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☆ Harris Often Sidesteps Her History-Making Potential. Walz Doesn’t.
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-07 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Tim Walz of Minnesota was powering through his usual talking points about protecting democracy and bolstering the economy, energizing a crowd of several dozen students from nearby historically Black colleges and universities. “I think for all of you, being in the heart of the H.B.C.U.s, the vice president doesn’t talk about the historic nature of her candidacy — she just does the work,” Mr. Walz said, as the crowd murmured its agreement. “But I think for all of us, there is a moment in time to understand what’s happening here. Ms. Harris, whose father is from Jamaica and whose mother is from India, rarely mentions her racial identity or gender on the campaign trail. Even when her opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, falsely claimed that Ms. Harris “happened to turn Black,” she criticized his comments without directly talking about race.

Persons: Tim Walz, doesn’t, —, ” Mr, Walz, Mr, Kamala Harris, Harris, Donald J, Trump, Harris “, ” Organizations: Gov Locations: Atlanta, Minnesota, Jamaica, India

The SAG-AFTRA actors’ union on Thursday called a strike against video game companies that use actors’ images or voices in games, echoing its broader strike against television and movie studios last year. The strike will start at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, after more than a year and a half of negotiations. Until the latest strike is resolved, members of the 160,000-person union will no longer “act” in video games produced by Activision Blizzard, WB Games, Electronic Arts and seven other companies covered by an interactive-media agreement. SAG-AFTRA’s demands are similar to those it sought from television and movie studios last year: higher wages and job protections from the threat of artificial intelligence. “We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I.

Persons: “ We’re, ” Fran Drescher, ” Organizations: SAG, Activision Blizzard, WB, Electronic Arts

☆ Senator Jon Tester, Facing Tough Re-Election Fight, Urges Biden to Drop Out
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-18 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Senator Jon Tester of Montana called on President Biden to drop his campaign for re-election on Thursday night, becoming the second sitting Democratic senator to publicly join the effort to push Mr. Biden out of the race. “I have worked with President Biden when it has made Montana stronger, and I’ve never been afraid to stand up to him when he is wrong,” Mr. Tester, a vulnerable incumbent whose opponent has sought to tie him tightly to Mr. Biden, said in a statement. “And while I appreciate his commitment to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek re-election to another term.”Mr. Tester’s Washington office said he was also endorsing an open process to select the nominee at the Democratic National Convention, rather than throwing his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Tester is locked in a tight re-election race of his own, and he needs all the distance from Mr. Biden he can get in his deep-red state. Even before Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance last month put the spotlight back on his age and mental acuity, Mr. Tester had kept him at arm’s length while working to appear bipartisan and appeal to moderate and Republican voters.

Persons: Jon Tester, Montana, Biden, I’ve, Mr, Tester’s, Kamala Harris, Biden’s, Tester Organizations: Democratic, Democratic National Convention, Republican Locations: Montana, Tester’s Washington

☆ Asked About Their Ages, Biden Deflects and Trump Brags About His Golf Skills
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-27 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Late in Thursday’s debate, President Biden, 81, and former President Donald J. Trump, 78, were asked the looming question: How could they assuage voters’ concerns about their ability to handle the presidency as they continue to age? Neither man’s answer may have been enough to push aside those qualms. Mr. Biden, who has faced the more nagging questions about his mental and physical acuity, addressed the concern briefly before shifting topics. “I spent half my career being criticized being the youngest person in politics,” he said, a common reframe making reference to his youth — 30 years old — when he first became a senator. This guy is three years younger, and a lot less competent.”Mr. Biden then spent the rest of his answer promoting his administration’s accomplishments, meandering through an anecdote about visiting South Korea to encourage semiconductor production in the United States.

Persons: Biden, Donald J, Trump, “, ”, Mr Locations: South Korea, United States

Kari Lake, a top ally of Donald J. Trump who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona, called on her supporters on Sunday to arm themselves ahead of an “intense” period leading up to the election, urging them to “strap on a Glock,” referring to a brand of firearm. “The next six months is going to be intense,” Ms. Lake said during a rally in Lake Havasu City. “We’re going to strap on our seatbelt. We’re going to put on our helmet — or your Kari Lake ball cap. We’re not going to have our Second Amendment taken away.

Persons: Kari Lake, Donald J, Trump, Lake, “ We’re, Kari, gesturing, we’re, We’re, ”, Lake’s, Alex Nicoll Organizations: Glock Locations: Arizona, Lake Havasu City

☆ Kyrsten Sinema Bows Out of Arizona Senate Race
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said on Tuesday that she would not seek re-election, ending more than a year of speculation about her political future and clearing the race for a traditional matchup between the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees. “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year,” she said in a video announcement. Ms. Sinema, a first-term senator who left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent, faced potentially long odds in another race. Her decision to bow out of the race now sets up a showdown directly between Representative Ruben Gallego and the eventual Republican nominee. Kari Lake, the former nominee for governor — and a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump who has championed his baseless election fraud theories — is the leading candidate in the Republican primary, though Mark Lamb, a sheriff, is also running.

Persons: Kyrsten Sinema, ”, Sinema, Ruben Gallego, Kari Lake, —, Donald J, Trump, Mark Lamb, Biden’s, Joe Manchin III Organizations: eventual Democratic, Democratic Party, Republican Locations: Arizona, West Virginia

Former President Donald J. Trump, long the dominant front-runner in the Republican nominating contest, has made it clear for months that he is itching to focus on a likely general election matchup between him and President Biden. On Saturday, he’ll campaign in Nevada, a critical battleground state. Off the trail on Friday, Ms. Haley assailed Mr. Trump as “unhinged” on Fox News as she continued to try and bait him into a one-on-one debate. Mr. Trump was in a New York City courtroom, but his campaign sent out email blasts pointing to articles that seemed to bolster the case that she should cede the race to him, and attacking her on immigration. “There’s one thing Americans know — Nikki will always put America last,” Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, wrote.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Biden, Nikki Haley, she’s, Haley, Mr, ”, “, — Nikki, ” Steven Cheung Organizations: Republican, Fox News, America, Trump Locations: Nevada, New York City

Straining to recover after a bruising defeat in Iowa, Gov. At the same time, the shift could put new pressure on Ms. Haley in South Carolina, where she once served as governor. As Mr. DeSantis’s team licked its wounds on Wednesday, his super PAC, Never Back Down, trimmed operations in several places, including Nevada. Other staff members were also laid off, including almost the entire online “war room” team, a person with knowledge of the matter said. It was unclear how many people in all lost their jobs.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Donald J, Trump, Haley Organizations: Gov, PAC Locations: Iowa, Florida, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada

“It’s not really a typical caucus because you do have a former president running,” Mr. Shaw said. “He does have the ability to come in and draw big crowds,” he said, adding that “that is not your typical Iowa caucus style.”Still, as Mr. Trump has sought to shore up support in the state, he, too, has made last-minute local pitches. In a video posted by Mr. Trump’s super PAC one day before the caucuses, Mr. Trump said he would “endorse ethanol” because “ethanol endorsed me”— though presented no specifics about what that would entail in terms of policy. The heightened attention on national priorities may not make much of a difference to Iowa in the long term. Iowa has influenced policy by forcing candidates to study up on the Farm Bill, a legislative package that oversees agricultural and food programs nationwide.

Persons: “ It’s, Mr, Shaw, “, ”, Trump, Barack Obama’s, Tom Vilsack, Obama, Biden, Terry Branstad, George W, Bush, — Organizations: Trump’s, Republican Locations: Iowa

☆ DeSantis Finishes His Iowa 99, Hoping for a Bump Against Trump
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-02 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ron DeSantis took the stage in Jasper County in Iowa on Saturday, heralding his appearance as the culmination of his tour of the state’s 99 counties, and hoping to inject enthusiasm into his well-funded but struggling presidential campaign. The Florida governor, who is running well behind the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, said he was fulfilling his campaign’s promise to complete the “Full Grassley” — so named because the state’s long-serving senator, Chuck Grassley, visits every Iowa county each year — and positioned himself as the candidate of humility, willing to travel the state and meet voters, in contrast to Mr. Trump, who has largely eschewed the retail politics of the state. “That should show you that I consider myself a servant, not a ruler,” Mr. DeSantis said, speaking to a crowd of several hundred voters inside the Thunderdome, a spacious restaurant and entertainment venue in Newton, about 30 miles east of Des Moines. “You’re not any better than the people that you are elected by.”The DeSantis campaign, which hung signs around the venue proclaiming a “Full DeSantis,” pointed out that each of the past three Republican winners of a contested Iowa caucus — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor — had also completed the 99-county circuit (though none of them ultimately won the Republican nomination).

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Donald J, Trump, Grassley ”, Chuck Grassley, ” Mr, DeSantis, “ You’re, ”, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, — Organizations: Republican Locations: Jasper County, Iowa, Florida, Newton, Des Moines, Ted Cruz of Texas, Arkansas

☆ Who Is Emmett Shear, OpenAI’s Interim Chief Executive?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Emmett Shear, the former chief executive of the livestreaming site Twitch, was named the interim chief executive of OpenAI on Sunday night, it might have seemed a curious choice. Mr. Shear, 40, an avid video game player, was viewed as a competent leader who steered Twitch through several transitions. Some employees and livestreamers also complained that his focus on maneuvering Twitch toward profitability through cutting costs was eroding the quality of the platform. He also knows Sam Altman, who was forced out of OpenAI by its board of directors on Friday. The two were in the same group at Y Combinator, the start-up fund that invested in both of their early companies.

Persons: Emmett Shear, livestreamers, Sam Altman Locations: OpenAI

☆ Uber Reports Record Ridership and Second Straight Quarterly Profit
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Uber on Tuesday reported financial results that showed its business was continuing to steadily chug along — and even turn a profit — as more riders and drivers used its platform than ever before. That was Uber’s second straight quarterly profit on the strength of its own business operations — rather than from its investments in other companies — a milestone for a company that had long faced questions about its profitability. While other technology companies have endured mass layoffs and nagging questions about their businesses during the recent economic downturn, Uber has generally produced consistent, positive results over the last year. Its worst days came early in the pandemic, when travel ground nearly to a halt and drivers left the platform. The 6.5 million drivers who ferried passengers and food around the world in the past quarter was a record, Uber said.

Persons: Uber Organizations: Wall, Uber

On Monday, Epic Games, the company behind the hit game Fortnite, will appear in federal court in San Francisco to kick off a monthlong trial in its own antitrust lawsuit against Google. Epic is expected to argue that Google is violating both state and federal antitrust laws — as well as its founding principle, “Don’t be evil” — by wielding monopolistic power over app developers on its Google Play Store on Android mobile phones. The video game developer had tried to bypass the Play Store’s fees by letting Fortnite players pay Epic directly for in-app items, prompting Google to bar the game from the store. (The company says 99 percent of developers qualify for a fee of 15 percent or lower on in-app purchases. Larger app makers like Epic must pay 30 percent.)

Organizations: Google, Justice Department, Games Locations: Washington, San Francisco

Initial public offerings are back, warts and all. After a two-year dearth of new listings, shares of the grocery delivery company Instacart closed their first day of trading on Tuesday at $33.70, up 12 percent from their initial public offering price of $30. The performance signaled that investors were eager to take a chance on young tech companies — but only at the right price. But even with the early stock price pop, the company’s valuation remained a far cry from the $39 billion that investors assigned it in the private market in 2021. “The markets will always ebb and flow,” she said, adding that she was more focused on what she could control.

Persons: Fidji Simo

Instacart on Monday priced its shares at $30 each for its initial public offering, at the top of its expected range, in a sign of renewed demand for tech stocks. The San Francisco-based grocery delivery company had estimated that its shares would be priced at $28 to $30 a share. Instacart raised $660 million in the offering and was valued at $9.9 billion, significantly below its last private fund-raising round in 2021, which valued the company at $39 billion. Many companies that raised money during the boom times of 2020 and 2021 have slashed their soaring valuations over the last year. Before last week, this had been the worst year for I.P.O.s since 2009, according to EquityZen, a marketplace for private stocks.

Persons: Instacart Organizations: Nasdaq, I.P.O.s Locations: San Francisco

When Fidji Simo took over as chief executive of Instacart in 2021, the grocery delivery start-up’s growth was cratering as its pandemic boom ebbed. Ms. Simo, a former executive at Meta with experience in advertising, played to her strengths. She also hatched a plan to sell software tools and other products to grocery companies to help improve shopping experiences, they said. Then she embarked on a good-will tour to visit the grocery companies and hosted their executives at her home in Carmel, Calif.As Instacart prepares to go public next week, it is a markedly different company. Envisioned in 2012 as a service that matched people at home with contract workers who would shop for them and deliver groceries, it has increasingly focused on advertising and software products as its delivery business has slowed.

Persons: Fidji Simo, Simo, Brands, Instacart Organizations: Meta Locations: Carmel , Calif

☆ New Lyft Feature Allows Women to Match Rides With Other Women
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The feature, Women+ Connect, will allow women and nonbinary riders and drivers to make being connecting with each other for trips a priority by toggling on a setting in the app. The goal, Lyft said, is for women to feel safer using its platform, and to increase the number of female Lyft drivers. About half of Lyft’s passengers but just 23 percent of its drivers are women, the company said. “Women drivers tell us it’s hard to drive at night,” said Jody Kelman, Lyft’s executive vice president of customers. “We need to remove a barrier for women drivers today.”

Persons: Lyft, ”, Jody Kelman

In the opening hours of the role-playing video game, it’s possible to land your spaceship on Earth’s moon or zip 16 light-years to Alpha Centauri. That sprawling celestial journey within Starfield, developed by Bethesda Game Studios, reveals both the tremendous potential and the monumental challenge of an open-world space adventure. Bethesda has hyped an expansive single-player campaign with 1,000 explorable planets. And expectations around the game, officially releasing on Sept. 6 after a 10-month delay, are nearly as vast. To compete, Microsoft went on a spending spree, acquiring Bethesda’s parent company in 2020 and agreeing to purchase Activision Blizzard in 2022, a $69 billion bet that is being challenged by regulators.

Persons: Starfield, It’s Organizations: Alpha Centauri, Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard Locations: Starfield

As of Saturday, officials had confirmed the identities of only two victims and had barely started searching the disaster zone with canine teams. “It’s going to make identification and notification really difficult,” she said, adding that “it’s painful just to think about that.”For days now, families have struggled to learn the status of loved ones in West Maui. Spotty-to-nonexistent phone reception, especially in the immediate aftermath, made it hard for survivors to contact loved ones. That time, she said, was “very hard, very stressful.”Others have had heard nothing. Chief John Pelletier of the Maui Police Department urged people searching for loved ones to take a DNA test that could help identify their remains.

Persons: ”, Jill Tokuda, “ It’s, Noelle Manriquez, John Pelletier of Organizations: Democrat, Maui Police Department Locations: Maui, Congress, West Maui, Lahaina

These two firefighters declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the emergency effort. The water pressure was a continuing problem, he said. At one point, the crew found a hydrant further north that seemed to have more water, and they doused a commercial building. They left the scene, he said, hoping that the water they had applied to the structure would be enough to keep it safe. “I thought it had a chance,” Mr. Ho said.

Persons: Ho, Mr, ” Organizations: Hawaii Fire Fighters Association Locations: Maui, Lahaina

Days after the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century ignited on West Maui, killing dozens and leveling more than 2,200 buildings, increasingly frustrated residents said that they were receiving far more help from an ad hoc network of volunteers than they were from the government. After the fire destroyed the town of Lahaina, hundreds of local residents — a group that includes evacuees along with nearby residents who found themselves cut off from power and internet service — remained affected in West Maui, miles beyond the highway checkpoints. Some evacuees slept in parks; others stayed in their own homes that survived the disaster or with friends in the wider community of that part of the island. They have been searching desperately for gasoline, phone reception and hot food, especially after power outages rendered refrigerators and microwaves useless. In many cases, they have leaned on church groups, community organizations and volunteers to track down missing relatives, get rides to shelters or access supplies brought in on private boats and airplanes.

Locations: West Maui, Lahaina

☆ ESPN Enters Sports Gambling in $2 Billion Deal With Casino Company
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-08 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ESPN on Tuesday announced a 10-year deal with Penn Entertainment, a casino company, to create an online sports betting brand called ESPN Bet, catapulting the sports entertainment network into the lucrative world of online gambling. Penn will operate the online sports book and pay ESPN $1.5 billion in cash for the use of ESPN’s name, marketing, “access to ESPN talent” and other promotional tools, Penn said in a news release. Penn will also give ESPN options to buy $500 million in Penn stock, the news release said. Jimmy Pitaro, the chairman of ESPN, said in the news release that he believed ESPN’s strong brand, combined with Penn’s technology and experience running a sports book, provided a “tremendous opportunity to serve the ever-growing number of consumers interested in betting.”Jay Snowden, Penn’s chief executive, called the deal “transformative” and said it would help Penn continue to evolve into a “North American entertainment leader.”

Persons: Penn, Jimmy Pitaro, ” Jay Snowden, ” Organizations: ESPN, Tuesday, Penn Entertainment, ESPN Bet, Penn Locations: Penn, American

Russian propaganda is spreading into the world’s video games. In Minecraft, the immersive game owned by Microsoft, Russian players re-enacted the battle for Soledar, a city in Ukraine that Russian forces captured in January, posting a video of the game on their country’s most popular social media network, VKontakte. A channel on World of Tanks, a multiplayer warfare game, commemorated the 78th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in May with a recreation of the Soviet Union’s parade of tanks in Moscow in 1945. On Roblox, the popular gaming platform, a user created an array of Interior Ministry forces in June to celebrate the national holiday, Russia Day. These games and adjacent discussion sites like Discord and Steam are becoming online platforms for Russian agitprop, circulating to new, mostly younger audiences a torrent of propaganda that the Kremlin has used to try to justify the war in Ukraine.

Persons: Vladimir V Organizations: Microsoft, Soviet, Interior Ministry Locations: Russian, Ukraine, Nazi Germany, Moscow, Russia, Crimea

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled against the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to delay Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, setting the stage for the tech giant and the video game publisher to merge as soon as this month. In a 53-page decision, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said the F.T.C. had failed to show it was likely to prove that the merger was likely to result in a substantial reduction in competition that would harm consumers. The ruling is a significant blow to the F.T.C.’s efforts to police blockbuster tech mergers more aggressively. has sued Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, but it walked away from one of its cases against Meta and has had little to show for its efforts so far.

Persons: Jacqueline Scott Corley, Lina Khan Organizations: Federal Trade, Activision Blizzard, U.S, Northern, Microsoft, Meta Locations: Northern District, California

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