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☆ 'Not hiding in the shadows anymore': West Hollywood appoints first Drag Laureate
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"This is the death rattle of a movement that just cannot adapt to a changing world and to a community that is saying, 'We're not hiding in the shadows anymore.'" She helped establish and run the Los Angeles Drag Story Hour to spark interest in reading and inclusion among children. Libraries staging drag story hours have faced angry protesters calling for children to be protected from adult entertainment. Pickle, who will be inaugurated as West Hollywood's drag laureate on July 16, will work with D'Arcy Drollinger, recently named San Francisco's Drag Laureate. "I really want to empower drag artists to explore their talents, push themselves and challenge themselves, to really show the world that drag is a powerful, dynamic and intellectual art form," said Pickle.

Persons: Pickle, Christina Cady, D'Arcy Drollinger, Jorge Garcia, Sonali Paul Organizations: West Hollywood, Angeles, Thomson Locations: ANGELES, West, Los Angeles, U.S

☆ Elon Musk's massive ego explains why he doubts government data and believes a recession is underway, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Theron Mohamed | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk is a "recession truther" who buys into conspiracies because of his ego, Paul Krugman says. Musk and other tech leaders think they're geniuses so they're happy to doubt experts, Krugman says. However, as Krugman notes in his latest New York Times column, official data show the US economy is still growing. "Between Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever," he tweeted in April. The columnist acknowledged a recession could eventually strike, but he firmly dismissed the idea that one is already underway.

Persons: Elon, Paul Krugman, Krugman, —, Elon Musk, Musk, hasn't, Biden Organizations: Service, Privacy, Twitter, SpaceX, New York Times, Technology Locations: Covid, Ukraine

☆ Myanmar's top court hears Suu Kyi's appeals to cut jail term
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

July 5 (Reuters) - Myanmar's Supreme Court heard on Wednesday the latest in a series of appeals by former leader Aung San Suu Kyi against a slew of convictions, a source familiar with the case said, as she seeks to reduce her 33 years of jail time. The court is expected to take up to two months to deliver its ruling. The 2021 coup plunged Myanmar into political and social chaos, with the junta drawing global condemnation for its heavy-handed crackdown on opponents such as Suu Kyi. The Supreme Court is expected to hear Suu Kyi's appeals against convictions for misuse of state funds and violations of trade and telecoms laws over the next two weeks. Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Aung San, Suu Kyi, Suu, Kanupriya Kapoor, Clarence Fernandez Organizations: Reuters Staff, Thomson Locations: Aung San Suu, Myanmar

☆ Prominent female Russian journalist and lawyer brutally attacked in Chechnya
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Yelena Milashina, a well-known journalist for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was travelling to the Chechen capital Grozny from the local airport with Alexander Nemov, a lawyer, when they were attacked. There was no immediate comment from Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Putin who rules Chechnya, a mainly Muslim southern region. But Soltayev, the Chechen rights official, was cited by the RIA news agency as calling the attack "a provocation" against the Chechen authorities. DEATH THREATSSome Russian lawmakers and officials in Moscow condemned the attack and demanded an investigation. Kadyrov denies rights abuses, saying such allegations are fabricated by ill-wishers trying to discredit Chechnya and its authorities.

Persons: Yelena Milashina, Alexander Nemov, Milashina, Mansur Soltayev, Nemov, Vladimir Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin, Mokhmad, Kadyrov, Zarema, Musayeva, Dmitry Muratov, Muratov, Andrew Osborn, Alexandra Hudson Organizations: Novaya Gazeta, Kremlin, RIA, Alexandra Hudson Our, Thomson Locations: Russian, Chechnya, Grozny, Moscow, Russia, Soviet, Milashina, Chechen

CNN —Peruvian novelist and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa has been hospitalized in Madrid with Covid-19, his son said Monday. “In light of the interest by the news media in our father’s health, we make public that he has been hospitalized since Saturday after being diagnosed with Covid-19,” Alvaro Vargas Llosa tweeted on behalf of himself and his siblings, Gonzalo and Morgana Vargas Llosa. Vargas Llosa lives in Madrid and holds Spanish as well as Peruvian citizenship. Born in Arequipa, Peru in 1936, Vargas Llosa was brought up by his mother until his father reappeared and brought an authoritarian change to his life. As well as the hostile environment at home, Vargas Llosa lived through Peru’s political turmoil, which saw the rise of dictator Manuel Odría in 1948.

Persons: Mario Vargas Llosa, ” Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Gonzalo, Morgana Vargas Llosa, Vargas Llosa, Manuel Odría, ” Organizations: CNN Locations: Peruvian, Madrid, Covid, Arequipa, Peru, Spanish

☆ Myanmar Supreme Court to hear Suu Kyi appeal this week - source
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

July 3 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court in military-ruled Myanmar will hear an appeal this week by former leader Aung San Suu Kyi against two of her convictions, a source familiar with the case said on Monday, as the Nobel laureate seeks to reduce her 33 years of jail time. The 78-year-old has been convicted of a litany of offences from incitement and election fraud to multiple counts of corruption since the military arrested her during a February 2021 coup against her elected government. Suu Kyi's allies and Western governments have condemned her incarceration as a junta play to prevent any comeback by the popular figurehead of Myanmar's decades-long struggle for democracy. The Supreme Court has announced it will hear appeals on Wednesday against Suu Kyi's conviction for a breach of the official secrets act and for electoral fraud. The source, who declined to be identified because of sensitivities over her cases, said a decision could take two months.

Persons: Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi, Suu Kyi's, Suu, Martin Petty, Kanupriya Kapoor Organizations: National League for Democracy, Reuters Staff, Thomson Locations: Myanmar, Aung San Suu

☆ Bayer claims early lead in Parkinson's stem cell therapy
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Ludwig Burger | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Some of this work is done by Britain's' Cambridge University, South Korea's Bundang CHA Hospital, International Stem Cell Corp's (ISCO.PK) Cyto Therapeutics in Australia, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harvard University and Japan's Kyoto University Hospital. For BlueRock's experimental therapy, researchers took induced pluripotent stem cells, which are modified to regain the ability to form any type of specialised tissue, and transformed them into dopamine-producing nerve cells. When surgically implanted into the brain of a person with Parkinson's disease, the therapeutic cells are designed to restore neural networks destroyed by the disease. Initial trial results showed the cells multiplied and started making dopamine, an important brain signalling molecule which is lacking in Parkinson's patients. Parkinson's, for which there is no cure and which affects more than 10 million people worldwide, causes progressive brain damage.

Persons: Wolfgang Rattay, Bayer, BlueRock, Britain's, Jennifer Doudna, Ludwig Burger, Miranda Murray, Mark Potter Organizations: Bayer AG, REUTERS, Bayer, Cambridge University, South Korea's, CHA Hospital, Cyto Therapeutics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harvard University, Japan's Kyoto University Hospital, BlueRock Therapeutics, Mammoth Biosciences, Thomson Locations: Leverkusen, Germany, FRANKFURT, Australia, San Francisco Bay

☆ John Goodenough, Nobel laureate and battery pioneer, dies at 100
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] John B. Goodenough, 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner, speaks during a news conference at the Royal Society in London, Britain October 9, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File PhotoJune 26 (Reuters) - Nobel laureate John Goodenough, a pioneer in the development of lithium-ion batteries that today power millions of electric vehicles around the globe, died on Sunday just a month short of his 101st birthday. In recent years, Goodenough and his university team had also been exploring new directions for energy storage, including a “glass” battery with solid-state electrolyte and lithium or sodium metal electrodes. Goodenough also was an early developer of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes as an alternative to nickel- and cobalt-based cathodes. After completing a bachelors in mathematics at Yale University, Goodenough received an masters and a PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.

Persons: John B, Goodenough, Peter Nicholls, John Goodenough, “, Jay Hartzell, Britain's Stanley Whittingham, Japan's Akira Yoshino, Paul Lienert Organizations: Royal Society, REUTERS, University of Texas, Chemistry, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Yale University, University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Thomson Locations: London, Britain, Austin, Jena, Germany, Detroit

☆ RPT ANALYSIS For EV batteries, lithium iron phosphate narrows the gap with nickel, cobalt
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Paul Lienert | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/2] Tesla Model 3 vehicles are seen for sale at a Tesla facility in Fremont, California, U.S., May 23, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File PhotoDETROIT, June 23 (Reuters) - As the auto industry scrambles to produce more affordable electric vehicles, whose most expensive components are the batteries, lithium iron phosphate is gaining traction as the EV battery material of choice. But technological advances have also reduced the performance gap with more widely used materials such as nickel and cobalt. Ford Motor (F.N) aims to open a $3.5 billion LFP cell manufacturing plant in western Michigan, leveraging technology licensed from China’s CATL (300750.SZ), the world’s largest EV battery maker. The rapidly increasing adoption of LFP by EV manufacturers including Tesla and Hyundai suggests those companies “are not ready to decouple from China," Meng said.

Persons: Carlos Barria, Tesla, ”, Stanley Whittingham, Mujeeb Ijaz, “ We’ve, China’s, Jim Farley, Shirley Meng, Meng, Lukasz Bednarski, Bednarski, LFP, Whittingham, “, Paul Lienert, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Tesla, REUTERS, DETROIT, EV, Toyota, Hyundai, U.S, Binghamton University, Ford, University of Chicago, Argonne, Laboratory’s, Center for Energy Storage Science, New Energy, Thomson Locations: Fremont , California, U.S, North America, New York, Michigan, Van Buren, China, United States, Norway, Israel, South Korea, EVs, Detroit

☆ Suddenly, It Looks Like We’re in a Golden Age for Medicine
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( David Wallace-Wells | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Hype springs eternal in medicine, but lately the horizon of new possibility seems almost blindingly bright. “I’ve been running my research lab for almost 30 years,” says Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley. And yet these brutal years — which brought more than a million American deaths and probably 20 million deaths worldwide, and seemed to return even the hypermodern citadels of the wealthy West to something like the experience of premodern plague — might also represent an unprecedented watershed of medical innovation. “It’s stunning,” says the immunologist Barney Graham, the former deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center and a central figure in the development of mRNA vaccines, who has lately been writing about a “new era for vaccinology.” “You cannot imagine what you’re going to see over the next 30 years. The pace of advancement is in an exponential phase right now.”

Persons: I’ve, ”, Jennifer Doudna, Doudna, Barney Graham Organizations: University of California, Army, Vaccine Research Center Locations: Berkeley, West

☆ Analysis: For EV batteries, lithium iron phosphate narrows the gap with nickel, cobalt
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Paul Lienert | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/2] Tesla Model 3 vehicles are seen for sale at a Tesla facility in Fremont, California, U.S., May 23, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File PhotoDETROIT, June 22 (Reuters) - As the auto industry scrambles to produce more affordable electric vehicles, whose most expensive components are the batteries, lithium iron phosphate is gaining traction as the EV battery material of choice. But technological advances have also reduced the performance gap with more widely used materials such as nickel and cobalt. Ford Motor (F.N) aims to open a $3.5 billion LFP cell manufacturing plant in western Michigan, leveraging technology licensed from China’s CATL (300750.SZ), the world’s largest EV battery maker. The rapidly increasing adoption of LFP by EV manufacturers including Tesla and Hyundai suggests those companies “are not ready to decouple from China," Meng said.

Persons: Carlos Barria, Tesla, ”, Stanley Whittingham, Mujeeb Ijaz, “ We’ve, China’s, Jim Farley, Shirley Meng, Meng, Lukasz Bednarski, Bednarski, LFP, Whittingham, “, Paul Lienert, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Tesla, REUTERS, DETROIT, EV, Toyota, Hyundai, U.S, Binghamton University, Ford, University of Chicago, Argonne, Laboratory’s, Center for Energy Storage Science, New Energy, General Motors, Battery, Thomson Locations: Fremont , California, U.S, North America, New York, Michigan, Van Buren, China, United States, Norway, Israel, South Korea, EVs, Detroit

☆ Taylor Swift should be making even more money, but the economics of today's music industry hold her back, says Paul Krugman
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Filip De Mott | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

By historic standards, Taylor Swift should be making much more money, Paul Krugman wrote. But live performances "serve a smaller niche of demand than they used to," he said in a NY Times op-ed. It's a question Paul Krugman posed on Tuesday in his most recent New York Times column, which is titled "Is Taylor Swift Underpaid?" It has allowed Swift concerts to book between $11 million-$12 million a night on her current tour. "As I said, the real question, arguably, is why Swift isn't making even more money."

Persons: Taylor Swift, Paul Krugman, —, Swift, Krugman, Jenny Lind, Lind, That's Organizations: Service, New York Times

☆ Thais host Myanmar junta official for talks; key ASEAN members stay away
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Myanmar's junta-appointed foreign minister, Than Swe, is due to join the talks, two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Reuters. But some ASEAN members have declined to attend and others are only sending junior officials. ASEAN FRUSTRATIONThe military took over in Myanmar in 1962, isolating it for decades until a tentative opening up began in 2011. Malaysia's foreign minister has also declined to attend the Thai talks, saying it remained supportive of the efforts being undertaken by Indonesia. Cambodia on Monday said Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, who last year served as an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar, would be represented by his deputy.

Persons: Aung, Athit, Don Pramudwinai, Don, Retno Marsudi, Suu Kyi, Prak Sokhonn, Panu, Ananda, Kanupriya Kapoor, Kay Johnson, Robert Birsel Organizations: Protesters, Embassy, REUTERS, Monday, Association of Southeast Nations, ASEAN, Myanmar's, Reuters, Thai PBS, Indonesian, Peace, Myanmar, ASEAN Chair, Malaysian, Cambodian, Thomson Locations: Myanmar, Bangkok, Thailand, BANGKOK, ASEAN, Indonesia, Suu, Cambodia, Ananda Teresia, Jakarta, Rozanna, Kuala Lumpur

Only Cambodia has so far officially confirmed it intended to attend the talks. Myanmar's junta spokesman could not be reached for comment on Sunday. Thailand's foreign ministry was tight-lipped about exactly who was attending the two-day gathering in the resort town of Pattaya, for which outgoing Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai sent invitation letters just four days before its start. Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn was to attend the meeting, his government said in a statement on Friday. Vietnam's government said its foreign minister would not attend "due to a prior engagement".

Persons: Nobel, Aung, Myanmar's, Swe, Don Pramudwinai, Don, Prak Sokhonn, Vivian Balakrishnan, Nantiwat Samart, Suu Kyi's, Panu, Phuong Nguyen, Ananda Teresia, Stefanno Sulaiman, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot, Kay Johnson, William Mallard Organizations: Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, Reuters, Cambodian, Nation TV, National Unity Government, Thai, Ananda, Thomson Locations: BANGKOK, Cambodia, Suu, Thailand, Pattaya, Myanmar, Indonesia, Singapore, Thai, ASEAN, Malaysia, Philippines, Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Shoon

☆ Opinion | Taylor Swift Has Rocked My Psychiatric Practice
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Taylor doesn’t force you to choose, because she is both The Lucky One you want to be, and every bit the Anti-Hero you are inside. Like Taylor, she dresses to be pretty and cool (and sometimes, for revenge), but inside, she is in all kinds of pain. She finds in Taylor Swift an actual hero who meets her where she is but also shows her the badass place she could get to — so intoxicating precisely because it is within reach. “What would Taylor Swift do?” is a refrain among certain patients in my practice. Taylor Swift articulates not only the treachery of bullying but also the cruelty just shy of it that is even more pervasive: meanness, exclusion, intermittent ghosting.

Persons: —, It’s, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Taylor, she’d, Romeo, Taylor Swift

Two sources with knowledge of Sunday's meeting told Reuters that Myanmar's junta-appointed foreign minister had been invited. Myanmar's military spokesman did not respond to phone calls on Friday night. ASEAN chair Indonesia has declined to attend the proposed meeting, according to three sources. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the Thai foreign minister had shown "arrogance" by inviting his junta counterpart who other regional neighbours have shunned. Indonesia last month cited progress in its own behind-the-scenes efforts to engage multiple parties in Myanmar's conflict in a bid to advance a peace process agreed by ASEAN leaders and Myanmar's military in April 2021.

Persons: Don Pramudwinai, Nobel, Aung, hasn't, Myanmar's, Prayuth Chan, ocha, Don's, Don, Phil Robertson, Ananda Teresia, Devjyot Ghoshal, Kay Johnson, Stanley Widianto, Martin Petty, Devjyot, Angus MacSwan Organizations: ASEAN, of Southeast Asian Nations, Thailand's Foreign, Reuters, Myanmar's, Foreign Ministry, Human Rights, Party, United Nations, Thomson Locations: Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Thailand BANGKOK, Suu, Jakarta, Asia, Bangkok, Shoon

☆ Illinois becomes first state to pass law curtailing book bans
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Brendan O'Brien | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, signed the historic measure into law on Monday in a Chicago library. The law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, the governor's office said in a statement. "Here in Illinois, we don't hide from the truth, we embrace it," Pritzker said. Under the new law, Illinois public libraries can only access state grants if they adopt the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights, which stipulates that "materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval." Other states may choose to embrace prejudice and divisive ideologies, but our state is going in a better direction," said Democratic State Representative Anne Stava-Murray, who represents Downers Grove, in support of the Illinois measure.

Persons: J.B, Pritzker, shouldn't, Laura Hois, We're, Representative Anne Stava, Murray, Maia Kobabe, Toni Morrison, Amanda Gorman, Joe Biden's, Brendan O'Brien, Aurora Ellis Organizations: Illinois, American, Association's, Republican, PEN America, American Library Association, ALA, ABC, Democratic, Representative, Downers, Thomson Locations: Illinois, United States, Chicago, U.S, Florida, Texas, Downers Grove, Utah , Missouri, Miami, Dade County

☆ Sun, Sea and Books Make This Festival an Enticing Destination
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Anderson Tepper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The sun is shining, the waves are lapping against the shore, and the crowds are filing into a giant tent for the first sessions of the day at the Calabash International Literary Festival, on Jamaica’s low-key southern coast. Private tents dot the beach behind the stage, where some festivalgoers have slept. Jamaica’s poet laureate, Olive Senior, stops to embrace old friends at the entrance to the grounds, making plans to catch up soon. Meanwhile, busloads arrive from the capital and other points across the island. By 10 a.m. more than a thousand people have filled the seats, gazing out at what might be the world’s most breathtaking stage, framed by ocean and blue sky.

Persons: Olive, busloads, Margaret Busby, ”, Linton Kwesi Johnson Organizations: Olive Senior Locations: British, Africa

☆ Opinion | What Economics and Hamlet Have in Common
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In high school I memorized a scene from “Hamlet” in which the gloomy prince tries to persuade his mother to leave the usurper king, the brother of Hamlet’s murdered father. “Assume a virtue, if you have it not,” Hamlet implores Gertrude. And a few lines later: “Refrain tonight, / And that shall lend a kind of easiness / To the next abstinence: the next more easy; / For use almost can change the stamp of nature.”The idea that “use almost can change the stamp of nature” is embedded in economics, although I didn’t appreciate it in high school. “Virtue is an acquired practice,” the Nobel economics laureate James Heckman, Bridget Galaty and Haihan Tian wrote in a working paper released last month by the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago. They added that this acquired practice “may eventually become the dominant preference of agents in the sense that it influences behaviors.”I’ll wager that’s exactly how Hamlet would have put it if he’d received graduate training in economics instead of kicking around a castle in Denmark.

Persons: Hamlet’s, “, Gertrude, ”, James Heckman, Bridget Galaty, Haihan Tian, Becker Friedman, he’d Organizations: University of Chicago Locations: Denmark

☆ Podcast: Default avoided, NATO’s Ukraine divisions and poetry in space
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

What you need to know, from our daily Reuters World News podcast:The U.S. has passed a deal to lift its debt ceiling – avoiding a catastrophic default. The divisions in NATO on how fast Ukraine should join. Plus, a poetry odyssey to outer space and a Pink Floyd controversy in Germany. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising.

Persons: Putin, Floyd, Europa Organizations: Apple, Google, Reuters, NATO, Thomson, NASA Locations: Ukraine, Germany

☆ Nobel Laureate Robert E. Lucas Jr., Who Transformed Macroeconomics, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Inti Pacheco | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/nobel-laureate-robert-e-lucas-who-transformed-macroeconomics-dies-at-85-a71590c7

☆ AI boom could expose investors’ natural stupidity
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Indeed, enthusiasm about AI has become the one ray of light piercing the stock market gloom created by the record-breaking rise in U.S. interest rates. It’s a good moment for investors to be especially alert to the tendency of natural stupidity to drive stock market valuations to unrealistic – and therefore ultimately unprofitable – extremes. However, the most important lessons of behavioural economics relate to a more fundamental question: Will the new generation of AI do what it promises? Behavioural economics offers some cautionary tales for such attempts to apply AI in the wild. For example, stock market returns can be affected by a small number of rare but extreme movements in share prices.

☆ Robert E. Lucas Jr., Nobel-Winning Conservative Economist, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Robert E. Lucas Jr., a contrarian Nobel laureate in economics who undergirded conservative arguments that government intervention in fiscal policy is often self-defeating, died on Monday in Chicago. His death was announced by the University of Chicago, where he began teaching as a professor in 1975 and remained a professor emeritus until his death. The announcement did not cite a cause. In awarding the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1995 to Professor Lucas, the fifth winner in economics from the University of Chicago in six years, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences described him as “the economist who has had the greatest influence on macroeconomic research since 1970.”While he propounded a number of groundbreaking if sometimes controversial theories, Professor Lucas was best known for his hypothesis of “rational expectations,” advanced in the early 1970s in a critique of macroeconomics.

☆ Read Your Way Through Los Angeles
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Héctor Tobar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Read Your Way Around the World is a series exploring the globe through books. Outsiders often think of Los Angeles as an anti-intellectual place, all Hollywood glitz and no substance, but writers have always been drawn to my hometown. In David L. Ulin’s “Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology,” I read about Simone de Beauvoir’s 1947 journey to L.A.’s Eastside, where she learned about the city’s anti-Mexican prejudice and admired Dia de los Muertos skulls. It’s no accident that two very different, canonical works of L.A. literature climax with riots, even though they were written more than a half century apart: Nathanael West’s 1939 novel “The Day of the Locust,” and Anna Deavere Smith’s play “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.”Is there a book, or a writer, who captures the essence of Los Angeles? With her iconic 1960s and ‘70s essays about Los Angeles and the West, in collections such as “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion helped invent New Journalism.

☆ Nobel economist Paul Krugman says minting a $1 trillion coin to prevent a debt ceiling crisis wouldn't be inflationary
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jennifer Sor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The US could mint a platinum coin to solve the debt crisis without worsening inflation, Paul Krugman said. The top economist said the inflationary effects of the coin would be offset by the Fed selling bonds. "But as I said, people who really should know better constantly get this wrong, and imagine that the coin would be inflationary." Some economists have criticized a $1 trillion coin as "unworkable" and an unrealistic solution that could worsen inflation. For his part, Krugman thinks the government is more likely to issue "premium bonds" to avoid default than mint a $1 trillion coin.

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