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☆ As US and Philippine defense ties grow closer, China drives wedge over Taiwan issue
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Kathleen Magramo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

But the election of his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, last year has returned relations to a more even keel, in part because Manila has become wary of a more assertive China. Last year the US granted $100 million to boost the Southeast Asian country’s defense capabilities and military modernization. Heydarian added that China has to rethink its strategy towards the Philippines, as the Marcos Jr administration is openly more aligned with the US. China remains one of the top trade partners of the Philippines, while Marcos Jr also continues to negotiate energy and agriculture investments from Beijing. Some worry Marcos Jr might be giving too much access to the US, especially when it comes to bases and facilities close to Taiwan, Heydarian said.

☆ US and Philippine forces fire on mock enemy warship in South China Sea military exercise
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Brad Lendon | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —United States and Philippine forces fired on a mock enemy warship in the South China Sea on Wednesday, the latest display of American firepower in Asia as tensions with China continue to rise. Earlier this month, China’s state-run media labeled the drills as an “attempt to target China.”US and Philippine military leaders said Wednesday’s exercise was designed to synchronize combat forces. “Together we are strengthening our capabilities in full-spectrum military operations across all domains,” Jurney said. The four bases joined five included earlier, including three on the main island of Luzon, close to Taiwan, and one on Balabac Island close to Chinese installations on the disputed islands in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, in another sign of increasing US-Philippine military cooperation, the US Pacific Air Forces said Tuesday a key air exercise will return to the Philippines next month for the first time since 1990.

☆ Inside the Wild World of Celebrity Keynote Speakers: Drugs, Alcohol
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +31 min

"I never saw myself as a speaker, let alone a motivational speaker," Leonard tells me while his assistant irons his jeans. 'When I ramble," Hunter told me, "hit me in the leg!" Every plane had been grounded, including the one stuck on the tarmac with an increasingly inebriated Hunter Thompson trapped inside. But by far the most all-consuming task was booking gigs for Hunter Thompson. Just before a debate with G. Gordon Liddy at Brown University, Hunter demanded that Betsy Berg, whom I now worked alongside at GTN, score him some crystal meth.

☆ Touching the sky: A rare solar eclipse and a new hotel in the clouds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Lilit Marcus | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Courtesy Amelia Earhart Hangar MuseumAmelia Earhart wasn’t just the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic. Camelot Theme Park (England): Set in the leafy Lancashire countryside, the Magic Kingdom of Camelot resurrected tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Scott Audette/AP Pripyat Amusement Park (Ukraine): This theme park was orphaned in 1986 following the Chernobyl meltdown just five kilometers (three miles) away. Considered the first theme park in Southeast Asia, it featured an artificial lake, huge swimming pool with giant water slides and a Prehistoric Animal Kingdom. Anne Jones/Alamy Stock Photo 10 fascinating theme parks that have closed forever Prev NextThat’s the question posed by these no-longer-in-operation theme parks around the world.

☆ Nuclear workers describe beatings, detention, and looting by Russian soldiers to force them to keep a Ukrainian power plant running
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Former workers at a Ukrainian nuclear power plant have spoken about mistreatment by Russian soldiers. They described being shot with rubber bullets, beatings, and detention and witnessing murders. The UN says that "the use of torture by Russian authorities, may amount to crimes against humanity." It included, a source told The Times, being shot with rubber bullets, beatings, and detention — and, if they continued to show support for Ukraine — murder. Earlier this week, a Ukrainian woman delivered harrowing testimony to US lawmakers, recounting scenes of torture, physical abuse, and mock executions.

☆ Paralympics TikTok account uses 'edgy and unique content' but has been critiqued by some for lack of sensitivity
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN —Social media is awash with memes and GIFs and, at times, ‘edginess,’ but it can be a difficult balancing act as the official Paralympics TikTok account is discovering. The account is run by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the organization which organizes and manages the Paralympic Games. In the comments, the official Paralympic account replied: “This is Brad Snyder. Mixed reactionsAs a result, the videos posted on the official account have received a mixed reaction, with commentators on many of them left disbelieving that the content published there is permitted. “Looking through that whole account, I might have seen one or two [videos] where the athlete actually does something successfully.

☆ Will the Internet Democratize Art or Destroy It?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Walker Mimms | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A mock-up of the first page of the Artist’s Contract, written by the gallerist Seth Siegelaub and the lawyer Robert Projansky in 1971.Credit... Seth Siegelaub and Robert Projansky, via Rizzoli and Stichting Egress Foundation, Amsterdam, Estate of Seth Siegelaub and MarjaBloem. Photo: Nash Baker

☆ Ukraine-Russia War: Live Updates
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Helene Cooper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

As she told her story with the help of an interpreter, some members of the House committee grew visibly emotional. At one point, the turret of an armored vehicle was pointed at them, Ms. Bobrovska said. Ms. Bobrovska said he and other Ukrainian children were visited by Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, who informed them that they would be adopted. Roman eventually managed to return to Ukraine with the help of volunteers, Ms. Bobrovska said, but she did not detail how, citing safety concerns. The prosecutor general of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin, addressed the Republican-led House committee after the survivors’ testimony to urge increased international pressure on Russia to return the children.

☆ North Korea wants to turn around its dismal space launch record, saying its first military spy satellite is ready for liftoff
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

North Korea said on Wednesday that it's ready to launch its first military spy satellite this month. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and his daughter visit the National Aerospace Development Administration in North Korea Tuesday. If successful, this launch would be the first officially conducted by North Korea for military purposes. North Korea first tried launching a satellite in 1998, but the rocket failed to reach orbit and burned up in the atmosphere. But just eight months later, North Korea finally pulled off a successful launch, sending the "Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3" into space.

☆ Ukrainian woman said her Russian captors mocked her execution and forced her to dig her own grave
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Ukrainian woman recounted her harrowing experience of Russian captivity to US lawmakers. She told lawmakers that she was beaten, forced to undress, cut with knives, and threatened to be raped and killed by Russian soldiers. Russian soldiers have been accused of this before, sometimes even forcing local Ukrainians in occupied cities to dig mass graves in exchange for food and water. Photo by Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Global Images Ukraine via Getty ImagesHer harrowing experience was not isolated. It was not clear where, exactly, the woman was held captive by the Russian soldiers.

☆ Print-on-demand sellers who make 6 figures a year share 7 strategies for standing out on Etsy — and getting a store started with low up-front costs
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Ella Hopkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Insider spoke with three Etsy sellers who've made six figures on the platform in a year with print-on-demand products. Take inspiration from other sellers' designs — but don't copy themChristina Umerez, 27, made 324,839 Canadian dollars, or about $241,015, from her Etsy store last year. Umerez said she used eRank, a platform that helps Etsy sellers find "low-competition, high-search" keywords related to topics. Dobosenski found mock-up images of models that matched the style she wanted from other Etsy sellers. Umerez used EverBee, a market-research browser extension that showed her all the tags other sellers used and how many searches each tag got.

Kyiv and the West accuse Russian forces of committing war crimes in occupied Ukrainian territory, which Moscow denies. Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are the four regions that Putin proclaimed annexed last September following what Ukraine said were sham referendums. Russian forces only partly control the four regions. HEAVY ARTILLERYFighting has raged in and around Bakhmut in Donetsk region for months, with Ukrainian forces holding out despite regular claims by Russia to have taken the city. "Any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences," they said.

☆ Russia conducts surprise inspection of Pacific Fleet
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 14 (Reuters) - Russia will conduct missile launches and torpedo tests as part of a surprise inspection of its Pacific naval fleet, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday. "The main objective of this inspection is to increase the ability of the Armed Forces to repel the aggression of a probable enemy from the direction of ocean and sea," Shoigu said on state television. "This is a common practice, it has been constantly carried out in recent years and it continues. This is about maintaining the necessary level of combat readiness of our armed forces," Peskov told a daily news briefing. In other recent military activity in the area, Russia's navy fired supersonic anti-ship missiles at a mock target in the Sea of Japan on March 28.

☆ India asks states to ramp up testing as COVID-19 cases climb
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MUMBAI, April 7 (Reuters) - India's federal government asked states to identify emergency hotspots and ramp up-testing for COVID-19, after the country recorded its highest daily case count since September, a Reuters tally showed on Friday. There were 6,050 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the federal health ministry said on Friday, continuing a sharp upward trend since a lull last year. At a meeting to review the degree to which the states are prepared, health minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked them to ramp up genome testing and conduct mock drills in hospitals, a government statement said. Active cases totalled more than 28,300 with 14 deaths during the last 24 hours, taking the country's official death toll from the disease to 530,943. India has recorded more than 44.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic three years ago, the third-highest tally after the United States and China.

☆ Exonerated 'Central Park 5' member mimics Trump's 1980s ad that called for the return of the death penalty
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Isobel Van Hagen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

One of the "Central Park Five" mimicked a 1989 full-page ad that Trump placed calling for the death penalty. In the mock ad, posted on Twitter, Salaam referred to Trump's recent indictment and arrest. In the ad, which was posted on Twitter, Yusef Salaam mocked Trump's recent indictment and arrest while imitating the statement Trump advertised in multiple New York newspapers. Salaam was one of five Black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of the assault and rape of a young white woman in Central Park. Salaam, however, said he ultimately wished Trump "no harm," even though the former president had "effectively called for my death and the death of four other innocent children."

☆ No Ivy League degree? No problem: This Wall Street vet climbed his way up the ranks of Goldman Sachs after graduating from SUNY Albany
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Emmalyse Brownstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Ask anyone on Wall Street and they will tell you that Goldman Sachs is one of the top places to build a career as an investment banker. In an effort to diversify recruiting sources and its workforce, Wall Street generally has been expanding the schools from which it recruits. Still, Alfieri's experience can still prove valuable to today's Wall Street hopefuls. There he met Vincent Cisternino, who also had dreams of working on Wall Street. Having started his career during the financial crisis, his advice to today's Wall Street upstarts is to stay positive and persevere.

☆ Cramer: Here's why I plan to trim some stocks at this stage of the bull market
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +17 min

Back when bulls were everywhere From the time the great bull market began in 1982 until the financial collapse of 2007, we pretty much assumed stocks would always go higher. We often forget what the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 was all about. A runaway bull market in all but banks — which are actually fueling the rally with their own ineptitude. My closing take, though, is that we have at last shaken off the ghosts of the Great Recession. But accept we are in a bull market and recognize that those who don't know it yet never will.

☆ Merriam-Webster dictionary pokes fun at Elon Musk's Twitter Blue subscription service
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk's Twitter Blue $8 monthly subscription service has attracted controversy in recent months. Merriam-Webster appeared to mock Twitter Blue with its own "Merriam-Webster Red." download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy PolicyMerriam-Webster appeared to poke fun at Elon Musk's Twitter Blue service on Tuesday, tweeting about its own parody subscription service. About two hours later, the country's oldest dictionary publisher said its joke subscription service had been discontinued. Musk announced Twitter Blue in November.

☆ Genetic study details complex ancestry of East Africa's Swahili people
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Radu Sigheti/File PhotoMarch 29 (Reuters) - A study of centuries-old DNA has deciphered the complex ancestry of coastal East Africa's Swahili people, revealing how a cosmopolitan and prosperous medieval civilization arose thanks in large part to women from Africa and men arriving from Persia. After around 1500 AD, the bulk of the Asian genetic contribution shifted to Arabian sources, the study showed. "However, in this case, because Bantu populations in East Africa often have more matrilineal tendencies, African women likely had more autonomy in choosing their partners for building a family. It may be, the researchers said, that the African women and their communities chose to form families with Persian princes or traders, reinforcing trade networks of African and Persian merchants. The evidence of Indian ancestry adds a surprising new layer to the history of the East African coast, Brielle added.

☆ Hillary Clinton's 2016 aides say they're too sad and scared for the country to really enjoy watching Trump's legal problems unfold
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Hillary Clinton's former aides say they can't enjoy Donald Trump's current legal problems. Trump called for Clinton to be jailed when the two squared off in the 2016 presidential race. But her former aides now say they're sad and scared for the country as he faces possible charges. Still, Trump managed to weave "crooked Hillary" references into his stump speech Saturday during his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas. A federal judge in January imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on him and his lawyer for filing a "completely frivolous" lawsuit against her and others, claiming they tried to rig the 2016 election in her favor.

☆ Microsoft introduces AI-powered cybersecurity assistant
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 28 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) on Tuesday launched a tool to help cybersecurity professionals identify breaches, threat signals and better analyze data, using OpenAI's latest GPT-4 generative artificial intelligence model. The tool, named 'Security Copilot', is a simple prompt box that will help security analysts with tasks like summarizing incidents, analyzing vulnerabilities and sharing information with co-workers on a pinboard. The assistant will use Microsoft's security-specific model, which the company described as "a growing set of security-specific skills" that is fed with more than 65 trillion signals every day. The launch comes amid a flurry of announcements from Microsoft to integrate the AI into its most popular offerings. Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Employees at the $2 billion e-commerce startup Rokt once saw a photo of a colleague in blackface during a company Zoom meeting
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Jack Newsham | Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An employee at e-commerce firm Rokt shared a photo of a colleague in blackface, shocking colleagues. An employee shared the photo, from an event in 2012, that appeared to show another employee in blackface and dressed as Michael Jackson. recalled one of more than a half-dozen former employees who told Insider they saw the photo. Rokt said that both employees completed a session of unconscious bias training with an expert facilitator, who also held a session for the whole company. Rokt"We were all, in America, like, 'We don't need to learn about blackface from you,'" the second former employee said.

☆ Russia fires supersonic anti-ship missile at mock target in Sea of Japan
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 28 (Reuters) - Russia's navy fired supersonic anti-ship missiles at a mock target in the Sea of Japan, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday. "In the waters of the Sea of Japan, missile ships of the Pacific Fleet fired Moskit cruise missiles at a mock enemy sea target," it said in a statement on its Telegram account. "The target, located at a distance of about 100 kilometres (62.14 miles), was successfully hit by a direct hit from two Moskit cruise missiles." The P-270 Moskit missile, which has the NATO reporting name or SS-N-22 Sunburn, is a medium-range supersonic cruise missile of Soviet origin, capable of destroying a ship within a range of up to 120 km (75 miles). Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Himani SarkarOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Cramer has dealt with a huge number of pitch decks in her time as an entrepreneur and VC. She has shared on LinkedIn her top tips for creating a successful pitch deck. "If you want to build a brand, your pitch deck needs to highlight that brand. If you want to build a tool, you need a pitch deck that shows mock-ups of the product," Cramer wrote. It allows senders much more control over who reads their pitch deck — and who can forward it.

☆ Trump tried to mock Ron DeSantis at his Texas rally. He was met with mostly silence from the audience.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Aditi Bharade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Ron DeSantis during his rally speech in Waco, Texas. Ron DeSantis during a rally in Waco, Texas, on Saturday were met with a muted response from his usually adoring audience. During his speech, Trump said DeSantis begged him for an endorsement with "tears in his eyes" when running for Florida governor in 2018. In contrast, Trump's rally crowd jeered loudly when he trash-talked other people. Representatives for Trump and DeSantis did not immediately reply to Insider's requests for comment made outside regular business hours.

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