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☆ Fugazetta Is a Better Cheesy Bread
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Sam Sifton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

You can top the bread with fruit or herbs (or fruit and herbs). I like to split the bread and layer the interior with mortadella and pistachio cream, as they do at All’Antico Vinaio in Manhattan. In Argentina, home to a huge population of Italian immigrants, focaccia dough can be used to make fugazza, a kind of pizza hybrid topped with mozzarella, provolone and shaved onions. As Ham El-Waylly explains in his new recipe, some Argentines dial their fugazza up a few notches and make fugazetta (above), a kind of fugazza calzone, with the dough sandwiching the cheese before it’s crimped shut and topped with shaved onions. These soften and char in the heat of the oven, and offer a nice contrast to the molten cheese within.

Persons: Ham, Waylly, crimped Locations: Manhattan, Argentina

☆ HIV alarm in Uganda as anti-gay law forces LGBT 'lockdown'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

REUTERS/Abubaker LubowaKAMPALA, June 8 (Reuters) - The HIV/AIDS treatment centre in Kampala is almost empty, days after Uganda enacted one of the most draconian anti-gay laws on Earth. "The LGBT community in Uganda is on lockdown now," he said. 'AFRAID TO LEAVE HOME'A rare patient visiting the Kampala clinic said he despaired at the new legislation. In the 2021/2022 fiscal year, PEPFAR provided $418.4 million in funding to Uganda, more than half of the country's HIV/AIDS treatment budget. The Ugandan bill toughened up an existing British colonial-era law, under which gay sex was already illegal.

Persons: Andrew Tendo, Yoweri Museveni, it's, Mary Borgman, Museveni, Joe Biden, PEPFAR, Borgman, Lillian Mworeko, Ugandans, Museveni didn't criminalise, Tendo, Aaron Ross, Pravin Organizations: Ice Breakers Uganda, REUTERS, Uganda AIDS Commission, US, AIDS Relief, National Security Council, East African, International, Thomson Locations: Makindye, Salaama, Kampala, Uganda, Abubaker, KAMPALA

June 6 (Reuters) - It's a tense time for bitcoin investors. The capricious cryptocurrency's been uncommonly quiet over the past four weeks, bound in the range of $28,452 and $25,800. Bitcoin's volatility index is near 64, well below the 2023 peak of 116.5 touched in January, according to CryptoCompare. "Trading volatility, buying options in the absence of a price move, that's what people might do in this market." Market positioning indicates the maximum pain level for the June 2023 options expiry for bitcoin is at around $24,000, which could act as a support or resistance level, according to analysts at Bitfinex.

Persons: CryptoCompare, Noelle Acheson, Matthew Weller, Luuk Strijers, Strijers, Thomas Kralow, Medha Singh, Lisa Pauline Mattackal, Pravin Organizations: bitcoin, BULLS, Kralow, Pravin Char, Thomson, Reuters Locations: Bengaluru

☆ Singapore university unveils Asia’s largest timber building
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Oscar Holland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Sprawling across 43,500 square meters (468,000 square feet), it is now Asia’s largest timber building, by floor area. Some countries now even allow for high-rises (or “plyscrapers”), like Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s 25-story Ascent, which at 284 feet, is the world’s tallest mass timber structure. Advocates for mass timber point to the relatively slow and predictable rate at which the material burns. Many of the purported benefits of mass timber are, however, environmental. If a tree is then turned into mass timber, this embodied carbon is sequestered, or “locked in,” rather than being returned to the atmosphere.

Persons: Lee Kuan Yew, sunlit, Gaia, Toyo Ito, “, ”, ” Ito, Ito, Ho Teck Hua, ’ Organizations: Singapore CNN —, Nanyang Technological University’s, Singapore, CNN, RSP, Nanyang Technological, NTU, Construction Authority, NTU Singapore Locations: Singapore, Singapore CNN — Singapore, ”, Nanyang, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Europe, NTU Singapore, Milwaukee, Asia

Guardia Civil/Handout via REUTERSMADRID, June 1 (Reuters) - Spanish police raided three clandestine tobacco factories early this year, seizing nearly 40 million euros ($44 million) worth of tobacco leaf and illicit cigarettes. This operation is one of dozens across the EU that regional policing and anti-fraud agencies say have driven seizures of illicit cigarettes to record levels. It may have been further accelerated by the war in Ukraine, which for years has been a production hub and transit route for illicit tobacco, OLAF added. TOBACCO INVESTIGATORSThe industry has responded by hiring investigators to research illicit operations and share intelligence with European authorities, executives at Japan Tobacco, BAT and Imperial Brands told Reuters. "A good many workers from Ukraine have been found in these illegal factories," Japan Tobacco's Byrne said about counterfeiting operations across the EU.

Persons: who'd, OLAF, Cyrille Olive, Philip Morris, Olive, Europol, Vincent Byrne, Byrne, Japan Tobacco's Winston, Alex McDonald, Ernesto Bianchi, McDonald, Japan Tobacco's Byrne, They're, they're, Richa Naidu, Emma Pinedo, Emilio Parodi, Matt Scuffham Organizations: Guardia Civil, REUTERS, Spanish, EU, BAT, Imperial Brands, Japan Tobacco, Philip Morris International, Reuters, Marlboro, America's Dunhill, Supplies, Investigators, Mobile, Thomson Locations: Seville, Spain, Guardia, REUTERS MADRID, Alfaro, Europe, Ukraine, British American, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Denmark, Czech Republic, Ireland, Japan, China, Asia, EU, Russia, Belarus, Roda de Ter, Barcelona, Spanish, Italy, Pomezia, Russian, Moldovan, London, Madrid, Milan

loadingWhile major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have made efforts to prohibit and remove deepfakes, their effectiveness at policing such content varies. In total, about 500,000 video and voice deepfakes will be shared on social media sites globally in 2023, DeepMedia estimates. Jon Smith, Republican chair for Michigan's 5th Congressional district, is holding several educational meetings so his allies can learn to use AI for social media and ad generation. Political consultancies are also seeking to harness AI, further muddying the line between real and unreal. Democratic polling and strategy group Honan Strategy Group is meanwhile trying to develop an AI survey bot.

But he'll stay home on Election Day should Trump win his party's nomination to take on Joe Biden in 2024. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, the size of the Ukrainian-American community outstrips Trump's margin of victory in 2016, according to the analysis. During a CNN town hall last week, Trump refused to say if he wanted Ukraine to win its war with Russia, when questioned about the conflict. Neither politician responded to requests for comments about the Ukraine war, nor did the Republican National Committee. Democratic U.S. Representative Susan Wild, who won Stawnyczyj's district by less than 5,000 votes in 2022, said that courting the Ukrainian-American vote would be crucial.

☆ Traitor next door? Fear stalks Kherson after Russian occupation ends
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Elizabeth Piper | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Nonetheless, her garden walls in the Ukrainian city of Kherson are covered with graffiti marking her out as a Russian collaborator. Fear and suspicion stalk the streets of Kherson, a southern port that was occupied by Russian troops for over eight months before they were driven out by Ukrainian forces in November. More than 5,300 collaboration cases have been registered across the country, according to the prosecutor general's website. Cases of collaboration can point to the tough choices people have to make when trying to survive under occupation. He left the business to his workers, who had to register with the Russians and take Russian passports, and fears they could be prosecuted once the occupation ends.

☆ Charm gets $53 million to turn corn leftovers into oil and inject it into abandoned oil and gas wells
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

The 112,000 tons of carbon dioxide that Charm will remove is more than ten times the total quantity of carbon dioxide that has been removed so far with human techniques. "It's sort of a brilliant, but accidental, discovery," Reinhardt told CNBC. "It's a little it's a little odd or unusual, but uniquely American, in that we're basically pumping barbecue sauce into old oil and gas wells," Reinhardt told CNBC. There are about 2 million abandoned oil and gas wells in the U.S., and owner-operators are eager to find another use for them, Reinhardt told CNBC. We will run out of waste biomass long before we before we exhaust the subsurface capacity," Reinhardt told CNBC.

Pepe, a coin inspired by an anthropomorphized frog popular in internet memes, leapt nearly 7,000% in the 17 days after its April 16 launch, hitting a market value of $1.8 billion by May 5, according to data tracker CoinGecko. "It's almost like, if the market is not moving up fast enough, traders find these smaller tokens to trade with." Since its launch in April, the token linked to Pepe the frog has raced up the list of meme coins in terms of market value. Binance says on its website that pepe has "no utility" or "value support mechanism". The centralized listings also opened the door for derivative trading for pepe, with leveraged exposures and volatility pushing Ethereum transaction fees higher, Devens said.

CNN —Western Myanmar is being battered by strong winds and heavy rain after Cyclone Mocha made landfall on the Bay of Bengal coastline Sunday. Local residents check the damages after Cyclone Mocha's crashed ashore in Kyauktaw in Myanmar's Rakhine state on May 14, 2023. Two children stand under a roadside shelter to protect from rain before Cyclone Mocha hits in Sittwe, Rakhine State, on Sunday, May 14, 2023. APTropical Cyclone Mocha has intensified to the equivalent of a category 5 Atlantic hurricane. Most live in bamboo and tarpaulin shelters perched on hilly slopes that are vulnerable to strong winds, rain, and landslides.

Since forming in the Bay of Bengal early Thursday, tropical Cyclone Mocha has intensified to a high-end Category 4 Atlantic hurricane, with sustained winds of 240kph (150mph). Tropical cyclones (also known as hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms depending on ocean basin and intensity), feed off ocean heat. They need temperatures of at least around 27 degrees Celsius (80 Fahrenheit Fahrenheit) to form, and the warmer the ocean, the more moisture they can take up. The waters in the Bay of Bengal are currently around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit Fahrenheit), about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average for May. Climate-change fueled sea-level rise adds to the risks, worsening storm surges from tropical cyclones and allowing them to travel further inland.

☆ How Russians end up in a far-right militia fighting in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

[1/3] Danil Yugoslavsky gets ready at Civic Council’s Warsaw office, hours before crossing into Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland, January 15, 2023. Max Smit, who crossed into Ukraine with Yugoslavsky, had never held a weapon before he joined the RVC. And there are some who think that fighting for the motherland is their cause," said Galeotti, naming the Rusich Group and ENOT Corp among far-right paramilitary units fighting on Russia's side. That's still a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and volunteers fighting in Ukraine, and the thousands of foreigners that have been fighting Russian forces there. According to Sokolov, RVC fighters received regular salaries from the Ukrainian defence ministry.

Reuters interviews with Kar and a dozen other voters in Antakya reflected anger over what some viewed as a slow initial government response to the disaster. The voices are a small snapshot of Antakya and the wider area of southern Turkey hit by the earthquake, a region home to nine million voters and traditionally an Erdogan stronghold. Only 4.3% of voters viewed the quake as Turkey's biggest problem last month, with most more concerned by an economy racked by rampant inflation. Nearby, excavators resound as they demolish some of the 80-90% of buildings estimated to have suffered quake damage. The opposing sides present very different narratives about Erdogan and his government's response to the disaster.

☆ Inside a Kenyan starvation cult and its tragic end in a forest of death
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Duncan Miriri | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Mackenzie, 50, is in police custody and has yet to be required to enter a plea to any charge related to the mass graves, which are still being exhumed. HUNDREDS STILL MISSINGThe death toll stands at 109 so far, with 101 found in mass graves and eight people found alive who later died. On April 13, police acting on a tip-off returned to the forest and found 15 emaciated people lying in the forest, according to police who said four of them were so weak they died before reaching hospital. On April 21, they began exhuming mass graves. Charo said he was horrified last month when he learned about the mass graves found in the forest.

Even gaining qualifications in Italy didn't help Abhishek, a 26-year-old migrant from India who got a master's degree in mechanical engineering at Turin's Polytechnic University last year. Italy, which is also contending with an exodus of skilled nationals to stronger economies, needs qualified immigrants to fill growing skilled labour shortages, many economists say. In 2023, work permits will be granted to around 83,000 non-EU migrants, according to government data, less than a third of the 277,000 who applied for them. Barbera at Turin University said the lack of migrants in skilled professions has become entrenched and hard to reverse. "Migrants in Italy have virtually no access to the middle class," he said.

☆ Chipotle is trying to make life easier for its employees with digital tipping, fast-cooking grills, and streamlining a complicated TikTok menu hack
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chipotle rolled out changes to its restaurants to make employees' jobs easier, its CEO said. The changes include faster-cooking grills, digital tipping, and a TikTok-inspired quesadilla. The chain unveiled the changes, from faster cooking times for meats to digital tipping, over the last few months. Jobs working the grill are "one of the hardest positions to train" at the average Chipotle restaurant, Niccol said when an analyst asked about the new grills. Chipotle also started offering digital tipping at its stores over the last few months "as part of our ongoing effort to enhance our crewmember benefits," Niccol said.

They are among the discordant calls made by Spanish and EU bureaucrats as Spain's drive to hand out 77 billion euros ($84 billion) in grants from EU pandemic recovery funds becomes mired in complexity, according to interviews with business associations, government officials, companies and consultants. Spain is the EU pilot project for disbursing grants from the largest stimulus package in the bloc's history, an overall pot of 724 billion euros, including loans. A year into the disbursement process, about 23.5 billion euros had been awarded as of December last year, according to the latest figures published by the government last month. That's a sluggish pace, given the EU and Spain have set a deadline of the end of this year to award all 77 billion euros. Meanwhile, only about 9 billion euros have actually reached the businesses awarded funds, according to calculations by the Esade Centre for Economic Policy, a Madrid-based think-tank that tracks the pandemic recovery cash.

April 18 (Reuters) - Beleaguered bitcoin miners are finally feeling the spring sunshine after a cold, hard crypto winter. At the current bitcoin price, these companies' cash flows have substantially improved and most of them should have no problem paying their obligations," said Jaran Mellerud, analyst at bitcoin mining services company Luxor. Bitcoin mining is the process by which a network of computers validates a block of transactions on the blockchain. "The bitcoin price increase has bought these companies time, but it would be detrimental for these companies if it were to fall back down to $20,000," he said. A rapid rise in power prices or a fast fall in bitcoin could usher in a new cold spell.

These kind of megadeals are at the vanguard of billions of dollars of annual spending on classic cars globally in a wave of investment in this alternative asset. "The track record of the past 30 years tells us classic cars have become a financial asset class we want our clients to have in their portfolios." [1/5] A general view of the classic car collection of Florian Zimmermann, owner of over 300 classic cars, in a warehouse in Lindau, Germany, April 5, 2023. "Electrification will favour classic cars," said Cristiano Bolzoni, head of Maserati's vintage car unit Maserati Classiche. "The classic car community has changed tremendously over the past five to 10 years," Zimmermann said.

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File PhotoApril 11 (Reuters) - Investors are finally set to gain access to more than $33 billion of ether this week under a planned revamp of the blockchain. A new software upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain, dubbed Shapella, will let market players redeem their "staked ether" - coins they have deposited and locked up on the network over the past three years in return for interest. About 15% of all ether is staked, totaling $33.73 billion in market value, according to data from Dune Analytics. "It seems unlikely, therefore, that much of the staked ether will be sold," Rangar added. Following the upgrade, staked ether will no longer be locked up on the blockchain, so investors may be more willing to stake coins.

REUTERS/Henry NichollsApril 8 (Reuters) - As the fortunes of Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit were crashing to Earth last month, a little-known investor called Matthew Brown appeared offering a $200 million rescue. Virgin Group, which owns 75% of Virgin Orbit, also declined to comment for this article. The group is providing financing to Virgin Orbit as the satellite launch company seeks a buyer in bankruptcy. Asked about this, Brown told Reuters he structured deals to protect investor confidentiality with a preference for "laying low below the radar." Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday.

April 4 (Reuters) - Even as bitcoin flies high, investors are keeping their options open, judging by a record race to derivatives. Most options traders are betting on bitcoin prices jumping higher, with open interest in call options at 206,979 contracts on Deribit, more than double the bearish put options of 93,857. "We have reached the same levels of open interest as 2021 at half the prices, which means we have doubled." Options contracts give their buyers the right, but not an obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a fixed price in the future. Open interest in ether on Deribit features 1.7 million call options versus 656,158 puts.

Yet investors aiming to amp up their bets face an ominous obstacle: a lack of liquidity that could trigger wild price swings. Slippage, a liquidity measure describing how much prices change between the placement and execution of a trade, has also increased. The vanishing liquidity can be traced back to the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange and hedge fund Alameda Research. Until then, "liquidity is probably going to get worse and worse", said Joseph Edwards, investment adviser at Enigma Securities. "Even if some players haven't left the place, they are on the sidelines right now because of what's happening with banking turmoil," Edwards said.

LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Binance founder Changpeng Zhao could never be accused of thinking small. The 46-year-old CEO didn't waver in his belief as he built up his crypto exchange. Binance and Zhao did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Binance became the world's biggest crypto exchange within six months, and now accounts for about 60% of global crypto trading volumes, according to research firm CryptoCompare. While Binance has hired widely from the traditional financial and regulatory worlds in recent years, Zhao's tight control over his company has continued.

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