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They’re offering more policy briefings to longtime supporters, Zoom calls with top administration officials and White House tours, too. "The $500,000 people like me, we’re not going to be players in 2024," said Dick Harpootlian, a longtime Democratic donor and South Carolina state senator. For the White House, the shift is an acceleration of a courtship campaign that began more modestly before the midterm elections. Amid concerns about the omicron variant last year, the White House was forced to abandon plans for a more full set of holiday parties. Some of those same people were invited to the White House next month for an in-person policy briefing.

☆ ‘Vermeer’s Secrets’ Review: A Master Under the Microscope
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Mary Tompkins Lewis | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

WashingtonThe disparate realms of art and science have often converged in attempts to explicate the rarefied and indescribably beautiful paintings of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Revered by his fellow painters in Delft, the Dutch artist fell into obscurity after his death, in part because of the scarcity of his output. Vermeer’s rediscovery by 19th-century scholars, connoisseurs, and especially the French art critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger spurred a crucial reassessment of his art, his stature in Holland’s Golden Age likened to that of Rembrandt. While only about 35 works can now be ascribed with certainty to the artist, a smattering of others—including likely copies, outright counterfeits, and paintings inspired by his own—have been considered over the years as candidates for inclusion in his prestigious oeuvre. “Vermeer’s Secrets,” a small exhibition at the National Gallery of Art that is drawn exclusively from its own holdings, navigates this contested territory with the aid of new research and imaging technology, and the results are as riveting as they are convincing (the show is a prelude to the Vermeer retrospective to be held in 2023 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam).

Airlines’ service cuts that ramped up this summer show no sign of relenting this holiday season, leaving more travelers likely to pay higher fares for fuller planes at crowded airports. And while dozens of small cities receive federal subsidies to support air travel through the long-running Essential Air Service program, Malarkey Black said even 29 of those communities are facing potential cutbacks due to pilot shortages. For the regional flights that do remain, “fares are up markedly as a result of service cuts,” said Scott Keyes, the founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights. Major U.S. carriers have cited pilot shortages for their cuts at regional airports, with some of them saying the labor crunch would take years to resolve. “Commercial air service is an expected amenity to both businesses and residents alike,” Grover said, promising to work “relentlessly, tenaciously” to restore it.

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of Theranos, the failed blood-testing company at the center of her downfall, will be sentenced Friday. Holmes was convicted in January of four counts of fraud for misleading Theranos investors about the company's technology and its financial health. Theranos had simply repurposed commercially available blood analysis technology to run on smaller amounts of blood, The Wall Street Journal revealed in October 2015. During Holmes’ trial, former employees testified that Theranos would also frequently delete erroneous results from its tests to make its machines appear more accurate. Holmes said Balwani lied to her about the company's financial models and subjected her to intimate partner abuse.

Democrat Josh Riley is running against Republican Marc Molinaro in New York's 19th Congressional District. Democrat Josh Riley faces off against Republican Marc Molinaro in New York's 19th Congressional District. 2022 General EmbedsNew York's 19th Congressional District candidatesRiley is an attorney who formerly served as a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Voting history for New York's 19th Congressional DistrictNew York's 19th Congressional District stretches from Ithaca to the Massachusetts border. His opponent, Molinaro, has raised $2.2 million, spent $1.8 million, and has $455,354 cash on hand, as of October 19.

☆ Worker complaints alleging anti-union shutdowns rise as organizing surges
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Eli M. Rosenberg | Eli Rosenberg Is An Investigative Tech Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +13 min

The company, G&D Integrated, had closed the factory, saying it had suddenly lost its decade-old contract with a Japanese company, workers said. Starbucks closed multiple stores this year following union activity. Trader Joe’s, for example, abruptly closed a wine shop in the center of New York City where workers had been organizing. Demonstrators protest outside a closed Starbucks in Seattle on July 16. More than 40 percent of the stores had union campaigns, according to data from Starbucks Workers United, the union that has been organizing the workers.

☆ What Cramer is watching Friday — Wells Fargo crushes it, bond yields sink on flat retail sales
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Club holding Wells Fargo (WFC): net interest margin (NIM) in the third quarter 2.83% versus 2.68% expected. Revenue $19.51 billion versus $18.81 billion. Net interest income (NII) in Q3 $12.1 billion versus $11.6 billion expected. Guidance for Q4 NII $12.9 billion versus $12.42 billion expected. Q3 net interest income reported: $17.52 billion versus consensus $16.92 billion.

What's next: Court-ordered depositions of Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump, Jr., were delayed by the death of family matriarch Ivana Trump. But their depositions finally wrapped on August 10, when Donald Trump testified before investigators in James' Manhattan offices. The issues: They say Donald Trump sicced his security guards on their peaceful, legal protest outside Trump Tower in 2015. Donald Trump Jr, Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump during the filming of the live final tv episode of The Celebrity Apprentice on May 16 2010 in New York City. The Issues: Donald Trump is accused of promoting a scam multi-level marketing scheme on "The Celebrity Apprentice."

☆ Peter Thiel was the 'puppet master' behind Facebook's political dealings, and 6 other unusual details about the billionaire tycoon's relationship with Mark Zuckerberg
▼ + stars: | 2022-02-08 | by ( Dorothy Cucci | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg have known each other since 2004, when Thiel became Facebook's first major investor. Some believe Thiel acted as Zuckerberg's "puppet master," and Facebook employees noticed that Zuckerberg seemed to rely on Thiel in an unusual and sometimes concerning way. Zuckerberg told Thiel he should resign from Facebook's board of directors in August 2017. Thiel underestimated Facebook's potential and told Zuckerberg to sell the company in its second year. When Yahoo offered to buy Facebook for $1 billion, Thiel told Zuckerberg to take the deal — but then-22-year-old CEO said no.

☆ Inside the disastrous early days of the Thiel Fellowship and the depression, mental health issues, and drug abuse that followed
▼ + stars: | 2021-09-21 | by ( Dorothy Cucci | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

After reading the script for "The Social Network," Peter Thiel didn't like how the film portrayed him. But for some Thiel fellows, the program ended up being "disastrous," according to a new biography about the billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist. The staff failed to act quickly enough to help either of them, past fellows told Chafkin. I just need someone to hang out with," one Thiel fellow told Chafkin. One fellow told Chafkin that "they'd come to regard their time with Thiel not as some profound intellectual exercise, but rather, 'a super-smart PR move.'"

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