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☆ Beware the ‘pig butchering’ crypto scam sweeping across America
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Josh Campbell | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —The FBI says America has a “pig butchering” problem. “We’re talking about a cryptocurrency investment scam that is sweeping the country.”The term pig butchering refers to an unsuspecting victim — the “pig” — being tricked by scammers into forking over money for a promised high rate of return. Once criminals “fatten up” their victims’ digital wallets, they steal the money, Rosen says. “Online criminals’ scams are only limited by their imagination, and they have an impeccable sense of timing,” says Fisher. “They will not make you pay in advance to collect your money.”There were approximately 60 fake sweepstakes victims in New Mexico alone last year whose collective losses totaled $1 million, he says.

☆ A map shows the most popular Christmas dishes around the world
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Monica Pitrelli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

To see who's eating what this weekend, the culinary website Chef's Pencil created a map showing what it says are the most popular Christmas dishes around the world. Those headed to parts of South America can too — the map shows turkey is a top Christmas food in Brazil, Chile and Peru. Source: Chef's PencilItalians traditionally eat veal, while Rwandans grill both beef and goat for Christmas, the map shows. Carp, a freshwater fish, is popular in Central and Eastern Europe, while saltwater cod tops holiday menus in Italy and Portugal, the map shows. In a post about Christmas in Portugal, the travel website Portuguese for a Day states, "Christmas is not Christmas without codfish on the table!"

☆ The Hottest Holiday Toy of 2022 Is a Baby-Making Guinea Pig
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Joseph Pisani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A robotic rodent that magically has babies is this year’s hottest holiday toy. That was a surprise to Lowri Earith, whose 8-year-old daughter asked Santa Claus for the furball two weeks ago. “It looked like some little guinea pig in a box,” Ms. Earith said of Little Live Pets Mama Surprise. “I thought it would be absolutely fine.” But the teaching assistant panicked when it was sold out everywhere she looked.

In 2019, Cambodia supplied 8,571 of the 33,818 research monkeys imported to the U.S., or 25%. In 2021, the number of monkeys from Cambodia more than doubled to 18,870, making up nearly 60% of the 31,844 research monkeys brought to America. Earlier this year, long-tailed macaques and pig-tailed macaques were listed as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The decades long effort by animal rights groups to derail the monkey trade has made some impact. The incident shined a rare spotlight on the monkey trade, which largely goes on outside the view of the public.

☆ A food fight is raging over what we can and can't call 'meat'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Morten Toft Bech, the founder of a startup that makes plant-based meat alternatives, brought the animals in protest. Meat lobbies argue that plant-based products have stolen the concept of meat without matching its taste and nutrition standards, tarnishing the integrity and cultural importance of meat. It tends to argue that plant-based meat alternatives shouldn't be allowed to use meaty terms at all because, put simply, they aren't meat. Meat bodies want startups to come up with new terms for plant-based food that imitates meat. Both meat organizations and plant-based companies told Insider they encouraged a healthy, balanced diet.

☆ Strange reports have claimed humans spontaneously burst into flames, but science can explain how bodies sometimes act like a candle wick
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Nearly a year later, a coroner officially ruled that he'd died of a peculiar phenomenon, the Irish Independent reported — spontaneous human combustion. But if spontaneous human combustion is a real phenomenon, Byard added, why doesn't it happen more often? 'Spontaneous' human combustion over the centuriesIn the 17th century, a Danish anatomy expert described the first known case of spontaneous human combustion. Science says bodies can act like a candleThe prevalent scientific explanation for spontaneous human combustion is known as the wick effect, which proposes that humans can act like candles do. The pig's feet were left behind — exactly the result of many reported cases of spontaneous human combustion.

Carl Icahn had a textbook strategy for the Nevada-based energy utility Southwest Gas Holdings. In August, Southwest Gas' board decided against a divestiture, and the sale of subsidiaries that Icahn had urged remains uncertain. "Shareholders don't want to hear it, but you really have great difficulty selling a company at a good price today," the widely followed activist investor Icahn told Insider. via CNBCBut, like Icahn in the case of Southwest Gas, participants in this new onslaught may find themselves confounded by an increasingly complex and fraught business environment. According to Lazard, 37% of activist campaigns this year were launched by first-timers, the highest proportion since the company started tracking these figures in 2015.

Carl Icahn had a textbook strategy for the Nevada-based energy utility Southwest Gas Holdings. In August, Southwest Gas' board decided against a divestiture, and the sale of subsidiaries that Icahn had urged remains uncertain. That means that the sale of companies like Southwest Gas is off the table for the time being — or will get done at prices far lower than before. via CNBCBut, like Icahn in the case of Southwest Gas, participants in this new onslaught may find themselves confounded by an increasingly complex and fraught business environment. According to Lazard, 37% of activist campaigns this year were launched by first-timers, the highest proportion since the company started tracking these figures in 2015.

She was 11, about his age, and both had little sisters who sold Girl Scout cookies and were adorable sprites who also drove them batty. They were at an age when little sisters could get in the way, no matter how cute they looked in a Girl Scout sash. Sadie could unload Girl Scout cookies as if she were giving away gold — she sold 1,400 boxes in 2022. And why was Sadie selling all those Girl Scout cookies? Their moms would bring them each to New York, along with their little sisters, in June.

☆ It Looked Like the Perfect Apartment, but It Didn’t Pass the Smell Test
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Amy Gamerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Q: Have you ever had a listing that looked great but smelled bad? Julia Boland, associate real-estate broker, principal of the Boland Team at the Corcoran Group, New York CityThe owner was a friend of mine, but I had no idea she had a pig. She had a beautiful condominium on the Upper East Side: a three-bedroom duplex. The second bedroom, which had its own balcony, was Milly’s room. Milly was a 190-pound Berkshire pig, white with black spots.

Editor’s note: This article includes spoilers for “The White Lotus” season 2. “He kept saying, ‘Sabrina, the more bitchy you are, the more it’s going to work.’ And I really trusted him.”Sabrina Impacciatore in "The White Lotus." Jennifer Coolidge accepts the Emmy for her performance in season 1 of "The White Lotus." The brief, moan-filled love scene that follows gets about as close to a life-affirming event as an overnight stay at the White Lotus can. I was inventing magic rituals — literally, inventing rituals to get the role, to have Mike White in my life.

☆ Analysis: East Europeans count their pennies for Christmas as food costs soar
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Krisztina Than | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Food prices in Hungary were a staggering 45.2% higher in October than a year earlier, Eurostat data shows, with 10 countries in the EU's east facing food price inflation of more than 20%. The cost of food was 33.3% higher in Lithuania and up 30% in Latvia compared to October 2021. read moreCzech headline inflation slowed to 15.1% in October but food prices grew, while in Poland food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation was 22.3% in November, well ahead of overall CPI at 17.4%. Inflation in Hungary is expected to start a very slow decline in the first half of next year. "There are still no durable signs that the inflation dynamics are improving in Hungary," Goldman Sachs has said.

☆ NYC subway rider beaten and called a racial slur for refusing to give up his seat, police say
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Marlene Lenthang | Marlene Lenthang Is A Breaking News Reporter For Nbc News Digital. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Two New York City teenagers were charged with hate crime assault after they allegedly beat a subway passenger who refused to give up his seat and directed anti-Asian statements toward him, police said. Dream Commisso, 19, was arrested Tuesday on charges of hate crime assault, aggravated harassment, assault, menacing and harassment. The teenagers asked a 42-year-old man to get up from his subway seat, "made anti-Asian statements and punched him multiple times and threatened his life," New York City police said. Authorities are seeking a third suspect in the subway assault, according to a post on the NYPD Hate Crimes' Twitter page. Reporting forum Stop AAPI Hate has collected data on almost 11,500 anti-Asian incidents since March 2020, the group reported in July.

CNN —Ukraine’s foreign minister has accused Russia of being behind a series of more than a dozen letters containing explosives or animal parts that were sent to Ukrainian diplomats around the world. “This campaign is aimed at sowing fear,” Dmytro Kuleba told CNN’s Matthew Chance in an exclusive interview in Kyiv on Friday. CNN was shown an image of one of the letters containing what officials said was the eyeball of a pig inside a padded envelope. ‘Who benefits?’Kuleba earlier urged foreign governments to guarantee maximum protection of Ukrainian diplomatic institutions in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Nikolenko also stated that the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States received a letter with a photocopy of a critical article about Ukraine.

☆ Elon Musk's brain-chip startup shares video it says shows a monkey telepathically 'typing'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk shared a video he said showed a monkey with a brain chip selecting letters with its mind. The demo video was shown at Neuralink's show-and-tell event on Wednesday night. In the demo video, the monkey appears to type out words on a screen using only his mind, thanks to an implanted brain chip. Last year, Neuralink shared a demo video that appeared to show a monkey playing the video game "Pong," using only its mind. The year before, Neuralink shared footage that appeared to be neural readouts from a chip that had been implanted in a pig.

☆ How the founder of SiriusXM wants to tackle an organ shortage with 3D-printed hearts and lungs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

She is the CEO of the $12 billion biotech United Therapeutics and founder of SiriusXM. Her company, the $12 billion Maryland-based biotech United Therapeutics, has already put gene-edited pig hearts, lungs, and kidneys into humans in clinical studies. Rothblatt previously founded SiriusXM before starting United TherapeuticsUnited TherapeuticsThe organ research is far from the first moonshot in Rothblatt's career. After that compound's owner, the pharma giant GSK, declined to test it against PAH, Rothblatt founded United Therapeutics in 1996 and bought the rights to the molecule. That drug helped save Jenesis, and United Therapeutics now sells a suite of PAH treatments that have helped over 12,000 patients.

☆ A 26-story pig skyscraper in China will slaughter 1 million animals a year, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Hannah Williams | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

China's skyscraper pig farm aims to tackle the country's growing pork demands, The Guardian reports. The Guardian reported the new tower in China is the largest "single-building pig farm in the world." Statements on the company's WeChat account analyzed by The Guardian reveal the farm-in-the-sky will house more than 600,000 animals. Animals are automatically fed via buttons in a central control room, and the pigs' waste is used to generate heating and power. Hubei Zhongxin Kaiwei Modern Farming, the company behind the development, has already sent 3,700 sows to the farm, The Guardian reported.

☆ Photos: See How NASA Trains Its Astronauts to Go to the Moon
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Since 1959, more than 350 people have become NASA astronauts. Since NASA announced its first class of astronauts in 1959, more than 350 people have become astronauts. An astronaut nurse takes a blood sample from NASA astronaut John Glenn in 1961. NASAEarly on, NASA used a large machine called a human centrifuge to test gravitational stress on astronauts training to go to the moon for the first time. As more humans ventured into space, NASA began to understand the mental burden of space travel.

☆ Hasbro CEO says inflation won't ruin Christmas but Wall Street is worried
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Paul R. La Monica | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

New York CNN Business —The holidays are rapidly approaching, and for the toy company Hasbro, a slowing economy could be a proverbial Grinch that steals Christmas. Before joining Hasbro, Cocks was an executive at Microsoft (MSFT) from 1999 through 2006 and 2008 through 2016. Cocks said Hasbro is investing “significantly” in digital toys, particularly digital versions of classic Hasbro board games like “Monopoly” and “Scrabble” as well as D&D and the company’s “Magic: The Gathering” game. It’s definitely been a boon for the game,” Cocks said. “If there’s a couple of truisms in life, there’s death, there’s taxes, and there’s parents wanting to have a great holiday for their kids.”

China accounts for 60% of global soybean imports, and upon arrival, the beans are crushed into protein-rich hog feed to support the country’s strong appetite for pork. When soybean imports are strong, that often indicates healthy feed demand and a sufficiently large hog herd. China substantially upped pork imports in 2019 after disease spread through its hog herd starting in 2018, potentially killing up to 40% of the country’s pigs. China’s pork imports have risen a bit since the mid-year slump due to a notable increase in Brazilian shipments since the beginning of this year. Through October, China’s 2022 soybean imports of 73.2 million tonnes were down 7.5% on the year.

☆ Hasbro looks to sell part of eOne TV production business
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Joyce Lee | Soo-Hyang Choi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Nov 17 (Reuters) - Hasbro Inc (HAS.O) said on Thursday it is looking to sell part of its eOne production unit, which makes TV shows including "Yellowjackets" and "The Rookie", as the toymaker looks to streamline its business and focus on core brands. The company bought eOne, maker the popular children's TV show "Peppa Pig", for about $4 billion in 2019. Hasbro said Peppa Pig is not a part of the business that it is putting up for sale. Hasbro shares rose marginally in premarket trading. Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. IPO price pops prompt fraud and 'pig butchering' warnings
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( John Mccrank | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Some investors harmed by the pump-and-dump schemes appear to be victims of an evolving social media scam called "pig butchering," Finra said. Finra said most of the price spikes it observed involved IPOs of small-cap issuers with operations outside the United States. The IPOs typically raised less than $25 million, valued the firms at under $100 million and issued fewer than 20 million shares. The NYSE and Nasdaq said they were probing the underwriters of the IPOs to ensure they did proper due diligence on registration statements. Reporting by John McCrank; Additional reporting by Lance Tupper; Editing by Josie KaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/5] Yael Gabay, The Plant Based Treaty global co-director with a team give away free vegan burgers during COP27 climate summit in Red Sea resort at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 14, 2022. "We have to move away from animal production." "It would result in more intensive livestock production that would require larger areas of land to produce the animal feed, putting pressure on forest land," Reisinger told Reuters. THE OTHER WHITE MEATCampaigners have even protested the food kiosks at the summit selling burgers and chicken - foods they say don't belong at a climate conference. "When you enter the conference, you have the scent of grilled animal meat in your nose.

In August, we spent a day driving around with Mr. Cook and his Tesla to assess the progress of this experimental technology. Tesla is driving But watch as the Tesla struggles to make sense of its environment, veering from the road into a motel parking lot. The experiences of beta testers like Mr. Cook are a window into the enormously ambitious and expensive bet that Tesla is making on self-driving technology. Guided by Tesla’s self-driving technology, the car drove along the river and over a bridge before reaching an intersection lined with trees. These companies are now preparing self-driving car services that will operate without backup drivers in places like San Francisco and Austin, Texas.

☆ Jason Momoa wanted to take his pet pig to the 'Slumberland' premiere
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Marianne Garvey | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Jason Momoa’s real-life pet pig didn’t end up making it to the premiere of “Slumberland.”The actor attended the premiere in Los Angeles on Wednesday, where he told Entertainment Tonight that though he had hoped to bring the pig to the event, his little pig stayed home. He’s a wild boar, so I couldn’t bring him with me,” said Momoa, who instead posed on the red carpet with a stuffed animal. “I think it would’ve been pretty gnarly, though.”In “Slumberland,” Momoa plays an eccentric outlaw named Flip, who guides young orphan (Marlow Barkley) and her toy-pig-turned-real through a world of dreams. Momoa revealed earlier this month that he had adopted a pig after filming with it. Momoa was at last updating picking a name for his new pet – torn between Lau Lau and Manapua.

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