction." He says it's a judgment-free zone, and then, as if to prove his point, he recalls encounters with a woman who thinks she can control the weather with her mind; a person who believes they have intergalactic space clearance; and a man who claimed to be working for Anonymous and left Matt his passport and a bunch of expensive camera equipment. But as much as it sounds like a hippie fantasy, Poole's has a less-than-flattering reputation in town. A few years ago, it was reportedly home to viral video star Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker, a.k.a. Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, who was later charged with murder. "A lot of times if you tell a prospective employer you live in Poole's Land, you're done. Because of hygiene, if you're a server and they know you live in a tent in a forest…" says a 25-year-old named Adam. Several people repeat an apparently well-known mantra that goes something like, "If your bike goes missing, you'll find it at Poole's Land." As for the drugs, Goodliffe, who grew up on an off-the-grid commune in Manitoba, Canada, repeatedly tells me that Poole's is not a stomping grounds for dealers. When I ask why he's so fixated on changing that reputation, he says, "It undermines the integrity of the place. The mandate of the place is to keep people safe, not to sell drugs." (There are naloxone kits on site.) Goodliffe says he's kicked people out for bringing coke onto the premises and even for giving hallucinogens to people with mental illness, which he feels is dangerous. "I grew up with a father who did LSD all his life. I've seen the long-term effects. It causes mental illness." He thinks Poole's is a natural choice for people with mental illness because they're accepted, and they can afford it. "They have no money, and they're looking for community," he says, noting one of the residents suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. I ask Goodliffe if it's strange for him to live among a bunch of 20-somethings, but he seems to think he'd be more out of place in a traditional setting. "People my age all want to live in a house and work a nine-to-five job. They're not really my people," he says. "When you have people isolated in cities and towns in little boxes, they feel isolated." Of course, not everyone is at Poole's Land for the long haul. Thomas Jackson, a baby-faced 23-year-old from London, Ontario, has only been here three weeks, and he's already planning an exit. (He admits the toilets are too rough for his taste.) Naturally, Jackson says the thing that really makes Poole's Land special is the fact that he can't get good cell service. "It puts you back ten years," he says. "People talk to each other." As he leads me through the forest to a treehouse called the "Pyramid," he pauses and says, "The thing with the off the grid, or hippie life, is at the end of the day, you're still going to get old. People still have stresses in their life. You're not going to escape." Maybe not, but Poole's Land seems like the place to try. Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/599ja5/inside-the-oceanside-commune-where-young-people-live-in-anarchy

Poole's Land

Vice

2016-05-24 14:56:00

2016

5.0

24

Jason Guerrasio

New 'Halloween' movie John Carpenter

Legendary filmmaker John Carpenter seemed to walk away for good from the movie that made him an icon when he declined to direct "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later" in 1998 due to a contract dispute. But it seems time has healed this particular wound: Carpenter will be an executive producer on a new "Halloween" movie, which will be financed by Miramax and Blumhouse Productions, according to an announcement released on Monday. This is the first time Carpenter has been directly involved in a "Halloween" movie since 1982's "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" (for which he was a producer). "'Halloween' needs to return to its traditions," Carpenter said in a statement. "I feel like the movies have gotten away from that... Michael is not just a human being; he's a force of nature, like the wind. That's what makes him so scary." This new "Halloween," which is currently in preproduction, will be the 10th sequel in the classic horror franchise that follows a psychotic masked killer named Michael Myers. The first "Halloween," which opened in 1978 and starred a then-unknown Jamie Lee Curtis as the babysitter Myers is stalking and Donald Pleasence as the psychiatrist determined to kill Myers, was an instant hit. The movie was made for just $325,000 and it earned $47 million worldwide. The scares in the movie were heightened by the film's memorable score, which Carpenter also created. The sequels in the decades since have seen hits and misses. But Blumhouse head Jason Blum, who's been behind recent low-budget horror hits like the "Paranormal Activity" and "Insidious" franchises, believes getting Carpenter back into the mix is what the Myers series has been missing. "'Halloween' is one of those milestone films that inspired everyone at our company to get into the world of scary movies," Blum said in a statement, "and we are so excited that Miramax brought us together. We cannot wait to find and collaborate with the right filmmaker to give 'Halloween' fans the movie they deserve." Here's the trailer from the original "Halloween."

https://www.businessinsider.com/new-halloween-movie-john-carpenter-2016-5

Business Insider

2017-06-20 00:00:00

2017

6.0

20

Alexa Liautaud

The U.S. military just shot down another Syrian drone

Another day, another escalation in Syria. The U.S. military shot down an armed Syrian government–operated drone Tuesday after it was seen “advancing on coalition forces” and displaying “hostile intent,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The drone, downed near a combat outpost in the town of At-Tanf, was the second one shot down by U.S. forces in 12 days; the downing comes as Pentagon officials are working to defuse heightened tensions in southeastern Syria. U.S.-led coalition forces had already set off a fresh round of controversy Sunday, shooting down a Syrian warplane that reportedly bombed nearby Syrian Democratic Forces, who are allied with the U.S. in their fight against ISIS. That move elicited a round of threats from Russia’s defense ministry, which indicated it could shoot down the next U.S. jet flying west of the Euphrates River, and raised fresh concerns over the expanded nature of U.S. involvement in Syria’s protracted six year war. Another day, another escalation in Syria. The U.S. military shot down an armed Syrian government–operated drone Tuesday after it was seen “advancing on coalition forces” and displaying “hostile intent,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The drone, downed near a combat outpost in the town of At-Tanf, was the second one shot down by U.S. forces in 12 days; the downing comes as Pentagon officials are working to defuse heightened tensions in southeastern Syria. U.S.-led coalition forces had already set off a fresh round of controversy Sunday, shooting down a Syrian warplane that reportedly bombed nearby Syrian Democratic Forces, who are allied with the U.S. in their fight against ISIS. That move elicited a round of threats from Russia’s defense ministry, which indicated it could shoot down the next U.S. jet flying west of the Euphrates River, and raised fresh concerns over the expanded nature of U.S. involvement in Syria’s protracted six year war. Here are the basics: Russia said it was cutting the “deconfliction line,” a key communication channel between Moscow and Washington used to prevent mixed messages and avoid military collisions between the two powers. The U.S.-led coalition’s actions were further complicated by Iran, which over the weekend launched strikes on ISIS targets in Eastern Syria — Iran’s first missile strikes into the country. “As the Islamic State’s territory in Syria shrinks, the U.S. is increasingly being put in direct contact with Syria and its allies,” said Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal. “The U.S. must decide if it wants to continue to actively support its proxies in the Syria civil war. If it does, it will be in direct conflict with Russia, Iran, Syria, and hostile Shia militias.” The U.S. has maintained its broadening military involvement in Syria is part of the global fight against ISIS, and has avoided engaging directly with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the larger civil war playing out in Syria. The last time Russia threatened to cut off the deconfliction line was in April, when the U.S. launched missiles at a Syrian airbase in what ultimately amounted to a warning shot in retaliation for Assad’s continued use of chemical weapons.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjdbp3/the-us-military-shot-down-another-pro-assad-drone

Vice News

2016-05-14 00:00:00

2016

5.0

14

Chris Brown Ridin' With Royalty

Chris Brown took his daughter Royalty for a slow spin on his ATV ... as part of an early celebration for her 2nd birthday. It looks potentially perilous -- he's hangin' on to Royalty and Tyga's kid King Cairo -- but Chris was going super slow and the kids loved it. It was a far different scene a few days back, when neighbors called the cops on Chris for doing doughnuts on the street and a few lawns. The cops came and the L.A. City Attorney is currently reviewing the case of possible disturbing the peace prosecution. As for the party, Chris shipped a few exotic animals to adorn his home and excite the kiddies.

https://www.tmz.com/2016/05/14/chris-brown-royalty-birthday-party-atv/

TMZ

2016-05-28 00:00:00

2016

5.0

28

Solenn Sugier

Widow Challenges French Law That Prohibits Using a Dead Man’s Sperm to Get Pregnant

A young Spanish woman whose husband passed away last year has asked France to hand over his frozen sperm so that she can have his child in Spain, where she currently resides. There's only one problem: Using a dead man's sperm for insemination is illegal in France. Marina Gonzalez' husband, Nicola Turri, was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. Concerned that his treatment might impact his fertility, Turri had his sperm frozen in 2013. The "straws" containing the sperm are currently held at a research center and sperm bank in Paris, where the couple was living at the time. After initially going into remission, Turri was diagnosed with leukemia in 2015. That year, he scheduled an appointment with an attorney to officially give consent for his wife to undergo Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) treatment, using his frozen sperm. Gonzalez's attorney, David Simhon, told French news agency AFP that Turri died "one hour before he was due to meet" his attorney on July 9, 2015. Gonzalez is now asking France's Council of State to hand over her late husband's frozen sperm so that she can be inseminated in Spain. In an interview with France 2 in April, the young woman said she wanted "to be the mother of my life partner's child," and that she hoped the court would allow her to carry out her late husband's wish. The Council of State is Gonzalez's last hope of a legal resolution in France, after an administrative court denied her original request. On Friday, public rapporteur Aurélie Bretonneau said that she did not oppose the transfer of the sperm to Spain in light of the "exceptional" situation, AFP reported. A young Spanish woman whose husband passed away last year has asked France to hand over his frozen sperm so that she can have his child in Spain, where she currently resides. There's only one problem: Using a dead man's sperm for insemination is illegal in France. Marina Gonzalez' husband, Nicola Turri, was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. Concerned that his treatment might impact his fertility, Turri had his sperm frozen in 2013. The "straws" containing the sperm are currently held at a research center and sperm bank in Paris, where the couple was living at the time. After initially going into remission, Turri was diagnosed with leukemia in 2015. That year, he scheduled an appointment with an attorney to officially give consent for his wife to undergo Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) treatment, using his frozen sperm. Gonzalez's attorney, David Simhon, told French news agency AFP that Turri died "one hour before he was due to meet" his attorney on July 9, 2015. Gonzalez is now asking France's Council of State to hand over her late husband's frozen sperm so that she can be inseminated in Spain. In an interview with France 2 in April, the young woman said she wanted "to be the mother of my life partner's child," and that she hoped the court would allow her to carry out her late husband's wish. The Council of State is Gonzalez's last hope of a legal resolution in France, after an administrative court denied her original request. On Friday, public rapporteur Aurélie Bretonneau said that she did not oppose the transfer of the sperm to Spain in light of the "exceptional" situation, AFP reported. Related: Lawsuit Alleges Sperm Bank's Genius Donor Was Actually a Schizophrenic Ex-Con Véronique Fournier, director of the Clinical Ethics Center (Centre d'Éthique Clinique), in Paris, told VICE News that she wasn't sure whether Bretonneau's statement implied a future change to the law, or whether it marked a desire "to respect [the wishes] of European nationals living in the country." According to French daily Le Figaro, Simhon argued that the couple's decision to become parents had been "clearly defined" and was "already in process." Turri also left a will that authorized his wife to use his sperm even in the event of his death. During the hearing on Friday, the court was told that the couple already one failed insemination attempt prior to Turri's death. A provision of France's Public Health Code, which was introduced in 1994 and revised in 2004, says individuals wishing to undergo ART procedures "must be living, old enough to procreate, and have previously consented to transferring embryos for insemination." According to the code, "the death of one of the individuals in the couple" constitutes "an obstacle" to insemination. In a report published in 2009, the Council of State ruled to ban the postmortem transfer of embryos, arguing that children born from such a procedure "might be exposed to factors, which could contribute to imbalance or psychological hardship associated with the position of a child born out of grief." The council also said there was "broad consensus" for the ban. But in 2011, France's National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) said the majority of its members believed the procedure "should be authorized" under certain circumstances, including a minimum period of reflection for the man prior to his death. The council, however, said it would be unwise to undo the ban on postmortem insemination, saying that, for the child, "the symbolic burden of having been conceived with sperm from a man that was already deceased could compound the difficulties he/she will experience from being born without a father." The council also said that it is hard to verify whether or not the father had indeed agreed to the procedure. Related: Paris Will Start Swabbing High Schoolers to See If They're Smoking Pot Fournier doesn't think the law will change anytime soon. She said that while France enforces strict biothethical guidelines within its borders, it remains flexible when it comes to "reproductive tourism." "The state wants such and such law to be in place in the territory but does not forbid nationals to do whatever they want abroad," she said. "The newborn will have no links to France," Simhon told Le Figaro. "We are not asking for a reform of the French law. In light of that, how can they oppose a transfer?" The vocal support of the rapporteur is an important first step for Gonzalez. The Council of State's decision will be announced in the coming days. If her request is denied, Gonzalez has planned to appeal the decision with the European Court of Human Rights. But time is running out for Gonzalez. According to Spanish law, postmortem insemination is only legal if it takes place within the year following the death of the father, giving Gonzalez until July 10 to attempt the procedure. Follow Solenn on Twitter: @SolennSugier Follow VICE News France on Twitter: @vicenewsFR This article originally appeared in VICE News' French edition. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/mbn47y/widow-challenges-french-law-that-prohibits-using-a-dead-mans-sperm-to-get-pregnant

Vice News

2016-11-11 18:00:00

2016

11.0

11

Mike Diver

Discussing the Enduring Appeal of Abe with Oddworld Creator Lorne Lanning

In 2017, the original PlayStation's Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee will celebrate its 20th anniversary. The game, released at a time when console and home computer power was pushing virtual worlds into three dimensions like never before (step forward GoldenEye 007, Final Fantasy VII​​, ​​​​and the Quake and Tomb Raider sequels) looked like a step backwards for what these creations could be.  A side-on, 2D platformer, Abe's Oddysee​ didn't ostensibly seem like a progression from the 16-bit Marios and Sonics. But look deeper than a few screenshots, and that basic "platformer" pigeonhole, and Abe's Oddysee was quite clearly something else. Abe, the game's player-controlled hero, was anything but an all-conquering, stereotypical power-fantasy protagonist bristling. He had some tricks up his (entirely non-existent) sleeve: He could telepathically control enemies, and was light-footed enough to tiptoe past many a spot of potential bother. But while he finds himself, entirely accidentally, freeing the slaves of a fantastical food-manufacturing multinational corporation—RuptureFarms—he's an everyman, unremarkable and inconspicuous in a crowd. Or, rather, he's an every-Mukodon, to stick with the game's fictional universe of humanoid creatures separated into distinct classes. The Mukodons are the lowest of the low, the servants of the Glukkons, the game world's elite reptilian race. Abe rescues his "co-workers" across the course of Oddysee, using innovative "gamespeak" commands to direct them away from danger, and to their salvation.  Abe's Oddysee received several sequels, and was remade in 2014 as Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, for modern consoles. The company that made the original, Oddworld Inhabitants, is still involved, and the success of New 'n' Tasty—the game received fantastic reviews and reconnected Abe with his old audience, while also attracting gamers too young to remember the 1990s—has led the studio to pursue further titles in the Oddworld franchise.  2017 will see the release of a remake, of sorts, of 1998's Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, a title that, as Oddworld Inhabitants co-founder Lorne Lanning explains, was never quite what it should have been back in the day. Above: The 'Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty' trailer from E3 2014 Waypoint: New 'n' Tasty was quite the comeback for Oddworld. I know that you've been teasing what's next, and it makes sense for it to be Abe's Exoddus, done over. Yet what you're talking about for 2017 is called Soulstorm. What's that all about? Lorne Lanning: We actually started Oddworld Inhabitants through wanting to bring more Hollywood-style production values to games. And I think the original Abe's Oddysee had that, and then came the 3D games, Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath, later down the road. But it was surprising to me, actually, that people want more of that 2D platforming, side-scrolling style stuff, nowadays. So we tested the waters with New 'n' Tasty, and the response was great. We polled the audience: What do you want to see next? And they replied with, "Do Abe's Exoddus!" I groaned, but then I looked at that: Exoddus was a game that we only had nine months on, a game I was never expecting to make. But I've looked at that game, for the next one, for Soulstorm – I've looked at what the old story was, and rewritten the whole thing. The drink, Soulstorm Brew, is still at the center of things, but that's where the similarities end. What we really want to do with Soulstorm is make it devious, highly volatile. And also, we're working with these ideas: In the first game, it's about Abe awaking from being a slave. He's the catalyst for more following his lead—they all realize they're not employees, they're slaves. No allegories to our world there, of course.  And in the next one, the original intent for part two was that the slaves wake up to the fact they're also slaves to their own habits, and addictions. So that's where this Brew, this drink, comes in—it's enslaving people around the world. But Brew is sticky, and highly flammable. A long time ago, we designed mechanics for liquid fire, like napalm, but with the ability to splash surfaces and coat things, and then ignite it. We've got that going now. And what falls out of that is actually extreme comedy.  People were asking: is the next game going to be darker? And it is, because Abe's going through a heavier trip, and realizing it's not all fun and games, and realizing the scope of his task. He never signed up for this, to save the world; he just sort of stumbled into it. So we're getting more into what I wanted Abe's Exoddus to originally be. It's an all-new game; a reboot, I suppose, rather than a remake. But it definitely still has that Oddworld humor, it's honestly more hilarious than it ever was. We have to get the game out in 2017. I suffer every time I provide a specific date, because people will take that as gospel, that it will be out then—when what we mean is we'd like to have it out by then. But, we feel it has to be in 2017, and so I'm on this night and day, until it delivers, and that's just how it is. ​Abe was never an obvious hero, beside more stereotypical avatars that crush all before them. And yet here we are, almost 20 years after the first game, and he's an incredibly loved character. Tell me a little about how he came to be, and why you think he's endured. I'm of the belief that if you can make characters more emotional, and empathetic, then you're going to have a greater connection to them, and you'd feel for them in ways that I never felt for the guy with the big gun and the big biceps. Who gives a shit that he can kick ass better? Those kind of characters—I'm gonna be the ace pilot and save the day—they're a little done. I'm more into people who work in the pizza place, who are also going to save the world. He's going to do it in a really interesting way.  Microsoft did some focus testing and basically told us, "Abe and Munch came back as two characters most likely to be in the corner at the party, with lamp shades on their heads." They certainly were never the embodiment of cool. But the reason I did that is because I felt that's where we were all at, what we were all in. We were in that position of being small, and helpless against a world of a lot of forces, and a lot of assholes, running things and fucking it up for the rest of us. And, gee, I feel like I'm getting validated now: you've got to be a dipshit to not recognize that's what's going on in the world today, that the assholes are winning. Abe really resonates with the inner chump within us all who feels vulnerable, who feels like we might not make it, and that all of this stuff in the real world is overwhelming. And I know he's connected with people, because I've seen a lot of Abe tattoos. I met one dude, a big dude, like 300 pounds, and he had Abe on one ass cheek, and (Abe's sort of sidekick) Elum on the other. Like, how did they wind up there?  The things those characters have seen, in that location. I'd never encourage anyone to get a tattoo, but I was really surprised when I started seeing them. I always wanted characters that people would feel strongly about; but also that the characters mean something else to them, personally. I felt like people were small victims in the world, and as a result I wanted to make characters that were closer to them—not the best looking guy, not the strongest. But then, they could still overcome obstacles. Out of that, I felt we could build more empathy into the play pattern, even if we were being sarcastic, and dark at times. All of that helped build this connection between Abe and the player.  ​Where do you think you fit, in the gaming landscape of the 21st century? Here we have these kind of throwback games, and I know you're not into the power-trip adventures that do the big numbers, commercially. There are things that are exciting today. I do look at the amazing graphics, and I'm wowed. I respect that the world's a violent place, but I see all these games about killing, and that doesn't rock my house. We kill things in our games, too, but there's a difference between what we do and just being gratuitous. I'm not into the war games, the games that celebrate war, when people are losing their lives right now in the real world, and being totally disrupted as a result of conflict. We're turning that into entertainment products, so billionaires can make more money. I'm not excited about that shit, and I'd never do that kind of stuff. You seem pretty pissed off at the world, Lorne. I'm getting that vibe. Well, let's just look at who's winning in the world, right now. Hedge fund managers. Bankers. Corporate CEOs taking thousands of times the pay of those working under them. I mean, it's ridiculous. And it's been like this for ages—it was the disappointments of the real world that really inspired the Oddworld characters, originally. And I feel like, when I was a kid growing up, the hardest commodity for me to get in touch with was hope. When I think back to when I was growing up, at times I just wanted to go jump off the bridge. There were all of these really intimidating barriers in the way. And it's worse today, for young people—far worse than when I was growing up. And what iconic characters do kids today have to hold onto? For me, when I was a kid, it was Yoda. And now Yoda is trying to sell me fucking soft drinks. When I saw Star Wars, it filled a gap for me, and I think it did this for a lot of people, because there was a sort of spiritual deficit out there at the time. You had two schools: religion, or spirituality if you like, or atheism. But I always thought there was more. I grew up in the woods. My best friends were animals. My dog had more empathy when stuff was going wrong for me than any human I knew. So Yoda spoke to me: The Force connects all living things. It was a very Buddhist approach, and I sort of see Star Wars as Shaolin Monks in Space. Then I realized: Kermit the Frog, and Ernie and Bert, and the Count on Sesame Street, they taught me to read. Not school. I learned from entertainment characters. I felt more connected to what Yoda was saying than any other traditional deities. So to me, characters can mean a lot more. The songs I used to listen to, perhaps they prevented me from jumping off that bridge. You get empowered by this stuff. You see tattoos of lyrics, and that's the deeper meaning for the people that have them, on their life. And when I'm designing characters, I'm trying to come from that place where, if it registers with people, can they identify with it in regard to their own plight in life. And if they can, they'll embrace it deeper.  When we find something we really love, let's say it's a band, and someone else is trashing them? "Listen, motherfucker…" We're going to stand up for them. "That's my family!" We get passionate. And that's the best fan cultures. Go talk to Trekkies about how much you hate Star Trek, and see how you go. That conversation—well, that screaming match—is going to go on all night. So, I hope to always focus on characters that mean more to people than just what the surface story is. And I think that resonated, with Abe. And the challenges of business get in the way, and you stumble over them; but with Abe, the reason I gave him infinite lives is because I wanted you to never give up. No matter how fucking sucky you were, if you stuck with it, you'd get there. And that's life, man. It's nice when that happens, when you make that connection. But of course you need sales, too. But, I believe, if you're going to make entertainment, don't just do it to make a buck. Do what you have to do to pay the rent, of course; but if you have the luxury of having a choice in what you do for a job, try to make the world better. I'm not saying what that is, as our situations are all different, but I think that's what we all need to do, now. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Follow Mike on Twitter​.  Find more information on 2017's Soulstorm and other Oddworld projects and games at the studio's official website​.  ​

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xdw43k/discussing-the-enduring-appeal-of-abe-with-oddworld-creator-lorne-lanning

Games

Vice

2017-06-20 18:47:00

2017

6.0

20

Nathaniel Ainley

Let This Adorable Animation Womansplain the Clitoris

A playful animated film uses humor and illustration to deconstruct the biological logistics and historical context behind the only organ in the human body dedicated exclusively to pleasure: Le Clitoris. The documentary short by Montreal native Lori Malepart-Traversy delves into the physical anatomy of the clitoris and how it has been skewed and misinterpreted by different men throughout history. The history of the clit stretches all the way back to the days of Ancient Greece when female orgasm was encouraged by doctors for better fertility. Up until the 19th century, even the Catholic church approved of female orgasm to release sexual tension. However, in the early 1800s doctors started to rail against the clit, claiming it was a useless organ that made women susceptible to dangerous diseases like "hysteria." Then Sigmund Freud came along and proclaimed, "a mature woman must find her pleasure exclusively through penetration," relegating the clitoris to what Malepart-Traversy calls "clitoral obscurantism." Malepart-Traversy spent eight months drawing and animating Le Clitoris while she was getting her BFA from Concordia University. During the process, the artist says she strived for simplicity and efficiency, using animation as a vehicle to discuss delicate subject matter. Malepart-Traversy tells Cartoon Brew, "Humor puts less pressure on the viewer... on what you should think or what you should say... Making the viewer laugh is a good way to enter the subject." By creating a character out of the clitoris, Malepart-Traversy hopes people will start to look at it as "something more alive than just a flap, or vulva, or hole, or vagina." Last year, Le Clitoris was showcased at film festivals around the world. The documentary was finally released to the public two days ago. Watch it in its entirety below: Learn more about Le Cliotris here, and check out more work by Lori Malepart-Traversy on her website. Related: [NSFW] This Feminist Ex-Mormon Is Bringing Floral Vagina Paintings to Utah | #50StatesofArt Anish Kapoor's 'Vagina Sculpture' Graffitied Again—But This Time He's Not Cleaning It These Pussy Pipes Remind Us "We Have Been Smoking Out Of Dicks"

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbg8n3/clitoris-animation-lori-malepart-traversy

Animation

Vice

2019-06-21 00:00:00

2019

6.0

21

UPDATE 1-Trump says he halted U.S. strike on Iran over possible casualties

(Adds details, Trump comments) WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he called off a planned military strike against Iran because it would have been a disproportionate response to Tehran’s downing of an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone, adding that more sanctions have been imposed. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights (sic) when I asked, how many will die,” Trump wrote in a series of morning tweets. “150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. “10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry.” Trump said U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran were having an effect and, without mentioning details, said more were added Thursday night. Iranian officials told Reuters on Friday that Tehran had received a message from Trump warning that a U.S. attack on Iran was imminent but that he was against war and wanted to talk. Trump’s tweets did not address whether he had sent a message to Iran’s leaders but repeated his attacks on the deal secured by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. He also reiterated his stance that Iran would not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. The escalating tensions come after Tehran on Thursday said it had shot down an unmanned U.S. military surveillance drone with a surface-to-air missile following a spate of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf region. (Reporting by Susan Heavey and David Alexander Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Trott)

https://www.reuters.com/article/mideast-iran-usa-trump/update-1-trump-says-he-halted-us-strike-on-iran-over-possible-casualties-idUSL2N23S0DX

Energy

Reuters

2016-08-23 09:30:00

2016

8.0

23

Noisey Staff

Love Relatable Grunge Pop? Here's "My Phone Is a Fucking Piece of Shit" by Hot Shorts

When we spoke to Manchester grunge-pop foursome Hot Shorts about premiering their video, which we'll get to in a minute, they sent over two press shots: one ridiculous, and one even more ridiculous. We went for the even more ridiculous option, because that perhaps says more about Hot Shorts' disposition than is possible with words. Initially famed for their outrageous promotional videos that look like stuff Bill Wurtz left on the cutting room floor in college, Hot Shorts have, in their own words, "worked their way into their fans' hearts with a mixture of balls out rock and their connection with the real world." Formed in 2013, their modus operandi seems to be taking the mundane elements of life, like having a crap job and feeling generally weird, and turning them into complaint reports you can dance to. Now, about the video. You know that compilation of all the times Rihanna was tricked into thinking a video was a picture? This is like that, but for two whole minutes, while the band are posed to recreate a famous press shot for Friends and their new and extremely relatable song called "My Phone is a Fucking Piece of Shit" plays over the top. It's truly mesmerising for all the senses. Please enjoy: Hot Shorts self-titled album comes out November 18 through Super Smash Hit Records and is available to pre-order here. Cop tickets to the launch party at The Star and Garter in Manchester here.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7b8g4a/premiere-hot-shorts-my-phone-is-a-fucking-piece-of-shit-video

Noisey

Vice

2018-11-15 00:00:00

2018

11.0

15

EU official says Brexit deal cannot be improved given 'red lines'

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - There is nothing better EU and UK negotiators can come up with for the Brexit deal given the mandates and red lines from both the bloc and London, a European Union official said on Thursday. British Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet approved the draft agreement on Wednesday but it faces an uncertain future in the UK parliament. Several of May’s ministers resigned over the deal on Thursday. “We think we have on both sides exhausted the margin for maneuver under our respective mandates,” the EU official said. Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Janet Lawrence

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-official/eu-official-says-brexit-deal-cannot-be-improved-given-red-lines-idUSKCN1NK1CF

World News

Reuters

2019-06-07 00:00:00

2019

6.0

7

Michael Georgy

Sudan hospital traumatized by bloody crackdown

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - After the victims of a deadly crackdown on a protest camp started pouring into a Khartoum hospital, many previous patients there begged to leave in terror, overwhelming doctors. Some of the militiamen who raided the pro-democracy sit-in had surrounded Royal Care hospital to hunt protesters taking refuge in the building, said its deputy director, Dr. Mohammed Abdel Rahman. “People were crying and screaming,” he told Reuters. “They were desperate to leave ... while we were trying to cope with hundreds in serious condition who were arriving.” The opposition says 113 people were killed in the storming of the civilian sit-in on Monday and a subsequent wider crackdown. The government put the death toll at 61 people, including three security personnel. The bloodshed dashed hopes that Sudan’s new military rulers - who overthrew veteran leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir on April 11 - would hand over power quickly to civilians. Shortly after the violence erupted, the hospital declared code black, meaning the 100-bed facility was operating at full capacity. But doctors had no choice. Three hundred people who were either hit by bullets, beaten with batons, or whipped with long wooden sticks, were in dire need of treatment. Five days later, the hospital still cannot cope. Exhausted doctors and other staff have no relief – working around the clock because other colleagues cannot make it to Sudan’s biggest private hospital. There are only 20 physicians. Aside from treating patients, they have taken over nursing and administrative duties and even cleaning floors because there is no one else to do the job. “I felt bad staying at home but there was nothing I could do,” said senior administrator Ramah Rahma. “Either the roads were blocked or I had to go back home because of gunfire.” Six people died from gunshot wounds, two of them before arriving. But the majority are suffering from bone fractures and whippings which leave long scars along their backs. “They were struck with batons mostly in the upper arms and shoulders and lower legs, mostly ankles,” said Abdel Rahman. He said stress levels peaked after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which stand accused of genocide in the war against rebels in Darfur, arrived by the hundreds in pick up trucks and formed a cordon around the hospital to search for protesters. Bashir’s government denied the genocide charges. The RSF was not immediately available for comment. The Transitional Military Council (TMC) has said the force has a strong track record of fighting terrorism and a fabricated social media campaign was aimed at smearing them. On Friday, there were no RSF forces within site of the hospital. Some were relaxing and sipping cups of tea along roads outside the Defense Ministry where protesters had gathered by the hundreds of thousands to demand democracy. A few of them, who once punched their fists in the air to call for radical change, were collecting garbage left along the former protest camp site where people from all walks of life had gathered - women, teenagers, doctors, accountants, vendors. On Friday, there was barely any movement in the hospital. A few nurses quietly stood at their stations. The emergency room was empty. No one was attending labs. During the height of the crisis, when patients needed medicine and other supplies, the hospital’s one functioning ambulance was the only vehicle available - because doctors feared others would be targeted. “I have never experienced anything like this. I used to work in a military hospital. It was simple,” said Abdel Rahman. “You treat a soldier and he would say I am going home. Here it was one patient wanting to tell you their story but you have to move on to another one beside you.” On one hospital ward, victims lay in bed, with metal rods holding together legs and arms shattered by bullets. Some had spent their time at the sit-in area listening to opposition leaders speak, or studying the photographs of army officers executed on orders of Bashir. They had high hopes of a brighter future, until the bullets started flying on Monday. Another patient, Mohammed Abdel Baqi, said he was not interested in politics and was not taking part in the sit-in. He was at a market shopping for clothes to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr religious holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. “Security forces just showed up and started firing,” said the 22-year-old trader, who said he had planned to move to Saudi Arabia to seek a better life, a decision that had nothing to do with politics. Some are hopeful for Sudan’s future, despite the high price they are paying for pushing for civilian rule. Down the hall, a university student said he hoped security forces should stand by the Sudanese people. He struggled to slowly make the victory sign, his hand passing close to a large metal rod attached to his leg. Reporting by Michael Georgy; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-politics-hospital/sudan-hospital-traumatized-by-bloody-crackdown-idUSKCN1T824M

World News

Reuters

2018-04-23 00:00:00

2018

4.0

23

Keith Coffman

Man who disarmed Nashville shooter says he 'just wanted to live'

(Reuters) - A 29-year-old man who disarmed a gunman during a deadly shooting spree inside a Nashville restaurant on Sunday declined accolades from police and others that he was a hero, saying he acted out of a desire “to live.” James Shaw Jr., the father of a 4-year-old daughter, told a news conference flanked by Nashville Mayor David Briley and local and federal law enforcement officials that he was thinking simply of self-preservation when he wrestled the assault-style rifle away from the assailant during a rampage in which four people were killed. “I’m not a hero, I’m just a regular person,” the Nashville native said, pausing as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I just wanted to live.” Despite his humble recounting of the incident, police and others at the news conference stood and applauded him after his remarks. “He is a hero in my books,” said Brennan McMurry, 28, a friend who was with him at the Waffle House when the gunman burst in before dawn, according to the Tennessean newspaper. Nashville Metro Police Spokesman Don Aaron said Shaw’s actions saved lives. “The shots had stopped, so he decided to rush the gunman, actually wrestled that assault rifle away, tossed it over the counter and, at that point, the gunman fled,” he said.  Authorities said the suspected gunman, identified as 29-year-old Travis Reinking, remained at large on Sunday night.. Shaw, who said he works for AT&T, recalled how when he and McMurry were at the Waffle House when they heard a crash, which he initially thought was plates breaking. He then saw the gunman, who was dressed in a green jacket and nothing else, open fire. When Shaw moved toward the bathroom, the shooter followed him, making him feel trapped. “I distinctly remember thinking that he is going to have to work for this kill,” he said. Shaw said that when he saw the gunman pause to reload, he saw his opportunity and snatched the gun, which he said was hot to the touch, and threw it away. He sported a bandage over his right hand where he was burned grabbing the barrel. “I didn’t care. It was life or death at that time,” Shaw said at the news conference, adding he went home afterward, got changed and went to church. He said the whole moment seemed “light-switch” fast. “I just wanted to live. I didn’t really fight that man to save everyone else,” he said. “I took the gun so I could get myself out. That may not be popular. But I’m honest to the core. ... That was my thought in that moment.” Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Peter Cooney

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tennessee-shooting-patron/man-who-disarmed-nashville-shooter-says-he-just-wanted-to-live-idUSKBN1HU05R

U.S.

Reuters

2017-11-27 15:45:00

2017

11.0

27

Johanna Partin

Trump Holds the US Back While Other Countries and American Cities Take Action Against Climate Change

This is an opinion piece by Johanna Partin, Director of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance So Syria’s in, but the U.S. is out, at least in Trump’s mind. But what shone through in Bonn, like the brilliant sun powering the new clean economy, is that Trump is the outlier. Not only has every nation represented in Bonn ratified the Paris climate agreement, but the overwhelming American subnational presence in Bonn—from states and cities to CEOs and nonprofits—is fully committed to climate science and climate action. Global collaboration came to the fore in Bonn showing that Paris is becoming a real-world reality. It’s only the Trump Administration, whose pro-fossil fuel panel presentation at Bonn was interrupted by mass protest, that is refusing to get on board. The timing of American obfuscation couldn’t be worse, considering the recent news that the world is set to see greenhouse gas emissions climb by 2 percent in 2017 and again in 2018, which means more warming. This report, which set a fitting stage for former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to put a public health warning on fossil fuels (e.g. a label at gas stations saying, “what you pump into your tank may kill you”), follows last month’s news that the world reached record-breaking GHG levels in 2016, higher than at any point in the past 800,000 years. Everyone in Bonn knew full well that America is responsible for a huge chunk of these emissions, with some of the highest per capita emissions in the world, which makes President Trump’s denialism even more confounding. Check out more videos from VICE: The leading highest-ambition cities, in response, called on delegates in Bonn to act immediately on this burgeoning humanitarian crisis, noting in a strongly worded letter at the start of the conference that nation states were not doing nearly enough. The letter, sent by the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, called on nations to ratchet up of ambition and action and match what many cities are doing globally to kick carbon to the curb. As a result of this and other examples of local government leadership, there were calls in Bonn—most notably from COP23 President, Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama—to push for more ambitious climate action, and to include local governments as official parties in the climate negotiations going forward. (UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa has agreed to consider.) If nations match cities’ leadership, and similarly aim for 100 percent renewable energy, near zero carbon, and zero waste, then the world would be well on its way towards a more livable future. As we stand now, however, the Paris pledges are insufficient and fail to keep us below the temperature that most scientists have indicated is necessary for survival. At present, Paris commitments let the planet warm well over 3 degrees Celsius more than what they were pre-industrialization. We really should be capping our warming to 1.5 degrees. That’s if we want humanity to survive unscathed well into the next century—a task that is tenable provided nations take up the challenge called for by carbon neutral cities. Bonn, then, and any global climate conference that follows, is about getting governments from the United States to the United Arab Emirates to do as cities do. To set a 0-100 agenda in days not decades, months not millennia, seconds not centuries. To drive towards zero waste, zero carbon and 100 percent renewable energy. This is the moment that will either make us or break us, as no other threat out there will have a comparable impact to our health, economy and security. And cities can’t do it alone, no matter how much subnational leaders laudably supplant federal governments at UN conferences. We need nation-states to take a lesson from their cities and start leading. As the global rulebook for the coming years of climate action gets finalized, heads of state should heed what’s happening in their own cities. Because that’s what going to not just save us, but drive us to thrive. While global leaders are busy debating the future of the planet, you can do your part by getting your local officials to switch to 100 percent renewable energy for the Sierra Club's Ready for 100 campaign.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb399d/trump-holds-the-us-back-while-other-countries-and-american-cities-take-action-against-climate-change

Voices

Vice

2016-04-13 14:55:00

2016

4.0

13

Bethy Squires

Take a Guess at What the Most Downloaded Kind of Porn Is in Anti-LGBT States

It also seems worth mentioning that, according to GameLink's numbers, Utah downloads the most incest related titles. House Bill 2 was signed into law by North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory in early April. The law bans anti-discrimination measures that would protect people from being fired for their sexual orientation or gender presentation. It also outlaws people from using a public restroom that doesn't match the gender on their birth certificate. HB 2 has been characterized as borderline unenforceable by North Carolina police, a last gasp of "prejudice and bigotry" by Bruce Springsteen, and "fucking stupid" by most people who read it. Many trans men took to twitter and Facebook to protest the law, arguing that people who look like them are the last people NC lawmakers want in a women's restroom. But it would appear that the average North Carolinian would be more familiar with the struggle of the trans women in Italian Transsexual Sausage Fest 5-Pack, another popular title on GameLink. The site also ranks Mississippi sixth in its viewing of gay porn, but number one in hypocrisy. The top five movies watched in Mississippi on GameLink over the last 90 days are Full Service Transsexuals, Fathers and Sons Number 3, Bareback Sex, Daddy and Me, and ever-popular Joey Silvera's Trans-Visions 6. "Our user data show Mississippi has been consuming gay and transsexual pornography at a high rate in comparison to the rest of the country," says Dillon. "It's unfortunate to see that their diverse viewing habits do not translate into an open-minded society." Mississippi House Bill 1532 was signed into law April 5. In it, marriage is defined as between one man and one woman, and insists that "male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual's immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth"—a laughably useless set of criteria which doesn't take into account the one in 1400 people born outside of XX and XY chromosomal typing, and the one in 100 people born with bodies that do not have "standard" male/female genitalia (according to the Intersex Society of North America). One can view the high consumption of gay porn in Mississippi and trans porn in North Carolina as hypocritical, but an argument also could be made that the hypersexualization of trans bodies directly correlates with perceiving them as a threat. A sexy, sexy threat. Why, any minute now we could be ravished by a dashing trans man named Slaven with salt and pepper hair, and a smile like a secret, and the secret is that he loves you. Governor McCrory signed an executive order on April 12, preventing state employees from being fired for being gay or trans, while keeping the most controversial bathroom-related parts of the bill. In a video, he said that North Carolina is "a state that strives to allow our people and business to as independent as possible, without overreaching government regulations." He neglected to mention whether his newfound softening on the issue was because of backlash from entities like the ACLU and Paypal, or the humanizing effect of films like My Girlfriend's Cock 17.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pg7jgv/take-a-guess-at-what-the-most-downloaded-kind-of-porn-is-in-anti-lgbt-states

Identity

Vice

2019-01-16 12:48:00

2019

1.0

16

Lindsay Dodgson

Hailey Baldwin was once paid $150,000 for a single Instagram post

The Netflix documentary "The American Meme" shows how social-media stars and influencers live their lives. Stars including DJ Khalid, Emily Ratajkowski, Josh Ostrovsky, and Hailey Baldwin talk about how they make their money. They say they rely on ad revenue and brand deals. They're told to post a picture on their social-media accounts with a product saying how much they like it and encouraging others to buy it. Hailey Baldwin says she made $150,000 from a single post. Some people have made millions. When ad revenue isn't enough, social-media stars look to brand deals to make the big bucks. In the new Netflix documentary " The American Meme," celebrities including DJ Khalid, Emily Ratajkowski, Josh "The Fat Jew" Ostrovsky, and Hailey Baldwin talk about how they make their money. Read more: Instagram influencers are faking sponsored content because they think it attracts real brand deals A brand deal is when an influencer posts a picture on their social-media account showing a product, saying how much they like it, and encouraging others to buy it. "I post a lot of things that I genuinely just like, and I've gotten in trouble with my agent being like, 'Why would you post this? You can get paid for doing this!'" Baldwin — who now goes by Hailey Bieber on Instagram since marrying pop star Justin Bieber — said in the documentary. "The most I have made off of a single post is $150,000," she said. "I've heard of people making $1 million off of one photo." Brittany Furlan, who became popular on Vine, said she's been approached by companies including Procter & Gamble, Benefit Cosmetics, and Pizza Hut. YouTube influencer Amanda Cerny said she has a flat rate for her brand deals. "There's deals in the millions on social media," she said. "When the TV is on, usually people walk away for commercials. And then in our videos, we have millions of people who are seeing this content. "My rate on Instagram is $50,000 currently for a post." Matthew Felker, a model who isn't active on social media, explained how brand deals work. "Someone like The Fat Jew, he'll get written a check from the shoe company," he said. "And then he will be told, at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning you need to post a picture of yourself sitting at this pool with your feet up, with these shoes on. You need to use these hashtags, post it at this time, and that's a quote unquote 'organic post.'" Posing for photos with the intent of showing off products or a certain lifestyle can backfire. Last year, a lifestyle blogger received death threats after posting a photo of "pancakes" that were actually tortilla wraps. Read the original article on INSIDER. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Copyright 2019. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

https://www.businessinsider.com/hailey-baldwin-paid-150000-dollars-for-one-instagram-post-2019-1

Business Insider

2019-03-29 00:00:00

2019

3.0

29

Voting for UK PM May's Brexit Withdrawal Agreement is 'surrender': lawmaker Francois

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Voting for Prime Minister Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement on Friday would be a surrender, pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker Mark Francois said on Friday. Asked by LBC radio if he could vote for May’s deal to ensure Britain leaves the EU, Francois said: “No. You can’t hold your nose when you are holding your hands up in the air and surrendering.” “What (the Withdrawal Agreement) means is that we remain in the European Union.” Reporting by Elisabeth O'Leary; editing by Guy Faulconbridge

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-francois/voting-for-uk-pm-mays-brexit-withdrawal-agreement-is-surrender-lawmaker-francois-idUSKCN1RA0RP

World News

Reuters

2016-03-30 16:00:06

2016

3.0

30

Max Fisher

This 3-minute cartoon explains why nuclear weapons still pose a very real threat

Nuclear weapons are something so scary and so dangerous — thousands of weapons explicitly designed to be powerful enough to destroy the world many times over, perpetually deployed, and able to be fired with the push of a few buttons, like a gun forever left to the world's head — that I'm sometimes amazed at how little we talk about them. There are a few reasons for that. One is that they're so big and scary it can be difficult for people to wrap their heads around. Another is that there's an impression — not entirely true, as I'll explain — that nothing ever changes with nukes, so we're just in a peaceful status quo. But another is just that the scale of the threat still posed by nukes might not be obvious to everyone. So it's worth laying that out, as this three-minute cartoon by the popular series Minute Physics does. It's a good overview, and more than a little scary: As Max Tegmark of MIT explains in the video, the real risk of nukes is that they'll be set off in some sort of mistake. But — and this is important — when experts like Tegmark talk about the mistaken use of nuclear weapons, they're not talking about a random or otherwise accidental detonation (although that has almost happened a few times). Rather, they're talking about geopolitical tensions between nuclear-armed powers that, by some confusion or unintended escalation, could become a nuclear exchange before anyone realized it was all a big misunderstanding. There are two general ways that could happen. The first are the sorts of incidents Tegmark goes through in the video: One side misperceives the other as launching a nuclear weapon. Because nuclear weapons take only minutes to deliver, the side that believes it is under attack has only minutes to respond — not enough time to investigate what's happening before retaliating. As Tegmark explains, this has happened a few times. Blessedly, thankfully, when faulty readings led one side to believe it was under nuclear attack, the people on that side simply chose not to follow the rules requiring them to retaliate. The 1983 incident he cites (which I retell in full here) was probably the closest we ever came to total nuclear annihilation, avoided because the Soviet lieutenant colonel on duty refused to follow protocol requiring him to retaliate. The second way this could happen is that an actual conflict could break out between two nuclear powers. As this conflict escalated, each side would watch the other obsessively for any sign of a nuclear strike. And some countries, such as Russia, have rules allowing their militaries to use nuclear weapons, in certain circumstances, even if the other side has not. Again, because the logic of nuclear weapons requires a lightning-fast retaliation to any nuclear launch, there would be dozens of ways in which the two sides could misread some action or escalation as the start of a nuclear attack, and launch what they believe is a retaliation (meant to return in kind and thus prevent more strikes) but would actually be a first strike. So why do we still have these things if they put us in a state of constant, if low-level, risk of global annihilation? Tegmark makes it sound like the answer is money from defense contractors, but I'm not sure it's so simple. (It's not like Northrop Grumman existed in the communist Soviet Union, which long resisted nuclear disarmament.) The challenge is this: Both American and Soviet/Russia leaders have expressed a desire to reduce their own stockpiles, but they only want to do it if the other side reciprocates in turn. They want to maintain the strategic balance between their two countries' nuclear arsenals, and they also know that if they disarm unilaterally, they'll lose leverage to get the other side to disarm. So disarmament happens jointly, in painstakingly negotiated agreements, which also include painstakingly negotiated inspections and monitoring regimes to make sure the other side is holding to their end. That is extremely difficult and time-consuming even in periods of relative friendliness between Moscow and Washington. But in periods of tension — right now, for example — the distrust is just too high, and the domestic politics within both countries make such agreements too politically costly anyway. The upshot of all this is that we're left, more or less perpetually, in a Cold War–era status quo, in which both the US and Russia have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, have nuclear war plans that require doing exactly that, and have forward-deployed those warheads in a way that is meant to deter the other side but also substantially increases the risk of unintended conflict by reducing our response time to mere minutes. That's the status quo, and it's pretty bad. But it gets worse, because the status quo isn't really static. Military technology is constantly changing, and both sides are constantly making upgrades that require the other side to upgrade in turn. So, for example, the US develops a new stealth fighter jet and bomber, which leads Russia to develop better air defense systems. But the problem is that these changes also affect nuclear weapons technology, which means the carefully balanced nuclear equilibrium is constantly being destabilized. Take, for example, those improved Russian air defense systems. The American nuclear deterrent is designed to have three components — submarines, bombers, and land-based missiles — known as the triad. Russia's new air defenses make the air-based part of our triad weaker. So to maintain parity, we are developing a new air-launched cruise missile that can carry nuclear weapons. But this new weapon, by maintaining parity in some respects (ability to penetrate air defenses), destabilizes parity on others (it reduces Russia's response time and could be perceived as a first-strike weapon). At the same time, this weapon increases the risk that a conventional conflict with Russia could spiral into an unwanted nuclear exchange, because Moscow would be unable to differentiate a conventional cruise missile from a nuclear cruise missile. This is all a very long way (sorry, I get carried away on this topic) of saying that this video describes the threats of nuclear weapons well but, if anything, significantly understates those threats. This all speaks to what you could maybe call the biggest myth about nuclear weapons, which is that we're in a peaceful stasis, with parity between the US and Russian forces providing stability. In fact, both sides are constantly doing things to manage that parity that also involve disturbing it, sometimes in ways that can be destabilizing and can increase the risk of an accident, misunderstanding, or unintended escalation. That risk is extremely low and the increases are marginal, but given the potential consequences — the literal end of the world — it's still pretty scary stuff.

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/30/11331218/nuclear-weapons-threat

Vox

2019-06-20 00:00:00

2019

6.0

20

Lefteris Karagiannopoulos

Clean energy projects worth $1.5 billion seek Finnish aid

OSLO (Reuters) - Fifteen companies have applied for Finnish investment aid to partly fund new large-scale demonstration energy projects worth $1.5 billion, six of them replacing coal and other fossil fuels, the government said on Thursday. Finland aims to reduce its carbon emissions and it approved earlier in the year a ban on the use of coal in energy production by May 2029, forcing some of its biggest utilities to find alternative energy solutions. The government has promised some investment aid for large-scale energy demonstration projects that contribute to meeting national as well as European Union energy and climate objectives by 2030. Only projects with investment costs exceeding 5 million euros could apply for the aid, said the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, which intends to allocate a total of 40 million euros to co-fund some of them. “The total amount of funding requested for these projects was 140 million euros,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday, without naming the 15 companies that have applied. Of the applications, six concern replacing coal and other fossil fuels in urban areas, four are biorefinery projects, and five are related to new energy technology, it added. The ministry expects to select the projects it will fund in November 2019. The projects to be funded will be selected based mainly on the degree of innovation of their selected technology and also their feasibility, the amount of energy produced, cost-effectiveness, and other impacts, it said. Reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise

https://www.reuters.com/article/finland-energy/clean-energy-projects-worth-15-billion-seek-finnish-aid-idUSL8N23R2KU

Sustainable Business

Reuters

2018-08-10 00:00:00

2018

8.0

10

John Mayer's Home Burglarized and 'Ransacked'

John Mayer is the latest celeb to be hit by burglars ... TMZ has learned. Law enforcement sources tell us, someone broke into the singer's Beverly Hills-area home mid-morning Friday. The intruder got in by smashing a bedroom window. We're told the house was "ransacked." The burglar/burglars made off with music equipment and personal property. Our sources say among the items taken ... some of John's watches. He has an enormous and enormously valuable timepiece collection. Our sources say the value of the property taken is between $100,000 and $200,000. No one was home at the time of the break-in. We don't know if John's burglar alarm was on. Somewhere around noon, a security guard noticed the broken window and called police. So far, no suspects.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/08/10/john-mayer-home-burglary-burglarized/

TMZ

2016-04-04 19:44:00

2016

4.0

4

Nick Gazin

Nick Gazin's Comic Book Love-In #110

Hello All, I'm Nick Gazin, and this is the weekly VICE comics review column in which I let you know what you should read and what you should avoid. If you contact me, I can tell you other things you should do too. Let me run your reading itinerary and your whole life. Here are ten things that I've reviewed. I include links that you can use to purchase the books directly from their publishers, but I encourage everyone to patronize their local comic stores. #1. AmsterdamBy Simon Hanselmann (Fantagraphics) Simon Hanselmann is perhaps the best new-ish cartoonist going right now. When trying to convince people that comics can be cool, good, fun, enjoyable, relatable, and pretty, I always use his books as an example. If you're unfamiliar with Simon's work, you can read the stuff we've published of his on this very site. Most of this book is on this website, but the experience of reading a book and looking at a website isn't the same. Books are great, paper is perfect. The comics in this book are about a group of friends who all seem to hate each other. There's a witch named Megg, her cat boyfriend, their giant Owl roommate, and their sociopathic friend Werewolf Jones. A whole lot of stuff happens in Amsterdam, from Megg and Mogg chugging giant bottles of Red Bull to Werewolf Jones's nude Zelda marathons. There's infidelity, suffering, beak-breaking, and various other pains for the reader's enjoyment. At the end of the last book, Owl had a moment of isolated tranquility. At the end of Amsterdam, Megg retreats into herself with mood-stabilizing drugs. Will Mogg be alone at the end of the next book? We all die alone, and we all read comics alone. You can cuddle up on your couch either by yourself or with your favorite drugs and just read it, touch it, smell the paper, and be in love with it. Books rule, the internet drools. Paper rules forever. I love this book, I love Simon Hanselmann. Buy Amsterdam. #2. Elevator TeethPublished by Perfectly Acceptable Press This is an avant-garde comic that feels a little influenced by primitive computer games with its grids and silhouettes. There's text, images, figures, and things that seem to be about the Bible, the creation of man—it doesn't matter. Whatever it means, it's a nice object full of pretty colors, patterns, and images. Buy Elevator Teeth. #3. HAXBy Lale Westvind (Breakdown Press) Lale Westvind has some great Hairy Who/Gary Panter silkscreen magic happening in her work. This color zine starts with some portraits of pained-faced women before launching into a wordless story that I couldn't follow but enjoyed looking at. For some reason the cover, which is very beautiful, looks nothing like the insides, which are also beautiful. I'd like to see more things from Lale that look like the cover. I'd like to see more covers that look like the insides. The cover paper is waxed and soft. Touching this book is half its beauty. When you experience a book, it should appeal to all of your senses except taste. Keep your mouths off the books. Buy HAX. #4. Star WrsBy Mark Todd Mark Todd made 70 of these so you probably can't get one now, but I still want to put Mark Todd on your radar. This fine book is a fine, fine book—as fine as a book can be. Mark retells the story of the movie Star Wars as if he's vaguely remembering from having seen it decades ago. Dialogue is flipped, characters are flopped, but the story is told successfully with good jokings and fine, fine drawings. Mark Todd's lines are so beautiful to me. I'm all about line quality. I don't fuck around with people who have an unsophisticated line. One of the first major steps of learning to draw is learning to love the immediacy of mark-making. You have to be able to love drawing before you even get into the concept of making an image. Mark Todd, I love your line, and I can tell that you love your line too. Line lovers for life. Buy Star Wrs. #5. Horn PleaseBy Dan Eckstein (powerHouse Books) In India, the trucks are made into beautiful art, and this book documents it. Not much more needs to be said. The whole book is pretty photos of these mundane machines that have been transformed into sublimely beautiful, giant, mobile art objects. Buy Horn Please. #6. The Complete Junior and SunnyBy Al Feldstein (IDW/Futurism) Before Al Feldstein drew, wrote, and edited pornographically scary comics for EC, he wrote and drew some way-too-sexy Archie knock-off comics in the 1940s. All the female characters in this book have over-rendered sweater drapery, defining their racks in a way that makes the fabric look wet and clingy. On top of tits being the star of the comic, the main characters all have these double-bubble pompadour hairstyles that look like inflated bosoms on top of their foreheads. There's one story in here where the fake-Betty and fake-Veronica audition to be models for a department store and model lingerie for an adult man at their high school. Check this out if you have a fetish for tight sweaters. Buy The Complete Junior and Sunny. #7. The Blonde WomanBy Aidan Koch (Space Face) Aidan Koch has a lot of good ideas and some taste, but she's not pushing herself hard enough in this book. Buy The Blonde Woman. #8. The Hospital SuiteBy John Porcellino (Drawn & Quarterly) Reading about John Porcellino's numerous life-threatening ailments and overwhelming physical pain caused me to believe I was experiencing the same symptoms. I began to see spots, and I stopped reading about halfway through. It was too much for me. The experience of the book overwhelmed me. My gut response to this book is, "Jesus Christ, we've all got to band together to help John Porcellino! Who knew a human was capable of suffering this much without dying!?" Buy The Hospital Suite. #9. Sink All NightBy Caramel Bobby I bought this sealed Caramel Bobby zine, and when I opened it I found out that I don't like Caramel Bobby. I guess that's a pretty funny trick. People talk him up so much that I thought he was good. The cover's nice, but ultimately this zine is nothing and was made by someone not trying. Trying is never cool, but very few good artists are cool. Check out Caramel Bobby. #10. Carpet Sweeper TalesBy Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly) Julie Doucet has made a lot of great comics, but this isn't one of them. After a long departure from comics, she's returned, but instead of doing work at all similar to her old stuff she's made a collaged fumetti made from old advertisements. The book instructs you to read the text aloud, so I did, but I was still disappointed. I applaud Doucet for taking risks, and I also didn't like this book. Buy Carpet Sweeper. That's it for this week. Check back next week, and I'll tell you what to do some more! Follow me on Instagram!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bdg49/nick-gazins-comic-book-love-in-110

Entertainment

Vice

2017-02-08 14:21:00

2017

2.0

8

Noisey Staff

M.I.A. Wants You To Know She's Not Madonna, Rihanna, Mariah, or Ariana on "Powa"

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.  Fresh off the back of an announcement that she'll be rising to the lofty echelons of legends like Patti Smith and Yoko Ono to curate this year's Meltdown Festival at London's Southbank Centre, M.I.A. has teased new music via Twitter. The multi-disciplinary artist took to social media to preview a 10-second clip of a track titled "Powa," having previously shared a 20-second clip of what appears to be the song's music video last week. "Powa" sees Maya rapping in her signature deliberate flow over a beat that feels like the bolshier big sister of "Bad Girls," apparently calling out a music industry that compares her to other (perhaps more media friendly) women, as she spits "I'm not Madonna, or Rihanna, or Mariah, or Ariana / I've been around in this world causing drama." In case there was any confusion about her point of view, M.I.A. has also shared the lyric sheet for the track. As well as the name-checks mentioned above, it also features the repeated line "I'm taking on the Tower," which is pretty much confirmed Trump shade. M.I.A. getting political, huh? Who'd have thought? Hear the preview and read the lyric sheet for "Powa" below: M.I.A. may not be Madonna, or Rihanna, or Mariah, or indeed Ariana, but she is in the number 9 spot on Noisey's Greatest UK MCs of All Time list—read why here.(Image via M.I.A. on Twitter)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mg58za/mia-not-madonna-rihanna-mariah-or-ariana-powa

Noisey

Vice

2016-06-17 00:00:00

2016

6.0

17

VICE News

British politician's murder leaves EU membership campaigns in limbo

Britain mourned lawmaker Jo Cox on Friday after a man wielding a gun and knife killed the 41-year-old in an attack that has thrown a June 23 referendum on European Union membership into limbo. Cox, a supporter of Britain staying in the EU, was shot and stabbed after a meeting with residents in her own constituency near Leeds in northern England by a man who witnesses said had shouted "Britain first". She was pronounced dead just over 48 minutes later by a doctor working with a paramedic crew trying to save her life. A 52-year-old man named by media as Thomas Mair was arrested by officers nearby and weapons including a firearm were recovered. The killing prompted campaigning to be suspended in the EU referendum, the tone of which has become increasingly angry and bitter and included personal recriminations as well as furious debate of issues such as immigration and the economy. It was not immediately clear when campaigning for the referendum would resume. A spokesman for the "Vote Leave" campaign said they would clarify plans later in the day. Britain mourned lawmaker Jo Cox on Friday after a man wielding a gun and knife killed the 41-year-old in an attack that has thrown a June 23 referendum on European Union membership into limbo. Cox, a supporter of Britain staying in the EU, was shot and stabbed after a meeting with residents in her own constituency near Leeds in northern England by a man who witnesses said had shouted "Britain first". She was pronounced dead just over 48 minutes later by a doctor working with a paramedic crew trying to save her life. A 52-year-old man named by media as Thomas Mair was arrested by officers nearby and weapons including a firearm were recovered. The killing prompted campaigning to be suspended in the EU referendum, the tone of which has become increasingly angry and bitter and included personal recriminations as well as furious debate of issues such as immigration and the economy. It was not immediately clear when campaigning for the referendum would resume. A spokesman for the "Vote Leave" campaign said they would clarify plans later in the day. The implied probability of a vote for Britain to remain in the EU rose to 67 percent, up from 65 percent on Thursday, according to Betfair odds. Though the motives of the killer were not immediately clear, some suggested sympathy for Cox could boost the Remain campaign which opinion polls indicate had fallen behind Leave. Police said they were not in a position to discuss the motive of the attack. "Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy and a zest for life that would exhaust most people," Cox's husband, Brendan, said. Related: Obama's 'Town Hall' Meeting with British Youth Covered Gender Rights, Islamophobia, and Leadership "She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her." A US civil rights group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based in Alabama, said on its website that it had obtained records showing a Thomas Mair had links with the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance (NA) dating back to 1999. The SPLC posted images showing what it said were purchase orders for books bought by Mair, whose address is given as Batley, from the NA's publishing arm National Vanguard Books in May of that year. The orders included a manual on how to build a pistol, it said. Britain's Union flag was flying at half-mast over the Houses of Parliament, Queen Elizabeth's London residence Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, where Prime Minister David Cameron has his official residence. In Birstall hundreds of people attended a vigil at a local church. Queen Elizabeth was due to write a private letter of condolence to Cox's husband. Some people, many weeping, laid flowers outside the Houses of Parliament. Beside a picture of Cox smiling, dozens of white candles lay beside bunches of flowers and a message board upon which people had written their condolences. "You can't kill democracy," read one message on Parliament Square. Another said: "We will unite against hatred." Others put flowers on the houseboat on the River Thames where Cox had lived with her husband and two young children aged three and five. Beside flowers at the murder scene in Birstall, a message read: "Fascists feed on fear." British politicians paid tribute to Cox and expressed shock at the killing, as did leaders across Europe and the world. Cameron said the killing of Cox, who had worked on US President Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign, was a tragedy. Related: 'A Historic Turning Point?' EU Leaders Stay Up All Night Failing to Reach a Deal on Britain "We have lost a great star," said Cameron, who called the referendum. "She was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion, with a big heart. It is dreadful, dreadful news." Hillary Clinton said she was horrified. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the attack "terrible" but added that she didn't want to link it to the EU referendum. Media reports, citing witnesses, said the attacker had shouted out "Britain first," the name of a right-wing nationalist group that describes itself on its website as "a patriotic political party and street defense organization". The deputy leader of the group, Jayda Fransen, distanced it from the attack, which she described as "absolutely disgusting". West Yorkshire's elected Police and Crime Commissioner said "our information is that this is a localized incident, albeit one that has a much wider impact". Family members, including his brother, said that Mair had not expressed strong political views, the Guardian newspaper reported. "He has a history of mental illness but he has had help," the Guardian quoted his brother, Scott Mair, as saying. "My brother is not violent and is not all that political. I don't even know who he votes for." Neighbors described a man who had lived in the same house for at least 40 years and helped locals weed their flowerbeds and inquired after their pets. "I'm totally devastated — I didn't want to believe it. He's been very helpful to me. Anything I asked him to do he did very willingly and sometimes without my needing to ask," said next-door neighbor Diana Peters, 65. Related: Shooting death of British politician stuns country where gun violence is rare "I saw him the day before. I was taking my cats to the vet and he came and asked me how they were," she said. Gun ownership is highly restricted in Britain, and attacks of any nature on public figures are rare. The last British lawmaker to have been killed in an attack was Ian Gow, who died after a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) exploded under his car at his home in southern England in 1990. Colleagues expressed shock and disbelief at the death of Cox, a Cambridge University graduate who spent a decade working for aid agency Oxfam and promoted women's issues. "We've lost a wonderful woman, we've lost a wonderful member of parliament, but our democracy will go on," Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a televised statement. "As we mourn her memory, we'll work in her memory to achieve that better world she spent her life trying to achieve."

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjka7z/british-politicians-murder-leaves-eu-membership-campaigns-in-limbo

Vice News

2019-02-06 00:00:00

2019

2.0

6

Wendy Xu

Two Poems by Daniel Moysaenko

Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected two poems by Daniel Moysaenko for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads     Fungal vein of lightning you crept inside my father twice through his umbrella to the ground quickly as a more serious sleep and preparation for cancer’s end That a day could copy like graphite’s rub over engraved symbols this quiet which is his but leant and to us left unfixed this onward slipping An onward in him fixed What else could I do but burn         A dark rag like an animal on a rural highway twists with a fear of being Picking it up I have to imagine the future of the person who dropped it Lessons a silent father might share as if giving more to carry with the ways to carry   *   *   *   Daniel Moysaenko, a Ukrainian-American poet, is the author of the chapbook New Animal (H_NGM_N Books, 2015). Other work has appeared or is forthcoming in Conduit; Forklift, Ohio; The Journal; Pleiades; Sixth Finch; West Branch; and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is pursuing a poetry PhD at Florida State University.

https://hyperallergic.com/483415/two-poems-by-daniel-moysaenko/

Hyperallergic

2018-01-09 17:15:00

2018

1.0

9

Robert Jackman

The Battle to Convince Republicans Weed Is Actually Good

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s decision last week to allow federal prosecutors to go after marijuana businesses in places where pot is legal under state law might have alarmed some observers, but it was hardly surprising. Sessions is an old-school drug warrior who is fairly open about his hatred of weed, so it’s natural that he rescinded the Cole Memo, the Obama-era guidance that told the feds to lay off cannabis merchants in states like Colorado and Washington except in extreme circumstances. It’s a move that Neal Levine, for one, has been anticipating. Based in Denver, he’s been campaigning for marijuana liberalization since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. But where Levine differs from many marijuana advocates is that he identifies as a libertarian, specifically the type of libertarian who calls taxation “confiscation.” His first political gig was working for the maverick wrestler-turned-governor Jesse Ventura. After nearly 20 years of activism (both paid and unpaid) he now lobbies in Colorado and Washington, DC, for Livwell Enlightened Health, one of Colorado’s biggest weed retailers. Despite the GOP’s historic aversion to marijuana, Levine regards legalization as a natural cause for conservatives, so much so that after the election of Donald Trump he teamed with industry grandees to establish the New Federalism Fund, a organization aiming to win the administration over to supporting legalization. “The social justice component of the marijuana argument—all of which is completely legitimate— has been prominent for some time,” he told me over the phone from Livwell’s headquarters shortly after Sessions’s announcement. “By contrast, the New Federalism Fund was set up to talk to the right, from the right, using the language of the right.” The NFF wants to win over the right by appealing to one of its most deeply held philosophical principles: that states should be free to set their own destinies with limited interference from the federal government. But while states’ rights has long been a popular rallying call for conservatives, it’s become apparent in the Trump era that not everyone on the right believes that states should really have all that much leeway, with the administration trying to crack down on “sanctuary cities” that don’t assist the feds' efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. But that hasn’t stopped Levine from appealing to legislators in an effort to get them to leave states alone when it comes to marijuana. “Our view is that states should be the laboratories of democracy,” Levine said. “The authors of the Constitution intended that states should be free to pursue their own social and policy changes, when the impact is limited within their own political territory. “Federalism is always challenged on the difficult things; not those easy issues where there is broad consensus,” he said. “Marijuana represents the ideal opportunity for the administration to reaffirm its commitment to the principle that states should have the power to decide.” But the NFF’s argument goes beyond constitutional theory: Convinced it can build traction with the White House, the NFF has deployed Trumpian language in its promo materials, calling on the administration to promote “American prosperity” and back “American job creators.” On Capitol Hill, the NFF has called on conservative lawmakers to strip away a bit of IRS code that leaves legitimate marijuana businesses paying eye-watering amounts in taxes. Known as 280E, this line of tax code was created in the early 80s in response to an audacious attempt by drug cartels to profit from corporate tax rules. Today, 280E prevents any company from deducting business expenses connected to federally prohibited substances like marijuana. The end result is that many marijuana businesses are paying tax rates north of 70 percent. “We aren’t asking for special favors,” Levine said. “Marijuana businesses just want to be treated like everyone else. People assume we’re swimming in money. What they don’t realize is that if you’re in the cannabis business the government is helping itself to pretty much everything that you’re taking.” Last year, 15 House Republicans pledged their support for a new initiative to deliver “tax parity” by overruling the hated 280E (that’s three times the number of Republicans who supported a similar bill in 2015). And there are other signs of conservatives willing to rethink their traditional opposition. Last week, several prominent Republicans—largely those representing weed-friendly states—publicly criticized Sessions’s anti-weed move, among them Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner, who opposed legalization in his state but is now leading the charge against the Justice Department’s perceived overreach. Although these moves might make headlines, the fact remains that the vast majority of Republicans oppose the liberalization of weed. The Rohrabacher–Farr Amendment—a bipartisan measure intended to stop federal agencies interfering with states’ medical marijuana programs—has been consistently opposed by the majority of House Republicans. Likewise, voting data from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) shows that Senate Republicans typically take a much tougher stance on marijuana than their Democrat counterparts. Among rank-and-file party members, the picture is slightly more nuanced. Although still significantly more skeptical than Democrats, polling data has shown growing support from Republican voters for marijuana liberalization (with some polls even showing narrow majority support), particularly among younger voters. One of those younger voters is John Baucum. Based in deep-red Texas, he serves as political director of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition. In 2015, he pressed Ted Cruz on his marijuana position, calling on the Texas senator to reiterate his support for states’ rights. Having walked in Republican and marijuana circles, Baucum knows more than most how rarely the two positions go together. Nevertheless, he insists that things are slowly changing. “It used to be that if you were looking to move up professionally within the GOP —or perhaps even stand as a candidate yourself—you had to stay away from controversial topics like marijuana reform,” Baucum told me from Houston. “The emergence of libertarian figures like Rand Paul – and the more populist approach taken by Trump—has made it easier for people who support less state interference with marijuana usage." “Texas is a conservative state,” he went on. “But over three-quarters of young Republican activists told us they supported some degree of marijuana reform. That might not mean full legalization—it could mean decriminalization or the use of civil penalties—but it shows the progress we are making the case with conservatives.” Sessions’s move doesn’t mean there will be a wave of arrests targeting legal pot dealers, but sellers are nervous. Many fear that mixed signals from Washington may lead to nervousness among banks (who have only recently opened up their services to marijuana merchants), taking the industry back to the dark era of cash-only payments. In Colorado, most of the big distributors remember the days of having to pay staff and suppliers in brown envelopes, not to mention having to find safe storage for the thousands in cash crossing their counters each day. That isn’t just a major business inconvenience: Having that much cash in transit is a huge public safety issue. “The New Federalism Fund is happy to keep talking to one member of congress at a time, until they realize this industry is here to stay,” said Levine. “We will keep telling our story to the federal government and make clear that any clampdown could undermine public safety and damage the economies of multiple states.” For cannabis campaigners from both the right and left, the ultimate goal of federally legal weed may seem especially distant right now. But if anti-cannabis laws finally do fall, it’ll likely be because at least some Republicans favor legalization. If nothing else, multibillion-dollar industries have a knack for getting their way. Robert Jackman is a writer interested in personal freedoms—however strange or provocative—in today's America.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k55yy/the-battle-to-convince-republicans-weed-is-actually-good

Drugs

Vice

2017-07-18 00:00:00

2017

7.0

18

Peter Malone

A Painter's Fantasies Rendered as Cartoonish Dramas

Satoshi Kojima’s paintings don’t examine human relationships — they fondle them like a bear fondles picnic food. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Estrangement, reactive humor, the illogic of dreams — any of these descriptors could sum up Satoshi Kojima’s inaugural exhibition at Bridget Donahue, a gathering of painted tableaus featuring cartoonish figures in highly artificial settings. Standing before one, I’m faced with twin males walking in opposite directions along railroad tracks passing an elevated station platform. Both figures have their right hand raised in a hailing gesture, their left lowered as if to estimate the space between their palms and the tracks below. Though the painting’s title, “Last Dance” (2016), hints at an impending and predictably disastrous confrontation with a train, reconciling this threat with the lightness of the painting’s color, its schematic drawing, and the artist’s seeming sardonic indifference to the scene’s outcome, suggests an anesthetized sensibility. For the most part, Kojima’s paintings do not examine human relationships — they fondle them like a bear fondles picnic food. Understated formal elements, often mismatched to the odd events depicted, imply an emotional disconnect that is tenaciously adhered to. Ironically upbeat design patterns reflecting a party-favor aesthetic introduce energy that is then sapped by truncated dramas. Measuring, on average, six to eight feet in either direction, the size of the pieces compels a viewer to return again and again to each canvas, vainly seeking hints about the artist’s feelings toward it. The show’s giddy nihilism is assembled from easily readable individual images that maintain a dark babble of disconcerting humor. “Weather Report” (2016) offers a tribal functionary holding a weathervane, pointing with neoclassical élan toward a cartoon raincloud. The Broadway-like sign on the scene’s stagy plinth reads “ECLIPSE.” With little effort, one can imagine it flashing in synch with a repetitive club-music thump — the generic sort one hears in shopping malls. Kojima is both talented and visually astute. In strictly formal terms, each canvas is tightly conceived and carefully contained, but so too are his narrative restrictions. His range seems consciously limited, extending from sentimental encounters like the Beauty and the Beast–themed “Blue Room” (2016) to the advertising glitz of “DJ Box” (2017). What’s missing from the latter is an actual feeling for music and dance. Kojima’s view of the DJ in “DJ Box” feels icy and brittle. To be fair, it is hardly unusual to feel alienated in a dance club. But on balance, most of the situations in Kojima’s paintings are just plain bizarre. “Beautiful Things” (2013) leaves a viewer pondering floating female figures in red heels, presumably pantless, squatting and defecating into cartoon bubbles eagerly grasped from below by robotic males with square heads. Scenes like this suggest an affinity with the work of Peter Williams, a painter of equally odd figurative vignettes, whose big-tent theatrics present viewers with comparably crafted and similarly conjured puzzles. It bears noting that Williams took part in a group show last year at DC Moore called Me, My, Mine that showcased the work of artists who, like Kojima, share an oddly distant alienation from their own subject matter. In light of this unsettling trend, the arrangement of the pieces in this exhibition proved perhaps unintentionally poignant. The palest canvases of the group were hung near the light-flooded front windows of the gallery, while the more intensely colored pictures were placed in the rear, where warmer artificial light amplified their deeper palette. This struck me as counterintuitive. I would have expected to see the brighter pictures near the windows, as they could better withstand the full-spectrum light and thus balance the overall appearance of the installation. As installed, it appears as if Kojimas’s dreams are fading into the light coming in from the Bowery, where the gallery is located. I cannot imagine a more potent metaphor for the art world’s habitual detachment from reality than the sight of “Candy and Whips” (2015) dissolving into actual sunlight, particularly sunlight shining on one of the most historically tragic thoroughfares in NYC. In a jarring way, it emphasizes how the Bowery’s sad and squalid history has been all but erased by its opposite — luxury housing and art galleries touting expensive fantasies. Satoshi Kojima continues at Bridget Donahue (99 Bowery) through August 4.

https://hyperallergic.com/390909/a-painters-fantasies-rendered-as-cartoonish-dramas/

Hyperallergic

2019-03-26 00:00:00

2019

3.0

26

Tess Owen

All charges dropped against actor Jussie Smollett

Chicago prosecutors have dropped all charges against Jussie Smollett, the black and gay actor accused of paying two men $3,500 to fake a hate crime against him. “After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this is a just and appropriate resolution to the case,” the Cook County State Attorney’s Office said in a statement to ABC News. Prosecutors, however, did not explain how the charges came to be so abruptly dropped, and the record has now been sealed. “I’ve been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one,” Smollett told reporters in a press conference. “I would not be my mother’s son if I had done one drop of what I was accused of. This has been an incredibly difficult time, one of the worst in my life.” Chicago police announced on Feb. 21 that Smollett had paid two brothers, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, to attack him because he was upset that he wasn’t getting paid enough for his role on the Fox series “Empire.” A Cook County grand jury returned a 16-count indictment, including numerous felonies, against Smollett on May 10. The most serious offense was for filing a false police report, a Class 4 felony that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. Chicago prosecutors have dropped all charges against Jussie Smollett, the black and gay actor accused of paying two men $3,500 to fake a hate crime against him. “After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this is a just and appropriate resolution to the case,” the Cook County State Attorney’s Office said in a statement to ABC News. Prosecutors, however, did not explain how the charges came to be so abruptly dropped, and the record has now been sealed. “I’ve been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one,” Smollett told reporters in a press conference. “I would not be my mother’s son if I had done one drop of what I was accused of. This has been an incredibly difficult time, one of the worst in my life.” Chicago police announced on Feb. 21 that Smollett had paid two brothers, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, to attack him because he was upset that he wasn’t getting paid enough for his role on the Fox series “Empire.” A Cook County grand jury returned a 16-count indictment, including numerous felonies, against Smollett on May 10. The most serious offense was for filing a false police report, a Class 4 felony that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. After the charges were dropped on Tuesday, Smollett’s lawyer Patricia Brown Holmes told reporters that the $3,500 payment to the Osundairo brothers was “for nutrition and training.” “They were his trainers,” Holmes said. Holmes didn’t deny, however, that the Osundairo brothers attacked him. “Jussie was attacked by two people he was unable to identify on January 29. He was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator as a result of false and inappropriate remarks made to the public, causing an inappropriate rush to judgement,” Holmes and Smollett’s other lawyer, Tina Glandian, said in a statement. The news is yet another twist in a bizarre case, which stemmed from an alleged attack on the streets of Chicago one night in late January. Smollett alleged that two men — who shouted “MAGA country” alongside racist and homophobic slurs — beat him up, poured bleach on him, and tied a noose around his neck. Weeks later, police said that Smollett paid two brothers to whom he was connected through his work on “Empire,” to stage his attack. “This publicity stunt was a scar that Chicago didn’t earn and didn’t deserve,” Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters at the time. Police sources told CBS2 on Tuesday that the news of the charges being dropped blindsided Johnson, who is reportedly “furious.” Salacious details, from unnamed sources familiar with the Chicago police investigation into Smollett’s case, made their way into local news reports, including the arrest of the Osundairo brothers. Earlier this month, Chicago police launched an investigation to determine the source of the leaks in the department. “Jussie and many others were hurt by these unfair and unwarranted actions,” Smollett’s lawyers continued in their statement. “This entire situation is a reminder that there should never be an attempt to prove a case in the court of public opinion.” Smollett’s family also released a statement. “Our son and brother is an innocent man whose name and character has been unjustly smeared,” they wrote. “Jussie is a son, a brother, a partner, a champion for human rights, and a genuine soul who would never be capable of what he was falsely accused of.” Holmes said that Smollett is forfeiting his $10,000 bond but did not say who the beneficiary of the bond would be. In response to a question about why he was forfeiting his bond, Holmes replied: “Plenty of people forfeit their bond in situations like this.” “He is someone who has dedicated his life to public service since he was 15,” Holmes said. “He has taken the city of Chicago as his home. He is a good, solid citizen of the city of Chicago.” Correction 3/26 12:52 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this story incorrectly state that Smollett was forfeiting $100,000 for his bond. A judge had set his bond at $100,000, but Smollett only had to pay 10 percent. The story has been updated. Cover image: Jussie Smollett pleads not guilty in Cook County court to 16 counts of disorderly conduct, maintaining his innocence amid allegations as detailed below that he faked an attack against himself. (zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx 2018 5/14/18 Jussie Smollett at The 2018 Fox Network Upfront in New York City.)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/yw87vy/all-charges-dropped-against-actor-jussie-smollett

Vice News

2018-11-21 00:00:00

2018

11.0

21

Matt Laslo

How progressives are forcing the Democrats to actually do something about climate change

Some of the nation’s newly minted progressives are pushing Democratic leaders to embrace a bold new climate change agenda that would revolutionize the energy sector and end the U.S.'s reliance on fossil fuels. But it’s also revealing a split in the party and has Republicans sensing an opening for them to go on the offense. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is the loudest voice emerging at the Capitol on climate policy. She’s calling for a “Green New Deal” that would put the nation on the path to a 100 percent renewable energy economy, build a national “smart” energy grid, and boost domestic manufacturing and exporting of emerging “green” technologies. Within days after the midterms, 10 House Democrats had already signed on to the effort, including Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who endorsed it this week. “It’s about making sure that we can get as progressive and aggressive of legislation as a party on climate change as quickly as possible,” Ocasio-Cortez told VICE News last week. Republicans still control the White House and the Senate, which means passing any climate-related legislation will be difficult, if not impossible. But Ocasio-Cortez argues her goal goes beyond the new session of Congress. She says the party has to lay the groundwork now so they can tackle it right away if they win back control of the Senate and the White House in 2020. “It’s not even about passing the Senate,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s that we need to have this legislation drafted by 2020. We can’t wait until 2020 to start doing this work. We need to hit the ground running if we capture [the Senate and the White House].” Some of the nation’s newly minted progressives are pushing Democratic leaders to embrace a bold new climate change agenda that would revolutionize the energy sector and end the U.S.'s reliance on fossil fuels. But it’s also revealing a split in the party and has Republicans sensing an opening for them to go on the offense. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is the loudest voice emerging at the Capitol on climate policy. She’s calling for a “Green New Deal” that would put the nation on the path to a 100 percent renewable energy economy, build a national “smart” energy grid, and boost domestic manufacturing and exporting of emerging “green” technologies. Within days after the midterms, 10 House Democrats had already signed on to the effort, including Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who endorsed it this week. “It’s about making sure that we can get as progressive and aggressive of legislation as a party on climate change as quickly as possible,” Ocasio-Cortez told VICE News last week. Republicans still control the White House and the Senate, which means passing any climate-related legislation will be difficult, if not impossible. But Ocasio-Cortez argues her goal goes beyond the new session of Congress. She says the party has to lay the groundwork now so they can tackle it right away if they win back control of the Senate and the White House in 2020. “It’s not even about passing the Senate,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s that we need to have this legislation drafted by 2020. We can’t wait until 2020 to start doing this work. We need to hit the ground running if we capture [the Senate and the White House].” Read: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is open to supporting Pelosi: "There's an opening, for sure" Pelosi has resisted calls for the Green New Deal, and instead aims to reinstate a House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that Republicans scrapped once they took over the gavels eight years ago. But now she’s being pulled by the new vocal progressives in her party, even though many of the Dems' gains on Election Day were in Republican areas where new members could be endangered if they’re forced to vote on a sweeping climate proposal that’s guaranteed to die in the Senate. "We can’t wait until 2020 to start doing this work." The progressive’s demand for a radical rethinking of U.S. energy policy is also complicated by the defeat of an array of climate focused ballot initiatives on Election Day in a couple battleground states, including in Colorado and Arizona (and even in progressive Washington State). Democrats lost seats in 2010 after passing a cap and trade bill — that basically levies a tax on companies for their carbon use — but the politics around climate change have evolved since then, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle. “Cap and trade is a different issue, because that’s a tax issue,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told reporters at the Capitol last week, before adding that his state’s three newly elected Democrats are prepared to act on the issue even though they just captured conservative districts. “But climate change alone? You’re not going to lose seats in Virginia over climate change.” Some veteran Democrats who fear ceding power on the issue are resisting Pelosi’s call for a new special climate committee, because they don’t want their committees to cede control over the issue that falls under their jurisdiction. But Connolly is behind the idea. “I think actually it enhances everything, because it elevates the issue and allows the legislating committee to then follow up and legislate. So I think they’re complimentary,” Connolly said. Read: Sarah Palin tried to shame Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Here's how that went It’s a different story on the other side of the aisle. Most Republicans are prepared to go to the mat for the fossil fuel industry. In the past two years, President Trump pulled America out of the Paris climate accord and Republicans on Capitol Hill aggressively rolled back any regulation they could. So we'll see whether Democrats go big and bold on climate policy, as Ocasio-Cortez and her allies are advocating, or whether they embrace a more incremental approach. “I think it’s very important that we elevate climate change in the next Congress. The Republicans completely stymied us.” “I think it’s very important that we elevate climate change in the next Congress. The Republicans completely stymied us,” Kathy Castor (D-FL), who is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters at the Capitol. Castor hasn’t made up her mind yet on the mechanics of how her party tackles the looming climate crisis, but she says that’s less important than coming together and making the issue a top priority. “So whatever, if it’s a select committee, if it’s happening in the jurisdiction of the committee, it’s got to be elevated. We’ve got to decarbonize the atmosphere. We’ve got to do more on renewables. We’ve got to address these extreme weather events,” Castor said. “People back home are crying out for action, and they see the GOP Congress just not meeting the challenge of the changing climate.” But Republicans still see energy policy as a winning issue for them, and they view talk of a Green New Deal as a gift because they can use it to paint the Democratic Party as extreme in their attempt to recapture some of the seats they just lost. “They’ve got a really radical agenda.” “They’ve got a really radical agenda,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) told reporters at the Capitol after she was unanimously elected chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, making her the third-most-powerful Republican in the House. “It’s going to be interesting to watch, but I have no doubt that the American people are going to look at what we were able to produce in the majority and compare that to what the Democrats are now saying they’re going to do and trying to do, and the choice will be very clear.” Cheney has advocated for abolishing the EPA, and she’s now charged with helping her party craft its message. “We need to get on offense. and especially because we’re in the minority now, we've got to be in a position where we're making sure that we’re out there every day fighting, and I think we’ve got to be sure we’re winning the news cycle,” Cheney said. “We need to make sure we have a more aggressive approach, especially because we're in the minority." Cover: Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, arrives for orientation for new members of Congress, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/nepe3d/how-progressives-are-forcing-the-democrats-to-actually-do-something-about-climate-change

Vice News

2019-06-21 00:00:00

2019

6.0

21

Russian hermit seeks peace in remote Siberia

KRASNOYARSK REGION, Russia (Reuters) - Viktor, 62, turned his back on society 16 years ago and moved to the remote forest wilderness of Russian Siberia where he lives in seclusion in a wooden hut, studying the Bible and foraging for food. Gray-bearded, enigmatic and with a huge tattoo of Christ across his back, the former barge operator refuses to disclose his surname. The hut he built himself sits on the banks of the Yenisei River which carves through Siberia. “I like the company of trees more than the company of people,” he says. One long-time acquaintance - a former police officer - who knows Viktor from chance encounters while sailing by on a boat says the hermit shunned society after he was jailed - on charges he denied - over the sinking of a barge he was operating. He moved there after serving several years in jail, the former officer said. Viktor declined to talk about his past. Nowadays, he lives on fresh fish, berries and mushrooms, and refuses to use medicine. He fell gravely ill last year from a tick bite, he says, but recovered by praying with his ceramic cross and eating hand-picked herbs. In winter, he braves icy climes by heating his hut using a gas cylinder. When the seasons change, he feels himself physically rejuvenate along with the wildlife around him, he says. He sometimes comes into contact with people when they sail past on boats or stop to buy fish. Viktor himself very occasionally leaves his seclusion, crossing the two-kilometer-wide river to buy cigarettes. Reporting by Ilya Naymushin; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-hermit/russian-hermit-seeks-peace-in-remote-siberia-idUSKCN1TM1LC

World News

Reuters

2016-05-23 22:00:00

2016

5.0

23

Alex Swerdloff

Once Again, Everything You Knew About High-Fat Diets Is Wrong

Let's just face it: No one knows what the fuck to eat nowadays. In an era when your most health-conscious friend may just as likely be paleo as vegan, the truth is we're all just eating on a whim and a prayer. Even our governments are flip-flopping on dietary recommendations, one decade telling us to cut fat and eat carbs, the next decade saying, oops, carbs and sugar are the devil himself. Similarly, when a recent report suggested that eating more fat could actually help people cut their risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes, the chief nutritionist of Public Health England called the advice "irresponsible and potentially deadly." Talk about fighting words. The National Obesity Forum, which published the report, does not appear to be backing down. They say that the low-fat food craze of the 80s and thereafter has had "disastrous health consequences" on the nation and should be nixed. Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a senior adviser to the organization, said: "The change in dietary advice to promote low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history." Here's his advice, and the advice of the new report: "Eat fat to get slim, don't fear fat, fat is your friend." This low-fat versus pro-fat battle is becoming the British equivalent of dueling banjos. Dr. Alison Tedstone, of Public Health England (the anti-fat coalition, in case you're losing track) responded by saying the following: "In the face of all the evidence, calling for people to eat more fat, cut out carbs, and ignore calories is irresponsible." She says she can cite "thousands of scientific studies" that say low-fat is the way to go, whereas the National Obesity Forum only cited 43 in their new report. The Royal Society for Public Health jumped on the anti-fat bandwagon and said the new report was a "muddled manifesto of sweeping statements, generalizations and speculation." So what does the report recommend? Simply to avoid processed foods labeled "low-fat," "lite," "low-cholesterol" or "proven to lower cholesterol." Avoid sugar and refined carbs. Forget about calorie-counting. Exercise won't override your lousy diet. And good fats are good for you. Who will be victorious in the fat-versus-low-fat battles? Only time will tell. In the meantime, we'll all just have to continue eating whatever the hell suits our whim at the moment.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8qeeab/once-again-everything-you-knew-about-high-fat-diets-is-wrong

Food by VICE

Vice

2019-06-29 00:00:00

2019

6.0

29

Sweden upset Germany to reach World Cup semis

RENNES, France (Reuters) - Sweden ended Germany’s hopes of a third women’s World Cup win, coming from behind for a surprise 2-1 quarter-final victory on Saturday thanks to goals from Sofia Jakobsson and Stina Blackstenius. The Swedes now face a last-four clash with the Netherlands in Lyon on Wednesday after a win which means Olympic champions Germany will not have a chance to defend their title in Tokyo next year. It was sweet revenge for the Swedes, who had lost the Olympic final to the Germans 2-1 in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 but who have now booked a place at their old rivals’ expense in the 2020 Games. Many will still look to the other semi-final, Tuesday’s clash between England and the United States, for the likely winner of the tournament but the Swedes showed they should not be under-estimated with their swift counter-attacking style. Germany began brightly and took the lead in the 16th minute through Lina Magull, who twisted her body perfectly to beat Hedvig Lindahl with a hooked volley. Germany had not conceded a single goal in the tournament but their defense surprisingly failed to deal with a long ball down the middle from Linda Sembrant which Jakobsson latched onto and slotted home past goalkeeper Almuth Schult. At the break, Germany coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg threw on midfielder Dzsenifer Marozsan, who had not played since breaking a toe in their tournament opener against China, looking to add some much-needed creativity. Instead, just three minutes after the resumption, it was the Swedes who struck again. Schult did well to turn away a powerful header by Fridolina Rolfo but the rebound fell kindly to striker Blackstenius, who fired home from point blank range for her second goal in as many matches. Substitute Lena Oberdorf missed a great chance to force the game into extra time when she headed wide with the goal gaping in the 80th minute but Sweden held their nerve to reach their fourth World Cup semi-finals. “We looked at Germany and knew there would be a bit more space behind their backline to exploit with Blackstenius and Jakobsson. It worked well, sprinting past the defensive line,” said Sweden coach Peter Gerhardsson. “We’ve talked about the possibilities here to go far and win every game. A good sign is that we’re now qualified for the Olympics, which was hanging over our heads for a while. Now we don’t have to worry about it. There’s not a single cell in us that’s content with this. We’re going to go for it.” There were tears on the faces of many of the Germany squad as the reality of their exit — and Olympic absence - hit home hard. “We wanted to do so much more. This should not happen like it did,” said Magull. “We had one, two good chances to equalize but did not manage it. That’s a real shame. We knew they had fast players and wanted to defend high up the pitch,” she said. “That brings the danger of conceding on the counter, which had happened before the break.” The win was Sweden’s first over Germany at a major tournament since 1995, having previously come close in the 2003 World Cup final and in the 2016 Rio final. Sweden’s semi-final opponents were confirmed earlier in the day when Netherlands defeated Italy 2-0 in Valenciennes, courtesy of second-half headers from Vivianne Miedema and Stefanie van der Gragt. Netherlands, Sweden, along with Britain — after England reached the last four on Thursday — have qualified for the 2020 Olympics as the top three European teams at the World Cup. Reporting by Simon Evans in Valenciennes and Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis and Ian Chadband

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-worldcup-ger-swe-report/sweden-upset-germany-to-reach-world-cup-semis-idUSKCN1TU0V8

Sports News

Reuters

2016-03-04 21:20:03

2016

3.0

4

Brian Resnick

Why Scott Kelly’s return to Earth is like an epic bad hangover

After a year in space, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth a changed man. For one, he emerged from the Soyuz landing capsule Tuesday around 1.5 inches taller than he was before the mission. (In microgravity, the spine decompresses and extends.) And, at first, he felt great, Kelly said at a NASA press conference on Friday. But then, gravity started tugging on his body. "I'm surprised how I do feel different physically than I did the last time," Kelly told reporters, comparing this latest re-entry to his previous six-month mission in 2010. His description of the experience since landing sounds like an epically bad hangover. Every muscle hurts. His skin even hurts. And he just can't perform at his best. (Though he made no mention of a headache.) Kelly explained: Initially, this time, coming out of the capsule, I felt better than last time. But at some point those two lines have crossed. My level of muscle soreness and fatigue is a lot higher than it was last time. It makes me think there a linear function to it [meaning the more time you spend in space, the worse you will feel when you return.] Also, my skin, because it hasn't touched anything for so long ... it's very, very sensitive. It's like a burning feeling wherever I sit or lie or walk. Later in the press conference, Kelly explained he tried to shoot some hoops after returning to the ground. "I didn't get any of them in the net," he said. "Not like I'm a good basketball player generally." NASA sent Kelly on the year-long mission to study whether a year in space would take a greater toll on his body than the typical six-month mission. They won't actually know for a while: It will take at least a year for Kelly's data to be analyzed, NASA scientists said. But anecdotally, the man himself says it was tougher both physically and psychologically. With six months, he said, "you can see the end." With the year trip, he said, it felt like he lived on the space station forever. "The hardest part is being isolated in a physical sense from the people on the ground that are important to you," Kelly said during a previous press conference aboard the space station. "There's a loss of connection with folks on the ground that you care for and love and you want to spend time with, which is a challenge." NASA will have to address these concerns during a Mars mission, where a round trip journey would last a year or more. And while Kelly did say he grew an inch and a half in space, (possibly giving him a height advantage over his twin Mark for the first time in his life) he knows that benefit will disappear quickly. "Gravity pushes you back down to size," he says.

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/4/11162618/scott-kelly-height

Vox

2016-07-06 15:00:00

2016

7.0

6

Emily Guendelsberger

What I Learned About Arranged Marriage from My Indian In-Laws

In the house my husband Rajiv and I share, there's a wall dedicated to old family photos. My favorite is one of Rajiv's dad as a young doctor in California, in which he's wearing a plaid suit, polka-dot shirt, paisley tie, and a giant goofy grin. The outfit is eye-searing even in black-and-white, and could only exist in the 1970s. For aesthetic continuity, I hung the photo next to my parents' wedding photo, in which my dad is wearing a similarly blinding plaid suit. Below that photo is Rajiv's parents' wedding photo, a black-and-white shot around the same time as the other two—even though it looks like it could've been taken during any year in the 20th century. The bride and groom are done up in full traditional Indian wedding gear, with garlands of flowers and tons of jewelry. It was one hell of a second date.I'd known that Rajiv's parents had entered into an arranged marriage, and I'd always been curious about how the arranged marriage worked. I didn't ask them about it for years, though, as it took me a while to get to the point where I could even have normal conversations with them. I first met Rajiv's parents when I flew across the country to stay at their house for two weeks. It was not the most relaxing vacation I've taken. Rajiv's a born-and-raised, surf-shop-loving California sk8er boi; his parents, who emigrated from South India in the 70s, both have doctorate degrees and share a Newport Beach house roughly five times the size of the one I grew up in. Until we got married a few years ago, when we visited I stayed in a guest room much larger than my childhood living room.I desperately wanted to impress them, especially since Rajiv and I had just moved in together after a year of dating. So my first visit with Rajiv's parents was tense as a coiled spring, as I was ready at any moment to demonstrate what an excellent partner I was for their son. It was exhausting, but as I decompressed on the plane ride home, I high-fived myself for not breaking character for two whole weeks. I was pretty sure I'd crushed it. Then, a few days later, Rajiv called me at work. He'd just gotten an email from his mom saying we shouldn't move in together because we were "fundamentally incompatible." He was furious, which was pretty uncommon for him; he said he'd told her to butt out, and that this wouldn't affect our plans to move in together. I guess he just needed to share his outrage with someone, but while I tried to prevent myself from crying in front of my co-workers, I told him never to tell me about things like this in the future. But the phrase "fundamentally incompatible" was already burned into my brain. I got the details, and they weren't what I'd expected: Specifically, his mom said I was too messy for him. This is true: I am a mess, and Rajiv is very clean. During the two weeks staying in his parents' guest bedroom, I lived out of my suitcase, piling dirty and clean clothes on the floor and most likely leaving some non-organic trash lying around. I didn't think anyone would see the mess, and I honestly don't remember it being that bad—but then, my messiness means I have a pretty high bar for a mess to qualify as "memorable." However, I'd long suspected I wasn't good enough for Rajiv—to a degree, I still do—and his mother uttering "fundamentally incompatible" confirmed this for me. Regardless, Rajiv and I moved in together, and we were happy. Whenever we visited California, though, I was even more tense and on edge than I had been during the first visit. I never mentioned the email, and I was pretty sure his mom didn't know I knew about it. I became even more obsessed with demonstrating my perfect compatibility with their son. Let me be clear: Rajiv's parents have never been anything but lovely and welcoming to me in person. After we moved in together, Rajiv's mom told me that they thought of me as one of the family, and that as a result, she wanted me to start calling them Aunty and Uncle (which is how South Indians refer to older relatives). After a few years, their unremitting kindness wore me down, and "fundamentally incompatible" stopped circling around my head. After nine years together and three years of marriage, I finally feel at home with Rajiv's family. Aunty and I text silly photos back-and-forth like I do with my own mom, and we have normal conversations instead of my feeling like I have to perform for them. A few years ago, when we visited California while Rajiv and I were planning our wedding, I asked Aunty how she and Uncle had met. Her story made me wish I'd asked years ago, because it cast "fundamentally incompatible" in a different context and took the sting out of the phrase. "Uncle's family and my family have a common friend," Aunty said. "As it usually happens in India, the friend said, 'Hey, you both have marriage-aged children who might make good partners.' At the time, Aunty was 22, working in Bombay as a psychologist and about to start a PhD program. So she told her parents that if they wanted her to get married, they'd better set something up now: "If I started the program, I wasn't going to move anywhere until I finished." Uncle didn't want to get married while he was in medical school, but when he finished, he asked his parents to find him a wife. He had just opened his practice in California. "His mom was worried sick he'd marry a white girl!" Aunty laughed. So Uncle took three weeks off work and flew back home to meet a series of girls his parents thought might be a good match. At the mutual family friend's suggestion, Aunty flew across the country to meet him. They spent a day getting to know each other, and they spoke in English, as their two states had different languages. "I told him, 'I don't like to cook and clean, and I want a career, so don't expect me to be a stay-at-home wife.' He said his job as a doctor meant unpredictable hours, and that he'd sometimes have to leave in the middle of the night if there was an emergency. Then we went out to dinner with our fathers. We decided it would work out, and then a week later, we got married—and it's been working out for forty years!" How could two people possibly decide whether to spend their whole lives together based on one date? Uncle had already gone on several of these interview-dates and hadn't liked any of them; this was Aunty's third. She says that she just liked him in a way that she hadn't felt about the other two. "It's a gut instinct—like, OK, he would be compatible with me. He had a sense of humor, which was important for me. I was twenty-two and very young. That's the thing about arranged marriages—you're pretty much marrying a stranger." In India, entering a relationship with someone is more cognitive than it is emotional, so according to Aunty, "I like you" is only part of it. "What makes a relationship work is compatibility—similar values and belief systems. You can't sustain romantic love. Sooner or later, it turns into companionship, respect, things like that. The romantic kind of love is fleeting." She said that many of her classmates in India had marriages based solely on love, but for her, an arrangement based on compatibility of those traits seemed much more pragmatic. A few years later, that conversation with Aunty stands out at me when I notice how many of the questions in advice columns boil down to "I want X and my partner doesn't and we got married anyway—so how do I make my partner want X?" Americans seem to be terrible at choosing partners we're compatible with in a long-term sense. Like Aunty said, they marry based on romantic love and physical attraction, and roughly half of those marriages fizzle out in divorce. Aunty and Uncle married as strangers, but the initial awkwardness of the situation matured into one of most genuinely happy marriages I've witnessed. Keeping in mind that there's other factors involved, the divorce rate in India is around one percent, and I sometimes wonder what direction America's gross domestic happiness would head if arranged marriages were more common. Before I began dating Rajiv, I harbored biases I didn't realize I had. As a child, I read books in which a plucky heroine escaped from an arranged marriage, and I've read a reasonable amount of adult-focused fiction that addresses the subject as well. Along the way, I developed an (incorrect) understanding that the power dynamic in arranged marriages was inherently oppressive for women because it didn't allow them to make their own choices. I'd personally hate for my parents to make that sort of decision for me, so I assumed that others wouldn't be thrilled either. Obviously, though, I wasn't raised in a culture where that was the norm. I was raised to believe that the Western way of finding a partner was the only way to find happiness, and after meeting Rajiv's parents as well as other relatives who had arranged marriages, it's clear that's not true. From Aunty's point of view, arranged marriage is just more rational, and now that I'm able to see it from her point of view, finding a partner purely through romantic means seems more illogical—especially as I notice incompatibilities in my own relationship and the relationships of those around me. I still wouldn't want an arranged marriage, but I no longer think the Western way of doing things is better, either. Recently, I mustered the courage to ask Aunty about Rajiv and me being "fundamentally incompatible." I was right—she hadn't known that Rajiv had told me, and she offered to explain why she said that. "When we met your parents, we felt like we were friends from a long time ago—we shared the same values," she said "Your work ethic, your values, your moral character—they match! The rest of it is individual stuff, and ultimately, these things are fixable. What I was saying to Rajiv was 'Think this through'—that's all. 'Go in with your eyes open.'" I do sometimes wonder if Rajiv would be happier if he'd been matched with someone who didn't forget to scoop the cat box, or leave old cups of coffee around the house like moldy Easter eggs. But we both went in with our eyes open. Follow Emily Guendelsberger on Twitter.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nn98x7/what-i-learned-about-arranged-marriage-from-my-indian-in-laws

Sex

Vice

2018-04-17 00:00:00

2018

4.0

17

Elias Glenn

China posts strong growth despite trade concerns

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s economy grew at a slightly faster-than-expected pace of 6.8 percent in the first quarter, buoyed by strong consumer demand and robust property investment. Resilience in the world’s second-largest economy will likely keep a synchronized global recovery on track for a while longer, even as China faces rising tensions with the United States that could impact billions of dollars in trade. But economists still expect China to lose momentum in coming quarters as Beijing forces local governments to scale back infrastructure projects to contain their debt, and as property sales cool further due to strict government controls on purchases to fight speculation. Consumption, which accounted for almost 80 percent of economic growth in the first quarter, played a significant role in supporting the economy even as risks grew for Chinese exporters. March retail sales rose 10.1 percent from a year earlier, slightly more than expected and the strongest pace in four months, with consumers buying more of almost everything from cosmetics to furniture and home appliances. “The retail sales data tells you a lot about consumption. It is not seasonal - if you look at growth in cosmetics, spending on clothing, spending on automobiles, there has been a persistent trend for a few months,” said Iris Pang, Greater China economist at ING in Hong Kong. “Consumption is really strong, there is strong wage growth in urban areas. We underestimated the power of consumption in China.” China’s export sector also posted solid growth in the first quarter, with shipments to the U.S. jumping 14.8 percent on-year. Some analysts have speculated Chinese firms may have rushed out deliveries to the U.S. as tariff threats loomed. However, net exports overall were a drag on GDP growth in the quarter after giving an added boost to the economy last year, highlighting the need for sustained strength in domestic demand if significant new tariffs are imposed. “We don’t expect (the U.S.-China tensions) will evolve into a full-scale trade war, but we also argue this uncertainty will not disappear and we expect a bumpy road of negotiations. In terms of the impact of potential tariffs, it is pretty limited, particularly this year,” said Haibin Zhu, chief China economist at JP Morgan in Hong Kong. “Even in the worst scenario that both countries start to implement the $50 billion tariffs, we’re talking about a few tenths of a percentage point and most likely it will only start to affect the economy late this year and in 2019.” CRACKDOWNS ON FINANCIAL RISKS, POLLUTION TO CONTINUE Analysts polled by Reuters had expected January-March GDP to grow 6.7 percent from a year earlier, slowing marginally from the pace in late 2017. China’s GDP has now grown 6.8 percent for three straight quarters, a remarkably steady pace for such a large and dynamic economy and reinforcing concerns about the reliability of official data. On a quarterly seasonally adjusted basis, GDP grew 1.4 percent, slightly less than expected and easing from 1.6 percent in October-December, again suggesting the economy may be losing some steam. Still, growth remained comfortably above the government’s target of around 6.5 percent for the full year, giving policymakers room to further reduce risks in China’s financial system and rein in pollution without stalling economic growth. Authorities have repeated pledged to reduce a mountain of corporate debt in the name of national security, though they have moved cautiously to avoid stunting business activity. Beijing has also stuck to its campaign of shuttering heavily polluting factories as it tries to encourage more sustainable and higher quality growth from “new economy” sectors such as technology. Smokestack industries have been a key focus of that pivot in industrial policy, even though it is weighing on China’s overall manufacturing outlook. Industrial output expanded 6.0 percent in March on-year, the slowest pace in seven months. Analysts had predicted output growth would cool to 6.2 percent from 7.2 percent in the first two months of the year. “Underneath the stable GDP growth is quite rapid rebalancing from industrial, investment and old economy sectors to consumption, services and new economy sectors like tech,” said Robert Subbaraman, chief economist for Asia excluding Japan at Nomura in Singapore. “The more timely March data, however, point to nascent signs of a growth slowdown underway, led by these old economy sectors.” First-quarter readings on China’s property sector, a key economic driver, were mixed but also appeared to reflect the growing influence of changing government policies. Real estate investment accelerated to 10.4 percent in the quarter - the fastest pace in three years - compared with a 9.9 percent rise in the first two months of this year. Analysts say a significant rise in land prices, as well as a government push to build more public housing, could have contributed to the unexpected strength in the headline figure and a jump in construction starts. Property sales, however, continued to slow amid a flurry of government measures to get soaring home prices under control and rising mortgage rates. Sales by floor area rose 3.6 percent in the quarter, easing from earlier in the year. Fixed-asset investment has also faltered as Beijing urges local governments to refrain from rampant borrowing to finance glamour projects to beat economic growth targets. January-March fixed-asset investment growth slowed to 7.5 percent, below expectations and 7.9 percent in January-February. Infrastructure investment rose 13 percent on-year, easing slightly from January-February. In one surprise shift, private investment - which accounts for about 60 percent of overall investment in China - grew faster than state firms’ investment for the first time in over two years. Private-sector fixed-asset investment rose 8.9 percent in January-March, accelerating from an increase of 8.1 percent in the first two months. “The pickup in private investment this year is mainly the result of improving corporate profits from last year and government policy support. Bank lending at the start of the year also helped,” David Qu, a Shanghai-based economist at ANZ. Despite a more upbeat first quarter than expected, analysts still predict China’s economic growth will slow to 6.5 percent this year, with the ongoing regulatory crackdown and U.S. trade dispute seen as key risks, a Reuters poll showed.[ECILT/CN] Reporting by Elias Glenn; Additional reporting by Yawen Chen and Stella Qiu in BEIJING and Marius Zaharia in HONG KONG; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-gdp/china-posts-strong-growth-despite-trade-concerns-idUSKBN1HO06S

Business News

Reuters

2017-02-17 14:59:00

2017

2.0

17

Noisey Staff

It's Here: You Can Now Stream Future's Self-Titled Fifth Album

This has been the biggest week in a while for Future – on Wednesday he announced a tour, a new album and uh, a Maroon 5 collab, yesterday we got the acid-trip themed music video for that collab (FFO: Future turning into a bear) and today we have received in our laps the LP – a self-titled, 17-track long affair. Thanks Future! To promote the record, Future took part in a Beats 1 interview with Zane Lowe, because since Kanye West's landmark sit-down with the broadcaster for a chat about Yeezus back in 2013, that tends to be what you do when you release an Important Album. Interestingly, Future includes no features (indeed, he announced this via a tweet which read "NO FEATURES"), and sees the Atlanta rapper, as he told Lowe, "just focused on creatively coming out with something special on my own." Stream Future below: (Image, modified, by The Come Up Show via Flickr)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jpamax/stream-future-self-titled-fifth-album-listen

Noisey

Vice

2018-07-24 15:00:07

2018

7.0

24

Emily Stewart

Trump tweets, “Tariffs are the greatest!” Experts say they’re not.

President Donald Trump is taking his trade war pitch to the people. His message: “Tariffs are the greatest!” Except they’re not — and even his chief economic adviser has said so. In a tweet early Tuesday morning, the president sought to reassure Americans that the tariffs he’s imposed on China, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and Japan are a good idea. His administration has targeted steel and aluminum imports from many American allies, put tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods, and is looking to escalate by potentially increasing China tariffs and imposing a tax on imported cars and parts. Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, policy experts, and business groups are urging Trump to put on the brakes, but he appears to be moving full speed ahead. “Tariffs are the greatest,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s a simple as that — and everybody’s talking!” He reassured Americans that “all will be Great,” despite the growing concerns about his tactics. Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that - and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being robbed. All will be Great! Speaking to CNBC on Friday, Trump appeared similarly emboldened and brushed aside concerns about the consequences of his trade tactics. He suggested that now is the time to launch trade aggressions because the stock market is up. “You know the expression, ‘We’re playing with the bank’s money,’ right?” Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods and services. They’re meant to raise revenue or protect domestic industries from foreign competition, but they often result in higher prices for businesses that rely on the imported goods — say, manufacturers that use steel and aluminum imports in their supply chain — and, ultimately, for consumers when companies pass on the extra prices to them. Trump is enacting tariffs in an effort to extract demands from foreign countries, though in most cases, experts say it’s not clear what he wants. There is a chorus of voices warning against the potential consequences of a trade war, including National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow — at least before he worked for Trump. In a March op-ed, Kudlow warned Trump that tariffs are likely to backfire and argued that they’re really tax hikes. Referring specifically to the steel and aluminum tariffs, Kudlow wrote, “Since so many of the things American consumers buy today are made of steel or aluminum, a 25 percent tariff will likely get passed on to consumers at the cash register. This is a regressive tax on low-income families.” .@POTUS this morning: "Tariffs are the greatest!"His current chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow wrote a joint op-ed in March explaining to @POTUS why "tariff hikes are really tax hikes" that "almost always deliver an unhappy ending." https://t.co/5jA3qSsT7o https://t.co/ddZcuPq3Tw Thus far, the effects of Trump’s trade war have been limited. Specific companies have seen consequences — for example, Harley-Davidson and Mid-Continent Nail — as have industries such as agriculture and home appliances. There have also been warnings that Trump’s tariffs could wipe out any positive effects of the tax cuts the GOP passed in 2017. The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation estimates that Trump’s enacted and proposed tariffs completely reverse the tax bill’s positive effects on the labor force. It estimates the tariffs enacted so far will reduce wages by 0.04 percent and eliminate more than 48,000 jobs. If the White House enacts every tariff it’s threatened, it would reduce wages by 0.26 percent and slash 277,000 jobs. In other words, tariffs aren’t as “great” as Trump wants everyone to think. And just because the stock market is up (it’s gained significantly since Trump’s inauguration but is actually relatively flat this year) and the economy is good doesn’t mean Trump has “play money” to work with. Mark Zandi, the chief economist with Moody’s Analytics, in an email weighed in on Trump’s assertion that things are so good right now that it’s time to get aggressive on trade. The president’s view is “deeply vexed,” Zandi said. “The economy is strong, but only because it is being temporarily juiced up by deficit-financed tax cuts and increases in government spending. He is borrowing money to pay for the trade war. Ironically, he is borrowing the money in part from the very countries he is fighting with (e.g., China, Japan, Canada, Europe).” The United States’ trading partners don’t appear to be backing down; instead, they’ve hit the US with retaliatory tariffs. The rhetoric isn’t cooling down either, with Trump declaring Europe one of America’s biggest “foes” just this month. The trade war “will almost certainly diminish the US position as the center of the global economy and financial system,” Zandi said. “Trump’s trade war may become his Vietnam if he doesn’t rethink things soon.”

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/24/17607182/trump-tariffs-trade-war-tax-china

Vox

2017-08-06 00:00:00

2017

8.0

6

Molly Shannon -- Good Genes or Good Docs?

Molly Shannon’s good looks are nothing to joke about! Here’s a 36-year-old version of the ‘SNL’ fan favorite at an event back in 2000 (left) and 17 years later ... the "Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later" babe at a party in West Hollywood last month (right). Superstar! The question is ...

https://www.tmz.com/2017/08/06/molly-shannon-good-genes-or-good-docs/

TMZ

2019-04-05 00:00:00

2019

4.0

5

Andrew Chung

Supreme Court rejects gun rights advocates over bump stocks

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed another setback to gun rights advocates challenging President Donald Trump’s ban on “bump stock” devices that enable semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly. With two conservative justices dissenting, the court refused to temporarily exempt from the ban a group of plaintiffs including the Firearms Policy Foundation while their legal challenge continues to be litigated in Washington. The Supreme Court twice previously rejected requests by gun rights advocates - in the case in the U.S. capital and a similar one in Michigan - to temporarily block the ban while legal challenges proceed in lower courts. The ban, which went into effect on March 26, was embraced by Trump following a 2017 massacre in Las Vegas that killed 58 people in which the gunman used bump stocks. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had temporarily blocked the ban’s enforcement against the specific challengers in the litigation it was handling, but on April 1 ruled in the administration’s favor and refused to lift the ban. The challengers then returned to the Supreme Court to try to prevent the policy from applying specifically to them. In Friday’s order, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted the request to exempt the challengers. Bump stocks use a gun’s recoil to bump its trigger, enabling a semiautomatic weapon to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which can transform it into a machine gun. The ban requires owners to turn in or destroy the attachments. People caught in possession of them could face up to 10 years in prison. The ban represents a rare recent instance of gun control at the federal level in a country that has experienced a series of mass shootings. Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-guns/supreme-court-rejects-gun-rights-advocates-over-bump-stocks-idUSKCN1RH212

Supreme Court

Reuters

2019-03-05 00:00:00

2019

3.0

5

Zachary Small

German Museum Plans to Open Michael Jackson Exhibition Despite Leaving Neverland Controversy

The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, Germany says it has no plans to cancel its exhibition on the pop star despite a new documentary investigating Jackson’s alleged history of sexually abusing minors. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Despite newly-publicized allegations that Michael Jackson repeatedly molested children, a blockbuster art exhibition celebrating the singer will continue its world tour. A spokesperson for the Bundekunsthalle in Bonn, Germany told Hyperallergic over email that the museum has no plans to cancel Michael Jackson: On the Wall, although the institution is closely monitoring discussions surrounding the recently-released HBO documentary, Leaving Neverland. The exhibition, which examines the musician’s influence on contemporary art, first opened at London’s National Portrait Gallery last summer before traveling to the Grand Palais in Paris. Currently, On the Wall is scheduled to open in Bonn for a four-month run starting on March 22 before heading toward Finland in August. The show contains works by 40 artists including Andy Warhol, David Hammons, Paul McCarthy, Isa Genzken, Kehinde Wiley, and Jordan Wolfson. While the exhibition was developed by NPG in cooperation with the musician’s estate, the Leaving Neverland documentary released without the Jackson family’s approval. In fact, the pop star’s estate is suing HBO for potentially more than $100 million, in part because the film’s director, Dan Reed, never requested their comment. When Jackson died in 2009, he had fought against multiple allegations of child sexual abuse for over 15 years. Leaving Neverland details the separate accounts of two men, now in their 30s, who say the celebrity began long-running relationships with them when they were just 7 and 10 years old. The four-hour documentary describes in detail how Jackson allegedly manipulated those around him to gain access to young boys. Stories within the film include the star’s secret system of bells to warn of approaching adults; a mock wedding ceremony with a child and studded diamond ring; a series of slumber parties that turned into sex; and unaware parents who were ecstatic to be guests at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. “The allegations made in the film are shocking,” the museum said in a statement originally written in German, “the lawsuit, however, has not been resolved and since Michael Jackson’s death [these allegations] have been considerably more difficult to prove.” The exhibition’s curatorial thesis seems tailored to anticipate and avoid confronting the singer’s history of child sexual abuse allegations. Museum organizers have avoided “discussing his biography” in favor of “examining Jackson’s cultural impact,” according to the Bunderkunsthalle’s statement.

https://hyperallergic.com/487964/german-museum-plans-to-open-michael-jackson-exhibition-despite-leaving-neverland-controversy/

Hyperallergic