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☆ Self-exiled Philippine communist leader Sison dies at 83
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/4] Jose Maria Sison, founder of Philippine Communist Party, reacts after he was released from Scheveningen prison in the Netherlands September 13, 2007. REUTERS/Ronald FleurbaaijMANILA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison died on Friday night at the age of 83 after a two-week confinement in a hospital in the Netherlands, his party said on Saturday. Sison is the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, whose military wing - the New People's Army (NPA) - has been waging an armed rebellion in one of the world's longest-running insurgencies. The self-exiled communist leader has lived in Europe since the late 1980s, after his release from jail following the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose namesake son was elected president in a May election this year. The party said Sison died peacefully at around 8:40 p.m. (1240 GMT) on Friday after being confined in the hospital in Utrecht.

☆ Senate MAGA mutineers work on new ways to punish Mitch McConnell
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Some Senate Republicans recently tried and failed to strip Mitch McConnell of his leadership post. Ted Cruz is among the conservatives determined to "stand up and fight" against business as usual. He called any such compromise "indefensible," and urged others to also dig in their heels so House Republicans have a better negotiating position next year once their narrow majority takes effect. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to fend off House conservatives determined to deny him his dream of becoming speaker, has also been pushing to quash any lame duck breakthroughs. "Any Republican that's out there trying to work with them is wrong," McCarthy recently said on Fox News.

☆ Senate MAGA mutineers incensed their red wave never came work on new ways to punish Mitch McConnell
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. health official celebrated and vilified as the face of the country's COVID-19 pandemic response, used his final White House briefing on Tuesday to denounce division and promote vaccines. True to form, Fauci used his final press briefing to strongly encourage Americans to get COVID vaccines and booster shots, and touted the effectiveness of masks, all of which became partisan totems in the United States. NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci joins White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. November 22, 2022. He made his first appearance at the White House press briefing in 2001, according to the broadcaster C-SPAN. Democrats accused Trump of presiding over a disjointed response to the pandemic and of disregarding advice from public health experts including Fauci.

Summary Griner faces penal colony after losing drugs appealIn Russian system, inmates made to work long hours for scant payThreat of harsh punishment for breaking trivial rulesLanguage barrier makes ordeal even harder for foreignersLONDON, Nov 3, (Reuters) - Tedious manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care - such are the conditions awaiting U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she lost her appeal last week against a nine-year drug sentence. The first thing to understand, Alyokhina said in an interview, is that a penal colony is no ordinary prison. The quite cynical thing about this work is that prisoners usually sew police uniforms and uniforms for the Russian army, almost without salary." A more recent penal colony detainee, Yelena, described a similar regime to that experienced by Alyokhina a decade ago. LANGUAGE BARRIERFor a foreigner with little or no Russian, it's harder to navigate the system and deal with the isolation.

☆ Insiders cast doubt on Warner Bros. Discovery's plans after it axed, then reinstated, a revered TV writers' workshop. It highlights a 'huge crisis' facing Hollywood creatives.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Elaine Low | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Discovery abruptly axed, then reinstated, its longstanding TV writers' training program. Numerous TV writers told Insider they would not have been able to establish their careers without the TV workshop. The WBTV workshops not only developed emerging talents, but also helped ease their way into paid work in Hollywood. But even with Zaslav examining every asset across the company to find a promised $3 billion in synergies, the WBTV writers' and directors' workshops seemed unlikely targets. "The training is just phenomenal," a third alum of the writers' workshop told Insider.

☆ Oh my gourd! Pumpkin spice trend is a $500 mln industry in U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-06 | by ( Eric Cox | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Oct 6 (Reuters) - From the perennial popularity of Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Lattes to the annual introduction of creative new pumpkin-related products, like Hefty's already sold-out pumpkin-scented trash bags, the brightly-colored crop seems to hold a special place in the hearts, minds and wallets of Americans. Nielsen data reveals Americans spend about half a billion dollars on pumpkin spice products every year. According to coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX.O), Pumpkin Spice Lattes earned the company its best sales week of all time when the drink was reintroduced to fans on Aug. 30. "Pumpkins also created a nice culture with pumpkin spice donuts, drinks, everything. "But those modern-day traditions actually date back to much older traditions of associating the pumpkin with a small family farm.

☆ Brazil’s Right-Wing Leader Spends on Poor Before Elections
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Luciana Magalhaes | Samantha Pearson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

RIO VERDE, Brazil—Toiling on the dusty plains of central Brazil, Edilamar Caetano and her husband had long been loyal supporters of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , the leftist front-runner in next month’s presidential elections whose own family worked the land as farmhands. In April, President Jair Bolsonaro , the former army captain who took office four years ago promising fiscal restraint and a smaller state, came to town. He gave Ms. Caetano and her husband, Wagner Vieira, a title to 84 acres they had been farming as squatters, delivering the paperwork personally with an awkward hug in a local ceremony.

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