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He was a model to me of artistic labor and discipline, even if those early paintings were painfully amateurish. IT WASN’T MY intention to start an essay about artistic beginnings with a story of artistic death. No one captured the massive cultural and economic disparities of my life in Delhi (and his in Lahore) like Toor. But quite unbeknown to me, Toor’s life in New York had opened up a new vein of material. Not everyone who sees a Michelangelo can go off and paint a Michelangelo.”THERE ARE SO many ways to begin.

Persons: Naipaul, Neil Shah, James Wood —, Zack, who’d, ”, Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna, Elders ”, I’m, ” Gustave Flaubert, “, ” Zack, it’s, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Gauguin, Salman Rushdie, Somerset Maugham, Kathryn Bigelow, Philip Glass, Arundhati Roy, Booker, Joseph Conrad, Conrad, Jacques, ” Conrad, brimming, ’, ’ ”, Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser, ” Lispector, Maugham, eludes, Jan van Kessel, Elder, — Pieter Bruegel, —, Rebecca West —, “ Black Lamb, J.R, Hammond, Wells, Rebecca West ”, sloughed, Henrik Ibsen’s, Rosmersholm ”, Karan Mahajan, Salman Toor, what’s, ” Hemingway, Anoushka Shankar, Ravi Shankar, Harold Bloom, Ravi, Uday, René Daumal, Rasa ”, ” Anoushka, Norah Jones, Norah, I’ve, “ Raphael, Rachel Cusk, Italy ”, Perugino, Raphael, Cusk, J.M, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Márquez, Thomas Pynchon’s, James Joyce, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Marcel Proust’s, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Read, Emma Kehlbeck, Quinton Kamara Organizations: Amherst College, Elders, Fayerweather, ”, Google, Sunday Times, Somerset, Yugoslavia, The, “, . Locations: Delhi, ”, Massachusetts, Italian, Topeka, Kan, Amherst, New York, London, Patagonia, New Delhi, Torrens, Cambridge, Polish, Ukrainian, Brazil, Flemish, Victorian England, “ H.G, Fairfield, United States, “, East, Lahore, Europe, America, Texas, Side, Manhattan, India, Italy

He was a model to me of artistic labor and discipline, even if those early paintings were painfully amateurish. The painting followed me from Amherst to my first job in New York, and on to London and Delhi. IT WASN’T MY intention to start an essay about artistic beginnings with a story of artistic death. I’m especially moved by those first moments of validation by which an artist comes out to himself, as it were. It’s this, the inexorability of the correspondence between an artist and the world, that gives those first steps their magical quality.

☆ Opinion | Robert Hur’s Testimony About His Report on Biden
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the Editor:Re “Special Counsel Defends Claims on Biden Lapses” (front page, March 13):After watching hours of testimony by Robert Hur, the special counsel in the investigation of President Biden’s handling of classified documents, I am impressed by his professionalism and impartiality. Why the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee thought a televised hearing would undermine Mr. Biden and help Donald Trump eludes me. Mr. Hur’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Biden involved an analysis of the totality of the circumstances and was the correct outcome. Mr. Hur determined he could not meet that high standard. The repeated comparisons with Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents were damning for the former president.

Persons: Biden, Robert Hur, Biden’s, Mr, Donald Trump eludes, Hur’s, Hur, Donald Trump’s, Robert S, Biden “ Organizations: Republican, Prosecutors, Carroll Locations: Carroll Staten

☆ Why Power Eludes the French Left
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Elisabeth Zerofsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As transit walkouts snarled traffic and sanitation strikes caused trash to pile up in the streets, the protests were ridiculed abroad. Why must the French, among the best-protected workers in the Western world, make such a racket over two years of work? But for the demonstrators, this missed the point: It is because French workers put up a fight that they are protected. France has always been a vanguard of leftist politics. How it fares says much about where the left may be headed and the headwinds it faces, not just in France but throughout the West.

Persons: Samira Organizations: Writers Guild of America, United Auto Workers, UPS Teamsters, National Health Service Locations: Teleperformance, France, United States, Britain

☆ 580 courses in 365 days: How crushing a world record changed one golfer’s perspective on life and America
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-16 | by ( Don Riddell | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Patrick Koenig played golf – a lot of golf. By the time he finished his golfing trek, Koenig had played in the USA, Finland, and Sweden, completing 580 different courses in 365 days. Assuming his record application – which typically take up to 12 weeks to review, according to the Guinness World Record website – is accepted, he will have smashed the previous best total by 131 courses. As well as playing an awful lot of golf, the experience has changed Koenig’s perspective on the world. Some days I wanted to sleep because I was tired, but I was like, ‘Oh, I can get up and play golf.

Persons: Patrick Koenig, Koenig, –, ”, “, Jonathan, Cathie Weaver, I’m, spatters Koenig, I’d, Royal New Kent –, ” Koenig, I’ve, ’, Rachel Alcone, he’d, Patrick Koenig ‘, “ It’s Organizations: CNN, Guinness, North, Monarch Beach, “, Royal New Locations: USA, Finland, Sweden, Canadian, California, Colorado, South Carolina, Pebble, Royal New Kent, Virginia, Royal, Sand Hills, Nebraska, Washington, Florida, Vermont, Texas, America

☆ Stock market hits new high after 2 years, overcoming a nasty inflation period and surging rates
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Michael Santoli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

The long wait between S & P 500 all-time highs is a friendly factor for forward performance, as far as historical observations go. John Kolovos of Macro Risk Advisors says, "It is OK to be bullish on the stock market (S & P 500) just not the market of stocks (everything else)," from a trend-following perspective. Barry Knapp of Ironsides Macroeconomics calculates that the equal-weight S & P is one standard deviation cheap versus the market-cap-weighted index. Remarkably, the S & P 500 first pushed above 19-times forward earnings exactly four years ago, right before the Covid crash. Well, the S & P 500 has delivered an annualized total return near 11% in the four years since.

Persons: Ned Davis, Wayne Whaley, Whaley, I've, haven't, John Kolovos, Barry Knapp, Knapp, USTs, it's, hasn't Organizations: Ned Davis Research, Foresight, Federal, noncommittal, Nvidia, Nasdaq, Deutsche Bank

☆ We Aren’t Failing Trans Kids by Giving Them the Freedom to Choose - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Lydia Polgreen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

For those liberals and progressives who fret about the rapidly changing gender landscape, the agonized argument over gender-affirming care for children is different. The possibility that children might make irreversible decisions on this particular question that they later regret is, for many people, simply intolerable. So what are we saying, really, when we worry that a child will regret this particular decision, the decision to transition? For a binary identity that is supposedly so fixed and powerful, gender eludes and confounds us constantly. Efforts to define the terms “man” and “woman,” so popular on the campaign trail as gender identity has become a white hot issue in our politics, inevitably end in unsatisfying tautologies.

Persons: Gallup, ” It’s, Webster Organizations: Merriam

☆ ‘Morning in America’ Eludes Biden, Despite Economic Gains
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Jim Tankersley | More About Jim Tankersley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mr. Reagan’s appeals worked in part because Americans had just endured more than a decade of persistently high prices and high interest rates. Economists and historians generally agree that voters came to see the progress under Mr. Reagan as relief from a long, difficult period. Voter psychology is very different under Mr. Biden. Those mortgage rates Mr. Reagan trumpeted? The difference is that under Mr. Reagan, rates fell, and under Mr. Biden, they’ve gone up.

Persons: Reagan, Reagan’s, Biden, Biden’s, they’ve, ”, Francesco D’Acunto, D’Acunto Organizations: Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, White House Council, Economic Locations: America

☆ Data centers are booming. Their need for power is causing utilities to retreat on green energy.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-09 | by ( Daniel Geiger | Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +18 min

Katie Hobbs at Google's September announcement of a a new $600 million data center in Mesa, Arizona. The amount of electricity needed to power data centers in the U.S. is expected to more than double by 2030, according to McKinsey. "With data centers, you're going to do all of the above to have capacity to meet those loads." Utilities struggle to meet data center loads while cutting carbonThe utility-level impact of the data center industry's energy demand reaches beyond Phoenix. In preliminary documents, it has identified data centers as "the major source of load growth during 2023-2038."

Persons: Karla Moran, Moran, Katie Hobbs, you've, Terry Boston, James Glynn, Glynn, Caryn Potter, it's, OPPD, that's, David Corbin, Corbin, Valerie Plesch, Aaron Ruby, Devon Smiley, Smiley, Lee Kestler, Ruby, George Frey, Wendy Bridges, Bridges, Jill Hanks, Hanks, Potter, Meghin Delaney, Reno, Kestler, EdgeCore, Hunter Holman, Delaney, Holman Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Digital Realty, Arizona Gov, McKinsey, PJM, Columbia University's Center, Global Energy Policy, Southwest Energy Efficiency, Utilities, Omaha Public Power, Sierra Club's, The Washington, Getty, Dominion Energy, Dominion, Blackstone, KKR, APS, Phoenix, Goodyear, NV Energy, Reno, Bay Area, Silver State, Western Resource Locations: Phoenix, Salt, Mesa , Arizona, City, Mesa, U.S, Arizona, Phoenix . Omaha , Nebraska, New York, Sierra Club's Nebraska, Woodbridge , Virginia, Virginia, Nebraska, OPPD, Eagle Mountain , Utah, Brookfield, Seattle, Goodyear, Bay, Nevada, Reno, Las Vegas, North

☆ Kylian Mbappé and Real Madrid: Soccer’s never-ending transfer saga
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-17 | by ( Thomas Schlachter | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

This, of course, is Kylian Mbappé’s much discussed, potential move from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) to Real Madrid. The first time Real Madrid came calling for the boy from Bondy was when the forward was just 13 years old. Zinedine Zidane watches on as Mbappé plays against his Real Madrid team in 2019. I mean, that tells you the story through that.”Jude Bellingham (C) and Vinícius Júnior (R) are leading the next generation of Real Madrid stars. “The biggest failure for me would be that Real Madrid didn’t have a plan B if the Mbappé signing didn’t happen,” he adds.

Persons: Germain, Mbappé, Zinedine Zidane, ” Mbappé, ‘ Zidane, ’ ”, Anthony Dibon, Blancos, Emmanuel Macron, Macron, France’s, “, ”, ” France's, Francois Mori, Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff, it’s, Krasnoff, Bleus, –, de Cordée, Anne, Christine Poujoulat, ” Nabil Larbi, Billie Jean King’s, undesirables ’, PSG President Nasser Al, Kirill Kudryavtsev, David Beckham, Ronaldo Nazário, Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaká, Florentino Pérez, Álvaro Romeo, Vinícius Jr, Jude Bellingham –, Dani Carvajal, I’m, ” Carvajal, ” Romeo, Romeo, he’s, ” Jude Bellingham, Vinícius, Jorge Guerrero, Merengues, Real, they’ve, Karim Benzema, Joselu Organizations: CNN, Paris Saint, PSG, AS Monaco, Real Madrid, Real, Players ’ Tribune, French national, League, The New York Times, Getty, CNN Sport, peerless, Fifth, Stade de France, Stade France, French, PSG President, City, Spain Real Madrid, Madrid Locations: Paris, Real Madrid, Madrid, Bondy, Spain, France, Fifth Republic, Republic, AFP, Greater Paris, Mbappé, Cameroon, Algeria, Bondy’s, Japan, City of, Spanish, Real, Saudi Arabian, Ittihad

☆ Italy attempt to make headlines at home during World Cup
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Trevor Stynes | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Sept 12 (Reuters) - The 2023 Rugby World Cup kicked off in France on Friday, and while the competition is already a roaring success, it's not always front page news even within countries involved. Italy began their Rugby World Cup campaign with a win over Namibia on Saturday, but picking up the country's most popular sports newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, the day after, there was no mention on the front page. The newspaper's main rugby journalist, Andrea Buongiovanni, explained the reasons behind this. "It's a question of tradition, and in my opinion, considering the small following rugby has in Italy, we give the Rugby World Cup ample coverage." It will take more than a win in their next game with Uruguay to push the Rugby World Cup onto the front pages.

Persons: it's, Andrea Cimbrico, Andrea Buongiovanni, Trevor Stynes, Christian Radnedge Organizations: national rugby team, Six Nations, Nations, Communications, Media Relations, Italian Rugby Federation, Reuters, Rugby World, Namibia, Gazzetta dello Sport, Rugby, Corriere dello Sport, team's, North, Gazzetta dello, Blacks, Thomson Locations: France, Italy, North Macedonia, Namibia, Uruguay, New Zealand

☆ A new hotel trend that puts you to sleep — literally
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-04 | by ( Lisa Lucas | Marylou Costa | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Globally, more people searched about sleep this year than ever before, according to data released by Google Trends last week. Hotels and wellness resorts are launching "sleep tourism" programs that go beyond plush bedding and blackout curtains. Source: Zedwell Hotels Trocadero (London) Hotel LtdThe clutter-free aesthetic incorporates natural oak and ambient lighting, and rooms have sound insulation and purified air. Six Senses Laamu, MaldivesSleep-deprived guests can book a sleep wellness program that ranges from three to 10 days at Six Senses Laamu. Carillon Miami Wellness Resort, Miami.

Persons: Cadogan, hypnotherapist Malminder Gill, The Cadogan, Gill, Vicente Mera Organizations: Google, Zedwell, Hotel, Big Apple, Hyatt, Hyatt New, Carillon, Carillon Miami Wellness, Miami Wellness, Sha Wellness Clinic, Sha Wellness Locations: London, Maldives, Switzerland, Fiji, India, Turkey, Thailand, Hyatt , New York, , New York, Hyatt New York, Carillon Miami, Miami, Epsom, Alicante, Spain

☆ Opinion | Our Economy Thrives on Bad Feelings
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Astra Taylor | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

A kind of existential insecurity is indelible to being human. But existential insecurity is not my focus here. I call this “manufactured insecurity.” Where existential insecurity is an inherent feature of our being — and something I believe we need to accept and learn from — manufactured insecurity facilitates exploitation and profit by waging a near constant assault on our self-esteem and well-being. Only by reckoning with how deep manufactured insecurity runs will it become possible to envision something different. Manufactured insecurity is far from inevitable, and yet it is intensifying.

Persons: —, equanimity, can’t

☆ Addiction Treatment Eludes More Than Half of Americans in Need
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Noah Weiland | More About Noah Weiland | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Why It Matters: Opioid addiction affects every part of American society. Rural and white Americans were the likeliest to report personal or family opioid addiction, but significant percentages of Black, Hispanic, urban and suburban families did, as well. Overdose fatality rates among Black Americans have climbed substantially in recent years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a study last year. A third of Americans fear that someone in their family will die of an opioid overdose, researchers discovered. Methadone, another opioid addiction medication that alleviates cravings, is heavily regulated and often difficult for drug users to access and use continuously, prompting repeated calls from addiction physicians and public health experts for easing restrictions.

Persons: KFF, “, —, ”, naloxone, David Fiellin, Biden Organizations: Centers for Disease Control, Yale School of Medicine, AIDS Locations: ”, Georgia, South Carolina

☆ Fact Check-UFO-themed Spanish ad falsely shared as real footage
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Staged footage of a UFO plunging into the ocean, which was created for a Spanish advertising campaign in 2009, is being shared on social media, wrongly labelled as a real sighting. Películas Pendelton founder Luis Manso confirmed to Reuters in an email in February that the video was part of an advertising campaign for Terra. A video titled “Making of ‘El Ovni Gallego’” was uploaded to YouTube in October 2009 (youtu.be/fmxsZbssmDE). Media reports about the advertising campaign can be seen (here), (here), (here). Video shows a Spanish advertisement released in 2009, not a real UFO sighting.

Persons: El Ovni Gallego ”, Pendelton, Doyle Dane, Películas Pendelton, Luis Manso, El Ovni Gallego ’ ”, Edgar Lledó, Orson Wells, Wells, Read Organizations: Outmanoeuvring Fighter Jets, Helicopter, YouTube, Reuters, Terra, Hollywood, Media Locations: Spanish

☆ AWS is investing $100 million in generative A.I. center in race to keep up with Microsoft and Google
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

But the announcement shows that Amazon Web Services recognizes the significance of the current moment in generative AI and the importance of being in the conversation, alongside rivals Microsoft and Google . However, those rivals have had splashier entrances into generative AI, even though Amazon has drawn broadly on AI for years to show shopping recommendations and operate its Alexa voice assistant. For Amazon, that momentum applies to its Bedrock generative AI service and its Titan models as well as the new innovation center. Really, you need the cloud for generative AI." Also, the way Selipsky sees it, AWS provides a measure of credibility in offering generative AI that eludes others in the space.

Persons: OpenAI, Adam Selipsky, Selipsky, isn't, Jeff Bezos, we're, I've Organizations: Web Services, Microsoft, Google, CNBC, RyanAir, Lonely, Amazon, Nvidia, Fortune, FTC Locations: Twilio

☆ Nail-Biter Turkish Election Goes to Round 2 as Majority Eludes Erdogan
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Ben Hubbard | Gulsin Harman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After he became prime minister in 2003, he presided over a period of tremendous economic growth that transformed Turkish cities and lifted millions of Turks out of poverty. Internationally, he was hailed as a new model of a democratic Islamist, one who was pro-business and wanted strong ties with the West. But over the past decade, Mr. Erdogan’s critics grew both at home and abroad. Mr. Erdogan’s inability to clinch a victory in the first round of voting on Sunday confirmed a decline in his standing among voters angry with his stewardship of the economy and his consolidation of power. In his last election, in 2018, he won outright against three other candidates with 53 percent of the vote.

☆ Opinion: Vladimir Putin’s anxious time
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. He imagines a boy sitting “upon the high and giddy mast” of a ship tossed by wind and waves. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” concludes the king in Shakespeare’s play. Russia said that President Vladimir Putin was the intended target of a foiled Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin, an allegation Ukraine denied. The unfortunate monarch who was the last to own the original St. Edward’s Crown, King Charles I, was convicted of treason and beheaded on January 30, 1649.

☆ ‘The Melt Goes On Forever’ Review: David Hammons Makes, and They Take
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Wesley Morris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The title of this new documentary about the artist David Hammons is a mouthful: “The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons.” It’s playing at Film Forum, and I don’t envy whoever has to make it fit the marquee. But they should figure that out because the title feels crucial to the aim of this movie, a sly, toasty, piquant consideration of Hammons’s conceptual art, the way it mocks and eludes easy ownership. Which is to say: the way his art is aware of — the way it’s often about — the stakes for Black people navigating the straits of the market. That piece is like a lot of Hammons’s work: tragicomic. It would have been enough to behold the assortment of thrilling footage of Hammons at work, in conversation and, in one contentious encounter, under interrogation by a group of students.

☆ How justice still eludes N. Ireland victims' families
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Reuters Editorial | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

PoliticsHow justice still eludes N. Ireland victims' familiesPostedThe Good Friday Agreement succeeded in largely ending three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, but for many relatives of the thousands killed, the peace accord has offered little closure over the past 25 years. Rachel Graham reports.

☆ Leaders like Elon Musk want to pause AI development, but the power of the free market means it's impossible to stop
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk and other business leaders signed a letter urging a six-month pause in AI development. From the moment the public was allowed to start testing OpenAI's GPT-3 in November, there was no stopping the bullet train of generative AI development. And the power of market forces means that there's no stopping the pace of AI development, even if companies like OpenAI wanted to. The train has left the station, and there's no going backSince November, and arguably even before, generative AI has been the technology on everyone's lips. Even if we wanted to pause AI development, there's not a clear way to enforce itThere's also the problem of enforcement.

☆ Kevin McCarthy Pushes for Debt-Ceiling Talks as Unity Eludes GOP
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Natalie Andrews | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to prod President Biden into starting talks over spending cuts as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, just as Republicans are struggling to unite around a blueprint for negotiations ahead of dual deadlines later this year. The White House released its own budget proposal earlier this month and has said it won’t negotiate on spending until Republicans put forward their own plan. Mr. McCarthy has rejected that notion and said in a letter to Mr. Biden that talks should start as soon as possible. While neither budget would have a chance of becoming law, they serve to outline the parties’ policy intentions.

REUTERS/Mike Blake/File PhotoJan 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has blocked a California law that sought to penalize doctors who spread "misinformation or disinformation" about COVID-19 while he considers a pair lawsuits challenging it on free speech grounds. "At no point has the State of California been able to articulate the line between permissible and impermissible speech." Under AB 2098, doctors can be disciplined for spreading misinformation about COVID, defined as "false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care." They said that doctors who give harmful advice to patients are already subject to malpractice lawsuits and discipline under existing state law. Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill BerkrotOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Kellyanne Conway says 2020 election should've been a 'blowout' for Trump but his campaign squandered a $1.6 billion war chest. Millions went into merchandise and Trump properties.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

To do so, Trump's campaign needs to avoid the "disastrous mistakes" it made in 2020, she wrote. Trump's 2020 campaign quickly spent a majority of the $1.6 billion it raised, ABC News reported. "With roughly $1.6 billion to spend and Joe Biden as the opponent, the 2020 election should have been a blowout," she said. Conway doesn't delve further into the specific strategic or spending mistakes the Trump campaign made. In other areas, the campaign spent millions of dollars on donor gifts and Trump properties.

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