DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Asian American evangelicals’ theology is conservative. But that doesn’t mean they vote that way.
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-17 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

Asian American evangelicals are a diverse, evolving group of voters increasingly seeking to distinguish themselves from their white counterparts. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, about a third of Asian American adults identify as Christian. “The Asian American Christian’s identity is the convergence of cultural experience, historical background and core theological transformation,” Kim said. “I do hope and pray Asian American Christians take their civic responsibility seriously,” he said. The origins of Asian American churches influenced their evolution, said Jerry Park, associate professor of sociology at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Persons: Wayne Lee, Donald Trump, “ We’re, ”, Pastor Wayne Lee, Matt Slocum, Lee, ’, Jane Hong, Walter Kim, ” Kim, Owen Lee, “, ” Lee, that’s, ” Pastor Owen Lee, John McDonnell, don’t, Raymond Chang, ” James Cho, Cho, Joe Biden, Harris, GOP Cho, Jerry Park Organizations: American, Christian Church and Center, Pastors, Republican Party, Pew Research Center, Occidental College, “, National Association of Evangelicals, Christ Central Presbyterian Church, Korean American, AP, American Christian, GOP, Trump, Baylor University Locations: Chinatown, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Centreville , Virginia, Centreville , Va, America, Orange County , California, Springfield , Ohio, U.S, Waco , Texas

☆ 14 pro-democracy activists found guilty of subversion in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Jennifer Jett | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court on Thursday found 14 of 16 pro-democracy activists guilty of conspiring to subvert the state in the Chinese territory's single largest case under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing. Of those, 31 pleaded guilty in the hopes of a reduced sentence, while the remaining 16 pleaded not guilty. Hong Kong had had a 100% conviction rate in national security cases, which are prosecuted under rules that diverge from the city's legal norms, including presumption against bail. Almost 300 people have been arrested under the national security law, which came into force in the summer of 2020. The charges stem from an informal primary election held in July 2020 in which more than 600,000 voters selected pro-democracy candidates for a legislative election that was scheduled for that September.

Persons: Lau, Lee Yue, Critics, Eric Yan, Lai, Benny Tai, Claudia Mo, Joshua Wong, Leung Kwok, Raymond Chan, Gwyneth Ho, Hong Kong, Carrie Lam Organizations: Hong, Georgetown Center, Asian Locations: HONG KONG, Hong Kong, Beijing, Hong

☆ Japanese stocks are rallying this year. But one key group of investors is missing
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-24 | by ( Hakyung Kim | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Japanese stocks are enjoying a banner year, with foreign investors plowing into the market. Japanese investors are hesitant Japanese investors have long been skeptical of the local stock market after the asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s. Another reason Japanese investors may not be as keen on their domestic market could be the yen falling sharply. Outlook for Japanese stocks still strong Despite the recent bout of selling from local investors and the market's recent struggles, many global investors remain bullish on Japanese stocks. This is another "slow-moving but important tailwind to Japanese stocks," with more room to run, according to Zachary Hill, Horizon Investments head of portfolio management.

Persons: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Kishida, Julian McManus, Janus Henderson, Bernstein, Zachary Hill, Raymond Chan, Chan, McManus, he's, Warren Buffett Organizations: Japan Exchange Group, Nikkei, Bank of Japan, U.S ., Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Investment, Association, Prime, Nippon, Savings, U.S, Horizon Investments, Federal Reserve, Asia Pacific, Allianz Global Investors, Mitsui, Itochu, Sumitomo Locations: U.S, Japan, Asia

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan was convicted Wednesday of racketeering, bribery, fraud and giving false statements to investigators in a sprawling pay-to-play corruption scandal at City Hall. The federal jury reached the guilty verdict less than 24 hours after lawyers finished closing arguments, the Los Angeles Times reported. This was Chan’s second trial in the bribery case involving downtown Los Angeles real estate development projects. “This case was, and always has been, about Jose Huizar,” Hanusz said. Chan, while working with developers, was motivated not by greed but by a desire to make Los Angeles more business-friendly, Hanusz said.

Persons: Raymond Chan, John Hanusz, Harland Braun, Brian R, Faerstein, Chan, Jose Huizar, Chan “, ” Chan, Huizar, Salvador Huizar, ” Hanusz, Hanusz, Eric Garcetti Organizations: ANGELES, Former Los Angeles, City Hall, Los Angeles Times, Prosecutors, U.S, City, Times, Department of Building, Safety Locations: Los Angeles, City, Las Vegas

☆ ‘True Detective: Night Country’ Review: Iced In
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-12 | by ( Mike Hale | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“True Detective” was never a series that went in for tender moments, but “True Detective: Night Country” — the show’s fourth season, after a five-year hiatus — takes a particularly unforgiving approach to the human condition. What is happening is that someone is disposing of the dismembered body of the close family member they have just killed. Created for HBO back in 2014 by the writer and English professor Nic Pizzolatto, the original iteration of “True Detective” was a gothic crime drama, in anthology form, marked by Pizzolatto’s penchant for ostensibly profound, quasi-poetic dialogue — Raymond Chandler by way of Rod McKuen. The new season, directed and largely written by the Mexican filmmaker Issa López (it premieres on Sunday), dispenses with the poetry — it is by and large a plain-spoken affair. But where Pizzolatto’s “True Detective” stories were essentially traditional noirs with a gloss of pop psychology and horror-movie sensationalism, López commits fully to the outré and the supernatural.

Persons: ”, Nic Pizzolatto, Raymond Chandler, Rod McKuen, Issa López, López, That’s Organizations: HBO, coy Locations: Mexican

Five judges from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal handed down their decision on Tuesday, following years of legal battles challenging the government’s refusal to let gay people get married or form a civil union partnership. Hong Kong does not allow or grant same-sex marriage or unions, even though homosexuality has been decriminalized in the city since 1991. Jerome Yau, co-founder of Hong Kong Marriage Equality, said he is “cautiously optimistic” as he awaits further details to be hammered out. Polls in Hong Kong have shown growing support for same-sex equality among the public, especially younger people. Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, the first member of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council to come out as gay, is a co-defendant in Sham’s case.

Persons: ”, Kin Cheung, Hong, Jerome Yau, “, Jimmy Sham, Felix Wong, Sham, ” Sham, Hong Kong –, Raymond Chan Chi, Xi Jinping Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Hong, Appeal, CNN, Parade, Civil, Prosecutors, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council Locations: Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s, Asia, Taiwan, Nepal, Beijing, New York, China, Shanghai

☆ Denise Mina: What I Learned By Stepping Into Raymond Chandler’s Shoes - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-26 | by ( Denise Mina | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Marlowe is, of course, the most famous creation of Raymond Chandler, perhaps the most famous of American crime novelists. On the one hand, there is his glorious writing, his blue-collar heroes and the occasional profound observations about the human experience. It takes a strong stomach to read a story in which a woman needs a slap to calm her down. Crime fiction was, and is, anti-feminist. Chandler may have been a misogynist, but he definitely lived in misogynist times, and his fiction reflects that.

Persons: ”, Philip Marlowe, Marlowe, Raymond Chandler, Reading Chandler, there’s, Sara Paretsky, Marcia Talley, Mary Wings, Val McDermid, Chandler, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Vladimir Lenin, that’s Locations: Angeles, Glasgow

☆ ChatGPT Secret Training Data: the Top 50 Books AI Bots Are Reading
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

To figure out what GPT-4 has read, they quizzed it on its knowledge of various books, as if it were a high-school English student. One way to answer the question is to look for information that could have come from only one place. Genre — sci-fi, mystery, romance, horror — is, broadly speaking, more interesting, partially because these books have plots where things actually happen. Bamman's GPT-4 list is a Borgesian library of episodic connections, cliffhangers, third-act complications, and characters taking arms against seas of troubles (and whales). See what a bot makes of Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun," maybe, or Sheri Tepper's "Grass."

Forty-seven pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong have been accused of a conspiracy to commit subversion in a landmark political case. Benny Tai, 58, was a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. Pro-democracy primary Pro-democracy candidates held a primary vote ahead of the upcoming Legislative Council election. The 47 defendants helped organize or participated in this event. New election rules announced China announced new rules for Hong Kong elections, limiting candidates to only those deemed loyal to Beijing.

☆ ‘Alexis Smith: The American Way’ Review: Southern California Collage
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Peter Plagens | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

La Jolla , Calif.Alexis Smith is not quite a feminist artist, not quite a conceptualist, not quite an installation artist, not always an ironist, and in the beginning she wasn’t even Alexis Smith. In her art, however, Ms. Smith is at times all of those things. Collage—intimate and mural-sized—is her metier, and her sensibility is more literary than plastic. One could easily get the idea from the 50 works on view in “Alexis Smith: The American Way” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla that the artist has read most of the Great Books of the Western World and seen almost every movie and stage musical ever made. This is slyly accomplished by—to describe a typical Smith collage—a small pictorial souvenir from popular culture coupled with a few typewritten words from, for example, a Raymond Chandler L.A. detective novel.

Search resuls for: "Raymond Chan"

10 mentions found