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☆ The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Best Dressed
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

John FettermanThe senator from Pennsylvania continues his streak as one of the most notable dressers in Washington. Given that he only recently returned to the capital after being treated for depression, joining the melee on the red carpet at the W.H.C.D. with his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, was a deliberate statement about his recovery, his willingness to be open about his experience and his resilience. Still, he didn’t entirely abandon the just-a-regular-guy wardrobe that helped get him elected and that has been part of his signature even in Washington. They are a sign that he knows what he stands for — and in.

☆ Rebel attacks deepen displacement crisis in Congo's Ituri
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Paul Lorgerie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Semire said members of the Hema herding community started to abandon Drodro in mid-March ahead of a rumoured advance by CODECO. "There are repeated attacks - this delays the return of people here, because it creates doubts," he said. Its population has nearly doubled to 65,000 since the beginning of 2023, according to camp representative Samuel Kpadjanga. The presence of fighters in the forests and fields around the camp makes attacks on those who venture out a regular occurrence, Kpadjanga said. My life is safe, but they took everything from me, my scythe, my money," she lamented back in a hut at Rhoe camp, as a toddler peeked at her from the doorway.

☆ The UK blocked Microsoft's Activision deal. Here's what it means for U.S. regulators
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority's decision to block Microsoft's proposed acquisition of "Call of Duty" maker Activision means the U.S. does not need to stand alone in its challenge of the massive $69 billion deal. In the latest hurdle for the deal, the CMA argued the acquisition threatens to hurt competition in the nascent cloud gaming market. But it did not challenge potential competition concerns in console gaming, after saying last month that evidence from industry participants convinced the agency that the transaction wouldn't harm competition in that particular market. The FTC claimed the proposed acquisition would likely reduce competition or create monopolies in markets for gaming subscription services, cloud gaming and high-performance consoles. WATCH: Microsoft-Activision deal collapse a 'discouraging' move for Big Tech, says former FTC commissioner

☆ Sam Altman is building his utopia, whether you want it or not
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

Altman told Insider, "We debate our approach frequently and carefully." "I don't think anyone can lose your dad young and wish he didn't have more time with him," Altman told Insider. Altman told Insider that his thinking had evolved since those posts. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

But, "you do at some point need to start having contact with reality," he told Insider. The plan was still only a rough sketch, Blania told Insider, but that didn't seem to matter to his host. "He always wanted to understand everything at a very deep level," Thrun told Insider in an email. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ A drug company abandoned a treatment for ‘bubble boy disease.’ After a 5-year fight, this little girl is about to get it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Elizabeth Cohen Lauren Mascarenhas | Elizabeth Cohen | Lauren Mascarenhas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +29 min

The Sulacks weighed their options: Have a transplant with a match that was less than ideal – far less – or wait for gene therapy to become available. The news release didn’t say anything else about the SCID gene therapy. Or was the company abandoning its plans for SCID gene therapy altogether? In February, 2021, the parents of more than 20 children who were waiting for the gene therapy treatment, including the Sulacks, wrote a letter to Gaspar. Insurance companies have sometimes balked at paying for gene therapy, which is typically given in one treatment.

April 26 (Reuters) - Montana statehouse Republicans on Wednesday silenced Democratic transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr from floor debates for breaking decorum after she said lawmakers who backed a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors would have "blood on their hands." The discord in Montana - which has garnered national attention amid an escalating culture war in the U.S. over issues like transgender rights - has brewed since an April 18 debate over Senate Bill 99. The state measure seeks to ban transgender healthcare treatments for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones. Zephyr remained defiant on Wednesday, telling the chamber that her "blood on your hands" comment was "not being hyperbolic." Republican legislators across the country have sought to ban certain healthcare for transgender youth.

☆ Montana transgender legislator censured after 'blood on your hands' comment
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

April 26 (Reuters) - Montana statehouse Republicans on Wednesday censured Democratic transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr for breaking decorum after she said lawmakers who backed a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors would have "blood" on their hands. Under the motion that passed with a vote of 68-32, Zephyr will be allowed to vote but not participate in debates on the Montana House of Representatives floor for the remainder of the legislative session. The discord in Montana has festered since an April 18 debate over Senate Bill 99, which would ban transgender healthcare treatments aimed at minors, such as puberty blockers and hormones. "If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there's an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands," Zephyr said. Seven demonstrators were arrested, and Republicans increased their attention on Zephyr, with the ultraconservative Montana Freedom Caucus on Monday urging she be punished.

April 26 (Reuters) - With more and more lawyers at major law firms using fast-advancing generative artificial intelligence tools, legal AI startup Harvey said Wednesday that it raised $21 million in fresh investor cash. Sequoia Capital, which is leading the Series A fundraising round, said more than 15,000 law firms are on a waiting list to start using Harvey. The company says it builds custom large language models for law firms. Technology companies and investors have rushed to embrace large language model-based generative AI since Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT debuted in November. Casetext in March released its AI legal assistant product, CoCounsel, which uses GPT-4 to speed up tasks like legal research, contract analysis and document review.

☆ South Africa, due to host Putin, rows back from pledge to quit war crimes court
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Ramaphosa had said on Tuesday that the ruling African National Congress would aim to repeal South Africa's membership of the Hague-based court, which hears cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Moscow denies committing war crimes including forced deportations of children, and says the ICC has no authority as Russia is not a member. Putin is due to visit South Africa in August for a summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. As an ICC member, South Africa would be required to detain him. The presidency said on Wednesday that South Africa would work towards establishing an African continental criminal court that would complement the ICC as a court of last resort.

But Pena, who has powerful party backing, is able to keep a cool head amid the tumult, his supporters say. "I think what characterizes him is that he has infinite tranquility," said Lea Gimenez, who served as Pena's deputy when he was finance minister and was later finance minister herself. Opinion polls suggest either Pena or center-left opposition leader Efrain Alegre could triumph and most analysts predict a close race. "He matured very quickly, being a young father... he became an adult very quickly," a former colleague told Reuters. He became finance minister in 2015.

☆ Ukraine war live updates: Putin signs decree taking over Russian assets of two foreign energy firms; Moscow threatens to abandon grain deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Holly Ellyatt | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government via video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia April 19, 2023. President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree establishing temporary control of the Russian assets of two foreign energy firms, signalling Moscow could take similar action against other companies if need be. The decree — outlining possible retaliation if Russian assets abroad are seized — showed Moscow had already taken action against Uniper's Russian division and the assets of Finland's Fortum Oyj. The shares in the two entities have been placed in the temporary control of Rosimushchestvo, the federal government property agency, the decree said. Rosimushchestvo said more foreign firms could find their assets under temporary Russian control, TASS reported.

☆ Harry Belafonte’s complicated relationship with the civil rights movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Nicquel Terry Ellis | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

During the civil rights movement, he used his star power to fight against injustice, raising money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. cofounded and led. Dr. Martin Luther King, his wife Coretta Scott King, right, and Harry Belafonte at center marching near Montgomery, Alabama, on March 24, 1965. But his relationship with the civil rights movement wasn’t always simple. Archive Photos/Getty ImagesAfter King’s death in 1968, Belafonte expressed frustration in an interview with The Washington Post about his prominent role in the civil rights movement.

☆ Factbox: 2024 US presidential election: who is in, who is out and who is still thinking about it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Ross Colvin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Here is a list of declared candidates and other potential 2024 hopefuls in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Scott, 57, has launched a presidential exploratory committee but not yet confirmed he plans to run. The former Kansas congressman was one of Trump's most loyal lieutenants and initially backed his false claims of a stolen presidential election in 2020. She ran as a Democrat in the 2020 presidential primary but dropped out of the race before any votes had been cast. She launched her latest campaign on March 23, saying she wants to challenge Biden in the Democratic nominating race.

Adult ADHD can make it harder to focus on tasks that don't capture your attention, experts say. Strategies for managing your finances with ADHD include getting outside help and giving yourself extra time. It's no surprise, then, that adult ADHD affects your ability to stay on top of your financial management and overall financial well-being. Experts say there are ways you can keep your finances under control with adult ADHD, though. "When I was managing my business finances and using QuickBooks, it was a very visually overwhelming experience for me," says Potter.

☆ South Africa to try to withdraw from ICC again - Ramaphosa
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Carien Du Plessis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responds to a parliamentary debate on his state of the nation address in Cape Town, South Africa, February 16, 2023. Only two days earlier, South Africa's parliament announced that it would abandon a seven-year-long legislative process to pull South Africa out of the ICC's Rome Statute. The process was abandoned because the governing party in December decided that South Africa should rather remain in the ICC and try to effect changes from within, a decision that has now been reversed. The international arrest warrant against Putin was issued after he had already received his invite from South Africa to the BRICS summit in August, and it would oblige South Africa to hand him over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if he set foot in the country. "He has been invited by President Ramaphosa and Russia has indicated attendance," South Africa's official in charge of the relationship with BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries, Anil Sooklal, told Reuters.

☆ 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.

This comes as month-end approaches and investors look ahead to the U.S. central bank's May 2-3 policy meeting. The advance estimate of first-quarter U.S. GDP growth is out this week, and big tech earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon are due. Tesla shares fell 13% last week after an earnings miss, the biggest fall in almost a year. Ueda has insisted that the current policy will remain in place for now, damping down prospects of a shift this week. The central bank's revised inflation and growth forecasts might also give a clue as to when it will tweak or abandon YCC.

☆ Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy protection after long struggle, begins liquidation sale
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 23 - Bed Bath & Beyond Inc (BBBY.O) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday after the home goods retailer failed to secure funds to stay afloat, and has begun a liquidation sale. In February, the embattled retailer had planned to raise around $1 billion through the offering of preferred stock and warrants to avoid bankruptcy. But Bed Bath terminated the deal in late March and announced plans to sell $300 million worth of its shares, warning it might have to file for bankruptcy if it could not secure the funds. In February, according to a court filing, Bed Bath & Beyond's Canadian operations were going out of business. The Canadian division, which operates 54 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 11 buybuy BABY stores, is insolvent, the filing posted on the website of consultancy Alvarez & Marsal showed.

Inside them were oranges. Oranges, the fruit. Over the next three days, 8,000 people in Ivrea would throw 900 tons of oranges at one another, one orange at a time, while tens of thousands of other people watched. They would throw the oranges very hard, very viciously, often while screaming profanities at their targets or yowling like Braveheart. And on that day in February, three years of constrained energy was due to explode all at once.

☆ Evenepoel wins Liege-Bastogne-Liege again while Pogacar crashes out
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

April 23 (Reuters) - Belgian Remco Evenepoel claimed back-to-back wins in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day race on Sunday with a stunning solo ride to victory while Slovenia's pre-race favourite Tadej Pogacar had to abandon the race after fracturing his wrist in a crash. Soudal Quick-Step's Evenepoel first attacked with about 34 km left with Ineos Grenadiers' Tom Pidcock joining him at the front. But Evenepoel attacked again on the next climb to leave the Briton behind with 30 km to go. My back wheel went a bit like it did last year (on a turn)," Evenepoel said. I said I wanted the picture with the jersey to put in my bedroom," Evenepoel added.

☆ Russia is using a new delivery of Iran's Shahed drones to strike Ukraine to make up for a lack of precision munitions, reports say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Isobel Van Hagen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russia used Iranian Shahed exploding drones to strike Ukraine, an ISW report said. It is aiming to "offset the degradation" of its precision munition supply, the think tank said. The Russian military used drones to target Kyiv for the first time in 25 days. Iran is becoming a global leader in the production of deadly and effective drones, the Guardian reported in February, despite the country previously denying involvement in Ukraine. Iran's Shahed-136, and its smaller cousin, the Shahed-131, which Russia is also using, are loitering munitions that are a cross between a drone and a missile.

☆ S&P sees brighter outlook for UK credit rating as budget risks recede
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 21 (Reuters) - Ratings agency S&P Global revised up its outlook for Britain's sovereign credit rating on Friday, removing the "negative" label which it applied after September's "mini-budget" under then-Prime Minister Liz Truss. "The government's decision to abandon most of the unfunded budgetary measures proposed in September 2022 has bolstered the fiscal outlook for the UK," S&P said. S&P maintained its AA rating for British government debt and now has a "stable" outlook for the rating. Lower energy prices have brightened Britain's economic outlook - with the International Monetary Fund revising up its forecasts last week - although the squeeze on consumer spending from continued high inflation means the IMF still forecasts Britain's economy will contract by 0.3% in 2023. S&P said it expected British economic output to fall by 0.5% this year before growing by an average of 1.6% a year between 2024 and 2026.

Private equity firm Staple Street Capital valued Dominion at $80 million when it purchased a controlling stake in it in 2018. The Fox settlement was nearly 10 times that amount and far outstripped the $226 million average of four pre-election valuations cited in Fox's court papers. Dominion's damages claim in the Fox case was based upon a report it commissioned from an accounting expert, half of which remains under seal. It is difficult to place a dollar value on the U.S. voting-machine industry because Dominion and its competitors all are privately held. While Dominion's report cites dozens of lost clients due to Fox's coverage, the company still has landed recent contract renewals including in California's Republican-majority Kern County.

☆ Myanmar airstrike survivors ask what will it take for the world to act: 'How many more children have to die?'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Helen Regan Sandi Sidhu Anna Coren Salai Tz Su Chay | Helen Regan | Sandi Sidhu | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

The aftermath of an airstrike in Pazigyi village in Sagaing Region's Kanbalu Township, Myanmar, Tuesday, April 11, 2023. The three-year-old girl (left) was among the 186 people who were killed in the military attack in Sagaing, Myanmar. There were 56 air attacks by the military junta between January and March this year, according to Myanmar’s Ambassador to the United Nations Kyaw Min Tun, who represents the NUG. The one-year-old girl (left) was another victim of the military airtsike in Sagaing, Myanmar. The survivors who lost families in last Tuesday’s attack ask how many more people have to die before such action is taken.

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