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☆ Jail Death Lawsuit Is Settled for $7.5 Million Amid California Inquiry
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-17 | by ( Christopher Damien | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Officials in Riverside County did not bring charges against any of the deputies involved in the encounter with the man, Christopher Zumwalt, 39, but quietly agreed in December 2023 to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by his family. Depositions from the case and video footage obtained by The New York Times show the frantic and violent minutes when deputies tried to force Mr. Zumwalt out of his cell as he paced and talked incoherently. In the video, deputies wearing helmets and shields toss canisters of pepper spray into the small concrete room, struggle with Mr. Zumwalt, and strap him to an emergency restraint chair. He died on Oct. 25, 2020, after experiencing cardiac arrest. On the day of his arrest, he was issued a citation for bringing drugs into a jail.

Persons: Christopher Zumwalt, Zumwalt, incoherently Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Southern California, Riverside County

☆ This corn was down to its last two cobs. Now it could help farmers grow food in the climate crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Jeremy Harlan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

What he saved he delivered to his only Jimmy Red customer two hours down the road in Charleston. “Not only was I counting on it, but High Wire Distilling was absolutely counting on it,” explained Coxe. A local moonshiner – and the last known grower of Jimmy Red corn – had just died, and the family no longer wanted to grow corn for whiskey distilling. Campbell Coxe harvests 50 acres of Jimmy Red corn on his Darlington, South Carolina, farm in September. This year, the distiller used 1.1 million pounds of Jimmy Red corn in its bourbon whiskey production.

Persons: Campbell, Coxe, ”, Red, moonshiners, Jimmy Red, “, sobered, ‘, Jimmy Red’s, Florence, Ted Chewning, Chewning, Campbell Coxe, Peter Frank Edwards, Brian Ward, it’s, Ward, ” Ward, Carolina Gold Rice, Ann Marshall, Scott Blackwell, Marshall, It’s, We’re Organizations: CNN, Hurricane, High, Clemson University, Carolina, Jimmy Locations: Hurricane Florence, Darlington County , South Carolina, Charleston, Florence, Colleton, Darlington, South Carolina, Island , South Carolina, Mississippi, Gulf of Mexico, Charleston , South Carolina

☆ I drank Diet Coke daily for 25 years—then stopped: A Harvard nutritionist says I did my brain 'a favor'
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Ester Bloom | In Esterbloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The author (R) and CNBC Make It senior editor Vanna Le making towers out of Diet Coke bottles and cans in 2018. For decades, drinking a Diet Coke every day gave me a burst of caffeine and satisfaction. I decided to make three changes at once: walk more, tweet less and, after 25 years, put down the Diet Coke. Don't miss: A Harvard nutritionist eats these 10 foods to 'fuel' her brain and 'stay sharp' A year later, I was three for three. I knew Diet Coke wasn't exactly barley tea or a turmeric latte.

Persons: Vanna Le, Coke, Wasn't, hadn't, Michiko Tomioka, Uma Naidoo, Harvard Medical School —, Naidoo, Uma Organizations: CNBC, Harvard Medical School, Cola Company, Harvard Medical Locations: Harvard

☆ Opinion: Being a Muslim American right now is like living on borrowed time
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-21 | by ( Opinion Khaled A. Beydoun | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

He is the author of many books, including “American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear.” You can follow him at his socials at @khaledbeydoun. Like him, I’m an Arab, Muslim and American — an amalgam of identities that conjures up “pariah” in the world we live in. What does it mean for a mother who escaped war for the safety of an American suburb? This existential ballad of being Arab or Muslim in America is far more onerous, far more absurd. Wadea’s death foreshadows that these figures may spike again, and descend on the heads of Arab and Muslim Americans shadowed by suspicion.

Persons: Khaled A, Arizona State University Sandra Day, ”, Abed Ayoub, Beydoun Marwan Thoaubi, Abed, I’m, “, Fayoume, ” Rather, ” Wadea, Wadea’s, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Donald Trump’s, —, Carl Jung Organizations: Arizona State University, Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, CNN, White, Al, Ahli Baptist Hospital Locations: @khaledbeydoun, American, Gaza, Ahli, Illinois, United States, America, China, India, France, Washington, Chicago

☆ China's AI 'war of a hundred models' heads for a shakeout
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Josh Ye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Additionally, companies have also announced dozens of "industry-specific LLMs" that link to their core model. However, investors and analysts say that most were yet to find viable business models, were too similar to each other and were now grappling with surging costs. Several other big name entrepreneurs and tech executives are behind new Chinese AI startups, such as Google China's former chief Kai-Fu Lee and Yan Juejie, a former vice-president of SenseTime (0020.HK). Others said that China's largest tech companies Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu ultimately had the biggest headstart and deep pockets to succeed, given their large user bases and wide range of services. For instance, they could easily offer generative AI services as an additional plug-in to their cloud users.

Persons: Baidu's, Robin Li, Ernie Bot, Tingshu Wang, OpenAI's, Esme Pau, Pau, Yuan Hongwei, Meta, Baichuan, Wang Xiaochuan, China's, Wang, Yuan, Kai, Fu Lee, Yan Juejie, SenseTime, Tony Tung, Tung, Josh Ye, Brenda Goh, Sam Holmes Organizations: Baidu, REUTERS, HK, Huawei, Nvidia, China, Macquarie Group, Y, Baichuan Intelligence, Inc, Sogou, Google, Partners, Thomson Locations: Beijing, China, HONG KONG, Alibaba, United States, Washington, Shenzhen

☆ Constellation Brands Has Sobered Up. Its Stock Has Room to Party.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( Aaron Back | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/constellation-brands-has-sobered-up-its-stock-has-room-to-party-2bc77c51

Persons: Dow Jones

☆ Morning Bid: Dollar flexes into Fed week, calm returns
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Another unexpectedly tight weekly reading from the U.S. labour market sowed some lingering doubts that we're on the cusp of 'peak Fed' just yet. The tech wobble saw the Nasdaq (.IXIC) recoil 2% in its biggest drop since March. A quieter earnings schedule is topped by American Express - but nearly all the other banks have been impressive over the past week. Pessimists think the Fed is not done tightening yet and any further rate hikes after next week will just hasten a downturn in 2024. That has sobered up the Treasury market a touch after a couple of weeks of disinflation relief.

Persons: Mike Dolan, jockeying, we're, Dow Jones industrials, Johnson, Pessimists, Huntington Bancshares, Janet Yellen, Angus MacSwan Organizations: Big Tech, Tesla, Netflix, Nasdaq, American Express, Treasury, Bank of Japan, Comerica, Regions, Roper Technologies, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Reuters, Thomson Locations: U.S, Huntington, Schlumberger, Canada, Hanoi

☆ Morning Bid: G4 central bankers speak, chips wars rumble
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The picture was complicated further overnight as Tuesday's macro-driven rally in Wall St stocks was sideswiped by renewed Sino-U.S. trade tensions. AI darling Nvidia recoiled 4% (NVDA.O) in out-of-hours trade after reports Washington is considering new curbs on chip exports to China. But Wednesday's trading may well be dominated by news from a power panel at the European Central Bank's annual forum in Portugal. In currency markets, the dollar (.DXY) was firmer - especially against China's yuan , which hit a new low for the year. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Persons: Mike Dolan Eyeing, Jerome Powell, Christine Lagarde, Kazuo Ueda, Andrew Bailey, disinflation, Joe Biden, Wall, General Mills, Mike Dolan, John Stonestreet Organizations: Nvidia, Central, Federal, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Wall St, Japan's Nikkei, People's Bank of China, European Central Bank, Bank of, ECB, Treasury, Micron Technology, General, General Mills New, Thomson, Reuters Locations: U.S, Wall St, Washington, China, Portugal, Australia, Canada, Chicago, Shanghai

☆ Meta lowers Quest VR headsets prices to lure customers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 3 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) cut the prices of its virtual reality headsets in hopes of stirring demand for its VR hardware, as its bold bets on the metaverse have struggled to make a big splash. Its flagship Meta Quest Pro will retail for $999, down from its launch price of $1,499, and Quest 2 256 GB version for $429 from $499, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a broadcast on its social media platform Instagram on Friday. Late last year, the company launched Quest Pro, positioning it as its most-advanced VR headset with capabilities to push the use-cases further. While VR headsets have added more advanced capabilities of late, their adoption outside of the gaming community has been slow. Last month, Tencent, the world's largest video game publisher, shelved plans to venture into VR hardware, while it has been in talks to distribute Meta Quest line of products in China.

☆ Putin is too confident he can grind down Ukraine, CIA director says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, CIA Director William Burns said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being "too confident" in his military's ability to grind Ukraine into submission. That conversation, in which Burns warned of the consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, was "pretty dispiriting," Burns said. Burns said he judged Putin as "quite determined" to continue prosecuting the war, despite the casualties, tactical shortcomings and economic and reputational damage to Russia. "I think Putin is, right now, entirely too confident of his ability ... to wear down Ukraine," Burns told CBS' "Face the Nation" in an interview that aired Sunday. But Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the White House has been slow in providing what Ukraine seeks, including jets.

Senator Cory Booker on Sunday said he believes a policing reform bill could pass the current Congress, although he acknowledged that it will be an uphill battle given disinterest in the Republican-led House of Representatives. Senator Lindsey Graham on the issue of qualified immunity, which he considered a positive step. Graham has stated that while he believes qualified immunity should protect individual officers, police departments should receive no such protection. Booker noted, however, that any bill passed through the Democrat-controlled Senate would still need to pass through the Republican-controlled House. So when you hear encouraging things from people like him, that gives me the sense that we could do something possibly in the Senate," Booker said.

☆ CIA chief warns against underestimating Xi's ambitions toward Taiwan
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said on Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitions toward Taiwan should not be underestimated, despite him likely being sobered by the performance of Russia's military in Ukraine. Burns said that the United States knew "as a matter of intelligence" that Xi had ordered his military to be ready to conduct an invasion of self-governed Taiwan by 2027. The Russian invasion had fueled concerns in the West of China possibly making a similar move on Taiwan, a democratic island Beijing says is its territory. Burns said the next six months will be "critical" for Ukraine, where Moscow has been making incremental gains in recent weeks. Reporting by Michael Martina, Rami Ayyub, David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart; Editing by Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ CIA director secretly met with Zelenskyy before invasion to reveal Russian plot to kill him as he pushed back on US intelligence, book says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

CIA Director Bill Burns met with Zelenskyy on a secret trip ahead of the Russian invasion last year. Burns warned Zelenskyy about Russian assassination plots at a time when Zelenskyy cast doubt on US intel. The details of the Kyiv meeting are laid out in Chris Whipple's forthcoming book on Joe Biden's White House. "This immediately got Zelensky's attention; he was taken aback, sobered by this news," Whipple wrote in the book, set for release on January 17. Whipple wrote.

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