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☆ How to Clear 500,000 Feral Cats From New York’s Streets
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Richard Schiffman | Erin Schaff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There are colonies in virtually every neighborhood with suitable nooks and crannies — in Bushwick, in Washington Heights, in Ozone Park. There may be as many as half a million feral cats padding around New York City, but no one knows for sure. “No one knows, and the city doesn’t care to know,” said Will Zweigart, the founder of Flatbush Cats, the nonprofit group that Ms. Gabriel and scores of others volunteer with. “Because if they knew, they would be accountable to do something about it.”There are a number of reasons for the explosion in feral cat colonies. Some people, fearing that their unwanted cats would be euthanized if they were taken to a shelter, simply let them out on the streets and hoped for the best.

Persons: ”, Will Zweigart, Gabriel Organizations: Flatbush Cats, Yorkers Locations: Flatbush, Bushwick, Washington Heights, Ozone, New York City

☆ Warren Buffett – he invests just like us!
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

NEW YORK, June 7 (Reuters Breakingviews) - “Do as I say, not as I do” sounds like the kind of pithy thing Warren Buffett might say to his adoring throngs. The conglomerate was an investor for a dozen years, until Buffett got spooked by Freddie Mac’s overly rosy earnings growth projections. The $1.3 billion stake it finished accumulating in 1994 was worth $25 billion last month. A $13 billion stake in IBM (IBM.N) came and went, as did $8 billion of JPMorgan (JPM.N) and almost $3 billion of biopharmaceutical company AbbVie (ABBV.N). Warren Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and CEO, said that geopolitical tensions contributed to the decision to sell most of the $4.1 billion TSMC stake just a few months after buying it, the Nikkei reported on April 11.

Persons: Warren Buffett, can’t, There’s, Buffett, Freddie Mac, Freddie Mac’s, Coke, Benjamin Moore, TSMC, ”, Wells, ” Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, John Foley, Sharon Lam Organizations: YORK, Reuters, Berkshire Hathaway, Home Loan Mortgage, U.S ., Berkshire, BNSF, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Buffett, ” Morningstar, Treasury, New York Stock Exchange, American Express, IBM, JPMorgan, Activision, Occidental Petroleum, Paramount Global, Oracle, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Nikkei, Thomson Locations: Berkshire, U.S, TSMC . Berkshire, Japan, Taiwan, Omaha, China

☆ CNN's story on the ouster of its CEO is a giant middle finger
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Hayley Peterson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

CNN reporter Oliver Darcy described Licht's tenure as "stained by a series of severe missteps." Darcy wrote that Licht alienated employees at all levels of CNN and effectively "lost the room." He said the chairman and CEO alienated employees at all levels of the organization and effectively "lost the room." But he "quickly squandered much of that goodwill through a series of blunders, many of his own making," Darcy wrote. "In the final days, Licht seemed to understand that he had alienated staffers," Darcy wrote.

Persons: Christ Licht, Oliver Darcy, Darcy, Licht, Chris Licht, Licht's, Jeff Zucker, Stephen Colbert, Brian Stelter, Donald Trump, Kris Coratti Kelly, Matt Dornic Organizations: CNN

☆ Opinion | Republicans Are No Longer Calling This Election Program a ‘Godsend’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Jesse Wegman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Because of our decentralized election system, the responsibility to sort out this mess falls to the states. Federal and state laws require states to maintain accurate voter rolls, but the states have no established way to communicate and coordinate with one another. The existence of searchable voter data itself is relatively new: As recently as 2000, only seven states had computerized statewide voter databases. One early effort, like the Interstate Crosscheck program, failed miserably because of inadequate data analysis and poor security practices. That information — drawn from voter rolls, D.M.V.

Persons: ERIC, “, ”, Danielle Lang, Ron DeSantis Organizations: Federal, District of Columbia Locations: Florida, ”, Ohio

☆ Steakholder Foods and Umami Meats have teamed up to create the world's first 3D-printed cultivated fish fillet
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Michelle Cohan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

A “Star Trek“-like, food-on-demand 3D printer has just served up a real, cultivated fish fillet for the first time. Steakholder Foods, a startup based in Israel, produced the 3D-printed cut of grouper – “a significant milestone in the food industry,” says Arik Kaufman, CEO of Steakholder Foods. Chicken nuggets from Steakholder Foods, pictured, are considered a hybrid product, containing both plant-based and cultured ingredients. At the time of writing, Singapore is the only country in the world where cultivated meat products are commercially available. “One way is to create hybrid products, so something that (combines) cultivated meat with plant-based meat or conventional meat,” Block tells CNN.

Persons: ”, Arik Kaufman, Mihir Pershad, ” Kaufman, we’ve, Orit Goldman, Liz Specht, Davis, Ronen Mangan, David Block, GFI’s Specht Organizations: CNN, Steakholder Foods, Good Food Institute, UN, of California, NASA, Foods, Food and Drug Administration, FDA, UC Davis, Consortium Locations: Israel, Singapore, bioreactors, California

☆ A Veteran Business Journalist (and Wine Lover) Learns an Age-Old Lesson
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( James Barron | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As he acknowledged, the story was unusual because it had started with his own experience with Sherry-Lehmann, a New York store that had long been venerated. Many New Yorkers who don’t know wine know about Sherry-Lehmann. “The customer base on the Upper East Side left town,” debilitating the company’s bottom line, Stewart told me. For people who know their wine, Sherry-Lehmann was something more than a retail store with Park Avenue respectability. Just as there are corn futures and soybean futures, there are wine futures, which struck me as a concept a business reporter would love.

☆ Americans hate tipping so much it was once banned in 7 states
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

By the 1700's, tipping in Europe had evolved from masters tipping servants to customers tipping service-industry workers. Seven states passed anti-tipping legislation in the early 1900sBy the early 1900s, early grumblings about tipping had escalated into full-fledged anti-tipping movements. But in 1919, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state's anti-tipping law was unconstitutional, and other states followed by striking down or repealing their own similar legislation. Tipping persists in the US todayDespite originating in Europe, tipping has become deeply ingrained in American culture. Today, while many Americans aren't fans of tipping, and some restaurants have tried doing away with the practice, tipping is unlikely to be banned anywhere in the US anytime soon.

☆ The Over 2,000-Year-Old Beauty Technique Pros Still Swear By—And 4 More Ancient Skincare Tricks Worth Trying
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Amber Kallor | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

THE OLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL Some centuries-old beauty implements—like gua sha stones and body planes—have seriously stood the test of time. THE BEAUTY world perpetually churns out new, high-tech devices that claim to pluck, prick, suck, slough and zap skin to perfection. But for people like Ericka Anderson, 33, a marketing copywriter in Kansas City, Mo., some truly ancient techniques never get old. Take gua sha stones, used to massage and de-puff the face, and dry brushing, which purportedly promotes lymphatic drainage. These old-school modalities, said Anderson, are “less expensive and more straightforward” than many new gadgets and lend themselves to agreeably “methodical” self-care routines.

☆ Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Robert D. Mcfadden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Nevertheless, in 2007, the Blackstone Group bought Mr. Zell’s firm — then known as Equity Office Properties Trust — for $39 billion. A Deal Comes With DebtLike many newspapers, the Tribune properties were hemorrhaging advertising revenues and readers to the internet. The company had been on the auction block for months when Mr. Zell — insisting that his interests were purely economic, not editorial — offered $34 a share in a complex transaction to take the company private under an employee stock-ownership plan. In that highly leveraged buyout, the debt was to be paid off almost entirely by cash generated by the company’s continuing operations. The new corporation was exempt from federal income taxes, and the debt was reduced by the sale of Newsday, the Cubs and Wrigley Field.

But, given the hopes invested in China's economic growth and liberalisation, foreign firms' demand for expert knowledge about the Chinese market, the regulatory landscape, potential business partners and opportunities will inevitably keep growing. Smaller firms saw opportunity to fill the space left by any rivals, like Capvision, that fall foul of China's authorities. China's expert network market, however, will suffer from bad publicity in the short-term, as "no one wants to be associated with police crackdown," said Max Friberg, CEO of Inex One, a Stockholm-based marketplace connecting investors with expert networks. For now though, the trade in expert information clearly has become more cautious. "It's unfortunate that the expert network business gets into the public limelight in such a way," China Insights Consultancy (CIC), the country's second largest expert network company, said in a statement to Reuters.

Some Chinatown residents benefited from the development boom, selling properties to developers or drawing more customers from increased foot traffic. Some residents have shown tentative support for the luxury buildings, saying they might make the neighborhood safer or bring in wealthier Asian residents who could boost Chinatown's economy. Manhattan Chinatown's housing stock is "really aged," which has led to costly fires, according to Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality. Chinatowns and the pandemicMany debates surrounding luxury development and affordable housing were accelerated by the pandemic, which shuttered hundreds of businesses across Chinatowns. However, business owners who spoke with CNBC said Chinatown's businesses, though still recovering, are keeping the city's culture alive.

☆ Elon Musk names NBCU ad chief Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New York CNN —Elon Musk on Friday named longtime media executive Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter, months after he promised to step back from the role. “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk wrote in a tweet on Friday. NBCUniversal’s ad sales team has generated $100 billion in ad sales since she joined in 2011, according to her profile, and forged partnerships with many new media companies including Twitter as well as Apple News, Buzzfeed, Snapchat and YouTube. Ad sales represented more than 90% of the company’s revenue before Musk purchased it in October. Musk has previously spoken about improving ad sales by focusing more on the relevance of its ads.

☆ 5 tips for charging your electric car at home, according to a top EV executive at GM
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Nora Naughton | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It's important to put a lot of research into your charger purchase when you shop for an EV. Right now, about 80% of all EV charging is done at home when your car is stationary for the longest time, Sequeria said. GM has addressed this by integrating the charging purchase into the vehicle purchase at the dealership, he said. (More on EV charging types and levels here). Learn more about how your local utility charges for electricityNot all states are the same when it comes to charging for charging.

☆ Amazon plans more warehouses and higher headcount in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Helen Reid | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BARCELONA, May 9 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O) plans to open new warehouses and hire more people in Europe, an executive said on Tuesday, even as squeezed consumer spending forces the tech giant to cut costs globally and lay off some employees. Amazon has invested 142 billion euros ($156 billion)in Europe since 2010, and its growth in the region was boosted in recent years from COVID-19 lockdowns driving shopping online. The expansion is part of Amazon's push to increase efficiency by cutting delivery distances and making fulfilment centres more automated. "The ability to have a collaborative deployment of AI is really a key strategic element for us," Perego said. ($1 = 0.9084 euros)Reporting by Helen Reid in Barcelona; Editing by Andrea RicciOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Home Insurance Premiums Rise as Americans Flock to Weather-Worn States
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In South Dakota, 8,424 new residents moved into the sparsely populated state in 2022, while insurance costs have jumped 39 percent since 2015. In dry, sunny Arizona, where nearly 71,000 new residents flocked in 2022, costs grew 28 percent. Conversely, states that lost significant numbers of residents saw insurance rates rise much more gradually. New York lost the most population in 2022 — nearly 300,000 residents — but saw home insurance jump only 17 percent, several points below average. While mortgage lenders typically require homeowners to carry home insurance, most policies do not cover floods.

☆ A Subway Killing Stuns, and Divides, New Yorkers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Emma G. Fitzsimmons | Maria Cramer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Almost as soon as the video of one subway rider choking another to death began to ricochet across the internet, the killing came to signify more than the tragic death of one man. For many New Yorkers, the choking of the 30-year-old homeless man, Jordan Neely, was a heinous act of public violence to be swiftly prosecuted, and represented a failure by the city to care for people with serious mental illness. Many others who lamented the killing nonetheless saw it as a reaction to fears about public safety in New York and the subway system in particular. And some New Yorkers wrestled with conflicting feelings: their own worries about crime and aggression in the city and their conviction that the rider had gone too far and should be charged with a crime. Now, as prosecutors continue to investigate the circumstances of Mr. Neely’s death, the case has become a political Rorschach test, dividing the city along long-simmering fault lines.

☆ Kroger will stop mailing weekly grocery advertisements in newspapers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Atlanta CNN —Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the United States, is ditching its long-running weekly newspaper ad circulars announcing the latest grocery specials. The ads for Kroger (KR) stores and subsidiaries, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer and King Soopers, will shift online. “Kroger is joining many retailers in shifting the way our weekly ads are distributed,” a spokesperson told CNN. The move could deal a blow to shoppers who plan their store trips based on weekly newspaper ads. Some companies, such as Walgreens (WBA), stopped printing coupon catalogs and moved their weekly advertisements online.

☆ Gov. Hochul Gets a Budget Deal, but No Signature Win
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ALBANY, N.Y. — It was around dinner time on Thursday, with many New York State lawmakers already heading home to their districts, when Gov. Kathy Hochul dropped a budget bombshell: Roughly four weeks past the deadline, she and legislative leaders had reached a tentative deal. She hastily convened a news conference in the Capitol’s ornate Red Room to announce the handshake agreement, but there were no hands to shake. Neither the leader of the Assembly nor the Senate was present, leaving Ms. Hochul to make a solitary victory lap around a $229 billion budget that, if passed by the Legislature next week, will be one month overdue. She backed off from her pledge to construct 800,000 new homes, a potential centerpiece of her first term.

☆ Amazon's $300 million new spy series 'Citadel' debuts to mediocre reviews and could be another high-profile miss for the streamer
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon's ambitious new spy series, "Citadel," starring Priyanka Chopra, premiered today. Costing as much as an estimated $300 million, it stands to be one of the most expensive series ever made. It has a 56% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 reviews. Amazon has a lot riding on its new ambitious spy series, "Citadel," but so far critics are less than impressed. Rotten Tomatoes deems a 60% score or less to be "rotten."

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - Oil prices have fallen back after a brief spike triggered by the surprise production cuts announced by Saudi Arabia and other members of OPEC+ on April 2. ROUTING THE BEARSIf one of the objectives for Saudi Arabia and its OPEC+ allies was to drive bearish hedge funds out of the oil market, it seems to have succeeded. Following the cut, however, the number of short positions was reduced further to just 78 million barrels by April 11, near to its post-2010 low of just 65 million. In the past, Saudi Arabia's oil minister has described surprise production cuts intended to discourage hedge fund short selling as "ouching". Related columns:- Oil prices stall as short-covering rally is completed (April 17, 2023)- Surprise, squeezing the shorts, and revealed preferences (April 3, 2023)- Oil market has fully absorbed impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (March 9, 2023)John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst.

☆ Inside the AI talent wars: Tech companies are ransacking university AI programs at Stanford, MIT, and Cornell in search of engineers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Driven by the recent AI boom, companies are raiding top college campuses for rare technical talent. She's currently on leave from her Stanford AI Ph.D. program to focus on Moonhub. In 2011, new AI Ph.D. graduates took jobs in the tech industry and academia in about equal measure. But since then, the majority of new grads have headed to the AI industry, with nearly double the percentage of AI Ph.D. grads taking industry jobs versus academic roles in 2021, according to Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI's 2023 AI Index Report. "All AI companies have roles for people with Ph.D.s and without," said Attaluri, the soon-to-be researcher at DeepMind.

☆ I left a high-rise apartment to live in a van. It's not that much cheaper, but I've saved $70,000 over 3 years and won't ever go back to a traditional home.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Alcynna Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

She described the joys of living in a van — and its less romantic sides, like showering at the gym. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with a 38-year-old personal assistant about going from a traditional apartment to living in a van. For the first couple of weeks of living in my van, I would park in front of the high-rise apartment complex that I used to live in. I also learned that van life is very popular in the West. I'm never going back to traditional housingWhen I first got into van life, I didn't research how to make it work.

☆ Australia unveils direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SYDNEY, April 22 (Reuters) - Australia announced on Saturday a direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders living in the country, reversing controversial visa rules a day before a visit by New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Hipkins, set to visit Queensland state's capital Brisbane on Sunday, hailed the move as "the biggest improvement in the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia in a generation". "Kiwis taking up Australian citizenship will still retain their New Zealand citizenship. The changes also meant children born in Australia since July to an Australia-based New Zealand parent would be automatically entitled to Australian citizenship, he said. Around 670,000 New Zealand citizens live in Australia, while there are around 70,000 Australians in New Zealand, according to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

☆ Australia eases pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Australia announced on Saturday a direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders living in the country, reversing controversial visa rules a day before a visit by New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Hipkins, set to visit Queensland state’s capital Brisbane on Sunday, hailed the move as “the biggest improvement in the rights of New Zealanders living in Australia in a generation”. “Kiwis taking up Australian citizenship will still retain their New Zealand citizenship. The changes also meant children born in Australia since July to an Australia-based New Zealand parent would be automatically entitled to Australian citizenship, he said. Around 670,000 New Zealand citizens live in Australia, while there are around 70,000 Australians in New Zealand, according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

☆ Children cat-killing contest axed following backlash in New Zealand
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Heather Chen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —A contest planned for children in New Zealand to hunt and kill feral cats as part of a drive to protect native species has been axed following backlash from the public and animal rights groups. In neighboring Australia, authorities say feral cats threaten the survival of more than 100 native species. Feral cats are blamed for killing millions of birds, reptiles, frogs and mammals, every day, prompting authorities to arrange regular culls. The New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it was “both pleased and relieved” that the cat-killing contest for children had been removed. Blackie, who has studied feral cats for two decades, said numbers had exploded in the last decade, and in some areas where pests were tracked by camera, feral cats outnumbered other species like possums.

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