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☆ Trump's rape trial defense? His accuser and her friends have Trump Derangement Syndrome
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Donald Trump's lawyers have tried to undermine E. Jean Carroll, who accuses him of rape. Just moments later, Trump's lawyers rested their case as well, without presenting any evidence. Carroll and her friends, Trump's lawyers suggest, all have Trump Derangement Syndrome. According to Trump's lawyers, the whole lawsuit is a conspiracy schemed up by ardent Trump critic George Conway. AP Photo/John MinchilloTrump's attorney pointed out that Birnbach had said Trump and his allies had symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Prince Albert of Monaco said in an interview with People magazine that he and his wife, Charlene, would be attending. King Felipe VI of Spain, who ascended to the throne in 2014 after his father’s abdication, will attend, according to the Spanish news media. Crown Prince Fumihito of Japan and Crown Princess Kiko, on behalf of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, will attend, according to the Japanese news media. Credit... Clodagh Kilcoyne/ReutersSeveral members of Britain’s government will attend, as will about 100 heads of state from around the world, according to Buckingham Palace. British RoyalsImage Prince Harry, center, will be present at the coronation, though his wife, Meghan, and their children, will remain in California.

Liverpool fans have a history of booing the national anthem, most recently doing so before last season’s FA Cup final at Wembley – many also booed Prince William when he appeared on the pitch. So why exactly do Liverpool fans have a history of booing the monarchy? Booing of the national anthem at football matches when the team played at Wembley – which was frequent given Liverpool’s dominance of English football in this era – became widespread and remains so today. Liverpool fans have a history of booing the national anthem. And, in an article written on Friday, football journalist Dominic King suggested Liverpool fans might just sing the club’s own anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone” instead of “God Save The King” on Saturday.

☆ Google tells staff it plans to limit publishing AI research to 'compete and keep knowledge in house' as its rivalry with Microsoft's OpenAI heats up
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Google told staff it will be more selective about the research it publishes. Recently, information like code and data has become accessible on a "much more on a need-to-know" basis, according to a Google AI staffer. LaMDA, a chatbot technology that forms the basis of Bard, was originally built as a 20 percent project within Google Brain. (The company has historically allowed employees to spend 20% of their working days exploring side projects that might turn into full-fledged Google products.) Google's AI division has faced other setbacks.

☆ If You Stop Mowing This May, Will Your Lawn Turn Into a Meadow?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Margaret Roach | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It’s No Mow May, time for the annual campaign that advocates just what it says: Skip mowing the lawn this month, in the name of providing additional resources for early-season pollinators. One day during the first week of May is the only time all year that I actually do mow several increasingly large swaths of my property. I started growing my first little meadow about 30 years ago, and since then I have stopped cutting a few other areas, too, except for that one day a year. They’re not all desirable, admittedly, as I have made very clear repeatedly, in rude language, to the brambles encroaching on the oldest, largest area. They fight back in their own way, their thorns drawing blood.

☆ Where the royal family goes in London, from Indian restaurants to theme parks
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Julia Buckley | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

Well, they’re not, obviously – but sometimes they do put down their tiaras, leave their palaces and join the hoi polloi at restaurants, bars and even theme parks. He once called Brilliant Restaurant in Southall, west London his favorite Indian restaurant – and Gordon Ramsay is also a fan. Stuart C. Wilson/Getty ImagesBack in the noughties, party Prince Harry was a regular at Mahiki, a Tiki-themed bar-club-restaurant in Mayfair. Simon Dack/AlamyIn his memoir “Spare,” Prince Harry wrote about popping out to shop for clothes at T.K. Toby Melville/Getty ImagesThe-then Meghan Markle was apparently spied In the heart of Chelsea while she was engaged to Prince Harry, getting a facial from Sarah Chapman.

☆ The UK and Germany have very different ideas about the future of nuclear energy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Joumanna Bercetche | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

As the price of oil increased, energy independence became a priority, and Germany started commissioning more nuclear reactors. It took the nuclear disasters in Chernobyl in 1986, which was then part of the Soviet Union, and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 to shift German public opinion against nuclear energy. Germany's decision to end its reliance on nuclear energy made it reliant on Russian pipeline gas. The UK's first nuclear power station was built in the 1950s, but it was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who, in the 1980s, proposed constructing a nuclear power station every year for a decade as part of the country's industrial strategy. A study by market research firm YouGov in 2022 showed that almost half of Britons back the use of nuclear energy, compared with 31% who are opposed.

[1/5] Terry Hutt, aged 87, a life long royals fan sits surrounded by royals memorabilia he has collected since he was a child, at his home in Weston-super-Mare, Britain, April 25, 2023. REUTERS/Molly DarlingtonLONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - Margaret Tyler's fascination with the British royal family began as a child, when she would cut out photos of the now-King Charles III and his sister, Princess Anne. The 79-year-old, just four years older than the British monarch, is among the royal super fans who cannot contain her excitement for his coronation this Saturday. I sort of followed them, Princess Anne as a toddler, really, Prince Charles a bit older. Tyler's obsession has filled her home in northwest London, with rooms named after members of the royal family and little space to move among piles of royal memorabilia including flags, photos and china.

☆ Opinion | The Lesson of Murphy, the Eagle Who Tried to Hatch a Rock
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Margaret Renkl | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I once took an orphaned deer mouse to a nearby wildlife rehabilitator, and she cautiously introduced it to a nursing house mouse who was also in her care. The mouse accepted the baby stranger of another species and raised it as her own. Even in the wild, there are documented instances of what appears to be interspecies adoption — a killer whale raising a pilot whale calf, a southern right whale raising a baby humpback, a lioness raising a leopard cub. Plus, RockBaby wasn’t gaping for food or crying for help in that impossible-to-ignore way of needy babies everywhere. RockBaby wasn’t even animate.

☆ More than 2,200 guests to attend King Charles' coronation at Westminster Abbey
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - More than 2,200 people will attend the coronation of Britain's King Charles, Buckingham Palace said on Monday, including international representatives from 203 countries as well as community and charity workers. The congregation at London's Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6, will also comprise Nobel Prize winners, religious representatives, and heads of state and foreign ministers, the palace said in a statement. In addition to those guests, 400 young people representing charitable organisations will be able to watch the coronation service and processions from inside St Margaret's Church, next to the Abbey, the statement said. The palace has been steadily releasing details of Charles' coronation, which is set to be smaller in scale than that of his mother Queen Elizabeth in 1953 but still replete with pomp and pageantry, reflecting traditions dating back 1,000 years. More than 8,200 guests attended Queen Elizabeth's coronation ceremony, which also took place at Westminster Abbey, according to the royal family's website.

☆ ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Arrives
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Melissa Kirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If you ask any kids who grew up reading Judy Blume, they’ll tell you precisely what they learned from each of Blume’s books; which taboo rites of passage each book introduced; probably even where they were, physically and developmentally, when they first stumbled on this information. They might very well remember the precise page number of the paperback that was passed around middle school on which the most eye-opening passages appeared. I recently reread her classic, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” in advance of seeing the film adaptation that opens this week, 52 years after the book’s publication. In my memory, “Margaret” was chiefly about puberty, specifically about getting your period for the first time.

☆ Anatomy of a Scene - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Mekado Murphy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

new video loaded: ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ | Anatomy of a Scene‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ | Anatomy of a SceneRecent episodes in Anatomy of a SceneFilm directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.

☆ Judy Blume’s Classic Hits Screens 50 Years Later. Luckily, Puberty Is Still Awkward.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Ellen Gamerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

It’s Me, Margaret,’ Margaret and her friends navigate the perils of tweendom. Photo: Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett CollectionIt was an intimate day on the set of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the first movie adaptation of one of American publishing’s defining coming-of-age novels. The scene involved the title character putting a sanitary pad in her underwear for the first time. “This whole time,” a middle-aged man in the crew confided to the director, “I thought the sticky side went up.”

☆ ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Review: A Candid Kids’ Classic Comes to the Screen
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Kyle Smith | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Can people under 40 even conceive of an American culture that wasn’t obsessively focused on youth? In the early ’70s, when Judy Blume ’s heartfelt coming-of-age novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” hit shelves, stories for youngsters based in everyday realism were rare. A sixth-grader, Ms. Blume’s diffident, self-conscious heroine anxiously asks God about her many worries, which include not yet having developed breasts nor experienced her first period. This level of frankness was nearly revolutionary at the time, and so the book was treasured as tweener samizdat.

☆ Scores of world figures urge Putin to free Navalny in open letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 28 (Reuters) - Scores of famous figures, including writers and actors, have signed an open letter urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to free opposition politician Alexei Navalny and to end what they called his torture in prison. Russian authorities say Navalny and his supporters are extremists with links to the U.S. CIA intelligence agency intent on trying to destabilise Russia. They have outlawed his movement and Navalny himself is facing new charges that could add years to his prison sentence. Navalny's supporters have grown increasingly worried about his health in recent weeks, saying they fear he could die in jail. The Kremlin denied trying to kill him and said there was no evidence he was poisoned with a nerve agent.

The 34-year-old is primarily an actress, but on the side, she's a travel nanny for billionaires in New York. "The qualities it takes to work for the ultra-wealthy is patience and a nuanced perception of anticipating a person's needs." Here's what they said about their lucrative side hustles:Nannying ultra-wealthy kidsNanny-matching site Care.com advises New York families to pay full-time nannies $21.25 per hour, the company's website says. Chauffeuring rich familiesA typical Uber driver in New York makes just over $45,000 per year, according to Glassdoor data. Frank Dorfman (right), alongside one of his daughters, started chauffeuring four years after he retired as a New York police detective.

☆ Eliminated Slater handed wildcard to continue on WSL Championship Tour
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The 11-times world champion will be able to surf and earn ranking points at the remaining events in 2023 and for the first half of the 2024 tour, the WSL said. "Slater's ranking points will also give him the opportunity to compete for provisional qualification for the Olympic Games Paris 2024," the WSL said. Slater was knocked out by Australian Liam O'Brien early in the Margaret River Pro last week, which left him below the mid-season cut line. Some surfing media criticised the wildcard decision, saying it was motivated by commercial considerations and made a mockery of the WSL's ranking system. France's Johanne Defay was also awarded a wildcard to continue on the Women's Championship Tour after falling well outside the mid-season cut.

☆ What Is Coronation Chicken? The History Behind the Dish.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melissa Clark | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

This steep ascent was fueled by what the British food writer Gurdeep Loyal, author of “Mother Tongue: Flavours of a Second Generation,” calls a revival of Raj nostalgia that set in with Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as prime minister. Coronation chicken “wants to evoke the peacocks and rubies, the grandeur and spice of regal Indian dynasties, without actually delivering any strong flavors,” Mr. Loyal said. His version, which uses a complex Punjabi masala with black and green cardamom, ajwain, fennel and tamarind, alludes to the beloved 1980s version of his childhood while celebrating Mr. Loyal’s identity as a second-generation British Indian. Still, the 1980s version is delightful, and a snap to make.

☆ Youth climate activists plan to protest the biggest social event for Washington's political-media class
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

On Saturday, the group plans to blockade the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, DC. So the White House Correspondents' Association dinner is an appropriate target, Salamon said. The White House did not return requests for comment. Haught acknowledged she had little political choice because GOP candidates have shown paltry interest in prioritizing climate action. "If you're putting your body on the line and risking a record of arrest, that shows you're serious," Haught said.

☆ ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Review: Periods and Question Marks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Lisa Kennedy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is 1970 and the almost-12-year-old Margaret Simon returns from summer camp to boxes strewn about her family’s jammed New York City apartment. Because she and her parents are moving to New Jersey, her grandmother blurts out before her folks can ease their only child into the news. And so begins the yearlong adventure at the heart of this pitch-perfect adaptation of the author Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie portray Margaret’s youthful parents, Barbara and Herb. Kathy Bates is Margaret’s paternal grandmother, Sylvia, of the aforementioned blurt.

☆ Why ‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Still Matters
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When I arrived at the Crosby Street Hotel for a screening of “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret?,” a man in the lobby located my name on a list, then directed me to a line for the coat check. Mine said, “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Elisabeth.”Unfortunately, I’d stopped reading the invitation after “Please join us for an afternoon with Judy Blume”; what more did I need to know? I was Margaret, too.

☆ Exclusive: US regulators worried about uninsured deposits before March crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Douglas Gillison | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Officials had yet to do the same for regional banks, some of which had grown to considerable size and complexity, said Gruenberg. One member, Timothy Mayopoulos, who within months would quickly be named chief executive of Silicon Valley Bank after it failed in March, queried regulators about dealing with regional banks' high proportion of uninsured deposits. Banking regulators have come under criticism since March for failing to stave off the crisis triggered by a run on Silicon Valley Bank, most of whose deposit base was uninsured. The Fed and FDIC are expected to release reports on Friday on their supervision of Silicon Valley and Signature Bank. The meeting was the first since the creation of the panel more than a decade ago to consider policy responses to failures in the middle-tier of large financial institutions.

☆ How to Grow Dahlias? A Ceramist Has Some Advice for You
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Margaret Roach | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It’s time to unpack the dahlias, and Frances Palmer finds herself surrounded by 25 sizable cardboard cartons full of tubers that she dug up and then stored last fall in the frost-proof cellar of her barn. To complete the coals-to-Newcastle scene: Several boxes of new tubers she ordered have just arrived, too. Who could have resisted ordering them, even when already in possession of a massive overwintered inventory? Not Ms. Palmer, a ceramist based in Weston, Conn., whose art and garden have intertwined and grown together over three decades. Dahlias to the max — apparently there can be no such thing as too many dahlias.

☆ WSJ Opinion: Feeling Lucky, Democrats Back Non-Compos Presidential Politics
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Wsj Opinion | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

E126WSJ Opinion: Jack Teixeira and the Gamification of Accountability Wonder Land: When we began to devalue conscience, blurring a pragmatic understanding of right from wrong, we unleashed the whirlwind that engulfs us now. Images: Margaret Small/Reuter/Zuma Press Composite: Mark Kelly

☆ Progressives Convinced Us to Get a Gun
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Gerard Leval | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Wonder Land: When we began to devalue conscience, blurring a pragmatic understanding of right from wrong, we unleashed the whirlwind that engulfs us now. Our father wouldn’t allow it. He had his reasons: In depriving us of the revolvers, he often would cite his experience during World War II. During that service, a rifle shot grazed the back of his neck and came close to taking his life. He made it clear that, having been wounded and seen the horrors wrought by firearms, he didn’t believe anyone should think of such weapons as playthings.

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