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☆ The first Bob Ross work from ‘The Joy of Painting’ is on sale
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Aj Willingham | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —It’s hard to quantify the value of painter and all-around cultural icon Bob Ross, but $9.85 million is a good start. The very first on-air painting from the very first episode of Ross’ beloved series “The Joy of Painting” is looking for a new owner after being kept safe for decades by one of the show’s early volunteers. It has been verified as authentic by Bob Ross Inc.A close-up of the work shows Ross' iconic signature. Modern ArtifactModern Artifact owner Ryan Nelson said Ross’ work has seen increasing demand over the years. “The driving force behind the increased demand for Bob Ross paintings seems to be collectors themselves,” Nelson said in a statement.

Persons: CNN —, Bob Ross, Ross ’, Ross, ”, Ryan Nelson, ” Nelson, Nelson, it’s, ” Ross Organizations: CNN, Virginia PBS, Bob Ross Inc, PBS Locations: Minneapolis, Falls Church, Virginia

Bernardo Arévalo had been enjoying a quiet and predictable life for nearly a decade with his family in Geneva, working on pro-democracy issues for a nonprofit. That placid existence ended after he returned to his homeland, Guatemala, and got drawn into politics. Today, whenever Mr. Arévalo appears in public, he attracts throngs to hear him assail the government’s attacks on Guatemala’s democracy. Flanked by a well-armed security detail after receiving death threats following the assassination last week of a presidential candidate in Ecuador — which sent tremors across Latin America — Mr. Arévalo wears a bullet-resistant vest and travels in an armored S.U.V. Now, in what is building into a watershed moment for Central America’s most populous country, Mr. Arévalo, a Hebrew- and French-speaking polyglot with a doctorate in sociology, is on the cusp of winning the presidency in a runoff on Sunday — an implausible scenario just months ago.

Persons: Bernardo Arévalo, Arévalo, throngs Organizations: America’s Locations: Geneva, Guatemala, Ecuador, America

☆ Stock Market Today: Treasury Yields Pull Back; Bitcoin Drops
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Benchmark Treasury yields pulled back early Friday, after settling at decade-plus highs the previous afternoon. Surging borrowing costs have weighed on stocks, with key indexes pulling back Thursday to extend this month's selloff. Index futures were little changed on Friday morning. After a long stretch of placid trading, action in bitcoin has suddenly revived, with selling pressure picking up. The digital currency recently traded at slightly over $26,500.

Persons: bitcoin Organizations: Treasury

☆ ‘Lady Killer’ and ‘The Strange Mister Victor’ Review: A Golden Age
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Beatrice Loayza | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Compared to other heavy hitters from the golden age of French cinema — think Jean Renoir (“The Rules of the Game”) or Marcel Carné (“Children of Paradise”) — history hasn’t been kind to Jean Grémillon. This is especially the case in the United States, where the director’s work continues to be discussed among cinephiles like a special secret. “Lady Killer” stars the leonine Jean Gabin as Lucien, a womanizing legionnaire. Lucien falls hard for Madeleine and takes up a job at a print shop in Paris so that they can be together. In his early days, Grémillon was a violinist who played with an orchestra that provided accompaniment for silent films.

Persons: Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, Jean Grémillon, ”, Victor ”, “, Jean Gabin, Lucien, Madeleine, Mireille Balin, Grémillon Locations: United States, France, Paris

☆ The man Putin wants to take over Wagner was once admitted to the hospital blind drunk with $60,000 cash, military maps of Syria, and receipts for weapons: report
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-17 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Vladimir Putin wants to replace Yevgeny Prigozhin as head of Wagner, per The Telegraph. Troshev was once taken to the hospital blind drunk carrying cash, military maps, and receipts for weapons, it said. Troshev was admitted to the hospital blind drunk with some unusual items on him, per The Telegraph. Though Troshev had a placid call sign — "Grey Hair" — The Telegraph reported that he played a part in particularly brutal military operations. Troshev then worked for Omon, Russian riot police, which had the job of violently breaking up anti-government protests, The Telegraph reported.

Persons: Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner, Andrei Troshev —, Troshev, Putin, Andrei Troshev Organizations: Service, The Telegraph, Russian Federation, Islamic, Telegraph Locations: Wall, Silicon, Russian, Syria, Islamic State, Palmyra, St Petersburg, Soviet, Chechnya, Bakhmut, Ukraine

The greenback was down 0.18% at 1104 GMT to 144.44 yen , after rising 0.27% on Monday. However, the yen remained close to last week's almost eight-month low of 145.07 per dollar, which prompted Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki to warn against excessive yen selling. Market activity was relatively subdued with U.S. markets closed for the July 4 public holiday. Across currency markets, investors remained on watch for possible intervention by Japanese authorities to stem yen losses. Tan said the dollar is likely to rise past 150 yen, which would make intervention "more likely than not".

Persons: Shunichi Suzuki, Alvin Tan, Masato Kanda, Janet Yellen, Charu, Tan, Harry Robertson, Ankur Banerjee, Kevin Buckland, Shri Navaratnam, Emma Rumney, Christina Fincher Organizations: LONDON, Japan's Finance, U.S, Federal, U.S ., Asia FX, RBC Capital Markets, Reserve Bank of Australia, Australian, Treasury, Reuters, Saxo Markets, Japan, Bank, Bank of, Thomson Locations: SINGAPORE, Asia, Bank of Japan, London, Singapore

☆ Wes Anderson’s Secret Weapon: The Camera Moves of Sanjay Sami
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Melena Ryzik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

And what I thought is this character is going to come out and not just set the stage for this convention they’re doing, but more to set the stage for the decade. Then, Jeffrey comes to us, and then Jeffrey goes over here, and we go over there. And Jeffrey goes over here, and we go here. And Jeffrey goes over here, we move around side to side. So you can slide forward and back and side to side, but it’s an extremely complex rig invented by our key grip Sanjay Sami.

Persons: Wes Anderson, I’m, Jeffrey Wright, I’ve, ”, we’ve, Jeffrey, you’re, Sanjay Sami, “, Dinah Campbell, It’s, they’ve Organizations: ‘, “ Locations: ‘ Asteroid

☆ Ukraine's dam collapse is both a fast-moving disaster and a slow-moving ecological catastrophe
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Alexander Ermochenko | ReutersThe destruction of the Kakhovka Dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea. The Kakhovka Dam was the last in a system of six Soviet-era dams on the river, which flows from Belarus to the Black Sea. When Russian forces seized the Kakhovka Dam, the whole system fell into neglect. Rainbow-colored slicks already coat the murky, placid waters around flooded Kherson, the capital of southern Ukraine's province of the same name. "The canal that supplied our water reservoir has also stopped flowing."

Persons: Alexander Ermochenko, Zelenskyy, Trudeau, Putin, Kateryna Filiuta, Dmytro Neveselyi, we'll Organizations: Ukraine Nature Conservation, Russian, Associated Press, Agriculture, Farmers Locations: Nova, Russia, Ukraine, Hola, Kherson, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus, Ukraine's province, Kherson province, Maryinske

☆ ‘Reality’ Review: An Unusual Suspect
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Amy Nicholson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Reality Winner’s life changed six years ago in June when F.B.I. agents showed up at her home in Georgia. I’m giving this background because Tina Satter’s gripping docudrama “Reality” doesn’t. Satter strips the political context from that first F.B.I. Working from the official transcript, Satter finds that the young woman is primarily concerned with the safety of her pets.

Persons: she’d, Miranda, Tina Satter’s, Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchánt Davis, “, ” Organizations: U.S . Air Force Locations: Georgia

☆ What College Students Need Is a Taste of the Monk’s Life - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Molly Worthen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

“On college campuses, these students think they’re all being individuals, going out and being wild,” he said. Undergraduates at Belmont Abbey College outside Charlotte, N.C., share their quadrangles, sidewalks and even their chess clubs with Benedictine monks who live in an abbey in the middle of campus. Their presence compels even non-Christians on campus to think seriously about vocation and the meaning of life. “Either what the monks are doing is valuable and based on something true, or it’s completely ridiculous,” Mr. Lutz said. The point is not to take away the phone for its own sake but to take away our primary sources of distraction.

☆ How 'the dress' broke the internet — and pushed Facebook to force everyone into their own filter bubble
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Ben Smith | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

In 2015, a BuzzFeed staffer posted a picture of a dress with the caption, "What color is this dress?" The following is an excerpt from "Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral" by Ben Smith. Jonah saw it differently. From TRAFFIC: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral by Ben Smith. Copyright © Ben Smith, 2023.

Koume, a 5-year-old mongrel, was handed an official letter of appreciation by local fire officials at a special ceremony last month for her valiant work at a horse riding club in Wakaba-ku, Chiba City. According to the horse riding club, a man in his fifties collapsed at the riding park on February 25. Koume, a usually placid pup, raised the alarm with her barks which then allowed people to rush to the man’s aid. “Koume is usually quiet and barks only under rare circumstances,” Yuna Maruo, a 23-year-old riding instructor who took part in saving the man that day, said. “But when an emergency arises, Koume does bark.”The Wakaba Fire Department said life saving treatment can be given to heart attack victims if people are alert to “the slightest change.”The appreciation letter given to Koume by Wakaba Fire Department to recognize her life-saving effort.

☆ Factbox: Alberta wildfire shuts in at least 145,000 boepd of Canadian production
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 8 (Reuters) - Canada's main oil-producing province Alberta on Saturday declared a provincial state of emergency due to wildfires, shutting in at least 145,000 of oil equivalent per day (boepd). Tens of thousands of Albertans have been forced to evacuate their homes as unprecedented wildfires rage on in Alberta. It added that about 50,000 boepd of production has been temporarily curtailed since the evening of May 5. Crescent Point Energy Corp (CPG.TO)Crescent Point said about 45,000 boepd of production in the Kaybob Duvernay region has been temporarily shut in with a plan to restart production once safe and permitted to do so. Vermilion Energy Inc (VET.TO)Vermilion Energy said it had temporarily shut in about 30,000 boepd of production and that it was assessing the risk to its operations.

☆ Alberta wildfire shuts in at least 2% of Canadian energy production
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

It added that about 50,000 boepd of production has been temporarily curtailed since the evening of May 5. Crescent Point Energy Corp (CPG.TO)Crescent Point said about 45,000 boepd of production in the Kaybob Duvernay region has been temporarily shut in with a plan to restart production once safe and permitted to do so. NuVista Energy Ltd (NVA.TO)The company said it has temporarily shut in and depressured all operations proximal to the ongoing fires in the Grande Prairie region. Vermilion Energy Inc (VET.TO)Vermilion Energy said it had temporarily shut in about 30,000 boepd of production and that it was assessing the risk to its operations. Cenovus Energy Inc (CVE.TO)Cenovus said it has shut-in production and brought plants down in some areas of its conventional business.

Though stocks remain near their 2023 highs, some investors now believe those factors will soon start taking a greater toll, limiting further upside. The market may be "back in the soup on the banking crisis," said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services. Many investors don’t expect that calm to continue, as a battle over raising the $34 trillion U.S. debt ceiling looms. In the six rate-hiking cycles since 1984, the S&P 500 has posted an average three-month return of 8% following the peak funds rate, Goldman Sachs strategists wrote. However, the S&P 500 is already trading well above its valuation at the end of any cycle except the one ending in 2000, when the S&P 500 declined despite a Fed pause, the bank said.

☆ California College Town Rocked by Stabbings That Remain a Mystery
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Shawn Hubler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A placid Northern California college town has been rocked by a series of stabbings in which two people have been killed and a third critically wounded in less than a week. Two days later, a University of California, Davis student was stabbed to death in a different park. The latest attack occurred on Monday night, severely injuring a woman sleeping in a homeless encampment near railroad tracks just east of downtown. In a 911 call shortly before midnight, the woman told dispatchers that she had been stabbed through the wall of her tent. The authorities are seeking a thin, curly haired young man, between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall, wearing a dark sweatshirt and black Adidas pants.

☆ The stock market is quiet right now. Perhaps too quiet.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Joe Ciolli | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

By multiple measures, the stock market is the calmest it's been since the end of 2021. JPMorgan quant guru Marko Kolanovic says the equity market is far too placid right now, considering all the headwinds it's facing. He says technical factors are suppressing volatility in the face of rising rates, credit tightening, and macro risks. 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 PolicyThe stock market is awfully quiet right now. Those rising rates have led to a tightening of credit availability, a dynamic reinforced by recent banking-system turmoil.

☆ Explaining the relative calm of the stock market as the Fed hikes rates into a mini-financial panic
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Michael Santoli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

.SPX 1Y mountain S & P 500, 1-year So, are equities under-reacting to a badly contorted bond market, a potentially trapped Fed and faltering economy? This has allowed the S & P 500 excluding financials and real estate to outperform the headline index by a couple percentage points year to date. Microsoft alone has added some $240 billion in market value since that date, more than the entire market cap of the S & P 500 regional-banks sub sector. Only about 60% of the S & P 500 members are positive over the past six months even as the index is up 7.5%, a loss of internal energy. The flash S & P Global U.S. Composite PMI for March, reported Friday, was up to 53.3 from 50.1 the prior month and above the 49.5 forecast, a reading S & P says is consistent with around a 2% real GDP pace.

☆ Fed Rate Policy Is Shaking Up the World of Muni Debt
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Heather Gillers | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Concerns that the Federal Reserve will continue to increase rates have affected municipal fund inflows. The markets’ bumpy start to 2023 is causing whiplash even in the historically placid realm of state and local government debt. Municipal bonds this month have erased nearly all of their January gains after fears of rate increases cooled investor appetites. “It has been a roller coaster,” said Nathan Will , head of municipal credit research at Vanguard Group.

☆ You Don’t Have to Be Complicit in Our Culture of Destruction
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +12 min

Photo illustration by Bráulio Amado Talk You Don’t Have to Be Complicit in Our Culture of Destruction“People feel a kind of longing for a belonging to the natural world,” says the author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer. I am deeply aware of the fact that my view of the natural world is colored by my home place. But I don’t think that’s the same as romanticizing nature. Of course the natural world is full of forces that are so-called destructive. The story that we have to illuminate is that we don’t have to be complicit with destruction.

[1/4] Workers take down a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration banner near the location of a shooting that took place during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration, in Monterey Park, California, U.S. January 22, 2023. The city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles was holding its first in-person celebration of the Lunar New Year since the COVID-19 pandemic began. "Monterey Park should have had a night of joyful celebration of the Lunar New Year. Monterey Park is around 7 miles (11 km) from downtown Los Angeles. Reporting by Tim Reid in Monterey Park and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ As TikToks about Antarctic tourism go viral, some worry about the environmental costs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Morgan Sung | Morgan Sung Is A Trends Reporter For Nbc News Digital. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

The Drake Passage is the body of water between the southernmost tip of Chile and Antarctica's northern peninsula. Travel company Oceanwide Expeditions describes the Drake Passage as a "lively little waterway" and the "gateway to the Antarctic." Many TikTok users expressed fascination with the Antarctic travel content, but were also perplexed with the sudden influx of videos about visiting the largely barren continent. In wake of the influx of travel content about Antarctica, some on TikTok have raised concerns over the environmental impact of Antarctic tourism. In a post responding to Ramos' video about the Drake Passage, TikTok creator jijis.m0m showed screenshots of articles about pollution in Antarctica.

In the central city of Wuhan, where the pandemic erupted in late 2019, there were more signs of life with some areas busy with commuters on Friday. "They've relaxed the measures but still, there’s nobody about," said a taxi driver surnamed Wang, who didn't want to give his full name. But there are signs the reassuring new message has still to convince many of the country's 1.4 billion people. China's current tally of 5,235 COVID-related deaths is a tiny fraction of its population of 1.4 billion, and extremely low by global standards. Some experts have warned that toll could rise above 1.5 million if the exit is too hasty.

☆ World Cup 1950: When the US beat England in the greatest sporting upset of all time
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN —On one side of the pitch was a team made up some of the biggest names in world soccer. Described as a “real bunch of ragamuffins” by the author Geoffrey Douglas, the US beat a star-studded England side 1-0 at the 1950 World Cup. I mean, a plucky group of underdogs just beat what was generally universally recognized as the best team in the world,” Holroyd told CNN Sport. PA Images/ReutersAnd so when the 1950 World Cup approached, there was little national interest or coverage of the US’ participation. On the other side of the pond, hopes were sky high for a star-studded England team.

☆ Some People Are Getting 14 Times the Average Savings Account Rate. Here Are the Best Offers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

By Martha C. WhiteAfter years of earning essentially zilch on your cash, it’s finally possible to see a real return in your savings account. (Capital One 360 Performance Savings remains our pick for Best Overall Savings Account.) Strategies to find the best savings ratesThere are a few places you can search for a savings account that offers high interest—and a couple of caveats to keep in mind. Try an aggregatorSites that aggregate banking offers can be a good place to start your search for a high-yield savings account. With lower overhead than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts, these businesses have more leeway to offer higher rates on deposits.

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