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☆ Hundreds of elite Israeli reservists say they are joining judicial protests
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Dan Williams | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

That, critics say, could foster corruption and imperil judicial independence key to Israel's economic strength and defences against attempts to isolate it internationally. Netanyahu has condemned the protests' reach into the military ranks as an attempt to subvert an institution meant to be above politics. While reservists have helped Israel prevail in previous wars, more recently it has relied on regular forces. But some units consider reservists especially valuable given their maturity and accrued skills. An air force pilot taking part in the protests told Channel 12 TV that as many as 60% of crews sent on bombing sorties in Syria are volunteer reservists.

☆ Israelis protest against planned judicial overhaul for 11th week
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] An aerial view shows women wearing red clothes during a demonstration as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist coalition government presses on with its contentious judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 18, 2023. REUTERS/Oren AlonTEL AVIV, March 18 (Reuters) - Israelis packed city streets on Saturday in nationwide demonstrations now in their 11th week against plans by the hard-right government to curb the Supreme Court's powers, which critics see as a threat to judicial independence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who says his aim is to balance out branches of government, wields a parliamentary majority along with his religious-nationalist coalition allies but his planned judicial overhaul has sparked concern at home and abroad. "I'm here to demonstrate with the people of Israel, against the revolution, against the changing of our state," said Dalia Yosef, 72, also at the Tel Aviv demonstration. Reporting by Emily Rose, Rami Avichay, Akiva Gaffin Editing by Frances Kerry and Emelia Sithole-MatariseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Israeli protesters paint 'red line' leading to Supreme Court after Netanyahu spurns compromise
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Maayan Lubell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

JERUSALEM, March 16 (Reuters) - Jerusalem woke on Thursday to the sight of a long red line painted by protesters along roads leading to Israel's Supreme Court, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a compromise deal for his government's planned judicial overhaul. Drone footage showed a small group of people in protective suits spraying a wide red stripe along mostly deserted roads leading from a police and magistrate's compound up to the Supreme Court in central Jerusalem. A slogan stencilled in red onto the road in Hebrew, Arabic and English by the side of the road read: "Drawing the line." The hard-right government's drive to limit Supreme Court powers while increasing its own power in selecting judges has caused alarm in Israel and abroad about the country's democratic checks and balances as protests have swelled for weeks. His nationalist-religious coalition says the Supreme Court too often overreaches and intervenes in political matters it has no mandate to rule on.

☆ U.S. core capital goods orders post largest gain in five months; shipments surge
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

REUTERS/Dan KoeckSummarySummary Companies Core capital goods orders increase 0.8% in JanuaryCore capital goods shipments surge 1.1%Durable goods orders drop 4.5% on aircraftPending home sales increase 8.1% in JanuaryWASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - New orders for key U.S.-manufactured capital goods increased by the most in five months in January while shipments of those so-called core goods rebounded, suggesting that business spending on equipment picked up at the start of the first quarter. These core capital goods orders dropped 0.3% in December. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast core capital goods orders edging up 0.1%. Core capital goods orders increased 5.3% on a year-on-year basis in January. Shipments of core capital goods bounced back 1.1% after declining 0.6% in December.

☆ Ex-Amazon managers say they were pressured to cut successful workers to meet attrition goals — and faced retribution when they resisted
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +17 min

Former Amazon managers say they were pressured to cut successful workers to meet attrition goals. In anticipation of Amazon's performance-review period, he told Insider, he'd kept careful notes on what his employees were doing well and where they could improve. These people said leadership would place employees in Focus even if the managers of those employees said that the workers had met or exceeded expectations. A few weeks later, he said, his manager told him he was on Pivot and had the option to leave the company with severance, which he did. Amazon managers are required to submit their performance ratings for employees in an online tool, then discuss their rationale with managers above them, he said.

☆ Sam Altman is tech’s next household name — if we survive the killer robots
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, walks from lunch during the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 6, 2022, in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sam Altman may be tech's next household name, but many Americans probably haven't heard of him. To anyone outside San Francisco, Altman would probably seem like just another young tech CEO. That worldview flared up into controversy in 2017 when Altman wrote a blog post criticizing political correctness, saying tech entrepreneurs were leaving San Francisco over it. "I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco," he wrote.

Companies Hermes International SCA FollowNEW YORK, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Hermes International SCA (HRMS.PA) urged a U.S. jury on Monday to find that a creator of non-fungible tokens violated its trademark for Birkin bags, while lawyers for the "MetaBirkins" maker countered that the images were art. "He never tried to mislead anyone into believing that the MetaBirkins came from Hermes," Millsaps said, arguing that Rothschild wanted credit for the project. Warshavsky said Hermes was working on its own Birkin NFTs at the time, and accused Rothschild of "cybersquatting" by trying to beat the company to the market. He said Hermes would not have brought the lawsuit if Rothschild had complied with a December 2021 cease-and-desist letter demanding he stop selling the NFTs. Jonathan Harris, another lawyer for Rothschild, said his client added a disclaimer stating that Hermes was not associated with the NFTs after he received the letter.

☆ 5 things wildly successful real-estate brokers do to get the most out of their days
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Fellow New York-based Douglas Elliman agent Lisa Simonsen also had a former career in fitness. As such, the agent who sold more than $100 million in 2022 makes sure she works out in her building's gym, usually on a spin bike, every morning. McKenzie RyanFormer Junior Olympian and real-estate wunderkind McKenzie Ryan used to compete on the national level in rhythmic gymnastics. Serhant gets a new SUV every year "just to update it," though he said he makes sure his car and clothes are never nicer than his clients'. The Douglas Elliman agent knows what she has to do to succeed: She was the top-selling agent in Miami in 2021 with $750 million in transactions.

CNN —The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine that could be announced as soon as this week, according to two US officials and a senior administration official. Unlike smaller air defense systems, Patriot missile batteries need much larger crews, requiring dozens of personnel to properly operate them. The training for Patriot missile batteries normally takes multiple months, a process the United States will now carry out under the pressure of near-daily aerial attacks from Russia. Last month US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that the US is “very focused” on providing air defense systems to Ukraine. “We’re now very focused on air defense systems and not just us, many other countries,” Blinken told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

CNN —The US killed two ISIS officials in a helicopter raid early Sunday morning in eastern Syria, US Central Command said in a statement. One of the officials killed was “Anas,” a regional ISIS leader who was involved in planning operations in eastern Syria. “The death of these ISIS officials will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out destabilizing attacks in the Middle East,” said Central Command spokesman Col. Joe Buccino. Two weeks ago, the US welcomed news of the death of ISIS leader Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al- Qurayshi. He was not killed in a US operation, unlike the previous leader, Hajji Abdullah, who was killed in a US raid in February.

☆ CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is leaving the network after more than two decades
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Barbara Starr, the Pentagon correspondent who has covered some of the most consequential stories with a signature style and steady hand, is leaving CNN after more than two decades with the network. Starr announced her departure in a memo sent to her CNN colleagues on Friday. “With the expiration of my contract in the coming days I have made the decision to move on,” Starr wrote. “Let me say this…you never say goodbye to your friends, so I won’t.”Starr’s exit from CNN follows that of several notable personalities at the network. “Barb has been a coworker, a mentor, and a role model since I came to the Pentagon,” CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann wrote on Twitter.

☆ Here's the exclusive 14-slide pitch deck that Veriti used to raise a $12 million Series A for its AI-cybersecurity platform
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Veriti uses AI to strengthen companies' cybersecurity defense. But even with multiple security tools, the coverage can be incomplete, and that's where Veriti comes in, Veriti CEO Adi Ikan said. Investors are also interested in Veriti's mission of finding holes in companies' cybersecurity coverage. Veriti says that its technology works with other popular cybersecurity tools in the market from Microsoft, Crowdstrike, and others. See the pitch deck that Veriti used to raise its $12 million Series A round.

☆ U.S. weekly jobless claims at 3-month high; equipment spending resilient
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

"While this could be interpreted as evidence of a softening labor market, we would caution against this. They were boosted by a 5,024 jump in California, likely reflecting the technology sector job cuts. Economists, however, did not expect the technology sector layoffs would be a major drag on the labor market and the overall economy. These so-called core capital goods orders decreased 0.8% in September. Shipments of core capital goods jumped 1.3% after dipping 0.1% in September.

☆ A spiral of violence and fear is creating angst for many voters ahead of the midterm elections
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Alex-Seitz-Wald-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Alex Seitz-Wald | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

For many voters, a vicious spiral of violence and fear is creating angst, paranoia and an overwhelming sense of dread that the nation is on the eve of destruction, according to a growing body of public opinion research. Polls show a large portion of Republicans fear democracy is in peril because they believe that elections are rigged against them. Frustrated by the fear that democracy no longer serves them, some Americans are becoming convinced that violence is the answer. Steele, the former head of the national GOP, said the public and political leaders both bear responsibility for protecting the republic. “But it also gives space for people who want a safer country to plan ahead, too.

☆ Fact Check-Hoax about serial killer posing as taxi driver in New York City resurfaces
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A fabricated report that is several years old about a New York City taxi driver who is a serial killer has recirculated on social media. An example can be seen (here) with the text: “*** Warning *** This is a man with Taxi number (2465RB) in NY Who drives around taking People to kill. A Google search on the story or on the license plate number produces no credible results to support the claims about a New York City serial killer taxi driver (bit.ly/3Sl6ZBE), (bit.ly/3ShD25K). The story has been debunked by fact checkers Snopes (here) in 2018 and PolitiFact (here) in 2022. There is no evidence of a serial killer posing as a taxi driver in New York City.

☆ Mysteries: ‘Swann’s War’ by Michael Oren
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Tom Nolan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Michael Oren’s thriller “Swann’s War” takes place on the small New England island of Fourth Cliff, “a world utterly cut off from the real one.” It’s 1944, and World War II still rages. In charge of keeping the peace is Mary Beth Swann, who serves as the island’s de facto police captain while her husband, Archie, fights overseas. For the past two years the island has held a camp for Italian POWs. The prisoners, a mostly congenial lot, are well-tolerated by the locals and encouraged to take work on the docks. But one morning, fishermen find the corpse of one of the Italians in their nets; the man has been strangled and then dumped in the sea.

☆ Jewish settlers storm town and pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Jewish settlers stormed through a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said Thursday, throwing stones at Palestinian cars and using pepper spray on troops who were trying to disperse the settlers. Israeli settlers walk with batons during clashes in which Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian residents and shops in the town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank last week. Meanwhile, the Palestinians launched a general strike throughout the West Bank and east Jerusalem in response to the death of a suspected Palestinian attacker. Tamimi was the subject of a more than weeklong manhunt that culminated when he opened fire at a security guard at a West Bank settlement Wednesday. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank in some 130 settlements.

☆ Fact Check-Obama speech about healthcare reform taken out of context
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A clip of former U.S. President Barack Obama speaking about affordable health care has been taken out of context. Just walking and holding hands. The clip is from a speech Obama gave at the Catholic Health Association Conference on June 9, 2015, in Washington, DC. In the speech, (transcript) (here), (video) (here), Obama discussed health care reform and the Affordable Care Act. It’s like a whole new world for me.’ Just walking and holding hands – something that one of our fellow Americans for years could not do.

☆ White House Issues ‘Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights’
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-04 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

The White House on Tuesday issued guidelines aimed at safeguarding personal data from misuse in artificial-intelligence algorithms that drive hiring, lending and other business decisions. The guidelines, which the Biden administration described as a “blueprint for an AI bill of rights,” are nonbinding and don’t include enforcement measures. They also fall short of the European Union’s landmark privacy regulation that has forced global technology companies to change how they collect data, among other things. Still, some technology leaders said the White House blueprint could lead to heavy-handed regulation that might risk putting U.S. businesses at a disadvantage. “If implemented properly, the bill could reduce AI misuse and yet support beneficial uses of AI in medicine, driving, enterprise productivity, and more,” Mr. Etzioni said.

☆ Exclusive: TripActions has filed confidentially for an IPO, targeting a $12 billion valuation, a rare exception in the frozen IPO market
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

TripActions, which was last valued at $7.25 billion, aims to modernize business travel. Founded in 2015 by Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig, the Palo Alto-based company helps businesses manage travel, company cards and expenses for employees. At the time, Cohen said TripActions had originally planned to go public this year but delayed those plans when the market went south. TripActions raised $275 million in series F funding last fall at a $7.25 billion valuation in a deal led by Greenoaks. Andreessen Horowitz first invested in TripActions in 2018, when it led the company's series C funding round at a $1.1 billion valuation.

☆ The metaverse: How it became real estate's new frontier
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Thomas Page | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

The metaverse – a growing number of immersive virtual online worlds where users live and play – has become a hotbed of real estate speculation. Look beyond the numbers, however, and you’ll find whole professions being shaken up, from architects and designers to developers and real estate agents. But could real estate in the metaverse ever become as reliable an investment as bricks and mortar? “It’s hard to know if the real estate inside (metaverses) is going to be stable … Least of all us, and we’re deeply in it,” said Yorio. “It’s very possible that real estate in the metaverse is a stable investment in the future,” said Robson, of analytics company WetMeta, in an email.

☆ Read the 11-page pitch deck AI startup Hour One used to raise a $20 million Series A
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Marta Biino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Israeli startup Hour One allows users to make avatars, or "virtual humans," using AI. In April 2022, Hour One announced it raised a $20 million Series A round led by Insight Partners. Here is the 11-page pitch deck they used to woo investors. They also used a pitch deck, which they sent investors after meeting them. Read through the 11-page pitch deck Hour One sent to investors to raise a $20 million Series A round:Note: The original pitch deck included videos within a PDF presentation.

☆ Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard sue DeSantis in class action alleging fraud
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Zoë Richards | Zoë Richards Is The Evening Politics Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Migrants who were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, under a new program by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sued DeSantis, a Republican, and other state officials Tuesday, alleging they were victims of fraud for political purposes. Taryn Fenske, a spokesperson for DeSantis, said in a statement that the migrants chose to board the flights. "The transportation of the immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard was done on a voluntary basis," Fenske said. DeSantis has insisted that no laws were broken, and he has pledged to continue his administration’s $12 million program to relocate migrants.

☆ Ron DeSantis defended leaflets given to migrants he sent to Martha's Vineyard which promised them cash and jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ron DeSantis defended sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard in a Fox News interview. And then the vendor that is doing this for Florida provided them with a packet that had a map of Martha's Vineyard," said DeSantis. "It had the numbers for different services on Martha's Vineyard. NPR reported last week that some migrants were told they were being flown to Boston, not Martha's Vineyard. These benefits are not available to the migrants who arrived at Martha's Vineyard, he said.

☆ Migrants who landed on Martha’s Vineyard were tricked by misleading brochure, lawyers say
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

When roughly 50 migrants were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, under a new program by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to highlight illegal immigration, they were given a brochure about housing, cash assistance and jobs for refugees. DeSantis said he chose the tony and exclusive island of Martha’s Vineyard for Wednesday's trip because it calls itself a sanctuary destination. Many seek and are granted asylum in the U.S., and most of the migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard were asylum-seekers or plan to be, according to Lawyers for Civil Rights. And then, when they landed on the ground in Martha’s Vineyard, those people were nowhere to be found,” Sellstrom said.

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