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☆ Opinion | Death and the City
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Thomas B. Edsall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

“Some have hypothesized that the rise in homicide rates is specifically a result of the June 2020 protests,” Chalfin and MacDonald wrote, but “theories about the role of the protests must contend with several challenges. The data also pinpoint the timing of the spikes to late May 2020, which corresponds with the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis and subsequent anti-police protests — protests that likely led to declines in law enforcement. Although unemployment caused by Covid surged in April, there was little if any increase in murders at that time. That is the challenge that every city should be grappling with. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

☆ Opinion: Mitch McConnell’s confidence is being put to the test
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. Not to worry, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a veteran of debt limit battles. McConnell’s reassurance that all will work out in the end is validated by history, but that doesn’t mean this time couldn’t be different. “If female voters are key to a Donald Trump victory in 2024, the former president should be in big trouble – but he doesn’t seem to care,” Jill Filipovic observed. “The town hall audience – selected on the basis of their intention to vote in the Republican primary in New Hampshire – appeared to be made up mostly of Trump fans.

☆ Fact Check-Video shows astronaut conducting an experiment in front of a grid background
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The grid is used similarly to graph paper to conduct experiments in space, according to the National Space Centre. The first few seconds of the video shows European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake on the middle screen in the background, in front of a grid background. It shows Peake conducting an experiment with a green ball. “It’s not a chroma key background,” Paul Millington, a representative for the National Space Centre, said in an email to Reuters. The video does not show an astronaut in front of a chroma key background with the purpose of falsifying space travel.

She was arrested at the same place in Montgomery County that suspected gunman Francisco Oropesa was arrested Tuesday night, case records show. Law enforcement also tracked Oropesa’s wife to the home, which is associated with one of the suspect’s family members, a law enforcement source told CNN. Courtesy Eva GutierrezAuthorities now have 90 days to indict Oropesa, a law enforcement source involved said. Due to his status as a Mexican national, the Mexican consulate will be formally notified of his circumstances on Wednesday, the law enforcement source said. Officials’ efforts may have been stymied by a lack of trust in law enforcement.

☆ My grandfather hid the emotional toll of World War II from his family for decades
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Chloe Melas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

CNN —For decades after returning home from World War II, my grandfather did not talk about his wartime experiences. Frank Murphy, the grandfather of CNN's Chloe Melas, after he was captured and taken a prisoner of war by the Nazis in 1943. Everyone could see the physical toll of war on his body, but we didn’t know about his invisible wounds. After World War I, it was “shell shock”; post-World War II it was known as “combat fatigue,” and after Vietnam it was called “post-Vietnam syndrome.” In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized it as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. “When your grandfather and my grandfather served in World War II, they didn’t talk about it,” Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told me.

☆ James Harithas, Maverick Museum Director and Founder, Dies at 90
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Alex Williams | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

James Harithas, a celebrated museum director and founder who viewed curation as a form of activism, highlighting iconoclastic, often socially conscious work both by little-known artists as well as maverick luminaries like Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik, died on March 23. His death was confirmed by his sister, Paula Yankopoulos. Mr. Harithas had been an aspiring painter as a youth, but instead he became an artistic force as the director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in the late 1960s, before moving to the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y., and later the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. Never afraid to push boundaries or ruffle feathers, he fought to open the museum experience to artists and patrons well outside the insular establishment art scene. “It was his commitment to social justice, political change, the representation of minority artists that really made him stand out.”

rushed to embrace a lucrative line of business it had denounced for decades as bad for the sport. The league on Friday handed down some of the strictest penalties it has ever issued, banning three players for at least the 2023 season for betting on N.F.L. games and suspending two others for six games for other violations of the league’s betting policy. The scale of the latest scandal and the terse verdict from the league rekindles questions about the precarious line the N.F.L. This week’s investigation ended with two more Lions players, receivers Stanley Berryhill and Jameson Williams, suspended for six games for lesser gambling violations that did not include betting on N.F.L.

☆ Tech layoffs raise new alarms about how platforms protect users
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Some also formed ethical AI teams and invested in oversight groups. And Facebook-parent Meta suggested that it might cut staff working in non-technical roles as part of its latest round of layoffs. “With that outsourcing, I feel like they had this comfort level that they could cut some of the trust and safety team, but Twitch is very unique,” the former employee said. It invested heavily in content moderation, public policy and an oversight board to weigh in on tricky content issues to address rising concerns about its platform. Tech leaders may also be grappling with the fact that even as they built up their trust and safety teams in recent years, their reputation problems haven’t really abated.

☆ Judge Denies Boeing 737 MAX Families’ Request to Reject DOJ Deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Dylan Tokar | Andrew Tangel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

A federal judge in Texas denied a request by families of those killed in two 737 MAX crashes to throw out or modify a two-year-old settlement between Boeing Co. and the U.S. Department of Justice. “This court has immense sympathy for the victims and loved ones of those who died in the tragic plane crashes resulting from Boeing’s criminal conspiracy,” Judge O’Connor wrote in his ruling. The decision by Judge O’Connor is his third substantive ruling on the legal challenge launched by the 737 MAX victims’ relatives group. The judge last year ruled that the families of those who died in the 2018 and 2019 crashes were victims of the safety failures outlined by prosecutors. In January, Judge O’Connor presided over an arraignment the families had requested.

☆ How Google’s long period of online dominance could end
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

This week, the Justice Department accused Google of running an illegal monopoly in its online advertising business and called for parts of it to be broken up. In the meantime, two other thorny issues are poised to determine Google’s future on a potentially shorter timeframe: The rise of generative artificial intelligence and what appears to be an accelerating decline in Google’s online ad marketshare. An ad sales machine under pressureAll this has taken place against the backdrop of what seems to be an extended, multi-year decline in Google’s online advertising marketshare. One-off factors like the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as fears of a looming recession, have broadly affected the online advertising industry. Whatever the cause, Google’s advertising business, which is still massive, seems to face growing headwinds.

☆ New York Financial Regulator Notches $100 Million Settlement With Coinbase
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Mengqi Sun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

A $100 million settlement made public by the New York State Department of Financial Services on Wednesday underscores the agency’s intent to set the regulatory agenda for digital currencies. Coinbase also will spend $50 million to improve its compliance program over the next two years. The regulator oversees insurance companies and state-chartered banks and already plays an outsize role nationally in overseeing the financial services sector. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | Risk and Compliance Journal Our Morning Risk Report features insights and news on governance, risk and compliance. The agency credited Coinbase for its remediation efforts, including how it strengthened its onboarding process, according to the settlement agreement.

☆ SEC Heightening Scrutiny of Auditors’ Crypto Work
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Jean Eaglesham | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The SEC is looking closely at how crypto companies are portraying their reports from audit firms. The Securities and Exchange Commission is stepping up scrutiny of the work that audit firms are doing for cryptocurrency companies, concerned that investors may be getting a false sense of reassurance from the firms’ reports, a senior official at the regulator said. “We’re warning investors to be very wary of some of the claims that are being made by crypto companies,” Paul Munter, the SEC’s acting chief accountant, said in an interview.

He lost a Twitter poll asking whether he should remain as CEO. Musk reinstated a handful of banned journalists Saturday after he conducted a Twitter poll asking users whether he should uphold the ban. Following backlash, Twitter also quickly rolled back its decision to ban users’ promotion of links to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post accounts. Won’t happen again.”But after all that, some users are skeptical that Twitter is a platform they want to remain on. “Should I run Twitter ?” Snoop Dogg wrote in a Twitter poll Sunday.

For years, in fact, Paula clownishly put all those larger cousins on notice, warning them that he’d one day beat them up. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyComing to the plate during the kickball game, Paula was chirping at an older cousin playing first base, who’d recently torn his A.C.L. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyPaula was a voraciously social teenager, a cannonball of comic, kinetic energy. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyTo lessen his boredom, the family treated Paula to a road trip to see a favorite uncle in California. He’d try to run off.”On Jan. 13, Paula Tupou Bloomfield Tahi was shot during an altercation with other teenagers near his school in West Valley City, Utah.

And whenever any of these cousins gathered to play kickball — whenever the cousins gathered at all — the name-calling and smack talk flew lovingly in all directions. For years, in fact, Paula clownishly put all those larger cousins on notice, warning them that he’d one day beat them up. “Wait until I hit 18,” he’d say. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyPaula was a voraciously social teenager, a cannonball of comic, kinetic energy. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyTo lessen his boredom, the family treated Paula to a road trip to see a favorite uncle in California.

From the Bloomfield Tahi familyComing to the plate during the kickball game, Paula was chirping at an older cousin playing first base, who’d recently torn his A.C.L. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyPaula was a voraciously social teenager, a cannonball of comic, kinetic energy. He lived with his parents, six of his sisters, his grandma, his aunt and uncle and their six children. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyTo lessen his boredom, the family treated Paula to a road trip to see a favorite uncle in California. He’d try to run off.”On Jan. 13, Paula Tupou Bloomfield Tahi was shot during an altercation with other teenagers near his school in West Valley City, Utah.

Since age 8, Paula played in a kind of Little League feeder program for Hunter High School in West Valley City. And so, ever since he was tiny, Paula wore Hunter High School Wolverines sweatshirts. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyPaula was a voraciously social teenager, a cannonball of comic, kinetic energy. From the Bloomfield Tahi familyTo lessen his boredom, the family treated Paula to a road trip to see a favorite uncle in California. He’d try to run off.”On Jan. 13, Paula Tupou Bloomfield Tahi was shot during an altercation with other teenagers near his school in West Valley City, Utah.

☆ Paul Silas, 3-time NBA champion, longtime coach, dies at 79
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Silas, whose son, Stephen Silas, is coach of the Houston Rockets, was 79. “We mourn the passing of former NBA All-Star and head coach Paul Silas,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “Paul’s lasting contributions to the game are seen through the many players and coaches he inspired, including his son, Rockets head coach Stephen Silas. “I coached LeBron for two years, his first two years, and LeBron was unbelievable,” Paul Silas said. “I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Creighton legend Paul Silas,” Bluejays coach Greg McDermott said.

☆ Freddie Roman, Catskills comedy scene staple and former Friars Club dean, dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Comedian Freddie Roman, the former dean of The Friars Club and a staple of the Catskills comedy scene, has died. Roman died Saturday afternoon at Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach, Florida, his booking agent and friend Alison Chaplin said Sunday. His uncle and grandfather owned the Crystal Spring Hotel in the Catskills, where Roman started emceeing at age 15. In “Catskills on Broadway,” Roman commented about everything from his childhood in Queens to his “retirement life” in Florida. He was also made Dean of the New York City Friars Club, where he mentored many aspiring comedians and infused the private club with young talent.

☆ Thanksgiving used to be a movie feast. This year? Slim pickings
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Frank Pallotta | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN Business —Thanksgiving weekend has historically offered a cornucopia of films, letting moviegoers get out of the house and kick back after eating copious amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes and pie. The North American box office has few new films this weekend that are likely to draw tons of moviegoers. Another Disney film, Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” is now in its second week and is set to win the holiday weekend with around $40 million domestically. For example, films like “Creed,” “Moana,” and “Knives Out” opened on Thanksgiving weekends and did well. As for Thanksgiving, Dergarabedian hopes that as the theater industry normalizes, the holiday will make a comeback.

☆ Rare Gold Coins Reveal New Roman Emperor
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Aylin Woodward | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A coin depicting Sponsian, who researchers say was likely a Roman army officer who declared himself emperor in the third century. A new analysis of rare Roman coins said to have been unearthed more than three centuries ago but long dismissed as forgeries provides compelling evidence that the gold pieces are authentic—and that the crown-wearing man whose likeness appears on one of them was a real historical figure who ruled as a Roman emperor almost 2,000 years ago. “The coins are the only evidence that he existed,” Paul Pearson, a University College London professorial research associate, said of Sponsian, the man depicted on the coin. “There’s no historical written evidence at all. It’s a real thrill to sort of bring somebody back from obscurity.”

☆ 'Black Panther: 'Wakanda Forever' aims to recreate blockbuster magic. Disney and theaters are counting on it
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Frank Pallotta | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

If early projections and ticket sales are any indication, it appears “Wakanda Forever” will be just that. Why “Wakanda Forever” matters to theaters"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is set to be one of the biggest films of the year. “Every blockbuster counts more than ever for movie theaters right now.”Why does it matter how “Wakanda Forever” does this weekend? Why “Wakanda Forever” matters to Disney"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" could break records this weekend. The performance of “Wakanda Forever” likely won’t move the needle on Disney’s stock, given that investors remain heavily focused on the company’s streaming endeavors.

☆ Republicans who questioned the 2020 results are bringing back an old norm: Admitting defeat
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Alex-Seitz-Wald-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Alex Seitz-Wald | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

WASHINGTON — The losers of this year’s midterm elections are winning praise for doing something that would be entirely unremarkable in another era — admitting defeat. Of course, dozens of Republican candidates who questioned the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s election won on Tuesday and will end up in Congress, including Ohio’s J.D. This year, Trump helped Cox defeat a well-connected moderate in the GOP primary to run for governor of Maryland. “I will pray for them and their new role for all of us.”Most losing Republican candidates followed scripts more like Cox’s than Trump’s. Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon initially said Tuesday night that she wanted to see more results before admitting defeat.

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